| Anyone for some Sartre?
Posted: 3/16/2009 9:28:19 PM | Last summer, I happened upon a 2004/2006 reprint of Jean-Paul Sartre’s 1940 classic “The Imaginary”. I’ve just finished reading this text, coupled with extensive note-taking related to an ongoing research project; but I found something in the last few pages particularly interesting with reference to our modern ‘online’ world:
“To say that one ‘takes’ an aesthetic attitude to life is to confuse the real and the imaginary. It happens, however, that we can take the attitude of aesthetic contemplation in the face of real objects or events. In that case, everyone can observe in themselves a kind of standing back from the object contemplated, which itself slides into nothingness.’ (Page 193).
“It is in this sense that one can say: the extreme beauty of a woman kills the desire for her. In fact we cannot simultaneously place ourselves on the aesthetic plane with this irreal ‘herself’ that we admire and on the realizing plane of physical possession. In order to desire her it is necessary to forget that she is beautiful, since desire is a plunge into the heart of existence, into what is most contingent and absurd.” (page 194).
First, of course, one must point out that this was written in 1940; so of course please insert “non-gender specific personage” wherever gender specific terms occur.
Debatably, we might also wish to insert any aesthetically pleasing characteristic for ‘beauty’.
So: what I find myself wondering is, how far immersed are we in ‘the imaginary’ by the very nature of this medium, in which I think we all find ourselves making judgements which are to some extent aesthetic in the course of our navigating amidst our fellow users? Does the very nature of the Internet already place us all in “a kind of standing back” relative to our fellow users? Are the expectations which people have while here necessarily “irreal” due to this inherent “standing back” which characterizes the Internet experience? | |
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| Anyone for some Sartre?
Posted: 3/16/2009 10:42:23 PM | TaiChiJohn:So: what I find myself wondering is, how far immersed are we in ‘the imaginary’ by the very nature of this medium, in which I think we all find ourselves making judgements which are to some extent aesthetic in the course of our navigating amidst our fellow users? Does the very nature of the Internet already place us all in “a kind of standing back” relative to our fellow users? Are the expectations which people have while here necessarily “irreal” due to this inherent “standing back” which characterizes the Internet experience?
Because of his intimate friendship with Simone de Beauvoir and my time in France I have always like the man for many reason. Would have liked to have known Friedrich Nietzsche.
As to your questions. How far immersed are we in the imaginary,would depend on how serious or desperate a POF member is and whether they are mentally healthy and can differentiate between their fantasy wants and their reality wants.
The Internet which I have been on since the early 80's is akin in many ways to other forms of people watching. Sure we cannot hear 'your' voice or see 'your' facial expressions, but neither could Helen Keller, and yet she connected with people very well. Some people simply are more intuitive, and do not want to waste time on dead weight.
Guess some or even most people could have 'irreal' unreal expectations (if you read some profiles and posts on POF), but remember some of us are way to smart to get sucked into the black hole areas of the Internet including POF. | |
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| Anyone for some Sartre?
Posted: 3/17/2009 5:06:18 AM | With reference to the preceding comment:
As to your questions. How far immersed are we in the imaginary, would depend on how serious or desperate a POF member is and whether they are mentally healthy and can differentiate between their fantasy wants and their reality wants.
I should clarify Sartre's position:
“If it were possible to conceive for a moment a consciousness that does not imagine, it would be necessary to conceive it as totally bogged down in the existent and without the possibility of grasping anything other than the existent. But it is precisely this that is not and never could be: every existent, as soon as it is posited, is consequently surpassed. But still it must be surpassed towards something. The imaginary is in every case the concrete ’something’ towards which the existent is surpassed.” (Jean-Paul Sartre, The Imaginary, page 187).
“Thus the imagination, far from appearing as an accidental characteristic of consciousness, is disclosed as an essential and transcendental condition of consciousness. It is as absurd to conceive of a consciousness that does not imagine as it is to conceive of a consciousness that cannot effect the cogito.” (The Imaginary, pg.188).
