Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 4

[Constance]

Pharoah wrote:

The trouble is, I feel that the text has an unstated undercurrent: "This is what I write... but can you work out what I mean: what I really think".


Steve wrote:

Some context for that:

"The style he preferred in responding to his admirers—like Sartre–as well as his critics, such as Hannah Arendt—was never unconditionally generous, leaving the impression that Heidegger saw his particular mode of expression as appropriate to the subjects he tackled and most interpretation as being either reductionist, or erroneous.
He was not unaware of the power of double-speak as a tool in both political and philosophical discourse. In a 1966 Der Spiegel interview concerning his alleged Nazi sympathies (which finally cost him his teaching career and diminished his reputation in Germany), Heidegger said that in 1935 he had counted on the power of words to convey different meanings to two constituencies (his cleverest students and determined Nazi informants) when he praised the “inner truth and greatness of our movement.”


My $.02: That last statement by H is a crock, an attempt to defend himself from legitimate criticism, another reason to question H's good faith. The same is true of what's described in the first paragraph quoted, a demonstration of H's arrogance and his inability to see philosophy itself as necessarily interactive discourse, a collective attempt to reach more accurate descriptions of what-is and how it is experienced and potentially understood. I also have to find fault with the following defense of H:

"His sense of how words shape reality and can thus misshape perception and meaning is a constant prickle for anyone who wants to “interpret” Heidegger. It makes equally difficult the task of determining his influence on other thinkers, especially the French philosophers in whose eyes he found grace after 1967.

This is why I think you can't just jump into a text without putting it into historical and biographical (and linguistic) context."


While I completely agree with your last statement, I have to agree with Pharoah that H's writing is unnessarily difficult, even abstruse, a generally failed attempt to communicate his insights. His insights into the relation between being and Being were valuable, but he more often hides them rather than disclosing them. (It's possible that he was trying to demonstrate in his own texts the 'hiddenness' of being/Being. If so, what is the final result of that demonstration if his meaning continually escapes expression?) I also disagree with Heidegger's claim that 'language is the house of being'. Language covers up at least as much as it discloses, and as you suggest, Steve, language rarely touches that which we understand directly about the nature of being before language, outside of language, without the fundamentally categorical thinking embedded in language.

I no longer enjoy reading, trying to read, Heidegger. Even the essays in Poetry, Language, Thought, which I found clarifying when I first read them many years ago, are plagued with the same needless indirectness and endless repetitions found in B&T. Reading some of them again now it seems to me that what H needed and most lacked was an editor adequate to the task of penetrating to the core of his insights and clarifying them for generations of readers. Perhaps his thought is clarified in the text we've recently noticed, The Basic Problems of Phenomenology. I've ordered it and will try to read it.

 

[Pharoah]

@smcder I am an advocate of listening to that inner voice that is not tainted by language. Most of my ideas come from a part of me that I do not control with thought. So... I have a feeling that an idea is germinating. Then I have to prize it into my awareness: into my thinking language. This usually entails asking questions in my thoughts and seeing if they evoke excitement. If they do, if they spark that intuitive sense of value, I know they are the right questions and I pursue them further. Often they are deadends and sometimes they occupy me for years.

I was interested in speed reading (can't remember who else was interested in this forum), re. the idea of not having inner-vocalisation. In a way, inner-vocalisation is the voice of thought. But surely it need not be the voice of thought. If speed reading entails expunging inner-vocalisation then thought and meaning need not have that inner-voice either. Perhaps, one day we will speed-talk using a conduit of mind to technology - an EEG that translates thought to sound - and we will think and speak with incredible speed...
Just a thought...

 

[Constance]

I was interested in speed reading (can't remember who else was interested in this forum), re. the idea of not having inner-vocalisation. In a way, inner-vocalisation is the voice of thought. But surely it need not be the voice of thought. If speed reading entails expunging inner-vocalisation then thought and meaning need not have that inner-voice either. Perhaps, one day we will speed-talk using a conduit of mind to technology - an EEG that translates thought to sound - and we will think and speak with incredible speed...

"re. the idea of not having inner-vocalisation. In a way, inner-vocalisation is the voice of thought. But surely it need not be the voice of thought. If speed reading entails expunging inner-vocalisation then thought and meaning need not have that inner-voice either."


