Grinding Lenses with Spinoza

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
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Quotes taken from these two pages:

iep.utm.edu/s/spinoza.htm
members.aol.com/Heraklit1/spinoza.htm

The quotes I am working with here are piecemeal and do not follow the geometric form in which Spinoza originally presents them. For a complete chronology of Spinoza’s concepts, you should refer to his works in their entirety. Spinoza proceeds by advancing from a foundation of terms and concepts in building the whole structure, so it is necessary to understand the progression in its dependency on the pre-established definitions.

My effort in this post is not a summation of his concepts, nor by any means a claim to represent them as Spinoza would see fit. I offer only my own interpretation of the concepts and what they imply as I understand them. Please chime in if you like.

Substance is the totality of existence, inasmuch as anything existing must have Being, cannot depend on something without Being, or of a different Being, to be defined as existing as its own concept. All existing things considered at once have Being and are therefore ontologically and monistically complete as substance. To not exist is to be no substance. Existing is substance. Substance has two modes: physical extension and intellect.

Following Descartes, Spinoza divided substance into two modes- the rational (intellect) and the empirical (empirical extension). However, the modes are not exclusive as they are reducible to substance, that which has both a cause and an effect on itself and therefore cannot be divided ontologically as two distinctions affecting one another. Only that which is a cause, and not an effect, or vice-versa, can have an essential difference of Being than that which it acts as a cause on, or results as an effect by. This is impossible as both the intellect and extension are causes and effects within one substance. Substance is anything that is a cause or effect- intellect and extension are modes of cause and effect- the activity of substance.

An attribute is one of infinite extensions of substance, concieved by intellect, neccessarily dependent on intellect, and is therefore the connection between intellect and extension. An attribute cannot exist without intellect, as an attribute is description, and description is dependent on the mode of intellect to be distingushed from substance and concieved of as an extension. Substance without the mode of intellect has no attributes. Attributes without the mode of intellect cannot be described. An attribute results from conception by the intellect of the substance. An attribute is epistemological and essential for description- a description reveals an essence of substance- known as a particular.

An attribute can be understood as a bridge between intellect and extension- without which an attribute could not be conceived or distinguished from another. There would be only substance without any extension.

Here I believe he is refering to the capacity of cause and effect in both intellect and extension to produce conception. The affections of each, with their power of cause and effect, produce the conceived attribute. A substance without a mode of intellect can produce no attribute. Likewise, a substance without the mode of extension can produce no attribute. Both intellect and extension are required, as a cause and effect, to produce conception. The modes produce the causal relationship between the two, the affections. Substance cannot be concieved without these four parts: cause, effect, intellect, and extension.

“God” is a title for the totality of substance and everything existing. The attributes, and the reason why he calls them infinite, is because between the intellect and the extensions there are an infinite amount of possible descriptions. What is described by the intellect is the essence of the thing it describes, as a particular attribute, it has its own definite Being, although reducible to substance without being conceived by the intellect. It seems that what he means by “infinite” is indefinite possible positions from which to conceive an extension. While the modes of substance are definite, being either extension or intellect, the conceptions are not because of the eternal activity of cause and effect, producing infinite attributes depending on the position from which the conception is produced. A thing cannot produce the same cause or effect as another thing, and is therefore involved in a never-ending “chain,” so to speak.

This is basically restating the first quote, that there is only one substance. What I think he means by differing “natures” and “attributes” is that no two conceptions can be equal, as all intellects are positional, and therefore cannot produce the same description. The attribute I concieve of as “red” cannot be the attribute you concieve of as “red” because our intellects, although the same mode, are engaged in a field of cause and effect, in which no two moments can be identical, but rather a chain expanding in all directions.

There is no contingency in Spinoza’s model. Everything is precisely determined, and “infinite” means basically this: if it can happen, it will happen, and, if it happened, it was going to happen. “Infinite” is a projection of these two points in unison. One does not not to experience everything to know that everything will happen if it can, and what does not happen wasn’t going to happen. The infinite attributes and essences can be understood as the possiblity that all things be “broken down” further into more parts, and done so from every possible position of intellect, with inexhaustible descriptions.

