Philosophy Now Forum

Nick_A wrote:... Well as long as there is good scotch and an available cute blonde, I may as well go down with the ship.

Aw! Don't be sad that you are low down the hierarchy Nick, it's just your place in the cosmic scheme of things. Leave things to your betters.

And there you have it folks, due to this 'great chain of being' this 'cosmic man' is inaccessible to us mere mortals so get pissed and screw. Although I seriously doubt Einstein thought this.

Belinda wrote: ↑Wed Oct 04, 2017 3:49 pm Nick_A wrote:

Simone Weil describes the path of intuition in her usual elegant fashion.

But intuition is not mysticism or emotionalism. Intuition is acute use of reason.

Exactly. Intuition is a higher quality of reason we find difficult to experience because it requires opening to absolute truth. In contrast the results of our normal dualistic reason is built on a blend of truth and lies. A valid argument is easy to create and defend because truth is not required. Opening to the experience of intuition requires truthful contemplation. the conscious experience of the contradiction. It is impossible for those so used to expressing inner lies that truthful contemplation leading to intuition is impossible.

Intuition enables a person to reconcile a dualistic contradiction from a higher conscious level of reality. Most prefer to argue their opinions. Those in need of the experience of the truth reconciling dualistic opposition are willing to contemplate without lies. Only a few are willing. Often it takes years to begin to distinguish the truth and lies within ourselves and begin to separate the wheat from the tares within.

Nick_A wrote: ↑Wed Oct 04, 2017 9:54 pm Intuition enables a person to reconcile a dualistic contradiction from a higher conscious level of reality.

So you're saying that if something seems unlikely but we want it to be true, we just have to keep thinking about it until we convince ourselves it is true? The trouble with that is that when you then go on to trying to convince others of what you have convinced yourself of, there will be a great tendency to make yourself look like a total idiot. I'd hate to see that happen to you, Nick.

Harbal wrote: ↑Wed Oct 04, 2017 10:14 pm

Nick_A wrote: ↑Wed Oct 04, 2017 9:54 pm Intuition enables a person to reconcile a dualistic contradiction from a higher conscious level of reality.

So you're saying that if something seems unlikely but we want it to be true, we just have to keep thinking about it until we convince ourselves it is true? The trouble with that is that when you then go on to trying to convince others of what you have convinced yourself of, there will be a great tendency to make yourself look like a total idiot. I'd hate to see that happen to you, Nick.

Thank goodness you are not a cute blonde but would have to be rejected. Life would be proven unfair.

Arising_uk wrote: ↑Wed Oct 04, 2017 5:22 pm

Nick_A wrote:... Well as long as there is good scotch and an available cute blonde, I may as well go down with the ship.

Aw! Don't be sad that you are low down the hierarchy Nick, it's just your place in the cosmic scheme of things. Leave things to your betters.

And there you have it folks, due to this 'great chain of being' this 'cosmic man' is inaccessible to us mere mortals so get pissed and screw. Although I seriously doubt Einstein thought this.

A typical sexist attack on cute blondes suggesting they are low on the cosmic hierarchy making them attractive to me. Just wait till the National Organization of Women learn of this!

Nick_A wrote:A typical sexist attack on cute blondes suggesting they are low on the cosmic hierarchy making them attractive to me. Just wait till the National Organization of Women learn of this!

I think you projecting your fantasies here Nick, as they are above your level. Still, your thoughts are a nice example of how not to be a 'Cosmic man'.

Einstein wrote:
If we want to improve the world we cannot do it with scientific knowledge but with ideals. Confucius, Buddha, Jesus and Gandhi have done more for humanity than science has done.

Dubious wrote: ↑Wed Oct 04, 2017 12:22 am...oh really! What a load of sanctimonious hogwash. Ah! but it was Einstein! Who would believe that he could ever say anything stupid!

Nick_A wrote: ↑Wed Oct 04, 2017 2:05 pmThe attitudes of those like dubious will win but the value of what it will win is debatable. Those like Einstein and Simone will be ridiculed as fools. 2+2 will be officially changed to 5 and the majority will celebrate the demise of the old ways.

Well, that 's not really my attitude but it's ok if you think so. I'll also gladly accept the conversion if I can get five bucks back for every four I spend.

My attitude is to think independently regardless what Einstein, Simone or anyone else said. Both were as human as anyone else limited by their own prejudices and they had plenty of those. The last thing humans should do is to permanently "park" their thoughts in someone else's garage as you have so blatantly done. To do so is a form of human sacrifice and surrender. There was no human who ever lived who was the be-all and end-all of wisdom and knowledge...not even close! So there's still plenty of room left without having to incarcerate oneself in a mental closet which isn't theirs.

Too much hero worship preempts thinking!

Well as long as there is good scotch and an available cute blonde, I may as well go down with the ship.