How do you experience what you call ‘inner-vocalisation’ while reading, Pharoah? Does it occur in linguistically expressed propositions in accord with or counter to what’s claimed in the text you’re reading? That’s not the way I experience resistance to truth claims in philosophical or poetic texts, and I think that’s what ‘inner vocalisations’ are about – our discursive engagement with what’s being claimed in a text relative to our accumulated thinking about the world we have experienced and reflected on. The resistance arises in our entire sense of what is real and significant, accrued over our own experience to date. One of the major wonders of consciousness is its power to integrate and maintain accumulating ‘sense’ in and about the world. Why would we want to suppress this well of experience and reflection based on it?

Speed-reading is inadequate for understanding philosophical and poetic texts. It does not allow us to respond to our resistance to what is stated in a text by exploring the grounds on which it is stated and the limitations of thinking within which the text makes its claims.

 

[Constance]

Pharoah, you also wrote:

"If speed reading entails expunging inner-vocalisation then thought and meaning need not have that inner-voice either."

Only if one is satisfied a) by merely picking up a general idea of what is being claimed in a text, and if one is ready to give up access to b) the perspectives rising against that general idea from within integral consciousness of living in the world and thinking about it, including thinking about previous thinking as expressed in a field like philosophy (but also in many other disciplines). You're suggesting that a massive reduction of human discourse, historically and in the present, can be expunged without loss to understanding.

You also write:

"Perhaps, one day we will speed-talk using a conduit of mind to technology - an EEG that translates thought to sound - and we will think and speak with incredible speed..."

What will we be capable of saying in that assumed technological advancement of human communication? Why would any philosopher think that our thinking would be improved by the reductions required to achieve that 'incredible speed'?

I'm also interested in why you refer to sound in this speculation: ". . . an EEG that translates thought to sound." How and why would the technology you imagine translate thought to sound, a phenomenological phenomenon that takes and requires time and presence in the world to be heard? Do you mean that this technology would also pick up and transmute the 'inner vocalizations' that you seem to have been ready to dismiss through speed-reading? When you experience 'inner vocalizations' do you hear them literally as words spoken?

Of course there's a related Stevens poem:

"The Creations of Sound"

[can't find it online so will have to type it in]

 

[Constance]

The Creations of Sound

If the poetry of X was music,
So that it came to him of its own,
Without understanding, out of the wall

Or in the ceiling, in sounds not chosen,
Or chosen quickly, in a freedom
That was their element, we should not know

That X is an obstruction, a man
Too exactly himself, and that there are words
Better without an author, without a poet,

Or having a separate author, a different poet,
An accretion from ourselves, intelligent
Beyond intelligence, an artificial man

At a distance, a secondary expositor,
A being of sound whom one does not approach
Through any exaggeration. From him we collect.

Tell X that speech is not dirty silence
Clarified. It is speech made still dirtier.
It is more than an imitation for the ear.

He lacks this venerable complication.
His poems are not of the second part of life.
They do not make the visible a little hard

To see nor, reverberating, eke out the mind
On peculiar horns, themselves eked out
By the spontaneous particulars of sound.

We do not say ourselves like that in poems.
We say ourselves in syllables that rise
From the floor, rising in speech we do not speak.

Wallace Stevens


[Note: Readers and critics of Stevens have of course wondered who he referred to as X in this poem. Harold Bloom thought he was probably talking about T. S. Eliot. I'm not so sure; it might have been William Carlos Williams that he had in mind.]

 

[Constance]

One more comment, Pharoah. I find the first three sentences of your post incommensurable with the rest of what you say there. Those sentences you wrote at the beginning of the post --

"I am an advocate of listening to that inner voice that is not tainted by language. Most of my ideas come from a part of me that I do not control with thought. So... I have a feeling that an idea is germinating. Then I have to prize it into my awareness: into my thinking language."

-- I wonder if you might be at risk of missing the significance of what you perhaps too quickly attempt to "prise ... into your awareness: into [your] thinking language." As, for example, in your first reactions to reading Heidegger, refusing to accept his writing as meaningful because of what you seem to think if as its duplicity, for lack of a better word. Heidegger's thought, early and late, is intricate and above all subtle. I do not think he was trying to mislead or further confuse his readers about the difference between what we categorize and reduce in most human thought (and language) and that which we sense and gradually know from our prereflective experience of being-in-the-world, to which it is necessary to remain open if our preverbal and nonverbal experience is to be of any use to us in discerning "the outlines of being and its expressings" (another line from Stevens).

