The Fantasy of Desire, Cause of Anxiety

[Psychoanalytic Reading: On Lacan's Praying Mantis]

you may download the paper here

Psychoanalytic experience reveals that the subject pursues her fantasy, believing that it will bring her ultimate enjoyment. Yet, however much the subject in her symptom is after that enjoyment, nevertheless the fantasy is not something that the subject truly wants to achieve; for, not only this pursue brings anxiety, but also when it is realised the result is undesirable or even devastating for her.

Fantasy brings enjoyment, but only when it is in the control of the subject. This is why the subject rebels if that enjoyment is imposed by the Other via a specific demand. An analysand, for example, wakes up eager to do chores around the house, but before she starts, she hears her mother ordering her to do so, and as a result she becomes indignant and gives up. In a different incident, another analysand, during her session, describes how anxious she is when she is looked by someone, where she tries to put herself in the role of how she imagines that the other person sees her, for example “cool” and “impressive”. However, when the viewer compliments her that she is impressive, she reacts rudely and tells him to go to hell, believing he wants something from her. As long as the Other's desire remains elusive, the subject tries to guess it by acting according to how she assumes that desire, in other words, by fulfilling it! The analysand herein answers the enigma of the Other's desire according to her fantasy in which she appears impressive. But once the Other is revealed through the compliment, the desire falls into a specific demand, namely, how the Other wants to see her, which is unbearable for her. The analysand believes that the Other wants something from her because he has just disclosed it to her, i.e. that he enjoys her as the object of his gaze, as impressive. With her acting, she tries to lure the Other into openly stating how he sees her so that she then denies her position as an object. But the real lure is the one which she had primarily surrendered herself to, the lure of language forming the fantasy of the “impressive”, where she has already become a captive of the Other by giving up her desire – a fantasy that she then projects onto the Other in order to place all the blame on him.

 

In fantasy, the subject puts the responsibility of her desire on the Other. With this move, not only does she lay her desire on the Other from whom she then tries to receive it back (the desire becomes the Other's desire), but also what she gets back, i.e. the fantasy, is something she does not desire, which means that the desire is negativized.

 

Fantasy is the paranoid means by which the subject interprets desire as the desire of the Other, that is, how she embraces the Other who is alien, a radical otherness, ξένος, making it her home. This is how we reach Lacan’s formula that “[m]an’s desire is the desire of the Other”[1]. Let's bear in mind that the Other is language itself, even if it takes various forms in the persons who introduce it to the speaking being through enjoyment, i.e. the family who familiarises the child with language, as the language of enjoyment. The subject forms a relationship of enjoyment with the Other, in such a way that she keeps close to the Other but at the same time avoids being grasped (as an object) by him. This is precisely the function of the symptom, as a staging by which the subject approaches the fantasy, yet when she approximates its realisation she diverts from it, in order to repeat the same cycle again. However, when the aforesaid relationship with the enjoyment of the Other is actualised, it wreaks havoc on the subject! This is exactly what the myth of Oedipus tells us[2]. In the realization of the fantasy nothing remains of the subject but only an object of the Other, i.e. it means death for the subject as desire. In the realization of the fantasy, language, which gives body to the subject, takes it away : The analysand that defined her life with the signifier “impressive” meets her death there! The subject is devoured by the Other, she is annihilated in language.

 

Lacan refers to this very thing when he develops the topic of anxiety that occupies the subject when she encounters the object. He speaks of the anxiety in the face of the desire of the Other, using an allegory where the subject is standing next to a female praying mantis, with twice the subject's size[3]. The subject is wearing a mask, but she, the subject herself, does not know what the mask is, whether it makes her look like a prey, or worse, whether it is a mask of a male praying mantis, whose head is known to be eaten by the female after their sexual intercourse. The subject, Lacan says, is seized with anxiety in the face of the Other's enigmatic intentions. But what he does not say, and I believe that its importance needs to be emphasised, is that in order to be eaten as a male praying mantis, she must have already mated with the Other, for it is only after the coition that the male is beheaded. This means that in her fantasy the subject has already “coupled” with the Other and what remains is the coup de grace (or the mercy of the predator), in other words, the realisation of the fantasy. The subject is in danger by the intentions of the Other only when she submits to the lure of the Other's enjoyment.

