Impossible to know with accuracy

Discussion of the nature of Ultimate Reality and the path to Enlightenment.
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Gustav Bjornstrand
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Re: Impossible to know with accuracy

Post by Gustav Bjornstrand »

Diebert wrote:Nice try but I exactly quoted your sickly paranoid friend's phrasing. It was to be expected your started to knit pick at that. The word nit is really fitting.
Well, let us suppose that Ken is my friend. Is he not your friend? If not, do you have friends on this forum? Do you think of anyone as a 'friend'? If not, how do you conceive of those here? with whom you are spending years? Enemies?

Also, why is nit so fitting?
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: Impossible to know with accuracy

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

Gustav Bjornstrand wrote:Well, let us suppose that Ken is my friend. Is he not your friend? If not, do you have friends on this forum? Do you think of anyone as a 'friend'? If not, how do you conceive of those here? with whom you are spending years? Enemies?
No.
No.
Yes but it needs embodied interactions for a long period.
Pretty dumb overall.
Tragic cases especially those.
Yes in the best case scenario (since they'd be more like me, the "mortal enemy #1")
Also, why is nit so fitting?
Apart from being short for nitwit: this is why.

Some other ideas.
  • With great minds comes often a great ego attached but work gets done despite this. It's an artefact, a parasite - only useful in the initial phases perhaps.
  • It's always looking for a fresh cultural medium for its kind. As an eternal parasite and freeloader it keeps expanding like a horrible bacillus wherever a favorable medium beckons
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Gustav Bjornstrand
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Re: Impossible to know with accuracy

Post by Gustav Bjornstrand »

I'm the mortal enemy of your mortal enemy then.

BTW: Happy Spider-Mother's day!
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Pam Seeback
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Re: Impossible to know with accuracy

Post by Pam Seeback »

Alex: 'Someone like Gustav', but not quite Gustav himself, or perhaps an even more solid version of Gustav? is said to have many many different opinions about knitting and knotting and grouping. Yet his first order of observation is simply to point out that the one 'like Diebert', or most like Diebert, or the one acting here as Diebert, indicates a man working hard on many different levels to establish a managed space.
As are you. As is every member here. The will to consciousness in action.
At the end of the day, and if I were to make some Ultimate Statement, I would be forced to mention that 'the board' as Pam describes it, is one under the rulership of a religiously-minded group of persons, and thus the conversation is constrained by the set of aprioris that define that religious approach.
Back to my thoughts above. Is it fair to say that what is happening on this board is dialogue between people who understand, in varying degrees, either intellectually or existentially, the will 'to be or not to be?'
Now, 'Gustav' or the one who is here appearing in Gustav's garb, merely wishes to suggest that The System which seems to be presented by some who seem to post here on these pages seems to look like 'a system of idealized entity' ... fictions compounded out of conceptualized uniformities and which are turned into a sort of forum-furnishing.
Most here cannot complete with your lust to decorate. In you, the force is strong. :-) Is it also fair to conclude that the will not to decorate is just as strong?
The first severe control episode only leads to another and another and another. It is simply a 'curious observation', more of a question really, about how the 'creative imagination' functions, or perhap more precisely to what a sterile and controlled imagination will tend when spinning its knots.
The creative will and the non-creative will both share the same goal - to remain conscious. When they are unaware of this shared goal, they appear as enemies to one other. Rationality vs. irrationality, men vs. women, religion vs. philosophy, etc.
Pam's Rumi poem now becomes even more terrible than it first seemed.
Rumi's poems seem terrible because they are of the existential understanding of the battle of the will to be conscious (to cause the finite) and to be unconscious (not to cause the finite). My interpretations of his works is that he was very strongly pulled into the latter of the two and countered that pull with his great volumes of odes and quatrains devoted to what he called the Friend (and his fellow sufi mystic Kabir called the Guest), the imagined Other.

No different than the scientist or philosopher or logician (or assumed master metaphysician :-) who finds him or herself in this same existential place of 'to be or not to be' and speaks and/or writes about their particular Friend. I checked out the link Diebert provided about the parasite (very timely as hubby and I just removed an engorged tick from the neck of The Poodle [our resident Queen]) and found myself reading the entire thread. And there it was in black and white, David Quinn's Friend of 'to be' that fends off 'not to be', his 'She/Her/It' - 'the marvelous play of God.'

It is my experience that there are very few who stand in raw existence with the wisdom of 'to be or not to be, that is the question' and successfully ride the edge of both. In order to successfully do so, the ego must be dismantled because the ego desires only to be, ignoring, at its peril, the flip side of the relativity coin.
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guest_of_logic
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Re: Impossible to know with accuracy

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SeekerOfWisdom wrote:I think I'll instead just go kill an ant I can see on my bench.

