At Sun, 31 Jan 1999 19:37:47 PST, you wrote:
>
>
>Some would ask how it is that one might trust--
>according to my definition-- something outside of
>oneself (that is, if a "log" is completely "other"
>to a person.. by what standard can we apply our
>trust as regards that log).
No, your original claim was that trust involved trusting an other "self", a claim you seem to either have forgotten or completely deserted here.
>
>First, I do not think that trust is usually more
>than a gambit. That is, I DON'T think that one
>can truly trust a log (a log over a chasm.. trust
>it to not break while crossing, for example).
One does whenever one attempts to cross on it. Are you claiming this has never happened? Pshaw!
>
>The mechanism by which one trusts (I claim): One
>denies oneself and projects self-hood onto a
>desired object ("idolatry", to sell-out one's own
>faith in oneself for promises of material gain).
Whatthehell does this have to do with trusting a damn log not to break? You go idolize yourself (since you have previously stated that you believe yourself incapable of error - your exact words were "I can't be wrong"). Where's the reference to any "material gain?" What promises can a log make, exactly?
>So, one has no sense of self in this case except
>what is externally verified.
Well, forget awareness of one's own thought-processes, I guess. I'm self-aware (and B.S.-aware, too).
one trusts oneself
>to the degree that a desired object is obtained.
What if one is trusting oneself to forbear acceptance of a desired object? Then that forbearance becomes an object? But the object thus desired/forbourne would not be external, and neither would the desirer/forbearer, or the desiring and forbearing. So what's this talk of obtaining? If anything, the obtaining of an object might be a sign that one's trust in oneself was well- or misplaced, not a sign of the self-trust itself, since that's a self-conceptual attitude prior to and conditioning the presence or absence of acquisitive action.
>or, one trusts the object according to a degree of
>error from chance.
Chance is probability. the total of all possibilities equals actuality a coefficient known in statistics as one(1).
>
>That is, chance resolves objective correlations to
>a mean of zero-- this is called the null
>hypothesis (which says that though it is
>impossible to know anything for certain, there is
>a chance of knowing a thing-- minus certainty-- to
>a degree of error represented as a variation about
>this mean of 0% probability)
Or 100% probability - apodictic certainty - as the asymptotically approached but never achieved ideal of knowledge.
. Trust is a gamble,
>then, assuming that self-- in the idolatrous
>situation-- is negated (a mean of zero), though
>there is a chance for error about this mean
>(represented by a correlation of observed
>objects).
There you go with the idolatry business again, illegitimately interjecting morally loaded terms into a supposedly judgment-free description.
BTW, this is also the formula for
>traditional phenomenology (the "spirit" of a thing
>affirms "itself" through negating its own object
>nature while simultaneously finding itself to
>exist as regards an object of desire).
Spirit of a THING??? A log negating its own object-nature to affirm its own essential 'logness' whilst finding itself existent because it is "desired" by moss spores? You have real difficulties with even the most basic underpinnings of phenomenology; no wonder you dislike it.
>
>SO: The degree of error to which one "trusts" a
>log is equal to the degree which the object nature
>of this log (or other logs) varies about a zero
>percent probability of being self-consistent..
What's to violate self-consistency in a log? A logizalogizalog...they're all extant variations on and inspirational of the "log" concept qua theme.
a
>degree correlative to that by which one negates
>one's own self-negation (or by which one affirms
>oneself in the negative).
If one negates one's own self-negation, one affirms oneself in the positive...lost track of our negs here, didn't we?
Thus, there is an
>ILLUSION that the log has a "soul" (the spirit
>projected upon it at the negation of the
>individual *soul* [the self consistency which is
>dis-affirmed for chance correlation]).
I am not possessed by your log-has-a-soul illusion; nor does recognizing a log as a log negate either my self or my sense of same.
Are you sure you're not one of those weird Rorschach programs that processes input and spits out nonsensical replies couched in faux-logic, much like the fake psychoanalyst program?
>
>Though (secondly), there IS a process I call
>"naming"-- which is a type of phenomenology by
>which the soulful quality (consistency) is
>predicated in a cause and effect way upon an
>object such that the *object* is negated through
>SELF affirmation.. as self transcendends the
>object nature represented.
It's not either-or, or a zero-sum game. I don't have to choose between affirming the log and affirming myself; we can BOTH be here (and have to be, if I'm gonna cross it).
In this way, a person
>can trust an object according to his ability to
>perfectly internalize the characteristics OF that
>object (or to TRANSCEND his own object nature).
I'll never be thick as a brick, nor grock a log in its fulness (although, if it were narrow and weak looking, I wouldn't trust it as a means to cross a stream, even though this means I would have sussed out these characteristics of that particular log).
>
>In this final case, the object is not an object
>(so to speak) but is a phenomena of an existent
>self which has being (existence which shows being
>in the moment).
The correlation of phenomena are what constitute an object to subjective apperception.
This is different from the
>process predicated upon a self which is
>objectified and which relates to other people as
>similar objects to "trust" (to a degree of
>error.. or as regards the null of being in the
>moment).
I'll state it again; faith is in the realm of being, such as whether or not there is a god, or a Santa Claus, or as yet undetected aliens, while trust is in the realm of doing, such as whether such-and-such will or will not happen in the future (whether or not this involves an action or its absence, intentional or otherwise, by a person, or either change or its absence in a thing).
>
>Only in the second case can it be said that a
>person might trust a log because the log has a
>consistent nature, or "soul".
Alogiza...By trusting a log, are you risking that it might betray your trust by renouncing its logish ways? No, you're betting the sucker won't break (and breaking under one's weight - or not - is an accidental, not an essential, attribute of log-ness). Sheesh!
>B. Lane Robertson
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Joe E. Dees
Poet, Pagan, Philosopher