THE LIMITATIONS OF MAN _____________________________________     The first thing we must realise in any engagement of philosophical  thought is of the limitations of man.  This is something which we tend to underplay.  The limitations are that Man has set himself unanswerable (unverifiable) questions and has bound himself in a language which is unable, by its very nature to communicate sense-perceptions.  But by asking questions of this nature (which he has every right to do), he feels impelled to answer them in some way, to satisfy himself that there is nothing left unanswered, despite the consequences of not making himself clear; being bound by the language that he uses.  Firstly, we must get Man in perspective, so that we can understand his limitations.     What we must also do is to unbind man from the classifications of his thought.  It is by naming  that the real world is lost.  Most philosophical treaties 'label' the thoughts of those that appear to have the same ideas.  That is, there are (apparently), Subjectivists, Monists, Objectivists, Rationalists, Idealists &c.  It seems that in our dilemma we have to classify thus to satisfy some need.  Because certain Subjectivist ideas seem  incorrect to others, we tend to disregard all their ideas.  What we must do is detach our selves from this and agree that Subjectivists may have some points which will add to the whole (philosophical knowledge). This means that if I think some points are valid, I should be able to agree with them on those points without being 'branded' a Subjectivist. If any movement purports to be an end in itself, the it of no use. There should be no 'classes' of philosophical thought, since this destroys the very nature of the subject. By naming anything (although by virtue of our 'symbolic' nature we do in some respects) we destroy what it is to us as individuals and with philosophy this is contrary to the very nature of the subject.     In everything that we do, we seem to get out priorities wrong. C.E.M. Joad (Teach Yourself Philosophy) maintains in his chapter on Ethical Philosophy that because he has come into contact with 'great' minds, he is led along certain paths of thought, feeling, apparently apologetic that he might himself have something to say or add. He says: "...the later speculations of this book own no better authority than the initiative of the author."  I feel impelled to comment that the views of Plato, Aristotle or Kant also "own no better authority than the initiative of the author".  Here, Joad is underestimating his position.  He has every right to indulge in whatever speculations he wishes, as we all have.  If I do not agree with Kant or Plato or the Archbishop of Canterbury, am I a fool or an idiot or a lesser mind? Why? Because they are supposed to have a better mind than me?  If you think they have, a better mind than me, on what do you base your assumption? Can you verify that assumption?     We do underestimate ourselves.  This leads to better things.  But, however, so do we overestimate our selves.  Sometimes grossly.  We  assume; we project images of ourselves on others; we accept all manner of 'truths' which we know inwardly are false.  We deceive ourselves.     What is Man and his world?  We can classify this being as Man.  This is fair enough, providing that we realise all the potentialities and make-up of this man.  The only reason that naming destroys is when we forget the characteristics of what we are describing.  For example, we look at a tree.  It has certain characteristics, individual points which make it different from any other tree. Suppose we take off in a helicopter. Firstly the tree fades and all we see is a group of trees; a copse. The tree has lost a little of its individuality; it is blurred by distance. Suppose we go yet higher; the tree has gone and all we can see is a forest. The individual tree no longer exists until we get closer. So by calling the tree a copse, then a forest, we have 'destroyed' the original tree. The same idea applies to Man. It is fine to classify thus, as long as we do not lose altogether, the man's individuality. We must realise what an individual man is. But we must remember that we are more than the sum of the individual parts. This 'more' is, in fact, the man. So before we begin, we have 'destroyed' Man by trying to break him into parts. There is, of course a usefulness in breaking things down into parts. With Man, for example, we can sort out individual elements of a disease, but we must never lose sight of the fact that he is a whole person, that each individual element makes up a whole, thus treating the 'whole' person.     Everything is the cause of everything else. The chances of anything happening are inconceivable, and showing a diversification which denies the existence of any universal motivating force.     It is (apparently) useless to ask: "Does God exist", since we are dealing with three variables.  Does (1); God (2); Exist (3).  By attributing time (1), name and qualities (2), and existence (3), we move the experience from a non-verbal--and therefore a factual one (to those who perceive it) to a verbal plane which destroys this by asserting or inferring something which cannot be verified by communication.     By trying to prove  the existence of God by divine interpretation of certain experiences, we move it further into the realms of the verbal plane which is governed by the scientific rules and principles of verification, which as yet, have not been able to prove either way for or against, the existence of God or a supreme being.     When people realise that God is a name  for a series of insights, feelings (emotions) and all-knowing qualities which we all perceive, and that by naming (and giving Him human qualities and attributes--i.e. we project and associate our ideas into something which we cannot know and which cannot be verified by observation) we destroy the very nature of the experience or feeling.     Feelings (truth, good, evil, beauty and so on, which are inter-related in the same way that all forms of energy are related) are purely personal and non-verbal. They cannot be communicated. They should not be brought to the verbal level (by projection and associations). They should be sought after, experienced and not talked about.     It is senseless to talk about those experiences which we might regard as divine, since the talking 'destroys' the experience of them (1) they are relative experiences to the individual (subjective) and (2) what you might regard as divine, I might interpret as something else. That it may be divine to you (since it is a feeling and perceived by you and therefore cannot be false, since it obeys no laws); it is inferential to me because I cannot verify the assertion that to you it is factual. Therefore we must take these experiences as we find them; not read into them something that is not there, which may also falsify or 'destroy' them as a feeling. These 'flash-in-the-pan' experiences (whatever they are), make life worth living by accepting them for what they are we should naturally behave in a manner which is non-verbally perceived by those around us.     Man is limited because, as I have said, he has set himself unanswerable questions.  However, they are only unanswerable to Man as a group and only because he cannot communicate his sense-perceptions to others and so verify the truth of those perceptions (if he gets them).  We must postulate the existence of levels of existence and knowing.  These are a grading of levels from non-verbal to higher abstractions ( the 'Inner feeling' of a tree, i.e.. its moving beauty to you, which you only 'feel' and cannot communicate to others) is non-verbal; the tree you speak about to others is the first verbal level and the less you talk of the tree (i.e. copse, forest, jungle) the higher the abstraction, the less 'reality' it has.  Of course the 'reality' is one of the problems philosophy has set itself.  I do not think we will ever know the 'absolute reality' for the simple fact that like everything else, it is relative to the individual.  What is reality to me may not be reality to you, especially if I am paranoid!     I think, and at present believe, that 'feelings' (deep, inner feelings), below a certain level of consciousness but which manifest themselves in emotional well-being or 'flash-in-the-pan' feelings of euphoria) are the only important thing. If this seems selfish, it is; but the point is that if I am able to perceive beauty, good, truth or whatever (which are these inner feelings) then they will manifest themselves in my better personality. The world should be populated by personalities, not as we conceive Man. It is toward this we should strive in everyday life. We can only assume tomorrow. We can only know now, this instant. We all feel that we are doing our best  or using our time to its best advantage. What we must do is act by it. It is consciously easy to do or not to do something we feel we should. This is will-power.     The fact is the fact of knowing (feeling). 'I don't feel it is right,', you say. What you might say is: 'At the present time, due to past happenings and present circumstances and knowledge based on the evidence before me, I do not feel this is right.' And based on your assumption, it is right, for you. It may not help me because of differences in my personality and past experiences, etc.     As I said before, everything in the Universe is relative. Therefore everything is right or wrong according to its relation with something else. We are victims of ourselves and circumstances.  All Man has above the animals is an awareness of being aware.  Our bodies are not extensions of our minds they are the receptors which make mind what it is.  It is impossible to conceive a mind without a body, as it is impossible to perceive something which does not affect our sense-perception, however well developed it is.  Those that cannot see infra-red light cannot imagine what it is like.  There are, of course, higher perceptions, but we cannot, if we cannot perceive them ourselves, verify that they exist, so there is always doubt, and unanswerable questions.     So Man is a highly developed sense-receptor who is able to communicate some of his  ideas, but his limitation is that he cannot communicate his real' inner feelings and thus he will remain in a dilemma of never being able to verify any of the answers he may have discovered, especially answers as to what 'reality, good, right, wrong, beauty' are.  He can only hope that by better expression of himself as a personality he can instil non-verbal perceptions of his personality in others.  Whether they perceive what he expresses in himself, he can never know.

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