I like this poem! 8-)

It's really not of any import to me that you won't explain yourself; so nothing to deal with.

And the name's John, not Yon.

'Yon' reminds me of an electrician I used to know called Don Young; whom I nicknamed 'Yon Dung'.

I read electrician as erection. I guess you'd have called him Yonder Dong, then, :P

I don't. Bitter and sarcastic. (Just took my dog to the dog wash.)

Both of my past cats showed symptoms of stress as in death agony when they got ill and died. One died slowly of kidney failure, and about a year later the other died more quickly of heart failure. Death agony amounts to a kind of awareness of one's forthcoming death.

There was a really poignant story published about 4 years ago, about some high-flying academic who adopted a chimp and raised it as a human, convinced he could teach it language. He used to dress it and gave it meals at the table with his own children. After a few years he was getting nowhere and he lost interest. The poor creature ended up back in a lab in the midwest, with all these other lab animals. When a journalist found out, he went and saw him, the chimp was frantically signing, as if to say 'get me out of here'. He died not long after, it was a very sad story. — Wayfarer

In case this is still of interested …

Chimps can be the most violent lesser animal I know of. Last thing anyone would want to do is live with one.

I was thinking more in terms of Koko the gorilla and Kanzi the bonobo (benevolent species for the most part). These three youtube videos aren’t exactly philosophically minded, but they illustrate apes’ ability to understand language.

“A conversation with Koko”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNuZ4OE6vCk (I think this is a trailer for a documentary; Koko knows sign language)
“Kanzi and novel sentences”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Dhc2zePJFE

Kanzi communicates with pictorial words, not sign language, e.g.:
“Kanzi’s 1st phone call”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJ_3l1z5r0s

It was 'project Nim' I was remembering. The sequence with Kanzi is interesting, he definitely seems to 'get it'. I think apes definitely have some rudimentary symbolic thinking ability, but I'm always a bit dismayed that this is regarded as being hugely significant. I mean, it makes sense from the viewpoint of evolutionary biology. But h. sapiens has crossed a threshold and I don't know if I see it as a continuum.

I’m aware of the Nim project and of his biting of assistant’s faces, etc. I'd say that chimps will do things in times of war amongst themselves that the most torturous human could hardly conceive—but, then again, humans have more imagination, as our history evidences.

Just so it’s said, there are plenty of theistic beliefs that don’t view an evolutionary continuum of life as contradictory to spirit. Most nowadays are aboriginal, but not all. It’s not a matter of denying that humans are vastly greater in degree of emotion and intelligence; it’s a matter of not divorcing being a human from nature on a metaphysical level. Oddly enough, this metaphysical division is often enough made even by atheists; Dawkins as only one example. Myself, I find that there is a continuum.

Still, my point was that it’s possible to try to teach apes such as Kanzi and Koko terms for the concepts of life and death. They already hold concepts of self. Then to ask and see if there is awareness of one’s own mortality. It would be disheartening if it were ever attempted, akin to asking a four-year-old if they’re aware that they will someday die. Only that apes have a great deal more strength if they get upset or dismayed. Not something I endorse. But it is possible to attempt.

Yon Dong then I guess; no need for the der; gratuitously obvious and doesn't rhyme with 'Don'. But then 'dong' doesn't rhyme with 'Young'...so...no... in any case he wasn't really a dick, he was more of a turd...

Life is hollow without love. Were this not true, then I'd have long ago rolled back over and into the grave from whence I came. — Heister Eggcart

Okay but why do you think love is in short supply?

I don't get this joke. He fucked God? His hand? dafuq? — Heister Eggcart

fuck bitches — Heister Eggcart

Why God or his hand when the bit that I quoted you on spoke about bitches?

I think it's a tongue-in-cheek corrective to the human tendency to believe in anthropomorphizations. What, don't you wash your dog at home?

For that reason, a central belief of Buddhists is that being born as a human is both very rare and extremely fortunate, because only in the human realm can you hear and practice the teachings. — Wayfarer

This is nothing but anthropomorphism if you ask me, and definitely not "central" in my humble opinion.

That's why it has to be interpreted carefully! If you read the early texts, the unique station of the Buddha is precisely transcendence of samsara, meaning, escape from the cycle of continued re-birth. This is stated precisely, dogmaticaly, and unequivocally.

According to Buddhist mythology, beings are continuously and unwillingly born into the six realms of existence. (This is where there is a strong parallel with Schopenhauer's 'Will' and the Buddhist 'tṛṣṇā', the 'thirst' or 'craving' which 'drives' the wheel of life-and-death.)

