Sitaram's Literary Discussions
"I cannot sleep."
This three word sentence is the first sentence of every novel, of every work. We simply never see it in it's proper position most of the time because writers are so anxious to get busy and get on with it that they put down the second sentence as their first. They write "It was the best of times" or "Happy families are all alike" or "I went down yesterday to the Piraeus" or ""All Gaul is divided.""
Three is at the heart of things.
I am certain that you will all be forever grateful and reverent towards me for having at long last explained to the world this greatest of all secrets of all literature and philosophy.
I cannot sleep, not because I am conscious, but rather because I am consciousness. I am a process which was set in motion long ago, eons ago and I cannot stop, or rather, I cannot stop myself. Oh, yes, it can be stopped (it being the narrative process of consciousness itself) given a force of relatively cataclysmic proportions in the quantum-relativistic-thermo dynamics of this universe of ours.
So, here I sit, this sleepless consciousness, before the eerie glow of my computer screen and the clicking of my keyboard, my windows on a lone inner reality of speech as written word which serves as alembic to forever (I am hoping) distill this disjointed stream of sensations, memories, imagination, yearning and emptiness into an unforgettable saga of personhood that I am.
As a child, I chose for my great hero Robin Hood, for I was too young and naive to realize that I was only half correct; that the true hero and protagonist of these post modern times is Personhood, as it manifests in each writer, each reader, each worthy of a novel in their own right.
Jean-Paul Sartre wrote:
" For the most banal event to become an adventure, you must (and this is enough) begin to recount it. This is what fools people: a man is always a teller of tales, he lives surrounded by his stories and the stories of others, he sees everything that happens to him through them; and he tries to live his own life as if he were telling a story. But you have to choose: live or tell… This feeling of adventure definitely does not come from events: I have proved it. It's rather the way in which the moments are linked together. "
Here I am, sleepless in Seattle, embarking upon the first words of that longest of all journeys, to the tale of telling all tales. A quaint Hasidic anecdote, related by Sheldon Kopp, says it all:
"I am unable to light the fire and I do not know the prayer; I cannot even find the place in the forest. All I can do is to tell the story, and this must be sufficient. God made man because He loves stories. "
What is it that we seek from words, from speech, from language? Was Mallarme correct to say that all the world exists only to be written as a story? Was Jorge Luis Borges on to something big when he said that the book is the ultimate achievement of mankind?
Those Homeric suitors would gather day after day in Odysseus' halls to squander precious time in creature comforts and the speculations of egoistic desires and fantasies. What they spun was a spider's web for their own entrapment and execution. It was really Penelope, hidden away in solitude at her spinning wheel and loom, who created the moment to moment fabric of reality. Plato's Three Fates weave the tapestry of the causal nexus. A blind, nameless poet spins his epic and weaves his archetypal dream of what truly is.
I cannot spin. I cannot weave. I have no Socratic shuttle,warp and woof of dialectic process. Mine is not a tapestry but a patchwork quilt of cut and paste.
Jesus said "I am the Word" but we may say, "Jesus, I am only words."
I am become a Proust in my insomnia, writing my first hundred pages on my inability to sleep.
Socrates spoke of the maiutic process of assisting the student to "give birth." I toss and turn in my restless desire to give birth to a sentence which shall outlive me. Immortality is the cause of death. Death is the cause of Immortality. Call it a limited partnership, if you will.
Sheldon Kopp writes,
"The central fact of my own life is my death. After a while, it will all come to nothing. Whenever I have the courage to face this, my priorities become clear. At such times nothing is done in order to achieve something else. No energy is wasted on maintaining the illusions. My image does not matter, I do not worry about how I am doing. I do what I do, am who I am. That's it. The imminence of my own death is the pivot around which things turn. This makes what is going on now all that counts."
But, what is going on right now, as I write, is the Eulogy at my own funeral. I am a Huckleberry Finn hiding in the rafters at my own Memorial Service. The end of ME is my own personal demise. I read my eulogy and live backwards.
The end of that immortal sentence which I strive to give birth to shall be the end of our own solar system. Frost's "Fire and Ice." Shall we exit stage right, with a bang, as a Supernova? Oh, but our sun is too small for supernova!
A supernova is the result of the collapse of a massive star. Massive is a classification for a star that is at least eight times the size of our Sun. Once the star's nuclear fuel is exhausted, if its core is heavy enough, the star will collapse in on itself, releasing a huge amount of energy (the supernova), which may be brighter than the star's host galaxy.
To quote the Walrus, "The time has come to talk of many things," the death of stars.
So what might the biography of our poor little star, the sun, be like? Let us be proper Mark Twains and hide once again in the rafters for a moment to hear our sun's eulogy.
" About 5 billion years ago our sun formed from an interstellar cloud. Then it settled into a long period stage as a stable yellow star. In another 5 billion years the sun is going to run out of hydrogen as a nuclear fuel in its central core. Then a series of dramatic changes takes place marking the beginning of the end. For a further billion years the brightness of a solar type star does not change much, but its outer layers expand until it is doubled in size. Its color darkens to orange. In the following billion years the sun grows to truly to giant proportions, a hundred times bigger than now and becomes a thousand times brighter. It starts to blow off significant amounts of material. After a temporary drop in size there is a final flame in which the sun gets larger, brighter and more red than ever. Inside its structure is unstable and it pulsates slowly in a out with a period of several months or so. The sun's surface eventually extends as far as the surface of the earth. Its outer layers keep blowing off into space until the sun has lost almost half of its original mass. The last layer round the inner most core is flown off as a glowing shell to create a planetary nebula. It exposes the core of the sun which has shrunk to be about the size of the earth. This star is now called, White Dwarf Star. The White Dwarf cools down and fades over a very long period."
Chapter Eleven, verse 12, of the Bhagavad-gita describes the personality of the Godhead, Lord Krishna, as a supernova: "If the splendor of a thousand suns were to blaze out at once in the sky, that would be the splendor of that mighty Being."
The end of an historical person is a supernova of words, spreading out and shining for all eternity through all of time and space. Or perhaps it is only one sentence or phrase of epitaph on the narrative tombstone: "Et en arcadia ego."
To quote the Carpenter: ""You've had a pleasant run! Shall we be trotting home again?' But answer came there none."
It is not just my own death which confronts me but also the death of the solar system; a dynamic duo, the Walrus and the Carpenter. The world has become my oyster, or rather, an Oroborus, devouring its own tail, while my tale becomes the inverse of self giving birth parthogenetically to Self.
(written in 129 minutes, Friday, October 15, 2004, starting at 2:00 a.m., a respectable time for insomnia and a respecable day for ressurection.)
It is upon awakening that the ideas come. Awakening is different from not sleeping. Awakening is rare. Not sleeping is continuous for even our dreams are restless and fretful.
It is in those rare moments of awakening each morning, bathed in the faint light of a morning star, that thoughts come like dew upon the fleece.
I am hearing some grumbling from my readers. What is this you are writing? This is not a novel. I cannot understand what you are talking about! What are these references and allusions to Walruses and Arcadia?
Ah! But, dear reader, herein lies the genius of my plan. I face two demises, the demise of myself, and then the demise my solar system which shelters and nurtures these words and thoughts to which I so tenderly gave birth, nor is there much time left, relatively speaking. But one of my crucial discoveries is that each and every physical event in the universe, every war, each and every discovery, every genius, every artist, gives birth to a constellation of graduate programs, semesters of theoretical courses, mathematical theorems, critical essays, all aimed at a concerted effort of containment, to trap the underlying observable phenomena and feelings into some model or theory which is understandable and repeatable.
I must reverse not only this process of events giving birth to words, but also reverse the very direction of time itself. I must start with words and thoughts which shall in turn create a universe into which I may escape, when my own self and my solar system come to an end. My novel must be the first of its kind, an anti-novel, as it were. I must start with the analysis of my novel, yet unwritten, and lead slowly but surely to a real novel which shall be totally understandable, because, of course we have brought it into being through it's preliminary exegesis. I shall posit the necessary existence of a perfect, ideal novel, which lends its essence to all actual novels as a pale reflection, and then I shall back into it in a bootstrapping inductive manner. Salvation in book form is not a new idea. "Salvation For Dummies."
Jesus spoke of the travail of the mother giving birth, but when the child is finally born, then there is only joy, joy in the morning.
We must keep our wits about us and be very methodical, very analytical, very Aristotelian.
What are the possible ways we may address and circumvent our own end and the end of the universe?
Perhaps there is someone or something which might one day arrive on the scene to rescue us in a Deus ex Machinus turn of events. And of course, Deus Ex Machinus is by its very nature theological.
Perhaps some highly advanced savior species might come from some distant corner of the cosmos. Or perhaps we ourselves might become the savior species, spreading the gospel of good news throughout the cosmos.
Salvation is never free. Saviors always charge a high price for their services.
Jesus is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. But physicists are more economical, and get by with only half of this two letter alphabet. Physicists describe the Omega Point as a very distant future time at which Intelligence (artificial or otherwise) will have spread to every part of the universe and will have harnessed all the energy and matter in the universe.
"Good Heavens! Harness all the energy and matter of the Universe! Whatever for? To do what?" you ask.
Why, to create other universes! What else is a universe good for but to create other universes, baby universes. Call it cosmic sex if you will. Every good story has the four elements of royalty, religion, sex and mystery. Don't expect my story to be any different. But remember, my novel is not just any novel but a meta-novel, telling the story of all storytelling; the poorest of the poor; renouncing renunciation (and all that sort of thing.) Hence only sex on a cosmic scale will do for such an endeavor. They don't call it "The Big Bang" for nothing!
The shortest verse in the Bible: "Jesus wept." Our Walrus weeps too as he dines on the oysters.
A child hands in her story to the teacher: "Holy Moses! The Princess pregnant again! I wonder who done it?" All four elements of the novel in a one sentence story; religion, royalty, sex and mystery.
Or, the most basic of all stories. A man was born, lived and died. Solomon Grundy born on Monday, buried on Sunday. Thus ends the tale of Solomon Grundy.
Camus said that, perhaps, the greatest sin of all is to hanker after some future life and ignore the implacable grandure of the life we already possess.
Some hanker for an afterlife. Others conjure a baby universe and then slip into it through a black hole. Yet others escape into a world of fiction and imagination.
Who might our savior aliens be? What might they be like? Why would they come to assist us and what would they expect in return?
Let us not be hasty. You are not yet ready to hear of the Uberachnid. You must first attend this pre-Uberachnid introductory seminar.
Were the Achaeans attacking Troy or rescuing Helen? And if they were rescuing Helen, well, what were they rescuing her from? Love? Compare and contrast Helen in Troy and Sita in Lanka.
Perhaps we need only be rescued from ourselves.
"The mind is its own beautiful prisoner," as e.e. cummings said. "We has found the enemy, and they is US" as Pogo would say.
Sometimes saviors come in the guise of an enemy. Sometimes they come as missionaries. At other times they are messengers. They are sent as apostles or descend as avatars or rise up as rebels and revolutionaries. Salvation is always an action-packed adventure, with more than a few chase scenes. Even atheism is spiritual in its tones. We may escape God, but we can never escape religion.
Why shouldn't I be totally free to write what I please in the way I please? Why should what I do become a genre. Styles enslave. Anti-style liberates, but is always in danger of stylelessness becoming a style all it's own. Rebellion in itself is stylish apart from its cause. Ask any rebel without a cause.
You see, the body of my anti-novel has a special geometry and each sentence has a mathematical property. I shall leave it to future generations to discover how the body of my writing exhibits all Euclidean solids inscribed within a sphere. If you count the total letters of this work, find the mid-most word, and apply the correct formula, then each sentence will yield the next successive number in a series of prime and perfect numbers. Only I have the gift to write in this fashion. It is by means of these mathematical and geometrical demonstrations that you will know that what I am telling you is the Gospel truth, and anyone other than my genuine self, this author, is a liar and blasphemer, and someone whose company you should avoid.
You have done quite well in the seminar. Well done, good and faithful servants!
(written in 50 minutes on Saturday, October 16, 2004)
I see the vanished races of north American Indians, who dwelt for millennia in that continent, as having been very hardy because of natural selection, and kept hardy as a race by the rigors of survival. Modern man, by contrast, becomes a progressively weaker and less robust species because of high tech and increasing dependence on things like antibiotics, surgical procedures, insulin, etc., which in the short run greatly benefit individuals, but in the long run weaken the species.
I have no real definite notion as to why, but it is interesting that the heart is emphasized more in scriptures, but that the kidneys are also mentioned, that there was some awareness of such anatomy in ancient times.
Job 16:13 His archers compass me round about, he cleaveth my reins asunder, and doth not spare; he poureth out my gall upon the ground.
Job 19:27 Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; [though] my reins be consumed within me.
Psalms 7:9 Oh let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end; but establish the just: for the righteous God trieth the hearts and reins.
Psalms 16:7 I will bless the LORD, who hath given me counsel: my reins also instruct me in the night seasons.
Psalms 26:2 Examine me, O LORD, and prove me; try my reins and my heart.
Psalms 73:21 Thus my heart was grieved, and I was pricked in my reins.
Psalms 139:13 For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother's womb.
Proverbs 23:16 Yea, my reins shall rejoice, when thy lips speak right things.
Isaiah 11:5 And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins.
Jeremiah 11:20 But, O LORD of hosts, that judgest righteously, that triest the reins and the heart, let me see thy vengeance on them: for unto thee have I revealed my cause.
Jeremiah 12:2 Thou hast planted them, yea, they have taken root: they grow, yea, they bring forth fruit: thou [art] near in their mouth, and far from their reins.
Jeremiah 17:10 I the LORD search the heart, [I] try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, [and] according to the fruit of his doings.
Jeremiah 20:12 But, O LORD of hosts, that triest the righteous, [and] seest the reins and the heart, let me see thy vengeance on them: for unto thee have I opened my cause.
Lamentations 3:13 He hath caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my reins.
Revelation 2:23 And I will kill her children with death; and all the churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts: and I will give unto every one of you according to your works.
Note that our word "renal" comes from the same root word as "reins." And should the day come that our heart and kidneys are mechanical, then what shall we say of our soul?
Amoral nature, with its natural selection and survival of the fittest, seems to have a very different agenda which favors groups and species over individuals. Our society now seems to place the well-being and interest of the individual above the well-being and interests of the group as a whole. In the short run this emphasis on the individual is quite benevolent. But what is long-term benovelence? Does long-term benevolence sometimes wear the mask of cruelty and indifference?
Nature makes it difficult for the weak and defective to pass their genes on to another generation, but medicine and modern technology makes it easy for even the infertile to pass on their genetic traits to future generations. For me, the problem is so patently obvious. Physis and Nomos, Nature and Law, mortal enemies for eternity!
Of course, we may ocassionally discover some temporary cure for a particular disease, but then all those little pathogens turn around and produce thousands of generations in a short time, and evolve a resistant strain, so then we develop a different antibiotic, and so it goes, on and on, in a vicious cycle, a Catch-22. Those pathogens desire immortality just as much as we. Their oeuvres are plagues.
As individuals, certainly we benefit from this medicine and technology, but as a species we were obviously better off under the amoral natural scheme of survival of the fittest. Now, as a species, we are gradually becoming weakened and dependent upon that medicine and technology. "Better Living Through Chemistry."
Mind you, I am not saying whether this increased dependence upon medicine and technology and genetic engineering and this progressive weakening of our species is bad or good in the long run. I am merely pointing it out as an observable phenomenon.
I realize that what I am about to say is a far-fetched scenario, but it is not totally outside the realm of possibility and technology. Imagine that genetic engineering is able to make enormous strides during the coming century and develops the technology to totally re-engineer and redesign essential human nature.
Suppose, further, that the technology of artificial intelligence made tremendous strides of advance, and is able to create true intelligence, equaling or exceeding human intelligence. Furthermore, suppose that humanity as a whole is one day able to unite, and sees "the handwriting on the wall" with regard to our solar system's eventual destruction several billion years from now, through the demise of our sun (or much earlier through some enormous asteroid striking the earth.)
Humanity, seeing the eventual destruction of our solar system through some catastrophe, creates vehicles for deep space, interstellar search for another earth-like planet, piloted by the artificial intelligence robots which have a consciousness equal to or exceeding humans, with human re-engineered genetic material on board, as well as a Noah's ark of all plant and animal genetic material, to be deployed if and when another planet is found. One small step for man. One giant step for superman. This is how we shall play galactic Simon Says. If you forget to say "May I" then you must take many umbrella steps backwards into oblivion.
IF such a far-fetched eventuality were to take place, then the temporary weakening and dependence of mankind upon antibiotics and medical technology would be but a temporary phase, as technology matured, and ultimately that future technology would be the savior not only of human life, but also the preserver of all culture, art, science, philosophy.
On the other hand, if we cannot unite as one world nation, with such a common goal, if we squander time and resources in endless guerilla wars and acts of terrorism, then we shall never be able to accomplish such a goal, and when the earth is destroyed by whatever cataclysm (as it ultimately will), then that is the end of our human history, and in some way, all will have been for nothing. We shall be suitors who never know Penelope and that white dwarf, Odysseus, shall consume us all.
I have considered the issue of the evil malevolence of some race beings who posses advanced powerful technology, and it occurred to me that such a race would of necessity have destroyed itself long ago with its own technology had it not addressed its shortcoming of greed, anger, vengeance, hatred. Therefore, I see a powerful advanced race of beings as of necessity benevolent (as a prerequisite for surviving their own super power.)
If I might become Andy Rooney for a minute, I would point how odd it is that we always speak of ourselves as some race. A race is people in a hurry to get somewhere. Where is it that we are trying to get? I forget! St. Paul speaks of winning the good race. Bread and circus races of a crumbling empire go in circles. Circles are perfect but they never lead anywhere.
The Psalms say: "three score years and ten are the years allotted to a man, and perhaps 4 score (80), and whatever is beyond that is toil and travail." We see this figure of 80 as meaningful today. And life beyond 80, artificially prolonged, is no bowl of cherries.
It has occurred to me that man, through technology, is ever striving towards omnipotence (hey, why not, if you can do it), and omniscience (a grand theory of everything in physics).
I wrote a little story entitled "Attack of the Uberachnid", to explore certain of these notions, and concepts of ethics. It is an interesting "what if" scenario. Don't forget, Einstein as a teenager imagined the "what if" scenario of riding upon a beam of light.
No one can corner the truth because everyone is too busy working their own angle.
Agnostics believe doubtfully.
At least atheists have the courage of their lack of conviction.
What is "Power"?
The essence of what it means to be a living organism is to strive for, light, warmth, food, seeking pleasure, avoiding pain, a struggle in quest of POWER.
Think about little microbes, striving towards light, nourishment, the very struggle which is essential in survival. It seems to me that the concept of POWER is at the heart of such instincts. This struggle begins on a molecular level as an organic chemical reaction process, and ends on a meta-personal level of corporations, nations and ideologies, struggling for power, survival, and dominance.
We see all life forms struggle to survive and propagate. Struggle seems primary.
But, somehow, inherent in the notion of struggle is power, since struggling itself is a force, and one struggles against some other force. Power lies in one force prevailing over some opposing force. So diversity, difference and opposition is essential for the illusion of power to manifest. There is no power where there is no obstacle or opposition. We cannot be Quixotic without windmills to joust at. In physics, work is defined as moving a mass through a distance. In politics, power is keeping the masses right where they are. Not much work or progress there.
In the evolutionary scheme of things, gradually, complex consciousness and introspection is ushered and the whole mental world of dualities, antinomies, good and evil, pleasure and pain, truth and falsehood, etc.
Allow me to pose for all of you a futuristic science-fiction scenario which will exercise your "moral calculus."
Firstly, we assume that self-defense to defend our lives and existence is morally justified. Secondly, we assume that killing of lower species for food or sport is harmless, and that murder only involves killing the one higher species, man, because man has speech, a soul.
But let us imagine that an alien creature arrives on planet earth, which is so highly evolved that human beings appear as dumb primates in comparison. These super beings communicate telepathically and, furthermore all of their minds are interconnected as one superbrain. These superior beings view us in the same light that we view gorillas and chimpanzees. They see us as capable of some curious tricks, but as not possessing what they define as a "soul." Obviously, we use only verbal language and we are incapable of telepathic communication. Furthermore, if we even possess a soul (which they deem doubtful), we are not interconnected telepathically as a supersoul. Let us give a name to these alien creatures. I shall call them UBERACHNIDS (from Nietzsche's Uberman or superman, and the Greek word "arachnid," meaning spider).
Now, this species of superbeing, the Uberachnid, has a highly specialized digestive system. They may only live by finding warm blooded creatures, inserting their long needle-like fangs into the veins of their victims, and slowing absorbing the body-fluids in an agonizing process with takes several days, before the victim finally dies.
How different is the Uberachnid's moral justification for harvesting and eating humans any different from the human justification for harvesting and eating lower mammals? In fact, the Uberachnid has more of an excuse for its eating habits, since it cannot choose to be vegetarian, whereas humans do have a vegetarian choice.
In light of the superior nature of the Uberachnid, are humans really justified any longer in perceiving themselves as the highest form of life? Can the humans really assume that they possess a soul, since obviously they do not possess the supersoul of the telepathically interconnected Uberachnids?
Such a moral dilemma! If the humans do have it in their power to exterminate the entire Uberachnid species, rendering it extinct, then in some sense they commit a crime against intelligence and life itself. For you see, apart from the Uberachnid's unpleasant dining habits, they are the most admirable community of beings ever to appear in our universe! Crime is unknown amongst the Uberachnid. Poverty is unknown! All diseases have been conquered among the Uberachnid! Furthermore, the Uberachnid have offered to make human life a paradise on earth, and each human will be granted 100 years of life and enjoyment in the perfect health with the appearance of a twenty year old youth! All that the Uberachnid ask of us is that at the end of the hundred years, is that each person voluntarily report to the Uberachnid Cafeteria, to be consumed. The Uberachnid have even devised an anesthetic drug which will not only eliminate any discomfort during the process of being consumed, but will also have mind altering mood altering psychedelic properties such that the victim being consumed will feel that they are in a paradise of ecstasy, and their relative perception of time will be so altered that they will perceived their last few hours of consciousness as an unending eternity of bliss.
It seems that the Uberachnid are far more thoughtful, compassionate and generous to their human herds than humans ever were to their cattle.
Parts the Uberachnid scenario are constructed along the lines of Peter Singer.
There is no such construct as Ethics in evolution. It is amoral. Creatures do what they have to survive. Society, which benefits individual survival was formed and rules constructed for the game, just as stags in heat unconsciously constructed rules of engagement, which by trial and error and blind chance and necessity lead to an evolutionarily stable strategy.
