GENIUS FORUMS

@Urizen: Have you read Frithjof Schuon? You write very much like him.

Hello Mohamed, I understand your troubles. I have been there. To some degree, I still am there. But you must throw off this self-doubt and self-pity, my friend. It does you no good, whether you decide to be worldly or spiritual. You must be confident and do your best, and not worry about "but w...

False dilemma.

Well, if you want to make it a Pokemon battle, then uh, I guess we'll "FIGHT!" ... >.> To my mind, existence and non-existence simply are not applicable to the Universe in the way that wet and dry are not applicable to gravity. Just because we define wet as "not dry" and dry as &...

I hear you Orenholt, but don't fret too much over unreasonable people. While we certainly must always battle against ignorance and unreason, and while our contempt for such is certainly a motivating factor in our becoming wise, ultimately we need our focus elsewhere -- that is, in a positive and con...

movingalways, what you say about understanding A=A as being a mere intellectual attainment and not a spiritual one is a great point. However, I'm not sure where you go after that, and that step is perhaps one of the most crucial ones. For it is at that point that one either devolves into postmoderni...

Zizek, as in Slavoj Žižek?

Cutting the pseudo-profundity out of your life would be a great start to your cure. Or, if you are really convinced that I am the mistaken one here, then please, by all means, show me one instance in any of Plato's dialogues where it is stated, nay, even implied, that anything could have or does hav...

One thing I love about (genuine) philosophy and spirituality is that they make completely obsolete the issue of whether there is an afterlife!

Dan Rowden wrote:Well, that's all perfectly reasonable till they get to the part about leaving the physical body and living in spirit. Unless that's meant to be metaphorical, it's silly.

Yes, living in the spiritual body just means realizing your true "body" -- the Infinite.

I don't need to, Dennis, because Socrates/Plato never once say anything to the contrary. The real question is: how are you going to save yourself from your malady of supposition?

Getoriks, Plato's view of reality is that for any class of objects there is a defining ideal form which is fixed, permanent and unchanging. All physical instances of objects tend to be imperfect. For example the wilting, mildewed roses in my garden are imperfect instances of an ideal rose which exi...

I don't think you're being picky at all. I highly recommend stripping down facades, peeling away at fancy barriers, seeing through eloquent posturings the fools and madmen that hide behind, overcoming myths, questioning authority figures, deconstruction, heresy, apostasy, and just plain curiosity. A...

I've long since given up those dreams and lost my meaning in life. How exactly did you know that you were righteous, just, and noble? Is the state of complacency, apathy, nihilism, and fatalism you seem to be in now a life-saving break or retreat or safehaven or sanctuary from a past that was leadi...

Dennis, what you're saying about stepping outside of particular modes of philosophizing to see the underlying dynamic or larger context of consciousness and activity at play makes sense to me, and if I'm understanding it right, it's a great point. What doesn't make sense to me though, is grouping So...

Russell wrote:

Getoriks wrote:It only takes about a 120 IQ to become enlightened.

I've never heard that before, how did you come up with it?

Ah, I did not mean it as an exact statement or a finding from some formal study. It was just to make the point that you don't need some super high 160 IQ to be a genius.

Obviously one can only have a version of history. That's how it works, Dennis. I don't see your point. Are we to suddenly fall into relativism and claim that no version of history is any better than others, that the Nazis didn't kill Slavs and Jews and others, that the reason the Roman empire fell w...

Crow, is that you? Sorry Dennis, I don't go on about some "Ideal Form" called the Totality, because the only thing I call the Totality is not any kind of Form. Nor do I assign any history absolute existence. But here's the thing Dennis: if you can't be honest in mundane matters, like histo...

Why? It is completely clear to me, via the non-conscious experience of dreamless sleep, that a brain is required for our consciousness - although the brain is not the only cause, everything else is as well, without a form of brain there is no consciousness. Philosophy to me is about correlations an...

Sorry Dennis, but you'll need to get over your brainwashing if you want to understand the history of philosophy. You can start here: Distortions of Platonic Dialectic http://www.hermes-press.com/dialectic_distortions.htm Philosophy: the Love of Wisdom http://www.hermes-press.com/Perennial_Tradition/...

Defining of terms is critical to exchanging information / concepts. Yes knowledge can limit the accuracy of definitions, or better words might need to be created. Well, yeah, that's exactly what I said. I mean, did you even read what I wrote? You're proving to be as bad as Orenholt in this regard. ...

Higher learning does not take place when the student might expect it, but when the conditions are right, when the fruit is ripe. The trick is knowing when to treat what you are learning like you are viewing a rainbow -- not something to grasp at and be absolutely certain of, but something to witnes...

We're on a higher level because we can have a higher level of consciousness (enabled because we have the faculty of reasoning), but we're on the same level because we too will die...

... Unless, of course, we follow our reasoning all the way....

Orenholt wrote:It may be rational for a Christian to believe in Heaven...

You are perhaps confusing rational with rationale, and reason with rationalization.

I admit that I may be ignorant and I agree that I am stubborn but I disagree that I'm being irrational because I am endowed with the faculty of reason and a reason is a basis or cause, as for some belief, action, fact, event. So I am not uncaused in my perceptions. Please distinguish between reason...