...in what way without it being defined...or will any little trite saying do to close that gap once and for all? Not being able to find any, we end up pointing to ourselves as its very definition! If we are meaning, it resides in the definitions we have always created for ourselves.iambiguous wrote: ↑Mon Jul 01, 2024 2:07 am “And people get all fouled up because they want the world to have meaning as if it were words... As if you had a meaning, as if you were a mere word, as if you were something that could be looked up in a dictionary. You are meaning.” Alan Watts
I challenge anyione here to sum it up better.
The Search for Meaning
Re: The Search for Meaning
Re: The Search for Meaning
Whatever the meaning is it is not in the category of thought or feeling.
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attofishpi
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Re: The Search for Meaning
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Last edited by attofishpi on Sat Jul 13, 2024 4:32 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Trajk Logik
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Re: The Search for Meaning
Meaning is the relationship between causes and their effects.
The effects left at the crime scene means that Johnny Ray is the murderer and the murder occurred at 1:20am and he used a telephone cord as the murder weapon. The tree rings mean the age of the tree. The tree rings mean the age of the tree not because of something projected from our minds into the tree rings, but by how the tree grows throughout the year.
We are surrounded by meaning. Our actions are meaningful in that they are causes that produce effects in the world. Our words are meaningful in that they produce actions in the world and are caused by someone having an idea and the intent to convey it. The scribbles on the screen mean the idea the writer intended to convey.
Meaning is everywhere causes leave effects. Whether or not it is useful is a different question. Some meaning is only useful or not when we have some goal in the mind. For every goal in the mind there is meaning that is useful and meaning that is irrelevant, but just because some meaning is irrelevant does not mean it always irrelevant. If you had a different goal it may become relevant. For instance, the writer's skill and fluency with the language they are using can also be revealed through their use of the language. It may not be relevant in the moment when you goal is simply to understand what they wrote, but if you had the goal of trying to figure out their level of competency with some language, then you can do that by reading things they wrote. Meaning is everywhere even when and where we aren't looking.
The effects left at the crime scene means that Johnny Ray is the murderer and the murder occurred at 1:20am and he used a telephone cord as the murder weapon. The tree rings mean the age of the tree. The tree rings mean the age of the tree not because of something projected from our minds into the tree rings, but by how the tree grows throughout the year.
We are surrounded by meaning. Our actions are meaningful in that they are causes that produce effects in the world. Our words are meaningful in that they produce actions in the world and are caused by someone having an idea and the intent to convey it. The scribbles on the screen mean the idea the writer intended to convey.
Meaning is everywhere causes leave effects. Whether or not it is useful is a different question. Some meaning is only useful or not when we have some goal in the mind. For every goal in the mind there is meaning that is useful and meaning that is irrelevant, but just because some meaning is irrelevant does not mean it always irrelevant. If you had a different goal it may become relevant. For instance, the writer's skill and fluency with the language they are using can also be revealed through their use of the language. It may not be relevant in the moment when you goal is simply to understand what they wrote, but if you had the goal of trying to figure out their level of competency with some language, then you can do that by reading things they wrote. Meaning is everywhere even when and where we aren't looking.
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iambiguous
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Re: The Search for Meaning
Meaning
“Not everything that can be counted counts.
Not everything that counts can be counted.” William Bruce Cameron
You first this time.
“Keep your mind open. The meaning of things lies in how people perceive them. The same thing could mean different meanings to the same people at different times.” Roy T. Bennett
On the other hand, what if that was really true?
“The stars we are given. The constellations we make. That is to say, stars exist in the cosmos, but constellations are the imaginary lines we draw between them, the readings we give the sky, the stories we tell.” Rebecca Solnit
And not just astrologically. Though close to it?
“It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful.” Alan Cohen
Not to worry, you'll find it someday.
“Words have weight.” Stephen King
True. But I'm packin' anyway.
