Am I alone?

"Being alone" is the one thing we all have in common. Nobody but me feels my pain and my joy, nor do they digest my food or breathe for me. I can convey these things and in a sense we then share the experience, but it is still "me", the ego-sense of self that tells me I am alone. We don't experience any 'self' that is connected to, or a part of, any other self.

If, in our own view, we give more value to the world (existence) rather than the self, the self loses its importance and becomes disempowered. In that state, feeling like a lone, insignificant person in a large universe can become an unpleasant and depressing feeling.

But if we choose to place more value on the self rather than the world, then the whole of existence becomes a playground just for us. The place that the self occupies in existence is no longer important, the only thing that is important is that the self has a place. So, in that sense, negative feelings of loneliness are essentially a surrender of value of the self to the value of something else.

So don't take anything in life more seriously than yourself and be empathic to the fact that we are all alone and therefore ought to be extra nice to each other, so that through little acts of kindness and thoughtfulness we alleviate each other's feelings of being alone.

The expectation society we live in, in which demands are made of us in every strata of society, diminishes our selves. We are reduced to cogs in a contraption that only works for itself and not for people. There is only the senselessly forward-moving beast of technology. To save ourselves, we need to save others. Be tolerant and give others the room to be themselves. Let go of your expectations, implied and expressed, so that others can have a place in the world that is not imposed on them but freely chosen.

Reply to Blue Lux We seem to get along well enough. It isn't necessary that anyone superlatively express meaning in most cases.

Reply to Ciceronianus the White Then what are people usually talking about?

Quoting Benkei

So don't take anything in life more seriously than yourself and be empathic to the fact that we are all alone and therefore ought to be extra nice to each other, so that through little acts of kindness and thoughtfulness we alleviate each other's feelings of being alone.

This sentence attempts to salvage your theory which was headed in the direction of pure egoism. You posit that we know only ourselves, that the external world is our playground to experience how it best fits our fancy, and we shouldn't place the external world over our self.

The problem, as I see it, is that other selves are the external world as much as any physical object, and you therefore can't sustain your distinction between selves and objects on the basis of one being external and the other being internal. You should be kind to others not because the external world needs to be relegated to a lower status, but because other souls (and that is dangerously what you are talking about here in your dualistic external/internal distinction, but I do welcome you aboard the Cartesian train with open arms) have that special spark that provides them the knowledge of good and evil.

Yours is an argument for empathy, which hints at some degree of prior internal suffering that has caused you to understand that others might be in need of the same kindness that once sustained you. I suppose my real objection doesn't come from your observation that we are at a most foundational level alone in our experiences, but it's that empathy (which is the foundation of love) doesn't bridge to some degree that loneliness that exists between two people. That is to say, my kids are decidedly not alone, as there is someone who 24/7 is on the look out, well aware of the pain and suffering they feel, maybe sometimes to a degree more than they do. What frees them from the pain of loneliness isn't that someone provides them medication to reduce their symptoms, but it is that empathy and love result in a cure.

Painfully romantic. Hug me.

Reply to Hanover It seems to me that the more I have tried to explain myself, the more distance becomes between myself and where I come to be. And it seems language is incapable of expressing anything relating to an actual meaningful experience. The only exception to this is in poetry... But can poetry be adequately defined as language?
When I look out into the world I am surrounded by meanings that have become attached to certain things, and often these meanings are painful or reminding of something painful, due to simple association. And I am to the point where I don't know whether or not to give up on philosophy, which has been my greatest passion.
Philosophy, or perhaps language in general, is a transcription of experience; a game of representation and abstraction for the purpose of an exchange, for perhaps just the smallest possibility that the inner world 'of ours' (whatever is that owns I have no idea, and I cannot prove it) can change to be in accordance with another's world, and that our own 'subjectivity' could be penetrated by something just as or more meaningful than itself.
The will has always been to an objectivity... But what is an objectivity but another? The Other. What could possibly firmly base an objectivity other than another? But is this too not an illusion? An objectivity? The theoretical amalgamation the concrescence of all minds, separate but equal?
Maybe in music this happens? I have felt it maybe. But how can I be sure? Am I delusional with all of these thoughts?

