the four basic truths [for most of us]

Hmm…

I have noted my own rendition of dasein countless times in these forums.

Again, below is a basic description.

It revolves around the extent to which something pertains to all of us or is only pertinent [with precision] to a particular point of view. And you are right of course to note that in some crucial respects women and men experience differing trajectories.

[i]I am an individual…a man; yet, in turn, I am but one of 6,500,000,000 additional men and women that constitutes what is commonly called “mankind”. So, in what sense can I, as an individual, grasp my identity as separate and distinct from mankind? How do I make intelligent distinctions between my personal, psychological “self” [the me “I” know intimately from day to day], my persona [the me “I” project – often as a chameleon – in conflicting interactions with others], and my historical and ethnological self as a white male who happened adventiously to be born and raised to view reality from the perpective of a 20th century United States citizen?

How does all of this coalesce into who I think I am? And how does this description contrast with how others grasp who they think I am? Is there a way to derive an objective rendering of my true self? Can I know objectively who I am?

No, I don’t think so.

Identity is ever constructed, deconstructed and reconstructed over the years by hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of variables—some of which we had/have no choice/control regarding. We really are “thrown” into a fortuitous smorgasbord of demographic factors at birth and then molded and manipulated as children into whatever configuration of “reality” suits the cultural [and political] institutions of our time.

On the other hand:

In my view, one crucial difference between people is the extent to which they become more or less self-conscious of this. Why? Because, obviously, to the extent that they do, they can attempt to deconstruct the past and then reconstruct the future into one of their own more autonomous making.

But then what does this really mean? That is the question that has always fascinated me the most. Once I become cognizant of how profoundly problematic my “self” is, what can “I” do about it? And what are the philosophical implications of acknolwedging that identity is, by and large, an existential contraption that is always subject to change without notice? What can we “anchor” our identity to so as to make this prefabricated…fabricated…refabricated world seem less vertiginous? And, thus, more certain.

Is it any wonder that so many invent foundationalist anchors like Gods and Reason and Truth? Scriptures from one vantage point or another. Anything to keep from acknowledging just how contingent, precarious, uncertain and ultimately meaningless our lives really are.

Or, of course, is that just my foundation?[/i]

I should point out that, in part, this post is facetious. I had just been listening to The Godfathers’s classic “Birth School Work Death” when the idea of “basic truths” popped into my head.

I use the word truth here only as someone curious about those things that seem relevant to all of us.

Again, you are out of focus.
You continue to focus on the differences even though I told you to focus on the similarity.

Your “logic” is based on the wrong focus and subsequent misunderstanding.
You are uselessly shooting at something in your imagination, again.

Focus on the certainty and especially the degree of certainty you are having (at emotional level) when you consider something as truth, if you can.

You might be slightly aware of the conditional nature of evaluation at the surface of your awareness.
But a little underneath, you can be having lots of wishful/hopeful/emotional judgment of absolute flavor.
And the way you just wrote seems to show it, for example:
“Nobody fucking cares”, “I don’t fucking care”, “that doesn’t make it any less true”, “that’s no where near any reasonable position”, and so on.

Please take your time to wipe off the coffee and other things you misplaced all over on yourself, if you want.

I see.

Still, isn’t “relevant to all of us” showing the high degree of certainty (you might have felt at that time)?

Nah,

What is the point of what you’ve said? And could you give a relevant example…

I happen to think that you yourself don’t even know what you’re talking about. Perhaps an example would rectify this.

I think you can’t understand because you are so sure about your (mis)interpretation of what others say.

Can you understand that you would not be able to follow what others are saying unless you try to adopt same focuses others are using?

Even though you are slowly realizing that you are not understanding what I said, I think you are still hopefully/wishfully trying to interpret that it’s not because of your wrong focuses.

The part you are having problem was written so that (some) readers can notice the common factors among these, which is the sense of certainty.
And it’s often subconscious, emotional, and grossly exaggerated (in terms of applicability/probability/universality/etc), if we take a good look.

So, I tend to think that truth (and some other notions) are more of expression of emotional projection and hope/desire for the absolute certainty than result of reasonable/rational/logical evaluation.

If your central point is in the underlined part, then you really are swinging at a straw man pinata in an open field. What that means is that NOBODY disagrees, and that your point is so uninteresting and uncontroversial, that it’s not worth swinging at.

I would take the underlined part to be your main point, but I am having trouble convincing myself that you actually know what you yourself are trying to say. I asked for a simple example in my last post—so, how about one…

It’s one of the point.

But “NOBODY” disagrees? :smiley:
Is it another one of your wishful thinking?

As for the example, how about what you just wrote?
If it’s not enough, you can just read other posts of yours in this thread.
You’ve been making worthwhile contribution in the form of live examples, although they were mostly useless as arguments. Thank you.

The relativists lose again.

  1. You don’t seem to have a clear idea of what you are trying to say. The way you mash separate concepts together into one amorphous, dark, stitched together concept and call it “truth” is down right obscurantism.
  2. If you knew what you were talking about, you’d provide a simple example.
  3. If you want to use wishful thinking as your example, then use the term properly; it’s to take something to be true because you want it to be true, roughly. You are not doing wishful thinking if you take something to be true because it is true. Which is why, if you knew what you were talking about, you would know that I haven’t offered you an example. Moreover, I certainly haven’t assumed that what I’m saying is absolute, pragmatic, and universal (which is what your example requires).

