Deeper reading, Steeper Art

[findingblanks]

..........

[findingblanks]

Cleric, you wrote:

"Well, at this point I am simply lost."

Trust me, I'm with you Don't mind whatever Soul says about it.

" You say ".. atheist could have the same insight" but I really don't know what insight you speak of."

I was speaking of the insight you seemed to be referring to when you first responded to my hypothetical. Here, let me go find it. I'll be right back...

Okay, first I quoted this part of the piece:

"Anthroposophia is a being, yes, but she must be embraced as a moral force in the continual unfolding of your living thinking..."

Then I asked:

"If an atheist were having this insight, I wonder what kinds of concepts it would clothe itself within...."

Okay, so if I'm tracking this correctly, the very first use of 'insight' was referring to the quote.

Then you wrote:

"You're basically asking if the atheist having this 'insight' will conceptualize things as EM waves, information, etc."

So at that point I thought we at least were each using 'insight' to refer to the original quotation that I cut out and used as my reference point.

I'm still referring to that. And I'm asking -- assuming you or anybody else believes that an insight can be grasped and articulated by different people in different ways -- how people would imagine an atheist might articulate that same insight. The piece clearly has the teacher framing and clothing it with terms like "Anthroposophia", but obviously an atheists would not use that word and would probably not even have heard of that word. Thanks again.

[Cleric K]

Then you wrote:

"You're basically asking if the atheist having this 'insight' will conceptualize things as EM waves, information, etc."

So at that point I thought we at least were each using 'insight' to refer to the original quotation that I cut out and used as my reference point.

I'm still referring to that. And I'm asking -- assuming you or anybody else believes that an insight can be grasped and articulated by different people in different ways -- how people would imagine an atheist might articulate that same insight. The piece clearly has the teacher framing and clothing it with terms like "Anthroposophia", but obviously an atheists would not use that word and would probably not even have heard of that word. Thanks again.

I can't follow your logic here. Let's clear the ground. What different people initially see in the quotation is written words. About the words, their shape, etc. people will largely agree (they'll have the same insight about the geometric forms they see). But when each one reads the words, they will most likely have different insights. The one who doesn't know how to read will remain with the insight of nicely shaped figures ordered in lines. The anthroposophist will have one insight, the atheist another.

So people, because of their varied backgrounds, in general arrive at different insights. By communicating more, they can see things from wider perspectives and eventually arrive at the same insight. I know what you have quoted, I know the shapes of the words, I know what insight I experience but until now I have no clue what your insight about the quote is. In this sense we can't speak of 'articulating the same insight' because I don't know if we have the same insight. I don't know that because so far you have said absolutely nothing about what your insight is. For this reason I hope you can explain what your insight is such that we can synchronize our insights.

[Soul_of_Shu]

I can't follow your logic here. Let's clear the ground. What different people initially see in the quotation is written words. About the words, their shape, etc. people will largely agree (they'll have the same insight about the geometric forms they see). But when each one reads the words, they will most likely have different insights. The one who doesn't know how to read will remain with the insight of nicely shaped figures ordered in lines. The anthroposophist will have one insight, the atheist another.

So people, because of their varied backgrounds, in general arrive at different insights. By communicating more, they can see things from wider perspectives and eventually arrive at the same insight. I know what you have quoted, I know the shapes of the words, I know what insight I experience but until now I have no clue what your insight about the quote is. In this sense we can't speak of 'articulating the same insight' because I don't know if we have the same insight. I don't know that because so far you have said absolutely nothing about what your insight is. For this reason I hope you can explain what your insight is such that we can synchronize our insights.

And here we're coming around, yet again, to the difference between what constitutes one's unequivocal, indelible, profoundly meaningful insight as the living core and basis of one's reality, contra just another abstraction passing for such an insight? One can speculate about what for an atheist might constitute the former, as opposed to the latter, but like you I'm more interested in FB's take on what constitutes the former for him.

[AshvinP]

I can't follow your logic here. Let's clear the ground. What different people initially see in the quotation is written words. About the words, their shape, etc. people will largely agree (they'll have the same insight about the geometric forms they see). But when each one reads the words, they will most likely have different insights. The one who doesn't know how to read will remain with the insight of nicely shaped figures ordered in lines. The anthroposophist will have one insight, the atheist another.

So people, because of their varied backgrounds, in general arrive at different insights. By communicating more, they can see things from wider perspectives and eventually arrive at the same insight. I know what you have quoted, I know the shapes of the words, I know what insight I experience but until now I have no clue what your insight about the quote is. In this sense we can't speak of 'articulating the same insight' because I don't know if we have the same insight. I don't know that because so far you have said absolutely nothing about what your insight is. For this reason I hope you can explain what your insight is such that we can synchronize our insights.

