Metaphysic, Intuition, Intelligence

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

But these ideals cannot be objectively captured, they are always subjective or individually conditioned in nature.

Except if one reads Kant!

I see the problem a bit differently. The idea of a high metaphysic and principles that can be isolated is one shared by all exponents of metaphysics. I believe that we have to accept that there is indeed, at some level and point, an Absolute reference. If there were not we would, I think, be lost indeed in 'contingency'.

But the larger question and problem here is one of securing agreements. At the upper level, and among let us say 'very rational and intellectual persons', there is more often than not basic agreement.

But in our world, now, and I refer to the mass world and the 'democratic' world, and the post French Revolutionary world (and post many other things too) it is not possible to secure agreement. People desire to do what they desire to do and they do not care for the 'higher metaphysical principle'.

And thus we see exposed the issue of Authority and the toppling of the notion of Authority. While the issue is very complex it hinges on notions of Authority, on hierarchy, on power, and many other factors. And each of these factors has violence at its base. The problem is there.

But in no sense does this necessarily mean that a 'higher metaphysical principle' does not exist and cannot be explained.

[jupiviv]

@OP,

I read some of your posts, and I get the impression you are confused about what "metaphysical". This is expected, since in my experience virtually everyone who talks about metaphysics are confused in this manner.

The few who are not confused, always mean something very unconventional by it.

For example, I personally think of the metaphysical world as being one and the same as the physical world. The totality of all existence, which includes the physical world - the All - is itself not physical, since it is not finite. In that sense it can be called metaphysical. But then this isn't the metaphysical world that 99.99% of metaphysicians or philosophers talk about.

I can say with 100% certainty that there is nothing that can be called metaphysical in the literal sense, since the word means "above/beyond physicality". Nothing can be beyond physicality, since everything is causally connected. Even if a realm exists which, in terms of its palpability and characteristics, is radically different to the one which we are accustomed to, it would still not be beyond our realm, since causation would still be in effect.

But in our world, now, and I refer to the mass world and the 'democratic' world, and the post French Revolutionary world (and post many other things too) it is not possible to secure agreement. People desire to do what they desire to do and they do not care for the 'higher metaphysical principle'.

The intellectual realm is no different to the physical realm, since, again, they are causally connected. Mind and body and everything else are both part of the same infinite whole. The issue of whether the general population should value truth is an ethical one, and has nothing to do with whether a metaphysical realm exists.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Hello Jupiviv!

This time the confusion seems to be mostly yours. Metaphysics normally means anything related to "explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world that encompasses it". The physics of physics (anything being).

That the word would mean "above/beyond physicality" is not the point. That's because its addressing the nature of physicality, originally what is dealt with after dealing with physics, logic and general reasonability like science or description of appearances. This is the same with Spinoza: first you need rationality and reason before one can start dealing about the "first philosophy" and the infinite.

It's true that people have started the use the word metaphysical to mean something "supernatural". While I do somewhat agree with your view here, you're first making the word "physical" mean what most people would call "metaphysical" or "totality" and then claim that the metaphysical is actuality the physical. Hmmm. There's irony in that.

In the end all what is meant generally with metaphysics, at least within philosophical discussion, is more like the way one is talking about something, the "meta" orientation. Your post for example would be metaphysical and if it would be addressing the price of crude, the weather, how you feel or that God or mathematics rules the world, that would be more "physical" or object centered.

I guess you could make the same case with a word like "philosophy". It can remain a separate topic to engage in or become everything we do and say, the way we breath, the way we move. The problem with that transformation is that as a topic if can remain a point of discussion but as one integrated whole life it becomes rather quickly undefinable and too mysterious to put in words.

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

It is likely that a reference point is needed to orient ourselves toward a 'workable' definition of 'metaphysic'. This, an abbreviation of Bertrand Russell's ideas on the matter, seem to provide it.

Jupiviv: I find the term 'confusion' to be interesting and relevant in this context. But in order to talk about it I think we would have to define the various levels or areas where confusion's opposite may be said 'with 100% certainty' to pertain. Myself, I start from the assumption that as it pertains to being/knowing that we are all essentially, and ipso facto, in confusion. My thought on the matter is that 'we do not know where we are', we do not know really anything about the world that we are in, we understand nothing about our existence in what may be termed, obviously meta-phorically ...

• The English metaphor derived from the 16th-century Old French word métaphore, which comes from the Latin metaphora, "carrying over", in turn from the Greek μεταφορά (metaphorá), "transfer", from μεταφέρω (metapherō), "to carry over", "to transfer" and that from μετά (meta), "after, with, across" + φέρω (pherō), "to bear", "to carry".

... 'our material entanglement'. But to use such metaphors as this indicates an a priori understanding, real or imagined. I tend to think this is how we function: We start from our premise, we are our premise, and then we accrete around us our 'proofs' and our demonstrations, our allusions. In this sense, speaking from my own premise, I take 'metaphysic' to refer to realisation of a special sort but one that (to quote from Plato's Seventh Epistle):

• ...does not at all admit of verbal expression like other studies, but, as a result of continued application to the subject itself and communion therewith, it is brought to birth in the soul on a sudden, as light that is kindled by a leaping spark, and thereafter it nourishes itself.

Now, with that said I have no choice but to accept what you say:

• ...the metaphysical world as being one and the same as the physical world.

I would have some issues with 'one and the same as', but since I have stated that with my definition of 'metaphysic', whatever 'special knowing' I have referred to, does not 'admit of verbal expression like other studies', I would thus be removed from a stark or factual or rationalising conversation. It should be obvious that this has been my position from the start, and by that I mean upon entry into the GF world of description, communication and rationalisation.

To understand that world, and this is I think also your world, one has to understand a certain type and sort of person who orders his perceptions in a type and sort of way. And when one gains an understanding of how that person's mind works, one can then locate that person historically, and by that I mean as a sort of mind that was developed in the 17th Century.

All of this can be gone into of course since in this Conversation---the conversation of analysing, looking into, probing, poking at, revealing, bringing into the light how we think and talk about *things*, and then what is 'true' and 'untrue'---deals on how Reality is described and then also the so-called 'most important things'. It also has to do with how we navigate life, what we make of it and ourselves in it, and also what our effect is in it. How we speak about life, and in that sense the quality of our metaphors, is it would seem the first order of conversation.

A wonderful, and ironic to the present conversation, snip of doggerel by William Blake:

• This life's five windows of the soul
  Distorts the Heavens from pole to pole,
  And leads you to believe a lie
  When you see with, not through, the eye.

Question: Is what Blake means 'conventional' or 'unconventional' in the sense you mean, Jupiviv?

To see through the eye, is that 'one and the same as' seeing with the eye?

[jupiviv]

This time the confusion seems to be mostly yours. Metaphysics normally means anything related to "explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world that encompasses it". The physics of physics (anything being).

