I am becoming

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odysseus
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I am becoming

Post by odysseus »

It is an odd thing to say, really. A contradiction: If I am, then, in order to be becoming, I have to not BE, but in a process of becoming to be; a kind of yet-to-be.
It is familiar territory if you have read the presocratics. Parmenides and Heraclitus presented the conflict between these two concepts, being and becoming long ago, but it is not as if it was ever resolved, for they figure is a major way into contemporary issues: If I am becoming I have already presented the contradiction of what I am, both being and becoming at once.
They question is, which describes what we "are"? Do I have an existence, so to speak, or am I continuously existing in the progressive tense? If it's the latter, then what bearing does this have on how we can understanding the basic structure of a human being? What about truth, actuality, facts: are these not all, in their conception, informed by a concept of experience from which they are derived? That is, experience is foundational for an analysis of what things are as it is in this and through this we receive the world. If experience is ceaselessly in motion, then the facts, the truths, the knowledge, the world must be understood in the same fashion. Truth is not Truth, but a changing condition, a truthING, if you will, e.g.

All that is put forth here is derived from reading others. One does not think in a vacuum producing thought ex nihilo. Where these thoughts GO is another matter entirely.
commonsense
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Re: I am becoming

Post by commonsense »

I am.
I exist.

I am becoming.
I exist and I evolve.

I am becoming.
I exist as something that will be something more or something else.

I... am becoming.
I become.
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Arising_uk
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Re: I am becoming

Post by Arising_uk »

You are becoming what?
commonsense
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Re: I am becoming

Post by commonsense »

commonsense wrote: Tue Jul 30, 2019 8:45 pm I am.
I exist.

I am becoming.
I exist and I evolve.

I am becoming.
I exist as something that will be something more or something else.

I... am becoming.
I become.
Where is there a contradiction?
commonsense
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Re: I am becoming

Post by commonsense »

Arising_uk wrote: Tue Jul 30, 2019 10:07 pm You are becoming what?
The post was only meant to be “contradictory” text followed by their translations, so to speak.
odysseus
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Re: I am becoming

Post by odysseus »

commonsense
Where is there a contradiction?
I'll take that as a response to the issue presented. The contradiction lies with on the one hand acknowledging that consciousness is bound to time as a structural feature: all events have a present that is "in flight", that is anticipatory in nature, and finding confirmation in the next moment. Even as we speak and affirm something to be the case, that the clock is on the wall or sidewalk will still be there when the step is completed: these were anticipated events that moved quickly along to yet other events. On the other, affirming that there is something about the world that is unchanging, an existence that is ever abiding independent of our temporal nature. Such a claim about such a world would have its justification beyond the temporality of human consciousness, for even to imagine Being, inertial, fixed occurs in time. What a temporal conscious world like ours can give us is repetition and familiarity; this then reified into Being.

But as a meaningful concept, Being is nonsense beyond mere reified familiarity.
Nick_A
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Re: I am becoming

Post by Nick_A »

Odysseus
They question is, which describes what we "are"? Do I have an existence, so to speak, or am I continuously existing in the progressive tense? If it's the latter, then what bearing does this have on how we can understanding the basic structure of a human being? What about truth, actuality, facts: are these not all, in their conception, informed by a concept of experience from which they are derived? That is, experience is foundational for an analysis of what things are as it is in this and through this we receive the world. If experience is ceaselessly in motion, then the facts, the truths, the knowledge, the world must be understood in the same fashion. Truth is not Truth, but a changing condition, a truthING, if you will, e.g.
All this makes perfect sense to me once I remember that a human being is a seed. The shell of a human being, their personality, cannot exist as I Am but requires a qualifier. I Am a this or a that but I am not I Am which is the potential for the seed.

