Public Journal:

“ Desiree, I feel your pain. I myself am philosophically and policy-wise, more aligned with Bernie Sanders and the Social Democrats. Unfortunately, until we change the way we vote so that we could, for instance, vote for an independent and not throw the election to the platform we despise (in my case the republican (progressives have to see the Democrats as the lesser of 2 evils. And with deep regret, I see Hillary as our our best option. And as far as Obamacare: we voted the man in because we thought he was the one that would stand up against producer/consumer Capitalism. But for all the republican shrieks concerning socialism, Obamacare fell far short of giving us what we thought he would. It was basically a fold to corporate interests. Still, the man did what he could with what he had. He, at least, did something.” –Me

““Best option” is being misused.

Most viable option under the context of a badly flawed representative democracy model and a two party system whuch further perverts it, might be more accurate.

Still a bad reason to prop up such a flawed model instead of pointing out that it is a farce.” –Phil Cumiskey

First of all, nobody here is propping up a flawed model. Everyone knows it is flawed. And you might note here how I pointed out how we need to change the way we vote: i.e. we need some kind of runoff system.

Secondly, and more importantly, I don’t think resorting to the same kind of solipsistic paranoid conspiracy models that the right does is really helping our situation: these notions of ambitious politicians sitting around and twiddling their fingers and croaking to themselves:

“First I’m going to tell everyone what they want to hear; then, when I get in, I’m going to do what I please even if means fucking them over. Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey-y-y-!-!-!”

Our present model of Democracy may be flawed. But your model is equally flawed: a rather superficial understanding of what is actually going on, a cartoon portrait of diabolical figures seeking power for power’s sake. In other words: fancy with a complete lack of imagination as Coleridge would diagnose it.

We’re pissed. I get that. But we can’t let that pervert our understanding of why it is fucked. At some point we have to consider the possibility that politicians and corporate CEOs (as well as lawyers (are people just like us who went into what they did because they thought they could help, but found themselves succumbing to systematic imperatives. Once again, I was not a big fan of Obamacare as compared to the public option I wanted. But the man was working with a senate that was neither filibuster-proof nor immune to the influence of corporate financing. Still, he did something. And there is nothing I have seen in him that leads me to doubt his desire to help.

And as Naomi Klein pointed out in her book about climate change, there have been instances in which good policy has been laid on the table and failed due to a lack of public pressure. So maybe the problem doesn’t just lie with politicians and corporate CEOs, but also with our social and political laziness: this notion that we can just vote our problems away.

Yes, our system is flawed. But a couple of hours with FOX news will tell you how much fashionable cynicism can prop up a flawed system.

“We have become a tip society: one in which the rich escapes responsibility by leaving it up to the individual to decide what dying enterprise they want to keep alive (via donations (w/ barely enough resources for themselves. It has turned us into a country of Beggars and thugs.”

A good example of this is a radio show, Philosophy Talk, that I have grown fond of while watching it slip, increasingly, into doom. At the start, it was all free. Then Stanford University decided (probably because of decreasing state funding along with increasing corporate funding (to cut it. But then it made the compromise of offering to match every private donation with equal funding. This ignited a flurry of begging on the part of the program for donations. Now, all of a sudden, apparently even that funding from Stanford is being cut which has resulted in an increase of begging on the part of the program which pretty much means (given that most of the people into it are of limited resources (it’s doomed.

The interesting thing to note here is that the hosts are both analytic philosophers. And I can’t help but feel that the rise of the analytic method has something to do with the increasing influence of corporate funding in the universities. In other words, despite the analytic assumption that they would somehow be immune to the influence of corporate funding (being more like a science and all (they’re going down with everything else that is of no interest to corporate interests: that which doesn’t serve the tyranny of the functional.

Anyway:

I love what I’m doing. I’m just not sure it loves me back.
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Was listening to a To the Best of Our Knowledge episode about David Foster Wallace (ttbook.org/book/remembering- … er-wallace (which was really quite moving. And I suppose what made it so moving is that the main reason for doing it was a movie coming out, End of the Tour, with Jason Segal as Wallace and Jesse Eisenberg as his interviewer, David Lipsky. I first set aside that I really like Eisenberg’s work then point out that the main source of my response to it was listening to Wallace in an interview and recognizing what a good choice Segal was to play him: that same soft voice as well as a compassionate and humorous personality. Everything Wallace said sounded like something Segal could possibly say. It is definitely a movie I am committed to checking out as well as Wallace’s books.
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The primary trait of the so-called “independent thinker” is their tendency to talk about being one rather than just being one. But when we look at our cultural history, we find that those whom we have deemed to be independent thinkers (those who have changed the way we think (are those who have the humility to admit that they are (or were (who they are because of those great thinkers they have absorbed. It’s pretty much like the term “genius”: one best left to historians.

This claim to being an “independent thinker” (an appeal to a socially programmed response to a socially programmed cue (becomes especially odious in the political sphere. I mean it is uncanny how, in America, we watch the same cycles occur in politics –that is while media sits around and comments on it like some kind of sporting event. We get a democrat like Clinton in only to see, in the next senate and congressional election, him faced with a republican dominated hill. And the same happened with Jr. and Obama. We have to wonder if the powers that be (the aristocracy/oligarchy of global Capitalism (are not instituting an Orwellian staged event in which government is proved to be so ineffective that we must turn to corporations for leadership.

Of course the excuse for these regular shifts we are given (via media (is the so-called independent. But in terms of politics, what the fuck does it mean to be an “independent”? You don’t know what policies you support? Are you unclear about the distinction between the democratic and republican platforms? What? If there are such people, they’re little more than pretentious morons playing on socially programmed responses to socially programmed cues to make themselves feel like they’re “above the common fray". Either that or they’re basing their choices on the personality of the politician: their media friendly qualities -which puts them decidedly among the common fray.

