Philosophy and the Great Questions of the Heart.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

Not everyone wants to live their life according to the thoughts of Simone Weil. You seem to be criticising people for not breaking out of their preconceptions and then criticising them for not letting themselves be told what to think by people like Simone Weil.

He is clearly deeply in love with her and can't understand why others don't share his lust. I'm sure she has a certain allure for some people but she's definitely not everyone's cup of tea.

[Walker]

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?

Each form has limitations and advantages.
- The bird can fly but it is fragile and light.
- The elephant is sturdy and heavy but, it can’t tap dance.
- The human is weak, but smart.

Attachment to thought.
- Identity is a thought.
- Thoughts exist, their detection requires receptors found in humans which also function in predictable ways as sensory organizers and coalators.

Should the bird be attached to its limitation of fragility, rather than just doing what’s natural and flying to high places, it will hobble about and soon be eaten.

Should the human be attached to its limitation of purposely mistaking transience for permanence and acting accordingly, which people do all the time, then the human is hobbled with a delusional perspective that overrides reality with the clutter of thought, and thought is the mischief that plays between idea and action.

Look at it this way, before protesting that you certainly will not.
- Thoughts are light and move easily, like clouds.
- Clarity is the empty blue space around the clouds.
- Clarity allows each cloud to be differentiated, one from the other.
- Awareness studies each cloud in detail, bright in the light of consciousness, precise edges against the blue emptiness, immensity of size judged in relation to you.
- When the pressure changes, the thoughts combine and drop low to blanket the sky and hide the blue emptiness that was so clear and obvious not long ago, seen in relation to the sharply defined edge of thought cloud.
- Then comes the rain and the clarity turns into cloud all around.
- Enter the chaotic hurricane.
- Clouds are now everywhere up and down, swirling and chaotic and powerful enough to control actions.
- To push you around.
- To be attached to any part of that transience is to be forever seeking and disappointed by the absence of, when times were good, punctuated by moments of possessing the desirable, when the climate is just right.

Funny. Women's rights brought male gender identity to hurricanes, which frankly is totally inappropriate.



Any limitation that you can name must fall within the categories of:
- Limitation of form.
- Limitation of thought.

Try and name a limitation that is not one or both of these two, and you cannot.
- This is not because anyone says so.
- This is the way of things.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

"The orgasm has replaced the Cross as the focus of longing and the image of fulfillment."
― Malcolm Muggeridge

The disparagement of the orgasm by a man whose facial expression gave the impression that he was constantly experiencing one seems odd. I'm sorry, Nick, Malcolm Muggeridge was an odious little twerp and bringing him into the discussion can only undermine your case.

By golly. I see what you mean.

[Harbal]

By golly. I see what you mean.

I suppose it could be religious ecstasy.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

By golly. I see what you mean.

I suppose it could be religious ecstasy.

You have to wonder what's going on below the camera view.

[Harbal]

You have to wonder what's going on below the camera view.

And yet, at the same time, one can't help but think it would probably be wiser to leave one's curiosity unsatisfied.

[Walker]

Two peas in a pod.

[Harbal]

Two peas in a pod.

Do you have a problem with peas, Walker?

[Walker]

Two peas in a pod.

Do you have a problem with peas, Walker?

What kind did you have in mind, Harbal?

[Harbal]

What kind did you have in mind, Harbal?

You were the one with peas in mind, Walker, if you don't know what you meant I'm sure I don't.

[Nick_A]

Two peas in a pod.

Do you have a problem with peas, Walker?

What kind did you have in mind, Harbal?

Doesn't anyone believe in world peas anymore

[Nick_A]

Dubious

What are we really...with some exceptions? Clones of a novel between the bookends called “I”. Want wisdom? Start from the root and its lower levels of consciousness; only then will wisdom, not easily fooled by wordplay, negate any superficial facade of bogus mysteries we love to question ourselves with.

There is a mystery in Being overall but there is no special mystery in being Human.

If there is no mystery to being human, why is one of our chief characteristics hypocrisy? There is no other animal governed by hypocrisy. You can say it is because Man is the most intelligent animal. Does that mean that intelligence leads to hypocrisy?

