What blind spot to men have?

[Starbird]

Bravo to Mr. Anders Schlander, for that insightful post. It doesn't answer my specific questions, but, it adds to the fat of the argument.

Yours,

"Starbird"

[Anders Schlander]

I think men can create a blind spot to their own psychological pain during solitary introspection, while women can't.

In most cases I don't think men create blind spots to their "psychological pain", but rather that they are deeply and in most cases permanently desensitized to any psychological pain. Or more correctly that psychological pain does not really exist in them at all. And that this lacking of organismal sensitivity also prohibits any truly edifying "solitary introspection", since it inhibits true perception of their inauthentic humanness or maleness.

I think many males are very sensitized to psychological pain, but that the thrill that they feel when they succeed makes it is worth it. For great risk and great challenge, there can be great failure or great success. I believe the stronger the failure, the stronger the success, the stronger the individual's ego is, the stronger these may feel, and it can be very powerful. Occasionally when a person becomes so mentally involved that the 'tides' are fluctuating madly, he may feel great displeasure and seek something that does not cause any. Occasionally he may go in circles and stay in samsara, or occasionally he may find the way out... in closing, i think it is impossible to be desensitized to psychological pain without being desensitized to great psychological rush. The closer you get to being a vegetable the more you avoid pain, but also pleasure.


edit: Thanks, starbird. I havn't been thinking very clear in a while, nor have i made any effort to post lately. It was the right time to post something. By the way, quite a a good thread. My aim was to try to flesh out the feminine a little bit. Insights into the world of the feminine mind can be quite a powerful and interesting.

[Bobo]

If there's no full M or W then the feminine in men is their blind spot.

[pointexter]

What blind spot to men have?

Self, the essence of which is "Woman."

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Good to see you at it again, Anders.

Talking about blind spots: to focus on a particular area is by definition a function of blocking or blurring all which is not that area. It's therefore not a question of "what blind spot" but "where does his blinding spotlight goes to. As for the feminine types, they're not moving beyond indirect mood lighting; nice for the living room, never leaving home, always seeing all sides, always being a bit right - however dimly.

[jupiviv]

To answer the question in the OP - women don't have a "blind spot", because to have a blind spot you must see things clearly. The consciousness of women isn't advanced enough to have clear thoughts about anything. Men, on the other hand, have plenty of blind spots.

[Carmel]

Robert:

Sure, there's a lack of consensus, but who cares? I think it's normal that there's no consensus on an internet forum, in fact there needs to be this lack for a discussion based forum to function at all. Which doesn't mean btw there's no useful definition possible. I get what you're saying and I agree that enlightenment is an absence of delusion, or rather an absence of deluded thoughts. Defining what a deluded thought is can be easy, or not, since all thought is delusion in a sense. And since you bring him up, like J Krishnamurti said, thought is separation, division. I just keep it as basic as I can and try to keep in mind the illusory nature of all things as much as possible, I find that value automatically comes from this without too much extra work on my part. Mind you, I don't have the ambition to be 100% delusion free, I don't think it's possible and I don't really see the use in it. If it happens, it happens. If it doesn't, who cares?

Carmel:

yes and yes, but then you seem more grounded in "reality" than the people who run around here proudly proclaiming they are free of delusion or "enlightened". I basically agree with your sentiments here and have nothing else to add except to say that there are certain words that get casually tossed around here so often that they have ceased to hold any real meaning, words such as: "reality", "delusion", "illusion", "logic", "rationality" among others...

Robert:

I've read most of Sex and Character, but not any of his other stuff. Like any decent writing from a period in time different to our own, some of it will last on in a timeless sense, and some of it will become archaic and obsolete. The salient insights in S&C are valid and reflect fairly accurately my own experience with people. If I'd began to read it when I was 20, I'd probably be quite a different person to who I am now at 38. Or maybe not, at 20 I think I would have probably written him off as a crank and harmful to my ability to attract females since I doubt I had the presence of mind to exploit his work to impress and seduce.

Carmel:

Interesting that it's quite the opposite for me. I think I would've appreciated Weininger's nebulous, unsubstantiated gender "theories" more when I was younger and psychologically immature. Weininger's theories regarding women don't stand the test of time. They're fiction, fantasy and a gross exercise in self delusion. As I've said before, modern science and cognitive testing have usurped Weininger's delusions, repeatedly.

Robert:

Again, fair enough, but I don't see the use in the needless ad homs. Instead of it being a useful tool to critique when valid, you're shooting yourself in the foot and doing what Alex does, which is basically arousing interest in the' subject instead of holding up a danger sign warning people off.[/quote]

Carmel:

Are you applying a double standard, Robert? You seem like a reasonable person so, ask yourself why you are confronting me on "needless ad homs", when the misogynists here run around calling women dogs, cows and rocks. ...and contrary to what you might think, I don't find this offensive, in a way I think it's good as it exposes misogyny for what it really is...the height of social, psychological and spiritual retardation.

Also note that I refererred to Solanas as "bat shit crazy" whilst I used the more diplomatic term "psychologically disturbed" to describe Weininger. ...and again, their psychological issues are certainly not irrelevant when considering their works, given their personal nature.

[jupiviv]

Weininger's theories regarding women don't stand the test of time. They're fiction, fantasy and a gross exercise in self delusion. As I've said before, modern science and cognitive testing have usurped Weininger's delusions, repeatedly.

This is ad hominem.

You seem like a reasonable person so, ask yourself why you are confronting me on "needless ad homs", when the misogynists here run around calling women dogs, cows and rocks. ...and contrary to what you might think, I don't find this offensive, in a way I think it's good as it exposes misogyny for what it really is...the height of social, psychological and spiritual retardation.

You put the calling women dogs, cows and rocks completely out of context. But I don't need to tell you that.

Also note that I refererred to Solanas as "bat shit crazy" whilst I used the more diplomatic term "psychologically disturbed" to describe Weininger. ...and again, their psychological issues are certainly not irrelevant when considering their works, given their personal nature.

I seriously can't believe you are comparing Weininger to Solanas. And no, their psychological issues are not relevant when considering their works.

Weininger had infinitely more character than you ever had, or will have. That is precisely why you don't see a problem in denigrating him like this. He was the exact antithesis to the general nature of the members of this forum - old men(and women) smugly preaching their stale, mouldy philosophies.

[Carmel]

Thanks, lil' guy...your mediocrity is astounding.

Perhaps, if you read more books you would acquire some perspective and come to realize that there's really no reason to take Weininger that seriously. Hell, even Dan admitted he didn't take him that seriously, but well, he's older than you and has more perspective. He's likely more well read, so would have a point of comparison, as well.

You have no right to speak of character given that you have none as you repeatedly have demonstrated. You have the consciousness of a dog and a rock, as do all misogynists.

Their mental illness and psychological issues are relevant to their works. You're completely deluded if you can't recognize this, but well that's par for the course around here.

[Kelly Jones]

I think Weininger's suicide was an example of weakness. He said as much himself. Suicide is a criminal act(not speaking in the legal, social ethics sense), because in it a person uses his body as a means to an end by destroying it. It is on par with murder. I don't think there was any conscious motive involved in the act of his suicide itself.

He could have killed himself anywhere. But Beethoven's house? When Beethoven was popular enough to have had his remains exhumed for study, and monuments erected to him in various countries? Certainly that would have attracted attention. Wikipedia has it that "Weininger's suicide in the house in Vienna where Beethoven had died, the man he considered one of the greatest geniuses of all made him a cause célèbre, inspired several imitation suicides, and turned his book into a success. The book received glowing reviews by August Strindberg, who wrote that it had "probably solved the hardest of all problems", the "woman problem"." His father doubtless helped with the book promotion via his epitaph.


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[Anders Schlander]

Good to see you at it again, Anders.

glad you think so, GF seems more visibly active, too. By that, i mean the fact that alot goes on underneath the 'surface'. I've mainly done nothing other than play sports or video games lately, though. I told myself I wanted to actually become part of a professional team in a particular kind of 'sport', that i've been involved with for years, so i could get it out of my system, I briefly did, but it only made it worse I think. But there was no way for me to keep up at the pace I had a bit over a year ago. ( back then i didnt post so much, though, ) But I was talking to Kelly during that time, and had loads of use of the resources that dan kevin and quinn have compiled).

Talking about blind spots: to focus on a particular area is by definition a function of blocking or blurring all which is not that area. It's therefore not a question of "what blind spot" but "where does his blinding spotlight goes to. As for the feminine types, they're not moving beyond indirect mood lighting; nice for the living room, never leaving home, always seeing all sides, always being a bit right - however dimly.

True about the 'indirect mood lighting'. The more blurry the consciousness is the more the consciousness can neither really focus nor deliberately un-focus, so suppose it's a nice way to think of it.

A feminine consciousness is definitely more blurry, less discriminate, and poorer at juggling concepts, simply because the nature of the feminine is to avoid discrimination in many areas that would otherwise be very detrimental to their being.

