I have been thinking about Good and Bad actions, deeds, thoughts, idea and so on, no matter of form and shape and size through my life as am sure we all have. Though it's somewhat related to the nature of humans and of their actions and thoughts but yet again I am more interested in finding the reason behind these two characteristics.
What are the reasons of them being good and bad?
How do we distinguish one from other?
What if one is different to other from what others sees them. Is there a general acceptable principle for this, or it simply traces back to each individual?
If it is related to each individual then not all goods are good and not all bads are bad. If there is a general accepted term, then who is the author? If it's us meaning human beings then am sure it's not fully accepted to each and each one of us. — RBS

Do you refer to objective good and evil as alluded to in Genesis 1 with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil 0r objective conceptions of good and evil conditioned on individuals by society?

Simone Weil wrote 75 years ago: “Nothing is so beautiful and wonderful, nothing is so continually fresh and surprising, so full of sweet and perpetual ecstasy, as the good. No desert is so dreary, monotonous, and boring as evil. This is the truth about authentic good and evil. With fictional good and evil it is the other way round. Fictional good is boring and flat, whole fictional evil is varied and intriguing, attractive, profound, and full of charm.”

I have to admit that haven't experienced objective good yet so don't know what it is. Evil is too "varied and intriguing, attractive, profound, and full of charm.” to allow the good to enter[/i]

It is this "distance" between the thinking subject and the thought that is thought I wish to look at more closely, for it is in the reflective act, where one stands apart from any and all possible experiential events, that "distance" is made possible. In other words, when I think, I can bring question to the thought (question, the piety of thought, says Heidegger), or when I simply observe the thought as it is being thought, and thereby, I no longer identify with the thought, but stand apart from it. This distance is essential to understanding what a person IS at the level of basic questions and assumptions. — Constance

There is mechanical associative thought and conscious thought. Dostoyevsky describes mechanical thought:

“Oh, gentlemen, perhaps I really regard myself as an intelligent man only because throughout my entire life I've never been able to start or finish anything. Granted, granted I'm a babbler, a harmless, irksome babbler, as we all are. But what's to be done if the sole and express purpose of every intelligent man is babble--that is, a deliberate pouring from empty into void.” ― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead

Plato refers to conscious thought which begins with forms. It is the process of immediate intuition, apprehension, or mental 'seeing' of principles. Can the philosopher become capable of more than babble and pouring from the empty into the void? Can the philosopher stand apart from mechanical thought so as to invite conscious thought to respond to the deeper questions or the aim of philosophy as the need for meaning?

Aristotle in my humble opinion missed one important type of fallacy, which is Partial Truth Taken As Full Truth. A perfect example being evolution. Nobody doubts that it is partially true but is it the Full Truth?

Joe, You are right to question partial truths. The accepted term I guess is half truths. From Wiki

The purpose and or consequence of a half-truth is to make something that is really only a belief appear to be knowledge, or a truthful statement to represent the whole truth, or possibly lead to a false conclusion. According to the justified true belief theory of knowledge, in order to know that a given proposition is true, one must not only believe in the relevant true proposition, but one must also have a good reason for doing so. A half-truth deceives the recipient by presenting something believable and using those aspects of the statement that can be shown to be true as a good reason to believe the statement is true in its entirety, or that the statement represents the whole truth. A person deceived by a half-truth considers the proposition to be knowledge and acts accordingly.

For evolution to be more than a half truth, it would have to be discussed as a cycle along with involution. In the East it is called the breath of Brahma but is avoided in academic philosophy

Does anybody in the West still want to be free?
— synthesis
Freedom from what?
Freedom to do what? — baker

American ideals offer the freedom to strive to become human

Thomas Merton records being asked to review a biography of Weil (Simone Weil: A Fellowship in Love, Jacques Chabaud, 1964) and was challenged and inspired by her writing. “Her non-conformism and mysticism are essential elements in our time and without her contribution we remain not human.”

↪Nikolas Over the past years it has become apparent (to me) that man needs a higher, everlasting moral authority because depending on intellectualism to achieve the same results in what every other foray into intellectualism portends, birth, life, and death. — synthesis

Quite true. Sustaining liberty in society requires the voluntary adoption of its citizens of essential obligations. If they don't, then it is up to the government. Is it a good idea?

Benjamin Franklin once said: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

Unfortunately it does seem that America is destined to learn the hard way.

Growing up in America, one kind of assumes that the default setting is that people (more than anything) desire to be free. I would imagine that most of us in the United States (and in the West) thought that everybody would want to live in a "free country" if they could. But maybe that's not really the case. Maybe most people are just as happy to live under a set of authoritarian edicts as long as they can have access to things like cheap junk food, lightening quick internet, 2-day free shipping, and free pornography, you know, the essentials of life.

As we devolve into a totalitarianism characterized by intolerance, divisiveness, and massive propaganda/ignorance, you just have to wonder whether the desire to be free has been selected out of Western people.

Does anybody in the West still want to be free? — synthesis

John Adams in a speech to the military in 1798 warned his fellow countrymen stating, "We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion . . . Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

The dominating need in the West is the struggle for prestige. Only a moral and religious people can provide values which contend with the dominating need for prestige. The descent into secularism must invite tyranny in the attempt to keep the peace; the peace of slavery.

