Re: [Wittrs] On Christmas Trees, Metaphysics and Law
- From: kirby urner <kirby.urner@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2012 08:02:36 -0700
On Tue, Mar 20, 2012 at 8:05 AM, Justintruth <justintruth@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I have had direct religious experience. I do not believe that what
> Wittgenstein describes is correct. In fact, especially after reading
> his biography, I realize that Wittgenstein seems like a man who was
> smart enough to know that to just dismiss the subject was wrong, but
> that he had never penetrated the subject to its heart and seen the
> clarity of Logos in its own self realization that is inherent in such
> experiences. Or at least it is not evident in the record.
>
If this were some kind of philosophical interrogation ('Philosophical
Interrogations' could be the name of my "book"), I would take this
use of the word "religious" as an opening move, in a game I have
not yet learned, i.e. let us not presume we all have a shared meaning.
Some people have this rule that a "religious experience" cannot be
drug induced, whereas in other practices you indulge in malpractice
if you claim access to divinatory states and yet you've not drunk
the kool-aid.
> There is an old Zen proverb that says "At first I saw the tree and it
> was a tree. And then I saw the tree and it was the Tao. And then I saw
> the tree and it was a tree". One possibility that I consider but do
> not think is true is that Wittgenstein somehow went directly from step
> 1 to step 3 without ever seeing it directly. (I hear him cringing
> "What do you mean "steps"?! but you do know what I mean don't you? So
> why can't I use the phrase?)
I so far am reluctant to give you this point on "steps" even if I recognize
this saying that you're using, which in some versions involve "carrying
water". I actually prefer the "carrying water" ones as the "saw a tree"
puts the emphasis on "seeing".
In "the west" (as some say, using antiquarian terms) there's an obsession
with truth as a kind of seeing whereas for many, including Wittgenstein
I'd hazard, whatever "truth" might be, it is approach through "doing"
more than "seeing". Seeing is too easy, passive, just sit back and
take it in, like watching TV. I'd like to say "seeing" is for wimps. If you
just "see" God then I pity you, and so on.
> He makes no mention that I can find of
> synchronistic experience also. In a way he never seems to have
> untangled himself from ... objectivity?... - yet he knew there was
> more. He divorced the two having seen one early as an engineer, as a
> logician, as a builder, as someone intensely involved and careful in
> his perception of nature (look at his examination of the plant in the
> car in the US) but he never seemed to have grasped the other
> possibilities that marry the religious and secular fundamentalist
> views.
I think "synchronistic experience" tends to advance the plot in ways
that are literary and we recognize from novels and cartoons.
Looking back, we marvel at the twists and turns and don't see
how "atoms colliding" would have enough intelligence to write
such stories, like monkeys at typewriters. Ah, such a hodge podge,
the late 20th century brain. Not a good matrix in which to get any
real thinking done, might be a sound judgment call.
To take an example, if the primary key in PATS wasn't failing and
if sticking with MUMPS wasn't madness to begin with, I'd probably
still have my old job and would never have given my basement to
a Food Not Bombs person who introduced me to a new community,
in which I found another dedicated Wittgenstein scholar who
unloaded about 45 titles on me, turning me into more of a super-
star than before. My personal WIttgenstein library rivals anyone's.
But that's not to say I've read them all (part of the thickening plot
is we're not sure how much time I have for such things -- I seem
to do reading on airplanes).
>
> If you think that I think that there is any answer that is technically
> incorrect. I am not saying that Wittgenstein missed some answer. I am
> saying that he seems not to have had a kind of experience and further
> that that experience is intellectual as well as can be described as
> not being limited to what most people think "intellectual" means. It
> is as if what we call intellect is something very limited but which if
> experienced in a certain way is religious. He was like an alcoholic
> searching for that drink and suffering greatly from the relief he
> could not find. But is this drink wrong? Was it his will that kept him
> from converting - from "drinking the Koolaid" ? By converting I mean
> converting in his own mind. Is to be religious to be intoxicated in
> the bad sense of the word? Yielding and getting his will out of the
> way of his intellect? His intellect involved so much effort! You can
> almost describe him as this Herclean figure driving his mind down into
> it, refusing to let go, rubbing his nose into it wherever he could
> with intense concentration and holding on at all costs, never
> experiencing (or being the experience of) that moment of nuclear
> release when the energy comes out and is not just being put in - the
> explosion after the compression. Where it is anything but you, and
> everything is crystal clear and you wonder how you could have missed
> it. Is there ever a time when he experienced the fruit of stopping
> that willful effort?
>
Ah, there's that "kool-aid" in your post -- maybe I picked up on that
earlier as I saw it before.
My assessment of Christians as they're mostly moral wimps with
nothing to boast about in terms of track record, either personally or
collectively. I'm therefore not much inclined to care about their endless
claims to have access to the divine. So do other cults and groups,
with better track records.
But then of course many Christians have been deeply wise and
great storytellers. I like the Narnia stuff. As writers go, I'm more
an admirer of Mark Twain though. You could say Twain is
Bill Maher like, but I'd disagree somewhat, as the latter has been
spun by his Catholic ethnicity a lot more, even if he professes to
be irreligious (whatever that's suppose to mean).
I'm part of a current that's moving Quakers (Friends) away from
sinking ship Christianity, which was destroyed by Yahoos. I actually
think Muhammad Ali's style of Islam, also spilling into Black Panthers,
was more ethical, as it was clear against the Vietnam War. What
I notice about North American Christians is they're bellicose and
ignorant beyond all reason in a technological age. Their
containment has been of chief concern. They are among the
most violent and piggishly selfish of beings ever seen on Planet
Earth. Of course this is a broad brush statement, not a "true
proposition".
> To divorce the heart, hopes, sanctity from the intellect is incorrect.
> It is incorrect technically. It may be incorrect in other ways. But
> the key is to see that it is incorrect technically. Perhaps even
> logically in the way he used the term. That I think was his mistake.
> In a way that is why I am trying to understand the ethics and logic of
> the statement "That about which..." I know that this was early Wit but
> I also know that latter Wit had also given up on language - even
> though it was now an expanded version. No, even more latter, he seems
> to know that there is a kind of impossibility of language in this
> area. I have tried, and continue to try to locate the source of this
> opinion.
>
I'm suspicious of "gut talk" where you haul out "the heart" and
assume that's meaningful. This seems utterly selfish, that you would
presume your readers would have any sympathy whatsoever with
this use of "heart" versus "intellect".
> I write as if its a conclusion. What I really have is a simple
> question. What is the basis of this limitation that Wittgenstein saw
> in language? At one point he seems to imply that it has to do with
> that fact that should one try the terms themselves would lack
> reference. At other times he speaks of not being able to say anything
> about everything. Sometimes he seems to me to think it is an ethical
> prohibition. It seems his entire latter way of doing philosophy was
> based on not being able to do something else that is usually called
> philosophy and so he just wanders around the so called streets,
> describing them over and over, hoping his student's would ...
> what? ... draw the right conclusion? ...obtain the right familiarity
> of recall of the scene?...a familiarity that would allow them to
> dismiss it with a "Been here, done this" that would liberate them from
> philosophy? ... avoiding systemic descriptions at all costs, in many
> ways offering his philosophy in koan-ic, parablic, form? Why? Was Witt
> trying to cause enlightenment in his students or bore them into
> abandoning the task as futile?
>
A lot of "westerners" (smirk) think it's their job / mission in life to
"make people see" something or other i.e. the operative term is
"seeing" and there's value placed on "truth" which is connected
to experience in some "seeing" sense. They talk of "visionaries"
and so on, as if beholding some vista, attaining some privileged
viewpoint, were the objective of "religious" (meaning?) practice.
Wittgenstein talks about "showing" but that doesn't preclude
"showing by doing". I went to war, helped in hospitals, live alone
in a hut in Norway. Those might be important practices in philosophy
as he lived it. If I see someone just living the life of a professor in
a university, I can say: whatever they are, they are not a philosopher
in the sense Wittgenstein was, what could be more obvious?
Does that mean I think all philosophers must not be university
professors? I never said anything even remotely close to that,
no.
> What is the basis? Is it a "shouldn't"? Is it a "can't"? Is it both? I
> can't find it. It's infuriating. In many ways I find the outright
> religious way of speaking about it that was present in the Middle Ages
> clearer. But that way was so mixed up with superstition. Is Heidegger
> any better? Try to read him. Zen? They refuse also to admit that they
> speak. It makes sense to me in a way to think Witt ultimately is right
> when I look at the wreckage of previous attempts. But still I cannot
> find the principle that undoes them all as it seemed to me originally
> that Witt had claimed to have.
>
It could be that all efforts to "make people see" are morally
decrepit. You cannot ethically make people see the truth because
they can only come into truth of their own doing and will (intent)
shall we say. It's an experience of freedom to begin with, so to
have people strutting around pretending to be doorways to
truth is just despicable. That could be a world view no? Similar
to the Zen saying about "if you find the Buddha, kill him." To
a Christian that might sound violent and grim, as they're reminded
of how Jesus had no professional security agents and was left
to the Romans by ignorant peasant-like followers with no special
skills.
Some hope the crucifixion itself was a kind of subterfuge and that
Jesus escaped with his life. That's heresy and blasphemy as far
as most churches are concerned (the narrative just doesn't
go that way and they need to control the narrative) but those
stories where Jesus and Magdalene get away to the south of
France and have some kids are not all that offensive to me.
Sean was talking about "happy endings". I say "give the guy a
break and stop making him die for your sins, you don't deserve
it, take some responsibility for once in your life."
> Here is a clip of Derrida. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MG_nyd45czM
> It is very long and exceedingly infuriating the way his qualifications
> run on and on but I offer it as a random example of how easily it is
> to find parallels to this prohibition about speaking everywhere.
I'm going to opt out of watching Derrida right now, though may come
back to this. I'm curious, just "very long and exceedingly infuriating"
doesn't sound as fun as some other stuff I could be doing.
> Almost a kind of necessity for privacy. I am reminded of the Russian
> version of the movie Solaris. Its as if the rigor of intellect, the
> urge not to profane the sacred, and the embarrassment of teenager
> should he be forced to talk about his sex life with their parents and
> peers, topped off with a kind of fear of ridicule of not being
> "scientific" or "rational". Surely there must be a better way. We are
> not advocating having sex in the street. Or a collapse of rigor. Or
> perhaps that is the problem. In any case I don't know.
>
For the most part, if Christians would just shut up about their
experience and stop promoting attacks against innocents, the
world would be a better place. Their "religious experience" should
be put on a shelf for the moment, as perhaps of no value. Given
the walk, the practice, the outward deeds, I'd say this is a sinking
ship religion and I'm glad Friends (of Christ) are moving away from
it. Jesus was never a Christian and the people who have adhered
to that tradition do not seem to have been very Jesus-like for the
most part. Why waste time trying to preserve the reputation of
such an ugly offshoot of Judaism? I think that's throwing good
money after bad.
> I had hoped once to find in Witt the answer to why this prohibition
> exists. I now think that whatever it is it prevented him, at least in
> the late phase, of describing it clearly. That or else he just did not
> actually know. Or more likely, I still just don;t understand. I
> discount completely the fact that Witt would not admit it. The section
> on his biography about the period when he had the urge to "confess"
> convinces me completely that the one thing Witt was not was a coward.
> He would have stood in the street naked on a soapbox and proclaimed
> Armegedon if he thought it. He drove himself. I know that he was a
> professional philosopher and I realize how corrupting having your
> livelihood tied up could be but - well - he gave away a fortune. Witt
> is almost like a penatatent in the way he was willing to embrace and
> use what most see as the scourge of poverty. I do not think it was
> just him giving his money away and then just not having an option to
> get it back.
>
He was very open to anthropology and did not immediately exude
disrespect for other forms of life, the way so many imperial-minded
westerners do. He was somewhat a fish out of water in his cultural
context, in that he was surrounded by extremely ethnocentric
people who didn't even have the word "ethnocentrism" yet. He
could barely breath. Russell was one of the worst, so immersed
was he in some fantasy of what they called "rationality" back then
(in retrospect, just more psychotic nut case stuff, but that's life
on Planet of the Apes -- plus we got some good computer science
out of it, even as we leave analytic philosophy in the dust as a
"discipline" (chuckle) of no further consequence).
> In many ways Witt seems like a monk. I am aware of the synchronism
> with the name of his biographer. He is kind of a unique kind of monk.
> I imagine I can see him it that movie theater, his mind relaxing into
> the play of images on the screen, embracing a kind of Dadistic
> experience of prayer. The only release he found or at least a release
> from the problem for a spell.
>
The language of film was still in its early adulthood then but he
say the potential. All serious philosophy would have televised
components i.e. the idea of a philosophy that was not adept with
television would soon be oxymoronic. We don't have that today.
Shamans with painted faces in Brazil are good television, and
gets even better as they acquire the skills (thanks to Werner
Herzog and others). I'm conflating TV / movies / video / anime
as one genre, moving towards "3D" in some branches.
> But Witt was not religious in the final, ultimate, sense I think. His
> intellect was never given that experience, although he could sense the
> emptiness of the alternative, he still did not see a way to let go in
> order to achieve rigor instead of abandon it . He seems not to have
> been enlightened preferring to cling to that shrinking iceberg of
> imagined rigor. Still you can see him feeling around. And if you take
> him at his word on his deathbed all was not lost.
"Rigor" is one of those words you hear westerners bandy about
a lot. They're usual completely unclear about what they mean by
it.
>
> Here is a final link on the subject which I hope you will enjoy enough
> to make having slogged through this awful post worth it:
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGf2loLAwVE
>
Now this is very interesting, thank you. The issue of psychotropics
is front and center. This is anthropology. We're also watching a human
subject experiment that would be more underground today. "It would
be all one if *you* weren't here -- you have nothing to do with it".
Yes, I like that. The guy is an ignorant slob, I could see that from
the opening frame. She's got more potential as a human.
Anyway, thanks. I'm stopping at 3:52 as it's somewhat painful to
watch a religious experience happening to someone in such a stupid
environment. I'm glad the hippies improved matters. They were also
against the Vietnam War and did much to escape a sinking ship
Christianity (which deserves to go down I think, what a terrible
mistake that whole thing was, glad its sinking). Onward.
Kirby
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wittrs mailing list
> Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> http://undergroundwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/wittrs_undergroundwiki.org
>
_______________________________________________
Wittrs mailing list
Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://undergroundwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/wittrs_undergroundwiki.org
Other related posts:
