Sensation+Reflection=Understanding

I am what I have experienced. My experience is what I am. I cannot be, or think of, anything more than the body of my experience. When I put down those obvious statements in words, it really doesn't surprise me at all. I have no trouble accepting the epistemology expounded by Locke. It's so fundamental, it's so true, there is no room for doubt in the soundness of his theory. But there is a troublesome implication attached to it: if the limit of one's knowledge and therefore the whole of mental contents is bound by his experience, how can two people of radically different life experience ever actually understand each other? We all face different opportunity to receive sensation and possess different capacity for reflection. Then, understanding and acceptance of anyone is bound to be provisional and we should never lose sight of this fact. Say, a true friend is who really understands you and accepts you as who you are, but is it even possible given what Locke said? The contents of your experience is yours only, and what you can hope for anyone else is the best possible approximation of understanding, if not in its pure sense. The difficulty doesn't stop here: how could I convince any person to initiate Japanese cuisine and appreciate the greatness of sushi in Tokyo if the conception of munching raw fish insurmountably gets in the way?

We all form ideas using the concrete experiences at our disposal and arrive at understanding/misunderstanding of the world. I can try using as many words as I can muster and still completely fail conveying the sense of miracle I intend to propagate if the audience has no clue of the happiness a food can possibly accomplish. Idea is the object of thinking. Experience really is the boundary of understanding. I'm really stuck here, the challenge of understanding and accepting things that are outside of imaginative limit. Does anyone feel the same way?

DSL (Divine and Supernatural Light)

I was very close to be converted to Christianity reading this treatise. I was not aware that the source of human knowledge is all divine inspiration, close in nature to the sort of revelation that I thought was reserved to some priviledged chosen few like Abraham, Jesus, Buddha and Mohammed. But according to Jonathan Edwards, all human knowledge is accomplished through the Divine and Supernatural Light that transmits godly wisdom to the flesh and blood of the mere mortals. I was shocked to be informed that there actually is a deeper level of knowledge formation in human psychi as established by John Locke's treatise, namely by forming impression and imagination. Edwards blatantly dismisses the case: "[b]ut spiritual light is not that impression upon the imagination, but an exceeding different thing from it." He presses that knowledge is not a product of mere reasoning faculty, but the intuitive grasp of the "sense of glory," which is metapholically like knowing the taste of honey without licking it. With the aid of inspiration, one may know the divinity of Christ (or the precise taste of honey). This is only possible through the supernatural light that carries mortals beyond the limit of their rational faculty and "immediately convince[s] of the truth." Luckily, this is a built-in ability for all of us who do not necessarily measure up to the spiritual calibre of the famous profets. We know beauty by heart. That seems to be the core message of Christianity á la Edwards and I discovered that maybe I am indeed a Christian by heart without knowing it. But then I thought I heard a timeless echo of similar doctrine... "There is something money can't buy" (MasterCard ad). I thought it odd, but the importance of transcendant knowledge is unmistakably pressed here, too. Coincidence? Perhaps. Sense of glory lives on, my final thought.

Finally...

Hey guys. It's been a bumpy road just to start writing here. This is my first attempt to write a blog. It is a daunting challenge and I have already encountered difficulty, but I hope things would gradually improve. From today's experience, I have deduced three rules to keep in mind before writing an entry:

Lesson 1: Do not set a fancy password beyond my recall capacity.
Lesson 2: Stop that music video and start writing assignment before past bedtime.
Lesson 3: Do not expect greatness in my writing before even putting down my first thought.

Anyway my name is Sosei Nak, I plan to hang around in this course unless forced to disappear for some unfortunate circumstance, and I sincerely hope that should not be the case. Find me in facebook if interested, there I will be around probably for much longer. Thanks for anyone who has bothered to read this entry. See you.