Plato | Richibi's Weblog

March 27, 2013

Nemo – “Ennead I” by Plotinus (16)‏

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Date: Sat, 23 Mar 2013 22:47:05 +0000
To: Richibi’s Weblog
From: comment-reply@wordpress.com
Subject: [New comment] “Ennead I” by Plotinus

Richard,

As I said at the very beginning, you are “sensitive”, and I was right, because you rightly perceived that I was becoming impatient. My apologies. Patience is not my forte. 🙂 However, you have not “touched a nerve”, as this is by no means an emotional discussion from my pov. I have no intention to “vehemently reject” your position (after all it is yours not mine), but only to share my perspective, including what I perceive to be irrational arguments.

Here are the two statements you made;
” I, and the “demented” Nietzsche, incidentally, equally fervently mistrust, even deem fundamentally impossible”,
“I do not profess to “know what Nietzsche believes or “fervently mistrust[s]‘”.

Is that not a self-contradiction?

You say that you’re making an interpretation. But, what is knowledge but an interpretation? A translation from the concrete and the objective to the abstract and subjective, just as we translate a work of literature from one language to another? By interpreting Nietzsche to yourself, you gain a rational understanding of him, and by interpreting him to others, you share that understanding.

I think an important distinction should be made between a) the belief in the existence of Absolute Truth” and b) the belief of one’s monopoly of the Absolute Truth. You seem to be passionately rejecting b), which is quite understandable. But Platonism is not b) but a). It does not claim monopoly of the Absolute Truth, but instead, Plato and Socrates both exhort their listeners to pursue Beauty, Goodness and Truth, to pursue virtue, to be the lover of wisdom, which is the literal meaning of “philosophy”,

According to Einstein, this pursuit of the Absolute Truth is also the guiding principle of the scientists. Without this passionate pursuit of the truth, we would never discover that the earth is not flat. Now think about this: Can you still insist that it is uncertain whether or not the earth is flat, that it is impossible to have a rational understanding of the shape of the earth?

You argue that uncertainty makes people less likely to kill. But most people who kill are not driven by belief in the Absolute, but by their lust for pleasure, wealth and power. Some may kill in the name of Truth as a disguise for their ulterior motives, but it would be unfair and irrational to blame the Truth for their acts.

I’ll refrain from discussing the Catholic Church, partly because to me this discussion is about Platonism, and Christianity is not Platonism (though they share many similar aspects), and partly because I’m not associated with the Catholic Church and frankly don’t know enough about it to say anything useful

