"Know Thyself"
Jun 10, 2018 09:31:35 #
Chet Raymo, "Know Thyself"
[img]https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qygz014xZ5U/WxyS-_UD2WI/AAAAAAACBmE/ssDMYUDKBKY-uMHoXudURUYg67w0aTE8QCLcBGAs/s1600/From%2BClipboard.jpg]/img]
"Know Thyself"
by Chet Raymo
"The ancient Greek aphorism, attributed to Socrates and others. Good advice, I'm sure. If only we knew what it means. Is it the same as the "examination of conscience" we were asked to perform as young Catholics? "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned." Well, yes, it is good to ask ourselves if we have lived up to our highest moral aspirations. But surely "Know thyself" means more than that.
Does it mean to be aware of our self-awareness? That is to say, not to act impulsively, but reflectively. Thoreau's "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." Or perhaps it means to apply the method of scientia to the problem of consciousness, treat the mind like a fish that can be dissected at the lab bench, watch the brain flickering on the display of a scanning machine as the subject is stimulated with love, sex, fear, music, pain. Neuroscience. Daniel Dennet's book audaciously titled "Consciousness Explained."
There is a line from a poem by Jane Hirshfield, in which she questions herself: "A knife cannot cut itself open, yet you ask me both to be you and to know you."
Is it hopeless then? Is there an essential absurdity in a thing knowing itself? Does knowing necessarily imply a knower more complex than the thing known? Is it possible that we might fully understand, say, the neurology of the sea slug Aplysia, that favorite subject of experimental neurobiologists with only 20,000 central nerve cells, big nerve cells, ten times bigger than human neurons, but not the workings of the human brain, with its 100 billion nerve cells, each one connected to thousands of others?
Hirshfield's poem is titled "Instant Glimpsable Only For An Instant." Perhaps that is the best we can do. To know ourselves in those fleeting moments of recognition than come now and then, often unbidden, sometimes as the result of a chance encounter with beauty or with ugliness, sometimes bidden out of the silence and solitude of meditation - a flash upon on one's inward eye that is, perhaps, all the ancients were asking for when they asked us to "know ourselves."
- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/
○
“Instant Glimpsable Only for an Instant”
"Moment. Moment. Moment.
- equal inside you, moment,
the velocitous mountains and cities rising and falling,
songs of children, iridescence even of beetles.
It is not you the locust can strip of all leaf.
Untouchable green at the center,
the wolf too lopes past you and through you as he eats.
Insult to mourn you, you who mourn no one, unable.
Without transformation,
yours the role of the chorus, to whom nothing happens.
The living step forward: choosing to enter, to lose.
I, who am made of you only,
speak these words against your unmasterable instruction -
A knife cannot cut itself open,
yet you ask me both to be you and to know you.
~ Jane Hirshfield
○
[img]https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qygz014xZ5U/WxyS-_UD2WI/AAAAAAACBmE/ssDMYUDKBKY-uMHoXudURUYg67w0aTE8QCLcBGAs/s1600/From%2BClipboard.jpg]/img]
"Know Thyself"
by Chet Raymo
"The ancient Greek aphorism, attributed to Socrates and others. Good advice, I'm sure. If only we knew what it means. Is it the same as the "examination of conscience" we were asked to perform as young Catholics? "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned." Well, yes, it is good to ask ourselves if we have lived up to our highest moral aspirations. But surely "Know thyself" means more than that.
Does it mean to be aware of our self-awareness? That is to say, not to act impulsively, but reflectively. Thoreau's "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." Or perhaps it means to apply the method of scientia to the problem of consciousness, treat the mind like a fish that can be dissected at the lab bench, watch the brain flickering on the display of a scanning machine as the subject is stimulated with love, sex, fear, music, pain. Neuroscience. Daniel Dennet's book audaciously titled "Consciousness Explained."
There is a line from a poem by Jane Hirshfield, in which she questions herself: "A knife cannot cut itself open, yet you ask me both to be you and to know you."
Is it hopeless then? Is there an essential absurdity in a thing knowing itself? Does knowing necessarily imply a knower more complex than the thing known? Is it possible that we might fully understand, say, the neurology of the sea slug Aplysia, that favorite subject of experimental neurobiologists with only 20,000 central nerve cells, big nerve cells, ten times bigger than human neurons, but not the workings of the human brain, with its 100 billion nerve cells, each one connected to thousands of others?
Hirshfield's poem is titled "Instant Glimpsable Only For An Instant." Perhaps that is the best we can do. To know ourselves in those fleeting moments of recognition than come now and then, often unbidden, sometimes as the result of a chance encounter with beauty or with ugliness, sometimes bidden out of the silence and solitude of meditation - a flash upon on one's inward eye that is, perhaps, all the ancients were asking for when they asked us to "know ourselves."
- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/
○
“Instant Glimpsable Only for an Instant”
"Moment. Moment. Moment.
- equal inside you, moment,
the velocitous mountains and cities rising and falling,
songs of children, iridescence even of beetles.
It is not you the locust can strip of all leaf.
Untouchable green at the center,
the wolf too lopes past you and through you as he eats.
Insult to mourn you, you who mourn no one, unable.
Without transformation,
yours the role of the chorus, to whom nothing happens.
The living step forward: choosing to enter, to lose.
I, who am made of you only,
speak these words against your unmasterable instruction -
A knife cannot cut itself open,
yet you ask me both to be you and to know you.
~ Jane Hirshfield
○
Jun 10, 2018 10:09:15 #
slatten49
Loc: Lake Whitney, Texas
[quote=pafret]Chet Raymo, "Know Thyself"
[img]https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qygz014xZ5U/WxyS-_UD2WI/AAAAAAACBmE/ssDMYUDKBKY-uMHoXudURUYg67w0aTE8QCLcBGAs/s1600/From%2BClipboard.jpg]/img]
"Know Thyself"
by Chet Raymo
"The ancient Greek aphorism, attributed to Socrates and others. Good advice, I'm sure. If only we knew what it means. Is it the same as the "examination of conscience" we were asked to perform as young Catholics? "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned." Well, yes, it is good to ask ourselves if we have lived up to our highest moral aspirations. But surely "Know thyself" means more than that.
Does it mean to be aware of our self-awareness? That is to say, not to act impulsively, but reflectively. Thoreau's "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." Or perhaps it means to apply the method of scientia to the problem of consciousness, treat the mind like a fish that can be dissected at the lab bench, watch the brain flickering on the display of a scanning machine as the subject is stimulated with love, sex, fear, music, pain. Neuroscience. Daniel Dennet's book audaciously titled "Consciousness Explained."
There is a line from a poem by Jane Hirshfield, in which she questions herself: "A knife cannot cut itself open, yet you ask me both to be you and to know you."
Is it hopeless then? Is there an essential absurdity in a thing knowing itself? Does knowing necessarily imply a knower more complex than the thing known? Is it possible that we might fully understand, say, the neurology of the sea slug Aplysia, that favorite subject of experimental neurobiologists with only 20,000 central nerve cells, big nerve cells, ten times bigger than human neurons, but not the workings of the human brain, with its 100 billion nerve cells, each one connected to thousands of others?
Hirshfield's poem is titled "Instant Glimpsable Only For An Instant." Perhaps that is the best we can do. To know ourselves in those fleeting moments of recognition than come now and then, often unbidden, sometimes as the result of a chance encounter with beauty or with ugliness, sometimes bidden out of the silence and solitude of meditation - a flash upon on one's inward eye that is, perhaps, all the ancients were asking for when they asked us to "know ourselves."
- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/
○
“Instant Glimpsable Only for an Instant”
"Moment. Moment. Moment.
- equal inside you, moment,
the velocitous mountains and cities rising and falling,
songs of children, iridescence even of beetles.
It is not you the locust can strip of all leaf.
Untouchable green at the center,
the wolf too lopes past you and through you as he eats.
Insult to mourn you, you who mourn no one, unable.
Without transformation,
yours the role of the chorus, to whom nothing happens.
The living step forward: choosing to enter, to lose.
I, who am made of you only,
speak these words against your unmasterable instruction -
A knife cannot cut itself open,
yet you ask me both to be you and to know you.
~ Jane Hirshfield
○[/quote]
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
This brought forth in my mind a line from Shakespeare's 'Hamlet'..."To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man." A good explanation of the meaning behind that line is as follows, from another:
"The true meaning is that one needs to be himself/herself through every day and every night and if one succeeds in doing so, then, it would be impossible to be anyone else but yourself. Knowing yourself is important, though personally I think it is impossible to understand every aspect of ones being entirely, it is still the first step to leading a truthful life. If one believes in the Holy Bible, they would know it states that, “Thou shalt not bear false witness,” meaning that one shouldn’t lie to themselves nor anyone else. It was stated back before time to be true to thyself and everyone else around you for fair justice amongst all. People tend to live life like theater, acting with masks that read other than what they truly are. So be true to yourself and to others, that way there is no confusion, no illusion."
