Posts by Paul Bailey95

Just wanted to drop this here

So, they're hosting their fifth school out in Đakovo soon—focusing on the basics of phenomenology. You can find the full program right there on their site at the bottom.

Amanda Jackson5, any chance you'll be heading out to Đakovo next week? I'll shoot you a DM so we can chat about it.

As for me posting more about phenomenology on this forum... I think I mentioned earlier that I might lay off the topic for a bit.

That's all from me.

4.

Take this thing right here—this paper or maybe a tree—it’s basically "this thing" which isn't just "this thing," but rather an extension of "this thing" stretching up, down, left, right, in front, and behind. It’s all wrapped up in this "here," and it’s all pretty much multi-layered. Let’s look at what’s in front and to the right. For me, there’s a whole bunch of stuff sitting in front of me. We've got fibers, runners, trees, desks, cars, houses, you name it. A massive "in front." Same goes for the right side. From my perspective, the right is just as packed as the front. This "here" shows itself for a split second, then vanishes into another "here" (second moment), which itself eventually fades away (third moment). What shows up negatively through these moments is the "thing" itself, because the way we grasp "this" is by essentially canceling it out through a double negative. Say "this" is, for example, an essay. The essay isn't really the essay, but if you try to point to it as existing, you realize that pointing at an essay isn't direct knowledge. Instead, it's a movement from the thought of "this" (the essay), through a series of different "heres," until you hit the universal "here"—which is really just a collection of all these little "heres" acting as one single unit.

Dialectics is basically that movement within the experience of sensory certainty; in fact, sensory certainty *is* nothing else. Consciousness eventually hits this same result, stumbling into this dialectic while simultaneously forgetting it. Consciousness keeps insisting that the universal experience is something separate from reality, constantly claiming that the existence of "these" things is absolutely true for it, even though those very "things" it claims exist actually vanish. When I see a tree in front of me, I take that tree as an absolute fact, even though it isn't the truth of sensory certainty. An unknown consciousness making that claim doesn't realize it’s saying the exact opposite of what it intends. It wants to say the tree in front of it exists, but that specific "tree-in-front-of-me" doesn't. It's asserting that something non-existent actually is, and it completely misses the point.

To find the truth for consciousness, we have to look at the universal. Only the "this" viewed as a universal represents the truth of sensory certainty, which stands in total opposition to what an unknown consciousness thinks is universal. Like I said before, this "here" tree isn't a tree; now it's a building, then that building isn't a building, now it's a skyscraper, and so on. That's the mindset of the consciousness that thinks it understands the truth of sensory certainty—thinking it sees the actual essence of things through the "this" it perceives. And honestly? Hegel sends people who think they see the world this way to the lowest level of human wisdom. He practically puts them in the same category as animals, because animals don't hesitate when they see food; they dive in with total certainty, even though the food is ultimately fleeting. Then you have the folks who think they know exactly what "this" is, claiming that the existence of external objects is solid, absolute, and undeniable. They’ll say, for instance, "this" pen I'm using is "my" pen and there aren't any other pens besides "this" one. But they can't actually explain what they mean by "this." If these geniuses actually tried to articulate what they mean by "this" pen, they wouldn't be able to, because this sensory "this" is totally beyond the reach of language. You can't grab it, describe it, or put it into words because it's always in the process of disappearing. So, Hegel basically says they need to realize that everything they call "this"—any object or thing whatsoever—doesn't truly exist at all.

They think about "this" pen, "this" beam, "this" tree, "this" Starbucks, and so on, believing they are talking about real, tangible things. In reality, they're just expressing the universal. If they can't actually define "this" pen—if they claim "this" pen is completely different from the "previous" pen—then they're just talking nonsense, as mindless as a hollowed-out head. When we say a thing is a real object, that object is just a universal. Whether it's a pen or anything else, all pens are universal, and every individual pen is just part of that broader category. "This" pen, "this" tree, "this" skyscraper; every "this" pen is just "a" pen, every "this" tree is just "a" tree, and every "this" skyscraper is just "a" skyscraper. It's all just the universal.

The truth about sensory certainty boils down to this: we point at a pen and call it "this thing right here," but let's be real—that "thing" is just part of a much larger, universal "here." It’s a collection of all the "heres" wrapped up in one big, singular "here." Instead of actually experiencing the tree or the pen directly, we perceive this generalized "here" instead. Basically, we aren't seeing the actual objects—the trees, the houses, the skyscrapers—we're just seeing the "here" they inhabit. By doing this, we jump straight into a different level of consciousness—one based on perception and illusion. It's where most people live, stuck in a loop of guesswork and assumptions. And honestly, what follows is just a quick recap of what our buddy Sigmund already laid out for us.

A quick rundown of the sensory certainty chapter for those who aren't reading the whole thing (basically, everyone)

Sensory certainty: a summary of two ways of looking at it

The first way

This is just the subject sitting there in a passive state, essentially swallowing whatever is shoved in front of their face as if it were an absolute fact. They don't actually engage with what's there; they just accept it as "this" and nothing else. If there’s a cow in front of them, it’s a cow. If there’s a Starbucks, it’s a Starbucks. Things just *are*. They don't question what they see, they don't overthink it, and they don't dive into any deep analysis. Like an animal, they just passively crash into reality—kind of like a pig diving headfirst into the mud.

The second way

Let me put it this way: when we talk about "this thing here," we’re really talking about one single, universal "here" that all other individual "heres" are submerged in. There isn't actually a difference between one "here" and another. They are substantively the same—that one universal "here"—even if, at one moment, you’ve got a red book, then a coffee cup, then a stray sneaker appearing in front of you. Despite having a million different objects in front of you, you don't have a million different "heres"; you just have that one overarching "here" that holds all the others. So, when someone says "this here is a tree" and then immediately says "this here is a building," it’s not true that the tree or the building exists *inside* a separate "here," because they’ll vanish from that "here" just like everything else the "I" perceives. Hegel argues there’s no real distinction between the "here" of a tree and the "here" of a building; the "here" for both is exactly the same.
That "here" is the singular, universal space where all objects and things reside. If you walk outside and say, "this here is the road," then "this here to my right is a building," and "this here on my wrist is my watch," you aren't dealing with three different "heres." You're dealing with one single "here" where the road, the building, and the watch are all passing by like items on a conveyor belt at a grocery store. Think of it like a film reel where everything is captured on one strip. That "here" contains everything; once you step outside of it, there is no other "here" for any object or thing.
Objects come and go within this "here"—one appears, then vanishes, then another takes its place—but the "here" itself remains constant. I think people get this wrong; they assume that "this here" tree or "this here" Target store is actually *in* the "here," even though neither the tree nor the store stays; they disappear while the "here" persists. A lot of people get tripped up by this "here," thinking the tree they see is the definitive "here," only to turn around and find a house, thinking *that* is the "here," and then turn again and find a construction site, thinking *that's* the "here." There is only one universal "here" that holds all the "heres" the "I" perceives. The truth of sensory certainty is precisely that: it's one single whole, not the fragmented pieces that an (unknown) consciousness perceives as "this" or "now." This is why Hegel titles the chapter "This and Opinion." I might think "this," but once that thought happens, consciousness has basically entered the realm of opinion regarding "this." Once people accept that, you have "opinion." Most people live in that state. In the next chapter, when we get into how perception can deceive us, we'll see how consciousness tricks itself, leading to all sorts of half-truths and deceivers who mislead themselves before they move on to misleading others. It's a vicious, inescapable cycle—which is where most people end up, if we're being honest.

Side note: Hegel’s entire scientific framework is basically pure substance; "truth is the whole," as they say. Even some professors—like a certain academic I follow who lectures on this stuff—go as far as calling it "subject-substance." He’s argued in his talks that Hegel’s thought, his whole system and logic, is essentially divine. He basically claims that only the Absolute itself could have authored it—that the system isn't just *about* the Absolute, it *is* the Absolute, plain and simple, no jokes or fluff involved.
End of side note.

Substantially speaking, this "thisness"—this sensory certainty—is a singular thing, identical to itself, with nothing outside of it that feels foreign. Hegel’s "this" works the exact same way. It’s this one universal "this" that encompasses all those other little "thises" that my consciousness (unknown) thinks are a bunch of different things, even though there’s really just one massive, unified "THIS" containing everything. This "this" holds all those objects together within itself; they appear within it and then vanish from it, leaving my conscious mind to realize it's just staring at the "this" itself before moving on to perception.

So, that's the deal with the first stage of consciousness—the "sensory certainty: this and opinion" phase. Next, we move toward perception and illusion, which is the second mode of consciousness. It's worth noting that the first stage gets swallowed up by the second; the first mode transitions into the second, where it's simultaneously abolished and preserved.

3.

That cathedral which Mark's "I" perceives and confirms as "this here," along with Mary's "I" which also sees and validates a local corner store as "this here"—well, neither of them is actually "this here."

We’ve got two truths: Mark's truth and Mary's truth, both of which this "I" claims as "this here"—one being the cathedral and the other the corner store. Both truths carry the exact same level of confirmation for both Mark and Mary. Seriously—the exact same. And this "I," whether it belongs to Mark or Mary, sees it directly; they're certain of their knowledge, even if one truth seems to vanish into the other in a way that Mark's or Mary's "I" doesn't catch. But what *doesn't* vanish is simply that "I" of Mark and Mary—or, to be more precise, the "I" as a universal. This universal "I" doesn't actually see the cathedral or the store; only the specific "I" of Mark or Mary does. It sees what isn't there for the universal. The universal "I" doesn't see a building or a shop; it's more like the lens through which—by indirectly negating the cathedral or the store—everything becomes simple and totally indifferent to whatever happens to be there. What does that mean? Just this: when that cathedral or store stops being "this here" and turns into something else, the (universal) "I" is perfectly fine with whatever takes its place. Truly indifferent. Today it's a tree, tomorrow a house, the day after a skyscraper—the universal "I" just doesn't care. The "I" is just that general thing, much like "this here" itself. Hegel says he's referring to the individual "I." You could say something similar about "now" and how little it tells us about that "I." For example, "now" is 12:18 PM. That "I" says "now" is 12:18 PM. Nothing more, nothing less. Same goes for this "I." We say "now" is 12:18, or "this here" is a book—basically, we're saying all these "nows," all these "this heres," and all these "heres" are just individual instances. That's the crux of it. Also, the moment we say "I" or "this individual I," we're effectively saying "all I's." Everyone is what we call "I," whether it's the singular version or the individual one.
Note: Here we clearly see a Hegelian following of what Aristotle calls "ousia" (substance). Anyone who understands Aristotle's concept of substance will recognize Hegel's usage of it right here. Because of all this, you could say that, for instance, Branko despot says: "All significant thinkers essentially think the same thing."
End of note.

If we applied this logic to science, it wouldn't hold water. Science takes an "it" (let's say, a tree) and a "him" (a man), and then it deduces and constructs things based on that tree or that man. But when science talks about that tree or that guy, it can't actually say what it's really talking about—specifically, which "it" tree or which "him" man it's referring to. For science, it's impossible to truly articulate or state exactly which "it" or which "him" (the "I") is being addressed. The core of sensory certainty isn't found in the "it" (the object) nor in the "I" (Mark or Mary) that supposedly perceives it. What sensory certainty identifies as "this tree" or "this house," or as "this" "I," isn't just the object itself or just the "I"—yet it treats them as such. It treats what *isn't* as if it *is*. And that's where the problem with sensory certainty lies: it acts as if things are what they aren't, without even realizing they aren't.

So, the essence of sensory certainty isn't in the "it" or the "I." Neither one holds the key. These two things are just what the "I" thinks they are, and honestly, it doesn't matter what anyone thinks—everyone thinks, yet nobody truly "thinks" in this sense. The "it" (the object) and the "I" are universal; within them as universals, the "now" and the "here," along with the "I" that thinks them, exist regardless of whether we claim they do or not. This brings us to the next point. After describing the first "it" and the second moment of the "I" perceiving that "it," we reach the third moment. This third moment is the totality itself, which we establish as the actual essence of sensory certainty—not the "it" and not the "I." The "it" and the "I" undergo *aufhebung* (sublation) within this totality. In other words, the totality is the glue connecting the "it" and the "I." The essence of sensory certainty isn't the "it," and it isn't the "I" either.

Let’s look at this through the lens of sensory certainty:

a) the first moment—just pure "this"
This thing (the object)

b) the second moment—just me
Me seeing "this" (the object)

c) the third and final moment—the whole picture
The "this" and the "Me" are essentially canceled out, preserved, and ultimately overcome within the totality (the universal).

In the first moment, you see "this" standing in opposition to the Self, while the Self, on the other hand, stands in opposition to "this." That’s the whole crux of sensory certainty—it insists on taking itself as immediate by shutting out its own opposite.
On the flip side, pure immediacy doesn't care about the "otherness" of whatever happens to be "here," regardless of what "here" actually is. It doesn't matter what sits under "here"—whether it's a tree or a house—nor does it matter what that thing becomes later (a tree or not a tree, a house or not a house). Pure immediacy isn't concerned with "now" or even the "Self." It doesn't care what time it is. Nor does it care about the various versions of "Me" for which "this" might be something specific—like right now it's a tree, then a building, then a skyscraper, then a cathedral, or maybe just a local Starbucks. Its truth lies in its relation to itself (making it substantial, unlike simple immediacy). Pure immediacy doesn't make the distinction between "this" and "Me" that simple immediacy does, which is why no difference can enter into pure immediacy. So, here’s the deal: if "this" is a tree, then that tree isn't "this" anymore once the "Me" turns toward something else. Similarly, the Self doesn't dwell on what else it sees there. That other version of the Self can see both the tree and the non-tree within "this here." But the Self (in the sense of pure immediacy) doesn't see a tree or a non-tree in "this here," because, frankly, there is no such thing in "this here." Here, the Self hasn't entered into mere perception, but into pure perception—where we aren't comparing "this here" to, say, some other tree or a cathedral. Because the simple "Me" identifies "this here" as a tree or a cathedral—assuming that "this here" *is* the tree—certainty falls apart. That’s why we have to approach it by showing ourselves "this here." We have to show it to ourselves because the truth of that immediate relationship is also the truth of that Self that limits itself to "this here." Our job is to reveal them to ourselves, effectively transforming into that very Self that knows with certainty.

