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#67903ZA

Issues about our identity are much deeper and more interesting than the ideas we tend to use to classify and define ourselves as individuals in relation to others--especially when the focus is so political.

The political issues are important.

Of course. I agree they are important, but only when in the right perspective. I talked with Kate Bornstein about it last week.

The transgendered lesbian?

Yes, she gave a speech about her book Gender Outlaw. --only she’s not a lesbian any more by the way. She said that after she changed from a man into a woman, her partner decided she wanted to become a man. So that switched her back to straight.

Huh.

Of course that is on the assumption she’d really become a woman. On the other hand, she said, she might be a gay male now.

Hmm.

And I don’t think she’s exactly transgendered.

Why not?

She doesn’t actually believe in gender at all anymore. Changing to a woman wasn’t any better than being a man, she said, so now she just rejects the binary categories altogether.

So she’s not really a gender-bender

more like a breaker, a gender-breaker.

Like in heaven.

What?

where there is neither male nor female.

But Zo, realistically, isn’t it biologically determined? I mean that there are two genders.

No. It is biologically determined that there are two sexes, speaking generally. Such as Erin and I are capable of bearing children whereas you aren’t, and there are the differences in hormones so that biological males tend to be bigger and faster than biological females--why we have to figure out the rules for no-gender basketball.

I had an idea about that, Zo. Add a 4 point shot from way out, then maybe make dunks only worth one point.

Ok. Yah, I see it. That’s a good idea, Erin.

But wait. dunks are fun--

right. that’d discourage them--they’d just do lay-ups instead.

Well, ok, maybe just make the 3 point shot worth 4 then.

Might work. Anyway, what I was saying is the biological sex differences have very little to do with gender. The masculine and feminine gender roles are superimposed on the biological differences between males and females. Even if certain roles might tend to go with biological traits, we have some freedom here.

Huh.

Maybe a lot.

And Erin do you realize how much more difficult it is being feminine than being masculine.

Yes, of course. It is more of a performance.

Exactly.

Kind of fun sometimes.

Yah but not really very much fun if it is always obligatory, if one has to always do it. Judith Butler talks about it as a mask. Actually I think she means it literally-- take a man without facial hair and a woman without makeup and just look at their faces --the appearance is what is normally regarded as masculine. The facial differences in the two roles have nothing to do with biology; on the contrary, it is culture. We are expected to wear a sort of mask.

But then that means its easier for women than men to experiment with not being stuck in one of the gender roles

Well, true, we wear levis and nobody notices; whereas Joe in a miniskirt--

--whoa! --that’d draw attention.--whaddya think, Joe?

Oh, yes. It drew attention!

What?

When did you do that?

Oh, me and Liddy dress up sometimes, go out with Joe Colson and those guys.

Weird.

Please tape my eyes shut!

So look, though, Erin --we can ridicule those guys but really it just reflects a yearning for something pretty simple and obvious.

I agree about clothing and appearance generally, yes, women can experiment nowadays more freely than men. But I think emotionally we as females may actually have less of a mask. The masculine gender requires a lot of emotional makeup, so men can experiment with gender by simply taking that off.

And putting on emotional levis.

Exactly. Like the way all the Sonics were crying and hugging on tv last week after they got into the playoffs.

Quite a sight.

Every passing day I feel less gendered.

I know. That’s the point. The binary categories are silly. That is what Kate Bornstein was talking about.

So you talked with her?

In her speech she’d made some references to doing Zen practice with Cheri Huber so I thought she might be interested in a story I’d run across.

What story?

its from the Upanishads.

The what?

Upanishads, Joe. Ancient poems and stories. Prajapati is proclaiming that the self is "free from evil, ageless, deathless, sorrowless" and so on, and both gods and devils happen to hear him say it and they think, "well, ok. Let’s go find that self!" So Indra from the gods and Virocana from the devils come to see Prajapati.

Who is Prajapati?

