rhys gethin said:
my boyfriend has worn his dinner for less.
Zero identity
- Thread starter fudgefactorfive
- Start date
my boyfriend has worn his dinner for less.
kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
chloe commissar said:
Shoddy trolling, and I don't actually make any points about the bells & whistles being impressive or otherwise since value judgments like that are pretty meaningless - they've enabled Hom Sap to survive and flourish as a species to an exceptional degree of success so in terms of 'value' they're very impressive I suppose.
I also agree with what you said about Buddhism but hey, don't let that stop your troll.
kyser_soze said:
of course the problem with your cretinous pop social biology is that it is only accessible through the discourses and values of the 'bells and whistles'.
kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
Much like your anger and stress really then. You should lie down and have a cup of tea or something.
kyser_soze said:
i'm perfectly calm, neighbours and a cup of earl grey is hundred times more effective than any buddhist twaddle.
fudgefactorfive
New Member
chloe commissar said:Would it be too much to ask for you to engage the discussion?
yes. because you are too confrontational. i'm not interested in your bile.
kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
chloe commissar said:
Ah, well if you're perfectly calm and still being all aggro you're trolling. Have a good afternoon of bile and anger.
kyser_soze said:
What's trolling?
I might come across as abit short or dismissive but that's theory, it's a blood sport!
Jazzz said:It's not indifferent to 'this world' - quite the reverse. It simply appears indifferent to the world as you are perceiving it
yes but i've been warned about you. You're the guy who thinks 9/11 was all an elaborate inside job, yes?
kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
@ CCSo what's your take on identity then CC? You've roundly slagged Buddhism (no disagreement there), roundly slagged my 'cretinous pop social biology' (which gets a
from me for being a halfway creative insult)...but you haven't really laid out your own cards...kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
Dp
Let me elaborate further Cloe.
Letting go of desires, if possible, does not mean 'a void'. The world is still just as full as abundance, and that's precisely the way it should be. And one can still enjoy everything in it just as much as before. Is a zen master not going to enjoy the breeze, the rain, some nice food? Yes of course he is. And he can enjoy anything else besides. However he has eliminated the desire for these things. There is of course something of a paradox here: but let me give you an example - does the act of wanting things not tend to push them away? The extreme of course is needing things, and imagine the effect of a needy boyfriend. Compare, if you will, to the guy who 'doesn't give a fuck' (not literally). When you want something, you are expressing - no, to go further - creating - a lack in the here and now for your soul. And that means you are suffering.
(Please don't worry about about our friend pk, who is by some means less enlightened than you are)
Letting go of desires, if possible, does not mean 'a void'. The world is still just as full as abundance, and that's precisely the way it should be. And one can still enjoy everything in it just as much as before. Is a zen master not going to enjoy the breeze, the rain, some nice food? Yes of course he is. And he can enjoy anything else besides. However he has eliminated the desire for these things. There is of course something of a paradox here: but let me give you an example - does the act of wanting things not tend to push them away? The extreme of course is needing things, and imagine the effect of a needy boyfriend. Compare, if you will, to the guy who 'doesn't give a fuck' (not literally). When you want something, you are expressing - no, to go further - creating - a lack in the here and now for your soul. And that means you are suffering.
(Please don't worry about about our friend pk, who is by some means less enlightened than you are)
the only way the world could be in total equilibrium would be in a world without subjectivity
What distinguishes us from the rest of the world? The fact we are in it, but also apart from it, because we have desires and drives.
------------
Did someone say pseudo-philosophy!
What distinguishes us from the rest of the world? The fact we are in it, but also apart from it, because we have desires and drives.
------------
Did someone say pseudo-philosophy!
fudgefactorfive
New Member
see, I've been rereading and rereading Fritjof Capra's description of the Santiago Theory of Cognition
it puts life and cognition on an equal footing - they are basically the same thing - anything which is alive, thinks. All living things are open networks that operate far from equilibrium (because they all depend on a flow of matter/energy from the "outside", and thus don't have to strictly obey the 2nd law of thermodynamics). But this is not the same thing as being self-aware.
self-awareness comes not when the network starts coupling with itself - all cognitive networks do that - but when the network starts to model itself, when it builds its own representations of itself within itself. It is the difference between things which know, and things which know that they know.
but then, suddenly, almost as an afterthought, you get some very odd stuff which tries to say that language and consciousness are the same thing, or at least that they are co-dependent. Maturana doesn't put it in terms of language being coercion, but "co-ordination of behaviour" - which makes it sound more neutral, but is essentially the same thing. Giving instructions or negotiating on how to act next with another creature requires you to know that that other creature is a thinking thing like yourself - and if you are complicated enough to hold that conception of another thinking creature, you are also complicated enough to do it to yourself, your own thinking.
