The Philosophy of the Self.

truth
Rufio, I can't or can't make myself respond to the first paragraph of your post at 1:03 am. It would be like voluntarily jumping into a very deep hole with the intention of climbing out. I think a general answer to your second paragraph might be "culture."

Terry, there is a sense that could be used to determine color - we just don't happen to have it. It's objectivly sensible through other means than simple sight. What makes lines more real than color? Really, they are just delightful mental interpretations of a series of dots placed in a particular proximity.

Which post are you referring to, JL? I don't think I'm in your time zone.

truth
I'm impressed with the power of this subject, that we continue to discuss the question of nondualism despite the futility of doing so. Now Terry has suggested that we who have a glimpse of nondualism (i.e., of the realization that I AM that which is perceived/ that I AM my experience (not that it is external to me and "happening" TO me/ that object and subject exist mutually, as aspects of each other, etc. etc.) are the subjects of hypnotism!!!
I think the opposite is the case. Gurdieff, as Focus points out, sees normal man as asleep in his normal perception--culture is a kind of sleep-walking: we live in a culturally constituted world, a socially constructed world, and we do so as if it were the most natural thing. And it IS for us: We are cultural beings. Buddhism helps us to transcend our cultural conditioning (not to make us pre-cultural), to see through it, to wake up, to "dehypnotize" ourselves; to see reality more as it is. The Buddha means "the awakened one". I find your suggestion amusing. I really do. Oh well, sleep on.
P.S., As corny as it sounds, let me add that most of us try--in our pursuit of happiness--to turn a bad dream into a good dream. Mystical discipline merely tries to help us wake up.

Ok, I think I figured out which post you were talking about - now explain how, if emotion is transmitted by culture alone, babies know to scream and cry when they are unhappy and smile when they're not? And how is logical thinking transmitted by culture? I would think that logical thinking would be required to understand culture, thus creating an inescapable circle.

JL, waking up from cultural conditioning is not all that mystical. Yes, we may be conditioned to certain patterns of living, ways of reacting to other people, animals, etc, but the ways we react to the natural, nonliving environment (in terms of identifying ob jects as such, colors as different from each other, identifying themselves, and identifying objects as unique), all cultures are the same. This would imply, I think, that this interpretation of reality transcends culture. It may be false, but then it would have to be a property of humanity, not culture, that provides the illusion. And if it is the nature of humanity to make these disctintions, where exactly are you "escaping" to by denying them?

JLN and twyvel.

I commend your patience!

truth
Fresco, what patience? I'm banging my unenlightened head against the wall.
Rufio, all our knowledge, our interpretations, of the world, social and physical is subject to cultural conditioning. Ferrel children, those raised by animals, even "copy" the behavior of their hosts. Eskimos have a different lexicon of type of snow. Some peoples seem to see, or identify different ranges of color. One anthropologists upon taking a deep jungle dweller onto the plains of his country (where he had never gone) was surprised that the "native" perceived elephants in the distance to be small--in the jungle he had, apparently, never seen objects at a great distance. But all that aside, I never implied that all human BEHAVIOR is cultural, just that most--virtually all--human ideation and valuations most likely are. There are undoubtedly area of behavior that are instinctive, we all know how to pee; we all learn where we "should" pee, etc. Babies instinctively scream when they are startled by something big or when about to be dropped, and the sucking response is instinctive, etc. But you CHOOSE obviously to not understand my meaning. Your competitive drive obstructs understanding. I hope that is not the case in school.
Also, when I said that mystical awakening permits one to see through the artificiality of cultural constructions, I was talking about transcendence, not escape. Now please, I don't have as many years to live as you do. Don't waste my time. Leave me alone until you feel like being sincere.

I suggested at the very beginning of this thread there would be "mental hernias"--------now how did I know this?

BTW----it has been entertaining------great writing.

Fresco
Everyone seems to have "bought" into Gurdjieff's committee of selves with a rotating chairman and I don't remember you dealing with the ego or was I asleep? No matter-----You all took the discussion to a new level----congratulations.

About snow - that myth has be dubunked.

About color - I can distinguish light pink from medium pink from dark pink even if I call them all pink. Language doesn't affect how my eyes work.

If crying is instinctive, than so is emotion, since crying is an emotion. I think you're willingly not understanding ME.

I'm being absolutely sincere. You failed to read most of the body of my last post. Let me repost it for you:

"Yes, we may be conditioned to certain patterns of living, ways of reacting to other people, animals, etc, but the ways we react to the natural, nonliving environment (in terms of identifying ob jects as such, colors as different from each other, identifying themselves, and identifying objects as unique), all cultures are the same. This would imply, I think, that this interpretation of reality transcends culture."

Does the term "human universals" ring any kind of bell?

Hello perception.

The ego did get a mention around page 1 in terms of Schopenhauer's influence on Freud.

JLN

Esoteric groups advise their members that it is futile to attempt to explain the material to resistant others. The level of awareness is absent.

Everyone? Hardly.

