On Love (patch to 28th April 2009 On love and Work)

This excerpt touches on concepts highlighted on the topic of truth, epistemology, ontology, materialism, idealism, personal identity, social identity and love. For clarity and comprehension, please read this excerpt after completing the entire faculty of ‘The living Best’.

“Man’s two greatest purpose of living is of work and love” – Sigmund Freud

What is love again?

From the topic of identity we get to see the nature of love. Love is an ontological intuition that unifies two or more individuals (or subjects); when subjected to the individual perspective, love becomes an emotional experience that brings about a certain affection, and attachment. Love forms the basis of positive (unifying) interpersonal relationships, and indirectly affects one’s sense of social and personal identity. The passion towards one’s interest derives from the love of oneself, and the love of oneself in turn derives from the love towards one’s neighbor.

Summarizing, love defines the identity, and brings about unity. It is from the concept of love that socialization can occur successfully, and from the act of interpersonal socialization we build up that faculty of Ethics and Morality. Ethics and Morality are a certain set of introspection that questions the values of the individual and the community. Subsequently, the question of ethics and morality leads to the significance of existence, which then leads to the question of meaning- to finally the universal question of a God, should He exist. We would leave such lofty topics to be addressed at a later point in time- in the meantime, let us focus in greater detail on the preclusions of ethics: namely Love and Work.

Love itself is completely ontological in nature, and no amount of theoretical (epistemological) knowledge can bring about the complete understanding of love as much as a moment of intuitive experience can provide. We cannot learn love from books, and neither can we describe the true essence of love in any form of conceptual representation (be it words, pictures, film etc). Even within a medium, the conceptual representation of love (by the novel, picture or film) has to be inferred via personal experience by the individual before such conceptual representations (as in the act of kissing, hugging or declarations etc) can fully make sense.

But even in its ontological discipline love is still materialistic and idealistic in nature. A common example would be the concepts of true love and passionate love: True love is idealistic (since it is an ideal form of love), and passionate love is materialistic, and yet both aspects of love have to be present should any form of love be considered ‘complete’ and ‘true’. Now while it is simple to understand the concept of materialistic love when it comes in a form of a passionate kiss or a hug, the ontology (experience) of love becomes harder when it is applied in idealistic terms.

Now, what is idealistic love? Do allow me to quote a phrase as analogy:

...There are easy farewells like 'see you tomorrow'. And there are sad farewells when we know we will never see each other again. But no matter what kind of farewell it is, I want to believe that even if we can't see each other, even if death parts us, our feelings will never change...

-Mei, Itsudatte My Santa (film opening)

I believe that such quotes from films and other literary works are very common, and it is evident that the above quote is a quote of idealistic ontological love. Love entails unity, and farewells breaks the (materialistic) physical unity between two or more individuals; but we know that idealistic love (and the concept of idealism) transcends the parameters of physical space and time. In this case the proponent believes in an intuition that transcends the limits of ‘seeing’ (physical appearance) and ‘death’ (transition of circumstances). Henceforth, we can safely assume that should the above words be an accurate (more or less) conceptualization of the ontological sentiments felt by the proponent, that ontological sentiment is idealistic in nature.

It is also interesting to note that such idealistic love is commonly already referred to as a statement of ‘True Love’ or ‘unconditional love’ so as to speak. We know that a simple ‘I love you’ from a boyfriend to a girlfriend does not necessarily entail true love, for the fact that such love is not ‘eternal’ and might not withstand the tests of physicality, circumstantial transition (conditions), and death. Idealistic love, on the other hand, transcends passionate love, because since it cannot be created out of epistemological knowledge, it can only exist when some basis of passionate (materialistic) ontological love is already present. The layman has already assumed that the physical passion (materialistic ontology) behind such an idealistic statement is already true, and that ‘she had already actually fallen in love in him by the time she had made such a statement’.

Henceforth, since idealistic love has to be based on materialistic love for it to exist (there is no other way of epistemological creation), we commonly do away with the extra step of having to re-integrate idealistic love with materialistic love to form the ‘true love’ that we speak of. Strictly speaking, love can only be fully manifested (true love can only exist) when both idealistic and materialistic natures are encompassed within that unifying relationship itself. Most people do not recognize the idealistic nature of love, or misinterpret idealistic love to be epistemological love (since idealism stems from epistemology), and this is the fundamental reason why the layman observes that the world lacks ‘true love’.

The order of appearance of idealistic and materialistic love is still subjected to debate. The Christian Doctrine has it that love is a free act of the soul, and manifested by the body. While the soul is eternal and dimensional-less, bringing forth the idealistic nature of love that is not bounded (like the soul) by time and space; the body, on the other hand, realizes this idealistic love and manifests it. Others may construe that it is the influence of the human cognition (which understands epistemological idealistic concepts) to wish to preserve such ontological (materialistic) intuition beyond the decay of circumstance and transition, hence alluding the idealistic nature of love. But just as to the order of love to the neighbor or the self, we will not be concerned whether idealistic love came before materialistic love (or the other way around).

Now, we already know that much of this world lacks true love (which is also idealistic) due to the overemphasis of materialism and the self. The next question we would have to address would be on the reason of such- As stated by Rolheister, it is ultimately due to the biological evolution of genes that leads to ‘the survival of the fittest’, to affect our psychologies to ‘struggle to project image of calm, poise and easy accomplishment… where we never want to show signs of weakness, of being needy or lonely, of being ruffled and not perfectly in control.’ Rephrasing, we get to understand that it is the struggle for survival that compels the individual to tilt the balance of love away from the neighbor towards the self, and it is the need of evidential success that causes many to rely on materialism (physical results) rather than idealism, which they believe to be no more than empty castles in the air. As a result, many people emphasize overtly on the self, and fall into the fallacies of materialism and immediate gratification.

While materialism towards self-interest promotes success and power in life, the unifying concept of love is often misinterpreted to be a concept of dependence (since love is interpersonal), passion and weakness. Love is usually reserved for the religious humanist, as a projection of the weaker side of humanity to attenuate the harsh demands of natural selection and genetics, or to the ignorant teenage girl with her childish romance drama serials. As observed by Dawkins: the naturalistic world has no time for such childish ‘lets-pretend’ games such as true love, morality and God. To chomp or to be chomped at, that had been the essence of nature itself, let alone our futile struggles for meaning and equality…

Such has been the stereotypical views of love, that had led to the abandonment of love, and yet to another futility of human nature today. Materialism towards self-interest does bring about its fair share or benefits to ‘the living best’, but beyond the glory many have been seen to live ‘isolated, meaningless lives’. The initial logical aim of ‘earning money to live a successful life’ blurs when the definition of ‘success’ gets increasingly abstract, and soon warps to an aim of ‘earning money for the sake of earning more money’. At the end of the day, should one reflect upon his life on earth on Erikson’s seventh and eighth psychosocial crisis stagnation, disappointment and despair would be the only truths he would be bringing to his grave.

While ontological love is seen as a stumbling block on our quest for knowledge, achievement, power and success- it is in actual fact that such a unifying intuition is needed, on top of the epistemological domains of the individual and materialism, should we wish to truly flourish and live successful lives. From the discussion from the previous project, we know that truth is epistemological and ontological, and should we want to live our true ‘best’ we need to integrate the conviction of experience to the wisdom of theoretical dynamics. Also, we have to emphasize equally on the neighbor as of on the self. Naturally love, being a unifying ontological intuition has to be incorporated to the dynamics of our lives should we wish to go beyond the selfish reliance of epistemological materialism. The reasons for such are two-fold.