Even on artificially constructed grounds, the premise of eating us is philosophically wrong. We are sentient beings with speech and a sense of the future and past. We have anticipatory expectations of death and the pursuit of happiness. We have dreams and hopes. The Uberachnid may have more advanced science technology, which they have personally conceived, planned and used to manufacture miraculous gadgets, but the analogy is what the Europeans did to the Tasmanians, Africans and American Indians, which we condemn now. Appetites for power, wealth, sex or food cannot be justified ethically in all cases and need no philosophical analysis evolutionarily.
Evolution emphasizes survival and reproduction at all costs yet is responsible for evolving a brain which is focused on a sense of justice.
This led to God and religion but also to ego. Is it possible for an intelligent person to be consistently honest? If survival is all important, what is the role of integrity and principle?
Is the American Indian way better or the African-American way? Am I unnecessarily agonizing over Hamlet's dilemma? Was Karna, the hero of Mahabharata or was it Yudhishthir or Arjuna? Was Antigone right or Kreon? Did Tennyson say it all in Ulysses or The Lotus Eaters? Which group is right, Steven Weinberg and Sartre, Mother Teresa and Gandhi, or J. Paul Getty and Mick Jagger? Is it better to fight and run away and live to fight another day or behave like Ajax defying Jupiter?
Does it always make sense to draw a Lakshmanrekha, for oneself and others not to transgress? If even the synapses, which constitute hardware, show plasticity, are rigid principles and behavior contrary to survival, laudable or to be shunned. Did Socrates die in vain?
Where is the representation of ethics and morality in the brain? What is the basis of consciousness? What is the nature of qualia? How did life and the universe begin? How does one understand or explain quantum paradoxes? What is the nature of causality?
(Sunday Oct 17, 2004 8:15am, 60 minutes)
There are those nowadays who run around shouting, “I am saved, are you saved?” I need such a gimmick to drum up interest. So what may I shout? “Are you doomed?” You cannot be saved unless you are doomed. Doom precedes salvation just as surely as sleeplessness precedes the profound opening sentence of a Great Book.
I must write because I must die. I must write because I cannot sleep. I must write precisely this book, and no other, for the world will end, our sun shall burn itself out. But the world must not end or my book will not live beyond my death. So I must wake the world up because I cannot sleep. I must save the universe if I am ever to save my self. For my self is nothing other than my words and ideas. Should the world end, my words end with it. It is not only the end of me, but the end of everything; the end of Socrates and Jesus and Shakespeare and Mozart and the Beatles and William F. Buckley, Jr.
I must become the savior of the world and the hero of my own book. But I cannot be the hero of my own book. I am only the writer of the book. The reader of a book is the real hero. It is by reading, generation after generation, that books are promoted to the status of immortal classics.
Edward Jones won a Pulitzer for his book which opens with a great first line, “You never get over having been a child.” I must dedicate my book to him. Why?
What is the purpose of this world, anyway? Does anyone know? I know. I recently figured it out. I shall tell you. This is a most intimate and confidential knowledge. The purpose of the world is children. Adults are an unpleasant but necessary byproduct of the whole process.
Jones writes about a former slave who owns slaves. It is former children who beget children. Dying black holes beget baby big-bang universes. We always inflict what we are (or were) upon others and call it the greatest blessing. God, cloaked in non-being, inflicts existentialism upon us and calls it Light. But then, Jung did say that consciousness is a lamp to illuminate the darkness of mere being, that bronze of being forever in need of literary polish.
But once our hearts and kidneys become electronic then where will childhood be? It will be with Spielberg’s “A.I.” Necessity is the mother of invention. Death is the mother of immortality.
Having taken the advice of Wallace Stevens, I am nailing my brain upon a board and picking the acrid colors out (and you get to watch.) Any resemblance to crucifixion is purely coincidental. All names have been changed to protect the guilty. The innocent never need protection. But we are all guilty, are we not? Guilty of childhood at the very least. But is not childhood innocence; the innocence of Aiyesha on her wedding day?
The children squeal, "I slam, you slam, we all slam for Islam."
We cannot understand the mysterious chicken and egg conundrum regarding which came first. But we can definitely say that the first writer came before the first reader. If the first reader existed before the first writer, why, whatever did he read, and who would have written it.
This too shall pass. Does everything pass away? Seek that coming to be and passing away which does not itself come to be and pass away and you shall have found your answer.
Childhood is innocence, but there are no children without sex. It is possible to think of God without sex, but can we possibly think of sex without God? And whatever might it mean to have sex with God. The love of God is respectably ambiguous. Doe it mean God’s love for us or does it mean our love for God. How did sex come to have such a bad reputation, anyway?
You see, the secret to writing the greatest book ever, or any book, or religion, or philosophy or political platform, is to forever promise something which never comes to pass. A finger points at the moon, but that finger is not the moon. But I am promising you, my constituency, right here and now, that I shall deliver to you a bonafide novel, with a story, plot and all. Honest Injun!
There is prayer which is preparation for prayer, as in Psalms "may the lifting up of my hands be as an evening sacrifice"
There is life in preparation for death. Socrates said that Philosophy is a preparation for death.
There is thinking. Then there is thinking about thinking. Finally, there is thinking about thinking about thinking. But higher than the third heaven we cannot ascend. Three seems to be at the heart of things. Dante certainly thought so.
There are novels within novels. There is even a novel, in which there is a novel about a novel. Such Russian Babuska dolls quickly loose their novelty.
So few dimensions! So little time!
Jesus in Gesthemene prays, "Heavenly Father, all of those whom you have given to me, may they be ONE, even as you and I are one." In what way do we see that prayer answered nowadays?
"HE hath placed the image of eternity into the heart of man, yet no one can see to the beginning or end of a matter.
"From ghostlins and goblins and long-leggedy beasties and things that go "BUMP" in the night, dear Lord deliver us." - an old Irish prayer
God sent the devil to Job.
The reprobate are given over or abandoned.
Abandonment precedes deliverance.
To be delivered, one must have been in bondage, to be in bondage, one must have been sold into slavery first.
A theologian once said of the fall of Adam "O Felix Culpa" (Oh, fortunate fault!)
This is why there is so much sectarian division, one little town, Rockford, Illinois has the "Church of Christ WITH music" on one side of town and the "Church of Christ WITHOUT music" on the other side, because they cannot agree upon the sinfulness of organs and pianos.
Jesus in Gesthemene prays, "Heavenly Father, all of those whom you have given to me, may they be ONE, even as you and I are one."
In what way do we see that prayer answered nowadays?
It is of the utmost significance that the ram was caught by the horns in the thorn bush at Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac.
The fact that it was caught by the horns, and not by its skin, means that it is unblemished, and therefore, suitable for sacrifice or offering, resembling sinlessness, in a fashion.
Why bother to seek, if you feel you are saved?
Why not have a pure democracy, now that we have Internet? Each person votes. Why the need for representatives, corruption, scandals? Only with modern media has pure democracy become possible in theory. Aristotle believed that a democracy could never be larger than an assembly which could hear one speaker's voice, unaided by the microphones and amplifiers yet to be invented.
I see so many tragic, pompus little clowns, demagogs, tooting their horns at the streetcorners, wearing their phoney beliefs on their sleeves, to garner more votes.
Instead of everyone watching cartoons and Judge Judy for four hours each night, they could watch documentaries which explore all sides of an issue. Then they could vote electronically. Why not?
But, Noooo, we must have REPRESENTATIVES, who will be absent much of the time, and vote contrary to the wishes of their constituency the rest of the time.
Whenever we win an argument, we recreate ourselves, since we make someone else think as we do.
Should we simply assume that any and every life is worth saving, without questioning. What are we saving it for?
What is the purpose behind extending human lives into the 80's, 90's, past 100?
Living is not an addiction. I can stop any time I want!
If it were suddenly possible to extend lives indefinitely, would there then be some moral imperative to do so.
Would refusing such procedures be suicide. Would withholding such procedures be murder.
One hundred years ago, kidney failure meant death. Now, refusal/denial of dialysis would be considered murder/suicide.
Curiously, the Book of Revelation speaks of people yearning for death, yet death will not come.
If "enlightenment" (whatever that might mean) suddenly were to open your eyes to the truth that you yourself are the hopelessly perennial embodiment of all evil, would you have the moral courage to exterminate yourself, and all your kind, or would you selfishly cling to existence, knowing the evil and suffering that you perpetuate?
Suppose some method of asexual cloning is developed, which allows the new "superman" species to perpetuate itself indefinitely, asexually, each individual perfect, disease free, and free of all vices and evil traits.
Why would such beings want to allow inferior, malevolent, disease-ridden beings such as us to persist?
Perhaps such supermen would not even see us as human, with rights. Perhaps for them, killing us would be a merciful act, like shooting a mad dog.
The phenomenon of persistent trolls (malevolent people on the Internet, evil simply for evil's sake) is quite revealing about human nature, and the problems of mankind; namely, regardless of whatever evil ideological label we attach (nazi, communist, Islamic, etc etc), the REAL problem lies much deeper, at the heart of human nature.
I suspect its like a "will to power", like an Everest to a Hillary, who climbs it simply because "it is there." We see a way to plague, destroy, torment (well certain personality types among us), and it becomes a method of expression, self-validation, assertion.
The bully, sadist, pimp, troll will always arise again and again (simply wearing different ideological masks.)
Eliminating the ideology will never eliminate that underlying destructive, vindictive urge to ruin and torment and enslave others. Only a total redesign of organism and consciousness and species will eliminate such malevolence.
The notion of "recreating ourselves anew", relates to what I said earlier. If through genetic engineering, we found a way to "reengineer" humanity, to eliminate all that sadistic violence, anger, hate, greed, lust (were it feasible) would there not then be some moral imperative to do JUST THAT, and proceed with the re-engineering our species and the creating of a saintly superspecies, whether biological or cyborg?
And, having done this, would we ourselves "the old creator species", become the enemy to be destroyed, the evil, the monster, the "old man?"
Should we be true to the self that we are, ugliness and all, or true to that self that we might become through re-engineering and re-design?
Heraclitus rejects the view that cosmic justice is designed to punish one opposite for its transgressions against another. If it were not for the constant conflict of opposites, there would be no alternations of day and night, hot and cold, summer and winter, even life and death. Indeed, if some things did not die, others would not be born. Conflict does not interfere with life, but rather is a precondition of life.
Heraclitus sees a limitless aspect to soul. "If you went in search of it, you would not find the boundaries of the soul, though you traveled every road-so deep is its measure [logos]."
For Heraclitus, Divinity is present in the world, but not as a conventional anthropomorphic being such as the Greeks worshiped.
The ultimate questions of the Metaphysics: What is all being at its roots? What is the life of God?
Something must be at work in the world, hidden to us, visible only in its effects, pervading all that is, and it must be either a destroyer or a preserver.
The world disclosed to our senses is in a ceaseless state of change.
That the world nevertheless hangs together enough to be experienced at all is a fact so large that we rarely take notice of it
The two together--change, and a context of persistence out of which change can emerge--force one to acknowledge some non-human cause at work: for whichever side of the world--change or rest, order or dissolution--is simply its uncaused, inert way, the other side must be the result of effort.
To be is to be alive; all other being is borrowed being.
The mere consciousness that a limit exists creates the impulse to go beyond it, the impulse to transcend it comes into being.
The totality of numbers is itself no number.
Many people (and ideologies and societies) argue that correct human behavior must be legislated by threat of punishment.
From an historical standpoint, life imprisonment is a relatively recent innovation, and is in many ways a "cruel and unusual punishment". The Old Testament and the Ten Commandments, which American Christian society loves to tout and flaunt, mentions noting of life imprisonment, but only the death sentence.
Societies with extreme forms of brutal punishment still have criminals, so such punishments are not a very effective deterrent.
The only effective punishment, for an individual, which guarantees no recidivism or backsliding, is execution, since dead people don't repeat offenses.
The same may be said with regard to nations. conventional warfare is a poor solution to problems, since within a generation or two, the offending nation will be at it again, waging war, or using terrorist and guerilla tactics.
If pain is the answer, then science could devise insidious machines of pain, which connect directly to nerves or the brain, leaving no scars, and offering the potential for literally years of indescribable agony.
In fact, it seems to me that the advent of modern neurological science is a strong argument against the Qu'ran, since the Qu'ran explains that Allah gives the damned a "fresh skin" each time the old one burns away, so they may "taste the torment." But if Allah understood what neurologists know, all that fire would be unnecessary, simply a few well placed electrodes would do the trick.
Even the physical punishment which health and nature inflicts upon us for our naughtiness is not an effective deterrent against our excesses of self-abuse and crimes against our bodies and biological nature: smokers continue to smoke even in the end stages of emphysema.
The original question I was responding to was "Why is humanity so "messed" up? I am trying to suggest that we are actually, collectively, much better than centuries ago, but because we are better, we scrutinize ourselves with a harsher standard, and therefore seem to ourselves more messed up.
The issue is not whether slavery still exists. Obviously murder still exists, and will always exist. The question at hand is the popular attitude and public opinion concerning slavery, murder, famine, as well as public attitudes towards the "am I my brother's keeper" question.
I suppose humanity, in many ways, is much better NOW, then centuries ago. We are just more sensitive to certain things, so we appear to ourselves to be in a worse estate than we appeared to ourselves 1000 years ago, or 5000 years ago.
After all, the New Testament epistle, Philemon, does not overtly decry the institution of slavery. The Torah simply declares more humane rules regarding the treatment of slaves.
The purpose of life is, in part, to ask and answer the question of the purpose of life.
I suppose this is a basic message of existentialism. Life is absurd, but we create meaning and purpose for ourselves by questioning life and its meaning.
Legislation aimed at moral betterment often seeks to impose uniformity and eliminate diversity, yet diversity is a strength in our species, it is not a problem to be solved.
A psychiatrist once commented to an Indian yogi that religion was repressed sexuality. The yogi retorted that sexuality was repressed religion.
All self-conscious existence is inextricably interwoven with suffering.
I am often distracted with thoughts about summum bonum versus supremum bonum; the highest good vs the complete good.
We always act with a view to some good.
The good is the object which all pursue, and for the sake of which they always act", says Plato (Republic, I, vi).
Of course, we must keep in mind "Hume's gap" between "is" and "ought" that there is no "is" which implies or dictates a particular "ought."
The existence of the gap between reason and action was the basis of Hume's arguments that moral judgments are not derived from reason. For Hume thought that moral judgments must be connected with action, while reason alone cannot lead to action. Had someone suggested that "moral judgment" be defined in a way not necessarily connected with action, Hume would no doubt have been prepared to grant that, so defined, moral judgments could be derived from reason. See A Treatise of Human Nature, Bk. III, Pt. I, § I; and An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, Appendix I.
Cicero wrote:" If happiness and virtue are mutually exclusive, we have to choose between the two, and this choice is a momentous one.
Aristotle held that pleasure in its keenest form springs from virtue.
Social utilitarianism places the highest good in the practice of social benevolence.
It is supposed by John Stuart Mill, Jeremy Bentham, and others, that the happiness of a community is superior to the happiness of one of its members. But what do we mean when we speak of the "happiness of a community", and how does such happiness differ from the happiness of individuals in the community?
Of course, by happiness, we may mean well being, or best interest, or security, or safety.
Is any war just? Is killing just?
Is that which is expedient always just?
Is that which is just always expedient?
In the Jakarta tales of the various incarnations of Buddha, the Buddha once cast himself off a cliff, out of compassion for a starving tiger and her cubs below, so that they might have his body for food.
It is the Christian belief that Christ suffered the cross and death for the sake of all mankind, and in an analogous fashion offered his flesh and blood as food.
Altruistic self-sacrifice is the highest form of justice. The act of a just or righteous person in the extreme. But it may also be the injustice of suicide.
We can "imagine" such a selfless person as a Buddha or a Christ. We cannot prove that such a person ever existed. yet now through artificial intelligence and genetic engineering, we have the potential to CREATE such a Buddha or Christ.
Hence, in some sense, our imagination offers us a measuring stick of righteousness or perfection or morality.
The "White House" in Washington D.C. was constructed using black African slave laborers.
An actually letter exists from Jefferson to Washington, inviting him for a weekend, and mentioning that "two attractive clean slave girls would be availble" for Washington's pleasure.
The great men of those times were certainly guilty of the wrong-doing and wrong-thinking of those times, but this did not prevent them from molding and shaping a constitution and a government and a democracy which was eventually (albiet very slowly) capable of defending and preserving equality and basic human rights.
And things are not perfect yet in USA with regard to races, or genders, or issues regarding forms of discrimination, but there IS some light at the end of the tunnel.
You know, speaking of differences between peoples, whether ethnic or biological, I am reminded of a fascinating example on a public television documentary. It concerns two girls born SHARING ONLY ONE BODY. The second girls head grows out of the shoulder. They share the same organs,
Think of how this bizarre example of two brains with one body throws a monkey wrench into traditional religions concept of baptism, marriage, etc.
Does one immerse their shared body TWICE, once for each soul? Certain forms of Christianity forbid a second baptism. And suppose one desires marriage, but the other takes a vow of celibacy. Im sure you see my point about all the sticky wickets that arise.
Obviously God (whether you call that Krsna or Alla or Jesus or Yahweh), has allowed a two headed child to be born and survive. Yet religions, which are supposedly from God, have no provision to deal with such a possibility.
Which tells us something right there about the "man made" nature of religion.
Suppose one head became Muslim, but the other wanted to chant Hare Krsna. If the Muslim brain wanted to go on Hadj, would the Hare Krsna brain be allowed into Mecca (wearing Tilak)!
Why do people post caste as part of their marriage advertisement?
I lived for years on the East Coast of USA in one of the largest centers for Italian immigration. Hence it had a very large Italian American population. It also had a large Polish American population. Italians and Pole are both considered "caucasian" and they are both Roman Catholic Christians. Yet you should see some of the hard feelings that often arise if a Polish girl marries an Italian boy (or vice versa)! Same religion, same race, yet for some reason Italian parents want their boy to find "a nice Italian girl", and Polish parent want their girl to marry "a nice Polish boy".
Right or wrong, such feelings and prejudices are deeply ingrained in human nature.
If one really wants to think of weird possibilities
We know that relics exist which are very possibly genuine (such as a tooth of the Buddha), or the Shroud of Turin with Jesus blood.
Let us imagine that scientists succed in isolating some actual DNA from Jesus, Buddha and Muhammad (they discover Muhammads tooth somewhere in the Kaaba).
So, Jurassic Park style, the scientist begin to clone actual Buddhas, Jesuses and Muhammads.
How will the respective religions deal with these cloned individuals.
Are they the actual Christs/Prophets/Avatars?
My example sounds very far fetched, but we now know that such a thing is theoretically possible.
The point I am trying to make is, how well does any religion hold up over the centuries, if it is not willing to adapt, whether that adaption be to Evolution, Relativity, Genetic engineering, etc etc.
I also found the following quote, attributed to Ghengis Khan, but I have no way of knowing whether it is authentic.
The greatest joy a man could have is victory; to conquer one's enemies armies, to pursue them, to deprive them of their possessions, to reduce their famillies to tears, to ride their horses, and to make love their wives and daughters. - Ghengis Khan
An irony just struck me. The conquest and brutality of Ghenghis Khan's pillage and plunder makes one think of Islam. Yet his descendent, Kubla Khan chooses Buddhism as the official religion of China.
Conversely, a simple, powerless tradesperson/merchant like Muhammad is attracted to the opposite extreme of war/violence.
Mankind is forever attracted to the opposite.
Kublai Khan was a grandson of Genghis Khan and he became emperor of China (1279--94), the first foreigner ever to rule China.
He was elected khan over the Mongols in 1260. A brilliant general and statesman, Kublai Khan conquered China and became the founder of the Yuan dynasty. He was able to rule a vast empire by adapting Chinese traditions to his government. An energetic prince, he suppressed his rivals, encouraged men of letters, and made Buddhism the state religion. He established himself at Cambaluc (modern Beijing); the splendour of his court was legendary and he became famous in the West because of the writings of Marco Polo who visited his courtin 1271.
Here is a story my grandfather told me when I was a kid. It may be from one of the Upanishads, or from Kathasagara or may just be a folk tale. But it has remained with me through my life:
Once upon a time there lived a poor old man in a village. He had just one son whom he wanted to educate and make a learned man. So one day he called his son, gave him the money that he had saved, and told him to go to Kashi and learn from a guru. The son went. A few years passed. One day the son came back for a visit. The father was very happy. After they were alone, he asked his son "Tell me, my son, what did you learn in Kashi?" The son told him that he had learnt many vidyas, proudly telling his father about all the things he had learnt. The father then asked whether he had understood everything and had any confusions. The son told he had understood everything and had no confusions. The father became very thoughtful. After some time he told "Son, I dont think you have really learnt anything. Of course you have memorized many things, but your learning process has not started yet. Go back and continue your education." The son was sad, and after a few days he went back. Again, many years passed...
When the son returned next time, the father asked the same question again. The son became a little perplexed. He told he was not sure. More he learnt less he seemed to know. The answers his guru gave to his questions he could not fully understand. It was all so confusing. The father told him not to be discouraged, go back and keep learning.
When the son returned for a third time, after an interval longer than the previous ones, he was really disturbed. He told his father he had learnt everything his guru had to teach him, understood every answer his guru gave and still he was no closer to the truth than before. Every answer seemed to lead to a thousand new questions. There was so much to know.... so many confusions to clear.. so little time...
His father smiled, embraced him, and told "Son, you are a learned man now. Probably you dont even need a guru now. This jijnasa, the hunger for knowledge, and the lack of ahankar, which gives rise to fixed ideas, is what makes a person learned. I dont have to direct you any more. You are on your own. Be here and live a grihastha life if you want, go and learn some more if you want... I am satisfied."
Whenever I think I know a lot, whenever ahankar raises its head in me, I remember the story.
Even Gandhi fell short of his own personal notion that ahimsa or nonviolence is the highest form of dharma or righteousness because, the greatest act for Gandhi would have been to submit to British rule.
If the non-Islamic world were truly non-violent in the highest degree, then they would convert to Islam and sacrifice their own personal ideologies, simply for the sake of peace and harmony.
We all know full well, that if the entire world converted to Islam tomorrow, there would still be war and violence and terrorism.
These are "thought experiments"
Einstein used thought experiments with great success.
Human bones dating from 11,000 years ago were discovered to have healed injuries which could have only resulted from combat with other humans.
It was the discovery of those 11,000 year bones, with healed injuries from battle, which demonstrates conclusively that man was violent to man from the dawn of history, and that it was not a learned behavior from some more recent age.
Gandhi wrote an article against the formation of the state of Israel, arguing that Jews could be Jews anywhere in the world, in the Diaspora. Yet, Gandhi struggled for independence from Britain.