To visualize this, imagine little Mark out in his backyard, standing in front of a single tree (a beech tree, or whatever). For Mark, that tree is "this here." As it reveals itself to him, the "this" that appears as a tree has already ceased to be a tree simply by appearing. Get this: the moment it shows up, it's already gone. This "this here" in front of Mark, acting as a tree, is already something else the moment it's perceived; we recognize "this here" precisely because it revealed itself as something else that is no longer what it was. This "this here" (the tree) as it appeared to Mark is now entirely in the past. And that is its truth: that it has no essence, because things in "this here" vanish. All that remains is the fact that it *was* in "this here" (a tree, a building, a store, a skyscraper). Yet, what *was* wasn't an essence, because it is no longer the "this here" (the tree), even though we were dealing with its existence.

In this revelation of "this here," we see the following movement:

1. The Self points to "this here." The Self claims "this here" is true, then immediately points to it as something that has passed. Thus, the first truth is negated.

2. Then, the Self asserts "this here" as a second truth: that it *was* "this here," and that it has been negated.

3. Then the Self goes about undoing that very undoing. By canceling out the second truth, the Self negates the negation of "this here" and loops back to that initial claim—that "this here" actually exists.

Basically...

1a) Imagine Mark pointing at a sheet of paper on his desk. Mark claims that the paper *is*. Then, he tosses the paper into a fireplace and says the paper is gone.

2a) Next, Mark argues that the paper *was* there, and now there’s something else occupying the space of "this here," distinct from the paper that just vanished in the flames.

3a) Finally, Mark cancels out that cancellation. He voids the second truth—the idea that the paper vanished—thereby negating the negation of that paper and returning to the first premise: that "this here" exists. The catch? Instead of the original paper, "this here" is now occupied by something else.

That whole bit with Mark’s paper—the pointing, the burning—isn't just some simple, direct action. It’s more like a movement of moments where "this" is established, only for "this" to be replaced by something else (the paper) which then effectively cancels "this." Eventually, that secondary state is also canceled, bringing us back to the start. But the "first" thing we return to isn't quite the same as the original, immediate starting point. It’s more like an "is-ness" that contains countless other "this-nesses." This singular "this"—this actual object, like the paper—is simultaneously one thing and many things, just as this "this" is equal to countless other "this-nesses." So, the act of pointing is really just the movement that expresses what "this" truly is; it's the result composed of all those individual "this-nesses." Pointing shows that this specific "this" is actually the universal.

(I'll post the rest soon—the last time I tried this, the US forum software glitched out and wouldn't accept this third part, so I'll just drop the fourth part right after this one).

Hey @ parsifal—

3.

Look, you’re out here hunting for giants in that list you just put together, but honestly? You aren't going to find them there. You're basically slapping the "legend" label on them yourself—and hey, nobody's stopping you from doing that—but you really need to figure out what actually makes someone a giant before you start throwing that word around. If you don't have a clear grip on reality—and I mean *really* clear, like someone struggling with a serious break from it—then this whole conversation is pretty much useless. It's like trying to catch falling leaves or... well, something equally futile. We see plenty of people out in the world every day who are just as disconnected from the truth, and their arguments fall apart just as fast. On the flip side, maybe giants are redundant anyway. We don't even need them anymore. Why not just be that greatness yourself? And yeah, I am being dead serious about what I said regarding the cheese thing.

Regarding Hegel’s brilliant insight into the essence of everything transcendental—you know, that stuff in Chapter Three, including all that empty wisdom, whether it's this version or that one—I’m honestly stumped. There's no way around it: we have brains, so we might as well use them and think for ourselves. I see people getting worked up over their morning coffee just like I do, but they really ought to be getting fired up over Hegel. Through him, we get to hear—get this—the Absolute itself speaking. And who was it that said that? Vanja Sutlić. Honestly, it doesn't matter whose name is attached to it or how much authority they carry; what matters is the thought itself. Speech reveals the truth behind the person. We saw this back in the day with Aristotle in his work on interpretation, too. It’s all about *who* is speaking and *what* they’re actually saying. If you stay silent, you're a fool—though, granted, that's not always true—but if you just spout nonsense, you're definitely a fool. And man, how many people are doing that today? It’s so common that even the word "terrible" feels like an understatement. With someone like Sutlić, the core is the idea. Since the guy behind the idea is Vanja Sutlić, I have to mention the name so people actually know who’s putting in the mental work. An opinion is something you examine, and something that examines you. So, where does that leave us? Do we wallow in the gutter, or do we dive into the ocean? Personally, I’m just sitting here thinking, "Good grief, why would you choose the sewer?" Maybe I'd throw in a "you lunatics" for good measure, but I wouldn't mean it maliciously.

It feels like you’ve got some kind of official job description here—like you’re a paid spokesperson tasked with defending the "honor" of the establishment against any little critique from someone like Danijel Bukvašević. And who exactly are you, Parsifal? Do you even have a real name? You don't have to hide behind a handle if you don't want to. Personally, I don't bother with pseudonyms; I just put my name out there. I think it’s a matter of basic accountability—it shouldn't matter if you're a prince, the Pope, a convict, or a guy sleeping on a park bench—you should stand by what you say. I’ve been around the block enough to see the top tier of the social ladder, having worked for all sorts of bosses over the years, and let me tell you—that view from the top is so incredibly shallow that I decided long ago to just be my own man. But honestly, it doesn't even matter to you, does it? Whether someone has status or not is irrelevant—wisdom doesn't care about your title once the truth has already been spoken.

Hundreds of books, fame, or even the legendary status of Chesterton—what does any of that actually mean? Honestly, nobody needs to say a word about you for you to be someone. You can just be yourself, whether you’re a titan of industry or just a straight-A student. We’re living in a total nihilistic era, yet here you are obsessing over "great men." Wouldn't the truly wise realize how hollow that is? I doubt you see it, but hey, fair enough. What’s the actual difference between Hegelian thought and... well, whatever nonsense we're dealing with here? Look, I haven't written hundreds of books myself—only two people actually know who I am, I have zero influence, and nobody is out there quoting my lines like you suggested—but frankly, I don't care. I’m perfectly fine drowning in the ocean or walking through a door; I'm not losing my mind. Right now, I've got Aristotle on my left and Hegel on my right. I'm sitting there contemplating their ideas, and honestly, it's pretty good company. We kicked the other guy out of the circle—he doesn't belong here. He’s stuck somewhere on a lower rung, trying to act big and important, but he just can't pull it off. It’s almost like watching Nietzsche laugh at him and kick him back down the stairs—purely Nietzschean, really. Okay, I'm joking—as the Joker would say when I was binge-watching movies on TV: "Why so serious?" But seriously, being in this kind of company is better than believing the delusions of those crazies who think they're headed for some paradise in the afterlife. What do I need heaven for when I've got Aristotle and Hegel? Besides, I've never been much for those idealized types anyway; too inexperienced. As for the respect you're demanding—which, let's be real, is bordering on rude—don't worry about me. Just worry about finding some actual wisdom.

Look, just because someone hasn't churned out a hundred books, isn't some household name, or doesn't weigh a solid two hundred pounds—none of which actually matters—doesn't mean they can't hold their own against the giants, or even be one themselves. For me, being enough on my own is plenty—I’m good with myself, or if we're looking at it through a non-Stirnerian lens, I *am* myself. So, I don't bother measuring myself against anyone else. Now, comparing myself to heroes or absolute geniuses? That's a different story, a different context entirely, but even then, it's not really a "measurement." Plus, I’ve never been big on metrics; there's too much pseudo-science in it all. Everything gets quantified these days, yet nobody actually thinks. Take me, for instance—nobody knows me, I don't have any flashy material possessions, I don't go out socializing for the sake of it, and my day is probably incredibly boring to most people—just like I find their days incredibly boring. Just my room, my library, Hegel and Aristotle... I spend my time listening to a lecture or digging up an article online during my breaks from reading Hegel and Aristotle, or popping onto this forum to post something like this. Or maybe someone calls me to check on what some kid is up to, since, as you can see from the intro to this thread, I've "cut myself off from social contact."

With all due respect to the modern crowd, I find my own room far more interesting than their hollow hangouts and endless chatter. My writing here won't be anything permanent—let's face it, posting on a forum is ultimately a futile exercise. That means my commentary on the *Phenomenology* won't be presented in one neat, finished package here; obviously, it will be completed in the end, even if the final commentary ends up being 3,500 pages long. I've already mentioned that once I hit a certain point in a text, I leave this digital space behind. This whole cyber realm feels mostly empty to me. I'm more about the town square—walking around, philosophizing, or at least having a conversation. But if neither of those is an option, then I'll just stay in my room and hold a dialogue in my head with whatever I'm reading—or rather, thinking. It's mostly for hygienic reasons, honestly; if you tried to start a deep debate with someone in the middle of a crowded park, people would just assume the guy has bad breath. What could they possibly hear besides the stench of his mouth? They wouldn't hear anything, because he isn't thinking anything.

As for Chesterton—returning to him—you can spend forever analyzing him, reading him, mimicking his style, or just being awestruck. I guess I'm a bit "crazy," so I see it this way: in just one single category of Aristotle's substance, there's more raw material for thought than in all hundred-odd books that Chesterton ever wrote. Just one category! And what am I supposed to do with that? Read Chesterton? Good grief, I'm not insane—well, I used to be, but I'm not anymore.
As a self-sufficient man—someone who doesn't look up to anyone or blindly accept anyone as a "great," since there are no true greats anyway, and I'm perfectly happy "entertaining" myself with Aristotle and Hegel by commenting on them primarily to myself to truly grasp them—I enter their thoughts to follow the path where "wonders become everyday occurrences." In other words, it's all a bit dull, and I don't need icons. And despite all that, believe me, I know more about them than you do. It's funny how a "non-great"—just an ordinary Joe, really—can so boldly strike out at another ordinary guy. And I'm a bit on the heavier side, too; I wear glasses, and I doubt I'd even recognize Chesterton on the street, though I'd spot him even without them. Actually, I'm not attacking him, even though if he were alive today, I'd probably pelt him with eggs or whack him over the head with a cane. You might instinctively think, "Well, that's an attack," but I can't give you a coherent answer to that because you don't understand anything, with all due respect. I'm simply putting him in his place; it's hardly an attack.

Anyone who actually *wants* knowledge doesn't read Chesterton unless they're looking for a bit of entertainment or a way to look important. The same goes for everything else. I'm not interested in authors like that anymore; I wouldn't even read them at a backyard BBQ—not that I'd go to a BBQ in the first place. Why would I? I have my room. Or, as Voltaire might put it, I have my garden to tend. I think that's pretty clear. Will people in the future read Chesterton the way they read Hegel (since this is his subject)? Of course not. I don't just think it, I know it. They'll read him, sure, but I think you're missing my point. To me, all wisdom is empty once you reach the point suggested by the Bloch quote attributed to Chesterton—and you can be damn sure it's empty for Bloch, too.

I watched Bergman's movies back when I was younger, but calling him a "giant" of cinema feels like you're confusing greatness with just being someone who contributed to the field. It’s more accurate to say he made an impact. Real giants? You find those in Plutarch. What you're listing here aren't giants—not yet. They only become giants if some genius down the road writes about them with the same depth Plutarch used. And honestly, that’s probably not happening because we don't have giants anymore. If we did, I’d happily lock myself in my room for a year—only coming out for the essentials—just to write something worthy of them. But that's the issue: there are no giants left. So, what am I supposed to write about? Chesterton? Bergman? Bloch? I could always write about myself, but I'd need other giants to pair with, and where am I going to find them? The people you mentioned aren't giants, and if you said that to me in person, I’d probably give you a light smack on the head for thinking you were being profound.

If you want to actually learn about true greatness or excellence, I suggest—to everyone, really—picking up 'Parallel Lives.' Read one biography every night and maybe you'll actually learn something. Forget this list of yours and just read Plutarch. If you don't believe me, you'll certainly believe him. For heaven's sake, Bergman? Bloch? Who on earth are you talking about? Have you no shame? All you pseudo-intellectuals need to just pipe down for once.
I'll leave the rest for you to judge.
Fine.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm heading off to comment on Hegel again.

@ hiddenpuma75

2.

Look, personally—regardless of whether you think I’m being pompous or whatever else you want to call it—I have absolutely nothing to learn from the Czech guy, you know? If someone wants to read him, fine, be my guest. Go ahead and bang your head against a wall, stare at your own finger, or buzz around a pile of manure like a bunch of flies—whatever gets you through the day—but don't try to "get" me, because this whole thing is just hilarious to me. I mean, good grief, what's the point of banging your head against a door or staring at a finger? Instead of actually *thinking*, you're just busy performing these little rituals. Fine, but don't come crying to me when your head starts hurting.

What on earth is the big deal about Chesterton? Why waste actual brainpower on him or these abstract mental gymnastics? We've got Aristotle, Kant, Spinoza, Hegel, and the rest—people who are, frankly, on a different level than the Czech guy and his supposed "wisdom."

So, we have things that are actually elevated, while you all seem hell-bent on staying down low—which, personally, is where I prefer certain parts of a woman to be. What does the Czech guy even know about substance (not even getting started on other "things")? He certainly isn't an expert on beef or pork, judging by his physique—if a guy built like that actually fell forward, he wouldn't just break an arm or a hip; he'd crack the damn concrete. Seriously, what's the hype about Chesterton?
Since you've gone ahead and listed a bunch of "giants" to act as a shield—even though I don't see anyone actually attacking—it's time for my rebuttal. The stuff above was just the intro. In here, I'm going to point out the one crucial thing you're missing: you think hunting for fruit on a tree is "seeking wisdom," but I call it "wisdom-pretending."

