>On Sat, 25 Mar 2000 19:27:47 -0500 Dace <edace at flinthills.com> wrote:
>
>> And matter is not mysterious? It has properties which act invisibly at a
>distance. It can only be understood according to fields and energy. At
its
>core, no human concepts have any application whatsoever. We have no idea
how
>it relates to mentality or even if we're talking about two different
things.
>
>I'm not sure if you're familiar with Lacan or not, but I dont' really
disagree
>with you here at all. Matter is Real (Lacanian sense) but we apprehend it
>through the symbolic supported by the imaginary.
>
No, I'm not familiar with Lacan, though I'm intrigued.
>> It's a fact that the human mind evolved from the animal mind. The animal
>mind is wholly unconscious, i.e. it lacks perception of itself.
>
>Bataille? qua Darwin?
>
Bataille. Let's see. He liked to deface things, right?
>I disagree that human beings are all basically the same. In a completely
>abstract way, this is true - but we don't share meaning of what being human
>means. For instance, the "reality" of a Buddhist monk is quite different
from
>that of an evangelical or a dialectical materialist. Sure, we all need
food,
>but some people don't actually think so (Christian Science?). To say that
>we're all the same inside is to agree with Disney, and this invalidates a
huge
>chuck of anthroplogical and cultural research which points out that even if
>we're all made of carbon and junk, we don't live in the same world.
>
You and I clearly come from radically different intellectual starting
points. But we can still connect. All of us speak according to the same
grammar, and this shapes the way we think. Of course, we're each unique,
but our differences exist only in the context of our profound similarities.
We tend to get fixated on the differences and lose sight of the common
ground. The differences between an evangelical Christian and a Buddhist
monk and a dialectical materialist are superficial compared to the
overlappings that we take for granted. If we didn't share a fundamental
orientation, we couldn't even comprehend how we're different.
>> Are you saying that the substance of our existence is our relation with
each
>other and with objects? As though there's nothing internal to us?
>
>Yes, as SUBJECT. I'll stress this because subjectivity isn't identical
with
>materiality. As far as material goes, there is a great deal of shared
matter,
>but in terms of subject, the subject is not substance.
>
The subject is a thing-in-itself. It cannot be reduced either to mind or
matter, but it infuses and works through both. Is it my fingers tapping the
keyboard, or am *I* tapping the keyboard? Is it my mind that thinks, or am
*I* thinking? I'm not referring to the ego, which is merely our self-image
and our set of identifications and desires. I'm talking about the subject
which perceives and identifies and desires. There can be no perception
without perceiver, no thought without thinker. In humans, the subject
manifests as consciousness; in animals it's external awareness; in plants
it's growth toward light. Something is "in" there that wants to live and
make more of itself. That "mysterious" thing is the wholeness of the
organism. I am one. I am the oneness of all these thoughts and atoms. The
unity of the subject is no illusion. What's illusory is our sense of
separateness from each other. Each *one* of us is an expression of our
mental commons.
>> Human beings, as subjects, lack freedom? What does this mean?
>
>We live in a world of "forced choices" - things which determine us
(although
>never completely) - eg. language, embeddedness...
>
Language creates more freedom than it eliminates. There's nothing in our
essence which precludes freedom. If we're in prison, we built it ourselves.
Capitalism stifles our collective freedom by emphasizing the ego, that is,
the imaginary, atomized "self." Thus it privatizes freedom. While I'm glad
to have personal liberty, mostly it's a sham.
7-Up versus Pepsi-- Now, that's a forced choice.
Ted