This part is less complex than it appears to be. Plotinus is claiming that the "proper name" - if I may put it so - of the One is enough to conceive all of its abstraction. — Gus Lamarch

No idea what this means either.

It is a good description of the same concept that Plotinus is conceptualizing, but I think it unnecessary — Gus Lamarch

If everyone everywhere understands Plotinus in his own words, then translations would be unnecessary, agreed. In such a case, you might as well post Plotinus's writing in full, and leave it at that, no need for discussion.

but you forgot that the very nature of the intellect is already something less than the One, so we cannot fully comprehend it. — Gus Lamarch

I didn't forget it, that's what I'm saying. A tool which operates by a process of division will not be able to comprehend anything that lies beyond division. If true, then philosophy is pointless for such subjects, eh?

I claimed that it's not some other thing and you appeared to suggest that it is some other thing, — praxis

What if "things" don't actually exist but are instead conceptual inventions of the human mind?

When does a glass of water you drink become you? We could reasonably draw that boundary in any number of places, which illustrates that boundaries are convenient human conceptual creations. And if boundaries aren't real, things aren't either. And then we're left with the real world being a single unified phenomena. The One?

The One, as comprehended by Plotinus is a "metaphysics of radical transcendence that extends beyond being and intellection." — Gus Lamarch

Ok thanks. So the first challenge we face in understanding Plotinus is that few if any of us likely have any idea what that means.

I do get this part....

For the mere fact of attributing it to a finite concept - Is - we are no longer talking about the One, but to something less than it.

My translation would be, anything expressed in language will immediately fall victim to the divisive nature of thought, which by it's very nature can not express whatever lies beyond division.

This is helpful too...

Plotinus, using a venerable analogy, likens the One to the Sun which emanates light indiscriminately without thereby diminishing itself, or reflection in a mirror which in no way diminishes or otherwise alters the object being reflected.

Plotinus asserted the ultimately divine nature of material creation — Gus Lamarch

I would assert that it is the divisive nature of thought which conceptually divides reality in to mental categories like "divine" vs."non-divine".

Man cannot come to it through any organization, through any creed, through any dogma, priest or ritual, not through any philosophical knowledge or psychological technique. He has to find it through the mirror of relationship, through the understanding of the contents of his own mind, through observation and not through intellectual analysis or introspective dissection. — Krishnamurti

Thanks for posting this, a fun trip down memory lane for me. Since reading his words so many times so long ago, I've come to this...

Krishnamurti says, "Man can not come to it this way or that, he has to find it through observation etc".

Krishnamurti is implying that there is some "it" we can have if we go about things the right way. Krishnamurti is offering yet another becoming trip. If we do this, we can get that. And the "it" that we could supposedly get it is clouded in glamorous mystery, making it even more appealing, because now we can read whatever we want in to "it".

Our interest in such becoming trips is a response to a psychic hunger. We feel empty, and so seek to fill the emptiness with something, and glamorous becoming trips are an appealing menu item.

A key understanding for me is that this hunger doesn't arise in the content of thought, and so it can't be solved through philosophy.

The hunger instead arises from the medium of thought itself. Thought conceptually divides everything it touches, and so whatever our philosophy might be thought creates up and down, good and bad, inferior and superior, right and wrong, the past and the future etc, and the dance between all these dualities generates conflict, and the feeling of emptiness.

We try to think our way out of the emptiness, but that just adds more fuel on the fire. We convert from this philosophy to that to something else in the hopes of finding the right collection of concepts which will deliver us from the emptiness, but every philosophy we find is made of thought just like all the others so the emptiness and need for a becoming trip is never resolved.

If it's true that the hunger we feel arises from the medium of thought itself, that is very good news, as that suggests simple practical solutions which are readily available to just about anybody.

But the solutions to psychic hunger aren't perfect or permanent. When we're physically hungry we eat something. And then we have to eat again in a few hours. This goes on our entire life, the need to eat never ends. And so addressing physical hunger, and psychic hunger, isn't a glamorous business but instead just routine maintenance of a bodily function.

Because the readily available solution isn't glamorous, philosophers will likely lose all interest and continue on their becoming trips, to where they already are.

