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.
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
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
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?The same is true of waking life. Sometimes it takes a little longer (and sometimes it doesn't) -- but what does it matter? — tgw
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? As far as I know, gold-eating beings don't exist. Is there no such thing as gold? — csalisbury
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. — csalisbury
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? — csalisbury
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. — csalisbury
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? — csalisbury
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
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. — csalisbury
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? — csalisbury
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? — csalisbury
yet these squirrels' particular drama of suffering can be accounted for by reference to the courtyard. — csalisbury
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.) — csalisbury
This is still confusing to me. Classical psychological projection makes already-existing others bearers of the feelings we can't deal with harboring ourselves. — csalisbury
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. — csalisbury
This seems diametrically opposed to the idea of world and self as co-constituting, which you've nominally espoused. — csalisbury
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
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.
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.' — csalisbury
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. — csalisbury
But I still don't really understand how you conceptualize 'the light behind.' — csalisbury
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.' — csalisbury
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. — csalisbury
What is the relation between the acorn-projection of the squirrel and the acorn-projection of the man? — csalisbury
Why do kids need transitional objects given by parents? why don't they just project their frustrations as objects on their own? — csalisbury
again, projection isn't a kind of generative power, nor is there an omnipotent self. That there are certain objects is already a reflection of the way these projections work themselves out.
As to the squirrel. Well, maybe it doesn't project an acorn per se. That's probably true. Regardless, our projected/illusory world is shared. The man can pick up and move the acorn and it'll fuck up the squirrel's shit. Interaction with - and through - each others 'projections' is possible. — csalisbury
The accumulated 'projections' exceed the particular desires of individuals to such an extent - well, it's almost like an ant colony. Any particular ant is mindlessly following pheremone trails. Viewed in the light of the whole, though, it's helping to build a nest, although no individual ant has any idea of the process its taking part in. There's a kind of objectivity build out of the blindness of individual subjectivities pursuing their own ends. — csalisbury
I still don't get what you mean by projection. If it isn't a 'generative' power, why call it 'projection' at all? To project is to be the cause of what's projected. What qualities of projections, literal or psychological, do you see in the process you're trying to describe? You talked about objects (object-ing) being like psychological projection, resulting from our trying to externalize our inner agony. Except now you're saying that no individual can actually do that? Do the subjects merely watch an Other's projections, projections of the kingdom of god, projections which so entrance, that the subjects can't help but subconsciously affirm the show? But then why did you being up individual psychological projection before? I'm not being cute, I really don't understand how 'projection' is being put to work here. — csalisbury
Q: Why do infants, empirically, need a static object to project onto? — csalisbury
Q: Why does the infant need the static result of prior projections to project onto? — csalisbury
If you like, to be under an illusion or delusion is to be involved in this kind of unhealthy, unhappy, or self-defeating conviction or practice. — The Great Whatever
If one wants to stick with the term 'projection', it seems that projection is always social (or at least intimate) and that each individual's 'projections' are a share in a collective projection. — csalisbury
I think it's just as easy to be scared of the outer. — csalisbury
(1)Believing too firmly in the absoluteness of things can both keep at bay the outer and others. Whether one cites the One, God or Nature, the idea persists that there is some higher power which keeps everything in its place. This externalization of meaning and creative power makes actual intimacy difficult.
(2) But intelligent people start to see the cracks. (Or rather intelligent, disappointed people do.) But how does this play out? There's the old-testament prophetic route, where one gets obsessed with the eventual destruction of the cities, like a man who knows the bridge is compromised and awaits the train that will bring it down, like the trumpet that will bring down Jericho. In social-intimate terms, this is definitely alienating. But there's also the possibility of salvaging a crackless inside by riding the via negativa to another place. The cracks are thereby prevented from letting the outside in because. The 'world' turns out not to live up to the ideal we thought it did, so one discards it, instead of discarding the ideal.
(3) Accept that things are fragile and that we create them together. Interesting avenues of exploration: Attachment theory, the psycho-genesis of cities and villages, the mutation of myths and religions (which Sloterdjik rightly calls technologies of immunity) etc. — csalisbury
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