Logotherapy: Humanism In Psychiatry

Re: # 28;tahmed
"It is just that the concept you were taught (i.e. a King with whom you curry favor by kow-towing five times a day and showering with praise and hopes of rewards in this world and after death as well) is not the true God."

I don't have a problem with the concept mentioned above (even though I don't 'believe' it to be the only valid hypothesis).

Problem lies with you sir since the above-mentioned may well be the God of the 'falasuf'; It almost certainly is NOT the God of religion....any religion. (My definition should be conseidered broad enough to include the arabic plagiarised version of yahweh)

cheema sahib #24 The concept of God I mentioned is indeed a broad-based one. And it is found in every religion, not just Islam (In Taosim, e.g., "the Tao that can be named is not the true Tao"). It is just that the concept you were taught (i.e. a King with whom you curry favor by kow-towing five times a day and showering with praise and hopes of rewards in this world and after death as well) is not the true God.

Once you understand this, you will be on your way towards being a happier mammal (just kidding wrt #25 on which we agree). :-)

Re: # 25; tahmed

....in continuation with the post below; I do so agree.....just sounds so much better than the alternative hypothesis

#22 Posted by quin:

I am glad that a simplistic sentence written in all seriousness by the simple-minded can still put a smile to someone's face.

as for (what you do = philosophy)...hmmm...if you are implying that that is what I did/tried to do or invertently ended up doing.....nothing could be farther from the truth; I don't like/enjoy philosophy as we know it and that sentiment gets even stronger when dealing with philosophers themselves......complete waste of time and space, respectively

...like I said before, worse than psychics...

#24 Posted by tahmed32:

I see......tahmed someone once said that if one were to have a broad enough definition of anything, one can find absolutely any meaning in absolutely anything.....

e.g., if one were to say "God is energy" one can find God in a lump of coal!

quin #19 Excellent question. One which one cannot even begin to answer, but let me try anyway..

Once we accept the fact of evolution (i.e. 65 million years ago, great..great..grandpa was just another mouse-like little animal living on trees or holes in the ground), we come up with the story of mankind that is far richer and more fascinating than "religious" superstition or tall tale built up. Thus, while all religions are simply based on human history over the past 10,000 years (e.g. Moses was most likely a real man who was a slave in the kingdom of Ramses II of ancient egypt), we can now go back 50,000 years when humans were not the only hominids that walked the earth. We can go back a million years and see how slow hominids were to innovate (Homo Erectus used the same damned flint tool for 1 million years!! He seems almost as stupid as some chowk posters!! just kidding). We can go back 500 million years and meet our great..great..grandDad who was a fish in the sea..

And having done all that, we can begin to understand the roots of human behavior in ways that we never would have imagined if we continued to live in denial of the obvious fact of evolution.

cheema sahib #18 Actually, the answer is there in the Quran - which makes clear that it is not for humans to know everything.

That is the same answer any scientist worth his salt will also give you - namely, that the human mind is simply not wired to understand reality as we know it exists outside our "everyday scales" (i.e. quantum physics at the micro level where the strangest things happen even in the known dimensions, with unknown dimensions being beyond our understanding and yet may very well exist; and cosmology at the macro level where other kinds of strange things like the bending of the space-time continuum occur).

Re: # 20 Shah2
I must admit some of this stuff may be beyond the compass of my comprehension. Anyway, thanks for writing back to elaborate.

Re: # 21 akcheema
I hear you ... and what I hear is beautiful ... and this ""what do I know, eh?" still bring a big chuckle ...
btw (and I don't know what this means - ha ha)what you say does not matter - but what you do does count ... (what you do = philosophy)

Re: # 19; quin

don't get me wrong; I completely agree with you on the "quest for higher questions/answers"....I was merely pointing something out....... a hangover from many previous discussions on similar topics with tahmed sahib

All I am/was saying is if one 'believes' they already have all the answers, there won't be much point in looking, would there?....there are many here who disagree with that approach though; perhaps there is some comfort in knowing there 'definitely is' a higher purpose....unfortunately this leads to an infinite regress.....and infinite means exactly that, INFINITE.....try as we may, it doesn't stop at a "Prime Cause" as it were

hence my previous "what do I know, eh?"

btw; I don't care much for philosophy either....they are worse than psychics if you ask me!

