I am familiar already with that referral link. Some useful content within it including this story you picked. I just said the next idea because I could find nothing wrong with what you have started. Not completely sure I know what your overall point will be but so far the ideas are sound. I don't find so many ppl that have an interest in this topic.Nick_A wrote: ↑June 14th, 2021, 8:37 pm Hi Mystery. No this isn't like a college course. It does seem like our species has been struggling with the same questions. Why do we remain trapped in Plato's cave and governed by imagination. Maybe Plato understood why it is so.
To make it easier I'd like to use this site called "The Art of Manliness" to describe Plato's Chariot analogy which describes the tripartite soul. In previous times pondering the great ideas was considered manly. Is manliness still admired or has it devolved into imagination and arguments over details and political agendas?
https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles ... e-chariot/
The white horse on the right (our higher parts) is attracted to higher consciousness (the land of the gods) The dark horse on the left representing our lower parts, Plato describes as “crooked lumbering animal, put together anyhow…of a dark color, with grey eyes and blood-red complexion; the mate of insolence and pride, shag-eared and deaf, hardly yielding to whip and spur.” Having become deformed it pulls the white horse and the charioteer down to its level of the earth. If the charioteer can remember the forms that comprise the form of the good, then it can begin to rise again and Man can become conscious.What is the best way to live and how do I attain excellence? What should I aim for, and what training and practices must I do to achieve those aims?
Such questions have been asked for thousands of years. Few men have grappled with them more, and provided keener insight to the answers, than the philosophers of ancient Greece. In particular, Plato’s vision of the tripartite nature of the soul, or psyche, as explained though the allegory of the chariot, is something I have returned to throughout my life. It furnishes an unmatched symbol of what a man is, can be, and what he must do to bridge those two points and attain andreia (manliness), arête (excellence), and finally eudaimonia (full human flourishing).
In the Phaedrus, Plato (through his mouthpiece, Socrates) shares the allegory of the chariot to explain the tripartite nature of the human soul or psyche.
The chariot is pulled by two winged horses, one mortal and the other immortal.
The mortal horse is deformed and obstinate. Plato describes the horse as a “crooked lumbering animal, put together anyhow…of a dark color, with grey eyes and blood-red complexion; the mate of insolence and pride, shag-eared and deaf, hardly yielding to whip and spur.”
The immortal horse, on the other hand, is noble and game, “upright and cleanly made…his color is white, and his eyes dark; he is a lover of honor and modesty and temperance, and the follower of true glory; he needs no touch of the whip, but is guided by word and admonition only.”
In the driver’s seat is the charioteer, tasked with reining in these disparate steeds, guiding and harnessing them to propel the vehicle with strength and efficiency. The charioteer’s destination? The ridge of heaven, beyond which he may behold the Forms: essences of things like Beauty, Wisdom, Courage, Justice, Goodness — everlasting Truth and absolute Knowledge. These essences nourish the horses’ wings, keeping the chariot in flight.
The charioteer joins a procession of gods, led by Zeus, on this trip into the heavens. Unlike human souls, the gods have two immortal horses to pull their chariots and are able to easily soar above. Mortals, on the other hand, have a much more turbulent ride. The white horse wishes to rise, but the dark horse attempts to pull the chariot back towards the earth. As the horses pull in opposing directions, and the charioteer attempts to get them into sync, his chariot bobs above the ridge of heaven then down again, and he catches glimpses of the great beyond before sinking once more.
If the charioteer is able to behold the Forms, he gets to go on another revolution around the heavens. But if he cannot successfully pilot the chariot, the horses’ wings wither from lack of nourishment, or break off when the horses collide and attack each other, or crash into the chariots of others. The chariot then plummets to earth, the horses lose their wings, and the soul becomes embodied in human flesh. The degree to which the soul falls, and the “rank” of the mortal being it must then be embodied in is based on the amount of Truth it beheld while in the heavens. Rather like the idea of reincarnation. The degree of the fall also determines how long it takes for the horses to regrow their wings and once again take flight. Basically, the more Truth the charioteer beheld on his journey, the shallower his fall, and the easier it is for him to get up and get going again. The regrowth of the wings is hastened by the mortal soul encountering people and experiences that contain touches of divinity, and recall to his memory the Truth he beheld in his preexistence. Plato describes such moments as looking “through the glass dimly” and they hasten the soul’s return to the heavens.
For those who appreciate the Chariot analogy as describing the human condition, our problem becomes how to heal our sick dark horse so the driver can perform its rightful harmonious function allowing reason to balance spiritedness and appetites into a conscious harmonious whole with knowledge of and able to live by universal laws or the forms rather than arguing over fragments and partial truths as has become the norm. How do we begin?
I suspect perhaps at some point we might differ, but for now, I am in synch completely and eager for any additional ideas on this.
I currently think that the solutions are found in understanding biology/evolution/and human chemistry together with as much wisdom as we can find.
We shall greet the dark horse and visit with them as we do the light one, and harness the energy at the same time stay in contact with the white horse. We do not extinguish either as they need each other as they are part of the same.
A man of strength shall harness an inner monster (black horse) and keep it in a cage close to the heart. If when the need arises it can be harnessed with all of its ruthlessness, anger, and strength. It is a part, but always in control by our consciousness. As we look for inspiration perhaps we call out to the light one as it comes around and in an instant, we can see the reasons and purpose and calm.
Harmony is having both available and both under control. Do not allow those horses to choose our paths, we choose and call on them as needed. Not an easy thing to achieve but it can be done.