---

[1] Jacques Lacan, The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan Book XI, Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller, Transl. Alan Sheridan, New York: W.W. Norton & Co, 1981, p.235.

[2] See Angelos Tsialides, Oedipus, Cosmogony and the Alien, Limassol: Scribe of the Letter, 2023, and Άγγελος Τσιλίδης, Κοσμογονία: Σεμινάριο στο Οιδιπόδειο Σύμπλεγμα, Λεμεσός: Scribe of the Letter, 2023.

[3] Jacques Lacan, Identification, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan Book IX, Transl. Cormac Gallagher, unpublished, Session 16: 4.4.1962. Also, Jacques Lacan, Anxiety, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan Book X, Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller, Transl. A. R. Price, Cambridge: Polity, 2014, p. 5.

The Oedipus, Cosmogony and the Alien

"Who speaks? It is a speech that produces a subject with the sole purpose of finding out where this speech comes from, and when all is said and done, recognise it as his own voice by finding himself causing this speech at the place of desire."

Angelos Tsialides, The Oedipus, Cosmogony and the Alien

Lacan, in interpreting Freud, went beyond the part of psychological observation of the Oedipus Complex, i.e. the behavioural image given by the script of the myth, where it is reduced to a phase of human development observed around the age of four. Through Lacan, we encounter a metapsychological structure motivating this scenario, whereby we are not dealing with gender relations that guide it but rather whereby gender emerges through this very process. And because we are no longer talking about a boy or a girl but about a subject of λογος, we locate an unconscious desire coming from parents that leads the subject through this process that is nothing but a Cosmogony.

This book comprises the script of the seminar given at Birkbeck University, on 23rd November 2019, for the School of the Freudian Letter, based on which the book Κοσμογονία: Σεμινάριο στο Οιδιπόδειο Σύμπλεγμα was written.

It addresses all people interested in psychoanalysis or in the Oedipus complex and requires no previous knowledge in order to be read.

The Oedipus, Cosmogony and the Alien

is available here

Κοσμογονία: Σεμινάριο στο Οιδιπόδειο Σύμπλεγμα

 

Το βιβλίο αυτό αποτελεί μια διάνοιξη του ορίζοντα του Οιδιπόδειου συμπλέγματος πέρα από την εκδοχή με την οποία το γνωρίζουμε. Αντί να προσκρούουμε στη συμπεριφορική εικόνα με την οποία είναι εδραιωμένο στη λαϊκή αντίληψη, αυτήν του παιδιού που έλκεται από τον γονέα του αντίθετου φύλου και που εκδηλώνει αντιζηλία προς τον γονέα του ίδιου φύλου, έχοντας τον Λακάν ως καθοδηγητή συναντιόμαστε με έναν είδους ζήλο του όντος που ομιλεί, με τον οποίον ποιεί κόσμους για να εγγράψει την εμπειρία της απόλαυσής του. Αποκτούμε μια γεύση του τι εστί επιθυμία.

Με προσανατολισμό την επιθυμία, η συγγραφή του παρόντος έργου αποτελεί ένα έμπρακτο εγχείρημα μετάδοσης της ψυχαναλυτικής εμπειρίας, μέσα από λογής καθημερινά περιστατικά που ακουμπούν μια ευρεία θεματολογία.

