Road block

Actualism
21

Was I was too quick to dismiss Lancan? I note the sequence or gradation that takes place: need → demand → desire. Or perhaps it is not so sequential given that need, being bodily, is purported to operate on a different pathway than demand and desire (desire, in this model, being a direct outgrowth of a psychological demand) but instead gets inevitably crossed or intertwined with those psychological pathways?

I recall a documentary I watched years ago about an orphanage in, I think, Romania. It was a bare bones, run-down establishment managed by nuns. There, the orphans were provided the basic needs of sustenance and shelter. But nothing else! No affection, no attention or engagement, no stimulation was provided to the infants and toddlers (much less “love or recognition”). The older children who had been subjected over the years to that bare-bones treatment developed severe developmental disorders and behaviors. Sure, they were alive. Their so-called basic needs were being consistently met. But they were horribly, mentally damaged. Many were reduced to a constant rocking back and forth, and making grunting or squeeling noises rather than speaking coherently.

Cases like that present a blurry line between bodily “need” and psychological “demand,” especially as it concerns human infants/ toddlers.

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This is interesting, my first reaction was - why is Srinath going off the actualist paradigm :fearful: But I read the linked article and your post a couple of times and it brought up some interesting ideas.

The other thing is this post seems very pertinent to what @henryyyyyyyyyy has been writing in his journal recently - desiring others through the belief that they possess a way towards the completeness which I am lacking. In fact I initially thought you must have accidentally posted this in the wrong thread and the reply was actually to Henry!

It is an interestingly blurry line of early development morphing into the psychological/psychic self, I always observed that people’s identities seem to be this uneasy conglomeration of the various reactionary responses to the traumas of life. It does kinda go in line with Richards observation that a mature adult is actually a lost, lonely, scared and very cunning entity.

It makes sense why the identity is so very deeply entrenched, because its development coincides with the maturation of this body from a baby into a fully grown adult. It’s like by the time one is an adult, the tentacles which are ‘me’ reach every nook and cranny of the mind. They were weaving and morphing along with the cognitive abilities of this brain developing.

I was thinking about this a while ago, how the conditioning begins whilst the brain is still developing! My 5 year old brother who can barely understand the world yet is already being taught about the existence of various truths and morals, of gods and fantasies. Those will be weaved so deeply and fundamentally that he will never think that they could be nothing but beliefs.

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@rick Yeah, exactly. Infants need more than merely having their biological needs satisfied. They have to be wrapped in a kind of psychological and caring envelope for several years given how helpless and.vulnerable we are in childhood and how much there is to learn about human relating and culture.

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Something like that - according to Lacan anyway

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@Kub933 I don’t claim that these ideas are ‘right’. Just that I find them compelling. At best I think they are very partial truths. Maybe they can shed light on certain aspects of human experience, that actualism cannot.

As for escaping rather than understanding Desire and the human condition, I don’t think there’s anything that comes anywhere close to actualism freedom. But I guess models like these can potentially help one understand and be kind to oneself in the meantime. For some anyway. For others they could just sound like gobbledegook and be completely useless.

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I will admit to having skimmed the article… and not fully appreciating Lacan’s position.

But it seems obvious to me that the fact of the matter is that that which ‘makes up’ desire is an instinctual passion that we humans (being animals) share with other animals… and the rest is all essentially how that desire is acculturated. I don’t think these models conflict with actualism per se, rather it is that they re-define the word ‘desire’ to mean something else and then talk about that. From the Girard article:

So they simply define ‘desire’ to mean something other than this instinctual desire, which is how the word is used in the context of actualism.

