From: "philtal_uk" <philtal_uk@y...>
Date: Sat Jul 6, 2002 2:59 am
Subject: Re: There are always alternative ways ...
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There are always other ways …
... the way of EmpoDOcles, for example...
[… get a vicarious thrill as you watch him fling himself into the
volcano for your entertainment and/or instruction … (it might only
have been a legend of course - philosophers tend to die quietly [but
happily?] in their beds)…]
Adapting Empedocles [whose thoughts seemed to have got blocked by too
much symmetry] … to achieve slightly more positive resolutions …
I will tell two tales that together are one tale.
At one time it grew to be one out of many.
At another time it divided to be many out of one.
There is a double becoming of perishable things and a double ceasing.
Comings together bring one generation into being and destroy it.
They grow up and are scattered as things become divided.
Things never cease changing places: at one time they are uniting in
one through the attraction of love; at another time they are
separating by the repulsion of hate.
They live and die because it is their nature to grow into one out of
many and to become many once more when the one is divided.
But as they never cease changing places, they are ever unchanging as
they move around the patterns of existence.
Love and hate, seeming almost equal in strength and influence, live
among and interact with the elements, making many one and one many.
But love seems to have a slight edge of/O’er Hate.
Love can be contemplated with the mind as a thing implanted in the
natures of mortal creatures.
Love makes the ideas of union and the actions bringing harmony.
Love has many names, joy among them, yet is often difficult to
identify.
Love and hate seem almost equal and of the same age.
Each has different characteristics and its own peculiar nature.
One gains in strength when its time comes round, but victory is never
total.
Joy turns to sorrow and turns again to joy.
Love and hate ebb and flow in their individual influences, but never
end.
They flow through one another, and in many ways require one another.
They create and destroy and destroy and create and one is not
entirely possible without the other.
[…
... But then … when I look into myself (and I have, perhaps, looked
inwards more carefully than many) and then look outwards again … and
then blend inscape and outscape … I find much love … and I do not
find much hate … and I do not find myself very unusual in the
relative proportions of love and hate that I carry - most love more
than they hate …
…
… so what on Earth has gone wrong in our worldly arrangements?…
...
… is it that the wild passionates (who imagine that the capacity to
love is not fully developed unless the capacity to hate is fully
developed also) have had too much influence over the centuries? …
… is it that reason is undervalued? (working in partnership with
emotion and physicality, reason is warm and humane - only in
isolation, or when a slave to the passions, is reason cold and
calculating)
… is it that too many have 'simply' not thought-and-felt enough in
combination ('pure' thought, in isolation, is monstrous - coldly
rational - …'pure' feeling, in isolation, is monstrous - explosively
irrational - …
...
…there are, of course, many other possible 'explanations'....
…]
From: "philtal_uk" <philtal_uk@y...>
Date: Sat Jul 6, 2002 3:02 am
Subject: Re: There are always alternative ways ...
... flowing back to Heraclitus ...
...
... fluxfluxflux freely adapts the fragments ...
...
[... and freely gives away the adaptations - what foolishness for
fluxfluxflux to give away words for free ... but then they were not
owned ... only borrowed ... and shared (with or without compounded
interest) ...]
...
... no doubt originals are distorted in the process ...
...
... and that was not what he originally intended to do ...
...
... but it just sort of just happened anyway ...
…
…
…
It is wise to listen, not to me, but to the words.
Recognise what the words say: all things are one.
Though the words are true forever, they seem to change.
All things happen in accordance with the words, but people seem as if
they had no experience of the truths the words contain.
When they first hear the words, people are as unable to understand as
they were before they had heard them.
People make trials of the words in their talk, thoughts, feelings and
actions. The judgements are often not sound.
Many people seem barely to know what they are doing when awake, and
they, and others, forget real world events as quickly as they forget
dreams.
Many hear but do not listen, as if they were absent when present
The senses are bad witnesses if the mind does not contemplate the
evidence.
Many people only vaguely notice their own experiences.
Many are taught, but few truly learn, though many believe they do.
If you do not know how to listen, you do not know how to speak.
If you do not expect the unexpected you will not find it, because it
is elusive and difficult.
Treasure-hunters move a large amount of material to find a little.
Nature hides its truths.
Complex truths are simple when recognised, but not all simples are
true.
The complex truth of falsehood lies in its deceptive simplicity.
The truth has many forms of expression: an action may reveal as much
as a speech; a raving street-shout may reveal as much as a refined
lecture.
Direct experience should be prized above all other sources.
There are many untrustworthy witnesses speaking in support of
disputed points.
The senses are the most exact witnesses.
Knowledge of many facts is not equivalent to understanding: many know
much but understand little.
Wisdom goes beyond mere knowledge of many things.
Wisdom is one thing, as everything is one.
The search for wisdom is the search for understanding as to how all
things connect into one thing.
Everyone who can perceive perceives the same world, but in different
ways, and what is perceived seems ever changing.
