GENIUS FORUMS

Diebert wrote: Or at least it might make you wonder if you should bother much with heavily translated and interpretable stuff, apart as a hobby, like in my case :) Yeah, maybe it is a waste of time. It's rather tiring thinking of all the possibilities. I think the most natural interpretation goes li...

Most translations of this text completely miss the point, since only̶ w̶i̶s̶e̶ rational people should translate the extremely difficult and fluid ancient Chinese. Better to alway suspect something is up if you go "huh?". Don't buy anything or better yet: throw it away! Well, I'm still goi...

In the same manner a bent tree keeps growing in an ever-more skewed direction. You mean a man is like a tree, and violence is like the bending? But then a violent death is what? The tree dies from being bent? I don't think trees actually do die from being bent, but maybe they do die sooner since th...

Tao Te Ching, chapter 42: The Tao begot one. One begot two. Two begot three. And three begot the ten thousand things. The ten thousand things carry yin and embrace yang. They achieve harmony by combining these forces. Men hate to be "orphaned," "widowed," or "worthless,"...

Linguistically, in the spirit of the equation A=A, forms of the verb “to be” function as the equal sign. Out of habit we write or say things like, “I am happy,” which in effect says I = happy. Since in equation form, I = I happy = happy and I ≠ happy, then in linquistic form, to think and write mor...

Blair wrote:

Homer wrote:[ and we wouldn't want to give such a parrot philosopher status.

And what status do you deserve, with your 7 posts and poorly chosen username.?

He makes more sense than most people here. Who cares what his post count is? This ain't a dick contest.

I don't think there's a set answer that would work for everyone. Everyone is at a different stage of development and each one of us needs to develop according to our own personalities, experiences, mental characteristics, and so forth. So I think it's a really personal decision as to what to tackle...

jufa wrote:

Philosophy can't be confined to an academic "field", but I'll go with that word.

This is profiling.

Eh? You mean describing something?

My opinion is that the best way to proceed in philosophy (or any intellectual endeavor, really) is to begin by making your first objective to be to root out and deeply understand the fundamental principle of the field. Philosophy can't be confined to an academic "field", but I'll go with ...

For myself I find the whole problem of subjective profiling philosophy, as have been attempted here, is that it does not lend itself to generalisation because philosphy is an infinite on going experience of Itself. Self is, within the man, invisible thoughts and material matters of man's interprete...

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:The thing with pathways is when you start walking on one, you can only keep going.

I guess I'm not really sure what you mean by this. You can start on some path and jump off pretty easily in my experience.

Hello! Have to agree with Homer here: were you here really for knowledge ? The thing with pathways is when you start walking on one, you can only keep going. It's more about the way things are approached, not what you remember about them. Otherwise old age would undo all your gains again! Hey Diebe...

I've been away for a few years going to school, so I haven't been doing any philosophy. I'm feeling guilty about it! Philosophy is the love of wisdom. And a true philosopher dies with that love - he never stops doing philosophy. You don't need books to do philosophy... a simple question, a simple w...

Hi Elizabeth! Thanks! It's good to see you too. I'm actually probably not to be able to do anything real serious right now. I've got a hell of a lot of classes this semester, but I'm graduating in May and then I'm moving, but this summer I'll have some free time to mess around on here more.

My opinion is that the best way to proceed in philosophy (or any intellectual endeavor, really) is to begin by making your first objective to be to root out and deeply understand the fundamental principle of the field. Philosophy can't be confined to an academic "field", but I'll go with t...

I've been away for a few years going to school, so I haven't been doing any philosophy. I'm feeling guilty about it! I've realized that "use it or lose it" applies to knowledge too. You have to refresh your knowledge periodically or you're going to forget stuff. A lot of professors here ha...

The problem is that nobody here except for Kevin and David are interested in perfect wisdom. Nobody. Everybody on here merely uses truth as a means of entertaining themselves, but that's not good enough to actually get anywhere with it.

What do you guys think of this? I name you three metamorphoses of the spirit: how the spirit shall become a camel, and the camel a lion, and the lion at last a child. There are many heavy things for the spirit, for the strong, weight-bearing spirit in which dwell respect and awe: its strength longs ...

I think it's more than common, Diebert, it's necessary because when you're engaging in your reasoning process, you don't want to compromise your understanding of truth due to worrying about practical concerns. We egotists tend to want to turn our anxieties into ultimate truths, so you want to be abl...

I think that I misunderstood you. It was entirely my fault. I have a really bad habit of getting frustrated when I'm misunderstood, which further reduces my ability to communicate, leading to further misunderstanding, etc. I should know better. This was my point and I agree. The sage is not at all ...

I don't think that a perfect and prototypical sage would value his life - at least not as much as other people. He may eat food if it's available. Otherwise, he would not commit delusional acts(murder, violence, stealing) to get it. The sage is like a tree when it comes to goals - he works towards ...

The issue is whether the sage can have goals or not. I said that he can't, in the normal sense. I think that goals are impossible to be had by sages, because he would never attach value to things, except truth, which is not a "thing" at all, but the All. Hence, he would never strive/work ...

Sounds good. I don't really know much about health, but I'm trying to do better.

I'm usually not one to argue semantics, but I'll persist here. Goals themselves always have to be distinct from the person who has them. To the sage, nothing is distinct from himself. Goals are an end. To the sage, there is no end. I agree that greater consciousness leads to greater responsibility,...

It rests on the context. Ego means "I", as in "Myself". In that context, saying you have no Ego is like saying you have no consistancy, But mentally, physically or spiritually? Yeah, that's the Freudian ego, which is different from the spiritual sense of the word. The spiritual ...