first of all let me raise a glass to our conversation,

a toast that it might live long

and thank you for your continued respectful and

penetrating participation, I will endeavour to as

assiduously hold up

that said, we get into, as I see it, the question

posed by Wittgenstein, an obstacle of the

most impenetrable sort, the egregious

unreliability of language, what do you mean

when you say something, and how does that

synch with the other guy’s interpretation of it,

or, indeed, girl’s

your meat could be my poison, my Plato,

your Proust

indeed which one of us is right about this,

is Plato a saint or a sinner, a boon or a

blight

though Proust, of course, would remain

unquestionably and irreversibly here,

ever, surely, for both of us, a benefactor

of positively Promethean, natch,

proportions

what has become here then of the

Absolute, gone up in a whiff of, just

as insubstantial, smoke, the exhalations,

note, of a fully material mens sana,

sound mind, which can be nothing

without the enveloping corpore sano,

sound body

should there, in the instance, however,

be a One, an Absolute, we would not, nor

can anyway ever, from our intrinsically

divergent perspectives, be able to, in

any meaningful way, know It

more practically and topically, when

my mother had her living room walls

painted, my blue was her green, or vice

versa, in either case adamantly, trying

both of us to eke out from each other

concessions to a position, undyingly,

each, though ever politely, both, held,

a model accommodation, which is to say,

without the often attendant bombs

we remained puzzled, however, each,

ever, by insidious, and inescapable,

doubt, who saw the right colour

there is a technical solution to my mother’s

wall, I know, but only after great psychological

adjustment, even torment, will the blue think

his or her visual impression another colour

and who is mistaken

or can some people be ever right,

and ever wrong

this, incidentally, is the central problem

of philosophy, not just our own central

topic

and its resolution the central problem

of politics

in this instance when her cataracts were

removed, her blue became green, or vice

versa, I’d have to be in her apartment, I

can’t remember which colour, right now,

it was I saw, another philosophical

conundrum, but surely, you get the

picture, interpretation is highly

subjective, and porous

which is why Science requires absolutely

unanimous approval, if you’ll forgive this

metaphorical only use of that prickly

adverb here, to determine Its still

fundamentally ever tenuous theories

we’ve even only recently deconstructed

even time,

or Time

now there’s a God for you, Giver of context

however, even there, It would appear arbitrary,

there may be another Reality beyond our

particular three-dimensional Plato’s cave

but I digress

my misuse of the word “know” in citing

my apparently contradictory statements,

is at fault, I can never know, I can only

interpret, with custom we have come to

accept our suppositions as fact, and hope

that everyone else will do the same, which

we mostly do, except when we have wars

because of some intractable position,

where someone has set a price on his, her

incontrovertible, but still fundamentally

arbitrary, opinion, even of ownership,

family structure, interpersonal affairs,

like this one

but we are talking with only air, no

concrete certainty

I believe Nietzsche, in other words, to

have thought my thoughts, or I, rather,

to have incorporated his, but that is only

my understanding of it, which surely I

propound, though I might quite possibly

be wrong, but, Nemo, I can’t remember

the last time I was, I could check, I keep

a tally

scientists, I believe, are indeed seeking

always to know, perfecting their idea of

Reality, but Truth can only be the sum

of all things we think It is, nothing else,

nothing more, after all what other entity

that we know knows anything at all

about It, about Truth

we can only think there is a Real out

there, and make the best of It, the rest

is, Shakespeare again,

           “…………………………………. such stuff
           As dreams are made on; and our little life
            Is rounded with a sleep.”

“The Tempest“ – act 4, scene 1

lines 156 -158

cheers ever

Richard

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March 23, 2013

Nemo – “Ennead I” by Plotinus (15)‏

Date: Sat, 23 Mar 2013 00:40:39 +0000
To: Richibi’s Weblog
From: comment-reply@wordpress.com
Subject: [New comment] “Ennead I” by Plotinus

Richard,

You wrote, ” the possibility of a firm, which is to say, rational, understanding of the substance of our world, something you ardently affirm, but I, and the “demented” Nietzsche, incidentally, equally fervently mistrust, even deem fundamentally impossible

If it is impossible to have a rational understanding of the world, of which Nietzsche is a part, then it is impossible to know what Nietzsche believes or “fervently mistrust”. Do you realize that your statements are contradicting your philosophy?

I find your accusation of Plato irrational and groundless. How is belief in an objective Absolute Truth murderous? On the contrary, I think it is life-saving. For instance, it is wiser to accept that the Law of Gravity exists, then to disregard it and suffer the consequences of a bad fall. If anything, I think a philosophy that only acknowledges the existence of oneself and disregards all others is more likely to cause it’s adherents to commit murder, because other human beings are no more than phantoms in his sight.

As for Fido being an artist, just give him a pint of paint, and you’ll find that he does indeed paint pictures. Some people call it “modern art”. What’s the difference between a plagiarist and an artist who imitates Providence but does not acknowledge the source of his inspiration?

Nemo

(P.S. I have not responded to your comments about Christianity, though I disagree with them, because I think it is beyond the scope of this discussion)

you argue, Nemo, that one cannot “have a

rational understanding of the world, of which

Nietzsche is a part“, and profess to

simultaneously “know what Nietzsche

believes or “fervently mistrust[s]” ”

but I do not profess to “know what Nietzsche

believes or “fervently mistrust[s]‘ ”, nor did I

profess to “have a rational understanding of

the world“, in the sense that I have all the

answers, I am only expressing opinions,

as informed as I can make them, an

interpretation, as indeed I believe

you yourself are

therefore there is no contradiction in my

opinion, the one you most vehemently

seem to wish to reject, I do not profess

certainty

which might be what you are about to

but further

the pursuit of an Absolute, an immutable

standard, has too often, and therefore

probably inherently, fallen prey to its

dogma, crucifying, metaphorically of

course but also otherwise, and often,

opponents

I’m afraid of pehaps sensing that most

nefarious side in your often less than

patient comments

the Absolute imposed by the Catholic

Church threw the Western World into

the Dark Ages for an unbelievable

1500 years, before we came out of

our, indeed, Platonic cave

I have no use for the Absolute as an

abstraction, the Absolute can only

be the sum of all the opinions of

those who have, have had, will have,

a notion about It, nothing otherwise

but an opinion seems to be the way

in which we find our path

that seems to me closer to our answer

and a free, respectful always, exchange

of opinions, no matter how entrenched,

seems to me the only manner in which

to move forward, after all, how long was

the earth believed to be flat before

someone had the nerve, the verve, and

the determination, to wonder about it

in a world where everyone’s view is

considered, a less certain world, we

would be less willing to die, or kill,

for any of our arbitrary ideas

incidentally, these are the teachings of

Jesus, remember, turn the other cheek

read also Martha Nussbaum here, ever

profoundly pertinently

what else, Nemo, is, meanwhile, “beyond

the scope of this discussion”

or should we merely agree now to having

disagreed

let me say that it has been for me a

delightful conversation that I would

not want to see end, I think we could

have a lot to learn from each other, but

perhaps I’ve touched, however

unintentionally, a nerve, for which I

wholeheartedly apologize

best wishes, of course, ever

and cheers, no matter what

Richard

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March 22, 2013

Nemo – “Ennead I” by Plotinus (14)‏

Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2013 16:37:42 +0000
To: Richibi’s Weblog