[img]https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qygz014xZ5U/WxyS-_UD2WI/AAAAAAACBmE/ssDMYUDKBKY-uMHoXudURUYg67w0aTE8QCLcBGAs/s1600/From%2BClipboard.jpg]/img]
"Know Thyself"
by Chet Raymo
"The ancient Greek aphorism, attributed to Socrates and others. Good advice, I'm sure. If only we knew what it means. Is it the same as the "examination of conscience" we were asked to perform as young Catholics? "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned." Well, yes, it is good to ask ourselves if we have lived up to our highest moral aspirations. But surely "Know thyself" means more than that.
Does it mean to be aware of our self-awareness? That is to say, not to act impulsively, but reflectively. Thoreau's "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." Or perhaps it means to apply the method of scientia to the problem of consciousness, treat the mind like a fish that can be dissected at the lab bench, watch the brain flickering on the display of a scanning machine as the subject is stimulated with love, sex, fear, music, pain. Neuroscience. Daniel Dennet's book audaciously titled "Consciousness Explained."
There is a line from a poem by Jane Hirshfield, in which she questions herself: "A knife cannot cut itself open, yet you ask me both to be you and to know you."
Is it hopeless then? Is there an essential absurdity in a thing knowing itself? Does knowing necessarily imply a knower more complex than the thing known? Is it possible that we might fully understand, say, the neurology of the sea slug Aplysia, that favorite subject of experimental neurobiologists with only 20,000 central nerve cells, big nerve cells, ten times bigger than human neurons, but not the workings of the human brain, with its 100 billion nerve cells, each one connected to thousands of others?
Hirshfield's poem is titled "Instant Glimpsable Only For An Instant." Perhaps that is the best we can do. To know ourselves in those fleeting moments of recognition than come now and then, often unbidden, sometimes as the result of a chance encounter with beauty or with ugliness, sometimes bidden out of the silence and solitude of meditation - a flash upon on one's inward eye that is, perhaps, all the ancients were asking for when they asked us to "know ourselves."
- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/
○
“Instant Glimpsable Only for an Instant”
"Moment. Moment. Moment.
- equal inside you, moment,
the velocitous mountains and cities rising and falling,
songs of children, iridescence even of beetles.
It is not you the locust can strip of all leaf.
Untouchable green at the center,
the wolf too lopes past you and through you as he eats.
Insult to mourn you, you who mourn no one, unable.
Without transformation,
yours the role of the chorus, to whom nothing happens.
The living step forward: choosing to enter, to lose.
I, who am made of you only,
speak these words against your unmasterable instruction -
A knife cannot cut itself open,
yet you ask me both to be you and to know you.
~ Jane Hirshfield
○
[/quote]>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
This brought forth in my mind a line from Shakespeare's 'Hamlet'..."To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man." A good explanation of the meaning behind that line is as follows, from another:
"The true meaning is that one needs to be himself/herself through every day and every night and if one succeeds in doing so, then, it would be impossible to be anyone else but yourself. Knowing yourself is important, though personally I think it is impossible to understand every aspect of ones being entirely, it is still the first step to leading a truthful life. If one believes in the Holy Bible, they would know it states that, “Thou shalt not bear false witness,” meaning that one shouldn’t lie to themselves nor anyone else. It was stated back before time to be true to thyself and everyone else around you for fair justice amongst all. People tend to live life like theater, acting with masks that read other than what they truly are. So be true to yourself and to others, that way there is no confusion, no illusion."
Jun 11, 2018 13:54:33 #
king hall
Loc: Tucson,AZ.
[quote=pafret]Chet Raymo, "Know Thyself"
[img]https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qygz014xZ5U/WxyS-_UD2WI/AAAAAAACBmE/ssDMYUDKBKY-uMHoXudURUYg67w0aTE8QCLcBGAs/s1600/From%2BClipboard.jpg]/img]
"Know Thyself"
by Chet Raymo
"The ancient Greek aphorism, attributed to Socrates and others. Good advice, I'm sure. If only we knew what it means. Is it the same as the "examination of conscience" we were asked to perform as young Catholics? "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned." Well, yes, it is good to ask ourselves if we have lived up to our highest moral aspirations. But surely "Know thyself" means more than that.
Does it mean to be aware of our self-awareness? That is to say, not to act impulsively, but reflectively. Thoreau's "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." Or perhaps it means to apply the method of scientia to the problem of consciousness, treat the mind like a fish that can be dissected at the lab bench, watch the brain flickering on the display of a scanning machine as the subject is stimulated with love, sex, fear, music, pain. Neuroscience. Daniel Dennet's book audaciously titled "Consciousness Explained."