My theory is that I think it's fun that a guy with "ban" in his name did that which he wishes members to be banned for. Should someone post the number to the suicide hotline?

It’s not like it’s some other reality or metaphysical dimension that we don’t have access to — Praxis

Ok Gus, would you like to further explain Plotino's view on Praxis's claim above? I hope this is a relevant quote, perhaps you'd like to expand on it?

There is a supreme, totally transcendent "One", containing no division, multiplicity, or distinction; beyond all categories of being and non-being. His "One" cannot be any existing thing, nor is it merely the sum of all things, but "is prior to all existents". — Plotino

Perhaps it would help to further define the terms he is using, such as transcendent and existents?

I agree that in agreeing with Praxis I'm just offering my own view of such things and not an interpretation of Plotino's view. My own view is that the observable physical reality around us is a single unified phenomena, and it's the divisive nature of thought which conceptually divides reality in to things, parts, being and non-being etc. That is, the divisions we perceive are a property of the tool (thought) being used to make the observation, and not a property of that being observed.

How might you compare this theory to that of Plotino?

The underlying mechanism pushing the modern world towards crisis and collapse is our relationship with knowledge. Yup, that again.

Would you give a shotgun to a 6 year old boy for his birthday? Probably not. You'd easily recognize that such a gap between maturity and power could be very dangerous, and that due to the power of shotguns a single mistake could be a game over event. This is just simple common sense.

But when the boy becomes an adult we throw common sense out the window and assume without questioning that adult humans should have as much power as the knowledge explosion can provide, and as fast as possible. And so the gap between incremental maturity growth and exponential power development widens at an ever accelerating pace.

This is the first time we've attempted to create something as complex as globalized technological civilization, so it should be no surprise if we don't get it right on the first try. The Roman Empire came and went, and we will too, just like every civilization to come before. It could take tens of thousands of years before we figure out how to make this work.

If this is the peak of this cycle of civilization, we should be grateful that we got to be here to experience it.

And it should be noted that the religious cannot even enter into this conversation, they do not live in the real world — JerseyFlight

The perpetual survival of religion in every time and place for thousands of years argues to the contrary. If religion was a creature we'd have to say it's very well adapted to it's environment.

The pendulum will continue to swing as it always does. If Roe is overturned that will energize the left like nothing we've seen in years and unheard of amounts of money will pore like a torrential rain in to the bank accounts of Pro-Choice activists. The media will be clogged with stories of the bad things that can happen when safe abortion is not readily available. Roe caused the pendulum to swing to the right, overturning Roe will cause the pendulum to swing to the left. Back and forth the pendulum will swing for the rest of our lives.

Adapting the vocabulary to the standards of the "new generations" is to distort the content and the message that the writer wanted to convey. — Gus Lamarch

That could happen yes. Not all translations are of equal quality, agreed. I wouldn't however agree that every translation is automatically a distortion.

Nor would I agree that's it's essential that we understand what Plotinus meant. He's another writer on the forum. He's said some things which have sparked interesting discussion. All that's good. To me, the bottom line is, how useful is that discussion to participants?

The more we try to define unity the farther we travel from it, because definitions are by their nature divisive. — Hippyhead

Once you have uttered 'The Good,' add no further thought: by any addition, and in proportion to that addition, you introduce a deficiency." — Plotinus

Plotinus is saying that by adding further thought, a medium which operates by a process of division, we are polluting an understanding of The One with division, thus distorting it's unified nature.

Note how Plotinus says, "add no further thought". He's not saying that one thought is appropriate and that another one isn't. By using the all inclusive phrase "add no thought" he is referring to the medium of thought itself. He's saying, the more we think about this the more we're going to muck it up, because the divisive nature of thought will inevitably misperceive a phenomena which is beyond division. Plotinus is using philosophy, to point beyond philosophy.

What lies beyond philosophy is experience.

I was saying that we are always experiencing the absolute and we simply don’t realize it. It’s not like it’s some other reality or metaphysical dimension that we don’t have access to. — praxis

Yes, good point, I agree. So to build on that...

Why don't we realize we are experiencing the absolute? Imho, that's because most of the time our attention isn't focused on reality, but instead on our thoughts about reality. It's not a complicated mysterious thing, but just a matter of not paying attention, of being distracted.

