GENIUS FORUMS

Trevor Salyzyn wrote:
You evidently don't care, but people who care about truth worry about definitions.

Then their truth is pretty feeble, and their mentality even weaker if definitions cause them to worry, and thus suffer.

I think you should practise logic. Start with A=A and work your way up to the principle of non-contradiction.

By the time you die, hopefully you will understand syllogisms, but I wouldn't bet on it.

I've already gone beyond the simple basics that amaze and confuse you.

Thanks for the consideration though, I would give you advice -- but I just don't care enough about you.

=]

I've already gone beyond the simple basics that amaze and confuse you.

Doubtful. You still contradict yourself.

Trevor Salyzyn wrote:Lyk,

Whatever anyone else may believe, I think empirical science beats the crap out of armchair theorizing.

Empirical science would not exist without "armchair theorizing".

Yes, for the sake of clarity I could have written, "I think that reasoning combined with empiricism is far superior to reasoning alone," although I might have hoped that you would apply the principle of charity to my statement before calling it dumb. Of course empirical science employs reasoning, and likewise of course its methods were devised by an exercise of pre-scientific thought.

(On the outside chance you will still dispute my claim, please do so while considering that Aristotle believed that large rocks fall faster than small rocks, and that women had more teeth than men. He might have had reasons to believe these kinds of things, but given the results of very elementary observation, I have reasons to believe he was incorrect.)

Trevor wrote:

"Socrates will always be rationalism. I especially love how he tricked the Oracle at Delphi into insulting every man in Athens. It took him one sentence ("I am not wise at all.")."

It seems to me that Socrates (Plato) looks 'rational' and seems to use a rational methodology, but platonism and neo-platonism are based in outrageous and unfounded suppositions: that there is a 'real world' behind or beyond this world (the world of forms) that is the source of everything in our own world. There idea is quintessentially metaphysical. It is a rationalistic way to describe an essentially religious viewpoint.

David Quinn wrote:

"People fear truth because they think it is going to destroy all enjoyment and pleasure from life. They are like kids who just want to keep playing with their toys.

"The wave of truth does indeed sweep away all the normal worldly toys, but it also brings other kinds of toys. These toys are exotic and deep and very interesting if you have the right turn of mind for them. The life of wisdom is certainly not without its pleasures and amusements."

There is always the same tone from you, Mr Quinn. You deal in absolutes. There is a portentiousness in what you write, as if what you say should be evident to anyone who has a required level of intelligence, someone who has ascended to your level. One gets the impression that you suppose you have arrived at 'truth' and therefor can pontificate about it, yet it is necessary to point out that there seems to be no single truth that someone can just lay there hands on, grab like some object. Your position seems to function within a similar sort of arrogance as the classical religionsit, only you suppose you have done away with this evil thing, 'religion'. Also, Nietzsche is so insanely full of contradictions that only madmen (like myself) refer to him as an authority. One can't put aside the fact that Thus Spake (and spake and spake and spake) Zarathustra is in its essence an emotional document, written as poor Nietzsche was not so nicely recovering from his deep feelings of loss over Frau Salome. It is 'wise' to remember (or to consider) that Nietzsche never, ever left or abandoned what was essentially human within himself. Never, ever! Freud seemed to feel he knew himself better than almost anyone, and I am inclined to agree. These portentious statements of yours arouse suspicion, at least on my part, because they begin to become anti-human robotic forumulations...

With all due respects, I think Nietzsche would laugh at your formulations, above, unsophisticated and blunt as they are. If there is a 'truth' it is infinitely subtle, and very finely layered. 'The life of wisdom'---who are you trying to kid?

"Unlike religion, there is nothing contrived in philosophy. Quite the opposite, it means removing all contrivances, all distortions, all mental blocks, all wishful thinking, thereby allowing the mind to function freely in its pristine, natural state."

On what basis do you make these statements, about things that are by no means so clear and delineated as you seem to suppose?

"We have a choice before us. We can either have faith in sane, clear, coherent thinking, or irrational, vague, contradictory, insane half-thoughts. Which one seems more appealing to you?"

Well, let me throw the question back at you, but sideways. Do I want to think as you think? As if this is an epitome of what thinking can be? Absolutely not. I would gladly preserve and defend the thinking of some of the deeply romantic religionists than to wind up with these banal formulations...

(As I read this it sounds far more aggressive than I intended!)

Alex: I do not associate Socrates and Plato. Plato is the vengeful man who got pissed off at democracy when it killed his favourite celebrity. His vengefulness caused Christianity and republicanism.

Socrates, on the other hand, is best summarized by the quotation: "I am not wise at all." Once you realize the consequences of this (the Oracle at Delphi, in trying to appeal to Socrates' arrogance, ended up insulting every man in Athens), you don't need to attribute a single other thing to Socrates.

Likewise, all you need to know about Thales is that he created an argument that the entire world is made out of water. That alone should suffice when describing Thales. He is undoubtedly the greatest philosopher to have ever lived.

Lyk:

I don't appeal to Aristotle, who I think represents true empiricism as much as modern science does -- that is to say, not at all. Science is always a poor substitute to genuine philosophic inquiry, especially when scientists never study philosophy, and thereby can't tell their asses from their elbows (as though the atheism/theism debate is relevant!).

In fact, I consider Aristotle to be the focal point of all scientific inquiry (which is a shame, because there were probably greater philosophers in the libraries of Alexandria before they were all burned). As far as empiricism goes, the first empiricist is Thales, not Aristotle. The first rationalist is Socrates, not Plato. Aristotle is merely a vast storehouse of primitive beliefs: an encyclopedia of knowledge that is meant to be surpassed; and, Plato is a raving fanboy.