I’m not sure. Some guy. So Indra the god and Virocana the demon offer sacrifices and they are ascetics for 32 years, celibate and all that, and finally Prajapati asks them what they want.

32 years??!

Story is story. So they reply they want to know the self "free from evil, ageless, sorrowless" and so on. He says, "well, ok. Look at your reflection in a pan of water. Anything that you do not understand of the self, tell me!"

Funny.

this is the part I wanted to tell Kate, since she talked so much about transforming from a man into a woman because of how she wanted to be seen. And yet she was saying it didn’t work.

How did she look?

she really looked good. I was amazed. Very sexy. She really did look glamorous, like Madonna was trying to look in one of her sexy phases--

Madonna is a lot sexier now that she’s just doing yoga and lifting weights.

Well of course. But its the attitude that inspires us.

Well that’s true. Not having much interest in beauty we settle simply for audacious self-promotion. That’s why Nietzsche’s influence persists.

What? why?

Because he was so adept and subtle at promoting himself.

Huh, interesting, Erin. Anyway you can tell even now that Kate Bornstein when she was a man probably was about as attractive as Howard Stern. And yet she has such an atttitude--

what about the story?

So Indra and Virocana look at their reflections in the water, and say "We see everything here, Sir, a Self corresponding exactly, even to the hair and fingernails!"

this is from the Upanishads?

Yes. It is an ancient text, Erin. One of the earliest.

The first human self-reflection being simply the awareness of one’s hair and hands as seen in a pool of still water.

Huh. Yah, I guess so. So Prajapati says, "Ok, now get dressed up. Make yourselves well-ornamented, adorned, and look again!" So they get all dressed up. They put on clothes, comb their hair.

They create a look.

Yah. They do some art on themselves. They define themselves for each other, we might say. Maybe they create some genders.

Cosmetic surgery, couple of pints of silicon here and there.

Go down to the thrift store and get some stuff

Liddy and I order it out of a catalog.

So what happens?

"What do you see?" Prajapati asks them. "Just as we see ourselves here, sir, well-ornamented, well-dressed, adorned," they say. And Prajapati says, "Ok. You found it. That is the Self! That is the fearless, the sorrowless. That is what you are seeking. You found it."

funny.

and then it says, "And with tranquil heart the two went forth."

That’s funny.

They leave, happy.

He tricked them.

Exactly. and Prajapati glances after them, saying, "Those idiots! They left without getting it, without finding the Self." So they leave, and Virocana gets back to his devil friends and says "ok, let’s party! Let’s dress up and dance! That’s all we need to do"--

Funny. What about Indra?

So he’s going on his way home but even before he gets home he goes, wait a minute. This bodily self looks good when all dressed up, but by the same token it will be blind, lame, maimed when the body breaks down. And then he says, "I see nothing enjoyable in this."

this story isn’t about ontology, is it.

No.

Its how the conception of self factors into happiness.

Yes, exactly, Erin, my beautiful sister. And you are so beautiful to me, your yellow hair, your maroon nails.

So he goes back?

Yep. So he turns around and goes back to Prajapati and explains the shortcomings he saw in identifying with the physical image of the body. And Prajapati says, ok. No problem. Live with me for thirty-two more years and I will explain it better.

32 more years?!

Yep.

Its not an overnight camping trip.

Erin, no it’s not --you have to carve out some time for it. Not just a weekend thing. And then it can be so worthwhile.

And so?

So after 32 years, Prajapati informs him that the Self is "he who moves about happy in a dream."

wow. That’s interesting. A pleasant dream offers our ancient ancestors an escape from the brutal physical realities. So he’s telling Indra to identify with the dreamer of pleasant dreams. that’s like Derek’s psychological account of personal identity, isn’t it?

Maybe it is. --At least it breaks the connection between the concept of person and the concept human being, like Locke did. So as a human being you may be female but as a person you might not be.

