The coup was stoppable…but likely would have ruined Rostov and weakened Russia internally even more. — ssu

I don't see what troops would have attacked Rostov, and I even less see how such an attack would have stopped the tanks rolling into red square and offing Putin.

Military coups do not usually end in a negotiated settlement before any blood is spilt. I can only guess that they are keeping Putin on as a puppet leader for a while, but he is no longer in charge. It certainly looked as though he was caught with his trousers round his ankles and no one to wipe his arse for him.

I believe morality reveals itself in the act alone, whether it is impelled by thought or instinct or self-concern. — NOS4A2

I think you are wrong. Take the act of firing a gun. Right or wrong?

Obviously you need some circumstances, ok: the act of pointing a gun at a person and firing. Right or wrong?

I'd say you need more. I'd like to know the reason for pointing a gun at someone and firing. But this is a matter of the mind;

reason (a) a reasonable belief that the person was about to slaughter some kids with a machete.
reason (b) a reasonable belief that the person's tie colour clashed with their socks.

Both, or either of the beliefs could be true, but I think we can pick out which one justifies (attempted) homicide with some confidence. Of course if no machete was found at the scene, and/or no children, and/or tie and socks were a matching shade of grey, then the claimed beliefs would not seem reasonable. Call CSI.

Edit: I forgot to tell you the consequences; they seem to have a lesser importance, perhaps the general generic consequence of firing a gun at someone being liable to cause harm is sufficient in most cases, though there was that thing with someone getting shot on a film set a while back.

Happy to adopt that as the theme tune of the thread. Says it all without the confusion of so much words.

Overhead the albatross
Hangs motionless upon the air
And deep beneath the rolling waves
In labyrinths of coral caves
The echo of a distant time
Comes willowing across the sand
And everything is green and submarine
And no one showed us to the land
And no one knows the where's or why's
But something stirs and something tries
And starts to climb toward the light
Strangers passing in the street
By chance, two separate glances meet
And I am you and what I see is me
And do I take you by the hand
And lead you through the land
And help me understand the best I can?
And no one calls us to move on
And no one forces down our eyes
No one speaks and no one tries
No one flies around the sun
Cloudless everyday
You fall upon my waking eyes
Inviting and inciting me to rise
And through the window in the wall
Come streaming in on sunlight wings
A million bright ambassadors of morning
And no one sings me lullabies
And no one makes me close my eyes
So I throw the windows wide
And call to you across the sky

And no one sings me lullabies, and no one makes me close my eyes.
So I throw the windows wide and call to you across the sky. Happy to echo that.

What kind of narrative are we talking about here? Whose narrative are we talking about? (You said mine, but I can adopt someone else's and I will probably have more than one narrative about myself.)

Narratives are often disrupted. Sometimes someone else's narrative collides with mine. Sometimes I disrupt my own narrative, whether deliberately or accidentally. Sometimes "events" disrupt my narrative. We can modify our narrative or throw the old one out and make a new one. Whatever we say or do, there is always something "outside" our narrative and narratives are never permanent, even when we are dead. What are we to make of this?

I distinguish between a narrative and a log book. A log book is a series of dots. A narrative connects those dots. Is a log book a safe and satisfactory option? — Ludwig V

That is your narrative, and this is mine, and they both derive from a shared language and culture and are personalised, edited, and brought into contrast and comparison here. or perhaps it is a log book, I don't know the difference. One always stands outside the narrative to describe it, but it is always oneself one is describing so it is always a narrative self (or a log-book self) and one is never outside it

I underline the contradiction here to make clear that there is something wrong with the narrative of "I", whoever is the centre of attention.

I confess to being totally baffled. An unstoppable coup that suddenly stops, a civil war averted without hardly a shot fired - it looks like an elaborate theatre, but for what audience? and with what intention?

What next, pundits?

I'm tempted to suggest a Zen cure. Go for a walk, have a cup to tea and a good night's sleep. — Ludwig V

You misunderstand. I say "I" and you offer me respite, but it is mere distraction. I have spent many days crafting this thread and the previous one that laid the groundwork for it, and the zen is built into the laying out of the problem. And here it is again: —

If your map has no territory it is not a map. Or if it is a map, it is a fictional map and consequently not your narrative. — Ludwig V

Take this as a universal truth. Now, who are you? If you do not answer, you go straight to hell, but if you answer you continue the fictional map.

