"A thinking mind cannot feel."

[Hammer of Los]

...

I don't think I can elucidate anyone as to anything. Sorry 'bout that.

It's a long story, far from over.

I think a lot.

All Owls Think a Lot.

I feel a lot too.

I'm a very sensitive guy.

I feel very sad and lonely this morning, for instance.

And worried and uncertain about what the future will bring.

So I'm thinkin' an' feelin'.

...

[Wombaticus Rex]

The actual article in question was a remarkably autistic affair. (Ran is kinda auspie himself.)

The tone reminds me of a few of the more functional clients I had back when I was working in the trenches of our fine mental health system, actually -- very distinctive objective/clinical hollowness with a terse sentence structure. Reads like the notes a good mechanic makes when they're doing an inspection on a tricky problem. Does not read like a persuasive essay, though...more like a postcard from someone's sad little island.

[Sounder]

Wombat wrote..

The actual article in question was a remarkably autistic affair. (Ran is kinda auspie himself.)

Yes.

Being between jobs and with my wife stranded on the East coast, I hope to express a few thoughts on recent experiences. We have moved three times in the last year and landed back near where we used to live, now in a cozy super-insulated house. It has 56-R in the ceiling and double wall construction with a very nice wood burning fireplace. Life is good. By not having an internet connection for a month and a half, it became easy to disconnect totally from cultural blather. As it is, I don’t do radio or TV because I find the sound of the voices to be quite irritating. Upon my return I noticed the ‘The Thinking Mind Cannot Feel’ thread and have wanted to add my two-cents, but find myself inhibited by the recognition of a lack of style in my attempts to create space for a certain class of ideas.

So I am going to try to reflect on the macrocosm through the microcosmic mirror of my family. I visited this weekend to lay floor, hang a double door and do trim in the living room of my brother’s house. I am the only sibling in my large family to move away from our hometown. I love the family and visit often but prefer to view their dysfunctionality from a distance and only in snippets because I do not go for the dramatic lifestyle very much. My family is probably like many others in its range and styles of dysfunctionality, and even more like a typical large Catholic family. Now we all have no religion, but we still live with its scars. I have come to feel that the secret of the Jesuits is that by creating intellectual pride, they serve to addict people to existing forms of understanding. On the maternal side there seems to be an amount of disambiguation toward dominant social constructs, from both the men and women in these families, while the paternal side is a mix of rebels and slavish adherents of social convention. This ‘noisy’ side of my family tree seems to have infected some of us with particularly obnoxious forms of knowitallism. I try to make my own element of knowitallism less noxious by engaging with others on their terms and only introduce outlier concepts to the degree measured by the interest of the other person. Another result of knowitallism is for talk to run ahead of doing.

For some folk this eventually turns their life into a total fiction where all talk is designed to support a personal identity that would otherwise reveal itself to be standing on shaky ground. (Mind you, often this fiction is very well informed and might contain many gems, if they can be separated from their falsity producing context.) The ability of some folk to steer conversation away from unpleasant truths seems almost artistic in its determination. Yet, here we remain, with dissonance ready to pop out at any moment, resulting from our ignoring signals from the heart.

The intellect has taken over the show, and its rationalizations and the sheer noise produced is really distracting from the natural beauty inherent in intellect.

They made the map while claiming the right to make the territory. Their ‘authority’ gives ‘unnamed bureaucrats in Brussels’ the right to define the proper expressions of being for the common man while ignoring ideas that life is about becoming rather than prescriptive notions of proper ways of being.

The western mind is nauseatingly delusional in its dreams of defining the proper nature of being for the population of the whole world. Rockefeller, Gates, et al could not get away their bullshit if our intellectual structures encouraged broad based thinking in preference to deferral to authority.

(Of course), it's not that the thinking mind cannot feel, however within the context of a vertical authority distribution system the mind works best, and 'gets ahead' by crafting every response in terms of establishing ones place in the 'pecking' order.

The authority granted to ‘scientists’ through Descartes works, in my opinion, was a ploy to bolster the authority of a failing and corrupt priesthood. That is, by splitting the material and the spiritual, God was placed far away, thus requiring ‘Priests’ as mediators between the common man and this far away God. Secularists ran with the concept because well hell, who does not want to be one of the big boys on the block?