 

[Constance]

In other words, your 'awareness' exceeds your 'thinking language' on every side of that which you experience as Dasein. This is why philosophy and also science continue to struggle toward an adequate definition of consciousness, and why phenomenology turned instead to the attempt to describe experience at its prereflective and reflective levels.

 

[Constance]

Large Red Man Reading

There were ghosts that returned to earth to hear his phrases,
As he sat there reading, aloud, the great blue tabulae.
They were those from the wilderness of stars that had expected more.

There were those that returned to hear him read from the poem of life,
Of the pans above the stove, the pots on the table, the tulips among them.
They were those that would have wept to step barefoot into reality,

That would have wept and been happy, have shivered in the frost
And cried out to feel it again, have run fingers over leaves
And against the most coiled thorn, have seized on what was ugly

And laughed, as he sat there reading, from out of the purple tabulae,
The outlines of being and its expressings, the syllables of its law:
Poesis, poesis, the literal characters, the vatic lines,

Which in those ears and in those thin, those spended hearts,
Took on color, took on shape and the size of things as they are
And spoke the feeling for them, which was what they had lacked.

Wallace Stevens

 

[Constance]

let death's shadow
hold the ether mask there
clouds obliterate it

a total eclipse
blackout
swallow it a tiny pill

and that sweat that night beginning me
black oil absorb it
a hole drilled deep in calendars

shrivel that night in the hand of history
let it soften in impotence
turn off its little shouts of pleasure

every science unisex it
genetic biology ... advanced psychology
nuclear bomb

no next morning shine on it
through the afterglow
singeing the eyelids of dawn

because it didn't shut the door
of the womb on me
to hide my ears from pain

why couldn't I have been
a lucky abortion
why were there two knees

waiting for me
two breasts to suck
without them I could have stayed asleep

I could have melted away
like spilled semen
in transparent air
wrapped up in quiet dust
with gods of power and influence
and the emptiness of their palaces


.... recognize it?

"... recognize it?"

No. Whose is it?

 

[Pharoah]

"re. the idea of not having inner-vocalisation. In a way, inner-vocalisation is the voice of thought. But surely it need not be the voice of thought. If speed reading entails expunging inner-vocalisation then thought and meaning need not have that inner-voice either."


How do you experience what you call ‘inner-vocalisation’ while reading, Pharoah? Does it occur in linguistically expressed propositions in accord with or counter to what’s claimed in the text you’re reading? That’s not the way I experience resistance to truth claims in philosophical or poetic texts, and I think that’s what ‘inner vocalisations’ are about – our discursive engagement with what’s being claimed in a text relative to our accumulated thinking about the world we have experienced and reflected on. The resistance arises in our entire sense of what is real and significant, accrued over our own experience to date. One of the major wonders of consciousness is its power to integrate and maintain accumulating ‘sense’ in and about the world. Why would we want to suppress this well of experience and reflection based on it?

Speed-reading is inadequate for understanding philosophical and poetic texts. It does not allow us to respond to our resistance to what is stated in a text by exploring the grounds on which it is stated and the limitations of thinking within which the text makes its claims.

What is gained and/or lost from speed reading?
My speed has increased by 25% and my comprehension of text has improved by about double, where comprehension entails answering questions about the meaning and implied meaning of the text.

I find your comment, "rspond to our resistance to what is stated in text by exploring the grounds on which it is stated and the limitations of thinking within which the text makes its claims" interesting, because what you are saying is that to read philosophy meaningfully is to critique it as we read, to evaluate it, to interpret, to seek horizons beyond the words etc. So... what exactly is wrong with my approach to Reading MH? How dare i critique a genius, perhaps. No I don't take his statements for granted. I interpret and question. But in doing so, do I really apply impossible standards?
I think I am doing just fine and you should lay off me a bit. I feel that the standards are not being set by me but by the criticisms of my way of thinking about and approaching important texts. The points have been raised and I have taken them onboard.

"Inner-vocalisation". What I mean, is the reading of the words in the head as they are read (sometimes accompanied by the movement of the lips and tongue). This "narration" slows down reading and typing significantly and is not necessary for comprehension.

 

[Pharoah]

I might try and go to this:

London Philosophy Club Reading Group
Sartre and Existentialism

• ‘It is an extremely interesting book, and could prove so for lay readers if initial horror at the Hegelian terminology can be overcome.’
  
  Iris Murdoch, review of Being and Nothingness in New Statesman and Nation, May 1957.
  
