Philosophy and the Great Questions of the Heart.

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Lacewing
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Re: Philosophy and the Great Questions of the Heart.

Post by Lacewing »

Nick_A wrote: There seems to be something confusing about this question. The fact that it is disturbing indicates to me t least how much is being lost in relation to the value of philosophy.
So, Nick, this is your stuff. This is what you're seeing. I don't know who you think is confused or disturbed. Is that how you interpret viewpoints that don't match your own? I thought my responses were totally on topic. But you seem to have dismissed them, because you're applying "your stuff" on top of them.

So how much of philosophy is made up by people applying their own stuff?
philosophers don’t do answers, we do questions.
I asked questions. You invalidated them as not being of the heart.

Why are you controlling things to reach the outcome that agrees with what you see? If you really want to explore it -- and consider its potential evolution -- why not be open to more lines of questioning?
Nick_A
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Re: Philosophy and the Great Questions of the Heart.

Post by Nick_A »

Lacewing wrote: Fri May 26, 2017 12:52 am
Nick_A wrote: There seems to be something confusing about this question. The fact that it is disturbing indicates to me t least how much is being lost in relation to the value of philosophy.
So, Nick, this is your stuff. This is what you're seeing. I don't know who you think is confused or disturbed. Is that how you interpret viewpoints that don't match your own? I thought my responses were totally on topic. But you seem to have dismissed them, because you're applying "your stuff" on top of them.

So how much of philosophy is made up by people applying their own stuff?
philosophers don’t do answers, we do questions.
I asked questions. You invalidated them as not being of the heart.

Why are you controlling things to reach the outcome that agrees with what you see? If you really want to explore it -- and consider its potential evolution -- why not be open to more lines of questioning?
Lacewing, you wrote:

Who are you, to define for another, what is a question of "the mind" and a question of "the heart"? Why are you making up this stuff? Why are you limiting reality and possibility to what you think? Is reality only what you think? I'm asking from the bottom of my heart (wherever that is).

This means that the question wasn't clear as to what a question of the heart means to me. I posted a link to clarify it. How is an attempt at clarification controlling?
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Lacewing
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Re: Philosophy and the Great Questions of the Heart.

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Nick_A wrote:what a question of the heart means to me
So, instead of accepting other perspectives, you want everyone to interact based on the specific meaning of this idea for you -- and you cannot see how that is limited and controlling? It's not as if I introduced something completely unrelated to this thread, Nick. I offered another perspective of philosophical questions (that I feel passionate about) -- which are not dependent on, or confined to, your very particular idea -- and you judged them to be "not of the heart".

It seems like a very religious mindset: There is one way, one view, one value. Anything ELSE is lesser or invalid?
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Re: Philosophy and the Great Questions of the Heart.

Post by Nick_A »

Lacewing wrote: Fri May 26, 2017 2:24 am
Nick_A wrote:what a question of the heart means to me
So, instead of accepting other perspectives, you want everyone to interact based on the specific meaning of this idea for you -- and you cannot see how that is limited and controlling? It's not as if I introduced something completely unrelated to this thread, Nick. I offered another perspective of philosophical questions (that I feel passionate about) -- which are not dependent on, or confined to, your very particular idea -- and you judged them to be "not of the heart".

It seems like a very religious mindset: There is one way, one view, one value. Anything ELSE is lesser or invalid?
You asked:
For me, personally, the questions that are worth asking are why are we sure of anything and why would we NEED to be sure of anything? Doesn't that limit us? Why do we believe in so many limits? What payoffs are we getting from that? Why would ANYTHING AT ALL actually be fixed and finite? If nothing is, what are the implications? How might that change our reality? Is our reality a reflection of our own limitedness, rather than a reflection of the true extent of possibility? Can we determine the amount of structure needed to support and inspire our human bodies and minds without becoming completely and belligerently intoxicated with our creations and the creations of others?
I agree that these are important questions that can be discussed and argued. I'll disscuss them with you. They are intellectual questions to which we can argue intellectual answers. Prof. Needleman is referring to questions that defy intellectual answers. They are questions of meaning and meaning must be felt. In the past such questions were valued. Modern secularism has devalued them in favor of intellectual argument. Prof. Needleman wrote:
We need to understand that there is a certain kind of questioning that comes from a very deep place in our Self. And we need to understand that the great questions that arise from this source in us do not have answers in the usual sense—of questions that you can answer by getting information, or reading books, or conducting scientific research.
Can philosophy help us to grow in our understanding from pondering the great questions of the heart lacking answers or has it lost its potential and become just a means to glorify argument?

