Derrida and Montaigne on Mourning the Friend: Harvard ACLA presentation
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 18 ส.ค. 2022
- Dr. Ellie Anderson, philosophy professor and co-host of Overthink podcast, does a read-aloud of her academic conference paper "Half-Mourning the Friend: Impossible Incorporation in Derrida and Montaigne," originally presented as part of a panel on Derrida and Montaigne at the 2016 meeting of the ACLA (American Comparative Literature Association) at Harvard University.
For our main jam--the audio podcast Overthink that Ellie co-hosts with fellow philosopher Dr. David Peña-Guzmán--listen on Apple, Spotify, and more! www.overthinkpodcast.com
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This is absolutely lovely! Makes me so happy to find enriching, thoughtful Continental philosophy lectures for free
Hi, you are no less than a flower in a waterless land inhabited by great philosophers. I love you beyond the power of poetry.
I just discovered your channel last week and subscribed, having watched your Derrida class/intro. Funny that your new post here also involves Derrida! I was enthralled, and just, some of the themes Derrida explores feel like exactly what concepts fit my life right now. It's like i was supposed to be delving into Derrida RIGHT NOW. ha... Anyway, thank you for this channel and your engaging and easy to conceptualize style. I am actually also mourning the loss of a dear friend, and it is partially why I forayed into exploring various philosophers, as I work through my unexpected intense grief and other things going on in life. Thanks for your posts!
I'm sorry to hear about your friend, and hope you're hanging in there! I'd also recommend philosopher Michael Cholbi's book Grief: A Philosophical Guide
@@OverthinkPodcastPhilosophy Thank you for the recommendation! I will look for that book!
If you want the neurological explanation…
Everything we experience is an idea. Your friend is an entirely separate entity that if you actually knew everything about them, you would just be them. As voluminous as the brain is, it still only has the capacity for one person’s experiences.
So, we have ideas of everybody we know, and the more we know, the more neurons are allocated for that task. Being a good friend, those neurons are also tightly bound to the dopamine centers. Without understanding the difference between your friend and the idea of your friend, people will associate “the friend” to happiness rather than the idea of the friend.
The difference is that “the friend” is required to stimulate the dopamine centers, whereas the idea of the friend is sufficient.
****** depression ********
Neurons are living creatures. They require sustenance. They receive sustenance by accomplishing three simple tasks: collect data; process data into information; transmit information to be received as data by the next higher order neuron. This entire process is how ideas are formed. Groups of neurons represent ideas. The more complex the idea, the more layers of neurons are required, and the larger population of neurons are committed to the task.
A neuron’s beat chance of survival is to be part of a useful idea; part of multiple ideas; or part of multiple useful ideas. If not, they will seek out greener pastures: more active networks. This is the entire basis of learning and forgetting. This is why students forget subjects they studied only to pass a test for but never apply. If you do not use it, neurons will look for new jobs.
When you lose a friend, or betrayal has occurred, particular ideas are still very active, but the cognitive dissonance of reality and the virtual reality in the mind creates pain. The idea of what is cannot coexist with the idea of what one wants there to be. That pain signals that an idea must go, but that idea is part of an intricate network composed of multiple years of experiences. How hard is it to consciously forget an idea that is so integrated that everything triggers it? How do you decrease the activations of so many neurons to the point those neurons want to go find other jobs?
Depression.
Depression is the stick that motivates large populations of neurons to let go to find new jobs, and therein lies the problem.
New jobs means new ideas. New ideas are the carrot. To successfully process grief (stick), you have to provide new ideas (carrots). A neuron will whither from connections to ideas that are not used, but they won’t allocate resources to new connections if there are no new connect to be had.
This leads to the destructive behaviors many people suffer from during grief. Substance abuse provides the idea that chemicals make you feel better so those are “good” ideas. As the grief motivated neurons to let go, the idea of chemical escapism draws those neurons in. If people do not provide new “good” ideas, neurons will latch on to any new idea presented. Instead of a nutritious carrot, they get an unhealthful candy bar.
