I suppose it refers to any knowledge which one can hold dogmatically/stubbornly until death.Dubious wrote: ↑Wed Apr 18, 2018 9:40 amThat depends! What kind of knowledge? Does it refer to mystical ruminations presupposed as knowledge à la Gurdjieff and such like; does it refer to philosophy or more specifically to science. Methodologies among disciplines differ and with it how knowledge is defined from "knowing oneself" presumably to everything beyond.Serendipper wrote: ↑Wed Apr 18, 2018 2:07 amSo what do you make of the aphorism: "Knowledge progresses one funeral at a time."Dubious wrote: ↑Tue Apr 17, 2018 10:13 pm
This is a very old idea constantly repeated in this way or that making it hard to miss its meaning. But for me many guru sayings are trivial and just short of meaningless. One never "dies" to an old idea, though it sounds superficially profound, because then you have nothing to proceed from. We advance from error and errors in judgement by degrees of refinement, the prior steps to the ones that follow. and not to be forgotten. We seldom proceed in leaps, though we often use that word, but from the gradient of an inclined plane. That's the reason I wrote re Gurdjieff that the sentiment remains valid though the experience may never have occurred.
Dying to an old idea is a fallacy but people are free to think or imagine as they like. Philosophy has more to with sweating out ideas than leaps of revelation!
Max Planck said "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it." https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Max_Planck
That hearkens back to your saying "One never "dies" to an old idea", metaphorically speaking until he literally dies to the idea and then humanity proceeds in a leap of knowledge once the stumbling block is out of the way.
So, wouldn't it be good if this need not be true? What if a man could die to his dogmatic clingings before he literally died? When one wakes to the idea that it's ok to be wrong, then he can die (let go) and be born again (realize new truth). It's not one's aptitude that determines altitude, but attitude.
Howard Aiken said "Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats."