I should add that while I'm attempting to eliminate the requirement for scientific inquiry. The scientific community currently maintains that everything humans do is selfish and love falls into the category of "reciprocal altruism". I scratch your back, you scratch mine. As for love; I see adoration of myself in you and you see adoration of yourself in me.
So what ThereAreNoSides, MenOfTheInfinite, C.S. Lewis, Erich Fromm and others are trying to tell us is that although we may call reciprocal altruism "Love" there is as of yet another "love" which is not reciprocal which they call "Unconditional Love" or Agape. And this means that you love others expecting nothing in return. In-fact, you can expect to get hatred, envy, disapproval and stigma in return.
Because this kind of love doesn't concern itself with how you regard me. If there is something important to tell you, that can save you some suffering, then I ought to say it, even if you hate me for it. Rather than tell you lies such that you adore me.
"I love you, and because I love you, I would sooner have you hate me for telling you the truth than adore me for telling you lies." - Pietro Aretino
We don't have this love and we desperately need it. Instead we are caught up on looking good and hearing from each other how good we are, puffing ourselves up with pride. This is delusion. It is the "devil", the ego, as in Sympathy for the Devil by the Rolling Stones:
Let me please introduce myself I'm a man of wealth and taste
So if you meet me Have some courtesy Have some sympathy, have some taste Use all your well-learned politesse (nicities) Or I'll lay your soul to waste, mmm yeah
I shouted out, "Who killed the Kennedy's?" When after all It was you and me
Tell me baby, what's my name Tell me honey, can ya guess my name Tell me baby, what's my name I tell you one time, you're to blame
---------
The devil, the ego, currently runs this world, and if you try to be love and if you try to save people from the ego. They will kill you. This is what happened to Socrates and Jesus the Christ. "Science" can't prove this, it can help point you towards it, but that's it. Because we have egos, our egos throw out rationalizations for denying that we have egos. As one said; We don't know how clever the ego is, it created the devil so that it would have an external enemy to blame, and that is a threat to the ego but it is also a creation of the ego.
I didn't know talking about anorexia nervosa or other eating disorders was "taboo". Then again, I've been mostly talking amongst myself after reading textbooks on these subjects. I try to talk with others about how our self-image and our obsession over it causes us all manner of suffering and neuroses. But I guess the idea that anorexics are essentially egotists is a bit discomforting. Then again, what is this woman saying? She looked up to Barbie as the model of what she should look like. That is entirely an obsession with self-image and therefor a form of egotism.
I'm seriously guy, most of these things boil down to an obsession over self-image, aka ego. But that's not what "victims" of eating disorders want to hear, and just because that is the conclusion I've come to does not mean that I'm blaming the victim or trying to make the whole subject taboo. Does it become taboo when you don't get the kind of dialog you want? Or when someone tells you that you are the victim of your own doing?
Now, I also maintain that the society is putting a lot of pressure on young people to obsess over their self-image. The whole society is awash in egotism. That is precisely the point and the reason why people don't like talking to me about these things. Nobody wants to hear that they are the cause, their ego will not let them.
"You have to admire the opponents elogance. If you try to kill him to save them, they will kill you to save him. Ah! It's so beautiful." - Avi, Revolver
Oh, I haven't meant to say that "we want to be loved" is the one cause. I was just trying to debunk the myth that there can't be a single cause.
I've read through quite a bit of the scientific literature which has equipped me with knowledge of terms like oxytocin, phenethylamine, norepinephrine, nucleus accumbens, ventral tegmental area and so on and so forth. While this is all useful description, when I talk to others it tends to go over their head. However, I've also realized that it's not necessary, because the term "Love" actually refers to a collection of these processes. It is sufficient just to call it "Love" and tweese apart any qualitative differences in the kinds of love.