In 2000 years, Darwin and Einstein will be as out-dated as Aristotle is now. Socrates and Thales will not. Nor will Gautama Buddha, the inventor of peaceful civilization. Plato, of course, is always going to be looked upon as the village idiot of philosophy -- Socrates' weak-willed follower, and founder of a cult of weak-willed followers.

When I speak of rationalism as a religion, I refer to Socrates and only to Socrates. When I consider empiricism, I consider Thales' risky venture: "the entire world is made out of water. Now go: prove me wrong."

Thales' greatest accomplishment is having the courage to shut up.

Alex Jacob wrote:

It seems to me that Socrates (Plato) looks 'rational' and seems to use a rational methodology, but platonism and neo-platonism are based in outrageous and unfounded suppositions: that there is a 'real world' behind or beyond this world (the world of forms) that is the source of everything in our own world. There idea is quintessentially metaphysical. It is a rationalistic way to describe an essentially religious viewpoint.

I agree that Plato's thinking was crude and irrational. He basically tried to systemize the wisdom of Socrates, not realizing that this is impossible. He gives the impression of being aware that there was something special about Socrates and his turn of mind, but without really understand what that was.

DQ: "People fear truth because they think it is going to destroy all enjoyment and pleasure from life. They are like kids who just want to keep playing with their toys.

"The wave of truth does indeed sweep away all the normal worldly toys, but it also brings other kinds of toys. These toys are exotic and deep and very interesting if you have the right turn of mind for them. The life of wisdom is certainly not without its pleasures and amusements."

AJ: There is always the same tone from you, Mr Quinn. You deal in absolutes. There is a portentiousness in what you write, as if what you say should be evident to anyone who has a required level of intelligence, someone who has ascended to your level. One gets the impression that you suppose you have arrived at 'truth' and therefor can pontificate about it, yet it is necessary to point out that there seems to be no single truth that someone can just lay there hands on, grab like some object.

There is a such a Truth. Socrates knew it. Buddha knew it. Nietzsche knew it. It is there for anyone who is hungry enough for ultimate understanding.

It isn't an object that can be mentally grasped as such. But it is something that we can open our minds to and experience as a living reality.

Your position seems to function within a similar sort of arrogance as the classical religionsit, only you suppose you have done away with this evil thing, 'religion'.

No question of it. Clarity of insight and independence of mind takes one beyond all religion.

Also, Nietzsche is so insanely full of contradictions that only madmen (like myself) refer to him as an authority. One can't put aside the fact that Thus Spake (and spake and spake and spake) Zarathustra is in its essence an emotional document, written as poor Nietzsche was not so nicely recovering from his deep feelings of loss over Frau Salome.

I agree that Nietzsche was a mixed bag and often his motives were emotional and impure. But I think that Zarathustra was the one time in his life that he decided to get real. He finally, for a time, left behind his adolescent need to shock and impress the world with rebellious thought and summoned up the courage to have a genuine relationship with truth.

Unfortunately, it didn't last long. He quickly reverted back to type and became overly-concerned once more about his reputation and his place in the world, starting with Beyond Good and Evil.

In the end, his iconoclasm was kept in check and remained limited by his constant craving for adoration. So he was a disappointment on many levels.

But he did give us Zarathustra, which was a great achievement.

It is 'wise' to remember (or to consider) that Nietzsche never, ever left or abandoned what was essentially human within himself. Never, ever!

His highest conception was the Superman, which represented going beyond the human.

From Zarathustra:

- I love them which greatly scorn because they also greatly adore; they are arrows longing for the farther shore.

I love him which liveth that he may know, and which seeketh knowledge that hereafter the Superman may live: for thus he willeth his own down-going.

I love him which reserveth no share of spirit for himself, but willeth to be wholly the spirit of his virtue: thus in spirit he crosseth over the bridge.

I love him which justifieth future generations and redeemeth past generations: for he willeth to perish by the present generation.

I love him which streweth golden words before his deeds and performeth yet more than he promiseth: for he seeketh his own down-going.

I love him whose soul is over-full so that he forgetteth himself, and all things are within him: thus all things become his downfall.

I love all them which are as heavy rain-drops falling one by one from the dark cloud that lowereth over mankind: they herald the coming of the lightning, and they perish as heralds.


- Where is the lightning to lick you with its tongue? Where is the madness with which you should be cleansed? Behold, I show you the Superman. He is this lightning, he is this madness.


- Did I not seek where the wind bites keenest, learn to live where no-one lives, in the wilderness, where only the polar-bear lives. Unlearned to pray and curse. Unlearned man and God. Become a ghost, flitting across the glaciers.

And so on. There's nothing remotely "human" about any of this.

Incidentally, here is a good illustration of Nietzsche's conception of relating to truth:

I have always written my works with my whole body: I do not know what purely intellectual problems are.

It makes the most important difference, whether a thinker stands personally by his problems, so that in them he has his fate, his need, and also his best happiness, or whether he is "impersonal": that is, only understanding how to grope for and hold them with the feelers of cold inquisitive thought. In the latter case, nothing will come of it.

Couldn't agree more.

Freud seemed to feel he knew himself better than almost anyone, and I am inclined to agree. These portentious statements of yours arouse suspicion, at least on my part, because they begin to become anti-human robotic forumulations...

