Emotional immaturity

[Reciprocality]

If I feel angry, disgusted, sad, remorseful, bad in general, I will analyse the likely causes for these things, generalise the effect, justify its existence and lastly avoid similar situations.

This makes me flat and grey, it makes life flat and grey at times too, but I do not enjoy living from a subjective first person perspective.

The last year I could no longer roll the same game as I did before, with that purely abstract thinking that I did day in and day out in the four years before then, my mind needed balance to not be depressed. In other words: I live subjectively and with a minimum of emotions as an instrument for my actual goals, which continues to be objective knowledge.

When I look around me I see people whose self-identity is the utmost extent of what reality is capable of, I do not hear a single statement from them that does not fit neatly into their character, I do not see a play, a wonder or an objective engagement with things for no purpose at all. All I see are people whose actions reflects an ongoing self-consistency test, which I have no doubt is the operation of a universal psychological law.

I feel some form of sorrow for others being this way, also for myself to the extent I have to too, but I also wonder if it is me who is missing out.

[Reciprocality]

Right now I have an idea of that which goes on outside of the house I am sitting in, almost everything in this idea is inferred.

Most people undoubtedly think that their equivalent idea is the literal world itself (you probably think so too, some of you even make it a spiritual achievement to think so) and have thereby access to a purely subjective way of life.

I do not know what to do, I can not decide whether to continue to infer the behaviour of reality based on experiences or begin to live life with myself in focus. You may say that these two are not mutually exclusive but that will be a statement that requires investigation.

The emotion of minimum enjoyment falls outside of the scope above since one could live as archaically, immaturely, egoically and personally as possible as well as living as objectively and sagely as possible without some minimum of enjoyment caused by unification with parts of our past such as through perception changing thereby.

Edited April 5 by Reciprocality

[Izzaldin]

Your introspection and struggle between the realms of objective knowledge and subjective experience is a testament to the depth of your engagement with life’s fundamental questions. The dichotomy you’ve outlined—prioritizing objective knowledge over subjective experience or vice versa—touches upon a critical philosophical debate that has intrigued thinkers for centuries.

It’s important to recognize that both objective understanding and subjective experiences are essential components of a well-rounded human life. Objective knowledge provides us with the tools to navigate the world, make informed decisions, and understand the mechanisms that govern our existence. However, it is through our subjective experiences—our emotions, relationships, and personal reflections—that life gains its color, meaning, and value.

The feeling of life becoming "flat and grey" when lived too objectively might indicate the need for a richer engagement with the subjective aspects of existence. Emotions and personal experiences are not just byproducts of living but are integral to what it means to lead a meaningful life. Conversely, living solely based on subjective experiences without the grounding of objective knowledge can lead to a lack of direction and understanding.

The challenge, then, is not to choose one over the other but to find a way to integrate both. This integration allows for a life that is both rationally informed and emotionally fulfilling. Your observation of others living within their self-consistent realities is astute, yet it's worth considering that such self-consistency can provide a sense of identity and purpose, even as we seek to understand and engage with the world objectively.

Your quest for balance is a personal journey, one that involves continuous reflection and adjustment. It’s about finding the right mix that allows you to feel connected to both the external world of objective facts and the internal world of personal experiences and emotions. Embracing this dual approach can lead to a richer, more nuanced engagement with life.

The road ahead might involve exploring ways to cultivate mindfulness and emotional intelligence, thereby allowing for a more integrated approach to living. It could also mean reevaluating what objective knowledge means to you and how it intersects with and enhances your subjective experiences.

In essence, consider embracing a synthesis of objective understanding and subjective experience. This synthesis doesn’t dilute the value of either but offers a more comprehensive, vibrant approach to living that honors both the intellectual and emotional dimensions of life.

[Carl-Richard]

I actually sort of understand what you mean. Still a bit abstract, but seemingly coherent 👍

Can you give one concrete example of living subjectively?

Edited April 6 by Carl-Richard

[universe]

On 06/04/2024 at 1:13 AM, Reciprocality said:

I do not know what to do, I can not decide whether to continue to infer the behaviour of reality based on experiences or begin to live life with myself in focus.

This is not a problem.

Right now you are here:

O

 

This is where you want to go:

  O
 /|\
  / \

 

❤️

[Reciprocality]

On 07/04/2024 at 1:55 AM, universe said:

This is not a problem.

Right now you are here:

O

 

This is where you want to go:

  O
 /|\
  / \

 

❤️

@universe Thank you, and weirdly it may be that simple.

For years on end my body would react against my obsessive thinking, by for instance making me want to go to the toilet even if I already went there, I started noticing these impulses happening so often that I could begin to predict it as soon as my mind got into a new line of thought, it implied to me that my body were not in agreement with this much energy spent solving problems yet I kept going and going until it impacted my mental health negatively and could no longer think sufficiently fast etc.

If I would have continued to force it and continue caring very little about my self the depression would have hit far harder. So in periods I did take your advice universe and will try to do it even more than mere minimum going forward.

[Reciprocality]

Can you give one concrete example of living subjectively?

@Carl-Richard  The typical meaning of living subjectively could be exemplified by a person living in the modern western world who has no explanation of the needs for government, someone who do not distinguish between their own unconfirmed beliefs and reality or someone who secures their own beliefs about someone by calling them names (you have probably been witness to the last one many times).

