|
terence
Stranger
Registered: 03/07/23
Posts: 85
Last seen: 6 months, 21 hours
|
|
Quote:
redgreenvines said: do cats and dogs use words?
(I used to love Rumi but the quotes posted here miss the heart of what I liked about him - one needs to drink a cup of wine after each one - boozy)
My shepsky has quite a vocabulary, beyond whines and barks, she rounds out her mouth and woo woo woos. I've known birds who knew a number of english words and when to use them, and some are reputedly multi-lingual. Konrad lorenz in his book "king solomon's ring" describes how he learned the language of jackdaws and could himself speak (whistle) it and make himself understood.
My dog understands a lot of what I say, interpolating words she doesn't know from the context and her desires. She not only knows "ball" she knows when we say "bee ay ell ell" what's going on.
Like humans the dog wants to impose her mental desire-driven grid on infinite reality. All sentient beings do this sort of world creation.
Dogs and cats speak the languages they devise to communicate, as needed.
Dogen says: "When a bird wants to use just a little sky, she uses just a little sky; when she wants to use a lot of sky she uses a lot. When a fish wants to use just a little water it uses a little water; when it wants to use a lot, it uses a lot."
from the essential rumi, trans barks
WEAN YOURSELF
Little by little, wean yourself. This is the gist of what I have to say. From an embryo, whose nourishment comes in the blood, move to an infant drinking milk, to a child on solid food, to a searcher after wisdom, to a hunter of more invisible game.
Think how it is to have a conversation with an embryo. You might say, "The world outside is vast and intricate. There are wheatfields and mountain passes, and orchards in bloom. At night there are millions of galaxies, and in sunlight the beauty of friends dancing at a wedding."
You ask the embryo why he, or she, stays cooped up in the dark with eyes closed.
Listen to the answer: There is no "other world." I only know what I've experienced. You must be hallucinating.
|
terence
Stranger
Registered: 03/07/23
Posts: 85
Last seen: 6 months, 21 hours
|
Re: Does reality exist? [Re: terence]
#28225339 - 03/11/23 03:56 PM (10 months, 12 days ago) |
|
|
rumi, op cit
TENDING TWO SHOPS
Don't run around this world looking for a hole to hide in. There are wild beasts in every cave! If you live with mice, the cat claws will find you. The only real rest comes when you're alone with God. Live in the nowhere that you came from, even though you have an address here.
That's why you see things in two ways. Sometimes you look at a person and see a cynical snake. Someone else sees a joyful lover, and you're both right! Everyone is half and half, like the black and white ox.
Joseph looked ugly to his brothers, and most handsome to his father. You have eyes that see from that nowhere, and eyes that judge distances, how high and how low.
You own two shops, and you run back and forth. Try to close the one that's a fearful trap, getting always smaller. Checkmate, this way. Checkmate that.
Keep open the shop where you're not selling fishhooks anymore. You are the free-swimming fish.
Think that you're gliding out from the face of a cliff like an eagle. Think you're walking like a tiger walks by himself in the forest. You're most handsome when you're after food.
Spend less time with nightingales and peacocks. One is just a voice, the other just a color.
|
redgreenvines
irregular verb


Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 37,530
|
Re: Does reality exist? [Re: shadowplay]
#28225386 - 03/11/23 04:33 PM (10 months, 12 days ago) |
|
|
The reality is that your view of reality really is your view of it, and it is changing all the time.
--------------------
_ 🧠_
|
sudly
Darwin's stagger