I like to speak simply and clearly about what I know to be true. If that sounds "anti-human", then what does that say about humanity?

With all due respects, I think Nietzsche would laugh at your formulations, above, unsophisticated and blunt as they are. If there is a 'truth' it is infinitely subtle, and very finely layered. 'The life of wisdom'---who are you trying to kid?

Truth is only subtle and hard to pin down for those who are still lost in crude delusions, as most people are. It is simple and straightforward for those who know it.

In other words, truth is hard to find only because it is too simple for ordinary thinking to grasp, not because it is too complex.

DQ: "Unlike religion, there is nothing contrived in philosophy. Quite the opposite, it means removing all contrivances, all distortions, all mental blocks, all wishful thinking, thereby allowing the mind to function freely in its pristine, natural state."

AJ: On what basis do you make these statements, about things that are by no means so clear and delineated as you seem to suppose?

All of these statements come from my own wisdom and experience.

The fundamentals of life are indeed clear and delineated for those whose minds are no longer hampered by attachments and mental blocks. Ironically, it is the very existence of attachments and mental blocks which lead people to create all sorts of unnecessary complications in their thinking, keeping them in a state of confusion, and thereby deluding them into believing that truth is complex.

For example, 99% of what passes for Western academic philosophy is the attempt to resolve phantom, non-existent problems created by ignorance and mental sickness.

DQ: "We have a choice before us. We can either have faith in sane, clear, coherent thinking, or irrational, vague, contradictory, insane half-thoughts. Which one seems more appealing to you?"

AJ: Well, let me throw the question back at you, but sideways. Do I want to think as you think? As if this is an epitome of what thinking can be? Absolutely not. I would gladly preserve and defend the thinking of some of the deeply romantic religionists than to wind up with these banal formulations...

Well, that's your choice. I personally prefer the simplicity of deep truth to the superficial convolutions of emotional/religious thought. But each to his own.

From Zarathustra:

- Mine intellectual conscience demandeth of me that I should know one thing and not know all else: I loathe all the semi-intellectuals, the hazy, the visionary.


- So many a clever one had I found, that veiled his face and muddied his waters, that none might look through them and down into them. But to him came the more clever unbelievers, the crackers of nuts: these fished out from him the best hidden fish!

But the bright ones, the brave, the transparent - these I hold the wisest of the silent: for their bottom is so deep that even the clearest water betrayeth it not!


- Better know naught than half-know much! Better be a fool on ones own merits than a wise man by other folks opinions! I go to the roots. What mattereth great or small, marsh or heaven? An hand-breadth of territory is sufficient for me, if it be real rock-bottom territory!

Amen to that, brother.

-

Trevor Salyzyn wrote:I don't appeal to Aristotle

That's fine; I was merely making an example. You can use reason all you like, but it's silly to use reason and ignore empirical data.

Science is always a poor substitute to genuine philosophic inquiry

Do you really think I was saying that science is a proper substitute for philosophic reasoning? Why don't you try re-phrasing myself to me, so that we can be confident you understand what I am trying to say?

You can't really make that statement, Mr Quinn, that this Truth is something that Buddha knew, and Nietzsche, and Socrates, because you are not them. I place no great stock in what is rational and methodological necessarily, and have developed a certain affection for the alogical and the irrational, but you are arguing on a fallacious base since you can't really know anything about any of these people and the only one you can refer to is yourself. I can't really say much about Buddha (his writings, if they are his writings), but I can say a few things about Socrates and Nietzsche. Socrates seems like a crude little weasel sometimes, a wily and resentful man who knew how to overcome his opponents using his reason, and pissed so many people off that they finally decided to do away with the little bastard. Isn't it interesting---at least to consider it---how this (Nietzschean) ressentiment is played out in Socrates and in the edifice to Socrates that was erected after he drank the hemlock? It puts a different twist on philosophy and some of its grandiose assumptions. It wasn't so much that he was 'corrupting youth', it was that he was dressing up lies to appear as grand truths, and interfering with the way that power practically functions. I think it was Nietzsche who took Socrates down a few pegs, pointing to some of the contradictions, reading between the lines to get at 'the truth'. But according to you Socrates had a direct line on some special Truth which you assume you have too.

I just couldn't really bear Zarathustra, although there are some nice ideas in there from time to time. But how do you reconcile all that is contained in Zarathustra with the fact that when he wrote it the poor guy was completely heartbroken over Lou Salome? That he used Zarathustra as a way to escape or evade his deep disappointment? It seems to me that we have no other avenue but to be acutely aware of the human dimension in ourselves, in everyone around us, in the Buddha and Jesus and everyone who has walked over the earth. From where comes this tendency to divinize mere human beings? And when you use this word Truth in capitals, I think you are giving evidence of a religious tendency, a sort of absolute thinking. If anything it is philosophy that seems to take issue with this.

"Clarity of insight and independence of mind takes one beyond all religion."

To me this is just flatly absurd. What we seem to oppose in religiousness is a sort of blind following of an absolute ideal, an assertation of an absolute and abstract Truth which has no 'real' existence. While I have had my own sense about absolutes, and some sorts of fundamental 'truths', perhaps, I find that it is impossible to make any definitive statement about them. Personally, I could never make the statement that you made, above, because I am not at all sure that we can ever be free of our essential human contradictions, the matrix of our humanness. So, I guess I am implying that even without wanting to do so you are establishing some 'religious tenets' about this Truth you speak of, and presenting it as a unity. In its way it is religious thinking. Maybe neo-platonic as well.

