Philosophy Unbound: Schopenhauer vs. Steiner (Round One)

[findingblanks]

"When you call it "place", cognition and language are shaping an interpretation. I very much prefer the interpretation that before and after was and will be time."

Hi. Yeah, I agree. I called it a place for a specific reason. Steiner says:

"If a theory of knowledge is really to explain the whole sphere of knowledge, then it must start from something still quite untouched by the activity of thinking, and what is more, from something which lends to this activity its first impulse. This starting point must lie outside the act of cognition, it must not itself be knowledge. But it must be sought immediately prior to cognition, so that the very next step man takes beyond it is the activity of cognition. This absolute starting point must be determined in such a way that it admits nothing already derived from cognition."

So you can see he is using lots of spacial metaphors. That's not his fault, but it does tend to suggest that he wants us to distinguish an actual experience of this 'point' from an actual experience of thinking.

His next sentences can definitely be taken by many people to suggest an actual experience of this spot/point:

"Only our directly given world-picture can offer such a starting point, i.e. that picture of the world which presents itself to man before he has subjected it to the processes of knowledge in any way, before he has asserted or decided anything at all about it by means of thinking. This “directly given” picture is what flits past us, disconnected, but still undifferentiated."

You can see why some of Steiner's students actually treat the starting point as if it is an experience they are supposed to grasp. Even after Steiner reminds us that this 'point' is not an experience at all but merely an 'article concept', he goes on to distinguish it from thinking itself.

As an artificial concept it is the product of thinking, but we are supposed to treat it as a 'field' that thinking must approach.

Anyway, that's why I used the word 'space.' I'm happy that you noticed it was somewhat problematic.

[findingblanks]

By the way, future readers:

In chapter 3 Steiner makes it clear that we shouldn't even yet be certain that there is actually an "I" that is thinking or doing anything else.

Sure, he refers to a self throughout the chapter, but that doesn't make him a hypocrite. He explains in PoF and in TaK that he will be forced to use words that make it sound as if he is already talking about later discoveries. He says it is unavoidable and I mainly agree with him. If you try to avoid using those basic words and notions, you end up sounding like Derrida or some radial postmodernist who refuses to use the word 'is' because it contains too many presuppositions. That is exhausting.

But, yeah, Steiner says that in chapter three we haven't yet even pushed ourselves up to that kind of certainty. We are just making sure our feet our securely in a good position. But some people will have ways of explaining it that suggest in chapter three he wants the reader to have grasped the nature of thinking itself. Like I said, that can be argued in a way that isn't illogical.

[AshvinP]

For future enjoyers:

My view that there is something very significant about those not-as-common moments when we grasp a thought consciously is consistent with what we read Steiner say. That doesn't make me necessarily correct.
...

Another impossibly difficult escape act pulled of by finding the "now you see me..." blanks! You must really teach me this magic trick of writing so much about "your view" without ever actually stating your view. The closest we have come are recent comments where you basically state we should take a few little bits from Steiner and Barfield and chuck the rest aside, presumably "the rest" being those parts which actually require us to do some disciplined thinking ("presumably" because the only option you leave us is to presume all of these things when you stubbornly refuse to state them plainly). You say the guy working on a table in his garage and the student asking about recent exam questions have already done all the heavy lifting for their spiritual growth and we don't need to take it any further than that.

With all this talk of "cult", it seems that may be at the core of your resistance to all of these ideas - you have been around the block a few times and landed with some pretty shady, narcissistic spiritual types. I am truly sorry if our posts here have triggered a lot of bad memories for you. But you are also a strong person... you made it through and that's all in the past. These things do not excuse you from having responsibility for thinking carefully. Cleric has patiently addressed all of your various (mostly irrelevant) objections, and has also explained exactly, line by line, what he means when speaking of "living experience" of Thinking activity. No deep meditation or clairvoyance was required to see the deep spiritual wisdom of what he was pointing to. It all naturally flowed from the undeniable reality of turning our attention to the spiritual essence behind that activity.

You may want to sit down one day and reflect on why his posts were so easy to follow after only one or two passes and yours were almost impossible to follow without at least 10+ follow up questions to clarify what you are writing (and most of time those questions were never answered). Like I said before, it's not because you are a poor writer and it's certainly not because you are an unintelligent person when it comes to making philosophical arguments. You said earlier people were messaging you and telling you they could follow everything you were writing... well those people must have highly advanced faculties of cognition. For the rest of us mere mortals, the whole thing was like trying to find a needle in a haystack only to realize, after much hard searching, there never was a needle. I am glad at least one person said they decided to read PoF after seeing our comments. I'll take that small victory and rest satisfied.

[SanteriSatama]

As you can tell, some people will tell you that to suddenly notice a thought is to be merged with The Christ. Others might describe it as an exceptional experience in which you bring two very different experiences closer and closer together until you feel an avalanche-like experience.