  We round off this outline of the chain of ideas that led from Kant, through Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Husserl and Heidegger with Jean-Paul Sartre.
  
  There are two readings that will hopefully provide a useful introduction to Sartre's thinking and highlight a couple of the central tenets of existentialism – aware, as always, that it’s hard to carve out extracts from whole systems. This is especially so for Sartre, whose ideas were subject to change and revision in the turmoil of his own highly public, political and private life.
  
  The first is an essay usually entitled ‘Existentialism’. This is an excerpt from the book Existentialism and Human Emotions(1957), but was originally a lecture given by Sartre in October 1945 entitled ‘Existentialism is a Humanism’.
  
  It can be found on-line atEssay—Existentialism and Human Emotions by Sartre
  
  The last word of the extract is ‘despairing’!
  
  This essay is also reproduced in Marino (ed.) (2004), Basic Writings of Existentialism, pp. 341-367.
  
  The second reading is an extract from Being and Nothingness(1943) on the core Sartrean concept of ‘bad faith’. There are various ways of accessing the text. In the book itself (and the reproduction of it on line), the reading is Chapter 2 (p. 47 to 70). This section is also reproduced on:
  Essay—Bad Faith by Sartre

 

[Constance]

What is gained and/or lost from speed reading?
My speed has increased by 25% and my comprehension of text has improved by about double, where comprehension entails answering questions about the meaning and implied meaning of the text.

I find your comment, "rspond to our resistance to what is stated in text by exploring the grounds on which it is stated and the limitations of thinking within which the text makes its claims" interesting, because what you are saying is that to read philosophy meaningfully is to critique it as we read, to evaluate it, to interpret, to seek horizons beyond the words etc. So... what exactly is wrong with my approach to Reading MH? How dare i critique a genius, perhaps. No I don't take his statements for granted. I interpret and question. But in doing so, do I really apply impossible standards?
I think I am doing just fine and you should lay off me a bit. I feel that the standards are not being set by me but by the criticisms of my way of thinking about and approaching important texts. The points have been raised and I have taken them onboard.

"Inner-vocalisation". What I mean, is the reading of the words in the head as they are read (sometimes accompanied by the movement of the lips and tongue). This "narration" slows down reading and typing significantly and is not necessary for comprehension.

I'm sorry for the pressure I applied in those posts, Pharoah. I misunderstood what you meant by 'inner vocalizations' and went off in my own direction with the term. I actually know nothing about trained speed-reading skills. It sounds from what you write today as if you are pursuing a program of skill-building in which your comprehension as well as your increasing speed in reading are both measured and show improvements on both counts with training and practice. That's no doubt useful. I still question its value in reading philosophy, though, and especially reading a writer such as Heidegger.

I thought of inner vocalizations as the kind of dialogue that goes on in my mind in reading philosophical texts, started spontaneously when I question or resist a given claim in a text. This goes on for me outside of language. I now realize that this is completely different from what you meant by the term.

I also overreacted to your apparent suggestion that our understanding of being, consciousness, the nature of reality -- the core questions that challenge us in making sense of ourselves and our worldly environment (part received and part constructed) -- and our communication with others could/would be improved with technical wiring of some sort. It's one of my core beliefs that consciousness as evolved over eons in our species should not be manipulated through machine technology, as in the AI field, because we are likely to thereby lose our physical sense of the world, which grounds consciousness.

I find your comment, "respond to our resistance to what is stated in text by exploring the grounds on which it is stated and the limitations of thinking within which the text makes its claims" interesting, because what you are saying is that to read philosophy meaningfully is to critique it as we read, to evaluate it, to interpret, to seek horizons beyond the words etc. So... what exactly is wrong with my approach to Reading MH? How dare i critique a genius, perhaps. No I don't take his statements for granted. I interpret and question. But in doing so, do I really apply impossible standards?

Not impossible standards, but perhaps inappropriate ones given that H's writing is so dauntingly complex (and frustrating to read) and given that it is so different from the writing of most philosophers, especially those trained in the analytical school. I think it's best for newcomers to phenomenology to read Heidegger last rather than first for these reasons. Phenomenology is a different way of thinking from most of the philosophy written before it. To understand it, it's necessary to come to it with a new mind, one that is open to thinking from inside our experience in the world. Simon Critchley, who I'm sure is familiar to you, has tried to engage in phenomenological thinking (even in a small book on Wallace Stevens's poetry) and he has not succeeded in understanding phenomenological philosophy. Maybe he's made progress since then. Husserl said up front that phenomenological thinking requires bracketing one's presuppositions to the extent possible, and I think that's very difficult for analytically trained philosophers to do.

