Is Heidegger's Being equivalent to Malevich's suprematism somehow?

If we really do tell ourselves in our heads, all the people on this forum, that we want to be responsible for some paradigm shift - then aren't we a little idealistic?

But, on the flip side, did the people who were responsible for paradigm shifts think the same thing?

Absolutely, "somehow". Everything is equivalent to everything else, "somehow". And, nothing is equivalent to anything else, "somehow". Does that surprise you? Three cheers for, "somehow"!

If we really do tell ourselves in our heads, all the people on this forum, that we want to be responsible for some paradigm shift - then aren't we a little idealistic?

I am sorry for not having kept up with this thread, or any others. I do apologize.

I don't think I feel alone here when I say that the carrot, the "purpose" of life, seems to be farther and farther away the more I try to grab it.

Even if one person on this entire forum somehow created some paradigm shift or some other ultimate success in "philosophy" what has been achieved? Does achievement count if it isn't tangible? Such as losing weight, writing a novel, directing a movie, or having investments pay off.

I do think the carrot is universal. I think it is human nature to want the future to be better than the present or past. Improvement of society, of the world, however vague and hopeless that is, has been my "carrot" to try to attain. In my own small way, and all of us in our own small way, help make it a better place - and sometimes even a worse place, even if we don't know it.

Thus I am on a tangent, but the saying remains I think "the road to Hell is paved with good intentions."

All of us on this forum, I think, have good intentions. Our friends and family, be they liberal or conservative, religious or not, some label or another have mostly good intentions wouldn't you say? But, as an atheist, I used to say religion made the world a worse place to live. Maybe that's true, my intentions are good, my logic seems sound to me, I have apparent verifiable proof throughout history of genocide and murder, etc.

But, without a time machine, how could I really know? This is probably way too off course now - but how could we ever be assured that our carrot is not poisonous to us or others? How do we know we want to eat it? We all chase it - but we all create it at the same time.

I really wish I could get some insight into this. Self psychology is unverifiable too, like my carrot.

I am sorry for not having kept up with this thread, or any others. I do apologize.

I don't think I feel alone here when I say that the carrot, the "purpose" of life, seems to be farther and farther away the more I try to grab it.

Even if one person on this entire forum somehow created some paradigm shift or some other ultimate success in "philosophy" what has been achieved? Does achievement count if it isn't tangible? Such as losing weight, writing a novel, directing a movie, or having investments pay off.

I do think the carrot is universal. I think it is human nature to want the future to be better than the present or past. Improvement of society, of the world, however vague and hopeless that is, has been my "carrot" to try to attain. In my own small way, and all of us in our own small way, help make it a better place - and sometimes even a worse place, even if we don't know it.

Thus I am on a tangent, but the saying remains I think "the road to Hell is paved with good intentions."

All of us on this forum, I think, have good intentions. Our friends and family, be they liberal or conservative, religious or not, some label or another have mostly good intentions wouldn't you say? But, as an atheist, I used to say religion made the world a worse place to live. Maybe that's true, my intentions are good, my logic seems sound to me, I have apparent verifiable proof throughout history of genocide and murder, etc.

But, without a time machine, how could I really know? This is probably way too off course now - but how could we ever be assured that our carrot is not poisonous to us or others? How do we know we want to eat it? We all chase it - but we all create it at the same time.

I really wish I could get some insight into this. Self psychology is unverifiable too, like my carrot.

This is a deep post. You tackled some real issues.The carrot's "trickery" is justified by the ecstasy it sometimes inspires. The carrot is Santa Clause for grownups, except this Santa Clause is half-real, because the dream cuts into reality. The dream shapes reality. The carrot as the kernel of spirit/idol. Does spirit exist except in relation to an idol? Every spirit has a determinate face, if only an equation.

I don't think verification is primarily logical. I think this is the ideal, but this ideal reminds me of the knife who despised the hand he was in.

