Philosophy & Poetry

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Re: Philosophy & Poetry

Postby sMartins » Fri Feb 03, 2023 3:22 pm

WORDS SAY WHAT WE HAVE BECOME

What is happening to us?

At this point we can take some of Xenophanes' most famous 'sayings' without the need to do a great exegetical exercise, because if we put them in the framework we have so far urged, raised, suggested, they speak for themselves, now we understand, we do not judge, but we understand and we assist, I would say, amazed, we assist amazed at our birth.

All this is allowed by writing, orality does not allow it, because orality continues and we are inside this wave of the word, we are this wave, so we have no critical detachment, we are not critical subjects but we are mythical subjects, which does not mean we are less true, less important, we are something else, we are mythical subjects. Instead, through writing we become critical subjects, the question is transferred here before us from time immemorial, here they are again, here again are the words of Xenophanes and we have to make do with the translation, it would be nice to have the pleasure of being able to read them in his language, in their language, every translation is dubious.
Here we have the opportunity to witness our birth, as if we were watching the film of when we were born, we would say, look how I was, I already looked a little like myself.
And yes, we do look a lot like ourselves when we read these words, but not because they are more true than others, mind you, understand, don't cheer, but because they are our autobiography, of the figure of humanity that we have traced in history, which will change again, or rather which is changing a lot, and it will take another Xenophanes, perhaps not a European one, to say in adequate words what is happening to all of us. Huh?

Let's read, I translate as best I can, this is how our rhapsodic poet writes, imagine him alone, brave, proud, wandering all over Greece, presumably accompanied by a few disciples who then passed on his deeds, thus he writes:

"Homer and Hesiod attributed to the gods everything that among men is an object of shame and blame, stealing, committing adultery, deceiving one another. But mortals believe that the gods were born, that they have dress, language and appearance like them, because they all learned from Homer from the beginning".

Gentlemen, here, I would not know how to give an adequate example. For me, being Italian, it is like us saying, well Dante Alighieri told a lot of bullshits, when we all come from Dante Alighieri, huh? But that is less sensitive than saying, all the Greeks came from Homer, from Hesiod, you know, uh? The whole archaic Greek culture is an endless commentary of the mouth and the ear, of those memorable verses, to be remembered by heart, of Homer, therein lay the cipher of their civilisation, their culture, their beliefs.
Well, this man, this single man of flesh and blood, like everyone else, whom a single fist could kill, has the courage to raise his voice and say: you all come to Homer, but you don't realise what Homer says, what Hesiod says, are these the gods? Nothing but the caricature of the human being? Thieves, cheats, swindlers, violents? Are we to believe these things?
Well, you understand that so much must have happened for this to become comprehensible to a humanity that, before, in front of Homer and Hesiod bowed down as if in front of absolute truth.

He continues:

"Mortals believe that the gods are with noses, mouths, etc., as their statues are. But if oxen and horses and lions had hands and could draw and do what, precisely, men do, horses would draw figures of gods similar to horses and oxen similar to oxen and would make bodies shaped as each of them is shaped.
For the Ethiopians say that their gods are snub and black, the Thracians, that they are cerulean of eyes and red of hair".


Here is the denunciation, the famous denunciation of the anthropomorphism of ancient religion.

Question to see if we understand each other.
So were men anthropomorphic before Xenophanes?
No, that is the great lesson, the answer is NO.
They become like this in Xenophanes' great revolution, he sees them like this, and he can only see them like this because the gods have become false and liars, because they no longer have life in the community, because the sacred tales that once accompanied them no longer have any hold on the lives of men.
And so, sure, from that point of view they become false and liars, and they become anthropomorphic, but they didn't know anything about it, it's not like you could just go up to them and say, you know, you're all anthropomorphic, that was impossible, you know, uh? It could only happen when it could happen, when things had changed, and so they could fertilise man's mind so that man's mind could say: those were anthropomorphs, I wasn't, and it makes me laugh to think that the Thracians make them all red and the Ethiopians make them all black, so that if the horses had hands, etc...