What is actually happening here? Everyone is reacting to this Czech guy as if he were some kind of deity. And really, who attacks a god? That makes the attacker look suspicious. It's like watching a trial: "Who is this insolent fool attacking Chesterton?"
Alright, that happened, but honestly, this shouldn't be read in a "relaxed" way; it needs a cool head. That's how I'm reading your post, anyway, and let's face it, this forum is drowning in posts just like it. But where are *you* in this? This person, that person... you're nowhere. You could at least tell me what you actually think about Chesterton, assuming you still know how to form an opinion. What's the point of listing names and attacking a person? Mr. Puhovski would probably tell you that you've just written an "electronic cabbage patch," though in my book, this is even worse. For heaven's sake, write something original. Since we've touched on Chesterton, let's not keep talking about him here—we're representing Hegel in this thread. Open a new topic about Chesterton and I'll show up there just to "provoke" you a little. Just a heads-up: even my friends can barely stand it when I start asking questions here and there (thank God I'm finally getting through my comments so I don't have to visit anyone; I love people, but mostly from a distance, if you catch my drift), so I get why a total stranger might find it hard to handle, even if they're being a bit rude. I read somewhere that you claim to be against emptiness, yet you write so emptily. How does that work? Why write nothingness? Even Plato asked this in the *Sophist*—how is it possible for someone to lie or talk nonsense, where what they say isn't true? From those who claim to love wisdom, I expect wisdom, not a hollow performance.
The thing is—and this is what you're actually reacting to—I'm just putting the Czech guy back where he belongs. He's irrelevant to the conversation, and that's the only thing that matters here. So, I'm putting him in his place, rather than letting him occupy a place he doesn't deserve.

And as for those "giants" you mentioned—let me be clear: I'm not denying that the people you've listed were great writers, directors, or artists. But I am denying that they are all "giants" in the sense you're using. I don't expect people who strive for empty wisdom—as I suspect you and others do—to make such elementary mistakes. I deny it, and I'm right to do so. When it comes to true greats or masters, I have to be blunt: I'm an old soul (even if I'm young), and I learn from the old guard. These new types don't interest me. Greats? Bergman and the rest? Not even close.

So, I’d actually want to put you on the spot here—since you're acting like some big-shot truth seeker who thinks they can lecture someone like me—and just ask: what even defines a "great" person? That’s my one and only question, and honestly, let's keep it focused. Answer that in its own separate thread, not right here, because we're supposed to be talking about Hegel in this one, and I like to keep my workspace clean. Go ahead and start a new topic called "Greatness" or whatever, and then we can get into the whole debate. Once you drop your answer there, Sandra Murphy33 can jump in, then maybe Paul Bailey95, and so on—but while we're at it, where did Hegel go?
I was actually thinking about starting some kind of forum series called "Dialogues"—basically a new thread where everyone could engage in one-on-one debates to see what people actually stand for—but honestly, I just don't have the bandwidth right now. Between wrestling with Hegel and Aristotle and everything else, I haven't had the spare time to sit down and craft these kinds of responses. But then again, that’s really the core issue with how this whole thread started in the first place. If you guys actually want to sharpen your skills in the art of dialogue, you should probably take the initiative yourselves instead of waiting for me to set the stage.

Alright, let's get this show on the road.
It looks like everyone’s rushing to jump on the Chesterton bandwagon instead of actually grappling with Hegel—which makes sense, since Chesterton’s stuff is basically background noise compared to him. I’m defending that massive gap between them, honestly. I’ve already laid out my take on Hegel and Aristotle here on the forum—categories I've been fleshing out in every single comment I write. Even this post isn't "finished"; it’s more like the first few strikes of a chisel. For tools, I’ve got two copies of the Hegel dictionary, some commentary from Kojev, and lectures from Vanja Sutlić just to double-check things. I’m really trying to see how consistently I can follow Hegel’s logic, and let me tell you, I’m taking the hard road. Only people actually engaging in the comments understand how brutal that is—you guys spend an entire month staring at fifty pages of a single section. And in that month? You haven't read a single other book. It’s funny, because I haven't read a single book in three months either—mostly because I've already read everything. Reading just for the sake of reading is decadent. There’s this great essay by Barbarić about what reading actually means, so you can draw your own conclusions there. Reading books just to check boxes is regressive; you have to know *how* to read, and hardly anyone does. Someone else might breeze through a whole book in three hours, while I’ll spend that same time on two pages. Let’s be more like those Kahneman tortoises—rabbits are totally overrated. You’re probably sitting there thinking, “What is he talking about? Is he losing it?” If you are, just go grab a translated copy of my namesake Daniel Kahneman’s work. You'll figure out the rabbit and tortoise thing soon enough. Anyway, moving on.

Look, when it comes to Aristotle’s categories, nobody actually gives a damn—and let me tell you, those categories are a rabbit hole. Once you dive in, there’s no coming back. But people? They’re out here reading Chesterton. It makes me wonder: if you had to choose, would you rather go for a swim in a literal sewage puddle or the ocean? If someone is just looking for shallow, empty wisdom, they’ll find plenty of it in some old folk tales. I’m standing my ground defending Hegel against what I consider irrelevant Chestertonian fluff. And before anyone starts—I’m not getting into his biography, his prose style, or how "important" he supposedly is. I’m not disputing any of that. I have every right to be a cynic or just plain lazy—as a certain Cuban guy might say—and honestly, I don't care what other people think about him. I'm not interested in playing those social games; I'm not some gossiping housewife, for God's sake. Everything I’m saying boils down to one single point, whether you like it or not: Chesterton’s thought is hollow. It’s empty. On the flip side, Hegel’s ideas—and even Aristotle’s—aren't empty at all. That’s the ocean. So, why would you choose the sewage puddle? Look, I’m a tolerant person, but if you’re actually hunting for truth, you aren't reading Chesterton, and you know exactly why. Just a quick side note: Avicenna read the *Metaphysics* forty times before he finally "got it" thanks to a commentator. Most commentators spend their entire lives wrestling with Aristotle. What would a man like that say today if someone read a hundred Chesterton books but still had access to Aristotle and Hegel? You should be studying them—the way someone like Dale would—but I won't dwell on names. Do I even need to list more? Seriously, why spend years studying Chesterton when you have Aristotle, Hegel, Spinoza, and Kant sitting right there? I mean, what else is there to say?

Either I’m totally misreading this, or you clearly can't tell what actually matters here—and when I try to point out the obvious, what happens? I get hit with some pretty rude, frankly mindless attacks. If they were actually smart, they might "forgive" hiddenpuma75 (as if I were the one being sensitive), but they aren't. I wouldn't expect much else from a grown man unless the person behind the username hiddenpuma75 is just some kid, which—let's be honest—is probably the case. But hey, I guess that's just how it goes. It reminds me of last year, right around Christmas; a buddy and I went to visit another acquaintance of ours. We walk into the room and start chatting, and the place is so thick with smoke it feels like an old basement bar in the deep South. Anyway, long story short: my first friend gave the second guy his two cents on his plans, and the guy reacted so defensively he practically started tearing down statues from their pedestals—he was completely rattled. You know why? Because the truth was spoken, and the truth always stings right where it hurts most: the brain. What I wrote about Czechia is the truth if you actually listen to what people are telling you; if you don't, well, that's not my problem. My job is to write it down, even if it's just on a forum, because people end up obsessed with the surface stuff while ignoring the real gems. Seriously, where would you rather spend your time? In a sewer or in the ocean? Personally, I've spent enough time wading through the sewage to know better, because once you find the ocean amidst all the junk, you never go back to the gutter.

Anyway, enough with the random off-topic tangents—let's get back to Phenomenology.
Amanda Jackson5
Look, I get it, but I’m sticking to the text as it is. Shortening it feels too much like summarizing, and while I can definitely do that as an add-on if needed, I don't want to lose the essence. I actually added some extra paragraphs about three weeks ago just so I wouldn't lose my place—the problem is, once you start expanding from those paragraphs, you could end up writing pages of stuff I haven't even posted here yet. As for this whole thing regarding consciousness—the first chapter on consciousness is still a work in progress. I do have a finished version, but I’m not posting it because it’s basically in a constant state of flux. You know how it goes—you'll be working and suddenly something hits you, so you tack it on, and the whole thing starts filling out and shaping itself. Or maybe something ends up feeling a bit too mechanical or dry, so you circle back to fix it and beef it up. Honestly, there's a ton of work to do—it's a real grind.

hiddenpuma75
Sorry to break it to you, but buckle up—this next part is gonna be a long one.

1.

I look at Hitler and I see exactly what's lurking inside me.

Alright, enough with the empty suits—it’s my turn to weigh in on hiddenpuma75’s post. This might get a little long, and I'll be being pretty open and serious here. Consider this a light smack—not like that brutal hit omen took on this forum a few months back, but more like that sharp little sting a baby gets when they sit on a hot stove. You know, a stove where there's actually a fire burning—unlike inside hiddenpuma75's head, where things seem suspiciously cool. I’ll apologize in advance for being blunt, but someone had to say it, so I'm stepping up. I honestly can't stand the smell of pretension; it reeks. It’s like fertilizer sitting in a field, attracting all these flies buzzing around like hyenas over a carcass, or those birds circling overhead before diving down to peck at a corpse like they’ve never seen death before. I don't get what draws people to this kind of "wisdom"—usually, it's just hollow noise. And just to be clear, when I write like this, I’m staying on topic. I'm not trying to go off on a tangent like half the comments I see floating around here. When I mention names like Mary or Mark, I'm just using them as placeholders to keep things from getting too dry—just enough flavor so people behind their forum handles don't fall asleep. It's about that first chapter of sensory certainty, giving you a sense of what Hegel is actually getting at in that opening section. Sure, it’s easy to read the words, but you have to actually *think* through it—to digest it properly. It's like how I’m sipping this coffee right now; my body has to break it down and absorb it. Some people try to treat Hegel's Phenomenology like a flight of stairs, but once I've fully digested the whole thing, I'll happily toss the remains aside. It would be great if someone could actually contribute something meaningful—staying on track—while showing some respect to Amanda Jackson5, who was just asking, "What exactly is this 'this' that Hegel keeps referring to in the chapter?" If we did that, we could actually have a coherent discussion. After all, this is a forum, and making sense matters just as much as staying away from the temptations of a Don Juan. Since hiddenpuma75 decided to drift off-topic, I guess I have no choice but to wander off-course myself, especially since he already took a detour into talking about Czechia—all because of Neo's comment, which was the original derailment. Instead of discussing Hegel—and it doesn't even have to be the Phenomenology specifically—we're out here debating fruit on a tree. But hey, I'm the one who kicked things off by bringing up Chesterton, so I guess we can all join the madness, like crazies at a bullfight in Spain. First it's Sandra Murphy33, then me, then hiddenpuma75, and after this, it'll probably be him or Sandra again or someone else entirely. Good grief, where is Hegel in all this? Maybe we should just start a separate thread for Chesterton so we can all chatter away like old ladies at a flea market. If anyone wants to be a gossip, be my guest; personally, I've never been a fan of the market, and I've never had much interest in the gossips.

I see you’re aiming for the big leagues, hiddenpuma75—honestly, I respect that, because I am too. But I also noticed you have this real itch to be the ultimate authority on everything, which is... well, let's just say it's a bit of a step backward. Your last post really laid it all out there. First off, you're throwing around names like they’re just ingredients in a box of Cocoa Puffs, trying to lean on "authority" rather than actually making a point. And second, there's that subtle little ad hominem attack tucked away in there—very sneaky, but still very much an attack on the person. Look, if you’re feeling "irritated" by what you read, I get it. Anyone can react sharply when something hits a nerve or touches on something they're tied to. But, as Kant teaches us, if a Man wants to truly live up to his potential, he has to set aside those more animalistic impulses. So, if you're looking for some light summer reading, maybe dive into a study of Kant's Anthropology. Might help.

On the flip side, even Aristotle gets this through his categories—specifically substance, if we aren't going to get bogged down in other descriptors—and Chesterton too, since Sandra Murphy33 brought up certain principles, which I then built upon. You all will probably jump back in after this, but I’m stepping back because I actually care about Hegel—meaning, let's stay on topic, like a rider staying on a horse rather than trying to ride a giraffe. See, Chesterton doesn't really fit into those specific descriptors. You, hiddenpuma75, look just like any other Man I pass on my way to the library. We have the same skin color, the same citizenship, we've probably read similar books, but you aren't a "Man" yet. You're about as far from it as a bandit is from freedom, or a Stoic is from freedom, or whatever. How does one become a Man? You have to grasp it—not just superficially, but completely. That's why Aristotle’s categories, especially substance, are so vital. Think of them as a finger pointing at a door (if you're into that kind of imagery), and it's up to you to walk through it. If you just stare at the finger, you'll never see the door. Unfortunately, a lot of pseudo-intellectuals spend their whole lives staring at the finger instead of seeing the door, and the most tragic part is when they try to collect souls around them while doing it. I'm not saying this to hear myself talk—I'm not that important—but the idea matters. All the great thinkers say the same thing: you have to be a Man. And what you're showing in this post isn't coming from a Man; it's coming from something else—forgive me, but from an animal. Honestly, one woman's hysterical outburst is no different from the "tone" of your post, which is just pathetic, powerless, irrational... whatever you want to call it. And if you're an older gentleman, that makes it even worse, because by that age, we should have minds that can actually hold the reins. Personally, I like horses, but they smell too much, they whinny constantly, they wander off here and there—so I use reins to control them, rather than being controlled *by* them. Otherwise, I'd just be a dog on a leash. And as for leashes? What do I care about leashes?

