Do you have intimate relationships with rocks? and if so can you describe what that relationship is like? Does your conscious self acknowledge this relationship or are you just speaking in some metaphysical sense that is completely intangible?
Well, the universe is full of rocks. “Intimate” may not be a great word (too anthropic and intangible), but writing off all these rocks as boring and banal is probably narrow sighted. Birds, sun and vegetation may feel intimate, but try to feel that without a rock right under your feet. They have a point, imo. We tend to ignore “default” things, but it doesn’t make them irrelevant, they are an important part of the setup. The next thing to feel intimate relationships with is gas (the universe is full of gas that produced you after all, isn’t that as close to “intimate” as it can get).
Intimate was the centerpiece of my curiosity. Sure I can have feelings about the universe and the rocks that exist within this universe, but there is no intimacy.
> isn’t that as close to “intimate” as it can get
No, intimacy isn't a feeling that just happens to you or a circumstance you happen to be in, it's an active relationship where both parties involved do something to foster or maintain the intimacy.
Can someone feel as though rocks were actively fostering or maintaining intimacy with them? I mean, I guess? I'm not sure what that would look or feel like to believe that inanimate objects were actively working to deepen their relationship with you.
Rather it feels like this metaphysical spiritual jargon I read here is just co-opting a word to give more significance to a different kind of relationship someone might feel towards inanimate objects. It's harmless I'm sure, but at the root of it, it feels very selfish and condescending to take a word that has clear meaning and suggest to someone they just aren't using all of their brain if they can't understand intimacy with inanimate objects.
Now, understand I really don't mind misuse of words if it's towards a greater goal of communication, but here it feels like it's towards a lesser goal of demeaning people who use the word only for effective communication.
I see why you're offended now. It was not my intention.
I don't think I can describe it in words. Like I said, our egos stop us from taking the idea too seriously, perhaps out of a survival instinct. There are some drugs that will cause "ego death". The part of your brain that distinguishes between the self and the other literally ceases to function. It sounds metaphysical and silly, but when it happens, you understand how insignificant your ego truly is in comparison with the world, and yet it tells you that it contains every perception that tells you what the world is, and it's only when that ego stops that you can see that the world, including you, can go on without your ego.
So, just like intimate moments with a lover, or a musical instrument, or blessed peaceful moment, you are allowed to forget about yourself. That is my understanding of intimacy.
I've tried basically every ego-death drug that exists (or that I'm aware of) and I've still not felt the need to assert to people that they have a non-functioning part of their brain they aren't using to understand "intimacy" with inanimate objects.
I've had intimacy with a lover because the lover is participating in the intimacy. I've never had it with an instrument, I have felt it with a musician. Again, intimacy requires two participating entities. An instrument is dull and lifeless and only a tool used by the musician to facilitate in intimacy. Without the musician the instrument is effectively a curiously shaped rock.
I've also had intimate moments, where again there was an entity participating in the intimacy. The very roots of the word mean to impress or make familiar, which requires two participants. A rock can't be impressed it cannot feel familiar. Likewise a rock cannot impress itself upon you even if you feel impressed by the rock, it also cannot make itself familiar to you even if you feel familiar with it.
Again though, it's not about the incorrect usage of the word, which people do all the time to _improve_ communication. It's about the assertion that I, or anyone else who feels like me, is wrong and just isn't using part of their brain. Has it occurred to you that maybe you're wrong? Maybe you're misusing a part of your brain to imagine something that has never existed.
I'm fully aware that I may be wrong and there may be something beyond my natural senses that would allow this intimacy on a spiritual level that maybe can be revealed only by taking drugs that unveil a part of our psyche that sees this more clearly. Are you aware that you may be entirely wrong? I suspect not since you've asserted your position comes from a greater understanding, although I suspect you've had no experience that was vastly different from my own, you've just chosen to believe that experience imparted a superior understanding to you than I might have.
I did no ego-death drugs, but I definitely can feel how the complexity of things I interact with reacts to my changes and approaches. It is animate, and intimate to my understanding of that word (I can’t even describe it to the others). One may say thay it’s all in my head, and in a sense would be right, but it’s all in your head as well. Were you a rock, you couldn’t feel it. Were your lovers p-zombies, you couldn’t tell it. But on the other hand, despite having relationships in my life, I can’t tell that they were more intimate than that, so that I could somehow choose one over another if asked to. Maybe I cannot feel intimacy it at all? Another possibility is that neither of us are wrong, stumbling on a definition of a rock. Any phenomenon is complex enough when you dig deeper, and the complexity is never inanimate, it interacts back.
Also, I too didn’t want to sound condescending or superior, and more importantly do not feel that way, but I understand the initial comment you replied to. One issue with this subthread is it never defined rocks or intimacy, which I tried to explore but then left.
it's an active relationship where both parties involved do something to foster or maintain the intimacy
Both yes and no. At wake up in the morning level, it is correct, but when you get into something deep/high enough, lines start to blur. Is a human the most complex being? Is he really what we think it is? Are we objects and not parts of something more sophisticated as a whole? Being non-religious non-esoteric I’m not speaking sprirituals here, these are physical questions you have to ask yourself anyway. See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28870858
Edit: and if you feel that these comments are quite delusional, it’s fine, because problems of consciousness (which intimacy fully bases on) live exactly on that level. The more you think about it, the less ground you feel.
Oh, I totally believe I might be wrong. I'm just sharing from my experience, as you are. I'm sorry you are taking it as implying some kind of deficiency because I'm truly not trying to.
I play piano for myself sometimes. I used to play because I was supposed to, but now I play because I can make such beautiful sounds, which sounds like bragging but I don't mean it that way. It's me and the piano together, for a moment, making something incredible.
It's ok if you haven't felt that with an inanimate object. It doesn't make you bad or lacking. And in fact, I do agree that this intimacy is a hallucination, borne of a perception that exists only in my own mind, meaningless to anyone else. That doesn't make it any less real to me. It still IMHO is as real and meaningful as a relationship with another human being.
