The Dualism of Consciousness…
Vorhandenheit (Present-at-Hand) and Zuhandenheit (Being-Ready-to-Hand)
“All the actual character of consciousness is merely the sense of shock of the non-ego upon us” …
— Charles Sanders Peirce
20th Century Philosopher Martin Heidegger was highly critical of the Cartesian tradition that had increasingly become the foundation of orthodox intellectual thought (i.e. Temples of Reason — Cult of Reason) for Western Civilisation post the arrival of Modernity.
Cartesianism accepts an ontological dualism that, via Leibniz’s Law and the identity of indiscernibles, views the Mind (res Cogitans) and Matter (res Extensa) as two fundamentally different substances.
Descartes viewed the essence of:
- the mind as self-conscious thinking;
- matter as extension into three dimensions; and
- God as a necessary existence.
Human Beings were viewed as compound substances consisting of Minds and Bodies.
It was a view of Reality that diverged from:
- Christian Theology — Human Beings as a single substance having a Unity of Being — a Body and Soul (capable of intellect);
- Aristotle — Human Beings (i.e. Finite Beings) as a single substance composed of Matter and Form (hylomorphic unity); and
- Aquinas — Similar to Aristotle, Matter (Body) and Form (Soul) are in a unified substance.
It was a mental structure perspective of Reality anchored in the Primacy of Human Consciousness and Logic (i.e. Study of Thought) that was increasingly leading to a view of Reality anchored in more and more rules of abstraction — World as a Machine, Mind as a Computer, Cells as Machines, Body as a Machine, Intelligence as Computation, Geo-Engineering, Bio-Engineering, Genetic Engineering, Algorithmic Management, Technology Society, Technology System, Artificial General Intelligence, Algorithmic Governance, Algorithmic Money etc.
A liberation from the intolerable conditions and suffering of the Material Realm through attaining a Consciousness — a Gnosis (refer to Modern Gnosticism, Trans Humanism, Geo-Bio-Genetic-Engineering, Cartesian Mechanical Machine World View, Heidegger’s Technology Enframing (Bestand — Standing Reserve), and Jacques Ellul’s Technology Society & System).
A liberation from an independent objective Reality (refer to the Theology of Marxism (i.e. a power-directed system of thought), Nietzsche’s Theory of Perspectivism, Saussurean Dyadic Semiotics, Jean Baudrillard’s Post-Modern Simulacra, Simulation and HyperReality ).
A liberation from the Human Condition that was inherent within the Contingent Being of Man (refer to Artificial General Intelligence, Trans Humanism, Scientific Gnosticism (Scientism), Nietzschean Übermensch, Nietzschean Will to Power).
It was also a view of Reality that was leading to more and more confusion and an erosion in our Sense of Coherence (e.g. Quantum Mechanics — Copenhagen Interpretation).
“The primary element in any civilisation is a stable relation between man and his environment. When man becomes the plaything of abstract decisions, a civilisation can no longer be created”…
— Jacques Ellul
A growing cognitive dissonance as the Map was never the Territory, and the Picture was never the Pipe.
Kurt Gödel had warned of the Limits to Logic, yet the warning had largely been ignored by the prevailing intellectual orthodoxy of Modernity and Post-Modernity.
It reflected a failure to recognise that Good Reason is based in Being.
“Bad reasoning as well as good reasoning is possible; and this fact is the foundation of the practical side of logic” …
– Charles Sanders Peirce
In other words, the intelligibility of Reality was accessible through Human Beings participation in Reality and ensuring an alignment between a Mind Dependent Representation with a Mind Independent Objective Reality grounded in Being.
The Dualism of Human Consciousness
“So we must start from this dual nature of intelligence as something both biological and logical”…
― Jean Piaget
“in perception, there is a double consciousness of an ego and a non-ego”…
— Charles Sanders Peirce
As outlined in From Being to Knowing — A Semiotic Metaphysical Interpretation of Quantum Collapse, there is an opportunity for us to reconsider the Copenhagen Interpretation in Quantum Mechanics and the so-called collapse of the wave function by simply shifting the prism through which we understand the nature of Reality.
A shift from Scientific Abstraction interpretation to recognising our embodied Being – Unity of Being – that is grounded in a Primacy of Being and relationships of Being.
It is also based on understanding this distinction via a different form of dualism.
Rather than a Substance Dualism, what if Human Consciousness had different modes of Being (refer to Charles Sanders Peirce)?
Modes of Being that reflected the relationship between a Mind Independent Reality and a Mind Dependent Representation of Reality.
The distinction between our inner world of abstraction and our outer world of entangled Being.
It is also a perspective that is supported by several leading intellectual thinkers of Western Civilisation, including inter alia:
- Medieval Scholastic Theologian John Duns Scotus’ Conceptual Moderate Realism that is anchored in the notion of Univocity of Being and the concept of Being that are mental concepts abstracted from individual things. The interplay between the Perceiving Subject and this concept of Being enables intelligibility and truth claims to be made about the World;
- 19th-20th Century American Charles Sanders Peirce Triadic Structure of Human Consciousness that includes Primisense (Firstness), Altersense (Secondness) and Medisense (Thirdness). In particular, the Altersense reflects the interplay and mediation between the Ego (Conscious Self) and the Non-Ego;
- 19th Century Italian Priest, Theologian and Philosopher Antonio Rosmini’s concept of the idea of Being that is objective, universal, and immutable, provides the ground for all other ideas. The idea of Being is the light that illuminates the intelligence of the Perceiving Subject;
- 20th Century Swiss Psychologist Jean Piaget’s Theory of Intelligence, which he regarded as part biological and part logical; and
- 21st Century Philosopher David Chalmers — Dualism of Consciousness(Physical & Non-Physical Properties (e.g. qualia — phenomenal properties)) results in an understanding of the Brain’s properties as physical and non-physical.
