The different places of self - critique of individualism.
Santeri Satama
https://iai.tv/video/the-different-places-of-the-self&utm_source=reddit&_auid=2020#
Kastrup's concept of Markov Blanket as the social sphere could be actually closer to the Hindu view as presented here, than indivudalism of distinct boundaries.
***
For a fuller picture I attach comment I wrote on the forum where I saw this presentation, even though it's mostly repeating what I've said on this forum:
In my language (Finnish) neologisms for 'individual' (yksilö) and 'person' were artificially created by a single scholar in 19th century for the administrative purposes of the colonizing state structure. How did language refer e.g. to countable number of people without those word concepts? We still say 'How many spirits?' (Kuinka monta henkeä) e.g. when making restaurant reservation. Like Latin spirit, 'henki' refers to breathing. 'Human' is another possibility.
Finnish strongly tends to avoid agentive structures unless specifically needed, in linguistic expressions events just happen by themselves, often expressed by just a verb in indefinite/asubjective person, without any subject or object. It was interesting to hear Indian self-conceptualization as hierarchic node of relations. Before colonization, Finnish society was anarchic rather than hierarchic, and because of how the weather is etc., Finns are highly introverted compared to better climates where extroverts tolerate each other instead of trying to get away from crowded places.
Being introverted does not mean being separated and distinct individual, but it's also different from the extroverted 'self' constructed mainly from the social sphere. The underlying philosophy is being unique (cf Stirner), each event, being etc. is an unique aggregate of relations (cf Mitakuye Oyasin). Finnish animistic concept of soul is tripartite, dynamic balance of Self (itse), Nature (luonto) and Spirit (henki).
From Finnish anarchic uniqueness it's interesting to observe how Indo-European language has taken different turns of how Hindu soul/atman is described as radically different from the metaphysical political project of individualism, both of which carry and reproduce the class society model of ruling class of scribes organizing the work of subject classes.
It might be interesting to note also that Finnish word for 'Self' has also the earlier meaning of 'Shadow', perhaps referring also to the double layered character of metacognition, awareness of being aware for various durations. According to some studies, metacognitive durations grow in size in social interactions of speech acts, which define the usual first (speaking), second (spoken to) and third (spoken about) personal pronouns. Metacognition is most clearly absent during deep sleep.
Finnish unique is not limited only to interpersonal relations, but relates to whole nature. Which is not an external object, but relation of participatory creation, as 'luonto' shares same root with word 'to create', 'luoda', and suffix -nto has reflexive, intransitive character, compared to 'luomus', with transitive, objectified character.
David Sundaram
David Sundaram
What we need is a more creatively functional philosophy (tool?) whereby such potential for change may actually be activated/inspired and guided, which is what my treatise is about Sanman.
Dana Lomas
Santeri Satama
This is an invitation for you 'Come out' (or further out) of your 'closet'
David Sundaram
Is individualism the notion that many apparent individuals are somehow other than the sole Individual ?
Santeri Satama
I'd be interested in takes on this explication of neutral monism from Michael Silberstein ~ who as been referenced before in this forum ... Neutral Monism: Reintegrating Space, Time and Conscious Experience
Superposition of Einstein blocks has been familiar idea to me from the work of "quantum mind" physicist Matti Pitkänen, who has worked on that approach for few decades. Ethically I consider that theory abomination, because Groundhog universe tastes horrible, without promise of happy end of moving on like in the movie Groundhog day when the protagonist Bill Murray gets it finally right in the judgement of the Big Other.
There's some truth, of course, to the claim that physical is psychological. On the other hand, the variety of experience in this world already does not fit block universe, but goes also beyond.
Dana Lomas
Dana Lomas
Santeri Satama
Ashvin Pandurangi
Dana Lomas
Lou Gold
Or ... Conscious interbeing is the way out of the nightmare of the segregated individual.
Lou Gold
Santeri Satama
Or ... As the center collapses there is no-thing in-between to separate, which means war or peace. It's a choice. Therefore, act with hope.
Lou Gold
Dana Lomas
Lou Gold
Dana Lomas
Ashvin Pandurangi
Lou Gold
Dana Lomas
David Sundaram
Anti-individualism is a return to the unconscious collectivist nightmare. It is a full embrace of Colin Wilson's 'Robot' - "The average man is a conformist, accepting miseries and disasters with the stoicism of a cow standing in the rain." The individual properly understood, respected and integrated is the means through which the New Heaven and New Earth are revealed, the New Jerusalem awakened.
