D,
But couldn't "need " be described simpler as "fear to lack something"? With fear defined as "recoil from", flight or strong rejection.
Yes, which is why I qualified the statement in the very next sentence as follows:
Whichever term you choose in the end, the essential distinction you are making is one between psychological/psychosocial rather than physiological lack.
Which makes the first paragraph you wrote in reply redundant to my mind.
L: Generally, the term desire is used to make that distinction since, compared to need, it is a distinctly psychological yearning; "the wish".
D: Well, this all depends on how emotions are defined since I was initially reacting to words by RZoo indicating that emotions were prime motivators of our behavior. For me that is not a useful mode of thinking or at least it muddles many boundaries between feelings, impulses and emotions in ways I don't think are useful when discussing these from experimental or even existentialist points of view.
Some pages earlier:
movingalways wrote:The consciousness I was referring to in my original question is the consciousness of accepting the relationship of the question to the answer, the relationship of darkness (suffering) to light (release from suffering). Which means one can let go of their hatred of having been made to suffer. What is the point of hating something that is a requirement for knowing?
RZoo: It wouldn't be suffering if it was comfortable and didn't evoke the emotions (ie. hatred). If one can let go of their hatred of being made to suffer, then they can no longer gain anything from their suffering (if you can even call it suffering); they've shielded themselves by becoming emotionally detached. In the process of cutting off hatred, you also cut off joy. Without emotions, a person cannot have motivations. Taken to the extreme, they should retire to a hospital bed to be cared for by others, as they themselves have no reason to continue living.
RZoo is simply arguing that emotions and suffering are inseparable, and that letting go of a hatred of having been made to suffer is simply the practice of rejecting one's emotions and does not resolve the question of suffering therefore. So, he suggests, this detachment from the emotional aspect of suffering is necessarily anti-enlightenment as it's not really an end to suffering, but an illusion created by denying feelings which arise from suffering. "Ohm..."
I don't think your criticism of his contribution on this point is accurate at all, Pam's apparent (though it's possible I missed its appearance later in the thread) lack of a reply notwithstanding.
L: [Desire] is the wish actually to be the object of the other's desire; and to do that, one needs to gratify the other's lack (which is precisely where the psychological/psychosocial dynamics, complete with ego and emotion, come fully into play).
D: While I agree with the first part, I don't believe that "other's lack" is ever more than delusion. It's all about the desire to become "object" or in other words gaining some psychological sense of existence through the desire itself. Ignorance as fundamental self-deception, to assume existence ("inherent", "self", "thingness"), attaching to this sense and then crave for anything giving more body to this. This manifests as desire for especially illusion, smoke and mirrors because of what they can provide. This results in a "society of the spectacle" almost naturally, with everybody more and more craving to become the object of someone's desire or just any attention or brief exposures. A stunning "reality generating machinery"!
Lol. I'm sorry, Diebert, but, as I am sure has happened to all of us here on at least 2.5 occasions, I have no idea what to make of that right at this moment. I do appreciate the passion in your exclamation mark, though! (: