[FairfieldLife] Re: Sam Harris Book
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, merudanda no_reply@... wrote: lol thanks rare piece You may know he studied sociolinguists with well known Finnish Wittgenstein expert http://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Stenius who himself Hän sai kansainvälistä tunnustusta pioneerityöstään Wittgensteinin Tractatus-teoksesta anddisputerade han vid Helsingfors universitet med en avhandling om logiska antinomier see http://web.abo.fi/fak/hf/filosofi/Herbarium/historik.html M. A. Numminen got 2011 Hedersdoktor, dr h.c. , doctor honoris causa, http://www.abo.fi/public/hedersdoktorer love his Heinrich Heine interpretation and of course (after some bottle of tuequoiseb special Spanish enlightenment red wine) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDvOFxBI_E8 ROFLMAO! Never seen that one before!
[FairfieldLife] Re: Sam Harris Book
und alles, was man weiß, nicht bloß, rauschen und brausen gehoert hat, laesst sich in drei Worten sagen. ( and anything anyone knows, hasn't just heard people roaring and blustering about, can be said in three words.) Wittgenstein quotes Kuernberger as a motto at the beginning of the Tractatus Isn't understanding nowadays a mere congenial mood, nothing more a slight rhythms of non-rhythmical divergence, numbly numerous. No one has any idea or want to know or understand what the three words could possibly be. Or cares. What we want:Doesn't we want vast tracts of dull prose, not compact poetry-more comfortable that way and aren't we so in need of comforting? Thus Wittgenstein's simple, elegant transcendent Form is so out of fashion and long, entangling wordy relationships are more intellectual. The funk of functions of functions of functions derivative prettily deviating through diverse perversions. A movement of words that will gently take you along, perhaps seeming for a moment to be instructive, and will then leave off without having deposited anything memorable for you to pass on. Seems only useless, meaningless, but not colorless words in a gentle syntax curled up in mercifully short paragraphs only. And then it will repeat itself being a part of mankind,too- never really wanted the other-remained, lost in oblivion; face reclining on the Beloved,All ceased and abandoned, leaving your cares-forgotten among the lilies.- a place where none appeared as a light of noon-days and nights guiding Written substantial and meaningful and dense, simply oscillate. Oscillum - the little mouth in the mask of Bacchus swinging in the breeze in the fairy garden of Fairfield. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, PaliGap compost1uk@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, merudanda no_reply@ wrote: It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists. [Tractatus 6.44] and To view the world sub specie aeterni [from the viewpoint of eternity] is to view it as a whole - a limited whole. Feeling the world as a limited whole - it is this that is mystical. 6.45 There are, indeed, things that cannot be put into words. They make themselves manifest. They are what is mystical. 6.522 Ludwig Wittgenstein 1921 And... 6.54 My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.) He must surmount these propositions; then he sees the world rightly. 7 Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Xenophaneros Anartaxius anartaxius@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Susan wayback71@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Xenophaneros Anartaxius anartaxius@ wrote: Sam Harris is writing a book, with the working title 'Waking Up: A Scientist Looks at Spirituality' due to be finished sometime near the end of the year. This one should be interesting. http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/look-into-my-eyes The video segment on Osho speaking on the link is a reminder of how especially young people can follow and adjust their their own beliefs to those of someone who really has only basic wisdom to offer, and combines that with being exotic, having an accent, and being a touch different or odd or provocative. Osho never blinked in the few minutes that I watched it!! Creepy, really. I will read this new book when it comes out, because this is the stuff I think about and care about - the science of those experiences. But a part of me misses the mystery of it all that went along with the sureness of faith. I have some trouble reconciling the two ways of looking at awakening - scientific and mystical. I think ignorance of the mind is where the bliss is. What I wish for is that on the other side of that understanding of exactly where and how our brains create spiritual experience, there is a Reality or Presence that causes the brain to behave in that way. That that Reality is the cause, not simply some shift in brain functioning and that is it. I do not think the mystery goes away; instead of believing it, or looking for it, one eventually just lives it, not thinking about it so much. The philosopher Wittgenstein put it that the mystical is 'that the world is, not how it is'. These spiritual practices we engage in are for the purpose of closing the gap between faith, which is believing in something we do not experience (in other words, pretending to say we know something when we do not), and our experience. If that does happen eventually, believing and faith is redundant. I have always thought people have had it backwards: if you could actually know something, then you have faith, if you just believe something, you
[FairfieldLife] Re: Sam Harris Book
Dieses Buch wird vielleicht nur der verstehen, der die Gedanken, die darin ausgedrueckt sind oder doch aehnliche Gedanken schon selbst einmal gedacht hat. Es ist also kein Lehrbuch. Sein Zweck waere erreicht, wenn es Einem, der es mit Verstaendnis liest Vergnuegen bereitete. Vorwort (Preface) Perhaps this book will be understood only by someone who has himself already had the thoughts that are expressed in itor at least similar thoughts.So it is not a textbook.Its purpose would be achieved if it gave pleasure to one person who read and understood it. Pears/McGuinness --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, PaliGap compost1uk@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, merudanda no_reply@ wrote: It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists. [Tractatus 6.44] and To view the world sub specie aeterni [from the viewpoint of eternity] is to view it as a whole - a limited whole. Feeling the world as a limited whole - it is this that is mystical. 6.45 There are, indeed, things that cannot be put into words. They make themselves manifest. They are what is mystical. 6.522 Ludwig Wittgenstein 1921 And... 6.54 My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.) now hanging in the air not knowing where flying shying away He must surmount these propositions; then he sees the world rightly. 