Einstein and the Cosmic Man

[Arising_uk]

Are you saying the USA was anti-semitic?

[davidm]

Well, if by art you mean the broad sense of art (not just visual art) I would say that my favorite artist is Dostoevsky.

Well if you have a Russian influence you can't be all bad.

Thanks! If we ever meet, since apparently we both live in NYC, maybe we can discuss Dostoevsky and Russian literature in general. Have you read Gogol? I saw the Met Opera version of The Nose.

You won't believe me but Dostoevsky admired my talented ancestors paintings.

I do believe you.

[Greta]

This thread has nothing to do with Einstein or the "cosmic man" - this is simply another way of approaching right v left politics. Just one more Christian twisting the meaning of Einstein's words to lend respectability to some extreme right wing political wishes. Meanwhile Einstein fled Germany to escape the far right ...

You are so caught up in fighting a straw man. You are incapable of understanding Einstein.

More idiot accusations plucked out of your bum, just like your hero, Trump.

It's always someone else in the wrong, always someone else's fault. Whining child blaming everyone for his problems but himself.

Speaking of children, I note that you are not sincere about child welfare - they are just a political football to you. Otherwise you would have shown concern about theist child abuse. Rather, you want to return children to unaccountable theist molesters again under the pretext that you are saving the children's spirits. Detestable.

[Nick_A]

Well, if by art you mean the broad sense of art (not just visual art) I would say that my favorite artist is Dostoevsky.

Well if you have a Russian influence you can't be all bad.

Thanks! If we ever meet, since apparently we both live in NYC, maybe we can discuss Dostoevsky and Russian literature in general. Have you read Gogol? I saw the Met Opera version of The Nose.

You won't believe me but Dostoevsky admired my talented ancestors paintings.

I do believe you.

We'll get together, On 9/28 my lady and I leave for Montauk for five days. Nothing like the great Atlantic to awaken the insides. Then I'll get serious again. I'll keep you updated on the Simone presentation and discussion.

Feminists don't know how to take Simone since she cannot be classified which is annoying. As you know there are a lot of feminists in NYC. They will want to admire Simone as a feminist except she wasn't a feminist. She wanted to become free of conditioned perspectives (decreation) reather than acquire them by being part of a political agenda. I know I will be questioned but answering won't be easy

http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2 ... mone-weil/

This might lead you to assume that Weil was herself a feminist. That however was not the case. In fact, she rejected the title, along with identity politics altogether. Instead, she postulated a “decreation” of the self. She believed the self must be dismantled in order to reunite with God. In that context, Weil denied all aspects of her own identity––her gender, her class, her Jewishness, and, at times, even her intellect. Her activism was itself literally self-annihilating, leading to her death from self-starvation at the age of 34. Stuck in London and unable to help her French compatriots in occupied France, she refused to eat more than the rations afforded them. This act of solidarity was tantamount to suicide given her recently diagnosed tuberculosis.

How does a man explain to several feminists That Simone was a far more successful social activist than them but wanted to be free of the attachments and attitudes they hold as important? How to drop the defenses and discuss her ideas in a new way? According to the article, afterJulia's documentary was shown in Canada students formed a group to discuss her ideas. Can it work here? We'll see.

I read "The Nose" years ago but I remember it was rather funny. Typical Russian humor, Since I have an Armenian nose I am very sympathetic.

[Nick_A]

This thread has nothing to do with Einstein or the "cosmic man" - this is simply another way of approaching right v left politics. Just one more Christian twisting the meaning of Einstein's words to lend respectability to some extreme right wing political wishes. Meanwhile Einstein fled Germany to escape the far right ...

You are so caught up in fighting a straw man. You are incapable of understanding Einstein.

More idiot accusations plucked out of your bum, just like your hero, Trump.

It's always someone else in the wrong, always someone else's fault. Whining child blaming everyone for his problems but himself.

Speaking of children, I note that you are not sincere about child welfare - they are just a political football to you. Otherwise you would have shown concern about theist child abuse. Rather, you want to return children to unaccountable theist molesters again under the pretext that you are saving the children's spirits. Detestable.

What the heck are you drinking? It must be some good stuff. I think I'll join you and take some of the Armenian Brandy a friend gave me. Stalin introduced churchill to it and he loved it. It's good stuff. Maybe after a couple of shots your post will make sense.

[Greta]

You are so caught up in fighting a straw man. You are incapable of understanding Einstein.

More idiot accusations plucked out of your bum, just like your hero, Trump.

It's always someone else in the wrong, always someone else's fault. Whining child blaming everyone for his problems but himself.

Speaking of children, I note that you are not sincere about child welfare - they are just a political football to you. Otherwise you would have shown concern about theist child abuse. Rather, you want to return children to unaccountable theist molesters again under the pretext that you are saving the children's spirits. Detestable.

What the heck are you drinking? It must be some good stuff. I think I'll join you and take some of the Armenian Brandy a friend gave me. Stalin introduced churchill to it and he loved it. It's good stuff. Maybe after a couple of shots your post will make sense.