In the early schools, the difference between the life of ordinary mortals and that of the Buddha was posed as an absolute duality, with nothing whatever in common. It was one of the doctrinal innovations associated with the beginning of Mahāyāna that introduced the idea that they're not really separate realms, but the same realm seen from completely different perspectives. In a memorable aphorism, 'samsara is Nirvāṇa grasped, Nirvāṇa is samsara released'. It also introduced the idea of the bodhisattva, one who can be re-born voluntarily for the benefit of all beings, rather than 'escaping' into Nirvāṇa for once and for all. (Scholars see a possible cross-cultural influence between Buddhism and Christianity, via the silk road, in such ideas.) — Wayfarer

Yes but the non-duality of Samsara and Nirvana is clear - so I'm asking you, conceptually, how is it possible to speak of transcendence? Do you simply mean a transcendence of one perspective to another? The transcendence from ignorance to understanding?

Again, you say 'merely', as if 'understanding reality' is a trivial matter. Who, really, 'understands reality'? — Wayfarer

It's "merely" understanding reality because there is no transcendent there. Merely refers to the fact that there is nothing more than that.

With the rational intellect we understand the outer, with the intuitive intellect we understand the inner. The outer is the immanent in the sense that it is within sense experience; the inner is the transcendent in the sense that it is beyond both sense experience and rationally discursive understanding.

So the transcendent movement is not a movement upwards, but a movement inwards.

With the rational intellect we understand the outer, with the intuitive intellect we understand the inner. The outer is the immanent in the sense that it is within sense experience; the inner is the transcendent in the sense that it is both beyond sense experience and rationally discursive understanding.

So the transcendent movement is not a movement upwards, but a movement inwards. — John

Why is it transcendent? Transcendent is an ontological category, you know that right?

Since for me ontology is phenomenology, that is an existential category, and since the transcendent experience is phenomenologically and existentially different than and beyond the merely sensory/ rational experience, then, yes, no problem.

beyond the merely sensory/ rational experience, then, yes, no problem. — John

In what sense is it "beyond" sensory/rational experience? Is it beyond them in the same sense that taste is beyond sight?

No, it's simply a different order of experience. Read the mystics and you might get the idea.

No, it's simply a different order of experience. Read the mystics and you might get the idea. — John

I have read the mystics, doesn't seem to help. And either way that is irrelevant to the conversation I'm seeking to have with you now. So tell me then - what does "different order of experience" mean?

It means the experience cannot be parsed in terms of the ordered categories that belong to sensory experience. It has more in common with the less determinate sensory experience of touch, taste, sound and scent, I guess. But humans are predominately visually oriented when it comes to experience as understood empirically. The thing about sensory experience, though, however determinate it might be, is that it is understood to have its source in something empirically determinable, at least in principle. That's why it is an experience of the merely immanent.

With transcendent experience the source is not clear. This is also why aesthetic experience; of art, poetry and music for example is by no means a purely sensory, immanent matter. Aesthetic experience is spiritual as well as merely sensual; it has a mysterious, transcendental dimension.

It means the experience cannot be parsed in terms of the ordered categories that belong to sensory experience. It has more in common with the less determinate sensory experience of touch, taste, sound and scent, I guess. But humans are predominately visually oriented when it comes to experience as understood empirically. The thing about sensory experience, though, however determinate it might be, is that it is understood to have its source in something empirically determinable, at least in principle. That's why it is an experience of the merely immanent.

With transcendent experience the source is not clear. This is also why aesthetic experience; of art, poetry and music for example is by no means a purely sensory, immanent matter. Aesthetic experience is spiritual as well as merely sensual; it has a mysterious, transcendental dimension. — John

But I don't see why that requires a transcendental dimension, maybe you can illustrate it for me. So you perceive the transcendent with the intuitive intellect. That means the intuitive intellect is just what the rational intellect is for rational structures and what sense experience is for the objects of the senses. So in what sense is the transcendent a separate, instead of merely different, side of existence?

Can we imagine any way in which such a thought could occur to a non-linguistic being? — John

Mentalese.

Okay but why do you think love is in short supply? — Agustino

Because I suffer more than I love or am loved.

Why God or his hand when the bit that I quoted you on spoke about bitches? — Agustino

Wait, which one, or both, of Aquinas and Augustine fucked bitches?

Wait, which one, or both, of Aquinas and Augustine fucked bitches? — Heister Eggcart

Only Augustine.

Because I suffer more than I love or am loved. — Heister Eggcart

So then it's about you - it's not really a universal situation? I mean it isn't necessarily so, or?

Only Augustine. — Agustino

I wasn't aware he directly fucked bitches, only that he lived a seedy lifestyle. I suppose one does suggest the other...