And so co-ordination of behaviour gave rise to art, language, culture, abstract thinking - the development of an "inner world", purely in abstract mental space, and ways of representing ideas in the external world, so that people could consult inanimate objects and interpret instructions and ideas from them.
in Buddhist thought, this led directly to suffering (almost as if those without culture, such as animals, are free of it ...). Language (on which thinking is apparently based) is a bit like science: it divides, paints lines, makes categories. But the failure of things in the world to BE permanent and independent leads to frustration and thence to suffering. The way out of it is to accept that there is no permanent subject of experience, no self, that categories apply to.
and cognitive science seems to agree:
it ends with a quote from Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan: "Independence is a political, not a scientific, term." which I like. But ... there is something wrong.
... see, i "get" avidya - that frustration is caused by ignorance of the fact that everything is in flux, and changing - and that in itself seems like a thing to be worth basing your values on. But i can't make the step from there to the non-existence of ego - because the Santiago Theory appears to spend 99% of its progression creating a platform for self-awareness and then suddenly denies that it exists at all, having practically proved that it does.
nor do I accept that language is the foundation of self-awareness. I suspect that that is the kind of argument that an academic would make. I work with people who have unusual or what could be called "sub-normal" communication skills and they are as capable of culture and humanity as the next person.
if all of the above is true, then a completely "enlightened" person would not be able to speak - language would fail to have meaning completely. We really are talking about returning to natural law - the nature of being just about conscious enough to be a higher vertebrate, but not quite as complicated as one of the great apes.
buddha shatters into a million pieces if you speak to him.
he has a hard time getting past traffic lights.
it puts life and cognition on an equal footing - they are basically the same thing - anything which is alive, thinks. All living things are open networks that operate far from equilibrium (because they all depend on a flow of matter/energy from the "outside", and thus don't have to strictly obey the 2nd law of thermodynamics). But this is not the same thing as being self-aware.
self-awareness comes not when the network starts coupling with itself - all cognitive networks do that - but when the network starts to model itself, when it builds its own representations of itself within itself. It is the difference between things which know, and things which know that they know.
but then, suddenly, almost as an afterthought, you get some very odd stuff which tries to say that language and consciousness are the same thing, or at least that they are co-dependent. Maturana doesn't put it in terms of language being coercion, but "co-ordination of behaviour" - which makes it sound more neutral, but is essentially the same thing. Giving instructions or negotiating on how to act next with another creature requires you to know that that other creature is a thinking thing like yourself - and if you are complicated enough to hold that conception of another thinking creature, you are also complicated enough to do it to yourself, your own thinking.
And so co-ordination of behaviour gave rise to art, language, culture, abstract thinking - the development of an "inner world", purely in abstract mental space, and ways of representing ideas in the external world, so that people could consult inanimate objects and interpret instructions and ideas from them.
in Buddhist thought, this led directly to suffering (almost as if those without culture, such as animals, are free of it ...). Language (on which thinking is apparently based) is a bit like science: it divides, paints lines, makes categories. But the failure of things in the world to BE permanent and independent leads to frustration and thence to suffering. The way out of it is to accept that there is no permanent subject of experience, no self, that categories apply to.
and cognitive science seems to agree:
it ends with a quote from Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan: "Independence is a political, not a scientific, term." which I like. But ... there is something wrong.
... see, i "get" avidya - that frustration is caused by ignorance of the fact that everything is in flux, and changing - and that in itself seems like a thing to be worth basing your values on. But i can't make the step from there to the non-existence of ego - because the Santiago Theory appears to spend 99% of its progression creating a platform for self-awareness and then suddenly denies that it exists at all, having practically proved that it does.
nor do I accept that language is the foundation of self-awareness. I suspect that that is the kind of argument that an academic would make. I work with people who have unusual or what could be called "sub-normal" communication skills and they are as capable of culture and humanity as the next person.
if all of the above is true, then a completely "enlightened" person would not be able to speak - language would fail to have meaning completely. We really are talking about returning to natural law - the nature of being just about conscious enough to be a higher vertebrate, but not quite as complicated as one of the great apes.
buddha shatters into a million pieces if you speak to him.
he has a hard time getting past traffic lights.
Every part of that that I could follow seems wrong to me FFF.
You think that language is necessary for communication and art but animals as small as bees manage to tell each other where the food is by doing a little dance - elephants summon each other for funerals - any animal will tell you to 'back off' if you threaten its nest. And birds of paradise will produce inquestionable artistic displays.
Is language necessary for art in humans? I don't think so. Probably the reverse. To perform at best artistically, one gets out of the left side of the brain, the chattering language logic mentality, and to a place where you don't speak but you just do.
