zak
10-08-2011, 16:21
sartre (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Paul_Sartre) authored this book "Being and Nothingness" in 1943, it has a formidable scary title, just imagine a girl see you reading this book!!. i have read only part of the conclusion in that huge book, (who have a time to read those philosophy books nowadays) ,it is talking about "In-Itself and For-Itself: Metaphysical Implications":
In-Itself he means :matter, the objective world
For-Itself he means consciousness
he said:
[[
The For-itself, in fact, is nothing but the pure nihilation of the In-itself; it is like a hole of being at the heart of Being. One may be reminded here of that convenient fiction by which certain popularizers are accustomed to illustrate the principle of the conservation of energy. If, they say, a single one of the atoms which constitute the universe were annihilated, there would result a catastrophe which would extend to the entire universe, and this would be, in particular, the end of the Earth and of the solar system. This metaphor can be of use to us here. The For-itself is like a tiny nihilation which has its origin at the heart of Being; and this nihilation is sufficient to cause a total upheaval to happen to the In-itself. This upheaval is the world.
]]
the most imortant sentence is :The For-itself, in fact, is nothing but the pure nihilation of the In-itself
which we can translate like this:
The consciousness, in fact, is nothing but the pure nihilation of the matter (electrons ??) in the brain.
forgot what sartre means by nihilation, he saw something like a remote star in the very dark sky and deduce something, but you can use what he saw and deduce something else in the light of recent science especially the quantum physics.
i found "consciousness is the nihilation of matter" very inspiring, how to define nihilation ?? is it partial or total, what about conservation law, what about if something disappeard on cosmos one to appear in cosmos two. and what if motion is a kind of nihilation.
i prefer to alter the above phrase to "consciousness emerges through the nihilation of matter".
In-Itself he means :matter, the objective world
For-Itself he means consciousness
he said:
[[
The For-itself, in fact, is nothing but the pure nihilation of the In-itself; it is like a hole of being at the heart of Being. One may be reminded here of that convenient fiction by which certain popularizers are accustomed to illustrate the principle of the conservation of energy. If, they say, a single one of the atoms which constitute the universe were annihilated, there would result a catastrophe which would extend to the entire universe, and this would be, in particular, the end of the Earth and of the solar system. This metaphor can be of use to us here. The For-itself is like a tiny nihilation which has its origin at the heart of Being; and this nihilation is sufficient to cause a total upheaval to happen to the In-itself. This upheaval is the world.
]]
the most imortant sentence is :The For-itself, in fact, is nothing but the pure nihilation of the In-itself
which we can translate like this:
The consciousness, in fact, is nothing but the pure nihilation of the matter (electrons ??) in the brain.
forgot what sartre means by nihilation, he saw something like a remote star in the very dark sky and deduce something, but you can use what he saw and deduce something else in the light of recent science especially the quantum physics.
i found "consciousness is the nihilation of matter" very inspiring, how to define nihilation ?? is it partial or total, what about conservation law, what about if something disappeard on cosmos one to appear in cosmos two. and what if motion is a kind of nihilation.
i prefer to alter the above phrase to "consciousness emerges through the nihilation of matter".