In places like the Mir in NY and Shar Yashuv, it was thought that depth learning is for the morning and fast learning for the afternoon.]

 Rav Nahman of Breslov was against learning any kind of philosophy and I can see his point being that it never comes to any kind of conclusion. You can spend a lifetime just trying to untangle the arguments and still have gotten now where. However the Kant-Fries-Leonard Nelson system has found a certain amount of grace because in it there is a justification of faith plus an accurate way of showing the limits of reason and the limits of faith.

I mean, you can see to a great degree that just Torah with no Metaphysics at all tends to be a bit too narrow. It leaves too much room for delusions in areas that are not within the strict bounds of Gemara and Tosphot. 

But as far as Rav Nathan was concerned, the opinion of Rav Nahman was also against learning science and that is far less clear based on many places in the LeM where he emphasis seeing the wisdom in all things including physical. Plus his emphasis on faith in "the wise" {LeM I:60}. And that would have to include the gedolai Sefarad like Ibn Pakuda and the Rambam.

[I have to mention that the way of learning fast by saying the words and going on makes the most sense to me in this regard since not everyone is an Albert Einstein, and yet the way Ibn Pakuda and other rishonim hold this kind of learning is an obligation. So the path of fast learning is the best idea. However some sessions of review are also important, but how much to emphasize one kind of learning as opposed to the other is not clear to me. In places like the Mir in NY and Shar Yashuv, it was thought that depth learning is for the morning and fast learning for the afternoon.]

tractate Eruvin page 37

 There seems to be some kind of doubt about what "no choice" אין ברירה means. Does that means what one will choose in the future does not reveal now what he  chooses. Or does it even mean  even right now, what one chooses does not reveal what one has chosen. 

This comes up in tractate Eruvin page 37. Rava said the reason R. Shimon said, "the statement: 'the two portions [lugin] I will choose are truma' does not help," is not because there is no choice, but because it says ראשית (the first) meaning that the left offers have to be apparent.שייריה ניכרין."

The Gemara asks on Rava, "What about the mishna where R Shimon said: "When one says, 'the truma and maasar of this stack are in it,' is considered to have called the name and place of the truma and maasar and so it is valid." The Gemara answers its own question and says there there is an area surrounding the truma and maasar and so it is considered that the left over parts are apparent.

 Tosphot asks the the same question would apply even if the reason of R Shimon in the first statement would have been because of "no choice". [So the question of the Gemara should not have been on Rava, but on R Shimon himself no matter what the reason for the first statement of R Shimon would be.]

Rav Shach asks on this question of Tosphot the the difference ought to be based on the idea that "no choice" usually refers to the future [i.e. what ones will choose in the future is considered as if he choose it now. The second statement  of R Shimon refers to a case where he says he is setting the truma and maasar right now-but it will not be revealed where there are until he actually picks them out.

Furthermore what does one do if let's say he or she is "possessed"?

Jordan Peterson  discusses ideological possession in one video which kind of set off a whole train of thoughts in me starting from Howard Bloom with the issue "social memes".

It certainly seems related to what Rav Nahman talks about with "Torah scholars that are demons" [LeM vol I ch.s 12, 28.] meaning "possessed" I guess.

Furthermore what does one do if let's say he or she is "possessed"? 

My thought about this is the idea of Rav Nahman of "hitbodadut" which means going to  a place where no one else is around and talking with God as one talks with a friend. That I think is the way Rav Nahman is thinking that it is possible to get to one's inner core or the authentic you, and shed all the layers of false ideologies that one has picked up from other people.

[Besides that, Rav Nahman has advice for every possible problem in the Sefer HaMidot. I just do not recall what he says that would help for this problem.] 

The problem with modern philosophy is the tactic of writing in a manner that is incomprehensible, then accusing critics of failure to comprehend, as though the fault resides with the critics rather than the original writer.

I do have a point of view in which I try to fit the good points of many different philosophers. That is basically of Plotinus (i.e Neo-Plato). So while I accept the insights of the Kant-Fries-Nelson school of thought, I  think about Reason as not being human reason at all,  but Divine Reason  which can be manifested in living beings to some degree.

[So I do not think human reason determines the nature of things. Rather Divine wisdom permeates Creation and determines the laws of nature.]   

But it takes a certain degree of common sense to be able to tell who really has something to say and who does not. 

The problem with modern philosophy is  the tactic of writing in a manner that is incomprehensible, then accusing critics of failure to comprehend, as though the fault resides with the critics rather than the original writer. 

So I do try to use common sense to have a consistent world view. But I do have a kind of starting place which is Plato and Plotinus. And with that context I manage to fit in the insights of the Kant-Fries-Nelson school of thought, (non intuitive immediate knowledge --faith) [but also find an important place for G.E. Moore with the fact that reason recognizes universals,  Certainly each of these schools would disagree with each other. But by means of the Plato Plotinus system I manage to fit it all in one consistent system.   But I am not arguing for this. I am simply saying my own world view for those that might care what I am thinking.

Now you might wonder from where I picked up this world view. Well in part because after school I waited for my dad to pick me up at the library and while waiting I used to read Plato. And then later I learned the Chovot Levavot [Obligations of the Hearts by Ibn Pakuda] while at the Mir in NY  and his system is neo-Platonic [i.e. Plato-Plotinus.]

Pinocchio

 Pinocchio gave his life to save his father. And he did in fact lose his life. But what kind of life was that? of a puppet? It was in fact his supreme sacrifice to save his Dad that became the cause that he became a real boy and in fact started having a true life, not the life of  a puppet.

Why does this matter? because often art precedes philosophy in insight and depth.

music file x65

 x65 C Major MP3 file

the Labor Theory of Value is false.The value things have does not depend on how much labor went into making them. I do not are if someone spent a whole day making one needle.

 The major thing I dislike about communism is that it makes no sense. [It is based on the Labor Theory of Value which is false. The value things have does not depend on how much labor went into making them. I do not are if someone spent a whole day making one needle. That makes it no more valuable to me than if  a factory produced it and I can buy it for one cent. Rather, the value depends on how much people want it. And the factory owner does not extract excess value from the worker. He creates value. The proof you can see yourself. Try to make on your own something and then try to sell it on the street. One day of doing that would have shown Marx and Lenin a thing or two about capitalism.] But that is besides the fact of its supposedly scientific predictions came out just the opposite of what it was predicting. But when things are in chaos, it does provide a means to taking control. That was the assessment of the head of the FBI J. Edgar Hoover. And he meant that in a negative sense. But the same idea was expressed to me by a Mormon who worked as an economist. [I asked him about President Hoover  and the depression and the fact that Roosevelt instituted lots of socialist policies to bring the USA out of the Depression. Whether that worked I do not know, but the answer that Mormon fellow told me was that sometimes in a times of chaos, you need some way that central government can take control.] And in a more startling way it was expressed by many people I met in the Ukraine. No one ever told me things were better under democracy than under communism. Whenever I asked, people always told me things were better than than they were under democracy. [They always said: "It was better then than now." And I saw that also. The police were spending their time hiding in their station, and the streets were empty of police. The more the fear of the KGB dissipated, the more crime and chaos.] You could see this clearly. The more distance the memory of communism was, the more crime was taking over.  

Still the point seems to be the same. To establish some kind of stability when everything is in chaos. But the order ought to be to first bring stability and then an free market democracy. Not the opposite.