So then it's about you - it's not really a universal situation? — Agustino

I have no doubts about the rarity of love in the world. I believe it was Schopenhauer who said that if one finds a truth within themselves, then they've found the truth at the heart of the world. Most things I have doubts about, so I don't assert that they're truths. One of these is God, say. *shrug* I don't think I wrote this out very clearly, but it is what it is.

I wasn't aware he directly fucked bitches, only that he lived a seedy lifestyle. I suppose one does suggest the other... — Heister Eggcart

Well I took your saying "fuck bitches" as equivalent to simply having sex with women. Augustine didn't actually fuck prostitutes. He fucked bitches though >:O - more specifically only one bitch got that honour - and many times at that :P

I have no doubts about the rarity of love in the world. I believe it was Schopenhauer who said that if one finds a truth within themselves, then they've found the truth at the heart of the world. — Heister Eggcart

Hmmm - okay but don't you think it would also be relevant to look at other people and how they also relate to the world? I mean Schopenhauer also did that - his analysis in WWR is from doing both.

That's why I asked you what you think about a few other men, who didn't experience life the same way you do - who, for example, enlarged their own love and this enabled them to disagree that love is in short supply. I do agree that many people are unloving but it's kind of what you'd expect. Everything excellent is as difficult as it is rare, as Spinoza would say :)

Well I took your saying "fuck bitches" as equivalent to simply having sex with women. Augustine didn't actually fuck prostitutes. He fucked bitches though >:O - more specifically only one bitch got that honour — Agustino

Not sure if I should feel sorry or proud for that bish.

Hmmm - okay but don't you think it would also be relevant to look at other people and how they also relate to the world? I mean Schopenhauer also did that - his analysis in WWR is from doing both.

That's why I asked you what you think about a few other men, who didn't experience life the same way you do - who, for example, enlarged their own love and this enabled them to disagree that love is in short supply. I do agree that many people are unloving but it's kind of what you'd expect. Everything excellent is as difficult as it is rare, as Spinoza would say — Agustino

Not sure what you'd like me to respond with, here. No one I've ever met or read about who has praised life and all its wonders have not also suffering immensely. Some prefer to retreat into delusions and build walls around them so that reality seems farther away. I probably sound very ungrateful of what I do have in my life, but don't mistake me for being a nihilist emo!

Not sure if I should feel sorry or proud for that bish. — Heister Eggcart

Rumour has it that she was loving it more than him >:O

Not sure what you'd like me respond with, here. No one I've ever met or read about who has praised life and all its wonders are not also suffering immensely — Heister Eggcart

Well we're all suffering more or less but "immensely"? You can suffer from time to time immensely, but, at least for most people, such suffering is only temporary and it passes. Some suffer immensely for years even, and then their lives take a turn for the better (some of the Jewish people who had to spend time in concentration camps were like this - as detailed for example in Viktor Frankl's book, Man's Search for Meaning) Can you imagine having to live in concentrations camps, with no end to your torment except death in sight? And yet pleasant surprises can happen to even such people - some of them, like Viktor Frankl or Ellie Wiesel, went on to be incredibly insightful human beings.

The Heavens give and take according to their own whims. Man can do nothing but receive whatever the Heavens give in many situations. But it seems to me that life can have both suffering and joy.

I've found that to chart and map out suffering on some list of "concentration camps>urban depression" doesn't make much sense to me, and hasn't served my understanding of the world in any productive way. I think it's more dangerous for someone to diminish their suffering than to misattribute love, if you know what I'm meaning.

I've found that to chart and map out suffering on some list of "concentration camps>urban depression" doesn't make much sense to me, and hasn't served my understanding of the world in any productive way. — Heister Eggcart

If you mean that doing so doesn't diminish your own suffering or make it easier to handle and relate to, then yes I agree. But I only use it as an analogy - in the sense of "you never know if or when your situation may suddenly get better if you just hang on". That thought helped me the most when I was at my lowest moments in fact.

I think it's more dangerous for someone to diminish their suffering than to misattribute love, if you know what I'm meaning. — Heister Eggcart

I don't know haha - could you explain this?

It's "merely" understanding reality because there is no transcendent there. Merely refers to the fact that there is nothing more than that. — Agustino

Richard Feynman says... "nothing is mere"

Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars — mere globs of gas atoms. Nothing is "mere". I too can see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more? The vastness of the heavens stretches my imagination — stuck on this carousel my little eye can catch one-million-year-old light. A vast pattern — of which I am a part... What is the pattern, or the meaning, or the why? It does not do harm to the mystery to know a little about it. For far more marvelous is the truth than any artists of the past imagined! Why do the poets of the present not speak of it? What men are poets who can speak of Jupiter if he were a man, but if he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia must be silent?