The feminine consciousness can discriminate but usually you'll notice that it's motivated by many different reasons than a more masculine consciousness. The feminine basically directs it's focus towards the love of not having a focus on oneself. It avoids the individual. So there is a kind of focus, one which induces a look at the individual that is greatly blurred into other things, like groups etc. All the feminine wants is to avoid it, so it focuses on groups and group behaviour.

If you think of that, it is also very obvious that the masculine is the opposite, it's blind spot, the more masculine, is exactly that which draws focus away him, and onto the collective. That's why as David says, masculine minded folks generally "block" out a lot of things that seem to various degrees more unneccesary for many men, but more important for many women, such as smelling lovely, not hurting anybody's feelings at the fear of not being accepted, or looking lovely. "block" because they don't really block it as such, it just never becomes a concern.

[Kelly Jones]

Kelly: ... in my twenties, I went through a gamut of emotions about the meaning and purpose of my existence, and really had a hard time. So I know that some suicides are truly idiotic, for their lack of foresight, insight and oversight.

Bob: Would you say then you underwent a dark night of the soul experience or a dead/rebirth experience whereby you came out of it a radically transformed person? One that lives in a totally new dimension of existence and is positively engaged in finding and rooting out all traces of self-delusion and false perceptions of both yourself and reality?

I would say that I learnt to let parts of my mind die, and to encourage totally new things which I didn't altogether trust to grow instead. It wasn't a fanciful, dramatic, romantic, or poetic, "life-changing" experience. It was just the crude, basic reworking of my thoughts. On the plus side, it made life richer and "brighter" like breaking-through walls, and more of my brain was working.

But I couldn't with any justice compare myself to Weininger's situation. He had it a lot tougher than I've ever had it. He had no mentors, no peers, no colleagues, personally knew no spiritual men, had no trustworthy friends, and was working things out pretty much like a blind man - brilliantly. Also, our upbringings, education, social context, and psychologies are dissimilar.


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[Kelly Jones]

Carmel strangely sees no issue with accusing me of spiritual retardation for likening women's instinctive consciousnesses to rocks falling haplessly downhill, whilst calling Valerie Solanas bat-shit-crazy.

What's the difference? A value judgment of the consciousness of a person, relating them to an animal or inanimate object. Same in both cases.


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[Kelly Jones]

Dear Kelly,

Let me see if I understand you.

(1) Are you saying that "consciousness"--by which I understand to mean word-based conceptualisation "at the front of the mind," so to speak, in contrast to intuitive, amorphous quasi-conceptualisation termed intuition "at the back of the mind," so to speak--is equivalent to percepts?

I think intuitions form part of consciousness, rather than subconsciousness. Henids also are part of consciousness. If something is perceived, then it is in consciousness.

(2) Are you saying that the concept of an holistically-percepted mind is impossible? That is, a mind, as I described, where sight, hearing, taste, etc. are not discrete, paradox-inducing contrasting inputs, but, rather, are blended together in a quasi-psychedelic undulation--as if the person were on a psychotropic drug like morphine or Toilet Duck.

The undulating, morphing, seamlessly-unfolding experience you describe is indeed possible, but this doesn't mean the mind stops conceptualising and drawing boundaries wherever it sees fit.

(3) When you say "[t]he absence of logical thought isn't really heightened emotional states, or being overwhelmed by a mass of intricate emotions, so much as a dullness of mind....[etc]" are you speaking from experience? Where do you get this notion from?

From experience and observation. By absence of logical thought, I'm talking about states of mind of "conscious" persons, not the dead or comatose.

(4) You then say, "...if one likes to keep things vague and dreamy, misty and mysterious, then yes, oblivion might seem blissful to the one who doesn't like the cold, hard realities of conceptual experience." In other words, subjectively, we are dealing with bliss, and, subjectively, we are dealing with a panoply of emotions being focussed on, and therefore magnified, by a consciousness that is disinterested or incapable of conscious thought (as referenced in #1, above)?

I just meant that in people who are relatively conscious, i.e. capable to some extent of reason, there is often a dislike of the boundaries that their concepts create. Those boundaries make the self more insecure, and the "big world of things" more powerful. They're not rational enough to understand the power of their own mind, so they retreat into obliviousness. They might like to "fade out" with music, art, poetry, watching videos, playing computer games, taking drugs, dancing, and so on.


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[Carmel]

Carmel strangely sees no issue with accusing me of spiritual retardation for likening women's instinctive consciousnesses to rocks falling haplessly downhill, whilst calling Valerie Solanas bat-shit-crazy.

What's the difference? A value judgment of the consciousness of a person, relating them to an animal or inanimate object. Same in both cases.


