[FRIAM] bah!

[glen ☣]

We don't need a room.  We have the References header: http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2822.html >8^D

I wonder if it's coherent to ask this question?  As we've seen in "the arc" thread, the boundaries of "I" are not very crisp.  I recently tried (and failed) to digest the argument made here:

  Wiener and Luhmann on feedback: from complexity to sustainability
  http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/K-11-2016-0317

at a journal club meeting.  The essence of the article is, I think, the distinction between two types of feedback: that which preserves order locally vs. that which helps organize the local order in response to the environment.  In either case, our identity is coupled to the environment (more for some than others, perhaps).  And to strive for an ideal decoupling sounds like suicide -- killing one's self.

I suppose what saves the monk/hermit from the accusation of suicide is the concept of "being present", in the news a lot lately with Pirsig's death.  The monk chooses one environment and the "networking entrepreneurial catalyst" chooses another.  In this sense, it's less about "who will I become" and more about "what environment defines me".

On 04/26/2017 09:07 AM, Steven A Smith wrote:
> It all really plays havoc with traditional ideas of identity. And that is without prosthetics and other tech (rather than Bio) enhancements.
> 
> Who are we becoming?
> 
> The Amish are quoted as saying that when they consider adopting any new tech, their question is "who will I become if I use this (or that) technology?"    I doubt most of us Ainglish think to stop and ask such questions.   I think this last round of observations here highlight that in an interesting way.

-- 
☣ glen