Think of it this way: there could not be an acorn in one part of the yard in the first place without there being the possibility of a squirrel satisfying its hunger in that half of the yard and not the other. This is in part what there being an acorn there in the first place.

It would certainly come as a surprise to the guy in the apartment that there cannot be an acorn in one part of the yard without the possibility of there being a squirrel. Why just yesterday, the day before the squirrels arrived, he looked down and saw acorns in one section and not the other. & What's more - this poor uneducated soul didn't know that there existed any creatures that ate acorns! He just thought they were the (aesthetically satisfying) seeds of a particular species of tree. Had acorn-eating beings never existed, could there be no acorns? Or would they only exist with reference to possible future species who might eat them? As far as I know, gold-eating beings don't exist. Is there no such thing as gold?

In the example, you're assuming we can take for granted that acorns just 'exist' independently, and that is how you set up the example, as if the squirrels just came along to something independently established and only then interacted causally with it. — tgw

What's wrong with my example? Do there not exist courtyards containing things that might be eaten which were created without reference to those things that might eat them? Empirically, this is flagrantly false. I took great pains to stem this kind of rejoinder. Our apartment dweller looks out at this park every day. If you need the courtyard, with its oaks and acorns, to depend on something else, something that suffers and desires, he serves this function just fine.

To say that one squirrel can eat and the other can't because there is a tree on one side and not on the other is merely to report what the fact that we see a tree there told us in the first place -- that 'over there,' is where you can get something to eat. Seeing the acorn is seeing where the food is. — tgw

Except the hikikomori had no idea that acorns even were something edible! And yet he still saw them, day after day. Do you think it is impossible for such a person to see acorns?

The same is true of waking life. Sometimes it takes a little longer (and sometimes it doesn't) -- but what does it matter? — tgw

Well I've never had the experience, in waking life, of identifying the same person as e.g. both my mother and, later, x from work and having no problem with that. I guess I can't think of anything like that in normal life. I suppose you could get around that with formal or metaphorical tricks. But would you want to?

It would certainly come as a surprise to the guy in the apartment that there cannot be an acorn in one part of the yard without the possibility of there being a squirrel. Why just yesterday, the day before the squirrels arrived, he looked down and saw acorns in one section and not the other! What's more - this poor uneducated soul didn't know that there existed any creatures that ate acorns! He just thought they were the (aesthetically satisfying) seeds of a particular species of tree. Had acorn-eating beings never existed, could there be no acorns? As far as I know, gold-eating beings don't exist. Is there no such thing as gold? — csalisbury

I'm not sure about that. Is possibility of something is same as its existence? Does the squirrel need to be there when he looks down for it to be true there might be a hungry squirrel present?

Or perhaps, to put this back into the earlier context of knowing events, how does he know there isn't a squirrel in the yard? Even if he thinks so and sees no squirrel, he can't eliminate the possibility he might be wrong. Maybe he just missed a squirrel which was there. Our observation is only good insofar as the world we observe. The truth of this possibility doesn't change if he happens to be right and there is no squirrel.

Seems to me that it's always possible there is a squirrel in the yard, even when one isn't there. All squirrels, both real and imagined (the squirrel that might be there is suggested in the world he experiences), are bound in relation to him and the world he encounters. Even a giant prehistoric squirrel eating gargantuan acorns, whether only imagined or not, is bound to his world of experience. And he to the world of the squirrel, for he sees or thinks the acorns that any real or imagined squirrel is hungry for.

Take what you will or want to. I'll return to silence now.

It's always possible that there might be a monster - real or imagined - who wants to eat, among other things, urns containing grandmother-ashes.Are you bound to that monster whenever you look at you grandma's urn, 'for you see or think the urn that any real or imagined urn-eating monster is hungry for?' This seems silly to me.

It would certainly come as a surprise to the guy in the apartment that there cannot be an acorn in one part of the yard without the possibility of there being a squirrel. Why just yesterday, the day before the squirrels arrived, he looked down and saw acorns in one section and not the other. & What's more - this poor uneducated soul didn't know that there existed any creatures that ate acorns! He just thought they were the (aesthetically satisfying) seeds of a particular species of tree. — csalisbury

None of these claims, so far as I can see, is incompatible with what I said. That there is the possibility of a squirrel eating an acorn doesn't mean there is one, or that an observer has to know there are actually such creatures.

