I enjoy your column, Frank. And I have this simple (and, I hope, clear and concise) comment:
Whether it be the world (i.e., the physical environment) or beyond the world (i.e., the gods), the challenge to the human mind has always been paradoxically simple and complex: make sense out of existence. The problem with that challenge is also simple and complex: the human mind is not quite up to the task of flawlessly sorting out everything under the sun (and beyond the sun); we make many mistakes along the way, and it is hubris to imagine that we will ever (in this lifetime and in this existence) have all of the answers. People with simple minds (and there are too many of those) defer to others for settling upon “solutions” to complicated challenges and mysteries (including the question about gods and God, as well as the more contemporary question of “climate change”); the more thoughtful (and less simple) minds remain open to the notion that “we need to rediscover [. . . ways] of thinking, speaking, and imagining something of [. . .] original freshness.”
We are clearly on the same page, R.T. I have long thought that the original sin was the desire for certainty, with reason overriding faith and intuition.
Wittgenstein's last writings, in his notebooks, were published as "On Certainty", an examination of what it is to be certain and uncertain. Kurp sent me his copy as he had no further need of it; it's one of my favourite Wittgenstein things.
I enjoy your column, Frank. And I have this simple (and, I hope, clear and concise) comment:
ReplyDeleteWhether it be the world (i.e., the physical environment) or beyond the world (i.e., the gods), the challenge to the human mind has always been paradoxically simple and complex: make sense out of existence. The problem with that challenge is also simple and complex: the human mind is not quite up to the task of flawlessly sorting out everything under the sun (and beyond the sun); we make many mistakes along the way, and it is hubris to imagine that we will ever (in this lifetime and in this existence) have all of the answers. People with simple minds (and there are too many of those) defer to others for settling upon “solutions” to complicated challenges and mysteries (including the question about gods and God, as well as the more contemporary question of “climate change”); the more thoughtful (and less simple) minds remain open to the notion that “we need to rediscover [. . . ways] of thinking, speaking, and imagining something of [. . .] original freshness.”
We are clearly on the same page, R.T. I have long thought that the original sin was the desire for certainty, with reason overriding faith and intuition.
ReplyDeleteWittgenstein's last writings, in his notebooks, were published as "On Certainty", an examination of what it is to be certain and uncertain. Kurp sent me his copy as he had no further need of it; it's one of my favourite Wittgenstein things.
ReplyDeleteGood food for thought.
ReplyDeleteIt makes me think of one other thing, which is sort of a summary of what many mystics in many traditions have said:
"Your intellect cannot take you to your soul."