Κοσμογονία: Σεμινάριο στο Οιδιπόδειο Σύμπλεγμα

διαθέσιμο εδώ

ΠΕΡΙΕΧΟΜΕΝΑ

ΣΕΜΙΝΑΡΙΟ ΣΤΟ ΟΙΔΙΠΟΔΕΙΟ ΣΥΜΠΛΕΓΜΑ

§1. Εισαγωγή: Το Σύμπλεγμα, ο Μύθος

§2. Οι Οιδιπόδειοι Γονείς

§3. Η Απόλαυση της Μητέρας

§4. Κληρονομικότητα

§5. Μύθοι που Αναμορφώνουν το Οιδιπόδειο

§6. Η Άδεια Θέση στην Επιθυμία της Μητέρας

§7. Ο Φροϋδικός Πατέρας ως Αντίζηλος

§8. Πατρική Μεταφορά και Φαλλικό Σημαίνον

§9. Ο Νόμος του Πατέρα και η Κοινωνία

§10. Το Σύμπαν της Μητέρας και του Πατέρα

§11. Το Τραύμα της Καταγωγής

§12. Από την Καταγωγή, στην Κοσμογονία

ΕΡΩΤΗΣΕΙΣ

Ε1. Πέραν του Φρόυντ

Ε2. Αυτοπεποίθηση

Ε3. Τα Γονικά Σημαίνοντα

Ε4. Διάγνωση, Σύμπτωμα

Ε5. Ο Φαλλός και το Όνομα του Πατρός

Ε6. Επώνυμο

E7. Υπερεγώ, Κληρονομιά

E8. Είναι ο Οιδίποδας Ψυχωτικός;

E9. Ο Φόνος του Πατέρα

E10. Ενοχή

E11. Διαχωρισμός

E12. Φαλλοκρατία στη Γλώσσα

E13. Άνδρας, Γυναίκα, Φαλλός

E14. Ντροπή

E15. Ένας Πανίσχυρος Πατέρας

E16. Χωρισμός

E17. Όταν το Παιδί Επιλέγει

E18. Τα Γονικά Σημαίνοντα στη Συνεδρία

E19. Απώλεια, Ενόρμηση

Ε20. Διάκλειση

Ε21. Εθισμός (Εξάρτηση)

Ε22. Αφάνιση

Ε23. Σεξουαλικές Θεωρίες και Συμπτώματα

Ε24. Φαντασίωση

Ε25. Φαντασίωση και Φαλλός

Ε26. Χριστιανισμός

Ε27. Θυσία

Ε28. Τραύμα

Ε29. Αποπλάνηση

Ε30. Η Σαγήνη της Γλώσσας

Ε31. Απώλεια Αγαπημένου Προσώπου

Ε32. Επιθυμία

Ε33. Ερωτισμός

Ε34. Στην Απόλαυση της Μητέρας

Ε35. Επιθυμία και Φαντασίωση

Ε36. Σύμπτωμα και Όνομα του Πατρός

Ε37. Ο Χρησμός

Ε38. Φαντασίωση και Χρησμός

Ε39. Γιατί η Φαντασίωση;

Ε40. Η Αυτού Μεγαλειότης το Βρέφος

Ε41. Το «Άλλο» Αντικείμενο (Φαλλός & Αντικείμενο α)

Ε42. Μεταβίβαση, Αγάπη

Ε43. Μη-Τέρας

ΕΥΡΕΤΗΡΙΟ

…

αγάπη, 7, 15, 31, 33-4, 56-7, 61-2, 66, 70, 82, 86, 102, 111, 118, 130-1, 141, 147-8, 155, 158, 170, 173-4

άγχος, 69, 98-9, 114, 136, 170

άγχος αποχωρισμού, 119-20, 129, 131, 

άγχος ευνουχισμού, 98-9, 150, 167  [βλ. επίσης, ευνουχισμός]

άγχος θανάτου, 119

Άλλος*

αιμομιξία, 13, 26, 28, 31, 40, 47, 49, 51, 57, 128, 131, 136, 139, 145

…

…

συμπεριφορισμός, 3, 33, 120, 171

συμπεριφορά, 4, 8, 12-3, 34, 50, 76, 79, 114

σύμπτωμα, 8-9, 35, 46, 53, 56, 61, 65, 68, 75-8, 91, 107, 117, 128, 133-5, 154-5, 157-9

