Philosophy Now Forum

Nick_A wrote: ↑Mon Aug 08, 2022 10:27 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Mon Aug 08, 2022 6:52 pm

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Aug 08, 2022 6:13 pm
Since you cannot, even slightly, understand what he is talking about, you certainly could not follow him or his path. Only when you actually understood the terms and concepts he is working with could you then make any sort of reasoned decision.

And this is just what I have been talking about: Once the capability of understanding certain ideas and concepts has been undermined, and the conceptual pathway disturbed or broken, those ideas seem outrageous and ridiculous -- unworthy of consideration by a sensible person! And they are dismissed.

In my experience the conceptual pathway is not inherent but learned . I can't lose the conceptual pathway if I never learned it in the first place. It's true that general respect for education is inculcated by the prevailing culture via significant others in early childhood as any primary school teacher will agree. If respect for education has to be learned by children of school age it's done with as much entertainment and playfulness as may be. Novels and cartoons are quite helpful.

A culture of understanding may become materialistic as has happened due to regimes' scorn for academia and its knock on effect in education policies. Even scientists are not officially taught philosophy of science as there isn't time to learn it. Keep up the good fight!

The field of human ability has not lost its potential fertility, because Lamarckism is not true.

BTW my recent try at theodicy by clustering demiurge, satan, and trickster did not work for the reason you gave earlier. The problem of evil remains in place.

Plato used the term in the dialog Timaeus, an exposition of cosmology in which the Demiurge is the agent who takes the preexisting materials of chaos, arranges them according to the models of eternal forms, and produces all the physical things of the world, including human bodies. The Demiurge is sometimes thought of as the Platonic personification of active reason. The term was later adopted by some of the Gnostics, who, in their dualistic worldview, saw the Demiurge as one of the forces of evil, who was responsible for the creation of the despised material world and was wholly alien to the supreme God of goodness.

Why do you accept Gnostic duality and assume the demiurge are evil rather then Plato's explanation of the demiurge responsible for bringing order into chaos. Is that evil?

Harbal wrote: ↑Mon Aug 08, 2022 8:25 pm

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Aug 08, 2022 7:52 pm
Depends what you definition of 'enlightenment' would be.

But allow me to comment: Some people are locked into, perhaps even imprisoned, within conceptual structures that do not allow them to excel and prosper. They live in conceptual prisons. Trapped. So let us suppose that you accept that what I describe is real and some people do live in such prisons.

Would you then be able to accept that gaining conceptual knowledge that would enable them to begin to leave such conceptual prisons could be possible? And if that did happen would that be 'progress' in your book?

I don't have any thoughts on how people should live their lives. Contentment seems the most desireable goal to me. If spending all your free time watching third rate rubbish on TV brings you contentment, and it causes you no problems, that is probably what you should do. I don't have a TV set, which is probably why I try to make my experience here as entertaining as possible. If the world was full of deep thinkers, life would probably be Hell for everyone.

Sorry about all the probablies.

Belinda wrote: ↑Mon Aug 08, 2022 11:35 pm
Entertainment alone seems an odd motive if it's the only motive. I like to be entertained while I am learning, or playing games, but I need some challenges too. If Nick were repeating platitudes I'd be bored but there seems to be thinking going on there.

Harbal wrote: ↑Mon Aug 08, 2022 11:45 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Mon Aug 08, 2022 11:35 pm
Entertainment alone seems an odd motive if it's the only motive. I like to be entertained while I am learning, or playing games, but I need some challenges too. If Nick were repeating platitudes I'd be bored but there seems to be thinking going on there.

Nick has obviously spent a lot of time thinking.

I sent you a PM, btw.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sun Aug 07, 2022 2:49 pmThe answer to that question (where is that "objective truth" that's supposed to prove its reality?) is discovered when one examines all things that are created, all things that come to be and are expressed, when metaphysical ideas are translated into our realm through human endeavor and expression.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sun Aug 07, 2022 2:49 pmSince there cannot be presented to you that which corresponds to the *objective truth* you say you seek

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sun Aug 07, 2022 2:49 pmThe invisible, including an idea which cannot but be described as non-tangible and thus non-objective, can yet be understood objectively

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sun Aug 07, 2022 2:49 pm(And yes, very much, I hold to extreme hierarchies of valuation).

