Distinctions

[Mole]

We perceive by making distinctions - and the more distinctions, the more we see.

A fundamental distinction is between the inner and the outer.

For those unable to make this distinction, it is natural to confuse the inner with the outer.

And there is nothing you can say to change this.

The more you talk about the inner the more they confuse it with the outer.

They can't see what you are talking about.

 

[colmena]

Then show them.

Surely everyone finds the joys of introspection at some point in their life. Or experience something so serious that it forces it (perhaps) involuntarily.

 

[Mole]

The Proper Use of the Teddy Bear

Then show them.

But this is the point.

To show them, they need to be able to see, they need to be able to perceive.

And if we perceive by making distinctions, they can't see this particular thing I am showing them.

So simply by showing them something they can't see means they still can't see it.

And it gets more complicated than that. For our perceptual field is a gestalt, a complete whole. So when the person looks, as far as they can see, they can see everything.

So when you say, look at this particular thing, they can see it doesn't exist. And seeing is believing.

So showing something to someone without the requisite distinctions won't work.

So the most important work is to increase a person's stock of distinctions.

It's a bit like playing tennis - if you want to learn to play better, you should play with someone just a little better than you - if they are worse, you learn nothing - and if they are out of your league, you learn nothing. But if they are just slightly better, you are learning to play better tennis. Or in this case, discover more distinctions.

So rather than showing someone something, it is first necessary to change the way they see, the way they perceive a particular thing.

And that's what teddy bears are for.

Ted.

 

[colmena]

Show them a different way. A way better suited to discovering distinctions. A way of introspection and experience.


I've harped on, extolling Socrates' ideas of rationalisation in other forums. I think the ideal in Western society is misguided. It's intrinsically geared to bypassing potential for discovering distinctions. It's like a freaky holism.

 

[gokartride]

Jesus told parables....but I admit I'm not as good with them as he was.

 

[Night]

We perceive by making distinctions - and the more distinctions, the more we see.

A fundamental distinction is between the inner and the outer.

For those unable to make this distinction, it is natural to confuse the inner with the outer.

And there is nothing you can say to change this.

The more you talk about the inner the more they confuse it with the outer.

They can't see what you are talking about.

Nicely said, Victor.


Interrelationships are usually ghostlike.

Transparent haze; curled smoke.

Sight and vision disconnect. Thought and perception become distracted.

Even when we connect, we sometimes choose to discard - after all, who wants to rebel against logical convention?

You remember conventions - where people gather to discuss a common theme.

Often it doesn't matter if the theme is fictive or real. Just that people are together...




We can see a human being, but we miss the human heart.

 

[entropie]

I am not so good in logical volleyball.

But I think the inverse to your postulate must be that minds are linked to each other, so that there is konsensus.

I guess the feeling of being alone, must definitly be quantizised, analysed and shoot to the moon. But I just can not say that I would be happy living without it.

 

[Mole]

Mirror Neurons and the Noosphere

But I think the inverse to your postulate must be that minds are linked to each other, so that there is konsensus.

And of course our minds are linked to one another by our mirror neurons.

In fact homo sapiens is the largest animal on the planet because as we mirror each other's minds we become one mind - one mind that covers the entire earth - and that one mind is called the noosphere.

And it is only over the last 100 years with universal literacy in the West that the individual came into existence. Why, it is only in very recent history that private bedrooms have become the norm in the West - and we even take them for granted.

But with the advent of the tele-phone, tele-vision and the net, our whole Western society is moving from the literate individual to the electronic village where we are all immediately emotionally in touch with one another.

Hey, just like MBTI.

 

[entropie]

As long as you create your existence that way you want it to be, it will exist forever. Then you can not be harmed by influences you dislike. And those are the people, who set guidance.

And if it is never going to happen that J-Types take responsibility over their and our existances, dumbness will lead forever !!

 

[SquirrelTao]

And if it is never going to happen that J-Types take responsibility over their and our existances, dumbness will lead forever !!

Ah, come on. Everybody is infinite, including J types. MBTI is only one way of describing people.

 

[SquirrelTao]

For those unable to make this distinction, it is natural to confuse the inner with the outer.

I don't know exactly what you mean by "inner" and "outer", but it makes me think of Ken Wilber's philosophy. For Ken Wilber, everything has both an inner and an outer aspect. In humans, the inner aspect goes the deepest, but he thinks even rocks have an inner aspect. He defines the inner aspect as the range of stimuli a thing or being can respond to or be alive to. He thinks the inner aspect can't be known by science, since it does not have a physical location and since it is not measurable or quantifiable. For instance, science has a lot of trouble with human consciousness.

 

[Mole]

I don't know exactly what you mean by "inner" and "outer", but it makes me think of Ken Wilber's philosophy. For Ken Wilber, everything has both an inner and an outer aspect. In humans, the inner aspect goes the deepest, but he thinks even rocks have an inner aspect. He defines the inner aspect as the range of stimuli a thing or being can respond to or be alive to. He thinks the inner aspect can't be known by science, since it does not have a physical location and since it is not measurable or quantifiable. For instance, science has a lot of trouble with human consciousness.

Well Squirrel, inner and outer is a metaphor. And metaphors don't exist because they are comparisons of relationships.

However metaphors are very important, for instance, language is largely metaphoric; and religions are largely metaphoric and of course poetry is metaphoric.

And yes, metaphors are not measurable or quantifiable.

And yes, you are right, we don't quite know what consciousness is, yet.

