I was thinking the other day about how if everyone treated me as if I wanted to be treated, nothing would ever get done in this world. Everyone would be too busy trying to figure out the apparent contradictions associated with the wants that float around in a constant and chaotic fashion inside of my brain. People would be either forced to avoid me all together or become stalker like, since those seem to be the only two modes that would make sense for them to assume when dealing with me. This would be of course based on the assumption that they somehow knew how I wanted to be treated without me verbally having to communicate it to them. Fuck.
I'm not sure if that made sense but I'd be more than happy to discuss it with any of you sometime, although if you're confused now, you'll probably be terribly more so after any sort of verbal clarification that I would attempt to provide. That being said, we shall now fall into the pattern of not-being.
Did you feel it? The very fabric of your being starting to come apart? No? Ok let's try again. All together now class, Start not being!
Still nothing eh? That's ok. Maybe it doesn't really matter.
I've been thinking about the way we view existence. We can say that things don't really exist, only that we perceive that something is existing. That it is simply in our minds, like the Matrix. Except where did those images come from? God? Why complicate things? Of course we must perceive things in order for them to exist, but that only applies subjectively! When we perceive things, they exist, but only to us! The thing exists independent of us and our perceptions, except it changes once it leaves our minds. The object is one thing inside our minds through our perceptions of it, but it is something else altogether Outside and Alone. Something we can come incredibly close to seeing, but never fulling knowing. Therefore I agree that things only exist when we perceive them, but only in the form in which they are being perceived! Not in the form in which they may truly exist. But the closer we get to understanding things as they truly exist (meaning independently from us and our first perceptions)then the closer we get to realizing the meaning of identity and existence.
Maybe it's because I think about identity quite a bit, and I hate being misinterpreted as well as misunderstood. Maybe that's what drives all existentialists (haha fuck all the non-conformists who wish to remain free from that particular label (Camus, I'm looking at you!)) to try and determine the meaning of existence in the modern age, with or without some notion of God or a higher power, as well as how to find meaning with the modern existence. Identity is tied (in my mind at least) inextricably to the dilemma of meaning and existence, in that we must have an identity in order to be in existence. They seem to imply each other. Therefore if there is an issue with one, it seems necessary that there must be an issue for the other. If existence is tentative, then where is identity? Either it too is tentative, or it is defined through existence itself being tentative. Either way it seems reasonable to suppose a direct relationship with the two.
To me it seems that once we verify the existence of something to a point of absolution, then we must also realize that the identity is there as well. Except what is absolution, and can we reach it? Probably not with some things, I'm thinking of living, organic organisms. It seems more reasonable with nonliving structures to assume that we can reach this "absolute" relationship in which we have determined that nature of that objects existence completely.
Ok I really need to work on my Hegel essay. Hopefully some of this made sense, although it isn't apparent to me yet why I felt a need to write any of it.
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2 comments:
First and foremost, you are insane.
That being said...
I disagree. I don't think identity and existence are linked; not in the least bit, unless somehow one's conception of self is tied into their conception of existence; but even then, it's a conception; which means identity and existence are separate issues.
Existence is a state of being beyond, perhaps, even ontological definition. It simply is, as we are. For example, it’s not a matter of “chicken versus egg: what came first, the chicken or the egg” because simply, both are; thus their order, really, is insignificance. And beyond that, out of orneriness, I say thusly, it doesn’t matter if the chicken understands himself as coming from the chicken or the egg, as both are true; thus, the chicken exists, regardless of his conception of origin.
Identity is a construct. Further more, it’s a self-induced construct. Our sense of selfhood (which is how we identify ourselves) is not externally defined. We might use external factors to assist ourselves in our sense of identity, but they do not determine this sense. This might lend into a nature versus nurture argument; but it’s irrelevant. It doesn’t matter whether our sense of self is fabricated out of how we’re treated, or how we’re “born,” in each regard, it’s still how we “determine” ourselves to be that provides us a sense of self.
I understand where one might think identity is linked to existence; this would seem true for one whose sense of self is tied to their belief in existence. For example, for a uber-religious person, their sense of self might be tied to their sense of existence, or rather, it’s tied to their sense of the origin of existence. If this person--we’ll call him Bob--believes in this superior being--we’ll call God for simplicity--and this Bob believes this God created all as well as Bob, this would be Bob’s conception of existence. (The validity of this claim is not in question here; this is Bob’s construct of existence; his belief. Whether or not God ‘exists’ in this example is not the point, and is irrelevant.) Furthermore, if Bob believes this God controls his destiny, his actions, his movements, etc; if Bob calls himself “God-fearing” and/or, etc, then one can say, Bob defines his sense of self by his belief in God. Thus, his identity might be wrapped in his belief in God; his sense of self is constructed through his belief in the origin of existence.
The same would likewise be true of someone that might call themselves an atheist.
Regardless, a belief is a construct (regardless if the belief is true or false). A construct or belief is not existence.
Existence isn’t a construct; our reality might-be/is a construct, but existence is not.
Our sense of self might be constructed by how we perceive reality (constructed by a construct), or our sense of existence (which, for all intents and purposes, is a construct constructed by a construct as well).
Our perception doesn’t dictate existence; our perception dictates our reality, or how we perceive our reality.
Even thought doesn’t determine existence.
Existence is something of which we are a part; but is something we cannot claim to be the origin of.
At the end of the day, even a philosopher must concede to eat, to sleep, to deficate.
All righty then....my brain just jumped out of my body....did a shake a shake dance and jumped back in.
huh?
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