K: I have at times thought of it in those terms of Apollonian and realistic…
other times, I haven’t…and I would put truth ahead of sanity… sanity be dammed…
find the truth not matter what’s the cost even at the cost of life itself…
the struggle is to be human and finding out what it means to be human…
Kropotkin
Let’s call one idea life-ism, the other idea progressivism.
Jesus heals on the sabath, some jewz get mad.
Life is more important than rules, according to this story.
Life is more important than truth to some people.
Truthers are interesting people. Some philosophers are like that.
Like what you described.
I will try to tip toe into this OP … I sincerely want to be unnoticed if my comments offend the ILP members who have long participated in this OP.
I only learned of this OP today … read the first few pages and the last few posts … should be enough to get the gist of the discussion. 
Peter … I’m taking your recent advice … “great minds float over the details”.
Peter … IMHO
You spend far too much energy hacking at the “liminal space” … essentially the “in between” … what you label the time between the “old” and the “new”. Your energy would be better spent working the “vanguard” … more about this later.
Your unbridled confidence in ‘philosophy’ is misplaced … your exclusion of spirituality is an oversight.
You ‘hit’ on a crucial piece of information and fail to extrapolate. eg your dissertation on the time intervals between the old and the new … Caesar and Napoleon. As you argued … the time interval between the “old” and the “new” has shrunk substantially in the recent past … more importantly it continues to shrink even more rapidly day by day. There may be a mathematical relationship at work here. I recently learned a line of Persian poetry … from antiquity … “The bird of time has a short way to fly.” If this was true 5,000 years ago … perhaps the “short way to fly” the poet foresaw is much shorter today. In any event, if the time period between the “old” and the “new” continues to shrink humanity better have some intelligent people spending all their energy trying to figure out what the hell is next … and I’m not talking about technology here.
You spend way too much energy attempting to bring “others” along with you. The eagle flies the highest … and … alone! Leave the task of “bringing up the rear” to those people born to do this task.
Enough for a “tip toe” post"
I’ll leave you with two quotes I find relevant:
2)“Woe to the man who says that this Tora wishes to relate simple stories.” We must internalize the profound truth hidden herein.
Great events in our national existence cannot be understood and decisions that will shape our people’s future cannot be made in the ‘Yishaq mode.’ In order to perceive the direction and orientation that must be assumed, to come to terms with the steps that must be taken, and to possess the self-assuredness simply to know when something is right, and to be therefore willing to lead the way -for all these, something more than rigid loyalty to tradition is required.
Our Geula, which was prophetically mapped out for us long ago, is the. ‘What.’ We must supply the ‘How.’
Rav David Bar Hayim is the head of the Makhon Ben Yishai Institute for Tora Research in Jerusalem
K: Tom, I appreciate your comments and let me say first of all, you have no
need to tip toe around me…like my writings, don’t like it… I don’t really give a dam…
I am far too old to really give a shit anymore what people think of me or my writings…
I admit I have an agenda when writing this and I have stated this time and time again…
I am working on saving philosophy… philosophy has for a number of reasons, lost
its place in the world and has lost itself…philosophy has gone into a cul de sac
and it cannot escape… so in my effort to save philosophy, I have gone back
and reviewed philosophy… from start to finish… so I spent a year studying ancient
philosophy and then spent the next year studying medieval philosophy and now I
in the midst of Renaissance philosophy and shortly I will hit “modern” philosophy…
I have over the years in this thread listed what I have found out… This is in part,
part of my goal… to report my findings of what I have found in my study of philosophy…
You can go back and read them at your pleasure…
In my time, I have also discovered many different aspects of life and I have reported those
as well… the interconnectedness of life and how Spinoza was right (not to anticipate
too much of what I have found) and science is focused on the how and philosophy is
focused on the why and the why is what I am after…I believe I have made
some major philosophical discoveries as in my connection between Hegel and
Nietzsche for example…and it really doesn’t matter to me if every single person on planet
