GENIUS FORUMS

Look in the mirror, Dennis. Do you not see the blatant hypocrisy in this? You dropped the first bomb by attacking Einstein for no good reason. It's clear to me that you had an ulterior motive in doing so, as your attacks upon him were clearly unfounded.

What a pity that you feel the need to defile the name of one of the greatest genius who ever existed for petty, personal reasons.

I wasn't attacking Einstein.
I was descibing his predicament for which I have compassion for him.
I love the guy. His 'on the horns of a dilemma' gestalt. Riveting viewing.

Is there a possibility for human being that is beyond the 'feed, fuck and fight' mentality conventional human being is enrolled in as a way of being?

yes, David, I quite predicted you would attempt the whole go into denial about Weininger's bigotry bit. The whole world can see it, except here in the land of the deluded.

Perhaps, Weininger truly is the ideal mascot for this place known as "Genius Forums".

Dennis;
I wasn't attacking Einstein.
I was descibing his predicament for which I have compassion for him.
I love the guy. His 'on the horns of a dilemma' gestalt. Riveting viewing.

Carmel:
I love the guy too. Actually, I've been meaning to do some research on him. I read that he had a deep interest in philosophy and that he often exchanged letters with the foremost philosophers of his day. I'd be curious to know who he corresponded with and if any of the content of the letters is available online.

If I find anything, I'll likely post it over at KIR. There doesn't seem to be much interest in Einstein here, but if you happen to know anything about this, please let me know.

Carmel,
There's a 12 hour mp3 file available on p2p networks that fullsomely describes his life and times, if you like, otherwise it might be obtained on ebay or amazon.

What about the possibility I mentioned?

Carmel wrote:yes, David, I quite predicted you would attempt the whole go into denial about Weininger's bigotry bit. The whole world can see it, except here in the land of the deluded.

Perhaps, Weininger truly is the ideal mascot for this place known as "Genius Forums".

Bigotry occurs when a person is fixated upon a point of view and isn't open to reason. Again, I don't see any of this in Weininger. He gives the strong impression of being open to anything of logical interest, even if it were to conflict with whatever he has written or espoused in the past.

Open-minded, logical, unconventional, mischevious - these are the traits that I detect in Weininger. I'm sure he would have been a blast to converse with.

But then again, bigotry seems to mean "whatever disagrees with Carmel's views".

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Carmel wrote:Dennis;
I wasn't attacking Einstein.
I was descibing his predicament for which I have compassion for him.
I love the guy. His 'on the horns of a dilemma' gestalt. Riveting viewing.

Carmel:
I love the guy too.

For me, he's attractive as an archetype - that of an absent-minded, abstract thinker making great leaps in thought. I believe this goes to the heart of his mystique.

While this certainly applied to Einstein in the realm of physics, outside of this he was exceedingly poor. His thoughts were weak and uninspiring. He had no understanding of the Infinite and no real spiritual zest. Philosophically speaking, he was a powder puff. Weininger easily leaped past him in a single thought.

Oh sorry, I'm disagreeing with Carmel here and so that makes me a bigot!

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David, you're hilarious when you have hissy fits! :)

This is really almost worth the price of admission, that being...

...nevermind

Dennis:
What about the possibility I mentioned?

Carmel:
Possibilities...hmm, yes, I believe in possibilities, though I'm not quite sure what you're talking about in this particular instance?

Carmel,
All these philosophers have to be understood in the Context of the times they lived in and what they were railing against, the conventions of the herd they suffered under..
pascal, neitschke, schopenhauer, weininger, kierkegard, heidegger etc..
they lived under the yoke of the religion herd that choked the life out of any possibility for human being..
they weren't perfect but provided astonishing glimpses into the nature of ultimate reality..
such was their impact, we enjoy a relative freedom today made possible by their titanic struggles.
Why quibble over their flaws as fledgling explorers into the unknown but rather carry on their work as a valuable thing to do..
they opened it up..

Carmel wrote:David, you're hilarious when you have hissy fits! :)

This is really almost worth the price of admission, that being...

...nevermind

Never do.

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David Quinn wrote:

Carmel wrote:David, you're hilarious when you have hissy fits! :)

This is really almost worth the price of admission, that being...

...nevermind

David:
Never do.

Carmel:
do too!

Oh, and David, you're equally as hilarious when you're feigning apathy:) It's ever so sagely!

You know, Carmel, I have a feeling you would be impossible to live with ....

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extreme irony, excellent response!

-10 more sage points from David's score.

Carmel wrote:Actually, I've been meaning to do some research on him. I read that he had a deep interest in philosophy and that he often exchanged letters with the foremost philosophers of his day. I'd be curious to know who he corresponded with and if any of the content of the letters is available online.

First thing you need to recognize is that Einstein is considered a philosopher of science, this is where he was interested in : the philosophy of science. This has not that much to do with general metaphysics or existential thought as others might define "philosophy", or Eastern philosophy, or 'non-academic' philosophy. So Einstein's "deep interest" is generally pretty much limited by a scientific 'modernistic' world view. Not a false view per se but one that is intentionally limited to have science and technology flourish and dominate. It's a tamed or restricted out-look which as a result cannot look beyond its own limits.

Science, like any systemization of experience, can be very influential on our philosophy, our orientation upon how we see the world. But science will always be based on a philosophical ground which remains a priori. Most scientists just assume but the rare explorer makes exactly that his aim of inquiry, all at his own peril.

One noteworthy philosophical aspect of Einstein was his stubborn stance on deterministic causality. He had therefore great problems with the Copenhagen interpretation of Quantum Physics.

Some other noteworthy quote:

Einstein wrote:Time and again the passion for understanding has led to the illusion that man is able to comprehend the objective world rationally, by pure thought, without any empirical foundations—in short, by metaphysics. I believe that every true theorist is a kind of tamed metaphysicist, no matter how pure a "positivist" he may fancy himself. The metaphysicist believes that the logically simple is also the real. The tamed metaphysicist believes that not all that is logically simple is embodied in experienced reality, but that the totality of all sensory experience can be "comprehended" on the basis of a conceptual system built on premises of great simplicity. The skeptic will say that this is a "miracle creed." Admittedly so, but it is a miracle creed which has been borne out to an amazing extent by the development of science. [- from 1950 Scientific American article "On the Generalized Theory of Gravitation"]

The chance you'll find much correspondence freely available I deem rather small Carmel, the body of work is so extensive and much translation and transcription required that this stuff is often heavily copyrighted, unless you want to read original handwritings. You could try to find some of it at some file-sharing site as E-book if you know your way there.

Nick,

Well it certainly wouldn't hurt to add those things to the school's curriculum would it?

okay, I will agree with you that adding wisdom based curriculum to public schools would probably produce a higher percentage of intellectuals, but only those ones who were borderline, as far as mental capacity is concerned. Basically, the ones that could have gone down either road, one of ignorance or one of wisdom could benefit. They would be pushed in the right direction from the outset, and probably experience less samsara of the mind. However, tinkering with brain hard wiring by altering the genes responsible for brain development should produce far greater results, I suspect anyway.

Diebert:
This has not that much to do with general metaphysics or existential thought as others might define "philosophy", or Eastern philosophy, or 'non-academic' philosophy. So Einstein's "deep interest" is generally pretty much limited by a scientific 'modernistic' world view. Not a false view per se but one that is intentionally limited to have science and technology flourish and dominate. It's a tamed or restricted out-look which as a result cannot look beyond its own limits.

Carmel:
Of course, but he also had a interest in philosophy outside the realm of the philosophy of science, Spinoza was his favorite philosopher and he had an interest in Eastern philosophy as well.

Diebert:
One noteworthy philosophical aspect of Einstein was his stubborn stance on deterministic causality. He had therefore great problems with the Copenhagen interpretation of Quantum Physics.

Einstein wrote:Time and again the passion for understanding has led to the illusion that man is able to comprehend the objective world rationally, by pure thought, without any empirical foundations—in short, by metaphysics. I believe that every true theorist is a kind of tamed metaphysicist, no matter how pure a "positivist" he may fancy himself. The metaphysicist believes that the logically simple is also the real. The tamed metaphysicist believes that not all that is logically simple is embodied in experienced reality, but that the totality of all sensory experience can be "comprehended" on the basis of a conceptual system built on premises of great simplicity. The skeptic will say that this is a "miracle creed." Admittedly so, but it is a miracle creed which has been borne out to an amazing extent by the development of science. [- from 1950 Scientific American article "On the Generalized Theory of Gravitation"]

Carmel:
"tamed metaphysicist" ...Interesting, yes, I knew he was highly critical of logical empiricism(posivism) and considered himself a theorist, first and foremost.

Diebert:
The chance you'll find much correspondence freely available I deem rather small Carmel, the body of work is so extensive and much translation and transcription required that this stuff is often heavily copyrighted, unless you want to read original handwritings. You could try to find some of it at some file-sharing site as E-book if you know your way there.[/quote]

Carmel:
Thanks, yeah, you're probably right, I tried to look this up one day and didn't have much luck. Found an exchange of letters between him and Freud about topics of the day, his views about war, his stance on anti-nationalism and pacivism, mildly interesting, but not quite what I was seeking...