Just water. I'm just poisoned by far too much exposure to your suite of mental illnesses, personality disorders and annoyance at your lack of memory (or stupidity, probably both).

[marjoram_blues]

Greta, I wish you and others well in this continually enthralling spectacle of manipulative and delusional thinking, yet another in Nick's prolific outpourings. People seem attracted to this type of spewing - and enjoy the play. I too keep coming back for more...it's kinda troubling.
However, I've had enough of his immature name-calling ( see PN Forum Suggestions Box ) and have my own suspicions re his focus on children and abuse.
It looks like he is trying to be Mr Congeniality right now.
Perhaps AMod has had a word, who knows.

[Greta]

Greta, I wish you and others well in this continually enthralling spectacle of manipulative and delusional thinking, yet another in Nick's prolific outpourings. People seem attracted to this type of spewing - and enjoy the play. I too keep coming back for more...it's kinda troubling.
However, I've had enough of his immature name-calling ( see PN Forum Suggestions Box ) and have my own suspicions re his focus on children and abuse.
It looks like he is trying to be Mr Congeniality right now.
Perhaps AMod has had a word, who knows.

Marj, I keep trying to be done with it but when I leave he keeps an attacking me anyway because I am seemingly his target and public enemy #1. Apparently I am worse than the other two mods who have banned him from forums, and worse than AMod who correctly noted his delusions . Yes, I should not have engaged in the first place. What can I say? It was naive and stupid of me. I basically fell into his snare like a fly into a spider's web. Damn my substandard social skills

Seriously, I simply find the social gaming intolerable. People who come to these forums to push an agenda rather than exchange ideas about life act are forum parasites, always taking, never giving. So there is the celebration of bullshit guesswork against the efforts of thousands of scientists. You get lots of style (of sorts) but no substance. You get impressions over expression - manipulation.

All I ask is for straight dealing without the annoying gaming ... "Oh, I'm so much more moral than you", "Oh, I am so much more aware than you", "Oh, I'm so in touch with the divine and you lot are just [something derogatory]" etc. What of humility and goodwill?? What about admitting that one's suppositions are not objective reality? How about not misappropriating the words of great people to support misogyny, solipsism and superstition? What about the selective memory and cherry picking?

What about admitting that Einstein had made perfectly clear that he was an atheist? Otherwise you are just one of many dishonest theists attempting to revise his history.

Let's see which technique he uses this time. My money is on the Trump method again - ignore what the other person said and attack twice as hard.
At best, a twisted rationalisation, implying that Einstein and he are God-botherers-in-arms.

I think that has to be it for me, simply to regain a little sanity. Those we spend most time with rub off on you and that is an awful thought ATM ...

There you go, Nick - all the free hits you like. I won't bother fighting back.

[marjoram_blues]

Indeed, Greta, and well said. Your engagement was necessary and informative. But there does come a point...

I intend to focus attention on the positive and inspiring.
Did you manage to peek at Jon Snow's lecture I mentioned in the 'Socialism' thread. It's only 50 minutes long ! but I love it and him.
Please keep being creative and inspirational in your own right.
Thanks.

[Belinda]

Nick has written a lot about his beliefs. I am left with the distinct impression that the core of Nick's beliefs is based upon Plato's Cave allegory. And that Nick believes that to leave the Cave and see the sunlight is to attain esoteric knowledge. Together with that belief is the belief that spiritual activity, or at least mental activity, is better than the physical, mindless, soulless , activity of Cave people who are unaware that there is a better way of going on. And that most humans are caught up in the spiritual darkness of the Cave.


It is therefore a rationalisation of Nick's (and any other person's) fear of physicality which he demonstrates in his bluster about matters of physicality.
There is a core of truth in Nick's interpretation of the Cave allegory, which is that there was until very recently anyway a snobbish bias against the physical and in favour of the mental. This bias was seen in academia until recent years; science was less powerful than arts, and you had to be C of E to get into Cambridge.

Nick , despite his facility with English , is not an academic so he retreats to potty esotericism and wrongly interpreting Plato. My guess is that New Age mysticism was a wannabe short cut to power for those who would not or could not do the hard work, sometimes because they felt too disadvantaged to attempt the hard work.

Religiosity is another, similar, escape from personal responsibility and honest recognition of one's own powerless physicality.

[Dontaskme]

I think taking responsibility for something is more to do with living with the consequences rather than getting someone else to make it go away.

I asked you in good faith since it was you that suggested to me that the thread was a mistake in the first place.

I said..

Dontaskme wrote: ↑Mon Aug 14, 2017 7:34 pm
I don't want to talk about it anymore, it upsets me a lot.

To which you replied..

Harbal: If you didn't want to talk about it maybe starting a thread about it wasn't the most sensible course of action.

So it was that comment from you that triggered the idea to have it removed, otherwise I wouldn't even have had the idea at all...I asked you since we were the ones talking about it, I asked you jokingly to be honest, because we were in the middle of what I thought to be some kind of friendly fun banter... I didn't think that you would say yes I'll do it...you said of course I'll do it for you, so I left it at that.

