Meditations

[WorldisQuiet5256]

The Bible, was written by many authors. Sometimes people read it to find themselves.
For me, I read stories.

But when ever there is a story, depending on its author, and how its written. When I read it, I view it simply as a possible scenario for myself. And when the story ends I take what I read and what I would have done and shape myself through myself.

There are those who read, and there are those who travel while they read,

[zombyrus]

What about a base of two (like binary)?

What I mean is that all that changing base seems to do is change how we write down our numbers. It has no effect on their value. If we graphed y=3x in binary, it'd just be rewritten as y=11x, and the graph would look the same except that the axes would be labelled with different numbers.

Know Thyself
Through Thyself.

There is a conception that is the exact opposite of this. There's a book called The Spectre of Comparisons that talks about it. I haven't read the book but I've been a part of some discussion of the idea... The book is using it to refer to cultural identities in nations, but it applies about as well to personal identity.

The idea is basically that it's impossible to know oneself solely through oneself. We are necessarily observing the traits of other people. To some extent, it's impossible to define ourselves without some outside frame of reference. I can't say I'm smart if I don't have a notion of how intelligent most people are. We can think about our own traits, but without context our conclusions are basically meaningless.

Of course I'm not saying to let others define you or something like that, but the extent of our self-understanding is in how well we can compare and contrast ourselves to others.

[EDIT] Basically what I'm saying is that we can't define ourselves without regard to outside influences. If we only looked inward to find ourselves, we wouldn't find anything we could understand.

[terein]

The idea is basically that it's impossible to know oneself solely through oneself. We are necessarily observing the traits of other people. To some extent, it's impossible to define ourselves without some outside frame of reference. I can't say I'm smart if I don't have a notion of how intelligent most people are. We can think about our own traits, but without context our conclusions are basically meaningless.

but couldn't that be the point? not to be able to call yourself smart?
if were seeking to have these "tags" like smart, wise, ect. then we could become something... else. but without comparison we just become.
of course we could never get far enough away from people for them not to affect us. but we also make who we are by how we avoid the "tags" or how we are affected by them.

[Oleander]

There is most definitely not a base that would remove all repeating decimals unless there is a finite amount of prime numbers, which I'm almost certain is not the case. I think we tend to overestimate how much changing bases would change our mathematics, though. It would change how we write down our numbers, but it wouldn't change the values or relative positions of the numbers.

There's several proofs of the infinitude of primes, a few of them are even understandable by lay(wo)men

[The Abacus]

What I mean is that all that changing base seems to do is change how we write down our numbers. It has no effect on their value. If we graphed y=3x in binary, it'd just be rewritten as y=11x, and the graph would look the same except that the axes would be labelled with different numbers.

Okay, now I understand.

The idea is basically that it's impossible to know oneself solely through oneself. We are necessarily observing the traits of other people. To some extent, it's impossible to define ourselves without some outside frame of reference. I can't say I'm smart if I don't have a notion of how intelligent most people are. We can think about our own traits, but without context our conclusions are basically meaningless.

Of course I'm not saying to let others define you or something like that, but the extent of our self-understanding is in how well we can compare and contrast ourselves to others.

[EDIT] Basically what I'm saying is that we can't define ourselves without regard to outside influences. If we only looked inward to find ourselves, we wouldn't find anything we could understand.

I agree, we need some reference to be able to define ourselves (not to the point that we become defined by such influences), BUT that does not make this statement false:

Know Thyself
Through Thyself.

When we have a point of reference we still need to relate that to ourselves, hence: know thyself, through thyself, as long as not solely through thyself.

We can think about our own traits, but without context our conclusions are basically meaningless

Without context, we cannot reach a logical conclusion.

if were seeking to have these "tags" like smart, wise, ect. then we could become something... else. but without comparison we just become.

But we don't need to seek them.

[zombyrus]

but couldn't that be the point? not to be able to call yourself smart?
if were seeking to have these "tags" like smart, wise, ect. then we could become something... else. but without comparison we just become.
of course we could never get far enough away from people for them not to affect us. but we also make who we are by how we avoid the "tags" or how we are affected by them.

It's not about getting labelled, it's about having a frame of reference. If I just look into myself, I won't understand anything in a meaningful way. I mean, even if I literally started dissecting my body, I'd only understand the parts of my body if I were comparing them to each other--This is a muscle, this is a bone; they are different in x way and similar in y way. And the only way we can make these conclusions is through "outside" input, like retinal input that I get from looking down at my dissected body or the feeling that bone is hard and muscle is less hard.

If all I'm looking at is my own personality as a whole, without any sort of frame of reference, it's like half of an equation. "y= " tells me nothing. In complete isolation from humans, I'd still be able to learn a fair amount about my own mind, but not through it in itself but through comparison with my surroundings. I can move, this chair cannot (or does not, anyway); my voice doesn't sound the same as birdsong; there's any number of tiny experiments I could do, but none of them are completely internal. And without other humans, our understanding will likely only work toward an understanding of humans in general, not of the individual (or maybe vice-versa, or something in-between). To really understand my own identity, I need the frame of reference of other people's identity.

[EDIT] As The Abacus says, this isn't saying that "Know thyself through thyself" is entirely false. All I'm saying is that thyself, completely on its own, is decidedly not enough.

[WorldisQuiet5256]

I agree, we need some reference to be able to define ourselves (not to the point that we become defined by such influences), BUT that does not make this statement false:

Know Thyself
Through Thyself.

To Know Thyself,
Can only be achieve Through Thyself.

When I read, I don't just read.
I explore. And to Explore I have to look at the story through every possible point of view.
And to do that, I have to literally "Jump" into the story. But I make sure to leave a trace of myself in order to get back to Earth.
Why else am I such a fan of Mateusz Skutnix work?

My Work here is done.

[WorldisQuiet5256]

Did anyone see this: is my Question?

[zombyrus]

It's been long enough that I don't really remember seeing the Matrix movies... I know I have, but I don't remember much.

The line "Know thyself" doesn't originally come from that, though. Supposedly it was inscribed above the entryway to the Temple of Delphi if memory serves. Seeing as I think there was supposed to be an Oracle at Delphi, it might've been a very conscious reference on the part of the Matrix people.

Also, the way WIQ is describing his reading isn't really how I read. I don't explore, I analyze. Since, in most of the books I read, the characters are somewhat symbolic of things, putting myself in their place is a little nonsensical. Nothing about me represents a disenfranchised older generation of former Egyptian revolutionary activists. In a lot of my books, it's intentional that you can't see things from every point of view. You don't have enough information to entirely understand every character unless the author explicitly wanted you to.

And like I've been trying to say, you cannot know yourself solely through yourself. It sounds like WIQ is saying that he learns about himself through books. Books are not part of me. That is external. We cannot have a meaningful understanding of ourselves without some observation outside ourselves.

My Work here is done

...What exactly are you trying to prove...?

[WorldisQuiet5256]

The Matrix, Revolution.
Neo Talks to the Oracle one last time. She shows him the same Sign Again.

"Know thyself".

The Matrix trilogy is quite complicated. To fully understand it you have to look at it from all perspectives.
That means everything. From the Video Games, to the Fan made Films. Everything.

Yes the film is a work of Fiction. But...there is one character that without him in the trilogy, the whole story falls apart.
Not Neo, but this Kid. Trust me, Neo didn't save him, he got himself out.