Imagine A Species...

That believed its consciousness was a different "thing" from its body, so much so that one individual of this species - a prominent one - thought the body and all of external reality was a "mere extension" - he called it "rex extensa" - of the mind which produced it.

Within this species, many minds - particularly those minds which possessed lots of material stuff and wanted to possess more of that stuff, a lunatic fantasy of separation emerged. These female and male members of this quarky species could not let go of what they had, although, quite naturally, when this bifurcation first occurred - when elites separated themselves from non-elites - at some long forgotten era which the body, alone, can properly remember, whispers its teleodynamic ideal - perhaps the "quantum potential" of a past, seeking to bring itself back to a state of coherence.

There was a place called "Eden" - pleasure in the Hebrew language. But in the east, there was Shambhalla, in the west, a place long ago known as "Atlantis". Each one of them thought the image corresponded to the reality - the technological Greeks conceived a technologically savy Atlantis; the Asians, likewise, seem to have produced an excess of imagination; the nomadic tribes which made up the Hebrews, on the other hand, had a more realistic sense - by which I mean, they desisted from glamorizing or exaggerating the image that was suggested - of Humans living within a context, shaped by that context, and that that shaping led to a deepening of relation. This is all of an interpersonal nature - which is to say, acknowledges all the material elements that go into generating the "gestalt" phenomenon that is the Human being. A garden - a "pre-civiliezed" state - nothing more than Humans in Nature. If any such state existed, the continent of Africa would have had to have been its location - perhaps in the southern Sahara, in regions where ancient lakes once existed, and this species - surrounded by tropical Forests, lived in paradise...

Keep in mind: shame is an interrupter of feeling and being: it forces self-consciousness, and ultimately, occludes itself as it provides the functional coordinative base with the fear dynamics that extend from it. These creatures set up social systems of government and power that made them too excited - active minded - which is to say, built their sense of meaning from the phenomenological perspective of succeeding, changing others, the world, and feeling the strength that comes from those configurations, without its necessary opposite - passive mindedness i.e. how it feels when others hurt us. These Humans were phenomenologically blinded by social processes which deafened their guilt with the explosive feelings of fantasy, erupting from an unconscious they naively connected with, and allowed themselves to existentially entrained with.

Humans become most aware of themselves through pain - particularly social and emotional pain. All Humans are exquisitely sensitive to the social signals of their environment, and remarkably responsive - whether unconsciously, or consciously (as an anxiety-thought) - to the suggestive signs of others - worrying, oftentimes, that so-and-so is aggressing against them, to which they immediately self-organize to their usual defense - some, more anxious-ambivalent, feeling so many emotions, prefer - or need - dissociation i.e. not thinking or being related to something, in order to achieve homeostasis. Others, those much-desired "extroverts", actually dissociate in a much "quieter" way, such that their normal phenomenological experience of consciousness 'keeps out' negative feelings and thoughts - and so a passive sense of experiencing-self - and allow an almost full, hyper-identification with the self-states - experiences of "ways of being you" - to the point that they are hypnotized and become "one" with the idolatrous image - idolatrous, because every experience of self is ontologically subject to a self-other complementarity, whereby energy - metabolic "pumps" - derive from the others who originally animated your self-other template.

These Humans became viciously mean to those who disagreed with them, because, of course, once again, they were being just as animal-like as the other animals of the world: fear. Fear, anxiety, strangely enough, could even be imagined by the powerful as "stronger" than love. Yet this obviously gainsaid - contradicted - the reality of the Human beings existence, and reflexive dependence, on living in a kind and good way with other Human beings. The reflex - the normal 'arch', of Human identity, is goodness - reciprocity, and, in a deeper way, a sense of mindful consideration of the wellbeing of others.

A big problem, I think, is with the very notion of a city - or at least as the city has operated and been used since ancient times, and continues to operate into the present day. The political philosopher Leo Strauss seems to get it - in the wrong sense - with his own writings, with titles such as 'The City and Man', and 'Thoughts on Machiavelli' (he thinks highly of him').