"I agree that Nietzsche was a mixed bag and often his motives were emotional and impure. But I think that Zarathustra was the one time in his life that he decided to get real".

That's sort of funny to my ears, knowing a little about Nietzsche's condition. As he was almost dying of a broken heart for a woman he loved, sort of clawing at the air, he wrote a grandiose tale that is complete parable, and this is 'getting real'? This is the Nietzsche you would hold up as the real Nietzsche? the authentic? the chemically pure? Another interpretation is possible: this Nietzsche is the most beside himself, the least 'real', the most wounded, the least authentic. So very little of that whole formulation had any relevance for me, and I much preferred Beyond Good and Evil and Genealogy of Morals. There is no end to what I have gotten from Genealogy and continue to get.

Also, I never expect anything more from humankind, or you, or myself, than impurity, emotion, irrationality, in short everything that makes us exactly what we are: irredeemable flesh and blood creatures. The best part of Nietzsche is that in him 'philosophy' finally has a body, and emotions, and is saturated with impurity and unholiness!

"His highest conception was the Superman, which represented going beyond the human."

But ideas can function as mathematics, and they can take us into an abstract, inhuman realm. But we cannot go along with our ideas. Hence a sort of split is presaged. Superman, snooperman. All he seems to be saying is stay on your toes...keep pushing forward...beyond mediocrity...don't be tricked by mediocre thinking. But I really think you have taken his superman idea a little too far. I suppose you think you are evolving into a Nietzschean superman.

(It is interesting to speculate to what degree Castaneda was influenced by these and other formulations:

"I love him which reserveth no share of spirit for himself, but willeth to be wholly the spirit of his virtue: thus in spirit he crosseth over the bridge."

I personally think it is grandiose nonsense, that no one really does this, it is an allusion, a verbal construct. There may be 'leaps into the boundless' but we always come back to the body, to the person, to our life here and now. I think we need to know how to discern abstract thinking from more concrete experience. It seems to me that that is what is of great value in Nietzsche, in any case he always holds my interest.

"Did I not seek where the wind bites keenest, learn to live where no-one lives, in the wilderness, where only the polar-bear lives. Unlearned to pray and curse. Unlearned man and God. Become a ghost, flitting across the glaciers."

Is that where you live, Mr Quinn? Is that your reality? In a great wilderness, flitting across glaciers? Is your computer set up in an igloo with the North wind howling? How many years---decades---have gone by since you last saw a human face?

;-)
________________________________

Charmides

(The Greek is always euphemized. When it reads 'I took the flame' it means 'got an erection'.)

"He came as he was bidden, and sat down between Critias and me. Great amusement was occasioned by every one pushing with might and main at his neighbour in order to make a place for him next to themselves, until at the two ends of the row one had to get up and the other was rolled over sideways. Now my friend, was beginning to feel awkward; former bold belief in my powers of conversing with him had vanished. And when Critias told him that I was the person who had the cure, he looked at me in such an indescribable manner, and was just going to ask a question. And at that moment all the people in the palaestra crowded about us, and, O rare! I caught a sight of the inwards of his garment, and took the flame. Then I could no longer contain myself. I thought how well Cydias understood the nature of love, when, in speaking of a fair youth, he warns some one "not to bring the fawn in the sight of the lion to be devoured by him," for I felt that I had been overcome by a sort of wild-beast appetite. But I controlled myself, and when he asked me if I knew the cure of the headache, I answered, but with an effort, that I did know."

Thank Heavens he controlled himself, eh Mr Quinn? Thank Heavens for Truth and philosophy.

http://evans-experientialism.freewebspa ... ides01.htm

socrates was plato's creation

Lyk,

You can use reason all you like, but it's silly to use reason and ignore empirical data.

Rationalists do not do that. Only a poor thinker ignores his experiences.

Do you really think I was saying that science is a proper substitute for philosophic reasoning?

You were toeing that line, yes. I think you have become considerably more cautious now.

Why don't you try re-phrasing myself to me, so that we can be confident you understand what I am trying to say?

Because I don't particularly care what your beliefs are, so long as they are true. Since I know my beliefs are true, for the sake of my own sanity, I'll stick to understanding them.

average wrote:socrates was plato's creation

Xenophon and Aristophanes also wrote about him.

Alex,

You can't really make that statement, Mr Quinn, that this Truth is something that Buddha knew, and Nietzsche, and Socrates, because you are not them. I place no great stock in what is rational and methodological necessarily, and have developed a certain affection for the alogical and the irrational, but you are arguing on a fallacious base since you can't really know anything about any of these people and the only one you can refer to is yourself.

When you are deeply familiar about a particular subject, you can recognize when others are also deeply familiar with it. It is one of the benefits of expertise.

I can't really say much about Buddha (his writings, if they are his writings), but I can say a few things about Socrates and Nietzsche. Socrates seems like a crude little weasel sometimes, a wily and resentful man who knew how to overcome his opponents using his reason, and pissed so many people off that they finally decided to do away with the little bastard.

I think you would have fitted in nicely with the good folk of Athens!

Isn't it interesting---at least to consider it---how this (Nietzschean) ressentiment is played out in Socrates and in the edifice to Socrates that was erected after he drank the hemlock? It puts a different twist on philosophy and some of its grandiose assumptions. It wasn't so much that he was 'corrupting youth', it was that he was dressing up lies to appear as grand truths, and interfering with the way that power practically functions.

