Impossible to know with accuracy

Discussion of the nature of Ultimate Reality and the path to Enlightenment.
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: Impossible to know with accuracy

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

The thing is Gustav, that I indeed rarely have to take in a final "position" and neither did I claim that. So it's a bit silly to air that as some kind of criticism. But that's how it works for you of course. The forum or its more active members are first attacked for having firm positions and sets of "absolute truths", implied that's a great delusion but when after a bit of probing it's discovered that there's no position really at all (which should be no surprise as it's actually being stated) the attack becomes the reverse: "you don't have a position". It's now all void and a bunch of words which lead nowhere. Duh!
Gustav Bjornstrand wrote: We are composed by and through what we have been bequeathed and inherited through a biological and genetic dispensation. That is, our biological being. To speak of the human is to be required to speak of man at this level. Second, that the second level of inheritance is the cultural inheritance. This is: language, all cultural accomplishment, all the carvings out of the chaos; the struggle for knowledge and power in this realm. These are two solid pillars.
But your contradicting your self again. You know very well that by asserting a biological "being" as ourself or a cultural "being", a lot of metaphysics comes with that. And those metaphysics lean on some major fundamental orientations and crucial definitions, "axioms". Check out how Rod starts his thinking with laying out his metaphysics.

This forum discusses what comes before and assumes nothing about any biological being or cultural entity. Or if that is needed to retain, if it's something to explain or analyse to death. The existential position (not just here but in many fields of existential philosophy and Eastern philosophy this is common) turns the whole discussion around: there's existence, now reason or contemplate on the meanings underlying all those assumptions.
Quite clearly, any attentive reader can grasp with no difficulty at all where and why I am opposing this ridiculous and convoluted 'enlightenment' charade.
That's still the big mystery of course. Why bother with a forum dedicated to developing or exchanging thoughts on a topic you are so opposed against, its members you ridicule as incapable and the overall direction as poisonous? You throw yourself up as someone who desires to "change" that direction, some saviour complex perhaps but after years no sign of progress. And yet you insist! In the end I don't think you realize at all what you are exactly opposing. Actually I think you're not opposing anything at all. All the words are there to hide the fact that you've nothing. Nothing attacking a philosophy based on emptiness. That's ironic. But what is left of course is some emotional relief, some ability to project ones own issues everywhere you wish. And who can really stop you doing that? All one can do is to reflect carefully emptiness back and see what happens.
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Russell Parr
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Re: Impossible to know with accuracy

Post by Russell Parr »

guest_of_logic wrote:The very core of this belief structure is hard determinism: the view that we live in a clockwork universe in which all things and all changes are necessitated.
Ah yes, causality.
If all is necessitated, then there is no room for genuine volition: no free will, no personal choice.
Yes, free will is illusory, in the end, but the fact of our experiencing free will is not negated.
QRS enlightenment is, essentially, the acceptance of this core belief, this belief in the hard determinism of Totalitarianism, followed by an ethical commitment: to live one's life *as though* it were true. Why do I describe this as an ethical commitment? Because it can be framed as a prescription: neither machines nor their parts have emotions, and, since "I" am merely an arbitrarily-bounded cog in the Machine, then nor *SHOULD* I have emotions. The only feelings valid under Totalitarianism proper are those based upon reverence for the Machine and one's place in it: feelings of one's smallness and inevitability in the Machine, feelings of "non-attachment", feelings of dispassionate awareness of the turning of cogs, including one's own turning cog, in the Machine.
Emotions aren't suppressed or neglected, but are rather supplanted by a profound understanding of Reality. Emotions aren't necessarily unfelt either, but are ineffective in persuading one's mind, to the degree that one is wise. Emotions represent a crude understanding of reality, characterized by selfishness.
As for your #3, "higher values", the only "higher" values on Totalitarianism are those of recognition for its core belief and for living as though it were true: as though one did not truly exist but were merely an arbitrarily-bounded, and arbitrary, differentiation in a Totality-Machine, which Itself implies no values or meaning. This is the valuing of "wisdom". It is, of course, a self-contradiction: if there truly is no objective or absolute value or meaning in or to the Totality, then the valuing of this "wisdom" is as unjustified as any other valuation, but of course this contradiction is rationalised away, as being attributable to that momentum built up by following the path required to attain enlightenment.
This is right, in a way. In the end, all egotistical values are transcended. For those on the path, wisdom is valued as long as it has not been attained, but once attained, one becomes a personification of wisdom. Valuing wisdom is no longer needed.
In a very much more serious and real sense, it is constricting and restrictive: a denial of that which makes us human in the first place; a denial of our essential personhood, of our discreteness, volition and sentiment, and of the many creative and affirmative ways in which we can use our volition as discrete personal beings to interact with other discrete personal beings based on sentiment, and, when our volition and sentiment are shared, to create wonder (including culture).
No such denial takes place. These things are rather respected in their proper place within the grand scheme of the All.
Of course, even the most committed of Totalitarians do not - cannot - *truly* act in accordance with Totalitarianism. Even Kevin is a fan of culture: he loves his Flamenco dancing, for example, and has favourite musical choices, and even enjoys the odd round of golf. Technically, according to his philosophy, all of this is meaningless, and should interest him solely for the sake of dispassionate awareness of the turning of the cogs of the Machine, but in reality, it interests him *personally*, as a *discrete* human of *sentiment*.
I was waiting for this. I don't recall Kevin or anyone claiming to be perfect Buddhas, if such a thing is even possible. Michael Jordan wasn't the perfect basketball player, just arguably the best. He still missed shots. You're like someone who hates basketball just because you're unathletic.
Pam Seeback
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Re: Impossible to know with accuracy

