Lacewing
Interesting spin. Why is what you affirm so one-sided? How truthful can one-sided be?
There seems to be something irritating about people like me who claim 2+2=4.
“I agree that two times two makes four is an excellent thing; but if we are dispensing praise, then two times two makes five is sometimes a most charming little thing as well.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Of course Winston had trouble with this in George Orwell’s book 1984 but didn’t budge even in the cause of flattery
"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two makes four. If that is granted, all else follows"
Ah, but it’s not granted. This is how people like Orwell and Dostoyevsky cause trouble. They are too one-sided and raise the ire of all interested in fairness and the ability to create ones own reality
Again, it appears that you view from a one-sided gloom-and-doom mentality. It's impossible to have a balanced and truthful discussion with any clarity if you cannot acknowledge that beauty and "good" exists in all, just as the opposite. You are focusing on the opposite because it serves the agenda of your story. And you are in denial that you even have a story. Correct?
Of course beauty and good exists in all. But can you acknowledge the opposite also exists in all? If you can the logical question is why we must live this way in hypocrisy?
Spin, spin, spin. Don't you ever get dizzy? Your response to me pointing out (similar to what Gurdjieff pointed out in the quote you provided) that suffering can be intoxication rather than leading to clarity -- was for you to imply that the type of suffering you associate yourself with, is important and noble. Your refusal to acknowledge the risk of your own intoxication is dishonest. And your defensiveness hinders clarity.
I have a chess player’s mind. I’m attracted to experience the logic of the position rather than intoxication. Caissa the goddess of chess is a cruel mistress and doesn’t tolerate intoxication over the board. She is the queen of logic so the intoxication routine won’t work in chess. I am not capable of What Gurdjieff and Simone Weil were capable of. I associate with it intellectually. I can intellectually know the purpose of the Crucifixion but would be incapable of it. Secularism is closed to the purpose of the Crucifixion. That’s OK but it doesn’t mean others open to the idea of Mans conscious evolution must be closed to contemplation because it is considered naive.
The "willingness" to let go of imagination in pursuit of reality can be deceptive, just like any claim can be deceptive. Pursuing reality or truth does not ensure anything, as it can all be distorted by a person's unavoidably unconscious baggage.
Very true. Are there people with the need for truth who also have the necessary courage and will to “know thyself?” We know the value of external empiricism in the cause of science but only a relative few are open to what is necessary to practice inner empiricism in the struggle against self deception for the sake of their being. I’ll post this article along with an excerpt for those interested.
http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Abstracts/Needleman_93.html
…………………..This is an unconventional approach to philosophy in our culture. Yet it is one that can throw light on many of the great classic questions of philosophy. For example, "Is the world real, or only a construct of appearances?" Behind the appearances presented to us by our senses, is there a real world? And if so, how can we ever know it? These problems have been argued over for centuries, often brilliantly; and nobody has argued better or more cleverly about these points than Immanuel Kant. There are many ways of looking at the issue; and what we find is a shifting mosaic of appearances depending on our point of view.
What I want to emphasize is that once we begin to take seriously the potential capacity of the human mind for other kinds of experiences--for other states of consciousness--and develop the proper language and understanding, we discover that the whole question of appearance versus reality itself shifts. Once we begin to realize that there is a selfhood that is more real, under what we usually call "my self ", we come to recognize that not only do we live in a world of appearances outside, we also live in an internal world of appearances.
At this point, the whole issue gets really interesting. Now we see that in order to know the world behind external appearances, we have to get behind the appearances of our inner world. The only way to gain real knowledge of the outer world is by penetrating the appearances of the inner world. Thus, if I want to know the numinous, the thing¬in¬itself, I need to activate that instrument in myself that is capable of perceiving it. This is the very "instrument" that Kant proved, so he believed, did not exist………………………...
You can say that it really doesn’t matter. Why question appearance vs. reality? Just go with the flow. Just create your own reality and forget about truth. There is nothing wrong with this. It is nature’s way. One day we kill and on the next day we heal. It is the human condition. For some reason I respect the needs of these people and the efforts made to “know thyself” for the sake of accelerated evolution. Of course it is one-sided. Truth is one-sided. Fantasy is multi sided. I like fantasy but have the highest regard for the seekers capable of suffering awakening in the cause of truth.
Simone clearly had some mental struggles. Do you not see that? You can still love her while being honest.
Maybe we are the ones with mental problems. Suppose she lived her life in accordance with what was necessary for her to consciously experience the reality of the human condition for the sake of conscious evolution. If we cannot understand it and think it weird, then it is us with a mental problem acquired through societal indoctrination.
Seems so. Even knowledge evolves. Stories aren't necessarily a BAD thing... they're what we think we know, all things considered. But we do get rather intoxicated by them, and I've not seen anything that shows you're uniquely immune from that.
Earthly knowledge evolves. That is how people are finally indoctrinated into the belief that 2+2=5. Forms described by Plato by definition cannot evolve since they are already evolved and the source of opinions. A minority are attracted to the experience of the forms while the majority seek to acquire and defend opinions. The minority are not considered normal. They don’t fit in so must either be re-educted or eliminated. Socrates was ruled to be a disturbance and a corrupter of the youth of Athens. He no longer fit in. Is it any wonder why he had to be killed?
Why is what you affirm so one-sided? How truthful can one-sided be?
Your response to me pointing out (similar to what Gurdjieff pointed out in the quote you provided) that suffering can be intoxication rather than leading to clarity -- was for you to imply that the type of suffering you associate yourself with, is important and noble. Your refusal to acknowledge the risk of your own intoxication is dishonest. And your defensiveness hinders clarity.