The person who does not have the same insight as another might still have the capacity to have that insight, if the way is shown. — Metaphysician Undercover

'Show me the way, O, great one' says the earnest follower of every religion. But insight is present or it is absent, and there is no method, or training, or process or 'way' towards it. That is mere knowledge that is accumulated over time. Indeed there is an inversion, that the more greedily and earnestly one seeks insight, the less likely one is to attain it - as if one were chasing after stillness, or a dog chasing its tail.

All this is fairly orthodox and widespread - one goes to the church for comfort, but to the monastery for insight, and at the monastery one finds discipline, hard work, and silence, which is no more a path to enlightenment than a hot day is a path to a thunderstorm.

But insight is present or it is absent, and there is no method, or training, or process or 'way' towards it. That is mere knowledge that is accumulated over time. — unenlightened

Well, it's like I said, I don't really understand what you mean by "insight". How can there be no way or process toward it? Is its appearance magical? Or are you saying that it's something one is either born with or not? If so, would a young child have insight? And if a child cannot have insight, how is it developed, if not through magic?

how is it developed, if not through magic? — Metaphysician Undercover

It becomes more and more difficult to convey. it does not develop. There is no 'how'. Nothing 'happens'.
Have you ever had a puzzle or a problem that you have tried to work out for a long time without success, and then suddenly, without effort, you have the answer, clear and simple? Is that magic?

Do you not see that this exchange is exactly what I have described, that there is an understanding that cannot be conveyed - I say some words, but I cannot make room in you for a new idea. You need to have an insight!

And in interest of letting you folks continue i'm not even going to mention Un-Gnosis. — skyblack

Well, you did mention it! :grin: It's too late now. You must tell us about it and not just leave us in mystery!

Well, you did mention it! :grin: It's too late now. You must tell us about it and not just leave us in mystery! — Alkis Piskas

First, i couldn't care less for the "us". I could care about 'you', but that depends.

Does mystery bother you? Or does it move you?

Does mystery bother you? Or does it move you? — skyblack

Mystery can create various effects: from despair to frustration to indifference to wondering to interest to thurst for knowledge ... The mystery I mentioned had nothing to do with any of them. It was just a figure of speech. :smile:

Mystery can create various effects: from despair to frustration to wondering to interest to thurst for knowledge ... The mystery I mentioned had nothing to do with any of them. It was just a figure of speech. — Alkis Piskas

Yes, i had figured. But it is usually better to ask. It also gives the other a chance to process more.

I do think the message is about the "the inverse of the popular belief that being wise leads to financial wealth and the idea that those who are rich are poor in spirit." That is consonant with many other passages in the New Testament.
What is different about Gospel of Thomas is the emphasis upon betraying one's own being as the danger involved. The proximity between what can kill you or give you life.

What is different about Gospel of Thomas is the emphasis upon betraying one's own being as the danger involved. The proximity between what can kill you or give you life. — Paine

Can you briefly explain what this means?

reply="Paine;722207"]

I'm with Tom. An explanation would be helpful.

That is to say that I regard anything experienced and anything known to be aspects of the physical and thus not spiritual. This is not to deny the reality of the spiritual, because such would be a gnostic claim to know the unreality of the spiritual. Rather I would place the spiritual in that place 'whereof one cannot speak'. — unenlightened

I agree with you if we are considering discursive speech. The spiritual has to do, not with observation of particulars, logical relations or propositional discourse, but with affect; the sense of being illuminated.The arts, and poetry particularly, can speak to the spiritual, by way of evocation. If those who find themselves illuminated, or those who would be illuminants mistake their altered states of feeling and sense of understanding for determinate knowledge, all kinds of problems follow.

The spiritual has to do, not with observation of particulars, logical relations or propositional discourse, but with affect; the sense of being illuminated. — Janus

You make 'the spiritual' sound like 'the emotional'. (that's not intended as an adverse criticism, just an observation).