We don't know if our carrot is poisonous except for when we do know. I think of certainty as an emotion and its associated conceptual content. It's true for us, while we believe it. Including this idea on the matter. Incidentally, I think intangible achievements are some of the most impressive.

I think hindisight is 20/20 is the best way to describe a poisonous carrot. Think of people who fall for get rich quick schemes, or multi level marketing, pyramid schemes. Those people are told this is your carrot, chase it! And they do. Only afterwards, like lottery winners for the most part, do they realize that they didn't want what they pursued - and in many cases are out of something in the process of pursuit, namely time and money.

Intangible achievements are some of the best. They are also free sometimes, or close. Like love. That's basically free, no one can sell it, they can only sell imitated representations of it (porn, prostitution, etc).

It's funny how our dreams shape reality. Some see the government as a benevolent force for good, and name a president and I am sure there are fans. Others have opposing viewpoints. Sometimes, the viewpoints in discussion are a distraction from real issues. Political gossip, basically. It takes a practiced mind to discern what matters, and what doesn't. What carrot to pursue, which is poisonous, which to share with others, etc.

Excellent post. For me, philosophy has an intangible value as love does, or music. Of course it also leads to tangible values, as the sciences are the children of philosophy. Your last paragraph especially reminds me of Socrates. Yes, those are the great issues. One could call them "existential" or "ethical-political." In any case, how can we not be philosophical? I suspect that we are always already living some philosophy but that some are hardly conscious of the ideology/assumptions they live by. I won't go as far as to say that "the unexamined life is not worth living," but I will say that for me examination was at first necessary for survival and finally a great pleasure and enhancement to life.

I also agree that schools don't teach thinking as much as they teach memorization. I am however grateful I learned to read. That's when the most exciting part of my education began. To face that difficult book alone. The solitude of interpretation is almost holy. I can't help but associate the intellectual with the sacred -- if only in a measured way. I take a holistic view on the issue. Thought and feeling are not as separate as some pretend. It's passion that drives inquiry and expression.

Thanks for the conversation! Glad you're around!

I think it's hard for any of us now to imagine a life without any self-examination, self-psychology, or philosophy - whichever you want to call our trains of thought. I have certain friends that are nothing like you and I in the sense that they are interested in inquiry into themselves or anything else, really. These people, which sad to say, are almost all of my friends (and family) except maybe two or three, "go along to get along."

If I really sit here and think about it, the people of the world, or at the very least the US, it's strange. Most of my friends and family don't examine their own lives, so in our eyes (perhaps) they haven't molded themselves at all. But, IMHO, everyone has to be molded, everyone develops. Someone or something has to do it. Usually, it's the distractions in most of my friends and family's life that does it for them - distractions and obligations.

School / work and "leisure" time. My best friend of 20 years was an excellent student in school. He was 2nd or 3rd in the graduating class, I was in the lower third of the graduating class because, especially at my hormonal time in HS, I didn't care and showed it. He did. He graduated with a masters in accounting and now has a nice paying, bonuses included, desk job. I deliver pizza, lol.

However - during the time he was putting all his effort into memorization, regurgitation, and passing standardized tests (I have never taken the SAT), I was working regular joe jobs. I had an amazing experience the first time I kissed a girl, had a date, fell in love, and connected with another human being on a very emotional level - all with the same girl. I had to buy cheap cars as I had cheap money, but taught myself how to work on them. Same with computers, although that started when I was a kid. I got into many hobbies, many interests, read many books, and found out a lot about myself and others, religion, etc in the process of enjoying my free time since I wasn't studying and/or working all the time and devoting all passion towards the pursuit of financial independence.

And if we were both to die today, I would not hesitate at all to say I had lived a more fulfilled life. And that's really what boggles me is that so many people in this world are so willing to keep status quo. To go along to get along. If someone else says school is a good idea, and you are smart because you got an A, or you are a success because you have a perfect credit score - some imaginary number somewhere - then people jump through those hoops like life is some circus act.

