Hello James,

interesting question. In my opinion Plato and Gilbert do not describe the same phenomenon. Plato describes a human being who discovers a world beyond his world totally referring to outer phenomenons. The shadows might be reflections. Still they are true phenomenons. We do not know about internal states of this person other than we as onlookers might be able to observe when looking at this person. Other than those which are represented. And one essential point: Plato describes how this person is before, how he is after. Also you might not miss the point: He gets pulled out of his missery done to him by others or anything. But the point is: There are others who free him. And you might say: The helping person is a person who knows while man in the cave is in a state he does not know about his missery. One aspect we can clearly see as standing outside of the whole situation: There is obviously a person who is in the cave and one who lives in both worlds. So we have here the aspect of slavery which turns into freedom.

This motiv gets later on transformed into self-imposed immaturity.

When it comes to Gilbert the onlooker steps into the background and manifests as the auther. The author is not anymore a person standing outside the whole scene but a helping person. He himself understands himself as a person who is free. A person who is the onlooker and helping person at the same time. Freedom is here understood as knowledge. Shadow and object are the very same thing saying: An object has different perspectives. When it comes to Plato shadow and object are two different things yet intervolven with each other. Also: We do not have a different world here anymore. And you might say: Cave is here an internal state.

The only similarity here: 'get light'... to see something else or to know some more.

But does it describe the same phenomenon? If you asked me... Not at all. When it comes to Plato people still believe in a world beyond their world which is the ultimative cause of everything. This cause cannot be found in your 'cave' which is our world. We are speaking here of two different worlds. And freedom is here not only knowing but knowing that there exists another world with real objects. When we look at Gilbert humanities understanding has already transformed. There is only one world and the cave is an internal state of not knowing. Freedom also becomes an internal process away from self-imposed immaturity to at least a state in which a person wants to discover. And in a way you might say we can see here also a transformation of teaching skills.

Another difference: While for Plato the philosopher is the observer of this whole scene and not active when it comes to Gilbert he transforms into the helping person. So you might also understand: There is missing some kind of self-reflection. As an active helper you are not anymore a passive observer.

But as you were mainly interested in the phenomenons which gets described: I can only repeat I do not think that they describe the same phenomenon. Platos description is by far much richer including ideas which cannot be found anymore when it comes to Gilbert. Also Gilbert uses the term soul it has nothing to do anymore with soul how Plato understands it.

Hello James,

interesting question. In my opinion Plato and Gilbert do not describe the same phenomenon. Plato describes a human being who discovers a world beyond his world totally referring to outer phenomenons. The shadows might be reflections. Still they are true phenomenons. We do not know about internal states of this person other than we as onlookers might be able to observe when looking at this person. Other than those which are represented. And one essential point: Plato describes how this person is before, how he is after. Also you might not miss the point: He gets pulled out of his missery done to him by others or anything. But the point is: There are others who free him. And you might say: The helping person is a person who knows while man in the cave is in a state he does not know about his missery. One aspect we can clearly see as standing outside of the whole situation: There is obviously a person who is in the cave and one who lives in both worlds. So we have here the aspect of slavery which turns into freedom.

This motiv gets later on transformed into self-imposed immaturity.

When it comes to Gilbert the onlooker steps into the background and manifests as the auther. The author is not anymore a person standing outside the whole scene but a helping person. He himself understands himself as a person who is free. A person who is the onlooker and helping person at the same time. Freedom is here understood as knowledge. Shadow and object are the very same thing saying: An object has different perspectives. When it comes to Plato shadow and object are two different things yet intervolven with each other. Also: We do not have a different world here anymore. And you might say: Cave is here an internal state.

The only similarity here: 'get light'... to see something else or to know some more.

But does it describe the same phenomenon? If you asked me... Not at all. When it comes to Plato people still believe in a world beyond their world which is the ultimative cause of everything. This cause cannot be found in your 'cave' which is our world. We are speaking here of two different worlds. And freedom is here not only knowing but knowing that there exists another world with real objects. When we look at Gilbert humanities understanding has already transformed. There is only one world and the cave is an internal state of not knowing. Freedom also becomes an internal process away from self-imposed immaturity to at least a state in which a person wants to discover. And in a way you might say we can see here also a transformation of teaching skills.

