Self-Reflection
[quote=Oracle of Delphi]Temet nosce (Know thyself)[/quote]
[quote=Socrates]The unexamined life is not worth living.[/quote]
Both the oracle and Socrates make a plea for self-reflection, basically resorting to a mirror metaphor for our minds.
That's swell, but there's a certain well-known phenomenon that happens with mirrors viz. lateral inversion - left and right are swapped in the image - that gums up the works so to speak.
Sticking with the mirror metaphor/analogy, this would mean a person examining him/herself is likely to evaluate him/herself as the exact opposite of his/her true self. You maybe good, but you think you're bad and vice versa; you maybe an extrovert, but (mis)label yourself as an introvert; you get the idea.
One example from a relatively recent study in pyschology is the notorious Dunning-Kruger effect which is, bottom line, the fact that smart people see themselves as dumb and morons think they're brainy. Lateral Inversion! Oui?
One philosophy, an Oriental one, Taoism, puts a great deal of emphasis on this (lateral) inversion: People who behave humbly are actually arrogant and vice versa; fools are sages and sages are fools; so on and so forth!
[quote=Oracle of Delphi]No one is wiser than Socrates.[/quote]
[quote=Socrates]I know that I know nothing![/quote]
[quote=Socrates]The unexamined life is not worth living.[/quote]
Both the oracle and Socrates make a plea for self-reflection, basically resorting to a mirror metaphor for our minds.
That's swell, but there's a certain well-known phenomenon that happens with mirrors viz. lateral inversion - left and right are swapped in the image - that gums up the works so to speak.
Sticking with the mirror metaphor/analogy, this would mean a person examining him/herself is likely to evaluate him/herself as the exact opposite of his/her true self. You maybe good, but you think you're bad and vice versa; you maybe an extrovert, but (mis)label yourself as an introvert; you get the idea.
One example from a relatively recent study in pyschology is the notorious Dunning-Kruger effect which is, bottom line, the fact that smart people see themselves as dumb and morons think they're brainy. Lateral Inversion! Oui?
One philosophy, an Oriental one, Taoism, puts a great deal of emphasis on this (lateral) inversion: People who behave humbly are actually arrogant and vice versa; fools are sages and sages are fools; so on and so forth!
[quote=Oracle of Delphi]No one is wiser than Socrates.[/quote]
[quote=Socrates]I know that I know nothing![/quote]
Comments (31)
Quoting Agent Smith
I think I am making good arguments in this forum… but who knows what is the thought of the other members about me and my reflection in this site?
This thread is interesting and I am deeply saddened that I am tend to be pretty pessimistic in this issue.
I personally think that most of the people need subterfuges or imagination because they do not like reality or as you have said: Self-reflection.
In Buddhism, without a substantial self, the self is a collection of things, the "aggregates" (skandhas,): 1) the body, or "form," 2) feelings, 3) ideas, 4) impressions, & 5) momentary consciousness.
Form is Emptiness, Emptiness is Form.
-The Heart Sutra
[quote=Ms. Marple]Most interesting![/quote]
You see a self in the mirror, but that's, intriguingly, just an illusion (anatta or perhaps it's actually an other :scream: ). Vide Daniel Dennett (consciousness is an illusion).
That's his illusion, or desillusion, if you like. The guy is a computer freak.and compares the brain with a computer, which for his mind might actually be the case, but in my brain there is actually little computation going on. It doesn't compute, although it might be more fun to...
A simple heuristic (kind courtesy of Taoism) based on (lateral) inversion: negate everything you think you are and you'll be closer to the truth than if you don't.
If a Cartesian deus deceptor did exist, s/he/it will take you to a point farthest from the truth! We could use that, oui?
http://legacy.jkrishnamurti.org/es/krishnamurti-teachings/view-text.php?tid=960&chid=664
Thanks for sharing it. I will give it look later on whenever I would finish my study tasks!
There are interesting things said (and filmed?). It's a bit "fear" centered though. The word "fear" pops up a thousand times!
Well, he's dead!
Perhaps the combination of self-reflection and the reading of others is essential. Introspection was considered important by William James and philosophy may have gone to the other extreme of becoming too theoretical in the twentieth century.
Socrates was in such an opposite predicament to the present time of looking back at centuries of others' ideas. Also, there is so much to be accessed in the information age and internet resources. The reading of theory can be such a large task that it is is possible to become lost in the sea of ideas, wrestling with the tangents of theories. So, it may be that reflection as a process of interacting with ideas on the basis of experience is one way of trying to find one's own independent philosophy position, with the balance between reflective awareness and analytical arguments.
As I recall having said once, there's a [s]Sancta[/s] Trinitas of selves per person ( :wink: )
1. Who you really are.
2. Who you think you are.
3. Who others think you are.
Holy Trinity of sorts, there might be Freudian undertones: the son seeking his (lost) father and all that! Right up your alley, oui?
and the moral of the study was be humble don't be arrogant you're dumber than you think you are and we've all been humble before so nobody decided to challenge it but it can be repeated using computer simulations
so although it logically seems like it makes sense to everybody it's not actually a thing that humans do
it's just a concept that was made and attached to certain situations and it gives them mirage of a effect when it's just a coincidence
You have a fun way of writing! You speak alike?
