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3 Mar 2008 @ 12:50, by johnjoseph. Philosophy
Problem 3: How to bring fresh water from a nearby river to a small Chinese town.
This example is given by Joseph Needham in his book Science and Civilization in China as illustrating the main differences between Confucianist and Taoist approaches to doing things. The problem is how to provide fresh water to a small town from a nearby river. The Confucianist approach would be to divert water from the river at a convenient point well below the town and then use much man-power, mechanical devices and expense to lift it up again to the level of the town and so distribute it. This will solve the problem while generating employment, circulating money, aiding the invention and perfection of mechanical devices and generally keeping everybody busy. The Taoist approach would be to divert the water at a convenient point above the level of the town and using the natural tendency of water to find its own level, that is to run downwards, create an aqueduct to lead the water to the village or town and so distribute it. This method uses nature’s properties to move the water rather than human effort, creates much less employment (a one-off aqueduct rather than constant lifting of water), circulates less money and does not need inventions or mechanical devices.
This example clearly reveals that Confucianism is a social philosophy, and its solutions to problems are designed to benefit society in creating wealth, employment and invention. The Taoist method is one which is based on the individual, addresses the essence of the problem rather than appearances, and is in tune with nature. Instead of expending effort in lifting water upwards after we have allowed it to run downwards, we just divert it at the right point to run by its own momentum (with gravity’s help) into the town.
Conclusion
Clearly, there are simple, easy ways to solve problems and there are difficult, tedious ways. It seems very much the case that civilized society, with its obsession with externals, appearances and irrelevant details prefers the difficult way to do things. This is in keeping with its greatly over-yang nature. Over-Yang means giant, mechanical, crude, external, superficial and so on but most importantly, over-masculine. There is a clear link between the problems in our society and problems in our psyches concerning sexuality and gender. The solution must be to redress the balance and level-off with an equal emphasis on Yang and Yin values. Yin, after all, represents the small, the inner, the subtle, the essence and naturally, the feminine. If we are in harmony then society is in harmony.
It is my belief that every problem, whether it is Fermat’s Last Theorem, or CERN’s accelerator, or getting cheap energy through FUSION, has a simple solution as well as a difficult, complicated one. But our society’s obsession with doing things the Confucianist way, in order to create wealth and employment and inventions, means that people have forgotten, to a large extent, the ancient Taoist (and universal) approach that seeks simple, easy and cost-effective solutions to difficult problems. People just don’t believe that there are simple solutions to many of these problems. If the experts can’t solve them then they must be impossible, they think. But maybe the experts are looking in the wrong place, and the wrong way, and from the wrong perspective.
I am not asking people to abandon completely the Confucianist approach, which is so engrained in all of us, particularly men, by our upbringing and education. All I ask is for the imbalance to be less completely one-sided and total.
Ideally we should use both techniques to solve difficult problems, both the Yin and the Yang, both the ‘left brain’ and the ‘right brain’, both Taoist and Confucianist.
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22 Feb 2008 @ 09:33, by johnjoseph. Philosophy
Edward Carpenter, Gandhi and the politics of Identity
Edward Carpenter was a Victorian writer, anarchist, socialist and spiritual adept who,famous in his own time, was forotten for most of the twentieth century and is now being rediscovered. He appears very different from Gandhi, who was famous in his own lifetime and whose reputation has continued to grow since his death, so that now he is considered one of the greatest figures of the last hundred and fifty years.
But Carpenter is comparable in many ways to Gandhi. He came from an upper middle class family as Gandhi did. He followed a conventional path and career until the chance reading of the poetry of Walt Whitman sent him on a path of simple and unalienated living in rejection of the false values of Victorian society. Gandhi went through a similar, if less dramatic, transformation through reading many deep and powerful books.
Carpenter was a mystic and had the honour of being profiled by Maurice Bucke in his classic book “Cosmic Consciousness”(1900) as a living example of the state of consciousness he terms “cosmic” and which he also ascribed to Buddha, Walt Whitman, and other historical figures such as St.John of the Cross, Jesus and Mahomet. Gandhi is known by everyone as “Mahatma” or Great Soul.
Both were visionaries and prophets. Gandhi saw that the gradual evolution of the world would lead touniversal peace and realised that the key to this was the practice of non-violence and truth. Carpenter predicted correctly many subsequent developments of society and the world.
Both had a radical view of civilization, which is a subject close to my own heart. Carpenter had a critique of civilization which is on the same level of insight as the ideas of Freud, Fourier and Marx. Gandhi used the word civilization in an ideal sense as a state of society not yet attained and famously stated that western civilization “ would be a good idea”. It is not very well known but in Chapter 6 of his 1909 book “Hind Swaraj” Gandhi wrote:
“Several English writers refuse to call that civilisation which passes under that name. Many books have been written upon that subject. Societies have been formed to cure the nation of the evils of civilisation. A great English writer has written a work called ‘Civilisation: Its Cause and Cure’. Therein he has called it a disease.”
The writer to whom Gandhi is referring is none other than Edward Carpenter.
But all this comparison of Carpenter and Gandhi would be of little point if it were not the case that Edward Carpenter has something to say to this present generation which is acutely relevant.
Carpenter was a prolific writer and dealt with themes that were taboo in Victorian times such as sexuality and homosexuality. He was one of the first to write about what we would today term “minorities” and “equal opportunities”. His own situation gave him an insight into something that is now cutting-edge and critical. He saw the wretched position of women, both poor and rich, in Victorian society. Also, the marginalisation of people seen then as deviants and criminals. All this was not alien to him and is not alien to us. And of course Gandhi was right there too. Gandhi felt passionately about the plight of Indian women, not a minority surely, but a marginalised majority. He worked hard to combat the evils of the caste system, particularly as it created the stigma of “Untouchability”. He cared greatly for the Muslim minority in India and tried to avert Partition.
The poet Rilke made a profound observation to the effect that “ Our deepest fears are the dragons that guard our richest teasures.” We can rephrase this to say “Over the gateway to the Free Society stands the sign of Identity”.
Ever since the first photograph of our blue planet was taken from outer space, the question of identity has grown more and more powerful. Inner space is the new frontier and has been for the last thirty years.
If we are prejudiced against Jews, or Muslims, or gay bishops or disabled black women or any other expression of the infinite variety of human diversity, then we cannot move forward through the gateway to the Free Society.
As Gandhi often pointed out, quoting the Bhagavad Gita, the real battle is the one which goes on inside ourselves, our own psyches. Gandhi and Edward Carpenter are in agreement here and this is part of their continuing relevance to the ongoing struggle for Freedom.
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27 Jan 2008 @ 09:37, by johnjoseph. Philosophy
On Creating and Resolving Contradictions on the ChessBoard : Part I
Introduction
One of the great arts of wisdom is the study of opposites or contradictions, known as dialectics. This is the knowledge of the observation, analysis, creation (where appropriate) and resolution of contradictions in any of a large number of fields ranging from logical debate to mathematics and, as in the present case, even board games like chess. The Perennial Philosophy, in its many different versions, affirms that the universe has a dual nature, everything being composed of pairs of opposites. When we come to practical action of any sort it is possible to take this fact into account. Socrates did, in ancient Athens, and he and his followers applied Dialectics to the practical task of drawing out the contradictions, inconsistencies and confusions in the customary arguments of their fellow citizens, and in this process uncovered the foundations of logical debate and a grand philosophical theory which came to fruition in Plato’s system of Forms.
Many mathematicians were also dialecticians but the example I have in mind is the little known case of Pierre de Fermat who, in 17th century France, laid the foundations of number theory and modern mathematics. In doing so he invented a wonderful technique called “the method of infinite descent” which is in reality a sophisticated dialectical handling of algebraic forms to arrive at a contradiction and thus prove different mathematical theorems. After Fermat’s death his techniques gradually fell into disuse and science, not just mathematics, turned its back and reacted against this knowledge of contradictions.
In the late 18th century philosophy was reinvigorated by the theories of opposites inherent in the work of Kant and Hegel. Unfortunately, following on from this, attempts to change society which came with Karl Marx’s adoption of dialectics, led to another reaction against it which has lasted ‘til the present day.
Now this knowledge is ready for a rebirth, and I present the following simple account of its application to the game of chess, as an attempt to de-mystify something which is really very simple to understand but very difficult to practise well. Indeed it is not called an art of wisdom for no reason. It is the art of mastery or mistressy.
Chess
In everyday life a double-bind is usually something that cannot be beaten. In a game that proceeds one move at a time, like chess, if you can create double or multiple threats with one move, the equivalent of a double-bind, then your opponent is usually in trouble.
There are many ways to win at chess, but as you improve and so do your opponents, it becomes impossible to rely on people making mistakes or blunders. One can’t even rely on an overwhelming powerful attack to win, brute force, because to every move you make there is a counter-move your opponent makes that neutralizes or otherwise gets them out of the trouble your move has created for them.
As a game proceeds, both players move their pieces into what are often, chaotic and disorganised formations. The original, undifferentiated position which exists at the start, gradually becomes more complex, interpenetrated and differentiated and, despite every effort to maintain organised, strong and harmonious formations, certain awkwardnesses and weaknesses are created in both positions.
These are what I call the “contradictions” on the chessboard. There are well-known and obvious weaknesses which can be exploited by pins, forks, checks, discovered checks, double checks etc. This leads to the possibility of skilful moves, employing subtle threats and tempo gains, either separately or in combination, in order to derive an advantage, whether of material or position.
Indeed, this finding and working on a contradiction and finally resolving it, is often the course followed in a game. One side, will bring pressure to bear on weak-points, and as each move is met by a counter-move, a position is finally reached where one player is able to get a double-bind and thus win.
In the next part of this article I will look at creating contradictions on the chessboard in more detail.
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7 Jan 2008 @ 09:41, by johnjoseph. Philosophy
On the Dual Nature of the Universe Part II
Elsewhere I have referred to the fusing of opposites, and a new possibility of science and mysticism coming together. If spirit and matter are indeed fusing, and in Hegel’s formulation, presenting a synthesis in the form of ‘Mind’, and in my words, also as ‘Information’, then after this period of alienation a new Oneness, a new Monism, a new Monad is emerging. What is this.
In my Millennium essays of a decade ago, I put forward a view, new to conventional ideas if not mysticism, that the personality was like one side of a coin, the other side of which was the Soul. I will now expand and develop this.
In the Buddhist/Hindu tradition the personality is compared to a jewel of myriad facets, each one reflecting an innumerable number of other faces, like a hall of receding mirrors. Depth upon depth, image upon image. The personality, or Self, if not actually infinite, is manifold and complex. In literature we have the remarkable view presented by Hermann Hesse in Steppenwolf. He first mentions that his protagonist, Harry, is both a man and also a wolf of the steppes ( a ‘steppenwolf ‘) not surprising, when we consider the title of the book. Then he proceeds to say that Harry’s personality is much more complex than this simple schema suggests, and is in fact manifold and practically infinite, divided into different sub-personalities and identities. Later on, in the surrealist/hallucinogenic episode where Harry is in a theatre, strangely reminiscent of a renaissance Memory Theatre, he can go into different rooms with titles on the doors referring to his past, and which are filled with mirrors, images and crystals, where he encounters more sub-personalities and identities.
Clearly, there is a profound view that the human personality is complex and deeply-nested with sub-personalities, identities and characteristics which reach off into infinity.
Building on this view, I add a passing comment on Eric Berne’s theory of Games and Transactional Analysis. Berne’s whole approach is built around just three archetypes, namely the Parent, Adult and the Child. Using this template he creates a rich analysis of society and psychology featuring as a key aspect alienated psycho-social behaviour which he calls “ games”. All this can be done employing just three archetypes ( Jung’s term), so demonstrating the amazing power which is inherent in these archetypes, sub-personalities and identities.
However, there is more to this. Some people believe that the psyche is physically based, in our genes and also in our brains. That is, that it has material aspects and foundations. Also, that while manifold and complex, it is not actually infinite. Furthermore, each of us being a unique individual, it is discrete, in the same way that an individual particle is. Also, all theories of the personality agree that it is highly structured. In Freud we have Ego and Super-ego and also Id. In Jung we have archetypes, Collective Unconscious, Animus and Anima. In Assagioli we have sub-personalities and identities. All this suggests that the individual human personality is an aspect, at the material end of a pole of a contradiction, as I put forward in part I of this piece.
The infinitude of the personality, referred to earlier in those accounts, is by no means certain for the simple reason that there has always been ambiguity, and even confusion, in most traditions when discussing these three things : the personality, the Self and the Soul. It is my belief that the central thing is the Self, of which the material aspect is the personality and the spiritual aspect is the soul.