From: comment-reply@wordpress.com
Subject: [New comment] “Ennead I” by Plotinus

Richard,

Beauty, Goodness and Truth are a triad, but not all triads are Christian in origin or character. Belief in the unity of beauty and goodness is characteristic of the ancient Greeks, and Plato further demonstrate the unity of Beauty and Truth in Symposium. As for the “glorious” deities, their priests have no place or recognition whatsoever in Plato’s Republic, which is ruled by Reason.

Plotinus has changed my way of looking at art, which is commonly defined as a human activity. Since Intellect permeates the world, art is not limited to human, but even plants and flowers, though they are not sentient beings, are capable of artistic activity. To use an analogy, a choreographer consciously designs the dance moves, but the dancers perform the moves.without being conscious of the whole design.

Come to think of it, all human artists either imitate directly or draw inspiration from Providence. How can they deny the artistry of Providence, and then turn around call their plagiarism “art”?

A mirror, in so far as it is a mirror, enables us to look at the world from a different angle, and presents to us features that have been hidden before, but it is still a reflection of the multifaceted reality. Since you found transcendence, have you experienced anything for which there is no counterpart in this world?

you’ve gone off in so many different, doubtful

to me, directions, Nemo, I don’t know where to

start, then again I must sound ever the same

to you whenever I write, there’s apparently

much here we have to discuss

but I think the central issue remains the

possibility of a firm, which is to say, rational,

understanding of the substance of our world,

something you ardently affirm, but I, and the

“demented” Nietzsche, incidentally, equally

fervently mistrust, even deem fundamentally

impossible

Descartes, by the by, remained on the fence,

he never found out what hit him, never realized

what he’d done, but began nevertheless in his

wake the irreversible march toward uncertainty,

modernity, which we dressed up in the powerful

attractions of science

we’ve come a long way from superstition,

we’re even presently on our way to Mars,

we’ve even discovered what’s being called

the God particle, but I think we’re still in

Plato’s cave with respect to certain

knowledge, we’re only seeing shadows,

we can never see the sun

there is surely an underlying reality, but

you, I, we, can only imagine it, which is

why we’re still wondering what it’s all

about, despite having of course our

kids and building our houses, we are

compelled to invent our environments

with the tools that we’ve been given

I don’t think animals and plants are

artists, we supply that moniker for

them, some of us, to describe what

we, some of us, can, but only really

anthropomorphically, see, Fido will

never acknowledge himself an artist,

nor paint our picture, for instance, on

his doghouse wall, no matter what

Plotinus might’ve said to the contrary

where do I get my own, ahem, inspiration,

I will admit, not from me alone, but that

doesn’t make me a plagiarist

“have [ I ] experienced anything for which

there is no counterpart in this world?“, all

that I have experienced is in my world,

unquestionably, I think it might have

some conjunction with the one you

call this one, but I’ll never be sure,

I can only suspect

all of this would be moot, Nemo, and indeed

many will think one could better spend one’s

time than at splitting these merely philosophical

apparently tresses, were it not for their

revolutionary consequences, men will kill, Nemo,

to preserve their god – not ever, note, the plural

here, never their “gods” – but their one imperious

divinity, in the figure of a man, by the way, mostly,

their Platonically inspired Ideal, their Platonic, but

patently murderous, Absolute, I blame Plato for

that, not Nietzsche

and I blame the Christian Church, furthermore,

for distorting the Platonic Trinity, your beautifully

rendered “Beauty, Goodness and Truth“, though

that’s something also, I think, of an anachronistic

distortion

cheers especially ever

Richard

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March 21, 2013

Nemo – “Ennead I” by Plotinus (13)

Date: Sun, 17 Mar 2013 19:04:56 +0000
To: Richibi’s Weblog

From: comment-reply@wordpress.com
Subject: [New comment]“Ennead I” by Plotinus.

Richard,

You wrote, “my experience is that I cannot know even dimensions before I formally deduce them,”

That is a unique experience. Einstein came to the same conclusion when he developed the Theory of Special Relativity, though perhaps he didn’t have quite the same experience. You both beheld the same underlying reality, although you expressed it in different ways.

Plato’s Absolute, i.e., which is Beauty, Goodness and Truth in One, is immanent. It is distinct but not distant from us, and every soul can ascend to it by reason and intellect. There are different types and levels of beauty, in the human body, in nature, in the universe, in science and art, literature and music. One doesn’t have to be a “Superman” to see beauty or create beauty. Every life is an artistic activity. Every individual is an artist.

The concept of Absolute by no means deny or diminish the freedom of individual existence. On the contrary, the more diverse and free the individual existence, the better and fuller it manifest Absolute Beauty. For instance, Beethoven’s Ninth, unless each member of the choir and orchestra plays his/her best part, the beauty of the symphony cannot be manifested nor experienced by the audience.

Unlike Kant who believes that the noumenal is unknowable, Platonists reason that the noumenal and the phenomenal correspond with one another (sort of like the way an image in the mirror corresponds to the original), since they are both derived from one and the same intelligible reality. Because of this “correspondence”, it is possible to do science. We have been able to predict with accuracy the movement of the stars and other events occurring in nature; Because of this “correspondence” between our consciousness and the outside world, it is possible for us to interact with other people and the world

you say, Nemo, “Plato’s Absolute, i.e., which is

Beauty, Goodness and Truth in One“, which

seems to me anachronistic, a premature

conflation with Christian, however implicit,

thought, I don’t think Plato would’ve had a

Trinity, whatever for in a society replete with

a variety of quite serviceable, not to mention

glorious, deities

when you speak of “[e]very life“, “[e]very

individual” being “an artistic activity“, “an

artist“, what about animals, insects, trees,

do roses perceive their own beauty, these

are lives, even creative, even inspiring ones,

though I draw the line at inspired, I suspect

they don’t consciously know it

therefore “Beauty, Goodness and Truth” are in

the eye of the beholder, no, as we ask in

French, and the beholder is our own human

only, it appears, incarnation, blessed as we

are, for better or for worse, with

self-consciousness, ““Superm[e]n”” need

not even, but only superfluously, apply

the Tree of Knowledge bore the fruit of

which all of us have partaken, for better or

for worse, by our very nature, and we’ve

created a poem around it in order to

understand

it has been mighty, if flawed

about mirrors, when I yearned for word

from above, or from wherever, I understood

I’d have to forego my entrenched scepticism

under the influence of Sartre and Camus,

the Existentialists, whose ideas dominated

the Western World, and my university years,

however nowadays incredible, a time when

Van Cliburn, a Classical music pianist,

would return from a sealed Communist

Russia, no less, to a New York ticker tape

parade, a more idealistic time than our

present more rapacious, morally bankrupt,

apparently, epoch, I’d believed in Being

and Nothingness, and the corollary Absurd,

I was alone in an indifferent Universe

to assume spirits, an extraterrestrial entity

who might be responsive, would require

an act of absolute faith, a profound

disorder in my otherwise determinedly

rational perspective

but I had no choice but to succumb to

even irrationality, I knew, for any chance

of grace, you need to believe in miracles

to experience them

need I say that I found that transcendence,

I called it crossing the Bridge of Faith

where everything was the same but

different, Nemo, like crossing through a

mirror, like Alice, and discovering another,

infinitely more enchanted, however

numinous and otherworldly, world

Richard

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March 17, 2013

Nemo – “Ennead I” by Plotinus (12)‏

Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2013 16:50:52 +0000
To: Richibi’s Weblog

From: comment-reply@wordpress.com
Subject: [New comment] “Ennead I” by Plotinus.

Richard,

I like your comment, “I won’t try to impose my perspective, I can only tell what I see”, which reminded me of a sentimental story that I had heard a long time ago. The story was in first-person narrative and went like this:

I [an art merchant] traveled to a far country on a business trip, and found lodging in a small family inn owned by an blind old man and his daughter. During an after-dinner conversation, I learned that the old man was actually a connoisseur of art with many famous paintings in his collection. Naturally I was delighted when he offered to show me the paintings. But his daughter was visibly distressed and signaled me to follow her.as she went to fetch the paintings. She explained to me that they had fallen on hard times and she had no choice but to sell the paintings to survive, in spite of the old man’s firm instructions that the paintings must not be sold, because they were his life. He had become blind due to sickness so he didn’t know that the paintings were all gone. When the daughter brought the blank frames to the old man, he proudly presented them to me, naming them one by one, while caressing them gently with his withered hands. Staring at the blank frames, I listened in silence and shock. Suddenly, the old man stopped, he sensed that something was missing, something didn’t feel quite right. What happened to his beloved painting? The daughter looked to me in desperation for help. I hesitated but finally mustered enough courage to speak. I picked up where the old man had left off, and, recalling from memory, I described the details of the paintings and complimented the old man’s taste. He beamed with pride and delight.
….
There are many ways to interpret the story, one of which is this: if the “paintings” were all in the old man’s mind, and “I” had not seen them nor anybody else, it would be impossible to carry out the conversation, and there would be no sharing, nor inspiration, nor delight.

