89 (1 of 5) Pierre Grimes speaks about Alan Watts

[malkooth]

Nice shirt.

[coci3076]

I was just exposed to Alan Watts and I'm glad I did.

[Eldel15]

This may seem irrelevant but in the book "Anathem" The Hyleyan Theoric World is essentially the same model of the meta mathematics.

[JinxOz]

@Eldel15 who is the author of "Anathem"?

[brainAcid9]

Wonderful! Thanks!

[GovGenMarcusKerensky]

I studied under Pierre, and it was the greatest days of my life. I need to come back....

[rh001YT]

I'm sure Pierre Grimes would be a decent neighbor because he is probably quiet and has good hygiene. But most of his presentations are confused sophistry. understanding humanity requires a lot of interdisciplinary study with a scientific emphasis. It seems that humans do what they do simply in order to survive. Ideas come into mind for many reasons, some better than others, and are embraced by the group to the extent that they provide security and prosperity. That's really all there is to it.

[Piniczylin]

@rh001YT People needed to survive in Ancient Greece and Middle Age Europe, in ancient China and in modern America BUT The differences between these civilazations are quitte obvious to say the least...

[meirsimchah]

I studied Dr. Grimes' philosophical midwifery with his student Robert Apatow, and it's great. And I read Dr. Grimes' book Philosophical Midwifery, and it was good. So I have very good feelings towards Dr. Grimes. That said, he would better not open his mouth about Judaic or Judaic-Christian (if there is such a thing) ideas.

[jadedmisanthropy]

Why not?

[meirsimchah]

There are a few problems with what he said there (what he said elsewhere is beyond me).

First, he refers to the Biblical creation story as the Judeo-Christian worldview. Judeo-Christian or Christo-Judean could have been a useful term 2000 years ago, but it's not gonna help us today to understand either Jewish civilization nor Christiandom/Christian theology.

[jadedmisanthropy]

1. Well given that the two faiths (Judaism and Christianity) are linked with the Old Testament I always figured the phrase "Judeo-Christian" suggested that linkage. Maybe they are better off being understood separately? Is that what you mean?

[meirsimchah]

I don't really know enough about Christianity to respond fully, but I see that there are some very important fundamental differences. So, yes, best to take each separately. I suspect the category Judeo-Christian has been constructed on two lines -- one political and one anti-religious.

[meirsimchah]

2nd, he said that God pronounced the creating work good each day, everyday. That's incorrect. So, big question: what the other days were off days? it wasn't so good? what happened? As Grimes probably knows from his study of ancient Greek, parallelism and disparallelism are extremely important in ancient mythological texts. He didn't give many details in his lecture, but this one, one of the very few he did give, was wrong. Looks like he didn't know the material.

[jadedmisanthropy]

I don't think he suggested that God had "off days". And from what I remember God did declare each creation day as "good', in succession, I haven't read genesis in a very long time but I'm pretty sure. If God did have off days, I guess parallelism would certainly fall by the wayside, but I'm skeptical of that philosophical viewpoint.

[meirsimchah]

I was just joking about that. But, if you take a look, you'll see that not every day gets a good. This is important. I suspect that Grimes had the same set back you just found -- he hadn't looked at the text for a long time. That's okay. But if you're going to make authoritative pronouncements about something, better know what you're talking about. That's all.

[meirsimchah]

3rd, that business about God having a model and checking the actual creation against the model - where's that in the biblical text at all? He's doing a platonic gloss. Which is fine as long as one knows what it is. This gloss, however, is out of line with intrabiblical and canonical rabbinic understanding of creation. (I can't say much about Christianity) So it's incorrect to call this the Judeo-Christian perspective.

[jadedmisanthropy]

I am all for interpreting religious worldviews in new ways, and if this platonic method doesn't mesh with the established canon....well I don't really care, lol. But personally, how can one possibly check creation against the 'model'?  We're living IN creation, we don't have access to, or rather we don't yet have full understanding of, the blueprints of that creation.

[meirsimchah]

Yeah, I relate to what you're saying. Again though, Grimes' interpretation -- he can have it, but it's incorrect to claim that it's biblical or the orthodox or dominant current in Jewish thought. Grimes doesn't say we check against the model, but that God checks. Grimes might say elsewhere that this is how we know things as good in our lives, in which case you're point about our being in creation is really important.

[hvncb]

blah...

[mojave19]

Dr. Grimes was my teacher 30 years ago at Golden West College. It's great seeing him again. I became an elementary school teacher and often find myself drawing pictures ("graphic organizers" in present pedagogical lingo) on the board as I teach. This is undoubtedly inspired by Dr. Grimes.

[glbook]

i believe mr alan watts referrs to it as the Ceramic View and Fully Automatic View

[macrina9]

lovely and wonderful! as usual.

[bws2a]

I've never seen anyone summarize humanity's possible worldviews before. I'm interested in seeing the rest.

[albothor]

where is the rest of the lectures... Please post the rest of these lectures!!!

[Canteatpancakes]

I highly recommend listening to Alan Watts him self, he has given many lectures which have been recorded and many (if not all) are brilliant...

[TurboRonin83]

What Alan Watts did is that he brought the wisdom of the East to the West. Saying nothing more, what he did was good, purposeful, important, and everlasting. A Bodhisattva no less.

[ORYBoomer009]

Great post, thank you. That is someone talking about Alan Watts' ideas, not Alan Watts himself.

[openingmind]

Thanks thats a good title point

[alexpui]

great start.. i'm interested in the rest! is there any way, sir, that I might be able to get ahold of the other four parts?

[freesouljah]

check out his playlists...its in there...he posted it by special request...for me... 8D 8D

[freesouljah]

thanks for sharing this...