You’re like a used car salesmen that’s trying to sell a car that’s been cobbled together from used parts. — praxis

I think that‘s not necessarily a bad thing, if you’re up front about that fact, and put together something new and worthwhile out of the old parts. If you can take a bunch of pieces of old things, tweak and modify them, and put them together in an interesting new way, maybe glued together with a few novel parts of your own, that is still a worthwhile creative act.

And honestly, maybe better in a lot of ways than completely reinventing the wheel... and all the other parts too.

Sure, but to me it doesn’t look like there’s much, if any, concern for... I’ll just say discovery. He uses persuasive tactics to sell “his” ideas. Tactics which are dishonest. That’s what salesman do, not discoverers.

Quite, I saw a steam engine made out of an old door knob the other day, on the antiques roadshow. The maker had spent hundreds of hours engineering all the miniature parts required. It ran on a spoonful of water and a thimble full of meths. It was treated with reverence and was quite valuable.

Welcome back and I hope you're ok.

That sounds pretty cool.

And thanks, I'm feeling pretty good today. :-)

I saw a steam engine made out of an old door knob the other day, on the antiques roadshow. The maker had spent hundreds of hours engineering all the miniature parts required. It ran on a spoonful of water and a thimble full of meths. It was treated with reverence and was quite valuable. — Punshhh

Though whimsically dramatic, at least my Frankenstein analogy offers the dignity of power and not the indignity of being reduced to a cherished toy.

:up:

Thank you for asking ) It took me 57 years to figure out what to say, during the last decade of which I made a fool of myself quite a bit on this and the prior forum.

When I suddenly figured it out, it took me about 3 weeks to write 45,000 words on it, and three years virutally comatose to recover from that. Now I'm fixing it, and I came back here to share bits of it.

This time, I dont feel like such a fool any more. I see people suffering or in trouble. Often I identify with it and can say something to help. And there are still solipsists, nihilists, and evangelicals alienating themselves from other people. Mostly they think other people alienate them, but its really the other way around in my opinion.

"Heaven starts right now. Maybe it continues in the afterlife, or maybe not. We'll only know for sure after we pass away. Meanwhile, heaven starts right now. Heaven always starts right now.'

Other forums got too political and depraved. Low brow I guess. Other than that to try and be around folks who really think and have something useful to say. Like how things used to be. A while back Id've said 'to be smarter' or to make wiser choices that will benefit me and whatever I'm doing at that moment. As religious as I've become I consider most of that much less important now. For me it's like seeing a blackboard with a complicated equation on it. You kind of just want to be able to understand it.

I just like smart people I guess.

Don’t go think’n that with all your fancy words and learn’n that ya ain’t one of them filostines.

We are here to find like minded people. Who else can you talk openly about the things going on in your head?

I’m only superficially familiar with with Whitehead. What neologisms did he coin?

I’m only superficially familiar with with Whitehead. What neologisms did he coin? — Pfhorrest

‘Concrescence’, ‘epochal process’, and ‘prehension’ were all terms coined by Whitehead which, to my knowledge, were not previously used in the sense that he employed them. Concrescence is a biological term referring to teeth, prehension is another biological term referring to the grasping capacity of the thumb and forefinger, and epochal refers to distinguishably large periods of history. Like Gnomon’s writing, I agree with many of the ideas behind Whitehead’s process philosophy. I think it’s a shame the neologisms have prevented a wider reading of his work.

I can’t speak for concrescence, but prehension and epochal make perfect sense to me without having heard them before, just based on their roots.

I'm here because I personally like to discuss and share ideas with people. It's also currently getting my mind off the coronavirus and the lockdown. I try to stay busy with something to avoid another thing usually. It's like my coping mechanism.

Good, for you. I plan to join a suicide hotline sometime soon, sorry, as an operator.

What is making you want to end your life? But, yes, try the hotline and just seek to talk in general. Life is beautiful and worth living. You only get it once. It's not like a video game where you die and can restart over and over again. In real life you usually get one shot and if it doesn't work then do something else that works other than giving up.

*As an operator* not, a *patient*.

Well, that's a relief! Thanks for the clarification. It's a good thing to help people who are struggling in that way. What made you want to do this specific job if I may ask?

Well, that's a relief! Thanks for the clarification. It's a good thing to help people who are struggling in that way. What made you want to do this specific job if I may ask? — Julia

I find extreme comfort in helping other people. I can't put any other way.

It's a choice more than anything. I can choose to be a narcissistic sociopathic Stoic, but, I'm done with that.

Good choice, and glad to hear you’re making sure efforts to help other people. I expect that that will make your own life feel more meaningful and worth living too.

