Depth

frank

Intellectual depth is found in the spaces between the words of the clear narrative. It's found in psychic harmonics connecting the mundane to the cosmic, the mechanical to the magical, and the intimate to the inanimate.

To find depth, you have to wander. You have to risk irrelevance. You have to be brave, but most of all, you have to be fascinated. You have to be fascinated by people, by the world, in other words, you have to be fascinated by yourself, Because you are the domain of depth. It's what you think and feel: that's where it starts. It's how you connect the dots. It's how you name the planets.

Sensation, emotion, and intellect play off one another. This play is mythology and it's how you're available to be controlled or exploited, so know your own mythology. Know how you're vulnerable. Know what you're afraid of. And those answers are all around you.

The world you see is made up of your loves and hates. You are it's depth.

Angelo Cannata

Depth is subject to a lot of shallowness and meaninglessness, because anybody is able to make a cocktail of evocative words. Real depth can be proven by certain criteria:
- connection with important concepts
- openness towards further important connections
- connection with the richest elements and aspects of today's culture
- connection with humanity.

This way we can even determine degrees of depth, for example "heart" is deeper than "mind", wich is deeper than "car", which is deeper than "34523".

frank

Real depth can be proven by certain criteria:
- connection with important concepts — Angelo Cannata

Like what?

Joshs

↪frank

The world you see is made up of your loves and hates. You are it's depth. — frank

And your loves and hates define the limits of your understanding. One might argue that the feeling of depth is a function of the richness , intricacy and anticipative continuity of the surface movement or flow of our experience of events. Depth would not be so much a vertical as a horizontal process, concerning how effectively we are able to transform ourselves rather than about the enlargement and deepening of a pre-existing way of feeling and understanding.

T Clark

To find depth, you have to wander. You have to risk irrelevance. You have to be brave, but most of all, you have to be fascinated. You have to be fascinated by people, by the world, in other words, you have to be fascinated by yourself, Because you are the domain of depth. It's what you think and feel: that's where it starts. It's how you connect the dots. It's how you name the planets. — frank

For me, depth comes from awareness. To the extent that thinking and writing increases our awareness of ourselves, the world, and other people is the extent to which it has depth. In philosophy, I think the focus is on awareness of how we think, how we understand the world, how we know things.

I don't think my way of seeing things is all that different from yours.

frank

One might argue that the feeling of depth is a function of the richness , intricacy and anticipative continuity of the surface movement or flow of our experience of events — Joshs

This is mainly in the realm of sensation? Depth as in truly tasting an apple instead of just chomping and swallowing?

concerning how effectively we are able to transform ourselves — Joshs

The move toward transformation is the topic of Sickness Unto Death.

For me, depth comes from awareness. To the extent that thinking and writing increases our awareness of ourselves, the world, and other people is the extent to which it has depth. In philosophy, I think the focus is on awareness of how we think, how we understand the world, how we know things.

I don't think my way of seeing things is all that different from yours. — T Clark

:up:

dimosthenis9

You have to be brave, but most of all, you have to be fascinated. You have to be fascinated by people, by the world, in other words, you have to be fascinated by yourself, — frank

That works the same if someone has to reach freedom, happiness and all good "things" in life in general.
Guess depth and all these, are somehow strongly connected to each other(as everything is connected at the very end). The more depth you discover, the closer you get to happiness and freedom etc. It's a never ending procedure.
Imo, mental development is the key for depth as in almost everything.

Angelo Cannata

↪frank

Important concepts are those ones considered important by the persons. Obviously, they are different according to different people, but we can make discussions and see if we can find agreement on some concepts. So, some concepts are deep for me, other ones for you, other ones might be important for both of us.

frank

The more depth you discover, the closer you get to happiness and freedom etc. It's a never ending procedure. — dimosthenis9

I think that's true. Authenticity means leaving superficial rules behind?

Joshs

↪frank

One might argue that the feeling of depth is a function of the richness , intricacy and anticipative continuity of the surface movement or flow of our experience of events
— Joshs

This is mainly in the realm of sensation? Depth as in truly tasting an apple instead of just chomping and swallowing? — frank

Both sensation and conception are structured i. terms of a temporal unfolding , so depth in time, not depth as a spatial concept. Conscious awareness is not a container but an interactive movement. ‘Truly’ experiencing anything is in the direction of a richer flow of change, not the accessing of a deeper inner dimension.

Tom Storm

Intellectual depth is found in the spaces between the words of the clear narrative. It's found in psychic harmonics connecting the mundane to the cosmic, the mechanical to the magical, and the intimate to the inanimate. — frank

This is not meaningful to me. I also don't recognize the notion of depth as a criterion of value - which seems to be a veiled synonym here for 'better' or 'more evolved'. Isn't what you have written just a flowery way to express a view that some people are more sophisticated than others? By the way, if this is sounding hostile that is not the intent. Just expressing a view.

