The Individual and Individuals in General An attempted response to Spinoza, metaphysical the mess Steve Barbones What counts

as individual in Spinoza http://www.scribd.com/doc/91639465/Barbone-What-Counts-as-Individual 5. What Counts as an Individual for Spinoza? It may be that Spinoza was suggesting that the Individual (played against the conceptual continuity of individuals) is a limited single point of light (model or a shard of the substance single point of understanding) to the understanding of the individuals (as a group) of potentially all inclusive (all substance) points of light (all understanding and therefore all power.) I will attempt to use Platos Cave as attempt to draw it into Spinoza through the linking the Cave theme to This-worldliness v. this worldliness ( Sadr al-Din Shirazi) or bermensch v. Untermenschen (Nietzsche) through a kind of contrast and comparison. If you do not know these works, please read them all are much more complete better edited than what I attempt to write here. If we were to move back through Socrates own Analogy of the Cave and his student Plato's Cave, or Parable of the Cave. And, with my ever present Spinoza colored lenses of understanding and substance I tried to ties these entire thing into a single modes (Spinoza modes attributes substance.) Noumenon & Phenomenon, or even perhaps Bare particular/ Inherence relationships - looking into our own viewing of a private reality but who could write about them all in a little note on a Facebook profile? If "Forms" (the Ideal of Id if I may), may not be of the material world of possible change static existence (that which may be known to us in a permanents way through our limited sensory sensations,) are, perhaps sadly if we use any emotional term, the highest fundamental understanding of reality each of us is capable of allowing to exist. So, it seems for many of these older cats knowledge of Forms is real knowledge (AKA Wisdom) So, before modernity the many theosophical constructs Shadows cast upon the walls Cave of our minds are attempts to explain mans (and perhaps womens as well) place in society to the "prisoners" suffering the syndrome of limits keeping them violent and frightened within the boundaries of their understanding the caves of their minds. This is how we could see this whole story about caves and knowledge and understanding and stuff like that. The Shadows cast upon the wall of our cave (constructs of the self, or the society, or the culture [whatever all that means]) to create a shadow we need three things a source of illumination, a surface the light may reflect off of, and an object to interrupt the light as it travels from the source to the reflective wall and then back into the receptors of light located on the object itself and/or any other objects sharing (willingly or unwillingly) the same Cave. The source of illumination is not a personal or even human knowledge or wisdom (as we are far too limited to be able to create a light that would illuminate any object/cave wall) but what is, truth wisdom/power, the substance whatever name you want to put on it (the perfect understanding, all substance, natures natural, G_d) as so, as most of us have only one understanding of this natures natural and fragment of truth so very limited whatever object which block this little light from the wall, and the amount of light reflected off the wall back to us (our perception or reception) the shadow

appears to be sharp and clear and well-defined. And so, we have the idea of limitable dichotomies of reality. In such a state the object (the self) has a black or white perspective, all good or all evil, all right or all wrong, a world of absolutes which leads to the object (the self) reacting in the basic instincts of our reptilian past fight or flight or even aggression or submission. What to do to relieve this condition of imperfect understanding? One could attempt to accept all wisdom and thus exist in a cave with many many many sources of illumination, but that would simply create many many many less defined shadows still reflected back to us off the limits of our society, religious, and cultural constructed walls (all wisdom as Spinoza may have expressed it) One could attempt to remove all limits, the wall of the cave the light reflects off-of, but that would not serve us very well either for without a reflective surface there is no light (all Power as Spinoza may have expressed this state.) And now, we see the answer to the shadows that keep man a prisoner in a Cave of his own construction is not to be found in either of the two conditions of action - Wisdom or Power. So, it is the objects that must become a none object, completely and utterly transparent, allowing to be part of the substance itself. With no set ridge edge or limits or construction there is nothing to interrupt the illumination of light, which n this example may be said to represent Wisdom. Without an opaque object to interrupt - there are no shadows (misunderstanding/false or limitable wisdom) for form upon the Walls which may be said to represent Power in this example. So, the most likely options is for the object creating the shadows (the human or whatever has the ability to consider such things) to neither block the light of wisdom (which leads to aggression/conflict) nor allow Fear a conditional rejection of power (the shadows upon the walls) to restrict us and keep us prisoners inside these Caves. Perhaps we could think of Water - taking the shape of whatever holder or area in which it exists moving from solid, to liquid to gas being the only thing to exist in all three states at once (a balance between power, wisdom and the ability to act.) Perhaps the clearest post-modern example of the dangers that the parable of the cave represents may be seen today in the Shadows of Humans still upon the walls of Hiroshima. Their shadows remain upon the walls even to this day testimony of the terminal conditions of imperfect understanding/expression and ultimate unlimited access to Power. The bomb created shadows of such intensity (the product of Power lacking the Wisdom to direct its use) heat and light insuring a permanent testimony to mans fears - the walls of the cave (Power) were burned, where there s a shadow a person (object) once stood. All of the wall was burned, these shadows represent the areas that were burned 'less' by the present of the human (the receptor of power and knowledge yet only able to absorb a very limited amount of the infinite substance - creating a permanent shadow or rather as permanent as the Walls themselves the cave - humanity. Post Script: Knowledge/Wisdom, is this the best we can hope for? It could be a very good thing, with enough wisdom (knowledge, truth [whatever that means]) like millions of brightly lit lights the boundaries and the appearance of the shadows upon the walls may appear to disappear completely, but the condition of the substance which is the object which remains b between the light and the wall, this wisdom and

power, remains little changed itself and so the condition in imperfection would remain. Use of power servers only the user of that power. In the end perhaps the one feeling of 'peace' is to feel what we hold true in our heart of hearts is the same for all man - that is about the best we can do. And this only balance of Knowledge and Power only through the inclusion of the whole, perhaps obtainable thought an incorporation of all understanding a unity, as Sadr al-Din Shirazi may have wrote, of revelation , demonstration, and metaphysical/realized knowledge.