What's in it for house flies?

Originally posted by finnegan
There is a limit to how well versed us mortals can be - look at my French Defence! Each new line I learn becomes foolishness and I turn to the masters to find another. So I do not have any expertise to debate Indian philosophy. But I never said it was poor or weak. I have looked into Buddhism quite a lot and related topics a bit. I am attracted to many t ...[text shortened]... f we are to establish and protect a shared, common humanity - has to have a basis in Reason.

I see you are frank and I bow.

I am committed to values that they do not insult my intelligence, therefore I accept plenty of the Western philosophic aspects of a line that starts with the Pre-Socratic philosophers and goes all the way up to Popper. However I accept many aspects of the Eastern philosophy too, and I am glad you are interested in some of their systems. Once you study the Eastern ones you will see that their main priority is to getting to know their self and to overcome the “I-me” loop, and this is the reason why the Eastern civilisations are “direction inwards” instead of “direction outwards” -but of course this is just another story.
Of course a major synthesis between the West and the East looks to me necessary, to say the least.


May You Be Happy finnegan, I wish you to balance perfectly on your own evaluation of the mind😵

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
[b]It was due to the active suppression of Greek thought and all Rational debate by the Christian Empire and its successors.
Unfair characterization. One must consider what formed the basis for commonly-held reality to properly frame their contemporary struggles. Just as now, deviation then was met with strong resistance. Is anyone in power to be fully trusted, ever?[/b]

No, my characterization was perfectly fair and based on good history. Constantine was the first Roman emperor to tolerate and patronise Christians. However, the practice had always been one of toleration for diverse religious practices, including toleration for the Jews. The earlier oppression of Christians was because they - unusually - refused to endorse the religious practices of the Roman empire and actively persuaded other Romans to abandon those practices. That was seen as subversive. One could debate that detail without altering what follows.

Christians were intolerant of rival Christians and often unscrupulous in the way they attacked each other's beliefs. From Constantine onwards, being approved as "orthodox" was integrally tied up with having access to tax exemption, exemption from other impositions and state patronage. Christian bishops also played an active and increasingly important part in the administration of the state in their areas, taking responsibility for law and order among other things. Rivals fought hard for the privileges of state support and the whole concept of "heresy" was really tied up with these power struggles. Unlike the Greek philosophers, it was impossible for Christians to agree to differ - they pushed their positions to the extreme and attributed all "error" to the work of demons. Important doctrines were often secured through the additional means of bribery and violence.

Once they had access to the emperor and to power, they used this to actively undermine all state support for pagan worship. A notable example was the way Jerome of Milan used his influence to undermine the Roman Senate. Their active suppression of pagan practice culminated in the closing of the academies in Athens and preventing the further teaching of philosophy, having the effect of cutting off the last philosophers from the opportunity to continue their work.

After Augustine of Hippo, the Church was committed to a thorough rejection of Reason as developed in Greek philosophy, which they equated with paganism. What they permitted was a bowdlerized form of philosophy which was always subordinate to theology.

In the Middle Ages it is fair to argue that people had to work within the frame of reference of their society and it was difficult for them to conceive a world without the Christian God. However, that was not the case before the fourth century in Europe. What they were struggling against was not the limited knowledge of a primitive society, but the successful dominance of all education and public discourse by a powerful and consciously imposed ideology. Medieval Europe was not primitive but sophisticated and intensely authoritarian.

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
Archimedes was brilliant but he still relied on geometry and lacked zero. Whether he or another Greek would have come up with zero and place values had the Romans spared him is arguably arguable.

You maintain that the lack of zero in Greek mathematics was not a weakness?

Oh for goodness sake! Of course the Greeks lacked Zero, and so did the Indians and everyone else until it was invented to resolve the problems caused by its lack. Before Pythagoras they lacked adequate geometry. They lacked the calculus as well. They lacked imaginary numbers like the square root of minus one. This is a case of anachronism. I have never said the Greek philosophers had all the answers. What they had was the basis for the use of Reason including the basis for developing mathematics and science. Archimedes achieved real practical things without Zero, as the Romans discovered when he helped defend Syracuse. The Romans did not think - aha - this will be easy, he lacks Zero.

