[MD] [Bulk] Re: the story of "me"

[Carl Thames]

> Hi Dan,
>
> Then you changed the subject, because I was speaking of the illusion
> of the ME, the "Cartesian Me"  having 'freewill" and making "choices."
> I will expand my former statement, the preferences of the biological 
> static
> patterns of value are further shaped by social static patterns of value 
> and
> intellectual static patterns of value.  And with these preferences WE 
> build
> stories of how and why and when and where and with whom, which create
> pleasure and pain.  Stories.
>
> Why did you introduce "sexual selection" quote?  What kind of access do
> we have to the biological preferences besides the obvious signals?  We
> have more control over the social and Intellectual patterns because they
> are so often present through conceptualization and language.  Anyway,
> it seems to me that most of the discussion is defending the type of 
> choices
> made by a "Cartesian Me", and that is story-telling, illusion.  But maybe 
> I
> am wrong, and that is causing the confusion.  And yes, understanding
> these preferences intellectually is better than letting them run wild, but
> let's make sure we understand that that "Cartesian Me" is illusion. And I
> am not sure we've done that.
>
> Marsha

I think I understand where you're going with this Marsha, and I agree with 
you.  The problem, as I see it, is with deCarte.  He assigns the value, "I 
think, therefore I am" as a static quality.  This was based on an 
unsupportable assumption.  His logic was, "God exists.  I know that God 
exists.  In order to know that God exists, I must be thinking.  In order to 
think, I must exist, therefore, 'cogito, ergo sum.'"  The problem here is 
obvious to me.  There is no way to 'prove' that God exists, therefore there 
is no way to "prove" that he was thinking.  He could have been a walnut 
hanging from a tree having that thought.  There is no way to 'prove' any 
type of thought as being independent, or even non-independent for that 
matter.

I personally think that the Cartesian Me is most certainly an illusion, 
based on a collection of cultural assumptions.  We define ourselves as we 
were either taught to do so, or developed within a cultural context.  I 
cannot see myself as a typical Chinese man, because I don't know how to do 
that.  I do have basic male attributes, but that's where the similarity 
ends.  The rest is a collection of ego defenses, assumptions, and learned 
behavior.  Sexual attraction falls into the latter, for the most part.  I 
have felt the "spark" that some speak of when mating, but that's not always 
the determining factor.  In fact, I would be willing to bet that it's rarely 
the determining factor.  I have felt it, then discovered that the woman 
involved was not someone I wanted to be involved with, for whatever reason, 
and moved on.  If we had no choice in the matter, that wouldn't have 
happened, would it?  Having said that, I am also aware that we have a 
biological imperitive to reproduce.  Alcohol has done more than anything to 
get us past our cultural obstacles and seeing to it that reproduction 
occurs. <G>

Having introduced a variable, (alcohol) might seems frivolous to the 
discussion, but it's really not.  The point to it is to ask just how thin 
the veneer of our ego really is?  Is the veneer the Cartesian Me, or is the 
basic animal reproduction instinct the reality here?

Carl