7 Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Xenophaneros Anartaxius anartaxius@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Susan wayback71@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Xenophaneros Anartaxius anartaxius@ wrote: Sam Harris is writing a book, with the working title 'Waking Up: A Scientist Looks at Spirituality' due to be finished sometime near the end of the year. This one should be interesting. http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/look-into-my-eyes The video segment on Osho speaking on the link is a reminder of how especially young people can follow and adjust their their own beliefs to those of someone who really has only basic wisdom to offer, and combines that with being exotic, having an accent, and being a touch different or odd or provocative. Osho never blinked in the few minutes that I watched it!! Creepy, really. I will read this new book when it comes out, because this is the stuff I think about and care about - the science of those experiences. But a part of me misses the mystery of it all that went along with the sureness of faith. I have some trouble reconciling the two ways of looking at awakening - scientific and mystical. I think ignorance of the mind is where the bliss is. What I wish for is that on the other side of that understanding of exactly where and how our brains create spiritual experience, there is a Reality or Presence that causes the brain to behave in that way. That that Reality is the cause, not simply some shift in brain functioning and that is it. I do not think the mystery goes away; instead of believing it, or looking for it, one eventually just lives it, not thinking about it so much. The philosopher Wittgenstein put it that the mystical is 'that the world is, not how it is'. These spiritual practices we engage in are for the purpose of closing the gap between faith, which is believing in something we do not experience (in other words, pretending to say we know something when we do not), and our experience. If that does happen eventually, believing and faith is redundant. I have always thought people have had it backwards: if you could actually know something, then you have faith, if you just believe something, you are acting on ignorance. The real question is, 'is there anything we can really know?' We tend to think this is possible. In the early 20th century Bertrand Russell was talking about mature sciences, that they do not deal with causality, they deal with relationships. I think this is like the idea behind meditation. Meditation gradually simplifies our experience of relationships until there are none left. Very much like how physicists attempt to discover how all things are related in a single equation, which would be a unified field theory. I always thought Maharishi, in using the word 'wholeness', was employing a cop-out to hide the religious nature behind TM, but in fact, I now think it is an elegantly simple and accurate description, much better than the metaphysical claptrap that accompanies spiritual movements. As for the scientific and mystical. It is like a recipe and the wonderful meal that it may become. You need both, but not necessarily at the same time, and they are not in conflict
[FairfieldLife] Re: Sam Harris Book
Ihr naht euch wieder, schwankende Gestalten, Die frueh sich einst dem trüben Blick gezeigt. Versuch ich wohl, euch diesmal festzuhalten? Fuehl ich mein Herz noch jenem Wahn geneigt? Ihr drängt euch zu! nun gut, so moegt ihr walten, Wie ihr aus Dunst und Nebel um mich steigt; Mein Busen fuehlt sich jugendlich erschuettert Vom Zauberhauch, der euren Zug umwittert. (Once more ye waver dreamily before me,Forms that so early cheered my troubled eyes!To hold you fast doth still my heart implore me?Still bid me clutch the charm that lures and flies?Ye crowd around! come, then, hold empire o'er me,As from the mist and haze of thought ye rise;The magic atmosphere, your train enwreathing,Through my thrilled bosom youthful bliss is breathing.) Und mich ergreift ein laengst entwoehntes Sehnen Nach jenem stillen, ernsten Geisterreich, Es schwebet nun in unbestimmten Toenen: Mein lispelnd Lied,der Aeolsharfe gleich, (And now I feel a long-unwonted yearning For that calm, pensive spirit-realm, to-day; Like an Aeolian lyre, (the breeze returning,) Floats in uncertain tones my lisping lay;) Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,Beginn der Zueignung zu »Faust« (Ye wavering forms draw near again as ever When ye long since moved past my clouded eyes. To hold you fast, shall I this time endeavour? Still does my heart that strange illusion prize? Ye crowd on me! 'Tis well! Your might assever While ye from mist and murk around me rise. As in my youth my heart again is bounding, Thrilled by the magic breath your train surrounding. .. And I am seized with long-unwonted yearning Toward yonder realm of spirits grave and still. My plaintive song's uncertain tones are turning To harps aeolian murmuring at will.) --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Share Long sharelong60@... wrote: I do not think the mystery goes away; instead of believing it, or looking for it, one eventually just lives it, not thinking about it so much... I have always thought people have had it backwards: if you could actually know something, then you have faith, if you just believe something, you are acting on ignorance. The real question is, 'is there anything we can really know?' We tend to think this is possible... As for the scientific and mystical. It is like a recipe and the wonderful meal that it may become. You need both, but not necessarily at the same time, and they are not in conflict with one another, they both represent the same thing. So very beautiful. Thank you so much for posting. Yes, to what Susan wrote. This is a keeper. From: Xenophaneros Anartaxius anartaxius@... To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, June 27, 2012 9:43 AM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Sam Harris Book  --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Susan wayback71@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Xenophaneros Anartaxius anartaxius@ wrote: Sam Harris is writing a book, with the working title 'Waking Up: A Scientist Looks at Spirituality' due to be finished sometime near the end of the year. This one should be interesting. http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/look-into-my-eyes The video segment on Osho speaking on the link is a reminder of how especially young people can follow and adjust their their own beliefs to those of someone who really has only basic wisdom to offer, and combines that with being exotic, having an accent, and being a touch different or odd or provocative. Osho never blinked in the few minutes that I watched it!! Creepy, really. I will read this new book when it comes out, because this is the stuff I think about and care about - the science of those experiences. But a part of me misses the mystery of it all that went along with the sureness of faith. I have some trouble reconciling the two ways of looking at awakening - scientific and mystical. I think ignorance of the mind is where the bliss is. What I wish for is that on the other side of that understanding of exactly where and how our brains create spiritual experience, there is a Reality or Presence that causes the brain to behave in that way. That that Reality is the cause, not simply some shift in brain functioning and that is it. I do not think the mystery goes away; instead of believing it, or looking for it, one eventually just lives it, not thinking about it so much. The philosopher Wittgenstein put it that the mystical is 'that the world is, not how it is'. These spiritual practices we engage in are for the purpose of closing the gap between faith, which is believing in something we do not experience (in other words, pretending to say we know something when we do not), and our experience. If that does happen eventually, believing and faith is redundant. I have always thought people have had it backwards: if you could actually know something, then you have faith, if you just believe something, you are acting on ignorance. The real question is, 'is there anything we can really know?' We tend to think
[FairfieldLife] Re: Sam Harris Book
Ihr naht euch wieder, schwankende Gestalten, Die frueh sich einst dem trueben Blick gezeigt. Versuch ich wohl, euch diesmal festzuhalten? Fuehl ich mein Herz noch jenem Wahn geneigt? Ihr draengt euch zu! nun gut, so moegt ihr walten, Wie ihr aus Dunst und Nebel um mich steigt; Mein Busen fuehlt sich jugendlich erschüttert Vom Zauberhauch, der euren Zug umwittert. (Once more ye waver dreamily before me,Forms that so early cheered my troubled eyes!To hold you fast doth still my heart implore me?Still bid me clutch the charm that lures and flies?Ye crowd around! come, then, hold empire o'er me,As from the mist and haze of thought ye rise;The magic atmosphere, your train enwreathing,Through my thrilled bosom youthful bliss is breathing.) Und mich ergreift ein laengst entwoehntes Sehnen Nach jenem stillen, ernsten Geisterreich, Es schwebet nun in unbestimmten Toenen: Mein lispelnd Lied,der Aeolsharfe gleich, (And now I feel a long-unwonted yearning For that calm, pensive spirit-realm, to-day; Like an Aeolian lyre, (the breeze returning,) Floats in uncertain tones my lisping lay;) Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,Beginn der Zueignung zu »Faust« (Ye wavering forms draw near again as ever When ye long since moved past my clouded eyes. To hold you fast, shall I this time endeavour? Still does my heart that strange illusion prize? Ye crowd on me! 'Tis well! Your might assever While ye from mist and murk around me rise. As in my youth my heart again is bounding, Thrilled by the magic breath your train surrounding. .. And I am seized with long-unwonted yearning Toward yonder realm of spirits grave and still. My plaintive song's uncertain tones are turning To harps aeolian murmuring at will.) --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Share Long sharelong60@... wrote: I do not think the mystery goes away; instead of believing it, or looking for it, one eventually just lives it, not thinking about it so much... I have always thought people have had it backwards: if you could actually know something, then you have faith, if you just believe something, you are acting on ignorance. The real question is, 'is there anything we can really know?' We tend to think this is possible... As for the scientific and mystical. It is like a recipe and the wonderful meal that it may become. You need both, but not necessarily at the same time, and they are not in conflict with one another, they both represent the same thing. So very beautiful. Thank you so much for posting. Yes, to what Susan wrote. This is a keeper. From: Xenophaneros Anartaxius anartaxius@... To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, June 27, 2012 9:43 AM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Sam Harris Book  --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Susan wayback71@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Xenophaneros Anartaxius anartaxius@ wrote: Sam Harris is writing a book, with the working title 'Waking Up: A Scientist Looks at Spirituality' due to be finished sometime near the end of the year. This one should be interesting. http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/look-into-my-eyes The video segment on Osho speaking on the link is a reminder of how especially young people can follow and adjust their their own beliefs to those of someone who really has only basic wisdom to offer, and combines that with being exotic, having an accent, and being a touch different or odd or provocative. Osho never blinked in the few minutes that I watched it!! Creepy, really. I will read this new book when it comes out, because this is the stuff I think about and care about - the science of those experiences. But a part of me misses the mystery of it all that went along with the sureness of faith. I have some trouble reconciling the two ways of looking at awakening - scientific and mystical. I think ignorance of the mind is where the bliss is. What I wish for is that on the other side of that understanding of exactly where and how our brains create spiritual experience, there is a Reality or Presence that causes the brain to behave in that way. That that Reality is the cause, not simply some shift in brain functioning and that is it. I do not think the mystery goes away; instead of believing it, or looking for it, one eventually just lives it, not thinking about it so much. The philosopher Wittgenstein put it that the mystical is 'that the world is, not how it is'. These spiritual practices we engage in are for the purpose of closing the gap between faith, which is believing in something we do not experience (in other words, pretending to say we know something when we do not), and our experience. If that does happen eventually, believing and faith is redundant. I have always thought people have had it backwards: if you could actually know something, then you have faith, if you just believe something, you are acting on ignorance. The real question is, 'is there anything we can really know?' We tend to think
[FairfieldLife] Re: Sam Harris Book
Numminen's parody of the intellectual elitism --lovely ---great find http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1feature=endscreenv=kzKj4fNEAtE Munat jaei vetoketjun vaeliin ... Heti tunsin taas jaei munat vetoketjun vaeliin. Erilaisten lintujenhan munista on koko ajan ollut ... --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, cardemaister no_reply@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, PaliGap compost1uk@ wrote: 7 Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57PWqFowq-4
[FairfieldLife] Re: Sam Harris Book
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, merudanda no_reply@... wrote: 6.54 My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.) now hanging in the air not knowing where flying shying away ...after he has climbed up on it. Hmmm... http://knot.krisp.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/escher-mobius_strip_ii.jpg
[FairfieldLife] Re: Sam Harris Book
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, PaliGap compost1uk@... wrote: now hanging in the air not knowing where flying shying away ...after he has climbed up on it. Hmmm... falling down into the pale gap of PaliGap... http://knot.krisp.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/escher-mobius_strip_ii.\ jpg love you and your MC-Escher quote-link and enjoy your posting http://www.stammheim4ever.de/optik/MC-Escher/Hand-with-Reflecting-Sphere\ .jpg http://www.stammheim4ever.de/optik/b-MC-Escher_Eye.jpg.html Question mark eyes interrogate the knots of a life lived in spirals and ellipses plane geometry knowing not its own tangles. When lips transmit their messages like the clear communication of cells molecules of inherent meaning shared mutually with puckered intention,when teeth crunch the star-bones into fine fairy dust,piercing light pouring from the digestive tract like hi-beams on the night-road until they are gouged by my discipline's finger tips-- will then we run without eyes; hands tied to the wind towards the unmistakeable roar of a river - the throbbing artery of divine intelligence? Happy but mystified that you kept your ladder and this things , this crux Chakana called language to communicate
[FairfieldLife] Re: Sam Harris Book
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, merudanda no_reply@... wrote: Numminen's parody of the intellectual elitism --lovely ---great find http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1feature=endscreenv=kzKj4fNEAtE Munat jaei vetoketjun vaeliin ... Heti tunsin taas jaei munat vetoketjun vaeliin. Erilaisten lintujenhan munista on koko ajan ollut ... You seem to understand some of that strange stone-agey Uralic-shamanic language of Siberian mammoth hunters?? :o http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=io3Qj9VbDj8
[FairfieldLife] Re: Sam Harris Book
lol thanks rare piece You may know he studied sociolinguists with well known Finnish Wittgenstein expert http://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Stenius who himself Hän sai kansainvälistä tunnustusta pioneerityöstään Wittgensteinin Tractatus-teoksesta anddisputerade han vid Helsingfors universitet med en avhandling om logiska antinomier see http://web.abo.fi/fak/hf/filosofi/Herbarium/historik.html M. A. Numminen got 2011 Hedersdoktor, dr h.c. , doctor honoris causa, http://www.abo.fi/public/hedersdoktorer love his Heinrich Heine interpretation and of course (after some bottle of tuequoiseb special Spanish enlightenment red wine) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDvOFxBI_E8 and have to ask you with M. A. Numminen http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJeJA6o6sycfeature=related Aristoteles vor langer Zeit stellte fest dass der Gott nicht an einem anderen als sich selbst denken kann denn wenn der Gott zum Beispiel an ein Quadrat dächte wäre er von der Existenz des Quadrats abhängig huh Ich will eine Erklärung... dear cardemaister [:D] and let's get some other drink http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjPB9MwM1ZY --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, cardemaister no_reply@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, merudanda no_reply@ wrote: Numminen's parody of the intellectual elitism --lovely ---great find http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1feature=endscreenv=kzKj4fNEAtE Munat jaei vetoketjun vaeliin ... Heti tunsin taas jaei munat vetoketjun vaeliin. Erilaisten lintujenhan munista on koko ajan ollut ... You seem to understand some of that strange stone-agey Uralic-shamanic language of Siberian mammoth hunters?? :o http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=io3Qj9VbDj8
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Sam Harris Book
meru, I don't know what this means. I often don't with your posts. But love them anyway... From: merudanda no_re...@yahoogroups.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Thursday, June 28, 2012 2:44 AM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Sam Harris Book … und alles, was man weiß, nicht bloß, rauschen und brausen gehoert hat, laesst sich in drei Worten sagen. ( … and anything anyone knows, hasn't just heard people roaring and blustering about, can be said in three words.) Wittgenstein quotes Kuernberger as a motto at the beginning of the Tractatus Isn't understanding nowadays a mere congenial mood, nothing more a slight rhythms of non-rhythmical divergence, numbly numerous. No one has any idea or want to know or understand what the three words could possibly be. Or cares. What we want:Doesn't we want vast tracts of dull prose, not compact poetry-more comfortable that way and aren't we so in need of comforting? Thus Wittgenstein's simple, elegant transcendent Form is so out of fashion and long, entangling wordy relationships are more intellectual. The funk of functions of functions of functions derivative prettily deviating through diverse perversions. A movement of words that will gently take you along, perhaps seeming for a moment to be instructive, and will then leave off without having deposited anything memorable for you to pass on. Seems only useless, meaningless, but not colorless words in a gentle syntax curled up in mercifully short paragraphs only. And then it will repeat itself being a part of mankind,too- never really wanted the other-remained, lost in oblivion; face reclining on the Beloved,All ceased and abandoned, leaving your cares-forgotten among the lilies.- a place where none appeared as a light of noon-days and nights guiding Written substantial and meaningful and dense, simply oscillate. Oscillum - the little mouth in the mask of Bacchus swinging in the breeze in the fairy garden of Fairfield. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, PaliGap compost1uk@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, merudanda no_reply@ wrote: It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists. [Tractatus 6.44] and To view the world sub specie aeterni [from the viewpoint of eternity] is to view it as a whole - a limited whole. Feeling the world as a limited whole - it is this that is mystical. 6.45 There are, indeed, things that cannot be put into words. They make themselves manifest. They are what is mystical. 6.522 Ludwig Wittgenstein 1921 And... 6.54 My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.) He must surmount these propositions; then he sees the world rightly. 7 Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Xenophaneros Anartaxius anartaxius@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Susan wayback71@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Xenophaneros Anartaxius anartaxius@ wrote: Sam Harris is writing a book, with the working title 'Waking Up: A Scientist Looks at Spirituality' due to be finished sometime near the end of the year. This one should be interesting. http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/look-into-my-eyes The video segment on Osho speaking on the link is a reminder of how especially young people can follow and adjust their their own beliefs to those of someone who really has only basic wisdom to offer, and combines that with being exotic, having an accent, and being a touch different or odd or provocative. Osho never blinked in the few minutes that I watched it!! Creepy, really. I will read this new book when it comes out, because this is the stuff I think about and care about - the science of those experiences. But a part of me misses the mystery of it all that went along with the sureness of faith. I have some trouble reconciling the two ways of looking at awakening - scientific and mystical. I think ignorance of the mind is where the bliss is. What I wish for is that on the other side of that understanding of exactly where and how our brains create spiritual experience, there is a Reality or Presence that causes the brain to behave in that way. That that Reality is the cause, not simply some shift in brain functioning and that is it. I do not think the mystery goes away; instead of believing it, or looking for it, one eventually just lives it, not thinking about it so much. The philosopher Wittgenstein put it that the mystical is 'that the world is, not how it is'. These spiritual practices we engage in are for the purpose of closing the gap between faith, which is believing in something we do
[FairfieldLife] Re: Sam Harris Book
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Share Long sharelong60@... wrote: meru, I don't know what this means. I often don't with your posts. But love them anyway... No comment on Share's comment, but I do have one on the weird embedded characters, which I preserve above as opposed to cutting them out, as I usually do. Where TF do these things come from? They seem to originate with people who use email -- possibly of a certain type -- to respond to FFL posts. They aren't EOL (end of line) characters, because they appear as they do above in weirdass places, in the middle of sentences, not at the end of lines. They're probably not spurious Tab characters, because who would put a Tab in the middle of a sentence? So WTF are they, and where do they come from? They are clearly visible in the FFL Yahoo viewer, and in some email readers. So WTF are they (and they are NOT in any way limited to Share's posts, and have showed up in the posts of many other people), and how can we make them go away? Google identifies them as NBS characters, which means non-breaking spaces. But as I understand it, you have to actually press a key combination to insert an NBS. Just pressing the spacebar doesn't do it, unless your email client is brain damaged. So what's up with this, eh?
