Note: I started writing this maybe an hour ago, though it represents weeks of thinking, it's probably not entirely complete. Still, it's probably complete enough for now. Also, i don't visit you guys much, but you were still the first people i thought of sharing this with. I wonder if there's somewhere more appropriate... The brain needs order. It doesn't actually like thinking, like we think it does. It likes fallowing orders. LOVES fallowing orders. "What are you talking about? I'm anti society! I'm so against order! Muahahaha!" Have you ever considered that your order is defined as society's negative? Or that the order you fallow may very well be your own, but it is still an order? The brain likes to know answers to questions. It likes knowing them as immediately as possible! When there is order, there is a strict routine for finding answers and they generally come quickly and quietly. When there is no order, i wonder if there can be an answer. I believe there MUST be order! The brain cannot think without it. When two orders cause conflicting answers, one becomes confused. Like conflicting morality. Choosing to "fight for your country" while believing in non-violent solutions. Most people's order comes from society, and this is not a bad thing. Or it doesn't have to be. We have collaborated for thousands of years on how to best live with each other peacefully. There are a lot of problems, but we generally make out ok. I mean to say that people don't need to be forced to change. Good 'nuff. But this doesn't mean there isn't something terribly fucked up about the mottled group composing this planet, it just means good 'nuff. To reject the order of society is impossible; society is not a group of people with similar morals and ideals, but rather the concept that everyone else has similar morals and ideals. So, to reject society is to believe that society exists in the first place! We generalize because imagining everyone as an individual is difficult. Go to the bus station and try to imagine what is going through each commuter's head at one moment. Write this down and actually do it some time! I'm serious! (Also, note the fact i called them all commuters was a stereotype and a way of denying them their individuality.) I do not see anywhere besides society that order can come from. Perhaps nature...hunt, gather, fight, kill, survive...but we are detached from these, which at one time may have been called ideals. Society, our imaginary construct, tells us how to act, how to feel, and what to believe in. By giving us illusionary choice (are you a republican or democrat?) it allows us to feel like individuals, which it tells us is a good thing. A common capitalist trick is to create a disease (conformity) and, ironically, the cure (individualism...through buying clothing). This sounds like a good time to mention: Everything we do is a social behaviour. I wonder if true individualism exists. We like to believe that we fallow our order properly--we'd feel immoral, or like bad people otherwise. And, in some way, i believe that fallowing this order is a way of making other people like us. The order makes us like ourselves and we think thusly others will like us since we assume, thanks to the order, thanks to our concept of society, everyone thinks like us and wants to fallow a similar order. My head's starting to hurt thinking of this. The idea that there's no individualism in my actions is nearly depressing. But... well, here are some concrete examples: I just turned 21 so i drank. I don't really care for alcohol, but i wanted to celebrate the last of my freedoms being rightfully returned to me (since i believe we are born free to do anything and society, for it's own preservation, removes personal freedom of "minors"). What if i only actually drank to connect me to my friends? To communicate the belief that drinking is good, which i believe they believe, and because i'm drinking, i'm good? A little more abstract: When i'm watching a movie and being absolutely enthralled, seeing as it supports one facet of my beloved order, what if i'm only enjoying it because i'd assume if a friend were with me, s/he'd like it? I do generally want to share when i've seen a good movie, listened to a good song, or had an interesting ...uh...thought...like this one... So everything is social and nothing is personal! But...what if it's opposite? What if actions are only social because having friends agreeing with our order enforces the idea that our order is good? This goes along with the idea that we can't really make our own order and we're just fallowing our imaginary society. My head's really hurting now. Uck. You might read this and assume that i'm writing about my head hurting just because this is free-form thought, or something, but there's a purpose to it. I'm demonstrating a conflict in two orders. This essay obviously has an order, but said order is un-obvious to the order we typically like to think with; the order that fallows society. One tells me i'm an individual, the other says i'm not. Who do i believe? It's not about having a more rational point because rationally believing something doesn't mean you feel it in your heart. Rationally, i know i am no individual and that my world is the results of total randomness and vibrating energy. Emotionally, i feel i am a person, and i have a solid connection to society and reality. I associate not being an individual with conformity and conformity with bad. Thus, it is difficult to emotionally connect with these ideas. But does having a conflict between my emotions and rationalities have to mean being depressed? No. And that is the point of this essay. I call for a re-evaluation of what is bad and what is good. I question that conformity should be a bad thing. I question that individualism is good. I also question whether this essay was worth the headache... If this has felt inconsistent, confusing, or in any way difficult to understand... good. It IS inconsistent! This is SO confusing! It feels nearly impossible to really, truly understand! It's difficult to construct a consistent reality. Incredibly hard to allow rationality and emotion to coexist--especially when we usually consider them opposites. I don't wish to provide answers, i'd hope that your order can provide ones that makes you happy. I do hope i am providing questions, though.
