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shadowkatBored. Beyond bored at work. Then I came home to well a virtual waterfall outside my kitchen window - it was so bad, water leaked in my window and all the windows underneath it - apparently the water overflowed the gutters. What happened? The sky opened up and dumped buckets of water on us in the space of an hour - 4.5 inches to be exact. Never seen anything quite like it. Was drenched to the bone running, with an umbrella, under trees, the two blocks from my bodega to my house - a scant five minute walk. Yikes.
Ugh. Can't think of a dang thing to write about. You ever feel as if all your words have been pulled out of your skull? OR rather all the nice words, leaving only the angsty bitchy ones? What can I say, it's been one of those...weeks? days? The future feels grim. And I really wouldn't have minded all that much if the bus hurtling down the street in the drenching rain had hit me and knocked me out of me misery (and hopefully not to one of the 20 hells - according to a guy at work - the Chinese believe there are 20 different hells, hmmm maybe this is one of them? That would explain a lot come to think of it...or just one of the purgatories?) - but no such luck - best it did was throw a bunch of dirty water at me.
I'd do a meme but meme's rarely get responses they just breed new memes on others journals.
Not that this will get a response. People, I've discovered, respond to the oddest things. I can't predict it. I've given up. Okay not true. My analytical brain analyzes human behavior whether I want it to or not. It can't help itself. Even if it is wrong 80% of the time.
Anywho...I'll just ask questions....about stuff I've been pondering and would like to hear a voice outside of my own internal one contemplate for a while.
1. Nature or nuture? I love this debate - mostly because I think it's both not one or the other. You can make a valid argument both ways. ie. That human personality is based on DNA and biology. Or that human personality is developed by experience and environment.
This brings up another question, I've been pondering - why do people think it has to be one or the other? Why not both? Come to think of it, why do we, not all of us, but a lot of us, tend to well...drift to extremes? Or broad generalizations? Categorizing stuff constantly.
Is it a desire to understand? OR rather to make sense out of something?
2. Do you believe in souls? That humans have them? If so, why. If not, why. (Actually, I should ask how do you define souls - because not everyone defines it in the same way and that does make a huge difference. You can after all be an athesist and still believe in souls - you just may not define them in a religious context. Semantics give me headache sometimes.)
And more to the point - how do you handle literature, television shows, and films in which the writer clearly does believe in souls and it is a main ingredient of the story? Do you ignore it? Accept it as part of that universe? Question it? Or go find something else?
What if the writer's or artist's definition of a soul is different than yours?
This is a huge thing in fantasy stories that involve vampires and creatures who are separated from humans based on whether or not they have a soul. The book I'm currently reading (Kim Harrison's Rachel Morgan novels) really uses souls as an ingredient. But it is not necessarily defined in a religious context. The soul is defined as the energy that holds the mind and body together, keeps the mind sane. Without it, the mind doesn't care and tries to convince the body to kill itself. In fact the mind doesn't care about much of anything - it just craves it's lost soul - and undead vampires who are soulless take a bit of someone else's aura/soul when they take blood in order to stay sane. To keep the intergrity of their mind. It's an illusion but it keeps them together. In this book, people give a portion of their soul to another person when they make love or share a part of themselve, whether in a kiss, a hug, an act of compassion, or exchange of blood. It's not a big deal. You get it back. It regrows. The only religious bit is that you can't find your way into the afterlife without your soul - the mind requires it to hold it together and show it the way. If your mind doesn't go with your soul, the soul dissolves and is gone.
In Whedon's fantasy series - soul was more or less another word for conscience. That voice inside that told people the difference between right and wrong - or more to the point made them care about the difference. It's a dicey question. People think a sociopathic personality is someone who doesn't know the difference between right and wrong. Not true.
They know the difference. They just don't care. The television series Dexter actually did a marvelous job of examining that. It's a story about a serial killer who kills serial killers to avoid killing nice people because he's been taught it was wrong. (Dexter really examines the degree in which nurture can effect human behavior. Can change it. In the series - it's indicated that Dexter's environment as a small child caused him to become a sociopathic personality (something happened to him), but his foster father was able to train him to harness those impulses and use them in another way.)
At any rate - in Buffy and Angel - a creature without a soul - knew the difference between right and wrong but did not care. It did not matter to them. Spike was an anamoly of sorts because he did show remorse for attempting to rape the heroine. Something a soulless creature shouldn't have felt. The reason he did - was well - the writers take on a psychological and philosophical debate - which the tv series Dexter is examining and the novel A ClockWork Orange examined - which is - can we teach a sociopathic personality who does not care about the difference between right and wrong to care? Can we change the sociopath? Is it possible? OR should we just kill them for the betterment of society because they are a lost cause? It is biologically impossible for them to change?