[FairfieldLife] Re: Sam Harris Book
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb no_reply@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Share Long sharelong60@ wrote: meru, I don't know what this means. I often don't with your posts. But love them anyway... No comment on Share's comment, but I do have one on the weird embedded characters, which I preserve above as opposed to cutting them out, as I usually do. Where TF do these things come from? They seem to originate with people who use email -- possibly of a certain type -- to respond to FFL posts. The header of Share's post indicates she's using Yahoo webmail to send posts to FFL: X-Mailer: YahooMailWebService/0.8.120.356233 Merudanda is using the Yahoo Groups website: X-Mailer: Yahoo Groups Message Poster
[FairfieldLife] Re: Sam Harris Book
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb no_reply@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Share Long sharelong60@ wrote: meru, I don't know what this means. I often don't with your posts. But love them anyway... No comment on Share's comment, but I do have one on the weird embedded characters, which I preserve above as opposed to cutting them out, as I usually do. Where TF do these things come from? They seem to originate with people who use email -- possibly of a certain type -- to respond to FFL posts. They aren't EOL (end of line) characters, because they appear as they do above in weirdass places, in the middle of sentences, not at the end of lines. They're probably not spurious Tab characters, because who would put a Tab in the middle of a sentence? So WTF are they, and where do they come from? They are clearly visible in the FFL Yahoo viewer, and in some email readers. So WTF are they (and they are NOT in any way limited to Share's posts, and have showed up in the posts of many other people), and how can we make them go away? Google identifies them as NBS characters, which means non-breaking spaces. But as I understand it, you have to actually press a key combination to insert an NBS. Just pressing the spacebar doesn't do it, unless your email client is brain damaged. So what's up with this, eh? There are different specifications for encoding characters. Email systems seem to attempt to translate between these systems, but often fail. Operating Systems have different defaults, and web pages such as viewing FFL online may have a character set specified or not, this Post Message page I am typeing in has no character set specified. Any non-ASCII characters like curly quotes, em and en dashes often tend to get screwed up. Some non HTML characters Windows uses for these seem to be OK for FFL, but I have only tried a few. I have tried standard HTML characters in the Rich-Text Editor, and it screws many of them up or removes them. So it is a crap shoot. I often cut the reply window into a text editor, and write there in ASCII and then past back into the Window. Here are some Windows characters writing directly into the web FFL interface; lets see how many display in whatever you are viewing this with: left curly single quote: ` right curly single quote: ' left curly double quote: right curly double quote: one-fourth fraction: ¼ one-half fraction: ½ three-fourths fraction: ¾ a tilde: ã a diaerises: ä copyright symbol: © e accent grave: è e accent acute: é en dash: em dash: pilcrow sign (paragraph ending symbol): ¶ pound sign: £ As I look in the preview, this looked fine. Once when I used the rich text version of the FFL reply, I typed in Greek characters, and it previewed fine, but the display on the actual forum was completely fucked. There are so many platforms and software people are writing and receiving data from the forum in, I wonder why it is not even worse.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Sam Harris Book
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Xenophaneros Anartaxius anartaxius@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Share Long sharelong60@ wrote: meru, I don't know what this means. I often don't with your posts. But love them anyway... No comment on Share's comment, but I do have one on the weird embedded characters, which I preserve above as opposed to cutting them out, as I usually do. Where TF do these things come from? They seem to originate with people who use email -- possibly of a certain type -- to respond to FFL posts. They aren't EOL (end of line) characters, because they appear as they do above in weirdass places, in the middle of sentences, not at the end of lines. They're probably not spurious Tab characters, because who would put a Tab in the middle of a sentence? So WTF are they, and where do they come from? They are clearly visible in the FFL Yahoo viewer, and in some email readers. So WTF are they (and they are NOT in any way limited to Share's posts, and have showed up in the posts of many other people), and how can we make them go away? Google identifies them as NBS characters, which means non-breaking spaces. But as I understand it, you have to actually press a key combination to insert an NBS. Just pressing the spacebar doesn't do it, unless your email client is brain damaged. So what's up with this, eh? There are different specifications for encoding characters. Email systems seem to attempt to translate between these systems, but often fail. Operating Systems have different defaults, and web pages such as viewing FFL online may have a character set specified or not, this Post Message page I am typeing in has no character set specified. Any non-ASCII characters like curly quotes, em and en dashes often tend to get screwed up. Some non HTML characters Windows uses for these seem to be OK for FFL, but I have only tried a few. I have tried standard HTML characters in the Rich-Text Editor, and it screws many of them up or removes them. So it is a crap shoot. I often cut the reply window into a text editor, and write there in ASCII and then past back into the Window. Here are some Windows characters writing directly into the web FFL interface; lets see how many display in whatever you are viewing this with: left curly single quote: ` right curly single quote: ' left curly double quote: right curly double quote: one-fourth fraction: ¼ one-half fraction: ½ three-fourths fraction: ¾ a tilde: ã a diaerises: ä copyright symbol: © e accent grave: è e accent acute: é en dash: em dash: pilcrow sign (paragraph ending symbol): ¶ pound sign: £ As I look in the preview, this looked fine. Once when I used the rich text version of the FFL reply, I typed in Greek characters, and it previewed fine, but the display on the actual forum was completely fucked. There are so many platforms and software people are writing and receiving data from the forum in, I wonder why it is not even worse. All the symbols I typed in got through except the right single curly quote, the the double curly quotes which the Yahoo software changed to straight single right curly quote and straight double curly quotes.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Sam Harris Book
Where TF do these things come from? They seem to originate with people who use email -- possibly of a certain type -- to respond to FFL posts... Alex Stanley: The header of Share's post indicates she's using Yahoo webmail to send posts to FFL... The best thing to do for easy reading in online newsforums is to key in your characters using a plain text editor like Editpad - it's free. http://www.editpadlite.com/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Sam Harris Book
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Richard J. Williams richard@... wrote: Where TF do these things come from? They seem to originate with people who use email -- possibly of a certain type -- to respond to FFL posts... Alex Stanley: The header of Share's post indicates she's using Yahoo webmail to send posts to FFL... The best thing to do for easy reading in online newsforums is to key in your characters using a plain text editor like Editpad - it's free. http://www.editpadlite.com/ You could also use VI(M) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vim_(text_editor) http://www.vim.org/download.php#pc It's free as well and available for all systems.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Sam Harris Book
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Xenophaneros Anartaxius anartaxius@... wrote: Sam Harris is writing a book, with the working title 'Waking Up: A Scientist Looks at Spirituality' due to be finished sometime near the end of the year. This one should be interesting. http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/look-into-my-eyes The video segment on Osho speaking on the link is a reminder of how especially young people can follow and adjust their their own beliefs to those of someone who really has only basic wisdom to offer, and combines that with being exotic, having an accent, and being a touch different or odd or provocative. Osho never blinked in the few minutes that I watched it!! Creepy, really. I will read this new book when it comes out, because this is the stuff I think about and care about - the science of those experiences. But a part of me misses the mystery of it all that went along with the sureness of faith. I have some trouble reconciling the two ways of looking at awakening - scientific and mystical. I think ignorance of the mind is where the bliss is. What I wish for is that on the other side of that understanding of exactly where and how our brains create spiritual experience, there is a Reality or Presence that causes the brain to behave in that way. That that Reality is the cause, not simply some shift in brain functioning and that is it.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Sam Harris Book
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Susan wayback71@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Xenophaneros Anartaxius anartaxius@ wrote: Sam Harris is writing a book, with the working title 'Waking Up: A Scientist Looks at Spirituality' due to be finished sometime near the end of the year. This one should be interesting. http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/look-into-my-eyes The video segment on Osho speaking on the link is a reminder of how especially young people can follow and adjust their their own beliefs to those of someone who really has only basic wisdom to offer, and combines that with being exotic, having an accent, and being a touch different or odd or provocative. Osho never blinked in the few minutes that I watched it!! Creepy, really. I will read this new book when it comes out, because this is the stuff I think about and care about - the science of those experiences. But a part of me misses the mystery of it all that went along with the sureness of faith. I have some trouble reconciling the two ways of looking at awakening - scientific and mystical. I think ignorance of the mind is where the bliss is. What I wish for is that on the other side of that understanding of exactly where and how our brains create spiritual experience, there is a Reality or Presence that causes the brain to behave in that way. That that Reality is the cause, not simply some shift in brain functioning and that is it. I do not think the mystery goes away; instead of believing it, or looking for it, one eventually just lives it, not thinking about it so much. The philosopher Wittgenstein put it that the mystical is 'that the world is, not how it is'. These spiritual practices we engage in are for the purpose of closing the gap between faith, which is believing in something we do not experience (in other words, pretending to say we know something when we do not), and our experience. If that does happen eventually, believing and faith is redundant. I have always thought people have had it backwards: if you could actually know something, then you have faith, if you just believe something, you are acting on ignorance. The real question is, 'is there anything we can really know?' We tend to think this is possible. In the early 20th century Bertrand Russell was talking about mature sciences, that they do not deal with causality, they deal with relationships. I think this is like the idea behind meditation. Meditation gradually simplifies our experience of relationships until there are none left. Very much like how physicists attempt to discover how all things are related in a single equation, which would be a unified field theory. I always thought Maharishi, in using the word 'wholeness', was employing a cop-out to hide the religious nature behind TM, but in fact, I now think it is an elegantly simple and accurate description, much better than the metaphysical claptrap that accompanies spiritual movements. As for the scientific and mystical. It is like a recipe and the wonderful meal that it may become. You need both, but not necessarily at the same time, and they are not in conflict with one another, they both represent the same thing.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Sam Harris Book
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Xenophaneros Anartaxius anartaxius@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Susan wayback71@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Xenophaneros Anartaxius anartaxius@ wrote: Sam Harris is writing a book, with the working title 'Waking Up: A Scientist Looks at Spirituality' due to be finished sometime near the end of the year. This one should be interesting. http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/look-into-my-eyes The video segment on Osho speaking on the link is a reminder of how especially young people can follow and adjust their their own beliefs to those of someone who really has only basic wisdom to offer, and combines that with being exotic, having an accent, and being a touch different or odd or provocative. Osho never blinked in the few minutes that I watched it!! Creepy, really. I will read this new book when it comes out, because this is the stuff I think about and care about - the science of those experiences. But a part of me misses the mystery of it all that went along with the sureness of faith. I have some trouble reconciling the two ways of looking at awakening - scientific and mystical. I think ignorance of the mind is where the bliss is. What I wish for is that on the other side of that understanding of exactly where and how our brains create spiritual experience, there is a Reality or Presence that causes the brain to behave in that way. That that Reality is the cause, not simply some shift in brain functioning and that is it. I do not think the mystery goes away; instead of believing it, or looking for it, one eventually just lives it, not thinking about it so much. The philosopher Wittgenstein put it that the mystical is 'that the world is, not how it is'. These spiritual practices we engage in are for the purpose of closing the gap between faith, which is believing in something we do not experience (in other words, pretending to say we know something when we do not), and our experience. If that does happen eventually, believing and faith is redundant. I have always thought people have had it backwards: if you could actually know something, then you have faith, if you just believe something, you are acting on ignorance. The real question is, 'is there anything we can really know?' We tend to think this is possible. In the early 20th century Bertrand Russell was talking about mature sciences, that they do not deal with causality, they deal with relationships. I think this is like the idea behind meditation. Meditation gradually simplifies our experience of relationships until there are none left. Very much like how physicists attempt to discover how all things are related in a single equation, which would be a unified field theory. I always thought Maharishi, in using the word 'wholeness', was employing a cop-out to hide the religious nature behind TM, but in fact, I now think it is an elegantly simple and accurate description, much better than the metaphysical claptrap that accompanies spiritual movements. As for the scientific and mystical. It is like a recipe and the wonderful meal that it may become. You need both, but not necessarily at the same time, and they are not in conflict with one another, they both represent the same thing. Wise and comforting words, Xeno. Thanks, and I printed it out for those moments when I need to know it again.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Sam Harris Book
It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists. [Tractatus 6.44] and To view the world sub specie aeterni [from the viewpoint of eternity] is to view it as a whole - a limited whole. Feeling the world as a limited whole - it is this that is mystical. 6.45 There are, indeed, things that cannot be put into words. They make themselves manifest. They are what is mystical. 6.522 --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Xenophaneros Anartaxius anartaxius@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Susan wayback71@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Xenophaneros Anartaxius anartaxius@ wrote: Sam Harris is writing a book, with the working title 'Waking Up: A Scientist Looks at Spirituality' due to be finished sometime near the end of the year. This one should be interesting. http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/look-into-my-eyes The video segment on Osho speaking on the link is a reminder of how especially young people can follow and adjust their their own beliefs to those of someone who really has only basic wisdom to offer, and combines that with being exotic, having an accent, and being a touch different or odd or provocative. Osho never blinked in the few minutes that I watched it!! Creepy, really. I will read this new book when it comes out, because this is the stuff I think about and care about - the science of those experiences. But a part of me misses the mystery of it all that went along with the sureness of faith. I have some trouble reconciling the two ways of looking at awakening - scientific and mystical. I think ignorance of the mind is where the bliss is. What I wish for is that on the other side of that understanding of exactly where and how our brains create spiritual experience, there is a Reality or Presence that causes the brain to behave in that way. That that Reality is the cause, not simply some shift in brain functioning and that is it. I do not think the mystery goes away; instead of believing it, or looking for it, one eventually just lives it, not thinking about it so much. The philosopher Wittgenstein put it that the mystical is 'that the world is, not how it is'. These spiritual practices we engage in are for the purpose of