Mind's Eye Re: Are You A Human Being ?

There's little argumentation in academe James. Most debate I hear and
see is old hat stuff in which lines are peddled by people with fee
interest in taking part. I recognise Vam's lines - but one has to
believe the poetry involved. Allan is right about the baby and the
bathwater, rigsy on the sprouts. Andrew makes Nietzsche's point it's
all perspectival, but he defined truth as a mobile army of metaphors.
The facility to think for oneself is very important, but I doubt this
can have much to do with truth because of where it gets people. To be
human is to be part of a collective that does a great deal of harm it
need not. There may be something in what we do in escaping the worst
of tradition that is important in creating cultures of decent values -
thinking that is not bound to socially approved epistemic manners.
One can always think in a system in an immanent way (in its own logics
and consequences) or analytically from different assumptions that
challenge the system itself. A good current example is in
consideration of Minkowski space-time not being 3-d plus a fourth
dimension of time but as four dimensions of space with time as the
numeric pattern of events rather than a dimension. Big Bang is only
one of many possible points in time we consider as creation. In this
kind of science the possibilities can be argued in a way that doesn't
leave us relying on depth introspection or conversations with gods or
golden salamanders in a hat. This said, the maths involved often had
obscure, rather poetic origin in esoteric interests.

On Aug 17, 9:52 pm, Vam <atewari2...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Cool comebacks ...
>
> 1) If what you know is changing, then it is not the truth. You need to wait
> until the changing stops and you are able to say to yourself with certainty
> that this it ... what I now know holds good forever. It does not depend
> even upon me ! Or, you need to look elsewhere.
>
> 2) Truth is not subjective. It is of the subject, but not dependent upon
> the subject. Whether one knows or not, knows correctly, completely or
> incorrectly, incompletely ... the truth remains, as it ever was and will
> forever be.
>
> Truth is not understanding, thought, idea or speculation. It is futile, as
> in it does not make us richer or powerful, nor can it applied
> technologically.
>
> But it illuminate us and, through that, illuminates all phenomena mental
> and physical. And that is an infinitely powerful way to be... without fear,
> want or hurry, without the least sense of inadequacy or incompletion.
> without any subconscious.
>
> Suppose, I am handed a bolt and asked what is it means. I wouldn't know a
> shite except for the description, as it looks and can
> be metallurgically tested. It's only when I discover that it is a critical
> member of an aeroplane, the functions it facilitates, on which hundreds of
> lives depend ... do I get to know what it really means.
>
> So too is the pin hole view : it is a view alright. But what is it of ? I
> wouldn't know until I look upon the entire panorama. The whole system view
> or the universal view, the complete view is absolutely essential, even if I
> have to understand what a blade of grass means !
>
> That is what truth offers.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Friday, August 10, 2012 1:35:36 PM UTC+5:30, Vam wrote:
>
> > How exactly do you specify that ? Being Human, that is...
>
> > Put aside the biologist telling you of your classification or the
> > scientist detailing the features... What exactly tells that you are a human
> > being, apart from the rest of the animal kind ?
>
> > I know it is easy to go frivolous, or quote the millions of texts in the
> > library. But what does it mean to you, that you can vouch for, pointedly ?
>
> > What sets me apart is my capacity to know, to engage single-minded in that
> > process of discovery of what I seek to know, one after another, and to be
> > able to tell myself what I do know, its how and why, and share it with
> > others. The knowing leads me everywhere... into the universe, the earth,
> > environment, other beings and things, language, arts, economics, values
> > system, and myself.
>
> > The next important capacity is to love other people, not just my own
> > offspring, not just for people's utility value or until they are useful to
> > me, but precisely because of the lifetime of knowing they represent, and
> > for the values they embody on account of what they know. In fact, love
> > isn't just directed towards individuals... it invariably includes the
> > "good," life and growth, light, greenery, panorama, beauty, truth, honesty,
> > freedom, expression... and much of what the universe itself is.
>
> > What else or more, as it is with you ?

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