συναισθηματική αποστέρηση, βλ. ιδρυματισμός

σχήματα λόγου

κυριολεξία, 13, 45, 121, 124, 127, 162

μεταφορά, 18, 20, 22, 36-8, 56, 59, 63, 125, 127, 129, 146, 166, 168

[βλ. επίσης, πατρική μεταφορά]

μετωνυμία, 43, 125

…

Freudian Letter

Άγγελος Τσιαλίδης / ΑΓΓΕΛΟΣ ΤΣΙΑΛΙΔΗΣ

The Image of Another

The following lecture has been given as an introduction to my recent publication of the book The Image of a Voice, to the gathering of The English Social Club (Cyprus) that has taken place on 12th February 2022 in Nicosia.

I will start with the word ‘patient’. It is a word that I usually avoid using in psychoanalysis, because the suffering of the person that is called as such (as patient) implies a defined normality, a set of specifications of ‘what should be’, from which that person is diverted. We may agree that this is true in the medical discourse, where there are documented precise parameters of how the body should function. Yet, if it is that we speak of the psychical world of the individual, how are we to define normality? Considering that there exists some truth in the proverb saying that each individual lives in his own world, then there is no such a thing as normality, and everyone is mad! Think of our everyday experience of misunderstandings between people, the need to explain ourselves so often, in such a way that along with the spoken word it becomes necessary to transmit our intentionality. There is always some part that remains untold: the desire with which something is expressed, whether it is expressed by being spoken or by being acted (the explanation of our word and of our actions; their context). Do we hence eliminate the notion of common sense? No and yes: No, because there needs to be a convention, a mutual agreement so that we can coexist, but since there needs to be such a convention then, by default, there is acceptance that each individual has their unique subjective world and therefore we have to set and agree on a common one. Thus, there is no definite normality in the strict sense of the word: Even the most formal expressions of our consensus which are the written laws of the city, the laws of the state, have their interpreters which we call lawyers or the court.

So, if we are to restore a ‘patient’ to a normality, which world does this normality refer to other than his own that has somehow failed and became cause if his distress!

However, what I like of the word ‘patient’ is the homonymity with another word: the Greek ‘pathos’. It is a word that is used intact in English vocabulary and speaks of the same failure or illness as expressed in the complaint of our fellow ‘patient’, although, I must admit that I had to look this up, it seems that there exists no etymological connection between them. Yet, the English translation of the Greek word provides us with another word that gives a different nuance to the word patient: We get the word ‘passion’, which is used to signify two distinct situations:

We speak of the passion of Christ, the extreme suffering, but we also use this word to express our liking about things that we pursue because they bring us extreme pleasure. What is common, though, between these two uses of the word is (a) the element of ‘the extreme’, and even further (b) that pathos, this extremity, is something so intimate to us yet it does not belong to ourselves: The pain or suffering is something located in our body, yet it is something we should abolish because it is not part of our body, we do not own it. The same goes for the passion for the things we like, because they are not things that we own but, contrariwise, it is these very things that own us (the passion owns us)! We all know very well of people who are driven into destruction because of their passions, the things they enjoy so much! We easily understand how passion, or things that own us, may easily become causes of suffering.

The first common thing the individual does when they address their suffering to a supposed specialist [I say supposed because there is no one that can guarantee a cure; there is no cure because there is nobody ill, as explained in the beginning] is that they provide a description of their distress, how they experience this suffering, which takes the value of a self-diagnosis e.g. they say they have anger, frustration, depression, panic attacks etc.: they know exactly what’s going wrong, i.e. what used to be normal for them and that it is not any more.