@Benkei

Quoting Benkei

We are reduced to cogs in a contraption that only works for itself and not for people.

This is communication itself. This is consciousness. Contrarily... It does work for people... But not for 'a' person, the single profundity.

Quoting Blue Lux

And it seems language is incapable of expressing anything relating to an actual meaningful experience.

And yet you have.
Quoting Blue Lux

The only exception to this is in poetry

Yet you have expressed meaning without being poetic.
Quoting Blue Lux

But can poetry be adequately defined as language?

If it's not language, what is it, applesauce?Quoting Blue Lux

And I am to the point where I don't know whether or not to give up on philosophy, which has been my greatest passion.

The significance of your giving up your greatest passion will be a tragedy only to you. Quoting Blue Lux

The will has always been an objectivity... But what is an objectivity but another? The Other. What could possibly firmly base an objectivity other than another? But is this too not an illusion? An objectivity? The theoretical amalgamation the concrescence of all minds, separate but equal? The theoretical amalgamation the concrescence of all minds, separate but equal?

I take back my prior assessment that your linguistic expression is meaningful.
Quoting Blue Lux

Am I delusional with all of these thoughts?

Incoherent more than delusional.

Quoting Blue Lux

Then what are people usually talking about?

Usually? Their children, their spouses, their friends, their work, sports, politics, their health, their relatives; in short, their lives.

Reply to Ciceronianus the White Which is extraordinarily vague! Inauthentic everydayness.

Quoting Blue Lux

Which is extraordinarily vague! Inauthentic everydayness

How vague will depend on the speaker, I would think. But what can be more authentic about us and our relationship with the rest of the world than our everyday lives?

Reply to Hanover I have not expressed any meaning actually. I have been vague and have only hinted at what you can never understand.

...

It seems actually to be an insult to myself to reply to you further...

But anyway...

Poetry does not conform to the usual character of language and what is often expressed with poetry is not within the language itself analytically. Walt Whitman for example... Or Robert Frost.

Quoting Hanover

The will has always been an objectivity... But what is an objectivity but another? The Other. What could possibly firmly base an objectivity other than another? But is this too not an illusion? An objectivity? The theoretical amalgamation the concrescence of all minds, separate but equal? The theoretical amalgamation the concrescence of all minds, separate but equal?
— Blue Lux
I take back my prior assessment that your linguistic expression is meaningful.

Let me rephrase.

The will has always been one to an objectivity; the will of consciousness-with-others. In terms of being alone, how could one not be alone if communication is the establishing of an objectivity? Objectivity is transpersonal: it is the internal negation of what would be a subjectivity, due to the existence of a separate radical alterity of itself, namely another subjectivity... And to reconcile this is the creation of a transpersonal reference point... Objectivity. Objectivity is thus fundamentally without regard for the authenticity of a subjectivity, and does not give any regard for a subjectivity unless it regards all subjectivities, which are incapable, at base, of being united in an exchange of meaning; that is, what it is to experience something and all that it is that constitutes a personal existence.
My contention is that objectivity is an illusion--with regard to an exchange of meaning. All that is grasped in an objectivity... For instance, in what is happening right now when you are reading these words, is a glimpse into a possibility of what I could mean, which will inevitably be up to you to interpret.
Thus.
I am alone.

Reply to Ciceronianus the White 'Our everyday lives' is fundamentally an inauthentic expression.

Quoting Hanover

You posit that we know only ourselves,

I didn't posit this though.

Quoting Blue Lux

Regardless of whether or not there is a soul or whatever one wants to call the ego or the I, it seems that within our own sphere, our 'hyletic nucleus,' we are absolutely incapable of expressing to anyone else, specifically and superlatively, meaning.
Is this the case?
Am I thus alone to my own experiences after all?
Is language a game of mere abstraction? Is knowledge too this?

What? No.

Quoting Blue Lux

Let me rephrase.

