From: gts (gts@optexinc.com)
Date: Sun Nov 03 2002 - 12:06:49 MST
"Life, at its best, is a flowing, changing process in which nothing is
fixed.... I find I am at my best when I can let the flow of my
experience carry me, in a direction which appears to be forward, toward
goals of which I am but dimly aware. In thus floating with the complex
stream of my experiencing, and in trying to understand its ever-changing
complexity, it should be evident that there are no fixed points. When I
am thus able to be in process, it is clear that there can be no closed
system of beliefs, no unchanging set of principles which I hold. Life is
guided by a changing understanding of and interpretation of my
experience. It is always a process of becoming."
-Carl Rogers, from his book classic book _On Becoming a Person_
Carl Rogers is perhaps the greatest of all humanist psychologists. As
extropians we should not forget our humanist roots.
Humanism -> Transhumanism -> Extropianism
In this sense Carl Rogers (and other great humanists like Abraham Maslow)
are our founding fathers.
To be a person who has "no closed system of beliefs," "no unchanging set of
principles," and whose world has "no fixed points" and whose life is guided
by "a changing understanding and interpretation of experience," is to be a
person who has no fixed self-concept, i.e., it is to be a person who has no
fixed non-nominal identity. It is to be a person who is "always in a process
of becoming."
In terms of this discussion of forking, I'm sure both Rogers and Maslow
would agree with me that there is no non-nominal identity in need of
surviving a forking. There is for that matter no non-nominal identity in
need of surviving our mother-in-laws' cooking. We are different people
from moment to moment, always in a process of becoming.
-gts
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