The first reason holds that while the materialistic epistemology tends to focus on the dynamics of life (i.e. the ‘how’ and ‘what’ of success and strength), intuition in general provides the personal conviction (in a form of feelings) to drive the dynamics of success and power. It is via the integration of both epistemological and ontological domains (see the Moderation Doctrine) can we fully realize the ‘what is’ and ‘why is’ to the given subject. This point is succinctly re-quoted as follows:

“One who does not know the power of love will eternally be unable to gain true power. Love itself is an entity that ought not to be mocked; for love entails conviction, and conviction entails the will of the soul. Dynamic power without will can never be truly powerful, and remains no more as idealistic theories and meaningless stances. To the dynamics of power must be added the conviction of love, can we then bring out the essence of true power and work.”

Christian doctrine, in this respect, holds that creation (work) was based on the dynamics of wisdom and the will (conviction) of love. It is of this reason why Christianity holds that ‘work is a manipulation of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, done in the service (love) of the community, to build up the church- the body of Christ’.

The second reason would be the complementary doctrine of life. Recalling from above, many have viewed love as a form of dependence, acceptance and weakness- although such views are often misinterpreted to be weakness in general, we know that love as a form of unifying ontological intuition does require us to ‘hold our horses and rely on the map’. While our lofty epistemological aspirations on achievement and power allow us to forge new paths of improvement; the ontological respect of love reduces such ‘truths’ empirically back to the fundamentals of experience and intuitive feelings, and reduces the pride of personal accomplishment to the shared success of the community. Such reductions come in a form of appreciation of where we currently are, acknowledgement of others, and allow us to understand what we have yet to know or gain in our quest for perfection and success,

The complimentary doctrine holds that the journey of knowing (or success) can never complete unless one knows the distance left to go, as well as the distance already travelled. Indeed, personal identity can be deduced by an act of dissociation and mutual exclusion, but cannot be fully realized till we know who we really are. Similarly, success and power cannot be fully embraced via the logical ‘to do’ that epistemological materialism provides, but also require the intuitive appreciation that ontology (love) advocates. This can be re-quoted as follows:

Acceptance of one’s strength and weakness is mandatory for one to be truly powerful. It isn’t until you truly do attain infinite strength and wisdom you realize how impossible attaining it is. You will never understand in fullness what you can do, until you know what you are still unable to do. Strength without acceptance of weakness is a sham… and so is maturity without acceptance of childlike-ness… you may as well compare who’ll get the first pimple-

Yue Ayatse

Of course we do not go to such commanding extremes as both quotes have presented their conceptual equivalents (in a form of you), but we can see the prevalent underlying message throughout: that be it in a form of conviction, or a form of appreciation, ultimately love and its ontological qualities are essential should we wish true work to manifest or attain true success and power.

As a conclusion, we have discussed on the concepts of love and its significance to work, success and the ‘living best’. It would be here that I would leave you with the fundamental concepts prologue to the second installation of Project Re-Affirmation. In the next post we will dwell in greater detail into applied love and work, in the form of morality and ethics; to hopefully seek out the meaning behind these actions, and ultimately the meaning of life.

Project Re-Affirmation (Thought ) 2; Prologue - On Love and Work

This excerpt touches on concepts highlighted on the topic of truth, epistemology, ontology, materialism, idealism, personal identity, social identity and love. For clarity and comprehension, please read this excerpt after completing the entire faculty of ‘The living Best’.

“Man’s two greatest purpose of living is of work and love” – Sigmund Freud

From the topic of identity we get to see the nature of love. The passion of one’s interest derives from the love of oneself, and the love of oneself in turn derives from the love towards one’s neighbor. Love defines the identity, and brings about unity. It is from the concept of love that socialization can occur successfully, and from there we build up that faculty of Ethics and Morality. The question of ethics and morality leads to the significance of existence, which then leads to the question of meaning- to finally the universal question of a God, should He exist. We would leave such lofty topics to be addressed at a later point in time- in the meantime, let us focus in greater detail on the preclusions of ethics: namely Love and Work.

Love itself is ontological in nature, and no amount of theoretical (epistemological) knowledge can bring about the complete understanding of love as much as a moment of intuitive experience can provide. But even in its ontological discipline love is still materialistic and idealistic in nature. True love is idealistic, and passionate love is materialistic, and yet both aspects of love has to exist in harmony should that love be considered ‘true’. Now, it is understandable that certain people would regard idealistic love to be non-existent. Indeed, while it is simple to understand the concept of love via a passionate kiss or a hug, the ontology (experience) of love becomes harder when it is applied in idealistic terms. Do allow me to quote a phrase as analogy:

...There are easy farewells like 'see you tomorrow'. And there are sad farewells when we know we will never see each other again. But no matter what kind of farewell it is, I want to believe that even if we can't see each other, even if death parts us, our feelings will never change...

It is evident that the above quote is a quote of idealistic ontological love. Love entails unity, and farewells breaks the (materialistic) physical unity between two or more individuals. But we know that idealistic love transcends the parameters of physical unity, and in this case the proponent believes in an intuition that transcends the limits of ‘seeing’ and ‘death’. Also, we know that this love is not theoretical, because the intuitive passion that drives the above sentiment is ontological.

It is interesting that such is commonly referred to as a statement of ‘True Love’. Idealistic love of course, has to transcend passionate love, because since it cannot be created out of epistemological knowledge, it can only exist when some basis of passionate (materialistic) ontological love is present. The layman has already assumed that the physical passion (materialistic ontology) behind such an idealistic statement is already true, and that ‘she had already actually fallen in love in him by the time she had made such a statement’.

On the other hand, we know that a simple ‘I love you’ from a boyfriend to a girlfriend does not necessarily entail true love, for the fundamental fact that such love is not ‘eternal’ and might not withstand the tests of circumstance, transition and death. Strictly speaking, love can only be true (true love can only exist) when both idealistic and materialistic natures are encompassed within that unifying relationship itself. And since idealistic love entails passionate love, therefore such statements are usually considered statements of ‘true love’.

The Christian Doctrine has it that love is an enactment of the soul, manifested by the body. While the soul is eternal and dimensional-less, bringing forth the idealistic nature of love that is not bounded (like the soul) by time and space; the body, on the other hand, realizes this idealistic love and manifests it. Others may construe that it is the intuition of passion that leads the human cognition (which understands epistemological idealistic concepts) to allude the idealistic nature of love. Either way, we still get to see that both idealistic and passionate love is essential to exist for true love to exist.

Now, we know that much of this world lacks true love (which is also idealistic) due to the overemphasis of materialism and the self. As stated by Rolheister, it is ultimately due to the biological evolution of genes that leads to ‘the survival of the fittest’, to affect our psychologies to ‘struggle to project image of calm, poise and easy accomplishment… where we never want to show signs of weakness, of being needy or lonely, of being ruffled and not perfectly in control.’ As a result, we emphasize overtly on the self, and fall into the fallacies of materialism and immediate gratification.

On the other hand, the unifying concept of love is often misinterpreted to be a concept of dependence, passion and weakness. Love is usually reserved for the religious humanist, as a projection of the weaker side of humanity to attenuate the harsh demands of natural selection and genetics, or to the ignorant teenage girl with her love drama serials. As observed by Dawkins: the naturalistic world has no time for such childish ‘lets-pretend’ games such as true love, morality and God. To chomp or to be chomped at, that had been the essence of nature itself, let alone our futile struggles for meaning and equality… Such has been the stereotypical views of love, that had led to the abandonment of love, and yet to another futility of human nature today.

