DNA & The Identity Crisis
Raymond Keogh has a science-based take on personal identity.
Right.
Like, for all practical purposes, that is actually something to concern ourselves about. Other than out in the deep end of the philosophical pool in places like this. Our biological self manages to keep itself reasonably intact from the cradle to the grave. Until, over time, the biological clock starts to tick tock to its inevitable dismiss. Though, for some, any number of brain afflictions can also have a profound impact on the mental, emotional and psychological components of “I” in turn.
Still, these are clearly embedded in biological imperatives that to a greater or lesser extent doctors and medical professionals can account for when a “sense of self” begins to deteriorate. At least we generally have access to an explanation here.
Where things get trickier is when attempts are made to connect the dots between DNA and “I” acquiring, sustaining or changing moral, political and aesthetic values. Here the complexities embedded in memes intertwined in unique sets of personal experiences and relationships create endlessly existential permutations.
“…depending on the context”.
That sounds familiar. Unless of course there are philosophers here among us able to provide us with a precise definition of identity. And then note how they use this definition to explore, to examine and to encompass their own identity such that the manner in which I ascribe it [in the is/ought world] to dasein is not reasonable.
Given a specific context.
As for the “theoretical tradition”…what’s yours?
And yet we know that in any number of extant contexts in the either/or world, chaos and confusion are anything but evident.
It’s in how we bridge this gap in explaining our own behaviors that most interest me. Especially when those behavioirs precipitate conflict.
DNA & The Identity Crisis
Raymond Keogh has a science-based take on personal identity.
Okay, but where on the blueprint is the genetic material that allows us to grasp when brain matter becomes mindful of itself as brain matter able to become mindul of itself. Freely and autonomously, say.
Let alone the biological parameters of human moral and political interactions. Instead, for some, the more they come to know the more it becomes clear that there is still so much more to know.
I, as a biological imperative and “I” as a social, political and economic construct. Which combinations of deoxyribose, phosphate molecule and the four nitrogenous bases --adenine, thymine, cytosine, guanine – combined with countless historical and cultural permutations embedded in memes accounts for why we choose one behavior rather than another? And why we react to those behaviors in so many conflicting ways?
Okay, how do we go from all of these things we are anchored to in the either/or world to all of the things that tear us apart in the is/ought world? Might it be either the manner in which I construe the meaning of determinism or the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein?
DNA & The Identity Crisis
Raymond Keogh has a science-based take on personal identity.
Then it comes down to where the line is drawn. Only there are no “simple terms” for that. Otherwise we would know by now whether this line is closer to the memetic “I” having significant control over the genetic “I”, or the genetic “I” being wholly in sync with biological determinism such that the memetic – historical, cultural, experiential – “I” is basically just an illusion embodied in a human psychology that is no less wholly in sync with the laws of matter.
Ever and always that same imponderable. Where, when, how, why does the brain become the mind become the self conscious “I” become that entity which chooses this behavior instead of that one?
Okay, you’ve made this crucial paradigm shift “in your head”. Now tell us how this explains in any definitive manner the way in which “I” seems to be broached, assessed, encompassed and then sustained by so many variables that are not manifestations of the human genome. Those material/phenomenal interactions that are broached, assessed, encompassed and the sustained in any number of complex and ever evolving social, political and economic interactions. How does it not still always come down to connecting the dots between what we think is true and what we are able demonstrate to others is in fact true for all of us? Those aspects of our identity which are actually questioned by others in regard to any number of things.
Just as teen age years need to navigate between childhood and adulthood , Wittgenstein had to navigate between Russell’s and Cantor’s paradoxes to create a feasible objective toward construct of a model . The ‘Vanishing Adolescent’ , David Riesman point to the vaster state induced; ‘The One Dimensional Man’. The problems the Dasein faces are apparently meshed with the problems of the entropic deconstruction of culture and society in general.
Without the 'Dasein diffentiating out toward the plenum, the construct can not overcome the big central gap, which becomes the pedestal that the model will be placed upon.
It’s setting, it’s situational or context, will not have space for it, ( Cantor’s interject , I believe.)- as a reverse function between linear and relative space/time
Reconstructions become more like the warped mirror images, rather then memorable qualifiers such as moral quantifiers becon to abstract.
The authentic and the inauthentic self will form analytical models thereby, and weighing one against the other will not serve either well.
The third man argument fits here, where phenominal amd nominal programs construct workable models, on utilitarian basis.
I think Wittgenstein did say this, and did not anchor an absolutely necessary rrules , which do work mainly on Democratic arena.
But as can be opined by current affairs, for most, similarity tends to signal a necessary use of common sense.
I do not think this implies merely that.
Similarly , the same goes for the memetic-genetic difference, but this goes to the heart of the paradigmn shift, and although it is intrinsically casual, but it’s determinancy is of secondary importance.