In other words, only everything can be concieved of, and not nothing.

That’s the infinite chain of events with its self-regulating activity of cause and effect. Hard-core determinism.

This might mean the inseperable relationship of attributes to one another. If a thing concieved by the intellect exists, it must be described, and if there is a description, there must also be a collision of intellect with extension, and therefore a knowledge of a thing being both a cause and effect. In other words, I can’t imagine an attribute existing without a particular substantial extension, in which case I would say “the red exists because the apple exists of which to call red, and the apple exists because there is substance to be extended.” I’m not sure though.

As stated before, intellect and extension have equal powers of cause and effect, and in their own domain they flow forth causally. An apple’s weight bends the branch as the idea of hunger causes the idea of “walking to the frig.” Intellectual order and extensional order function the same, as both are substance and are determined to exist as both a cause and effect.

I’m not sure about this one. Perhaps he means that the direct knowledge of the body affords more ideas than the knowledge of the external bodies of which the intellect has only an indirect relationship to. Therefore, the intellect, as it exists in the body, can produce more ideas from its conception of the body than it can from its conception of an external object. “Excellence” might then mean: the intellects capacity for more ideas, and therefore the production of more causes and effects, than that of an external object that does not have the capacity for intellect, and therefore a lesser degree of potential for producing causes and effects. I dunno.

I don’t really get this one. I think he means that there is essentially no boundary between the causal power of bodies, such that the conception of a cause or effect must extend beyond the body and into the external world, and vice-versa. However, this seems to conflict with my interpretation with the last quote regarding the greater degree of power in the intellect’s conception of the body and not the external world.

Intellect concieves the external world through and by its own bodily faculties and therefore, preceding a conception of the external, an idea is concieved of the body as the “medium,” so that a greater knowledge is had of “the self as knowing the world” than that of “intellect knowing the world directly from without the body,” which is impossible. In concieving the external world, the intellect has more knowledge of itself and the body through which it concieves.

No dualism there! No ghost in Spinoza’s machine, and nothing unnatural is possible.

I understand this to mean inertia or momentum. A thing would rather produce a cause than be affected.

Hmm. Then essence, or attribute, is also inertia.

Ah…the esteem of inertia and the natural expression of power to maintain itself as a body with a causal force. Fabulous.

The intellect is engaged in the generation of ideas and does not take upon itself a matter which cannot be understood as a potential to produce a greater degree of conception.

Know that everything is. Simple as that.

Just as substance is infinite, a mode cannot be entirely nonexistent, but rather in a stage where there is no relation to the other mode: extension will continue to exist without intellect, only as without attribute, and intellect will continue to exist without extension, only as without the capacity to concieve.

Easy for you to say, Benedict. I think you are hinting at stoicism and nobility, with a degree of aseticism. I’ll take it. Give me my cane and my robe, and I shall seek the path to clarity and wisdom. You grind lenses, I’ll build things with wood.

Intellect cannot pass judgement to an extension as being insufficient, but can only have within itself the desire to increase its own power in understanding.

[Sing the following as you would the Barney (purple dinosaur) theme] I love you, you love me, we’re all part of the fam-i-ly.

God, or substance, cannot not exist, just as the intellect cannot at once know it exists itself and that it does not exist.

Those men of the purple cloth who wish to take upon themselves the expectancy of reward by concieving of God…are up shit’s creek without a paddle.

Learn to become stronger and accept that pain is necessary. If one should take upon himself a pain, know that it is determined and in its own perfection.

Knowing the eternal is being eternal, just as the mode of intellect can never entirely cease to be.

The distance achieved between the intellect and the extension is gained through the idea of cause and effect, and in having that idea, the intellect more fully understands its complacency, and can therefore determine its own ends and ideas of the body. Intellect is a greater power than emotion as emotion is only an idea and not the intellect. To the degree that one understands his emotions can he control them with his intellect.

The show must go on, folks. Good luck.

Damn! Ain’t that a bitch?

Now wait a minute, B. I am no man of the purple cloth, but neither do I afford no love where none is given. I shall not take upon myself this query of insipidity. Good day to you. [hmph]

Well kids, we started out alright, but at the end we felt that cold wind blow through. Still, you gotta hand it to Benedict…the guy gives it to ya’ straight.

