RE: Being vs. doing
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Thank you. I welcome the debate.
I jump right into your responses.
I think that after a while one realizes one's own mistakes.
Through what exactly does the realization happen? Can you think of an example out of real life?
For example, one will realize the consequences of one's actions in the long run.
So, there are other people involved as the deliverers of such consequences, correct?
Even if I tell someone what's right and what's wrong, that person may not pay attention to me until their own experiences make them realize it.
What then is the exact experience? Is it a pleasant one?
How many times have we heard someone tell us something, only to pay no attention to it and ignore it, and finally, after many experiences, realize that they were right?
One can have endless experiences, actually throughout your whole life, but still lacking the insight of having been wrong, hence gaining knowledge about the self. Of what kind exactly must an experience be, in order to reach the individual on that self-realizing level?
Yes, the story may be an exaggeration, after all, we are not sure if it is completely real.
I state that it is deliberately exaggerated, it is a conscious attempt through its style to bring forward a certain message. In this sense, it serves as a provocation. It challenges the mind to question it, not to confirm the righteousness of the given message.
Think of, for example, of Buddhist monks. They honor every living creature. They safe a worm from a pathway not to be trampled to death. Now, is this something one shall take literally as a guidance for every day life, or is it an exaggeration in order to think about it?
Each young person is different and I could not give a general rule. I think it would take discernment to know what and to what extent to do. But at the same time I think he should have the freedom to make his own mistakes and learn from them. Again, it depends on each individual case.
I am having a clear objection here.
The general rule and experience is that every young person needs some form of discipline. Discipline in this context means that you make him feel the consequences of his actions or omissions. This already includes the freedom to make mistakes that you mentioned. You teach the young person in principle and explicitly about the rules. They must know it beforehand in order to realise it afterwards. If he has been taught and he inevitably makes his first mistakes, then he only recognises them as mistakes because the adults don't simply leave him alone with them.
You wouldn't recognise Plato in this story as an adult who gets his hands dirty, so to speak. He is completely in his noble element of not intervening.
You break a vase, whether it was intentional or unintentional. It is broken by your actions. The consequence of this is to replace it. If you don't have the money to replace it, then you look for a way to earn it. But what you won't be spared is to replace it in one form or the other.
Nothing is more damaging to young people who are left alone with these things. They get worse and more extreme in their actions because the truth is they want to experience a consequence. This is what adults owe them so that they can mature.
Therefore, my objection to the application of Plato's story here is that it is not very suitable for young people to read this story - without starting to question it - because they then run the risk of praising the evening before the day.
There may be exceptions from the rule that young people do not need this form of discipline. But then they are the exception from the rule.
Good.
Yes. Once while working I learned information that could get other people in trouble. I was asked about it and said I didn't know. Although even then I knew it wasn't the best thing to do, in fact I didn't know what to do. It was like a dilemma.
I don't know what I would do today if I were in the same situation but hopefully something better.
I realized it myself. How did the realization happen? Well, I don't know if the example is the best because part of me knew then I should have done better, yet I didn't do so at the time. Then reflecting on it, as introspection, I knew I should have done better.
I can think of other examples as well. I think it's like trial and error, we see the mistakes we make and do our best not to do it again.
Not necessarily. Someone who is addicted to drinking, to give an example, may realize how this impacts their life in general and realize they need a change. We can make a lot of bad decisions and then realize when we are not where we wanted to be in life.
I don't think I understood the question. Silly example here. The other day I had to go somewhere I hadn't been before. I got the advice to go by bus, but I had seen the directions and preferred to walk. The walk was long, much longer than I expected, I lost a lot of time and if it wasn't for the appointment being rescheduled, I would have been late. The next time I went I took the bus.
I wouldn't know exactly. If we have someone who serves as a role model and influences us with their presence, it may happen faster. Otherwise it can vary depending on how aware we are, and in the most extreme case, for some when they hit rock bottom.
I think for them it is a rule that they try to follow on a daily basis, and for a secular person it is simply a role model, which serves as an ideal, even if not rigorously followed.
Now, one can also be an interventionist, but it is always going to depend on the person in question, and one will not always be present. There has to be a willingness to do the right thing on the part of that person. The consequences of our actions are not always artificial and man-made, but are the natural result of our actions.
There is also a difference between the actions we do that fundamentally only generate consequences for us, as in the example in the story, and those that generate consequences for other people as well, in which case, the way of acting would not be the same.
I don't question the objection.
Although I think it is possible that one learns more from example than from words. If I tell a young person to always tell the truth, but then I go and lie, what will he learn? That he has to tell others to tell the truth, but he himself can lie from time to time. The best way to teach someone discipline is, in my opinion, to be self-disciplined oneself.