While love is seen as a stumbling block on our quest for knowledge, achievement and power- it is in actual fact that love is needed, on top of such epistemological demands, should we wish to flourish and live successful lives. Part 1 has it that truth is epistemological and ontological, and should we want to live our ‘best’ we need to integrate the conviction of experience to the wisdom of theoretical dynamics. Naturally, ontological love has to be incorporated to the dynamics of our lives should we wish to live truly. This is succinctly rephrased as follows:

“One who does not know the power of love will eternally be unable to gain true power. Love itself is an entity that ought not to be mocked; for love entails conviction, and conviction entails the will of the soul. Dynamic power without will can never be truly powerful, and remains no more as idealistic theories and meaningless stances. To the dynamics of power must be added the conviction of love, can we then bring out the essence of true power and work.”

Christian doctrine states that creation was based on the dynamics wisdom and the will of love.

Moreover, while our lofty epistemological aspirations on achievement and power allow us to forge new paths of improvement; the ontological respect of love reduces such ‘truths’ empirically back to the fundamentals of experience and intuitive feelings. Such reductions come in a form of appreciation of where we currently are, and allow us to know what we have yet know or gain in our quest for perfection and success, for:

Acceptance of one’s strength and weakness is mandatory for one to be truly powerful. It isn’t until you truly do attain infinite strength and wisdom you realize how impossible attaining it is. You will never understand in fullness what you can do, until you know what you are still unable to do. Strength without acceptance of weakness is a sham… and so is maturity without acceptance of childlike-ness… you may as well compare who’ll get the first pimple-

Of course we do not go to such commanding extremes as both quotes have presented their conceptual equivalents (in a form of you), but we can see the prevalent underlying message throughout: that ultimately love and its ontological qualities are essential should we wish true work to manifest or attain true success and power.

As a conclusion, we have discussed on the concepts of love and its significance to work, success and the ‘living best’. It would be here that I would leave you with the fundamental concepts prologue to the second installation of Project Re-Affirmation. In the next post we will dwell in greater detail into applied love and work, in the form of morality and ethics; to hopefully seek out the meaning behind these actions, and ultimately the meaning of life.

Topics Highlighted In Project RN (T)

Topics Discussed in Project RN (T)

Truth
- The natures of truth (objectivism and subjectivism)
- What truth encompasses of (Episte vs Onto, Mat vs Ideal)
-The advocates of objective truth (Science and Religion)
- Philosophy of Science
- Religious philosophy
- Causality & Free Will (How science & religion converges to objectivity)

The Moderation Doctrine
- Introduction
- The need of Logic
- Mainstream education (and its true aims)
- The Fallacies of Logic (logic failure, technicalities)
- Metaphysical Intuition
- Feelings and their weaknesses
- Life as an intuition (Library as an example)
- Intro to real and ideal
- Materialism and Idealism, good and bad
- The balance (the moderation)
- Introspection to various aphorisms

Identity
- Moderation and the MBTI test (The objective personality)
- What makes our personal identity? (Biology vs psychology)
- Qualitative consciousness (Erik's psychosocial crises)
- Social Identity
- Love and the community (how love truly came about)
- Loving thy neighbor as thyself
- The imbalanced love (narcissism and de-individualization)

- The living best
- Summary of concepts touched

Patch 1.1: Our take on truth

In the original discussion, the transition from Truth to the Moderation Doctrine had been a rather 'big' jump. While the concepts addressed in part 1 focus greatly on objectivity and subjectivity, part 2 suddenly jumps to the concepts of logic, intuition, Materialism and Idealism. This is owing to an inadequate address of the concepts between 'truth' and 'the Moderation Doctrine'. This excerpt is created independently to patch the conceptual information between part 1 and part 2. I hope that with this excerpt, we would have a better understanding of ourselves and truth.


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Truth is independent of the human cognition… We would have to correspond subjectivity with objectivity, lest we live in falsity.

In the last excerpt we have seen the nature of truth. We know that truth is independent of us, and that it is us that are dependent on truth instead, since we exist and are true beings. We also see a need to correspond our subjective beliefs to the objective truth should we not want to live in falsity or relativism. The human correspondence of the objective truth lies in knowledge.

Knowledge is defined in this context as the ‘justified true belief’. In this excerpt, we will attempt to explore our take (knowledge) of truth, on what we have understood, and what is implied. We would then highlight certain aspects of truth, and reserve them for a more detailed discussion in our later posts to see how these aspects affect our lives and beings.


1) Objectivity and Subjectivity

Humans have long acknowledged the existence of an objective truth since the dawn of civilization. The Greeks have come up, one after another, different theories on truth. Parmenides of Elea had personally noted in his poem ‘The way of Truth’ that reality is one, change is impossible, and existence is timeless, uniform and unchanging (absolutism). Heraclitus on the other hand, believes that truth was dynamic owing to the ever-changing nature of the universe (dynamic objectivity). It is interesting to note that many of these Greek philosophers advocated to the objective nature of truth, and associated the subjective belief of the individual as the correspondent of the objective truth.

The Jews, on the other hand, believed that Abraham was a monotheist ( a person who believes in an objective God) who arrived to this conclusion on purely philosophical grounds before receiving any prophetic revelation from God Himself. It was from this biblical philosophy that the existence of an Objective God had been realized; the Christian world in this way had stemmed out of Judaism- with an added biblical passage of Christ being ‘the way, the truth, and the life’. The Christian world eluded that since God is objective, henceforth His creation (being a subset of him) must be also true and holds objective characteristics.

It was from the combination of these two ancient philosophies that had strongly influenced much of western philosophy today. Just as the monotheist Abraham and the philosophies of Parmenides and Heraclitus on the objective nature of truth, western philosophy acknowledges very much in general the existence of objectivity today- known more classically as ‘realism’ and ‘nominalism’, realism is the doctrine that abstract entities corresponding to universal terms like 'man' have a real existence via the branches of philosophy known as metaphysics and in specific ontology. It is opposed to nominalism, the view that abstract or universal terms are words only, or denote mental states such as ideas, beliefs, or intentions.

While ‘realism’ and ‘nominalism’ are the more formal definitions of the concept of metaphysical objectivity and subjectivity, the conceptual representations of these words are often ambiguous and may constitute to other unintended doctrines, for the sake of clarity and unifications, we would be using ‘objectivity’ and ‘subjectivity’ instead of ‘realism’ and ‘nominalism’ throughout this project.


2) Epistemology and Ontology

Philosophy today is the study of general problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, truth, beauty, law, justice, validity, mind and language. Of philosophy, all these theoretical studies would be generally constituted under the branch of epistemology, or ‘the theory of knowledge’. Epistemology is generally concerned with the nature and scope of human knowledge, with much of its contents on knowing, belief, truth and justification. A branch of philosophy based on pure reason, the concepts of epistemology overlap with that of Rationalism, Pragmatism, Idealism, and Logic (I will dwell into these concepts in due time). Epistemology holds that knowledge is correspondent to the objective truth of the world, and that this knowledge is acquired either via Pragmatic Rationalism (theoretically), or via (formal) Empiricism (experientially). Do note that Rationalism is conceptually synonymous with Pragmatism and is founded under the Epistemology. Empiricism, on the other hand, would be classified under another branch of philosophy known as Ontology.

Ontology in philosophy is the study of nature of being (experiencing), existence and reality in general. While epistemology advocates the theoretical study of knowledge of truths, ontology holds that knowledge (and truths) can be acquired experientially, and this act is formally known as Empiricism. Ontology forms up the basis of the Metaphysics we know of today, and serves as a conceptual predecessor of Intuition, Materialism and intuitive feelings that we know of today.

