He can but...
Harbal is far too polite to use those sort of words.
He can but...
But why judge? You wrote that your aim is being contented. There is nothing wrong with this. Yet I have the highest regard for these rare ones Jacob Needleman describes in this short paragraph from his book: "Lost Christianity"Harbal wrote: ↑Tue Aug 09, 2022 5:48 pmYou and I have very different outlooks, Nick. I am not criticising your way of thinking, just your attitude towards my way of thinking, which you actually don't know much about. Most of the assumptions you make about me are wrong.Nick_A wrote: ↑Tue Aug 09, 2022 5:40 pm
There is no condemnation. I am looking for verification on what creates shadows rather then condemnation. Look at a wall with shadows on it. Are the shadows real? If not, what is the source of reality or what produces the shadows? This requires a higher form of reason; what good is empty condemnation?
We all fail. That is why Socrates said: I know Nothing. Who knows what the light is?
As I've written my philosophic goal is to verify for my understanding the purpose of our universe and organic life within it including Man. It is beyond me now which doesn't mean I cannot admire these rare ones whose need for truth is greater then their need for pleasure. My attitude doesn't criticize you as anything wrong. I just admire what these rare seekers of truth are willing to sacrifice in their need for truth including the quality of consciousness necessary to see through the emotional appeal of charlatans .Of course it had been stupid of me to express it in quite that way, but nevertheless the point was worth pondering: does there exist in man a natural attraction to truth and to the struggle for truth that is stronger than the natural attraction to pleasure? The history of religion in the west seems by and large to rest on the assumption that the answer is no. Therefore, externally induced emotions of egoistic fear (hellfire), anticipation of pleasure (heaven), vengeance, etc., have been marshaled to keep people in the faith.
If we value ideas, they must be respected and worthy of being contemplated rather than emotionally condemned. A person must become disappointed with ideas which used to attract them. Then they can profit from Fourth Way ideas which don't appeal to egotism. They begin with the intellectual which allows us to verify them through the physical and the emotional. They require a sincerity rare on philosophy forums designed to debate rather then experience. This is why they rarely appear on philosophy forums.Belinda wrote: ↑Tue Aug 09, 2022 2:35 pmThat is not practical. I know what I am talking about as I have actually done a physical 'spiritual' exercise , regularly for a few years. Practice involves bodily movements which may be ritualistic or free. Practice involves use of the actual physical voice as in singing , speaking(perhaps in invented 'tongues') Practice involves movement from place to place as in dancing, walking about, running, jumping and so forth.Nick_A wrote: ↑Tue Aug 09, 2022 2:07 pmIt was practical in the sense that without what Learned and verified on both the law of three forces and the dicontinuity of vibrations and described in the law of octaves and why everything turns in circles I would still be arguing for duality. It was practical as a mind opening experience. What is so practical about a closed mind fixated on the shadows on the wall to supply meaning?
While I eschewed the mysticism that rationalised the 'spiritual' exercise I did, I respect the physicality of experience as much as the mentality of experience. Your experience is all mental and lacks anything physical. If there is any truth in mysticism that truth must include physical experiences as well as thinking, preferably involving others to some extent, and always including a physical environment.
Metaphysics is one of those words that can be redefined by anyone who wishes to do so with the intention of morphing the unreal - which possesses no other definition than the one we give it - into the real. That is the reason you equate the two as substantively equal.Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Tue Aug 09, 2022 3:03 pmThe error you express here, just now, is in setting up a false dichotomy between what is physical and what is, according to the definition I employ, metaphysical. I say that both are plainly real. But I do say, and repeat, that the only way to know about metaphysics is to examine causation. That is why I referred to the tea ceremony.
It seems by your description we have a common problem understanding each other. The same could in all fairness also apply to you.Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Tue Aug 09, 2022 3:03 pmI think you have missed the point. However I also am aware that the point that I make cannot be seen by you given your adamantine predicates. And that is actually the thing that interests me more: how the determinations that are made on a mental plane influence and determine what we allow ourselves to understand (and understand is used in a special sense).
Seeing through the eye could as well refer to the most distant regions of reality which lie completely foreign to "life's dim windows of the soul", meaning its surface.“This life's dim windows of the soul
Distorts the heavens from pole to pole
And leads you to believe a lie
When you see with, not through, the eye.”
By what excess must thought advance
To recoil the coronal fires of the brain
And deed itself that mighty glance
Peering past portals from whence the spirit came.
Of course we are products of ideological processes. Every civilization had its own ideas of how to interpret reality essentially defining that society. There is no such thing as being born into nothing.Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Tue Aug 09, 2022 3:03 pmBut most importantly I have to make the case I make essentially to myself. That is why I said to Harbal that the function of my (or our) argument has a great deal to do with creating conceptual defenses against this mode of thought that you represent. And that is why I speak in terms of seeing ourselves as outcomes, as products of ideological processes.
Each step in constructing a construct derived from the previous one, concludes in the original - the one evaluated - becoming evermore elevated, transcendent and metaphysical. The creation of these superlatives often depend on this inflationary compounding process happening...which is okay if these "transcendent" ideas or ideals match up to YOUR expectations of being such. From micro to macro, there are many perspectives on what emerges as transcendent. Both its range and acceptance depends on one's mental spectrum...the distances one allows oneself to travel in.Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Tue Aug 09, 2022 3:03 pmYou have -- of course! -- totally missed the point that I wanted to make about how a form of ritual, because it is contemplative and what is contemplative in this precise sense is what stands behind religious performances, is the place where one can see the invisible (a transcendent idea and a metaphysic) expressed in human behavior, in art essentially.
Have you ever known that sort to exist? Was human nature ever so very different from what it is now?Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Tue Aug 09, 2022 3:03 pmAnd when that happens what results is a breakdown of all that which allows a high art to exist. But the tea ceremony is just one revealing ritual. When this happens on all levels it is then that truly horizontal man occupies the present, indeed determines the present. His mode of seeing is 'vulgar' in the honest sense of the word. The way he sees (with and not through the eye) drags down the other possibility of a ways and means of seeing that requires, literally, a man of another sort.
I didn't write that; I wrote that it seems the most desireable aim. I am far from content. I have to be doing or learning something all the time, or I get agitated; I find it impossible to just sit still and do nothing. It is a real struggle for me to fill my days with something interesting. I'm bored out of my mind, and that is why I look on those who are content with envy.
It does exist, Nick, it exists very strongly in me. Truth is what matters above all else. Discovering the truth isn't always easy; it is quite often impossible, but identifying what isn't the truth is nowhere near as hard. Human beings are so dishonest, Nick, both with each other and with themselves. Many people, I'm sure, would much rather believe a lie that makes them happy than know an unwanted truth. I, too, want to be happy, but not at the cost of accepting falseness. That's why I have no time for religion; it isn't the truth.I have the highest regard for these rare ones Jacob Needleman describes in this short paragraph from his book: "Lost Christianity"
"does there exist in man a natural attraction to truth and to the struggle for truth that is stronger than the natural attraction to pleasure?"
I don't believe the universe has a purpose, and I don't believe Man has a purpose. Everything that exists obviously came into exist as a consequence of something, but I don't think it came into existence out of any purposeful intention. I don't have any aversion to the idea that there is a purpose, I am just unable to accept it as the truth.As I've written my philosophic goal is to verify for my understanding the purpose of our universe and organic life within it including Man.
I, also, admire seekers of truth, but I don't always admire what they find and try to pass off as truth. I don't have any special talent for finding the truth, but at least I am unlikely to fall prey to charlatans; mainly because the harder someone tries to convince me of something, the less I tend to believe it.I just admire what these rare seekers of truth are willing to sacrifice in their need for truth including the quality of consciousness necessary to see through the emotional appeal of charlatans .
If God is indeed whole and not partial to minds presumed to be better (or'higher') than bodies, then God must be physical as well as mental.Nick_A wrote: ↑Wed Aug 10, 2022 12:05 amIf we value ideas, they must be respected and worthy of being contemplated rather than emotionally condemned. A person must become disappointed with ideas which used to attract them. Then they can profit from Fourth Way ideas which don't appeal to egotism. They begin with the intellectual which allows us to verify them through the physical and the emotional. They require a sincerity rare on philosophy forums designed to debate rather then experience. This is why they rarely appear on philosophy forums.Belinda wrote: ↑Tue Aug 09, 2022 2:35 pmThat is not practical. I know what I am talking about as I have actually done a physical 'spiritual' exercise , regularly for a few years. Practice involves bodily movements which may be ritualistic or free. Practice involves use of the actual physical voice as in singing , speaking(perhaps in invented 'tongues') Practice involves movement from place to place as in dancing, walking about, running, jumping and so forth.Nick_A wrote: ↑Tue Aug 09, 2022 2:07 pm
It was practical in the sense that without what Learned and verified on both the law of three forces and the dicontinuity of vibrations and described in the law of octaves and why everything turns in circles I would still be arguing for duality. It was practical as a mind opening experience. What is so practical about a closed mind fixated on the shadows on the wall to supply meaning?
While I eschewed the mysticism that rationalised the 'spiritual' exercise I did, I respect the physicality of experience as much as the mentality of experience. Your experience is all mental and lacks anything physical. If there is any truth in mysticism that truth must include physical experiences as well as thinking, preferably involving others to some extent, and always including a physical environment.
This seems very true. And I would agree that religiously defined and mythologically defined anecdotes or symbols, though they express metaphysical notions, are more often than not misleading. As I often say it is not The Story that has meaning & validity but rather what is connoted by the story. And I agree that without real care the term 'metaphysic' (like God and a whole range of terms) might fairly be considered as obscuring rather than revealing.Dubious wrote: ↑Wed Aug 10, 2022 5:22 am Metaphysics is one of those words that can be redefined by anyone who wishes to do so with the intention of morphing the unreal - which possesses no other definition than the one we give it - into the real. That is the reason you equate the two as substantively equal.
First, what is metaphysical in man's world -- what comes into our world through man's psyche -- is intensely and undeniably real. If reality is determined by power or effect -- the capacity to effect the world (I draw a distinction between man's world and the world of nature as you likely have noticed) -- then it seems to me that it is in no sense a perverse choice to notice this realness. And though the entire world resounds with facts and fictions (in tremendous confusion and conflict) I do not think this changes the fact that in our world the influence of metaphysical ideas is very real. But I will agree that the world of the religious man, meaning essentially the man who is not (as Basil Willey suggests) enough of a 'master metaphysician' to actually separate himself from himself enough to see himself, that religious man is in a certain real sense a 'problem'. So if I were to make any recommendations I would suggest reading and learning from *the best of the best* in order to better grasp the value and validity of metaphysical ideas (metaphysics generally).What seems perverse in this kind of thinking is that whatever credibility is granted to metaphysics as reality, in relation to what reality itself denotes - due to its conflation with its opposite - attenuates in the process...a mixing of fact and fiction.
It was just one example that occurred to me. The Japanese mind, or perhaps I should say the Japanese mind when it was still steeped in traditional metaphysics, translates or imposes a range of contemplative ideas into ritual actions and also ritualized social interactions. Most contemplative ritual seem to me to express such 'ideas'. But those 'ideas', because they are metaphysical and invisible, are only perceived by a certain sort of mind. In my experience that 'certain sort of mind' is always of a higher sort within an intellectual hierarchy. It is a 'cultivated mind' and it is a 'sophisticated mind' and I would also say it is an 'aristocratic mind' in the Platonic sense.You and those like you, perform a neat little trick in turning metaphysics from a connotation to a denotation which, in the process, performs the same operation upon the non-metaphysical in reverse. You gave a good example of that yourself: I have no idea in what way a tea ceremony is related to causation in metaphysics, aside from the fact causation doesn't exist in nature! The word is merely a short-hand way allowing our brains to better understand the problems nature provides. There isn't a single equation in all of physics which has reference to causation.
As you might have noticed I am not inclined toward the 'negation' Ortega y Gassett references. I am much more interested in clarifying our symbols and in that sense protecting their content so that content can be understood. It is always the location of our values and also meaning generally. Here is a link to some Ortega y Gassett quotes (if you are unfamilar with him).[From the Wiki article on the book:] Ortega's summary of what he attempted in the book exemplifies this quite well, while simultaneously providing the author's own views on his work: "In this essay an attempt has been made to sketch a certain type of European, mainly by analyzing his behaviour as regards the very civilization into which he was born". This had to be done because that individual "does not represent a new civilisation struggling with a previous one, but a mere negation ..."
"The average type of European at present possesses a soul, healthier and stronger it is true than those of the last century, but much more simple. Hence, at times he leaves the impression of a primitive man suddenly risen in the midst of a very old civilization. In the schools, which were such a source of pride in the last century, it has been impossible to do more than instruct the masses in the technique of modern life; it has been found impossible to educate them. They … have been hurriedly inoculated with the pride and power of modern instruments, but not with their spirit."
I can assure you, it's the opposite.
There are many charlatans and worse, men who want to get power and wealth for themselves. The goal of education is to arm students with their own power to distinguish between good and bad. Students need to be as able as they can be to tell the difference between lies and truths, between superficial and deep, between reason and unreason, between thriving and failing, and between stagnation and progression.Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Aug 10, 2022 5:32 pmI can assure you, it's the opposite.
Modern public education is far too indoctrinatory and Neo-Marxist. It's so uninterested in the education of students or improving the lot of the marginalized in any real terms, that it continues to grind on endlessly while not producing things like basic literacy and numeracy...far more interested creating little "social justice warriors" and teaching them the "gender unicorn" than in providing them with anything that will actually give them power to improve their lives or to make a go of things themselves.
As for philosophers of education, they're gettting quietly eliminated from the faculties. They were somewhat useful at one time, but thinking people are a serious problem for those bent on taking over the system for their ideological uses, so they're not even hiring many of them now, and are getting rid of the ones they have. What they want in their place is "sociologists," meaning really, "social activists drilled in Critical Theory," i.e. Marxist revolutionary indoctrinators.