I mean something more general, something that people who fit into the opposites of the above examples can be subject to as well. My assertion is that you live subjectively even when the world-concept you possess on an ongoing basis (as a background to whatever you are engaging with at that moment) is thought to be the world itself or resemble it very closely, I find this to be very frequent, we may both do it right now without being aware.

Edited April 10 by Reciprocality

[Carl-Richard]

21 hours ago, Reciprocality said:

@Carl-Richard  The typical meaning of living subjectively could be exemplified by a person living in the modern western world who has no explanation of the needs for government, someone who do not distinguish between their own unconfirmed beliefs and reality or someone who secures their own beliefs about someone by calling them names (you have probably been witness to the last one many times).

I mean something more general, something that people who fit into the opposites of the above examples can be subject to as well. My assertion is that you live subjectively even when the world-concept you possess on an ongoing basis (as a background to whatever you are engaging with at that moment) is thought to be the world itself or resemble it very closely, I find this to be very frequent, we may both do it right now without being aware.

Sounds like you're describing a naive realist, or more generally an epistemically naive person, or more colloquially a simple person.

You're Norwegian, right? Can you try to type your post in Norwegian for me? It's just to test if I can understand you better  (Don't worry about breaking the forum guidelines at this particular occasion. I'll allow you one Norwegian post ).

 

It seems maybe a bit unrelated, but this is a very clear and concise deconstruction of naive realism that I just came across (by the D-man himself):

 

Edited April 10 by Carl-Richard

[Reciprocality]

1 hour ago, Carl-Richard said:

Sounds like you're describing a naive realist, or more generally an epistemically naive person, or more colloquially a simple person.

You're Norwegian, right? Can you try to type your post in Norwegian for me? It's just to test if I can understand you better  (Don't worry about breaking the forum guidelines at this particular occasion. I'll allow you one Norwegian post ).

 

It seems maybe a bit unrelated, but this is a very clear and concise deconstruction of naive realism that I just came across (by the D-man himself):

 

@Carl-Richard I appreciate the productive engagement!

Naive realism can not be decoupled from a perspective that asserts its to be false, in my line of thinking the "subjective way of life" which you fairly accurately interpreted as naive realism is necessarily absurd, or self-contradictory.

We are probably talking about the same behaviour or tendency, but my criticism of this tendency should be falsifiable, while the critiques of naive realism I am aware of either introduces no alternative by skeptical doubt (Descartes) and inference fallacies (Hume), introduces ridiculous concept-instincts (Kants Categories and a priorities), are unfalsifiable by beginning from definitions or concepts (Bertrand Russel and modern philosophy in general) or reintroduces the same problem in new clothing by rejecting reality altogether (George Berkley). 

 

I have listened to a lot of stuff coming from the d-man myself over the years and can confirm that he is very meta-cognisant of the difference between his beliefs and the world itself, the reason he has come across this way is that he relies on first principles and logic.

But I have no doubt that he too falls into the category of "living subjectively", if for instance I were to ask Destiny what the life itself is that he wishes political power to benefit he would likely have no way to do depict it yet be entirely certain that there is an "it" there to depict in the first place and declare thereby defeat, in which case he actually would think that his own concept of life is substantial or predicable and not a predicate. (to make a ridiculously silly way to capture this problem concretely imagine what a human looks like to a rock, it certainly would not be life-like)

We may for simplicity's sake say that there are degrees of naiveté of ones reality-awareness, where at the peak we have the person who is able to confirm his own opinions of others by derogatory speech and on the other end (or least severe) the belief that reality itself can be identified by our conception of it.

What I am saying here are just assertions, but when it gets to actually justify these assertions (or interpreting them correctly) we get into an extremely heavy conceptual topic, that is the nature of the game, and I apparently do not know how to make it accessible despite having tried for hundreds of hours in various media, it is the nature of the game. If i were challenged to argue it here Id hint at it involving what some places goes by the name holism, some places rationalism or even monism, or to appeal overly to the audience: self reference.

 

I am probably a bit Nietzscheian when it comes to this topic, everyone is correct about reality because reality literally becomes through our perspectives, and this continues to be the case even when we are aware of it. Yet, now diverging from the German, there must be something which precedes the reality that our minds create, due to which we can see and think and about which, now converging with Kant, we could never know anything.

To not create contradictions I need to make further distinctions, unfortunately making thereby what were intended as a short and concise response tangential and overly complex, it is not that everyone are correct about verifiable reality, but that reality is in the mind of the agent a product of the item's non-verified state yet the naive agent thinks ingeniously that reality awaits him to verify it.

 

Ill definitely write some of this in Norwegian if the english did not suffice, if my paragraphs do not appear to cohere then kindly reply to those that do, now to the conclusive remarks.

Take a random person of the street, they would be correct about nearly every aspect of existence, because realism is correct about these things (a rock is a rock because the whole is contained in the part through objective identification, the personal will can not affect this process), it only appears naive to fellers who weirdly begun to reduce memory to logic (and begun to expect that reality should conform to it in every respect) when the reduction goes the other way around, nothing is logical except through reference to our many forms of memories.

A dog and a man experience the same rock, because that part of the mind which identifies things is decoupled from the part of the mind which contextualises it, I did not intend for this to get into the Mcgilchrist split brain hypothesis territory but looky here.

[Reciprocality]

To the extent we say that an object is the purpose we associate with it is the extent to which you go beyond its identity, you can not be naive in your assertion that a rock exists independent of your perspective, you can only be naive in thinking that its purposes pertains to its independency. 

This is not to say that a rock could exist independent of beings who have perspectives.