The Metaphysical Dream of the World

[Alex Jacob]

• "But the thing a man does practically believe (and this is often without asserting it even to himself, much less others); the thing a man does practically lay to heart, and know for certain, concerning his vital relations to this mysterious Universe, and his duty and destiny there, that is in all cases the primary thing for him, and creatively determines all the rest." ---Thomas Carlyle

It is an odd thing: my 'opposition' to many of the stances taken by the forum and its founders (though true that one cannot generalize too much: there are many different people here and many levels of opinion) has induced me to attempt to discover the causes of these strange and skewed positions and also forced me to come up with alternatives. As when you come into contact with a disease and become motivated to find a cure. In the so-called 'shamanic' traditions, someone once told me and I verified it by reading a good deal of that ethnographic literature, the nature of shamanic healing is to take on the sickness of the afflicted person and to use one's own resources (inner and spiritual usually) to overcome the sickness, if one can. Taking the position I have has tended to land me in hot water. And the reason is, if I understand correctly, that the Founders and many of those who follow them, see themselves as holding and distributing a 'cure' for man's madness, his irrational destructiveness---his perdition in that sense. Since they hold an Absolute Truth, how could anyone---or any random madman!---take issue with it? Logically impossible.

One recent area of interest which has opened up as a result of 'reaction' to much that is formulated and expressed on these pages has been to begin a thorough study of Elizabethan concepts of the construction of the world and the Cosmos. One idea I expressed here, which was inspired by Waldo Frank in his book 'The Rediscovery of America' (filled with a great deal of quite acid critique of American culture, BTW), is the notion that we all live in the outcome of a long and pained process of dissolution of the unitary understanding of 'reality' that was held and expressed by the Middle Ages. There was a time when we *understood*, but likely in the sense expressed by Carlyle 'often without asserting it even to himself', which is to say that we 'metaphysically inhabited' that understanding, that the world was indeed constructed on, if you will, logical principals. That order existed and that such order was unitary, correspondent, in all aspects of creation. To outline the fundamentals of the Elizabethan worldview is actually a very useful exercise to be able to see our own views in a clearer light, since in one way or another all and any view we hold will indeed be a derivative. The reason I mention this, of course, is because I began to discover in QRS formulations a form of reiteration of a Mediaeval view of reality. Or in any case a desire to discover again and to live within a cosmological Order that one could depend on, that made sense, that had its rules and its designs. I especially note this tendency or perhaps 'tactic' in David's views, but it seems to especially come through his personality as a wandering monk of Absolute Truth. It is harder to come up with an exact label for Solway and anyway his approach, or lack of approach since he is not *approaching* but fading away (from presence in this space), is quite distinct from that of David who seems to have taken things in his own unique direction. What can one actually say about Rowden except perhaps 'Your guess is as good as mine', or to ask the question: What beer goes best with full Enlightenment? ;-)

So, as I have been looking into Shakespeare and to the metaphysical understanding that underpinned his views, I have also been drawn off into other directions, but I wanted to mention a few titles since this thread, if it manages to get up and running, will be based on some of this material.

• Shakespeare and the Nature of Man by Theodore Spencer
• The Elizabethan World Picture by E. M. W. Tillyard
• Elizabethan Psychology and Shakespeare's Plays by Ruth Leila Anderson
• The Great Chain of Being by Arthur Lovejoy
• Ideas Have Consequences by Richard M. Weaver

Ideas Have Consequences doesn't exactly fit into this list because it is really an acute commentary on our modernity, but it traces that 'fall', arbitrarily to some degree, from 14th Century antecedents, but as I was reading it I was forced to consider many aspects---good aspects I would have to say---of the QRS position as a critical position of the present. In that sense---would you agree?---QRSism is a very definite expression of deep conservatism. Actually (perhaps even by their definitions) the deepest conservatism possible: that of going down to the bedrock of this platform of existence, finding it, locating it (*rationally*) and then, somehow, establishing oneself in it and in relation to it, so to live well and correctly and sanely and to effect other humans living in this plane of existence from that position, with a kind of 'lever'. Who knows if my paraphrase will be accepted but that is the sense I derive from many aspects of what is expressed in QRSism.

