I just listened some lectures on philosophy of the mind by John Searle and he supports most of the views I already had which is quite nice and interesting. While my latest post is still a bit messy and not fully substantiated by facts, Searle conveys.
I recently read a short story by Franz Kafka that really captured my mind, it's called The Tradesman. When I further searched upon it I figured it's a story about Sisyphean life. In Greek Mythology Sisyphus was a king punished into Tartarus by being cursed to roll a boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll down again, and repeat this through eternity. A myth about life that's full of pointless or interminable activities. I'm going to translate it into the feeling that there must be something beyond mundane daily life, mundane daily life being the boring eternity. Tired of carrying the weight of the world and trying to escape it would be another interpretation of the myth. Where the world could as well translate into the mind. Because ultimately, your world is your mind. Then I began seeing related stories, examples being the main characters of Into the Wild or Taxi Driver. So that lead me to think a very unmotivated state of mind, a personal crises, the thought of life being meaningless can lead into a very motivated idealistic - bringing and giving meaning to life - state of mind.
In the lectures Searle talks about functionalism, a philosophy of the mind based on causality. Its core idea is that mental states (beliefs, desires, being in pain, etc.) are constituted solely by their functional role - that is, they are causal relations to other mental states, sensory inputs, and behavioral outputs. So the input of let's say the archetypical Sisyphean life can lead to the following behavior: the desire or will to escape Sisyphean life. Although if we take the myth as unconditional and it would be impossible to escape, it would probably be better to accept the conditions. Still, these are speculations as it's impossible to see from Sisyphus's perspective, I use the myth merely as a metaphor of meaningless life to point out that people always seek meaning when there is none. When there is no meaning people's behavior is to create meaning out nothing, out of chaos, the original dark void from which everything else appeared. This form of causality may seem very black on white, but it covers the whole spectrum on the mind and communication. Meaning manifests itself in signs, in language, symbolism, objects, every representation of what is created in the mind. One's state of mind is much stronger than any representations of it, until today it's impossible to communicate one's state of mind 1 on 1, that would be telepathy. However, to give meaning is what I believe the core of any behavior.
maandag 19 oktober 2009
donderdag 15 oktober 2009
My subjective view on perception
Either objective morality (or objectivity as a whole) does not exist or we can't ever grab it because it lies outside our human perspective. Religion, media or an ideology (Utopia) claim to be objective, but in fact they claim human subjectivity to be objective.
We are all disciplined by social conventions and cultural standards. So right and wrong are somewhat based on cultural and societal standards. You may want to steal my stuff, you've got reasons to do so or make your own reasons up (your matter of opinion). You probably won't steal my stuff because you'll get punished by institutions, so you're not likely to risk it. If you do risk it you may end up in prison. This is control in the form of the law and institutions and also religion (you shall not steal). Still everything is a matter of opinion, you're telling your opinion on how things should be (and your opinion on the law), I'm telling my opinion on how I think things work.
The thing that has effect on you as a person and your personal opinion is the environment (with their own cultural and societal standards (The Symbolic)) you grow up in. If you are born in an environment where the only thing you see and learn is love it's not likely you are going to find a 14 year old rapist or killer in such an environment. If you are born in an environment to grow up as a soldier to fight for your country or for the belief that's created in your mind, you'll probably end up killing people, because hatred is the only thing you've learned. Peoples mind and principles are constructed by their environment. (The Symbolic)
I'm not saying I don't have my principles and my values, I think they are very important to stand up for our opinions and let people take a look from a different point of view. That's also why I value an open-mind. An open mind leads to understanding.
There could be objective morality, but we don't know what it is (The Real). We perceive the world only out of human perspective, with our own eyes. Every person perceives the world out of his own subjective way. (The Symbolic) + (The Imaginary)
I believe the world is only a blank canvas people have actually constructed by their imagination (The Imaginary). Without our mind and memories we'd be nothing and we'd perceive the world in a complete different way (try to look from an alien kind of perspective that doesn't know anything about humanity and our ways of living or communicating, yet this is impossible for us to do (The Real)). I mean just like Einstein told us imagination being more important than knowledge. Knowledge (the memory (The Symbolic)) is important because without it we'd be nothing (we'd not know how to live) but imagination embraces the world, it brings us understanding and knowledge. So what I'm trying to say is: imagination comes first albeit with a slight knowledge (instinct) on how to survive.
(The Real) + (The Symbolic) + (The Imaginary)
Are terms introduced by Jacques Lacan.
When we humans consider a house to be just a house imagination immediately shuts of and the learning process of the concept of a house stands still. When you deconstruct it and construct it in various ways imagination turns on. There are many ways to look at a house, there are no limitations to the concept of a house, neither is there a house that is objectively considered to be the best house and the best way of living. It's about what you subjectively prefer, desire, wish, love.
Everyones world turns around a will.
will to understand
will to love
will to be
will to live
will to think
will to *insert any verb here
There's also need. Like the need to eat or drink. There's a large gray area between will and need.
Every person has their own will. The will of a person depends on the social context, culture, personality etc. Some wills are superficial, like the will to buy new sneakers while some wills have more depth and authenticity to it.
Because of mass media peoples desires are often constructed and controlled.
