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Tom
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Posted 3/10/2009 1:05 PM (GMT -6)

My daughter graduated from UofMN last semester (Psychology) and plans on going on for more study (after she gets married this Fall). I miss her opinions a lot and the lively discussions we always had about psychology, identity, how the mind works (and fails to work), etc. Anyhow, I’m gonna fire off some ideas to her but thought I’d toss them out here first. This may be Freshman level stuff, but for me it’s quite interesting.

My thought is this:

· All misrelation (including psychological conditions) is a function of how one answers the question “Who am I?”

That, the most fundamental psychological issue is identity. That’s the seat of it all. From that flow all psychological ills (and health). So all sin, all misrelation, and psychological ills are a function of how one answers that question. This flows from a related claim I keep hammering on (and on which I’m still waiting to hear D render a verdict):

· All choice is either an attempt at or expression of personhood (personal identity).

If choice is always either an attempt at or expression of personal identity, then it’s easy to see why the “Who am I?” question is fundamental.

Doesn’t this have huge consequences for counseling? Doesn’t it simplify the counseling objective? Instead of getting people to focus on the morality of extra-marital affairs, or drug use, or the effects that a father’s gambling is having on his family, we put our effort into identity formation and THEN help people see how all their choices mediate that identity to others. Instead of trying to convince people to conform their actions to some objective standard of right/wrong, we seek to convince people to embrace an identity, for IF that embrace is genuine it cannot BUT determine behavior.

On a larger scale too, this elevates the importance of ecclesiology (about which there has been and still is an explosion of interest in blogs and published works), which is essentially the same question restated as “Who are we?” All the disagreements we have over Church and State, involvement of believers in political life, voting, etc., all likewise all a function of how we figure our answer to “Who am I?” into the answer of the ecclesiological question, “Who are we?” We express our faith and religious identity as individual given what we think the Church is meant to be. That essentially makes all choice (for Christians) a function of their ecclesiology (whether intentional or not). Hmmm.

My thought is that for the Christian both questions—Who am I? and Who are we?—are related.

Tom

One Love
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Posted 3/10/2009 1:24 PM (GMT -6)

Ok. This is gonna be a good one. Jamila's good peoples. Did great work, from what I understand.

Anyways...

All misrelation (including psychological conditions) is a function of how one answers the question “Who am I?”

Cool.

All self-relflective choice is either an attempt at or expression of personhood (personal identity). (In other words, excluding random spontaneity)

Cool. (There's your answer, Tom)

That's why when you have situations like in the United States of Tara...that things dealing with self-reflective choice in a single human hypostasis gets interesting.

United States of Tara is an American comedy-drama television series created by Diablo Cody and starring Toni Collette. Broadcast in the United States on the premium cable network Showtime, the 12-episode series follows the life of Tara, a housewife with dissociative identity disorder. It premiered on January 18, 2009. The pilot, written by Diablo Cody and directed by Craig Gillespie, is available for viewing on Showtime's official website.

United States of Tara website

It's a tight show from what I hear...

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life."

"God in Christ by His Spirit empowers, enables, energizes and enacts all Christian behavior and ministry as the dynamic expression of the life of Jesus Christ. Christianity is Christ. Christian living is the life and character of Jesus Christ lived out through the Christian." -James Fowler

Post Edited (One Love) : 3/10/2009 1:44:30 PM (GMT-5)

One Love
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Posted 3/10/2009 1:31 PM (GMT -6)

The cool thing is that I KNOW that Jamila is gonna take the whole Dissociative Identity Disorder thing seriously. She has to, just by what she'd done with Aki. I'd love to know her perspective on the interactions between "identity" in those situations and faith commitments. For example, what would happen if one of Tara's personalities "got saved" and started following Jesus (to the unawareness of the others) Would it not take because the choosing persona was not of an integrated type? Would the "main" personality have to be converted for it to be "real?" See what I'm saying?

Something else cool about the show. All of the family members (husband and two kids) have to relate to all of Tara's alters as actual people while the alters "present themselves." Check out the videos. Innnnteresting. Maybe I'll write the show and see if they what would happen if one of the alters found some type of religion. I think that'd be cooooool... biggrin

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life."

Post Edited (One Love) : 3/10/2009 1:36:19 PM (GMT-5)

One Love
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Posted 3/10/2009 1:43 PM (GMT -6)

With respect to the "Who Am I" question, maybe the truest answer is: "Ask God. He's the only one who knows."

