[Xmca-l] Re: Althusser's ideas of consciousness

[Dr. Paul C. Mocombe]

Althusser is immersed in marx's abstraction vis-a-vis the capitalist "structure of the conjuncture" (Marshall sahlins's term), which constitutes his dispensation of spacetime.  That his lived personal experiences maybe filled with contradictions from the conclusions pertaining to his abstraction of capital is irrelevant to his analysis.  Our lived-experiences are filled with contradictions, which may or may not have any impact on our theorizing about the nature of reality as such.  Our lived-experiences and our theorizing about them are different levels of analysis as heidegger points out about husserl's phenomenology.  The former, heidegger refers to as "ready to hand" and the latter "present-at-hand".  The latter is the level of analysis husserl is operating at, but that is not the level we experience being-in-the-world.  We experience being in the world at the ready-to-hand level according to heidegger.
Yes my position is a bit Cartesian supplemented with quantum mechanics: our ego is the objectification of recycled subatomic particles already preprogrammed with subjective consciousnesses of other beings of the multiverse.  Yes I am aware of the hawking paradox as it pertains to black holes (general relativity) and their destruction of information.  But quantum mechanics contradicts the latter in favor of the indestructiblity of information recycled as subatomic particle energy recycled as the multiverse.


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-------- Original message --------
From: Annalisa Aguilar <annalisa@unm.edu> 
Date: 4/25/2016  5:57 PM  (GMT-05:00) 
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu> 
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Althusser's ideas of consciousness 

Hi Paul,

Yes, OK. I do hear you about ideas, something about a good idea resonates as good, that's what appeals. Just like I might be a terrible guitar player, but make great collard greens, and you like my collard greens but can find me to be a terrible musician. But I'd like to go a little further.

What I'm wondering and I'm sticking my neck out here, and I know that, but does it mean that we all carry around a kind of double-consciousness of being while not being, or not being while being? (Take your pick)

That we can posses a theory by which we think we can live, but in practice we fail miserably? 

(Isn't this Cartesian?)

Forgive me if I'm misconstruing the definition of Dubois's DC, but does the contradiction of wanting to fight for freedom against an English King and justifying slave ownership (and subjecting women to being a different kind of possession) create the same kind of splits that "looking at one's self through the eyes of others" does? I'm just asking.

In other words, is it looking at one's self through the eyes of one's other internal self, that is, the non-integrated self as two (or more) selves. Aren't the consequences identical from being split?

And wouldn't freedom, then, be a removal of that split? In both cases? Of having integrity of self? To perceive the world as it is, instead of how I think it is? True self-awareness? 

Because I'd think that having an unresolved mental split of this kind could not ever be liberating, as I see it. No matter how much pursuing of happiness one gets out of life. One would always remain conflicted with oneself for those inner self-contradictions. 

If a theory is crafted with split consciousness (not to warp the meaning of double consciousness out of respect to the original meaning), does something of that theory inherit an inherent contradiction?

Is it possible to take the cream off the top of the milk bottle without understanding how to feed or nurture the cow?

Just thinking out loud. Thanks for listening...

Kind regards,

Annalisa