In A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess believed it is possible for someone to change, that while state behavioral conditioning was inherently wrong, the sociopathic tendencies of the street punk would change once he learned there was more to life - or that life itself had meaning. Stanely Kubrick disagreed and stated that the punk could not change and would revert back to form once the conditioning was removed.
Whedon takes the middle ground. Stating that the sociopathic personality can be taught to feel remorse, but, that will not mean that they won't do the act. Won't hurt someone.
But once they feel the emotional pain of doing the act - it may motivate them to seek change in themselves. Or not as the case may be. He explores two characters in this regard.
Spike and Angel. But does not really answer the question - leaving fans somewhat frustrated. But I'm not sure the question can be answered. I'm not sure we know. Psychologists have done studies, sure, but nothing that conclusive. People tend to be pretty complex and had to categorize.
But if you don't buy that souls exist - I wonder if the metaphor may have given you difficulty??
Which actually brings up a much broader issues or question, how do you handle a work of art in which you do not believe or support certain parts of the premise or world?
3. Memory loss - to what degree does memory loss or the loss of memory affect personality?
This fascinates me to no end and is a personal kink, I guess. I'm a sucker for a *good* amensia story. But it has to be one that shows how the character has changed and explores this question.
Does the person who lost their memory become someone else? Or are they just forgetful?
Does their entire life change?
If I for example forgot what happened between 2000 and 2007, how would that change me?
There's apparently a new drug out that can erase a victim's memories of an assualt or bad experiences - saw it talked about in the news and on Boston Legal of all places. So if a child is molested/sexually abused by a parent and takes this ruthie like drug - what does that mean - does it mean it never happened?
And can you erase just one memory without erasing all of them? There's an Alfred Bester novel called Demolished Man - where they erase certain aspects of criminals in order to rehabilitate them. Reminds me of lobotomies - which were quite the rage back when Bester wrote the novel. Along with shock therapy.
In the flick Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - bits of a guy's memories are removed - or rather just all traces of this girl he loved. After the flick, a friend and I had a lengthy discussion on whether this was possible. He stated it wasn't - you can't remove one memory without affecting all the others - it would be like pulling a thread out of a tapestry, the memories would unravel.
Emotions are based on memory. How we feel. How we love. How we relate. Our defenses. If I didn't remember people throwing spiders at me, would I still be afraid of spiders or would I be afraid and just not know why? Does the body retain memory as well as the mind? Can our body remember something, our nerves, that our mind forgets? Like walking. When I think about walking - I can't walk. It's the oddest thing. Like when I think about writing I can't write, have to focus on something else...And when I focus on a memory like the name of a song, a person, or a lyric - it often does not come.
What do you think?
Ugh. Can't think of a dang thing to write about. You ever feel as if all your words have been pulled out of your skull? OR rather all the nice words, leaving only the angsty bitchy ones? What can I say, it's been one of those...weeks? days? The future feels grim. And I really wouldn't have minded all that much if the bus hurtling down the street in the drenching rain had hit me and knocked me out of me misery (and hopefully not to one of the 20 hells - according to a guy at work - the Chinese believe there are 20 different hells, hmmm maybe this is one of them? That would explain a lot come to think of it...or just one of the purgatories?) - but no such luck - best it did was throw a bunch of dirty water at me.
I'd do a meme but meme's rarely get responses they just breed new memes on others journals.
Not that this will get a response. People, I've discovered, respond to the oddest things. I can't predict it. I've given up. Okay not true. My analytical brain analyzes human behavior whether I want it to or not. It can't help itself. Even if it is wrong 80% of the time.
Anywho...I'll just ask questions....about stuff I've been pondering and would like to hear a voice outside of my own internal one contemplate for a while.
1. Nature or nuture? I love this debate - mostly because I think it's both not one or the other. You can make a valid argument both ways. ie. That human personality is based on DNA and biology. Or that human personality is developed by experience and environment.
This brings up another question, I've been pondering - why do people think it has to be one or the other? Why not both? Come to think of it, why do we, not all of us, but a lot of us, tend to well...drift to extremes? Or broad generalizations? Categorizing stuff constantly.
Is it a desire to understand? OR rather to make sense out of something?
2. Do you believe in souls? That humans have them? If so, why. If not, why. (Actually, I should ask how do you define souls - because not everyone defines it in the same way and that does make a huge difference. You can after all be an athesist and still believe in souls - you just may not define them in a religious context. Semantics give me headache sometimes.)