Heidegger — Zuhandenheit (Being-Ready-to-Hand) and Vorhandenheit (Present-at-Hand)
“Being and time determine each other reciprocally, but in such a manner that neither can the former — Being — be addressed as something temporal nor can the latter — time — be addressed as a being.”
— Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger introduces the concepts of Vorhandenheit (Present-at-Hand) and Zuhandenheit (Being-Ready-to-Hand) in his seminal 1927 work Sein und Zeit (Being and Time).
Ideas that emerged from Heidegger’s intellectual withdrawal from academia and retreat to a small hut in the Black Forest village of Todtnauberg fostered his capacity to reflect on the nature of the embodied lived experience.
It was a period that symbolised a shift in his broader philosophical orientation away from the abstractions of modern, technological life and towards a more primordial phenomenological engagement with Being and this Being’s (Dasein) relationship with Being (Sein).
The rationalism that had been the cornerstone of Modernity was increasingly being challenged in Europe, particularly in the context of the increasing social, political, and economic upheaval that culminated in the tragedy of the First World War.
The concepts Present-at-Hand and Being-Ready-to-Hand emerge from his broader existential analysis of Dasein and the Being (i.e. Human Being) for whom Being is a question.
Heidegger – Zuhandenheit (Being-Ready-to-Hand)
“Dasein is a being that does not simply occur among other beings. Rather it is ontically distinguished by the fact that in its being this being is concerned about its very being. Thus it is constitutive of the being of Dasein to have, in its very being, a relation of being to this being”…
– Martin Heidegger
In Being and Time, Heidegger seeks to understand the meaning of Being, and he begins this task by analysing the everyday lived experience of human existence (Dasein).
The concepts of Vorhandenheit and Zuhandenheit reflect the examination of how entities within the World are disclosed to us, not through abstraction, but through practical engagement.
Zuhandenheit (Being-Ready-to-Hand) characterises the primary mode in which tools and equipment are encountered in the world.
A Being in the World.
This disclosure of Being through use is Heidegger’s way of illustrating that our fundamental relation to the world is not cognitive or representational but practical.
Zuhandenheit reveals a world that is already meaningful through our being-in-the-world (i.e. participation in Reality) and our embodied relationship (this Being (Dasein) to Being (Sein)).
Heidegger – Vorhandenheit (Present-at-Hand)
“In the second phase of capitalism, the most inhuman and totalitarian one, the bourgeois spirit finally does for society what it had already done for nature, abolishing mystery and quality, and replacing them with measurable, quantitative data”…
– Augusto del Noce
In contrast, Vorhandenheit (Presence-at-Hand) refers to the mode in which entities are encountered when they are detached from practical use.
Whether that is because something breaks, is lost, or is simply the object of theoretical contemplation.
At this point, the entity becomes a conceptual object, something with properties, divorced from its contextual function and relationship.
He argues that this is not the primary mode of encountering Being, but a derivative one that emerges only when our practical involvement is interrupted.
It represents a critique of the philosophical tradition post-Descartes, where Vorhandenheit (Presence-at-Hand) has increasingly become the default mode of Being.
An increasingly distorted view of Reality.
These concepts are an illuminating critique by Heidegger of Modernity and Post-Modernity that has increasingly oriented Western Civilisation’s interpretation of Reality towards a Primacy of Human Consciousness (e.g. Cartesianism, Idealism, Nietzschean Perspectivism, Egocentrism, Nominalism) and a Primacy of Man (e.g. Modern Gnosticism, Marxism, Transhumanism, Dialectical Materialism, Historical Materialism) in contrast to a Reality anchored in the Primary Mode of Being (i.e. embodied in the World — participating in Reality) and the relationship of this Being (Dasein) to Being (Sein).
In summary, Heidegger’s concepts of Vorhandenheit (Present-at-Hand) and Zuhandenheit ( Being-Ready-to-Hand) can explain the collapse of the Wave Function.
Both the Wave-Function and the Collapse of the Wave-Function are not anchored in the Primary Mode of Being — Zuhandenheit (Being-Ready-to-Hand) — but instead are forms of representations and abstractions mediated by signs (Peirce).
They are derivatives of the Primary Mode of Being — they are the picture and not the pipe.
The confusion reflects the endemic embrace of more and more abstraction and the ever-present risk of retreating into Plato’s Cave.
The Simulacra — HyperReality — the Simulation — the Matrix — Hypernormalisation — Virtual Reality — Augmented Reality.
Vorhandenheit (Presence-at-Hand).
“The world that is being created by the accumulation of technical means is an artificial world and hence radically different from the natural world. It destroys, eliminates, or subordinates the natural world, and does not allow this world to restore itself or even to enter into a symbiotic relation with it. The two worlds obey different imperatives, different directives, and different laws which have nothing in common. Just as hydroelectric installations take waterfalls and lead them into conduits, so the technical milieu absorbs the natural. We are rapidly approaching the time when there will be no longer any natural environment at all. When we succeed in producing artificial aurorae boreales, night will disappear and perpetual day will reign over the planet.”
―Jacques Ellul, The Technological Society
.