Another difference: While for Plato the philosopher is the observer of this whole scene and not active when it comes to Gilbert he transforms into the helping person. So you might also understand: There is missing some kind of self-reflection. As an active helper you are not anymore a passive observer.

But as you were mainly interested in the phenomenons which gets described: I can only repeat I do not think that they describe the same phenomenon. Platos description is by far much richer including ideas which cannot be found anymore when it comes to Gilbert. Also Gilbert uses the term soul it has nothing to do anymore with soul how Plato understands it.

Hello Carmen

Many thanks for your strong answer.  I shall consider it carefully, then try to respond to it.

Jim

"But when I look at Gilbert's quote"

Let's say you have two dogs. You prepaired food for your dogs and now you are pointing your finger at the food. One dog walks to the food and starts to eat it. The other dog is starring at your finger.

If I asked you now which dog is more clever you might immediately say: The dog that understands the gesture and eats the food. Wouldn't you? But I am telling you: Sometimes it might be helpful to analyse the finger that points at something first.

A relationship between two obviously different pointers cannot be found by looking at the object they are pointing at. Why? Because obviously they do have different preferences. Which means: They are showing you different food. It is just like one dog owner chooses dry food and another one chooses wet food. And by being hungry and eating that food don't you get a feeling of satisfaction? Doesn't your hunger disappear no matter what kind of food it is?

Now think about this: It is a well known problem that dogs which only get dry food develope kidney disease. Would you eat food if you knew you are going to develope a disease? I guess most of you would say no. But the reality is: We do it each and every day.

"'feeding' the soul with data to think about"

Same with knowledge. Some of you might have this feeling that something is rotten here. Still you are consuming without any sense for what is good nor right nor real. Just like you really don't know. Just like you are only running tail-wagging because somebody did point.

Thanks to all for helpful and thought-provoking answers!

Yes, Nikolas, maybe I need to follow up on Buckminster Fuller (and Beckett - I'm already a bit of a fan) and I agree with Stefan about Gilbert sounding Aristotelian (or just plain "scientific" in the contemporary sense) rather than Platonic – although I am seriously ignorant re Aristotle’s thinking.

Questions bugging me -- focussing more on Gilbert than Plato:

What more can be said about the “barrier” – do we all experience it? If so, should not that make us all feel very “lonely” – see quote below from Padraig Pearse (nb this is the Irish patriot, not the American philosopher)

The implication is that we might well only get partial and twisted input from beyond the “barrier” – NB Plato, Gilbert and we ourselves were/are all familiar with “false” representations eg reflections, mirrors, paintings. Indeed, WE live in the age of “virtual reality”.  And, I believe, some physicists are now even speculating (methematically) about the universe being some kind of hologram…

How can we possible know what is out there beyond the “barrier”, if anything? Scary solipsism looms. NB the information coming through/past the barrier might just BE (ie not coming from anything else at all). (But Gilbert refers to “soul” which suggests that he is somewhat of a dualist in a standard England AD1600 way). Plato suggest that there are “real” ideas (rather than our local "shadows") out there. How can he possibly know? Just guessing? Mere rhetoric?

Can we get information/knowledge other than through/past the barrier? I believe Plato thinks he can. If so, how?

Could Plato possibly be talking about what we would now be calling “social construction of reality” ie society leads us to believe in certain things, but a determined and independent thinker (a “philosopher”) can transcend that “cave”?

That’s enough questions for now…

Best

Jim

The quote:

“In point of fact man is not primarily a member of a State but a human individuality—that is a human soul imprisoned in a human body; a shivering human soul with its own awful problems, its own august destiny, lonelier in its house of clay than any prisoner in any Bastille in the world.” (P. H. Pearse, 1909)

I see no relationship, they talk of two different things:

Gilbert is talking of pieces of information which form the informational basis for the mind, and he talks of the barrier these pieces of information have to cross. Yet Plato is talking of creating knowledge from these basic pieces of information by combining them using reason. And Plato talks of the barrier which can be crossed if you are good in combining the pieces of informations, i.e. making philosophy.

