Discussion with Andrew

Again it might be helpful to keep what we say about ourselves…out of the real dialogue … I said what I said to give people an idea who I am, and what interests me, where I came from etc … perhaps if you then have topics we can give short thoughts to, separate from who we are …

well Shawn … perhaps it may be hard to have a discussion about beliefs … sometimes priests can’t risk such a discussion nor can scholars …while engineers and neurologists can … we have nothing really riding on it.. if no interest perhaps you could delete my part …but let me know first before you do…. anyways sometimes such things are hard to put into words…. again I think belief is a personal thing and it requires a bit of suffering for it and there may not be a way to really find it… on paper…or in words…a good start is to spend some time perhaps with some nursing home pts and let them become your friend…they have tremendous insight to how life is changing and what is important…. truth also sometimes means going into depression and stupidity …and seeing the darkness in our desires which we take as soul I would recommend finding a book on Stephen Crane’s poetry … in these poems he discusses our dilemma … take care
Drew

oh no just perhaps that everyone else had … no I want to do this but thought perhaps I had said too much about myself …
and had not heard anything lately … sort of going to a party and no one showed up but then I suspect it was because I came a few weeks early

…..and I have developed a weird case of hip pain whereby I am having a hard time even walking the past few days/// it is always bad when the doctor looks worse than the pt… it is really painful and on top of that I think I have the flu … my wife laughs at me … every time I get pain or get sick my mind always wanders to serious ailments … she laughs at me … but tonite I feel as bad as I ever have … I am not a good pt
I look forward to the dialog and again if what i said is too much just erase it ….it is good that you know a bit about me … but the other gentleman may wonder … who the heck did you fid Shawn ??
oh well…hopefully I’ll feel better in the next few days

I will be a pain but I will contribute… again it important to realize that the heart is the mind in many respects..once that is forgotten one delves into one’s imagination instead of following what has been commanded from thee…. one needs a heart to be willing to admit to one’s confusion to one’s pride … but I am a pain … with my family, with my work, with my friends
I have a good friend who does not believe in religion, and I understand why since, being Jewish, it seems that the world’s religions seem to have not taken kindly to his people
but I asked him what he does believe in …. he was hoping it was an intellectual world filled with great secular ideals, with great scientists, with great causes …. yet the other day he told me that Einstein’s theory may just not be what is true … and then he said…”if so then I do not know what to believe in’….. where does a man go when he has no place to go?? when his intellect of ideas fails him, when he is dying and the embers of life slowly exude away his once fine intellect… where does one go????
….Professor Dillon emailed me and told me: ‘The Platonist perspective is that there is always a soul there somewhere, but sometimes it just does not have the proper receptors in the body — as in an old or damaged radio set.’ …. I have found that true with brain injured pts …it is something that I can’t define, it is beyond my intellect ….
my friend who does not believe in religion is an old math/logic major I showed him my theory of the Aristotelian concept of one form and that heart (the irrational, the odd) is within the same form as the intellect(the rational, the even)….add them together and voila…odd comes out ….0+1=1……. we remain creatures beyond just our intellect…our reason is fooled by our pride ….knowing that though is a good thing thinking just how our intellect has caused so much harm in this world …but we refuse to consider such a thought…see you soon …have to go to work!!

Dear Shawn
Thank you for letting me contribute a bit to this site. But I am not qualified in any manner to really talk about esoteric subjects. I live in a world of terrible injuries and I see a tremendous amount of suffering. It is something that few people get to see or want to see. That is my world.
As you can probably tell I am a bit biased against speculative thought. Thus the ideas of Origen have no interest to me. There may be a place for such talk but I think I am just going to get upset and/or upset all of you. You rightfully told me I perhaps am a bit too judgmental about these topics. For that I apologize. I am quite human and react as we all do- not very well at times
But I have found all speculation is done when one is vibrant. I work with the non-vibrant… a time when all speculation must cease. It is important for all of us to realize that. Our fates are not speculative but real. My message to the conference was my first and last philosophical statement. I think I am the wrong person for these subjects.
Good luck with these issues

I read a very good book this week called Wittgenstein’s Poker. It talked about the philosophical divide between the language guys and the problem guys. Russell was Wittgenstein’s mentor early on and he was Popper’s idol also. It discussed the meeting between these men in the late 40s and how badly it went. Wittgenstein saw things as puzzles and the others as problems.
I think they both have errors in that everything was based on logic only. (Wittgenstein did smell the stench of ‘logic only’ though.) The Popper camp as well as the Russell camp thought that one needed to solve problems with logic, even if it could never be certain. An approximation was worth the risk for trial and error will sort out progress from failure.
Wittgenstein just could not go there.He, I think, felt that man could say nothing about these problems.
I agree with Wittgenstein more than Popper but I also think that Wittgenstein did ‘lop off parts’ of himself in that he viewed this all from a logical point of view. He tried to make a better logical language but found it impossible. But if you view yourself as one form with many attributes you realize that language has meaning way beyond pure logic. It actually may start in the language/nonemotional area but is fed wants and feelings constantly from other parts of your brain. One may try to lop off parts of oneself yet then it is easy to see that logic and language only take you so far.
Popper did not see this nor his followers. His view of trial and error on life seemed wonderful in an open society. Still such trial and error done in a nonexact logical (since an exact logical manner is most likely impossible) manner still leaves one open to errors humans cannot recover from. We often can’t see the error as we progress in solving our problems.
There are problems and puzzles and both approaches can be misleading in my opinion. There is meaning in life beyond measure, beyond logic. Wittgenstein saw this but his reaction seemed to be more of a doomed existence with little to say about it. Drury, Wittgenstein’s student and a Doctor, writes about it better than anyone. He brings us back to Plato and the soul which is more than likely simply an immeasurable form. I think he said what Wittgenstein felt but would not say….Popper did not see it…
If we truly have a soul that is beyond measure…it changes everything. Life is viewed from an entirely different point of view. Wittgenstein gave up on religion and Popper seemed to have rationality as a religion. I do not think either way is recommended.
If we have a soul then our lives no matter how doomed or trapped by illness, pain, or cultural catastrophe still may go on. Such hope makes one trudge on obeying our Creator as our only means of finding success yet finding not so much simply law but kindness towards each other as the way out of our mess. Socrates knew that something created him and he just had to hope it was for the good, despite life’s revolting issues…
Now we have a world searching for rationality but just finding meanness. We either want answers where there are none or perhaps wish to simply give up on existence. Both tragically have the same solution- don’t face the dread of your existence. Either try to solve it or simply ignore it. Instead it may be more helpful to face one’s earthly fate as something that can never be seen simply through our measuring eyes and ears and minds alone.
Neither language or science or any other gift can solve our issues. All are just incomplete tools that are gifts that we should use wisely. That is the issue. We must find wisdom through our hearts. The soul must make use of all our gifts to find meaning in things beyond logic and language.
That is why I like Socrates more than anyone. He saw this clearly…more than Plato more than Aristotle more than anyone. Marx and Hegel never saw this. (Neither did Neitzche or however you spell his name- yes it may seem that God is dead but perhaps it becomes true because that is how we want it to be- free finally from the Creator of this worldly mess. Philosophy and religion have perhaps been mishandled in a double minded way as Neitzche saw but his solution only brought true madness )
Socrates was willing to take that leap beyond the world’s sadness and he didn’t let the world make him either sad, mad or intellectually empty. He understood that it is goodness that matters not just pure intellect , a mind that ignores its feelings………. or pure emotion with an ignorance of your other gifts that teach you to never just live life as a Bohemian. It seemed that Russell wanted it both ways- be logical during the day and then do whatever you damn well want to at the other times.(This is why Wittgenstein lost his respect for him- he was empty of a soul that guides the entirety of one’s existence.
There was a Rabbi named the Kotzker who lived in the 19th Century. He spent his last 20 years in solitude for he wondered why a Creator would cause his people so much hardship. He was upset … not that God was dead but absent….this upset him so … of interest is he foresaw the Holocaust. Is God absent because of Him or because of us? St Augustine was right…deep down we all dread meeting our Creator and facing judgement…so we either intellectualize it or ignore it…. but perhaps if we all just listen to what is asked of us, simply have faith in our be-ing and help others in their be-ing … if the birds do not get anxious why should we no matter what happens on this earth ….I too have to work at this very hard …as you can tell by my writing about it …. I too have that dread that the Kotzker has and wonder what I should do? Perhaps I too should just remain silent…..but I can’t just fill in the blank as Neitzche said …. to me God is not dead … he is all I have to hold on to … and my hope is my dread will be joy … for I believe in His Kindness even if He Himself has withdrawn it from us and our world … I will not let this world drain kindness out of me so easily… and I cannot be in solitude or silence about this…I understand the feelings of the Kotzker and Neitzche as well as the intellectualizations of Kant and Russell and even Einstein. I have no regard though for men such as Marx and Hegel..how they have deluded man…
Get the book it is wonderful. Stay safe in this hurricane season!
Your friend,
Drew