Assorted notes on human behavior

[Fantozzi 4,068]

A while after my grandmother was widow, she began to cook for her dog. She thought of recipes a dog might like - chicken with rice, beef with grain. She invented dog dishes and when it was close to noon she said: "I have to prepare dinner." This didn't mean she was preparing dinner for us, her guests, visiting her on the weekend - this meant: I have to prepare dinner for the dog.

And the dog horked down the delicious dishes with great pleasure and great noise, moving around his bowl on the stone kitchen floor while licking the last pieces from it.

And soon after she had started to cook for her dog, every day at noon, she began to talk to her dog. "Did you like it? Oh, I can see you liked it. And after dinner whe will watch TV and then we will go around the blocks and see, if we we meet the neighbours dog." And after a while she had begun to talk to her dog this way,  she let the dog to her bedroom and after a while she let her dog sleep in her bed next to her. And she began to tell her dog her thoughts and worries and when the dog whimpered or simply yawned, she smiled as if she noticed - now I bored you with my silly worries.

She died in 2001.

Since then I'm convinced women need men the exact same way as they need dogs. Someone to cook for and to talk to. And from a womens point view - if it's a man or a dog, where's the difference sometimes it's hard to tell. They bark at others and they find it diffucult to sit down for peeing. They prefer to watch football in TV or something with cats. And when they don't find sleep and they are nervous they might pant next to you in bed.   

 

EDIT

In 2016 in austria female dog owners were asked why they have a dog. They majority answered: because they are loyal.

What about a goldfish? Isn't he more loyal too than most humans? So if loyality is the most important thing - I would get me a goldfish instead of a partner?

and at the pay kiosk at the cinema, I say: Two tickets please. (one for me, one for the goldfish).

And the goldfish will enjoy the film. He will enjoy sitting next to me. Be with me. Because I'm the one who feeds him. So he likes me. And me, giving him food, I show I like him too. So we have a relationship, the goldfish and me, a social relationship. Don't we?

 

[Fantozzi 4,068]

After I was divorced I got me two cats. I thought, one cat might feel lonely in my apartment, so better to have two of them. They were brothers and when they became one year old I brought them to the veterinarian to castrate them. Soon after this I was sitting at my desk in front of the computer writing a letter. They jumped on my desk first one, then the second and then they had sex. Two males. Brothers. And while they had sex with each other they were watching at me with glazed eyes.

As if they were to tell me - you castrated us, but you are divorced. Now look at us, we still have fun. It's you who's the dork of our flat share. 

That was in 2004.

Today I wonder what Vladimir Putin would have done if cats had provoked him this way. You know, he was divorced in 2014.

[SecretMbr_735754 2,158]

Anthropomorphism.

Good thing Vlad has access to the internet so I can re-assure him the cats are crazy and what you may think you see is probably not what you think you see.  

Okay good then, Vlad the Man, can I get a chopper please, airlift me the hell-outta this circus...   I got the engineering specs for the starship and the hyperspace drive...  Hurry up before these savages get a clue... 

[airman15 4,113]

I think it boils down to the notion that.. who really wants to be alone?

I've been thinking about this lately and while I was always the kid who enjoyed his space, I actually can't stand to be alone for too long. There are a few things that can stay private if nobody's around (read- tree falls in forest). In the time I have spent in Garden Valley already, it feels like the extremes on either side are true. Everyone keeps to themselves and use their acres as buffer zones, yet in the small towns everyone seems to know each other. Almost every interaction i've observed so far includes someone catching someone they know while going about their daily business.

Conversely, when I was still dating I felt like I had someone to share the types of things that you wouldn't with anyone else. Unfortunately I am single again and my last efforts to start anew have gone nowhere. I do feel a bit of envy because most everyone seems happy to be in one and I am like the only one who probably won't fall into one anytime soon. But I think part of that is because I almost don't know anyone aside from one co-worker in my new area. It helps that he rides with me to work and we can converse about general happenings outside the office. Those morning conversations have actually helped bring a little comfort in an ongoing and seemingly endless transition to a new lifestyle. Later this month, the next biggest town is having an event which can bring an interactive opportunity. Anything to help cut down on that 'stranger' vibe would be sorely needed.