Nothing illustrates this better than an interview on Jon Stewart’s Daily Show in which Bill O’Reilly claimed that he hadn’t decided between Obama and McCain. Really? Now how many of you really think O’Reilly voted (or might have voted (for Obama.

The claim to be an “independent thinker” is a pretense: little more.

Actually Greg​, I think I’ll follow this rhizome for today:

“I think it would be kind of hard not to take Christianity serious since it lies at the roots of and is all over our present culture. Not to understand it (or take it seriously (would be a serious gap in any attempt to understand the human condition“,said I.

“Or at the very least the Western tradition. Yet it is shocking to me how many do actually dismiss it or account for it as simply expressing the core of ‘what is wrong’ with the West. But it ain’t that simple!
In fact that obscene desire for simplicity not only accounts for the present “politics as circus” we see in our Republican primary, but in the signal misunderstandings of Liberal politics,” said Greg.

“While I do admire people like Bill Maher, Christopher Hitchens, and Dawkin’s, I agree their dismissal of Christianity over-simplifies in ways that are no better than the oversimplifications of the right.”

It’s as if what the left is reacting to, in a knee-jerk kind of way, is the knee-jerk interpretations of the right. It fails to understand that what the right is doing with Christianity has less to do with Christianity and more with a rationalization of personal interest. In other words, both the left and the right are basically caught in a conflict based on misinterpretation.

For instance, the left will point to quotes in the bible that explicitly deride homosexuality as a sin as concerns gay marriage. But this, to me, suggests a kind of hypocrisy since it is the left that delegates the bible to literature –which I personally believe is the right way to see it. And it assumes that the only reason that rightwing Christians are so resistant to gay marriage is because of these passages. Hence: their wholesale rejection of Christianity.

But we all know this is nonsense. What the rightwing rejection of gay marriage comes down to is a personal aversion to homosexuality (the sense that it is just weird (and the quotes from the bible are little more than rationalization for what they would have felt without those quotes. And the left assuming that bible is just literature should have pointed them to this dynamic. For instance, should I, having read Crime and Punishment, kill someone just to see what the experience was like, be able to blame it on having read that book? And why wouldn’t we give the same consideration to Christianity?

Ideologies do nothing; people, on the other hand, do.

And we can see the same dynamic at work in a point made in Trey Parkers and Matt Stones series Little Bush in which Bush Sr. explains to Little Bush that it is our God given right to exploit and use up our natural resources until Jesus comes and takes us up in the Rapture. And the left, having determined the bible to be literature, should be able to see this as a one-sided and self serving interpretation of the bible (not some inherent quality of Christianity (as having neglected the part that said we are keepers of the earth. And we can see this understanding at work in Darren Aronofsky’s Noah.

The problem for the atheist left is that we run into a contradiction when we refer to the bible as literature then act like that piece of literature has any kind of absolute hold on the Christian –that is anymore than any other work of literature might have. Doing so, we fail to distinguish between what Christians do and the inherent nature of Christianity.

And in doing so, we fail to recognize what may be the very element we will need to deal with our present circumstance. We, right now, are (via global Capitalism and the climate change it is creating (facing the new Rome: the Beast if there ever could be one. And who would be better equipped to save us but some Christ-like figure? Someone who truly understood the revolutionary nature of Christ?

?: how does the secular left hate religion and claim privilege over the hateful aspects of religion, especially when our biggest worry should be the secular right: the libertarians…

First of all, Lorenzo, I consider the following a jam: a sort of creative bounce off of what I consider a worthy peer. Should I come off as condescending (especially as concerns our differences, please know that it was purely unintentional.

Okay then:

“I don’t know if I would call Trump a fascist yet. I’ll start considering it when he demands that Mexicans wear tags identifying them as Mexicans.”

And already I find myself treading lightly and glad I added the disclaimer I did above. I would first point out that I tend to work from the position of Deleuze and Guatarri: that we must seek out and undermine the pockets of fascism tend tend to emerge everywhere, including those (and most importantly ( within ourselves. Your point suggests something I believe we all have to work beyond (I know I did: the Orwellian vision of the totalitarian state. This, to me, has served as a kind of distraction from the less regimented forms of fascism that seems to be emerging under Capitalism.

Now granted, many descriptions of fascism (including that of the Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy (tend to involve about ten different characteristics, some of which suggest your vision of Mexicans wearing tags. But the most important characteristic to me is that which feels that the world could be right if such and such wasn’t in the way. This is why I can see a close connection between the genocide of Nazi Germany and that of Rwanda. Both were about eliminating the undesirables.

(And I would note here the common solipsism involved in the Nazis referring to the Jews as rats while the Hutus referred to the Tutsis as cockroaches. I would also note how both expressions involve a sense of resentment: the Nazi’s resentment of the Jews for the wealth they were accumulating while Germans were living in post WWI economic distress and the privilege the Tutsis were experiencing under the arbitrary distinction made by their Belgium occupiers. )

And this expands the expressions of fascism a great deal and in very subtle ways. We can see it, for instance, in the fact that we casually dismiss the fact that 45,000 people a year die from lack of access to our healthcare system. And we can basically do this because we have the culturally ordained alibi that the only reason those people did so is because they failed as producer/consumers. Once again: a way of eliminating the undesirables. We see as much in the public whipping post of the TV series COPS where we wet ourselves at the spectacle of watching minorities and white trash (the non producer/consumers (get what they deserve.

(Christ!!! Ford Motor Company… I am in enemy territory.(

And it is this hateful aspect of fascism that we can see in Trump (that which way too many Americans are getting kranked up over (and his proposal for immigration reform: take all the money they have earned here, deport them, and use that money to build that fence at the southern border. I mean for fuck sakes: most of them are here to support their families (think family values here. It may not be exactly leading them into ovens. But hatefulness, beyond a certain point, is just hatefulness. I’m almost glad Trump has gotten where he has in that he has made the more subtle strains of fascism in America more obvious.

