I know people often talk about how when they’re “in the zone,” it feels like they’re not in control, etc. — Mikie

On the other hand, it does not feel like I have lost control, that I need to gain control.

The thing to frustrates a lot of musicians is not being about to get in the zone. Sometimes it happens and sometimes it doesn't. You can't make it happen, but I think there are ways to allow it to happen more often.

I am sorry you feel that way, but I am surprised. I have no intention of trying to trip you up. I am trying to address the question of wu wei. It is nothing personal. I have said nothing against you. You on the other hand tell me I should be ashamed of my arguments.

I am puzzled by what wu wei means in practice. It seems to me that there is something more to it than you have said. For one, the cultivation of skills. For another, a way of seeing. What in another context might be called an "expert eye".

There is a great deal of effort behind effortless action. This often goes unrecognized. I brought up Cook Ting because it addresses this and the opposite of effortless action, what he calls hacking. Forcing one's way through rather than, so to speak, seeing the joints and spaces, the natural divide of things.

When I post I have in mind others who might be reading. Even if not everything I say applies to you someone else might be interested.

[Added: See my next post.]

Seems a quibble. — fdrake

As I see it, this is what is at issue:

Actions arise spontaneously from within without reflection. — T Clark

I don't doubt that this happens, but simply acting spontaneously without reflection is not what wu wei is about, otherwise someone without impulse control or someone experiencing road rage or anyone with a cleaver could butcher an ox as long as they did it without reflection.

I am not claiming that this is what Clark is claiming, but that there is more to it than what is stated.

:snort:

I have no objections to the version you provided. It doesn't change the meaning of the verse. — T Clark

Why the snort? The best translations are being done by scholars who have studied the language, the history, and the philosophies of China and the West. The virtues of their translations may not be readily apparent to you based on a single story.

Note "spontaneously performed skill — T Clark

It cannot be spontaneously performed without skill. The skill comes first and it takes practice to go beyond skill.

Reread what I wrote. I never said Lao Tzu had no plans or intentions for writing the Tao Te Ching and I don't know of anywhere it says he didn't. — T Clark

You said:

the idea of "wu wei," acting without acting, without intention, without purpose, is central to the teachings. — T Clark

and:

That's the essense of wu wei - following intuition with no plans or intentions. — T Clark

I pointed out that:

.. there are Taoist teachers and authors. There is certainly intention and purpose in what they do. — Fooloso4

and:

Whatever wu wei means, and there is nothing close to a consensus on this, it does not exclude the plans and intentions of the authors of the Tao Te Ching to commit to putting things into words. — Fooloso4

In response, first you said:

whether plans and intentions are required to act is the question on the table. — T Clark

but then:

If Lao Tzu lived in accordance with the Tao, then, no, no plans or intention were requried. — T Clark

and in response to my comment that it did not happen spontaneously:

According to the Tao Te Ching, it did. — T Clark

You still have not provided the evidence to back that up.

Another observation about Cook Ding:

In the opening paragraph:

... every move was in rhythm. It was as though he were performing the Dance of the Mulberry Grove or keeping to the beat of the Constant Source music.

And when he is done:

I stand with knife raised and face all four directions in turn, prancing in place with complete satisfaction.

(In Ziporyn's translation he just stands there)

There is a sense of motion and rhythm, of dancing.

It should also be noted how Zhuangzi's stories are of ordinary people teaching those of a higher social rank.

“How fine!” said Lord Wenhui. “Listening to the words of Cook Ding, I have learned how to nurture life!”

When I first started playing guitar, I needed to think about what I was doing and where my fingers went, etc. After years of playing, I don’t have to do that any more. — Mikie

When I play sometimes the experience is what I would describe as wu wei. Other times I can't get out of my own way. On occasion it is as if I am watching myself play. But that is the result of many years of study and practice. It involves muscle memory which would not have developed without plans and intentions.

... we don’t have to pretend that it’s magic to talk about it. — Mikie

But I have to admit that sometimes it feels as if it is.

There are better translations. Here is one. [Added: chapter 3.2]

Cook Ding says:

At the beginning, when I first began carving up oxen, all I could see was the whole carcass.
After three years I could no longer see the carcass whole ...

It is because he had been dividing oxen for three years that he could no longer see the carcass as a whole. He saw that it is made up of parts. He say now:

I follow the natural form slicing the major joints I guide the knife through the big hollows ...

