18 Jun 11, 09:17AM
full metal jacket is awesome and that duality of man scene is very relevant to the question. Any other movies with things like that? Im sure theres many just cant think of them.
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using a meta-perspective we don't confine ourselves to a black and white Aristotelian logic reality where things are either exactly the way we see them or not. (‘Aristotelian logic’ is two-valued thinking that supposes that things are either true or false, one way or the other with no in between.)
There is a famous Zen koan or riddle which asks ‘is God dead?’ This question is essentially a trap for the student to fall into by answering either ‘yes’ or ‘no’. This true/ false logic assumes there can be only two answers and by adopting it the student loses their Buddha nature.
The key and true value of the riddle is not so much in the content but in the change in the thinking process and consciousness of the student.
This is very similar to the type of thinking required to comprehend certain scenarios thrown up by quantum physics. In the case of Schrodinger’s Cat, a cat is placed into a sealed box with a poison gas capsule. Also in the box is a radioactive isotope with a radioactive detector. As soon as the detector senses any sign of radioactive decay it will release the gas into the box, instantly killing the cat.
According to quantum theory, the radioactive isotope has a 50/50 chance of decaying. Thus the cat has a 50/50 chance of either living or dying. Curiously, until the box is opened the cat remains in an indeterminate state. Whilst in the box it is both ‘not dead’ and ‘dead’.
In this situation our standard existential language falls short. “The cat is…x” is an insufficient description just in the same way the description ‘the area is poor’ or ‘John is ugly’ remain insufficient to convey the true essence of the thing or person.
Indeed it is doubtful if our language can ever convey such a definitive essence. Indeed for centuries mystics and sages from the East have held the belief that the ultimate nature of reality transcends language.
in Jerusalem ‘is’ the sacred site in the Old City ‘really’ the Temple Mount or Noble Sanctuary? Once we put a label on something does it stop ‘being’ the things it could also be?
From analysing history it is apparent that certain upper echelons of society and state decision making remained uneasy about the mass populace exercising too much control over society or becoming too introspective with their own emotions. The 18th century American statesman Alexander Hamilton deeply distrusted the mass population especially in political decision making and infamously referred to them as ‘the great beast’.
Similarly influential thinkers like Sigmund Freud were also uneasy and cynical about human nature, believing that mankind harboured dangerous innate irrational desires that if not managed properly would lead to a breakdown in society. In effect, he believed that we each had within us a primal beast that needed to be kept in check. His nephew, Edward Bernays would become instrumental in keeping the population duly contained through the use of ‘public relations’.
Bernays used this to channel the population’s attention towards ever increasing consumption and dependence. He was instrumental into linking products and ideas with people’s unconscious emotions and drivers. Simple things became replaced by ‘desires’. And helped shape identities. The present day marketing and advertising industries have largely continued this trend in an age of celebrity and aspirational status.
This can lead us to sacrifice other values lower down the scale, such as ‘keeping healthy’ or ‘being stress free’, ‘having time to enjoy family life’ or ‘positively contributing to society’.
Our cultures and society also wield a subtle control over us by the way we are defined and labelled. Consider when people are identified as ‘radical’, ‘maladjusted’, ‘unhinged’, or diagnosed as ‘psychotic’ or ‘mentally unstable’. Michel Foucault wrote about the power of such labelling, particularly in the 18th century when ‘madness’ was used in a broad sense to taint and stigmatize all elements of society that were too radical from the norm, not just the mentally ill. As such it became used as a means of social control.
(09 Jun 11, 11:08PM)V-Man Wrote: Anecdotally, I've seen a bit of a reversal of this -- that is, people shying away from any sort of specificity and preferring a sort of "grey area" or spectrum of correctness. Of course, this leads to the ironic extreme generalization that any form of black-and-white thinking is bad. (Insert a list of problems resulting from this in my personal life.)I agree with you in some sense, people who are aware of the problem lose the ability to really decide for sure on anything. The problem is, they're right. There are no definite answers. This leaves all the decision making to the fanatics, liars and the tyrants and the selfish.
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using a meta-perspective we don't confine ourselves to a black and white Aristotelian logic reality where things are either exactly the way we see them or not. (‘Aristotelian logic’ is two-valued thinking that supposes that things are either true or false, one way or the other with no in between.)
There is a famous Zen koan or riddle which asks ‘is God dead?’ This question is essentially a trap for the student to fall into by answering either ‘yes’ or ‘no’. This true/ false logic assumes there can be only two answers and by adopting it the student loses their Buddha nature.
The key and true value of the riddle is not so much in the content but in the change in the thinking process and consciousness of the student.
This is very similar to the type of thinking required to comprehend certain scenarios thrown up by quantum physics. In the case of Schrodinger’s Cat, a cat is placed into a sealed box with a poison gas capsule. Also in the box is a radioactive isotope with a radioactive detector. As soon as the detector senses any sign of radioactive decay it will release the gas into the box, instantly killing the cat.
According to quantum theory, the radioactive isotope has a 50/50 chance of decaying. Thus the cat has a 50/50 chance of either living or dying. Curiously, until the box is opened the cat remains in an indeterminate state. Whilst in the box it is both ‘not dead’ and ‘dead’.
In this situation our standard existential language falls short. “The cat is…x” is an insufficient description just in the same way the description ‘the area is poor’ or ‘John is ugly’ remain insufficient to convey the true essence of the thing or person.
Indeed it is doubtful if our language can ever convey such a definitive essence. Indeed for centuries mystics and sages from the East have held the belief that the ultimate nature of reality transcends language.
in Jerusalem ‘is’ the sacred site in the Old City ‘really’ the Temple Mount or Noble Sanctuary? Once we put a label on something does it stop ‘being’ the things it could also be?
From analysing history it is apparent that certain upper echelons of society and state decision making remained uneasy about the mass populace exercising too much control over society or becoming too introspective with their own emotions. The 18th century American statesman Alexander Hamilton deeply distrusted the mass population especially in political decision making and infamously referred to them as ‘the great beast’.
Similarly influential thinkers like Sigmund Freud were also uneasy and cynical about human nature, believing that mankind harboured dangerous innate irrational desires that if not managed properly would lead to a breakdown in society. In effect, he believed that we each had within us a primal beast that needed to be kept in check. His nephew, Edward Bernays would become instrumental in keeping the population duly contained through the use of ‘public relations’.
Bernays used this to channel the population’s attention towards ever increasing consumption and dependence. He was instrumental into linking products and ideas with people’s unconscious emotions and drivers. Simple things became replaced by ‘desires’. And helped shape identities. The present day marketing and advertising industries have largely continued this trend in an age of celebrity and aspirational status.
This can lead us to sacrifice other values lower down the scale, such as ‘keeping healthy’ or ‘being stress free’, ‘having time to enjoy family life’ or ‘positively contributing to society’.
Our cultures and society also wield a subtle control over us by the way we are defined and labelled. Consider when people are identified as ‘radical’, ‘maladjusted’, ‘unhinged’, or diagnosed as ‘psychotic’ or ‘mentally unstable’. Michel Foucault wrote about the power of such labelling, particularly in the 18th century when ‘madness’ was used in a broad sense to taint and stigmatize all elements of society that were too radical from the norm, not just the mentally ill. As such it became used as a means of social control.