Sumus, ergo sum. (Spinoza ... Buber, Levinas)

Reality boils down to the self/other binary. It is the essential platform supporting all empirical experience and abstract thought. — ucarr

Well, it's a bit glib. There's a classic Python sketch, now unfortunately paywalled, where Cleese says 'this week, we'll learn to play the flute. You blow in this end, here, and you move your fingers around on the bottom half, there. Next week, we'll show you how to create peace between Russia and China, and how to build a box girder bridge.'

Yes, self-and-other are the fundamental dynamic underneath all living things. The first thing an organism has to do is NOT succumb to physical laws. Otherwise, it's the same as all the dumb stuff around it. It has one scintilla of smartness - 'no, this is ME. I am going to STAY like this', Voila, a living thing. But there's a lot in that.

Reality boils down to the self/other binary. It is the essential platform supporting all empirical experience and abstract thought. — ucarr

Well, it's a bit glib. — Wayfarer

Consider: Self/Other binary $→$ the limit of the non-local is consciousness.

Let me try to explain my hypothesis by referencing it for comparison to: photons have minute rest mass and, light speed is a limit.

Premise - As mass is the waveform of matter, consciousness is the waveform of self/other.

The self/other binary, understood to be non-local, suggests itself to our understanding as consciousness emergent from an interweave of interacting gravitational fields.

Premise - Gravitational energy is the inverse of massive energy; whereas the former waveforms position, the latter localizes position.

When Emmanuel Levinas says, “Ethics is First Philosophy,” he describes the mutual warpage of spacetime around the self/other binary as consciousness. My being is warped by your being, and vice versa.

Premise - The gravitationality of consciousness leads to the matter funds thought ←→ thought funds matter puzzle.

Is this puzzle a bi-conditional parallel to “Ethics is First Philosophy?”

If the whole world is a mirror, then how do you develop a self in the first place? If everything is public, then where is the Self?

It sounds like what you're asking about is a conception of the self as a part of a larger whole. That is oneself 'in relation to.' If I recall my experiences as a teenager, or in any circumstance where I felt pressure to create a self-image, it always began with an exposure to a larger structured whole. The individual creates an image, and in another's reality it is scrutinized. Through this process of being-for-another, one gradually comes to materialize a functional identity. This archetype is I think a shared and common process of self-navigation.

However, on the Internet, there is no image that is not occupied. That is, individuals who don't normally belong can always belong somewhere 'secretively.' But this artificially produced identity is constantly aware of itself as an abstraction, and becomes anchored to an impossibility of effectuality. At the same time, the Internet offers an identity that is 'in itself,' that you could call a simulation that is more real than reality. The rationality is that because it has its foundation in the idea of technology it can always justify itself, whereas ordinary lived reality is always disconnected from the grid of serious communal effects.

Technology is the 'stomping grounds' of youth, and lesser the high-school, place of worship, place of play, or the work-space. What do you think this means for the way we conceptualize ourselves as part of a greater whole?

It sounds like what you're asking about is a conception of the self as a part of a larger whole. — kudos

Yes.

With today's youth on the front lines, humanity faces radical changes to identity beliefs and values as science and technology make an ever closer approach to high-verisimilitude simulations of natural humans.

If a cyborg is equipped with AI cognition that can digest the contents of the Library of Congress in one hour or less, then it might not be a surprise to learn such cyborgs can also slip between genders mind, body and soul without effort or qualms.

Given their ease in doing this, they simply wouldn't care about how they present themselves to society, especially when such gender shape-shifting is universal. Switching genders would merely be another item on the list of situationally desirable adaptive behaviors.

The sloughing off of the hard boundary lines of human identity marking formerly sacred spaces such as culture, race and now gender category is due to their partial dissolution already underway. This dissolution is one of the more profound effects evolving in this, our age of do-it-yourself global telecommunications from your bedroom.

Kudos to McLuhan: yes, the medium is the message and the now current medium asks “Where are you now global citizen? Why, you are nowhere, nowhere in particular that is. Nowhere and everywhere. Ha! Ha! Let’s all global party!”

Well, if the gender binary has exploded into a many-colored gender wheel with numerous prongs, then the age of the sexual grayscale is upon us.

These days, those who only came out at night, now populate the broad daylight with their nuanced filigree of intertwined sexual persuasions and gravitations.

Alternative-identity teens can make bold and engage socially with the establishment, as we saw in Barbie. As she enters the real world for the first time, her initial encounter is with a non-binary teen at the local high school. Dialoging with a beauty pageant habitue surely signals a mainstream arrival.

I can commiserate, but I think life is richer when we can identify a difference between the intuition and the imagination. It is easy for image to stand in for sensibility; However, one ends up chasing one’s tail in philosophical thought trying to manage a war of ideas. Because sensibility can’t escape from will, and without it most lose all interest altogether.

