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[proximoception]

Addressing determinism, the idea that all is caused: 1. Do you know exactly how? If yes, you are omniscient, the world is complete and I wish you well. 2. Do you not know exactly how all is caused? Then you do not know that it is. 3. Do you rather assume it is, based on observed probability and the shapes of events? Fair enough, though I'd like to know more about your methodology; but what possible meaning does this conclusion have for you?

Round two: It means there is no freedom. In the sense of ability to escape cause? Yes, that is part of your premise. So? So all I do is predetermined. Predetermined sounds suspiciously like a term of intention. Let's replace it with "caused" again, or all-caused. What's wrong with being all-caused? I might as well not exist at all, or exist in some completely different way. Might as well from what perspective? Some ways of being you'd presumably enjoy more. You don't understand. There is no me. Because you're part of a larger causal chain? Yes. But you don't know the composition of that chain. It doesn't matter, it is real. But not to you, in its entirety, and its entirety is all we're worried about here. But I feel I don't exist! No you don't, you wouldn't know how to feel that. But I feel unease that I might now. You exist to you, if only as error, and presumably as ineradicable error. Your personal world, since contributed to by your lack of knowledge, will never be the world of the truth. And therefore you have escaped cause. You are free. But wherever I make this assumption I will trip over the truth and feel myself disappear again. The light of truth disintegrates you wherever you're exposed to it? Well, is that unpleasant? Maybe you can get used to it. It will never get all of you, as we established. And presumably death is not ultimate revelation, in a knowledge sense. But all the things I say about me I need to stop saying. It's all lies. How so? You live in your world, you're allowed to map things out, label things. Whatever works, right? But the labels are false and must be discarded shortly. Discard them shortly then, if so. Look, find the errors the light of truth never destroys, or the ones that grow back fastest when disintegrated. Use these as foundations. Explore outwards from there. Be prepared to discard labels as you approach the danger areas. Approach these only where you need truth to function, actually--though that's likely a lot of places. Take notes, make drawings. You'll be alright. But what about you? Well, I have extension so I don't exist, so don't worry about me. Use the phenomenon or idea of me in any way that helps, by the way.

How can you be so calm about not existing?

But I do exist. But just as error. No, not as error. Things move and I am one of them. Moved by other things. Yes and et cetera. You are caused. But cause is not caused. Yes, every cause is caused by one or more causes. But cause itself is not. Movement must be inherent to being, and if not at one point then throughout. As a citizen of the throughout I proudly proclaim my uncausedness. Even if that were so, so what, so you're random. Not random. Random would be entire uncause, and hence nothing. I am open to cause and uncause both, apparently. I am the largely settled explosion of overlapping substances and awarenesses that are the record and sustenance of such a meeting. Well that sounds weird. It's just what happens. All adjectives apply.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

The difference between an autonomous "I" and and "I" that is part of everything and everyone else is very trivial. Things don't need freedom to exist, all they need is a name.

[proximoception.livejournal.com]

1. Trivial, as observed from outside? Clearly it's a categorical difference, insofar as it makes an inside possible. This holds for both definitions of autonomy I give: the one where you get the world wrong and are to that degree divorced from it, and the one where consciousness channels a fundamental randomness.

2. You haven't experienced anything not yet named? That's ridiculous and I'll just have to assume you don't mean it. As for things needing freedom, they obviously do. Everything is based on small mice running in frantic circles on the backs of smaller mice and so on down, or till it's a sideways thing.

No idea if I'm actually understanding you, you're awfully terse and nameless.

[coldsalmon.livejournal.com]

Sorry for the terseness, this is a complex subject and I imagine that I'm busy. Perhaps a better term than naming would have been distinction. I was thinking of the 1st chapter of the Tao, "the nameless is the eternally real, naming is the origin of all particular things."

Trivial from anywhere, in that you exist either way, no matter what you think about it. Thinking "I am neither free nor autonomous" has no effect on your existence. Try it. It can be very nice once you get used to it. You don't even have a choice about whether or not you exist, really, especially when you consider all the other people who decide that you do without your permission.

[proximoception.livejournal.com]

Distinction, fair enough. Anything moving is also distinct from what it was just previously, though. Movement as double distinction.

I agree about the lack of choice. Which is actually why I have trouble with Eastern perspectives like the one you seem to be taking. As I cannot try to not be if I am, or vice versa--be if I am not, or be either being or not-being if neither, or be neither if both, then what is this judgement that I warp myself by holding hard onto my identity (or lackofit)? How am I doing that exactly? "Just be. Or just be not. Or just neither be nor be not," you advocate, one of those, but how can I do anything but? It's a silly admonition. Also a cute dodge, you're basically just saying don't think about this issue--a notthinking which does affect your existence or you'd be getting no "nice"ness out of it. I'm fine with the issue because I feel I've settled it. I think those who choose the other side, or as in the East choose not to choose (or fail to not choose or whatever), do it as a dodge, a way to forgive themselves something; or even a way to "die" so long as something they hate is killed likewise. To me these are games. If you want to kill or forgive, kill. Or forgive.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not really into killing or forgiving, I just think the whole idea of free will doesn't make any sense to me. Either actions are random or they are caused, in either case there's no autonomous, reasoned will that you could identify with. But I'm not really advocating a prescriptive perspective, i.e. "you'll be better off if you think my way." To me, this is about descriptive philosophy.