I can’t speak for concrescence, but prehension and epochal make perfect sense to me without having heard them before, just based on their roots. — Pfhorrest

They make sense to me, too. But I’m thinking we’re already on the other side of the paradigm shift in many ways. To many readers, Whitehead’s philosophy feels like they have to learn a new language before they can follow his thinking, because the language he uses reflects his shifted perspective, rather than explaining how he got there. It loses touch with the old paradigm, which I’ve found is surprisingly easy to do.

Imagine being at the edge of a dark expanse, and someone’s calling to you from the darkness. They’re telling you all the reasons why you’re on the wrong side, but you can’t see where they are or how they got across. Do you follow the voice into the darkness, or ask for more information? If you can’t understand what their instructions mean from where you are, does it matter whether or not you agree that you’re on the wrong side? Do you move forward, stay where you are, or ignore them and try to find your own way across?

The main issues that I think praxis might have with your theory (and I don’t want to assume here, only attempt to translate into something less personal) may have to do with the gap in your explanation at this level, which I’m afraid isn’t convincingly ‘filled’ for me, even by Blog 74. — Possibility

I haven’t read anything about his theory, being the filthy philistine that I am. It’s curious that he claims to have resolved the rift between idealism and materialism and yet says himself “I favor Idealism.”

I is here and you are there.

I is something to you and and you are nothing consciousness-wise.

What is we?

Perhaps worth study.

"I got interested in philosophy because I had broad academic interests in lots of topics ... physics ... economics ... metaphysics ... ethics ... so when I eventually found philosophy that seemed like it, the core field with connections to all the other fields ... getting a better and more detailed understanding of that big picture of philosophy as a whole, and its relation to other fields, was the most interesting part of studying philosophy."


So you've approached philosophy with the same intellectual rigor that you'd use to approach any other academic discipline, and have sought to find in philosophy a "big picture" which integrates it with other disciplines, if I understand you correctly. Perhaps that's commendable, and it's certainly how philosophy's been approached since way back when.

But you also said you're not finding philosophy much fun any more, and actually I'm not surprised. Your approach seems to treat it just as another academic discipline (correct me if I err). Academia can easily rob us of spontaneity, freshness, and fun. Consider a scientist whose whole world exists under a microscope. When he finally makes it out of his lab each day, he fails to notice the simple beauty of nature around him - the warm sunshine, the flowers - because he's so caught up in his intellectual deliberations.

Most people never see the sun, not really. They see a radiant disc in the sky and label it, dismissively, as "the sun". They don't really see it. Not with the freshness and wonder of a young child, anyway.


" ... what is it that constitutes your interest in philosophy, such that you seek out a forum on the topic?"

My interest in philosophy is directly connected with awe and wonder. Awe and wonder at the miracle of my own being, the miracle of consciousness. It's rapt meditation around that most fundamental of questions: "Who am I?", without any attendant need to intellectualise that question. It's the realisation that intellectual pursuits ultimately get me nowhere, when it comes to that deeper journey into the nature of Self.

It's the realisation that "of making many books there is no end, and much study is wearisome to the flesh." (Ecclesiastes 12:12). It's the realisation, when I move beyond intellectual positioning, of "the peace that passes understanding" (Philippians 4:7). (I hold no particular religious convictions, but find much wisdom in scripture.) It's the contemplation of that still, quiet centre which is the essence of my being.

Academia can easily rob us of spontaneity, freshness, and fun. — Iamthatiam

It's not academia that has made it un-fun. I had a great time studying philosophy at university. It's the inability to find a continuation of that same atmosphere that I enjoyed there somewhere outside of there that has made it un-fun.

I want to elaborate more on why, but I fear that it will not be a fun experience to do so here.

I can’t speak for concrescence, but prehension and epochal make perfect sense to me without having heard them before, just based on their roots. — Pfhorrest

"Concrescence" for Whitehead, if i am not mistaken, refers to the result of becoming concrete.

Consciousness creates the illusion of change by percieving the unchanging forms in sequence, like the illusion of motion created in viewing a film strip. — praxis

:up: :joke:

Have you tried writing a post on the topic yourself? (I tend to follow a very narrow range of threads so I may well have missed it). — Isaac

I did now, here:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/8303/the-structure-of-philosophy

Eric
Hi! I believe we know we are here when we realize we all are an individualization of the infinite, so each one has to select who he or she actually is in his or her own point of view. And there is a lot to talk about that. Then, we must be free of the cultural clichés, whose long mental influence inhibits the person inactivating his or her biophilic mental vibrations in the creation of an ageless, completely healthy, nonmortal, invulnerable body. Therefore all the cells & organic fluids are 100% renovated in a short period of the so called earth's days. Also a positive abundance of conditions & items start surrounding the person and his or her closed ones. The healing power gradually changes for the good of the neighboring environment of all expressions of life, producing a better world around. Do you agree with this experience?