This could not have been said 150 years before, it could not have been said, a man could not have emerged who would say that, realise, for this to judge is not enough, it would be like thinking that the Egyptian pharaoh would say to his wife, who was then his sister, imagine, and that for us would be a horror, that the Egyptian pharaoh would say to his wife: how neurotic you are, or hysterical. No, he could not use that language, he did not have it, things were not like that in his world. In his world, modern medicine, modern psychology, Dr Freud could not come and explain that the relationship between Tutankhamun and his family was Oedipal, cause Oedipus was unknown.
So in every time, in every way of culture words say what we have become, with Xenophanes we have become that none of us believe in gods any more, it is a fact.
None of us believe in the gods any more not because there are no gods, that is a truism for us, certainly for us there are no gods, that is because in our lives we no longer meet the gods, there is no point in talking about 'gods', from a polytheistic point of view and besides, mind you, Xenophanes does not criticise polytheism but criticises anthropomorphic superstition, but he remains an ancient polytheist, let us be clear, it is the Christian fathers who deluded themselves into reading in him a kind of anticipation of monotheism, but certainly the myth is completely destroyed.

We move on and find it stated explicitly:

"A god among gods and among men, the greatest, not for appearance similar to mortals, nor for intelligence, but because, god, the whole sees, the whole thinks, the whole hears, but without effort, with the force of thought he shakes everything, always in the same place he remains without moving at all, nor does it suit him to go now this way and now that".

This is the irony of the Sillis, because the Olympian gods, the Homeric gods, are constantly on the move and go down and come back up, they have sex with mortals because they want to influence the battle between the Greeks and the Trojans, etc... these divine specks are always on the move.
No, god is thought, here, the revolution of the mind, we have it in front of our eyes, god is thought, with thought everything shakes, with thought everything moves. He does not need to move, he is motionless, that is why we think of Parmenides, certainly it is the same revelation of that time that imposes itself, it is thought, it is intelligence, the virtue of intelligence.

Now, we come to the longest of quotations.
Last edited by sMartins on Fri Feb 03, 2023 5:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Philosophy & Poetry

Postby noindyfikator » Fri Feb 03, 2023 4:01 pm

wtf is this thread full of text walls
W3 - W10 - Hermit / small plots with spruces
W11 - The Friend Zone
W12 - KoA aka Kingdom of Ashes
W13 - Monke
W14 - Alpaca Farm aka Animal Planet
W15 - Whatever Bay - The Greatest Siege Defense Victory in Haven History - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhyUveSeZ0Q
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Re: Philosophy & Poetry

Postby sMartins » Wed Feb 08, 2023 1:42 pm

THE DEATH OF THE GODS

Now, we come to the longest of quotations.

"If someone, there where the sanctuary of Zeus is, by the currents of the Pisa, in Olympia, were to win, either by the speed of his legs or at the pentathlon or at wrestling or by facing the painful boxing or that dreadful contest we call the pancratium, he would certainly appear more glorious in the eyes of his fellow citizens and at the games he would have a place of honour and the cities would offer him food at public expense and a gift that would be an heirloom for him. And he would achieve all this even if he won the chariot race, without being worthy of it as I am worthy of it, for, you see, our wisdom is worth more than the physical strength of men and horses.
It is unreasonable to make such an assessment, and it is unfair to value strength more than beneficial wisdom. For whether there be among the people a skilful boxer, or one skilled in the pentathlon, or in wrestling, or in swiftness of leg, which is the most celebrated manifestation of strength among all the trials men perform in contests, the good order of the city is not benefited thereby; little joy would come to it from the fact that one wins a contest on the banks of the Pisa, for it is not this that enriches the coffers of the city."


Here we are faced with another enormity, the denunciation of the Olympics.
To denounce the Olympics, for a traditional Greek, is to denounce the most sacred thing there is.
The Olympics are not as they are today, although even today the Olympics have regained a planetary sense. If we look closely at the presentation of the Olympics, the first day, when all the nations parade, well, that is a worldwide celebration. Today, everyone wants to be there, all those cultures that were not born at all from the Greek agonal spirit, as Nietzsche defined it, from sport understood as a place of consecration of the heroic bond of all Greek bloodlines. This was Olympia, on the banks of the Pisa, in front of the temple of Zeus. There they celebrated the collective unity of a people, which had then dispersed into the various regions of Greece, of the Aegean, but there they celebrated their great unity, just as we, today, in the Olympics celebrate the idea of humanity, the whole, and this is extraordinary.