Not to mention the errors—those logical fallacies like appealing to authority or launching those thinly veiled personal attacks disguised as "respect." It's embarrassing. Mature people—real men—don't do that; only horses do. You simply don't know that you don't know, and you don't even realize you're clueless. Want me to prove it? Look, I might seem like some random drifter passing through on the street with no reputation, but I could read you your own book, live or in writing, and do it quite politely. But fine. Since you're muddying the waters with this babble—which started with a woman, maybe a lady, maybe just a girl—since a woman must follow a woman, I'd suggest you start a new thread about Chesterton. Go ahead and write as much as you want about him; people, especially young folks, are genuinely interested in Chesterton. That's why we have those chatty clubs where people grab a beer or coffee and just ramble about him. "Chesterton-lovers." I'm not a fan of any kind of "lover"—it's never good to be overly devoted to anything, whether it's a country or a woman, but that's a whole other conversation. Chesterton is attractive, like a blonde I saw once—very striking—but she was just a blonde. I'm not calling you a blonde, don't get me wrong, and I'm joking around a bit here, but I'll admit blondes can be pretty. I just don't "love" them unless I need something, and frankly, there's usually nothing behind those eyes regardless of the hair color. I've been with blondes, so I know what goes on in those heads (shoes, perfume, small talk, etc.). Since they don't demand high intellect from me—they don't need me to lecture them on Dostoevsky for six hours, and I don't need to listen to them drone on about what they bought today or how pretty they look—we meet halfway and strike a deal. But what's inside? Emptiness. Just a void. And that's basically what you are regarding Chesterton, except he wasn't blonde and he was huge. He was so big he probably couldn't even fall over; he probably didn't sleep in a bed because his body *was* the bed and his head was the pillow. Also, when you quote Ernst Bloch, I'd be very careful. With all due respect, you clearly don't know what Bloch actually meant, nor the context, nor where you even pulled that quote from. Let's not even go there.

Look, regarding this whole "sensitivity" thing—you really shouldn't be so sensitive. Honestly, sensitivity, much like grand ideas or lofty ideals, has probably killed more people throughout history than anything else. Even Emerson hits the nail on the head when he says more folks have died for an idea itself than for any mere interest. He wraps it up by saying God himself should preserve such spiritualities from that—and if we're bringing God into the mix, I’d just add: may God himself preserve God from us.
When I'm writing about the Czechs, you have to understand that someone's critique, or a joke, or both, or even something else entirely, has its own specific place. In this case, the Czechs are being put where they belong by leaving you wondering what on earth I'm writing or what I actually mean. I'm dropping this off-topic post just so you can see how I'm framing things—basically, how I view Chesterton and everything he ever wrote. It’s not like you take a child, stick them on a bookshelf, and then tell me to grab a book; I mean, a kid on a shelf? Good grief, that's just nonsense. Where on earth would you put a child on a bookshelf? Anyway, I'm putting Chesterton in his—as some might say—"proper" place. And what's that place? Well, he didn't exactly walk through the door; he sort of slammed his head against the side of the doorframe on the way in, and anyone reading him is going to end up slamming their head against that same doorframe too. So, if you're into slamming your head against doors, go ahead and read Chesterton. If not, don't bother at all.

2.

Take some world-class athletes we all know—like Ivica Kostelić or Blanka Vlašić. Now, obviously, Ivica and Janica are incredible skiers. But let’s be real: they became that way simply because their father basically used them as little training dummies from the time they were toddlers. He projected his own ambitions onto them, molding them into versions of himself—which, honestly, is a massive failure for both the parent and the kids. That whole "this-ness" of sensory certainty was everything to Janica and Ivica’s development. Their consciousness got stuck right there in that loop of immediate, sensory experience. It means the only thing they ever knew, the only thing they know now, and the only thing they’ll ever truly grasp is that raw, sensory "this-ness." And frankly, that’s the tragedy of most people—they are defined by that exact limitation. That's just what it means to be a Man, in the broadest sense. A buddy of mine actually mentioned seeing something in a diary where Ivica Kostelić says his greatest love is skiing. Look, I don't sit around watching TV, but I stay in the loop through friends, family, and actual conversations. You can see how deep this madness goes just by looking at that one statement. It’s not really that he loves skiing more than anything else; it’s that he exists entirely within that realm of sensory certainty. He lives at that level. And get this—according to Hegel, that is the absolute lowest level of existence. Seriously, think about it. At that stage, you might as well be a dog, a pig, or a goat. It doesn't matter if the dog or the pig has a massive inheritance, plenty of food, or is literally rolling in money—it changes absolutely nothing. We aren't even talking about a Man in the philosophical sense here; we're talking about someone existing purely on an animalistic level.

Just like Ivica, Janica, and Blanka Vlašić—our other absolute legends on the track—they’re basically stuck at this baseline level of consciousness. It's that raw, purely sensory certainty where you're just existing in the "now." They haven't even scratched the surface of true self-awareness yet—which, honestly, is still just the starting line of real longing. That sensory certainty has pretty much just morphed into a primitive craving for that first spark of self-consciousness. There isn't anything lower than that state, unless you count those blonde characters from those tired old jokes—but I guess you'd have to dig even deeper to find something more mindless than that. Jokes aside, though, why is it that they can't get past it?

Their skiing and track careers? Honestly, that’s just their father’s project—his vision, his dream. They aren't exactly "individuals" in the way we usually think about it; they're more like products of their dad. Their whole athletic life didn't really stem from some deep sense of self or a conscious choice to pursue greatness. Instead, it was essentially handed down to them—shown to them by their father through Blanka, Ivica, and Janica—by projecting this specific, sensory certainty onto them. They basically adopted his reality rather than forging their own. I won't get into the "why" behind all this because, frankly, it’s irrelevant to the point. It’s almost as if—and I mean this with all due respect to their actual trophies—they were programmed. Their entire lives have been marked by their father’s desires being projected onto children who just... accepted it. Almost without any input from their own consciousness. And here's the kicker: people actually admire this. It's tragic, really. People look at them and say, "That's what a real Man does," or "I wish I could do that," even though it isn't truly "Manly" and it certainly isn't smart to live that way. None of them were ever really asked what *they* wanted. They were trained to become exactly what they became—trained, or better yet, rendered into these featureless shells. It’s like a dog that’s been broken in; a trained dog absolutely adores its owner, listens to every command, eats whatever is put in the bowl, and just follows the script. It’s a total loss for Ivica, Janica, and Blanka. And honestly, you see this with pretty much any elite athlete who is just a vessel for a parent's ambition.

We’ve all been there—somehow, growing up, someone was always drilling something into our heads. It’s like this endless loop of repetition. I remember knowing this one guy whose dad used to drone on about nothing but "football, football, football" until you just wanted to tune him out completely. Then you had the other type, the dad constantly pushing "ballet, ballet, ballet" on his kids, also to that same point of total exhaustion. If we're being honest, most of us have dealt with some version of that mindless, infinite loop from one parent or the other. You see it all the time—a father who thinks the only real "value" he can pass down is handing his kid a Ball and telling them to kick it around the yard until they inevitably smash a neighbor's window, rather than actually sitting down to teach them something meaningful. Or maybe it's a different kind of distraction, but the result is the same: they aren't really raising or educating their kids. The thing is—and this happens way too often—most parents are just stuck in this cycle. Because they weren't properly taught or given a real education themselves, they lack the tools to actually teach their own children anything substantive. So, instead of passing on wisdom, they just hand them a Ball to kick around and call it a day.

When people say parents aren't "self-educated," they aren't just talking about whether someone grabbed a degree or not—it’s way deeper than that. You can have a PhD and still be totally unlearned in the ways that actually matter, though I guess that’s a bit less common than stumbling upon those certain K-12 teachers who—let's be honest—really haven't done the work to actually learn anything (not everyone, obviously, don't come for me). Unfortunately, you see this pattern in a lot of homes. You get these folks stuck in a provincial, traditional mindset who honestly don't even know how to teach their own kids—and get this—it's because they never actually learned how to teach themselves. They’re essentially living as copies of something else, kind of alienated from their own souls... just these hollowed-out, characterless shells of people.

Look, when you run into this kind of situation in a family—this total regression where parents haven't actually bothered to educate themselves—you end up with them trying to raise kids, and we all know exactly how that plays out. It’s right there in front of us. Honestly, if you just take a quick walk around any local elementary school, a high school, or even just hang out near a coffee shop or a club one night, you’ll see it. You look at kids anywhere from ten to twenty-five years old and you’re basically looking at a mirror image of their own parents. It’s wild. It’s like what Vanja Sutlić says—we didn't even see this level of dysfunction back at the fall of the Roman Empire. We're talking about a specific mindset here, a kind of idiocy and backwardness where you don't really encounter a true Man anymore. Instead of actual people, you find these... I don't know, semi-humans? Or maybe just creatures that look like people but aren't. It's like Gajo would put it—a "Man who isn't a Man." They lack any sense of self or character. You step outside your front door and that's the reality hitting you in the face. I won't beat around the bush: fathers, and parents in general, just aren't teaching their kids anything. And even though they aren't doing the work, the fallout is absolutely devastating for the kids. But hey, that's just the specific example. Let's get back to the bigger picture.

When we say things like "this" tree exists, or "now" is the day, or "there" stands a building—well, that little word "this" becomes this broad, general concept. But here’s the kicker: we aren't actually grasping that universal essence itself; we're just using it to express it. We aren't really touching the raw, absolute "thisness" of it all. No, not quite. The thing is, through language, we end up contradicting our own perceptions of that "this." Language basically points out that our immediate sensory certainty isn't quite hitting the mark of what "this" truly represents. Since the truth of those sensory certainties is found in the general concept—and since language is what carries that truth—it turns out we can never actually put the raw, sensory essence of what we're thinking into words. It's a bit of a paradox, honestly.

We were talking earlier about those examples—the tree, the building, the skyscraper—that just seem to vanish the second you turn your back. Whatever was "over there" (the tree, the building, that massive skyscraper) simply ceases to exist the moment we look away. It’s like things disappear from "over there" or "there," whereas "here"—this immediate "here"—doesn't actually vanish. Instead, "here" is basically the permanent stage where all that vanishing happens. Take a city like Washington, D.C., for instance. It exists; it is "here," right in front of us, as the city of Washington, D.C. And within it, right this very second, at this exact hour while I'm typing this out, people are being born and passing away, laughing and grieving, gossiping and sitting around, lying down and whatnot. All of that stuff happening in "here" stays true regardless of what exactly is going on (whether it's a birth, a death, or someone dropping a glass vase). Basically, "here" remains "here," no matter what happens within it.
It’s all the same around here.

So, what we’re looking at here is this kind of mediated simplicity—you know, that version of "general" that feels a bit processed.
Look, when we talk about that sensory certainty—the kind that presents itself as the absolute truth of an object—we’re really just looking at its pure essence. But here’s the kicker: that essence isn't some immediate, obvious thing. It’s actually defined by negation and mediation. It’s not what we typically think of when we say "essence," but rather a specific type of being that functions as the pure universal—even though our actual thoughts aren't truly universal. For our own reasoning, that sensory certainty doesn't feel universal at all. Take something like "this" tree, "that" building, or "this" guy right here. We group them all under the label of "this," treating it as if it's almost a given, but for our conscious minds, it isn't actually universal. That specific tree standing "here" isn't the universal truth of sensory certainty. Our brains accept it as true, sure, but in reality? This thing right here isn't actually *this* thing right here.

So, basically, what we’re saying is that for our own sense of truth—that raw, sensory certainty we all lean on—it isn't actually "purely general" at all. To that specific feeling, all you’ve really got left is this empty, hollow sense of "this" and "here." If we take the relationship between the self (the one doing the knowing) and "this" (the object itself) and compare it to how they stand once you reach a result, things get weird. You can see that the whole relationship has flipped on its head. That object—which was supposed to be the central, essential thing—suddenly becomes irrelevant to our sensory certainty because it has transformed into something purely general. It’s become secondary. Now, that sensory certainty exists entirely within the knowledge (the "I") which, if you think about it—and really, do think about it—was the part that used to be considered unimportant in the first place.

So, we’ve reached this point where truth is basically just sensory certainty within my specific subject—my subject, mind you. Right now, that object (this "thing") is defined by what I know about it. We're already seeing that first transition, moving from the "this" of sensory certainty into the "I." Now, me knowing "this" doesn't mean the sensory certainty itself just vanishes—not at all. It just means that even though it's been pushed out of the object, it's still right there; it's just migrated into the "I." Hegel argues that it gets repressed back into that "I." It isn't annihilated, which is a crucial distinction to make here. The truth of sensory certainty now resides within the "I." Within the immediacy of that "I," everything that usually disappears into a single "this" or "here" is preserved—because since the "I" is holding onto it, it doesn't vanish anymore.
Take a tree, for example. A tree is "here," I see it, but by tomorrow, that tree isn't "here" anymore. It has vanished from the "here," yet the "I" has retained it. In this "this/here" scenario, let's say someone—let's call him Mark—looks at a cathedral. Mark sees it and confirms, "Yes, this cathedral is right here." On the flip side, let's look at Mary, whose "I" perceives some lingerie shop. Mary, just like Mark, sees it and confirms (in her case) the existence of the lingerie shop, regardless of whether Mark might find lingerie somewhat irrelevant to Mary. But anyway, where am I going with this?

(I'll get to that next time)

"I read 'The Man Who Was Thursday'"

Well, I'm the kind of guy who read "The Man Who Was Thursday" on a Friday—totally on purpose. Maybe a little "wicked," but I actually enjoyed tackling it on a Friday, haha, just kidding.