Gandhi was born and raised Hindu, but seriously considered Christianity while studying in England.
In his autobiography, Gandhi explains that he rejected Christianity because he saw Christians casually sinning, and explaining that they were constantly washed clean by Christ's atonement.
Gandhi explained that he did not wish simply to escape the consequences of his sins, but desired to extinguish sin at its very source, if possible.
Perhaps the most distinguishing fundamental difference between "western" Abrahamic religions and "eastern" religions, is the western notion that sin is inevitable, and only forgiveness and redemption and absolution may be hoped for, versus the Hindu/Jain/Buddhist concept of the possibility of extinguishing sin or evil entirely.
In honor of Gandhi's birthday, Einstein wrote a tribute to Gandhi which ended: "Centuries from now, people will read of this man and scarcely believe that such a person actually walked the earth in the flesh"
The philosophy of nihilism aims to dissect and dissolve all claims of objective truth by unmasking the hidden values, the will to power beneath all such claims.
All thought that pretends to discover truth is but an expression of the will to power- even to dominate- of those making the truth-claims over those who are being addressed by them.
Nihilistic thought seeks to show that metaphysical `truths' simply express the subjective values of a given individual or social group, not the immutable, unchanging essence of either the divine, human or natural world
Nihilism is the belief that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated.
The term "nihilism" only became popular after its appearance in Ivan Turgenev's novel Fathers and Sons (1862) where he used "nihilism" to describe the crude scientism espoused by his character Bazarov who preaches a creed of total negation.
By rejecting man's spiritual essence in favor of a solely materialistic one, nihilists denounced God and religious authority as antithetical to freedom.
The earliest philosophical positions associated with what could be characterized as a nihilistic outlook are those of the Skeptics.
Existential nihilism is the notion that life has no intrinsic meaning or value, and it is, no doubt, the most commonly used and understood sense of the word today.
Existence is an endless "war of each against all."
Consider this. For Nietzsche, there is no objective order or structure in the world except what we give it but, think of "tohu va bohu" in Genesis.... and God imposing order
So, existential man is like God imposing order upon that which has no meaning
Tohu va bohu is darkness and void.
Nihilism literally has only one truth to declare, namely, that ultimately Nothingness prevails and the world is meaningless.
Empedocles' observed that "the life of mortals is so mean a thing as to be virtually un-life.
For existentialists, nothingness is the source of not only absolute freedom but also existential horror and emotional anguish
In Camus' "The Stranger", the protagonist discovers that life alone is reason enough for living.
What is the terrible price that we must pay to work through nihilism.
what is the terrible price which humanity must pay for its freedom?
If we survived the process of destroying all interpretations of the world we see only occasional sparks amidst an utter, palpable darkness. Even the desire to destroy all ideals is itself an idealistic desire.
Lonliness creates consciousness in the midst of chaos so that it may crucify itself upon the meaningless and absurd and achieve salvation.
There are many kinds of eyes. Even the Sphinx has eyes-and therefore there are many kinds of 'truths,' and therefore there is no Truth.
Heidegger was keen on Holderlin's phrase - "where danger is, grows also that which saves".
Man is the gatekeeper who stares into the abyss and must make something of it. By its power he can forget himself or deliver the words of power that keep the light of truth flickering in the world.
Man is the peculiar being with respect to whom Being unveils and discloses. He stands out in order to be where Being unveils.
Abraham Hirschel (author of "The Prophets") said "We must learn to understand what we see, rather than only see what we understan.d"
Our problem is not to discover consciousness, our problem is to escape it. Escaping the ravages of consciousness we must do our share of suffering before we may escape suffering.
Buddha was a renunciate, Jesus submitted to crucifixion, Socrates willingly drank hemlock: one does not see many pearls of wisdom dropping from the lips of giggling comedians.
Are people like Johnny Carson, or The Three Stooges, or Laurel & Hardy, or the Marx Brothers, truly jolly and happy and blissful in their real lives? Is such mirthful, laughing happiness a natural or artificial state of being?
Why do we choose to continue to exist, even struggle to exist? Why is it disgraceful to end ones life? Is duty involved somewhere in all this?
Is it collective, cumulative inertia of survival behavior?
Duty as a strong habit?
In an odd way, mortality is a survival advantage.
In Ham's Histology (a textbook from the 1960's), generation after generation of mice had their haemopoetic marrow tissue destroyed by radiation, and received a transplant of the same strain of tissue received by the previous generation
In theory, that culture of haemopoetic tissue should be immortal, but in practice, it was not, it became weak (exhibited its mortality.)
Here is why I think the property of immortality is a survival disadvantage for the species. That strain of haemopoetic tissue weakened because it was perpetuated asexually, with no chance for change, modification, evolution.
In theory, there is no reason why a strain of cells could not be asexually immortal (in fact, the hela cell cultures are one example), BUT, from an evolutionary point of view, that very immortality is a survival disadvantage, since it does not permit change and adaptation
Why cant we all just get along. Live and let live. As mommy said, "Play nicely."
Robert Moses, who constructed all the highways in the 1950s, at the beginning of his career, he sought power for the sake of implementing certain projects.....by the end of his career he was choosing projects because of the power he would gain from them... he had become corrupted by power, and sense of self, or illusion of self, drunk with his own self importance, he lost sight of the common good... such is one lesson from recent history
This part is fascinating, where an Epistle alludes to the difficulty of scriptural interpretation.
In 2 Peter 3:16 the author of this Epistle cites St. Paul but then notes:
In them [Paul's letters] there are some things hard to understand that the ignorant and unstable distort to their own destruction, just as they do the other scriptures.
In the Gospels, in a dispute with Jesus, the Sadducees cite a situation in which 7 brothers each took the same woman to wife, in succession,.... so whose wife would she be in the resurrection they objected, since all seven brothers were married to her, in succession
Christ answered that they would be like the angels, genderless, neither marrying nor being given in marriage...
There is the possibility to see God as transcending gender. But there are other passages in Bible where God is described with feminine qualities.
"The song of Moses", in Deuteronomy, is sung prior to Moses death on Mt. Nebo. The song of Moses is again sung in heaven along with the song of the Lamb in the book of Revelation.
Deut. 32:11 As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings, So the Lord alone did lead him, ... (a female image of God)
Bertrand Russel (in "Why I am not a Christian") wrote: If God is omnipresent, He must be present in the heart of Satan. If Satan has God in his heart, then Satan cannot be all bad. But if God IS NOT present in Satan's heart, then that is one place where God is not, and hence, God is NOT omnipresent."
Elephants have been observed to react to the remains of dead elephants, almost as if they are conscious of the implications of death, and as if they are reverent of the relics.
Eliminating the ideology will never eliminate that underlying destructive, vindictive urge to ruin and torment others.
Already, we find ourselves poised precariously on the threshold of a new technology of cloning and genetic alteration and artificial intelligence which in theory might produce a human species (or a species of machines) which possessed only virtues, and no vices.
Did it every occur to anyone that PARADISE, earthly paradise, IS ALREADY within the grasp of mankind?? whatever do I mean by this strange statement??
I mean, very simply, this: If all 6 billion humans united and worked in harmony, this very moment, and through self-control, abstinance, whatever means (birth control, masturbation...whatever), if their goal was to reduce the world population to ONE BILLION over the next 200 years SIMPLY by limiting reproduction, then in a short 200 years the earths population would be at a reasonable stable level from an environmental point of view.
Now what do I mean by "earthly paradise is in our grasp" I MEAN THAT, AFTER THE EARTH HAD RETURNED TO THE ONE BILLION population level, over the next 200 years, then technology, science, medicine, and a united world democracy, would make EVERYONE independently wealthy, and disease free.
It is very obvious to us , even now that computers and robots and modern technology makes possible a level of production (food and other materials) which does not require such a work force as in previous centuries... and CERTAINLY DOES NOT require the slave labor which was employed so many times in history.
Humanity has it totally within their power, in theory, to choose, to elect, to transform human life into a paradise of wealth for all, free of disease.
But our own selfishness and greed, and our racial and ethinic prejudices and nationalistic pride, will perhaps never allow us to co-operate with one another, and to practice the personal asceticism and self denial, to achieve such an end.
But even if humanity COULD manage to unite and discipline to create such a UTOPIAN WORLD.... what would those people do with all their free time, their leisure, their perfect health and incredible life spans extended by genetic engineering and artificial organ transplants?
Would they write poetry and create works of art, recite prayers and debate theology? Or would they have too much sex, drink and smoke too much, and become bored and depressed??
Some say that the laws of physics breakdown as one approached closer and closer to the first moment of the big bang.
More precisely, they cannot break down, for they have yet to be.
The unanswerable question is the unmoved mover of the soul.
How long does original thought stay original before it stales and becomes commonplace?
Wittgenstein pointed out that since everyone does not speak their own unique language (which would be necessary to be truly original) therefore (and i forget the precise conclusion which he draws
Never argue with a fool, if you loose , you loose, and if you win, you still loose (because fools never understand that they have lost)
The idea of a private language was made famous in philosophy by Ludwig Wittgenstein, who in section 243 of his book Philosophical Investigations explains it thus: ‘The words of this language are to refer to what can be known only to the speaker; to his immediate, private, sensations. So another cannot understand the language.’ This is not intended to cover (easily imaginable) cases of recording one's experiences in a personal code, for such a code, however obscure in fact, could in principle be deciphered. What Wittgenstein had in mind is a language conceived as necessarily comprehensible only to its single originator because the things which define its vocabulary are necessarily inaccessible to others.
Immediately after introducing the idea, Wittgenstein goes on to argue that there cannot be such a language.
Why is it that an experience is not truly "our" until we share it with others and they recognize it? Even those people who find what I wrote foolish, demonstrate an obvious compulsion to share their observation with others, to gain the agreement of others.
Wittgenstein's discussion of private language has been perhaps the most controversial part of his philosophy. The few pages dealing with this subject (PI 243-315) have been pored-over, analyzed and re-analyzed so much that many are simply tired of the subject. Yet it remains the central argument of Wittgenstein's philosophy, the place where his attack on Cartesianism is most strongly focused. And it is certainly the case that Wittgenstein's philosophy will not carry the day without this argument (Finch, H. Le Roy. Wittgenstein - The Later Philosophy, 127).
In the cases in which 'I' is used as subject, we don't use it because we recognize a particular person by his bodily characteristics; and this creates the illusion that we use this word to refer to something bodiless, which, however, has its seat in our body. In fact this seems to be the real ego, the one of which it was said, "Cogito, ergo sum" (The Blue Book, 69).
Words are pointers, or better yet, wands, magic wands. We point at something with a word and it springs into being in our imagination.
I can know what someone else is thinking, not what I am thinking. It is correct to say "I know what you are thinking", and wrong to say "I know what I am thinking." (A whole cloud of philosophy condensed into a drop of grammar.) (Ibid., II, xi, 222).
Charles Stanley is on the radio right now, saying "personal savior" for the umptieth time. What in the world might it mean to say "impersonal savior?"
I suppose if I were to save a jar of ants from a fire, I would be their "impersonal savior", since I saved them as a group, but did not know them individually, and pick and choose, like wheat and tares or lambs and goats.
To this it may be protested: If I ascribe psychological predicates to others exclusively on the basis of criterial evidence, and require no such evidence at all to self-ascribe them, surely this means that I have I kind of knowledge of my own mental states and operations which is denied to everyone else? Wittgenstein's response is carefully measured and very clear:
I can know what someone else is thinking, not what I am thinking. It is correct to say "I know what you are thinking", and wrong to say "I know what I am thinking." (A whole cloud of philosophy condensed into a drop of grammar.)
To say that I self-ascribe my thoughts or sensations without either the possibility or need for the kind of criterial evidence which others need to ascribe thoughts or sensations to me is not to say that I alone know my thoughts and sensations, or that I have a privileged access to them which is denied to others. On the contrary, precisely because my expressions in language of my thoughts and sensations are not based upon behavioural or any other criteria, it is meaningless to talk about my 'knowing' them. For clearly 'know' here means 'doubt does not make sense', and there can be knowledge only where doubt is also possible.
Wittgenstein's disdain for psychological dualism - he speaks disparagingly of 'the conception of thought as a gaseous medium', and of the dualistic view of mental processes as a 'hocus-pocus which can be performed only by the soul.'
Clouds, drops, gas? I am made to think of something from Dionysius' the Areopagite or from "the Cloud of Unknowing."
The ability to change and modify and adapt and evolve seems to be a very important aspect of many things. Nebula clouds evolve suns and solarsystems. Biological life evolves, adapts. Language and culture and law and government evolve, change, adapt. That which is alive changes, and that which changes is alive. That which is frozen in a particular century and unalterable (such as certain fundamentalist religions) is not alive but dead and deadening.
Plato in his dialogue "Timaeus" throws "becoming" into the mix, as a mediator between non-being and being.
The problem is not finding the perfect government/constitution/political philosophy. The problem is people, getting them to agree with and abide by anything. Even if you went to another planet with 1 million babies, and raised them in your "designer society", sooner or later, a rebel-revol.utionary-freethinker-reformer would be born and try to change things.
It is the constitution of the human spirit which makes utopian constitutions an ideal only, and never an actualized reality.
I have been considering something lately, related to humanity's inability to reach universal consensus in philosophy, theology, politics/government.... as related to the obvious survival advantage inherent in a genetic tendency towards diversity/uniqueness, so that some might be shoemakers, others soldiers, others scholars, others politicians, each happy in their ecological niche of specialization.
We might have evolved as a species capable of high agreement with one another, but that would have been a survival disadvantage.
If what I have said is the case, then that aspect of humanity has every bearing in the world on philosophy.
If everyone saw things the same way, then everyone would want to be a philosophy professor (or movie star) or president.... there would be no diversity... no one to live on mountain tops, no one at the polar circle, no one in the Amazon rain forests.... the diversity which was key to species survival makes unanimous agreement difficult or impossible.
"why?" is a dangerous question, a weapon sometimes,.... when children inevitably usher "why?" into their vocabulary it is insubordination inchoate.
More dangerous than the unanswered question is the unquestioned answer.
My notion is that intuition and induction have their place (necessary, but not >sufficient), but the underlying nature of physical reality is not intuitively >obvious, nor may it be reached solely by inductive means
I think of the imaginative faculty of the human mind as a kaleidoscope, constantly churning, changing (almost by chance) , (and how interesting it is that a similar image of "the churning of the oceans" is given in the vedas as the process by which nectar is produced)
Such a kaleidoscopic churning may produce many mathematical models (model theory), but then by an arduous process, we apply those random productions of imagination to reality, until one day someone stumbles upon a "match" between model and noumena, like archimedes in the tub, shouts Eureka, and runs naked through the streets
For years, people called "imaginary numbers" imaginary precisely because it was felt they had no reality or analog, but now they are indespensable in treating such phenomena as radio waves
Yet, the products of imagination are a part of reality.
The laws of physics and chemistry do not predict rabbits, but the existence of rabbits in no way defies the laws of physics. If you wanted to learn to play poker, would you study probability and statistics?
Obviously, gambling and gamblers came first, and then the mathematicians like pascal turned their attention to it
The universe will continue after our sun supernovas in 8 billion years, and humankind are extinct, and this 8 billion year from now doomsday, is something which we could be addressing, to preserve culture and knowledge, but no one is concerned, because it seems so remote.
There IS no causal connection, i suspect, between the laws of reality, and the activities and products of human imagination, and yet imagination (and the imaginary) is our source for this kalaidescope of models which we heave at reality in a hit or miss fashion.
In a certain sense, imagination is the threshhold of Being.
Wallace Steven's Essays, "The Necessary Angel," are important to the understanding of imagination.
In Plato's Republic, the analogy about the chariot and the four horses, the horses are imagination, the reins are intuition, and the road is the truth of noumenal being.
But Nous, or Mind, the charioteer, is a gestalt of everything, the horses the reins, the road,... and an illusion of sorts, I suspect
If the contest of debate and rebuttal were a productive activity, then it would produce results; i.e. mankind would have arrived at some unanimous agreement on key issues during the past several millenia of dialog. yet it seems to me that there is no unanimous agreement on anything which is nontrivial.
Aristotle spoke of "anangke" (necessity), which is a sort of morality, but an inescapable one, since we do not have the option to elect otherwise
Consider the "morality/ethics" of the surface area of a growing sphere in relation to its volume... (which is like a growing cell), as the surface area increases by a function of the square of the radius, the volume is increasing by a function of a CUBE of the radius.. and in organisms, cells, surface area is "prime realestate" for metabolism, hence the ananke (necessity) that one cannot have a cell the size of philadelphia (or a monster that devours cleveland)
The devil is in the details, as they say. Kissenger said "nothing clears the mind more quickly than a total lack of alternatives"
It is when we are faced with choices, free will, alternatives (the devil in the details), that ethical issues arise, it seems to me
Sexual morality would have no meaning until the point in time when organisms evolve with a sexual form of reproduction... yet religions seek some "absolute" morality regarding sexuality
An old saying in India: a saint can see saintliness in even the worsT of sinners, while a sinner can find sinfulness even in the holiest of saints.
Another saying from India: when a pick-pocket meets a saint, all he sees are pockets.
Einstein said (tongue in cheek): "we must simplify as much as possible, but no further."
I was thinking this morning about the place of gratitude in philosophy. Is there something philosophical about the feeling of gratitude? The question is interesting in the situation of an atheist who feels gratitude, in the sense of "grateful to whom or what." We may feel gratitude towards a teacher. We may feel gratitude towards random chance and circumstance. There is much discussion in recent times regarding "chaos", an extreme form of randomness which yet always seems to harbour order.
May we feel gratitude for chaos? May we feel gratitude towards chaos? It seems to me that an essential question is: "If there is gratitude at all, then gratitude towards what or whom, and why?"
A definition is (by DEFINITION) a form of order (i.e. how might one RECOGNIZE chaos, define chaos), so we are striving to define that which in essence should be undefinable.
Class, our assignment this week is to reduce all of chaos to one equation which expresses all things.
Milton, in paradise lost, had his character, Satan, say "Evil, be thou my good."
We impose meaning on our world, we find meaning, meaning does not find us.
The value of a sign is not the sign itself, or its shape, material, calligraphy, height, shape. No, the value of a sign is in WHERE it points, and WHAT it points to. signs direct. The value lies also in WHOM it directs (who sees it.)
The "sin" of chaos is order.
The "sin" of order is chaos.
Are there signs in chaos, and if so, where do they point?
Does beauty exist, and in what sense to such abstractions exist (outside of the mind, or inside the mind?) My point being, if God is only an idea, yet, to the degree that ideas exist, ergo god exists (hence there is a sense in which god exists, and a sense in which god does not, just as dinosaurs, and there is also a sense in which the question "does god exist" is a poorly framed question.)
We speak of atoms and molecules as existent, and we know that the dinosaurs existed prior to extinction (as well as dodos and many other extinct species). Now, if a dinosaur or dodo is thought of as a pattern of atoms/molecules which repeat, then, in some sense, dinosaurs still exist in potentiality as a pattern, but that pattern has now ceased to repeat.
Analogously, ideas exist as patterns in the biochemistry of minds, and like memes, repeat, modify, (democracy, communism, all the various isms and ideologies).
I am afraid that not only do we not agree, but we do not speak the same language, in the sense that we do not understand the same things in the same way. I cannot honestly say that I have seen anything of yours to which I can agree, and when you say "we agree" you are presuming to speak for me.
Why is it important to you that I (or anyone else) agree with you? What does that agreement or consensus really buy us (in the long run?) If you were a kindergarten teacher, or a therapist with a class of downs syndrome patients, would you seek their agreement? Would you be likely to get it, and if you got it, would it really prove anything?
For that matter, let us suppose that you possessed "the truth", why would it be important for you to convince others of it, (and how practical would that evangelical endeavor be), and if you WERE successful in convincing a majority of that truth, how would it benefit them or change them or transform them (or you)?
Suppose it were the case that the arguments of Thrasymachus in Plato's Republic turned out to be the truth, or suppose it was the truth that "gain is good," or suppose that Alyosha's brother Ivan (who argues that nothing matters in what we do) were the truth... how might that make the world a better place?
You are presuming that truth equates to goodness ipso facto,.... I think you should endeavor to proof that before proceeding come to think of it, it occurs to me that whenever the majority of a population has been ardently convinced of a truth, it has resulted in things like the Spanish Inquisition, the Iron Curtain, the Holocaust, the Crusades, Slavery, etc... (not in all cases... but.. many cases) whereas, those who are more laid back and less obsessed with the truth (i.e. people who say something like truth is one but the paths are many....) ... such people seem to cause fewer inquisitions and holocausts.
If you were offered the opportunity to suffer and die for the sake of truth (but you were guaranteed that your sacrifice would make truth available to all human posterity) would you elect to make that sacrifice?
How valuable is truth? What price should we be willing to pay so that not simple we personally possess it, but so that all might possess it? Does truth have a value?
Whenever we are so excessively attached to our own opinions or agenda, that we refuse to consider facts, and struggle to twist and contort in every way imaginable to maintain our agenda, then we are in an unsuitable condition for open minded inquire (and the possibility of seeing something new and unexpected) when our only tool is a hammer, then every problem becomes for us a nail?
Infinity can be quite useful in mathematics.
Aristotle (and many others, including mathematicians) do speak of an infinite regress as abhorrent, which is why mathematical axiomatic systems are finite in the definitions and axioms and postulates.... yet no one ever really satisfactorily explains why an infinite regression is bad other than the fact that it is inconvenient.
Absolutes seem to be an ideal which is always inchoate in its evasion of existence>
Analogously, ideas exist as patterns in the biochemistry of minds, and like memes, repeat, modify, (democracy, communism, all the various isms and ideologies).
My point is, if dinosaurs existed as a particular pattern of atoms, but now no longer exist, but, god continues to exist as a pattern in the mind (albeit also subject to future extinction, say when the sun supernovas and humans are extinct.)
Purpose to me implies lack (something which is not, but needed), and hence imperfection... so that which admits of purpose or exists as a means to an end in some sense exists precisely because of imperfection/lack/want/desire/intention.
We may admire someone who never drinks alcohol as being temperate, but we do not even thing about the matter of someone who abstains from drinking sewage, since no one desire to drink sewage. If one DID drink sewage, then it would probably be an immoral act, endangering ones own health, and possibly the health of others. But we do not consider the abstention from sewage a meaningful virtue.
In the past century, we have discovered a new physics of Quantum and relativity which literally boggles the mind; something which (as Einstein said) one could never arrive at inductively. Is it conceivable that we would ever make an analogously mind-boggling discovery in morality, a new and different way of seeing things which was hitherto unfathomable, but more accurately represents the underlying nature of moral/ethical reality?
Ancient religions speak of God creating the universe. But if it is really the case that the universe evolves God, then how is that really any different, since both systems present the same problem of how the prior entity originates and now that the ontogeny is complete, and God and universe both coexist, what difference does the sequence of events make?
Everyone thinks, but only a minority "thinks about thinking," and is it meaningful to speak of someone who "thinks about 'thinking about thinking'"?
If there was a drug such that one dose was lethal, but such that it created the illusion (in the mind of the dying person) of an infinitely long blissful existence, then what might one say about a person who elected to take such a drug?
Methodical widespread vows of celibacy would result in the nonbirth and nonexistence of countless lives. Is that good or evil? The very first commandment (injunction or mitzvah) of Genesis is "be fruitful and multiply." How does this reflect upon the ethics of celibacy, and how should we view such an injunction in a world dying of overpopulation?
When Hudson's ships first entered "Hudson Bay," and went ashore they met one lone Native American Indian, and gave him some mirrors and trinkets. The Indian made signs to indicate that they should wait until he returned the next day. The next day the Indian returned with several beaver pelts. He placed each belt upon the ground, and laid one trinket upon each pelt. Then he took back the trinkets and gave the pelts to the Europeans (he purchased the trinkets) this was the Indian's honesty (morality).
Deeds and actions (and way of life) speak louder than words.
Purity is to pass through all, experience all, become all, yet cling to nothing, and remain untainted.
When we dwell as pedestrians in a land, we behold the scenery from the most intimate detail and perspective, but that very closeness and intimacy in perspective prevents us from seeing symmetry, intention and design on a grander scale, bearing profounder implications. If we ascend to a mountain peak, we lose discernment of much of the finer details, but we can begin to recognize the "lay of the land" and its geography. From an orbiting space station, we can perceive global structure. And from vantage point of another galaxy, we may comprehend cosmic design.
John 19:28 After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, saith, "I thirst".
How many times in our lives might we read this verse, and pass it by, not seeing the entire world hidden in two words?
A world hidden in a word is a pearl hidden in a field.
Hidden, amidst all the other verses of the Gospels, "out of context", is something which opens up a whole world in the mind.
In a certain way, the very nature of our thought processes, is a non- sequitur. Hence, structure and form in writing is, in a sense, illusion, or maya. But we come to think of that ordered "structure" as the nature of reality.
Regarding the "I Thirst" of Mother Theresa, Jalaluddin Rumi once said, "Do not seek water, for water is EVERYWHERE! Seek THIRST!" For without the THIRST the water is of no value to you.
We trade fantasies and call it free-will.
We constantly pay lip-service to the "search for Truth", yet whatever we find and capture, we brand and call our own.
If "truth" is "out there", then why shouldn't "thoughts" be "out there" also, not "ours", but overheard?
Perhaps all Being springs from consciousness and imagination. Perhaps we are judged not by our life in this world, but by the worlds we create. Perhaps we judge and consign ourselves to heaven or hell through our own omnipotence.
May I be happy, if my white corpuscles suffer? May a nation be happy if a citizen suffers?
When is self-sacrifice a duty, and when is it freely given?
Is that which is done out of duty a virtue, or may we only say that evasion of duty is a lack of virtue?
To sacrifice means, literally, to make sacred: sacri + ficere.
Altruism is a form of self-sacrifice.
But what of the line from the Gita: I am both the sacrificer and the sacrificed?
Duty is within context, remove context, duty changes or vanishes
A parent has a duty to an infant, but when the infant and parent become elderly. The duty reverses.
Life depends upon negative entropy.
Entropy is disorder, chaos.
Laws and rules keep chaos at bay.
People are so uncomfortable with chaos, in fact, that Newtonian science as interpreted by Laplace and others saw the underlying reality of the world as deterministic. If you knew the initial conditions you could predict the future far in advance. With a steady hand and the right cue tip, you could run the table in pool. Then came Quantum mechanics, with uncertainty and indeterminism, which even Einstein refused to accept, saying "God doesn't play dice." Philosophically, Einstein couldn't believe in a universe with a sense of whimsy. He was afraid of the threatened return of chaos, preferring to believe for every effect there was a cause. A consequence of this was the notion that if you could control the cause, you could control the effect.
The modern proponents of law and order don't stop with the assertion that for every effect, there is a cause. And they also assert they "know" the cause. We see this attitude reflected by social problem solvers, who proclaimed: "The cause of famine in Ethiopia is lack of food in Ethiopia." So we had rock crusades to feed the starving Ethiopians and ignored the role of the Ethiopian government. Other asserted: "The case of drug abuse is the presence of drugs," so they enacted a war on certain drugs which drove up their price, drove up the profit margins available to those who dealt in prohibited drugs, and created a criminal subclass who benefited from the prohibition. Psychologists assert: "The reason this person is this way is because such-and-such happened in childhood, with parents, or siblings, or whatever." So any evidence of abuse, trauma, or childhood molestation--which over time should assume a trivial role in one's life--are given infinite power by the financial needs of the psychotherapy business.
Where is "chaos" in the first moment of the "big bang", where are the laws and order of physics in that first "moment", where is time-space?
We may speak of the truth of how things might necessarily be IF there were such a thing as a point, line, plane, triangle, with such and such properties given.
Truth may exist, as a relationship, in the ideal, in the imagined, in the abstract.
Truth is linguistic and grammatical in nature, a predication, a statement, true in a given context.
The axiomatic nature of truth is such that truth dwells in the context of some system of assumptions.
Wittgenstein argues that since there can be no private language, and it is within the context of language that we have ideas/understanding, therefore there can be nothing truly subjective.
The identity of waves: a tsunami wave can destroy a town; but what is the wave itself, where does it come from, where does it go to? What is the relationship between the wave, and a water molecule in it, and the moon? What is the being of the wave itself? What are we pointing to and denoting with the word "wave". When a wave travels hundreds of miles, what is it that actually travels?
I am what I am without trying, simply thinking out loud, repeating what I have already thought.
Thoughts come, thoughts go, waves come, waves go, thoughts resemble waves, waves resemble thoughts.
We must each find our own answers, for them to be meaningful.
We speak of a body of water, of a body of people, and of a body Politic.
The body of water exhibits motion, waves, ripples, patterns.
A body of people, in conversation, represents motion, patterns, currents, ripples, waves.
We find order in chaos.
Hobbes writes: "Naturally every man has a right to every thing." Not only are you free to do what you want, but you have the right to do it.
You have total freedom -- assuming of course that there's no one around to argue that your freedom is impinging on their freedom.
The total freedom of individuals impinging upon one another, conflicting, result in tension, power struggles, laws, moral issues.
The freedom of molecules of water in random motion, impinging upon one another, the interplay of gravity, mass, inertia, the moon, create waves, direction, force, tsunami.
A body politic, a body of water: what is a wave, what is democracy or liberty? Show them to me in isolation. Yet the tsunami is real and powerful, demonstrable, palpable, photographable.
Nietzsche was right in claiming that metaphor has a central role to play in the way we make sense of the world.
Consider the verb 'run', which in its most basic sense it designates a human (and animal) activity involving legs.
But through metaphorical extension it comes to be applied to objects which lie outside its basic reference class, such as rivers.
Rivers cannot run: they have no legs.
When we speak of fences 'running' around a boundary there is no suggestion of motion.
Noses also run.
Running has acquired the sense of following a path.
We run up a bill.
When we feel tired and sick, we are run down.
Metaphorical extension in this way, starting from the modest beginnings of describing macroscopic objects and simple activities, forges and reshapes concepts and thereby modifies language so that it comes to embrace an ever wider and more complicated repertoire of referents and activities in one sense, metaphors are typically literally false (rivers and noses do not run) yet there is some sense in which metaphors are not only not false, but can provide very valuable insights.
Allegories are metaphors writ large.
Synaesthetic metaphors are metaphors which cross sense modalities.
We describe someone's voice as 'cold.'
Wittgenstein describes metaphor as a ladder of cognitive ascent which can be kicked away after the vista it has exposed is revealed.
To say 'electricity is a fluid' helps us to understand it better. We can liken voltage to pressure and current to flow.
The chemist, Kekulé, in a dream, saw an image of a snake grasping its tail, which, upon waking, provided him with a metaphor which helped him to elucidate the ring structure of benzene.
Darwin may have been inspired with his theory of evolution by reading Adam Smith.
Smith proposed a model for providing the best economic arrangements for a society: the free market, which he explicated with the help of the metaphor of the 'invisible hand.'
Smith argued that if you simply allow everyone to selfishly pursue their own interests you will produce the best possible outcome of distribution of goods and services for all.
Markets (or ecosystems) left alone spontaneously ensure optimal economic arrangements.
There are many decent people in the world, but then there exceptional people who believe that to pluck a flower is to affect a distant star. Not only do they simply believe this and pay mere lip service to it, but they live their belief in their daily actions. They do not simply talk the talk; they walk the walk. Yet there are those who are not even inclined to pay lip-service and talk the talk.
The lowest degree of righteousness is the recognition and admission that one is unrighteous.
Another way of putting this is to say that there are those who at least admit that there is such a thing as righteousness, that it exists, while others deny the existence of righteousness. As Dostoevsky points out in his novel "Brothers Karamazov", if there is not God then all is permitted, concentration camps are permitted, cannibalism is permitted, torture is permitted, and, after all, why not, if nothing matters. Might makes right.
The recognition that there is such a thing as holiness, and that it is to be desired, is the beginning of holiness.
There are degrees of faith, degrees of glory, degrees of wisdom, degrees of wickedness. Almost everything and anything admits of degrees, which is why we have scales and balances and thermometers and rulers, and which is why educational institutions grade and rank and grant the degrees which we call diplomas.
Perfection is a process, not a quantum leap.
Sow a thought, reap an action; sow an action, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny.
Likewise, degeneration and depravity is a process, like Oscar Wilde’s “Portrait of Dorian Grey”, progressing from unpleasant, to revolting, and thence to a monstrous loathsome hideous abomination.
The moment to moment construction of consciousness itself is the product of data reduction - Robert Ornstein (paraphrased)
The reality (consciousness) which we construct (possibly in the alembic portion of the brain) IS a "perspective", which may fruitfully be compared with the ancient Jaina concept of "anekantavada" or "many-pointedness" (no-one-single-point-of-view.)
Consider in the Torah, where God says to Moses, "no one may see my face and live" with respect to the notion of going mad from "total awareness of all perspectives."
May I give you an interesting example which suddenly comes to mind from current events?....(a polite rhetorical question)
First, let us look at a personality like Gandhi, who stated that someone perfected in Ahimsa (non-violence) would willingly choose their own annihilation rather than engage in violence in self defense (paraphrased) (and by the way, I admire the Gandhi's of this world)
Consider the Bushes (and others of this world), who would advocate pre-emptive strikes to preserve Democracy and Human Rights (and I also admire the Bushes of this world)
Suppose someone SIMULTANEOUSLY, entertained, and agreed with, the Gandhi AND the Bush view-point?
The Gandhis and Bushes of this world are the products of data- reduction (for the sake of sanity)
In the Bhagavad-Gita, Krishna "subsumes" (in the Hegelian sense) BOTH the Gandhi and the Bush point of view
When I say "subsume", I am thinking of the Hegelian term "aufgehoben"
In a violent world of weapons (of mass destruction), one cannot preserve one's identity or rights without resorting to the violence of self-defense (as it seems to me)
Any action of self-defense goes against the grain of Ahimsa (non- violence)
By definition, any truly nonviolent religion will BY DEFINITION not assert itself ideologically (by proselytizing) or defend itself militarily (by "Jihad" or Crusade)
By such "definition", those ideologies or religions which "dominate", do so because they are aggressive, assertive, and violent....
