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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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1 May 2007 @ 16:35, by vaxen. Philosophy
Eureka! (as the ancients put it)
When a medieval scribe 'recycled' ancient manuscripts to make a prayer book, his pious work obscured significant texts. Now yet another jewel has been revealed, reports Andy McSmith
Published: 30 April 2007
If you must write a book, and have no access to a computer, you really should start on a blank sheet of paper. But paper, or papyrus, was in short supply when a scribe named John Myronas, was compiling a prayer book, 778 years ago. So he took some old books that nobody seemed to need any more, scrubbed off the text, and recycled the pages.
His prayer book, or Euchologion, is moderately interesting to students of ancient manuscripts. But with all due respect to Myronas, it is nowhere near as significant as the old texts that he wiped out, whose traces are just about legible in the parchment. Those hidden works have now turned his book into one of the most valuable and extraordinary literary properties in the world.
To the astonishment of experts, the old Greek prayer book has thrown up yet another unique buried treasure. More >
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 14 Apr 2007 @ 13:01, by jhs. Philosophy
The recent BLOG entry of Ming (and likewise the comments written in response to it), made me think, rethink, mentally regurgitate how we, as a species and as individuals, are cementing our own insanity, freezing it in time, defending ferociously any attack, reasonable or not, maintaining an artificial Ego without tangible core, insisting that our own dreams are reality and any others being mere hallucinations.
Perhaps, so I was dreaming, this urge to "be consistent" is even more at the root of the human condition than Gotamo Siddharto's (the "Buddha's") postulate that it might be the tendency in assuming a "single cause for a given effect". (See an entire series on articles about this here on this BLOG.)
Perhaps Gotamo's (very correct) observations depend on this very urge to "be consistent": the "cause/effect" determination serving merely as a justification of a deeper seated insanity of assuming a "stable datum" at the expense of excluding all other truth(s)?
How the Being, the presumed master of it all, manages the fusion of an arbitrary idea into the mind&body-sphere in order to create a fixed idea, is a very interesting observation, seemingly impossible to communicate, an intimate process everyone needs to detect, analyze, and duplicate for him-/herself.
A very basic process of Ego-creation of modern man is looking in the mirror. Ironically, what wo/man sees in the mirror is NOT its exact picture: left and right are swapped.
More recently even, for the tiny minority of hi-tech-endowed people on Earth, that's us, bros, the mirror is replaced by TV monitors. The theoretical blessing of the electronic monitor is that it doesn't have the above-mentioned shortcoming of the classical optical mirror. PLUS, it can show the past and is not limited to the closed-loop "resonance/feedback" effect of the always-live mirror.
Therefore, interestingly, seeing oneself on (past) videos is breaking part of the identification with one's own mirror picture. The effect is sobering the first time(s), but then a new sort of identification sets in. This latter effect can be observed only with the tiny fraction of the tiny fraction of hi-tech people known as "TV-celebs".
The other day, in Santos, Brazil, I was watching a super-interesting approach of painting: "quasi-realism" (not the official name I think): Deladier Almeida, an artist living since many years in Sacramento, California, painter to the superstars, whether politics, arts, or sports arena.
Modern surrealism produces an abstract notion of energies inherent in the model being depicted. This provides new, extra viewpoints, OK, but it generally doesn't invite a self-reflection about the identification of the person with the image of his body.
Likewise, the artform of "cartoons" which is overemphasizing defects of the model, doesn't generally invite self-reflection either. The truth in it is just too grossly exaggerated.
On the other hand, Deladier's artworks are QUASI photos, but just QUASI, inviting a reflection about WHO is really behind the mask of those facial muscles in front of us.
The superposition of two vibrations with frequencies sufficiently close to each other, but not identical, are producing the phenomenon of a new sound with a sweeping amplitude. (witness an audio demo here)
The fascination of this new vibration for me is part of Deladier's work, and, perhaps, revealing more about the "real" person that one would suspect at first.
In terms of a process: viewing a quasi-duplicate at the same time with the original "pseudo"-reality and witness the "sweeping" effect until the presumed reality breaks into pieces.
OK, OK, Before breaking up here, let me vanish.... More >
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 17 Aug 2006 @ 15:07, by jhs. Philosophy
(thinking of adding this article to the new edition of the 'Your Personal Archetype' book, in order to address some of the frequent questions)...
The word archetype stems from the greek concept of 'arkhetypon'. 'arkhe' denotes the concept of the first, initial spark that spawned life, much like the aramaic 'or', the primordial light given to the world by the Elohim in the Genesis of the Torah and the Old Testament. 'typon' stands for the 'stamp' that was used to create seals, coins and other things that were marked by humans. In this sense, the word archetype describes the typology of ancient gods as well as human beings, the copies or 'clones' of those gods.
In our times, the concept of archetype is used for all kinds of classifications, most of them useful in their specific concepts. Few, however, have maintained the meaning of the original sense of the word. In most of these classifications, basic attributes of persons, such as 'extroverted' or 'introverted', are made the basis of a typology of human behavior. As useful as these typologies may be, to call them 'archetypical' patterns would usurp a much more specific concept than these systems are able to provide.
One of the more appropriate approaches we can find in the archetypes of CG Jung who recognized the importance of them in the lives and destinies of all humans. Unfortunately, his time and context did not allow for a more precise specification and classification. Archetypal roles such as the hunter or the mother are useful but are missing the point that every human Being has an archetype that can be precisely defined, described, and classified whereas the basic roles in life, such as mother or hunter, are describing roles that can be used by a large number of persons who individually may be very different in their approach to life.
In this book, we follow the original definition of the word: the stamp that was imprinted during the creation of life itself, faintly visible in the stories of the gods and demi-gods of Sumeria, Egypt, and Ancient Greece, and which is present in every human Being still today, determining its behavior much more rigidly and stereotypically than we would like to admit to ourselves.... More >
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26 Jul 2006 @ 14:21, by shreepal. Philosophy
A well- known revolutionary philosopher of nineteenth century (Karl Marx) claimed to have found the underlying principles of revolutionary change having universal application. He, however, admitted that he borrowed these principles from an earlier philosopher (G.W.F. Hegel) who had propounded them under a term "dialectics". Dialectics of Hegel was a process that consisted of three parts: Thesis, Antithesis and Synthesis. Thesis is the starting point and can be considered to take place at any point and every point in every thing or object under study in the whole process. By virtue of its very nature Thesis always contains a contradictory element, that is, its antithesis. The existence of Antithesis along with Thesis is the very condition of the existence of Thesis. The conflict and contradiction between Thesis and Antithesis bring changes and give birth to conditions and things that are incompatible with Thesis and can not be reconciled within its legitimate confines. Over a period of time these irreconcilable contradictions go on accumulating and at a certain point of time a drastic change takes place resulting into a new harmonious Synthesis that reconciles the contradiction of Thesis and Antithesis.
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Hegel in his understanding of universality of Existence, to the extent it is possible to understand it by Mind, is very close to Divine Lord, Supreme Master Sachchiddananda. He puts his understanding of the matter in his Philosophy of Law and Right, # 21 in these words:
The truth, however, of this formal universality which is by itself indeterminate and receives its determination from each material to which it is applied consists in a universality which determines itself, which is the will, is freedom. Since this will has the universality, has it itself as the infinite form, as its content, its object and its end, it is not only the will which is free in itself, but also the will which is free for itself- the true Idea.
Idea- that we may refer to as Divine Lord, operating through history has been put beautifully by C.F. Friedrich thus:
History is seen as the march of freedom through the world. This march of freedom is interpreted as what the world spirit wants, as it seeks to realize itself. And in its effort to realize itself, it employs peoples, world-historical peoples to do its work.
According to Hegel the movement of universal Idea in its effort to realize itself through the history follows this pattern of Thesis, Antithesis and Synthesis. Karl Marx borrowed these Dialectical principles from Hegel to explain change in human history and thus to prove the inevitability and justification of impending economic, political and social change.
However, he claimed that Dialectics of Hegel, where Idea is made supreme and universal, was standing on its head and he had turned it upside down where the matter- and not the idea-was supreme and universal out of which ideas, thoughts and mind originated.
Marxian concept of dialectics in its abstract form may be summed up thus:
• There is nothing in Nature that may be called an absolute truth; all human concepts about natural phenomena are relative in their contents.
• Whole Nature is in motion; no part of it is static.
• This motion is generated by a mechanism that is brought about by the inherent irreconcilable contradictions inherently present in every entity, or constituent, of Nature.