2

I don’t know why a portion of that post is in large print. I tried to fix it to no avail.

If a mod could fix it, I’d appreciate it.

3

detrop,

Two things:

I don’t really get this one. I think he means that there is essentially no boundary between the causal power of bodies, such that the conception of a cause or effect must extend beyond the body and into the external world, and vice-versa.

There is no causal boundary between the power of bodies, there cannot be, but the adequate understanding of bodies external to you, stems from not confusing the affects an external body brings upon you, with the idea of that external body itself. If an arrow strikes your shoulder and you are filled with pain, an inadequate idea of that arrow would be a (con)fusion of your personal bodily experience, pain, with the nature of the arrow itself. The arrow can be adequately seen as potentially painful, but not in its nature “a pain-giver”. The arrow in actuality has an infinity of ways of being, “pain-giving” being only one of them. The fusion of inside affects with external world understanding in Spinoza is the source of inadequate thinking. It is also at its core passive and not active. The adequate “idea of a given mode” must involve both the nature of the human body – because all ideas are of the body – but also the nature of the foreign one – the two in relation.

but neither do I afford no love where none is given.

This is the fulcrum upon which it all turns. You are right to object to it, because if one accepted it, all else would follow.

Dunamis

4

Yes, yes! I finally understand. This knowledge is astounding.

Here Spinoza gives a similar demonstration of point (my italics added):

The reason or cause why God or Nature exists, and the reason why he acts, are one and the same. Therefore, as he does not exist for the sake of an end, so neither does he act for the sake of an end; of his existence and of his action there is neither origin nor end. Wherefore, a cause which is called final is nothing else but human desire, in so far as it is considered as the origin or cause of anything. For example, when we say that to be inhabited is the final cause of this or that house, we mean nothing more than that a man, conceiving the conveniences of household life, had a desire to build a house. Wherefore, the being inhabited, in so far as it is regarded as a final cause, is nothing else but this particular desire, which is really the efficient cause; it is regarded as the primary cause, because men are generally ignorant of the causes of their desires.

The house to the occupant is as the arrow to the shoulder. The house concerns the desire of the man, understood by intellect, to afford him a means to attain a desire. However, neither the form of the house, or the nature of his desire, is an end in itself. Just as his desire must be traced backed infinitely through a series of causes and effects, so to does the form of the house to the effects of labor, wood, tree-seed, etc., etc.

The adequate idea of all things rests in the infinite prospect of attributes, all possible things being an expression of substance, but not reducible to one kind of attribute, only a functional use pertaining to desire is the concern of man. The relationship between intellect and extension is but a period of interaction of cause and effect, occuring eternally, and concerning man only as a means to attain his desire. The arrow and the house only have their descriptive natures insofar as they are adverse or useful to him, whereupon intellection assigns them their attributes with the means in mind.

5

What is this “all else,” and what is “follow?”

Elaborate a bit.

6

detrop,

The key is thinking about “love” in Spinoza’s terms. Look at your statement in the light of his definition and explanation below:

“but neither do I afford no love where none is given.”

E3: DOE. 6. Love is pleasure, accompanied by the idea of an external cause.

(note: the possible confusion - just like the arrow and the house - between the nature of an external body loved with its affect upon one’s own body.)

Explanation.–This definition explains sufficiently clearly the essence of love; the definition given by those authors who say that love is the lover’s wish to unite himself to the loved object expresses a property, but not the essence of love; and, as such authors have not sufficiently discerned love’s essence, they have been unable to acquire a true conception of its properties, accordingly their definition is on all hands admitted to be very obscure.
It must, however, be noted, that when I say that it is a property of love, that the lover should wish to unite himself to the beloved object, I do not here mean by wish consent, or conclusion, or a free decision of the mind (for I have shown such, in E2P48, to be fictitious); neither do I mean a desire of being united to the loved object when it is absent, or of continuing in its presence when it is at hand; for love can be conceived without either of these desires; but by wish I mean the contentment, which is in the lover, on account of the presence of the beloved object, whereby the pleasure of the lover is strengthened, or at least maintained.