 

[Constance]

I might try and go to this:

London Philosophy Club Reading Group
Sartre and Existentialism

• ‘It is an extremely interesting book, and could prove so for lay readers if initial horror at the Hegelian terminology can be overcome.’
  
  Iris Murdoch, review of Being and Nothingness in New Statesman and Nation, May 1957.
  
  We round off this outline of the chain of ideas that led from Kant, through Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Husserl and Heidegger with Jean-Paul Sartre.
  
  There are two readings that will hopefully provide a useful introduction to Sartre's thinking and highlight a couple of the central tenets of existentialism – aware, as always, that it’s hard to carve out extracts from whole systems. This is especially so for Sartre, whose ideas were subject to change and revision in the turmoil of his own highly public, political and private life.
  
  The first is an essay usually entitled ‘Existentialism’. This is an excerpt from the book Existentialism and Human Emotions(1957), but was originally a lecture given by Sartre in October 1945 entitled ‘Existentialism is a Humanism’.
  
  It can be found on-line atEssay—Existentialism and Human Emotions by Sartre
  
  The last word of the extract is ‘despairing’!
  
  This essay is also reproduced in Marino (ed.) (2004), Basic Writings of Existentialism, pp. 341-367.
  
  The second reading is an extract from Being and Nothingness(1943) on the core Sartrean concept of ‘bad faith’. There are various ways of accessing the text. In the book itself (and the reproduction of it on line), the reading is Chapter 2 (p. 47 to 70). This section is also reproduced on:
  Essay—Bad Faith by Sartre

"We round off this outline of the chain of ideas that led from Kant, through Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Husserl and Heidegger with Jean-Paul Sartre."

Sounds worthwhile. I'd like to have sat in on the whole series. I think there might be a better essay-length introduction to existentialism by Sartre than the first one cited. I'll look for it and link it for you.

 

[Constance]

Pharoah, I think you're going to find Sartre much more approachable than Heidegger. In fact, I think you'll enjoy reading him. Here a few extracts from Being and Nothingness that might be helpful at the outset.

"BN, PP. 27-28 “The self-consistency of being is beyond the active as it is beyond the passive. {par} Being is equally beyond negation as beyond affirmation. Affirmation is always affirmation of something; that is, the act of affirming is distinguished from the thing affirmed. But if we suppose an affirmation in which the affirmed comes to fulfill the affirming and is confused with it, this affirmation can not be affirmed – owing to too much of plenitude and the immediate inherence of the noema in the noesis. It is there that we find being—if we are to define it more clearly—in connection with consciousness. It is the noema in the noesis: that is, the inherence in itself without the least distance. From this point of view, we should not call it ‘immanence,’ for immanence in spite of all connection with self is still that very slight withdrawal which can be realized—away from the self. But being is not a connection with itself. It is itself. It is an immanence which cannot realize itself, an affirmation which cannot affirm itself, an activity which cannot act, because it is glued to itself. Everything happens as if, in order to free the affirmation of self from the heart of being, there is necessary a decompression of being. Let us not, however, think that being is merely one undifferentiated self-affirmation; the undifferentiation of the in-itself is beyond an infinity of self-affirmations, inasmuch as there is an infinity of modes of self-affirming. We may summarize these first conclusions by saying that being is in itself."

