A self-help book or marginal scripture is marketed as lost or repressed wisdom. I claim that this frame itself is already picture enough, as those who market the book must know. — green flag

Would that apply to psychotherapy? When a therapist helps a patient to surface a repressed memory, could such a catharsis have been effected without the therapist?

The novice sits at the knee of the sage. If the novice could truly evaluate the sage, he would already be the sage — green flag

Would that apply to a student of piano or cello? Isn't there a genuine differentiation between student and teacher in that context?

A person can believe in Enlightenment (or Quality or some ineffable and unverifiable X) and defend its existence without claiming to possess it or to have experienced it directly. — green flag

There are legendary professors who are said to inspire awe and reverence amongst their students. In classical philosophy the sage was said to represent the true form of wisdom.

Seems to me you have a particular bone to pick.

A self-help book or marginal scripture is marketed as lost or repressed wisdom. I claim that this frame itself is already picture enough, as those who market the book must know. — green flag

This is probably often the case. A book jacket usually has a cover design graphic, back blurb and, summarizing the content, an author bio, touting his special knowledge, possibly excerpts from reviews (just the good parts), and a longer preview on the front flap. In the case of self-help books, self-promoting books and apocryphal writing, the jacket pretty tells all there is.

The novice sits at the knee of the sage. If the novice could truly evaluate the sage, he would already be the sage. — green flag

This one doesn't hold. The novice doesn't claim to truly evaluate the sage; he goes by the sage's reputation in his chosen field of endeavour. Only time will tell whether the teaching is worth the learning. You can't put wisdom on a package, nor specialized skill.

A halo of talk forms around an unclaimed center. It's as if belief in enlightenment ends up doing the work of enlightenment, by giving the believer a purpose. — green flag

That is very similar to the above example. Believing that there is such a thing as enlightenment and hoping to achieve it may give someone a purpose, but a purpose is not enlightenment, and nobody who believes in enlightenment would mistake the one for the other.

However, the posters and slogans of a political party might attract people without ever actually delivering what the posters and slogans promise, and keep thriving for decades on its perceive agenda.

Help me with a plot where an stamped and addressed but empty envelope is sent as a signal in a criminal conspiracy. — green flag

The sending of a letter would have had to be pre-arranged, in which case, it's no cryptic than letting the phone ring twice then hanging up: just a signal. For the envelop to be a previously unknown message, it would need a visual or verbal surface marking that has special significance. A misspelling of the street name, for example, or a bogus return address or a special stamp.
I watched a crime show not too long ago where a man in prison sent information to his friend on the outside, written in very fine pencil on the back of the stamp. But he mentioned, in an otherwise innocuous letter, that the recipient's son might like the stamp. Without that letter, he wouldn't have known to examine the stamp.

Would that apply to psychotherapy? When a therapist helps a patient to surface a repressed memory, could such a catharsis have been effected without the therapist? — Wayfarer

Great example. The skill of the therapist matters. 'The envelope is the letter' sounds better though than 'perhaps the way a message is delivered or its messenger should be included in our conception of the content.'

The patient is not satisfied with regarding the analyst in the light of reality as a helper and adviser who, moreover, is remunerated for the trouble he takes and who would himself be content with some such role as that of a guide on a difficult mountain climb. On the contrary, the patient sees in him the return, the reincarnation, of some important figure out of his childhood or past, and consequently transfers on to him feelings and reactions which undoubtedly applied to this prototype. — Freud

I don't know if Freud was right. Perhaps that prototype is not personal. Perhaps we have evolved a tendency to project that makes it easier to raise children and organize labor.

Would that apply to a student of piano or cello? Isn't there a genuine differentiation between student and teacher in that context? — Wayfarer

I don't think this example works against my point. The student can see and hear whether the potential teacher can play beautiful music.

There are legendary professors who are said to inspire awe and reverence amongst their students. — Wayfarer

Of course. The issue is something like the transition from expectant projection to an assimilation that makes equal. The envelope, the idea of a forgotten wisdom, can itself be such a piece of wisdom. It's a symbol of transformation, a mytheme with its own power. The simple act of professing, independent of content, seems to include at least an implicit promise that something is worth professing and therefore learning.

In classical philosophy the sage was said to represent the true form of wisdom. — Wayfarer

Blazingly archetypal, no? Which is fine, but hardly contrary to my point. How does one establish or verify that X is the true form of wisdom without having that true form of wisdom ? Could it be that trusting in the existence of such wisdom is itself that wisdom ? 'Faith in faith' need not be interpreted as an antispiritual joke.

I also think Kierkegaard is great. Is critical thinking about spirituality not an aspect of spirituality ?

The novice doesn't claim to truly evaluate the sage; — Vera Mont

Just to clarify, I had three characters in mind. There is the sage, who is basically a gleaming icon, with no interior. There is the young novice, truly humble, who projects. Then there is the older novice or disciple who exalts the sage in what I'd call a cloak of humility or the yoke of superstition. True humility is there in the young novice, probably with some angst. If a fourth character were to be added, it would be a frankly immodest version of the older novice, who no longer exalts the sage but something generally available to all who work through the feelings and concepts. The issue here is the play of light and shadow.

he goes by the sage's reputation in his chosen field of endeavour. Only time will tell whether the teaching is worth the learning. — Vera Mont

I think this is basically correct, with certain exceptions. But then the sage is a uncertain product with good reviews. In case it helps, I don't think plumbers are the issue. As I see it, the issue is how spiritual symbols and books and individuals affect people who can't yet (not immediately) understand them.

Believing that there is such a thing as enlightenment and hoping to achieve it may give someone a purpose, but a purpose is not enlightenment, and nobody who believes in enlightenment would mistake the one for the other. — Vera Mont

Do you mean they believe in Enlightenment as a possibility ? Or as a personal achievement ? If it's the first, then I'm interested in why/how the unenlightened can be so sure that enlightenment is definitely not having a purpose or being in a state of creative play. It's as if there are rumors of an object that few will admit to seeing while being sure it's not the field of vision. Life is elsewhere. Enlightenment is else wise.

it's no cryptic than letting the phone ring twice then hanging up: just a signal. — Vera Mont

For the receiver, yes, but the idea is that the envelope is supposed to be found or seen. The detectives assume that its decisive contents are missing. Perhaps the ashtray on the desk contains the ashes of some other letter, a genuine piece of evidence.

I watched a crime show not too long ago where a man in prison sent information to his friend on the outside, written in very fine pencil on the back of the stamp. But he mentioned, in an otherwise innocuous letter, that the recipient's son might like the stamp. — Vera Mont

:up:

Nice!

There is the sage, who is basically a gleaming icon, with no interior. There is the young novice, truly humble, who projects. Then there is the older novice or disciple who exalts the sage in what I'd call a cloak of humility or the yoke of superstition. — green flag

That's an example of advertising. The kid is buying a brand, just as Sikhs, Republicans and patriots etc. always have. No envelope, just a competent shill. It would be different if the novice had some kind of epiphany while sitting by the knee of just any old man who happened to have a beard and wear a white robe - that would be an example of effective packaging without content.

The issue here is the play of light and shadow. — green flag

Don't know how that pertains to packaging.

Do you mean they believe in Enlightenment as a possibility ? Or as a personal achievement ? — green flag

As a possible achievement - why else would they seek it?

If it's the first, then I'm interested in why/how the unenlightened can be so sure that enlightenment is definitely not having a purpose or being in a state of creative play. — green flag

They're not. I am.

It's as if there are rumors of an object that few will admit to seeing while being sure it's not the field of vision. — green flag

Poetically obscure. No idea what it means.
If you just want to talk about how religious belief is sold, come out and say so. There is a whole world of ideas and salesmanship, branding, advertising and intimidation between reporting one's own Damascus moment, or revelation, and dictating an entire way of life to 125 nations.

The kid is buying a brand, just as Sikhs, Republicans and patriots etc. always have. No envelope, just a competent shill. — Vera Mont

The brand is the envelope. The point is something like the inside being promised by the outside. The content, which is presumably profound, is not immediately available.

Have you ever seen stupid blurbs on the back of a book you love ? Some of them look shallow and cynical. Quotes from newspapers and not human beings directly (names we might respect) are especially ridiculous.

As a possible achievement - why else would they seek it? — Vera Mont

That's what I thought, just clarifying. If you believe in enlightenment without having found it, then (in this context) you have the envelope but not the letter. You are the detective looking for that letter. Yes / no
?

Poetically obscure. No idea what it means. — Vera Mont

You seek enlightenment which you haven't found, correct ? But you are still looking because it's not in your field of vision yet ? Whatever it is, it must not be anything that you've had a look at so far. This is the play of light and shadow, of what you know and yet don't know. Is there something like an itch that we have and we are looking for what will scratch that itch ?

If you just want to talk about how religious belief is sold, come out and say so. — Vera Mont

I'm interested in a deeper structure or in a generalization of religion. There's no need for supernaturalism. Someone could make Richard Dawkins their sage. Or the ghost of Chairman Mao.
Or the homeless guy in the park who plays the flute. Or Plotinus or Lincoln. Or ChatGPT.

I'm looking at interpersonal dynamics, arrogance masked as humility, humility masked as arrogance, transactional analysis --- and how all this is tangled up with talk of the ineffable and transcendent.

This adds some context.

The same reality pervades all teaching. The man may teach by doing, and not otherwise. If he can communicate himself, he can teach, but not by words. He teaches who gives, and he learns who receives. There is no teaching until the pupil is brought into the same state or principle in which you are; a transfusion takes place; he is you, and you are he... — Emerson

If the teacher is successful, he clones himself. (I mean he clones the relevant part of himself.) If there is a binary predicate like Is-enlightened, then one torch lights another. The fire is the fire and never the torch, though it depends on their being some torch or another as its host or hardware.

Predicates are more feasibly continuous than discrete and binary. In this case, perhaps the novice is drawn by a conceptual music he can understand well enough to strive for further clarification. Maybe this is why we can quote great names without it being idolatry. If a person makes one brilliant point, we are on the lookout for a second victory, and we linger longer over ambiguous gifts.

The brand is the envelope. The point is something like the inside being promised by the outside. The content, which is presumably profound, is not immediately available. — green flag

Neither is detergent, until you open the container. You go shopping for detergent when your clothes are dirty [a need]. You bought this detergent instead of the seven other brands available, presumably for one of three reasons. You saw it advertised [the hype] or heard about it from other people [the testimonial] or it was on sale [self interest]. It's not about the box.

I think you're trying to blend two different ideas, and it doesn't work for me.

Have to go - back later.

Have you ever seen stupid blurbs on the back of a book you love ? — green flag

No, I can't think of any. Let me go look at some favourites.
And Anthropologist on Mars: "In seven paradoxical tales of neurological disorder and creativity, Oliver Sacks brings the profound compassion and ceaseless curiosity..." All true. "Intriguing... To read Sack, who writes wonderfully, is to be captivated as by pages of Dostoevsky or a story of Alice Munro." - The Ottawa Citizen, yes, it's a newspaper, but I can tell it was written by a Canadian from the mention of Munro next the more famous Russian.
The Papers of Samuel Marchbanks: "There can be no doubt that Samuel Marchbanks is one of the choice and master spirits of the age - brought to life again (after too long an absence!) in the pages of this delightful collection." True, and quite obviously written by a fellow fan.
Consilience : This new book is a work to be held in awe, to be read with joy and attentiveness, to be celebrated and challenged and returned to again and again. It is, in short, an act of consummate intellectual heroism" - Michael Pakenham, Baltimore Sun. Can't disagree.
Famous Last Words "In the final days of the Second World War, Hugh Selwyn Mauberley scrawls his desperate account on the walls and ceiling of his ice-cold prison high in the Austrian Alps. Officers in the liberating army discover his frozen, disfigured corpse and his astonishing testament... they learn of a dazzling array of characters ... all play sinister parts in an elaborate scheme to secure world domination. In a brilliant blending of fiction and historical fact..." Yup, that's just what it is.

