Jim Cross wrote: ↑Fri Sep 09, 2022 11:45 am
The responses on this topic illustrates exactly what is wrong.
There is a comment about the forum and why it has been reduced to a few commenters. There is some discussion about the forum, its history, and fate.
Then...
What do we end up with?
Quotes from Steiner. Debates about World Content and other terminology. Lectures from Ashvin on thinking and such.
Of course, this is General Discussion so off-topic is permitted. But the off-topic always returns to the same topic - Steiner.
I guess I'm done.
I think there's something here that isn't well appreciated. As Ashvin said, the conversations here do not simply move into some self-enclosed Steinerian corner but we're dealing with a real and living understanding which can penetrate
every aspect of existence.
Anyone can try to remember when was the last time when me of Ashvin said something of the sort "I don't understand what you're saying so it is nonsense. Instead I offer you this and this truth." Really - can anyone point at an example when they were trying to explain something and got the impression that we
don't understand what they are saying?
If anyone has tried to read what is being written in this forum, they will clearly see that the responses do not simply
reject the objections but in fact
explain how the objections are
resolved within a much more encompassing body of living understanding. This is in such a stark contrast to everything we see otherwise. When those defending certain position exhaust their logical arguments they simply declare the other party to be nonsensical, sectarian, elitist and what not. This is natural when one defends religious beliefs but I think most people come to a forum like this precisely because they feel the times of religious dogma are gone. Man today yearns not simply to believe but to
know.
Jim, you as a scientifically minded person should be quite capable of appreciating this. Otherwise it is like accusing some theory of everything for being able to say something about everything. But isn't this exactly the goal of human knowledge? To approach such a cognitive perspective from which every phenomenon finds its rightful place in a harmonious whole? Now you may object that what we speak of is not viable because it doesn't offer any mathematical description of reality. But this is exactly where the 'meta' comes in. At what point we became certain that reality operates on mathematical rules which quite conveniently happen to be compatible with the thought patterns of some apes on a rocky planet? If we really want to go meta we need to step back and investigate the very thinking activity which has, consciously or not, decided to limit itself into a very specific mode of cognition.
You can at least admit that our approaches are diametrically opposite. When was the last time when me or Asvhin have ignored your posts or dismissed your essays because we don't understand them or find them nonsensical? At the same time this is what happens on regular basis to what we say. I tried several times to have a completely constructive dialog with you but when the inquiry expands further than the title of the essay, you simply ignore the other side.
This has been pointed out many times: the characteristic thing about evolutionary development of consciousness is that it has absolutely no problem to fully encompass and comprehend the
past states. On the contrary - those who desire to remain within the past states have no choice but simply
reject the new developments on completely
irrational grounds (that is, ultimately having to do with barely conscious sympathies and antipathies, instead of conscious penetration into the intricacies of reality).