Regarding Orthodoxy—after my first pass and being totally swept up by his style—I actually set it aside. Once the initial hype died down, I thought about writing my own "anti-orthodoxy," basically a counter-belief, using that same Chestertonian style to write a parody from the opposite perspective. But I gave up on that pretty quickly for a bunch of reasons I won't get into here. Honestly? Chesterton is just one jolly, chubby little jokester with a rather unfortunate psyche. Yeah, really. Did you know he actually tried to take his own life when he was younger? That’s what I mean by an unfortunate psyche. Those paradoxes of his? They're just his style. It’s all fun and games, but for me, it feels a bit like watching kids playing marbles in a park—how do I put this?—kind of silly. And look, I'm not a creep, for crying out loud; I don't want the cops chasing me through the streets like they did during my wilder days back in the day—and no, that wasn't because of anything weird like that. Chesterton himself is a parody to anyone who isn't Christian, and in his head, it all makes perfect sense. I respect the intent, but I can't respect the headspace. To me, it feels two-fold: hollow and empty. Just... hollow-empty. And there's one glaring issue with his logic that anyone with half a brain can see. The thing is, it isn't even about philosophy—and mind you, philosophy is something that still needs to be overcome, so there we have it.

His books deal in—as Hegel would say—abstractions. And that's the truth; everything he writes is pure abstraction. Everything he puts down is just "common sense." Personally, I'm more of a "psychiatric case"—that common sense stuff doesn't really do much for me, which is probably why I'm labeled as such. Knowing what abstractions actually are (not going to dive into that here, though Hegel is incredibly fascinating when you realize what he was actually doing), I just can't bring myself to read stuff like that anymore without feeling like I'm regressing to playing marbles in a park. Chesterton used his style to arrive at Christianity, but get this: you could use that exact same style to arrive at atheism or anything else non-religious. His writing isn't an argument for faith; it's just abstraction. I shouldn't have to write two forum posts about things handled by "common sense," yet you have these Chestertonians calling him the "Apostle of Common Sense," which, if you ask me, is the height of irony. I can only laugh at that, and I'm apparently the only one who gets why it's so ironic and funny. Anyway.

From a philosophical standpoint (which is the most important part here), Chesterton is a populist. Just as Hitler was a populist to Junger, that's how Chesterton is to me. You aren't going to learn anything intellectually from him, even if he technically "philosophizes" in his works. Aside from the style—which you could mimic if you have "that certain something"—he mostly just plays with abstractions. But that's just common sense, or rather, reactionary thinking. What Chesterton does is operate within a binary, an "either-or" framework. He toys with logic in a way that makes it easy to build a parody once you learn how to flip his specific perspective. If they declare him a saint in the Church (and they surely will), there's nothing left to say. They know he walks hand-in-hand with them. An apologist is an apologist, and those are the types they canonize. On the other hand, if someone isn't in their camp, even if they're just as "saintly" as the others, they won't be called a saint. Why? Because they aren't *theirs*. You have to exist within their dogmas and their entire hierarchy just to be considered for sainthood. They can't canonize someone outside their circle; they only recognize their own. It's logical, really—it stays within their framework, much like what Nietzsche discussed in 'On Truth and Lie in a Moral Aspect.'

Look, if you’re looking for high-level philosophical depth from the Czechs, you’re barking up the wrong tree—specifically when it comes to Chesterton. If someone actually expects serious philosophy out of him, they're going to leave hungry. That’s my point, anyway, and I think it’s pretty obvious here. It brings up that classic dilemma: "Is it better to spend a month or two devouring all of Chesterton's translated works, or should I dive into Aristotle—even if it means grinding through just two pages a month while really chewing on the ideas?" I don't know about you, but I know my own answer. I know what I want to do. If you're the type who lives for wandering through thoughts, pure reasoning, entertainment, or some sort of "complete" education, then hey, do your thing. I’m tolerant of all that—I wouldn't say I'm as strict as Amanda Jackson5 made it out to be—I’m just pointing it out. Though, knowing this place, I doubt anyone "gets" the point of pointing things out. Honestly, pointing stuff out on a forum feels almost as pointless as reading these ancient posts. Since this is just a forum and everyone just posts whatever random junk comes to mind, you might stumble upon something smart once in a while, but at its core? This whole forum—and most others, really—is just one big, inflated bubble of nonsense. If I had a match, I’d love to see this forum like a giant round balloon, where the air inside is heated so intensely by the words being written that the whole thing just pops. I’d probably laugh, too—not like some villain, but more like those monks warming themselves by Buddha statues. Anyway, enough with the metaphors.

It really just comes down to what interests you: deep philosophy, something else entirely, or maybe a bit of both. You can't have everything—you can't have this and that at the same time. I mean, I’d love to grab both if I could, if you catch my drift, but since I can't, well, life goes on. They aren't exactly willing to accommodate my brand of tolerance for this or that. The Czech (that's my little nickname for him, kind of like how a dog named Lassie might be "Czech" to me) in his search for God—and indeed, like all unhappy consciousnesses—was basically just trying to end it all. If I had been alive back then and knew him personally, I would have handed him a rope and said, "Listen, you apostle of common sense, this pear tree has branches strong enough to hold your weight." He probably would have replied in his usual style: "I think I'll pass; the branch might snap."
As for why it's so ironic to call Chesterton the "apostle of common sense," I'll keep that joke to myself.

Anyway, excuse me, I've got to go finish my coffee and rejoin reality.

I’m gonna have to break this whole deep dive into consciousness up into four separate posts—mostly because I’ll hit that 10,000-character limit if I try to cram it all in at once. There’s just way too much ground to cover here. It’s like trying to carve a statue out of a massive block of granite; you can't exactly rush the process if you want something worth looking at.

Let's get this show on the road.
In the beginning, there was the Word.

The first section—that whole subjective spirit vibe.

1.1 Consciousness
1. Sensory Certainty: This vs. Opinion
2. Observation: Reality vs. Deception
3. Reason

Sensory certainty, "this," and what we call opinion—it’s all a bit of a mess, isn't it?

So, let's dive into sensory certainty—basically where Hegel kicks things off. He argues that the object sitting right there in front of us—the thing he calls "this," like, say, this potted plant or this house—represents our immediate knowledge. And what exactly is "immediate" knowledge here? It’s just the stuff we pick up through our senses—what we see with our eyes or hear with our ears. It’s the raw data of what exists. As subjects, we approach this information directly; we take in what's being shown to us via our senses and we don't mess with it. We just accept it as it is given. At this stage, we aren't even bothering to analyze the object itself—we aren't digging into its essence or anything—we're just taking it at face value. For the consciousness of sensory certainty, the thing is just... there.

Sensory certainty—it’s that immediate kind of knowledge that just hits you—tends to treat itself like the ultimate buffet of cognition. It thinks it’s being served the richest possible truth on a silver platter, like a massive feast laid out on a table or a tree heavy with fruit. It just grabs a piece of whatever is there and starts handing it out to everyone else. Essentially, sensory certainty is just playing around with the "thisness" of things—the fruits on the tree or the food on the table we call "this." As it stands, sensory certainty presents itself as the most authentic thing imaginable, refusing to leave out a single detail of the object in front of it. It views everything before it as a total, complete whole. But here’s the kicker: while that certainty feels incredibly absolute and true, it’s actually nothing more than the most abstract, poorest kind of truth. All it really does is point at something—some pure "this" sitting right there in front of it—and say, "Yeah, this thing simply exists." Its entire truth is limited to the mere existence of those "this" things. Within this certainty, a consciousness emerges that perceives the pure "this" (the object) as the pure "this" (the Self). But this "Self"—this "I"—isn't actually aware of its own nature, because that "I," acting as consciousness, is the very thing driving and developing all our thoughts. Let me give you an example.

So, here’s the thing—I’m looking at this book right now, just staring at "this." It’s right there, sitting in front of me, totally real and solid. But the second I turn my head or even just let a few minutes tick by, that book isn't really "there" anymore in the same way—even though I took it for granted as this permanent, finished object. Or take my watch, for example. As I’m typing this out, it says exactly 4:02 PM. But by the time I actually shift in my chair? It’s not 4:02 anymore. It’s not even Sunday—which is what today happens to be—it’s not March 13th, it’s not 2016, and so on and so forth. Everything is just... slipping.

Neither "this" guy (me) nor "this" thing (the subject at hand) actually has anything to do with the truth of some sensory certainty—whether we're talking about a specific moment in time or a book sitting on a shelf. Look, there are two things we really need to keep in mind here:
So, yeah—that’s me.
So, here it is—the actual subject at hand.

Let’s take "this" (an object) and pretend that this "this" we find sitting right in front of the Self is a tree. That tree standing before the Self is exactly that—this "this." Now, I see the tree as a tree, but the Self isn't actually conscious of the tree itself because—as we touched on earlier—the Self is constantly developing and driving thoughts; it’s in a perpetual state of flux (think Heraclitus). Sure, the tree—or this "this"—has a whole bunch of different properties, and it relates to other things the Self takes for granted. But none of that actually touches the truth of sensory certainty itself. Neither the Self nor "this" (the tree) carries any inherent meaning. The Self and "this" simply *are*, and they only exist because they exist. And honestly, that raw fact—that the Self or "this" just exists—is the core of sensory knowledge. This simple immediacy between the Self and "this" represents the truth of sensory knowledge. That’s where it lies. It’s just the Self and "this," and that’s the whole truth of it—it hits you in the chest like you're actually seeing the essence of things. Take a scientist, say a psychologist—doesn't matter where they went to school. A psychologist only knows one thing or another within a specific, isolated field called "so-and-so" psychology. If a woman walks up to a psychologist and says she’s struggling with hysteria, the psychologist either sees that her problem is indeed hysteria, or it isn't. If it is, then the psychologist is looking at a single instance—specifically, that woman's hysteria. All he knows is that the hysteria is present in her, and that’s it. Nothing more, nothing less. However, even though the psychologist has reached a diagnosis of hysteria, the pure essence that makes up the core of that certainty (in this case, the woman's hysteria) isn't everything sensory certainty perceives. There’s a whole lot more going on behind the scenes that consciousness doesn't even catch. Sensory certainty isn't just that simple immediacy (the aforementioned woman's hysteria); rather, it is an *example* of it. An example—not the certainty itself—which serves as an example of what sensory certainty really is.

So, here’s where we find the main split in all this. Out of the whole mess, two distinct "this-nesses" emerge: "this" as the Self, and "this" as the object or thing. If we look at the distinction between "this self" and "this thing," we realize that neither the Self nor the "thing" is actually immediate—meaning they aren't just sitting there in raw sensory certainty. Instead, they both rely on something else to exist. My sense of "me" is only certain because of "this thing," and without the "thing," my sense of self vanishes. Take that woman's hysteria mentioned earlier—it wouldn't even be a detectable reality if it weren't for the psychologist's sense of "self." That hysteria only becomes an undeniable fact through him. On the flip side, "this thing" is only certain because of the Self; without the Self, there’s no way to experience "this thing." I am certain of a book, but the book is only certain because of me. You pull one thread, and the whole thing unravels. This tension between what's direct and what's mediated is baked right into sensory certainty itself. It's the kind of thing Hegel says we have to accept as being "in itself"—not to be confused with, say, the actual time on my watch when I was typing this, or any other random examples I throw out. Look, the woman's hysteria isn't "in itself"; it's only real through the lens of the Self.

When we talk about "in itself," we’re talking about something simply existing—an object that exists whether anyone knows about it or not. But the other side of the coin is non-essential and mediated. That’s not "in itself"; it's known via something else—specifically, the Self that perceives the object. The object just *is*—that hysteria just *exists*—but whether that existence matches our sensory perception is a whole different story. Let's put it this way: my watch shows it’s 4:02 PM while I'm writing, but the second I look away, that "4:02 PM" is gone. That specific moment shown on the watch isn't the thing "in itself," even though sensory certainty treats it as such in the moment—taking things as given, ready-made facts. Sensory certainty looks at a tree and says, "this tree is." But then, suddenly, the tree is gone and there's a building there instead. Now, sensory certainty says, "this building is." Then the building gets knocked down and a skyscraper goes up, and it's back to "this skyscraper is," and so on. You can play that game forever. We end up with an endless loop of these sensory "is-ness" moments. To sensory certainty, the object—whether it's a tree, a building, or a skyscraper—just *is*, regardless of whether anyone's paying attention. The object remains even when ignored; that woman's hysteria stays real even if the psychologist stops looking at it. Knowledge doesn't exist here unless the "this" of the object exists. We have to figure out if the object's essence in sensory certainty actually matches how it appears to us—does its existence in our senses actually align with its true nature? When we talk about "this" (the object), we aren't wondering what the tree or the skyscraper *actually* is deep down; we're looking at how sensory certainty swallows it up as a "given." We need to see how it's perceived.

Let's try a little dialogue.
I'll ask sensory certainty: "Hey, tell me, what is this?"
Sensory certainty: "This? It's a tree."
And now?
Sensory certainty: "Now it's a building."
And now?
Sensory certainty: "A skyscraper."

That’s how sensory certainty answers. If you ask it, "What is 'now'?" it might say something like: "This 'now' is a cloudy, rainy day." Now, listen—sensory certainty (as I'm typing these lines on a Sunday, sitting in my room in Seattle, March 13th, 2016, or whatever) is technically correct. It is raining outside, and it is cloudy. But by tomorrow, or in a couple of days, that "truth" won't exist anymore. And get this: if we write down or remember that truth—that it was raining and cloudy—that specific sensory truth vanishes. Sensory certainty treats the cloudy day as something immediately present, taking it as a solid reality, even though it's actually fleeting and non-existent in the long run. You could argue that "now" persists, but not as the specific cloudy day it once perceived as true. It’s the same for a sunny, dry day. For sensory certainty, a sunny day is treated exactly the same way as a rainy one.

What’s actually happening right in front of us isn't really the "immediate" thing—that's just the sensory certainty part. Everything else is mediated. Think about it: a gloomy, rainy day and a bright, sunny one—both are just temporary states. They persist precisely because they eventually cease to be. Sensory certainty doesn't really care what kind of weather we're having. Neither a downpour nor a clear sky defines its essence, yet for our senses, both are equally real. We call this simplicity—this idea where negation shows us that "this" or "now" aren't fixed certainties, but rather a shifting state of "not-this" or "not-now"—the universal. That universality is the actual truth behind sensory certainty. Of course, the sensory itself is also universal, but before we dive deep into the abstract stuff, let's grab a quick example to illustrate what I mean by "this" in terms of sensory certainty.