"Ch. 1, The Origin of Negation / I. The Question
Our inquiry has led us to the heart of being. But we have been brought to an impasse since we have not been able to establish the connection between the two regions of being which we have discovered. No doubt this is because we have chosen an unfortunate approach. Descartes found himself faced with an analogous problem when he had to deal with the relation between soul and body. He planned then to look for the solution on that level where the union of thinking substance and extended substance was actually effected—that is, in the imagination. His advice is invaluable. To be sure, our concern is not that of Descartes and we do not conceive of imagination as he did. But what we can retain is the reminder that it is not profitable first to separate the two terms of a relation in order to try to join them together again later. The relation is a synthesis. Consequently the results of analysis cannot be covered over again by the moments of this synthesis.
M. Laporte says that an abstraction is made when something not capable of existing in isolation is thought of as in an isolated state. The concrete by contrast is a totality which can exist by itself alone. Husserl is of the same opinion; for him red is an abstraction because color cannot exist without form. On the other hand, a spatial-temporal thing, with all its determinations, is an example of the concrete. From this point of view, consciousness is an abstraction since it conceals within itself an ontological source in the region of the in-itself, and conversely the phenomenon is likewise an abstraction since it must ‘appear’ to consciousness. The concrete can be only the synthetic totality of which consciousness, like the phenomenon, constitutes only moments. The concrete is man within the world in that specific union of man with the world which Heidegger, for example, calls “being-in-the-world.” We deliberately begin with the abstract if we question ‘experience’ as Kant does, inquiring into the conditions of its possibility – or if we effect a phenomenological reduction like Husserl, who would reduce the world to the state of the noema-correlate of consciousness. But we will no more succeed in restoring the concrete by the summation or organization of the elements which we have abstracted from it than Spinoza can reach substance by the infinite summation of its modes.
The relation of the regions of being is an original emergence and is a part of the very structure of these beings. But we discovered this in our first observations. It is enough now to open our eyes and question ingenuously this totality which is man-in-the-world. It is by description of this totality that we shall be able to reply to these two questions: (1) What is the synthetic relation which we call being-in-the-world? (2) What must man and the world be in order for a relation between them to be possible? In truth, the two questions are interdependent, and we cannot hope to reply to them separately. But each type of human conduct, being the conduct of man in the world, can release for us simultaneously man, the world, and the relation which unites them, only on condition that we envisage these forms of conduct as realities objectively apprehensible and not as subjective affects which disclose themselves only in the face of reflection. . . ."

Also helpful from Heidegger, quoted in Gallagher and Zahavi, The Phenomenological Mind:

"In directing itself toward . . . and in grasping something, Dasein does not first go outside of the inner sphere in which it is initially encapsulated, but, rather, in its primary kind of being, it is always already ‘outside’ together with some being encountered in the world already discovered. Nor is any inner sphere abandoned when Dasein dwells together with a being to be known and determines its character. Rather, even in this ‘being outside’ together with its object, Dasein is ‘inside’ correctly understood; that is, it itself exists as the being-in-the-world which knows. Again, the perception of what is known does not take place as a return with one’s booty to the ‘cabinet’ of consciousness after one has gone out and grasped it. Rather, in perceiving, preserving, and retaining, the Dasein that knows remains outside as Dasein.” (1986/1996, p. 62)

Probably the best introduction to Sartre is his own introduction to Being and Nothingness. In case you don't have a copy of BN, I'll search out a copy of that text, which was available online about a year ago.

 

[smcder]

I haven't read much of Nietzsche so I need help in understanding why "we must also still defeat [God's] shadow.". The translation you quoted uses the verb 'overcome' whereas you use the verb 'defeat'. Which verb choice is closer to the German verb Nietzsche used, and what other English verbs have been used, if any, to convey his meaning? I'm aware that N called for the passage of man to what he thought of as 'Superman'. How did he characterize the differences between man and Superman?

In my view the statement that "God is dead" is absurd because our species is in no position to know whether there is or isn't, was or was not, an intentional power that produced the Universe. One can only reasonably say that the idea of God was undermined among our species in Nietzsche's time, and that N apparently needed, wanted, to see that idea buried for all time. The reason why N is included in the development of existentialism is that he did express the view that we must take responsibility for the values by which we choose to live our lives, there being (from the existentialist point of view) no values given in existence from outside or beyond our experience of being. Nietzsche's 'enemy' seems to have been the influence of Christianity as understood and practiced in his time. To destroy Christianity he apparently believed that it was necessary to destroy the idea of God.

Heidegger, by contrast, continually maintained what he called 'the fourfold' structure in which our species has thought about the nature of reality from its beginnings, recognizing that we do not know but have long sensed the possibility of gods (higher powers or intelligences) in the regions beyond the local horizons within which our understanding of being and Being has developed.

As I see it, it is this perennially expressed sense of distinction between existential being and 'Being' that calls for understanding of human history and thought, and I think Heidegger attempted to clarify it.

I haven't read much of Nietzsche so I need help in understanding why "we must also still defeat [God's] shadow.". The translation you quoted uses the verb 'overcome' whereas you use the verb 'defeat'. Which verb choice is closer to the German verb Nietzsche used, and what other English verbs have been used, if any, to convey his meaning? I'm aware that N called for the passage of man to what he thought of as 'Superman'. How did he characterize the differences between man and Superman?

overcome is closer and (and much better than "defeat" - that was a mistake on my part) - "Overman" is a literal translation of "Ubermensch" ... Superman was and is misleading ... Nietzsche talked a lot about overcoming. God's shadow is a long shadow to Nietzche. Many think we still have God's shadow to overcome.

