Inflate or destroy self?

Yes, love and friendship are good ways to "connect" with other selves, but sometime they last, and sometime they don't. In the end, any solace you find in them is partial and probably temporary. We remain individuals, unique, and quite alone in our head.


Seems to me that a modern concept of self involves a degree of individualism, a distance towards mass ideologies such as communism or fascism, an awareness that organized religion and big masses are a form of mind control, and that melting oneself into the masses is tempting but illusory and dangerous.

Too many pages to wade through, and in particular those in a philosophical thread and so if I am being redundant, I apologize.

I would suggest that self-destruction is not anywhere near the same as rejection of self.

Self-destruction incorporates far more than a shift in perspective. It means the literal destruction of the self as defined by the totality of one's life.
In other words, it leads to death.

If an addict is found dead in the hallway of an apartment building his or her death was a result of self-destructive behavior, but in no way a means to a more enlightened perception of reality.

If you are dead, through self-destrucitve behavior, you cannot achieve Enlightenment.

Whether or not one must reject the self to achieve some true sense of reality, it won't be achieved through self-destruction, as we know the term.

It's pretty hilarious to see Fresco prate about a belligerent self after he responded to criticism with his own belligerence. His reaction, though, is strong evidence that there is a self. That the description of the self may change is not evidence that the self does not exist. The same is true with Fresco's silly claims about reality. He is always talking about a description of reality, rather than an ultimate or objective reality. That the description changes, or is imperfect, is not evidence that there is no objective reality. There is far too much of the the word game in his dialectic, and it is essentially appeals to the authorities he prefers.

What would a true sense of reality be like?

\

I'll have you know there are many other 'Franks'.

Not physically of course, but if you stopped imagining it, would that not be the same thing ?

Thankyou for illustrating my thesis so succintly with the description of your "nice dog-walkie self" above. The lack of control over the appearance of that other one (the belligerent fool) which is so easily triggered by inocuous comments which are automatically interpreted as a personal attack on its expertise, is a textbook example of what Ouspesnky called the level of "the man-machine". which has no claim to a unified self.

It is of course that "fool-self" which does the muttering which it projects onto the "fresco" which triggered "the fool" into existence. It is the "fool-self" which fails to understand that some of the "frescos" have no particular esteem for Derrida or to understand that at least one "fresco" has written a paper critical of aspects of Derrida's writing.

One fresco has even experimented with applauding some of " history pundit self's" contributions on other threads in an attempt to help Setanta with its belligerence problem, but this was obviously less than successful.

These fresco's seem to have no problem with co-existence with each other. The one that the fool evoked here has no illusions that its message will be understood by Setanta. But this response may be of benefit to others with a genuine interest in discussing the concept of "self " rather than adopting those simplistic postures I mentioned earlier.

There is no "belligerent fool," only your obsessive need to denigrate anyone who disagrees with you. The new English according to Fresco . . .

belligerent

adj.

1. Disagreeing with or scorning the ideas of Fresco. 2. Describes anyone who publicly disparages Fresco's ideas.

. . . i'll pass.

Once again, i didn't mention history--it appears to me that you bring it up in a feeble attempt to get an angry reaction. Sorry about your luck. In fact, it appears that you are the victim of anything which is ". . . automatically interpreted as a personal attack on [your] expertise . . ." Looks like projection to me.

If WHO stopped imagining it? :-)

Well . . . you, of course . . .

René Descartes walks into a bar, and stands there with his hands on his hips, looking around--so the bartender quickly gets tired of that and asks:

Hey Buddy, are you just gonna stand there, or do you want a drink?

Descartes gives him a disdainful look, and replies:

I think not . . . and POOF! he disappears.

I merely note that "the fool" has justified its label by singling out "fresco" for this particular episode of its projection denial. The fool seems to have conveniently forgotten that there is a list of a2k members who identified him as a primary aggressor prone to hypocritical projection.

Your reaction that I "am seeking an angry response" merely indicates that you don't know what I'm talking about, or more probably "don't want to know". The first is acceptable, the second is childish.
EDIT
....the second is in lay terms "childish", but is understandable as an attempt at maintaining "self-integrity" which might be undermined.

