Introversion

You've all lost the smart-contest you've apparently set up. If you want to look supersmart, go build me some cool lasers and shit.

 

Interesting, I seem to find myself in even partial agreement with TDC. I'm gonna have to take a cold shower in the fetal position after this.

The first thing I thought of after reading the article and the first few post here was this. The selection bias that exists for those discussing this topic on an online forum is pretty strong as well. You're gonna get a lot more people agreeing with this article here than you will at a typical tavern on Saturday night.

I think Pilate is a pretty cool guy. eh questions what truth is and doesn’t afraid of anything.

 

Oh, let me guess, you know that your sense of self is real because it feels real to you.

Well... yes. Of course you can't tell that your own sense of self is an illusion just through introspection. That's why humanity spent millennia completely unaware of the bizarre nature of consciousness. It's only through rigorous observation and reasoning that something like that can be deduced. And even now, when all the evidence is available, most people will still dismiss it with "That doesn't apply to me because I know myself." Yes, I bow before your logic, Einstein. Have a cookie.

 

When I decided to share this, I expected a great deal of identification with the introverted orientation. I was hoping others would discuss how closely the qualities of an introvert describe them and expected a minority extrovert population to pop up. I didn't allow for the article to have holes poked in it, but I suppose I should have expected that.

By virtue of any population congregating at the same place allows for there to be a higher occurrence of commonality than in a random population.

 

I've recently "killed" my own ego. Due to my inability to fall asleep, I've spent countless hours in bed drifting, trying to attain the lack of thought that precedes my sleep. Last night, I fell asleep nearly immediately after I realized that, while I do exist, my ego is merely a product of my mind, as are any fantasies I may imagine or dreams I have. Do my fantasies or dreams exist in more than my own memory? Of course not. So why should my ego be special?

 

What's the ego supposed to be, out of near-interest?

 

The ego is what people use to identify who they are. No one is born with an ego, it comes when they are able to distinguish themselves from their own environment. The development is complete when an infant is able to determine whether or not their reflection is themselves or another baby. Is it useful? Sure. It's established individuality. In fact, everyone should be allowed a proper ego.
However, when the ego becomes too stressful (i.e. a point beyond traditional repair), it should be allowed to die. Perpetuation of the ego at this point causes further suffering. At least, it did to me. I wasn't even trying to kill my own ego, it just happened. Depending on the person and the method of death, this can be traumatic or peaceful (much like physical death). The "death" isn't death per se, more like a dissolving and reconstitution. Mine was peaceful.
Methods vary;
Meditation
Prayer
Sleep deprivation (how it happened to me)
Entheogen consumption
Ego death is a big part of Buddhism. Once it has been achieved and learned from, it is thought the person who has experienced it can enter Nirvana.

 

Actually, I know a guy who's just as self-centred and stupid as Gross, and it doesn't become him either.

 

It's funny you said that as if it might be appealing in other cases. But really, no one is as self-centered AND as stupid as me.
I hardly post everything going through my head, though. Seriously, a schizophrenic who's not affected by meds literally putting his entire mind on the internet? Hah.
You want the Freudian definition? In that case, the ego is the self we're directly aware of that allows us to rationalize our actions based on instinctual desires, or subconscious thoughts. A bit like what Smuel said in response to my post.
What I said is based on some interesting research, and the phenomenon known as ego-death is well documented. People who've suffered near death experiences are also known to have gone through a dissolving ego. It's not like you have to do it at some point, but if you choose to, it can be helpful when nothing else seems to work. And it naturally occurs when you're about to die anyway, so it's not like it'll never happen to you.

 

Please point out the humour for me.

Or else stop pretending to be part of a master race.

 

I think I can do both. Behold:

The humour has several aspects to it. Firstly there is the way that the author does not mention that the quote has been altered. This assumes that the quote is so well known that the reader will recognise that some new words have been added, and so the author is giving a knowing wink to the reader that they are sophisticated enough to recognise this without it being spelled out. This flatters the reader and so humour is derived from the feeling of smug satisfaction engendered by looking down on those not well read enough even to understand that a joke has been made in the first place.

Secondly, Sartre's original quote refers to his philosophical conjecture that self consciousness requires an external reality in order to validate its own existence, and hence has a masochistic desire to be limited to itself. Thus the boundaries of the self serve both as proof of the self and a denial of its supremacy. Adding "at breakfast" completely undermines this lofty concept, and thus derives humour from the juxtaposition of the trivial with the sublime.

Thirdly, the "at breakfast" line plays to the stereotype of someone being "not a morning person", and appearing grumpy when having just risen. The connotation is that this tendency is exacerbated in the case of an introvert, and further suggests that perhaps many people are introverted in the morning, subverting the original conceit of the article which is that introversion is a personality type that is constant. Thus the humour is derived from the spectacle of the author subtly mocking his own position.

Finally, the implication of the altered quote is that if hell is other people at breakfast, then hell was not other people the night before. This brings one in mind of the common scenarios for this to occur, which is that two people were drunk one evening, had a good time in bed together, and then are faced with each other in the unflattering light of the following morning, making awkward conversation but each secretly wishing that the other was not there. The humour therefore comes from the repetition of the stereotypical one-night-stand cycle of passion followed by regret, and the recognition in the viewer that despite full knowledge of the pitfalls inherent in this situation, they will nonetheless likely exhibit the exact same behaviour, given the opportunity. Thus the illogicality of human nature is laid bare, and the reader is invited to laugh at both other people and themselves.

