Arbitrary absolutism: the values of the house philosophy

[Kelly Jones]

Concerns with words like 'Infinite' and 'Ultimate' and 'Big T Totality' are often just attempts by blowhards to in fact inflate themselves. Silence is naturally deflating and philosophy is often just the monkey chattering.

So now you're saying Nagarjuna is a hardblowing, chattering monkey? That as soon as one thinks and conceptualises, one is an idiot? How ridiculous is that. I mean, you would have to be thinking and conceptualising what an idiot is, to even postulate such a claim, in which case you're in self-contradiction.


...

[Dan Rowden]

Pah, Robert is perfectly fine with terms and labels - it's just that he doesn't like ones that aren't in his canonical finery. His attachment is like a Belisha beacon.

[Kelly Jones]

.... the Ultimate Truth of the house philosophy, even taking into account the Hidden Void, can only explain why any finite phenomenon is as it is by claiming that it was "caused by all that is not it", but this can't explain why the Totality of all that is, is the way that it is, and is not some other way.

Laird, the Totality of all that is is, by definition, all.

Notice that a finite phenomenon is caused by what it is not.

But the All includes all. There is no not that can cause it.

This is why the question, "What causes the Totality?" is meaningless.

You're confusing two different identities: a part of the whole, and the whole of which it is part.


...

[Kelly Jones]

Pah, Robert is perfectly fine with terms and labels - it's just that he doesn't like ones that aren't in his canonical finery. His attachment is like a Belisha beacon.

Yeah, he's fine with reasoning, and referring to external authorities too - until he sees they'll take him under the wheels of an oncoming truth.

I'd never heard of Belisha beacons. Wikipedia says "Brisbane, Queensland Australia briefly had a small number of Belisha beacon marked crossings in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but the majority of Australian crossings are zebra crossings marked by large yellow circular signs bearing a walking legs symbol."

So, what you're saying is, I'm inobservant, or that I suppress awareness of people's blockages revealed through their behaviour and personality.

But I find that it's more profitable to be a concept auditor, than to go the ad hominem, because people tend to get so excited by ad hominems, and it distracts them. But on the other hand, focussing hard on concepts tends to make them irritable, like someone in pain, so that they fall into flinging mud at you, and call one names, like "trivial pedant" or "bratty kindergartener" - which is also distracting them - and I think their karma has taken control at that point. What to do? I'd rather do nothing until the tantrum blows over, or very little.


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[RobertGreenSky]

Robert, it's clear that you are still way out of your depth in these matters ... Incidentally, for those who are interested, this is the same Robert Larkin with whom I had a formal debate a few years ago on another forum ...

- David

It's amazing you'd choose to be so pretentious given you've saved the record of that debate. We can still see that by the end of it you'd deteriorated into hysteria, comparing yourself to martyred Jesus and Socrates and comparing me to Adolf Hitler. As I noted at the time, whatever result anyone else had and has gotten against you I was the individual who made you publicly shit your pants. Your behavior and your debating were deplorable.


Since then you've shown again and again you have no understanding of the material of individuals with whom you rather ridiculously claim spiritual kinship, and even the simplest concepts, like the not very paradoxical fact that thought must consider the limitations of thought, are beyond you. Reining in the discursive intellect is urged in Daoism (see 'fasting of the mind' in Zhuangzi), in Buddhism Nagarjuna shows us limitations of thinking, and Zen urges us beyond the discursive intellect, yet you just don't get it. You fatuously cling to ideas about the accumulation of knowledge despite having been presented again and again with contrary information that the soteriological aspects of Buddhism, Zen, and Daoism are not to be found in the accumulation of knowledge. A little goes a long way and you're damned lucky someone is getting you the information because you've been incapable of getting it on your own. As to using quotations from, e.g., Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, buster, you're pretension is beyond belief - you're certainly not in their league and people reading here need all the help they can get.

In the pursuit of learning, every day something is acquired.
In the pursuit of Tao, every day something is dropped.
[- Tao te Ching]

Are you seriously saying that Lao Tzu never thought about the Tao, never identified what it is, never distingished it from what it is not, never developed any knowledge about it? That the urge to write the Tao Te Ching just popped into his brain without him even understanding why?