[Fantozzi 4,068]

Today I saw a little girl, maybe four or five years old, taking his fathers hand, looking up to him and saying with a voice bell-like and young like an early morning bird greeting the first light: "Don't worry dad, that's okay for me."

I don't know, what they were talking about but this sentence seemed very strange to me. Like the father had to say this to the daughter to be right, not the daughter to the father. It was a sentence of protection - to protect somebody from worries. Parents talk this way to children to protect them from being sad: "Don't worry my dear, everything will be allright."

I wonder how often they even realize - daughters want to protect their fathers and sons want to protect their mothers. That's where is born what Sigmund Freud called the Oedipus complex. The little girl took the role of the mother - saying words of easement you would expect in a lovers scene in a movie maybe. It was a roleplay with wrong roles.

Question would be - how often we do that in our lifetime? Playing wrong roles because we have the feeling we must give shelter. As if we want to be decals of mothership or fathership to each other. A social model we know and we copy. How we love to be hero to somebody else. Finding the car keys for the blond woman in front of the supermarket. Helping the young guy at the office with the printer.

To occupy a role as soon as we notice it is vacant? Oh this woman/man is all alone - the husband/wife role is vacant. And first stimulus is to staff this role. No matter if it makes sense or not. Like a far echo of the Oedipus complex.

[SecretMbr_735754 2,158]

4 hours ago, Fantozzi said:

Like a far echo of the Oedipus complex.

While Freud is probably the most hated man in history because of his perverse abstract associations, I am always troubled by the fact that his incorrect and idiotic misuse of study of anthropology and Roman gods prevents people from ever learning the genius and importance of his research in biology.   Millions upon millions of people in the medical and mental health fields are almost entirely useless because they avoid Freud like the plague because he scares them away from the science of biology by pretending to be a psychologist.   Of course its all about the money and politics anyway so I suppose the term 'trauma' is not important --its just another cartoon in the cartoon parade.    

[Fantozzi 4,068]

Many years ago I was in holidays in France - on a wonderful island on the western shore. There, on the market I brought an oyster knife (which I found today therefore I was remembered). The next day we stood up early and went to the beach. It was low tide and I walked into the sea towards a riff, where already some french citizens were. There I cut an oyster from the stone, opened it and eat it while standing knee deep in the ocean.

Years later I was in an restaurant in Strasbourg and ordered oysters. I hardly could eat them. They were from the other day.

A similar thing once happened to me in Sicily. We were walking the whole day around visiting ancient sites. And the sun was burning in late summer and the vinters had started already to collect the grapes. We were tired from all the walking and thirsty and on the street side in the dust and sand swirled from the cars we saw a little stall with an old farmer. With a single tooth in his mouth he smiled as us and I remember the color of his skin as if it happened yesterday, it was the color of worn out leather. He had some fruit to sell so we brought two peaches.

Thirsty as I was, I bit immediatly into it and it smelled like kissing a beautufull goddess, like meeting Aphrodite. Like white wine, vanilla and chocolate blended into the sweetest dish you can imagine.

During the years I stopped buying peaches at the supermarket. To burrow my teeth into these raw, woody fruits was like falling apart from real life, was again and again a disappointment.

How sad to see so many children growing up in the western world, in the modern civilizations, not knowing how things should taste. They are exalted about peaches and oysters and tomatoes and chocolate and they eat ice cream with peach flavour and they are convinced this is how peaches should smell.

Makes me remember of another story. Some years ago, in a kindergarten a journalist in Berlin, I think, asked children to paint a cow. One third of the children painted the cow in violet colors - because they did know cows only from commercials

Most of them never saw a cow for real.

 

Putting all this together - I have a question:

How do you know what is real if in your whole lifetime they sold you fakes telling you this is the real stuff?

[SecretMbr_735754 2,158]

There's several theories of innate knowledge in humans, from cellular memory to more cosmic dimensions, as well social theories of collective consciousness and learning, then there's the strictly biological programming and specialization of individuals theories.   

If we were to require all species to cease and desist from the arts of deception, the entire biosphere would collapse by virtue of integrity.  So look again at our own species at the top of the food chain, we're so good at fakery and deception every human should get an honorary Academy Award just for being born.

Good News is, the space aliens, apocalyptic zombies, and the AI robots don't stand a chance in hell against humans as we lack no skills in the arts of deception.  The devil himself must tremble and fear in the face of an actual skilled human being.

Bad News is, the danger indeed is that humans will continue to pursue the path of mastery of fakery and deception for the wrong reasons to the point that they are so disconnected from reality they will simply cease to function biologically.  Clean air and water?  Fresh fruits and vegetables? What's that?   

Added to the problem is that if we switch off the movie projector in the human brain, the overload of processing of fakery and deception becomes a serious medical issue and severe risk of dangerous offense.  Humans outside their comfort zone of fantasies and delusions, are not generally a well-adapted species.

If you were to require me to live on a farm and raise domestic livestock I would become a vegetarian before one animal was sent to the slaughterhouse.  So on the positive side, Humanity is pursuing material engineering in which we can use fakery and deception on the molecular and atomic levels that will allow us to take better care of ourselves and our planet, and hopefully even succeed beyond this planet.

https://phys.org/news/2017-11-agriculture-world-meat-food.html

[airman15 4,113]

The scant eight hours I spent in Ensenada last month changed my perception on how the outside world works. It wasn't until I was actually there that I realized that the world isn't the same as just anywhere. With English-speaking guides I assumed at first that maybe I won't run into a situation where I would be hit with a language barrier. And then no more than three hours in, it happened anyway. And it was a wake-up call that in a place where a different language is the norm, I am not to expect being catered to because if I somehow got stuck in Mexico my Spanglish (if it can be called so) won't even be of much use. In California it is considered that Spanish is the second principal language. But I never read deep into it and it takes me a bit of time to even get an idea with a few key words and phrases. Had I taken the time to pay attention it may not have led to a moment that caught me off-guard like so.

Adding to this, even the food was different to 'Mexican' restaurants around home. I don't remember any US restaurants letting you make your own salsa (theirs was even spicier than most of our in-house salsa) and the food was prepared differently too. Now I question how much of the Mexican culture I really have been exposed to. How much more am I missing that I don't see in my state? Did I learn anything about British culture other than Monty Python? Why does my view about German culture consist of Eurofighters and ICE trains? Now it's probably safer to disregard what I think I know until I am in the thick of it. Even travelling to those places if I have to. 

As an aside, they sell Milkas here and I think it's a really good chocolate! They sold them at our community college and now I only see them in a few 'import' stores. It's one you'll have to make an effort to find but they have plain, cherry, and cream-filled. I find it at the top, next to Ghirardelli.

[Fantozzi 4,068]

On 13.11.2017 at 7:00 AM, airman15 said:

Now I question how much of the Mexican culture I really have been exposed to.

The thought 'I don't know about' most of the time is regarded as a deficit, the absence of knowledge, the lack of information. On the other side it's the moment of greatest insight. 

I believe, @airman15, there you came close to Zhuangzi and his little taoist parable and you have to regard this moment of questioning your knowledge a lucky one. I'm pretty shure this doubt you've got didn't feel bad but felt like 'today I've gained something." Sadly, these moments aren't under our control and very rare - when the knowledge you had falls from you like clothes you've worn for years instead you don't need it anymore, because now you can see the things (and don't need to ' only' know them anymore). And now they are there and even if you close your eyes, they are there. Like to say: I don't need knowledge to be ausshured of it, I have seen it.

I'm not that good to describe this with

words. But knowledge and insight aren't the same and often confused.

It isn't ...

On 13.11.2017 at 3:19 AM, RandyE said:

innate knowledge

as it clearly comes from perception, from experience - often you need to go abroad to come back and you see your hometown with different eyes, your life, everything around you has changed in a way almost impossible to explain. As if something happened that makes you notice things you couldn't see before. At least my believe is, this isn't something innate, more a transition, transformation that happens. And it needs this kind of doubt. Platon did write about this moment of doubt that is needed to get insight - he called it aporia.

But imagine thousands of philosophers during many centuries sitting in their studies, writing essays and books about the meaning of this little parable ...

... and you nailed it much better than them. See yourself, how much your post matches one of the most influencal writings in philosophy's history:

Once upon a time, I, Chuang Chou, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, a veritable butterfly, enjoying itself to the full of its bent, and not knowing it was Chuang Chou. Suddenly I awoke, and came to myself, the veritable Chuang Chou. Now I do not know whether it was then I dreamt I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man. Between me and the butterfly there must be a difference. This is an instance of transformation.