Post by Pam Seeback »

Gustav: You define your project as 'world-transcendent'? At the very least you are taking a clear stand. I would suggest that this stance, insofar as I understand it and you in it, needs to be modified. I can explain what I mean. I have been explaining what I mean.
You are not my God.
SeekerOfWisdom
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Re: Impossible to know with accuracy

Post by SeekerOfWisdom »

I am your rightful lord, peasants!
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guest_of_logic
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Re: Impossible to know with accuracy

Post by guest_of_logic »

Thanks for the reply, Russell. I hope you're well. I won't respond in turn because my post was something of a drive-by, I wasn't planning on getting into an extended exchange. Will now retreat back into the woodwork...

One more thing before I do though. @John (Seeker), I wonder whether you'd be interested in reading a book for us and telling us how closely it matches what you believe about reality? I've just finished reading it myself, and am still thinking about and digesting it. It's called "Why Materialism Is Baloney: How True Skeptics Know There Is No Death and Fathom Answers to life, the Universe, and Everything", and it's written by Bernardo Kastrup. I have a feeling it will resonate with you because his essential premise is that because mind is all that we can know for sure, if we can model reality more than adequately without recourse to any ontological substance "outside" of mind, then, by the principle of parsimony, we ought *not* to presume any ontological substance outside of mind - and he thinks that we *can* model reality in this way. He then goes on to develop a theory of how individual psyches emerge out of the universal mind, and how we don't have to give up our current science if we switch to this ontology: idealism. Give it a go, mate, see what you think, and let us know whether you're on team Bernardo or not.
SeekerOfWisdom
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Re: Impossible to know with accuracy

Post by SeekerOfWisdom »

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.
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Gustav Bjornstrand
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Re: Impossible to know with accuracy

Post by Gustav Bjornstrand »

Diebert wrote:That's still the big mystery of course. Why bother with a forum dedicated to developing or exchanging thoughts on a topic you are so opposed against, its members you ridicule as incapable and the overall direction as poisonous? You throw yourself up as someone who desires to "change" that direction, some saviour complex perhaps but after years no sign of progress. And yet you insist! In the end I don't think you realize at all what you are exactly opposing. Actually I think you're not opposing anything at all. All the words are there to hide the fact that you've nothing. Nothing attacking a philosophy based on emptiness. That's ironic. But what is left of course is some emotional relief, some ability to project ones own issues everywhere you wish. And who can really stop you doing that? All one can do is to reflect carefully emptiness back and see what happens.
A few preliminary comments. It is interesting to note Russell 'reply' through a group of time-tested, almost canned, responses. The glory of the System is that it is invincible. With it one can 'take on all comers'. It can appear to hold its own against every faction within ideation: the scientific platform (biological materialism); against any branch of formal philosophy; against any platform founded on reason or ratiocination; against any religion or metaphysical view; in brief against 'the whole world'. I just think this is such a notable and interesting feature insofar as it provides, in our age and against so much that is confusing and in turmoil, the Perfect Refuge for a certain kind of mind.

