• universeness
    6.3k

    I hope I can always take the 'fair and balanced,' approach towards others that you have demonstrated towards me since our small earlier spat.
  • Tom Storm
    8.3k
    No worries and thanks for being generous.

    Back to wisdom.

    It can be very problematic indeed if applied incorrectly to a nefarious influential individual.
    Those who labeled and still label Donal Trump wise caused and continue to cause many 'problems.'
    universeness

    So the issue of wisdom is a complex one and some dolts have been described as wise, that's for sure. I sometimes hope to acquire wisdom but I often wonder if I am more or less wise than I was 20 years ago. In philosophy wisdom seems to be associated with insight but there are several usages of the word. I'm not sure insight increases with age, but experience does bring with it certain capabilities. Some are also diminished.

    Nietzsche wrote - 'There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy.' That got me thinking about how we often feel or intuit insights about the world before we are able to verbalise them.
  • universeness
    6.3k
    Nietzsche wrote - 'There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy.' That got me thinking about how we often feel or intuit insights about the world before we are able to verbalise them.Tom Storm

    Ok, It would be great to travel from the position you cite here from Nietzche, but I want to highlight the word 'Profound,' again as part of the analysis/critique. It's best to try to move from what I have personally experienced and can exemplify in comparison with your Nietzche quote.

    Carl Sagan (in an episode of COSMOS) said, 'the total number of stars in the universe is greater than all the grains of sand on all the beaches of the planet Earth.' Later I also heard various Cosmologists say 'there are more planets in the universe than there are grains of sand on Earth.'
    This is an example of an 'item of knowledge,' that I considered 'profound.'
    It was literally a 'life-changing,' moment for me. I was 15 and a bit of a waster, not much interested in school. The next day I went to school I started to listen to my teachers more than I ever had before.
    I got more and more enhancements when I started to read Sagan's books. This is where I would say the profound statement I mentioned above became 'connected,' to what I would call 'wisdom,' from Sagan.
    The 'planets,' statement also confused me as I felt so insignificant and unimportant once I conceived how vast the Universe was but Sagans words told me that perhaps we are so unique and so individually important to the Universe as we can give it meaning. He was not saying so in an arrogant way but with great humility and care so as not to suggest the Universe had no value or meaning without us in particular and that other species on or/and beyond the Earth could be a fundamental part of the 'meaning' and 'significance,' of the Universe. This to me was 'wisdom' indeed and got me 'hooked.' I have wanted more ever since.

    Is Nietzche comparing what I have said above, to the automatic functionality of my body?
    My internal systems, that fight hard to keep me maintained and alive. My nervous system, my auto immune system etc etc. If that is what he is suggesting then my response would be that I do marvel at the workings of my physical body but they don't invoke the same wonder for me, as the musings of human consciousness.

    Yes, I often fail to find the words to convey my own feelings or intuitive insights about my own existence and life journey to others. I am also too interested in talking compared to listening to others. One of my priorities is to improve this but I suffer the same impatience with others that some have with me as a TPF interloper who does not have the stored and easily accessed information on academic philosophy that many members of this site do have. I think however I can improve my attempts to verbalise my positions by exchanging with others on sites such as TPF. I think that is perhaps a goal that every member/contributor here has.
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