You make 'the spiritual' sound like 'the emotional'. (that's not intended as an adverse criticism, just an observation). — Tom Storm

I wouldn't take it as a criticism.Wittgenstein thought that nothing (propositional, that is inter-subjectively corroborable) could be said about mystical (religious, spiritual), aesthetic or ethical experience or judgement. I'm not sure about the ethical category, but the others have that in common as far as I have been able to tell.

Say you have an experience where you think you have encountered God. Since God is not a visible, audible or tactile entity, what could that experience consist in? I'd say it consists in the sense (feeling) of a presence one imagines or even feels one knows, to be God. Note the "feels one knows"; this is the realm of affect: I don't see what else it could be. Can you think of an alternative?

We know the Paul message because that is what became the church. The focus upon the end of days was paramount. You were either in the salvation life raft or you were not.

The emphasis upon being who you truly are in the gospel of Thomas is not an outright objection to the Pauline view. But it is not a great fit otherwise. If one has the source of what is worthy in their own being, looking for it is different from a war between one cosmos or another, as imagined by Paul.

I don't see what else it could be. Can you think of an alternative? — Janus

I just call it the ineffable. But I generally agree with you. For some believers I suspect there is a recognition of transcendence that sits above and beyond emotion and is more in keeping with apophatic traditions.

Ok. I just aren't sure how this explains the language in your quote below. But that maybe my problem as I generally need language to be very clear in order to follow the thread.

What is different about Gospel of Thomas is the emphasis upon betraying one's own being as the danger involved. The proximity between what can kill you or give you life. — Paine

(fixed typo)

Yes, I recognize my statement is provocative.
On the other hand, have you read the text? It is very short.

Have you ever had a puzzle or a problem that you have tried to work out for a long time without success, and then suddenly, without effort, you have the answer, clear and simple? Is that magic? — unenlightened

That's what I've heard called "the eureka moment". I can't say I've ever really experienced anything like the way it is described. Sometimes with a problem, if I let it go completely out of my head, then something will come into my head later which reminds me of the problem, but from a different perspective. That something can sometimes hold the solution. So it's like the solution comes to me only after I quit thinking about the problem, and having the solution makes me remember the problem. It's like when you're looking for something you've misplaced, and just give up because you can't find it. Then, later when you're doing something else, you'll see something, or otherwise remember something which reminds you exactly where the misplaced thing is. There's some sort of trigger. Also, quite often things come to me in my sleep, like the eureka moment, sometimes in dreams, other times I just wake up and the solution, or creative idea is right there, in my mind.

Do you not see that this exchange is exactly what I have described, that there is an understanding that cannot be conveyed - I say some words, but I cannot make room in you for a new idea. You need to have an insight! — unenlightened

Well, we can go around and around in circles, encircling the idea in many different ways, with you always saying "No! That is not what I mean". After my mind gets hit with a whole lot of No's, I might say, "all right, I give up, I'll never understand". Then I'll go off, and have a snooze, and bang! It hits me. "That's what unenlightened meant". You might say that it just came to me, "bang!", as insight, but I would say that it is really the product of all those no's, and going around in circles. The solution never would have come to me if I hadn't gone through that process of elimination first.

I just call it the ineffable. But I generally agree with you. For some believers I suspect there is a recognition of transcendence that sits above and beyond emotion and is more in keeping with apophenic traditions. — Tom Storm

Did you mean apophatic? I looked up apophenic and it relates to apophenia, which is "the tendency to perceive a connection or meaningful pattern between unrelated or random things (such as objects or ideas)".

There is a distinction in philosophy between transcendental and transcendent, where the former is understood to signify the "meta-empirical" conditions for experience (phenomenology) or the possibility of experience (Kant), and the latter signifies a postulated metaphysical or supernatural reality. Kant said we have very good (practical, not pure) reasons to believe in God, freedom and immortality, but not to reify those by believing that they are transcendent realities.

