Serendipper wrote: ↑Tue Apr 03, 2018 7:08 am
jupiviv wrote: ↑Tue Apr 03, 2018 5:34 amIf it is interpreted by someone else in the intended way, then the same meaning occurs in their mind as well. To the extent they can't discern *any* meaning in the statement, it is gibberish to them.
Yes exactly, but that doesn't mean the meaning wasn't contained therein; not objectively, but subjectively.
If meaning occurs in the mind of a person (whether issuer, or, one or several interpreters), then the medium through which that meaning is conveyed does not contain it. I don't understand how containment can be either objective or subjective.
Self-evidence is relative to the self doing the observing. If all selves have the same interpretation, then it's seemingly objective, but not really since it's still a collection of opinions. If the selves are different, then truth will be different depending who you ask. Either way, no objective statement can be made and it's up to you to determine whether that is true or not.
It is logically impossible to tell whether or not all selves have the same interpretation of a phenomenon. It is also impossible to tell if an interpretation of a phenomenon by another self is subjective or not. On the other hand, it is possible to tell if one is interpreting a phenomenon truthfully, and if someone else shares that interpretation. A definition of truth based upon the perceived nature of other selves' interpretation of phenomena is fallacious, since any such definition implicitly depends upon one's own interpretation of phenomena, as you demonstrated above.
It's not a question of whether you are a part of something or not, but whether that something is merely finite or the All. If it is the All, then the quality of "being part of it", or indeed any other quality, means nothing in relation to you or any other finite thing. It only means something in relation to the All, and since it's supposed to apply to you and not to the All, it might as well mean nothing. One might say, "we are totally distinct from the All", and mean the same thing.
The All can occupy all available places to occupy and still be finite. If we are continuous with the All, then there is no us, but just the All. There is no fate because there is no one to be fated.
But even saying "there is just the All" is just another clever way of making the error of relating to the All
on our own terms. If you had said "the All occupies all available places and hence is infinite" you would be making the same error. The error lies in using a finite thing to relate to the All, instead of putting oneself directly in relation to it. If you earnestly seek God in marriage, your wife will eventually get bored and start giggling at things that aren't funny, and you will most certainly regret it. If you seek God in celibacy, your inner wife will eventually get bored and nag your resolve or your sanity (whichever comes first) out of your skull, and you will regret that as well.
We can never relate ourselves to the All as parts of a whole, or as expressions or manifestations of an eternal will (or Will, as Schopenhauer would have it), if "part", "whole", "expression" etc are understood in the same sense as in the case of finite things. Being a part of the All, or a vessel of the All's will, or a chain in the causal web, are not qualities, states or principles which can be understood, attained or realised in order to embrace truth and virtue. They can't even be understood with the "zennish", clever, sophistic sort of cafe philosophy/spirituality/intellectualism that prevails in our age. The great suras and asuras of this age - the Trumps, Trudeaus, Jordan Petersons and Jeremy Corbyns - prance around the whirlpool of non-sequiturs that now passes for information & rational discourse, and the sordid Nibelungs spin round and round, adding their own non-sequiturs to the current when the spinning overwhelms them.
If everything is a non-sequitur the term loses its meaning as it indeed almost has for many people in our Just-In-Time global energy system/economy. But the All is the supreme non-sequitur and abides no other. Thus spoke Zarathustra, indulging his love of Wagner through the prancing Rhijn nixie called "life" (whom he, unfortunately, did not marry):
Then life looked pensively behind her and around her and said softly: "Oh Zarathustra, you are not faithful enough for me!
You do not love me nearly as much as you say; I know you are thinking of leaving me soon.
There is an old heavy, heavy growling bell: it growls at night all the way up to your cave –
– when you hear this bell toll the hour at midnight, then you think between one and twelve about –
– you think, oh Zarathustra, I know it, about how you will soon leave me!” –
"Yes," I answered, hesitating. "But you also know –" And I said something in her ear, right in it between her tangled yellow, foolish shaggy locks.
"You know that, oh Zarathustra? No one knows that." –
And we looked at each other and gazed at the green meadow, over which the cool evening had just spread, and we wept together. – But at that moment I loved life more than I ever loved all my wisdom. –
But I digress. No matter how beautiful, clever or reasonable one's visions of All-comprising, All-channeling or All-being might be, they shall not share their pillow with the Gay Science, for it is abomination. By themselves, they are harmless, but when placed in the service of that aforementioned modern spirituality they become dangerous. An assertion is made, like "you are part of the external world", and then it is followed up with non-sequiturs like "the final barrier between the knower and the known is broken down" and "there is just the process". It doesn't matter, because even the original assertion was a non-sequitur. The real motive is the wish to be reborn in the heavenly realms of form and formlessness. Such a wish, if uttered in moist anticipation beneath certain peepal trees, might be taken into consideration by the resident arhat spirit. If it is granted, the wisher shall possess the power to transform his non-sequiturs into a formless "the process" and back again. The only problem is that this is not wisdom - it is an ataraxia produced by reproducing assorted pieces of reasoning imported from the Orient within an air-conditioned mind.
Something marvelous has happened to me. I was transported to the seventh heaven. There sat all the gods assembled. As a special dispensation, I was granted the favor of making a wish. "What do you want," asked Mercury. "Do you want youth, or beauty, or power, or a long life, or the most beautiful girl, or anyone of the other glorious things we have in the treasure chest? Choose-but only one thing." For a moment I was bewildered; then I addressed the gods, saying: My esteemed contemporaries, I choose one thing-that I may always have the laughter on my side. Not one of the gods said a word; instead, all of them began to laugh. From that I concluded that my wish was granted and decided that the gods knew how to express themselves with good taste, for it would indeed have been inappropriate to reply solemnly: It is granted to you. - Kierkegaard, Either/Or