The Metaphysical Dream of the World

[Dan Rowden]

Lovely, but inapplicable to the question.

[Kunga]

Lovely, but inapplicable to the question.

The question, is to give you a reason not to close the forum down.
The answer, is that it is empty.

Chill out

There are worse things people do in this world.
This is angelic in comparrision.

[Dan Rowden]

The reason that it is inapplicable is that closing the forum for a while is equally empty. Saying things are empty is empty.

[Tomas]

Can someone give me a good reason not to close this cesspit down? Is there anyone posting nowadays, including myself, that isn't doing so merely because they have nothing better to do? i.e. to alleviate boredom?

Alex has kept his word that he will not post in any other thread.
I have a woman who I sleep with almost every night for the last 45 years.
She has a nice set of boobs and a nice ass among other attributes.
Alex is a popular fellow on Genius.

You could always put this over on Worldly.

Just sayin'.

[Tomas]

Can someone give me a good reason not to close this cesspit down? Is there anyone posting nowadays, including myself, that isn't doing so merely because they have nothing better to do? i.e. to alleviate boredom?

That's what all Forums are for. This site is No. 1 Genius Forum on Google. That's hard to achieve nowadays, you got in there early. The site might be worth a fortune in a few years. When people get as intelligent as me.

Wow.

I have high intellect.

[Dan Rowden]

Can someone give me a good reason not to close this cesspit down? Is there anyone posting nowadays, including myself, that isn't doing so merely because they have nothing better to do? i.e. to alleviate boredom?

Alex has kept his word that he will not post in any other thread.
I have a woman who I sleep with almost every night for the last 45 years.
She has a nice set of boobs and a nice ass among other attributes.
Alex is a popular fellow on Genius.

My thought of giving the forum a rest for a month is not about Alex. It's actually been long overdue for a sabbatical.

[Kunga]

Dan, if it will be healthier for you to take a break, and close the forum down, do it.
Your health is a priority.

[Tomas]

My thought of giving the forum a rest for a month is not about Alex. It's actually been long overdue for a sabbatical.

OK. Go for it.
I know. You have health concern.
My non-religious blessing.

Warm Regards,
Roddy

[Dan Rowden]

Dan, if it will be healthier for you to take a break, and close the forum down, do it.
Your health is a priority.

It's about the health of the forum. It's been coughing and spluttering and wheezing for a while now. It needs a bit of bedtime. It's been running a fever that's made it look quite delirious.

[Jamesh]

A pity to close it, but I understand why you'd want to.

I've pretty much left philosophy nowadays, but just occasionally I feel like making a comment, umm for entertainment more than anything else. I visit to see if anything is happening quite often (as a break from my boring work), but other than my Time theory I don’t have any urge to go over the same ground again and again.

A temporary close for a month is not an issue. The question is what would induce you to reopen it? The Times for serious forums seems to be over, now the novelty of online communication is wearing thin.

Would hate to lose the history though. I sometimes enjoy reading the old threads and can still possibly learn from them, particularly if for some unknown reason my interest in philosophy returns. I'd like the history to remain forever.

What's David up to - there have been no more of those high quality essays for long time. When is it his turn to babysit the forum :)

[Dan Rowden]

Some downtime may help some people reassess where they are and why they post here. I don't see any need at this stage to make it a permanent thing; plus I can't make that decision unilaterally anyway.

As for David, I have no idea what he's up to at the moment.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Can someone give me a good reason not to close this cesspit down?

No.

The forum is turning for quite a while now into the opposite of its former intentions. Not because of one or two people or the moderation, just the whole dynamic which has mutated over the years. This forum is just a tool in the end and needs another approach if it has to be done at all at this stage. There is now so much available on the web to read, digest, connect and to hangout for individuals. While personally I do prefer the BBS format, it needs a certain level of participation and discipline to function. And a base level of core membership with a drive or a short-term clear goal they see with it. Right now I think it has run out of fuel with the few still around and especially with you Dan. Considering the running time of the forum and previous incarnations not unusual or remarkable at all in BBS world. And it's the nature of things as well!

[Diebert van Rhijn]

On second thought, is it possible to pause the forum just for the Americas minus Canada? With apologies to you know who and never around anyway. :-)

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Laird, before we might close lets see if we can exhaust ourselves sufficiently.

What interests me most in that quote is your suggestion that my psycho-spiritual malady, psychiatrically labelled against my desire more than a decade ago, is a result of "thinking without surrendering to its [thought's --Laird] very anchor".

