In Spiration, I very much like your signtaure. We have usually no clue how imporatnt our language is in forming our paradigms, or beliefs. Many of them, eg
s-v-o construction, have inherent assumptions about how the world “works,” and unless we are conscious of such things, we are prey to them. I wish I could think in Sanscrit, the language that seems to have appeared without predecessors, and which holds so many mysteries as to our cultural origins, as well as the demise of much we, as a race, seem to have known-- from that evidence at least. Even a simplified version of its grammar is remarkably subtle, and many verb tenses are dropped in th usual grammars available, I am told. And in this age of emerging energy awareness, where most of us still have such mechanistic propensities, such subtlties as have been lost to us could be useful in regaining a more inclusive and profound appreciation of what we now see mostly as surfaces. Thanks for using that quote!
All of the above appear to be different variations of the same fundamental answer. We are aware of a lacking, a privation – not just a mere absence – of a due, intended good. Thus we’re aversely acquainted with what is essentially evil. As we pursue our natural goods out of love and thereby conversely shun evil, it’s not surprising that we may often leap at the sight of a potentially-reached good – to our minds, that’s a leap out of an evil into a good, which is a pretty solid net gain. Quite simply, our wills (which are inclined to the truth qua goodness, a.k.a. knowledge) refuse to settle with anything less than an intellectual state of perfect certainty with conformity to unlimited truth.
That is well said, save I would have put it “…that’s a leap out of a (percieved) evil into a (percieved) good.” And though that may in some instances appear as a net gain, it is yet relative within that realm of perceptions, and usually does not support inquiry into the mode of having perceptions itself. That is, I contend, where the difficulty of the “privation” lies and its root ignored.
Right. Belief is one’s personal construction of an artificial bridge over a void that he recognizes as evil, an attempt to overcome that evil. I suppose the will finds the intellect in a predicament and suddenly springs to action to provide some means of an escape into safety.
This is close to accurate, as I see it, though I’m not sure yet of your understanding of “evil,” so will let that go for now. And the “will” does leap when the intellect is baffled, or givews up, and insight happens, Sometimes that is called foolishness, and sometimes intuition. In the direction of intuition is the soplution of the privation, and that can happen when the constructs of intellect dissolve in exhaustion into what supprts them, into awareness itself. That is why no matter one’s liguistic, cultural or chronological background, reportage of that experience is consistent despite calendar, geography, or inculcation.
In a sense, perhaps. One only doubts after he’s already, consciously or not, realized that what he’s currently got isn’t completely satisfying (that is, isn’t totally certain). The doubt is his effort to assess just how much he’s missing, so to speak, to sample alternatives, to play the field with top contestants. Doubt is often like an intellectual affair, mental cheating/adultery, which only happens amid dissatisfaction of some degree; excessively prolonged doubt is like intellectual spinsterhood, you might say. Hypothesis is akin to dating; belief is a “committed relationship” with temporarily agreed-upon fidelity; religious faith is (or, maybe, ought to be) monogamous marriage. Certainty is like what happens at the end of chick flicks, I guess, when the girl meets Mr. Perfect, Prince Charming, and lives, no doubt, happily ever after.
Faith and doubt are the same coin, of the same stuff. One has the other inevitably. What is the substance of that coin? Where does the loved one, or anyone, exist for you?
This is a key point, I think. The fact we seem to be practically, even existentially, compelled to believe amid uncertainty might give us a good idea of our human nature, its end, etc. Every human being with functional rationality has an innate disposition toward perfect, indubitable knowledge, no? Upon recognition of its absence, one begins immediately to maximize his closeness to it, before even trying to determine whether such a goal is feasibly attainable or not.
Yes, this s teleology. And it works at the level of each one’s awareness, its breadth and depth. At certiain points in the recognition of this “absence,” which is a perceptual condition, not an actual condition–as one can discover–a fulcrum is tipped on and the balance of one’s awareness moves into a state inclusive of, but greater than the predceeding one. Thus maturity is always in a direction outward from the infantile ego towards Allness and its implications and experiences. The human has at least nine such fulcrums.
I enjoyed reading your post!