Had acorn-eating beings never existed, could there be no acorns? Or would they only exist with reference to possible future species who might eat them? As far as I know, gold-eating beings don't exist. Is there no such thing as gold? — csalisbury

Actually, the existence of acorn-eating beings is causally tied up with the existence of acorns in important ways. But no, it's not a logical necessity that the existence of x should entail the existence of a sort of creature that eats x. There are ways of interacting with objects, that are still projections of willing, besides eating them. Bright colors warn of poison, and so on. One of the things that acorns project is their edibility for certain constitutions, one of which is a squirrel's. A squirrel doesn't have to see acorns or even be aware of their existence to eat them at all -- to them it might just all be a blur of sensations. We in turn, having more complex mechanisms, view their scramble to satisfy their desires in a certain objective way, with the intersection between their hunger and its satisfaction looking, to us, like an animal consuming a certain kind of object.

What's wrong with my example? Do there not exist courtyards containing things that might be eaten which were created without reference to those things that might eat them? Empirically, this is flagrantly false. I took great pains to stem this kind of rejoinder. Our apartment dweller looks out at this park every day. If you need the courtyard, with its oaks and acorns, to depend on something else, something that suffers and desires, he serves this function just fine. — csalisbury

There's no need for an observer -- it's not as if people looking at things 'keeps them in existence,' and I never meant to imply anything like that. There's nothing wrong with the example, it just doesn't show what you think it does unless you beg the question by assuming that first of all we can assume that things 'just exist,' and then afterwards other things just come along and bump into them. If this realist picture isn't assumed from the outset, I don't understand what the example is intended to show.

I think you are seeing my position as something like: things are pretty much like the realist says, except that the desires of organisms somehow are a generative mechanism that causes them to pop into existence. Or else I can't make sense of why this would be a criticism, anyway. But the conceptual reversal is a little less trivial and a little less crazy than that. It's more that we live in a swirl of sufferings and pains and so on, and they crystallize into the appearance of a world, which is itself just a kind of objectification of how we expect, or try to make, those various desires behave (often unsuccessfully). So because I encounter resistance to movement, I take there to be solid things; but this doesn't mean that the objections to my will that solid things embody depends on my thinking about them or watching them or wanting them or anything. If I didn't have the perceptual or intellectual powers to make such a move to seeing solid things, I'd keep having my desires frustrated in the form of not moving where I wanted to, without having any recourse to fixing it or understanding it. To come to understand how to move properly is to come to see solid objects, which is itself a way of understanding how my desires function: so complexes of perceptions guide me as to how I can not hurt myself or have my movement impeded.

But those oppositions to my desires -- like the squirrel dying because it was left on the wrong side of the courtyard -- impede me regardless of whether I want them to or not. Our observer watching one squirrel die is seeing those desires getting frustrated, which to the squirrel involve nothing of courtyards or acorns or anything, but to the observer have that character, because he sees the squirrel's struggle in terms of how it impinges on his own sufferings.

Except the hikikomori had no idea that acorns even were something edible! And yet he still saw them, day after day. Do you think it is impossible for such a person to see acorns? — csalisbury

Yes, because eating things is not the only way we interact with them. The acorns would appear to him e.g. solid, so he could probably surmise, even before touching them, that his hands would not pass through them, as light by their size, so he could surmise that he could probably pick them up as long as they weren't bizarrely dense, and so on. These too are projections bearing on his sufferings, the way hew could interact and manipulate them by doing certain things involving this projection. Once he eats one himself (maybe that would be a little hard), or sees a squirrel doing so, he will come to associate these other qualities he already experiences with edibility by squirrels, and so now the sensory clues that acorns provide would also provide a clue to a certain kind of edibility. But the fact that being in that vicinity would allow the squirrel not to go hungry doesn't depend on him realizing this. It's the other way around -- there being a certain way in which his, and other feeling creatures, feelings are impacted causes the projection to take on a new associated quality.

---

One thing that might be causing confusion is that when I talk about these things I usually speak charitably of ordinary objects and so on, because it's hard to talk otherwise without tying yourself into knots, but I don't really think we perceive objects at all, that is, there's no such thing as perception in the classical sense, something that reaches out to what's beyond it at the other end and terminates in something independent of it.

( This real quick, before the rest:

What he is seeing is not a bunch of previously unrelated objects coming into relation: he is seeing the suffering of these creatures unfold and interact, in ways that spring from his own suffering and ability to empathize with them, i.e. to recognize them as living creatures. — tgw

Could you provide an example of previously unrelated objects coming into relation? I think the contrast would help me understand the point you're trying to make here. I'd even grant you that the dude needs to know hunger to recognize hungry beings.)




Allow me to be a bit bold and say I think I understand your position better than you think I do. I attempted to stave off a laborious demonstration of this understanding through some shorthand hints, but they don't appear to have taken.

