Post Modernism versus Biology

[andyjohnsonman]

After listening to this discussion I can see both points of view and got me thinking. For many concepts like a chair, it is important to see it as a concept, as like Peter Ralston states, alot of concepts have meaning to you depending on how you see it: After a walk up a mountain a chair is seen as an object of relaxation, but if you were running away from a crime scene and theres a chair in front of you it would be an annoyance and seen as something that gets in the way.

All ideas and concepts are perceptions that can have positive or negative values depending on the motivations of the person seeing the object. In the same way The idea of race and gender can also be used to judge or demonise and are all concepts. So i can see where the postmodernists are coming from.

The question is though is race a story that is created by the mind? Joe Rogan debunks this by talking about the inherent biological differences between men and women. For me I think it boils down to When you are born before and ideas have yet to be implanted in your mind, do you see men and women as different without having the label for it? I'm thinking you do and therefore the postmodern spiel of everything being a concept which can be deconstructed would be wrong. 

 

I also think after reading The Way of The Superior Man that there is a masculine and feminine and its not about dividing males and females into separate categories as some males are feminine and vice versa.  

 

 

[Leo Gura]

Joe Rogan is wrong. Male and female is a conceptual category.

Just because something is a conceptual category does not mean it isn't useful. The whole point of concepts is that they are highly useful for survival, since you yourself, and life itself, are a category!

This issue goes way deeper than Rogan can fathom.

Not only can man and woman be deconstructed, your very existence as a biological being can be deconstructed. But of course, no one wants to go there.

Biology itself is a category. Difference itself is a category. Even Joe Rogan is a category!

[Bobby]

@Leo Gura what about the distinction between different types of sensation?

vision vs. touch for example 

 

[Leo Gura]

@Bobby All of Creation is made of distinctions.

There is nothing but distinctions.

[Haloman]

13 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Not only can man and woman be deconstructed, your very existence as a biological being can be deconstructed. But of course, no one wants to go there.

2 days ago i went to dental hygienist and when i sat in dental chair, i wanted to deconstruct my existence as a biological being but i couldn't. 

Guess i'm a bad student. Need to do more consciousness work. Because if you, Rupert Spira or Peter Ralston would sit there,  you would feel as infinite love...

[Highest]

A  chair can be a concept, a construct of the mind, very very far away from direct consciousness of what a chair really is. Biology is a concept, matter is a concept. Reality (the world, the universe) is an illusion, meaning that it isn't how and what it appears to be, it is and isn't. Matter and biology is an illusion and that's what science is grounded on, illusion. The idea of being a human being with a brain is far fetched illusion, so is the idea that ''you'' exist as a separate individual, or as a biological entity. Only God, Consciousness, Being is truly Real. Everything derives their existence from the One. Without the One, existence is non-existent.

You have to understand that the only Real is the Self/Soul/Spirit. The goal of the Self is to experience, to awaken and know itself. You will die, meaning you will not remember that you ever existed after ''death''. The Self (which is One) will live on forever, continuing doing it's purpose. God is in a mission to know itself. This has been known by masters like Meher Baba for a long time. That's why and how you exist. As far as the universe goes, it only appears to have existence, but in fact is nothing and came from nothing, but this Nothing IS. The universe is simply a manifestation or reflection of the original Nothing/God. As for matter, in the ultimate sense, non-existent.

Edited February 8, 2019 by Highest

[Leo Gura]

11 hours ago, Haloman said:

Guess i'm a bad student. Need to do more consciousness work. Because if you, Rupert Spira or Peter Ralston would sit there,  you would feel as infinite love...

I would not feel infinite love at the dentist.

[Truth Addict]

19 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

I would not feel infinite love at the dentist.

*yet 

[LaraGreenbridge]

I think that when it comes to gender, you are questioning the essentialist argument. That is, how can we define 'male' and 'female' and is there anything completely innate that defines us as either one or the other?  How can we define 'black' or 'white' for that matter. If you identify as a 'black' person, does that make you black, even if you are white? The accepted identity-politics discourse being embraced by society right now would say 'yes' - that is, you are whatever you believe you are (even if you appear to 99.9% of the population to be something else.)

If you want to deconstruct your identity even further, you can believe that you don't exist at all. Yes, that is your choice. Even if 99.99999% of the population believe that you do exist, you are free to believe that you don't. I'm not sure that the tax man would let you get away with it, though!

[Emerald]

22 hours ago, LaraGreenbridge said:

I think that when it comes to gender, you are questioning the essentialist argument. That is, how can we define 'male' and 'female' and is there anything completely innate that defines us as either one or the other?  How can we define 'black' or 'white' for that matter. If you identify as a 'black' person, does that make you black, even if you are white? The accepted identity-politics discourse being embraced by society right now would say 'yes' - that is, you are whatever you believe you are (even if you appear to 99.9% of the population to be something else.)

If you want to deconstruct your identity even further, you can believe that you don't exist at all. Yes, that is your choice. Even if 99.99999% of the population believe that you do exist, you are free to believe that you don't. I'm not sure that the tax man would let you get away with it, though!

Actually people who are into "identity politics" don't think a person can be a black person even if they're white or vice versa. There was a huge controversy several years ago with Rachel Dolozol. 

But race is different than gender in the sense that there is no essence of blackness or whiteness. Everything with regard to behavior and race is environmental and cultural. So, if a person says, "I identify as black" what they really mean is that they want to belong to a culture and have a cultural identity that they were not raised in. By itself, if wouldn't be a negative thing but we live in a society rife with many wounds relative to race. So, people naturally get upset. But gender is different in that it is not fully a cultural phenomena in terms of behavior. 

With gender, it's a bit more complicated as there is an essence of masculinity and femininity. And these two essences (Yin and Yang) imbue all living and non-living systems, including human beings. So, we all have a unique masculine/feminine signature inherent to us. Most of the time, women will have more femininity that masculinity and vice versa with men. But occasionally there are outliers where someone who is born male, has a lot more feminine essence. And if he chose to identify as a woman, they would better be able to express their authentic essence. And this is why accepting trans-people is very important. For them, it creates a space where they can be themselves. For us, it allows us as cisgender people to travel outside the lines of the cultural conscriptions about gender which enables us to find ourselves more authentically as well.