And more to the point - how do you handle literature, television shows, and films in which the writer clearly does believe in souls and it is a main ingredient of the story? Do you ignore it? Accept it as part of that universe? Question it? Or go find something else?
What if the writer's or artist's definition of a soul is different than yours?
This is a huge thing in fantasy stories that involve vampires and creatures who are separated from humans based on whether or not they have a soul. The book I'm currently reading (Kim Harrison's Rachel Morgan novels) really uses souls as an ingredient. But it is not necessarily defined in a religious context. The soul is defined as the energy that holds the mind and body together, keeps the mind sane. Without it, the mind doesn't care and tries to convince the body to kill itself. In fact the mind doesn't care about much of anything - it just craves it's lost soul - and undead vampires who are soulless take a bit of someone else's aura/soul when they take blood in order to stay sane. To keep the intergrity of their mind. It's an illusion but it keeps them together. In this book, people give a portion of their soul to another person when they make love or share a part of themselve, whether in a kiss, a hug, an act of compassion, or exchange of blood. It's not a big deal. You get it back. It regrows. The only religious bit is that you can't find your way into the afterlife without your soul - the mind requires it to hold it together and show it the way. If your mind doesn't go with your soul, the soul dissolves and is gone.
In Whedon's fantasy series - soul was more or less another word for conscience. That voice inside that told people the difference between right and wrong - or more to the point made them care about the difference. It's a dicey question. People think a sociopathic personality is someone who doesn't know the difference between right and wrong. Not true.
They know the difference. They just don't care. The television series Dexter actually did a marvelous job of examining that. It's a story about a serial killer who kills serial killers to avoid killing nice people because he's been taught it was wrong. (Dexter really examines the degree in which nurture can effect human behavior. Can change it. In the series - it's indicated that Dexter's environment as a small child caused him to become a sociopathic personality (something happened to him), but his foster father was able to train him to harness those impulses and use them in another way.)
At any rate - in Buffy and Angel - a creature without a soul - knew the difference between right and wrong but did not care. It did not matter to them. Spike was an anamoly of sorts because he did show remorse for attempting to rape the heroine. Something a soulless creature shouldn't have felt. The reason he did - was well - the writers take on a psychological and philosophical debate - which the tv series Dexter is examining and the novel A ClockWork Orange examined - which is - can we teach a sociopathic personality who does not care about the difference between right and wrong to care? Can we change the sociopath? Is it possible? OR should we just kill them for the betterment of society because they are a lost cause? It is biologically impossible for them to change?
In A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess believed it is possible for someone to change, that while state behavioral conditioning was inherently wrong, the sociopathic tendencies of the street punk would change once he learned there was more to life - or that life itself had meaning. Stanely Kubrick disagreed and stated that the punk could not change and would revert back to form once the conditioning was removed.
Whedon takes the middle ground. Stating that the sociopathic personality can be taught to feel remorse, but, that will not mean that they won't do the act. Won't hurt someone.
But once they feel the emotional pain of doing the act - it may motivate them to seek change in themselves. Or not as the case may be. He explores two characters in this regard.
Spike and Angel. But does not really answer the question - leaving fans somewhat frustrated. But I'm not sure the question can be answered. I'm not sure we know. Psychologists have done studies, sure, but nothing that conclusive. People tend to be pretty complex and had to categorize.
But if you don't buy that souls exist - I wonder if the metaphor may have given you difficulty??
Which actually brings up a much broader issues or question, how do you handle a work of art in which you do not believe or support certain parts of the premise or world?
3. Memory loss - to what degree does memory loss or the loss of memory affect personality?
This fascinates me to no end and is a personal kink, I guess. I'm a sucker for a *good* amensia story. But it has to be one that shows how the character has changed and explores this question.
Does the person who lost their memory become someone else? Or are they just forgetful?
Does their entire life change?
If I for example forgot what happened between 2000 and 2007, how would that change me?
There's apparently a new drug out that can erase a victim's memories of an assualt or bad experiences - saw it talked about in the news and on Boston Legal of all places. So if a child is molested/sexually abused by a parent and takes this ruthie like drug - what does that mean - does it mean it never happened?
And can you erase just one memory without erasing all of them? There's an Alfred Bester novel called Demolished Man - where they erase certain aspects of criminals in order to rehabilitate them. Reminds me of lobotomies - which were quite the rage back when Bester wrote the novel. Along with shock therapy.
In the flick Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - bits of a guy's memories are removed - or rather just all traces of this girl he loved. After the flick, a friend and I had a lengthy discussion on whether this was possible. He stated it wasn't - you can't remove one memory without affecting all the others - it would be like pulling a thread out of a tapestry, the memories would unravel.
