Powerful story. I'm sorry to hear that she decided to go out like that. Being a nurse, I don't know what the suicide statistics for a female nurse in the US; but, sounds like a rare case to me. I know veterinarians and dentists score the highest though.

My cat is self-aware in some rudimentary sense unlike human self-awareness. At least that is what her use of a mirror shows. She knows that that's her in the mirror. She also knows how to look into the mirror and see something behind her. She looks at me through the mirror. I call her, and she then turns around and looks directly at me. That aside... — creativesoul

There is a very narrow spectrum of animals that are capable of recognizing themselves in a mirror. I don't think cats are complex enough to fit the description.

By gaining insight into the unexamined beliefs that are, and the ways in which they are, causing you to fall into recurrent patterns of worry, self-hatred, feelings of inadequacy and so on. You don't believe people can be capable of such insights? — Janus

So, do these metacognitive beliefs change into other metacognitive beliefs? Therefore metacognitive beliefs disidentify and become new or altered ones? What happens to the content of the metacognitive beliefs that were replaced? And, how do unexamined beliefs form, through cognitive distortions?

It seems to me that metacognitive beliefs can be replaced by other metacognitive beliefs. — Janus

I think, by disidentifying with those beliefs that are inconsistent with achieving happiness through suffering? After all, one has to suffer to know how not to suffer.

How does one determine such a thing; by trial and error or conventional wisdom?

One changes one's metacognitive beliefs, I suppose, by gaining insight into, and becoming convinced of, the fact that the dysfunctional set has been previously unexamined; and merely taken for granted, and is now recognized as the source of unnecessary suffering. — Janus

But, isn't there an issue here. Beliefs are altered by meta-cognitive beliefs, and meta-cognitive beliefs are altered by meta-meta-cognitive beliefs?

Yeah, well... the 18-23 year olds probably don't want to think about the balance of payments problem; the state of American railroad unions; the annual Christmas bird count; commodity price supports; lice, bedbugs, and tapeworms; opera; and so on. Why should death be any different? — Bitter Crank

It could be that we're a generation of snowflakes. I suppose this is true to some degree. I don't mind talking about death; but, it's inherently more emotional than talking about the state of affairs of our union or the debt from college or the commodity price supports. :smile:

If you become convinced that thinking about it is useless, even counterproductive, then you may be inclined to stop. — Janus

But, on a meta-cognitive level, how does one stop?

So, perhaps it could be said that coming to see and disconnect from these attentional fixations might be called (to return to the OP) "disidentification". — Janus

Yes, but what about the underlayer of the process of disidentification? How do you not think about the white polar bear?

In fact, if you want to get 'technical' about it, there's a reason why, in math, another name for functions are mappings, insofar as they map domains to codomains - that is, insofar as they express a relation or set of relations in abstract terms (here is the function/mapping of a one-to-one function): — StreetlightX

I understand that; but, you have limited the range by excluding/restricting another dimension. I don't have anything more to add of coherence on the matter.

You seem to be undoing yourself because you contradict, just above, what you set out to ask about as an artefact of modern life. How can it be taboo and at the same time, "...we do share them. And we can talk successfully about them..." — gloaming

Perhaps it's the target audience that my professor was worried might cause distress. If your 18-23 years old then you don't want to think about death that much. I do agree that it can become a national topic in the case of Switzerland for example. The Puritan and warped USA is different though.

1) As part of such a philosophical investigation I'm asking, where is the evidence that ANY philosophy or ideology ever invented has ended human suffering?

2 As part of such a philosophical investigation I'm observing that human suffering has been universal in all times and places. Doesn't that suggest a source which is also universal? — Jake

If I may interject. I think Buddhism provided the answer. The source of suffering is desire. Also, the permanence of treating the self as an entity that is non-temporal, which it isn't.

Is this a quote of Wittgenstein's - "Philosophy is only descriptive, its purpose therapeutic. The only problem to be solved is that of the human psychology." I'm interested in the source. — Sam26

It was a comment posted by an unnamed author of this forum. I find it hard to disagree with either way, but, it's important to realize that it doesn't all come down to a brute realization of wants and needs. Wittgenstein "spoke" staunchly about the mystical (ethics) in the Tractatus. E.g the seventh proposition of the Tractatus.