• These contradictions give birth to conflicts that distort the harmonious structure of that entity. These conflicts accumulate in the quantitative form in that entity up to a certain limit. This limit is the critical point up to which these conflicts can be accommodated by that entity without changing its nature or quality. The moment these conflicts cross this critical limit, the quality of that entity changes or an upheaval takes place and the old entity becomes qualitatively different thing.
• This process of change never stops in Nature, whether one likes it or not. This process is termed by Marx, and his friend F. Engles, 'Negation of Negation' . Here, a thing comes into being or takes its birth by negating a thing that was having a well-established place and this new thing, after enjoying a well- established place for certain time, is itself negated by a new thing. Over a period of time this pattern of change appears to human mind as spiral evolution.
• This dialectical process is an integral part of Nature's function. Though the general principles of dialectics operate with mathematical accuracy, in their detailed applications they operate in very flexible manner, depending on so many factors; nonetheless, in overall contours they always operate with mathematical accuracy. This faithful accuracy of its basic principles and their universality in operation make it possible for dialectics to forecast and predict. These two philosopher revolutionaries devoted their entire life in applying these dialectical principles to physics , anthropology , society , economics and, even, military science . They created a brilliant philosophical edifice called Scientific Socialism or, better known as, Communism.
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25 Jul 2006 @ 13:41, by shreepal. Philosophy
Commodity is the sum product of five human elements and one element of Nature’s gift. The cost of commodity is determined by the interaction of these six quanta. These elements are: firstly, the knowledge of the technology that enables the manufacturing of the concerned commodity, secondly, the human labor that makes it possible to transform the raw material into commodity by the application of the enabling technology, thirdly, the management that puts these elements of labor and technology in the required productive order, fourthly, the motive on the part of the initiator to go ahead and start the process of manufacturing as result of which commodity is manufactured and comes into being, fifthly, the enabling environment provided by the established government of the time which guarantees that the elements of motive, labor and technology would be permitted to put themselves in the required productive mode and lastly and sixthly, the raw material provided by Nature on which these five human elements work and turn the raw material into the finished commodity.
Commodity may be considered a recipe of five ingredients – knowledge, labor, management, motive and enabling environment encased in the eggshell of nature’s gift. The recipe of these five elements sometimes even without the eggshell of nature’s raw material is capable of acquiring the properties of commodity and in that case these precious human elements are called service. The service is a commodity.
Each of these five human elements plays equally crucial role in the production of commodity. We may visualize, with regard to the first element, that every commodity bears within it an essential constituent element of knowledge. Production of a commodity requires an inherent element, without which that commodity can never be produced, that is contributed by Mind. This element adds to the cumulative cost of this commodity. For producing any commodity we need the required technology without which its production is not possible. For example, for producing an airplane we need the knowledge of a large number of concerned branches of science – aerodynamics, electronics, propulsion, metallurgy etc. – and of their associated sophisticated engineering. In the case of simple commodity, say potato, we need the knowledge of agriculture – putting seeds in the soil, irrigation, providing fertilizer, tending the crop etc. – without which it is not possible to grow potatoes.
Let us take another example from the life of primitive human beings, a stone dart. The primitive man needs to have the knowledge of the utility of a pointed stone in hunting an animal, he needs to know the technique of stone-chiseling, he needs to possess the knowledge of correct scrapping of the raw material – the unwieldy crude stone piece – that must be not too less and not too much scrapping of the raw material etc.
This knowledge of science is the product of Mind and in the process of production of commodity this element of Mind is deposited as an element of value in commodity. No commodity can be conceived of without this element being present in it. The contribution made by Mind in making the production of commodity possible is an inherent constituent element of commodity. This element of Mind or knowledge may be made possible by a single individual, by collective and common knowledge of society or by borrowing it from others. This element of Mind interacts with Nature through the human agency and gets embedded there in the product or commodity. In the finished goods or commodity the element contributed by Nature in the form of raw material on which other necessary elements related to human beings act turning this Natural – raw – element into finished commodity works like an eggshell wherein human elements get themselves deposited. Likewise, commodity also bears within it labor and remaining three essential elements.