The second thing the ‘patient’ does [I use the word ‘patient’ because I have already explained my own intentionality of using it, beyond its common sense, by relating it to ‘pathos’] is to seek the cause of their distress in the surrounding world, because, as analysed before, pathos, although being so intimate to us, is not something that one can locate as part of themselves, i.e. within them. It is thus sought in what is considered as outside; a quest to find that element which escapes. It is sought into their relationships with others: their partners, their employers, their parents, their friends. They speak of the failure they experience in these relationships. A failure of what? Of an assumed identity via which they relate with the others. Even if the cause of suffering is described in the traumatic event of losing a beloved one, it is about what I was for this person, how I could see myself through them! It is about how my identity was lost with the beloved one. The investigation of one’s identity that relates them with the outer world forms questions, which are not stated so clearly or directly in the beginning, but they are refined in the process of the analysis, such as ‘what is it to be a child of my parents’, ‘a friend of my friends’, ‘a man for a woman’, ‘a woman for a man’. They are questions where the identity of the speaking subject is at stake in relation to someone else.

Every distress sums up as a crisis of identity, which arises not because of the individual all alone, but because of encountering conflicts with others; it is these conflicts that bring them to analysis. It is thus the environment that gives rise to this crisis, and the only reason is that the environment, the other person, is itself included in one’s identity. One’s own identity unavoidably passes through another – I will give further explanation of this in a moment.

We can even more say that the self-diagnosis that the subject undergoes in the beginning of their sessions is a temporary identity given to themselves because their own identity failed. [e.g. to get the identity of the 'depressed'; how to sustain themselves i.e. relate to the world otherwise? – without relating to the world, the world as well as themselves ceases to exist (every counterpart can only exist in relation to the other one).. Psychoanalytic experience proves that the identity of the depressed is the last resort of identity left before suicide.]

The above lead us to another question: What is identity? Identity, or our sense of self, is nothing but the qualities that one assumes for himself, his properties, which is a nice word that signifies not only one’s attributes, but also one’s belongings: the word property is about belonging. And what is the most fundamental paradigm for a property of the individual other than his/her own body! We say that we have a body!.. we have a body. We do not say that we are one, which itself poses a problem of identity: I cannot identify with the body, be that body, I can only have it. This is a completely different kind of body than the one that the medical discourse tries to treat; the medical discourse considers the individual to be the body. The subjective experience speaks otherwise: what characterises the body of the speaking being, that is to say what allows him/her to have it, is the description it receives for its qualities that unavoidably implement another, i.e. the qualities have reference to another person: how to be a man for a woman, or a woman for a man, how to be a child to my parents or a parent to my children etc. It is a certain identity that one assumes depending on who they address themselves to.

One question that is posed very often, is why we change the way we behave in different situations. An analysand for example spoke of the distress she has lived through during a time where various situations caused her to experience disorientation. She was feeling powerless back then, yet once her husband got ill she was transformed into a very powerful and agile person. She was surprised by this transformation! However, her previous distress was merely replaced by another one: the task to take care of her powerless husband. She became the powerful one when the description 'powerless' has shifted onto the person she relates to. So, what was truly described there, is her relationship where if one person is to be powerful, the other one must be powerless… in relation to whom the powerful is defined. Her suffering was not caused by the identity of the powerless one, but due to the fact that her identity was given by this relationship, i.e. the powerful with the powerless. Her identity did not change at all, because this identity unavoidably includes both counterparts. The other person is the mirror where the subject verifies their own image (their identity).

Crisis strikes in the form of non-recognition. Common complaints are “they don’t really know me” “they cannot accept me / love me for who I am” that very often lead to actions from the part of the subject that they declare as “they have seen myself in a way they didn’t know me” or even “I cannot recognise myself, it is not I who acted like this”. All these signify that the other person is inseparable part of oneself, because I cannot recognize myself unless the other verifies my assumed identity: I need him or her to verify my image. The sense of self, one’s image in the mirror, comes from another. This is equivalent to telling a joke, where it is not the comedian that makes it a joke but the one who listens and reacts to it with laughter, who verifies it as a joke (and the one who tells it a comedian).

Defining oneself as something that they are not, is the most common initial response that the subject gives to the question ‘who am I’ or ‘what do I want’. The individual says they are not understood and that nobody knows them, yet they are unable to state who they are unless they say ‘I am not this and that’, declaring within this negation (I am not) the identity that escapes. Here’s where pathos has its place: it comes to the place of that which escapes oneself, i.e. it is not part of one’s identity. Isn’t this the way that ‘pathos’ was defined in the beginning? i.e. an intimate part that escapes oneself. When identity escapes, pathos marks the place of the lost identity. Pathos is a signal: it is the body itself that speaks for the subject’s account! The word that remains unstated, the intentionality of the subject, what we call desire, is spoken through the body. This is why one’s identity as given by another becomes cause of suffering.