The will has always been one to an objectivity; the will of consciousness-with-others. In terms of being alone, how could one not be alone if communication is the establishing of an objectivity? Objectivity is transpersonal: it is the internal negation of what would be a subjectivity, due to the existence of a separate radical alterity of itself, namely another subjectivity... And to reconcile this is the creation of a transpersonal reference point... Objectivity. Objectivity is thus fundamentally without regard for the authenticity of a subjectivity, and does not give any regard for a subjectivity unless it regards all subjectivities, which are incapable, at base, of being united in an exchange of meaning; that is, what it is to experience something and all that it is that constitutes a personal existence.
My contention is that objectivity is an illusion--with regard to an exchange of meaning. All that is grasped in an objectivity... For instance, in what is happening right now when you are reading these words, is a glimpse into a possibility of what I could mean, which will inevitably be up to you to interpret.
Thus.
I am alone.

Ah, that's much clearer.

Reply to Sapientia Refute me please lol. I don't like the idea of being alone.

Quoting Blue Lux

'Our everyday lives' is fundamentally an inauthentic expression

Not a real, or sincere, or genuine expression? Not accurate? I think we all have a fairly good idea what we did, who/what we encountered, how we felt, etc., today and can describe it to another in a way satisfactory for most purposes. What we describe will be easily comprehended by most we describe it to. Perhaps your expectations are unreasonable. In some matters we deal in probabilities; nevertheless, we can make intelligent judgments based on less than absolute certainty or knowledge.

Reply to Ciceronianus the White I understand your point. But hear me out.

Explaining life in terms of 'our everyday lives' implies the following: Who is 'our'? and 'What everyday life?'

If an understanding of life has to be boxed into this characterization of it... Then an understanding of life is completely nonspecific. Furthermore, this idea of an every life of ours implies that the experiences of people are interchangeable and the same. They are not. Our experiences are incomparably personal and unique.
The point is to say that in communication or expression of life tere is only abstraction and faith in an understanding. There is only a knowledge as if it is knowledge.

Quoting Blue Lux

Furthermore, this idea of an every life of ours implies that the experiences of people are interchangeable and the same. They are not. Our experiences are incomparably personal and unique.

So, personal and unique, therefore, unintelligible, incomprehensible, and indescribable by us? Yet, here you are, trying so hard regardless. Are you saying that psychologists are nothing but a bunch of nonsense in concert?

Reply to Caldwell There is a difference between methodology, principle, characterization, objectivity, etc. and individual psychology.

The psychology that I respect the most is psychoanalysis, because it does not impose upon the individual and tell them how they are. Psychoanalysis explores them.

Reply to Caldwell Not incomprehensible by the one who experiences it.

Reply to Blue Lux But, as this conversation shows, and as the world around you shows, you're not alone, and I think you know that you're not alone, except perhaps in some other less obvious sense that you're not making very clear. If you feel alone as a result of not being understood clearly, and you don't like this feeling, then why not simply adopt a clearer writing style?

Good advice.

As to feeling alone in a very large universe, I felt completely alone. It nagged at me. I think it stemmed from perception and projection as well as feeling misunderstood, an outlier in a bell curve world. I also didn't feel whole and complete. I also had so much faith in my own subjectivity, but it turned out to be philosophically unlearned, untested.

Quoting Blue Lux

If an understanding of life has to be boxed into this characterization of it... Then an understanding of life is completely nonspecific. Furthermore, this idea of an every life of ours implies that the experiences of people are interchangeable and the same. They are not. Our experiences are incomparably personal and unique.
The point is to say that in communication or expression of life tere is only abstraction and faith in an understanding. There is only a knowledge as if it is knowledge.

Of course our experiences will differ is some respects, and some of us may be significantly different from the norm. Some climates in which we live are significantly different from others, cultures are different.

But we're all the same kind of living organisms and are parts of the same world, and interact with other parts of the world which are in many cases similar and in similar ways. So there is common ground. necessarily. Differences may exist, but can be addressed and explained on grounds other than "faith." In fact, we successfully communicate all the time. Simply put, there is no reasonable basis on which it can be maintained that each of us have, exclusively or even primarily, unique experiences which can't be communicated or expressed to others.

Quoting Ciceronianus the White

Of course our experiences will differ is some respects, and some of us may be significantly different from the norm. Some climates in which we live are significantly different from others, cultures are different.

i think all experiences are unique to the person experiencing them - by definition. Any attempt to communicate an experience is an abstraction, a construct of the mind, and not the same as the experience. The experience is that knife edge between history and future, a Qualia you will. Or from another thread - Quality.

We are alone in our experiences, but that is different than being lonely.

Quoting Blue Lux

we are absolutely incapable of expressing to anyone else, specifically and superlatively, meaning.
Is this the case?
Am I thus alone to my own experiences after all?

Yes and no.

Yes, in the sense that we are unique individuals whose experiences are not duplicated. Yes, in the sense that our POV is singular. Yes, in the sense that we can not transfuse the contents of our brains with others (like a Vulcan mind meld (Star Trek) or the Bene Gesserit mind sharing (Dune). But... even though we are singular, unique individuals, we are not shrink-wrapped in lead and asbestos.

No, in the sense that we are porous. Before our birth until our death we constantly exchange information with other singular, unique beings who are also porous. We did not invent the language with which we hear, read, think, speak, and write. We did not invent the culture in which we are immersed. We are quite inter-dependent. We are even porous on a biological level, taking in one another's molecules, viruses, bacteria, proteins, etc. and expelling our own.

Not only are we engaged with one another on many levels from before birth until death, but we are biologically required to be so engaged. If we are not so engaged, we will die an early death.

We are both individual, unique, alone AND tangled up with many other individuals, most of whom came before us (as progenitors or cultural creators) or are rubbing up against us now. We can draw a curtain around ourselves and pretend that we are all alone, but this will give way pretty quickly to hunger, thirst, and boredom, and we will pull the curtains back and go look for company--probably to triumphantly explain to them how we are all alone.

We can speak intelligently, we can transmit complex meaning accurately and vividly (in poetry, for instance) because we draw from a common well of meaning (the vast ocean of culture). True, we can make communication very difficult through deliberate efforts or incompetence, but we can get the point across when we want to.

If it were the case that "we are absolutely incapable of expressing to anyone else, specifically and superlatively, meaning." then there wouldn't be a cultural ocean to draw from, we wouldn't have language, and we wouldn't be chatting with one another. We would be worse off than pan troglodytes throwing feces at each other.

Quoting Rank Amateur

think all experiences are unique to the person experiencing them - by definition. Any attempt to communicate an experience is an abstraction, a construct of the mind, and not the same as the experience

I just typed this. In what sense is my experience typing these words unique, compared to your experience in typing the foregoing?

Reply to Blue Lux If you are alone in any rational way, to whom do you address the question...in a meaningful way?

Quoting Ciceronianus the White

I just typed this. In what sense is my experience typing these words unique, compared to your experience in typing the foregoing?

i didn't have the exact same tactile feel on my keyboard that you did, we had a different and individual sense of our purpose. Inform, impress, selfish, educate, kill some time. We each felt something unique as we typed.

think the famous black and white room thought experiment. You can intellectually understand color, what wave lengths are, how are eyes and brains process light. But you still only know color when you experience it. Until then it is only an abstraction. You and I can stand in the same place and look at the same sunset, and we will have 2 unique experiences.

Quoting Rank Amateur

didn't have the exact same tactile feel on my keyboard that you did, we had a different and individual sense of our purpose. Inform, impress, selfish, educate, kill some time. We each felt something unique as we typed.

How do you know this is the case? If you're correct, in what sense is it significant? Do you think that if you told me you were typing or had typed something, I wouldn't understand what you said in any respect?

Reply to Sapientia @Ciceronianus the White @gloaming @Bitter Crank

The point is not one of sollipsism. The point is one of existentialism, a return to oneself. Obviously there are other people. There is the experience of an alterity of my own sort being; another person. The point is that since I cannot completely express myself to another person and that perhaps 90% of myself will never be communicated to anyone, I am in a very real sense alone.