It is possible to arrange these six elements in different interrelations. We may take the case of motive and put it in two different relations with the rest of the elements to find out the difference it brings in the resultant economic system. If we allow the human desires to fuel the motive, that put the remaining elements in the required order to produce commodity, then the resultant economy would be profit oriented capitalist one. On the other hand, if in the place of desires mind is allowed to fuel the whole productive process and put the remaining elements in the required order for producing commodity, the resultant economy would be planned socialist or communist one. It is the motive that determines the character of an economy. Also, seen from the point of view of the chosen motive, the ingredients of the concerned economy acquire different meaning and contents. There is universal misconception about capital. It is assumed that capital is one the ingredients that is always necessary for producing commodity. While capital is necessary ingredient in an economy whose motive element is desire fuelled, it is not necessary in an economy whose motive is dominated by planning by mind.
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22 Jul 2006 @ 15:45, by shreepal. Philosophy
We intend to end the present series of articles on the history of new civilization, though for the time being and till the opportune time comes, with a few observations. What is the relevance of history with a civilization that is yet to take birth? It is this: The new civilization cannot be founded on something that is totally new in its essence. The realty - the essence of truth - has to be discovered again and again by the marching mankind. It is a discovery of something that has always been there, though we think we had not grasped its essence and meaning in our previous discoveries as we think we have grasped today with our larest discovery. But the truth is that it was discovered in the past also, albeit with a different content and meaning. We have to discover this essence once again with a content that is acceptable to us and with a meaning that is understood by us, that is, the essence of realty couched in the modern scientific language and seemingly new in substance.
This realty was discovered in the past also by many known leaders of mankind and by many more who are not known. We do not have the appetite for now to refer to them here. We want to skip to the subject that is more important in utility and relevant in guiding us onto the correct path that lays ahead for mankind. What do we understand by new civilization? How different would it be from our "current" old civilization? What would be the basic features of new civilization?
Evolutionary agenda of Mankind
Nature is on its ceaseless task of evolving an instrument better than Mind. We have pointed out elsewhere that Mind follows a thought-processing method wherein there is separation of a part from the whole and then integration of this ‘now understood’ part into the whole. It is a trial and error method. All hypotheses – that are based on reason and logic of Mind – follow this blind method of trial and error. This method is flawed on account of its inherent weakness. Therefore, all truths discovered by this method – that is, by Mind – never expound a truth fully and completely. All scientific discoveries and their underlying scientific laws – like the laws of gravity, law of conservation of energy, et al – regularly undergo periodic modification.
But what we human beings know, animals do not. And, what animals know, plants do not. Each life-species has evolved over a long period of time her instrument of knowledge, which is still under the process of evolutionary refinement. Man is no exception to this process. Man and his Mind are undergoing change. It is axiomatic to say that it has always been so since the debut of Homo-sapiens on our Earth. But, significantly, this change is rapid today. Science is playing a decisive role in this process of evolutionary change. Science does affect not only the human being’s day-today life by offering levers to him in his struggle against Nature but his Mind also. His Mind grows more complex. With the advance of science, man becomes more capable to understand nature, and that includes his own life, and more aware of the limitation and insufficiency of the instrument (of Mind) that he is equipped with. This awareness is reflected in his growing sense of hollowness somewhere within and inability of science, despite its dazzling achievements, to account for many open questions.
Man and his science have reached a place where all branches of knowledge are converging onto a single point and a single query is staring them for answer: what is the nature of universal existence?
A new instrument that is better than Mind in efficacy and higher in evolutionary stage is in the offing. With the new instrument in place, Mind would not be discarded but would be relegated to a subordinate position in one’s life. This instrument would know the truth by a method where human consciousness would identify itself with the object rather than the method wherein consciousness disintegrates and re-integrates thoughts of objects into a harmonious whole. It would be a method of heart, which would replace and dominate the method of Mind – reason and logic. Though the new method still would be a mere shadow of the eternal Presence but there would be less distortion of this light in the process of downward percolation in its case than in the case of Mind.
New civilization ought to be dedicated to this evolutionary phenomenon and must be founded on its requirements. New civilization is not the civilization of human beings who are equipped with this new instrument of truth-perception but it is a civilization of those people who are ready and preparing to welcome the new advent. New civilization is the transitional civilization: a meeting place of two civilizations.
New civilization and the efforts to make its debut as early as possible is a serious subject and the same do not merit to be played lightly at our hands. New civilization cannot be made to happen and establish itself in a short period of time. It is bound to take not decades but centuries, if not more. Also, its happening is not dependent on human efforts. Individuals’ efforts, if made, may shorten the gestation period and help in a smooth birth that may become long awaited.
