Don Quixote and The Narrative Self

Stefán Snaevarr asks, are our identities created by narratives?

Once upon a time a philosopher wrote an article called ‘Don Quixote and The Narrative Self’. He commenced by saying: In this essay, I will discuss the question of whether our selves are constituted by narratives, ie stories. Are we like Don Quixote, whose self was created by his reading of medieval romances: are we Homo quixotienses, the narrative self? Or are we rather like the protagonist of Sartre’s novel Nausea, Antonin Roquentin, whose life did not form any narrative unity? Are we in other words rather Homo roquentinenses?

Click here to read the full article at the Philosophy Now website.

Richard Dawkins and friends rap, expounding various truth(s) as they see them. Enjoy!

Blogs are comparable to the commonplace books that first began appearing among the literate in 15th century Europe. Today millions of bloggers keep their modern day commonplace books for many of the same reasons that 15th century Europeans kept theirs. Easily obtained, inexpensive paper made it possible for 15th century writers to begin recording their observations, notes, and favorite quotes into commonplace books. Today easy access to the broadband internet makes it possible to continue the commonplace tradition in digital form, compiling not only written documents, but documents created in many other types of digital media as well.

McCluhan’s “the medium is the message,” “global village,” and Benjamin’s “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” become more relevant with each passing decade. Six centuries after the appearance of the first commonplace books, millions continue the tradition of recording in the paperless, digital blogosphere thoughts, essays, favorite quotations, and miscellaneous observations on art, music, culture, politics, and life in general. But unlike the paper commonplace book, with the internet-based “commonplace book” or blog, we can instantly read each other and leave behind our comments and reactions.

From The Book of Elf, chapter 108 (8th Kalpa BBB)

According to the absolute, non-dual teachings of Shankara, Buddha, and Apostle Paul (”not I, but Christ”) there are no elves.

But in the relative teachings of Bahkti, Bodhicitta and Agape—there are indeed elves—suffering and deluded though they may be. This relative view is what motivates the tears and compassion of the human Saints and Bodhisattvas, what motivates them to minister and serve suffering elves.

The Ultimate teaching of the Flower Garland or Avatamsaka Sutra clearly allows for the existence of elves: non-human cosmologies abound in the Avatamsaka—worlds are described as populated not only by elves, but by countless other forms of sentient life as well.

Elf phrases, book titles, and such like:

Me, my elf and I.
Get away with your bad elf.
Are you an elf starter?
Do you talk to your elf?
Kierkegaard suffered from elf-consciousness
The elf and modern society
Don’t lie to your elf.
Do people think you’re elfish?

The Buddha used various images and illustrations to convey a sense of the immense stretch of time — called a kalpa — that might encompass the birth and evolution of universe after universe. Here are a few.

Suppose an eagle’s wing brushes against the top of a high mountain once a century. A kalpa is how long it would take for that action to wear the mountain entirely away.

Suppose a wooden yoke with one hole, is thrown into the ocean to float. If a one-eyed turtle rises to the surface of the ocean once a century, a kalpa is how long it would take before the turtle just happened to rise through the hole of the yoke.

Suppose that every hundred years a piece of silk is rubbed once on a solid rock one cubic mile in size; when the rock is worn away by this, one kalpa will still not have passed.

Suppose, said the Buddha, that there was a huge rock of one solid mass, one mile long, one mile wide, one mile high, without split or flaw. And at the end of every 100 years a man should come and rub against it with a silken cloth. Then that huge rock would wear off and disappear quicker than a Kalpa.

Suppose a celestial woman touched a 10 cubic mile stone with her garments once every three years. A kalpa is longer than the time it would take to wear the stone to a mere pebble.

These images of inconceivable lengths of time - kalpas - are, to me, strangely comforting, liberating, soothing.

I get similar pleasure from looking through my binoculars or telescope at galaxies and star clusters in the Milky Way on a warm summer’s night.

Edward Gibbon

A given history of something is a story without an author. The events, objects, and persons comprising the action act autonomously. Those elements in a history to which we attribute consciousness and intention act according to known and unknown laws.

The historian seeks and then explains the manifold of butterfly effects that comprise the subject under study. Histories are always already written, but they remain hidden until someone chooses to interpret for an audience.

Is science a type of history? Equations unfold in time and constitute the episodes and plots of the phenomena to which they are applied. But there are no conscious actors in scientific, qua scientific, narratives. If conscious actors are introduced, the narrative becomes historical, biographical, or autobiographical.

What about natural history museums? They presumable employ some type of scientific, historical narrative in their exhibits. Everything may be reducible to story, but it will always be someone’s responsibility–everyone’s actually–to decide which stories are better, truer, more meaningful than others.

Our very lives depend on making the right critical judgments and decisions.

It’s true. Otherwise the story of our times will someday cease to be told by historians in a non-existent future.