Its not only our ancient ancestors.

So what happens?

the same thing happens. Indra leaves again with a tranquil heart, but on the way home he stops again. Something isn’t quite right. Then, "he saw this danger," it says. "True, even when the body goes blind, this self, the dreamer, would not be blind, that’s good; the body might go lame, yet this self the dreamer still would not be lame--"

But--

But the problem is that still the dreamer comes to experience what is unpleasant. --And the text says, "As it were, he even weeps."

Indra wept?

Yes.

The movie is over after two hours. The pleasant dreams are fleeting, gone.

We wake up frightened, panicky.

So what happened?

Guess.

Uh. He goes back to Prajapati and hangs around for another 32 years?

Exactly.

What is the answer this time?

"Now, when one is sound asleep, composed, serene, and knows no dream--that is the Self. That is the immortal, the fearless."

Hmm. Maybe that is like states of deep concentration in meditation you talk about.

Oh, yes, that could be. -- that is an interesting point.

The problem this time I bet is its too much like just being dead.

Wow. Exactly, Erin. You should write upanishads! Yes, that is the problem. It says Indra realized that the composed, serene self-- "this one does not know herself with the thought ‘I am she’ nor does she know the things in this world. she becomes one who has gone to destruction. I see nothing enjoyable in this." This reminds me of U Pandita citing the riddle from the Buddha--don’t stop without, he says, but don’t stop within either.

What does that mean exactly, Zo?

I think it means stopping without is like being totally preoccupied with external objects, like one’s reflected image, or one’s gender role or lack of gender role, etcetera, yet stopping within is like just defining oneself by the tranquillity of deep concentration. --Even identifying with the deep tranquillity is stopping short.

It’s like a too limited sense of self.-- so he goes back again?

Yes.

Thirty-two more years?

No. Only five this time. And it says, "and that makes a total of one hundred and one years."

right. Three times thirty-two is ninety-six plus five is one-oh-one. They added correctly.-- Pretty good so long before computers.

Like a full lifetime.

And the answer this time?

Hand me the flashlight. I better read it so I don’t lead you guys astray.

Ok.

I’m not going to read it all. It is making the point, first of all, that there is a bodiless self yet it is linked to the mortal body. The body has been appropriated by death, it says, yet somehow this body is "the standing-ground of that deathless, bodiless self." there isn’t any freedom from pleasure and pain while one is incorporate--that is, tied to the body. And then this is where it gets good, Erin. --"Now, he who knows ‘Let me smell this’--that is the Self; the nose is just the instrument for smelling. Now, he who knows, ‘Let me utter this’--that is the Self; the voice is just the instrument for utterance... Now he who knows ‘Let me think this’--that is the Self ..." --and so on. Do you know why I love this, Erin?

Yes, I think I might know why.

Why?

Because it captures so elegantly the intuition that we exist as dense.

Exactly! It captures that idea so simply and directly. The real me is she who knows ‘Let me smell this’. Or I think, "let me think about such and such"--I am she who knows this very thought. That gets right to the point.

Maybe there is the realization that in thoughts about oneself, there is no criteria for identifying an object. When I think, "let me smell this," or when I remember smelling something yesterday, I do not use any criteria to identify an object that was me doing the smelling. McDowell has a beautiful explanation how this fact leads to the assumption of a simple purely mental entity that exists independent of the body.

What does he say?

He says the Cartesian maintains the idea that continuity of consciousness constitutes an awareness of identity through time, yet if she notices the point "that no criteria for persistence through time are in play in the field" of consciousness --that is, in my thoughts about myself-- then she is led to the conclusion that the continuant must be "peculiarly simple, something that does not go beyond the flow of ‘consciousness’ itself."

that’s good. Actually, Erin, somebody might assume all that, but then realize that there’s no good reason to assume that there is any such pure, simple entity --and then jump to the idea that there really is no self at all. That is, there really is nothing to which my self-conscious thoughts refer. Some buddhists might do that.