And here we're coming around, yet again, to the difference between what constitutes one's unequivocal, indelible, profoundly meaningful insight as the living core and basis of one's reality, contra just another abstraction passing for such an insight? One can speculate about what for an atheist might constitute the former, as opposed to the latter, but like you I'm more interested in FB's take on what constitutes the former for him.

What I wrote on TCT in response to Steve, of course informed by all that Cleric had already wrote on the same thread, is what I think is also going on here with FB and the equivalence of Anthroposophist-Atheist 'insight' - viewtopic.php?p=15263#p15263

[findingblanks]

Well, a way it can be put is that there is only one truth that manifests itself perfectly in any and all contexts in which it is manifesting. That perfection isn't to be confused with the necessary imperfections/limitation that come from manifestation itself. And the egoic process is the very act of both directly participating the truth while also getting 'lost' in the particular manifestation via the egoic process. Of course this points to the fact that the so-called 'egoic process' is united with (distinguished but not divided from) what some of us Anthropops refer to as 'living thinking.' The ego believes that via representations it will eventually (or already has) penetrated the truth, grasped it, gotten it, spoken it, whatever particular form of play the ego is engaged in with this participation.

With that as preface, one way to perhaps speak (to this audience) my understanding of the insight quoted by the Steiner figure from the Vault's piece:

for a reminder, this was the sequence of words used by the Steiner figure:

"Anthroposophia is a being, yes, but she must be embraced as a moral force in the continual unfolding of your living thinking..."

1) You are not really thinking unless you experience yourself 'giving birth' to the good.
2) If your thinking isn't a process of change -- if it isn't requiring you to constantly 'unfold it', you can't possibly be cognizing morally.
3) There's nothing very significant about having a bunch of correct thoughts. But, equally so, there's nothing more significant than giving up any and all of your certainties in pursuit of the truth. The different between collections of correct facts and 'the truth' is the difference between merely knowing your child's name versus understanding (intuitively) your child's heart.

The above would be statements that might express the same insight the Steiner figure is expressing through his phrases. Of course, if we center ourselves in a particular schema (spiritual beings, waves, family life, impulses, plain speech) all the other schemas will be seeming to miss the core point. You could hear somebody saying, "But if the expression of words does not mention spiritual beings then obviously this person hasn't really grasped the insight." Or, you could imagine somebody saying, "Well the claim regarding the spiritual being is at best a downstream element of this insight as a living experience and truth." And we are assured that neither could possibly change the other's mind.

However, since the nature of real cognition is that no representation is 'correct' (although they are essential to incarnating any insight), we know that the experience of this moral cognitive participation is fundamentally other than any of the various wonderful ways it will manifest via careful and accurate representational modalities. We don't want to limit the incarnation process to words because, as Steiner said, he wished he could have danced The Philosophy of Freedom rather than writing it. If somebody used a one given style of dance to accurately dance PoF, it would be a mistake if they then concluded THAT is the true from of PoF. Yet, their dance could be the 'perfect' expression of PoF at this time and place via those distinct representational modalities (those forms of dance in this exmample).

So, in summary form one way for me to say what the insight is would go:

When Steiner was writing The Philosophy of Freedom and he wrote a sentence, smiled but then suddenly leaned back in his chair and placed his pen on his lower lip before erasing the sentence and make a change.... the 'insight' he grasped that caused him to reincarnate the insight in a new sentence was not either of the two sentences he wrote. And if four days later he pauses again and 'feels'/thinks into the utter silence of that very specific insight, it might very well demand a new expression.

And to condense my for now way of stating what I think the insight is:

What we know gets in the way of our knowing. And that is unavoidable and beautiful. As long as we know it and, therefore, can keep 'going into' the insight for more.

Okay, so obviously nothing I've said to help state my understanding of the insight is the insight itself. We can and should pick at my words and pick at how they don't quite fit other better way of 'saying it'. But none of our 'picking' should cause us to lose sight of what I'm grasping.

This is why I somewhat humbly know that Steiner and Schopenhauer are both brilliantly grasping 'the same' insights while misunderstanding how the other will incarnate the insight. Of course Schop never got to read Steiner so he never had the chance to both grasp aspects of Steiner and misunderstand aspects of Steiner. Only Steiner got that privilege. It would be very difficult for me to believe that Schop would have either perfectly grasped Steiner's early philosophical articulations or would have fully misunderstood. Although, even as I type that I know that each of those great thinkers have fans and students who know for certain that the other one wasn't capable of grasping even an aspect of their teacher's core insight. Again, as I said above, I haven't yet seen evidence that those kinds of students change their minds or, in the words of the Steiner figure, keep their thoughts unfolding.