If you believe in enlightenment without having found it, then (in this context) you have the envelope but not the letter. — green flag

No, you have a craving. The advertisement says this product will satisfy the craving. (Sometimes, the advertisement tells you to have the craving, as well.) If you believe the hype, you'll buy the product, even if it comes in a brown paper bag. It's about the hype, not the packaging.
It's a mixed - and I think over-stretched - metaphor.

I'm interested in a deeper structure or in a generalization of religion. There's no need for supernaturalism. — green flag

For some people, no; for some people, yes. Generalizing religion is a chancy business: there are so many kinds, and have been so many over time, with different cultural origins, philosophical orientation, rituals and tenets. The only common element that stands out is that the majority of people over a considerable stretch of time, have adhered to them. There's more to that than empty envelopes!

"Someone could make Richard Dawkins their sage. Or the ghost of Chairman Mao."

Alaso Aristotle, Gandhi, Hitler and Churchill, and DJT gods help us!
So what? There are many kinds of sage, with followers. There are also many kinds of charlatan and cult leader and con artist who are followed. They all dress differently and speak differently. Their scholarship, preaching, propaganda or hype all contain messages that are available for scrutiny. The empty envelope theory doesn't apply.

I'm looking at interpersonal dynamics, arrogance masked as humility, humility masked as arrogance, transactional analysis --- and how all this is tangled up with talk of the ineffable and transcendent. — green flag

That's a whole other subject! (Especially humility masked as arrogance. Don't come across much of that!) Maybe four other subjects.

It's too confusing. If you could separate the concepts you want to examine, it might draw more discussion. I don't think you'll ever pluck an empty corked wine bottle out of the sea, expecting it to contain a message, and instead find a unified field theory of human psychology.

How does one establish or verify that X is the true form of wisdom without having that true form of wisdom ? — green flag

One might have an intuitive feel for identifying true wisdom without possessing it oneself, just as one might intuitively recognize great music, art or literature without being able to produce it oneself.

One might have an intuitive feel for identifying true wisdom without possessing it oneself, just as one might intuitively recognize great music, art or literature without being able to produce it oneself. — Janus

The music metaphor is complicated.

Did you hear that old joke about 12-tone music ? 'It's better than it sounds.'

We probably mostly agree. I'd just reject the binary concept of X in the first place and say that we are drawn to those who get enough right that we live in hope for more such quality and tolerate with self-doubt or at least permissive gratitude their seeming failures. This puts us back down on earth, within a continuum. We know roughly what we are looking for because we already have some. And the stuff we are looking for is strangely self-clarifying. Perhaps the journey is toward a greater sense of the meaning and nature of that journey.

Hey, I read the story about the stamp too. What was the name of it?

A halo of talk forms around an unclaimed center. It's as if belief in enlightenment ends up doing the work of enlightenment, by giving the believer a purpose. This makes me think of faith in faith itself. Zizek comes to mind also, who says we let other people do our believing for us. — green flag

I don't know quite what you are driving at, but above you have touched on a peculiar reality of how people interact with the culture. For example, having the best selling (or banned) book--even though one hasn't read it and probably won't--somehow allows one to claim knowledge of the book. Buying the MAGA hat feels like voting for Trump.

One of the peculiar roles of the clergy is "to be holy for us so we don't have to". Knowing that there are people in organizations working to save the planet from global warming relieves us of (at least some) responsibility. I used to belong to a socialist group that held weekly classes open to the public. Many people came once, were enthusiastic, and never returned. These 1-time visitors were satisfied that someone was working for economic justice and that was enough.

