Justifying Hallucinations as "Reality"

[mfbukowski]

Fantastic looking forward to it!

[mfbukowski]

On 5/17/2017 at 11:09 AM, USU78 said:

My unfinished thesis topic was to have been an attempt to synthesize, in the characters of Schiller's and Anouilh's heroins, Mary Stuart and Antigone, the romantic and the existentialist.  Schiller's aesthetic Nullpunkt (arrived at by negating or creating equalibrium between the sensual and the intellectual), out of which Spieltrieb arises (whether the drive impels one to create a life or a work of art), and le Neant, the nothingness out of which true freedom springs (and empowers the Maquis to spit into the face of their Nazi executioners rather than relent) were, it occurred to me when watching a production of Antigone, pretty much the same thing.  Mary Stuart marches to her execution just as Antigone does.

Here is Schiller on his two fundamental drives:

 

 

 

 

Schiller, Briefe zuer aesthetischen Erziehung des Menschen, Letter 12.

And Schiller proposes a solution to the following problem:

 

 

Schiller, Letter 13.

 

 

Id.

 

 

Schiller, Letter 14.

 

 

Schiller, Letter 15.

 

 

I have been thinking about this off and on now since you posted it and I find that within myself I feel some of the conflict here expressed even in addressing the issue or in reading this.

The analytical philosopher inside me sees metanarratives and recoils at the reification of such impulses within us, the phenomenologist poet loves the contradictions and the dialectic interaction, but then somewhere appears a Self here who understands that even within myself I see these warring factions.  One side wants the form and to throw off the language and the other revels in the contradiction.

Maybe this dude was onto sumptin here.

It's kind of hard for me to deal with it.  

Any more thoughts on this?

[poptart]

Maybe psychadelics?  I'm thinking shrooms.

[USU78]

27 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

I have been thinking about this off and on now since you posted it and I find that within myself I feel some of the conflict here expressed even in addressing the issue or in reading this.

The analytical philosopher inside me sees metanarratives and recoils at the reification of such impulses within us, the phenomenologist poet loves the contradictions and the dialectic interaction, but then somewhere appears a Self here who understands that even within myself I see these warring factions.  One side wants the form and to throw off the language and the other revels in the contradiction.

Maybe this dude was onto sumptin here.

It's kind of hard for me to deal with it.  

Any more thoughts on this?

What did the Master direct be told to Oliver upon his unsuccessful translation attempt?

[mfbukowski]

6 hours ago, USU78 said:

What did the Master direct be told to Oliver upon his unsuccessful translation attempt?

Holy cow

Straight out of Schiller! Never saw that before in those terms, but honestly to me the whole gospel has that German flavor. Positive freedom, Kantian synthetic a priori, then James'Romanticism. ?

Judaism? 

Is that where it comes from? Becoming a Mensch? The great dialectic? He who struggles with God and prevails? Turning opposition to advantage?

[USU78]

4 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Holy cow

Straight out of Schiller! Never saw that before in those terms, but honestly to me the whole gospel has that German flavor. Positive freedom, Kantian synthetic a priori, then James'Romanticism. ?

Judaism? 

Is that where it comes from? Becoming a Mensch? The great dialectic? He who struggles with God and prevails? Turning opposition to advantage?

Joy. When we free ourselves from the control of forces that act upon us, become truly free agents , acting on our own behalf, then and only then are we fully human. Only then do we enjoy a fullness. Only then can we create our existence as the demiurgical g-dlings He wants us to be.

Card gets this and expresses this in his fiction, especially his Alvin Maker series. 

Spieltrieb = Joy.

Edited June 3, 2017 by USU78

[Okrahomer]

30 minutes ago, USU78 said:

Joy. When we free ourselves from the control of forces that act upon us, become truly free agents , acting on our own behalf, then and only then are we fully human. Only then do we enjoy a fullness. Only then can we create our existence as the demiurgical g-dlings He wants us to be.

Card gets this and expresses this in his fiction, especially his Alvin Maker series. 

Spieltrieb = Joy.

Thank you for this!  I loved the Alvin Maker series, although the final book was somehow (at least to me) less satisfying than the rest.  

If you had asked me what the German word for "joy" is, I would have said "Freude"; and I would have said "Spieltieb" is equivalent to "playfulness".  But the more I think about it, the more I see what you mean; after all, when is one ever more "joyful" than when one is so free that they actually feel playful?