What is this “all else,” and what is “follow?”

The “all else” that “follows” is the Ethical dimension of his work. The struggle for returned love under inadequate ideas, is in large measure what brings about the pain of living.

To understand Love though, in Spinoza you have to understand the nature of pleasure and pain:

E3: DOE. 2. Pleasure is the transition of a man from a less to a greater perfection.

E3: DOE. 3. Pain is the transition of a man from a greater to a less perfection.

Explanation.–I say transition: for pleasure is not perfection itself. For, if man were born with the perfection to which he passes, he would possess the same, without the emotion of pleasure.
This appears more clearly from the consideration of the contrary emotion, pain. No one can deny, that pain consists in the transition to a less perfection, and not in the less perfection itself: for a man cannot be pained, in so far as he partakes of perfection of any degree. Neither can we say, that pain consists in the absence of a greater perfection. For absence is nothing, whereas the emotion of pain is an activity; wherefore this activity can only be the activity of transition from a greater to a less perfection–in other words, it is an activity whereby a man’s power of action is lessened or constrained (cf. E3P11N).

Dunamis

7

I see. The solution to this problem returns as the proper understanding of “love” as not provided externally, as a love “essence,” but rather as an adequate recognition of an extension, by the intellect, as being a capable means to attain a desire. However, pain is not the understanding of a lack of love but instead as a lack of means to escape a source of pain. We do not feel pain because we cannot justify love externally, which would be an inadequate understanding of emotion, but because we have failed at perfecting our physical powers to avoid pain.

Pain is an attribute of the body; love is an inadequate idea- an unconditional cause of love does not exist. Therefore, I don’t think that an expectany of love, which cannot exist unconditionally, is what causes pain. Love must be understood as only the anticipation of attaining a desire, but in failing, this does not mean failure is the result of love not existing. The adequate idea is in the knowledge that love is nothing more than the experience of pleasure and the expectancy that it lasts.

To know that love does not exist is not painful. There is no such thing as emotional pain if there is a proper understanding by the intellect, which should bring one to the adequate idea of love.

I do agree with your interpretation, but I also understand that this “struggle” can be avoided with a proper idea of pleasure, pain, and love. “Love” is only a concept arising as either the knowledge that one is escaping pain, or attaining pleasure, and maintaing those momentums.

Spinoza constantly expresses the dominance of the intellect over emotion, so I see the idea of “love” being contextual to the intellect and its concurrence with the present states of the body- the medium of pain and pleasure.

The absence of love does not produce struggle, but the inadequate idea of love, and the expectancy that love is provided externally, certainly does. A confusion to be avoided if possible.

We can say that love is an attribute (modal extension) described as a property of intellection during a transition from pain to pleasure, and not the reverse.

8

detrop,

We do not feel pain because we cannot justify love externally, which would be an inadequate understanding of emotion, but because we have failed at perfecting our physical powers to avoid pain.

I think key to “perfecting our physical (remember in Spinoza extension and idea run parallel) powers” is the understanding that our “self” is also a construction, an assemblage of things. The reason that Spinoza can say that the Love of God is the highest love is that God is simply loving himself, his own cause in such case. There is no “external body”. The greater the adequacy of this understanding, the less confused Love becomes.

Spinoza constantly expresses the dominance of the intellect over emotion, so I see the idea of “love” being contextual to the intellect and its concurrence with the present states of the body- the medium of pain and pleasure.

In this he is following the Stoic ideal, but it is important to see that in Spinoza the Intellect is not an unbodily thing, an abstract thing. All ideas are ideas of the body. The adequacy of ideas simply puts the body/idea in relation to other bodies/ideas in a more active, and therefore more pleasurable, and less passive mode. The intellect is always the body in relation to other bodies. It is here and now. It is physical.

A further thought is if we take Spinoza at face value, he offers very simple and down to earth advice for anyone in any situation.

1). Whatever just happened, that situation no matter how bad, how good, had to happen.

2). Decide if you are going to react to it in confusion, emotionally blurring together the affects of whatever happened upon your body, the things it makes you feel, with your idea of those bodies, those events outside your body; or are you going to understand the infinity of those modes, and use your mind to place your body in greater active position, greater forward lean towards those events, those things, those bodies.

