My name is Alex : Ask Me Anything

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote: OMG this is such crap. These are not the sort of questions that Alex was referring to and why can't anyone admit to that!

My bad. I asked the biggest question I wanted Maître's answer to. I certain I'll have more. I always do.

Green curry, or red?

Actually, all questions are pretty fair game ... What would you like me to answer, Kyrin ?

Rick's is straight-up about Temple training, which I was able to answer directly. Helen's took some more thought.

Regarding the curry, much like for the tea, whatever is in my plate is the one I enjoy.

How bout we answer the hard ones before we decide on dinner? Huh???

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote: How bout we answer the hard ones before we decide on dinner? Huh???

Are you saying such a question is easy? One could have a crisis of identity over trying to decide such things you know...

Why is "two options" so often seen by humans as enough?

I have answered the hard ones ...

Indeed, I've answered them all. The answers may not be definitive, but they are the most honest ones I have for right now (actually, it is my friend Alex, the jazz pianist, who makes a far better curry than I do, so it is usually red). Questions about culinary preferences are just fun.

Helen's question was a little harder than Rick's. With respect to our training here in the Temple, we are often just bringing in the "objectivity" and "reason" addiction, which, combined and confused with ill-understood abstract notions of freedom, free-will and democracy (like thinking that ill-informed opinions count as much as well-informed ones do), tend to get us off on some rather futile paths. Reason is a wonderful resource, but it is not primary ; objectivity is the domain of "objects," not feeling, desiring, time-bound beings such as we. That is how I was able to furnish a pretty quick, concise answer to Rick's question (cf. Mary Midgley, "The Myths We Live By" & Martha C. Nussbaum, "Not for Profit : Why Democracy Needs the Humanities" and "Political Emotions")

Helen's question was a sincere request to permit her to be generous. It is a lovely question, and one that I pose frequently : "what can I offer you ?" As it were, merely posing the question sincerely is indeed a generous offering in and of itself.

Twigga wrote: Why is "two options" so often seen by humans as enough?

Actually, it isn't that often seen as "enough." Human beings are capable of processing only so much data consciously. I say "consciously" because our brains/bodies are assimilating really staggering amounts of data all the time, but we don't notice it because it is all mostly autonomic and the vast bulk of it never makes it to our conscious attention. That is, we don't have to attend to it...

When we do think about our 'options' (we see in the word 'option' the same 'op-' as in 'opinion'), we get baffled if there are too many considerations to take into account, but our obsession with "choice" makes us desire the illusion of exercising complete (sic) control over our decisions (as if they actually are decisions in the first place).

Some choices are relatively simple ones that we elaborate into multivariable calculus just to feed that illusion of control. Just go into the average supermarket to buy, say, toilet paper. Now, the choice here is simple : buy toilet paper/don't buy toilet paper. In the supermarket, one encounters an absurd selection of toilet paper -- simple, two-ply, three-ply (as though we can't "ply" - plier - it ourselves while sitting there on our smart phones reading the TotJO :laugh: ) ... All that "choice" gets quite paralysing, which is why we tend just to get the same stuff all the time (back to the "buy toilet paper/don't buy toilet paper") or whatever is on promotion (again "buy toilet paper/don't buy toilet paper"). Now, multiply that by an average shopping list and it can bring on some non-negligible anxiety.

Similarly, news/information sources, insurance coverage, political affiliations and 'options' for medical treatment plans all make the cognitive deficit of conscious awareness all the more troublesome. In short, for the practical things, we are offered far too many choices.

When the options are existential, that is where the palette of choices gets even more paralysing ; we're trying to confirm, reinforce or improve an Identity (ipseity). This is when ugly things like FOMO and objectifying our relationships happen. We use one another mercilessly to let ourselves feel some sort of sense of self worth. The problem here is that we end up treating people as means to an only imagined end, rather than as fellow experiences of Dasein ("being there"). I've tried to elaborate before how in the over-mediatised, consumer society, our relationships - even our own self-images (ego, in a way) -, have become consumer articles to be bought, used and discarded (planned or perceived obsoleteness notwithstanding). What this has for effect is nearly the same as the anxiety in a supermarket -- only multiplied by a million. It turns us all into three year-olds going through the "no" phase of establishing an independent identity. Only we get trapped in it : happiness and fulfilment are not here with "us" -- it must be yet to be discovered in the future when scientific providence will make life perfect. Funny, it used to be the gods/God, but it is still the same abandonment of responsibility. And it all boils down to the basic two options : do I say "yes"/do I say "no".

Thus, it is a much more complex question than it seems. We indeed do have more than two options, but to open up the possibility for any of the options to present themselves, that is a mere binary : do I say "yes"/ do I say "no" ?

As it were, saying "yes" means risk (vulnerability), saying "no" brings a high probability for regret.

No one said the adventure was an easy one....

Which book or what author that you have read lately speaks about 'Dasein'?

Adhara wrote: Which book or what author that you have read lately speaks about 'Dasein'?

Funny you ask that, S.... I have been trying to remember. It - Dasein - was Heidegger's term ("Sein und Zeit", 1927), and then was picked up in various translations or references to the term thereafter (cf. Sartre, Merleau-Ponty) pertaining to "being there/being a Being in/with the world" (Mitsein). It is a notion that nearly systematically needs some mention in any work on phenomenology - existentialism or otherwise.

Apart from lectures I listen to from time to time on existential phenomenology, it does seem like there was a reference to Dasein in something I was reading recently, but I'm not too sure what it was. Maybe it was in that book that Michael got on the Kindle - "The Path -- What We Can Learn from Chinese Philosophy". But honestly, I don't remember.

For all intents and purposes, I'll often use the terms Dasein and 'Self' (in the Jungian sense) almost interchangeably. Thus, the most responsible response to your question I would have to admit that I wasn't really quoting a book or author but just using the term to express myself. Is that cheating ?