It seems a common thing to express disdain for the ‘woke’ culture and gender identity permissiveness through a type of anti-academic universalization, or insert whatever bourgeois premise one wishes to drown in the nihilist riverbed here. That is, to elevate the particular form of domination and power into universal notions of will, and to make war on those elevated notions. However, I see a difference between a philosophical idea and one encountered through sensibility. A philosophical idea is transitory, innocent, and easily corruptible, whereas a sensible one tends to be more fortified and well-defended.

These elevated particulars are a class-driven expression of learned jealousy becoming a type of battlefield in which imaginary players fight out a pointless battle to self-convince that the principles and unraveled objectivity are real, distinct, and identifiable. It’s a simulation meant to reinforce our place in society, shared by all players in equal redundancy, a false reality emerging as if it were a struggle for freedom.

Reality boils down to the self/other binary. It is the essential platform supporting all empirical experience and abstract thought. — ucarr

I'm not sure how accurate this is. It sounds like dualistic thinking and so, I imagine, Eastern traditions might challenge this model. When I think of 'self' - I don't consider this to be one discreet thing or even a knowable thing and I am uncertain what parts of the self are entirely me or not. I wonder if the idea of this/that is more of a convenient shorthand with limitations and gaps.

Technology is the 'stomping grounds' of youth, and lesser the high-school, place of worship, place of play, or the work-space. What do you think this means for the way we conceptualize ourselves as part of a greater whole? — kudos

I know quite a few younger people. I don't see a lot of difference between their understanding of the world and mine. Many young people are not significantly interested in technology. From what I've seen, the 50-65 year-olds seem more interested in social media.

I think life is richer when we can identify a difference between the intuition and the imagination. It is easy for image to stand in for sensibility; However, one ends up chasing one’s tail in philosophical thought trying to manage a war of ideas. — kudos

I'm supposing you're finding that my statement suffers from circular reasoning.

It seems a common thing to express disdain for the ‘woke’ culture and gender identity permissiveness through a type of anti-academic universalization, or insert whatever bourgeois premise one wishes to drown in the nihilist riverbed here. — kudos

If I'm reading you correctly, you hold at least some sympathy for "woke" culture. I regard my statement as being reportage, not analysis in support of antithetical judgment.

Regarding your second paragraph, your sentences are full of complex terms and nuanced ideas. I can somewhat discern their meaning individually: first the woke POV, then the conservative POV. As for my perception of the coherence connecting them thematically, I'm having no success. In the third sentence you seem to be prioritizing empirical experience over abstract thought.

In the third paragraph maybe you're assuming the POV of the extreme skepticism of nihilism vis-á-vis the woke/anti-woke binary.

Reality boils down to the self/other binary. It is the essential platform supporting all empirical experience and abstract thought. — ucarr

I'm not sure how accurate this is. — Tom Storm

When I think of 'self' - I don't consider this to be one discreet thing or even a knowable thing and I am uncertain what parts of the self are entirely me or not. I wonder if the idea of this/that is more of a convenient shorthand with limitations and gaps. — Tom Storm

I think the empirical experience of inflicted acute pain, physical or emotional, does an effective job of locating the position and boundaries of the self. By this same example, I think it does an effective job of locating the perpetrator outside of the position and boundaries of the self.

I've recently been learning Buddhist transcendence via suicide involves the utter denial of selfhood, with the certification of success entailed in facing down the likes of self-immolation in terms of mind over matter.

As I see them, all of these ideologies grapple with the self/other interweave. Denying it and then transcending it into... non-existence does nothing to break the connection, as non-existence vis-á-vis the living can only be an existential paradox.

I think the empirical experience of inflicted acute pain, physical or emotional, does an effective job of locating the position and boundaries of the self — ucarr

It teaches us about pain. But this is a very narrow band of experience and doesn't go anywhere near notions of who we are. For instance - could the self a part of the 'great mind' or will, as per Schopenhauer or Kastrup? Are we all dissociated alters of each other? How would we tell?

If I'm reading you correctly, you hold at least some sympathy for "woke" culture. I regard my statement as being reportage, not analysis in support of antithetical judgment.

Nobody uses the term 'woke' without implying some type of derogatory meaning, it is a term that shines light on a kind of excess pride inherent in thinking of oneself as being figuratively 'awake' while others are 'asleep' as a metaphor for having a power in thought that one believes it imperative for others to share. People only use this word in a negative sense, and nobody ever calls themselves 'woke' anymore. It is like a kind of parody of post-structural thought, drawing attention to its internal hypocrisy, corruption, and overall lack of genuineness. In reality it is a convenient way to characterize post-structuralism at face-value, by all the ways those who attempt to apply it to the real world have become a byzantine disgrace.

