Why would I go back to previous post when im asking you about this sentence?
This isn’t about the genius of Rousseau or opinions this way or that,
this is about pointing out there is so much more beyond anything he knew about that we really should be incorporating into our philosophical discussions.
Also notice your reaction and R. essay makes my point about the undercurrent of religious thinking embedded within modern philosophy.
I’m striving to write about a perspective that incorporates Earth and her biosphere and her evolution into our deep musing about Who We Are.
I know what you want to talk about and I’ve tried having that discussion with you. Lately, I’ve been pointing out how difficult that is. Also lately, you take anything I post and try to make it about that thing you want to talk about. You just said that, in the quote, right here.
What made this your thread?
Well, considering what I’m trying to discuss (and pin point) is the failures in modern popular philosophy with its roots in prescience theocratic dominated thought. Even Rousseau invokes God and his plan.
Rousseau sows the impress that humans and savages/brutes are distinct and that we sprang on to the scene under God’s eye. But our physical historic connect to Earth does matter and ought to be discussed. Instead, human exceptionalism and disconnect from the physical/biological/geological reality of our existence, is a bedrock assumption of his thesis, if you project up 250 years with no revisionary notes to clarify what’s different about today understanding.
That is why it is important to call out the fact that Rousseau’s description is about human thought and behavior, not the nature of man. That starts with grappling with and learning to appreciate the biology ~ mind divide.
Rousseau makes clear scientists didn’t have any evidence to inform that question.
We are 2020s, time to let the science, and those boring uncool facts and the story they tell about why you are who you are into the philosophical discussion big time. Yet Professor Gi gives that a brush off, listen to the lecture, never even a hint at what R was missing and all that is available to us. I’m not arguing against studying Rousseau, but for got sake why not make it more relevant to today’s real world and that would require getting explicit about the science and the creature generated consciousness concept.
Instead it was bypassed with a joke for laughs.
It’s there, this isn’t my imagination.
People are self-absorbed, it’s natural, we can’t even recognize it, that’s also natural, but a little connection with wild things and such helps us realize there is so much more than just me, my ego, and my interaction with the world.
Today’s normality of truly dysfunctional behavior and the condition of our society, human relations, and the condition increasing masses of people need to endure serves as plenty of evidence for me, of the abject failure of our lofty philosophical assumptions,
here we go again,
gotta start nice and simple,
though 6 years in and the insight keeps on giving.
It’s a big world beyond the confines of our ego, spirit, soul, self-aware consciousness mind
Physical Reality ~ Human MIndscape divide.
I can’t help but when offered some piece of traditional philosophy, I’ll pick it apart, do my best to “hear” what it says, and I notice how it says it and what it leaves out.
I do this to be able to show the where and how, as I’ve done in this thread.
And I show to discuss and hear differing opinions.
I have no malice, I’m only a high school grad and don’t pretend to be a scholar, but I know what I see and I’ve lived a life well enough to learn a thing or two about it. I’m not trying to be a jerk, even if I dare proclaim (another fundamental observation) our self-absorbed and self-serving nature. I’m not pointing the stick at you. I’m pointing it at pretty near everyone. I’m there most the time, it’s not like got a magic anything, I still worry about myself and my people, it’s more about gaining a humility and appreciation for what’s outside the bubble of my own experience.
In the same breath I also appreciate that “self-absorbed and self-serving” is the most fundamental natural behavior of all living creature, all creatures have to worry about itself first and foremost.
Thing is - we’ve know for a long time that we humans are slamming up against Earth’s ability to absorb all our excrement, nor supply all our wants. We can’t fix problems cause by technology with yet more complex technology, it’s a balloon dream.
It requires something else, a sense of humility, plus and sense of empathy for the world out there, a inner sense of equality and responsibility towards landscapes, creatures, oceans, atmosphere.
This more enlightened appreciation for our Earth and other creatures wouldn’t end human nature and everyones need to be more, etc., but it would instill some guardrails, it would elevate our natural life support system to a level of priority as important as your next dream of vacation or car, etc, etc. Have us thinking a bit more about Fair Play, and paying one’s own dues.
