At least an animal

[lhexa]

Part of a conversation with Cube about identity and insanity.

...I don't have a character, much less one for each species. So I describe the identification as a set of affiliations, implying some degree of loyalty to humanity's present understanding of the two species. That understanding includes the literature tied to the animals (though tied very loosely, in the case of the fisher).

So less a pure furry and more one interested in furry (historical and present) as a lens for understanding humanity?

Neither. Not the former because if a pure furry exists, I don't know what it is. Not the latter, because understanding humanity is a side concern. I'm a furry in order to ensure that I'm at least an animal. I mean to imply that the development of humanity has made the majority of its members something less. Purposes, appearances, activities, perspectives are all less than animal (they go into, they compose what is animal), but human beings are reduced to being, in a vital sense -- that is, reduced to embodying or living -- such things as purposes, appearances, activities, perspectives...

At present humanity is something less than animal. Once I can figure out, to my satisfaction (or rather completion) how I am an animal, maybe then I can try to envision humanity as a higher form of life.

But to get back to the previous point, my understanding of what is fox-like or fisher-like will be human understandings thereof, my capacity for understanding them being a human one. Even if, as I argue (and once argued for draconity), what is fox-like and what is fisher-like cannot be reduced to a subset of what is human.

...Disconnected from a purposeful life by the structures humankind has built for itself. Tricky to undo...

A later part of the conversation.

...I think that more insight in this problem [of boundless greed] can be found in the idea of the fox. There's the insight that hit me with so much force when I first read the Ysengrimus. Reynard isn't any less greedy than Ysengrimus, but his is, in short, a different (and better) form that greed can take. He makes use of cleverness rather than strength, and his ability is what can redirect the raw drive of an Ysengrimus. Power, or the need for power, can't be repressed (that only replaces power with power), nor can it be reasoned with, but it can be outwitted.

All of these magical or divine creatures humanity has described provide ways of coming to terms with what is limitless in a person, whether it be power, suffering, love, patience, or any of the other things that have been expressed at various points in history... any one of which has the capacity to completely reshape human society. The vulpine answer is, in short, that divinity is cleverness. The application of this idea, in my case, is that whatever anger, pettiness, insecurity, delusion, vanity, hopelessness, and resignation might exist in me (and there's much at times), they can all be outwitted. (Again, for emphasis... not controlled, and not reasoned with, but outwitted.)

The downside to this approach is that, like Reynard, I have no final victories over my failings... hunger will never be more than a day away, and Ysengrimus or his kin (that is, what they represent) will always reappear to test my cleverness again. The fox is not the form of one who most values rest, comfort, or endings. But it works.

I hope there's something in there you can use.

Comments

Re: Purpose

[http://users.livejournal.com/_dw/]

(cont'd)

I'm not sure about this. They may lack the aforementioned blessing, but it doesn't follow that the purpose is defined for them, whether by some outside agency, fact or condition, or by something internal called instinct... there is some variation (for instance, a vixen may establish her own den and family, or remain to help raise her mother's new kits), and there is the possibility of purposelessness (say, that of a cage-bred animal released into the wild). There are also the familiar pitfalls of anthropomorphization.

That's a good point. I suppose it would be more accurate to say that the relative value of purpose, as well as the different kinds thereof, has been given to them, but that still partly falls to what you're saying, as well. They can reason (in as far as they reason) about actions (the first level, so to speak), but not about concepts such as reason themselves (the second). I might ask about what the nature of that purpose is (and how "fundamental" it has to be), but that would diverge from the subject onto ontology.

I think the reason that questions of purpose become either trivial or problematic when applied to animals is because our hierarchy of concepts (with purpose on top) does not translate to their behavior. For instance, if you switch to the concept of role, rather than purpose, suddenly the behavior of animals becomes considerably more comprehensible. (Parenthetically: It is easy to reduce role to purpose, but it's also easy to reduce purpose to role, particularly for animals. You can imagine an alternative conceptual hierarchy in which purpose is below role in importance, and you can make a case that such a hierarchy once prevailed over women, slaves and children.)

Rather than that role can be reduced to purpose or vice versa, it seems that they're both shades of the same thing: they're links of meaningful direction to either an action (purpose) or to a way of being (a role). By direction, I mean that they say "this is better than that", and by meaningful, that the reason or impact is not spurious (as such, carries "meaning"). Is that, too, a hierarchy? It sounds like it is, but the root component is common to both.

While I'm here, what do you mean by a "false purpose"?

Say you hold a very high standard of purpose: it has to be given to you by the universe, otherwise it could just as easily be invented. Then a false purpose is something which is invented (i.e. does not satisfy your stringent requirement, whatever that requirement is), yet appears to pass. Or more simply put: say there's a meaning to life - and you convince yourself of something else. That other is a false purpose.

The definition would also hold if "purpose" itself requires a certain standard in order to make sense. I don't know if it does, but the standard doesn't have to be subjective, it could also be objective. Going in that direction, we'd probably return to ever greater standards not being "good enough", and eventually to the entropic problem we've talked about earlier (in this version, in the semblance of "no purpose can be true because all my actions are sooner or later worn down by entropy in the form of time").

Finally, to return to the earliest question: what can give purpose its needed weight? I do not know, but I think the question has an empirical answer.

How could we find out, then? If it has an empirical answer, it should be possible.

---

If my answers feel growly or curt, that's not the intention... but since I lost my previous reply, I had to write quickly and so might have summarized too much, cut a bit too close to the bone. In any case, I did not intend to be rude towards you.

Re: Purpose

[lhexa.livejournal.com]

I might ask about what the nature of that purpose is (and how "fundamental" it has to be), but that would diverge from the subject onto ontology.

Well, that diversion might be worthwhile. One of the problems I'm wondering about in this conversation is, how do you judge the worth of one hierarchy of concepts from within a different hierarchy? I guess that's an ontological matter as much as anything.

Rather than that role can be reduced to purpose or vice versa, it seems that they're both shades of the same thing: they're links of meaningful direction to either an action (purpose) or to a way of being (a role). By direction, I mean that they say "this is better than that", and by meaningful, that the reason or impact is not spurious (as such, carries "meaning"). Is that, too, a hierarchy?

I think so, yeah -- but it's a different hierarchy, with meaning more important than purpose or role.

While I'm here, what do you mean by a "false purpose"?

Say you hold a very high standard of purpose: it has to be given to you by the universe, otherwise it could just as easily be invented.

Er, I see how a false purpose exists in that sense, but was that the sense you meant when you said you think that false purposes exist? If you did mean it in that sense, the point seems trivial. Though if it's been too long between replies, of course, that question might have become unanswerable -- sorry about that.

Finally, to return to the earliest question: what can give purpose its needed weight? I do not know, but I think the question has an empirical answer.

How could we find out, then? If it has an empirical answer, it should be possible.

Find the people whose purposes have the requisite weight (whose purposes provide an effective organizing principle for their actions and life), then ask them about (and otherwise investigate) those purposes. I call this matter empirical because we already know that some purposes, for some people, have that weight, even though the theoretical question of how a purpose acquires weight seems intractable. (And yeah, it's just as intractable to me as it is to you.)

In any case, I did not intend to be rude towards you.

It's fine, you didn't come across that way.