After philosophy: authenticity

Discussion of the nature of Ultimate Reality and the path to Enlightenment.
Pam Seeback
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After philosophy: authenticity

Post by Pam Seeback »

Authentic: not false or copied; genuine; real (dictionary.com)

The authentic quest or the quest for the real is the quest to break free from all thoughts systems, be they cultural, scientific or philosophical. Therefore, any quest of trying to understand a thought system is the inauthentic quest. Some insights on the quest for the authentic life:

No man is born seeking to break free from the attachment that is the natural effect of thought system-conditioning. Attachment to the inauthentic is given before detachment from the inauthentic is sought.

The quest for the authentic life is a slow burning awakening and not a thought (of enlightenment) that comes 'out of the blue.'

Those seeking absoluteness are unconsciously seeking authenticity.
Rod
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Re: After philosophy: authenticity

Post by Rod »

Pam, I applaud your attempt to express your idea of authenticity, but honestly it is feeble.

Prove authenticity is freedom from all thought systems. Alternatively give us your mystical experience and match it to the utterances of a mystic. That will be a start, though blissed-out mystics do not seriously impress.

Everyone knows dialectic is not authentic. The prominence of epistemology in conventional philosophy reflects this. Try to explain why all thought systems will fail.

Do the hard yards on my metaphysic and critique my system. It is avowedly absolute and a successful critique might springboard your stance on the back of my work. Feel free to climb on.
Pam Seeback
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Re: After philosophy: authenticity

Post by Pam Seeback »

Pam, I applaud your attempt to express your idea of authenticity, but honestly it is feeble.

Prove authenticity is freedom from all thought systems. Alternatively give us your mystical experience and match it to the utterances of a mystic. That will be a start, though blissed-out mystics do not seriously impress.

Everyone knows dialectic is not authentic. The prominence of epistemology in conventional philosophy reflects this. Try to explain why all thought systems will fail.

Do the hard yards on my metaphysic and critique my system. It is avowedly absolute and a successful critique might springboard your stance on the back of my work. Feel free to climb on.
There is no proof for authenticity. Just as there is no proof for a metaphysic. Authenticity cannot be debated, a metaphysic can be debated, debate is not proof.

Where I see us diverging is that I (now) understand insights come of the causality (your creative cause?) free and clear of my desire to label them or debate them or find them or unite with them or 'do' anything with them. Being without the ultimately futile desire to 'pin' reality down to Idea is to have passed through this trial by fire to being awake-aware. The simplicity of being awake does not appeal to the mind that feeds on complexity. Understandable.
Rod
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Re: After philosophy: authenticity

Post by Rod »

Pam, I have a theory to offer. To begin, let us note two stances you maintain: (1) there is a repose beyond reasoning, and (2) you are certain of your opinion, which suggests a truth or Truth. This arose from an experience you are reluctant to divulge.

In my studies of mysticism I came across the process of enlightenment. An early stage is the transcendence of good and evil. A later landmark achievement is acquaintance with ‘God’. I would call it Absolute Mind. This is oneness with creation. From there it becomes very interesting and relatively few mystics get to the ultimate end.

The ultimate realisation is the logos, or its equivalence in whatever tradition you care to name. To reach the logos an initiate has to transition the void. It is the place of the [Holy] Spirit that joins God—Godhead, Absolute Mind—logos. To be perfectly clear, the Trinity is True and the Spirit joins the Truth-related components.

The void could be experienced as a barren realm or it could be even more beatific than experiencing oneness with ‘God’. It seems the initiate could be distracted by spiritual bliss, whereupon the master of the tradition has to give some strict instructions [to Grasshopper] about staying the course.

I think you experienced the void as a barren realm. The void is within the domain of the Absolute, so it is imbued with profundity, but it need not involve absolute Truth! – It is a mystical place between, and separate from, Truth-associated reciprocals. I reckon your experience had no reference points because your immersion in the void happened without determined effort. You may have experience the Spirit as a fabulous warmth – let me admit that I have – and it is profound without bestowing Truth. Alternatively, where you found yourself was a place of ultimate tranquillity, and for the given reasons, a place without intimations of Truth.

A drug experience could have transported you into this realm, but you might be too embarrassed to admit it. Anyway, returning to the two feature of your very scant declaration: your insistence upon the truth / Truth of your experience based on something intense and the state of repose removed from philosophy. The few facts you provide fit with this scenario.

An experience without reference [because you experienced the void] left you adamant [because you were in the vicinity of Truth], and you think you are beyond Truth [because you were in a zone that can cause languidness]. I submit you were never beyond philosophy. You were in a metaphysical realm you do not have the intellectual gumption to investigate, but you are motivated like the Ancient Mariner to tell your tale.

Whether I am right or wrong use this theory to get your act together.
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Gustav Bjornstrand
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Re: After philosophy: authenticity

Post by Gustav Bjornstrand »

Pam wrote:The authentic quest or the quest for the real is the quest to break free from all thoughts systems, be they cultural, scientific or philosophical. Therefore, any quest of trying to understand a thought system is the inauthentic quest. Some insights on the quest for the authentic life:

No man is born seeking to break free from the attachment that is the natural effect of thought system-conditioning. Attachment to the inauthentic is given before detachment from the inauthentic is sought.