Now how can you read the quotation from the Laozi itself and ask such boneheaded questions. If you knew the material you'd understand that thought having been put into its proper place the Dao can flower. It's a true pity you can't be touched by something so simple and so eloquent.

What is coherency? Coherence is a word meaning 'having clarity or intelligibility'. For our purposes we're dealing with the breaking down of coherence at the far ends of language and thinking, where Zhuangzi and Nagarjuna can tread but where Quinn can't even find a map.

[Dan Rowden]

Pah, Robert is perfectly fine with terms and labels - it's just that he doesn't like ones that aren't in his canonical finery. His attachment is like a Belisha beacon.

Yeah, he's fine with reasoning, and referring to external authorities too - until he sees they'll take him under the wheels of an oncoming truth.

I'd never heard of Belisha beacons. Wikipedia says "Brisbane, Queensland Australia briefly had a small number of Belisha beacon marked crossings in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but the majority of Australian crossings are zebra crossings marked by large yellow circular signs bearing a walking legs symbol."

So, what you're saying is, I'm inobservant, or that I suppress awareness of people's blockages revealed through their behaviour and personality.

No, I wasn't saying that - I have no doubt that you see Robert's attachments. A Belisha beacon is the orange globe above certain types of street lights in Britain. I was merely saying that Robert's attachment is very obvious. It was a generic observation, more for his benefit than anyone else's - almost en passant.

[RobertGreenSky]

... more for his benefit than anyone else's ...

- Dan

When in solitude I rarely think of Nagarjuna. More often I think of Old Chou, who brings me smiles.

[guest_of_logic]

Kelly, as you know, I choose not to respond to you, however I'll note briefly that your misunderstanding/mischaracterisation of my point is profound.

[Dan Rowden]

... more for his benefit than anyone else's ...

- Dan

When in solitude I rarely think of Nagarjuna. More often I think of Old Chou, who brings me smiles.

More attachments! Do they ever end with you, Robert!? :)

[Dan Rowden]

Kelly, as you know, I choose not to respond to you, however I'll note briefly that your misunderstanding/mischaracterisation of my point is profound.

I think her characterisation of your "point" is spot on. Either that or the way you're wording it sucks unripe grapefruit.

[RobertGreenSky]

... more for his benefit than anyone else's ...

- Dan

When in solitude I rarely think of Nagarjuna. More often I think of Old Chou, who brings me smiles.

More attachments! Do they ever end with you, Robert!? :)

Give it a break, Dan. Pity you don't understand him. As it is, 'QRS philosophy' is a bastard child of Zen and Weininger, or an abortion.

[Dan Rowden]

Meh, as usual, Robert, it seems you are the only one who can prod mischievously and make jokes. You are possibly the greatest example of a give it but can't take it person - ever. Get over yourself already.

[guest_of_logic]

I think [Kelly's] characterisation of your "point" is spot on.

If it weren't going to be converted into "I'm a moron", you know what I'd say now...

By the way, hasn't that translation served its purpose? Dejavu is no longer with us, and the acronym has realistic use. Can't we let L-O-Ls be L-O-Ls again?

Back to the issue at hand: if you think that Kelly's post constitutes in any way a legitimate understanding of my point, let alone a legitimate response to it, then you have no clue as to what my point actually is.

A taste of your own medicine...

[RobertGreenSky]

Meh, as usual, Robert, it seems you are the only one who can prod mischievously and make jokes. You are possibly the greatest example of a give it but can't take it person - ever. Get over yourself already.

Oh I'm sorry of course and I wondered whether you were joking, but on this forum, and tonight when you've already been unpleasant? I beg forgiveness, getting over myself just a tad.

[Dan Rowden]

I kind of thought the smiley gave it away. Anyhoo...

[RobertGreenSky]

I kind of thought the smiley gave it away. Anyhoo...

I didn't see the smiley until after I'd posted, and I'm being truthful. My eyes are worn out today; the Internet is becoming somewhat unpleasant in that respect. There are times I can only half read whatever is up. Again, I did not mean to be obnoxious, although you must admit the joke was good. :D

[Dan Rowden]

I think [Kelly's] characterisation of your "point" is spot on.

If it weren't going to be converted into "I'm a moron", you know what I'd say now...

By the way, hasn't that translation served its purpose? Dejavu is no longer with us, and the acronym has realistic use. Can't we let L-O-Ls be L-O-Ls again?

I'll consider it.

Back to the issue at hand: if you think that Kelly's post constitutes in any way a legitimate understanding of my point, let alone a legitimate response to it, then you have no clue as to what my point actually is.

A taste of your own medicine...

Your words, pixelated, convey a particular meaning for me. Others have seen the same meaning. If you're not asking - in part - how/why the Totality is the way it is and not some other way (which is an absurd question), then what are you actually asking?

[Dan Rowden]

I kind of thought the smiley gave it away. Anyhoo...

I didn't see the smiley until after I'd posted, and I'm being truthful. My eyes are worn out today; the Internet is becoming somewhat unpleasant in that respect. There are times I can only half read whatever is up. Again, I did not mean to be obnoxious, although you must admit the joke was good. :D

Well, I'd activate the graphical emoticons just for you, but, I don't care enough :)

[RobertGreenSky]

Well me neither, then. I can do a colon and a capital d whenever I feel like it.

And if you weren't so full of yourself you'd admit how much you liked my joke.

[Ryan Rudolph]

Laird, I'd like to comment on a few topics from your opening post:

Causal Determinism and The Will.

With insight, the will goes through a sort of transformation, meaning there is a kind of free-will within the limitations of how the causal reality operates.

Example: One no longer feels frustration for not being able to satisfy the will in some way, as one realizes that things are caused to flow as they do, and sometimes, the efforts of the will are futile to change the course of events. However, one can still achieve goals, if logical steps are taken, but one must fully understand causal determinism.

An interesting metaphor i thought of is imagine the will as a block of ice, and if you take a sledge hammer and smash the ice, what happens, it explodes. Its configuration cannot handle the impact. And there is damage, conflict and destruction. However, melt the ice into water, and attempt to do damage to the water with the sledge hammer. What happens? The sledge hammer disappears into the water. The water bends around the sledge hammer, it is flexible, and its configuration is more accepting of intruding forces. The forces have no power.

The will behaves like this. An understanding of the causal world results in a mind that can handle whatever reality throws at it without reaction or expectation.

Another example: I once evaded being beat up by a group of teenagers when I was doing security. There were four of them, much larger then myself, they were drunk, and I had to kick them off a property. However, I sensed the leader wanted to fight, and he was being overly argumentative with me, he wanted me to react, so he could fight me. Part of my will wanted to feed his fire, and fight just because I have a weekness for aggressive emotions, and I don't like submitting to dominant igorance. However, I knew that throwing karma back in his face would risk my own life, and maybe his, and if I reacted violently, I maybe thrown in jail, and all the rest of it. So I logically kept changing the subject and eventually won him over, and smoked some marijuana even though I don't smoke that stuff anymore. Being logical and diplomatic, I convinced the teens to leave the property and party somewhere else. I pretended to be friendly and on their side, merely for survival reasons. The main point though is that I relied more on logic then on emotion. If I would have sucumbed to emotion, someone would have gotten their head kicked in, probably me actually.

Now was that the right action: probably not, but I used my logical causal understanding of human nature to prevent an irrational situation from esculating into something worse.


The Danger of Emotions.

I'm not denying that the emotions cannot lead one to truth, sometimes some can get a feeling for something, and it can direct the thinker to a truthful judgement. However, more times than not, the emotions lead the mind into a dangerous place, one of separation, conflict, and confusion.

Example: Someones annoys you for speaking in an igorant manner, and if you allow the emotions to ultimately control your thought and action, you might say something rather crude to them, resulting in karma, and igornace on your part.

Or the annoyance may lead to a truthful judgement, and you may just leave.

Or one can come to that same judgement without the feelings of annoyance, simply with a logical observation. The goal should be use logic more than the emotions because of the irrational places the emotions usually lead cognition.