I decided to start this thread with the quote from Carlyle because the idea fascinates me: each one of us holds and lives in accord with a 'metaphysical dream', our imagined world, our imagined understanding of the world, the Cosmos---Being. There are some humans who may never question themselves or to whom the question never takes on any force. But for others of us, for different reasons, it takes on a great deal of relevance, indeed it impels us along. I would assert that we have no choice but to define a 'metaphysical dream', and to live in accord with it. So much might be talked about in relation to this fact: What happens when your metaphysical dream no longer coincides with that of your group or tribe? What happens when a grand and noble metaphysical dream is attacked by social forces, or mercantile forces, or factions within philosophy---academia---with other and opposing levels of vested interest, other 'intentionality'?

I have asserted at times that my view of this neo-Buddhistic or pseudo-Zen worldview (that for weird reasons always attempts to referent itself within Western philosophical traditions, or to refer to them, something I have never been able to understand) 'functions like an acid' on Western achievements, that is to say on the 'product' of the West: the individual and the personality. I have said that in certain ways it appears to me as 'dstructive' and not 'creative'---not 'wholesome' if you wish. But I am very aware that it derives from a worldview and the expression of a worldview: a metaphysical dream. The notion of 'direct view' of 'reality' with no modifiers within imagination seems flatly false and also *impossible*. And so a particular Imagined View is defined, protected, expressed, and explained.

Just as it was---say in the Elizabethan era---and will be now and in the future, it was also in every period of time and in every culture (Chinese, Hindu, etc.). I think the purpose of this thread is to discuss that. The fact of that, the meaning of that. But also, and maybe 'just for the fun of it', to talk about aspects of Shakespearean worldview and certainly psychology, oh and literature and poetry too.
_______________________

The Soothsayer in Antony & Cleopatra: "In nature's infinite book of secrecy a little I can read".

[Dan Rowden]

Oh, my God, Alex has been reading again. It's damned samsara all over again, or is that deja vu? Probably both.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Such a sad waste of genuine effort. A neurosis of the Pincho variety! Pseudo-academic pedantry just to make himself feel like someone doing something. And needs this place like hell too. Fascination with ones own death? Pumping around of empty criticism just to have it increase value by itself? Self-referential resuscitation?

[Alex Jacob]

Interesting!

In Ideas Have Consequences, Weaver talks about the 'last metaphysical right' as one's physical place in the world, or what one might own, say a piece of land where one grows things, or the house one lives in. I would naturally extend it to the body itself: the 'place' where one shows up in this world, and the place that is brutally attacked and challenged by all sorts of forces (in our present). The place of labor, physical or spiritual, where one's tangible work becomes one's own, defines one as someone of value. One knows what one is by what one has, or what one has struggled to learn, to place in memory, to have access to as tool, or perhaps through one's location, one's place within this material existence. It is an idea that stands in odd contrast to much of Eastern thinking, and to ideas making inroads into Western thinking: which do away with our tangibility, which undermine our tangible existence, and our tangible self!

So, as the ground is taken out from under one---and this is happening in so many areas it is overwhelming---one begins to see *that* as natural and good. Inevitable perhaps. And as the ground is taken away, perhaps even the right to a physical place, so is a great deal else that is also *ground of being*. One doesn't really have a place to exist in, not one that one could rationally defend. One dissolves. One participates in one's dissolution.

What is interesting here, with Dan's comment, is to wonder at just all of what might be termed 'samsara'. So, the study of history would be the study of samsaric untruths? Knowledge about the tangible facts of this realm could only amount to 'samsara''? But it would have to extend to all knowledge-bases. And then to language itself! Once the acid starts working, and once it discovers or invents some good reasons, it begins to devour everything in sight. There is nothing outside of its range.