Emotions are based on memory. How we feel. How we love. How we relate. Our defenses. If I didn't remember people throwing spiders at me, would I still be afraid of spiders or would I be afraid and just not know why? Does the body retain memory as well as the mind? Can our body remember something, our nerves, that our mind forgets? Like walking. When I think about walking - I can't walk. It's the oddest thing. Like when I think about writing I can't write, have to focus on something else...And when I focus on a memory like the name of a song, a person, or a lyric - it often does not come.
What do you think?
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no subject
Date: 2007-07-12 10:26 am (UTC)2. No, I don't "really believe" in souls, except poetically and metaphorically. And if the word soul is used to define a certain mind (functioning as the center of thought, emotion, and behavior and consciously or unconsciously adjusting or mediating the body's responses to the social and physical environment)that is a certain psyché(like in a "borken soul") there's no reason to think that only human beings would have souls. Ctas obviously have souls too! *g*
But I don't think there's more than what we are here and now, and I don't think there's something that remains after the body dies. I didn't have any problems with souls in Buffyverse because I took them as metaphors and plot devices.
3. I understand your kink on that. I do think that our memories mostly make us the way we are. It's nurture vs nature again.
On BTVS the Dawn case played on that idea. The memories were fake, experiences prior to season 5 never happened, yet the characters remembered them and because they remembered them Dawn was a human being and Buffy's sister instead of being a Key.
On "Blade Runner" fake memories are also the key element to make the repicant Rachel, more human to the point that she's convinced that she can't be a replicant.
The shape can be an illusion but the memories are identity. If there's something that has always intriguided me in Dune, it's the matter of the memories that Reverend Mothers of the Bene Gesserit shared, or the fact that Paul's children did have the memories of their ancestors in their memory. Thus some characters still lived within other characters through their own memories which implied a risk of possession, a problem of identity.
But sorry I'm digressing.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-12 05:59 pm (UTC)I believe in them but remain uncertain about the whole after-life bit. I really don't think there is anything after this to be honest. But I do still believe in a soul. Perhaps I define it differently?
I assumed everyone could sense this - but my friend couldn't, the doctor didn't, and my family didn't see it with my grandmother. I don't talk about it much - because it's like, well, being able to do complex mathematical equations in your head - you don't understand why someone else can't. You see it clearly. Or creating music, hearing it inside your mind. Being able to sense the spark in other's is like that - some people see it and call it an aura, I guess. I don't see it. I feel it and I can't articulate or explain that without it sounding nutty. Which this probably does.
I've read a couple of books that played with the idea of the soul determining the personality of a person. His Dark Materials - by Philip Pullman discusses the soul as more an ineffable non-religious aspect. Separating the person from their soul (or metaphorically their daemon) cripples them, they become a ghost of their former self. And I remember reading something, not sure what it was, damn memory, about how they were hunting scientific evidence of the soul in the brain - seeing it as an illusion or an entity or an electrical spasm. I didn't find the study convincing - because it was basically the arguement that people believe in things to make themselves happy or explain the world - which isn't necessarily true.
The shape can be an illusion but the memories are identity.
I like that.
But I don't think babies are blank slates. They have distinct personalities before memories are even imprinted on them. And I've met people who have lost a good percentage of their memories...yet are still on some level distinctly themselves.
I do, however, equate memory largely with identity. I think I would be a different person if I did not have certain memories. I'd reacte differently. Yet, I also think other undefinable factors come into play.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-12 06:09 pm (UTC)I understand what you mean about having sensed things that couldn't be explained without a sort of energy. I had similar experiences but I don't necessarily connect them to individual souls.
the thing that makes us more than machines
Now you have me thinking of Sci-Fi and of many machines that developped something that could be called a soul!
;- )
no subject
Date: 2007-07-12 06:38 pm (UTC)Makes sense because everything who didn't believe in them, prefaces it with I'm an athesist or an agnostic. Which sort of boggles my mind, because I don't just equate a soul with being an athesist or agnostic.
Yes, I see it as belonging to the universe or an entity outside, the connecting force, but I don't necessarily see that entity as GOD. And I also see it as being individual the spark that makes us who we are, the energy that leaves when we are dead. I call that a soul. What do others call it? Energy? Spark? Something else?
If so, how are they defining a soul? I guess I should ask for a definition from people - so we don't get lost in translation.
Now you have me thinking of Sci-Fi and of many machines that developped something that could be called a soul!
A lot of Japanese anime deals with this concept. Most notably - Ghost in the Shell. Another film that played with it was AI by Stephen Spielberg and Stanley Kubrick.
STar Trek The Next Generation also addressed it - with Commander Data.