It must be understood that since the human knowledge is taken to be the subjective correspondent of the objective truth ( see objectivism and subjectivism), it is logical to see that all truths within this world are learnt Epistemologically and Ontologically. The study of Ontology definitely scopes to the ‘experiential’, ‘ontological’ nature of knowledge, yet we know that this study is impossible without any form of ‘epistemological theory’. The human being requires derivatives of both concepts of knowledge acquisition to formulate and correspond his subjective beliefs to that of the objective truth- the synthesis of both ‘theory’ and ‘experience’ forms the rationalism that we know of today. I will dwell deeper into the conceptual derivatives of Epistemology and Ontology in the Moderation Doctrine and identity. But at the very least, we know for a fact that we ‘involved’ with both concepts should we want to understand more about truth, and the truth of ourselves.


3) Idealism and Materialism

Idealism is the epistemological doctrine that nothing can be directly known outside of the minds of thinking beings, it holds that while truth exists, it is only understood by the human being through ‘cognitive ideas’ or ‘abstract concepts’. Materialism (sometimes used in conjunction with ‘realism’) states that the only truth that can be truly proven to exist is matter (or the state of actual being). In other words, materialism holds that all truths are ‘physically real’ and can be acquired through ontological experience. As a theory, Materialism opposes Idealism and belongs to the class of monist ontology.

While Idealism and Materialism can be said to be the derivative concepts of Epistemology and Ontology respectively (see above), it must be understood that while truth (and the human perception of truth) is Epistemological and Ontological, it is also equally Idealistic and ‘Realistic’ in essence. We know that some truths can only by conceptualized and never put into the ‘material’ world, we also know that some states of being can never be fully broken down with concepts. Ideal gases and the concepts of zero and infinity are just an example of idealism, indeed- we can ‘experience’ the truth of these concepts in the ontological world, but these concepts itself cannot be adequately represented by sticks, stones, or gas particles. I will also discuss this in greater detail in my later excerpts.


4) Other concepts

Of course there are other aspects of philosophy that we do not have the time to cover in detail, and there other concepts i.e. Judgment, Existentialism and Multiplicity that we have yet to address. These concepts are usually derivative in nature from these six parent concepts, and their conceptual equivalent would be appropriately highlighted from time to time should the opportunity and need arises to address these concepts.


The above mentioned concepts would be, in summary, our take on truth. While truth exists objectively and independently of the human cognition, when we realize truth, or are in a state of knowing, truth becomes sub-categorized into a spectrum between Epistemology and Ontology, and Between Idealism and Materialism. I will dwell into greater detail the entailment of these concepts in my second part on the Moderation Doctrine to see how these abstract concepts are re-presented into more familiar concepts that we know of today, and how they form to become building blocks of our identity. In the next excerpt I would dwell in slight detail onto the advocators of truth, namely that of science and religion, and see how these two proponents come to be humanity’s two greatest form of address to this infinitely abstract concept that is simultaneously real at the same time.

Patch 1.1: On Truth - Does Truth Exist?

Guys, when I initially formulated the concepts of truth there are certain elements that may still be slightly inaccurate or inadequately addressed. This patch is basically a re-written version of my earlier posts, except that the information is now much more accurate and objective. The Patch would mostly be centered on the topic of Truth and parts of The Moderation Doctrine. The topic of Identity is generally accurate as of today, but I would still edit it if I find it to be unsatisfactory in the future.

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And what is truth? Pilate asked

Truth, or at least the concept of absolute truth, is paradoxically never absolute and host to a variety of meanings. Truth ranges from honesty, good faith, and sincerity in general, to agreement with fact or reality in particular. Up to this very day, there is no single definition of truth that a majority of professional philosophers and scholars agree, and the differing claims on related questions as what constitutes truth, how to identify truth, and whether truth is subjective, relative, objective or absolute has led many people today to have very differing conceptualizations on this concept.

Of the concept of truth, a key aspect that we would be paying very close attention to today would be the nature of truth itself. While the question of what constitutes truth can be debated to a myriad of issues ranging from the relativity of the human will to the objectivity of God, or the theories of truth range from the correspondence theory of absolute truth to the pragmatic theory of being truth; the nature of truth is generally split down into two factions. Most of the theories postulated by philosophers and theologians have their groundings somewhere within these two factions; and it is from the identification of these two factions that any form of philosophical debate or knowledge and proceed. These two factions are the objective (absolute), and subjective (relative) nature of truth.

The first faction of objectivity recognizes that there is indeed an absolute truth universally that is independent of the mind, or that is not the result of any judgments made by a conscious entity. Objectivity renders that truths are discovered rather than created, and proposes that when a conscious entity ‘discovers’ this truth with either epistemologically (theory of knowledge) or ontologically (experiencing and sensing), it is actually the correspondence theory of truth at work to correspond the entity’s subjective knowledge to the objective knowledge of truth.

Correspondence theory holds that true beliefs and true statements (made by the entity) correspond to the actual (objective) state of affairs. It operates on the assumption that truth is a matter of accurately copying the ‘objective reality’ and then representing it in thoughts, words and other symbols. Take for example a student makes a statement that two plus two equals four. The student would be rendered correct no matter where he makes this statement, and his proposition would hence be considered true. Correspondence theory states that this is because the statement of the student (subjective entity) corresponds to an objective truth that two plus two equals four. The objective truth that two plus two equals four is independent the perception of the student’s mind, lest any human being or conscious entity before the student.

Do take note that objectivism should not be confused with absolutism, although both concepts are similar in nature. Objectivism states that an absolute truth exists, and that this truth is independent of the human cognition; absolutism on the other hand, adds on and proposes that this truth is timeless and unchanging in quality. Do note that some objective truths may change over time due to the change in system of the universe (i.e. the universe is expanding or contracting), and that absolutism- being generally advocated by ancient Greek philosophers, who believed in a static universe, is a fallible theory today.

Subjectivity, on the other hand- holds that any philosophical or moral question has an answer that is not falsifiable, and henceforth is subjective to the individual cognition. When used in the context of truth, a subjective fact is one that is only true under certain conditions, at certain times, in certain places or for certain people; and this in turn is subjected to a certain perspective or opinion.

Do take note that just as how Objectivism has to be distinguished from absolutism despite their similar nature, Subjectivity too has to be distinguished from relativism. While relativism denies the existence of an objective truth, and the relativist argues that truth is always relative to some particular frame of reference, such as a language or culture, subjectivism refers to the specific discerning interpretations of any aspect of objective experiences. Known more formally as qualia subjectivity, it states that experience, since being unique to the person experiencing, the qualia that are only available to that person’s consciousness. Though the causes of experience are objective and available to all, experience themselves are only available to the subject, and henceforth make truth subjective in nature.

Summarizing, metaphysical subjectivism holds that the truth or falsity of all propositions depends, at least partly, on what we believe. In contrast, metaphysical objectivism holds that truths are independent of our beliefs. Except for propositions that are actually about our beliefs or sensations, what is true or false is independent of what we think is true or false.

From the above, we can see that truth is generally distinct into the objectivity of absolute truths, and subjective to the individual human experience and cognition, with the correspondence theory of truth acting as a primary bridge between these two faculties of truth. Either way, we see that truth exists, and its reality transcend our primitive view of an idealistic concept way beyond our grasp. Every idealistic belief, physical experience, logical thought, and intuitive feeling (I will dwell in greater detail on these four concepts in my second part on the Moderation Doctrine) is also part of truth- and just because it is subjective it does not mean it is untrue.

Now, where are we leading ourselves to? An acknowledgement of truth in general (since we are realists), automatically entails objectivity and subjectivity- and all the other daughter concepts that go along the same lines we cannot afford to dwell too deeply into today. And it is essential to note that we cannot side one over another should we want to be realists and maintain our individuality (to be dealt in the topic of Identity). Much as all of reality (including us) is subjected to truth, we cannot be slaves to truth by siding unconditionally with the objective truth, neither can we be strict relativists and warp reality itself to our personal viewpoints, as demonstrated by the relativist constructivist theory of truth. Therefore the least we can do is to acknowledge the existence of an objective truth, and ‘live’ this objectivity with our own subjective experiences. We would also have to correspond subjectivity with objectivity, lest we do not live in falsity.