The quest for the authentic life is a slow burning awakening and not a thought (of enlightenment) that comes 'out of the blue.'

Those seeking absoluteness are unconsciously seeking authenticity.
I have been reading Heidegger's 'Plato's Doctrine of Truth' which explores the cave analogy. 'No man is born seeking to break free' could be taken in a similar way as the image of beings who are 'chained' to their 'system of perception', and thus too to a 'system of thought'. But the primary 'enchainment' - from a Platonic perspective as well as according to Pam here - is likely more complex. We are stuck, as it were, within a determined system which - at the outset - determines us rather completely. Our seeing - any seeing - must be seen as, shall we say, rudimentary. Similar perhaps to the way an animal perceives his 'world': there is no thought at all about it, no conceptualisation, no metaphysical distance. An animal is simply in its world and functions there according to determined rules.

In this sense, the second state or stage in the Platonic representation is lifting off the chains and binders which limit and direct perception. The further movement in the second state or stage is 'turning around' to catch a vision of what is producing the show.

Then there is an ascension into the light of the 'real sun' as the third state, and finally the forth state which is return to the dark, determined 'world' to help another 'turn'.

Heidegger takes a different tack in analysing this mythic representation. It is interesting. Instead of a somewhat typical interpretation of imagining some 'world beyond' which one enters to gain illumination, I am supposing that he imagines each state or stage as representing different relationships to perception. It is not exactly simple what he proposes. But in essence the purpose and function of 'consciousness' is to increase the solar (illuminating) power of consciousness itself, and to understand that 'light' is a total metaphor for clarity of consciousness, or in any case it is the very essence of consciousness itself.

I have a feeling though that Pam makes a mistake. I also note the same mistake in Seeker. It seems to be the failure to understand that it is consciousness itself, the Illuminator of the essence and the possibility of its own self (consciousness illuminating by consciousness if you will), which is essentially the only 'thing' that could be talked about, the essential thing to be focussed on.

But there is no way to separate this consciousness, and Illumination of it - given that It illumines Itself - from 'mind' and the functions of mind in this, our world. It seems that Seeker at least imagines an outside source, something beyond mind (our minds) which can be accessed through whatever procedures he speaks (obsessively) about.

I think this is false. More properly a 'mistaken angle'. Consciousness is in this sense mind, or mind and consciousness are part-and-parcel of each other. Seen in this way it is not that mind and 'system' need be done away with, but rather that the object must be a clarification of thought, and a 'brightening' of thought's possibilities. If we deal in 'systems of thought', and indeed we do, the question is Which are the better systems, and Who is undertaking thought at admirable and productive levels?

One then turns back toward the biological entity (the human being incarnated within the material, biological and energetic matrix), and then to the individual, and then of course to the 'nation' in order to sift through 'systems', but also mental practices, to make a determination as to which one (that is, what total process of use and application of consciousness) is better: more desirable and with best result.

The fallacy in Pam's imagined system is in a false establishment of a specific system (her system is expressed in what she has written here) that totalises in a strange way the work of consciousness in our world. It significantly misses a number of very important points about life, about gaining understanding as well as control and power within this domain.

Now, a tremendous assertion is made (and this Assertion links her vision quite tangibly with the operative predicates of the Genius Forum) about the value of this thing termed 'enlightenment'. I won't say more about it because, in fact, there is nothing that can be said about it, and no one ever says anything about it, because no one here 'has' it. It is an abstraction that is referred to, nothing more. It is in my view a trick perpetrated against the self, and if carried through is part of a nescience project, not the opposite.

Therefore, the 'quest for the authentic life' has not been decided (nor even marginally broached) by the simplistic diagram offered by Pam and which in different ways is rehearsed on these pages ad infinitum (and totally unproductively! that is what nescience really is: wasted effort, vain effort and dead-end). Oh no. The Question is brought to the fore with some force. In the best of all possible (intellectual) worlds the light of consciousness, the illuminating power which is the essence of consciousnness's possibility, is brought to bear on this Question.
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Pam Seeback
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Re: After philosophy: authenticity

Post by Pam Seeback »

Pam, I have a theory to offer. To begin, let us note two stances you maintain: (1) there is a repose beyond reasoning, and (2) you are certain of your opinion, which suggests a truth or Truth. This arose from an experience you are reluctant to divulge.
Let us note two stances I maintain? No need to go any further than this (assumed) truth of Pam disguised as a theory for Pam. The flaw of absolute idealism exposed.
SeekerOfWisdom
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Re: After philosophy: authenticity

Post by SeekerOfWisdom »

"But there is no way to separate this consciousness, and Illumination of it - given that It illumines Itself - from 'mind' and the functions of mind in this, our world. It seems that Seeker at least imagines an outside source, something beyond mind (our minds) which can be accessed through whatever procedures he speaks (obsessively) about. "

I do not agree, I never implied anything like that second sentence, in fact, I've said the opposite over and over. You simply project that logic based on your reasoning and context, which I also do not agree with.
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Gustav Bjornstrand
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Re: After philosophy: authenticity

Post by Gustav Bjornstrand »

This is what you last wrote:
Perhaps you misunderstand. The general 'claim' is that it far outweighs the insights and value of whatever other tools one can use. That doing so leads one to recognize truth that transcends any language, that applies to every aspect of life and every idea, that is certain and clear. The 'claim' is that it is of so much value that it is worth more than any material gain, that it far outweighs any choice, any lifestyle, and any perspective. That it is absolutely 'what you ought to do'.
A 'truth that transcends any language' implies something outside of the processes of language, perception, and valuation. I think that you confuse because your thoughts on your own topic are disordered. While that is certainly no crime, and everyone is in the same boat, I take issue with the negative implications of your assertion: it operates against positive knowledge by privileging some 'special knowledge', some special method that brings knowledge. The Platonic reference seems relevant to me because, well, it speaks about everything that you speak about, but orients the understanding differently (as I see it).

