Lacanfest

[edited to remove the first two paragraphs - they referred to a former post title]

What I want to do is find a way to distill as wide a range as possible of behaviours and patterns into some basic elements. What I'm laying out here is purely conceptual; empirical application will come somwhere down the line.

I'm going to continue to dispense with citations. I'm not trying to steal the ideas of others and claim them as my own - I'm simply recognizing that no one reading this blog gives a crap who Jacques Lacan is.

So let's start at the root. Back here, I briefly mentioned the idea of the imago. Why do I use the word "imago" rather than the more obvious "image?" Because I'm not going to be talking about a "self-image," at least not exactly, and by using a different word it is easier to distinguish between the two.

The imago is one way of explaining how we come to view ourselves as subjects - how do we perceive our own desires, how do we explain our actions, etc.

I'm going to be making a series of statements that, in all rigor, require empirical evidence. Alas, I don't have access to any of that material now. So just follow the narrative for now and see how it goes for you.

As infants, we exist in a kind of... enclosed totality. What I mean by that is, the only thing that exists to our minds is our immediate needs. Other people, other objects, these go utterly unnoticed. Even our own extremities remain foreign to our minds. Everything just is. You lack nothing, you want nothing, you don't even know there is anything to lack.

A feeling of hungry appears - you lack something. You have a need. There's a literal hole in you. Suddenly there's a new sensation (the nipple in your mouth), you suck, and the hunger goes away. The hole goes away - everything is whole again. No more absence - there is just your mind. As far as you are concerned, you are connected to everything. Total and utter completeness. Freud called this the "oceanic feeling."

That is the first structural point in our development; no consciousness or anything else. Just the real and your needs that are either fulfilled or not fulfilled.

Eventually, you slowly begin to develop a sense of yourself - and the world as distinct from yourself. This is what is called the mirror stage - either literally or metaphorically, you see an image of yourself in the world. This could be one of your parents, or even yourself in a mirror. You look into the world and say "Ah-ha! That's ME!"

This is a new experience; you are suddenly distinct from the world around you. The wholeness that you experienced in your early infancy also disappears; suddenly there is a new absence that your mother's milk cannot fill.

As an early infant, you had a need for milk; when that was fulfilled, you returned to a sense of utter completion. Once you have a sense of "me-ness," this is no longer possible; you are now a forever isolated individual.

When you look at that image out in the world, it isn't actually you. You aren't your father or mother, and you aren't your image in the mirror. But you believe you are - you imagine you are. Basically, your imago is based upon a mistake; a misrecognition.

That's the second structural point - the imaginary identification with an image outside yourself. This is the spark of your imago.

During this second structural point, you still, of course, have a requirement for food. But this food no longer has the same effect on you that it once did; your demands, even when met, do not fulfill what you really want which is a return to the real, or a sense of total completeness.

Even so, you demand an object. You see an object in the world, and you pursue it. You see your imago in the world, and you attempt to become this image, to take it up. You can't actually do this, anymore than you can become your mirror image - but you pursue it anyways, with hopes of returning to the sense of completeness. You attempt to take up a structural position.

Do you see the progression here?

1) Real - Need structural point: you have a sense of completeness, and no sense of individuality. No subject/object distinction. The simple meeting of your biological needs is all you need. This is the

2) Imaginary - Demand structural point: you develop a sense of individuality through an imaginary identification with an external image. Your demands for objects to return to the sense of completeness ultimately goes unanswered.

The progression is that of increasing abstraction.

There's a third structural point. This is called the symbolic point; it is based on the aquisition of language.

Once you aquire language, and can begin to refer to yourself as "I," you are capable of articulating what you want. Note that language is the tool we use to articular ourselves to both others and ourselves - our self understanding is only ever a re-presentation of something incredibly abstract.

First, you simply want a sense of completeness. Then, you want objects to return you to that sense of completeness. In the third point, you are capable of articulating Desire.