That said, I agree with you when you say:

“To clarify I don’t believe we should be throwing this word around as descriptives to people whose political views we disagree with. It reduces this word to a sack of shit we throw at people we disagree with. “

It is a word that tends to be thrown around indiscriminately. I, as a progressive, know this all too well since any policy that might actually help people tends to be associated with it. I mean look at how the right tends to describe the slippery slope of universal healthcare: I’m thinking of Palin’s “death panels” here, that is with the fact that without universal healthcare, 45,000 undesirables die each year.

We could, as has been brought up in terms of Deleuze and Guatarri, make the distinction between fascism proper (that which is described in the Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy (and fascism with a small “f”. But I’m not sure how much good that would do us. In fact (and this is where I strongly (yet respectfully (disagree with you (such quibbling could actually distract us from the very real possibility of an emerging fascism in America under global Capitalism.

Christ!!! Ford Motor Company… I am in enemy territory.

“Trotsky said that revolutions only happen when there is no other choice. I take this to mean they are forced upon us. I’m still holding out for a “revolution of the mind” of course! There is the idea that despite the nasty corporate stuff, rising living standards have kept populations happy enough to put up with the status quo. It’s called compromise equilibrium.” –Chris

First of all, Chris, I apologize for posting what we already know: mainly your quote. But I started out to write a simple response to your point, and it all went crazy on me with all these spontaneous rhizomatic connections. I had to go from just posting a response to writing my rhizome for the day. I would also apologize to the board if I seem to be wondering too far off the topic of pragmatism. I had to post this here since this is where the discourse originated.

But yeah, the subtle forms of oppression that Capitalism utilizes seem to be its most powerful weapons. It is not uncommon to hear an argument that amounts to: sure things suck; but it could worse: we could live in a third world country. What this argument basically breaks down to is:

Since things could always be worse, why even ask how we could make them better?

Sound very rational to you? Yet, as you suggest, this is exactly what has kept us beholden to Capitalism. It’s a little like being with a beautiful woman who will give you just enough to keep you hanging around while never allowing you to feel secure about anything. The thing is it is this dynamic that defines abusive relationships. And this is the epiphany (the rhizomatic connection to an old riff (that which can only result from the roll of the dice or chancing to put it in Deleuze’s terms (that has forced me (against my will even (to turn this into a rhizome.

If we look at abusive relationships and the question of why individuals keep going back to them, we find that it is always a matter of a honeymoon in which the individual experiences pleasure beyond anything they have before, then a gradual degradation in to cycles of abuse and pleasure –that is with the cycles of pleasure growing smaller and smaller while the cycles of abuse grow longer and more intense. It is never a matter of constant abuse. That would only end the abuser’s reign too quick. Rather it is a matter of pushing the other to their breaking point then giving them just enough pleasure to keep them coming back. This cycle is well known in cases of domestic abuse.

But we can see the same dynamic at work in drug or alcohol abuse. The individual starts off with experiences that are like being on top of the world. But as those experiences become less frequent and the negative experiences become more pronounced, the good experiences in between begin to feel, in comparison, good enough to keep coming back. Of course, this is a physiological as well as mental phenomenon, therefore, more obvious. But we can take the dynamic deeper into what seems to be purely a mental one: the gambling addict. In this case, it is all about the run: that experience of being able to do no wrong, that of being a top player with all the attention and benefits that come from it. It’s why gamblers, when they are winning, will often buy the house a round or tip high. This is what drives gamblers to keep gambling even when their luck is shit. What you will notice about them is that is not so much a matter of coming out ahead in the long run. They rarely ever do. It is strictly about the run and that hope that they will hit the big one.

And in that sense, we can see the same dynamic at work with Capitalism. You have to remember that we did have a honeymoon period with it as it drove up the standard of living that culminated in the post WW2 economy that, ironically, was based on Keynesian economic theory. Unfortunately, the biggest addicts among us, the rich, co-opted the atrocities of the misguided uses of Marxism and communism and the cold war that resulted to establish a cultural environment in which they always got theirs first. And all they have left us with is the methadone of possibility. And this is what Capitalism sells best. I mean: who wants to be a millionaire? What exactly is reality TV selling but the possibility that your mundane life could be worth millions?

So you have every reason to hold out for a “revolution of the mind” –the very only thing that can save any addict. As any A.A. or twelve step member will tell you: until you do, nothing you do will do any good.

On the uptick though, we have to look at the significance of Bernie Sanders getting where he has. Although I have doubts about the practicality of his getting the nomination (that is though I am philosophically aligned with him as a social democrat and the belief that the only solution is an expansion of the public economy (I still take comfort from the fact that he has gotten this far while openly stating that he is a socialist. What this means to me is that the cold war tactic of saying the word “socialism” no longer necessarily follows with psycho-shrieks. America is finally growing up as for some time now, we have been the last western industrialized nation where that could happen. And this, I believe, is important to other western industrialized since it is America who has shoved our form of cut-throat Capitalism down everyone else’s throats. As I see it, until America (militarily the most powerful nation the world (gets its shit together: grows out of the adolescent phase it is in, we’re all fucked.

In my recent run with the Modern Scholar lectures on Evolutionary Psychology, there was a point made that I think might have some subtle applications to some contemporary issues and the anthropology of the boards as well. It pointed out that in our primate days, the consequences of a false positive would have been far less consequential than a false negative. For instance, if you were walking in the jungle and thought you saw a snake or a lion and there wasn’t one, nothing would be lost. On the other hand, if you saw nothing and there was a lion or snake waiting in the bush, you would likely end up dead. So what we’re talking about here is an evolutionary adaption that has managed to get us to this point thus far.

