What if you’re reading non fiction by L. Ron Hubbard?
I seldom write about my childhood or my personal life. At one time I became disturbed at the level of anti-theism that I encountered and at that time I wrote a bit about growing up as a Catholic and going to Catholic schools. I am no longer a Catholic and do find much about religion that is unhealthy for our society but I also find much of the anti-theist efforts to be unhealthy for the society.
I do not read or write poetry.
My principle interest is in what I call disinterested knowledge. Disinterested knowledge is the energy bunny. It generates the energy for exploration and for overcoming some of the inhibitions consciousness places on the unconscious.
Disinterested knowledge is an intrinsic value. Disinterested knowledge is not a means but an end. It is knowledge I seek because I desire to know it. I mean the term ‘disinterested knowledge’ as similar to ‘pure research’, as compared to ‘applied research’. Pure research seeks to know truth unconnected to any specific application.
Studying disinterested knowledge is like taking off a month every year to visit a strange new land. Curiosity is reinvigorated and new meaning is created.
Knowledge is like a jigsaw puzzle. We have created many puzzles in coping with reality and when we receive a new piece of knowledge that does not fit our present puzzles we forgetaboutit (Italian word for ‘forget about it’). However, if through disinterested knowledge we have created new puzzles within which the new knowledge might fit we might find a whole new meaning in life.
Our mind is constantly working for us and when we do not give it a worthwhile project, i.e. a new puzzle, it will just waste away in boredom or worry.
Instrumental knowledge is interested knowledge. Instrumental knowledge is the life blood of a value system that places the maximizing of production and consumption as “Number One”.
Disinterested knowledge is the un-knowledge, it is the non-instrumental knowledge. Disinterested knowledge is an alien and clumsy word in a society that places maximum value on production and consumption. Disinterested knowledge is not a catalyst of production and consumption but it is the catalyst of creativity. Disinterested knowledge is the mixing bowl of creativity.
Creativity is the synthesis of the known into a model of the unknown. The value of the unknown is yet to be determined. Creativity requires a comfort with the unknown.
Disinterested knowledge is a means to defragment your brain.
OK
I shall try another means to get across my meaning but in a shorter and perhaps more poetic manner.
The goal of an intellectual life is similar to the goal of the artist. Understanding is the goal of the intellectual and understanding happens when “you pass from playing the piano to playing music”.
Bloch observed "the artist chooses the media and the goal of every artist is to become fluent enough with the media to transcend it. At some point you pass from playing the piano to playing music."
Understanding is this happening when we transcend the act of knowing and enter into the act of creating meaning.
Images, Images. We are creatures who have evolved without abstract thinking. We are animals who have evolved by comprehending images and abstract thinking is new and to comprehend our anstractions we must create images. That is what is happening when we understand. In understanding we are creating images wherein we place our self. Creating meaning is a process whereby I make an association between myself and the abstract idea.
Where the hell did you get the notion that we evolved without abstract thinking? I would say that abstract thinking was one of those big jumping-off points that led to toolmaking.
No, seriously. When you say that we evolved without abstract thinking, what do you mean? I would say that abstract thinking is as old as the human race - no, if great apes can use tools, it’s even older.
The “man-apes” of Africa (australopithecines) was first discovered in a 1924 dig. This is considered by anthropologists as being one of the most exciting and enlightening finds of modern anthropology. The man-ape, which was first born perhaps a million years ago, represents the transition point of the transformation from ape to human. From the shuffling vegetarian ape to the upright walking carnivore human, this man-ape creature had the brain one-half the size of the modern human.
Most of what we now consider to be human has resulted from the taste for meat developing in this man-ape creature. Hunting for meat requires hunting in groups, which in turn requires better communication between individuals, which in turn requires better tools and weapons, which in turn requires newer forms of social organization, all of which leads to greater intellectual sophistication.
This greater intellectual sophistication has led this newly evolving species into the development of a much larger brain with the sophisticated reasoning ability of the modern human. Meat eating has made humans of us.
“Man developed away from the apes precisely because he had to hunt meat; and if you want to hunt meat you cannot afford yourself the luxury of baboon behavior.”