Here, we are brought to another question: How does the subject obtain that identity which seems to be so fragile? The mirror stage is the process via which our self-perception (both our self-identity and the perception of the body) is constituted, as an image in the mirror whose description is received from anOther place. The Image of a Voice addresses both the experienced psychoanalyst, but also the reader who has no psychoanalytical knowledge but they are interested in investigating the illusions of self-perception, false choices, forced modes of enjoyment and the desire which is at stake. This illustrated edition grounds itself on the experience of life and constitutes a step-by-step journey through Lacanian psychoanalysis.

Το ωραίο άγχος

Ένα πολύ σύνηθες αίτημα του καθενός είναι «να αγαπηθώ για αυτός/ή που πραγματικά είμαι». Θα ήθελα να αναφερθώ σε αυτό το θέμα, το οποίο είναι άμεσα συσχετισμένο με διάφορα είδη συμπτωματολογίας (άγχος, κρίσεις πανικού κλπ.) τα οποία ενώ θα αποδίδαμε οπουδήποτε αλλού δεν είναι παρά ενδείξεις ότι το υποκείμενο αρπάζεται στο δικό του δόλωμα. Αυτή την αναφορά θα την κάνω παραθέτοντας έναν μύθο, μια αλληγορία, διατυπωμένο από τον ψυχαναλυτή Moustapha Safouan[1] σε ελεύθερη δική μου ερμηνεία η οποία περιλαμβάνει και σχόλιά μου[2]:

Αν βυθίσουμε ένα ραβδί στο νερό, φαίνεται να είναι λυγισμένο ή «σπασμένο». Αυτό λέγεται ότι είναι μια ψευδαίσθηση. Ωστόσο, με αυτόν τον τρόπο η εμφάνιση συμμορφώνεται με εκείνο που θα έπρεπε να είναι όπως δίνεται από την εμπειρία μας, και κατά συνέπεια και με αυτό που περιμένουμε. Αν το ραβδί φαινόταν κυρτό ή ίσιο ή οτιδήποτε άλλο, θα ήταν δικαιολογημένο να υποψιαστεί κάποιος ψευδαίσθηση. Κοινώς, άμα δεν παρατηρείται η αρχική ψευδαίσθηση, τότε μόνο υποψιαζόμαστε ότι υπάρχει κάποια ψευδαίσθηση: όταν δηλαδή παρατηρείται ψευδαίσθηση της ψευδαίσθησης.

Ας υποθέσουμε ότι ο μάγος, αυτός δηλαδή που δημιουργεί την οπτασία ετούτη στον παρατηρητή, είναι το ίδιο το ραβδί. Είναι ετούτο αρκετό για να αποκαλέσουμε το ραβδί ως υποκείμενο; Βεβαίως!.. αν το ραβδί βασανίζεται από το ερώτημα πώς θέλει να το δει ο παρατηρητής, σε ποια μορφή, δηλαδή γενικά ποια μορφή αρέσει περισσότερο σε εκείνον που το βλέπει. Λαμβάνοντας υπόψη αυτό, είναι εύκολο να φανταστεί κανείς ότι το ραβδί θα υιοθετήσει όλες τις πιθανές και φανταστικές μορφές, συμπεριλαμβανομένης της λυγισμένης μορφής, δηλ. της αληθινής, που όμως είναι ψευδώς αληθής ή ψευδώς ψευδής.

