"The Best Picture of Human Consciousness I Have Encountered"

"Saul Steinberg's marvelous New Yorker cover from October 8, 1969 (see Figure 1), provides the best picture of human consciousness I have encountered" Daniel Dennett wrote in an article called "Consciousness: More Like Fame than Television"

Here's a picture of that cover...and of Dennett discussing the cover...

 

What Is Philosophy? Three Answers

Three visions of philosophy:

1) The aim of philosophy is to understand the world:

• People are “first led to study philosophy…by wonder. Now, he [or she] who is perplexed and wonders believes himself to be ignorant ... they took to philosophy to escape ignorance” (Aristotle, Metaphysics 982b)
• “Philosophy, like all other studies, aims primarily at knowledge. The knowledge it aims at is the kind of knowledge which gives unity and system to the body of the sciences, and the kind which results from a critical examination of the grounds of our convictions, prejudices, and beliefs” (Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy)

2) The aim of philosophy is to change the world:

• “Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it” (Karl Marx, Theses on Feuerbach #11).

3) The aim of philosophy is to change oneself:

• “The religious life…does not depend on the dogma that the world is eternal…Whether the dogma obtain…that the world is eternal, or that the world is not eternal, there still remain birth, old age, death, sorrow, lamentation, misery, grief, and despair, for the extinction of which in the present life I am prescribing” (Buddha, Questions Which Tend Not to Edification)
• “[One] who, having cast off likes and dislikes, has become tranquil, is…[one] I call...holy” (Buddha, Dhammapada)
• “By a tranquil mind I mean nothing else than a mind well ordered….How easy it is to repel and to wipe away every impression which is troublesome or unsuitable, and immediately to be in all tranquility….Retire into thyself. The rational principle which rules has this nature, that it is content with itself when it does what is just, and so secures tranquility” (Marcus Aurelius, Meditations)

Parable of the Sower

Normally, when I think of the Parable of the Sower, I think of Matthew 13. Today's devotional draws upon the Luke 8 version... https://odb.org/2019/07/12/son-followers

What Is Faith? Paranoia in reverse

"I came up with a new definition of faith: paranoia in reverse. A truly paranoid person organizes his or her life around a common perspective of fear. Anything that happens feeds that fear. Faith works in reverse. A faithful person organizes his or her life around a common perspective of trust, not fear." (Daily Bread, 11 July 2014)

"I Want You To Want To Do The Dishes!"

Classic Scene from The Break-Up (2006)

Brooke: Let's just do them now. It'll take 15 minutes.

Gary: Honey, I am so exhausted. I just honestly want to relax for a little bit. If I could just sit here, let my food digest, and just try to enjoy the quiet for a little bit....You know, we can clean the dishes tomorrow.

 
Brooke: Gary, you know I don't like waking up to a dirty kitchen.

Gary: Who cares?

Brooke: I care! All right? I care! I busted my ass all day cleaning this house and then cooking that meal. And I worked today. It would be nice if you said thank you and helped me with the dishes.

Gary: Fine. I'll help you do the damn dishes...

Brooke: That's not what I want.

Gary: You just said that you want me to help you do the dishes.

Brooke: I want you to want to do the dishes.

Gary: Why would I want to do dishes?

Brooke: See, that's my whole point.

Gary: Let me see if I'm following this, okay? Are you telling me that you're upset because I don't have a strong desire|to clean dishes?

Brooke: No. I'm upset because you don't have a strong desire to offer to do the dishes.

Gary: I just did.

Brooke: After I asked you!
***
For some reason, I was reminded of this scene during a reading from the Big Book ("Physician, Heal Thyself"). In particular, this passage (pages 399-400):

And then a silly, simple thought came to me. I didn't know anything about being a father; I don't know how to come home and work week-ends like other husbands; I don't know how to entertain my family. But I remembered that every night after dinner my wife would get up and do the dishes. Well, I could do the dishes. So I went to her and said, "There's only one thing I want in my whole life, and I don't want any commendation; I don't want any credit; I don't want anything from you or Janey for the rest of your life except one thing; and that is, the opportunity to do anything you want always, and I would like to start off by doing the dishes." And now I am doing the darn dishes every night! 

Not sure if it completely connects with Brooke's anger in the movie; but it's in the neighborhood. And worth keeping in mind.

What is the New Freedom and New Happiness?

The Promises listed in the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous, begin with promises of "a new freedom and a new happiness."

OK, I wondered, what are those? How to spell out these ideas?

My first step in understanding the "new freedom" and "new happiness" was to remember "what it was like": what were my ideas of the old freedom and the old happiness?

If I'm rigorously honest, I think back and my life whose that the old freedom and old happiness were simple equations:

Old Freedom = Do what I feel like
Old Happiness = Get what I want

I later realized these equations are part and parcel of a spiritually fatal condition: "Self-centeredness," writes Timothy Keller, "makes everything else a means to an end. And that end, that nonnegotiable, is whatever I want and whatever I like, my interests over [other people's]. I'll have fun with people, I'll talk with people, but in the end everything orbits around me [my feelings and wants]." (Of course, the Big Book has a lot more to say about self-centeredness in Chapter Five...)

It was only when my pursuits of (the old) happness and (the old) freedom led to rock-bottom misery that I started seeking a better way.

What, then, are the "new freedom and new happiness"? The latter, it seems, highlights gratitude:

New Happiness = Being grateful for what I have

For the new freedom, I found a nice equation in the Big Book (page 552):

New Freedom = "Doing what you ought to do because you want to do it"

(Strangely enough, the same phrase appears in a 1901 issue of The American Florist(!).)

The writer of that story ("Freedom From Bondage") adds that sometimes she doesn't naturally want to do what she knows she ought to do--rather, "[s]ometimes I have to ask [my Higher Power] first for the willingness, but it too always comes."

The same, I found, it true with gratitude: On paper, I know I should be grateful for all I have--but I often need to ask God for the conviction to know it.