I suppose Spinoza was only re-stating the angst of previous generations, albeit with finer eloquence. Conscious beings are bound to be either happy; neutral; or miserable with their lot, by virtue OF that consciousNESS. If we were pre-conscious or even Edelman senior's notion of primary consciousness, there would seem to be an incapacity of realization/knowledge of the fact. We would be, uh, blissfully ignorant...one can't be unhappy with circumstances one cannot grasp. This may have amounted to one of the late Dan Dennett's *deepities*. I can't know, though. Never met him, nor have I read all of his work.
I don’t know what Spinoza thought of this poem by Camphuysen. It was on a stone in the wall of the house where Spinoza lived in Rijnsburg, but it was not his house. He rented a room there. And I think that the stone has been placed there only years later. However, the poem as such is rather well-known in the Netherlands. Anyway, Spinoza was well aware of what was happening in the world, and also in the Netherlands he was not free to express his ideas openly, although free thinkig was tolerated, as long as you kept your ideas within your own circle; not in public. Spinoza was banned from his Jewish community, probably because of his ideas. No idea, whether he felt happy or unhappy.
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I suppose Spinoza was only re-stating the angst of previous generations, albeit with finer eloquence. Conscious beings are bound to be either happy; neutral; or miserable with their lot, by virtue OF that consciousNESS. If we were pre-conscious or even Edelman senior's notion of primary consciousness, there would seem to be an incapacity of realization/knowledge of the fact. We would be, uh, blissfully ignorant...one can't be unhappy with circumstances one cannot grasp. This may have amounted to one of the late Dan Dennett's *deepities*. I can't know, though. Never met him, nor have I read all of his work.
I don’t know what Spinoza thought of this poem by Camphuysen. It was on a stone in the wall of the house where Spinoza lived in Rijnsburg, but it was not his house. He rented a room there. And I think that the stone has been placed there only years later. However, the poem as such is rather well-known in the Netherlands. Anyway, Spinoza was well aware of what was happening in the world, and also in the Netherlands he was not free to express his ideas openly, although free thinkig was tolerated, as long as you kept your ideas within your own circle; not in public. Spinoza was banned from his Jewish community, probably because of his ideas. No idea, whether he felt happy or unhappy.
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