Sex as Synthesis

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Reply Wed 3 Mar, 2010 12:07 pm
1. I have been postulating about this for a few days now and I have decided to elaborate on what I mean when dealing with sex as a synthesis. Allow me to illustrate from a sensuous perspective:
[INDENT]Whenever one engages in sex there is a penetration which occurs that is specific in only one individual, while the other receives the penetration. This penetration results in the potential creation of a life (pregnancy). For all intents and purposes of this elaboration, we must make pregnancy an assumption i.e., it does occur, in order to illustrate in more abstract terms the synthesis that takes place. The penetration from the male incurs within the female, and thus gives rise to the synthesis inside the female, where a combination of both the male and female occurs. However, this combination does not synthesize in the female and male, but apart from the two. These two remain the same, but apart from them there is a new creation which occured from the two. We can deduce this all from a sensuous intuition.
[/INDENT]2. But if I were to abstract from the process my senses and merely look at the act itself, we see penetration. We cannot however, say that all penetration is a form of sex; no, this penetration is a distinct form which takes place only in sex, namely, the penetration that creates a new idea. The idea is the simple 'I' which can only be seen within ourselves without a sensuous intuition to rely on. However, since we cannot deduce from our intuition the simple 'I', we can only assume that it exists apart from what is sensuous.

3. Let us now return to the penetration; penetration itself, from a sensual and intelligble perspective, is meant to wound or harm the other. We see that in a body that is penetrated, there is a harm to the body itself, or if we extract from what is sensuous, the being which is harmed. However, when we speak of sex (at least from the persepctive of consent which needs to be assumed in this argument) we do see a penetration, but this penetration is of no harm to the one penetrated. Instead there is a negation of the two. The non-being (which is represented as the male) uses the phallus, or his negation, to negate the being (which is represented as the woman). This non-being is the antithesis of the being, which is the being that is not. The being, on the other hand, is the thesis that is the affirmation of the non-being, or the non non-being.

4. The non-being is lacking in itself, that is, it is not complete because it is merely a negation of being. It is never complete until it affirms itself within being. Thus we see this non-being as running from itself towards being. But in order to do this, that is affirm it's non-being as being, it must negate itself; in a word, it must negate the negation. This can only be achieved through a process in which it enters into being (penetration); thus we see its negation by affirming itself in being, and thus becoming being.

5. But we still have yet to elaborate on the conciousness of the entities or the simple 'I's'. The non-being is only concious of itself in so far as it knows it to be concious of its negation. In a word, in order for it to be fully concious it must move away from itself and negate its very non-being. It only becomes fully concious of itself when it penetrates its affirmation, or being. The conciousness of being, on the other hand, is fully concious only through the recognition of the non-being; it is only by this that the two realize themselves apart from themselves.

6. When the penetration occurs (that is the negation of non-being) we see that being itself is never harmed, but merely affirmed in itself. In essence, it comes to know itself apart from itself; in this we see that its conciousness is conciousness apart from itself. It is likewise with non-being; non-being can only become fully concious of itself through its affirmation (which is the negation of itself) and thus comes to know itself apart from itself. Just like being, it becomes concious of itself apart from itself by its negation into being.

7. But there is something extraordinary about all of this, nay, something breathtaking about the two; although the two are concious apart from themselves, their conciousness is not realized in themselves, but must be apart from themselves. In this way we see that we have affirmed being, but apart from its original counterparts being and non-being. Through this we see a synthesis in the penetration which does not destroy non-being or being, but creates themselves apart from themselves, and in so doing, they come to realize their conciousness apart from themselves.

8. However, when we deal with the new being, which is an affirmation of non-being and being, we see that it is not concious of itself, but its conciousness is only seen in its parts, that is, its non-being and being whose conciousness is apart from themselves (but at the same time realized in themselves). Because of this, this new being, through the process of a synthesis of the penetration of non-being into being, is never concious of itself and can never do so except through its non-being. Thus we see a continuous circle in which this new being needs affirm itself through its negation, whereby it becomes concious of itself apart from itself.

Finis
 
ughaibu
 
Reply Wed 3 Mar, 2010 12:11 pm
@Ding an Sich,
Ding_an_Sich;135433 wrote:
6. When the penetration occurs (that is the negation of non-being) we see that being itself is never harmed
You're joking! If the host gets infected, her resources are consumed by a parasite for nine months.
 
