Mr. Premise said:
Maybe you would help the person more by shouting that than by writing something they can't understand because the language is too academic.
For the record, Bud, I would never say that you write word salad, because when I take the time to carefully read what you write it makes sense, but it is difficult. And I'm a recovering academic (Haven't written a footnote in years! Well, maybe a few...). But why make it so difficult for people to understand you? Maybe you overestimate other people's vocabulary, but remember that English is not everyone's first language. And academic, intellectual English is few people's first language.
Or maybe just remember KISS (Keep it Simple, Stupid!) ;)
I understand. I'm not an academic (but offer me a decent script and I could probably play one :)), nor do I try to intentionally write academically. It just comes out that way when, for the most part, I write the way I think when I've been investigating something pretty deeply. :)
-----------------------------------
Keit said:
Or as Albert Einstein said: 'If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself.' :)
Richard Feynman says something similar, but, as true as it often is, there is an overlooked aspect of that saying. And that is: that it doesn't necessarily follow (from a given example) that the lack of understanding of the reader is the fault of the writer in every case.
Some people will block anything. And some people may differ more in their understandings of simpler concepts than they would if the idea is expressed in a more complicated language. The reason? wrong or incorrect understandings of simpler concepts can be taken for granted by the reader and the reader won't think twice about what he/she 'thinks' he/she understands, whereas, more complicated explanations require some thought and effort - some effort to attend to the message - to be present.
But having said that, I can see that it's not my job to push that, or anything else, on people. Since I was unaware of this 'man 2/man 3 distinction', I was also unaware that we might naturally Work in different 'ways'. So your message is completely clear. And much more meaningful now than it was before. Thank you. :)
-----------------------------------
Hi obyvatel.
FWIW, the idea of "template response" has nothing to do with what you are describing - just the opposite, in fact - more like: 'unthinking', or "a previously thought out response from other actual situations freshly applied where it doesn't belong." It goes unnoticed when it actually does apply, though. :)
obyvatel said:
Following this method of exclusion, philosophers have come to the state which they express in a single word "Soham" or (I am That). Bud was talking about condensing everything into a sentence but these guys got it down to a word. The goal of Advaita (non-dual) school is to arrive at this state of realization (I am That) which is regarded as enlightenment.
FWIW, I was not familiar with this 'exclusion' method, nor have I been interested in the subject, not have I ever heard of it before, although from your brief description of it, I recognized it instantly. From my perspective, this subject has not been discussed on the forum. It appears to me that what has been discussed regards a flawed interpretation of it and I haven't even read the threads. I'm judging by looking at the linguistic twist, or the English logic error in your summary of what people are supposing it to mean.
When I look at the actual idea, it's not too different from the General Semantic position that "Whatever you say something is, it's not THAT (because if it were, it would be obvious and wouldn't need to be pointed out - or, because that is a process of making an identification between 'thing' and 'thing' on the same level of abstraction)".
Or perhaps, something like what one or two of my Native American friends might say: "Don't tell me what something means, only tell me what it means to you from your point of view because I can see the same thing you do."
Perhaps we could also say that it's "consciousness in a figure - ground context", where there are no "things", only 'bits in a context' where the overall pattern of the bits is the most important property to distinguish, not the visual outlines of some 'kickable' geometry of matter.
Another way to view the idea might be from the Chinese idea: "The TAO that can be spoken is not the eternal TAO", which means: as long as a person just keeps their mouth shut and experiences the world and Universe as a 'whole' the TAO exists. When you go talking about it as if to describe it, you've already defeated yourself, because you first have to open up space between you and 'it' (separate yourself from it) and you have to linguistically chop it up and divide the matter and the consciousness into valueless shell words, which can create an illusion of separateness.
Even another way to look at it might be to see that arriving at "I am That" cannot be done logically within an exclusion form without twisting something. There is that problem with "not" that some people are unaware of.
The word "Not" is asymmetrical. Meaning, it is often incorrectly understood and used as if it were the opposite of "is".
As an example, it might be OK to say "There is not a horse in my driveway", because if it is important to confirm, we can always go look. We should not say: "There is not a unicorn in my driveway", because there is no unicorn to NOT be in my driveway. Do you see what I mean? Or that it's even relevant?
So, as I see it, in this summary, we have an exclusion form leading to an identification form in the same process of thought which is referred to as enlightenment???. At least, I can't see how that would work. Which is why I think the interpretation is flawed. Could there be an issue with a translation of a word or two? I wonder because, from my perspective, the logical end of a non-ponerized exclusion method should result in either a realization that "I am all" (nothing is distinguished from what is there), or (and here I mean the logical 'exclusive OR') "I am nothing" (everything has been distinguished and there is nothing left).
At least this is how I see it at this time. Please ask me to clarify anything that is unclear.
----------------------------------
Shijing said:
one of the best examples of clear and direct writing on your part was on
this thread (apologies to those who can't access it). I suspect it's because your attention was taken away from yourself and directed toward something that was important to you -- but it's clear and concise, and may even have something to do (at least tangentially) with the discussion above about men 2 and 3.
I get your point. It was also because I wasn't in the writing mode of explaining the way I often think about machine functioning the way I understand it and with regard to a certain topic and in a Work context.
-----------------------------------
Ana said:
You may be right, and as after giving it extra attention i'm still not able to find the meaning behind this words, maybe you guys can please help me understand by putting it into a less academic intellectual English :D:
Bud said:
At that point of highest level abstract understanding, all identification (short-circuits between levels of abstraction) has been removed by means of the conscious Work done and one can semantically reduce this level of understanding all the way back to the ground (expansion) without obstruction or short-circuiting caused by confused levels of abstraction.
I agree with others translation of my comments, with the addition that one must be able to satisfy a child asking "what does that mean?" and to do it smoothly all the way down to the first-level abstraction of simple nouns. And then, when asked "What does that mean?", you can say, "...by that, I mean THAT [pointing finger]". And the child goes: "oh", because the knowledge structure has been filled in completely. :)
----------------------------
Edit: some corrections
