Krishnamurti Thread
I have a baggage of unfinished thoughts and ideas about Krishnamurti hereabouts. I find one of my favorite posters hereabouts dropping his sentimental thoughts quite often.
I did want to start a thread specifically about one of his most philosophically interesting quotes about the observer being observed, yet haven't quite felt that a thread devoted to one quote of his was quite appropriate to the general message or theme the man was trying to pass on-to the world, as the whole thing is kind of a package deal.
So, instead, I wanted to start a general thread in regards to his thoughts and sentiments.
I'll start this thread with his most interesting thought pertaining to philosophy being:
A quick rundown of this gem of wisdom can be understood as deriving, no surpise here, from Buddhist thought of reaching satori. By, which I mean, if an observer were to only observe, then no reflection of the observed could be derived. Whereas, there is an element of observation of the act of observing, that is, the impartial and innocent witness, which Buddhism strives to bring out in every person, as simply being 'true'. Now, 'truth' is a contested subject and object in Buddhist thought, which can only be grasped from an observer that observes him or herself in the act of observing. And, that's about all I can hereabouts muster.
Thoughts and observations welcome. :smile:
I did want to start a thread specifically about one of his most philosophically interesting quotes about the observer being observed, yet haven't quite felt that a thread devoted to one quote of his was quite appropriate to the general message or theme the man was trying to pass on-to the world, as the whole thing is kind of a package deal.
So, instead, I wanted to start a general thread in regards to his thoughts and sentiments.
I'll start this thread with his most interesting thought pertaining to philosophy being:
J. Krishnamurti:The observer is the observed.
A quick rundown of this gem of wisdom can be understood as deriving, no surpise here, from Buddhist thought of reaching satori. By, which I mean, if an observer were to only observe, then no reflection of the observed could be derived. Whereas, there is an element of observation of the act of observing, that is, the impartial and innocent witness, which Buddhism strives to bring out in every person, as simply being 'true'. Now, 'truth' is a contested subject and object in Buddhist thought, which can only be grasped from an observer that observes him or herself in the act of observing. And, that's about all I can hereabouts muster.
Thoughts and observations welcome. :smile:
Comments (97)
So, erm, I am currently observing a pair of hands on a keyboard. That means I am a pair of hands on a keyboard?
I mean, I'm not. So what he's said is just plainly false as anyone who thinks about it for a second or two can surely recognise.
Sorry to bring some cold hard reason to this kumbaya party, but "the observer is the observed" is not a gem of wisdom, it is a smelly little blob of ignorance.
An observer is a mind, a subject-of-experiences, for 'observing' is something minds and minds alone can do. By contrast, 'the observed' is simply that which is being observed.
In fact, observers, being minds, do not seem to be observable at all.
You just made an observation about your activity as an observer.
I observe some fingers on a keyboard. Am I some fingers on a keyboard? No. I am an observer - a mind - I am not some fingers on a keyboard. What I observe, and what I am, are not necessarily the same.
You have pointed out that I just made an observation. Yes. I am not denying the existence of observations. Observations happen - I am observing, right now, some fingers on a keyboard. But the important point is that I, the observer - the one doing the observing - am not necessarily that which I observe.
And in fact, when we reflect further on the nature of the self, it will become apparent that selves, observers, are not, in fact, things that can be observed at all.
So, what Krishnamurti said 'sounds' wise and profound and insightful. But upon inspection, it is total and utter rubbish. Unless he's just looking in a mirror and, after confusing his body for himself, saying "the observer is the observed" (when what he really meant is "the observer is observing himself"). But I don't think that's what he meant, do you?
I think he meant that observers are observations, which is silly but apt to impress those who refuse to think.
Answer: no.
Score: Bartricks 1. Krishnatmurti 0.
You equate the limits of self awareness with whether you are all that you perceive?
That's nuts.
Someone quoted someone and said of the quote that it was a gem of wisdom.
Yet what it said was quite absurd. Manifestly false. The observer is not the observed.
Do we need to go through it again?
I am observing a computer monitor.
I am not a computer monitor.
I - the observer - am not the observed - the computer monitor.
Now, if you think that what I said was problematic, whereas what Krishnawhatever said was profound and insightful then I simply wish you the best of luck in whatever cults you join and hope you meet some good lawyers along the way.
