Limitless Fire

Schopenhauer, Prize Essay on the Freedom of the Will, Cambridge, 1999.

April 1837: “Can the freedom of the will be proven from self-consciousness?”

page 29: “On the other hand, I cannot omit the difference brought about in motivation by that which distinguishes human consciousness from all animal consciousness. This trait, which is properly expressed by the word reason, consists in a human being not merely capable, like an animal, of an intuitive apprehension of the external world, but also of abstracting universal concepts (notiones universales) from it. To be able to fix and retain these in his sensuous consciousness, he denotes them by words, and then makes innumerable combinations with them. These, like the concepts of which they consist, are of course related always to the world that is known through intuition, yet they properly constitute what we call thinking.”

OBSERVATION: Humans possess a complex ability with language that has developed through years of effort. It is possible for communication to take place using specific language elements (0, 1), and other manifestations such as (a, b, c, etc.). Many other forms exist including languages associated with social and cultural developments. Pictograms, or pictographs represent a further development in the abstract and conceptual universe of language. In these forms ideas are contained using visual elements (art) to illustrate the ideas, and surface for communicating these ideas. Noam Chomsky wrote about phonemes and morphemes which demonstrate important avenues for understanding language.

Recently, linguists, and biologists have shown how animals have highly developed language forms, such as bird or whale song. Additionally, dolphins have clearly demonstrated self-awareness. In this context of contemporary scientific exploration (2010), we must understand that a potential for complex conscious activity is not the exclusive domain of human existence.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Tractatus Logico Philosophicus, 1921-22, Kegan Paul.

page 22–
3.5 “A propositional sign, applied and thought out, is a thought.
4 A thought is a proposition with a sense.
4.001 The totality of propositons is language.
4.002 Man possesses the ability to construct languages capable of expressing every sense, without having any idea how each word has meaning or what its meaning is–just as people speak without knowing how the individual sounds are produced.
Everyday language is a part of the human organism and is no less complicated than that.
It is not humanly possible to gather immediately from it what the logic of language is.
Language disguises thought. So much so, that from the outward form of the clothing it is impossible to infer the form of the thought beneath it, because the outward form of the clothing is not designed to reveal the form of the body, but for entirely different purposes.
The tacit conventions on which the understanding of everyday language depends are enormously complicated.”

OBSERVATION: It is important to understand the complexity of language in order to derive genuine meaning from the language itself. Several levels can be found within the architecture of language, and though certain words, phrases, sentences, etc., may seem to offer universal content, it is clear that multiple interepretations can be derived from singular expressions.

Idries Shah, Thinkers of the East, Idries Shah, 1971.

p 84 “Awad Afifi had a book in which he had written the accounts of a conversation with sages and philosophers during twenty years of travel and studies.

One day a scholar called to see him and asked if he could make a copy of the book.

‘Yes,’ said Awad, ‘you may certainly do so. I will charge you however, a thousand gold pieces for the service.’

‘That is a tremendous sum to pay for something that you have here, which I am not even going to deplete by copying,’ said the scholar, ‘and besides, it is unworthy to charge for knowledge.’

‘I make no charge for knowledge itself,’ said Awad, ‘for knowledge is not in books, only some of the ways to gain it. As for the thousand gold pieces: I intend to spend them on the travel expenses of pupils who cannot afford to travel. And as for the greatness of the sum: I have spent fifty thousand on my travels, plus twenty years of my life. Perhaps you might care to let me know what that amounts to?’

OBSERVATION: Encountering a true teacher is a rare moment in the life of any individual. The special relation between teacher and student requires the recognition of the genuine value found in the pursuit and acquisition of knowledge. While knowledge is a recognizable characteristic, it is also ephemeral, transitory, and difficult to define in absolute terms. Perhaps, more than anything, the teacher must recognize the needs of the student, provide direction, mis-direction, and a path to stimulate the capacity of the student, acting as an enzyme or catalyst.

Singh, The Heart of Buddhist Philosophy-Dinnaga and Dharmakirti, Munshiram, 1984.

p. 63: ‘Another major ground on which Dharmakirti is ranked as an Idealist is the theory of self-consciousness (svasamvedanavada). It is a fact that Dinnaga and Dharmakirti have expounded the view that every cognition of an object is always self-conscious, or that knowledge has a double aspect, cognition and cognition of cognition, and does not need any other agent (such as a soul) to make its cognition. It is like a light which reveals other objects and at the same time reveals its own existence and so does not require any other light to reveal it. The knowledge of blue and the knowledge that it is blue are not two different things, but two aspects of one process. Dharmakirti elaborates on this in two contexts:
a. while dealing with the four-fold nature of sensation (pratyaksa) and
b. while refuting the Nyaya-Mimamsa theory of a difference betwen a source of valid cognition (pramana) and a result of cognition (pramana-phala).

OBSERVATION: In reading Thomas Aquinas, the reader will encounter the word (aevum), meaning the concept of a soul which has a beginning but no end. Dinnaga and Dharmakirti demonstrate in their argument that the moment of cognition and cognition of cognition are independent of any need to defer to an aspect referenced by Thomas Aquinas, such as a soul. Recent inquiries into quantum physics describe the ability of contemporary mechanics to control single photons. These single photon mechanical systems are utilized in encryption and firewall protection for computer systems. Physicists have recognized that a single photon changes when being observed, demonstrating subtle phenomena, and the elusive nature of any definition of reality in a conventional sense.

“The universal need for expression in art (Bedurfniss zur Kunst) lies, therefore, in man’s rational impulse to exalt the inner and outer world into a spiritual consciousness for himself, as an object in which he recognizes his own self.”

page 96, Bosanquet, The Introduction to Hegel’s Philosophy of Fine Art, Paul Trench Trubner & Co., 1905.

Hegel’s, Aesthetic, in its complete form consists of 1600 pages.