That's the spirit! Even Einstein, like a sailor, had a cutie storied away in every port he visited. God and Cosmos was the last thing he was thinking about at those times when "relativity" was much closer to home and less complicated!

Arising_uk wrote: ↑Wed Oct 04, 2017 10:44 pm

Nick_A wrote:A typical sexist attack on cute blondes suggesting they are low on the cosmic hierarchy making them attractive to me. Just wait till the National Organization of Women learn of this!

I think you projecting your fantasies here Nick, as they are above your level. Still, your thoughts are a nice example of how not to be a 'Cosmic man'.

Exactly my point.

There could be an interesting thread about intuition and how to tap into it, but not when so loaded with political and personal agendas and a litany of hates - The Great Beast, snowflakes, secularists, Greta, F4, Hilary, progressives, teachers, atheists, women, bleeding hearts, feminists, Plato's cave dwellers, etc.

Dubious

My attitude is to think independently regardless what Einstein, Simone or anyone else said. Both were as human as anyone else limited by their own prejudices and they had plenty of those. The last thing humans should do is to permanently "park" their thoughts in someone else's garage as you have so blatantly done. To do so is a form of human sacrifice and surrender. There was no human who ever lived who was the be-all and end-all of wisdom and knowledge...not even close! So there's still plenty of room left without having to incarcerate oneself in a mental closet which isn't theirs.

You want to establish your own opinions. As you wrote we are all limited by our prejudices so establish our opinions as expressions of our prejudices and conditioning. We may think independently but not impartially. The result is the battle over opinions which dominates cave life.

Einstein is suggesting a quality of intellect unrelated to independent thought which opens the mind and heart to the truth of the human condition in relation to our conscious potential.

Verifying the human condition as it exists within us is by definition not blind belief. Blind belief as witnessed in secularism is the assumption that human meaning and purpose is revealed through thought. Consider how Hannah Arendt in the book “The Life of the Mind” explains the relationship between truth and meaning, between knowing and thinking,” and makes a powerful case for the importance of that line in the human experience.

Thinking aims at and ends in contemplation, and contemplation is not an activity but a passivity; it is the point where mental activity comes to rest. According to traditions of Christian time, when philosophy had become the handmaiden of theology, thinking became meditation, and meditation again ended in contemplation, a kind of blessed state of the soul where the mind was no longer stretching out to know the truth but, in anticipation of a future state, received it temporarily in intuition… With the rise of the modern age, thinking became chiefly the handmaiden of science, of organized knowledge; and even though thinking then grew extremely active, following modernity’s crucial conviction that I can know only what I myself make, it was Mathematics, the non-empirical science par excellence, wherein the mind appears to play only with itself, that turned out to be the Science of sciences, delivering the key to those laws of nature and the universe that are concealed by appearances……….....

Those like you and Greta are so caught up in arguing details to justify your opinions that you no longer sense the value of conscious contemplation, of letting go to experience that which reconciles opinions rather than arguing and let truth enter.

Curious how the relationship between truth and meaning is obvious to those like Jacob Needleman, Simone, Einstein, Basarab Nicolescu, Hannah Arendt, and others but for the majority and especially in modern education it is considered irrelevant since the state will provide meaning for its citizens. Classic spirit killing.

These people I’ve mentioned don’t tell you what to think but to make clear what the power of reason includes. It is denied as is normal for cave life but we are gifted with these open minded individuals who have opened to the experience of meaning and invite other seekers of truth to rise above the virtual eternal battle over opinions and open to understanding acquired through the personal experience of intuition.

Nick_A wrote:...
Einstein is suggesting a quality of intellect unrelated to independent thought which opens the mind and heart to the truth of the human condition in relation to our conscious potential. ...

Yup, he says it's called being a scientist.

Nick_A wrote:...
Those like you and Greta are so caught up in arguing details to justify your opinions that you no longer sense the value of conscious contemplation, of letting go to experience that which reconciles opinions rather than arguing and let truth enter. ...

And yet you say only a few could do this so what's the point? As you also say its going to amount to nothing. You're also a good example of not walking your talk.

Nick_A wrote: ↑Thu Oct 05, 2017 2:44 amThose like you and Greta are so caught up in arguing details to justify your opinions that you no longer sense the value of conscious contemplation, of letting go to experience that which reconciles opinions rather than arguing and let truth enter.

You appear to be the one making all the arguments. I'm just interested in learning more about the nature of reality, not in competitive games.

As far as I can tell you have not actually read anything that Dubious or I (or others) have said. You are highly reactive, and usually reply, but rarely responsive. Basically you don't listen, just preach. You are good at raising interesting subject matter. However, your own approach is formulaic, dogmatic and thus intellectually inert. You seem unable to appreciate or to flexibly respond to other people's ways of being.