All of this speak to Steiner's comments that it would not be long (within his century) that philosophers would be able to speak Fichte's philosophy in ways that everybody could easily grasp. I don't think he meant there would be just ONE easily grasped book that proved this. I think Steiner understood that the easily grasped Fichte would require being articulated extremely differently in different contexts. I don't think that just because a person in one context is grasping the easily grasped Fichte this means that they would even recognize the easily grasped Fichte in one of the other contexts it is being expressed.

In my opinion, the exact same thing is already happening with The Philosophy of Freedom and other essential insights. We all probably agree that Fiche's work and insights were somewhat distinct from The Philosophy of Freedom, but we also probably see why Steiner felt they were livingly connected and interpenetrated each other.

[Cleric K]

This is why I somewhat humbly know that Steiner and Schopenhauer are both brilliantly grasping 'the same' insights while misunderstanding how the other will incarnate the insight. Of course Schop never got to read Steiner so he never had the chance to both grasp aspects of Steiner and misunderstand aspects of Steiner. Only Steiner got that privilege. It would be very difficult for me to believe that Schop would have either perfectly grasped Steiner's early philosophical articulations or would have fully misunderstood. Although, even as I type that I know that each of those great thinkers have fans and students who know for certain that the other one wasn't capable of grasping even an aspect of their teacher's core insight. Again, as I said above, I haven't yet seen evidence that those kinds of students change their minds or, in the words of the Steiner figure, keep their thoughts unfolding.

Thank you FB for elaborating on your view! It practically confirms what you have already made clear in more cryptic ways so far.

I fully agree that anything we say about the 'insight' is only a metaphor. Yet where neither I, nor Steiner agree is that this 'insight' is inexplicable. This is the same old threshold of intellectual cognition that is being spoken of all the time here. Ashvin refers to it in his latest essay:

Everything beyond the horizon of intellectually spatialized vision is simply converted into a black hole of experience for the modern soul; a blank canvas onto which its own unexamined desires can be projected. “Heaven”, the “afterlife”, “purgatory”, and similar abstract concepts become fictitious corporate entities which are functioning as the alter-ego of the individual. The alter-ego is what Jung also referred to as the “shadow”-self who harbors all our darkest, i.e., most unexamined, thoughts, feelings, and desires.

So the 'insight' you speak of is practically the inexplicable black hole. The most we can say is that it probably exists. Then we can embellish it with beautiful words about morals and aesthetics.

I understand perfectly well how from your perspective you are obliged to say that "Steiner and Schopenhauer are both brilliantly grasping 'the same' insights while misunderstanding how the other will incarnate the insight". This is the only way we can speak of if we are to justify our own black hole event horizon. You said it explicitly that for you astral body, soul organs, Saturn condition, etc. are simply fanciful interpretation of the insight. In other word, Schop was speaking about the same things but with different words.

The only way on Earth you can maintain such a thing is if you simply imagine that the modes of higher cognition which cross the black hole event horizon, are completely intellectual farts on Steiner's side. He simply became carried away in fantasy. And I'm not saying this to defend RS but only that you should be more clear with yourself where you disagree with Steiner. The races and the red bull should be the last problem on the list for you. The slap in the face should be that the whole of Anthroposophy is the screaming denial of what you say - that cognition exists only as an interpretative layer of the inexplicable insight. The starting point of SS is the method of spiritual development which leads to different states of consciousness which can cognize the deep structure of the black hole. It is from there that we can speak of etheric, astral bodies and so on with the same certainty as we can speak of sensory perceptions, feelings, thoughts in our ordinary state. The fact that the former are bound to forever remain for you poetic expressions (one of the infinite possible) for the inexplicable, simply shows that you don't take seriously the possibility for intellectual thinking to be only a lower order (decohered, aliased) manifestation of a higher, more fundamental form of cognitive spiritual activity. And I repeat that I'm not saying this to convince you that the higher forms of consciousness are real but simply to point attention to the glaring conflict you should have with SS. Basically you're exonerating SS by saying "Steiner had some very good insight but he got little carried away by mistaking Imagination, Inspiration and Intuition for something more than intellectual fancy stimulated by the inexplicable but received entirely on our side of the event horizon. But other than that it is all very interesting."

[findingblanks]

Cleric, I simply can't let a presupposition that is so off go by. I'll need to slow you down because when you say:

"Yet where neither I, nor Steiner agree is that this 'insight' is inexplicable..."

I'm sorry but I can't let this move take place.

Steiner explicated it. I've now given several possible explications. You've done so. To claim that I've denied the insight can be articulated in specific contexts is the opposite of not only what I said but what I showed.

