TheOnlineSelf

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In origin, Self is a key construct in several schools of psychology, broadly referring to the cognitive and affective representation of one's identity. The earliest formulation of the self in modern psychology from the distinction between the self as I, the subjective knower, and the self as Me, the object that is known. Current views of the self in psychology diverge greatly from this early conception, positioning the self as playing an integral part in human motivation, cognition, affect, and social identity.

This page was proposed for collaboratively expanding how to build online scenarios from insights learned offline. The origin of the conversation was that the inclusion of money in a OnlineCommunity depends upon an interface that is our own "Self" -online- as bridge between money and community.

From <-> MoneyAndCommunity

Being paid or Earning Money

(Includes something of machine translation, from spanish)

Little excerpt from "Human Scale Development":

"When you put your feet in the mud and you're face to face with a person with a name, [...] (and lacks: resume on translation)... I put the following question: what do you say?. Do you say, you can be happy, because GDP grows at 10 percent? That is, what I question is thinking in economical terms at this time, under these circumstances and in that environment and for that person, realizing that conventional economics had not taught me anything, that helped in that scenario. You can only talk that way, if you're disconnected from reality. In this case you do not have days to talk of income. You must respond with measures to reflect the immediate needs, responding to all their human dignity".

"The most significant [part] is that the experience with this method developed and stimulated non-conventional existing resources, which were not given enough appreciation: solidarity, cooperation, knowledge, etc.. And this is very important, because you can always build on these resources that do not collapse".

"The problem with conventional development projects is that they always build on the same economical and technological resources, that, as we know, can easily collapse. So it is important to distinguish want to be from want to do, encouraging awareness of the unconventional resources, that not only do not wear out but resurge and multiply when used; further, they just collapse if not used (unlike the conventional resources: note on translation)".

"The more solid foundation for a building project is building on people wanting to be, moving it and putting it in the service of its implementation".

As stated (personal translation) in "Care of the Soul":

"A community is not completely rational. Every community has a complex personality, with a mixed past and diverse values. It has a soul, so also has a shadow. Money is not only a rational means of exchange, is also the bearer of the soul of community life".

Now we can translate all this to online-scenarios ...

Tags of needs

Based on matrix of needs (Human Scale Development - Manfred Max-Neef):
- According to existential categories: Being, Having, Doing, Interacting
- According to axiological categories: Subsistence, Protection, Affection, Understanding, Participation, Idleness, Creation, Identity, Freedom

Based on hierarchy of needs (Maslow):
- Physiological, Safety, Social, Esteem, Self-Actualization, Self-transcendence.

Internet feeds the ego

(Includes something of machine translation, from spanish)

[Mercè Molist (spanish)] 03/03/09 13:55:29.

Excerpt from http://ww2.grn.es/merce/2009/maniasinternet.html (spanish)

Verbatim copying, translation and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any digital and no commercial medium, provide this notice is preserved.

"One of the main features of the Internet is disinhibition, loss of shame and fear to freedom of expression. The psychiatrist Miguel Ponce makes an example of social networks that encourage interaction with other like-minded people, regardless of their geographical location, "This phenomenon carries a hiperselección of information by the sender and receiver, which undoubtedly implies an accentuation of the degree of ego and creates a bias towards to the radical, progressive deafferentation with a real social environment. In the virtual environment there are no limits to the deviations inherent to human interaction, so that "the new medium is ideal for individuals with high levels of stigmatization in their everyday environment to attain a more reasonable degree of self-acceptance, making the militancy in the virtual group is an element of their identity. " The anonymity of the network, along with the excessive size of the fantasy that is not constrained by the limits of the real world, in accordance with Ponce, possible expansive release of sexual fantasies and repressed personality traits or dissatisfied feelings of recognition and power".

Discussion

JuanmaMP -- Wed Aug 26 14:30:19 2009

JuanmaMP: HelmutLeitner, there's still some degree of bidirectionality between both worlds, real and virtual. Although in fact there is only a single world, the real one. The study can be focused taking any position inside one of them and riching the other one (I don't want to lose specificity with this comment, but wanted to add this tinge).

[this was copied and lacks the original context] HelmutLeitner: Juanma, I agree with your grand picture of real and online world. Of course the online world is part of the real world, it is interacting, it has some new features and attributes. The question is, in understanding and using these new subspace, what knowledge can we transfer and what knowledge must be renewed, replaced or forgotten. This IS essencial for everyone, who wants to succeed online. This is a topic for scientific investigation in the widest sense of "science", and mb is a place where such things are sought or investigated.

FridemarPache thanking for the challenge, suggesting a new page: Juanma, thank you for contributing the translated quotation. To translate and adapt this to online-scenarios is a real challenge. Your text (attributed and marked by myself, hopefully with your permission) needs a split or an extra page to expand and stimulate a dedicated bilinked conversation there, for the same formal reasons as given to Helmut's vast topic. How would you like to name that page?

JuanmaMP: As this not only relates to psychology, but also to communication sciences, for instance, and other disciplines, I've adopted this name TheSelfOnline. Maybe as extension of OnlineIdentity. Thanks Fridemar, you have started me thinking.

FridemarPache: Juanma, I just opened the suggested page and entered additional context to OnlineIdentity. Besides that, I tried my best to find a rough approximation of the given language translation, asking you to help me to refine it to my (our) full understanding. Especially help us understand the last sentence, that ends with "intervention". I am with you.

JuanmaMP: One way to shed light about what kind of relationship there's among money and other phenomena (community online) is understanding the relationship with ourselves, even in its online variant. This area is more conceptual, but it can bring surprises. It could bring a larger view.

NathanielThurston: Juanma, this is very interesting. I am with you in drawing an analogy between the social context and the psychological context -- I find the analogy to be a rewarding source of insight. I look forward to what you have to say.

FridemarPache: We are ready to listen to you.

JuanmaMP: if you're checking how pages in the last one hundred days have changed, curiously MoneyAndCommunity has had a more changes than GoogleSearchWiki (Google, other phenomenon of ubiquity, such as money). I agree with Fridemar. That page has a warm and vibrant conversation.

FridemarPache: Juanma, I am immensely happy about your energetic commitment, that has a tendency to reach to more and more spaces. This is what we really need, if we want to move something for a Google:WiserEarth. Yes, confining it to a mere academical discourse doesn't bring food on the table. So I made a snapshot of your Google:MoneyAndCommunity search wiki contribution, added to that, thanked you and Hans (for his public Diigo annotation, in which he suggests to expand appropriately into the annotation sphere). Besides that, I opened a TwinPage at AboutusOrg, named <=> [[AboutusOrg:MoneyAndCommunity]], where I invite people to globalize our conversation. I think a Distributed Conversation via different bilinked wikis is a win-win for all parties involved and helps to prevent a ForestFire on Meatball, so I suggest to open a bilinked page <-> TheSelfOnlineBrainstorm? here or at <-> http://Aboutus.org/TheSelfOnlineBrainstorm to anticipate the complexities lurking in the grass.

 JuanmaMP's brainstorm starter:

 I think a good start is to ask questions such as: has the money for us a neutral point of view?.

 Can we focus the analysis in terms as Nathaniel proposed, terms emerging from the interaction between 
 external social context and inner psychological context?

 What about jump-starting with questions about money in connection with improving our self knowledge.

 How shall I relate the money to my own self.
 Why are people driven to compare themselves with each other?

 We can assume that here meet people, who have achieved the  
 means to cover the basic needs (having free time and internet   
 connection). 
 Is earning more  money only a desire for enjoyment? 
 Does there remain a need for other areas, self-esteem, better
 emotional health in our environment?

 It has been mentioned that the introduction of money in a 
 community can be beneficial or detrimental to that community. 
 I think the ability 
 to view money as something external to our own [self] could be
 seen as an act of liberation. If an online community is broken,
 I prefer it by a measure of [missing] coherence, but not by 
 losing respect, loyalty and other values. If it breaks just for
 money, I think this questions 
 ourself, as being humane persons.

JuanmaMP: I became a more happy person, by leaving many external superfluous things, that were earlier in my conscience, weakening my self-esteem.

FridemarPache: You are not alone, we are all here to help each other. I worked a bit with your brainsstorm starter. If I misunderstood parts of your sketch, please help me.

JuanmaMP: Money is not really the problem.

FridemarPache: Am I right Juanma, guessing: undue attachment to money, that destroys humane relationships, produces the real problems (apart from poverty, where lack of money in an inhumane society creates death)

JuanmaMP:About your recent comment, really "undue attachment to" is a good keyword but, again, there's more background about why undue attachment to?.

F: Hello Juanma, thanks to a motivating hint of LionKimbro in MoneyAndCommunity, I joined [TheTransitioner.org]. When reading [TheTransitioner:CommitmentsForPioneers], it reminded me at once on your engagement at TheSelfOnline. So it appears that we share the same morphic field :-).

JuanmaMP:It is a pleasure for me to share if it seems to be, similar sensitivities, with you Fridemar, without disregarding obviously others due to other ways of seeing, helping advance understanding (AssumeNotDogmatism, the other side of DefendAgainstPassion). It is very nice of you expressing your incursions in this subject.

F: Juanma, thank you, indeed it is a pleasure to collaborate with you. TheOnlineSelf could even attract interest to meditate on the possible emergence of consciousness in non biological, especially artificial systems as expressed in circles of strong AI, which culminates in TheSingularity.

J:You're right. TheOnlineSelf, arises where there's any consciousness, human or not.

F: I think it was LionKimbro, who introduced somewhere in the CommunityWiki the term Shared Awareness System or something like that. (Google:Awareness+LionKimbro).

JuanmaMP: In the future I'd like to extend the field of TheOnlineSelf with a touch of Teoría del Emplazamiento". This investigation in the context of communication science locates in a university at Seville, southern Spain. The three coordinates Economics, Psychology and Communication may be a good start for this page.