I think the two points - accepting determination, yet the constant movement from passive to active - is a potent path into understanding not only the world, but also our daily pleasure from it.

Dunamis

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Dunamis:

To a point I agree with your interpretation, although I think that coming to terms with pain as a determined event is an after effect, a sort of acceptance of fate, of a preceding effort to avoid that pain through a loss of power. For example, it is only after I have failed to attain pleasure that I accept the fate of pain, and although both are determined expression of God, I do not love pain simply because it is necessary and determined, but because I submit to it as a fate after I have failed to avoid it. A self expression of power, while also an expression of God, does not seek pain, but will accept it, if pleasure is failed to be attained. This Love is a form of reciprocation but not an end in itself; it is an acceptance of fate after a failed expression of power, an infusion of the two.

More later…

10

detrop,

The point, I imagine, is not to submit to something as “fate”, but to separate oneself from the useless “it could have been otherwise” which confuses the future moment. By accepting a situation as having had to happen - and the very best and very worst of things are equal here, (this is not something you can only do to “bad” things and not to “good” things) - one releases its affectual power over you. One of course should look at things that have happened and say to yourself, that had to happen, by whatever infinity of causes, but if similar things arise what can be done to promote or retard its likelihood of happening again?

What does not have to happen - at least from the perspective an agent in the “now” - is that you are passively overwhelmed with the positive or negative bodily associations that you erroneously link with an event. One can take a more active stance, a distinguishing between the event of bodies outside of yourself and the occurrences within yourself, and through that distinction, more clearly know them. This really is the Stoic ideal. But what is the absolutely necessary step is not to leave the body. All ideas about the world are first and foremost ideas about the body. By not confusing the affects upon the body with the things in the world - however bad or good the experience - one then is able to place the body in greater physical resonance, greater proximity in a way to the world. All of the extremes of emotion do produce all kinds of effects, things happen, doors slam, people are killed, tears of joy rise up, the whole ton of it; but Spinoza contends that the greatest joy is the full and connected joy of untossed-aboutness, wherein your body stands in greater propensity towards others, with the full understanding that even at the most wise, the things that do happen, have to.

To give a difference sense though, of the same ideas, rocket fowards from Spinoza almost four hundred years, and see what Complexity-Biologist Stuart Kauffman is saying about the underlying nature of all lifeforms, that is their ability to detect deviations from equilibrium, and the ability to turn such deviations into “work” (this is nothing more than a variant or extension of Spinoza’s idea of adequacy, and a kind of efficiency of being).

[i]"“The universe as a whole – from galaxies to planetary systems, and certainly our and other biospheres – is filled with entities that measure displacements from equilibrium that are sources of energy, those entities actually do extract work. Think of the teeming business of a coevolving mixed microbial community of long ago, successfully linking exergonic and energonic reactions fired by the sun and other high-energy sources. That community measured displacements from equilibrium, extracted work, and in habited Manhattan three billion years ago, literally building similar high-rise microbial mat ecosystems. Its microbial descendents are constructing similar high-rise structures in the Sea of Cortez and on the Great Barrier Reef of Australia today.

Where did all this come from, this measuring of useful displacements from equilibrium from which work can be extracted, the devices coupling to such measurements, and the extraction of work used to build up new kinds of devices that measure new kinds of displacements from equilibrium to extract work in new ways? Yet a biosphere does achieve persistent measuring of displacements from equilibrium from which work can be extracted and does discover “devices” to couple those energy sources such that work can be extracted.

And since the biosphere does this, and the biosphere is part of the universe, then the universe does it. This coming into existence of self-constructing ecosystems must, somehow, be physics.”[/i]

  • Investigations

Spinoza is advocating a kind of physics of the mind, body and emotions.

Dunamis

11

This is saying the same thing twice, though differently. Think about what you are saying.