Nature is full of paradoxes. Yet it is the inability of our Mind that makes things look paradoxical. One such paradox of Nature is that it is cyclic in its operation and yet the things are not repeated again in exactly the same manner. It looks like a spiral evolution where things and events appear again and again, which are basically the same but in new forms to meet the new situations. History is no exception to this cyclic process.
We find in history seeds of human culture that sprout again and again in new forms but with the same qualitative contents to meet new situations brought into existence by the passage of time. We foresee that these seeds are once again ready to sprout in the fertile soil of our times. Our times are fully ripe for the germination of the old seeds. Our times are fret with problems that are unparalleled and unheard of in human history. These problems are so grave in their consequences and so encompassing in their scale that they put the mankind’s existence in peril. These are ideally fertile times for germination of the old seeds – that had saved mankind many a times in the past – once again in new forms. Mankind embattled with these problems is once again ready to listen – as in the past – to the teachings that have been taught in ages past in different contexts and different forms.
A new civilization that offers this old seeds in new form to bail out mankind is the need of the hour.
There are three signs of new civilization. Firstly, it would be based on the new understanding by human beings of the prime realty that has always existed there. Secondly, this understanding of the prime realty would be uniform for human beings and would not be divisive in nature as it had been in the past. The evolution of Mind would not only remove the geographic distance among different sections of mankind but it would also remove the difference of perceptions of the prime realty among these sections. And, thirdly, this prime realty, though still mystic to Mind, would be supported by its reason. New Civilization has not yet dawned on our Earth, where people have already gone global. Whenever it makes its debut, it would be compulsive in its utility and global in its reach. But this utility would not be its chief strength. Its strength would rather lie in the realization by our race that it has re-discovered the realty in a manner – so called scientific manner – that is the only one acceptable to reason and that this realty though always existed there but remained mystic to Mind. This realization would profoundly change mankind’s priorities and its institutions of collective living would accordingly undergo a revolutionary change. All these institutions – economics, culture and politics – could then no longer be allowed by the enlightened collective societal life to further the egoistic agenda of individual or collective living.
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 9 Jul 2006 @ 14:44, by jhs. Philosophy
As we not only have the technology to undo the illusions of the matrix piece by piece, we also understand more of 'technological/scientific' foundations, beginning with its geometry and the classifications of its basic components every day.
One mantra should not miss in all what we are doing:
Vigilance is the price of freedom!
(I don't like using 'absolutes' and therefore skipped the proverbial 'eternal')
Every tool can be used or abused.
Maybe we should discard the notion of 'learning' and regard it is as 'implanting':
as Beings we already know everything that is true: we just need to remember more and more of it.
In contrast, 'learning' adds new (artificial!) data on top of all the (still) existing illusions.
Not only that... More >
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 4 Jun 2006 @ 14:12, by jhs. Philosophy
An Intellectual Sunday Brunch for June 4th, 2006:
mx sez:
All is fine analyzing the game patterns of individual humans, major and minor Gods and Goddesses, of groups and their wars, nature, all the 42-stuff...
Objectives, purposes, rules, all cool... goals, subgoals, supergoals, stop!!! so what's the ultimate supergoal of playing all these games?
Here is a principle to shed light on the structure of the games, and all of them, ahem...
The Meme-Amplifier-Theorem (Sandor, 2006)
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The top-level supergoal of any observable process in this Universe consists of obtaining a maximum resonance to one, and only one, super-energy.
Notes:
- a local process ends exactly when a local resonance is found
- a local process will a this point compete with other local games to dominate the next higher level of processes
- if the resonance obtained is sufficiently close to the original super-energy, the process will auto-destruct (duplication theorem)
- auto-destruction occurs via the phenomenon of the 'resonance catastrophy'
- the auto-destruction can be an implosion or an explosion
- implosions do not leave ANY trace
- explosions, even though destroying the structure of the original meme-transporter, will infect parallel systems via its exploded fragments
- a process that ultimately will end in an implosion is called a 'destructive game'... More >
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4 Jun 2006 @ 13:55, by beto. Philosophy
In this beggining of a new millenium, the scientific community faces a deep and painful CLASH OF PARADIGMS - in the epistemological renewal of thought under process. To know what's happening is crucial to understand what's going on. More >
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