Philosophy Now Forum

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Painting with a wide brush, let us perceive, for a moment, that the average individual enjoys a lifespan of roughly 90 years.


The first 30 years of our lives are spent developing and educating our complete ego; mentally, physically, and emotionally.

The next thirty years, roughly from the ages 30 to 60 we spend implementing the ego that we have developed and educated. Us against the world. We work to expand our ego within the multidimensional world that we find ourselves in. We work to provide for our family, which is an extension of our ego. Economically, intellectually and emotionally we establish ourselves. Harden the egg which we are able to more clearly define as the years pass. The pinnacle of the expansion of our ego.

The third trimester of our individual evolution should be spent in observing ourselves. During our elder years are able to better understand that the egg; the ego, which we have educated and worked so hard to establish during the first 60 years of our life will inevitably, break. Just as an egg that is dropped, we will cease to exist and we are better able to understand that all that we consider to be ourselves will soon cease to exist. The outside world will continue, without skipping a beat or even taking notice of our absence. In this time, in this period in our lives, roughly between 60 and 90 years old are we then only able to have the capacity to truly observe our overall being.

It is within this last third of our lives that we face our most difficult and yet our most important struggle.

There are so many things that I love of the writings of Ouspensky. I will attempt to paraphrase a tiny segment of his philosophy here as I believe it pertains:

As human beings, as nature has originally made us, we have have five functions or sometimes called centers. There also can be two other functions available to us if we are able to have our first five functions working, relatively normal.

The five functions that make-up a human being are:

The instinctive function

The moving function

The emotional function

The intellectual function

The sexual functioning



Our biggest challenge in the last third of our lives is to observe ourselves.

More specifically to observe and estrange ourselves from our intellectual function.


Our intellectual function is a double edged sword.


It wields our power yet ties us to the ever continuing parring between us and the universe around us.



We must stop thinking.



More specifically, stop all unnecessary thinking.


Stop the continuing narration that we actually find ourselves to be.


Stop all things unnecessary within ourselves. For those are the things that we call sin.



That process can only happen on a more consistent basis when we begin to observe ourselves.








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Stop unnecessary thinking ? By smoking pot or drinking vodka ?

What thinking is unnecessary ?

Socrates thougth until he died, was it wrong ?

Why should I not develop my ego further when I pass the age of 30 ?

Any person who attends psychotherapeutic sessions tries to improve his ego.

Thinking can be .... adopting certain lines of explanation, certain patterns of arguments.

One should keep an open mind and change these patterns if evidence to the contrary shows up.

Otherwise one lives in denial and in a structure of lies, which is poisonous to the soul in the long run.

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Smoking pot, using alcohol or opiate could be a way to stop thinking for a moment...but it's no guarantee. And it's not a sustainable working system.


All of us think and we will continue to think until we die. It's not wrong in itself. There is no right and wrong. Each of us are right for ourselves, for our path.

Socrates was known for taking walks where he would clear his mind and occasionally the gods would speak to him.


We continue to learn new things throughout our entire life. That is not wrong. However, the focus of our life is generally not in that direction. Large scale learning, generally happens when we are young.

Use your physical body as an example. From the moment you are conceived until you reach maturity around 21 or so, there is a tremendous change in your body. You may continue to gain muscle or weight throughout your life but you will not grow significantly taller...


Whether we attend psychotherapeutic sessions or not all of us try to improve our ego throughout our lives. That is fine. That is natural.

But again, if we use our physical body as an example, we can work-out our entire lives but we will not gain muscle from age 60 to 90. No matter what we do. We will, in general, lose muscle mass no matter how hard we work-out.

Now, however, from age 30 to the remainder of our lives, perhaps, if we're lucky, 90 we could use the physical work-out exercises as a way to observe ourselves. In this way we would obtain meaning. Especially in our latter years.






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Thinking can be .... adopting certain lines of explanation, certain patterns of arguments.

One should keep an open mind and change these patterns if evidence to the contrary shows up.

Otherwise one lives in denial and in a structure of lies, which is poisonous to the soul in the long run.





......................................Yes...I totally agree.



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Bill Wiltrack wrote:We must stop thinking.

You certainly practice what you preach.

Thank you, Bill.

At any age one can try new exercises and discover new muscles.

Even when lying on your back you can contract and relax parts of your body, parts of your head, parts of your face.
Or experiment with breathing.

I wanted to learn to write with my left hand one day. This involves muscles too.

Exercises for geriatrics should become a proper field of knowledge.

But yet no actual practical advice on how to do what you say, gnu thou art.

If anyone is interested in stopping what Bill calls the 'intellectual' function(although I'm not sure quite what he means here but then I don't think he does either) then check-out NLP techniques on how to stop the internal voice(if you have one, it could be that you think in pictures or feelings, etc but the principle is the same), learn to use your peripheral vision(attention) rather than just the foveal one by relaxing the muscles around your eyes, learn your walk(movement) of grace and power and you should be well in the moment or in 'uptime' as the NLPers say.

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Internal voice is fine, if that is what you want to call it.


I don't see anything wrong in what you are saying.




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The intellectual function is pretty clear = thoughts and images that pass through you.







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Bill Wiltrack wrote:The intellectual function is pretty clear = thoughts and images that pass through you.

This is what I mean by being unclear, as thoughts are or can be sequences of images, so not 'and'. They also don't "pass through you" as they are 'you' in the sense of thought being you but you need a body with senses to provide the perceptions from which thoughts can be made with memory.

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I can perceive how you could believe that you are your thoughts or thoughts are you.




We are not our thoughts, we are the silence between them.
- Unknown





We are blinded. We walk through life blinded by the perception that thoughts are generated by us.
~~~ Bill Wiltrack ~~~





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The idea of a graceful walk is a good one, but not possible in every circumstances.

If there is a shark attack taking place right now, I have to react somehow immediately.

I am going to try this:

I tell myself in my mind: Ein böser Fisch im Aquarium und wo ist mein Atem ? (an evil fish in the aquarium and where is my breathing ?)

So the fish will be a signal for a breathing exercise, instead of my natural reaction which would hurt me.

I could make a chart and put a point for each breathing exercise and see how many of them I have per day.

Bill Wiltrack wrote:I can perceive how you could believe that you are your thoughts or thoughts are you.

Not quite but reasonably close as I believe I am this body.

We are not our thoughts, we are the silence between them.
- Unknown

No thoughts no silence.

We are blinded. We walk through life blinded by the perception that thoughts are generated by us.
~~~ Bill Wiltrack ~~~

There is no 'us' outside generating these thoughts. The body generates representations of the external world from 'its' senses and the ability to recall them(memory) in new sequences(imagination) without the original source, is us.

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I understand you.




I am certain, one day soon, your understanding will increase.




Good luck to you.





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Bill Wiltrack wrote:.I understand you.

Apparently not.

I am certain, one day soon, your understanding will increase.

I'm surprised you're allowed this certainty given what you've proposed.