Understanding

@sometime sun,

sometime sun;136657 wrote:

Just putting this out there see what come up;

There is nothing in the universe and beyond to understand but the self.

I think that in its broadest sense, the concept of "self" subsumes the rest. But I expect a thousand objections to this. "That Art Thou." By the way, your statement is in alignment with Absolute Idealism, which is somewhat misnamed as it terminates the mind-matter dichotomy.

@sometime sun,

sometime sun;136657 wrote:

Just putting this out there see what come up;

There is nothing in the universe and beyond to understand but the self.

Now isn't that narrow and egotistical? Doesn't it embarrass you to say such a thing?

@sometime sun,

sometime sun;136657 wrote:

Just putting this out there see what come up;

There is nothing in the universe and beyond to understand but the self.

Yes. Have you ever noticed how whatever you're looking at changes "what" you are? Like if you look at a rock, relative to it, you're alive. If you look at a goat, you're human. If you look at someone you think is silly, you must be some kind of hot shot.

So what you are changes with what you look at. Like you're a negative-chameleon. Wonder how you stumbled upon this thought?

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;136681 wrote:

Now isn't that narrow and egotistical? Doesn't it embarrass you to say such a thing?

No because i am not talking about just my self, maybe thats just how you hear things?

@sometime sun,

sometime sun;136694 wrote:

No because i am not talking about just my self, maybe thats just how you hear things?

But then that is a narrow and egotistical view for anyone to take. And anyone who takes it should be embarrassed to admit it.

@Arjuna,

Arjuna;136687 wrote:

So what you are changes with what you look at. Like you're a negative-chameleon.

Beautiful metaphor!

@Arjuna,

Arjuna;136687 wrote:

Yes. Have you ever noticed how whatever you're looking at changes "what" you are? Like if you look at a rock, relative to it, you're alive. If you look at a goat, you're human. If you look at someone you think is silly, you must be some kind of hot shot.

So what you are changes with what you look at. Like you're a negative-chameleon. Wonder how you stumbled upon this thought?

And of course what you look at changes when you look at it.

It was a progression form the thread 'Something Awful' where i said something to the effect that we are only really afriad of ourselves.
Afraid of the self, then it occured to me that the only thing we can truely predict is our selves, not the other people, not the earth, not the matter we are made of, not God can we truly predict, but that of our 'self'.
So i then thought but surly the 'self' also is unpredictable, surly we cannot predict and trust the this owned self.
And then it was not about self at all, it was all about the universe and our conduct and control of siad outside universe we can not rate or judge or predict or trust.
So that just left me with and brought me back to the thought 'self'.
Self is something like grasping at straws, grasping at ideals, clauses and trust. Something one can at least pretend to control.
So this left me with an unpredictable universe, God and self.
But then i remembered we need to pretend the self.
Because if we cant trust one thing in the universe it is our delusion.

(This was suppose dto be life afirming, really it was, i dont know whats the matter with me this evening apart from it being a Friday)

I have it, delusion is imagination, we can trust our imagination. (feww)

---------- Post added 03-06-2010 at 12:47 AM ----------

kennethamy;136697 wrote:

But then that is a narrow and egotistical view for anyone to take. And anyone who takes it should be embarrassed to admit it.

How so? Please expand.

@sometime sun,

sometime sun;136700 wrote:

How so? Please expand.

That there is nothing beyond one's self? How could it not be narrow and egotistical? And false. If it were true, then why would you be talking to me?

@sometime sun,

I wonder why I caused that earthquake in Haiti recently?

@sometime sun,

It all hinges upon the definition of "self." If, as Wittgenstein suggests, the self is "the limit of the world," than all experience is subsumed within this concept.

@Twirlip,

Twirlip;136706 wrote:

I wonder why I caused that earthquake in Haiti recently?

But that is just commonsense. Don't you want to be profound and beautiful? How can commonsense be profound an beautiful? It's only true.

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;136708 wrote:

But that is just commonsense. Don't you want to be profound and beautiful?

Who doesn't, at some time in their life, want to be profound and beautiful? Seriously, K. Are we talking about anti-profundity as true philosophy? Pragmatism rules the world already, and always has.

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;136705 wrote:

That there is nothing beyond one's self? How could it not be narrow and egotistical? And false. If it were true, then why would you be talking to me?

Please tell me how you view 'self'?
I would be talking to try to and discover my self and learn to trust it more but meeting your self.
Just as i would hope you would do the same for me.
I need you to expand me.
You need me to expand you.
Trust.
(Responsibility)
(Definition)

---------- Post added 03-06-2010 at 01:02 AM ----------

Twirlip;136706 wrote:

I wonder why I caused that earthquake in Haiti recently?

Me too! But i also wondered how i could fix it.

@Reconstructo,

Reconstructo;136709 wrote:

Who doesn't, at some time in their life, want to be profound and beautiful? Seriously, K. Are we talking about anti-profundity as true philosophy? Pragmatism rules the world already, and always has.

From the proposition that profundity and beauty is not our goal in philosophy, it does not, and cannot, follow that anti-profundity is or goal in philosophy or that it is true philosophy, nor even that people sometimes want to be profound and beautiful. What would that even have to do with it? That is just a mistake in logic.

@Reconstructo,

Reconstructo;136707 wrote:

It all hinges upon the definition of "self." If, as Wittgenstein suggests, the self is "the limit of the world," than all experience is subsumed within this concept.

The world is the limit of self?
(no i dont think so either)(greater, even if because and for it)

---------- Post added 03-06-2010 at 01:09 AM ----------

kennethamy;136708 wrote:

But that is just commonsense. Don't you want to be profound and beautiful? How can commonsense be profound an beautiful? It's only true.

Just becasue we are blinded by the truth, does not mean it too is not beautiful.

---------- Post added 03-06-2010 at 01:10 AM ----------

kennethamy;136717 wrote:

From the proposition that profundity and beauty is not our goal in philosophy, it does not, and cannot, follow that anti-profundity is or goal in philosophy or that it is true philosophy, nor even that people sometimes want to be profound and beautiful. What would that even have to do with it? That is just a mistake in logic.

Your logic or all logic? Please expand.

@sometime sun,

sometime sun;136657 wrote:

Just putting this out there see what come up;

There is nothing in the universe and beyond to understand but the self.

I'm tempted to reverse this, and say that the one thing that is never there to be understood is the self. Rather, I'd like to take seriously Wittgenstein's remark, "The world of the happy man is a different one from the world of the unhappy man", and, rather than attempt the impossible feat of investigating my own unhappiness by turning round to catch a glimpse of the back of my own head, instead, keep always looking forward (for there is no other way to look), and investigate that world I unhappily live in - trying to see through it, to be sure, and ascend into a happier and also in a sense more real world - but also being resigned to having to a spend a lot of time in this unhappy world, whether it is real or not, and investigating it for what it is, as if I were trapped in a virtual reality simulation or in a lucid nightmare from which I cannot awake.

It's an irony that the more depressed one's world, the less able one is to investigate it, or to find collaborators in the investigation, all of whom in any case are going to be disabled, either by living in the same depressed world, or even worse, by not living in it! But even an unreal world has its structure, its substance, its geography; it has that unhappy attribute of reality, of not going away even when you want it to. So, investigation is not hopeless; and rough maps can be drawn. And nowhere on any map do I find myself. I see things; I see that I see as if through a glass, darkly; I see some of that dark glass through which I see; and I take away some of the dark glass, and see a little less darkly; but I never see me at all.

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;136717 wrote:

From the proposition that profundity and beauty is not our goal in philosophy, it does not, and cannot, follow that anti-profundity is or goal in philosophy or that it is true philosophy, nor even that people sometimes want to be profound and beautiful. What would that even have to do with it? That is just a mistake in logic.

Ah, the pragmatism is out of its cage again.....

I know you what are saying. I could argue it myself. But I reject the reduction of philosophy to common-sense and natural science.

Nor is what I said a mistake in logic, as logic deals only in tautologies and contradictions, neither of which are possible when abstract words are introduced, as abstract words have no fixed meaning.

@sometime sun,

sometime sun;136657 wrote:

Just putting this out there see what come up;

There is nothing in the universe and beyond to understand but the self.

An easily misunderstood statement, for it can be taken so many ways.

Kenny seems to be taking it to mean, "There is nothing more important in the universe but self, and to understand self is to understand all else."?

While I'm thinking what you meant is more along the lines that one can not take "self" out of the picture when attempting to understand the world that surrounds us all. That we are not any more important than any other portion of the universe and beyond, but our understanding comes from within ourselves?

Care to clarify your original statement above?

Lost1

@Lost1 phil,

Lost1;136855 wrote:

An easily misunderstood statement, for it can be taken so many ways.

Kenny seems to be taking it to mean, "There is nothing more important in the universe but self, and to understand self is to understand all else."?

While I'm thinking what you meant is more along the lines that one can not take "self" out of the picture when attempting to understand the world that surrounds us all. That we are not any more important than any other portion of the universe and beyond, but our understanding comes from within ourselves?

Care to clarify your original statement above?

Lost1

Just a quick reply may come back with more later;
You cannot hope to understand anything, you cannot come close to knowing anything, if you dont know how to understand if you dont know how to know, both understanding and knowing can only be achieved and trusted when you understand and know what it is about you that is in need of this understanding and knowledge.
How to be and how to do is pure self.
Self is ability to perceive all. All is ability to preceive self.
You cannot be part of the universe if you dont know what it is to be part of something anything.
You cannot be self if you dont know what self is, if you dont know you how can you know them, that, this, then, there, their.............everything?
All understanding starts and ends by understanding how to understand.
Nothing matters if you dont or cant understand it.
If you cant be self you cant be anything everything.
You cant see if you cant see.
You cant be anything if you cant be anything.
You cant be everything if you cant be everything.
You cant be whole if you cant be whole.
You cant know if you cant know.
You cant be self if you cant be self.
You cant be you if you cant be you.
You cant be ALL if you cant be ALL.

I think i make my point? you cant be anything everything if you are not all you are, self.

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