You don’t get it. You cannot feel pleasure by ceasing to “blurr” the distinctions between causes and effects when in pain- pain is direct- intellection then administrates the causes and the effects, the potential and the kinetic, the means to achieve a state of feeling that is desired. One does not dissappear pain by the realization that what has caused it is also an infinite number of attributes from an infinite number of perspectives. What concerns the intellect of the body is its own causes and effects, and what invokes pain is pain during that moment of inflection- the body with the infinite attributes becomes pain and only pain in that moment of conception. To say that the arrow is something more than a pain-giver is not to deny that its direct experience is that of pain. Other effects do not concern the intellect while in pain. What you speak of is a luxury afforded after pain makes itself known through the effect of the arrow, while the arrow is indeed many other effects and bodies as well. The intellect is linked tightly to the extension of the body through sensation- and secondarily as a mode to concieve other cause and effects, those which do not produce the immediacy of pain.

There is no “decision” to not feel pain.

The rest of your posts exhibits what I consider a fundamental disagreement with what I believe to be the relationship between the mode of intellect and the mode of extension. You are “unseating” the intellect from the body in such a way so to equate external bodies with the internal sensation of the body of the intellect. The world does effect the immediate body and that is given as the direct sensibility of the intellect about the body- the nerve is the link. It is not a “confusing” of the effects on the body from the world…it is a direct reaction to the effects on the body and then an estimation of the other possible effects in other assemblages.

You understand this here:

But with this I do not agree:

You fail again to consider that in certain states there is no moment of intellection- but only of pure experience and sensation. Such is the case of pain. One doesn’t need to know that the arrow also has an infinite number of other expressions to “confuse” the effect it has upon the body and the sensation of pain it affords. Knowing that the arrow is indeed many other things does not relinquish the experience of pain. That effort is intellectual but is not dominant over the bodily sensations. The effect of an external body on the body which produces the intellect is not rarefied simply because it has an infinite amount of attributes. That concern is intellectual- not sensible.

The quote from Kauffman is good, except I have one objection:

The entities are measured…they don’t do measuring. The entire process of construction works through the distribution of energies and there is no external entity which determines or directs what shall happen. The process is immanent and knows not where it goes. The pantheistic idea that there is some guidance or intelligence orchestrating the events is a misestimation of the nature of God and cause and effect. What happens is determined, but it is not decided by some external intervention. Measures are taken but not measured.

12

detrop,

What concerns the intellect of the body is its own causes and effects, and what invokes pain is pain during that moment of inflection- the body with the infinite attributes becomes pain and only pain in that moment of conception.

What you are confused about - in Spinoza - is that you are giving absolute primacy to The Body, and not realizing that the perfection, the passing towards or away from, is not dependent upon the human “Body” as an essential form. The body is always in assemblage with other bodies, so its perfection, its pleasure gradient can be conceived from a larger relationship to those wholes. The “moment of conception” you speak of is a conception under a form of understanding. I have seen small children fall down and feel no pain until others rushed to inspect them. Then, the pain is real and seemingly unalterable. The “nerve” is an educated nerve, put in assemblage. It is just a chemical switching station between ideational and extended bodies.

There is no “decision” to not feel pain.

There is the “decision” as to understand what constitutes “the body”, and to understand that localized breakdowns, which are experienced as painful from one point of view, can be moves to perfection in larger perspectives and understandings. That is where the “decision” lies, in conception. You are not grasping the fluidity of boundaries.

E2: P13, LEMMA. 1. Bodies are distinguished from one another in respect of motion and rest, quickness and slowness, and not in respect of substance.

E2: P13, LEMMA. 2. All bodies agree in certain respects.

E2: P13, DEF. When any given bodies of the same or different magnitude are compelled by other bodies to remain in contact, or if they be moved at the same or different rates of speed, so that their mutual movements should preserve among themselves a certain fixed relation, we say that such bodies are in union, and that together they compose one body or individual, which is distinguished from other bodies by this fact of union.

You fail again to consider that in certain states there is no moment of intellection- but only of pure experience and sensation.

I consider it. I simply view them as possibly integrated into larger body/meaning fields. Let’s just disagree. You find the world inherently painful at a physically reductionist level. I do not.

Knowing that the arrow is indeed many other things does not relinquish the experience of pain.

It does if you are St. Sebastian.

That effort is intellectual but is not dominant over the bodily sensations.

