The Use of Philosophy

....Philosophy, taken in itself, is above utility. And for this very reason, philosophy is of the utmost necessity for men. It reminds them of the supreme utility of those things which do not deal with means, but with ends. For men do not live only by bread, vitamins, and technological discoveries. They live by values and realities that are above time, and are worth being known for their own sake; they feed in that invisible food which sustains the life of the spirit, and which makes them aware, not of such or such means at the service of their life,  but of their very reasons for living - and suffering, and hoping.

    The philosopher in society witnesses to the supreme dignity of thought; he points to what is eternal in man, and stimulates our thirst for pure knowledge and disinterested knowledge, knowledge of those fundamentals - about the nature of things and the nature of the mind, and man himself, and God - which are superior to, and independent of, anything we can make or produce or create - and to which all our practice is appendent, because we think before acting and nothing can limit the range of thought: our practical decisions depend on the stand we take on the ultimate questions that human thought is able to ask.

Jacques Maritain,  On The Use of Philosophy,  pp. 6, 7

Virtual-itis Five

MC: I see you have returned. Do you mind if I ask you a question for a change? 

V. Please do. 

MC.  Why do you come to me when I am asleep? And how do you know when to return?

V. Sleep creates a different attitude in you. Your dreams make you more open to Mystery than your distracted, daylight mind. In your dreams you are even capable of wonder. Also, you don't suppress memories. Do you remember when I compared your mind to a cargo crate filled with a lot of stuff? When you sleep, the sides of the crate are down. While the sides hold things in, they also keep things out.  When your defenses are down, more can get in. So I am able to plant a little bit of truth in you. You will not let that happen when you are awake.  That, by the way is the answer to your second question too, the question about time.   You asked how I know when to return, remember? It depends on how long it takes for the truth to take root in you.  Whether in a few days, or a few weeks, I return when the truth has taken root, because that is the right time. 

MC.  But how do you know when the truth has taken root?  That is what I want to know. 

V. Ah, you are beginning to wonder.  You are using your mind to ponder and marvel about what you do not understand. 

MC. Don’t take that superior attitude. And don’t patronize me!  I just want an answer to my question.   

V. Of course you do. But you want an answer you are going to understand, one that fits within the walls of the "cargo crate", an answer that is a bit of data you can store away in your memory bank, one more piece of information that gives you more control. What you do not want is an answer that will wake you up, or make you see you are sleep-walking in your daily life. You do not yet see is that truth is alive. It is not dead data.  Truth can only take root in you and grow because it is alive, and your mind is able to grasp it and grow, because your mind is alive, too. Your mind comes alive by letting the living truth in. You come alive by living the Truth you receive. You become the Truth you live. That is why you must let Mystery be the measure of you. On the other hand, if you reduce truth to store-able ideas, you deprive yourself of the life it offers. That is what happens when your mind reduces itself to a cargo crate, a memory bank, or storage space. 

MC. I sense you are telling me something important. It seems real and beautiful. I want to believe it. It excites me.  It seems true, but at the same time it seems too good to be true. I do not understand it.  How can what you say be true?  It is too, I don’t know, too poetic, to make sense.

V. Do not reduce the truth to what you can comprehend.  The truth is greater than that.  Sure, some of it is understandable to us,  or accessible to us; it is intelligible and reasonable.  That truth is a priceless treasure.  But an ever greater treasure is the truth that is inaccessible to us, the truth beyond our comprehension,  the truth above all that is,  the foundation of all,  and source of all.  That truth is Mystery.  We live in its light, but can never absorb all of its light.

MC. But why? Why  can't we see it all?  We discover more and more facts all the time.  It seems reasonable to assume one day we will know everything.

V. If mankind survives long enough, it is possible, in theory, for us to discover all the truth that is commensurate with human nature. But we will never penetrate the truth that is beyond our nature. There is no way for us to see into its inner workings.

MC. Huh? You're losing me.What is the difference between these two kinds of truth? 

V. We're just repeating ourselves now, like a record that gets stuck and goes over the same phrases over and over. I'll come back when you might be able to absorb more.

MC.   No, answer me now! What gives you the right to come and go as you please! 

V. The only way to get beyond an impasse is to love the truth we cannot yet see, love Truth in all its Mystery. You still want to be in control of it instead of submitting yourself to it. Truth is the measure of your mind,  you are not the measure of it. Absolute Truth is beyond your or any mind's measuring because it is Mystery. 

MC. Go! Leave. All this talk about Mystery is just mystification.

Virtual-itis: Part One

VIRTUAL-ITIS:  A Socratic Dialogue with a Modern Christian. 

The dialogue takes place during sleep, in a dream.
                                                        

        Only the soul can experience an absence that is  presence, an emptiness that is  filling, a longing that is an enjoying.  Such an experience occurs when the soul awakens and comes alive in the remembrance of Selfless Love.  Today this experience is more and more absent to us and as a result our hungers have no meaning.  We fill ourselves obliviously with empty data, factoids, and bytes.  Diversions, distractions, multiply like virtual loaves. Only in the silent, empty desert will the Mystery of Selfless Love once again dazzle us.

