I have been considering my experience as aesthetic experience. Whether I'm at a dinner party joking around with friends or whether I'm reading forum posts, I'm having an aesthetic experience. Generally, I've been feeling like the aesthetic experience of "doing" philosophy can be a bit of red herring. And I know I'm not saying anything new here, but I want to say it anyway. Sometimes I get the feeling that if I just do theory and philosophy harder, the solutions will come to me and I'll have it all figured out. But I know that's not really the case. I'm trying to transition away from getting overly caught up in theory/philosophy/science and put more energy into the felt sense of being alive. Not to theorize about awareness or consciousness, but to feel consciousness.
I will still read philosophy and theory. I know myself too well to think I could give that up. Hey, I like to stay informed.
Speaking of which, I was listening to some Bernardo Kastrup interviews, and I feel like he has his free miracle at work just like everybody has their free miracle in their theories. And I think for me, the free miracle is mystery itself. And I wonder if mystery is felt in felt experience, somehow. Probably "felt" isn't the right word for it. I wonder if felt experience is somehow connected to mystery, and it's the edge where felt experience ends and mystery begins that the weird stuff happens sometimes. For sure "mystery" is not the right word, because if there is some "thing" that is "mystery" it would be un-nameable. Of course, usually I'm not focused on those questions. Usually, I'm busy running around, going to work, taking care of crap around the house, hanging out with friends, remembering things, thinking about things, writing things, etc.
Well, I didn't capture what I really wanted to say, but this is what I have for now. I'm afraid that positing un-nameable, unknowable "mystery" runs too close to having faith in something that isn't real. That would be going overboard. I did some some reading on negative theology the other day, and that has some parallels--certain theologians who believed "God" had some knowable properties and some "unknowable" properties that they considered transcendent properties. It's an interesting idea. I will try to dig out the link.
I will still read philosophy and theory. I know myself too well to think I could give that up. Hey, I like to stay informed.
Speaking of which, I was listening to some Bernardo Kastrup interviews, and I feel like he has his free miracle at work just like everybody has their free miracle in their theories. And I think for me, the free miracle is mystery itself. And I wonder if mystery is felt in felt experience, somehow. Probably "felt" isn't the right word for it. I wonder if felt experience is somehow connected to mystery, and it's the edge where felt experience ends and mystery begins that the weird stuff happens sometimes. For sure "mystery" is not the right word, because if there is some "thing" that is "mystery" it would be un-nameable. Of course, usually I'm not focused on those questions. Usually, I'm busy running around, going to work, taking care of crap around the house, hanging out with friends, remembering things, thinking about things, writing things, etc.
Well, I didn't capture what I really wanted to say, but this is what I have for now. I'm afraid that positing un-nameable, unknowable "mystery" runs too close to having faith in something that isn't real. That would be going overboard. I did some some reading on negative theology the other day, and that has some parallels--certain theologians who believed "God" had some knowable properties and some "unknowable" properties that they considered transcendent properties. It's an interesting idea. I will try to dig out the link.
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