So, quickly: The relation between subject and world is not one of creator and created or constituter and constituted. Rather both subject and world are poles of a chiasmic working-through of desire (will, hunger). The world as human adults spontaneously think of it -as comprised of independent objects which appear to have distinct identities, where events unfold according to the PSR - is actually a late development, a product of our intelligence, which is inseparable from our desires, since the satisfaction of these desires is precisely what explains this intelligence's development. In a 'ontogeny-recapitulates-phylogeny' kinda way, we can observe that the human infant begins life as a 'blooming, buzzing, confusion' of drives and only gradually develops object permanence, the ability to separate itself from the world etc.

y/n?

For the sake of this argument, I'm granting you all of the above.


Let's begin again. I'm going to ask literally the same question. Answer as succinctly as possible. The two squirrels, having been thrown (wink, wink) by the sadistic boy, land on two separate sides of the courtyard. One side has acorns. The other side does not. Which squirrel suffers and why? Remember: Stating that squirrels in general suffer because they are hungry or that hungry beings in general suffer because they are deprived of food is not a sufficient answer to this question. (Q: Why did the fireworks ignite? A. Because fireworks are ignitable)

The hikikomori's answer: the squirrel that happened to land on the left side suffered because the tree was on the right side. Is this a correct answer, provided one has implicitly granted all the qualifications and explanations granted above?

Allow me to be a bit bold and say I think I understand your position better than you think I do. I attempted to stave off a laborious demonstration of this understanding through some shorthand hints, but they don't appear to have taken. — csalisbury

That's fine. But then, I'm not sure of the hikkimori's relevance.

Rather both subject and world are poles of a chiasmic working-through of desire (will, hunger). The world as human adults spontaneously think of it -as comprised of independent objects which appear to have distinct identities, where events unfold according to the PSR - is actually a late development, a product of our intelligence, which is inseparable from our desires, since the satisfaction of these desires is precisely what explains this intelligence's development. In a 'ontogeny-recapitulates-phylogeny' kinda way, we can observe that the human infant begins life as a 'blooming, buzzing, confusion' of drives and only gradually develops object permanence, the ability to separate itself from the world etc.

y/n? — csalisbury

Sure. I think if I were in 'esoteric mode,' or had a few drinks, I'd be willing to say the world doesn't form a pole at all, but in fact there is no world -- what's to be explained is the philosopher's conviction that there is one (in either the materialist or Heideggerian sense). The subject as pole is very classical transcendeal idealist, and surely Schop. himself likes that wording. But it seems to me to bring about the notion of subject as 'world-bearer,' which I'd say is wrong in that it doesn't act as a transcendental condition, and of corse there is no world to bear. My preferred notion of 'subject' focuses more on 'being subjected to things.' Being a subject is being beaten up essentially.

The hikikomori's answer: the squirrel that happened to land on the left side suffered because the tree was on the right side. Is this a correct answer, provided one has implicitly granted all the qualifications and explanations granted above? — csalisbury

I think that's a fine answer. What I don't understand is what it's supposed to show. After all, say you were a radical phenomenalist -- you could grant the same thing, but then analyze the existence of the acorns, etc. as dispositions to experience, and everything would come out fine (at least, without further argument). I'm wary of ordinary language conclusions being proffered for metaphysically substantive points.

Is the notion of 'will' or 'hunger' the best way to conceptualize being? Primordially, there is conflict/ concert. Is presentation primordial? Will and hunger (conatus), it would seem, come with presentation, but is conflict/ concert necessarily, or even best, thought in terms of will and hunger?

I think it follows that a distribution of potential sources (not necessarily objects) of gratification can precede and so partially account for the particular rhythm of suffering of particular beings. The courtyard is quite obviously entangled from its outset with other willing beings and their desires (they designed it after all) but it's possible for creatures entirely alien to the courtyard's purpose to become accidentally caught up in it. The courtyard cannot be accounted for by reference to the suffering of these squirrels. yet these squirrels' particular drama of suffering can be accounted for by reference to the courtyard. (I do want to be clear that the courtyard isn't a stand in for the universe.) It's as tho the squirrels fell into an abandoned corner formed by the wills of others now pursuing loftier things. It's as though the wills of others leave behind ossified structures, like old skin. Sartre I think calls this the practico-inert. These abandoned skins can, in all their dry contingency, envelop later beings caught within them..( though I want to be clear that I understand lack-of-acorns is only disastrous for acorn-eaters.)

Recall a moment, if you're able, when you danced with total abandon. You'd have to realllly stretch to find the 'presentation' in this kinda experience.