A 'knowledge system' is an accumulation of an application of consciousness and awareness. Perhaps it can be thought of as a 'netting'. It is thought, awareness, consciousness and 'tool' (to use your term) which combined become the subject of human concern.

You go on further (you launch into the sermonic) to say 'the claim is that it is worth much more than any material gain and that it far outweighs any choice, any lifestyle, and any perspective'.

And who in the name of heaven knows what 'it' is? I am not sure that you do!

It is interesting to me that Heidegger attemps to bring the definition the Greek word 'truth' back to its Greek meaning (aletheia = ἀλήθεια) as 'unhiddenness'. What is hidden and what is unhidden is an interesting topic.

In my view, your 'declaration' is derived from religious - possibly Christian - declaration. You hold up this *thing* of inestimable value and privelage it above anything else. Yet what *it* is is not articulated.

I prefer to attempt to define unhiddenness in relation to knowledge generally, and to see it all functioning together. Obviously, one could not exclude whatever polishes or makes bright consciousness and awareness. But these occur within our life, within our minds, and in our knowledge systems. Heaven only knows what you are on about ...
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SeekerOfWisdom
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Re: After philosophy: authenticity

Post by SeekerOfWisdom »

Then there you go, avoidance of contemplation, ignorance.
Last edited by SeekerOfWisdom on Fri Apr 15, 2016 4:09 am, edited 1 time in total.
Pam Seeback
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Re: After philosophy: authenticity

Post by Pam Seeback »

Gustav: Our seeing - any seeing - must be seen as, shall we say, rudimentary. Similar perhaps to the way an animal perceives his 'world': there is no thought at all about it, no conceptualisation, no metaphysical distance. An animal is simply in its world and functions there according to determined rules.
Ciao Alex. :-) Not so much rudimentary as natural. You used the phrase 'determined rules', I prefer the phrase 'natural law.' While you may not have intended to imply a self-in-control in your turn of phrase, I inferred one, ergo the phrase replacement.

The metaphysic-hunting man has blocked his way to discovery of this natural law with the irony being that the natural law causes the blockage, the discovery of the blockage and the removal of the blockage. Another way of saying this is that the natural law is not a metaphysic yet the natural law causes the hunt for a metaphysic to explain the (yet unrealized) natural law.
I have a feeling though that Pam makes a mistake. I also note the same mistake in Seeker. It seems to be the failure to understand that it is consciousness itself, the Illuminator of the essence and the possibility of its own self (consciousness illuminating by consciousness if you will), which is essentially the only 'thing' that could be talked about, the essential thing to be focussed on.
Being focused on consciousness is to perceive consciousness as a thing. Which starts the story or metaphysics of consciousness. The story or metaphysics of consciousness is the blockage. The blockage causes tension, the tension causes the hunt for another story, round and round we go. When tension and metaphysic-hunting are present, clarity of insight is obscured. What do I mean by clarity of insight? The natural arising of the causal patterns that form each moment of awareness.

The whole point of insight meditation is to become aware of how consciousness tenses itself 'so as to see itself' and how this tension causes unnecessary suffering. It bears saying because of our history together that insight meditation is not a trying to escape nor is it a belief in a separate realm.
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Gustav Bjornstrand
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Re: After philosophy: authenticity

Post by Gustav Bjornstrand »

It is always the same Pam between you and me. Your discourse - fairly obvious if you examine your last 300 posts - turns back into itself and I get the impression that if your discourse advances it is essentially when it becomes more and more abstracted from any real thing, any 'tangible' thing as I say.

This morning I was thinking, once again, how much I 'owe' Genius Forum. But only because it has given me the opportunity to develop a discourse that opposes its tenets. We could hem and haw as to whether 'it' is a real thing (a forum-consensus, an attitude, an orientation) yet there is some unifying characteristic one notices here. It attracts a certain species of religious nut. To identify it, to label it, to understand it, is devilishly difficult, yet important.

But here is the essence: to locate the core premise that operates among so many of 'you' requires the aid of a 'master metaphysician' and since no master metaphysician is available one has to assume the role. And what that means is someone with the breadth and depth to be able to see, from some point above, what it is that 'you' are doing, and then, secondarily but no less importantly, why you do it. The third position is to become skilled in opposing it, but not in opposing you but only the endeavour; in laying bare its fallacious, ineffective postulates.

It looks to me like a total dead-end. Dead-ends do not become immediately visible as such. One notices a dead-end usually at a later point. Kids will pick up this shite and run with it, and my contention is that it is only later that the mistakes made will become apparent. That is a bit harsh I know but it is an honest statement of what I see.

