Christians and me, Part II:

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

I'll tell you again, there is truth, and you can only find it through independent contemplation.

It is with this, and within all the mishegoss that comes out of these games of speech, that everything hinges.

If there is 'truth' to be discovered (I am not one to say that there is not, in some or various ways, some 'truth' to be known), it would not only be through 'independent contemplation'. It would 'logically' be through shared perspectives. Thus there will be, there should be, a sort of empiricism in this epistemological magisteria you are interested in and which you promote.

So, in the natural sciences, a structure of view, or declarations about facts, and hypotheses, are a function of a rational seeing that is engaged in outside and beyond 'independent contemplation'. Contemplation (of natural phenomena) is thus something that hinges on comparative view, a sharing of view, and in these senses there is a 'control'.

It is not at all that I do not grasp that you refer to something ('truth' you are calling it), it is that I am uncertain and frankly doubtful if you (Seeker) or 'he' (Jupi and others) can make any accurate statements about it. Your statements, to me, look like 'truth-claims'.

Additionally, I have very strong and persistant doubts that, in respect to this magisteria, there is in fact and really that much of value there. It begins to sound like a never-ending and fruitless jibber-jabber about things that are abstractions.

Therefore: Wiser it seems to me to step away from the seductive power of the enterprise of defining 'ultimate reality' and a more sane project to focus within tangibles, and within 'substance' as I have said. It is I suppose a question of priorities. Still, if this path and this domain is what floats your boat, who could say that you are 'wrong' to pursue it as independent contemplation. It is when such a pseudo-structure of idea infects the cultural mind, or as Becker states, functions against our rational bases and the ways and means arrive at all the knowledge and also power which defines our world, that your 'philosophy' must be challenged. It is not really a philosophy, it is more the end of the possibility of it, as well as lucid thinking within comprehensible categories of value.

[jupiviv]

We can't doubt anything unless we've *ascertained* why anything should be doubted at all, and that "why" - in its deepest form - is wisdom.

Giant Declarative Statement.

So is this. The difference however is that mine declares a reasoned conclusion which can be arrived at by anyone who cares to do so. The premises don't require references to Hermetic scholarship in order to be understood. SeekerOfWisdom made a similar declarative statement when he wrote that truth can only be found through independent contemplation. Your declarative statement declares nothing apart from your disapproval of my declarative statement.

In this case, I literally can't tell what specifically you disapprove of in that statement itself (nor in the statement you quoted in your response to Seeker). That should tell you something about your rhetorical skills.

It is with these statements that 'wisdom' is claimed by one or the other. Then, a whole series of further barking statements ensue, each one carving out a position through an 'I am right - you are wrong' discursive game.

Demonstrate it then. Select any "barking statement" of mine from this thread and show *why* it is so. Note well - "why", not "by what kind of person" or "a result of hailing from what cultural-religious background" or "indoctrinated at an impressionable age by what online quasi-religious cult".

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

Jupi: We can't doubt anything unless we've *ascertained* why anything should be doubted at all, and that "why" - in its deepest form - is wisdom.

GB: Giant Declarative Statement.

Jupi: So is this. The difference however is that mine declares a reasoned conclusion which can be arrived at by anyone who cares to do so. The premises don't require references to Hermetic scholarship in order to be understood. SeekerOfWisdom made a similar declarative statement when he wrote that truth can only be found through independent contemplation. Your declarative statement declares nothing apart from your disapproval of my declarative statement.

In this case, I literally can't tell what specifically you disapprove of in that statement itself (nor in the statement you quoted in your response to Seeker). That should tell you something about your rhetorical skills.

Your 'declarative statement' fits in with a metaphysical account which revolves around a specific description of the world and 'reality'. What you call 'wisdom' is any statement that accurately expresses your preferred, and foregone, conclusions about all of that. And that is how these systems that we develop, install, and hone, function. It is a circle of declared 'reasoning' that when you puncture it turns out to be a selection of choices.

It is that the you-plurals have established a lexicon with pet terms, and pet definitions, and it all seems to fit together into a system of meaning that you agree with. Your metaphysical presuppositions, and any declarative statement that you make about reality and yourself in reality, absolutely require an hermeneutical disassembly, as everything that you say hinges into hermeneutical concerns. I am often surprised that you don't seem to understand that one can just as easily examine you and your thinking-system just as one can examine any other one.

....truth can only be found through independent contemplation.

I am not sure what this means to you. But I merely suggest that this statement would appear to have many flaws. Why must contemplation be qualified with 'independent'? When in zillions of domains we understand what is true and correct (or accurate) through shared vision? Our present material-focussed 'world' is one where 'independent contemplation' - subjective contemplation - is undesired and unfruitful. So, what you indeed seem to be presenting - promoting as Seeker has it - is a system of understanding of reality that is quite precisely Hermetic, and you require in a sense a priesthood who sees and discerns 'correctly' and 'non-delusively' and who can then reveal these 'truths' to others.

But if you have read those pages of Becker I am deeply suspicious of every element of this outlined hermeneutical path, and I believe everyone should be. And one good reason might be because it depends on this 'independent' stance, which is to say subjectivity that is not subject to a 'reality-check'.

I literally can't tell what specifically you disapprove of in that statement itself...

In your case, the statement you have made fits into a wider system. It is the wider system that I question and critique. The statement, in itself, might well function perfectly when other terms have been pre-defined and agreed on.

Demonstrate it then. Select any "barking statement" of mine from this thread and show *why* it is so.

It is one of the most incredible things but all my contributions suggest and speak to an oppositional approach to things you say and have said. Read better.

[jupiviv]

Your 'declarative statement' fits in with a metaphysical account which revolves around a specific description of the world and 'reality'. What you call 'wisdom' is any statement that accurately expresses your preferred, and foregone, conclusions about all of that. And that is how these systems that we develop, install, and hone, function. It is a circle of declared 'reasoning' that when you puncture it turns out to be a selection of choices.

OK then, expose the circular reasoning in my statement. If you respond with yet more psychobabble I'll take that as a sign that you're not interested in serious discussion. Regardless of how earnest and "academic" you can make yourself sound, your arguments amount to little more than the ubiquitous-on-the-internet phrase "your wrong". For example:

Demonstrate it then. Select any "barking statement" of mine from this thread and show *why* it is so.

It is one of the most incredible things but all my contributions suggest and speak to an oppositional approach to things you say and have said. Read better.

[Leyla Shen]

And next up on Living Truthfully Under Imaginary Circumstances, Gustav ditches Nietzsche in favour of Weininger in pursuit of the ever elusive Universal Man.

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

All circumstances are, essentially, and according to the view I am exploring or suggesting, imaginary circumstances: a view of circumstance held in the mind. That is exactly where all of the difficulty here is found. 'You' seem to suppose - I suggest erroneously - that you are dealing in 'reality' and are, with rigour and vigour, describing reality. Not just a truer version of it, but the truthful and the absolute view. All the assertions of your absolutisms link back to this claim, and it is that only: a claim.

But I say that you are dealing with a description which is a series of choices you have made. It is for this reason - again according to what I am suggesting - that we can get 'closer and closer to reality' but can never be exactly sure what we are dealing with, nor exactly who is observing and making the assessment. There is a complex relationship here which is, as I say, the 'issue in question'.

Life occurs in that uncertain territory. That is where we are.

I cannot say, thinking back over Nietzsche, that he would not have understood, or did not understand quite well, what I have asserted. I'd say in fact that he likely had.

But I do notice (it came up first in one of Jupi's silly posts and then Diebert chimed in too) that 'you-plural' begin to work the 'point to feminine thinking angle'. That too becomes an element in the game of semantic politics, nomenclature-management, and the core games that are played around this 'philosophy': a perversion of philosophy is how I'd term it though. And much of Becker's critiques apply here: mind reform, group dynamics, etc. Once you see through it, it is quite powerless.

It is the same game played over and over and over again.
_____________________

Jupe, you can take it any way you like but what you cannot do is determine the terms of the conversation. The discourse I present - a critical discourse in this case - stands as a whole. Deal with it in its terms, or don't, your choice.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

that we can get 'closer and closer to reality' but can never be exactly sure what we are dealing with, nor exactly who is observing and making the assessment.

Then you also cannot say with any certainty anything is getting 'closer and closer' to anything at all. In the end all we have here is to start with our ability to review our sentences and coherence. And admit when it's really wrong. Not a known feminine character trade by the way...

But I do notice (it came up first in one of Jupi's silly posts and then Diebert chimed in too) that 'you-plural' begin to work the 'point to feminine thinking angle'.

Instead of looking for the unique and individual points, you're only able to group, label, purchase & hand bag it! A mind gone mad.

Jupe, you can take it any way you like but what you cannot do is determine the terms of the conversation.

Which is everything you ever did on this forum and all other places with all the same result. It's not even a "GF thing". It's just you.

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

Then you also cannot say with any certainty anything is getting 'closer and closer' to anything at all. In the end all we have here is to start with our ability to review our sentences and coherence. And admit when it's really wrong. Not a known feminine character trait by the way...

I can float a statement - in this case it was Nabokov's - that describes a situation in relation to 'reality'. And I can say that that it is the situation in which we find ourselves. I can say 'closer and closer' along with him, but I also understand that it is a turn of phrase, a language-usage and no more (and no less) than that.

It therefor has a function, and that function is a likeness with some useful precision. Around that one can organise other views, perspectives and attitudes. In my view, to describe 'reality' in that way is less than an arbitrary choice, and it is therefor a 'truer' description. Yet someone could float another argument. Additionally, and though I am not a scientist or a physicist, I think that description is a good one within the material sciences.

You can now go off on a jag in respect to your spurious notions of 'sentences and coherence' if it pleases you, and continue it into a rather typical and overused rag on women or the 'feminine' (as per your favourite definitions, echoed in Baudrillard) if that helps you in some way. But if that is directed toward me (and it is) and serves any function for you in undermining my statements, I'll tell you flatly what to do with it.

Instead of looking for the unique and individual points, you're only able to group, label, purchase & hand bag it! A mind gone mad.

Don't kid yourself. There is nothing in any sense 'mad' about anything I have written in the last days. Nothing. I note that you are bringing out a favourite armament from the GF arsenal (Weininger and 'feminine mind') and I am calling you on it.

Which is everything you ever did on this forum and all other places with all the same result. It's not even a "GF thing". It's just you.

Once you see through these bullshitty 'arguments' they don't have power Diebert. One then moves beyond them into territory that actually has meaning and importance. Yet I do note the hostile tone.

[Leyla Shen]

Gustav:

All circumstances are, essentially, and according to the view I am exploring or suggesting, imaginary circumstances: a view of circumstance held in the mind. That is exactly where all of the difficulty here is found.

Yes, it is exactly where all of the difficulty in that view (“here”) is found. You are suggesting that one can’t distinguish between reality and the imaginary, but at the same you also suggest that the situation wherein one imagines circumstances constitutes no part of reality. So, apparently, according to the view you are exploring or suggesting, only the mind exists – no world. I’m not sure whether this places you at the very centre of Buddhism or of the Christian doctrine universe, complete with the full possibility of a very real imaginary heaven and hell.

'You' seem to suppose - I suggest erroneously - that you are dealing in 'reality' and are, with rigour and vigour, describing reality. Not just a truer version of it, but the truthful and the absolute view. All the assertions of your absolutisms link back to this claim, and it is that only: a claim.

Yes, I do. One of the many truthful distinctions I take it upon myself to make is that between the human subjective and the world—although I consider them both parts of reality. To do otherwise in absolute terms would necessarily be an internally inconsistent state of affairs (although still, where such might manifest, it does so absolutely as a part of reality).

But I say that you are dealing with a description which is a series of choices you have made. It is for this reason - again according to what I am suggesting - that we can get 'closer and closer to reality' but can never be exactly sure what we are dealing with, nor exactly who is observing and making the assessment. There is a complex relationship here which is, as I say, the 'issue in question'.

“Choices”? Let me define as I believe you have, at this time, come to understand it: the personal subjective. Again, your position is that the personal subjective is the world and you make no distinction between the two here. Why? Is that a choice?

Nietzsche’s derision of the scientific method in favour of psychology centred on the void left by science when it came to the human individual’s relation to and activity in the world (rather, there exists a unified reciprocity between them) but he did not do this at the expense of the world.

Hence, he was an even greater critic of Christianity.

Life occurs in that uncertain territory. That is where we are.

Is that an absolute truth about reality or just a claim?

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

You are suggesting that one can’t distinguish between reality and the imaginary, but at the same you also suggest that the situation wherein one imagines circumstances constitutes no part of reality.

I would not put it in those terms, so I'd have to say that I am not saying what you take me to say. I do not know if I would employ the word 'imaginary' to describe the way that we organise a coherent picture of reality, which does have to do with or which occurs in the imagination (held in the mind, conceived in the mind). It seems to me that one must make allusions to whatever it is that we do, but I am uncertain how to make 'definite statements'. I would not say that the imagination of man is not a part of reality ('constitutes no part of reality'), but I would definitely say - and almost could not go wrong with the statement - that you and I and anyone, when we think on 'the world', or the cosmos, are dealing with our perceptual structure and our imagination is definitely a part of that. Obviously, this 'imagination' is a huge component of ourselves. We use it in everything we do.

I do continue to assert a general statement, and I like the way that Nabokov puts it (which I have quoted a few times), and I also think it is a statement that offers to the one who holds it, options and opportunities. I suppose you could say that I appreciate it for the utility, or perhaps for some level of freedom it offers. I find that freedom (of imagination if you will) to be a useful and even a necessary component of awareness. True indeed it is a statement in which a man's imagination is bound up in, but for all that I have seen, to date, I discern that all men make (even if they are not conscious of their decision) a similar 'statement' about life. I say that all men live within their 'imagined world'. One can take this dryly and mean only that we conceive of things in the mind; or one can take it to mean that men live in imaginary 'worlds' or that they structure a world through their imagination.

I am aware that some round these parts (if I read right) imagine that they can avoid or curtail all aspects that I have just written about and perceive reality directly. I will not presume to put in my words what only they can say in their own. I question this view, or this assertion. I do not think it possible. So, I am inclined to accept that 'knowing' will always have the limitation that I describe. By employing this definition I yet think it possible not to see it as an absolute declaration, unbendable and unmodifiable, and so I would choose not to lock myself into it or to brand it on my forehead.

... only the mind exists – no world.

I do not see that as being a viable option as a truth statement or a truth claim. Certainly though the mind exists, and the mind has a great deal to do with how the world - the view of the world - is organised. I'd also say, as I suppose you would and we all would, that the surrounding reality exists indeed. But I tend toward the view that, in ultimate terms, we have no way to define it. We can't definitively say what it is. I believe it true that this is the position of 'science' right now: We describe a great deal of 'stuff', and behaviours and characteristics of it, but we can make no definitive statement about what it is. Please correct me if I am wrong. I believe that this is a 'very true statement'. To me, this points to something about the unknowable quality of life and, perhaps, of everything. I do not see this as a defect of reasoning, I see it as a result of reasoning.

I’m not sure whether this places you at the very centre of Buddhism or of the Christian doctrine universe, complete with the full possibility of a very real imaginary heaven and hell.

It seems a good question to ask, despite the difficulties inherent in the speculation. If you were to ask me - off the record as it were - I would respond by saying that, as I conceive of reality, I can see no reason why it could not and perhaps does not contain all conceivable possibilities. Even the most thoroughly outlandish. Incredible. 'Impossible'. At times I have thought Reality can be whatever it wants to be, and it likely has infinite levels, and infinite possibilities. Is that a statement of folly, of faith? or simply a good supposition to make? I do not know. What I have noticed, and we all have noticed it, is that the more that nature is explored, the more that it seems even that much more inconceivable. The more that we look at it, the stranger and more strange it seems to get.

Yes, I do. One of the many truthful distinctions I take it upon myself to make is that between the human subjective and the world—although I consider them both parts of reality. To do otherwise in absolute terms would necessarily be an internally inconsistent state of affairs (although still, where such might manifest, it does so absolutely as a part of reality).

The statement that you make is therefor is: 'I am seeing 'reality' and am, with rigour and vigour, describing reality.']

You seem to give with one hand what you take away with another. If the two are - and if I read you right - inseparable, and parts of reality, I am uncertain how you suppose you would arrive at a true and factual discourse about 'reality'? Again and if I read right I'd suggest that you are restating the point, or one main point, I wish to make: they are blended. You may be certain that they can be separated and thus that an 'absolute view of reality' or an 'absolute description' is possible. I do not share your view. And that is why I speak of 'choices' made.

Nietzsche’s derision of the scientific method in favour of psychology centred on the void left by science when it came to the human individual’s relation to and activity in the world (rather, there exists a unified reciprocity between them) but he did not do this at the expense of the world.

Nietzsche said so many things, and explored so many angles, that I myself cannot be sure how to organise his views into a cogent system. Still, he turns things upside-down in so many ways and areas that, in my case, I always find him refreshing. I do believe I understand what you are saying about his view of 'psychology', and I believe that I agree, but the mistake you make is to assume that I have negated 'the world'.

Is that an absolute truth about reality or just a claim?

It must only be a claim (in the sense that you mean by opposing two terms). But as I say it is one that points to what is perhaps best described as a puzzle, or perhaps an 'inconceivable mystery': our being in this world and aware. If I have understood Nabokov correctly I believe he is articulating an attitude of relationship which is different, in my view, from an absolutist doctrinal position. His statement (the paraphrase that I made about 'what life is and where we are in it') is one that opens up to other allusions, descriptions, attitudes, and as I say 'possibilities'.

[Leyla Shen]

Gustav:

At times I have thought Reality can be whatever it wants to be,

Reality itself has choices, now?

...and it likely has infinite levels, and infinite possibilities.

What establishes both reality and possibility in the first place is the very difference between the two.

The absolute, by definition, is true not only of reality, but in all possible worlds, i.e., possible worlds are not real simply by being presumed possible but are possible based on establishing some truth or another about them).

This holds logically whether one knows it or not; just like the law of identity, as Weininger has so eloquently pointed out:

• If, rather than acknowledging the proposition A = A, I wanted to attempt to refute it, in so doing I would have to make use of logic, i.e., of exactly this proposition. If at some point I did not comply with it, that would mean that my deduction was false. The proposition itself is thus the criterion of truth and falsity, and from the start it is the measure of my deduction, the standard which I work from as soon as I begin to deduce. Therefore, I can at most reject all inferences, and abstain from judgement. Whether I undertook to refute the proposition, or to prove it, in both cases it would already be presupposed in the argumentation, in both cases I would have obtained the result by fraud. The proposition thus remains a thesis that can neither be proven nor disproven. I can trouble myself about it, but am not logically obliged to, for logic culminates precisely in the content of this proposition (and its other two forms of expression, the laws of non-contradiction and excluded middle, the relative advantages of which, greater or lesser, will not be gone into here). That I cannot escape from this proposition may be of interest to pathological psychology, but it is of no significance for the explanation of the proposition; I cannot escape from various other things, either, e.g., from myself. Thus logic cannot be proven, cannot be derived from something else—Weininger

Is that a statement of folly, of faith? or simply a good supposition to make?

In its present enunciation, I’d have to go with folly.

A bent for such poetry over truth value betrays a strictly anthropomorphised view of the world and the universe in which man is a prisoner behind the walls of his own skull and can do nothing more than create a God - the Absolute - in his own image.