Re: # 19

I like to say b/c of my typo instead of Remand i meant acquittal.Judiciary (the court lawyers judges law itself)are sceptic about insanity defence (means any behavioural or psychological dx.)when it comes to acquittal despite possibility of predidisposition to the crime

The sociologist anthropoligist Historians let say treats kindly afro american for coming from deprive back ground.Historian have there theories which like wise is ambivalent .'not sure'
They dont matter much b/c they ae dismissed as 'bleeding heart'contemptuosly

Re # 15: One’s word against the other does not cut either. There may not be “higher answer� but still there will be “higher� questions.
From a philosophical perspective, understanding the evolution is no different than understanding the nuclear physics. In the realm of science we can understand this or that … we can know all the mechanics of this or that …. And this knowledge provides fuel to our philosophical quests and helps us, but it does not answer per se to all the life’s questions. The reality is paradoxical and can be glimpsed only if we transcend the paradox. But thought is linear and reality is not – and that is another of its paradox – that confuses the best and humbles the genius.

Re # 16, Shah2, Thanks for the compliment. Kindly help me understand the last sentences of your post. … judiciary acknowkledging it (it is referring to ??) .I have not seen a realy ramand on basis of Insanity defence (?) .On the othere hand sociologist anthropologist historian do (do what ?).Who dont matter (What does not matter, socialogist etc…and what they ‘do’) … Kindly know that no disrespect is meant … just hoping to have some elaboration on what you have said in a very succinct way.

Re # 17: tahmed 32: Your second para is a poignant observation and I agree. Your first para, would like to know what do you think implications are of accepting what is true about evolution?

Re: # 17; tahmed sahib,

thanks

the question may remain unanswered tahmed sahib......one thing is for sure, it ain't in 'the book' YOU are reading!

Cheerio ....late where I am...sorry

cheema #15 Great quote from a great scientist (I started reading his magnificent "Structure of Evolutionary Theory" that he raced to finish before dying of cancer, and just reading the 100 page introduction provided fresh new insights to evolution). The human conceit that we are something special, rather than just a more evolved form of bacteria clinging to a think layer of biosphere on the surface of one planet, is of course not ready to accept the implications of what we know to be true about evolution.

Having said that - advancements in science may broaden our understanding of the universe, but it also merely pushes further and further back the question: why are we (not just humans, but the entire universe) here??

A fresh breath of air Quin.
By your repeated response to all posts.I have rarely seen evidence of a writer reading interacts.Sorry n.b.di di
i never thaught Psychiatrist as 'real' medical doctor .Confining one self to mind ..not even brain which is area of neurologist ..Much of Society even the enlightened West doesnot actualy make poicy or judiciary acknowkledging it .I have not seen a realy ramand on basis of Insanity defence .On the othere hand sociologist anthropologist historian do.Who dont matter

Re: # 14; quin
(knowing all the mechanism of brain and mapping of all the genes does not bring us any closer to answer why we are here.)

Look, I am off to bed; you wanted to know why we are here (wherever "here" maybe) and you decided to come to Chowk....well done!

Since I am tired, I'll leave you with a quote by the great evolutionary biologist SJ Gould; here goes:

"We are here because one odd group of fishes had a peculiar fin anatomy that could transform into legs for terrestrial creatures; because the earth never froze entirely during an ice age; because a small and tenuous species, arising in Africa a quarter of a million years ago, has managed, so far, to survive by hook and by crook. We may yearn for a 'higher' answer---but none exists."

[Stephen Jay Gould, quoted in 2000 Years of Disbelief, Famous People with the Courage to Doubt, by James A. Haught, Prometheus Books, 1996]

Wow, I am in some company here. What a pleasure.
Can’t agree more on akcheema’s take on 'evolution' in our understanding� part, however, understanding more concretely does not make a dent in the nature of eternal questions we try to deal with.

Regarding the question of illness and healing, the hope that by knowing brain functions more concretely (or genes more thoroughly) we may be able to solve the problems of mental health more effectively may still be understood in Frankl’s terms by realizing that an important corollary of Frankl’s work may be seen as just NOT to get trapped in that sort of reasoning.

Knowing that atom consists of further parts, and further parts consist of still further parts does not bring us any closer to the true nature of reality. Similarly, knowing all the mechanism of brain and mapping of all the genes does not bring us any closer to answer why we are here. Secondly, our understanding at a more concrete level does not change the fact that brain is still the grey matter that ultimately is part of nature and mind may transcend nature. So what "this Paracelsus dude" said eons ago may sound archaic as new tools of inquiry has given us new diction, it still is fundamentally spot on.