The former (transcendental) perspective seems to have more in common with apophatic stances, and the latter (transcendent) with the cataphatic, but I must admit that the more I try to think about this distinction the more it seems to dissolve into a kind of fog, and it starts to look like a fudge.

Did you mean apophatic? — Janus

Oops, typo, yes I did.

The former (transcendental) perspective seems to have more in common with apophatic stances, and the latter (transcendent) with the cataphatic, but I must admit that the more I try to think about this distinction the more it seems to dissolve into a kind of fog, and it starts to look like a fudge. — Janus

I think this is right. I also think one needs to believe for this to 'work'.

But it is usually better to ask. It also gives the other a chance to process more. — skyblack

Right.

You might say that it just came to me, "bang!", as insight, but I would say that it is really the product of all those no's, and going around in circles. The solution never would have come to me if I hadn't gone through that process of elimination first. — Metaphysician Undercover

I can accept that - the secret of success is effort and failure, followed by coincidence, or something like that, but the point I would make is that the explanation doesn't produce a method one can employ; it doesn't actually explain anything better than 'magic' or 'a eureka moment' or 'insight', because it is unrepeatable and unverifiable. It's a explanation of last resort, that you would not have thought much of coming from me. "But how does one have a coincidence?" I seem to hear you say.

But that is why monks practice a discipline and work and meditate; to prepare the mind for that unknown thing that might just happen, at least seemingly, of its own accord and without effort. something that they call 'grace' in the christian tradition, or 'liberation'.

Looking at the state of the modern human world, seemingly headed for complete self-destruction guided by secular science, it is apparent to me that the total contempt for religion that is so fashionable may be leading to the neglect of something important. I call it 'insight', and emphasise that it is something one cannot control or produce at will, but something that comes to one perhaps, or does not. It is something personal, but not of the self. This is not a contradiction of science, but it is beyond the scope of the scientific method, which without it becomes inhuman and mechanical and leads to destruction. In the small, it is a sudden understanding of something; in the large, it is a 'road to Damascus' transformation of one's life. It would be a serious mistake, if one has such a moment, to imagine that one has deserved or achieved it; that would be to add to the self when one should subtract.

Looking at the state of the modern human world, seemingly headed for complete self-destruction guided by secular science, it is apparent to me that the total contempt for religion that is so fashionable may be leading to the neglect of something important. I call it 'insight', and emphasise that it is something one cannot control or produce at will, but something that comes to one perhaps, or does not. It is something personal, but not of the self. This is not a contradiction of science, but it is beyond the scope of the scientific method, which without it becomes inhuman and mechanical and leads to destruction. In the small, it is a sudden understanding of something; in the large, it is a 'road to Damascus' transformation of one's life. It would be a serious mistake, if one has such a moment, to imagine that one has deserved or achieved it; that would be to add to the self when one should subtract. — unenlightened

I like this idea, "something personal, but not of the self". It seems very consistent with what I was arguing in the "Is there an external world?" thread. In that thread, the view of the thinking mind, from secular science, is a model from "systems theory". The systems theory places a boundary between the system and the external, to model sense perception. So I inquired as to why there is not also a boundary between the system and the internal, to account for everything internal which is not part of the system. But systems theory does not allow for this, everything inside the boundary between the system and the external, is part of the system, internal to the system. So the possibility of something coming from the inside, which is not part of the system ( something personal, but not of the self) cannot be part of that model.

I belief that this is similar to the way that Plato resolved the often cited "interaction problem" of dualism. He placed a medium between the immaterial and the material. So the realm of human thinking and activity, which he called passion (or some such word), is intermediate in relation to the external material world, and the internal immaterial world. Instead of placing boundaries between these two, the external and the internal, I prefer to view these as two different directions. One could look outward for external objects, or look inward for insight.