But anyway. I think it is this very fact that binds people together. I have distinguished between an existential identity and an existentiell identity, borrowing terms and conceptions of Heidegger but creating them as well. The existential identity is that which precedes language and expression for an individual. It is the authenticity and truth of a personal existence; this alone-ness. There is only one existential identity for a person... It is their own meaning. It is their own truth.
Furthermore, people have other identities; a multiplicity of identity. These are the existentiell identities, and they are formed by communication. That is... Within language, which is a connection, there is obviously a connection of something with something else. Communication between two people is the connection of two existential identities, which are at base incapable of being made interchangeable. It is precisely this inability to be made interchangeable that creates a new identity contingent upon that discourse.
I have created this in terms of Lacanian psychoanalysis.
When you talk to another person, you are no longer answering your own questions or 'thinking' to yourself, and therefore the configuration is different: the other person assumes the position of what would be the Other, with an uppercase o, which would be the reflection of a person's ego primordially but in my conception would be a reflection of the existential identity. But the position of the Other is, only in relation to the existential identity, the assuming of the other. An existentiell identity is who you are in relation to another delivering and configuring your thoughts but not merely your thoughts, your meanings. Your meanings are changed, contingent on the Other and therefore an exclusive identity is formed. In authentic discourse the goal of communication is interchangeability of consciousness... This is an adaptation of the Socratic dialogue. This interchangeability is only possible if a new, exclusive identity is formed to be that which is within the confines of that relationality.
Thus we are not alone in the sense that we have a multiplicity of identity, and the identity that is not alone is that which is based on Others, our Being-with of Heidegger.

I have had to shorten this down dramatically so I am sorry if it does not make complete sense.

The purpose of this is psychoanalysis. In psychoanalysis the analyst must be careful to not assume the position of the Other, but remain in the configuration of the other, not projecting his or her meanings into the free associative atmosphere. The point is to deliver one's thoughts to themselves in psychoanalysis, not an existentiell identity.

Existentiell is understanding life by living. The existential is more ontological in the sense that it is not a product of the living of life but rather is a priority of being, what experience IS as opposed to what it is as experienced temporally, exclusively.

Quoting Ciceronianus the White

How do you know this is the case?

because i can see no possible way they could be identical. Could you? All the variables of my particular keyboard, the methods or way I type, the temperature in the room, how I process the sensations from my fingers, etc etc. My level of certainty is very very high these were not identical events.

Quoting Ciceronianus the White

If you're correct, in what sense is it significant

That is the million dollar question. Did you feel positive quality while you typed? Where you in the moment ? What did you get out of the experience? Are you better for the experience, am I ?

Quoting Ciceronianus the White

Do you think that if you told me you were typing or had typed something, I wouldn't understand what you said in any respect?

I think any explanation I gave you of the experience is different than the experience. It is not the experience, it is an abstraction. That is kind of the point. True experience only lives in the knife edge of time between past and future. Everything else is an abstraction, including my attempt of a description of it.

Reply to gloaming I address the question within this existentiell identity. The aloneness is in the existential identity.

Reply to Blue Lux Sorry, but I zoned out when you started rambling in that large block of text written in that awful, barely comprehensible, continental style.

Reply to Rank Amateur Reply to Blue Lux
My personal belief is that we ascribe far too much significance to the supposed uniqueness of our experience. We're all human beings, with the same (for the most part) physical and mental characteristics, sharing the same world. We encounter and interact with the world as human beings have to do, being the kinds of creatures we are. Whether the fact that we are individuals will make any difference will depend on the circumstances, and in many cases if not most it will make no difference. We don't have to be the same person to understand one another.

If we stick our hands into a fire, there is every reason to believe that we will feel pain when we do so. There is no good reason to believe that Mr. X will not feel pain in that case, nor is there any good reason to believe that in most cases he will feel a pain that is significantly different from the pain felt by Ms. Y. That's because human beings are usually burned by fire, and it hurts when that happens.

If we say that nevertheless, X's and Y's experiences are unique, it strikes me we say very little of any importance, except in very limited circumstances where, e.g. X is incapable of feeling pain for unusual reasons. I think it's unreasonable to extrapolate general propositions from unusual circumstances. I think we're better advised to treat exceptional circumstances as exceptional.

So we can reasonably infer that in almost all cases a human being will experience pain if he/she is burned. And I think we can reasonably infer that if person X tells person Y that person X's hand got into fire somehow and was burned, it will be quite clear to person Y what that means, regardless of the fact that person Y isn't person X.

Reply to Ciceronianus the White

I don't think it is possible to communicate in words in anyway the experience or sticking your hand in a fire. And while no issue that relative words like pain or hot would apply to all. IMO they would be woefully short of expressing the real experience. And while in some very general way two people sticking their hands in a fire would have similar experiences, I hold to proposition each experience would be unique to the individual.