Like asking; not what Earth can do for you,
but, what you can do for our Earth.
That subtle shift in our hearts will infect our brains and behavior.
But it’s all pie in the sky, this was humanity’s homework for the 60s, 70s, 80s.
A little much needed attitude adjustment.
Everyone on the same page, with forethought and concern for the future Earth’s good health and the world our collective children would be inheriting. So please don’t get mad if I call us a failure, progress as god was a very foolish way to bet. Just consider the state of the world.
Yeah, it’s hoot, I am a child of the 60s, the song was nice with a sweet message, if flower child naive. Then I became a young man in the 70s and started learning that the lessons taught to me in the 60s were full of sugar promises, whether from politicians, business leaders, academia, or musicians with their music sweet music.
At least the musicians did more good than harm.
So childish. No one owns the thread. I didn’t claim ownership. My statement is true without ownership.
The rest is repetition of you repeating yourself again.
This guy talks about Rosseau’s awareness of evolution.
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I’ll watch that for sure, but what you don’t seem to get is I’m not complaining about what Rousseau wrote -
I’m complaining about what he missed because, well because it was 1750, so I’m not even blaming him for anything.
But the fact remains, science has done a lot since then, and if you want to understand Human Nature, you need much more than 1750s thinking with a religious hangover.
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You restate what I’m complaining about. You do it over and over and defend it and tell me I don’t get that it’s what you’re doing. I hear you. What you say here is repetition. I’m not missing your messages.
Why would you complain about him missing something that he couldn’t have known? Should I read Darwin? He didn’t know about DNA? Should I read Einstein? He got that cosmological constant thing wrong. String theory might be wrong, should I bother? Critical Race Theory? Women’s Studies?
Wrong! I’m complaining about the failure of modern popular philosophy to bring modern biology and evolutionary awareness into their discussions, or to explicitly incorporating the fact that our “consciousness” is a product of our own body/brain in the act of living into there musing about what it means to be a human.
I don’t understand what you are trying to defend. Willful ignorance and the embrace of human universal superiority? The embrace of a “progress” that has turned irretrievably towards undermining and destroying our very Earth bound life support systems, to say nothing of today’s state of human society and civility.
Those are the fruits of our blinkered thinking with its roots in biology, funneled through Abrahamic monotheism, through religion and philosophy and empire building. So tell me why I should not complain about that and trying to understand why we blew it so godawful badly?
Claiming that I’m complaining about Rousseau is wrong, a red herring, bordering on gas-lighting, and deliberately avoiding what I’m actually writing about.
Oh and please read my comment, it’s pretty clear that I was focusing on Prof Gi’s presentation here in 2024.
Why would you complain about some unnamed “modern” philosophers in a thread about Rosseau?
Then be more careful about what you post:
Bi, who is talking about Rousseau, in 1750. I don’t think I’m the one confused here. Should all historians stop talking, or just philosophical historians? Thomas Jefferson based the Constitution on philosophers of his time, how do we include that? What’s your cutoff? Anything written after 2000? Show me an example of a statement about human behavior today that has no connection to enlightenment era thought, or whatever line you want to draw. You don’t get to be angry about my lack of understanding while also being vague.
Sorry Lausten comment #29 is too off the wall and argumentative for a response. I’d rather get to the heart of the matter,
modern popular philosophy’s failure to prepare the human mind come to terms with itself and failure to prepare us for what we humans have done to the course of future history and our biosphere’s health and its ability to support us and our expectations, . . .
and the impending, very, very rough times, for ever more people upon this global.
I find that a failure and worth complaining about.
Wait a minute are you saying we should be satisfied with a vague notion and explications that by slight of rhetoric elevating humanity onto some divine pedestal compared to “brute” humans?
With no mention of the rest of evolution and what that has to do with our very existence.
So you think it’s okay not to update that story in the minds of young students???
