phenomenology vs, ontology

Is there a thing or isn't there a thing? This is one lens upon the problem of the copula.

The treachery of images is in likeness, but is the agglomeration of likeness worth granting identity in its own right? is it real?

What does that matter?

What we're really asking is how ideas matter. It's probably all that matters, so I don't think there's much use in acting like it doesn't matter.

Nobody who forces you to do something isn't also convincing you. if communication is change effected upon the similarly shaped machines to you, then change effected upon your fellows is all communication also. I have been told things successfully, I and have been changed and touched, over and over again, by ideas and art and drives and food and drink and love and affection -- all undifferentiated, because differences in type are merely good bookkeeping. Distinction is meant for the sake of clarity in reasoning -- no, in manipulation -- which means it is to be introduced well after we establish our base idioms of engagement, the ones that explain our drive existing at all.