I am concerned with how the term is *actually* used, not how it is supposed to be used. Let's face it, in 95% of discussions where metaphysics is involved (controversially or otherwise), it connotes something beyond the realm of nature (or at least ordinary nature) that induces scenes of angels sitting in clouds with the St Matthew passion as background music (or something to that effect).

Besides, if a thing is said to possess a fundamental nature or a first cause, it would imply that such a nature or cause is qualitatively different from a thing's apparent and palpable nature: hence, above/beyond the physical. It cannot be something with a nature apparent or palpable in the same sense as that of the former.

On the other hand, if "fundamental nature" does *not* imply any segregation or difference from apparent & palpable nature, then how is the subject matter of metaphysics any different from that of science? Indeed, what is even the point of metaphysics?

It's true that people have started the use the word metaphysical to mean something "supernatural". While I do somewhat agree with your view here, you're first making the word "physical" mean what most people would call "metaphysical" or "totality" and then claim that the metaphysical is actuality the physical. Hmmm. There's irony in that.

I said that the metaphysical is not something beyond the physical, since both of them are causally connected. This doesn't mean that the physical is everything. It could be, i.e., there may only be matter-energy and nothing else. Or there can be a realm that is so unlike the realm we call "physical" that a distinction needs to be driven. Or, we may define the "physical" in such a way as to exclude things that are beyond the scope of empirical science.

All of this doesn't really matter in an ultimate sense, since both the physical and the non-physical are fragments of the All - this is the point I am attempting to make.

[jupiviv]

Myself, I start from the assumption that as it pertains to being/knowing that we are all essentially, and ipso facto, in confusion.

Except about the fact that we are in confusion!

My thought on the matter is that 'we do not know where we are', we do not know really anything about the world that we are in, we understand nothing about our existence in what may be termed

We cannot be certain about anything that requires us to inquire into the nature of specific things, because there is no end to specific things. But we can be certain of our own definitions of specific things. I can define a bachelor as a man who hasn't married yet, and know for certain that a married bachelor cannot exist. We can also be certain that ultimately we are caused by the All, and that our existence is welded into the existence of everything besides us.

To understand that world, and this is I think also your world, one has to understand a certain type and sort of person who orders his perceptions in a type and sort of way. And when one gains an understanding of how that person's mind works, one can then locate that person historically, and by that I mean as a sort of mind that was developed in the 17th Century.

If the world you are referring to is something separate from the ordinary world, then it isn't my world. If it is the world of all worlds, i.e., Nature or all things, then one can find it as much in the ordinary world as in any other world that may exist.

This life's five windows of the soul
Distorts the Heavens from pole to pole,
And leads you to believe a lie
When you see with, not through, the eye.


Question: Is what Blake means 'conventional' or 'unconventional' in the sense you mean, Jupiviv?

To see through the eye, is that 'one and the same as' seeing with the eye?

To me that verse means that the delusions of the human mind prevents it from seeing perfection wherever it turns its gaze.

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

It seems to me that in a mind that can recognise delusions, and understands non-delusion, that if that, metaphorically, is 'seeing through the eye', that an allusion is being made in language to what I would term as 'metaphysical realisation'.

How *that* is spoken of, or what one does with *it*, then become matters of individuality, or education and predilection. It is in that that one discovers 'different worlds'. I am not obviously of the school that recognises only one language-construct for description. Different minds (their 'nature' I guess) influence how things are seen and described.

What does concern me, and for many reasons, are minds that shut themselves off from being touched or 'moved' by higher metaphor and thus high metaphysic. But with that my discourse turns back to the more contingent, and the more confused, world that surrounds me. At that point all sorts of different things can be said. Some of interest (to some), and some of no interest at all.

Question: Did Blake mean what you mean? Do you mean what Blake means?

Reading this (the outline of Russell's 'metaphysic'), I sense this might express your understanding:

• iv. Neutral Monism
  
  By 1918, Russell is conscious that his arguments for mind/matter dualism and against neutral monism are open to dispute. Neutral monism opposes both materialism (the doctrine that what exists is material) and British and Kantian idealism (the doctrine that only thought or mind is ultimately real), arguing that reality is more fundamental than the categories of mind (or consciousness) and matter, and that these are simply names we give to one and the same neutral reality. The proponents of neutral monism include John Dewey and William James (who are sometimes referred to as American Realists), and Ernst Mach. Given the early Russell’s commitment to mind/matter dualism, neutral monism is to him at first alien and incredible. Still, he admits being drawn to the ontological simplicity it allows, which fits neatly with his preference for constructions over inferences and his increasing respect for Occam’s razor, the principle of not positing unnecessary entities in one’s ontology (Papers 8, p. 195).

[jupiviv]

It seems to me that in a mind that can recognise delusions, and understands non-delusion, that if that, metaphorically, is 'seeing through the eye', that an allusion is being made in language to what I would term as 'metaphysical realisation'.

If "metaphysical" refers to the All, which is more than the specific nature of things, then I would agree to that.

How *that* is spoken of, or what one does with *it*, then become matters of individuality, or education and predilection. It is in that that one discovers 'different worlds'.

Regardless of what language they use, all wise people mean the same thing.

Question: Did Blake mean what you mean? Do you mean what Blake means?

Ha! Probably not.

To answer your previous question properly - no, I don't think Blake meant anything unconventional by it. He was probably referring to a Christian idea of Heaven: separate from the earth, replete with liquorice trees and angels watering pot plants.

By 1918, Russell is conscious that his arguments for mind/matter dualism and against neutral monism are open to dispute. Neutral monism opposes both materialism (the doctrine that what exists is material) and British and Kantian idealism (the doctrine that only thought or mind is ultimately real), arguing that reality is more fundamental than the categories of mind (or consciousness) and matter, and that these are simply names we give to one and the same neutral reality.

I wouldn't call reality "neutral" (compared to what?) I also wouldn't call it more fundamental (again, compared to what?) than mind or matter, since that means it is somehow separate from mind or matter. Reality is the same in every thing regardless of what it may be - does this make it fundamental or neutral?

[Pam Seeback]

Gustav: I see the problem a bit differently. The idea of a high metaphysic and principles that can be isolated is one shared by all exponents of metaphysics. I believe that we have to accept that there is indeed, at some level and point, an Absolute reference. If there were not we would, I think, be lost indeed in 'contingency'.

But the larger question and problem here is one of securing agreements. At the upper level, and among let us say 'very rational and intellectual persons', there is more often than not basic agreement.

The moment one steps into the psychological territory of "securing agreements" they find themselves backed into the same problem of the fluidity of thought/life that won't allow the securing of anything. The expression "nailing jelly to the wall" comes to mind. This is not to say that those who have discovered the truth of emptiness don't agree with one another in principle, but that what comes forth from this understanding of emptiness is not an expression of an agreed-upon ideal. Emptiness is not an ideal, it is the nature of things.