And that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is why you should never analyze a joke.

 

So, it's a high-brow sex joke. You're right, seeing why it would be funny sucks the humor out like some sort of chuckle-happy vampire.

 

My apologies for the length and the nature of this post to those that not Smuel.

No.

I don't feel my sense of self. I AM my sense of self. Did not a great philosopher of reason say "I think therefore I am." ?

Give the damn cookie to a dog by the name Einstein. Has it not been said "The only enlightened state is one of perplexity." ? (Or what is surprise?) All my years of introspection has taught me that you can't know yourself, any more than you know your own face: E.g. when I was a child, trying to determine which side to part my hair, I got it wrong and it was my sister who corrected me. What you know from introspect (or from a mirror) is a mirror of yourself and reflections are always wrong because they put the left on the right and right on the left. And if you are under the delusion that the universe doesn't break with left-right symmetry, study quantum physics (which is extremely useful for philosophical thinkers).

Only if you define "sense of self" as the ability to sense yourself via the five senses (or just plain via the mind) is your position accurate (or may be accurate). But I don't define the word "sense" within the phrase "sense of self" to mean the words "sense" "of" "self". I take the phrase to mean more than the sum of its parts. Therefore, the meaning arising from combination of these three words are not found in the individual meanings, but rather the phrase itself should be treated as if it were a single word unto itself.

"I think therefore I am." All of reality may be nothing more than a dream of a single individual. As I know that I exist, logic concludes that if reality is merely one person's dream, then "I" am that individual. Where "I" is defined by each and everyone of us who has the capacity to experience reality in the first person. But then with whom or what do we interact with? From my religious point-of-view, I could say that that other that I interact with is God himself. From a less religious point-of-view, another might say that it was the universe itself. I care not what name you put on it, but whether what we (or I) interact with is a singular cosmos or plurality of individuals; morality, judgment, ethics and religion all remain exactly the same.

My self of sense is defined by Being, not by knowing or sensing or feeling or thinking or even attempting to define "Me". I know that I am, simply because I exist. And I know the sense of my Self via that existence. It is much the same as holding a piece of wood in your hands and knowing how strong or weak it is without testing it to see if you are right. The cracks, the density, the quality of the wood can be known via touch, but the nature of the wood is Wood and the rest is just variables and permutations of wood being Wood.

 

Xyle, people have, as a conservative estimate, 9 senses. The whole 5 sense thing was proposed by Aristotle and oddly enough, even as the purpose of certain anatomical structures were determined and that they will work together to form new senses, I was taught of the "5 senses" as a young child in elementary school, and this was never corrected until I looked up how people sense where their limbs are when they close their eyes, or how they maintain balance.
There is even a special sense that only 1 per 1000 people will develop naturally, that of synesthesia, which will stimulate the indirect response of another sense while an active sense is in use. People who smell colors or see sounds have some form of synesthesia.
As for the God thing, :/ .
Said the same thing myself not too long ago and was greeted with less than enthusiasm.
That feeling of "God" you get is you. If you want to have a religion and feel that in doing certain things or however you achieve that feeling is direct interaction with an omniscient force, fine. But also know that Genesis and you yourself have said that we are all made in God's image, and therefore "He" is part of all of us, effectively making that a conversation with yourself.
The universe has no consciousness, and referring to the universe as an entity as we would understand it (or even that we wouldn't) is a strong religious standpoint.
Your wood analogy isn't very good. You may have a good feeling that it's a strong or weak piece, but you should always test to make sure. You sound as though you take things for granted, which is bad for both building materials and being. You further say you could inspect for things such as structural difference in a piece, but denigrate that by saying it doesn't matter because it's still wood. In a way, it's very wise; people are, after all, people. But saying differences in this situation don't matter because they're all of the same "kind" (here we go), that elevates you above the rest of us and puts you on a damn pedestal. Aren't you as fallible as the rest of us?

 

Here's a deep, meaningful question: who the fuck cares?

 

Just trying to get him to examine himself a little better.

 

Y'know, there's always one kid who thinks he's the messiah when in fact he's the clown.

I think the message of Xyle's subconscious is: Your sense of self is dust in the wind, dude. Who we think we are is negligable compared to the actual real universe.

Sadly, Xyle's take-home message is: Gosh, actually I am the real universe, go me! Better start practising my ministry on the internet until I can start a real cult.

 

It's relatively common (read; it happens enough for the Simpsons to do a parody of it) for people visiting Jerusalem to believe they're the messiah and begin preaching to strangers on the street. It's called Jerusalem syndrome, of course. Unfortunately, this isn't Jerusalem by any stretch of the word.

 

I was defining it as "consciousness" really. i.e. That thing that you proceeded to ramble on about. Exactly that thing. It's the "I" in "I think therefore I am". Yours is an illusion, as is everyone else's. Your memories are reconstructed at the moment you think you're recalling them. Your moment-to-moment decisions are governed more by base instinct and learned response than high reason. The whole lot is not what you think it is, and it really doesn't matter which philosophy you try to bring on side to support your view, because all of that stuff is constructed within the illusion and is therefore irrelevant.

 

Often when Smuel and Xyle say something that I don't understand, I write it off as not worth understanding and move on.

Grossenschwamm does a pretty good job of breaking down his concepts into digestable rhetoric.