An acorn is becoming. The oak is I Am for the seed
The seed of God is in us. Given an intelligent and hard-working farmer, it will thrive and grow up to God, whose seed it is; and accordingly its fruits will be God-nature. Pear seeds grow into pear trees, nut seeds into nut trees, and God-seed into God. Meister Eckhart
As you know very few acorns become oak trees. Most become food for animals or just die and feed the earth. It is the same with the God seed. Very few God seeds become sons of God. Most are just saved or follow the process of dust to dust. It is nature's way which has no interest in the potential for the God seed but but needs animal Man to serve its needs.

The oak and the acorn simultaneously exist. Man can be both a seed and its evolution into conscious man or sons of God. The problem is that it is far easier said than done.
odysseus
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Re: I am becoming

Post by odysseus »

Nick_A
All this makes perfect sense to me once I remember that a human being is a seed. The shell of a human being, their personality, cannot exist as I Am but requires a qualifier. I Am a this or a that but I am not I Am which is the potential for the seed.

An acorn is becoming. The oak is I Am for the seed
But this oak that you become, once there, you are moving along to further reaches of your oakhood. You did not become an oak, you became more becoming an older oak. Remember Cratylus: you cannot even step into a river once, for in the stepping, there is toe, then arch...but the toe has parts itself. Consciousness is this river and there is no moment, only fluid process.
As you know very few acorns become oak trees. Most become food for animals or just die and feed the earth. It is the same with the God seed. Very few God seeds become sons of God. Most are just saved or follow the process of dust to dust. It is nature's way which has no interest in the potential for the God seed but but needs animal Man to serve its needs.

The oak and the acorn simultaneously exist. Man can be both a seed and its evolution into conscious man or sons of God. The problem is that it is far easier said than done.
Not so clear on this.
Age
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Re: I am becoming

Post by Age »

odysseus wrote: Tue Jul 30, 2019 3:21 pm It is an odd thing to say, really. A contradiction: If I am, then, in order to be becoming, I have to not BE, but in a process of becoming to be; a kind of yet-to-be.
It is familiar territory if you have read the presocratics. Parmenides and Heraclitus presented the conflict between these two concepts, being and becoming long ago, but it is not as if it was ever resolved, for they figure is a major way into contemporary issues: If I am becoming I have already presented the contradiction of what I am, both being and becoming at once.
They question is, which describes what we "are"? Do I have an existence, so to speak, or am I continuously existing in the progressive tense? If it's the latter, then what bearing does this have on how we can understanding the basic structure of a human being? What about truth, actuality, facts: are these not all, in their conception, informed by a concept of experience from which they are derived? That is, experience is foundational for an analysis of what things are as it is in this and through this we receive the world. If experience is ceaselessly in motion, then the facts, the truths, the knowledge, the world must be understood in the same fashion. Truth is not Truth, but a changing condition, a truthING, if you will, e.g.

All that is put forth here is derived from reading others. One does not think in a vacuum producing thought ex nihilo. Where these thoughts GO is another matter entirely.
If one is still searching in knowing thy Self, then there will be a perceived conflict in the above. But once thy Self is known all the above becomes crystal clear.
odysseus
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Re: I am becoming

Post by odysseus »

Age
If one is still searching in knowing thy Self, then there will be a perceived conflict in the above. But once thy Self is known all the above becomes crystal clear.
Levinas wrote, the true life is absent. i actually, though don't tell anyone, have a soft spot for NDE'ers, near death experiencers. If you read about them, listen to them on Youtube, you can tell that they are not liars. They just aren't. That means they misinterprate what they experience: they are fooled by the reality-like quality of their near death experience (when their heart has stopped for a couple minutes or more, say). This presents questions: what is the litmus test for the Real? Is it not the felt sense? How can one be mistaken about a joy, a bliss beyond anything in the world? And so on.

