Public Journal:

[d63]

“If we could come to see such appeals as gimmicks, we might become able to dispense with words like “intrinsic,” “authentic,” “unconditional,” “legitimate,” “basic,” and “objective.” We could get along with such banal expressions of praise or blame as “fits the data,” “sounds plausible,” “would do more harm than good,” “offends our instincts,” “might be worth a try,” and “is too ridiculous to take seriously.” Pragmatists who find this sort of banality sufficient think that no inspired poet or prophet should argue for the utility of his ideas from their putative source in some other to reason. Nor should any defender of the status quo argue from the fact of intersubjective agreement to the universality and necessity of the belief about which consensus has been reached. But one can still value intersubjective agreement after one has given up both the jigsaw-puzzle view of things and the idea that we possess a faculty called “reason” that is somehow attuned to the intrinsic nature of reality. One can still value novelty and imaginative power even after one has given up the romantic idea that the imagination is so attuned.” -Rorty, Richard. Philosophy as Cultural Politics: Volume 4: Philosophical Papers (Page 87). Cambridge University Press. Kindle Edition.

“Questions such as “Does truth exist?” or “Do you believe in truth?” seem fatuous and pointless. Everybody knows that the difference between true and false beliefs is as important as that between nourishing and poisonous foods.” -ibid

I think one of the most problematic aspects of the neo-classical/scientistic aversion to postmodern/pragmatic position (since pragmatism is basically postmodernism light with the anglo-American style of exposition (is that they tend to jump to a lot of unwarranted conclusions about what the looser approach to philosophy is about. They, for instance, assume that since we don’t take a reverent position towards the “Truth”, we are taking an anything goes position. We, as much as the neo-classical/scientistic, want to back our position with data and hard facts. The only difference is that we recognize that our emotional responses to what is in the world is as much a hard fact and part of the data as anything science might have the tools to describe.

Furthermore, they tend to argue that we are anti-science because we question the privilege of science much as Foucault did. But all Foucault did was question the political imperatives behind a lot of what science claimed to be the “Truth”. What they fail to recognize is how authoritarian science can actually become when it assumes itself to be the only means by which understanding can be achieved, that which claims the right (the authority (to shut down any discourse that does not play by its rules. Note, for instance, Hawkins’s claim that science would render philosophy pointless, that it would answer all the questions that philosophy presents. And note, also, that it was an argument based on what Hawkins thought science should be able to do rather than what it actually achieved.

Finally, it fails to recognize the role that philosophy plays in the general scheme of things. To cop off of and revise Russell: philosophy lies in that no-man’s land between science and the arts. The hard approach to philosophy tends to make the mistake of taking what the pragmatic and continental (the soft approach (do too literally. They think we’re trying to compete with science when all we’re really doing is offering metaphors: conceptual models that might give us a deeper understanding of the environment we are adapting to. We are not trying mirror the world. We are simply forming rhizomes with it in the hope of creating something better.

[d63]

“Daddy, are animals ever ironic or sarcastic?” –from a Metalogue in Gregory Bateson’s Steps to an Ecology of Mind

Never really thought about the relationship between self consciousness and the more literary terms of irony and sarcasm. But I now realize that the capability to be ironic or sarcastic is one of the main things that distinguish humans from other species in that they require a certain amount of self consciousness. I see this in the sometimes self-deprecating humor I tend to engage in on these boards, or even in the more finished letters to the editor for Philosophy Now. I do what I do out of a serious effort to say something truthful to the world while being perfectly aware of how pretentious that must seem or even is. As I like to joke:

I refuse to be taken seriously!

And we should note here the mirror test of self consciousness brought to my attention in Steve Weber’s The Origin of the Self. If you take any animal and put them in front of a mirror with blush on their face, you get a sense of how self conscious they are by how they respond to what they sense as an abnormality. For instance, it’s been found that children up to six months of age will generally not respond by trying to wipe the dis-colorization off. This suggests a lack of self consciousness up until the age of six months. Furthermore, while some higher primates did respond by wiping the blush off, most did not.

But we have to be careful here. Bateson (via the father (goes on to argue that other species cannot engage in irony or sarcasm because they don’t have a language. But that neglects the fact that our language started out with specific grunts that communicated information to other members within our tribe. One of the points brought up was a smaller dog showing its belly to bigger dog in order to defuse a possible fight. It’s basically a submissive gesture. And it can even be thought of as ironic to the extent that it is exposing itself to the bigger dog to keep the bigger dog from attacking it while still talking in the language of domination. It is, as Bateson argues, an evolutionary adaption, little more. Still, it works very much like a language. So we have to be careful about the solipsism that can result as concerns animals based on demarcations between the ability to be ironic and sarcastic and that which cannot. Once again, even a human baby up until six months is incapable of such self consciousness.

The point I’m trying to make is that we cannot convolute a lack of self consciousness with a lack of a self. Here Sartre is useful. He makes the distinction between consciousness and reflective consciousness. And even though it is only humans that seem to be capable of reflective consciousness, we have to admit that other species are perfectly capable of consciousness (of a self), even if it expresses itself in a non-reflective form that can't engage in irony or sarcasm.

[d63]

“It is logically possible that in one cultural environment A will be dominant and exhibitionist, while B is submissive and spectator, while in another culture X may be dominant and spectator, while Y is submissive and exhibitionist.” –from Gregory Bateson’s Steps to an Ecology of Mind

This comes from an interesting social model Bateson presents (that which generally deals with power relationships (that I have yet to fully explore the implications of. But it seems like it could be useful. And given the window I have here, I can only offer a short synopsis as background. He starts with symmetrical relationships in which there is a tit for tat. The best example here is a sporting event in which both teams are presumed to be starting from equal ground. He then goes on to describe relationships that are asymmetrical but complementary:

Dominant as compared to Submissive

Succoring as compared to Dependent

Exhibitionist as compared to Spectatorship

And if you think about it, pretty much every relationship you could think of (that is outside of symmetrical ones (fits within one of these complementary opposites. But given my window, I’ll have to leave it to the reader to pursue the implications of it. All I want to cover for now is the second part of the above quote: the culture where X is dominant while acting as spectator while Y is submissive while acting as the exhibitionist.

Of course, the first thing that comes to mind is the court jester who acts at the favor of the king while expressing their power through the folk magic of art. And as I write this, I can't help but think of Ayn Rand as a kind of court jester acting at the favor of corporate interests. Unfortunately, we also have to see in this the whole Hollywood system in which all participants (directors, actors, screenwriters, etc., etc. (are always working within the perimeters laid out by the producers: those who have access to the money. And they do so by continuing to be entertaining exhibitionists for the producers. As long as they’re entertained, the money will keep coming.

And we would like to think that the other arts are above all this. We know better, of course, with music since it works under the same industrial model that movies do. But the song remains the same with literature and the arts which pretty much follows the industrial model of being at the mercy of an editor or a patron. As much as we would like to think those higher pursuits are above all that, we are still working in a dynamic in which X is dominant while acting as spectator while Y is submissive while acting as the exhibitionist.

[d63]

It seems to me that there have been three primary mythologies (that which lead to an emphasis on a loose fancy as compared to a more involved imagination (that have haunted America since the beginning and played a major role in what we’ve experienced for the last four years:

1. The truthful outburst

2. The triumph of the revolutionary

And 3. The Christ-like historical figure


The truthful outburst is about something that breaks away from protocol in order to express something that has been denied due to the inherent blockages built into the protocol. We see this in such movies as Bulworth and Man of the Year. And we can especially see it in the effect that Trump has had on his followers in his rallies. That which offended most reasonable people, because of this, seemed profound to his MAGA-Minions.

The triumph of the revolutionary can easily be seen in Trump’s followers storming the Capital and the fancy this must have ignited in their minds as they were doing it, especially given that it was this very behavior that established our country in the first place. Misguided as it was (due to a lack of imagination), they clearly fancied their selves analogous to the original revolutionaries.

But the most interesting to me (that is for my purposes here (is the Christ-like historical figure which, while being historically factual, took on a more mythical aura about them. Think, for instance: Jesus, Martin Luther King, John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, and William Morris, anyone that was so inspirational that they took on the air of the profound. And that is clearly the mythology that Trump’s MAGA-Minions are embracing given that many of those who stormed the Capital actually claimed they were willing to die for Trump.

So you have to ask if the reason we end up with demagogues like Trump is that they fill in the gap left by the absence of such authentically inspired individuals as Jesus, Kennedy, King, etc., etc.. And put in mind that such figures cannot be forced. They have to emerge spontaneously, as if by an act of God –whatever that might be. Also put in mind that some theologians have presented the theory that the term “Antichrist” suggests someone who is Christ-like, but not quite Christ and, thereby, capable of all kinds of evil, even if it goes against their original intentions.