Sensation, emotion, and intellect play off one another. This play is mythology and it's how you're available to be controlled or exploited, so know your own mythology. Know how you're vulnerable. Know what you're afraid of. And those answers are all around you. — frank

I don't understand what this says. I don't consider sensation or emotion or intellect to be separate domains. I don't know what you mean by mythology (the Old Testament?). What is 'your own mythology? Knowledge of vulnerability and fear makes some sense. I guess you mean insight?

dimosthenis9

Authenticity means leaving superficial rules behind? — frank

Even If it doesn't mean that, for sure it presupposes that. I guess "Depth" is always where the real treasure is found.

Janus

And your loves and hates define the limits of your understanding. One might argue that the feeling of depth is a function of the richness , intricacy and anticipative continuity of the surface movement or flow of our experience of events. Depth would not be so much a vertical as a horizontal process, concerning how effectively we are able to transform ourselves rather than about the enlargement and deepening of a pre-existing way of feeling and understanding. — Joshs

Depth is usually conceived not as consisting in "surface movement", or the superficial, but in subtlety, nuance, complexity of association and allusion and of what is at work underlying the production of surface movements.

So, it seems apt to think of depth as a "vertical process" insofar as it consists in going deeper than what immediately appears.The ocean or the human face seem to be good metaphors.

frank

Truly’ experiencing anything is in the direction of a richer flow of change, not the accessing of a deeper inner dimension. — Joshs

Maybe so.

Kierkegaard said there are two ways to experience an event:

1. As if the world is new in this moment. There's an edge to events from this perspective. Anxiety and excitement are part of anticipation.

2. As if this is a repetition, another day, another Spring, another person doing x again. This perspective is characterized by melancholy (per SK). Success is less important (in a way). Defeat stings less because it's just another defeat in a long line of them.

One way isn't better than the other, except the second eayymay ease things when there is too much anxiety.

frank

Even If it doesn't mean that, for sure it presupposes that. I guess "Depth" is always where the real treasure is found. — dimosthenis9

I agree. :grin:

Joshs

↪Janus

Depth is usually conceived not as consisting in "surface movement", or the superficial, but in subtlety, nuance, complexity of association and allusion and of what is at work underlying the production of surface movements.

So, it seems apt to think of depth as a "vertical process" insofar as it consists in going deeper than what immediately appears.The ocean or the human face seem to be good metaphors. — Janus

What produces complexity? If we think in terms of the neural connectivity underlying deep thinking, isn’t this a process unfolding over time? A superficial response to a question can be performed instantaneously, but a thoughtful answer requires effort , and this means a process that unfolds over time. All those neurons dont fire instantaneously, it is a process of spreading activation. Of course , intelligence and speed of processing are inseparable. A process isn’t intelligent if it takes forever. We are able to do more and more complex things , feel more and more complex feelings, over smaller and smaller increments of time. One could say that depth is a matter of temporal condensation.

Janus

↪Joshs

I have been speaking about the content of the thought process, not its neural underpinnings. Of course the latter can only be more or less complex over a given duration, or at least so we must presume, I guess; and it doesn't seem apt to speak in terms of nuance or subtlety when it comes to neural processes, but in any case that was not what I had in mind. I agree with you about being able to

feel more and more complex feelings, over smaller and smaller increments of time — Joshs

Joshs

↪Janus

↪Joshs I have been speaking about the content of the thought process, not its neural underpinnings — Janus

But doesn’t the content of the thought process itself unfold this way? Its not as if how we perceive our thinking phenomenologically has to run counter to the temporal nature of its organization at the neural level. Doesnt deep thought imply difficult thought , and doesn’t difficult thought imply a constructive process, a piecing together of something richer over time?

Janus

But doesn’t the content of the thought process itself unfold this way? Its not as if how we perceive our thinking phenomenologically has to run counter to the temporal nature of its organization at the neural level. Doesnt deep thought imply difficult thought , and doesn’t difficult thought imply a constructive process, a piecing together of something richer over time? — Joshs

That makes sense to me. I guess we could say that deeper thought is like a more complex tapestry; with more interwoven threads, and then be free of the depth metaphor.

Joshs

↪Janus

That makes sense to me. I guess we could say that deeper thought is like a more complex tapestry; with more interwoven threads, and then be free of the depth metaphor. — Janus

:up:

Tom Storm

This way we can even determine degrees of depth, for example "heart" is deeper than "mind", wich is deeper than "car", which is deeper than "34523". — Angelo Cannata

Nice. Of course 34523 might well be the deepest of all if those numbers happen to correspond to the tattoo given to you at Auschwitz.

Depth

Welcome to The Philosophy Forum!

Categories

More Discussions