By the way, Gilbert seems to be a radical empiricist which was normal for his time, yet today this point of view is questionable.

Chalmers is asking why this exists and pointing to internal processes. In fact pointing out that consciousness is nothing but a process based on materia. Sokrates is not at all asking any why-questions.

"This intuition was also the basis of Decartes’ skepticism."

Descartes sceptisism seems to be based on Cicero ("Are you not ashamed as a scientist, as an observer and investigator of nature, to seek your criterion of truth from minds steeped in conventional beliefs?").

Many thanks for interesting and valuable answers. Stimulating.

May I here just pick up Ramon's remark: "We can also take Berkeley's view and deny there is a barrier, and declare everything is mind!". Certainly Berkeley denied matter (to oversimplify his argument), but that of itself would not mean that the "barrier" we all (seem to) experience would not be there (if it did, this would surely prove Berkeley wrong by reductio ad absurdum?). There may be more than one way in which the barrier can be erected -- one "obvious" one, consistent which the idealist and christian viewpoint of Berkeley (and much more recently, Oxford's John Foster) would be that a   J-C God put it there for each of us!, I think Berkeley might well have considered that possibility.  Does anyone have a relevant passage in Berkeley's writings (or Foster's)?

Best Regards

Jim Doran

"He uses the term 'offering' that means 'bloody sacrifice'."

Murphy's law: If there is a possibility of making an ad hominem - any kind of ad hominems -, someone will actually use this opportunity during a discussion.

"That is Parkinson's law"

Really? For a second I though it might be Hugh Hefners Pleasure Grotto Conspiracy Theory.

No, of course your are not suffering from Parkinson's desease. It is just sexism paired with the fear to become older. In other words: Midlife crisis. And I bet with your small salary you can neither afford porsche nor a prostitute that is not on crocodile.

Deleted? Maybe wanted to copy your 'masterpiece' of an answer and accidentally pushed the erase key? That is not my fault. It is your temper that violates your attention. Alternative view: Unconscious repressive process to rescue you from embarrassing yourself once more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QySRWRHuftg

Think about that, Andrey.

This Q/A thread seems to be falling into a black hole ...  well, anyway, someone might still be interested in this alternative translation (by Silvanus Thompson) of the passage from Gilbert (Book 5, Chapter 12, para 210) that I quoted in my original question (which was from the slightly earlier translation by Paul Fleury Mathelay):

"The human soul uses reason, sees many things, inquires about many more; but even the best instructed receives by his external senses (as through a lattice) light and the beginnings of knowledge. Hence come so many errors and follies, by which our judgments and the actions of our lives are perverted; so that few or none order their actions rightly and justly."

Note that "barrier"  has become "lattice" which surely has different connotations?

Can anyone find and comment on the meaning of the original Elizabethan Latin?

Incidentally, elsewhere in his text Gilbert writes something about the soul being in a "prison cell" (as translated by Thompson) which half suggests he knew about "Plato's Cave" -- but then as a highly educated man he would wouldn't he? Unless the "cave" is indeed a late creation as someone also half suggested....

Jim

Jim

Picking up the point by Stefan about “context of discourse” I am appending to this answer the entire (short!) relevant chapter from Gilbert’s book (the Silvanus P. Thompson translation – from the text made freely available by Project Gutenburg)

It’s seems clear to me from this text that Gilbert is contrasting our situation, within a barrier/lattice (and mortality), with that of other souls (e.g. associated with the "globes") that are not so restricted.  He is thinking and writing from the theories and speculations  of his time, of course.

The unanswered fundamental question remains, I suggest, not how I organise the subsequent processing of  the information that comes to me through the barrier/lattice, but how I can go about finding out anything at all about what lies “beyond”  the barrier/lattice and its nature (e.g. mind or matter or …). For example, neither standard “scientific method” nor “revelation” seem to me to compellingly match up to this question.

A quite different question: some of Gilbert’s ideas in this chapter now seem out of date and wildly mistaken. So what do we all believe now that will seem downright silly in 500 years’ time?