We are treading upon sacred ground here and must proceed with caution. According to Kant, in his 1781 book ‘ The Critique of Pure Reason’ there are things which are inherently unknowable, things he averred belonged to the noumenal world of “things in themselves” or essences. The Soul belongs among them. Among other things in that remarkable book, Kant reintroduced antimonies or opposites into philosophical thought which were to achieve a pinnacle a few years later in Hegel’s theory of contradictions, known as dialectics. By the way, Hegel did not share Kant’s view about things being unknowable. Even essences, he believed, were knowable.
Much has been written about the soul but it remains a misty area of vague notions and speculations. I am not conversant with the opinions of Church Fathers or theologians but I believe my opinion will merit consideration.
I believe in an inherent duality of all things in the universe, based on a prime duality of Spirit/Matter which together make up the Monad, which is One, but not a monolithic One. More on this later.
In this view, the soul is the spiritual aspect or half of the Self. It is infinite, continuous just like a waveform of light, and contrary to the discreteness of the personality, its continuity provides a bridge to all the other souls that exist. All these souls are part of the Monad, the World Soul or Self, which together connect and interconnect everything and thereby provide the universal web, which mysticism/perennial philosophy asserts as one of its basic beliefs.
Science and mysticism
As I demonstrated in Part I science is the product of a succession of alienations and of the most alienated society in the history of civilization (capitalist). Yet we must not thereby conclude that it is worthless or negative. Alienation is not necessarily a bad thing. Each of us has to separate from our parents, particularly our mother, during adolescence in order to become individuals and find our true identities. This is clearly a process of alienation. Similarly, as put forward by Hegel, Spirit undergoes a process of alienation when it becomes a myriad of individual, material things. Science has achieved many remarkable things. Particularly, in recent years with its growing fusion with mysticism in the form of quantum physics and Chaos theory it has produced some remarkable results. James Gleick in his book “ Chaos: the Making of a New Science” demonstrates some amazing mathematical objects and ideas. One in particular seems to tower above others and I believe people don’t really understand what it is.
First I will describe a traditional representation of the monad: the Yin/Yang symbol. A pair of interlocking spirals which together form a perfect circle but each half of which is of a different colour( polarity) and facing in opposite directions. This elegant, beautiful object is considered a perfect representation of the One and is a central icon of Taoism. I believe that Chaos theory provides another, similar icon
which is practically identical to this yin/yang symbol but different in informative ways. I am referring to that weird mathematical object known as a Strange Attractor (or Lorenz attractor). I will not baffle the non-scientific reader with overly technical details except to say that this “attractor” represents physical processes or qualities. It has two wings, like a butterfly, and is as beautiful in its own way as the yin/yang symbol. It is completely continuous with no breaks. When the “action” or “locus” of a moving point moves from one wing of the butterfly to the other, it represents either a reversal of direction of a physical system ( such as a pendulum) or the change of polarity from one quality to its opposite. Gleick comments that this mathematical object has strange properties and is almost mystical and similar to classical spirals. One strange property is that it is an infinite object in a finite space. The continuous lines that make up this unique object, upon closer and closer examination, keep splitting into two parts, which then split into two again, and so on infinitely.
We see then that opposites and polarities and contradictions and the number 2 are not just the preserve of philosophers. I believe that this mathematical object is another icon of the Monad equally as valid as the Yin/Yang symbol. It has been produced, quite independently, by scientists, many of whom have no interest in, or knowledge of mysticism.
If this is true it suggests some important conclusions. Dualities emanate from the Monad because it is by nature “One-Composed-of-Two”. It is not a monolith. It is actually composed of an infinite pair of opposites, joined together into one like the two wings of the butterfly, which can split into two ad infinitum. This is what they do as they emanate from the Monad. This scientific icon confirms the wisdom and correctness of the ancients, and demonstrates the unity of science and mysticism and points to the possibility that this observed fusing of opposites in the world of politics, media, economics etc. is just the monad calling us all back to Itself. More >
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30 Dec 2007 @ 09:43, by johnjoseph. Philosophy
On The Dual Nature of the Universe Part 1
Everything in the phenomenal world has a dual nature. This has long been known to mystics but has only in recent years begun seeping into general awareness. It was considered weird and paradoxical when the wave/particle duality of light was revealed to the world of science a hundred years ago. And also that matter and energy were two different aspects of the same thing associated with the theories of Einstein and nuclear physics.
In truth, everything shares this feature of a dual nature. The only exception is the Source ( sometimes termed God/dess) which is believed to be One, and therefore a Monism. The Source has all these dualities emanating from it and is thus the creator of the phenomenal world which we term reality.