I thought it was more to do with the way he persistently revealed how ignorant and irrational the leading figures of Athens were, even within their own specialized fields. It drove them nuts.

I think it was Nietzsche who took Socrates down a few pegs, pointing to some of the contradictions, reading between the lines to get at 'the truth'. But according to you Socrates had a direct line on some special Truth which you assume you have too.

Nietzsche criticized Socrates in the same way that brothers criticize each other - with great love and respect. They were both brothers of Truth.

I just couldn't really bear Zarathustra, although there are some nice ideas in there from time to time. But how do you reconcile all that is contained in Zarathustra with the fact that when he wrote it the poor guy was completely heartbroken over Lou Salome? That he used Zarathustra as a way to escape or evade his deep disappointment?

From what I can gather, Nietzsche saw Salome as an heir to his ideas and wisdom, hoping that she would carry on his good work after he was gone. He was completely deluded in this, of course, a victim of his strong romantic nature. When she openly rejected him, even to the point of laughing at him, it had a big impact on him and caused him to rebel strongly against the world as a whole, thus inspiring him to write his most uncompromising work.

I agree that his motivations weren't pure during this time - he was never a very pure individual at the best of times - but the incident did crystallize a series of thoughts that had been building up inside him for some time. There is still quite a bit of bitterness in Zarathustra, as there is in all of his work, but for the most part its content is sublime. It is jam-packed with unadulterated truth and contains a lot of confronting ideas for those who seek to lead a life of wisdom. For all its flaws, it is a magnificent work.

It seems to me that we have no other avenue but to be acutely aware of the human dimension in ourselves, in everyone around us, in the Buddha and Jesus and everyone who has walked over the earth. From where comes this tendency to divinize mere human beings?

Recognizing wisdom and the will to truth in individuals is very different from "divinizing" them. A great individual is great precisely because he is just a human being and nothing more. The greatness is even more spectacular because it resides in a human being, and not in a god.

And when you use this word Truth in capitals, I think you are giving evidence of a religious tendency, a sort of absolute thinking. If anything it is philosophy that seems to take issue with this.

Academics and postmodernists might take issue with this, but to my mind, they are insignificant. I capitalize Truth for a specific reason - namely, to highlight that it is the highest attainment open to human beings. It is a truth that can only be experienced when a person has the courage to eliminate all of his delusions. It isn't just an intellectual conclusion to be grasped at academically. It involves a radical change of perspective involving the whole of one's being.

While this truth can be described as "spiritual", it can't be described as "religious".

DQ: "Clarity of insight and independence of mind takes one beyond all religion."

AJ: To me this is just flatly absurd. What we seem to oppose in religiousness is a sort of blind following of an absolute ideal, an assertation of an absolute and abstract Truth which has no 'real' existence.

Well yes, if a person is blindly following a Truth that doesn't really exist, then he is being religious. I agree that such behaviour should be discouraged.

While I have had my own sense about absolutes, and some sorts of fundamental 'truths', perhaps, I find that it is impossible to make any definitive statement about them.

This doesn't make any sense to me. Do you or don't you affirm the reality of fundamental truth?

Personally, I could never make the statement that you made, above, because I am not at all sure that we can ever be free of our essential human contradictions, the matrix of our humanness. So, I guess I am implying that even without wanting to do so you are establishing some 'religious tenets' about this Truth you speak of, and presenting it as a unity. In its way it is religious thinking. Maybe neo-platonic as well.

If we are going to say that exercising reason and successfully eliminating delusion is "religious activity", then yes, I am a religious person. But then we would have to come up with a different term for what Christians and Buddhists do.

Nietzsche: "Did I not seek where the wind bites keenest, learn to live where no-one lives, in the wilderness, where only the polar-bear lives. Unlearned to pray and curse. Unlearned man and God. Become a ghost, flitting across the glaciers."

AJ: Is that where you live, Mr Quinn? Is that your reality? In a great wilderness, flitting across glaciers?

Mentally, yes.

I like these passages from Herman Hesse in his work, Zarathustra's Return:

- My friends, you ask after the school of suffering, the forge of destiny. Don't you know? No, you who are forever talking of "the people" and such like, you do not know. I am speaking of solitude.

Solitude is the path men most fear, so that those men who walk alone are called mad or sick, because they think it is best to discourage themselves from taking such a path.

And when you hear people call these men mad, don't you feel the blood rushing to your cheeks? As though it might have been nobler and worthier of you to become one of those madmen?


- Most men, the herd, have never tasted solitude. They leave father and mother, but only to crawl to a wife and quietly succumb to new warmth and new ties. They are never alone, they never commune with themselves.

They fear the solitary man and hate him like the plague; they fling stones at him and find no place until they are far away from him. The air around him smells of stars, of cold stellar places; he lacks the soft warm fragrance of the home and hatchery. Zarathustra has gone a long way on the path of solitude. He has attended the school of suffering.


- But how, my young friends, could I tempt or lead you? Solitude is not chosen, any more than destiny is chosen. Solitude comes to us if we have within us the magic stone that attracts destiny. Many, far too many, have gone out into the desert and led the lives of "herd men" in a pretty hermitage beside a lovely spring. While others stand in the thick of the crowd, and yet the air of the stars blows round their heads. Blessed be he who has found solitude. Blessed be he who knows how to suffer!


- You are chosen to breathe the air of stars and from children to become men.

Cease to lament! Cease to weep tears of childhood because you have parted from your mother and her sweet bread. Learn to eat bitter bread, mens' bread, the bread of destiny.