Registered: 01/05/15
Posts: 10,797
|
Re: Does reality exist? [Re: terence]
#28225430 - 03/11/23 05:16 PM (10 months, 12 days ago) |
|
|
Quote:
no universe is thinkable without the primacy of life and awareness, the presence of consciousness in the underlying stuff of reality.
If you said this was your opinion, then 
Philosophy means love of wisdom, and it is the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence. While we may be able to observe a dog being content in life, I still don't think the dog itself is contributing to philosophical thought.
Quote:
There is no me and no universe. You are trapped in subject object thinking. I am trying to break you out.
Yeahh.. I don't really want to be a fugitive or have the police looking for me.
I was asking for an example of an emanation from you, not Elkie Brooks lyrics.
The diversity of life we see in modern times is but a fraction of the diversity that has existed throughout Earth's history, and I would argue we already know how to participate with cooperation, community and sustainability, but that the political will to implement such ideals has been eroded by the legalisation of bribery in political campaigning.
Quote:
Moving to an agrarian lifestyle is well known to have diminished our health, intelligence and especially our individual happiness. The vast majority of humans since the agricultural revolution have been domesticated as slaves. Capitalism impoverishes and forces people to sell labor on the slave market to survive. Our ability to manipulate our environment has led to the colossal egotism and hubris that characterizes our race in its titanic and doomed aspirations.
Our lifespans have been extended dramatically in part due to our agrarian lifestyles and the technological advancements we have come to attain.
Our individual happiness arguably has been negatively impacted by our economic enterprises though, cultures that still have tribal lifestyles seem to be very content with how they are living in some cases.
Honestly, my conversation with an embryo would go somewhere along the lines of, "I've done genetic testing and used modern scanning techniques to see that your life would be one of disability, I will not put you through such suffering and although you would be a beautiful person, I will do what I can to protect you and myself from such a fate, and perhaps your brother or sister will be spared to live a fulfilling life with actual independence and equal opportunity, I hope so atleast."
-------------------- I am whatever Darwin needs me to be.
|
terence
Stranger
Registered: 03/07/23
Posts: 85
Last seen: 6 months, 21 hours
|
Re: Does reality exist? [Re: sudly]
#28226729 - 03/12/23 06:21 PM (10 months, 11 days ago) |
|
|
Quote:
sudly said:
Quote:
no universe is thinkable without the primacy of life and awareness, the presence of consciousness in the underlying stuff of reality.
If you said this was your opinion, then 
---------------------
It was a quote from william chittick but the point is fundamental to what I am trying to say, at a basic philosophical level.
another quote, from the tempest:
You do look, my son, in a moved sort, As if you were dismay’d: be cheerful, sir. Our revels now are ended. These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits and Are melted into air, into thin air: And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Ye all which it inherit, shall dissolve And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep.
I was asking for an example of an emanation from you, not Elkie Brooks lyrics.
I could explain the theory of emanations but it is complicated and if you never heard of plotinus or neo-platonism it could be a lengthy process. Perhaps you could spend a few minutes looking it up in wikipedia or the stanford encyclopedia of philosophy on line and then ask a more informed question.
Neo-platonism underlies virtually all mysticism, certainly if associated with the abrahamic religions.
--------------------
"The diversity of life we see in modern times is but a fraction of the diversity that has existed throughout Earth's history, and I would argue we already know how to participate with cooperation, community and sustainability, but that the political will to implement such ideals has been eroded by the legalisation of bribery in political campaigning."
If you are saying capitalism is evil I agree. Thumbs up.
As for politics, I think the republican party should be banned like the communist party was and all former republicans disenfranchised until they sign a loyalty oath. Trump should be executed by firing squad on national tv.
|
terence
Stranger
Registered: 03/07/23
Posts: 85
Last seen: 6 months, 21 hours
|
Re: Does reality exist? [Re: sudly]
#28226770 - 03/12/23 07:02 PM (10 months, 11 days ago) |
|
|
"Our lifespans have been extended dramatically in part due to our agrarian lifestyles and the technological advancements we have come to attain."
Agrarian lifestyles led to apocalyptic war pestilence famine and death. The black plague wiped out a third of the population of europe due to their agrarian lifestyle and the attendant zoonoses and pandemics. Medieval cities did not grow through natural increase but only through in-migration by the desperately poor, as they were death traps. A larger over all population does not prima facie make for a healthy, happy human component of a healthy, happy global ecosystem.
The industrial revolution was responsible for technological advances and it was considered anti-agrarian. Technology has led to rapid population increase and an ensuing inevitable crash, independently of destroying the future habitability of the planet through carbon pollution.
If an increasing population is the measure of success, our success is at best short-sighted since it is unsustainable and leads inevitably to massive and catastrophic human misery.
Most ecological awareness and environmentalism focuses on the well being of human beings, and considers the rest of the natural world and sentient being as desirable and even necessary to us but secondary at best, they are our environment, our dress. In reality they are us and we are them. One pearl.
|
terence
Stranger
Registered: 03/07/23
Posts: 85
Last seen: 6 months, 21 hours
|
Re: Does reality exist? [Re: sudly]
#28226777 - 03/12/23 07:10 PM (10 months, 11 days ago) |
|
|
I was asking for an example of an emanation from you, not Elkie Brooks lyrics.
|
sudly
Darwin's stagger

Registered: 01/05/15
Posts: 10,797
|
Re: Does reality exist? [Re: terence]
#28226793 - 03/12/23 07:28 PM (10 months, 11 days ago) |
|
|
I think my point still stands that you'd appear to have more merit claiming your opinions here.
Yeah nah, thinking for yourself might be nice to see.
You've now copped out multiple times from giving a personal example of an emanation, and if you had any idea what you were talking about, I believe you'd be able to explain or summarise the ideas you espouse to hold.
I believe there are good elements to both capitalism and socialism that can be balanced, but that currently legalised bribery is a hinderence to progress.
Well, there sure are a lot of wacky characters in power.
Quote:
You don't make friends with salad
I think corruption should be treated similarly to murder with sentencing.
Culture and society isn't all bad.
Man, I'm starting to picture you as a vegan that does coke.
I don't think an increasing population is 'the' measure of success, and even medieval swords were a technological advancement, the development of refining and forging processes etc.
I would have thought ecology has a focus on conservation and ecosystems but oh well. I don't believe individual carbon footprints negate any of the impact industrial pollution does either.
-------------------- I am whatever Darwin needs me to be.
|
sudly
Darwin's stagger

Registered: 01/05/15
Posts: 10,797
|
Re: Does reality exist? [Re: terence]
#28226798 - 03/12/23 07:34 PM (10 months, 11 days ago) |
|
|
Quote:
terence said: I was asking for an example of an emanation from you, not Elkie Brooks lyrics.
'Terence used deflect!'
'It wasn't very effective'

I asked for an example of emanations and all you gave were song lyrics.
-------------------- I am whatever Darwin needs me to be.
|
redgreenvines
irregular verb


Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 37,530
|
Re: Does reality exist? [Re: sudly] 2
#28226825 - 03/12/23 07:50 PM (10 months, 11 days ago) |
|
|
maybe eminem nation?
--------------------
_ 🧠_
|
BrendanFlock
Stranger


Registered: 06/01/13
Posts: 4,216
Last seen: 2 days, 13 hours
|
|
If doubt exists?
If it doesn't?
|
terence
Stranger
Registered: 03/07/23
Posts: 85
Last seen: 6 months, 21 hours
|
Re: Does reality exist? [Re: terence]
#28227260 - 03/13/23 02:33 AM (10 months, 11 days ago) |
|
|
Joy, anger, grief, delight, worry, regret, fickleness, inflexibility, modesty, willfulness, candor, insolence - music from empty holes, mushrooms springing up in dampness, day and night replacing each other before us, and no one knows where they sprout from. Let it be! Let it be! [It is enough that] morning and evening we have them, and they are the means by which we live. Without them we would not exist; without us they would have nothing to take hold of. This comes close to the matter. But I do not know what makes them the way they are. It would seem as though they have some True Master, and yet I find no trace of him. He can act - that is certain. Yet I cannot see his form. He has identity but no form.
~chuang tzu
|
redgreenvines
irregular verb


Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 37,530
|
Re: Does reality exist? [Re: terence]
#28227331 - 03/13/23 05:42 AM (10 months, 11 days ago) |
|
|
chang tzu and aristotle both - quite admirable, but their words relate to common knowledge of their times.
we know many of the things that both back then did not.
Yes, Let it be, but also Let us be comfortable knowing more than they did, and please let our children and theirs be comfortable as the known in their times continues to expand, while our needs remain less than our curiosity.
--------------------
_ 🧠_
|
terence
Stranger
Registered: 03/07/23
Posts: 85
Last seen: 6 months, 21 hours
|
|
Quote:
redgreenvines said: chang tzu and aristotle both - quite admirable, but their words relate to common knowledge of their times.
we know many of the things that both back then did not.
Yes, Let it be, but also Let us be comfortable knowing more than they did, and please let our children and theirs be comfortable as the known in their times continues to expand, while our needs remain less than our curiosity.
If you had the slightest idea of what a plotinian emanation was you wouldn't be asking for a personal example. It is as though you had no idea what a platonic form was and asked for a personal example, accusing me of not knowing what I am talking about when I say that is absurd. And I didn't quote aristotle. I'm not even sure you have heard of jimi hendrix.
In any case the theory of emanations is not the essence of what I am talking about. It might come into play at some point. So you might study up.
We know far less than the greek philosophers did. Much was rediscovered during the twentieth century, with the sequence schopenauer, brentano, husserl and heidegger culminating in continental philosophy as an extension of aristotle's work on being. Aristotle was a student of plato in the line of hermes and pythagoras, We know how to destroy, pollute and exploit. We know how to suppress truth and creativity. We don't know moderation or restraint. The greeks at least had an inkling. Socrates knew that the height of wisdom is to know one does not know. We have only backslid since then.
For example, ancient greece had two words for time, chronos for clock time and measurement and kairos for the virtue and spiritual power of knowing the right time to do things. Science and technology understands measurement very well but is hopeless with timing and with the power of virtue in general.
Our children's children will be fortunate to survive the inevitable collapse and if they do it will be dog eat dog.
|
terence
Stranger
Registered: 03/07/23
Posts: 85
Last seen: 6 months, 21 hours
|
|
sorry, rgv, I conflated what you said with sudly
|
terence
Stranger
Registered: 03/07/23
Posts: 85
Last seen: 6 months, 21 hours
|
|
Quote:
BrendanFlock said: If doubt exists?
If it doesn't?
Pertinent observations.
What is really going on here is a discussion of nonduality, which cannot be discussed directly but only pointed to in a peculiarly circular manner.
Every concept is known in the light of its opposite. If we conjure up beauty we conjure ugliness, with intelligence arises stupidity, and truth is opposed to falsity. Love of flowers makes weeds of their competitors.
With certainty, then arises doubt. If I erect the flag of truth someone will tear it down and erect their own to them equally valid truth which is opposed. And we have conflict and argument.
Without doubt there is only certainty. Without thought there is only the One, undifferentiated, unopposed, pure and true.
This One is inexpressible but every sentient being is a reflection, and every eye sees with the Eye of god, the Knower, the Only Real Agent (rumi).
|
redgreenvines
irregular verb


Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 37,530
|
Re: Does reality exist? [Re: terence]
#28228202 - 03/13/23 05:24 PM (10 months, 10 days ago) |
|
|
Bloating and conflation are common forms of indigestion. We could get you chewing on several bookends, to help alleviate it.
I prefer considering the beginnings - all the time, but all things do have a beginning middle and end. just where you happen to be is the big mystery, to all of us.
--------------------
_ 🧠_
|
sudly
Darwin's stagger

Registered: 01/05/15
Posts: 10,797
|
Re: Does reality exist? [Re: terence]
#28228242 - 03/13/23 05:49 PM (10 months, 10 days ago) |
|
|
I think we bet on probabilities nowadays.
Quote:
Quote:
Sudly said: You'll have to expand on what you mean by neo-platonic emanations if you want to label yourself as believable imo.
You didn't ask about platonic forms so presumably you are familiar with those. Neo-platonism commenced with the work of plotinus, the enneads. Plotinus (2nd cent ce) felt he was expanding on plato's work. He posited an entity slash nonentity that was beyond being and nonbeing he called "the One" or sometimes, "god." Between the One and the material world plotinus posited a number of "emanations" that emanated from the One and progressively unfolded more and more articulated realms until the mortal realm of space and time was reached.Â
I'm not familiar with entity/non-entity beyond being/non-beings.
And if this is your description of neo-platonic emanations I think it's clear you mean hallucinations.
Again the ol probabilities suffice.
There's no moderation or restraint in society, and science is hopeless with timing?
Dog eat dog doesn't sound so bad if all the dogs are philosophising about it, I'd be interested to hear fidos opinion on the morality of eating members of the same species for survival.
-------------------- I am whatever Darwin needs me to be.
|
redgreenvines
irregular verb


Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 37,530
|
Re: Does reality exist? [Re: sudly]
#28228285 - 03/13/23 06:22 PM (10 months, 10 days ago) |
|
|
what - the survival of the feces?
--------------------
_ 🧠_
|
sudly
Darwin's stagger

Registered: 01/05/15
Posts: 10,797
|
|
Saute of the feces, an in depth analyses of fecal textures, aromas and flavours.
Presented by a group of dogs with monacles and top hats.
Indeed.
-------------------- I am whatever Darwin needs me to be.
|
|