Quote:

6.44 It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists.

6.45 To view the world sub specie aeterni is to view it as a whole -- a limited whole.
Feeling the world as a limited whole--it is this that is mystical

6.5 When the answer cannot be put into words, neither can the question be put into words.
The riddle does not exist.
If a question can be framed at all, it is also possible to answer it.

6.51 Scepticism is not irrefutable, but obviously nonsensical, when it tries to raise doubts where no questions can be asked.
For doubt can exist only where a question exists, a question only where an answer exists, and an answer only where something can be said.

6.52 We feel that even when all possible scientific questions have been answered, the problems of life remain completely untouched. Of course there are then no questions left, and this itself is the answer.

6.521 The solution of the problem of life is seen in the vanishing of the problem.
(Is not this the reason why those who have found after a long period of doubt that the sense of life became clear to them have then been unable to say what constituted that sense ?)

6.522 There are, indeed, things that cannot be put into words. They make themselves manifest. They are what is mystical.

6.53 The correct method in philosophy would really be the following: to say nothing except what can be said, i.e. propositions of natural science--i.e. something that has nothing to do with philosophy--and then, whenever someone else wanted to say something metaphysical, to demonstrate to him that he had failed to give a meaning to certain signs in his propositions. Although it would not be satisfying to the other person--he would not have the feeling that we were teaching him philosophy--this method would be the only strictly correct one.

6.54 My propositions serve as elucidations in the following way: anyone who understands me eventually recognizes them as nonsensical, when he has used them--as steps--to climb up beyond them. (He must, so to speak, throw away the ladder after he has climbed up it.)
He must transcend these propositions, and then he will see the world aright.

7 What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.

---

Icelander said:

Every time I ask this it gets completely ignored.  Why is that.

---

Quote:

When a Zen master was asked on his deathbed what dying was like, he said, "It is like a squirrel running on the roof",

---

Icelander said:

Well now, I wasn't really expecting someone to answer honestly.

---

ExplosiveMango said:

Icelander said:

Well now, I wasn't really expecting someone to answer honestly.

---

There's nothing wrong with dealing with the universe on a basis of best guesses for the purpose of survival (although this does seem a little dry, if I weren't at least a little curious about the story I would just knock myself off personally). However, to suggest that the operating system on which you function is superior to the belief system of another is simply to endorse the mystical. No functional methodology of dealing with the events thrown at one by the universe will form a perfect closed loop incorporation system, any belief system on which you base skepticism OR enthusiasm is imperfect and subject to inaccuracy.

By taking a stance which is weighted toward either skepticism or enthusiasm, one must unbalance themselves with experience as an unbiased force. To be unbalanced with experience is to only endorse one's own (subliminal or otherwise) dogma. Skepticism OR enthusiasm in the face of a truth less than comfortably assimilated is a form of mystical self-worship because it operates on the assumption that the current working model is correct.

IMO the optimal solution is to look at all unknowns and unbelievables as the potential to be both true and false, so that they may be more clearly understood for the motivations behind them. Even people like Dudenj (or me when I act ridiculous) should be believed as much as disbelieved; everything is as it is, and a good reason can be devised for anything should it be desired and properly approached.

---

jonathanseagull said:

That is awesome.  Thanks for sharing.  Can you tell me if I can find that in a book, and which one?

---