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So that’s why many failed theories occur. The pharmaceutical component offers an immediate discernible effect that the client latches onto while they struggle with the CBT to component that actually cures the ailment. CBT is slow and it’s effects are nearly undetectable over short time spans, but it is the most important part of the process.
CBT is just a fancy way of saying “learn new ideas.” It can be anything from writing (building connections between the Broca’s Area and the motor cortex), studying new subjects, or even talking (connections like in writing) and listening (connections between the auditory cortex and the Wernicke’s Area).
Any constructive idea will suffice.
If you want to explain this to a construction worker, it’s like demolishing a condemned building and using the debris to build a new building. Destruction is always easier than construction, and both are necessary.
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Epilogue: The death of a friend is similar to a callostomy. The corpus callosum is the connection between both hemispheres. Each hemisphere experiences reality slightly differently and processes those experiences differently. The amalgam of both hemispheres through the corpus callosum into a single consciousness is the same process as two people spending a life time together. When the connection in either case is cut, each half has to take on the tasks they relied on the other to handle. This is why some couples die within a short time span of each other. The part of the brain stimulated by the other loses that stimulation and falls into neuropathy and cell death.
Neurons need each other as much as we need the idea of each other…
Don't people with split personalities have more than one living experience in their brain?
@@boymiyagi Everybody has a split personality. It’s just not as apparent when the corpus callosum remains intact. The left and right hemispheres are not symmetrical, and they have different overall functions on top of the similar basic functions like motor skills.
Thank you
Wow!!! Thank you for this
Wow
We are always complete. Under any circumstance. The illusion of separation is the only thing, created by us, that makes us “half”.
YOUR THUMBNAIL HYPNOTIZED ME TO WATCH THIS!
my new favorite channel keep up the great work!
Plz do not Stop!!
Excellent Teacher!! Thank so much. ✊🏾👌🏿
I’ve been one for so long I’d feel half to be one of two!
Beautiful essay, loved it.
I love you Ellie. You're fabulous.
Extremamente importante para a área de enfermagem.
I just found your channel , me too I have a phd in philosophy still right now struggling to find a work in my country cause philosophy doesn't count... iam a big fan of nietzsche philosophy could you please do a video about him
Yay, this is lit.
Many Thanks; Dear Prof, Montaigne and Etienne de la Boetie both were the founding fathers of the french humanism around 1500, therefore how they perceived friendship maybe or probably have something to do with some notions coming from their humanist philosophy and their way of life, which later I do assume Rousseau would think coming from and has roots in ancient virtue, ... and I do not really understand were the conceptual background or framework of the monsieur Derrida is, ... thanks again
wow amaizing
In French,Montaigne is pronounced more like « ten» than « teen». Something like the word « arraign» in English..
I see you have Debt: The First 5,000 Years! Brilliant book
💕💕💕
"Parsque c'etait lui, par se que c'etait moi..." rr Normandy, Fra.
Ellie, such a ray of sunshine; even when talking about someone as nutty as Derrida.
Beyond good and evil what do you think?
I’ve heard it’s not healthy studying too much philosophy, is that true?
It depends on what kind of person you are. Personally I have gained very much insight from my bachelors degree. However, i did find that i was overthinking most social situation due to my specialisation in ethics. For me, I went a bit too far with thinking which made me feel disconnected from my body in some way. I could not experience things fully. On the other hand, I have discovered this and now am happy with all the insights i have gotten along the road and also about myself.
:-)
Half life is a video game that created Steam
Strange solace this saying you offer. An open ended intimacy is retained.
Is this philosophy or poetry lol
I don't know, but I would be careful absorbing too much Derrida lest your hair turn completely white sooner than later. Montaigne can stay though.
So sad . . . read throughs are tedious, even yours 😢 Take it from the ancient rivals to the philosophers: Rhetoricians recommend impromptu-AKA, extemporaneous-delivery.
such a useless comment