Re: knowledge
Quotes:
System is thought's way of orienting itself. Facts are largely useless until
reason can fit them
into their correct contexts (historical, logical, psychological, or causal
ones). All rational thinking
is based on principles and systems. Every thinking man has made his own
system, whether he
knows it or not. Systems afford a correct apprehension of ground and
consequence of thinking, as
well as of cause and effect of objective realities. The quality of the
system shows the individual's
level of development, his ability of judgement, and his knowledge of facts.
Most people's systems
are the belief systems of emotional thinking which no facts can upset.
Thereby the individual has
reached his point of maturity, the limit of his receptivity, being captive
in the prison of his own
thoughts. Ignorance about existence is so great that the dogmatic systems of
theology, the speculative
systems of philosophy, and the primitive hypothesis systems of science have
all been accepted as
satisfactory explanations.
This is because knowledge, as Platon maintained, is remembrance anew.
Everything which we are able
immediately to grasp, comprehend, understand, we have assimilated in
previous incarnations.
Also qualities and abilities once acquired remain latently, until they are
given opportunities to
develop in some new incarnation. Understanding of the old remains as well as
the turn for skills.
One of many examples of this is the genius, an otherwise incomprehensible
phenomenon.
Belief is absolute, unreasonable emotional conviction, unamenable to
correction or reason. Everybody has his petty beliefs about almost any
absurdity, and this is because man is unable to truly know anything but
definitively established facts in the visible world. In contrast, assumption
is preliminary, valid only until one has come to know, is amenable to
rational arguments, and desires correction. Authorities there may well be in
all
domains of life, but their assumptions do not amount to any final instance
for common sense,
which, however different for each of us, is still the highest sense and that
which everybody ought
to strive to develop.
Existence is a trinity of three equivalent aspects: matter, motion, and
consciousness. None of
these three can exist without the other two. All matter is in motion and has
consciousness. Matter is composed of primordial atoms, which Pythagoras
called monads, the smallest
possible parts of primordial matter and the smallest firm points for
individual consciousness. The original cause of motion is the dynamic
energy of primordial matter. To begin with, consciousness in the primordial
atoms is potential (unconscious), is gradually awakened in the process of
manifestation, becoming actualized passive consciousness, and subsequently
becomes increasingly more active in ever higher worlds of ever higher
natural
kingdoms. Pythagoras realized that the Greeks had the prerequisites for
comprehending objective reality,
for scientific method, and for systematic thinking. Cultivating the
consciousness aspect, as the
Orientals do, before the foundation for understanding material reality has
been laid, results in
subjectivism and in a life of unbridled imagination. It is to Pythagoras we
owe most of our
fundamental reality concepts, which today's conceptual analysts are so busy
trying to discard,
thereby making conception of reality definitely impossible. Pythagoras, with
his doctrine of
monads, and Demokritos, with his exoteric atomic theory, can be considered
the first two
scientists in the Western sense of the word. They realized that the matter
aspect is the necessary
basis of a scientific approach. Without this basis there will be no accuracy
in exploring the nature
of things and their relationships. There are no controllable limits to
individual consciousness, but
it has a tendency to drown in the ocean of consciousness.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Craig Dickson" <crdic@pacbell.net>
To: "Debian-User" <debian-user@lists.debian.org>
Sent: Tuesday, February 04, 2003 5:02 PM
Subject: Re: knowledge
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