• Philosophy and Spirituality
    Welcome Guest
    Posting Rules Bluelight Rules
    Threads of Note Socialize
  • P&S Moderators: JackARoe | Cheshire_Kat

Personal Identity and Society

Dedbeet

Bluelighter
Joined
Jan 23, 2008
Messages
1,560
Location
USA
I originally posted this in another forum, but wanted to share it here too and discuss it, if anyone is interested.

> Why do we need to agree or disagree on anything? We can just talk,
> discuss.

Just a final note on the above, fwiw -- I've encountered very few people who are interested in open discussion, and not interested in agreement/disagreement -- being OK with whatever the other thinks, being genuinely interested in sharing thoughts, rather than "aligning" thoughts, "being right".

It is very rare, IME. Social interaction for most people (particularly on Net
forums) is for making stances, and defending them.

No one seems to see the utter emptiness and repetitiveness of self/other stance games, because what is driving it, thrives on it.

It is "felt" as meaningful, important, crucial. If it doesn't happen, 'self'
doesn't feel like itself. It feels empty, meaningless.

Quite the paradox. To avoid feel empty, meaningless and repetitive, repeatedly take empty and meaningless stances.

Self feels, and acts on how it feels, and produces thoughts based on how it feels. Unfortunately, what it feels is backwards, so it acts backwardly (to reality's detriment) and thinks confusedly.

"Step 1" of transcending self for someone, might be to simply *stop* the moment one feels a reaction to something someone has said. And don't reply.

It is highly likely that the offense an other offered, was actually the defense the self threw up --

i.e. that the other did not offer any offense at all. Rather, it was 'taken',
interpreted in based on an inside-out perspective. As long as others are
interpreted as self's opposite, they can do nothing right but to treat self like God and be happy with the flames they receive in return.

Honesty is called for -- integrity. Something more important than childish
feelings that supercede everything because they *feel bad*. Then the situation can actually be examined and something can actually change.

"Other" is not self's opposite.

"Other" is a reversed view called "self", in which other is other because it is "self" seen in a reversed mirror.

It's true. These thoughts are the reader's own, thunk one at a time as they are read, and reversed to reflect something coming in from outside, rather than seen purely through a pair of eyes looking out at the words.

Nothing ever came in from outside. There are not others. All that is needed is to stop creating them in one's own reversed image.

To transcend duality, simply don't create it.

Peace...
 
An idea regarding history and human knowledge...

Hi All,

I had what I feel is an interesting insight today, and wanted to share it... it's actually undigestible to the mind at first, but if you look very closely you may find a crack, a slot, where it can fit and start to work its way in. Will follow with an explanation I came up with...

Here it is:

***

Those who *learn from history* are doomed to repeat it.

***

OK, I'm gonna put my own explanation right up here, if anyone's interested:

If you ignore history and keep experimenting, discarding the lessons of the past as you go, eventually you're going to achieve something great and nothing is going to repeat.

If you learn from history as you go, you have knowledge in your mind that won't change -- you know it's true. Each time that adds more inflexibility to your mind. The more you know, the more you're going to tend to repeat the same things over and over, because what you know (or believe worth doing) are always the same things.

Eventually, history will fall into a repetitive pattern based on knowledge taken from the past.

I believe we've been there since around the beginning of the 20th century, fwiw. It looks like progress, but nothing is really progressing except technology and machinery -- things that move or act mechanically, go back and forth, blink their lights, always do the same things. In the meantime there was Hitler and the various atrocities of the 20th century....

***

I suggest that we all know wayyyyy too much at this point, and it is beginning to stifle change and eliminate possibility. It is time to forget the lessons of history and begin doing it as we go along, a step at a time, our only history lesson being the previous step we took. It seems here that human knowledge is useful at times but *highly* overrated.

Comments welcome and appreciated...
 
you learn mostly from history in things you DON'T want to do. it's handy that way.
 
Forgetting history is what people in the West have started doing since before WWII. OP, they are following your advice! If these fuckers knew anything about history and culture, maybe the world wouldn't be so shitty!
 
Forgetting history is what people in the West have started doing since before WWII. OP, they are following your advice! If these fuckers knew anything about history and culture, maybe the world wouldn't be so shitty!
I suggest that knowledge doesn't help anything -- everyone went to school and knows history. Knowing what happened in the past doesn't actually affect the way people behave. Human beings operate on a rational-emotive basis, not a rational basis -- and the rational is driven by the emotive, not the other way around. If it weren't, words like "shitty" wouldn't even exist ;-).

The rational will never be able to drive the bus -- things don't operate that way. Thoughts come up based on needs, wants, desires, fears, feelings, etc. Thoughts can't drive needs, wants, desires, fears, etc... you can't think "I'm going to be afraid of something" and then fear it. You can't think "I hereby desire to go the store and get a beer" and then feel the desire.

People want to believe they're making rational choices, but they're not. Something has to drive action and thought. You can't just think a thought of your choice out of nothing at all.

And the thought "I'm doing the driving here" is not driving anything, I assure you.

The emotion (desire for control) behind it is.

Desire/fear, push/pull, drive the bus. Or not.

I'm sorry to inform you that the much treasured "human being" "person of value" is a push/pull mechanism. The human race cannot accept it. They can't accept that they're operating the same way as anything else in the universe: Action and reaction. The same laws that apply to an asteroid or planet apply to the human being, because "universal laws" are a projection of the way the mind works, not objective truth.

Total acceptance of the choiceless nature of reality equates to enlightenment. It's not pleasant for the psyche. A dark night of the soul is often involved. There's nothing in it for a seeker. Fear/desire are what are transcended.

The universe looks very different at that point. Action and reaction (the pairs of opposites) don't apply. It's only the separate self that is subject to action and reaction, nothing else. You scratch my back, I scratch yours (equal and opposite reaction). You hit me on head, I hit you on yours (equal and opposite reaction). That is the essential formula.

If people realized the emotive psyche was running the whole thing, I doubt they'd continue the way they are. It's running "rationality" and determining what happens, running the whole societal show. And it is not rational, it's emotional.

Peace...
 
Last edited:
Dedbeet, I merged your two threads because I think they both are about the same topic. Albeit, I wished that I merged them in opposite order but both those threads express the same ideas on personal identity and ontology. The first thread wasn't gaining any discussion so maybe it will in here with the rest of your transcendentalistic talk.

****I changed to the title to help attract more posters. Please tell me if you think this diminishes the quality of the point you were trying to express.
 
Last edited:
Top