earth disagrees with me…I know what I have done… so, another aspect of my
agenda is to “wake” people up… I have learned that it is the radicals that shakes up
the world… Descartes, Spinoza, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche… all of them
have done some radical, radical thinking and in doing so, have gotten people to
reevaluate, rethink what it means to be human and what is possible philosophical
to learn… it is not enough to learn for one own pleasure… we have to share
our gains with the world, even if the world isn’t listening or cares…
I know no one here understands or even cares what I write and that is fine with me…
My audience is probably not even born yet…and I can live with that…
if I can get even one person to rethink or reevaluate their thinking, I have done
my job…
I argue against spirituality for a specific reason and for philosophy for a specific reason…
spirituality leads people away from themselves and to something outside of them…
Philosophy is about people and what is possible for people… Perhaps, perhaps
I put too much faith in people… but I must… I stand for the here and now…
Not some far off reward and not some imaginary god, but today and for people…
I argue for people and life… I reject spirituality because it rejects people in the name
of some far off emotionalism… if you want something bigger to believe in…
something to live for, something to die for… I offer life…I offer the possible
greatness of people… I offer something more tangible then some pie in the sky…
I offer us a chance to become more human… to become what we need to become…
the first step is to finding a solution to any problem is seeing there is a problem…
and that is another step in my agenda… showing people there is a problem
and then solutions may be found…I have a multiple agenda and have taken a while
to reach this point…
Finally, I have often asked, what is next? What is possible? Are you…?
I have not offered solutions, I have offered questions because I am not,
to phrase it in religious sense, Jesus… I will not be the messiah… but I am
the messenger, I see myself more as John the Baptist… I proclaim the coming,
but I am not the coming…I leave it to those I leave behind to create their own
solutions… the Jews Messiah, Nietzsche overman/Ubermensh… the same thing…
the creator of the new laws… the person who creates the reevaluation of values
is not me, but it will be someone soon… the old ism’s and ideologies have failed
and new ism’s and new ideologies are needed and this is why we need the
messiah, the new ubermensh… to create the values that will lead us into the future…
human values… values that say, life is valuable and is worth saving and here is why…
however that is not my job… I am simply trying to get people to see that there
is a problem… nothing more and that is my only job…
Kropotkin
Peter … many thanks for your thoughtful response … first some general comments that attempt to illustrate my intuitive reaction to your post.
I am almost a decade older than you and I wish I could say I don’t give a damn what people think about me or my writings. In particular, my children and grand children … 14 in total … who all believe I am “nuts” … believe I fell off the wagon … ( metaphor for … shoved off the shores of the crowd) … about 25 years ago and bumped my head kind of nuts. The suffering from this can only be understood by one who has had the identical experience … which of course no one has.
You are a truly gentle person who has embraced a ‘calling’ that requires an emotional outburst from time to time … like the release valve on hot water tanks. The Biblical story of Jesus illustrates the same truth.
Your comments suggest … to me at least … there is no contradiction between philosophy and spirituality. I will try to illustrate later in this post.
My birth circumstances made me RC … I am still RC … yet not in a “parochial” sense. I found when the boundaries defining the RC faith finally came down … a whole new vista opened up. This new vista … global, ecumenical in the broadest sense (all religions) did not demand of me that I abandon my RC faith.
I share the sense of urgency and messenger issues you raised.
Let me now attempt to support the above comments with excerpts from your post …
Replace the word “philosophy” with “spirituality” and I could not write a more eloquent phrase to describe the current state of spirituality … I intend a global reference here.
In your OP “Who Are You” Xunzian offered an interesting thought …
Yesterday I posted this thought in another OP …
The "individuation’ journey is personal … unique to each individual … apparently Buddha said … paraphrasing … don’t hang on to my coat tails … be true to yourself.
Individuals wake up at the appointed time. I’m not suggesting ‘roosters’ don’t have their place in the process.