Reminds me of how a mate thinks...confusing at the start, yet somehow it does make sence... I will come back and read this again...being slow minded means I can only read the first 3 paragraphs before my mind kicks out
I see what you're trying to say but IMO, you're making it out to wayyyyy more extreme than it is. And I don't understand why you talk about the brain at the start and how it "needs order". People fall into society because of their upbringing, it's nature and nurture. It isn't just some instinct we have from birth.
fdgsa: What will you have for lunch today? What shirt will you wear? Why do you wear shirts to begin with? What are you going to do to relate to your friends today? What is the proper time to go to bed? These are incredibly difficult things to answer, if you actually think about them. There are millions of things you can have for lunch. You likely have at least a modest collection of shirts. There are infinite things you can say to your friends, especially when you consider that language is a societal construct and that to truly think for yourself, you have to think without language. If you're tired, sleep, but if the sun's up, don't; there isn't much choice here. There are so many choices we have to make throughout the day. Most of them, we don't have to really think. The reason we don't have to think, i think, is because someone is feeding us the answers--well, it's an illusion, but that's the point. But, it's hard to tell. I haven't really defined, for myself, what truly independent thinking is, or if it really does exist. But, i rationalize that the only reason i have trouble not believing in truly independent thinking because my imaginary world convinces me that independence is good, thus, because i'm good (i like myself), i'm independent. I'm not arguing that falling in line with society is instinctual... I'm saying that constructing a world which we believe exists but doesn't is. So, i agree that it's upbringing because our parents help define our view of the world and how we relate to other people.
I don't see how any of these things go back to your original point though, this is almost obvious... language is just a way of us being able to communicate in an efficient way. It's the same as a bird tweeting to another or a dog barking... it's just how we communicate. We could still communicate, but it would be alot less efficient. I suppose that's why humans have done so well for themselves, because they've learnt how to be efficient in everything they do. This isn't really down to society but more the nature of people, like I said in my previous post. I don't understand that to be an individual you have to think without language though, I can have individual thoughts to other people, which I often find I do, but I don't go about this by not thinking in a language. And my sleeping habits have nothing to do with the sun really, I go to bed according to what time I have to be up the next day, I judge for myself how much sleep I need, if that isn't individual I don't know what is. The reason we don't think is because we've made these choices all before, not necesarily because we're fed them. For instance, I come in everyday from college and go to my kitchen to find a scran. I don't do this because anyone has told me to. I do this out of my own free will and my individual choice to eat, I do this because I'm hungry, not becase someone tells me I'm hungry. I understand what you're saying here and I've thought things similar to this many times before, having whole conversations with myself in my head (usually on the way to college on the bus or something). For me, independant thinking is just making your own choices and challenging what people say to you in everyday life. The only difference is, I never think that how I think is independant, as much as I'd like it to be (in some sort of strange, emo way) I always just tell myself that I'm not the only person that thinks deep and it's stupid to assume so. I've always presumed that I'm being stupid if I think Im the only person that thinks like this and that everyone thinks in this way sometimes. Only recently have I started bringing up some of the points I have thought up in this deep state of thinking to find that people give me responses like "oh, I've never thought about it like that before". But then again, I do have friends that think the same way as this and I've ended up on many occasions (usually when very, very stoned) having great in-depth discussions and deeper questions and very philosophical questions. And for me, it's those philosophical questions, and your own personal answers to them that truely define individual thinking. I agree with this but only to a certain extent, I may be contradicting myself here (I do this alot when debating, sorry) but parents define our view of the world up to a certain age, and this is when a person shows their individuality compared to their peers. For the last few years I've found myself questioning everything I've been taught from birth. The basics, usually morals. I find that by doing this I've changed alot as a person, even in the last year or so I've notcied a change in the way I act around others. I try to avoid conflict at all costs, I'm constantly putting myself in other people's shoes, trying to think like they do to figure out why they make the actions they make. I've found it's made me, what I would call, a better person. But this just goes back to the individuality of people. I may think it makes me a better person but someone else may disagree. Who is the individual in this situation? I had a little more to say... but typing that last question made me forget :s
Language was not invented by individuals, but rather groups who evolved ways of conversing. Grunting and moaning expresses emotion, but language expresses actual thought. So, i believe that a dog's barking expresses emotion, but not thought. The idea that words have meaning or transmit thoughts is, i think, deeply embedded into this society illusion. Really, words are sounds or characters orchestrated in a formulaic way. The brain does not think in English. It translates. Constantly. Like the inner monologue that goes on in ones head, translating deep thoughts into our perception of reality. I believe the brain has this monologue go on constantly to smooth along communication; otherwise, we'd have to constantly pause to translate our thoughts, then think them more, then translate. It feels like the moment a thought is had, the brain in an attempt to be social prepares it for discussion, and the idea that this is important goes back to the idea of society and thinking that sharing is a good thing because other people think like me, thus will like my thoughts. We are incredibly delusional, this way, but i wonder if our brains can perceive reality without delusion. So, i think you're fricken spot on when you say it's not about society, but the nature of people. But my argument is that the nature of people is to create the concept of society. I suppose i should not have said think without language...but rather communicate without it. But, then again, i'm arguing that one cannot communicate without the concept of society and the need to communicate to begin with shows our lack of individualism. My mom was telling me the other day how people in solitude often do many things we consider insane, like this guy who moved to Alaska and compulsively made home movies of building his cabin and living on nature. Who told you to wake up? Who taught us to do them before, or showed us they were possible? What if society is who told you that hunger means you should eat? I do not believe babies realize this. They learn it from their parents, who often feed them when they feel hungry. When they feel hungry, they interpret this as pain, thus they cry, but the parent knows why. This is all BS, btw. Can anyone (in)validate this thought? A common mistake by rebels is to say they are anti-society. That's a double thought because someone who truly is against society would not define themselves by it, thus being a part of it. Even to recognize it by saying one is against it, i believe is wrong. So, by challenging what people say, you are still defining your thought in relation to theirs. Same argument as above. I have in the past month suffered an absolute loss of faith in everything. It's changed me a lot. I've started having thoughts that contradict everything i believe in. I understand a lot of these thoughts on a deeper level than i seem to understand them. When i started to tell my mom them, thinking they're be different from what she thought, i started to realize that my life is mirroring hers. Even though i was questioning the lessons of childhood, the ones my mom taught me, i'm finding i am not diverging as much as i like to think. Another thing on defining reality in relation to other's ideas: I recently realized that societies define sin by not what is most evil, but what is most present in that area. The Jews saw the evil of stealing, lechery, killing, etc since that's what plagued them most. The Buddhists saw the evils of pleasure itself since they were such experts at having the most pleasure possible. I'm enjoying this discussion, btw.
You've braught up some interesting points here and I'm eager to get into them but alas, I have to sleep... and it's not because anyone has told me, I've made the decision myself xD But one thing I will say, is that it seems like (I've not read your post in detail, only skimmed it so far) alot of your points are down to nurture, and it seems to me that what you're saying is that this nurture is what creates the ideals of a society. But to me, this is just that most people accept and never question alot of the things that they are taught from birth, it's ingrained into their minds as being 'right'. By this opinion, no one can be against society because as soon as you compare anything to society it therefore become a part of society. But yeah, I'll come back and properly read through this tomorrow after college.
This is probably the intuitive topic in this whole forum. However, the level of thought is too deep for me... I'll be back later.
For the sake of describing this, you'll have to excuse the viewpoint. A baby doesn't interpret hunger as a pain, it interprets hunger as a new phenomenon. Prior to being born, all a baby needs is taken care of by the mother's body. When the baby's brain says "I need nutrition" the rest of the body goes "Oh, it's right here! I'll just reach through this little tube at my stomach and voila! You have what you need!" Therefore, the baby never experiences "hunger." Outside the womb, a baby can't directly draw nutrition from the mother's body. It doesn't know what to do, so it cries. The baby knows on a rudamentary level that crying means someone will come to it. That person, (presumably a parent) deduces that the baby is hungry, and feeds it. The baby at this juncture learns that he needs to cry when he feels "hunger," because then people bring food. It isn't much later in life until he learns that each of these phenomenon the baby has experienced has an associated word. I just wanted to add my two cents there. I've always been facinated by neo-natal mental development.
