. It sounds like you want a co-creator of the philosophy. Even if people were willing to do it, they'd be afraid that they wouldn't know how. — ghost

To bad Guattari isn't around. I think he'd get off on the gig.

I think you’re the fool here. I was referencing the mystical experience regarding the fall. you’re talking about me falling. That’s not gonna happen.

The phenomenological approach is the only instance where the so called ‘real’ doesn’t matter. It is essentially a science of subjectivity and so cannot then be extended as an existent absolute. — I like sushi

Indeed, but according to Husserl , it does give us apodictic certainty and an absolute grounding.

Along similar lines : Is it possible for a singular person to consider the relationship between the concrete and the abstract, the metaphysical and the real without integrating all of their personas? And what is the relationship between private integration and public? — csalisbury

That's a tough one. Maybe you can relate. I try to be a rounded and grounded personality. Given the sophistication of your posts, I imagine that you dress carefully, that the details matter. I think that (whatever our differences) there's a similar sense that we're at a play, and that others are perhaps more likely to forget that they are just posing, engaged in the role.

As far as private/public, I sometimes think I detect little clues in thinkers that hint at their more complex private views. Just imagine being famous and telling the whole truth.... Let's say that some part of you forgive or embraces yourself as a whole, darkness and light. Well that's a matter that must remain private, excepting the highest of friendships/relationships. And even these have their limits (have two people ever really lived in exactly the same world?)

Of course to won’t happen. You have to be killed by humility first in order to recognise that your knees are bloodied from the falls you’ve already taken.

Saying “Good luck” is not meant with malice or contempt. Neither is the above - if I’m wrong it won’t matter a jot. I’d be doing a disservice to you if I lied about what I see going on here.

Anyway, I’m going to step away from this thread now.

Thanks for your responses :)

To bad Guattari isn't around. I think he'd get off on the gig. — Joshs

I never read that book (I know the one you're talking about.) But if that book is like I've imagined it, you're probably right.

That's a profound question. I think usually the persona is the self one is invested in constructing, maintaining, protecting. The mask just is the face. But something happens in human consciousness, for all of us I think, especially those who live in words. The 'true' self is made of words. But words are the infinite medium. Concept is the highest manifestation of religion for thinkers like Hegel, and there's a case to be made. So a single face and a single history are a sort of absurd vessel. — ghost

I have seen Unforgiven but it was a really long time ago.

But, speaking in declaratives, the 'true self' is made of actions, not words. What you are is what you do, no matter what you feel. Because everyone feels! Which doesn't flatten or normalize it. It comes out in different ways. Everyone feels stuff, and sees the gleams in different places. But what you do is what you are. On a cosmic scale? Who knows, sing! You don't need the face and history all the time. But they're still there, once the song's over. That you extend beyond your face and history doesn't mean that you don't bear the responsibility of the face and history. Feeling something very important (which literally everyone has felt) isn't a get-out-face-free card.

Even if being at TPF is a little uncomfortable or annoying, I still think it's good to expose yourself to other perspectives. At the very least you are learning about the world and what to expect from others when you bring them philosophy.

I imagine that you dress carefully, — ghost

Ah, I'm a slob.

But, speaking in declaratives, the 'true self' is made of actions, not words. What you are is what you do, no matter what you feel. — csalisbury

I understand this view, but let's not underestimate the power of words.

You don't need the face and history all the time. But they're still there, once the song's over. That you extend beyond your face and history doesn't mean that you don't bear the responsibility of the face and history. Feeling something very important (which literally everyone has felt) isn't a get-out-face-free card. — csalisbury

I don't think you get what I was getting at. And in the friendliest way that such a thing can be mentioned, aren't you falling into a moralizing role here? Or maybe this is just your unfiltered reaction. And maybe I set it up wrong.

The performance is largely for the self. So we are talking about a modification of conscience. As far as Nietzschean modes go, it's beyond the face, beyond history. So one gets to a high place, has a godlike feeling, and enjoys a post-orgasmic clarity on issues like the face and history. Nietzsche wrote some killer lines on Heraclitus, about his disdain for his own immortality or reputation. Aristotle's proud man is no angel either.

