Before you read this, you should read the prior post, if you haven’t already. What I say below requires that you have looked at the two tables and the previous discussion. I do believe that the categorization of the behaviors is consistent with the brand features of the divided-brain-model (very left-hemisphere comment). The idea of self (singular) would signify some unitary being, acting metaphorically like a machine, run by a program that can produce a variety of distinctive behaviors. Distinctive according to some criteria that an observer might use to describe an action, but arising from a common mechanism. One’s… Read More
Continue ReadingFraternal Twins (Part 3)
Routines, Institutions, and Unintended Consequences Much of our time is spent acting within institutions without even thinking that our actions are being driven by a lot of rules and resources. From the moment of our birth, we are embedded within the structures of many intersecting institutions, and much of our time awake we act according to the peculiar structures that constitute them. The first of such institutions virtually all of us encounter from birth onward is family. Institutions are human creations. We create them by establishing their structure and keep them in place by re-embedding the structure through the actions… Read More
Continue ReadingFraternal Twins (Part 2)
Different Worlds—Different Human Beings Humans are different from all other species in many ways, but one that has been singled out is that we seek meaning. A corollary to this is Socrates’s warning that, “An unexamined life is not worth living.” Heidegger wrote that only human beings make an issue about being, itself. Only we ask questions about what it is to be? This could be interpreted, again, as seeking the meaning of existence. We are also unique in our ability to create and use language in our quest for meaning and generally to express our intentions and feelings, and… Read More
Continue ReadingFraternal Twins (Part 1): Introduction (Reposted May 10)
Fraternal Twins Are you aware that there are two of you? Two different people live inside your skin. One, cool and controlling – rational, too; T’other, empathetic, unlike its twin. The left brain offers a world, abstracted, Defined by dead reductions from the past. Because all meaning has been subtracted, You’re run by rules memory has amassed. The right brain connects you to the present Where the real you acts in the here and now. Unlike the rule-bound left, you can invent; Now, the creative, caring you can show. Our modern culture has suppressed the right. That means there’s little… Read More
Continue ReadingReality and Democracy
The craziness of life in the US has abated a little following the inauguration of President Biden, but its causes still lurk in the background, but not far below the surface. Faced with a serious attack on our democracy, we are told by the pundits that our institutions held and we were saved (at least for now). Perhaps, but the institutions that hold us together are really in trouble. Institutions are nothing more than linguistic creations. We tend to talk only about the very big ones, but we exist within many, many of them. In today’s highly technocratic society, we… Read More
Continue ReadingBrainwashed Nation
A democratic, free nation can exist only when truth and civility abound. With neither in place, the bonds that hold the polity together shrivel and eventually disappear. The assault on the Capitol attests to that. Some level of shared truth is critical to enable the common good to emerge. Without a clear vision of that good, no collective action can be put forth and enacted by consent. The only alternative is action through force and fiat. Biden’s election will return truth to the White House, but little else. And even that will not matter so long as the body politic… Read More
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