[SeekerOfWisdom]

You contradicted yourself earlier when you made the statement regarding common sense and death as an end. Isn't that belief- and it is a belief- completely out of line with what you've been saying?

Also, the point you're making about the various imagination based world views, or 'metaphysical dreams', is exactly correct. For some reason you claim it's not possible to know any absolute truth, but only continue with these different conceptual structures. Yet it's as simple as putting this claim to the test. For example, it is true that there is what we refer to as "thought" and "sensation". That's undeniably true, don't you agree?

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

Reality itself has choices, now?

You confuse turns of phrases with ideological statements. But reverse what you say: Reality has no choice. You can make any statement appear absurd, if the will is there to do it. Nevertheless, reality and existence are beyond any definitional limit that you, or I, can establish. You asked me to speculate about something that does not, at least not immediately, concern me. I speculate. It is not a doctrinal statement. It is possible that this reality have dimensions or aspects that are thoroughly beyond our capacity to know. But my speculations end there. You asked though.

What establishes both reality and possibility in the first place is the very difference between the two.

You are relying merely on the order of words. Or a word-arrangment. Like you, and like many, I notice and accept the limits in the world and cosmos that I know. But I cannot make any definitive statements about it; its limits, the reason it is as it is. Nor do I feel capable of describing its limits. In any case I cannot. So I make a statement that 'reality can be what it desires to be'. This means: I do not determine it. Possibly, and in the most pure sense, it might be 'accurate' to say that 'reality itself has choices'. The world of our perception, and the world in which we occur, appears however to have specific limitations. But then, and even in that, odd anomalies have been known to present themselves. I am speaking here of the so-called material sciences.

The absolute, by definition, is true not only of reality, but in all possible worlds.

Horse shit, to put it colloquially. The absolute, by definition, is beyond any declarative statement that you can make, despite Weininger or any other. That by 'definition'. But this is also true in the same sense as I focus on the statement: "You can get nearer and nearer, so to speak, to reality; but you can never get near enough because reality is an infinite succession of steps, levels of perception, false bottoms, and hence unquenchable, unattainable". The questions revolves around my power to define, and thus to limit. In this sense alone I would say that 'reality can be what it wishes to be'. Which means that there can be any number of discreet 'worlds' and also 'realities'.

A bent for such poetry over truth value betrays a strictly anthropomorphised view of the world and the universe in which man is a prisoner behind the walls of his own skull and can do nothing more than create a God - the Absolute - in his own image.

No, in fact it does not mean that. You decide that it means that and press your will into service. And there you make a fabulous mistake. You have no idea, not really, what a 'truth-value' is. For you, here, it is only a phrase, a phrase in a sentence. You are doing nothing by handling and manipulating terms, and your will can certainly have its way. This has very little to do with 'truth' and so much more to do with games. You are, more than anything else, playing games. And you do this in an environment where game-players, playing with terms and phrasings, construct elaborate - and I suggest neurotic - monuments to absurdity. You play a game as if it is real.

Nor does it follow that I propose or am interested in a 'strictly anthropomorphised view of the world and the universe in which man is a prisoner behind the walls of his own skull and can do nothing more than create a God - the Absolute - in his own image'.

In fact, as I would suggest, you seem to be engaged in something quite similar to what you decry. What I have said on this and other themes should not be restated and re-encapsulated through your intent. What I said, and what I say, is usually nuanced and distinct.

You contradicted yourself earlier when you made the statement regarding common sense and death as an end.

No, you misread. What I said, and it is an accurate statement, is that Cahoot said that 'according to empirical evidence death is the end of the line'. I did not make that statement, Cahoot did. And it is exactly, and very precisely, an empirical statement: the death of the body seems empirically to be the end of the line.

Anything else that you'd say about it, in contradistinction to empirical science, depends on radically non-empirical statements. Give it a shot ...

Also, the point you're making about the various imagination based world views, or 'metaphysical dreams', is exactly correct.

But this is not what I said. It is similar though. Rather it is a version or a restatement. It is what you said. I wrote something more nuanced. But this is how it goes in the game of word-parsing.

I would make another and a different statement about 'absolute truth'. I would say that the notion of 'absolute truth', by and large, and in every instance I have observed to date, and very much among this crowd, attracts a person with a mind geared toward monomania. I do not know how else to put it. It attracts a certain mind with a certain will and desire. To say what I have just said does not, in fact, negate what I cannot know or define (the absolute). An absolute is an abstract concept though, and such an abstract concept is, and so it appears to me, and to riff off of Kevin, a poison. It hooks monomania. It leads to bizarre, ungrounded, and ungrounding ideas. And it is this that I critique. I hope that makes it clearer ...

With this in mind I eschew absolutist mind traps and as I have said many times prefer a sound theology to such non-sense. It really appears to me as a waste of time.

[Leyla Shen]

Thanks for the proofs in support of my claims.

My commiserations to you, Ghostav.

[SeekerOfWisdom]

No, you misread. What I said, and it is an accurate statement, is that Cahoot said that 'according to empirical evidence death is the end of the line'. I did not make that statement, Cahoot did.

Now you're cherry picking.

"Also, Cahoot spoke quite accurately: 'Empirical evidence suggests that the death of the body is the end, finish, end of the line'. That's exactly what empirical evidence suggests. As does: 'Common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness'."

You stated that you believe both of the statements are accurate and that you agree with both. You just try to avoid this substance by quoting others, but you clearly were in complete agreement as shown above. Unless you're going to say that you only meant that common sense tells it and not you, that would be a stretch. You have a belief that requires and rests upon other metaphysical beliefs, most of which you're hiding. All of this because of your 'strong sense'.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Then you also cannot say with any certainty anything is getting 'closer and closer' to anything at all. In the end all we have here is to start with our ability to review our sentences and coherence. And admit when it's really wrong. Not a known feminine character trait by the way...

I can float a statement

"We all float down here". Yes, we can all float and opine. The easiest, laziest form of knowledge, no consequence, no checks, no hardship and no pain. Most people, looking to ease suffering and not to augment it, will certainly avoid reasoning about what they're floating. In a sense our whole world is increasingly "floating" away from reality by forgetting the difference between real and perhaps.

The absolute, by definition, is beyond any declarative statement that you can make

There's a lot of nonsense, void and relativism lurking somewhere "beyond the reach" of any declaration. Quinn came up with "the hidden void". But such 'void', of course still a mental concept since we define and accept it, does not a collection of absolutes make. That we cannot know "everything" and therefore we will have a void in our knowledge, that such voids are part of the fabric of knowledge, that can become absolutely true to those examining it.

