The Philosophy of Stuff and Moving It

 

Stuff. Your box truck of stuff in your move suddenly combusts and all the stuff onboard is lost, transitioning to ashen rocks. Did you really need all that stuff anyway? What about regretting something you have thrown away and now long for it? In philosophy, stuff is called objects. It is one of the most broad categories of philosophy. So to examine how and when to move (or not move) stuff is to examine objects. But, how do we do that exactly?

Definitions

When we think of worldly stuff, we are mainly concerned with a sub-category of stuff known as worldly material objects. We must not forget, though, there exists immaterial objects, such as a point in time that exists as a memory in our minds. Let us call that mindstuff. So, stuff can be thought of in two ways, worldstuff and mindstuff. Mindstuff according to Merriam Webster (2022) is a thing that:

...consist(s) internally of the constituent substance of mind and to appear externally in the form of matter.

Plain wording requires another paragraph I think for the average person to understand that complex definition. While examining any stuff, an additional step is required for both worldstuff and mindstuff. For example, consider a pen in your mind, then look around you. If you do not see a pen, then the pen exists (relative to you and the rest of us) only in your mind as mindstuff. If or when you find a pen, it exists both as mindstuff and as a worldly material object, worldstuff.

So, stuff exists in at least two ways, mindstuff (imagined), or mindstuff and worldstuff (real). What is worldstuff? The only definition I have found at this time is with Definition.org (2022) which uses a hyphen and claims world-stuff is:

...the ultimate material which the universe is composed.

The Definition.org / Century Dictionary definition is loosely (and incorrectly) based on an ancient definition of metaphysical matter from a philosopher known as Aristotle. As a proof the Definition.org definition is wrong, how could we discern the stuff in the universe if it was made of one ultimate material??? The universe is made of many materials which as far as we can tell was derived from some one ultimate material long ago. We call this ultimate mindstuff material God, or perhaps the big bang, or big bang #12 (in a serial universe). So, a better definition of woldstuff is:


Worldstuff is stuff in the universe that exists not only in our mind, but also to our bodily senses.


Of course sometimes our bodily senses can trick us, or our mental faculties can trick us as well. In addition we can imagine something and create it. The bottom line is, there is worldstuff that we are considering using our mind, (mindstuff) in some way. We'll stop at that, since to continue with this line of thinking is entering into the realm of the mind-body problem. In sum, we have something in our mind (a pile of rocks), and a pile of rocks appears externally to use via our senses. We could call this simultaneous mindstuff and worldstuff of a pile of rocks.

Mindstuff, Worldstuff, and Metaphysics

An exercise we can do to grasp mindstuff and worldstuff is to take a look at the picture above. Does our senses tell us a man is standing at the edge of a sandy hole, or something else? Do two men exist, or just one? If we change our vantage point 180 degrees we can discern that a man is standing by a puddle in a gravel lot. I could have also cropped the image and provided the full picture of the worldstuff. I chose a picture for its neat effect that the man appears in some sort of otherworldly space, a higher otherworldly space such as heaven, while simultaneously existing on earth. It could be that this picture was that of a person's father, and they keep it for its metaphysical properties. Perhaps the picture captures the what it was to be for the man, or anyone who keeps the picture.

Separating Stuff with Essence

What is essence? We just quoted Aristotle's definition believe it or not with wondering "what it was to be." Think about the stuff you have that captures your essence. It could be pictures, trophies, ribbons, even a rock. Stuff that has unique and strong meaning for you and no one else. I say no one else because no one can know what it was to be you. This particular stuff, we could call essence stuff, is the stuff that if lost, a part of you goes with it. Limit this stuff to a box or two when moving, and move it personally with your own hands if possible. That way if it or you burst into flames you can say to yourself I did my best to transport this essence stuff myself, and there is at least a 50% chance you will recover this stuff again at some point.

Once the essence-stuff is separated, does the other stuff really matter?

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Photos by Randy Jacob