By Potpher C. Mbulo
DATE: 11-11-2010
Let’s first define what existence and essence are.
EXISTENCE: In common usage, existence is the world we are aware of through our senses, and that persists independently without them. In academic philosophy the word has a more specialized meaning, being contrasted with essence, which specifies different forms of existence as well as different identity conditions for objects and properties. Philosophers investigate questions such as "What exists?" "How do we know?" "To what extent are the senses a reliable guide to existence?" "What is the meaning, if any, of assertions of the existence of categories, ideas, and abstractions?" There are two perceptions to what is regarded as existence and these are:
1. Materialism: holds that the only thing that exists is matter, that all things are composed of material, and all phenomena (including consciousness) are the result of material interactions. In other words, matter is the only substance.
2. Supernaturalism: in contrast to materialism, supernaturalism, holds that other things exist (or may exist) in addition. When a mathematician reasons from the statement "ABC is a triangle" to the statement "triangles exist", she/he is not asserting that triangles are made up of atoms but rather that triangles exist within a particular mathematical model. There is more to existence not just matter but even concepts.
ESSENCE: The English word "essence" comes from the Latin essentia, which was coined (from the Latin esse, "to be") by ancient Roman scholars in order to translate the Ancient Greek phrase to ti ēn einai (literally, "what it is for a thing to be"), coined by Aristotle to denote a thing's essence. In philosophy, essence is the attribute or set of attributes that make an object or substance what it fundamentally is, and which it has by necessity, and without which it loses its identity. Essence is contrasted with accident: a property that the object or substance has contingently, without which the substance can still retain its identity.
DISCUSSION:
Anti-realism is the view of idealists who are skeptics about the physical world, maintaining either:
1. That nothing exists outside the mind, or
2. That we would have no access to a mind-independent of reality even if it may exist.
Realists, in contrast, hold that perceptions or sense data are caused by mind-independent objects. An "anti-realist" who denies that other minds exist (i. e., a solipsist) is different from an "anti-realist" who claims that there is no fact of the matter as to whether or not there are unobservable other minds.
Arguably it can said that what is perceived (object) has only meaning in reference to the mental models (subject) that already are recognize and resident in the mind. Literally the whole world is there because the mind thinks it’s there. We might go as far as declaring that what is real is only in the mind. This is just as Schopenhauer claimed that “everything that exists for knowledge, and hence the whole of this world, is only object in relation to the subject, perception of the perceiver, in a word, representation.” According to him there can be "No object without subject" because "everything objective is already conditioned as such in manifold ways by the knowing subject with the forms of its knowing, and presupposes these forms”.
Is it possible that what we perceive and interact with are just mere virtual objects? If that is true, then it follows that the rest of you do not exist. But haven't we at any point observed that insane minds see and talk with objects that are not there in reality? Yes we have. Thus we have distinguished a mind different from ours. Moreover, I have no clue of how many and how you will respond to what I have written. I only anticipate you will respond. But you will respond in a manner that is not predictable hence it proves too that there are other minds out there.
It is certain that there are objects and there are minds. Now if essence precedes existence it means other minds are not real. You might ague to say a baby is born with mental models and that is essence before interacting with an object (existence). However the perception of the real object’s attributes does not necessarily only modify resident mental models but erect new models and thus the number of mental models increases with accumulation of knowledge. If essence were to precede existence there would be a predetermined fixed number of mental models but this is not true. When we are born, we are not deplete of metal models neither are we born with an infinity number of mental models. A child is born with few crude mental models i.e. perhaps just with an instinct of sucking milk, feeling pain, etc. Over the years, the child grows to accrue many metal models as it interacts with the environment. No one is born knowing what milk is but everyone is born with the instinct to suck milk. This is proof that existence precedes essence. Aren’t we born on earth before our present character is shaped to what we are now?
Existence affects essence continuously but in discrete moments of time. Both existence and essence are concepts drawn as a line yet microscopically they are a string of dots of which an existence dot precedes an essence dot even at microscopic level i.e. smallest conceivable lapse of time of observation. In this way we have a clearer essence of the existence.
Here is another proof. An experiment was conducted in South Africa by a racist white man who raised a black kid together with puppies of a dog. The child stated behaving like a dog as it was growing. As far as the child was concerned it perceived itself as a dog. We see that existence of dogs created mental models in the mind of a child which are totally different from a child brought up in a normal environment. Simone de Beauvoir also uses this concept in her feminist existentialism to develop the idea that "one is not born a woman, but becomes one". In a like man it was shown in the above experiment that one is not born a dog, but becomes one. When it is said that man defines himself, it is often perceived as stating that man can "wish" to be something - anything, a dog, for instance. You can choose to act in a different way, and to be a good person instead of a cruel person. Here it is also clear that since man can choose to be either cruel or good, he is, in fact, neither of these things essentially.
The proposition that existence precedes essence (French: l'existence précède l'essence) is a central claim of existentialism, which reverses the traditional philosophical view that the essence or nature of a thing is more fundamental and immutable than its existence. To existentialists, the human being - through his consciousness - creates his own values and determines a meaning to his life, for in the beginning the human being does not possess any identity or value. By posing the acts that constitute him, he makes his existence more significant. What first affect us are things that exist and then we form ideas of essences afterwards, so existence precedes essence. This position is referred to as primacy of existence
LEARNING AND INTERACTION WITH EVIRONMENT
THE MIND: An organism mind is made up of a central processing unit, memory and has two windows. See diagram below:
Central Processing Unit (CPU) is the part of the mind that directs the three "R"s i.e. Read, wRite and aRithmetics. The speed of the processor varies from individual to individual.
Memory is where mental models are resident. The memory size varies from individual to individual.
Inlet Window: this is the door way throw which rays of perception travel from the object (existence). The size of the window varies from individual to individual. The smaller the inlet window, the less the perception rays are allowed to pass through to the center of the mind. Knowledgeable people have relative wider inlet windows, all things being equal.
Outlet Window: this is the door way through which the mind emits the rays it generates after processing the rays of perception. These rays can be expressed in form of words or actions. The smaller the outlet window, the less the response rays are allowed to pass through to the environment. Extroverts have relatively wider outlet windows than introverts do, all things being equal.
Rays of perception are also subject to capabilities of sensing i.e. hearing, seeing, feeling, etc.
Theory Of The Learning Of The Mind
“An organism interacts with the environment through the perception rays that are actually environmental forces that exert on the mind. The mind generates reaction rays which are actually an individual’s force towards environment. Through this interaction of existence (real environment) and essence (individual’s perception of existence), accumulation of knowledge happens i.e. modification and erection of mental models”.
Shalom! Shalom!
Ever-loving,
PotpherAn individual as in character is a result of his thoughts beaten to shape by his environment as he also deforms it. The most influential among us shape the environment more that it exerts its influence on them it would seem. However the truth is that influential people change character drastically due to the interaction with the environment. Thus the environmental and individual forces are equal and opposite. Just as Sartre says that an oppressive situation is not intolerable in itself, but once regarded as such by those who feel oppressed the situation becomes intolerable. So by projecting my intentions on my present condition, “it’s me that freely transform it in action”. When he said that “the world is a mirror of my freedom”, he meant that the world obliged me to react, to overtake myself. That’s this overtaking of a present constraining situation by a project to come that Sartre names transcendence. He added that “we are condemned to be free”.