To use actualism terminology, they’re both talking about the social identity and how that shapes the raw instinctual passion of desire (which they call ‘need’) in different ways. With that in mind it’s obvious desire has social elements… and of course it can rapidly become clear that desire has more to do with ‘my’ identity rather than the objects of ‘my’ desire per se…

I’m always a little surprised when I see comments like this. Is there an ‘actualist paradigm’? There is certainly actualist terminology… but it’s not that there are some things that are “true within actualism” but not true otherwise. Something is either a fact or it isn’t… is a feeling-being factually built up of instinctual passions plus social identity acculturation, a feeling ‘soul’ at core with a thinking ‘ego’ on top? I don’t think it’s a ‘model’. I think it’s describing the way it is. It’s like a description of a forest, it’s either accurate or not, but it’s not a paradigm or a model.

Someone can describe the same forest differently of course… no harm in that! For what it’s worth I always have and continue to find the actualist description to be the simplest and most comprehensive, most far-reaching, most accurate and most simple. It doesn’t invalidate other descriptions… but if both descriptions are valid there must be some way to reconcile them. If they can’t be reconciled then one, the other, or both must be wrong.

Not sure if I am going in circles or making a caricature of myself lol. Anyone else see what I’m sayin’ or am I just replacing ‘paradigm’ with ‘description’ and that’s what you meant @Kub933 ? Lol .

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Claudiu, I have a different take. I think that all accounts of reality, including the actualist take on human subjectivity and structure are necessarily partial accounts. They cannot be exhaustive or comprehensive. In that sense they are models and paradigms. I think that actualism can definitely be reconciled with the above 2 models.

Ultimately it’s less important for me that a model be an absolutely 100% true rendering of reality than its utility or what it can achieve. If my point is to drive from my home to the city, then I’m less interested in the exact chemical composition of my windshield, than knowledge of how to drive a car safely and perhaps a very crude understanding of how a car mechanically functions. If I want to unknot a tangled knot, I’m less interested in knot topology than a simple technique to unravel it. This is where the strength of actualism lies. It’s a rough and ready account of how the human psyche works which serves the purpose of ending it. As the Cheshire cat said to Alice, it all depends on where you want to go.

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Yeah what I mean by paradigm is a particular angle of addressing and explaining a topic, like you say we might both be describing what a forest is and yet if we both wrote a short piece describing a rain forest they might end up being 2 completely different pieces of writing. Yet still both be describing the various facts of what a rain forest actually is.

It seems that the more complex the topic the more angles it could be chipped away at, but the goal remains to arrive at facticity.

I might describe a table by referring to the fact of it having 4 legs and a flat top, or I might also describe a table by referring to the qualities of the material it is made from etc.

I mean even if we look at the writings of all the actually free people we have there is some sense of a different angle being taken, eg if I read Richards journal, Srinath’s simple actualism page and Peters Actualist guide they are talking about the same method but there are differences for sure.

So I notice in myself this desire to have these unbreakable actualism tenets and then Srinath comes along not playing along to my rules, and I notice some slight conflict within myself which is interesting in itself to look at as it is showing some kind of belief in play.

What I noticed in other areas of my life is that the more genuine understanding of a topic I have the less dogmatic I become in discussing it - precisely because I understand the core facts which we are trying to chip away at from different angles.

I suspect your main issue @claudiu is that by proposing different paradigms we are kind of proposing that we are discussing different beliefs as opposed to talking about facts.

Maybe there is a third alternative here :stuck_out_tongue: that a fact can be approached from different angles, depending on what it is that I am trying to do (as with the table example).

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It’s interesting that the article is quick to dissect the socially instilled objects of desires, but assumes that there is a level of desire which can safely be called “need”. The biggest red flag is they put sex in the “need” category, and then go on to discuss essentially “keeping up with the Joneses” objects of desire.

Pretty normal ‘normal’ thinking. Putting the cart before the horse. It’s like discussing the colour of a gun in a debate on reducing gun violence. As if passing a law that all guns should be pink and have flowers painted on them. Objects of desire are mostly irrelevant, as the article itself goes on to say that “desire is never satisfied” (or words to that effect). It’s the desire itself, the very thing being manipulated which is the primary driver.