But if the process is reversed or at least interrupted, one begins to feel the need to 'reclaim space', to reclaim self, personality, tangible existence, and the truth-possibilities of language. One comes face to face with the destructiveness of acidic ideas as an alkaline force! Instead of negating self and person, one begins a different momentum: toward establishing, valuing, reverencing even.

There are idea-structures afoot that undermine our very existence at fundamental levels. They who forward these ideas do it knowingly or unknowingly---as Carlyle writes---and they do it as a result of their metaphysical notions or their 'metaphysical dream'. It is even true that to do what they do---to act 'acidically' and destructively---is an ethical concomitant!

A person desiring to construct or to reclaim or to defend is therefor behaving neurotically? Curious, isn't it!

• "After securing a place in the world from which to fight, we should turn our attention first to the matter of language. The impulse to dissolve everything into sensation has made powerful assaults against the forms which enable discourse, because these institute a discipline and operate through predications which are themselves fixities. We have sought an ultimate solution for man's substance in metaphysics, and we must do the same for his language if we are to save it from a similar prostitution. All metaphysical community depends on the ability of men to understand one another." ---Richard Weaver.

What is in truth a 'sad waste of genuine effort' might be quite the opposite of what is here described as such! What is described as 'neurosis'---a desire or a need for tangible value in a dissolving ground---might be the exact opposite of neurotic! But people will go to battle to fight over the definitions. 'A spiritual war in hight and low places'.

Knowledge and language is not synonymous with 'samsara'. In fact 'samsara', as it is used here, is possibly 'samsaric'! (I personally cannot use this term in discourse, so forget that I attempted to).

To hone our understanding, and our language, must be 'divine'. And it certainly is not a waste of time!

[Dennis Mahar]

I personally cannot use this term in discourse, so forget that I attempted to

you used it.
take a course in logic please.

[guest_of_logic]

It is only in generalities, I think, that the QRS worldview can be likened to the Elizabethan worldview, in that the adherents of both consider them to be "absolute truth" (in the sense of incontestability), and complete/sufficient explanations of reality. In specifics, though, I struggle to equate one with the other. I suppose one might find an echo of "A=A" in the "I am who I am" of the God of the burning bush, or we might note that God is said to be infinite in both worldviews, but beyond that, there's not much resemblance. Can you, Alex, suggest any that have escaped me?

In the generalities, there are, as you note, "(Chinese, Hindu, etc)", other likenesses to the QRS worldview than the Elizabethan worldview, so I suppose the main reason for focussing on the Elizabethan is that it is closest to home.

I've never tried to analyse the house philosophy along liberal-conservative lines, I'm not even sure how to go about that, and it might even depend on which culture the analysis was made within, conservatism being to some extent the preservation of existing or old values. There isn't much of a precedent for the QRS worldview in our culture, so I'm hard-pressed to see it as conservative, but nor does it seem "liberal" either.

[Dennis Mahar]

"But the thing a man does practically believe (and this is often without asserting it even to himself, much less others); the thing a man does practically lay to heart, and know for certain, concerning his vital relations to this mysterious Universe, and his duty and destiny there, that is in all cases the primary thing for him, and creatively determines all the rest." ---Thomas Carlyle

What Carlyle is trying to say to you is:
You feel your parents abandoned you for Buddhism as a child and this hatred for Eastern thinking creates 1 post x 6,000 times.
conditioned.
the 'ground' you stand in.
cunning.
war-like.
afflictive emotional life.
inauthentic.
persistent complaint.
fugue.


cunning.
you know cunning is your strong suit Alex.
celebrate that openly.
give it authenticity.
It's not like it's hidden.

it's not the drivel issuing from the flapping jaw of the pig which we call oink.
it's the mood machinery conditioned in the pig that 'gets' the style of the oinking.
that's what Carlyle means by layed in the heart.
the heart of the matter.

