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What tool is available to break the hold of apathy?

Our habit of seeking accustomed satisfactions prevents us from finding new sources of energy with which to see or create new meanings. Blind habit controls our every turn. Familiar modes of thought and accustomed perceptions lock our imagination and will into a strait jacket of passivity.

What tool is available to break this passive mold of inaction and apathy? It is playful imagination that can lead us from the jailhouse we have trapped our self within. We need to remind our self of Plato’s wise expression that the gods are happiest when man plays. This playful attitude applies both to our sciences as well as our arts. It applies to all of wo/man’s symbolic activities.

Physicists found the world inside the atom to be non-intuitive. The world inside the atom seemed to be totally different from our world. Heisenberg’s principle of indeterminacy was about an alien world. If, however, we were able to climb into the atomic world it is quite possible that the principle of indeterminacy would be ‘just doing what comes naturally’.

Some of history’s great thinkers have penetrated into the human mind long before Freud. Rousseau, for example, comprehended an aspect of “unconscious motivation”. “The moral of this anecdote is that the honest man can see through himself even quicker than the honest scientist can see through nature.”

We could have comprehended the science of the human condition much sooner than we did and the reason we did not is because of the “intolerance of method, the claims to exclusivity, the doctrine of a single valid approach to the study of man…The place where this took its greatest toll was in the fragmentation of the disciplines, the isolation of the various approaches to man. But undoubtedly the most harmful intolerance of all was the intolerance of philosophy in the science of man.”

In the reaction to various philosophical speculations, the scientific community in the mid-nineteenth century shouted ‘no more speculations were needed about the nature of man’. The scientific community followed by the population in general decided that it was only important to discover what was going on within the organism. Psychiatry became uncompromisingly organismic. Science failed to see that its methods were narrowing significantly humanities real striving.

Pragmatism at the end of the nineteenth century was a response to this narrow scientific approach toward the “science of man”. It became obvious that we must understand what wo/man is striving for, “as a part of nature, as a dimension of life”.

Rousseau taught us that humans wanted meaning and maximum conviction but a major question that the scientific method could not resolve “What was behind all of man’s peculiar urges, what was he trying to do as a vehicle of the life force? For only if we could understand this abstract problem could we answer the greatest practical puzzle of all: What were the possibilities of life on the level of human existence; and, conversely, what was there about the human condition that was hopeless?”

What are the limitations and possibilities for human life?

Ideas and quotes from Beyond Alienation by Ernest Becker

Coberst, you ask: You say, "It is playful imagination that can lead us from the jail house we have trapped our self within."

As a way out of the trap, you offer: "Heisenberg’s principle of indeterminacy" which you say, "was about an alien world. If, however, we were able to climb into the atomic world, it is quite possible that the principle of indeterminacy would be ‘just doing what comes naturally’."

When you mention, "what comes naturally" I presume you mean to refer to the playful use of the imagination, right?

Then you talk about the unconscious mind, which in the animal kingdom, it is it what we call instinct. Very interesting. In us human beings is it what we call intuition?

In my opinion, I think of my unconscious mind as being not unlike what Seth Lloyd calls a quantum computer. Are you familiar with his work about programming the cosmos?

In my opinion, my unconscious mind contains a record, not only of this life I am now living, but of the lives of all my ancestors--fathers and mothers--who preceded me and my eight siblings.

At this point, it is up to me to accept this and, without prejudice, build on it. Or, I can choose to go the way of shaming and blaming. I choose to can tear down and reject what has been recorded in my billions of neurons.

At this point, it is my intention to choose to accept life as it is in my conscious and unconscious mind. Using my imagination, I choose, with the help of philosophy, science and the arts, to build on who I am, holistically

You mention,"the greatest practical puzzle of all" and you pose the questions:

1. "What were the possibilities of life on the level of human existence; and, conversely, what was there about the human condition that was hopeless?”

2. "What are the limitations and possibilities for human life?"

[Ideas and quotes from Beyond Alienation by Ernest Becker.]

My short answer is: Because, physically, mentally and spiritually, I feel at one with all that is--G0D, for short--I feel no alienation.

Therefore, in my opinion, the possibilities for human life--as we live and move and have our being in the infinity of space and the eternity time (the Now)--are awesome.

God is the answer that most people choose. The fact that most humans are guided either by the God of Christianity or the God of Islam or the Jewish God seems to verify that as a fact.

We began to have serious problems with this as we humans began to encrouch upon the territory of the Gods. Now we have to add to the mix the Godhood to which we humans aspire.

Many years ago, and I do mean a long time ago, I was in a Uni debate on the topic "That apathy is worth the effort" arguing for the positive. We lost. The adjudicator said that the lack of apathy we showed in our response showed too much effort and too little apathy. It got a laugh--- but the unfairness lingers still!! Nowadays of course we would stand up, drawl 'Whatever'-- and slump back to our mobile phones.

Which goes to show that it is not a new problem.

Personally I doubt that god would be the answer, and do humans really aspire to godhead? If so how? I think apathy is the preserve of youth. They have enough time to indulge in it, as they know they have all the rest of their surely everlasting lives to deal with doing stuff. Eventually most of us snap out of this attitude as we find out that time does indeed fly by, and there is still lots to do!

Also there is the sheer terror of making the wrong decision-- an important factor when you are young and faced with infinite possibilities. Decisions get rather easier as opportunities close themselves down I've found!

Everything that I study leads me to the conclusion that the human urge for immortality began with the birth of ego, i.e. when we were able to recognize our mortality, and is displayed constantly since that birth. It is like the air we breathe and thus it is not evident to the casual eye. My study of the history of art informs me that it all began with "infinite theism" (everything was a god) slowly developed to multiple gods and from there to a few monotheistic gods.

I think that intellectual apathy begins with youth and hardens until it becomes a standard attitude at mid-life for most people. At least one can hope to change it in the youth but if it is not changed early after the school daze is over it leads to a lack of curiosity and finally to a lack of caring beyond our instinctive sympathetic vibrations. I think that President Bush is a good example of this basic attitude.

Coberst, you say:
Coberst, et al: There is nothing other that our will to prevent us from being one with GOD.

Read John 10:22-39. Then read John 17:20-26--preferably in a modern version like for example.
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%2017:20-26;&version=51;

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John 17:20-26 (New Living Translation)

20 “I am praying not only for these disciples but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message. 21 I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one—as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me.

22 “I have given them the glory you gave me, so they may be one as we are one. 23 I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me. 24 Father, I want these whom you have given me to be with me where I am. Then they can see all the glory you gave me because you loved me even before the world began!

25 “O righteous Father, the world doesn’t know you, but I do; and these disciples know you sent me. 26 I have revealed you to them, and I will continue to do so. Then your love for me will be in them, and I will be in them.”

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Now tell us your interpretation of this.

BTW, at the formation of the United Church of Canada (UCC), June 10, 1925, John 17:21 became the motto of the church. Later, it was emblazoned on it's crest--of the UCC.

I am not qualified to speak with knowledge about the New Testament or the Koran or the Old Testament.