Such pride or self-satisfaction is always absurd from the outside. Who's this guy? He doesn't have billions of dollars or [idol.] And that's where faith comes in, or the secret, inner kingdom of God. So i's all just madness and vanity to prudent conformity. Note that I am largely a prudent conformist reflecting on a pilot light that flares up once in a while. I'd never just casually mention such stuff in mixed company, though jokes can do the trick. I guess I'm pretty slick socially, believe it or not. So I very much understand that Nietzsche is creepy.

So I'm saying that intense feeling is a get-out-of-everything card. Now prudent me who works at surviving and fitting in understands what I've ungenerously called moralizing. I called it out because of its mild parent-child dynamic (which didn't offend me but made me feel not quite understood, hence all this cosmic drivel.)

Ah, I'm a slob. — csalisbury

I'm surprised. Well, I guess I've projected. Still, there is something in your posts I relate to, despite the places where we seem to not meet up.

I'm exhausted and have to work in the afternoon. Otherwise I'd stick around. Good night all.

I think it is fair to say I'm in a moralizing role here. This, too, is words, and my ragged irl self doesn't live up to it. But it's all a play and this is the role I've chosen for the moment.

I'm not saying, I hope it's clear, that there's no place for post-orgasmic clarity. By all means, inner kingdom, Blake etc. I don't mean to say that everything is the company picnic. You know, the company picnic where everyone is thinking 'I'm at the company picnic, and am entirely my social role' except for the hero & one or two ladies with a glint in their eye.

But why the jump from 'action' to reputation, pride, money? Why does 'what you do is what you are' translate, reflexively, into a question of status?

'a slob, but still'. What is the 'still' doing? 'Slob' negates something, 'still' preserves something else. What, and how?

I will be releasing a book with the next two years that will expound upon the truth in great detail, and if all goes as planned, it will change the world. Man has been living in darkness for long enough now, so it’s time that he poke his head outside the cave and see what he’s been missing. I am here to help make that happen. unfortunately, there are dark forces fighting against me, trying to steal their minds away from me and the truth, but they will not prevail because my mission comes from the highest of the high. — TheGreatArcanum

It sounds like you suffer from delusions of grandeur and mistake it for mystical insight.

I emailed like 20 professors from various respected universities around the country and even several from the local D3 college in my area and I got zero responses even despite offering to pay money. — TheGreatArcanum

It is quite common for professors to receive this kind of "stuff" unsolicited. It is simply not worth the time and effort to respond. Nothing good will come of it. Unless they share your opinion of what you say as coming from "the highest of the high" you will reject their help and disparage them.

Why does 'what you do is what you are' translate, reflexively, into a question of status? — csalisbury

I like your honesty and self-awareness as always. To answer your question, moralizing and morality are about status, about what is noble. Let me step into the Nietzschean role here and say that war is god and that no one is outside of the game. This isn't about a life of street crime. What an inspired person wants to do is make art, scream like Robert Plant about being a rock that no longer rolls. Nietzsche is (or sometimes is) just conceptual rock-and-roll. But so are Hegel and Aristotle.

We can also approach this issue in terms of what the today's academic man would on average miss or have to conceal in himself. If a person actually reads some of the great books that are used in intellectual status play (and I know that you have, to be clear), then he sees a kind of arrogance or kingly masculinity that doesn't fit very well with corporate sensitivity training. I am not railing against the times here. I'm connecting the perception of phoniness or sentimentality to the tradition.

