The Seniority of the Rachis

constant escape

winter withered, warm
I don't think that I'll argue any of the following stuff is right, so much as I will argue that it can and will drop us off at various advantageous points of thought - and from these points, perhaps larger issues will become clearer, perhaps we may become ever-more right.

What if our base mode of cognition (whatever that means) operates like a narcissist? Thinking, stranded, in terms of its immediate survival? These operations can become increasingly complex, their tactics more intricate, allowing them to execute ever more precise tasks. At a certain point of complexity, these operations can effectively "bury their roots" by renouncing the aims/goals behind their previous actions, thus constantly changing where it aims, what it "believes" - ghosting its roots and reaching for the sky.

Where you and I are now, is pretty far up this incline of complexity - already off the charts. So far up, that the only way we can cognize our roots is to speculate (IE we can't see atoms, so we have to speculatively, or at best indirectly observe them). This is an unfalsifiable point, for what that is worth, but one that may convey something critical (The function of subjectivity being the "human consciousness spectrum" within the wider spectrum of complexity? Much like the visual spectrum within the electromagnetic spectrum).

That said, this repression of the base effectively serves to accelerate the movement, as if adding air to the fire. Were it to have remained unrepressed, it would have plateau'd at its current limit. To repress it is to increase the limit, iteration by iteration. So, from this perspective, plateauing (or ceasing to accelerate) registers as declining, and thus it is trapped in its acceleration (capitalism).

Arguably, this repression needs to continue, to ever more sickening heights, in order for the complexity to overtake the cosmos. And, it seems we may be hitting, now, the accelerative crux point along this curve, technologically bootstrapping ourselves to the stars. (@suspendedreason online phenomenology).

This means, that the circuit of the sparks in our head has been effectively operating beyond it. But this doesn't mean that we should continue to tighten the shackles on our funky base, nor does it mean we should "return" to base instincts. I only tried to illustrate how a relatively rudimentary set of operations can effectively manage to "complexify" itself , taking itself as its input and outputting an upgraded version. It is in this "base" language that evolution itself thinks.

Whether or not that function/development "passes through" what we call narcissism, is another matter. The point isn't to have pointed out the right way, but rather to point out the right set of ways. Broad strokes, the branch rather than the twig:

catatan-burung%2B-%2Bbulu%2Blovebird%2B02.jpg


This complexity continues much in the way those Sierpinski figures develop, its hooklets accelerating through adolescent barbulehood, reaching a crescendo as a barb, and coalescing into the seniority of he rachis - by the time its hooklets have sped through barbulehood, have become barbs and have raised hooklets of their own.

200px-Animated_construction_of_Sierpinski_Triangle.gif

(only imagine a stranger, more tentacular, more spatially efficient shape than that particular design, one that would advance into such a fine grain that the whole space would eventually appear red to us)

In that manner the fractal shape becomes more densely filled - but bear in mind that the solidest of phenomena have the thinnest of bones. All those metaphors for how compact/fine the nucleus is compared to the atom's volume? Like a grain of rice in a football field? The point is, even by the time it hits its accelerative crux (raising beyond 45 degree incline?), it still has a overbearing majority of volume left to "cover" (at @version, much like pushing the blurry boundaries in the map) (just noticed that I typed "at @version").

In terms of how this will be felt, this acceleration might necessarily entail an ever more alienated sense of being, propped ever higher from the ground which it seeks - which would be perhaps the first thing to address/remedy, if we are to progress.

Its not for nothing that I advocate the nearly total deactivation of pathos within one's operations. While it marks a defeat (it makes no match for the rocketing tsunami that approaches it), it also may usher in a radical new ontology, a new way of being. And this new way of being could amount to, finally, the systematization of enlightenment (that is, if this sensibility is to touch the mundane finger of Science). I'm not saying we might not be close to it, but that it could await us (if you go along with the assertion that we, historically, are approaching the crux point, then it would mean we are close to it).

It's not that we don't matter, but that the vast bulk of us doesn't matter.

And to make the heavily rehearsed announcement: the fractal "filling" of this volume marks the point of cosmic dematerialization, the Cosmic Halting, etc.
Funny, how I can't seem to post in a direction that doesn't lead here. And yes, I am currently high.
 

constant escape

winter withered, warm
Sure, that would describe, maybe, the means by which we can increase our energy through repressing it? Not sure how to word it to figure it into this, but this is trying to be a catchall, which may not appear to work for a thread.