The thing we humans do is to perceive and to interpret reality. Since subjectivity refers to a person's perspective I think objectivity is only a collection and a frame of subjectivity.
So this collection or database is objective reality.
Like objective journalism, it does not exist. Journalism is about making choices, filtering and presenting, it does not show you ALL point of views about EVERY subject. Just like your mind is filtering out stuff and substracting.
We cannot see from animal perspective. This explains why we cannot grasp everything because human perspective is limited, we can only interpret.
"In philosophy, an objective fact means a truth that remains true everywhere, independently of human thought or feelings." - wikipedia
Independently of human thought or feelings? It's impossible to exlude human perspective, thoughts or feelings. Objectivity is only human objectivity because that's the frame we're in.
Collective subjectivity is what we consider to be objective reality.
Later on I figured my philosophy already existed:
It's called immaterialism, the first formulation of subjective idealism (a theory in the philosophy of perception), a branch of idealism and a form of phenomenalism. It's a theory of metaphysics (of mind and matter) by George Berkeley.
I do believe matter, space and time exist without the mind (it's just there, only it's not being perceived and therefore it does not exist to the mind) That's my own little nuance.
But our concepts of matter, space and time cannot exist without the mind so our reality is only made up of the mind.
We are all disciplined by social conventions and cultural standards. So right and wrong are somewhat based on cultural and societal standards. You may want to steal my stuff, you've got reasons to do so or make your own reasons up (your matter of opinion). You probably won't steal my stuff because you'll get punished by institutions, so you're not likely to risk it. If you do risk it you may end up in prison. This is control in the form of the law and institutions and also religion (you shall not steal). Still everything is a matter of opinion, you're telling your opinion on how things should be (and your opinion on the law), I'm telling my opinion on how I think things work.
The thing that has effect on you as a person and your personal opinion is the environment (with their own cultural and societal standards (The Symbolic)) you grow up in. If you are born in an environment where the only thing you see and learn is love it's not likely you are going to find a 14 year old rapist or killer in such an environment. If you are born in an environment to grow up as a soldier to fight for your country or for the belief that's created in your mind, you'll probably end up killing people, because hatred is the only thing you've learned. Peoples mind and principles are constructed by their environment. (The Symbolic)
I'm not saying I don't have my principles and my values, I think they are very important to stand up for our opinions and let people take a look from a different point of view. That's also why I value an open-mind. An open mind leads to understanding.
There could be objective morality, but we don't know what it is (The Real). We perceive the world only out of human perspective, with our own eyes. Every person perceives the world out of his own subjective way. (The Symbolic) + (The Imaginary)
I believe the world is only a blank canvas people have actually constructed by their imagination (The Imaginary). Without our mind and memories we'd be nothing and we'd perceive the world in a complete different way (try to look from an alien kind of perspective that doesn't know anything about humanity and our ways of living or communicating, yet this is impossible for us to do (The Real)). I mean just like Einstein told us imagination being more important than knowledge. Knowledge (the memory (The Symbolic)) is important because without it we'd be nothing (we'd not know how to live) but imagination embraces the world, it brings us understanding and knowledge. So what I'm trying to say is: imagination comes first albeit with a slight knowledge (instinct) on how to survive.
(The Real) + (The Symbolic) + (The Imaginary)
Are terms introduced by Jacques Lacan.
When we humans consider a house to be just a house imagination immediately shuts of and the learning process of the concept of a house stands still. When you deconstruct it and construct it in various ways imagination turns on. There are many ways to look at a house, there are no limitations to the concept of a house, neither is there a house that is objectively considered to be the best house and the best way of living. It's about what you subjectively prefer, desire, wish, love.
Everyones world turns around a will.
will to understand
will to love
will to be
will to live
will to think
will to *insert any verb here
There's also need. Like the need to eat or drink. There's a large gray area between will and need.
Every person has their own will. The will of a person depends on the social context, culture, personality etc. Some wills are superficial, like the will to buy new sneakers while some wills have more depth and authenticity to it.
Because of mass media peoples desires are often constructed and controlled.
The thing we humans do is to perceive and to interpret reality. Since subjectivity refers to a person's perspective I think objectivity is only a collection and a frame of subjectivity.
So this collection or database is objective reality.
Like objective journalism, it does not exist. Journalism is about making choices, filtering and presenting, it does not show you ALL point of views about EVERY subject. Just like your mind is filtering out stuff and substracting.
We cannot see from animal perspective. This explains why we cannot grasp everything because human perspective is limited, we can only interpret.
"In philosophy, an objective fact means a truth that remains true everywhere, independently of human thought or feelings." - wikipedia
Independently of human thought or feelings? It's impossible to exlude human perspective, thoughts or feelings. Objectivity is only human objectivity because that's the frame we're in.
Collective subjectivity is what we consider to be objective reality.
Later on I figured my philosophy already existed:
It's called immaterialism, the first formulation of subjective idealism (a theory in the philosophy of perception), a branch of idealism and a form of phenomenalism. It's a theory of metaphysics (of mind and matter) by George Berkeley.
I do believe matter, space and time exist without the mind (it's just there, only it's not being perceived and therefore it does not exist to the mind) That's my own little nuance.
But our concepts of matter, space and time cannot exist without the mind so our reality is only made up of the mind.
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