Individual

[Dean Mullen]

I was born an individual. Yet if we are all born individuals and all had a point of being born, then there must have been some reason that one experiences an individuals life and not another and yet if you don't believe we are determined as individuals at birth then that means we were individuals before life, yet how can you be before you are?

[Mr Skeptic]

Obviously one of your premises are wrong. You're treating individuality as something that someone 100% has or 100% doesn't have. While we like to do that for our human attributes, it always causes contradictions because there is no point that we can say the switch occurred. The same goes for consciousness, "having a spirit", becoming a "person", or any other such attributes that we pretend are binary attributes.

[lemur]

It would probably helpful to elaborate what is meant by "being an individual" before exploring and analyzing how it would or wouldn't occur in practice.

[John Cuthber]

I was born an individual. Yet if we are all born individuals and all had a point of being born, then there must have been some reason that one experiences an individuals life and not another and yet if you don't believe we are determined as individuals at birth then that means we were individuals before life, yet how can you be before you are?

 

You were an individual before you were born. In particular, you had a genetic make-up that distinguished you from everyone else.

 

However, before going any further you need, as Lemur says, to define "individual".

[Dean Mullen]

You were an individual before you were born. In particular, you had a genetic make-up that distinguished you from everyone else.

 

However, before going any further you need, as Lemur says, to define "individual".

 

Yes I can understand, I'm not trying to prove anything but just suggest because I guess our knowledge on what an individual is, what birth and death truly mean are limited and I guess we just have to wait and see science evolve.

[lemur]

You were an individual before you were born. In particular, you had a genetic make-up that distinguished you from everyone else.

 

However, before going any further you need, as Lemur says, to define "individual".

Ontological individuality, imo, is not so much related to the genetic uniqueness of a particular body. Twins, after all, have identical genes but are different individuals. Ontologically, individuals are individual because the have separate sensory and nervous systems as well as monopoly access to direct control over their voluntary musculature. No one can see through your eyes or hear through your ears. A mother can empathize with a child when he falls down but she cannot directly feel his pain except through approximation, however accurate that approximation may be. A commander can solicit, manipulate, or otherwise achieve high levels of submission among subordinates, but the authority to follow orders always ultimately rests with them because of their individual will.

 

But people mean various things by "individual," so that is just the materiality of it. You can also get into identity issues, behavioral/thought conformity of individuals and whether that makes them "less individual," etc.

 

Yes I can understand, I'm not trying to prove anything but just suggest because I guess our knowledge on what an individual is, what birth and death truly mean are limited and I guess we just have to wait and see science evolve.

What do you mean by "what birth and death truly mean?" You say it's a scientific question as if meanings are objective facts and not the subjective providence of philosophy, religion, psychology, etc. If what you're referring to is how culture makes use of birth and death in terms of ascribing identities, that's another discussion. I don't see what it has to do with individuality, unless you're referring to the kinds of everyday social-logics that individuals are just sub-units of collectives defined by birth and death patterns (nationalism tends to make reference to both birth and death in the logic of naturalizing why one individual supposedly belongs to one nation and others different ones).

 

Is that what you're referring to? I.e. whether individuals are connected to super-individual social entities by way of their birth and death circumstances?

 

 

[Athena]

I was born an individual. Yet if we are all born individuals and all had a point of being born, then there must have been some reason that one experiences an individuals life and not another and yet if you don't believe we are determined as individuals at birth then that means we were individuals before life, yet how can you be before you are?

 

There are so many ways this discussion can go. I will use my mother's experience as a key punch operator for my argument. You may know the first computers were huge, and information was stored on cads by punching holes into them. The computer would read the information on the card. Key punch operators, used a machine to punch the holes in the cards. It was very important to sit at the same machine every day, because the machine would adjust to the user. If someone else used the machine, it would not respond as well for the regular user.

 

Each machine is made the same, but they are individual machines, and in away they develop their own personality. Our genes make things more complex for humans than machines. Two parents do not produce exactly that same children, but each child is unique. From there, the position that child holds in the family, a first, middle or last child, will determine some things about the child. From all the factors that make us individuals, we each experience things from our own unique point of view, thus increasing our individuality. Siblings can have terrible arguments, about what happened, even though they were both involved in the happening, because what happened is experienced differently by each child. So here we get back to the individual computer. It did not exist before it was made, and it will not exist when it is destroyed, but the atoms of which it is made will return to the pool of atoms.

 

An interesting thing happens when we age. We might come to a time when we realize we are not our ego's. We realize this or that event did not make us as we are, and we can rethink what happened in our lives, and change our inner experience of life. Being too attached to our ego is not a good thing, as this prevents us from being all we can be. The more we can let go of our ego needs, the need to be "who I am", the more liberated we become. When we experience this, the saying, "I am a spiritual being having a human experience" makes sense. I leave open the possibility that I existed before I was born and may exist when after my body is cremated, if who I am is not limited to who I am in this incarnation. Like a neutrino, I might pass through many life times unchanged, and yet be able to store information? That makes cleaning up the information I store very important!

 

For me, peace really depends on how much I love God. Not the God of Abraham, but the God of the universe and beyond. I think being one with God is completely letting go of one's ego. The air we breath and water we drink, once passed through dinosaurs, and what passes through us will pass through want comes. It is our egos that keeps us separate, not reality.

Edited March 5, 2011 by Athena

[lemur]

Being too attached to our ego is not a good thing, as this prevents us from being all we can be. The more we can let go of our ego needs, the need to be "who I am", the more liberated we become. When we experience this, the saying, "I am a spiritual being having a human experience" makes sense. I leave open the possibility that I existed before I was born and may exist when after my body is cremated, if who I am is not limited to who I am in this incarnation. Like a neutrino, I might pass through many life times unchanged, and yet be able to store information? That makes cleaning up the information I store very important!

 

For me, peace really depends on how much I love God. Not the God of Abraham, but the God of the universe and beyond. I think being one with God is completely letting go of one's ego. The air we breath and water we drink, once passed through dinosaurs, and what passes through us will pass through want comes. It is our egos that keeps us separate, not reality.

I'm glad you mention this. It is easy for people to assume that individuality and ego are the same thing. Ego is actually the impetus force used to drive people into collectivism. This happens when collectivists continually criticize individuals as being selfish egoists until they willingly submit to collective interests. Then, they end up substituting the collective "we" for the personal "I" and their ego pride and shame becomes centered around the collective identity. This works to hide and protect their ego in two ways: 1) as mentioned, it satiates the collectivists that attacked egoism relentless in the first place to bring it into collective submission 2) it hides the ego and thus allows it to operate more covertly and safely, which makes it more powerful. This is why collective identities like nation and race result in so much pride and aggression; i.e. because people are sacrificing their individual egoism to support the collective, and thus projecting their ego-sensitivities to a more public level with a more powerful (collective) means of exercising material power. This is why war, the ultimate violent power expression of "us vs. them" usually comes down to rallying and battling for collective egoism. Sometimes war can be kept rational, but usually at some level people start taking and making the violence as personal and they resort to collective egoism because they feel too vulnerable as an individual to withstand the violence and subjugation without submitting to collective identification. This is the destruction of individuality by evolving egoism.

[Athena]

I'm glad you mention this. It is easy for people to assume that individuality and ego are the same thing. Ego is actually the impetus force used to drive people into collectivism. This happens when collectivists continually criticize individuals as being selfish egoists until they willingly submit to collective interests. Then, they end up substituting the collective "we" for the personal "I" and their ego pride and shame becomes centered around the collective identity. This works to hide and protect their ego in two ways: 1) as mentioned, it satiates the collectivists that attacked egoism relentless in the first place to bring it into collective submission 2) it hides the ego and thus allows it to operate more covertly and safely, which makes it more powerful. This is why collective identities like nation and race result in so much pride and aggression; i.e. because people are sacrificing their individual egoism to support the collective, and thus projecting their ego-sensitivities to a more public level with a more powerful (collective) means of exercising material power. This is why war, the ultimate violent power expression of "us vs. them" usually comes down to rallying and battling for collective egoism. Sometimes war can be kept rational, but usually at some level people start taking and making the violence as personal and they resort to collective egoism because they feel too vulnerable as an individual to withstand the violence and subjugation without submitting to collective identification. This is the destruction of individuality by evolving egoism.