↪Athena
I am glad that you are still keeping up the thread consistently, as I never thought that it would last so long. I am still thinking before replying to Nicholas's posts because he has given me a lot to reflect upon. I don't know if you opened the link which he sent put in his last reply to me. It is almost a book in itself and I think that you would probably be interested in it, although it is a fairly difficult read. I am at my mum's house, because she has hurt her knee, so I will probably have to use this site a bit less while I am here, but I do have some interesting books here in her house to keep me busy as well. I think that it will be great if you are able to organize a summer camp in philosophy in your local area and, I am sure that the big philosophy questions about religion will feature strongly. — Jack Cummins

The structure of our universe is mathematical and logical. That is why I know if humanity survives, science and the essence of religion (facts and values) will become complimentary and when they do, the potential for humanity to survive its own self destructive imaginations will become possible.

That is why I asked you what reconciled all the books you've studied. We can have a piece of the truth but are unable to build on it. This is the purpose of CIRET for example.

https://ciret-transdisciplinarity.org/index_en.php

Just imagine open minded scientists, skilled artists, and mechanics, representing human types all knowing they have a piece of the puzzle. How can they work to put the pieces together (mind, spirit, and body) in pursuit of the experience of universal human meaning? It requires humility rare in modern times. It is hard to find our essential question and build on it with the balanced whole of ourselves rather than from the dominant side of ourselves..

One I am reading at present is 'Cosmic Consciousness,' by Richard Maurice Bucke. He speaks of how in addition to there being 'consciousness of the cosmos there occurs an intellectual enlightenment or illumination which would place the individual on a new plane of existence...' Perhaps this aspect is a central truth underlying the religious quests. — Jack Cummins

I remember when I read Cosmic Consciousness I was struck by the idea that these experiences of cosmic consciousness happen around mid life. From an astrological perspective we are opposite of essence influences we were born with. This raises the contradictions in our being which invite this experience.

Hermeticism isn't popular since it requires more than binary thought. Have you pondered Hermes Emerald Tablet? This site has several translations including one by Helena Blavatskia Does it make sense to you?

https://www.sacred-texts.com/alc/emerald.htm

From Madame Blavatsky

2) What is below is like that which is above, and what is above is similar to that which is below to accomplish the wonders of the one thing.
3) As all things were produced by the mediation of one being, so all things were produced from this one by adaption.
4) Its father is the sun, its mother the moon.
6a) It is the cause of all perfection throughout the whole earth.
7) Its power is perfect if it is changed into earth.
7a) Separate the earth from the fire, the subtile from the gross, acting prudently and with judgement.
8 ) Ascend with the greatest sagacity from earth to heaven, and unite together the power of things inferior and superior;
9) thus you will possess the light of the whole world, and all obscurity will fly away from you.
10) This thing has more fortitude than fortitude itself, because it will overcome every subtile thing and penetrate every solid thing.
11a) By it the world was formed.
[Blavatsky 1972: 507.]

Hello, I've thought a lot about this and I think there will be (if this post is seen) many different answers to that question. So straightforward : "Does Existence have any objective/universal meaning?".
For me the answer is clearly no because meaning itself is created by thinking beings like humans (and Animals or a possible god if you want).What do you think about the topic?
P.S. : Sorry for my language I'm german and not that great in english. — SmartIdiot

Hi there SmartIdiot

While I agree that the meaning of our existence must be interpreted but what is the objective purpose of our universe? What if Man on earth became extinct, does the universe retain its purpose if indeed it has one?

There is a famous expression in Panentheism which states that the universe is the body of God. If Man is a mini universe, when we admit what our physical bodies do and our physical purpose, it should also be the purpose of our great universe. "As above, so below."

Science observes that our physical body is like a machine which transforms substances through our bodily processes. When we eat for example, the process of digestion transforms it into another. Regardless of what we think of ourselves, the purpose of our physical bodies and animal life is to transform substances.

Our bodies serve the necessity for our existence just like the universe serves our Source. The universe is a necessity just like our bodies are a necessity for our existence. For those who can admit this, the obvious question is how the universe works. If we know how the human organism functions, we can know how the universe functions. Is it possible?

"Do you wish to know God? Learn first to know yourself." - Abba Evagrius the Monk

↪Nikolas
Sorry that my reply to you is brief, but I have been busy writing on threads. However, what I wish to say that I am interested in your discussion of Hermeticism. I have believed that this is a central but overlooked aspect of philosophy. I have gathered some literature on the topic, but just trying to find the time to read it all. Today, I have been reading some of the book I mentioned to you a while ago, in relation to your thread discussion on Plato's forms, 'The Physics of Transfigured Light: The Imaginal Realm and the Foundations of Science' by Leon Marvell. I am also interested in hermeticism in relation to the tradition of alchemy. Another tradition which I believe is extremely important is Rosucrucianism. — Jack Cummins

In all that you've read, I'd be interested to learn what is the one idea that reconciles all these opinions as ONE?

Why are we still writing on how to live and how to behave? aren't we over that? I would understand for a kid that needs to raise and gain knowledge, but I am talking about mature and fully grown human beings. — RBS

It is just the way it is for human "being." The majority disagree on what to do and how to react but only a relative few contemplate what we ARE and why everything is as it is.