Yes, I see that.
Follow?
Fishy, given his abandonment of his followers and others as World Teacher.
Chill dude.
This is very much the attitude of Soto Zen, a school of Buddhism very similar in spirit to Krishnamurti (although Krishnamurti of course never acknowledged being part of a school or any kind of method.) But the Soto attitude of 'practicing with no gaining idea' is in keeping with the spirit of Krishnamurti. It also extends to various forms of cultural and aesthetic practice. I read some great columns from a current Soto zen teacher, I'll try and find them.
Thanks!
So, I do know that Buddhist thought contests the notion of having any type of 'self'. But, isn't it the observer that is being observed that is the locus of what one might call a 'self'?
But what he actually meant - because wo betide we come to the conclusion that our guru is a total idiot who utters nonsense and contradictions to other total idiots who are then able to read-into what he has said anything they fancy - is that if you are greedy you are greed.
Right, okay, let's put that idea under Reason's microscope and see what we see, even though no-one in their right mind would ever use the words "the observer is the observed" to express it.
Hmm, if I am greedy - and I am - am I greed? No. I am greedy, but I - the one who has the quality of being greedy - am not greed itself. After all, if I stop being greedy I am still me, yet the greed has gone.
Score
Bartricks 2. Krishnamurti 0
Quoting Wallows
The Buddha never said there was no self, nor that there is a self: rather that everything arises in dependence on factors, which is the theory of conditioned origination. So rather than saying 'there is no self', the term was used adjectivally - everything (i.e. every conditioned experience) is 'without self', anatta'. When asked point blank whether there is or is not a self, the Buddha declined to answer.
In practical terms, I think selflessness is realised in states of absorption in what you're doing. That can occur in secular activities like music or athleticism and has been referred to as 'being in the flow'. I think the same principles are applied by Buddhists to day-to-day activities so that the sense of 'I am doing this' or 'this is mine' naturally tends to fall away.
I too find parallels between Krishnamurti's thought and Buddhist thought. It is thoroughly incoherent and won't withstand a moment's scrutiny. Both deny the obvious by appeal to the obviously false at the same time as promising tranquillity to those who will just suspend their reason and go along with it all. Consequently, such systems of thought - if we can even justify calling them that - appeal to the same basic constituencies: the dumb, the unhappy, and the intellectually lazy.
The self exists. Deal with it. Anyone who has powers of reason can discern that they themselves exist, for if anything is being observed, or thought, or desired, or felt, then there is a mind - a self - who is doing the observing, bearing the thought, undergoing the desire, or having the feeling. Hence why virtually everyone believes in themselves. And they can discern that they - this self - is not one and the same as the thoughts, desires and such like that it is bearing. For it is clear to reason that if we go from thinking one thing to another, we do not thereby cease to be.
Philosophy isn't therapy. Buddhism is. Krishnamurti-ism is. That is, they are worldviews whose appeal resides not in their credibility, but in the fact they promise tranquillity to those who can bring themselves to believe in such nonsense.
No wonder Buddhists are so keen to encourage us to try and think nothing.
I get your point. I find the Anglosaxon way of consumerist life fundamentally at odds with the calm serenity of seeking advice from elders, immersing in healthy habits (apart from the bodybuilding that goes about in my Californian state, I do wonder what a Zen monk would make out of this bodybuilding craze, heh), etc. etc. etc.
If it turns out that you have not captured the essence of what you have so much contempt for, what does the effort amount to?
You have given yourself no way to examine the matter. It is an intellectual dead end.
Politeness - and I am polite to a t - led to circumstances arising in which I had to endure watching a Krishnamurti video. I know nonsense when I hear it, and I had to hear 2 bloody hours of him talking gibberish and asking 'but why?' over and over again to an eminent physicist (clearly one can be good at physics and utterly shite at philosophy) and some keen but stupid psychologist.
So I know the sort of nonsense Krishnamurti says - like I say 2 bloody hours of it - and I know the kind of people he appeals to, and I was incensed that others considered him a 'philosopher'. He is not a philosopher and he makes no arguments.
It's all nonsense. If your marriage is falling apart, if you're desperately unhappy, or if you've recently had a lobotomy, then I can see its appeal. But otherwise, no.