Ding an Sich
 
Reply Wed 3 Mar, 2010 12:22 pm
@ughaibu,
Don't look at from a sensuous perspective. The being itself is never harmed in that it remains separate from the other; in a word, it itself is not obliterated. At least from a perspective of conciousness. And yet its funny to note that they are also alike but not entirely.

I understand that there is physical or sensuous harm (pain or displeasure) and I am not asking you to look for that but merely abstract from it. I guess I shouldve made that assumption as well.
 
Reconstructo
 
Reply Wed 3 Mar, 2010 03:22 pm
@Ding an Sich,
I think you are on to something. In fact, I have been thinking this sort of thing, even that pure negativity is a sort of spiritual phallus that drives progress in every way. in sexual terms it would add the power-element to sex, the numinous master. blues guys was sing about being a Man as if in a spiritual sense, honor, hegelian desire /demand for recognition.
 
Krumple
 
Reply Wed 3 Mar, 2010 03:41 pm
@Reconstructo,
Reconstructo;135562 wrote:
blues guys was sing about being a Man as if in a spiritual sense, honor, hegelian desire /demand for recognition.


Recon, put down the bottle man.
 
Ding an Sich
 
Reply Thu 4 Mar, 2010 10:59 am
@Reconstructo,
Reconstructo;135562 wrote:
I think you are on to something. In fact, I have been thinking this sort of thing, even that pure negativity is a sort of spiritual phallus that drives progress in every way. in sexual terms it would add the power-element to sex, the numinous master. blues guys was sing about being a Man as if in a spiritual sense, honor, hegelian desire /demand for recognition.


This is what I get for reading Hegel. I start thinking about everything in a dialectical manner. This series of thoughts came to me while I was at work while I was thinking about sex and philosophy. I thought to myself, "What happens if I abstract from a sensuous intuition?"; the result was this tidbit.
 
Arjuna
 
Reply Thu 4 Mar, 2010 11:46 am
@Ding an Sich,
Ding_an_Sich;135433 wrote:


5. But we still have yet to elaborate on the conciousness of the entities or the simple 'I's'. The non-being is only concious of itself in so far as it knows it to be concious of its negation. In a word, in order for it to be fully concious it must move away from itself and negate its very non-being. It only becomes fully concious of itself when it penetrates its affirmation, or being. The conciousness of being, on the other hand, is fully concious only through the recognition of the non-being; it is only by this that the two realize themselves apart from themselves.

Thanks! Elaborations:

Consciousness of being through recognition of the non-being... suggests what happens when you put a frame on a painting. By creating a boundary, the subject comes into focus because we now have something to relate it to.

Another way to think of it is that consciousness of being comes from recognition of change. Change involves the idea of ending. Being is headed toward non-being. Every moment is an arc. Resistance to the inevitable end results in consciousness of self.

I'd say it's just another way to say the same thing you did: but as opposed to starting with being, non-being and the production of the child which is of both of the them and is neither, we have being turning back on itself, resisting its own nature: to change.

The split between being and non-being only exists in the domain of the intellect. The intellect is only one aspect of being and consciousness. So maybe you have to look at what exists in all aspects of being to examine its nature.
 
Ding an Sich
 
Reply Thu 4 Mar, 2010 11:49 am
@Arjuna,
Arjuna;135986 wrote:

The split between being and non-being only exists in the domain of the intellect. The intellect is only one aspect of being and consciousness. So maybe you have to look at what exists in all aspects of being to examine its nature.


This is something that I will indeed do, but it will come in the form of an investigation, which I am unable to provide on account of my lack of progress.
 
Zetherin
 
Reply Thu 4 Mar, 2010 11:51 am
@Ding an Sich,
Ding_an_Sich;135974 wrote:
This is what I get for reading Hegel. I start thinking about everything in a dialectical manner. This series of thoughts came to me while I was at work while I was thinking about sex and philosophy. I thought to myself, "What happens if I abstract from a sensuous intuition?"; the result was this tidbit.


Wow, it seems everyone who has read Hegel really is influenced to write in this sort of holistic, profound, and yet vague way.

I'd like to read a bit of his work and see if it influences me the same. Which of Hegel's works would you recommend?
 