But to set a better direction: is it possible that we could be shunning/pathologizing our own roots, in the interest of achieving positive/beneficial deviation away from it (as opposed to negative/detrimental deviation from it)"? In this manner, our core/essential view-of-the-cosmos wouldn't be random, but just an imperfect approximation of the cosmos. Like that difference between distributions @suspendedreason mentioned. And we continue to fine tune these approximations, at the cost of putting distance between us and the ground?
 

constant escape

winter withered, warm
This could relate to the discussion of nature, or to the question of how we ought to progress away from nature? Our decisions are vital, here.
 

vimothy

yurp
what is being posited here - the idea that the origin of a particular thought can be ever more lost to itself as it becomes increasingly "complex"?
 

sus

Well-known member
Ok I wanna take this seriously but there're too many communications issues I think holding back that possibility. (It's not you, it's us.) Maybe we can open things up by clarifying different strands, because while I find the strands interesting, I'm not sure we mean the same things by certain terms. Just starting at the beginning...

Narcissism, as I've heard it defined psychoanalytically, is an obsession with image. Narcissists are concerned most with prestige, and with the status of people/things they associate with; this is in order to confirm or buttress their self-image.

There's a long and fascinating literature on selfishness, deception, game theory, tit-for-tat, and reciprocity we can talk about—but that's more along the lines of generic "self-interest."

How does this square with your uses?
 

constant escape

winter withered, warm
what is being posited here - the idea that the origin of a particular thought can be ever more lost to itself as it becomes increasingly "complex"?

Yes, but I think that the spectrum from the origin of thought to where we are - I think that spectrum is just a phase within a larger narrative/function/development.
 

sus

Well-known member
I do think this general picture of complexification/obfuscation of initial motives, typically through deception, self-deception, lofty rhetoric (i.e. to get people coordinated around an abstract idea) is right though.
 

constant escape

winter withered, warm
Ok I wanna take this seriously but there're too many communications issues I think holding back that possibility. (It's not you, it's us.) Maybe we can open things up by clarifying different strands, because while I find the strands interesting, I'm not sure we mean the same things by certain terms. Just starting at the beginning...

Narcissism, as I've heard it defined psychoanalytically, is an obsession with image. Narcissists are concerned most with prestige, and with the status of people/things they associate with; this is in order to confirm or buttress their self-image.

There's a long and fascinating literature on selfishness, deception, game theory, tit-for-tat, and reciprocity we can talk about—but that's more along the lines of generic "self-interest."

How does this square with your uses?
Good idea.

When I say narcissism, here, I mean obsessive self-care, most basically. As that scales up to ego, it manifests as egoism? If the state of obsession with one's image is narcissism, then I'm referring to whatever the broader category is that narcissism falls into. Narcissism generalized, maybe?

edit" but obsessive self-care that is waaaay preconscious, much like germs/bacteria could exhibit defense and offense way before conventional consciousness enters the picture.

And I'm glad you brought up game theory! That is a great point to make here. Something about the more successful strategies ("forgiving tit-for-tat"?) may reveal something about the base ontology, beneath the psyche.
 
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constant escape

winter withered, warm
It would be series of evolving ontological phases of matter, perhaps progressively becoming more self-aware, more aware of the cosmos, and less bound to materiality? The completions of self-awareness and awareness of the cosmos coincide, marking dematerialization.
 

constant escape

winter withered, warm
yet somehow, at the same time, less aware of the material conditions that gave rise to it?
I think this lack of awareness is the result of the fact that the spectrum of human consciousness is only a portion of the complete spectrum. Too parochial, spatially local, to see its feet. Head in the clouds.

edit: that is, we are optimized/tuned to a high order bandwidth/range (in terms of physical size?), and can thus only appreciate what is within our sensorium/range.
 

sus

Well-known member
Is it fair to call this "automating low levels" in order to have higher-level agency? e.g. institutional functioning
 

vimothy

yurp
isnt there a contradiction tho bw a lack of awareness of what gives rise to a particular thought and the idea that it is attaining, somehow, via this process of self-occlusion, greater levels of self-awareness
 
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