Edit: oh you're suggesting experiences like this are better thought of in terms of concord/conflict? I think I agree? I think a long history of being painfully hungry is what leads people to portray being as an agony driven by an essential lack. That and/or revulsion at any sort of dependence. Hunger is actually a very nice thing if you've easy and continued access to good brunch spots.Some flavors complement, some clash. Need for affection tortures the lonely and enlivens those surrounded with a good crew. The poor are far more occupied with the struggle for money than the rich.The rich can focus on arranging a harmonious life. (So there are obvious ethical considerations here. Affirm at the risk of ignoring the plight of the deeply suffering - as well as one own's capacity for similar pain. But there are two ways to look at it. Mother Theresa was totally on board with-the-world-as-suffering view and not only surrounded herself with the suffering but often denied them ways of easing that suffering. This is empathy not for people but for proofs. Many pessimistic philosophers do the same with ideas about the suffering imo)

yet these squirrels' particular drama of suffering can be accounted for by reference to the courtyard. — csalisbury

Sure, but such an explanation is only going to be a worthwhile one if you're a human. The way you've put it makes it seem like the humans' special privilege in viewing this scene is the result of having a kind of superior access to the acorns and trees that the squirrels lack, whereas I'm suggesting that the projection of these things is the result of a superior (read instrumentally) set of powers that project themselves as visions of trees and acorns and so on. In the end, though, these ar ejust visions, if you like. There is no object at the end of vision.

It's as tho the squirrels fell into an abandoned corner formed by the wills of others now pursuing loftier things. It's as though the wills of others leave behind ossified structures, like old skin. Sartre I think calls this the practico-inert. These abandoned skins can, in all their dry contingency, envelop later beings caught within them..( though I want to be clear that I understand lack-of-acorns is only disastrous for acorn-eaters.) — csalisbury

Yeah, the gods left us behind, and we could leave squirrels behind, in the sense that we could form an entire maze for them that they will never have the slightest understanding of. Many species of animals live their entire lives trapped in such mazes of willing, in factory farms, raised for the explicit purpose of being eaten by beings they can't begin to comprehend. To them, their pains might just appear as 'the way things are.' But we know better -- we know that they're kept alive, and kept in bondage, by a kind of cosmic conspiracy.

Your use of 'projection' is confusing to me. I know, from older posts, you're wary of light metaphors; and I know, from this thread, that you're wary of subjects constituting a world. 'Projection' seems to be a perfect convergence of both those things.

In my view both the squirrels and the peopl share a world except the people's world comprehends the squirrel's and not vice versa. Let me clarify that. The people can see, if they like, exactly why some squirrels fail and some don't. They can't know what it's like to be drawn to junping toward this branch and not another

Think of it like projection in the psychological sense -- trying to place one's own feelings and frustrations onto something external, or seeing oneself in others. Projection moves outward. A child projects its feelings onto a stuffed animal, which it uses as a crutch. The naive philosopher asks, 'what does the stuffed animal think?' The stuffed animal doesn't think anything -- the child works through its own feelings using a proxy. In reality, there never was anything external it was talking to. So it is with the world. We project our desires onto something else. The world is not constituted in the way the stuffed animal is not -- because there is no animal or creature 'there.'

This is still confusing to me. Classical psychological projection makes already-existing others bearers of the feelings we can't deal with harboring ourselves. A stuffed animal - any 'transitional object - exists prior to a child's projections. The very syntax of 'we project our desires onto something else' suggests a subject and an object upon which the subject can unburden its agonies. "there is no animal or creature 'there.'" Except, of course, that there is. The stuffed animal doesn't, in itself, contain those things we project upon it. But, for some reason, having a static object really helps us organize us those confused feelings.

Projection needs something pre-existent to project onto. That's the sine qua non of projection.
And what projects is the source of the projection. It's what accounts for the projection. This seems diametrically opposed to the idea of world and self as co-constituting, which you've nominally espoused.

When you speak more theoretically and less metaphorically, I get some inkling of what you're talking about. But your metaphors sit uneasily with your theory, and I think theoretical ideas tend to be less representative of a person's actual convictions that the metaphors they spontaneously mobilize.

This is still confusing to me. Classical psychological projection makes already-existing others bearers of the feelings we can't deal with harboring ourselves. — csalisbury

I would say that in psychological projection we see others that aren't there. We think we're seeing someone else, but we don't engage with them in any sense -- they might as well not be there at all. There is no 'real person,' only a fantasy of what that person should be, a reflection of one's own frustrations.