I'm not saying it's the only way. That can vary and as I said, I think it depends on each specific case. I'm not necessarily advocating non-intervention, that's not what I'm saying, what I'm saying is, if we focus on being, we will spontaneously do what's right and intervene or not intervene when it's convenient. I think that by example we convey a powerful message, but it is not simply about "not doing".
In your case, you had no involvement and were neither the victim nor the beneficiary.
You had no opportunity in advance to warn these others or to talk to them about the right or wrong of their actions. It already had happened and then you got to know about, as far as I have understood.
In your case, you could only have gone to the people concerned and informed them that you had been questioned and that you had not said anything for the time being to give them the opportunity to tell the truth themselves. It was their actions that had put you in this dilemma. You would therefore have been justified in saying that they should be the ones to resolve the dilemma. In this way, they would realise that if you were questioned a second time, they would have no right to expect you to cover for them. This uncertainty about your decision might have influenced their own behaviour. They might have abstained from further actions.
You are no longer responsible for the actions of others if you have made yourself clear and the others still act against their better judgement and warning.
Now, if you'd have come to another conclusion because you heard their reasoning, that would then be another scenario.
This is a great example of dealing with such questions of actions and consequences. Being confronted with such a dilemma helps to deal with future dilemmas when you become clear about yourself in the aftermath of such an experience.
Why should a drinker care that his drinking has bad effects unless other people confront him about it? Coming to the realisation all by yourself that alcoholism is bad is what I call the exception to the rule. This happens, but would you agree that is rather rare with the issue of drinking addiction?
If you are severely addicted, you become a nuisance to those around you. If those people do not draw any consequences from the fact that the addiction is not only turning his own life for the worse, but also theirs, the drinker will hardly want to find any reason to come to self-awareness. He will simply continue to drink.
For some, the warning that their wife will separate from them may be enough, for others the separation has to happen and for still others an emergency admission to hospital has to be the necessary consequence. Other people play a major role in all of these events.
It is not punishment but the need for one human that he wants to face consequences and that his fellas owe that to him.
It may be rare in this specific case. But in general, I think, a person can come to realize that their actions are not leading them to have the life they would like to and then realize that they need to change.
The consequences may manifest themselves through other people, but they may also manifest themselves through their own inner world. As perhaps in other ways as well.
I see it as a two way street between inner and outer world. I am not hard about it. I find it's the easiest explanation. What one describes as "own" realization, may be something one had experienced long ago but the true insight unfolds in the present. I myself really cannot give any example of an idea or thought I came to formulate on my own, I had it always from other sources. And what I then do is to re-formulate the ideas and to repeat what I think I have understood. That may count as an original idea. You know what I mean?
Well, but if we're all rephrasing what we hear from someone else, who came up with the thought originally? If we are all repeating, we have to repeat what someone said, we cannot be repeating what no one said. There has to be an origin, and that origin is probably someone, unless you think otherwise.
Don't you think you learn more from your own experience than from the words someone else tells you? If I tell you how to play tennis, do you think you'll learn more that way than by actually holding the racquet?
I think most of the things we know we know from experience. Even when others have influenced us, our opinion of something is, I think, mainly influenced by our own experience. For now I think that wisdom comes mainly from experience, that's why we can't easily transmit it to another person.
If we can't remember our own original thoughts, that's completely fine, I think, because most of what we know we haven't put into words. And even the little that does, may not come to mind. But we know more about life having lived, than having listened, I think.
We can do a little experiment, if you feel like it and if you want to do it.
These are the rules: I'm going to ask a question and you can't ask anyone the answer, or look it up in the dictionary or internet or anywhere. The answer you are going to give, you should not try to formulate it in an intelligent way. No. You have to say it in the crudest way, just as you thought it, without the need to over-explain. It doesn't need to be a good answer, it just needs to be an answer that is your own thoughts on the matter. It is also not valid to say "I don't know" or anything like that.
The question is this: what is hair? You can write your own definition, just as you thought of it, regardless of whether it is a good definition or not, and then respond, if you wish.
Maybe the definition is not good, I don't know, it happens to me many times.
But after that I would ask you, where did you get that definition, was it influenced by others? And even if so, which may be likely, is your definition more influenced by what others say, or by your own experience during your life with the word in question?
If you decide not to do the experiment, that's completely fine too.
But, I don't know if I understood you correctly.
In a sense it is, because you added something to it that it didn't have originally.
I have agreed with you that experience is a teacher.
But aren't exchanging words already an experience of a certain kind?
Words in the form of "I'll pass on my knowledge to you" are less effective if they are only informative, I agree.
They are more effective when they come in the form of questions.
So let me rephrase:
Are words more effective if they are directed to you as a question?
Can a question directed at you be therefore be perceived as an experience?
Is a question capable of letting you imagine an experience of any kind in your mind?
If recognition lights up, are you experiencing something inwardly that you can relate to, after having been asked something?