“Nothingness lies coiled in the heart of being - like a worm.” Jean-Paul Sartre
Next up: inside the worm.
“Not everything that can be counted counts.
Not everything that counts can be counted.” William Bruce Cameron
You first this time.
“Keep your mind open. The meaning of things lies in how people perceive them. The same thing could mean different meanings to the same people at different times.” Roy T. Bennett
On the other hand, what if that was really true?
“The stars we are given. The constellations we make. That is to say, stars exist in the cosmos, but constellations are the imaginary lines we draw between them, the readings we give the sky, the stories we tell.” Rebecca Solnit
And not just astrologically. Though close to it?
“It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful.” Alan Cohen
Not to worry, you'll find it someday.
“Words have weight.” Stephen King
True. But I'm packin' anyway.
“Nothingness lies coiled in the heart of being - like a worm.” Jean-Paul Sartre
Next up: inside the worm.
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iambiguous
- Posts: 11317
- Joined: Mon Nov 22, 2010 10:23 pm
Re: The Search for Meaning
Meaning
“When any civilization is dust and ashes," he said, "art is all that's left over. Images, words, music. Imaginative structures. Meaning—human meaning, that is—is defined by them. You have to admit that.” Margaret Atwood
Of course, as with the rest of us, he said a lot of things.
But point more or less taken.
“To the European, it is a characteristic of the American culture that, again and again, one is commanded and ordered to 'be happy.' But happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue. One must have a reason to 'be happy.' Once the reason is found, however, one becomes happy automatically. As we see, a human being is not one in pursuit of happiness but rather in search of a reason to become happy, last but not least, through actualizing the potential meaning inherent and dormant in a given situation.” Viktor E. Frankl
Tell that to the Nazis?
“Every single human soul has more meaning and value than the whole of history.” Nikolai Berdyaev
Really, imagine actually being able to convince yourself of something this ridicukous!
Uh, right?
“If through no fault of his own the hero is crushed by a bulldozer in Act II, we are not impressed. Even though life is often like this—the absconding cashier on his way to Nicaragua is killed in a collision at the airport, the prominent statesman dies of a stroke in the midst of the negotiations he has spent years to bring about, the young lovers are drowned in a boating accident the day before their marriage—such events, the warp and woof of everyday life, seem irrelevant, meaningless. They are crude, undigested, unpurged bits of reality—to draw a metaphor from the late J. Edgar Hoover, they are “raw files.” But it is the function of great art to purge and give meaning to human suffering, and so we expect that if the hero is indeed crushed by a bulldozer in Act II there will be some reason for it, and not just some reason but a good one, one which makes sense in terms of the hero’s personality and action. In fact, we expect to be shown that he is in some way responsible for what happens to him.” Bernard Knox
Next up: It's Act II here. Own up!
“To put meaning in one's life may end in madness,
But life without meaning is the torture
Of restlessness and vague desire--
It is a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid.” Edgar Lee Masters
Next up: the meaning of one's death.
“Why should I even bother? What's the point, really?"
He thought for a moment. "Who says there has to be a point?" he asked. "Or a reason. Maybe it's just something you have to do.” Sarah Dessen
Like, say, breathing in and out.
“When any civilization is dust and ashes," he said, "art is all that's left over. Images, words, music. Imaginative structures. Meaning—human meaning, that is—is defined by them. You have to admit that.” Margaret Atwood
Of course, as with the rest of us, he said a lot of things.
But point more or less taken.
“To the European, it is a characteristic of the American culture that, again and again, one is commanded and ordered to 'be happy.' But happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue. One must have a reason to 'be happy.' Once the reason is found, however, one becomes happy automatically. As we see, a human being is not one in pursuit of happiness but rather in search of a reason to become happy, last but not least, through actualizing the potential meaning inherent and dormant in a given situation.” Viktor E. Frankl
Tell that to the Nazis?