As Richard (and many other critical thinkers too) points out; if one of your basic axioms is wrong, everything after that point is also wrong.

Freud’s “everything is sex” stands in stark contrast to the writer’s stance that sex is a need.

Indeed, closer examination of the “models” proposed in the article would uncover the weakness of “sex as a need” axiom pretty quickly. Just about everything that could be called a “model” in this article has some element of sexual status. So if sex is a need, then everything becomes necessary to fullfill that need.

New clothes to fit in? Need.

Fashionable car? Need.

Wealth and a big house? Need.

Plastic surgery? Need.

I saw a video the other day which made a fantastic point about cowardice in relationships.

People will say “my needs aren’t being fullfilled”.

When the fact is, it’s my wants not being fulfilled.

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I was hoping to find elucidation from Rene Girard himself on this distinction between need and desire. I began wondering whether he himself saw a distinction, rather than such distinction being an interpretative overlay from those who’ve read him.

For the last few months I had been meaning to get around to reading Girard and his mimetic theory as it came strongly recommended by someone whose opinion I respected. Now that Girard has made his way onto this actualism forum, I figured I go ahead and see what he was on about.

It’s surprisingly difficult to find his original works online. It took me a while to find something that he actually authored. Finally, I located a pdf of his seminal book Deceit, Desire, and the Novel: Self and Other in Literary Structure. It was buried deep under books and articles written by others interpreting his works.

There, he presents and elaborates on his mimetic theory of desire through the analysis of fictional literary characters. One can download it at this dodgy looking website if interested. Deceit, Desire, and the Novel: Self and Other in Literary Structure 9780801818301 - EBIN.PUB

I’ll just say that I personally cannot relate much at all to his view of the world. Nor does his understanding of the human experience resonate. His large following suggests it resonates with many others, so there’s that.

You can also try borrowing a copy at archive.org, though it’s checked out at the moment.
Deceit, desire, and the novel; self and other in literary structure : Girard, René, 1923- : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

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Maybe they see it this way: I want plastic surgery. I need plastic surgery to satisfy my want. Ergo, I need plastic surgery.

I want to breathe. I need to breathe to satisfy my want. Ergo, I need to breathe.

What one wants determines what one needs. If there is no desire for food, there’s no need for food. If there’s no desire for life, there’s no need for life.

At any given time, I may want candy, water, internet, shelter, solitude, oxygen. What is “needed” translates to that which is wanted most intensely. When the body is dying from thirst then fluid is desired more than anything. When thirst is quenched then other wants materialize.

Point is: the subjective experience of want vs. need is hard to distinguish. Subjectively, there’s just degrees of want. Those prioritized wants we call needs. And those priorities are fluid and contextual.

I want to write this. I need to write this to satisfy that want. I may start having a heart attack as I write this. My want to write this disappears, and now I want medical assistance more than I want to write this. I would then need medical assistance to satisfy that want.

There’s a very, very basic aversion/attraction operation occurring continuously, directing conscious wants (or needs).

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Hmm so I think it’s possible we are all saying the same thing, and just hovering around the wording for it.

The analogies with a description of a forest, or how to drive home from the city, or how to untangle a knot, all seem on point. It’s true that no description can be completely exhaustive — ultimately the only 100% true to the accuracy representation would be the object itself. So a description must necessarily lose some detail, and of course the choice of what to leave in and what to omit affects the final product … …

But I think the better word for what we’re talking about in the case of these analogies is a map! A map is something that faithfully (if it’s good) represents that which it is intended to represent. A satellite map summarizes the visual imagery, a road map summarizes the roads and leaves out unimportant details like exactly what trees are where, a subway map might not even have the routes be a 1:1 where they are in the world but they represent the connections between stations and the progressions…

There might be a paradigm for how the map is built (e.g. picking simple and complementary colors to make it easier to read), but the map itself isn’t a paradigm per se, or a model in the sense of a scientific model (e.g. like a model for how the sun works). It is of course a model in the sense of ‘a scale representation’ (e.g. like a model of the solar system).