Intellectual questions are important and concern themselves with facts. Philosophy at least theoretically should be an expression of the the love of wisdom. This love attracts some and is felt. Wisdom transcends binary logic. IMO they are both important. There is no reason for them to be in opposition. Yet they often are.
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Lacewing
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Re: Philosophy and the Great Questions of the Heart.

Post by Lacewing »

Nick_A wrote: Fri May 26, 2017 3:10 amProf. Needleman is referring to questions that defy intellectual answers. They are questions of meaning and meaning must be felt.
I can assure you that I feel the meaning fucking-profoundly from the questions I asked. :) My questions have come from a lifetime of soul-searching for meaning and truth. You may consider them answerable intellectual questions, but from my perspective, they are much more than that. If they are so easy to answer, why are they so hard to live?
Nick_A wrote:I agree that these are important questions that can be discussed and argued. I'll disscuss them with you.
I look forward to your responses.
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Greta
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Re: Philosophy and the Great Questions of the Heart.

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Nick_A wrote: Wed May 24, 2017 10:07 pmThe Ten Great Questions of the Heart
My universal answer is, 'I don't know', but below are my best guesses.

1. Are we alone in the Universe? (Does God Exist?)
My best guess: a) there is surely other life, probably intelligent life, maybe even much more intelligent life;
b) it depends on how you define "God".

2. Who am I?
My best guess: Broadly we are each a dynamic and evolving expression of certain bundles of tendencies. We are all ultimately "types", depending on one's classification systems. (eg. one may classify humans and dogs differently but, say, dominant human and dog bullies in their respective groups are in some respects more like each other than their they are like their same-species victims).

3. Why do we live?
My best guess: We are the product of billions of survivors, from microbes to the small shrewlike animals from mammals evolved after the dino extinction. So every fibre of our being is genetically geared towards keeping this edifice intact.

Whatever, I think of the entire universe as a dynamic, living entity so one may think of life's evolution as part of a broader process of awakening.

4. Why do we suffer?
My best guess: Because life has not yet worked out how to conquer suffering sustainably, neither internally (philosophically) nor externally (physically).

5. Is death the end?
My best guess: Seemingly so for each particular bundle of tendencies in the physical world. Otherwise, no one knows.

6. Why is there evil?
My best guess: Immaturity. See #4

7. What can we hope for?
My best guess: To prosper in uninteresting times. If stuck in interesting times, then survival, or perhaps a quick, clean death for oneself and SOs.

8. What can we know?
A: The boundaries are being stretched daily. It's an unknown unknown.

9. What ought we to do?
My guess (but I wouldn't want to be an advice giver here): Aim for authenticity and keep your sense of humour.

10. How should we live?
My ideal: With the lightest touch possible while still achieving what needs doing.
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Re: Philosophy and the Great Questions of the Heart.

Post by Walker »

Lacewing wrote: Thu May 25, 2017 11:15 pm
Nick_A wrote: So if philosophy is no longer the love of wisdom, what good is it?
Perhaps we are evolving beyond certain questions. That does not mean we're losing wisdom.

For me, personally, the questions that are worth asking are why are we sure of anything and why would we NEED to be sure of anything? Doesn't that limit us? Why do we believe in so many limits? What payoffs are we getting from that? Why would ANYTHING AT ALL actually be fixed and finite? If nothing is, what are the implications? How might that change our reality? Is our reality a reflection of our own limitedness, rather than a reflection of the true extent of possibility? Can we determine the amount of structure needed to support and inspire our human bodies and minds without becoming completely and belligerently intoxicated with our creations and the creations of others?
Do you have any answers?
Dubious
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Re: Philosophy and the Great Questions of the Heart.

Post by Dubious »

Nick_A wrote: Thu May 25, 2017 10:59 pm Science and logic doesn't supply answers for this question. Yet a person searching for meaning is drawn to the wisdom that leads to "meaning." The value of philosophy seems to be its ability to deepen questions in pursuit of wisdom. How, in pursuit of wisdom, would you deepen the question of why we live?
Questions contain their own meaning. What is the purpose in adding "more weight" to a question than it can possibly contain all in the name of wisdom to invoke some special meaning amounting to nothing more than self-gratification! Since there are so many ways of thinking on just about anything what does this word even mean? Most often it seems nothing more than a pseudo-profundity facade emerging from someone's overactive ego or a deep desire to not repeat the question.