[d63]

I really do like theory –the depth of understanding it brings me- especially as concerns social and economic justice. I really do. Still, the pragmatist in me (the old school bourgeoisie liberal that still believes in the institutions we have as Rorty use to joke (is a little hesitant about taking it too seriously when it comes to solutions.

Take, for instance, Slavoj Žižek’s argument that Starbuck’s humanitarian efforts offer a distracting possibility to the better off in society: that they can buy their redemption and appease their conscience for the price of a cup of coffee. And I agree with him. Much as I agree that the philanthropy trap is a misdirect meant to make government solutions seem less necessary. But before we surrender to the radical pop-cynicism of assuming that the system is just rotten to the core and anarchistic calls for tearing the system down to the ground and rebuilding it from there, couldn’t we just say:

“Look Starbucks: the gig is up. Žižek exposed you. Still, anything helps. And we appreciate you for that. You could have chosen to do otherwise. But it’s not going to be enough. It will still require substantial government intervention through policy to truly fix the problems we have.”

[d63]

“’Ha, ha, ha! You will be finding in toothache next,” you cry, with a laugh.

“’Well? Even in toothache there is enjoyment,” I answer. I had toothache for a whole month and I know there is. In that case, of course, people are not spiteful in silence, but moan; but they are not candid moans, they are malignant moans, and the malignancy is the whole point. The enjoyment of the sufferer finds expression in those moans; if he did not feel enjoyment in them he would not moan.” –from Dostoyevsky’s Notes from Underground

One of the cool things I’m getting out of this particular run through Kaufman’s The Basic Writings of Existentialism is an overlap with a lot of the more contemporary thinkers I gravitate towards. In this case, that main overlap I’m seeing is with Lacan’s concept of Jouissance. And to offer a brief synopsis:

Lacan argued that when it comes to sex, we experience pleasure at a conscious level while experiencing discomfort at an unconscious one. And this is confirmed by scientific evidence that the prostrate, during the sexual act, is agitated until it is forced to release sperm in order to return a state of homeostasis. And this makes sense. If you think about it, sex is a process of working towards a threshold that will take you out of a place you’re really enjoying at the time.

Lacan then reverses this in pointing that many of our psychological maladies are a matter of feeling discomfort at a conscious level while experiencing pleasure at a subconscious level. And if you think about it: why else would we repeat behaviors that give us displeasure at a conscious level unless we were experiencing some kind of pleasure at an unconscious one? A young man falls in love with a girl, gets her, yet, finds himself constantly imagining her with other men. Fear? Or a kind of porn? You tell me:

Dostoyevsky then goes on to describe how Cleopatra took pleasure in sticking pins in her servant girls breast in order to watch their “screams and writhings”. And here we see an overlap in Žižek’s bounce off of Lacan when it comes to human cruelty in the context of NAZI Germany:

“It is especially important to bear in mind how the very ‘bureaucratization’ of the crime was ambiguous in its libidinal impact: on the one hand, it enabled (some of) the participants to neutralize the horror and take it as ‘just another job’; on the other, the basic lesson of the perverse ritual also applies here: this ‘bureaucratization’ was in itself the source of an additional jouissance (does it not provide an additional kick if one performs the killing as a complicated administrative-criminal operation? Is it not more satisfying to torture prisoners as part of some orderly procedure –say, the meaningless ‘morning exercises which served only to torment them –didn’t it give another ‘kick’ to the guards satisfaction when they were inflicting pain on their victims not by directly beating them up but in the guise of an activity officially destined to maintain their health?”

[d63]

“The crowd is untruth. Therefore was Christ crucified, although he addressed himself to all, He would have no dealings with the crowd, because He would not permit the crowd to aid him in any way, because in this regard He repelled people He repelled people absolutely, would not found a party, did not permit balloting, but would be what He is, the Truth, which relates itself to the individual –And hence everyone who truly would serve the truth is eo ipso, , in one way or another, a martyr.” –from Kierkegaard’s ‘That Individual’ in Kaufman’s Basic Writings of Existentialism

First of all, I apologize for the blatant confirmation bias and vulgar self promotion I’m about to indulge in (that is without compunction), but this pretty much parallels my understanding of Jesus’ unfortunate fate. What clearly got him killed was the fact that he belonged to everyone while belonging to no one at the same time. Think about what happened with Pontius Pilate who, sources say, wanted nothing to do with the whole affair. So he takes Jesus (who is charged with matters at best vague) and Barabbas who is charged with killing a Roman soldier. He then asks the people to choose which one is to be spared. The people, of course, choose Barabbas because his résistance to the Roman Empire seems more concrete and comprehensible.