Now one of the modern phenomena that this is generally attributed to is phobias. And I think we can see the roots of many neuroses in it. But can’t we also see it evolve into the expect-the-worse attitude that tends to haunt modern society and the general negativity: that fashionable cynicism? For instance, I realize that not all of you are Walking Dead fans enough to want to watch The Talking Dead that follows. But for those that do, I ask you to pay close attention when they do their surveys about what is going on in the series. When they offer the 3 possibilities, I ask you to seek out the most cynical answer and see which one wins out every time. In fact, it would be interesting for social scientists to do a study on it. But I can’t help but feel it would mainly confirm my instincts on this –instincts based on what I have seen.

The scary thing to me is we have come to a point where this evolutionary legacy, while having gotten us to this point thus far, may end up destroying us as a species thanks to conservatives that want to conserve that legacy. This can be seen in a study by Dodd and Hibbings at the University of Nebraska Lincoln –go Huskers!!! They exposed both liberals and conservatives to a montage of images and randomly inserted violent ones. What they found out is that conservatives tended to react (through physiological measurements (more intensely to the violent ones than liberals. The conclusion extracted from this is that conservatism is a matter of wiring that tends to react more strongly to perceived threats. And we can easily see this at work in what they base their policies on: the perceived incursions on the well being of white heterosexual males by gays, Mexicans, environmentalists, and socialists.

And can’t we apply this to the anthropology of the boards as well? The fashionable cynicism that way too many people appeal to on here? The way they use it to beat down any attempt to do something positive and are often reinforced by others? And we should note here how they tend to prop it up through the group, how they can never seem to work alone. Could this be because they have passed their evolutionary usefulness and have to appeal to obsolete evolutionary legacies? That is as compared to the beyond our immediate self interest reasoning that we have evolved into?

A vey curt but effective explanation here, merits some discourse, I feel. That evolutionary struggles have been vastly demoted toward sentiments of re-presenting them toward those who have been
assigned to equivocate the ‘the use of…’ With the roles
befitting such use to…'. As consciousness of self-induced responsibility fade, to such hierarchy of uses, it would seem in avoidable, that the aforementioned
trends become almost a sequence of instinctual sets
of behavior. In the political arena, this , naturally , would void even a passing concern, except to those inclined to look beneath the rhetoric.

Besides, there is a hidden agenda, that permeates most moderate platforms, as hinging on useful adaptations of pragmatic notions, mixed with the underlying stratified conservative views, so as to be able to shift responsibility; as to resort to those, in times of failed programs. The tendency is always to have a ready set plan , consisting of refined and proven methods, of dealing with non foreseen consequences. So more often then not, the margins are fuzzy., offering for less required clarity and accountability, making the shifting of responsibility , less and less obvious. This IS the trend. We have become far too cynical, not to have seen this coming, and accepting, as politics as usual.

Sorry about that, Orbie. I just realized I hadn’t subscribed to this. I had no way of knowing you were posting here. I’m on vacation right now. But I will get back to ya, brother!!!

“While it would be wrong to dismiss the role of memory in identity, as described in Sally Latham’s ‘Shaping the Self’ (issue 110), I would also point to the role played by the perceiving thing: the fact that we are always a particular point in space and time (that is subjective time so as not to incur the wrath of Tallis) with an experience of continuity. Consider some thought experiments built around the movie The Sixth Day with Arnold Schwarzenegger. In it, a corporation has developed the technology to clone individuals and implant their memories into them. Their henchmen are killed then, thanks to capital and technology, basically resurrected.

Now, first of all, we could, for the sake of scientific accuracy, consider the implanting of memories redundant since, if the brain was cloned at the time of death, those memories would be encoded in its exact replica. However, we can assume that the redundancy is mainly a narrative device meant to suggest that not only are the memories being injected, but the person’s identity as well.

Secondly, we have to ask is if this would necessarily constitute the resurrection of the individual that died. The problem for me is that being killed and brought back as a perfect replication of myself would still involve a major disruption in the continuity of my particular point in space and time. My replication may be just like me and have my memories. But would it be the ‘me’ that died? Of course, a rash materialist (Tallis’ neuromaniac or Dennett’s barefoot behaviorist) might boast: “But of course! Same body; same brain; same you.” And we might wonder if they, that is if the technology did exist, would be willing to put their money where their mouth is. Then, being civilized people who don’t kill for the sake of knowledge, we might settle for the less drastic measure of another scenario: one in which the replication was created while the original was still alive. Once again: same body, same mental makeup and memories. But in this case, we could confidently say the original identity is not continued through the replication. Nor would the disruption be analogous to the discontinuations we might experience in sleep or under anesthesia since, in those cases, identity is anchored in its return to the same body. “

“If my memory was totally wiped and i woke up in hospital with no recollection of my past, im pretty certain that my identity remains intact. So here we need to clarify what we mean by our ‘identity’. The first entry in my dictionary distinguishes it as our ‘personality’.”

“It reminds me of the Ship of Theseus, that has over the years every part replaced with a new part, is it the same ship, etc. Also Lincoln’s Axe, has had both handle and axe-head replaced, is it still the same axe or what.”

“This is especially interesting to me now because as I finish my Modern Scholar lectures on Evolutionary Psychology, I find an alternative version of the perceiving thing as a mental module that hovers above all the various drives and impulses [while describing it as acting within] and creates a narrative in order to make sense of the activities of various mental modules. It just seems to me that there is a kind of operationalism at work here that assumes the scientific perspective that I think we really need to deal with here.”

In other words, what the science of evolutionary psychology is arguing is that our sense of identity is merely one kind of mental activity (one mental module (among others. However, I would argue that this comes from the same scientific arrogance that dismisses free-will (that is when we should be talking about a participating self since “free-will” was lost with Cartesian Dualism (through the circular reasoning that was demonstrated throughout the last 2 lectures: that which assumes that everything must work within scientific perimeters in order to be considered legitimate.