Because mere objects such as food no longer return you to that "oceanic feeling," you seek something else out. You begin to seek out the Desire of other subjects. You want other humans to take you up as an object of desire; you want recognition.

If everything else in this post is boring, confusing and stupid to you, then just read this summary:

We are all chasing an image of ourselves in the world. We look into the world, see roles, beliefs and actions and say "ah-ha! That's ME!" and then attempt to fulfill those roles, accept those beliefs and perform those actions. We are attempting to be our imago in order to aquire recognition from other people; we want to be the object of their desire.

Confusing, confusing confusing. I know. When I was listening to my prof's lectures on this stuff, I was riveted but also confused and annoyed. It only made a tiny bit of sense, and it seemed incredibly complicated. It really wormed its way into my mind, though - when I was studying for the final exam, it all made perfect sense.

And before you roll your eyes at the number of un-argued assertions in this post, and there are many, remember my purpose: to explain myself, not to argue for the truth of this position.

There's more. Stayed tuned, if you wish.

Seoul

I suppose I should catch ya'll up on my comings and goings here in South Korea.


The novelty of Korean food has worn off. Octopus soup is no longer something exotic that I must eat; now it's just spicy soup with some damn rubbery arms in it.

A few weeks back, I made my first trip into Seoul. It was for the birthday party of a former teacher at my school. I don't know the guy, but I was invited anyways. We went to Sinchon (I'm spelling phonetically, I have no idea if that is accurate), a neighborhood in Seoul.

The place we stopped in at, actually called "The Bar," was a little hole in the wall. "Hole in the wall" being more literal than I'd like; the men's bathroom only had three walls. The fourth wall? The street. That was interesting.

Two Sundays ago, I was hiking up a hill I've never been up before. A Korean man began walking along side me; he started telegraphing that he wanted someone to tutor his son. It's illegal, of course, so we just skirted the issue for a while. Koreans love their hiking, and this was midafternoon so we were surrounded by people. Eventually we had some relative privacy and worked out an appointment.

This past Saturday, I went to the National Museum of Korea in Seoul with another teacher. It's a huge, massive building surrounded by the only green park I've seen in Korea. The museum is entirely dedicated to Korean history up to the 19th century; there was nothing from the twentieth century which seemed a bit strange to me.

I came back on my own, and managed to take a wrong turn in the subway. That led to a good bit of stress, backtracking and carefully choosing my train. All the English signs are tiny and difficult to read from the train.

The subway detour gave me a chance to see some of the more rundown parts of Seoul. There are actually people leaving not 50 feet from the above-ground subway tracks; no sound barriers. I think I'm going to have to get off the subway at various points and do some exploring. There are parts of Incheon and Seoul that could be straight out of a western city, but I sometimes catch glimpses of strange and new places.

One of my roommates is headed off to Thailand for two weeks... listening to his plans is making me vibrate with jealousy. That, along with the above mentioned bits of Seoul, are starting to make me think one year here won't be enough...

For Whom The Bell Tolls

And so the Liberals fall, and new campaigns begin in earnest.

I guess I'll have to make a trip into Seoul to the Canadian embassy.

And now, a joke.

A man enters a bar and orders a drink. The bar has a robot bartender.

The robot serves him a perfectly prepared cocktail, and then asks him, "What's your IQ?"

The man replies "150" and the robot proceeds to make conversation about global warming factors, quantum physics and spirituallity, biomimicry, environmental interconnectedness, string theory, nano-technology, and sexual proclivities.

The customer is very impressed and thinks, "This is really cool." He decides to test the robot. He walks out of the bar, turns around, and comes back in for another drink. Again, the robot serves him the perfectlty prepared drink and asks him, "What's your IQ?"

The man responds, "about a 100."

Immediately the robot starts talking, but this time, about football, NASCAR, baseball, supermodels, favorite fast foods, guns, and women's breasts.