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
I originally set aside a year for it; I've revised that estimate and have determined to take it piece by piece. Chances are I'll retain some 'luminous fragments' rather than get the whole picture, but that's better than nothing. The problem is indeed reading pace, I don't want to be reading the same and only book for the next two to three years! So I'l ...[text shortened]... ding difficult philosophy purely for the sake of taking a bath. Current example: Frege.

A minor vice: speed reading difficult philosophy purely for the sake of taking a bath. Current example: Frege.

"I took a speed reading course and read War and Peace in 20 minutes. It involves Russia."

Woody Allen

Originally posted by black beetle
The Zennist tradition is a solid ground for all kinds of conceptual and non-conceptual awareness at all the levels, but your sixth has to be trained in order to receive it. Of course there is actually no thing to pass from mind to mind; but in order to pass it we use objects and images that they do not contain fractals of common reason, which they canno ...[text shortened]... his is not the case however, and I am blessed to know many people whose Zen is extremely sharp😵

What I'm trying to get at is that you must risk something in order to gain something.
I guess the enlightened state of mind is the natural way to be and what passes for sanity is actually quite insane.
(I reminded here of the difference between "living" and"surviving" ).

Whoever gets in grips with Zen will not face insanity. You are right. It is only the false zen that leads one to such a fate.

Originally posted by finnegan
Oh for goodness sake! Of course the Greeks lacked Zero, and so did the Indians and everyone else until it was invented to resolve the problems caused by its lack. Before Pythagoras they lacked adequate geometry. They lacked the calculus as well. They lacked imaginary numbers like the square root of minus one. This is a case of anachronism. I have never said ...[text shortened]... en he helped defend Syracuse. The Romans did not think - aha - this will be easy, he lacks Zero.

I take your point, but I think you fail to take mine: the unlikelihood of the Greeks ever adopting Zero given their ideologically motivated (and irrational?) rejection of Zero, Infinity and the Void. Conversely, Indian thought proceeded from a positive delight in these things and so begat Zero, to the everlasting benefit of Science.

I don't deny that the Greeks had the basis for the use of reason. The Romans also had it; they were just more interested in business than in science. Even the Greek numbering system was better than the Roman one, but the Roman one stuck, for reasons that cannot be ascribed to Christian zeal.

Here is a long but I think not intolerably essay that touches on these topics:

'Fear of infinity: Friedrich Schlegel's indictment of Indian philosophy in Uber die Sprache und die Weisheit der Indier'
The German Quarterly, Summer, 2008 by Robert Bruce Cowan

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_7067/is_3_81/ai_n28558689/?tag=content;col1

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
I take your point, but I think you fail to take mine: the unlikelihood of the Greeks ever adopting Zero given their ideologically motivated (and irrational?) rejection of Zero, Infinity and the Void. Conversely, Indian thought proceeded from a positive delight in these things and so begat Zero, to the everlasting benefit of Science.

I don't Cowan

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_7067/is_3_81/ai_n28558689/?tag=content;col1

OK I read that. Bit anachronistic STILL to infer Greek thinking from that of a German idealist in the 19th Century. There is an interim period of Christian hegemony over some 1500 years.

That said, your source confirms my dim memory that even the Indian zero dates only from about the 12th Century. Its introduction, while certainly filling an important gap, nevertheless required a leap - it was a true invention and a conceptual break that was made with difficulty and slowly.

You have good grounds for saying that this leap may have been less troubling for Indian than for Greek thought. I have good grounds for saying that it is not possible to speculate how Greek philosophy might have evolved had it not been suppressed from the Fourth Century. But I do not see this being about national pride or supporting one team over another. All credit to the Indian philosophers, but only where it is due. Once Greek Rationalism was rediscovered and permitted (initially with huge constraints for fear of heresy) it made enormous progress and traveled from Aquinas to Newton with inexorable speed. If it has started to find valuable insights in Indian thinking, that may be because of the impact of the New Physics through Quantum Mechanics and it may be that the proposed synthesis (or is it just borrowing analogies?) is nevertheless very unlike what the Indians would have reached under their own steam.

But that is of course just abstract in the absence of a detailed reading about Indian philosophy in language that I can relate to: remember it is a struggle to read much of Western philosophy without a clear, modern interpretation by a decent academic. Let's see what I get from that book you guys induced me to order (see above) or otherwise, how about a recommendation that is READABLE? Preferably by a historian.

