03 December 2008

The Nature of Overdetermined Existance

The nature of existence within overdetermination: some thoughts of, on and for confusion.

Classic materialism A-->B the material causes the ideal.
Classic idealism B-->A the ideal causes the material
Dialectics A <--> B

My question is regarding existence in the framework of overdetermination. A and B are each a condition of existence of the other. In the post modern language they “constitute one another”. So does not A and B become AB? Where B is nothing without A and A is nothing without B? To answer my own question it seems clear to me that AB is the result where the “gap” between knower and object that is present in other epistemologies disappears.

However my reasoning falls back into idealism in that any part of the material world cannot exist without the totality of thoughts. It could go the other way that no idea could be formulated without the totality of the material world but this seems less plausible to me due to the overdeterminates of my own thought.

For example a nebula that is newly discovered in space did not exist (in its current form) before the technology was developed to make human species aware of it. Thus is follows that constant change is the only “true” state of existence. The conditions of existence are constantly changing as are any boundaries on the ideal and/or material world.

A problem…The nebula that I have described did not exist without its conditions of existence, now that it does exist, it exists as part of the overdetermined world in a state of change. How can a constant state of change give birth to something new? That is, the newly discovered nebula?

Am I slipping into pure idealism and violating a basic premise of overdetermination? The issue of the nature of existence remains a mystery

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