"The depravity of man is at once the most empirically verifiable reality but at the same time the most intellectually resisted fact." Malcolm Muggeridge

Why can’t we admit our hypocrisy sufficiently to change what our species does? That is a mystery worth contemplating.

K is one of those interesting philosophers I can vehemently disagree with and agree at the same time. So much of K is multi-directional as with much in Nietzsche. Perhaps it’s because of their nonchalant styles so opposite to the usual academic discourse that space for opposition to those views becomes apparent. I prefer philosophers who question their own opinions.

But where is the paradox in any of the points listed? I don’t see any! If it only exists in the realms of ceaseless speculation, an eternal question mark, it becomes useless. It follows that philosophy itself becomes useless if it continues to ask vain and useless questions.

The paradox is that we easily say one thing and do another. It is what makes politics possible. The greatest value of philosophy IMO is its ability to deepen the question. If it is as hopeless as you say and that there is no advantage from acquiring freedom from the dominance of our hypocrisy, then just eat, drink, and be merry. If the ability to open to the truth of the human condition is an advantage for a human being, than of course, denial is a hindrance.

[Nick_A]

Harbal

H: I would say that Christianity and, from what little I know of it, Islam puts people in "Plato's cave". Religion seems to be more about telling people how to interpret the shadows on the wall than about encouraging them to go out into the light and and see for themselves what's there. When you say "secularism" perhaps what you really mean is materialism.

N: The interpretations of man made Christendom often does. However Christianity is about rebirth or the change and evolution of Man’s being which by definition leads to freedom from Plato’s cave.

N: but what of this minority who strive to be complete women and not just fashionable twerking machines serving the state through their buying habits and arguing about gender rights. I support this minority.

H: Why are you focusing on women? Just as many men are slaves to what's fashionable and argue about their rights. I don't understand why you are separating men and women.

N: If experts in universities decide that Man’s philosophy courses should be centered around social justice, gender rights, and abortion rights, I’ll call it a gross devaluing of of Plato, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, and the rest. I may not be politically correct but what else would you expect from a broad shouldered, long nosed, Aries male?

N: Suppose one young female student on this site reads one of my Simone Quotes and reads up on her out of curiosity. She may realize that there is more to a woman’s philosophic potential than arguing about gender rights. I would call that a good thing.

H: You give the impression that you disapprove of gender rights.

N: Without the voluntary acceptance of obligations, there are no rights.

H: Not everyone wants to live their life according to the thoughts of Simone Weil. You seem to be criticising people for not breaking out of their preconceptions and then criticising them for not letting themselves be told what to think by people like Simone Weil.

N: Simone was dedicated to the experience of truth. She was willing to sacrifice the temporary pleasures that mask it for the experience. Only a rare few will have this need. Simone never told anyone what to do in spiritual matters. She is just an inspiration for those with the need and courage to sacrifice their attachments in the cause of experiential truth. If a person is unable to sacrifice for truth, they cannot transcend the power of imagination.

H: I still don't really understand your condemnation of "secularism", however, if you were to replace it with "materialism" then I would say yes, far too many people are far too obsessed with it.

N: I’m not condemning it. Secularism is a result of imagination replacing human consciousness. Human “being” has universal meaning and purpose. We’ve lost the quality of consciousness necessary to remember and experience our universal meaning and purpose so secularism or what Plato called the “Beast” takes its place as providing human meaning and purpose. I condemn what secularists have done by their inflated egoism especially to the psyche of the young but not secularism itself which is just a result of what has been lost in collective man virtually from the beginning. How can anyone condemn a chronic condition?

[Walker]

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?

Each experiencer touches a portion of the elephant.
- The experiencer who touches the elephant foot has a different experience of reality than the experiencer who touches the elephant ear, especially if the experiencer is between the foot and the earth, but they both touch the same elephant, which is the only reality there is. And, they both touch, so they have that in common.

Clarity is awareness uncorrupted by desirous attachment to the elephant foot. Or ear.

[Lacewing]

they both touch the same elephant, which is the only reality there is.

Can you contemplate beyond the idea of anything absolute? What is the payoff for you of claiming such a thing as "the only reality there is"?