In a healthy person or society intellect and feelings compliment each other but in this mutual blackmail society most feelings are fake and merely designed to ensure that person a spot on the vertical authority distribution system. Ya well, here’s a clue, you are at the bottom of that structure and might consider jumping off before your crash.



Damn, that did not turn out like I had hoped. The original point was never even made.

The point relates to the Geoffrey West talk at about the 33:30 minute mark where he points to ‘major change’ that must happen as the graph goes vertical.

http://youtu.be/DFFVSvAr7Wc

My knowitall element is willing to declare, without reservation, that this major change will involve the dismantling of the vertical authority distribution system that has created this mess, replacing it with a horizontal authority distribution system.

Then we will not only have ‘feelings’ but there is even a chance they might come served up with a dose of authenticity.

[vanlose kid]

...

The intellect has taken over the show, and its rationalizations and the sheer noise produced is really distracting from the natural beauty inherent in intellect...

...

that right there is a snapshot of the OP, if you ask me. (not that you would of course.) in the old days, by the intellect one meant the heart. ask Socrates.

...

The authority granted to ‘scientists’ through Descartes works, in my opinion, was a ploy to bolster the authority of a failing and corrupt priesthood. That is, by splitting the material and the spiritual, God was placed far away, thus requiring ‘Priests’ as mediators between the common man and this far away God. Secularists ran with the concept because well hell, who does not want to be one of the big boys on the block?

...

it's quite often these days hearing the rants of rationalists, materialists, and french enlightenmentalists, that i find myself wishin people would actually buy a copy of the Discourse and Meditations and read the thing. it's quite short and to the point and not at all what the rationalists make it out to be. quite the contrary, really. but people prefer the academic digest(ed) version. more palatable and in keeping with the mainstream self-congratulatory utopianism.

in sum, they read Descartes as if he were H. G Wells, or someone. horrific. it comes through clearly in what you've written, which is another reason why people do not bother to read Descartes. they think they already know what's in his work and what they think they know is pretty much what you've given in "precis".

what else? treat yourself, any one of you, to an unbiased reading of the Meditations. you'll see what i mean. i say this knowing it makes little difference, especially to a rationalist.

Descartes and Pascal have a lot more in common than most people are taught to think.

*

[vanlose kid]

adding St Augustine to that list. Plotinus's a bonus:

Augustine's Cogito Argument Pre-Dates Descartes' Cogito

I'd always thought that Descartes' Cogito argument, (the idea that even if he is doubting, he as a doubter must exist, or to put it in it's usual form 'I think therefore I am'), was original to him. I don't think I'm alone in that. In fact, as Richard Sorabji demonstrates in his recent book, Self: Ancient and Modern Insights about Individuality, Life, and Death, Augustine used almost exactly the same argument, and possibly Plotinus too before him (this is also noted in the Wikipedia article on the Cogito). So Descartes wasn't the first. And Augustine, like Descartes, even used the argument as a reponse to scepticism. Here is the Augustine's version that Sorabji cites (Sorabji gives a number of other places Augustine used a similar argument)

"But who will doubt that he lives, remembers, understands, wills, thinks, knows, and judges? For even if he doubts, he lives. If he doubts where his doubs come from, he remembers. If he doubts, he understands that he doubts. If he doubts, he wants to be certain. If he doubts, he thinks. If he doubts, he knows that he does not know. If he doubts, he judges that he ougth not rashly to give assent. So whoever acquires a doubt from any source ought not to doubt any of these things whose non-existence would mean that he could not entertain doubt about anything." (Augustine, On the Trinity 10.10.14 quoted in Richard Sorabji Self, 2006, p.219).

On the basis of the evidence here Descartes was a far superior stylist. And the first person expression of the idea in the Meditations is peculiarly seductive as a mode of writing. But it's interesting to learn that the Cogito idea predated him...

http://virtualphilosopher.com/2006/12/a ... _cogi.html

dare one say that rationalism/scientism's version of history is like Bugliosi on JFK? like Murdoch's SKY on the Premiership? revisionist shit?

there, i said it.

*

[Sounder]

Being that my relationship to Philosophy is somewhat casual I have no trouble accepting that the bit you seem to have issue with is simplistic. Anyway I love Descartes, he did incredible work to improve our general level of thinking. Yet effectively his work seems to have spurred on both materialists and idealists, who then use each other for target practice.

