The desire to learn vs. the desire for recognition

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Deckard
 
Reply Thu 11 Mar, 2010 06:07 pm
@Twirlip,
Confidence is definitely a factor. Surprisingly important. Confidence is connected with courage. Confidence, recognition and courage seem to stem from the same thymotic source.

thymos (philosophy) (in Platonic philosophy) that area of the soul where feelings of pride, shame etc are located

Plato's philosopher kings were picked from the defender class. The defender class in the microcosm of the individual represented courage, desire for recognition, sense of shame, sense of pride etc. The philosopher kings with their desire to learn had also the desire for recognition.

The desire for learning that doesn't include a desire for recognition is too timid reach its goal. I think that's an important lesson to learn and I learned it on this post. Thanks for the help (I recognize all participants). I will be embracing my desire for recognition from now on.
 
HexHammer
 
Reply Sun 21 Mar, 2010 09:14 am
@Deckard,
Deckard;133028 wrote:
I don't always have the discipline to read through all the posts on a thread because the original post inspires some response that I want to voice right away. I think this is my desire for recognition surfacing and trumping my desire to...well um...it is what it is...my desire learn. Now when a thread is extremely long then this is excusable but with shorter threads I don't think it is. So I'm calling myself out on this.

Anyway, this does bring up an interesting conflict...the conflict between the desire to learn and the desire for recognition. I think that the desire to learn is a desire of the higher order and the desire for recognition is of a relatively lower order. I think this conflict arises quite often especially in an environment such as a forum and also the environment of the classroom and edifying conversations in general.
Think it's a selfpersevasion instinct when being "lazy", if you spend all day reading through post of various quality, you'll most likely end up annoyed wasting time, and stressed because there are an endless stream of fresh posts by the hour, every hour!

Therefore in order to keep our sanity, we unfortunaly can't endluge ourselfs 100% in an discussion, only partially.
 
Lost1 phil
 
Reply Sun 21 Mar, 2010 10:25 am
@Twirlip,
Twirlip;138648 wrote:
Arrogance is at least a recognition of the divine, albeit in an imperfect, narcissistic form, so consumed by its own reflection that it fails either to reflect or transmit, and, blinded by what it supposes to be its own light, ironically cannot even recognise itself. (I speak as one who knows!)


"Arrogance is at least a recognition of the divine..." How so?

I've read and re-read that and I can't seem to wrap my mind around what it can possibly mean. Perhaps it is because I've allowed myself the guilty pleasurer of savoring my own arrogance, without a single thought that it is somehow connected to a diety.

Or perhaps that is not what you mean by the divine?

I'm even more lost with the rest: "...albeit in an imperfect, narcissistic form, so consumed by its own reflection that it fails either to reflect or transmit, and, blinded by what it supposes to be its own light, ironically cannot even recognise itself."

Would I have to have been there done that to possible understand?

(aptly named)
Lost1
 
TamingEternity
 
Reply Wed 24 Mar, 2010 01:07 am
@kennethamy,
I think that as human beings, creatures based very much on primitive thoughts and ideas, we're often curious. I don't think we have as deep a desire to learn as we do to recognize. We're driven to label things. Look at the beginning of language; We created a label for everything we could find. Fire for the bright burning stuff, water for the cold wet stuff, we weren't initially driven to learn about these things, we were just driven to name them, to title them, to subject them to a category and go about our lives, however I consider this all very primal, and I still don't think that human beings have made primal thought obsolete quite yet, despite how much we think we have. We've adapted ourselves to have a primal response to most situations, such as fight or flight, automatic protection of food or our mates, etc. An emotional response is a primal response, and thus, we're still very primal creatures operating on the gut rather then the intuitive part of the brain. Thus, being primal still, I feel that the desire we have to label and categorize and recognize is much stronger than any desire we have to learn.
 
Deckard
 
Reply Wed 24 Mar, 2010 02:32 am
@TamingEternity,
TamingEternity;142852 wrote:
I think that as human beings, creatures based very much on primitive thoughts and ideas, we're often curious. I don't think we have as deep a desire to learn as we do to recognize. We're driven to label things. Look at the beginning of language; We created a label for everything we could find. Fire for the bright burning stuff, water for the cold wet stuff, we weren't initially driven to learn about these things, we were just driven to name them, to title them, to subject them to a category and go about our lives, however I consider this all very primal, and I still don't think that human beings have made primal thought obsolete quite yet, despite how much we think we have. We've adapted ourselves to have a primal response to most situations, such as fight or flight, automatic protection of food or our mates, etc. An emotional response is a primal response, and thus, we're still very primal creatures operating on the gut rather then the intuitive part of the brain. Thus, being primal still, I feel that the desire we have to label and categorize and recognize is much stronger than any desire we have to learn.

There is something tricky about the word "recognize". One can recognize and one can be recognized. The original point of this thread was to question whether learning and being recognized as learned is the stronger motive. Which could be restated as recognizing vs. being recognized. You strike upon an interesting idea: recognition as being something different from learning...recognition as a labeling and defining vs. learning as understanding what is really there. And perhaps that is really where the answer should be sought. Is being recognized something different from being understood. I think it is.

There is a space between the recognizer and the recognizer but there is less space between the understander and the understood.

A question tangential to the OP: Is it perhaps the case that recognition is more attractive than understanding because it affords all involved some degree of privacy?
 
TamingEternity
 
Reply Wed 24 Mar, 2010 08:26 am
@Deckard,
Deckard;142903 wrote:
There is something tricky about the word "recognize". One can recognize and one can be recognized. The original point of this thread was to question whether learning and being recognized as learned is the stronger motive. Which could be restated as recognizing vs. being recognized. You strike upon an interesting idea: recognition as being something different from learning...recognition as a labeling and defining vs. learning as understanding what is really there. And perhaps that is really where the answer should be sought. Is being recognized something different from being understood. I think it is.

There is a space between the recognizer and the recognizer but there is less space between the understander and the understood.

A question tangential to the OP: Is it perhaps the case that recognition is more attractive than understanding because it affords all involved some degree of privacy?


Yes, understanding and recognizing are two different things, but then again, to understand is to have learned. A primitive man touches fire, and gets hurt. He has learned that fire burns, and therefore understands an aspect of fire. He recognizes it as fire, and learns that it is hot; two different aspects entirely.
 
 

 
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