Understanding.

by Narkissos 17 Replies latest jw friends

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  Narkissos

  Thank you all, I enjoyed your posts very much -- including blueblades' excellent OP on his "philosophy class" thread.

  Where I think Plato was right (after all) is in his basic intuition of the "intelligible" as form (idea): "understanding," I believe, is all about re-cognising recurrent patterns in the ongoing flow of phenomena -- from the shape of waves and mountains to melodic themes, harmonic configurations and rhythmic sequences in music. Without such recognition we are mentally lost, and literally speechless, whereas the mere identical repetition of known and expected forms would leave us bored and unsatisfied. We wouldn't be conscious of change weren't it for the unchanged -- even though what we construe as "unchanged" may just be changing at a different pace, or tempo.

  Consciousness starts with the experience of difference, the rub of the other, be it pleasurable or painful. Out of this difference we construct identities to which we ascribe permanence -- a necessary illusion for language, I guess; the flip side is imagination (the "world map" where every "thing," including our "selves," is located). At this level some "understanding," delusional as it may be, seems unavoidable. Can it help being "comprehensive," as in Pascal's pensée # 348: "A thinking reed.--It is not from space that I must seek my dignity, but from the government of my thought. I shall have no more if I possess worlds. By space the universe encompasses and swallows me up like an atom; by thought I comprehend the world" ?

  It is delusional and self-contradictory by structural necessity: we can't look at the map from within the map, we can't "understand" the world from within the world, even though for all we know we are within; we do so as if we were outside -- exactly nowhere, like "God". Any amount of reflection makes us artificially alien to the world in a sense.
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  freetosee

  A man is standing on a railroad track and he sees a speed-train coming towards him. So he had knowledge of those facts.

  He realises that him standing on the track very the fast train will soon hit and seriously cause damage. Making sense of the facts he has gathered gives him understanding of the situation he is in and how it most likely will result.

  The man does not want to get hurt and comprehends the need to make the right decision followed by action. Using wisdom he steps aside from the track and the train goes pass him.

  I don't know much, so I try to gather all the knowledge I can get, while trying to understand and make sense of my gatherings and hopefully make more wise decision in my life then bad ones.

  fts
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  hillary_step

  Narkissos,

  Where I think Plato was right (after all) is in his basic intuition of the "intelligible" as form (idea): "understanding," I believe, is all about re-cognising recurrent patterns in the ongoing flow of phenomena -- from the shape of waves and mountains to melodic themes, harmonic configurations and rhythmic sequences in music. Without such recognition we are mentally lost, and literally speechless, whereas the mere identical repetition of known and expected forms would leave us bored and unsatisfied. We wouldn't be conscious of change weren't it for the unchanged -- even though what we construe as "unchanged" may just be changing at a different pace, or tempo.

  In this sense our 'understanding' is based on an interpretation of the flow of knowledge, not neccessarily the reality. Where some see a poetic cradle for piled up clouds, other see rock and minerals. Inside the tangible world, with all its connotations as you note above, this imperative provides an impetus for living and the prime cause. My issue is that nothing in the universe is ever unchanged. Everything has a fuse of finite within it, and nothing stands still. Hence 'understanding' will always be changing or be left behind. This is what fascinates me about life, and why mortality is rather attractive in some ways.

  Henry Miller once wrote that he thought the world of humankind divided itself neatly into two schools, those who think with their heart and those who think with their heads. I seldom use my head, hence my past struggles for a need to understand all, and a need to understand the mystery in an intagible world that I noted in my first post.

  I know that in my mid fifties my time is short, in geologic time almost non-existant. Should I live another ten healthy years, that is 120 months. These days I try to focus not on understanding whether the intagible exists but whether what is tangible actually exists. ;)

  HS
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  slimboyfat

  Narkissos,

  Some of us had it shattered by merciless facts, events or contradictions, and were left, at least for a time, without any embracing type of understanding.

  Do you mean to say this will definitely pass? I really wonder what comes next then.
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  BurnTheShips

  It is delusional and self-contradictory by structural necessity: we can't look at the map from within the map, we can't "understand" the world from within the world

  A fish cannot comprehend the existence of water. He is too deeply immersed in it.

  , even though for all we know we are within; we do so as if we were outside -- exactly nowhere, like "God" . Any amount of reflection makes us artificially alien to the world in a sense.

  In a sense maybe we are. The only fish that can conceive, albeit imperfectly, of being out of the water.

  Burn
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  R.Crusoe

  By virtue of having a brain one likely puts it to some use for the fact of its existence until one becomes tired of it,

  Lie if one has a hammer one doesn't ask why but tends to look for opportunities to knock nails in places of interest!

  Till eventually one questions the need for shelves and what is on them which then renders the hammer redundant!

  This is a classic turning point because it may interfere with copulation and why you are doing what you have always doen just because it is there!

  So the next time you hold a hammer in your hand, beware of over analysis -you could talk yourself out of having a brain!
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  hillary_step

  Narkissos,

  I have no idea why this thread put me in mind of John Donne, but then I warned you that I think with my heart. ;)

  HS

  G O and catch a falling star,
  Get with child a mandrake root,
  Tell me where all past years are,
  Or who cleft the devil's foot,
  Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
  Or to keep off envy's stinging,
  And find
  What wind
  Serves to advance an honest mind.
  
  If thou be'st born to strange sights,
  Things invisible to see,
  Ride ten thousand days and nights,
  Till age snow white hairs on thee,
  Thou, when thou return'st, wilt tell me,
  All strange wonders that befell thee,
  And swear,
  No where
  Lives a woman true and fair.
  
  If thou find'st one, let me know,
  Such a pilgrimage were sweet;
  Yet do not, I would not go,
  Though at next door we might meet,
  Though she were true, when you met her,
  And last, till you write your letter,
  Yet she
  Will be
  False, ere I come, to two, or three.
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  Narkissos