I have recently noticed specific disturbing instances of a particular psychological phenomenon in myself. It is when the way someone is, or is behaving -- they run together in the situation -- arouses negative feeling-impulse reaction, scaling from annoyance to violent rage. The increasing frequency, dangerous character, psychotic potential of this phenomenon has led me to try to comprehend it from the point of view of consciousness. If the following exposition holds, the exerience of this phenomenon is brought under the categories of general psychology. Thus, a fundamental item in the empirical philosohy of mind.
WHEN IT'S ME OR YOU
-Identification and analysis of a self-observed psychobehavioral phenomenon
I. The phenomenon ("Assholes and sons 'a bitches, alzyoos")
a. Behaviors of others -- specific people acting a certai way, at first; then generalized by types and subjective attributes to "tendencies" of special to classes; finally becoming "part of the human condition"
b. (which were) previously overlooked and ignored, if noticed at all,
suddenly, on the spot, become annoying, irritating, continuing unchecked to the point of being taken as intended intolerable insult.
c. to the point of presenting a challenge to ordinary flow of process of personable state of being....consciously understanding, perhaps, it is as much "me" reacting in the situation as "thee", manifesting the irritating behavior; but "it doesn't matter". ("If it comes down to me or you, buster, it's you (usually adding: "because I know I'm right, and don't give me any of that 'moral relativism', 'every issue has two sides' shit.")
*own case examples: girl at the barn walking her horse toward my advancing car, expecting me to yield; man pushing ahead of me in line at MacDonalds, as if daring me to say anything; road rage; TV station interrupting tense US open championship match with local news (WTF); when the team you are 'pulling for' looses. => Egyptian 'Ultra' soccer fans raiding Israeli embassy 9.10.11
These situations are commonly associated with existential stress, individual or collective (<-by virtue of membership in a group; 'it's an insult to us all, as Americans (Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Protestants, etc.)
II. Expression in common discourse (manifested in sign-use, S*)
("Wanna piece'a me, dozya?") --
"(it gets/got) under my skin". "teeth set on edge"
"Up Yours" "WTF"
In less violent terms, "existential stress" may be used to express the phenomenon. "You aren't yourself; the situation has got you down."
III. Analysis in terms of consciousness
A. Psychoanalysis -
1. trauma-regression -- 'something' about the other's behavior or manner triggers regression to an earlier imprinted traumatic situation. In Freud's earlier category of psychic systems, this activates the deep unconscious (Ucs.) vs. the unconscious quasi-accessible to consciousness (Prc.- preconscious)
2. content derived from developmental imprints: unc. fantasies; revival of sibling rivalry conflicts without awareness as such
3. acting out: irresistable urge-to-kill; cathexis of death-wish
B. Gurdjieff
1. The phenomenon manifests a purely MECHANICAL, reactive mode of consciousness (useful in sports competition, politics, rat racing).
2. "I" identified with transcient state (No single "I" exists in the second (waking dreaming) state of consciousness; assumption of such is an illusion -- philosophically supported by false application of Cartesian "I thoink therefore I am".
3. As established (deep unconscious) condition sustained by illusion of a single "I" unifying the second objective stateof consciousness, only changeable by specific Work on Oneself, adapted to the individual by a Teacher capable of objective observation. (Thus, Ouspensky's "Man #3", in whom an identical I has come to exist by Work, requires one who has attained that level. This explains why Schools are required for proper Gurdjieff work.)
C. Psychosemiotic analysis:
Contents of consciousness => S*(Ql,v)
Every content communicated under conscious sign-use consists of three component factors: i. the S* (text and token - 4, of these are taken separately); ii. a qualitative manifestation, including felt qualia, e.g., hungry, thirsty; impulses, moods, states: 'eager', 'loath', confised, dizzy, etc.; iii. an energy factor (intensity of cathexis; length of perseveration of content;
..)
1. The phenomenon manifests: altered expressive/verbal behavior, reflecting i. (illustrated above)
2. ...altered state and position of consciousess: ii. influx of 'different' energy ('v') pervading the full spectrum of S* content
3. connecting the existential ('I' of S*5) with total psychosomatic ('the body' of S*3) BUT BY-PASSING MORALITY (-S*4 -- which presupposes possibility of action willed in accordance with law -- moral agency)
4. -distinction between subjective and objetive factors in the S* manifestation, conjoining the usually distinct token and textual side of consciousness breaks down: the Other's subjective reality is related to through their objective behavior as if token were intended along with text.
This can be illustrated by childhood insistence expressed by "I mean it!', with foot-stamping, if a sibling or peer ignores or makes fun of what one has tried to say. A version of that reappears later, in my case, when some computer program under "google" asks "Did you mean (...X...)?" after one has just typed in humanly recognizable variant (...Y...), as if it 'knew better than I' what I was looking for. Which, of course, "it*" does, if the content is to be communicated through the machine. uch irritation can proceed to rage, and 'fighting with the damned contraption', if resistance is aroused to being controlled by "it*". And that's why I "hate computers". They want to control my communication. (!)
An example of an irritation arising from this source is when some computer program flashes "Did you mean (...x...)?", when one has googled a variant (...y...) (Ex.: it always does for "Jeff Rense", "did you mean jeffrense?"; when, if "jeffrense" it 'asks' "did you mean Jeff Rense?" 'it' knew better than what yourself what was required to communicate)
IV. Conclusion and remarks
The agreement between the different systematic ways of describing the same phenomenon confirms objectivity of self-description based on consciousness. This refutes the claim of behaviorism to be exclusively 'scientific'.
There is great value in bringing together the result of self-observation under different vocabularies, without use of the first-person "I" pronoun, with its inherently disputable, relative results. Consciousness can be approached, and its content made accessible to others, without identification with personalities. Thus, although syllogistic reasoning is "Aristotelian", having originated in the great Greek philosopher's work, the argument forms themselves are objectively distinct. That is characeristic of scientia as opposed from gnosis as forms of knowledge. Most objections to admitting consciousness as a category of general psychology derive from its identification with personality, and are countered by relating it to content objectively analyzed through sign use (psychosemiotics).
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