We can use rational thought to understand that we aren't paying attention to reality itself. So far, so good. But if we wish to continue further then the job is to shift our focus from rational thought to the real world. We use philosophy as far as it can take us, and then set it aside. Or to put it another way, we shift our focus from explanations to experience.

An analogy might help clarify the relationship between explanations and experience. Explanations about food can help us find food and consume it intelligently. That's good. But if we want the nutrition we have to actually eat the food. The nutrition is in the food, not in the explanations.

The same can be said for God, the absolute, The One, or whatever name is used. The nutrition is in the experience, not the explanations. Thus, the most rational explanation is the one that provides the shortest most widely accessible path from explanation to experience. The rational person picks up the food and eats it, instead of standing there all day merely talking about it.

I feel bad for her as I imagine she was desperately trying to stay alive long enough that her seat on the Court would survive the Trump era, and she didn't quite make it. Very close, but no cigar. Another month and she would have made it...

Ancient texts is just some guy like us sharing his opinion at a time now long past. Being ancient doesn't mean anything in itself.

Once you have uttered 'The Good,' add no further thought: by any addition, and in proportion to that addition, you introduce a deficiency. — Gus Lamarch

TRANSLATION: The more we try to define unity the farther we travel from it, because definitions are by their nature divisive.

I get the impression that you’re being evasive for some reason. — praxis

I don't think he's being evasive, but is perhaps using language which isn't on the right channel for many readers of philosophy forums.

One way out of the endless round and round to nowhere which tends to afflict philosophy forums would be to shift the methodology of investigation from explanations to experience. To me, that's what's being implied by the philosophy being discussed.

You'd have to prove that simplicity is possible, that it exists, and that it is greater than matter — Gregory

Math is real, but it doesn't exist. So if someone were to ask that we prove that math exists we would be unable to do so, as it has no weight, no mass, no shape or form, is invisible etc.

Our thought cannot grasp the One as long as any other image remains active in the soul. To this end, you must set free your soul from all outward things and turn wholly within yourself, with no more leaning to what lies outside, and lay your mind bare of ideal forms, as before of the objects of sense, and forget even yourself, and so come within sight of that One. — Gus Lamarch

Perhaps what's needed here is a translation from one cultural language in to another? A less fancy more secular sounding way to put this could be....

We are made of thought. Thought operates by a process of division. Thus it's not possible to experience the unity of all things in that medium.

It seems possible to discuss such subjects from a purely mechanical perspective which doesn't introduce subjects like souls and so on. This may be useful when discussing such subjects with those who are alienated by more poetic language.

The reason I suggested using the word space to describe "The One" is that doing so translates an abstract religious sounding concept in to a tangible property of the natural world. Much of the language traditionally used to discuss such things was developed long before science came to dominate our culture. Translations may be helpful in reaching modern audiences.

I'm happy to agree that that religion should make no claims to fact. — Kenosha Kid

Right. Like I said, you're comparing religion to science as if they were both fact finding enterprises, and then declaring science the best method of finding facts. This is the classic forum atheist misunderstanding, endlessly repeated on every philosophy forum. It's mostly a fantasy superiority pose built upon ignorance.

If you want to review and critique religion we should do so by measuring religion against it's own goals. How well is religion in general or a particular religion helping people manage their relationship with reality?

Let's imagine we have a young child dying of cancer. They're afraid about what's coming next. Whatever explanation we choose to share, how well does that explanation ease the child's fears and help them come to terms with what they face? How well does the story we tell help them manage their relationship with reality?

Would it be good religion to tell the child that they were born for no known reason in to short life full of pain and next they will be a rotting slab of meat in the ground? Such an explanation might be a reasonable scientific theory, but it would probably suck as a religion, right?

The tradition of belief in direct experience of the divine — Jack Cummins

I like this direction. If the focus is on experience instead of explanations then belief is no longer needed. Tradition can go too. Once explanations are set aside the question of "experience of what?" is unnecessary baggage which can be tossed overboard.

Philosophers have a habit of introducing lots of unnecessary complications. When we're physically hungry we just eat something, we don't clutter that up with a lot of abstract analysis etc. It seems to me that psychic hunger can be addressed much in the same straightforward manner.