Oh boy, here we go again with Chesterton.
So, I’m guessing you read "Orthodoxy" in an old edition, not one of those versions put out by someone like Ivo Džeba. I actually went through it twice over Christmas—just like all those translated works back then—and even tried writing in that style myself before telling myself, "No thanks, I'll just be my own person. What is Chesterton anyway?" It’s a nice, snappy style, full of wit... but watch this—he doesn't even truly grasp Nietzsche. Honestly, I could probably write five books modeled after Chesterton's "Orthodoxy" just to mock him using his own weapons, but what do I know? Maybe I should just be a Voltaire, mocking every author from here to Europe, while sipping gallons of coffee like Balzac.

What am I supposed to get out of authors like that in terms of actual seriousness, real knowledge, or total understanding? Reading them is fine, sure, but why would I spend my time on Chesterton when I could be diving into the "Organon," or "Ethics," or actual systems of science? I'm not crazy. Are you looking for pretty prose or actual knowledge? If you want beautiful styles, then that's what you read, and that tells you exactly what you want from words and thoughts: entertainment, diversion, decadence. Chesterton is a decadent—he's witty, he has a great style and a cheerful spirit, but most importantly, he's a decadent. And look, cheerful spirits can be decadent too. He even dares to write about Nietzsche, but—get this—Nietzsche doesn't even care about what a book *can* be about. Why? Because he starts from—wait for it—Christianity. When you analyze an author within a Christian framework, you aren't thinking what the thinker actually thought; you're just thinking Christianly. Nietzsche himself—his whole essence—is outside of metaphysics, which Chesterton completely misses. If he actually knew, he wouldn't have written the things he did about Nietzsche.

That's the thing. With Chesterton, you won't find anything absolute besides some clever paradoxical "nay-saying." If that's your vibe, go ahead and read everything he wrote. But seriously, Hegel gives you a SYSTEM. A system! And you're over here reading Chesterton? Is there anything else you need to add?

I'll take Hegel any day, since we're even talking about it. What on earth is Chesterton? Cheerful spirit, lovely style, sure, but the guy doesn't actually *know* anything significant. He's just easy to read and pleasant, a bit fun, a bit paradoxical—and of course, people like that have their readers.
You type "Hegel" into a search engine and look at the photos. Just look at him. That is a serious man. You can tell from his portrait he isn't interested in joking around; he doesn't bother with paradoxes. That stuff is for kids—pardon me, for Chestertonians.

We'll be getting back to Hegel soon enough. I've had enough of these "juvenile" types and those little clubs where kids gather to debate Chesterton's "ideas." Any real thinker would see right through Chesterton's "ideas."

0.5

Let’s step away from that empty void of the beyond and the supersensible—that whole hollow, transcendental mess—and get back to Reason and its other internal layers.
See, Reason sits right where the sensory world does, acting as our actual reality, unlike that "beyond" stuff which is basically just an empty shell. This internal realm is general, sure, but it's only about itself—it's unfulfilled. It’s essentially just a play of forces, as Hegel puts it, which we touched on at the start of this chapter. There’s a negative side to this interplay and a positive one. The negative part is that it isn't truly "itself," while the positive part is that it mediates—though, and I really want to stress this, it mediates *outside* of Reason. When I say "outside of Reason," I just mean the mediation happens beyond its direct control; it just sort of happens, much like our example with Mark. He sees an apparition from Mary that convinces him—his own Reason—that what he's seeing is totally rational and comes from Reason itself. And it’s not just Mark seeing the vision; it’s also the guy standing outside looking at a tree and insisting that the tree is definitely there, or that it's daytime just because he perceives it as such. Once you start doing that, you're drifting into mere opinion or optical illusions—you know, those endless ways we misinterpret things by adding or subtracting from the object. Even the people who claim Mark’s vision is a "fact"—well, let's call it faith, whatever kind of fact it might be—it's all empty. Faith is empty because, as we've seen, anything beyond consciousness (the transcendent or supersensible) is hollow. It's not that the mind is too limited or flawed to grasp it; it's simply that the internal essence is actually vacant. And this isn't just true for the "beyond" part of the internal; it applies to other aspects too. It’s not just religion that turns out to be a bit of an illusion; modern science can be a total hall of mirrors too. Still, Hegel argues that religion actually conveys certain truths that the mind can fully grasp, whereas religion itself can't "understand" them since it isn't purely mental. Anyway, back to Reason.

Hegel is saying now that the relationship of Reason to the internal is defined by mediation, and through this process, the internal gets filled out. To put it another way—staying within the realm of the internal—if Mark mediates between his consciousness and what he perceives (whether it's a physical building or some non-material vision), he ends up fulfilling that internal space. For Reason, the only thing that is immediate is the play between these forces I mentioned; everything else is only true if it remains simple. Any movement of force—whether it's showing something or being the thing itself—is only true as long as it stays simple. The second a force reaches for something else via an appearance, it leaves truth behind and falls into untruth. Since we're talking about the internal here, the moment we take a spiritual phenomenon—like a poet calling it "divine inspiration," or someone in religion claiming a vision, prophecy, or a mystical trance—the moment we "take" that as reality, we've already slipped into untruth. Let's say my "I" sees various ghosts and stuff, but my "I" doesn't give a damn about them; in that case, I haven't been fooled. But if another "I" sees the exact same thing and *does* take it seriously, they're already halfway into a lie. And it's not just that individual; they end up deceiving a whole crowd of people, creating this endless loop. It only takes one wrong step to fall into untruth, and usually, it happens right in your own backyard when you least expect it. So, if someone claims to have a "spiritual" experience or a mystical encounter, they really do "see" and "have" it—but only because they've decided to accept it as such. They don't even realize they've tripped. They've moved away from the self, which is almost like saying "he's a faceless man" or "he's not himself." Honestly, it's pretty grim. Think about it: a person who isn't really a person, but just a hollow copy of everyone else—just a nameless, faceless Everyman.

That earlier example involving the play of forces between Mark and Mary’s manifestation hits the nail on the head. What’s actually happening there? It’s about being moved by another—or, if we want to get technical—it's that specific force which moves a second force, which in turn becomes the thing doing the moving. It isn't some external, alien power stepping in from the outside. There aren't two separate forces at play; instead, there's just one overarching substance. Hegel’s take on substance is honestly brilliant and incredibly consistent—the way he structures it is enough to make your head spin. Which is why it’s so tragic—and I say "tragic" without getting all melodramatic like someone going through a messy breakup—when a person—be it a neighbor, an acquaintance, a partner, or just some random guy on the street—finds themselves driven solely by their own internal engine without even realizing they were the ones who pulled the trigger. They think something else moved them, when it was just them all along. Look, we're talking about alienated people here—people who have lost touch with themselves. And let me tell you, those people are everywhere. Most people are totally alienated; they’re basically sleepwalking through life, even when they're wide awake. In Mark seeing Mary’s manifestation, we see the distinct moments of Mark’s consciousness and his alienated consciousness perceiving Mary. But those aren't actually two different things. Consciousness has these determinations that it splits into two seemingly opposing sides. These determinations are the only actual content that shows up in our Mark's consciousness, and then this appearance becomes the universal medium—what Hegel calls negative unity, which is essentially the same thing. In this process of appearing, the "play of forces" stops being what it originally seemed to be; it's no longer "that." Just like when a relationship ends and people say, "It wasn't really like that," the thing that appears here isn't truly what appeared. This doesn't just apply to the inner world—the spiritual or transcendent stuff—but also to the "real" objects and phenomena handled by modern science, where everything is defined by technical movement. And lurking in the background of that movement is the nihilism that only a few people—think Nietzsche, Heidegger, or maybe a philosopher like Miller—actually manage to spot. That's just the short version.

Regarding these determinations and the play of forces, the force itself, through its manifestation, triggers the other side. So, Mark's force triggers Mary’s manifestation, and that manifestation then triggers Mark—who was the original source of the movement to begin with. Ultimately, it's always just Mark's consciousness. These two sides, which look like opposites (Mark and Mary’s manifestation), are actually just a relationship of movement (Mark-Mary) and a relationship of content that seems contradictory. Each side sits in its own shifting "position." Think of it like the seasons: it's a cycle, like spring turning to winter, a single loop rather than two separate circles. It's the same with consciousness—it's one single loop containing all its variations, and outside that loop, there is absolutely nothing, just emptiness. This means that the relationship itself is singular. Our Mark, who is truly witnessing Mary’s manifestation, *is* Mary. Mark is Mary, and Mary is Mark; they are one and the same. People who say, "Wait a second, Hegel is saying Mark is Mary and Mary is Mark, that's a contradiction," clearly don't get it. It's the same relationship...

So, that's the little intro. We're seeing that the "inner realm"—the place for intuition, transcendence, and the beyond—is actually just empty space. Outside of consciousness, there is nothing. Anything that claims to be "above" or "beyond" consciousness—stuff that pretends to be supernatural, a "higher world," something hidden, mystical, or occult—is nothing. Or more accurately, that's all people live for, chasing a void. If someone starts preaching to you about these "other worlds," just wave them off, or honestly, give them a friendly slap to snap them out of it. Or better yet, grab a book by Hegel and give them a light tap on the head with it instead of using a stick like those Zen masters do (though they usually aim for the head a bit more precisely). There is no "other world" outside of consciousness. We need to stop alienating ourselves and just be one. But how to actually pull that off? Well, that's a whole different story.
Next up, we’re diving headfirst into consciousness.

2.

Transcendence exists within consciousness—it’s essentially a specific element or moment of it. Outside of consciousness, there is no such thing as transcendence; it only exists as a feature of our own awareness. Consciousness is this internal space, a pure state of transcendence where the mind doesn't actually find itself, but rather encounters something foreign and alien—the "other." This transcendence is empty; it’s a manifestation of nothingness. When this happens, nothingness reveals itself, and Mark isn't seeing some angel showing him visions of paradise in his living room—he’s seeing the void that shows him nothing. What emerges is nothing, and then it vanishes—whether it's Mark himself or his vision of paradise. Once the vision of paradise fades, it isn't paradise anymore, even if it briefly appeared to be. Still, there is a positive side to this phenomenon, which is simply its universality. It works perfectly for those who live off the idea of transcendence or dwell within it. They defend this transcendence, which—get this—can't even be attacked. Take the concept of God's permanence, for instance. We can't prove permanence, but—and this is what these modern "atheists" fail to grasp—we can't prove non-permanence either. That isn't a logical argument for permanence, obviously, but it’s a nice little comeback for those believing in the transcendent when faced with atheist objections. Not the modern ones, mind you—those guys are more like the ancient 'idiots' from a modern perspective; honestly, they're an embarrassment to actual atheism. They're basically just "functional" atheists.
And why can't transcendence be attacked? Where would you even aim? If you have a bow and arrow, you have a target to hit in the bullseye, but transcendence has no target. It’s impossible because transcendence and the material world don't even play the same game. It suits them that the essence of God refuses to be known, and it truly does—except perhaps as that aforementioned dark cloud. What would be left of transcendence if it were fully understood? It wouldn't be transcendent anymore; it would lose its entire purpose. They even say it themselves:
"The essence of God cannot be known."
Or
"Let go of that which transcends thought."

So, we end up with the idea that faith reaches places where thought simply cannot go. Like, say, grasping the Trinity—which can only be grasped through faith, regardless of the flavor of that faith. Though, if faith explicitly implies that little word "grasping," then maybe it isn't even faith, because what kind of faith is a "grasping" faith? It’s not that the inner nature of things is unknowable, as the defenders of transcendence love to claim; rather, it's that the interior is, in its immediacy, a sort of empty knowledge. Much like how sensory certainty tells us a physical object is right there, this is just a way of saying God exists; people take God for granted the same way they take a chair for granted.

The "inner nature" people defend isn't actually too complex for the mind to handle. Consequently, they defend transcendence against the intellect by claiming the mind is incapable of knowing it, implying the mind itself is somehow limited or flawed. But it’s simpler than that. The interior, or the transcendence, is completely empty, and you can't "know" something that is empty. When they say God's essence or providence is unknowable, they are really just saying: "It's empty." Meaning, there's nothing there. You can't know something that is inherently void. For Hegel, the transcendence of consciousness is something beyond consciousness, which effectively means that what lies beyond is nothing—or more accurately, it's empty. There’s nothing to look for there, just like you wouldn't look for a dresser, a table, or a bed in an empty room. It's a bit naive to go looking for furniture in a vacuum. However, consciousness can be a bit sneaky; it might go to a shopping mall, buy a dresser, a table, and a bed, fill up the room, and then smugly say, "See? The room isn't empty after all." To that, we respond, "Even though you filled the room, it remains empty at its core," and honestly, you might just want to give the person a good smack over the head. But that’s just a metaphor; in reality, the room is empty. The result is the same: whether we call it the inner transcendence of consciousness or just the inner emptiness, we arrive at the same point. Therefore, the only thing left to say is that the phenomenon necessarily linked to the interior—meaning transcendence, intuition, and the like—is the only real object for consciousness. That phenomenon, which sits between reason and this interiority, is the only subject matter. The stuff outside of consciousness that fuels the naive spirituality of yesterday, today, and tomorrow (and indeed, all religions) isn't actually an object of consciousness, because what is "outside" of consciousness doesn't exist. It's empty thought. In short, it's pure nonsense that people love like bees love honey. And anyone who loves that nonsense isn't really engaging with thought, let alone wisdom. They’re like those characters in the old folk tales where a trickster is brought before a king and a panel of sages who accuse him of heresy. After the king hears the sages, he lets the trickster speak, and the trickster asks them one simple question: "What is bread?" After hearing all their lofty, differing answers about what bread is, the trickster tells the king he can't possibly trust these "wise men" when they can't even agree on something as basic as what bread is, and that's how the story ends.