There is a line from a poem by Jane Hirshfield, in which she questions herself: "A knife cannot cut itself open, yet you ask me both to be you and to know you."
Is it hopeless then? Is there an essential absurdity in a thing knowing itself? Does knowing necessarily imply a knower more complex than the thing known? Is it possible that we might fully understand, say, the neurology of the sea slug Aplysia, that favorite subject of experimental neurobiologists with only 20,000 central nerve cells, big nerve cells, ten times bigger than human neurons, but not the workings of the human brain, with its 100 billion nerve cells, each one connected to thousands of others?
Hirshfield's poem is titled "Instant Glimpsable Only For An Instant." Perhaps that is the best we can do. To know ourselves in those fleeting moments of recognition than come now and then, often unbidden, sometimes as the result of a chance encounter with beauty or with ugliness, sometimes bidden out of the silence and solitude of meditation - a flash upon on one's inward eye that is, perhaps, all the ancients were asking for when they asked us to "know ourselves."
- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/
○
“Instant Glimpsable Only for an Instant”
"Moment. Moment. Moment.
- equal inside you, moment,
the velocitous mountains and cities rising and falling,
songs of children, iridescence even of beetles.
It is not you the locust can strip of all leaf.
Untouchable green at the center,
the wolf too lopes past you and through you as he eats.
Insult to mourn you, you who mourn no one, unable.
Without transformation,
yours the role of the chorus, to whom nothing happens.
The living step forward: choosing to enter, to lose.
I, who am made of you only,
speak these words against your unmasterable instruction -
A knife cannot cut itself open,
yet you ask me both to be you and to know you.
~ Jane Hirshfield
○[/quote]
Summa Theologica; Thomas Aquinas
[img]https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qygz014xZ5U/WxyS-_UD2WI/AAAAAAACBmE/ssDMYUDKBKY-uMHoXudURUYg67w0aTE8QCLcBGAs/s1600/From%2BClipboard.jpg]/img]
"Know Thyself"
by Chet Raymo
"The ancient Greek aphorism, attributed to Socrates and others. Good advice, I'm sure. If only we knew what it means. Is it the same as the "examination of conscience" we were asked to perform as young Catholics? "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned." Well, yes, it is good to ask ourselves if we have lived up to our highest moral aspirations. But surely "Know thyself" means more than that.
Does it mean to be aware of our self-awareness? That is to say, not to act impulsively, but reflectively. Thoreau's "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." Or perhaps it means to apply the method of scientia to the problem of consciousness, treat the mind like a fish that can be dissected at the lab bench, watch the brain flickering on the display of a scanning machine as the subject is stimulated with love, sex, fear, music, pain. Neuroscience. Daniel Dennet's book audaciously titled "Consciousness Explained."
There is a line from a poem by Jane Hirshfield, in which she questions herself: "A knife cannot cut itself open, yet you ask me both to be you and to know you."
Is it hopeless then? Is there an essential absurdity in a thing knowing itself? Does knowing necessarily imply a knower more complex than the thing known? Is it possible that we might fully understand, say, the neurology of the sea slug Aplysia, that favorite subject of experimental neurobiologists with only 20,000 central nerve cells, big nerve cells, ten times bigger than human neurons, but not the workings of the human brain, with its 100 billion nerve cells, each one connected to thousands of others?
Hirshfield's poem is titled "Instant Glimpsable Only For An Instant." Perhaps that is the best we can do. To know ourselves in those fleeting moments of recognition than come now and then, often unbidden, sometimes as the result of a chance encounter with beauty or with ugliness, sometimes bidden out of the silence and solitude of meditation - a flash upon on one's inward eye that is, perhaps, all the ancients were asking for when they asked us to "know ourselves."
- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/
○
“Instant Glimpsable Only for an Instant”
"Moment. Moment. Moment.
- equal inside you, moment,
the velocitous mountains and cities rising and falling,
songs of children, iridescence even of beetles.
It is not you the locust can strip of all leaf.
Untouchable green at the center,
the wolf too lopes past you and through you as he eats.
Insult to mourn you, you who mourn no one, unable.
Without transformation,
yours the role of the chorus, to whom nothing happens.
The living step forward: choosing to enter, to lose.
I, who am made of you only,
speak these words against your unmasterable instruction -
A knife cannot cut itself open,
yet you ask me both to be you and to know you.
~ Jane Hirshfield
○
[/quote]Summa Theologica; Thomas Aquinas
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