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The Blind
Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2025 4:59 pm
by Phil8659
Isaiah 42:19
Some people are aware that there are passages in the Bible which claim that the servant of God is blind, who is more perfect than the blind.
Being able to understand metaphor takes quite a bit of knowledge sometimes, however, some get it perfectly, like Plato. The perceptible is not intelligible, nor is the intelligible perceptible.
What this means is that, of all our life support systems, the mind is the only member which is actually blind, it cannot perceive anything from the environment, it relies on the bodies senses.
The metaphor is meant to stress something important. No source of information the mind deals with can actually be literal. It is one way of saying that everything we deal with, as a mind, is intelligible.
We are not our body, we are born blind, live blind, it is only an illusion that we perceive. Our body perceives, our mind receives, as it were, memories of those perceptions.
To some simpletons this means that there is nothing real, that reality does not exist, that cause and effect are null and void. I just treat these people as hopelessly stupid. Once you nullified cause and effect in any manner, you have claimed your own non-existence, how stupid does one have to be to call themselves nothing at all? Consistent thinking, for many, is simply an impossible task. We are predictors of the future, using what means we have, and that is simply all there is to it. If we cannot do that, than we are not much of anything at all. If our body is defective, it is as Aristotle noted, simple a loss in knowledge. It does not mean the loss of all knowledge.
I came to understand this when I was once poisoned, apparently from the chow hall. I collapsed in the rest room, no body input at all, A state of pure nihilism, no physical sensation at all, just pure blackness, no sense of purpose, I realized that all meaning is what I meant to do. I do not know how long I was in the rest room, when I came back around, I just went back to work.
Re: The Blind
Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2025 5:31 pm
by Maia
Metaphors about blindness are ten a penny, and I use them myself, but the thing to always bear in mind, though, is that such metaphors are invented by sighted people.
Re: The Blind
Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2025 6:57 pm
by Phil8659
Maia wrote: ↑Thu Jul 31, 2025 5:31 pm
Metaphors about blindness are ten a penny, and I use them myself, but the thing to always bear in mind, though, is that such metaphors are invented by sighted people.
If you actually read the passage, it boils down to evolution. Mankind will learn when man has evolved an understanding mind. If you understood mind, everyone is, and always has been born blind, and live blind. The mind does not perceive the environment, the bodies senses do.
Re: The Blind
Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2025 7:10 pm
by Maia
Phil8659 wrote: ↑Thu Jul 31, 2025 6:57 pm
Maia wrote: ↑Thu Jul 31, 2025 5:31 pm
Metaphors about blindness are ten a penny, and I use them myself, but the thing to always bear in mind, though, is that such metaphors are invented by sighted people.
If you actually read the passage, it boils down to evolution. Mankind will learn when man has evolved an understanding mind. If you understood mind, everyone is, and always has been born blind, and live blind. The mind does not perceive the environment, the bodies senses do.
The idea that we can only perceive the world through our senses is not really news to anyone, though. That's what they're for.
Re: The Blind
Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2025 7:18 pm
by Flannel Jesus
Maia wrote: ↑Thu Jul 31, 2025 5:31 pm
Metaphors about blindness are ten a penny, and I use them myself, but the thing to always bear in mind, though, is that such metaphors are invented by sighted people.
blind to their own biases no doubt
Re: The Blind
Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2025 7:28 pm
by Maia
Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Thu Jul 31, 2025 7:18 pm
Maia wrote: ↑Thu Jul 31, 2025 5:31 pm
Metaphors about blindness are ten a penny, and I use them myself, but the thing to always bear in mind, though, is that such metaphors are invented by sighted people.
blind to their own biases no doubt
Indeed, or more generally, just not appreciating what it's actually like. Which is understandable, I suppose.
Re: The Blind
Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2025 7:46 pm
by Phil8659
Maia wrote: ↑Thu Jul 31, 2025 5:31 pm
Metaphors about blindness are ten a penny, and I use them myself, but the thing to always bear in mind, though, is that such metaphors are invented by sighted people.
So, you know little about actual literature. So, there have been no blind poets, no blind writers. And quite frankly words do not equal cents, but either sense or nonsense.
And, I have never known an any writer who has trained a goat to take dictation.
The only measure of words is if they are or are not true.
You are just being flippant, arrogant, and defensive.
Re: The Blind
Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2025 7:52 pm
by Walker
Paradise Lost
Re: The Blind
Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2025 8:15 pm
by Maia
Phil8659 wrote: ↑Thu Jul 31, 2025 7:46 pm
Maia wrote: ↑Thu Jul 31, 2025 5:31 pm
Metaphors about blindness are ten a penny, and I use them myself, but the thing to always bear in mind, though, is that such metaphors are invented by sighted people.
So, you know little about actual literature. So, there have been no blind poets, no blind writers. And quite frankly words do not equal cents, but either sense or nonsense.
And, I have never known an any writer who has trained a goat to take dictation.
The only measure of words is if they are or are not true.
You are just being flippant, arrogant, and defensive.
Eh?
As for the only measure of words being whether they are true or not, that is simply not the case. Another equally important measure is how they stir the emotions, as in novels, poetry and songs.
Re: The Blind
Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2025 8:20 pm
by Maia
Walker wrote: ↑Thu Jul 31, 2025 7:52 pmParadise Lost
Yes, Milton was blind, or at least, became so.
Re: The Blind
Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2025 9:18 pm
by Phil8659
Maia wrote: ↑Thu Jul 31, 2025 8:20 pm
Walker wrote: ↑Thu Jul 31, 2025 7:52 pmParadise Lost
Yes, Milton was blind, or at least, became so.
Not only that, words are not invented, operations on words are not invented, Grammar is based on information processing, not invention.
I got my workout done late today, rain delay.
Re: The Blind
Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2025 5:41 am
by Walker
Maia wrote: ↑Thu Jul 31, 2025 8:20 pm
Walker wrote: ↑Thu Jul 31, 2025 7:52 pmParadise Lost
Yes, Milton was blind, or at least, became so.
The Wiki tells us that he became blind before he wrote
Paradise Lost, and the evidence suggests that he began writing it about the time he experienced tragedy, in which case, suffering was channeled into art.
Re: The Blind
Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2025 7:54 am
by Maia
Walker wrote: ↑Fri Aug 01, 2025 5:41 am
Maia wrote: ↑Thu Jul 31, 2025 8:20 pm
Walker wrote: ↑Thu Jul 31, 2025 7:52 pmParadise Lost
Yes, Milton was blind, or at least, became so.
The Wiki tells us that he became blind before he wrote
Paradise Lost, and the evidence suggests that he began writing it about the time he experienced tragedy, in which case, suffering was channeled into art.
We did Lycidas at school, though I couldn't really get into it, to be honest.