Contemplating the unknowable.
PROMPT: Less of
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Category Archives: Epistemology
PROMPT: Three Years
What will your life be like in three years?
I have no idea. That’s the beauty of life, and the curse of living during period in which technology will soon grow completely beyond our control. Life might be an ever-better version of what it is now, or I might be living in a cave trying to stay out of the way of the war between Skynet and our would-be Alien overlords. Or I might be farming in a world that has EMP’d itself back to the Stone Age to avoid being overtaken by technology. Nothing is certain but that change will come.
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“‘Truth,’ said a traveller” [Poem XXVIII] by Stephen Crane [w/ Audio]
“Truth,” said a traveller,
“Is a rock, a mighty fortress;
“Often have I been to it,
“Even to its highest tower,
“From whence the world looks black.”
“Truth,” said a traveller,
“Is a breath, a wind,
“A shadow, a phantom;
“Long have I pursued it,
“But never have I touched
“The hem of its garment.”
And I believed the second traveller;
For truth was to me
A breath, a wind,
A shadow, a phantom,
And never had I touched
The hem of its garment.
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“Limits” by Ralph Waldo Emerson [w/ Audio]
Who knows this or that?
Hark in the wall to the rat:
Since the world was, he has gnawed;
Of his wisdom, of his fraud
What dost thou know?
In the wretched little beast
Is life and heart,
Child and parent,
Not without relation
To fruitful field and sun and moon.
What art thou? His wicked eye
Is cruel to thy cruelty.
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PROMPT: 10 Things
List 10 things you know to be absolutely certain.
1.) Nothing is permanent.
2.) The world is not what it seems.
3.) One’s subjective experience is not determined by the state of the world.
4.) Nobody grasps enough truth to be intolerant.
5.) Uncertainty is the root of all fear.
6.) Fear is the root of all hatred.
7.) Hatred is a subjective experience (See #3.) Also, uncertainty is the root of all hatred (by the transitive property,) hence the benefit of travel.
8.) Any who: a.) has suffered a string of hardships; b.) allows themselves to believe that some “other” is wholly responsible for said hardships; and c.) who lacks a sufficient sense of self-empowerment to avoid surrendering entirely to a group identity can (and likely will) become a Nazi (or the equivalent of their day.)
9.) No one can predict the future. [Regardless of how much we all love to try. (See #5.)]
10.) Entropy increases (ultimately, in a closed system.)
NOTE: I remain ready to abandon any certainty in the face of better information.
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“Gubbinal” by Wallace Stevens [w/ Audio]
That strange flower, the sun,
Is just what you say.
Have it your way.
The world is ugly,
And the people are sad.
That tuft of jungle feathers,
That animal eye,
Is just what you say.
That savage of fire,
That seed,
Have it your way.
The world is ugly,
And the people are sad.
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BOOKS: “Live Like a Philosopher” by Massimo Pigliucci, Gregory Lopez, and Meredith Alexander Kunz
Live Like A Philosopher: What the Ancient Greeks and Romans Can Teach Us About Living a Happy Life by Gregory LopezMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Publisher Site — Hachette / Headline Press
This book is for a person in the market for a philosophy of life, but who only knows that they want a system rooted in Ancient Greece. While the coauthors are all Stoics, the book explores twelve additional philosophies and gives each roughly equal consideration. In addition to the expected systems, such as Epicureanism, Stoicism, Platonism, and Skepticism, there are also several lesser known or defunct philosophies such as Cyrenaic hedonism, Cynicism, Pyrrhonism, and Megarianism.
The book is organized into four parts. The first examines schools that value pleasure (Cyrenaicism and Epicureanism,) the next investigates schools that focus on virtue and character (Aristotelian Peripatetics, Stoicism, Cynicism, and Political Platonism,) the penultimate focuses on systems encouraging doubt or caution in knowledge (Socratic philosophy, Academic Skepticism, Sophism, and Pyrrhonism,) and the last set are posed as questionable candidates for a life philosophy (i.e. those of the Pythagoreans, Megarians, and Neoplatonists.) The last three schools are questioned on various grounds, including: is enough known about what its practitioners believed, did they live their philosophy or just ruminate on it, and could the system be considered a full-fledged philosophy (as opposed to a stance on a specific issue or issues.)
The book is presented in self-help fashion, with each chapter ending in a set of exercises designed to help the reader build practical understanding of each school. The goal of these exercises (as comes together in an appendix) is to help the reader determine which philosophy is best suited to their disposition and inclinations.
I enjoyed this book. The authors use stories to convey ideas and the book’s readability is kept inviting to general readers. If you’re interested in better understanding Greek schools of philosophy, I’d recommend the book as quick and easy way to get a better grasp.
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PROMPT: Superstitious
No. I’ve trained myself to recognize factors, such as selection bias, that contribute to superstitions. And I try to hold all beliefs only so tightly as they can be shaken away by better understanding, particularly beliefs that aren’t strongly supported by experience and reason.
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What I Know about Beaches [Free Verse]
On a sandy beach,
I think of each grain
of sand as being
the same.
But on a pebble beach,
Each stone has its own
color, texture, size,
and shape.
It's made me second guess
What I know about beaches.
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BOOKS: “Jñāna-Yoga: The Way of Knowledge” by Ramakrishna Puligandla
Jnana-Yoga–The Way of Knowledge by Ramakrishna PuligandlaMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Google Books Page
This is one of the most useful books I’ve read on the topic of Jñāna-yoga — the approach to yogic philosophy employed by the studious / inquisitive (in contrast to Bhakti-Yoga [the yoga of those for whom faith and devotion works] and Karma-Yoga [the yoga for those for whom a course of self-less action appeals.]) There are Jñāna-yogic Hindu sects and Buddhism — in general — can be thought of as a school of Jñāna-yoga. The author draws from the teachings of both, principally Sankara for Hindu thinking and Nagarjuna for the Buddhist approach.
A word of warning, the author is a scholarly philosopher, and so — while not as unreadable as many works of academic philosophy — it will be a slog for those who are not used to reading scholarly writing.
That said, Puligandla does a fine job of laying out what he views as the central tenets of Jñāna-yoga in a concise fashion and reviewing them at the end. This is not to say I would agree with all that he proposes, herein. In particular, his Chapter 3 conclusions about consciousness are insufficiently justified to be considered core principles of Jñāna-yoga (in my view.) Of course, the beauty of Jñāna-yoga is that it not only doesn’t insist upon coming to the same conclusions, it generates explanations as to how it’s perfectly possible / reasonable to come to different conclusions (see “The Principle of Superimposition,” herein.) Furthermore, since the author is reporting the ideas of Sankara and Nagarjuna, I can’t really hold these ideas against him.
If you’re interested in Jñāna-yoga, and can handle scholarly prose, I’d highly recommend this book.
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Tiger Riding for Beginners 