The tendency to think people of old were dumb

[zerostao]

13 minutes ago, wandelaar said:

@ zerostao

 

You have a right to live in your own fantasy world were facts don't matter, and factual criticism is best ignored. Happily we have an ignore button for those cases. Goodbye.

Achieving being is not for the faint of heart or the feint of heart, whichever, enjoy that ignore button

 

i would add that Aristotelian Logic is largely discredited among present scholars but that would be overkill,

yet, that is the art i play with

baguazhang

enjoy your safe world in the mean between extremes. not giving the Ancients their proper due Respect has consequences

adios and vaya con dios

Edited November 5, 2018 by zerostao

[thelerner]

I was watching football yesterday.  Amazing athletes cheering crowds, but there's an emptiness to it, an illusion.  Cause for all my cheering for the home team, but it's not my team.  I'm not doing nothing, just sitting on my butt watching TV & eating junk food.

 

What I mean is, in reality it doesn't matter much what they do, or what ancients did.  A good life is based on what I do.  The best take away I can get from history is inspiration, the worst is taking some kind of credit for there brilliance, cause like the football team I don't deserve any, unless I get in the game.

Edited November 5, 2018 by thelerner

[zerostao]

Get in the game. Do it. DO it. DO IT. That's the point isn't it?

Of course the Ancients just happened to DO IT better which is why LdV said to imitate them.

I doubt LdV felt empty, although, he had an over active imagination.

 

Empedocles.   

da Vinci

[Nungali]

22 hours ago, wandelaar said:

What in view of the Kabbala is the difference between knowledge and understanding?

 

Da'ath

 

According to the Tanya, Da'at is the third and last conscious power of intellect. But in this context, it is actually the lower Da'at of the partzuf of Zer Anpin (not upper Da'at of Adam Kadmon).^{[clarification needed]}

Zer Anpin refers to the 'personification' (partzuf) of six sefirot from Khesed to Yesod - and as a whole embodies its own ten sefirot and its own Da'at. Zer Anpin personifies the revelation of the Torah and relates to the second level of the human soul called "spirit" (ruach), that corresponds to mental aspects, including reason and emotion.

Accordingly, Da'at is associated in the soul with the powers of memory and concentration, powers which rely upon one's "recognition" (hakarah) of, and "sensitivity" (hergesh) to, the potential meaningfulness of those ideas generated in consciousness through the powers of Chokhmah ("wisdom") and Binah ("understanding").

 

Binah

is 'intuitive understanding', or 'contemplation'. It is likened to a 'palace of mirrors' that reflects the pure point of light of Chokhmah, wisdom, increasing and multiplying it in an infinite variety of ways. In this sense, it is the 'quarry', which is carved out by the light of wisdom. It is the womb, which gives shape to the Spirit of God. On a psychological level, Binah is "processed wisdom," also known as deductive reasoning. It is davar mitoch davar—understanding one idea from another idea. While Chokhmah is intellect that does not emanate from the rational process (it is either inspired or taught), Binah is the rational process that is innate in the person which works to develop an idea fully.

 

-  wiki .

[wandelaar]

Thank you - I guess I have to study the Kabbala to fully understand those concepts.

[Nungali]

My 2nd post on page 1 might explain it better - but that is more from an 'Hermetic Neo-Kabbalistic' perspective  rather than a 'straight' Kabbalistic / more traditional  one.

Edited November 6, 2018 by Nungali

[Michael Sternbach]

On 4.11.2018 at 11:09 PM, wandelaar said:

What in view of the Kabbala is the difference between knowledge and understanding?

 

On the Tree of Life, knowledge belongs to the zone beneath the Abyss that separates the Supernal Triad from the rest of Creation.

 

In this view, knowledge is of necessity imperfect; it is discursive and involves contradiction.

 

Understanding on the other hand is direct and holistic. It is ultimately based on intuition and will become available to full extent only once the Abyss has been crossed.

 

Some traditions call this same process 'enlightenment'.

 

Hope this helps.

Edited November 6, 2018 by Michael Sternbach

[wandelaar]

Indeed there is a difference between knowledge in the sense of a bunch of learned intellectual tricks and understanding where one knows what one is doing and why it works out the way it does. I never considered the first form as the real thing.

[Marblehead]

Knowledge is, IMO, basically book learning.  The real world has never read the book.

 

[Nungali]

 

Here is a classic example  of The tendency to think people of old were dumb ;

Its from Australian early colonial history - The case of the  'lazy ' fisherman'.  

