spookz, Define morality? Isn’t morality, or the consideration of good and bad, related to the needs of a particular group? What one group considers moral could be immoral for another group. I think true wisdom is independent of morality. It encompasses the concepts of what could be good and bad and judges neither. Such wisdom would be the instrument that defines a morality. In that sense wisdom is above morality. Could one be morally good and be unwise? This could be true if one is unaware of the rationale behind the morality. Religious morality is authoritarian. Those who follow such morality need merely to obey the rules without understanding any inherent rationale. Such people could be devoid of reasoning or wisdom yet still be seen as morally good by many standards. Could one be wise and be morally bad? This is a more difficult case. If we argue that killing is morally bad then how do we view the case where killing a few would result in a greater good. Would the wise decision be in favor of the greater good? But to achieve that then one must kill and be morally bad. In this scenario wisdom again appears to be above morality, perhaps. I doubt that answered your question and besides I am rambling and generating more questions than answers.
wesmorris, Are you kidding...? you believe such bullshit...? :bugeye: Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Explore life? Not really! Experience the real world! There's a lot out there that you can't even imagine...:bugeye:
sure you did you said one man's sage is another man's fool Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Well, you're a snide little bastard aren't you. Hehe.. I've been through more than you can imagine you presumptuous little shit. You crack me up.
I think wisdom implies the ability to make excellent decisions regarding whatever it is you are wise at. But it only implies action. In other words, you don't have to DO anything to be wise. You have to have done stuff though I would imagine. Does that mean implies action in the past tense and the ability for compentent and insightfull decision making in the present or future.
truthseeker, And somehow you aren’t misled by your own thoughts? And you know your thoughts are superior to most people, how? Ah ha, I see. Implying that you are right and the rest of the word is wrong, right? I think the correct term for this is megalomania. TV portrays, scientists, politicians, actors, economists, entertainers, comedians, religionists, and many more. I feel flattered that you think my views can include all these different personalities. I’m not sure the 700 club does say that, Pat Robertson seems to be saying the opposite, but he always seems a little mixed up, so who can tell. But TV doesn’t say anything. It is people who use TV as a mechanism for passing information to large numbers of people, who are talking. Who you choose to watch on TV and what messages you choose to hear and believe is entirely a matter of personal intellectual discretion. If you are blaming the TV for the ills in this world then you should also blame the telephones since they also allow communications. In ancient times during battle, messengers (runners) were often sent from the front-lines to generals sitting at great distances away. If the message was bad then the messenger was often killed out of pure irrational anger. Your accusation of the TV sounds just as irrational. But you imply that capitalism and consumerism are bad things. Why? Take a course in economics. It is a very effective system for generating wealth and civilized progress. So far it is the best that humanity has been able to develop. I’m sure it will improve and change. Great. In the meantime use it. It is just a system. For the weak minded such a system will overwhelm them, but those that understand the system will be the ones who can change it and improve it. Criticizing a system is easy; changing it takes knowledge, understanding, and hard work. There is an oft mis-quoted phrase – money is the root of all evil, it isn’t. Money is just part of the system, however, the love of money can result in unfortunate and undesirable outcomes. You’ve lost me. What is the connection between car commercials and love. Are you accusing me of loving cars? Have you tried TiVO – you can skip all those annoying TV commercials. Riiiight! Just like the stories of those early Christians. The trouble is that while love is kinda “nice and everything”, there are many other perfectly enjoyable aspects to life that do not require love, and I’d much rather get on and enjoy all of life with all its wonderful variations, challenges, temptations, and opportunities, than worry about fundamental extremists like yourself who have been sidetracked into believing a fantasy world of their own creation. But yes truth will certainly help. But your problem is that you can’t demonstrate that any of your ideas have any more truth in them than most others. Without evidence, proofs, and demonstrations of fact, you have zilch. LOL. You are not free. You are a prisoner of your own delusions. And until the system changes you are as dependent on the system as everyone else.
