How do you know what’s unknown? How do you see things that others can’t? What’s the point of analysis?
At least do us the courtesy of showing what you’re referring to. That link has many opinions like
sufficiently self aware and self controlled you can harness and direct your drives rather than succumbing to them unconsciously.
You ignore self awareness and agency. How does survival lead to self awareness, and why is it not real to you? If we have drives why do you say we are only acting like we have them? Robots are programmed, so if we’re like them, how are we programmed? If evolution made us like this, then we’re experiencing the forces of nature, why is that not real?
It’s how meaning works, it’s not inherent to reality but exists in a web, there is no pure thing that is unmediated. Like this link shows even the ordinary stuff you take for granted is affected and shaped by everything around it:
Well we have an unconscious and we know there are thoughts, feelings, and other such things that are out of our control. But since it’s unconscious we cannot know the true workings of it all.
Self awareness isn’t possible as I explained before because the unconscious exists. What I’m saying is that we are like robots just acting on drives that are the result of evolution, there is no deeper meaning to be found there they simply are. The meaning behind them is not real, they simply just are.
Is it possible to train or improve my unconscious mind?
While you cannot control the unconscious directly, cultivating awareness and practicing new responses can gradually shape the content and expression of unconscious processes
They’d be wrong, I mean we know the unconscious exists and that we don’t know the origins of why we feel the way that we feel, so by that logic we cannot truly know ourselves.
A lot of this isn’t true like the part about dreams revealing desires or conflicts, that awareness can shape it (I’ve meditated for a few years and nothing) and that new experiences can overwrite old associations (they can’t, I’ve tried).
But in line with this I’d drive the point further that in addition to meaning not being inherent and only existing within a web sensory experience is the same too and is not a given (By Wilfrid Sellars) :
Actually we have learned a great deal about how our consciousness operates, Mark Solms with his (and many others) study into the human body, Nick Lane and people like Luca Turin are taking it down to the cellular level.
It would mean exactly what you say, that you are partially unaware of yourself, not fully. You put in the “really” and equate that with “reality”.
I noticed some patterns back on Nov 3rd but then thought I would give you a chance to redeem yourself. You have continued to spin through the same old thoughts.
You say it’s nothing to do with evolution, but Lacanian analysis starts with a child who has intuitions and the ability to label.
Eventually, every time, you say you just want to know what’s really real, for no reason, no examination of where this desire come from, ignoring that desire has its own reward.
You always ignore the actual reality of where we came from, the cooperation of bacteria that became plants then animals.
You refer to a ‘lack’ inside us but never look at what IS inside us.
You start at how we are at birth and miss that at birth we have skills, traits, intuitions.
Every so often you say, “I’m kinda hoping there is some solution”. Aren’t we all? Isn’t that why we make giant telescopes or do experiments with neurons?
There are many attributions to the phrase, “It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.”
Well it’s more like the analysis is about being able to recognize one is born in the social world, with symbols, rules and things like that and part of it is to recognize that and to distance yourself from it. As for what that looks like as one user put it to me:
I was literally just reading on here about a patient who became so unnerved and unseated by lacanian analysis that they decided to give up their home/job altogether and live on the streets.
I don’t really think lacanian intervention dictates anyone go that far, but, to each their own. The idea is to unseat what makes you suffer, or atleast enjoy your suffering and symptoms. No one has to go live in the wilderness or denounce civilization to separate themselves psychologically, from civilization.
Does the phrase symbolic distance/detachment mean anything to you?
Yeah but it’s one thing to see that it’s another to recognize that everything you thought mattered and was important “doesn’t”, so to speak. Like to see how much of the meaning of our lives is made up and seeing there isn’t anything solid to really hold on to. Like you can try to be moral and “good” as a way of life but it’s not like there is some cosmic reward at the end for you, same for choosing to be good to animals. There is no real “right” choice to live by and no matter what you decide the result from the universe is just blind indifference:
That’s kinda what I mean, realizing there is no objective to living, no real right way to be, and though we live our lives like there is some ideal order to the universe or reality the truth is there isn’t. And I don’t know what to make of that, when there is no real “guide” to living. Whether you proceed or kill yourself there is no grand goal in life or difference.
Even stuff like sex which we assume to be totally natural might not be the given that it is:
It’s because the issue isn’t really resolved. Like…realizing how much we have “made up” as humans and how much of our lives are ruled by it, how does one cope with that knowledge? It’s almost like waking from a dream….
That creating and sharing is still part of the consumption process which requires money, he wasn’t very bright for that one.
Not to mention that the social aspects like sharing is more just theater and you cannot really know if other people truly love it like this video shows:
I don’t know what video you watched, but that one does not say that sharing is just theater. The key word there is “just”. It talks about a person who has isolated themselves because they see the theatre, but it spends a lot more time talking about the need for connection and the desire for depth over breadth. At no point does it even suggest that all friendships are fake or lacking in any value.
It’s a great examination of how people can, and in this digital age have, lost human connection. The paradox is that once this examination of humanity begins, it can lead to further isolation and to greater insight. The person without friends that it talks about has become a sort of “anthropologist” of his own relationships and sees them in such detail that relaxing and finding an authentic connection by simply being in the moment becomes extremely difficult. They want to be with the “real” person, but can’t drop their own defenses and allow themselves to be real.
I think you should listen to this a few more times.
It’s not the most discussed point, but it definitely gives you a path to connecting. It says authentic connection is found when you are vulnerable and share those deep, meaningful things that you want to say and want to hear from others. It also says you don’t just jump right into that though. The things that seem superficial, the small talk, the little things that you notice in a day, or the short interactions you have, those build relationships. They don’t mean very much on their own, but they are not meaningless. They are the tiny things that add up to a full life.
It’s not about going back to smaller dimensions. The insight gained through introspection is not wasted. It can be applied to building meaningful relationships. It’s what people have done through history, gone on spiritual journeys of solitude and returned. Or, just did some “Netflix and chill” to refresh. These aren’t great chasms, they’re just different perspectives.