Hence the necessity of Platonic realism to the natural sciences. — Wayfarer

Science and mathematics knows how to measure quantity and often defines reality by quantity. However we have our subjective definitions of quality but unable to define objective quality. We don't know how to measure objective values so unable to feel "meaning" such knowledge offers. A may equal B in quantity but not in objective quality. Simone Weil wrote:

Now, ordinary language and algebraic language are not subject to the same logical requirement; relations between ideas are not fully represented by relations between letters; and, in particular, incompatible assertions may have equational equivalents which are by no means incompatible. When some relations between ideas have been translated into algebra and the formulae have been manipulated solely according to the numerical data of the experiment and the laws proper to algebra, results may be obtained which, when retranslated into spoken language, are a violent contradiction of common sense.

If the algebra of physicists gives the impression of profundity it is because it is entirely flat; the third dimension of thought is missing.

A person understands in the complete meaning of the term when they can experience the external world with the third dimension of thought as opposed to the usual duality which limits us to measures of quantity and subjective values.

↪Nikolas Oh my, on my way to the pool I listened to beautiful violin music and thought of what you said and the Greeks focus on beauty and good music and Mayan gods and math. I am hesitant to be open about this because I am in the minority and have been attacked for my thoughts. But let us speak of music and transformation.

There is evidence that classical music results in better plant health. Music has been used for healing people. I certainly felt good as I listened to the music while driving to the pool and with your post in mind my question is- can music transform us? What exactly is transformation? Is it just emotional or also physical?

There is a lot of talk about the plasticity of our brains. Music and also meditation can change our brain — Athena

Music by itself cannot result in transformation or evolution of a person's being like the transformation of the being of a caterpillar into a moth. However it can serve to remind us emotionally of what we search for at the depths of our being when not caught up in daily life effecting our personality or outer nature. Sacred music like choir music can sometimes have this effect by slowing us down into spiritual contemplation

Music is vibration. The structure of our universe is the lawful expression of vibrations we can interpret as music. The effect of music can raise or lower our vibrations as well as animal and plant life which hears it. The study of music is a big topic but begins with the knowledge of vibrations. Does this make sense to you.

https://www.sacred-texts.com/eso/kyb/kyb11.htm

"Nothing rests; everything moves; everything
vibrates."--The Kybalion.

The great Third Hermetic Principle--the Principle of Vibration--embodies the truth that Motion is manifest in everything in the Universe--that nothing is at rest--that everything moves, vibrates, and circles. This Hermetic Principle was recognized by some of the early Greek philosophers who embodied it in their systems. But, then, for centuries it was lost sight of by the thinkers outside of the Hermetic ranks. But in the Nineteenth Century physical science re-discovered the truth and the Twentieth Century scientific discoveries have added additional proof of the correctness and truth of this centuries-old Hermetic doctrine.

The Hermetic Teachings are that not only is everything in constant movement and vibration, but that the "differences" between the various manifestations of the universal power are due entirely to the varying rate and mode of vibrations. Not only this, but that even THE ALL, in itself, manifests a constant vibration of such an infinite degree of intensity and rapid motion that it may be practically considered as at rest, the teachers directing the attention of the students to the fact that even on the physical plane a rapidly moving object (such as a revolving wheel) seems to be at rest. The Teachings are to the effect that Spirit is at one end of the Pole of Vibration, the other Pole being certain extremely gross forms of Matter. Between these two poles are millions upon millions of different rates and modes of vibration.....................

↪Nikolas
Wow-what a nice way of explaining. Are you coming from Eastern culture? And I like what Jack Cummins said about getting beyond binary thinking.

I have an 8 A.M. appointment for swimming and I am going to enjoy so much contemplating what the two of you have said while I exercise. Thank you for a wonderful start to this day. — Athena

Thanks Athena. A lot of my ideas are influenced by what has been called Esoteric or inner Christianity which is not the same as the exoteric or outer Christianity you dislike and popular in society.

I'll be interested to learn the questions you come up with.

The best we can do is go against the flow and ACT with the greatest skill possible.
— Nikolas

If you are going against the flow, you'll end up just like the salmon. — synthesis

Malcolm Muggeridge said: “Never forget that only dead fish swim with the stream.”

The salmon fights the stream to escape Plato's cave and return to its origin. The dead fish follow the flow to deteriorate into the sea. The world needs more of the awakening salmon influence than the dead fish influence in order to avoid sinking into the sea.

The best we can do is go with the flow and REACT with the greatest skill possible. — synthesis

The best we can do is go against the flow and ACT with the greatest skill possible.

Dogs mechanically react while human beings have the potential for conscious action. How many sense the difference?

The Absolute is that which we cannot know in any way except by the fact that (intellectually) it's the only thing that makes sense (well isn't that paradoxical). In order to get to the point where you can realize this, you must do the work necessary by enabling yourself to see things as they truly are. There is no intellectual pathway to this point. Meditation is one way to get there.

So it takes a bit of faith to believe that this is possible. Many people never do (even those who meditate for long periods of time as they are never able to let go of conceptual thought). — synthesis

Curious! A dog does this all the time. It just "is" and sees things as they are without conceptual thought. Yet it takes a lot of effort for a person to become like a dog and experience the Absolute.