To just get a sense of Strauss' reasoning process, here is his own justification for what he calls "liberal nihilism'. There is a bad nihilism:

The first was a "brutal" nihilism, expressed in Nazi and Marxist regimes. In On Tyranny, he wrote that these ideologies, both descendants of Enlightenment thought, tried to destroy all traditions, history, ethics, and moral standards and replace them by force under which nature and mankind are subjugated and conquered.[32]

The second type—the "gentle" nihilism expressed in Western liberal democracies—was a kind of value-free aimlessness and a hedonistic "permissive egalitarianism", which he saw as permeating the fabric of contemporary American society

Do you see how little sense that means? "Value-free aimlessness" and a "hedonistic permissive egalitarianism". Is there not a basic logic problem here? Isn't hedonism the expression of an emotion - and isn't the preference for that emotion what we mean by "value"?

Second of all: there is no 'gentle nihilism'. Not caring creates climate change, kills species, destroys environments, and Human worlds. It is a truly pathetic selfishness that every Human needs to fight against - because, ultimately, since choice, and the power to inhibit is always within us, we are always accountable to the self that we create - ontologically.

It is a risky gamble indeed to live a life that is opposite from the dynamics suggested by nature - our source of being.

a reply to: Astrocyte

But it seems that as we moved from hunter gatherer to city/states we formalized "systems" and entrenched superstitions into a "divine rules by kings" (my simplification).

The fact that there is no gentle nihilism ( a common trait of the ruled/rulers ) dooms us to repeat cycles of ascendence/descendence as the rubble of previous civilizations attests too.

Parallels happening right now...we are in a decline now.
Well worth the watch of his video presentation

1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed
www.abovetopsecret.com...

from Spider879 (OP)

One other thing, he draw some interesting parallels to events happening today, so close it's kinda scary with ISIS , refugees and climate driven cause for the Syrian civil war.

PS thanks for an Post I could get into...I have trouble getting into your posts...but thats just me, you write well but on another higher level. I need a lot of time and background catchup before I can really munch into your other threads. No criticism of you implied.

a reply to: Astrocyte

when this bifurcation first occurred - when elites separated themselves from non-elites - at some long forgotten era which the body, alone, can properly remember, whispers its teleodynamic ideal - perhaps the "quantum potential" of a past, seeking to bring itself back to a state of coherence.

Order out of Chaos,


"Perspective of Mind: Ervin Laszlo"
www.bizint.com...

Laszlo realizes that these special third-state systems, farthest from thermodynamic equilibrium, are always on the borders of chaos. They can only continue to maintain themselves through replication or reproduction. They are *autopoietic,* self-creating. And it is through this special creativity, whether physical or mental, that such a system can leap into new (and higher) plateaus of nonequilibrium. It's about creating greater order out of chaos! In general evolutionary terms, this is how new and higher levels of systems organization are attained. Laszlo states that "the universe as a whole moved into thermal disequilibrium." By its self-creativity, the Universe created varieties of macrosystems from active stars to interstellar clouds to planets. And life on Earth began with the initial conditions provided by cosmic evolution in general. [Ibid, p. 67.]

a reply to: Astrocyte

Imagine a species that thought it was only a summation of it's physical parts, and nothing else. Something makes us different, what is it?

Maybe it's thinking we are different?

A garden is not the wild as it is cultivated... a society tries to cultivate or grow the people it want's to have in it and exclude all others... hence democracy and the groups trying to dominate by vying for favoritism in the minds and hearts of the people as majority to simply rule.

So no matter what ideology it is a prison; so best to cultivate one's own garden... and naturally be wary of those gnawing at the roots cultivated both inside the mind and out called programming; that leads to assumption and expectation because in conformity? That's just the way it is... and society gets to weeding when one group feels right over another when it is just a majority needed with no right or wrong, but a sentiment that there is one to shake the pan while holding the handle... not getting burned in doing so having sold themselves to the same order as all others all making the same racket beating such pots and pans.

In the machine part of the machine... in it or out of it? Still a machine nonetheless.