Inflate or destroy self?

@Frank Apisa,

Oh...I raise you one.

Wink

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@Setanta,

My response was perfectly courteous. Please rephrase yours accordingly if you wish me to reply.

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No, your response was not "perfectly courteous." You took an immediately sideswipe at me based on a completely false allegation of the use of some unspecified historical doctrine, when i hadn't mentioned history. It is immaterial to me whether or not you reply.

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@Setanta,

Fine. As long as that self works for you, stick with it, but don't expect much from social transactions.

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@fresco,

Pouting is bad for the tone of your skin--it will make your face sag as you age.

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@Setanta,

Thanks. I'll forward that advice to the appropriate teenage magazine.

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So you're going to continue with one silly, snide little insult after the other---and you tell me what i can expect from social interactions. You don't know a thing about me and the quality of my life, nor the social experiences i have. I live in quite a nice neighborhood in which people are friendly and commonly greet one another when they pass on the street. I am a member in good standing of the international fraternity of dog-walkers, which assures daily social exchange, even when my friend the dog is not with me.

I guess you can console yourself by going off to mutter the dicta of St. Derrida as you rehearse you religious doctrines. Have a nice day, Bubba.

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@Setanta,

We could do with a second opinion... from the dog ! Very Happy

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@Setanta,

Better still..produce that "nice self" here as evidence, and dump the useless "belligerent one".

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@JLNobody,

Quote:

It seems to me that every phenomenon can be reduced to almost inconcevably small substrata ( molecular, atomic, subatomic, etc.). And of course one can reverse the "ladder" in terms of ascending emergent levels)--all of which are human constructs.

Life cannot be reduced to chemistry, and chemistry has yet to be understood in terms of quantic mecanics. Just because a level of organisation is smaller than another does not imply it determines or causes the level above.

Besides, a tiger is not a human construct. If you think he is, jump in his den at the zoo and see what happens...

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@fresco,

Quote:

some of us are in the camp with the slogan: "Thinkers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your selves ! " ...but as Olivier knows, that is pretty scary.

That would be bliss, nothing scary about it. The real scary thought, which I suspect religious people, buddhists and "un-selfers" spend their life running away from, is that we are all alone, trapped in the prison of our mind, and unable to communicate in a truly intimate, effortless and mistake-less manner with anyone, really.

Quote:

Atheists might note that Descarte's dualism required "God" to connect self with body. So those atheists who persist with Descarte's cogito (existence of self) are ignoring a fundamental sticking point in dualism.

The existence of selves, or minds, can be explained as a superior level of organisation within nature, rather than as a fundamental duality in nature. Similarly, the fact that life and inanimated mater coexist in the same universe does not require any duality, nor a God. It's just two different levels of organisation, one almost infinitely more complex than the other.

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@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

...we are all alone..

Show me anything that is independent of anything else... i.e. that is not interconnected? We are all limbs of one life.. so to speak... it is a mistake to think we are all alone... if we did believe that we would suffer and with no reason to do so.

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@igm,

You are all alone, igm. Nobody has 100% trust in you, there's no one you can have 100% trust in, and you cannot, in final analysis, be fully and totally understood by anyone nor fully understand anyone. There will always be a barrier between your mind and any other mind. The best you can do is bridge that barrier with language, art, or love, but that bridge is imperfect, frail and always temporary.

That's the real scary thought implied by a modern concept of self. That's why people speak to God; and that's why you wish your self did not exist, igm.

Because it's a prison.

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@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

You are all alone, igm. Nobody has 100% trust in you, there's no one you can have 100% trust in, and you cannot, in final analysis, be fully and totally understood by anyone nor fully understand anyone. There will always be a barrier between your mind and any other mind. The best you can do is bridge that barrier with language, art, or love, but that bridge is imperfect, frail and always temporary.

That's the real scary thought implied by a modern concept of self. That's why people speak to God; and that's why you wish your self did not exist, igm.

Because it's a prison.

So, I'm all alone because no one has 100% trust in me? Why would that make me an independent entity separate from everyone and everything else?

What is the barrier between minds... what is it made of?

What is the 'modern' concept of self and why should I fear a concept?

Is the self a 'modern' concept or is it something more than that... if it is... what is it?

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@Olivier5,

Hmm ...you make some sense about the word "reductionism" but your isolationist position seems to preclude a "top down" approach to "self" from a social structure to an individual structure. (i.e "nesting" in systems theoretic terms). From a gestalt point of view, the whole determines the parts, not vice-versa (self is to society as organ is to body). And theists who advocate equivalence between "God" and "Holistic Consciousness" would seem to have little problem in surrendering that component "self".

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Food for thought...

http://listverse.com/2013/02/22/10-mind-bending-implications-of-the-many-worlds-theory/

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@igm,

Quote:

So, I'm all alone because no one has 100% trust in me? Why would that make me an independent entity separate from everyone and everything else?

Alone and independent are different concepts. We are radically alone, in the sense that we cannot communicate perfectly, without errors, mistakes or misunderstandings with any other mind. We cannot get "out of our mind" and "into the mind of somebody else". We cannot unite our mind with the mind of someone else. The project described by Fresco in the post I replied to ("let all selves unite") is simply impossible to do.

Quote:

What is the barrier between minds... what is it made of?

I suppose it comes from the barrier between bodies, since minds are products of bodies. Two human bodies cannot fuse into one another, as I am sure you noticed...

1 Reply

@fresco,

Quote:

Hmm ...you make some sense about the word "reductionism" but your isolationist position seems to preclude a "top down" approach to "self" from a social structure to an individual structure. (i.e "nesting" in systems theoretic terms). From a gestalt point of view, the whole determines the parts, not vice-versa (self is to society as organ is to body).

Again, why must it be only a one way street? Why can't society shape individuals and vice-versa?

The difference between mammal and insect societies is that mammals can decide to live out of their societies ("lone wolf syndrome"), the individual retains a degree of autonomy, and therefore the societies of mammals are fluid and can always change under individual pressure, unlike beehives. E.g. revolutions happens in human societies, not in beehives.

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@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

We are radically alone, in the sense that we cannot communicate perfectly, without errors, mistakes or misunderstandings with any other mind.

If we love someone (perhaps our mother) are we alone because " we cannot communicate perfectly, without errors, mistakes or misunderstandings with any other mind. "?

Quote:

What is the barrier between minds... what is it made of?

Olivier5 wrote:

I suppose it comes from the barrier between bodies, since minds are products of bodies. Two human bodies cannot fuse into one another, as I am sure you noticed...

Again, is love prevented by our bodies. The body doesn't seem to be a barrier to love... does it? Mental feelings for others aren't blocked by physical phenomena.. are they? Being happy (in the company of friends) isn't... etc...etc..

Again, is the self a concept... if not what is it? Why should I fear a concept if it is one?

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@igm,

No time now, my loved ones require my presence... :-) but you're right: intimacy is possible. More later.

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Inflate or destroy self?

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