We can empathize, without sympathizing nor feeling antipathy…
Objectivity.
I didn’t want to but you made me quote Humanize because he put it way better than I could.
I understand what you are saying and I agree this process is relevant for some people. It may even be relevant for most people or at least most curious philosophically-inclined people. But there is a problem with it too.
The fact that other people have told us things are true when in fact those things are not true, does not justify us to then assume that everything everyone has ever told us is true is actually not true. That doesn’t follow. Likewise, the fact that some people sometimes have hallucinations does not mean that we should assume everything we experience is a hallucination. That conclusion simply does not follow from the premise.
I get what you are saying, though. Beginner epistemology needs to start somewhere. The problem is, once people start rejecting things BY DEFAULT they are throwing out the baby with the bathwater on a whole host of issues and claims. There is also a psychologist cost to this, and a risk of developing an arrogance with respect to claims and to one’s own experiences and even to one’s own epistemological potency regarding one’s own life. That risk is that a person gets used to the easy effortless way that doubt for its own sake allows them to dismiss claims made by others as if they were the arbiter of truth on the issue, when in fact they actually put in zero effort to examine the topic and simply dismissed it out of hand. Like with people who laugh when others say they believe in ghosts, aliens, etc. You might be one of those people who laugh, if you are then you are operating from a default position of doubt for its own sake which has become more than simply an intellectual basic beginner epistemological methodology to aid your philosophizing and learning about the world, it has actually become psychological for you at the level of your personality. That is a problem.
The other problem is that we end up trying to retroactively justify the claims we make, even claims we made that were not justified before hand. This applies to radical belief and to radical doubt. For example, if someone believes in free will, but they never really thought about it they just know that the idea of free will seems important and is meaningful to them and they feel emotionally attached to defending it, then when they claim “free will exists” and someone challenges them they are going to start making excuses for why free will exists. But are they really honestly trying to figure out if free will exists or not? No, they are trying to defend a position they’ve already taken. And that is putting the cart before the horse, because how can they know if free will exists before they even tried to figure out whether free will exists or not? The same is true for people who claim free will does not exist, and who are personally or emotionally or otherwise psychologically motivated to defend that position.
I’d rather we aimed for objectivity. Set aside any prior assumptions. I understand that is idealistic, but it is a good goal to aim for. In any case, I reject default doubt for the same reason I reject default belief. Your example could also go something like this, “Then I realized one day that what someone told me about something being true, actually WAS true! Therefore I decided to default believe in the things people tell me”. That would be as logically valid as your claim to start disbelieving things people tell you just because some of the things some people told you once were untrue.
You are saying that your form of empathy is coldly projecting yourself to others shoes. That is ONE form of the empathy of the EIGHT forms that was shown.
of course we can’t empirically prove that other attempts at empathy are an exact, 1:1 match to the other persons inner lives, but we (or at least I and others) can infer it through various ways. As the Demon said, you unfortunately lack this ability, as you are a sheldon/dawkins type of being.
In summary, since we share a genetic ancestry with other human beings, participating in the eight forms of empathy is not so challenging, if you are willing to abandon hyper-skepticism. On the other hand, what you said most definitely applies to empathy towards artificial intelligence, aliens, etc. as their experiences may be so alien to our own that in order to empathize we must first bridge a gap, by becoming cyborgs
Empathy is not required for hunting.
It is a bonus, add-on, advantage, but not required.
All that is required is speed and strength. If not speed, then patience.
It is if you want to increase the odds of making a kill, Mary.
One form of empathy suffices to produce clarity.
Objective empathy.
One void of emotions.
As a woman, you are free to practice any one you like.
All that is required is taking note of patterns, and patience.
Not empathizing or trying to empathize with their inner lives.
Sure. I was raised in America where Abrahamic religions are important tropes along with modernism, scientism, materialism, individualism, democracy, bourgeois social values, racism, sexism, capitalism, anti-communism’ conservatism, and liberalism, among others. And there are plenty of other -isms of the zeitgeist that are less widely recognized.
Yes energy is the best phenomenal representation. Language is at best a second level representation—a re-representation. Energy is a quantitation property of matter not a thing per se.