I am not defending these tendencies, which are real, but I think it misguided to characterize a philosophical idea as if it were a predefined and absolute product of consciousness. It is because it rings the Kantian alarm bell of treating Reason as if it were a means to an end. It feels like there is something we are losing by lumping post-structural thought in with objective machinations operating for themselves attempting to represent the interests of human agency. We must acknowledge that not everyone wills to reason, and that universal reason is not just somewhere distant, but penetrates right down to the core of action. That is, it is the very identity of thought and action that is being misunderstood. We simply can't accept the identity whilst maintaining difference, and instinctively make recourse to the belief that they are separate domains with reference to a contingent difference principle.

...I think it misguided to characterize a philosophical idea as if it were a predefined and absolute product of consciousness. — kudos

Existence is simply a sequence of moments stocked with endless details? The observer, being wise, will not succumb to anxiety about outcomes?

...the Kantian alarm bell of treating Reason as if it were a means to an end. — kudos

The open road holds most promise for the traveler unfettered by definitive dreams?

...there is something we are losing by lumping post-structural thought in with objective machinations operating for themselves... — kudos

No aesthetician worthy of the label settles for enlightenment by auto pilot?

...not everyone wills to reason... — kudos

Sentience holds value independent of its transactions?

...universal reason is not just somewhere distant, but penetrates right down to the core of action. — kudos

Knowing and being always present jointly?

...the... identity of thought and action... is being misunderstood. — kudos

Don't deify the mind?

We simply can't accept the identity whilst maintaining difference, and instinctively make recourse to the belief that they are separate domains with reference to a contingent difference principle. — kudos

We shall break bread together?

I think the empirical experience of inflicted acute pain, physical or emotional, does an effective job of locating the position and boundaries of the self — ucarr

...could the self [be] a part of the 'great mind' or will, as per Schopenhauer or Kastrup? — Tom Storm

Are we all dissociated alters of each other? How would we tell? — Tom Storm

In reference to my quote at top, can you not distinguish the intentions of the perpetrator, who inflicts great pain upon you, from your own intentions for yourself?

Not sure, also not sure how this helps. Please demonstrate with an example - perhaps in dot points - how you see this working.

For instance:

So let's say someone calls me an idiot. I feel a reaction. But this is far from clear. If my boss calls me an idiot, I have a different reaction to if my daughter calls me an idiot. Situation and tone varies too. And so does what the week has been like so far. How does a reaction, which is variable and unpredictable, delineate a clear sense of self? It seems to me there are various selves, with various reactions, depending on contingent factors. I might even react in a way that has me asking - what happened? I was not my self then.

...can you not distinguish the intentions of the perpetrator, who inflicts great pain upon you, from your own intentions for yourself? — ucarr

Please demonstrate with an example - perhaps in dot points - how you see this working. — Tom Storm

• Some agents kidnap and tie you to a chair in an empty warehouse at a deserted mall.

• Tied to one leg of your chair is a bomb on a timer. You've got fifteen minutes to escape before the deadly bomb explodes.

• You're a high-tech wizard, so the thugs don't notice you're wearing contact lenses equipped with micro-chips that allow your brain to control a virtual camera with synched mag-res scanning. Using your thoughts, you telecommunicate with your head of security android always on standby back at your laboratory ninety miles away.

• With ninety seconds to go, you hear a crash through one of the large two-way plate glass windows as Robbie the android flies in, unties you from the chair and flies out of the warehouse with you in his arms.

• Airborne three hundred feet, you feel the windchill as you hear the entire warehouse explode upwards into a great fireball in the twilight skyline over El Segundo.

• Back at your desk in the lab, you write notes on what just happened, conjecturing it was the work of Riegaert, your arch enemy within the high-tech industry.

Question - At any time, as you write up your notes on how Riegaert almost got you - you only decided at the last minute to put in your brand new untested contacts before going out in the morning - do you confuse your intentions during the escape ordeal with the intentions of Riegaert?

Thanks. Not sure there's much I can do with those dot points, I'm afraid.

But if you ask me what do I do when I try to escape restraint. I have been locked up in a room before. I try to escape. Survival kicks in. What does this say about the self?

If your point is simply that my reality appears to be different to the reality of the person who locked me in, so? How is this identifying anything useful about the self?

If your point is simply that my reality appears to be different to the reality of the person who locked me in, so? How is this identifying anything useful about the self? — Tom Storm

If I lock you in a room and then leave the scene, does the apparent boundary line between your location and mine really exist?

Let's assume the apparent boundary line between you and me is illusion. Does that tell us there's a way I can read your mind, and vice versa?