I not only never said that insights are inexplicable. I did the opposite. I gave several examples of possible explications. It simply is impossible to have fruitful conversations if your very first move is to state my position as the exact opposite of what i said. It's fine and good if we disagree but we can't just make up things. Not only did I give various possible explications of the insight, I also then pointed to the way in which Steiner would revise his explications. All of this is the opposite of me claiming that the insight is inexplicable. He explicated it. You've taken your stab. I've done it. Nobody here is claiming that the insight must simple float inexplicably in the clouds and never be carried into manifestation. via symbols.

Sorry for the frustration but when the first think you say twists my point to its opposite and then you go on for several paragraphs with that presupposition....ugh. And yet, thanks for chiming in.

[Cleric K]

Cleric, I simply can't let a presupposition that is so off go by. I'll need to slow you down because when you say:

"Yet where neither I, nor Steiner agree is that this 'insight' is inexplicable..."

I'm sorry but I can't let this move take place.

Steiner explicated it. I've now given several possible explications. You've done so. To claim that I've denied the insight can be articulated in specific contexts is the opposite of not only what I said but what I showed.

I not only never said that insights are inexplicable. I did the opposite. I gave several examples of possible explications. It simply is impossible to have fruitful conversations if your very first move is to state my position as the exact opposite of what i said. It's fine and good if we disagree but we can't just make up things. Not only did I give various possible explications of the insight, I also then pointed to the way in which Steiner would revise his explications. All of this is the opposite of me claiming that the insight is inexplicable. He explicated it. You've taken your stab. I've done it. Nobody here is claiming that the insight must simple float inexplicably in the clouds and never be carried into manifestation. via symbols.

Sorry for the frustration but when the first think you say twists my point to its opposite and then you go on for several paragraphs with that presupposition....ugh. And yet, thanks for chiming in.

I'm not twisting anything but only pointing at the root cause. You made it perfectly clear previously that for you things like etheric body, Saturn condition and so on are uncertain. You said that you can as well imagine that none of that might exist (here). You say that RS made the inexplicable explicable but at the same time you think that with one wave of the hand it may turn out that nothing of that may exist. This only shows that we have completely different understanding of what it means to make the inexplicable explicable.

For the animal living in instinct, pain and pleasure, thinking is inexplicable. It is beyond the horizon of it's consciousness. Then the animal-Schop feels that the life of instinct emerges from the dark depths of the blind will. The animal-Steiner tries to explains through patterns of pain and pleasure (because this is what other animals understand) about the possibility to cross the horizon and live in a higher form of consciousness where on top of instincts there are such things as number, triangle, circle and so on - that is - thoughts. Furthermore he tries to show (again through patterns of pain and pleasure) that these things are real and once they are experienced, the experience itself is the living confirmation of their existence. It's not like he's trying to make pain-pleasure interpretation of what might be beyond the horizon without the possibility to ever know if that is really the case. Yet many animals believe that his pain and pleasure patterns have simply gone wild.

I hope this analogy hints at what I'm talking about. The question is that SS speaks precisely about the possibility for conscious development which leads to states where we can describe the deeper structure of consciousness (which is also the structure of the Cosmos) with terms as etheric, astral body, etc., just as we can describe our mathematical thinking. So I only pointed out that in the way you speak of things you maintain the position that all of these things which SS speaks of are simply patterns of pain and pleasure that symbolize the inexplicable but the reality to which the symbols point can as well be nonexistent. It might simply be crude approximation for something else. I hope you understand what this means when related with the above analogy. It's like the animals saying (through patterns of pain and pleasure) "Yeah, I see what you mean when you speak about these numbers, thoughts, logic, etc., but these are only imperfect approximations of reality. Later we'll have more refined patterns of pain and pleasure which will show us that there's no such thing as thought. It was simply a pain-pleasure blurry artifact in the process of our pain-pleasure lens coming into focus."

[findingblanks]

"I'm not twisting anything but only pointing at the root cause."

Oh, I see. I said that we necessarily do explicate insights and you wanted to make it clear that I said the opposite because of a 'root cause.'

Trust me, Soul deeply respects what you are doing. Whereas I can't even get past the fact that you immediately began our conversation by telling me I said the opposite of what I said, Someday I might be able to take your seminar and see why I actually don't deeply believe in explication. Until then, take care. I know that I'm not capable in helping you re-read my comments and come to a different interpretation other than that I don't believe insight s can be spoken/symbolized.

Other people: enjoy that as an example of deep dogma. and enjoy the way Soul either responds or not as another amazing image of his method! This actually is interesting depiste being nearly impossible on the level of back-and-forth discourse. Just re-read my comments and my examples of explication and then imagine what you'd need to be doing to "teach" me that I don't believe in it Also, realize that means that I don't believe that the point I am making in this post is explicable. So those of you who privately message me should probably know that you are wrong too. What a great way to start a conversation.