We are responsible for our actions regardless of whether they are willed autonomously, or are products of distant precepts.
DNA & The Identity Crisis
Raymond Keogh has a science-based take on personal identity.
Biological imperatives. Our collective identity as the human race. One big inclusive group.
Okay, so how then does one explain the manner in which individual members of this group then go about the business of creating myriad other groups? The ones based on race or ethnicity or gender or sexual preference or religious affiliation or political commitment?
Or is that too just a particularly mind-boggling manifestation of biological imperatives.
But, okay, let’s just assume there’s a juncture where biology gives way to human autonomy. We don’t know exactly when that happened, how that happened and why that happened, but [compelled or not] let’s just say that it did.
What then?
Memes. Social, political and economic. And isn’t this the factor that seems to cause all the fuss when it comes to identity? Different people in different communities at different points in time historically seem driven to create any number of groups in which someone is either one of them or they are not.
The rest then being history.
All I do is to focus in not on the groups that we choose to be a part of but why we choose the groups that we do. Once we go beyond the parts where biology is destiny. The role that dasein – encompassed in the OP – plays in our individual lives.
In other words, once we go beyond this:
Yes, for reasons we will almost certainly never truly understand, we were destined to be born, will be destined to die and now we have to deal with the part in the middle.
What then of “I”? Here and now. What can we pin down for sure about ourselves? And what is more or less just an existential leap rooted in dasein?
The part that, in my view, most will steer clear of once the exploration brings them in the general vicinity of my own point of view.
DNA & The Identity Crisis
Raymond Keogh has a science-based take on personal identity.
Okay, so let’s pin down with some precision that crucial distinction between the objective definitions you have accepted in regard to your own identity and the parts that I attribute to dasein. By, oh, I don’t know, focusing in on a particular set of circumstances in which you choose behaviors based on your assessment of yourself that come into conflict with others who, in ascribing their own sense of identity to value judgments at odds with yours, are ready to do battle with you.
Anyone care to go there?
Where, in my view, the implications are considerably more problematic. Let’s bring the author’s “intellectual contraption” above down to earth.
On the other hand, perhaps there is a biological component embedded in the “human all too human” tendency down through the ages to for all practical purposes make such demographic distinctions. After all, that might explain why they never go away.
Here I tend to make my own leap in the general direction of nurture. Nurture being able to shape and mold nature such that folks are found all up and down the ideological spectrum. But how to finally pin it all down once and for all? The optimal or the only rational manner in which to view such things as race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation?
Yes, some day science and philosophy may well be able to grapple with it all objectively and provide us with that definitive assessment.
Or perhaps they already have. If so, links please.
That will almost certainly never happen until our genetic makeup is understood to the point that everything we say and do can be explained “scientifically” as a result of one or another combination of biological factors. And to the extent that, say, moral and political agendas are attributed to this is the extent which it becomes for all practical purposes “beyond our control”.
Unless of course I am not understanding his point correctly.
Kant & The Human Subject
Brian Morris compares the ways Kant’s question “What is the human being?” has been answered by philosophers and anthropologists.
Whereas I am more intent on exploring the part where, after coming to a conclusion about that, the focus then is on each of us as individuals out in a particular world at a particular time interacting with others of our own species in a particular context. The stuff I explore in the OP on this very thread: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=176529
Hear, hear!
And yet at the same time Kant is intent on encompassing human interactions by way of “categorical and imperative” moral obligations. Human “beingness” cannot be pinned down through rational thought but human ethics can be?
What am I missing here?
And an empirical examination of human identity will sooner or later bump into those parts of the self that are able to be established as in fact true objectively for all rational men and women and those parts that seems conducive only to “I” as an existential contraption subject to change given new experiences.
Iambiguous, I’ve told you repeatedly that proofs exist, they are not subject to opinion or disproof. It’s very narcissistic of you to claim that since your opinions have changed over time THAT YOU WERE EVER WRONG ABOUT SOMETHING!!! That everyone HAS to be wrong about something. They’re not!
I’m currently in a thread with John Bannan where I define space as otherness. It’s true beyond true beyond true. There is no other possible opinion to this! These are proofs. Humans have lots of proofs!
And I have told you repeatedly that I am of the opinion – and that is all it is, my own personal opinion – that you are afflicted with a “condition” that prompts you to post things here at ILP that make absolutely no sense at all. Surreal, bizarre things. You pummel us with all of these assumptions about everything under the sun but you fail to convince me that you are actually able to demonstrate that they are true much beyond you believing that they are.
Something is proven only in the fact of you having posted it.
You make your life out of being incredulous. Much more surreal than anything I’ve posted.
I’ll post something like, “I hit the submit button to send this post”. And you’ll be like, “you don’t have an “I” and even if you did (unless I’m wrong) you’re perception of that is rooted in dasein (unless I’m wrong), it’s just an idea in your head, just an opinion (unless I’m wrong).
