Jan Cox Talk 3200 15 Sept 2004

Copyright Jan Cox, Jan’s Legacy 2020

Notes by Cfish/DerekH January 2020

Suggested Title: Believing/Knowing

DH title: Only Philosophers Want To Know

Begin: I hate to call it a model but this is like a model for all other models. Anything verbal that you cannot point to, something that is physically there, you have to call it a model. This is like lightning hitting a juke box three times in seconds.

-> The whole world is divided into people who want to believe and people who want to know.

That’s the beginning and end of everything I have talked about. It’s the beginning and end of human history from physics to mysticism. Believing v. Knowing could be the model for all models for folks like us. (ex. asleep v. awake)

05:00 I assume you folks have the understanding that whatever man talks about is of two categories. It’s either the physical world or the cultural world of man. (ex. sports. the arts, etc.) If it’s not science, it’s about man.

Although it can appear verbally to be something else other than about man, there is no religion, no sports, no literature without man. If humanity goes, so does the culture. There are two approaches to what man talks/thinks about.

10:00 People either want to believe or they want to know. People swear they may want to know what makes a man tick. (ex. evil, death, love and respect) But they don’t want to know, they want to believe. It is not a criticism.

You will not understand the model if you are critical. Nobody wants to know (well, maybe a few) if there is a God that exists, they just want to believe God exists. I just saw it one day. People do not want to know the nature of man.

15:00 Repeated statements about subconscious mind etc. affecting behavior that people say they know, they don’t know. They believe. Picture Socrates, the trial, and his execution to see what I am trying to get you to picture.

Socrates represents man wanting to know and Athens killed him because they want man to believe. Socrates was easy on the Gods. (He did not have a death wish) In those days the Gods were synonymous with the Throne/Secular Power.

20:00 Most people feel their pursuit is of the truth. (ex. warriors) Some thought the achievement of the aim was thru the study of spirit. But Socrates thru his dialogues, would ask questions like “What is spirit?”

Through these type questions Socrates showed the fact that men want to believe and not know. TV, novels, etc. if you listen, are not statements of fact about human nature. The behaviors of men in the physical world may be a fact, but that is not what people talk about - they talk about their opinion of it, what they want to believe.

25:00 But if you look, it’s not why the behaviors happened. It’s what people believe caused the behaviors, not what they know caused the behaviors. It’s hard to hold on to. That is why one seems alone in the world in wanting to do this.

Even though, at times, I refer to it as mysticism, it’s just to distinguish it from everything else. It’s not mysticism. When philosophy first showed up religion ran the culture. And you could be killed in the name of God.

30:00 True philosophers do not have a death wish. Philosophy was the first sign of someone wanting to know. Belief is meaningless. (ex. believing water can run up hill) Mythology/Religion/Elysium fields you can’t know, you can only believe. Mysticism is philosophy trying to hide out in religion.

35:00 Socrates lived a fairly civilized existence and they had time to think. Socrates was born into a culture of art, drama, and music. And Socrates realized people believed this culture was apart from man.

40:00 Socrates tried to get some to see that culture, beliefs, etc. are not knowing. Everyone knows we die. A real philosopher leaves it at that. That’s all the fuck anyone knows. But everyone else wants to believe. (ex. man’s culture)

Opinions about behavior (ex. religious, political, etc.) are folks who want to believe. They don’t know. It sounds weird saying it. I can still listen with ordinary ears (ex Masters in Psychology) but still saying it’s wanting to believe, not know.

45:00 The strongest example of this is death. It’s the one thing all men have in common. No one else but the man who wants to know leaves it at that. The world of humanity is divided into two groups, those who want to know, and those who want to believe.

50:00 And it is not limited to Religion. Everything that makes us human (ex. culture) is based on wanting to believe. Knowing makes Science and Technology. It’s is not man’s nature to want to know about man’s nature.

It is the beginning and end of mysticism, of this kind of thing,.(ex. the work, life, consciousness) A lingering awareness of “wanting to know” puts a stop to “wanting to believe” at least for the moment. Remember, everyone already knows, (ex.everyone dies) but does it wake them up? 55:24