I agree with Iain McGilchrist’s position on utilitarianism and longtermism (55:44), and death (2:22:45), and I would support him not with sophisticated theories, but with the Romanian fairy tale “Youth Without Aging and Life Without Death”. There is a hero who succeeds in acquiring what Gilgamesh, for example, had sought, namely immortality, but in the end he chooses to …
This is a fairy tale that elicits very subtle philosophical interpretations. Despite all the attempts, no one has yet been able to give it a satisfactory interpretation. Usually, women and longtermists (analytic minds, left hemisphere dominated) are outraged by this fairy tale.
This philosophical fairy tale, with its sad ending, which stirs in us the nostalgia of the lost paradise, is for me the most beautiful fairy tale in the patrimony of universal literature.
Let me tell you a story that has to do both with the subject of death and with the subject of wisdom without scholarly knowledge (1:58:50):
In the last years of his life, the great Romanian philosopher Constantin Noica lived alone in a small cabin in a mountain resort. He was able to light the fire in the stove, but someone had to supply him with wood. A local peasant (‘Nea Păta’), with his light cart and dwarf horse, took care of the job.
One day, tells the Philosopher, ‘Nea Păta’ asked him: ”What are you doing there, Mr. Noica, that you can’t stop?” ”Like you, I have my own work” – replied the philosopher. ”Work, work, but all work comes to an end” – replied ‘Nea Păta’.
Then, the philosopher said, he realized for the first time that he would have to think of an end to his philosophical work. The following year ‘Letters on the Logic of Hermes’ (1986) appeared – the epiphany of his philosophical work. After another year he passed away (aged 78).
‘Nea Păta’ is a good illustration of natural wisdom without scholarly knowledge.
Kantinomus Verlag 