“Every single human soul has more meaning and value than the whole of history.” Nikolai Berdyaev
Really, imagine actually being able to convince yourself of something this ridicukous!
Uh, right?
“If through no fault of his own the hero is crushed by a bulldozer in Act II, we are not impressed. Even though life is often like this—the absconding cashier on his way to Nicaragua is killed in a collision at the airport, the prominent statesman dies of a stroke in the midst of the negotiations he has spent years to bring about, the young lovers are drowned in a boating accident the day before their marriage—such events, the warp and woof of everyday life, seem irrelevant, meaningless. They are crude, undigested, unpurged bits of reality—to draw a metaphor from the late J. Edgar Hoover, they are “raw files.” But it is the function of great art to purge and give meaning to human suffering, and so we expect that if the hero is indeed crushed by a bulldozer in Act II there will be some reason for it, and not just some reason but a good one, one which makes sense in terms of the hero’s personality and action. In fact, we expect to be shown that he is in some way responsible for what happens to him.” Bernard Knox
Next up: It's Act II here. Own up!
“To put meaning in one's life may end in madness,
But life without meaning is the torture
Of restlessness and vague desire--
It is a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid.” Edgar Lee Masters
Next up: the meaning of one's death.
“Why should I even bother? What's the point, really?"
He thought for a moment. "Who says there has to be a point?" he asked. "Or a reason. Maybe it's just something you have to do.” Sarah Dessen
Like, say, breathing in and out.
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iambiguous
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Re: The Search for Meaning
The Search for Meaning
Frankl & Sartre in Search of Meaning
Georgia Arkell compares logotherapy and atheistic existentialism.
Logotherapy was developed by neurologist and psychiatrist Viktor Frankl and is based on the premise that the primary motivational force of an individual is to find a meaning in life. wiki
From the beginning I was never able to grasp how on Earth someone can be a Holocaust survivor and still believe that there is underlying meaning to human existence. Other then, say, shit happens? And then over and over and over again from the cradle to the grave?
You wonder, "What's it going to take for folks like this?" The next extinction event perhaps? One that all but wipes out human existence itself?
On the other hand, I always come back to this: what's the alternative? You're in a death camp and believe that human existence is essentially meaningless, that Nazis embody just one more "my way, the highway or else" objectivist dogma, and that oblivion might annihilate you on any given day.
If inventing logotherapy worked for him, allowing him to connect the dots "in his head" between the Holocaust and God and religion, well, I always say this: whatever works. It just never worked for me.
Frankl & Sartre in Search of Meaning
Georgia Arkell compares logotherapy and atheistic existentialism.
Logotherapy:Both born in 1905, Viktor Frankl and Jean-Paul Sartre were two of the twentieth century’s most influential thinkers about the human condition. Frankl was the father of logotherapy and Sartre of atheistic existentialism.
Logotherapy was developed by neurologist and psychiatrist Viktor Frankl and is based on the premise that the primary motivational force of an individual is to find a meaning in life. wiki
From the beginning I was never able to grasp how on Earth someone can be a Holocaust survivor and still believe that there is underlying meaning to human existence. Other then, say, shit happens? And then over and over and over again from the cradle to the grave?
You wonder, "What's it going to take for folks like this?" The next extinction event perhaps? One that all but wipes out human existence itself?
On the other hand, I always come back to this: what's the alternative? You're in a death camp and believe that human existence is essentially meaningless, that Nazis embody just one more "my way, the highway or else" objectivist dogma, and that oblivion might annihilate you on any given day.
If inventing logotherapy worked for him, allowing him to connect the dots "in his head" between the Holocaust and God and religion, well, I always say this: whatever works. It just never worked for me.
And it's not for nothing, in my view, that human meaning, human purpose, and human suffering are either "somehow" linked to a God/the God, or are "somehow" embedded in the brute facticity of a mindless universe that may well be simply far, far beyond the capacity of the human brain to grasp...even assuming some measure of free will.While both rooted their thought in existentialist philosophy, sharing several key foundation-stones such as the centrality of human freedom, they had contrasting perspectives on the origins and implications of those shared ideas, and so reached diverging explanations of human existence. The purpose of this article is to summarise their ideas and compare how their thoughts converged and diverged over certain existential questions.
