Because we don’t know what we are. This is why K taught that self-knowledge is essential.
Is every thing that arises in consciousness, every sensation perception thought feeling memory infused with (enveloped in) a sense of self? It doesn’t feel that way to me. It feels like some things are self-free. But I wonder if that’s true, are even the most self-free-feeling things framed by self?
An Explanation could be defined as the story, the model laid out in a narrative form based on cause and effect. (eg. Ursa major keeps following the North star around because Ubulluiu the first hunter and his mother are forever trapped in the sky hunting the first rabbit)
Logic and reasoning would be a method of testing for any nonsense within the Explanation.
Facts about reality (aka evidence) might also be used to test whether the Explanation was reliable (aka True/correct)
Of course, the use of logic and facts might not always be possible/appropriate; and also we might not actually be interested in the truth (aka facts that comport to reality)
For example, you could explain what Whitehead means by Beauty, and your explanation could be full of nonsense. Logic is not necessarily part of any explanation.
And I think you should give a short (short) explanation of Whiteheadian Beauty, it seems to be saying that the self is more important than truth.
I can understand that self might be a foundation for what interests me, but I’d like to know how Whitehead manages to unite with the divine from this perspective.
Makes sense, but never underestimate the (potential) value of non-sense! 
Beauty for Whitehead is a fundamental aspect of reality. It’s not the icing on the cake, but the cake itself. It has inherent value in the scheme of things. It manifests as harmony, order, and aesthetic enjoyment, and emerges from the creative interplay between order and novelty, past and present, familiar and unfamiliar. It is deeply relational and processual. And has elements of mystery.
Hello 07
How can we act differently than “what we are”?
Laughs and chuckles? I’m guessing coz nobody will tell me when I ask.
Thanks, I can’t use what you’ve written, but I did get the impression that maybe the idea that “what I feel is fundamental” might be a concept you share with Whitehead?
It would be like explaining why a joke is funny.
Maybe. Feeling is for Whitehead inherent to all entities, even on the subatomic level!
I am not sure if we even want to know ourselves. We want to escape from ourselves into some kind of entertainment .
1 Like
Yes, that’s our conditioning. Unless we’re acutely aware of how it determines our reactive response, explaining and rationalizing, we can’t help but carry on escaping, denying, and distorting in accordance with the beliefs and conclusions we are unaware of identifying with.
1 Like
Is the self present, consciously or unconsciously, foreground or background, actively or passively, in everything we think and do?
Depends on what you mean by “self”, but it is the conditioned brain that projects the experience that we usually experience.
More or less? If we’re not ourself, who are we? K proposes that we aren’t actually the ‘self’ we think ourselves to be, but “nothing”. And that the conflict, fear, division we all seem to have to some degree, results from this ‘mistaken identity’.
His view seemed to be that the only real ‘change’ that could come about was through an awareness of the situation that avoided any motive or desire which are characteristics of this ‘me and mine’ false identity.
Animals have a deeply conditioned brain, but they do not identify with a self, at least nowhere near the degree to which we homo sapiens do.
Seems that way to me too. We are in our totality of thoughts/feelings/actions motivated hugely by our sense of being a conditioned self. Largely automatons (though not autonomous!), code made flesh.
An organism driven by conscious/unconscious instincts and habits? Embodied consciousness? Nothing? Everything? God?
As Bohm said, we took a wrong turn because “we could”… not an option for the animal brain in its state of development.
Interesting, it’s like science, which goes pretty much everywhere it can go, oblivious at times to the consequences. It’s hardly surprising, since science IS the collective human mind, right? We won’t leave any stone unturned, except for the stone of wisdom.
1 Like
What does it mean to feel safe? Is it different from being safe? To be free from self, do I need to feel safe? To be safe? Is safety a mirage?
Can the ‘self’ the ‘me and mine’ ever feel safe? Especially if its not actually real as K is suggesting (rightly or wrongly). The body has its own intelligence and needs a degree of ‘safety’ to survive. The self’s desire for ‘safety’ causes a clinging to belief, erecting an imaginary psychological wall around itself and choking the brain’s potential to be free from the past and move with the flow of life in the moment….ie. to be ‘empty’.
Safety for the self-image is the stultification of the brain?
Isn’t it because the human brain is capable of imagining things that no other earthly brain can conceive of?
Animal’s conditioning is practical…it serves their need to survive as physical beings. Our conditioning, however, is incoherent because besides our practical conditioning, our psychological conditioning serves our neurotic need to survive as imaginary beings.