> On 26 Jan 2015, at 7:43 am, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote: > > I study the consequences of a common assumption, and assuming a universal > person is natural in this context.
Here is the big sell, then. You have to somehow demonstrate to the human race that we are a universal person. Best of British, old son! The math alone maybe will convince another mathematician, but without your guiding values, they will fail to see the big picture we are sketching here, and instead will prefer to slap you down for it! The concept of the Universal Person needs to be hurled at humanity from the rooftops and from the pulpit and the schoolroom. Beethoven and Schiller tried in the 19th century. Jesus may have had something or other to say about it but nobody much appears to have understood. Plotinus: "We ought not even to say that he will see, but he will be that which he sees, if indeed it is possible any longer to distinguish between seer and seen, and not boldly to affirm that the two are one." If comp is finally the better view of theology then it needs to be understood and acted upon. For once we are looking at the ways in which persons are the same rather than minutely examine the ways in which persons differ. The Universal Person sees no point in war, murder, prohibition and the like because it no longer merely applies to others; it applies to the self. You don't disallow others from doing what you allow yourself - this is not libertarianism; this is self-referentially correct behaviour of a consistent machine that knows that it cannot prove with arrogant certainty its own consistency. > > Also, if the conception of that idea was more widespread; it might limit the > attempt of some people to annoy or kill other people, given that they would > be more likely able to suspect being, maybe, those other people when put in a > different general situation. This then, is our only hope to enter into the experience of another in the hope of understanding their otherness. Paradoxically, you now ERASE the concept of "otherness" in your outlook. This is more than simple empathy. This is the fundamental assumption that you ARE in fact more than one single individual yourself but that you only have your personal perspective. Different people are now seen as the self from a different perspective. This kind of happens already in the tribal/family view of persons but tribes and families despite being able to empathise and psychologically bond with their own - never seem to get over their inability to empathise with different tribes and families. > > It helps from going from: > > Hitler is the bad. We won against Hitler the bad. The good has won, cheers > and tra-la-la ... > > To "I have made a big cruel mistake, I succeeded in stopping it, how can I > prevent to do it again", ... This implies that humans may one day "learn the lessons of history" but they never do. The reason is they study too much history. If you read 1,000 books about the causes of WWI then you have not become an expert at how to prevent war but rather an expert at how to cause war. There is no school subject called "Human Universality". Why do humans never study the ways in which all the tribes and clans and families are the same as each other? What really is the difference between a Jew and a Palestinian? A Chinese and a Japanese? A German and an Austrian? A Christian and a Muslim. All of these designators are fake, fake, fake. They all say "I want to be taken seriously on tribal family grounds, not on grounds of human universality." K > > But that is not normative, only it might encourage the "spiritual > experiences" (be it with music, or whatever) which can help people to > recognize themselves on a vaster spectrum. > > > Bruno -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