You perform a magic trick which in my view is a 'dialectical sin' by wiping all such and any such considerations off the board. Not only do you destroy 'metaphysic' (whatever that means for you) but you destroy mind and intellect. Seeker is notable in doing this, too, and with religious relish and zealousness. Yet I doubt that either of you really understand what you are doing and why.

This is how you express it:
Being focused on consciousness is to perceive consciousness as a thing. Which starts the story or metaphysics of consciousness. The story or metaphysics of consciousness is the blockage. The blockage causes tension, the tension causes the hunt for another story, round and round we go. When tension and metaphysic-hunting are present, clarity of insight is obscured. What do I mean by clarity of insight? The natural arising of the causal patterns that form each moment of awareness.
Well, if that is your starting point, the enunciation of your predicate, then it should be quite clear what needs be done. You worship in some sense a cessation. At other times I have called it 'death'. Simply put, it takes you out of any 'world' that I know, understand and value, and into the 'world' (of unending rounds of speech-arcana and language-gibberish) of your delight. And it is clearly a delight. It is the delightful place where you choose to be and to reside.

If you were the age of Seeker or Russell just imagine the years and years of delightful language-gibberish you'd have in front of you. The thread 'Talking to the wall is not Genius' could go on to Page 10,000 and maybe 100,000. So much language-pleasure to be extracted there, such perfection of an absurdist dialectic. But, it is possible (as Mr D has recently said) to 'grow up'. In my view 'growing up' is also sobering up and taking stock.

I radically oppose the entire spiritual or 'contemplative' endeavour as it is enunciated here. But in no sense do I dismiss 'absolutism' or the notion of the 'absolute'. I already articulate what it is I value and why so repetition is unnecessary. All that I really want to say is that I have gotten an extraordinary amount out of the necessary opposition. I can only hope that you have been yourself similarly benefitted ...

You simply cannot know, and you do not know, how numerous aspects of this endeavour you outline is connected to destructive actions and activities and in what precise sense it is an 'acid'. To see that requires a metaphysical vantage (and a 'master metaphysician'). I desire to be counter-acid.
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: After philosophy: authenticity

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

movingalways wrote:Authentic: not false or copied; genuine; real (dictionary.com)

The authentic quest or the quest for the real is the quest to break free from all thoughts systems, be they cultural, scientific or philosophical. Therefore, any quest of trying to understand a thought system is the inauthentic quest.
It's hard to for me to envision anyone breaking away from the very thing defining us, that is: anything that might be authentic or genuine about ourselves or relating to our life; our sense of what's "real".
Those seeking absoluteness are unconsciously seeking authenticity.
After mastering physics comes metaphysics, after mastering philosophy comes... what? Perhaps stopping to look for afters and befores? The mind itself, the core of awareness is this very inquiry, this curiosity and quest. Why the heart pumps, the lungs breath and the mind turns and overturns. Go with it or when it's time, make room for those who will. Understanding this is not more authentic than not understanding this. Exactly that demonstrates the freedom.
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Gustav Bjornstrand
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Re: After philosophy: authenticity

Post by Gustav Bjornstrand »

Diebert wrote:Your new self-appointed role as defender of the forum would be more convincing if your were not so busy to "develop a discourse that opposes its tenets" or claiming it "attracts a certain species of religious nut" or is " total dead-end" with "absurdist dialectic" all over the place, even with you opposing "the entire spiritual or 'contemplative' endeavour as it is enunciated here" (this forum) and suggesting "that this is all front, deception, and in many ways a convoluted lie". Is it a good place where you have for years in full freedom been able to lay down your opposition until today, or is it a repressive, deceptive place filled with nuts? Perhaps a bit of both? Or perhaps just accept your own premise before criticizing others?
As I understand things, and if one takes philosophy seriously, and ideas seriously, one is duty-bound to grapple with them and also to decide, or make proposals toward solutions. Each statement that I made and which you quoted is not a mere arbitrary spur of the moment opinion, though it is all opinion, but rather a relationship to a structure of idea, to a metaphysical vision, which is represented on this forum and in the world surrounding us. The topic of the forum is exactly that, and the endeavour here is to enter into that idea-battle and to decide things. When one decides something, one makes a concrete choice to apply one's decision, and the subject of that is likely to be the self. One's self, one's discourse.

I am totally committed to developing counter-proposals to the tenets I note which support a metaphysical relationship which, as I see and understand things, leads to dead-ends. I am opposed as well to what I see as 'absurdist dialectics' and to the sort of postmodern religious nuttery that I notice. Every position of mine, and every elucidation of it, is fair game and is not to be controlled or limited by you or by anyone.

I understand our 'present' as one that arises - if one can choose a specific point - out of a postwar intellectual dynamic. To connect what is said and done in our present, and what is recommended by the absolutism that is suggested by the Forum's title, is up for critical analysis. These are the core and the essential metaphysical questions of our day.

That you do not see this, or do not care to see it, or have carved out an island where only your understandings reign, is of zero concern to me. You do not decide and you do not mediate what relationship anyone shall have to any question at all. You can present your case, you can make a defense if you like, but you cannot control my or anyone's focus.

The problem here is that you think that you can, and you have recently been abusing your position as one with moderator powers to disrupt the flow of conversation.

