Rubbish, this has nothing to do with philosophy.
Modern western philosophy are based on wisdom, which is logic and reason, which is founded on factual knowledge and science.
Quite true, but factual knowledge is bases on 2 types of things: knowledge of the facts, and the facts of knowledge. Knowlege of the facts evolved from the facts themselves. So facts come first.
What are facts? The most basic fact is I AM.
Of course, there is a self to die to…at least, it’s part of that essence which is experienced and senses a need or has the knowledge that it must “let go”, whether it be of beliefs or knowledge which it has come to realize is faulty. And that is not an easy thing I would say for a philosopher to do - to change his point of view or way of thinking and to let go. That is part of that dying to self which I think he was speaking about.
But thought IS a necessary tool which we must use in order to reflect on that trap. And the same mind, but a changed one, which created the trap is the same one, which has the capability of destroying the trap.
From my way of thinking, the DOING is part of the behavior, influenced by the ego, mind and emotions. That’s a bit separate from the self…which is part of a deeper experiencer.
People who invent things does not have factual knowledge if it works or is right, therefore testing is nessesary, and there is a procedure for such thing.
Zen is the basic self, it's still a self, a pre-definitional self. Esse est percipii. This is not a trap. Separation from non self is an impossible yet omnipresent phenomenon I suspect, it goes with the package. There is no pre differentiation that starts this process, it is a simultaneous process.
Basic elemental (logical) testing on the periphery of "knowledge" is the referientiality(spatial,objective,) of the self. This testing is simply : I=I. not a thought, its a sense of consciousness of the self. "Testing' on this level is not really testing as we understand it today, but a very elemental trial and error procedure. . Its purely behavioralistic, somewhat akin to a reward/punishment schema of rats in a maze. It is a sort of cognitive map, where learning can take place. It is a "conscious" process, and it's my proposition is , is that it is the alpha of the self, if we premise that by saying --humans are of a different genera.(From animals). Rationale: if we were not, how come today's animals (chimpanzees for instance) can not evolve? So it seems to be, this is as likely as any other, but I suspect it is more likely than not.
This probably accounts for the preponderance of visual clues, symbols and the self image, as determinental in referential systems-----perhaps an over compensation to the archaic behavioristic models.
If scientific testing doesn’t require human thinking, it would suggest that we could do away with highly paid scientists and just replace them with robots to do any testing …which is blatant nonsens.
To test anything it requires reasonable intelligence, in order to make any meaningful result, else less intelligent people usually jumps to conclusions or doesn’t have the ability to observe things corretly.
Don’t you think that there is some distance between ego and narcissism?
I mean, how do we survive without ego, how do we pursue truth and knowledge without a tool such as ego? Ego is not necessarily a negative - it is an evolutionary imperative which spurs us on to action, which helps in the struggle to remain curious and to explore. I’m not talking about narcissism here, where someone sees only their own self, their own thoughts, their own knowledge and way of thinking - and no one else’s. A narcissist is not capable of seeing someone else’s truth…
Ego is capable of getting a bit out of hand and that is where I feel that Montaigne was going when he said that "To philosophize is to learn the art of dying…in order to find truth we must give up ego, die to self, in order to see the other guy’s thoughts and feelings and in order to see that we may be wrong and/or headed in the wrong direction.
Exactly, but besides the point. We have to love ourself before we can love another.
What is the point? Before we can love we have to love our self. Before we can love our self, we have to exist. Before we can exist, we have to become who we are (to become), and before that, (becoming) we have to sense that I am I. Sense it. Without knowing it. I can sense You, but I can't "know" You. My sensing you is more of a logical certainty. You are there, reading this, but I don't know you, who you are, what you are doing, etc. But I sense You are there,(of course you may not be). And this is not really the same as saying "I know you are there". This is more grounded in referientiality than inferentiality. The "I" you doesent exist (for me). I don't have to die for that knowledge.
The more you think about a trap, the more you keep it there.
The trap is created by the thought that there is a solution for getting out of a problem created by thought. This is not letting go. It is not surrendering. It is an attempt to find out a way to continue to use thought for its own purposes. It doesn’t matter if you divide thoughts into good or bad ones; it is still a goal that you want to attain. There’s a market for how to attain a goal of ‘letting go’. Those methods are all keeping the problem there with their different techniques.
The trap has the capacity to go if you accept that there is nothing you can DO about thought. If you eliminate one illusion it will immediately be replaced with another. Thought is not the problem. Its only when you pit one thought against another in an effort to achieve something unachievable. Acceptance of the fact that there is nothing you can do to change is the beginning of letting go of your hopelessness. Hopelessness is there when you think you can rely on something to change the past that has a hold on you, when in fact you cannot because anything you do only strengthens the past.
The past is always active. If the past ends, you end. That is the reason why you will never allow that, no matter how hard you try. The past is everywhere in you. Every cell in your body is permeated by it. Every nerve is involved in it. The past has this body so much under control that it will not let it go. The past will not come to an end through any effort you make or whatever will power you effect. The more effort you put into it, the more willpower you use, the stronger it becomes. You came across many insights in this process, but every insight reinforces the past. It does not in any way help to understand anything and to thus free yourself from whatever. Every insight that you obtain with your investigations only strengthens and solidifies that.
obe…
True…we need to know what “real” love is to in order to love our self and then another.
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Also true. In a sense, we have to see our selves as existing on a valued level.
It’s a process of becoming. We do not become, obe, we are always in process of becoming and learning about ourselves, our existence.
