Archive for the ‘The Urceptual Populace’ Category
Entry 1617 — The Different Selves, Part 1
Friday, October 31st, 2014
The Different Selves, Part 1.
I’ve written a great deal about my theory of selves and am again writing about it—surprisingly, for those who haven’t kept up with me, from Near-Confusion. I’ve believed for years in the Urceptual Self and the Urceptual Other. That has not changed. I’d also made up a long list of urceptual selves and others, each of them including either the Urceptual Self or the Urceptual Other, with strong distinguishing additions. But for a few days during the past week, I had it in my head that there was just one Urceptual Self, and many Urceptual Others that the one Urceptual Self reacted to, becoming in the process a vicarious urceptual other of one kind or another. For instance: an Urceptual Other becomes recognized (in the socioceptual sub-awareness) as an Urceptual Friend (by smiling, gift-giving, etc.), into which it in effect separates from the Urceptual Other. (I think—feeling my way here, folks.) Then its stimulus—its original stimulus, because the Urceptual Friend will become part of one’s knowlecule of many different people—saves a black child from hearing the N-word and becomes a hero. From that point on, the Urceptual Self will identify with the Hero (in the sagaceptual awareness).
I now see that this is where I became confused, as only I (probably) could have been. I thought the Self would only be heroic vicariously; but there’s no reason . . .
Sorry, all you lefties reading this (and I tend to believe that all of the few who read me are lefties, since just about all poets are, and who else reads me?—actually, I do know a few of you are nearly as archaic as I, but I won’t let the authorities know who you are by mentioning you by name) . . . As I was saying, sorry, but I think everyone’s Urceptual Self is a “he.” But the Urceptual Woman in each of us is a “she.” I’ll get to her and the Urceptual Man, later . . . maybe. (I’m too out of it right now to be able to make any predictions—not due to the opium in a hydrocodone but only to the 2 APCs I took 90 minutes ago because of a headache and various pain in my leg, which has been getting more painful lately, I’m hoping because my physical therapy and my home-exercises are working, pain being gain, although I’m well aware that I may just be getting worse and/or overdoing the pt.)
Hey, I think I can make it back to what I was writing about: the Urceptual Self. If it could only be heroic vicariously, there’s be no heroes. Or: some of us do become heroes. Or think we do. I recall that the Urceptual Hero carries out quests in the sagaceptual awareness. I’d been thinking he only did so vicariously inside the protagonist of one the war thrillers in the series called Carrier by Keith Douglass, which I really enjoy (although, yes, I can pick out how the kind of novels that Superior Readers enjoy outdo them—but I can also pick out how they outdo the kind of novels Superior readers enjoy). But he also does so inside of daydreams he himself is the protagonist of.
Or is he? Maybe his Urceptual Other/Hero is in any daydream he enters to begin with . . . Actually, the sagaceptual awareness where daydreams will take place (according to my theory) will have an Urceptual Protagonist. Indeed, this Urceptual Protagonist may well have been the first Urceptual Self, and migrated into the anthroceptual awareness—into its egoceptual sub-awareness, to begin with. To get every straight, I need a meticulously thorough evolutionary theory of the Urceptual Self—and Other.
The two, it seems to me, would begin with a protozoan’s need to distinguish its physical body from an alien physical body—a prey or predator. They would thus have to begin simultaneously. In the first sagaceptual awareness of the history of life.
(Note: I’m assuming the beginning of many basics of life to have occurred in protozoa, but many, perhaps all, may originated in primitive multi-celled life-forms. It’s completely irrelevant which was the case for my theoretic history of urceptuality. For simplicity’s sake, I will therefore assume protozoa started everything of consequence.)
First there were simple crystallizations, or so I believe “informed” speculation has it; certainly, it makes sense to me. Eventually, molecules containing carbon complicate things. Amino acids, stuff like that. Proteins, eventually. I had a not-totally unsound knowledge of dna/ rna/etc at one time; only have what I need to theorize now: in other words, nothing I can gussy up my musings with.)
The crystallizations formed membranes, or some equivalent thereof, and became able to take in substances that would make them grow, and excrete substances that might otherwise destroy them. (None of this is original, by the way, except inasmuch as I get my remembrance of things I’ve read wrong.)