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iambiguous
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Re: The Search for Meaning
Meaning
“Death is our constant companion, and it is death that gives each person's life its true meaning.” Paulo Coelho
Right, its true meaning. Which may well be that there is no true meaning.
“Sex means nothing--just the moment of ecstasy, that flares and dies in minutes.” Philip Larkin
Of course: he must be doing it wrong. Unless, perhaps, he's right?
“When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.” Margery Williams Bianco.
Now that takes me back some.
“I like a good story and I also like staring at the sea-- do I have to choose between the two?” David Byrne
Musically, he means. On the other hand, whatever that means?
“Words can be meaningless. If they are used in such a way that no sharp conclusions can be drawn.” Richard P. Feynman
Well, other than theoretically, of course,
“The order that our mind imagines is like a net, or like a ladder, built to attain something. But afterward you must throw the ladder away, because you discover that, even if it was useful, it was meaningless.” Umberto Eco
Ah, another "world of words"?
“Death is our constant companion, and it is death that gives each person's life its true meaning.” Paulo Coelho
Right, its true meaning. Which may well be that there is no true meaning.
“Sex means nothing--just the moment of ecstasy, that flares and dies in minutes.” Philip Larkin
Of course: he must be doing it wrong. Unless, perhaps, he's right?
“When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.” Margery Williams Bianco.
Now that takes me back some.
“I like a good story and I also like staring at the sea-- do I have to choose between the two?” David Byrne
Musically, he means. On the other hand, whatever that means?
“Words can be meaningless. If they are used in such a way that no sharp conclusions can be drawn.” Richard P. Feynman
Well, other than theoretically, of course,
“The order that our mind imagines is like a net, or like a ladder, built to attain something. But afterward you must throw the ladder away, because you discover that, even if it was useful, it was meaningless.” Umberto Eco
Ah, another "world of words"?
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iambiguous
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Re: The Search for Meaning
The Search for Meaning
Frankl & Sartre in Search of Meaning
Georgia Arkell compares logotherapy and atheistic existentialism.
Now, see if you can spot the part here that revolves around dasein.
Instead, through the course of their own actual "lived lives", the moral objectivists come into contact with one or another One True Path. In other words, given the existential parameters of lives they are "thrown" into adventitiously at birth, they simply encounter conflicting assessments of the "human condition".
Now, of course, that would all be moot if the philosophical community had long ago been able to establish the one and the only set of obligatory behaviors that all rational men and women were obligated to embody.
Well, you can either accept that human existence has no essential meaning and that the Holocaust is just one of the more extreme examples of "shit happens" in a Godless universe, or you can "rationalize" it all with one or another One True Path.
Frankl & Sartre in Search of Meaning
Georgia Arkell compares logotherapy and atheistic existentialism.
Two men live through the Second World War having accumulated very different experiences. One inside concentration camps as a devout Jew trying to survive, the other as an atheist involved in the French Resistance to defeat the Nazis. One had God to fall back on to "explain" everything, the other [existentially/historically] encountered Marx and Mao instead.Comparing logotherapy and atheistic existentialism is particularly interesting because these two philosophical currents are the product of two minds which lived in the same historical period yet experienced it in dramatically different ways. This was partly by virtue of them belonging to different ethno-religious groups.
Now, see if you can spot the part here that revolves around dasein.
Instead, through the course of their own actual "lived lives", the moral objectivists come into contact with one or another One True Path. In other words, given the existential parameters of lives they are "thrown" into adventitiously at birth, they simply encounter conflicting assessments of the "human condition".
Now, of course, that would all be moot if the philosophical community had long ago been able to establish the one and the only set of obligatory behaviors that all rational men and women were obligated to embody.