Aesthetism:

I'm all for enjoying the pleasures of the world, but drop them as they come, and see them as they are, fleeting finite experiences, because a brain that is attached to past experience is enslaved to phantoms.

On Magic:

Magic is a silly term. Magic implies things are fuzzy, poorly understood, and the mind cannot understand much. A lazy individual uses terms like god and magic to stop thinking. The term is evil in this sense. Its history is disgusting, much like the word god.

There is mystery in the universe, and existence is rather absurd and strange for the most part, but one need not dwell on it, or use this information to indulge in fuzzy emotional vacations from reality.

[jupiviv]

I've been reading the debate about A=A & how some people want to describe it as a theorem that must be proved or a belief that is irrationally held in the absence of this proof. It is neither. It is a fundamental truth because it cannot be otherwise.

A=B is an incoherent idea because the basis of all thought, including the concepts of 'identity', 'using letters as symbols', human language, & logic is the necessity that a thing be equal to itself. You can't even come up with the concept that A=B without the underlying assumption that A=A. Without this assumption you would actually be saying something on the order of bananas=Victorian poetry or any randomly selected pair.

But this theoretical example is only to make a point about incoherence: in actuality without A=A you couldn't think at all. It would be as chaotic as if the appearances of the physical world had no rules & you could just as easily open your fridge to find it filled with baboons or hydrogen bombs rather than the groceries you put in it the day before.

But this too is only an image of incoherence: there could be no concept of 'fridge', 'baboon', 'hydrogen bomb' or 'groceries' without these concepts being none other than themselves.

If A=A is not a truth -- in fact the fundamental truth that underlies coherence itself -- it is not even possible to say 'A'. There is no starting place from which to build knowledge & understanding. A=A can't be proven without making use of the concept of A=A. A=A can't be argued against without making use of the concept A=A ('the idea that A=A is a belief'='the idea that A=A is a belief'). You cannot even come up with the idea that A=B without the underlying assumption of A=A, i.e. [the idea that A=B]=[the idea that A=B], incoherent as it is.

It is a truth because it cannot be otherwise.

Spot on. Excellent post.

I would be interested to see where you place this understanding in the grander scheme of things. How does A=A relate to the deepest wisdom?

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Sorry, but I have to categorically disagree with this position. Saying that A=A is a truth would mean that A=A = A=A. This identification can't be proven, otherwise you'd again have to revert to A=A to prove it. A=A would be the proof for any other truth, if it is the standard of truth, but not itself. As Weininger said, A=A is essentially the statement that I exist, since when I become conscious of anything, I must be myself. It certainly cannot be proven that I exist, or that I am myself, since I cannot be conscious of myself.

However, if we posit A=A as a truth, then something else must be our standard of truth for doing so. We would be basing our own existence on something else.

[skipair]

Thank you, Skip, for being the only person so far to acknowledge that I have raised a legitimate problem, and for acknowledging what I consider to be - given the absence of a comprehensive one - the only sane answer to that problem: "I have no idea".

You're welcome. Though I personally don't see it as a problem. It is just one of many things that is unknowable. My interest in philosophy is what I CAN know, and I don't feel that I SHOULD be able to know what I CAN'T.

It's like the classic question, 'What is the meaning of life?' I remember thinking when I was around age 11 that the question didn't mean anything.

*THIS* is the meaning of life!!! :)

We choose where and how to fight our battles... at least when we have the choice.

True. In my experience doing battle without exposing yourself gets old and is actually dangerous. If you don't test your boundaries you don't know who you are or what you're made of. What you gain in the end by standing alone yelling TRY ME is the only weapon that actually works: Awareness.

[Kelly Jones]

.... the Ultimate Truth of the house philosophy, even taking into account the Hidden Void, can only explain why any finite phenomenon is as it is by claiming that it was "caused by all that is not it", but this can't explain why the Totality of all that is, is the way that it is, and is not some other way.

Kelly: Laird, the Totality of all that is is, by definition, all.

Notice that a finite phenomenon is caused by what it is not.

But the All includes all. There is no not that can cause it.

This is why the question, "What causes the Totality?" is meaningless.

You're confusing two different identities: a part of the whole, and the whole of which it is part.