The ability to guide his knife takes skill developed through practice. But this is not the difference between him and a good cook:

What your servant loves, my lord, is the Dao, and that is a step beyond skill.

Going beyond skill does not mean to bypass skill. The cultivation of skill is an essential step.


I would still like to know where you found the claim that the Tao Te Ching occurred spontaneously.

If Lao Tzu lived in accordance with the Tao, then, no, no plans or intention were requried. — T Clark

There is general agreement that Lao Tzu is not the sole author. There is less agreement as to whether he was an actual person.

According to the Tao Te Ching, it did. — T Clark

Really? Can you cite a reference?

Almost certainly. — T Clark

The story says otherwise.

A few scattered comments

In The Gay Science he asks:

Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?

From Epicurus the idea of gods as blessed being who are unperturbed.

From Marcus Aurelius the soul as the inner citadel.

From Epictetus:

Don’t ask for things to happen as you would like them to, but wish them to happen as they actually do, and you will be all right.

but whether plans and intentions are required to act is the question on the table. — T Clark

The question is too general. Were plans and intentions required to compile and organize the work called the Tao Te Ching? It did not happen spontaneously. Are plans and intentions required to read and attempt to understand the Tao Te Ching?

Consider Zhuangzi's Cook Ting. Did he learn his butchering skill without plans or intentions? His knife does not get dull because he does not hack. He cuts between the spaces in the joints.

It is not just what a lot of Taoist teachers and authors have said but what the teachers and authors of the Tao Te Ching have said. Whatever wu wei means, and there is nothing close to a consensus on this, it does not exclude the plans and intentions of the authors of the Tao Te Ching to commit to putting things into words.

But I don't know the actual philosophy conservatives hold in their own minds. — Vera Mont

I don't think there is one. There is a great deal of conceptual drift. Some appeal to tradition, but not always the same tradition. It might be some form of Liberalism, or some religious group, but the identity of these is not fixed.

Some tie it to the notion of limited government, but many who call themselves conservative are in favor of the government deciding reproductive rights, or transgender rights, or what books are permissible in public schools. Some who call themselves conservatives claim that the US is a Christian nation founded on Christian values. As such the limits of government extend to what goes on in the bedroom behind closed doors as well as what is permissible to say and do in public.

@Mikie

To put things in perspective, there are Taoist teachers and authors. There is certainly intention and purpose in what they do.

The problem with this is that it prescinds not only from what politicians do and say but what they attempt to do, and the efficacy with which they can get it done.

I believe it is time to re-evaluate your priorities and focus on your life and making it better instead of directing your anger and other negative emotions towards people you probably don't even know personally. — AntonioP

It is the focus on one's own life and the concern to make it better that is at the root of the issue. I do not have to know someone personally to know what he or she is doing as an elected official.

This is why Socrates was both revered and hated. Even back then there was the equivalent of the internet guy.

I think this is one reason why Plato wrote dialogues. If the interlocutor is to benefit he must first come to see that he does not know what he thinks he knows. But the character of the person may stand in the way of his seeing this. Put differently, Socratic philosophy is not impersonal

Socrates the mid-wife points out that whatever ideas he helps someone give birth to, however deformed, it is hard for someone to abandon what is his own.

Chomsky is a skeptic in the original sense of the term - one who inquires but does not know. But this is not to say he is a member of any school of skepticism. He simply doubts that the universe is intelligible to us given the limits of the human mind.

avoiding the topic in an obvious way. — Eugen

He does not avoid the topic, he puts it in a larger framework. In part it can be summarized by the saying, "shut up and calculate". Kuhn thinks that we get closer to the truth. Chomsky thinks we develop intelligible theories that predict what will happen, but our theories always leave something unexplained.

The failure of the mechanistic model, he points to gravity, means the failure of intelligibility. We do not know what is going on, how it all works together. This is not to say that the world is not intelligible but that it is not intelligible to us. If the world is not intelligible to us the mind and consciousness is not intelligible to us.

Put differently, the more you know the more there is to know.

What does it mean to be divine?

What does this thread have to do with Plato's cave allegory?

First, he does not say that all of reality is a prison.

Second, one must escape the cave to know what is outside.

