What can you buy at Plato's take-away? — Banno

Wisdom nuggets

So many people love to assume that they are out in the light, while others are still in the cave and yet have to come out, to finally see tha truth. — baker

This is great!

The allegory is good for education or enlightenment or however else you'd like to interpret it. But I think, it's also true that what we ascribe meaning to is the real 'journey' out of the cave.

Like you said, if someone thinks highly of themselves because they have more knowledge in a field, they could become too proud and look "down" on others as being in the cave. But, if on the other hand, the person being looked down on, is happy with their life, if they love their own chosen path, they they have already journeyed out of their own personal cave in a sense, right?

Nice! Thanks,

I think that the answer of 'never have I head anything more divine' would be the ultimate expression of life affirmation. — CountVictorClimacusIII

Absolutely. And there's that small bonus of sticking it to the demon.

Before one studies Zen, mountains are mountains and waters are waters; after a first glimpse into the truth of Zen, mountains are no longer mountains and waters are no longer waters; after enlightenment, mountains are once again mountains and waters once again waters. — Dogen (Zen Master)

There are layer to this that I need think to think on. But at first glance, I thought, if you had a teacher that told this to you, then knowing that the end result appears the same as it is to you know, why bother taking the journey? But then, what if there's wisdom to be gleamed from the journey itself, as we intuitively know from life. I like this one. Thanks,

Thank you everyone for your comments. They have lead to some interesting lines of research for me. :smile:

Then, I'm thinking could we possibly also have a brain and health in proportion to that length of time? — Caldwell

I'd hope so. Cognitive facilities decline slowly as we age and if one were to live past 110 let's say, without some sort of medical/pharmacological intervention then I would imagine it wouldn't be very stimulating. But like you said, if there were some sort of medicine/technology that offset ones physiology with their mental "age", I agree we could see an increase in progress (optimistically speaking).

Thank you for this! I'm going to be thinking about this all day now.

Also, it could end up being a bit judgemental because it may be that wisdom is within. — Jack Cummins

Good catch, thank you for the input. Yes, I do think there are qualities that perhaps lead to/allow for growth of wisdom, but you're most likely right, wisdom could be subjective to the individual. Quantifying it would maybe be finding a general balance between the two.

Thanks for answering my question; describing it well and making me think again... :sparkle: — Amity

Thank you for your analysis, you've given me even more to think about with this one. I was mainly digesting it as Jay said too.

I actually thought it was an interesting social commentary. The woman perceived the man as a bully for stealing the cookies. The man perceived the woman as a flirt when she was stealing the cookies. — Hanover

You guys are insightful!

For example ? — Amity

Well I did indeed find myself sympathetic with the woman of the story all the way until the end. Then when I realized the twist and I had to ask myself why I thought the way I did. I just assume that most people would follow along the same line of thinking and be surprised too, then that lead me to think, if that's just a passive acceptance of stimulus or should I be more forward thinking, or open-minded enough to force out/delay any thoughts of judgement until the very end of any situation or experience. It was just an eye opening moment. Not sure if I described it well.

And thank you for the welcome. So far, TPF seems great!

This was a super interesting thread and I had a thought as I was reading through. Could we run a simple equation to generically quantify wisdom as a thought experiment?

For example, A (an individual) is generally more wise than B (another individual) if they rank higher on the checklist below, and vice versa with foolishness as the opposite.

I invite everyone to help generate said checklist,

Checklist:

Learns from ones experiences/ doesn't repeat the same actions that lead to undesirable consequences more than once.

When discussing something, displays both a knowledge base and experiential lessons.

Through character/personality displays humility, patience, when discussing something with others but at the same time does not sacrifice explanation for brevity.

Is always questioning?

Runs 'new ideas/thoughts/concepts' through ones own personal philosophy of beliefs before commenting.

Never complacent when it comes to learning.

(These are just examples from some of the comments above, please feel free to add or modify, I'm curious what we could collectively come up with.)
Glad to be part of the discussion.

Just recently I heard 'the cookie thief' poem for the first time and it blew my mind. The whole way up until the end I was sympathetic towards the woman but the end made me really question how I think about everything.


The Cookie Thief - Valerie Cox

A woman was waiting at an airport one night, with several long hours before her flight. She hunted for a book in the airport shops, bought a bag of cookies and found a place to drop.

She was engrossed in her book but happened to see, that the man sitting beside her, as bold as could be. . .grabbed a cookie or two from the bag in between, which she tried to ignore to avoid a scene.

So she munched the cookies and watched the clock, as the gutsy cookie thief diminished her stock. She was getting more irritated as the minutes ticked by, thinking, “If I wasn’t so nice, I would blacken his eye.”

With each cookie she took, he took one too, when only one was left, she wondered what he would do. With a smile on his face, and a nervous laugh, he took the last cookie and broke it in half.

He offered her half, as he ate the other, she snatched it from him and thought… oooh, brother. This guy has some nerve and he’s also rude, why he didn’t even show any gratitude!

She had never known when she had been so galled, and sighed with relief when her flight was called. She gathered her belongings and headed to the gate, refusing to look back at the thieving ingrate.

She boarded the plane, and sank in her seat, then she sought her book, which was almost complete. As she reached in her baggage, she gasped with surprise, there was her bag of cookies, in front of her eyes.

If mine are here, she moaned in despair, the others were his, and he tried to share. Too late to apologize, she realized with grief, that she was the rude one, the ingrate, the thief.

Currently reading Jordan Peterson's 12 Rules for Life.

I'm new to philosophy so I apologize if I don't use appropriate or proper terminology.

As far as I understand the original post, and speaking to both the figurative and physical meanings, historically we have records for how we've drawn/denoted our boarders, and present day we can easily see how we organize ourselves. As individuals we paradoxically have the power to bring about communal change and at the same time have very little impact on society (especially now as a global society) as a whole. So, I think a more important question is, how do we want to be in the future/ how do we want to create our future?

Could we combine the deontological and utilitarian philosophies somehow? (again, don't know much about either)

Are perhaps virtue ethics not just relevant, but unavoidable when it comes to this first step? — Echarmion

As far as I can see, we (as an increasingly global society) have been implementing various philosophies including virtue ethics into most communities. So, I will agree that they may well be unavoidable or somehow linked/byproduct of progress just in the sense that they are desirable communal traits.

Hope that makes sense. Glad to be part of the discussion.