If you could not refer to an experience you already had, it would be hard or even impossible to understand a question, is what I think. But do you fully own it? Is it not the case that you could, if you wanted, put yourself in the shoes of another one, in order to understand his experience, even if you never had that exact experience yourself?
I have given birth to a child. You won't make that exact experience. But what if I ask you about your exact experience of manhood, am I unable to relate to it? I know I am a woman. I have a very unique experience in that regard. I started to bleed when I became a woman. Your body experience was different but it was the same experience as mine, since you entered manhood, while I entered womanhood.
I now do not need to become a man in order to have that same experience, since I already had it. You don't need to become a woman, right?
All experience happens because of me being in touch with not-me. Therefore, I cannot have an experience solely on my "own", since I need "other" to relate to "own".
If you'd live all by yourself on a lonely island, after a while, what would happen to your "own" experiences? What would happen to you?
To answer your question spontaneously: Hair is what grows out of my head.
Well, yeah, we can agree. We can put ourselves in other people's shoes, I think, at least to a degree. That's largely why reading stories, even fictional ones, works. But I think it works more the more similar we are to the person in question, and the easier we can identify with them.
If we see that someone does things that we could do and is either rewarded or punished justly for that action, we can learn from that lesson, for example. It is cathartic.
But again, I think it depends on how similar we are. We can understand each other's experiences because we are similar to some extent. Maybe I have felt pain in my hand, and you have felt pain in your foot. It would be different with someone who has not felt pain.
I think we can learn many things through words, but the greatest learning, I think, probably comes from experience. If you stay alone on an island for a long time, what happens? You will still learn a lot about life. I think.
I like your answer. The goal of the experiment is to give an answer that is your own to the question. It's about saying authentically what we think, and not trying to give a "right answer". If you are forced to say what you think in this way, you will end up giving an original answer that is not based on repeating what someone else said. Even if what you say matches something you have heard, I would ask, are you saying it because it matches what you have heard, or because you truly believe it to be so?
I think your answer stems from you, and it's not something rephrased, is it?
I think we have become accustomed to saying things, not as we think them, but trying to sound right. And I don't know which is better, but I think we learn much more, and grow much more, when we talk about things as we conceive them. The more authentic we are, the better. Sometimes people are afraid to say what they think, because they don't want to be wrong. Sometimes we don't realize how much we would grow if we did. But I digress.
Correct. It's ingrained into language. The origin of thought is expressed in language. All language is offering definition of words. If you go back to the origin of a term, you most likely will end up having it related to something tangible.
LoL, funny example with your walking instead of taking the bus. I wouldn't see it as a particularly serious experience, just a decision of preference: do I prefer to walk, now that I know the real time and distance, or do I prefer to take the bus? As it had no consequences that involved other people, it can be recorded as "I misjudged something".
It would have been something else if you were warned by your father or older brother to not invest your money in a shady enterprise. But you still invest and then you lose. People who are not willing to face the consequences now would ask their father or brother to cover for their loss. As a consequence, they must say "no" and let you work for your loss yourself until you have succeeded in becoming financially stable.
This is at first an unpleasant consequence but then turns itself into a valuable experience. Your father and your brother would have done their due diligence in the act of warning you. But they cannot prevent you in making bad decisions.
Yes, I completely agree with you here.
I agree in principle.
That would require a human being who never fails to act correct. Since such a person does not exist and every human being once in a while fails to act accordingly to a principle, you will be judged by your failure, no matter how often you've been virtuous.
To act as a more experienced and more self disciplined role model, you are not free from errors and the one who observes you in your behavior as a role model, this one needs to also see you taking on the correction of someone else, since it will happen anyway that one fails. The very act of letting a younger one see that the role model is open for being corrected, is to me as valuable as to see the role model in being the corrector. This involves verbal communication as well as acted out behavior.
Yes, but I think that when we make mistakes there is also an opportunity to deal with them in a correct and tolerant way. Thus, despite sometimes making mistakes, we can serve both as an example of how to deal with mistakes, and how to turn errors (which are fundamentally undesirable) into something positive. We can exemplify how mistakes are not the end of the world and how we can pick ourselves up after falling.
I think that many times examples like this can be very valuable.
I agree with this.
I agree with everything. My starting point was to make it clear that the anecdote about Plato does not necessarily call for confirmation, but to analyse the story in detail and ask whether Plato does not stand out as an example of self-discipline and self-knowledge precisely because we have created an ideal from him. Ergo, we recognise that we do not correspond to this ideal ourselves.
Religious ideals such as Jesus or Buddha serve to recognise our own imperfection, in my understanding. That doesn't make the ideals superfluous, on the contrary, it offers orientation. If there were no optimum, it would be lessened and all kinds of excuses to opt for the less optimum would then be justified.
To do spontaneously what is right, I think, does not come naturally but through being challenged.