Sartre does have a very interesting approach toward explaining how imagination can be taken for perception. He attributes the extremes of such cases (hallucinations) not to a failure of perception but rather to an 'irrealizing' of consciousness itself... and I find that also very interesting given the number of profiles I have seen which state a distinct disinterest for "game players", "head games", etc. since it could be argued that 'the imaginary' aspect of the Internet tends to solicit a 'false consciousness' from its more 'unreflective' users.
It is really interesting to see emerge in "The Imaginary" the major themes that shape "Being and Nothingness": consciousness 'for itself' and 'in itself'; the 'bad faith' of the 'irreal self'; and of course the 'nothingness' of the imaginary, which has the distinctive characteristic of being posited as 'not existing' or 'not here, now'. | |
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| Anyone for some Sartre?
Posted: 3/17/2009 7:38:14 AM | T'is almost proable that you may stand back from something or one of extreme beauty.
I think we have all witnessed this in our life silently at times.
It may occurr at any or all the time but will definately occurr.
The interesting concept is 'extreme'.
I see that as the end of contemplation and the beginning of witnessing. | |
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| Anyone for some Sartre?
Posted: 3/17/2009 11:26:48 AM | I think I have an idea of this. If we take human perception, what we see, is not what is seen by the eyes. The eyes see a procession of dots of colour, split into 3 types, in chemical measurement. The nerves record this as electrical signals, pure data, which is just an endless stream of numbers. However, what we see, is our brain making this into a cogent image and experience. I think this mental image, created in our own brains, is what Sartre calls "imagination".
We have great reason to believe that the mental image is NOT the same as what we see. We find that people recall things not quite as how they are in reality. Further, when experiments were conducted, that made people wear special glasses, that turned everything upside down, after about 3 days, the mind re-righted the image. The mind tries to work out how the world SHOULD look, based on the electrical signals it receives. If you like, the mind is constantly receiving thousands of messages, written in code, and the mind tries to decode them all into some kind of mental image. For the most part, it does a very good job. But it is an endlessly difficult task, and as with decryption, it is very easy to get some messages wrong.
So, what we see is really our imagined view of reality. It is not reality, and sometimes, they differ.
However, what is more, our mental image is also affected by us, our emotions. When we find someone pleasant in manner, we find they look more beautiful, and we notice their fuller lips, their lustrous hair. Their more attractive elements appear more enhanced. It is even common that their blemishes become attractive to us. But when we find them unpleasant to be with, often the slightest of blemishes appear to now be horrible to look at, and yet even just looking at them, we are unaccountably drawn to those blemishes nonetheless. We even find this in the same person. A person we used to find stunning, is now ugly, and we cannot even see what we saw in them before, because we have discovered they have an ugly personality. It is as if our emotions and our feelings about a person, colour how they appear to us, like night from day.
Our emotions make us develop 2 images, the one based on our senses, and the one coloured by our emotions
But, conversely, the more we focus on our emotions, the more we focus on our mental image that is coloured by our emotions. So, if we want to focus on the mental image that is based on our senses, then we must de-couple ourselves from our desires.
However, this is not all. Our own emotions, our desires, also generate other responses in the body, for, if we are attracted to a woman, we feel a sexual stirring. This stirring rises higher and higher until it reaches ejaculation, and then, the desire is diminished, until we are capable of such ejaculation again. While this can be done as many as 6 times in a day for a young man, maybe even 18 times, there is still an inbuilt limit. We simply cannot handle an infinite amount of desire.
So, when we see a woman, and we remain attracted to her, we enhance that image. We magnify her beauty, and that magnifies the sexual desire for her. With an incredibly beautiful woman, the various attributes are so many, and so powerfully impressed on our imagination, that we magnify her beauty many more times than we are capable of handling. We go into sensory and imaginative overload. The body has to shut that down, for our brains, our emotions, and our sexual desires simply cannot handle it.
So, when men see an exceptionally beautiful woman, many men simply find that they do not have a strong desire for her. They find something to criticise about her. Because she is incredibly beautiful, they invent that she has a nasty personality. They might suddenly find that her waist is too thin, her lips too full, her breasts too symmetrical, her eyes too big. No matter what, they invent reasons to find her at least somewhat repellant, because if they give in to their desires for her, then her beauty will be enhanced in their imagination, to a level they simply cannot cope with. The solution, is to make her ugly in her eyes.