Twirlip
 
Reply Thu 4 Mar, 2010 11:56 am
@Ding an Sich,
I will have to read this OP many times; it looks very, er, stimulating! Just a couple of remarks to begin with. It was when I first experienced sexual desire (at the very late age of 20) that Hegel became momentarily significant to me (although I failed to follow up on his significance). I wonder if all dialogue involves penetration, which may be either erotic or hostile. We know what sex our bodies are, but what of the gender(s) of our minds?
 
Ding an Sich
 
Reply Thu 4 Mar, 2010 11:59 am
@Zetherin,
Zetherin;135989 wrote:
Wow, it seems everyone who has read Hegel really is influenced to write in this sort of holistic, profound, and yet vague way.

I'd like to read a bit of his work and see if it influences me the same. Which of Hegel's works would you recommend?


I would recommend reading his magnum opus, The Phenomenology of Spirit.

I will tell you one thing though: once I have read Hegel I will refute him in one way or another. Right now he's like an infection which penetrates my volkskorper (which is, at it's base, Kantian). It will come to the point were I must expel him from my volkskorper. But right now Hegel is simply an illusory, and at times groundless, distortion of my reason.
 
Arjuna
 
Reply Thu 4 Mar, 2010 12:11 pm
@Ding an Sich,
Ding_an_Sich;135994 wrote:
I would recommend reading his magnum opus, The Phenomenology of Spirit.

I will tell you one thing though: once I have read Hegel I will refute him in one way or another. Right now he's like an infection which penetrates my volkskorper (which is, at it's base, Kantian). It will come to the point were I must expel him from my volkskorper. But right now Hegel is simply an illusory, and at times groundless, distortion of my reason.
I've got to post the picture of what my dog did to my copy. It looks like a Phenomenology explosion.

Hegel introduced each of his books, and I have a collection of the introductions.

Oh, and when it comes to the development of "I": the opposite of me is "not me." Not me isn't the same as non-being, but it's similar in terms of being a frame.
 
Ding an Sich
 
Reply Thu 4 Mar, 2010 01:46 pm
@Arjuna,
Arjuna;136000 wrote:
I've got to post the picture of what my dog did to my copy. It looks like a Phenomenology explosion.

Hegel introduced each of his books, and I have a collection of the introductions.

Oh, and when it comes to the development of "I": the opposite of me is "not me." Not me isn't the same as non-being, but it's similar in terms of being a frame.


Is the opposite of 'I' not-'I' and would this be equivalent to being and non-being? Hegel is still rather new to me as I just got done with reading Kant over the past year. I have a feeling it's gonna be a while before Hegel really sticks.
 
Arjuna
 
Reply Thu 4 Mar, 2010 04:25 pm
@Ding an Sich,
Ding_an_Sich;136028 wrote:
Is the opposite of 'I' not-'I' and would this be equivalent to being and non-being? Hegel is still rather new to me as I just got done with reading Kant over the past year. I have a feeling it's gonna be a while before Hegel really sticks.
I think Hegel starts out this way: imagine you get out of bed in the morning and find yourself standing in front of a mirror. You look in the mirror and see yourself.

So that's you in the mirror. In a way, though, this image in the mirror is like one of those old religious icons. You have sublimated yourself. Like a painting, the image is suspended. Then you suck the whole suspended sublime icon of yourself back into yourself and voila: you have a "me."

Or something like that.
 
Pyrrho
 
Reply Thu 4 Mar, 2010 05:04 pm
@Zetherin,
Zetherin;135989 wrote:
Wow, it seems everyone who has read Hegel really is influenced to write in this sort of holistic, profound, and yet vague way.

I'd like to read a bit of his work and see if it influences me the same. Which of Hegel's works would you recommend?


If it does have that effect, you should change your "Custom User Title" from "Demystifier" to "Mystifier".
 
Zetherin
 
Reply Thu 4 Mar, 2010 05:13 pm
@Pyrrho,
Pyrrho;136131 wrote:
If it does have that effect, you should change your "Custom User Title" from "Demystifier" to "Mystifier".


Well, perhaps philosophy should not be about clarification. Perhaps we should focus on elusivity, while being as profound with our words as possible. Words like "absolute" often help - we need that "ultimate" oomph! We should indeed construct our arguments with premises which have multiple and often vague interpretations. And, let us not forget, it's always wise to overuse metaphor.
 