You think we will get lost in contingency, why not that after we get lost, we get found? That if one bears the fear in the darkness of believing oneself lost in an unknowable God until it bears fruit, one will come out the other side as a god? Did Jesus not say “ye are gods?” Did Revelation not end with the open-ended metaphor of “And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely”? Is this not the core message of all mystical traditions, that although God or Life cannot be captured with the intellect, that once this truth is realized, the intellect is reborn into this, its new freedom? I do not speak of this transformation lightly, anyone who reads me who has gone further than me into emptiness realizes I am still in the process of letting go.

I believe you do not like the term "emptiness", but listen here to Rumi's words and see if you do not see what he sees (note that although Rumi is well known for proclaiming his having become drunk on the emptiness of love that he has no problem giving this drunkenness masterful form and structure):

EMPTY

Come out here where the roses have opened.
Let soul and world meet.

The sun has drawn a fine-tempered blade of light.
We may as well surrender.

Laugh at the ridiculous arrogance you see.
Weep for those separated from the friend.

The city seethes with rumor.
Some madman has escaped from prison.
Or is a revolution beginning? What day is it?

Is this when all we have done and been
will be publicly known?

With no thinking and no emotion,
with no ideas about the soul, and no language
these drums are saying how empty we are.

------------------------------------------------------

There is a banquet where grains of wheat
sit and eat and shout for more,
and more is brought.

These banqueter seed grains
never quit eating, and for eternity
the table stays replete.

-----------------------------------------------------

Whoever finds love
beneath hurt and grief
disappears into emptiness
with a thousand new disguises.

* From "Rumi, The Big Red Book", Coleman Barks

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Let's face it, in 95% of discussions where metaphysics is involved (controversially or otherwise), it connotes something beyond the realm of nature (or at least ordinary nature) that induces scenes of angels sitting in clouds with the St Matthew passion as background music (or something to that effect).

It's more that you feel 95% certain. But you are confusing the use of metaphysical, which sometimes refers to the supernatural indeed, with the term that is referring to metaphysics, which has a clear and widely known definition within all philosophical discussions. And since philosophy was the context, it's just pretty lame to refer to what a bloke on the History Channel or a medieval scholar might mean when saying "metaphysical".

Besides, if a thing is said to possess a fundamental nature or a first cause, it would imply that such a nature or cause is qualitatively different from a thing's apparent and palpable nature: hence, above/beyond the physical. It cannot be something with a nature apparent or palpable in the same sense as that of the former.

Not when physical would just mean material or substances, which is defined as having mass and occupying space. Or perhaps "things". Are you arguing there are only "things" and objects in time and space?

Of course you're trying to make "physical" mean "whatever happens to exist" or "appearances". Which looks like a way to confuse a discussion.

On the other hand, if "fundamental nature" does *not* imply any segregation or difference from apparent & palpable nature, then how is the subject matter of metaphysics any different from that of science? Indeed, what is even the point of metaphysics?

Wikipedia notes that metaphysics could mean: "philosophical inquiry of a non-empirical character into the nature of existence". Originally the term arose to distinguish it from research into substances and observations like body parts and planetary bodies. It didn't mean any imaginary invisible world although it clearly is addressing topics beyond sensory "objects" or calculations. In the end it just means philosophy in the classical sense, not in the modern sense where metaphysics is just one branch of philosophy.

I said that the metaphysical is not something beyond the physical, since both of them are causally connected. This doesn't mean that the physical is everything. It could be, i.e., there may only be matter-energy and nothing else. Or there can be a realm that is so unlike the realm we call "physical" that a distinction needs to be driven. Or, we may define the "physical" in such a way as to exclude things that are beyond the scope of empirical science.

Countless stars lie beyond our sky and are causally connected to our view and earth. It doesn't mean the observable sky includes all stars. So we can still talk about stars beyond our sky without having a conflict. Of course we can still point to the heavens when talking about the larger universe but it would be a rather inexact gesture.

All of this doesn't really matter in an ultimate sense, since both the physical and the non-physical are fragments of the All - this is the point I am attempting to make.

There's nothing to object but lets talk about these "fragments". How do they form, why would there by fragments at all? Is "time" a fragment" or something else? How does that fragment relate to other fragments? This is the field of metaphysics and also increasingly physics: the nature of existence and the universe. If it's done empirical and/or mathematical we call it physics, if it uses larger free-flowing concepts, intuition and wisdom, we could call it philosophy.

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

The moment one steps into the psychological territory of "securing agreements" they find themselves backed into the same problem of the fluidity of thought/life that won't allow the securing of anything. The expression "nailing jelly to the wall" comes to mind. This is not to say that those who have discovered the truth of emptiness don't agree with one another in principle, but that what comes forth from this understanding of emptiness is not an expression of an agreed-upon ideal. Emptiness is not an ideal, it is the nature of things.

The reason I am interested in the question of 'securing agreements' is because I am interested in how society and civilisation function. I am less interested in 'private revelation'. While I am not unfamiliar with very private realisations which I think are not really possible to share, I am drawn to think in terms of 'productive activity' and social service. I suppose that my sense about these things is a reflection of Greek ideals: That a man is part of his State and what he does he does for and in relation to his State. The more that I study and read, the more I find I am drawn to the Middle Ages of Europe. This also explains the rather unlikely attraction I have had to Catholicism. Not as a practice necessarily but as the former 'body' really of Europe. The reason is because it was a time when a complete vision existed. (I am also drawn for similar reasons to Medieval India and for the same reasons. But this does not mean that I want to regress to some former time. It is that I am fascinated by these 'total worlds'.)

To put it in a nutshell I think that modern liberalism and our beloved modern world---yet this does depend on the perspective one chooses for oneself---is a gross perversion of 'human possibilities'. Surely many people look at the 'modern world' and shake their heads about it, while at the same time being just as much a part, or nearly as much a part of it as those they look out upon. The 'agreement' of former times was something really quite inflexible, something quite demanding and rigid, and the old form of Catholicism, even, was a rigorous self-discipline and required acts of union that were practiced on a daily basis. The point for me is not that I seek to imitate those forms, I would not even know how to do this, nor how to pray to a saint or any of it, but that there once existed an all-encompassing 'agreement' around which life was organised. It is merely a truism that 'we' have completely fallen away from any sort of unifying general idea, and thus there is no philosophical, and certainly no religious, base for people to function within. If what I am saying is true, then it leads to the possibility of understanding 'structurelessness' and the absence of a guiding order in all senses. If that is true then people will invent themselves, or model themselves, or guess at what or how to be, but it will be more or less spurious. Maybe someone will gain a sense of identity and the sense of their path through life from a character in a movie. Something will have to rush in to provide the structure.

What interests me a great deal is the pathology of structurelessness, as it were. How people who are falling away from an agreed order---a cosmological view, and agreement about some of the most basic terms of why we are here and alive---attempt to come up with something, something to hang identity on, something to make their life worth living, or like a battery in an electronic toy something that simply impels them forward until the batteries run down and they disappear out of this realm.