We simply disagree. If the body moves from greater to lesser perfection there is the necessary experience of pain, but the understanding of what the Body is, in a global construction can transcend that experience.

The entire process of construction works through the distribution of energies and there is no external entity which determines or directs what shall happen. The process is immanent and knows not where it goes.

That is one set of descriptions. Kauffman is operating under the definition of autonomous agency, as exemplified down to molecular autocatalysis. He does give the instructive example of an elementary non-equalibrium system that detects changes in equalibrium and converts it into “work”, a windmill with vane. Of course if one moves to Spinoza’s pantheism, the distinction evaporates altogether.

Dunamis

13

Dunamis:

No. I am giving absolute primacy to the knowledge of the body first, through the relationship of sensation. I am keeping Descartes where Spinoza threw him out. All these things you are explaing are after-effects of the real-time experience of the body in a relationship to the external world. You are ordering mental events in the wrong way. Again, if I stab you in the leg, this is what will not cross your mind:

“The pain I feel is many other things, with many other effects, in many other assemblages, of many different bodies. So are my nerves. Therefore, I must understand that this pain is only one understanding among many, so I shall move toward a more perfect ideation, and away from the pain, through this gradation.”

This is what will cross your mind:

“Ouch! What the hell are you doing? You’ve taken a knife, or, an infinte assemblage of bodies, and stabbed me in the leg with it. Damn, this hurts! Screw the infinite assemblages…my intellect is going to concern itself with reaching a greater state of perfection by reacting to this event in the certainity that it is pain, and in an effort to move physically away from it. When my leg stops throbbing, I’ll reflect on the fact that my nervous system is an infinite number of assemblages too, just like the knife, and I will move to a greater more perfect understanding of the world when I no longer feel the pain, which I pay direct attention to while being stabbed, and focus on other things intellectually.”

No you haven’t. What you saw was a hierarchical conditioning of the nervous system. The child most certainly felt pain, but his behavior was amplified by the re-enforcement of attention given to him by the adult. The child became conditioned to remember that crying and vocalization brought more attention to himself, and therefore helped to comfort him. His memory retains this scenario and plays it back when a similiar event occurs. If you think that the child began to hurt only when somebody showed up, you are nuts.

No, dude! You don’t decide while in pain, godammit. You can deny the finite limits of the body all you want, but you cannot deny the pain.

Nevermind, man. You are becomming that guru again, far too removed from reality, because you are reading the wrong shit. Now, go to your cave and find your spirit animal, mmkay?

14

detrop,

I am keeping Descartes where Spinoza threw him out.

Precisely. And as such, you do not have access to Spinoza. Keep on truckin’.

Dunamis

15

Of course, so get out of the road or you’ll get run over. :wink:

16

Of course, so get out of the road or you’ll get run over.

Road? While you are pumping your broken down, fume-coughing Cartesian Diesel engine with the last drops of fossil fuel, Spinozists are flying across distances you only dreamed of, on fuel you can hardly conceive. Power is knowledge brother. Power is knowledge.

Dunamis

17

Are you getting angry at me, Dunamis? How cute.

I suppose I’ll draw you out from underneath your molded rock, with this little morsel to chew on:

In Spinoza’s model, if I do not understand Spinoza, what difference does it make?

In a world where there is only power, how does one attain powerlessness, and what are the consequences if one should?

Everything happens all the time in eternity. Spinoza’s eternity.

In Spinoza’s model, there is no possibility of failure.

18

Angry? Joking.

In Spinoza’s model, there is no possibility of failure.

Incorrect. Under his model one fails to the degree that they experience the sadness of a passive life. Embrace the truth how you see it though. Its what we all do.

Dunamis

19

…and passivity is sadness, then?

I disagree. Passivity can also be a degree of strength and therefore power.

If you continue with me, Dunamis my friend, you will find yourself in a house of corners and mirrors, in which you are turned upon your head, where left becomes right, up becomes down, over becomes under, and in becomes out.

It all depends on where I want to put you for the moment.

There is not “truth,” there is only my interpretation.

20

I disagree. Passivity can also be a degree of strength and therefore power.

May you always then have that passivity - which in Spinozian terms, as you know, is the passivity of inadequacy - on your side.

Dunamis