Illusion, Analogy, & Abstraction

This is on my blog but I figure this could use some discussion

On a forum someone mentioned, why let analogy teach you? This person mentioned homo sapiens should perhaps try to use less abstraction to understand themselves. The question they then ask to is, "What animal in nature needs to, or seeks to use abstractions for a vehicle for self understanding besides humans? That is worth exploring more I think, what is it about our intrinsic nature that seems to feed on delusion and illusion? Similar to Koans too in that way. Certainly the wolf does not pretend to be us to seek its nature, and so what exactly have you learned from the wolf? Certainly the wolf does not ponder Koans or use them to teach its children."

Certainly the wolf does not pretend to be us to seek its nature, and so what exactly have you learned from the wolf? Certainly the wolf does not ponder Koans or use them to teach its children.

The wolf is not human even though we see a social structure of alphas (leaders), betas (workers, etc.), and omegas (outcasts, weaklings). Yet homo sapiens are not wolves otherwise we would be related to the family of canis lupus. Homo and canis are obviously not the same words. The wolf does not ponder koans, but how could they? We do not speak the same words, even if a dog may understand the word sit, is it because we trained them to recognize such a word? Our languages are not the same though humans have put together what they think various sounds from various creatures mean but that does not mean we can speak their language truly. Even among humans we lack understanding of each other (and this relates to acceptance too). My boyfriend and his family are khmer and raised in a certain way different from the way I was brought up, so these two cultures class because of the differences. Asian culture is different from African culture different from white culture.

What animal in nature needs to, or seeks to use abstractions for a vehicle for self understanding besides humans?

The question is do animals think about self-understanding? Obviously animals have some kind of intelligence that forms of what works and what does not. My dogs understand when I say sit, they get a treat. My puppies know that I am home by how I walk versus that of my mother, my mothers dogs know the sound of her car and will start barking wildly when she is driving down the drive way. My mother's dogs will go to my grandmother at the dinner table because they know she gives them treats. Of course my dog Thor is learning about his urges (sigh), but he doesn't know to hump a female dog yet. It is like trial error, something similar to how we as children learn. I am sure every kid probably at one point or another burnt themselves by touching something hot and it clicks in their head, this is hot, don't touch! I am certainly no expert on animals and obviously cannot answer about animals. I am sure wolves do not think of themselves like prey because they are predators and are raised as so. Even when they are raised away from the pack, they have natural instincts that kick in.

What is it about our intrinsic nature that seems to feed on delusion and illusion?

Delusions are false beliefs while illusions are a distortion of the senses. Delusions arise for many different reasons, like inference, a lack of knowledge but suspicions. Delusion is related to related to reasoning about the dispositions, motivations and intentions of other people *. Delusion to is the idea of freedom? Are we really free? What about self-control? Are we the master of ourselves? We do not see ourselves as clearly as we often because if we can solve other people's problems not our own, does that not show we don't understand on some level? Some people say when they get married, "I did not know who I was marrying." Can delusion be denial? Hell yeah! "I did not believe s/he could do that." No you did not because you do not understand human nature, the complicated, flawed, contradiction that it is. The Radical Hypothesis is really interesting and ask hard questions like these. We have an Ego, an idea of Self, that perpetuates separation from the group. The Ego separates our consciousness which constructs a perception and an experience of the "world."

With less focus on abstractions, may homo sapiens gain more knowledge and understanding in (on) there own unique nature?

Psychology is the answer. Yet with psychology we have so many theories around Id, Ego, consciousness, subconsciousness, modus oprendi, self-actualization, and more. We try to understand the motivation, disposition, and intentions of others. What makes a serial killer? How does chemical imbalances affect our behavior? A lack of serotonin is likened to create depression within people, but it can also create insomnia and edginess. So our bodies affect how we react at times and look at the fight or flight response and what happens during that process with cells firing off and we go on attack and flight and chemicals of adrenaline, noradrenaline and cortisol are released. Cortisol affects our immune system with it going up and down depending upon stress. I have a genetic disorder that when I get stressed my cortisol will go down, my testosterone goes up and when my cortisol goes down, I get extremely sick.

Do we seek to understand just ourselves, or others, or the world around us? All of it? Some of it?

This seems such a part of our nature. We can experience the world in fear and wonder especially when we are younger and do not understand. I remember reading an article that humans loved the world so they would near fear it. Myth and gods were our first attempt to understand the world and ourselves. Obviously if we did not want to understand the world there would be not science or philosophy now and most likely a focus on religion. We seek to understand ourselves so we have philosophy, religion, psychology, and hell even science. We are understanding our natures through chemicals but we still do not understand our brain yet. It really does all inter-relate in my opinion.

What does abstraction have to deal with it?

Abstraction is language, we then add our analogies, myths, and fables to the complex, yet it comes back down to words. We give illusionary natures to animals, like foxes are sly. We make fables like the tortoise and the hare. We have the hero myths and religious myths like Hercules and Jesus. They are all representative. We have koans too which are tales that are filled with abstractions that we extract the meaning out of. We have sayings like "Crying for the moon" which is an abstraction. I remember a banner in my English class saying, "Shoot for the moon, even if you fail you will end up among the stars." We have goals, a direction, they are abstractions, trapped into endless achievement so that our lives have meaning. What about "willpower" can you feel your willpower? Black and white, light and dark, good and evil, morality, ethics, these arise some kind of concept that is an abstraction. How did morality arrive within our culture? What is justice and criminal activity but that which has arisen from the concept of what is moral and good? We call different religious paths sometimes dark and light, but they are mere words, an abstraction in attempt to describe a difference? Why is there a battle between good and evil? We delude ourselves into self-righteous feeling when we deem a side evil and that we are good, but in reality they are humans like us. In my history class way back in high school when the books and teacher go over WW2 and Hitler, there is no mention of the incredible economic recovery that Hitler instigated, it never mentions any good that Hitler created and instead the history books delude us to believe we are so righteous to overcome Hitler.

Good read.

I wonder, we seem to believe animals don't think abstractly or try to understand themselves the way we do, but we could never truely know. Maybe they do. Animals learn from us just as we learn from them. Maybe when my cat sits in his own chair around the table and eats bread he's pretending to be like us. (Not that the cat eats off the table. He's too short. )

I heard Hitler took part in creating the autobahn.

Yeah I don't know if animals think abstractly. I know my dogs want the food that I want, but it is food lol.

I don't know if Hitler had a part in it, but how he managed to pull Germany out of it's extreme recession (depression) is remarkable...and studying his rise to power is interesting too. Mien Kempf was really interesting as well and I like some of the National Socialist ideals.

Interesting. I've heard of his book but I've never read it. Did it translate well? It would be thought provoking to be able to catch a glimpse inside that mind. Because like you said, he did a good job bringing Germany out of it's depression. I wonder how it all fell apart, how you go from success to terror? Psychology is a weird thing, isn't it?

I was reading a really interesting essay that eluded to how Jews were in the financial system (stereotype right?) and thus Hitler partially blamed them for the ruin of Germany. What is also really interesting is some of the studies I have read about how the facts don't add up to everything that the victor side claims. Here check out the links under National Socialism.

Animals play with objects so maybe they pretend those objects are other things. The dogs ball might be the cat, the cats ball or string might be the mouse.... in the eyes of those animals. The animals seem to know they are not real, yet will often attack them as if they were real up to a point, for the fun of it. I think the capacity is there but like everything else about physical existence, they are limited by the physical form they inhabit and values they associate to their experiences.