Descartes may well have been all for individual determination and other good things but the practical effect of a philosophy that asks for hard boundary conditions for objects, in order to produce a valid analysis, is the world we have today where success is measured by ones ability to manipulate objects.

What a person says and what later acolytes do with the material are often two different things, yes? Remember Jesus?

My bastardry of Descartes comes via Morris Berman and his books The Reenchantment of the World and Coming to our Senses, but I’m surprised to hear that this butchering of Descartes is similar to those ‘other’ thinkers, in that I thought that is what Morris is undermining.

I happen to have Discourse on Method, so reading that will be my assignment for the day.

[brainpanhandler]

Humility and honesty are virtues unsurpassed.

As for the advantage that others would derive from the communication of my thoughts, it could not be very great; because I have not yet so far prosecuted them as that much does not remain to be added before they can be applied to practice. And I think I may say without vanity, that if there is any one who can carry them out that length, it must be myself rather than another: not that there may not be in the world many minds incomparably superior to mine, but because one cannot so well seize a thing and make it one's own, when it has been learned from another, as when one has himself discovered it. And so true is this of the present subject that, though I have often explained some of my opinions to persons of much acuteness, who, whilst I was speaking, appeared to understand them very distinctly, yet, when they repeated them, I have observed that they almost always changed them to such an extent that I could no longer acknowledge them as mine. I am glad, by the way, to take this opportunity of requesting posterity never to believe on hearsay that anything has proceeded from me which has not been published by myself; and I am not at all astonished at the extravagances attributed to those ancient philosophers whose own writings we do not possess; whose thoughts, however, I do not on that account suppose to have been really absurd, seeing they were among the ablest men of their times, but only that these have been falsely represented to us. It is observable, accordingly, that scarcely in a single instance has any one of their disciples surpassed them; and I am quite sure that the most devoted of the present followers of Aristotle would think themselves happy if they had as much knowledge of nature as he possessed, were it even under the condition that they should never afterwards attain to higher. In this respect they are like the ivy which never strives to rise above the tree that sustains it, and which frequently even returns downwards when it has reached the top; for it seems to me that they also sink, in other words, render themselves less wise than they would be if they gave up study, who, not contented with knowing all that is intelligibly explained in their author, desire in addition to find in him the solution of many difficulties of which he says not a word, and never perhaps so much as thought. Their fashion of philosophizing, however, is well suited to persons whose abilities fall below mediocrity; for the obscurity of the distinctions and principles of which they make use enables them to speak of all things with as much confidence as if they really knew them, and to defend all that they say on any subject against the most subtle and skillful, without its being possible for any one to convict them of error. In this they seem to me to be like a blind man, who, in order to fight on equal terms with a person that sees, should have made him descend to the bottom of an intensely dark cave: and I may say that such persons have an interest in my refraining from publishing the principles of the philosophy of which I make use; for, since these are of a kind the simplest and most evident, I should, by publishing them, do much the same as if I were to throw open the windows, and allow the light of day to enter the cave into which the combatants had descended. But even superior men have no reason for any great anxiety to know these principles, for if what they desire is to be able to speak of all things, and to acquire a reputation for learning, they will gain their end more easily by remaining satisfied with the appearance of truth, which can be found without much difficulty in all sorts of matters, than by seeking the truth itself which unfolds itself but slowly and that only in some departments, while it obliges us, when we have to speak of others, freely to confess our ignorance. If, however, they prefer the knowledge of some few truths to the vanity of appearing ignorant of none, as such knowledge is undoubtedly much to be preferred, and, if they choose to follow a course similar to mine, they do not require for this that I should say anything more than I have already said in this discourse. For if they are capable of making greater advancement than I have made, they will much more be able of themselves to discover all that I believe myself to have found; since as I have never examined aught except in order, it is certain that what yet remains to be discovered is in itself more difficult and recondite, than that which I have already been enabled to find, and the gratification would be much less in learning it from me than in discovering it for themselves. Besides this, the habit which they will acquire, by seeking first what is easy, and then passing onward slowly and step by step to the more difficult, will benefit them more than all my instructions. Thus, in my own case, I am persuaded that if I had been taught from my youth all the truths of which I have since sought out demonstrations, and had thus learned them without labour, I should never, perhaps, have known any beyond these; at least, I should never have acquired the habit and the facility which I think I possess in always discovering new truths in proportion as I give myself to the search. And, in a single word, if there is any work in the world which cannot be so well finished by another as by him who has commenced it, it is that at which I labour.