This is a very large postulate (much larger than a singular M@L at play, porpoising in and out of form) subject, but here's to think about (from my treatise):
"Despite the fact that each and every soul and
personality aspect thereof really derives from and so may
truly be regarded as being an expression of Life Itself, some
configurations thereof are more conducive of experience and
further expression of Love and Joy while others are not only
less so but may
even be counterproductive
in said regard. As the apostle Paul put it: “In a great house
there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood
and of earth; and some to honor, and some to
dishonor.” (II Timothy 2:20)
So embracing and supporting everyone and everything equally,
without reservation in any regard, will not serve to
operationally maximize the flowering and fructification of Love and
Joy in The Flow Field of Life.
Among other things (expanding the scope of The Tree of
Life analogy), because of the fact that still incarnating
souls are often, in one way or another, still fairly self ishly
motivated, they may also (in many cases quite unconsciously!)
in effect function (sometimes quite ‘poisonously’ even) as
‘parasites’ and ‘thorns’ in relation to others. Would-be
Cosmic, i.e. Tree-hugging☺,
souls may therefore be purposed (by Love and
Joy, the imperative of Life Itself !)
to learn to recognize as well as then devise and implement ways of
deflecting and educationally redirecting or, such measures possibly
failing, counteracting such tendencies in oneself and/or
others so as to stop these from being harmfully ‘acted out’,
if, when and in whatever ways and to whatever extent one may have the
capacity to so do.
The point being made here is that, to become and
synergically [continue to] function as a self-transcendentally
wholesome agent of Life, one must both learn to perceptively
discern what sorts of things will and what sorts of things won’t
really serve to optimize and augment the experience and
expression of Love and Joy in the self ish-temptation
filled context of Life’s earthly matrix, as well as then act
wisely (i.e. judiciously) on the basis of such
knowledge. As the Biblical story of Solomon’s
most famous ‘judgment’ clearly illustrates, there is much more
to serving the cause of Life than ‘unconditionally’ embracing
and/or supporting every aspect of one’s own or others’
being-n-doing processes."
'Integrating' can't be simply, one's-own-or-all-others'-wish fulfillingly accomplished, IOW.
Santeri Satama
Borders of separation are a prison, especially if they are supposed to be on all the time, also for an extreme introvert. All this talk about individualism sounds like it's all in the head (never mind heart and guts), all about false sense of control, coming from some deep fear.
Lou Gold
Lou Gold
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase ‘each other’
doesn’t make any sense.
Lou Gold
The Sun Is In Your Eyes Lyrics – Jacob Collier
The sun is in your eyes
The sun is in your eyes
Throw me the cold
Throw me the cold, cold water of your smile again
To take me by surprise
You take me by surprise
Throw me the bold
Throw me the bold, bold treasure of your lips again
And where I go
You lead me in the right direction
With your love is my protection
I’ll be a world of your projection
And where I go
Singing songs of your affection
With rhymes to your perfection
In my eyes see a reflection
Of you
I see you clearly now
I hold you dearly now
The sun is in my eyes
Ashvin Pandurangi
Borders of separation are a prison, especially if they are supposed to be on all the time, also for an extreme introvert. All this talk about individualism sounds like it's all in the head (never mind heart and guts), all about false sense of control, coming from some deep fear."
― Erich Neumann, The Origins and History of Consciousness
Santeri Satama
It almost sounds like The Womb is here the Dragon - which lives in a dark cavern inside a mountain.
“…only one who has risked the fight with the dragon and is not overcome by it wins the hoard, the “treasure hard to attain”. He alone has a genuine claim to self-confidence, for he has faced the dark ground of his self and thereby has gained himself. This experience gives some faith and trust…in the ability of the self to sustain him, for everything that menaced him from inside he has made his own. He has acquired the right to believe that he will be able to overcome all future threats by the same means. He has arrived at an inner certainty which makes him capable of self-reliance.” (Carl Jung, The Symbolic Life)
https://academyofideas.com/2018/11/nietzsche-jung-myth-age-of-the-hero/
Need I remind that Beauty and Beast, kissing the frog(prince!) etc. also tell about the Dragon and give a hint how to win it? Knight in Shining Armor riding to the rescue of the Damsel in Distress is just an early stage of the anima-animus integration. We do that only to face the fear of the Big Dark Soft and Moist that has the power to melt the hardest dick. True Self confidence does not come from the hard armor we wear, from defense mechanisms of the ego, from the empathy barriers that sensitivity builds.
What is the Dragon? Can there be bigger fear than opening your heart and letting in all the pain in the world? Maybe there can, but to be able to find and face such, there's the Dragon to fight, the Frog to kiss.
Dana Lomas
Santeri Satama
Dana Lomas
Ashvin Pandurangi
Santeri Satama
Does everyOne just want a womb of one's own ?
Dana Lomas
Santeri Satama
Its not about atom (individual) or collection of atoms (collective). Framing our question like that is utterly boring and misguided. It's not about protestant work ethic of donkey and carrot either. That's just the usual usual technocratic instrumentalism and instrumental totalitarianism.
Our question is all about hedonism. More mind-good (mielihyvä; pleasure) and less mind-bad. A significant part of pleasure is avoidance of boredom and stagnation by seeking out and inventing new challenges to face, new lessons to learn.
Ashvin Pandurangi
Dana Lomas
Santeri Satama
In hindsight, I read the tone of irony of the post-modern zeitgeist as attempt to keep some emotional distance to the observation that the sky is falling down, as the project of modernism lost self-confidence and justification of offering its promise of techno-paradise, and became empty and increasingly authoritarian and dishonest gesticulation by mechanized NPC zombies of the materialist faith.
Ashvin Pandurangi
Santeri Satama
Ashvin Pandurangi
Santeri Satama
Ashvin Pandurangi
Santeri Satama
Plato's pharmacy is the only Derrida essay I've read so well that I've read it again. It's hauntingly beautiful, poetic flow of writ about writing with deep meaning. Well worth the experience.
For other Derrida stuff, I also have to go to second-hand summaries:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/derrida/#BasArgImpTimHeaOneSpeSecSov
From quick glance at the SEP, "relational and referential language that is not merely self-referential" in the tradition of transcendental idealism (Continental philosophy at large is responding to Kant) seems what is very much his focus of thinking-further. Derrida speaks about necessary conditions of experience being necessarily heterogenous and thus denies the x-an sich as a unity. Self-referentiality contains always the other, so it's not pure. Ie. pretty much same as what Gödel showed. To be able to say more I should read more of the SEP article, and you can do that too.
Ashvin Pandurangi
Santeri Satama
Whether Bergson explicately says so or not (haven't checked) it seems obvious that this intuition does not breath in separation from holographic memory. Derrida seems to address the question, whether holographic memory is static piling into Akashic records, or dynamic and evolving holomovement. Derrida argues for holomovement:
In order to understand the trajectory of Derrida’s position, we must first attend to its roots. Derrida wrote his dissertation on the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl and he remained committed to phenomenology and rationalism.[7] Phenomenology seeks the premise of pure intuition that grasps the phenomena that appear to consciousness but, even in this basic premise of Husserl’s philosophy, Derrida suspects classical metaphysics. For the purposes of brevity, the main problem Derrida locates in Husserl’s phenomenology is its claim to analyze the perceptions of things in themselves without preconceptions and, based on this intuition, to determine the absolute structures of knowing.[8] For Derrida, there is an interpenetration here that already suggests a lack of clear distinction: how does one determine the structures of knowing apart from the phenomenon? Derrida argues that Husserl moves towards an articulation of some pure, ideal form of knowing that reintroduces classical metaphysical distinctions between something absolute and fundamental (the structure of knowing) and contingent and passing (the phenomenon).[9] The introduction of language and time into Derrida’s analysis of Husserl seals his break from the father of phenomenology. For Husserl, linguistic signs are both indications (“contingently and empirically associated with an external entity”) and expressions (“meaning is immediately present to the speaker”) that are ineluctably interwoven. But, for Husserl, expressions are unrelated to anything outside the self even as expressions remain signs; that is to say, representative of something else. Signs simultaneously bridge a gap between exterior and interior referents and elide the distinction that Husserl is trying to maintain between empirical experience and the perception thereof. In other words, the linguistic distinctions that prize expression (immediate meaning) over indication (contingent external entity) reinscribe the metaphysical binaries that Husserl sought to overcome—mind and externality remain divided.
The rub gets worse when Derrida points out that, even as ideal, expressions are still signs and, as such, must also be repeatable. In his attempt to get at a pure source of meaning, Husserl has simultaneously posited a unique ideal that grounds meaning and freedom in language even as he has conceded that this ideal is repeatable and, as such, is not primary but secondary because it is already repeated! Derrida’s close study of Husserl reveals an inconsistency between ideality and reality, between a self that is self-positing and the inevitability of language and time that requires repetition in order to determine the legitimacy of signs (i.e. their alignment with referents).
Instead, Derrida argues that the self must operate in and through language and, therefore, must somehow externalize in order to repeat, to re-present; it cannot be trapped in a purely self-referential language (what he calls auto-affection). But how is the self both distinct and already outside of itself? When the self speaks, it is both speaker and listener. When the self looks at a mirror, it is both viewer and seen. The danger here for Derrida, as it is so pervasively throughout his thought, is the concern of establishing some presence, some immediacy that could, even in its most fleeting of moments, reinscribe binaries and metaphysics—an absolute difference between interior and exterior, self and other, and not allow the tension to remain. A pure continuity of the self as rooted in Descartes’ cogito, for example, throughout time would be discounted because it cannot account for the self’s inevitable grounding in language. However, language as pure “otherness” would lock something original and different into a relation wherein they could be tracked, and therefore, an analogy would start to emerge.[10]
And it is here that we arrive at arguably the most fundamental (and fundamentally difficult to define) element of Derrida’s philosophy: différance. Quite literally, différance is no-thing, no intelligibility, a constantly encountered impossibility that is the source of deconstruction and the re-presenting of the self that must be deconstructed over and over again.[11] We inevitably operate in and through language and history and, for Derrida, it is not that language is strictly conventional but neither is it pure or metaphysical—the iterability of language as it shifts between contexts reveals continuity alongside the destabilization inherent to language itself. A word can only mean something if it can be repeated in another context which means that the very use of the word relies on something that is not the word, on time and difference, that both makes the word possible and also makes it impossible. Writing, for Derrida, is more primary than speaking not in a literal sense but in the sense that language is radically embedded in inherited traditions, systems of meaning, and webs of relation that determine the nexus of meaning before the person speaks it. And not just before the person speaks it, but when the person speaks she is already so thoroughly enmeshed in this complexity of relations of meaning that instability, polysemy, and iterability are endless. The temporal dimension of reality creates destabilizing differences that are neither entirely distinct nor the same and can never find themselves apart from or before language. Language points to an origin outside of itself that drives the other-ing but that it can never get at or reveal. Meaning derives from the synthesis of continuity and difference inseparably bound with différance.[12] Derrida is not attempting to redefine (or un-define) each and every concept and word but to inscribe any and all concepts, language, things, whatever into this continuous/discontinuous play of différance.
https://churchlifejournal.nd.edu/articles/derrida-politics-and-the-little-way/
We should comprehend 'language' here very generally, corresponding to the Nature-aspect of Self-breathing-Nature. Singing into being and being bursting into song. We start our songs of Birth/Origin by invoking Nature, inviting Nature to intuit "self-an-sich" ;) and put it's soul aspect into the Self-singer - to possess and inspire a recreation of Nature-self. Recreation is neither absolute break nor permanence, but
"différance"
as short for Divinely Integrated Differentiation.
Divinely Integrated is the immanence. Differentiation is the transcendence. Derrida was a deep mystic and mythologer, writing-reading the ineffable in the textual tradition of transcendental idealism, differentiating and deconstructing it by his creative participation.
There's no support for the view that Derrida considered
"human experience of the world as such has always been the same and will always remain the same", on the contrary. His participation in evolution of consciousness was conscious of the evolution, and there for deeply and highly ethical path-finding in the ways of the heart.