-

David,

I capitalize Truth for a specific reason - namely, to highlight that it is the highest attainment open to human beings. It is a truth that can only be experienced when a person has the courage to eliminate all of his delusions.

How did the Buddha survive obtaining wisdom, when Weininger did not?

That is my current issue: I feel more like Weininger (or perhaps a bodhisattva) than the Buddha, and fear immersing myself fully in truth until I trust myself capable. I don't believe myself strong enough to be Buddha, who I imagine hated humankind more deeply and compassionately than any man before or since.

I do not know which is the greater danger: hesitation, or lack of hesitation.

Oh Wise One! (Bowing reverentially). As you meditate there on the polar fringes of thought so to answer Trevor in accord with Truth, I will continue with my useless interrogation and criticism in subverted Socratic style...

;-)

DQ wrote:

"When you are deeply familiar about a particular subject, you can recognize when others are also deeply familiar with it. It is one of the benefits of expertise."

But there are at least 3-4 major fractures in the wall or edifice that is a traditional and uncritical understanding of this odd character Socrates, and a critical reading, and a reading between the lines (the only worthwhile reading) points toward a different understanding of the man. And if this is so, and if this Socrates is as flawed as I assume he is, this fact sort of fractures your solidities about 'Truth'.

I am most definitey arguing, with nearly complete conviction and an almost religious certainty that I am right, that there is only an idea about a Truth, there is an attraction in the human mind for a 'Truth', and that one of the great errors is to assume that one has it, or can define it, and convey it. So, while you ask me to state definitively, as a sort of public declaration, and present an Inquisitional document I must sign, if there is or is not a 'fundamental truth', I will only refer to Hesse's dream Goethe in Steppenwolf who laughed and frolicked and chided and shot pretty stars and fireworks out of the flower in his vest, and I will tell you---I will sing to you in Nietzschean rhapsody!---that the answer to your question will be gotten when you have successfully licked a beatiful girl's pussy and have rubbed its fluids all over your head...

That is pretty much what HH had to do to overcome certain psychological preponderances he discovered in himself, and I assume the boys of this list are in a similar preponderant place. The pussy has all the secrets, the pussy will reveal everything to those who approach it reverentially!

;-)

Amen and selah.

There is this fellow who has written about Socrates and Nietzsche, I thought some of his ideas were worth consideration:

(John Moore)(My italics)

"In addition to perfecting his ideas, Socrates needed to influence his contemporaries by working on them psychologically. This is one explanation for the dramatic structure he built of his personality. Passionately concerned to persuade, the ideas alone were not enough. His death played an important part in promoting his views. Martyrdom is historically one of the strongest arguments of all."

The dead argue their case better than the living...

I don't think you are taking this aspect into consideration: an irritating, conniving faggy little prick who enters your psychology through a back door, gets in there and twists things all around, who literally 'fucks' with you, who one-ups you at every turn. Have you ever come across this type in real life, Herr Quinn? I have, and if there were not civil laws to protect them they'd have their teeth smashed in. To say this does not diminish the Socratic thrust, or the relevancy of this new style, and what can and did come of it. But I think you have also to look at things critically, a little ireverentially, with a subversive attitude, some transgressive flair.

(John Moore)

"So it might on the face of it seem an obviously excellent thing that the ability to defend one's position logically should have become, with Socrates, a newly important factor in determining power and status. As with the older shift in power from chief to medicine man, it might seem highly desirable that power should be in the hands of the intelligent rather than the physically strong, rich and brutal. However, Nietzsche identifies dangers in setting up an ideal in criticism of what appear to be natural human responses and reactions. Given the Socratic reform, the requirement for rational justification, there is a danger that those in a weak position should succeed, by means of clever argument and propaganda, in so exalting the virtues and values of weakness as to paralyse the natural expression of strength."

Looked at in this way, it casts the Socratic persuit of truth in a different light, and might explain some of the resistance to Socrates in a different light, a less adoring light. I think we all know this type, a sort of arrogant, boyish, braggish, neurotic, somewhat unbalanced, woman-fearer who pontificates about grand Truths and builds walls against any contrdicting ideas; yet who never tells you the whole truth about themselves, maybe he doesn't even know the truth, as one assumed Socrates never knew or told. For all his intellectual boldness, poor boy, he was married to the greatest shrew in all Athens! Now if that doesn't tell you something, if that is not a vital piece of information...

See, one can look at old Socrates in a harsher light, and see that he was severely flawed, and also that there was some good reason to rid the city of him. In any case, he agreed: he could have run a way and from that vantage defended freedom and liberty, but he chose the coward's road, the road of the suicide, like Jesus.

And of course that is one possible reason why he is held in such reverential esteem...but to do so is to dupe ourselves. It is not the people who live on the edges of glaciers who do anything at all for the human world, for art or culture or 'the spirit', it is the people who remain in the fray, who exist within contradiction. There is something very anaemic in this use of the word Truth on your part, I don't think it brings us anywhere near a desired goal, as a matter of fact it takes us away from it.

Remember the Pussy, Mr Quinn, the Pussy wants to reveal its secrets. Nietzsche knew this but the pussy got a way from him...

How sad!

AJ: It is absolutely true that all bachelors are unmarried men. See, fundamentally, bachelors must be male, (human), and unmarried. It is therefore, a fundamental truth about reality -- or, if you prefer, it's ultimately true in all possible worlds.

David,

Nietzsche criticized Socrates in the same way that brothers criticize each other - with great love and respect. They were both brothers of Truth.

