Philosophy Now Forum

Harbal wrote: ↑Tue Sep 26, 2017 8:29 pm

Nick_A wrote: ↑Tue Sep 26, 2017 8:22 pm
Prof. Needleman describes the purpose of philosophy as helping Man remember: opening the intuitive mind Einstein refers to.....

What about Simone Weil and Plato? Couldn't you have fitted them in somewhere as well?

Of course I could but how many witnesses do I need? The point was made.

Nick_A wrote:As I said, you don't know the purpose of philosophy. You are only interested in academic philosophy.

Of which you know nothing but are willing to pontificate about, so very far from loving wisdom I think. The purpose, at least, of modern philosophy is to teach or provide one with tools to think about things not to tell one how it is which is what you ostensibly wish to do.

Nick_A wrote: ↑Tue Sep 26, 2017 8:34 pm
Of course I could

I don't believe you, if you could have you would have.

but how many witnesses do I need?

As far as your less savoury habits are concerned, the fewer the better I would have thought.

The point was made.

It's hard to tell, your points tend to be rather blunt.

Nick_A wrote:Arisning defends academic philosophy and its advocates participating on this thread prove how useless it is. ...

How many here have an academical background in Philosophy? Not you for a starter.

The women prefer to attzck me and DaM has a fight with a mod. This is academic philosophy. ...

No it's not, it's the interweeb and you are a particularly fine example of an interweeble.

The whole question of Einstein’s distinction between the cave man and the cosmic man has been forgotten and replaced by expressions of academic philosophy. ...

Sorry? I must have missed the bit where Einstein made such a distinction?

Arising_uk wrote: ↑Tue Sep 26, 2017 9:06 pm

Nick_A wrote:Arisning defends academic philosophy and its advocates participating on this thread prove how useless it is. ...

How many here have an academical background in Philosophy? Not you for a starter.

The women prefer to attzck me and DaM has a fight with a mod. This is academic philosophy. ...

No it's not, it's the interweeb and you are a particularly fine example of an interweeble.

The whole question of Einstein’s distinction between the cave man and the cosmic man has been forgotten and replaced by expressions of academic philosophy. ...

Sorry? I must have missed the bit where Einstein made such a distinction?

Are you suggesting that in respect to philosophy the name "Philosophy Now" should be changed to "Interweeb Now" so as not to confuse philosophy with interweeb?

Einstein asserts the potential for Man to become the Cosmic Man. What is your term for what we are now in relation to the cosmic man?

Nick_A wrote:Are you suggesting that in respect to philosophy the name "Philosophy Now" should be changed to "Interweeb Now" so as not to confuse philosophy with interweeb?

No, the forum name should be changed to that so as to not confuse what goes on here with Philosophy Now the magazine. Personally my suggestion to Rick was the forum should be restricted to subscribers to the magazine only as they pay for it after all.

Einstein asserts the potential for Man to become the Cosmic Man. What is your term for what we are now in relation to the cosmic man?

Blinkers. Although I'm not looking for this 'Cosmic Man' more like Over Man.

Dear Albert Einstein,

1954
“We will be destroyed unless we create a cosmic conscience. And we have to begin to do that on an individual level, with the youth that are the politicians of tomorrow…. But no one, and certainly no state, can take over the responsibility that the individual has to his conscience.” Albert Einstein, in Einstein and the Poet – In Search of the Cosmic Man by William Hermanns (Branden Press, 1983, p. 141. Conversation in Summer of 1954)

“We must create a cosmic man, a man ruled by his conscience.” Albert Einstein, in Einstein and the Poet – In Search of the Cosmic Man by William Hermanns (Branden Press, 1983, p. 133.)
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The trouble is that in modern times the idea of objective conscience we can awaken to has been rejected. Secular governments, educational and religious institutions, all want to replace conscience with indoctrination furthering their secular aims. If we don’t know what objective conscience is how many will bother with what is necessary to awaken to it? Government will decide right and wrong and you know better than I where that takes us.

"Be proud of being the mean between macrocosm and microcosm. Stand still and marvel. Try not to become a man of success, but a man of value. Look around at how people want to get more than he receives. Be creative, but make sure that what you create is not a curse for mankind.” Albert Einstein, in Einstein and the Poet – In Search of the Cosmic Man by William Hermanns (Branden Press, 1983, p. 143.)
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That’s a tough one especially when values other than success are considered old fashioned and naïve. The young in universities are taught that the purpose of an education is to get a job and achieve success. The modern secular society asserts that we create our own values so a girl is sent to college and her first abortion is a right of passage. Respect for life is an attribute of conscience. Some feel its value and live lives in ways that reflect it. Of course when objective conscience is denied we just create our own values and sacrifice our humanity for pragmatism.

