who are you?

… not familiar with “Borg”

… while I have no original thoughts … just seemed to fit with K.'s last post

The Borg are not alienated from society. The Borg are a collective consciousness.

Here is another thought : If society is crazy, then being alienated from society is a good thing.

Jesus and Buddha are “outsiders”.

while the notion of a “collective consciousness” isn’t new … reading Karen Armstrong’s book “The Great Transformation” suggests it’s been around for a long while … albeit in more abstract forms. For me … Teillard put some meat on the bones with his Noosphere and Omega Point theories.

for me … society isn’t crazy … society is in a continuous transformation … and the transformation process is frustrating and painful … always has been … lots of empirical evidence suggested in Armstrong’s book.

… not sure I would use the word “outsiders”.

reminds me of a comment made by a brilliant young man in Santiago Compostella many years ago … we met by chance after walking the Camino.

He said … paraphrasing … perhaps Jesus is the first human with a conscious recollection of where he came from.

How would you describe their relationship to society?

… in a word “helpers” … maybe … “facilitators”

Who says each individual human has a particular “place” in either [a, presumably human] society or the universe?
How is this “place” defined or described?

Do we know what society is? Because if we don’t know what society is then knowing who we are won’t get us any closer to finding a place in society. And if society isn’t an aggregate of all the people in it who are both products ad producers of society, then what is it? And how can you be disconnected from something of which you are an integral part?

Society isn’t disconnected. It’s intricately connected in thousands of ways through millions of relationships.
An individual may feel isolated from society when he is disenfranchised, barred from participation in, and information about, the controlling processes of that society; when he does not see the fruit of his labour nor share in the reward of his efforts.

Societies have many different reasons for failing - most frequently bad leadership.

No; it’s mostly that people are insecure in their income, health and living conditions.

You keep repeating this mantra: We don’t know who we are. Where did you get this fixed idea? What makes you think it’s true? What are the proportions of those who know all about themselves, to those who know nothing at all, to those who know 10%, 40%, 83.5% … ?

Facilitators hits the right spot in me. :smiley:

one might argue that the evolution of the human species is one long continuous journey … destination unknown.

One might also use that metaphor for life, a romantic relationship, enrollment in a college course, a regimen of treatment for chronic illness, a cooking contest or hitchhiking.

H. … for me … your comment suggests we are on the same page. :slight_smile:

the kicker is … life is simply too short to connect the dots in one lifetime.

I am love itself.

The second I tell you who I think I am I will be something other than that.

Such wisdom Ierrellus!

Are you suggesting K. add one word to his question … “Who are you becoming?”

7 billion+ people in constant flux … hmmm!

Let’s look at a simple example in our physical world. Gestation In our species … from a single cell to birth … generally takes about 9 months … from birth to death 75-80 years.

Seems to me the scope of the constant state of flux you imply in your comment stretches beyond our physical reality … ???

The gestation period for non-physical “being” may be much longer … perhaps supporting the notion of reincarnation.

I’m a gestalt entity created by my relationships reaching back before I was born and reaching to infinity.

I’m also awesome.

Awesome comment!

Reminds me of a comment a middle aged Chinese woman made during a discussion on the topic of … “when does life start?”

She said … “my life started when my mom met my dad.”

OTH … the same topic being discussed with a different group of Chinese people … a young woman replied … my life started two weeks ago when I defied my parents and married my husband.

???

There is no contradiction. The creation and sundering of relationships are what define us. Individuating (especially from parents) is an important psychological milestone. However, radical individualism is an empty promise. Life is a radical process of becoming. Becoming is violent, so it’d be naive to think that the interplay between ontological being and existential becoming would be easily understood or even non-contradictory.

Eloquently stated … maybe I even understand it :slight_smile:

true for the individual and his/her growing/shrinking community … true for the species with it’s growing/shrinking communities?

I know nothing of species. That’s broader than my philosophy.

But if you view the individual as a rubber band. you’ll agree there are stretched and relaxed states that exist.