Now I don't expect any sartori to result for anyone, but I am interested in the philosophy and psychology of identification, and I think this process of identification is what humans do that creates the self as an artefact or 'sprite' of the psyche, with all the suffering and trouble that results. I think it is unnecessary. So I will at least lay out and face the problem as best I can, and when a cup of tea is appropriate, I can make a cup of tea as well.

Whether the self is always the same is a good question. Your account of the train of thought suggests not, doesn't it? — Ludwig V

I'm not certain; I am inconsistent and my account of myself changes.
But that is the account of myself, which is entirely self-consistent. At this point I am in a postmodern nightmare where the narrative is all there is and that is all the truth there is because that is the narrative and that's all there is. As if the map is all there is of the territory - which makes the self a fiction from start to finish, and yet a persistent one if not always consistent..

Russian security forces were seen taking positions in southern Moscow, according to photos published by Russian business newspaper Vedomosti.

The images published by the paper showed Russian security forces in body armor and equipped with automatic weapons taking up a position near a highway linking Moscow with southern Russia.

https://edition.cnn.com/europe/live-news/russia-ukraine-war-news-06-24-23/index.html

What security forces are these, I wonder, are they a match for experienced front line troops with a grudge?

Wagner troops arrive at Lipetsk, major airbase and about 4 hours by road from Moscow

https://twitter.com/Tendar/status/1672583840337100800?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet


At the moment the other side is making strong denunciations, but they'll need something a bit more persuasive to stop Wagner group marching straight into Moscow and mopping up the very small looking defending force.

Still, it seems to me that when you speak of a narrative, you don't mean a log of my experiences, but something more structured with successes and failures and diversions and so on. Is there a reason why we can't find more than a single narrative in our lives? — Ludwig V

If there is more than one narrative, one has intrusive thoughts and maybe starts hearing voices. "There's someone in my head, but it's not me."

It happens...

In a sense this whole thread, my contributions at any rate, are my ongoing narrative self exposed for the world's entertainment. The train of thought runs on and eventually runs into the sand, and another train of thought sets off and then another train reflects on these trains and integrates them into a new train. Any train can reconnected to any other train with the word 'and'. Think child typical narratives — I got up and I had breakfast and mummy took me to school and teacher was boring and we had fish-fingers I hit Jimmy because he said I smelled and...

I wrote all that and then... self fades in and fades out, but is always the same, except on the Dark side of the Moon.

It seems to me that there is always a mental aspect, a behavioural aspect, and a consequential aspect to moral judgements.

“it’s the thought that counts” — NOS4A2

But "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."

Every platitude has a contradictory platitude, so that together they say nothing, and are thus never untrue.

If one unintentionally kills another, it is manslaughter not murder, so intentions count in law, but actions and consequences also count. If one intends to kill but fails, that is attempted murder.

The thought police are very tolerant of mere ideation that has no discernible behavioural expression, for the simple reason that they find it impossible to detect. But as soon as one shares those thoughts, it is liable to become conspiracy. Until then one's thoughts are subject only to one's own moral judgement.

Masculinity is entitlement - ask any incel. Men define, and women opine. Blah blah Blah. A man is the one on on top, the missionary in the missionary position, the speaker not the listener, the author of authority, God Himfuckingself. The possessor of all property, of women, children, slaves, language itself, and all virtue.

Masculinity is the philosopher king, knowing best and condescending to do it to the lucky, lucky, world.

I don't know if I'd find it arousing to shower next to an attractive woman who I was not otherwise involved with. It would be very uncomfortable though. Like very. Especially if it was like a neighbor or something, or like the neighbor's 19 year old daughter. In fact, I feel like I need to go wash my hands after typing this. — Hanover

Sounds terrifying.

You're saying that the reason we have separate changing rooms is because men are frightened they might get aroused? Really? Bizarre.

Perhaps a third person's narrative about me is not what you have in mind. — Ludwig V

It isn't. WhatI have in mind is this sort of thing:

I'm not sure that anything much unifies my actual life apart from the continuity of my consciousness (I'm being generous there, since sleep and unconsciousness are interruptions in some way.) — Ludwig V

Paradoxically, your narrative gives continuity even as it suggests discontinuity, of the approximate form - I am awake, then I sleep and then I am awake and then ... and that is my actual life.

Sorry to be personal, but in this topic personal is clarity, I hope and think.

Isn't the basis for having separate gym lockers right now in part hetero-erotic fear? — Hanover

You'd have to spell that out before i could assent to it. I don't know what you mean by hetero-erotic fear.