[SeekerOfWisdom]

Glad to see you posting Alex. At least you actually write something, instead of just posting as Diebert displayed, I'm really starting to value people that actually try to converse about a topic. Thanking anyone who does so ATM, I'm really finding sone of the empty competition particularly wasteful lately. You too Dennis, for actually writing and making good points. Will be attempting to read and reply to this when I'm not on a phone the size of my pinky.

[Dennis Mahar]

There's great insight available in writer's from any culture.

What Alex does is read something from any western writer and thinks to himself,
how can I hurt QRS with it.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

...unitary understanding of 'reality' that was held and expressed by the Middle Ages.... that the world was indeed constructed on, if you will, logical principals.

Not at all, that all started in a more or less defined form with the ancient Greek, Aristotle and such. These works went through somewhat of a revival in the Middle Ages, as the clergy was also bastion of scientific thought and research. Most of which was done by studying, translating and interpreting the ancients. Combined with very significant Islamic philosophical and scientific influences too at the height of the Islamic empire.

What we're actually trailing here is the development of reason itself from some historical perspective. To reason, one starts with an axiom, a first since the next measurement or step needs to have the same base as the first if one needs to compare anything in life. One can find the same historical development of reason in any civilization, West or East.

Sigh. I had hoped for something about Francis Bacon and enlightened friends masking as Shakespeare, inseminating society with inspired poetic wisdom. Or something. All we get is just the low level sort of intellectual, amputated, stunted attempts at conversation (let alone wisdom). With the usual supporter of recycled nonsense in its wake!

[SeekerOfWisdom]

What Alex does is read something from any western writer and thinks to himself,
how can I hurt QRS with it.

It would be impossible for Alex to deny this one.

[Dan Rowden]

More importantly, it's impossible for Alex to achieve such a goal. Sadly, I fear he'll never see that and never know why.

[Alex Jacob]

I was not using the term 'conservative' in a common political sense, Laird. Conservatism as I meant it is to be concerned with First Principals and to be grounded in this reality through adherence to them. The QRStian philosophy is 'deeply conservative' insofar as it defines a bedrock where an 'absolute' is recognized.

Also, I didn't equate the QRS views of reality with the Elizabethan, I said (because I sense) that they desire to recover a similar level of certainty about 'reality' that had been lost as we have spun out into extreme uncertainty with modern trends.

[Alex Jacob]

It would be impossible for Alex to deny this one.

Well, I shall now perform the impossible! Try to see if you can take this in and see it a little differently. I don't think you will be able to because you are also in a similar boat, not the same but similar.

Here goes: I have no desire to 'hurt' either of the three blokes who founded this forum. In many ways I admire and support the forum's values and ideals. I actually describe things a little differently: it is elements of the philosophy itself, certain tendencies within it, that do harm to the individual, to the person. I became interested in understanding why this is so and how this came about. I realized that I would not get a straight answer from any one of them because they are *within* their belief-system and in this sense it has laid hands on them, it possesses them. So I undertook to get more clear about the forces (ideas as forces) that impel them toward these positions. This is not at all easy, in fact. It requires a great deal of study.

I also have had the sense that you too are captured by some ideas and these ideas possess you and render it almost impossible to actually converse with you. It is like your mind is a limited but rigid system that repels any idea that doesn't fit in to its internal reductionism. So it is likely that you too will circle your little group of wagons (as you note other people doing while they avoid the ideas completely) to defend whatever it is you try to represent here, whatever is your mission. I have said many times that the advantage is not so much for any one of you but for others who read---from a distance as it were---and can notice the tendentious foibles of those 'great intellects' who dominate the space. The advantage for me, here, is to notice just what sorts of 'defenses' are tossed up because I find that they do indeed connect to dominating, if erroneous (in my view) views that are also *out there*, operating at large in the world of ideas.

You may be able to see that all the responses in this thread so far are the tootings of children, children who seem to desire to fight but in exactly the same style as some months ago and who may never break out of these tiny, closed systems. This is a great disadvantage for me because there won't occur much dialectic. I knew this when I started the thread. But still I think I will be able to make something out of it, imperfect prima materia that it is.

So, while it is true that to all appearances whatever message I have and desire to communicate falls on deliberately deafened ears, I am aware that others are listening and observing, and because that is so my efforts are creative and not destructive. So with this I have refuted your declaration although I doubt that you will believe me. ;-)

Sigh. I had hoped for something about Francis Bacon and enlightened friends masking as Shakespeare, inseminating society with inspired poetic wisdom. Or something. All we get is just the low level sort of intellectual, amputated, stunted attempts at conversation (let alone wisdom). With the usual supporter of recycled nonsense in its wake!

One of the things I learned from our recent exchange of valueless and boring communications is that you are essentially intractable. Unfortunately, for you of course, your giant ego has you in its grip. If you think that these thoughts of mine are merely intellectual, or 'amputated', or 'stunted', you might make the effort to speak about that. And if you have some understanding of 'wisdom', to reveal it.

I looked into and rejected any notion of Baconian authorship of Shakesepare's plays, and what makes Shakespeare great and enduring is not equatable with a QRStian use of 'reason'. What makes Shakespeare great and enduring and valuable is something that you, Diebert, for all your fronting and narcissism, cannot and possibly will not ever grasp. There is the 'tragedy', my friend (or the tragicomedy!)

You know the term 'harmartia', right? The tragic or fatal flaw? I would suggest that it is 'wise' for a man to remember that such a possibility exists even for himself. Wisdom begins with a wee bit of humility, n'est-ce pas? But let the invective pour forth! ;-)

[Alex Jacob]

Dennis if those are your views of me and my activities I don't think I will be able to convince you any differently. But it might help you to understand my endeavors in a wider circle of concerns. It would take some study and more concerted investigation on your part. I don't think that will be forthcoming and so I accept your presentation of your ideas as it is. I just don't have too much to say about it. But I can say the following:

Allow me to make a clarification about 'samsara'. I grabbed a very simple, but interesting definition from the Wiki page just as a starting point:

• 'Etymology and origin Saṃsāra means "he flows into himself," to perpetually wander, to pass through states of existence."

We who have been around Hindu, Buddhist and Zen ideas have all come into contact with the idea and have all, I assume. thought about what it means. Certainly in the Hindu conceptions it fits into a large cosmology where 'samsara' is failure to link up with and into currents of life or realization that, for want of a better term, take one home. Whether it is true that 'he flows into himself' means that he only flows into his limited and portioned sense of self (and thereby fails to connect with Self in a greater sense, and hence liberation and salvation) cannot be answered by me because I am not too interested right now in that language-usage.

So, when I said that I cannot use the term in discourse, because I cannot agree with either Dan or you about what 'samsara' might mean (this to all appearances!), this does not at mean that I cannot grasp what 'perdition' might mean, or separation from either self or Self, or 'missing the mark', or remaining in 'ignorance', or failing to heed a 'call', or any number of different possible meanings which any man might sense or understand as he considers himself within his 'metaphysical dream': his sense of himself in reality.

It hinges in very different definitions of what perdition is, but more than that in very different senses of the nature of the 'metaphysical dream'. My opposition to the QRStian position is one that you cannot now and likely will never be able to understand, but it is founded within a sense of differing values. It is as simple---and as complex---as that.

So, I don't desire to use 'samsara' within its Buddhist or Zen or Eastern sense, but I would heartily and do heartily (have you noticed?) communicate a sense of what 'perdition' means to me, but within a neo-Platonic sense which is similar and yet different. Not an A is A situation! ;-)

[Alex Jacob]

I've never tried to analyse the house philosophy along liberal-conservative lines, I'm not even sure how to go about that, and it might even depend on which culture the analysis was made within, conservatism being to some extent the preservation of existing or old values. There isn't much of a precedent for the QRS worldview in our culture, so I'm hard-pressed to see it as conservative, but nor does it seem "liberal" either.