(More on this later.)

Our mission, should we choose to accept it, is to establish that our identity (that which creates an ordered narrative for our multiple drives and impulses (is not just one mechanism in the brain, but rather a result of the fact that we have a brain which is attached to a body that constitutes a particular point in space and subjective time.

In other words, as many of you have argued, we cannot think of the self (identity (as just one kind of mental module among others. We should, rather, think of it as the foundation of all modules described by evolutionary psychology.

Orbie: tell me something: have you ever been diagnosed as schizophrenic? Or do you deliberately choose to explain yourself in a schizophrenic way?

“Nice enough personal essay, D Edward, but what do you want to start a discussion about? This is a discussion group, after all.” -Ian Smith

Fair enough, Ian. But to me it is more about bouncing off of each other and the process (or routine (I follow everyday: my Einstein’s wardrobe that eliminates having to expend resources on deciding what I’m going to do everyday which, in turn, allows me to expend them on that process. When I (working night shift (get off, I read about 20 pages of whatever book I am focused on then, when I go to the “library” and get my usual mini-pitcher and shot (half rumple minz/half Jager, I go back to an earlier point in the book and go more slowly with no concern with getting from the beginning of a section to the end and look for quotes I can respond to.

It’s a good thing a distraction (the digression it entices you into (is just one trajectory among others (think: Frost’s Path Not Taken (because you guys are distracting me from points I should be making on my present reading of Rorty’s Objectivity, Reletavism, and Truth. I can only hope that the fact (and may the wrath of Strunk rest in its grave (that we are on the pragmatic board feels like salt on the wound.

Are you feeling the cut, guys? Anyway:

“There are some serious alternate paradigms on the problem of self - for instance Panpsychism, which is probably closer to Deleuze’s ideas I imagine D Edward Tarkington” –Chris

“Am i missing something here? Panpsychism sounds like complete bogus.” –Jan

While Chalmers and Panpsychism has been forever on my to-do list, I’m not sure I would not totally dismiss it –that is without having the info I would like to have. As a guest on a Philosophy Now podcast on the mind (philosophynow.org/podcasts/Free … _the_Brain) enlightened me with: we can’t dismiss the possibility that particles, at the atomic level, are capable of carrying data. And we have to put in mind here that what we experience as consciousness is rooted in the grunts and silences in the meat of the brain: the cumulative effect of various cells in the brain that are either active or not.

As to whether Deleuze subscribes to panpsychism, Chris, that would require an expertise on Deleuze I’m not sure anyone can achieve. As I understand him, he subscribes to the same kind of qualified materialism (think: machinic and social production(as Rorty for the sake of a social agenda based on discourse unimpeded by transcendent criteria (territorializations such as objectivity or “the scientific method”: power discourses (that, via the momentum created by the exchanges of energy, can facilitate our evolution as a species. It’s basically Hegel without the fixed endgame.

At the same time, Chris, I can’t totally dismiss your point since Deleuze does seem to work from an rhizomatic interchange at an atomic level. It’s something we’ll have to explore.

“As Descartes said “I think therefore…”, we must necessarily take self for granted, that we exist, and to avoid solipsism accept others exist, too. With self comes all the things we do, such as having ideas and forming logical cause and effect relationships.” –David

I’m not exactly sure where David stands here, but I have to go with the school that has abandoned Cartesian dualism. For instance, I believe we need to concede to the materialists and neuroscientists and stop talking about Free Will. What we should be talking about, rather, is participation: that which I believe lies in Chaotics and that subtle point at which the determined transforms into the random and the random transforms into the determined. Here we can see the possibility of a participating (sort of (self in the interface of consciousness that occurs between the brain and the environment it has to adapt to in order to protect the body and its genetic legacy. Doing so, we can downplay the Causa Sui argument offered by hardcore materialists by pointing out that it is based on an outdated linear understanding of causality as compared to the feedback loop we are talking about here. I mean why would a participating self necessarily need to be an uncaused cause?

In Dave’s defense, he does go on to say:

“I agree self cannot experience self. Self is what does the experiencing. Just as the idea of self love is a farce.”

What I see here is a point made by Dennett in Consciousness Explained against the notion of the Cartesian Theater: the multiple drafts theory in which the brain brings in data and passes it around different modules until, through an additive and revision process, the mind arrives at a final understanding. And it seems legit to me. However, it doesn’t eliminate the idea of the Cartesian Theater as much as make the actors the spectators as well: a theater troupe performing purely for its own satisfaction.

So why couldn’t we experience “self love”, Dave? And it has been suggested that narcissism is a quality embedded in our very make-up.

Managed to let my Zizek study be sabotaged by a heckler (a FreeMarketFundmentalist ( and on that count, I guess I should just trust my process. On the uptick, though, it allows me to document some thoughts I’ve been having outside of my routine: my process.
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I can’t speak for everyone on these boards. But sometimes, when I’m doing what I’m doing, I feel like what I describe as the psychotic response to the nihilistic perspective:

Like I’m just walking down the street engaged in this personal conversation and everyone is just stepping aside to let me pass safely by.

What scares me, though, is the possibility that real schizophrenics, that do that, love their process as much as I do.
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I’ve come to realize how Deleuzian I am in recognizing how unimportant questions are to me. I really don’t care whether consciousness or free will exists. I don’t care if the universe is determined, random, or something in between. I’m not asking those questions. In fact, I’m not asking any questions. While (for the fun of it (I will defend a non-determined universe and the possibility of a participating self, if it were unquestionably established that the universe was determined and consciousness and free will (even the participating self (were illusions produced by the brain, I wouldn’t miss a step. I have no real stake in it.

For me, it is about taking in the concepts of established philosophers and seeing what I can do with them. It, to me, is a form of Play: conceptual play for the sake of creating concepts.

