Posted by In Vino on October 10, 19103 at 15:42:33:
In Reply to: Re: What can be called into doubt posted by R.Rangan on October 09, 19103 at 23:58:17:
: Quoting from philosophers and scriptures may puff up one's own self image like an inflated balloon and at times,it may even prove to be a hindrance, if one is not careful, as getting engaged in the debates over "what someone else said" may be wasteful as it deviates from the goal of perception of The Truth by oneself, firsthand.
I totally disagree with this. You seem to suggest that sitting by oneself in a locked room with no outside influences at all is the best way to find "The Truth". In another one of your posts you talked education as "peeling back layers of ignorance". The combination of the ideas you are advocating seems to suggest that believe that all knowledge and wisdom is already contained in each of us at our birth and it needs to be "discovered". While this may be very poetic, I don't see it in reality. It's also interesting that you eschew the study of thinkers and scriptures for, I don't know, contemplation(?). How are we to have anything to contemplate if we don't interact with the world and the ideas in it? If the individual is such a fertile ground for the discovery of truth, then how much more fertile is a group of individuals interacting and building upon one another? How much further can one see standing on the shoulders of the giants who came before? By reading the great thinkers, we are able to enter into a kind of dialogue with them. These are men smarter than you and I who had the forethought to write down their observations for the use of future generations. We are not bound to accept all (or even any) of what they said, but we cannot help but be better off from our correspondence with them. If you are suggesting that each individual person is best served by completing re-inventing the wheel in their own lifetime search for truth, rather than building on the aculated thought and discovery of countless generations before them, well, let's just say I hope your idea never catches on. How stark and useless would the world be if everyone was so caught up in their own personal "search" that they never bothered to interact with their neighbor, and never bothered to record their lessons learned? How many mistakes and dead ends would be relived over and over throughout human history, all unnecessarily? I mean, repeating mistakes because we fail to learn from history is enough of a problem as is, without advocating conscious ignorance.
If I make reference to philosophers or scriptures or anything else, it is not done to "puff up my self-image" (I still can't comprehend how it would, anyway). Rather, it is to give whomever I may be responding to the benefit of the opinion of a Plato or a Kant - which is more helpful than just "my opinion". Perhaps someone will use that information to discover the words of some of these thinkers, and that interaction will help them in their own path to discovery. If someone looks into Plato because of one of my posts, and finds something that helps them clarify their thinking (whether because they agree or disagree with it), then I consider that a good thing. Chances are, I won't even know that it happened, but it's still a good thing.
Having said that, some of your ideas sound a little like some of Plato's. He felt that all souls dwelt on a higher plane where they were connected to the great mind and had comprehensive knowledge of the Truth. He said that the material world would reach out and grab a soul, trapping it in a mortal body for awhile, almost like a prison. While in the material world, the soul could not attain true knowledge, and could only see reflections of the Truth that it had known before, thereby being "reminded" of it. For Plato, death was a release from this separation, and a return to the higher plane. This bears a number of similarities to Buddhist thought, as well. Perhaps you would benefit from exploring these ideas to further refine your own. Or, you could do your best to ignore everything I've said and just try to figure it all out on your own. But if you do, make sure you don't tell anyone.
Finally, I want to apologize for the tone of this message. I feel that you made a personal attack (which never helps anything) and it irritated me a little bit. I will try to be as civil as possible in the future.
IVV