Philosophy Unbound: Schopenhauer vs. Steiner (Round One)

[findingblanks]

SanteriSatama, some interesting questions related to pencils and other items:

A large enough pencil can be used as an effective chair, right?

Do you have to attach both concepts to the object in order to see the chair and pencil when you look at it?

If you are using the chair and scoot into the wall and make a mark on accident, was it the chair or the pencil that made the mark? Or can we say that the object is of course neither chair nor pencil unless it is being grasped as such?

And to experience each moment of noticing that 'pencil' is a becoming that includes anything you can think of...

In other words, there is nothing you can imagine that you can't also imagine to function as a pencil.

When that insight actually lands intuitively, to dwell in that living fact. There is nothing that is not potential pencil.

And what we typically see as a so-called pencil is potentially everything else.

When those strands are brought livingly together, well...

[findingblanks]

If a group of traditional people had a ritual in which they must lay in the 'womb of Ashira' and be informed by her guidance, we might come across their village and see hammocks in various places. In fact, if nobody was around and we thought it was abandoned, we might lay in these hammocks.

We might even use one of these hammocks to do Steiner's thought exercise. And we concentrate on the idea 'hammock.'

And of course, if we were told of the function of this material item as it was created, we would probably not say, "Oh, sure, they use hammocks for their ritual."

But another part of us would no that it is just as true to say that they do.

The living truth is what both generates and sustains the polarity between 'not a hammock' and 'obviously hammock'.

The intellectual mind will tenaciously either explain why this is the case or why it isn't.

But giving birth is about as intellectual as this kind of sight.

[SanteriSatama]

Thanks findingblanks and Cleric K! Fascinating, I'm in awe of the vivid and immensly detailed and multilayered description of the meditation, a true show of skill! And a flower growing, how beautiful, and somehow also comforting! I can't really say that I fully grasp the light cone explanation/experience/interpretation, or at all, but sounds interesting never the less.

My turn! I tried first focusing on various sense-memories, feel of holding a pencil in hand, the taste of chewing the blunt edge, the sound of tapping a pulpet with a pencil... school years associations I now realize. Trying to imagine how a pencil would feel inside flesh drew a bland (but hey, thanks for the delightful Freudian lapse of "delight arses"!, fb ).

But the visual image of pencil persisted and demanded to rise into the focus of attention, and I didn't not oppose. In the minds eye, the image solidified "in front of gaze", started to rotate spatially until the sharpened darker end of pointed at what inside minds eye was my forehead, then moved vertically and plundged in between eyebrows or that general area - locus where "third eye" is said to be situated. But in that moment, there was no distinct bodily awareness type attention giving/demanding to sensation in the chakra. The pencil just passed through and "blew up to pieces", not very dramatically, just dissolved in a rather quick continuous process.

After that I concluded that the eyes-closed phase of the meditation had ended.

[findingblanks]

"I didn't read it like that. I was like: "umm, guy has read some Steiner and studied various interpretations and reactions to Steiner's text so that he can make a list of them. Which is interesting in it's own philological way. No idea where this is going if anywhere, but I'm intrigued."

Yeah, and to be clear: my typical modality is not to make lists of sentences like that. In fact when they asked to list sentences from Schopenhauer that prove such and such, I chose not to... But I'm clearly trying many different ways of communicating. So I thought going through a very tight and sequential sequence in which Steiner clearly explains the relationship between an observation and thinking, even giving details about how and why he came to that conclusion, might help.


And selfishly: Oh I wish I could already blurt out my experience of the pencil meditation, because it was very fascinating to me and I'd like to share...)

I'll be excited to read what you have to say.

[SanteriSatama]

SanteriSatama, some interesting questions related to pencils and other items:

A large enough pencil can be used as an effective chair, right?

Do you have to attach both concepts to the object in order to see the chair and pencil when you look at it?

If you are using the chair and scoot into the wall and make a mark on accident, was it the chair or the pencil that made the mark? Or can we say that the object is of course neither chair nor pencil unless it is being grasped as such?

And to experience each moment of noticing that 'pencil' is a becoming that includes anything you can think of...

In other words, there is nothing you can imagine that you can't also imagine to function as a pencil.

When that insight actually lands intuitively, to dwell in that living fact. There is nothing that is not potential pencil.

And what we typically see as a so-called pencil is potentially everything else.

When those strands are brought livingly together, well...

Tacky smart-ass responce, I know, but can't resist the temptation:

[findingblanks]

Do you feel pressure on your shoulder and then via thinking connect 'tapping' to it and know that somebody is tapping your shoulder?

That sounds not only too wordy but just wrong to experience.

Do you do all of that and then need to attach 'effect' to the 'tapping' in order to be curious about the cause?

Again, people say I can bee too wordy

I know this doesn't sound very spiritual. In fact, this can even sound naive when taken out of context.

But you actually do just feel the tapping on your shoulder. Very often that is the case.

Can we have a kind of experience in which we know that we don't yet know what we are experiencing. Of course!

But we should not reduce that kind of experience to being an example of what really happens all the time. That is wrong. And it isn't fair to either that wonderful kind of experience nor is it fair to what it feels like when we feel somebody tap on our shoulder.

Well, then....

What about the times we know that we don't yet know how to label our experience.

Look at that kind of experience:

I'm at a coffee shop typing an important email. I notice myself annoyed because there is a rumbling that is distracting me. I keep ignoring it and going back to my typing. I haven't even tried to know what the rumbling is. Then I listen to it for a second and actually wonder, "What on earth is that sound?" I listen, curious about the sound now. The idea of a tractor pops into my mind. But I notice myself thinking< "No, not a tractor..." I keep listening.....suddenly I realize this is exactly the sound I read about in a newspaper article about the new trash trucks. I feel certain it must be one of those. By the time I turn to look, it has stopped and the vehicle is gone

Or we can pretend I listened to the rumble and after five seconds of really listening, suddenly the idea popped in "Dump truck" and I looked and was right.

Notice a few things:

1) hearing a 'rumble' is already very cognitive. Not abstract or intellectual. but cognitive in that 'rumbles' have their own connotations.
2) As I listen carefully, the ideas come to me. It would be a bad metaphor to say that I went and selected from a bunch of options.

I hear you saying, "But what about those rare cases where we DO INDEED have to select through a bunch of conceptual options?"

Okay, let's go back.

I listen to the rumble and the thought of it being a drill come to mind, then the thought of it possibly being a car, then a truck, then a plane. I notice that I am still confused. I notice myself visualizing each of these options. I carefully think of each one and then listen to the rumble. As I do this, other options come to mind. I have six or seven concepts. I notice that three of them feel more likely and that the others feel less likey the more I examine them. I start slowly holding each of the three concepts and listening and trying to see if it could be what the rumble is. As I do this a new idea pops into my mind and I feel certain that it must be it. I turn and it was actually one of the three. Or I turn and it was correct! Doesn't matter. The phenomenology is there.

So notice that even in the most extreme case where we hear a rumble and then spend five minutes trying to select a concept from out of 8 possibilities that the structure of experience remains the same.

Claiming that Rudolf Steiner is obviously talking about this kind of experience when he clearly states what must happen for us to notice an object is just sloppy thinking.

And, I think I've shown here, that EVEN IF Steiner said, "Indeed, there is always a VERY RAPID process that is just like the slower versions that can often take eight or ten minutes. The rapid process is nearly imperceptible but it must happen each time we encounter a percept." We would still be able to notice that a 'rumble' is a distinct kind of observation and each option that came to mind arose spontaneously. Even our motivation to stck with it for eight minutes arose spontaneously. Even if we said, "Oh, I'm going to do this for exactly four more minutes" THAT arose spontaneously. Even if we immediately ignored our intention to stick with it for four minutes, that was spontaneous.

So now that I've given a phenomenology to the objection that Steiner is talking about times we know we don't know what we are experiencing, my hunch is that the dance continues in the same popping away pattern.

[findingblanks]

No, that is actually perfect and YOU KNOW IT!

"Tacky smart-ass responce, I know, but can't resist the temptation:"


[/quote]

[findingblanks]

I like your description of the meditation. It seems like you allowed yourself to just carefully note how the images were moving and what was happening.
You didn't insert much interpretation. Nice work.

Thanks findingblanks and Cleric K! Fascinating, I'm in awe of the vivid and immensly detailed and multilayered description of the meditation, a true show of skill! And a flower growing, how beautiful, and somehow also comforting! I can't really say that I fully grasp the light cone explanation/experience/interpretation, or at all, but sounds interesting never the less.

