165. 15/16 July 2019
After noon. You have a few errands for today. This morning you completed your second day of exercises, twenty minutes yesterday and thirty minutes today. You are hoping to continue these three to five times each week because, if for nothing else you feel better psychologically. The last part before the conclusion of "Ancient Theory of Soul" relates to the Stoic concept. We will see what Miss Havisham has to say about it. - Amorella
1253 hours. Reviewing philosophical concepts with Miss Havisham is interesting because the philosophy is a reality in human thought, whether it holds truth or not is something else, and while logically presented the reader has to come to come to her/his own sense of how practical the philosophy is in her/his own outlook toward what life ultimately is, something in my mind, that cannot be known until having lived and died. Obviously, no matter what any human comes up with, no one will know until life ends. Consciousness and/or the human spirit, the heartansoulanmind will either dissipate or continue on in spiritual form.
You had a late lunch but at Old Bag of Nails on the corner of North State and Main Uptown, and presently you are facing west in the shade at the south end of Heritage Park near the soccer fields. Carol is checking out the various nut trees nearby to see which is which. She appears to be on Chapter Six, page 33, of Meltzer's The House of Secrets. These interspersed paragraphs are to remind you and the reader that you are based in a daily normal environmental reality. No head in the clouds for you orndorff.
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"Stoic physics allows for three different kinds of pneuma (lit. ‘breath’), a breath-like material compound of two of the four Stoic elements, fire and air. The kinds of pneuma differ both in degree of tension that results from the expanding and contracting effects, respectively, of its two constituents, and in their consequent functionality.
a. The lowest kind accounts for the cohesion and character of inanimate bodies (e.g., rocks);
b. the intermediate kind, called natural pneuma, accounts for the vital functions characteristic of plant life;
c. and the third kind is soul, which accounts for the reception and use of impressions (or representations) and impulse or, to use alternative terminology, cognition and desire. . . .
According to the Stoic theory, there are eight parts of the soul, the ‘commanding faculty’ . . . the mind, the five senses, voice and (certain aspects of) reproduction.
The mind, which is located at the heart, is a center that controls the other soul-parts as well as the body, and that receives and processes information supplied by the subordinate parts. The minds of non-human animals and of non-adult humans have faculties only of impression and impulse.
Achieving adulthood, for humans, involves gaining assent and reason. Reason (it would seem) makes assent possible, in that it enables the subject to assent to or withhold assent from impressions, and it transforms mere impressions and mere impulses, such as other animals experience, into rational impressions and rational impulses. . . .
It is crucially important not to misunderstand these various faculties as parts or aspects of the mind, items that operate with some degree of autonomy from one another and can therefore conflict. On the Stoic theory, the faculties of the mind are simply things the mind can do. Moreover, it is a central part of the theory that, in the case of an adult human being, there is no such thing as an impulse without an act of assent of the mind to a corresponding practical impression. In a rational subject, the faculty of impulse depends on the faculty of assent, which, like all faculties of such a subject, is a rational faculty.
This theory leaves no room for the Platonic conception that the souls of adult human beings contain non-rational parts which can, and frequently do, generate impulse and behavior independently of, and even contrary to, the designs and purposes of reason. . . .
The Stoic theory has the attractive consequence that each adult person is, through their own reasoned assent, unambiguously and equally responsible for all their voluntary behavior: there are no Platonic non-rational parts, or Platonic-Aristotelian non-rational desires, that could produce actions against one's own reason's helpless protestations. . . .
. . . At least one prominent Stoic philosopher, Posidonius (first century B.C.), apparently gave up at least part of the classical Stoic theory. The evidence that we have is not easy to interpret, but it very much appears that Posidonius introduced into a basically Stoic psychological framework the idea that even the minds of adult humans include, to put things cautiously, motivationally relevant forces (of two kinds) that do not depend on assent or reason at all and that are not fully subject to rational control."
Selected and Edited From: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Ancient Theory of Souls
[ I divided these selections to make it easier for me to read and understand.]
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Mr. Orndorff has reading difficulties from time to time. He self-studied most of his way out of dyslexia long ago.
16 July 2019
Afternoon. You had lunch at McD's on North State and presently Carol is looking for a new bird feeder at Meyers nearby. Later, you are both heading to Kim and Paul's to watch the boys and take them to supper. You are shuttling them to a concert downtown and picking them up much later. Last night you were too tired to write. Today makes the third day of exercises and during the time you thought of Miss Havisham and were asking her to help guide you through them. - Amorella
1507 hours. We are home and Carol is feeding the cats their soft food for the day. I did attempt contact and asked her to help navigate my exercise modes. What I did was relax, stop counting my arm/leg movements and just moved with the music (Pandora 80's Pop Rock). So basically, I went with the musical flow switching exercises along the way.