HOW WISDOM SEEMS TO WORK All of us can picture scenarios in our minds when thoughts have suddenly dropped in "out of the blue". Wisdom, too, seems to descend on us, usually just when we need it, but sometimes when it might provide a lesson to us after we've messed up a situation where a dollop of wisdom might have helped. In any case, neither emergent thought (commonly called ideas) nor wisdom can be commanded to appear. Both require a kind of eager openness on our part to allow them access to our minds. We can, however, practise being open. Artists of all kinds make use of the notion. They write, paint, compose, create as much and as often as they can, trying to stay in a state of mind which will allow access to wisdom, or its "child", ideas. Indeed, as any artistic performer can verify, practise often makes it possible to call up the proper, wisdom/ideas-sensitive mind-state on command. Can the possession of a knowledge base help here? Does it help to have information flowing? In my world, it depends on what importance I place on having specific knowledge, or on focussing on specific information. I find that immersing myself in information streams helps to energise something which lets the creative muse in, as long as I don't try to reject anything out-of-hand. I think that there must be some connexion betwixt a heavy concentration of info-centred activity and a readiness to receive ideas "from the blue". But, as I said above, being judgmental about the information up front can abort the entire process. Elders who can access wisdom on a regular basis apparently also must keep themselves mentally active in some way. Those who manage to provide wisdom to the young on a regular and reliable basis tell (or show) me that they are curious, child-like, and somehow amused by what goes on in the universe. The state of mind whilst one is in that frame of mind is one of the most open and receptive in our entire repertoire. Indeed, I find this command to be open and receptive to be that state in which writing, or music, or (even) engineering works best. This latter, the engineering scenario, surprised me the first time it happened to me (or the first time I noticed the connexion): I'd been trained to do engineering by the numbers, of course. But my best work with the numbers was done when the mind was open and curious, ready to take any signal presented to it; in fact, I became capable of "seeing" solutions without the necessity of having to do the numbers at all. I've talked to other engineers about this - they either mentioned that this had happened to them, too, or declared me certifiably insane. Perhaps even those who reject wisdom as nonsense make use of it. They might call it "being in alpha" or whatever works without getting them sneered at, but many do the wisdom / intuition thing, whether they'll admit to it or not. WISDOM AND PROCESS The sense that wisdom seems to be accessible at precisely the time it is needed, rather than having to be assembled over a programmed period of time, indicates that it itself may be a process which we access even as we are part of other processes. Since the nature of processes is emergent, wisdom itself must also be emergent on this view, and the process of accessing wisdom must be emergent. The last point is important for the following reason: Our ability to access wisdom becomes greater with age, all other things being equal (openness to novelty hasn't been killed off, for instance). Using our loosely-defined process view of reality, this becomes totally reasonable. If wisdom is an emergent process which is bound to track along with reality, then it has emerged in step with changes we sense betwixt older times and the present. When wisdom is accessed in real situations, we find that this is precisely what has happened. Wisdom works with real-time situations precisely as though it is part of those situations. In process terms, that is exactly what is going on, and in fact, this is the reason that wisdom cannot be falsified, and knowledge can be. Both "wisdom" and "process" are extremely complicated ideas when one attempts to capture them explicitly in language. In terms of access to wisdom, however, the act is simplicity itself. One simply opens one's mind, and it comes. Of course, practise does help. Similarly, the notion of process lays gentle upon the mind until one attempts to analyse it. Perhaps this tells us that we should simply allow both to "happen (Benét (Ben) Kutz) Wisdom versus Knowledge process ??