Pyrrho
 
Reply Thu 4 Mar, 2010 05:42 pm
@Ding an Sich,
Ding_an_Sich;135433 wrote:
1. I have been postulating about this for a few days now and I have decided to elaborate on what I mean when dealing with sex as a synthesis. Allow me to illustrate from a sensuous perspective:
[INDENT]Whenever one engages in sex there is a penetration which occurs that is specific in only one individual, while the other receives the penetration. This penetration results in the potential creation of a life (pregnancy). For all intents and purposes of this elaboration, we must make pregnancy an assumption i.e., it does occur, in order to illustrate in more abstract terms the synthesis that takes place. The penetration from the male incurs within the female, and thus gives rise to the synthesis inside the female, where a combination of both the male and female occurs. However, this combination does not synthesize in the female and male, but apart from the two. These two remain the same, but apart from them there is a new creation which occured from the two. We can deduce this all from a sensuous intuition.
[/INDENT]2. But if I were to abstract from the process my senses and merely look at the act itself, we see penetration. We cannot however, say that all penetration is a form of sex; no, this penetration is a distinct form which takes place only in sex, namely, the penetration that creates a new idea. The idea is the simple 'I' which can only be seen within ourselves without a sensuous intuition to rely on. However, since we cannot deduce from our intuition the simple 'I', we can only assume that it exists apart from what is sensuous.

3. Let us now return to the penetration; penetration itself, from a sensual and intelligble perspective, is meant to wound or harm the other. We see that in a body that is penetrated, there is a harm to the body itself, or if we extract from what is sensuous, the being which is harmed. However, when we speak of sex (at least from the persepctive of consent which needs to be assumed in this argument) we do see a penetration, but this penetration is of no harm to the one penetrated. Instead there is a negation of the two. The non-being (which is represented as the male) uses the phallus, or his negation, to negate the being (which is represented as the woman). This non-being is the antithesis of the being, which is the being that is not. The being, on the other hand, is the thesis that is the affirmation of the non-being, or the non non-being.

4. The non-being is lacking in itself, that is, it is not complete because it is merely a negation of being. It is never complete until it affirms itself within being. Thus we see this non-being as running from itself towards being. But in order to do this, that is affirm it's non-being as being, it must negate itself; in a word, it must negate the negation. This can only be achieved through a process in which it enters into being (penetration); thus we see its negation by affirming itself in being, and thus becoming being.

5. But we still have yet to elaborate on the conciousness of the entities or the simple 'I's'. The non-being is only concious of itself in so far as it knows it to be concious of its negation. In a word, in order for it to be fully concious it must move away from itself and negate its very non-being. It only becomes fully concious of itself when it penetrates its affirmation, or being. The conciousness of being, on the other hand, is fully concious only through the recognition of the non-being; it is only by this that the two realize themselves apart from themselves.

6. When the penetration occurs (that is the negation of non-being) we see that being itself is never harmed, but merely affirmed in itself. In essence, it comes to know itself apart from itself; in this we see that its conciousness is conciousness apart from itself. It is likewise with non-being; non-being can only become fully concious of itself through its affirmation (which is the negation of itself) and thus comes to know itself apart from itself. Just like being, it becomes concious of itself apart from itself by its negation into being.

7. But there is something extraordinary about all of this, nay, something breathtaking about the two; although the two are concious apart from themselves, their conciousness is not realized in themselves, but must be apart from themselves. In this way we see that we have affirmed being, but apart from its original counterparts being and non-being. Through this we see a synthesis in the penetration which does not destroy non-being or being, but creates themselves apart from themselves, and in so doing, they come to realize their conciousness apart from themselves.

8. However, when we deal with the new being, which is an affirmation of non-being and being, we see that it is not concious of itself, but its conciousness is only seen in its parts, that is, its non-being and being whose conciousness is apart from themselves (but at the same time realized in themselves). Because of this, this new being, through the process of a synthesis of the penetration of non-being into being, is never concious of itself and can never do so except through its non-being. Thus we see a continuous circle in which this new being needs affirm itself through its negation, whereby it becomes concious of itself apart from itself.

Finis



My initial thought was that you have been spending too much time at pornography sites. But I am now wondering if instead it is that you have not been spending enough time at such sites...
 