The brain is just another organ of the body which requires regular maintenance.

Plotinus describes his concept of "the One" as follows: — Gus Lamarch

The One is perhaps more appropriately described with a single word.

Space.

Religion is not science. Like most forum atheists you want to compare religion to science as if they were the same thing with the same goals. That is, you appear not to have enough of an understanding of religion to be a credible critic.

Human self delusion is so powerful it may not be possible to say much of anything meaningful about morality. Here's an example to illustrate...

The Nazis are often considered an extreme example of immorality. The Nazis sought to take over the entire European continent by force, exterminating all those they found inconvenient and enslaving the rest. We here in America were outraged, found the Nazis to be morally abhorrent and joined the fight against the Nazis, full of enthusiastic sincere conviction that we were morally superior.

And what did the Nazis want to do? The very same thing America had only recently finished doing on the North American continent, sweeping race based genocide and enslavement.

What's interesting is how thoroughly convinced Americans of that era were that there was a profound difference between American history and Nazi goals. This is fascinating given that we had completed the genocide of native peoples only a generation before the rise of Nazism, and were still lynching blacks in earnest during the Nazi era.

Point being, does the rampant self delusion which is a consistently reliable part of the human condition makes intelligent discussion of morality possible?

Evolution and cosmology are certainly interesting, but they don't really serve the need that fuels religions because they are intellectual, not emotional, experiences.

Science concerns itself with facts about reality. Intellectual.

Religion concerns itself with our relationship with reality. Emotional.

Two very different agendas.

What confuses the issue is that religions often make claims about reality in the effort to manage the relationship. Such claims are just the tip of the relationship management iceberg. Other techniques such as community, service, tradition, ceremony etc help illustrate that there is a larger agenda than just making factual claims.

If I understand correctly, Harris has an interest in meditation, which is good, as that's an attempt to address the underlying fundamental human needs which arise out of the nature of thought itself.

Hi unenlightened,

I think Krishnamurti provides a service in attracting we over thinkers to such subjects with all his intelligent insightful words and analysis. That's what I was looking for at the time, and he delivered. He aimed me at good subjects at a time when much simpler books like Be Here Now could not. He served me where I was, and deserves credit for that.

Dismissing religion as superstitious claptrap makes some people feel good about themselves. But if we are to claim to be philosophers or "public intellectuals," we must give a thoughtful, intellectually satisfying account of those 1.2 billion. This, Harris does not do. — fishfry

Good points fishfry. I can't say too much about Harris in particular, but your description seems a pretty good summary of atheist intellectual culture in general. Energetic and superficially clever, but not very deep or sophisticated.

As just one example, so much of the atheist discussion on philosophy forums and elsewhere seems to assume without questioning that religion is all about ideological beliefs, as if that was all there was to it. Culture, tradition, community, art, history, ceremony etc, all typically ignored.

To me, the most rational response to religion is not to accept or reject it, but to try to understand the human need that religion is attempting to address, and then find ways to meet that need that work for that person. Internet atheists rarely get this far, or even make the attempt. As you said, they are typically way too distracted by the "make people feel good about themselves" agenda.

My own studies have touched on Steiner, Gurdjieff, Ouspensky, Maurice Nicoll, but have settled on Krishnamurti as the clearest and most consistent voice. — unenlightened

I read a lot of Krishnamurti in my youth and his ideas influenced my own in a lot of ways. He certainly was consistent over a long career spanning most of the 20th century. I'm not sure I would call him the clearest though. I see him more like the philosophy professor who answers every question with another question so that the listener is led in to thinking for themselves. That sounds good on the surface, but, um....

Around the same time I started reading Krishnamurti there was a little book called "Be Here Now" which I'm sure you are familiar with. It was a silly little book, almost a comic book. I was a sophomore in college reaching for sophisticated maturity at the time so I dismissed Be Here Now as a meaningless wad of ridiculous fluff. I've come to reverse my original impression about the two writers.

Krishnamurti talked on and on and on for years and years. The fact that the same people tended to show up at his talks over and over again for decades would seem to suggest he wasn't really getting the job done. I now have more appreciation for the advice "Be Here Now" as it's only three simple words which aim to leap over years of conceptual analysis and replace it with direct experience. I find that clearer and more direct than Krishnamurti.