I'm actually not into Eastern philosophy, sorry if the quote from the Tao misled you. I'm mostly into Nietzsche and Borges for this stuff.

I don't know if I said you would be warping yourself if you held on to your idea of identity, but in any case I think identity is a different issue from freedom. If you check out the first few pages of "Being and Nothingness," Sartre gives a nice little summary of phenomenological conceptions of being. The "being" of a thing is not any intrinsic, platonic form, but is rather the totality of its appearances. Of course, in this case essence is replaced with infinity, making it equally inaccessible. What a thing "is" consists of what you have experienced of it, and the meanings you have made from those experiences. Or, to put it differently, you can only see a small section of a thing's infinite appearances, and from that small section, you select out what you feel to be consistent and essential, and that is your idea of what that thing is. The same goes for people and for yourself. That is identity.

How have you settled this issue? I think I'm still confused about your perspective. Can you sum it up?

[proximoception.livejournal.com]

Not sure I can say what I've said already in shorter space, but it's worth trying. Restatement in any form tends to bridge gaps.

The assumption that you can have entire randomness or entire cause, and that's the whole menu, is what I'm addressing.

Randomness acting in the same way across all aspects of a single object would be itself a kind of uniformity. This is important, as I think it's how we imagine randomness: it becomes a shimmering gray or orange plane, or some similar changing but controlled image. "Nothing matters since it's all random," you hear people say when they've rejected whatever causal or structural view of things they've been relying on. They base this absurd certainty, I think, on this static image their mind gives when they think of ultimate dynamism.

Distinction and movement (double distinction) are the case, rather than uniformity, therefore if there is a random basis to existence it is not expressed evenly throughout. As there is variation in effect, there are differentiable states (identity to me is based in this differentiation, hence is a relative quality; we are a part of everything and everything's a part of us, or however you phrased it above, but to such varying degrees that this reminder settles nothing, philosophically). These states inevitably act on one another, while simultaneously being acted on "inside" by the basic ununiform craziness. Starting to see what I'm getting at? There is a direction in you, clashing or merging with those pushing on your outside, therefore you are "self-directed" as well as acted on causally.

This isn't as minimalistic as it sounds. Randomness-based formations acting on (or resisting) one another causally can take any shape and color--never forever, but for many almost-evers. These are real things. We are real things, sustained distinctions-in-motion.

An objection one can make to this view is its reliance on the sense of difference, which may be inaccurate: all really may be caused, or randomness itself may be somehow uniform--and our consciousness makes something discontinuous out of a fundamental order. This is where my second (though presented first) defense of free will comes in. The mind escapes full rule because it doesn't grasp the rules: so long as I am slightly mistaken, my world is slightly random. A weaker argument, I suppose, as it does not do away with determinism, just the protestation of determinism, the various bizarre significances determinists give to the possibility of complete causality.

[coldsalmon.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think the last defense you mentioned is rather weak from the point of view of an objective argument for free will. But it's a very good explanation of why we have to act as if we have free will (have to in a literal sense, not an ethical sense). It also raises issues about the nature of causality, such as "all causes we know of depend upon causes we know nothing of." At first, this argument seems to lead to a conclusion of total randomness, but as you rightly point out, things are not this one-sided. We do create a meaningful world of causality from the unknowns we find in the world, but this world is inherently practical and empirical, rather than ideal. It's based on descriptions. This brings me to your other point.

The issue that I have with this is that you seem to be sticking to the idea that there is a definitive, intrinsic "you" which exists, and which is separate from the rest of the universe -- "There is a direction in you, clashing or merging with those pushing on your outside." This "you" is a pragmatic, descriptive distinction, and the idea itself comes from "the language and tradition," to quote Borges. I did not invent the idea of "I."

Speaking of Borges, he does two very interesting things with the ideas of determinism and identity. On the one hand, he posits the idea that all men could become any man, that consciousness is fungible, that there is no intrinsic self. When I become engrossed in Shakespeare, I become Shakespeare. That is to say, there is no single, binding "me" that is at the core of my shifting self. On the other hand, he also posits the idea that each man has a destiny, that each man cannot escape being himself, for his particular shifts of consciousness are his own. In "The Immortal," he points out that for a man to become all men, he would need to be immortal. In a different story (I can't remember the title), he tells of a man who creates a huge picture composed of innumerable objects, takes his whole life to make it, and at his death he realizes that it is a picture of his own face. Basically, because I'm not anything particular, I can never escape being myself, because anything I do is me. Hope that makes sense.

I've been toying with a new description myself lately for the purpose of explaining the formation of identity. It's been influenced by my stint in law school, and it basically makes room for self-creation by way of randomness. It's more about the psychological perception of self rather than what "self" is, but then again I suppose I don't really think that self "is" anything in particular. It's too long, so I'll post it as a reply.