And here we should note Layotard’s point in The Postmodern Condition that one of mechanisms towards oppression is the natural human draw to the easily interpreted and easily communicated. We can further see Christ (as described by Kierkegaard (as the ultimate deconstructive hero. This, furthermore, brings us to a better understanding of why Kierkegaard’s pursuit of Christianity is so important to Continental philosophy in general –that is in him rooting a lot our conceptual models in his understanding of Jesus. Note, for instance, Christ’s emphasis on private philosophy as compared to public, or rather, respectively, self creation as compared to social change as Rorty makes the distinction. And we see the residual effect of this in thinkers like Deleuze (w/ and w/out Guatarri (as well as Derrida.

And note, also, the analogous relationship between the deflective statements of thinkers like Deleuze or Derrida and those of Christ. I would argue that Christ (much as Deleuze did (would advice one to not ask what it means, but rather pay attention to what it does.

[d63]

Heraldo Muñoz, in his book on the subject, takes a really balanced and thoughtful take on Pinochet –especially coming from a guy that embraced the dictator’s worst and most hated enemy: Marxism. He was lucky to survive. Still, Muñoz shows the humility to argue that he believed that Pinochet authentically loved his country; that he truly wanted to save it but let his ego and self interest get in the way; that for all the evil he managed to instigate, he was actually deluded into believing what he was doing was for the best. And I tend to agree with Muñoz to the extent that this dynamic seems to be at the heart of every other tyrant this world has had the misfortune of dealing with, including Trump.

And now that Trump is facing the same come-upping that Pinochet did (that slow motion fade in import and power: he's just the latest fad to his followers, much as the Tea Party was), I think we can consider a similar understanding of him. It could well be that he actually did love our country, at least his understanding of it. How could he not given how it had elevated him to one the most powerful positions in the world? Furthermore, if we think about it, we can entertain the possibility that most of acts we saw as evil, he saw as him serving the patriarchal duty of taking the heat for what he thought we all wanted in the first place, but was too meek to admit it. We can really see this in the travesties he engaged in on the border.

But most notable here is that, much like Pinochet, he literally thought his so-called “economic miracle” would gloss over everything else that people hated about him. He thought of it (as did every tyrant before him (as something that would become so compelling that everyone would just realize that he was right and that they had been wrong about him all along: a kind of fatherly tough love.

And note the appeal to fancy here.

[d63]

A child starts out hearing language passing over and all around them. Certain words are repeated and the child eventually latches onto them, plays with their lips and tongues until they can pronounce them. Once mastered (speech-wise that is (they start applying them to the world around them (“Mom” “Dad” (until they develop a better understanding of how those words work in the world. And if ever there was proof-positive evidence for the Rortian approach to pragmatism, think about the response (the reinforcement (of any parent when the child first utters their proper title (“Mommy”, “Daddy” (and the sense of having gotten things done. It is then that the child starts to see language as a useful tool. With time, they start to accumulate more terms that collect until they begin to see the meaning that can be extracted through recognizing not only the relationship between various words that are strung together, but the relationships they seem to have within the given reality in which they are spoken.

We do pretty much the same thing with philosophy or any discipline we might seek to pursue. Such is the hermeneutic approach (the unfolding (that pragmatism recognizes in any intellectual or creative pursuit.

[d63]

I had, the other day, pointed to reality TV shows about people who are really obese as an expression of the psychotic response to the nihilistic perspective. And since we’re on the subject of reality TV, I think the same can be applied to hoarders. However, having recently dealt with someone who is dealing with old age and going through the process of physical breakdown, I’m starting to realize the real ubiquity of it.


But first I should, once again, explain the model I am writing about here. The nihilistic perspective works at the metaphysical/ontological level as well (that fact that we are when we could as easily not be); but for the sake of brevity, I will focus on the ethical/social/political aspect of it that recognizes that, ultimately, there is no solid criteria by which to judge action. Any criteria we take on is inherently a human construct we embrace in terms of what Lacan referred to as the Symbolic Order: the system of signs and laws by which we exist as a society. And when the nihilistic perspective rears its head, it can come in two forms in relation to the Symbolic Order: the sociopathic and the psychotic.


The sociopathic, having no real criteria by which to judge action, is a strategy of aggression and turns to the only criteria that seems to impose itself: power. It turns to the circular logic of “I have power because I am right; therefore, I am right because I have power.” The ideal form this takes, of course, is the sociopathic serial killer. But it can also take the more subtle form of cut-throat Wall Street types or players as anyone knows who has fallen in love with one.


