BrianSoddingBoru:
This plainly exclude non-enlightened people from knowing things that are worth knowing. Non-enlightened people may know how to build a boat, write a sonnet, prepare a tasty meal, repair a damaged heart, and so on. You’re clearly stating (your gibberish above notwithstanding) that these things are not worth knowing.”
- By this I meant the most fundamental questions like “What do we do once we are here? Where the user’s manual? What’s going on here? Why are we even here?”
/No philosopher truly aborts these questions. Spirituality on the other hand, gradually provides answers to that.
Angrboda:
- I’m not claiming that spirituality’s goal is to replace science here. I’ve just being watching an interview on recent advances in post-partum depression among women and on the latest discoveries in this field during the last 10 years.
Besides me not understanding anything at this point does not mean that the sum of knowledge of our specie will not keep increasing in the coming decades and centuries.
I’m not claiming I found some replacement to philosophy either.
Still this “Inner Knowledge” I’m talking about has been of great support for me. I’ve come to terms with the fact that (despite being a great tool) the mind is not a goal in itself. As I become more and more established in this “Self-knowledge” I’m talking about these mind-based approaches are becoming like tools that are available for me to use in the service of the only possible “Knowledge” that is available to us humans. (And that’s the closest to how I can express this at this point
)
Grandnudger:
- I disagree. I think we have in many ways lost our connection to nature. I believe humans have always been conscious of the fact that they are just a small part of a larger reality. I also believe that this connection has been lost in our modern society. I even believe that if we let it, this modern world will turn us into robots. We will become simple consumers who have this illusion of freedom but are (in reality) complete slaves of a capitalist system almost like the people who were turned into mere batteries in the matrix movie.
/Yet, if we re-establish this inner connection, this social model will start to evolve with us and we will be able to create a more “human” and dignified way of living for ourselves and our descendants.
/And true spirituality will probably play a big role in us achieving that (that’s how I see it)
Paleophyte:
- If somebody took half of our brains, everything would be fine right? No need for Marijuana or alcohol, we would just be lying there without a worry in the world?
- Chat GPT is not conscious (yet). But it’s still a good example. It’s a tool that does stuff that our mind does too. So if we are not the mind, then what are we?
- We are what we experience in most serious meditation practice. That is pure presence. Or pure bliss if you like. And this is something we get to experience for ourselves. It’s not just some prophet having told us about it many centuries ago. There is this active procedure and the result of this procedure is also being experienced by the practitioner directly. And there are studies on meditation now. We can see that changes occur in the brain in people who meditate regularly. We also know that regular meditation has a very positive effect on our general wellbeing. These are observations. Not religious dogmas.
Brian-Boru:
- This is an important point. But you can look at it this way:
I would not want to be in your car if you are driving after drinking to bottle of scotch or if you have had pills / magic mushrooms of anything like that. But would you be afraid of being in my car if I have meditated for 20 minutes before driving the car?
/ So there are some useful stuff there.
Personally: It keeps me from becoming a nihilist in this world. Sometimes I look at what the masses do and the only thing that keeps me from adopting as Gustave Le Bon type of attitude toward other humans is the (for me) knowledge that they too are connected to this inner reality I’ve been talking about. So it keeps me from adopting a completely stoic attitude. And I sort of love this idea of “Let go and let God”.
/ Of course there are situations in which we need to act decisively and quickly. But what do you do when masses of people are mobilized to destroy the very fabric of our reason-based / free societies?
So there is this “Individual support” element here too. I don’t know if I sound like a crazy person. But that’s the core of my belief system I’ve been talking about
Quote:“But you said, ‘Of everything that’s worth knowing. That’s what happens when you are spiritually enlightened.’
This plainly exclude non-enlightened people from knowing things that are worth knowing. Non-enlightened people may know how to build a boat, write a sonnet, prepare a tasty meal, repair a damaged heart, and so on. You’re clearly stating (your gibberish above notwithstanding) that these things are not worth knowing.”
- By this I meant the most fundamental questions like “What do we do once we are here? Where the user’s manual? What’s going on here? Why are we even here?”
/No philosopher truly aborts these questions. Spirituality on the other hand, gradually provides answers to that.
Angrboda:
Quote:“While there are multiple ways to define truth, the most common is that something is true if it corresponds to something in the real world. So far you haven't established that this spirituality of yours corresponds to anything in the real world. Knowledge itself? Improvements of the frontal lobe? What are you actually tying all this nonsense to? Moreover the things you have tied it to, consciousness, are approachable via reason. Edmund Husserl did ground-breaking work on the structure of consciousness. He revealed things that centuries of navel gazing had failed to clarify. This is because these spiritual approaches ply their trade through intuition, which, besides not being transparent, and having no way to verify it, is well-known to be unreliable as a path to knowledge. It sounds to me like you're just vaguely describing unfounded ideas as if they corresponded to something real. Though despite being prodded to do so in this and other threads, you continue to fail to produce anything substantive.”
- I’m not claiming that spirituality’s goal is to replace science here. I’ve just being watching an interview on recent advances in post-partum depression among women and on the latest discoveries in this field during the last 10 years.
Besides me not understanding anything at this point does not mean that the sum of knowledge of our specie will not keep increasing in the coming decades and centuries.
I’m not claiming I found some replacement to philosophy either.
Still this “Inner Knowledge” I’m talking about has been of great support for me. I’ve come to terms with the fact that (despite being a great tool) the mind is not a goal in itself. As I become more and more established in this “Self-knowledge” I’m talking about these mind-based approaches are becoming like tools that are available for me to use in the service of the only possible “Knowledge” that is available to us humans. (And that’s the closest to how I can express this at this point
)
Grandnudger:
Quote:“Stone age people of the amazon had no special connection to the universe that we lack. Human beings have never been in harmony with nature or each other.”
- I disagree. I think we have in many ways lost our connection to nature. I believe humans have always been conscious of the fact that they are just a small part of a larger reality. I also believe that this connection has been lost in our modern society. I even believe that if we let it, this modern world will turn us into robots. We will become simple consumers who have this illusion of freedom but are (in reality) complete slaves of a capitalist system almost like the people who were turned into mere batteries in the matrix movie.
/Yet, if we re-establish this inner connection, this social model will start to evolve with us and we will be able to create a more “human” and dignified way of living for ourselves and our descendants.
/And true spirituality will probably play a big role in us achieving that (that’s how I see it)
Paleophyte:
Quote:“How worried should I be that Leo's babbling makes less sense to me than a random conversation with ChatGPT? Pure consciousness is what you experience when your mind and personality are gone? That's called a lobotomy.”
- If somebody took half of our brains, everything would be fine right? No need for Marijuana or alcohol, we would just be lying there without a worry in the world?
- Chat GPT is not conscious (yet). But it’s still a good example. It’s a tool that does stuff that our mind does too. So if we are not the mind, then what are we?
- We are what we experience in most serious meditation practice. That is pure presence. Or pure bliss if you like. And this is something we get to experience for ourselves. It’s not just some prophet having told us about it many centuries ago. There is this active procedure and the result of this procedure is also being experienced by the practitioner directly. And there are studies on meditation now. We can see that changes occur in the brain in people who meditate regularly. We also know that regular meditation has a very positive effect on our general wellbeing. These are observations. Not religious dogmas.
Brian-Boru:
Quote:“‘I’d rather have a free bottle in front of me than a pre-frontal lobotomy.’ - Steve Allen (probably)”
- This is an important point. But you can look at it this way:
I would not want to be in your car if you are driving after drinking to bottle of scotch or if you have had pills / magic mushrooms of anything like that. But would you be afraid of being in my car if I have meditated for 20 minutes before driving the car?
/ So there are some useful stuff there.
Personally: It keeps me from becoming a nihilist in this world. Sometimes I look at what the masses do and the only thing that keeps me from adopting as Gustave Le Bon type of attitude toward other humans is the (for me) knowledge that they too are connected to this inner reality I’ve been talking about. So it keeps me from adopting a completely stoic attitude. And I sort of love this idea of “Let go and let God”.
/ Of course there are situations in which we need to act decisively and quickly. But what do you do when masses of people are mobilized to destroy the very fabric of our reason-based / free societies?
So there is this “Individual support” element here too. I don’t know if I sound like a crazy person. But that’s the core of my belief system I’ve been talking about
![[Image: 7151bc275de2d3d422106a4008215efe.jpg]](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/71/51/bc/7151bc275de2d3d422106a4008215efe.jpg)