                                                

Voice: Why do you sleep so fitfully? What bothers you?

Modern Christian:  What? Who are you? Am I dreaming?

V:  You may call me Socrates. I was sent to help you know yourself better. Yes, you are dreaming, but the dream is real, more so than the daytime hours you spend walking around in a fog.

MC: How can I be sure? Maybe I am having a nightmare, or going crazy. 

 V: You are already driving yourself crazy. Yourwhole life is a nightmare of worry and anxiety. Do not be afraid of me. You have nothing to lose and much to gain. Tell me: what is bothering you?

MC:  Well, I am having a hard time making decisions.  I can’t sort out my thoughts and feelings and come to a conclusion.   One day one thing seems good to me, the next day something else. Why can’t I be as sure of myself as I used to be?  

V: You may have a common yet unrecognized virus that infects much of the world's population,  a virus called  “virtual-itis.” This is a sickness that comes from a loss of contact with reality. How serious the sickness is depends on how far removed you are from reality. May I ask you some questions? I need to see how badly this virus affects you.  

MC:   What harm can it do?. Ask away. What would you like to know?  

V: Does your mind feel like a cargo crate or like your stomach?

MC:  I don’t understand.  My mind doesn't feel like anything. Not like a cargo crate, not like my stomach. What are you getting at?  

V:  A cargo crate can be empty or full. But it is indifferent to both emptiness and fullness.  It is neither happy nor unhappy over what is placed in it.  Like a cargo crate, your stomach can be empty. But the stomach knows it is empty.  That’s why you feel hungry!  So the stomach is not indifferent to being empty.  Nor is the stomach indifferent to what gets put in it.  It wants tasty food that nourishes it, food that contains the vitamins, minerals, carbs, and proteins which the rest of the body needs.  And after it gets that stuff, the stomach knows what to do with it.  It knows how to break it down and what to send where.  The stomach finds satisfaction in fullness and frustration in emptiness. 

MC. Okay, okay, enough already!  I see what you mean. But I thought the mind was like a blank slate. Isn't that  how the mind works, something like a slate on which you write information?  I thought being a brainy, knowledgeable person meant you had gathered up a lot of information and knew how to use the information to get what you wanted.

V:  That would reduce the brain pretty much to a computer memory bank.  But the brain is more  like a smart cat playing with a ball of string. The cat pokes it, rolls it, runs around it, pounces on it, backs off and leaves it there,then jumps on it again. Of course, if it is a mouse or a canary instead of a ball of string, when the cat is finished playing with it, he finally eats it.  That’s the way the mind works. It plays with an idea, looks at it from one angle and then another, compares it to this and that. The mind questions and pokes the idea and rolls it around before deciding whether or not to leave it be or eat it. Sometimes the mind will swallow it.  And once your mind swallows the idea, it also knows what to do with it.  

MC: Sorry, you are losing me.  What are you getting at? 

V:  Just as the stomach cannot use any old thing we put into it, the mind is meant to take in truth. The hunger of the mind is for truth. The mind is nourished by truth, not just by information or data or factoids.  Today we seem to have forgotten that a mind cannot be healthy without truth. We think just having a crate full of data is enough to fill us. 

MC:  I see what you're saying.  What food is to the stomach,  truth is  to the mind.  How about this: two people discussing an idea are like your two cats, playing with a ball, rolling it around, back and forth to one another. Isn't that a good image for two persons having a discussion or a brainstorming session or even a debate? As they toss the idea around they clarify it, see it differently, and maybe help it acquire depth they didn’t know was there before.   That’s what you mean by the mind being like a playful curious cat, and not just a blank slate, right? 

V: Yes.  You do begin to see!  Healthy people have that kind of mind that is inquisitive, searching, and hungry for truth. They are interested in learning more and more about the truth they already know.  Unhealthy people have a mind like a crate or slate, they don’t care what is inside or written on it, nor have a sense of what to do with what they have inside. The truth to them is just a lot of data or information.  You, on the other hand, may get healthy by talking to me. 

MC. By healthy or unhealthy I presume you are referring to this virus you are talking about?  Virtual-itis?  

V. Yes.   A crate type mind is one symptom of the disease.  Another is a spectator mentality.  That means you...
MC. Wait a minute! I don't buy everything you have said. It is your opinion, and you have a right to it. But I see things a different way. I have a different value system. You don't have any right to impose your way of seeing on me. I am free to see things the way I want therm to be.
V. No you are not. You are free to accept reality or deny it. But once you deny reality, you separate yourself from truth and start living by self deception.
MC. This conversation is over! Go away! Sneak into my head some other day. I don't want to play mind games with you any more right now.