The psychotic approach, on the other hand, turns to retreat in relation to the Symbolic Order and recedes into its own semiotic bubble with its own system of meanings and rules of expression. The ideal example here is the mentally ill person walking down the street having conversations with their selves. But it can also take on the more subtle form of Avant Garde artists as well as drug addicts and extreme alcoholics. And in all these cases, they sink so far into their semiotic bubbles that they become incomprehensible to those still closely attached to the Symbolic Order.


And we can see this in the even more subtle form of extreme obesity and hoarders (which is why the two are sometimes combined), and can be extended into individuals that are dealing with medical problems such as deformation as well as old age. Too often, these individuals find their selves compelled to sink away from the Symbolic Order into their own system of meanings since, as is the case with the psychopath and sociopath, there is no solid criteria by which to judge action. This is why the medical field has found itself having to take on prosthetic and aesthetic pursuits: to bring people back into the fold of the Symbolic Order. It’s also why you see so many these individuals turn to other means by which to transcend the Symbolic such as the Iraqi vet with missing legs becoming a super weight lifter.

[Meno_]

I had, the other day, pointed to reality TV shows about people who are really obese as an expression of the psychotic response to the nihilistic perspective. And since we’re on the subject of reality TV, I think the same can be applied to hoarders. However, having recently dealt with someone who is dealing with old age and going through the process of physical breakdown, I’m starting to realize the real ubiquity of it.


But first I should, once again, explain the model I am writing about here. The nihilistic perspective works at the metaphysical/ontological level as well (that fact that we are when we could as easily not be); but for the sake of brevity, I will focus on the ethical/social/political aspect of it that recognizes that, ultimately, there is no solid criteria by which to judge action. Any criteria we take on is inherently a human construct we embrace in terms of what Lacan referred to as the Symbolic Order: the system of signs and laws by which we exist as a society. And when the nihilistic perspective rears its head, it can come in two forms in relation to the Symbolic Order: the sociopathic and the psychotic.


The sociopathic, having no real criteria by which to judge action, is a strategy of aggression and turns to the only criteria that seems to impose itself: power. It turns to the circular logic of “I have power because I am right; therefore, I am right because I have power.” The ideal form this takes, of course, is the sociopathic serial killer. But it can also take the more subtle form of cut-throat Wall Street types or players as anyone knows who has fallen in love with one.


The psychotic approach, on the other hand, turns to retreat in relation to the Symbolic Order and recedes into its own semiotic bubble with its own system of meanings and rules of expression. The ideal example here is the mentally ill person walking down the street having conversations with their selves. But it can also take on the more subtle form of Avant Garde artists as well as drug addicts and extreme alcoholics. And in all these cases, they sink so far into their semiotic bubbles that they become incomprehensible to those still closely attached to the Symbolic Order.


And we can see this in the even more subtle form of extreme obesity and hoarders (which is why the two are sometimes combined), and can be extended into individuals that are dealing with medical problems such as deformation as well as old age. Too often, these individuals find their selves compelled to sink away from the Symbolic Order into their own system of meanings since, as is the case with the psychopath and sociopath, there is no solid criteria by which to judge action. This is why the medical field has found itself having to take on prosthetic and aesthetic pursuits: to bring people back into the fold of the Symbolic Order. It’s also why you see so many these individuals turn to other means by which to transcend the Symbolic such as the Iraqi vet with missing legs becoming a super weight lifter.

Given time on my hand, would like to comment later to seek interactive relevance, as we have previously met on occasion.

Your comments on transcendental judgments as per relation to conversing on mirrored ( Lacanian) levels are of interest. Please bear with me.

[d63]

Will look forward to it.....

[d63]

Note: I will add some of the relevant quotes below should the reader be interested; but for sake of people’s small windows of time on social media, I will make my point brief by summarizing the book I am referring to:

Steve Brewer, in Origins of the Soul, makes the point (in a dialogue form similar to that of Plato’s (that life basically began through a kind of spontaneous chemistry in which chemical compounds in the primordial muck (hiding in crevices, BTW (engage in a kind of experimentation in which they assimilate various other available chemicals, mix them into their own chemical composition, and look for what works. In this sense, they were engaging in a natural bricolage that eventually resulted in primitive life forms: single cell organisms.