Ashvin Pandurangi
"There's no support for the view that Derrida considered "human experience of the world as such has always been the same and will always remain the same", on the contrary. His participation in evolution of consciousness was conscious of the evolution, and there for deeply and highly ethical path-finding in the ways of the heart. "
2. However Derrida’s underlying assumption (which this essay does not explore) is that there is no God in the equation to guarantee such absolutes, and hence ideas about certainty are now ruptured. He concludes that any idea of a fixed centre was only a structure of power imposed on us by our past or by institutions of society, and does not in reality exist at all.
3. Hence for Derrida there is no ultimate reality, no God outside the system to which everyone and everything relates. Instead the only relationships that we can know are within the system of the world which Derrida calls discourses. For him ultimate reality is only a series of these discourses.
4. Because there is no fixed centre, there should no longer be any limits on what it is possible to think or believe. We should literally be able to think anything. We can be playful and flexible about the way we think, when we realise that “truth” and “falsehood” are simply wrong distinctions to make. Indeed they are just a destructive and harmful manifestation of that power structure.
5. Therefore we must stop considering everything in life, culture and thought in relation to absolute truth. To not do so is, for Derrida, oppressive and immoral.
Santeri Satama
In whatever way Bergson meant 'Intuition', his meaning was not aligned with Derrida's conclusion - there is no knowledge as such, there is no truth as such, there is no perception, no intuition of anything as such. So unless the author of that article is misrepresenting Derrida's conclusion (which is possible), there is a fundamental incongruency there between him and most (if not all) transcendental idealists, process philosophers, existential/phenomenological philosophers, integral philosophers and otherwise unclassified thinkers like Jung.
I just don't see it.
I intuit it. I extend my soul in it. I don't externalize Bergson and intuition, or Derrida and deconstruction. I'm a professional translator and that's how it works. The "black box" where translating ultimately happens.
But I do reject the article by that fundamentalist Bible thumper, it's not a welcome contribution to this philosophical discussion, I consider it not only ignorant, but hostile and thus ignorant and dishonest on purpose. Dogmatic religion is as bad as dogmatic metaphysics and dogmatic political ideology. It's the end of discussion.
Ashvin Pandurangi
Ashvin Pandurangi
Scott Roberts
" It's the same old anatman conclusion, which is expressed in many different ways by various philosophers and wisdom traditions. "An-sich" and "as-such" have same meaning with "atman" in the Derrida-Buddhism bridge, which was not left unnoticed by Buddhists."I can't really speak to this, but I remember Scott had referenced a book about this Derrida and Buddhism connection before, Derrida on the Mend. Maybe he can speak to that more.
Ashvin Pandurangi
Santeri Satama
According to his 1979 The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, the impact of the postmodern condition was to provoke skepticism about universalizing theories. Lyotard argues that we have outgrown our needs for metanarratives (French: métarécits) due to the advancement of techniques and technologies since World War II. He argues against the possibility of justifying the narratives that bring together disciplines and social practices, such as science and culture; "the narratives we tell to justify a single set of laws and stakes are inherently unjust."[32] A loss of faith in metanarratives has an effect on how we view science, art, and literature. Little narratives have now become the appropriate way for explaining social transformations and political problems. Lyotard argues that this is the driving force behind postmodern science. As metanarratives fade, science suffers a loss of faith in its search for truth, and therefore must find other ways of legitimating its efforts. Connected to this scientific legitimacy is the growing dominance for information machines. Lyotard argues that one day, in order for knowledge to be considered useful, it will have to be converted into computerized data. Years later, this led him into writing his book The Inhuman, published in 1988, in which he illustrates a world where technology has taken over.
Most famously, in La Condition postmoderne: Rapport sur le savoir (The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge) (1979), he proposes what he calls an extreme simplification of the "postmodern" as an 'incredulity towards meta-narratives'.[34] These meta-narratives—sometimes 'grand narratives'—are grand, large-scale theories and philosophies of the world, such as the progress of history, the knowability of everything by science, and the possibility of absolute freedom. Lyotard argues that we have ceased to believe that narratives of this kind are adequate to represent and contain us all. He points out that no one seemed to agree on what, if anything, was real and everyone had their own perspective and story.[35] We have become alert to difference, diversity, the incompatibility of our aspirations, beliefs and desires, and for that reason postmodernity is characterised by an abundance of micronarratives.[36] For this concept Lyotard draws from the notion of 'language-games' found in the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein. Lyotard notes that it is based on mapping of society according to the concept of the language games.[37]