And now you make a mean spirited comment like in the above quote. You could have been honest with me form the start and suggested I asked the Mod myself. What you have said after the event is a two faced insult to what I thought was a genuine friend doing a friend a favour.

Why agree to do it for me in the first place, if you were just going to be an absolute two faced dickhead over the whole thing?

I'll never trust you again as a friend.

And that is why I am calling you out once again to be a disingenuous back stabbing phoney - who like to kiss ass with the Mod, and the Mod in turn kiss your ass, it's like you scratch my ass and I'll scratch yours...all to make yourself look clever, and important.

Bingo replies the Mod... clickity clique...that's it, frigging clique mentality every time.

.

[Greta]

But there does come a point...

There certainly does!

[quote=marjoram_bluesI intend to focus attention on the positive and inspiring.
Did you manage to peek at Jon Snow's lecture I mentioned in the 'Socialism' thread. It's only 50 minutes long ! but I love it and him.
Please keep being creative and inspirational in your own right. [/quote]
I'll have a look at JS, Marj, and thanks for being positive. Personally, I much prefer nature, space and existential guff to politics, the latter I connect with in a fairly typical typical ghoulish car-crash way. However, at present even I can see that the right has gone mad in the west and that it's not the first time. It happened with the Inquisition, with Hitler and Mussolini. Oddly, in Asia it seems that the left is the side that goes crazy, eg. Mao and Stalin.

So The Madness appears to be descending on to the west. Hopefully some of history's lesson's won't be forgotten.

[Dontaskme]

Why not place your request in the context of what the thread is about - the contrast between the perspectives of the cave man and cosmic man.

Because be it cave man or cosmic man perspective will make no difference to one who has already decided that one doesn't liked to be bothered.

One that requests posters to act responsibly ..but then when they do ...the effort is covertly ridiculed rendering the effort a complete waste of effort since any effort in my particular case, has fallen on deaf ears. Very unprofessional and childish really.

.

[marjoram_blues]

But there does come a point...

There certainly does!

[quote=marjoram_bluesI intend to focus attention on the positive and inspiring.
Did you manage to peek at Jon Snow's lecture I mentioned in the 'Socialism' thread. It's only 50 minutes long ! but I love it and him.
Please keep being creative and inspirational in your own right.

I'll have a look at JS, Marj, and thanks for being positive. Personally, I much prefer nature, space and existential guff to politics, the latter I connect with in a fairly typical typical ghoulish car-crash way. However, at present even I can see that the right has gone mad in the west and that it's not the first time. It happened with the Inquisition, with Hitler and Mussolini. Oddly, in Asia it seems that the left is the side that goes crazy, eg. Mao and Stalin.

So The Madness appears to be descending on to the west. Hopefully some of history's lesson's won't be forgotten.
[/quote]

The MacTaggart lecture is about journalism and how to address the disconnect so that ordinary voices can be given an effective pathway from their concerns to the main media outlet. It is much more than this and I just haven't the words to explain. He contrasts and compares the reasons behind Brexit and Trump. It is interspersed with video clips - and told with compassion and the strength of a lifetime's experience. He talks about political flatulence and how he and media colleagues are to blame for too much focus on international windbags at the expense of local, urgent matters such as the Grenfell tower disaster which he is still haunted by. He offers solutions to the problems he identifies and is balanced, fair and enthusiastic. Oh, please watch. It does get a bit repetitive in parts but some things bear repeating. His examination of a particular section of Americans at a Trump rally is illuminating and understanding. The clip where he and journalists are pointed at by Trump and jeered at by the crowd...is close to the end.

The personal stories are the best - and quite harrowing to consider.

[Greta]

There is a core of truth in Nick's interpretation of the Cave allegory, which is that there was until very recently anyway a snobbish bias against the physical and in favour of the mental. This bias was seen in academia until recent years; science was less powerful than arts, and you had to be C of E to get into Cambridge.

I think that education has been pared back to the basics due to diversity. Back when almost everyone, at least here, was Christian - there was no issue with schools engaging in Christian indoctrination (putting aside the more sinister lack of accountability and betrayal of community trust). However, if a sizeable percentage of people are not Christian, then why should secular taxpayers pay for Christian education? Let the schools teach the basics, plus art, music, drama and sport, and let parents pay for any extras such as cultural or religious training.

So now education tries to be neutral and leaves parents with the responsibility.

As for the cave, Plato was brilliant but surely the cave is old new by now? It's more or the less the same thing as Kant's noumena and phenomena, or science's observations that our senses are evolved for efficacy rather than accuracy. Some believe that they have found a "hack" into the divine and become enlightened. Yet, rather than wanting to share the good news and trying to frame their message so that the audience might relate to what's being said, they just want to put everyone down.

Insecure human beings. Ugh. I think I prefer other species. And plants, for that matter. And rocks. And the sky and stars. And music. And ...