Heh

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life."

Tom
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Posted 3/10/2009 1:47 PM (GMT -6)

I'll have to check out the series. Looks interesting.

Tom

One Love
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Posted 3/10/2009 1:56 PM (GMT -6)

PLEASE WATCH THE VIDEO

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life."

One Love
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Posted 3/10/2009 5:40 PM (GMT -6)

Something else.

What if we were to look at the "Who am I?" question from the stance of baptism and the Eucharist?

With whom do we "identify" and how? (Hint: "Christianity is Christ" )

-------------------------------------------------------------

In Christ is True Existence
Fr. Stephen

I have written recently that the true central question of our relationship with God goes to the very fact of our existence, that “in Him we live and move and have our being.” I have also written some short comments on statements of the Elder Sophrony reminding us that all we do, we do in the presence of God. Both of these bring us to the question of true or authentic existence. I do not wish to look at something around me (or someone) and say “that does not exist.” Such a statement would be both untrue and silly.

But I do want to be able to look at myself (you’re invited into this as well) and distinguish between mere existence and authentic existence. The purpose for which we were and are created is not mere existence. I can think of many days in my life of mere existence and not one of them has had much to recommend it (though I’m grateful to begin even there). But to exist authentically, is to exist not just before and in the presence of God, but consciously present to Him as the very center of my being - as the very center of all that is.

I have become increasingly aware of this during Church services lately. I suppose I could have become aware of it anywhere, and I’m sure that I should be aware of it everywhere. But lately, it has been in the services of the Church that this awareness has opened to me (or me to it). The awareness is simply that at the heart of every word, every action, every sound and movement, God is there. And more than that - but that God is in us, in me, in the midst of all that us. It in no way distracts from words or actions but gives them their proper meaning.

It has brought to my mind the understanding that regardless of what we do at any time, within our heart our attention should be toward God. My directions to those who come to the Church inquiring about the Orthodox faith is not to be distracted by anything, but in all things to seek God. The Orthodox Church exists for no other reason than to unite man to God in Christ. Indeed, the Church is nothing other than the union of God and man in Christ.

This is authentic and true existence - that for which we were and are created: Christ.

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life."

Post Edited (One Love) : 3/10/2009 5:46:05 PM (GMT-5)

One Love
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Posted 3/10/2009 5:57 PM (GMT -6)

Person vs Ego thread

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life."

Tom
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Posted 3/11/2009 2:21 PM (GMT -6)

Jamila: Interesting discussion.

Hmm, we think of mental illness a little differently. I’m not sure what you wanted me to comment on, but I guess I do agree with the “identity” thing. It’s very important! It plays a huge role in several mental illnesses, including the mood disorders and possibly some of the acting out disorders (aggressive). But what about the personality D/O’s or the D/O’s dealing with reality perception, like Schizophrenia, Borderline, or PTSD? There are other factors that come into play, like trauma, and brain hormone and chemical imbalances. I think we shouldn’t forget that our brains are part of our body, and if they get hurt or stop working properly, we don’t function properly. Just like a person with diabetes or arthritis. Our feelings, emotions, and thoughts are not the product of some spiritual or magical thing. They are a product of a living organ. Just my take on it.

It’s interesting that you mentioned DI D/O - like in the movie [Sybil], she had like 17 identities each with its own unique memories and personalities. One was very religious. When she would “take over” she would read her Bible and go to church. Then a different personality would take over (maybe one who was angry and aggressive) and she would break windows and cuss up a storm.

I’m interested in how you would define “identity.” Is this what makes us unique from other animals? Is it spiritual in nature? Does it include self-esteem? Let me know what you mean when you talk about it.

--------------------

Tom: I'll post more on the board, but as I read ya, I don't see any real difference. I'd totally agree that our brains are part of our bodies, so that "our feelings, emotions, and thoughts are...the product of a living organ." True. But that doesn't entail that they "...are NOT the product of some[thing] spiritual." That's a stronger claim. More to the point, it's perfectly possible that they're both, viz., a spiritual reality which is physically circumscribed (I'm stretching for the lingo here as I write), or a spiritual reality whose concrete expressions are manifested in material terms. It's a philosophical begging of the question to reason that because our mental health (and identities, and sense of well-being, our very subjectivities) can be jeopardized by a blow to the head or a chemical imbalance that ALL that we are is a machine of finely tuned material parts. We are AT LEAST that, but not necessarily MERELY that. Whether we are more or not is not something laboratory observations of the material world can prove (or disprove).

