The concept of the World, and the function of Dasein within it, is fundamental to Heidegger's ontology and any understanding of the foundation of sentient processes. This area of the subject is partially, and necessarily, metaphysical in nature. Background A World, any world, be it physical or mental, is the logical consequence of a collection of Entities. Insofar as these Entities are "proximate" or "to-hand" with respect to any Being (which at base is itself an Entity or collection of), they Are the World within which that Being is said to Be. An Entity on its own has no Worldhood, no meaning and no Being; it Is Nothing. In accordance with, though by no means dictated by, the principle tenet of materialism of Stoic philosophy an Entity is, in part, defined by the interrelations that exist between it an other Entities. In addition, prior and subsequent to materialism, Entities are, respectfully, monistic and mutable; these three properties are the (Stoic) foundation of the Worldhood of Entities, giving rise to a World with manifest individuality (each Entity is itself), relative inter-relations (Entities are defined by their inter-relations with other Entities), and change (the inter-relations between Entities may change). This model is equally applicable to the universe as it is to the mind, but discussion of the former is a whole other theory. The curious may like to ponder whether the Stoic mental ontology of Being is merely a reflection of the universal and only so that it may accurately represent the more fundamental Being - or whether this is in fact the simplest and most fundamental ontology possible, and thus "naturally", and separately, occurred as a product of both universal and evolutionary-mental ontological processes. Dasein Being-in-the-World Now with regard to any (proto-)sentient instance of Being (Dasein), an Entity is only made known to the instance once a function of its Being has been "revealed". Within our World, this commonly takes the form of detected photon emission or reflection, disturbances in air vibrations or the presence of certain airborne chemical structures, amongst others. Each "detection" is accompanied by a translation from the Sense to association of that signal with an Entity within the mind; this is performed by Interpretation. In every case a physical Entity of the physical-World is coordinated with a representative Entity of the mental-World. This is simple to appreciate, but of the three properties of Worldhood only monism has here been established. For the Entity to gain Being it must be related to others; take a tree for example, one associates it with, for example - green, brown, leaf, rustle, ground, soil, root, trunk, branch, bark, tall, sway, fruit, nut, seed, shoot, life, death, photosynthesis, transpiration, genes. This Being of an Entity is what one commonly calls the "meaning" of a "thing". Show a computer to a Stoic philosopher of old and it has no meaning to them, no way to relate it to their own model of the World, no inter-connections can be immediately "seen" or formed, it is unintelligible. Finally, mutation serves to finalise the Being of an Entity Created 4th December 2008 Last revised 5th December 2008 |