For example; There Are No Sides on Youtube does a good job of describing what he calls "Love TM" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wS7vVqugs5E&feature=channel_video_title
Also the videos by Menoftheinfinite When A Man Loves A Woman http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34jl6vLP8p8 What is Love http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiaR6i0mj_8 Agape [Unconditional Love] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1J6xINDAvw Ego, Attachment, Fame http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkEOPHQ8tKM Sex and Ideality http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CKFoaZa2kw What It Means To Be A Real Man http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdoKACVL-YI
Like I say, Erich Fromm wrote The Art of Loving and C.S. Lewis wrote The Four Loves without any of this talk about neurochemicals. All that happens there is you break "Love" into a set of chemicals and when you want to talk about "Love" you have to talk about all these separate chemicals, which is not really necessary for talking about love.
My girlfriend and I recognized they were not spheres. We thought globule would be a better word.
There is a week-day naming convention that is simply numerical. 1st (sunday), 2nd (Monday) up to saturday and then it's the Sabbath! Oh well, it could just be the 7th. This system is in use in Portugal I believe. It was actually made up to get rid of the pagan-based week-day names.
Well, there is a difference between enlightened self-interest which is ostensibly self-less and your standard breed of inadvertent selfishiness that currently dominates our societies and cultures.
Here is an example of the current brand of selfish-selflessness; "I always try to do things for others and not think about myself, but at the end of the day I feel used and abused because nothing ever comes back to me."
Here is an example of enlightened self-interest; "The more I try to make it about me, the less I actually benefit, the more I make it about others, the more I actually benefit, even if it doesn't appear that way at times."
The same criticism is often launched at utilitarianism, that is that it is selfish. But utilitarianism maintains that the purest form of self-interest is also the purest form of selflessness. Perhaps we might think of it in terms of identity theory; my identity as a person depends on you, therefor to strengthen my own identity I should strengthen yours. The stronger you identify as an underling, the stronger my identity as overlord.
We are living in the age of entitlement with an open-ended selection process that encourages dishonesty. I'm not surprised that politicians are corrupt, you'd have to be to become a politician.
Let's say I have a strong conviction on crime, let's say I understand consequentialist or restorative justice to be fairer in place of retributivist justice. You don't know that, maybe 1% of 1% of voters know it, and if I say "I want to concentrate on restorative justice that focuses on rehabilitation." you hear "I am symathetic to murder and want to cater to murderers." So, I learn to be overly ambiguous "I want justice reform that will secure the lives of citizens in this country!" it means nothing, but I say it with passion.
The most oft used ambiguity is this "I will fight for what this country stands for, what this flag represents and what the honorable folk in this great land deserve!" All of this is ambiguous and invites the listener to insert whatever they think and feel into the concepts. The politician is not saying what he thinks these things represent, he is saying "what they represent" so that you can fill-in whatever you think.
Supposing I was an honest person, with strong convictions, but with some flexibility, and I ran for President. And I began saying many of the things I say on here; what if I said, the Muslims are onto something, the unadulterated expression of the female form has degraded our society and cast it into the nether-concerns of the basist human motives. We need social reform! We need regulations on advertising imagery! We need regulations on entertainment! and most importantly we need to address our own consumption!"
I wouldn't get past the gate. Nobody does who shoots straight, you gotta be a little crooked, and the more gnarled you are, the better your chances. It is the same problem with job interviews:
Interviewer: Tell us a time when you had to overcome adversity.
Honest Interviewee: Well, to be honest, I haven't had many challenges in that regard. Everything at my previous job was laid-out by upper-management and it all ran smoothly. I rarely had to make any difficult decisions and when I did, I asked my supervisor.
Dishonest Interviewee; Well, you know, I was working on this big project that had a strict deadline, and it was really important to the client that it get done on time, their financial department depended on me. But at the same time I had to work with others who weren't contributing much to the project and my wife was hounding me to spend more time at home with her and the kids. I had to do something so I set up a small incentive program, authorized by the company, that would incentivize my co-workers, the work got done on-time and my wife and kids were happy they got to see their dad.