Besides, the heart is a pumping organ not a thinking or feeling one though I do understand the metaphor; the heart is invoked every time the brain gets sentimental or tries to stress itself into a "deeper meaning" by mythologizing the question or "improvising" a numinosity which none of these questions inherently possess. There is no amount of wisdom to be extracted, for example, in the question is death the end? What wisdom - except the most artificial kind - could possibly be injected into quandaries we can never hope to resolve?
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Re: Philosophy and the Great Questions of the Heart.

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Walker wrote: Fri May 26, 2017 7:04 am
Lacewing wrote: Thu May 25, 2017 11:15 pm Perhaps we are evolving beyond certain questions. That does not mean we're losing wisdom.

For me, personally, the questions that are worth asking are why are we sure of anything and why would we NEED to be sure of anything? Doesn't that limit us? Why do we believe in so many limits? What payoffs are we getting from that? Why would ANYTHING AT ALL actually be fixed and finite? If nothing is, what are the implications? How might that change our reality? Is our reality a reflection of our own limitedness, rather than a reflection of the true extent of possibility? Can we determine the amount of structure needed to support and inspire our human bodies and minds without becoming completely and belligerently intoxicated with our creations and the creations of others?
Do you have any answers?
No
Walker
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Re: Philosophy and the Great Questions of the Heart.

Post by Walker »

Lacewing wrote: Fri May 26, 2017 3:36 pm
Walker wrote: Fri May 26, 2017 7:04 am
Lacewing wrote: Thu May 25, 2017 11:15 pm Perhaps we are evolving beyond certain questions. That does not mean we're losing wisdom.

For me, personally, the questions that are worth asking are why are we sure of anything and why would we NEED to be sure of anything? Doesn't that limit us? Why do we believe in so many limits? What payoffs are we getting from that? Why would ANYTHING AT ALL actually be fixed and finite? If nothing is, what are the implications? How might that change our reality? Is our reality a reflection of our own limitedness, rather than a reflection of the true extent of possibility? Can we determine the amount of structure needed to support and inspire our human bodies and minds without becoming completely and belligerently intoxicated with our creations and the creations of others?
Do you have any answers?
No
Without answers of your own, how to you manage to ascertain the truth of, or even challenge, the answers you hear?

*

So if philosophy is no longer the love of wisdom, what good is it?
L: Perhaps we are evolving beyond certain questions. That does not mean we're losing wisdom.
W: - Evolving beyond certain questions means evolving into answers.

L: For me, personally, the questions that are worth asking are why are we sure of anything and why would we NEED to be sure of anything?
W: - You can only be certain that you are. All else that you know is inferred.

L: Doesn't that limit us?
W: - I don’t think so. Everyone has needs until they don’t. Attaching permanence to the self that has needs creates self-centered limitations of perspective, so that one sees the bad and not the good, and that is a limition for it is a partial meaning interpreted through ignorance.

L: Why do we believe in so many limits?
W: - Limitations are two:
- Attachment to form.
- Attachment to thought, the formless physicality.

L: What payoffs are we getting from that?
W: - The payoff is always for the life of.

L: Why would ANYTHING AT ALL actually be fixed and finite?
W: - To see the seams on the fastball, which are actually there and not created by mind. Seeing them requires the energy of attention and speed.

L: If nothing is, what are the implications?
W: - Attention fixes the moment into past mental sensory snapshots.
- The implications are in the snapshots.

L: How might that change our reality?
W: - There is only one reality.
- The perception of reality and its meaning is a moment of clarity in which the universe is suspended.

L: Is our reality a reflection of our own limitedness, rather than a reflection of the true extent of possibility?
W: - Access to total consciousness of the one reality is not a matter of five blind men feeling only their portion of the elephant in linear sequence, but rather, is analogous to simultaneous apprehension of elephant totality, as a dimension of clarity independent of time and distance.

Can we determine the amount of structure needed to support and inspire our human bodies and minds without becoming completely and belligerently intoxicated with our creations and the creations of others?
- Yes.
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Re: Philosophy and the Great Questions of the Heart.