There's a strong connection between Rinzai Zen and martial arts. If you ever do Karate training there's quite a bit of Buddhist etiquette involved.
You refer to a set of presumably obvious factors that have no bearing to the subject at hand.
I truly cannot understand or decipher your text as a predicate.
I took that quote, the one you and others think is profound and worth marvelling at - and I showed that it was complete junk.
"The observer is the observed" Krishnamurti.
No. That's simply false. Test it. Open the cutlery draw and observe a fork. Are you a fork? Now look at a teaspoon. Are you a teaspoon? Do you miss being a fork?
It's just silly.
But your reading of it is incredibly puerile. It is so far from the intent of the expression that you may be making fun of yourself.
That's not a 'puerile' reading - it is just what those words in that combination mean.
You offered what manners say I must restrict myself to calling a 'bizarre' interpretation - that what he meant was that if you are greedy, you are greed.
But that interpretation is as nonsensical as my literal one.
The world is full of bullshit artists. He is one. Philosophy - the real deal, not a pose - is about figuring out what's actually true. It is about using reason, not sitting at the feet of bullshitters and letting them shit all over you. I mean, have you read anything of quality - have you read Plato? Have you read the Apology? If you really need to follow people - and heaven's knows you shouldn't - at least follow someone clever, not a total nincompoop like Krishnamurti. The only sensible thing he said was not to follow people - but that clearly backfired.
You have a particular animus in regards to Krishnamurti, very well then.
I have read Plato. Does that give me some kind of mark? What if I am stupid about what I read in Plato?
If this is really important to you, don't treat it as something that is self-evident.
Nothing that is important is self-evident.
Why do you think that's true? Surely the truth is that some important things are self-evident and some important things are not?
It is self-evident - that is, evident to our reason - that thoughts, desires, observations and such like - require a mind to bear them. A desire that is the desire of no mind makes no real sense. Desires are always someone's desires, and thoughts are always someone's thoughts, and observations are always someone's observations.
That is self-evident and it also seems important, for it follows from it that if you are thinking, then you - a thinker - exist.
That may contradict what a Buddhist says. So then you have a choice: do you listen to a Buddhist, or do you listen to Reason? If you listen to Reason, then you will conclude that you do have a self, a mind. If you listen to a Buddhist, then you've entered a rational fly-bottle that it'll be very hard to get out of.
Minds are not observations. They can make observations - that is, they can observe things, for to be observing something is to be in a certain sort of mental state, whatever else it may involve. And minds and only minds can be in mental states. So, minds make observations. But minds are not observations.
It is also self-evident that minds - observers, that is - lack sensible properties. For questions such as "what colour is my self?" or "what does my self taste of?" make no sense.
And it is equally clear to our reason that those objects that do have sensible properties - so, objects extended in space - do not have mental states. I can sensibly wonder what you are thinking right now, but it makes no sense for me to wonder what my tub of hummus is thinking.
So, if we listen to Reason and not Krishnamurti or Buddhists, then we learn that we are minds and furthermore that we, we minds, are not extended objects. We are objects, but we are not physical things.
And so on - in this way we can slowly build a picture of our situation, but it requires careful thought, not sitting around thinking nothing and then putting on an off-the-peg worldview designed by a guru.
Well done Bartricks! You can defeat a dead man. That's my kind of robust philosopher - one who can tell a horse from a house and is proud of it.
An inherent characteristic of meta-cognitive speech-acts is their circular justification, which makes them appear viciously circular and possibly self-refuting when analysed logically. But arguably this is as much true for our ordinary conceptual schemata as it is for mystical or otherwise alternative conceptual schema.
In my opinion, it isn't logically possible for Buddhists to enter into metaphysical arguments. If a closed-minded critic claims that Buddhist expressions of thought portray to him something false or meaningless, then the critic is expressing something that is undeniable; namely the inexorable effect that Buddhist expressions of thought have upon him. Given that Buddhism is a pragmatic philosophy, with the cognitive dimension of it's practice concerning therapeutic acts of thought, the current 'language-game' that the critic disputes is by definition unsuitable for him. He is invariably the best person to know what alternative language-game he is better suited to playing.
i have to assume that you meant "by an observer" to get a reasonable amount of coherency from this point. otherwise, there are too many objects within the scene. personally, this discussion needs more use of the word "epistomology"! but the play between objectivity and subjectivity does look like it has some merit.
also, isn't buddhism notoriously cagey, especially with regards to desire? i tend to think that any kind of truth that does not have an element of experience taken into account is a bit too tentative, therefore such a strong emphasis on impartiality would take away from the meaningfulness of a thing.