Maybe. Of course, McDowell’s point is to criticize the background assumption that the content of self-conscious awareness must be understood wholly in terms of the field of consciousness alone. He rejects that, and thinks that the thoughts make reference to the continuing entity that is simply the human being, an animal living in the real world.

Well, it seems to me, Erin, that you can also get an objective continuing object the way Parfit does it -- the stream of interconnected mental events itself transcends any particular self-conscious thoughts. So rejection of the idea that the content of self-conscious thought shouldn’t go beyond the field of consciousness is ambiguous --it can mean (a) not beyond the field of momentary awareness or (b) not beyond the field of causally interconnected awareness. I agree the assumption (a) is wrong. But in rejecting that, one need not assume that it the person has to be identified with the human being -- it can be as for Parfit the stream of mental events causally connected in the real world.

Maybe. So was that how it ended?

Yes. Thus spake Prajapati--

Huh.

--yea, thus spake Prajapati.

Well, Zo then maybe we better add on, Is he really going to be content with the idea of self as a separately existing thing?

Possibly so. You’re right. Ok. so let’s do that. So on his way home Indra is thinking, wow! I am he who is knowing this very thought, where he is assuming it is a separate mental entity.

So next he realizes he really does not have knowledge of such an entity; so first of all he goes eliminativist -- "wow, I don’t exist!" he thinks.

He better go talk with Prajapati about that. Something doesn’t quite sound right.

So he turns around again and goes back.

How many years does he stay this time?

Well, I dont know. Its your story now.

Well.

Not too long. Let’s get it over with.

How about only seven days.--

Then what?

Uh, wait a minute. Prajapati isn’t even there anymore!

What? He isn’t?

Where is he?

Probably down partying with Virocana and the devils.

Did he get dressed up?

Oh yah. Its carnaval time.

So what about Indra?

He is bereft.

What would someone like Parfit say here? I mean, he rejects the idea that there is a separately existing entity who does the knowing but still he thinks Indra exists.

right. But knowing plays a key role for him. Derek uses the idea of conscious awareness right at the heart of his theory since he says it is awareness that unifies diverse mental states so as to be the states of a single person. but he doesn’t discuss it much. He only mentions awareness in a couple of places, but what he says is --it unifies all the diverse events that constitute a person at a time.

What ties the bundle together.

The glue.

Right. Maybe he should have highlighted it more! For isn’t it this awareness which is why we tend to resist simple identification with the flow of experiences and thoughts? I surely do not seem to myself to be simply a stream of causally interconnected mental events.

Yes. I seem to be the one who knows those things just like Prajapati said before he left for the party.

Actually Derek says the reductionist can agree with that point--that the person is not literally the same thing as the stream of mental events, just as we resist simple identification with the body. But he says in several places this is only because of the ways we talk.

It seems to me it is deeper than that. It is not merely because we have distinct concepts and words for "me" and for "stream of experience" that we want to hold them apart. Rather, the intuition might well be the very one that the Upanishads expressed. The real me is she who knows events in the stream-- where these events are my intentions, perceptions, actions--

Kolak and Martin challenged the idea that any causal notion is necessary at all.

Its just the knowing? The knowing itself could be one of those events.

I don’t think so.

What?

Its not an event.

Look, zo, maybe it is a state not an event. But the point is it is not a thing separate from the stream, but in combination with thoughts and so forth the whole process gives rise to the knowledge of self. Then what you might do is to have the knower grounded then in awareness, for that matter, grounded in the various forms of consciousness that in turn are grounded in the brain and the central nervous sytem, and this knower is the subject of experiences. By grounded in I mean dependent upon, supervenient.

So the knower is just the aware living body -- the human being.

Yes. She who knows ‘let me smell this’ or who thinks ‘I am she who is thinking this’ --well, yes, that knower is simply the live aware body.

