"Philosophy begins in wonder," says Plato

[Psyduck]

... but what is wonder?


Why do we experience it?
Why is wonder an affection (something that overcomes us)? Where does it come from?
What is its function and impact in a person's life?
Does the experience of wonder "learn" us something which is beyond the possibilities of linguistic, symbolic, and rational ways of understanding the world?
Are there different kinds of wonder (religious, scientific, poetic, philosophical)?

 

[HeWhoHowls]

I guess the secret ingredient that makes the sense of wonder so profound is that it stimulates us to consider various possibilities concerning our future.
We all spend certain amounts of time n emotional/psychological effort in this complicated process.
Wonder n hope seem to go hand in hand this way.

 

[Pegasus]

Wonder is a survival technique IMO. I don't think it's just a human thing... I think beavers had to have wondered a bit about how to get away from predators to start building dams...

 

[Nagelfar]

Wonderment could be considered a vacuum against the will to power; it is the sensation to the lack of the means for power, control, articulation, even if only abstractly and in our own mind. To 'grasp' a concept is to be able to influence it in yourself. It's the seeking for a widening of your sphere of internalized influence.

It's not necessarily to do with survival, though it may be the template for it, because one may wonder about suicide in a proactive way. Which is a form of control, aka will to power.

 

[Pegasus]

^I disagree that suicide is not about survival. I think that's exactly what it's about to the conscious mind. The desire for the conscious mind to be bearable causes a person to kill themselves. That desire is a desire for survival, just a survival of the mind and not the body. The mind ceases to exist afterward, but not before hurdling one last problem.

 

[A Blind Guy]

when you say wonder, I'm thinking about what people feel when they see the grand canyon. i guess that's more awe, though.

that being said I have no idea what else to say.

 

[Nagelfar]

^I disagree that suicide is not about survival. I think that's exactly what it's about to the conscious mind. The desire for the conscious mind to be bearable causes a person to kill themselves. That desire is a desire for survival, just a survival of the mind and not the body. The mind ceases to exist afterward, but not before hurdling one last problem.

The sensation of strife may maintain a will to exist (by asserting oneself as something extant) realized through an act of self-destruction, but that by definition hasn't anything to do with survival (which is the continuation of being extant, rather than an expression of having an extant quality already, which needs be justified as a past by action in the present); not even of just the mind without relation to the body that substantiates it.

In fact, the body (or just the idea of the body and the mind it "contains") is more a past as an object than the mind, which is as a present subject: so I see it the other way about even if I were to concur that what I see as 'exists through self destruction' could be an idea of outlasting oneself by destroying oneself (for others or the perceived impact on the 'outside world', making ones mark as it were) as a kind of self-survival (which I still do not adhere to the thought of, because that's justifying ones legacy by not surviving, not surviving in itself, whether or not that is an attempt at "outlasting" by affluence is another matter.)

 

[polymath]

Science begins in wonder too... Einstein said: "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed."

I think wonder is the feeling you get when you see something you don't understand and want to know more about it. Of course people can also react to the unknown with fear.

 

[Nagelfar]

Of course people can also react to the unknown with fear.

I think fear is more what is *known* as possible about the unknown, and never the unknown purely without knowing something negative posited about it. For example; someone may never have tried a drug and fears what the sensation might be, but this is due to the preconceived idea that drugs are such a heavy topic for some reason, and one has yet to concretely experience it to know how they will themselves relate or react. Implanted religious terror at existential ideas falls into this category too. The fear of the shadow in the woods is from the fact that we instinctively know, from our own drives, that predators exist. etc.

 

[Pegasus]

but that by definition hasn't anything to do with survival

I'm saying that it is in fact the same drive. All drives or actions are simply manifestations of the mind to get what it wants or needs, be it sex, food, or coping with an extremely strong emotion. The causes of these drives are biological, or "survival instinct" and the resulting actions are "survival actions".

 

[yougene]

I associate wonder/awe with spiritual experiences reached through a 3rd person modality. Whether it be through Nature or mathematics/science or whatever. It's what gives our pursuit for truth meaning. What drives us wherever we are going.

Astronauts have wonderful stories of awe.
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2011/0...t-edgar-mitchells-exploration-of-inner-space/
http://matadornetwork.com/bnt/the-u...ing-how-going-to-the-moon-changed-astronauts/


This can be contrasted with Spirit reached through 2nd person communion with God(e.g Judeo-Christian) or Spirit as 1st person embodiment(e.g Buddhism).

 

[Nagelfar]

I'm saying that it is in fact the same drive. All drives or actions are simply manifestations of the mind to get what it wants or needs, be it sex, food, or coping with an extremely strong emotion. The causes of these drives are biological, or "survival instinct" and the resulting actions are "survival actions".

I think equating "getting what you want" as being the same as a survival instinct, is a bit of the same simplification that Freud made saying that all actions were directly linked to "sex". Our language is complex enough to distinguish between these fine points, and giving "survival" even the generalized meaning of biological imperative, let alone anything else like intellectual imperative linked or not to biological, is a misnomer.

 

[Pegasus]

^I don't like a lot of Freud's work but I agree with him in this sense. I didn't know he said that actually but it sounds to be exactly the same thing I'm saying. It's not an oversimplification; it is simply simplification. If you can simplify every human action to sex/ survival, don't you think that's worth discussing?

Regarding the "misnomer", I think I specifically addressed this in my previous post. I'm clearly not referring to survival in the limited sense you're suggesting. Survival is still the best word for what I'm describing though.

 

[Nagelfar]

Survival is still the best word for what I'm describing though.

I disagree. The word "living" suffices. Survival implies steps taken to ensure continued living (biologically), not living itself (or what living implies beyond biology as a process of memetics).

 

[Pegasus]

^Biological survival can apply to evolutionary genes instead of the individual...

 

[Nagelfar]

^Biological survival can apply to the genome instead of the individual...

That's what I am saying, that is all survival applies to; one biological genome and not the individual as something other than its very biology.

If it applies to others in a type, that is never the specific genome of one, and can't have anything to do with survival peculiar to that single kind construed in whatever way as belong to that type. Then that is abstract memetics, and not genetics: though it is focused on the memetic frame of interpreted genetics.

 

[Pegasus]

^I'll just leave this discussion by saying that what may seem to be a meme may be able to be understood in different, genetic terms...

 

[Nagelfar]

^I'll just leave this discussion by saying that what may seem to be a meme may be able to be understood in different, genetic terms...

Of course memes are determined in genes, or maybe even by them, but that doesn't categorize their determination of survival as ever being any factor that leads to conscious suicide. If so, it's not survival, post facto.