(Copied from Wikiquotes)

Hey, thanks for sharing your thought. A delight to read.

[Fantozzi 4,068]

Wanted to post something completely different here:

When dogs grow old, do they think: in former times everything was better, the cats were slower,  the feeding bowls were bigger and the sheeps had more discipline?

[SecretMbr_735754 2,158]

@Fantozzi  I noticed you got Chief of Staff status, and reading through the parables I formed the idea that its the tradition of philosophy to cast confusion, to throw shadows, else what is there to work with?  Delusion of grandeur and self-deception, and probably vulnerability to being easily duped, manipulated and exploited.  The mention of the term 'insight' is so relieving of any tension to perform in the circus of pretensions.   Knowledge doesn't seem important over senses.   Children, animals, plants and babies have more sense than knowledge and often guide and heal the adult that has traded too much sense for knowledge.  Pinch yourself and thank God it hurts.

I used to practice insight as a discipline in itself, with meditation and relaxation and biofeedback, maybe some tingling chimes. People don't seem to do the hippy stuff much anymore, they get a cell phone and an earphone and a crystal ball and hook into the communion of the electronic god that more often deprives and depraves humanity from its soul and senses, and healthy ethics and values.   I do love becoming one with the machine, I love the machine, but I don't worship the damn thing, it gets sledgehammered if it interferes with my deeply valued living flesh human existence.

Travelling distances from whence came and then returning is not always a happy voyage.  In the absence of persons of responsible and honorable character, the lesser creatures do tend to disturb and disorder the peace, and make a mess that someone else has to clean up.  Slash and burn economics generating piles of plastic toxic zombie waste really needs to go the way of the Dodo and let there be pursuit of some better education, and clean water and air and fresh vegetables.

[Fantozzi 4,068]

Philosophy can be almost everything to people.

When I studied, I soon discovered

Mathematicians had the nicest lecture halls

Chemists had most spectacular building

Physicians had the wildest proms

Historians had the biggest library

Jurists had cars

But in philosophy class  ALWAYS were by far the most attractive girls.

And physicians always made announcement for their proms in the faculty of philosophy. Never in the juridical faculty.

That's most probably the reason why I stayed there. And my most erotic memories - can't help - are tightly connected to Martin Heidegger and Immanuel Kant.

Now, to decide, what was light and what was shadow on my studies of ... ... philosophy, gets me really into trouble.

But still all my obsession is to try to entrap or attract or to seduce people into a beautiful thought. And I can't fully deny the possibility - regarding thinking - I'm an erotomaniac. And that's all I am.

And I highly doubt 'Chief of Staff' has the same erotic potential as a man with beautifull thoughts.

So even I can't answer the question what is philosophy good for in general at least I can tell you ...

... it helps much an ugly guy to get a pretty girl. 

So the funny thing is ... to BECOME ONE - the melting of two bodies into one, for the oneness  - you don't need to do much else then sitting in philosophy class and maybe - from time to time - to give some sign you aren't asleep but fully understand what the professor says.

Or like the old women on the benches in the park. They sit there and throw some corn. Much to tired to do much else. But the birds come close.

While their grandchilds running around and try to catch one, no matter how hard they try, they never get close to them.

 

 

Once I invited an angel. I sat down for three years, throwing corn, not moving, waiting, breathing calm and flat.

And then he came. And I felt a peace of mind and a colourfull quiet inside, I never will find words for.

And then the angel went away. And I felt sad.

And I sat down again and threw corn. And did wait. Three years. Five years. Ten years.

He never came back. And the feeling inside, the feeling of being void like the universe with a handfull cold rocks flying around, never went away again completely. Shure a glas of spanish brandy helps, shure silly TV shows help, shure seeing growing up your daughter helps and the trees with branches bend down by heavy fruits, the wheat fields in autumn. But the black is still there - better never to be touched - and when evening comes it grows and eats every delight I had through the day and eats every memory and every pleasure and every feeling of being alive. And only question is left in the dark at the end of the day: where did my angel go? Like weight on all living things. Like ash on all the land. Like a dark matter of the soul, dragging everything down with its gravity.

 

 

For real, @RandyE, for real. Take this as a serious advice.

Never reach out your hands for your angel, never invite him, never try to get close  - as much as you may desire. Just let him be.