Without going into detail, the result was transformative. Clearly, this did not depend on my knowledge of Wittgenstein, which is minimal at best. — Dfpolis

I think this is the point that Wittgenstein was trying to get across. That of ethics to be found in the ordinary deed done out of kindness or charity in everyday life.

See here. What do you think?

These qualities make death extremely difficult to contemplate or to share. — gloaming

Yet, we do share them. And we can talk successfully about them. They're relatable by nature.

I just do not appreciate the connection. — Dfpolis

What do you mean?

Surely, we use language to direct attention in ways that will result in desirable emotional states. — Dfpolis

Yes; but, it can lead us down the wrong path of neuroticism, self-reinforcing concepts of depression, anxiety, or what have you. So, those have to addressed first.

But does one have to be steeped in the philosophy of language to do that? — Dfpolis

Quite the contrary, Wittgenstein valued ordinary life above that which philosophy ever hopes to describe. This is the self-defeating aspect of philosophy, which Wittgenstein instilled in many generations to come. Hence, the need to apply philosophy as therapy, in his mind, I think.

Is there something more to the world... other than your own wants and needs? — Marcus de Brun

Yes, surely. That's the mystical aspect of life. Spirituality and all that jazz.

I don't think hedonism is an answer to the question.. but a love of self, a love of nature and as few regrets as possible are (I think) the personal ingredients for a relatively nice death. — Marcus de Brun

I don't doubt that. But, what is this grounded on? The satisfaction of wants and needs? Again, psychologism. There's more to life than the brute calculus of a utilitarian.

While I agree that our emotional state can affect what we look at our admit is real, I don't see that this has much to do with the philosophy of language. — Dfpolis

Well, if you adopt a therapeutic stance towards speech and philosophical problems, then yes it is pertinent to the philosophy of language.

Could you provide an example? — Dfpolis

Depression, anxiety, OCD, self-identity, death.

All of these influence what conclusions we arrive at. Reason itself is limited by what the emotive aspect of our beings tells us about a situation or issue. That's not to say that self-realization is impossible; but, it's hard. I still think we can change our minds about things; but, that's limited by the ability to satisfy our needs from wants.

:up:

Let me know if you care to criticise it or what have you.

I've been studying Wittgenstein for about some five or six years now, on and off.

I've come to the conclusion, as did Wittgenstein, that the problems of philosophy are psychological or have their root in the psychology of the speaker. Hence, I've adopted a psychologist attitude towards the therapeutic use of philosophy in elucidating psycholog(ies) of people, and their interactions. One important concept that I stumbled on is the issue of personal identity in regards to life events and other unforeseen consequences of action (think the Butterfly effect).

My stance towards science, religion, and other matters hasn't changed considerably. But, the way I view the use of language-game and analyzing their settings has.

What does it mean to have 'lived'.? — Marcus de Brun

It means what it says. To have lived. My only hope is that it was done in an ethical manner of sorts or the event of death came at an elevated age.

What does it mean to identify with ones self.? — Marcus de Brun

It means to say that one is self-conscious. One doesn't go through life as a zombie, I hope.

I think if one gets a really good slice of life's pie, one will be satisfied and have less fear of dying, just like its hard to feel or fear hunger after Christmas dinner. — Marcus de Brun

I suppose we can head down this hedonistic past; but, I don't think there's any point to it at all.

I suspect that we fear death more in the West because we are so wealthy and so removed from God, from the truth of ourselves, from community and from nature. Our wealth allows us to live very independent lives, we have our own cars houses, private worlds and lives on the internet etc. The more materially independent we are the more we are removed from nature and from the realities of nature. Death is final word from nature, and when we are removed from a dialogue with nature death is more distant and more alien to us. — Marcus de Brun

I think God factors in only insofar that we have a notion of what death ought to look like. Death just doesn't fit the narrative of identity. We are used to the idea of identity having a non-temporal permanence; but, that just isn't so. So, death is a direct onslaught on our conception of our/ones/my identity. I don't want to die because I have identified with myself in a non-temporal fashion.