Before effective treatment for AIDS, we did face to face outreach in gay bars. Among other things, we handed out (a lot of) condoms without providing information about how HIV was transmitted. Why not? Because "the product is the message: use this when having sex." We did, of course, make public health information readily available--but the main thing was the condoms themselves. They were the message.

Did that work? Was it objectively successful? I don't know; I don't even know if we can know whether it was effective. Other factors were at work, of course. A large share of the first wave of infected men died. The survivors understood what the stakes were. A later wave of men were more cautious, and rates of infection weren't as high -- and it turned out that being treated for HIV rendered one much less likely to infect somebody else, even without using condoms.

Cute joke! How could music be better than it sounds? I guess it could be intellectually, harmonically sophisticated even though being unlistenable.

I agree with you that wisdom like aesthetic quality is not an "all or nothing" thing.

What was the name of it? — BC

I saw it in a tv series, a few years ago. Have been racking my brain trying to remember which one. He sharpened his pencil to a very fine point, to write on the back of the stamp. If you collect stamps, you have to soak them off the envelope, and pencil doesn't wash off.

They were the message. — BC

The content, not the wrapping.

Yes, the content. Advanced studies have shown that condom wrappers have almost no efficacy in disease prevention. In fact, some wrappers are so tough that the condoms enclosed in them are never used, leading to outbreaks of syphilis and gonorrhea.

Advanced studies have shown that condom wrappers have almost no efficacy in disease prevention. — BC

The industry should adopt a policy of wrapping them in cling-film. Lots of it, the way they do with overpackaged produce.

For example, having the best selling (or banned) book--even though one hasn't read it and probably won't--somehow allows one to claim knowledge of the book. — BC

:up:

We did, of course, make public health information readily available--but the main thing was the condoms themselves. They were the message. — BC

:up:

Both great examples of the admittedly vague phenomenon I had in mind. It's how of communication opposed to the what and yet serving as the essence of the what. My boss tells me something trivial in terms of content but his or her tone or the way they walk into my office tells me what's most important...which is who's the boss.

Cute joke! How could music be better than it sounds? I guess it could be intellectually, harmonically sophisticated even though being unlistenable. — Janus

Yes, it was 'intellectually' beautiful. Which is correct in some sense. But there's an explicit expansion of the concept of music to include the theory about it. Which is maybe always in fact there but we methodically ignore it. This guy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Bourdieu) is great on this kind of issue in Distinction. I may start a thread on it, because I think it applies to philosophy. I take it to be about the relationship of status and seeing others from above. It's more specifically about art knowledge and aesthetic training and class in France.

How does the 'occult sphere' of Consciousness figure into this ? Why are people attracted to a position which I'd say is refuted ?

Don't people want to be recognized as valuable within and by a community ?

Isn't solipsism a nightmare then ?

Is the wall-of-sensation or wall-of-representation vision of reality attractive because it offers certainty ? But the tension here is that certainty is valuable where being wrong would be embarrassing. Or get me hurt physically. So do I secretly assume a world stage on which I can say something finally that transcends risk ? Do I identify with the statement as an indestructible piece of Certainty on the world stage ?

But something like ineffable Enlightenment is also possible in this vision of the possibility (perhaps the necessity) of privacy. In the secrecy of my immaterial soul I can know God and nobody can tell me wrong. This only becomes a problem when one talks about it and makes invidious comparisons. "Unlike you, I am talking about the divinity which cannot be talked about." As Hegel saw, the "pure self" (pure mind) was like a shadow of the "thing in itself" (pure supermatter, deeper even than the physics kind, which is presumably map and not territory.)

In all these cases the envelope is the letter, for the envelope 'must' be empty for uninitiated eyes. Chatbots 'must' not have consciousness, even as they threaten to explains themselves better than we can. The pre-solipsist 'must' have an interior which is invisible to 'physical' technology. The mystic 'must' have some Experience which is not too cheap and easy --at the cost of any maniac being able to claim that this or that beetle is in his box. Distinction, difference, isolation. A radical break twixt self and world and self and other.