You may burn for a second, you may be in bright light for a moment.

But the SHADOW it throws on you is the shadow of enternity. And it will kill you. You can't cover or heal or make it disappear. You can't reverse time.

Be happy to be.

The peaches, the girls, the fields. All growing up here. This world is such a wonderful place full of things for mankind to enjoy. Be happy with the things given to us.

Don't ask for enlightment and to get rid of the bounds of existence. It's no nice place outside of here. Believe me. Paradise is cold. It's so damn cold.

 

 

Don't practice insight. There's no need for it. It finds you anyway. This is no privileged property of philosophers. You can't own or sell. It is something that happens. And your insight is nothing you can share. It's your moment. Like a moment of joy. You can tell other people about this moment, shure, you can describe it. But you can't make other people to have it the same way you had it. Insight. It's just a lucky moment you have. It's your moment. Nothing else.

When people say to give you insight what they mean to give you some knowledge. Like me giving knowledge. Knowledge can be used. Okay, the knowledge I give probably it's of no use. 

Make this the difference, perhaps - if you can share it, it's knowledge. If you can't share it, it's insight. Or - in philosophical terms - insight has a qualia.  Nothing you can handle on a scientific level as it is an individual experience, something that happens to you. And if you try to make other people see what you did experience or see - well you must become a preacher. 

But me, I can't teach insight. And my suspicion is - most of those saying they can teach insight are quacksalver. They sell the holy grail, holy waters, words.

You can't teach lucky moments. You can't plan them. You must be glad if they occur. And when it occurs, it's yours alone.

When people are sad, they notice they are alone. But on the lucky moments it's all the same. You have them always alone too. The laughter, the jokes.

There's one exception. Where at least, in some rare case, two people at the same time can have a similar (not necessarily the same) lucky moment.

But then again - to get deeper into this, I really can recommend to study philosophy.

 

[SecretMbr_735754 2,158]

I think for humans and our structure of consciousness, reason and morality the theme of mortality does necessarily need to be balanced with a theme of immortality.  Otherwise fear would knock down our species pretty fast, and as terror has become a major theme in human society for severe lack of respect for the material and animal fact of life, a positive progression of science over brute ignorant levels of behavior and mentality becomes critical.

Most of what you say reflects my own experience with learning and relating.  The core course in philosophy was Knowledge and Reality in the campus here.  Immanuel Kant made it very easy to understand complex ideas, but the modern age does master language powerfully effectively over more ancient forms.  English and German are almost the same language and structure of ethics and reasoning, so the translations are high precision.

Philosophy girls are great indeed, and the prettiest of them all.  Without re-combination of the chromosomes what process of learning could possibly succeed?  Do rocks mate?  In the inferno of stars and the belly of the Earth I suppose.  Do crystal balls see?  In the illusion of matter I suppose. 

Evolution is good.  Life is beautiful and love is sweet.  The angel, that one comes in a few various forms.  The Halloween costumes get pushed aside in favor of Thanksgiving and Christmas anyway, and then there's the New Year's romance and the whole symphony starts anew.  

Build star-ships for humanity and let them fly across the galaxy.  I'll gladly stay here and hold this sacred ground for the love of nature.  Camp-out every night under the stars and hear the rustlings of precious species.  Even the dangerous ones do seem to fear man when they are acknowledged.  I suppose they all know their creator.

So today the ladies are throwing a revolution in protest over the grotesque proportions of the anti-civilization and culture of the anti-human.  I just keep checking the physics and math and then the chemistry and biology, and what else can a man do in the predicament of proliferation of the false gods?

[Fantozzi 4,068]

A friend of my daughter is named Iris Sanders. She used to sign her messages "Greetings IS".

She was told to stop doing so.

[Fantozzi 4,068]

Lately I relotted some of Simgoobers adult shops. Doing so I remembered when I started to study at university. I did grow up in a small town in the black forrest, no internet, no cell phones by this time. All I knew about sexuality I was taught by women and mother nature. My knowledge about this was like a meadow - there was simply no idear or thought in my mind that something else than naked bodies could be involved in this kind of human communication.

So beginning to study meant also to move into a bigger city. And on the way to university there was an andult shop not far away from my students apartment and looking very similar to those Simgoober made forSC4, a little bit grubby, not really cozy and inviting. But soon I started to think - if I don't go in there I will stay a country bumkin for the rest of my life to become an open minded world citizen I need to know what's behind those doors.