This awful fact, that historical men were not what is called happy – for only private life in its manifold external circumstances can be “happy” – may serve as a consolation for those people who need it, the envious ones who cannot tolerate greatness and eminence. They strive to criticize the great and belittle greatness. Thus in modern times it has been demonstrated ad nauseam that princes are generally unhappy on their thrones. For this reason one does not begrudge them their position and finds it tolerable that they rather than oneself sit on the throne. The free man, however, is not envious, but gladly recognizes what is great and exalted and rejoices in its existence. ... But to such great men attaches a whole train of envy, which tries to demonstrate that their passion is a vice. One can indeed apply the term “passion” to the phenomenon of the great men and can judge them morally by saying that passion had driven them. They were indeed men of passion: they had the passion of their conviction and put their whole character, genius, and energy into it.
...
What schoolmaster has not demonstrated that Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar were driven by such passions and were, consequently, immoral? From which it immediately follows that he, the schoolmaster, is a better man than they because he has no such passions, and proves it by the fact that he has not conquered Asia nor vanquished Darius and porus, but enjoys life and allows others to enjoy it too. These psychologists are particularly fond of contemplating those peculiarities that belong to great historical figures as private persons. Man must eat and drink; he has relations with friends and acquaintances; he has emotions and fits of temper. “No man is a hero to his valet de chambre,” is a well-known proverb; I have added – and Goethe repeated it two years later – "but not because the former is no hero, but because the latter is a valet.” He takes off the hero’s boots, helps him into bed, knows that he prefers champagne, and the like. Historical personages fare badly in historical literature when served by such psychological valets. These attendants degrade them to their own level, or rather a few degrees below the level of their own morality, these exquisite discerners of spirits. Homer’s Thersites, who abuses the kings, is a standing figure for all times. Not in every age, it is true, does he get blows – that is, beating with a solid cudgel – as in the Homeric one. But his envy, his egotism, is the thorn that he has to carry in his flesh; and the undying worm that gnaws him is the tormenting thought that his excellent intentions and criticisms get absolutely no result in the world. — Hegel

We also have Kant, Wittgenstein, Schopenhauer, and others....telling us with straight faces that they are the greatest to ever play the game. What's the difference between them and @TheGreatArcanum ? I'd save it's a matter of sophistication and submitting to reality in order to recoup control over it. And maybe @fresco could chime in here. I may be wrong, but I'd bet that he likes Nietzsche and feels what I'd call the rock-n-roll in philosophy that is a little bit evil, a little bit unruly and contemptuous of the intellectual who is not also a man or a warrior or...willing to wear the crown rather than outsource that evil via projections and envy. (Note that I'm not accusing you here. ) There is a violence toward sentimentality in philosophy, a machismo that's a little out of place in this age. At its worst it is of course monstrous. And that's why only a fool talks about it lightly or in the wrong situation.

But it's all a play and this is the role I've chosen for the moment. — csalisbury

Indeed, and this is where we meet. This is the Kierkegaard thing. It's as if the truth were a dark god that can't be captured in a single persona. This takes us to Feuerbach's species-essence being shattered into a million pieces. This takes us to finitude and what's false in Hegel (that someone can be everyone at once.)

'a slob, but still'. What is the 'still' doing? 'Slob' negates something, 'still' preserves something else. What, and how? — csalisbury

My question is whether your slobbiness is ultimately an artistic decision, a costume of humility or transcendence of fashion.. Like a king in his bathrobe. I'd be surprised if you didn't walk through the world feeling tuned in to something rare.

Have you looked at Hobbes recently? I am really digging Hobbes and Bacon. Their prose is so compact. This is more on the Nietzsche theme:

The secret thoughts of a man run over all things, holy, prophane, clean, obscene, grave, and light, without shame, or blame; which verball discourse cannot do, farther than the Judgement shall approve of the Time, Place, and Persons. An Anatomist, or a Physitian may speak, or write his judgement of unclean things; because it is not to please, but profit: but for another man to write his extravagant, and pleasant fancies of the same, is as if a man, from being tumbled into the dirt, should come and present himselfe before good company. And 'tis the want of Discretion that makes the difference. Again, in profest remissnesse of mind, and familiar company, a man may play with the sounds, and aequivocal significations of words; and that many times with encounters of extraordinary Fancy: but in a Sermon, or in publique, or before persons unknown, or whom we ought to reverence, there is no Gingling of words that will not be accounted folly: and the difference is onely in the want of Discretion. So that where Wit is wanting, it is not Fancy that is wanting, but Discretion. Judgement therefore without Fancy is Wit, but Fancy without Judgement not.
...
The Passions that most of all cause the differences of Wit, are principally, the more or lesse Desire of Power, of Riches, of Knowledge, and of Honour. All which may be reduced to the first, that is Desire of Power. For Riches, Knowledge and Honour are but severall sorts of Power.
...
And therefore, a man who has no great Passion for any of these things; but is as men terme it indifferent; though he may be so farre a good man, as to be free from giving offence; yet he cannot possibly have either a great Fancy, or much Judgement. For the Thoughts, are to the Desires, as Scouts, and Spies, to range abroad, and find the way to the things Desired: All Stedinesse of the minds motion, and all quicknesse of the same, proceeding from thence. For as to have no Desire, is to be Dead: so to have weak Passions, is Dulnesse; and to have Passions indifferently for every thing, GIDDINESSE, and Distraction; and to have stronger, and more vehement Passions for any thing, than is ordinarily seen in others, is that which men call MADNESSE.
...
To shew any signe of love, or feare of another, is to Honour; for both to love, and to feare, is to value. To contemne, or lesse to love or feare then he expects, is to Dishonour; for 'tis undervaluing.

To praise, magnifie, or call happy, is to Honour; because nothing but goodnesse, power, and felicity is valued. To revile, mock, or pitty, is to Dishonour.

To speak to another with consideration, to appear before him with decency, and humility, is to Honour him; as signes of fear to offend. To speak to him rashly, to do anything before him obscenely, slovenly, impudently, is to Dishonour.

To believe, to trust, to rely on another, is to Honour him; signe of opinion of his vertue and power. To distrust, or not believe, is to Dishonour.

To hearken to a mans counsell, or discourse of what kind soever, is to Honour; as a signe we think him wise, or eloquent, or witty. To sleep, or go forth, or talk the while, is to Dishonour.

To do those things to another, which he takes for signes of Honour, or which the Law or Custome makes so, is to Honour; because in approving the Honour done by others, he acknowledgeth the power which others acknowledge. To refuse to do them, is to Dishonour. — Hobbes

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3207/3207-h/3207-h.htm#link2H_4_0046


Hard and clear, for better or worse. This like phenomenology. We already know this stuff. But there's something about it being said that way.

yes. this is true. but I haven’t really found much constructive criticism here. — TheGreatArcanum

FWIW, I don't think you've clarified your persona here. On the hand, you assert being in on something supreme. On the other hand you still mention wanting some help.

I don't mind what some might call your arrogance. Other philosophers who are now at the center of educated conversation were maybe just as arrogant. Hegel thought that God came to know himself and complete himself through a man named Hegel. Or that's one version. He was also a rational mystic.
But he figured out how to sell it. His first book was a mess, but he later wrote more clearly.

Anyway, the problem is convincing people that whatever it is that you feel and think can actually be of value to them. We live in a world of false promises. We live in a world where people lying to themselves in the rule, at least in small harmless things. So what the world-weary skeptics trust is reliable results, tools that work whether we believe in them or not. My own point of view is that, aside from occasionally bouts of illumination, the situation is more like this.

@schopenhauer1 You will like this.

By MANNERS, I mean not here, Decency of behaviour; as how one man should salute another, or how a man should wash his mouth, or pick his teeth before company, and such other points of the Small Morals; But those qualities of man-kind, that concern their living together in Peace, and Unity. To which end we are to consider, that the Felicity of this life, consisteth not in the repose of a mind satisfied. For there is no such Finis Ultimus, (utmost ayme,) nor Summum Bonum, (greatest good,) as is spoken of in the Books of the old Morall Philosophers. Nor can a man any more live, whose Desires are at an end, than he, whose Senses and Imaginations are at a stand. Felicity is a continuall progresse of the desire, from one object to another; the attaining of the former, being still but the way to the later. The cause whereof is, That the object of mans desire, is not to enjoy once onely, and for one instant of time; but to assure for ever, the way of his future desire. And therefore the voluntary actions, and inclinations of all men, tend, not only to the procuring, but also to the assuring of a contented life; and differ onely in the way: which ariseth partly from the diversity of passions, in divers men; and partly from the difference of the knowledge, or opinion each one has of the causes, which produce the effect desired.
...
So that in the first place, I put for a generall inclination of all mankind, a perpetuall and restlesse desire of Power after power, that ceaseth onely in Death. And the cause of this, is not alwayes that a man hopes for a more intensive delight, than he has already attained to; or that he cannot be content with a moderate power: but because he cannot assure the power and means to live well, which he hath present, without the acquisition of more. And from hence it is, that Kings, whose power is greatest, turn their endeavours to the assuring it at home by Lawes, or abroad by Wars: and when that is done, there succeedeth a new desire; in some, of Fame from new Conquest; in others, of ease and sensuall pleasure; in others, of admiration, or being flattered for excellence in some art, or other ability of the mind. — Hobbes

