[size=150] I love knowledge (if it makes sense to me). Knowledge seems to be a lifetime of learning experiences. Be it good or bad. I believe in common sense common logic and rational reasoning with intuitive thoughts as well. Knowledge should be shared (without bias)! Freedom of thought speech action and sharing should be our constitution. But that is not reality as we understand it. There are those who want to enslave us to power order and without question if they could. Your knowledge might not be my knowledge and vice versa. But our perception of knowledge is independent on our belief.
Words can change thoughts as beliefs. Experiences can do the same. One thought within universal thoughts and vice versa is a stumbling block because of our human nature and free will. Thoughts please. pl[/size]
I am not sure how far common sense will get you if you are willing to question things. And not sure what common logic is. I think the best start is categorical logic like Aristotle presented and than propositional logic. Those give for a nice solid basis for people to use. And this seems to be independent of common sense in some ways.
Hello,
Can only share my sense of things.
Re: ‘Knowledge’
Here’s an interesting thought that was recently encountered… Folks have noticed for about 2500 years +or- (and in writing) that ‘the amassing of much knowledge does not impart wisdom’. It’s very interesting to look at the difference('s) between the two. Knowledge, it should be said, certainly has its uses. Just look at the many benefits we’ve derived from ‘science’. Wisdom, however, is much more fascinating. It does seem, though, that knowledge can’t get us there.
There’s a very interesting exchange in the Gnostic Gospel of Philip. Some of the (male) disciples were ‘unhappy’ with all the attention Jesus was showing Mary (Magdalene).
“They said to him, Why do you love her more than all of us ?? The Savior answered and said to them, Why do I not love you like her ? When a blind man and one who sees are both together in darkness, they are no different from one another. When the light comes, then he who sees will see the light, and he who is blind will remain in darkness.”
Mixing common sense with logic, intuition and good intend it often ends up with disasterous results. It often require a highly intelligent and rational person intensively studying an area of expertize to make the best conclusions, which sometimes are highly counter intuitive.
Most philosphers comes to a dicussion sorely ignorent about the topic and only offers guess work and assumptions, which leads to nothing, blind leading blind.
Knowledge in the area of action is necessary to function efficiently and objectively, but knowledge is not the means of the transformation of man; knowledge is the structure of thought and thought is the dull repetition of the known, however modified and enlarged. There is no freedom through the ways of thought, the known.
The prison is created by the thought, and that is the reason why it is trying to get out of that trap it has created by itself. There is this simile …
The dog picks up a bone, a dry bone, there is nothing there, and then it bites, and the bone hurts the gums, and the blood comes out of it. And the dog believes – imagines, experiences, feels, whatever word you want to use – that the blood which is coming out of its own gums is from the bone. So that is the kind of trap in which the whole structure of thinking is caught up, and tries all the time to get out of that, the trap it has created.
The LORD gives wisdom, from His mouth comes knowledge and understanding. [Proverbs 2:6 ESV]
Then you will understand righteousness and justice and equity, every good path; for wisdom will come into your heart and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul. [Proverbs 2:9 English Standard Version]
…ooh that’s why it’s writtent that the Earth is flat, and is the center of the universe …but disproven?
1st genesis is nothing but violence and mass murder? …no religion is for the most part unwise to follow, only very few parts is good.
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.
Thus, what should you try to do in such a situation? Nothing, no power in the world can help you, period. As long as you remain dependent on any authority outside of you, you remain hopeless. Once you understand this clearly, there is no more helplessness, your helplessness no longer exists. Then you actually don’t know what to do. This is the situation where you have to arrive, no longer knowing what to do. And, if you expect that something will happen from what you then call your ‘clarity of thinking’, or your ‘meditation’ or something similar, then you are lost forever. Because that is not the true clarity.
Isaiah 40:22 “It is He who sits on the circle of the earth…” Who said the earth was flat? Who said it is the center of the universe? Violence and mass murder? Oh, yes, unregenerated sinful man…that’s the description. So you pick and choose? Well, I will tell you there are parts that you definately would not like, but it is ALL good. Isaiah 55:8 “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways, says the LORD.”
Wow - not sure I’m following you. Are you saying that our past has all power over our present and our future? And are you saying that if I use my “willpower” to be free of the past I cannot do it? As long as you remain dependent on your “own authority”, you ARE hopeless. On our own we are nothing and in darkness because of sin. The only hope is the “supernatural power” that does supply the hope to the hopeless. So are you also saying that if we realize that we have no hope and don’t know what to do about it, it goes away and no longer exists? What?
Not exactly. When you look at yourself and your life appears to have absolutely no meaning, you go searching for a meaning, you search for a goal. As long as you are searching for a goal, and as long as you are searching for meaning you will remain wandering around restlessly. ‘There must after all be something meaningful to do, something with more content, something more interesting than what I’m doing now’, you tell yourself. And the only thing you can do is to change yourself? But in reality the only change takes place in your thought structure, you begin to think differently and therefore to experience and feel things differently. Basically however everything remains exactly as it was. You can change your clothes and only wear the most ‘fashionable’ clothing just to be ‘in’, but inside you are still the same. Wanting to understand is only useful for changing small things in yourself. There is nothing you can do to change the past. In the hope of changing things in the future, you remain stuck with the present, which is in fact 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. What I’m saying is, why try to change yourself and your past? Just leave it alone and stop looking for a solution to something that is not really a problem for you and that you can’t easily change anyway by relying on something other than you. Only for thought there seems to be a problem because it extracts certain knowledge out of past pleasures and pains, compares the present with it, passes judgments, avoids the present by concocting a future and pursuing it. But for the comparisons that thought makes there is no problem with our life as it is; and there is no other life. It is precisely our thought of a better state that prevents us from coming to terms with our life as it is.
I know that thought is merely functional in its nature and it cannot help me become something which I am not.
Given the fundamental nature of language ‘debates’ are NECESSARILY endless…
Tao Te Ching (Chap. 71; Trans. R.B. Blakney) suggests…
To know that you are ignorant is best;
To know what you do not, is a disease;
But if you recognize the malady
of Mind for what it is, then that is health.
The wise man has indeed a healthy mind;
He sees an aberration as it is
And for that reason never will be ill.
[size=150] I love knowledge (if it makes sense to me). Knowledge seems to be a lifetime of learning experiences. Be it good or bad. I believe in common sense common logic and rational reasoning with intuitive thoughts as well. Knowledge should be shared (without bias)! Freedom of thought speech action and sharing should be our constitution. But that is not reality as we understand it. There are those who want to enslave us to power order and without question if they could. Your knowledge might not be my knowledge and vice versa. But our perception of knowledge is independent on our belief.