We were all thrown into the world in a specific state; out of all possible ways to exist, the process of thrownness sculpted me and discarded, in my case, all other ways to cut the stone to end up with my unique instance of existence. The end point of thrownness isn’t static, it allows possibilities in life and the ability to choose; its as if thrownness built a house of limited size for you to live in but you are free to wander from room to room. The specificity of your “house” imposes limits to what can be experienced; how we view the world (e.g. through the limitations of our senses) limits what we see.
One of the most important achievements of our thrownness (we went through similar processes of being thrown into the world) is the ability to have a self-aware point of view. A point of view is grounded in thought and therefore must operate within the limits of how we think; for instance we think in successive thoughts (i.e. one after another) and are therefore limited to thinking from moment to moment. Also, our thinking is not perfect because we suppress all other possible thoughts to think our current thought; perfect thought would involve simultaneously thinking all possible thoughts successively and all at once in all possible contexts and times. Because we have a specific point of view this is impossible. We can think of the concept of perfect thought but we can never experience its perfection; this is because words do not carry the experience of something. Perfection is thought of as “not imperfect” and imperfection is something we can experience and not just a word.
Our point of view, whose dimensions and limitations were determined by thrownness, enables us to see but also makes us blind. For example, experiencing the future of my Parkinson’s is impossible because we think only in the present, moment by moment; even predicting the future is done by thinking in the present. Leaping into the future or into the past is impossible because of the thrown limitation of thinking successive thoughts. Similarly, experiencing God as the perfect being or trying to respond perfectly to Parkinson’s is impossible because we can only think in limited contexts; to know a perfect thing requires us to view the perfect thing perfectly.
We are all blind when we see. Those of us who claim to know the future or God are pretending to see despite being as blind as the rest of us.
dr jonny
http://dialoguewithdisability.blogspot.co.uk
'perfection' is a problem only for philosophers and not for scientists. every scientific proposition is always subject to improvement. imperfection is a fact of life.
i like the negative of Anselm's ontological argument:
nothing that exists is perfect
God is perfect
therefore God does not exist
up yours Anselm!
likewise knowledge of the future is imperfect. but it doesnt mean its useless (i have always had a lot of time for the American pragmatism over European absolutism).
i also am sure the human brain can do parallel processing - otherwise we would have been eaten by sabre-toothed cats long ago.
i like the negative of Anselm's ontological argument:
nothing that exists is perfect
God is perfect
therefore God does not exist
up yours Anselm!
likewise knowledge of the future is imperfect. but it doesnt mean its useless (i have always had a lot of time for the American pragmatism over European absolutism).
i also am sure the human brain can do parallel processing - otherwise we would have been eaten by sabre-toothed cats long ago.
Hello dr jonny and turnip, Two amazingly eloquent points of view if I may say so,
Surely perfection can never be achieved , Nature the most powerful force in the universe has failed miserably,the survival of the fittest and Darwins evolution
theories have gone astray, and as can be seen every day as some atrocity is carried out somewhere in the world, Natures biggest mistake, Homo Sapiens, if only we had not progressed beyond the Great Apes, what a pristine world this would be.
Fed
hi fed
gorillas are magnificent , gentle vegetarians with very small genitals who only have sex two or three times a year.
chimpanzees are violent liars who tear monkeys to pieces and use sex as a commodity.
i wonder which is our nearest relative?
ooh oooh ooh aaahh aahh oooooh
gorillas are magnificent , gentle vegetarians with very small genitals who only have sex two or three times a year.
chimpanzees are violent liars who tear monkeys to pieces and use sex as a commodity.
i wonder which is our nearest relative?
ooh oooh ooh aaahh aahh oooooh
[::politici ons::]
Good morning turnip, point taken, but Gorillas don't nick your cars,build chemical
Nuclear Biological weapons, destroy thousands of sqare miles of rain forest, pollute our rivers and seas harpoon whales beat up some poor bugger for fun,kill old ladies in their homes for £3 destroy the world in the name of profit and to hell with the rest of the fellow space travelers on space ship earth do they.
And as for chimps ,yes I agree they can be a bit naughty, and do hunt and kill
prey, but have you ever seen the inside of a abbatoir its a vision from hell,
organized computerized murder, and yes I know we have to eat the world must not starve but our activity is changing the climate faster than it can ever be controlled and the vast monoculture grain belts which grow the worlds main food
,cereal crops are turning to deserts, our world leaders are all pathological liars
who are slowly edging us into World , War 3 chimps don't do any of these things
in fact the little Benobo chimpansees spend their time foraging sh...ng as many females as they can while they are awake, and sleeping, now that's what I call
idyllic , only a nice stroll down to the local on a lovely sunny day is not in their itinerary and we have not mentioned Last but no means last, the Orangutan
surely at the top of their own particular niche,Gentle Giants these old gentlemen
of the rain forrest must view humans with fear and disgust, then there are the
Dolphins and whales these magnificent creatures are well way ahead of us in the Intelligence quota , but humans kill many thousands every year either for RESEARCH
as our friends from japan insist,or sport or by drowning in fishing nets, I could go on and on but I wont.
