Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id FAA04418 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Wed, 22 Mar 2000 05:37:33 GMT Message-Id: <200003220536.AAA01772@mail3.lig.bellsouth.net> From: "Joe E. Dees" <joedees@bellsouth.net> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2000 23:39:42 -0600 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Self-Acquisition X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12b) Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
As i mentioned before, the idea of a self is taught to us by our
primary caregivers, whom we distinguish from the surrounding
environment on the basis of their meaning-laden, purposeful and
responsive behavior. We then internalize this distinction and
ourselves become individual self-conceivers among others. Two
points need to be made concerning this, however:
1) Our self-concepts are memetic constructs, and as such are
not coextensive with our selves. This is not to say that the referent
for one's self-concept, i.e. the self, is nonexistent; it is just to say
that one's self-concept is different from, although dependent upon,
one's referent self. Without self-awareness, we cannot possess
self-concepts, for the recursion necessary for self-awareness is
also required for a self-concept. There also cannot be self-
awareness without a self of which to be aware, and there cannot be
a self without awareness of its self; self and self-awareness, while
distinguishable, are inseparable. Our self-awarenesses are of
necessity forever partial and incomplete, and therefore our selves
are never transparent to us, and thus cannot coincide with our self-
concepts. The self is always greater than its self-awareness, which
itself is greater than the self-concept with which self is represented,
just as the entirety of an object of perception can never be
exhausted by any perception of it, and no perception can be
exhausted by any description of it.
2) If conscious self-awareness distinguishable from conscious
other-awareness were not already present, then such a distinction
as that made between meaning-laden, purposeful and responsive
behavior of caregivers and the lack of same in the rest of the
environment could not be internalized as a self-concept, for there
would be no interior distinguishable from the exterior, from which
the distinction is transmitted, to receive it. It does not matter how
responsive and purposeful we are before a flatworm, or for how
long; the flatworm will never "get" it. The distinct external stimuli
are necessary, but not sufficient; the internal capacity for the
internalization of these distinctions as the basis for a self-concept
must also be present. This emerging capacity is itself the genesis
of the self-aware self, which assimilates the self-concept as a part
of its self. The self, and the self's awareness of its own existence,
therefore logically precede the self-concept, as conditions of its
internalization. The recursive container is required for the
contained recursion to be contained, and just as the container
cannot be reduced to the contained, neither can the self be
reduced to its awareness of itself, and this self-awareness itself
cannot be reduced to the self-concept.
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