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15:15
thought to read your history so he says on the one hand this isn’t really history and he does actually make a nice analogy in the introduction the what he’s doing in this description that includes sort of the evolution of humankind is he saying I know this is how it went down in in the distant past and obviously he can’t really know that …
15:48
I’m not claiming that I know for a fact this is the truth but look physicists talk about the origin of the universe and obviously they weren’t around at the origin of the universe so how are they able to talk about the origin of the universe answer because they can tell from the way the universe is now what it must have been like so …
Sure Rousseau was wanting to understand evolution, to understand what our origins could tell us about ourselves.
Still, he wrote in 1750s, when scientific knowledge was in its infancy - he recognize he had nothing but his imagination and did the best he could with that. Why elevate it above that?
Over the centuries and especially these past few decades we have made breathtaking strides in processing physical facts. Rousseau’s hunger to understand human development should be center stage and serve as a segue for introducing some of the profound lessons we’ve learned about human origin, human consciousness, our interwoven nature with Earth and how that impacts everyday of your life and your very outlook on life.
But those windows of opportunity are constantly get’s passed on by, without second thought or footnote, in favor of our self-obsessed, self-serving thinking in disregard for all that nature, that in actually is our very life support system. You justify remaining blind to all that - don’t expect me to stop complaining.
That is the widespread problem I’m discussing. I have no gripe with Rousseau, or Descartes, and I have a feeling both would feel as annoyed with modern popular philosophy as I am.
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48:07 “… do we have thought first, well you can’t develop language without thought, but you can’t think without the terms that language provides …”
If this is worth pondering why aren’t the evolutionary aspects of language development pondered in this day and age, that stuff is much more fascinating for their realism, rather than idealism.
“The first yoke we place upon ourselves”
That sort of wording breeds a vague assumption of our self determination.
Stage three and development of self interest, fascinating for what it is.
But if we want to prepare for our challenging future, preening in the rear view mirror won’t help us any.
51:30 ”The savage man”
Conceiving our origins as individuals, isolated from others is wrong on every level, so why should it be repeated, without taking the time to point out what modern understanding has to tell us.
54:20 single man in the “state of natural” and atomic creature isolated from others of his kind.
But in the real world, interdependence has been a central feature of hominid life style, and mammalian life style before that. Knowing that matters, if we presume to want to understand ourselves and our origins.
And that consciousness / awareness is an attribute of all* living creatures, or no one could ever survive long enough to have a family.
Incidentally, why the avoidance of discussing the little fact that our consciouniousness is, above all else, an interaction, a local interaction at that?
55:00 … The Master / Slave thing, Social Contract and all that - that’s all mindscape territory.
I have no complaints about any of that stuff**, so far as it goes.**
But it is blind to Earth, it is blind to 2020s state of scientific understanding about Earth, it is blind to our actual biological evolution. Which matters.
Today we should be building our stories upon a foundation of solid facts.
This work remains human centric, self absorbed and self serving - incapable of recognizing how interwoven and interdependent on everything we humans are.
I say this because it never comes to terms with having to learn about man’s real state nature and how that impacts our mentality (which has been molded to remain hell bent on destroying our biosphere, future and healthy lives)
And that is for all the self serving reasons Rousseau elucidates on so well. 250 years of the story repeating itself on big stages and small, and what have our philosophers learned from it?
What do they have to share with us, beyond wonderful stories that finish where they began?
Why aren’t those questions and observations fair game for modern philosophy?
Who is doing this? Who is preparing people? Not just telling us the science, but leading the way in a discussion on how to move forward? You’ve asked trolls here to do something other than trash thoughts and ideas. Now its your turn.
Just wondering, did you miss my comments over here?
Since you keep pointing to it, I thought i would address it directly.
Why do you still refuse to recognize I’m not “trashing” Rousseau’s ideas.
I am “trashing” the irrelevance of modern popular philosophy in dealing with today’s world (and where it’s taking us) - with its refusal to incorporate modern biological, neurological, evolutionary understanding into philosophizing about who, what we humans are.
