Typist stop! I've said it many times and this shall be the last.
Are you sure it's philosophy you want to do? Is it possible you wish to challenge everything, except your own conclusions?
Here. Now. I am not addressing the Average. Human. Being. I am addressing people who are uncommonly able to grasp my abstract intellectual purity.
Ok, good, I agree.. This could be a good test case.
If you are unable to develop evidence that such an approach can significantly change the lives of any philosophically inclined readers here, whom you have defined as an advanced audience, then what? In such a case, will you be willing to be a good philosopher, and face such evidence?
I'm only doing what philosophers do, at your request, and pointing out that, so far, you have no such evidence. But please, continue with the experiment. I agree it's too soon to come to any conclusion.
You've got to understand that what goes for thought goes for everything else in the human body. As I explained to Duzsek, nothing needs managing - not out health, our finances, nothing.
Ok, but again, and please forgive me...
If this is true, why are you intent on helping us manage our philosophy, our understanding of who we really are, and so on?
This is part of what philosophy does Nik, it attempts to uncover internal conflicts within points of view. If you do indeed wish for us to follow the philosophical path, you will welcome such inquiries and challenges.
Unless you learn how this is the case for your body and everything, you will never understand how it can be the case for thought. When you do understand, you will realise how you were mistaken in singling out thought as being more of a culprit in our misery than the flowers and the trees in the holy forest. Conversely, this is why I upbraided you for thinking that silence of the forest is more healthful than thinking.
Then why is enlightenment more healthful than unenlightenment?
It seems you kind of want your cake and eat it too, philosophically speaking. You seem to be saying, nothing really matters, we don't need to manage ANYTHING, but, we really really need to manage our relationship with enlightenment. Choose one please.
We can pick that back up if you want, because the perspective of idealism is a very good antidote to our habitual realism
I'm agreeable, please proceed.
That is true - but if you want to actually know the truth you will have to reject all the various perspectives that I that shall advance here.
Which is of course what I'm doing.
Does this help clarify?
Perhaps you are saying that the rejection of various perspectives will happen at some point in the future, leading to some kind of permanent transformation.
Perhaps I'm saying all the various perspectives can be rejected right now, in the moment, just for the moment, not as a means to some future end.
Is that a fair summary? If not, no problem, please clarify.
But, in the meantime, if you are still attached to any particular worldview then you have still have some intellectual work to do.
Is this the particular worldview you are attached to?
You are perhaps thinking: why don't I just reject all this philosophy now? Well you can if you wish.
I'm thinking, all this philosophy can be set aside in any moment, for that moment.
But it's clear to me and everyone else that you are still very attached to your thoughts. Your behaviour is very much that of someone who belives that there is a world out there that needs to be understood. Perhaps you castigate thought because it is such a problem with you?
Yes, this is all true. I've stated repeatedly that I'm interested in "aphilosophy" or whatever we wish to call it, because this is an interest I've needed to develop to balance over active thinking. All true. I'm like a mental fat man, who needs to stay on a diet.
If there is no world out there that needs to be understood, why do you keep asking us to understand it?
If you want to carry on life by being attached to thought, but strategically mediated by doses of silence - that is of course fine. But in doing so you reject philosophical yoga.
I don't reject philosophical yoga, I am DOING philosophical yoga with you, at your request.
But I am beginning to question whether you really do want to do philosophy, or whether maybe it's religion you prefer? I don't claim to know, just wondering out loud.
All I can say is that me, and many others before me have discovered ataraxia -serenity, peace of mind. There is a path for the thinker, even if he must ultimately stop being a thinker, as has happened to me.
Hmm.... You have stopped being a thinker? You no longer have conclusions? If you have serenity, then you will welcome my relentless never ending assault upon your positions?
Um, look, time for some housekeeping perhaps?
I've been having this conversation in forums, on this specific topic, for years. In addition, I seem to have a natural knack for dismantling ideas, which I take no credit for, as I had nothing to do with that. To make things worse, I'm a simple minded fellow, and when folks say they want to do philosophical yoga with the goal of liberating ourselves from attachment to any particular perspective, I take that literally. To compound all of the above, I have an excess of enthusiasm and energy.
The point of this "all about me" confessional declaration is that, if you don't truly wish to do philosophical yoga with the with the goal of liberating ourselves from attachment to any particular perspective, it's possible you may find our conversations ever less enjoyable. If we continue together, it's my intention to do what you've asked us to do, and follow your own perspective through to it's logical conclusion.
Or, we could talk about the weather in Finland, and the holy forest! This would be most agreeable as well.