What exactly do you mean "alike?"
:up: That hits home alright! I suppose it's got something to do with grandiose delusions!
I wish my achievements matched my zeal! :sad:
I think that when we seek to know the world as separate from our selves, we’re not going to know if this is correct unless we also know our selves. That is, we may well be what we know, but what we don’t know - well, we don’t know, do we? It seems to me that there’s more to this gap, that mere knowledge cannot address.
When we evaluate our selves, there’s a confusion between what’s in the mirror and what’s ‘real’. Taoism says that, when it comes to evaluation, a pair of binary values are interchangeable, symmetrically structured. One cannot exist without the other - there is no dark without light, no good without bad. They’re just names we give to the potential limits of our experience, and when we perceive only in terms of this binary evaluation, then it makes little difference which is which - except that our self embodies one and the world the other. So which one is conducting the evaluation?
Taoism also looks at the difference between what we appear to be by our observable acts, and what we understand about ourselves by how we think and feel internally, regardless of action. Can a humble man really demonstrate the strength of humility, or only its apparent weakness? Must a sage be seen to act as proof of wisdom? Is wise action more important than wise inaction, or just more attributable to a ‘self’ by the world?
I mean, without interpunction or capitals. I just wondered how this sounds. In one breath? :grin:
Your book will be a bestseller! Maybe we can work together for a future Nobel Prize. Fifty-fifty! :grin:
The greatest moron of all is me. I wallow myself in my complete moronship and stupidity, and even my mirror image seems brighter than me. What blissful knowledge! And at least I know myself!
Gracias for the kind words, señor/señorita. I'm in unfamiliar territory; please forgive my gaffes if any.
Indeed, there are more questions than we can answer, but, speaking for myself, questions are, at the end of the day, are the cardinal sign of avidya (variously translated as ignorance or absence of wisdom).
As Socrates said "I don't know, I don't think I know", ignorance leads to a sometimes burning desire, an unquenchable thirst, for knowledge, but, from what I can gather from here and there, the path is, for better or worse, simply a loop and we return to where we began, back to square one.
The natural, obvious, question is is the game worth the candle? What was the point of a journey if the end is the beginning? Sisyphus was being tortured!
I sometimes feel that way too, actually, most of the time! Have you seen Forrest Gump? He ran for his life...made it big!
And if not, then forgive me, I use a mixture between voice to text and my fat thumbs, with a sprinkling of "no fucks given" (it's in the baking section of the grocery store near the gluten-free products)
Gracias for the Krishnamurti link. I read it and it rings true. Fear is an overarching theme in life; for instance, no one and I mean no one acts until and unless their ass is on the line. True there's the carrot-and-stick policy, but nothing motivates a person more strongly than an existential threat! Terror is a language everyone understands.
Fear Argument for Antintalism
A child will either cause pain (it'll be feared) or will be in pain (it'll fear)
So,
Don't have children
That said, I'm rather disappointed about how Krishnamurti seems to be (over)simplifying the nam-lu-úlu (the condition of being human).
For me, wisdom is less about pursuing knowledge - a consolidated ‘answer’ - than understanding, which is more fluid, lacks certainty, yet is ultimately more accurate. Think QM. Understanding is about relating to wisdom as a ‘process’ from our limited capacity - it’s not something individually attainable, but somehow possible, beyond the limits of our particular fears or desires. Wisdom is about collaborating to realise the accuracy of this process, regardless of self, rather than striving to have or even be an answer.
Perhaps we should stop thinking of this as a game, with a beginning, an end, set rules that apply to everyone, and apparent winners and losers. A game assumes that we all start with a level playing field and travel the same journey with the same opportunities, relying on luck, skill or knowledge to gain advantages over others towards a set destination. That’s an oversimplification, rendering our predictions inaccurate.
Sisyphus’s torture was in being alone. That the process is eternal, that we cannot consolidate an answer in our ‘individual’ knowledge or being, does not necessarily render the journey as circular.
A photon has a potentially measurable beginning and end, but no set path in between. Once we determine or initiate its existence, we can calculate roughly where we might look for it at any particular time along the journey, or probabilistically if and when we might find it at a certain point in space - barring other interactions, of course. Any set of rules for that journey is determined and redetermined in relation to observation/measurement/interaction.
What is a photon that interacts with nothing?
This is a perspective/style I've seen before and methinks it's one of those stages (think multi-stage rockets) in our philosophical lives that we attain sooner or later. I, however, am not there yet. It's truly encouraging to see someone so at home as yourself in that level. I too will, if my luck doesn't give out and I don't slack off, find myself where you're at. Wish me luck!
I have an idea, thanks to you. I'll try and first understand the question!
A collection of photons that interact with nothing can form a black hole, if the density of them, or their energy is high enough.
Are they not interacting with each other in this instance?
I couldn't agree more such wise words rarely are spoken