Laird: Kelly, as you know, I choose not to respond to you, however I'll note briefly that your misunderstanding/mischaracterisation of my point is profound.

Laird, there is no reason you shouldn't respond to me. Your choice to keep "not responding" is nothing but self-indulgent evasion. I stopped visiting you on my occasional jaunts to Queenstown because almost everything I'd say would appear to agitate you. Do you really want people to tiptoe around you, never saying what they think, never expressing their own thoughts?

You know abundantly well that I haven't said anything about your private life after certain events unfolded last year. Don't keep bullying me and blaming me for not knowing that you had all that stuff simmering under the surface. I have kept your promise not to touch on that, well beyond what I'd do for any other person. The only reason I never broach it - compromising my own sense of what is right - is because you become so angry with me, as if you believe I'm trying to hurt you maliciously.

Basically, you've been getting angry at me for discussing purely philosophical questions of personal integrity. That is all my comments amount to.

Not my problem - it's your sensitivity. Get over it.


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[Diebert van Rhijn]

Concerns with words like 'Infinite' and 'Ultimate' and 'Big T Totality' are often just attempts by blowhards to in fact inflate themselves. Silence is naturally deflating and philosophy is often just the monkey chattering.

Well, anything can become like chatter or comfortable constructs to hide ignorance behind, for sure. It doesn't mean everything said about existence falls into that category. And in the same way, anything can become a form of analgesia, even anaesthesia to our consciousness, including silencing the mind from surface chatter. Shallow waters can be still all the same.

[guest_of_logic]

If you're not asking - in part - how/why the Totality is the way it is and not some other way (which is an absurd question), then what are you actually asking?

I am asking that; cf. Kelly's question, "What causes the Totality?" They're different questions, Dan! Related, but definitely not identical. A large part of the first section of my essay, titled "A value system based on causal determinism", deals painstakingly with my actual question, presenting various potential answers as well as various implications of those answers. That Kelly's post doesn't even acknowledge my actual question, and instead substitutes a strawman, is not the only aspect of its deficiency: it doesn't even acknowledge a single one of the answers or implications that I listed. If you are going to impute absurdness or nonsense to my question, then please deal with the actual and detailed thoughts that I presented. Anything less is intellectual irresponsibility.

Ryan,

Thanks for your considered response. There's not a lot for me to disagree with in it; our main point of disagreement seems to be that we have different attitudes towards the magical.

Your metaphor of the block of ice versus water is an apt one, and it seems like good practical advice for every human being to try to live by. In response to your example, under the section, "The Danger of Emotions", of being annoyed by someone speaking ignorantly, I say that just as the house philosophy has its ideal of a complete absence of emotion, I have as an ideal the complete congruence of emotion and reason - difficult (or perhaps impossible) to achieve as that might be. In terms of this example, the emotion that might arise might be something like compassion for ignorance.

Your attitude that pleasures are fleeting, and to be dropped as they pass, again seems sensible, and I even mentioned something very like it in my essay in dealing with the question of whether the functional and aesthetic arguments for emotions violated non-attachment, so again, nothing to disagree with there.

Skip,

I'm loving your boundless enthusiasm. :-)

As for exposing oneself: in my private battles I am fully exposed; I see no good reason to make those battles public.

Kelly,

I do appreciate your discretion, and I'm not angry or agitated with you, I just find that what you post doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but what's worse is that you're not open to genuine discussion: you have your prism through which you view reality, and if something that another party says doesn't make rainbows through that prism, then you dismiss it out of hand as "unwise" or "deluded" or "wrong" or [insert appropriate term here] (you are constantly trying to correct people: to enforce yourself upon them). It's like the house philosophy's belief structure has infected you as a mind virus, and so long as you are infected, your communication, particularly with those with whom you disagree, is rigid and inflexible; meaningful communication with you online in those terms is well near impossible, at least on philosophical topics. That's why I don't respond to you.

As for not visiting me on your jaunts to Queenstown, I'm sorry that you feel that way, because I actually do like you as a person and I even feel warmth and affection for you. You have been kind and considerate to me in person, and I appreciate that. There are definitely things that I admire about you; it's just that online discussion of philosophy isn't one of them.