But why do we correspond subjectivity to objectivity? Why not the other way around? The relativist believes that there is objective truth, and what he believes he deems as truth (right). Morality is highly subjective, and so are ethics and the meaning of life. What if this extrapolates and we find that nothing is in fact objective? What if the world and the universe is actually a matter of perception, our perception, and henceforth relative to our personal interpretation?

Now, we have to understand that while objectivism proposes that truth is independent of the human cognition, it is truth that truth does not revolve around the individual. Our universe was created not out of the subjective human will, but objectively- with a whole set of objective physical and mathematical laws that have existed way beyond the appearance of human beings. And it is precisely in this way that truth cannot be created by human perception simply because it existed before the existence of the human perception. As Pascal has addressed us to be no more than the imbecile worms of the universe, we cannot possibly expect the universe to rotate around the world, lest on our individual selves. Henceforth it is objectively incorrect to subject objectivity to objectivity, and henceforth the other way around.

Moreover the relativist, strictly speaking, does not have the entitlement to maintain his viewpoint of objectivity to subjectivity, even if he were to adopt such a stand. For on what grounds can he stand by his truthful ideals (or so he believes) to convince others if he truly believes that truth is no more than a relative personal viewpoint? Otherwise known as the relativist fallacy, this fallacy applies when the proponent is unable to make a definite stand that nothing is definite (his beliefs) simply because he believes that nothing is definite, and for the fundamental reason because he cannot contradict himself.

The relativistic world would hence be a world devoid of objectivity, of objective ideals, and where individual ideas would be kept to oneself. Such a world would not see truth, beauty, and goodness, and progress- for progress for one may be regress to another, and beauty to one be ugliness to another. Such a world would be inconceivable, and definitely very far off from our current system.


Therefore in general, we have identified the validity of truth- and the existence of objectivity and subjectivity. We see that truth is objective and subjective simultaneously- and it is in our objective knowledge and subjective experiences that we get to live and understand this truth that we speak. We also get to understand that objectivity transcends subjectivity, for the fundamental fact that truth has existed before us. In the next post I will discuss in detail the fundamental concepts of truth, and its application to our lives namely in the concepts of the epistemological human knowledge and the ontological human experience.

Technical information:

Campaign Re-affirmation
Project Re-affrimation (Thought) a.k.a. Project RN(T)
The Series of Discussions
The first version (V1.0)

Date initiated: 21st december 2008
First post: 11th Janurary 2009
Concluding post: 16th April 2009
Time span: circa. 95 days
Total number of posts: 26

A catalogue of this project is available on demand for personal reference.

Current status: patching The Series of Discussions (V1.1)
Postualted actions: re-writing Project RN (T) to Thesis standards (V2.0) or Engaging in Project T to carry on from True Identity to The Meaning of Life and God.

The Living best

What is the essence of moderation? A life of moderation creates a life where we may totally integrate our identities to a point that we are truly being ourselves at no expense of our relationship with others… and when we can truly 'live' to be our 'best'.

The Moderation Doctrine, an Introduction- Response

A meaningful life, must involve worthwhile activities or projects that enable us to flourish as human beings. Such flourishing requires the development of our human capacities for feeling and reason: it involves cultivating the faculties that allow sympathetic emotional interaction and open rational dialogue with our fellow humans.

The Meaning of Life, on the living best.


The living best, so as to speak, is an objective idealistic goal that many have attempted to seek out. As the title suggests, this concept if primarily aimed for the ‘best’ method to ‘live’ our lives; or in other words, that method of ‘perfecting’ our lifestyles. While we understand that there is indeed no definite answer to fully address the objectively appropriate method owing to the fact that we can never achieve idealistic perfection, we have to understand that that definite answer exists and is waiting to be uncovered. We know that there are certain lifestyles that have more value than others- we know for a fact that a simple lifestyle of love and pursuit of knowledge is ‘better’ than one of drugs and alcohol consumption. If we were to extrapolate these lifestyles and compare every available lifestyle back to back, it is true that although we cannot live that objective lifestyle of perfection, we can definitely see a trend of the ‘better’ towards the objective perfect.

But why tend to the living best? We have to realize that amongst the relativism and subjectivity of this world there is always an objective truth to issues. Of course the objective truth to complex issues such as moral decisions and particular choices is obscured; and reliance of our ethics, meaning of life, individuality, and personal doctrines are required. But even these ethics, meanings, and personal beliefs that we advocate to stem from our basic identities (be it nature or nurture of our biologics and psychologies). Over the past series of posts we have demonstrated that there is indeed an objective make up of our true identity, so if there is indeed an objective idealistic make up of ourselves, there ought to be objectivity beyond the threshold of the united self, or our true identities.

Atheists and Theists alike have been seeking that objectivity beyond the united self to find the objective truth to the purpose of our existence. Otherwise known as the grand quest for ‘the meaning of life’, this faculty in our theory of knowledge is still very subjective in nature and is open for debate. The atheist believes that humans are free to expand on their domain as long as it’s within the laws of nature and human ethics; the theist, on the other hand, corresponds that objectivity to that of the objectivity of God, or the divine plan. As quoted:

For the theist, the journey that meets these conditions will be the journey of the individual soul towards God; others may construe the journey in less metaphysical terms- as a journey towards enlightenment, or as a quest to realize what is best and noblest in our nature. These ways of characterizing the journey all converge on the premise that there are objective values.

As for now, we can safely assume that most of the debate prior the united self are more or less rendered objective as far as the theory of human knowledge is concerned, and issues beyond the united self still open to subjectivity and much debate. This project acknowledges and touches on what is objective in life, and it is because of this reason why this project ends with the united self.

While the ‘living best’ does not denote our outlooks to life or confer a divine plan that we should adhere to truly be, it is true that the ‘living best’ demonstrate that our lives are built on a simple set of ideals, and it is from the correct manipulation of these ideals (of logic, intuition, material, ideals, the individual and the community) that we get the objective answer to the workings of our lives. The ‘living best’ has to be coupled with the ‘Meaning of Life’ for us to truly be in sacrosanct. I would leave the personal interpretation of the ‘Meaning of Life’ to our subjective viewpoints, but the least we can do in the time being is to acknowledge on what is objectively good, and strive to that perfection that we have objectively pointed out. That is why we want to tend to the ‘living best’, and that is why this project exists.

Recapping, we have identified various fundamental ideals that form the basis of our existence. We, being true, embody the concepts of objectivity, subjectivity, epistemology and ontology. And it is from these abstract concepts that form the four fundamental factors of our being- Logic, Intuition, Material and Ideal. If we were to look at ourselves once more, we find out that everything we know of has its corresponding placing and values with these factors. It is the integration of logic and intuition that makes our psyche, and the integration of Material and Ideal that makes our personal identity.

Since these four fundamentals stem from the parent concept of Truth, equal emphasis has to be placed on them should we wish to live our true selves. From this premise, the moderation doctrine is hence formed- to balance and moderate personal emphasis on logical thought and intuitive feelings, and from what is material from ideal. We get to understand what it means to be rational, and since we are rational we ought to live our lives rationally by integrating logical thought with intuitive experiences. We get to see that the integration of the four would lead to a personality that balances itself in the MBTI test, this balanced personality is objective, and from there we transit on to identity.