This is not an insignificant difference. This awareness of the experience as removed from the abstraction of descriptions of experience.

Reply to Sapientia Unfortunately that is not my problem.

Is there something you did not understand?

Reply to Sapientia Clearly you have not read Heidegger if you think that is awful and incomprehensible, much less Lacan.

Reply to Sapientia I could criticize myself according to Nietzsche's Truth and Lie in a Nonmoral Sense as well... But abstraction is the atmosphere.

Reply to Sapientia You criticize it in terms of it being continental?

I also said at the end that I had to seriously simplify it...

But thanks anyway?

Quoting Benkei

You posit that we know only ourselves,
— Hanover

I didn't posit this though.

I posit my self-knowings at least twice a day into an old t-shirt.

Quoting Blue Lux

Unfortunately that is not my problem.

Whether or not it's your problem would depend on how you want your writing to be received.

Quoting Blue Lux

Is there something you did not understand?

Yes, the block of text I referred to.

Quoting Blue Lux

Clearly you have not read Heidegger if you think that is awful and incomprehensible, much less Lacan.

Yes, that's right, I haven't read either Heidegger or Lacan, and I don't care to do so.

Quoting Blue Lux

You criticize it in terms of it being continental?

Only in terms of it being of that awful writing style associated with continental philosophy.

Quoting Blue Lux

I also said at the end that I had to seriously simplify it...

Oh god, really? Well, keep at it, I say.

Quoting Blue Lux

But thanks anyway?

You're welcome?

Quoting Rank Amateur

I don't think it is possible to communicate in words in anyway the experience or sticking your hand in a fire. And while no issue that relative words like pain or hot would apply to all. IMO they would be woefully short of expressing the real experience. And while in some very general way two people sticking their hands in a fire would have similar experiences, I hold to proposition each experience would be unique to the individual.

Well, I was referring to the experience. I merely said it would be quite clear what someone means when they say their hand got stuck in a fire.

But if you're correct and people sticking their hands in a fire would have similar experiences only in some very general way, it would seem of little use to discuss, or describe, our experiences.

Reply to Sapientia So you pick and choose before hand what you want to even try to understand?
And perhaps 'simplify' was not the best word to describe 'that block of text.' I had to cram it and squash it down like a block of garbage in the animated movie Monster's Inc.
What I originally wrote, which was my reference, was much neater... I guess you are wanting some Proust on a philosophy forum?
And I was being facetious. No thank you. Your brusque burlishness is Brummagem

Quoting Blue Lux

So you pick and choose before hand what you want to even try to understand?

Yes. In the wise words of Old Gregg, I "make an assessment".

Quoting Blue Lux

I guess you are wanting some Proust on a philosophy forum?

I've never read Proust.

Quoting Blue Lux

And I was being facetious.

Oh really?

Quoting Blue Lux

No thank you.

You're welcome.

Quoting Blue Lux

Your brusque burlishness is Brummagem.

Your obscure oration is offal.

Reply to Sapientia And you also drink Bailey's from a shoe?

Reply to Ciceronianus the White Have you heard of the Buddhist monk who set himself on fire protesting in Vietnam?

Quoting Blue Lux

Have you heard of the Buddhist monk who set himself on fire protesting in Vietnam?

I haven't heard that the monk felt no pain. Nor have a heard that those who deprive themselves of food as a form of protest feel no hunger or pain.

Reply to Ciceronianus the White He made no sign of pain... There is a video of it.

I know. It's claimed that certain people are able to so master their pain and their bodies as to give no sign of pain, even in such circumstances. But, who knows? Since his experience is unique, he may have found pleasure in burning or perhaps was merely bored.

I am not you. I have my experiences, and you have yours. But rather than saying I am alone I think I'd prefer to say that I am unique. To fee alone is to feel the need for others. But an other is always other -- I need another to be with me to satisfy my need, rather than to be me. If we had the same experiences, thought the same things, had the same body in the same space and time then I would still need another, someone who is other than myself to satisfy my need for others.