If we enquire further we can see that the dualities are the same thing over and over again. The basic duality is Spirit/Matter which then takes on many different guises and suggests some interesting implications if we follow it through.
A particle (for example of light) is finite, discrete and material whereas the other aspect of light, the wave-form, is continuous, non-material and possibly infinite. I am suggesting here that the Source can be represented as a form of energy and that energy is a spiritual thing. Similarly, Einstein’s theory that matter and energy can be transformed into each other suggests the same thing that energy is a spiritual form and that matter is a non-spiritual form of God that we term material.
In Part II of this piece I will assert and try to demonstrate a further example of this basic duality which I think will surprise you, namely, that the human personality, Psyche, is a discrete, structured, almost material aspect of something, the other aspect of which we call the Soul. In the same way that matter and energy are equivalent so, I contend, are Psyche and Soul. This is not new to the science of mysticism but is relatively unknown to the materialistic, quantitative science of modern society.
This prompts me to look at, by way of introduction, what we mean by mysticism, religion, philosophy and (modern) science.
Mysticism, as I see it, consists of the common ground between all the different versions of the Perennial Philosophy. Mysticisms vary, and so do the different forms of indigenous wisdom which people call variously, perennial philosophy, wisdom teachings, first nation teachings etc. I believe they are all saying the same thing in slightly different ways, and the version I particularly follow is Taoism, which was originally native to China.
The basic idea of mysticism is that everything is One and that all the parts of that One are completely interconnected. It is a theory of Identity and also communication and intercommunication. There is a web that fills the whole universe. Everything is interconnected and alive, pulsating with energy. It is a profoundly vibrant and loving conception of the world.
I will briefly describe the ‘progress’of modes of knowledge. Thirty years ago I wrote a book and commented there that I agreed with Auguste Comte’s view of the ‘progress’of forms of knowledge via religion, philosophy and Science. I will now add to that comment and conception. I believe that the perennial philosophy/mysticism is the original template for all knowledge and that the succeeding forms are in fact only described as ‘progress’ in a qualified way, being indeed alienated steps away from the original wisdom. Religion follows mysticism and is one degree of separation or alienation from it. In religion we find many of the same things as in mysticism, but in a strange, alienated way. It does not talk about the wonders of the Universe and its oneness, but is obsessed with deities or gods. This inevitably leads through time and development to a monoculture represented by monotheism or the belief in One, all-powerful, all-knowing God.
The next form of knowledge, both historically and logically, is philosophy which is one step of separation or alienation further on. It is really an abstraction of religion; religion in a completely abstract and de-mythologised form. It tries to prove the existence of God, it does not assume it. Volumes could be written on this subject so I will not attempt to say any thing further here.
Science, the next form of knowledge in Comte’s trilogy, and according to his view and that of his contemporaries the highest form possible, is one stage of separation and alienation further on. In this version the alienation becomes unbearable. The Universe is a cold dead place, everything is separated , nothing is connected, there is no God, only cold, lifeless matter. Qualities are disregarded. Only Quantities are thought relevant and important. The most alienated society in the history of civilization produced this kind of knowledge, and used it to subjugate nature and the whole world.
It is my belief that this development of knowledge through increasingly alienated modes can be salvaged and turned into something positive. If one-sided modern science can be fused with the deep qualitative truths of mysticism, which in fact does seem to be already happening, it will produce a mystical science and a scientific mysticism and open the road to real knowledge. Not just superficial knowledge which comes from the head, the intellect, but a deep knowledge of essences, which is achieved by integration of the head and the heart, and which is truly wisdom. More >
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17 Dec 2007 @ 09:59, by johnjoseph. Philosophy
Superconsciousness
In this new period, post millennium, post modernist, 21st Century, all distinctions seem to be gradually disappearing. Only a few weeks ago Tony Blair, in a farewell speech, complained that in the media’s treatment of news stories the old distinctions between values and facts were becoming blurred. What we are in fact witnessing, in this and other areas, is the fusing of opposites that were once considered distinct and indeed often irreconcilable. Other examples include the public/private dichotomy which is being seriously affected by new means of communicating such as mobile phones/ internet. Most relevant to our discussion is the blurring that is happening between matter and spirit, to which I have alluded elsewhere. Material things seem to be becoming less “massy”, and indeed “material”, they are becoming etherealised, digitalised even spiritualised. If opposites are indeed in the process of undergoing fusion, then this raises some very intriguing possibilities. In the area of theory, a fusion of Idealism (as in Hegel) and of Materialism (as in Marx) would lead to a supertheory, which we could provisionally call “IdeoMaterialism”(IM) which would be a monism of a new kind. The old dualism of matter and spirit would be in a new relationship, and when I give some examples I think you will agree, a more harmonious relationship. In other areas the fusing of opposites promises radical if not utopian possibilities. The fusion of mind/ body in the Cartesian sense would promise a new and holistic science, while the fusion of Id and Ego, long mooted by utopian psychologists, would usher in a new era of enlightenment.