My turn! I tried first focusing on various sense-memories, feel of holding a pencil in hand, the taste of chewing the blunt edge, the sound of tapping a pulpet with a pencil... school years associations I now realize. Trying to imagine how a pencil would feel inside flesh drew a bland (but hey, thanks for the delightful Freudian lapse of "delight arses"!, fb ).

But the visual image of pencil persisted and demanded to rise into the focus of attention, and I didn't not oppose. In the minds eye, the image solidified "in front of gaze", started to rotate spatially until the sharpened darker end of pointed at what inside minds eye was my forehead, then moved vertically and plundged in between eyebrows or that general area - locus where "third eye" is said to be situated. But in that moment, there was no distinct bodily awareness type attention giving/demanding to sensation in the chakra. The pencil just passed through and "blew up to pieces", not very dramatically, just dissolved in a rather quick continuous process.

After that I concluded that the eyes-closed phase of the meditation had ended.

[findingblanks]

Or look at a table with several objects and tell yourself you will choose to pick up one of them and then do it.

Try to find a moment during which you are not perfectly aware of the utterly freedom of what is arising in your experience.

If you can find a moment you feel that spontaneity isn't there, try to describe it. Describe a moment during which the full quality of your experience wasn't arising.in a way that could move in any direction.

This can be a great exercise to do once you can easily concentrate on one simple image or thought for fifteen minutes.

In the midst of that concentration, you can notice that there is the possibility for anything to happen despite the concentration.

Yes, to some degree, this observation is an interruption. But it is of different nature than a typical interruption of concentration because you can only honesty make the observation itself if indeed the concentration is very great. It also is an observation that explain why during intense period of concentration, your mind can have an insight notice a smell, go deeper, or utterly fade.

It is the actual 'potential' that you directly observe.

So you go back to the table and pick up an object.

Was there any moment in which something incredibly spontaneous wasn't arising? With time you'll see that even aspects of experience that at first seem very flat or unfree or habitual, even those arose within that same dynamic. It doesn't mean we shouldn't notice the difference in qualities between a habitual image of our friend and an inspired impulse to hear a symphony. Of course not! Just that when we are coming to observe the fundamental nature of experience, we can notice these archetypal aspects.

And, yes, of course, simple observations and thoughts are as spontaneous as very intense ones. The freedom of true attention has nothing to do with the content.

[AshvinP]

No, I agree.

I look at the pencil. I encounter pure percepts 'on' it. Then I go and find the concepts that must be attached to the pencil before I recognize them as such. What could be more clear. Just like the pencil exercise examples, each of those concepts was first experienced a pure percept.

We should not ask too much about that pure percept when doing the pencil exercise. The reason? Just do the exercise and see how obvious it is that you have to encounter them before you can go in search for a concept that can be selected and then attached to the pencil.

What else is there to do once you've done this exercise and noticed that the concepts don't just emerge from staring at a fuzzy blur of meaninglessness. It's a pencil. It's 'long'. It's 'yellow'. It was made before 2008.

If that is not attaching concepts to a percept, what is???

Can you clarify the "I agree"? Because the rest of this post sounds like you acknowledge "attaching" of concepts to percepts must be performed by individual's Thinking activity. But then you also write this in subsequent post:

And, I think I've shown here, that EVEN IF Steiner said, "Indeed, there is always a VERY RAPID process that is just like the slower versions that can often take eight or ten minutes. The rapid process is nearly imperceptible but it must happen each time we encounter a percept." We would still be able to notice that a 'rumble' is a distinct kind of observation and each option that came to mind arose spontaneously. Even our motivation to stck with it for eight minutes arose spontaneously. Even if we said, "Oh, I'm going to do this for exactly four more minutes" THAT arose spontaneously. Even if we immediately ignored our intention to stick with it for four minutes, that was spontaneous.

What is arising "spontaneously"? The meaning of the conceptual options for the "rumble" experienced? What is the rumble "a distinct kind of observation" from?

I know you say these confusions arise from your poor writing skills, but I am not letting you off the hook that easily I think you can write just fine when you are intending to communicate clearly about these things.

Yeah, and to be clear: my typical modality is not to make lists of sentences like that. In fact when they asked to list sentences from Schopenhauer that prove such and such, I chose not to...

OK so let's also try the "list sentences" method. What from Schopenhauer makes you think his conception of universal Will had intuitive Thinking activity embedded in it and therefore was not "blind" like most people claim?