Absolute certainties and absolute truths are not "beyond", are not "metaphysically" somewhere outside our own reasoning power. Of course it requires a trust in ones own mind, a certain thrust inside ones own mind to push it to accepting the certainty found by a long period of challenges, contemplations and above all honesty. This is only valid for minds capable of self-honesty. Because the average mind will self-seduce and probably sooner destroy itself, sabotage its own work than allowing itself to admit to an absolute truth. The reason is simple: it would challenge our ego, which is wholly relative and non-existent, when anything absolute and actually existent would be encountered.

This is equivalent to meeting God but religion has turned that into a romantic, artistic story. The fear and tremble indicates its possible origin. This is something I float but you cannot even accept that as opposite floatation it seems. You want to tear it down, thereby expressing your desire to tear your self down. Which comes natural, to project this outwards, to protect.

It therefor has a function, and that function is a likeness with some useful precision. Around that one can organise other views, perspectives and attitudes. In my view, to describe 'reality' in that way is less than an arbitrary choice, and it is therefor a 'truer' description. Yet someone could float another argument.

We can all turn phrases but even in art there's direction. And indeed if one organizes views around some vague idea of "reality" to approach as "being" while at the same time declaring that we can not be sure about any aspect of that reality or that being in the first place, it means we have a circle of power, a game which is not about truth but about amusement, trickery, self-propelling and illusion. This is a core feature of the ignorant nature of humanity. Or "humanity" as we've come to know ourselves.

...a rather typical and overused rag on women or the 'feminine'

It all serves as a reminder that you have a choice, moments in life where directions in thought are being determined, to spin more self, more "I", more illusion to keep yourself busy, or start philosophy which might indeed destroy you. But you are attracted to it nevertheless. Then instead of going for it, you dance around it, enjoying the big show element it provides to someone like you. That's the attraction it holds.

This thread, obviously, serves now as another theatre play, providing an audience for you. It's not difficult to be aware it's all about feeding your need! You bring you dog and pony show from forum to forum (and Back Again) -- for ever bringing up the Topics, the Questions, all the tantalizing directions, the promise of minds opening, paths unfolding and hearts beating! Such a great undertaking and going under at first and last glance. But although the intuitive knows already after a few posts, some slower ones take longer: the realization that the only reason it was all composed and written was to show the world Alex, his own coming, his own being and his own fading! And nothing more, nothing less is ever truly the subject, setting off the usual Angry Bird attacks at his Trump tower. Which then subsequently demands more interpretation and confirmation that "core concepts" are under pressure. But whose? As I remarked earlier: the project of producing oneself wrapped in the wisdom of ages, books, analysis, humour, songs - anything becomes wrapped up in the Project. Ironically we see the embodiment of the Modern (post-post) grasping to understand himself while having to refuse the possibility that this very understanding not only would annihilate the modern but also much of the being that comes with that territory.

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

Seeker, this is the third time now going over this. I am going to clear it up for you once and for all. I wrote:

"Also, Cahoot spoke quite accurately: 'Empirical evidence suggests that the death of the body is the end, finish, end of the line'. That's exactly what empirical evidence suggests. As does: 'Common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness'."

Cahoot spoke accurately. Indeed he did. Within empirical terms. You brought Cahoot up in a list of folks who have said, by your estimation, outrageous things. But what he said, and what empiricism determines, is not outrageous. It is sound, within the terms that empiricism establishes. An entire method, a method which defines doing and seeing in our world, hinges on this empiricism.

For reasons I don't get, you want me to have said this, and moreover you seem to want to know what exactly I 'believe' in respect to life-after-death. I will only point out that 'belief' should not be required, nor is it required in strict empiricism, and so you are asking me to engage with you outside of empiricism. That is fine as far as it goes. But it has nothing to do with the strength and soundness of Cahoot's statement, which was and is empirically correct.

I acknowledge that you think I am 'hiding' and that I will not reveal what I really think. What I can say to you is that I engaged in this thread for specific reasons and those reasons, concerns, bringing up of certain problems or perspectives, the inclusion of poetic views, a consideration of the views of a novelist who has some importance in the world of art and literature, and many other things, is all expressed in those posts. Those are topics with which I desire to engage.

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

Absolute certainties and absolute truths are not "beyond", are not "metaphysically" somewhere outside our own reasoning power. Of course it requires a trust in ones own mind, a certain thrust inside ones own mind to push it to accepting the certainty found by a long period of challenges, contemplations and above all honesty. This is only valid for minds capable of self-honesty. Because the average mind will self-seduce and probably sooner destroy itself, sabotage its own work than allowing itself to admit to an absolute truth. The reason is simple: it would challenge our ego, which is wholly relative and non-existent, when anything absolute and actually existent would be encountered.

I note and acknowledge your open attack on the integrity of my concerns, my preoccupations, and the writing that I do on this forum. I guess I could say, in recognition of a certain tit-for-tat, that you are 'justified' in taking this tack. At least on a superficial level. But at a deeper level - the level that has real importance - I would respond and say you are wrong indeed.

I accept as a valid beginning point that 'Absolute certainties and absolute truths are not 'beyond', are not 'metaphysically' somewhere outside our own reasoning power'. Yet if this were true-true there would in fact be no quibbling and no disagreement over the conclusions of our 'reasoning power'. So, and I have said this quite often and say it again, this sort of logical reasoning works wonderfully well in the domain of mathematics, but in all the areas that are outside of that domain, and those areas that depend on 'senses of value' and a value-assigning and decisive consciousness and awareness, there is division and discord.

'Trust in one's own mind' is, indeed, a statement that you are making about yourself. If it isn't, you are speaking abstractly. If you are speaking abstractly you are speaking of and within terms that are 'mathematical' in the sense that can separate terms or quotients and converse them abstractly. I suggest that overall this is what you are attempting in this post: to retreat back toward abstractions. And within abstractions Diebert shows he has a certain strength. I think that a large part of the 'system of thinking' which, to all appearances, is popular around here, shows itself as an abstract debating-room game of reasoning. Indeed, that is a pretty serious accusation. So again, it does not surprise me that you'd write this last post because, at this point, it is required to name the 'cores' and to get them out in the open.

You say:

• "Of course it requires a trust in ones own mind, a certain thrust inside ones own mind to push it to accepting the certainty found by a long period of challenges, contemplations and above all honesty".

Right. Sure. It really has a nice ring to it, doesn't it? Yet it remains an abstract proposition because you are not really speaking to any particular thing, you are speaking to a hope that you have that a solid reasoning base will produce specific results. And you also assert that you have done this work, been down those roads, and that you are 'honest'. I am not even slightly moved by your assertion, and I am not cowed by your truth-claims. One has to stop, right here, and carefully examine the claims you make about yourself. I naturally recommend the same in regard to the Founders of this forum as they ensconce themselves, just as you do, in a truth-claim of this sort.