All we’re left with is the phenomenon. But here’s the kicker—that phenomenon itself is basically nothing. So, if we accept the idea that a phenomenon is inherently "untrue" because once it shows up, it vanishes, we run into a funny situation. If we take that fleeting appearance and stuff it full of all those religious visions people live for—you know, where the "beyond" is just dialed up until it becomes a series of appearances—we end up making the internal void feel "full." We fill that emptiness with all sorts of mental projections and hallucinations that consciousness creates for itself. And honestly? Those hallucinations often feel better than the actual empty void inside. It’s easier to deal with a vision than with nothingness. When someone sees a dragon, or Buddha, or a ghost, or Mary, or even a late father—it’s just consciousness projecting stuff. But, if Mark happens to see a snowball flying straight at Mark's face, well, that’s one instance where consciousness isn't hallucinating.

The "internal" is empty by its very nature; it’s devoid of objects. This internal space, which exists beyond or outside of conscious thought, is what Hegel calls the core of *all* spiritual relations—and I mean *all*, not just some. It’s the emptiness behind all conscious distinctions. This brings us to those modern-day Western "gurus" you see everywhere. Even though the internal is essentially an empty void, they love to fill it up to line their own pockets or fill the heads of mindless followers. A guru’s entourage actually reveals how much of a fraud they are; when your followers are just a bunch of fools, it proves you’re a fool too—they’re just your mirror. Like the old saying goes, "birds of a feather flock together." In Hegel’s view, this sacred internal is utterly empty. That emptiness is born directly from the phenomenon.

Back when we were looking at raw force, we had the example of Mark seeing a vision of Mary. That vision comes from a phenomenon, and that phenomenon is the bridge—it’s how the internal gets filled. If Mark didn't exist—or rather, if humans didn't exist—these phenomena wouldn't show up at all. On the flip side, a monkey or a dolphin doesn't see visions of Mary or ghosts; in that sense, animals are actually more "perfect" than we are. All this spiritual stuff religions cling to is just sensory perception rebranded as truth. Hegel argues that this truth consists of being a phenomenon. Period. You can spin it however you want, but all these religious events—like the appearance of Jesus, or God appearing in the form of Jesus—are just phenomena. Now, you’d have to ask a theologian how a God who is supposed to be separate from this transient, trivial world can manifest through something as flimsy as a phenomenon. A God that shows up via a hollow appearance isn't really God. Still, Hegel interpreted Jesus’s incarnation in a totally different way, the only way that fits the Absolute. He saw it as substance-subject: a human who eventually evolves into a god. For traditional Christianity, that’s the ultimate sin—the height of arrogance.

For Hegel, the internal (the supersensible or the "beyond") is simply phenomenon as phenomenon. Meaning, it's empty, nothing, and as fleeting as a girl's youth or her beauty.
In short: the internal as a phenomenon is that emptiness. Don't confuse this—and Hegel is very clear about this—with direct sensory certainty or simple observation. If it were just sensory knowledge, the phenomenon wouldn't be what it is. Instead, the phenomenon is canceled out and relocated into the internal, where it reigns. This also means modern science can't really touch religion, precisely because religion moves the phenomenon into the internal realm as its truth. You can't attack a truth that has moved into the kingdom of the internal. You can't hit a target that isn't there; you can't shoot at emptiness. Of course, the skeptics will argue that the "beyond" isn't a phenomenon, that it sits above it. But Hegel is clear: what people call "above" the phenomenon is just the void itself. These critics insist that God didn't just pop into existence through a hollow phenomenon in a meaningless world, but they miss the point—they don't understand phenomenon as the sensory world. Meanwhile, on the other side, the "beyond" is proclaimed to be above the sensory, but since we can't know anything about it, it is, quite literally, empty. So, all these spiritual seekers are basically chasing a void, distancing themselves further and further from who they actually are.

(To's where I'll leave it for now—more coming next time)

Note: We’re kicking things off with the inner realm from chapter three to serve as an intro to two and a half parts, rather than doing an introduction first—then we’ll dive straight into consciousness and sensory certainty. That's it.

The Interior, or the Realm of the Interior

1.
So, here’s the deal: the essence of a thing isn't something consciousness hits head-on. Instead, consciousness relates directly to the thing itself—meaning, just as the thing presents itself to consciousness, consciousness takes that presentation in. It’s like consciousness steps into the middle of this tug-of-war between two opposing forces to try and find the actual bedrock (the thing) underneath. On one side you’ve got Reason, on the other you’ve got the Interior, and the middle ground is that connecting force—the very essence of power. But—and Hegel is being very explicit here—that essence is fleeting. Basically, Reason can't actually "see" that core essence because it vanishes; it’s ungraspable precisely because it disappears. This is what we call a "phenomenon." It’s the same vibe as in the first chapter, where Reason looks at an object in its immediate surroundings and claims it exists or is "real," even though that object isn't truly real in that moment because it’s just a passing flash—it lacks staying power, even if Reason perceives a struggle behind it. For Reason, a phenomenon is the essence of a thing that is, in reality, nothingness. Take a house or a building, for example. To Reason looking at it right now, it’s a solid reality—it’s "here and now"—but give it enough time and that house is gone, replaced by a forest. That building isn't just a appearance to Reason; Hegel goes further and calls it a total illusion. A whole, complete illusion. It sounds wild, but this massive collection of appearances is nothing more than a total illusion. This means everything we pick up through our senses, and almost everything Reason deals with (assuming it’s working with phenomena), is just one big facade. And get this: modern science spends all its time dealing with this exact facade—these objects of phenomena that Hegel calls a total illusion. When you factor in Nobel Prizes in modern science, you realize those awards basically go to people who spend their lives studying this very thing: the totality of illusions. You could almost call them Nobel Prizes for Illusions.

When a psychologist does their job, they’re dealing with phenomena—specifically the psychological kind, not, say, geometry. Otherwise, you'd have psychologists studying the lines and planes of schizophrenia. No, they deal with the "essence" of hysteria, the "essence" of schizophrenia, or autism, and so on. In short, they deal with the essence of vanishing phenomena. But for Hegel, an essence that vanishes isn't really an essence at all; it’s non-existence. A tree that’s been cut down isn't "being" anything anymore. This entire "totality of illusion" is exactly what makes up the interior—this play of forces, this internal reflection of the whole. Within this, consciousness uses these objects to establish what its perceptions are like, but these moments lack any real permanence; they’re constantly flipping over into their own opposites. Take the "essence" of the flu: it hits a person, then it’s gone. Or take a sudden burst of rage—like some guy losing his cool at a dive bar—it hits, and then it vanishes into thin air. All this stuff, this whole dance of forces, is negative. But the truth of the negative is actually the positive—the self-existing object. The essence of an object for consciousness is mediated by the movement of the phenomenon, and the essence of perception or sensory objects always carries that negative weight of disappearing. When we perceive a tree, we see the "essence" of it, but that essence is fleeing. The sensory object is always in flux, always disappearing. Consciousness reflects on this disappearing tree or house, but it turns that reflection inward, creating the idea of the "interior" of the object. It tries to separate the reflection of the thing from its own internal reflection, even though it’s really just one single process. To consciousness, the "interior" feels like something external, something different from itself. Yet, within this private interior, consciousness finds a sense of certainty—a way to find its own true moments of being. However, consciousness doesn't actually realize that it contains these moments or this certainty within itself. It doesn't realize it because the "being" of that interior is, to consciousness, just a negative movement. Consciousness is just a vanishing phenomenon. It’s like how youth is a vanishing phenomenon to a grown man; anyone who clings to that fading youth and pretends he’s still a kid is just a screaming monkey or a pathetic fool. Just as youth has no permanent "being" because it's transient, consciousness doesn't have its own independent being. The "interior" is a concept that consciousness hasn't even begun to truly grasp yet.

When you realize youth is slipping through your fingers, consciousness does this absolutely wild thing—it performs what’s basically a "leap of faith." Because we’re aware that everything is fleeting—that nothing actually sticks around and everything, including ourselves, is ultimately transient—consciousness tries to outrun that emptiness. It jumps into this totally foreign, unknown territory where it feels even slightly steady or unshakable, which is what consciousness labels as "the beyond." Here’s how the mechanics work: This "beyond" sets itself up as the absolute opposite of everything we perceive as temporary or hollow. It positions the supersensual realm as the "true" world, while our messy, sensory, vanishing reality is cast as the "untrue" one. Consciousness ends up trapped in this duality between the here-and-now and the beyond, a gap it can't quite bridge. On one side, you have this disappearing physical world; on the other, you have this permanent, perfect, and—for the theologians—totally inscrutable "beyond." It’s protected by its own mystery; you can’t argue with it or attack it because, to the conscious mind, it represents *something* substantial, whereas humans feel like *nothing*—just imperfect, passing shadows. It’s like those mystics talk about God being a "dark cloud"—it just makes the gap between us and the beyond feel impossible to close.

So, we’ve got the "beyond" acting as the self-referential starting point, but—and this is crucial for Hegel—it’s only an incomplete manifestation of the mind. He’s very clear about this: that otherworldly realm is just an unfinished version of mind, not the whole story. But interestingly enough, the truth actually lives within that incomplete stage. If we bring humanity into the mix—all those driven individuals and the masses—this "beyond" isn't worthless. It’s just... well, fundamentally insignificant in the grand scheme. Think of it as a stepping stone toward Spirit. That said, for actual people, that step is massive. When life here becomes too much—when things get bleak, hopeless, or just plain crushing—this "beyond" steps in like a sort of "consciousness trick," easing the despair and giving people just enough faith to keep moving.

If we look at depression as the defining malady of the 21st century, it’s pretty clear that losing touch with the "beyond" is a byproduct of modern earthly despair. No matter how much anyone wants to believe humans can just exist as purely material, living substances, most people simply cannot function without that sense of something greater. For them, the "beyond" is a necessary rung on the ladder to Spirit, and we really have to respect that as a fundamental truth. Keeping this in mind, Hegel suggests our subject is a conclusion sitting between two poles: interiority on one side, reason on the other, with "phenomena" sitting right in the middle, driving the movement that defines reason. It looks like this:

a) Interiority—the realm of the inner self, intuition, and the supersensual stuff.
b) Reason.
c) The middle ground, or "phenomena"—basically the stuff modern science obsesses over.

The phenomena in category (c) provides the data that Reason (b) uses to identify the interiority found in (a), eventually leading to a lived experience of that inner reality.
Let me give you a concrete example. Take Mark—let’s say he’s a deeply devout guy who actually experiences something we’d call "beyond." He has a vision of heaven, presented by an angel in his room. That supersensual, otherworldly moment manifests as a phenomenon in his physical space. Mark is dead certain about what he saw. He tells a priest about the vision; the priest might dismiss it, but he reports it to his superior, and so the story spreads. Years later, Mark is questioned again, and he still insists his vision was real. This means Mark’s Reason (his intellect) accepted that phenomenon as a true part of his consciousness. Eventually, Mark passes away, and his vision undergoes a rigorous test by others using Reason to determine if his experience of the "beyond" was legitimate. Through long deliberations and study, they eventually validate his vision as a genuine encounter with the "beyond"—an interior reality that manifested as a phenomenon, was processed by his Reason, and finally became a confirmed experience. We have to emphasize: without Mark and his consciousness, there is no vision of the beyond; and without people, there wouldn't even be a concept of the "beyond" to begin with.

(More coming next time)

Since I already touched on how people tend to misread Hegel in my previous thread, I’m opening this one up to hopefully present his "key" work the right way. My plan is to walk through Hegel's *Phenomenology of Spirit*—starting from consciousness all the way to absolute knowledge—offering some running commentary along the way. Now, full disclosure: I probably won't wrap the whole thing up in one go here. Let's be real, trying to explain or even just comment on a work like this while keeping Hegel's incredibly specific, almost alien language somewhat digestible is a massive undertaking. So, if my commentary ends up feeling a bit "mechanical" at times, please bear with me—following Hegel is genuinely tough, even for those who know what they're doing. If you actually have the willpower to read this stuff, then welcome to the thread. And look, if I suddenly stop posting here or on this entire philosophy forum, it just means I've gone off to focus entirely on my actual job—which, as much as I enjoy this, requires some serious attention. Lots of it. Before we dive in, I want to start not with the actual introduction, but with a section from Chapter Three regarding the so-called "internality" of things (transcendence, beyond-sensibility, intuition—take your pick). Right after the dialectic of force, Hegel discusses a consciousness that is essentially immersed in transcendence, lives off it, and defends it. I’ll put this here first as a little primer to jumpstart the discussion before we hit the first stage of consciousness: sense certainty, "this," and opinion.

With Hegel, there aren't these "higher" or "lower" types of consciousness that various spiritualists or self-proclaimed experts of all stripes love to babble about. He only identifies three modes, and none of them are "better" or "worse" than the others. There is no such thing as a "higher consciousness" in his system. Honestly, seeing the amount of people online—in these digital spaces where any random guy can hide behind a handle and spew nonsense without any accountability—I can only say, "I'll tolerate the stupidity." You're free to write your nonsense, but I know it's just nonsense. Of course, I'm still me—even if a Buddhist might disagree—(Paul Bailey95), not some faceless "Self," and I don't feel the need to hide behind an anonymous handle like >.
Moving on, someone else on the forum already shared a "critical" take on Hegel which I won't repeat here. However, I will briefly touch upon what Popper and his crowd use as justification for the totalitarian state (as they see it in Hegel). They use this to smear both Hegel and Plato with some pretty nasty labels, arguing that because everything real is also mental, then if a totalitarian state is "real," it must inherently be "rational." It's a wild leap, right?
Anyway.

