a man amidst mankind: back again to dasein

care to bring that intellectual contraption down out of the clouds and explain to me in a particular existential context how i should interpret that in a world awash with conflicting goods, chance, and contingency?

Sorry, I was only being ironic.

He said in jest. :wink:

What’s So Simple About Personal Identity?
Joshua Farris asks what you find when you find yourself.

The brain view is of course necessarily embedded in the body view. In fact, unless the mind part can somehow be explained as “transcending” the argument that the brain is but more matter inherently in sync with the laws of nature there’s no real distinction at all.

And here we are: hopelessly stuck!

Or, rather, so it still seems to me. But this part will always exasperate some more than others. In that some are able to convince themselves that how they think about this relationship here and now need be as far as they go to make it true. Then the part where how what we think and feel precipitates behaviors that precipitate very real consequences whether what we think and feel is in sync with what is actually true or not. Let alone in being able to determine if all of that is moot given the assumption that the brain and the mind and “I” are all entirely at one with nature itself entirely at one with the possible existence of God.

Got that? Next up: the hand picking up the stick and using it to thrash someone soundly. That even more problematic matter able to reconfigure into a point of view. An actual vantage point out in a particular context out in a particular world in which the brain qua mind qua “I” precipitates [existentially] moral judgments from others.

The “I” is the part that speaks. Some parts of us are unknown to the “I”.

Enter: Metaphysics.

yes, stuck, and yet so many philosophers insist on scratching their heads over it. know why? it’s this whole problem about ‘what to do’ in life if there is some truth to substance dualism… and substance dualism is the underlying metaphysics to all theories of spiritualism whether religious or not. so as long as these folks aren’t absolutely certain that when they die, it’s curtains, they’ll live their entire lives in a nervous stupor over ‘omg omg what should i do?! am i doing the right thing!?’ that’s what it comes down to. no philosopher was ever interested with the question of mortality just because it’s an interesting question. it’s an invested question, and that’s why it’s so important to these guys. it’s not about ‘loving god’ or ‘doing the right thing’, either. it’s about covering one’s ass for the afterlife. niggas don’t wanna burn in hell or be reincarnated as a mushroom. that’s the real reason.

me, well, i run a two part pragmatic approach to this matter. first, i dismiss any system of existence/reality in which i am expected to guess at anything that is incredibly important. such a system is fundamentally flawed, and i will not drive myself crazy wondering if what i do now will have negative consequences for the afterlife. i do what the fuck i’m gonna do and if that pays out, good for me. if it doesn’t, good for you. this brings us to the second part. i will NOT ever regret anything i’ve done, and i will certainly feel no remorse. whatever i do, whenever i do it, is for a reason which at the time was obviously the ‘best’ thing i believed i could have done. duddint matter if the consequences of that decision turned out to be a disaster for reasons beyond my control. i don’t blame anyone or anything, i resent nothing, and i adapt to the shit storm if i find myself in one. this is because i don’t expect anything to work out when i have to deal with other people. this is my splendid quasi-misanthropy and it’s never been wrong. i say ‘quasi’ because it’s not genuine hate. there is no place for hatred where ‘they know not what they do’, as it were. if i could find a human being who was not only an asshat, but meant to be, i could move beyond mere contempt and perhaps feel some kind of hatred. but alas, human beings are so fucked up they can’t even be evil right.

and this is only a pickle if you drive yourself nuts hoping for some redemption from it all in some afterlife. you have to stop allowing yourself to be played with like a toy by [insert favorite god], and you have to understand that there will be no qualitative difference in the experiences you have now and the experiences you will have ‘in the next life’. you would simply exist in another ‘now’, phenomenologically structured by the same causal forces, affairs and events working to form your current experiences in this life.

what i’m implying here is that monistic spinozist stirnerite historical materialists do it better. fuck all that platonic/cartesian ‘guessing’ and piss on the afterlife. we make shit work here and now… because that’s all there is; the eternal here and now.

we are the ministers in the marriage of heaven and hell here on earf. morrison was wrong. you cannot break on through to the other side. there is no other side. and if there was, you’d only ask ‘what’s next’ when you got there. same shit, different dimension.

