I'm no social justice warrior - and I know this isn't the main focus of your post - but I don't get the logic of not being for gay pride events in gay-friendly areas. Are you against 4th of july parades in patriotic communities? St pats parades in Irish neighborhoods?

On my phone so I can't mount a full response. Will later. The key to the transitional objects is imo that subjectivies are always already harbored and created by other subjectivities. Moms helping out.

Even if there's nothing 'there,' there is absolutely a process of 'there-ing' and 'object-ing.' (& you got Husserl and intentionality even with ideas ). But a need for substantiality isn't where I was going. Your account sounds very much like a transcendental subject bearing these worlding-processes. Not bc I need that to satisfy my prejudices but because that's the way you describe it.

What is the relation between the acorn-projection of the squirrel and the acorn-projection of the man? (If the hypostatization bothers you, then call it the acorn-ing of the squirell's there and the acorning of the man's there.)

Why do kids need transitional objects given by parents? why don't they just project their frustrations as objects on their own?

Yeah, have you ever tried to read Dennett's Consciousness Explained? It's like there's some switch turned off in his mind and he is constitutionally unable to understand this point. It's maddening.

As if, in trying to imagine a monster interested in eating the ashes of grandmothers, we denied the monster could have any interest in eating the ashes of grandmothers.

Isn't this a line from Jimmy Carter's inauguration speech? plz don't plagiarize.

If we have our prisoners in the cave, and they ask us what the origin of all the objects they're seeing are, we can answer either by saying that they come from reflections of the light behind them -- or we can answer by saying, they don't come from anywhere because you aren't seeing any objects to begin with. — The Great Whatever

That latter answer doesn't seem very good to me.
Q What's the origin of that island?
A: That island doesn't come from anywhere because you aren't seeing any island to begin with. It's a mirage.
Obvious next Q: Huh, what's the origin of the mirage?

So the former answer, in your example, is a much better one. But I still don't really understand how you conceptualize 'the light behind.' You can call it the desire/hunger/will/agony of the subject projected outward. But when pressed on how that works, you're quick to clarify that it's not as though there's some subject who creates a world if out there, which it 'bears'. " it doesn't act as a transcendental condition." Except that's exactly how you describe it. The sleight-of-hand is to say that there are 'illusions' not 'objects.' But then the subject becomes precisely a transcendental bearer of a world of 'illusions.' What I'm trying to say is the inconsistencies and failures of analogies aren't all that innocent. You use different language and imagery depending on the questions asked - and it doesn't line up. I'm not sure you're quite clear on what you're suggesting. Your position appears to be basically the-material-world-is-maya, which you elaborate using concepts and imagery from elsewhere (Schop, Husserl, Henry probably introspection). But I don't think you really have an idea of how that works.

Some questions:

What is the relation between the acorn-projection of the squirrel and the acorn-projection of the man?

Why do kids need transitional objects given by parents? why don't they just project their frustrations as objects on their own?

This is still confusing to me. Classical psychological projection makes already-existing others bearers of the feelings we can't deal with harboring ourselves. A stuffed animal - any 'transitional object - exists prior to a child's projections. The very syntax of 'we project our desires onto something else' suggests a subject and an object upon which the subject can unburden its agonies. "there is no animal or creature 'there.'" Except, of course, that there is. The stuffed animal doesn't, in itself, contain those things we project upon it. But, for some reason, having a static object really helps us organize us those confused feelings.

Projection needs something pre-existent to project onto. That's the sine qua non of projection.
And what projects is the source of the projection. It's what accounts for the projection. This seems diametrically opposed to the idea of world and self as co-constituting, which you've nominally espoused.

When you speak more theoretically and less metaphorically, I get some inkling of what you're talking about. But your metaphors sit uneasily with your theory, and I think theoretical ideas tend to be less representative of a person's actual convictions that the metaphors they spontaneously mobilize.

Your use of 'projection' is confusing to me. I know, from older posts, you're wary of light metaphors; and I know, from this thread, that you're wary of subjects constituting a world. 'Projection' seems to be a perfect convergence of both those things.

