Greetings, Mel --
I don't think I've had the pleasure of speaking with you.
This "grounding" is already too loaded with implicit
structure to work. It is also circular, as it says you can't
have being without being.
No. It says you can't have existence without AWARENESS of being.
Conversely, you can't have awareness without a being-aware. Being and
awareness are mutually dependent contingencies. They represent the
existential dichotomy Sensibility/Otherness.
(You are right that awareness is a key, but in this
structure you've nailed one foot to the floor.)
On the contrary, I stand with both feet firmly planted on the floor - a
fundamental
principle which can serve as an ontological foundation.
[Ham]:
Since we know that being exists only because we are aware
of it, each cognizant individual is fundamentally a being-aware.
Or, to put it another way, being in existence takes the form of
a sensible (cognizant, knowing) agent or entity who becomes
aware of being, the locus of which is his/her self.
[Mel]:
You have already built too quickly, again, with too many
implicit inclusions. Start lower, build slower, each step explicit.
Can you suggest a more fundamental starting point?
[Ham]:
However we may hypothesize Reality, and whatever we
think may have occurred before (or after) awareness,
fundamentally Existence = Being-Aware.
[Mel]:
Maybe we'd do better to start with:
Awareness is physical reactivity.
If I knew what "physical reactivity" meant, I might consider it. You've
introduced two new terms, neither of which relates to awareness which is
self-evident. One advantage of fundamental definitions based on
self-evident principles is that they don't require elaborate explanations.
I'd expect a comprehensible explanation of "physical reactivity" (which
sounds more like a cosmology than a definition) to take up several pages,
not to mention the "implicit (or inferred) conclusions" which you seem to
have read into my simple dualism.
But you're certainly free to try.
Thanks, Mel.
Ham
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