And obviously I have not been convinced by the Quinn-Solway-Rowden attempt to patch together a fix for anomie and disunion in which we live. What I have noticed, and mostly by the quality of person they attract and the 'platforms' these persons define, is that their program is just part of an acid that seems to end up being an 'acid' applied to the self itself. Well then, what would be an 'agreement' about what is better and more real for a person to nourish themselves on? That is of course the Question. In my case it became evident that one had to root around in all that 'they' rejected and were willing to cast away without a second thought.

You are right: a sentence like The Truth of Emptiness leaves me cold. But the poem is very nice and yet I would never after hearing the poem imagine that I have had an encounter with 'emptiness'.

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

If "metaphysical" refers to the All, which is more than the specific nature of things, then I would agree to that.

Regardless of what language they use, all wise people mean the same thing.

I find this descriptive manner reductionist. Referring to 'the All' and such seems to me to really be referring to nothing. It is just a construct that is tossed out. Why not say The Cosmic Pretzel? ;-)

Even to say that 'all wise people mean the same thing' is not a very useful reductive statement. It temps one to surrender to it, but I am not at all sure that what it will offer [me] will have much worth ... or use.

Also, to make such a statement 'all wise people mean the same thing' seems to me to be philosophically vain. For if one were not also 'wise' how would recognise wisdom and how would one be able to make such a round statement about it?

While I am sure that there are wise persons in our world, and many of them say things that seem to me similar to wise things said by others separated in time and space, I am not at all convinced that they 'mean the same thing', or that they mean what jupiviv means.

I don't think Blake meant anything unconventional by it. He was probably referring to a Christian idea of Heaven: separate from the earth, replete with liquorice trees and angels watering pot plants.

It seems to me that someone who had suffered at the hands of Christianity or Christian culture would have many good reasons to feel resentful and dismissive toward it. So, if you have animus or contempt I don't think that should be dismissed. (If that is the case).

But Platonism and Greco-Christian forms, with all their warts as the case may be (and that's not all there is to it), is so much a part of Western self-hood, art, literature, morality, ethics, aesthetics, sentiment, relationship, and so much else, that a brusque dismissal of it seems foolish. As you know this has often been one of my points. It is a simplistic reduction to demean---if you will permit me to use this somewhat strong word---Platonist and Christian notions of perfected being or perfected world by reducing it to a stupidity. While it is true that many Christians have a liquorice tree vision of 'heaven' or the 'world-to-come' which can be laughed at, I don't think that the notion of eidos of 'perfected world' in the neo-Platonist sense should be dismissed so easily, or nonchalantly. In any case the Platonist and neo-Platonist ideas of pure forms is completely core to Western ideation.

And too, Blake was anything but a conventional Christian. I have not read him in any depth but what I have read of him, and read about him, indicates that his spiritual thrust was fairly radically deviant to a standard Christian vision and really seemed to be a new way of seeing, or 'seeing through and not with the eye'.

So, if he was wise, What was he seeing? And if he was not wise, Was it simply a mistake that he said something that mimicked wisdom?

• The Vision of Christ that thou dost see
  Is my Vision's greatest enemy
  Both read the Bible day and night,
  But thou read'st black where I read white

[Diebert van Rhijn]

This also explains the rather unlikely attraction I have had to Catholicism. Not as a practice necessarily but as the former 'body' really of Europe. The reason is because it was a time when a complete vision existed. (I am also drawn for similar reasons to Medieval India and for the same reasons. But this does not mean that I want to regress to some former time. It is that I am fascinated by these 'total worlds'.)

But in how far "total" worlds of those times and places would appear to us or your impressive authors as illusion, as an artifact of looking back, unavoidable filtering out the near certain plurality and diversity, if not pure chaos, ruling as well in those times? The complete vision, this "unifying factor" then perhaps being more like an ideal, a set of mantras which in most ages then became more like a banner for all too familiar power games..

If anything medieval Europe and India are exercises in power structures, not the power of wise ideas, but how "truths" become objects of power themselves, ruthlessly exploited by those in need of such. This development is to me clear right from the start with Constantine the first Emperor-Pope. With India it becomes harder to get to any "complete vision" with Jainism or the diversity of Hindu schools all co-existing in the early empires.

It seems more that medieval knowledge was about mapping the world, conservatively -- without challenging any cathedral made of matches -- extending borders of the known with exploration and conquest. Yes even the "Dark" ages were full of light. Drawing up new maps of the world, the body but in the same spirit theological tracties were being drawn up mapping the actual layout of heaven, hell, purgatory, angelic orders, daemonic naming systems, the size of the heavenly Jerusalem, the weight and debt of a sin, or the price of forgiveness.

What then looks like some complete vision becomes a mis-mash of attempts to quantify and solidify the contradicting, hard to believe stories and myths from old times, the parables, miracles and creation myths with various, multiple origins and mistranslations in place. What we then are measuring looking back is that wonderful attempt to create order out of chaos, often with applied forcing and resulting in power systems. Power to maintain the belief structure.

The fascination with this all is basically a fascination with that power. The reason for that fascination is that even we, the moderns, especially the moderns, do not want to know about power, the will or desire for it. And how it's being applied in our free and modern society, thoroughly mislabeled, which leads then to what is perhaps the greatest form of hypocrisy in history.

The 'agreement' of former times was something really quite inflexible, something quite demanding and rigid, and the old form of Catholicism, even, was a rigorous self-discipline and required acts of union that were practiced on a daily basis. The point for me is not that I seek to imitate those forms, I would not even know how to do this, nor how to pray to a saint or any of it, but that there once existed an all-encompassing 'agreement' around which life was organised.

And I believe that agreement was a delusion, kept in place by those in position of power or submission, anywhere in the structure, as it benefited them. When opening up the subject matter and delving deep inside, one will find less and less agreement and more and more evidence of dangerous "high stake" games being played to uphold the only structure that has mattered historically -- that of projection of power and will and then the long decline of preservation.

It is merely a truism that 'we' have completely fallen away from any sort of unifying general idea, and thus there is no philosophical, and certainly no religious, base for people to function within. If what I am saying is true, then it leads to the possibility of understanding 'structurelessness' and the absence of a guiding order in all senses. If that is true then people will invent themselves, or model themselves, or guess at what or how to be, but it will be more or less spurious. Maybe someone will gain a sense of identity and the sense of their path through life from a character in a movie. Something will have to rush in to provide the structure.

Or the emperor just has rather few clothes on these days. The postmodern notion of "inside-out" turning? But I believe it was not all that different in the past when it comes to having some "base". That base is the luxury of any analysis of the past, never the present! That's why all classical authors and prophets have the same complaint about their present! What appears to happen these days is that people are more and more struggling with their own inherited power structures, trying to abolish them as "evil" while so much of our modern identity is still tied up with it. It's like sawing off the very branch one is firmly perched on!

What interests me a great deal is the pathology of structurelessness, as it were. How people who are falling away from an agreed order---a cosmological view, and agreement about some of the most basic terms of why we are here and alive---attempt to come up with something, something to hang identity on, something to make their life worth living, or like a battery in an electronic toy something that simply impels them forward until the batteries run down and they disappear out of this realm.