In my view both the squirrels and the peopl share a world except the people's world comprehends the squirrel's and not vice versa. Let me clarify that. The people can see, if they like, exactly why some squirrels fail and some don't. They can't know what it's like to be drawn to junping toward this branch and not another

In the original, Heidegger never mentions being! Most of his books are just intricate grumblings about faulty traffic lights and the price of rice in Leipzig.

I think the passage does make a lot more sense when seen in the light (heh) of MP's general project. So MP is responding here to those critics who champion 'reflection' and believe MP has not given it it's due. "Reflection" here has a specifically idealist or logical positivist connotation. Through reflection one moves from the world of mundane & illusory appearance to crisp concepts and ideas (or to true propositions or judgements about the world.) Reflection gives us things like the pythagorean theorem and true scientific statements about the boiling point of water. These sorts of things, for MP's critics, are the truest truths

The reason ppl down with this view criticize MP is because his schtick is kinda British Empiricism meets Husserl. He believes, like Hume, that perception grounds the truths derived from 'reflection' and not the other way round. The 'discovery' of the unreflected involves a lot of experiments, showing that spontaneous accounts of how we perceive the world don't actually jive with what happens. (MP actually has quite a bit in common with the modern popular cognitive scientist. His works are riddled with concrete experiments and findings.) What's 'discovered' is not the unreflected per se but all the strange and interesting ways perception works which you'd never notice unless you think about - and play around with - it. (For instance, most people have no idea how limited their visual field actually is. It just seems as though we're aware of vast spaces, entire rooms. But various experiments can be used to demonstrate to oneself just how limited that field is. It then becomes clear that our sense of vast spaces is a product of an active darting-around of the eyes, a darting-around which is quick enough to generate the illusion of a much larger field. By attending to perception itself rather than ideas and propositions derived from it, we learn more about how we perceive. We return from reflection, that is, to an enriched idea of the unreflective. )

Maybe MP's 'we' is a self-aggrandizing reaction to narcissistic injury, but, tbh, I think it's reallly hard to say unless you know:
(1)What's going on in the original French
(2)How the French usage of such formalities differs from English usage in general - & more specifically:
(3) The linguistic conventions French academics are expected to adhere to when giving talks about their work.

So, for instance, I'd probably suspect a person who exclusively used the passive voice of having near sociopathic issues with accepting responsibility. But exclusive use of the passive voice is exactly what I expect when reading scientific writing.

A coworker of mine recently posted a link to an 'upworthy article' ( Upworthy is basically Buzzfeed meets chicken soup for the soul, if you don't know it.) It used riding a bike as a metaphor for life. The more speed you have the easier it is to steer, was the idea. But my reflexive reaction was 'man, but sometimes you gotta hop of the bike to stay sane.' Philosophy for me has always been assosciated with control (not in the sense of controlling another but of having some modicum of mastery over my own thoughts and experience. So, self control, I guess. But the term seems misleading. for me at least, my thoughts seem less like a stream emanating from me and more like an assailing barrage. Learning how to structure and order them gives me some defense ).

I'm currently (returning to) reading Globes - Spheres Vol 2 by Peter Sloterdijk (hard to summarize but sooooo good. The author has hilariously described his trilogy as the book Heidegger should have written instead of Being and Time. He was half-joking but I think he's right. I'm just shy of calling it my fave work of philosophy) and your MP passage reminds me of one of his. But in a way that gives me pause. The passage is about Medieval spherical models of God

One of the essential figures of the divine light is that it continually augments and perfects itself through reflexive or returning beams, which is why every "outward" light journey must have a corresponding, varyingly symmetrical "homeward" journey; this was developed with due formality in Neoplatonic reflection. Hence the primal light not only plunges centrifugally into the immeasurable and irretrievable from its first point of emission, but returns home - in an eternal conservative revolution - from a precisely determined turning point to its source[...] It is beyond doubt that without this harboring reflection, the rays sent out by him would dissapear into a homecoming-less "bad" infinity and never return to the point [...] In [Nicolas of Cusa's model of the cosmos] the outermost ring is described as "confused chaos": a region in which the emanations of the light center have become so attenuated that they no longer have any formal effects on the substance — Sloterdijk

This seems very closely connected to the MP quote, to the extent where the latter could perhaps be genealogically explained by reference to mutations of the old model - whereby the thought of god becomes the thought of thought. Idk exactly, maybe not.