A stuffed animal - any 'transitional object - exists prior to a child's projections. The very syntax of 'we project our desires onto something else' suggests a subject and an object upon which the subject can unburden its agonies. "there is no animal or creature 'there.'" Except, of course, that there is. The stuffed animal doesn't, in itself, contain those things we project upon it. But, for some reason, having a static object really helps us organize us those confused feelings. — csalisbury

All metaphors give out somewhere. There's a disanalogy in that of course I'm saying the cotton facsimile of a creature is itself not 'there' either. But the important thing to see is that the animal is not there on the terms the child thinks it is. That is, there is no animal at all. Likewise, the world purports to be something 'there' - but it isn't. Is there 'something' there? Maybe, but it is not what it is supposed to be, doesn't live up to its own terms.

This seems diametrically opposed to the idea of world and self as co-constituting, which you've nominally espoused. — csalisbury

The world and self are not co-constituting because there is no world to constitute. If we have our prisoners in the cave, and they ask us what the origin of all the objects they're seeing are, we can answer either by saying that they come from reflections of the light behind them -- or we can answer by saying, they don't come from anywhere because you aren't seeing any objects to begin with.

I am the one imagining the monster am I not? Others are imagining the monster near me. I am the one in the room when any such monster is seeking to eat my grandmother ashes. How does it make any sense for such a moment to be without relationship to myself and my grandmother's ashes? Real or imagined, it's linked to me and I to it.

How exactly is there to be a monster interested in eating the ashes of a grandmother without any link to a person with grand children? It would be to miss the relevant meaning entirely. As if, in trying to imagine a monster interested in eating the ashes of grandmothers, we denied the monster could have any interest in eating the ashes of grandmothers.

If we have our prisoners in the cave, and they ask us what the origin of all the objects they're seeing are, we can answer either by saying that they come from reflections of the light behind them -- or we can answer by saying, they don't come from anywhere because you aren't seeing any objects to begin with. — The Great Whatever

That latter answer doesn't seem very good to me.
Q What's the origin of that island?
A: That island doesn't come from anywhere because you aren't seeing any island to begin with. It's a mirage.
Obvious next Q: Huh, what's the origin of the mirage?

So the former answer, in your example, is a much better one. But I still don't really understand how you conceptualize 'the light behind.' You can call it the desire/hunger/will/agony of the subject projected outward. But when pressed on how that works, you're quick to clarify that it's not as though there's some subject who creates a world if out there, which it 'bears'. " it doesn't act as a transcendental condition." Except that's exactly how you describe it. The sleight-of-hand is to say that there are 'illusions' not 'objects.' But then the subject becomes precisely a transcendental bearer of a world of 'illusions.' What I'm trying to say is the inconsistencies and failures of analogies aren't all that innocent. You use different language and imagery depending on the questions asked - and it doesn't line up. I'm not sure you're quite clear on what you're suggesting. Your position appears to be basically the-material-world-is-maya, which you elaborate using concepts and imagery from elsewhere (Schop, Husserl, Henry probably introspection). But I don't think you really have an idea of how that works.

Some questions:

What is the relation between the acorn-projection of the squirrel and the acorn-projection of the man?

Why do kids need transitional objects given by parents? why don't they just project their frustrations as objects on their own?

As if, in trying to imagine a monster interested in eating the ashes of grandmothers, we denied the monster could have any interest in eating the ashes of grandmothers.

Isn't this a line from Jimmy Carter's inauguration speech? plz don't plagiarize.

The sleight-of-hand is to say that there are 'illusions' not 'objects.' But then the subject becomes precisely a transcendental bearer of a world of 'illusions.' — csalisbury

Your objection here, is my same objection with any philosophy trying to explain the dualism of mental and physical.
Person 1: Where is the mental aspect?
Person 2; Oh silly human, it is an "illusion"
Person 1: What is the illusion, if not something "other" than the physical, thus creating a virtual dualism of "illusion" and "physical" rather than "mental" and "physical". Effectively it is the same thing. The illusion now has to be explained.

Yeah, have you ever tried to read Dennett's Consciousness Explained? It's like there's some switch turned off in his mind and he is constitutionally unable to understand this point. It's maddening.

Yeah, have you ever tried to read Dennett's Consciousness Explained? It's like there's some switch turned off in his mind and he is constitutionally unable to understand this point. It's maddening. — csalisbury

Yes, I agree. He is a good example of someone who thinks that by claiming it to be an "illusion", that this makes the solution go away. However, the illusion is still "something" that needs explaining. There is still a mysterious illusion. It is now relabeled physical/illusion rather than physical/mental.