Arjuna
 
Reply Thu 4 Mar, 2010 05:48 pm
@Pyrrho,
Pyrrho;136147 wrote:
My initial thought was that you have been spending too much time at pornography sites. But I am now wondering if instead it is that you have not been spending enough time at such sites...
Where would we be without a peanut gallery?

"McKee is a former Fulbright scholar, Charles. Are you a former Fulbright scholar?" --Adaptation
 
Reconstructo
 
Reply Thu 4 Mar, 2010 09:07 pm
@Twirlip,
Twirlip;135991 wrote:
We know what sex our bodies are, but what of the gender(s) of our minds?


Bisexual. Essence is masculine. Accident is feminine. This drives the progress of our species, and probably helped Wittgenstein produce his masterpiece. He was intensely homosexual, though conflicted. He lived an austere life, a life shaped by the utterly universal. In his preface, he didn't bother to list his influences, as all of that was contingent (feminine). The paradox is that femininity is the desire to incarnate masculinity.

And this sexual situation is an echo of man's basic ontology. The collision of essence and accident, concept and spatial qualia.

---------- Post added 03-04-2010 at 10:10 PM ----------

Krumple;135577 wrote:
Recon, put down the bottle man.


It's perfectly rational. I can back up every word, brother. Man is an animal who will throw away his biological existence for a concept.

This is the essence of pagan society, in which only the men have rights. Only the risk of life is truly human & not animal at this stage of development....therefore women and children are animals in this stage of the game....

Until an Alexander or an Anthony begins to privilege their incidental being over their universal role.

I can back up all that I say, but I know it must sound strange.

---------- Post added 03-04-2010 at 10:12 PM ----------

Arjuna;136108 wrote:
I think Hegel starts out this way: imagine you get out of bed in the morning and find yourself standing in front of a mirror. You look in the mirror and see yourself.

So that's you in the mirror. In a way, though, this image in the mirror is like one of those old religious icons. You have sublimated yourself. Like a painting, the image is suspended. Then you suck the whole suspended sublime icon of yourself back into yourself and voila: you have a "me."

Or something like that.


Yes! But Hegel finally takes it another step back.....Being appears to be being, but a careful logic will recognize that reality is always becoming, and essentially dynamic. "No finite being has genuine reality." The self and mind and matter and etc. etc. are finite beings. Which Wittgenstein also recognized. ......Causality and time are also finite beings....created by us, not "man" for "man" is a concept, and therefore finite, but something best defined as "geist" which means something like mind & something like spirit. Mind is the conceptual shape and spirit is the desire and the sensa-data of continuous spatiality...upon which we impose our finite concepts. ...

---------- Post added 03-04-2010 at 10:16 PM ----------

Ding_an_Sich;135994 wrote:
But right now Hegel is simply an illusory, and at times groundless, distortion of my reason.


Sincerely, despite his flaws, Hegel is the completion and correction of Kant. I see this with utter clarity now. Kant's analytic reduces the heart of Hegel's logic. Causality is not transcendental, but built from the one basic analytic, which is synthesis itself, or conceptualization itself. Kant mistook an invention for something transcendental. Wittgenstein also sees this, and proves it in TLP.

Kant is the Moses who led us to the Promised Land. Hegel was Joshua. The noumena is an incorrect concept. I just realized this clearly in the last few days. Objectivity has always been grounded by language use. Noumena was a brilliant idea, but it was finally subsumed by Hegel....as merely one more distinction of that which transcends distinction, which is the fundamental Concept, or conceptualization itself.

---------- Post added 03-04-2010 at 10:29 PM ----------

Zetherin;135989 wrote:
Wow, it seems everyone who has read Hegel really is influenced to write in this sort of holistic, profound, and yet vague way.

It only sounds vague because it is profound. I know you weren't asking me, but Kojeve is a great presentation of his system in general. Clearly written and dense with all the good stuff. Hegel was wrong sometimes. Kojeve dwells on the sublime core of his thought. (I have read some Hegel, and not all of it is obscure, but the Kojeve is so well translated....)
 
Twirlip
 
Reply Fri 5 Mar, 2010 01:45 am
@Ding an Sich,
Re #11: someone must ask, however gingerly, how your apparently idiosyncratic use of the very specific term Volkskoerper - which, with its companion term Fremdkoerper, has the worst possible connotations - differs from Heidegger's apparently typical use of it here, for example:
the symptom 9 Political TextsThe University in the New Reich Martin Heidegger
 
 

 
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