Hi Bo, Diana, Platt, (Fintan, Ken), Squad,
I am feeling refreshed this morning, and up to tackling this "nature
of self" post. Apologies for not getting this in before the official end
of the "platypus: programme. I spent a good part of yesterday sitting in
Synagogue with a pounding headache. It was "Yom Kippur", a fast, so the
headache was a consequence of caffeine deprivation, dehydration or
ketosis in some combination. A quick glance around the room indicated
that I wasn't the only sufferer. This got me thinking about when it is
appropriate to assume that others experience the same as myself. I was
reminded about something which came up in the August discussion on
self-awareness.
ME:-
>> What it comes down to is that the only SELF awareness I know for
>> certain is my own. ... Isn't that Descartes' starting point?
>
DIANA:-
>Yes but as other humans generally behave in ways that suggest they are
>experiencing the same thing as we are, we assume that they are
>similarly aware.
When I experience a loud noise, or sharp smell, I assume that others in
the vicinity experience the same. When I experience a throbbing
headache, I usually assume that others do not share the experience. I am
pretty sure that a baby could not make this distinction. However, I
believe that man's ability to distinguish between self, non-self and
other selves must go way back to our prehuman ancestors. This concept of
self thus greatly predates the SOM, and probably even language itself.
Now let's go back in time to the SO-split discussion and a post by
FINTAN (27th May) which I will summarise:-
>>Ken: "All life lives in a shell, so S-O is inbred in nature"
Fintan:
>So that begs the question: If the main mistake in the SOM is NOT
>that it split reality into S and O, then what WAS the main error they
>made?
>>They made 3 errors.
>
>First error:
>They thought that the S-O split was: S <----Entropy------- O
[instead of]
[ S <----------Q---------> O ]
>In other words, the Q event involves an EXCHANGE of
>entropy/data for Meaning/Quality. They only had only
>one side of the process in their definition.
>
>Second error:
>They split S and O into seperate realms, so that S became Mind,
>and O became Matter- two different substances- a schiziod Dualism.
...
>Third Error:
>They thought that reality was only one S<---O relationship. Where
>the ONLY Subject is Man-Mind and the ONLY Object is Matter.
>What total drivel !!!!
>In fact, there are squintillions of S<--->O Relationships in reality,
>in discernable levels/layers of abstraction.
Touche Fintan. The Greeks didn't invent the SO split. They tried to
understand it, and in so doing, misrepresented it.
To get back to my Yom Kippur question - "when is it appropriate to
assume that others experience what I experience?" I believe here lies
the key to understanding human conflict. When we wrongly assume that
other cultures share our value system, then we misinterpret their
experience, causing conflict. But even more commonly, we may wrongly
assume that an "enemy" has a fundamentally different value system ("he
doesn't value life and peace") which also causes conflict. IMHO most
political conflicts in the modern world are of the second type.
Wishing peace and good experiences to all the LS,
Jonathan
homepage - http://www.moq.org
queries - mailto:moq@moq.org
unsubscribe - mailto:majordomo@moq.org with UNSUBSCRIBE MOQ_DISCUSS in
body of email
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:02:35 BST