Well that went well, didn't it?
Suppose I were to say that all that can be known, and all that can be talked about is experience. That seems like a nice tidy materialist anti-mystical approach. I won't even talk about noumena, or things in themselves, and especially, for the purposes of this thread, I will forbid all talk of 'an experiencer' as something other than an experience of experiencer. The experiencer is just another experience.
So the mysticism, contradiction, and associated nonsense is all with those who suppose that the experience is something other than an experience. They are the ones talking about something beyond experience as 'the observer' that is not an observation.
It isn't. One could very well define the mind as precisely the thoughts/desires/observations/... that are experienced, rather than as some separate thing that bears them.
As to the quote "The observer is the observed", it can be read metaphorically rather than literally. Hopefully you do not dissect that way every metaphor you encounter, for instance if I talk of a white blanket of snow covering a field, you don't need to tell me that I talk nonsense because a blanket isn't made of snow and because what's covering the field isn't a blanket.
The way I interpret that quote is that the observer and the observed are not two clearly separate things: the observer is always involved in the act of observation, he doesn't observe what the world is like independent of him, rather what he observes depends on him, how he feels and what he thinks and what he desires has an influence on what he sees, so in a sense what he observes about the world is a reflection of himself, and in that sense the observer is inseparable from what he observes.
If you start from the premise that an observer is a physical body in the world that you observe, you're not gonna understand him. You're an observer, your thoughts/feelings/perceptions are part of the observation, you can see them metaphorically as a window to yourself, or even as defining yourself.
That statement is standard mysticism, really. It's funny that out of it comes interpretations that reflect individual personalities. :strong:
This is a topic worthy of another thread; but, thanks for pointing out how Buddhists and those from the Eastern tradition ought to be read.
The idea of "something separate that bears them" is an unholy reification of, ironically, materialist thinking.
Quoting leo
Well, you can 'define' a mind as 'a peach', but that won't make it one.
If there is a thought, there must be a mind to bear it - yes? Doesn't your reason tell you that loud and clear?
If you are your experiences, then you're a different person moment to moment. Yet you're not, are you?
When you go into restaurant and eat some food do you refuse to pay the bill because you - this current bundle of experiences - are not the same person who ate the food minutes earlier?
No, because that thesis is obviously false, as we all know. You are not your experiences, but an object who has experiences.
This is manifest to the reason of virtually everyone. But Buddhists and other charlatans need you to quiet the voice of reason - which is what meditation is all about - so that they can fill your mind with their patently false bullshit instead. It helps, of course, if you're feeble minded already or deeply unhappy.
But consult your reason: does it not say, clearly and distinctly, that experiences cannot exist absent an experiencer?
If it does - and it does, because otherwise you don't think you exist and that's just a big lie, isn't it - then listen to your reason and believe in what it says. Or don't and become the victim of the bullshitters and live in a fantasy world of their making.
No, I don't take everything literally. But nor do I take everything to be a metaphor. Now, what evidence do you have that "the observer is the observed" should be taken metaphorically?
Is it because taken literally it is false? I mean, obviously - patently obviously - false?
Well, I agree that if someone says something that, taken literally, would appear to be nonsense then charity invites us to try and interpret them in some other way - a way would not convict them of rank stupidity.
But if someone says something patently false, and virtually everything else they say seems patently false too, then don't discount the possibility that you are just dealing with an idiot.
The fact is there is no good reason to interpret that utterance metaphorically. And your attempt to do so fails, for how can 'the observer is the observed' plausibly be taken as a metaphor for the idea that observations require observers?? I mean, that's not a metaphorical interpretation but an act of substituting what he has said for the exact opposite.
It's as if I've said "the walker is the walk" and you've interpreted me as meaning "an act of walking has a walker" - I mean, that's just not what "the walker is the walk" means. What it means is that the walker is made of the walk - which is obviously false.