I suggest that when we are dealing on what I call 'existential questions', and questions that hinge on valuation and the way that value is defined, and by this I mean that 'area' in which man lives his life, that the notion of a mental ordering, or the outcome of a 'reasoned approach', or a style of thinking about such things which is mathematical and abstract, shows itself as flawed. This does not mean that it has no use, it most certainly does. Put another way, if one abstracts oneself from life on the ground and life within life, one will tend to develop and to deal in abstractions which are outside of real necessities and outside of relevance.

Approached in another way, I would counter your 'claim' by saying that I and many other people (historically) have done and do similar work within ourselves, and rationally and philosophically, and we come to different conclusions than, to appearances, you have. How do you explain that? Many many people have 'contemplated' and when asked to reveal the result of their contemplation focus on very different things than you, or you-all.

This is equivalent to meeting God but religion has turned that into a romantic, artistic story. The fear and tremble indicates its possible origin. This is something I float but you cannot even accept that as opposite floatation it seems. You want to tear it down, thereby expressing your desire to tear your self down. Which comes natural, to project this outwards, to protect.

Surely what you say in the first sentence has the ring of truth and I agree with you. It is possible to do this. But that is not what compels me, if that is what you suggest.

I think that is one of the reasons that I agree with Ortega y Gasset in understanding that there is more value and use in 'sound theology' than in the abstractions of mystics, and in 'your' case, of philosophers inclined to deal in abstractions and tight, closed systems of thinking that are managed by wilfulness and negation.

To 'fear and tremble' though, used by you and others in this context, is underhanded and you need to be called on it. A deeply religious and internal experience of divinity is what Kierkegaard seemed to have been about. Kierkegaard was an active and dedicated Christian and to say he was something else or to twist him away from his matrix and turn him into something else, is more than disingenuous, it is lying and a deception. How a man confronts himself in his relationship to divinity, and how he sorts out questions of value, seems to be what it is all about, at least if Kierkegaard is a reference point. But I would suggest that, overall, what 'you' seem to do is to negate the possibility of a full conversation by limiting your conversation - your area of concern - within abstract territories. And a pseudo-debate rages there.

We can all turn phrases but even in art there's direction. And indeed if one organizes views around some vague idea of "reality" to approach as "being" while at the same time declaring that we can not be sure about any aspect of that reality or that being in the first place, it means we have a circle of power, a game which is not about truth but about amusement, trickery, self-propelling and illusion. This is a core feature of the ignorant nature of humanity. Or "humanity" as we've come to know ourselves.

You are doing here what many here do: twisting statements into other forms of statement that your interlocutor had no intention of making. It is I think the strawman approach. Then, you draw someone back in to make corrections to your false restatement and a whole useless series of posts ensue.

It is imperative to make sense of the world we live in, and it is imperative to come to solid bases for ethical choices. That certainly requires 'locating' onself, and it requires decisiveness and conviction as well as the metaphysical definitions. It very much has to do with 'direction', and one requires to have and to have formed some basic ideas and notions about the plane of reality and what we should do here. You are very right, in my view, to note that 'amusement, trickery, self-propelling and illusion' are very often - perhaps perennially - stumbling blocks to be very seriously considered and avoided by very serious persons.

But I suggest to you, Diebert, that you cannot make an absolute claim to be engaged in this outlined work, that is one aspect, nor can you successfully argue that you have located nor reside in nor expound from a base within the most important questions. You can certainly declare that it is very important to do this though, and I will agree certainly.

That this is possible, I grant you, unequivocally. That it needs to be done, also. That 'you' do this, or that the philosophical predicates that have been established in this Forum (as a general philosophical position) will allow for this 'work' to take place - 'honestly' as you say - well, that is what I am uncertain of. Make sense? If you are going to make claims, the claims have to be backed up by tangible results.

[SeekerOfWisdom]

which was and is empirically correct.

You made an absolutist statement above. At the very least, you have a belief regarding what is indicated empirically. I disagree that empirical evidence indicates death as an end, and I disagree that common sense tells us so. It is by asking these 'existential questions' that one can find truth or be rid of delusion. The fact is that absolute truth exists and can be known certainly, as I pointed out when I said that there is what is referred to as 'thought' and 'sensation'. While the definitions may never be exact, the statement is undeniably true. Continuing with such simple truth can lead you to discover more, if you were willing to start from such a simple beginning, rather than exclusively leaning on and studying the writings of others.

Absolute certainties and absolute truths are not "beyond", are not "metaphysically" somewhere outside our own reasoning power. Of course it requires a trust in ones own mind, a certain thrust inside ones own mind to push it to accepting the certainty found by a long period of challenges, contemplations and above all honesty. This is only valid for minds capable of self-honesty.

Ding ding ding. A relevant quote to self-honesty:
""To know what you know and what you do not know, that is true knowledge." - Confucius

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

Yes, Seeker, I remember you once exponded an hypothesis about deathlessness, and survival of consciousness. In fact I read it back then with interest but I do not remember the details.

In your case I suggest that instead of orienting your discourse, as you have just done, toward making recommendations for me, that you go forward and develop your ideas.

I imagine that you could make a case for the falseness of empirical evidence, and common sense too, but I have a strong feeling it would take shape within a set of metaphysical suppositions that stand outside of the empirical, as empirical is now defined. I believe that you will enter, squarely, a zone where faith, intuition and metaphysical supposition all come to the fore. So, what I would say is that we are dealing in two very different epistemological systems or 'epistemes'. I suspect that you, and others who deal in similar terms and zones of concern, see yourself as bridging epistemes, or nullifying them through the assertion of a unified epistemological system based in a POV that you can articulate.

I cannot say that I oppose the effort, and I'd not have a reason to do so. But by being forced to examine your own epistemological system I suggest that you'd be forced to reveal, and then to examine, your own metaphysical assumptions. A metaphysic in the sense I use the term is part-and-parcel of a way of viewing reality, and it occurs as I suggest in a zone in which the imagination of man plays a large part. But to say this I do not mean to say that this is a 'false' methodology, rather I suggest that it is an inevitable one. But to be able to see it, as I think TE Hulme said, 'requires the aid of a master metaphysician'.

What interests me, right now, is in exposing and looking into metaphysical overlays that we impose, as it were, on reality. I suggest that there is no a way to 'see' reality directly, though I do assert that it is possible to get 'closer and closer'. You assert that it IS possible to see it, understand it, and to speak about it in absolute terms, and I'd gather that this is your chosen project. I think you are mistaken.

