Wednesday, August 25, 2010

President Obama must re-establish the original purpose of Philosophy: to give us wisdom and help us achieve happiness.

Dinitia Smith while reviewing Simon Critchely's book, 'The Book of Dead Philosophers' says in The NY Times, "Philosophy, he says has abandoned its original purpose, which is to give us wisdom and help us achieve happiness," and again, "Philosophy has tried to mimic science in its constant striving toward the perfection of ideas and its quest for absolute truth. Gradually philosophy has been abstracted from the concerns of everyday life..."

It is now very clear that President Obama is not a political President. He is not driven by ideology. He is driven by wisdom. He is a genuinely wise leader in the great tradition of wise leaders. One after another he is fulfilling his pledges. It now is clear that we need not be cynical about our politicians. However he has still not taken any major initiatives toward reforming education. President Obama must reestablish the original purpose of philosophy education: to give us wisdom and help us achieve happiness.

The problem with main stream philosophers is that they have abandoned the quest to define wisdom. They has tried and tried throughout history to define wisdom in absolute truth terms. Because they couldn't
pin down a precise scientific definition of wisdom they have more or less abandoned the quest to use wisdom to help us achieve happiness. At least the ancient philosophers did not give up the quest for they saw that wisdom is real and that it does make a real difference in the lives of those who have it. When they could not define wisdom they started to define its attributes. So they taught how to cultivate the attributes of wisdom. Even teaching the attributes of wisdom seemed an impossible task. So wisdom and its attributes gradually became the the quest of spiritual institutions, abandoned by main stream science.

The reason why wisdom is hard to acquire because wisdom is an innate quality of every human mind/brain. It is like a seed that needs certain conditions to gradually bloom into a fruit bearing tree. The seed of wisdom has to be emotionally nurtured into blooming into reality. Its attributes are the fruit of the 'wisdom tree'. Try growing fruit without growing the tree. Thus even the attributes become more or less impossible to cultivate. Its like trying to move the horse by whipping the cart.

Thus it is most frustrating and confusing trying to teach the attributes of wisdom. No wonder main stream education has long ago stopped even trying to research wisdom. Religion took up the explaining and cultivation of wisdom. Even they could not define wisdom so they started to teach its attributes. But their teachings is mere preaching. That is they just plead with the congregation to be good because that is what Gd wants. It is like pleading with a dirty, stained bed spread to clean itself! It is like pleading with a person who cannot even afford a bus fare to go to work in a Bentley. You can plead all you want but the poor person has no way to get himself a Bentley.

Because the brain is the fertile ground where the wisdom seed has to be nurtured into becoming a 'wisdom tree' that sprouts the fruit/attributes of wisdom. Once the wisdom tree is actualized the abundant fruit sprout out automatically. The wisdom seed for all practical purposes is the very physical quality of the brain. The brain is the wisdom tree and its attributes are the fruits. What kind of fruit the brain tree will produce will depend on the quality of the brain. Thus in order to cultivate the attributes of wisdom the brain will have to be cultivated and nurtured. Thus wisdom education has to be brain education. By cultivating not the attributes of wisdom but by emotionally educating the brain to physically turn into an emotionally super mature brain.

The brain passes through four stages (which I have quantified to emphasize quality) of development as follows:
1) Premature brain at birth. -2.
2) Immature brain of a teenager. -1.
3) Mature brain of an adult. +1.
4) Super mature brain of a wise person. +2.

For the brain to develop from -2 to +2 the brain must feel secure in abandoning its own previous attributes/'values'/fruits to take up the next stage of attributes. Its like a person who has a good life and then gets a promotion he will forget his previous life and will start to enjoy his new life. However if the persons life turns into a demotion then he will start to be nostalgic about the past and will continue to live in the past and still feel the attributes of the past as his real self. The same happens with the brain. As long as the newer stage of development is happier the brain very very gradually abandons the current attributes and starts to actualize the attributes of the new brain level.

For most Americans the brain level stops at the +1 mature level. The parents are careful during pregnancy and are mostly loving and caring during childhood so the brain development goes smoothly from -2 to -1 t0 +1. However most American brains get stuck at +1 because the parents cultivate a trophy self image in the brain/mind of the child. The child ends up with the fruit/attributes of a +1 mature brain. So for America wisdom education boils down to removing the trophy self image.

Currently when we try to remove negative attributes from the brain we try to remove for instance jealousy. Its is like removing a fruit from the tree of ignorance. You keep trying to remove a fruit and the tree keeps producing more fruit. The whole ignorance tree has to be removed.

Just like the attributes of wisdom are automatically produced at the +2 super mature brain/mind the attributes produced at the lower levels are those of ignorance. The brain sprouts wisdom at +2 because the brain quality is super mature. It sprouts the attributes of ignorance when the brain quality is less than +2.

I have a step by step plan how to remove ignorance from the brain to make it wise and genuinely happy.

No comments:

Post a Comment