Post by Lacewing »

Walker wrote: Fri May 26, 2017 7:21 pm Without answers of your own, how to you manage to ascertain the truth of, or even challenge, the answers you hear?
Well, for one, I can have flexible guesses that evolve with new information. Second, there can be many truths. And, third, I don't need to have answers to recognize senselessness in something.

Thanks for answering my questions. I truly appreciate your effort -- even though, as usual, you like to act like you know the definitive answers for what is. I guess you can't help yourself.

L (Lacewing): Perhaps we are evolving beyond certain questions. That does not mean we're losing wisdom.
W (Walker): - Evolving beyond certain questions means evolving into answers.

It can mean that -- and it also might not mean that. I don't feel any need to ask "Who am I?" That does not mean I ever came up with an answer. I just don't see it as important to define. As I said, I'm more interested in other questions now.

L: For me, personally, the questions that are worth asking are why are we sure of anything and why would we NEED to be sure of anything?
W: - You can only be certain that you are. All else that you know is inferred.

Then why are you giving me crap about not having answers?

L: Doesn't that limit us?
W: - I don’t think so. Everyone has needs until they don’t. Attaching permanence to the self that has needs creates self-centered limitations of perspective, so that one sees the bad and not the good, and that is a limition for it is a partial meaning interpreted through ignorance.

You appear to be saying no, and then yes?

L: Why do we believe in so many limits?
W: - Limitations are two:
- Attachment to form.
- Attachment to thought, the formless physicality.

Your list of limitations is limited. Within the few can be many. Depends on perspective, doesn't it?

L: What payoffs are we getting from that?
W: - The payoff is always for the life of.

Not sure what you're saying. The question is: What are the payoffs for believing in limitation? For example, limiting ones ideas of the world might help one feel more in control.

L: Why would ANYTHING AT ALL actually be fixed and finite?
W: - To see the seams on the fastball, which are actually there and not created by mind. Seeing them requires the energy of attention and speed.

So "what" exactly is fixed and finite?

L: If nothing is, what are the implications?
W: - Attention fixes the moment into past mental sensory snapshots.
- The implications are in the snapshots.

My question right here, right now, in this moment is: "If nothing is fixed and finite, what are the implications?"

L: How might that change our reality?
W: - There is only one reality.
- The perception of reality and its meaning is a moment of clarity in which the universe is suspended.

One reality according to who? Each experiencer? One reality for all? What does clarity have to do with reality?

L: Is our reality a reflection of our own limitedness, rather than a reflection of the true extent of possibility?
W: - Access to total consciousness of the one reality is not a matter of five blind men feeling only their portion of the elephant in linear sequence, but rather, is analogous to simultaneous apprehension of elephant totality, as a dimension of clarity independent of time and distance.

Why would such a vast and diverse universe have one reality?

L: Can we determine the amount of structure needed to support and inspire our human bodies and minds without becoming completely and belligerently intoxicated with our creations and the creations of others?
W: Yes.

I hope to experience such a quantum shift on a large scale before my life here ends.
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Re: Philosophy and the Great Questions of the Heart.

Post by Nick_A »

Lacewing wrote: Fri May 26, 2017 3:36 pm
Walker wrote: Fri May 26, 2017 7:04 am
Lacewing wrote: Thu May 25, 2017 11:15 pm Perhaps we are evolving beyond certain questions. That does not mean we're losing wisdom.

For me, personally, the questions that are worth asking are why are we sure of anything and why would we NEED to be sure of anything? Doesn't that limit us? Why do we believe in so many limits? What payoffs are we getting from that? Why would ANYTHING AT ALL actually be fixed and finite? If nothing is, what are the implications? How might that change our reality? Is our reality a reflection of our own limitedness, rather than a reflection of the true extent of possibility? Can we determine the amount of structure needed to support and inspire our human bodies and minds without becoming completely and belligerently intoxicated with our creations and the creations of others?
Do you have any answers?
No
I think that we would agree that critical thinking is incapable of answering these questions. If philosophy is truly the love of wisdom it must draw us to the great questions of what and who we are. How could we be sure of anything if we don’t know what we are? What called “I”asks these question and what can answer it and provide meaning? We verify that what we normally call "reason" cannot

Appreciating the meaning of Plato’s cave is the beginning for me. It describes me as living in imagination attached to shadows on the wall with the potential for an inward change of conscious direction so as to turn towards the light and away from fixation on the shadows. It adds an additional vertical direction of thought providing a human perspective as opposed to accepting an imaginary conditioned perspective acquired through adapting to life’s circumstances.