I am not sure how much it applies in this case but, I guess it would be Will/Illusion versus Physical/Illusion. Or Will/Mentally Objectified objects versus Physical/Mental. There is a dualism none the less. Again, I think Schop combined with panpsychism could be an interesting solution. If all is mental, all the way down, then Will/mental is the flip side of all that is physical. There is still the mystery of how mental is physical is mental is physical is mental is physical I guess.

Another thing to be explained is how time/space/causality/PSR fits into Schop's model at all. If all is Will, then what the heck is the PSR in relation to Will and where does it come from? If Will is a monistic framework which all fits into, then where does this PSR manifest that seems to be a portal for which the Will becomes objectified in a representational world? There is always something that needs to be explained outside the monism to get the seemingly dualistic world we seem to experience which then introduces something outside of "x" or this all encompassing, monistic Will.

But I still don't really understand how you conceptualize 'the light behind.' — csalisbury

This enters into mythopoetic or religious territory. I take it to be roughly the Kingdom of God in the Gnostic tradition.

But when pressed on how that works, you're quick to clarify that it's not as though there's some subject who creates a world if out there, which it 'bears'. " it doesn't act as a transcendental condition." Except that's exactly how you describe it. The sleight-of-hand is to say that there are 'illusions' not 'objects.' But then the subject becomes precisely a transcendental bearer of a world of 'illusions.' — csalisbury

Not at all. Some philosophical prejudice may lead you to believe that's what's required, but there's no necessity to it. I think you're engaging in some weird wordplay here, acting as if an 'illusion' is some separate sort of substantial thing that also needs ontological explication (or else your criticism of Dennett makes no sense). Rather, an illusion is nothing, in the sense that what one takes to be 'there' by some criteria is not, on those very criteria. There's no other thing, the illusion, that is now there instead. If you like, an illusion is just the very act of falling for it -- it's not as if I thought I was perceiving one thing, an object, but rather I was perceiving another, an illusion. Rather, the illusion is itself that there is an object.

If you like, to be under an illusion or delusion is to be involved in this kind of unhealthy, unhappy, or self-defeating conviction or practice.

A legitimate question might then be, 'why do I engage in these unhappy and self-defeating convictions? Why am I under an illusion?' That's a very complex question, and I think it can only be answered, like with good psychotherapy, by unweaving the illusion itself and seeing its source on its own terms. Is there a surefire way to do this? I don't know: I think some people are probably more constitutionally prone to or capable of it than others. But philosophy and religion can help, in babysteps. The proof is always in the pudding. In saying these things I don't so much see myself as defending some thesis to you, but rather explicating something that I live with and 'understand' in the way that I understand how to walk or what it's like to be alive. It's these sorts of lived practices that are deeper ingrained than debate that religion attends to.

Though of course, we engage in philosophy too because it unweaves sophisms on their own terms. And I do think there is some Western philosophy that is rationally helpful at this juncture, and that includes in particular the Cyrenaics, Schopenhauer, and Henry. The way in which the frustrations 'become' an object has to be seen -- but it can be seen because it's happening to you all the time. It's like realizing that you're upside down.

Even if there's nothing 'there,' there is absolutely a process of 'there-ing' and 'object-ing.' (& you got Husserl and intentionality even with ideas ). But a need for substantiality isn't where I was going. Your account sounds very much like a transcendental subject bearing these worlding-processes. Not bc I need that to satisfy my prejudices but because that's the way you describe it.

What is the relation between the acorn-projection of the squirrel and the acorn-projection of the man? (If the hypostatization bothers you, then call it the acorn-ing of the squirell's there and the acorning of the man's there.)

Why do kids need transitional objects given by parents? why don't they just project their frustrations as objects on their own?

Even if there's nothing 'there,' there is absolutely a process of 'there-ing' and 'object-ing.' (& you got Husserl and intentionality even with ideas ). But a need for substantiality isn't where I was going. — csalisbury

Yes, and there are some thinkers in the Western traditions that describe this process. The most complete account is found in Henry's Essence of Manifestation, which is unfortunately practically impenetrable.

I see this not ultimately as a kind of generation of objects, but as a kind of spiritual-psychological engrossment in a certain way of thinking, as alienated form oneself, and trying to place one's own pathe outside.

What is the relation between the acorn-projection of the squirrel and the acorn-projection of the man? — csalisbury

A squirrel, presumably, does not project acorns at all.

Why do kids need transitional objects given by parents? why don't they just project their frustrations as objects on their own? — csalisbury

Because, again, projection isn't a kind of generative power, nor is there an omnipotent self. That there are certain objects is already a reflection of the way these projections work themselves out.