With the knowledge of what is objectively appropriate for our personalities we then dwell into the dynamics of our personal identity. The moderation doctrine creates a conscious personality that is all rounded in both logic and intuition, material and ideal. And it is from this conscious effort that is subconsciously repressed to form our full personalities that others get to see. Coupled with our biological makeup, this forms the objective individual identity. But we know even the best personal identity we have yet to live the best way of life, we know that life is not all about the individual, but individuals that make up the community. We then seek out a final integration from our personal selves and our social selves, to find out that this integration can only be made true with love.

As we place together the final pieces of that jigsaw puzzle that makes up our life, we see that the living best that we seek can only be realized only when we be what we were originally meant to be. Be it objective in our attitude in everything that we do, balanced in our outlooks to life, and social without compromise of retaining our individuality. This has always been the moral of the story many a layman has taught us even before this project is even conceived, and this project has served no more as a re-affirmation to the aphorisms and existing teachings that our mentors have offered through life experience and wisdom.

And henceforth the name Project Re-affirmation.

As I have stated earlier, the objective ideals of the ‘living best’ have allowed to see the objective method of living our lives- but it still does not serve fully to ensure the perfect life that we truly seek and that religion claims to have already sought out. The least we can do today is to know that every thought, every feeling, every action, decision that we do to ourselves and our neighbors are accounted for and objectively moderated as how it was meant to be. Till the day we find the objective answer to the ‘Meaning of Life’ and integrate this higher knowledge with what we know today, then can we truly find that complete user’s manual that comes with life to teach us how to truly live our lives and be ourselves through and through.

Interlude: From Truth to us

Attached is an overview of the concepts discussed since the very first post of Project Re-affirmation. The areas highlighted in blue are the faculties (Truth, Moderation, Identity) where the concepts lie.

On Identity - thy neighbour and thyself

Paradoxically, it is only from the love of our neighbors that we truly learn how to learn how to love ourselves.

The conceptual aspects of personal representations and interpersonal relationships are the two key factors of our sense of social identity. The first concept of personal representations, or Gesellschaft as postulated by Tonnies, touches on our need of integration and fulfillment of needs. The second concept of interpersonal relationships, or Germeinschaft, states that our need of social integration is for membership and shared emotional connection- with these being the partial concepts of love.

Of course when I speak of social identity, I do not merely restrict it to the mere involvement of the group and the ‘community’; in this context, I would wish to expand this concept of social identity to the identities that are conferred to ourselves when we partake in society in general. From the working mother to the basketball team player, from the retro-junkie to the nineteen year old girlfriend, these ‘roles’ that we play are all part of the social identity that has been conferred to us by others- be it a child, a boyfriend, a basketball team or our society.

If we are to take a step further back, we can see that when we be that mother or that basketball player, that junkie or that girlfriend, it is ultimately for our personal interests and for love of the community (or just the love of the other individual). In the previous posts I have argued that love is indispensible even if involvement in the community is seemingly for personal interests. From there we allude that the love actually stems from the love of the community, or the love of one’s neighbor.

What does this lead to? I do not intend to be idealistic about such issues, but the conclusions are as follows:

We are who we are (personal identity) and who we are perceived to be (social identity).
Love is the primary reason (why) and action mechanism (what) of our social identity.
From our social identity we reaffirm our personal identities and learn about ourselves.
Hence, from the love of our neighbors we learn to love ourselves.

But as for today, we must understand that it would be irrelevant to dwell excessively into the order of appearance of love. Indeed, it is initially from our identification and emotional connection with others we get to distinguish the objective ideals of our personality; but it is from our personal distinguishments and personal representations that we partake in further communal activities with our neighbors. Perhaps there is an objective truth that the chicken came before the egg (or the other way around), but beyond the initial recognition, we must know that it is equally essential for the chicken, and the egg, to exist simultaneously should the life cycle continue to be. Be it the neighbor before the self, or the other way around as some may wish to argue- the love for either of these two categories cannot take presidency on one over the other owing to their order. This love must be equal in magnitude and value. As embodied by the teachings of Christ: love thy neighbor as thyself.

If we are to take concept of love as a form of union (this approach is embodied by Christianity), we see that as much as we are in union with others, we be in union with ourselves.

Now, how do the problems of de-individualization, masking, selfishness and narcissism arise? On closer scrutiny, we find out that these issues actually arise primarily out of the imbalance of love of one aspect over the other. De-individualization and ‘masking’ occurs generally when social identity or the obsessive love for thy neighbor overwrites and undermines the personal love and identification of the individual self. Selfishness and narcissism arises usually when self interests come before the necessary identification and love for and from thy neighbor.

In the previous post I have made a very slight acknowledgement of narcissism in the argument of self interest being the holistic reason of social identification. As we read that paragraph (once more), intuitively, we immediately form an impression that such people who argue as such are most probably self-centered and narcissistic. This is in line with the argument today because in both cases, the emphasis (resulting from the identification, and in turn from the love) on the self outweighs that of the neighbor. I do not wish to dwell overtly into this issue today; ethics has taught us more than enough on such issues, and I believe that all of us are responsible enough to recognize the importance of the neighbor as much as the importance of the self.

Instead, I would like to focus our attention to the issues of de-individualization and ‘masking’. These two issues are commonly faced by many people today, be it the teenager attempting to find his individuality among his peers, or the office worker struggling to be a competitive colleague and a loving father simultaneously. But yet society has yet to address such issues adequately as how it had tackled the former with ethics and morality. From our general knowledge, we know that the mass media has enslaved the masses to a mindless subjugation of whatever the media has to offer. We know that our youths ‘lose’ themselves in the groups they partake and the ‘youth culture’ they follow, which actually happens to too be partially the working of the media.

In sociological terms, de- individualization occurs where the individual is totally immersed within the group and no longer functions as an individual but as a group entity. This increases responses to the situation and leads to a loss of normal inhibition of behavior which may cause a person, acting with the group, to engage in anti-normative behaviors. Indeed, our society has not placed much attention on this issue primarily because although it diminishes personal identity, it allows easy control and manipulation and has its fair share of benefits, as stated succinctly:

De-individuation weakens people against performing harmful or socially disapproved actions.
De-individuation heightens peoples’ responsiveness to external cues, which may be positive (or negative).
De-individuation increases people’s adherence to norms that emerge with the group.

Indeed, it may be perfectly fine to lose one’s sense of personal identity over one’s social roles and responsibility. As far as society itself is concerned, as long as the individual does not create disorder for the community (or be a disorder to himself so much that it affects the community), there should be little problem for de-individualization and ‘masking’ (a sub-problem of de-individualization) to occur.

However we have to remind ourselves that life, as nature has created it to be biologically, is structured to diversify. The simple fundamental reason for heterosexual reproduction, and the concept of forming a completely unique DNA (that forms our personal identity) out of two different existing set of DNA, is to ensure personal identity for every individual. Be it the religious reason of God wanting each and every one of us to be unique, or the secular reason for the prevention of cloning and its disadvantages (that one virus can wipe out humanity); either way, it is evident that we were made to be individuals as much as we were made to be social. And since true identity (the united self) comprises to both aspects, it is imperative that should we wish to seek out the objective living best of our lives, we have to identify, and ‘love’ our neighbor just as how we identify and ‘love’ ourselves.

We now know that love has to be incorporated for identification to truly manifest. This is the reason on why professor Morrie had stated that in a tension of the opposites, love always wins. Be it for the self or for the neighbor, that balance of love is essential should we make the moral choices of following our personal identities or our social identities. This is owing to the fundamental fact that our identities are formed from the premise of love. And hence should we attempt make a decision, and should we wish to be ourselves all the way, it is imperative that we make this decision by love- to ourselves, or to our neighbors.