This was an argument made by Max in the dialogue for the sake of his materialist understanding of consciousness as a kind of redundancy produced by the perfectly mechanical workings of the brain. And here we see something very similar to Deleuze’s materialism (via Bergson (that recognizes the inherent creativity of nature. In Deleuze’s case, even being an artist is a matter of letting one’s self be a node within an already creative system of exchange. Still, part of me wonders if Deleuze’s materialism wasn’t just a conceptual convenience, a way of creating a model that underlies (while not enslaving (the many ways in which humans engage with the world.

It just seems to me that Deleuze’s models (w/ and w/out Guatarri (makes room for the possibility of participation.
*
Relevant quotes:

“This pre-biotic stage of evolution is likely to occur in tiny niches amongst crystalline crevices in rocks where the chemical conditions are just right. Now another key component of cellular life, a cell membrane, also forms naturally just by shaking fats with water. It only takes the encapsulation of the contents of such a niche in a membrane and now you have a primitive cell. This can drift off to another suitable niche but now carrying its own self-replicating chemistry with it. A final step is to separate the functions of genetic information into RNA’s closely related chemical, DNA and the catalytic function into proteins. You now have everything needed for a living cell. It’s doubtful we can ever get firm evidence for what exactly happened, but with concepts such as the RNA world, science has explained how there can be a purely natural pathway leading from primitive chemistry to cellular life.”

“Freya: It’s still a bit of a mystery why such an insignificant chemical could organize this soup into the complex chemical systems found in life.”

“Max: It’s only a mystery if you don’t distinguish between the use of the word chemistry and chemicals. Chemistry is the process used to produce chemicals; chemicals are the inputs and new chemicals the outputs. The unique feature about any catalyst is if you change its structure it can carry out new chemistry. This could be just doing the existing chemistry faster or slower, but there’s also the possibility of a new type of chemistry able to produce entirely different sorts of chemicals. Presumably, such a leap in chemistry allowed RNA to combine amino acids into chains and make proteins. Once you have this, the door is open to produce the even more versatile and efficient enzyme catalysts.”

-Brewer, Stephen. The Origins of Self. Kindle Edition.

[Meno_]

Hello again, d63.



The above appears credible, or at least more credible then not, in light of the multileverd construction of crystalline patterns of relevance.

Words like crystal clear have borne out a relation to light and enlightenement to firm these relationship of chemistry with established forms of various chemicals.

This is anion to the principles of attraction relate to particle physics, perhaps.

Even more interesting could be to ponder relating to Deleauze's and Attwri's conceptual cognitive organization.

Could You touch on some possible linkege here?

[d63]

Hello again, d63.



The above appears credible, or at least more credible then not, in light of the multileverd construction of crystalline patterns of relevance.

Words like crystal clear have borne out a relation to light and enlightenement to firm these relationship of chemistry with established forms of various chemicals.

This is anion to the principles of attraction relate to particle physics, perhaps.

Even more interesting could be to ponder relating to Deleauze's and Attwri's conceptual cognitive organization.

Could You touch on some possible linkege here?

Deleuze is always an influence. Attwri is not familiar to me. Thank you for your kind words.

[d63]

Doc:



Throughout your book, you deal extensively with the nature of consciousness as concerns simpler life forms such as gnats and ants down to single cell organisms. I’ve had a few thoughts about this myself. So please indulge me while I add my own 2 cents to the mix.



It’s a funny story. Back in the 90’s, I and my college graduate friends managed to come across some LSD. (I’m sure you can you guess who managed that negotiation.) Under that influence, we got into a conversation about whether ants could be said to have a sense of self. Their argument was pretty much the same mechanistic one as Max. I, on the other hand, argued that they did. At the time (and given my state of mind), I was mainly taking a position that suited my general disposition.



It wasn’t until hindsight kicked in that I realized two things. First, it just seemed to me that an organism would have to have some sense of self in order for there to be a survival instinct. It would have to have some sense of what it was it was trying preserve. Secondly, it seemed to me that if it were as mechanistic as my friends assumed, you have to ask how it is that such organisms can actually anticipate threats to their survival. If it were as mechanistic as my friends argued, wouldn’t it require that you literally stick a pin into the nervous system of an ant in order for it to respond?



Furthermore, I see the possibility of a self in what I refer to as a perceiving thing: that which makes nothing something through intentionality: consciousness always being consciousness of something. You are reading this. Then you say to yourself: I am thinking about myself reading what D. has written. Then you think about thinking about reading what I have written. And you could go on like that forever. But what you can never do is look back at what is looking out: the perceiving thing: a perceiving thing that is no different (structurally that is (than any less evolved perceiving thing. The only difference, as Douglass Hofstadter points out in I am a Strange Loop, is the complexity of the symbolic matrix through which all perceiving things project into the world.