Ας υποθέσουμε ότι ο θεατής είναι ένας αδιόρθωτος ωραιολάτρης που πιστεύει ότι υπάρχει μια φιγούρα πιο τέλεια από οποιανδήποτε άλλη, π.χ. ότι ο κύκλος είναι το τέλειο σχήμα, και βλέποντας το ραβδί να παίρνει αυτήν τη μορφή βουτάει ο ίδιος στο νερό με την πεποίθηση ότι μπορεί να αρπάξει εκεί το αιώνια πολυπόθητο αντικείμενό του.

Είναι σαφές ότι το αποτέλεσμα θα είναι μια πλήρης αποτυχία.. και από τις δυο πλευρές: Καμία συμφιλίωση του ραβδιού με τον εαυτό του, διότι θα πρέπει να παρουσιάζεται ως κάτι άλλο από εκείνο που είναι, και καμιά συμφιλίωση μεταξύ του ραβδιού και του θεατή ο οποίος δεν πρόκειται να συναντήσει αυτό που περιμένει. Και οι δυο πλευρές όμως αφορούν το ίδιο το ραβδί, μια διπλή αποτυχία για το υποκείμενο, αφού το μόνο συμπέρασμα που θα βγάλει το ραβδί από αυτό που θεωρεί ως επιτυχημένο του δόλο (ή δόλωμα) είναι ότι ο θεατής δεν το αγαπά για τον εαυτό του, αλλά για την ψεύτικη εμφάνιση που έχει παρουσιάσει. Ίσως η μόνη επιτυχία είναι ότι θα καταλήξει σε ετούτη την αλήθεια. Θα είστε σίγουρα εξοικειωμένοι με την ερώτηση: «Μ’ αγαπάς;», δηλαδή, «είσαι σίγουρος ότι δεν είναι κάποιον άλλο ή, γιατί όχι, κάτι άλλο που αγαπάς;» ή «μπορώ ποτέ να είμαι σίγουρος γι' αυτό;».

Ας υποθέσουμε, αντίθετα, ότι ο παρατηρητής διαθέτει επαρκή επίγνωση της λειτουργίας που προκαλεί ετούτη την αίσθηση του ωραίου, ώστε να διατηρήσει την ψυχραιμία ή την απάθειά του μπροστά στην πράξη που προκαλεί την ψευδαίσθηση. Αργά ή γρήγορα το ραβδί θα καταλάβει ότι σε αυτή την πράξη, με την οποία αλλάζει τη μορφή του για να αρέσει, διατρέχει τον κίνδυνο να μην μάθει ποτέ τι είναι το ίδιο «αληθινά», διότι σε σχέση με την ψεύτικη εμφάνιση με την οποία γίνεται αντιληπτό από τον παρατηρητή ως ωραίο, συλλαμβάνει τη μορφή της αληθινής του ύπαρξης ως κάτι ξένο. Επομένως, συνειδητοποιεί ότι διατρέχει τον κίνδυνο να μην μάθει ποτέ ούτε ποιος είναι, ούτε αν πραγματικά αγαπιέται, αποθέτωντας τη γνώση του «τι πραγματικά θέλω» στο «τι θέλει να δει από εμένα ο παρατηρητής» εξ ου και το άγχος του. Το άγχος δηλαδή παρουσιάζεται ως ένδειξη ότι το υποκείμενο δεν οδεύει προς την επιθυμία του.

Υπάρχει μόνο μία λύση: να αναγνωρίσουμε το στρέβλωμα της μορφής του ως νόμο, νόμο τόσο της εμφάνισής του όσο και του πώς αναγκαία παρουσιάζεται στον θεατή ως «ατελής», ο οποίος επίσης θα υποθέσουμε ότι είναι βουτηγμένος στο ίδιο νερό αφού είναι από τον ίδιο πηλό φτιαγμένος.

[1] Moustapha Safouan, “Is the Oedipus Complex Universal?”, in m/f: a feminist journal, No.5&6, London, 1981, p.85-86. (μτφ. δικιά μου)

[2] Περισσότερα σχόλια και ανάλυση της ψευδαίσθησης της εικόνας, στο βιβλίο μου:

Angelos Tsialides, The Image of a Voice: The Mirror Stage of Jacques Lacan, Scribe of the Letter, 2021. (Μπορείτε να το προμηθευτείτε, εδώ)

The Image of a Voice: The Mirror Stage of Jacques Lacan

It has been since forever that man as a speaking subject has used metaphors to describe the world. Jacques Lacan is the first to bring this fact into a psychoanalytic context, noting that this very metaphorization draws reference from another metaphor that is primordial, where the individual takes his mirror image as a representation of his being.