(this latter answer covers 4+ of the standard questions asked by interviewers)
So, like, one of my references was to some work by Tononi and Edelman and you might find their paper on integrated information interesting because it explains on the cellular/functional level how consciousness as a whole is coded and has as a requirment the duality of thought and self-other.
Consciousness as Integrated Information: a Provisional Manifesto, Giulio Tononi Department of Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin
I guess what I'm trying to avoid here is talking about the organizational structure of the human brain, or even artificial neural networks to reverse engineer "objectivity". I'm kind of hoping you'll just see and understand what I'm talking about.
Related links: Prat?tyasamutp?da (co-dependent origination) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prat%C4%ABtyasamutp%C4%81da
So what ThereAreNoSides, MenOfTheInfinite, C.S. Lewis, Erich Fromm and others are trying to tell us is that although we may call reciprocal altruism "Love" there is as of yet another "love" which is not reciprocal which they call "Unconditional Love" or Agape. And this means that you love others expecting nothing in return. In-fact, you can expect to get hatred, envy, disapproval and stigma in return.
Because this kind of love doesn't concern itself with how you regard me. If there is something important to tell you, that can save you some suffering, then I ought to say it, even if you hate me for it. Rather than tell you lies such that you adore me.
"I love you, and because I love you, I would sooner have you hate me for telling you the truth than adore me for telling you lies." - Pietro Aretino
We don't have this love and we desperately need it. Instead we are caught up on looking good and hearing from each other how good we are, puffing ourselves up with pride. This is delusion. It is the "devil", the ego, as in Sympathy for the Devil by the Rolling Stones:
Let me please introduce myself
I'm a man of wealth and taste
So if you meet me
Have some courtesy
Have some sympathy, have some taste
Use all your well-learned politesse (nicities)
Or I'll lay your soul to waste, mmm yeah
I shouted out,
"Who killed the Kennedy's?"
When after all
It was you and me
Tell me baby, what's my name
Tell me honey, can ya guess my name
Tell me baby, what's my name
I tell you one time, you're to blame
---------
The devil, the ego, currently runs this world, and if you try to be love and if you try to save people from the ego. They will kill you. This is what happened to Socrates and Jesus the Christ. "Science" can't prove this, it can help point you towards it, but that's it. Because we have egos, our egos throw out rationalizations for denying that we have egos. As one said; We don't know how clever the ego is, it created the devil so that it would have an external enemy to blame, and that is a threat to the ego but it is also a creation of the ego.
I'm seriously guy, most of these things boil down to an obsession over self-image, aka ego. But that's not what "victims" of eating disorders want to hear, and just because that is the conclusion I've come to does not mean that I'm blaming the victim or trying to make the whole subject taboo. Does it become taboo when you don't get the kind of dialog you want? Or when someone tells you that you are the victim of your own doing?
Now, I also maintain that the society is putting a lot of pressure on young people to obsess over their self-image. The whole society is awash in egotism. That is precisely the point and the reason why people don't like talking to me about these things. Nobody wants to hear that they are the cause, their ego will not let them.
"You have to admire the opponents elogance. If you try to kill him to save them, they will kill you to save him. Ah! It's so beautiful." - Avi, Revolver
I've read through quite a bit of the scientific literature which has equipped me with knowledge of terms like oxytocin, phenethylamine, norepinephrine, nucleus accumbens, ventral tegmental area and so on and so forth. While this is all useful description, when I talk to others it tends to go over their head. However, I've also realized that it's not necessary, because the term "Love" actually refers to a collection of these processes. It is sufficient just to call it "Love" and tweese apart any qualitative differences in the kinds of love.
For example; There Are No Sides on Youtube does a good job of describing what he calls "Love TM"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wS7vVqugs5E&feature=channel_video_title
Also the videos by Menoftheinfinite
When A Man Loves A Woman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34jl6vLP8p8
What is Love
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiaR6i0mj_8
Agape [Unconditional Love]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1J6xINDAvw
Ego, Attachment, Fame
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkEOPHQ8tKM
Sex and Ideality
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CKFoaZa2kw
What It Means To Be A Real Man
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdoKACVL-YI
Like I say, Erich Fromm wrote The Art of Loving and C.S. Lewis wrote The Four Loves without any of this talk about neurochemicals. All that happens there is you break "Love" into a set of chemicals and when you want to talk about "Love" you have to talk about all these separate chemicals, which is not really necessary for talking about love.