It's fundamental. The power play comes into view when it's understood how this provides "handles" to steer the other. Once you know their drug habit, just own the supply! Manufacture it in larger quantities, it's gold after all! The "modern age of production" -- for the masses.

And obviously I have not been convinced by the Quinn-Solway-Rowden attempt to patch together a fix for anomie and disunion in which we live. What I have noticed, and mostly by the quality of person they attract and the 'platforms' these persons define, is that their program is just part of an acid that seems to end up being an 'acid' applied to the self itself. Well then, what would be an 'agreement' about what is better and more real for a person to nourish themselves on? That is of course the Question.

Truth leads to emptiness and no-becoming, it's the trans-personal truth of all ages. The delusive and addictive power game cannot be played by a truth seeker. And so he's destined to attempt to sacrifice identity and all the meaning provided by the power games of the world. Without any further goal than the will to truth, to itself. The Question is what he then becomes. The only possible opposite to power, if anything, is nature itself, as reality, or the infinite. All else will necessarily lead to power, cult, religion and a new provided, dependent identity again. All by design, by its very nature.

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

Truth leads to emptiness and no-becoming, it's the trans-personal truth of all ages. The delusive and addictive power game cannot be played by a truth seeker. And so he's destined to attempt to sacrifice identity and all the meaning provided by the power games of the world. Without any further goal than the will to truth, to itself. The Question is what he then becomes. The only possible opposite to power, if anything, is nature itself, as reality, or the infinite. All else will necessarily lead to power, cult, religion and a new provided, dependent identity again. All by design, by its very nature.

There are a few different ways to go about responding to this very interesting conjunct of ideas! I start with a few observations:

One is that there seems to be in it a general and pervasive critique of and distain for 'power'. Additionally, the critique 'against power' as it were has quite evident Marxian tones, and naturally one could only say that this is quite normal since Marxian ideas have penetrated all of us down to the floor-struts. I am surprised to see it expressed so directly though. So, and at least in some (large?) part, Marxian criticism is itself a critical acid that is applied first as a 'mist' which has the effect of challenging one's assumptions about the present (its trajectory from the past). Surely there is a 'will' evident in the known and 'hard' Marxian programmes---everyone is aware of this---but what is more relevant for 'us' is, as I have suggested, the manner in which the exponents of the Frankfort School (I still use this as a general symbol though I am also referring to specific theory and theorists who can be named and brought forward) apply a 'gentler' application of the same will which is, in my view, destructive in its constructiveness.

Here, now, and to avoid completely 'the excluded middle'---a territory of argumentation which is fatal!---one has to come out and state, openly and directly, that it all has to do with Power. It was about power in the past, it is about power now, and it will be in the future and for all time about power. There is no part of the natural world's advent---no cloud formation in the atmosphere, no tide-movement, no field of swaying grass, nor flight of birds---which does not emanate and flow out of a power-dynamic. Stars, universes, multiplexes of universes: it all arises out of Power and indeed 'power' and 'force' are the essential and also mysterious qualities that no one can explain. We are in this world, we have our being, in a 'power-play', or if you wanted to get fancy you could say 'cosmic dance of power'. So, 'power' as a fact is quite precisely that: a fact.

So it appears to me---and I have had to anticipate and to respond within myself to the (as you say) hypocritically-based ressentiment-filled arguments about and against 'power'---that the first order of business for any soul in our realm is to come to terms with 'power'. Many questions arise from this inquiry. But let us say that a blind and fear-based critique of power---fear and loathing really---or a critique (as with the Marxists) that seeks to critique formulated and structured power to weaken it so that its power-structures can be penetrated and then toppled (or modified, or restructured, or feminised and 'humanised')---is very much a part of the modern psychological landscape. I suggest that this is almost a reflex. It is an attitude that has been *installed* in people though they do not think about it nor do they think it through to its consequences. If this is true then we should be able to identify and to describe---and critique---these effects as they take shape in the European landscape and in the European mind (the English-speaking world). And if we can do this we can also turn a light on the formulations of, say, a Dutch citizen ... ;-)

But really this means any of us now.

Another part of your critique---I would say that it is predictable---is to bring up this general-use notion of 'delusion'. On this Forum it is one of the key words, or trigger-words, along with 'the All' and 'A is A' and also 'Enlightenment' which are easily handled concepts that get picked up and are used as critical tools. But even with words and concepts that are employed as reductions and for reductive purposes the ideas behind the concepts are not without some substance or merit.

So, and at least as I see things, I think the first order of business is to confront the terms themselves, to challenge them, to critique them and the way that they are used. To say that 'agreement was a delusion' is a truism in a way, or from a certain perspective. But if that is true then it follows that all agreements, in any system, now and forever will be necessarily delusional in relative degrees. The critique, and the use of the word delusion, implies that there is a non-delusion to which one could recur, but if it is the GF program that is under the critical microscope (though really my desire for conversation goes beyond the specificity of these fellows), one would be forced to say that one level of delusion simply replaces another, and what occurs is a game of identifying delusions! In this game one abstracts oneself from reality, purifies one's language of nouns that connect it to the world, atomises oneself away from relationship and productive activity in the world, to exist then 'non-delusively'.

But a more important point is that the use of the term 'delusion' and 'delusional' can be itself challenged. And in this sense if I say that some past age, say the Medieval Era, offered a general viewstructure of Reality that had solidity and also a great deal of sense (and with this I refer to Aquinas and to Augustine as 'pillars' if you will of that structure), I would say that the overarching sense of 'it' should not be described, and thus jettisoned, as a 'delusion'. But this is exactly what some here DO with their dismissive and critical terms and labels. Their critique is acidic and not synthetic.

And oddly enough---I think this becomes clear at certain junctures---you demonstrate with this post how you too are connected to some of these critical projects, and in the post above you seem to spell it out in unusually clear terms. This explains I suppose your basic postmodernist perspective; that is, the force of your argument, at a basic level, is postmodernist. Now, the other interesting part of this, in my view, is how Zen and Buddhist doctrine (to the degree that it is doctrine and not bandying of trigger terms) functions well within a Marxian-influenced structure of activity. Again, these critiques are used like 'acids' to dissolve away the structure out of which we come because the structure itself appears to us as corrupt, or we simply hate it, or can't bear it, or can make no sense of it, or that we see its destructive aspects, or that we resent how power is wielded by it, and we seek to 'change' it, or ourselves in relation to it. Should one say that this is all invalid? That it is wrong? That it has no use? Not at all.

Again all that I can say is that confronted by all these tricks and strategies and rhetorical flips and tightrope dances I have been forced to trace back to the structures out of which we come. But this of course means more than just tracing back to a Medieval period, or 'return to the Church' which is a move some people make. No. The greater point is to understand---this is my view---that a cosmic order is not only implied but is existent. This is the logical inference of scholasticism and represents the use of intellectus.

