Rational Philosophy

On the philosophy of existence as it relates to the idea of ownership and property.

I spent the day getting rid of junk, garbage and unwanted stuff from our basement. (We’re selling our house, as I’ve mentioned in previous posts.) Clearing trash makes one reflect on things of moment. We relish the new space, the absence of the piles of crap. We feel a lightness, a sense of freedom. And, conversely, we mourn the time that we spent with those piles of crap when they were, if not cherished possessions, then certainly worth holding onto by putting them in the basement. We’re clearing out old times, in a way.

Are possessions things of the mind? Does a sense of possession require consciousness?

I’ve come across the idea that nomadic people, such as native Americans, don’t have the same sense of property, and certainly not land ownership, as agrarian or industrial societies. This makes some sense, but native Americans surely had a sense of property.

Non-conscious creatures can display a sense of territorial ownership or rights. Animals defend territory and food against interlopers.

Understanding the idea of property seems quite straightforward if we reflect on the idea that survival requires that we ensure that we have food and shelter. If we’ve secured food and shelter, why give it up without a fight, without defending it? Giving up things of importance without a reasonable struggle to keep them would be an act of letting go, of non-living.

This explanation however seems incomplete. It seems that there’s another way in which we feel a sense of ownership, one that’s much more immediate and direct. It’s our sense of our physical being. More than we could say of any other thing, we could be said to own our bodies. We experience the world through the immediate impressions of our physical being. The impulses felt through our body define the us-ness of our being.

This, then, is the root of any idea of property. We own our experiences.

Any other sense of property is derivative and non-essential. We can lose everything except our experience and still live. And so, when we’re ridding ourselves of extraneous possessions, we feel a sense of lightness, of paring down. We feel a calmness and sureness that even if we were to get rid of everything we own, we would still retain ownership of ourselves.

Last night I watched Being John Malkovich with my family. I’d seen it when it first came out about seven years ago, but remembered very few of the specifics. As he typically does, Charlie Kaufman uses the forum of his screenplay to tease up some interesting philosophical insights and dilemmas.

Early on in the movie Craig Wright (played by John Cusack), miserable and unemployed, bemoans the curse of consciousness to his wife’s chimpanzee. Without consciousness, he says, we wouldn’t feel pain and suffering; consciousness brings just one solace — the joy of doing one’s work; when we’re denied that, what do we have? (Later on in the movie, Kaufman wryly pokes fun at Wright’s self-indulgence by showing a scene in which the chimpanzee recalls the emotional pain and trauma of being captured with his parents in the jungle, after failing to save them.)

As with all traits and capabilities of living things, consciousness evolved because it provided an advantage to survival. As I explore in considerable detail in LIFE!, consciousness allows us to manipulate abstract concepts to our advantage (and to our disadvantage, of course, when we don’t fully follow through on our rational convictions!) Without trying to read too much into Kaufman’s intentions in writing his script, Being John Malkovich presents us with the interesting question — “what is self?”

Craig discovers a portal that can transport people inside John Malkovich’s head, seeing what Malkovich sees, feeling what Malkovich feels. Later in the movie, Craig — a puppeteer — manages to wrest control of Malkovich, living through his body and mind, ousting Malkovich and relegating Malkovich’s “self” to position of passive, subconscious (and incredibly frustrated) observation.

What is the self? Can it be modified? Is it definable? Are we what we think or what we do?

Kaufman neatly points to the perspective that our sense of self is a concept that arises out of consciousness. We have a sense of ourselves through our perception of ourselves. If we stop for a moment and imagine living without conscious reflection we can glimpse the feeling of “no self.” Before the onset of consciousness the concept of self wasn’t relevant.

Our sense of self then must be a combination of many things — our awareness of physical sensations, our mental processes both conscious and subconscious, our awareness and reflection upon our actions in the world, and our perception of our being in relation to the being of others. So although we feel that we are who we are, that some unchanging aspect of ourselves defines us, this can’t be true.

Most of the time we alter, adapt and adjust in small ways, reaffirming the sense that some core ’self’ exists that must be unassailably “us.” This serves us by providing a solid ground for our personality and sense of self, for our ego. Without this sense of a solid foundation, we would flounder or sink. But it also limits us. When we’re too stuck on the idea that our self is fixed and unchanging, we start to use it as a crutch to avoid stretching ourselves or working hard to adjust destructive habits or unwanted modes of behavior. If we refuse to believe that we can change ourselves, we remain static and stuck with the selves we have.

When I was a teenager and started drinking, I used alcohol as a way to avoid my self, to get out of my self, to try to be more engaged and engaging than I thought that I was when sober. This abuse became habitual. Right up until eight or nine years ago I regularly drank too much, often to the point of throwing up and passing out. By that point I hated this aspect of myself. I wanted to try to understand it and, if possible, change it. I had a young daughter and I felt ashamed and embarrassed for her to live with me like that. I went to see a therapist for the first time in my life (something that in the past I hadn’t believed in). Over the course of the next several years I was able to come to terms with the things that I felt so uncomfortable about that I wanted to drink them away. I now have a different self, a modified self.

I won’t give away the ending of ‘Being John Malkovich.’ I highly recommend it (and Kaufman’s other movies) for those who like to think as they watch.