closing the gap between faith, which is believing in something we do not experience (in other words, pretending to say we know something when we do not), and our experience. If that does happen eventually, believing and faith is redundant. I have always thought people have had it backwards: if you could actually know something, then you have faith, if you just believe something, you are acting on ignorance. The real question is, 'is there anything we can really know?' We tend to think this is possible. In the early 20th century Bertrand Russell was talking about mature sciences, that they do not deal with causality, they deal with relationships. I think this is like the idea behind meditation. Meditation gradually simplifies our experience of relationships until there are none left. Very much like how physicists attempt to discover how all things are related in a single equation, which would be a unified field theory. I always thought Maharishi, in using the word 'wholeness', was employing a cop-out to hide the religious nature behind TM, but in fact, I now think it is an elegantly simple and accurate description, much better than the metaphysical claptrap that accompanies spiritual movements. As for the scientific and mystical. It is like a recipe and the wonderful meal that it may become. You need both, but not necessarily at the same time, and they are not in conflict with one another, they both represent the same thing.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Sam Harris Book
It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists. [Tractatus 6.44] and To view the world sub specie aeterni [from the viewpoint of eternity] is to view it as a whole - a limited whole. Feeling the world as a limited whole - it is this that is mystical. 6.45 There are, indeed, things that cannot be put into words. They make themselves manifest. They are what is mystical. 6.522 Ludwig Wittgenstein 1921 --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Xenophaneros Anartaxius anartaxius@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Susan wayback71@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Xenophaneros Anartaxius anartaxius@ wrote: Sam Harris is writing a book, with the working title 'Waking Up: A Scientist Looks at Spirituality' due to be finished sometime near the end of the year. This one should be interesting. http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/look-into-my-eyes The video segment on Osho speaking on the link is a reminder of how especially young people can follow and adjust their their own beliefs to those of someone who really has only basic wisdom to offer, and combines that with being exotic, having an accent, and being a touch different or odd or provocative. Osho never blinked in the few minutes that I watched it!! Creepy, really. I will read this new book when it comes out, because this is the stuff I think about and care about - the science of those experiences. But a part of me misses the mystery of it all that went along with the sureness of faith. I have some trouble reconciling the two ways of looking at awakening - scientific and mystical. I think ignorance of the mind is where the bliss is. What I wish for is that on the other side of that understanding of exactly where and how our brains create spiritual experience, there is a Reality or Presence that causes the brain to behave in that way. That that Reality is the cause, not simply some shift in brain functioning and that is it. I do not think the mystery goes away; instead of believing it, or looking for it, one eventually just lives it, not thinking about it so much. The philosopher Wittgenstein put it that the mystical is 'that the world is, not how it is'. These spiritual practices we engage in are for the purpose of closing the gap between faith, which is believing in something we do not experience (in other words, pretending to say we know something when we do not), and our experience. If that does happen eventually, believing and faith is redundant. I have always thought people have had it backwards: if you could actually know something, then you have faith, if you just believe something, you are acting on ignorance. The real question is, 'is there anything we can really know?' We tend to think this is possible. In the early 20th century Bertrand Russell was talking about mature sciences, that they do not deal with causality, they deal with relationships. I think this is like the idea behind meditation. Meditation gradually simplifies our experience of relationships until there are none left. Very much like how physicists attempt to discover how all things are related in a single equation, which would be a unified field theory. I always thought Maharishi, in using the word 'wholeness', was employing a cop-out to hide the religious nature behind TM, but in fact, I now think it is an elegantly simple and accurate description, much better than the metaphysical claptrap that accompanies spiritual movements. As for the scientific and mystical. It is like a recipe and the wonderful meal that it may become. You need both, but not necessarily at the same time, and they are not in conflict with one another, they both represent the same thing.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Sam Harris Book
Better - I was pulling from my not always so great memory. Now all you have to do is post the original German. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, merudanda no_reply@... wrote: It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists. [Tractatus 6.44] and To view the world sub specie aeterni [from the viewpoint of eternity] is to view it as a whole - a limited whole. Feeling the world as a limited whole - it is this that is mystical. 6.45 There are, indeed, things that cannot be put into words. They make themselves manifest. They are what is mystical. 6.522 Ludwig Wittgenstein 1921 --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Xenophaneros Anartaxius anartaxius@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Susan wayback71@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Xenophaneros Anartaxius anartaxius@ wrote: Sam Harris is writing a book, with the working title 'Waking Up: A Scientist Looks at Spirituality' due to be finished sometime near the end of the year. This one should be interesting. http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/look-into-my-eyes The video segment on Osho speaking on the link is a reminder of how especially young people can follow and adjust their their own beliefs to those of someone who really has only basic wisdom to offer, and combines that with being exotic, having an accent, and being a touch different or odd or provocative. Osho never blinked in the few minutes that I watched it!! Creepy, really. I will read this new book when it comes out, because this is the stuff I think about and care about - the science of those experiences. But a part of me misses the mystery of it all that went along with the sureness of faith. I have some trouble reconciling the two ways of looking at awakening - scientific and mystical. I think ignorance of the mind is where the bliss is. What I wish for is that on the other side of that understanding of exactly where and how our brains create spiritual experience, there is a Reality or Presence that causes the brain to behave in that way. That that Reality is the cause, not simply some shift in brain functioning and that is it. I do not think the mystery goes away; instead of believing it, or looking for it, one eventually just lives it, not thinking about it so much. The philosopher Wittgenstein put it that the mystical is 'that the world is, not how it is'. These spiritual practices we engage in are for the purpose of closing the gap between faith, which is believing in something we do not experience (in other words, pretending to say we know something when we do not), and our experience. If that does happen eventually, believing and faith is redundant. I have always thought people have had it backwards: if you could actually know something, then you have faith, if you just believe something, you are acting on ignorance. The real question is, 'is there anything we can really know?' We tend to think this is possible. In the early 20th century Bertrand Russell was talking about mature sciences, that they do not deal with causality, they deal with relationships. I think this is like the idea behind meditation. Meditation gradually simplifies our experience of relationships until there are none left. Very much like how physicists attempt to discover how all things are related in a single equation, which would be a unified field theory. I always thought Maharishi, in using the word 'wholeness', was employing a cop-out to hide the religious nature behind TM, but in fact, I now think it is an elegantly simple and accurate description, much better than the metaphysical claptrap that accompanies spiritual movements. As for the scientific and mystical. It is like a recipe and the wonderful meal that it may become. You need both, but not necessarily at the same time, and they are not in conflict with one another, they both represent the same thing.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Sam Harris Book