 

[01011010]

To show them, they need to be able to see, they need to be able to perceive.

Yes. There is no way to make a person understand if their mind isn't open. You can prove something with empirical evidence, but it's still going to be foreign to the person that isn't able to perceive.

 

[Mole]

Amphibians

Yes. There is no way to make a person understand if there mind isn't open. You can prove something with empirical evidence, but it's still going to be foreign to the person that isn't able to perceive.

The distinction is not between an open mind and a closed mind, but between sight and blindness.

It doesn't matter how open your mind is, if you are blind, you just can't see.

So it is a question of perception, not a question of morality.

And we perceive by making distinctions, so distinctions are our eyes.

So if you don't make a particular distinction, you can't see through those eyes.

Fish, for instance, didn't discover water because they didn't make the distinction between air and water.

It was amphibians who discovered water because by moving between air and water, they learnt the distinction between air and water.

So water became visible to them - they were able to perceive water because they could make the distinction between air and water.

And it is the same for us, as we became 'amphibious' and moved between Earth and Space, we looked back, and for the first time discovered the Environment.

So we generalise these two examples and say, we perceive by making distinctions.

 

[Samuel De Mazarin]

And of course our minds are linked to one another by our mirror neurons.

In fact homo sapiens is the largest animal on the planet because as we mirror each other's minds we become one mind - one mind that covers the entire earth - and that one mind is called the noosphere.

And it is only over the last 100 years with universal literacy in the West that the individual came into existence. Why, it is only in very recent history that private bedrooms have become the norm in the West - and we even take them for granted.

But with the advent of the tele-phone, tele-vision and the net, our whole Western society is moving from the literate individual to the electronic village where we are all immediately emotionally in touch with one another.

Hey, just like MBTI.

I'm sorry, but that's not true at all. People are just as divided as ever. And people are not universally literate. Even if they were, what do we define as being literate? Being able to read signposts?

 

[Mole]

I'm sorry, but that's not true at all. People are just as divided as ever. And people are not universally literate. Even if they were, what do we define as being literate? Being able to read signposts?

With the invention of the printing press in 1440 by Johannes Gutenberg arose the dream of universal literacy. However universal literacy has only been realised quite recently in the West.

But radios, for instance, are widespread across the globe among the literate and among spoken cultures. It is the voice of the radio that is heard by all.

Other electronic media, such as the mobile phone, is also widespread among literate and spoken cultures. And the mobile phone is increasing its spread day by day.

There is no need to be literate to us a mobile phone.

There is no need to have a vast government system of compulsory schooling to learn to use the mobile phone, as is needed to teach literacy.

So I think it is fair to say that the literate are moving into the noosphere together with those of a spoken culture.

So in that sense we are all becoming part of one electronic culture, called the noosphere.

So you might say we are becoming neo-tribal. And neo-tribes like tribes themselves are known for conflict. For instance the neo-tribe of Islamists have declared war on the neo-tribe they describe as the Great Satan.

 

[Samuel De Mazarin]

^ Well... you've indicated what my objection is, which is that the internet really provides us with only a more connected way of expressing dissent. Ultimately, the same arguments (or variations thereon) are being carried on at a faster clip, more voluminously... noosphere is a very fancy way of saying that we're a single mind, but if we are a single mind, we're an extremely divided one... I mean, most minds experience cognitive dissonance, but the noosphere is on the extreme end. What does that leave us with?

 

[Mole]

Original Sin

^ Well... you've indicated what my objection is, which is that the internet really provides us with only a more connected way of expressing dissent. Ultimately, the same arguments (or variations thereon) are being carried on at a faster clip, more voluminously... noosphere is a very fancy way of saying that we're a single mind, but if we are a single mind, we're an extremely divided one... I mean, most minds experience cognitive dissonance, but the noosphere is on the extreme end. What does that leave us with?

These are very good questions, Sammy, and pertinent.

And I hope you don't think I am being trivial in my reply.

Because the answer lies in a simple, well known slogan - the medium is the message.

According to this slogan, what we say or see or hear on the internet doesn't matter. What matters is that we simply log in.

According to this slogan, the internet is changing the way we see the world and how we relate to one another.

However if we focus only on the content of the internet, the effect of the internet will be invisible.

For instance, the printing press changed the way we see the world and how we relate.

Print gave rise to Individualism and Nationalism - and in your great country in particular, both Individualism and Nationalism came from the printed Bible and newsprint.

The Gutenberg Bible gave you Individual Salvation leading to your Bill of [Individual] Rights. And newspapers created your Manifest Destiny as well as making you a Light on the Hill to all humanity.

However into your Garden of Eden, into your garden of individual freedom, came the telephone. It snaked across the whole country - into every home - into every ear - and into every individual soul.

Yes, the telephone - the irrresistible telephone - who can resist answering the telephone - not your Pastor or Rabbi or even your President - not you nor I - "yes", we say to the insistent ringing of the telephone.

The insistent ringing of the telephone divided our pure, our simple Puritan soul, in two - into sincere and authentic print, and the phoney telephone.

And from henceforth we were cast out from the Garden of Individual Freedom and left with Original Sin - the sin of phoniness.

And so we eke out our days fretting over sin - asking ourselves are we sincere or are we phoney?

And the internet is merely an extension of the telephone - it is simply a computing device connected to the telephone lines.

So what do you think, Sammy, do you think I am sincere or do you think I am phoney?