“first, i dismiss any system of existence/reality in which i am expected to guess at anything that is incredibly important.”

OK, that was pretty awesome…

“Morrison was wrong …”

You arrived at the same place as Fear And Loathing guy, wassisname. And all leftist hippies. The wiser position is “there might well be, but I got a sandwich.”

“same shit, different dimension.”

You belie the true promise and terribleness of transcendentalism: it is not only things arround you that radically are not the same.

The healthiest is Nietzsche’s: neither transcendentalism nor atheism: overcoming and self-overcoming. And transcendentalism a little bit.

leftism proper is only a pathological and eidetic expression of the paternal/maternal instinct in human beings. wanting to ‘take care’ of someone. remember heidegger’s whole thing about dasein’s possession of the world as grounded in ‘care’? that was one of his better moments. so, naturally, when you see a nigga being what you consider ‘mistreated’, you wanna jump in there and straighten shit out. pretty simple really. that’s all leftism is. the marxist is the linderman (vanguard) protecting and teaching the clifford (working class) how to beat the mikes and moodys (capitalists) of the world. this is, ad hominus simpliciter, an expression of fatherly/motherly love.

Yes, we all know that’s how leftists like to think of themselves.

indeed, and some of them are even liars. oh shit wait. i just had a eureka moment. what’s the difference between an opportunistic leftist liar who seeks office only to fatten his own pockets and doesn’t give a shit about the workin man, and a capitalist who seeks to maintain conservatism to fatten his own pockets and doesn’t give a shit about the workin man? (while also being entirely dependent on him. interesting, that. almost like biting the hand that feeds you, but that would be like comparing a capitalist to a dog… which is a very generous analogy)

yeah so did you see that? it’s like ‘hey capitalist, what are you bitchin about? these fucksticks are doing the same thing you are, right?’ ohhhh i see. suddenly it’s ‘unethical’ to get rich… especially if you’re lying while trying to do it. in that case, an honest leftist who admitted he didn’t give a shit about the workin man would garner the respect of the capitalist.

and this would work, actually, because we can’t indict the capitalist on lying here. he’d have to know what he thinks is ethical is actually not (for several epistemological reasons… and even more pragmatic reasons) in order to be ‘lying’. so far, the capitalist is only an imbecile, not a bad guy.

now we’ve reached a beautiful dilemma. the capitalist isn’t a liar (because he’s too dumb) but he does not empower the workin man… while the fake-ass leftist is a liar, but empowers the working man.

fuck. now what do we do?

Metaphysics: the branch of philosophy that examines the fundamental nature of reality, including the relationship between mind and matter, between substance and attribute, and between potentiality and actuality

And, if this be the case, then everything — everything that encompasses the body, everything that encompasses the mind, and everything the encompasses the world around it/“I”, can only be entirely explained when we have an understanding – ontological? teleological? – of existence itself.

This thread however takes that gap for granted. Just as it makes the presumption that we all have some measure of free-will to actually opt for particular points of view.

Dasein then revolves around “I” in our day to day interactions and the extent to which what we believe to be true about them is able to be demonstrated as in fact true. Call it true objectively. Call it true universally. Call it true empirically. Call it true phenomenologically. Call it true historically, anthropologically, ethnically, culturally, sociologically, politically, economically, psychologically.

It is either a thing or a relationship in sync with what science calls the “laws of nature” out in the either/or world able or not able to be verified or falsified by way of the “scientific method”.

Of course science is considerably less concerned with “I” in the is/ought world. With human behaviors said to be virtuous or moral. Here instead any number of philosophers down through the ages have grappled with what in the discipline is called “ethics”.

And that’s the part I zoom in on in regard to my own understanding of dasein in this thread. That’s the part where I focus the beam at the existential juncture of identity, value judgments and political power.

Out in any particular world, in any particular context, understood from any particular point of view. And here I speculate not so much on what philosophers can tell us, but on what [perhaps] they cannot.

But it is only when we take these “intellectual contraptions” down off the scholastic scaffolding and situate the words out in a particular context, out a particular world, can the human condition be explored more substantively.

Or, rather, so it seems to me.