Imagine that you're physically hungry and are offered a choice between a book about apples, or a basket of apples. Krishnamurti is like the book, Be Here Now is the basket of apples. There's nothing wrong with the book, but it's not the most direct path to addressing the hunger.

The weakness of Krishnamurti's approach, and this post too, is that it is made of the medium of thought which is itself the problem we are attempting to solve. Krishnamurti appeals to people like us who already think too much, and he offers us even more thinking, thus we find him appealing. Reading Krishnamurti (and other such philosophers) is a bit like an alcoholic trying to cure his disease with a case of scotch.

Be here now leaps over philosophy. Hungry humans don't want to understand the apple so much as they want to eat it. We analytic types often get confused and think we have to understand the apple before we can eat it, but that's not true. We can just grab the apple and eat it now. Much simpler and more direct. Better philosophy in the end.

and this significantly relates to the issue that you've brought up in this topic. — praxis

Yes, I know that, which is why I brought it up. You're trying to lecture me, when I've already demonstrated that my understanding of these particular issues exceeds yours by a wide margin. But, you at least tried to participate, so thanks for that much.

(I'm not a moderator, by the way) — praxis

My apologies, I could have sworn that just yesterday I read something that indicated that you are a mod, or perhaps were. In any case, thanks for setting the record straight.

It appears that you could not, and your failure to produce one SCREAMS the point that their tossing your topic to the lounge dustbin in entirely justified. — praxis

Honestly, what a total load of complete nonsense. You've contributed very little to this thread, and now you want to lecture me as if you know the subject well enough to be my teacher. If you and the mods are such geniuses, where are YOUR threads on these all important subjects? They don't exist.

Never mind. Thanks for playing, and let's just forget this thread, complete waste of time.

If by "high quality", you mean something more nebulous than "the kind of thing that would appear on a philosophy blog or in a paper", I don't really know what you're talking about. — fdrake

Correct, you have no idea what I'm talking about.

By "high quality" I mean, for example, that you might have read the first post in the thread and responded to it in some manner. Instead, you've gone off on a rant which has nothing at all to do with my proposal. Same for Hanover's post, just pile of non-responsive unrelated gibberish.

Anyway, who cares. My mistake.

Assuming your request is in good faith and not disingenuous, and that you sincerely seek the wisdom of the moderators so that you can elevate the quality of your posts, the better solution is that you request the mentorship of a moderator to assist you. — Hanover

Who? You? Give me a break.

In what way is that “ mod submitted” dipshit? — DingoJones

Ok, oops, you got me. You're not a mod, totally my mistake. You're just a regular member whom the mods allow to post here. And thanks for posting in this thread, because now maybe we can make it in to the Lounge! And, I must admit, your most recent post does seem a more advanced level of the post I quoted, so we are making some kind of progress.

Maybe 50% of them are asshole shaped. I can write good posts sometimes. — fdrake

Ha ha! I plead guilty to this description myself, and got a good laugh out of recognizing myself in your self disclosure.

So another question....

How does one engage you in an analysis of my proposal?

Deciding whether the philosopher's obscurantism is a guru's ruse or a genuine yearning for darkness seems impossible to me. — David Mo

Yes, it wasn't my intention to evaluate a particular writer, but the field at large.

It's my sense that obscure philosophers are typically not engaged in a conscious deliberate business agenda, but are rather just swimming with the tide, doing what everyone else is doing, doing what they think their peers expect of them etc. That is, imho, not really doing philosophy.

That gives little room for anything more than malicious suspicion. — David Mo

I plead guilty to exaggerated attention seeking rhetoric which sometimes falls in to the malicious suspicion trap. I sincerely believe the points to be valid and useful, but the packaging they come in could sometimes use an upgrade.

As for the first one: the defenders of obscure writers, such as Hegel, Heidegger or Lacan, answer that the obscurity is given by the complex and often unsolvable nature of the problems. — David Mo

I would counter that many things are complicated on the surface, but if one digs deep enough the bottom line is usually pretty straightforward and can be expressed in every day language. At the least, that's the destination I strive for, not claiming I always get there. Partly this is just my blue collar aesthetic, but also I sincerely believe the purpose of philosophy is to serve human beings, and if only a relative handful people know what we're talking about, we aren't serving very well.