Recall a moment, if you're able, when you danced with total abandon. You'd have to realllly stretch to find the 'presentation' in this kinda experience.

Edit: oh you're suggesting experiences like this are better thought of in terms of concord/conflict? I think I agree? I think a long history of being painfully hungry is what leads people to portray being as an agony driven by an essential lack. That and/or revulsion at any sort of dependence. Hunger is actually a very nice thing if you've easy and continued access to good brunch spots.Some flavors complement, some clash. Need for affection tortures the lonely and enlivens those surrounded with a good crew. The poor are far more occupied with the struggle for money than the rich.The rich can focus on arranging a harmonious life. (So there are obvious ethical considerations here. Affirm at the risk of ignoring the plight of the deeply suffering - as well as one own's capacity for similar pain. But there are two ways to look at it. Mother Theresa was totally on board with-the-world-as-suffering view and not only surrounded herself with the suffering but often denied them ways of easing that suffering. This is empathy not for people but for proofs. Many pessimistic philosophers do the same with ideas about the suffering imo)

I think it follows that a distribution of potential sources (not necessarily objects) of gratification can precede and so partially account for the particular rhythm of suffering of particular beings. The courtyard is quite obviously entangled from its outset with other willing beings and their desires (they designed it after all) but it's possible for creatures entirely alien to the courtyard's purpose to become accidentally caught up in it. The courtyard cannot be accounted for by reference to the suffering of these squirrels. yet these squirrels' particular drama of suffering can be accounted for by reference to the courtyard. (I do want to be clear that the courtyard isn't a stand in for the universe.) It's as tho the squirrels fell into an abandoned corner formed by the wills of others now pursuing loftier things. It's as though the wills of others leave behind ossified structures, like old skin. Sartre I think calls this the practico-inert. These abandoned skins can, in all their dry contingency, envelop later beings caught within them..( though I want to be clear that I understand lack-of-acorns is only disastrous for acorn-eaters.)

( This real quick, before the rest:

What he is seeing is not a bunch of previously unrelated objects coming into relation: he is seeing the suffering of these creatures unfold and interact, in ways that spring from his own suffering and ability to empathize with them, i.e. to recognize them as living creatures. — tgw

Could you provide an example of previously unrelated objects coming into relation? I think the contrast would help me understand the point you're trying to make here. I'd even grant you that the dude needs to know hunger to recognize hungry beings.)




Allow me to be a bit bold and say I think I understand your position better than you think I do. I attempted to stave off a laborious demonstration of this understanding through some shorthand hints, but they don't appear to have taken.

So, quickly: The relation between subject and world is not one of creator and created or constituter and constituted. Rather both subject and world are poles of a chiasmic working-through of desire (will, hunger). The world as human adults spontaneously think of it -as comprised of independent objects which appear to have distinct identities, where events unfold according to the PSR - is actually a late development, a product of our intelligence, which is inseparable from our desires, since the satisfaction of these desires is precisely what explains this intelligence's development. In a 'ontogeny-recapitulates-phylogeny' kinda way, we can observe that the human infant begins life as a 'blooming, buzzing, confusion' of drives and only gradually develops object permanence, the ability to separate itself from the world etc.

y/n?

For the sake of this argument, I'm granting you all of the above.


Let's begin again. I'm going to ask literally the same question. Answer as succinctly as possible. The two squirrels, having been thrown (wink, wink) by the sadistic boy, land on two separate sides of the courtyard. One side has acorns. The other side does not. Which squirrel suffers and why? Remember: Stating that squirrels in general suffer because they are hungry or that hungry beings in general suffer because they are deprived of food is not a sufficient answer to this question. (Q: Why did the fireworks ignite? A. Because fireworks are ignitable)

The hikikomori's answer: the squirrel that happened to land on the left side suffered because the tree was on the right side. Is this a correct answer, provided one has implicitly granted all the qualifications and explanations granted above?