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/59/59-h/59-h.htm

[Sounder]

Sounder wrote:...

The intellect has taken over the show, and its rationalizations and the sheer noise produced is really distracting from the natural beauty inherent in intellect...

...

vanlose kid wrote...
that right there is a snapshot of the OP, if you ask me. (not that you would of course.) in the old days, by the intellect one meant the heart. ask Socrates.

I do not see that because the author has his polarity between the categories while I take the polarity as being within each category. But now in culture much of what passes for intellect has become negative and expressed in service to this corrupt power structure. The western cannon are at the core of white privilege and coercion dressed up as altruism.

vanlose kid wrote...
in sum, they read Descartes as if he were H. G Wells, or someone. horrific. it comes through clearly in what you've written, which is another reason why people do not bother to read Descartes. they think they already know what's in his work and what they think they know is pretty much what you've given in "precis".

(added) But I’m not talking about what Descartes wrote, I talking about how his work was co-opted by others with a different agenda. It is always the best things that are targets of corruption.

Well see, there you go; you have no obligation to consider the possibility of substance in any words I may write. No need then to consider the primary thesis, that because of the internal contradictions it is forced to maintain, (where our feelings are twisted by expediency into perverse thought bubbles ((often resulting in ‘rebels’ being enforcers of conformity)), so yes, our vertical authority distribution system will fall.

especially to a rationalist.

Speak plainly man. Do you consider me to be a rationalist? If so why?

[Sounder]

There is an elephant in the room, and it is a white elephant. We have Western exceptionalism so deeply programmed into our unconsciousness that we glom on to any ‘positive’ aspect of our exceptionalism so that we can better ignore all the death and mayhem that this coercive methodology employs. Most people make their ‘bones’ in service to this authority structure. They are not ‘agents’, they are only unhappy pawns forever running away from the shadows.

History produces a constant stream of examples of distasteful people finding ways for ‘others’ to pay the price for their misdeeds. This is accomplished ALWAYS by playing on simple emotional triggers that are culturally programmed into the general population.

While simply noting older style triggers such as heresy, patriotism, bigotry, false flags and the like, my interest is in triggers designed to corral ‘liberals’ into normative thinking. CFTC’s and the ozone hole is one fine example. So while everyone that reads this site knows of the duplicitous details of this and many other examples, that are nothing more than money grubbing by a well entrenched power structure, yet we still find ever more modern ways to express our unconscious longing for authority. Ah, the promise of chemical agriculture, antibiotics, vaccines, fluoride and the like. Wow, now we can save the world and feed those poor starving people in Africa! Our hubris knows no bounds.

The trick of any ‘controller’ is to lock the victim into the acceptance of a false premise. Examples range from assassins to witch hunters to Dentists putting mercury fillings in their client’s mouth to Penn and Teller. Many intellectuals were caught up by the Marxist class war against peasants that was dressed up as being a class war against the rich, and it is no wonder that neo-cons still run the policy making roost. With manipulation being the rule, those that manipulate best get to rule. The commitment to shallow ideas dressed up as profound and crucial insights will of course pervert ones feelings about any potential substance within counterfactual evidence that may be presented. Yet it is easy to move disturbing dialogue back towards elements that support the dominant narrative, what with our need to be saved from so many boogie men. (Because credibility is naturally afforded to an adept intellect that can ‘play’ with the current forms of understanding that motivate their games.)

A new set of ‘Priests’ are trying to set themselves up, complete with tribute to be paid in the form of carbon tax. This could not happen except for a small artifact of the western canon that assumes that élites from the ‘west’ are best able to define what are to be the ‘proper’ expressions of being for the common man. They are of course, batshit crazy and ought to learn to live their own lives properly, (Oh and here’s a tip as an aside, for all our outrage about pederasts, giving them infinite authority over the lives of many many people seems like an odd way to get them to stop buggering young children.) and stop telling the rest of us about how the world is going to end unless we build this brand new layer of costs into every transaction. I guess since war, destabilizing other nations, pimping unnecessary pharmaceuticals, vaccines, pesticides, killer seeds and unpayable debt does not already burden future generations enough. But shit, that is old news, now we are going to 'save the world' by turning this here carbon knob back towards off.

