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Old 05-05-2008, 11:59 AM   #13
Jonathan
Dojo: North Winnipeg Aikikai
Location: Winnipeg, Canada
Join Date: Oct 2001
Posts: 265
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Re: The Death of Learning

Quote:
Knowledge is the death of learning.
No, it is not. Knowledge and its application are the goals of learning. Growing content with ones present body of knowledge and thus apathetic toward new knowledge is what is "deadly" to learning. Eventually, you make this clear in your essay - sort of:

Quote:
Knowledge that satisfies is always wrong.
I don't agree. This statement makes it sound as though a certain kind of knowledge (the kind that is satisfying) is morally unacceptable (which is what the word "wrong," rather than "false," implies) Knowledge itself, however, is amoral. Knowledge can be true or false, but, alone, it has no moral quality. It is what people do (or do not do) with knowledge that has moral implications. This statement fails to make this clear.

Quote:
Understanding that makes sense is always deceptive.
This statement is redundant. If a thing doesn't make sense to me, can I say that I have understood it? What you should have written is: "Understanding is always deceptive." In this form, however, this statement becomes very plainly self-refuting.

Quote:
What you know, you cannot learn. Therefore pray that you never know aikido.
Alternatively, you cannot learn what you refuse to know -- or believe you cannot know.

Quote:
Your surety, your confidence, your experience, and all your skills and concepts are now your enemy.
This unqualified, declarative statement itself is rife with "surety" and "confidence" and, I assume, is born, in part from your experience. How then should I regard it?

Quote:
Do try to remember that I can't give you knowledge, and it's far better for everyone if I don't even try.
But this statement itself attempts to impart knowledge. So, if you can't give knowledge, and its better if you don't even try, why are you attempting to do so in this statement and essay?

Quote:
We can enrich each other, yes -- but any thought that other beings rule your emotions or dictate your actions is nothing less than a draught of poison.
No one can rule your emotions (unless you let them), but ask any prison convict if his actions are dictated by other beings. I doubt he'd say what you are saying. Ask any survivor of a Nazi concentration camp if his/her actions were ever dictated by another being. Ask anyone who drives a car if their actions on the road are not dictated by other beings in cars on the road. I could go on. There is nothing particularly poisonous about accepting this, however. It is just the nature of human existence. Control is largely an illusion.

"Iron sharpens iron; so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend."
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