↪Nikolas
I know that you are talking about the higher consciousness but do you think that the balance of opposites is different to the one in real life?Do you not think we can climb the triangle to the highest state to enable us to find the answers?Or does that involve such dangers as going trying to go beyond good and evil? I am wondering about the Buddhist middle way, or am I jumbling up all the jigsaw pieces? — Jack Cummins

What you refer to as the real world is the world of dualism on which all these interactions of life take place mechanically on one level of reality. I believe there is a greater reality within which a person can consciously experience this duality and not be a part of it. It is like a mother looking down at her kids playing in the sandbox. Man has the power to observe himself in war for example. The two sides are fighting but the real winner is the descending aspect of the third force. Watch how Simone describes our situation in her famous essay on the Iliad:

http://www.holoka.com/pdf-files/weil.pdf

1. The true hero, the true subject matter, the center of the Iliad is force. The force that men wield, the force
that subdues men, in the face of which human flesh shrinks back. The human soul seems ever conditioned by its ties with force, swept away, blinded by the force it believes it can control, bowed under the
constraint of the force it submits to. Those who have supposed that force, thanks to progress, now belongs to the past, have seen a record of that in Homer’s poem; those wise enough to discern the force at
the center of all human history, today as in the past, find in the Iliad the most beautiful and flawless of
mirrors.
2. Force is that which makes a thing of whoever submits to it. Exercised to the extreme, it makes the
human being a thing quite literally, that is, a dead body. Someone was there and, the next moment, no
one. The Iliad never tires of presenting us this tableau:
... the horses
made the swift chariots thunder along the paths of war
in mourning for their blameless drivers. On the earth
they lie, much dearer to the vultures than to their wives.
11.159–62
3. The hero is a thing dragged in the dust behind a chariot:
... All around, the black hair
was spread, and the whole head lay in the dust,
just before so charming; now Zeus has granted
to his enemies to debase it on his native land.
22.401–4
4. We taste the bitterness of such a tableau undiluted, mitigated by no comforting lie, no consoling expectation of immortality, no faded nimbus of glory or patriotism.
His soul flies from his limbs, goes to Hades,
grieving its destiny, relinquishing its strength and youth.
22.362–63
5. Still more moving and painfully contrastive is the sudden evoking and immediate effacing of another world, the distant, fragile, touching world of peace, of the family, a world where each man means
more than anything to those around him.
She called to her fair-haired servants in the house
to put by the fire a large tripod, in order that there might be
a warm bath for Hector on his return from combat.
So naive! She knew not that far indeed from warm baths
Achilles’ arm had beaten him down, because of green-eyed Athena.
22.442–46
6. Truly, he was far from warm baths, that hapless man. Nor was he alone. Nearly all of the Iliad takes
place far from warm baths. Nearly all human life has always taken place far from warm baths.
7. The force that kills is summary and crude. How much more varied in operation, how much more
stunning in effect is that other sort of force, that which does not kill, or rather does not kill just yet. It will
kill for a certainty, or it will kill perhaps, or it may merely hang over the being it can kill at any instant; in
all cases, it changes the human being into stone. From the power to change a human being into a thing by
making him die there comes another power, in its way more momentous, that of making a still living
human being into a thing. He is living, he has a soul; he is nonetheless a thing. Strange being—a thing
with a soul; strange situation for the soul! Who can say how it must each moment conform itself, twist
and contort itself? It was not created to inhabit a thing; when it compels itself to do so, it endures violence through and through..................................................

What is this force which controls mechanical duality and makes puppets or losers of everyone in war ? As I understand it, the only ascending force which obstructs the descending force of creation is the ascending force of grace or conscious evolution returning to its source.

War my be a necessity to serve the needs of nature but a conscious human being need not serve nature but can return to its source. Of course it is easier said than done. The world doesn't want to let you go.

But beginning to outgrow dualism and experiencing the triune nature of our universe opens new doors for those willing to open their minds to explore it and begin to understand why everything is as it is.

"Do you wish to know God? Learn first to know yourself." - Abba Evagrius the Monk.
— Nikolas

Know one thing, know everything. Understanding One-ness, understand The Absolute.

The freedom you seek is not from some metaphorical cave. Accept the limitations of being human by not being tempted to swim across the ocean, fly across in the sky, or engage in conceptual thought. — synthesis

I'm aware by experience what it means to not be human. I also know there have been those seeking freedom from Plato's cave in order to become human. Like it or not it includes the conscious cooperation of the three parts of our tripartite soul: thought, emotion, and sensation.

Thomas Merton records being asked to review a biography of Weil (Simone Weil: A Fellowship in Love, Jacques Chabaud, 1964) and was challenged and inspired by her writing. “Her non-conformism and mysticism are essential elements in our time and without her contribution we remain not human.”

I don't see the sense in accepting the limitations of not being human. I admire those who inspire me to leave Plato's cave so as to experience "meaning" or the inner vertical direction which leads to the Absolute or the eternal unchanging.