I'm glad you picked up on that Joe----I myself could never make the stretch.

I also mentioned the ego because it seems there are 2 or 3 egos getting in the way of real communication here. :wink:

I don't really want to engage any further because I for one can recognize the different levels of intellect and you guys are on a different level.

truth
Perception, Sorry, I wasn't even aware that we started out talking about "ego" in the freudian sense. I thought we were talking about the "sense of self" not the administrative function, the mediator between id and superego (I guess the topic just morphed). I contrast the differences between psychoanalytic "ego" and mystical "ego" as the philosopher, David Chalmers contrasts mind (as in mind-body relationship) and consciousness (as in the experience of life)--this is directed mainly to Fresco and those who looked up the link he gave us some time back.
Rufio, gasp!

Perception,

The committee concept is relatively easy to follow.

I quote a typical passage from Ouspensky:

"One of man's important mistakes," Ouspenky said, "one which must be remembered, is his illusion in regard to his I.
"Man such as we know him, the 'man machine,' the man who cannot 'do,' and with whom and through whom everything 'happens,' cannot have a permanent and single I. His I changes as quickly as his thoughts, feelings, and moods, and he makes a profound mistake in considering himself always one and the same person; in reality he is always a different person, not the one he was a moment ago.
"Man has no permanent and unchangeable I. Every thought, every mood, every desire, every sensation, says 'I.' And in each case it seems to be taken for granted that this I belongs on the Whole, to the whole man, and that a thought, a desire, or an aversion is expressed by this Whole. In actual fact there is no foundation whatever for this assumption. Man's every thought and desire appears and lives quite separately and independently of the Whole. And the Whole never expresses itself, for the simple reason that it exists, as such, only physically as a thing, and in the abstract as a concept. Man has no individual I. But there are, instead, hundreds and thousands of separate small I's, very often entirely unknown to one another, never coming into contact, or, on the contrary, hostile to each other, mutually exclusive and incompatible. Each minute, each moment, man is saying or thinking 'I.' And each time his I is different. Just now it was a thought, now it is a desire, now a sensation, now another thought, and so on, endlessly. Man is a plurality. Man's name is legion.
"The alternation of I's, their continual obvious struggle for supremacy, is controlled by accidental external influences. Warmth, sunshine, fine weather, immediately call up a whole group of I's. Cold, fog, rain, call up another group of I's, other associations, other feelings, other actions. There is nothing in man able to control this change of I's, chiefly because man does not notice, or know of it; he lives always in the last I. Some I's, of course, are stronger than others. But it is not their own conscious strength; they have been created by the strength of accidents or mechanical external stimuli. Education, imitation, reading, the hypnotism of religion, caste, and traditions, or the glamour of new slogans, create very strong I's in man's personality, which dominate whole series of other, weaker, I's.
"Man has no individuality. He has no single, big I. Man is divided into a multiplicity of small I's.
"And each separate small I is able to call itself by the name of the Whole, to act in the name of the Whole, to agree or disagree, to give promises, to make decisions, with which another I or the Whole will have to deal. This explains why people so often make decisions and so seldom carry them out. A man decides to get up early beginning from the following day. One I, or a group of I's, decide this. but getting up is the business of another I who entirely disagrees with the decision and may even know absolutely nothing about it. Of course the man will again go on sleeping in the morning and in the evening he will again decide to get up early. In some cases this may assume very unpleasant consequences for a man. A small accidental I may promise something, not to itself, but to someone else at a certain moment simply out of vanity or for amusement. Then it disappears, but the man, that is, the whole combination of other I's who are quite innocent of this, may have to pay for it all his life. It is the tragedy of the human being that any small I has the right to sign checks and promissory notes and the man, that is, the Whole, has to meet them.
People's whole lives often consist in paying off the promissory notes of small accidental I's."

JL

I'm certain that you were correct in pursuing your chain of thought but all along I kept wondering about the ego----when does the ego enter into all this and how do we deal with the ego. I also wanted to tune out the mystical aspects of the discussion just as I tend to tune out religion in other conversations.

I thoroughly enjoyed your essays and at times even thought I understood where you were going.

Fresco

Thanks for entertaining my comment. I had never read the passage from Ouspensky----now that I have I agree that the concept is easy to follow and can only say with respect that it makes as much sense as other philosophical concepts-----none can be proven and faith becomes just as much of a necessity as in religion

You don't need faith once you see it in yourself...but who is willing to admit that "control" might be an illusion ?

BTW Twyvel,

The use of the phrase "external influences" in the Gudjieff system should be viewed with respect to "ordinary man" in his "somnabulist state". This is not valid for "higher man" who aspires to be part of "the absolute". At this level "duality" and even "triality" (?) have been surpassed.

Yes, fresco I haven't read much of Gudjieff's system but I think I relate to it.

BTW, "higher man" would aspire to the absolute, not a "part", ....no?

In the system the "aim of the work" (self observation) is to "evolve" towards "the Absolute". There is no provision for man "being an expression of cosmic consciousness"