Likewise, what "the observer is the observed" means is not - not by anyone's wildest dreams - "acts of observation have observers". It means what it means, namely that the observer is no more or less than the observations - which is obviously false.
Like virtually everything else he said.
Note too that I did not start from that premise - I mean, where do I make such an assumption? I assume that only that what reason represents to be the case should be default trusted, and that reason represents any thought to have a bearer. That's a truth of reason that, in practice, you recognise and act on. But that leaves open exactly what kind of a thing the bearer is - it certainly does not amount to assuming that the bearer is a physical thing.
Imagine that I read a book about Caesar. I have not, and will never meet Caesar in person. All I can do is read about him. Does that licence me to conclude that Caesar is a book? That as, because all I have experience of where Caesar is concerned is so much ink and paper, then Caesar himself is just so much ink and paper?
No, only a fool would draw such a conclusion. The book is indeed made of ink and paper, but what it is 'about' - Caesar - is not.
We have experiences. But that does not licence the conclusion that everything is an experience or that all we can know are experiences.
By that logic I can never know about Caesar, only ink and paper. Yet I know a lot about Caesar, including that he is not made of ink and paper.
Of course, if I expressed that in broken English and contradicted myself a few times you'd consider it profound.
Yeah! It's like, do you even lift bro?? Are you capable of using cold hard reason? (not many are! you have to be tough!) Like, Have you read Descartes, rookie? Do you even know anything about overt overcompensation?Like, are you even aware of how certain types of people tend to compulsively project passivity and vulnerability onto things so they can play out obvious fantasies of being active and invulnerable?
So true, preach brother. A bunch of rubes on here who can't recognize the reason of plato.
I am not sure what your point is. Maybe you could furnish me with some more Krishnamurti wisdom and we'll take it from there.
:grin: ...a typical 'naive realist' response, breathtakingly ignorant of the literature !
Next time you notice that you are having an argument with 'yourself', or ponder a lucid dream , in which that 'you' has been operating quite happily in an 'illogical' scenario, you might get an inkling of what
the ephemeral 'self' is about.
I say 'might' of course because that belligerent member of your 'self committee' will bully the others into submission!
It (your committee) is not ready for the literature ! First it needs to observe its daily operations involving its internal squabbles. As one writer put it, it needs to 'wake up'.
I gave you an argument. Address the argument with something other than hot air.
Quoting unenlightened
Quoting Bartricks
If your experience is of yourself reading a book, you are entitled to conclude that there are experiences of self and experiences of books. And from such an experience you are no more entitled to conclude that Caesar exists than reading a Harry Potter book entitles you to think that he exists. History as not experienced, is inferred from a multitude of dubitable experiences, and likewise the self is inferred from a multitude of experiences - unless of course, it is directly experienced. In either case, it is formed from experience, or inferred from experience.
This is indeed the dreadful Cartesian error. "I think therefore I am" is the reification of a grammatical term into an immaterial, mystical mind. The subject of one sentence is the object of another sentence. But do not conclude from this that there are 'the subject' and 'the object'. Quite the opposite.
Julian Baggini, Susan Blackmore, Sam Harris, Thomas Metzinger, obviously haven't read Descartes, or didn't understand him, or are trying to sell some horrible mystical bullshit. PhDs and professorships mean nothing these days.
Either that or @Bartricks is missing a trick. :scream:
So to say 'the observer is the observed' is to imply that the status of focus on 'an object' is inextricable from the perceptual set/needs of the culturally conditioned observer who contextually defines the nature of its 'objectivity'.
And that much is NOT mystical !
Now, in my opinion, the mysticism (for want of a better word) ensues when the individual begins to recognize their conditioning and their active and variable participation in defining 'the world' . This leads to the realization of 'an impermanent ' biased self' doing the 'observation', and hence the attempt to transcend it.
Unity vs. Disunity. Two sides of the same coin. It's here that the mystic realizes she's on the boundary of mind: where it can go no further.
And so the difference between the mystic and the philosopher is that the mystic doesn't try to explain it, the philosopher, in love with his own dumb-ass opinions, does.
I don't know if krushnamurti was a mystic or a philosopher. But who cares?
Yes, I'd say there's a very decent chance of that. But prove me wrong - use what you've gleaned from these hacks and show me where I've gone wrong.