You know you can go back through a poster's posting history right? If you go to someone's profile and click on discussions, you'll see the threads they started. — fdrake

Thanks for the tip, will review. No smiting for now, sorry. :-)

Rather than me honking and smiting about your threads, I'll ask this.

In your opinion, are your writings of sufficient quality to be displayed prominently, so as to...

1) be an easily discovered example of what other members should shoot for and,

2) so that interesting new visitors we'd all like to chat with will immediately discover a good reason to hang around.

If you reply yes, then my vote is, please try it.

But you may want to go further (you are curious!) and sooner or later you will wonder why philosophy has to be so obscure? If you are interested we can continue. — David Mo

I see the obscurity as being a function of a couple things.

1) An inability to think the issue through to the bottom line, which can almost always be expressed in every day language.

2) A property of the philosophy business, where obscurity is used as a way to persuade funders that the writer is an expert, and thus merits funding.

3) A love of obscurity for itself. You know, that's just the writing style of some writers.

Good news, we have our first mod submitted quality content article from Mr. Dingo Jones...

See banning thread for the original copy.

Im not out there bitching about my threads getting moved you fucking dipshit. If I was you would have a point, but im not so you dont.
I cant remember a single douchebag with these painfully stupid threads that get deleted or moved actually make a good one. Its always starts with this muddled, dogmatic talking point that they preach over and over again whether its pertinent or not. Then when they dont get the recognition of brilliance they think it deserves they make an equally unimpressive thread demanding peoples attention to their ill conceived pet philosophy/talking point.
Its just a bunch of arrogant, ignorant, Dunning-Krueger dummies who are aggressively wrong and right only by accident. And yes, this includes you, so take your brainless commentary about what I said to somebody else, shine it up, put a nice little bow on it and shove it up your ass. — Dingo Jones

If you’re as serious as you claim to be I suggest that you start a new topic, arguing that the “more is better" relationship with knowledge is outdated and dangerous. That would be a good place to start, I think, and if done well could generate a good amount of interest. — praxis

Been there, done that already.

And, I'm doing it again, right here, right now. If you want more, move the thread. If you want less, do nothing. I'm agreeable either way.

It's not idiotic to restrict certain interactions to those who are considered more skilled. — Coben

One point of my proposal was to discover if the mods are more skilled. No making any claim here, just asking for evidence. You know, this is a philosophy forum, things like that happen.

But I find it odd that moderators decided to be insulting and not to respond with much substance.

I don't find it odd, I find it normal, expected, routine. Perhaps that's because I'm odd. :-)

Though perhaps the mods were trying to demonstrate through example that there would be no role modeling potential in such a restriction discussion sub-forum. Kinda like 'Hey, this is what we'd be like.' Demonstrating concretely the foolishness, at least here, of trying Hippyhead's suggestion. — Coben

Whatever the quality of a mod section might be, I still think it would be useful. It would either provide a constructive example of what members should be aiming for in their own posts, or it might help the mods refine their understanding of their relationship to the forum. From what I've seen, at least some of the mods are qualified to rise to the challenge.

And for those who aren't, perhaps they could find other ways to serve the forum other than standing in judgement of member posts quality. Like for example, finding interesting writers in the blogosphere who could be persuaded to participate here. A high quality section placed prominently would help make the case that doing so was worth their time.

And finally, apologies to all readers for my um, excessive enthusiasm above. I'm a retired forum software developer, and have simply been thinking about such issues for too many years. I've been thinking about everything for too many years. Please accept my application for a geezer exception. :-)

We talk about all sorts of stuff, including discussing interesting new ideas, unlike yours. — Hanover

Put up or shut up? The mods claim to know good quality from poor quality. Let's see a section where the mods demonstrate that they can deliver good quality.

Maybe spend less time on fora discussing issues with 28 billion bots. — Benkei

Like I'm doing now ya mean? Gotta agree.

Its fine the way it is, stop bitching about it and concentrate on making better threads — DingoJones

Let's see your better threads please. Thanks.