You are hung-up on form. Things are what they are, correct? You believe you can use your ability to conceptualize to see this truth, but there seem to be all kinds of reasons this is not the case. If we were able to intellectualize the truth, it would be universally applied. — synthesis

"Do you wish to know God? Learn first to know yourself." - Abba Evagrius the Monk.

When I awaken to experience that I live in the prison of Plato's cave, it is natural to want to escape. I see that things are not what they are since I am creating my own reality through my corrupted emotions and imagination. I can admit that "I Know Nothing." Conscious attention and imagination are mutually exclusive. When I am governed by imagination I am incapable of conscious attention. However, the more I become capable of conscious attention rather than directed attention, I become closer to realistically perceiving the external world.

I see that if I want freedom from Plato's cave I must learn what it means to Know Thyself rather than imagine thyself. A certain method is essential since it doesn't happen by itself. Conscious attention is a higher intellectual process and not to be confused with dualistic associative thought.

↪Nikolas
I found the ideas of Niscolescu very helpful as my understanding of reality is certainly multidimensional. I also think that the whole idea of the middle is essential, as it seems that binary thinking, as extremes seem so limiting. In particular, I feel that a lot of people tend to prefer a clear pessimist or optimist approach both seem mistaken. I think that we need to find the balance in how we see most aspects of life, in order for be able to think clearly. Obviously, we don't just want a watered down version of reality, but it seems to be about juxtaposing opposites in a careful and intricate way in our perception and philosophical quest. — Jack Cummins

The middle can be understood as a balance between extremes and is often the secular perspective. Dr Nicolescu is describing the middle in the law of the included middle as including the extremes from a higher conscious perspective. Where the law of the excluded middle or non-contradiction refers to one level of reality, the law of the included middle describes how the extremes are united as one from higher conscious level of reality.

The base of triangle creates the two extremes. They are reconciled or exist as one at a higher reality or the apex of the triangle.

Zen, by definition, answers no questions. It is your own realization that accomplishes the task. The meaning and purpose of life becomes manifest in your actions and cannot be intellectualized.

Humanity has a need to interpret.
— Nikolas
Perhaps you should take up the practice of meditation and find out why this is not the case. — synthesis

You underestimate resistance. As soon s a person begins to do something they begin to interpret or they wouldn't know what to do. If the value of the Zen experience leads to the truth, then a person has to deal with acquired resistance. Krishnamurti gave a good example concerning the power of imagination leading to resistance: “You may remember the story of how the devil and a friend of his were walking down the street, when they saw ahead of them a man stoop down and pick up something from the ground, look at it, and put it away in his pocket. The friend said to the devil, “What did that man pick up?” “He picked up a piece of Truth,” said the devil. “That is a very bad business for you, then,” said his friend. “Oh, not at all,” the devil replied, “I am going to let him organize it." Krishnamurti[/i]

That is why I prefer contemplation of contradictions rather than meditation as leading towards the Absolute

When a contradiction is impossible to resolve except by a lie, then we know that it is really a door. Simone Weil

It can only be resolved by a quality of mind which can place the contradiction into a higher level of reality dualism is incapable of finding the door..

We are on two different paths. Who knows, we both may end up on the Way or where the paths meet. Different strokes for different folks.

Zen is the Japanese word for meditation. Zen doesn't understand anything. It's not about understanding, instead it's about realization through direct experience. — synthesis

True, but I have two essential questions Zen by definition cannot answer. The first is the meaning and purpose of our universe and the second is the meaning and purpose of life including human life within it.

A Person may have a Zen experience but how is it used? Experience may be pure but when it begins being used interpretations set in. Humanity has a need to interpret. This is resistance. In order to DO as a normal human being, a person must become free of the dominant animal need to interpret. How does Zen protect one's being against the animal need for interpretations?

Nothing against Plato, I am sure he was a brilliant guy and all that, but making the pile of bullshit higher doesn't make it any more correct.

This isn't that complicated. Experience. Need more be said? — synthesis

It's not right to discuss the meanings of the tripartite soul and its repercussions from the corruption of our lower nature on your thread but how IYO does Zen understand resistance? Why does the human organism oppose Zen and adopt imagination to take its place? Can the struggle with imagination take place without the conscious mind acting as a purification protecting efforts of meditation from turning into imagination and the opposite of its intent?

. An experience requires the simultaneous cooperation of thought, emotions, and sensations. When they consciously work together and react as nature intended, they produce an experience.
— Nikolas

According to whom? — synthesis

Plato's description of the tripartite soul is easiest to understand. As explained in the chariot analogy, the horse on the left refers to our lower parts which have become corrupt. How can the driver fix a sick horse which denies us the ability to objectively experience as a normal human being?

I would say being capable of thinking does not automatically result in good thinking. Education is very important to good thinking.

Let us be clear, reading the Bible does not equal becoming a good thinker. We can hold an understanding of the Bible without higher-order thinking skills. In fact, the 2012 Texas Republic agenda was to prevent education in higher-order thinking skills. — Athena

Slow thinking requires logically developing critical thinking from the need to problem solve. The law of the excluded middle or non-contradiction is necessary for slow thinking. Without it a person become a political thinker or parrots talking points.

However the law of the INCLUDED middle rather than the excluded middle is necessary for the seeker of truth who realizes the need for the experience of truth is more important than the temporary need to solve a problem. The law of the included middle requires opening to a higher quality of reason than the law of the excluded middle

It is even known now on certain levels of education. The goal is to unite the superficial understanding of the law of the excluded middle with the higher psychological potential of putting lower understanding into a higher perspective. Where the law of the excluded middle is scientific reasoning, the law of the included middle makes biblical contradictions understandable from higher intellectual perspective.

The world as I know it is not ready to open to what makes a higher perspective possible and is content to argue the value of fragments. Yet there are those who are aware of the law of the included middle. These are the people I try to learn from as I strive to understand what it means to reason.

http://esoteric.msu.edu/Reviews/NicolescuReview.htm

After reading Nicolescu's Manifesto of Transdisciplinarity, it is hard to imagine how any thinking person could retreat to the old, safe, comfortable conceptual framework. Taking a series of ideas that would be extremely thought-provoking even when considered one by one, the Romanian quantum physicist Basarab Nicolescu weaves them together in a stunning vision, this manifesto of the twenty-first century, so that they emerge as a shimmering, profoundly radical whole.

Nicolescu’s raison d’être is to help develop people’s consciousness by means of showing them how to approach things in terms of what he calls “transdisciplinarity.” He seeks to address head on the problem of fragmentation that plagues contemporary life. Nicolescu maintains that binary logic, the logic underlying most all of our social, economic, and political institutions, is not sufficient to encompass or address all human situations. His thinking aids in the unification of the scientific culture and the sacred, something which increasing numbers of persons, will find to be an enormous help, among them wholistic health practitioners seeking to promote the understanding of illness as something arising from the interwoven fabric—body, plus mind, plus spirit—that constitutes the whole human being, and academics frustrated by the increasing pressure to produce only so-called “value-free” material.

Transdisciplinarity “concerns that which is at once between the disciplines, across the different disciplines, and beyond all discipline,” and its aim is the unity of knowledge together with the unity of our being: “Its goal is the understanding of the present world, of which one of the imperatives is the unity of knowledge.” (44) Nicolescu points out the danger of self-destruction caused by modernism and increased technologization and offers alternative ways of approaching them, using a transdisciplinary approach that propels us beyond the either/or thinking that gave rise to the antagonisms that produced the problems in the first place. The logic of the included middle permits “this duality [to be] transgressed by the open unity that encompasses both the universe and the human being.” (56). Thus, approaching problems in a transdisciplinary way enables one to move beyond dichotomized thinking, into the space that lies beyond.

Nicolescu calls on us to rethink everything in terms of what quantum physics has shown us about the nature of the universe. Besides offering an alternative to thinking exclusively in terms of binary logic, and showing how the idea of the logic of the included middle can afford hitherto unimagined possibilities, he also introduces us to the idea that Reality is not something that exists on only one level, but on many, and maintains that only transdisciplinarity can deal with the dynamics engendered by the action of several levels of Reality at once. It is for this reason that transdisciplinarity is radically distinct from multidisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity, although it is often confused with both. Moreover, because of the fact that reality has more than a single level, binary logic, the logic that one uses to cross a street and avoid being hit by a truck, cannot possibly be applied to all of the levels. It simply does not work. Nicolescu explains it is only the logic of the included middle that can be adequate for complex situations, like those we must confront in the educational, political, social, religious and cultural arenas. As he writes, “The transdisciplinary viewpoint allows us to consider a multidimensional Reality, structured by multiple levels replacing the single-level, one-dimensional reality of classical thought.........” (49)

In a democracy, we need to argue until we have a consensus on the best reasoning. We do not see this as the word of God, but an ongoing process to have, and live by, the best reasoning possible. — Athena

The problem isn't a lack of reasoning but the inability to look; to consciously see. Simone Weil explains in this short poem. Without the ability to look, reasoning becomes just a tool for self justification further supporting all the arguments.

There Comes

If you do not fight it---if you look, just
look, steadily,
upon it,

there comes
a moment when you cannot do it,
if it is evil;

if good, a moment
when you cannot
not.

Experience can be had outside of conceptual thought. Getting into all the other philosophical stuff is really above my pay grade and,as well, specific questions about 'satori" and the like should be directed to a qualified teacher (of which I am not). — synthesis

A person doesn't have an experience through conceptual thought. An experience requires the simultaneous cooperation of thought, emotions, and sensations. When they consciously work together and react as nature intended, they produce an experience. When just one aspect is dominant, we live in imagination.

My point was that experience is real, fantasy (thinking) not so much. — synthesis

How do you define an experience? Experience can be interpreted into fantasy just as easily as reason and they both become partial truths. Socrates wrote of a higher quality of reason called noesis which leads to direct experience. Does satori mean the same?

Those things that are purely experiential open up entirely new possibilities and leave thinking in the proverbial dust. Even your ultimate internet fantasy cannot come anywhere close to competing with a blissful sexual experience with a live partner.

While ideas are one thing, experience is the real thing. — synthesis

What kind of sensory experience can one have to respond to the need for objective meaning? Does sex with the right partner reveal it?

It's been decades since I have really gotten into anything overly intellectual (other than my work).

