ecstasy_rising

Look at the developing gender identity. How does identity develop? What's needed for an identity to develop for all of us? Two things in terms of psychodynamic theory -- the concept of mirroring. People see you and reflect back who you are. And then the idea of practicing -- going out and being that person that is mirrored back. The transgender person gets neither of those growing up. In terms of the key, the key needs for identity to develop do not occur in a transgender person. So what happens to the young transgender person growing up is they're continually dealing with the interplay of two selves -- one that's secret, and one that the culture is mirroring. You can imagine how confusing that might be. No one can see them. And that is crucial to develop a self. So they're negotiating this parallel development of a true self that's internal. They're developing it themselves in the constructed self. Then when they start coming out there is an adult body, usually, that -- and the wisdom of an adult, with this adolescent that's emerging with adolescent hormones. So you're dealing with that, too. That's very confusing. So the two things that are necessary in psychotherapy and they are necessary for all of us, is to develop a self in relationship and to develop an autonomous self.
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-Lin Fraser

(yanked from somewhere and edited for my own purposes and amusement)
There is a chasm between the lives we lead, and the lives we wish we led.

This world, the so-called “real world,” is just a front. Pull back the curtain and you’ll see the libraries are all filled with runaways writing novels, the highways are humming with escapees and sympathizers, all the receptionists and sensible mothers are straining at the leash for a chance to show how alive they still are. . . and all that talk of being practical and responsible and dependable and all sorts of other words ending in "ible" is just threats and bluffing to keep us from reaching out our hands and placing them around the neck of that heaven in reach before us.

You can taste it in the shock and roar of a first, unexpected kiss, or in the blood in your mouth that instant after an accident when you realize you’re still alive. It blows in the wind you feel on the rooftops of a really reckless night of adventure. You hear it in the magic of your favorite songs, how they lift and transport you in ways that no science or psychology or magic could ever account for. It might be you’ve seen evidence of it scratched into bathroom walls in a code without a key, or you’ve been able to make out a pale reflection of it in the prechewed and tasteless plots of movies they make to keep us entertained. It’s in between the words when we speak of our desires and aspirations, still lurking somewhere beneath the limitations of being “practical” and “realistic.”

When radicals stay up until sunrise, wracking their brains for the perfect sequence of words or deeds to fill hearts (or cities) with fire, they’re trying to find a hidden entrance to it. When children escape out the window to go wandering late at night, or freedom fighters search for a weakness in government fortifications, they’re trying to sneak into it—for they know better than us where those doors are hidden. It's in sadness that we as adults lose those forgotten ways. When teenagers vandalize a billboard to provoke all-night chases with the police, or anarchists interrupt an orderly demonstration to smash the windows of a corporate chain store, they’re trying to storm its gates.

There are those who live in those places that we can only visit. Poets and artists and madmen who venture out to the edge and beyond. The art that speaks to us of love and wonders undiscovered is their message back to us. Sometimes they come back. More often they are lost there forever, and can only provide us hints and clues of how to find them if we only dare to try.

When you’re making love and you discover a new sensation or region of your lover’s body, and the two of you feel like explorers discovering a new part of the world on a par with a desert oasis or the coast of an unknown continent, as if you are the first ones to reach the north pole or the moon, you are charting its frontiers.
( It's not a safer place....Collapse )

A couple of years ago I read an article about an experiment where the genes of a jellyfish were spliced into a rabbit - the result: a rabbit that glowed in the dark. My question is, science aside, is this a rabbit?

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"On this [conception of a biological species], which is obviously motivated by evolutionary considerations, the mere fact that the creature you have mentioned differs from all (other) rabbits in possessing certain genes that allow it to glow in the dark does not rule out the possibility that it is a rabbit. After all, rabbits differ from each other in a great many respects. This variation is the raw material for natural selection. Perhaps the experiment merely introduced a new sort of variation into rabbits.

On the other hand, it could be that this gene would prevent the creature from being able to interbreed with rabbits. Perhaps a rabbit would be too frightened by the glow to mate with it. Or perhaps the gene for glowing also makes the creature sterile. If so, then the creature you have mentioned would not qualify as a rabbit by the above conception of what a biological species is."

http://www.amherst.edu/askphilosop…

http://www.simulation-argument.com…
http://www.simulation-argument.com… (synopsis)
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Text is too big to post here. Given substrate independence, it is in principle possible to implement a human mind on a sufficiently fast computer. Doing so would require very powerful hardware that we do not yet have. It would also require advanced programming abilities, or sophisticated ways of making a very detailed scan of a human brain that could then be uploaded to the computer. Although we will not be able to do this in the near future, the difficulty appears to be merely technical. There is no known physical law or material constraint that would prevent a sufficiently technologically advanced civilisation from implementing human minds in computers.

I can hear Jung crying in his sleep.

Fame or self:
Which matters more?
Self or wealth:
Which is more precious?
Gain or loss;
Which is more painful?
He who is attached to things will suffer much.
He who saves will suffer heavy loss.
A contented man is never disappointed.
He who knows when to stop does not find himself in trouble.
He will stay forever safe.
-Tao Te Ching, 44

The most significant word however that Plato as a Greek could say on the relation of woman to the State, was that so objectionable demand, that in the perfect State, the Faviily was to cease. At present let us take no account of his abolishing even marriage, in order to carry out this demand fully, and of his substituting solemn nuptials arranged by order of the State, between the bravest men and the noblest women, for the attainment of beautiful offspring. In that principal proposition however he has indicated most distinctly-indeed too distinctly, offensively distinctly-an important preparatory step of the Hellenic Will towards the procreation of the genius. But in the customs of the Hellenic people the claim of the family on man and child was extremely limited: the man lived in the State, the child grew up for the State and was guided by the hand of the State. The Greek Will took care that the need of culture could not be satisfied in the seclusion of a small circle. From the State the individual has to receive everything in order to return everything to the State. Woman accordingly means to the State, what sleep does to man. In her nature lies the healing power, which replaces that which has been used up, the beneficial rest in which everything immoderate confines itself, the eternal Same, by which the excessive and the surplus regulate themselves. In her the future generation dreams.
-Nietzsche

1. Jack gambles away his fortune. So, he shoots himself.
2. Joe climbs the Alps without a guide and dies (accidental death).
3. Jim unwittingly drinks cafeteria coffee and dies.
4. Jim knows he'll be shot unless he betrays the underground; he doesn't betray and is executed.
5. Joe takes poison and dies in order not to reveal secrets.
6. Jack throws himself on a grenade to save his buddies and the explosion kills him.

Which is suicide? Durkheim, stating that suicide is "death resulting directly or indirectly from a positive or negative act of the victim himself, which he knows will produce this result" would likely consider #'s 2, 3, and 4 not to be suicide. #2 and 3 because the death is accidental resulting from negligance. #4 is a little more unclear, but still likely doesn't qualify, as Jim does not see being shot as a means to avoid betrayal, his intent is not an intent to die, but an intent not to betray.

Beauchamp would consider #4 and 5 not to be suicide, as they are is not acting of their own free will, but under duress. Only the act of making the decision for self-destruction, free of outside forces, constitutes a sin.

Kant believed that it is the intention to kill onesself that constitutes suicide, not necessarily the act itself. For Kant the preservation of one's life not highest duty. Our duty is to obey the moral law which preserves human dignity. It's better to be killed than renounce one's human dignity.

What people who say such things forget is that what a man earns he usually spends, and in spending he gives employment. As long as a man spends his income, he puts just as much bread into people's mouths in spending as he takes out of other people's mouths in earning. The real villain, from this point of view, is the man who saves. If he merely puts his savings in a stocking, like the proverbial French peasant, it is obvious that they do not give employment. If he invests his savings, the matter is less obvious, and different cases arise.

One of the commonest things to do with savings is to lend them to some Government. In view of the fact that the bulk of the public expenditure of most civilized Governments consists in payment for past wars or preparation for future wars, the man who lends his money to a Government is in the same position as the bad men in Shakespeare who hire murderers. The net result of the man's economical habits is to increase the armed forces of the State to which he lends his savings. Obviously it would be better if he spent the money, even if he spent it in drink or gambling.
--Bertrand Russell, 1932 - "In Praise of Idleness"

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Reading a lot of trancendentalists lately. Aside from Thoreau, it was a useless movement, the lot of it. Turning back to Machiavelli just to get the taste out of my mouth.

All our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike — and yet it is the most precious thing we have.
-—Albert Einstein

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There is a fundamental difference between science and philosophy, though both search for truth. Science uses thought to find an answer. Philosophy teaches us how to think.