To return to our monistic “IdeoMaterialism”, I will present some of my ideas in this new light. I believe in three stages of human consciousness, two of which have long existed and the third of which is gradually emerging globally right now. The first level is what we would call “Animal “ consciousness, and is that level of consciousness and awareness that existed right through our process of evolution through primate and human groups of varying complexity, up to the lower/middle stages of Barbarism, associated with tribal/clan society. As the name suggests this level is typical of animals and does not imply real individuality or self-awareness. The knowledge of Good and Evil, presented in the Bible myth of the Garden of Eden, along with an awareness of nakedness and shame, is ushered in by the next level of consciousness, which is commonly called “Self-Consciousness”. This leads to great individualism and even narcissism, and indeed rapidly transforms and destroys the old society of clans, tribes, kinship, family and undifferentiated solidarity. The conventional materialist theory such as Marx’s, portrays these events as caused by money and other forms of wealth, brought about by improvements in technology and production techniques. But that is only half the truth. In reality, it was the new Individualism, the new consciousness, that created the conditions for these developments. It’s not that materialism is wrong, it’s that it only tells part of the story.
This brings us to the present time and the next level of consciousness which some call “Superconsciousness”, others like Bucke and Edward Carpenter term “Cosmic Consciousness”, and more recently people have started to refer to as “Universal Mind” and “Universal Consciousness”. This level of awareness and consciousness is well known and its coming long predicted by spiritual adepts and enlightened mystics. Basically it is an awareness of the cosmic connectedness of everything, a wholistic awareness that gets beyond the limitations of separation, individual egos and alienation. Just as “self-consciousness” gave the rationale to the sort of society known as civilization, so “Superconsciousness will give, and is now giving, rise to a particular and unique form of society. Whether this coming society will be called “SuperCivilization” or indeed “The Kingdom of God on Earth” we cannot yet be sure, but undoubtedly it will be characterised by some amazing and almost unbelievable things.
I will now present a further example of a subject which can be illuminated by this fusion of Idealism and Materialism. This look at the phenomenon of Fascism is no idle exercise, and i believe and hope to demonstrate, that it is one of the biggest threats to our common survival and achievement of “Superconsciousness”. Many different perspectives exist on the subject of fascism. It has been analysed from the viewpoint of economics, politics, society, mass and individual psychology, all more or less materialistically and, i’m sure, relevantly. It may surprise you that I am analysing it as a misguided form of mysticism, and as an infantile attempt to go back to the “animal” stage of consciousness, instead of forward to the higher stage of “Cosmic Consciousness”. A few commentators have already noted mystical elements in fascist themes of “the totality”, “the Folk” “union with Nature” etc. but I fear they do not see its true essence. In Fascism, people seek to follow seemingly powerful, Big Daddy, Big Brother leaders who will answer every question with certainty and make all decisions for their followers. These people are giving up their role of autonomous, responsible adults and seeking, in an infantile way, to revert to a “golden age” of childhood dependency and irresponsibility. They seek mystical union with a “whole”, whatever it is, whether their local football team, their nation, their state, and try to give up the pains and tribulations that come with self-awareness and adulthood. They want themselves and society to return to the preceding stage of “animal” awareness and their football team is a substitute for the tribe and the clan. There are great dangers in identifying something which is only partial as a totality, whether it be a football team or even a state, or a great talent like being a musician or artist. We are called to be whole people. The only totality is the Universe, The Absolute, The Source, God. To erect anything else as a totality is to worship false idols and we know what danger there is in making a great leader or state into an idol.
There are great dangers of these kinds facing the world today. Fundamentalism of any sort is similar to this wish to revert to a simpler, more primitive, infantile state of certainty and dependency and is potentially fascistic. This inevitably gives power to those who are unworthy of it.