Well, in terms of causality there might have been more at work of course. But any thinking in terms of spirits, demons and gods communicating with us in rather shallow ways (words, letters, numbers) I'd see as a disease, yes. Because any rigid examination of their causes will lead to the conclusion that they are not relevant as source of reliable information or philosophical considerations. So easy can it be! Although that doesn't mean these manifestations now disappear.

(Incidentally, in his own way, Alex is a particularly (ha!) abstract thinker in that he considers the house philosophy not in terms of its specific tenets but more generally in terms of its context and direction. This is just not the type of abstract thinking valued by the house.)

The problem of those considerations is that it's so easy to come up with ideas and theories which are nothing but declarations and suspicions. One big pitfall for potential projections and other psychological dynamics. It's perhaps the reason that approach is so attracting to some and facilitates also some group think.

To the point: the way I personally read that phrase of yours, Diebert - the one about surrendering to thinking's very anchor - is that "liberation" comes through viewing reality through the most abstract lens possible; it is in a sense "dissolving away the specific to reveal the generic", which dovetails nicely with notions of QRStianity's "acid": the acid that strips away the particulars to leave only the most universal.

Fair enough although I'm not sure about your usage of abstract. Ultimate, universal, fundamental but not theoretical. It's mostly a form of practice really.

the fewer particulars we require in order to arrive at our generalization, the more apt pupils we are in the school of wisdom.

It's a good start. Obviously!

I have canvassed the empirical factors which I believe led to my problems elsewhere, and I don't want to go over them again here, suffice it to say that none of them were a type of problematic thought in themselves; rather, they caused problematic thought: problematic thought that for the most part was related to empirical specifics rather than to philosophical universals, but also related to the metaphysical - I certainly "imagine a metaphysical dream of the world" when I "go mad".

My larger point is that of self-identity. All ignorance revolves around this! I believe that mental disorders are often originating from a temporary or permanent (partial) disintegration of being and self. Many factors are involved, not just some philosophy that one chooses to repeat for themselves. The difference with spirituality for me is that here the disintegration happens consciously, timely and with a good understanding of the process. A path unfolds, a navigation which allows for advanced re-integration which is different than falling back in the old integrated state by medication or pure chance, the tidal nature of moods. This process is captured by the worn out mountain-nomountain-mountain myth. The no-mountain stage is a moment or sequence of moments of real disintegration. Because you are that observation and all its causal factors. The "mountain" is your location, outlook, social being, the matrix giving rise to your particular existence. That is what builds the mountain, makes you recognize and associate it. The only way to get to no-mountain is not to be; to be disintegrated fundamentally. Being truly lost! It's a rare thing and I don't think people know how radical this is meant.

To put it bluntly, this "logical anchoring" is only possible for a certain category of existential thought, and doesn't (can't) have much if any effect on thoughts about "everyday" empirical reality: how does or could one extrapolate from "everything exists in relation to everything else" a conclusion as to whether or not, for example, other people can read your mind? You just can't; the former is of no consequence to the latter.

The question here is if you can just "will" this logical anchoring into place. There are requirements for it to happen as causality demands. Here you see the empirical, relative and subjective problem of exploring this as "option".

So, again, I would suggest that the sense in which you might intend this "contemplative" anchoring - i.e. specifically tied to the universal principle of causality - is not the sense in which it might stave off my "madness".

Sure, the question is if it could influence it at all. An extreme example: John Nash who ""intellectually rejected" his delusions. Although he might add that it was his disease that motivated him in the first place to push his mind that far. And perhaps that's a deeper truth about the psyche.

as for everyday living, the "logical" anchor is fairly unhelpful - it does not help us much if at all to decide what to eat for breakfast, which school to send our children to, what our political stance should be, or, more abstractly and metaphysically, and as related to this thread, what our overall world-view is or should be, at least beyond the principle itself - an "empty" world-view indeed!

Well one could start with questioning the causes of our breakfast patterns, how our political stance came to be and how it ties up with our sense of identity. The anchor is not just logic: it's doubt, it's increasing awareness of where you are and what you are not.

[Pincho Paxton]

Why don't you make a forum called Enlightenment Forums? I would never post on there. I post on here because it is named after me... silly forum name.

[Dan Rowden]

Jesus, I think Pincho actually tried to be funny. God. Shit. Sundry expletives...