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07-12-2012, 07:30 PM #1
I'm not intelligent enough to understand any of it.
I got lost trying to understand how a tree of any variety could experience anything at all, or determine the experience of a sentient being. Unless of course the tree fell on thee, in which case one could determine that thou had experienced pain or even death.
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07-12-2012, 08:17 PM #2
Man, if anybody thinks too much its me. Although I've engineered my life in the past four years to help me get out of my head, and its definetely helped, some things just get to me and I can't stop thinking until its over, like my current legal issue I'm going through.
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07-12-2012, 09:01 PM #3
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Thanked: 1587To paraphrase Wittgenstein: The limits of my idiom are the limits of my world.
And there is no such thing as thinking too much. In fact, according to my idiom, quite the opposite is true of the world today.
James.<This signature intentionally left blank>
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07-12-2012, 09:34 PM #4
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Thanked: 109Faced with such a daunting revelation of intricate contemplation, homo sapiens instinctual response is to slurp the gruel, slug down the ale, slap the female, defecate, and go to sleep.
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07-12-2012, 11:53 PM #5
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07-13-2012, 12:32 AM #6
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Thanked: 485I like the way Buber sort of categorises human experience, into relationships. He says something CAN become an It to our I. in other words, one must experience something; must, I guess NAME something for it to exist. He then goes on to say they after something becomes an It, it MAY become a Thou to us; that is, we enter into a relationship with it. The It then ceases to be an It (to us) and is a Thou; it can still be an It to someone else. I'm going to the art gallery today; I love the art gallery. A painting, a sculpture, can become a Thou to me, and remain an It to someone else.
I may indeed have had too great a time during my 60s (which were the late 70s) but I can certainly say that I HAVE entered into a relationship with a tree, and many other things. One can experience a thing deeply.
Now, that's basically what Buber says. There is also, I believe, a school of philosophy that says just because you have never seen and elephant cross the road outside of your house when you open the front door, does not at all diminish the chance of it happening NEXT time you open your front door; that all possibilities are always possible. I think I'm stating that correctly. So, to expand on that theme, and meld it with Buber's you may indeed find it hard to understand how a tree can experience anything; BUT, just because you experience things and count your self as being 'alive' or 'aware' how does that diminish at all the possibility of a tree experiencing anything?Stranger, if you passing meet me and desire to speak to me, why should you not speak to me? And why should I not speak to you?
Walt Whitman