No, forwards is the only way. Towards greater awareness, responsibility, superconsciousness and the recognition that the only totality, the real mysticism, is of the universal. Not one tribe but all tribes. All creation, All the Universe.
More >
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 13 Sep 2007 @ 20:48, by jhs. Philosophy
I had a dream.
Imagine a movie theater filled to the last seat. The lights are off with the exception of the screen, of course. Only the little signs pointing to the emergency exits are glimming forgotten in some obscure corners of the great hall. The volume of the theater's surround sound system is turned to the max. It is nearly impossible to hear the noise of the trucks passing by the theater on the outside.
Much time has passed already, everybody seems captured by the drama unfolding on the screen. Everybody?
There, amongst the crowd, is sitting a lonely person, thinking for himself: what... More >
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 15 Aug 2007 @ 17:17, by ming. Philosophy
NY Times article about researcher/philosopher Nick Bostrom, who has concluded that there's a high mathematical probablity that we're all living inside a computer simulation, created by technologically advanced descendents of ours in the future. Although his gut feeling tells him that it is only 20% likely that we actually are living inside a simulation.
I always find that kind of conversation stimulating. We very well might live within The Matrix. It might be a computer simulation. Or this might be a universe created by some advanced race from a previous universe. Or the quantum soup universe might just basically work as if it is a simulation, where the reality we experience is the result of our laser beam of consciousness hitting the neutral stemcell type of quantum particiles, which happily will be whatever you want them to be.
But there are things that bother me. Huge fallacies that tend to appear in such a discussion.
There's the very widespread AI superstition that if you make a computer program that is sufficiently complex, it will be conscious and have its own thoughts and feelings. And that this simply is what consciousness is. So that if we make a simulation of your brain, it will think that it is you. That's a load of hogwash, in my opinion, and nobody has succeeded in demonstrating anything remotely like that. The corrolary of the idea is that if you're a sufficiently good simulation, you wouldn't know. Which is a very upside down way of looking at things, and if you believe it, you ought to be worried as well about your soul being stolen when somebody takes a picture of you.
And then there's the God thing. People who have this kind of discussion, of intelligent simulations in artificial realities, are usually atheists, and will usually take time out of their schedule to explain to you why you're a complete moron if you think the universe somehow is intelligently designed, or there possibly could be any intelligence guiding its evolution. And in the next breath we're having a discussion about exactly the same thing, the possibility of you just existing as a simulation in the computer of some advanced alien, who might or might not be benevolent, who might turn you off when he feels like it, if he doesn't like what you do. Uhm, sounds a lot like that God in the sky with the grey beard. So do you believe in it or not?
I don't. But I do believe in the primordial existence of consciousness, and I do believe I exist. The world responds as if me being in it makes a difference, and I can obviously guide my own path to a considerable extent. But I haven't seen any sign of outside influence, of anybody arbitrarily breaking in and changing things. Doesn't mean it couldn't happen, and the whole thing shuts down tomorrow with a "Memory Full" message. But I think it is very unlikely.
I'm sure we in the future will become able to simulate whole universes. But we won't be succeeding in developing artificial intelligence before we have addressed it from a totally different angle. And once we actually figure it out, it doesn't really matter if we're in somebody's simulation or not, and there'll be no need to worry about whether robots will become smarter than us. More >
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 9 Aug 2007 @ 14:44, by solomoreno. Philosophy
Many people seem to be quite miserable on this planet, some more than others. Yet an interesting and for some a surprising feature of this misery is that when thoroughly examined, it seems it’s there because people want it to be there. People want to feel bad. This is quite obviously insane but as with any insanity, there is order to it, there is a noble spiritual goal in its midst. Gurdjieff commented on this seemingly strange state affairs when he said that man will give up his pleasure long before he’ll give up his pain. His contention was that perhaps this results from man’s desire to be noble. His explanation may be a specific instantiation of a more general truth: people want to be miserable because it’s beautiful. Aesthetics may answer the question of why people are seemingly drawn to pain, confusion, helplessness and failure.