At this point in time I believe that I have made a holistic address on the topic of our identity. I have touched on the fundamentals of our personal identity: that our consciousness depends on the moderation of the four factors (logic intuition material and ideal), to interplay with our subconscious to form our psyche. With the combination of our psyche with our biologics, our personal identities are formed- to be realized only with the integration of our social identities on the aspect of love. And just as we are made for union (intercourse), we have been created unique individuals (genetics). The true identity, or the united self, would be an identity comprising of all of the above- with equal emphasis, identification, and love on the neighbor as of on the self.

It is from here I would leave you with the objective identity- and the pre-requisites of the ‘living best’ that we speak of. My next post would be a short address on the Meaning of Life- I would attempt to be as objective on my address on this issue as I can be, but nevertheless we must understand that from this point onwards most of the concepts raised would be essentially subjective in nature. I personally hope that all of us, now with the knowledge of our true identities and the fundamentals to the ‘living best’, attempt to live this ‘living best’ with our knowledge of the Meaning of Life, and from then onwards be ourselves, with or without this project.

On Identity - the individual and the community

The community, as we understand it to be, is an interdisciplinary concept that is very abstract in nature. Shared by the disciplines of biology, sociology, psychology and anthropology- even these disciplines themselves have yet to reach agreement on a definite definition of the term. Dictionary has eluded that concept to the concepts of ‘group’, ‘similarity’, and ‘togetherness’, but biologists tend to further define it to be the group of interacting organisms sharing an environment. Sociologists traditionally understand the ‘community’ to a group of interacting people living in a common location, but with the advent of the internet geography no longer poses a limitation to the concept today. Psychologists identified four distinct elements from ‘communal identity’- namely: membership, influence, integration and fulfillment of needs, and shared emotional connection. Anthropologists tend to limit the community to ‘settlements’ and ‘culture’.

While these definitions are diverse and infinite, certain definitions tend to overlap and re-iterate themselves. One of the more notable conceptual definitions of the community is the address on personal and communal individuality within the group. Shared by the disciplines of sociology and psychology, this introspective tends to understand the community as a system of personal representations and interpersonal relationships.

German sociologist Ferdinand Tonnies distinguishes two types of human association within any community. Known to him as Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft, Tonnies argues that ‘family’, ‘Kinship’ and ‘ideals’ comprise of the Gemeinschaft while Gesellschaft is a group in which individuals who make up that group are motivated to take part in the group purely by self interest. These two ideas are shared by Mc Millan and Chavis, who spearheaded the psychological understanding of ‘community’. They believed that the motivation was sparked by influence, the need of integration and fulfillment of needs, and sustained through the ‘kinship’ of membership and shared emotional connection. As exemplified:

Someone puts an announcement on the dormitory bulletin board about the formation of an intramural dormitory basketball team. People attend the organizational meeting as strangers out of their individual needs (integration and fulfillment of needs). The team is bound by place of residence (membership boundaries are set) and spends time together in practice (the contact hypothesis). They play a game and win (successful shared valent event). While playing, members exert energy on behalf of the team (personal investment in the group). As the team continues to win, team members become recognized and congratulated (gaining honor and status for being members). Someone suggests that they all buy matching shirts and shoes (common symbols) and they do so (influence)

It is understood that there is no particular order of the elements.

While the first idea of personal representation is synonymous to the concept of personal identity manifestation, and this is in line with Gesellschaft, ‘influence’ and ‘fulfillment of needs’; we can see that this need for integration is personal and logic orientated. On the other hand, we get to see that the second understanding of interpersonal relationships (Gemeinschaft/ membership/ shared emotional connection) as a foreclosure to ‘sense of community’ is a concept that alludes to one of ‘love’ and ‘intuitive emotions’. Indeed, when we tone down these complex ideas postulated by sociologists and psychologists, we get a very concise and summarized statement:

The community, or the sense of community within the individual, is founded from two primary (and inter-linked) elements- namely for 1) personal interests, and 2) for love and belonging.

In the last post we have made light on the concept of social identity and its relevance to our individualities. We have touched in considerable detail on the possible contradictions of social expectation and personal aspiration and concluded that simple moderation is inadequate a technique should we attempt to find our objective selves and the ‘living best.’ We also understood that love is essential should we attempt to find and integrate our individualities with society. Today, I shall attempt to make the connection between the self, the community, the identity and love.

Do pause for a moment to re-consider the concept of ‘personal identity’ and its relevance to our ‘objective identity’ (or our full identities as of today). Personal identity tells us more about our biological makeup, our personal character, and the way we perceive things around us (via our thoughts and feelings at the changing world). But as I had iterated it is seemingly irrelevant to our well-being; for that is no more than for your personal reference and understanding. I had given a light-hearted example of ‘knowing the nineteen year-old girlfriend’ to highlight this point in my last post. But the essence of this point is that it’s fact that even our personal identities cannot be manifested unless there is someone else (different) to re-affirm our personal individuality.

Consider this thought experiment: imagine you are living in a world exactly identical to this world we are living in. All the buildings in this world are present in that imaginary world, in perfect order and structure- and the same applies for all the flora and fauna of this world. The only difference is in the imaginary world, you are the only person living there. Then one day you ask yourself this question: who am I? You immediately dwell into the concept of personal identity of what you think of the buildings and the flora and fauna and the weather, and you look at your own body to distinguish yourself as a ‘thing’ with a pair of arms and legs. But how do you know these thoughts and feelings make you, you? The only sense of identity awareness is probably you sitting there and considering your existence in that imaginary world. You would not even for a fact that you are a human being unless you’ve seen another human being before- and even that act of seeing and associating, requires sociological identification and emotional connection.

Indeed, the identification for oneself can only realize only after we have associated ourselves with others. Our unique characteristics- our interests, our agendas, thoughts and feelings remain no more as idealistic concepts unless we are able to act upon. Our subjective truths cannot be objective unless there is a form of re-affirmation and correspondence; which in this case, lies in the identification of the ‘others’.

Now that we have understood the essence of sociology and its relevance to our identities, we look back at what we have discussed earlier- immediately, we see that all types of human association are for the primary purpose of personal interests and for love and belonging. Integrating all of these together, we find out that it is actually precisely on the points of personal interest and love and belonging we have actually built our personal identities upon. Without love or the manifestation of our personal interests, we would be just like inhabitant(s) of that imaginary world- soulful, but identity-less.

But why for love and belonging? A personal sense of community entirely out of selfish personal interest may possibly suffice and manifest adequately our personal identities to the point of self-recognition. Alternatively, an identity formed out of hate and mutual exclusion could be founded too- perhaps in the imaginary world we do not need to associate with another human being to know who we are, perhaps the alternative solution is to de-associate with all the animals in that world and shrink down our possibilities to the ‘last option standing’. Analogous to ‘striking out incorrect answers in a multiple choice question to the last available option’, we could still find out our objective identities, without love-

Now, if we were to look back to the dictionary, we also get to see that the concept of ‘togetherness’ is incorporated into the concept of the ‘community’. It is notable that even within the concept of ‘togetherness’, a certain conceptual allusion of ‘unity’ and ‘positive relationship’ is evident throughout. It is even more notable that when the partial concepts of ‘unity’ and ‘positive relationship’ are integrated with ‘togetherness’ and embodied by the individual to his personal viewpoint, it in actual fact is re-represented by the concept of ‘love’. I am positive that we are all familiar to the layman’s aphorism “love unites”; we also know that the concept of love transcends the superficiality of romance and passion. Putting it in a much generalized form, we can say that any form of ‘unity’ between two or more individuals already has a partial concept of ‘love’ within the attachment.