[d63]

Doc:

Good news!!!!! Just finished your book today and am about to move on to a recently purchased book on Phenomenology and Marxism. And you know how we intellectual and creative scrappers are lacking the focus that formal training offers: always following the next shiny object. So I’ll likely become a little less of a pest for a while. It kind of sucks for me in that I tend judge any input I take in based on what it gives me that I can use. And by that criterion, your book was a stellar performance. There was so much more I wanted to comment on. Plus that, I had just found (after much experimentation (how to coordinate filling this space as well as the spaces I fill on social media: how I cross-pollinate. And because of that, I hope to return to your book soon. I’m starting to see a potential PN article coming out of it.

That said, I want to finish this discourse (this jam (w/ a general/wide-swipe observation. It seems to me that you (like myself (see the answer in the middle-ground. This seems especially evident in the synthesis you present between Freya (who knows perfectly well what she is experiencing when it comes to consciousness (and Max who represents what I refer to as a metaphysical atheist: to the extent that there is nothing that transcends the physical –that is as compared to the theological atheist that simply doesn’t believe in God. And I see this rooted in the conundrum you point out in the book. On one hand, we have the fanatical materialists who reduce everything to the physical which leads, as you describe, to a kind of solipsism. On the other, we have the Cartesians who treat the mind as something separate from the physical. This (this ghost in the machine argument), it seems to me now, is what leads to misguided notions of perfect free will.

And to lend a little anecdotal support to your model (at least as I interpret it), throughout my history on social media, the two most noxious trolls I have encountered have either been the hardcore materialists very much like Max or the hardcore Libertarians who argue that any failure of Capitalism can only be the result of a failure of the individual to act on their perfect free will. (Oops!!! Got political again. I’ll explain later.)

Keep up the good fight, Doc;
Look forward to jamming
w/ u again,
the scrapper.

[d63]

One of the most beautiful statements Deleuze ever made (and he was full of them (was in the A to Z interviews. He made the point that friendship is a matter of knowing the other’s madness, that unless they know your madness, they cannot be your friend. This is because friendship (much like we might experience with a poem or work of art or philosopher (is a little like (un(peeling an onion until you reach the core: the hermeneutic process.

Now switch forward to Jeffery Rosen’s The End of Forgetting. But first: a confession: I have yet to read the book; but it is on my immediate cue. The main thing here, however, is the main thesis: the fact that (and may the wrath of Professor Strunk rest in its grave (that we, given how much of ourselves we make public on social media, act in our social world in ways that are forever on record.

Might we consider that a mixed package? On one hand, our failures will always be there for others to hold against us. At the same time (given the Deleuzian standard of friendship), social media may well the means by which we achieve a more global form of intimacy. I mean imagine a day when someone we all interact with being caught on their eye cam jacking off to porn and everyone else responding to the video with:

Well…. that figures.

[Meno_]

Hello again, d63.



The above appears credible, or at least more credible then not, in light of the multileverd construction of crystalline patterns of relevance.

Words like crystal clear have borne out a relation to light and enlightenement to firm these relationship of chemistry with established forms of various chemicals.

This is anion to the principles of attraction relate to particle physics, perhaps.

Even more interesting could be to ponder relating to Deleauze's and Attwri's conceptual cognitive organization.

Could You touch on some possible linkege here?

Deleuze is always an influence. Attwri is not familiar to me. Thank you for your kind words.

Sorry for the typo. It's 'Attari'

[d63]

Delueze’s concern w/ common and good sense gets at its most obvious when you consider the abstract categories we tend to use when we try to define ourselves: poststructuralism as compared to postmodernism, continental as compared to analytic, art as compared to science, etc.,etc., etc….

With common sense, it is always a matter of correctly designating a given object to its correct category. This is why there are always debates about what banner a given thinker works under or what movement a given artist works under. It’s also why we’ve resorted to adding such prefixes as “neo” and “post”. And to this day, nothing seems to stay securely within the perimeters defined for it. Hence Deleuze’s emphasis on becoming: becoming poststructuralist, becoming postmodern, becoming continental, becoming analytic, etc.,etc., etc….

(And here we should note Rorty’s desire for such a world in which those perimeters are eliminated and everyone just enjoys the fruits of their activities.)