*Seconds later*

Damn. That's one tiny dead fucker.
So you've turned into a troll? How sad. I remember your idealism when you first arrived on the forum.

Here's the thing: in the time I was active, I didn't see you manage to convince even a *single* person on this forum - certainly not me - that you even had a coherent ontological position, let alone convince anyone that it was the correct one. And I *did* try to engage with you to understand what it was. This, I'm guessing, is at least in part what has turned you trollish: the frustration of not being able to convey your point of view.

Bernardo starts from the exact same premise as you, and has developed that premise into a well thought-out view which has convinced a lot of people that he at least has a coherent position. This could be your chance to get people on board: either to say, "Hey, Bernardo's talking about the exact same thing I'm talking about - if I haven't been able to convince you, then read him", or to say, "So, this Bernardo guy starts from the same premise as me, but here's where we differ". Maybe you could actually start gaining some traction on this forum? Have people start to get a sense of exactly *what* it is you believe other than "there's nothing outside of mind"? Become a constructive contributor again rather than slinging off juvenile attempts to insult and antagonise?
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Gustav Bjornstrand
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Re: Impossible to know with accuracy

Post by Gustav Bjornstrand »

Pam wrote:Back to my thoughts above. Is it fair to say that what is happening on this board is dialogue between people who understand, in varying degrees, either intellectually or existentially, the will 'to be or not to be?'
You must of course realize that Hamlet meant 'To stay alive or to kill myself, what is the question I face'?

You might actually mean that, I'm not sure. A deliberate 'kill myself while alive' strategy?

Actually in thinking about this I wonder if Hamlet could be rewritten from a 'wise' perspective. Turned into a neo-Buddhist didactic tract.

Something, we know not what, has deeply affected Hamlet. Ostensibly, the death of his father and the too-soon marriage of his mother. But there is something else that gnaws at him. It's invisible essentially. And what else could it be but 'false ego', attachment, and so on and so forth?

His whole world sours. All joy dies. And then at the soliloquy he enlarges on his Discourse:
  • "To suffer the false ego and 'live' or to slay the false ego and 'die', that is the situation I face. Is it nobler to face on an inner plane the images and the false-appearances of things 'as-if real' and submit to their machinations, or to oppose the very inner structure of the Self which alone can *see* them and gives rise to them? That is the issue here."
Ooooooh. There is a lot to work with here!
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SeekerOfWisdom
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Re: Impossible to know with accuracy

Post by SeekerOfWisdom »

guest_of_logic wrote:
So you've turned into a troll? How sad. I remember your idealism when you first arrived on the forum.

Here's the thing: in the time I was active, I didn't see you manage to convince even a *single* person on this forum - certainly not me - that you even had a coherent ontological position, let alone convince anyone that it was the correct one. And I *did* try to engage with you to understand what it was. This, I'm guessing, is at least in part what has turned you trollish: the frustration of not being able to convey your point of view.

Bernardo starts from the exact same premise as you, and has developed that premise into a well thought-out view which has convinced a lot of people that he at least has a coherent position. This could be your chance to get people on board: either to say, "Hey, Bernardo's talking about the exact same thing I'm talking about - if I haven't been able to convince you, then read him", or to say, "So, this Bernardo guy starts from the same premise as me, but here's where we differ". Maybe you could actually start gaining some traction on this forum? Have people start to get a sense of exactly *what* it is you believe other than "there's nothing outside of mind"? Become a constructive contributor again rather than slinging off juvenile attempts to insult and antagonise?
On the contrary, I have no lasting intentions here. My thinking when posting may sound something like this: "This should be fun", or when asked to explain myself: "What's in it for me?".

For what reason should I go on to explain myself, or try to actively change the situation? (Not inclusive of the reasoning you provided, which assumes a great deal of egotism, or that I'm trying to 'get people on board'.)

Honestly, not one person has provided even an attempt of a good reason.
Last edited by SeekerOfWisdom on Tue May 10, 2016 7:09 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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guest_of_logic
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Re: Impossible to know with accuracy

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SeekerOfWisdom wrote:Now, for what reason should I do any of what you suggest? (Not inclusive of the reasoning you provided, which assumes a great deal of egotism, or that I'm trying to 'get people on board'.)
The reasoning I provided simply assumes you're here to participate in good faith. Discussion isn't about "what's in it for me", it's about open and honest give and take. If you're not here for discussion, as you state you're not, then I'll leave it to the moderators as to what to make of your continued participation. Not that I'm here for the long term either, this is just a drop-in visit.

