Nick,
“You will begin to listen only when you no longer feel compelled to defend your self esteem.”
It is amazing that your message of Truth makes people – in your view – feel that they have to defend their self-esteem. What a greater testament to the unCompassionate nature of your message of Knowing could their be? Hark, I hear your voice echoing in the cave. May we all be more like “Nick”.
Dunamis
Dunamis
And what is so wrong with that. It is what I know at present.
This is the part you refuse to consider. I say what I “know” to create the question not to fight for its supremacy. It has become easy for me since I’ve experienced the limitations of literal thought. I’m not egotistically tied to it surely not to any debilitating extent anymore. I’ve learned through experience how far some others are above me in their understanding in the real sense of the word. There’s nothing to get all that excited about.
This may surprise you but it is you much more than me that loves the argument. Hell, I’m a lover, not a fighter. 
Nick,
“It is what I know at present.”
All I know, is that you know nothing. I’m sure you wouldn’t disagree. It just that you are so verbose in knowing nothing that I find so curious.
Dunamis
Dunamsi
No, all you can know and insist is that YOU know nothing. There is no way for you to verify what I may know.
So while I may know that I know nothing and you may know that you know nothing, there is no way for either of us to verify what the other may know. In this way are nothingness is assured regardless of how much the other may want to assert that we believe we know something from the experiential level of human potential.
Now that deserves an extra glass of Merlot with dinner coming up shortly.
“all you can know and insist is that YOU know nothing. There is no way for you to verify what I may know.”
All I am doing is acceding to the point you make for yourself. Given your claim to ignorance, I find the largess of your assertions in the face of that ignorance, humorous, to say the least. Drink as much Merlot as you like, and chase that with a good Calvados or two, and it still won’t change the fact that you have no idea what you are talking about, that you claim to not know what you’re talking about, but rather indulgently you go on babbling and quoting to absurd lengths in contridiction to that ignorance.
Dunamis
Plato is not an empiricist. He doesn’t “teach” concepts, he leads others to re-cognize the truth. He is a midwife who helps an other’s mind give birth to knowledge. Science is based on observation, and observation is learning through the senses,which cannot be trusted. True knowledge, according to Plato, must be separate from particulars and from that which is in a constant state of flux.
Our senses can be so easily deceived…if I put my hand in a bowl of really cold water then in a bowl of hot water, I will not perceive the water as hot. Scientific knowledge always involves a degree of probability. We can form true opinions through study, i.e. 5 is a prime number, but true knowledge is knowing why this is so.
Nicely put Shyster. Plato suggests another quality of knowledge beyond how we normally define it that a person must discover. That is why the true teacher that already understands can only be a guide and help create the circumstances in which it can be discovered
Shy,
“Plato is not an empiricist. He doesn’t “teach” concepts”
And Plato is not Socrates; perhaps clue into the length of the discussion before pointing out the obvious. Feel free to have Nick send you a religious metaphor decoder ring, so that you can gain “eyes” and “ears”.
Nick,
It’s been nice, but consider me off line. I’ll not respond anymore to your endless, self-contradictory and uncompassionate nonsense. I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t respond to any thread I start. Of course I cannot control that. Do it as a favor.
Dunamis
Dunamis 
What’s so obvious about it? A lot of people read Plato and don’t understand it. What…I’m a bad person for trying to do a mitzvah for people that maybe aren’t as smart as you and hence can’t follow the argument? I don’t bother anyone around here unless they really provoke me, and I here I am getting the sarcastic remark for my little post. It’s not like I post pages of irrelevant, rambling, pathos-ridden nonsense… 
I’m just #$%ing with you…
God, if there is God, is probably an algorithm. The pattern in the chaos.
Man’s sin is his arrogance. It’s like the old Star Trek series where most of the aliens were humanoids with forehead growths or green skin. I have absolutely no idea what or if God is, but I’m willing to bet it’s not a nice Q.
If God can be personified as a Being (as we understand Beings) with exceptional “magic powers” that enable him/her/it/they to control all that there is, then it allows us to prop ourselves up to being on par with the origin/control of the universe.
Maybe compassion has nothing to do with appeasing some Being, maybe it’s just another variable, another flapping wing, that affects an overall pattern.
You have no idea about my self esteem dear! None whatsoever!
I will listen when you have something to say. You’re regurgitating words without personal insight…and it sounds like blah di blah blah!
Say something for goodness sake!
A
Shy,
I always treat you with oozing appreciation, ever tossing bouquets and rose petals. I was sure that you can handle a little pinch.
Dunamis
I missed this revealing line. Show some convinction mate! Stand up for yourself and risk ridicule. You may find it is exactly what you need. You know, to take the risk, to have courage. The leap is the thing, the freefall through the empty sky…
A
Who says I cannot promote common cause? I’ve even got Tentative and Dunamis to agree, and in this case, to the desirability of keeping me off of their threads. The true infidel has been established. Sorry, that was just too good and couldn’t resist.
A
Self esteem varies within people. Unless the great traditions are all wrong, we all suffer from the disproportionate effect it has on our presence for those seeking understanding. If you are an exception, you are indeed fortunate.
This is really classic. Wars are fought and their cause defended from just this argument. Our ability and willingness to listen is not an attribute of ours but instead is created in us by how we are conditioned to value what is being said. (when you have something to say) Without a conscious effort over time to do differently, we only listen to what we want to hear.
Dunamis wrote:
This is why I use quotes for expressing a minority opinion. This way offended opinions are not just directed at me but at Plato and Simone as well in this case since all I’m writing is agreement with them… It is perfect with her because no one can put their nose up in the air as superior intellectually. It is easy to attack me but to attack her from the position of "intellectual’ is ludicrous.
Compassion apparently is something allowed by me. If I were seen as expressing lovely and wonderful thoughts, the compassion in response would be gushing. Since I’m not seen to be demonstrating compassion through these wonderful thoughts, Dunamis’ lack is justified.
Its not that I’m personally concerned with scorn and ridicule. Hell, I’ve been cursed out by the best. This is just greasy kid stuff. The problem is that these attitudes serve as opposition to being open which theoretically benefits religious discussion… We become instead more concerned with self justification. If I am right, it is not ethical for me to further this effect. I’ve directly experienced the hostility that has become natural for incorrect thinking here so it is better for me to relate in generalities. Its not a matter of courage but respect for the living quality and potential of ancient profound ideas. But the problem of the cave, though a generality, is the crux of the issue whether it be Christianity or Buddhism for example. It is something that must be seen for what it is in order for a person to take the Eightfold Path seriously. Why bother if we are all one and everybody loves everybody? What I find revealing is how easily the meaning of the analogy is scorned or at least ignored in preference of expressions of imagination.
I told you 
.
You’re particular form of ridicule is subtle Nick. But it’s there and it’s loud and clear.
A
A
It may appear subtle because it doesn’t exist in any specific sense. My mention of the “Great Beast” isn’t ridicule but recognition of its influence. There is nothing funny about the suffering it causes. Here is the definition of ridicule from Dictionary.com
Show me where I’ve done this.
I’ve done this in the past and know the stupidity of it including in matters of ridicule. I will not defend it in myself if I accidentally fall victim to it. I will admit to being WRONG
Often we are unconconscious of our own behaviour. Might this be the case in your case?
A
A, I’m off to work now but give me an example of the ridicule you are talking about in one of my posts and I’ll check in when I return.
I make no claims of the sort, in fact I have made no claims either way. These words of yours are indeed a projection of yours attributed to me. I have no use of your word games Nick. In other words, I know where I end and you begin. Do you?
A
A
I didn’t make claims about you. I simply said that the ancient traditions caution about how we block in the pursuit of meaning. It is not an accusation, it is only an if this than that statement. That’s not ridicule.
No I don’t and I doubt if you do either because this I/object relationship is always changing. We lose ourselves continually into things and our feelings about them follow in change. As any man knows, it has its advantages since without this capacity to change the mind it would be much harder to get the woman into bed.
There are no word games. I’m not trying to catch you in anything for ridicule. You, me, and everyone else often speak of one thing and do another. I further the value of admitting it and to many, this is seen as an insulting form of spiritual elitism.
Seeing ourselves do it and acknowledging our denial of it is humor. Condemning others for their real or imagined human frailties in laughter is ridicule.
Something gets lost in the shuffle. We speak on concepts like “love” not realizing how far we are from truly understanding them. It happens to me all the time. I’m not ashamed to admit it. If this makes me elite, well than so be it. This is real humor in yourself when you can see it and gradually let go the need to defend it… There is no ridicule but only the warmth of appreciating ourselves as the human condition but with potential and without thoughts of being God or anything else. This “seeing” is IMO, a necessary part of growing as a person.