Dear Frank and Waldemar

We can either sit and exchange niceties and make this forum a competition
for who shows the most humility. Like a classical salon. Fine.
Or we could try to move forward and challenge each other in a friendly,
respectful but firm manner. I would definitely prefer the latter. Because I
consider the first option a waste of valuable time.
When I say that there is social and only social as in relational and only
relational I mean exactly this.
So where is this dear "Individual" actually located? Where does this
continous undivided Individual reside?
To me it's beginning to sound like old church ladies who insist that God
must exist ontically because they are only comfortable with God existing
and have never contemplated any alternatives. So they just raise the cloud
where God resides higher and higher until there are no more clouds left to
put him on. In what way is the insistant defense of "The Individual" any
different?
I see only systems called bodies and systems called brains within those
bodies. And then systems called technologies around those bodies and
brains. And then highly functional delusions of continuity and unity as
"awarenesses" within these systems. But delusions nevertheless.
Where I guess the burden of evidence lies with you and not with me,
gentlemen!

Best intentions
Alexander Bard

Den tis 15 okt. 2019 kl 22:01 skrev Frank Ambrosio <[log in to unmask]
>:

> Dear Waldemar,
>
> I would not worry much about “entirely missing the point,” Bard’s or
> anyone else’s,      because the truth you consistently enact in our
> discussions  is intellectual and personal humility, and as far as I can
> tell, that pretty much IS the point. Bickering about the comparative merits
> of divergent conceptual schemas, whatever their pedigree, is usually unwise
> except in rarified cases, because it is to ignore one of the most basic
> truths humility imposes: every artifact of human culture, like its
> artificer, exists historically, which means its sustainable vitality is
> painfully limited and will shortly pass. The fact of death does not make
> human existence meaningless by any stretch, but memento mori, it’s a good
> idea to keep it in mind.
>
> All good wishes,
>
>  Frank
>
> On Tue, Oct 15, 2019 at 7:14 PM Waldemar Schmidt <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
>
>> Alexander (B):
>>
>> You could be correct about me - I may have entirely missed  you point.
>> It wouldn’t be the first time the obvious flew past me without making
>> contact - unfortunately, it is probably not the last!
>>
>> You are correct, again, in suggesting that I should read Hegel - but
>> first I have to learn to read German!
>> Meanwhile, I’m studying Bard & Søderqvist - with whom I do not entirely
>> agree or disagree, by the way but from whom I gain a much, much wider
>> understanding.
>>
>> My argument is more along the lines of Alexander E.
>> I favor neither individualism nor collectivism.
>> Rather, I recognize that the human condition entails, for each person,
>> their nature as a “social individual.”
>> One whose social side requires an individual to interact with and being
>> involved by other individuals and the social structure.
>> Developing into an individual requires a social structure and involvement
>> - in the absence of the social structure and function the “abandoned”
>> orphanage infants did not thrive.
>> The social structure and function in any setting requires the
>> participation of separate (ie, individual) human beings within that social
>> structure.
>> There is no “one” without the “other."
>>
>> I think we are using different words and phrases to acknowledge
>> essentially the same thing.
>>
>> I do thank you, again, for commenting.
>> It’s our interpersonal interactions that allow me to expand and explore
>> my horizons - little by little I come to apprehend the human condition.
>>
>> Best personal regards,
>>
>> Waldemar
>>
>> *Waldemar A Schmidt, PhD, MD*
>> (Perseveret et Percipiunt)
>> 503.631.8044
>>
>> *Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value. (A Einstein)*
>>
>> On Oct 15, 2019, at 2:57 AM, Alexander Bard <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>> Dear Waldemar
>>
>> You're entirely missing my point.
>> The opposition of Individual versus Collective is Individualism. And it
>> is that very OPPOSITION that is over. Your Collective is nothing but a
>> Collective of Individuals. Like so many hardcore believers of the odl faith
>> you simply refuse to see that the entire ideology is over.
>> Physics killed Atomism. The Internet has killed Individualism.
>> There is nothing but RELATIONAL left. And this relational is always
>> plural so all that is left is a SOCIAL understanding of man and technology.
