Session 21 November 1998

[Persej]

Wouldn't that be sort of contradicting to Gurdjieff's stance that knowledge IS material?

Perhaps Gurdjieff was trying to make a product that he can sell, like some philosophers? Or was simply under the influence of such philosophers?

The reason that so few philosophers ever criticise this activity, the conversion of experience into 'knowledge', into a kind of substance which can be produced and consumed, is that they are its producers and we are its consumers. Knowledge as a thing which can be owned, managed, packaged and consumed, automatically turns it into a scarce resource, which, like any other scarce resource, acquires a value which stigmatises the many, the very many, who cannot get their hands on it. Any thinker who rejects this state of affairs — the iniquitous foundation of the gnosocratic knowledge and 'education' industry — is ridiculed, rejected or ignored, or, at best, misunderstood by the academic world.

The illusions of abstract philosophy: Thought is never deep -- Sott.net

This is a lightly adapted extract from Self and Unself, The Meaning of Everything.1 You can listen to a discussion around some of the themes of this book with James de Lys of the Hermitix podcast — recorded a few weeks ago, but released today —...

www.sott.net

 

[Mytja]

Perhaps Gurdjieff was trying to make a product that he can sell, like some philosophers? Or was simply under the influence of such philosophers?

Well, at the end after all, at least it seems like that to me, G did engage in the enterprise of 'selling his teachings' to the consumer-oriented Westerners.

Rereading the Gnosis, another potentially interesting 'connecting' in relation to the 'materiality of knowledge' came to light.

In the Foreword to Gnosis I, after criticizing some of the diagrams in ISOTM and its intrisically 'fragmentary' nature, Mouravieff wrote about G's teachings as presented there (p. xviii):

There is something else graver still: the concept of the mechanical-man has as a consequence his irresponsibility.*

Leaving aside that Mouravieff then sort of 'biblically' went on about the doctrine of sin, repentance and salvation; the footnote * lead to ISOTM (p. 19) where Ouspensky wrote about now almost famous G's expositions how people are all machines, thus all alike one another.

At the end of p. 19 and at the beginning of p. 20 in ISOTM, Ouspensky recounted the closure of that conversation with G:

"This means, according to you, that a man is not responsible for his actions?" I asked.
"A man" (he emphasized this word) "is responsible. A machine is not responsible."

From the PoV of 'material knowledge' this "irresponsibility" could be sort of 'reasoned' due to limited available knowledge which like matter exists only in finite amounts localized in a given space-time point, as G claimed.

On the other hand, like Laura wrote in AG Ch 30, the main issue is ignorance, and it in principle amounts to a choice for every one of us to learn or not, if nothing else then about our 'machines', knowledge of which is 'freely available', at least to the willing ones. Going further, that same knowledge when extended to our place in and interactions with reality around us then becomes de facto limitless and thus evidently immaterial.

The resume of all this - G was apparently not only in error to consider knowledge as limited material substance, but also erred to relieve humans as machines from the responsibility for our actions, because each of us is responsible, if nothing else then for choosing to learn about ourselves and in such a way stopping to be at all times and in every occasion ignorant automatically reactive machine.

Well, that's a short version of that potentially interesting connection that came into the light with the Gnosis I book.

 

[Mytja]

The resume of all this - G was apparently not only in error to consider knowledge as limited material substance, but also erred to relieve humans as machines from the responsibility for our actions, because each of us is responsible, if nothing else then for choosing to learn about ourselves and in such a way stopping to be at all times and in every occasion ignorant automatically reactive machine.

I might have jumped the gun with the bolded part in above self-quote.
There would be details and nuances and complexities of a particular situation to consider before proclaiming the absolution, but in general holding human machines responsible for their actions would be like getting angry with a cat for eating a cannary while I left them both together unattended to roam freely in a closed room.