Honestly! It’s as if you have no self reflective insight into how you sound to others!
Sure, I get blind spots too. But I change! You don’t change!
Kant & The Human Subject
Brian Morris compares the ways Kant’s question “What is the human being?” has been answered by philosophers and anthropologists.
Okay, but where does this actually take us other than back to the point I keep raising: that, in regard to “all things human”, what counts is not what you “exclaim” to be true but the extent in which your exclamations are able to be substantiated experientially with respect to a particular context that most in the discussion will be familiar with.
Otherwise, the exchange ends up revolving only around what you believe to be the case about being human. And, down through the ages there have been countless intellectual renditions – social, political, economic – of that.
And how much more readily that is accomplished when the concepts themselves come to reflect, by and large, how one defines the words in the concepts. That is why, when push comes to shove, anthropologists have been able to depict cultures over time historically and across space culturally that construe “what is the human being” in so many complex and conflicting ways. What does that tell us about the limitations of language itself in capturing these things objectively?
Kant & The Human Subject
Brian Morris compares the ways Kant’s question “What is the human being?” has been answered by philosophers and anthropologists.
What does this reveal if not the many, many diverse and conflicting ways in which my “I” and your “I” and their “I” can be “situated” out in a particular world understood from a particular point of view? Again, all I attempt is to make the distinction between what we have come to believe about the “human condition” “in our head” and that which we are, to the best of our ability, able to demonstrate to others as something that they would/should want to believe too.
And that would certainly be the case in regard to establishing the “single essential attribute” of someone’s identity. The “the real me”.
The start of course is simple enough: “I” am a biological entity that must acquire everything necessary to remain among the living. Agreed? Ah, but after that, we bump into all of the men and women down though the ages who have gone on to propose hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of diverse and conflicting social, political, economic, philosophical, moral and spiritual explanations for the rest of it.
Sure, what is the alternative but to at least make the attempt. One way or another we have to devise the least dysfunctional manner in which to interact. But to imagine that what you have figured out does in fact reflect the best of all possible worlds?
How could that not be a manifestation of human psychology?
A simulation by artificial means may take up the slack . But is he, will be or she, get the trust necessary to possess worthy of that absolute doubt?
Iambiguous said,
"The start of course is simple enough: “I” am a biological entity that must acquire everything necessary to remain among the living. Agreed? Ah, but after that, we bump into all of the men and women down though the ages who have gone on to propose hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of diverse and conflicting social, political, economic, philosophical, moral and spiritual explanations for the rest of it.
Sure, what is the alternative but to at least make the attempt. One way or another we have to devise the least dysfunctional manner in which to interact. But to imagine that what you have figured out does in fact reflect the best of all possible worlds?
How could that not be a manifestation of human psychology?
On the other hand: whatever that means."
The paradoxical result is simulated distinctively by the forced upon ’ mea ing that tries to spin an architectural matrix on a retroactive meaningful development.
Functional interpretations are still meaningful to a satisfactory degree.
Such becomes necessary to avoid collapse into a sense of chaos.
Would You agree?
Kant & The Human Subject
Brian Morris compares the ways Kant’s question “What is the human being?” has been answered by philosophers and anthropologists.
Really, how can someone explore in depth human historical and anthropological accounts and come to the conclusion that there is an “essential characteristic” – an “essential nature” – able to explain away all of the many, many diverse and ofttimes conflicting moral narratives and political agendas? Especially in regard to the so-called “rational ego”? Instead, once you go beyond biological imperatives that pertain to all of us, the rest becomes a cauldron of perennial confrontation.
As for human nature being essentially tribal, how do you explain the manner in which capitalism has of late basically ripped that demographic font to shreds. It’s not a question of if the individual prevails in the modern global economy, but how many millions of individuals are left behind barely able to sustain themselves as wage slaves from week to week to week.
Unless you want to call this assessment itself the essential characteristic of human interactions.
Memes for the most part. Social, political, economic. Sexual, artistic, psychological. There are really no aspects of human interactions in which the biological imperatives we all share in common are not confronted, then molded and manipulated, in a ceaseless accumulation of ever evolving human communities. All with their own more or less unique set of circumstances. The part where dasein, conflicting goods and political economy become more and more intertwined in “I”.
And the beauty of memes of course is that the moral and political objectivists among us can claim that they and they alone understand what they mean…and why everyone else is obligated to understand them the same way.
You can’t do that with genes…with the brute facticity built into human biology in the either/or world. There you either understand or misunderstand what is in fact demonstrable as “natural”.
Not that this will ever stop the objectivists. In regard to, among other things, race and ethnicity and gender and sexual orientation. Even the gap between what we think we understand about the evolution of life on Earth and all that there is yet to be known is closed by them in concocting their “one of us” vs. “one of them” mentality.