 

I don't have such a negative understanding of our desire to belong to a group. This comes in our genes, as we are a social animal. Perhaps no human beings are more cooperative than those who live in harsh climates and truly do depend on each other for survival. I think perhaps large cities that have made us strangers to each other are our worst challenge. Instead of being somebodies in a small group, we are nobodies in a very large group. This has strong moral implications, and makes the teaching and learning of principles even more important. In a large or small group is a person maybe compelled to be immoral and unprincipled. A culture that does not prepare the young with an understanding of principles and virtues will necessarily become a police state. Replacing education for good moral judgement and independent thinking, with "group think" and focusing on technology, was a terrible decision.

 

Its is our need to belong, not exactly our ego, that results in sub cultures. The druggies sub culture is as important to the druggie as the drugs. At the other end is the gentlemen who meet at the golf club, and the Elks, Moose, Masons, Odd Fellows, Rotary club, etc.. We need to belong because we are genetically programmed to belong to a collective. However, this does not necessarily hinder individuality.

 

Hum, I remember my younger years when it seemed common for my peers to need to "find themselves". We are programmed to seek an identify separate from our family. This is manifest in much arguing with our families and creating distance. Part of this process is usually identifying with one's peers, or a role model.

 

Another term we can use for understanding our identity is "cohort". A cohort is the group of humans who come of age the same time we do. They are the ones who share historical moments. My cohorts tend to know where they were the day John F. Kennedy was shot. We remember the 1950 tys and the ideal woman was a good daughter, mother and wife, and possibly a community volunteer and room mother at a grade school. She did everything for everyone without pay, because this was her role in society, and considering the cost of replacing her with paid help, I am not sure women's liberation was good for our economy in the long run. We remember the beginning of the Hippie movement and when the ideal woman was like the mother earth goddess, the Beatles sang of love and peace, and all the folk singers sang anti war songs. I belong to this cohort, as none before nor those after, can belong to this cohort. It is in every cell in my body, not just my head, and I have feelings attached to all of it. The experiences I share with my generation, are very much a part of who I am and who they are.

 

However, I am not Christian and regret I do not have the sense of belonging to a church that many of my neighbors enjoy. I think that pretty much establishes my individuality, because I just can not believe as most my neighbors believe. A few of us never got married or had children, and they get kind of left out of the conversations about family, sons, daughters and grandchildren. They are individuals simply because they can not be included in these discussions with their own stories.

 

As a gerontologist, I have contemplated a lot what brings us together and what holds us a part. Our identity is very much about those we associate with and those we do not. Our physical features, size, color of skin and sex, directly effect our identity. There is how we identify ourselves and how others identify us, and this may not be in agreement. Of course we are known as doctors, waitresses or whatever, we do,and much of our identity changes as we go through life.

 

A young person is building an identify, and an old person has shaken off many past roles, and has a very different relationship with his/her ego. Instead of needing what is outside of ourselves to build our identity, we have to sift through what is on the inside, and decide what to keep and what we want to forget. Laugh, one of our major challenges is forgetting all those things we don't want to remember. That brings me back to the idea of reincarnation. We need to forget these lives, so we can have new ones. May be some people want to continue the lives they have forever, but I look forward to having a new one.

Edited March 6, 2011 by Athena

[lemur]

I don't have such a negative understanding of our desire to belong to a group. This comes in our genes, as we are a social animal.

Of course it is natural or people wouldn't do it. But it is also natural to kill someone and take what they have instead of trading them something that you have for it. Groupist behaviors, ideologies, cognition, etc. are imo maybe the greatest hurdle to achieving decent civilization. Europe prior to WWII was host to probably the most civilized and technologically advanced culture in global history yet it couldn't overcome ethnic tribalism, and still today we struggle with this in developed economies. Although certain niches are living well and innovating new technologies, cultures, etc. a great deal of political/social/educational structuring is devoted to grouping people into exclusionary systems.

Imo, people need to shift more from seeking structural position in lucrative corporations and investment networks to utilizing their individual labor in efficiently productive activities.

 

Perhaps no human beings are more cooperative than those who live in harsh climates and truly do depend on each other for survival. I think perhaps large cities that have made us strangers to each other are our worst challenge. Instead of being somebodies in a small group, we are nobodies in a very large group. This has strong moral implications, and makes the teaching and learning of principles even more important.

Exactly. People need to learn how to better cooperate in ways that aren't dependent on managed structuring and inclusion/exclusion in institutionalized organizations.

 

In a large or small group is a person maybe compelled to be immoral and unprincipled. A culture that does not prepare the young with an understanding of principles and virtues will necessarily become a police state. Replacing education for good moral judgement and independent thinking, with "group think" and focusing on technology, was a terrible decision.