I can remember being in class in college and announcing to the students around me that I had discovered the answer to the age-old paradox, the one that asks how God can create a rock He cannot lift. (For those of you unfamiliar with the paradox, if God can create a rock that He cannot lift, well, then He cannot lift it and He is thus not omnipotent. If God cannot create the rock, then He is obviously not omnipotent. This paradox presupposes that for God to be God, He must be omnipotent). My answer was that He could do it through a lie. He could create the rock, knowing full well that He is able to lift it. Then, He could “forget” or make Himself unconscious. He could somehow, through some mechanism, repress this knowledge. Outraged, the other students around me claimed that I had not solved the paradox because the ultimate result is that God is unable to lift the rock and is thus no longer omnipotent. False. He can lift the rock, He is still omnipotent but He can’t because He has chosen to forget or repress his ability. If God is omnipotent, He must also be completely free, free to choose whether or not to lift the rock.
This paradox is really a question of how a God may become a creation or how a God may become human. In “The Phoenix Lectures,” Hubbard describes just how this change may occur. He says it comes about through altering one’s creation. Yet simply practicing what he refers to as alter-isness does not necessarily cause one to lose control of one’s creation. It’s in altering a creation to the point that one’s role in the creative process goes out view that can make a God into a man. Hubbard discussed at length what he called The Legend of the Creator: persistence is created when a being alters a creation by postulating that it was in fact created by someone else. Such an action, making someone other than oneself responsible for one’s creations, brings about persistence as well as a plethora of experience that must be inherently foreign to a being with endless potential creative power. Weakness, desperation, helplessness, anguish, really a whole host of experiences and sensations become available to a being when it loses control over creation. It’s quite possible that this may explain why beings are ‘down here’ in the first place.
In his essay, “The Subtle Choking-Chains of Aesthetics,” Max Sandor suggests it is through the use of aesthetics, as an alter-isness of creation, that can make a god into a man. He writes: “How can an almighty Being with limitless potential degrade to a completely other-determined entity? The only way, it seems, was the voluntary attribution of an aesthetic to a 'lower' state of sensation.” Sandor is answering the paradox in the same way that I did above, except his answer is more specific. I said it could happen through a lie. He said that lie is aesthetics. He goes on to explain that when a being introduces or injects aesthetics into an event, terminal, phenomenon etc., this introduces high-frequency energy. Ultimately, this introduction obscures the so-called truth of the phenomenon and if one cannot see the truth of it, one certainly will not be able to control it. One ends up with a beautiful mystery, which may describe what life looks like to most inhabitants on this planet.
Spirits seem to have an innate attraction to beauty. They love it. When a being makes things like pain, loss, failure and misery beautiful, it has set quite the trap for oneself. When it introduces this high-frequency energy (aesthetics) into an event or terminal, it can no longer see how it may have created this event or terminal in the first place. The result is persistence of that particular condition. In the end, this means that an important step in restoring one’s power is developing the willingness to see life as less than beautiful.
As an example, I had a friend who according to my perception, had clearly become a weak, selfish and emotionally manipulative person due to decisions he had made in his childhood. Yet I can remember as I described the less-than-ideal conditions of my own childhood, he said to me, “I never had that experience. My parents were great. I had no problems.” In other words, he is telling me that he had a beautiful childhood. In my own life, I’ve noticed that in a recent break-up with my girlfriend, I was experiencing feelings of loss and longing. They were quite powerful, even paralyzing at times. Concurrently, these feelings were quite beautiful to me, stuff of which a million love songs have been written. When I ‘spotted’ the aesthetics in these feelings, the fact that I was creating them and desiring them would naturally come into view. Most of the time, I would choose to divorce these feelings from the aesthetics and the magnitude of the feelings would drop to almost nothing. Sometimes though I left the aesthetics there and simply enjoyed the beautiful sadness.
Standing behind the pursuit of truth and beauty (or lack thereof) is an inappropriate identification of certain goals with others. The average person seems to fear the truth as they fear it will destroy their beautiful life. They see the only way to create a beautiful life is through beautiful lies. They do not want to analyze the reality of their relationship with their spouse or the genuine intentions of their governments or their placement here in the physical universe because as they have charged these things with aesthetics, they naturally don’t want to see their work of art desecrated. The truth is that truth is destructive, but to build something with true foundation, one has to clear out any substandard structures first. So it seems that the ability to create beautiful truth is a sign of real spiritual maturity.
* Go to [link] for a great drill to get one in touch with one's use of aesthetics More >
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 11 May 2007 @ 18:44, by celestial. Philosophy
All Religious Writings (Bible, Koran, etc.) are the written word of God. More >
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