I do not think the mystery goes away; instead of believing it, or looking for it, one eventually just lives it, not thinking about it so much... I have always thought people have had it backwards: if you could actually know something, then you have faith, if you just believe something, you are acting on ignorance. The real question is, 'is there anything we can really know?' We tend to think this is possible... As for the scientific and mystical. It is like a recipe and the wonderful meal that it may become. You need both, but not necessarily at the same time, and they are not in conflict with one another, they both represent the same thing. So very beautiful. Thank you so much for posting. Yes, to what Susan wrote. This is a keeper. From: Xenophaneros Anartaxius anartax...@yahoo.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, June 27, 2012 9:43 AM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Sam Harris Book --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Susan wayback71@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Xenophaneros Anartaxius anartaxius@ wrote: Sam Harris is writing a book, with the working title 'Waking Up: A Scientist Looks at Spirituality' due to be finished sometime near the end of the year. This one should be interesting. http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/look-into-my-eyes The video segment on Osho speaking on the link is a reminder of how especially young people can follow and adjust their their own beliefs to those of someone who really has only basic wisdom to offer, and combines that with being exotic, having an accent, and being a touch different or odd or provocative. Osho never blinked in the few minutes that I watched it!! Creepy, really. I will read this new book when it comes out, because this is the stuff I think about and care about - the science of those experiences. But a part of me misses the mystery of it all that went along with the sureness of faith. I have some trouble reconciling the two ways of looking at awakening - scientific and mystical. I think ignorance of the mind is where the bliss is. What I wish for is that on the other side of that understanding of exactly where and how our brains create spiritual experience, there is a Reality or Presence that causes the brain to behave in that way. That that Reality is the cause, not simply some shift in brain functioning and that is it. I do not think the mystery goes away; instead of believing it, or looking for it, one eventually just lives it, not thinking about it so much. The philosopher Wittgenstein put it that the mystical is 'that the world is, not how it is'. These spiritual practices we engage in are for the purpose of closing the gap between faith, which is believing in something we do not experience (in other words, pretending to say we know something when we do not), and our experience. If that does happen eventually, believing and faith is redundant. I have always thought people have had it backwards: if you could actually know something, then you have faith, if you just believe something, you are acting on ignorance. The real question is, 'is there anything we can really know?' We tend to think this is possible. In the early 20th century Bertrand Russell was talking about mature sciences, that they do not deal with causality, they deal with relationships. I think this is like the idea behind meditation. Meditation gradually simplifies our experience of relationships until there are none left. Very much like how physicists attempt to discover how all things are related in a single equation, which would be a unified field theory. I always thought Maharishi, in using the word 'wholeness', was employing a cop-out to hide the religious nature behind TM, but in fact, I now think it is an elegantly simple and accurate description, much better than the metaphysical claptrap that accompanies spiritual movements. As for the scientific and mystical. It is like a recipe and the wonderful meal that it may become. You need both, but not necessarily at the same time, and they are not in conflict with one another, they both represent the same thing.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Sam Harris Book
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, merudanda no_reply@... wrote: It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists. [Tractatus 6.44] and To view the world sub specie aeterni [from the viewpoint of eternity] is to view it as a whole - a limited whole. Feeling the world as a limited whole - it is this that is mystical. 6.45 There are, indeed, things that cannot be put into words. They make themselves manifest. They are what is mystical. 6.522 Ludwig Wittgenstein 1921 And... 6.54 My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.) He must surmount these propositions; then he sees the world rightly. 7 Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Xenophaneros Anartaxius anartaxius@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Susan wayback71@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Xenophaneros Anartaxius anartaxius@ wrote: Sam Harris is writing a book, with the working title 'Waking Up: A Scientist Looks at Spirituality' due to be finished sometime near the end of the year. This one should be interesting. http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/look-into-my-eyes The video segment on Osho speaking on the link is a reminder of how especially young people can follow and adjust their their own beliefs to those of someone who really has only basic wisdom to offer, and combines that with being exotic, having an accent, and being a touch different or odd or provocative. Osho never blinked in the few minutes that I watched it!! Creepy, really. I will read this new book when it comes out, because this is the stuff I think about and care about - the science of those experiences. But a part of me misses the mystery of it all that went along with the sureness of faith. I have some trouble reconciling the two ways of looking at awakening - scientific and mystical. I think ignorance of the mind is where the bliss is. What I wish for is that on the other side of that understanding of exactly where and how our brains create spiritual experience, there is a Reality or Presence that causes the brain to behave in that way. That that Reality is the cause, not simply some shift in brain functioning and that is it. I do not think the mystery goes away; instead of believing it, or looking for it, one eventually just lives it, not thinking about it so much. The philosopher Wittgenstein put it that the mystical is 'that the world is, not how it is'. These spiritual practices we engage in are for the purpose of closing the gap between faith, which is believing in something we do not experience (in other words, pretending to say we know something when we do not), and our experience. If that does happen eventually, believing and faith is redundant. I have always thought people have had it backwards: if you could actually know something, then you have faith, if you just believe something, you are acting on ignorance. The real question is, 'is there anything we can really know?' We tend to think this is possible. In the early 20th century Bertrand Russell was talking about mature sciences, that they do not deal with causality, they deal with relationships. I think this is like the idea behind meditation. Meditation gradually simplifies our experience of relationships until there are none left. Very much like how physicists attempt to discover how all things are related in a single equation, which would be a unified field theory. I always thought Maharishi, in using the word 'wholeness', was employing a cop-out to hide the religious nature behind TM, but in fact, I now think it is an elegantly simple and accurate description, much better than the metaphysical claptrap that accompanies spiritual movements. As for the scientific and mystical. It is like a recipe and the wonderful meal that it may become. You need both, but not necessarily at the same time, and they are not in conflict with one another, they both represent the same thing.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Sam Harris Book
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Xenophaneros Anartaxius anartaxius@... wrote: Better - I was pulling from my not always so great memory. Now all you have to do is post the original German. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, merudanda no_reply@ wrote: It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists. [Tractatus 6.44] Seems to sound quite a bit more...hmmm... convincing, in German: http://people.umass.edu/phil335-klement-2/tlp/tlp.html
[FairfieldLife] Re: Sam Harris Book
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, PaliGap compost1uk@... wrote: 7 Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57PWqFowq-4
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Sam Harris Book
On Jun 27, 2012, at 12:34 PM, merudanda wrote: It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists. [Tractatus 6.44] and To view the world sub specie aeterni [from the viewpoint of eternity] is to view it as a whole - a limited whole. Feeling the world as a limited whole - it is this that is mystical. 6.45 There are, indeed, things that cannot be put into words. They make themselves manifest. They are what is mystical. 6.522 Sweet quotes. I bet Robin could add some great ones - he used to be a big fan - perhaps still is.
