Being


(Ii.1) Humans tend to think of themselves as beings or, more specifically, as human beings. That raises the question of what human being actually is. What is the essence of our being? Is it the opposite of not being? If so, what is not being? Are humans beings at all?

(Ii.1.1) We appear to get our sense of being as a child of consciousness. Without consciousness we human beings would have no sense of being at all.

(Ii.1.21) But consciousness appears to be the child of our awareness of the existence being as opposed to not being, as something other than own "human" being. For example, we have no direct sensory means of detecting the being of elemental oxygen in the air that surrounds us as a diatomic molecule composed of two oxygen atoms. But let a bolt of lightening pass through the air and cause three atoms of oxygen to form a triatomic molecule of oxygen we call ozone that we can and do smell after a thunderstorm. Does that mean diatomic oxygen is not a being simply because we cannot gain awareness of it by sensing it? Or is being simply a mental phenomenon that creates the illusion of something that does not otherwise exist as a being?

(Ii.2) All that humans can offer as proof of their being is the phenomenon of consciousness which we somehow sense. We are aware of our awareness of our environment. Indeed, we have no proof of the materiality of consciousness. But could consciousness have a material being like that of diatomic oxygen which we cannot sense? The answer seems to be that if we cannot sense it we cannot know it. But that does not preclude its being, only our ability to know of its being.

(Ii.2.1) As such, this philosophy makes the assertion that humans are incapable of knowing absolute being or not being with absolute certainty. We are, however, aware of phenomena such as consciousness, awareness, sensation for which we do not know the essence of its being.

(Ii.3) This philosophy asserts that the essence of being is unknowable but that awareness of phenomena arising from being is possible when the being is sensate.

(Ii.3.1) The possibility of an Ultimate Supreme Being is an example. We cannot know its essence, but only of sensations of its possible being as the phenomenon of cconsciousness, awareness and sensation in the human brain. But, as it is, the Ultimate Supreme Being remains the deus ex machina of this philosophy.

Summation

(Ii) The essence of being or not being is unkowable to humans. We can only have possible evidence of its nature as phenomenon of consciousness, awareness and sensation in the human brain. That is, phenomenon of consciousness, awareness and sensation are not a material part of being but an immaterial effect of being itself.


Being