Actually when I looked this over again I felt there is a good deal to discuss here. But I haven't the time right now. I think you are wrong that 'there isn't much of a precedent' in our culture if you accept my assertion that QRStianity is a form, and expression of, 'radical Christianity'. You could find a lot of precedent if that were the case. I also think their notions about women and femininity are conservative---they are certainly not 'progressive' or 'liberal' as it is commonly understood. I see their ideas in this regard as being deeply fundamentalist, and so there more certainly is a precedent. True, they are pseudo-progressives insofar as they desire to turn women into men, or to stop women from being women (for all the reasons they present) for the betterment and advancement of the human race [sic].

As I said before 'conservatism' as I am interested in it is more about definition of First Principals and a kind of rigidity toward the holding of them. A conservative of this ilk might say not 'old values' but 'timeless values' or structures within the order of the cosmos that do not change or are constant. One can certainly speak about QRStianity in such terms, either toward or away from First Principals.

And it is an interesting topic in fact.

[Tomas]

I have asserted at times that my view of this neo-Buddhistic or pseudo-Zen worldview (that for weird reasons always attempts to referent itself within Western philosophical traditions, or to refer to them, something I have never been able to understand) 'functions like an acid' on Western achievements, that is to say on the 'product' of the West: the individual and the personality.

This hits the nail on the head!

[Leyla Shen]

Yes, Tomas. Hits the nail on the head with perfect clarity, doesn't it?

I have asserted at times that my view of this neo-Buddhistic or pseudo-Zen worldview (that for weird reasons always attempts to referent itself within Western philosophical traditions, or to refer to them, something I have never been able to understand) ...

[Leyla Shen]

...functions like an acid' on Western achievements, that is to say on the 'product' of the West: the individual and the personality.

Individuality and personality are a product of western achievements?

Do explain this in more detail for me, Alex.

[Alex Jacob]

Do explain this in more detail for me, Alex.

My days of spoonfeeding Australian lassies ended some time back. By now you should be able to handle your own spoon, no? Just try not to make a mess of things!

It would be better, and more interesting, for you to do some of the work, Leyla. I have been writing for quite some time about my notions of 'self' and 'person', and quite a bit about the unique character of sense of self and identity within Western traditions, of which we are all products. There are antecedents that allow this statement:

I have asserted at times that my view of this neo-Buddhistic or pseudo-Zen worldview (that for weird reasons always attempts to referent itself within Western philosophical traditions, or to refer to them, something I have never been able to understand) 'functions like an acid' on Western achievements, that is to say on the 'product' of the West: the individual and the personality.

But I am not saying what you think I am saying with:

• "Individuality and personality are a product of western achievements?"

Some of Jung's ideas about 'individuation' might be a place for you to start. But certainly don't stop there. There are many relevant sources for a specifically 'Western notion of self' or the fact of self, and there are also sources for information about some aspects of Eastern traditions as functioning against 'self'.

I might also say that a great deal about 'self' came together in Shakespeare. The sense of a 'self' that acts in the world in specific ways and in which we all participate, and continue to participate. This brings literature, epic poetry and art into the question as well.

But as to the specifically Western sources, which certainly exist, for what I am calling the 'dissolution of self', those also exist and can be discovered. Get ahold of and read, if you so desire, The Rediscovery of America by Waldo Frank. The first 40 pages or so deals on the process of 'atomization'. It is traced philosophically and historically. You might appreciate it.

[Alex Jacob]

More importantly, it's impossible for Alex to achieve such a goal. Sadly, I fear he'll never see that and never know why.