Policing is only necessary to the extent that individuals abuse and exploit each other. When they effectively self-govern, policing and statism become relatively less important.

 

Its is our need to belong, not exactly our ego, that results in sub cultures. The druggies sub culture is as important to the druggie as the drugs.

Yes, and drugs are used as a tool to make people physiologically dependent on the dealer, which the dealer uses to exploit the users for money. Drug users may engage in legal methods of attaining funds to pay as "tax" to the drug dealer but sometimes can be driven to illegal/unethical money making activities as well. Ego is another instrument used for social control.

 

At the other end is the gentlemen who meet at the golf club, and the Elks, Moose, Masons, Odd Fellows, Rotary club, etc.. We need to belong because we are genetically programmed to belong to a collective. However, this does not necessarily hinder individuality.

People naturally desire social contact but it doesn't necessarily require institutionalized group-membership. People can also just network as individuals with other individuals without engaging in inclusion and exclusion. They do this out of fear that if they don't engage in exclusionary elitism, that others will do so and exclude them from social contact.

 

Hum, I remember my younger years when it seemed common for my peers to need to "find themselves". We are programmed to seek an identify separate from our family. This is manifest in much arguing with our families and creating distance. Part of this process is usually identifying with one's peers, or a role model.

Georg Simmel is the classical social theorist who wrote about a "web of group identifications." I forget the name of the book but he basically looked at how individuals combine multiple group-associations to form complex personal identities and networking.

 

Another term we can use for understanding our identity is "cohort". A cohort is the group of humans who come of age the same time we do. They are the ones who share historical moments. My cohorts tend to know where they were the day John F. Kennedy was shot. We remember the 1950 tys and the ideal woman was a good daughter, mother and wife, and possibly a community volunteer and room mother at a grade school. She did everything for everyone without pay, because this was her role in society, and considering the cost of replacing her with paid help, I am not sure women's liberation was good for our economy in the long run. We remember the beginning of the Hippie movement and when the ideal woman was like the mother earth goddess, the Beatles sang of love and peace, and all the folk singers sang anti war songs. I belong to this cohort, as none before nor those after, can belong to this cohort. It is in every cell in my body, not just my head, and I have feelings attached to all of it. The experiences I share with my generation, are very much a part of who I am and who they are.

Words like "cohort," "generation," etc. are all cultural ideologies produced to allow people to orient toward other individuals in inclusionary/exclusionary ways. People exploit imagined kinship with others in "their generation/cohort" or they exclude various interactions because they view others as naturally/culturally excludable on the basis of perceived lack of affinity/kinship.

 

However, I am not Christian and regret I do not have the sense of belonging to a church that many of my neighbors enjoy. I think that pretty much establishes my individuality, because I just can not believe as most my neighbors believe. A few of us never got married or had children, and they get kind of left out of the conversations about family, sons, daughters and grandchildren. They are individuals simply because they can not be included in these discussions with their own stories.

"Individual" doesn't refer to a status devoid of any inter-individual associations. ALL individuals engage in various forms of social interaction. Life involves a constant series of interactive negotiations with other people, institutions, and objects.

 

As a gerontologist, I have contemplated a lot what brings us together and what holds us a part. Our identity is very much about those we associate with and those we do not. Our physical features, size, color of skin and sex, directly effect our identity. There is how we identify ourselves and how others identify us, and this may not be in agreement. Of course we are known as doctors, waitresses or whatever, we do,and much of our identity changes as we go through life.

All these forms of social knowledge are culturally malleable. Anthropology finds enormous diversity in cultural and social-organizational practices. No form of culture, identity, or interaction is perfectly natural or universal.

 

A young person is building an identify, and an old person has shaken off many past roles, and has a very different relationship with his/her ego. Instead of needing what is outside of ourselves to build our identity, we have to sift through what is on the inside, and decide what to keep and what we want to forget. Laugh, one of our major challenges is forgetting all those things we don't want to remember. That brings me back to the idea of reincarnation. We need to forget these lives, so we can have new ones. May be some people want to continue the lives they have forever, but I look forward to having a new one.

People need to overcome habits of thought and materiality that constrain them to unconstructive life patterns. Forgetting or distancing themselves from various aspects of their selves and lives may help developmental processes in many cases but that doesn't mean that the past ceases to continue in the present in various ways, though transformations do occur through time.