We get the essence of Nietzsche and Schopenhauer in Hobbes, in clean, lean lines of real talk.

We get the essence of Nietzsche and Schopenhauer in Hobbes, in clean, lean lines of real talk. — ghost

Indeed Hobbes had a bit of the pessimist about him.

‘presuppositionlessness’ would be more accurate. The “apodeictic” is defined by Husserl as that which cannot be imagined as not being so, and the ‘presupposition’ of this is the investigation as to how/where (roughly speaking) this is, and how it can be, adumbrated.

Admittedly in hi final unfinished work there are points that veer away from this definition and since his first works he is constantly evolving how to explicate his ideas and correct them under criticism.

Note: I think he either goes off the rails in “Crisis” and/or made a hash of putting his ideas across with any reasonable degree of clarity (he is obtuse sometimes and dealing with an obtuse problem).

What was the “Oh dear!” Comment about?

What was the “Oh dear!” Comment about? — I like sushi

You were trying to get TheGreatArcanum to elaborate on his angels and devils theme. My fear was that might lead in certain, shall we say, psychopathologic directions.

I fear for this persons constitution. Que sera sera. The best we can do is wish them good fortune in dealing with their breakthrough (even though they may actually be constructing a wall rather than dealing with the breakthrough - simply because it’s too scary and what we’re witnessing is a psychopathological defense).

Either way, it is nice to see a little bombast and honesty (misguided by my judgement).

My rule is that if I think I’ve got an indisputable conclusion I’m either deluded, ignorant, or close-minded. Without doubt there is no room for intellectual exploration and/or understanding.

I think the problem here is not me, but the ego of the Western man in general, which is so alienated from its source that the existence of spirit is considered to be an impossibility to them. The ego of the Western man has become so big that the average Western man thinks that just because he doesn't have a direct perception of spirit within himself that the perception of spirit is impossible. he then goes around pointing out fallacies in other peoples philosophies while ignoring his own, mainly, the fact that spirit has the potential to exist, and therefore cannot and should not ever be ruled out completely. you ask for the evidence? its within yourself; you cannot prove to me what your phenomenological experience entails just the same as I cannot prove to you what mine entails. I can tell you what mine is like, and you can compare it to your own, and that's it...until you do what is necessary to experience spirit for yourself, you will not experience it. And further, if you have the attitude that it does not and cannot exist, you will never eat fruit with the gods, but continue eat and take shits with the animals.

Fascinating post. Some of the themes are familiar to me.

The ego of the Western man has become so big that the average Western man thinks that just because he doesn't have a direct perception of spirit within himself that the perception of spirit is impossible. — TheGreatArcanum

you ask for the evidence? its within yourself; you cannot prove to me what your phenomenological experience entails just the same as I cannot prove to you what mine entails. I can tell you what mine is like, and you can compare it to your own, and that's it... — TheGreatArcanum

I agree with the underlined part. In first quote, though, I'd say that 'Western man' will largely grant 'the direct perception of spirit.' I don't think anyone here (?) doubts the intensity of your experience. What people do doubt is whether it is actually relevant to them. Is your experience transferable? And if the experience of others is not directly accessible to you as yours is not directly accessible to them, is your experience preferable? If it is, then how can you prove it?

