Some Assumptions:
- The “self” exists.
- The “self” is subjective in nature.
- Phenomenon is the object of a person’s perception at a given point in time; what the senses or the mind notice, a combination of sensory imput plus emotional states.
- A phenomenon is inextricable from the “self” because it is inextricable from perception (i.e. subjective experience) -> (note: If a tree falls in a forrest and no one is around to hear it does it make a sound: this assumption says no)
- The “self” is a combination of (1) phenomena and (2) abstractions deduced therefrom.
- Abstractions exist on an immaterial plane because they are relationships between phenomena, both past and present, both existant at any point in time and nonexistant at particular points in time
- Objectification of the phenomena exists on a spectrum which goes from just outside of the “self” to the “meta-self”
The Argument:
Thesis: Extreme identification with the meta-self leads one to nihilism.
I am talking meta-cognition, but only one aspect of it. Not meta-meta-cognition as I would like to call meta-cognition’s domain of thinking about thinking. Rather I’m talking about thinking about phenomena.
I’m pointing at something similar to the self-regulator. I am pointing at the meta-self; the someone inside, yet above, you. The thing that makes attempts at objectivity. At times, it will tell you it is more important than your self, even that it knows a better, more true level of existence, a reality far deeper than what you can perceive. It becomes you if you give into its condescension as anything excluding such.
It is not interested in your self; that self which is primary, being both of and for itself, and containing both subject, and objects.
It manifests along a spectrum of interests, a spectrum which goes from right outside of the Self and straight into Nothing.
The Self is connected to phenomena while the meta-self is connected to abstraction.
When on the closer end of the spectrum, it is interested in your long-term survival. As we move further from the self its interest is survival, not yours, but the survival of any. On the far end of the spectrum its interest is not survival but existence, and on the furthest end, abstraction accumulates; and, there, at it’s very end, even existence is no longer of matter.
This end of the spectrum is a complete objectification of the self. At this point, the self is no longer the self, but completely and totally the meta-self. It identifies with abstractions because it does not identify with phenomenon.
Abstractions, although a part of the self, do not equal the self, and on their own are immaterial in nature. Abstractions do not contain particular meaning, for particular situations (phenomenon).
Abstractions, individually, are relationships, they are patterns, analogous to architectural, structural knowledge, mind-stuff. They apply to many situations if the phenomenon in view provides opportunity for those structures & relationships to manifest. This manifestation can occur either by way of directly willed actions that facilitate their occurrence, or by them naturally occuring without the one’s direction & will.
Yet, in the place of total abstraction, meaninglessness resides. To think of a completely abstract painting, one that is even-so to the artist…. is it meaningful, or is it meaningless? Consider the abstractions known as ideals…. in a place where they accumulate, where they exist together, they contradict. Can complete Justice, and complete Mercy exist in a particular? The answer is no. Abstraction absolute, disconnected from particulars, existing together on an immaterial plane, becomes meaningless.
To completely identify with your meta-self is to embody nihilism.
The Metasymbol 