As far as NOW is concerned, the idea that we cannot access the present presents difficulties. You can go round and round and round with all of these ideas as people have through history and end up where?

I discovered meditation as a way to simply see things as close as I could to what they actually are. It has helped me in ways I could never relate but all the words that attempt to describe this are severely lacking. If a picture is worth a thousand words, an experience must be worth a trillion at the very least. — synthesis

I understand what you mean but for me, without being exposed to a certain quality of ideas including a sense of scale and relativity that allowed me to experience human meaning and purpose within universal meaning and purpose, I'd be dead now and a sacrifice to alcohol..

Perhaps this refers to a different kind of absolute. The mystical type I refer to is not accessible to our intellect. — synthesis

There can be only ONE Absolute. The Absolute is NOW. While existence within NOW is a process. We can become aware of a quality of reality within creation above Plato's divided line that is beyond our sensory limitations. We can call it mystical but it still may be logical

Do you agree with the four cognitive states described by Plato?

noesis (immediate intuition, apprehension, or mental 'seeing' of principles)
dianoia (discursive thought)
pistis (belief or confidence)
eikasia (delusion or sheer conjecture)

Secularism is limited to discursive thought while noesis experiences intuition. As a creature within creation serving the process of existence, noesis is the limit of our intellect. NOW IS while the process of existence and its relative states all takes place within NOW.

Nikolas wrote responding to Synthesis

The Relative and The Absolute stand opposed to each other as that which we use intellectually (the Relative) and that which exist outside of our intellect (The Absolute). All things knowable (intellectual) are relative. These things that exist intellectually are constantly changing, exist in time, therefore their relative nature.

The Absolute (e.g., The Dao, God) is unknowable, unchangeable, and exists outside of time. It is something you may sense or feel but never something you can know (intellectually).

Students of various paths that follow these principles must live in both of these worlds until they can fully immerse themselves in The Absolute (where the Relative becomes subservient as its true nature is revealed).

Once you understand the nature of the Relative, you can see the changing nature of all things (especially your self). As all things Relative are born, have life, and pass, all things Absolute, transcend these states, having never been born, will never pass, and "exist" outside of existence.

Accessing The Absolute is the goal of all spirituality and religion, as this is where the The Truth lies. And although you can never know this Truth, you can be with and part of it, a need that has apparently driven man's behavior for thousands of years. — synthesis

There are some who have experienced the inner vertical direction beginning at the relative level and concluding at the Absolute and some who are not yet able if it exists. The Absolute is beyond our sensory limitations but can be experienced by noesis or a higher form of intellect. Plato's Ladder of Love is good example. It begins at the animal level and concludes as a "form" and part of the eternal unchanging beyond. Contemplating the ladder allows us to experience this inner vertical direction which connects the relative with the Absolute.

1. A particular beautiful body. This is the starting point, when love, which by definition is a desire for something we don’t have, is first aroused by the sight of individual beauty.

2. All beautiful bodies. According to standard Platonic doctrine, all beautiful bodies share something in common, something the lover eventually comes to recognize. When he does recognize this, he moves beyond a passion for any particular body.

3. Beautiful souls. Next, the lover comes to realize that spiritual and moral beauty matters much more than physical beauty. So he will now yearn for the sort of interaction with noble characters that will help him become a better person.

4. Beautiful laws and institutions. These are created by good people (beautiful souls) and are the conditions which foster moral beauty.

5. The beauty of knowledge. The lover turns his attention to all kinds of knowledge, but particularly, in the end to philosophical understanding. (Although the reason for this turn isn’t stated, it is presumably because philosophical wisdom is what underpins good laws and institutions.)

6. Beauty itself – that is, the Form of the Beautiful. This is described as "an everlasting loveliness which neither comes nor goes, which neither flowers nor fades." It is the very essence of beauty, "subsisting of itself and by itself in an eternal oneness." And every particular beautiful thing is beautiful because of its connection to this Form. The lover who has ascended the ladder apprehends the Form of Beauty in a kind of vision or revelation, not through words or in the way that other sorts of more ordinary knowledge are known.

↪Nikolas I see, thanks for sharing this to me.

I am concerned of how present idols (Singers, boy bands, K-pop artsist,...etc) are used as a sort of drug to intoxicate one away from the glory of the art (specifically, the it's pains and suffering) of life. I suppose this matches the notion of how people are driven away from the reality of life to images and dreams and illusions (regardless of whether it is for the supernatural or the modern artists).

In modern times in which the loss of conscious attention and dominance of imagination is obvious, what can be done for people to realize what is being lost? Can a certain quality of art help humanity to "remember?"
— Nikolas

This may be semantic, but my take on this is not that art has this certain quality, but that we do. It is up to us to view life as an aesthetic phenomenon and find how we can best appreciate it. — Nagel

We have the potential to remember the big picture through awe and wonder from the influence of a certain quality of art. However as you've suggested people are forgetting the big picture and justifying negative emotions and small things enhanced by the bands you've mentioned. If humanity cannot remember, it will forget as a law of nature. Use it or lose it.

“How good music and bad reasons sound when one marches against an enemy.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche

Does the enemy create devolved art or does devolved art create the emotions which create the enemy we march against?

But the real harm is the devolution of impartial conscious attention. This loss IMO supported by negative expressions for some reason called art, assures the gradual devolution of Man into its animal nature.

↪Tom Storm ↪Valentinus
I see that the two you were speaking of the passage in the Bible, which I think is the hardest of all, or certainly it really worried me. That is the passage about the unpardonable sin: 'whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit, will not be forgiven, either on earth or in heaven.' You mentioned it in connection with the idea of the Trinity, but it is has far wider implications for the idea of an unpardonable sin seems so contrary to the whole emphasis on forgiveness in the New Testament. When I have mentioned this idea to a number of people who are Christian's they don't really seem tot have thought that much about it. However, having agonised over it, I was a bit reassured to discover later that Jung and Kierkergaard had both struggled over this. — Jack Cummins

I was bothered by this question also until I realized that only exceptional people who understand the power of the Holy Spirit could sin against the Holy Sprit. I found this explanation in Lost Christianity:

Jacob Needleman, quoting “Father Sylvan”

"Forgiveness is the seeing that carries the holy force of reconciliation. God forgives; Christ forgives; but actually, the power of forgiveness lies with the Holy Spirit."

The Holy Spirit connects no-thing with everything. We misunderstand God and Christ so everything is forgiven. We can curse out God but it is meaningless. However the power of reconciliation or connecting above and below can be taken advantage of which is basically demonic and impossible to erase from the seed of the soul. It has replaced the power of reconciliation. But don't worry about it. Real Satanism takes skills that we are incapable of as we are.

This is why real esoteric teaching is done in private and not written down. It protects the ignorant curiousity seekers from themselves.

That's not the interpretation I am making. And the question you pose has nothing to do with my proposition. I never said knowledge was evil. But not following God's command is wrong. He is very specific about not eating that bloody fruit. — Tom Storm

But Eve ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. She acquired knowledge of evil. Why should God deny this knowledge when Jesus descended to our planet to awaken Man to the harm of ignorance concerning objective good and evil? Is there a way this all makes sense?

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil predates Man on earth. What does evil refer to?
— Nikolas

The only tree of knowledge I know is the kabbalah. Knowledge isn't evil per say but you may be commanded to remain ignorant/simple - in which case seeking knowledge then becomes a transgression. — Tom Storm

Is seeking knowledge evil and remaining ignorant the good? This doesn't make sense to me. Why would a God create knowledge and call it evil? If knowledge is evil why create our potential to receive it in the first place

I'm not being critical but just asking questions that anyone interested in the meaning and purpose of our universe and Man within it would ask. Is there a logical premise or skeleton of our universe that would reveal its meaning and purpose in which the questions of objective good and evil would be reasonable. ?

There are certainly many pairs of elements and agents who are seen as set over against each other in Gnosticism. Many of the separated pairs are seen as sources of evil and suffering. On the other hand, some of the Gnostic Christians were less inclined to identify the "flesh" as the source of evil than their Pauline brethren. The division itself was seen to be the problem.

The trinity was an important concept for some Gnostic Christians. Consider verse 44 from the Gospel of Thomas:

Jesus said, "Whoever blasphemes against the Father will be forgiven, and whoever blasphemes against the son will be forgiven, but whoever blasphemes against the holy spirit will not be forgiven, either on earth or in heaven.
— Funk and Miller translation — Valentinus

Granted there are as many sects in Gnosticism as there are in Christendom. Is the universe evil as some sects of Gnosticism believe? If not, what IYO is objective evil and how is it distinguished from the good?

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil predates Man on earth. What does evil refer to?

↪Nikolas I thought the rationale of Christianity was that it was open to all and any who believed. That it's not a path for spiiritual adepts, like Tantric Buddhism. — Wayfarer

True, but who believes? We don't have inner unity but the human organism is a plurality. We are many. We believe one thing for an hour and then forget bout it and believe something else. What we believe is defined by what we do so he who follows in the precepts of Christ is Christian. If we can't, we are pre-Christian with the potential to become Christian. What we really believe is a big question.

Interesting - you raise many questions. On what basis do you arrive at this Trinitarian model? When you say precepts of Chris (I am assuming you mean teachings of) does it matter if they are the purported original teachings or ones with theological additions? Is it enough to say 'I follow Christ', regardless of quality control? The term pre-Christian is interesting. Why Pre? Generally pre-Christian means Iron Age faiths. Do you perhaps mean nascent-Christian? I am also curious about your use the word 'unable'. Unable to what? To believe it, or is there some other barrier - such as commitment to the purity of the teachings? I think you may have left one out - cultural Christians. — Tom Storm

Maybe this would be more understandable when compared to becoming a classical pianist. The first thing a person needs is the wish to be a classical pianist. If they don't have this desire then they are non-pianists. Yet some have heard the performance of a superb classical pianist and are inspired to become one. They sit at a piano and soon learn they are not able to be a pianist. Their minds, hands, and heart don't work together. They need talent and practice to become a classical pianist. Some become part of a music school which teaches piano by a competent instructor. This was the role of the original Christian church. It was an esoteric school. It would teach how to be rather than what to do. When we learn how to be, then doing as a human being becomes obvious.

Of course it is hard to become a Christian. The world is against it and prefers imaginary life in Plato's cave