To be honest though I'm having trouble following where you are coming from, any of chance of a simplified version?
fudgefactorfive
New Member
Jazzz said:
probably not, and definitely not with this hangover
kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
I had a real revelation relating to this thread connected to a book review (and G2 feature today) about how the elimination of carnival helped cause the 'epidemic of depression' so prevelant in Protestant-biased countries, which discussed the difference between the psychology of the pre-modern and modern mind but I can't remember it...
rhys gethin
New Member
kyser_soze said:
I thought the article was codswallop.
kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
Ah so did I, but there was one bit when she was talking about the pre-modern mind that chimed with what you said earlier in the thread about the ego...
fudgefactorfive
New Member
does altruism exist?
it was put to me recently that no, it doesn't, not in its absolute idealised form, and therefore all actions, all action/inaction, has some element of self-interest in it; even if that self-regard is genuinely a very minor part of the "reason" for your actions and you feel yourself to be primarily motivated by compassion or empathy or see no obvious personal benefit (or even see a personal disadvantage outweighed by a mass benefit) to doing something
for example, it's a hot day, you get yourself an ice-cream from the ice-cream van, as you walk away you see a small sweaty hot child in rags - you feel compassion and give them the ice-cream. why did you do that?
because ultimately, conscious compassion is driven by want, desire, a need for identity. you want to be the kind of person that is charitable. you want to "have done" the act, you want to build that act into the story of who you are, you want it for yourself. it may only be a tiny brain-tickle that you're barely aware of, vastly outweighed by the genuine compassion you experience, a genuine need to help another - but it is there. always.
i didn't want to agree with this but can't argue against it. so i'm taking it as true.
but it's interesting that one dictionary definition of "altruism" simply puts it down as "selflessness". i think actual, literal altruism could theoretically exist, but only through someone with absolutely no self-regard at all.
so i think i understand now this Buddhist idea of true compassion arising spontaneously from the abandonment of ego. someone with zero self would never cease to be altruistic. they might still be a chaotic destructive nightmare though.
the question remains: is this possible
is the formation of self-identity - a mind's turning in on itself, building a model of itself within itself - an inevitable consequence of having a human brain, something it has to do, or is just something the brain can do, that it is "taught" to do by the social environment? could a society retain language (of some kind), culture (of some kind), without it?
i don't see how Buddhists can point to change as the only real thing, the only actual force, and then simultaneously deny self, when all self is is change with a very particular shape or character. in terms of the Santiago Theory, which so beautifully bootstraps life and consciousness out of inert stuff as a natural consequence of simple thermodynamics, it's like finishing a jigsaw and then saying there are no pieces.
it was put to me recently that no, it doesn't, not in its absolute idealised form, and therefore all actions, all action/inaction, has some element of self-interest in it; even if that self-regard is genuinely a very minor part of the "reason" for your actions and you feel yourself to be primarily motivated by compassion or empathy or see no obvious personal benefit (or even see a personal disadvantage outweighed by a mass benefit) to doing something
for example, it's a hot day, you get yourself an ice-cream from the ice-cream van, as you walk away you see a small sweaty hot child in rags - you feel compassion and give them the ice-cream. why did you do that?
because ultimately, conscious compassion is driven by want, desire, a need for identity. you want to be the kind of person that is charitable. you want to "have done" the act, you want to build that act into the story of who you are, you want it for yourself. it may only be a tiny brain-tickle that you're barely aware of, vastly outweighed by the genuine compassion you experience, a genuine need to help another - but it is there. always.
i didn't want to agree with this but can't argue against it. so i'm taking it as true.
but it's interesting that one dictionary definition of "altruism" simply puts it down as "selflessness". i think actual, literal altruism could theoretically exist, but only through someone with absolutely no self-regard at all.
so i think i understand now this Buddhist idea of true compassion arising spontaneously from the abandonment of ego. someone with zero self would never cease to be altruistic. they might still be a chaotic destructive nightmare though.
the question remains: is this possible
is the formation of self-identity - a mind's turning in on itself, building a model of itself within itself - an inevitable consequence of having a human brain, something it has to do, or is just something the brain can do, that it is "taught" to do by the social environment? could a society retain language (of some kind), culture (of some kind), without it?
i don't see how Buddhists can point to change as the only real thing, the only actual force, and then simultaneously deny self, when all self is is change with a very particular shape or character. in terms of the Santiago Theory, which so beautifully bootstraps life and consciousness out of inert stuff as a natural consequence of simple thermodynamics, it's like finishing a jigsaw and then saying there are no pieces.
fudgefactorfive
New Member
Marius said:
actually i'd argue that the borg have an utterly overwhelming sense of identity, which is also why they are so completely selfish
fudgefactorfive
New Member
fudgefactorfive said:
the other question is, is it possible to abandon it once attained
is consciousness an attractor in the phase space of a mind? hard to break away from, requiring some major external event (a bifurcation point) to settle in some other selfless orbit?
fudgefactorfive
New Member
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