This gets into the whole mind/body problem that we probably can't get into right here, but my view is bit more holistic. I think the material and spiritual are far more intertwined and 'one' we think. I'd say that when we put our finger on 'personhood' (identity, the 'self') we're as close to the spiritual core of human being as we can get. How the two ('spiritual realities' and the 'material context' in which those realities are concretely expressed) intersect is a fascinating thing indeed. I just think there are more reasons to suppose that both are real and do indeed intersect than to suppose there is no intersection whatsoever because we're completely reducible to the physical/material.

Tom

One Love
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Posted 3/11/2009 2:33 PM (GMT -6)

Jamila:
It’s interesting that you mentioned DI D/O - like in the movie [Sybil], she had like 17 identities each with its own unique memories and personalities. One was very religious. When she would “take over” she would read her Bible and go to church. Then a different personality would take over (maybe one who was angry and aggressive) and she would break windows and cuss up a storm.

Yep. I guess that one alter was "saved"...and the rest weren't.

I'll say this. It seems to me that we have evidence that indicates that "personae" (that can self-reflectively choose and act) that a human ego periphery can take on DO NOT NECESSARILY comprise the total "person" of that human hypostasis.

In other words, the personality (or personalities) does NOT necessarily equal the "self."

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life."

Post Edited (One Love) : 3/11/2009 2:47:50 PM (GMT-5)

Tom
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Posted 3/11/2009 2:49 PM (GMT -6)

Another thought (just trying to navigate the possible intersection between the ‘spiritual’ (immaterial) and ‘physical’ (material) dimensions of human existence. There are some brave theological applications of ‘emergent’ studies upon this question.

If ‘spirit’ basically represents an emergent ‘quality’ of conscious, self-perception, then we can at least categorically relate the two (material and immaterial dimensions). Emergent studies (www.studiesinemergentorder.com/) basically research the manner in which entities that come into being through the combination of other simpler entities are more than their constitutive parts. It challenges the reductionist claim that what an entity is may be reduced to its parts. Emergent studies explore the manner in which order ‘emerges’ from a matrix of contributing subsystems or parts so that in the end you get genuine novelty. I’m explaining it poorly.

But essentially theology can say ‘spirit’ is the particular ‘way’ or ‘quality’ of subjective conscious existence’ that emerges from a particular order, that order being, say, the neural networks, central nervous system, etc., that are the embodied particularity of human being. Consciousness would emerge when and if all the constituent parts of human brain activity successfully come together. As an emergent property, it’s more that its several parts. This unique quality, or emergent property (viz., conscious, self-perceiving subjectivity) would be accounted for simply on the grounds that God has covenanted with himself and Creation to call such consciousness into being when and if that particular combination of neural networking should develop.

D, fill in the blanks.

T

Tom
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Posted 3/11/2009 2:54 PM (GMT -6)

One Love
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Posted 3/11/2009 2:55 PM (GMT -6)

hang on...baby duty...

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life."

Tom
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Total Posts : 10353

Posted 3/11/2009 3:37 PM (GMT -6)

Here's the thing. I don't think religious believers can produce THE God particle, that single, material entity or event which itself IS the entrance point for divine action in Creation. That a) presumes a hard material/immaterial divine or line which panentheistic cosmology basically denies. So how does one move beyond materialistic reductionism at all? On philosophical bases no doubt.

T

Tom
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Posted 3/11/2009 3:38 PM (GMT -6)

Put in an (a) point there without any (b) point. Ha.

T

Tom
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Posted 3/11/2009 3:49 PM (GMT -6)

D, have you read Hasker's major work The Emergent Self? In Boston at the first Science/Openness he gave a summary of it. Just off the top of my head, he used a magnetic field as an analogy. From a magnet (metal with appropriately charged north and south poles; there's the flat 'material' aspect of it) emerges a magnetic FIELD. The magnetic force, that field, is an emergent property of the metal particularly arranged. That's his basis analogy, and he builds off that.

It's not perfect, but it's heading in the right direction. It explains how consciousness can be MORE that MERELY a set of particular neurons firing here and there. Like the power of a magnetic field to move and influence is something over and above the magnet itself (yet tied to it), likewise with consciousness or spirit.