The charlatans who have control now are the Neo-Marxists.
Those are the LAST things the Critical Theorists want them to develop. If they did, they'd never be its naive footsoldiers...and that's what they're aiming to create.The goal of education is to arm students with their own power to distinguish between good and bad. Students need to be as able as they can be to tell the difference between lies and truths, between superficial and deep, between reason and unreason, between thriving and failing, and between stagnation and progression.
Marxist theory is one heuristic and should be taught alongside others.
Sadly, in public education and in many university faculties today, there's no place for anybody BUT the indoctrinators. And that's statistically verifiable: there's an overwhelming Left-wing bias in hiring, tenure and promotion in both. And in faculties of education, compliance with CT is practically a non-negotiable.There is no place in schools, universities or even training institutes for mechanical engineers, for indoctrinators.
A couple of thoughts:Belinda wrote: ↑Wed Aug 10, 2022 6:08 pmThere are many charlatans and worse, men who want to get power and wealth for themselves. The goal of education is to arm students with their own power to distinguish between good and bad. Students need to be as able as they can be to tell the difference between lies and truths, between superficial and deep, between reason and unreason, between thriving and failing, and between stagnation and progression.
Marxist theory is one heuristic and should be taught alongside others. For instance history of the past three centuries in Europe can be taught using the interpretations of both right wing and left wing historians. There is no place in schools, universities or even training institutes for mechanical engineers, for indoctrinators.
No, it's true factually.
Well then, we managed to agree on one thing after all!Dubious wrote: ↑Wed Aug 10, 2022 5:22 amMetaphysics is one of those words that can be redefined by anyone who wishes to do so with the intention of morphing the unreal - which possesses no other definition than the one we give it - into the real. That is the reason you equate the two as substantively equal.Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Wed Aug 10, 2022 1:39 pmThis seems very true. And I would agree that religiously defined and mythologically defined anecdotes or symbols, though they express metaphysical notions, are more often than not misleading. As I often say it is not The Story that has meaning & validity but rather what is connoted by the story. And I agree that without real care the term 'metaphysic' (like God and a whole range of terms) might fairly be considered as obscuring rather than revealing.
I'm not against the idea but I don't exactly know how a symbol can be clarified without losing much its mystery. Symbols have greater potency when multiplexed into a range of meanings as if it were a theme upon which variations are written. It's the connotational value more than any overt clarification which gives it the aura which inspires meaning beyond the normal predicates of thought. A symbol which lives up to its name must inspire, as if it were a first edition experience of something antipodal to our regular senses each time encountered...which implies, don't make it a habit. Don't suck the meaning out of it as fundamentalists do by attempting familiarity, and by literal reading, devaluing it in having a specific purpose; when that happens, the gods are forced to die even if, inevitably, they will anyways.Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Wed Aug 10, 2022 1:39 pmBut as I have said many times -- my opinion has not changed -- the laden symbols of religious thought, instead of being dismissed and erased from consideration, have to be worked through and clarified. But I do fully acknowledge that the religiously fanatic cannot divorce themselves from Story. So, what seems to happen is that people, with shadowy and symbolic ideas in their heads (in their imaginations) storm around defending their storyfied symbols to the detriment of the sort of clarity that is needed.
I would have to negate my own experiences if I didn't agree. My problem is with the word "metaphysical". It sounds like too abstract a term, belonging to a different domain, to render the experience human, high or low. There must be a better word to describe the effect that kind of cognizance creates. I think of it as a kind of space or memory human consciousness invents for itself to receive those kind of impressions...the influx of an active symbology doing its magic which requires a genius for empathy though not everyone is a genius. For most, like IC, the story as told is good enough.Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Wed Aug 10, 2022 1:39 pmFirst, what is metaphysical in man's world -- what comes into our world through man's psyche -- is intensely and undeniably real. If reality is determined by power or effect -- the capacity to effect the world (I draw a distinction between man's world and the world of nature as you likely have noticed) -- then it seems to me that it is in no sense a perverse choice to notice this realness. And though the entire world resounds with facts and fictions (in tremendous confusion and conflict) I do not think this changes the fact that in our world the influence of metaphysical ideas is very real.
I confess having read nothing of Ortega y Gassett though I certainly have heard of him, so thanks for the links.Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Wed Aug 10, 2022 1:39 pmAs I have made many efforts to explain, when 'metaphysical categories' (meaning, the possibility of perceiving with and through them as in 'through the eye' and not merely 'with the eye') are rendered unreal or become incomprehensible, a full dimensional man is overcome by a mono-dimensional and often non-intellectual man. My ideas in this regard have certainly been influenced by Ortega y Gassett's The Revolt of the Masses: