Got an ID?

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Sociology claims that we identify ourselves in large part based upon the world outside of the self.

Identity—the sameness of a person or thing at all times or in all circumstances—the condition of fact that a person or thing is itself and not something else; individuality, personality

I have never personally experienced an earthquake but have read that it is a very destabilizing experience. It is disorienting and it will cause a great deal of anxiety over and beyond what any ‘normal’ catastrophe would cause. It apparently is caused by completely destroying our sense of certainty and solidity and permanence that we associate with the world outside of the self.

I am sure there are many reasons why religion is so pervasive within the population. I suspect one important reason is the comfortable sense derived when one is certain that there exists an anchor of stability outside of the self. I suspect this metaphysical certainty is somewhat like a night light in a child’s bedroom. The human need for stability seems to demand some assurance that stability exists outside the individual.

In the 1950s sociologists and psychiatrists began to refer identity to a fluid reality “socially bestowed and socially sustained”. Common understanding began to accept a person’s actions and the public record of those actions no longer define identity. A person came to be identified by the social roles she performs and/or the reference group to which she belongs.

This began a change; there was deterioration between a conception of “association between identity and continuity of the personality”. Both persons and objects lost their solidity, their definiteness and continuity. Persons began to lose a sense of fixedness; they no longer inhabit a world that exists independently of them. “Identity has become uncertain and problematic not because people no longer occupy fixed social stations—a commonplace explanation that unthinkingly incorporates the modern equation of identity and social role—but because they no longer inhabit a world that exists independently of themselves.”

Those who study such things claim that with the receding of the common world—the world shared by all, for example the notion that it takes a village to raise a child has had a detrimental effect on all of us. Our life now liberated from the ”prying eyes of neighbors, from village prejudices, from the inquisitorial presence of elders, from everything narrow, stifling, petty, and conventional” has had a serious effect on private life as well. “It has freed the imagination from external constraints but exposed it more directly than before to the tyranny of inner compulsion and anxieties.”

The fantasy of imagination nor longer becomes a force for freedom, it gives rise to hallucinations. We lose our sense of the practical and science gives us an ever rising sense of power to achieve our wildest flights of fancy. “By holding out a vision of limitless technological possibility—space travel, biological engineering, mass destruction—it removes the last obstacle to wishful thinking. It brings reality into conformity with our dreams, or rather with our nightmares.”

There is an article in last Sunday’s Washington Post that I think bears witness to this problem. The Post requires that the reader become a member but the membership is free if you wish to read the article at:
washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co … 01778.html

The quotes are from “The Minimal Self” by Christopher Lasch.

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coberst;

a) On “a sense of identity” as a definition; “Identity—the sameness of a person or thing at all times or in all circumstances—the condition of fact that a person or thing is itself and not something else; individuality, personality.”

I accept all of this definition except perhaps for the use of the term “sameness”. While identity is certainly not exclusively about individualism, it is also not exclusively about conformity (if that is how I am to take the term “sameness”). I would offer “the condition of fact that a person or thing is itself and not something else” as a briefer definition of a sense of identity (and also less restricting).

b) On stability outside the self; “I have never personally experienced an earthquake…it will cause a great deal of anxiety over and beyond what any ‘normal’ catastrophe would cause. It apparently is caused by completely destroying our sense of certainty and solidity and permanence that we associate with the world outside of the self.”

I am having a little difficulty putting faith in the basis of this particular argument. First of all, a sense or want of stability outside the self is not inherent itself of a sense of “knowing I am myself and nobody else”. Secondly, fear of an earthquake comes from more than simply a compete destruction of our sense of permanence. A myriad of possible outcomes will come flowing into the mind during an earthquake; injuries to the self or loved ones, damage to home/property, inability to escape, etcetera, all of which are linked to a sense of outside security, but the fear of which does not exclusively pertain to it.

“I am sure there are many reasons why religion is so pervasive within the population. I suspect one important reason is the comfortable sense derived when one is certain that there exists an anchor of stability outside of the self.”

Your reasoning for a need for religion (for most people) is well founded, although I can claim (with certainty) that not the entire human race desires stability. I can speak for myself when I say I enjoy disorder, instability and spontaneity. In fact, when my life does come into some semblance of order, routine and “security”, I reject it and do all that I can to find the disorder I crave.

c) On sociological theory; “Common understanding began to accept a person’s actions and the public record of those actions no longer define identity. A person came to be identified by the social roles she performs and/or the reference group to which she belongs.”

As far as I can fathom, a person’s role within society is only a “functional” identity, but does not take into account the possibility of individualism of the mind.

“Identity has become uncertain and problematic not because people no longer occupy fixed social stations—a commonplace explanation that unthinkingly incorporates the modern equation of identity and social role—but because they no longer inhabit a world that exists independently of themselves.”

Identity has become uncertain and problematic because of the conformist ideals of the vast majority of humanity. “Marching like sheep to the beat of the war drum”. Conformism makes it easier for the legislature and executive to control the masses. Over centuries, the human race has become more and more complacent and easier to work “into line”. Humanity does not desire to live in a world living independent of it, it wants to cut, shape, dig and build the world into it’s own synthetic environment. I reject this theory on the basis of contradiction; if human instinct really does drive us to mould our own environment then it stands to reason that we will not feel a lack of security by living in a world no longer independent of ourselves, but rather, quite the opposite.

d) On freedom of imagination; “The fantasy of imagination no longer becomes a force for freedom, it gives rise to hallucinations. We lose our sense of the practical and science gives us an ever rising sense of power to achieve our wildest flights of fancy.”

The fantasy of imagination is still a force for freedom in the minds of those (like me) who do not believe that they are free. For argument’s sake, we will assume that I am the only one. It would seem to me that science is fairly practical, taking aside the issue of “fact” or “wild scientific fancy”, the bases of science are strong and logical and don’t leave much room for “flights of fancy”.

(I couldn’t join the Washington Post because I live in Australia).

My 2c,

~David

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David

When speaking of mind it is common to use metaphors. Plato considered idea is essence and Aristotle considered essence is idea. “For Plato, the essence of a physical object is the idea, and for Aristotle the idea is the essence of the object”. The metaphors of Plato and Aristotle indicated that they could know objects because the mind could know the objects through the forms (ideas). This was all lost when Descartes cooked up the mind/body dichotomy.

Idealism has many definitions but all focus on the assumption that consciousness is detached from its concrete socially situated subjects. Such an assumption leads to the isolation of the ideas; theories, beliefs, human conduct and other products can be understood and analyzed in isolation from the historical subject.

I have been studying “Philosophy in the Flesh” for several months and find the metaphor theory that is the foundation of cognitive science detailed in this book is helpful in my attempt to understand other matters. I have turned to this book in an attempt to understand the matters discussed in “The Atlantic” article “Is God an Accident”.

“All men by nature desire to know” is a quote from Aristotle. Similar statements are considered to be evidence that it is human nature to try to understand. Any thought that originates from this natural inclination to know must assume that the world is knowable. The world makes systematic sense and thus knowable might be the first principle of philosophy; that domain of knowledge born in Greece some twenty-five hundred years ago.

I might imagine that the individuals who first tried to ‘do philosophy’ would think that to know things it is easy to assume that every particular thing is a kind of thing and that every thing has a ‘nature’ that makes it that type of thing.

Cognitive science has labeled these ‘gut feeling’ assumptions as Folk Theories. Folk Theories when compared to modern scientific theories might be thought of as comparing mountain music with classical music. Mountain music developed naturally from the nature, the ‘gut feeling’, of human beings.

I have been reading “Philosophy in the Flesh” I think you might find it to be very interesting.