F: Juanma, what is your take on Google: Placement+Theory?

J: Sorry if any inconvenience, I have corrected my own mistake in your writing (if this is not annoying. F:Welcome, not at all). The exact title (in Spanish: Teoría del Emplazamiento, -not "dis-"). I will bring a brief introduction in English, but I'll wait to get in touch with a researcher. There's a Social Network, too. It's in Spanish:

 "Gaudium essendi: El gozo de ser. Red para transformarnos y transformar nuestro mundo, desde el gozo de ser". 
 "The joy of being: Network to transform ourselves and transform our world, from the joy of being."

Thanks Fridemar, for asking.

F: I used the translation command of the Firefox plugin Google:Ubiquity to read the Spanish part and found, that you had it already translated before the quote in Spanish. So I permutated and marked it (if this is not annoying?).

J: It's perfect.

HelmutLeitner -- Sun Aug 30 06:32:15 2009

If I follow the the initial thoughts "self as me, the object" the interface needed should be called OnlineMe?. This would suggest that our online output becomes part of a larger self having this structure

Self
- I (subjective knower, only in our offline brain)
- Me (the object that is known)
  - OfflineMe?
  - OnlineMe?

Analytically there is no whole that can be called OnlineSelf?, because there is no detached online actor/knower (this would need at least an AI system able to integrate the online artifacts and act on behalf of them). This page should imho be renamed to TheSelf?.

JuanmaMP -- Sun Aug 30 11:08:51 2009

Helmut, I agree with you in regard to "Self", "I", "Me".

When I created this page as a suggestion from other participant, I knew about "The Self" concept. Really there's only one Self, because there's only an unique personal entity. If I create a page with title "TheSelf?", I'm reinventing the wheel. Instead, TheOnlineSelf is a new referent.

I wanted, emphasizing, how the ingredients of the "Self" change their respective proportions in an online inmersion. In other words, opening the door in order to analize, quantitative changes from their components of "Self" but not qualitative changes, because as you said well , there's only one "Self", one person if I understood well your words.

But the person could have different resonance in online world.

Do you admit a joke about chemical jargon? what about TheStoichiometryOfSelf

FridemarPache -- Sun Aug 30 11:42:03 2009

Helmut, Juanma perhaps this quote from Wiki:GlobalBrain might bridge different views:

 .. The net is no more a brain than an ecosystem is an organism. It's a place where minds interact, not some larger mind.

 That sounds like saying: "The brain is no more than an ecosystem of interacting cells." -- fp

JuanmaMP -- Sun Aug 30 11:59:09 2009

Fridemar, certainly, that would be a test in a superior system in interaction with its components.

TheOnlineSelf, let's say, focuses on individual agents, albeit in interaction with the wider environment. Maybe, in the GlobalBrain, the focus is more on the environment as a whole.

JuanmaMP -- Sun Aug 30 12:00:04 2009

I think TheOnlineSelf needs an example ...

JuanmaMP -- Sun Aug 30 12:16:08 2009

For example, the troll character, is an entity that hasn't probably a corresponding part in the real world (embodied by the same person) due to repressions, social conventions or legal or ethical considerations; but this phenomenon crops up here: same person, awareness polarization into components with different weights within the Self.

Self = Self(offline) + Self(online).

Done!.

JuanmaMP -- Sun Aug 30 18:34:02 2009

Helmut, your classification is also plausible. This depends on how and where we want to emphasize about things, if about online world or whether we prefer always return concepts to the offline world. (Indeed, denominating the ordinary world as OFFline world appears to be a pretty paradoxical curiosity as e.g. found at Google, that directly translates "offline world" into "real world" ... (at least, in the Spanish version).

HelmutLeitner -- Mon Aug 31 07:39:33 2009

Juanma, the troll example is interesting, because it shows a kind of split personality - in normal life I found some trolls very peaceful and even timid. In the normal situation, with normal people, we can hopefully assume that they stay what they are and use the wiki just as another place of communication and collaboration. At least this seems sound and advisable.

I can justify the term "Offline" like in OfflineWorld? and OfflineCommuity?, although they are uncommon. Technically there is nothing but the real world, and everything that we name "virtual" or "online" is part of the real world. Just as every thought and phantasy is real in the sense that it is a process in our brain. But sometimes we have the need to refer to the world of "normal people" unconnected to IT/Internet, as it existed in a pure form maybe until maybe 1980. So "offline world" means "real world" minus "online phenomena of the real world".

Note that old printers all had two buttons. One was for ON/OFF, another one made him either listen to the computer (ONLINE) or not. When ONLINE was off, you could feed the paper, abort a print job. The ONLINE buttton/light but was off, the printer was OFFLINE. Nowadays this separation is marred, there may be a separate button to abort a print job at any time, or there may be a menu button to send commands without caring much about what state the printer is in, the software will do for you.