This is the armchair Platonist’s answer to the demented Nietzsche: we are able to share our thoughts and feelings with one another, because we both behold the same underlying intelligible reality, both within ourselves and without. If we are only conscious of ourselves and nothing else, conversation would be impossible and pointless. Even Nietzsche, before he fell to dementia, couldn’t resist the desire for conversation since he published his works– as you say say rightly, philosophy is conversation. Otherwise, he could have kept all to himself, in his private notebook

your question is probing, Nemo, I’m not sure

that even Plato would have come to such

corollary conclusions as what you seem to

be suggesting, which is to say that Plato’s

absolutes, distant and distinct from us, as I

understand them, as God, yet received by

us a priori, or, inherently, at birth, as you

would have it, suggest the underlying

existential commonality of our experience

you forget the pivotal factor of birth here,

Nemo, I think, incarnation, spirit, or

something, made matter, like buds in

spring, bursting with each its own

unpredictable, and wondrous, existence

my experience is that I cannot know even

dimensions before I formally deduce them,

before I enter this world, though the

dimensions themselves may indeed be there

who knew love, Nemo, before experiencing

it, the thing that more than anything else

moves our world, remember the adolescent

who had to put it all together piece by

disconcerting piece, we had to learn it all

at the movies to finally make any kind of

sense of it, playing out our battles in water

too deep for most of us most of the time,

and ultimately too treacherous for many

there is mathematics, there are probably

even dimensions, Nemo, but I don’t know

about any other merely abstract world

beyond this one, for better or for worse

therefore Proust

and therefore Beethoven

Richard

psst: your parable is delightful, even

unforgettable, and it merely

bolsters my recommended

literary and musical advice

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March 13, 2013

Nemo – “Ennead I” by Plotinus (11)‏

Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2013 15:56:00 +0000
To: Richibi’s Weblog

From: comment-reply@wordpress.com
Subject: [New comment] “Ennead I” by Plotinus

Richard,

Forgive me for saying so, but it seems to me that your philosophy is quite incongruent with your personality, which is passionate, sensitive and kind. As far as I can tell, you’re much more gregarious than the demented Nietzsche.

If, as you wrote at the beginning, you can’t even be sure that I exist, why are you taking the trouble to have this conversation? If everything is in a flux, what is there to “grasp” and “tackle”? If all is a figment of the imaginations of beings in their separate cages, what’s the point of conversation? You’re still trapped in your own cage anyway.

Kant may be wrong about some things, but I do agree with him about the difference between noumenon and phenomenon. Our thoughts revolve around the phenomenal, and consequently, they are in flux, “peripheral” as you put it, or evolving, as some believe. But, this doesn’t negate the noumenon, the eternal and unchanging. To use an analogy in biology, when you observe the growth of a seed or an embryo, it seems to be changing constantly, and if you didn’t know what it was, you would think that everything was in flux, but all the while it remains the same substance: a human being

what’s to forgive, Nemo, I don’t mind at all being

called “passionate, sensitive and kind”

thank you

and you are right, after a study of philosophy I

went my own way, which was what philosophy

had taught me to do, it is a conversation, I

learned, rather than an ideology, that secular

cousin of theology, either system oftentimes

flagrantly autocratic, for instance Plato, or

take your pick of religions

along the way I discovered miracles, I wanted to

talk to my beloved, but somehow I’d only asked

my dad, who’d died earlier the same year, to

speak to me from beyond the grave, I’m your

son, I said, I’ll hear you, and, Nemo, I did, and

all, eventually, the others, I’ve been talking to

all of them ever since

this might seem very strange, of course, but

you can tell from what I’ve written to date,

surely, that I’m not entirely demented,

conversely, maybe I’m inspired, maybe just

eccentric, who knows, take your pick, so

long as I’m not, I think, hurting anybody

Kant, incidentally, didn’t affirm the noumenon,

he merely did not deny it, so he’s made room

for my unorthodox constructions, and miracles,

as a corollary, in general

this was also Descartes’ dilemma essentially,

or Shakespeare’s, “There are more things in

heaven and earth, Horatio, / Than are dreamt

of in your philosophy.“

also my own

we cannot beyond our consciousness affirm,

we can only interpret, I am the only thing I can

affirm, the rest is what you make it, for better

or for worse, this from “the demented“, Nemo,

Nietzsche

therefore Beethoven or Proust, or maybe

even me

I believe in miracles, and so I experience them

I’d asked a friend on a cold winter day with

only icicles everywhere in the city, what

should we do, let’s go out and look for

beautiful things, he replied, we did, and all

the icicles consequently shimmered and

glistened, I’d found a key to finding beauty,

another valuable parable

later, needing more than just beautiful things

to cheer me I asked for miracles, which, Nemo,

like the earlier beautiful things, profusely in

their turn abounded, you just have to be

ready to receive them

I believe there is a noumenon, but I’ll never

be able to prove it, though I feel it profoundly,

and judiciously sort out with the help of

wisdom and poetry, truth and beauty, all

I can muster, the information I receive

I hope it might be of some service

to me there is poetry behind everything,

shimmering, glistening magic, but I’m not

sure that’s what everyone sees, nor wants

to see, I won’t try to impose my perspective,

I can only tell what I see

and I’ve long seen more than mere facts,

what I see, have long seen, is an inherently

transcendental reality

which suggests the probability of other

noumenal worlds

so, to answer your question, I do think

you indeed exist, though I can’t be

absolutely sure of it, though you might

not be a figment of my imagination you

are nevertheless to me merely my

impression of you, but who really are

you, that’s a tricky question, cause you

don’t even know

meanwhile there’s no harm in sharing

even a virtual, irony of ironies,

conversation

cheers

Richard

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March 12, 2013

Nemo – “Ennead I” by Plotinus (9)

Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2013 16:20:33 +0000
To: Richibi’s Weblog

From: comment-reply@wordpress.com
Subject: [New comment] “Ennead I” by Plotinus

Richard,

You wrote, “I am at the most aware of only one thought, that thought being that
something is thinking,”

Unless you argue that something can think without a thought, there are at least two thoughts here. First, the awareness that something is thinking. Second, if something is thinking, that something is thinking a thought. As you said, “consciousness of my consciousness”. There are two “consciousness”:

There is a thinker who is thinking a thought, and there is an observer who is thinking of the thinker. If the thinker and the observer are the same, the thought becomes an infinite recursion, like an image reflected in two parallel mirrors. This is partly why I said people who speculate this have way too much time, in fact, only eternity would suffice.

the world and everything in it is in the eye of the beholder

Where is the beholder himself, if everything is in his eye? Does the world exist when the beholder closes his eye?

you’ve grasped the Cartesian dilemma,

Nemo, the solipsistic circumference – see

“This is the census“ again on that last

series of sibilants – that defines our, not

eternal, as you suggest, but very “mortal

coil“, our incarnate cage, or soul, if you

prefer, where “one man in his time plays

many parts“, or woman, solipsistically

and fatally, however remarkable, or

even historic, their contribution

Plato died, Proust died, either leaving

merely ephemeral ideas and, however

celebrated and honoured, dust

it is a frightening, and sobering, conclusion,

we cannot escape the prison of our reason

but with the key alone of our imagination,

for everything beyond the logic of that first

statement is conjecture, the play of our fears

and desires

something is thinking, I think, then identify

with, become the vessel of, that idea, or, if

you prefer, that thought

that thought is still a conjecture, but it has

an immediacy you can’t deny, it is your

entire, quite literally, reality

but any other thought is of course also

conjecture, just without the manifest

incontrovertibility of the idea of one’s own

existence, my orange might be your red,

but I’ll never be you, or what I interpret as

you, which is not at all how the other guy

sees you either, my lens is merely my

picture of the world, what is real

reason has done a great job of holding it

all together for most of us, but it rests

fundamentally on the wings of our fallible,

of course, imagination, but for the absolute

apparently miracle of mathematics, which

seems to subsist even without our

speculation, popping up like signposts

everywhere, an existential guardian angel,

Pythagoras, maybe, was right

not even dimensions, Nemo, I woke up

after a week in a coma, a car accident, in

a white room, quiet, empty, with only what

seemed like motes floating on a ray of light

coming in from a window, still, ethereal, and

perhaps, I wondered, part of a new afterlife,

who knew, I couldn’t assume I was alive, I

only knew that I existed in an unfamiliar

environment

height, I reasoned, and width, I thought,

were evident, there are at least here two

dimensions, and calmly contemplated

the possibility of the same exile the villains

had felt early in “Superman“, cast away in

their two-dimensional prisons

Kant was wrong, I concluded, we do not

assume time and space as initial certainties,

I don’t have depth yet

later a nurse came in from the centre of my

frame creating at least the impression of a

third spatial element, after which I

concentrated on getting better

that my first thought was of Kant after a

week in a coma has remained for me a

searing example of my essentially

cerebral proclivities, be they ever

nevertheless so fundamentally

unsubstantiated, I think that’s a riot

“Does the world exist when the beholder closes

his eye“, you ask

who knows

though I would think so

Richard

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March 9, 2013

Nemo – “Ennead I” by Plotinus (8)‏

Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2013 16:48:26 +0000
To: Richibi’s Weblog