[proximoception.livejournal.com]

The issue that I have with this is that you seem to be sticking to the idea that there is a definitive, intrinsic "you" which exists, and which is separate from the rest of the universe -- "There is a direction in you, clashing or merging with those pushing on your outside." This "you" is a pragmatic, descriptive distinction, and the idea itself comes from "the language and tradition," to quote Borges. I did not invent the idea of "I."

Eh. Definitive as in bounded all 'round? No. Intrinsic as in welling exclusively from inside? No. Separate? No, semi-detached, something like a limb gone wild. Merely pragmatic and descriptive? Dude, everything is. Any rationalism--hell, logic itself--must be based in representations. Nothing clicks with anything till you've summoned forth a something.

The crucial thing I'm arguing isn't our pragmatic need to speak of a self, but our need to speak of a self inside such pragmatisms as philosophy. Our distinctness isn't made up by us, though I suppose we exaggerate it where that reduces tension. Our distinctness--relative degree and shape of discreteness--affects our every project.

We're not a closed figure of uniform consistency. But neither is the universe, see? The distinctions inside matter are part of what matter is, and where these double and triple and googloople up into what we speak of as entirely discrete units, though these are of course not pure discrete units they are not illusions, not folds in a quilt that the maid will straighten out. The folds are as real as the quilt, and folded parts are deeply different from unfolded ones. Maybe we should come up with a new word for 'self' if it's been overly polluted by religious supernaturalisms seeking to remove it from the world. But we need a word.

As for "the language and tradition": no one would deny these affect how we close the 'half-figure' that is us (but again, this half-figure is categorically different not just from closed figures, but from non-figures). But to the extent the 'how' is traceable it is erasable: awareness of the exact nature of an influence permits that influence to be 'flowed against' and neutralized, or added to the general bag of winds where beneficial. People trying to make something of the language/tradition argument have to emphasize our lack of knowledge of how thoroughly we may have been influenced. Maybe all through, is the implication. But as this is removed from reasons, examples and details--because once we have these we have a handle on said influence--there is no possible way to argue it is "all through". So what do you do with that? Try to imagine what it's like if it were true? By definition you can't. And anyway this feeds back into my central argument: any distortion acting on the invading influence in non-uniform ways as it passes through our dominoes becomes, in effect, a grass-roots force resisting the influence, which thus falls on different "parts" of us with different weight and can be in some way measured, hence acted against. And voila, we have a free core again. Not a core like a pure sphere, but a core like any apple.

Remember, too: the apple core is what creates the idea of the sphere core, not the other way 'round.

Borges rules. And was perfectly aware that even immortality can only expand human identity to the vast but finite set of all possible human identities. And the picture guy's identity is circumscribed to the set of all-possible-variations-of-everything-he-has-ever-seen. Still limited, still identities.

God help you if you've read all this.

[coldsalmon.livejournal.com]

The formation of a unique self is similar to the development of the common law: it comes from the determination of questions of first impression. It's not that I discover a pre-existing, "true" self, but that I make unguided decisions and then affirm them, accepting them as a part of my self. The distinction between the self created by community and the self created autonomously (there is no autonomously discovered self) is whether or not there is an existing precedent. If I merely follow community precedents, then I am being created socially, my self is a community self. However, in the (rare) case that I have to confront a decision for which I do not have a precedent, or for which there are conflicting precedents, I must make a choice. In order for this choice to be an autonomous, self-creating choice, it must be 1) random, and 2) affirmed or negated by me after the fact. If the choice is not random, then it is based upon previous precedents, whether extrinsic or intrinsic, and it adds little or nothing to the self. If the choice is not based upon precedents, I must decide after the fact whether or not the choice defines me. If it does, then this becomes part of my autonomous self. If it does not, then I have added to what I am not, but I have not necessarily added to what I am. Note that it does not matter whether or not there exist precedents which would have decided my choice, but which are unknown by me. All that matters are the precedents which I am aware of. The choice need not be unique in the world to me, it merely must be unique in my own experience. The crucial move is the random choice between alternatives, the rejection of certain alternatives, the acceptance of certain other alternatives, and the affirmation and internalization of that choice. To review, there is an extrinsic self which is formed through the adoption of community precedents, and there is an intrinsic self which is formed through the affirmation of random choice which could not be decided on the basis of those precedents. Our self is created after the fact, by our explanations of our own acts, our acts are not created by our internal self.

[proximoception.livejournal.com]

Interesting. Questions:

1. Isn't one's ability to receive the community's instruction based in "intrinsic" i.e. physical capacity? How much you get, when you get it, how it's taken will surely vary with structure. So even social identity is potentially unique.

2. Once you have formed an intrinsic self through the amalgamation of various randomly arrived-at choices (all of them also conceivably influenced by structure, no? Especially when external info cancels out...) it helps create further internal selves (n+1, n+2 etc. till death), as it is an alternative to the social line. Our acts are created by our internal self which is creates by our acts, once the ball is rolling.

So you've got social, physical, random factors, but these form internal ones. And then there were four. Uniqueness = inevitable, internalization = progressive.