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Yeah, I suppose ol' Val shot Andy Warhol because she was the picture of sanity, eh? She was most definitely bat shit crazy, as was Weininger, but if you prefer the term "psychologically disturbed" we can stick with that. Lord knows, we wouldn't want to be politically incorrect with regard to the mentally ill. Sure, it's okay to call half the population dogs and rocks though, in spite of empirical evidence to the contrary. ...and you wonder why I think you're socially and spiritually retarded. heh.

[Bob Michael]

But I couldn't with any justice compare myself to Weininger's situation. He had it a lot tougher than I've ever had it. He had no mentors, no peers, no colleagues, personally knew no spiritual men, had no trustworthy friends, and was working things out pretty much like a blind man - brilliantly. Also, our upbringings, education, social context, and psychologies are dissimilar.

I feel very much like I'm in both Weininger's and Nietzsche's shoes. Though I'm now wondering whether they really gave anything of true value to posterity? Or if what they gave is used mostly by others for ego-bolstering?

[Bob Michael]

I would say that I learnt to let parts of my mind die, and to encourage totally new things which I didn't altogether trust to grow instead. It wasn't a fanciful, dramatic, romantic, or poetic, "life-changing" experience. It was just the crude, basic reworking of my thoughts. On the plus side, it made life richer and "brighter" like breaking-through walls, and more of my brain was working.

Mine involved going deep into madness on several occasions and then eventually finding my way back to sanity again. Though it's a sanity that's far diffent from that of those all around me or what one would consider normal sanity.

[jupiviv]

He could have killed himself anywhere. But Beethoven's house? When Beethoven was popular enough to have had his remains exhumed for study, and monuments erected to him in various countries? Certainly that would have attracted attention. Wikipedia has it that "Weininger's suicide in the house in Vienna where Beethoven had died, the man he considered one of the greatest geniuses of all made him a cause célèbre, inspired several imitation suicides, and turned his book into a success. The book received glowing reviews by August Strindberg, who wrote that it had "probably solved the hardest of all problems", the "woman problem"." His father doubtless helped with the book promotion via his epitaph.

If you're saying he committed suicide to make his book popular - I doubt it very much. If he did, then my estimation of him would fall several degrees, because it would mean he was an idiot. I think he committed suicide because he failed to live up to his own ideals, and suffered acutely from knowledge of this.

[Robert]

Weininger's theories regarding women don't stand the test of time. They're fiction, fantasy and a gross exercise in self delusion. As I've said before, modern science and cognitive testing have usurped Weininger's delusions, repeatedly.

To be fair to both neuroscience and to Weininger, I don't think such blanket assertions are entirely accurate. As with many sciences, the findings in neuroscience can be used to support varying subjective interpretations. The same can be said for writers like Weininger, and intrepretations of dead guys in general don't have the luxury of going directly to the source, so we're left to figure shit out for ourselves. Philosophy doesn't possess a methodology as such in the same way science must.

Are you applying a double standard, Robert? You seem like a reasonable person so, ask yourself why you are confronting me on "needless ad homs", when the misogynists here run around calling women dogs, cows and rocks. ...and contrary to what you might think, I don't find this offensive, in a way I think it's good as it exposes misogyny for what it really is...the height of social, psychological and spiritual retardation.

I don't think it's a true double standard since I can differentiate between plain ignorant hatred of women and the much more subtle value based system of thought that recognises a psychological barrier that needs attention, and for some, overcoming. I don't get hung up on the jarring words as long as they point to something valid. It's true that a double standard could exist on the superficial level, but I think that's more a result of the words and terms used if the scope of the definitions aren't understood to hold a deeper, more universal meaning and potential.

[Kelly Jones]

Carmel strangely sees no issue with accusing me of spiritual retardation for likening women's instinctive consciousnesses to rocks falling haplessly downhill, whilst calling Valerie Solanas bat-shit-crazy.

What's the difference? A value judgment of the consciousness of a person, relating them to an animal or inanimate object. Same in both cases.

Yeah, I suppose ol' Val shot Andy Warhol because she was the picture of sanity, eh? She was most definitely bat shit crazy,

You are missing the principle. You believe you have reason to compare Valerie to a bat, but you don't believe I have reason to compare women to rocks. Isn't there hypocrisy in this? Why are you outside of the principle you apply to me?