Man is granted access to his body through his mirror reflection that he mistakes as his own self, which means that the speaking being defines themselves by what characterises that image. The mirror stage is about the constitution of oneself that takes place through the process where the subject attempts to identify with the locus from which the image receives its description.

This book illustrates the mirror stage of Jacques Lacan not only in the metaphorical sense of the word, but also literally: Plurality of illustrations supports the text that is full of examples from everyday life, popular stories, mythology and psychoanalytic cases. The Image of a Voice addresses not only the audience that desires to be introduced to the field of Lacanian psychoanalysis, but also those whose desire has led them to the path of psychoanalytic formation, whether practicing analysts or not.

The Image of a Voice is published and available here

Simulation

I have recently come across a debate over the simulation hypothesis which roughly says that the universe is an artificial simulation, just like a computer simulation, and that reality is a virtual one like The Matrix. My intention here is not to explain the formation of one’s reality, a subject that is addressed into my publication on Jacque Lacan’s concept of the Mirror Stage, but to make an intervention that adds to a previous article I wrote.

The prementioned debate gives rise to the question of why, independently of whether the simulation hypothesis is true or false, it would be so important for someone to believe in or even to go against such an idea - “against” is still a dependence on its existence. Would this affect their way of living? We could agree on the aspect of our desire to find out how things work, and via these discoveries construct tools that will assist our life. Yet, the current insistence takes place over a topic that has no practical application but only bears a satisfaction for verifying or falsifying one’s limitations. We may also wonder here as well, which limitations?

Hence the simulation hypothesis is only sustained in its philosophical dimension, that is to say in the ancient play of thought invented by man to address their premordial questions that concern their subjectivity and ultimately life itself. Removing ourselves from the debate of true or false, we can very well say that the exploration of the universe is at the same time an exploration of our consciousness.  Literally, because the universe we know is not what it is in itself but what we merely perceive, observe, measure, describe or puzzle ourselves onto. In these terms, the universe as we know it is already a simulation of our thought in the same way that Descartes stated “I think therefore I am”. Adding this to the fact that thought itself is part of the universe, we can even further say that universe and thought are reflections of one another, summed up in Alan Watts’ beautiful statement “You are the universe experiencing itself.”

However, what is usually omitted in the philosophical thought is the dimension of enjoyment and the desire of the speaking being. What we can thus say if one puts too much stress on the belief of a universe as simulation, is that they undoubtedly require it as a support, but to what? Not in order to explain the universe as simulation of their thought, but to rather make up a reasoning for their thought as simulation of something else, i.e. how they find themselves living remotely, in a third person’s perspective, just like a simulation, whereby their thought process unwillingly takes their life out of control and their true desire out of track. Proving that the universe is a simulation would then mean unveiling the truth of their unwanted choices and actions, something that is not always clear at first glance. If, for example, one would lose the motivation for their actions in the case of discovering that the universe is a simulation, it means that they never wanted to perform those actions, which were therefore directed from the very beginning by whatever or whoever is supposed to control the simulation, and, by extension, controls their very thought!

Would, then, the attachment on such a hypothesis mean that one is searching for a reason to stop their unwanted actions, or would they simply go on by accusing something beyond themselves for their decisions? The answer is irrelevant, because in either case what is at stake is that one denies their responsibility for the actions they never take! Which actions? These towards the things that cannot be found in any sort of studies which attempt to simulate what it is for one to live by a univers-al formula for well-being with statistics and numbers, namely, the very actions that constitute one’s own way of breathing and that we call “desire”.

For those who are truly in line with their desire, the non-existence of a simulation is irrelevant too.