With that in mind, an “actualist map of the psyche” could be said to be one that is conducive to actualism — where ‘actualism’ means basically the actualism method, the experiential enjoying and appreciating of this moment of being alive.

But there is nothing dogmatic here, it isn’t that it is a model that is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ — it’s a map that highlights certain useful things and doesn’t go into detail of other things.

And of course nothing precludes one from using multiple maps if they are helpful.

Right so I think this comes from misinterpreting the actualist writings as being tenets or a model or a theory or a worldview etc., as opposed to them being a map (descriptions of what is the case). Not to say I haven’t done it myself of course… it’s as you say here:

Exactly this basically. I find that for me too, when I have no or little experience then I tend to want to latch onto beliefs of what is the case, of what is right or wrong. While when I have a lot of experience, I simply know what is the case or not, I know if someone is mistaken (which is different from them being ‘wrong’), and I also know when I’m not sure, instead of believing I know when I don’t. Obviously there are egoism tendencies at play even when I have experience, to want to be right and such, but experience does a wonderful job of dislodging them — for me anyway.

I’m satisfied with this understanding, what you guys think?

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Normally, I would want to (need to? I am confused now😂) supplement the AFT map, because I have feared something was missing that was holding me back. My experience this year has been that the more I have explored myself, the accuracy of the AFT map of ‘me’ becomes apparent.

Having argued other views, especially regarding the “rotten to the core” and “malicious” nature of ‘self’ , I have found it to be accurate.

What I appreciate in these types of discussions is nuances that come out.

I like your analogy of a satellite image, vs a road map, vs a subway map. The actualism map is more of a subway map. Despite the millions of words, it’s very much concerned with the relationship between the points on the map not the distance or the finer details.

I have come to see it as very accurate in what it is.

However, there are details which are interesting in other attempts at mapping. The issue usually is that those making the maps haven’t actually been to where they are mapping.

So huge details are often missing. Huge assumptions are often included.

Like some maps from the “dark ages” which show sea monsters and the edge of the world. The bit around Europe is pretty good, but the rest mostly nonsense.

So I would, now, in stark contrast to past-me, take a view that most other descriptions of “the Forrest” are mostly speculation rather than factual descriptions.

The “AFT subway map” is a better roadmap and satellite view than most non-actualist attempts at either.

I think that hard science is the best add mixture if one needs more. Studying the hardware itself.

For example, how the brain structure has never superceded previously evolved systems. It just has new bits evolved over the top of the old, often evolving entire systems to suppress the actions of the pre-existing systems.

The cerebral cortex being the most famous, with the pre-frontal cortex being an specialist area in controlling emotions.

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Thinking further about that last point, that the nervous system “pastes over the top” it’s apparent that the newer systems are the least evolved.

The super computer is actually the oldest systems. The spinal reflexes, the brain stem, cerebellum, the limbic system. These are the 16 core, 24gb ram, dedicated graphics, solid state drive systems making millions of calculations per second. The cerebral cortex is the vacuum tube switched, tape loop programmed, 1 calculation per day system.

Somewhere between the limbic and cerebral cortex, is where ‘I’ is generated. Sandwiched between legitimate need, and social desire.

On the topic of need; it’s a very small list. If one uses “how long we can stay alive without it” then it’s really just two main needs;

Breathable Air

Homeostasis.

Both we can live only a few minutes without.

Sometimes not in that order.

The rest we can survive days without;

Water.

Food.

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Hehe yes I was thinking that too. No other maps talk about IEs, EEs, PCEs, consistently enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive, virtual freedom, self immolation, etc… it’s just totally uncharted territory, not even known to exist per se, for all the other maps.

Also many of them also are missing vibes and all of them miss psychic currents, which in my opinion are critical for understanding the psyche fully… so they miss some important things.

