quote: Man sees not the entire sphere of truth really; rather, he sees only his limited circle, attempting to peek round the corners from what he is sure be his square of the cube.
Does anyone but me understand it? I need it to be condensed and subtle.
Posted by punwit (Member # 6388) on :
I would suggest that you not commingle sphere and cube. Perhaps something like:
quote:Man sees not the entire sphere of truth really; rather, he sees only his limited circle, attempting, but hampered, in his ability to peer beyond the horizon and view truth in its totality.
[ April 10, 2005, 09:52 AM: Message edited by: punwit ]
Posted by jebus202 (Member # 2524) on :
Deep.
Posted by Stark (Member # 6831) on :
How about 'Truth is subjective'?
Posted by jebus202 (Member # 2524) on :
How stark! Posted by Jonathan Howard (Member # 6934) on :
Excellent, punwit! But that's a different statement.
Man simply thinks that truth has a few sides, and that peering around his "side" of it will let him know the circumference, thus digging in.
But truth is a sphere, and you're only looking at what's really a circle. So you "plant" the sides near it! Truth is a sphere, the ultimate body of monotonicness. You'll never remember where you are, because it all appears to be the same. Only by studying true philosophy, can one get over the misconception that truth is a cube!
JH
P.S. "Truth is subjective" is only a sublet. But that's where I developed the statement from.
Posted by Stark (Member # 6831) on :
So then you're saying that truth is subjective, our perception is our truth, so perception is subjective? This is all part of that "I think therefore I am" thing. Whereas we all know we exist that's about all that is certain, the rest is a fabricated imprint of our surroundings so that we may orient ourselves.
Posted by Jonathan Howard (Member # 6934) on :
Lost you, Stark!
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
"Man sees not the entire sphere of truth really; rather, he sees only his limited circle, attempting to peek round the corners from what he is sure be his square of the cube."
It's more than a bit pretentious, JH. Your use of "be," for example, is like something a pirate trying to pass himself off as an Oxford grad might say.
And I've warned you before about crap like "sees not."
More importantly: while I tried to write a revision, I quickly got lost in the metaphor. Truth is a sphere, but any given man sees only a circle. That's fine. But then his circle is actually a square, with corners? And he extrapolates therefore that reality is a cube?
There's a problem here: all this shape imagery isn't meaningful, and it's rather muddied. (Does a man, for example, see a square or a circle?)
I think that what you're saying boils down to a combination of "L'enfer, c'est les autres" and "we can't all see the big picture." But those are both perfectly good ways of wording this concept, and they're already rather famous.
Posted by Dan_raven (Member # 3383) on :
My own variation on your quote:
quote: So many demand to be understood. So few dare to understand.
Posted by Boris (Member # 6935) on :
How's this, "Vision is limited. Reality is not."
edit:(I suppose that would work better the other way around.But who knows, Maybe both ways work.)
[ April 10, 2005, 09:02 PM: Message edited by: Boris ]
Posted by Sartorius (Member # 7696) on :
The idea is pretty simple once it's cleared of all the convoluted language. But even after you boil it down, it's still all been done before. *Yawn*
Posted by Jonathan Howard (Member # 6934) on :
quote: It's more than a bit pretentious
Welcome to the world of philosophers that came between Plato and today, with th three exceptions of DeCartes, Hume and Kant.
quote: Your use of "be," for example, is like something a pirate trying to pass himself off as an Oxford grad might say.
Hey, don't start calling me a pirate because of my software issues with Microsoft. I am sure there are many like that in Oxford!
quote: And I've warned you before about crap like "sees not."
I do not recall your threat.
quote: There's a problem here: all this shape imagery isn't meaningful, and it's rather muddied. (Does a man, for example, see a square or a circle?)
As, that's where the subtle secret lies. The man actually sees a circle, but in his eyes it is a square. His misconceptions get him to place all those corners and sides - to simplify the shape.
He knows, then, that the entire truth is a 3-dimentional shape, but he only then "sees" it as a cube. Truth, infact, is a sphere, but again - he does the oversimplification.
quote: L'enfer, c'est les autres
French.
quote: we can't all see the big picture
Yet, it is beyond that. It is the way we act regarding the big-picure, and how things occur on two levels.
quote: So many demand to be understood. So few dare to understand.
Here's someone who knows what to do with his time.
quote: Vision is limited. Reality is not.
Another sublet.
quote: The idea is pretty simple once it's cleared of all the convoluted language.
I'm seeing something beyond. So ither I'm not able to simplify it, or my text is too oblique to show it.
JH
Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :
Considering the source, may I point out the obvious, that the emperor has no clothes? Posted by Foust (Member # 3043) on :
quote:Welcome to the world of philosophers that came between Plato and today, with th three exceptions of DeCartes, Hume and Kant.
Er, why would you say this? And why randomly chose these three?
Posted by Jonathan Howard (Member # 6934) on :
I forgot to add Aristotle to the list.
Because... Philosophers are pretentious? Except for those four, virtually all the rest went to flamboyance in order to explain their stuff. "God is dead, and we killed Him!" Sure, those people were smart, and often geniuses, but even Ptolemais was a little prtentious and overconfident. It's just something that happens! Pompous, verbose language that they use when it's unneccesary!
Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
Your saying reminds me of a definition of truth I discovered a few months ago while idling in the library waiting to get online
quote:Giambattista Vico is famous for his concept of truth as an act, verum factum.
This is a limited definition of truth, but surprisingly useful. It avoids the pitfalls of logic that Cartesian phenomenalism and other more abstract philosophies fall prey to.
Ironically, Vico was vehemently against using geometric abstractions in philosophy and rhetoric:
quote: Vico argues, modern education suffers unnecessarily from ignoring the ars topica (art of topics) which encourage the use of imagination and memory in organizing speech into eloquent persuasion. The result, Vico argues, is an undue attention to the "geometrical method" modeled on the discipline of physics, and an emphasis on abstract philosophical criticism over poetry. This undermines the importance of exposition, persuasion, and pleasure in learning; it "benumbs...[the] imagination and stupefies...[the] memory" (
Jon, you can say it like that, then. But here's the problem: analogies are more powerful when they make obvious sense, and there's no reason given in your example for why the man, seeing his little circle, sees it as a square. You're going to need to expand upon that -- or come up with a different analogy -- to explain why man can't even see his own little circle correctly.
Posted by Sartorius (Member # 7696) on :
quote: So ither I'm not able to simplify it, or my text is too oblique to show it.
The way I read it, this is what you're saying: Man lives in a three-dimensional sphere, but sees a two dimensional circle, but he thinks he sees a scquare, and so thinks he lives in a cube. Is this right? Or are you "beyond" that?
Posted by St. Yogi (Member # 5974) on :
It sounds like you're being pretentious for the sake of being "mysterious" or "cool".
Posted by Jonathan Howard (Member # 6934) on :
Correct, but each shape represents something. Remember that there's the dual relationship between square-cube, circle-sphere, and square-circle, cube-sphere.
Posted by Jonathan K. (Member # 7720) on :
quote:Welcome to the world of philosophers that came between Plato and today, with th three exceptions of DeCartes, Hume and Kant.
Decartes is spelled Descartes
Posted by Jonathan Howard (Member # 6934) on :
![[Wink]](wink.gif)