Inflate or destroy self?

@Olivier5,

Just watched...'My_Afternoons_with_Margueritte', have you seen the film?

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@Frank Apisa,

Bumper sticker... no... but I could see it on a T-Shirt Wink

1 Reply

@igm,

Nope. Any good?

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

Quote from the main character, 'Sometimes love is not named but it's love all the same.'

My Afternoons with Margueritte is a 2010 French film directed by Jean Becker, based on the book of the same name by Marie-Sabine Roger. It stars Gérard Depardieu, Gisèle Casadesus, Claire Maurier, Maurane, François-Xavier Demaison.

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@igm,

igm wrote:

Bumper sticker... no... but I could see it on a T-Shirt

Yeah, both. They sound great, by the way. Makes one wish they could be universally true. But I rather suspect they are not far from, "The sun will come out tomorrow."

MY GUESS: They are on T-Shirts somewhere already!

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@Frank Apisa,

Not many worn by cigar smoking golfers... I'd guess...

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@igm,

igm wrote:

Not many worn by cigar smoking golfers... I'd guess...

I've probably got over 100 sloganed Tee Shirts, igm. I honestly do not remember any "Buddha" ones...but if you were to Google "Buddha quote tee shirts"...my guess is you would hit a payload.

Many of the Buddhist slogans (including the false ones) sound great. But the proof is in the pudding, so to speak. (I have a tee shirt with that on it!)

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@Frank Apisa,

If it doesn't say this, 'The proof of the pudding is in the eating.', ask for your money back!

Of course you're not in a position to judge.. if you're not in the restaurant.

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@igm,

Thanks for that film suggestion.
Just watched it on BBC iplayer.
Good theme but I didn't think the light weight performance quite lived up to it.

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Miscellaneous notes: Olivier my "paradoxes" (such as I/you do not exist) are functions of our language. Recall Nietzsche's claim that grammar is the metaphysics of the masses.
Also, it is natural to "want" --if we never wanted we would stagnate for lack of motivation. What is destructive is attaching to wants, as opposed to letting them simply arise and fade away -- whether or not they are satisfied.
"Detaching" (one's "self") from a desire is expressing a want; being unattached is something else, it's being free from the objects of desire.

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@Frank Apisa,

The sun will come out tomorrow, right?

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@fresco,

I agree, good theme and a theme that reminded me on some level of our recent posts but if I'd thought it would be taken as a suggestion to watch it... I probably would have said... checkout the review first.

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@JLNobody,

Quote:

Olivier my "paradoxes" (such as I/you do not exist) are functions of our language. Recall Nietzsche's claim that grammar is the metaphysics of the masses.

Well, unless you are able to come up with a new language which will adequately reflect reality as you see it, you'll be bound to contradict yourself each and everytime you try to express something, thus undermining your credibility. Problem is: a language without pronouns and proper nouns will be some sort of gravely handicaped gobbledegook, incaple of describing the simplest facts of social interaction. This goes a long way to proving your metaphysics weak and unworkable.

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

But I am not trying to describe social interactions in the conventional mode. I am trying to depict the reality of (social and other forms of) experience in a non-dualistic way. Hence I am merely referring to them indirectly. If I were a mystic trying to transcend the limitations of our conventional modus vivendi I would simply remain silent.
But for this venue that wouldn't do--no fun at all.
By the way, your approach, with its acceptance of personal pronouns as non-problematical reified "facts" would in the context of anti-dualists also appear to be "gravely handicapped gobbledegook" as well.

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@JLNobody,

Well put.

Conveying the nature of ineffability is as problematic as explaining color to the color-blind, Recent philosophers of language have possibly come closest to succeeding in that, but not without much hostiilty from their more traditional colleagues who felt that the foundations of their "expertise" were being undermined.

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@JLNobody,

Quote:

But I am not trying to describe social interactions in the conventional mode. I am trying to depict the reality of (social and other forms of) experience in a non-dualistic way.

There's no such thing as a "conventional mode" of describing social interactions. Each person would describe them differently depending on his world view. That language reeks of contempt for your fellow human beings, as does the idea of "language as the metaphysics of the masses". To think of oneself as smarter than the average Joe out there is the most selfish thing to do.

I am non-dualistic too. For me, matter and information are intimately intertwined. Yet abandoning pronouns would not help me understand the world, it would simply negate the existence of myself and my fellow human beings.... Human language is made for human beings like you and me to communicate. It simply cannot function without pronouns. Only computer language can function without the concept of human beings, because it's made for machines. You can't mutilate language and end up smarter as a result. It's a bag of conceptual tools, nothing more. The less tools you use, the weaker your thought.

Quote:

By the way, your approach, with its acceptance of personal pronouns as non-problematical reified "facts" would in the context of anti-dualists also appear to be "gravely handicapped gobbledegook" as well.

LOL... it's also your approach. You are using pronouns too. In fact, probably close to 100% of all human beings, since homo sapiens cropped up, have been using them. Heck, Buddhists have been around for 5000 years, and to my knowledge not a single one of them (not even the Buddha himself) has got rid of personal pronouns.

Long story short: people who think they don't exist should really shut up, for the moment they open their mouth, they prove their own existence... QED

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@Olivier5,

Quote:

To think of oneself as smarter than the average Joe out there is the most selfish thing to do.

It's not a question of 'smartness' or intelligence, it's an awareness.

Quote:

The less tools you use, the weaker your thought.

So volume equals higher thought ?

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

....which merely begs the question of the nature of "existence", and that of language as an essential substrate for "self" and other pronouns. The discussion of such issues was central to Heidegger's "Being and Time" (Sein und Zeit) The fact that we are "stuck with" language here is exactly the point I referred to above with respect to "the ineffable". Your claim for language as "tools for thinking" is countered by that of meditators who aim at "no thinking" since thought is always restricted by language.
Language is not so much made for human beings... from this viewpoint it creates them.

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@fresco,

fresco wrote:

....which merely begs the question of the nature of "existence", and that of language as an essential substrate for "self" and other pronouns. The discussion of such issues was central to Heidegger's "Being and Time" (Sein und Zeit) The fact that we are "stuck with" language here is exactly the point I referred to above with respect to "the ineffable". Your claim for language as "tools for thinking" is countered by that of meditators who aim at "no thinking" since thought is always restricted by language.
Language is not so much made for human beings... from this viewpoint it creates them.

Holy moley.

Humans create REALITY...and language creates humans.

You shoulda been alive and writing for Abbot and Costello!

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@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

Yet abandoning pronouns would not help me understand the world, it would simply negate the existence of myself and my fellow human beings.... Human language is made for human beings like you and me to communicate. It simply cannot function without pronouns.

You are using pronouns too. In fact, probably close to 100% of all human beings, since homo sapiens cropped up, have been using them. Heck, Buddhists have been around for 5000 years, and to my knowledge not a single one of them (not even the Buddha himself) has got rid of personal pronouns.

Long story short: people who think they don't exist should really shut up, for the moment they open their mouth, they prove their own existence... QED

You seem to believe that if someone is unable to find anything more than a body and mind and concludes there is no self to be found in that body and mind then that person cannot use pronouns to communicate and interact in order to maintain that body and mind, can you explain why pronouns cannot be used under these circumstances?

1 Reply

Inflate or destroy self?

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