The separate ego is an object of conscious not a part of it. The ego appears in unbounded consciousness. Consciousness does not appear in the ego.
Jaynes hypothesized that consciousness is based on language. He was wrong as he himself could have discovered himself had he learned to silence the mind by meditating.
His second main hypothesis is that preceding consciousness there was a different mentality based on verbal hallucinations. His third general hypothesis is that consciousness was learned only after the breakdown of the bicameral mind. He at least got that backwards.
That said, the question remains, did the ancients experience normally experience the bicameral mind? Jaynes is basing that propostion on his re-interpretation of ancient texts. Putting oneself into the mindset of another epoch is always a dicey proposition. Was Jaynes reading that out of the text or reading it in? The trick is empathize with premodern mythopoetic consciousness. There are numerous hypotheses about what that was like, none conclusive. Marcel Kuijsten, founder of the Julian Jaynes Society, wrote that in the decades since the book’s publication, “there have been few in-depth discussions, either positive or negative” about it, rejecting as too simplistic the criticism that “Jaynes was wrong.”[[7]]
(The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind - Wikipedia)
Iain McGilchrist in his critically acclaimed book The Master and his Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World examines Jaynes hypothesis along with numerous other others for the apparent Homeric experience of the gods. It’s an open question.
Then I’m a Hellenist by your definition. Nietzsche popularized the notion that asceticism was ordinarily nihilistic or as you’re contending an end itself. It can be. Or it can be, as you point out a means of achieving a higher state of consciousness.
Any self that is representable in the mind is not the true self, the unknown knower. Similarly, you can never accurately represent your evolutionary past embedded as it is in deep time. One may achieve a more or less objective conception, but one should not mistake this for the thing itself.
It’s not an either/or situation. Your evolutionary determined genetic inherited biology interacts with the contingencies of the situation to produce sensational experience that is subjectively evaluated.
Just as in music dissonance is relative to the limited experience of the listener, so in life. Innovative composers use this fact to create new music that challenges listeners. What is needed is more experience— a larger context.
Experiences evolve into their opposites. Think of the yin yang symbol. This idea is called enantiodromia—the emergence of the unconscious opposite in the course of time, or the tendency for things to transform into their opposite when pushed to an extreme. Life is like music where this can be observed with a little practice.
But, you admit that the feedback you’re getting from those with whom you suppose you have empathized is that you’re getting it wrong. Are you sure you’ve achieved objectivity? “Will-less reasoning seems like a high bar. Sounds kind of like the asceticism you are condemning. If one gives attention to the things that one is interested in or concerned about, then the things that we attend to are not disinterested or objective in the first place. If you subtract the will from the subject matter to which you are focusing on why attend to it at all? What’s so special about a view from nowhere?
The ego is an object of conscious not a part of it. The ego appears in unbounded consciousness. Consciousness does not appear in the ego.
No…Ego is the English term for the Greek ΕΓΩ which literally means 'I", or “self”…
Ego is consciousness becoming aware of itself. The lucid part of consciousness.
When you use the term “I”…“I am” you are the ego referring to itself, inducing the subconscious parts.
But most deny the rest and only refer to that lucid part.
Self-consciousness is consciousness of your consciousness.
Consciousness objectifies everything…this is what Kant’s ‘thing’ is.
Things are consciousness objectifying fluctuating energy patterns.
Jaynes hypothesized that consciousness is based on language. He was wrong as he himself could have discovered himself had he learned to silence the mind by meditating.
No he wasn’t wrong.
Language was how the emergence of self-consciousness was expressed.
When consciousness emerges there is no meditation…the individual experiences it as something strange…a voice in his skull talking to him, commenting on his actions…
An inner voice.
We’re not talking about moderns and their meditative lifestyles…we are talking about ancient men…pre-Jung, pre-Freud, per-psychology…with no knowledge of Buddhism.
Iain McGilchrist in his critically acclaimed book The Master and his Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World examines Jaynes hypothesis along with numerous other others for the apparent Homeric experience of the gods. It’s an open question.
McGilchrist is a perfect example…imagine a right-brianed primitive suddenly experiencing the left-brain, as if it were a stranger…some mysterious voice…his conscience, with none of our modern knowledge of human anatomy and philosophy and psychology.
Then I’m a Hellenist by your definition. Nietzsche popularized the notion that asceticism was ordinarily nihilistic or as you’re contending an end itself. It can be. Or it can be, as you point out a means of achieving a higher state of consciousness.
Did he?
I would need a quote.
If he did, then he was wrong.
Asceticism not as an end but as a means, is Hellenic - Askesis.
Asceticism as an end is nihilistic.
Any self that is representable in the mind is not the true self, the unknown knower. Similarly, you can never accurately represent your evolutionary past embedded as it is in deep time. One may achieve a more or less objective conception, but one should not mistake this for the thing itself.
Know Thyself is not about completion…it is the beginning of a ceaseless exploration.
self is a continuum…ongoing.
The body is a manifestation of all your inherited past…
It’s not an either/or situation. Your evolutionary determined genetic inherited biology interacts with the contingencies of the situation to produce sensational experience that is subjectively evaluated.
Genes/Memes.
Nature/Nurture…your determined past, manifesting as presence, perceived as appearance, is in constant interaction with the world…adding to its past.
Past refers to inherited memories, determined by past events…the consequences, of which, determined your presence…and now you add to them your own experiences, determining your own fate…and, possibly, passing on the consequences to your children.
Toy are contributing to the continuum you are a part of.
Experiences evolve into their opposites. Think of the yin yang symbol. This idea is called enantiodromia—the emergence of the unconscious opposite in the course of time, or the tendency for things to transform into their opposite when pushed to an extreme. Life is like music where this can be observed with a little practice.
Yin/Yang refers to mostly non-living energies…you are a living organism…order is your preference. You find it inspiring…when it is more symmetrical you find it beautiful, full of probabilities…
Order is what life desires…not disorder…so its opposite would be death.
But, you admit that the feedback you’re getting from those with whom you suppose you have empathized is that you’re getting it wrong.
Their linguistic agreement is not necessary, since they may not be aware fo themselves or may be self-deceiving…as a coping method.
Their actions matter more than their words.
I listen to their words only to compare them with their actions.
Are you sure you’ve achieved objectivity?
complete certainty is for the gods…I only seek an approach.
This is why my analysis is never final…it is always ongoing…it is about probabilities not absolute certainty.
“Will-less reasoning seems like a high bar. Sounds kind of like the asceticism you are condemning.
It is…Schopenhauer introduced Buddhism to German philosophy.
Of course I disagree with his choice of words, Will…and his solution…isolation…pessimism…
If you subtract the will from the subject matter to which you are focusing on why attend to it at all? What’s so special about a view from nowhere?
This is why asceticism is a means…not an end.
We exercise the body, stressing it…not making suffering our end but a means of becoming stronger…likewise we become will-less not as an end, but to become more aware…more objective…less corrupted by our subjective animal needs and desires…our self-interests and ego.
Consciousness, as I define it, is not words but essence.
In the beginning, there was the Word, Abrahamic.
No, the beginning is pictures, motions, activity. Awareness.
Words are merely auxiliary. Used to inform and communicate to other beings in one’s tribe.
Slight adjustment…
First was the action…we may call it energy. A state of agitation.
Actually, there is no “first”…there is only activity. ‘First’ alludes to a beginning…and there is no beginning and no end.
Consciousness is the ACT of becoming aware of existence…energies.
So, the act of becoming aware of actions…then given symbols, to create language.
Language emerges much later…as an animal’s method - organic action - of communicating its state of mind.
Language cannot precede existence, nor life.
“Word” is a translation of “logos” which, in the middle platonic sense had multiple meanings including consciousness as the author shows when he goes on to say “in him (the logos) was life, and that life was the light of all mankind”. “Light” there is a metaphor for consciousness.
At first, there were idiots — and then there were more of them.
“Beginning” is a temporal category. If time did not exist, how could a temporal category arise?
Aren’t you tired of repeating utter nonsense?