The parable of the camel, the lion and the child is may be the best as to his vision of overcoming and what man can do to dispel the place of God ... but I don't think he ever came to a good answer. Understanding the eternal recurrence is key to Niezsche.

As to the shadow of God, ie the after effects of God is dead and we killed him, I will try to find passages where Nietzsche foresaw world wide, mechanized warfare. He talks about the pale criminal and lust for the knife which presaged the decadence in pre war Germany caberets and theaters ... for example The Three Penny Opera (Mack the Knife).

Nietzsche was a prophet and realized before most what secularization meant (i.e. nihilism) and how big of an impact it would have and for how long ... he has to be understood as feeling a tremendous amount of pressure and understood in terms of his biography (his father was a pastor) ... his answers were I think ultimately inadequate for him too but there was no where, at the time, to go. The revaluation of values, the Overman and dealing with eternal recurrence were excruciating I think to him and a key to understanding his collapse into insanity.

Nietzsche was an incredibly sensitive man and this was expressed in a lot of bodily disorders. Ecce Homo is essential reading on this. We have the benefit of distance ... but at the time, the World Wars, concentraiton camps, gulags, etc where all ahead of us and I believe Nietzsche foresaw this.

 

[smcder]

@smcder I am an advocate of listening to that inner voice that is not tainted by language. Most of my ideas come from a part of me that I do not control with thought. So... I have a feeling that an idea is germinating. Then I have to prize it into my awareness: into my thinking language. This usually entails asking questions in my thoughts and seeing if they evoke excitement. If they do, if they spark that intuitive sense of value, I know they are the right questions and I pursue them further. Often they are deadends and sometimes they occupy me for years.

I was interested in speed reading (can't remember who else was interested in this forum), re. the idea of not having inner-vocalisation. In a way, inner-vocalisation is the voice of thought. But surely it need not be the voice of thought. If speed reading entails expunging inner-vocalisation then thought and meaning need not have that inner-voice either. Perhaps, one day we will speed-talk using a conduit of mind to technology - an EEG that translates thought to sound - and we will think and speak with incredible speed...
Just a thought...

I was interested in speed reading, found the Spreeder program which has been useful.

As to the second, maybe, but I've read a lot about subvocalization being key to comprehension and if I really need to understand it, for me, it's best to listen to it - even if I have to record it, or type or long hand write it out ... in part, I think the time it takes to read protects the mind by limiting input to a conscious level ... thats been reinforced by my readings in hypnosis lately ... not sure we'd want everything to bypass tat conscious monitor ... speed, anyway, is relative and I've learned a bit about manipulating the sense of time when I need to.

 

[smcder]

A couple of thoughts on all this ...

Hebrew philosophy is rooted in sound and thus in time ... Greek philosophy is rooted in vision, light and thus can be seen at a glance ... Philo of Judea put this together in a passage on passing from sound to light seamlessly and reminds me of some of @Pharoah's ideas ... Terrance McKenna riffs on all this - if you want a reference I'll find it but it's easily Googleable ...

The other thought is that the division into left and right hemispheres - even if metaphorical, does precisely talk about how we divide into two ways of looking at the world - and explains a lot about the dynamic that goes on here on this thread ... and even in individuals who might use both fairly equally, there is a split, I don't know a way of looking at the world simultaneously in both ways ... (see my write up of how to think about things ... I dont know if I put this, but the last step should be "go with your gut" - because there is also a brain down there (and one in the heart) literally) so Simon Critchley would be left brained and phenomenology needs some right brain effort ... we see this division everywhere, McGilchrist has made it explicit.

We need both of course.

 

[smcder]

"... recognize it?"

No. Whose is it?

