Terminus Mechanicae

Today a question draws my attention. Yet I have not raised this question to any friend, colleague, or lover, since I can only imagine the trouble it might bring along with it. Consequently, I do not know if this is a question of my own, or something easily relatable. My question regards facts. This is a question of content, answered not in asking who or what?—but instead, how? My inquiry should not be mistaken. I am neither doubtful of the accuracy nor of my certainty of any particular fact.

I have found the question so fundamental that I have found that it comes to me in both trivial matters and those of serious concern. However, I must emphasize that in these matters just now spoken of I do not take caution with this question. Instead, I proceed having replaced this caution with a disposition—on the surface, one might be tempted to call this a disposition of ignorance. However, I do not theme it so shallowly.

This disposition has manifested in style throughout the writing of Terminus Mechanicae. And it has also manifested in procedure. For example, when citing a translation, the translator and translated work take priority in the citation. This procedure has been adopted since I cannot presume that words which are stimulated from German or Latin texts resemble those words which are stimulated in the reader of an English translation. I doubt neither the accuracy of the translation nor doubt the translator’s ability or trustworthiness. To be honest, I remain indifferent in these issues. My ability—and not only that, but my desire—causes me to respond to that which is stimulated from the English text. Furthermore, a translation cited should not be considered a mere degeneration from some more original work, but instead an original source itself—in as much as that source is an origin of this work. And since the remarks and reflections of Terminus Mechanicae are a reaction to the interpretations of those translators, my disposition demands that I make no definite statement about what any translated author originally claims. Despite this, I hope to not be mistaken. I do not consider myself meek in recanting a debt to Friedrich Nietzsche or Martin Heidegger. Rather, I am humble in acknowledging Walter Kaufmann and Hubert Dreyfus.

Following all that I have said about my disposition and the application in a procedure, the first question must be: what does inquiry into the source tell us about the facts themselves—if not to satisfy skepticism of the absolute truth?

Consider if, in the course of this document, I quoted the following,

The world as presentation…arises to be sure with the opening of the first eye, without which cognitive medium it cannot exist, thus it did not indeed previously exist. But without that eye, i.e. apart from cognizance, neither was there a before or a time. Nonetheless, time did not on that account have a beginning, but rather all beginnings are within it. Since, however, it is the most general form for the possibility of cognition, to which all phenomena conform by virtue of the bond of causality, time is indeed standing there too with the first case of cognition, with its entire infinitude in both directions…

These words, as present in my text, carry along with them a necessity of interpretation which a reader who came across them elsewhere would not find. First, my reader would know I have read a translation of Arthor Schopenhauer’s The World as Will and Presentation. They might also know that I have interpreted that translation and they may guess that I have positioned myself to that translation in such-and-such a way.

So, to inquire into the source of a fact is to inquire into the possibly for the fact. This means that by interrogating the source, the question does not ask who or what?—but rather how is this a fact? And when one says to another, “This is a fact”, what has one learned? Well, my disposition has me assume that one has learned that another has said, “This is a fact.” And this may or may not have consequence to the fact itself.

Perhaps now, with the challenge presented, the question which draws my attention may be appreciated and my disposition in personal and private matters, among any friend, colleague, or lover, may not seem so unusually difficult or inhuman.

“The man of knowledge must not only love his enemies, he must be able to hate his friends.” (See Walter Kaufmann’s translation of Friedrich Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra, On the Gift-Giving Virtue, page 78)

For a long time, I never quite knew how to interpret this passage. My understanding made use of unclear concepts. Maybe some hybrid of soul, individual, person (But just look how unclear this hybrid concept is?!)

But the treatment I had made of an apple (See 23.05.15, Reflection on the Visual Field) can likewise be made to any friend, colleague or lover. The entity sight of T shares no experiential properties with the entity voice or laugh of T. She is neither sight nor sound, nor a composition of all of these (Wittgenstein’s broomstick. See G.E.M. Anscrombe, P.M.S. Hacker and Joachim Schulte’s translation of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations, number 60, page 33e). T means something even more intangible than thoughts. She is a conceptual entity.

(Note: perhaps a grammatical entity. Ask, “What function does ‘you’ have in the sentence, ‘I have forgiven you.’” Investigate the function of the “you” in the sentence.)

Despite this, the entity sight of T and sound of T may answer ownedness to the conceptual entity T. So, with such an entity, taken up in several ways, I might as well dissolve that entity. Ontological dissonance (See 07.02.15, Reflection on my Own Understanding). And in recognizing this dissolution of any friend, colleague, or lover, I no longer have need to resolve my feelings of love, intellectual euphoria, disrespect, disgust of humor, and sexual stimulation, toward any particular soul.

It is not always clear to me what scientific activity is getting at, while with religion it is clear to me that that language points at something essential, in as much as it points directly at experience itself.

And often I see the ecstasies of scientific excitement as quite empty. A tautology in excitement. That is, exciting only in that it has proven itself true.

Consider the motivational expression, “We make our own destiny.” And I would argue this is the case. Yet, we make it so only after ‘the destiny’ is there for interpretation as destiny, and not before. That is, we write the story of destiny after reflecting on what has already transpired. “I found true love”—and I did write that destiny. See The Romantic.

The pursuit of the scientific spirit is one of building of a uni-verse by describing it in terms of time and space. Compare this with the pursuit of the Theosophical Society. This universe building, I want to theme in spirit, something similar to imperialism, epistemic.

When we were imagining ourselves as scientists in a lab (See lecture The Romantic) and exclaimed, “I simply discovered nature!” We were referring not to the observation itself, but to an object, virus.

And isn’t it the same with feelings? Don’t I simply “discover” them? And once identified as feeling, don’t I read them backward into my own internal/mental history (forever how long or short that duration may be)?

But I do expect that disposition (feelings or mood) to be the most unlikely thing to call objective—these are not entities we find in the common world—and this is usually the distinction between objective and subjective. I suppose that here I am making less of a claim to dispositions and instead drawing boundaries to an area which I would like to call objectivity.

I’m not surprised when I find myself anxious about the fact that I will lecture soon or that I find myself in love, despite that the breakup is far behind me. Quite the opposite. It’s to be expected that I experience a detachment and disownment from my most ‘subjective’ experiences. That is, I find them in the same way I find anything else in nature. Natural things (natural entities?)—I’m not sure which word to use here. (See Albert Hofstadter’s translation of Martin Heidegger’s The Thing in Poerty, Language, Thought.) “Things” feels better and I do not have a terminological distinction. They are interchangeable everywhere in my current writting.