Plus you don't. But Meh. Let's just be clear though "The observer is the observed" doesn't mean "I observe the observer"
I am now observing a table. Am I the table I am observing. No. I am observing a computer monitor with the inchoate spewings of an ignoramus all over it - am I that computer monitor? No. And so on.
Anyway, tell me about this self that you say you observe. Does it have a shape?
I can well imagine that you are not your self, and I commiserate, but as it happens, I am myself, so when I see myself the observer is indeed the observed.
But, like I say, tell me more about this self that you say you can observe. Does it have a colour?
I'm very glad to hear it. But it would be a bit silly to suppose that anyone suggested that everything one ever observed was oneself, except in a trivial 'all is one universe' sense which I think we are grown up enough to pass by as uninteresting.
Quoting Bartricks
That's a great comfort, but what is your evidence? I think you should answer your own questions too.
Quoting Bartricks
I already told you, it has the colour and texture of the void. But answer your own questions before you ask me any more. In the meantime I am taking your advice and going to bed, alas without the yak's piss, so you will have plenty of time to consider the matter and come back with both your own answers and a new penetrating question.
Or even some kind of a thesis or argument.
Yes, so "the observer is the observed" is false. I am observing a cat. Yet I am not a cat.
Let's replace it, then, with 'the observer can be observed".
Okay, as I said right at the outset, that is not as obviously false as what he actually said, but it is still false.
You have said that you can observe your self - that you are aware of your self via an act of observation.
I do not think that is true. I have asked you what your self looks like. I have asked you what colour and shape it is.
You have answered that it is the colour of the void. What colour is that please? Puce?
https://www.google.com/search?q=Krishnamurti+United+Nations&oq=Krishnamurti+United+Nations&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i59j69i61.10921j0j8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
Edit: Apologies to those who had interesting posts deleted because they were caught up in a chain of crap mostly initiated by a single poster here.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/S5_(modal_logic)
Grab it before the purge.
EDIT: Sorry meant to post this:
https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/58946/when-are-accessibility-relations-satisfied
That's as obvious as it is unrealized. This is a common issue with people and probably with all life capable of observing. What is obvious is often among the first things to be missed. Whether the realization "the observer is observed" is beneficial or not remains to be seen. However, at first glance it does seem pleasant to realize it. It touches upon meta-thinking I believe and presumably enhances the experience of life or not. You be the judge.
What, if any, deeper meaning does it have?
Apart from an amplified sense of being/existence it could quite possibly open doors to new types of conscious experience and knowledge about the universe.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/4718/accessibility-relations-across-possible-worlds
It's kinda rough but I got up to speed on that topic fairly quickly. Just a matter of an overactive neural network trying to understand things.
And there’s also a problem with describing his teaching as ‘subjectivism’ insofar as he always questioned the reality of ‘the subject’ in the sense of there being a separate witness of thought or experiencer. ‘The subject’ is precisely what is dissolved in his teaching.
I learned some things from Krishnamurti which have become part of my outlook on life, although I never felt any sense of being entangled or attached to him.
//ps// will also add that First and Last Freedom I think is one of the essential books of the 20th century. Also very much liked Awakening of Intelligence, and the Notebooks. How well they last, I can’t predict, but as said, important books in my development.//
Well - kind of! I see Krishnamurti as being archetypical of a certain kind of Indian sage. Despite his lifelong refusal to admit to affiliation with any school or sect, he was very close in spirit to Buddhism - but not "Buddhism" as a cultural phenomenon or as pre-packaged goods or (heaven forbid!) a religion.
In one of his biographies (Krishnamurti by Pupul Jayakar) there's an account of his meeting with the Dalai Lama. This happened not long after H. H. went into exile, in the 1960's. When Krishnamurti's teaching was explained to H. H. in advance of the meeting, he said 'Aha! A N?g?rjuna!' He later said he found the encounter very moving and expressed the desire to meet again. But I think Krishnamurti's teaching is very similar to N?g?rjuna albeit not expressed in scholastic terminology. Both N?g?rjuna and Krishnamurti are philosophical sceptics, in the original sense - doubting or denying any kind of methodology, claim or proposition. Scepticism in pursuit of liberation - nirodha, or mok?a, or Nirv??a - ideas which are barely understood in Western culture. (See https://www.amzn.com/0739125060 for a book on the relationship between early scepticism and Buddhism.)