I will explain, and I can explain, and I do explain, every detail of my opposition to a general set of tenets. The forum established itself, and the intellectual position of the forum involves itself, in taking a stand against delusion. If delusion is considered as real, and if you consider this endeavor as valid and important, then you should have no argument against what I choose to do. If you don't like the focus of my endeavour, avoid my posts.
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: After philosophy: authenticity

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

Gustav Bjornstrand wrote:Each statement that I made and which you quoted is not a mere arbitrary spur of the moment opinion, though it is all opinion, but rather a relationship to a structure of idea, to a metaphysical vision, which is represented on this forum and in the world surrounding us.
Then I suggest you present it more clearly as a critique on the "world" or some subset of that world, some aspect. It's really muddling your message to apply it specially to the forum you're posting in or as some quality of (most) of its members, its "type". And when I object, it's not because I disagree or believe the forum is something to defend against your critique but just because it seems so unreasonable to select this forum or its coming and going members as some kind of perfect, illustrating example of your larger issue with the surrounding world like modernity, Zeitgeist and so on. For you it seems natural to do so but for me it shows like completely missing the boat.
You can present your case, you can make a defense if you like, but you cannot control my or anyone's focus.
It's not up to you to tell me what I can or cannot do to stimulate focus by removing spammers or occasionally moving topics. Your objection is noted. Plus, you just wrote you wouldn't add anything to this "stupid topic" so I assume we can let it rest.
If delusion is considered as real, and if you consider this endeavor as valid and important, then you should have no argument against what I choose to do. If you don't like the focus of my endeavour, avoid my posts.
And my advice would be again to focus on some other aspects than the ones I listed, which you seem to repeat over and over. Your particular attempts to weave a "metaphysics" out of your world-view (and forum-view) seems to me borderline abusive, to reason and sometimes as well to people. But not to the extent I'd remove any of it. It's too late for that... so many, hundreds of bloody posts already...out, damn'd spot! out, I say!—One; two: why, then 't is time to do't.—Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?
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Gustav Bjornstrand
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Re: After philosophy: authenticity

Post by Gustav Bjornstrand »

After mastering physics comes metaphysics, after mastering philosophy comes... what? Perhaps stopping to look for afters and befores? The mind itself, the core of awareness is this very inquiry, this curiosity and quest. Why the heart pumps, the lungs breath and the mind turns and overturns. Go with it or when it's time, make room for those who will. Understanding this is not more authentic than not understanding this. Exactly that demonstrates the freedom.
This is an elucidation of a very specific position, and as such it can be understood as a platform, as well as a suggestion about what sort of activity is superior and inferior, higher and lower. It seems to me that this encapsulates the particular view of a particular man at a particular juncture. And my reading is of a tired man who has come to the end of his roads of inquiry and desires to 'rest' with an internalized philosophical position.

But this position itself is a metaphysical position, and this position itself can be looked at. I am interested in looking, contextually, at the man who wrote this. I am interested in understanding how and why he has come to the end of roads and can imply 'mastered metaphysic' and 'mastery of philosophy' and - is this not implied here? - some dissatisfaction with the possibilities of a life lived in relation to ideas. But really the general question What is going on in this statement? is what interests me. This does lead into the territory of psychologism: the relevance of psychology for analysis in various fields, such as history and philosophy.
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: After philosophy: authenticity

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

Gustav Bjornstrand wrote:
After mastering physics comes metaphysics, after mastering philosophy comes... what? Perhaps stopping to look for afters and befores? The mind itself, the core of awareness is this very inquiry, this curiosity and quest. Why the heart pumps, the lungs breath and the mind turns and overturns. Go with it or when it's time, make room for those who will. Understanding this is not more authentic than not understanding this. Exactly that demonstrates the freedom.
This is an elucidation of a very specific position, and as such it can be understood as a platform
I certainly do not accept your conclusion that this amounts to specific positions and platforms. It's even the opposite: you appear to really desire to put everything and everyone in a world of platforms and positions, like your own private puppeteer game. It would explain how often you appear to argue with a hand puppet and not with what people actually trying to say to you. Not always, just a tendency I noticed and I've seen others remarking on it, too.
as well as a suggestion about what sort of activity is superior and inferior, higher and lower.
But didn't I just write "understanding this is not more authentic than not understanding this" which would imply the opposite of that suggestion!
What is going on in this statement? is what interests me. This does lead into the territory of psychologism: the relevance of psychology for analysis in various fields, such as history and philosophy.
You're making way too much of it. Which is a statement encapsulating nearly half of all my criticism ever written in reply to your posts. So chew on it!
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Gustav Bjornstrand
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Re: After philosophy: authenticity

Post by Gustav Bjornstrand »

But not to the extent I'd remove any of it.
What interesting phrasing.
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Gustav Bjornstrand
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Re: After philosophy: authenticity

Post by Gustav Bjornstrand »

Sure, seeing platforms and positions is vital. That is my view. Very much so. Although I think you often wind up in quite convoluted discourse, and are rather slippery overall, I think that your position is one that has tenets and these can be located and discussed. If you were to disagree, how would you do it?

One might not get it all 'absolutely right' but that is not the point: the point is to gain the skill in seeing what is behind the scene, what motivates our ideas.