Really impressed, the man leaves the bar and decides to give the robot one more test. He heads out and returns, the robot serves him and asks, "What's your IQ?"

The man replies, "Er, 50, I think."

And the robot says... real slowly... "So............... ya gonna vote for the Liberals again?"

Answering the Ready Answer

All right, here's part two of my discussion of presuppositional apologetics (PA).

Allow me to restate exactly what I am engaging with here. I am not attempting to refute Calvinist theology. I'm not talking about the existence of God, or the nature of original sin, or any of the TULIP points. I am only talking about one point in the PA philosophical interpretation of Calvinist theology: the presupposition (P) itself.

In the previous post, I did my best to faithfully explain the concept of the P as seen by PAers. This post will be slightly more interpretive; I will be saying things about Ps that I have not necassarily read about in the writings of PAers. However, I still think that PAers will agree with my interpretation.

Ps are propositional statements - the fundamental statements that inform and influence all other statements and beliefs we make and hold. They are, in a sense, mental rules.

I think you can compare them to basic arithmatic; relativistic physics may be ridiculously complicated, but it still rests on 1+1 = 2. Take a child's math textbook, and if you are smart enough, you can develop all sorts of crazy theorems. Whether you are a high school math student or a professor at MIT, everything you know still goes back to 1+1=2. That basic equation is the P of math. If your basic equation is somehow wrong, then everything after it will be wrong as well.

Perhaps an even better analogy than the math one - computer programming. Our Ps are the basic rules of our mental "programming." This analogy might fit in fairly well with Calvinist theology, but perhaps I'm wrong.

Ps, in general human knowledge, are our basic mental rules. They establish the patterns of all subsequent belief. They are rules such as "The Bible is God's word." We each hold a handful of these rules/statements, though the unbeliever denies them and covers them over with other Ps.

I would say presuppositionalism offers a particular view of human cognition - that our thought patterns can ultimately be reduced to a set of propositional statements. And, if it isn't obvious by now, I think this view is utterly, utterly wrong. First I'll offer some problems with this conception of Ps, then I'll offer an alternative view.

My first argument: that no finite set of presuppositions can account for the practically uncountable number of human perspectives.

To reiterate the PA narrative: everyone holds the Christian Ps somewhere inside them. Only those that have been regenerated by God will acknowledge them, however.

If all Christians truly share and acknowledge the same basic equations, the same basic programming rules, then why are there so many conflicting theologies even amongst those who hold to Biblical inerrancy?

Maybe there is a theological answer to this - that some people have been perfected more by Christ, and others will simply have more changing to do in heaven (I assume that Titus will object to my phrasing here, because I don't know the proper terms - but I think the idea is sound). In other words, perhaps some people still refuse to acknowledge certain Christian Ps.

So there is a choice to be made here. Either God regenerates all of one's Ps, or only some. Which implies that there is still a core set of Ps that hold primacy over other Ps. You know, the ones that are really important.

That still can't answer the problem, however. Let's say a core P is "The Bible is God's inspired and errant word." This is believed by huge numbers of people... and even among these people there is disagreement. Even ideas about salvation are fragmented - sometimes I don't think Calvinists and Evangelicals realize how radically different their ideas about salvation are.

Even among Calvinists there is disagreement; witness the catfight between Van Til and Clark at Westminster Theological Seminary. Both Calvinists, both PAers... and yet they had such a harsh disagreement that Clark left the school.

Having shared presuppositions does not mean you will elaborate similar theologies or philosophies. It also does not mean you will share behavioural traits.

So what do shared presuppositions amount to? Not a whole lot. For something that is supposed to explain why disagreements between believers and unbelievers take place, it sure is a weak tool.

A second problem with presuppositions - we already know that our cognitive processes cannot be reduced to a finite set of propositional statements. Our minds don't follow a set of rules - whether conscious or unconscious.

In the 1970s, some guy whose name I don't remember wrote about the difficulties the project of AI was having from a Heideggarian point of view. He talked about the assumption behind AI - that intelligence can be broken down into managible pieces and ultimatelty digitized. This has never worked, of course. Finite rules can only ever produce a finite set of patterns, and human behaviour is incredibly diverse and unpredictable.

A third problem. Presuppositionalism is a brand of coherantism, the idea that the truth of a statement can be judged by how well it coheres with a surrounding belief structure. If your system has ten propositions, and all ten cohere together, than they can be considered correct. If one proposition contradicts one of the other nine propositions, then there is something wrong with the system.

The obvious objection: you can have a set of ten non-contradictory, coherant statements that are all incorrect.

I know the PAer will respond that not only is their Christianity coherant, but that it rests upon the only rational foundation - a transcendent God. As I explained in the previous post on this subject, PAers say only a transcendent God can explain a rational, ordered universe such as ours.

However, as I have already pointed out, people who share the same presuppositions can come to radically different conclusions. In other words, there is no one single rational, ordered way to build upon one's Ps. Ps are indeterminate - they fail to account for the phenomonon that PAers are so concerned with.

Why are presuppositional apologetics so popular, if they are so vacuous? Allow me to speculate a little.

If you know anything about the history of the west, you probably know the standard narrative. Increasing secularization. Whether or not this narrative is accurate is a question for another time. That being said, it is very common to believe that the west as a whole is "moving away from God," as if God weren't omnipresent.

Atheism ceased to be a dangerous public position a long, long time ago. The narrative of Evolution has posed a serious challenge to the narrative of traditional Christianity. Government officials use less and less religious rhetoric. Scholars have questioned the authority and historiocity of the Bible.

Now... classical apologetics have been around for a long, long time. Augustine used them. Aquinas was an apologetics ninja. Heck, even John Calvin used them, though he didn't used P style apologetics (source: Baptist college prof).

Classical apologetics have fallen upon hard times, however. The clearest example - Scientific Young Earth Creationism has been repeatedly embarassed in both the public and academic realm over the last few generations. I could easily use the historical accuracy of the Bible here, as well.

Classical apologetics has continously run up against a brick wall when it comes to Evolution. While a cogent argument can be made against metaphysical naturalism, Evolution (understood properly) is as rock solid as any of the more mundane theories. Hence, SYECers finding themselves only on the fringes of science.

And some think... but the Bible is God's word. We know it's right. How could anyone disagree with us?

Ah-ha! They must be biased!

And they look for a way to justify that statement, and for a way to justify their own bias.

PAers often claim to have thought like postmodernists long before postmodernism ever became popular. That's because they have never read this post.

Presuppositional apologetics exist as a set of rhetorical tools that can be used to dismiss entirely adequate interpretations of empirical facts. PA is an empty conceptual game; it isn't so much a philosophy as it is a cheap debate tactic. Which, of course, is enough for many, many people.

By the way, I can't decided if "presuppositional apologetics" should be singular, or plural. PA "is," or PA "are?"

What kind of humanist are you?

What a strange quiz result...

Haymaker

You are one of life’s enjoyers, determined to get the most you can out of your brief spell on Earth. Probably what first attracted you to atheism was the prospect of liberation from the Ten Commandments, few of which are compatible with a life of pleasure. You play hard and work quite hard, have a strong sense of loyalty and a relaxed but consistent approach to your philosophy.


You can’t see the point of abstract principles and probably wouldn’t lay down your life for a concept though you might for a friend. Something of a champagne humanist, you admire George Bernard Shaw for his cheerful agnosticism and pursuit of sensual rewards and your Hollywood hero is Marlon Brando, who was beautiful, irascible and aimed for goodness in his own tortured way.


Sometimes you might be tempted to allow your own pleasures to take precedence over your ethics. But everyone is striving for that elusive balance between the good and the happy life. You’d probably open another bottle and say there’s no contest.

What kind of humanist are you? Click here to find out.