I feel. In pain I think myself punished but by who? In only feeling I do not know but I do know that I can but I often deny myself this privledge and proclaim the knowledge beyond myself. I know I can know and infact somewhere I do know. I do know what I am feeling but pain for me is punishment and nothing is more punishing to know than to deny yourself that you know. This is the source of “Bad Faith”, to inhibit an ignorance, to divide my mind in two, between the unknown and known. Into the unknown goes my pain of which I see as punishment and into the known happiness of which I see as reward. I do not seek to escape reality but I seek to punish myself and this alone, to keep myself from knowing the truth. From this primal division between real and unreal I find struggle of which I develop my feelings into perceptions, perceptions into concepts, concepts into ideas, and ideas under unification into truth. My developments of happy feelings bring to me nothing but a seeming destiny, an order, a logical arrangement of the known but yet I deny the unknown, the pain still yet. I punish myself all the while, while I play in the happy emotions building them into ingenious structures, wonderus visions, seeing it as my reward. Yet, the truth is left untouched so long as I punish myself and think my rewards as some act by something beyond myself as compensation for the pain which I see as punishment. The struggle therefore is my creation of which I continually moralize and distinct the good from the bad. It is only until I realize the struggle to be in error, when I realize pain is not a punishment that I realize that happy emotions, the perceptions, the concepts, the ideas, and the truth are not rewards in compensation for pain but mere illusions. When I realize the struggle to be purely dogma I realize the unknown as something which I have kept from myself in punishment and I in this destroy the primal feelings of punishment and reward and the concept of a external unknown higher being is destroyed in consequence. I am a being. There is no known and unknown and at this point I resolve all the problems between the Transcendentalists and Realists, between the Skeptics and Idealists. I posit myself as not divided into known and unknown and I remove the improper conception of “Bad Faith”. I instead realize a primal division created from a dogma that pain is punishment and in consequence that pleasure or happiness is compensation for this. I am all feeling, a being without division, a unity whose only internal structure is flucations in feelings in pain and pleasure but both sensations are for me, united under me and not from something beyond nor of any value for something later namely perceptions, concepts, ideas, and truth. In pain and in pleasure I do not feel something other than myself so that all that is derived from my feelings is always know and never unknown. All is known and and I am all that is known, all that is felt, I feel myself. My feelings provide me with view into the ontological, a true knowledge of my primal and true self.
Back again?
Still not learnt about paragraphs, I notice…
Pain isn’t punishment, it’s just part of the natural order of things. We could discuss pain without the need for moralistic tags.
You might, but I can’t see why you would. If I were you I’d be thinking ‘I should probably stop sitting on this spike, that’ll probably stop the pain’
Nope, it’s something more specific than simply lying to yourself in the manner you’ve described. Yet again someone assumes that bad faith is self-deception.
Why use terms with a moral connotation?
You simply defer meaning along the signifying chain from ‘real and unreal’ to ‘feelings’ to ‘perceptions’ to ‘concepts’ to ‘ideas’ to ‘unification into truth’. You haven’t actually achieved this, you’ve simply stuck the right label on what you have done, which is something else.
I’m glad you’re enjoying it
So the unification into truth of the ideas you got from the ideas you got from the concepts you got from the feelings you got from the real and the unreal are mere illusions?
You’ve lost me, you simply seem to be claiming that you’ve done something without explaining what it is you’ve done. Thus you’ve firmly attached yourself to the Transcendentalist tradition, well done!
isis77
By yourself.
There is only suffering, pleasure is simply the momentary abating of a constancy.
In this battle against suffering – against life and consciousness in essence - in the struggle to avoid it and to give it meaning, all creative forces converge and find a purpose.
Man becomes creator and artist.
Or
Pain/Pleasure is how nature keeps us in line.
Well crafted piece.
Although it needs some structuring and a more precise focus.