The puppeteer image is curious. It harkens to a notion of causation, a rather big deal to some of the positions articulated on this forum. But yes, I am interested in 'motivating idea' and 'metaphysic' as that which controls and dictates what 'feels right' to us when we opine about things.

I am making 'way too much of it', eh?

Duly noted.
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: After philosophy: authenticity

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

Gustav Bjornstrand wrote:Although I think you often wind up in quite convoluted discourse, and are rather slippery overall, I think that your position is one that has tenets and these can be located and discussed. If you were to disagree, how would you do it?
Disagreement only makes sense if you first establish the common agreed upon tenets. For example certain logical propositions. Disagreement becomes meaningless if all one does is showing how tenets and platforms seem to differ. It's basically already sabotaging a disagreement before it can even develop. A disagreement in terms of an actual dialogue I mean. In one's own monologue there are no such requirements. And I believe you are mostly in a monologue.
One might not get it all 'absolutely right' but that is not the point: the point is to gain the skill in seeing what is behind the scene, what motivates our ideas.
Isn't that being way too wrapped up in teleology? It starts already with asserting a need or obviousness of some purpose, directive principle or goal. Perhaps some instance that it needs to be there, as above so below?
interested in 'motivating idea' and 'metaphysic' as that which controls and dictates what 'feels right' to us when we opine about things.
Don't forget the reverse of that, a way bigger, juicier target: the "feeling right" which controls and dictates 'motivating idea' and 'metaphysics' when we opine about things. This is also called "emotional blinders" where I'd define emotion as social passion directly linked to a feeling or "right and wrong" or a sense of being just or false, all determined by forces which have their own purpose. And some of them don't even appear to have that. And why would they?
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Gustav Bjornstrand
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Re: After philosophy: authenticity

Post by Gustav Bjornstrand »

Diebert wrote:Disagreement only makes sense if you first establish the common agreed upon tenets. For example certain logical propositions. Disagreement becomes meaningless if all one does is showing how tenets and platforms seem to differ. It's basically already sabotaging a disagreement before it can even develop. A disagreement in terms of an actual dialogue I mean. In one's own monologue there are no such requirements. And I believe you are mostly in a monologue.
It is true that if in a disagreement neither party, or perhaps only one, understands well on what the disagreement stands, that the disagreement shows itself and becomes 'meaningless' and futile. But then to define the 'meaning' of both an argument/disagreement and then the 'meaning' that informs each position as some positive value is then the essence of the difference of view. I prefer to couch my discourse within declarations of 'value', and in this way I suggest that philosophy and spirituality (the essence of this forum) must help in defining value. It must also become tangible. It must tie in to one's relationship with one's place, one's people and - of course - one's nation. When I speak of 'tangibility' I am essentially speaking to increasingly tangible manifestations of philosophically-defined value. If it moves away from that it becomes, to me, far less interesting. It begins to move toward the 'irrelevant'.

Now 'dialogue' as you use the term is curious. You cannot have a dialogue unless you have interlocutors who understand, in full dimension, the topic at hand. Dialogue becomes strained when two people are operating from radically different presuppositions. It is true that in such a situation the opposing position, which appears so foreign and perhaps 'ignorant', cannot actually be viewed. In order to understand difference, or the dynamic of an argument, requires a backing away from it. I prefer to think of it as an elevation from it, and I prefer to see the elevation(s) that exist as metaphysical positions.

Sabotaging a disagreement? That is a curious sentence. To sabotage a disagreement would imply coming to an agreement. I have found that 'monologue' is not really a bad position, though you mean it as a critique. The best that we (people generally) may be able to do is to articulate well a given position, and gain skill doing it. You don't ever have to 'dialogue' with those who are in agreement with you in the sense of engage in dialectical (creative) processes. In that situation yo 'preach to the converted'. It is much more interesting to operate counter-propositionally. There is the element of fun as well as that of developing and honing ideas.
Isn't that being way too wrapped up in teleology? It starts already with asserting a need or obviousness of some purpose, directive principle or goal. Perhaps some instance that it needs to be there, as above so below?
I don't think you quite grasp what my orientation is or desires to be. I return to the statement: "The point is to gain skill in seeing what is behind the scenes, what motivates our ideas". What this means is seeing, and being conscious about, how ideas control and determine our actions, the way we see and understand ourselves, as well as our culture and the processes that have enabled our culture to come into existence. In my view, to gain this skill leads immediately to a protective, defensive position: and for this reason I speak about opposing 'acids' and elements and activities which weaken ideation and masculine strength in holding to certain valuations.

I would very certainly, and adamantly, define the importance of delineating 'obviousness of purpose, 'directive principle, and 'goal'. I would turn against everything that dulls that knife, so to speak. And with this, and between me and you, I see you as the weak, female, tired European. You've run out of steam. You seem to have lost an edge which I will fight to recover and to establish as a 'value'. And behind this difference I will seek to discover and uncover the metaphysical predicate that renders you thus weakened and ineffective. Leading a tribe of boyish intellects toward ... toward what exactly Diebert? Everything hinges here. I see you not as masculine and powerful, masculine and defining, but weakened and convoluting. This is my legitimate critique and it is suggested here on a forum dedicated to dialectics which can, and will, get bloody and hard from time to time. Don't piss your pants.