And I don't think there's a particular taboo surrounding death any more than any other depressing topic, more so than just confusion about what to meaningfully say. — Baden

Why is that?

We can talk about planning for death, how to face death, how death is caused in various cases, how we react or should react to death, whether there's an afterlife, whether the soul survives death, whether there are ghosts, but death itself? — Ciceronianus the White

Well, yes, all of that constitutes what death is. The planning, reaction, and whole drama with death are conducive to elucidating what death is.

Dis identification is incoherent, because it requires the continuation of that which it ends. — unenlightened

I'm just going to point out that this may be as close as we can get to specifying what is disidentification. An unobtainable ideal.

Those who think this expresses an inadequacy about maps don't understand, or have been seriously mislead about the point of a map. — StreetlightX

A map is a two dimensional depiction of a three dimensional plane or surface with features on it. How can you argue that this doesn't jive with treating philosophy as a cartography?

Yes, what about it? I keep on asking.

Besides, the map is not the territory.

It's not 'trying to capture philosophy' as if to represent or reconstitute it in some way or another - it is philosophy. I'm not convinced you've read and understood the OP. — StreetlightX

I still believe there's more to philosophy than a cartography. You expressed this in your subsequent posts to the OP about there being more anatomical features than an anatomist's painting of the human body entails.

Now suppose I were to tell the story of Posty-depressed becoming Posty-elevated, by means of enlightenment philosophy. Alas, that story would make the connection, identify them as the same, and thus drag depression back into the world of Posty-elevated. The two identities are mutually dependent on their independence, the way my identity as not going to parties is dependent on the parties I don't go to, and my continuing no to go to them. — unenlightened

*Posty wonders*, what is the narrator making of all this mockery? Where does disidentification factor in?

memory anticipation, performance separation — unenlightened

What are these two terms you use so, I can understand you better? I understand that they can work in tandem or one on the other; but, I don't know the psychodynamics of the beast.

Thanks!

Isn't your true identity the one which others have given you? — Metaphysician Undercover

Not at all. I don't think so at least.

This isn't a question of information 'availability' as it is expressive power so you 'getting technical' is you talking about something else entirely and again, irrelevant to the discussion. — StreetlightX

I meant to say that an increase in dimensionality increases information. Your point about making a philosophical cartography wouldn't capture the entirety, and probably most important parts, of philosophy.

This is whishy-washy. — StreetlightX

So, is your description of how changes in dimensionality don't result in increases of information available to the total state space true or false?

The point is that dimensionality is not only visual when it comes to maps (or anything else for that matter): a dimension simply designates a variable, and a visually 2 or 3D map can expresses variables far in excess of its visual dimensionality. I.e. the restriction you're trying to gesture toward is not a relevant one. — StreetlightX

Then take the saying, a picture is worth a thousand words. You have that as a common saying, even among ordinary folk.

But, what you're trying to do is reach a limit but never quite converge in my opinion.

If we feel that inner conflict is a result of bad thought content then we would attempt to fix that thought content through philosophy and analysis, such as dominates this thread (and about a billion others). — Jake

No, this is about disidentification and not philosophy and analysis. More psychology if you ask me.

Disidentification is contrary to the identification process, and we haven't established yet how identity formation occurs?

So, we're kind of slow in this thread due to the nature of the self. Keep in mind that if you disidentify with everything, that doesn't mean you don't exist.

...is that in the trivial sense there is obviously an attempt to assemble facts in a subjective way in order to make a coherent and sensible report of any news event. To take again the example of a fire, one decision of salience might be to report on the flammability of the material the building is made of rather than its colour. — Baden

Then the decision of salience must be guided by truth to be in accord with reality, and once the truth is known about its nature, then the rest of the manipulation can ensue. Keep in mind that not everyone is in accord with reality the same way.