Liars to who?

You have yet to realize the realization of lying to one’s self.

Go, meditate on this. “Nihilism” won’t do.

What’s So Simple About Personal Identity?
Joshua Farris asks what you find when you find yourself.

In other words, as I interpret it, “I” is not reducible down to the body or to the brain, or to a particular set of memories, or to a personality, or to a character. Instead it is embodied in the manner in which they all somehow come together from day to day to produce a “perspective”. I think this, I feel that, I choose this, I do that.

Basically, the manner in which most of us think about “I” in the world around us for all practical purposes. Given some measure of autonomy.

And we can think of it this way until someday, someone actually is able to demonstrate why the whole package is reducible down to a specific factor above.

And, in the interim, it still comes down to that which we are in fact able to demonstrate to others is [existentially] the most rational way in which to think, feel, say or do…anything.

There’s no getting around circularity here because however you explain human identity, you come back to certain assumptions you make which are not able to be either verified or falsified definitively. And this must be the case or there would already be an explanation out there that accomplishes precisely that.

Though, sure, if you think there is one, link it to us.

Elastic Selves in the Age of Enhancement
Susana Badiola wonders how technology will help us understand our selves.

The technological self?

Assuming of course that, using the technology currently available to them, neuroscientists are not able to rule out entirely at least some capacity on our part to freely choose among the options made available.

Given some measure of autonomy here, “I” is about to enter that brave new world in which the human biological self itself is reconfigured into a kind of memetic self predicated on those qualities that any particular historical or cultural community value the most.

Of course this part…

…we may soon be stronger, healthier, longer-lived, happier, with more acute senses, and capabilities undreamed of by our ancestors…

…is one thing. But it might well become another thing altogether if science is able to reconfigure the mind’s “I” so as to instill characteristics and behaviors more in sync with one political narrative rather than another.

What sort of behaviors should be encouraged if all it takes is tweaking the brain at or around birth?

Then this part:

What might science be able to pin down here more definitively? Whole new ways to grasp the phenomenological “I”? Will a “self within” be discovered? Will there be ways to determine what the optimal self might be? And ways to bring that about in the really and truly brave new world of childhood indoctrination? The “mass me”?

Or, instead, will it be discovered that the mass me is just the wholly determined me spread out among all of Earth’s inhabitants?

Elastic Selves in the Age of Enhancement
Susana Badiola wonders how technology will help us understand our selves.

Why? Because grappling with “I” in one context can be quite different from another context.

Consider:

  • There’s the “I” that goes about the business of living from day to day in the either/or world. Hundreds of things that we do [alone or with others] that are entirely in sync with that which is as close as we have been able to come to “objective reality”. In fact, the main obstacles to pinning this self down revolve around sheer speculation — sim worlds, solipsism, dream worlds, matrix perspectives.

  • There’s the “I” that goes about the business of living from day to day in the is/ought world. Still hundreds of things that we can agree are “true objectively” for all of us. But these things trigger relationships that trigger behaviors that are judged far, far more subjectively. The “I” that I root in dasein.

*There’s the “I” all the way out at the end of the metaphysical limb — going back to the understanding of existence itself. Or in resolving the debate about “free will”.

  • There’s the “I” that, for some, is in a relationship with one or another God. I and Thou.

But that, it turns out, just gets us started…

The biological “I”, The neourological and chemical “I”, the historical “I”, the cultural “I”, the sociological “I”, the psychological and emotional “I”. And on and on.

On the other hand, don’t get them started, right?

And what does this ultimately revolve around? The fact that we relate to our “self” differently in different sets of circumstances. Somehow the “I” in my head is intertwined with all that exist out in any particular world. But there are so many different [and at times entirely unique] possible permutations “out there” given interactions awash in contingency, chance and change, that trying to pin down an understanding of all the variables that combine to create an “I” at any particular time, in any particular place can only be at best a more or less sophisticated guess. While, for many of us, it is more like a WAG.

And yet how could one speak of an “essential self” or the “real me” without the capacity to reduce all of these factors down to the one true reality?