Relying on authority for anything you put in your brain is a bad idea, IMHO. If you let anyone else tell you what to think, then what use are you as a person? You are a warm body with moving appendages that can perform complex tasks to profit a government (war, or other things) or corporation. These people are always bored, like my friend. Incessant boredom. For years I have heard nothing but random complaints of boredom, either at work, or at home. What these people can't understand, because of these reasons, is that you have the power to think for yourself and be as "smart" as the "smart" people you have been taught to rely on and obey. Most of my friends actually think they are powerless. They don't care to discuss philosophy at all, or politics, or anything remotely close because they fail to see the point.

To me, this is what is frustrating. I cannot talk to people I have known 20 years, or family I have known for 24, about the real world subjects that affect billions of people. I can talk about studies done on television, or advertising, and they will roll their eyes a bit or sort of listen to shut me up - then twenty seconds later talk about an episode of Conan O'Brien. Or whatever else is a distraction from the real. It's sad, but what can I do?

Is the only way to get people to start thinking, and be philosophically minded, to make it a reality TV show with scantily clad women? Or, for my friend, do we have to create some high paying desk job that uses Excel formulas for philosophy? How many people that follow prescribed plans in life, that go with the flock of sheep down the traveled path, really live life?

What place does philosophy have in these new Roman-esque times?

Also, like you, I enjoy reading and am grateful for having learned to do it. I do not know how much school helped out, but I am sure it did. I certainly agree that passion drives inquiry and expression. But how could someone have real passion or drive when it's caged and boxed in, mentally and physically, to work in a cube looking at rows of boxes in Excel. Or doing any other demeaning, IMHO, work. The funny thing is, the machine works. It does what it's intended. Dell makes a computer cheaper than I can due to mass production. But you can't get something for nothing. Someone or something has had to be sacrificed to attain that mass production.

The destruction of the human spirit for the sake of the system is just one of many externalized costs not factored into our economy. It's an intangible quality as well, and therefore doesn't matter if it can't be put in Excel.

Life just needs balance, and we have relied on tangible means to fulfill intangible desires - and it doesn't work.


edit: I read your post again and forgot about music. Art is a very good point to bring up. Art imitates life, it is an expression of life from the point of view of the artist/artists, right? I think that those who fail to understand themselves, or life, or the depths and/or beauty of their own life cannot grasp art for what it is. I can tear up at music, it is so good. Like books, I can find new music to experience daily. If you have passion and a mind you will never be bored. Ever. Bored people are boring people.

Bored people are boring people.

However - during the time he was putting all his effort into memorization, regurgitation, and passing standardized tests (I have never taken the SAT), I was working regular joe jobs. I had an amazing experience the first time I kissed a girl, had a date, fell in love, and connected with another human being on a very emotional level - all with the same girl. I had to buy cheap cars as I had cheap money, but taught myself how to work on them. Same with computers, although that started when I was a kid. I got into many hobbies, many interests, read many books, and found out a lot about myself and others, religion, etc in the process of enjoying my free time since I wasn't studying and/or working all the time and devoting all passion towards the pursuit of financial independence.

Is the only way to get people to start thinking, and be philosophically minded, to make it a reality TV show with scantily clad women? Or, for my friend, do we have to create some high paying desk job that uses Excel formulas for philosophy? How many people that follow prescribed plans in life, that go with the flock of sheep down the traveled path, really live life?

What place does philosophy have in these new Roman-esque times?

bmcreider You share some of the same view points as me and others I am sure. "That is that we are far and few. Most people could care less about questiong there personal paradygm or there social paradygm. "That is to step out side of the [box] and question it. They are happy and content just as they are. Or could it be that your brain is wired just a litle different than theirs?

My life is not too far from this. I always just wanted TIME. I wanted to be left alone by all the boring petty bullshit of life. I want ascension! Also met the right girl young. I aced standardized tests, didn't do homework. Troubled kid wrestling with spiritual issues and extreme eros (not just lust). Both believing in myself more than anyone and hating myself more than most, for failing nigh-impossible self-ideals. Modifications of the carrot!

---------- Post added 02-24-2010 at 05:45 PM ----------

They live life, but not as abundantly. Or so it seems. For me, much was gained by making peace with mess. It's like that story in the gospel (great book for atheists/agnostics too). Talents (a form of money which became metaphorically "talent") were given in unequal measure. I think if we do our best to manifest the brighter aspects of spirit, we are doing all we can. In my opinion, negation is not persuasive. One must show the alternative. "Wisdom makes a man's face shine." I'm one more guy following a tributary back to its source. More "wisdom/love/knowledge." More life. The spirit as the arrow of Eros.

This will sound silly - but I swear some people like him go from the girls have cooties to "fags" have cooties, sorta speak, and thus they never really treat anything perceived as feminine with respect. Women are half of humanity, they are the balance to our species, they need to be explored, cherished, and treasured just as the men should be by them.

I have since found the perfect, as perfect as anyone deserves, woman; been together nearly two years and if you think I ramble here - lol, I ramble a lot to her.

I also find myself in the same battle of wits you are, internally, a lot of times. Inner peace seems hard to hold onto. At one end I think of myself as evolved in some sense or another, able to enjoy certain things, or enjoy learning - but then find myself still delivering pizza at 24 years old, and dissapointing certain people (namely parents, or otherwise) because of it.

I also want ascension, more life, as you say. Life isn't meant to have the volume turned down for the sake of security, IMHO. Accepting death is a necessary precept to live life, or so I think.

Thank you for reading...

Your last paragraph reminds me of that peace, since you mention coming to terms with reality. That I also find hard to do, as I want to change it for the better (or so I think, the carrot bit), so I wouldn't want to settle for a lesser world. I dunno if that makes any sense, but I tell my friends who think I talk about it too much, "if everyone talked about it, we, or I, wouldn't have so much to complain about." Unfortunately, I think people are disenfranchised not only to politics, but philosophy, and some even love, friends, or family.

This is a great point. The femininity issue is crucial. A fully developed person has sublimated both their masculine and feminine aspects. The great thing about relationships is that the genders absorb one another's virtues as they dispense with projections. Do you know Jung? He's great on this. The anima must be introjected. We are born projecting projecting projecting. We live in a world of illusions. SLowly and painfully, and also sometimes ecstatic and blissfully, we differentiate the fantasy from the person really there. And this applies perhaps most importantly to ourselves. A good woman is a treasure beyond compare. My wife is composing music in the other room. How fortunate we both were to work through all the illusion, confusion, and pain that seems to me to be necessary. "Spiritual"- emotional growing pains. Your friend is stuck in the Eve phase. Woman as sexual object and nothing more. Or so it seems.

Sincere congratulations! I know how excellent that is. Ramble away. I love to see women celebrated. Not all of them deserve celebration but not all of us men deserve a woman worth celebrated. I don't think it's a coincidence that woman celebrators get women worth celebrating.

I'm 33. I currently am waiting tables. I have delivered pizzas. Same general thing. Tips tips tips. A cash economy. Better money than the average crap wage job, but "no future," right?

Generally I couldn't be happier. I've dodged an amazing amount of time-suckage (time is the ultimate resource for a man who is conscious of his mortality). I've spent years and years reading the books I love, founding and performing in bands, partying, spending quality time with the lady. I tell you this, my slightly younger friend, the 30s have been like a ripening. All the information and theory and experience are coming together. I'm grateful to be alive. In my twenties I wrestled with the Devil, to speak symbolically. I was godless and free and disgusted with this spiritless society (what I knew of it at the time). The ideal burned in me. Like a hot coal in the soul-mind that goads evolution. Man is the metaphysical animal, says Schopenhauer. He knows that he must die. He craves craves purposes. We've got a built-in numen projector. We must find "God" or "Truth" or "Self" or "Beauty." And I think we do, eventually. As I'm sure you know.

Being-toward-death as authenticity. I think it's true. (Heidegger) A man's sense of time is different from an animals. I think ascension is a natural process, and the more conscious one is that this is the goal, the faster one approaches it. I went from being the most tormented person I knew, in my twenties, to the happiest person I know.

It's the like the Tao says. "You want to change the world? I don't think it can be changed." It has to be viewed, in my opinion, as a totality." To man, some things are good and others evil. To god, all things are good."
Heraclitus. Also the end of the book of Job. Of course I'm an agnostic, or someone that thinks that man is god. But "god" is a great symbol for "the nature of things." "The sun shines on the just and the unjust."

In my opinion, we simply have to let it go. In my opinion, kindness and self-development are good enough. The world is too big. To manifest intelligent words in the absence of joy is a mixed message. If a man wants to persuade, he must persuade by his happiness as much as his words. This was my solution to the moral quandary you mention. I don't know if it will you do any good, but I offer it humbly.

Do you think that it is necessary to enter into a relationship with women (or whatever your preference) in order to develop spiritually. IE, can you be as spiritually awakened, sorta speak, without 'pair bonding'?

Am I the disease that thinks it's a cure? I guess it's hard for me to persuade people to not tolerate injustice with a smile. But, I suppose, one should lead by example because even I say talk is cheap. I come off like a depressed teenager in these replies - but I promise you I do know how to enjoy life, it's just other times I try to improve it for others - maybe to my own deficit.

When did you stop, if you ever started, worrying about your "career" or "financial security" or "retirement" or any of that kinda thing?

I'm not surprised you have a good woman. See? It seems that Woman is symbolic of what I mean by transcendence, which is a feeling of beauty and perfection......The phallus is the 1? And the woman is an enclosing passionate zero?

Personally, I think a relationship with woman, real or imaginary, is necessary for total development. By imaginary I mean the anima, the soul. It's not the biological feminine that matters but the psychological feminine. For me, this long stable relationship I'm in has allowed me to develop my faculties. I worried all the deep questions enough to find some answers. I view philosophy for instance as a union of science and religion.

The religion part (transcendent) is the feminine in my current concept system. The religious emotion is what I call transcendent. But an undeveloped religion (woman) is a worshiper of idols (false gods). The woman (symbolically) is right feeling/wrong concept.

The science aspect of philosophy is man's conceptual self-consciousness (transcendental). He discovers that God is a projection, for instance, and that "reality" isn't known "in-itself," but is processed automatically, as well as consciously. He studies experience to determine this imposed structure, liberating himself from its prejudices. Right concept/ no feeling. Put science and religion together and you have religious feeling with conceptual sophistication. Sort of like developing the two halves of the soul/ mind. Thinking and feeling evolve one another?

From my point of view, you might want to integrate your "dark side." We are all half-evil, you might say. The more we are conscious of our own evil, the less it controls us. "Whatever is unconscious is projected." You seem more conscious than most in many ways, but individuation never ceases. The more we see the evil in ourselves, the less evil the world seems. Jung and Nietzsche helped me through exactly this kind of issue. Just my humble offering.

My whole life I have been so obsessed with the "things of the spirit," that I've never put half of my energy forward toward making it. I've done just enough to stay afloat, trusting in Lord knows what or who knows what Lord? I don't forget for long that I must die. My life has spiritual purpose but this spiritual purpose is intellectual/poetic. I don't know if it will work for you, but for me it has. The "carrot" has changed. The injustice of the world just doesn't affect me much. I don't watch the news anymore. I read great books when I'm not on this forum discussing them. I find that intellectual beauty or gnosis of philosophy works. I don't need god or justice but only the pursuit of Wisdom. (Oh yeah, I've been using the word "numen" for the carrot. The carrot/donkey analogy is an example of transcendental consciousness. We just do need purpose. We just do project some purpose. And to project is to live in the future. The future takes primacy in human time, but that's another thread.