mysticism

My impression is that mixing up mysticism with Musar was not a good idea. [That is almost all post Zohar Musar].
But I do not mean this in the sense of critique on the Ari'zal. Rather the tendency is to get off track.

And after all, there is a very different sense of what Muar means when it comes from the rational schools of thought of Saadia Gaon and the Rambam -as opposed to the mystic schools of thought of the Ramban/ Nahmanides and almost all subsequent Musar.

To me it seems I myself got off track. And that would not have happened if the straight Litvak yeshiva I was in had been straightforward about saying that the Mystics just got too much stuff wrong. Not that they got everything wrong, but enough to make it no worthwhile.

There were great tzadikim like Rav Yaakov Abukazeira who came to great "maddragot" [levels] but that was not from learning mysticism but from simple service towards God.

[I do not want to turn this into a critique on great tzadikim, but rather to emphasize that no one became a tzadik through learning mysticism. They became tzadikim because they served God simply.Straight Torah. No frills.

[Even books that are thought to be relatively free of mysticism like the Mesilat Yesharim open the door to the mystic stuff. It is hard to know what to make out of this.I certainly do not what to be critical of the Ramhal but in point of fact, the mystic stuff sends people on tangents--often not very good ones.

Dr Edward Feser suggested that Aristotle's approach [and Aquinas] solves the Mind body problem.

Some people like Dr Edward Feser have suggested that Aristotle's approach [and Aquinas] solves the Mind body problem. Then I saw on his site a link to here http://faculty.fordham.edu/jaworski/

But based on what I saw in Thomas Reid and Dr Michael Huemer I do not know how this can help.

Here is the link to the book:Hylomorphism-Mind-Body

The reason that I think this can not work is that people are made of atoms. Atoms do not have mental states.

Normally I have a lot of confidence in Medieval thinking. But in this case I am wondering because I am thinking they might be ignoring the point made by Berkeley.

חובות הלבבות שער היחוד פרק ו

In Obligations of the Heart, [1:6] Rav Bahayee Ibn Pakuda says if something has a beginning it must have an end because if something has no beginning it can not have an end.

Here in this diagram I have tried to work this out.

E=End; B=Beginning; NB=No Beginning; NE=No End.

Idealism

F. H. Bradley (1846–1924) (one of the key figures in Idealism) after WWI, repudiated the whole thing.  Brand Blanchard more or less still defended it.



But what people did to try to replace Hegel with something better seems to have been a flop,



Post Modernism, Existentialism linguistic philosophy analytic philosophy. All sand traps.--as noted by recent more sane people like Kelley Ross.

My suggestion is to take a new look at Leonard Nelson and the Kant-Friesian School of thought.

[In fact the whole academic world in the US seems to have become a lot more sane after the vacuous stupid philosophers of the twentieth century.]

One of the greatest mathematicians in history, Gauss, thought of Hegel negatively. But Ernst Kummer had a specifically Hegelian view point from what one can tell from his speeches.
And there is another connection with the world of math in Felix Klein who married Ann Hegel the daughter of Karl Hegel the son of Hegel.

Obligations of the Heart [Hovot Levavot]

I noticed that some things in the Obligations of the Heart [Hovot Levavot] need more study.

In the first section Gate of Unity, chapter 5 he says there is a general form that is the sub-layer of accidental forms and forms that are part of the essence. [The last would be like wetness is an essential form for water] That is a new concept I have never heard of.

There also seems to be problems. If some thing has no beginning it can have no end he says as an axiom. But then he derives if it has no end then it had no beginning. That is a kind of logic used by Rava in the Gemara but then the Gemara itself asks on Rava. I brought this up with David Bronson once and he showed me that Gemara. [If it is raining it is wet outside. But if it is wet outside that does not mean it is raining. Someone might have turned on their sprinklers.]

I also noticed the Obligations of the Heart also mentions Creation Ex Nihilo right there is chapter 5.

[That is an essential aspect of Torah. This is contrary to the religious who try to change the approach of Torah without telling people that that is what they are doing. They claim "Everything is God." That is not Torah-besides being false.

Also it is hard to understand why the Obligations of the Heart would in chapter 4 say Aristotle was wrong about the fifth element and then in chapter 5 claim there is the Iyuli?

I assume there is some background he is building on of Post Aristotelian philosophers.

the difference between the holy and the fake is hardest of all.

The problem with the Sitra Achra [the Dark Side] is not well defined. The reason is that every area of value has an equal and opposite area of value that looks in externals to be the same thing.

It takes a kind of special talent in any given area to be able to tell the real thing from the fake.
That is the reason the Sitra Achra has taken over the Jewish Religious world. The warnings of the Gra and Rav Shach went unheeded.


It is perhaps possible to learn to exercise caution by learning from other areas of value where the difference between right and wrong reasoning can be more clear.

The main trouble seems to be this. If u take areas of value to start with pure form with no content [logic] and work up towards content with little or no form, the difference between the real thing and the fake becomes increasingly difficult to tell.

As it is said about talent: It takes a genius or at least a lot of talent to recognize a genius.

So with Formal Logic where the statements can stand for anything, what determines the  right answer is  only the form. But Math is not reducible to logic. It has more content but less form. The right and wrong can not be reduced to pure form. [Godel] So it is harder to tell a true proof from a false one.

Then you get into areas with more content  like the physical sciences and it gets harder to tell.
Then in music, art , human affairs and justice which are more content and less form the real test of quality is harder. The rules are no longer clear.
Then when you get into areas of holiness, the difference between the holy and the fake is hardest of all.

learning math and Physics

Once you accept the idea of my parents and the Obligations of the Heart and the Rambam about the importance of learning math and Physics for their own sake and not just because of talent or making a living then comes the question of how to go about it. (note 1)

My idea is to first do גירסה --say the words from the beginning of the book until the end. Then review that same book four times in the same way. 

(note 1) You can see this idea hinted to often in the Obligations of the Heart and other Musar books from the Middle Ages. Later musar books however ignore or dismiss this idea entirely. My feeling is that the rishonim [mediaeval authorities] got this right.

 [note 2] That was at the beginning of my taking up Mathematics after forgetting it for years. Also in NY that is what I was doing as I was trying to get into higher math. But then with all the running around and lack of concentration and just plain getting old I decided it was time to just do "saying the words and going on" since that was the only way I could hope to get the big picture.