This, I believe, could be what Sartre means, when he says "the extreme beauty of a woman kills the desire for her". If we focus on her beauty, her real beauty, the way she actually looks, it is just too much for most men to handle.
This might also go a long way to explain why so many men choose only to have sex with incredibly beautiful women, but choose often to marry quite plain and homely looking women. They become more real to such men, easier to accept and deal with.
I find this interesting, because this seems to me, to be all about the limits of perception, and in another thread on existentialism, that also discussed things said by Sartre, the quotes from him also spoke about the limits of what the human mind can achieve. I find this interesting, because it seems to me that many of the ideas of existentialism, seem to be about accepting limits, like that we are all going to die, and that love is rare, and not common. It seems to me that existentialism is about learning to live with our limits.
In the case of the Internet, it is technically an image. But to the mind, it is no more an image, than the image that we see in real life, for in real life, all the brain receives are electrical signals. It doesn't matter if those signals come from points of light reflected off a computer screen, or from points of light reflected off a human body. It is all the same to the mind. However, because we class the internet as "unreal", this gives our mind imaginary license to believe that we are being objective, when we really aren't. Furthermore, the images on a screen don't give the whole picture. Not all the body is seen, not in 3-D, and the voice, the body language, the movement, all that is missing. That gives our mind license to use its imagination to fill in the blanks. So, in reality, we are not being objective at all. We are using our own subjective views and beliefs to fill in the blanks, and because it is an image, not confronted reality, our minds feel safe enough to do this all the more.
If we think that 5'6" is short, and we see a profile of a man who is 5'6", we cannot imagine 5'6", we can only imagine "short" and "tall", and that feeling of shortness is best expressed as the annoying guy who was 5'0". So 5'6" becomes 5'0" in our imagination.
If we think that "average" is a bit overweight, and we see a profile of a woman who is "average", we cannot imagine "a bit overweight", we can only imagine "fat" or "thin", and that feeling of fatness is best expressed as the huge girl who was 18 stone. So "average becomes extremely obese in our imagination.
We write the scripts, as to what we see in the internet, which is why so many are so let down when they go on dates. The people we like, we build them up to be far more than they appear to be. So, when we see them in the flesh, we are often bitterly disappointed. Likewise, if we see profiles of people who we dislike, we imagine them to be far more ugly than they appear to be. If we then happen to meet them in real life, we often find that they are more attractive than they seemed to be, although this is less likely, because we usually put up our best pics. But then, we don't go on dates with people we dislike, so that unexpected improvement seems to happen very rarely. As a result, many people believe that people appear a lot more attractive on the internet than in real life. But a huge amount of that, is just us, building up the people we like, to unreal expectations. | |
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| Anyone for some Sartre?
Posted: 3/17/2009 3:56:37 PM | Wow, that was a decidedly insightful and cogent post by Scorpiomover!
And indeed, it does focus on the range of questions I have concerning Sartre’s work on “The Imaginary”: specifically, concerning the extent to which we can indeed differentiate between perception and imagination.
Sartre contends that the two are more or less mutually exclusive, and he reaches this conclusion from within a phenomenological perspective: we all directly and immediately accept the images we form through perception as ‘being of the real’; while at the same time, the images we produce that are directed toward the real (photographs, caricatures, schematic drawings, mental images, hallucinations, etc.) are all accompanied by an attitude of conscious which accepts them as ‘not being real in themselves’.
It is this inherent character of ‘irreality’ which Sartre seeks to understand; and although we have technologies undreamed of in Sartre’s day (unimagined ;) with which to map the workings of our neural substrates, Sartre’s work “The Imaginary” remains to this day the most comprehensive yet produced on this subject.
Which is not overly surprising, considering that Sartre took about 10 years to write "The Imaginary". | |
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| Anyone for some Sartre?
Posted: 3/17/2009 11:20:37 PM |
Scorpiomover:This might also go a long way to explain why so many men choose only to have sex with incredibly beautiful women, but choose often to marry quite plain and homely looking women. They become more real to such men, easier to accept and deal with.