Hey, I’m tired, and my computer tells me I done wrote over 1400 words, so I’m stopping for the day. I hope to add to this tomorrow. (Oops, I only had a little over 800 words done: I was counting some stuff at the beginning from my recent blog entries that I will be using in this essay. I’m quitting, anyway.
.
Entry 1575 — Others
Friday, September 19th, 2014
I was writing in my diary a little while ago (it is now ten in the morning, 9Sep14) and thought (for the ten thousandth times, I suspect, if not more) of the distant others whom it was written for, whether or not anyone read it, and then about how important others were in my life. But I’m inner-directed! Having thought the last thought, I left my diary and came here to mull the subject over on paper (or its electronic equivalent) . . . for others.
I feel I’m almost always aware of others. Even when no one else is nearby, I’m aware of their representatives inside me, particularly Freud’s Super-Ego, which is approximately my urceptual father (or God or Authority-Figure, and maybe also Judge), a little man in one of my awarenesses–either the anthroceptual or the evaluceptual . . . no, both. No, again: he (yes, he–probably in female awarenesses a he, also) is in the socioceptual sub-awareness of the anthroceptual awareness, with links to some kind of assistant in the anthro-evaluceptual association area. Other others (and writing that, I think of the others who will find it amusing, I hope) within me are the urceptual mother, friend, sex-object, enemy (whose reaction to what I say and do is also important to me) and several others I’d make more of an effort to recall if writing some final exposition of mine thoughts on this subject–but would probably still fail to make a complete list, and possibly also name some who should not be on the list).
Having mentioned the Super-Ego, and not being well organized, I will mention that I think Freud’s Id a nice invention, too. In my psychology it (since it is a sexless child, for the most part, although it becomes highly gendered when caught by the sexual drive) is probably a combination of several ur-beings, but the most important is the fundaceptual ur-hedonist stuffing himself with chocolates or the like. But to a fairly large extent it’s an ur-advisor to the ur-friend seeking friendship. I find that I’m hazy about it. It has to enter into almost everything we do, even an objective verosophical investigation of, well, the Id itself. like I’m trying to carry out. The goal of everything is pleasure; the goal of the ur-hedonist is immediate pleasure.
I guess my equivalent of Freud’s Ego (which seems to me not really his but everybody’s idea of self since human beings were capable of conceiving themselves as having selves–prehumanly, I am in a minority as believing: every animal has an urceptual self, but not a linguiceptual awareness where it gets a name. Speciocentrists mistake an ability to discuss their selves as a sine qua non for having selves, which is stupid. My cat, it seems to me, must know the different between what is outside its body and its body. All this will become clear once neurophysiologists have the equipment to pin down the components of brains–and pre-brains. I don’t see why any living thing should not have a self. Or every thing have one.
Selves come in different sizes, though. An adult animal’s is probably at least as large in proportion to the contents of everything else in its brain, or equivalent thereof as our’s, but therefore smaller. And, because I can’t resist an opportunity to anger those against me on a particular political issue, a fetus’s, even a late-term fetus’s, is vastly smaller than any adult mammal’s, so those who can live with the euthanization of adult stray cats and dogs but not abortion are–I want to say “jackasses,” but have to say, very strongly under the influence of their urceptual-mother.
To digress, I suddenly think there are two urceptual mothers (and other urceptual beings may also be paired): the urceptual mother one becomes when she captures one’s attention; and the urceptual mother one becomes the urceptual child of when someone else has activated her and is soothing us, or lecturing us, etc.
An announcement just broke through to me from Thunderbird telling me that Yale has announced a cure for dementia. Not that that has anything to do with this entry. I was momentarily stymied by the idea of two urceptual mothers, which was new to me, so took the first excuse to leave it that came up. Now back to ti, I think maybe one urceptual mother is sufficient. One becomes the urceptual mother when a child is crying, as in this case; one calls up the urceptual mother but does not become her when it is oneself that is doing the crying, and doing it sufficiently to become one’s urceptual child.