I am familiar with people being called faggot and beaten up as if gays are a huge threat. Does this happen to straights where you live? I haven't seen any signs of fear of being or being thought to heterosexual.

that fear isn't based in facts.
— Moliere

My contention is: it isn't a fear at all; it's a pretense and part of the mask behind which systemic misogyny lurks. — Vera Mont

My feeling is that it is a species of homo-erotic fear. If a man dresses as a woman, a 'hetero' man might 'accidentally' be attracted to him. Best beat them up to make them ugly, and disprove any slur of homosexual feelings.

And misogyny.

Ask a woman. Ask Science Fiction. Don't ask the dicks round here, they'll start talking about their genitals and how they can lay bricks with them.

A "female man" is a woman with a man's mind, her body and soul still female.[2] Joanna's metaphorical transformation refers to her decision to seek equality by rejecting women's dependence on men and mirrors the journeys made by the other three protagonists.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Female_Man

Or if you prefer your critique less angry, The Left Hand of Darkness.

On Gethen, the permanently male Genly Ai is an oddity, and is seen as a "pervert" by the natives; according to reviewers, this is Le Guin's way of gently critiquing masculinity. — wiki

I've seen a spirit before, so I think my experience contradicts what is being posited here. — Changeling

Right, I see. I think I could accommodate the story continuing after death, it is a commonplace of some Eastern traditions that the soul evolves over many lives, for example. But I wouldn't say that the story finishes on death, but rather stops - mid-sentence as it were in most cases. If there is a chance after death to continue to a proper completion -"and they all lived happily ever after", that would be wonderful, but I have no experience or expertise in any other realm but this world so far as i can remember, so my story has to stop at death for now. If I discover that death is not the end, I'll endeavour to appear as a spirit and let you know.

I think if we could agree that there has to be a continuation of consciousness in some form for the narrative self to continue, and that consciousness can continue without the narrative when the tale is 'completed', and that this completion and continuation is very rare in this world, then that is all I would seek to defend as my belief here.

You know this story, right?

All of the organs are deciding who should be in charge:

"I should be in charge," said the brain , "I run all the body's systems, without me nothing would happen."

"I should be in charge," said the heart , "I circulate oxygen and nutrients all over."

"No! I should be in charge," said the stomach, "I process the food that gives us energy."

"I should be in charge," said the legs, "without me the body couldn't go anywhere."

"I should be in charge," said the eyes, "I allow the body to see where it goes." "I should be in charge," said the anus, "I am responsible for waste removal."

All of the other body parts laughed at the anus and insulted him. So he shut down. Within a few days, the brain had a terrible headache, the stomach was bloated, the legs got wobbly, the eyes got watery, and the heart pumped toxic blood. They all decided that the anus should be the boss.

What is the moral of the story? Even though everybody else does all of the work the asshole is usually in charge./quote]

Huh? What's that got to do with the price of fish?

Right now? Well, ok then, pass the Zoom link. :fire: — Baden

"Dispense with", I said, not "transgress".

Everyone would be able to participate in a league of their peers, and nobody would be paid astronomical sums to play games in deadly, life-threatening earnest. — Vera Mont

Play games just for fun? It'll never catch on.

You are left without a team, which is where women will be left if forced to compete with men. — Hanover

God forbid that any woman should suffer my miserable fate!

On locker rooms, I don't know. Hadn't honestly thought about it until it came up in this thread. It is tough because any basic rule you apply seems like it could put someone in a position of being in the wrong exposed genitalia environment. Therefore, as Banno suggested, maybe more partitions or something. In sports, hormone testing is the way to go, I guess. As for medical treatment of kids, there has to be major safeguards in place. There's a high suicide risk for trans kids so it's about trying to mitigate potential mental health problems in the least invasive way possible. I'm no expert on that. Maybe e. g. @frank knows more (at least I think he's in the health industry). — Baden

Try not to panic chaps, pregnancy rarely results from eye contact with genitalia. Being as how we are all so enlightened and scientific these days, why not let's dispense with the taboo on nudity altogether? The fig-leaf thing was a mistake anyway, and it was a long time ago, now. As to sports, I find I am discriminated against because I am a wimpy spastic weakling. Why isn't there a category for me?

adrenaline supports both fight and flight. Hence the term "adrenaline junkie". — Ludwig V

Exactly. The adrenaline junkie fights the urge to flight and wins, and that becomes their 'habit'.