In the introduction to the *Phenomenology*, Hegel argues that the goal is for a person to understand truth not merely as that Aristotelian substance—something that is one in itself and identical to itself—but to understand that this substance is also the subject. Substance and subject are one and the same. For the subject, the goal is to become like substance: to be identical and equal to itself. For Hegel, substantiality is the immediacy of knowledge itself, but it's also an immediacy that contains its own being for the sake of knowledge. What he's really getting at is that what is substantial to a subject—let's call him Mark—is what is "in himself" and "for himself." As "in himself," Mark is intelligent, but as "for himself," he is *actually* intelligent. To be intelligent "for oneself" means to truly possess that intelligence; being intelligent "in oneself" just means having the potential for it, though it hasn't manifested in reality yet. This means Mark might potentially be smart or potentially a human being, but just because he has the potential doesn't mean he has actually achieved it. You see, a human can potentially be a "Human," but a human is also an animal. It often happens that a person displays more animalistic traits than human ones, because becoming a "Human" is a process you have to work toward, whereas being an animal is just something you're born as. You're born an animal, but you have to move away from that state to become a human. We are all animals by nature, but remaining an animal when you are conceptually a human is a disaster. A human is both human and animal, which means to truly be a human, one must take that humanity seriously for themselves, rather than leaving their humanity as a mere possibility and settling for the animalistic side they share with substance. To be a human is to be a substance-subject—a living substance whose being is the human/subject, which only becomes a real subject if it is also a substance:
a) Motion through which motion sets itself in motion
b) Self-mediation in which substance becomes something else through its own mediation
Since substance is identical to the subject, substance—just like any subject—is a simple negativity that acts as a double opposition, which is itself just a negation of difference and opposition. This is where Hegel argues that this re-establishing equality of substance-as-subject (or the reflection of self into the other) is what’s actually true. It’s the process of becoming oneself, and that becoming is the only thing that is truly real. So—and here’s where we hit that point I mentioned earlier—not everything that feels "real" to a person is actually real according to Hegel. For Hegel, reality is strictly mental; anything non-mental simply doesn't count as real. In his view, reality flows from the mental, not the other way around. All this stuff surrounding us—everything we stumble upon or see, all those "real-world" events—isn't "real" in the philosophical sense. Only the mental is real, which means only the mental is actual. Anything non-mental is essentially unreal or non-existent.

Side note: in philosophy, there’s a massive distinction between history and historiography. History is just what happened, whereas historiography is the essential meaning found within those happenings.
End of side note.

Mental equals real, and that’s the baseline for Hegel. If you flip it and say non-real equals mental, then suddenly everything and anything becomes real. That’s why Hegel doesn't start by saying everything real is mental; he starts by saying everything mental is real. From there, you can infer that everything real is mental—but *only* if it is mental. Anyone who misses this, or tries to breeze through it, or carries some underlying ideology, or hasn't actually sat down to read Hegel and think along with him... well, all those so-called "philosophy buffs" like Paul Bailey95 and his crowd? Honestly, let me be blunt: they are completely unprepared for Hegel and his system. They act like know-it-alls, snatching a single sentence out of context and pretending they "understand" Hegel, when really they’re just intellectual small-timers. Basically, clowns.
Look, beyond that, it also shows a total lack of professionalism and that kind of pseudo-intellectualism that an educated person should never permit themselves. And strictly speaking, it’s pretty amateurish when these people try to "attack" such a massive, absolute system using nothing but mere opinions, lack of critical thought, or grasping at a few sentences that might make sense to them. You can only critique Hegel by engaging with his entire system as a whole, not by being a smart-aleck who picks one or two lines from a tiny subsection and then goes off "Popper-ing" about how Hegel is this or that. For people like that, the rule is: I think, therefore I don't think. That's not how this works. But anyone doing that—especially if they call themselves a "scholar," an "intellectual," or a "respected professor"—reveals exactly how little they see to anyone with actual vision. Seriously, taking a quote out of context to "critique" it is bordering on the level of the *idiotes* from antiquity. In short, it’s a complete waste of time.

So, basically, Hegel lays it out like this, even though some people have been shamelessly attacking him for it:
1. Mental
2. Real
Keep in mind, the mental comes first. Everything else follows from that, so for Hegel, if it isn't in alignment with the mental, it isn't real. Now, if Hegel had set it up like this:
1. Real
2. Mental
Then maybe all that analytical babble would actually make sense. But he doesn't do that.

Anyway, let's finally get into that intro I mentioned (that bit about interiority) next time. After that brief intro, we'll finally dive into consciousness.

Look, what follows is going to be a bit of an exposition on Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit—and honestly, I probably won't finish this series. In fact, I likely won't be posting on this forum, or even touching the "cyber world" in general, for a while. I've decided to cut out all the noise and distractions to focus entirely on what I'm doing. I’ve already made the call to go totally off the grid—doesn't matter if it takes two, four, or eight months—cutting ties in my personal life too just to clear the deck. My goal is to truly wrap my head around the Phenomenology of Spirit and dive deep into Aristotle’s Organon (specifically those Categories, which are pretty much the core of the whole thing). This is a massive undertaking, so for me, there's no more hanging out or socializing. The only exception is the occasional reach-out for mutual help—mostly because one colleague already managed to pull me back out once—but until I've conquered this, that's it. I'm viewing these posts as just a small way to share bits of the journey, strictly for the sake of helping each other out, though let's be real: I probably won't ever actually meet any of you in person.

Honestly, deciding to skip out on that mindless social scene during your younger years—especially since we're living in this absolute era of nihilism where those connections basically rot away anyway—is actually a solid move. It pulls your spirit away from all that aimless wandering and the sheer triviality of just hanging out for the sake of hanging out. Even a forum like this is just another version of that socializing, if you actually take it seriously. I mean, you don't have to be physically out at a bar with buddies to be "out there"—you can be fully engaged with the world even while you're sitting alone inside. Most of the socializing we see today is just pure nonsense or, at its absolute best, an endless flood of useless facts. Whether it’s politics or whatever else is grabbing everyone's attention, it’s just a massive dump of "Nothingness" designed to clutter our consciousness. And let's face it, only actual struggle can change that. See, the moment you turn off the TV, disconnect from the internet, put down the newspaper, or even just stop obsessing over your watch—that’s a fight. That’s you fighting for something meaningful to actually exist. You can't build anything real if you're constantly jumping from one distraction to the next, just drifting wherever the noise tells you to go. It's about being your own experiment, your own boss—not someone else's test subject or their little subject. One or the other.
With all this endless chatter—and honestly, all this writing about absolutely nothing—we’re losing the one thing that actually matters: the spirit. And that's everything we are. I mean, seriously, who actually wants to lose themselves in all that noise?

To be honest—since this is a forum and there's no point in holding back—my life basically boils down to a single library and a quiet room. Figures like Buddha, Christ, or Moses? They’re just distractions at this point. My days are filled with the usual grind, helping people out when I can, dealing with a pretty chaotic past, and having those occasional chats with people I’ve known since I was a kid. And look, I don't mean that negatively—I'm perfectly civil with them—but I wouldn't call them friends. I don't really have friends. There’s no such thing as "true brotherhood," as Nietzsche would put it—though he wasn't the first to think so; you've got Aristotle before him, and even Plato, who basically questioned the whole concept of friendship or admitted in his Lysidus that he wasn't quite sure what it all meant. For me, it's just a collection of friendly acquaintances. As for romance... well, there have been some lovely little excursions, but nothing more. People—and I'm not just talking about flighty women—might jump to conclusions, but there's no real love there. Just moments.
Alright, let's take a quick detour into some personal nonsense—totally irrelevant, I know—and then get back to the actual point.
I’m hoping this thread sparks enough interest to get some people actually diving in—even if wrestling with Hegel feels like trying to swim through molasses. Honestly, though, if you’ve got even a shred of intellectual curiosity, there’s no point in building an entire worldview on anyone else. If we're talking about the heavy hitters—the actual bedrock of deep philosophy—you’ve got Aristotle, Kant, Hegel (obviously), Plato, Spinoza, Descartes, Nietzsche, and the rest. But when you look at the absolute summit of that mountain? It’s Hegel. If you try to kick off your philosophical journey starting with Schopenhauer, you're basically asking for an existential meltdown. And don't even get me started on starting with Nietzsche. I've seen it happen—some young guy decides Nietzsche is his entry point, and man, he’s headed straight for a crisis. For a guy like that, it might honestly be better to just grab a beer, eat a good meal, work a regular job, and find a wife—just live a normal life like everyone else. It’s much easier than deciding to drown yourself in thought. Unless, of course, he's actively looking to sink the ship. Not everyone survives that kind of wreck, but hey, if he wants to go down with it, that's his call. There’s a difference between someone truly seeking truth and someone who is just... seeking. If you're just "seeking," then your whole existence becomes trapped in that hollow loop of searching without purpose. That isn't how you start out. You don't jump straight into Cicero, Schopenhauer, Camus, Kierkegaard, or Nietzsche. That’s just not how the game is played. The foundation is Aristotle. Period. Trying to build a philosophy without those fundamentals is like trying to build a house without a blueprint or a solid slab. Instead, people just start throwing bricks and shingles together, using glue instead of cement, hoping it holds. They end up with a little straw shack that blows away the second a decent breeze hits—kind of like that Three Little Pigs situation. It’s not just bad strategy; it’s plain foolish. Look, there are plenty of fools out there—that’s just the way the world works—but if you take things to heart the way Nietzsche did (along with everything else, obviously), you’re going to end up broken. Stick to Aristotle for the foundation. For anything else, you can always find a path through art or religion.

Look, if you’ve actually got an appetite for philosophy—if you’ve actually got that Will to Power—then just know right now: you aren't going to make a living at it. If you want bread, go work at a bakery. If you want actual insight, you head toward philosophy or science—and I don't mean this "modern science" nonsense, for God's sake. Back in the day, even the big names here in the States had a real affinity for philosophy (think Newton or someone of that caliber), but today? They’ve just downgraded themselves into a massive swarm of these various "scientists"—to use Kierkegaard’s term—whose intellect is basically like a monkey counting fruit; they think they understand the tree because they can count a piece of fruit, even though the poor thing doesn't even grasp what a tree is, let alone the soil it grows in. Scientists nowadays just count and calculate; that's it. They don't actually *think*.
The people who have an affinity for wisdom itself—not just this or that little bit of fruit they find hanging on the branches of knowledge—those are the Hegelians, the Aristotelians, the Platonists, and the kind of readers who actually engage with ideas. They aren't just "readers" in the sense of consuming quantity like rabbits; they’re slow, like snails or turtles—actually, way slower than those guys.

Hegel’s thought... man, it’s almost like God Himself is speaking, and He isn't even joking or being sarcastic about it; He's dead serious. Actually, a scholar like Vanja Sutlić said something similar in his lectures on Hegel—I believe his book was published by a major American university press earlier this year. Anyway, Sutlić argues in those lectures that Hegel isn't just a thinker practicing philosophy as a "love of wisdom," but rather—get this—he's dealing with Wisdom itself. We aren't talking about philosophy as a pursuit anymore; we're dealing with the essence of Wisdom. Hegel moved past "philosophy" and arrived at Wisdom itself. He’s no longer striving toward it as a philosopher; he *possesses* it. He has realized it. He’s essentially the messenger for the Absolute. To him, thought is the All-in-All, a single Totality, a Substance.
To be identical to that is what Sutlić calls the "substance-subject." That’s the whole game. And yet, even though that’s everything, and even though artists and religious folks try to reach that point in their own ways, most of the masses—unfortunately—don't bother at all. They just merge with this era of nihilism like a guy merging with a woman; they just stagnate as a bunch of nobodies in nothingness. It's like most people just... exist. There. Just "there." Like this one acquaintance of mine—a sort of depressed entrepreneur type—told me a year or two ago, "I'm just here." He’s just existing without any goal or purpose. He doesn't even read; honestly, it’s probably better for him that he doesn't. A person who just exists like that is living a slow death, acting as if they’re already dead, chasing nothing higher than their own fleeting happiness, interests, or those "clay pots and glass cups" Epictetus talked about. See, Epictetus says true wisdom lies in not getting attached to anything that has the nature of "clay pots and glass cups." But if you actually listened to that advice from Epictetus and followed it logically to its absolute limit, you’d realize that a person shouldn't just avoid attaching themselves to transient things—like friends, a spouse, or a mother—but they shouldn't even attach themselves to *themselves*, or to their house, or their intellect, or whatever else they claim as "mine." Doing so would be like leaving behind one's own identity. It would be like a Zen monk watching a thief steal stuff from his house and thinking, "Shame he didn't take the clothes off my back and the month of sunshine I'm looking at, too." Anything that has that fleeting, fragile nature—that "clay pot and glass cup" quality—Epictetus would call it foolish, almost childish, to get attached to it. So, all a person can do is walk toward the imperishable, toward the Totality and the Whole. And in that climb, they shouldn't cling to the stairs or even the destination, nor to themselves. Instead, they should follow the Spirit. Without staring at themselves, they finish the movement by ascending the steps, because a human being is nothing more than a moment in the service of the Spirit. Anyone who wastes that moment—by wasting other moments—is "outside" that Spirit. They are far from it, as if they were never truly part of it to begin with, merely existing within it as a passing thought.
Living in a state of total madness is basically second nature to most people. It’s like life itself has somehow pushed them away from actually *living*—because, let’s be real, being reckless, chaotic, or just plain delusional is really just a way of distancing oneself from the Whole. It’s an exile. Kind of like how religions talk about being kicked out of Eden, right? So, I guess our whole job is just finding our way back.

The author of 'Science of Logic' (and his other massive works, for that matter) is essentially the Absolute speaking through Hegel. If you actually take the time to wrap your head around his heavy hitters, you have to realize that works like 'Science of Logic' are on another level. It’s like what some scholars say—that it feels as if God Himself sat down to write it; truly, only the Absolute could produce logic this profound.

More coming soon.

How do you even function with a personality like that—someone who just isn't driven by anything?

Look. It’s actually impossible to be as unmotivated as you're claiming. I mean, if "nothing moves you," then why on earth are you sitting here typing away on an online forum? You're basically contradicting yourself in real-time.
Bottom line? You aren't some deep, melancholy soul. You're just lost and confused.