There is a week-day naming convention that is simply numerical. 1st (sunday), 2nd (Monday) up to saturday and then it's the Sabbath! Oh well, it could just be the 7th. This system is in use in Portugal I believe. It was actually made up to get rid of the pagan-based week-day names.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzfQwXEqYaI
Here is an example of the current brand of selfish-selflessness; "I always try to do things for others and not think about myself, but at the end of the day I feel used and abused because nothing ever comes back to me."
Here is an example of enlightened self-interest; "The more I try to make it about me, the less I actually benefit, the more I make it about others, the more I actually benefit, even if it doesn't appear that way at times."
The same criticism is often launched at utilitarianism, that is that it is selfish. But utilitarianism maintains that the purest form of self-interest is also the purest form of selflessness. Perhaps we might think of it in terms of identity theory; my identity as a person depends on you, therefor to strengthen my own identity I should strengthen yours. The stronger you identify as an underling, the stronger my identity as overlord.
http://media.photobucket.com/image/tool%20album%20art/InfernoSilver/Music/Classic%20Album%20Cover%20Art/Tool-Lateralus.jpg?o=4
Maybe you recognize it as the artwork of Alex Gray or as Album-art for the band Tool.
Let's say I have a strong conviction on crime, let's say I understand consequentialist or restorative justice to be fairer in place of retributivist justice. You don't know that, maybe 1% of 1% of voters know it, and if I say "I want to concentrate on restorative justice that focuses on rehabilitation." you hear "I am symathetic to murder and want to cater to murderers." So, I learn to be overly ambiguous "I want justice reform that will secure the lives of citizens in this country!" it means nothing, but I say it with passion.
The most oft used ambiguity is this "I will fight for what this country stands for, what this flag represents and what the honorable folk in this great land deserve!" All of this is ambiguous and invites the listener to insert whatever they think and feel into the concepts. The politician is not saying what he thinks these things represent, he is saying "what they represent" so that you can fill-in whatever you think.
Supposing I was an honest person, with strong convictions, but with some flexibility, and I ran for President. And I began saying many of the things I say on here; what if I said, the Muslims are onto something, the unadulterated expression of the female form has degraded our society and cast it into the nether-concerns of the basist human motives. We need social reform! We need regulations on advertising imagery! We need regulations on entertainment! and most importantly we need to address our own consumption!"
I wouldn't get past the gate. Nobody does who shoots straight, you gotta be a little crooked, and the more gnarled you are, the better your chances. It is the same problem with job interviews:
Interviewer: Tell us a time when you had to overcome adversity.
Honest Interviewee: Well, to be honest, I haven't had many challenges in that regard. Everything at my previous job was laid-out by upper-management and it all ran smoothly. I rarely had to make any difficult decisions and when I did, I asked my supervisor.
Dishonest Interviewee; Well, you know, I was working on this big project that had a strict deadline, and it was really important to the client that it get done on time, their financial department depended on me. But at the same time I had to work with others who weren't contributing much to the project and my wife was hounding me to spend more time at home with her and the kids. I had to do something so I set up a small incentive program, authorized by the company, that would incentivize my co-workers, the work got done on-time and my wife and kids were happy they got to see their dad.
(this latter answer covers 4+ of the standard questions asked by interviewers)
Consciousness as Integrated Information: a Provisional Manifesto, Giulio Tononi
Department of Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin
http://www.biolbull.org/cgi/content/full/215/3/216
Related links:
Prat?tyasamutp?da (co-dependent origination)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prat%C4%ABtyasamutp%C4%81da
Advaita Vedanta (non-duality)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advaita_vedanta
Simultanagnosia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simultanagnosia