As a result of our carnivorous appetite we have developed non-primate social relations; we now regulate sexual behavior and develop families requiring new social harmonies. We now acquire our recognition from others not based upon what we take but from what we give. “Unlike the baboon who gluts himself only on food, man nourishes himself mostly on self-esteem…The hunting band lives in the security of internal peace necessary to get food, of the right of all to partake of what food there is, and of the certainty of the provision of regular sexual partners for all.”
We are now beginning to comprehend the fact that humans are primarily unique because wo/man is a total celebration of itself in distinctive self-expression. This self-expression is primarily abstract. We are creatures who have moved from reality based concepts to primarily abstract based concepts.
Quotes from “The Birth and Death of Meaning”—Ernest Becker
Now, Zoggie. Behave or you will be the automatic winner of the Grand Prize drawing for the one way ticket to Germany this year. Get back on the machine.
Notice that I said, “I am much more likely to find knowledge more quickly in non fiction.” I didn’t say there is a guarantee with that no matter who the author is.
coberst,
It’s the hostility that comes from some believers and some non believers that bothers me. I still value the freedom of choice to hold our convictions and to express them when it’s appropriate.
Then someone else was right and I was wrong. You are capable of being quite poetic.
Now that I’m at retirement age, I’m taking courses in things that I never dreamed that I would be interested in. Architecture, for example. (These are courses specifically designed for seniors. No homework, but fascinating lectures.)
And one obsessive interest can lead to another. It’s very exciting to see a new interest taking root.
[quote]
Our mind is constantly working for us and when we do not give it a worthwhile project, i.e. a new puzzle, it will just waste away in boredom or worry.
Instrumental knowledge is interested knowledge. Instrumental knowledge is the life blood of a value system that places the maximizing of production and consumption as “Number One”.
I think perhaps that which you are calling “instrumental knowledge” is the kind of knowledge that perpetuates itself and promotes myth. No offense to any Italians here, but it’s the reason we celebrate Columbus Day when he was not a very nice man. Forgetaboutit! (Did I get the accent right?)
And when you’re thinking creatively or being creative, that’s when time stands still.
That’s true for scientists and poets alike. I used to think that “living with the unknown” for only good for getting you through hard times. I was so wrong. As you put it, being comfortable with the unknown is an attitude that just adds all sorts of possibilities to a life.
I’m about to try a different tactic periodically. It involves mindfulness, silence and a periodic re-viewing of the film Into the Great Silence. (I’m waiting for the DVD to come in now.)
Thanks for your insights. Your response and corrections of my perceptions of your comments is welcome.
Zoe
What is poetry? Is it merely a writing style?
It seems to me to be a writing style that is more devoted toward creating images than is prose but nothing more is different. I suspect it is a writing style that is very dependent upon understanding whereas prose is much more dependent upon knowledge. In fact I suspect one could write prose forever with never having had an intellectual based understanding.
Zoe
What is poetry? Is it merely a writing style?
It seems to me to be a writing style that is more devoted toward creating images than is prose but nothing more is different. I suspect it is a writing style that is very dependent upon understanding whereas prose is much more dependent upon knowledge. In fact I suspect one could write prose forever with never having had an intellectual based understanding.
Thank you, but the meaning I got from that is the same as the meaning I got from your OP. And you didn’t answer my question.
It certainly explains my C- average in university.
coberst, I think you’re making two critical errors here:
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You are blatantly confusing comprehension or consciousness, and using the words interchangeably, when in fact they are not the same thing (or even close.) Consciousness, in the sense we’re using it here, is an awareness of the existence of something; comprehension is the state of understanding, at some level of detail, what one is conscious of. Your sudden awareness of corn doesn’t grant you a “Comprehension” of corn in any way that matters. Or to use a really obvious example, suppose you were to give me an original printing of War and Peace, in Russian. I would be conscious of the book; its existence would be obvious to me, and it would become the focus of my attention. But obviously, I could not comprehend the book’s contents, since I can’t read Russian.
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You’re basing a lot of your theories, it seems to me, on the pillar of I Am Smarter Than You, which is a pillar of sand.
