[MD] Ever redefining self

[Heather Perella]

Ham,


   [Ham] Again I've had to search painstakingly for a
> question in your exhaustive
> dissertation.  Ah, I may have found one:
> 
  [SA] ... We want to build bridges.  A whole ceremony
in
> the
> > Amazon or a Pacific island (the place eludes me at
> this
> > moment) surrounds the building of a bamboo bridge.
> > It is spiritual.  It is logic itself, trying to
> organize and bring
> > order to a world that has an undefinable aspect
> still in the midst.
> > Will this undefinable ever stop being undefinable
> > while we are human beings?  We don't and could not
> > answer such a question. ...

  [Ham] I don't know anything about building bridges,
but
> you seem to have made them
> a euphemism for spirituality and logic.  Anyway, the
> question "Will this
> undefinable ever stop being undefinable while we are
> human beings?" would
> appear to be rhetorical.

     What do you mean by rhetorical?  

     [SA] When I shoot a bow to kill a deer, the art
in how
> this
> > can be accomplished is practical and not
> practical.
> > Practical in what my stomach can gain, but not
> practical
> > in how I am alleviated, in spirit, by my intention
> making a
> > connection with reality and the arrow bridges what
> I
> > try to do with what happens....

  [Ham]
> Whether it's practical or not, why would any
> civilized person want to shoot
> a deer?

     Why not when they are here, they taste great, and
the meat is very healthy, if you are a meat eater?

  [Ham] Will you starve without this feast of venison
for
> which you must sacrifice
> the life of an animal?   If not, what's your motive?
>  If it's absolutely
> necessary for you to hunt and kill for meat,
> wouldn't a clear shot with a
> rifle be more humane than plunging an arrow into the
> animal's flesh?

     I have thought about getting a gun.  For now, I
have a bow, and have not invested in a gun, which
would be much easier and the deer will be on the
dinner table more often probably.


   [Ham] 
> Here comes a whole bunch of rhetorical questions:

  [SA]
> > If we need to kill something to complete the
> circle
> > (food), the so be it.  We will do anything to
> complete
> > this circle.  How this is to be done?  That is the
> > question that has plagued humankind for a very,
> very,
> > very long time.  How we define essence?  How we
> define
> > self?  How we define the universe?  How we define
> G-d?
> > This defining of any of these is an act of our
> > intellect to bridge the gap, to complete the
> circle,
> > to conclude what essence is?  (Am I not correct?) 
> The
> > act of defining in this manner, on the grounds of
> > philosophy, is to have to admit we will come up
> empty.
> > We will eventually notice an emptiness that in our
> > seeking, in our desire, in our valuing of this
> > complete circle, even in our desiring via our
> > intellect to put all the pieces together, we must
> > conclude that nothingness will be here, for us, as
> > human beings, since our scope and our effort to
> put
> > this all together in our valuing ...

  [Ham]

> We are all talking about the same thing in different
> ways.  But your
> approach to philosophical dialogue appears to be
> shooting a continuous
> stream of thoughts at your correspondent in the hope
> that one of them will
> trigger a response.  No offense, SA, but a little
> discipline in your
> verbiage and some direct, non-rhetorical  questions
> would be much more
> effective.

  Again, not sure about this rhetorical thing you talk
about.  Questions could be answered or not answered. 
Some people are on different pages, others on the same
page.  We have been on different pages, so I thought
asking some questions and getting some direct answers
would bridge our views or apply contrast to our views.
 I'm just trying to see where you are coming from and
if I can cross to your side of the river.  Simple, I
thought, but maybe this has to do with how wide the
river is, and how far away you are from understanding
or how far away I am from understanding.
 

 [Ham] I think you have misconstrued my ontological
> reference to nothingness.  By
> "nothingness" I don't mean emptiness; I mean
> literally "nothing".

     Ham you are not very flexible are you?  (you can
answer this with a yes or no - don't get all
worked-up)  If you are not very flexible it could mean
you are set in how your philosophy is supposed to be,
and no more fixing of your philosophy is at hand. 
This is good, isn't it, if your philosophy (thesis) is
complete?  
     What is inside of an empty vase?  Nothing.  By
empty I mean literally nothing, too.  When did empty
have something - a thing - in it?  Not sure why you
are saying nothing does not mean the same as empty. 

  [Ham]  The core
> of man's self is nothing; it doesn't exist. 
> Everything that man is must be
> borrowed from otherness -- the Essence that he is
> separated from.  Man
> becomes a being-aware by appropriating and
> identifying with a particular
> body.  He fills the nothingness of his awareness
> with value relative to a
> particular phenomenon at a given time and location. 
> This is the incremental
> space/time mode of human awareness.  The brain
> interprets these relative
> values as finite objects and events arranged in time
> and space, which is the
> intellectual image of reality we all share.
> 
> So the "essence" of man is the value he realizes
> (freely and autonomously as
> an individual) rather than the objects he
> experiences.  That value is a
> finite representation of what he is not -- Absolute
> Essence.  Being-aware is
> a self/other dichotomy that is partially broken by
> experience, affirming
> (restoring) the value of what is made aware. 
> Ultimately, man gives up his
> being totally to Value.  Then there is no more
> being-aware; there is only
> absolute value
> which is absolute sensibility
> which is Essence Itself.
> 
> This is what I mean by value being man's
> "connection" to Essence.

     Why did you say to me earlier what I could easy
say to you now?  Which is and I quote, "But your
approach to philosophical dialogue appears to be
shooting a continuous stream of thoughts at your
correspondent in the hope that one of them will
trigger a response.  You have tried to explain to me
something that appears to be concrete.  Bear with me,
because this could help me understand.  
     You use certain words that are applied and
understood to have certain meanings called your
thesis.  I have come from a different angle.  I have
even tried to state your gathering of value or
intellect of getting value (or however you may state
this), the same as the never ending story of desire to
know something or in other words, the intellect is
trying to become essence to become complete by the
bridging of self/other via value.  Of course, this
bridging and becoming of essence never is fulfilled
while we are human beings, and so I said to try to
think over and over again about how to define this
universe will bring no complete conclusion for all
will change in time and we will ever have to redefine
our self.  We can put this into a broad general
outline.  We are born and we die.  Yet, so much more
happens daily and nightly and much of it we walk into
blindly and by hindsight we can make any understanding
of our experience more precise but that does nothing
for us now.  We do learn, constantly.  Yet, to think
we can bring total definition without having anything
undefined anymore, is ridiculous and a false desire. 
This nothingness you discuss fits into this false
desire for we will always have nothing left over after
all this talk and defining of what we are trying to
say to each other.  We will have learned something and
at the same time, we will have that aspect of life,
even though we try to discuss it, that aspect that
will be undefined, unfilled, as an empty vase that has
nothing in it.  To not know this is to not recognize
the bottomless pit of knowledge monsters we could
become.

> Have I made it any clearer?

  You have your language.  I have my language.  I am
always trying to interpret your language, how about
giving a stab at my language so we can relate to each
other.  Build bridges - connect with each other our
different angles that may or may not be pointing out
the same understanding.  You might not want to, and I
understand.  You have your thesis and we should
understand your thesis.  We wouldn't want to have your
thesis go to waste.  

Sincerely,
SA

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