Interesting.

T

Tom
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Posted 3/11/2009 4:09 PM (GMT -6)

Ever visit Clayton's website? Looks excellent.

Check this out: http://clayton.ctr4process.org/files/papers/NeuroscienceThePersonAndGod.pdf

One Love
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Posted 3/12/2009 7:39 AM (GMT -6)

D: In other words, the personality (or personalities) does NOT necessarily equal the "self."

Tom: Right. So how do we untangle it. Because a materialist can say (using Sybil) that personal identity as such is reducible to brain waves and such. What would a non-materialist like you say to that?

Loder. Knight's Move. Note on Page 45.

The classical set of solutions to the mind/body problem are succinctly summarized by J. O. Wisdom as follows: "The well known theories about the possible relations between them [mind and body (brain)] can be divided into the following: (1) the mind acts on the body and the body acts on the mind (Interaction or Interactionist Dualism); (2) occurances in the mind are paralleled by occurances in the body and vice versa, without interaction (Parallelism or Parallelistic Dualism); (3) the mind is reducible to the body (Epiphenomenalism or Materialistic Monism); (4) the body is reducible to the mind (Idealism or Idealistic Monism); and (5) the mind and body are reducible to the third "stuff" (Neutral Monism)...The viewpoint developed here is closest to the first, or Interactionist, point of view, but there are also elements here of the last position, or Neutral Monism, in that it is argued that the strange loop, though immanent to the mind-brain interaction, makes the relationality itself the positive third term in which marginal control works in favor of mind, as Polanyi describes.

Same book. pages 281-282

The Mind/Body Relationship

First, it seems apparent that in this model we have a greatly elaborated version of the mind/body problem as discussed in Chapter 3. There, we claimed, along with Bohr and others, that this duality was a irreducible pair of opposites, which maintained a relation of complementarity according to the strange loop model.

...

Consciousness generally, as well as consciousness of God, though always operating partially under the constraints of the neural system, will inevitably exceed the system's limits even as it draws upon its resources, as the strange loop model indicates.

From what I see, Loder's idea isn't incompatible with Clayton's. (I read the paper)

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life."

Post Edited (One Love) : 3/12/2009 7:52:06 AM (GMT-5)

One Love
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Posted 3/12/2009 9:23 AM (GMT -6)

And Tom...

Think about the relationship of the "spirit" of the mind(intelligible)/body(sensible) relationship to the Creator Spirit of God? What does it mean when the human spirit is in perfect union with the Father's Spirit of Christ-the-Logos and completely permeated by the Spiritual Presence of Jesus. The Triune God indwelling the human "spirit" by way of the Holy Spirit.

He gives giving himself...we keep taking him in...

becoming ever one with Him...

as we surrender...

as we give ourselves fully to Him...

our hearts touch...

And we are soooo satisfied...yeah...

And yet...

All we want is more...

More.

More...more...please...

More....

Satisfied, but ever wanting more.

Knowhutimean... ;-)

(Yeah, I'm having a weird moment, forgive me. Think of it as Bridegroom/Bride language and intention. Christ IS our Bridegroom, right? )

PS: Your view of spirit is RIGHT ALONG with Loder's now, dude. Way to go! hop

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life."

Post Edited (One Love) : 3/12/2009 10:28:40 AM (GMT-5)

One Love
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Posted 3/12/2009 10:29 AM (GMT -6)

Mornin', Tom.

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life."

Tom
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Posted 3/12/2009 10:47 AM (GMT -6)

I reeeeeeally have a hard time following Loder. So much so that it's like reading Chinese or Martian. I read a paragraph ten times and just don't understand it. The strange loop analogy just doesn't get it for me.

Clayton admits straight up to being a monist, but I don't know if he means with respect just to creation or to God+Creation. If the latter, that's, well, wow. But if just the former, then of course. All created entities are ESSENTAILLY (composed of) the same matter/energy.

Question: Are you saying, D, that all consciousness is God's consciousness? That consciousness per se is GOD?

T

Tom
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Posted 3/12/2009 10:54 AM (GMT -6)

Thing is, Clayton wants to say 'spirit' (our level of conscious existence) emerges from matter (when arranged properly, like our brains). I get that. But at the same time, I want to say that matter emerges from spirit/consciousness.