Iambiguous,

I’ve told you a “million times” already that objective proofs are like open mathematical questions… sometimes they take hundreds of years to solve: either the conjecture is true or false.

People have NO PROBLEM, given these “multiple selves” of abstracting a continuity of consciousness. Obviously, given this, there is something wrong with stating that we all should agree that we don’t have a continuity of consciousness.

Elastic Selves in the Age of Enhancement
Susana Badiola wonders how technology will help us understand our selves.

Language can get particularly misleading when “I” is intent on pondering all the stuff that goes on in the mind that generates the “I” in the first place. Dogs and computers are things that are out in the world. You either have one or you don’t. And, if you do, you are easily able to demonstrate this to others. The communication back and forth is rather clear and objective.

Here again however a distinction can be made between being or not being yourself with regard to things which are able to be demonstrated. If one day you find out from the doctor that you have an inoperable brain tumor, or have contracted AIDS, “I” can well come to embody a very different perspective on life. Or if your beloved spouse or child was murdered, “I” too can then come to reflect on life emotionally and psychologically such that you are never quite the same again.

But what is the true or the false way for one to embody a self with respect to conflicting goods? Interactions that garner particular reactions [good or bad] from others depending on the moral and political values that you embrace.

Yes, any particular “I” may not know what to think, but, depending on the context, there either is or is not a rational way in which to think about someone or something. You can’t make up your mind but there are ways in which to show you what a rational mind is obligated to believe or know.

There are epistemological boundaries separating that which we can know for certain and that which we cannot.

And it is always the latter that is of most interest to me. Things that “I” can draw more or less informed and educated conclusions regarding…and things that appear to more in the nature of personal opinions.

And, in regard to our day to day interactions, what could possibly be a more crucial task for philosophers to take on?

A New Look At Personal Identity
Michael Allen Fox argues that old approaches to the problem don’t work.

Think about it: Suppose we lived in a world where there was no contingency, chance and change. None at all. Nothing to tackle then in regard to your identity, right?

But we live in a word that is exactly the opposite don’t we? Of course the question “who am I?” is a difficult question to answer. In fact, it’s far more likely an impossible question to answer. After all, does anyone here actually imagine they have a handle on all of the thousands upon thousands of variables that, over the years, come at you from all directions? The mind-boggling social and psychological permutations that go into creating and then sustaining your own particular “I” . Try to even imagine all the factors that you had no control or understanding of at all. If only as a child.

Yet many of us still approach our identity in the same manner as we might approach, say, a cinder block. It’s there, weighted down by it’s “thingness”.

So, the most important question of all [by far in my view] is how, given the fluid complexity necessarily embedded in “I” evolving over the years, what parts [and changes] can we come closest to nailing down objectively?

You know where I go here.

A New Look At Personal Identity
Michael Allen Fox argues that old approaches to the problem don’t work.

You may as well attempt to pin down if “I” is more the function of genes or memes. We know of course that without the biological self there would be no psychological continuity. But where does one stop and the other begin?

Think about it like this…

You get out of bed this morning. And, you tell yourself, you’re the same person you were when you got out of bed the day before.

Or maybe not. Maybe there is something happening in your body – a cancer cell, the onset of a disease – that, sooner or later, will dramatically reconfigure how you think about yourself in the world around you.

Or maybe yesterday you made a new friend. You are meeting her today. You will embark on a relationship that has the potential to introduce any number of new factors into your life. Factors that, as well, can dramatically reconfigure how you think about yourself in the world around you.

That’s simply how it works. There is “I” in your set of circumstances here and now. And then biological and environmental changes – in increments or in a tidal wave – result in a reconstructed “I” from day to day.

Some of these factors you will be able to grasp and/or control better than others.

Or, as Lena points out to Ray in Dream Lover

“They say you replace every molecule in your body every seven years. I changed my name eight years ago. No more Thelma Sneeder. Aren’t you going to give me credit for it? Doesn’t it seem brave that I became this completely different person.”

And we know how Ray’s “I” was reconfigured after marrying Lena.

But: In what sense do we become a “different person” when all the molecules are replaced? Or, circumstantially, when we have an experience so traumatic, the way we look at the world around us seems to turn upside down?