Ultimately your complaint is basically the same as everyone else's and the problems are not due to a retreat from spirituality as you claim. It's simply the unavoidable result of increasing population density, reduced availability of resources, diminished natural spaces and increased control and rationalisation by both nation states and influential corporations. This does not suit anyone but the super rich.

However, prehistory and history tell us that huge changes sometimes sweep over the Earth, and over populations, and these are never good news for existing inhabitants, who were adapted during their formative years to a different natural, social and technical environment. So it goes.

Arising_uk wrote: ↑Thu Oct 05, 2017 4:11 am

Nick_A wrote:...
Those like you and Greta are so caught up in arguing details to justify your opinions that you no longer sense the value of conscious contemplation, of letting go to experience that which reconciles opinions rather than arguing and let truth enter. ...

And yet you say only a few could do this so what's the point? As you also say its going to amount to nothing. You're also a good example of not walking your talk.

Only a few are willing to put in the effort to reach an ideal at the expense of pleasure. It is very difficult to become a concert pianist. You can say why bother. You cannot understand unless you have felt the need. It is also very difficult to acquire the courage and ability to witness and admit the truth in oneself. Resistance is very powerful. You can ask why bother. If you cannot appreciate aspiration in pursuit of an ideal, at least respect it in others even if it appears not worth bothering about.

Nick_A wrote:Only a few are willing to put in the effort to reach an ideal at the expense of pleasure. ...

So not a very useful technique to change the world then nor to become this s'cosmic man', although Einstein appeared to believe it could become a new religion so he appears to disagree with you.

It is very difficult to become a concert pianist. You can say why bother. ...

One could but I wouldn't.

You cannot understand unless you have felt the need. ...

Have you felt this need then? Personally I can understand why someone would want to be a concert pianist but have felt no need to attempt to become one.

It is also very difficult to acquire the courage and ability to witness and admit the truth in oneself. ...

Which truth is this?

Resistance is very powerful. ...

You will be assimilated.

You can ask why bother. If you cannot appreciate aspiration in pursuit of an ideal, at least respect it in others even if it appears not worth bothering about.

But you're not pursuing it at all and if you are I wonder why you bother as you say it is an impossibility to achieve?

A_uk

You can ask why bother. If you cannot appreciate aspiration in pursuit of an ideal, at least respect it in others even if it appears not worth bothering about.

But you're not pursuing it at all and if you are I wonder why you bother as you say it is an impossibility to achieve?

Philosophy is defined as the love of wisdom. Can anything good come from this attraction?

"The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he has attained liberation from the self." - Albert Einstein

Most believe they are the self so want to satisfy the “self.” Seems like the natural approach but is it the realistic approach?

Jacob Needleman in his book "Lost Christianity" says the following after a lecture he had been giving took an unexpected turn:

”Of course it had been stupid of me to express it in quite that way, but nevertheless the point was worth pondering: does there exist in man a natural attraction to truth and to the struggle for truth that is stronger than the natural attraction to pleasure? The history of religion in the west seems by and large to rest on the assumption that the answer is no. Therefore, externally induced emotions of egoistic fear (hellfire), anticipation of pleasure (heaven), vengeance, etc., have been marshaled to keep people in the faith.”

“does there exist in man a natural attraction to truth and to the struggle for truth that is stronger than the natural attraction to pleasure?”

You would say if it does exist it is foolish since it is an impossible ideal. The Great Beast struggles against even the hint at the question which threatens its supremacy. But if Plato was right and we do live as if in a cave attached to shadows on the wall and oblivious to the source of these shadows, then liberation of the self is liberation from attachments.

But again, why bother if the shadows are so attractive? Quite true. Why bother? That is why I’ve come to believe that the struggle for truth and the good that comers from the liberation those like Einstein, Simone Weil and Prof Needleman refer to is only for a minority. Most prefer to live an indoctrinated life in pursuit of prestige and pleasure societal approval supplies.

There simply is no sufficient attraction for the majority to consciously witness the contradictions within themselves for the sake of self liberation in the cause of truth. Why doubt the world as the source of the good the depth of the human heart call us to?

"...It is not for man to seek, or even to believe in God. He has only to refuse to believe in everything that is not God. This refusal does not presuppose belief. It is enough to recognize, what is obvious to any mind, that all the goods of this world, past, present, or future, real or imaginary, are finite and limited and radically incapable of satisfying the desire which burns perpetually with in us for an infinite and perfect good... It is not a matter of self-questioning or searching. A man has only to persist in his refusal, and one day or another God will come to him."
-- Weil, Simone, ON SCIENCE, NECESSITY, AND THE LOVE OF GOD, edited by Richard Rees, London, Oxford University Press, 1968.- ©

Simone refers to the potential for help from above to provide the inner direction the heart is called to. When a person is capable of this degree of conscious impartiality in the cause of truth, then intuition becomes a practical reality since we don’t get in our own way.