wandelaar

I agree that all concrete square's we find in nature are imperfect. And that the greatest square if it exists at all is a problematic concept. So that could be an explanation of the paradox. But I find it hard to believe that that's all there is to it. But maybe it is, I don't know.

Thank you all. I understand the general idea of not overdoing things, and thus of the rejection of perfectionism (in the psychological sense of the word). But why I started this topic is because I am interested in how this applies to the specific paradox of the perfect or greatest square.

Just finished reading the book, and I am still very positive about it. A no-nonsense guide on applying Taoist wisdom in daily life, explained by way of ancient stories with commentary.

That would be an explanation... See:

A "greatest square" would have to be infinitely great and in that case the supposed corners cannot be surrounded by a space of the common sort we know of because then we could push the corners still further away. So the corners of the greatest square - if they exists - lie beyond our common sense comprehension.

Thanks. Looked at some others too, and the translation "great(est) square" seems to be the preferred translation. That kind of nullifies my above interpretation as it is based on a "perfect square".

Perhaps the idea is that a square made by for instance a carpenter can never be geometrically perfect because its corners will always be of non-zero dimensions, whereas a geometrically perfect square has corners that are mere zero-sized points. And so there would be two meanings in one: 1. A geometrically perfect square has corners that are mere zero-sized points. 2. Any practically useful square lacks corners in the geometrical sense.

That's a nice explanation that works for the other paradoxes, but the problem with the perfect square without corners as a geometrical object is that it would be extremely difficult to work with such an inconsistent concept. Is it certain that a geometrical square is meant, and not an urban location such as in our day's Times Square?

Ideally the "mystical state" will eventually sort of mix with normal life, and that would be the state where mountain are again mountains.

That's why I prefer walking alone.

That's one road, another is taking rational thought to the limit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagarjuna

The Zen master is warning against disregarding conventional reality. Being empty doesn't mean being irrelevant. But that's just my current understanding. Maybe someone else has a better solution.

I think that the point is made here that ultimately we have to trust upon our inner nature because our bodily functions kind of take care of themselves. We can speak, but we don't know how we speak, we can walk but we don't know how we walk.

Dropping comparisons I can understand, because in particular social comparisons are a big obstacle to enjoying life as it is. But dropping all distinctions? In a mystical state perhaps, or in some extreme philosophical experiment. But we have to return to normal life eventually, mountains have to become mountains again. Without conventional truth we couldn't even post a comment, or appreciate the different possibilities and impossibilities of different sorts of creatures. Or am I missing something?

Not only here and with this method! When continuing a discussion turns out to be useless I just stop with it. No blame, no sorry. I just switch to a more useful topic or discussion. My time and energy are limited, so I have to be careful how I spend it if I want to make progress.

Now that the Socratic Discussion has ended I'm free to post this story from the Lieh tse that seems relevant : Source: http://oaks.nvg.org/lieh-tzu.html

I give up.

To me it's not immediately clear how to interpret this text. What do the other Bums think it means?

It takes energy to move against the force of gravity, but if you move perpendicular to the force of gravity it takes no energy (except for overcoming air resistance).

Good to know! Thanks.

Good that I asked, because my initial guess was that it meant a "million posts tread".

What is a MP thread?

That is just giving a description of what you do, not the reasons. Yes - without eating we would perish, and our morality with it. So you have a point there. But there still is a problem here: is it inconceivable that there could be situations where getting food would involve acts of such immorality that it would be morally preferable to die of starvation? When you can answer to my question above, the next thing would be finding out which food would be morally allowed. It isn't up to me to defend that you shouldn't eat dolphins, but it's up to you to prove that it's morally OK to do so. That is the game we are playing now. Being compelled is again describing what you do, not giving reasons why that would be the right thing to do. You could become a vegetarian, so exploiting animals isn't necessary to survive. So here again to prove your point you have to give reasons why eating animals is morally allowed and if you have succeeded in proving that you should reason your way to which animals we are morally allowed to eat.

@ Ilovecoffee If you go to a magic show where all kind of impossible things seem to happen, you don't believe they actually happen. But why not? Do you know what tricks are used? Probably not. Still you don't believe the things that seem to happen are actually happening. Now the only difference with a paranormal experiment that doesn't rule out fraud is that in case of the magic show no claim is made that the phenomena are real, but in case of your paranormal experiment that doesn't rule out fraud the phenomenon is claimed to be real (that is: not produced by means of tricks). And now you do believe the phenomenon to be real. But why? Because you now know that probably no tricks were used? No - that's not the case: the precautions were such that tricks were still possible. The reason can only be that you already believe the phenomenon in the video could just as well be real and that precautions against fraud thus don't need to be that stringent. But I have delved deep into parapsychology and had many discussions, so I know they usually don't lead anywhere. I have made my point, and I will leave it at that.

@ Ilovecoffee I don't say the video is worthless, it is as good as it gets when you want to keep the experiment simple. But it doesn't rule out fraud. Besides, with modern equipment it would be possible to measure where and how the electric charges and field build up. And you could have professional stage magicians and illusionists present to watch out for tricks. That would make fraud much more difficult, and in case no fraud was found would also learn us more about the phenomenon itself.