a note on self valuation

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‘Ego’ has become such a common word, we might forget (or never knew) that it just means “I”. Egoism is just a concept of I-ism or selfism, which tends to be selfish in the worst sense: exclusive much more than inclusive. But ‘ego’ itself was initially a technical notion of selfidentification or active self conception, but narrowly: apart from fleshed-out instances of full persons who may be variably interested in their own (or ownmost) life.

need, want, desire

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The normal meaning of ‘need,’ ‘want,’ and ‘desire’ are such that a person may desire, but not need. But wanting may be either needing or desiring. Needing implies both wanting and desiring; if you need S, then you want it, and you desire it. If you desire S, you want it, but may not need it. So, I regard wanting as ambiguous (it could mean need; it could mean desire). Whether “want” associates to need rather than desire or the converse depends on context. I regard need and desire as basically different. There is much that one may desire but not need. But in cases of both need and desire, it’s normal to say that one wants.

textual intimacy

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This posting has been moved to here.

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Self/personal difference irt multiple perspectivity

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life as literary psychology, part 1 of 5

Beyond “my” assimilating what others say (or accomodating it to one’s own interests), we commonly want to implicitly appreciate the other’s perspective, assess the other’s genuineness, or keep up with a play of perspectives. “Knowing They Know That You Know” renders so-called “mind reading” as “one person’s ability to interpret another person’s mental state...in order to assess its validity” such that interaction—interpersonal action—involves “keep[ing] track of ... different mental states at [the same] time.” Selves can be considered irt “how well an individual is able to track multiple sources,” when the “source” is another person.