In saying I am unique I am acknowledging my individuality, as well as the individuality of others. I am not so unique that others do not know what I am going through, or what it might feel like to be in certain circumstances. Sometimes others are able to confirm they've been there, done that, and know what it's like. We retain our uniqueness, in the sense that it was I or them at a certain time doing something, but we are not alone.

And I'd say we share our uniqueness through relating to one another -- an other who is always exterior to our interior, but is encountered through the face-to-face relation.

Quoting Blue Lux

Not incomprehensible by the one who experiences it

But others can still relate. Ciceronianus said we have a fairly good idea of what you're talking about.
How do you think humanity survived? Animals can know when their family members are in danger. Dogs can certainly know if you're fearful.

Reply to Blue Lux I think it depends on how one understands 'meaning'.

Reply to Blue Lux

Yes, you're alone, but not incurably. Language is public forms, that we use to express our experiences, and are universal while the experiences that they express are unique and individual, but our memory, and ego are themselves constructed and recursive representations of those unique experiences. So that, you represent your own experiences to yourself like you do anyone else's, and can be mistaken. So that, the loneliness one feels is just as much an alienation from one's self as it is others. It is the product of a drive to be different and unique, extra special, or valuable.

Want to not be alone? Stop listening to that voice in your head for a bit. Tell it to stfu, lose faith in it completely, and become entirely confused. Everything it says is meaningless, and worthless. Start listening to other people, but don't listen to immediate reactions. In one ear, and out the other. Then some time will pass, and the voice in your head will come to some amazing realizations, insights, and they'll be super amazing, and it will be so fucking awesome for having come up with those things... but then you're going to realize that this isn't true, that it has been letting you down, and you got those things by not listening to it, and absorbing, rather than rejecting others for awhile. You're going to realize how wise, strong, beautiful, insightful, and amazing those people are, and you're going to fall in love with them all, and then you won't be alone anymore.

Reply to All sight This is perhaps the most meaningful reply I have heard on this subject.
And I agree with you

Have you figured out whether or not you're alone yet? Or do you need to discuss it further with others? (Isn't this more of a psychological issue than a philosophical one?)

Quoting Blue Lux

o my own experiences after all?
Is language a game of mere abstraction?

You are not alone. There are so-called mirror neurons that allow us to feel what others feel. :smile:

Hearty, :cool:

Reply to Damir Ibrisimovic The only thing I know for sure is that I love whom I am with. Brandon.
I am in the process of trying to found knowledge on love.

Reply to Sapientia It is a game of philosophy.. can't I have a philosophical sense of humor?

I know I am not alone. But the only one who makes this real and not baseless is the love of my life.

Quoting Blue Lux

I am in the process of trying to found knowledge on love.

The love is growing old together. :)

Hearty, :cool:

Quoting Blue Lux

Thus.
I am alone.

Does believing that make you happy, or in some other way bring you fulfilment? If so, by all means follow that path, and you need no help from anybody here.

If, on the other hand, believing that worries you, makes you anxious, sad, or vaguely feeling that you're missing something, throw it away ('consign it to the flames', as Saint David would say). You can see from the responses that plenty of philosophical people get along just fine without believing such things, and are all the better off for it.

Reply to Blue Lux It's a question of degree. I think while peoples' experiences are ontologically distinct (different experiences) they share enough similarity so that triangulation is possible; but some people can experience things that are dissimilar enough to others' experiences to make them less communicable.

On the positive side, for example, not many have experienced, say, Earthrise, on the negative side, not many have experienced being nearly eaten by a shark - but even these experiences have some similarities to more common experiences to make them somewhat communicable (one can make a "patchwork" description that takes bits from things others have experienced more commonly).

So I think yes you can be "alone" in that sense, but it's quite rare; for most things, one's experience is fairly common and easily communicable. For example pop music attests to the commonality of most of the experiences surrounding love won, sustained and lost.

Reply to gurugeorge Love is the root of truth and communicability. Love is the superlative exchange.

Reply to Blue Lux Just a note to all, that when someone asks a question such as this, we ought all ignore it. No replies would be so much more interesting than any.

Reply to Banno LOL!

Quoting Blue Lux

Love is the superlative exchange.

