>On Sun, 26 Mar 2000 20:33:03 -0500 Dace <edace at flinthills.com> wrote:
>
>>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.
>
>So... what is the fundamental orientation we share? The fact that we share
the
>same grammar, hypothetically anyway, means we share form, and this says
nothing
>of the content - form being abstract and without content.
>
Some form exists only in the mind that perceives it, while other form
emerges organically and exists in and of itself. So, right now we may think
we're looking at words on the computer screen, but the eye sees only sees
pixels of light. The "words" are in our minds. Someone might say that if
all the atoms in my computer were replaced with other atoms, it would still
be the same computer, and it would be except that it's not a computer to
begin with. "Computer" is in our minds. But what about form which is not
imposed onto matter but which arises organically "from within"? In this
case the form is in the thing and not merely in the mind of the perceiver.
This is what it means to be yourself. A computer is not itself. But for
us, form is real and actively maintains itself in the matter that comprises
our bodies. Living form is not abstract. This applies to the mind, i.e.
the form of the neuronal connections in the brain. So the mind is not
abstract. It just creates abstractions. Grammar is the form inherent to
the prefrontal lobe. The content of language is abstract, but the grammar
that underlies it is as concrete and self-existent as any living form.
Grammar is not the only thing we all share in common. We have the same array of emotions and archetypal fantasies and facial expressions.
>For Lacan, desire springs
>from the symbolic (the cogito) whereas the ego informs us of what we desire
>(through fantasy). So desire itself springs from the unconscious, whereas
the
>"taming" or translation of desire emerges in the ego (desire wants what it
is
>lacking, the ego translates this into something concrete - "cake!").
>
And who is this "us" being informed by our ego of what we desire?
Desire wants what it is lacking? You mean desire desires? Why would desire bother desiring when it's already desire?
>> There can be no perception without perceiver, no thought without thinker.
>
>Yes, this is the difference between Lacan and structuralism, Lacan
"rescues"
>the subject with an inverted Cartesian framework - against the
structuralists.
>So Descartes "I think therefore I am" reads "I am not where I think."
Being is
>eclipsed by thinking (the "forced choice" between the cogito and the mirror
>image).
>
You also say that the cogito is the "subject of the unconscious." So the
subject is not the conscious thinker. We are not where we think but deeper,
in the symbolic. But we're forced into the illusion of identifying with our
conscious thought.
Am I getting warmer?
Ted
>ken
>
>
>