First, a thing can have being in the world that
exists outside thought or imagination. [...] This way of existence is called real being.
The other way that something may exist or have being is in the mind or imagination—what metaphysicians call cognitional being.

This conflates the concept of a thing with the thing itself. I am currently imagining a green star (an object which doesn't exist, since it is impossible for a blackbody to produce only green light without also emitting every other kind of light on the visible spectrum), but green stars do not exist, period. They don't exist in reality or in my mind - what exists in my mind is a concept and a mental image corresponding to that concept, which I call a "green star". But that is a completely different entity than an actual green star.

So to say that a house still has "cognition being" after its real being is destroyed, and that this proves that being is not a part of its nature, is incorrect. The nature of a real house is not the same as the nature of my cognition about a house.

What does gravity's effect on time have to do with Aquinas' metaphysics?

I wouldn't use the word context or thnk of it as "me" being a human or a bear as if I could be either. Depending what you mean by context, yes.

Reassuring myself that I'm making sense has a pretty high priority. So does discovering that I've made a mistake, if that's what happened.

You think that your being a human and not a bear depends on the context?

Thanks, but I am sure you have better things to so in the summer!

But this depends on what you mean by "nature" what you are describing to me seems to categories that are vague and themselves mutable. We have a category "bear" and "human", but these are context-specific and do not seem to have any objective meaning. What you are describing is attributes of things that we have classified into categories, I do not see any inherent nature in them, which I think is really code for this concept of essence.

Brian, I'm trying to formulate a response to your query. It's been difficult, but I'm still working on it.

Great! Thanks for the patient explanations.