It's hard enough when we try and respond to what people actually say. — bert1

For what it's worth, you are not alone. Rather than address what was actually said he accuses you of saying or meaning or thinking something else and argues with an imaginary interlocutor.

When you address his specific claims, claims he cannot support, he simply ignores it.

Bragg is keeping his cards close to his chest. It seems likely that his decision not to discuss the second crime is strategic. Not disclosing it at this time is standard practice in such cases. The fact that the charges were brought against Trump does not change the rules and practices applicable to such cases.

As Trump is (or was) fond of saying: "we'll see". Perhaps he no longer says that is because he is afraid of what we might see.

If I understand anything at all about this great symbolist .. — Nietzsche

So sayeth Nietzsche, this great symbolist and ironist and inverter of values.

This “bearer of glad tidings” died as he lived and taught - not to “save mankind,” but to show mankind how to live. It was a way of life that he bequeathed to man — Nietzsche

What is this way of life?

... a new way of life, the special evangelical way of life. It is not a “belief” that marks off the Christian; he is distinguished by a different mode of action; he acts differently ...

The life of the Saviour was simply a carrying out of this way of life—and so was his death.... He no longer needed any formula or ritual in his relations with God—not even prayer.

... he knew that it was only by a way of life that one could feel one’s self “divine,” “blessed,” “evangelical,” a “child of God.” The deep instinct which prompts the Christian how to live so that he will feel that he is “in heaven” and is “immortal,” despite many reasons for feeling that he is not “in heaven”: this is the only psychological reality in “salvation.”—A new way of life, not a new faith....

(33)

The question immediately arises: can we live this way? Such a way of life, if taken literally, is a turning of the will to power, the will to life, against itself.

But let us be careful not to see in all this anything more than symbolical language, semantics an opportunity to speak in parables. It is only on the theory that no work is to be taken literally that this anti-realist is able to speak at all.

...

The idea of “life” as an experience, as he alone conceives it, stands opposed to his mind to every sort of word, formula, law, belief and dogma. He speaks only of inner things: “life” or “truth” or “light” is his word for the innermost—in his sight everything else, the whole of reality, all nature, even language, has significance only as sign, as allegory.

(32)

Nietzsche's Jesus, the only Christian (39) is Dionysian.

I play guitar and upright bass, mostly the jazzy end of blues. I read but too slowly to play at tempo.

I built a couple of guitars from parts, Tele style. I built a couple of amps from kits.

But lately I'm in an extended slump and haven't done much of anything. I used to do the local jams before we moved. Then COVID.

Wait. What's the topic?

It is in direct contradiction to the Sermon on the Mount and the letter of the Law. My guess is the influence of Paul, which can b seen throughout the synoptic gospels.

Based on past conversations, you know much more about this. A few general comments on gods and men. The status of some divine or semi-divine being is not clear. There is mash ups - did Jacob wrestle with God or an angel or a man (Genesis 32:24-30)? And smash ups - the sons of God and the daughters of men (Genesis 6:2).

Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man. — plaque flag

This sounds like Paul. It claims that the Law and the laws of Kosher are not important. Jesus' disciples split with him over this. They reached a compromise in which Paul would go away and preach elsewhere.

Did Christianity contribute to a tradition of radical interiority? — plaque flag

I think the majority of influence came from the various Greek and Roman schools of philosophy and Judaism. The latter at least in part due to persecution.

I suppose I just feel the need to stick up for the institution of philosophy, and the work of academics. — Moliere

One serious criticism, not just of philosophy, but the humanities, is that the universities keep churning out PhD's in the face of bleak job prospects. It serves them on both ends, paying students who become exploited as TA's and adjuncts.

I always advised my students to not seek advanced degrees unless they had other sources of income when the got out.

but let's not anachronize it to Jesus' time — schopenhauer1

I agree. It was intended as a follow up to my comment:

while others still wait. — Fooloso4

The hope for a messiah, whether it is the second coming, or even a bloated orange savior, is still with us.

Anyways, my point here is don't discount apocalypticism as an important element of even mainstream "Judaisms" of 1st century Judea — schopenhauer1

Yes, this was the Messianic age. But I think it was Jesus through Paul's Christ who reversed this from the few who are righteous to all who have faith in and are saved by Christ. It was, I think, because of this that Jesus was believed to be the true messiah and all the others false. Without Paul I think it very likely the movement would have died out.