It's always possible that there might be a monster - real or imagined - who wants to eat, among other things, urns containing grandmother-ashes.Are you bound to that monster whenever you look at you grandma's urn, 'for you see or think the urn that any real or imagined urn-eating monster is hungry for?' This seems silly to me.

Think of it this way: there could not be an acorn in one part of the yard in the first place without there being the possibility of a squirrel satisfying its hunger in that half of the yard and not the other. This is in part what there being an acorn there in the first place.

It would certainly come as a surprise to the guy in the apartment that there cannot be an acorn in one part of the yard without the possibility of there being a squirrel. Why just yesterday, the day before the squirrels arrived, he looked down and saw acorns in one section and not the other. & What's more - this poor uneducated soul didn't know that there existed any creatures that ate acorns! He just thought they were the (aesthetically satisfying) seeds of a particular species of tree. Had acorn-eating beings never existed, could there be no acorns? Or would they only exist with reference to possible future species who might eat them? As far as I know, gold-eating beings don't exist. Is there no such thing as gold?

In the example, you're assuming we can take for granted that acorns just 'exist' independently, and that is how you set up the example, as if the squirrels just came along to something independently established and only then interacted causally with it. — tgw

What's wrong with my example? Do there not exist courtyards containing things that might be eaten which were created without reference to those things that might eat them? Empirically, this is flagrantly false. I took great pains to stem this kind of rejoinder. Our apartment dweller looks out at this park every day. If you need the courtyard, with its oaks and acorns, to depend on something else, something that suffers and desires, he serves this function just fine.

To say that one squirrel can eat and the other can't because there is a tree on one side and not on the other is merely to report what the fact that we see a tree there told us in the first place -- that 'over there,' is where you can get something to eat. Seeing the acorn is seeing where the food is. — tgw

Except the hikikomori had no idea that acorns even were something edible! And yet he still saw them, day after day. Do you think it is impossible for such a person to see acorns?

The same is true of waking life. Sometimes it takes a little longer (and sometimes it doesn't) -- but what does it matter? — tgw

Well I've never had the experience, in waking life, of identifying the same person as e.g. both my mother and, later, x from work and having no problem with that. I guess I can't think of anything like that in normal life. I suppose you could get around that with formal or metaphorical tricks. But would you want to?

What's outside the will is 'nothing,' sure, but only 'nothing to us,' because we literally couldn't comprehend such a thing.I think it still might be in some way efficacious on us, though, which is why we experience things as ultimately just happening to us for no reason -- there's no way to see 'behind' our suffering, and so there is a kind of blindness where our suffering seems to encompass everything, yet at the same time we have no account of its origin. — The Great Whatever

I think this is the right tack. I guess we just approach this same idea differently?

Let's tweak the example. Imagine a courtyard bisected by a large stone wall. In one half grows an oak. In the other there's a fountain. On the north side of the courtyard is a city street. There are tall apartment buildings on each of the other sides. Some awful kid, out of sheer sadistic pleasure, tosses a sack containing two squirrels over the wall and into the courtyard. One squirrel falls into one half, one into the other. A man watches all of this from an apartment window. One squirrel collects acorns. The other slowly dies.

This oak and these acorns have existed long before the squirrels arrived. (Let's say our apartment dweller is a sort of hikomori who spends hours each day observing the courtyard. If you need an observer to guarantee the existence of this courtyard, he's your man)

Let's take this

Yeah, you have to reverse the way of thinking about it, from contingently distributed food leading to different pathe, to contingently distributed pathe leading to different food-projections. — The Great Whatever

In this example it is clearly the case that, for the squirrel, a contingent distribution of food is what leads to their respective pathe, not vice versa.

Let me immediately nip one potential response in the bud.

Obviously, if the squirrels were not hungry, they would not need the acorns. Clearly, hunger is the condition of possibility for both its suffering and its flourishing. It is also the condition of possibility for the acorn's being considered food. But whether the squirrel flourishes or suffer, in this example, depends entirely on where it happens to land in relation to the food. As our hikomori can attest, these trees and acorns have been here long before the squirrels arrived. The question, once more, is not why hunger exists at all, but why the agony of a hungry being exists in this case, not in that. In this example, the contingent distribution is quite clearly the cause ('occasion', if you prefer) of the agony. The agony does not cause the acorns to be distant.