This is an aside. You did do just that but I didn't direct you consciously. You remembered I like poetry so you followed the idea that exercise flow should better be (for you) poetic flow. - ml
Orndorff, Miss Havisham works within your fingertips on the keyboard and that's it. I'm the go-between, and as you know I work only with the fingertips also, but this includes the 'string on the washer' from our early days. You can always consciously contact me through these means. - Amorella
Moving on dusk. You had supper at Potbelly's when the rain began. John of Reflections called to say the Honda is done but because of the rain you are waiting until tomorrow. He said he would keep it in the barn. - Amorella
1948 hours. I am pumped to see it. I hope it meets my expectations.
What expectations are those, boy? - Amorella
1953 hours. I don't know. This is an example of what I will call your 'angelic tone'. From what I have experienced it put me in my place with very few words. It was a jolt in a much deeper way than this example, but the intent marked my behavior immediately. "No place to run. No place to hide inside yourself." An intimate sacred territory is crossed with a question such as that. Wakes you up to a deeper Reality, and a sense of spiritual presence in your head and throughout your physical body and a foot or so beyond your flesh, that's what it does. (2001)
What I remember, young man, is that the spiritual Presence was to about fifteen feet beyond your physical body. - Amorella
2009 hours. This is true, Amorella. I forgot, because sometimes the effect finds itself in the ceiling corners in a room where I am present. In fact, when in a quick vision, a fragment of a human spirit sometimes flows from one corner of the room to another. This aspect is as an impression of a spiritual reality, not an actual Reality. When this form of spirituality is Real, I witness this beyond the fragments in my bones. (2015)
To return this blog to an order I can more readily deal with I will lift the words from the Stanford article above and speak of them individually.
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"Achieving adulthood, for humans, involves gaining assent and reason. Reason (it would seem) makes assent possible, in that it enables the subject to assent to or withhold assent from impressions, and it transforms mere impressions and mere impulses, such as other animals experience, into rational impressions and rational impulses. . . .
It is crucially important not to misunderstand these various faculties as parts or aspects of the mind, items that operate with some degree of autonomy from one another and can therefore conflict. On the Stoic theory, the faculties of the mind are simply things the mind can do. Moreover, it is a central part of the theory that, in the case of an adult human being, there is no such thing as an impulse without an act of assent of the mind to a corresponding practical impression. In a rational subject, the faculty of impulse depends on the faculty of assent, which, like all faculties of such a subject, is a rational faculty."
What you mentioned above as 'angelic-tone' and 'an intimate sense of spirituality beyond the fragment of your bones' is in part what the lines directly are about. You speak of reason and spirituality having a direct connection to one another within the perceptions of your heartansoulanmind. You are my example as you can find it throughout your writings, i.e. blogs and Merlyn novels. -mh
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". . . At least one prominent Stoic philosopher, Posidonius (first century B.C.), apparently gave up at least part of the classical Stoic theory. The evidence that we have is not easy to interpret, but it very much appears that Posidonius introduced into a basically Stoic psychological framework the idea that even the minds of adult humans include, to put things cautiously, motivationally relevant forces (of two kinds) that do not depend on assent or reason at all and that are not fully subject to rational control."
You, Mr. Orndorff, also relate to these words. You do not depend on assent or reason recognizing you are not fully subject to rational control. You can find examples throughout the blogs and your Merlyn novels and beyond going back to your poetry and commentary written during your college years and even some from high school. - mh
2040 hours. I am embarrassed when you bring up me as an example.
Do you deny Miss Havisham, orndorff? - Amorella
2042 hours. No. I do not deny her commentary in this context or any context so far. Nor can I deny your own, Amorella, but my sense of private self and private intimacy within is terror stuck when my inner true colors are witnessed. Why, because it makes me naked to a Reality beyond the reality of physically being naked before the readers of all these pages. I have no choice but to share. None. Strange, because I consider myself a writer in my heart of hearts, even before having been a public and private school teacher (I loved my subject. I loved my students.) This is such raw knowledge of myself. I find myself being angry at the whole thought of it, but deny it I cannot. I cannot even deny the anger. It is being Here and There both at once. Such I believe are we, all us human beings - we are beings in two places at once -- the physical and the spiritual. (2055)
So, this is in your heartansoulanmind. This cannot be denied in life or death. This is one of the reasons the human spirit, the human heartansoulanmind continues beyond life. This is one of the realities of being human, orndorff. - Post. - Amorella