So, maybe you're right.
PeteJ
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Re: I am becoming

Post by PeteJ »

Age wrote: Wed Jul 31, 2019 10:57 am If one is still searching in knowing thy Self, then there will be a perceived conflict in the above. But once thy Self is known all the above becomes crystal clear.
Yep. I think you've nailed it.
barbarianhorde
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Re: I am becoming

Post by barbarianhorde »

odysseus wrote: Tue Jul 30, 2019 3:21 pm It is an odd thing to say, really. A contradiction: If I am, then, in order to be becoming, I have to not BE, but in a process of becoming to be; a kind of yet-to-be.
It is familiar territory if you have read the presocratics. Parmenides and Heraclitus presented the conflict between these two concepts, being and becoming long ago, but it is not as if it was ever resolved, for they figure is a major way into contemporary issues: If I am becoming I have already presented the contradiction of what I am, both being and becoming at once.
They question is, which describes what we "are"? Do I have an existence, so to speak, or am I continuously existing in the progressive tense? If it's the latter, then what bearing does this have on how we can understanding the basic structure of a human being? What about truth, actuality, facts: are these not all, in their conception, informed by a concept of experience from which they are derived? That is, experience is foundational for an analysis of what things are as it is in this and through this we receive the world. If experience is ceaselessly in motion, then the facts, the truths, the knowledge, the world must be understood in the same fashion. Truth is not Truth, but a changing condition, a truthING, if you will, e.g.
Yes I agree, existence, in as far as a a Becoming is also a Being, is always characterized most purely as an Act.

(Do you know the Zen of Action? It is a philosophy proposed by the great Dogen of Japan. He nicely complements the resurrection of the Presocratics as performed by Heidegger in Europe)
odysseus
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Re: I am becoming

Post by odysseus »

barbarianhorde

Yes I agree, existence, in as far as a a Becoming is also a Being, is always characterized most purely as an Act.

(Do you know the Zen of Action? It is a philosophy proposed by the great Dogen of Japan. He nicely complements the resurrection of the Presocratics as performed by Heidegger in Europe)
I have often thought the Buddhist essentially had it right, but the Hindu idea that meditation was but one form of yoga, another being jnana yoga, that of philosophy (as well as others) also had validity. After all, meditation presupposes the presence of a person, a human dasein: one who is there, always already equipt with a personality and an ontic (that is, the Heideggerian word for everyday life prior to making ontology a theme) set of beliefs and relations. This person is the interpretative body that stands in-the-midst-of the world, and without this, one remains a child. I have read about Zen Buddhists so free of the constraint of language and culture that they did ridiculous things, screaming at trees, and the like. This remains an issue, whether the self needs to be annihilated or developed.
In that famous "Only a God can save us" interview, Heidegger speculates about how Buddhism perhaps holds the key to some primordial language that takes us back to originary bliss of some kind; a state in which we are no longer alienated in the world.

Without the baggage of western philosophy's and Christianity's failings in the pursuit of truth, we would have to embrace the joy of becoming. In the west the closest we have come is Kierkegaard and his Repetition and Concept of Anxiety: how does one become authentically a person? Do not allow the past to play you like a record. To stand out of the stream as a soul (of course, K was a religious writer, but Heidegger was not. H borrowed this from K to get at his concept of authenticity), but to be IN the stream as a participant. The knight of faith, so called. Only here are actions truly free and one is not played by mere (platonic) recollection.

It is not that far from Zen, is it? To live each moment AS IF the living were to issue from a source that is God, the soul, freedom. The language here is not responsible, I would argue, but the idea is clear. It is all about living in the present. Not the present moment, but beyond moments.
odysseus
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Re: I am becoming

Post by odysseus »

Incidentally, if you're interested in existential thinking, a discussion would be welcome. Bring up any theme.
surreptitious57
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Re: I am becoming

Post by surreptitious57 »

Like everything else one is in a constant state of motion as a human being because one is always evolving within time
New experiences and knowledge have shaped me into who I am and this process has been ever present my entire life

I am now slowly learning to let go and detach myself from the world where it does not impose upon me
For I know that I am only passing through and that my life means nothing in the grand scheme of things

I am now less dogmatic less opinionated more detached more free that I have ever been and have had no fear of death for five years now
I have a world view but it is more a model of reality for myself so is not something set in stone merely an approximation of what might be
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