Actually not only the knower --but also a doer as well. She who does what I do. That might bring the causal notions back in.

Ok, Erin. Fine. But it is the body as subject, not exactly the body as the object reflected in a mirror. It is the animal as known consciously from the inside. That is why the conscious functions are more primary than the animal ones. And that is why tying the person to the conscious functions makes sense.

Ok, maybe. I’m not sure this really matters, Zo. It may matter if you want a theory in which survival of death is coherent. But I cannot really bear to think about that, it is just fantasy like Star Wars and ET. The interesting thing is that the subject is simply supervenient on forms of consciousness within the body. But in any case I agree it is not the body, the living human animal, as perceived or imagined from an external point of view. Not the body that is adorned with clothes and flowers and so on.

The body as experienced from the inside is quite real; and yet this subject does not need to be reified as a "separately existing thing". Of course it isn’t just the body that is known, but also mental events and states.

Right. Dreams, thoughts, states of concentration. The subject is the subject of experiences involving these things as well as the body--this subject of experiences is who I am. Moreover, since we are talking about the subject as the aware body, then the features of awareness itself will be central to who I am. we are not talking about the body from the external point of view, for awareness itself is vast, without form, boundless. Just look and see.

Look at awareness?

Yah. Erin, listen--there might even be reasons to use other phrases about it too, --even borrow the words from the upanishad --to say it is bodiless, deathless, without beginning or end. We should think about this. In one sutra, the Buddha describes himself as the Tathagatha, one who has gone beyond, and he says the Tathagatha is "deep, boundless, hard to fathom, like the sea."

boundless, like the sea?

The metaphors are apt. I’m not giving a theory. But whatever your theory you certainly have to save the appearances here. Even if awareness ultimately is understood in terms of relations between mental representations, or whatever, you still need to derive from your theory its qualities of lucidity and emptiness. It is formless, yet not a formless thing. The void is not void. the upanishad actually might’ve got it right! it went from the externalized body as seen or imagined, to the dreamer, to the deeply concentrated mind. None of those images worked. Don’t identify them as yourself.

So we have been saying the self is the knowing subject and this knowing subject, who I am, is just the aware animal who knows, "let me smell this."

--But the aware body Erin is not a dense thing precisely because awareness itself is deep, fathomless. --But not a deep, fathomless thing. Could the writers of the upanishads have been that down to earth?

You might be reading stuff in, Zo. They would have thought it exists independent of and prior to one’s body, wouldn’t they? Isn’t that what they meant by bodiless?

I don’t know, but it is at least coherent to turn it around. Awareness is dependent on the body, yet it isn’t necessarily explicable in physical terms. For instance, we might be able to break down the wavelengths of light very precisely but the difference between red and orange in our actual experience isn’t going to correspond precisely to the wavelengths.

Possibly so.

But I didn’t want to link this too closely to ontology.

Why not?

The relation between awareness and one’s body is complex. there are many theories, some even claiming it is beyond human comprehension. Ok. I have no idea. But I’m more on the wavelength of Indra walking home and realizing he has accepted a view of himself that isn’t going to work, in his actual words when he says "I see no enjoyment in this."

ok. You are more interested in how one’s view of self factors into life itself.

Yes, like when Parfit shifts from metaphysics to thinking about the ramifications of reductionism for practial theories. The Buddha does something similar too, focussing on the ways in which we suffer and how this is related to how our minds work.

How?

We tend to identify with things, like identifying with the body as perceived at a party. "That is me." Or we identify things as ours, "that is mine." these tendencies give rise to craving, and from craving comes suffering.

these tendencies you are saying are rooted in the idea--

yes, that we are most truly an entity existing separately from perceptions and thoughts, the being who knows one’s thoughts. So even with that idea, even interpreting the upanishad in terms of the live aware body --still, insofar as it provides a subject with which to identify, I think the Buddha would balk. He’d refuse to endorse it, for--there is no enjoyment in being attached to the idea that there is.

