[smhost]

i ultimately agree with your politics, but i don't think it's a matter of simply deciding to be somehow self-contained. you can decide to give yourself whatever meaning you want about yourself, but so long as society doesn't recognize your meaning and see you as you see yourself, that meaning has no meaning outside yourself. and there's also another problem with denouncing the other, which is that you close them off to the possibility of realizing themselves through you, and so they can never be a part of whatever society you decide to create for yourself.

[PavlovsCat]

> i don't think it's a matter of simply deciding to be somehow self-contained

Neither I nor Gruen said anything like that. I read the comment I responded to as claiming it's all from the outside, all from society, and I simply ask what IS society, when they all just get it from the outside. And I say there's not just the outside -- and the only way that can get heard is as me claiming "there's only the inside"? That's frustrating. It may may be "politics" to others, but to me it's simply a question of awareness, and Socrates-style question that are intended to be answered, not to make a point first and foremost..

You said making your own decisions "comes later", which as I pointed out doesn't fit the comment I replied to, since that was also talking about getting your meaning from others as an adult, e.g. falling in love. Also, Gruen and others mention the individuality of infants being suppressed -- so is there something to suppress, or does that "come later"?

What's the youngest age a human can approach or retract from a stimulus? I'd say then at the latest it becomes a two-way street, but it's probably one from the first cell division. If anything, that's what I'm arguing.

> so long as society doesn't recognize your meaning and see you as you see yourself, that meaning has no meaning outside yourself.

"Society" cannot do that anyway, since it's not an individual human being. We can use society as a shorthand for actually existing humans, but "society" as such is an abstraction, it doesn't really act or think or feel or understand or mean anything, like any group.

And yes, the meaning we have in life is for us only, but how is that a problem? What's the alternative? A "common" delusion, or people saying the same words as if that makes them the same inside?

> there's also another problem with denouncing the other, which is that you close them off to the possibility of realizing themselves through you, and so they can never be a part of whatever society you decide to create for yourself.

There's a poem I like, but I don't quite remember it, something about being "alone like a tree, and brotherly like a forest". I think true friendship, love, and/or a society of adult citizens, "achieves its full flower" with individuals who stand on firm inner ground, so to speak.

The closest two eggs can get is when their shells touch -- if you make omelette, they're no longer eggs in that sense, and to me that's not two eggs coming really close, but two eggs disappearing and being replaced by something that's less than each of them.

[smhost]

you're making a domain error when you conflate the forces of physical chemistry during first mitosis with higher level cognitive phenomenon of self-perception and identity. i hope you recognize that.

and you're entirely wrong about society being a fiction and therefore it not being real enough to matter. try telling black americans during the civil right era that society is just a fiction anyway and they just need to find meaning within themselves. it's a profane asymmetric insult for you to enjoy all the benefits of being recognized by the dominant fictions of society in the form of powerful institutions at every level of society, and then to deny that same recognition to people who are not you. meaning within fiction matters, "common delusion" matters, and it matters more and in more powerful ways than any individual can provide themselves.

[PavlovsCat]

> you're making a domain error when you conflate the forces of physical chemistry during first mitosis with higher level cognitive phenomenon of self-perception and identity. i hope you recognize that.

No, I'm using a figure of speech, and you're responding to nothing, certainly not the strongest possible interpretation.

> and you're entirely wrong about society being a fiction and therefore it not being real enough to matter.

You simply don't understand a word of what I say, as I say it.

The very first words of my first comment in this thread were

> Yes, we look for confirmation, just like we give it

Which makes it clear I don't "denounce others" or say "the outside is an illusion", or any of those plump distortions of my words, laced with big words, you offer. Apart from "I agree with your politics" which is like saying "I think it's fine you're beating your dog". I'm not beating my dog, I wasn't proposing politics, I disagreed with something. Initially by asking a question, to let the other person maybe elaborate on something I got wrong, etc. Well so much for that, I guess that boat sailed. Yet you are not OP and cannot answer my questions to them. As it turns out, you can't even give your own answers, because you distort what I say or ask before you even interact with it.

Simply because I disagree with one extreme, you put words about another extreme into my mouth. As far as I'm concerned, you haven't actually addressed any of what I said, and I'm done wasting my time.

[smhost]

you're complaining about how i'm not understanding your beliefs in exactly the way that you want to be interpreted, so the only recourse you have is to turn away and act as if my interpretations ultimately don't matter, which is exactly in line with your stated belief that meaning is internal. i won't see you the way you see yourself, so now i'm wasting your time and making extreme statements, and there's nothing you can do about it except close yourself off.

[delian66]

Well, I agree with PavlovsCat and disagree with you. So in our little mini society of at least 3 people in this thread, a society which is not fiction (as you said), there is nothing you can do about it, except to take the feedback we give you, I guess.

[smhost]

that's not true. since i believe that meaning is external, the correct thing for me to do is either continue to try to convince you, or kill you both if you don't compromise a meaningful way forward.