On my phone so I can't mount a full response. Will later. The key to the transitional objects is imo that subjectivies are always already harbored and created by other subjectivities. Moms helping out.

The Henry book sounds interesting. I'll see if I can track a copy down. Impenetrable is ok.

As to the squirrel. Well, maybe it doesn't project an acorn per se. That's probably true. Regardless, our projected/illusory world is shared. The man can pick up and move the acorn and it'll fuck up the squirrel's shit. Interaction with - and through - each others 'projections' is possible.

The accumulated 'projections' exceed the particular desires of individuals to such an extent - well, it's almost like an ant colony. Any particular ant is mindlessly following pheremone trails. Viewed in the light of the whole, though, it's helping to build a nest, although no individual ant has any idea of the process its taking part in. There's a kind of objectivity build out of the blindness of individual subjectivities pursuing their own ends.

again, projection isn't a kind of generative power, nor is there an omnipotent self. That there are certain objects is already a reflection of the way these projections work themselves out.

I still don't get what you mean by projection. If it isn't a 'generative' power, why call it 'projection' at all? To project is to be the cause of what's projected. What qualities of projections, literal or psychological, do you see in the process you're trying to describe? You talked about objects (object-ing) being like psychological projection, resulting from our trying to externalize our inner agony. Except now you're saying that no individual can actually do that? Do the subjects merely watch an Other's projections, projections of the kingdom of god, projections which so entrance, that the subjects can't help but subconsciously affirm the show? But then why did you being up individual psychological projection before? I'm not being cute, I really don't understand how 'projection' is being put to work here.

So, the teddy bear - the infant projects but it doesn't project this object, exactly, because this object reflects how other projections are already at work?

Q: Why do infants, empirically, need a static object to project onto?
A: Well, those 'objects' are already the results of prior projections.
Q: Why does the infant need the static result of prior projections to project onto?

As to the squirrel. Well, maybe it doesn't project an acorn per se. That's probably true. Regardless, our projected/illusory world is shared. The man can pick up and move the acorn and it'll fuck up the squirrel's shit. Interaction with - and through - each others 'projections' is possible. — csalisbury

But if you admit the squirrel projects no acorn, then this way of putting it is infelicitous. We don't tamper with the squirrel's projection by moving an acorn. We tamper with the squirrel, sure. But the acorn is a kind of human heuristic, not a shared one.

I agree there is a shared space in the sense that we are capable of coercing each other.

The accumulated 'projections' exceed the particular desires of individuals to such an extent - well, it's almost like an ant colony. Any particular ant is mindlessly following pheremone trails. Viewed in the light of the whole, though, it's helping to build a nest, although no individual ant has any idea of the process its taking part in. There's a kind of objectivity build out of the blindness of individual subjectivities pursuing their own ends. — csalisbury

That's true, but I don't know if I'd call it objectivity, which has certain overtones, like being an object for a subject, recognizable as something reachable at the far end of perception of an intellect. The extent to which it's objective is the extent to which we have no control over it.

I still don't get what you mean by projection. If it isn't a 'generative' power, why call it 'projection' at all? To project is to be the cause of what's projected. What qualities of projections, literal or psychological, do you see in the process you're trying to describe? You talked about objects (object-ing) being like psychological projection, resulting from our trying to externalize our inner agony. Except now you're saying that no individual can actually do that? Do the subjects merely watch an Other's projections, projections of the kingdom of god, projections which so entrance, that the subjects can't help but subconsciously affirm the show? But then why did you being up individual psychological projection before? I'm not being cute, I really don't understand how 'projection' is being put to work here. — csalisbury

When you project your unpleasant qualities onto another person, do you create a person with those qualities? Do you create anything? It would seem no. Same thing with the stuffed animal.

Q: Why do infants, empirically, need a static object to project onto? — csalisbury

They don't. They (children, maybe not infants) can create imaginary friends. Personal deities or spirits probably also have served a similar function at many points.

Q: Why does the infant need the static result of prior projections to project onto? — csalisbury

Although they don't, it can help -- after all, these projections are not actually things like the person takes them to be, but complexes of pathe (including the feel or need for them to be 'outer'), and feeling a certain way can engender feeling another way.

What I'm trying to understand is how you reconcile the non-omnipotence of the subject(ed) with the inescapable subject-object (subject - objecting-of-the-there) overtones of 'projection.' You've agreed that we're quite constrained in how we can project. I think these constraints are the interesting point. The 'object' upon which the infant projects the non-object of security is, in your words, a 'reflection' of other projections working themselves out. So, too, it must be for the mother who gives the baby the blanket or the bear. And so forth all the way down. If one wants to stick with the term 'projection', it seems that projection is always social (or at least intimate) and that each individual's 'projections' are a share in a collective projection.