Why you refuse to acknowledge that beyond me.
.
I do realize that. I recognize that. You are not trashing Rousseau.
This is who I said you are trashing. And I asked who is dealing with this in the world.
You are having increasing difficulty understanding my posts. Maybe you should be asking more clarifying questions instead of being exasperated about what you think I’m saying.
So that is a yes, that philosophy is basically irrelevant regarding current events and our public or private lives in general?
Perhaps you ought take some of your own advice.
Do you understand the difference between me acknowledging that I heard and understand you as opposed to agreeing with you? Because, no, I don’t think philosophy is “basically” irrelevant. It depends on how well the philosophy comports with current science. Philosophy covers centuries, as well as cultures, I couldn’t blanket dismiss all of it.
Could you take the advice, even if you don’t think I am? Are not doing that because I’m not?
It comports so well with science that if you grouped 100 philosophers in a room they will all have a different philosophical position on any particular matter in question
Nether do I, but I want current realities to be taken into account.
Notice I’m careful to clarify modern popular philosophy, who knows what’s happening behind the ivy walls.
But that doesn’t mean the failure of philosophy shouldn’t be explored, because if the past half century is nothing else, it’s a lesson in the western state of mind in action, this state of mind rests upon a religious/philosophical foundation that is fundamentally self-absorbed, self-serving and incapable of acknowledging the world beyond it’s own immediate needs.
And that is our hugest number one problem and nothing will change until that is confronted. Okay, no one cares, and we are in a free fall now, nothing anyone can do will alter the course of our self destruction, modify a wee bit perhaps,
but there’s no awareness, nor will,
so there’s that.
All that is nice and neat on paper, but we are humans with passion and layers of connections and feeling. I think about people and I think about Russian nested dolls, and how many way it relates to us.
Personal awareness
For instance, regarding personal awareness our primal self,
think of the reality of a person curled up in a fetal stage,
then come close parents, caregivers,
then family,
then community,
then nation,
then the entire world, er, Mother Earth.
After that inner most layer, each group has its own sub-circles of connections and awareness, all woven together. What are we Present To?
I think such an understanding helps in such times,
when it really does feel like a world has come to an end,
which it has,
America the nation of values and the rule of law, and the dream of constructive pluralism is dead, and an ugly future awaits us according to the gleeful victors,
who have been dreaming of and working towards destroying our healthy government for the past decades, the unopposed Gingrich/FOX/MAGA brainwashing machine.
Rousseau gave us a diagram of the path to self destruction, and no one had the imagination to build upon that. Oh boy, didn’t he nail it, yeehaw, let me get to the head of the line.
Oh yeah the real people living today, going through horrors of awakening awareness that the future is going to become an exceedingly ugly vengeful place.
The uncertain that now anytime, anywhere, you could get slammed and there’s a good change no one will there that care, no one will be there to help.
Now we, once proud free Americans, need to learn to live in fear, with pressure and uncertainty like never before. That’s a hard thing to process on a personal emotional level. We need real spiritual psychological anchors to help us through the roller coaster of emotions your gut is experiencing.
I know of some very basic ones that have helped me through a challenging roller coaster life of living with loss and pain, yet joyfully successful personal experience, because I learned to recognize who I was and what I was and the reality of a short life that will end in death.
Mine has been to suck what good I could out of my particular circumstances, and I wound up successful beyond anything I had a right to dream for - no cash but a load of sweet memories to take to my grave.
I’m sorry I can’t dream of the next ten years watching my awesome and beautiful grandchildren growing through childhood, - all I can do is totally enjoy and absorb the times I do have with them and then cling tight to them in my heart.
And I cry, as if we didn’t already have enough problems to sort,
now we add disrespect for government and anarchy and growing hatred towards each other -
What a crying tragedy.
Crying? It is an emotional cleanser that’s not to be underrated.
But without a solid foundation to come down onto, or within oneself, there’s no refuge, only enduring.
Lord they know not what they have done.