's Philosophical Grook 
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's Philosophical Grook
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| The Blade versus the Razor | |||
The Blade and the Razor are really two sides of the same coin. But seriously, the metaphorical manner in which I have presented my system should not obscure what they really mean, which is this: The Blade for me obviously stands for Rationality. This is the mind in all its intellectual glory. And the Razor is the imaginative and intuitive mind. Now I'm no psychology professor, neither do I play one on TV, so the task of detailing the nature of linear thinking and intuition is simply beyond my means (of time only, FYI). So here are quotes that show to me the importance and distinctions between the rational, intellectual, logical, deliberate Blade and the whimsical, imaginative, intuitive and playful Razor, including insights into how they complement each other. And why I think over the long run, in philosophy as much as in any part of life, the Razor is the more important feature of our mind. But let me once again emphasize, the Blade and Razor are just two sides of the same coin. And if you want to you can call it the RazorBlade. HAH ~! A knight, helmed, shielded and be-armoured, with only a razorblade for a weapon ~!  Alberto Einsteino - "The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift." "We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality." "Whoever undertakes to set himself up as judge in the field of truth and knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the Gods." "When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge." "The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity." "Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who read too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking." "Intelligence makes clear to us the interrelationship of means and ends. But mere thinking cannot give us a sense of the ultimate and fundamental ends. To make clear these fundamental ends and valuations and to set them fast in the emotional life of the individual, seems to me precisely the most important function which religion has to form in the social life of man." "I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world." Guy Claxton - "Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind" Native Amercian Medicine Cards - "Turtle buries its thoughts, like its eggs, in the sand, and allows the sun to hatch the little ones. Look at the old fable of the tortoise and the hare, and decide for yourself whether or not you would like to align with the Turtle." Tao Te Ching - "Truth waits for eyes unclouded by longing. Those who are bound by desire see only the outward container." A.N. Whitehead - "It is a profoundly erroneous truism, repeated by all copybooks and by eminent people when they are making speeches, that we should cultivate the habit of thinking of what we are doing. The precise opposite is the case. Civilisations advance by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them. Operations of thought are like cavalry charges in battle - they are strictly limited in number, they require fresh horses, and must only be made at decisive moments." Paul Valery - "Our simplest act, our most familiar gesture, could not be performed, the least of our powers might become an obstacle to us, if we had to bring it before the mind and know it thoroughly in order to exercise it. Achilles cannot win over the tortoise if he meditates on space and time." A.A. Milne, The House at Pooh Corner - 'Did you make that song up?' 'Well, I sort of made it up,' said Pooh. 'It isn't Brain... but it comes to me sometimes.' 'Ah,'said Rabbit, who never let things come to him, but always went and fetched them. George Spencer Brown, mathematician and philosopher Laws of Form - "To arrive at the simplest truth, as Newton knew and practised, requires years of contemplation. Not activity. Not reasoning. Not calculating. Not busy behaviour of any kind. Not reading. Not talking. Not making an effort. Not thinking. Simply bearing in mind what it is that one needs to know." Nel Noddings, American philosopher - "The mind remains, or may remain, remarkably active, but instrumental striving is suspended. In such modes we do not try to impose an order on the situation but rather we try to let order-that-is-there present itself to us. This is not to say, certainly, that purposes and goals play no role in our submitting ourselves to a receptive state. Clearly they do. We may sit down with our mathematics or literature because we want to achieve something - a grade, a degree, a job - but if we are fortunate, and willing, the goal drops away, and we are captured by the object itself." Jean Cocteau, playright - "Often the public forms an idea of inspiration that is quite false, almost a religious notion. Alas ~! I do not believe that inspiration falls from heaven. I think it rather the result of a profound indolence and of our incapacity to put to work certain forces in us. These unknown forces work deep within us, with the aid of the elements of daily life, its scenes and its passions, and, when......the work that makes itself in us, and in spite of us, demands to be born, we can believe that this work comes to us from beyond and is offered us by the gods. The artist is more slumberous in order that he shall not work...... The poet is at the disposal of his night. His role is humble, he must clean house and await its due visitation." Henri Poincare, French Mathematician - "Often, when one works at a hard question, nothing good is accomplished at the first attack. Then one takes a rest, longer or shorter, and sits down anew to the work. During the first half-hour, as before, nothing is found, and then all of a sudden the decisive idea presents itself to the mind......the role of this unconscious work in mathematical invention appears to me incontestable, and traces of it would be found in other cases where it is less evident...." Lancelot Law Whyte - "In the beginning, man was not yet aware of anything but transitory sensations, presumably not even of himself. His unconscious brain-mind did all the work. Everything man did was without understanding." Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind, Guy Claxton - "There is an apocryphal story of a venerable factory boiler that broke down one day, and of the old man who was called to fix it. He wandered around among its convoluted pipework, humming quietly to himself and occasionally putting his ear to a valve or a joint, and then pulled a hammer out of his toolbar and banged hard on a small obscure corner. The boiler heaved a deep sigh and rumbled into life again. The old man sent in a bill for $300, which the manager thought excessive, so he sent it back with a request that it be itemised. When it came back, the old man had written: for tapping with hammer: 50 cents. for knowing where to tap: $299.50 " Fynn - "Mister God, This is Anna" Old Woody - "They," he said, and his arms swept out to embrace the world," will tell you and encourage you to develop your brain and your five senses. But that's only the half of it, that's only half of being human. The other half is to develop the heart and the wits." He ticked them off on one old gnarled hand with the end of his pipe. "There's common wit, there's imagination, there's fantasy, there's estimation, and there's memory.....Never let anyone rob you of your right to be complete. The daylight is for the brain and the senses, the darkness is for the heart and the wits - Never, never be afraid. Your brain will fail you one day, but your heart won't." Coleridge - "Thus doth she, when from individual states She doth abstract the universal kinds, Which then reclothed in divers names and fates, Steal access thro' our senses to our minds" |
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The Razor's Edge Relevant Links posted in this panel...its also my little gallery.
 My role model. For several years I read up on him voraciously. His picture hangs on the wall in front of my desk. "Think Different", he dares to proclaim. One of the world's most original thinkers, much has been written about him. What a guy ~!  I consider this book, somehow pivotal to the the understanding of how my own brain functions. The process of "learning by osmosis" is detailed here, my own chosen method of studying and philosophizing. I consider this book a must-read. Guy Claxton is a writer teacher/psychologist kinda dude, who wrote high-falutin books like "The Heart of Buddhism : Practical Wisdom for an Agitated World " and "Beyond Therapy : The Impact of Eastern Religions on Psychological Theory and Practice (Wisdom East-West - Grey Ser.) as well as numerous books on education and cognitive psychology. Check out his books at Amazon.com, or if you've any hard copies, I'd be thrilled to hear from you.  Another once in a lifetime book. |
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Member of the Explorer Webstar ~!  . Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate All rights reserved. Copyright � 1998 by Vinc Wong Chee Wai. |  |