who are you?

Now you think that you can read my mind.

Even a clearly stated, focused question may not be answerable because there are limits to human knowledge and understanding. Once you comprehend that fact, you can stop babbling about that particular question.

K: and until we push all the way, how do we know those limits? where exactly are those limits?
I can’t find the limit to human knowledge and understanding until I push it to the end…
you learn your limits as you push… I learned that in cross country and track…
what was my limit in the 440? I didn’t know until I push it as far as it would go…
I found out my limit in the 440 was 58.1 but others were able to push it further along
because they were better runners then me… my best for the 3 mile is 16:16
that was my limit in running the 3 mile and I was by no means the best runner
in my class, little less on the team…
it is only by engaging can we find that limit of human knowledge and understanding…

so give it a go… push your limit and you might find out your limit is actually much
further along then you thought…

Kropotkin

You think that you know more about me than you do. You don’t even comprehend what I have written in this thread, yet you are analyzing my thoughts and experiences … something which you have no access to.

K: you believe there to be a limit to human knowledge and understanding…
I believe the only way to know WHERE that limit is by pushing as far and as hard
as we can… in 1895 or so, a British scientist said that science has
gone as far as it can go, now it is just about filling in the details…
he thought that science had reached its limit in 1895 and we all
know how right he was…I don’t believe in limits in knowledge or
understanding… and I will push as far as I can to prove that…
I can only run a 16:16 3 mile because that is a far as my body pushed
will go… (mind you that was 40 years ago, now I can do 3 miles in about
an hour, maybe…)so how far your limit of knowledge and understand is
is only knowable by pushing your limits as far as it will go…

don’t accept limits or boxes or nice easy questions that allow easy answers…
push your limits… go out of your comfort zone and push your limits…

Kropotkin

Well, I know where this is going.

K: actually you don’t…

Kropotkin

so to return to the question of, Who are you?

the second part of this equation and it is an equation, is this…
if we are unclear as to, who we are, then how can we
understand our place in society and our place in the universe…
(note to moderators… this is why I place this where I did because
I was going to connect this idea of not knowing who we are with
the idea that because we don’t know who we are, our society seems
to be disconnected from us because we don’t know who we are but
the real reason society seem disconnected or as Marx put it, alienated
is because we don’t know who we are)… the so called failure of society lies
with us and not in society… we don’t know who we are and this is what
causing the discontentment and anguish within society…or said another way…
we are alienated from society because we are alienated from ourselves…
alienation is just another way of saying, we don’t know who we are…
you want to fix society?.. fix yourself and society will be fixed…
every road you want to take begins with you and your knowledge and
understanding of who you are…

Kropotkin

Borg?

… not familiar with “Borg”

… while I have no original thoughts … just seemed to fit with K.'s last post

The Borg are not alienated from society. The Borg are a collective consciousness.

Here is another thought : If society is crazy, then being alienated from society is a good thing.

Jesus and Buddha are “outsiders”.

while the notion of a “collective consciousness” isn’t new … reading Karen Armstrong’s book “The Great Transformation” suggests it’s been around for a long while … albeit in more abstract forms. For me … Teillard put some meat on the bones with his Noosphere and Omega Point theories.

for me … society isn’t crazy … society is in a continuous transformation … and the transformation process is frustrating and painful … always has been … lots of empirical evidence suggested in Armstrong’s book.

… not sure I would use the word “outsiders”.

reminds me of a comment made by a brilliant young man in Santiago Compostella many years ago … we met by chance after walking the Camino.

He said … paraphrasing … perhaps Jesus is the first human with a conscious recollection of where he came from.

How would you describe their relationship to society?

… in a word “helpers” … maybe … “facilitators”

Who says each individual human has a particular “place” in either [a, presumably human] society or the universe?
How is this “place” defined or described?

Do we know what society is? Because if we don’t know what society is then knowing who we are won’t get us any closer to finding a place in society. And if society isn’t an aggregate of all the people in it who are both products ad producers of society, then what is it? And how can you be disconnected from something of which you are an integral part?

Society isn’t disconnected. It’s intricately connected in thousands of ways through millions of relationships.
An individual may feel isolated from society when he is disenfranchised, barred from participation in, and information about, the controlling processes of that society; when he does not see the fruit of his labour nor share in the reward of his efforts.

Societies have many different reasons for failing - most frequently bad leadership.

No; it’s mostly that people are insecure in their income, health and living conditions.

You keep repeating this mantra: We don’t know who we are. Where did you get this fixed idea? What makes you think it’s true? What are the proportions of those who know all about themselves, to those who know nothing at all, to those who know 10%, 40%, 83.5% … ?

Facilitators hits the right spot in me. :smiley:

one might argue that the evolution of the human species is one long continuous journey … destination unknown.

One might also use that metaphor for life, a romantic relationship, enrollment in a college course, a regimen of treatment for chronic illness, a cooking contest or hitchhiking.