Is it possible to maintain the truth of levels of 'being' or can't they be true at the same time next to each other?

Question

With levels I mean different 'perspectives' on a subject/happening.

For example, all things have color. When we see a green tree we say this tree is green. So from this level the tree is green.

But for a physicist the tree has no color it only appears as a color but in fact they are waves reflected by the tree are 'mentioned' green. So for a phycisist only waves 'are'.

Now there is a mathematical physicist and says, no that are no waves that are fields and vectors and a string-theorist says that the tree is a bundle of strings.

And perhaps even a synesthesist would say the tree is color 6.

Perhaps you could go on and on.

The question is now whether these 'beings' are valid or not. Can 'beings' who are not really contradictory be all true in their own field/level or -is- there a real being what prohibit the other beings?

See also min 34 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xv0mKsO2goA

Answer 1

Each of these 'perspectives' can be considered a model of the tree.

Here, a model is considered to be a representation of some object, behavior, or system that one wants to understand. - Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Each model necessarily has its own set of abstractions. Conclusions that are consistent with each model don't necessarily have to be consistent across models. For example, the strings model may not encode the concept of colour, and a static model may not encode the concept of growth or change.

Nevertheless, since the models are non-destructive descriptions of the tree, they can co-exist.

So to your question of whether the various 'beings' can simultaneously be valid, I'd answer that yes, they can be simultaneously valid, but any conclusions must reference the respective model(s) from which they were derived. For example, if one synesthesist calls the tree colour 6 and another 7, the numbers are relative to the respective synesthesists.

Answer 2

They could be considered "true" to the person making the observation, or false, at the same time, depending on the language understanding of the person. Whether these qualities (such as bark, leaves, branches, wood etc.) must all be present to define a tree is a slightly different ontological question. Whether there is one "True" definition of a tree is once again open to debate, though most people would agree with most of, if not all the properties listed above regarding a tree.

Answer 3

Having multiple perspectives one something is important and valid; one might say, if one perspective was contiguous with another, then is some sense they are the same, and hence add nothing new; thus having multiple, contrasting views are important; but not any view, merely by being a view, is important; they must be well-grounded.

Thus to see a leaf as green is important; its attested to by your senses; and in a larger sense, might be profitably called Heideggerean,ie phenomenology; the view that taking phenomena as a reality for itself, rather than as some illusion under which one finds reality; appearances have their own value.

But also to understand light as some other thing also has value; its attested to by physics, and then the technology made possible by the understanding of the mechanisms, better the principles, underlying or making possible the phenomena; ontology has its own value.

Another example, is the so-called foundational crisis in mathematics in the early 20C; which from this distance merely looks as though they found themselves with a question that had not been asked before, or more likely, as these things often are, not been taken up; and what was expected or wished for, logicism turned out better to be seen as logical pluralism.

The question of being, according to Heidegger, and adopted from Aristotle, is that there is no such genus: there is not one category called being that encompasses, in a proper, organic and intrinsic way all the categories and modalities of being.

Answer 4

To avoid confusion let me use beingness instead of being.

Like other things, if beingness also undergoes changes, we cannot name it beingness. If the word you used as 'being' depends on our sense organs, for convention you'd better say that it exists/existed for a certain period.

If we said that something had a beingness, we can no longer say that now it has no beingness. To test this, you can use your commonsense or refer to the Bhagavad Gita.

See: Bhagavad Gita 2.16

nasato vidyate bhavo nabhavo vidyate satah ubhayor api drsto 'ntas tv anayos tattva-darsibhih

Meaning: Those who are seers of the truth have concluded that of the nonexistent there is no endurance, and of the existent there is no cessation. This seers have concluded by studying the nature of both.

When we consider our senses for confirming beingness many problems occur.

For a better understanding, (instead of tree) let's consider water for instance.

When we consider the three states of water we will have to consider three types of beingness (with slight variations). I mean, we will be compelled to treat/intoduce beingness as 'hard/condensed beingness', 'flowing beingness', 'divided beingness' etc. When we think about the water in the atmosphere, in/on the earth, in our body, in plants etc. we would certainly be in dilemma because this leads us to a folly--"a beingness in another beingness". In other words, a beingness made up of another beingness--Beingness having two types of 'qualities'. This is certainly nonsense.

I shall give more explanation:

When we consider a living tree and a dry tree we will be compelled to treat in two ways -- low-quality beingness and high-quality beingness (with out any separating boundary/criteria). This means, when we use this word we are treating some other quality or different aspects or something else; never as a separate 'being'.

The question is now whether these 'beings' are valid or not.

Since we cannot consider different types of beingness, this is invalid in this name.

Is there a real being what prohibit the other beings?

We would be in confusion if we think that real beingness is a part or the totality of sensual perception. So we should discard this attitude first.

There is only one beingness; I mean, what you meant as being must be the immutable all-prevading beingness. Actually this real being does not prohibit anything because there is no chance of another being (as you mentioned here). I have clarified it already.

Now you might have understood that the problem became complex because of the usage 'being'. If you had omitted that word you could have avoided the confusion.

Now your main question:

Is it possible to maintain the truth of levels of 'being'?

The consciousness that coordinates and make all of us feel this as a world (as by mass hypnotism), will maintain the truth of levels; but not as levels of being (See, I didn't use the term absolute truth). If you don't like the term--' mass hypnotism' you may say 'because of our ignorance'. But a coordination is certainly happening.

When you use the word 'being', the question becomes so precise that we can't say 'yes'.

I compared the thing, sense organs and the different views (you mentioned as different levels of truth) to white light, prism and spectrum behind it (respectively).

When you withdraw the white-light, the spectrum disappears. This implies, (just for comparison) white-light if it is taken as the real being, it can make the spectrum a mere nothingness. That means, here the spectrum has no separate beingness exempting the white-light. Therefore we can say that usage--'being' is in appropriate here.

Answer 5

I don't think so they can be true. One can say tree is all of the above said things. It can have all these properties. This makes all the observers wrong as they choose to see the tree through their own interests and fields.

Just what i think. Correct me