I have already said that those might be internally coherent ways of making sense of what Steiner means by "I am thinking of X."

My 'living experience' of the atypical cognitive situation of consciously noticing a thought is much much less sexy, unfortunately

I think that the suddenly noticing a thought can provide the necessary foothold towards eventually grasping thinking in the present moment. I know, not very exciting, huh?

What can be more exciting than the first drop of water when you are feeling very thirsty? But after first few swallows the excitement mellows down, and to feel excited again... well, many ways.

But the hard part is that we almost always either blast right past this experience (go right back to hammering the damn table) or we kill it by explaining it in some other system of thought. Materialism was the main system of thought that Steiner was battling in the context of that time, so he made clear that you simply couldn't find the value in this foothold if you denied the possibility of non-material reality.

So, I can understand why you might prefer an understanding of this atypical cognitive situation that says it is an encounter with The Christ or an Avalanche Experience that happens when you continuously bring two different experiences into closer proximity.

Well, my own criteria for classifying-narrating encounters and mergings with Christ, Hermes, Oedipus, Dracula etc. etc. as such and such encounters, could be quite different, and also different in each case. As for "Avalanche", the concrete metaphor of getting buried under and suffocating very cold wet does not sound very tempting.

But I will just say that there is something very special in noticing the moment you have a thought and before you grasp the activity itself. It can almost feel like your foot has slid into the perfect spot to make the next chapters, I mean to make the next move.

I don't doubt that. Also, stumbling on stairs, and somehow miraculously succeeding to step-dance your way without falling and hurting yourself badly, and finally when gaining a foot hold, in first after-thought after what must have been most comical looking parkour: How the eff did I manage that??? I had no time to think at all!

[Soul_of_Shu]

I'm just utterly amazed that this thread, which started out as a bit of a lark, and which I thought might fizzle out after I posted the Monty Python 'world cup' skit on page 4 (btw, GO ENGLAND!! ... except in tennis that is), has now reached 44 pages, smashing all previous records, even forcing Eugene to retire from the fray. Come guys, my poor scrolling finger is wearing out! Oh well, carry on ... what is the score now, 34-33 in the 5th set?

[Cleric]

Yes, now that mention it, it would be so much easier if I simply admited you were right about the "avalnche experience" that Steiner is writing about when he says, "I am thinking of a table." For some reason (my fault certainly), I just can't.

No one asks anyone to admit anything. This is not about everyone believing their interpretation is the rightest and trying to monopolize it.

What I'm saying is that there's experiential difference between noticing momentary stillshots of our thoughts and actually livingly approaching the contemplative experience of thinking. What you say is like someone who knows about his body only from photographs that he happens to see from time to time. I'm saying that one can know himself in very different way if he observes his reflection in a mirror in real time. You say: yeah, I see what you're saying but I just can't admit that. But no one is asking for admitting! In fact, if you simply admit it without knowing from own experience, it's even worse. Then it truly becomes dogma.

This is the simple fact. We intuitively know ourselves as spiritual beings by experiencing intimately the reflections of our thinking (or simply - the observation of thinking), just like we know ourselves as physical beings by the sum total of sensory perceptions we have about our body. Just as perceptions of our body in motion give us much richer information about it, so when we perceive our thinking in motion, up close, we learn much more about what we are as living spiritual beings. Then we practically try to experiment. It's like finding for the first time that you have a face and begin making grimaces in front of the mirror - just to explore the degrees of muscular freedom you're endowed with. It's similar with the observation of thinking. We come upon a spiritual feedback that gives us the possibility to experiment with the thought-forms, dynamics, patterns, rhythms of thinking. All this tremendously expands our intuitive knowledge of what we are as a spiritual being. This goes so far that we already know that within the intuitive volume that we have thus probed, we live in the actual spiritual fabric of reality. We truly touch and explore the spiritual shapes and metamorphoses of the spiritual world with our thinking spirit.

You gain nothing if you just admit that what I say here might be right. As long as you don't approach these experiences, it's all the same if you believe they are real or not. Now you probably think "I know the stillshots of my thoughts. That's significant and enough. What could be so different if I try to contemplate these stillshots in motion? It's just the same thoughts but little more wiggly - big deal!" Well, actually the difference is really a 'big deal'. It's as big deal, as the difference between life and death, between living vibrant being and a corpse.