How's the photon KNOW it's being watched (or not) when it passes through the slit(s)? It's consciousness (on some level) ALL THE WAY DOWN. If we're going to say that, then Clayton ought to be arguing that matter is an emergent property of consciousness, not the other way around.

BUT...having said that, maybe both are true. Maybe the GIVEN consciousness which is the sea in which matter emerges and "has its being" is the divine side of the equation (God's sustaining presence), while the consciousness that emerges once emergent matter is properly structure (i.e., our brains), is us. Thus, embodiment defines the limits within which we consciously exist and also becomes the point at which God "let's go" of creation to let it develop into freely thinking, choosing 'others' with whom God relates.

Gotta locate that "letting go" or else you get a very objectionable monism (a monism of 'persons').

T

One Love
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Posted 3/12/2009 11:15 AM (GMT -6)

Tom: How's the photon KNOW it's being watched (or not) when it passes through the slit(s)? It's consciousness (on some level) ALL THE WAY DOWN. If we're going to say that, then Clayton ought to be arguing that matter is an emergent property of consciousness, not the other way around.

Repost:

De Quincey:
I am proposing, therefore, that interpersonal consciousness evolves out of a prior personal consciousness. As a transpersonal mode of consciousness, it involves not only awareness of the prior personal and of the emergent interpersonal but also of the ontological grounding (or context) of all consciousness which is intersubjective.
So now we have: "'I'-SAPRIU(D)":

o Intersubjective (primordial condition and foundation for consciousness shared between all intersubjects--what many traditions refer to as "spirit" );

o Sentience (primitive capacity for feeling and self-motion in any individual organism);

o Awake/awareness (higher form of sentience where organism can be either conscious or unconscious, awake or asleep);

o Personal (individualized awareness with a sense of self-identity);

o Reflective (capacity for self to be "aware that I am aware"--gateway to altered states of consciousness: "aware that I am aware that I am aware . . ." ):

o Interpersonal (gateway to transpersonal consciousness, involving awareness not only of personal identity, but also of deep intersubjective foundation of all consciousness);

o Unitive (integrates all prior forms of consciousness into experienced unity);

o Dissociative (pathological failure to integrate prior forms of consciousness).

According to this view, intersubjectivity is not, strictly speaking, a variety, or a state or level of consciousness like the other seven. It is the context or condition for all varieties of consciousness, and permeates the entire evolutionary spectrum. As consciousness evolves, it eventually becomes aware of this context.

Csentience and Cawake are pre-personal, Cpersonal and Creflexive are personal, with Cinterpersonal evolving out of Cpersonal, emerging as the first stage in transpersonal consciousness. The integration of all stages from Csentience to Cinterpersonal is unitive consciousness. ("D," as before, represents the potential for dissociation at any stage, the pathological shadow side of intersubjective consciousness that prevents unitive consciousness.)

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life."

One Love
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Posted 3/12/2009 11:23 AM (GMT -6)

Tom:
Are you saying, D, that all consciousness is God's consciousness? That consciousness per se is GOD?

I don't believe that Uncreated Consciousness is ontologically identical to created consciousness, though I believe that the agency of insubjectivity that encompasses and grounds both realities, that is, the Holy Spirit of God, is the Absolute Unity of Being.

This is in line with Alexei Nesteruk's "antinomial monodualism." I could say it this way...from here...

The Orthodox Church believes, as it prays, that the Holy Spirit is always "everywhere and fills all things." The invocation of the Holy Spirit at the Divine Liturgy is the solemn affirmation that everything in life which is positive and good is accomplished by the Spirit of God. Creation, salvation, eternal glorification; the entire work of God in making and saving the world is accomplished by the power of the Holy Spirit. He is the one who dwelt in Jesus making him the Christ. He is the one by whom Christ was incarnate of the Virgin Mary. He is the one who led Christ to the cross as the innocent Victim, the one who raised him from the dead as the triumphant Victor.

He is the one who guarantees the indwelling of God with men in the Holy Communion of the Church and in the life of the Kingdom to come.

Yeah...

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life."

Post Edited (One Love) : 3/12/2009 11:29:01 AM (GMT-5)

One Love
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Posted 3/12/2009 11:38 AM (GMT -6)

"Creation is allowed in intimate love to speak to the Creator as if to a lover. As the Creator loves the creation, so the creation loves the Creator. The whole world has been embraced by this kiss."
--Hildegard of Bingen

mood music...feel the yearning in this song... redface

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life."

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