I’m supposed to be working on my novel today. I have done a bit on it already but am trying my hardest to get an important passage five or more pages in length taken care of, a passage I’ve recently revised twice, and will definitely need one further revision after this one, which is mainly getting it reasonably well-organized where it belongs in the narrative. It’s been giving me a lot of trouble, but I think I’ll overcome it today if my energy-level holds up. Which it won’t if I keep getting into my blog or–for Pete’s sake–HLAS where I was earlier for twenty minutes or more re-arguing the idiotic Shakespeare Authorship Question. I’m going to stay here till I go over the thousand word mark. Only a little over a hundred words to go.
Make that less than a hundred. Doing that is for me, not others. Or not others to much of an extent. 95% pure inner-directedness. But so much of inner-directedness is free-wendry, too: those who make the most of their lives, as both free-wenders and the inner-directed try to do, must set goals for themselves and pursue them to the best of their ability. I’m not sure there’s anything as important that free-wenders share with the other-directed. I suppose the ability to temporarily not to pursue a goal is one, but it is only important to the free-wender; it’s something someone other-directed can’t help. The latter is innate other-directed; the free-wender chooses to be other-directed when appropriate. A rigidnik cannot make that choice, or, at least, not effectively; hence, he is quite different from someone inner-directed.
Well, I’m a thousand words now. The inner-drected question is whether I should count words typed about how many words I’ve typed. Probably not, but I’m going to count them now, anyway–because I can’t think of anything more to say–except that this entry only took me an hour and fifteen minutes to write this entry.
Hmm, in categorizing this entry, I noticed that I failed to include the MacArthur Foundation under “Enemies of Poetry.” After their recent bestowing of money on five or more poets of no particular cultural value, I thought them probably the worst of all the enemies of poetry. Poetry was until it gave token space to language and then visual poetry. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe other serious talented poets are not bothered by the recognition institutions like the MacArthur Foundation give competitors two or three orders of magnitude less good at their trade than they. Maybe they don’t recognize that such prizes indoctrinate all the other establishment sources of help for poets to give money and recognition to the same level of poets rather than to them. Many may have the good luck not not need financial aid as much as I do, too.
The MacArthur Foundation, I feel the need to add, is not merely an enemy of poetry, but of culture. Poetry is an enemy of culture, too, since it tends to confirm other institutions defending culture against innovation in other fields like it that they are doing right. But Poetry can’t be consider directly an enemy of all culture the way the MacArthur Foundation certainly can.
Heh heh, I’m over (with “over”) 1300 words now, thanks to the MacArthur brickbrains.
.
Entry 1294 — A Break from Difficult Art
Monday, December 9th, 2013
Today it’s back two centuries to Wordsworth’s “Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey,” when he speaks of having felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean and the living air, And the blue sky, and in the mind of man: A motion and a spirit, that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And rolls through all things.
And this from his sonnet about the beauteous evening:
The gentleness of heaven broods o'er the Sea; Listen! the mighty Being is awake, And doth make with his eternal motion A sound like thunder--everlastingly.
In these two poems, Wordsworth, it seems to me, connects to what I am calling the Urceptual Under-Presence, although his conception of it differs from mine in important respects, and is much more vague than mine is–or perhaps I should say as I hope mine will be. This Under-Presence is what I think many identify as God. I think of it as something evolution gave us to cope with the vast meaninglessness of the universe–a personification of it we carry around in our heads it as a comprehensible being, false but soothing. But it is also a powerful–and valid–metaphor.
.
Entry 475 — My Brain Is Still Working
Thursday, July 28th, 2011
I say my brain is still working, although the rest of my body isn’t doing all that well, because last night I had one of the Brilliant Ideas I’ve been having more than once a year since I was around 25. Possibly earlier than that, too, I can’t remember. I remember the ones that were not only brilliant but turned out to lead to fairly decent understandings. For me. It’s still unknown whether they’ll ever be understandings for the world. Or so I perhaps alone in the world say. It seems to me that more and more certified scientists are confirming some of them from forty years ago. The latest issue of Scientific American, which I haven’t yet seen, may have. It’s being advertised as having an article about a new theory of dreams. The one set of my ideas I’m most confident are valid is the one of dreams. I think I have a “page” here on it. I’m curious enough about how close the theory described in Scientific American is to it to actually buy a copy if I can get myself to Books-a-Million, the only local place that would have copies, as far as I know.