I'm not too familiar with systems theory, but I imagine that any boundary between the system and the environment is conceptual and imposed as a matter of analytic convenience. Boundaries have to be permeable and breach-able. I imagine a pendulum clock on the moon keeping a different time; it is convenient to separate clock from Earth in this way, although the gravity of the planet is what sustains and enables the mechanism to function.

as to internal boundaries, I'm not at all clear what you mean. I think there are internal boundaries, but I tend to have a fairly negative view of them, as divisions and conflicts of thought, and the idea of 'self' as the first source of such divisions. But we are going off topic; perhaps another thread sometime.

as to internal boundaries, I'm not at all clear what you mean. — unenlightened

Consider the "thinking self" as a type of system. There are external things which influence the self, some you've mentioned like knowledge and the empirical causes of experience. So as a matter of analytic convenience we assume a boundary between the self and the external world. These things which are external to the self have causal influence over the self, and there is a separation between cause and effect which requires a boundary, or a medium, as a principle of separation, to understand the temporal order.

But then there is the other thing you mentioned, "insight", which cannot be placed in that category of external influences because it is an internal influence on the self. Since it influences the self, but is not part of the self ("something personal but not of the self"), then for analytic convenience we could assume a boundary, medium, or principle of separation, between the self and the internal world, just like we assume a boundary between the self and the external. Then we might develop a better understanding of the temporal order between the internal reality, and the self.

Consider the "thinking self" as a type of system. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yeah, I'm stuck on this first bit. I can see the body as a system, or the brain as a system or subsystem, but the thinking self as I understand it is more like a habit - something a system usually does. But I don't even much favour that way of talking, because to me systems talk is material talk and mind talk is not. It's like playing Monopoly on a Risk board.

It's like playing Monopoly on a Risk board. — unenlightened

It's not quite like that, because we don't really have the game yet which I want to try to play on the Risk board. My goal was to try and find a way to speak about that place which you designated the place 'whereof one cannot speak'. So I've produced the Risk board. But I do not want to play Risk, I want to play a different game, using the same old board, but a completely different set of rules; a set of rules which we could design and formulate to get us into that place. You're unwilling to play. Maybe you think that Risk is the only game which can be played on the Risk board. Or, maybe because you've already designated that place as "whereof one cannot speak', you see no point in trying.

maybe because you've already designated that place as "whereof one cannot speak', you see no point in trying. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm not wedded to it. I suggest a new thread. Try and describe the thinking self in system theoretic terms, and let's see if we can make sense it. What are the boundaries, inputs, outputs, and internal functions? Have you read Bateson's "Steps to an Ecology of Mind"? It's old, but might make a good starting point. But, word to the wise, it does tend to get associated with some odd stuff if you're googling ( beware Neuro-Linguistic Programming). But I can see the self as a complex system within the ecosystem of mind, and the mind as an element of the eco-system that is civilisation - it needs laying out.

I suggest a new thread. — unenlightened

No, I think I'll leave that for now. I believe there are better options than systems theory. As I said, I'm not into boundaries myself. I'd prefer to look at internal and external as directions, inward and outward. That is why this thread is a little better, because gnosis is a form of knowledge derived from turning one's attention inward, looking in an inward direction, rather than looking outward.

We are more accustomed to looking outward, with our senses, and speaking with each other about things which are external, which we share (or fight over), so we have language which has evolved to be useful for that purpose. If we compare (through metaphor perhaps) looking inward with looking outward, then we can see the need to have internal things which are not private or personal, things we share and in that way are independent from us, which we can talk about with each other. So we have shared internal things just like we have shared external things. And of course, we might fight over the internal things like we fight over the external.

Understanding these internal things is not a matter of creating boundaries between oneself and the things to be understood, just like understanding external things is not a matter of creating boundaries between oneself and the external things. On the contrary, understanding internal things is a matter of creating a unity between oneself and the internal thing, 'bring it into your fold', just like understanding an external thing is a matter of creating a sort of unity between oneself and the thing to be understood.