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sun Aug 07, 2022 2:49 pmAs I was thinking about this yesterday a scene from an old Japanese film Late Spring came to mind. Early postwar (ll) Japan. The scene involves a friendly gathering of women and the preparation of tea. All of this rehearsal, the rite itself, comes about as a result of the translation of metaphysical ideas, and also principles, into their realm of social activity. Obviously the tea ritual is an expression of a contemplative understanding or vision. This social performance, seen from our vantage today, at least by many, cannot in fact be seen -- if seeing involves understanding. In order to understand it one would have to become familiar with a range of ideas precisely of the sort I describe as metaphysical. What is not understood cannot certainly be appreciated. And what supersedes the *value* expressed in it is vulgarized and debased. I am frankly surprised that you do not seem to grasp some of this. Why must these things be laboriously explained? Shouldn't you be explaining these things to me?

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sun Aug 07, 2022 2:49 pmSo as I see things (and I am just as much of an outcome of decadent modern processes as anyone except that I am aware that something destructive was done) when we lose a sense of what 'metaphysics' actually refer to, when we lose the understanding and therefore the connection, we descend from a higher level down to a lower plane. If high or exalted forms of behavior and comportment depend on a relationship to metaphysical principles, and it is clear that they do, when these disappear or are 'erased', the vertical dimension is lost sight of or sacrificed.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sun Aug 07, 2022 2:49 pmWhat happens to a person who has no anchor (in eternal values and ideas) of any sort?

Dubious wrote: ↑Mon Aug 08, 2022 11:52 pm

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sun Aug 07, 2022 2:49 pmThe answer to that question (where is that "objective truth" that's supposed to prove its reality?) is discovered when one examines all things that are created, all things that come to be and are expressed, when metaphysical ideas are translated into our realm through human endeavor and expression.

Much more than metaphysics (which explains nothing), physics, etc., in all its capacities is the art by which all things created get examined which doesn't render it less mystical than any of your metaphysical pretensions. Only then do we face the real mysteries of nature; not the ones we manufacture.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sun Aug 07, 2022 2:49 pmSince there cannot be presented to you that which corresponds to the *objective truth* you say you seek

The only objective truth is the one which negates its existence. Where have I ever implied I'd be searching for something whose meanings are constructed to conform to human psychology? After all my posts, this statement makes no sense. To seek or search for objective truths I would need to believe they exist as you and Nick clearly do. In what post have I done that?

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sun Aug 07, 2022 2:49 pmThe invisible, including an idea which cannot but be described as non-tangible and thus non-objective, can yet be understood objectively

Pluralistically yes, in the sense that something consensually agreed to can be understood objectively: note understood as such without being explicitly denoted as such.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sun Aug 07, 2022 2:49 pm(And yes, very much, I hold to extreme hierarchies of valuation).

I don't; nature manifests itself through emergence, never hierarchies of valuation which belongs specifically to human endeavor.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sun Aug 07, 2022 2:49 pmAs I was thinking about this yesterday a scene from an old Japanese film Late Spring came to mind. Early postwar (ll) Japan. The scene involves a friendly gathering of women and the preparation of tea. All of this rehearsal, the rite itself, comes about as a result of the translation of metaphysical ideas, and also principles, into their realm of social activity. Obviously the tea ritual is an expression of a contemplative understanding or vision. This social performance, seen from our vantage today, at least by many, cannot in fact be seen -- if seeing involves understanding. In order to understand it one would have to become familiar with a range of ideas precisely of the sort I describe as metaphysical. What is not understood cannot certainly be appreciated. And what supersedes the *value* expressed in it is vulgarized and debased. I am frankly surprised that you do not seem to grasp some of this. Why must these things be laboriously explained? Shouldn't you be explaining these things to me?