I guess it could be intellectually, harmonically sophisticated even though being unlistenable. — Janus

Yes. Turns out this is a great example. Same with some visual art. The spiel of justification is a necessary frame, secretly the essence of the work itself. Like the coathanger in Art School Confidential.

I agree with you that wisdom like aesthetic quality is not an "all or nothing" thing. — Janus

:up:

Indeed, and infinite journey toward the horizon...hopefully with a sense of progress.

How does the 'occult sphere' of Consciousness figure into this ? Why are people attracted to a position which I'd say is refuted ? — green flag

It's not clear what position you are saying has been refuted.

Is the wall-of-sensation or wall-of-representation vision of reality attractive because it offers certainty ? — green flag

I'm not sure if you're referring to the idea that the empirical world is a collective representation or something else. If the former i would say that it is only within that representation that we can have discursive certainty and truth.

But something like ineffable Enlightenment is also possible in this vision of the possibility (perhaps the necessity) of privacy. In the secrecy of my immaterial soul I can know God and nobody can tell me wrong. — green flag

I think the literature of many cultures attests to the subjective reality of mystical or religious, or whatever you want to call it, experience. No discursive certainty can be inter-subjectively corroborated from such experiences though as far as I can tell.

Chatbots 'must' not have consciousness, even as they threaten to explains themselves better than we can. The pre-solipsist 'must' have an interior which is invisible to 'physical' technology. — green flag

I don't see any reason to think that chatbots are conscious. They don't act on their own accord or report caring about anything. They act only in accordance with how the algorithms they are programmed with allow them to act.

It's not clear what position you are saying has been refuted. — Janus

I consider the idea a 'purely' mental space refuted or shown to be senseless ( via indirect 'proof').

I'm not sure if you're referring to the idea that the empirical world is a collective representation or something else. If the former i would say that it is only within that representation that we can have discursive certainty and truth. — Janus

My position is that we see and touch and describe the world but can still say something wrong about it. The world is not constructed from private images of the world. Appealing initially, it makes no sense upon closer investigation. So how does it stay so popular ? Its tempting feature is perhaps The Given.

I can't be wrong about how things seem to me, right ? But can I not be wrong about the assumption of that framework itself ? That I am an essentially isolated ghost who of course can decide that the shadows of my cave wall probably correspond with something outside my cave ?

You seem to say at times that reality is the overlap of our illusions.

My position is that we see and touch and describe the world but can still say something wrong about it. The world is not constructed from private images of the world. Appealing initially, it makes no sense upon closer investigation. So how does it stay so popular ? Its tempting feature is perhaps The Given. — green flag

Of course we do see and touch and describe the world: the world of human experience. But there is something apart from, beyond, outside the ambit of, human experience, something that produces the world of human experience, and we don't and cannot know what it is. This seems incontrovertible to me.

"The Given" has nothing to do with that idea, in fact the "myth of the given", unless I am mistaken, is that the world is just as it is given to us, and the refutation of that is a Kantian point. Sellars was a Kantian.

I don't see any reason to think that chatbots are conscious. They don't act on their own accord or report caring about anything. They act only in accordance with how the algorithms they are programmed with allow them to act. — Janus

I'm not yet tempted to call them conscious, but I'm not sure I'd call ants conscious. I'd say we are dealing with a continuum and that humans are about to aim their noses at a mirror that'll raise some questions. We older fuckers think it's silly to fall in love with toys. But the youths of 2050 will criminalize talking that way about their synthetic lovers, and this is not quite a joke.

But there is something apart from, beyond, outside the ambit of, human experience that produces the world of human experience, and we don't and cannot know what it is. This seems incontrovertible to me. — Janus

Isn't it weird though to believe so passionately in something so methodically empty?

In this context, I'd say, against that idea, that the envelope is the letter. We are already in the real world.

The idea of something behind it all is akin to 'pure' matter infinitely hidden from its shadow 'pure' mind.

To me it's easier to say that the world will never cease to surprise us, that it's infinite or something.