So a period of investigation and observation began. Each morning, when I was passing I looked around - are there any customers going inside, is there someone observing or could I get in without being cought by any eyes - what are my risks? Well, basically I did behave like I was planning a bank robbery.

I never noticed any customers - which was because the shop was always closed in the moring, so I needed an excuse to observe the surrounding in the evening.   There were elderly women with their tiny dogs patroling, a group of kindergarten children, still no customers entering. To get in there unnoticed seemed to be impossible - if at least, I wasn't the only one but during half a year of observation I never noticed any customer getting in - so I became pretty shure, I was the only pervert in this city being curious what's behind those doors.

Well then winter came, the days grew shorter, night came quicker and with all my courage I used the twighlight and quickly slipped in.

I don't remember much from the inside just it was like a discotheque, red and blue lights and very colourfull things on the shelves - pink, red, plush, feather, leather, masks, figures, forms - something like carnival.

And then, after 30 seconds, something  terrible happend. The only clerk in the quite small shop turned towards me and asked: "May I help you, sir?" 

Now what to say? Yes, I need urgently 500 condoms? Are there any special offers? 

Instead I answered: "No, no, I'm only having a look." (which obviously was the truth). And then the clerk again did something terribel, he grinned at me: "Okay." It felt immediatly like the bank robber was cought on camera. And now there would be wanted posters all over town: "Caution! Pervert!"

I looked around for another 30 seconds, mumbling "bye" and escaped with fast steps from this place, walked far away in another direction untill I got tired and turned home.

 

Today, like bookstores, most of this kind of shops have disappeared from the city. I think, online stores today are handling this business. So people haven't to go through this process similar of planning a bank robbery. Maybe. The bad feeling, the embarassement of being a pervert - you can order online and this is all natural like sex in the black forrest. A more freely, a more frankly culture thanks to the web.

Most young people today, I think, never will make this experience, how much differernt it is to enter an adult shop in the city and to order things online.

Strange thing is, I never felt ashamed of getting undressed, touching each others - of the things we did back in the black forrest. It just felt good. It didn't felt like a crime or a sin or a bank robbery. Instead entering an adult shop was a completely different task.  I'm pretty shure it wasn't really sexuality, making up the embarassement.  It's about the relationship of privacy and public. I want to be private, not being watched by other people. There something I'd like to call it 'inner privacy'. As a child I never minded sitting in the bath tube and mother washing me - but there comes a time you say: ,I want my privacy' This is not entirely bound to the naked body it's not being naked in front of family members but to decided on your own - what is okay, what is not okay - a responsibility you take up for yourself - from now on, it's me to decide. A sign you become a grownup.

And more and more I become convinced internet is hurting the development of this part of personality. You loose the occasions to experience those kind of embarrassements, you always feel 'private' online and you can't learn how to draw lines, getting a sense for your own needs of 'inner privacy'. Embarrassement is something important and needed to develop personality, to recognize limits of your privacy you don't want others to cross. Hiding always behind the pc, being anonymous everywhere and in everything you do - in a strange way you get unknown to yourself as you don't get a feeling for what is 'too much' for you, where lines are crossed of your need of integrity. I'm pretty shure without the experience of embarrassement you won't learn about the alert system of your soul when being corrupted by society. 

So bring adult shops back in town. Like failures are needed in science to get a better understanding, embarrassement is needed for the development of personality.      

[Fantozzi 4,068]

On 25.11.2017 at 5:10 PM, SecretMbr_735754 said:

I formed the idea that its the tradition of philosophy to cast confusion, to throw shadows, else what is there to work with?

Sorry for double post and sorry for sometimes it takes so terrible long till I find words to answer.

I think, it's not a volunteer descission to cast confusion. But philosophy starts with astonishment. Like telling stories (and there is an alignment with literature) - you experienced something strange and you call a friend to tell it. You start telling stories, you become a writer by being astonished - gods fighting men, men fighting gods, war and love, the turn of fates. If storytelling finish, philosophy will finish. But as long as there is time, things will happen worth to tell/describe. And as long there are things worth to tell, there will be reason to be astonished. So reason will be to ask: why? Is it really this way or could it be different?