The tea ceremony is a highly ritualistic process; the Japanese have always been extremely ritualistic and formal in their society. To truly understand it requires knowledge of each movement in its performance not only in its execution but also in its meaning. No one questions the formality, the power of ritual on the psyche and the necessity for its performance. Art can also be qualified as a revelation of it. One can even extend its formality to the universe as a cosmic tea ritual. If you insist on calling that kind of experience metaphysical in the sense of aspiring to fixed eternal values which preexist humans, that depends entirely on your belief preferences being not unlike theism.

Life means structure; that's why as often mentioned, the ghosts of past beliefs (traditions) are still of service to those who may not have an equally potent substitute to structure their lives beyond the mundane and the seemingly static.
Rites, rituals, etc., never ceased to be of prime importance, more so psychologically (subjectively). Claiming a human necessity as metaphysical overburdens its meaning into a domain beyond human which doesn't make sense.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sun Aug 07, 2022 2:49 pmSo as I see things (and I am just as much of an outcome of decadent modern processes as anyone except that I am aware that something destructive was done) when we lose a sense of what 'metaphysics' actually refer to, when we lose the understanding and therefore the connection, we descend from a higher level down to a lower plane. If high or exalted forms of behavior and comportment depend on a relationship to metaphysical principles, and it is clear that they do, when these disappear or are 'erased', the vertical dimension is lost sight of or sacrificed.

I would ask the same question of you as I did of Nick: at what time in history were we at a higher level? How did it reveal itself?

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sun Aug 07, 2022 2:49 pmWhat happens to a person who has no anchor (in eternal values and ideas) of any sort?

I'll never figure out why this nonsensical hyperreality of eternal values and ideas are so important to the likes of you and Nick! Why would a human with a lifespan which yields an infinitesimal measured against anything eternal be so concerned with eternal values and ideas as if such actually existed! Why would such a limited, temporary agent of life require values which objectively co-exist with that of eternity either remaining forever hidden or not existing at all...both of equal consequence! Ever think or really examine on your own why mortality would be more fractured if it doesn't have any such hyper-conceptual or metaphysical quality for its anchor?

Applying the word "eternal" to values and ideas is not only an absurdity - which diminishes meaning rather than expanding it - but also an oxymoron forming its own black hole as the ultimate paradox. So, feel free to remain vertical; I'm in the age were horizontal feels good.

With all the reading that you do, it's especially important to have one's Bullshit Detector on at all times.

Harbal wrote: ↑Mon Aug 08, 2022 8:11 pm

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Aug 08, 2022 7:44 pm
I do have a bit of a clue for you. In respect to people like Nick, and like myself I should say, you'd do well to understand that our adamancy has a function for ourselves. For example I have, to all appearances, been unsuccessful communicating certain ideas to Dubious. In fact if "The End" meant what I think it meant my insistence irritated him. (He's a somewhat grumpy fellow at times!)

But in trying to convince you I am in fact shoring up my own sense of what is right and true. This all has great importance for me. None of this is vain conversation. I have to get clear about these things in order to be able to function in a holistic sense.

So what I have done (in the course of these months) is to have retreated from an overt defense of Christianity to a defense of the ideas and the metaphysics that stand behind it. This is, in one sense, a shade or a step below real belief -- but it is the best I can do.

My brain just isn't wired up like Nick's, I am never going to be able to appreciate what his vision is. From time to time I do make a slight effort to understand this type of thing, but it never ends in success. I have been rather horrible to Nick in the past, which I don't feel great about, so this was just an attempt to understand him. I am nowhere near Nick's concept of what a human being should be, but if he really knew me, I don't think he would disapprove of me as much as he probably does.

“We are dealing with two fundamental human and cosmic forces in man and in the universal world: the movement of the descent of the Spirit into the manifest material world (creation, incarnation), and the movement of ascent and return (spiritualization) to the Source that is Spirit, Being itself. And it is man who is destined to stand in the middle as a bridge between these two intrinsically opposing forces—in Christian language, on the Cross... ”from Jacob Needleman's book: "What Is God"

Harbal wrote: ↑Mon Aug 08, 2022 6:53 pm

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Aug 08, 2022 6:11 pm This has nothing to do with your intelligence, it has to do with your background education.