I do, of course, have a stake in Capitalism in that it is having some very real effects on my life and the life of others: for instance, the fact (and may the wrath of Professor Strunk rest in its grave (that Capitalism could result in the extinction of my species. And for that cause, I will turn to any language game I have to to save it, to insure the well being of my grand…. my beautiful granddaughters.
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Let me explain:

I tend to work from a revision of Will Durant’s 5 concerns of philosophy:
Metaphysics, logic, ethics, aesthetics, and politics

But philosophy has grown more complex since Durant’s time. My (yes mine, and mine alone (process has elaborated on Durant’s model:

Metaphysics/Ontology (Ontology being metaphysics with its feet on the ground, logic/epistemology/phenomenology, ethics/aesthetics (since both are about value statements, and, finally, the psychological/social/political. The problem with this model is that it sticks with the old arborescent model in which metaphysics/ontology is at the foundation and, working through the others, the psychological/social/political is the superficial result. This, in turn, assumes that we live at a superficial level that is given value based on the extent to which it satisfies the criteria offered by the metaphysical/ontological depth.

I would offer a different model in which the symbol > or < suggests the influence one discipline is having on the other:

Metaphysics/Ontology>Logic/Epistemology/Phenomenology>Ethics/Aesthetics>the Psychological/Social/Political

Metaphysics/Ontology,<Logic/Epistemology/Phenomenology<Ethics/Aesthetics<The Psychological/Social/Political

It’s a back and forth. There is no core.

There are those who will reject this model because they want to establish their metaphysical core as the only criteria by which we should live. Think: Capitalism: the invisible hand of the market. And maybe they’re right. Maybe I’m wrong. But everything my process has shown me suggests that I have every reason for following the process that I do:

I feel justified.

In a recent New Yorker article, ‘The Threshold of Violence’ (newyorker.com/magazine/2015/ … f-violence), Malcolm Gladwell makes the argument that the recent increase in mass shootings in America can be seen as a kind of slow motion mob mentality. The mob mentality, as is well known and reasonably described, is a matter of different people with different thresholds at which they break from normal social protocol. It’s a matter of acceleration: a group of people gather together to protest some unifying issue, people of a lower threshold start acting violently, the status quo (or its representatives (react with more force until the next lowest threshold responds thereby creating a feedback loop of escalation until everyone is caught up in it.

(And I have seen this dynamic at work in less consequential ways. Back when I was working as a custodian in a local university, one of my trainers explained to me that the cleaner you leave a classroom, the cleaner it will be when you come back to it the next morning. And it proved to be true. And I can only assume that it was a matter of the different thresholds at which people will resist being pigs before they give in to the mob and make their own contribution.)

The thing was I was, at first, skeptical of Gladwell’s assertion in that I found it hard to connect the unified nature and focus of a protest turned riot (as well as a group of students who choose to trash a classroom) to the diverse and individualistic nature and seeming absurdity of shooting sprees, of how, for instance, one can connect an autistic teenager shooting grade school children with two religious fanatics killing people in San Bernardino.

Then the anti-Capitalist in me slapped me on the forehead and realized there is a common cause: the increasing pressure being put on people in a world in which a few are feasting at the table while the rest of us fight for the crumbs. Note, for instance, a point made by Michael Moore in Bowling for Columbine: that Canada, at the time, had more guns per capita than America while having a far lower murder rate. And I think we can attribute this to Canada’s stronger safety net (the feeling of security it offers (as compared to America’s everyman-for-themselves hubris. There is a reason it is mainly happening in America. And it will likely increase in other western industrialized nations as austerity measures take hold.

In this sense, we can agree with while revising the old NRA motto:

Guns don’t kill people; desperate people with guns do.

It’s because it is very difficult to own a handgun in Canada. There are background checks, mandatory safety courses and strict rules for transporting handguns. There is no concealed carry allowed anywhere.
The guns that are ‘relatively’ accessible are long guns - rifles and shotguns - used for hunting. Most people are not murdered by long guns.

rcmp-grc.gc.ca/cfp-pcaf/fs-fd/restr-eng.htm

Whenever my present immersion involves the most recent issue of Philosophy Now arriving in the mail, I tend to find an article I want to focus on (a study point (and fumble around with it until it hopefully produces a around 400 word letter to the editor –that is since letters to the editor are about the only opportunity time and my process afford me to engage in the tinker, tweak, and tighten process of a more finished piece. And I generally choose it based on the extent it elicits my empathy while leaving me room for departure: that which I can use because of the common ground I share with them while still being able to assert and further my own process.

And the lucky winner (or unfortunate victim (this time is John Marmysz and the article ‘In Defense of Humorous Nihilism’. I would start with my main issue (his description of nihilism:

“God is dead. Nothing matters. All is meaningless. Nothing is true. These are the sorts of laments often associated with nihilism, a philosophical perspective premised on the belief that the world is incurably imperfect, flawed, defective. According to the nihilist, the way that the world actually exists is not the way it ought to be. We hope for Truth, but we never seem to grasp it in its entirety. We desire Beauty, but find only blemished examples of it in the concrete world. We want things to have value, but nothing seems ultimately all that important. We want the world to be perfect, but it always disappoints us with its flawed nature. This might not be so bad if only the nihilist had faith in our potential to somehow improve things. However, nihilists reject this sort of optimism, instead claiming that it is beyond humanity to mend the eternal rift between our real state of existence and the way we ideally desire things to be. For the nihilist, the real and the ideal are in everlasting conflict with one another, and there is nothing that can be done to alter this condition.”