As Leyla recently said 'Be a man'.
Don't forget the reverse of that, a way bigger, juicier target: the "feeling right" which controls and dictates 'motivating idea' and 'metaphysics' when we opine about things. This is also called "emotional blinders" where I'd define emotion as social passion directly linked to a feeling or "right and wrong" or a sense of being just or false, all determined by forces which have their own purpose. And some of them don't even appear to have that. And why would they?
Cut the crap Diebert. What your 'target' is, who the fuck knows? It is a tactic of yours to redefine a proposition in some way that you appear, to yourself at least, to dominate it. You talk in circles. I am glad that you agree with my main point though. But I would say that instead of 'emotional blinders' and elaborate defence-systems against ideas that might undermine one's position, that one begin to establish 'intellectual focus' that keeps one's ideas moving toward focus in relation to self, and as I say to the tangible things and attainments toward which philosophy and spirituality must be oriented.
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Russell Parr
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Re: After philosophy: authenticity

Post by Russell Parr »

It's always the same story with dear old Alex. He plays nice for a bit, but once it gets too personal, too real, too close affecting his ego, all hell breaks lose.

Despite his claims, his goal is definitely that of ego preservation, as opposed to assumingly most of ours, that of ego transcendence. His declaration that he's here to explore cultural and religious influences is just a cover. He hides this truth from himself and others through verbose, oh so verbose, intellectual dialogue. The results are eventual and inevitable: ad hominem and general slander towards the purpose of the forum. He claims a desire to cure us of our acidic tendencies while flinging his own acid, stepped up in vileness, towards everyone. He prances around like an annoying jester, distracting with gifted elaborate discourse while secretly crapping on everyone's dinner plate.

It happens again and again, with each resurrection, each new head of the hydra, with a new name, while his actual name remains hidden from what I understand. Which is the point, afterall; to annihilate clear-cut Truth in order to maintain some sort of vagueness. It's ironic if you think about it: the fruition of his movement would be the total destruction of the very place he loves to hate.

He is here to fulfil his disturbing sadistic addiction. It eventually goes from an anomaly to downright distraction. For me, the question invariably becomes: Should we continue to tolerate his intolerance?
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: After philosophy: authenticity

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

Gustav Bjornstrand wrote:I prefer to couch my discourse within declarations of 'value', and in this way I suggest that philosophy and spirituality (the essence of this forum) must help in defining value.
A better approach, with this philosophy at least, would be the complete annihilation of value first. A true revaluation. And by God, you don't need philosophy and spirituality to supply you with propping of your old values or defining your new ones. But this might explain why you are struggling so much with what must appears as nihilism to you or even "death wishes".
It must also become tangible. It must tie in to one's relationship with one's place, one's people and - of course - one's nation. When I speak of 'tangibility' I am essentially speaking to increasingly tangible manifestations of philosophically-defined value. If it moves away from that it becomes, to me, far less interesting. It begins to move toward the 'irrelevant'.
That reads to me like: things are tangible as long as they are relating to me, the chimera! As long as that is your requirement, your discourse will be meaningless to anyone interested in the subject of this forum. But more importantly also any disagreement or attempted discourse against this, like you said to attempt here, will become meaningless as too many steps are skipped. It seems that like through pure stubbornness and forcefulness you envision to cross a bridge over troubled water, or to get something through "thick skulls" by the magic of osmosis. But in reality you're just doing this for yourself. Some of the more fleshed out reasoning I wrote down in Object & subject through genderization. You are not even operating in the same "gender"! And like your new found heroin Leyla and many others, instead of accepting ones own orientation and fundamental differences, it becomes just fuel to harass, convert, influence or undermine whatever is presented here. The fuel is a sense of purpose which is borrowed from the second-hand direction present in the shadows here. It's illusion but it's free and rare!
In order to understand difference, or the dynamic of an argument, requires a backing away from it. I prefer to think of it as an elevation from it, and I prefer to see the elevation(s) that exist as metaphysical positions.
You're assuming that's possible but if it is, it would be similar to the discovery and exploration of the subject and shifting perspectives. The very act is a spiritual notion and hardly any academic or intellectual exercise. It's also contextual and personal. What you find might not enable any conversation at all, it could make it even harder. Who knows.
Isn't that being way too wrapped up in teleology? It starts already with asserting a need or obviousness of some purpose, directive principle or goal. Perhaps some instance that it needs to be there, as above so below?
I don't think you quite grasp what my orientation is or desires to be. I return to the statement: "The point is to gain skill in seeing what is behind the scenes, what motivates our ideas". What this means is seeing, and being conscious about, how ideas control and determine our actions, the way we see and understand ourselves, as well as our culture and the processes that have enabled our culture to come into existence.
But it all implies purpose, directive principle or goal to be in place, somewhere, in some agent or collection of agents. Which you call here now "processes" or "control" and some hidden motivations. That's what I meant with "teleological". You cannot just assert some isolated motivation which doesn't derive purpose from another directive principle which is asserted, often even metaphysically.
As Leyla recently said 'Be a man'.
For any woman the man represents any "thing" that is geared toward her needs or fantasy, ultimately her world, her being. Go against it and manhood, "use", "essence" or "body" is instantly doubted or rejected. And you're doing that of course on this forum from the start.
What your 'target' is, who the fuck knows? It is a tactic of yours to redefine a proposition in some way that you appear, to yourself at least, to dominate it. You talk in circles.
But that doesn't make it untrue. But you're looking for something again which naturally is just not there. You're still making "too much of it".
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Gustav Bjornstrand
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Re: After philosophy: authenticity

Post by Gustav Bjornstrand »

Russell, if you desire to understand what I mean by 'acids', and if you desire to understand how 'acids', when brought against the self, and against the mind and the intellect, and rational processes, you might consider a detailed and honest evaluation of the result of 'ego transcendence' as it appears in your essay.

