Digressions&Impressions
Dennett as Synthetic Philosopher
Eric Schliesser | Professor of Political Science, University of Amsterdam’s (UvA) Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences
Dennett as Synthetic Philosopher
Eric Schliesser | Professor of Political Science, University of Amsterdam’s (UvA) Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences
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Imagination!
It is said the difference between Homo erectus and Homo sapiens was imagination. Sapiens could dream of a better life while erectus just couldn’t imagine.
The world today with all of its beauty and horror is where imagination has taken us.
But imagine an earth without the human being. There is a reality too. Imagine our little solar system with its seven regents orbiting the sun. There is a reality too. We cannot imagine the universe – it is just too vast; but there is a reality too. But we humans are embedded in the ‘reality-show’ we have created on the earth, 24/7. We know nothing of our existence, beyond this reality that takes place between two ears and spills out into the outside world.
Whatever we see in the mind – we think – that must be true. We never think of mind as something that may deceive us – our reality must be true. How could there be another reality?
Mind goes around and around; thinking, thinking, thinking. How can it understand - mind can never ever grasp the REAL. Only the human heart can see the REAL. It is not a subject for debate. Mind loves to debate. He who goes within experiences – mind, only then, can stand by, understand.
That is why Kabir laughed and wrote poems and songs; he mended shoes for a living! He knew that the heart was substance, and mind is vapour, and yet it drives the reality of this world. Consciousness, is something else – it is awareness; being awake. Waking up from the dream. Mind needs a master and that master is sovereign, and within each person. A nation is not sovereign; the human heart is your sovereign and yet this reality is absent.
Every teacher that I have ever read who came into this world said stop; down tools for a while. There is something you need to know. But it wasn’t like ‘The Day the Earth Stood Still’ although it has its similarities. The urgency is the same.
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