Now I realize this is the popular understanding of Nihilism. And I would also note that this understanding of it is shared by Simone de Beauvoir:

“In her book The Ethics of Ambiguity (1947), the existentialist Simone de Beauvoir characterizes nihilists as frustrated idealists, condemning them as exemplars of ‘bad faith’. That is, instead of grabbing hold of their imperfect situation like good existentialists, she claims nihilists resign themselves to a sort of impotent fatalism in which all worldly undertakings are doomed to failure since they must inevitably fall short of perfection. If perfection is the criterion of success, then nothing that we accomplish in the real world could ever measure up. The greatest of human achievements are still disappointments, and all worldly activity amounts to a vain struggle toward impossible goals.”

And I bring this up so as to point out how hasty it would be to dismiss Marmysz’s understanding of it. To make things worse, those who embrace nihilism tend to compound this understanding of nihilism (or what I call the nihilistic perspective (through what I consider a rather shallow understanding of the implications of nihilism: that which the Oxford Dictionary describes as being tapped into the underlying nothingness of reality, the fact that we are when we could not be as we are as compared to the 6.5 million other people we could be. Ultimately, what it comes down is authentically trying to understand the implications of that underlying nothingness, that implied in Leibniz’s question:

“Why all this rather than nothing?”

And let’s be clear on this: it’s not something that can be approached so directly as the so-called nihilists act as if it can. For instance, one of the implications that come from the nihilistic perspective is that all arguments break down to assumptions. And if we really look at those assumptions (really scrutinize them (they ultimately float on thin air. The so-called nihilist takes this as license to act like an a-hole. But nothing could be further from an authentic attempt at understanding the implications of the underlying nothingness than assuming that it has the fixed trajectory of negativity. Once again: all assumptions float on thin air. Nothingness, by definition, can have no fixed trajectory.

To finish with a more concrete example: from the nihilistic perspective, while there is no real solid foundation for embracing a god or a religion, there is equally no solid foundation for (even if it was proven wrong or nonexistent beyond doubt (for not embracing a god or a religion. Likewise, while there is no solid foundation for embracing a given ethical position, there is equally no solid foundation for not embracing that ethical position.

“To finish with a more concrete example: from the nihilistic perspective, while there is no real solid foundation for embracing a god or a religion, there is equally no solid foundation for (even if it was proven wrong or nonexistent beyond doubt (for not embracing a god or a religion. Likewise, while there is no solid foundation for embracing a given ethical position, there is equally no solid foundation for not embracing that ethical position.”

My main point here is that Nihilism (or the nihilistic perspective, like nothing, does nothing; it always has. But it has always been there waiting. Once again:

“To make things worse, those who embrace nihilism tend to compound this understanding of nihilism (or what I call the nihilistic perspective (through what I consider a rather shallow understanding of the implications of nihilism: that which the Oxford Dictionary describes as being tapped into the underlying nothingness of reality, the fact that we are when we could not be as we are as compared to the 6.5 million other people we could be. Ultimately, what it comes down is authentically trying to understand the implications of that underlying nothingness, that implied in Leibniz’s question:

“Why all this rather than nothing?”

It goes back to Socrates confession that he knew nothing through the romantic break from the classicist hierarchy as well as Enlightenment’s break from religion to Nietzsche’s (via Hegel (proclamation that God is dead on through existentialism’s experimentation with the underlying nothingness of consciousness to its full expression in postmodernism via (post) structuralism.

And given the history that Marmysz describes:

“This seemingly bleak and depressing philosophy of life has been wrestled with by many of the world’s greatest thinkers, most of whom, like Beauvoir, have endeavored to reject it, and move beyond it. Thus we find philosophers such as the Buddha, Immanuel Kant, Max Stirner, Søren Kierkegaard, Arthur Schopenhauer, Martin Heidegger, and perhaps most explicitly, Friedrich Nietzsche, struggling with the problem of nihilism, proposing their own ‘solutions’, and suggesting ways that might guide us on a path toward the overcoming of our despair.”

:it is easy to see how the more pop-nominal description of nihilism would have taken hold like it did. And we can see the source of it in (neo) classism as Marmysz suggests:

“Traditionally, philosophers have recoiled from incongruity, seeing in it something illogical, irrational. As such, incongruities have normally been thought of begging for resolution, eradication, or at the very least, some sort of clarification.”

What we’re talking about here is a perfectly natural human need to maintain order. Hence, the recoil from incongruity in the face of the general ungroundedness of things which is an expression of the underlying nothingness. It comes out of a failure to really explore the implications of that ungroundedness (that nothingness (reinforced by the fact that the nihilistic perspective can never really be looked straight on, can only glance the corner of the eye because it always stands outside of the symbolic order we find ourselves living in. The problem lies in the classicist tradition described above that the nihilistic perspective has always lain in wait to undermine. And it’s not something you can just say, “Sounds like a good idea”, and embrace and understand. It is, rather, something that comes to you through an ongoing process of (self) deconstruction. In this sense, it’s a lot like Alan Watts’ (and I’m kind of revealing my influences here (concept of “letting go”: that which cannot happen until you let go of the idea of letting go.

But while I am perfectly empathetic with the conventional understanding of the nihilistic perspective (just a misunderstanding to me, what is truly odious to me is the self serving misrepresentation of the so-called nihilists –as was parodied in the movie The Big Lewbowski. They’re the ones that act like nothingness must have some kind of fixed trajectory into negativity. While Marmysz’s move from the pop understanding of nihilism to his conclusion (and even if I have issues (was consistent, theirs fail miserably in their failure to truly explore the implication of the underlying nothingness, ungroundedness, or the incongruity of reality for the sake of self indulgence.

Connection and departure: the criteria by which I choose the victim of my focus in any given issue of Philosophy Now (philosophynow.org/issues/111/In … s_Nihilism, the very criteria by which I chose Marmysz’s article -hard name to remember the spelling of BTW. That said, I think it is time to get to the f-ing point:

“It is precisely because of the nihilist’s logically-irreconcilable incongruity between aspirations and the actual state of the world that many philosophers who have encountered it have either fallen into despair or chosen to ‘overcome’ nihilism by changing their fundamental beliefs about reality. But there is a third option, and that is to adopt an attitude of humorous amusement toward the world’s absurd nature.”