A good portion of what else you write, for example this:

• Or the emperor just has rather few clothes on these days. The postmodern notion of "inside-out" turning? But I believe it was not all that different in the past when it comes to having some "base". That base is the luxury of any analysis of the past, never the present! That's why all classical authors and prophets have the same complaint about their present! What appears to happen these days is that people are more and more struggling with their own inherited power structures, trying to abolish them as "evil" while so much of our modern identity is still tied up with it. It's like sawing off the very branch one is firmly perched on!

Seems to me more or less only opinion. You play within opinion. Your grasp of things seems inflected by a mood you have about things. Echoes of Baudrillard? I wish to point out that impressions and opinions do not qualify as serious terms of discourse though they are not altogether invalid. It is not enough to just opine though. I admit that your opinions or to be more generous your conclusions have a certain weight. But they seem to have less weight when the ideas that support them are challenged. I don't invalidate them because they have a place. But I think more is required.

[jupiviv]

Let's face it, in 95% of discussions where metaphysics is involved (controversially or otherwise), it connotes something beyond the realm of nature (or at least ordinary nature) that induces scenes of angels sitting in clouds with the St Matthew passion as background music (or something to that effect).

It's more that you feel 95% certain. But you are confusing the use of metaphysical, which sometimes refers to the supernatural indeed, with the term that is referring to metaphysics, which has a clear and widely known definition within all philosophical discussions. And since philosophy was the context, it's just pretty lame to refer to what a bloke on the History Channel or a medieval scholar might mean when saying "metaphysical".

Besides, if a thing is said to possess a fundamental nature or a first cause, it would imply that such a nature or cause is qualitatively different from a thing's apparent and palpable nature: hence, above/beyond the physical. It cannot be something with a nature apparent or palpable in the same sense as that of the former.

Not when physical would just mean material or substances, which is defined as having mass and occupying space. Or perhaps "things". Are you arguing there are only "things" and objects in time and space?

Please clarify - so physical things do not fall within metaphysics' purview?

I define a "thing" to be anything that is inferior to the All, regardless of whether it is material or not. I don't even know what "material" means (in a philosophical sense) apart from "things", since I can't think of anything that is non-material. If some things are so different from the things we are used to, that a distinction between "these here thangs" and "them thar thangs" predicated on their differences becomes convenient, then it may be reasonable to call the latter non-material. What is absolutely certain, however, is that there is no inherent difference between material things and non-material things (whatever they may be).

Of course you're trying to make "physical" mean "whatever happens to exist" or "appearances". Which looks like a way to confuse a discussion.

Only material things have appeared to me so far. Only the All is beyond the material, but it's also beyond the non-material.

On the other hand, if "fundamental nature" does *not* imply any segregation or difference from apparent & palpable nature, then how is the subject matter of metaphysics any different from that of science? Indeed, what is even the point of metaphysics?

Wikipedia notes that metaphysics could mean: "philosophical inquiry of a non-empirical character into the nature of existence". Originally the term arose to distinguish it from research into substances and observations like body parts and planetary bodies. It didn't mean any imaginary invisible world although it clearly is addressing topics beyond sensory "objects" or calculations. In the end it just means philosophy in the classical sense, not in the modern sense where metaphysics is just one branch of philosophy.

Fair enough. But I wasn't really wrong in saying that it's mostly used in the sense of a bourgeois conception of the supernatural.

All of this doesn't really matter in an ultimate sense, since both the physical and the non-physical are fragments of the All - this is the point I am attempting to make.

There's nothing to object but lets talk about these "fragments". How do they form, why would there by fragments at all? Is "time" a fragment" or something else? How does that fragment relate to other fragments? This is the field of metaphysics and also increasingly physics: the nature of existence and the universe. If it's done empirical and/or mathematical we call it physics, if it uses larger free-flowing concepts, intuition and wisdom, we could call it philosophy.

Time is just the way in which things appear to us. Some things appear to be incomplete, and these we call the past or the future depending on their relation to other things. Other things appear more complete and these we call the present.

Science can never discover anything about the nature of existence. It's just the exercise of making it easier to interact with our environment. The idea that science, and especially physics, is getting closer to an understanding of the universe is a byproduct of human pride reacting to failure.

[jupiviv]

If "metaphysical" refers to the All, which is more than the specific nature of things, then I would agree to that.

Regardless of what language they use, all wise people mean the same thing.

I find this descriptive manner reductionist. Referring to 'the All' and such seems to me to really be referring to nothing. It is just a construct that is tossed out. Why not say The Cosmic Pretzel? ;-)

Whatever you call it, you are always speaking of it.

Even to say that 'all wise people mean the same thing' is not a very useful reductive statement. It temps one to surrender to it, but I am not at all sure that what it will offer [me] will have much worth ... or use.

It's just a simple logical truth.

Also, to make such a statement 'all wise people mean the same thing' seems to me to be philosophically vain. For if one were not also 'wise' how would recognise wisdom and how would one be able to make such a round statement about it?

The deluded person will necessarily not be able to recognise wisdom, for the same reason a spoon cannot taste soup.

While I am sure that there are wise persons in our world, and many of them say things that seem to me similar to wise things said by others separated in time and space, I am not at all convinced that they 'mean the same thing', or that they mean what jupiviv means.

Well I have an ideal of wisdom and I try to live up to it. It is unwise to have a different ideal of wisdom as far as I'm concerned.

I don't think Blake meant anything unconventional by it. He was probably referring to a Christian idea of Heaven: separate from the earth, replete with liquorice trees and angels watering pot plants.

It seems to me that someone who had suffered at the hands of Christianity or Christian culture would have many good reasons to feel resentful and dismissive toward it. So, if you have animus or contempt I don't think that should be dismissed. (If that is the case).

I am an atheist who was born and raised a Hindu. I don't hold any resentment towards any religion. I believe all religions as they currently exist should be exterminated, even though I consider some of their teachings to be wise.

[Pam Seeback]

Gustav: The reason I am interested in the question of 'securing agreements' is because I am interested in how society and civilisation function. I am less interested in 'private revelation'. While I am not unfamiliar with very private realisations which I think are not really possible to share, I am drawn to think in terms of 'productive activity' and social service.

A point I made in a previous post, which you ignored, perhaps you will respond here, is that unless a realization becomes individual [not necessarily private as private implies keeping it a secret], then it does not qualify as a realization, rather, as a belief. While it is true that revelations cannot be shared in absoluteness, they can awaken and inspire one to come to revelation and then, to realization.

I suppose that my sense about these things is a reflection of Greek ideals: That a man is part of his State and what he does he does for and in relation to his State. The more that I study and read, the more I find I am drawn to the Middle Ages of Europe. This also explains the rather unlikely attraction I have had to Catholicism. Not as a practice necessarily but as the former 'body' really of Europe. The reason is because it was a time when a complete vision existed. (I am also drawn for similar reasons to Medieval India and for the same reasons. But this does not mean that I want to regress to some former time. It is that I am fascinated by these 'total worlds'.)