I find it hard to believe that so few are willing to call out this double bind device for what it is.

Ben d, perhaps 82-28 and a few other quiet folk seem to be among the only ones left here that are clear on nature of this scam.

‘A thinking mind cannot feel’ or at least is greatly compromised, inside the context of a vertical authority distribution system.

In a Horizontal authority distribution system however we will use our intellects to serve each other rather than using them to coerce each other.

What manner of becoming seems more appealing, one with promises of utopia if we first just fill in these little details? An ends based mentality, so to speak, where improper behavior is tolerated because it was only done in service to a greater good, after all. Contrast this with an outlook where ‘Life’ is found in becoming.

Where is being anyway? All I see is becoming.


This forum is not deserving of a white people pro-tips thread.

[Iamwhomiam]

...

Meditating does actually effect change in the world.

Astrology was a bridge too far for me.
I was eager for new stories, but they had to be stories I could
believe in, or at least such that I could suspend disbelief.
‘Let’s go back to the physical side.’ But I stopped myself:
‘Or are you telling me it’s entirely psychosomatic?’
A slow smile spread across the doctor’s face. ‘That’s not a
word we have much use for, Mr Parks.’
I looked at him.
‘You only say psychosomatic,’ his wife explained, ‘if you
think that body and mind are ever separate.’

The psychosomatic origin of illness is proven.

...

I think I might have passed on that one a couple of times while dreaming of other threads or something. Because it looks kind of familiar. And also because I'm sure this isn't the first time I've asked myself: "Really? Its origin has? How?"

But IIRC, then echo answers "Ow," and that's about it. Because I don't actually even know enough about it to know what to ask. Elucidation would be welcome, however.

I'll try. but talking about vanilla ice cream is not, I assure you, as good as actually tasting it yourself. (or for vanilla haters, as bad) Meditation I'm referring to here.

Here goes... Buddhists believe all of our physical world is an illusion, a self-created illusion created by your mind, with your thoughts. Therefore all illness too, is self-created. Illness is physical.

But for those who are not Buddhist and do not share their views or beliefs, our 'moods' are brought about by emotions (reactions to our thoughts or physical sensations) which btw, I readily demonstrated to all last night when venting about Ben's lack of cooperation. The worse we think we feel, the worse we will feel. Which throws our bodily system and its function out of balance; the balance necessary to maintain wellness. Just my opinion and nothing more.

TM has been shown to lower crime rates in practitioners areas.

[General Patton]

Transcendental meditation studies are usually bad/poorly controlled. You have to try really hard to find one where that isn't the case. They just have a good hype machine.

Feel free to post one so I can destroy it for you.

[Iamwhomiam]

Nice to see you've returned, Sounder. Sorry to hear of your wife's forced separation.

While I appreciate your expressing your view, I do disagree with you about a carbon tax being a scam. Carbon credit trading I'd agree is a scam.

No environmentalist believes any Utopian society is at all possible.

What do you suggest then, that we do to reduce pollution?

Seems to me that a lot of people have quit smoking cigarettes not because of their negative health effects, but because they've become quite expensive. Sometimes you need to hurt someone's pocketbook if you want to change their behavior. How do you suggest we effect such a change to prevent our doom? Or do you feel its all "liberal propaganda" and the only doom we can expect is our own unavoidable death?

But thanks for dropping by. It's always good to hear from a libertarian. Hope you'll stick around to keep reminding me how I've been wasting my life.

I'm sure the trim you used was self-harvested and dried for a year or so before you hand milled it. I imagine the doors must have been difficult to manage though. All that planing! And of course you used animal-gut glues. Only using handcrafted pegs for fasteners?

Maybe it's time to practice what you preach.

[Iamwhomiam]

Sheesh! Always the General! Wanting to destroy things!