A "doormat" ideology does not gain numerical majority.
I recently viewed a nature film which showed a species of bird which typically hatches two eggs, and then complacently stands by to see which chick will be "dominant", stealing nourishment from the weaker chick which dies a slow, miserable death
I am thinking of the Rabbi Abraham Heshchel, who wrote two volumes entitled "The Prophets", on the Old Testament Prophets.
The thrust of his two volumes was a very "catchy" motif of God's "pathos" and "ethos" becoming "one" (think of "pathos" as "feeling" and "ethos" as "ethics" or "law".)
There is one verse in the Psalms, "mercy and righteousness have kissed", which might symbolize this unification of law and compassion
In nature, as seen by Peter Singer, where do we see the union of ethos and pathos?
Someone like Peter Singer asserts that Nature is "amoral."
I have suddenly had an unusual insight.
I am thinking of the dialogue of Plato in which Socrates questions whether the SAME person might possibly be a master both of COMEDY and of TRAGEDY.
Thinking in regard to our original topic of "data reduction" and Kantian antinomies
The notion of Kierkegaard (and Sartre), that only in subjective works of art may we properly explore the nature of reality
Only through "art" may we subsume all antinomies, and express them at once (in an imitation of "reality"), whereas in explicit, expository, monovalent discourse, we are lead down only one "path" (data- reduction) of a "perspective."
The word "poet" derives from the ancient Greek "poiesis" (creation). The artist "imitates" the creator in the creation of his work of Art.
Some of you might greatly enjoy reading the non-fiction writings of George Luis Borge (available in hardcover), an Argentinian metaphysician who explores an entire gamut of philosophical thought in a unique fashion.
His famous short story "The Aleph", about a point in space (in the basement of an old house), from which one can see all events of time simultaneously.
The story curiously resembles the final pages of Hermann Hesse' "Siddhartha", where the disciple, Govinda, gazes into the face of the dying Siddhartha and sees "all things."
From a monistic vantage point, we have only our Self to talk to.
This adds to man's responsibleness. For in the face of the transitoriness of his life, he is responsible for using the passing opportunities to actualize potentialities, to realize values, whether creative, experiential, or attitudinal.
It dawns on me just now, that I have no words of my own.
I am an old parrot whose cage has been in some interesting parlors, and I repeat what I have heard many times before
Prabhupad (the founder of the Hare Krishna movement) often had visitors anxious to meet him, and some were surprised to find him reading his own books, saying "You wrote them, why do you study them?"
But he answered "my books are BETTER than I am", meaning that his writings are MORE him, than his own living person (since anyone's writings are a distillation over years.)
The world is possibly dying from overpopulation in a very slow, subtle fashion.
It took until 1830 for the world to reach a population of one billion, but by 1930 it had DOUBLED (in a brief 100 yrs) to two billion, and in LESS than 100 yrs it has now TRIPLED to six billion.
Happiness is a conscious choice.
It is not clear that absence of sorrow is equivalent to happiness (or joy)
I don't think that everyone who is unhappy is depressed in the medical sense of the word, (in fact I see that as another brand of popular rhetoric.)
I don't think that it is "natural" to be happy, and unnatural or an illness to be unhappy.
Buddhism teaches that everything is impermanent, temporary, subject to decay.
But is Nirvana itself permanent? Does a being that has attained Nirvana remain in Nirvana indefinitely?
If so, what makes Nirvana the one permanent state in an ever changing universe. If not, if Nirvana does not last, what is the point of attaining it?
If everything is "nothingness", then why does morality exist? If notions such as "life" and "death" are expressions of delusion, why should it then be "bad" to kill a living creature?
If my feeling of being an "I" is an illusion - does this mean I'm not utterly responsible for my actions? In other words, if I is an illusion, the no-self of anatman, then what is it which suffers or enjoys the fruits of karma, karmic consequences.
The best explanation of the relationship between karma, an-atman (no soul) and rebirth which I have ever seen is via the analogy to billiard balls. We see upon a pool table a group of balls racked up to form a triangle. It is natural for us to speak of "the triangle", even though we know that there is really no actual triangle, but only the illusion of a gestalt of separate objects which forms the "constellation" of a triangular shape. Remember that the illusion which we call "self" is actually a gestalt or bundle of "skandas". We may also, if we choose, liken the collection of billiard balls to a collection of "pixels" in a magazine or computer image. We see a "person" depicted in the image, possibly even the image of a beautiful model which might have a sexually arousing effect on the beholder. And yet, under a magnifying glass, we see that the arousing photo is merely a collection of dots or "pixels" of the primary colors (so that even shades of secondary colors is an "illusion").
Now, returning to the pool table analogy, let us say that someone takes their pool cue and strikes a billiard ball, sending it hurling towards the racked "triangle" with a certain spin, velocity and direction (and we may liken this event to the karmic consequences of an act, or we may liken the on-coming billiard ball to an individual whose "spin", "velocity" and "direction" is the karmic tone which they have established by their life-choices, their "personality" if you will). Now, the on-coming billiard ball strikes the triangular, racked gestalt of billiard balls, and send them flying in various directions with their own varying spins and velocities. Having struck the "triangle", the cue-ball eventually comes to rest. If we think of the individual cue-ball (white ball) as an individual "person" and the coming to rest as the death of that individual, we see that the karmic consequences of that individual have "set into motion" other "individuals" who bear the karmic nature wrought by the "deceased" individual, expressed as various spins, directions and velocities of the other billiard balls. In reality, there is no individual soul or atman which passes on in reincarnation. Yet, a similar gestalt of an individual (albeit illusory individual) and come into being, to repeat the karmic process.
Now, let us examine our billiard-ball-pool-table analogy with regard to the question of absolute vs relative morality as well as with regard to the question of the permanence or impermanence of Nirvana. In order to do this, I would like to refer to something which Sitaram has posted at various times with regard to the notion (expressed by Steven Hawking and others) of black holes in the universe as containing within (beyond the event horizon) other universes (Riemannian time-space continuums expanding from an initial "big bang" and subject to the laws of thermodynamics). These are difficult concepts (and Sitaram is barely equipped to comprehend and explain them, not being a mathematical physicist).
If we examine the black hole from our vantage point (and to my knowledge, no one has yet experimentally identified an actual black hole), it seems like an a finite thermodynamic endpoint, possibly the size of our moon, or possibly much smaller).
We know that the laws of thermodynamics predict a final state of maximum entropy (disorder) which is like a cold death of a universe (no more potential energy is left for events to happen). And yet, from a totally DIFFERENT perspective, BEYOND the event horizon of this black hole (inside it if you will), another big bang is taking place, and the history of the dead universe is repeating itself, with gaseous clouds condensing to stars, stars throwing off orbiting planets, and planets evolving life and consciousness and self- consciousness.
The "pool table" and the rules of the game are "conditional and transient" and yet are binding upon the billiard balls as their action plays itself out to its final conclusion. The "rules" and the design of the "table" are analogues to moral and ethical constraints and laws in our lives which may seem "absolute" (and perhaps in some sense are absolute in the context of our particular lifetime) and yet are relative and conditional and transient in the grand scheme of things.
It would also be helpful if the reader had some foundation in the writings of Hegel (in particular, "The Phenomenolgy of Spirit", which ends with the moving verse from Shiller "The chalice of this realm of spirits foams forth to God His own infinitude). I especially have in mind Hegel's concept of the "flower of philosophies" unfolding, which he describes as "a coming to be and a passing away which ITSELF does NOT come to be and pass away).
I invite the reader to try to see how the concept of Nirvana might be permanent from one aspect, and transitory from another. From the "outside" the black hole is an extinguished "nothing", and yet on the inside, it is teaming with the "samsara" of a new universe. In a similar fashion, the "rules of the game" of billiards are in one sense relative, conditional and transient, but in another sense absolute. I
Traditional Buddhism (in all its forms, and especially in its original, or classical, formulation) is based upon an analysis of conditional existence. And that analysis is associated with two key propositions. The first of these two key propositions is that the fundamental characteristic of conditional existence (or conditional being) is (inherently, and necessarily) that of suffering. And the second of these two key propositions is that suffering (and, therefore, conditional existence, or conditional being, itself) can be made to cease (or to become uncaused).
Conditional existence is always only conditionally existing (or existing only as a caused effect), no form or state of conditional existence is permanent (or eternally existing), and no conditionally existing thing or conditionally existing being substantively exists independently, or separately, or separably, or absolutely (as if it were not a caused and temporary and utterly dependently arising effect).
Traditional Buddhist Dharma is (in any of its forms) a philosophically proposed method for the elimination (or the uncausing) of desire.
It is the West's failure to understand duality, which leads to the folly of trying to eliminate evil, and have only good, eliminate poverty and have only wealth, or convert all people to one true faith, in one lifetime.
Abraham Heschel wrote, "We must learn to understand what we see, rather than to see only what we understand."
"A tool is only as good as your purpose. When all you have is a hammer, every problem tends to become a nail. - Abraham Maslow
Whant kind of book is this?
From whose perspective is it written?
It is its own genre. I call it a meta-novel at some times and an anti-novel at other times. There will be a novel embedded within it. It will have levels; conscious explicit which denotes, and a subconscious implicit which connotes.
I'm just doing my own thing, in my own style, for better or worse. I want to do it my way, and not by someone else's notions of what is acceptable. With regard to the problem of personal demise and universal demise, it is writen from everones' point of view, past, present and future.
Time is a problem both when you have it and when you lack it.
If I write this to please you then it would not be mine, it would be yours.
We are conditioned to think that reality is focused, having a plot ridingoff into the sunset singing "Happy trails to you." Actually, reality and consciousness area quantum scintillation of disjointed sensations and thoughts, which we enslave in some narrative order.
Some people call this my therapy, because I do not write for money.
If money makes you feel better, than thats your therapy, same difference.
Fame, money, power, success, all are meds in the drugstore, self-prescribed.
That's your choice. This is my choice. Call it a by-product of freewill.
Hey, I always wanted to write one book before I die. No one can do that for me. It's like riding a bicycle. I have to do it myself.
The medium is part of the message. Commandments were less lenient when etched in stone.
Consider "Pascal's "Pensees," "Anatomy of Melancholy," and "Finnegans Wake." What is their genre, their point of view?
The problem is self, and its transient nature.
The dialogue between Glaukos and Diomedes on the battlefield, in Homer's Iliad, sums it up in a nutshell.
In book VI (and six is the first perfect number) Diomedes and Glaukos, being about to fight, by means of recognition,were known to each other, and parted in friendliness.
"Thus when the twain were come nigh in onset on each other, to him first spake Diomedes of the loud war-cry: "Who art thou, noble sir, of mortal men?"
Who am I among mortals?
"If thou art some immortal come down from heaven, then will not I fight with heavenly gods."
Am I avataric, divine?
"Then Hippolochos` glorious son made answer to him: Great-hearted Tydeides, why enquirest thou of my generation? Even as are the generations of leaves such are those likewise of men; the leaves that be the wind scattereth on the earth, and the forest buddeth and putteth forth more again, when the season of spring is at hand; so of the generations of men one putteth forth and another ceaseth."
The fallen leaves of trees are not as the leaves of books.
The world is transformed with words, one person at a time.
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