The Narrative Inside of Us

There is something in our genes which compels us to act like animals.

When we hear this statement - this emergent cliche of human characterization - "like animals" stick because it speaks to a dimension of our behavior that is like an animal. What is this, but the concerns and needs of the short term: the experience of feeling, deeply and densely embodied, which compels a feeling of activity, creativity, and release?

The Beauty of Science

There is science and then there is philosophy. The first is an empiricism which seeks to correlate observable facts with a theory for their structure and functioning. Science is an inherently superior knowledge - a superior epistemology - because it backs up statements and assertions with phenomenological evidence observable in some external set of conditions. For instance, one can interpret a feeling state as a function of metabolic bodily dynamics in interaction with behavioral habits i.e. diet, sleep, emotional stress/arousal of the organism, or one can ascribe a special mystical meaning that divorces the external set of conditions - the relationality that dynamically constitutes the life of the organism - from the phenomenology it experiences.

Every philosophy should be bracketed and contextualized by real scientific knowledge - the sort of knowledge that meets an epistemological benchmark that renders all other claims to knowledge lacking in authority. For instance, the Earth is an emergent property of elemental ordering: the heaviest elements pull to the center (iron) with lighter elements/minerals forming bands of decreasing density. In the middle part of the Earth, minerals are liquefied and the second law of thermodynamics operates through the force of convection - the primal turning of heavier elements and lighter elements in interaction with the hydrosphere and atmosphere, which borders the coldness of space. The following argument is superior because it refers to the basic building blocks of matter - the elements, and the astrophysical ordering of the solar system through an ancient supernova explosion. The Earth grew from this cosmic 'stardust', and from the earth, basalt formed, and when melted again by magma, produced the irreversible phenomena of granite - which floats atop the basalt.

Compare this view with the new age belief - and delusion - of an inner earth where Aryan beings rule. Completely nonsensical - completely outside the borders of Ockhamz razor - the rule of science - that unnecessary assumptions should be voided, and thus, theories which ignore the basic astrophysical ordering of planets should be ignored and regarded as retarded, unrealistic, and fantastical.

But do you see how knowledge is attained here? It's a comparative process, and my state of relation, itself an emergent property of my educational background, allows me to recognize the implausibility of another position (inner earth). I had to a) care to learn about something (be open), and b) after learning about a subject matter, now possessed a form of understanding that offered a more realistic i.e. evidence based, relation to the world I exist within. My position is one of maturity - of acceptance of the real, and a willingness to face the truth with excitement and humility. Any Human being can do this, and in theory, everyone of us can face the abyss not with fear and abjection, or be inspired into a Nietzschean delusion that I can somehow "overcome" the system-like qualities of existence, since that assumption entails so many fantasies - so many feelings, that are better and far more easily understood as reactions to shame and guilt - to hating the feelings you feel and wanting to expunge them from your being - as if there were an "outside" which would forever stay away from you, from which you would never have to interface with again - as if actions of a doer do not stick to the "event" which hosts the "events" of your life history - your evolution as a self - and all the affects that permeated your structure from your first memory to the present - all those "lame" ebenezer scrooge type recollections, of trauma, of being unheard and unrecognized by others, and thus generating the motivation - the spark - the chaotic need to destroy all semblance of weakness in yourself - when being seen and known by the other in that ugly, misshapen way, itself a consequence of their misshapen knowing - a continuously occurring phenomenon, a repeating energetic "knowing" that reconstructs the self in its image - in the minds of the knowers who "know you" - and in their knowing, make you just like them.

Life As Narrative

Life is a narrative, but not just any arbitrary narrative. There are "pluses" and "minuses" - negative and positive configurations that assemble structure, in terms of a particular function. Two humans, for example, constitute potential poles in a system where each individual is genetically inclined to perceive - and become affected by - particular configurations of facial expression and vocal tone. These external signs are containers of phenomenological meaning - meaning which is decoded and reconstructed in our body - as an absorption of the others orientation, and so briefly instilling in our own minds the perspective they have upon us.

We are a SYSTEM OF RELATIONS. A decodable system, no doubt, but a system which seems fundamentally predicated on dynamical states which register their utility in certain feelings - joy/pleasure, care/compassion/love, and awe. These affective states are themselves emergent functions of psychological relation: a gestalt image of external reality - what we perceive and experience in our knowing of its importance and meaning - excites "awe" - and so awe, rather than being any banal, unreal feeling, registers an objective "correlation" between the observing dynamical system (Human) and the external reality of the outside - the "object" which stimulates knowledge and awareness of its beingness. Awe is the "knowing" between the Knower and the Known, it is the "feeling of energy" running between the self-abnegation of the observer (negative) and immensity of the known object (positive).

When we simply respond to our instinctive reactions, we are operating - even if we don't believe so - according to the SYSTEM of our interpersonal history i.e. the affective reaction constitutes a "prediction" upon the external world: ergo, there is nothing mystical or special happening here beyond repetition of physical dynamics: its easier to assume a particular interpretation because it a) correlates with existing interpersonal relationships, and b) feels good. The feeling good is very much a function of it being correlated: if you have a "weapon" against pain and disorder, that is, those existing relationships with people who enliven you, then your system one "auto" reaction will take the shortest pathway - particularly when its demonstrated again and again by the people you live and know with.