I’m writing here of my verosophical ideas. I feel like the ideas I have for new poems (and I’ve come up with two new ones of those the past two nights, too!) are something else, although I don’t see why they should be. Anyway, my latest brilliant verosophical idea is that among the innate Jungian “urceptual others” that I posit neurophysiological exist in the brain, is one representative of the Tribe. “The Urceptual Judge,” I tentatively call it.
It is the most complicated of the urceptual others but could be beautifully explanatory of a lot of questions I’ve been trying to answer for quite a while, including exactly what a person’s internal “god” might be. I’ve always considered the urceptual authority figure to be the basis of that, but not see that it may be a combination of the authority figure and the Judge.
It will take me a while to get all this straight, but I came up with the Judge when thinking about psychopaths. The authorities go along with me in believing such people simply to be those lacking empathy–which for me would be those lacking urceptual others. That got me thinking about altruism, which the authorities again agree with me in taking to be based on empathy and biologically advantageous for the tribe, if not for the individual, not that it can’t be for the individual, as well.
I’ve always had trouble making altruism the sole way an individual can turn collectivist. For some reason, last night, it hit me that another way an individual can work for the good of his tribe in spite of its depriving him of many individual happinesses is the way I keep thinking I do, by working for a sense of making an important cultural contribution. That led fairly quickly to the question of how, neurophysiologically, would an individual experience such a sense of cultural accomplishment, a valid sense of it?
It took longer for me to sort that out, but not too long (if not yet with any thoroughness): his Judge tells him when he’s done good for the tribe. So, do psychopaths lack a urceptual judge, too? Or are there two kinds of psychopaths, each with a different deficit? I’m unsure. I sometimes think that almost no one has a urceptual judge, but that’s silly. I think that because so few have one as extreme as I feel mine is–i.e., while I need to have outdone Beethoven and Aristotle both, most people are satisfied with having raised a family, and helped a reasonably valuable business, or the equivalent, going for a reasonably length of time.
Let me say here, before I forget, that my theory of urceptual puppets, is not the clearest part of my overall theory of psychology. I’ve never worked out a description of it I’m even half-happy with. But I think it worth doing a bad job of describing than keeping to myself until I have a better grasp of it. So here goes try number one to delineate the Urceptual Judge.
He begins before birth as one of an individual’s many urceptual others, each of them a sort of stick-figure puppet with connections to the Primary Urceptual Other and (perhaps) to the Urceptual Self. I’m not sure what I’ve said about this before, so may well contradict myself. Probably have before.
I think I think that the Primary Urceptual Other divides into . . . three? urceptual others, one good, one neutral, one bad. The good one tends to imitate via one’s Urceptual Self’s neuroconnections to it. The bad one either attacks or flees from, unconnected to it. The neutral one, if it exists (I just added it to my crew now), connects to each of the other two Others, but is inhibited from using those connections until its stimulus (some real other in the external environment) proves itself good or bad, which will open the appropriate connections.
Seems to me I’m saying the neutral Urceptual Other is the Primary Urceptual Other.
Anyway, the Urceptual Judge will have neuroconnections to the Good Urceptual Other but not to the Urceptual Self. Damn, to get this right, I really need to establish just about all the members of the urceptual populace, and I’m not up to. But one important Other is the authority figure, which is a good other with neuroconnections to the Good Urceptual Other, but distinguished from it by the cues it picks up from its stimulus to the Self recognizes as authority cues, signals to obey. The Judge sort of secondarily rewards the Self when the Self does obey.
Meanwhile other drives interfere, other others demand attention and allegiance. The judge takes from them, too, emphasizing to the self that making other respect one is important. Eventually one learns what others in general will consider valuable contributions to society and develop a habit of trying to make them regardless of feedback. Through reading about others who made great contributions in spite of winning little or no positive feedback from contemporaries, or inspiring negative feedback, one may overpower the Judge and turn him into a second self. The danger, needless to say, is solipsism. But that seems to me no worse than the danger of respecting judges who call for deadbrained conformity. Better, to tell the truth. But one should be aware of it. And will be if one has the right genes.
Okay, someday I’ll do a better job on the urceptual populace. I hope what I’ve said is at least interesting to anyone capable of being interested.