Moreover, while Tonnies had formed the theory of the Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft, he had proposed that in the real world, no group was either pure Gemeinschaft or pure Gesellschaft, but, rather, a mixture of the two. Integrating once more, we see that the concept of love (or the partial concept of it in the form of unity) is in every case indispensible in any community. Indeed, we may join a certain community for a particular personal interest, but the concept of personal interest requires a ‘love’ in certain traits of oneself, and we know that it is impossible to love without prior personal identification of the traits of oneself, which requires a sort of ‘positive relationship’ with the prior community. In either equation, we can never escape the requirement of love with the communities we are engaged in. Of course we can maintain that we never loved the previous community but the actions of the previous community; that would now be a question of narcissism, but I believe that is already beside the point.

The concepts of love, unity, self, community and identity are interlinked and come hand in hand. We know from our previous posts that personal identity, although meaningless without social re-affirmation, contributes greatly to our individualities (or what I term as the united self). Personal identity distinguishes us from our peers, while social identity re-affirms our distinguish-ments. We know now that love for oneself can only be true after the realization of others, and that social attachment entails love and belonging. In the next and final post on identity, we’ll have a glimpse of the problems of over emphasis of social identity over personal identity: de-individualization and ‘masking’. We’ll attempt to integrate both ‘identities’ with the same concept of love, and from there find the living best as we speak of today.

On Identity - on the transition to social identity

Man was never made to transverse upon this world alone. This is the fundamental reason why humans have been, since the beginning, social.

Over the past few excerpts we have discussed about the makings of the individual. We have focused greatly on the conscious self and how it is via Moderation and objective qualitative achievement that we may find the ‘living best’ that we seek. Indeed, we may theoretically understand ourselves holistically if we were to explore down to every nook and cranny of our thoughts and feelings or give serious consideration to all our prior explorations and commitments as demonstrated in Erikson’s Psychosocial Development model. But we must understand that Identity, being an abstract concept itself, is impossible to define empirically. Even with the given framework of personal continuity and consciousness, which most scholars tend to work upon, we know that the concept of Identity is more than just the self-perception of the conscious self. Just as how our identities are also dependent on Biological and subconscious factors (although I had not dwelled into the details because it is very difficult to change their existing traits), there are other factors that need to be considered before we may transit from the ‘workings’ to the ‘functioning’s’ of ourselves.

Now, some of us would have immediately realized that there is a very major factor that I have not addressed in this topic of identity. A simple question of ‘who are we?’ usually entails a legitimate response of not only our workings in both biological and psychological disciplines, but also about the roles and assumed responsibilities we play in society. As much as we are strands of DNA and a personalized balance of Logic and Intuitive feelings, we are also fathers and daughters to people around us. We are office workers and managers of the companies we work in; we are counselors and teachers, students and trouble-makers. In fact, more people would actually give a reply of the latter over the former two.

Why? The reasoning is rather straightforward and obvious: what good does it does to me to know that you’re genetically structured as such or what specific point in the balance does your psyche lay? Now, it may be objectively good to know that those factors also make you- but that is no more than for your personal reference and understanding. To me, I am more interested in your personality in general and the roles you assume in our society. It is more constructive for me to know that you’re a happy and outgoing student and daughter of nineteen years of age for you to be a prospective girlfriend, rather than the arrangement of carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen and oxygen atoms in your cells or the exact thoughts and feelings that run through you that makes you be that happy and outgoing person that I perceive you to be.

Of course, we still have to understand that thoughts and feelings are essential to address if we wish to understand and control better our personalities and our conscious being. But if we are to fully understand about our existence, we need to not only consider it from a personal point of view, but also from the subjective point of views of those around us about us.

From which lies the transition from psychological identity to social identity. As described succinctly:

In psychology, a psychological identity relates to self-image (a person's mental model of him or herself), self-esteem, and individuation. An important part of identity in psychology is gender identity, as this dictates to a significant degree how an individual views him or herself both as a person and in relation to other people. In cognitive psychology, the term "identity" refers to the capacity for self-reflection and the awareness of self

Sociology places some explanatory weight on the concept of role-behavior. The notion of identity negotiation may arise from the learning of social roles through personal experience. Identity negotiation is a process in which a person negotiates with society at large regarding the meaning of his or her identity.

Psychologists most commonly use the term "identity" to describe personal identity, or the idiosyncratic things that make a person unique. Meanwhile, sociologists often use the term to describe social identity, or the collection of group memberships that define the individual. However, these uses are not proprietary, and each discipline may use either concept.

From here, there is a myriad of issues that we are able to address. For a start, we now know that there are now two broad categories to distinguish Identity- namely personal and social identity. Biology, Consciousness and sub-consciousness would generally fall under the first category of personal identity- not because it is entirely personal; but rather just because less people would be concerned with these aspects of our lives. Roles, responsibilities and personality traits would then generally fall under the second category of social identity; of course without compromise of personal identification from them.

Our full identities definitely comprise of all of the above.

But intuitively, we immediately know that this transition from personal and social identity is not as a simple integration an integration of both aspects. We know that there is actually a great discrepancy between the way we look at ourselves, and the way society looks upon us. And we know that it is precisely because of this fundamental reason why people choose to put on the ‘masks of life’ and have ‘split personalities’. After all, if we were to be made of a personal conscious ego- to a certain personal aspiration; and at the same time equally denoted by the conformity of social responsibility to do otherwise; how are we able to be ourselves throughout without the expense of ourselves in the first place?

Moreover, we are also aware of the increasing state of de-individualization of individuals today. De-individualization is defined as the diminished sense of personal identity out of social conformity or for social recognition. Indeed, identification of oneself in a social context is believed to allow one to gain a sense of positive self esteem, a sense of self categorization, and a further sense of distinctness. But we are aware (see on Logic Education and Our Lives Part 2) that over-emphasis of the technicalities over the true philosophy of a system can warp logic and lead to integrity failure. The same holds for the act of identification of oneself in a social context- or in layman’s terms, socializing. We return to the topic of Teenage Culture which we had studied extensively on General Paper- the main by-product problems of Teenage Culture includes a diminished sense of ‘self-identity’, stereotyping and Identity confusion. It is also no wonder that in Erikson’s Psychosocial Development Model, the crisis of Identity and role-confusion is generally touched by Adolescences (see The Qualitative Consciousness).

If simple integration has been impossible to reconcile both aspects of our identities, how are we going to find the objective ‘living best’ of ourselves? From the beginning we have acknowledge the existence of an objective truth in this world. And it is from this we have established a need of moderation and balance of logic and intuitive feelings, in both material and ideal conditions- to find the objective makings of ourselves. From here, we have returned to the former question of objectivity and subjectivity. From the subjective-objectivity of our biology and our consciousness, to the objective-subjectivity of the roles we play to others and ourselves (no I am not playing with my words); how are we to find the Objective answer to our true identity, without falling into the traps of personality ‘masking’ and De-individualization as many people of the world have fell victims to?

This I believe requires on final concept to be addressed- not as a means of moderation of ‘the tension of the opposites’; but more as a means to re-alignment of both personal and social aspects of our identity as quoted in the book Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Albom. Indeed, this concept could be considered the most congenial of concepts that have been addressed in this entire project, but paradoxically it’s a concept that we have most often taken for granted in our lives. I would be addressing this final concept in the next post, but meanwhile, do allow me to re-quote an excerpt from the book-

“A tension of opposites, like a pull on the rubber band. And most of us live somewhere in the middle.”
Sounds like a wrestling match, I say
“A wrestling match,” He laughs. “Yes, you could describe life that way.”
So which side wins, I ask?
He smiles at me, the crinkled eyes, the crooked teeth.
“Love wins. Love always wins.”