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

[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.