Since we're both speaking here also to the invisible auditory, let me just repeat it again out loud. I hope everyone sees that I'm not pushing for a certain rigid interpretation of some text because I'm too arrogant and close-minded to allow for the possibility for other treatments. Please take a look again at what I've written above about learning about our spiritual being by exploring the degrees of freedom of thinking we find reflected to us in our thoughts. I guess that, especially when compared with the body and the glass mirror, it sounds at least 'logical'. It is indeed logical that the more intimately we contemplate our thinking reflections, the more we intuitively understand about ourselves as spiritual beings. But this is not the end goal. No one gains anything if they simply see it as logical and consistent, and then just stop there. The only thing that matters is if these things are verified for ourselves. After reading, people fantasize and wonder 'what it would be like if I could contemplate my thinking being?' Well, why not just try it? You don't need tools, money, university degree, master's certificates. It's an experience at a thought's distance. It's always there, we just need to make the decision to try it.

This is the whole spirit of PoF. And if people are not willing to take that leap, that's just a thought's distance wide, and verify things for themselves, it's OK! No one forces them. But to speak about those who do take that leap and simply report their inner experiences, as being deluded and monopolizing their interpretations, is just arrogance. This is what always baffles me the most in conversations like these. I would understand if I was claiming the existence of small green men on Mars and trying to force everybody to accept my interpretation. But when I simply and calmly describe inner experiences, and not only that, but describe also the simple steps that anyone can take to test them against their own experience, and this makes me a cultist, blinded arrogant colonist, etc. - this simply makes no sense to me.

[SanteriSatama]

I'm just utterly amazed that this thread, which started out as a bit of a lark, and which I thought might fizzle out after I posted the Monty Python 'world cup' skit on page 4 (btw, GO ENGLAND!! ... except in tennis that is), has now reached 44 pages, smashing all previous records, even forcing Eugene to retire from the fray. Come guys, my poor scrolling finger is wearing out! Oh well, carry on ... what is the score now, 34-33 in the 5th set?

Would you be disappointed if the game is settled before 47-49 in the 7th set?

[Ben Iscatus]

(btw, GO ENGLAND!!

Yay! I bags England = Schop, Ukraine = Steiner.
(But I guess Italy will be Nisargadatta)

[Soul_of_Shu]

(btw, GO ENGLAND!!

Yay! I bags England = Schop, Ukraine = Steiner.
(But I guess Italy will be Nisargadatta)

Ah yes, Nisargadattatelli ... Direct pointer striker supremo! Better put both Schop and Steiner in goal, hands waving wildly

[AshvinP]

For future enjoyers:

My view that there is something very significant about those not-as-common moments when we grasp a thought consciously is consistent with what we read Steiner say. That doesn't make me necessarily correct.
...

Another impossibly difficult escape act pulled of by finding the "now you see me..." blanks! You must really teach me this magic trick of writing so much about "your view" without ever actually stating your view. The closest we have come are recent comments where you basically state we should take a few little bits from Steiner and Barfield and chuck the rest aside, presumably "the rest" being those parts which actually require us to do some disciplined thinking ("presumably" because the only option you leave us is to presume all of these things when you stubbornly refuse to state them plainly). You say the guy working on a table in his garage and the student asking about recent exam questions have already done all the heavy lifting for their spiritual growth and we don't need to take it any further than that.

With all this talk of "cult", it seems that may be at the core of your resistance to all of these ideas - you have been around the block a few times and landed with some pretty shady, narcissistic spiritual types. I am truly sorry if our posts here have triggered a lot of bad memories for you. But you are also a strong person... you made it through and that's all in the past. These things do not excuse you from having responsibility for thinking carefully. Cleric has patiently addressed all of your various (mostly irrelevant) objections, and has also explained exactly, line by line, what he means when speaking of "living experience" of Thinking activity. No deep meditation or clairvoyance was required to see the deep spiritual wisdom of what he was pointing to. It all naturally flowed from the undeniable reality of turning our attention to the spiritual essence behind that activity.

You may want to sit down one day and reflect on why his posts were so easy to follow after only one or two passes and yours were almost impossible to follow without at least 10+ follow up questions to clarify what you are writing (and most of time those questions were never answered). Like I said before, it's not because you are a poor writer and it's certainly not because you are an unintelligent person when it comes to making philosophical arguments. You said earlier people were messaging you and telling you they could follow everything you were writing... well those people must have highly advanced faculties of cognition. For the rest of us mere mortals, the whole thing was like trying to find a needle in a haystack only to realize, after much hard searching, there never was a needle. I am glad at least one person said they decided to read PoF after seeing our comments. I'll take that small victory and rest satisfied.

I realized its a bit hypocritical to not state my view on the last point... my view is that your "interpretation" requires so much deviation from the plain meaning and context that the only way to put it forward for consideration is to "shadow dance" with a million and one questions and short statements, making everyone so confused that they may fail to notice the complete incongruity with PoF. Like we have said a few times, we give you some credit for coming up with the most convoluted yet somewhat ingenious way of discarding philosophy of Thinking and spiritual science... claim the proponents are actually holding to the opposite position of everyone who has ever read them. I really think you gave Schopenhauer and BK a run for their money here, so bravo