A white 'explorer' came upon this scene and entered it in his diary, he starts ff along the lines " I had previously heard these blackfellows were lazy and didnt want to work, but I saw this for myself; I came upon a small stream and one of them was sitting on the bank beside a  dam he had built of branches with a narrow opening to let the fish through. On the bank was a long thin stick, stuck into the ground and bent over and the end tied down to a stake next to the opening in the dam. On this was attached a small noose which lay across the opening. A fish would swim through the opening, and the noose, snag its gills, wiggle about and pull the slip not undone, then stick would then whip upright, pulling the fish out of the water up over the man's head to lay on the bank. Then he would 'lazily' re bend the stick and tie it to the stake again and sit there and wait for the next fish. "

 

- what a lazy fellow !    ... I mean , forget the point that he had made  own 'fishing machine' .  .. . .    

.....  and of course ; fishing should have nothing to do with laziness   

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 6, 2018 by Nungali

[Cheshire Cat]

On 6/11/2018 at 4:43 PM, Marblehead said:

Knowledge is, IMO, basically book learning.  The real world has never read the book.

 

 

I agree.

I also believe that if one retains knowledge long enough in his memory, understanding arises spontaneously from it.

[Marblehead]

3 hours ago, Cheshire Cat said:

I also believe that if one retains knowledge long enough in his memory, understanding arises spontaneously from it.

Agree.  The knowledge has become wisdom.  Wisdom arises spontaneously.

 

 

[whitesilk]

On 11/4/2018 at 3:23 AM, windwalker said:

Advent of modern technology

 

Question: Is it the advent of technology in the 'digital age' or our that we are being made aware of technology?

 

[Marblehead]

Technology matters, sure.  It gives us more information to consider.  But then, it can lead to information over-load too.

 

If learning something isn't going to help us in any way why even try to learn about it?

 

[wandelaar]

33 minutes ago, Marblehead said:

Technology matters, sure.  It gives us more information to consider.  But then, it can lead to information over-load too.

 

If learning something isn't going to help us in any way why even try to learn about it?

 

That's a good one! Learning can become an addiction that's very hard to conquer. 

[Cheshire Cat]

14 minutes ago, wandelaar said:

 

That's a good one! Learning can become an addiction that's very hard to conquer. 

 

I would like to be addicted to learning, and I'm even willing to renounce my talent for forgetting stuff.

 

[Marblehead]

4 hours ago, Cheshire Cat said:

and I'm even willing to renounce my talent for forgetting stuff.

But then, I'm sure most of us have some of those things that are worthy of forgetting.

 

[Everything]

On 5-11-2018 at 5:46 PM, thelerner said:

I was watching football yesterday.  Amazing athletes cheering crowds, but there's an emptiness to it, an illusion.  Cause for all my cheering for the home team, but it's not my team.  I'm not doing nothing, just sitting on my butt watching TV & eating junk food.

 

What I mean is, in reality it doesn't matter much what they do, or what ancients did.  A good life is based on what I do.  The best take away I can get from history is inspiration, the worst is taking some kind of credit for there brilliance, cause like the football team I don't deserve any, unless I get in the game.

Actually YOU HAVE ALL THE CREDIT. FOR EVERYTHING. 

Cause if you do not contain it, you can not perceive it. 

And the ever expanding performance and rush and thrill of ever reaching heights of perfection and brilliance, you perceive it in every match, regardless of the side they are on or color of their shirt. 

And even better yet, even if you experience your food as junk, that might inspire you to honor your food on an altar of prayer. Or it might on the flipside possibly also inspire the eating of valuable perfect pure gems of fractalised fruit trees, harvested from the purest and most wildest of soils on the planet.

[Everything]

People of old had big brains. Those big brains came from scavenging. Making use of what nature throws away. Like the bones of a deer left by the wolves, the humans know if cooked well, the bone marrow holds the most densely packed nutritional value. Very fatty and nutritious for a big brain such as the one we have. Same goes for dead wood. The more dead, the better it burns. 

We still live that way. So now we learn we actually become tired if we sit too much and don't move. And we feel better when we excersize and less tired. It's funny. And true. And it triggers inspired action. Now then you can do the work you have always wanted to do. Or the work you have been doing become the work you've always wanted to do. 

Edited November 9, 2018 by Everything

[Cheshire Cat]

12 hours ago, Marblehead said:

But then, I'm sure most of us have some of those things that are worthy of forgetting.

 

 

Maybe it's some horror from the war or memories of being abused. Sounds good to forget those things, but I feel that it's empowering to keep them and develop detachment.

 

 

[Marblehead]

10 minutes ago, Cheshire Cat said:

 

Maybe it's some horror from the war or memories of being abused. Sounds good to forget those things, but I feel that it's empowering to keep them and develop detachment.

 

 

Yes, I could argue that either way.

 

Some things we need remember so that there is no chance it ever happens again.

 

But on the other hand, if it is something that nothing can be done about it may be best to just forget.