Good sense makes things even worse by assigning value to them. We deal with this all the time on the boards when people confront us with THEIR chosen criteria of a worthy statement as if it was the only criteria. They’re the ones who wear the “scientific method” on their sleeves as if it was a badge of authority –that is when they rarely practice that method their selves. Hence Deleuze’s embrace of univocal being in which all objects of experience can be said to be in the same way: including emotional responses or how our imaginations work upon them.

(And here, Rorty’s dismissal of issues of “ontological status” is telling in that it democratizes the general discourse by shutting down any arguments that something can be seen directly (think: the cat on the mat (is any more real than how we experience it.)

[felix dakat]

I’ve been enjoying reading your public journal this morning. There are so few writers online. Mostly there are key-boarders and voice-to-texters. ; )

[d63]

Here I get to what I most like to do on here as my process tends to straddle both the philosophical and the political: apply continental philosophy to a political issue. It just opens up what places I can post in.

(And I would apologize to the admins of my philosophy board. I know they try to avoid the political. And my tendency to blur the line between the philosophical and the political might seem like an open act of defiance. I assure them it's not.)

That all said, Joe Hughes (speaking through Deleuze), in his reader's guide to Difference and Repetition, points out that as an object of sensibility is reduced to a more finite thing, it becomes more general....

But here I have to backtrack in order to explain. Take a singular raindrop. It is a raindrop like a lot of other raindrops. However, were we mere mortals capable of the god's-eye/infinite capacity of tracing that raindrop back to the moment it was absorbed from an ocean, or lake, or stream, or whatever, we would know that raindrop as a perfect individual due to its individual matrices of causation. Unfortunately, we are limited to the finite. And the more we understand that raindrop as finite, the more general it becomes for us. It becomes little more than a representative of raindrops in general.

And whether it's minorities, or immigrants, or members of the LGBTQ+ community, isn't this exactly what the right is doing? It's like they're incapable of seeing such individuals as anything more than the blocked concept, the finite concept they are working with. And is it any wonder Deleuze would hate representation like he did? A product of that blocked concept?

[d63]

"In short, it is a question of causing a little of Dionysus' blood to flow in the organic veins of Apollo. This effort has always permeated the world of representation." -from the conclusion of Gille Deleuze's Difference and Repetition

It's like I've always said about Deleuze: the creative act is never that far from his mind. Here we can see him making the same complaint that the surrealist movement as a whole (given their embrace of pure improvisation (made against Dali: that he was too beholden to classical values.

At the same time, I can see Deleuze actually going deeper than the surrealist insistence on improvisation and into John Cage's argument that even improvisation (as we generally know it (is not as spontaneous as we would think. It is, rather, a matter of repeating familiar riffs in the hope of getting beyond them: something more superficial than it pretends to be and nowhere near the level of pure difference that Deleuze proposes: his Avant Garde sensibility.

The problem with this approach is something a famous designer pointed out: people tend to attract to the familiar as well as the novel. And while that may seem superficial, you have to ask what good Deleuze's or Cage's agenda of pure spontaneity and pure difference is if only a handful of people can appreciate it. In other words, while it is useful for people like Deleuze and Cage to go for the kind of pure difference they did ( a way of breaking us from the same old), there is nothing wrong (that is within the domain of Difference and Repetition (with embracing the familiar while adding touches of novelty to it.

[d63]

In terms of Deleuze’s understanding of “difference”, one of the main philosophers he takes issue with is Hegel. He mainly criticizes Hegel for offering a false movement (or expression of difference (in his dialectic that consists of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. And as I have posted before:

If only things were as neat as Hegel makes them seem.

What Deleuze is mainly rejecting here is Hegel’s inclusion of the negative in the form of the antithesis or contradiction (a symmetrical dialectic) –that is as compared to the vice-diction that Deleuze champions. Deleuze, rather, sees the dialectic as asymmetrical as is suggested by the chapter in Difference and Repetition: ‘Asymmetrical Synthesis of the Sensible’.

But first a disclosure: I have yet to get to that chapter in this particular immersion in Difference and Repetition –in either the original text or the secondary. However, I feel like this particular discovery may offer a little foresight into what Deleuze is on about in that chapter. And I base this on Deleuze’s embrace of Levi-Strauss’ bricolage. Bricolage is basically a dialectic that builds off of itself without a need to contradict itself; it has no need for negation, therefore, it is positive in nature. If any oppositions arise, it will be in terms of the disjunctive synthesis of the unconscious that Deleuze and Guatarri describe in Anti-Oedipus.

[hadlltondeller]

Nice topic!