THIS hits the nail on the head! It is hard for me that I will never be able to understand that I am not arguing against a *you* but against basic principals that are written into the creation itself. What a windmill to tilt against! And there, there is the appropriate definition of 'samsara', isn't it? Man who sets himself up to fight against the force of infinity (if you'll accept such a turn of phrase).

So, here are these Three Cosmic Harps with a Dutch Fourth who are strummed not by tendentious 'intellect' but by a breeze that blows out of the essence of the creation itself, a 'voice' or a 'message' a Dharma from out of the abyss of the void! They have realized this 'wind' and indeed it inspires everything they do and say. Would that humanity could still itself, even for a minute, to hear what is said so potently! Would that I could, just for a split second, consider that Force that is the source and true author of Dan's videos!

Sad indeed!

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Laughing!

Alex or whatever your actual name is, if David Quinn and Kevin Solway would be "pretend" sages or some make-believe spiritualists of some kind, I think we have here with you the way more obvious case of a pretend intellectual. There's just no body to it, Alex, you've read a few books too many and hustle it all together. It can be picked apart by anyone with some education or desire to examine it a bit deeper. Not that you ever payed attention when someone actually did. All we have here is schlock! It needs to be ridiculed, not out of spite but just for what it is. At least with Zen you can get away with schlock: "all is one", "everything changes", "no self" and one basically can pretend a lot that way. But with cultural and historical analysis it's not that forgiving: it just all falls apart at the seams if one doesn't know the basic material. Pseudo-intellectualism! And that on a forum where intellectualism is not really desired. And then coming here with the fake type, just to please some invisible daddy in your mental sky. Impressing some of the impressible. Well, if the forum is so generous to provide a stage to any neurotic: take it away! Fill up those holes!

[Alex Jacob]

This is the core of your position, your core hubris I might add. You employ it here in respect to me but in fact it is your basic position in regard to everyone. But this too is the basic position, at a core level, of QRS: the declaration that they know it better than anyone and everyone. You fit in quite well!

It is a shame but it is one you have to deal with, ultimately. Yet I have found that it is without a real foundation itself. It is you who lack a foundation, or whose foundation is doubtful. I actually have the impression it is you who have a wide group of facts at your disposal but that you can't quite organize it all. Or the creation of your attempt at organization is partial, incomplete perhaps. But your arrogance is to make an outrageous declaration that you understand---everything---better than anyone else. I think there is a core narcissism operating here, but that is just my impression.

It is your problem to solve though, not mine.

Your understanding is not very deep, and you seldom express 'wisdom'. You chatter a great deal. Large swatches of dense information. But I don't counter you in the same terms. Knowledge is wide and there are many ways of learning and knowing and expressing. I can only encourage you to surrender the bluster and the BS and get to work, if you see fit, on busting those seams.

Once I saw through this whole facade in you, you basically nullified yourself. And this explains better how it is that you have become the Fourth QRStian. This is YOUR place too, Diebert. I don't know if I would be all too happy about that, myself.

But no part of this adds to or subtracts from the ideas presented in this thread so far. It is just a tactic to waste time, to divert. Tipico!

[Kunga]

For some strange reason this reminded me of Diebert !

http://www.wimp.com/notapprove/

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Well Alex, perhaps it's just yourself that has this issue with admitting to anything or anyone here actually being more in command of any topic than you.

What a difference between for example a Laird and yourself! Such a better philosophical debater as you'd probably admit. The ability to move in a debate with that control and determination. While he and I might have thrown mud at times at frustrating moments, he does actually manage to mount an actual coherent argument! And still you'd brush him into the medieval camp, I'm sure. But you should at least get to his level first. Get that rational! Getting into the adult league and understand there's a lot to learn still, if you'd only listen with a different attitude.

Your understanding is not very deep, and you seldom express 'wisdom'.

LOL. Well, I'll tell the pope the next time he calls for advice. Good to see Kunga is at least in full agreement with you.