What determines your anti-ego stance is an aspect of a metaphysical position - a severe misinterpretation in my view - to which you are so committed that little of what I attempt to speak about can get through. Behind our 'declarations' is a complex metaphysical structure that takes time and effort to see.
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Gustav Bjornstrand
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Re: After philosophy: authenticity

Post by Gustav Bjornstrand »

Your annihilation of value, Diebert, as it seems to be, and your 'reevaluation' in whatever terms, results in the stance you have and that you inhabit. That does not interest me at all. In my view, your stance and where you have arrived philosophically, is one that I would recommend avoiding. You seem to find yourself in a morass. The metaphor of 'a spider in her web' seems fitting. As fate would have it you have inherited a forum where you fulfil the role of a mother-spider in an intricate web. I thought today that the 'help desk' could better be named 'The Spider Pit' and the victims you send there to feed on before you eject them might be macabre monuments to the result of this 'philosophy'. ;-)

Philosophy, spirituality, and religion-in-essence or 'of essences', is in my mind the precise topic. And at the core of it is value. If you cannot locate and define value, I reckon you'd be generally rudderless, at least in respect to the philosophical and existential values I'd be interested in defining.

To understand the very real aspect of nihilism that is part-and-parcel of a general approach one readily notices in many different places in intellectual culture, and often here particularly, is an interesting exploratory exercise which yields result. The 'death' that concerns me, is that these various positions will end nihilistically because they are in essence destructive to self. Russell I think nicely illustrated this in his recent example. And I certainly do 'struggle' with that, and against that. And it should be struggled against. It calls forth a counter-measure. It requires it.

This has not to do with 'me', that is your mistake. If you could make it so, a good part of your battle could be won though, wouldn't it? This is often turned by you into a personal debate with cries of 'abuse' and such. In fact it has to do with the impersonal and the ideal and with ideas much more generally. In its better form a 'metaphysic' is an imperative structure which is by nature impersonal.

This convoluted paragraph beginning with 'That reads to me like' is not worth picking through. Yet is is classic Diebertianism. You restate and misstate, and for your own reasons.

Now, 'thick skulls' - your term not mine - is interesting because the 'religious nutter', often as a general rule, cannot and will not deal in higher ideas and ideals, but tends to dogmatic positions, and is often unprepared philosophically. So, yes, it is hard to get through a 'thick skull' of that sort but it is not so much thickness or density but rather lack of preparation, and lack of desire to understand philosophy and spirituality and religion in the context of 'our present'.

Everyone should be involved in ideas 'for themselves'. To order oneself, to arrive at understanding, and to gain skill in communicating ideas is a personal project. It starts there. The subject is the person. You interpret what I think and write as 'harassment', and you succeed in getting this to stick, but that is not my focus.
You're assuming that's possible but if it is, it would be similar to the discovery and exploration of the subject and shifting perspectives. The very act is a spiritual notion and hardly any academic or intellectual exercise.
Well, with that you reveal why the various labels you try to stick on me are inadequate. It certainly is possible in any case.
But it all implies purpose, directive principle or goal to be in place, somewhere, in some agent or collection of agents.
Yes indeed.
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Gustav Bjornstrand
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Re: After philosophy: authenticity

Post by Gustav Bjornstrand »

Ok, Russell. In thinking over your operative notion about 'ego transcendence' (and note that an operative notion, and being able to locate and distinguish them, is a critical work in my view), I came up with the following:

To the idea of 'ego transcendence' I would posit:

Being - heritage - locale - tradition - continuity - disposition. These are not transcendable. This is the stuff of existence, and 'authentic existence' is defined by noticing within existence what is real or valuable. One finds in this (in these facts of existence) the coded keys that must be deciphered to glean an image of 'metaphysic'.

A metaphysic in this sense is only attainable as idea or suggestion when it is achieved inductively from a situation: the situation of being - heritage - locale - tradition, et cetera. One must have a 'situation' for analysis, and the ideal situation, for us, is our European situation, which actually means our very selves.

To propose 'ego transcendence' is absurd insofar as people (this means: person = being - heritage - tradition - locale and self) do not appear in transcendent terms, and they are not transcendent to anything. And they are not 'transcended'. They are realnesses. They represent tangibles. And to see them requires tangible skills, the skills of tangible analysis.

One cannot locate a transcendence. One views the tangible, the present (what is present and viewable) and one transcends it to a metaphysical perspective that feeds self-understanding and presence-in-the-world. If it functions against that, I suggest, it is 'acidic' and 'destructive'.

To visualise 'ego transcendence' is absurd and the idea itself, as explained, in not productive to self-actualization. Yet to see in transcendent terms is a high attainment.
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