Anxiety of death, in particular, seems to me to require verbalization since we never experience death. The bird is wary of being eaten, and the evolutionary story would say this is because animals which are wary tend to reproduce more, but the bird is not anxious about the end of their existence. They cannot hoard to fight off the inevitable impending death. That requires planning. — Moliere

It was all going so well, until the last sentence, and I thought, first of squirrels hoarding their nuts, and then of The ant and the grasshopper. One might suggest that even plants hoard sunlight as sugars and other carbohydrates in seeds or bulbs. In this case the evolution of DNA informed by consistent long term environmental pressures does the 'planning' - " Make hay while the sun shines, and make seed (or bulb, or tuber) when it starts to shine less." Thus the rationale that we make for what plants do because the ones that didn't died out. We understand:- plants just grow and make seed.

And why am I now being accused of not being a sexual deviant? Have you not read the shit I've posted in the Shoutbox? Ten years of trying to establish a reputation down the drain with this thread I guess. — Hanover

Yup, your hetero-normal conventionality has been totally exposed.

I don't know which thread is your other thread. — Ludwig V

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/14393/the-beginning-and-ending-of-self/p1

Isn't there a third possibility? Neither positive nor negative, i.e. irrelevant to me. — Ludwig V

Sure. :up: :down: :meh:

Is "meh" a feeling? The feeling of not having a feeling?

Anxious people will tend to avoid rock-climbing, won't they? — Ludwig V

Yes, whereas rock-climbers seek out and confront fear and thereby avoid anxiety. (Perhaps.) I could almost define anxiety as the fear of fear, but I wouldn't defend that if it doesn't fit.

It's interesting that no one ever raises the issue of female to trans-male. No one seems to care and perhaps this says something about attitudes to women more generally. — Tom Storm

I blame the patriarchy.

Because property, status, name and title are passed down the male line, and because patrilineal is not self evident the way matrilineal is, Men require to control the sexuality of women. Are you bored with this yet, I do keep saying it?

Rape and the fear of rape is an important part of the control of women's sexual freedom, along with body shaming.

Or is "modesty" a proxy for some other problem, unaddressed?
— Banno

You have no idea about the darkness that lies within. — Hanover

The threat of sexual deviance is a threat to the deepest fabric of society, the basis of property and privilege, and heritage itself, including nationality ethnicity etc. The male fear is that another man might have sex with my woman and my child not be mine. Even the women's toilets are not safe, and we must patrol them!

There is no issue with a female to trans male individual for the same reason that female prostitutes are no threat – we don't care who the father of their child is. Wives and daughters have to be controlled though.

Interesting discussion guys, and not off topic at all. It connects this thread neatly to my follow-up thread. It is my working definition of life that to be alive is to give a fuck. Thus a virus is an uncaring replicator, not alive, whereas a bacterium actively absorbs food and ejects waste and 'knows the difference'. See Bateson's 'difference that makes a difference'.

Attraction/ repulsion is the beginning of emotion as judgement that arises out of sensory discrimination. And this primary division persists in every feeling and every judgement being positive or negative. but as senses multiply, and discrimination becomes more nuanced, feeling and judgement become matters of reasoning and calculation and conflicts can arise.

Anyway, I would suggest that animals are wary, not anxious. I think anxiety is very much verbal in origin.
Birds have to be constantly wary of cats, and other birds, whereas anxiety always seems to arise in a place of safety, the dis-ease of armchair philosophers rather than rock-climbing philosophers. But that story of the difference between animal and human is fleshed out in the other thread in more detail.

I'll just demonstrate this time. I'll stop the narrative, and the real self with its real identity will live on. — Metaphysician Undercover

I would have been impressed if you had stopped, and that would have been a demonstration, but unfortunately you didn't. What I have presented here is the logic of Zen.

The real me escapes the narrative.
— Metaphysician Undercover

Of course it does! All this is only a story! there's nothing real about it. But when you tell me about the real me and how it escapes - that's just a story too. So have you escaped the narrative, or are you still in a different narrative? — unenlightened

What you needed to do was put your slippers on your head and walk out, or post a flower emoji, anything that would communicate without continuing the narrative, but you continued the narrative.

There is a (contested) claim in physics that information cannot be created or destroyed. — Count Timothy von Icarus

That seems like a very odd claim. My understanding is that entropy equates to disorder, and disorder increases (in this universe). This immediately results in information increasing, because order implies compressibility. So a claim that information does not increase over time amounts to the denial of thermodynamics. That is not 'a claim in physics'!