From: comment-reply@wordpress.com
Subject: [New comment] “Ennead I” by Plotinus

It’s very touching story, Richard. Thanks for sharing. Though the last sentence is a bit anti-climatic, since I have as much reverence for Proust as you Plato. 🙂

For how long did you volunteer in the palliative care unit?

so many pathways have opened up, Nemo,

in our conversation, I’d determined to tackle

them in their chronological order despite

the immediacy, for me, of each question,

each philosophical paradox you might

propose, the order of your submissions

but this reply of yours has me still laughing,

indeed guffawing, and I didn’t want to forego

the possibility of transferring the spontaneity

and exhilaration of the moment if in delivering

my response swiftly I could, timing talks, in

other words, too

that our views would be so diametrically

opposed, my Proust your Plato, is, I think,

hilarious, even, I believe, maybe karmic

another story, another, for me, it appears,

maybe parable, while grieving I’d taken

time off work, cause work, of course, itself

had lost all meaning, why would I hurt in a

world I no longer wanted to even live in,

I had majored in Camus, had been

prodoundly influenced by his “L’Étranger“,

“The Stranger“, and was drowning in the

Absurd

to while away the time somewhat productively

– I’d understood that to merely sit and wait

would not of itself allow me to die, and I wasn’t

about to myself wittingly end it, the conclusion

I’d reached from another revelatory moment,

but that’s another story – I took on a job as a

census worker, going from door to door,

some hundreds of them, if not thousands,

in my neighbourhood, introducing myself

each time as their census taker, “This is

the census”, I said

have you even sensed the sibilants, Nemo,

in that sentence, if you haven’t yet already

counted them, for that matter there are

even more in this corollary one

I lisp, not in a pronounced manner but,

I’m aware, somewhat noticeably, found

out that my father also did, though strangely

I’d never registered it, my mother after he’d

died, in a conversation with me, noted it

try saying “This is the census” some

hundreds if not thousands of times, Nemo,

the joke becomes cosmic, and indeed it did,

I knew God, or the entity that responded to

my prayers, was about, it was the moment

at which I first smiled, I think I might even

have giggled

I worked, or rather, I ministered, at palliative

care for ten years, to answer your other

question

cheers

Richard

psst: despite our profound, it appears,

philosophical divergences, Nemo,

let’s be friends, I would not hold

your views against you, all roads,

I believe, lead to Rome, so long as

it doesn’t block altogether one’s

path

also philosophers must always be

open to the next question, for none

of them, they know, can ever be

definite, the lesson is in the

conversation, and I’m having here

a great time

thank you

4 Comments

March 6, 2013

Nemo – “Ennead I” by Plotinus (6)‏

Date: Sun, 3 Mar 2013 20:54:23 +0000
To: Richibi’s Weblog

From: comment-reply@wordpress.com
Subject: [New comment] “Ennead I” by Plotinus

Hi Richard,

Actually Plotinus posited a memory model that might be quite similar to yours if I understand you correctly. There are three components in this model, the object stored in our memory, our act of remembering as if retrieving an object from storage, and the activated/retrieved image of the object in our mind. To answer your friend’s retort, we are all three components combined, though most prominent in the second component.

You object to the idea of thoughts having their object existence outside our consciousness, but you agree that we’re aware of our thoughts at the same time as we’re aware of our own existence. Is that a fair representation of your position?