Every Word is doubly false — through the clumsiness of the speaker and the misunderstanding of the listener.
Just for fun, imagine this: the universal ban on telepathy is lifted.
What would remain of the lie of the Word?
And what would remain of the idiotic Bible?
Can’t act like real humans and think like humans?
Aren’t you tired yet?
You have no definitions —
What is life?
What is light?
What is consciousness?
That’s why you’re afraid to enter my topic — the one created by a real Demon — and speak up.
The reason is simple: you don’t want to know anything.
Of course. But, surely you don’t think the ego is the term ego or the image in your mind you associate with the word. You said above “my body is me” so for you the ego is the body, right? So then does it seem you (the body) possess a mind? Ordinary dualism usually imagines it the other way around or, more sophisticatedly that. a transcendent ego possesses a body/mind complex.
“The ascetic ideal springs from the prophylactic and self-preservative instincts which mark a decadent life, which seeks by every means in its power to maintain its position and fight for its existence; it points to a partial physiological, depression and exhaustion, against which the most profound and intact life-instincts fight ceaselessly with new weapons and discoveries. The ascetic ideal is such a weapon: its position is consequently exactly the reverse of that which the worshippers of the ideal imagine—life struggles in it and through it with death and against death; the ascetic ideal is a dodge for preservation of life.”
The Genealogy of Morals (p. 86)
Your post is grandiosely self referential. I didn’t know you had a special topic. But, I’m not interested in dialogue with avatars who try to intimidate with personal attacks. So, thanks , but, no.
Of course. But, surely you don’t think the ego is the term ego or the image in your mind you associate with the word.
No…ergo “know thyself” is a lifelong process.
But ‘ego’ if we wish to attain clarity, is associated with the lucid part of consciousness…leaving the subconscious undiscovered…unknown.
How do we know ourselves?
Buy how we act…reflected in our interactions with others.
Beginning with…“I am that which I am not.”
In other words, I am not other.
I am action…my behavior is I.
You said above “my body is me” so for you the ego is the body, right?
Yes…the body is a manifestation of my past…and ti bears the marks of the experiences since my birth.
Inheritance + experiences = self…continuum…you are continuously adding to yourself.
So then does it seem you (the body) possess a mind?
The body has its own automated creativity, remnant of our plant past.
It has consciousness…every cell in your body and brain is a living cell.
It is constantly sending data to the brain, where it is synthesized with data from external sources, gather through our sense organs.
This is the mind…so no the body does not have a mind, but it is conscious…aware…it interacts with the world independent from the brain.
Goose-pimples…when it is cold…it shrink away when burned…
Ordinary dualism usually imagines it the other way around or, more sophisticatedly that. a transcendent ego possesses a body/mind complex.
Not more “sophisticated” more superstitious.
It presupposes conscientiousness and then claims that the body is its conduit.
Abrahamism is the carrier of such self-comforting superstitions.
As I said…you have no recovered from over two-thousand years of Abrahamic social engineering.
The ‘god concept’…an external consciousness.
This is not sophisticated, this is ancient and primitive.
Nietzsche speaks of an “acetic ideal”…like Plato’s ideals.
its position is consequently exactly the reverse of that which the worshippers of the ideal imagine
How do you imagine the ascetic ideal…even your imaginary conscientiousness existing outside your mind/body is, according to him, an attempt to survive…a coping mechanism…a way to self-preserve.
You are the worshiper do the ascetic ideal…
I posit it as a means, not an end…you posit it as an end.
I say asceticism is like exercise…sharping your subjectivity…attain clarity…you want to make it a goal, a final detachment from the world that pains you. A secret death wish.
Rather, faith (any kind) doesn’t tolerate anything reasonable. That’s the whole reason for the fear. And personalities have nothing to do with it.
The goal is the unwillingness to know — hence the attempts to stop understanding reality by pretending to be an ascetic.
There’s evidence that people were meditating @ 1000 BCE. In any case, Jaynes’ hypothesis, based as it is on historical-critical analysis of texts, seems to be unfalsifiable. There’s nothing about it that is archaeologically uncoverable. As science, it’s reached a dead end unless it can be experimentally tested.