Strangely enough … I ‘see’ you arguing on behalf of spirituality … especially when we place the above paragraph side by side with the preceding one where you write “My audience is probably not even born yet…and I can live with that”
Your final paragraph … again I could not write a more eloquent summary of myself and my life experiences.
pilgrimtom.weebly.com
thoughtsofamisfit.com
Tom… I am glad some of my “Truths” have spoken to you…
it is the point of searching that we look for “truths” and
the “truths” that quite often speak to us the loudest are the “truths”
of another human existence… I would suggest that what seems to be “truth”
to us is due to our age… I have learned that it is only in ageing that
certain “truths” become available to us…From being a baby to old age,
certain “truths” only become apparent as you age… the Toddler discovers
“truths” that only becomes obvious as they grow from baby to toddler…
and as we age, age appropriate “truth” become obvious to us…
are we “wise”… not sure but we are old and being old gives us “truths”
that is simply not available when we were young…
you seem to equate philosophy with spirituality and that is certainly your right…
I don’t…but, but I have argued multiple times that in the end, everything is connected
and interconnected and I have argued that we have concepts that seem to be opposite
like good vs evil and light vs dark… but if you look at these concepts long enough,
you begin to realize that the concept of good and the concept of evil are two separate
concepts and then you think… hay, they are two sides of the same coin and then later
you see they are the same coin… thesis, antithesis, synthesis, the dualism that is
good and evil become one and the same… so perhaps if I looked at philosophy
and spirituality long enough, the dualism that is them, slowly and surely fades
and they become one, like good and evil becomes one…perhaps…
a human life story often appeals to another human because we share
a human bond, my story is just your story with different scenery…
and so my story and your story are just two versions of the human story,
the human experience…so your “truths” can speak to me and my “truths”
can speak to you…what the racist and bigots and Trumps of the world fail to see
is that we have the same experiences and we have the same story and we are just
two sides of the same story and as we noted with good and evil, two dissimilar
stories can become two sides of the same coin and then become one coin…
the human experiences means we are not divided by our differences but
united by our experiences… and we are far more connected by our
stories then we are divided by our stories…in the end… I am you and you are me…
and we become all the other people as well because the human experience is
about all of us… and so the large truth is simple… the search is to become
more human and that means we become more united because becoming is
about reaching what is best in the human experience and that is love and that
is hope and that is honor and dignity… reaching up for the human experience
and not reaching down which is hate and anger and lust and despair… those
are the animal aspect of human nature and not about reaching up and becoming
more human, those who strive for the lower nature of human existence are
the haters, the bigots, the angry ones, the one who sow defeat and hated…
the ones who elected 45 are reaching down into the animal existence instead
of reaching up like the ones who elected Obama… and voted for Clinton…
we can strive to reach up and become more human or we can go down and
become more animal like… the choice is yours and mine…
my story is your story because we share human existence and human
experience…
perhaps philosophy is just reasoned spirituality…
Kropotkin
came across this fascinating bit in reading the "Career of Philosophy volume 1,
slight paraphrase…
theories of government are based on one of two things…either the individuals
are given and the society needs accounting for or, as in the Greeks, Plato, Aristotle,
the organized community or “Polis” is given and that man’s individual judgement and
criticism needs explanation and justification…
today, we see the primacy of community which is a given and the individual
needs accounting for… the problem is not how to account for or justify society,
but how men can achieve individuality within a socialized industrial order?
Not only is a new philosophical argument needed but a new political argument
is needed and I suspect that the political argument will flow from
the philosophical argument…the question of becoming human becomes
a question of the political order needed to become human…
a whole lot of new ism’s and ideologies are going to be needed by
the time this is done…
Kropotkin
to continue the above discussion, with the advent of science,
we know the “truth” in terms of science and it is “true” because science
says so, which demeans? denies? downplays the old idea of “truth” being
a preserve of the individual which is not evident or seen by science…
for example, “God’s truth” lies outside of science and in the mind and heart of
the individual, but does “God’s truth” have the same validity as a scientific “truth”
Does “truth” need science to validate it? or can a “truth” exist outside of
scientific validation? this may be the heart of the discussion today
between the right and the left… the right believes that the “truth”
can exist outside of scientific “truth” and the left believes that
the “higher” truth lies with the scientific “truth”…the entire abortion
debate revolves around this distinction… which “truth” is higher" science
or “god”? if it is science, then we allow abortion, if it is “God” then we ban
abortion… which “truth” is higher, is one of the great unanswered questions
today…
Kropotkin
it is not enough to search for the “truth” but we
have to find a method to find the truth…
right now we use science to find the “truth” but
are they other methods to find the “truth”…
religion says, it is by authority that we find the “truth”,
the authority of “god” and the bible, in where we find the “truth”
so we have two methods that seem opposed to each other,
science and authority… but we have seen other oppositions,
good vs evil for example, so we can see philosophy vs spirituality
becoming one and the same… reasoned spirituality becomes
philosophy…
Kropotkin
Again with a pursuit of truth? I take back any compliment I gave you concerning your thinking capabilities. I’m thinking more that you’ll never get it. What truth, which truth? The Truth? A truth? What about the lies and how important they’ve been to your life? Will you shed them like so many skins, leave them behind like jilted lovers in your pursuit for your elusive ‘truth’? How important is it to you, you stupid dumbass. Important enough to set your ego and vanity to the side? I doubt the great Kropotkin can do that, when he’s all about his name and attaching it to everything he posts. I doubt the great Kropotkin and his journey for the truth or any truth will survive a shedding of lies since they can’t even manage the shedding of pride and vanity and arrogance to admit any wrongness on their behalf or to openly contest their own beliefs. Give up, it’s a waste journey for you. stay down
K: growing old is one long journey into leaving the lies behind…
I once believed I was many, many things… smart and brilliant and
suave and good looking and many other flattering things… today,
don’t believe any of it…My vanity is long gone… I have no pride
and I certainly don’t think I have some exclusive contract with the truth…
but if you leave the lies behind, what is left?
Your anger blinds you to what I am saying and that is fine…
I contest the “truth” with every word I write… you just don’t see that…
and that is not my problem… I am old and when you are old, you don’t
have any lies to comfort you because they have all been disproven over the
years… I am a good father… a lie I used to tell myself, I am a good husband,
another lie, I am a good human being, yep, you guessed it, a lie… so how do
I get to be a good human being or a good father… I find the truth of being
a good father or the truth of being a good human being… Lies don’t feed
my soul like they did when I was young… now, I hunger for the truth because
it does feed my soul… you are young and someday… perhaps, you will
see the wisdom of what I say… but don’t worry about it… I will be long dead
before wisdom comes to you and you will be saved from apologizing to me…
Kropotkin
Peter … a turbulent few days … I really enjoyed your last posts.
Yesterday, while reflecting on our e-exchanges an image popped into my consciousness … here’s the image
2)Side by side we walk into the FIRE … a blazing inferno …
I’m intrigued with Random Factor’s post … for me … it’s manifestation of the “FIRE” I mentioned above.
K: thank you… I think…
Anyway, it is said that man cannot understand god because god exists
beyond man’s limit of understanding… I disagree with this…
human beings can understand anything under the sun because
everything is made of the same basic building blocks… everything is
made of atoms… the one substance in the universe and everything else
is just variations of that one basic substance…
so, we are connected to everything and if we are understandable (and we are)
then everything in the universe is understandable… some stuff we have to work
at more then other stuff, but in the end, there are no limits to man’s understanding
of the universe…we simply have to push the limits as far as we can and in
pushing those limits, we discover what is possible and everything is possible
if we work at it long enough… I might say, that there are things that are impossible
such as “pigs can fly” and we said that about humans and yet, we fly every single day…
just because “we” can’t fly, doesn’t mean there isn’t a work around that maxim…
we just need to figure out the work around…despite centuries of conventional
thinking that “man cannot fly” we can and we prove it every single day…
the only limits we have are the limits we place upon ourselves and we can easily
change those… everything is possible because there are no limits, no
boundaries… because everything in the universe is made of the same stuff…
Kropotkin
It’s not your fault, Kropotkin. Someday you will be free of the flesh, further down your path, and you will understand what I say better at that point. I doubt you’ll ever get passed the things that you’ve got past already and I’m pretty sure you’ll get stuck on nothing for too long and be successful for all the pain and bullshit that that means. Don’t take it personally when I test you to see if you stay down or get back up. By the way, stay down, though. You don’t want to get up. Not at your age; not worth it. Next life, maybe.
K: as I am substantially older then you… (I turn 58 today as a matter of fact)
the question really becomes not if I ever understand you, but if you ever
understand me…as I am older, I have already passed your stage of, for lack of
a better word, development, I have truths that can only be understood
as you age and you are not ready for because of your youth…and for no other
reason…this concept of age related truths doesn’t make sense when
you are young, but as you age, as I have aged, you will see it…I was
born handicapped, I have fought my way in this world all my life…
I will go where angels fear to go… I am not afraid of anything that life
has to offer… you cannot frighten me or scare me or turn me aside…
I WILL pursue the truth wherever it goes and no matter who says what…
my road has taken me places you haven’t even dreamed of, not physically
but in philosophy and in thought…I have been an anarchist and
a socialist and a moderate democrat and a very liberal democrat…
I have been a follower of Nietzsche and Hume and of Schopenhauer and
Kierkegaard and Goethe and Kazantakis at various times in my life…
I pursued god for 40 years and now I pursue man with the same
intensity…
Kropotkin
delusions that hold humans beings back…
infinity… god…limits… boundaries…
selfishness… guilt… hate… anger…lust (for money or a person)
because those things just listed don’t work or don’t exist…
we should stick to things that do work and do exist…
love… hope… passion (which is different then desire or lust)
reason…life…and then push the boundaries/limits on these things…
works like infinity are words that is so large when heard, they frighten people
to give up, but words like finite are accessible and reachable, so we can
keep going when hearing words like finite and possible and hope…
because if it is finite, it is possible and reachable…
god cannot be reached because of the idea of infinite but make god
finite and he becomes reachable…
so I reject words like infinite and impossible and unreachable…
everything is reachable and possible and finite because everything is
made of the exact same thing… atoms and everything is just a variation
of the same atoms…
Kropotkin
at the appointed time you will know one way or the other.
I admire your tenacity … another image this morning
an old cartoon … a lion … maybe an elephant … can’t remember … becomes trapped in a rope net. None of the animals in the animal kingdom can set it free … and along comes a mouse … chews through the rope … and the lion or the elephant regains it’s freedom.
what message(s) are the creators of this cartoon trying to convey?
maybe the cartoon is simply for entertainment
perhaps there is a subtle profundity being conveyed
maybe the creators are bible thumpers … echoing the biblical message …
[b]
[/b]
who knows eh!
does anybody really care?
K: it doesn’t matter if anybody knows or cares because we philosophers
will be creating values and understanding ism’s and ideologies and finding
truth even if no one knows or no cares… the population goes on
living and buying and sleeping and taking care of their kids… finding
the truth is not possible for them because they are so busy being busy…
that we must think and understand for them and then report our findings
back in easy to understand language…we philosophize because the
vast majority of people won’t, don’t or can’t… we ask why, when the majority
of people don’t have the time to ask why…so it doesn’t really matter if anybody
knows or if anybody cares… we are still here…searching for the truth…
Kropotkin
a common misconception: that having knowledge 1+1 =2 is
the same as having wisdom… the two, knowledge and wisdom
are the two different and separate items…many, many have
knowledge that I don’t have and will never have and yet,
I am wiser because I ask why…don’t make the common mistake
of thinking because you have knowledge, you are wise…
wisdom and knowledge are two different things until…
knowledge encompasses the why and wisdom encompasses the how…
Kropotkin
And yet you still learned much from me in your pursuit of understanding Aristotle. There are so many people older than me for me to learn from and even put myself in their perspectives and perceptions, you’re just another one among the bunch. Think I don’t understand you? Think I don’t see you clearly? I’ve always seen you and where you are.