Again, as though when it comes to connecting the dots between meaning and healing, logotherapy is the one to choose. It's radical. As though in their own way the Nazis themselves didn't radically connect the dots here to the Holocaust.Existentialists Together & Apart
Viktor Frankl (1905-97) was a psychiatrist and neurologist from Vienna. He was the founder of logotherapy (from the Greek logos = meaning and therapeia = healing), a radical psychological doctrine based on the conception of meaning being the primary human motivational and (so) therapeutic force.
What is to be done then?Frankl was also an Austrian Jew, who in 1942 was deported with his family to the Theresienstadt concentration camp, where his father died of starvation and pneumonia. He spent the remaining three years of the war as a prisoner in four different camps. He was finally liberated on April 27, 1945, by which time his mother and brother had been murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz and his wife Tilly had died of typhus in Bergen-Belsen.
Well, you can either accept that human existence has no essential meaning and that the Holocaust is just one of the more extreme examples of "shit happens" in a Godless universe, or you can "rationalize" it all with one or another One True Path.
Re: The Search for Meaning
You cannot discuss something that you have never experienced, namely meaning!
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Impenitent
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Re: The Search for Meaning
it's probably next to Waldo
-Imp
-Imp
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iambiguous
- Posts: 11317
- Joined: Mon Nov 22, 2010 10:23 pm
Re: The Search for Meaning
The Search for Meaning
Frankl & Sartre in Search of Meaning
Georgia Arkell compares logotherapy and atheistic existentialism.
Frankl & Sartre in Search of Meaning
Georgia Arkell compares logotherapy and atheistic existentialism.
Only back in the 1930s who could even have imagined what was in store for the Jews in Nazi, Germany. Extradition, work camps and the ghettos were one thing...but the Holocaust? Thus, given my own frame of mind, once Frankl becomes fully aware of what is in store for him in the camps, it allows him then to fall back on logotheraphy -- and God? -- to keep it all from being just another ghastly example of "shit happens" given the brute facticity of an essentially meaningless and purposeless universe.Frankl provides a brief introduction to logotherapy in his masterwork Man’s Search for Meaning (1946), in which he describes his experiences in the concentration camps. He outlines the chief theories of his philosophy and psychology in that light. It should be made clear that Frankl’s psychological doctrine was not born of his personal experience in the camps; he had devised logotherapy as early as the 1930s.
All this demonstrates to those like me is that, in desperate times, in times of great suffering and pain, you are either able to fall back on one or another comforting and consoling One True Path or you do have to somehow come to accept that historical events like the Holocaust are no less essentially meaningless than anything else human beings might experience.However, his experience of Nazi atrocities and of the struggle of humans to survive and support each other in terrible circumstances served as a testing ground, and indeed a confirmation, for his ideas.
Of course. If, in all sincerity, you do believe the terrible pain and suffering you and your loved ones are enduring day after day can be anchored to one or another ontological and teleological font [which most call God] how can that not be a source of comfort and consolation?Even beyond the gas chambers and shootings by the Nazis, the camps had a very high mortality rate. Frankl noted that the prisoners who appeared to have the highest chance of survival were those with some aim or meaning directed beyond themselves and beyond day-to-day survival.
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iambiguous
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Re: The Search for Meaning
Does the Cosmos Have a Purpose?
Raymond Tallis argues intently against universal intention.
Just ask yourself: How important is it that your own existence not be essentially meaningless and purposeless, that you do have access to a universal morality, and that oblivion is just a myth. The part where -- click -- human philosophy may well be far more a component of human psychology. It's less what you believe and more that what you believe comforts and consoles you.
We. Just. Dont. Know.
On the other hand, what could possibly be more fascinating to philosophers than in exploring questions of this nature? It's like there's a part of us that knows we will almost certainly go to grave failing to grasp the answers, but that in no way makes the questions themselves any less engrossing, captivating or mysterious.