"Create a community which develops the highest of man's qualities based on conscience. You must warn people not to make their in­tellect their god. The intellect knows methods but it seldom knows values, and they come from feeling. If one doesn't play a part in the creative whole, he is not worth being called human. He has betrayed his true purpose." Albert Einstein, in Einstein and the Poet – In Search of the Cosmic Man by William Hermanns (Branden Press, 1983, p. 135.)

Just consider a typical philosophy web site. Who doesn’t have the intellect as their god? People define philosophy as intellectual methods when it really is the love of wisdom and appreciation of the values making us human. I don’t know if you ever met Simone Weil. I would have appreciated listening to your conversation. She understood the relationship of science to religion as you do. I equate what you describe as the Cosmic Man with Plato’s philosopher king. The trouble is that society prefers to kill them off as a threat before they can mature.

From Simone Weil’s

Draft for a Statement of Human Obligation

Profession of Faith

There is a reality outside the world, that is to say, outside space and time, outside man's mental universe, outside any sphere whatsoever that is accessible to human faculties.
Corresponding to this reality, at the centre of the human heart, is the longing for an absolute good, a longing which is always there and is never appeased by any object in this world.
Another terrestrial manifestation of this reality lies in the absurd and insoluble contradictions which are always the terminus of human thought when it moves exclusively in this world.
Just as the reality of this world is the sole foundation of facts, so that other reality is the sole foundation of good.
That reality is the unique source of all the good that can exist in this world: that is to say, all beauty, all truth, all justice, all legitimacy, all order, and all human behaviour that is mindful of obligations.
"At the centre of the human heart is the longing for an absolute good, a longing which is always there and is never appeased by any object in this world."
Those minds whose attention and love are turned towards that reality are the sole intermediary through which good can descend from there and come among men.

Can a free society ever allow for and encourage the opening to objective conscience in its citizens. Can the complimentary relationship between facts and objective values felt by conscience ever actualize? Everyone I admire gives the impression that it is possible. I hate to be a pill but I doubt it. But regardless I have great respect for all you’ve done to further the human in humanity.

Arising_uk wrote: ↑Tue Sep 26, 2017 8:38 pm

Nick_A wrote:As I said, you don't know the purpose of philosophy. You are only interested in academic philosophy.

Of which you know nothing but are willing to pontificate about, so very far from loving wisdom I think. The purpose, at least, of modern philosophy is to teach or provide one with tools to think about things not to tell one how it is which is what you ostensibly wish to do.

I don't know if you understand this but 'thinking' is artificially imposing preferences on what is already 'how it is'. Thinking about things is wanting things to be a certain way by thinking it that way, and is why your comment about telling others how it is makes no reasonable sense, because any thinking whatsoever is superimposing something other that what already is on top of what already is which will never change. I don't know if you have ever thought about it from that angle.

Thinking is a destructive force when there is the attached belief that the individual person identifies itself as the actual thinker. This is not true of course, thoughts are self arising, they have no location or ownership.They are meaningless in the grand scheme of things. They have about as much substance as thin air.

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Arising_uk wrote: ↑Tue Sep 26, 2017 9:06 pm How many here have an academical background in Philosophy? Not you for a starter.

''The purpose, at least, of modern philosophy is to teach or provide one with tools to think about things not to tell one how it is.''

Is it just me or are you a bit confused AUK?

Do we have to qualify just to be ourselves now?

How come we have to qualify to be something when we're already just as we are?

Would qualifying make us cleverer, do we have to be qualified as being clever before we are accepted into the exclusive philosophy club?

AMod wrote: ↑Tue Sep 26, 2017 4:57 pm Dontaskme,

Dontaskme wrote: And don't make assumptions about people you have never met or known in your life.

There you go again. I was talking about you here and judging you on your recent responses in comparison to what you say about how things are in reality.

Well just because I choose to talk about the real illusion that is non-dual life itself doesn't give you the right to judge me on that and turn it into a point scoring game just to make you look like the big shot. I see through you as a shallow hollow, so your efforts to humiliate are wasted on me.