Yes, to some extent love is (or has a lot to do with) the feeling of being understood - but as people occasionally find, even that can be mistaken! :)

Quoting Blue Lux

Regardless of whether or not there is a soul or whatever one wants to call the ego or the I, it seems that within our own sphere, our 'hyletic nucleus,' we are absolutely incapable of expressing to anyone else, specifically and superlatively, meaning.

What is "our own sphere"? What is an "hyletic nucleus"?

What does it mean for one person to "express meaning" to another person?

What's the difference between "expressing meaning" and "expressing meaning specifically and superlatively"?

What do you mean here by the term "meaning"?

What's the difference between "expressing a meaning" and, for instance, expressing a thought, an opinion, a fact, a state of affairs, a perception, a feeling, an intention...

How shall we compare the act of "expressing" with the act of "describing"? Are they the same act, or how different? What about "characterizing", "reporting", "relating"...

It seems to me that each of us is perfectly capable of expressing, reporting, describing... any feature of his own experience to others, for instance in the medium of a common language on the basis of common experience.

If you can grasp it yourself, then you can relate what you've grasped to others. The fact that you've grasped it doesn't mean that you've understood it completely and correctly. The fact that you've described it to another doesn't mean you've communicated clearly and effectively. The fact that you've described it adequately according to your own lights doesn't mean everyone will understand your intention in so speaking. But ordinarily our communicative acts satisfy their purpose, and when we come up short there's always in principle room for revision.


Quoting Blue Lux

Is this the case?

I don't think so. To me it seems like a dubious claim motivated by inflated and ambiguous conceptions of "meaning" and of the individual's understanding of his own experience.

Quoting Blue Lux

Am I thus alone to my own experiences after all?

I see no reason to speak that way.

Quoting Blue Lux

Is language a game of mere abstraction? Is knowledge too this?

I see no reason to speak this way either. And I'm not sure how these questions are related to your initial comments.

Reply to Blue Lux Quoting Blue Lux

Am I thus alone to my own experiences after all?

According to Bakhtin, even our intimate feelings and experiences are determined by outer-social
organization: "The experiential, expressible element and its outward objectification are created, as we know, out of one and the same material. After all, there is no such thing as experience outside of embodiment in signs. Consequently, the very notion of a fundamental, qualitative difference between the inner and the outer element is invalid ... Furthermore, the location of the organizing and formative center is not within (i.e., not in the material of inner signs) but outside, It is not experience that organizes expression, but the other way around - expression organizing experience. The expression is what first gives experience its form and specificity of direction."

Neither ineffability nor indemonstrability makes a fact any less so, just because of that fact; meaning, a lack or absence of evidence isn’t equivalent with falsehood, & the question of other minds/solipsism isn’t different.

Reply to Blue Lux Quoting Blue Lux

it seems that within our own sphere, our 'hyletic nucleus,' we are absolutely incapable of expressing to anyone else, specifically and superlatively, meaning.
Is this the case?
Am I thus alone to my own experiences after all?

If we consider the full continuum of the space opened by loneliness, it is possible to find in the one of its borders death – related existential experiences. Blanchot argued that relation to death creates one of the foundations of our human conditions: “Death, in the human perspective, is not a given, it must be achieved. It is a task, one, which we take up actively, one which becomes the source of our activity and mastery. Man dies, that is nothing. But man is, starting from his death. He ties himself tight to his death with a tie of which he is the judge. He makes his death; he makes himself mortal and in this way gives himself the power of a maker and gives to what he makes its meaning and its truth. The decision to be without being is possibility itself: the possibility of death.” (”The Space of Literature”) So, after all, we are not alone, even it looks like we are isolated in our closed sphere. Loneliness is a way of approaching the impersonal and atemporal.

Reply to blazed2today Can you rephrase this for me? I have no idea what this means.

Reply to gurugeorge It depends on your definition of "being alone" For example some say in a marriage, The two become one. are they alone then because they are one? Or do they still have one another with them? Einstein said Mankind is under the optical DELUSION that they are separate from the universe and from each other. Are we alone is we are all ONE WITH OUR UNIVERSE ?
If we are a SINGULARITY, does that mean we are alone?
if I am alone with my thoughts, what am I with? I am not alone if I am with my thoughts and you are in my thoughts then am I not with you in some way?