One way or another we exist. Why?
Raymond Tallis argues intently against universal intention.
More to the point [mine], without God and religion, mere mortals must either come up with a secular equivalent [at least on this side of the grave] or accept that there may well not be a teleoglogical component underlying either human existence or existence itself.The idea of a cosmic purpose is one which many of us are familiar with from religion. What happens in this world, so the story goes, is ultimately an expression of divine will.
Just ask yourself: How important is it that your own existence not be essentially meaningless and purposeless, that you do have access to a universal morality, and that oblivion is just a myth. The part where -- click -- human philosophy may well be far more a component of human psychology. It's less what you believe and more that what you believe comforts and consoles you.
Still, how do we wrap our minds around the reality that 1] "somehow" matter came into existence, 2] that "somehow" it evolved into biological life, and 3] that "somehow" biological life acquired consciounsess capable of autonomy.With the rise of science, the notion of a universe regulated by a deity has been displaced by one regulated by non-conscious physical laws. Being non-conscious, those laws are empty of purpose.
We. Just. Dont. Know.
On the other hand, what could possibly be more fascinating to philosophers than in exploring questions of this nature? It's like there's a part of us that knows we will almost certainly go to grave failing to grasp the answers, but that in no way makes the questions themselves any less engrossing, captivating or mysterious.
One way or another we exist. Why?
Cue the pantheists among us? Though, admittedly, I have never been able to quite grasp how someone can bring herself to believe that in a No God universe, the universe itself as an entity is...Divine? Though given what might be called "acts of the universe", hardly benign. So, instead of God being the sadistic monster, it is the cosmos itself?Their regulative powers are also not external to the phenomena aligned with them. As the philosopher Helen Beebee wittily expressed it, physical laws are not “prior to and watching over matters of fact to make sure they don’t step out of line” (Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 61, 2000
Well, unless, of course, in regard to those things, there are things "that we don't [even] know we don't know."Happenings are simply the patterns or habits of the unfolding natural world, unguided by a cosmic purpose. So that’s that, then.
Re: The Search for Meaning
What an amazing subject matter. In talking about Victor Frankel… What brilliance! I love that guy! Sad what he went through but what brilliance.
Here is my understanding of this subject matter...
The "meaning" of why we are here on earth is different for each of us. We all have our own journey.
As one person will think this subject matter is all poppycock and another, the greatest question on earth. We are all in different places, different backgrounds, and yes, different numbers of incarnations.
On the surface, there appears to be no reason. And that is a part of the journey. To learn and grow. The goal (in part) is to understand "you". Like a baby being born and looking at one's own hand in bewilderment of what the newborn just found. Then what is happening all around you in a very general sense. And, where you fit in.
The bottom line is finding the love that resides inside of you. When you find that love, you will love equally, all that is around you. (A bit paradoxical which is quite common I found in spirituality.) What is released when love (deep love) is found is a huge sense of belongingness, a togetherness, a "high of highs", a deep sense of happiness and contentness. When you find that love, you become an untouchable. No one can burst your bubble. You are like riding a wave of joy in every moment.
I must also share, it is one thing to intellectually hear and understand this matter, it is another thing to "become it". When you/we have an "ah ha" moment, then I suggest becoming that "ah ha". The more you/we grow in understanding why we are here (the searching for meaning) the more you are free and happy. The more "enlightened" if you will, we become.
When we become "it", not just understand "it", but become "it", coming back to earth will not be so necessary. "It" is understanding why you are here on earth in the 1st place and then becoming "it"...a better you.
BuzzCap7
Here is my understanding of this subject matter...
The "meaning" of why we are here on earth is different for each of us. We all have our own journey.
As one person will think this subject matter is all poppycock and another, the greatest question on earth. We are all in different places, different backgrounds, and yes, different numbers of incarnations.