I see you're again displaying your profound wisdom by name-calling. Keep it up, Bubba, you show your true colors.

We should start a thread about Setanta's anger management problems...

This said, and before this exchange collapsed into the usual acrimonious tit-for-tat, Set had a point that negating the existence of selves leads to all manners of logical contradictions.

Plus I fail to see why it is necessary or even desirable. What's so bad about "our selves" that we would need to get rid of the very notion of self??? That seems to flow from a fundamentally pessimistic view of life, one that leads, as the PO suggests, to self-destruction.

If you wish to accuse me of "anger management problems," then i would ask you what you make of Fresco's increasing hysteria, which includes name calling and personal denigration. I made no disobliging remarks about him personally, i simply scorned his point of view. Do you think that was an example of anger? How do you characterize Fresco's continuing and increasing use of petty insults?

It's a well-recognized fact, agreed even by posters who tend to value your judgment, that your style of interaction is quite aggressive. It’s not a personal accusation that I myself make, it’s a consensus. Maybe Fresco did poke you a bit by mentioning “historians” (are you one?) but your reaction was disproportionate. You’re pretty easy to irk, and that IMHO is a weakness. If a poster you’re arguing with doesn’t know what to respond to a point you make, the only thing he/she has to do is reply with a little tease and KA-BOOM! you go nuclear, thereby looking like a fool...

This is a tour de force in fantasy. Fresco is the one who has sunk to name-calling, not me. Fresco is the one who was shouting (bold-faced type), not me. Yet you're claiming my response was "disproportionate?" I simply said that it was a matter of indifference to me if he responded to me. I pointed out that i enjoy, on a daily basis, good social relations. That was a point which slipped past him, and apparently has slipped past you. I was talking about real life, where i have good social relations. Fresco, in his hysteria, was suggesting that i won't enjoy good social relations online, which is generally distinguished from real life.

I see you yourself are sinking in to name-calling. Is that all that you and Fresco have going for you? You allege that this chimerical judgment you have made of me is a consensus. Upon what basis do you allege that? There may be a handful of people here who hope to make me angry when they post, and who constantly allege that i am angry. But not them, nor you nor Fresco can hear my voice, see my face, see my posture--none of you really have the slightest basis for alleging that i am angry. Fresco said i was belligerent, for no better reason than that i criticized his ideas. Now you claim that i have anger management problems, apparently for no reason at all.

I have over the years interacted with hundreds of people here, perhaps even thousands. I have gotten credit for more questions answered than any other member here (although that honor ought to go to George, for all the Latin translations he provides). I don't suggest that having the most credit for providing answers says anything about my character. It is, however, direct evidence of interactions with other members who valued what i had posted. I know hundreds of people here as well as one could expect in the online environment. I have met dozens of members in person, some of them before this site even existed.

So where do you get this allegation about a consensus? It seems to me that you just wish it were true, and therefore allege it is true, more or less on the same basis as Fresco's claim that i was belligerent, when all i did was question his ideas.

There is a lack of a sense of proportion here, but it's not on my part.

We can't be both connected and individuals... unless you can explain how? We can't love and be alone.. unless you can explain how?

When the person we love (perhaps our mother) dies, does our love die with them... or does it continue?

If our affection for others is limited to them being able to reciprocate isn't this a sign that the self and its attendant selfishness is undermining that affection?




The concept of self naturally gives rise to the concept of other. If one can't find where the demarcation is between the two then it is just a symptom of a belief in a self that gives rise to the notion of 'melting into masses' and the notion of 'dangerous' .... we are already on mass of reality.. but with infinite views of what reality is... so to speak... those different views produce the illusion of individuality.... or do you disagree?

I prefer 'letting go of the notion of a self' to your phrase 'stopped imagining it'....... :-)

Is Setanta a troll? Topic:
http://able2know.org/topic/185164-2

Personally... his favourite name for me is 'little bitch' and his favorite name for the Dalai Lama is 'pig'... nuff said.