Ryan Rudolph wrote:okay, I will agree with you that adding wisdom based curriculum to public schools would probably produce a higher percentage of intellectuals, but only those ones who were borderline, as far as mental capacity is concerned. Basically, the ones that could have gone down either road, one of ignorance or one of wisdom could benefit. They would be pushed in the right direction from the outset, and probably experience less samsara of the mind. However, tinkering with brain hard wiring by altering the genes responsible for brain development should produce far greater results, I suspect anyway.

It might be just as effective if people were born into a simulation of some kind that presents the individual with an environment with all the right circumstances needed to produce a perfectly enlightened being. The next step would be to just manufacture Buddhas on an assembly line. :)

David,

For me, he's attractive as an archetype

That's the salient point.

Jung and Einstein met up between 1909-1913. Both were profoundly influenced by their conversations on acausal time (the concept that time exists as a dimension and it is only our conscious minds that perceive it moving). From those meetings einstein went on to develop relativity and jung came up with sychronicity.
Einstein would wrestle with problems to the point of exhaustion, retire to sleep and the solutions would appear to him in dreams.
there's no einstein in the conventional way an einstein is thought of.
there's an einstein brain caused or configured by Life that has that configuration express only what it is possible for that configuration to express...
Life expressing through archetypal configurations...

there's probably never been even a hair out of place ever, can't be anything broken or dirty..

Dennis Mahar wrote:David,

For me, he's attractive as an archetype

That's the salient point.

Jung and Einstein met up between 1909-1913. Both were profoundly influenced by their conversations on acausal time (the concept that time exists as a dimension and it is only our conscious minds that perceive it moving). From those meetings einstein went on to develop relativity and jung came up with sychronicity.
Einstein would wrestle with problems to the point of exhaustion, retire to sleep and the solutions would appear to him in dreams.

Yes, so it's not unlike being a spiritual philosopher, which requires the same kind of focus and intuitive insight. The only problem is, Einstein confined his focus to issues in physics and some of its associated metaphysical areas, and kept it well away from wisdom. As such, he was largely a wasted talent. He achieved much, but failed more.

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I see your point David.
Now going on..
to me Einstein is a product of the intricate web of causation..
that einstein was not the 'doer'..
has no 'claim of authorship' of any of it...

that no human being can claim doership nor claim ownership in or of anything...

that human being is a pattern configured as a product of causation..

if there's any doing or authoring...
the source is not human being.

Agreed, Einstein's ignorance was not of his own doing.

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facing the truth squarely,
the brute fact of it,
it's cold, impersonal nature,
few can stomach it.

Truth is only cold to the degree that we are attached to warmth.

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Edmund Husserl might be worth mentioning, even if only based on how his work inspired many other European philosophers, independently of what is correct or not.

Here are some interesting quotes from Wikipedia:

Husserl made some key conceptual elaborations which led him to assert that in order to study the structure of consciousness, one would have to distinguish between the act of consciousness and the phenomena at which it is directed (the objects as intended). Knowledge of essences would only be possible by "bracketing" all assumptions about the existence of an external world.

Every belief, desire, etc. has an object that it is about: the believed, the wanted. Brentano used the expression "intentional inexistence" to indicate the status of the objects of thought in the mind. The property of being intentional, of having an intentional object, was the key feature to distinguish mental phenomena and physical phenomena, because physical phenomena lack intentionality altogether.

characterized by a belief that objects materially exist and exhibit properties that we see as emanating from them. Husserl proposed a radical new phenomenological way of looking at objects by examining how we, in our many ways of being intentionally directed toward them, actually "constitute" them (to be distinguished from materially creating objects or objects merely being figments of the imagination);

Husserl declares that mental and spiritual reality possess their own reality independent of any physical basis,[2] and that a science of the mind ('Geisteswissenschaft') must be established on as scientific a foundation as the natural sciences have managed:

Dennis:
Why quibble over their flaws as fledgling explorers into the unknown but rather carry on their work as a valuable thing to do..
they opened it up..

Carmel:
Einstein certainly did open things up, yet here you(and David) are again quibbling over his "perceived" "flaws".
It's small minded and hypocritical, Dennis. There is no real content in your (and David's) critiques of him, mostly blanket statements with essentially no supporting evidence or reasoning.

Your critiques of him entirely too vague to be of any use. Neither of you are critiquing his ideologies with any specific argument, you're merely trying to attack his person. What is it specifically about his ideologies that you disagree with?