Now, to the hikomori. He's the heir, I suppose, to a long line of pathe-masterers. He's so adequately satisfied food-wise, that his hunger can take the form of interest in courtyards and interest in squirrels.
If we wish to maintain that this or that world cannot come about before this or that hunger, and since these acorns quite clearly precede the squirrel's desiring-them, we must look to to the hikomori as the world-shaper. Is he somehow 'outwilling' the squirrels through his abstract - yet still hungry -contemplation which shapes the courtyard?

(Bonus question: If the hikomori were sick that week and couldn't make it to the window, which squirrel would suffer and why?)

In other words, if you ask people to explain what makes dreaming seem so 'unreal,' you'll find that every phenomenological character of dreaming they offer is found in waking life too. — The Great Whatever

Yeah? One of the things that make dreams surreal is that a single individual can shift shapes and faces from moment to moment.

I always get a little concerned when people talk about the world's 'dreamlike quality" For 'dreamlike' to be in any way meaningful, it must be possible to distinguish between dreamlike and non-dreamlike. Dreams are dreamlike in opposition to what? Not the world, certainly, if the world itself is 'dreamlike.' V confusing.

But anyhow.

Being (1) is hungry, it satisfies that hunger, grows hungry again, satisfies that hunger. So forth, until it dies.

Being (2) is hungry. It satisfies that hunger. Grows hungry again, cannot satisfy that hunger - the 'clues' are scarce, no 'food' presents itself, it agonizes and dies.

The contingent distribution of food in a world external to these beings, it appears, cannot account for the difference in their respective fates. Is it that the pathe of being (1) happily enough manifest themselves as plentitude while the pathe of being (2) manifest as scarcity? Is this a fair way put it? Agony manifests as distant objects of satisfaction to...maintain itself as agony?

If not, what's a better account?

Second question. Or really a scenario I'm interested in your explanation of:

There's a human and there's a squirrel. Let's say the human is lonely and enjoys feeding squirrels. It throws bread (or w/e squirrels eat) into the yard from its second story porch

This human - through whatever endlessly intricate, labyrinthine twisting of its desires- has come to occupy a world where it can see a piece of bread, a squirrel, the porch etc. as things with their own independent identities. The squirrel, on the other hand, follows 'clues' to satisfy its hunger. It smells the bread and scampers toward it, propelled only by the movements of hunger.

All the while, though, the human watches on (either in aesthetic indifference or through some libidinal sublimation where the squirrel's satisfaction dimly satisfies the human. Who cares. In any case, the human can see the bread as a stand-alone object with nutritive qualities*.)

How does this work? The human can give an account of the squirrel's movements: the squirrel was triggered by the piece of bread they chose to throw into the yard (which could just have well remained in the kitchen.) Yet, according to your account, the object of satisfaction cannot be disentangled from the hunger. The squirrel's hunger must be what accounts for the bread. Yet the bread existed, already, in the human's kitchen and need not have been thrown. The human chose to throw it, to trigger the squirrel, to watch it move toward it.

A very simple scenario. How would you explain what's happening according to the position you're advocating?


*To get one potential red herring out of the way immediately, it is obviously true that without hungry beings, there can be no 'food.'

Why -and under what conditions - do pain and strife force a world to grow, to "take shape"? Is it because the pain or pleasure becomes too intense? But intensity, apparently, forces the world to disappear. I'm confused.

Why -and under what conditions - do pain and strife force a world to grow? Is it because the pain or pleasure becomes too intense? But intensity, apparently, forces the world to disappear. I'm confused

No I agree. It's hungry and has no choice. As you say, it has to follow 'clues' about where the food is. There is no such thing as a 'clue' if there's no mystery or puzzle to unravel. The mystery is where the food is - zone x or zone y - and the clues help tell us.

It's funny that this world, which comes after, is utterly indifferent to the needs of the hungry being. It depends on this being, but is in no way tailored to its needs. The food may even be out of reach!