Paul kind of took smatterings of Greco-Roman gnostic / Platonic ideas along with a good dose of Greco-Roman-Near Eastern resurrecting god cultic practices that were popular around the area of Tarsus and beyond. — schopenhauer1

Plus a great talent for synthesis and rhetoric.

With regard to an alternative I was thinking of a movement in American Judaism beginning in the 19th century: "tikkun olam,” a Hebrew phrase meaning “repairing the world.”. Rather than a messianic figure who arrives, it is up to the people to act.

Whatever Jesus might have taught, the crucifixion became the central focus, and Paul's Christ the central teaching. It was a much more attractive story promising Heaven on Earth to everyone without requiring any of the work or effort of following the Law.

However, his message of the Son of Man, and better days at a future Kingdom of God that will be ushered in "very soon", seem to undermine his more earthly efforts to establish proto-communes of sorts (if he did that at all). — schopenhauer1

I agree. I think this is why Paul closed his eyes and turned his back. He decided the Law does not matter. Do your best, which is not much given his opinion of man's weakness and sinful nature, but don't worry. Be joyful it is all about to end at any moment and the faithful will be saved.

I agree. Jesus did not start the messianic movement. It is a mode of escapism that was transformed into what some of the hopeful took to be the truth in action, while others still wait.

There is what I take to be a reasonable and not necessarily secular alternative, human responsibility.

I am not interested in tap dances....have a great evening sir. — Nickolasgaspar

But you should be interested in what those who you rely on actually say. Or not. That's up to you. The problem is your repeated criticisms of others based on your misunderstanding of the sources you rely on.

I thought you might appreciate that.

I think it might help to put aside the question of a private language for a moment. If I point to a mark '7' and ask what you see and you say "the number seven" then there should be no problem of agreement. But if I ask if it is purple you will either see it as purple or not. This much we agree on, we see the mark and identify it as the number 7. If I hold up some color samples we are likely to identify the same chip as the purple one. Of neither of these would we say that what we see is in our head in distinction from something we can point to and others can see as well?

What then is the difference between me seeing the sample as purple and seeing 7 as purple? Have I added something in one case and not the other? We might say that the difference is that only I see the 7 as purple, that I am seeing something that is not there. But is it the case that I am adding the color to the 7? Perhaps that is simply the way I see it. Is what we all see public and what only I see private? Or is there perhaps something wrong with this whole way of looking at it?

What would someone who did not know our number symbols see when the saw '7'? Would the see the same thing or different things if the font changed? Would we see it differently or would changes in some aspect of its shape escape our attention because we see 'seven'? Do we see two different things, the number and the shape or three, number, shape, and symbol? Is seeing the number in our head? Is what we see culturally conditioned? Is what we see something added?

All of this makes clear that what we see is not simply passive reception of things in the world. But neither is it, as Hoffman would have it, an illusion.

I don't see red when I hear C♭ — Banno

On a piano I hear B. But that is a story for another thread.

Yeap treat systematic knowledge as ordinary opinions is your thing, you made it clear. — Nickolasgaspar

Once again you create a straw man to attack. I said nothing about ordinary opinions. Systematicity, as used by Hoyningen-Huene, is not itself a system or method. It does not contain steps. In his own words:

Thus, the unity of science consists in family resemblances that hold between different branches of science, resulting in a very loose network represented by the abstract concept of systematicity. — The Heart of Science: Systematicity 

That's not the criterion for pseudo philosophy....
I quote form the same source:
"What is pseudo-philosophy?
Philosophy that relies on fallacious arguments to a conclusion, and/or relies on factually false or undemonstrated premises. And isn't corrected when discovered." — Nickolasgaspar

It seems as though there is another participant here that only you can hear who you choose to respond to instead of me. I have not given any criterion for pseudo philosophy. If you think that Wittgenstein is pseudo-philosophy as you have defined it my comment stands:

Dismissing what you have not read or have not understood as "Pseudo Philosophy" does harm to your credibility. — Fooloso4

maybe you can also tell Paul to change the name of his youtube channel ...because it only goes by Paul Hoyningen) — Nickolasgaspar

He can call it whatever he wants. What it goes by and what he goes by are not the same. But I suppose you can call him whatever you want.