I am a river.

That’s my point. “I” felt with a high degree of certainty “at the time” that [for most of us] these aspects of the “human condition” transcend dasein.

But not with the sort of certainty that would ever lead me to conclude that everyone must think [and feel] this way. Or be deemed wrong.

Again, I think you are misinterpreting, intentionally or by the lack of willingness (or ability) to follow focus of others.

Often, you seem to do it so that resulting conclusion fits your desired perspective.
(Last time, you wanted to think that I was “apologizing”. :smiley:)

I did. You failed to understand, though.

And knowing about what we are talking about and providing example isn’t necessary related.
I think your reasoning is faulty, here.

I think you do that, often.
Read your replies to me and you might be able to see.

But “wishful thinking” itself isn’t the example.

I think you are doing wishful thinking, again, here.

[/quote]
I’ll repeat until you get it. In another thread we repeated 5 or 6 times before you understood one thing.
So, you may understand this, if I repeat a few times more.

Focus on the sense of certainty.
Unless you don’t focus on it, you won’t understand.

And you’ve “certainty” assumed many things you were saying with high degree of certainty.

Is it too far if I read this “dasein” as “individuality” or “individual differences”, here, in this case?

Let’s say, it wasn’t clear and conscious sort of certainty (of absolute and/or logical) form.
But I’m guessing that it had some sense of “undeniable”, “inescapable”, and/or “demanding” type of feeling, especially/probably in underlying emotion.

And if we translate this kind of feeling into reasoning, it’s not very far from “unconditional”, “absolute”, etc, which isn’t intended by the surface consciousness.

So, I think the words (and concept) like “truth”, “objective”, etc can fool us (our surface consciousness) because of unwarranted degree of certainty implied (often at emotional level).
It’s convenient for feeling greater sense of certainty than our surface reasoning is willing to allocate.
But it’s like doping oneself, in a way.
I think lots of us have been abusing and fooled by these, while trying to think more accurately (at least at the superficial part of us).

If I’m misunderstanding, it’s because you don’t know what you are trying to say. If you did, a simple example would be easy for you. But, since you don’t know what you’re trying to say, you’re not sure how to make up an example.

You and iambiguous are both obscurantists. This serves a purpose for the both of you. Sometimes the only way to make the waters look deep, is to muddy them up a little bit. Congratulations on that.

Dasein [my dasein] revolves more around the manner in which we come to acquire a sense of identity—and not the manner in which any particular individual has come to “resolve” this to his or her own satisfaction.

Therefore, it is rooted in a particular world that is rooted in the evolution of life on earth. And in history and culture and personal experience. And in contingency and chance and change. And in political economy. And in the limits of language and logic in describing this meaningfully. And, finally, in death and oblivion.

But I have no more a capacity to demonstrate this is in fact true objectively than those who insist it is not in fact true objectively. What are “the facts” here?

Here there is only an exchange of narratives that reflect subjective points of view.

The difficulty here lies in denoting precisely where emotion ends and reason begins when reacting to conflicting human behaviors predicated on conflicting value judgments rooted in dasein.

And then there those aspects of human interaction rooted in the truly primordial brain functions.

“I” either acknowledges the vertiginous labyrinth – the opaque obscurity – here or does not. But, if not, it doesn’t make it go away. But, sure, we can convince ourselves that it does and then from that point of view, it has. For all practical purposes. In our interactions with others. Out in a particular world. Viewed from a particular set of moral and political prejudices.

After all, consequences are born out of human interactions predicated on what we believe is true as much as on what is actually true.

This is part of the mystery that is mind. There is no other matter like it.

Or perception, emotions, thoughts, intentions, desires, dreams, non-dream sleeping states, pain, pleasure…

You can just look at your sense of certainty that your problem of misunderstanding is caused by others.
I think you tend to be too often too sure of your highly optimistic (hopeful/wishful) version of “reality”.

Here, I think you are talking about yourself, again.

You value depth, and it means you think you are not deep enough.
Then, you think about pretending otherwise.
And you think obscuring would hide how shallow you are (according to your own interpretation).

Personally, I feel the depth of water when the water is clearer.
I don’t get much sense of depth from a muddy river.
So, if I had an inferior complex about the lack of “depth”, and if I wanted to pretend I’m “deep”, I would try to show clarity rather than obscurity.
But I don’t value “depth”, and I don’t think about how to pretend to be “deep”, unlike you.

Well, I didn’t want to focus on your dasein, and that’s why I asked if we can use more common words/concepts as substitute in this particular limited context.

But thank you for explaining about your dasein, anyway. I think I understand it a bit more, now.

Well, one reason I didn’t want to focus on dasein is you may dive into this sort of thought stream, which can bring in too many things.

So, I was trying to bring the attention to the sense of certainty, although it may have its own complexity. I thought you might be able to feel the sense of certainty coming along with the concept and/or word “truth” (and come other words).

Strictly speaking, any concept/word carries some (and enough) amount of the sense of certainty.
Otherwise, it won’t feel right to use it, or the concept wouldn’t fit in.
But some words/concepts seem to carry a lot more (and more than enough/appropriate) dose of the sense of certainty.

And it probably works on our mind like drugs, and we get addicted to and we crave for the (baseless and boosted) sense of certainty.

Simplified

Birth
Learning
Labor
Death

I don’t understand this thread though, why just four?

What makes them basic?