But, you see, things have changed, the economic history of cities has begun, not the sacred history of a people, where the conquests of a people are the conquests of its gods, more powerful than the other gods.
No, this is not the point here, this is where the city economy, the city money, the wealthy bourgeoisie, the exchanges are being born.
And, then, that one is more skilful with one's legs and with one's arms and runs more, they become insignificant things, not because they were so before, but because they have become so.
And what becomes important? The mind, intelligence, is what governs cities, it is what enriches the community, that must be honoured.
It would be as if we were to say, today, don't go and pray for Christ any more, it's not Christ, it's something else, I don't know, it's the world currency, something like that, a terrible, terrifying transformation and yet real, alive, carnal.
That's how life is today, we would say.

But, I'll remind you of an episode that I'm sure you remember, what does Socrates say in court?
He says the same thing, he comes from here, he says, I, for what I have done in the city, going around questioning the citizens to teach them a new virtue, which is not the virtue of prevailing, but of being virtuous insofar as directed to the good of all, here, for this operation I have done, for which you are now putting me on trial, you should not put me on trial and perhaps condemn me, but you should maintain me at public expense, as you do with the heroes of Olympia, with those who won the chariot race, these you honour.

Last line, which precisely shows how Xenophanes ushers in the world where one has lost faith in the gods and trusts in the pursuit of reason, while recognising its limitations and difficulties, a new man.

"It is not that from the beginning the gods have revealed all things to mortals, but, in time, mortals searching find the best."

Mind you, one could dwell on these sentences for hours.
He is saying, let us stop thinking that because the oracle says the god says this and that then it is true.
The gods do not say everything they have to say to mortals, it is the mortals, with their toil, with their minds, with their effort, with their search that have to find, not absolute truth, which we leave to the god, but what is best, the practical best, the economic best, what affects the collective life of the cities, how best to live.

He adds:

"Surely, no one has ever grasped this true absolute, nor will anyone there be who grasps it, and, relative to the gods, and relative to all the things of which I speak, for even if one were by chance to say, as best one cannot, a real thing, for example, nevertheless one would not recognise it because to all is given only the opinio".

Look at the force, here we are already at the sophists, that's where the sophists come from, they come from the transformation of the Greek custom, but also from the words of a man who first dared to utter them, and who saw them as what was to be said in that circumstance.

So we will never know the absolute truth about god, nor even the absolute truth about reality, all we can weave is opinion, doxa, a quest to tell us what is best to believe.

And finally:

"What they call, the ancients, Iris, is also a cloud that presents purple, scarlet and greenish colours to the eye".

A god, a goddess, but don't make me laugh, it's a little cloud, a little air, concentrated humidity and a few shades of colour, end of myth, end of ancient stories.

In short, the age of the sophists, of the doxa, the age of Socrates, the one who eclipsed all the oracles, begins, but as Plutarch said, then the great Pan is dead, the great nature of the ancients, the flute sound that drove one mad in the heatwave of summer.
And, as a great poet like Hölderlin recalls, in the 19th century, the shining host of gods pales, gradually disappears from sight.
Said René Char, a 20th century French poet, the gods only die to be among us.
Indeed they are dead.


Thank you for reading.

Marco
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Re: Philosophy & Poetry

Postby sMartins » Sun Mar 19, 2023 1:08 am

The Raven
BY EDGAR ALLAN POE

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Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—
Only this and nothing more.”

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December;
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore—
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore—
Nameless here for evermore.

And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me—filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating
“’Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door—
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;—
This it is and nothing more.”

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
“Sir,” said I, “or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you”—here I opened wide the door;—
Darkness there and nothing more.

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Lenore?”
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, “Lenore!”—
Merely this and nothing more.

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.
“Surely,” said I, “surely that is something at my window lattice;
Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore—
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;—
’Tis the wind and nothing more!”

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore;
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door—
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door—
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
“Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,” I said, “art sure no craven,
Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore—
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning—little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door—
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
With such name as “Nevermore.”