Following on to the relation to deduction, one might say that the axioms of a theory are the compressed form of every deduction that follows from them, but one cannot read the compressed file without decompressing it first. Thus the initial conditions of a deterministic universe 'contain' all the information of every moment of its evolution, and time is the running decompression algorithm that 'expands' the initial equation.

So we just went around in a circle. After making that big circle, do you see now why the narrative of the self cannot comprise the identity of the self? If the self knows that there is nothing real about the narrative, it's just a story, then it must also know that it cannot identify itself with that narrative which is just a story.

Sure, what I say is just a story as well, but it is a story with a lesson to be learned. If you see the self as distinct from the narrative, as you clearly do, then you must also see that you cannot use the narrative to identify yourself, because that which is in the narrative is not you and therefore cannot provide you with your identity. Nor can you find your identity in the narrative in any way, because that is not you in the narrative, it's just a story, so it cannot be your identity. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes. And shall we go round the circle again, or shall we stop here? The next step is that you tell me what real identity is... again.

I'm in full agreement that the passions are not necessarily irrational, though. That's one reason why the distinction is fuzzy in normal use. There are frequent examples which touch on both the objective and the subjective, such as the category of "reasonable emotions" -- which I endorse as a good way of looking at one's emotions under certain circumstances, but in others I'd say it's inappropriate such as what someone feels while watching a play. — Moliere

Reasonable passions are what decent, {ie English} people feel. The Continentals cannot control themselves, and the savages don't even try.

I think it goes like this : Given fear of death, fear of tigers and poisonous snakes is 'reasonable' in the sense that they are capable of causing death, whereas fear of mice is not. But as Hume famously didn't say, "you can't get an emotion from a fact". Fear of death is not reasonable, merely common. Lay on, Macduff, And damned be him that first cries “Hold! Enough!”

Why then don't you remove all that you have written and just leave the reference alone? :gasp: — Alkis Piskas

Because that would deprive you of the freedom to ignore my suggestion, just as Adam and Eve ignored god's command. Explaining the joke rather spoils it, but human psychology is what it is. I don't mind your comment at all, we're all human, it turns out, even God. :wink:

The real me escapes the narrative. — Metaphysician Undercover

Of course it does! All this is only a story! there's nothing real about it. But when you tell me about the real me and how it escapes - that's just a story too. So have you escaped the narrative, or are you still in a different narrative?

My thread, my rules; this is what dogma is, and this is my dogma
— unenlightened

:wink: That seems reasonable and I will defer to your judgement. If I don't like it, I can always go away. — Ludwig V

If you don't like it, you can appeal to the mods, whose dogma is final, subject to the terms and conditions of the service provider, that are subject to the various laws of the countries involved, subject to anyone giving enough of a damn to set about enforcement.

If men are not afraid to die,
It is of no avail to threaten them with death.

If men live in constant fear of dying,
And if breaking the law means that a man will be killed,
Who will dare to break the law?

There is always an official executioner.
If you try to take his place,
It is trying to be like a master carpenter and cutting wood.
If you try to cut wood like a master carpenter,
you will only hurt your hand. — Lao Tzu

I will identify you in a way which is other than the way that you identify yourself. By what principle do you say that self-identifying is what gives you identity rather than someone else identifying you? It wouldn't be right to say that they're both your proper identity, because then you'd have as many identities as there are people who know you. And it might seem correct that you know yourself better than anyone else knows you, but doesn't "identity" refer fundamentally to how others know you? — Metaphysician Undercover

Well you have a problem because you are looking for a 'true' or a 'proper' identity. I don't have that problem, because for me, identities are marks on a map, or labels, not facts about the world.Identity is all talk. Now in a general way, we believe labels and maps and talk. Ready meals have ingredients lists, but occasionally one finds a 'foreign body' in the pie. The label does not know. Sometimes the label knows that it does not know - 'may contain nuts'. Sometimes the label has official permission to be economical with the truth - peanut butter may contain a percentage of ground insects but doesn't tell you. Sometimes completely the wrong label gets put on by design or accident. But whatever it says, don't eat the label, and have a look and a sniff at the contents too.

It simply is the case that people label each other all the time; even here on TPF, some people think I'm a very stable genius, whereas I think I'm absolutely innocent. Even the Deep Mods cannot agree, which is why I'm still here. Or is this all fake news? Will the real Slim unenlightened please stand up?