[USU78]

12 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

I have been thinking about this off and on now since you posted it and I find that within myself I feel some of the conflict here expressed even in addressing the issue or in reading this.

The analytical philosopher inside me sees metanarratives and recoils at the reification of such impulses within us, the phenomenologist poet loves the contradictions and the dialectic interaction, but then somewhere appears a Self here who understands that even within myself I see these warring factions.  One side wants the form and to throw off the language and the other revels in the contradiction.

Maybe this dude was onto sumptin here.

It's kind of hard for me to deal with it.  

Any more thoughts on this?

And there's this as well: Jacob before Jabbok is a reactor and a schemer. His life is in no sense beautiful or laudable. He seeks advantage and a kind of justice, though there is nothing of joy.

After he overcomes and becomes truly free, he inspires joy even in his wronged and resentful brother. It's a party when they meet.

When Jacob remakes himself and earns the name Israel, the world is remade for everyone

[USU78]

2 hours ago, Okrahomer said:

Thank you for this!  I loved the Alvin Maker series, although the final book was somehow (at least to me) less satisfying than the rest.  

If you had asked me what the German word for "joy" is, I would have said "Freude"; and I would have said "Spieltieb" is equivalent to "playfulness".  But the more I think about it, the more I see what you mean; after all, when is one ever more "joyful" than when one is so free that they actually feel playful?

Schiller's position is that man is truly man only when he plays. Homo ludens is greater than mere homo sapiens. Playing is, however, creating.

Remember youthful Alvin when he encounters the forces of chaos. He has to create something to remain free from the Unmaker's dominion. Indeed, he feels panicky and oppressed in its presence until he makes something, just to remind himself that he is a son of G-d ... just as Joseph creates his theophany ... his faith creates a hole in the veil. The author of chaos flees. He is remade homo ludens.

 

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, USU78 said:

And there's this as well: Jacob before Jabbok is a reactor and a schemer. His life is in no sense beautiful or laudable. He seeks advantage and a kind of justice, though there is nothing of joy.

After he overcomes and becomes truly free, he inspires joy even in his wronged and resentful brother. It's a party when they meet.

When Jacob remakes himself and earns the name Israel, the world is remade for everyone

Wow.

Just Flippin Wow.

[mfbukowski]

25 minutes ago, USU78 said:

Schiller's position is that man is truly man only when he plays. Homo ludens is greater than mere homo sapiens. Playing is, however, creating.

Remember youthful Alvin when he encounters the forces of chaos. He has to create something to remain free from the Unmaker's dominion. Indeed, he feels panicky and oppressed in its presence until he makes something, just to remind himself that he is a son of G-d ... just as Joseph creates his theophany ... his faith creates a hole in the veil. The author of chaos flees. He is remade homo ludens.

 

Unspeakable.

I am dumbfounded.

[mfbukowski]

3 hours ago, USU78 said:

... just as Joseph creates his theophany ... his faith creates a hole in the veil. The author of chaos flees. He is remade homo ludens.

 

Brilliant phrasing because it can be taken naturalistically as well as spiritually.  Perhaps he makes himself homo ludens.

This is a scan of the last page of William James "Varieties of Religious Experience" one of the most amazing single pages in philosophy and theology in my opinion.

The footnote is perhaps more important than the text, in my opinion.  Sorry it is hard to read, blow it up as necessary, download it- whatever you have to do.

[mfbukowski]

When I pray I am certain I am in communion with a spirit outside of myself.  Absolutely certain.  And that spirit outside myself responds and directs my life and circumstances.  I speak to it and my life falls into shape and it/I create better circumstances to further myself on the path.

Are those affirmations to the universe which magically brings things into my life?   Is it God favoring my plans and wishes?

What if that perception that the person out there is "actually" in here? (Does that even make sense since my own perceptions are all I ever know anyway?)

What difference does it make if the kingdom of heaven is within?

THIS is the ultimate philosophical justification of religious experience in my opinion.   That is precisely why religious experience is never to be thought as "just emotion"- it is as real as anything can be.

The brilliance of Mormonism is that God is within us and we are/can become Him.  Do we create God or did He create Us?  At its most mystical, Mormonism becomes Eastern religion.  Sheer brilliance.  We don't know what we have.

Is there a difference, and if there is, how would we know, and does it matter if God is in us or "out there"??   Creation is play and play is joy.   Homo ludens is precisely filling the measure of creation and having joy therein.  My creation is my world as the godling I can be.

As Ron has stated so eloquently, like Joseph, my faith can "create a hole in the veil. The author of chaos flees.(and be) remade homo ludens."

As with Joseph, the expectation it it WILL happen is the key.  We call that expectation "faith".

 

Quote

 

James 1:5-8King James Version (KJV)

5 If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.

6 But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.

7 For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.

8 A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.

 

Edited June 3, 2017 by mfbukowski

[USU78]

On 6/3/2017 at 1:25 PM, mfbukowski said:

Brilliant phrasing because it can be taken naturalistically as well as spiritually.  Perhaps he makes himself homo ludens.

This is a scan of the last page of William James "Varieties of Religious Experience" one of the most amazing single pages in philosophy and theology in my opinion.

The footnote is perhaps more important than the text, in my opinion.  Sorry it is hard to read, blow it up as necessary, download it- whatever you have to do.

Having a miserable time figuring out what this is, since I'm unable to open the .png file.  Is this in Chapter 8, "The Divided Self"?  If so, which paragraph and which footnote are we talking about?

Edited June 5, 2017 by USU78

[mfbukowski]

12 hours ago, USU78 said:

Having a miserable time figuring out what this is, since I'm unable to open the .png file.  Is this in Chapter 8, "The Divided Self"?  If so, which paragraph and which footnote are we talking about?

OK I goofed up and posted the png file instead of the jpg

I am going with two options here- one is trying to post it as a jpg

 

[mfbukowski]

13 hours ago, USU78 said:

Having a miserable time figuring out what this is, since I'm unable to open the .png file.  Is this in Chapter 8, "The Divided Self"?  If so, which paragraph and which footnote are we talking about?

The other option is to post a link to the pdf of the entire book and give you a page reference.

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/621/621-pdf.pdf

The complication is that the pdf is a different edition and is revised somewhat and is not identical to the above jpg.   Find page  503  and/or search the pdf for the phrase  "This doorway into the subject" which will begin the section I am referring to here- which to me helps to substantiate the notion that the Human God of Mormonism is within us and without us, the highest aspiration of mankind on many levels.  He is our Father and also our Self raised to our highest potential.  Page 504 has the footnote quoting ” SWAMI VIVEKANANDA"

If you haven't time to read the entire book read this last Conclusion chapter in its entirety.

This does not relate directly to Schiller, but I think indirectly James is saying something very similar in seeing the drive for creation as a very human characteristic and need.

 

Edited June 6, 2017 by mfbukowski

[USU78]

12 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

OK I goofed up and posted the png file instead of the jpg

I am going with two options here- one is trying to post it as a jpg

 

Thanks so much for sharing this.  You are not the first to place the American Transcendentalist movement in the same decade and the same real estate as the Restoration, if memory serves.  I took early American literature from a visiting Hindu professor from, I think, Mumbai.  I could be misremembering.  I was looking through my class notes and found this:  "Devil-up?" along with a sketch of Scratch.  Prof Kulkarni's English was tough to understand.  But it was really hard to get my head around what he was saying as a first-year-back-off-my-mission Sophomore German Lit student.  I would love to go back and retake the course and get his insights, as an outsider, on how American Transcendentalism looks to those who really know what transcendentalism is supposed to look like.

"Strengthen the real nature," if we see in "real nature" an analog of Schiller's homo ludens, as well as of "divine nature," as President Faust stated, taking his thesis from:

Mosiah 5:7

“And now, because of the covenant which ye have made ye shall be called the children of Christ, his sons, and his daughters; for behold, this day he hath spiritually begotten you; for ye say that your hearts are changed through faith on his name; therefore, ye are born of him and have become his sons and his daughters.”

How much better sons and daughters could we possibly be than when we ape His creative efforts?

 

[mfbukowski]

4 hours ago, USU78 said:

Thanks so much for sharing this.  You are not the first to place the American Transcendentalist movement in the same decade and the same real estate as the Restoration, if memory serves.  I took early American literature from a visiting Hindu professor from, I think, Mumbai.  I could be misremembering.  I was looking through my class notes and found this:  "Devil-up?" along with a sketch of Scratch.  Prof Kulkarni's English was tough to understand.  But it was really hard to get my head around what he was saying as a first-year-back-off-my-mission Sophomore German Lit student.  I would love to go back and retake the course and get his insights, as an outsider, on how American Transcendentalism looks to those who really know what transcendentalism is supposed to look like.

"Strengthen the real nature," if we see in "real nature" an analog of Schiller's homo ludens, as well as of "divine nature," as President Faust stated, taking his thesis from:

Mosiah 5:7

“And now, because of the covenant which ye have made ye shall be called the children of Christ, his sons, and his daughters; for behold, this day he hath spiritually begotten you; for ye say that your hearts are changed through faith on his name; therefore, ye are born of him and have become his sons and his daughters.”

How much better sons and daughters could we possibly be than when we ape His creative efforts?

 

Exactly like a kid wanting to be just like dad

[Okrahomer]

On 6/3/2017 at 10:56 AM, USU78 said:

Schiller's position is that man is truly man only when he plays. Homo ludens is greater than mere homo sapiens. Playing is, however, creating.

I know the fact that this is from BYUMagazine may make you nauseous, but i couldn't help but think what these guys are doing is at least related to this concept.

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, Okrahomer said:

I know the fact that this is from BYUMagazine may make you nauseous, but i couldn't help but think what these guys are doing is at least related to this concept.

Hey- where did you think Hitchhikers Guide came from ??  These guys are just reflecting cultural trends that society has absorbed from philosophy, and which philosophy absorbs from culture.  They may or may not know the philosophy but it has filtered into their brains by osmosis anyway.

We live in a man-made universe superimposed on what was here before we came.  We live in houses, take part in culture and music and rarely even get into "nature" and then we have our gear specifically designed to bring our human culture with us, we have sleeping bags and camp stoves, pitons and ice axes to keep us insulated against real nature.

We create that stuff and then the stuff creates us.  1/4 of our time is spent thinking of things to print with what we invented to humanize stuff even more.  And yes, it's fun.  But we are evolving while we evolve the world around us.   We organize matter unorganized and recycle bits of old culture, like hot glue guns, into new uses.  Our world evolves us and we evolve it.

It IS alive!  The interaction creates the universe as a humanized, interactive, living organism , a world that builds other worlds.

Good insight!

Edited June 10, 2017 by mfbukowski

[USU78]

1 hour ago, Okrahomer said:

I know the fact that this is from BYUMagazine may make you nauseous, but i couldn't help but think what these guys are doing is at least related to this concept.

Looks like Galatea!

[Okrahomer]

Back when dinosaurs ruled the earth, I was a run-of-the-mill BYU student.  I had just returned from my German mission, and believing my German skills to be simply ausgezeichnet, I enrolled in a German literature class. I quickly learned that my “skills” were amateurish compared to other folks in the class.  I really struggled and had to work hard to get a good grade.  But in spite of (or perhaps because of) the struggles, it was a great learning experience.

I've forgotten now most of the wonderful insights Kant, Lessing, Schiller and Goethe offer, but a few things did stick with me and even now influence my thinking.  One of those comes straight from Goethe’s Faust, when Mephistopheles describes himself this way (Ich bin der Geist der stets verneint):  

“I am the spirit that always negates.
And rightly so, for everything created
In turn deserves to be annihilated.
Better if it never came to be.”

http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/German/FaustIScenesItoIII.htm

I think there is truth here.

 

 

Edited June 12, 2017 by Okrahomer

[Okrahomer]

1 hour ago, USU78 said:

Looks like Galatea!

I had to look that up.  You're right!

[USU78]

10 hours ago, Okrahomer said:

Back when dinosaurs ruled the earth, I was a run-of-the-mill BYU student.  I had just returned from my German mission, and believing my German skills to be simply ausgezeichnet, I enrolled in a German literature class. I quickly learned that my “skills” were amateurish compared to other folks in the class.  I really struggled and had to work hard to get a good grade.  But in spite of (or perhaps because of) the struggles, it was a great learning experience.

I've forgotten now most of the wonderful insights Kant, Lessing, Schiller and Goethe offer, but a few things did stick with me and even now influence my thinking.  One of those comes straight from Goethe’s Faust, when Mephisto describes himself this way (Ich bin der Geist der stets verneint):  

“I am the spirit that always negates.
And rightly so, for everything created
In turn deserves to be annihilated.
Better if it never came to be.”

http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/German/FaustIScenesItoIII.htm

I think there is truth here.

 

 

Good catch! Did Card know his Goethe, I wonder?

[Okrahomer]

11 hours ago, USU78 said:

Good catch! Did Card know his Goethe, I wonder?

Unmaker = Mephistopheles seems plausible to me.  They sure think a lot alike!

Edited June 12, 2017 by Okrahomer