Alternatively, can Black Beetle recommend a great guide to a decent opening system with a good prospect of being able to use it?

Originally posted by finnegan
'If it has started to find valuable insights in Indian thinking, that may be because of the impact of the New Physics through Quantum Mechanics and it may be that the proposed synthesis (or is it just borrowing analogies?) is nevertheless very unlike what the Indians would have reached under their own steam.'

First -- it's a bit silly for you to say I shouldn't speculate about what the Greeks might or might not have achieved had Archimedes been left to draw circles in the sand and then go on to talk about what the Indians might have achieved 'under their own steam'!

Second: that article is not 'my source', just an article that touches on some issues. I offered it for context, as symptomatic of Western fears. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

My source is Seife's 'Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea.' I recommend it to you.

Your memory's out by six centuries: Zero (according to the version of history I'm going with) was the work of Aryabhata, who flourished under the Gupta dynasty C6 BCE. Granted, he didn't use the [/i]numeral[/i] zero, but the concept was implicit in his work.

The Wikipedia version, for what it's worth:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aryabhatta#Place_value_system_and_zero
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gupta_Empire

And:
"The first universally accepted inscription containing the use of the 0 glyph is first recorded in the 9th century, in an inscription at Gwalior in Central India dated to 870. By this time, the use of the glyph had already reached Persia, and was mentioned in Al-Khwarizmi's descriptions of Indian numerals. Numerous Indian documents on copper plates exist, with the same symbol for zero in them, dated back as far as the 6th century AD". The source given being:
Kaplan, Robert. (2000). The Nothing That Is: A Natural History of Zero, Oxford: Oxford University Press.




At the very least, the Aryabhata article clearly shows the extensive influence of Indian mathematics on Arabic and hence European thought, however much political reason Europeans may have had to downplay their debt to Arabic sources.

What makes Greek Rationalism so especially Greek? Is rationalism not found among classical Arabic, Indian, and Chinese sources, to name only a few? Rationalism is surely no more than the use of reason, whatever the location of the mind using it.

'Western' ascendance was determined by a plethora of factors, among which the greatest were trade and technology. The Portuguese and Spanish empires were well established before Galileo had done much of anything at all. The wealth generated by trade and conquest allowed the establishment of scientific institutions (in Britain, consider the genealogy of the Royal Society) which led to greater efficiencies and bigger conquests, a snowballing progress of Progress.

Consider the technological expertise of the Sung dynasty, cut short by Mongol conquest (a fate that nipped very large portions of high Arabic and Indian culture in the bud). Had they been allowed to continue under their own steam, they may very well have been the first to come up with steam!

Anyhow, I shall await my book (due mid June, I'm told) and look forward to discussing it with you.

Originally posted by karoly aczel
What I'm trying to get at is that you must risk something in order to gain something.
I guess the enlightened state of mind is the natural way to be and what passes for sanity is actually quite insane.
(I reminded here of the difference between "living" and"surviving" ).

Whoever gets in grips with Zen will not face insanity. You are right. It is only the false zen that leads one to such a fate.

So now that child of a noble family karoly aczel wants to start using the Five Eyes and to enter the Four Gates!

You can enter the Gate of Supreme Joy by means of establishing a genuine insight in the emptiness of all phenomena;
Since a single modicum of inaccuracy often serves to remove the need for a complicated explanation, methinks your mental hardware store can well provide you the tools necessary to exercise your awareness. When Chinoyo said “No more water in the pail! No more moon in the water!”, she said it all

You can enter the Stainless Gate by means of joyfully conducting with purified mind your emptiness understanding to perfection;
A single blade of holy grass
Atomic energy
Critical mass
Music and Love
and War affairs
When One approach
afar One fares
What an Amazing Universe
with Miracles, Controversies
If I see solely with my brain
blind forever I 'll remain

You can enter the Luminous Gate by means of joyfully generating great kindles and compassion through practicing perfectly patience;
When one thinks, one thinks because there is no understanding. When there is understanding, one thinks not. Thought is Logos, and Logos comes solely after the Silence, for in the beginning before Logos there was Silence. Your brain is a machine that you have to use it; do not allow your brain to use yourself

