[MD] Issues with Self

[John Carl]

Ian and Arlo,

Birds falling like rocks, due to gravity; do I detect a meme?


> [Ian]
> > I ask because your points .... clearly we all find handles pragmatically
> > useful ...
> >
> > [Arlo]
> > Useful, yes. But also as "real" as rocks, birds and gravity.
>
> [IG] Yes, conventionally, but equally as "illusory" as the objects we
> call rocks, birds and gravity.
>
>
John:  And angels, I hasten to add.

Arlo:

> Clearly some insist on creating and maintaining a stable "self" here,
> > indeed were quite bothered a while back when some felt that some
> "posters"
> > may be avatars for the same biological "person".
>
> [IG] Me too. It's a question of how many levels of indirection one's
> trust can cope with. We all know a handle is a label for (see above)
> ... but if there is a deliberately falsified identity in there too,
> that breaks up the continuity, it is doubly difficult to piece
> together the dynamic history of experienced patterns that the name is
> attached to. We need sq (some stability) as well as DQ or the whole
> complex of patterns (MD) is unstable.
>
>
John:

Well Ian, there's trust, and then there's Trust, ya know?  A certain kind of
mind insists on reality conforming to expectations and trust is easily
broken there.  Another kind of mind isn't quite so picky (or perhaps more
experienced) and is willing to "go with the flow".  But in a way, I can see
a more noble endeavor in lying than telling the truth.  I mean, the liar
tells the truth about the illusory nature of things, while the guy who
always tells the truth is spreading a lie that such a thing is possible.  I
myself don't have enough imagination to lie, but I don't mind creative
novelists doing so.

But overall, I think you make a good point about the stability of
experienced patterns.  It's one reason I tend to personalize and dramatize
my own postings - Meaning can only be communicated in a stable field.
However, if the field of meaning becomes too stable, then it's stultifying
and boring and that bugaboo of expecting reality to conform to
conceptualizations rears its ugly head.

That's one reason I sorta appreciate weird and inexplicable happenings like
thousands of birds dropping from the sky like rocks, victims of some sort of
blunt trauma in the sky or perhaps angelic sphincter squeezings.

Pause.

Hey, does anybody else think "Angelic Sphincter Squeezings" would be a good
name for a band?  The kind of music Frank the flusher appreciates.

I miss Frank.

Speaking of angels and avatars.



> >
> > If one wants to talk about "MOQ-value" and the self, then the patterns of
> > continuity and persistence he or she exhibits and demands should be
> addressed as
> > well. Simply saying "no self" means nothing if one doesn't understand
> this.
>
> [IG] Understood. It is always possible to say or do more, to elaborate,
> yes.
>
>
A key point, Ian.  A key point indeed.  It should be always possible to
elaborate, when called upon.  A fact upon which, I rely greatly.

Yours,

John