Hmmm. Would I be anyone else? I’m not quite sure that I get that. But wouldn’t that be a part of the above?
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I don’t necessarily think that “sensing” is a part of certainty, obe. Knowing is a logical certainty. Sensing is more of “feeling”.
And you wouldn’t even know that I was here reading this until you saw the response.
Ouch - now that IS a bit narcissistic to me. But the “I” me does exist for me but it is a moment to moment flowing thing. It is not made of stone.
But obe I still do not get what this has to do with the thread here. But I may just be being a bit obtuse.
To philosophize is to die to self - in order to get at the truth, to follow lady philosophy and to seek what IS “real” - one must die in a figurative spiritual sense - along the way, one must let go of that knowledge which they come to find is NOT “real”. And that IS a form of dying. Read through some of the posts here in ilp. How much dying do you think goes on here as opposed to the struggling to let go, to “see” what is for what it is, in actuality, and to let go of it in order to put on something new or fresh , so to speak.
You don’t die; the knowledge does because the knowledge is not adequate; it isn’t you. If the knowledge goes then you are what you are without knowledge.
This is not a state of omniscience, wherein all of man’s eternal questions are answered; rather it is a state in which the questioning has stopped. It has stopped because those questions have no relation to the way the organism is functioning, and the way the organism is functioning leaves no room for those questions.
“in order to “ is the action that keeps you from letting go. It is still goal oriented; still thought and knowledge trying to stay there permanently. It’s because you want to experience the letting go and that is not letting go. You are ‘letting go’ to attain something.
That would depend on how it is describing it.
The main difference between philosophy and science is one of method.
I have let go. But of course I can’t. Because the history of who I am can’t let go. (Conventionally speaking). Institutions are full of people who have let go completely, conventionally, and otherwise. It’s no longer a question of knowledge, it becomes a de-differentiation of who I am with who I think I am. I will always be a mystery (to myself), an intentional reduction of the pehnominological self with the determined self. This to my mind is also a zen picture, but supported by the dynamic of certainty of why? To legitimise a thoughtless picture of what an empty mind is. After all in East meets West, Both considerations are needed : the thoughtless now, and the thoughtful past and future.
And on what facts, outside of describing the latest trend in universities, that which is little more than a human construct the universities have taken on out of an inferiority complex in the face of science, and the major influence of corporate sponsorship due to depleted state funds, do you base this assertion on?
And what is it about terms like “rubbish” or “nonsense” that make me turn off the minute I hear them. Perhaps it is because I consider them to be little more than the utterances of those who have deluded themselves into having the right based on some kind of Capitalism based in-crowd they think they are part of.
But I’m speculating. I guess what I’m really asking for here is some kind of proof that the consensus you mention, on what philosophy is, actually exists.
It’s actually kind of funny Drusus. I have an extensive library of graphic guides: those comic books that cover some highly academic subjects. They’re kind of like Prometheus bringing the fire down to the common man. And most of what I see them offering leans more toward the continental aspect of philosophy as compared to the analytic aspect you are emphasizing. Furthermore, we have the series that covers popular subjects and their relationship to philosophy: The Daily Show and Philosophy, The Matrix and Philosophy, etc., all of which lean towards the continental.
Therefore, what I see happening, given that Capitalism will always go towards what sells, is the analytic aspect being delegated to a sub-category of science and engineering treated like mathematics, while the continental begins to retake the philosophy departments.
Then we’ll see to what extent Bill’s statement is “Rubbish”.
As Rorty foresaw: the only real philosophy is going on in the Humanities and Literature departments.
All I see in you, Drusus, is the last breath of a dying trend. Philosophy will become literature, once again, and be proud of it.
Of course you will ask on what I base this on. To which I answer that the analytic’s success is based focusing on questions that can be answered (that 1+1=2) while shutting out those that can’t (for instance: the meaning of life). It hits its target by bringing it closer.
Agreed
The question, “Who am I?” presupposes the existence of some unknown “I” other than the “I” which was born in some place to some parents, is married or unmarried, and which has picked up this question from some book. This assumption makes no sense. There is an unceasing but ever-changing process of thought. The so-called “I” is born anew each moment with the birth of each thought. The notion of an enduring or permanent psyche or self is merely a concept thrown up by thought. psychological goals have really no basis or foundation. What is it that attains the so-called enlightenment? What is it that realizes or transforms itself? Absolutely nothing. These goals have been projected by thought to keep itself going. That’s all there is to it.
I don’t know about that finishedman. I would say the “in order to” is more an awareness which comes to us which precipitates the action of letting go.
How is the letting go of something in order to put on something new and fresh - trying to keep “something” as permanent? It’s about “seeing things in a new way” and that’s not a negative thing. Aside from that, one may come to be aware of or to sense that their so-called philosophical truth or thinking is in error and they choose to let go of that. That is a form of dying to self when it has been something almost precious to their way of thinking. It may or may not necessarily be replaced by something else. …at least not in the moment.
I’m not so sure just how many people would actually want to experience “letting go” just for the sake of it - that is not what they are after - but they would want the “experience” of a fresh new insight or becoming transformed and growing…
Exactly - they are letting go to attain something…further “reality” and truth…there is nothing negative in that. It almost appears as though this is what you are saying. But I may be wrong. Even nature let’s go for a reason - the trees let go of their leaves in order that the tree may eventually be made anew. There is a cycle to everything, don’t you think, and it is in the “letting go” or the dying process, that that cycle continues on as a process.
@ d63
…aha? …ok? …i see? …very interesting …hmm?
If you are really that smart, then solve this: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=180200