Valerie Solanas' view was that men were weak and crippled, owing to their infinite uncertainties and moral dilemmas. By contrast, she believed a human being could be strong, decisive, all-conquering, and proactive. She was definitely limited in her understanding of the world, and her expression was somewhat incoherent, but her basic message, and how she lived up to it, was highly internally consistent with the limits of her extreme morality. Hence, she decided that the only way women could survive was to wipe out men, and particularly those who infringed on the activities of women. So she lived up to her ideal, as bizarre as it was. According to the norm, she's insane, but then, marking people out as insane who don't fit the norm is a totally arbitrary way to decide upon what constitutes sanity. So I would say that if you believe she's crazy because she is unusual, then I wouldn't go along with that.

She's very unusual in that she had a highly individualised, original, and consistently developed mission statement. She was a social deviant, who saw the psychological weaknesses in men, and didn't want any part in it. To the extent she had the desire to through off the cursed, tippy-toeing torturousness of an irrationally doubting mind, she was nothing like a woman. But she happened to develop a solution that was driven too much by a demonic desire to destroy the problem, a war-like belligerence against the enemy "man", and to that extent she was irrationally mistaken into perceiving man as a physical entity rather than a psychology.



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[Kelly Jones]

If you're saying he committed suicide to make his book popular - I doubt it very much. If he did, then my estimation of him would fall several degrees, because it would mean he was an idiot. I think he committed suicide because he failed to live up to his own ideals, and suffered acutely from knowledge of this.

I believe it's possible that the latter, his perfectionism and wounded pride, drove him to consider extreme solutions like causing a scandal. It was certainly a venture, anyway.

There's also his awareness that there's no ultimate difference between life and death. So for whatever reason he suicided, he certainly enabled his writings to come to us in pretty good shape. And I am grateful for that, since they are priceless.


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[Kelly Jones]

I feel very much like I'm in both Weininger's and Nietzsche's shoes. Though I'm now wondering whether they really gave anything of true value to posterity? Or if what they gave is used mostly by others for ego-bolstering?

Wisdom attracts flies as well as wiselings. It is for everyone, including biting, swarming flies. Nevertheless one cannot be a coward and hide away in some yabby-hole waiting for better inhabitants to pop up.


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[jupiviv]

So for whatever reason he suicided, he certainly enabled his writings to come to us in pretty good shape.

He would have given us a lot more writings if he didn't commit suicide. I think that, had he lived, he probably would have become by far the greatest western philosopher.

I believe that my powers of mind are surely such that I would have become in a certain sense a resolver of all problems. I do not believe that I could have remained in error anywhere for long. I believe that I would have earned the name of Redeemer, because I had the nature of a Redeemer. - Weininger in his notebook.

[jupiviv]

Valerie Solanas' view was that men were weak and crippled, owing to their infinite uncertainties and moral dilemmas. By contrast, she believed a human being could be strong, decisive, all-conquering, and proactive. She was definitely limited in her understanding of the world, and her expression was somewhat incoherent,

Her ideas are all vague and jumbled up, and I think the reason is that she didn't have a rational enough mind to be able to clarify them. But some of those ideas do have the ring of truth, and that too probably not intentional. Kevin Solway named his page about Valerie Solanas "Chance truths."

but her basic message, and how she lived up to it, was highly internally consistent with the limits of her extreme morality.

Uh, morality? Let's not go that far. She was very angry at some of the things she saw, and therefore wanted to destroy them.

[Starbird]

Dear Kelly

I would situate intuition as part of the preconscious, the "back of the mind" where "tip of the tongue" un-worded memories and henids exist and are processed. For your purposes, though, preconsciousness is a part of the "conscious experience." So, we agree, "If something is [phenomenologically] perceived, then it is in consciousness [by definition]."

I'm not sure how an holistically-percepted mind could possibly conceptualise with words, (what I term consciousness as distinct from preconsciousness), nor could possibly draw discrete boundaries over its experience. It would more engage the world by flushing or suffusing zones of the tapestry of perceptual experience with emotion, that in turn leads to physical action and mental processing. This idea of iridescent, coruscating emotional tides, ever-changing, seems to explain female psychology better than the idea that they are just retarded men.

We agree that a person lacking logical thought can retain consciousness, as you put it; though I would put it that such a person is operating predominantly preconsciously with bursts of consciousness in a kind of "solid-state" form, based on hard-wired instinct rather than "floating consciousness" of logical processing.

We also agree that "...in people who are relatively conscious, i.e. capable to some extent of reason, there is often a dislike of the boundaries that their concepts create. Those boundaries make the self more insecure, and the "big world of things" more powerful. They're not rational enough to understand the power of their own mind, so they retreat into obliviousness. They might like to "fade out" with music, art, poetry, watching videos, playing computer games, taking drugs, dancing, and so on." Good!

Yours,

"Starbird"