No vision is complete, for every vision excludes a known future and includes one's individual relationship with the past. Your subjective fascinations are a perfect example.

It is merely a truism that 'we' have completely fallen away from any sort of unifying general idea, and thus there is no philosophical, and certainly no religious, base for people to function within. If what I am saying is true, then it leads to the possibility of understanding 'structurelessness' and the absence of a guiding order in all senses.

A truism? How, with this type of foggy language do you ever hope to achieve universal understanding of ideals? Your use of the word, however, does help point to the problem inherent in every man's search for a Utopian collective.

If that is true then people will invent themselves, or model themselves, or guess at what or how to be, but it will be more or less spurious. Maybe someone will gain a sense of identity and the sense of their path through life from a character in a movie. Something will have to rush in to provide the structure.

Why muddle things up by having to think of a character in a movie to provide the structure when one can be moved unfiltered of the invisible structure of life itself?

What interests me a great deal is the pathology of structurelessness, as it were. How people who are falling away from an agreed order---a cosmological view, and agreement about some of the most basic terms of why we are here and alive---attempt to come up with something, something to hang identity on, something to make their life worth living, or like a battery in an electronic toy something that simply impels them forward until the batteries run down and they disappear out of this realm.

Does life hang onto life? Does life have an identity? I'm not trying to be glib here but to unveil the way man sets himself apart (or so he believes) from how life truthfully operates.

And obviously I have not been convinced by the Quinn-Solway-Rowden attempt to patch together a fix for anomie and disunion in which we live. What I have noticed, and mostly by the quality of person they attract and the 'platforms' these persons define, is that their program is just part of an acid that seems to end up being an 'acid' applied to the self itself. Well then, what would be an 'agreement' about what is better and more real for a person to nourish themselves on? That is of course the Question. In my case it became evident that one had to root around in all that 'they' rejected and were willing to cast away without a second thought.

Acid must be applied to the self so thought can be released from self's prison of clinging/hanging on. Fascinating thoughts do not work for obvious reasons, they are the favorite food of the clinging self. What is the source of nourishment while one is letting go their hanging on? The thought journey it produces. This journey of letting go of the middle-man self, as I see it, is the life and blood of forums such as Genius.

[Pam Seeback]

Diebert: Truth leads to emptiness and no-becoming, it's the trans-personal truth of all ages...The Question is what he then becomes.

One drops becoming only to find becoming? When one discovers the truth of emptiness, one also discovers the truth that one is The Question as one is The Answer.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Diebert: Truth leads to emptiness and no-becoming, it's the trans-personal truth of all ages...The Question is what he then becomes.

One drops becoming only to find becoming? When one discovers the truth of emptiness, one also discovers the truth that one is The Question as one is The Answer.

So you say one "drops becoming" to find a truth? But even truth, any truth will raise its own questions like a tree casts shadows in the sunlight. It doesn't make sense to identity as question as well as answer. It's like saying one is the truth as one is the lie. But generally struggle manifests when these get muddled up, when distinctions are in demand. Questions and answers are as crucial to nature as earth, wind and sky. There's no divorce.

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

A point I made in a previous post, which you ignored, perhaps you will respond here, is that unless a realization becomes individual [not necessarily private as private implies keeping it a secret], then it does not qualify as a realization, rather, as a belief. While it is true that revelations cannot be shared in absoluteness, they can awaken and inspire one to come to revelation and then, to realization.

It wasn't an intentional 'ignore' it is just that I focus on what is relevant to me, and what makes sense.

Still, I regard 'private realisation' differently. For example, I have had many 'private realisations' that offer an explanation, as it were, of my existence and my life. Generally, all that I do I do in relation to that realisation. But it is not communicable. In this sense it is 'private'.

What I have to say is that most people (though I do not inhabit them and can't really say) live within belief, not 'active knowledge'. In this sense they need and require belief. And it is in a sense the duty of society to provide to them clear guidelines. I think of theology in those terms: A group of ideas that has been organised by someone specifically to provide a sensible guideline. It seems that you have to educate people according to 'belief'. Those who are exceptional, or inquisitive, either saints or devils, will pursue the 'back-story' and get behind the curtain. But it is a responsibility to educate children with clear and practicable ideas.

The word 'fascination', which you have latched onto, is not what I really mean, not in that way. I mean that my interest is deeply aroused and I have decided to devote time to study it.

How, with this type of foggy language do you ever hope to achieve universal understanding of ideals?

I have certainly been clarifying my 'area of interest' though I have not been specific. But this thread is not the place for presenting one's understanding of ideals. What you don't seem to understand about my approach is that I see things in terms of levels. Nyaya. Every person has a limited vantage-point and from that vantage he peers out. I allow for many many different ones. Or I accept that many ones are possible.

And in a sense I don't have to understand 'universal ideals'. Most of that work has already been done (thinking of Aquinas and Augustine as just two examples). I don't know if it is necessary that every man go back to the very start and reconstruct 'universal values'. It seems we have to find out what universal values are, and then also have the skill to follow the logic train to see why they have been enunciated.

Does life hang onto life? Does life have an identity?

Yes to each. Do you really want to talk about this? It is not really part of this thread's focus.

Acid must be applied to the self so thought can be released from self's prison of clinging/hanging on.

I use the word (the image) differently than you. You refer to your own personal work as a (I take it) monastic of sorts. You have found your path which from what you write is interior and demanding. I have no argument at all against that. Nor to anyone who chooses that path. If I accept the idea of 'nyaya' I can certainly accept your chosen orientation. But it is not the ONLY one possible. I define another one, and one that is more related to the social world.

I personally think that identity can be really and severely 'attacked' (to put it in this way) in a specific setting and often with help and support from a spiritual community. But most people need to discover and to actualise 'proper identity' or 'good identity' or 'constructive identity'.

Still, every person will go through crises of identity which is, in some related way, what you are talking about: death of self, resurrection of self. I think that persona is something one works with. However if you said 'I am going to enter into a monastery and dedicate myself to a project of annihilating my (clinging) persona', and provided you had your senses about you, I would not offer an argument against it.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

]Please clarify - so physical things do not fall within metaphysics' purview?

As topic or discipline it doesn't deal with any rules and laws governing physical things occupying space and time, exposed to physical inquiries and conjecture based on measurement. That's what came before before while this came after, meta, remember? It's like calling an adult a "metachild".

I can't think of anything that is non-material.

If everything to you is material then there's no need for "non-material" as concept. What or where could it be? And then there would be no need to have the word "material" present at all. It's lying in the garbage bin together with "is as it is".

Only material things have appeared to me so far. Only the All is beyond the material, but it's also beyond the non-material.

You mean things that you believe are material since there's no clear path, empirical, to make sure in each and every instance. Unless you define "all that appears to me" as being material in nature. And that's metaphysics right there, a statement on the material nature of whatever exists to you.

Science can never discover anything about the nature of existence. It's just the exercise of making it easier to interact with our environment. The idea that science, and especially physics, is getting closer to an understanding of the universe is a byproduct of human pride reacting to failure.