So you don't know the difference between Physics and Aristotle's Physika ...proud to be ignorant I guess. — Nickolasgaspar

What???? It would be helpful if you silenced that voice in your head and responded to what I have actually said instead of to it.

'Physika' is the Latinized spelling of the Greek Φυσικὴ, transliterated from Latin to English as physics. Aristotle's Physics differs from modern physics in significant ways, but what does this have to do with what is under discussion here?

Consequentialism is related to practical wisdom - however, that's as far as it goes. They commonly aren't taken to be the same thing. — RolandTyme

One is a theory the other is not.

But, in this case, if things can be aggregated, and are commensurable,then you can freely substitute them for each other. — RolandTyme

What different medications have in common is that they promote health. They are in that sense commensurable, but that does not mean they are interchangeable.

but think ideally you should do both — RolandTyme

I don't follow. Birthday card vs. charity? All your money to charity vs. some of your money? All of your money vs. birthday card? The only case in which it is possible to do both is the first one. What you should do is limited by what it is possible to do.

None of this should be taken as a defense consequentialist moral theories, or any moral theory for that matter.

Thanks for your advice, but I prefer to think rather than follow the misguided idea that there are steps that are not even steps.

Dismissing what you have not read or have not understood as "Pseudo Philosophy" does harm to your credibility.

By the way, it is Paul Hoyningen-Huene not Paul Hoyningen. His use of the term science is not limited to physics as you have it in your chart, bur rather it applies to each topic in the chart and much more. I don't know if he shares your disdain for Wittgenstein, but he makes use of Wittgenstein's notion of "family resemblances" with regard to the meaning of systematicity. You brandish this term about but give no indication of understanding what he means. By linking it to a step by step process it seems you do not understand it.

These are not steps in a philosophical method, they are branches of philosophy, areas of philosophical study. What you might find in a college philosophy course catalog.

There are philosophical methods not one single method.

I appreciate your desire to have a step by step guide to philosophical thought, but that ain't the way it works.

When you are philosophizing you have to descend into primeval chaos and feel at home there. — Wittgenstein, Culture and Value

Much has to do with preferences both for the philosophers I want to read and interpretive practices. Others, of course, might see things very differently.

The academics are those who dedicate their professional life to it -- which is important! ... Without academics I wouldn't be thinking what I think today. I owe an intellectual debt to the institution. — Moliere

I agree. Having been in academia for many years I have some criticisms of it, but learned to separate the good from the bad.

Trying to introduce the supernatural in a discussion about a property of mind is a pseudo philosophical practice. — Nickolasgaspar

You keep making claims that have nothing to do with what I said. What supernatural claims have I introduced?

And this is something that is still poorly understood and subject to substantial revision.
— Fooloso4
You need to educate your self on what we know, how we know it and how our Technical applications verify our current knowledge. — Nickolasgaspar

If you think we are anywhere near an adequate understanding of consciousness, matter, mind, brain, then you do not even know enough to know what you don't know. But go ahead, show me that I am wrong. Identify where there is widespread scientific consensus on any of these things.

In the opening paragraph of his review of Solms' book "The Hidden Spring: A Journey to the Source of Consciousness", Anil Seth says:

Despite a revival in the scientific study of consciousness over recent decades, the only real consensus so far is that there is still no consensus.

Link

I can easily detect vague bovine manure when I read it. (i.e."(And this is something that is still poorly understood and subject to substantial revision)". — Nickolasgaspar

Show me the consensus on this:

Different properties of Mind have distinct causal mechanisms in our brain. — Nickolasgaspar

Identify the properties of mind and the distinct causal mechanisms in the brain.

Although I responded to your post where you told someone else:

You are confusing different properties of mind with Consciousness. Consciousness, according to Neuroscience is the third basic mental property./quote]

my response was general. But let's look at what Mark Solms says in this video:
— Nickolasgaspar

293.5
I’m going to argue that this something else, this third defining property of a mind, is intentionality, intending towards something, aiming toward an object. This is possible to do without being aware that you’re doing it. There is such a thing as having unconscious intentions, unconscious aims, unconscious volitions.

According to Solms in this video, intentionality not consciousness is the third property of mind, a property he says that does not require consciousness. Solms is not "Neuroscience". There is no ordinal properties of mind. Solms himself notes that there is not widespread agreement with some of his ideas.