So Bill Gates married an average looking woman because she was easier to accept and deal with? WOW Ok, this is about average people so I will cut you some slack. | |
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| Anyone for some Sartre?
Posted: 3/18/2009 4:44:39 AM | RE msg 7 by ZenBeth:
Scorpiomover:This might also go a long way to explain why so many men choose only to have sex with incredibly beautiful women, but choose often to marry quite plain and homely looking women. They become more real to such men, easier to accept and deal with.
ZenBeth: So Bill Gates married an average looking woman because she was easier to accept and deal with? WOW Ok, this is about average people so I will cut you some slack. So you think she is "average-looking", even though she is thin, and the "average" woman in America is OBESE? How can you not have read what I wrote, "so many men", NOT every man on the planet, and still commented on it? WOW. Ok, this is about you reading your own insecurities into everything.
This is exactly what Sartre was talking about. Your imagination makes you see attacks, that your senses could never justify. You cannot have reality AND your imagination. | |
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| Anyone for some Sartre?
Posted: 3/18/2009 6:55:55 AM | Scorpio ..this is just a general rant and not directed specifically toward you..I appreciate the time you take to share your well reasoned opinions..
the dry detail of the written word causes more irritation online than obvious intent.
this seems to be doubly true regarding responses to our own offerings. While opening ourselves to meaning we are also vulnerable to attack. It doesn't help that every individual's ego is riding the shoulder and takes over the discussion at the first hint of conflict. This is something we all have to fight if we are to gain the degree of insight that the catalytic content should endenger. I realize that conflict triggers the adrenaline and causes all of us to become more engaged..but it also brings out the worst of our bad habits and leaves logic and good intentions to gasp for some space.
sorry for the interruption..i was just sharing an internal caution i continue to repeat.. | |
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| Anyone for some Sartre?
Posted: 3/18/2009 8:40:59 AM | RE: scorpiomover
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Interesting as to what you said about the inverted vision experiment. Ever watched TV whilst laying on a sofa so that your head is perpendicular (or at least at 45 degree angle) toward the TV? Your mind compensates, and it does very quickly. You can even tilt your head right now and still read fluently. I read somewhere that all humans (and assuming other mammals?) have inverted vision due to the lens in our eyes. It's weird thinking about it, I'd love to get a hold of those inversion glasses.
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Small blemishes can become cute sometimes. I wonder if they are imprints or impressions from previous attractions we have had to people with the same blemish making us more tolerant to a specific blemish or imperfection? Even associating nice memories with it?
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People who repay our affections will appear more attractive. It's certainly arousing for men under the "chance that you'll screw her" principal. (Example: just by living close by to a women, she becomes more attractive in the mans eyes since that increase chances of copulation, as does her accepting a date, the woman being single, her displaying interest, etc). I concluded that this was much less a factor in women's attraction to men, I can't remember exactly why, I think it was to do with desperateness and status (Simply offering affection/intimacy means very little to the average women since the average women has loads of potential FWB or potential one night stands, at any given time). Also being “too easy” depicts a person of lower status therefore is less attractive in a women’s eyes. Men aren’t as aroused by a women’s social status. I agree that men think less of a women’s attractiveness if she’s ****y towards you, it’s nothing rational, in fact I think it’s a psychological defence mechanism. (When we know we can’t have something we want, we de-value it or convince ourselves that we never really wanted it in the first place, for example: she was probably a gold digger anyway or her butt looks fat anyway, or point out any other imperfection), I’m sure women do this too. But basically if a woman is way out of the man’s league then it can give the perception of being less attractive. There is also the contradictory wanting what you can’t have principal but I think b**chyness, negativity towards you, and being out of your league would usually override that.
In any case I still think you’ve highly exaggerated the effect that someone’s negativity or lack of interest or b**chyness has on our perception of their appearance. Like I said, it does matter but not that much.
