Hand of God wrote:


Sorry, It was my bad language, this is where it got confusing: he reffered to the passive emotions such as jelousy as passions, there are no bad or good passions. He did not regard love and joy as passions (point out if I have misinterpretated). He divided up the value of emotions by adequate and inadequate ideas as you pointed out, the adequate ideas, as I remember was intuitive which he called the knowledge of God and ultimately the love of God, which is totallity, the cause of all causes. Whilst he implied that jelousy and envy are inadequate or knowledge of the first order. And that reasoning or science is the knowledge of the second order which is an intermediate. Yet, then, from what has been said, has he not divided the what we call negative and positive emotions? I belive he has, on one end he is advertising the love of God (acceptance of God and its necessity) and on the other end he is saying tame you jelousy (pain) and do not think inadequate ideas. What I was saying from my previous post is that you cannot separate joy (or love) from pain (or hatred) for they would cease to be meaningful without eachother. So, instead of promoting one catogery of emotions directed at God (love and joy) and downregulating the other catogery of emotions directed at our surroundings and ourselves (e.g hatred and envy), I am suggesting to desire to know no joy, love, and it will follwo automatically that you desire to know no hatred, envy etc.. for all emotions come as a package, friend. I have come upon this by reasoning, using logic, exactly what spinoza suggests us to do.

Now, about what I was suggesting to do instead, to achieve what spinoza called inituitve: I agree with spinoza's ideology of accepting casuality, but not the dividing of the emotions for it is absurd and more effectively impossible, spinoza never experienced or felt what he described in Ethics, no where near the full potential of what he calls inituitive, for it is impossible to achieve, for it requires the spliting up of emotions which cease to be meaningful upon their separation. Now, what I have thought of, is this, desire to know of God and accept the necessity of all things, but do not attempt to love God whilst simultaneously you are trying to tame the passions, for it is a waste of time as it is not logically possibe as I explained several times. I suggest to desire to know no joy, and thus it automatically follows that you desire to know no pain. Now, as I have said in my previous post, when one desires something, it does so because there is a type of intensity of joy that is associated with the idea of what it is that they desire, or they escape pain by desiring the idea that they desire, these two notions are one, and no different. Now, this very joy that is accompanied with the desire of knowing no joy, I claim, is true joy, ultimate freedom. Language, by its nature, is flawed, one can never understand fully someone elses idea, thought, or emotion by language, and thus you may never understand me, and your interpretations is all you will have, and so, if you do not understand it is perfectly normal, and logically acceptable.

eikosaedron wrote:
You are forgetting that you are part of the causal chain. Sure our decisions are ultimately entirely caused, but we still have the illusion of making them because to stop making them would be to act as though you aren't part of the causal chain.

philosofear wrote:

Its an interesting theory however I think Spinoza failed to differentiate between reason and causality.

philosofear wrote:
To tell you the truth Spinoza kind of pisses me off, for example consider a conversation with him.

Me-"Hey Spinoza I think your philosophy is bullshit!
Spinoza-"Your thinking that my philosophy is bullshit is the result of all your previous thoughts and all infinite occurences prior to those thoughts which have led to this exact moment and your exact amount of frustration at this endless circle of my philosophy. You can only be happy knowing that all your actions are predetermined, then again your happiness in this is also predetermined, and me saying this is predetermined..."

Does it ever end????