Transformations seem constant and never ending.
Every dawn appears to bring a new sun.
When asleep, all are equal.
The sleep of reason brings forth monsters, but so does the sleep of
emotion - neither should sleep, and neither should dominate.
The waking share one common world.
Sleepers might be thought isolated, but the parts of dreams are
borrowed from the common world.
The sleeper, whose vision has been put out, retains light from the
common world.
The waking person regains light, but retains thedarkness of sleep.
Sleepers are the fellow workers of the waking.
Consciousness cannot be measured.
A journey beginning with a motion in any direction will not take you
to the limits of consciousness.
Thales foretold an eclipse, but not because he had special gifts: the
knowledge behind his forethinking was available to all.
The teacher seemed to know many things, but he did not know that day
and night are one.
All things are one thing taking many shapes.
Colder becomes warmer becomes colder.
What is wet dries and what is dry becomes wet.
It scatters and it gathers.
It advances and it retreats.
You cannot swim twice into the same water course: fresh waters are
ever flowing through the water course and you are never the same
twice.
All waterways connect into a single waterway.
The person who longs for the end of change (which is often
destructive and painful) desires the end of everything - without
change all things end.
What seems to be at variance agrees with itself.
There are attunements of apparent opposites, but the harmonies are
not simple.
It seems unwise to conjecture at random about the greatest things -
but what else can we do?
What is valued depends on needs.
Most creatures do not value gold.
There is delight to be found in the mire.
Couples are wholes that are never quite whole: they are drawn
together and pulled apart, harmonious and discordant, together and
isolated.
One is made up of many things.
All things issues from one.
Changing perspectives change value judgements.
Mortals are immortals and immortals are mortals: one lives the
other's death; one dies the others' death.
The way up and the way down are the same ways.
A circle with a beginning and end would not be a circle - what we see
as circles are not.
The drunk is prone to tripping and losing direction, but so is the
sober person.
Formers become latters and latters become formers.
The living become the dead, the sleepers become the waking, the idle
become the active, the young become the old, we are and we are not.
Time is an inconstant motion.
We step and do not step into the same rivers.
It rests by changing.
They are born to live and die, and they leave children behind to live
and die.
Consciousness is common to all, but no two consciousnesses are
identical.
The words are common to all, but many live as if they alone owned the
words.
We are often estranged from the things we have most contact with.
The wisest human has little wisdom.
The least wise human is wiser than the wisest ape.
Imagine you got all you desired: what would you desire then?
Imagine you knew everything: what would you do with your knowledge?
Sickness seems to make health pleasant, and so: evil, good; hunger,
plenty; tiredness, rest. But who would not want to live in a world
without sickness, evil, hunger, tiredness?
Many matters must be left to majority decisions, but the majority is
not right forever, just temporarily decisive.
One many be right and ten thousand wrong.
One day can seem just like another, but never is.
Character is fate - but can be changed.
Many mysteries are not (perhaps) really very mysterious
Much that passes for secret knowledge … is not very knowledgeable …
or very secret …
Expect after death … (possibly) … such things as were never wished
for or expected ... [... what do you 'justly deserve'? ... what is
your 'living legacy'? ...] ...
…
…
…
It is wise to listen, not to me, but to the words.
…
…
…
+++++
Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 11:38:17 -0000
From: "tcqz" <
tcqz@yahoo.se>
To: "philtal_uk" <
philtal_uk@yahoo.com>
Subject: great books reading
Hi,
I suppose you still remember someone called Tsien who once posed a
question in heraclitussociety. You had very strong impression on me
for your innumerous random thoughts on the net. Now I'm writing to
you because I recently created a new Yahoo group on Great Books
reading:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/journeyofclassics/I would much appreciate your kind participation should you find it to
your liking. You may read for yourself the description page on the
web, just want to add that I keep the group restricted so that it
could remain spam-free, further, I will deliberately make it small:
no more than 10 members at any given time so that the talking be
conducted in a friendly atmosphere without the worry of an avalanche
of emails in a short duration.
Just one small request, if you decide to join, pls only post message
germane to the discussion, not your random thoughts per se, this is
not meant to discourage your posting, just due repect to the group
charter.
OK, hopefully see you soon. In any way, thanks for your attention on
this.
Sincerely,
Tsien
JOURNEYOFTHECLASSICS
From: "philtal_uk" <philtal_uk@y...>
Date: Fri Jul 26, 2002 3:05 pm
Subject: Hello
Hello to you all ...
I joined journeyoftheclassics after an invitation from Tsien, who
knows me from another group.
I think the group is an excellent idea. In an age of very diverse -
and often confusing - cultural reference points, the classics
(especially those available in widely circulated and relatively cheap
editions) provide staging points from which to get one's bearings.
Tsien knows my habits of digressing rather widely when I write, and
asked me to stick closely to the threads off discussions in this
group. I promise to you all that when I contribute I will do just
that.
Good reading.
With love Philip.
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