That is hardly the impression I get:

1

Concerning life, the wisest men of all ages have judged alike: it is no good. Always and everywhere one has heard the same sound from their mouths--a sound full of doubt, full of melancholy, full of weariness of life, full of resistance to life. Even Socrates said, as he died: "To live--that means to be sick a long time: I owe Asclepius the Savior a rooster." Even Socrates was tired of it. What does that evidence? What does it evince? Formerly one would have said (--oh, it has been said, and loud enough, and especially by our pessimists): "At least something of all this must be true! The consensus of the sages evidences the truth." Shall we still talk like that today? May we? "At least something must be sick here," we retort. These wisest men of all ages--they should first be scrutinized closely. Were they all perhaps shaky on their legs? late? tottery? decadents? Could it be that wisdom appears on earth as a raven, inspired by a little whiff of carrion?

2

This irreverent thought that the great sages are types of decline first occurred to me precisely in a case where it is most strongly opposed by both scholarly and unscholarly prejudice: I recognized Socrates and Plato to be symptoms of degeneration, tools of the Greek dissolution, pseudo-Greek, anti-Greek (Birth of Tragedy, 1872). The consensus of the sages--I comprehended this ever more clearly--proves least of all that they were right in what they agreed on: it shows rather that they themselves, these wisest men, agreed in some physiological respect, and hence adopted the same negative attitude to life--had to adopt it. Judgments, judgments of value, concerning life, for it or against it, can, in the end, never be true: they have value only as symptoms, they are worthy of consideration only as symptoms; in themselves such judgments are stupidities. One must by all means stretch out one's fingers and make the attempt to grasp this amazing finesse, that the value of life cannot be estimated. Not by the living, for they are an interested party, even a bone of contention, and not judges; not by the dead, for a different reason. For a philosopher to see a problem in the value of life is thus an objection to him, a question mark concerning his wisdom, an un-wisdom. Indeed? All these great wise men--they were not only decadents but not wise at all? But I return to the problem of Socrates.

...

He has a whole chapter dedicated to the "Problem of Socrates" in Twilight of the Idols.

Trevor Salyzyn wrote:AJ: It is absolutely true that all bachelors are unmarried men. See, fundamentally, bachelors must be male, (human), and unmarried. It is therefore, a fundamental truth about reality -- or, if you prefer, it's ultimately true in all possible worlds.

What are you saying?

All illusions that fit your loose concept "bachelor" <unmarried men> fit your loose concept "bachelor".

Great truth eh? I would hardly call it absolute as it depends on a similar human mind that shares the same concepts as you do. It is also basically useless as it is just reaffirming your own definition.

"When one finds it necessary to turn reason into a tyrant, as Socrates did, the danger cannot be slight that something else will play the tyrant. Rationality was then hit upon as the savior; neither Socrates nor his "patients" had any choice about being rational: it was de rigeur, it was their last resort. The fanaticism with which all Greek reflection throws itself upon rationality betrays a desperate situation; there was danger, there was but one choice: either to perish or--to be absurdly rational. The moralism of the Greek philosophers from Plato on is pathologically conditioned; so is their esteem of dialectics. Reason-virtue-happiness, that means merely that one must imitate Socrates and counter the dark appetites with a permanent daylight--the daylight of reason. One must be clever, clear, bright at any price: any concession to the instincts, to the unconscious, leads downward."

I think Nietzsche has done more for me than anyone. Nietzsche solves no existential problems of any sort, you have still got to make your way through this world while everyone lies to you about its nature, its purpose, its value, and your role in it, but along the way I can think of no better companion.

When reason is converted into a tyrant...there is a reason for this...something there that is deeply threatening to us. And what is it? It just seems to me that this is one of the best questions going. What are those things that can so readily engulf us? So that we are forced to grasp at absurd, even ridiculous straws, and so defend ourselves against? (or appear to defend ourselves against).

Come gather 'round, brothers, and a story I will tell, of Truth!

"...there was danger, there was but one choice: either to perish or--to be absurdly rational."

It seems to me that this has bearing on Trevor's original question, Is rationality a religion? But really this question only takes place among those who, it seems, are actually afraid to be alive, and so they come up with all these strategies to avoid Life, to rationalize their condition. Well, I certainly know something about that, and so if these conversations are couched in an attempt to define 'truth', at least I might be able to say a little something about what I think truth isn't.

"The moralism of the Greek philosophers from Plato on is pathologically conditioned; so is their esteem of dialectics. Reason-virtue-happiness, that means merely that one must imitate Socrates and counter the dark appetites with a permanent daylight--the daylight of reason. One must be clever, clear, bright at any price: any concession to the instincts, to the unconscious, leads downward".

The way it is presented on this list, as I have read so far, is in this pathological sense. Not to mention the recurring exchanges of bad feelings, bad animus. What place does that serve here? Knowledge is gained only through a sort of death, a shutting down, a going away from. There is all this mental machination, this spartan rigor---and it all leads where? To this abstraction called Truth. The final sentence could be interpreted as deadly: 'Any concession to the instincts, to the unconscious, leads downward'.

So, you'd think a list with this mission, this title, would be pretty forward-looking and reaching. But there isn't a great deal of that, just defining and refining tired old positions that have no potency in them. Which is to say, no cock. No virility. Even the women here are mannish women seemingly desperate for some sort of approval---what's up with that, boys? Do you castrate yourselves and your women too?

;-)

WhorlyWhelk:

Read, consider, then reply. You seem to have developed a nasty habit of saying stupid shit, probably because you desperately want me to be wrong about something.