If so, thoughts have just as valid an existence in our consciousness as ourselves. Ergo, there are thoughts. 🙂

P.S. People who speculate on this stuff have way too much time on their hands

if I haven’t replied forthwith, Nemo, to your

comment, it is that I found myself with too

little time on my hands to do other things

that required my more immediate, in my

opinion, attention, though I believe time

spent speculating is never a waste of

“way too much time on [one’s} hands“,

where would Plato be, or Descartes, or

Russell, Nietzsche, Proust, yes, Proust,

my most revered lingerer, and the answer

to all my philosophical prayers, but that’s

another story I’m sure we’ll get to, if they

hadn’t dawdled around profundities

and who’s to say we’re not up to the

mark, and who could say we are, but

for conversations that test the waters,

like this one

so I, for one, will deliberate when I get

the chance, which, incidentally, is not a

lot of the time, despite objections that I

might be nevertheless still wasting it

and I return to the fray like a kid to a

very candy shop

thanks

let me point out that Plato would be

proud of us, would’ve been proud of

us, to whose time frame should we

here, do you think, refer, I think Plato

this time could take prominence, if

you’ll allow this playful speculative

divergence

this, our talk, is his Socrates discussing

with his Euthyphro, or his other acolytes,

ephebes, describing the Socratic Method,

Nemo, we’re carrying on the tradition,

which 2500 years later still vigorously

applies

Plato, incidentally, c. 428 BC – c. 347 BC

there are a few problems in your argument,

from my perspective, you say “you agree that

we’re aware of our thoughts at the same time as

we’re aware of our own existence”, but that’s an

extrapolation, I am at the most aware of only

one thought, that thought being that

something is thinking, no more, no less

but reason interjects, applies itself to

consciousness, and concludes that

something has just thought, the element

of time and memory enters the fray here,

but not yet explicitly, they are the

handmaidens of consciousness

if something is thinking, which by the very

act of thinking this I am doing, something

must be doing it, I’ve already conceived of

this consciousness as, for me, irrefutably

real, having had already an impression

of it

whatever other impression I might add to

this composite, however, is arbitrary and

therefore moot with respect to what might

actually philosophically be real

the world and everything in it is in the eye

of the beholder

think about it

thoughts are an extrapolation from all

that we can be sure we know, but all

of it is nothing more than a dream

see Shakespeare

          “………………………..We are such stuff
           As dreams are made on; and our little life
            Is rounded with a sleep.”

“The Tempest“ – act 4, scene 1

lines 156 -158

Richard

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March 3, 2013

Nemo – “Ennead I” by Plotinus (5)‏

Date: Sun, 3 Mar 2013 10:01:30 +0000
To: Richibi’s Weblog

From: comment-reply@wordpress.com
Subject: [New comment] “Ennead I” by Plotinus.

Let’s go through it point by point.

1. When someone says, “I think”, he is obviously thinking of something, i.e., thoughts. I’m aware and conscious of my thoughts.

2. “I think” necessarily means there are thoughts.

3. The difference between the statements “I think” and “there are thoughts” is that the latter does not presuppose the existence of the “I”.

4. To prove the existence of the “I”, we cannot presuppose its existence. Therefore, we cannot use the statement “I think” or anything with a subject “I”.

5. We are left with the statement, “There are thoughts”.

Which of the above arguments do you disagree with and why?

first of all, Nemo, let me say that I haven’t had as
much fun since a couple of weeks ago when a

friend and I were trying to come to a conclusion

about the meaning of memory, is memory all of

one’s memories, or is it the process of

remembering

I thought the process set the thing in motion

after which the memories themselves took

hold

but for the process to take hold you need at

least two memories, my friend more or less

retorted, I paraphrase

where does that leave us

I’m still thinking about it

perhaps we’ll end up at the same place,

loggerheads, but let’s try

I object to your second proposition, ““I

think” necessarily means there are thoughts“,

I believe “I think” to mean only “I think”,

nothing more, nothing less, these two

words are our speculative arena

but I admit you have a point, to think

presupposes a thought, and perhaps

not as peripherally as I’d thought

previously, if I refer to my earlier,

memory, model

but before you jump up and down in

apparent victory remember that the

thought cannot be thought without

the thinker, who initiates the thought

an apparent paradox, much like the

relation between energy and matter,

which came first

I believe the consciousness of my

consciousness came first, and from

there I evolved the process that gives

order to my world, memory, and then

its development into reason

but that’s just what I think, and, of

course, I could be wrong

essentially I, of course, must be wrong

somewhere, but I’ll never know where

nor will I know where I’m right, ever

on questions of philosophical speculation,

of course, without the advantage of

mathematics, the closest thing I can think

of, incidentally, to what we think of as God,

or is that, to what I think of, me, no one else,

what do I know of what others are thinking

of, as God, there goes He, She, It, out the

window, as a Jungian idea of collective

unified consciousness, or as a frozen

Platonic, universally conceded, ideal

what I do know is that I exist

that’s also, I think, all you know

the rest is entirely speculation

thank you Descartes

Richard

psst: all that speculation, note, is what has,

to my mind, made a paradise, for some,

of our world, for others a work of always

fascinating and wondrous invention

read Proust

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Tag: Plato