I'll just note that to ask "What's in it for me?" and "How can I have fun with this [without concern for others]?" is a pretty classic indicator of egotism in itself.
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Re: Impossible to know with accuracy

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guest_of_logic wrote: is a pretty classic indicator of egotism in itself.
If you say so.
guest_of_logic wrote:assumes you're here to participate in good faith. Discussion isn't about "what's in it for me", it's about open and honest give and take.
I'm here to participate in good faith, I think, and perfect, what do I get to take? If there's nothing to take then you're telling me "it's just about open and honest give and give."
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Re: Impossible to know with accuracy

Post by guest_of_logic »

OK, here's what you get: feedback on your ideas, the possibility of improving them due to the input of others, and the possibility of inspiring or teaching others, which most people like to do.

But if none of that interests you, and if you're not interested in giving without receiving either, then you probably have no business being here.
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: Impossible to know with accuracy

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »


Laird for moderator! :--) But not a drive-by then. Seriously I do appreciate it when people care about the discussions and tone here.
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Re: Impossible to know with accuracy

Post by SeekerOfWisdom »

guest_of_logic wrote:OK, here's what you get: feedback on your ideas, the possibility of improving them due to the input of others, and the possibility of inspiring or teaching others, which most people like to do.
For me, there's no meaningful feedback you or anyone here could give, nor any possibility of improving "my ideas".

And having something happen for others, does not actually happen for me.

So you're basically offering me that I'll like to do it...

Doesn't make much sense, since I already like plenty of things, most of which don't involve having to explain the basic logic of existence to a barely existent ( for me) Laird.

So you see, "Nothing" has been the only answer so far.

Hope that clarifies things and reveals to you that I'm simply asking a philocphical and literal question "What's in it for me?" which is not being answered :)
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Re: Impossible to know with accuracy

Post by guest_of_logic »

Forget it, then, John. It's obviously pointless trying to talk with you. By the way, I think Bernardo's ideas are flawed, so I would have hoped you could come up with something better. I guess not (I know, I know - you could show us if you wanted to, you just don't).
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Re: Impossible to know with accuracy

Post by SeekerOfWisdom »

guest_of_logic wrote:Forget it, then, John. It's obviously pointless trying to talk with you. By the way, I think Bernardo's ideas are flawed, so I would have hoped you could come up with something better. I guess not (I know, I know - you could show us if you wanted to, you just don't).
Ok.

If you say so.

Ok.
Pam Seeback
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Re: Impossible to know with accuracy

Post by Pam Seeback »

Alex: Actually in thinking about this I wonder if Hamlet could be rewritten from a 'wise' perspective. Turned into a neo-Buddhist didactic tract.
'Wise' (in quotation marks) is appropriate if one is soured and joyless as is your portrayal of Hamlet upon waking up to his delusion of opposition to existence. While waking up can cause disorientation and fear of letting go of the familiar delusion of opposition, sourness and a sense of joylessness belongs to the experience of delusion, not to the experience of waking up. Any bells ringing regarding a certain person's bringing of acid to the forum?
Something, we know not what, has deeply affected Hamlet. Ostensibly, the death of his father and the too-soon marriage of his mother. But there is something else that gnaws at him. It's invisible essentially. And what else could it be but 'false ego', attachment, and so on and so forth?

His whole world sours. All joy dies.
As it does every time he is affected by the machinations of birth and death of his recycling ideals. Perhaps, perchance, this time a door has opened to stop this madness?
And then at the soliloquy he enlarges on his Discourse:

"To suffer the false ego and 'live' or to slay the false ego and 'die', that is the situation I face. Is it nobler to face on an inner plane the images and the false-appearances of things 'as-if real' and submit to their machinations, or to oppose the very inner structure of the Self which alone can *see* them and gives rise to them? That is the issue here."
"To suffer the ego and suffer to 'live' falsely or be of the wisdom of its slaying and end suffering, that is the question. Is it noble to live falsely in opposition? Is it noble to keep suffering of the delusion of opposition alive? Is it sane to oppose the very inner structure of existence when to do so is to oppose the very structure of what is? These are the issues here."
Ooooh. There is a lot to work with here!
Indeed. Go.
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Gustav Bjornstrand
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Re: Impossible to know with accuracy

Post by Gustav Bjornstrand »

Perhaps, perchance, this time a door has opened to stop this madness?
Crown Prince Fortinbras!
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