Even if there is such a thing we are better off not identifying with it?

Maybe.

So its a form of false consciousness.

No. That doesn’t follow. One might be able to accept one’s own reality without engaging in or perhaps without being trapped by the patterns of identification that result in suffering. Actually one could identify instead with the great tree that is one’s life --all the ripples that flow from one’s actions.

So what about Indra? What are we going to do we do with him?

He can’t find Prajapati anywhere so he just sits down. He inquires into the thought itself and into the clinging and grasping. He just sits there aware of it.

And?

I’m not sure. Let’s just end it right there. Leave it up to the reader to find out for herself.

Whoa! That’s tough.

That is sort of what the buddha does. Usually refused to offer answers about the self. Or he tailored them for the individual with whom he was talking, in terms of what he felt would be most useful for that person to reflect upon.

What might he have said to Indra though?--suppose Indra insists on an answer.

We can lie here talking all night and I can say in a thousand ways that awareness is formless, beyond thoughts, and so on--but those are only words, gestures. It comes back to firsthand experience, mindfulness. Looking for oneself, looking into the nature of body, mind, awareness. If you simply register the words without attending to awareness itself, the words will probably strike you as hocus-pocus hype. But when one looks, there it is.

I really do not understand you, Zo. Nonetheless the interpretation of the upanishad so that its compatible with a contemporary naturalistic world view-- I like that. --I mean, putting the focus on the nature of conscious awareness itself, however it may be realized in the world and however it is that we make sense of knowledge by means of self-awareness.

Maybe. But rewriting upanishads or buddhist texts so that we can make sense of them is equally irrelevant. There is firsthand, first personal experience here. It is odd. On the one hand it apparently has to be cultivated and that takes work. On the other hand it is nearer than near.

Where?

In your body, let us say.

You are saying it is within the experience of the body?

It is subtle because we so naturally are wrapped up in the assumption of me as the body as dense; and when we realize that won’t work, we move to some entity existing separate from the body.

Like Indra did.

Erin, there is a sutra where the Buddha treats the body as one of the foundations of mindfulness and he talks about observing the body both externally and internally. There is experience of the body from the inside that may be escaping one a lot of the time.

Well, yes, I can appreciate that. Ok. Yes I would say most definitely it was true of me before I began doing the yoga classes. In retrospect it is such a simple thing, almost not worth mentioning, yet when i was overlooking it I was missing a lot. But when I get settled into it, it factors into everything I do and feel.

Exactly. That is why most people need to get more experience, just beginning with the subtlety of experience of body. It is just not in our normal culture to do this. This is where the obsessive focus on competitive sports is so weird. Kids are taught to play to win and impress, to prove themselves. Yet the simple vivid experience of their own bodies in action isn’t even in the picture, and if it is in the picture it is as a technique to be used to perform well. Like the Lakers doing yoga.

Like pre-visualizing a performance.

Yes, not only visualizing but pre-enacting it within. That can help you make free throws. But there is a sort of activity here that has intrinsic human value quite independent of making free throws

or doing flips on the high beam.

Right. And of course I am not talking only about connecting experientially with the incredible life of one’s nervous system. But also getting some deep settled-in experience of pure concentration and clear mindfulness. Erin, can you imagine a modern culture in which children are encouraged to explore this?

Yes. I guess so.

--rather than settling for momentary glimpses through romantic flings or drugs--or mere conceptual beauty and order; or for that matter, for a good-looking well-adorned body--

[pause]

Zo?

[pause]

Zoe?

[pause]

Joe!

What?

Wake up, Joe!!

Huh?

I think Zo passed out!

What?

Wake up! We’ve got to get her into the city! Dang it! [Dana! [?]] --are you listening? Can you help us?

Ok, Erin, I'm here. Let’s move. -- Joe, help me tear this sheet for a sling.

[Tape end]