This is in response to the video lecture Rafiq Mahmood posted (not his own radio talk) It was a lecturing on the history of the argument against Abrahamism called the Atheists are winning. Excellent, but.... He fudged his figures counting all the unchurched, and again, talked of Abrahamism only. The only Abrahamic religion I ascribe to is Rastafarianism. And I try not to use god, so, mostly, he did not address me. The closest he came to attacking anything I believe was when he said ground of being is a bad metaphor for God. I wanted to shout God is a bad metaphor for the ground of being! Some may recall I call myself radically agnostic, but nonetheless, I consider myself an animist. Some may also recall I have Aspergers syndrome, or aspects of it. This is how these points tie together. Once I was in the library. I opened a book at random, and read a paragraph explaining I-Thou and I-IT and I and I got it! Me and my life be CHANGED in a moment. No other philosopher has had as much impact with one blow applied at the right place and time! I and I thank thee and ye! Buber is famous for his thesis of dialogical existence, as he described in the book I and Thou. This is the information I encountered Buber worked upon the premise of existence as encounter. He explained this philosophy using the word pairs of Ich-Du and Ich-Es to categorize the modes of consciousness, interaction, and being through which an individual engages with other individuals, inanimate objects, and all reality in general. Philosophically, these word pairs express complex ideas about modes of being—particularly how a person exists and actualizes that existence. As Buber argues in I and Thou, a person is at all times engaged with the world in one of these modes. The generic motif Buber employs to describe the dual modes of being is one of dialogue (Ich-Du) and monologue (Ich-Es). The concept of communication, particularly language-oriented communication, is used both in describing dialogue/monologue through metaphors and expressing the interpersonal nature of human existence. Ich‑Du (I‑Thou or I‑You) is a relationship that stresses the mutual, holistic existence of two beings. It is a concrete encounter, because these beings meet one another in their authentic existence, without any qualification or objectification of one another. Even imagination and ideas do not play a role in this relation, Buber states. In an I–Thou encounter, infinity and universality are made actual (rather than being merely concepts). Buber stressed that an Ich‑Du relationship lacks any composition (e.g., structure) and communicates no content (e.g., information). Despite the fact that Ich‑Du cannot be proven to happen as an event (e.g., it cannot be measured), Buber stressed that it is real and perceivable. A variety of examples are used to illustrate Ich‑Du relationships in daily life—two lovers, an observer and a cat, the author and a tree, and two strangers on a train. Common English words used to describe the Ich‑Du relationship include encounter, meeting, dialogue, mutuality, and exchange. One key Ich‑Du relationship Buber identified was that which can exist between a human being and God. Buber argued that this is the only way in which it is possible to interact with God, and that an Ich‑Du relationship with anything or anyone connects in some way with the eternal relation to God. To create this I–Thou relationship with God, a person has to be open to the idea of such a relationship, but not actively pursue it. The pursuit of such a relation creates qualities associated with It‑ness, and so would prevent an I‑You relation, limiting it to I‑It. Buber claims that if we are open to the I–Thou, God eventually comes to us in response to our welcome. Also, because the God Buber describes is completely devoid of qualities, this I–Thou relationship lasts as long as the individual wills it. When the individual finally returns to the I‑It way of relating, this acts as a barrier to deeper relationship and community. This was the first answer I ever got to the question I asked when I was three, What happened? The answer. You had an I-Thou experience, child! My verbal consciousness snapped on as suddenly as if a switch had been flicked, as I perceived another entity existed, and we were alike. My pre verbal memories were of slowly distinguishing self from other, in delineating a body image, and a self attached to it, limned out of the buzzing popping confusion, and finding the I in It At first there was awareness, but no distinction, and slowly, a self that was aware arose, but consciousness of being aware awaited the encounter with the other! Even on first reading Buber, I noticed I-it consciousness dominates our social relations. We achieve I-thou but intermittently, and some of us (Hitler and Obama and most CEOs) seem clueless. But I must make a distinction I made sitting on the floor of the library, which Buber did not make. Buber stated the I-thou state need not transmit information, yet information transfer seems to me to be the essense of reality, which I call dialectic materialism but Buber calls, in the psycholgical sphere, dialogical existence (A phrase I will try to appropriate!) The very terms for describing encounters imply information transfer. What is the solution? Hard as it is to grasp from consciousness, pre conscious awareness is the platform on which it is erected. Likewise, I-thou exists on the Ground of I and I, the understanding that thou art that, on an Existential equality or identity. At its simplest, awareness need not be aware of other or self, as in my first prenatal memory, of simply being able to exist in two states, light or dark, with no knowledge of I or eyes or sight or light or anything, but the two states, and the ability to alter them. My next memories created the distinction of I and it, but, for a single instant before language seized my mind and created consciousness, I slipped into the divine or touched the ground of being, the pure state in which one sits with a cat, or a tree, or a tea cup, a picture, a piece of music, the moon, the state where the only information communicated is Tat tvam asi, Thou Art That, I and I, mon, and GROK! At its simplest, it is two ships acknowledging each other as they pass in the night. At its deepest, it reveals infinity in a grain of sand. Everyone, even Obama, must momentarily exist in this state in order to communicate, however rapidly they may descend into Hey shit. Do it order giving to objects But, if at its simplest, it simply opens a link between two sites. Once it starts transmitting information, it snaps from pure encounter or I-I to I-thou or even I-it Yet, it is a platform for a higher consciousness as well. The difference, as Buber sez, depends on rather or not one is open to it. To open, I suggest RASTA the fundamental, unmediated aspect, the link itself is I and I. I found myself for the first time in my life thinking that the foolish had confounded the wise when Jamaican peasants mistook the Roman numeral one for the perpendicular pronoun, and realized I am what I am applied not just to Pop-Eye, but to us all, while Bubers education would have made the connection inconceivable to him! youtube/watch?v=bcIbw09W-uY
Posted on: Fri, 27 Jun 2014 07:36:04 +0000