You can enter the Radiant Gate by means of overcoming obstacles thanks to your perfected insight;
You see yourself as is whilst meditating -you see yourself when you go inwards, cutting all the way down through your delusions, understanding the Intervals

Concentrate, concentrate! Overcome the obstacles by means of the concentrated power of your mind;
Be constantly aware of the fact that you are fully responsible to drive your brain the way you want. You are not your brain just like you are not your hands. You are not the Vehicle. Respect the Vehicle, respect Life



Nothing Holy
😵

Originally posted by finnegan
OK I read that. Bit anachronistic STILL to infer Greek thinking from that of a German idealist in the 19th Century. There is an interim period of Christian hegemony over some 1500 years.

That said, your source confirms my dim memory that even the Indian zero dates only from about the 12th Century. Its introduction, while certainly filling an important ...[text shortened]... ecommend a great guide to a decent opening system with a good prospect of being able to use it?

edit: "Alternatively, can Black Beetle recommend a great guide to a decent opening system with a good prospect of being able to use it?"



With the Black I play the KID and the Scheveningen; with the White I always try my one dot d four -but it ain't mean a thing.

“Good openings” are not this opening or that opening; the notion “good opening" could be delusional because it keeps your mind stuck in a specific pattern. Avoid blocking your mind this way, always keep your mind in awareness (by means of understanding in full the essentials of the specific openings that you use whilst taking into account the reaction of your opponent). Awareness will bring up flexibility during the very first forced stratagem that you have to apply -Development.

You see finnegan, over This Chessboard the Tactics are essential
However they all derive from the Strategy
The Strategy has to do with your evaluation of the information you grasp through your senses
Your 6 senses are offering to you a notion regarding your direction
This is how you pick this Direction or the other or another
Whilst you are trying to find out if you have to take this direction or that direction the Tactics are out of order
But once you start to realize that the fruit of your Strategy becomes clearer, then yes
Then you have to calculate
Calculate
Calculate
Calculate according to your ability to Calculate
Calculate according to your evaluation of the mind
You can solely win or lose or get even
There is always a point at which you become to know that you will lose or that you will win or that you will get even
There is not always the awareness to see that none of these three outcomes matters

There is not always the awareness to see that The Game itself is what it matters

The Immortal Game itself matters, thus it is meaningless to try to attribute to It any other value than this
😵

Originally posted by black beetle

The Immortal Game itself matters, thus it is meaningless to try to attribute to It any other value than this
😵

It seems that chess originated in India. Under the Gupta dynasty. In a Golden Age cut short by Huns.

To beat the Huns, make better guns.

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
It seems that chess originated in India. Under the Gupta dynasty.

😵

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage

Second: that article is not 'my source', just an article that touches on some issues. I offered it for context, as symptomatic of Western fears. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

But it's not a bad source, as it happens, to illustrate my point:

'On the other hand, in the foundational civilizations of the West, notably ancient Greece, the idea of infinity, be it in matter or a vacuum, was suspect. Mathematical and philosophical foundations derived out of a void would not be found among the Greeks, with whom Schlegel was so enamored early in his intellectual development. Aristotle distinguishes between physics, which deals with things that are both inseparable from matter and are subject to movement, and metaphysics, which treats that which both exists in separation from matter and is motionless. He concludes in [On the Heavens] (c.350 BC) I, 9:

It is plain, then, from what has been said [in his earlier
explanation of the heavens], that there is not, nor do the facts
allow there to be, any bodily mass beyond the heaven. The world in
its entirety is made up of the whole sum of available matter (for
the matter appropriate to it is, as we saw, natural perceptible
body), and we may conclude that there is not now a plurality of
worlds. (91)