Best

Jim

 ===============================================

[My italics -- JD]

Gilbert “De Magnete” (1600 AD) (tr Silvanus P. Thompson)  Book 5 Chapter 12

A loadstone is a wonderful thing in very many experiments, and like a living creature. And one of its remarkable virtues is that which the ancients considered to be a living soul in the sky, in the globes and in the stars, in the sun and in the moon. For they suspected that such various motions could not arise without a divine and animate nature, immense bodies turned about in fixed times, and wonderful powers infused into other bodies; whereby the whole universe flourishes in most beautiful variety, through this primary form of the globes themselves. The ancients, as Thales, Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, Archelaus, Pythagoras, Empedocles, Parmenides, Plato, and all the Platonists, and not only the older Greeks, but the Egyptians and Chaldæans, seek for some universal life in the universe, and affirm that the whole universe is endowed with life. Aristotle affirms that not the whole universe is animate, but only the sky; but he maintains that its elements are inanimate; whilst the stars themselves are animate. We, however, find this life in globes only and in their homogenic parts; and though it is not the same in all globes (for it is much more eminent in the sun and in certain stars than in others of less nobility) yet in very many the lives of the globes agree in their powers. For each several homogenic part draws to its own globe in a similar manner, and has an inclination to the common direction of the whole in the universe; and the effused forms extend outward in all, and are carried out into an orbe, and have bounds of their own; hence the order and regularity of the motions and rotations of all the planets, and their courses, not wandering away, but fixed and determined. Wherefore Aristotle concedes life to the sphæres themselves and to the orbes of the heavens (which he feigns), because they are suitable and fitted for a circular motion and actions, and are carried along in fixed and definite courses. It is surely wonderful, why the globe of the earth alone with its emanations is condemned by him and his followers and cast into exile (as senseless and lifeless), and driven out of all the perfection of the excellent universe. It is treated as a small corpuscle in comparison with the whole, and in the numerous concourse of many thousands it is obscure, disregarded, and unhonoured. {209}With it also they connect the kindred elements, in a like unhappiness, wretched and neglected. Let this therefore be looked upon as a monstrosity in the Aristotelian universe, in which everything is perfect, vigorous, animated; whilst the earth alone, an unhappy portion, is paltry, imperfect, dead, inanimate, and decadent. But on the other hand Hermes, Zoroaster, Orpheus, recognize a universal life. We, however, consider that the whole universe is animated, and that all the globes, all the stars, and also the noble earth have been governed since the beginning by their own appointed souls and have the motives of self-conservation. Nor are there wanting, either implanted in their homogenic nature or scattered through their homogenic substance, organs suitable for organic activity, although these are not fashioned of flesh and blood as animals, or composed of regular limbs, which are also hardly perceptible in certain plants and vegetables; since regular limbs are not necessary for all life. Nor can any organs be discerned or imagined by us in any of the stars, the sun, or the planets, which are specially operative in the universe; yet they live and imbue with life the small particles in the prominences on the earth. If there be anything of which men can boast, it is in fact life, intelligence; for the other animals are ennobled by life; God also (by whose nod all things are ruled) is a living soul. Who therefore will demand organs for the divine intelligences, which rise superior to every combination of organs and are not restrained by materialized organs? But in the several bodies of the stars the implanted force acts otherwise than in those divine existences which are supernaturally ordained; and in the stars, the sources of things, otherwise than in animals; in animals again otherwise than in plants. Miserable were the condition of the stars, abject the lot of the earth, if that wonderful dignity of life be denied to them, which is conceded to worms, ants, moths, plants, and toadstools; for thus worms, moths, grubs would be bodies more honoured and perfect in nature; for without life no body is excellent, valuable, or distinguished. But since living bodies arise and receive life from the earth and the sun, and grass grows on the earth apart from any seeds thrown down (as when soil is dug up from deep down in the earth, and put on some very high place or on a very high tower, in a sunny spot, not so long after various grasses spring up unbidden) it is not likely that they can produce what is not in them; but they awaken life, and therefore they are living. Therefore the bodies of the globes, as important parts of the universe, in order that they might be independent and that they might continue in that condition, had a need for souls to be united with them, without which there can be neither life, nor primary activity, nor motion, nor coalition, nor controlling power, nor harmony, nor endeavour, nor sympathy; and without which there would be no generation {210}of anything, no alternations of the seasons, no propagation; but all things would be carried this way and that, and the whole universe would fall into wretchedest Chaos, the earth in short would be vacant, dead, and useless. But it is only on the superficies of the globes that the concourse of living and animated beings is clearly perceived, in the great and pleasing variety of which the great master-workman is well pleased. But those souls which are restrained within a kind of barrier and in prison cells, as it were, do not emit immaterial effused forms outside the limits of their bodies; and bodies are not moved by them without labour and waste. They are brought and carried away by a breath; and when this has calmed down or been suppressed by some untoward influence, their bodies lie like the dregs of the universe and as the refuse of the globes. But the globes themselves remain and continue from year to year, move, and advance, and complete their courses, without waste or weariness. The human soul uses reason, sees many things, inquires about many more; but even the best instructed receives by his external senses (as through a lattice) light and the beginnings of knowledge. Hence come so many errors and follies, by which our judgments and the actions of our lives are perverted; so that few or none order their actions rightly and justly. But the magnetick force of the earth and the formate life or living form of the globes, without perception, without error, without injury from ills and diseases, so present with us, has an implanted activity, vigorous through the whole material mass, fixed, constant, directive, executive, governing, consentient; by which the generation and death of all things are carried on upon the surface. For, without that motion, by which the daily revolution is performed, all earthly things around us would ever remain savage and neglected, and more than deserted and absolutely idle. But those motions in the sources of nature are not caused by thinking, by petty syllogisms, and theories, as human actions, which are wavering, imperfect, and undecided; but along with them reason, instruction, knowledge, discrimination have their origin, from which definite and determined actions arise, from the very foundations that have been laid and the very beginnings of the universe; which we, on account of the infirmity of our minds, cannot comprehend. Wherefore Thales, not without cause (as Aristotle relates in his book De Anima), held that the loadstone was animate, being a part and a choice offspring of its animate mother the earth.