If you like, to be under an illusion or delusion is to be involved in this kind of unhealthy, unhappy, or self-defeating conviction or practice. — The Great Whatever

In my experience those practices or convictions which lead most to unhealthy, unhappy or self-defeating modes of existence are those that hamper one's ability to connect to others. You often cite fear of the inner by creating an outer. I think it's just as easy to be scared of the outer.

(1)Believing too firmly in the absoluteness of things can both keep at bay the outer and others. Whether one cites the One, God or Nature, the idea persists that there is some higher power which keeps everything in its place. This externalization of meaning and creative power makes actual intimacy difficult.

(2) But intelligent people start to see the cracks. (Or rather intelligent, disappointed people do.) But how does this play out? There's the old-testament prophetic route, where one gets obsessed with the eventual destruction of the cities, like a man who knows the bridge is compromised and awaits the train that will bring it down, like the trumpet that will bring down Jericho. In social-intimate terms, this is definitely alienating. But there's also the possibility of salvaging a crackless inside by riding the via negativa to another place. The cracks are thereby prevented from letting the outside in because. The 'world' turns out not to live up to the ideal we thought it did, so one discards it, instead of discarding the ideal.

(3) Accept that things are fragile and that we create them together. Interesting avenues of exploration: Attachment theory, the psycho-genesis of cities and villages, the mutation of myths and religions (which Sloterdjik rightly calls technologies of immunity) etc.

If one wants to stick with the term 'projection', it seems that projection is always social (or at least intimate) and that each individual's 'projections' are a share in a collective projection. — csalisbury

I doubt it. I think the extent to which the world is shared is exaggerated, and it's done so in part because we're free to project our own way of seeing things onto everyone else, and people basically live like solipsists, believing everyone to see things as they do, and responding to apparent disparities with frustration, violence, denial, accusations of moral or intellectual deficiency, etc.

I'm attracted to the idea that there need be no top-down organization in order for a mechanism to work: there doesn't have to be a unifying condition to make the world 'function,' just as nobody commands oceans or planets or marketplaces. It's possible for an interaction to emerge (that among humans mostly takes the form of coercion) from bits and pieces that do not see each other and don't have much to do with each other on their own terms. Order is always forced to arise out of accidents, but that order is also not that powerful.

There's a linguistic metaphor for this that I'm fond of, which is that in American English there's actually no common articulation for 'r'. Rather, individual speakers have a wide variety of private articulations, yet nonetheless that /r/ phoneme enters the public language because all of these converge on a single psychological sound-cateogry despite the differences in articulation. The naive philosopher is like someone who demands that because the sound has a certain role, obviously it must have some common or shared source. But this is just not true. Whatever 'works,' works (or doesn't). The naive philosopher has it backwards. And without linguistic research, we would have gone on being forever unaware that we weren't even mouthing the same thing -- we had beetles in our mouths.

I think it's just as easy to be scared of the outer. — csalisbury

Maybe, but I don't think other people are 'outer' in quite the way the realist would have it.

(1)Believing too firmly in the absoluteness of things can both keep at bay the outer and others. Whether one cites the One, God or Nature, the idea persists that there is some higher power which keeps everything in its place. This externalization of meaning and creative power makes actual intimacy difficult.

(2) But intelligent people start to see the cracks. (Or rather intelligent, disappointed people do.) But how does this play out? There's the old-testament prophetic route, where one gets obsessed with the eventual destruction of the cities, like a man who knows the bridge is compromised and awaits the train that will bring it down, like the trumpet that will bring down Jericho. In social-intimate terms, this is definitely alienating. But there's also the possibility of salvaging a crackless inside by riding the via negativa to another place. The cracks are thereby prevented from letting the outside in because. The 'world' turns out not to live up to the ideal we thought it did, so one discards it, instead of discarding the ideal.

(3) Accept that things are fragile and that we create them together. Interesting avenues of exploration: Attachment theory, the psycho-genesis of cities and villages, the mutation of myths and religions (which Sloterdjik rightly calls technologies of immunity) etc. — csalisbury

I don't really deal in 'solutions' or 'ways forward' because I think it's pointless. Life isn't some puzzle with a best way of living it, and it doesn't really have any questions that it asks and need to be answered. It's really not my concern what you decide to take on board as a result of these musings. I don't think what an individual person decides to do or believe matters much.