In his [Metaphysics] (c.350 BC), Aristotle then uses his argument against infinity, combined with some attributional logic, to prove the necessary existence of divinity. He argues that the existence of at least one unchangeable being, which causes motion while remaining unmoved itself, is shown by the impossibility of an infinite series of existent sources of movement. In Aristotle's reality, the universe is composed of moving spheres that produce the music of the cosmos, each one moving the one before it, until the outermost sphere that contains all others is reached. This sphere is moved by divinity and there is nothing beyond it. Thus, Aristotle's proof of the existence of divinity refutes the idea of infinity. This description of the cosmos, among Aristotle's other ideas and writings, lived on through the Middle Ages in Islamic scholars' translations and, in modified form, in the Ptolemaic system (which used Aristotle to justify its earth-centered description of the universe), only to be "rediscovered" in Europe in the sixteenth century. In the Middle Ages, however, Indian mathematicians such as Bhaskara (12th century) argued that dividing a positive number by zero resulted in an infinite quantity, leading them to reverse Aristotle's argument and assert that zero proves the existence of divinity. When the Islamic world encountered zero in trading with Southern Asia, Muslim thinkers eventually used the idea of the existence of a void to overturn Neo-Aristotelianism during this same period, handing down many of their ideas via Scholasticism.'

Your '12th century' must have been a misreading further up of C12 BC (not BCE).

I repeat my argument for you to demolish: Aristotle, epitome of reason, was dogmatically committed to a view that precluded the use of zero. Thus Greek Rationality was not everything it was cracked up to be.

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage

Your '12th century' must have been a misreading further up of C12 BC (not BCE).

Point conceded.

I repeat my argument for you to demolish: Aristotle, epitome of reason, was dogmatically committed to a view that precluded the use of zero.

Point conceded - never disputed. I am not sure why you think I regard Aristotle as "the epitome of reason." Yet it is useful to contrast his approach with that of Plato - and indeed to notice that he had the stature to reject Plato. Part of the joy of the Greeks was their lack of fear about questioning authority. It is tiresome that Christianity relied so heavily on Platonic thinking for so many centuries and impeded progress on empirical thinking, so that even Ptolemy (astrology) and Galen (medicine) were treated as fixed and final statements about nature, incapable of revision and requiring no empirical investigation. It was indeed the rediscovery of Aristotle through Thomas Aquinas that melted that glacier.

If I acknowledge that Aristotle was an early proponent of empirical investigation, it does not follow that I think he got his account of nature right or even nearly right. And of course one of his major weakness would today be seen as his failure to apply mathematics to nature in the way Galileo for example would do to such effect.

But these criticisms - if they are such - can only be anachronisms. You cannot reasonably attack the Greeks for failing to know what would be discovered later. But I can criticise the Christians for delaying the process by a thousand important years of human history. No decent Greek would have been afraid to announce that Aristotle was wrong where that emerged as the case.

Thus Greek Rationality was not everything it was cracked up to be.

Greek rationality was what it was and reflected its age in many senses of the word "age." We know more today than we could have known then because "we stand on the shoulders of giants." The Greeks were giants without shoulders of any kind to stand on. They were remarkable in adopting a materialist view of causation in a world dominated by religious thinking and insisting on using Reason to tackle important questions.

The Chinese actually made a huge amount of progress using concepts that did not rely on God and for example, were sailing to Africa with the aid of a compass long before Europeans achieved such feats. I am poorly informed about Indian philosophy as acknowledged earlier. Nevertheless, were I motivated I would look up discussion about the exchange of ideas for instance between the Indian and Greek / Roman worlds in order to respond.

However, you are coming at me from an angle that I will not pursue. You clearly have a passion to advocate Indian philosophy and I have no passion to prove you wrong whatever. I do not feel it is important for my purpose and I have made a note to read up on the subject at some point.

Originally posted by black beetle
edit: "Alternatively, can Black Beetle recommend a great guide to a decent opening system with a good prospect of being able to use it?"



With the Black I play the KID and the Scheveningen; with the White I always try my one dot d four -but it ain't mean a thing.

“Good openings” are not this opening or that opening; the notion “good opening" co ...[text shortened]... self matters, thus it is meaningless to try to attribute to It any other value than this
😵

Thank you. I have had a torrid (bad) time with the KID. I have not played the Scheviningen but tried hard with the Sicilian Dragon for many months. I play 1...Nf6 against 1.d4 to prevent myself from ever again trying to make sense of the Dutch. I already realize that I must first finish reading my Endgames by Fine (fascinating - can spend several hours on one position) and continue to tackle chess problems (including that huge book by Polgar senior) and read lots about the middle game and about positional chess and about strategy and read as many example model games as I can find time for, preferably with good annotations, and play as often as possible on this site and OTB and ....

Yes I know there is no answer. It amuses me to refer to my pain from time to time.