And the comment you made on having the last word shows in your writing the kind of character you are, because you assume that is what writing reveals about someone..so take the plank out of your own eye first why don't you.

Arising_uk wrote:

No, the forum name should be changed to that so as to not confuse what goes on here with Philosophy Now the magazine. Personally my suggestion to Rick was the forum should be restricted to subscribers to the magazine only as they pay for it after all.

Maybe the ethic of the Forum is outreach

Nick_A wrote:... Government will decide right and wrong and you know better than I where that takes us. ...

So how will things be run things in this age of the 'cosmic man' that you envisage?

That’s a tough one especially when values other than success are considered old fashioned and naïve. The young in universities are taught that the purpose of an education is to get a job and achieve success. The modern secular society asserts that we create our own values so a girl is sent to college and her first abortion is a right of passage. ...

Were do you get this stuff from? I'm not surprised that you think girls should not go to college.

It is Capitalism that asserts such things which you quite clearly confuse with secularism. Secularism asserts that in the main values are best left to the religions, the parents and their peers not the State nor its education system as when that happens one's religious freedom is often curtailed.

Respect for life is an attribute of conscience. Some feel its value and live lives in ways that reflect it. Of course when objective conscience is denied we just create our own values and sacrifice our humanity for pragmatism. ...

Why don't you just come right out with it and say when your 'God' is denied instead of this 'objective conscience'?

Just consider a typical philosophy web site. Who doesn’t have the intellect as their god? ...

No-one as far as I can tell.

People define philosophy as intellectual methods when it really is the love of wisdom and appreciation of the values making us human. ...

Actually that's Ethics.

I don’t know if you ever met Simone Weil. ...

Unlikely given she starved herself to death thorough stupidity.

I would have appreciated listening to your conversation. ...

It'd have been along the lines of, "Don't be stupid Simone, starving yourself in support of the people of occupied France in no way helps them and is the act of the self-satisfied smug bourgeoisie marxist. That or that you are mentally ill and should seek help."

She understood the relationship of science to religion as you do. ...

Who are you talking to?

I equate what you describe as the Cosmic Man with Plato’s philosopher king. ...

Do you? Then you understand neither Einstein nor Plato.

The trouble is that society prefers to kill them off as a threat before they can mature.

In the case of philosophers as kings, good job I'd say.

Can a free society ever allow for and encourage the opening to objective conscience in its citizens. Can the complimentary relationship between facts and objective values felt by conscience ever actualize? Everyone I admire gives the impression that it is possible. I hate to be a pill but I doubt it. But regardless I have great respect for all you’ve done to further the human in humanity.

So basically this idea is a waste of space then.

Dontaskme wrote:I don't know if you understand this but 'thinking' is artificially imposing preferences on what is already 'how it is'. ...

Tell me what "thinking" is to you?

What is actually happening when you think?

Thinking about things is wanting things to be a certain way by thinking it that way, and is why your comment about telling others how it is makes no reasonable sense, because any thinking whatsoever is superimposing something other that what already is on top of what already is which will never change. ...

Or thinking about things is just thinking about what 'already is' means?

I don't know if you have ever thought about it from that angle.

Not really but I think I understand what you are trying to say.

Thinking is a destructive force when there is the attached belief that the individual person identifies itself as the actual thinker. ...

What are you talking about?

This is not true of course, thoughts are self arising, they have no location or ownership. ...

I have a difference between 'thinks' and 'thoughts' do you?

They are meaningless in the grand scheme of things. They have about as much substance as thin air.

That does explain much about your thoughts.

Belinda wrote:Maybe the ethic of the Forum is outreach

Joking aside, I guess that is the point.

Arising_uk wrote: ↑Tue Sep 26, 2017 4:41 pm

Nick_A wrote:It isn't a matter of who I've studied but the purpose of philosophy. ...

So basically, with respect to academic Philosophy, you are talking about something you know nothing about?

None of us know anything.

While you were lying in your mothers womb did you know anything? no, you didn't need to know anything to be, you were just pure not-knowing being, and yet beyond that pure being that you are, there is something, not you, that knew how to be you. This is not something known by a someone, you are in essence that not-knowing knowing. Stop putting pressure on people to be something other than what they are, it's un-natural.

Knowledge is just an artificial addendum upon this already not-knowing knowing, it's a mental construct and does not exist in reality. It's what the mind makes-up out of thin air, and is believed to be actual reality, hook line and sinker.

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