I looked up the word ‘smart’ and discovered that there are many similes for that expression. I shall take the word knowledgeable to be the meaning of smart.
I do base my theories upon on being more knowledgeable than most because I almost always write about a matter of which I have been studying for a long time. Also I write about ideas that I have a hard time comprehending and which I think is important. Next, I generally post only those ideas that I consider to be important and of which I feel confident that a vast majority of my viewers are not conscious.
**My goal is to elevate the consciousness of as many people as I can about important ideas which will probably not come to the attention of the viewer if I do not do so.
Thus your analysis deserves a grade of A. Except for the last statement, which I give a grade of F. On average I guess you deserve a gentelman’s C.**
What is in your wallet?
I think you meant “synonyms.”
My transactional tools.
Revenant says–" Join Date: Oct 2005
Posts: 5,945
Location: London, UK
How can you know who it is that’s merely aware and who comprehends?"
I did not answer that question in the hope that you would go back and read the OP and thus would comprehend the problem with your question. Awareness is the first step of many that make up comprehension.
I am curious-where did you get the idea that people will automatically agree with you if they understand what you are saying, and that the only reason they could possibly have to disagree is that they do not comprehend what you are saying?
What do you base this notion on? Where are you drawing the line here? Hominids have been exhibiting abstract thought for hundreds of thousads (or more) of years. What exactly do you think things like cave paintings represent? Geometric designs carved into stone? The earth mother figurines? Ornamental jewelry? Even burial??
You are simply wrong here. Abstract thinking isn’t new to the human species…and it was present even in early hominids. Perhaps its simply new to YOU?
Like, say, a cave painting of a wooly mammoth with a persons handprint on its side and a geometric pattern on its forehead? Something like that? How about burying someone with a bunch of tools, food, and other goods so that they will have a safe and happy trip to the afterlife? You are right…this stuff is practically cutting edge!
That’s very nice…but its not relevent to the point being discussed. Between the evolutionary species of proto-man, the ‘shuffling vegetarian ape’ to the pre-historic meat eating human abstract thought certainly existed…but writing did not. THIS was the question you were supposed to be answering…not some digression about how we became meat eaters and that caused our brains to get bigger (and not even using your own thoughts but quoting someone else without using quote boxes).
Well…I think ‘we’ are beginning to comprehend that humans are less unique than once thought (while YOUR assertion has been old hat when Darwin was kicking around…hell, it wasn’t exactly cutting edge in the Middle Ages, ehe?). There are indications (through things like tool use) that OTHER species can think abstractedly, and that instead of an either or proposition its a spectrum.
Even if you are right and humans are completely unique however, I don’t see how you are answering the the question about abstract thought. There was a huge gap between when humans demonstrably exhibited abstract thought and when they learned to put their oral language into symbols…and all through that it was stories that were used to convey information from generation to generation. To break it down for you stories were used because thats the most efficient way to convey a lot of data between humans. If there was a more efficient way then THAT would have been the method used.
-XT
Y’know, a couple years ago I was (mini-)ranting to one of my fellow computer science PhD students about some idiocy that was then in the news. I made the following half-joking, offhand comment: “Y’know, the world would be a better place if it were run by CS majors.”
He stopped what he was doing, turned to me with a look of horror on his face, and responded, “No, that would be an utter nightmare”. His totally serious tone caught me offguard; besides making the incident memorable, it clarified the arrogance of the underlying sentiment for me and why it really would be so awful.
I had hoped that this would be the coberst thread that would redeem – at least partially – all the self-centered pseudo-philosophical ramblings found in others I’ve opened. I see that I was wrong, a mistake I’ll try not to make again.
I never assume that people will agree with me. However it is fairly easy to determine when they do not comprehend what I have written.
XT
I suspect it might be possible that some primates might have the ability for abstract thinking in some small way. Just like our hands have evolved from the finsof a fish it is possible that at the cusp between ape and human there might be some small degree of abstract thinking.
I am sorry I was not able to redeem the self-centered pseudo-philosophical ramblings you speak of.