Someoneisathedoor,
You are not understanding the intention of my post. First of all its is written in a Phenomenological context. Secondarily, it is written in an Existentialist context. Phenomenology deals with the experience of the subjective, it is really a like a Psychological Realism if you will. Here is lies my connection between Pain and Punishment. Existentialism deals with our existence which is rooted in Psychology as clearly Nietzsche and other Existentialists understood. Pain is rooted in our Pyschological as some sort of Punishment as we often injure pain under the front of punishment. In the early ages of man we often thought pain as punishment from the Gods or some other external force. In consequence pleasure has often be seen as a relief or compensation of our pain which we see as punishment. This primal Pyschology which is rooted in our minds sticks with us even till today and this is what Sartre was trying to gain access to with his development of “Bad Faith”. I have gained acess to it allowing me to conceive it on proper Psychological grounds and realizing how its shapes our lives. Pleasure is not a reward and Pain is not a punishment but these are dogma’s that reoccur in every individual since the early stages of mans Pyschological history. With this realization we can achieve a truly real view of reality free from the Subjectivity of Psychological impressions of our sponge like mind at youth.
You have to take awhile and think about my post or else you will be lead into your prejudices of your past encounters with me, the prejudices of your already established views of right and wrong, your prejudiced Psychological impressions that subvert your mind from its inner reaches outward. I will not respond to any more of your posts unless I can see clearly you have taken the time to think it over and you have removed the prejudice within your views. It is frankly a waste of time to explain everything to you unless I want to correct your prejudices for you, however, that is not my responsibility but yours, something of which you have failed to actively complete or even try to complete.
Satyr, Someoneisatthedoor (should probably read this too)
Think of early man and how it viewed Pleasure and Pain. Early man saw pain as punishment and many activities were connected to this as the cause forming cultures of various sorts and pleasure as some compensation and reward for doing something right and many activities were posited as the cause of this which formed the positive end of the cultues of various sorts. Pain as Punishment and Pleasure as Reward are still conceptions which exists in modern society which has unified and embraced many cultures. It exists in the inner reaches of our Psychology imprinted in our minds in our youths but rarely overcome except by those very reflective minds like mine and other Philosophers. If you think about it you will realize that Early minds Psychological Reality viewing Pleasure and Pain as it did still exists in all humans of today and the view is still exploited to keep order in society. Phenomenology is nothing other than Psychological Realism and Existentialism is really a study of the human condition of which Psychology is the kernal of which shapes our experience. It is not the experience as to the external experience that shapes us but it is how we experience it or the internal experience that is vital to our understanding of reality. Nietzsche often thought the earlier primitive religions were key to our understanding of the human condition and he was correct for I have uncovered the kernel to the human condition and to our understanding of Psychological.
I hope you see the value of my conceptions they provide the explanation of our Pyschology and how human cultures developed.
Someoneisatthedoor,
Someday you will realize that alot of what I say ad alot of what others says is not for philosophical claims of truth but merely devices for explanation. I mean if I am an utter Skeptic and am trying with every word to be true how can I really achieve a communication of anything. If I employed my Skepticism into everything I stated I would not be able to say anything but however if I direct my skepticism in general exclusive of my language unlike yourself I do not confuse with a direct representation of concepts but only a means of demonstrating the logic of concepts. To demonstrate the logic of concepts is all language can do as it is impossible to communicate the meanings of words because the meanings are subjective and rooted in Psychology. The universality of communication in lanuage and all other means it provided by the universality of our Psychology which comes from the universality of our minds. I am a Psychological Realist so I would think by the very connotation of my writing you could see that. Since, I am dealing with concepts of punishment and reward and there relation to pain and pleasure I would think you could make that very simple and basic deduction. I hope you see the problem of Skepticism because all it does it leave you helpless to progress in Philosophy because you are lead to doubt you natural faculties which in the end are all you have and which everything is an abstraction or product of. One thing Derrida cannot overcome that fact that all experience momentary as they are you nonetheless our experiences and thereby subjective. All experiences contain an intention in them which in the most primitive sense is Will and then go to Pain and Pleasure and then into more and more finer variations of will. From sensations, to perceptions, to concepts, to ideas (which are unions of concepts). There are intentions within experiences otherwise why would they appear, they have some compulsion and the compulsion leads to an experience we view meaning the experience was directed toward us. As such the intentions within the experience are directed beyond the experience toward us which extends a moment into our mind. You will often notice the temporal displacement when in deep thought. In deep though time passes more slowly and this is exactly because the moments are extended by their intentions and they more they extend from sensations, to perceptions, to concepts, to ideas the more time seems to slow. This is the basic path I see for going beyond Derrida view of experience. Derrida lies at the most extreme desperation of Realism of which Psychological Realism I know can overcome through the intentionality of experiences something of which Schopenhauer realized long ago with his Metaphysics and Epistemology of Will.
Please, paragraphs. 