You ask me this Question not because you really desire me to answer - you do not care about my answer nor any answer nor in fact any discourse - but because the only recourse you have, since you have no intention of reasoning things through, is to seek a way to discredit by reducing my interest or concern to a psychological problem. And if you succeed in that you will have an angle that you can work, and as I have said a way to divert the topic into unending dead-ends and diversions. I have come to understand that this is connected, rather obviously, to a general defense mechanism: a group of 'talking points' that have been preestablished. Well, no need to go into that, it has all been done before.

To propose an Absolute Truth, and to send up an Absolute Program, and to make Absolute Declarations, and to knock down other people and other approaches (say those of a specific religious arrangement) and other philosophical approaches and even the entire Conversation, but then to complain when someone rises to the task and takes this assault seriously, is just whining. Whatever it is that you are into (which you now describe as nothing at all), is not an inactive platform, and as I have said many times it connects to a general nihilism. It is produced by this general nihilism in my opinion, or in any case it has strong links to it. (This is the causal argument). Everything that I do and have done, I suppose I'd have to say, has been because I am interested and take seriously the quest for truth (insofar as this is possible as we are ensconsed in the mutable). Is that not enough of a reason?

When you say 'You don't know what you are opposing' you make an interesting statement. Yes, it is very true, that when it comes to nihilism and its various forms and presentations, one really cannot know what one is dealing with. One does not really understand it. Perhaps it cannot be understood? Afterall, what is it? So, what I say is that: When one notices and understands that this vaguely-shared 'philosophy of nothing' is a form of nihilism, and that we have all been infected by nihilism, and that we are called to make some response to nihilism and to seek a cure for it (that is a mere turn of phrase, a convention, and yet it contains some truth), one then discovers very good reasons to arm oneself for a sort of counter-attack. I am rather obviously quite taken with and interested in the counter-attack and I mean this much more in relation to 'the real world'.

The question you ask is the question I answer though in fact you despise the answer (and you don't want an answer, you only wish that your label could stick): We have to discover inside of ourselves the living link to our civilization. And a good part of this is certainly 'religious' (I prefer to say metaphysical), and so we HAVE to understand how it has happened that we have been attacked and eaten apart and why our civilization is crumbling. I assert it is because there have been attacks on the very Self. Thus, the first order of reconstruction is of the Self.

So (I am still answering your question; you know, the one that you want to hear no answer!) the Genius Form has for me been an invitation with fate. It simply had to happen. In the great causal scheme of things it had been ordained since before even Time itself began that 'I' would have this encounter with the 'you' that is no you at all - a no-you. All jokes aside, I do see this as an aspect of Fate. As I have said, and as I mean, I am very thankful for this forum and for the opportunity to see exactly what it is we must NOT do; what we must NOT be seduced into.

I'd also suggest that you cannot (nor can I) really know definitively just who has and who has not been 'influenced' by any of this that goes on here. All that we can say with certainty is that Ideas Have Consequences. That idea alone, cast onto an ocean of folks who, like you, have no idea at all, or no-idea, and who are destroying tangible links with Idea, or in whom Idea comes to a rest and a halt: just to say 'ideas have consequences' is to remind them (in my own view) of something about their volitional self. Maybe the real end of a nihilistic no-philosophy is in its essence to inculcate no-volition? A surrender to nihilism as a strategy to defend oneself against it?
All one can do is to reflect carefully emptiness back and see what happens.
It ain't over till the Fat Lady sings. (We cannot really say where everything is tending).
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Pam Seeback
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Re: Impossible to know with accuracy

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Gustav to Diebert: To propose an Absolute Truth, and to send up an Absolute Program, and to make Absolute Declarations, and to knock down other people and other approaches (say those of a specific religious arrangement) and other philosophical approaches and even the entire Conversation, but then to complain when someone rises to the task and takes this assault seriously, is just whining.
You must put aside your idea of nihilism and your definitions of Pam if you want to know why an Absolute Program cannot exist. Not only why it cannot exist, but what happens when one believes it can.