In one of Eckhart Tolle's lectures/ books (The Power of Now) he talks about some of the things that you have described in your post. (The bubbles or orbs) He calls them pain bodies/ thought forms that are given a life through negative energy) and how each has a cycle. A pain body is comprised of vented lingering negative emotional energy. As one thought form begins to starve/ die because it is hungry. Neglected, it provokes another persons pain body so that it can feed off the negative anger energy. This is the same negative emotional energy that one can feel at a crime or accident scene where someone has died. (Shamans call them shadows) It can also be felt in dysfunctional homes where a family member is violent and abusive. Is it possible that this type of energy can be trapped and absorbed into the variables of a structure? Anyway, I thought that this post was interesting.

Well, friend Andrey, that seems something of a platitude, perhaps to meditate on beside the Rio de la Plata.

If there is reality hidden in homophones, what kind of reality is it? Please help us to understand...

To Andrey

Interesting. Your view is new to me. I will investigate further.

My own archaeological experience indicates that it is sometimes difficult to reconcile archaeological evidence from the ground with historical/manuscript records. This is true of England in 5 & 6 centuries AD, for example.

Jim

Honestly: Does it matter who said something? Either it is true what one said or it is not. We know from history too that a lot of women publicated under their husbands names or pseudonyms. Does it reduce the work? Or its importance? Or do we automatically assume that something must have been more true because it is said by  Plato. Or are you (James) investigating ancient Greek's society? I don't think when it comes to statements it is one's duty to verify authors as long as it is said to be evident or doesn't currupt once work all in all. What would be presumable if the task was to proove how ancient Greeks thought and lived. But for sure not when it comes to statements itself.

The issue for me, Carmen, is the "reality" of the past and what particular form the past took. If someone faked a mass of evidence that we now rely upon to establish the form of the past, then that is surely relevant.

Consider, for example, Gildas whose textual witness as to the (bloody) way in which the Anglo-Saxons took over (Eastern) Britain is dismissed, not in this case because the manuscripts are suspect, but because he was a Christian Bishop and therefore an "extremist" whose (unwelcome) account can be rejected as unreliable.

Jim

Sorry, I didn't put attention on the fact you linked your question with keywords like "history of the past" but was rather concentrated on what you asked. In that case I understand your trouble as well as Andrey's critics.