Yes, and I am grateful to you for pointing it out. I am not in possession of the necessary background knowledge that I need in order to understand Nick. That's fine. There is no reason why I should be in possession of that knowledge.

In a letter to professor and vicar John Staupitz, Martin Luther wrote, “I learned that this word is in Greek metanoia and is derived from meta and noun, i.e., post and mentem, so that poenitentia or metanoia is a “coming to one’s senses,” and is a knowledge of one’s own evil, gained after punishment has been accepted and error acknowledged; and this cannot possibly happen without a change in our heart and our love. All this answers so aptly to the theology of Paul, that nothing, at least in my judgment, can so aptly illustrate St. Paul.

Then I went on and saw that metanoia can be derived, though not without violence, not only from post and mentem, but also from trans and mentem, so that metanoia signifies a changing of the mind and heart.”

Belinda wrote: ↑Tue Aug 09, 2022 12:17 amWhile you don't like "hyperreality", is it okay with you if eternal values are psychological only?

Nick_A wrote: ↑Tue Aug 09, 2022 1:00 am
I know the ideas I have adopted which represent higher reason seem odd to those not used to them. Their need for meaning has been satisfied by the world so no reason to concern oneself with these God questions.

You may not understand it but you've gone beyond the chorus of boos that many use rather than opening to contemplation normal for one willing to admit like Socrates "I know nothing."

What are these cosmic forces known in the Great Chain of Being of which they both exist in opposition in man creating the unique nature of man' being? Of course you don't know but no longer need to glorify ignorance and respect philosophy rather than condemning it.

Dubious wrote: ↑Tue Aug 09, 2022 5:34 am

Belinda wrote: ↑Tue Aug 09, 2022 12:17 amWhile you don't like "hyperreality", is it okay with you if eternal values are psychological only?

Eternal values are psychological only. I called it a hyperreality since the idea of all that we value, subjective as it may be, is de-localized into a domain which no-longer has any relation to us in an effort to generate the grand illusion of objective values and ideas.

By adding an extra dimension to ours under the rubric of Sub specie aeternitatis our subjectivities inherit some of the qualities we imagine eternity may itself possess. What better way to transmute what's singular, personal, indigenous to a species, into something as universal as objective values for no other reason than the urge to do so.

Education is limited. I have gone through my readings on the great ideas brought to the West by Gurdjieff and expanded upon by Ouspensky They contributed to the cause of my experience with metanoia: inwardly turning towards the light with the whole of oneself and away from the shadows on the wall.

Nick_A wrote: ↑Tue Aug 09, 2022 1:46 am
Education is limited. I have gone through my readings on the great ideas brought to the West by Gurdjieff and expanded upon by Ouspensky They contributed to the cause of my experience with metanoia: inwardly turning towards the light with the whole of oneself and away from the shadows on the wall.

Belinda wrote: ↑Tue Aug 09, 2022 10:56 am Nick wrote:

Education is limited. I have gone through my readings on the great ideas brought to the West by Gurdjieff and expanded upon by Ouspensky They contributed to the cause of my experience with metanoia: inwardly turning towards the light with the whole of oneself and away from the shadows on the wall.

Was the other part of your experience practical?

Harbal wrote: ↑Mon Aug 08, 2022 8:25 pmI don't have any thoughts on how people should live their lives. Contentment seems the most desireable goal to me. If spending all your free time watching third rate rubbish on TV brings you contentment, and it causes you no problems, that is probably what you should do. I don't have a TV set, which is probably why I try to make my experience here as entertaining as possible. If the world was full of deep thinkers, life would probably be Hell for everyone.

Pleasure (ἡδονή/hedone) is the only thing that is intrinsically valuable. Other things (e.g., knowledge, virtue, friendship, and philosophy) may have value, but only insofar as they contribute to pleasure. Whatever value they have is thus merely instrumental.