While Marmysz seems to be approaching my sense of it, it is as if his attachment to the historical understanding of nihilism excludes him from seeing what I see as the true relationship between incongruity and the nihilistic perspective. And, once again, I consider the so-called nihilists the most egregious offenders at work here in that they are the ones who fail to articulate the implication of the underlying nothingness while being committed to it and make the self contradictory assumption that nothingness must have a necessary trajectory into the negative, that which results in the outsider assumption (Marmysz’s for instance (that nihilism must lead to despair. In this sense, Marmyyz’s appeal to the common understanding of nihilism seems more empathetic and less nocuous in that, language being an agreement, he is simply working from the understanding given him by the given symbolic order he is attached to -that is while the so-called nihilist fails to truly address the implications of the aspect of the symbolic order they have chosen to embrace. I mean why, for instance, must an embrace of the underlying nothing necessarily lead to despair and negativity? That is when such openness can lead to the joy of deciding one’s own values: values that can be destructive or constructive?

Where I part from Marmysz is that by embracing the pop understanding of nihilism, he, first of all, denies himself the intellectual productivity of a consideration of the nihilistic perspective as it actually is, that is given the ubiquitous nature of it that he actually approaches:

“Despite the efforts of these great intellects, by some accounts nihilism is a more urgent philosophical syndrome today than it ever has been. It certainly continues to be a challenge not to be taken lightly, and certainly not something most people feel inclined to laugh at.”

By taking the historical route of seeing philosophy as acting against the nihilistic perspective, Marmysz falls short of seeing the intimate relationship between incongruity and the nihilistic perspective. He makes it seem as if nihilistic humor is just some kind of antidote to incongruity when it could very well be an expression of that intimate relationship between the two and the joy that results. I’m just not sure humor needs to be thought of as a “third option”.

Think, for instance, of the movie Trainspotting which I consider to be a nihilistic anthem.

As I enter into my first immersion into Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit (mind), I’m starting to see the value of going back to the old-schoolers. Up until recently, I had found it hard to read anything written before the 60’s. But my immersions in my personal holy triad: Deleuze, Rorty, and Zizek (as well as the principle of diffe̕rrance: the deferred meaning involved in any philosophical text which is always referring to previous philosophers: have elicited my curiosity.

I have found this value in the fact that, while I have managed, at best, shallow scratches on the titanium surface of the book, I’m finding hope (enticements perhaps (in the overlaps: the common terms that Hegel is using such as “being-in-itself” and “being-for-itself” (thank you, Sartre! (his occupation with the notion of nothingness (once again: thank you, Sartre! (as well as the concept of edification. Hegel wags his finger at Rorty and Deleuze. At the same time, he seems to be on the same page in his understanding of what it is philosophy actually does:

“The Absolute on this view is not to be grasped in conceptual form, but felt, intuited; it is not its conception, but the feeling of it and intuition of it that are to have the say and find expression.” -Hegel, Georg W. F. (2010-06-24). The Phenomenology of Spirit (The Phenomenology of Mind) (Kindle Locations 427-428). Neeland Media LLC. Kindle Edition.

And he does go on later in the preface to address complaints about the obscurity of philosophical exposition which sound a lot like the explanations given complaints about Deleuze’s use of free indirect discourse: that a true understanding of philosophical concepts require a kind of oblique approach to meaning. (I’m thinking Claire Colebrook’s explanation here.)

At the same time, there seems to be a contradiction in that Hegel seems to want philosophy to have the same status as a science which, as far as I know, tends to take a more direct approach to meaning. Perhaps my German jam-mate, Harald, can help me with this. That said, I can see a kind of common sense of it (w/departure (in paragraph 1.:

“In the case of a philosophical work it seems not only superfluous, but, in view of the nature of philosophy, even inappropriate and misleading to begin, as writers usually do in a preface, by explaining the end the author had in mind, the circumstances which gave rise to the work, and the relation in which the writer takes it to stand to other treatises on the same subject, written by his predecessors or his contemporaries. For whatever it might be suitable to state about philosophy in a preface—say, an historical sketch of the main drift and point of view, the general content and results, a string of desultory assertions and assurances about the truth—this cannot be accepted as the form and manner in which to expound philosophical truth.” -Hegel, Georg W. F. (2010-06-24). The Phenomenology of Spirit (The Phenomenology of Mind) (Kindle Locations 360-365). Neeland Media LLC. Kindle Edition.

He then goes on to say:

“Moreover, because philosophy has its being essentially in the element of that universality which encloses the particular within it, the end or final result seems, in the case of philosophy more than in that of other sciences, to have absolutely expressed the complete fact itself in its very nature; contrasted with that the mere process of bringing it to light would seem, properly speaking, to have no essential significance.”

It just seems to me that philosophy is a matter of moving from the general to the particular. At the same time I would agree with him to the extent that understanding the general (that which resides in the overlaps (and stopping there does not constitute a philosophical process. Still (and excuse my opportunistic attempt to toss my own thoughts into the mix: it seems to me that any relationship (including that with philosophy (is a matter of turning content into form. For instance, the process by which we come to know a good friend, or even a lover, starts with their physical appearance and what they do the very first time we see them. Beyond that, it is a process of unfolding in which everything we come to understand about them participates in (conditions even (how we come to see them. And the same goes for philosophy or any philosophical text we might choose to engage.

Therefore, while I would agree with Hegel that such general understandings are not a true indication of what philosophy can actually do, I would disagree that the wide swashes of a typical preface are “superfluous” in that they are the perfectly natural steppingstone by which one penetrates the individual process.