So for the latter part of the journey there aren’t really and maps that will be helpful. But for getting up to that latter part of the journey … the human condition is very vast and everyone has their own unique combination of issues , how they tick, etc. So why not explore and find as many other maps as possible that can help one get further?

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It is interesting to be aware of my unwillingness to allow those other desires to cease. Like I am wanting freedom but not as a singular focus of all my desire, I am also wanting the joys from creativity, the desires and gratification from sexual fantasy and horniness and all of those desires that are less conditional and that I am confident I know how to initiate within myself. Hedonistic tendencies die hard.

It was interesting to read those other ideas around desire.

If you have children you really see how they learn from imitation. I remember reading about the whole mirror neurons being involved, so it is clear the brain has a whole designated system towards imitation. It is clearly an important part of our ability to learn.

Therefore I am not really surprised by some of the aspects of Mimetic theory of desire. I have often thought about the sense of some form of imitation in what we desire. Like kids all wanting the same toy despite moments before not being interested until some other kid displayed interest. Then they are suddenly all fighting and crying for the same toy they didn’t give a shit about 3 minutes ago lol. You can see this in trends, things going viral and fashion. Another part of my lone wolf identity was believing myself to be not subject to these whims, I liked what I liked, sometimes it might be fashionable and liked and desired by millions or might be scarcely desired, either way I would be true to myself and what I desire and want. I also wouldn’t back down if people thought that what I like was weird or strange. I didn’t feel compelled to fit in or apologise for liking what I like.

What is interesting is how society and environment shape those desires. You can see in cultures that have different beauty standards and perceptions of attraction.

It is weird to ponder on the genesis of desire. At that point where it widened beyond the needs for survival and reproduction these physiological desires were no longer the only game in town. We could project into the future ideas for ourselves and possible outcomes. We could desire what we noticed we didn’t have or wanted to have. We could desire something we used to have.

I have always wanted to understand why I like what I like. Like that article @Srinath shared mentions:

Very few people question why they want the things they want at all.

I always wanted to know why I wanted what I wanted. But it is interesting to see these hierarchies we create within ourselves. To me the desires around imagination, fantasy and from learning were deemed purer. So, I had an internal value system as to the importance and quality of desires.

That article also touched on the issues of sameness. My whole identity seemed to be built on this desire not to want to be similar to anybody but to be something new and achieve something new. Hence, I used to believe and desire bringing about a new type of renaissance for creativity and learning, not just writing something that was new and memorable or a scientific or technical breakthrough that was new or an amazing software program that would be revolutionary.

What is interesting with the rise of the internet was to see how many people had written similar poems, similar stories, similar jokes, made similar music ideas I had in my had but never materialised because I have no musical talent. To see how much I still didn’t know about so many subjects in science, technology, etc. I was top of my class in my school in my working class neighbourhood but that was really insignificant, I began to realise how much a chasm there was for knowledge I didn’t know.

The internet really bummed me out. It was like it was killing any sense of individuality or specialness I had formed. This being the early 2000s and around the same time I began denting my beliefs in concepts of a soul and challenging more aspects of my life. It provided better means for my learning but seemed to hurt my creativity. Funnily enough I just started getting writers block during the end of the period I was trying to prove Richard and AF as false, around late 2005 to early 2006. I was still writing loads but more about science, philosophy, ideas about reality than the usual fiction that I would write.

I always find the desires around women and love to be so painful and torturous. I used to want there to be a medicine I could take and make those desires go away instantly. I still desire women I see all the time but there is no belief or hope of getting carried away like when younger. Like the desire would manifest as some hope and dream of a possible outcome and there was like a faith or hope it could come true. I can’t lie to myself like that anymore, I don’t believe I have a chance to manifest such desires. I can’t say this is some by product of success with the method but was more likely a result of being jaded from years of rejection and depression, plus now that I am married I am not easily fooled by the whole is the grass greener on the other side.