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People get disappointed more so from online dating because it is far easier to deceive using still pictures and writing up only what you want people to know. One does not have to be deliberately devious or malicious in anyway, it will just come natural to put one's best pictures up and only speak of positives. Further more people meet other's that are not within one's own social circle or even town/city so there is no social reference, and there is no social CV *. Imagine if an employer never checked CV's and the applicants knew this, all sorts of lies would be made, and all sorts of things would be omitted. People (women most especially) are strongly influenced by their friend’s opinions of her new boyfriend or date. So sometimes it can pay for a man to be unknown to his date’s circle of friends if he would other wise be unpopular with them, on the other hand if the women’s existing circle of friends fancied the man then that would work highly in favour for the man.
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Personally I think a lot people (compared to myself) look at the world and humanity in general with "rose coloured glasses".
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* “Social CV” is a term I just invented, I doubt it’s in popular use. I’m sure you can all gather what I mean by it. | |
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| Anyone for some Sartre?
Posted: 3/18/2009 9:47:50 AM | Yesterday, I happened to click on the profile of a woman who lives in a near-by city. She had posted in her profile a brief inventory of the kinds of e-mails she had received in response to her profile. The comments she listed were pretty much directed toward her photographs, and the fact that she has an ample figure.
I'm not going to list details, but the kinds of comments she received were decidedly base in character... and they were definitely NOT the kinds of comments anyone would voice in person to a complete stranger.
From this, I am reminded that what Sartre said applies not just to beauty but to any kind of aesthetic judgement, be it true or false or - and this is the point - completely imaginary.
This is the kind of response that we now call "objectification", but the principle is the same as with Sartre's "The Imaginary": images 'stand in' for realities, they 'aim toward' them; they are intentional structures of consciousness.
They are not the realities they portray; and when the reality they depict is placed beside them, representational images are reduced to the state of a nothingness in our eyes…. In contrast to a ‘sign consciousness, which will attach to the reality and persist along with it: if you see me in person, you won’t direct your attention to the photograph of me in your hand; but if you know me as “Tai Chi John”, you will persist in thinking of me through that name as we speak with each other.
People who use the Internet, it seems to me, are very much working from images when they construct their relations toward others; and this means that we are all immersed in “the imaginary” - as an essential characteristic of consciousness - while we are here.
So the thought that came to my mind - and the reason I started this thread - is that this might be something we should all make ourselves a little more aware of, through open discussion... and what better place to initiate such a discussion than the Philosophy Forum at POF?
(Also, after seeing all the threads relating to alien babies and prophesied impending disasters, I thought: "Hey, we can do better than this...") | |
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| Anyone for some Sartre?
Posted: 3/18/2009 11:38:26 AM | Right, I've just tried something interesting; I've disabled the pictures by blocking the domain, "pics.plentyofsite.com" (Something I've been meaning to do for ages). Now I can't be subconsciously swayed by people's images.
Now the Internet (at least this site) is as it use to be, I'll be judging everyone in the forums by what they say not what they look like. There was a technological boom at the end of the 1990's / beginning of the 2000's when suddenly everyone had digital cameras or webcams, for many years before that people were much more anonymous and I actually miss those days. We still managed to connect with people or dislike people. | |
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| Anyone for some Sartre?
Posted: 3/20/2009 1:37:20 AM | Well, , that might just be a wise policy. Consider the following quote from the work previously cited:
"But thought, although we could express ourselves about it without keeping account of the images in which it reveals itself, is never directly accessible to us, if we have once taken the imaging attitude in forming it. We will always go from image to image. Comprehension is a movement which is never ending, it is the reaction of the mind to an image by another image, to this one by another image and so on, in principle to infinity. To substitute for this infinite regression the simple intuition of a naked thought requires a radical change of attitude, a veritable revolution, which is to say passing from the unreflective plane to the reflective plane." (Sartre, "The Imaginary", page 116).
I know that nudity in photographs is prohibited here but, are naked thoughts okay? | |
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| Anyone for some Sartre?
Posted: 3/20/2009 2:10:38 AM |
TaiChiJohn:I know that nudity in photographs is prohibited here but, are naked thoughts okay?
Naked thoughts, baring ones soul. Great writers have done this for centuries. Read once that some fantasies should remain inside ones head. American Library Association has Banned Book Week each fall and its always interesting seeing the long list of books people have wanted to ban over the decades. | |
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