Job, Chapter 3
David Rosenberg
The Literary Bible - an original translation

A Literary Bible: An Original Translation - David Rosenberg - Google Books

1After this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day.
2And Job spake, and said,
3Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man child conceived.
4Let that day be darkness; let not God regard it from above, neither let the light shine upon it.
5Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it; let a cloud dwell upon it; let the blackness of the day terrify it.
6As for that night, let darkness seize upon it; let it not be joined unto the days of the year, let it not come into the number of the months.
7Lo, let that night be solitary, let no joyful voice come therein.
8Let them curse it that curse the day, who are ready to raise up their mourning.
9Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark; let it look for light, but have none; neither let it see the dawning of the day:
10Because it shut not up the doors of my mother's womb, nor hid sorrow from mine eyes.
11Why died I not from the womb? why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly?
12Why did the knees prevent me? or why the breasts that I should suck?
13For now should I have lain still and been quiet, I should have slept: then had I been at rest,
14With kings and counsellors of the earth, which built desolate places for themselves;
15Or with princes that had gold, who filled their houses with silver:
16Or as an hidden untimely birth I had not been; as infants which never saw light.
17There the wicked cease from troubling; and there the weary be at rest.
18There the prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of the oppressor.
19The small and great are there; and the servant is free from his master.
20Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, and life unto the bitter in soul;
21Which long for death, but it cometh not; and dig for it more than for hid treasures;
22Which rejoice exceedingly, and are glad, when they can find the grave?
23Why is light given to a man whose way is hid, and whom God hath hedged in?
24For my sighing cometh before I eat, and my roarings are poured out like the waters.
25For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me.
26I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet; yet trouble came.

Rosenberg wants to capture the immediacy of the Bible to those who first read it and to show that those who wrote it were authors in the sense that we think of authors today ... he also has some interesting ideas about authorship. I think it illustrates that it doesn't just mean whatever you want it to mean.

 

[smcder]

What is gained and/or lost from speed reading?
My speed has increased by 25% and my comprehension of text has improved by about double, where comprehension entails answering questions about the meaning and implied meaning of the text.

I find your comment, "rspond to our resistance to what is stated in text by exploring the grounds on which it is stated and the limitations of thinking within which the text makes its claims" interesting, because what you are saying is that to read philosophy meaningfully is to critique it as we read, to evaluate it, to interpret, to seek horizons beyond the words etc. So... what exactly is wrong with my approach to Reading MH? How dare i critique a genius, perhaps. No I don't take his statements for granted. I interpret and question. But in doing so, do I really apply impossible standards?
I think I am doing just fine and you should lay off me a bit. I feel that the standards are not being set by me but by the criticisms of my way of thinking about and approaching important texts. The points have been raised and I have taken them onboard.

"Inner-vocalisation". What I mean, is the reading of the words in the head as they are read (sometimes accompanied by the movement of the lips and tongue). This "narration" slows down reading and typing significantly and is not necessary for comprehension.

My speed has increased by 25% and my comprehension of text has improved by about double, where comprehension entails answering questions about the meaning and implied meaning of the text.

From what time period has your speed increased ... when did you first measure your speed? Is this on comparable texts? Is comprehension comprehensively measured in terms of answering questions about the meaning and implied meaning of the text? Where did you find a set of answers with the meaning and implied meaning of Being and Time?

I've read/listened to Moby Dick three times and started Dreyfus' lectures on it again ... and hope to re-read it the rest of my life, so speed at this point is irrelevant to me. I suppose one could argue that more speed means more text taken in, but at least for now, I fill full of most texts and that I need to produce something or output something or come to rest with the texts I have in me ... for me this is what I need to do, so again, I'm less motivated to speed. This could change later of course.

This is an article written for medical students:

Reading Effectively and Efficiently

Sub-vocalization is the habit of "saying" the words in your head as you read. When you sub-vocalize, you "hear" the word spoken in your mind. This slows the reading process. You can understand a word more quickly than you can say it.

• Breaking this habit takes practice.
• Reading words in groups will also help. (More on this below.)
• But if you find the material especially challenging, slowing down sub-vocalization may be just the strategy needed to improve your understanding.

...

Should I change my reading speed?

DECREASE YOUR SPEED IF:

• You don’t understand.
• Many unfamiliar words
• Text structure is difficult or confusing
• Many unfamiliar or abstract concepts
• Detailed, technical material

INCREASE YOUR SPEED IF:

• Simple material with few new ideas
• Unnecessary examples of illustrations
• Detailed elaborations
• Broad, generalized ideas

Caveats

• Reading aloud of difficult material can sometimes be helpful.
• Sub-vocalization forces your brain to “pay attention”.
• NEVER sacrifice comprehension for speed.

 

[Constance]

Links to Being and Nothingness online: BEING AND NOTHINGNESS, JEAN-PAUL SARTRE - WORDPRESS.COM - PDF SHARE