Alex,

I agree with you. Remember that the very beginning point of Buddhism was "life is suffering... here is how to stop suffering" -- become dead.

Trevor Salyzyn wrote:WhorlyWhelk:

Read, consider, then reply. You seem to have developed a nasty habit of saying stupid shit, probably because you desperately want me to be wrong about something.

Trevor,

Read, possibly consider, then insult. You seem to have developed a nasty habit of throwing insults instead of replying to the actual debate, probably because you desperately want to condescend on others to make yourself feel at great height.

WhorlyWhelk: I take it by your repetition of my own sentence structure that your imagination has run dry, and you are just running on hot air. Are you done?

WhorlyWhelk,

Remember that the very beginning point of Buddhism was "life is suffering... here is how to stop suffering" -- become dead.

Or alternatively, immerse yourself in something greater and more alive than simply going around and around in a cycle of happiness and suffering.

-

Trevor,

DQ: I capitalize Truth for a specific reason - namely, to highlight that it is the highest attainment open to human beings. It is a truth that can only be experienced when a person has the courage to eliminate all of his delusions.

Trevor: How did the Buddha survive obtaining wisdom, when Weininger did not?

Although Weininger was heading in the right direction, he didn't really break through into ultimate understanding and reach a level of safety. He was probably too distracted by the brilliance of his own thinking and splayed it out in many different directions at once. He died too young before he had the chance to wholly concentrate his thinking into the one direction that was needed.

That is my current issue: I feel more like Weininger (or perhaps a bodhisattva) than the Buddha, and fear immersing myself fully in truth until I trust myself capable. I don't believe myself strong enough to be Buddha, who I imagine hated humankind more deeply and compassionately than any man before or since.

I do not know which is the greater danger: hesitation, or lack of hesitation.

Seeking the highest wisdom is a risk. There's no question of that. Some make it, while others crash and burn. You won't really know how you'll fare until you give it a try.

However, I would advise that you be intelligent about it, that you take it one step at a time, and not attempt anything blindly. The first step should just be about perfecting your intellectual understanding of Reality. I wouldn't worry about trying to become a Buddha until that has been achieved.

Your illness, I guess, would have to be taken into account. You probably shouldn't attempt anything until you have that under control with the right lifestyle and medication, etc. So maybe it would be wise to hesitate until that situation is resolved. Wisdom won't cure any neurological problems you might have and the attempt to become wise, which can be stressful, might even exasperate the symptoms they generate. It would have to be managed carefully.

But you're the only one who is in a position to make judgments here. No one else can really do it for you. But I feel for you. It's a tough decision. It's a risk.

-

WhorlyWhelk quoted Nietzsche:

1

Concerning life, the wisest men of all ages have judged alike: it is no good. Always and everywhere one has heard the same sound from their mouths--a sound full of doubt, full of melancholy, full of weariness of life, full of resistance to life. Even Socrates said, as he died: "To live--that means to be sick a long time: I owe Asclepius the Savior a rooster." Even Socrates was tired of it. What does that evidence? What does it evince? Formerly one would have said (--oh, it has been said, and loud enough, and especially by our pessimists): "At least something of all this must be true! The consensus of the sages evidences the truth." Shall we still talk like that today? May we? "At least something must be sick here," we retort. These wisest men of all ages--they should first be scrutinized closely. Were they all perhaps shaky on their legs? late? tottery? decadents? Could it be that wisdom appears on earth as a raven, inspired by a little whiff of carrion?

2

This irreverent thought that the great sages are types of decline first occurred to me precisely in a case where it is most strongly opposed by both scholarly and unscholarly prejudice: I recognized Socrates and Plato to be symptoms of degeneration, tools of the Greek dissolution, pseudo-Greek, anti-Greek (Birth of Tragedy, 1872). The consensus of the sages--I comprehended this ever more clearly--proves least of all that they were right in what they agreed on: it shows rather that they themselves, these wisest men, agreed in some physiological respect, and hence adopted the same negative attitude to life--had to adopt it. Judgments, judgments of value, concerning life, for it or against it, can, in the end, never be true: they have value only as symptoms, they are worthy of consideration only as symptoms; in themselves such judgments are stupidities. One must by all means stretch out one's fingers and make the attempt to grasp this amazing finesse, that the value of life cannot be estimated. Not by the living, for they are an interested party, even a bone of contention, and not judges; not by the dead, for a different reason. For a philosopher to see a problem in the value of life is thus an objection to him, a question mark concerning his wisdom, an un-wisdom. Indeed? All these great wise men--they were not only decadents but not wise at all? But I return to the problem of Socrates.

I see this as an attempt at being iconoclastic, albeit done poorly. It is an attempt to overturn people's traditional perception of wise men. While that is an admirable thing to do, when it is done this poorly its impact is limited.

Firstly, no wise man has ever spoken against the value of life - if by "life" we mean the whole of conscious existence. They might speak against certain aspects of conscious existence, just as Nietzsche is doing here, but they would have no reason to speak against conscious existence itself. So Nietzsche is really just attacking a caricature of his own making here.

Socrates may or may not have said what he said on his death bed - we don't really know. And if he did say it, we don't really know what the circumstances were, nor the context of why he said it. He could have simply been sharing an in-joke with his inner circle. So when it comes down to it, Nietzsche is utilizing a nebulous piece of evidence to back up an ill-directed attack against a fantasy of his own making.

Not one of his better moments, I'm afraid.

-