>> Neuro science practically slaughters the idea of any solid consciousness
>> PRIOR to the event. So get over it.
>> Everything now is social as in man-machine social. But first and foremost
>> we understand that we live in a relationalist world as reklationalist
>> bodies with relationalist minds.
>> Read Hegel!
>>
>> Best intentions
>> Alexander Bard
>>
>> Den mån 14 okt. 2019 kl 23:29 skrev Waldemar Schmidt <
>> [log in to unmask]>:
>>
>>> Alexander B:
>>>
>>> Thank you for your response.
>>> I agree that things, such as the European modernist starting point to
>>> which you refer are not likely to be universal.
>>> My point is that we Homo sapiens sapiens are “social individuals.”
>>> That is, that one side of the “coin” is “social” and the other is
>>> “individual.”
>>> From my perspective, each of us is both - it seems un-necessary and
>>> inaccurate to argue that we are either one or the other.
>>> At the same time it seems correct to assert that American stress on
>>> individualism is as uninspired as a collectivist unitary stance.
>>> Perceiving humans as “social individuals” seems pretty close to
>>> universal to me.
>>>
>>> I understand that European Philosophy is different than American
>>> Philosophy.
>>> But, I enjoy the intellectual interaction of the two views.
>>> I have spent a considerable part of my formative years living in Europe
>>> and European country colonies - ie, I am a third-culture kid.
>>> Which means I really don’t fit well into either the culture from which I
>>> arose or the culture/s in which I developed.
>>>
>>> An holistic perception of the human condition seems more likely to
>>> foster progress.
>>>
>>> Best regards,
>>>
>>> Waldemar
>>>
>>>
>>> *Waldemar A Schmidt, PhD, MD*
>>> (Perseveret et Percipiunt)
>>> 503.631.8044
>>>
>>> *Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value. (A Einstein)*
>>>
>>> On Oct 13, 2019, at 5:08 AM, Alexander Bard <[log in to unmask]>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Dear Waldemar
>>>
>>> Acually no.
>>> The "I" primacy is a typically European modernist starting point and not
>>> at all universal.
>>> Still the predominant starting point among within American and European
>>> middle class discourse.
>>> But again, not at all universal and not even historically relevant
>>> outside of the Cartesian-Kantian paradigm that still dominates Western
>>> academia but which the Internet Revolution is about to explode.
>>> You see, the rest of the world starts with a tribal we. Usually around
>>> the Dubar number of 157. Nothing is less than 157.
>>> So much for "higher perspectives". It rather seems it takes an awful lot
>>> of effort for western middle class people to arrive where the rest of
>>> humanity starts from.
>>> Wilber is a Cartesian. I would much prefer if we could leave that
>>> religious conviction behind or at least not pretend it is a universally
>>> valid norm.
>>> And what does behaviporism prove to us if not that we behave as swarms
>>> and/or flocks 99,9% of the time? No "individuals" at all in action. But
>>> swarms and flocks that at most contain dividuals.
>>> Tthe future belongs to social psychology (like Peterson and Vervaeke)
>>> and not individual psychology at all. We are all already social and nothing
>>> but social.
>>>
>>> Big love
>>> Alexander
>>>
>>> Den lör 12 okt. 2019 kl 05:46 skrev Waldemar A Schmidt, PhD, MD <
>>> [log in to unmask]>:
>>>
>>>> Alexander (Bard):
>>>>
>>>> I am reading your works very carefully.
>>>> And I value the insights they invoke within me.
>>>> Slowly, to be sure, I am trained in medicine and science, not
>>>> philosophy.
>>>> But there are some truths that apply to Puerto Rican mothers of 5, as
>>>> well as grandfathers of 5, such as myself:
>>>>
>>>>      There is an “I”.
>>>>      There is a relationship of “I” with “I” within “I.”
>>>>      There is an I-Thou relationship.
>>>>      There is an I-It relationship.
>>>>
>>>> And we all struggle to keep a balance within those.
>>>> That balance requires looking at things such as paradigms.
>>>> It won’t put food on the table.
>>>> But, it might help to do so with elan.
>>>>
>>>> Nonetheless, keep poking, brother!
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Best regards,
>>>>
>>>> Waldemar
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Waldemar A Schmidt, PhD, MD
>>>> (Perseveret et Percipiunt)
>>>> Sent from my iPad
>>>>
>>>> ############################
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> --
> Francis J. Ambrosio, PhD
> Associate Professor of Philosophy
> Senior Fellow, Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship
> Georgetown University
> 202-687-7441
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