You have to admire people who are insipid, after all if you didn’t you would go mad. 
OK, I disagree. I don’t Think you can know what you said there.
I saw that one coming. I have been impressed with the recourse of Plato’s Socrates to the noble lie since I first read the Republic. Lying in service of ethics. Doesn’t help my struggle with cynicism. If a noble lie is necessary to live a noble life, does it follow that life is fundamentally ignoble?
Moreno, I still haven’t figured out what you’re saying, and now I have no idea what you disagree with in the thread I linked. Why not be specific?
Felix, I tend to reject the all or nothing approach to belief. So I think it’s possible, for instance, to believe in a variety of ways. We need more words to express this variety…
Nobility exists from transformation of nature.
When nature transforms and bears its finest fruits, that is what noble is.
The other definitions of nobility will vary.
I like that take, Dan.
Probably temporarily, at least, tired of the issue. In a sense I am taking it on in other thread at ILP.
“Vision without execution is hallucination” - Thomas Edison
I found the language a Little odd for Edison.
Just for the irony involved…
I’ve seen this quote attibuted to Bertrand Russell and Benjamin Franklin also. What makes it ironic in this case is that Edison, of course, made stuff out of his ideas, tangible stuff, that either worked or did not, and so carried weight even if the other person needing convincing was only aware of chairs and rocks, that order of physical things. It gives the saying a kind of Power, though at the same time restricts it potentially to Edison’s areas of experitise - the ones we know about anyway - which are not spiritual.
In any case, there is Always a difference between the set of real things and the set of things one can convince others are real (over the internet, even more so). Then if you add in the various paradigms of the other person, this also adds restrictions.
What cannot be executed in a conversation for one party, may well be, nevertheless, executed by the other party.
“I can’t even figure out why anybody believes it for a second.”
Lol
Anyway, I don’t care who said it. Is it useful and meaningful, or not? Jesus said, “you will know them by their fruits”.
Or did he?
Does wisdom have to come from a single source? An ancient source? A noble source?
Where does wisdom come from? How is it created? Can it be recognized by the unwise?
“The present is also a work of imagination.” - Rose Tremain
Not if we shut down the imagination, along with the mind, and become just the awareness we are (that’s reading this post). Then we are just an observer, with no spin thrown in, by the mind and imagination.
Just raw un-attenuated awareness.
I Think the meaning is strongly affected by who said it. Bertrand Russel or Edison. The latter might Think the former rarely executed. The former might Think the latter was clever but hardly wise. Each of the Words Changes, or makes me Think of different things, dependent on the author. Not that the bit of wisdom is clear even if one knows the author.
I don’t Think it is even true, though it sometimes can be true. One can have a vision that gives insight, but not necessarily be able to implement something regarding the insight. Perhaps someone else will need to come along for that. Perhaps it will take a second person, when the era is right to recieve, to have the vision again.
If that even addresses what the wisdom is pointing at.
Not being able to implement something one knows may or may not mean it is hallucination.
No, it doesn’t. But who knows that that piece of wisdom means. Or if it is wisdom. And its ambiguities and vagueness, will it help? What will happen when it enters a mind? What does it actually mean in Communication when someone quotes it?
Wisdom is the result of long-term trial and error and has a reputation for being right, appropriate and good. The source of wisdom is varied, sometimes it is street-wise and sometimes it is embedded in culture. Wisdom has the attribute of being recognized by anyone who is not blatantly rejecting its influence, which is why it is the biggest sin of all to do that.
So little time… I hope to respond someday.
I think the stories we tell ourselves, especially the ones we unquestionably believe, create our experiences. “Raw awareness” may involve no stories, but the stories’ power will return, once you begin living your day-to-day life again. Just reading this post involves stories, which help to determine your present experience while you read. For instance you have an idea of who I am and where I’m coming from. You have an idea of what it is you’re doing here, and why you will or will not respond to this post. You will feel certain emotions while you read this post (more so if I praise or insult you), and those emotions have been shaped by an endless series of stories that other have told you and that you have told yourself.
If it’s not clear, I think all such stories are acts of the imagination.
Moreno and Bob,
Thanks for your posts. I think wisdom exists in seed form in all of us. I think the development of wisdom (good judgment) isn’t a given, though. The wisdom of a certain action or choice, for instance, can be subtle, or can fly in the face of conventionality. It’s easy to see why not wantonly killing somebody is a wise choice. For other things, we look to others for help - others who have “proven” that they are worth at least emulating, and at best learning from. It’s the “inner” logic that needs to be learned (and how to apply it), rather than the outer form.
Once the inner logic and how to apply it is made one’s own, learning can progress independently - in which case an offhand comment on a tv sitcom can be as valuable as a discourse by some ancient philosopher.
This has been an idea that has been occupying my thoughts for some time too - as may be apparent in several of my posts. I regarded myself just as a storyteller but I came to realise that we all are, even if most of us only tell ourselves those stories, except perhaps for an inner circle or a partner, who we share our stories with. The more we share these stories, the more feedback we receive, which is often what we avoid. However, it is the fact that we tell ourselves stories that makes us open to other stories, and it is this aspect of “reality” that makes us selective with regard to the reality we prefer.
Strangely, we cannot avoid telling ourselves these stories and the use of logic and rationality only preoccupies us for a short period of time and then we’re back with the stories (and with the endless repeats). In fact, those people who are openly critical of this are often those who are the most under the influence of their stories. The imagination is a good thing, if we could only be very aware of the fact that we are continually telling stories and sometime we confabulate - even to ourselves. The human being is very often not the sentient being he would like to be, but we have to practice sentience to be good at it.
I agree, Bob.