Do this experiment. Open the palm of your hand in front of you. Now, within the next ten seconds, close it. Pay close attention to the decision to close your hand. Where did it come from? Near as I can tell, it comes from nothing.
Isn’t it amazing you can do this incredible thing and you can’t say how you really do it?
I find this particular experiment to be slightly flawed, N2. The decision to close my hand comes from obedience to N2's instruction, plus the long-ago developed skill to carry out a simple action according to a pre-determined plan.
I agree with you that there is something amazing about it, but don't think you have pointed out quite what is amazing.
Have you read any of the later works of Ludwig Wittgenstein? Here is a short passage from his book Zettel, picked at random:
Are roses red in the dark?- One can think of the rose in the dark as red.--- (That one can "imagine" something does not mean that it makes sense to say it.)
Here is another:
Is lying a particular experience? Well, can I tell someone "I am going to tell you a lie" and then straightway do it?
No, I can't say that I've read any of Wittgenstein's works. The passages escape me too.
I'm curious though what you find amazing in closing the hand. Also, how do you decide? Is it something that happens, something you do, something determined, or something else all-together?
I guess what I was trying to say is that it's something I experience, but can't pin down the source.
I've paid more attention this time to what you were trying to point at in the first place.
Still, I don't find this any more amazing than anything else. I mean. why should I have an expectation of being able to say how I do anything? Of course I won't always be amazed. that only happens with a special kind of attention.
Sorry about the distraction of bringing in Wittgenstein. His area of special investigation was language, as in my two examples: the relation between language and experience.
Your example is about the relation between consciousness and action.
What is the sound of one hand clapping? Somebody had to say it...
On the one hand (as it were), I see what Vincent is saying - "he who can see the universe in the sight of one hand opening or closing knows the way" or however that goes. What's amazing is that there's something and not nothing. In that sense everything is a single Amazement.
On the other hand (so this would be my third hand, perhaps akin to the third eye?) if you look at the opening/closing hand less, hmm, maybe "phenomenologically" and more in the sense of asking "What is a decision?" I can appreciate n2's particular wonder or amazement over the apparent non-source of a "decision," which is counterintuitive. Decisions seem like they ought to have some clear line of cognition/emotion leading up to them.
However, the source of every decision could be the Big Bang and the "decision" no decision at all, just part of the inexplicable unfolding of all things.
7 comments:
Do this experiment. Open the palm of your hand in front of you. Now, within the next ten seconds, close it. Pay close attention to the decision to close your hand. Where did it come from? Near as I can tell, it comes from nothing.
Isn’t it amazing you can do this incredible thing and you can’t say how you really do it?
I find this particular experiment to be slightly flawed, N2. The decision to close my hand comes from obedience to N2's instruction, plus the long-ago developed skill to carry out a simple action according to a pre-determined plan.
I agree with you that there is something amazing about it, but don't think you have pointed out quite what is amazing.
Have you read any of the later works of Ludwig Wittgenstein? Here is a short passage from his book Zettel, picked at random:
Are roses red in the dark?- One can think of the rose in the dark as red.---
(That one can "imagine" something does not mean that it makes sense to say it.)
Here is another:
Is lying a particular experience? Well, can I tell someone "I am going to tell you a lie" and then straightway do it?
Hi Vincent.
No, I can't say that I've read any of Wittgenstein's works. The passages escape me too.
I'm curious though what you find amazing in closing the hand. Also, how do you decide? Is it something that happens, something you do, something determined, or something else all-together?
I guess what I was trying to say is that it's something I experience, but can't pin down
the source.
I've paid more attention this time to what you were trying to point at in the first place.
Still, I don't find this any more amazing than anything else. I mean. why should I have an expectation of being able to say how I do anything? Of course I won't always be amazed. that only happens with a special kind of attention.
Sorry about the distraction of bringing in Wittgenstein. His area of special investigation was language, as in my two examples: the relation between language and experience.
Your example is about the relation between consciousness and action.
What is the sound of one hand clapping? Somebody had to say it...
On the one hand (as it were), I see what Vincent is saying - "he who can see the universe in the sight of one hand opening or closing knows the way" or however that goes. What's amazing is that there's something and not nothing. In that sense everything is a single Amazement.
On the other hand (so this would be my third hand, perhaps akin to the third eye?) if you look at the opening/closing hand less, hmm, maybe "phenomenologically" and more in the sense of asking "What is a decision?" I can appreciate n2's particular wonder or amazement over the apparent non-source of a "decision," which is counterintuitive. Decisions seem like they ought to have some clear line of cognition/emotion leading up to them.
However, the source of every decision could be the Big Bang and the "decision" no decision at all, just part of the inexplicable unfolding of all things.
So what's the relationship of novelty to frequency of posting, lol...?
Somebody had to say it!
lol!
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