As astonishment can't come to an end this way (or world would be terrible annoying and for this it's maybe needed to become ignorant) confusion grows during time proportionally to knowledge. May sound strange but it's knowledge that makes confusion grow.

It's very right in my opinion to use the metaphor of 'casting shadows'. Could be this way: philosophy is the sun. Knowledge is the object and confusion is the shadow. You can say sun is causing the shadow, yes, but if there is no knowledge, there is no confusion and the same there is no shadow. So philosophy isn't doing this by itself alone - like where is no object sun can't cast any shadow. And object and shadow they will always be proportional in some aspects. Well it's true, the sun isn't innocent - it can make things seem bigger then they are by casting terrible long shadows.  But still it's the shadow of something. Imho.

To make it more complicated - if you know the sun's possition and you know the dimensions of the shadow it casts - can you deduct how the object must look like from knowing both? So if confusion is the shadow, it should be possible to recognize how knowledge should look like from confusion.

Shure if you think, knowledge is the light to make the shadow (confusion) smaller - this doesn't work. But then, this doesn't work as from where comes the shadow as sun can't do itself - there's an object missing, thinking the metaphor this way. 

Also me, asking myself, when I was a child - was I more confused than I'm today and did I have more knowledge by then than today? Seems confusion and knowledge always grow parallel. So their relationship can't be like light and dark, one eating the other, they aren't simple opposites.

Finally - sometimes in summer, when sun is burning, you are happy to find a little shadow to cover. One could think of confusion being a shelter. There are some very old myths involved. Sky is clear and plain, earth is dirt and chaos. There is an upper class and a lower class - one has to see, these are already metaphorical speeches mirroring ancient world view (heaven and hell). The same with light and shadow - light is good, shadow is bad. This isn't a neutral view but already occupied by moral concepts. Black and white - black is evil, white is pure, like the bad guys in movies always drive black cars with blacked windows. And so on.

If you take away all those cultural charges from the word 'shadow' and 'confusion' all those fears of 'dirt and chaos and the devil inhabit the dark, things changes too. 

The so called 'Aufklärung' formed a new religion - the religion of knowledge as if knowledge is the big healer, healing people, make them coming out of the dark, releasing them from the devil, bringing them into the bright light of ... well ... knowledge. I agree, it's not easy to see how all the metaphors once owned by religion jumped over to science and the believe in science and technical development - but like Jesus healed the blind many teacher today think they can heal blindness with knowledge - make students see. All these are transformations of religious idears. Light and shadow - god an devil. It's a strange believe, with knowledge you gain some kind of sanity or 'health of soul', some privileged existance.

"Enlightenment is man’s leaving his self-caused immaturity. Immaturity is the incapacity to use one's intelligence without the guidance of another. Such immaturity is self-caused if it is not caused by lack of intelligence, but by lack of determination and courage to use one's intelligence without being guided by another. Sapere Aude! Have the courage to use your own intelligence! is therefore the motto of the enlightenment..."

(Immanuel Kant)

Come out of the dark, come into the light. It's too simple, it's just a variation of a religious believe applied on education and knowledge. But every educational system is also a system of authority. Someone holds all the power in his hands, the pharaoh of knowledge and he distributes it to some privileged, his servants, scribes. And they want it so bad, the knowledge, so they obey. One has to see that those suns very often are authoritites, teaching nothing else than obedience by ruling knowledge.

So for the philosopher there's shelter in the shadow, there is shelter in the doubt, the astonishment. Shelter from those burning suns that blinds the loyals with it's ruling and punitive rays of knowledge.

[Fantozzi 4,068]

At night, when they look into the stars, they look into the past and they see the light sources of long past times.

It's strange, when I try to do this on myself, my bright mind, my soul, my consciousness, my intelligence –  I have to confess, it's totally different. When I try to approach the source of all my genius and brillant thinking ()  and going back in time and try to remember, it doesn't become bright, there isn't a light source but instead it is getting darker and darker the more I approach my origins.

If I'm honest with myself, I'm no light source, no bright star. I had to study hard to find some light illuminating the things I did see and hardly could understand. But going back in time there all becomes dark and I have to confess I was born dumb, one-dimensional and without any knowledge.

I'm not a light bulb on two feet walking around to enlighten other people. I was an empty universe in the beginning. Alltogether, well and truly, filled by the light of others.