As my previous thread seemed to arrive at, the story (label, map) of the powerful is the one that tends to be imposed on everyone as dogma. If Hitler says you are Jewish scum, it doesn't matter what you or your granny think, or what the truth of matter is, off to the extermination camp you go.

But to be fair, Ronald Reagan had been involved in politics for sometime and was Governor of California and had become educated by the time he ran for President. — GRWelsh

Yes, sure; but who was elected, the governor or the cowboy?

I get that things have gone from cowboys and indians to nightmare on Elm street, with Nixon as the honest crook somewhere in the middle. I guess it's arbitrary in a way to pick a moment to begin the story of 'how it came to this pass'. But politics as pure media performance with no relation to reality is where we're at, and Reagan was the first. It's not personal to him as politician, it's the obvious fact that his fame was as a fantasy, and that was what won the votes. It's the voters that had lost touch with reality, rather than Reagan himself.

What we are left with is two incompatible principles which are both equally essential to identity. These are the being of the person, what one is, and this is a principle of sameness for us all, and also the particular acts which makes each of us different, and this is the principle of difference. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is much more interesting to me, because it is a conflict that people, especially teenagers go through, and some have more trouble than others. If my brother likes blue, I have to like red, just to differentiate myself. If my parents like jazz, I have to like punk, but at the same time as I seek uniqueness, I seek fellowship, and we are family, or class or nation, or whatever.

Physically, there is no problem, because one has unique DNA, unique fingerprints, and a unique history, but also we are all one species. But it is in our constructed relationship with ourself and with others that difficulties arise - in the idea I have of me, and the idea I have of you, and the idea I have of the idea you have of me, and the idea I have of the idea you have of yourself, and vice versa, and how we both perform and communicate and negotiate these ideas. And notice that all these ideas include value judgements - that unenlightened - too clever for his boots, but at least he's not as confused as [censored].

The problem I have with your perspective, is where does the required act of identifying fit into this? Why do you think that having an "identity" which is what makes each of us different, yet also the same in some way, requires a special act called "identifying"? When we move to identify, don't we assume that the person being identified already has an identity, or else the act of identifying would prove fruitless? When we "identify" aren't we trying to determine something which is already there, rather than create something which could be completely imaginary and fictitious? — Metaphysician Undercover

The act is not special to us, it's what we are always doing in thought, such that it creates a centre of thought as the self that thinks. Everyone thinks they are somebody special, and also that they are one of the people.

One names one's child to give it an identity and the name is written in a special register, and a certificate awarded, thus psychology becomes bureaucracy. You have to know your name, sign your name, identify with your name, respond to your name being called. Without your name you would be no less a person, except that socially you would be nothing, a non-person, of no (bank) account, stateless, etc etc. When someone steals your identity, they do not steal you, but socially they act as you, and take over your social life.

So it is clear that what I think I am is my personal identity, and what society thinks I am is my social identity, and these do not always align, and the physical being that I am is heavily influenced from without and within by these ideas that I have and other people have.

The importance of family name tends to be overlooked by those for whom it is unproblematic, but ancestry tracing is big business, and typically, foundlings have a strong feeling of something missing in not having that family history and connection to known ancestors. Region, tribe, ethnicity, nationality, gender, religion, all serve to locate a person in a social network, and to a great extent it is the network not the individual that forms the identity. But these things are all social constructs - words made flesh.

But property is also made flesh by identification - scratch my car and you have wounded my body. Thus it becomes clear that identity is everything - me in my world.

Now, bracket off all the above, and call it a story, (or a meta story) of how we humans come to be what we are and do what we do. And now you want to argue that it must be otherwise because this and this of evidence and logic. So that then is your meta-story, where identity is fixed and real - or perhaps not quite that - you tell your story. And so we can disagree about our stories and our meta-stories and our identities. But in the main, things are a matter of culture, and not physics.

Looking from the outside, I'd say the psychological rot set in when the first cowboy actor, Reagan, got elected. It's been government by fantasy ever since.

I've had no complaints - is your story obscene or antisocial or something?

However, there is another step yet to be taken, and that is the identity which one has, inherently, simply by having existence, without any act of identifying required by anybody. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, i understand what you are saying, but I think you are conflating what one is and what one identifies oneself to be - being with idea of being, territory with map. one's idea of oneself can be realistic or unrealistic, but never real.