IMO, this is almost impossible through this medium. If I see a sage in the flesh who walks with the serenity of a god, then perhaps my walls of cynicism are breached. As long as we are in the realm of words, your position largely echoes positions that most of us have considered and found intriguing but not controlling. In this realm we are just streams of words. We can all claim to be billionaires, professors, studs, tough guys, physicists, saints, etc. Now I think you are sincere. But consider the medium. The anonymity is great, but it also encourages caution. This is like a basement bar with the lights out. We create virtual selves out of sentences and that's it. Personally I think the future of philosophy might even be in anonymous meme-forges like these, an anonymous oral tradition in a society that less and less tolerates public personality. (?)

if you have the attitude that it does not and cannot exist, you will never eat fruit with the gods, but continue eat and take shits with the animals. — TheGreatArcanum

As you may know, there is an opposite philosophical/spiritual tradition that embraces eating and shitting with the animals. If one tradition flees the flesh, another enjoys a homecoming in the flesh. In another thread we were talking about Plato and Nietzsche, whether both were mystics in some sense. I'd say yes, but that people who are more 'anti-flesh' prefer the Platonic sage while others want to get nasty with Nietzsche. It's as if we have the sky sage and the bonfire sage. The sky sage has floated up above his body. The fire sage is dancing naked in a ring with women, vessels of delight, around that fire. Both are offensive perhaps to lukewarm, mundane consciousness ---which is arguably where most of us live most of the time, no matter our intense response to the poetry of the sky sage and the fire sage.

yes, I’m well aware of the difference between the giants and the gods, the former prefer the fruits of the physical, and the latter prefer the fruits of the spirit. I however, prefer to enjoy the fruits of the spirit while in the physical. the difference is that the giants do not have the option of ascending to a higher physical plane where the shits are made of gold, but the gods do.

I like your way of phrasing that: giants and gods. That's poetry. For me it's the poetry that really matters. So I was never into the logic chopping on those issues.

I also like 'where the shits are made of gold.' FWIW, I think that's a good rhetorical strategy. But then maybe I'm in the corrupt giant tradition, and we are too lazy for metaphysicks in the old style....

that’s what Plato referred to them as in the Sophist, the ‘gods and the giants.’ For my work, I mustn’t be overly poetic, but just poetic enough so that my prose is both beautiful and interesting but also clear and understandable. for my book I intended to incorporate all o my favorite quotes in my prose, and then just cite them in subscript. I plan to have more quotable one liners in this book, both original and borrowed form the past, than any other book ever written. However, I strongly feel that to create a system of philosophy, one must ground it in axioms and principles of logic. Otherwise it’s nothing but mere opinion, much like Nietzsche’s philosophy, so I seek to find a balance between Nietzsche's style and Kant’s style...I’m trying to create a bridge between both sides in my book so that we can all live happy together and at least find a common ground in metaphysical truth, even if we still differ in opinion on moral grounds.

hat’s what Plato referred to them as in the Sophist, the ‘gods and the giants.’ — TheGreatArcanum

Ah I don't know if I've read that one. I've read a few of his most famous works, but that's all.

However, I strongly feel that to create a system of philosophy, one must ground it in axioms and principles of logic. — TheGreatArcanum

I could never get into that style. I think language is more organic than that, that words don't have sharp, independent meanings, that meaning is cumulative and contextual. Basically I don't think we can do math with words. That's one of my few complaints about Hobbes. He's a little too attached to Euclid.

.I’m trying to create a bridge between both sides in my book so that we can all live happy together and at least find a common ground in metaphysical truth, even if we still differ in opinion on moral grounds. — TheGreatArcanum

Tricky! IMV it's the moral stuff that drives metaphysicks. For me the concepts are tools in the hand of the 'will,' swords and shields, hammers and screwdrivers. For me personalities exist as wholes. But physical science was able to split off by sticking to non-controversial objects and metrics for success. We believe it because it gives us machines, etc. Those who don't know algebra still trust scientists. Hume was right. We push buttons. If milk squirts out we push them again.

Have you presented your ideas anywhere else on the internet? On other phil. forums? If so, how was the response different or similar? All other forums I've looked at are eye-sores. This one is slick.