C, Cause this world is a mess and it doesn't seem that you can recognize it... If you are doing something, and it is not working, do you keep doing the very same thing? No. Well, "we" (humans) are doing something, it is not working, and if godam Bush attack godam Saddan a lot of people might get a lot killed...:bugeye: Wasn't it enough in the 60's when we almost begun a nuclear war? Wasn't that enough to change our ways; the ways that we lead our lifes? We didn't change at all! We continue to do the very same things, but now "we" are "against" those weaopns (as if the US didn't have them... who knows...). Like... you talk about "wisdom" and your very own "wisdom" is the same as the world's "wisdom". "We" didn't even learnt by our own experieces! Imagine real wisdom! Fuck (sorry... I cannot control anymore...Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! )! "You" use a new kind of energy to create bombs that can destroy whole cities and than start to develop those to destroy more and more. How wise is that, dammit!?!?!? :bugeye: Really... what this world calls "wisdom" I call "foolishness". Now Iraque, Islam, North Korea, China, and certainly others have enough nuclear weapons to really finish with "you" (I say "you" cause you are a part of US...). So... I don't see that as very wise, you know...:bugeye: Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! I hope you see that "we" are doing something wrong, and that "we" should first change ourselves, and than strive to change the world (in this case, terrorists...). War is not a good strategy anymore. spookz, Could you be at least more creative...?Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
well give me some better material to work with then Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
truthseeker Gets An Anal Probe Say did any of you children see the the alien spaceship last night? Yeah, fatboy (truthseeker) saw it. No that was just a dream and I'm not fat, I'm big boned. Oh, was it the ones with the big long heads and the black eyes? Aaaggghhh. They took him on their ship. Oh, did they give you an anal probe? Aaaggghhh. What's an anal probe? That's when they put this metal hoopajoop up your butt. Whoa! They gave you an anal probe, truthseeker? No, I mean, why would they do that? Dude, they did huh? Aliens stuck stuff up your ass. No. We told you they are real, truthseeker. Sorry to hear about your ass. God damn it. They didn't do anything to my ass. It was just a dream. Why are you walking so funny, truthseeker? Aaaggghhh! Aaaggghhh, my ass. Dude, he's farting fire. It's the alien anal probe. It's shooting fire from truthseeker's rectum. No, that was just a dream. truthseeker, do you need to sit in the corner until your flaming gas is under control? No, Mr. Garrison. I'm fine. adapted from southpark better? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
spookz, I told you to be creative, not to cut and paste some lines from South Park...:bugeye: Really... you disappoint me...
T, But things are changing. I’ve seen things change in my lifetime. I think it is just the timescale and the speed of change that is a big part of your objection. Just hang around a few more decades and take an interest in current affairs and you’ll see changes occur. There is perhaps only one thing in life that never changes and that is change itself. Social dynamics is cumbersome and slow. History shows that people resist change, so any new ideas take a while to filter through the system. All significant conflicts in the world right now have a religious basis. I count 24 from this web link. http://www.religioustolerance.org/curr_war.htm Bin Laden has stated his hatred for the West was largely based on past transgressions by Christians, e.g. the Crusades, when Christians unilaterally and without provocation attempted to kill or convert all Muslims. Had this atrocious act of Christian terrorism not occurred then the WTC disaster would have been highly unlikely? Fortunately secularism is spreading in a very healthy manner, at least in Europe. The current ultra-right wing Christian government in the USA, given enough rope should hang itself. The faith-based initiatives that GWB forced through in Texas are now beginning to break down and the Texas state government is now discussing their termination. I strongly suspect the same will happen when such schemes take hold in the whole country. Please send more donations to the ACLU; they are going to be really overworked in the next few years. The Bush obnoxious eagerness to go to war with Iraq shows again the eagerness of a Christian to wage war on enemies and risk wider conflicts. Notice how the more secular nations of Europe are strongly resisting being pushed into Bush’s war. This is now off the topic of wisdom and should really be in the religion forum. I’ll stop at this point. Become an atheist and help the secular movements around the world introduce tolerance for all people and bring peace to the world. The religions of the world have clearly failed and appear to be the primary cause of violence and conflict.
well so were the folks.........besides thinking hurts me head! anyway no real offence intended bud Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