Fed
Good morning turnip, point taken, but Gorillas don't nick your cars,build chemical
Nuclear Biological weapons, destroy thousands of sqare miles of rain forest, pollute our rivers and seas harpoon whales beat up some poor bugger for fun,kill old ladies in their homes for £3 destroy the world in the name of profit and to hell with the rest of the fellow space travelers on space ship earth do they.
And as for chimps ,yes I agree they can be a bit naughty, and do hunt and kill
prey, but have you ever seen the inside of a abbatoir its a vision from hell,
organized computerized murder, and yes I know we have to eat the world must not starve but our activity is changing the climate faster than it can ever be controlled and the vast monoculture grain belts which grow the worlds main food
,cereal crops are turning to deserts, our world leaders are all pathological liars
who are slowly edging us into World , War 3 chimps don't do any of these things
in fact the little Benobo chimpansees spend their time foraging sh...ng as many females as they can while they are awake, and sleeping, now that's what I call
idyllic , only a nice stroll down to the local on a lovely sunny day is not in their itinerary and we have not mentioned Last but no means last, the Orangutan
surely at the top of their own particular niche,Gentle Giants these old gentlemen
of the rain forrest must view humans with fear and disgust, then there are the
Dolphins and whales these magnificent creatures are well way ahead of us in the Intelligence quota , but humans kill many thousands every year either for RESEARCH
as our friends from japan insist,or sport or by drowning in fishing nets, I could go on and on but I wont.
Fed
quite,
the main problem is just too many people. we are too successful for the planet.
but never fear - nature will restore the balance one way or another.
dolphins are strange creatures - they occasionally try to have sex with humans and have a prehensile penis (only the male ones) which they wrp around the humans leg. worse than yorkshire terriers.
the main problem is just too many people. we are too successful for the planet.
but never fear - nature will restore the balance one way or another.
dolphins are strange creatures - they occasionally try to have sex with humans and have a prehensile penis (only the male ones) which they wrp around the humans leg. worse than yorkshire terriers.
[::sad::
I do agree humankind have past the best before mark,the population is rapidly
approaching a level where it simply cannot produce enough food, or energy,and what happens then ,War,people will fight to secure fuel food and water, and with the good old human trait of if it moves kill it still a benchmark, I think it is possible. The there is the large Asteroid hit, something a couple of miles long
would be more than capable of wiping out all life,the exception being scorpions and ants they seem to be able to tolerate the most extreme conditions and come back twice as hard,.Then there is the massive caldera, Yellowstone, all scientists
agree that this much treasured National Park is ready to pop any year soon and when it does world war will seem like a kids squabble in the school yard, and that we cannot do anything to prevent it,so turnip my old mucker I was going to leave my single malt collection to you when I shuffle off,but there is no point
now is there
I bet you all feel much more cheerful now.
All the very best anyway Regards Fed
I do agree humankind have past the best before mark,the population is rapidly
approaching a level where it simply cannot produce enough food, or energy,and what happens then ,War,people will fight to secure fuel food and water, and with the good old human trait of if it moves kill it still a benchmark, I think it is possible. The there is the large Asteroid hit, something a couple of miles long
would be more than capable of wiping out all life,the exception being scorpions and ants they seem to be able to tolerate the most extreme conditions and come back twice as hard,.Then there is the massive caldera, Yellowstone, all scientists
agree that this much treasured National Park is ready to pop any year soon and when it does world war will seem like a kids squabble in the school yard, and that we cannot do anything to prevent it,so turnip my old mucker I was going to leave my single malt collection to you when I shuffle off,but there is no point
now is there
I bet you all feel much more cheerful now.All the very best anyway Regards Fed
you mentioned dolphins,they are probably the most self aware non human,and do tend to get passionate at times,also have you noticed they are nearly always attracted
to pretty curvy human females, the more curves the better, there was a Dolphin
living in Amble Harbour near my home, he was very friendly and despite requests by the various wildlife institutions people would insist on swimming with him, whenever these idiots tried to get close Freddie became sexually aggressive, one
moron was actually prosecuted for performing a lewd act with him.
About 6wks later the too friendly for his own good Freddie was found shot, washed
up about 4 miles away and don't be fooled by the old saying Killer Whales don't kill humans, they do,there are numerous very dangerous pods around the world,
they cruise the Oceans silently, not chattering to each other as most Whales do
this silent running allows the pod to close in undetected on their victims,usually
other Whales or sharks but humans are on the menu if they are in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Fearsome , avoid if possible, fed