We cannot be sure of anything until we acquire the ability for conscious attention necessary for freedom from imagination which creates imaginary beliefs leading to imaginary restrictions. Plato asserts that freedom from imagination and the limitations you describe is possible
"Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity. It is given to very few minds to notice that things and beings exist. Since my childhood I have not wanted anything else but to receive the complete revelation of this before dying." ~Simone Weil
We lack conscious attention because we are not fixed and finite. Man has the potential for “I AM.” We are a plurality so one minute one perspective dominates and then another takes its place and so on. We live in imagination to reconcile this condition. I Am is the potential. WE ARE is the reality.

Conscious attention gives us the power to open the mind and “remember. Are you familiar with Meno’s Paradox?
Meno's Paradox and the Immortality of Soul: how will you know what you are looking for if you first don't already know it (and thus have no reason to go looking for it)? But why look for something you already have? This is the paradox raised in Plato's dialogue called the Meno. In answer to "Meno's Paradox," Plato suggests that before we were born we existed in another realm of being (the realm of the Forms). The shock of being born makes us forget what we knew in that realm. But when we are asked the right questions or have certain experiences, we remember or "recollect" innate (inborn) truths. So if we existed before our births, there is every reason to think that we will continue to exist after our deaths.
It seems to me that you are asking questions of the heart that remain in you as innate inborn truths. The question becomes how to remember if the essence of these questions reside in the depths of the seed of the soul? Can we agree that the value of philosophy is its ability to help us experience an additional direction of thought beyond duality that can help us “remember?”
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Re: Philosophy and the Great Questions of the Heart.

Post by Walker »

Lacewing wrote: Fri May 26, 2017 11:36 pm Thanks for answering my questions. I truly appreciate your effort -- even though, as usual, you like to act like you know the definitive answers for what is. I guess you can't help yourself.
Those are the definitive answers until you can disprove them.
- Questions don't disprove.
- Personal anecdotes, tastes or preferences don't disprove.
- Anyone can ask foolish questions, but that doesn't touch the definitive answers that are the object of your deep appreciation.
- Witnessing truth is rather effortless. Glad to help your guessing game of questions.

What kind of a job is it that only asks questions, and only guesses at the answers? And only sometimes at that.

Sounds like something subsidized, or perhaps government work.

:D
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Lacewing
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Re: Philosophy and the Great Questions of the Heart.

Post by Lacewing »

Walker wrote: Sat May 27, 2017 2:20 am Blah, blah, blah
Do you realize how full of crap you are?
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Re: Philosophy and the Great Questions of the Heart.

Post by Walker »

Lacewing wrote: Sat May 27, 2017 4:14 am
Walker wrote: Sat May 27, 2017 2:20 am Blah, blah, blah
Do you realize how full of crap you are?
The irrelevancy of attempts to initiate an insult-fest wastes the time of all concerned.

But if that’s the wolf you want to feed, :wink:
sounds like the twerping of a spoiled middle-school girl.

*

Tip. If you ask a question and get an answer, turn that brainpower towards considering how it is that the answer is true, even if you don’t know for yourself. Then you can better understand the truth that the answer may be, by acting on the assumption that your questions did already contribute to the structure of the answer, and any contradictions dawning upon you now were considered in the forming of the answer. This assumption may be true or not, but in acting upon the assumption that it is true, then you can begin to at least understand the answer.

But, when your first impulse is to consider all the possible ways that an answer is false, even when you don’t know the answer yourself, then you’re just restating the ignorance that prompted the question in the first place. From the get-go you are turning that brainpower towards considering how it is that the answer is wrong.

Classic Neinism.

Just because you consider the possibility that the answer is true does not mean that you believe the answer is true, unless you’re playing poker. For instance in poker, if the other player makes a big bet to represent a flush you ask yourself, does he have a flush? The answer you find determines your play.

However unlike the philosophy of endless questions, in poker you have to pay to play.

Say you’re from a hidden Amazon tribe that has never contacted the outside world. Someone tells you that the earth you are standing on is a sphere hurtling through space. You could stand there all day jawing about why that’s wrong, because what you know tells you that this is not possible.

Or, you can assume the answer is true, and then figure out how the answer could possibly be true. If you draw a blank you’re at least equipped to discuss.
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