I always thought I am not somebody easily swayed by the influence of others to determine what I like and desire but in a world bombarded with so much advertisement and information, how true is this.

When I first learned about mirror neurons my first thoughts were towards phenomena such as mass hysteria and other collective irrational behaviours that we are capable of.

But also I always find copying from imitation really hard, I can never just watch somebody do something and then copy and do it easily like some of my friends and family can. In sport for certain movements, I would have to watch again and again and again and again and still get confused. It took me forever to learn how to tie my shoe laces. My dad would get so angry that I couldn’t just see something done and get it and be able to copy. I always wondered if I had some problem with my mirror neurons and if this was also responsible for why I had a strong sense of self and individualism from a young age.

What was interesting to realise is that there is an inhibitory component of this mirror neuron system so in some essence we are not always copying everything that we see. Maybe my brain inhibits this system more than the average person, who knows.

Thinking back to what @claudiu mentions regarding making the desire to be free or in a PCE the primary desire…I find myself throwing objections still. One thing that comes to mind is that it feels disingenuous to try and establish that primary objective when the other desires still have so much pull and sway…realising how hedonistic I really am.

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Yeees it would be disingenuous ! Be ingenuous instead. Realize that it’s not what you want now. That is what being sincere is. Being sincere really is the key. Only once you accept what it is you actually want now … only then can you really decide if thats sensible or not , if it’s a desire worth maintaining. And only then can you make a choice. But if you just pretend to not really want those things you won’t get anywhere !

This has been my experience anyway. Acknowledging these things felt like a step in the wrong direction, cause it was not what a ‘good’ actualist would do or be (ha!). But there’s no such thing as a’good’ actualist. Only an effective one or an ineffective one haha.

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Thanks for your reply. I have definitely moved on from berating myself and I don’t really hit myself with the good or bad actualist concepts anymore either. What I find is that I am just at times getting stuck in the habitual hedonism. I find when I am riding that type of high, I don’t want to stop. It is more an acknowledgement of this stuck-ness. Did you (or do you lol) ever find it harder to be aware and stop that in the moment of indulgence? Did you ever find it harder to be sensible? I find it easier to get back to felicity from negative emotions than I do positive, it doesn’t seem symmetric.

I just decided to search the AF site for ‘Hedonism’…it is a very long time since I have searched under that subject. I found this interesting response from Richard in an exchange with that Konrad person.

RICHARD: Hmm … I have no need of a contrast whatsoever. The perfection of this moment in eternal time and this place in infinite space is so pleasurable that people who call me a hedonist are missing the mark … hedonism is nowhere near as pleasurable as this that is my on-going experiencing.

Sometimes I think my PCE’s were too short (only one that was 5 mins, the other 6 shorter) to get a good enough grip on how much better it is to be that way. I think I was just more fascinated at the time, I recall the jamais vu and utter peace and stillness like a bubble had popped, everything so direct.

EE’s and consistent felicity is still great but the other highs are fun too. I think I am scared to get stuck in reality. The majority of the highs revolve around imagination and fantasy still, be it exploring ideas for a story or fantasy about sex with somebody I find attractive. There are still highs from escapism, getting into a TV show or film. There are some highs from indulging in eating (esp sugar) and from drinking.

The patches of success, I am always pivoted away from that comfort zone. I think I am over it but then the next point of being overwhelmed with stressors, I go straight back to my previous habits of pleasure seeking. Until eventually I get back on the actualism horse and re-establish a sort of felicity base level again (getting there again now after a slump).

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Ah so then the question is, why do you end up getting back on the actualism horse? Why not continue with the habitual pleasure seeking?

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I oscillate between both because both make me feel good.

I know experientially now though that the other types of hedonism are not unconditional.

That depression, anxiety and other more intense emotions can make them ineffective.

The habit is deeply ingrained though. Those circuits longer established and faster.