[ExI] Pride and/or thinking superior

Emlyn emlynoregan at gmail.com
Wed Jul 9 01:34:52 UTC 2008


2008/7/9 Anna Taylor <femmechakra at yahoo.ca>:
> --- On Tue, 7/8/08, Emlyn <emlynoregan at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> 2008/6/27 Anna Taylor <femmechakra at yahoo.ca> wrote:
>
>> > You don't exist unless someone else acknowledges
>> your presence. (Can you hear the tree drop when no one is
>> listening?).
>
>> No no, the universe fails to exist unless I acknowledge it,
>> clearly.
>
> It was a metaphor Emlyn.  The universe exists whether you are sleeping or if you are in a coma.

I was just joking around. But yes, that was my point, with an added
counterpoint that solipsism is the equally valid opposite to what you
have presented.

>
>> Just pray that I continue paying attention.
>
> I was referring to the fact that you exist only because others do.  You can be alone in the forest and hear a tree fall but it says nothing unless you have someone to share that information with, it's part of being conscious. If someone is proud it is always due to the credit of another.  Thinking superior is believing yourself better than others.

Well no, I don't agree with that. I think you could be lost on a
desert island (or be transformed into an M-Brain hanging darkly in
space), and still exist. If you take a more solipsistic viewpoint, the
rest of the universe fails to exist for you, rather than the other way
around.

Also, I think you could conceive of a totally internal definition of
pride. You can be proud that you have bettered yourself. I would go so
far as to suggest that it is a great virtue to compete against earlier
versions of yourself in whatever you do (that is, to improve in an
objective sense), and the emotion of pride can be part of the fuel for
that fire.

The need for acknowledgement from others is, to my mind, one of the
great binding forces that holds humanity back from what it could be.
The dreadful hierarchical monkey tribe social structures that persist
from antiquity are firmly bedded on the need for approval from other
people. If I had to pick a simple program for finding inner peace, it
would be to free oneself from exactly that impulse. But I am not the
first person to say that, real or mythical.

That said, we are social creatures, and Humans v1.0 can be severely
diminished creatures without social contact. But it depends on the
individual. Some of the greatest minds are indeed islands.

>
> I had posted:
>>>Wiki says:
>>>Pride is an emotion which refers to a strong sense of self-respect, a >>refusal to be humiliated as well as joy in the accomplishments of >>oneself or a person, group, nation or object that one identifies with, >>or "to think of one's self as being better than anyone else"
>
> What I couldn't figure out is how does "to think of one's self as being better than anyone else" fall under the category of pride. That's what I was thinking when I posted.
>

Pride can have positive and negative connotations. It's good in
measured doses. Without it, one can drift, unable to find enough
meaning to focus. Too much, and you wander into the territory of
arrogance, or jingoism, and your thoughts become resistant to change.
In fact, I'd say pride is often part of the toolbox of our more
prevalent memetic infections. It's humorous really that Christianity
warns us against it :-)

And, of course, why you are proud is as important as how proud you
are; that can reveal it as sustenance or poison. imo.

>> Emlyn
>> (sorry, what?)
>
> Does this explain it better?

Again, just joking around.

>
> Just curious
> Anna

-- 
Emlyn

http://emlynoregan.com



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