I discovered a long interest in Buddhism through Krishnamurti, by way of trying to better approach those states that he described, because after about 5 years of reading his books, I felt really no closer to understanding them, even if on some level they clicked. I thought I had found it in S?t? Zen. Still at it, but it remains elusive.
Well - I think you have a laudable - laudable - appreciation for reason as demonstrated, clearly, by your deep appreciation for the fifteen thinkers covered in any phil 101 class. Locke, Plato, Kant. The guys!
And then I think you have a strange Active/Passive Dominant/Submissive Strong/Weak way of looking at philosophy which surfaces again and again. The tough boys. Hume, Descartes, Aristotle. You treat them like magic cards.
One weird thing was when you accused a very non-sam-harris reading member, of being a Sam Harris reader. I don't like Sam Harris much at all, but I do know that hate for Sam Harris is a badge of inclusion - signifying Real Intellectual - in reddit philosophy circles. It seemed significant that you couldn't engage an opponent without deliriously turning them into a stereotype, even though it didn't fit. Weirdly didn't fit. And then did a lot of sex jokes that are funny because they're high/low - Descartes plus dicks. Philosophy plus barroom - I'm not too pretentious and I'm not too the other thing.
So bluntly : I think I know you. You're a reddit philosophy guy. Every post you've said fits the general beats. You're mean, but not smart enough to back it up, though you think you are. You're bar tricks. An easy cite, a pun - an intellectual! I drink therefore....
tldr: don't be a dick, at least until you can back it up. The people you believe you're trumping are far ahead of you.
Hmm, well a bit right and a bit wrong. I have never been on reddit. Not realy sure what it is.
I think I can back up most things I say. I mean, say what you like about me, but I do actually offer arguments.
And I am what I said I was - I am someone who cares passionately about the pursuit of truth but who also had once to sit through 2 hours of Krishnamurti spouting nonsense. There are hours and hours of these sessions with him on youtube - you can check them out for yourself. Anyway, I concluded that he had nothing whatsoever to say - no positive thesis, just lots of questions and gnomic utterances (the standard fare of a guru).
Anyway, I am glad you liked the now disappeared Descartes willy joke, which I must say I am quite proud of too. I didn't know I had it in me (as his maid may have said - he really did have an affair with his maid btw). But what's wrong with "philosophy plus barroom"?Quoting csalisbury Yes, I hope that's true!
Right, I am probably going to get told to shut up as this is a thread for uncritical appreciation of Krishnamurti and not Cartesian filth.
Quoting Wayfarer
I also think they're quite similar in their approach to philosophy.
In the Bhagavad Gita, which I think offers the first mention of the term "SAMKHYA", it refers to a method of deriving knowledge (possibly wisdom) through application of reason (adherence to pure/strict 'logic'). It is also analogous (in many ways) to the methods of critique which were used by the classical Greek philosophers.
The original idea behind samkhya is to walk a "middle" or "unbiased" path of not identifying with anything but recognising everything and thus forming a relationship through knowledge (wisdom) even without direct or identical personal (physical/sense) experience.
However, Krishnamurti and Nagarjuna have different (not necessarily opposite) initial premises, such that, Krishnamurti begins with the premise that we have an innate bias (us - our identity, ego, self, or the language and idea that expresses or defines such relations) which we must first realise then overcome if we're to achieve the wisdom that comes with that path. While Nagarjuna begins with the premise that we're limited (relative) and therefore to become unbiased we must learn to conceptualize the unbiased which would not be manifest to limited/relative beings such as we (and 'things') are nor would it succcumb to our limited/relative influences, hence a kind of emptiness. That emptiness, being unbiased, is absolute and therefore fundamental to everything, from origin to being an ever-present factor.
I hope the explanation makes it easier to understand Krishnamurti's approach to philosophy.
I haven't read that exact point made by N?g?rjuna but it does seem in keeping with the 'two truths' teaching of which he was an exponent. And indeed that does open out into the understanding of ??nyat?, which is the main principle of the Buddhist path.
I'm a big fan of spiritual philosophy but, unfortunately, I can't stick to any one school of thought so I tend to mix and mash the teachings as much as they allow.