It seems clear that this hungry being has no conscious control of the world it creates. It has to follow clues to understand its contours. Why does the world have these contours? Why is the food in zone x and not zone y? It may be the case that "world" exists only because the being is hungry. But why does this world exist. That's really the crux. The question is not why does a world exist? But why does this world exist?

The world came after.
So the hungry being was hungry and projected a world in which the satisfaction of its hunger lies in zone x and not zone y. Let's imagine that zone y is right next to it and zone x is further off. Why did it project food in zone x and not zone y?

Yes, newly able to represent time as linear.
I agree that the being was hungry before that moment.
Do you agree that these beings are dependent for their satiation on the contingencies (where the food is) of a world that pre-exists them?

I think it's all relevant tbh. That's what makes it so hard.

I have trouble limiting myself. It's probably my biggest problem. If there're six movies in my netflix queue, I have difficulty enjoying any one of them. The other ones might be better. But I also think fisking can fracture and enervate a conversation (tho I'll admit I fisk frequently). I'll have to focus on one avenue of argument here.

I'll choose this. You didn't answer my question about hunger and sources of food. You spoke abstractly about what hunger is and how it works. My question is, for this newly-minted conscious being, why is it that satiation lies in zone x and not y? It may be that the existence of food as a discrete cognizable object is a projection of hunger. Well and good. Why does this sudden beneficary (or torture-victim) of consciousness project food in zone x and not zone y?

That's an explosive answer! There are so many angles from which to respond. I'll see if I can muster a response tonight. If not, I'll be back tomorrow

Also I can't help but note the irony in your initial insistence that ordinary language should suffer 'violence' and neologisms for the sake of philosopical exploration, only to say, mere posts later, that we ought observe actual usage and be wary of formal tricks. All I can take away from this is that formal tricks & violence are justified when in service of the right philosophical position. Not justified, on the other hand, when it's for the wrong cause.

Agreed that they're not "now." As you said it gets tricky with tenses and you've gotta futz with terminology. "Contained in the now" is a gesture toward the determinist idea that the now leads in a strict causal chain toward a determinate end and back toward a determinate beginning. Like those amorphous paper-sculptures that, when, placed into water, become e.g. a swan. They're not swans now, but it's inexorable that swans they'll become.

As for the conditions. When consciousness blossomed, it didn't happen in a void. There was still both hunger and places where the food was. Why was the food in this place and not that? And why were these conscious beings hungry?

ok, let's assume determinism for now. At a certain moment, time blooms into an intricate linear flower, its end and its beginning contained already in its now. What determines the conditions at that initial now? Or is it a free imaginative act by consciousness, purely self-conditioned?

Throw me to the circles!

Think I'm done for the night. Posts are getting more intricate and i'm (1) posting on my phone from a bar and (2) drinking. Down to take it from here tomorrow though

I'm gonna be a total dick right now bc I don't care. If you have any questions related to this thread, please start another thread and post them there.

When I say it won't rain tomorrow and it rains tomorrow, was I really already wrong at the moment I said it wouldn't rain? That's not clear to me. I can look back, knowing it will rain and say I was wrong then . In any case future events fall along a probabilistic spectrum. At xxxx bc, X's coming into being in 1966 is at the far end of that spectrum.Do you think the precise way in which linear time ends is implicit in the conditions at its birth?

Ok drop Schop for now. Do you side with the determinist or the non-determinist?

It's xxx x b.c. there may or not be an artifact x that comes about in 1966. It could go either way. How can a statement in xxxx bc about x's date of creation be true? or false?

I don't think it's orthogonal. If you don't take the deterministic position, then, tenses aside, the question of when it became true that the artifact would/did come into being in 1966 is *not* the moment time became linear

Just to make sure I'm clear: you take a standard deterministic position about time once linearized?

(I'm sincerely glad you're not taking an eternalist position. That would've bummed me out to no end.) I think what I said follows exactly from what you've said. I asked at what point in time it became true that the artifact came into being in 1966. You said "when time became linear and quantifiable." I asked whether time became linear and quantifiable before or after 1966 and you answered well before. Where am I going wrong?

It would follow, then, that the time at which it became true that the artifact came into being in 1966 was a time well before 1966. Do you agree?

Did time become linear and quantifiable before or after 1966?