You're making a distinction which in this context doesn't matter at all. The point was that you are stating knowledge about the nature of existence. Since each and every of your views as well as the concepts being addressed here are "inferior to the All", in your own lingo they would fall under physics.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

One is that there seems to be in it a general and pervasive critique of and distain for 'power'.

Why do you think or believe that? No need for me to respond to the rest if you start out with such impression. Philosophy is ideally never based on likes and dislikes, love or disdain. On the contrary, it's about not caring either way as to remain clear headed. Also note that I place power at the base of many processes and developments (not nature but human nature, see my next paragraph) -- not something to step out of or wash the hands from. This needs to be clear for the discussion to remain clear.

There is no part of the natural world's advent---no cloud formation in the atmosphere, no tide-movement, no field of swaying grass, nor flight of birds---which does not emanate and flow out of a power-dynamic. Stars, universes, multiplexes of universes: it all arises out of Power and indeed 'power' and 'force' are the essential and also mysterious qualities that no one can explain.

You're addressing power suddenly in terms of physics here. But I didn't. Perhaps I had to make that clear first? But if someone mentions love or discusses the value of love, wouldn't it be obvious that person is not talking necessarily about procreation or child care? Or each and every valuation or like? He might be but it's not a given. But I did talk about power of ideas, in cultural and social dynamics mostly. And some metaphysical aspects too, as you should know by now, I prefer to separate the notion of "force" from the notion of "power" for these reasons. Power as fundamental illusion which doesn't mean it's ineffective though.

I wish to point out that impressions and opinions do not qualify as serious terms of discourse though they are not altogether invalid. It is not enough to just opine though. I admit that your opinions or to be more generous your conclusions have a certain weight. But they seem to have less weight when the ideas that support them are challenged. I don't invalidate them because they have a place. But I think more is required.

Every social theory or psychological notion and especially each and every metaphysical story will not fulfill your apparent requirement for it to become physical or provable in some definite manner. It's a doomed mission to even require such thing and possibly will only fulfill some inner demand, the "holy chase" after non-existing shiny things to hoard. And yet these types of stories, theories and notions do have power. No matter if they'd arrive as opinion, rationality or divine revelation. And they are not just random, private opinions as I could supply (and have supplied on occasion) some reasonable base for it. Then again, do you really want endless discussion of social theory, the postmodern, anthropology, art and all the interpretations possible? That's still the realm of the child but the purpose of the forum is to enter the realm of the meta-child. That's what I'd consider to be the "more" you and I require.

[Pam Seeback]

Diebert: Truth leads to emptiness and no-becoming, it's the trans-personal truth of all ages...The Question is what he then becomes.

One drops becoming only to find becoming? When one discovers the truth of emptiness, one also discovers the truth that one is The Question as one is The Answer.

So you say one "drops becoming" to find a truth? But even truth, any truth will raise its own questions like a tree casts shadows in the sunlight. It doesn't make sense to identity as question as well as answer. It's like saying one is the truth as one is the lie. But generally struggle manifests when these get muddled up, when distinctions are in demand. Questions and answers are as crucial to nature as earth, wind and sky. There's no divorce.

I believe what transpired here was a communication muddle-up. When you said "The Question (capital T, capital Q) is what he then becomes", I interpreted this to mean that post-realization of emptiness and no-becoming, one becomes The Question, not that he or she questions "what do I then become?" Regardless, I am confused, you are telling me there's no divorce to questions and answers as if I was implying a divorce when the opposite is true.

It is not true that any truth will raise its own questions like a tree casts shadows in the sunlight. I ask "where are my shoes?" If I find them, the answer is given, no shadow is cast. If I don't find them, this is also an answer, and more than likely, a shadow of more questions will be cast. However, if a shadow of more questions is cast, eventually a final answer about what to do about my lost shoes will be received, I will be in sunlight, the shadow will be gone. Of course, my shoe example belongs in the realm of finite things, not of identity, the latter realm being the realm of one truth leading to another truth ad infinitum, the realm of becoming. Rumi's poems about love are perfect examples of identity-becoming, the I am feast that never ends.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

When you said "The Question (capital T, capital Q) is what he then becomes", I interpreted this to mean that post-realization of emptiness and no-becoming, one becomes The Question, not that he or she questions "what do I then become?" Regardless, I am confused, you are telling me there's no divorce to questions and answers as if I was implying a divorce when the opposite is true.

The capitalization referred to Gustav's post I was replying to, to be precise the sentence: "... what would be an 'agreement' about what is better and more real for a person to nourish themselves on? That is of course the Question".

The reason your words implied to me a divorce lies in: "[then] ...one discovers the truth that one is The Question as one is The Answer". That would mean the question and answer are one and the same. But in that light there is also no such thing as "truth" anymore. It would be one with "lie".

It is not true that any truth will raise its own questions like a tree casts shadows in the sunlight. I ask "where are my shoes?" If I find them, the answer is given, no shadow is cast.

But you're just describing the question and its shadows. How can you say no shadow is cast? Finding the shoes does not remove in retrospect the searching. Neither does it remove the consequence that you will have to look again next time. In fact, the very property ("answer") of location and ownership will cause questions like "where" to arise.

Of course, my shoe example belongs in the realm of finite things, not of identity, the latter realm being the realm of one truth leading to another truth ad infinitum, the realm of becoming. Rumi's poems about love are perfect examples of identity-becoming, the I am feast that never ends.

Your identity will always be in the realm of finite things unless you'd identify with the whole, which is really a non-identity and only possible as far as one can choose ones identity in life. When seen through causality that is not possible. You are caused to be this or that, in some position of doubt or knowing, of peace or despair. Only the slightest chemical change and there you go again! The only realization here is to know that you cannot ultimately "be" or embody any of these things. You don't "become" anything, not even some ultimate truth.

[Pam Seeback]

Gustav, Diebert, methinks consciousness exists for the sole purpose of making distinctions/definitions, ergo, distinctions/definitions = truth, the never ending story marches on. Based on this observation it would appear that the deeper is the acceptance of consciousness' unstoppable drive to distinguish and define, the greater would be one's acceptance of the human condition, that of having to distinguish not only between forms as do animals, but having to define form, the added layer of value consideration. And that this deep acceptance of the human condition of being bound to value definitions whether one likes it or not can, of itself, lead to value definitions arising from the territory known as 'the heart.'

In relation to your thread Gustav, your definitions of metaphysic sparked my definitions and Diebert's definitions and jupiviv's definitions, ultimately none of which can be shared absolutely or of which the universe cares a flying fig about. Which when considered from this perspective has the potential to awaken the 'heart' and cause laughter and compassion at and for, the absurdity of the never ending story of defining. Perhaps philosophical laughter and compassion are two of those ideals of which you speak that would greatly benefit man's mental health, the lesson being "be serious re your definitions when survival depends on them, but when survival is not an issue, might as well love and laugh."