I should have said I had heard of such studies

[Iamwhomiam]

Wintler, I think the fellow is truly mentally ill. While I don't disagree with much that he says, he seems to be quite confused and contradictory. For example, from his piece entitled All Environmentalism in Industrial Society is Pseudo Environmentalism:

"If we want to save the remaining environment we must minimize the things that are destroying environment."

"People who pretend they are saving environment in Industrial Society are even more insane, abnormal and criminal than people who are destroying the environment."

"It is impossible to save environment in Industrial Society because..."

What he's calling for is the complete collapse of society; to become again Hunter-Gatherers, and for the deaths of billions.

Edited to add: Environmentalists do what they can to minimize harm from industrial processes. And we eliminate sources of pollution whenever and wherever possible. We're finding safer chemicals and processes and encourage the adoption of the Precautionary Principle and Zero Waste practices.

[Sounder]

Great, another white boy discounting operation. Is there some sale I'm missing?

Iamwhomiam wrote…

Nice to see you've returned, Sounder. Sorry to hear of your wife's forced separation

.

It does not engender trust for dialogue partners to say things that they do not mean.

Ah well, I suppose that is old fashioned anyway, so never mind.

I do disagree with you about a carbon tax being a scam. Carbon credit trading I'd agree is a scam.

So then, it sounds like you feel that while a ‘carbon tax’ is necessary and not a scam carbon credit trading is a scam? Is there a difference between the two? Does the one feed the masses while the other merely feeds traders bank accounts? Do you really not see a problem in those two sentences?

No environmentalist believes any Utopian society is at all possible.

Because utopianism so obviously robs individuals of self determination, it has become less fashionable to identify as such. Now we just act as if the ends justify the means while we make expediency the new ‘proper’ measure of truth.

The common ploy of religionists (anything that requires strong belief commitments) of every stripe is to promise paradise later in exchange for a few sacrifices now. Or, we can only build a better world if we focus on what ‘really’ matters. Funny thing is though, it is only a narrow class of people that have the juice to be heard above the din that we call society, and these folk seem more interested in having more money shoveled their way than their interest in the betterment of society.

What do you suggest then, that we do to reduce pollution?

Dismantle the vertical authority distribution system that is the natural result of western exceptionalism.

Seems to me that a lot of people have quit smoking cigarettes not because of their negative health effects, but because they've become quite expensive. Sometimes you need to hurt someone's pocketbook if you want to change their behavior. How do you suggest we effect such a change to prevent our doom? Or do you feel its all "liberal propaganda" and the only doom we can expect is our own unavoidable death?

(add on edit) Nice show of commitment to the idea that expediency is the best measure of Truth. Well done. I guess AGW must be 'true' then. Wow this feels great, I just love having my mind twisted up into a pretzel.
Prevent our doom? Wow and thanks for providing my options so conveniently. Its all liberal propaganda therefore the only doom to be had is our own unavoidable death?

Anyway, no it’s not ‘liberal propaganda’, its fascist propaganda dressed up as liberal propaganda. Remember eugenics anyone, no of course not, who wants to remember the faux-progressive element in that movement.

But thanks for dropping by. It's always good to hear from a libertarian. Hope you'll stick around to keep reminding me how I've been wasting my life.

Yes I think everybody should live on labels, better than three meals a day.

No I don’t think you are wasting your life, it’s just that you have a lot to learn about the false assumptions that drive our intellectual structures.(2nd edit add) I salute activists of many stripes, we need you. At the same time I am suggesting that the best things in us are the exact things that shitheads try to monetize and turn toward different ends. If we are not aware of this, then activism is bound to become another impotent appendage on this rotting corpse of exceptionalism. You know, like the Sierra Club or WWF. And yes I do feel that people like you do any and everything you can to discount your own part in enabling psychopathic actors to have their way. Your purpose in life is to learn. You have a lot to learn so you have great purpose.

I trust that folks here at least have an inkling of the difference between conditioning and education.

I'm sure the trim you used was self-harvested and dried for a year or so before you hand milled it. I imagine the doors must have been difficult to manage though. All that planing! And of course you used animal-gut glues. Only using handcrafted pegs for fasteners?

Maybe it's time to practice what you preach.

Hey sure, now that will pass just fine as critical thinking around here.

Maybe you could throw in some guilt by association by implying connections between my thoughts and some other 'really' crazy person.

Hell, one can never build too many firewalls.