On the surface, there appears to be no reason. And that is a part of the journey. To learn and grow. The goal (in part) is to understand "you". Like a baby being born and looking at one's own hand in bewilderment of what the newborn just found. Then what is happening all around you in a very general sense. And, where you fit in.
The bottom line is finding the love that resides inside of you. When you find that love, you will love equally, all that is around you. (A bit paradoxical which is quite common I found in spirituality.) What is released when love (deep love) is found is a huge sense of belongingness, a togetherness, a "high of highs", a deep sense of happiness and contentness. When you find that love, you become an untouchable. No one can burst your bubble. You are like riding a wave of joy in every moment.
I must also share, it is one thing to intellectually hear and understand this matter, it is another thing to "become it". When you/we have an "ah ha" moment, then I suggest becoming that "ah ha". The more you/we grow in understanding why we are here (the searching for meaning) the more you are free and happy. The more "enlightened" if you will, we become.
When we become "it", not just understand "it", but become "it", coming back to earth will not be so necessary. "It" is understanding why you are here on earth in the 1st place and then becoming "it"...a better you.
BuzzCap7
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iambiguous
- Posts: 11317
- Joined: Mon Nov 22, 2010 10:23 pm
Re: The Search for Meaning
Meaning
“What we needed were not words and promises but the steady accumulation of small realities.” Haruki Murakami
And, sure, occasionally, a really, really big reality.
“Better than a thousand sayings
Made up of useless words
Is one word of meaning
Which calms you to hear it.” Anonymous
How about this: I won't say it if you don't make me.
“When we are dealing with human beings, no truth has reality by itself; it is always dependent upon the reality of the immediate relationship.” Rollo May
Existence, he called it.
“Once, somebody asked Robert Schumann to explain the meaning of a certain piece of music he had just played on the piano.
What Robert Schumann did was sit back down at the piano and play the piece of music again.” David Markson
Or, here:
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/a-man ... sein/31641
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/moral ... live/45989
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/back- ... lity/30639
“Religion, mysticism and magic all spring from the same basic 'feeling' about the universe: a sudden feeling of meaning, which human beings sometimes 'pick up' accidentally, as your radio might pick up some unknown station. Poets feel that we are cut off from meaning by a thick, lead wall, and that sometimes for no reason we can understand the wall seems to vanish and we are suddenly overwhelmed with a sense of the infinite interestingness of things.” Colin Wilson
Ask me to explain this better -- a hell of a lot better -- than he does.
“Accept the universe
As the gods gave it to you.
If the gods wanted to give you something else
They’d have done it." Alberto Caeiro
So, did they?
“What we needed were not words and promises but the steady accumulation of small realities.” Haruki Murakami
And, sure, occasionally, a really, really big reality.
“Better than a thousand sayings
Made up of useless words
Is one word of meaning
Which calms you to hear it.” Anonymous
How about this: I won't say it if you don't make me.
“When we are dealing with human beings, no truth has reality by itself; it is always dependent upon the reality of the immediate relationship.” Rollo May
Existence, he called it.
“Once, somebody asked Robert Schumann to explain the meaning of a certain piece of music he had just played on the piano.
What Robert Schumann did was sit back down at the piano and play the piece of music again.” David Markson
Or, here:
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/a-man ... sein/31641
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/moral ... live/45989
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/back- ... lity/30639
“Religion, mysticism and magic all spring from the same basic 'feeling' about the universe: a sudden feeling of meaning, which human beings sometimes 'pick up' accidentally, as your radio might pick up some unknown station. Poets feel that we are cut off from meaning by a thick, lead wall, and that sometimes for no reason we can understand the wall seems to vanish and we are suddenly overwhelmed with a sense of the infinite interestingness of things.” Colin Wilson
Ask me to explain this better -- a hell of a lot better -- than he does.
“Accept the universe
As the gods gave it to you.
If the gods wanted to give you something else
They’d have done it." Alberto Caeiro
So, did they?