Additionally, and it is related to this, is what occurs when someone - you or me and any other - makes a selection and declares a certain metaphysical position - in your case an 'absolute' one - as being, effectively, the only one and the most real one. I believe that this is the notion that has animated the Founders, and I sense this is the flame that attracts you. But what I note is that your system is a selection - a group of choices - and it is arbitrary as any system is and must be, in this sense, arbitrary. And with this we circle back around to less a declaration of absolute truths, and more declarations about perceived truths.

I am not uninterested in 'truth' or perceived truths, but it is at that point that I equate them with 'theologies': a developed system through which life is organised and lived.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

I note and acknowledge your open attack on the integrity of my concerns, my preoccupations, and the writing that I do on this forum.

Don't flatter your self! Attacks on a poster's various concerns and preoccupations, motivations, are what this forum has always been largely about. The reason for this is the obvious non-intellectual and non-selfish nature of enlightenment and spirituality. So obviously all ideas, selfish and small-human concerns will have to be attacked. Including some ideation which shows up ingrained as emotion, reflex, belief or habit. To invoke them out of the depth so they can be discussed!

If you feel attacked more than others, it's perhaps only because you bring more than an average load of concerns, preoccupations, pretences, insults and self to the table. And even many valid concerns, interesting insights or stepping stones to inquiry into mainly social theory or psychology. But since you bring it all here -- at the graveyard of ideas and self, you're getting the same as everyone else. Although for you it must feel as "special" and directed? Something to do with what you "are" or some fundamental "issue" you think you are touching? It seems just your desire to matter which keeps tricking you into that thought.

in all the areas that are outside of that domain, and those areas that depend on 'senses of value' and a value-assigning and decisive consciousness and awareness, there is division and discord.

Not only division and discord, but illusions (a personal flavour of "absolute") projected on the fundamental ambiguity of existence. This is why intellectual power will not crack the code of "value-assigment". It's your questioning, your analysis which is part of the destructive force. At some point the post-modern analysis is part of the nihilism as much as its narrator.

Approached in another way, I would counter your 'claim' by saying that I and many other people (historically) have done and do similar work within ourselves, and rationally and philosophically, and we come to different conclusions than, to appearances, you have. How do you explain that?

Yes, there are many ideas and conclusions out there. Many contradicting and challenging each other. Whatever position you or I take, the same challenge has to be taken: to go against millions of brave, intelligent or beautiful people being dead wrong about things. Don't you understand your own argument is a non-argument because it's always true, for every position? Even "no position"?

By the way, from my position I don't see all those "other people" reacting different conclusions but often just studying entirely different things only perhaps at times labelled the same. And I don't blame them. Perhaps it's better that they did what they did?

claims have to be backed up by tangible results.

This is only meaningful if you specify up front the results as a clearly stated goal, with fixed posts. Otherwise it's bullshit as usual. Of course you know very well that "results" will be steeped in relative, debatable, contextual differences. Nobody will ever agree on any protocol even! This makes your statement bold but meaningless! Like so much of your challenging.

Talking about the tangible, you wrote earlier about the body, about living in an age where embodiment, a return to the body is being looked for. Here's a bit of perhaps the greatest thinker of the end of last century discussing an idea of another great mind: Baudrillard on Freud. Perhaps it gives some flesh to my "abstracts". It's not that easy as material though and I normally do not post this here but you seem at times genuinely puzzled by my philosophical orientation. This could help or confuse further but...

• Anatomy is destiny, Freud said ... it is always an anatomical speech, always that of the body. What is specific to women lies in the diffraction of the erogenous zones, in a decentered eroticism, the diffuse polyvalence of sexual pleasure and the transfiguration of the entire body by desire : this is the theme song that runs through the entire female, sexual revolution, but also through our entire culture of the body, from the Anagrammes of Bellmer to Deleuze's mechanized connections. It is always a question of the body, if not the anatomical, then the organic, erogenous body, the functional body that, even in fragmented and metaphorical form, would have pleasure as its object and desire as its natural manifestation. But then either the body is here only a metaphor (and if this is the case, what is the sexual revolution, and our entire culture, having become a body culture, talking about?), or else, with this body speech, this woman speech, we have, very definitely, entered into an anatomical destiny, into anatomy as destiny. There is nothing here radically opposed to Freud's maxim. Nowhere is it a question of seduction ... the body in its passion separated from its truth, from that ethical truth of desire which obsesses us - that serious, profoundly religious truth that the body today incarnates, and for which seduction is just as evil and deceitful as it once was for religion. Nowhere is it a question of the body delivered to appearances. Now, seduction alone is radically opposed to anatomy as destiny.
  
  Any movement that believes it can subvert a system by its infrastructure is naive.
  
  The only thing truly at stake is mastery of the strategy of appearances, against the force of being and reality. There is no need to play being against being, or truth against truth; why become stuck undermining foundations, when a light manipulation of appearances will do? Now woman is but appearance. And it is the feminine as appearance that thwarts masculine depth.
  
  From: Jean Baudrillard (1979), Seduction, 9 - 10

[Maximiliano Vignaga]

Additionally, and it is related to this, is what occurs when someone - you or me and any other - makes a selection and declares a certain metaphysical position - in your case an 'absolute' one - as being, effectively, the only one and the most real one. I believe that this is the notion that has animated the Founders, and I sense this is the flame that attracts you.

It attracted me too.

But what I note is that your system is a selection - a group of choices - and it is arbitrary as any system is and must be, in this sense, arbitrary. And with this we circle back around to less a declaration of absolute truths, and more declarations about perceived truths.

Why must that be?

Do you agree with this?

Certainty and uncertainty are no more applicable to empirical models than the terms true and false are applicable to the definitions we create. Like definitions, the empirical models we create are either useful or not; they either have utility for some purpose or other or they do not; if not, we can categorise them as bad models, but they are never true or false, certain or uncertain. When we grant these creations of the mind the quality of uncertainty, we imply the existence of an objective reality, one which we are attempting to accurately model or reflect, but no such objective reality exists. We are merely creatively carving up an infinitely carvable Reality according to the whims of the qualities of our consciousness. That's the real problem: the belief that such an objective reality exists and that we are somehow reflecting it more and more accurately with our theories and models of causal relation. We think we are discovering the world, when all we are really doing is creating it; what we are doing is modeling our own consciousness - projecting it out into the cosmos and deluding ourselves that we are unraveling the mysteries of existence.

[SeekerOfWisdom]

I am not uninterested in 'truth' or perceived truths, but it is at that point that I equate them with 'theologies': a developed system through which life is organised and lived.

I'd agree that this is the case for most perceived truths or truth-claims, that they are matters of perspective, context, situation, or even pure imagination. What you are recognizing and pointing out in this regards is completely accurate, even fundamental, and I think everyone here recognizes the same, which is really why we are concerned with terms like 'delusion' and 'absolute truth'. What I'm suggesting is that because of your exposure to so many differing views and 'theologies', you have seemingly 'given up' on the possibility of certainty in regard to metaphysics, especially in regard to any certainty which challenges your particular theology. I think partly you just want that to be the case, perhaps you just fear the loss of the world or system you've created for yourself? For this path would involve the near-literal destruction of the world as you know it.

I'll mention it again, so we can easily clarify whether there are absolute metaphysical positions or not: What about a simple statement such as that there are what we refer to as 'thoughts'? Though we may not be able to exactly define 'thought', the statement remains absolutely true, don't you agree? Using such simple truths as this one, you can ensure that you are not working in the realm of imagination or dreams. Then you are able to 'move on'.

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

It attracted me too.

Hello there. I think this is an interesting and worthy area for 'self-research': to look into the reasons why we are 'attracted' to certain ideas, actions, activities, 'possibilities'. I suppose the first question is What are you seeking? But what I mean by that is, of course, What am I seeking? What is it that we seek and desire?

I am no sure if 'agree' would be the word, without understanding more of the context of his position. I understand I think what he is getting at: "...the belief that such an objective reality exists and that we are somehow reflecting it more and more accurately with our theories and models of causal relation. We think we are discovering the world, when all we are really doing is creating it; what we are doing is modeling our own consciousness - projecting it out into the cosmos and deluding ourselves that we are unraveling the mysteries of existence".

A position such as that (to the degree I understand it from the snip) will inevitably necessitate a defined ethical position. If one defined reality in that way it would turn back everything on the self (whatever that is). It could also offer unique opportunities for a radical idealism too.

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

If you feel attacked more than others, it's perhaps only because you bring more than an average load of concerns, preoccupations, pretences, insults and self to the table. And even many valid concerns, interesting insights or stepping stones to inquiry into mainly social theory or psychology. But since you bring it all here -- at the graveyard of ideas and self, you're getting the same as everyone else. Although for you it must feel as "special" and directed? Something to do with what you "are" or some fundamental "issue" you think you are touching? It seems just your desire to matter which keeps tricking you into that thought.

I find it hard - very hard - to accept the claim about 'graveyard of self'. I also think there is a semantic error. It is not a ground of the dead but might be a ground for those who wish to die or are dying. I say this because there is so much 'life' here, or in any case in the heyday of the Forum there was nothing but life. Tumult, struggle, growth, action, definition, striving. If anything at all you'd have to adopt Seeker's definition of me (Leyla riffed off it too and was even a little funny): A person who haunts graveyards where there are only old reflections of truths, secondary light: The Pale Fire of the moon's reflected and stolen light. (But not the sun).

The bulk of what you wrote in the above-paragraph misses the mark substantially.

The reason for this is the obvious non-intellectual and non-selfish nature of enlightenment and spirituality.

I would say that, from you, this is a strange statement. First, I'd ask you to do what you will not do, and I suggest cannot do: define 'enlightenment'. The term takes up a huge space in your declaration but, as per usual, it will remain undefined. Why? Defining it will place you in indefensible territory and you are a wiser - if craftier - debater than to allow that. So what I say is: 'Enlightenment' is a false-category, and is not a term that can be used in any intelligent discourse. Produce an 'enlightened person'. Can't do it. Define 'enlightenment'. Can't do it. Declare 'I am enlightened'. Can't do it. Describe the value of this 'enlightened state'. Can't do it.

Therefor, your sentence crumbles. But what remains is a will to the non-intellectual, which will open up to a common mysticism, which will further open up to religiously understood 'truths', which will place you in a similar position as so many: defending what cannot be intellectually and rationally described. There, naturally, you (Diebert) flounder in your own special and unique way. There you sit in a postmodern quandary with a Baudrillard text: a convoluted puzzle which, really, makes no 'sense'.

This is only meaningful if you specify up front the results as a clearly stated goal, with fixed posts. Otherwise it's bullshit as usual. Of course you know very well that "results" will be steeped in relative, debatable, contextual differences. Nobody will ever agree on any protocol even! This makes your statement bold but meaningless! Like so much of your challenging.

'You-plural' have an Absolute Position to define and defend. I have only ever suggested that we need to look into these propositions with more rigour. I cannot 'specify a clearly stated goal' since, obviously, this is an on-going work, as it is and perhaps should be for all. What I can tell you though is what does not ring true. A pure 'ring' is a good metaphor as only a quality bell can produce the pure tone. Basically, all I seem ever to have done is questioned the quality of the tone. But let me go further: No quality tone will ever come out of the 'enlightenment morass'. Anyway, you are destined to die so get on with it, man! I have always been baffled to no end why it is that the dead and dying have so much to say!

In any case, I cropped this from a book I have been reading* (a ghost in the realm of ghosts getting lit up with moonlight glow, you know the drill) and I submit it as a likeness of my own position, at least 'intellectually defined'. Additionally - I am aware of this, acutely so - I also note in me a mysticism insofar as some experiences are simply an undebatably non-rational and non-discursive in their essence. How does one incorporate these understandings? I don't think one can and yet they are there and they 'function' (influence and determine).

Since 'human personality is the crown of world-evolution', as too is developed ethical life and logical thinking, you'd certainly better understand why I can see no good reason to undermine and kill off self. I would not propose 'graveyards' therefor. But what would I propose? Universities! Centres of remodelling. Purification centres. A cure for 'amnesiacs' and 'lip-moving ghosts'. I suggest a fuller incarnation in this world, not disincarnation from it.

My understanding of 'divine spirit' is that part - as with the Nabokov quote and the declarations about an ironical 'god' who rules the domain - of why I would define a mercurial spirit both in man and around man, and why I see it in Hermetic terms: a strange game of wonder. A world riddled with omens, double-meanings, ironies, false-bottoms, and vistas that open onto unexplored territories.

As you see too, it allows and also defines what I think you and I might agree as being 'the masculine approach' and the masculine activity (a life which breaks from sensuous existence' that 'wins for itself a higher content').



*'The Philosophy of Religion', 1914, by George Galloway. This is old school theological philosophy and, I guess it is a penchant for the ghostly even in books that draws me to it. I just don't find anything similar in modern treatises.