[xmca] dichotomizing

[Mike Cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>]

The rich discourse is washing over me and I am glad for the archive which
will allow me to return for proper study. Meantime, for
other pressing purposes I have come across the following from William James
which may not be considered correct because it talks of a me-you dualism,
but might be considered useful to the current conversation on units,
microcosms, etc.
mike
----------------
....One great splitting of the whole universe into  two halves is made by
each of us; and for each of us almost all of the  interest attaches to one
of the halves; but we all draw the line of division  between them in a
different place. When I say that we all call the two  halves by the same
names, and that those names are 'me' and 'not-me'  respectively, it will at
once be seen what I mean. The altogether unique  kind of interest which each
human mind feels in those parts of creation  which it can call me or mine
may be a moral riddle, but it is a fundamental  psychological fact. No mind
can take the same interest in his neighbor's me  as in his own. The
neighbor's me falls together with all the rest of things  in one foreign
mass against which his own me stands cut in startling relief.  Even the
trodden worm, as Lotze somewhere says, contrasts his own suffering  self
with the whole remaining universe, though he have no clear conception
either of himself or of what the universe may be. He is for me a mere part
of the world; for him it is I who am the mere part. Each of us dichotomizes
the Kosmos in a different place. (Lotze is author of *Mikrocosmos, *among
other writings).
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