I say fuck anarchy, fuck chaos, fuck order, fuck balance and fuck imbalance, fuck discipline and fuck the lack of it, fuck nietzsche and hume and schopenhaur and kierkegaard and goethe and kazantakis, fuck religion and christianity, fuck buddhism and taoism, fuck the peasants and royals both, fuck the dead and fuck the living, fuck even the philosophers you don’t know and the strong men you’ve never heard of, fuck darwin and his darwinism; fuck government, fuck the establishment, fuck heaven and fuck hell and fuck man and fuck woman and fuck the universe, fuck the earth.
What spark is in you that drives your curiosity, that consumes you with your supposed desires that you chase rampant through the mire? You say you’ve been caught chasing those men and God for 40 years of life? And now you’re chasing man? If such foolish goals you have, to go chasing cheshire cats, trying to catch smoke on the wind, you missed the very important factor that some things, most things; you have to let come to you when they choose to. You think that spark of life can’t be nipped out while you still live? Can’t be revived even in death beyond and without the flesh and what do you suppose gives that spark of life it’s shine instead of its dullness?
You think I try to frighten you or scare you or are those so many words to push in my way to distract me as you run some more, or is it a trap to get from me some more of what gave you reason to leave your old life behind in search of new, at 58 years old?
And I’ve taught you nothing at all? I’m the child that must learn more from you? Why? Who are you that I should learn more from? I’ve seen the works of the men that you were caught up in for 40 years and all their works paled before mine, were but a step behind me every time I looked in and read them. They have always just been a backdrop; no wonder you put them behind after 40 years of pursuing them once I crossed your path for all the world like a will o the wisp you had grown so tired of chasing into the boggy mire of the dangerous swamps and fens of the world you sought to know beyond what you should. And did you not listen to the haunting melodies of do not tempt and do not test and do not underestimate the almighty.
You can look all around you, in fact, you will look all around you, in every man and woman you run across and all you’ll find is a pale imitation spark of what’s inside of me; a mimicry that seeks to match the intensity; new life breathed into flesh to combat, for a moment, the decadence and in each person you view with your own new vision, you create anew and add your own touches for what you perceive to see in them whether it was there before or not.
you were born with a physical handicap, had to fight your way into it, I’m sure, against insecurity, doubt, fear, hatred, etc. I was born with a handicap of the mind and spirit, besieged and set upon the very moment of my inception in the womb, and have helped create the universe and its system of checks and balances, from a young age cutting my teeth not just on my enemies, but on time travel and alternate reality theory, and forming theories to put the elite of time and space to shame.
You are, however, ready for your next lesson in pain and humility. And, I think I’ve got just the thing for it as I invite your demons in knowingly and give them refuge and a place to rest for the moment. The ones that have chased you throughout your life, that have flitted from person to person that you’ve ran into until you guessed a conspiracy on all levels. They had an easy job of following you around and making you think whatever you wanted of everyone around you, perceive whatever they caused you to perceive, even jump into others bodies and taunt you with the things that bothered you the most.
Pursue your knowledge of man, your obsession, you will look and all you will see is whatever it is in the moment you choose to allow yourself to see that only reinforces everything else you’ve learned and you will learn the abject hard way of just what will be come to pass that you already know is coming and hide from yourself to continue down the path of least resistance, least pain, only to knowingly trap yourself in feeling the pain and thinking that it’s better that way.
But I’ve got a slap or two to give you before you get too far down that path; a thing or two to hash out and might not get the chance in this life time, never can tell when the moment comes or doesn’t until it does or doesn’t. Best not to make too many plans. But, while I’m here and in this place, as I’ve already been able to claim that you would still be stuck where you were if not for me, I can similarly claim that if you want to continue strutting about in arrogance and pride and cockiness, be sure that I have not even done so once. You want a pissing contest, or so it seems, but can you even bring it to bear, do you even still know how to handle a loaded gun? Be careful it doesn’t misfire on you.