But the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
Nothing farther then he uttered—not a feather then he fluttered—
Till I scarcely more than muttered “Other friends have flown before—
On the morrow he will leave me, as my Hopes have flown before.”
Then the bird said “Nevermore.”

Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
“Doubtless,” said I, “what it utters is its only stock and store
Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore—
Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore
Of ‘Never—nevermore’.”

But the Raven still beguiling all my fancy into smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and door;
Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore—
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore
Meant in croaking “Nevermore.”

This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom’s core;
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
On the cushion’s velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o’er,
But whose velvet-violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o’er,
She shall press, ah, nevermore!

Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.
“Wretch,” I cried, “thy God hath lent thee—by these angels he hath sent thee
Respite—respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore;
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!—
Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted—
On this home by Horror haunted—tell me truly, I implore—
Is there—is there balm in Gilead?—tell me—tell me, I implore!”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that Heaven that bends above us—by that God we both adore—
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore—
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

“Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!” I shrieked, upstarting—
“Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken!—quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted—nevermore!
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Re: Philosophy & Poetry

Postby sMartins » Tue Mar 21, 2023 6:03 pm

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IS A SUPERSTITION

It must be said right away that there is a terminological ambiguity on which we need to be clear and possibly agree.
There is no intelligence in the man-made machine; let us stop misusing this word.
The public can misunderstand, even enticed by the media and unserious journalistic expositions, because they are only shown the results.

Here it is, I have an intelligent machine that cleans the floor by itself, we say.
The problem is that we do not know its construction, if we knew in detail, and it is very complicated of course, but if we only knew in detail all the operations that went into making it.
Even when we say that the new generation of automata learn, they don't learn a damn thing, there are structures of very high technical capacity that make these machines analytically capable of doing very sophisticated operations, but only because they are programmed by a human intelligence.

And so we have to stop thinking that there are things behind the words, that even the word 'intelligence' says what intelligence is, because obviously intelligence, summed up by the word intelligence, is a complex of functions, inheritance, symbiosis, bodies.

From this point of view, there is nothing to fear from machines, except that we can misuse them, but not insofar as the machine becomes a subject of an action that can harm us, it becomes harmful because we are not up to the function of its practical operation.
It is like the stick, the stick is absolutely useful, of course if I hit you on the head with it, it is no longer very pleasant.

Having said that, that takes the pleasure out of the audience and their enormous imagination, good, evil, death, etc .. as long as the audience enjoys imagining, as in the films, which we have all seen, of the evil machine getting out of hand of the scientist, but here we are dealing with poetry, with literature, and these things are fine, because they speak of something else in reality, they speak of our fears, they speak of our hopes.

The real trouble is when the scientist believes it, that is something much more unpleasant, and complex.
We should show him that the reality we scan analytically, with technological tools, from the stick onwards, and also with that analytical tool that is language, because language is also an analytical tool, a technology.
We have to show him that reality is the residue of all our experience that continually provokes it and that we continually provoke it in our turn with the onward potential of all our instruments, in short of all our lives.
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Re: Philosophy & Poetry

Postby strpk0 » Tue Mar 21, 2023 6:17 pm

ok retard
Granger wrote:Fuck off, please go grow yourself some decency.

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Re: Philosophy & Poetry

Postby bumfrog » Tue Mar 21, 2023 7:41 pm

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guys help i actually read one
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Re: Philosophy & Poetry

Postby sMartins » Wed Mar 22, 2023 11:57 am

I respect your disagreement, however it would be more interesting and helpful if you could explain to us what exactly you disagree with.

Thank you.
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Re: Philosophy & Poetry

Postby Nightdawg » Wed Mar 22, 2023 12:27 pm

bumfrog wrote:guys help i actually read one


haha that's how they get you, dumbass

Just check the username/avatar first before killing your braincells
if you're reading this, you're a nerd.
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Re: Philosophy & Poetry

Postby strpk0 » Wed Mar 22, 2023 1:44 pm

sMartins wrote:I respect your disagreement, however it would be more interesting and helpful if you could explain to us what exactly you disagree with.

Thank you.


Granger wrote:Fuck off, please go grow yourself some decency.

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