Why an Absolute Program cannot exist

Because The Absolute (not to be confused with absolute truths about The Absolute) is All of its things, the moment one of these things of the All of The Absolute is singled out for the purpose of determining 'its truth', a subjective relative world of being or self is launched into existence. For example, let's single out a form that seems to be a perfect candidate for absoluteness, that of 'honesty.' It doesn't take long to realize that as a stand-alone word absent of subjective context, the word 'honesty' is meaningless.

If you can think of any form or group of forms being or self can comprehend absolutely without having to kick into its existential function of thing-relativity, I welcome their arrival.

What happens when one believes an Absolute Program can exist

Confusion of The Absolute with the relative, aka the prideful messy world of suffering we have today. Fortunately there is a cure but pride prevents its coming.
Last edited by Pam Seeback on Wed May 04, 2016 2:06 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Gustav Bjornstrand
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Re: Impossible to know with accuracy

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Then we must work with the world as it is.
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Pam Seeback
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Re: Impossible to know with accuracy

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Why? I am not asking this flippantly, but seriously and soberly. Why would you or anyone want to eternally create a world of suffering? Is this not the very definition of sadism or masochism?
SeekerOfWisdom
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Re: Impossible to know with accuracy

Post by SeekerOfWisdom »

Moving can you quit trying to enlighten my idiot? Please.
Pam Seeback
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Re: Impossible to know with accuracy

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No, because enlightening is for the giver as well as the receiver.
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Re: Impossible to know with accuracy

Post by SeekerOfWisdom »

What need do you have for that kind of "for"?

Jusst saying, I'd prefer it wasn't this particularly amusing idiot.

Betray my wishes if you please, just know that if you do, you shall have created a powerful enemy!
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Gustav Bjornstrand
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Re: Impossible to know with accuracy

Post by Gustav Bjornstrand »

The world as world, if now one of difficulty abd suffering, is that now and will be so tomorrow.

Thus 'we have to work with it as it is'.
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Pam Seeback
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Re: Impossible to know with accuracy

Post by Pam Seeback »

Gustav Bjornstrand wrote:The world as world, if now one of difficulty abd suffering, is that now and will be so tomorrow.

Thus 'we have to work with it as it is'.
It true that the world is one of difficulty and suffering and will be so tomorrow. But no, we do not have to work with it as it is. There is a choice.

If it is your choice to work with as it is, keep in mind that you are consciously choosing to keep yourself and those in your circle of awareness in suffering. With wisdom comes great responsibility.
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Gustav Bjornstrand
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Re: Impossible to know with accuracy

Post by Gustav Bjornstrand »

I have no power over the nature of the world. In this sense 'we have to work with it as it is'.
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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:A few preliminary comments.
That's all we ever got - the tantalizing factor! And I say his with the best possible intentions: it's 'all you got, all you are. And it's fine but how to answer?
The glory of the System is that it is invincible.
No more or less than existence is. Or reality. The point is to have a way to describing exactly that, voicing the "obvious".
the Perfect Refuge for a certain kind of mind.
But it claims to do exactly the opposite: to take all refuge away. Isn't that one of the main discussions here: what is "refuge", "ego", "ignorance" and so on? All other words for the "refugee crisis" of the mind? And in every complex of words, in every ritualistic smoke, a possibility for refuge lies. This is understood but you haven't offered much of an alternative. Perhaps it's important to change perspectives and language regularly. Say the unexpected but not random?
Whatever it is that you are into (which you now describe as nothing at all), is not an inactive platform, and as I have said many times it connects to a general nihilism.
  • It is said that the world is empty, the world is empty, lord. In what respect is it said that the world is empty?" The Buddha replied, "Insofar as it is empty of a self or of anything pertaining to a self: Thus it is said, Ānanda, that the world is empty. -- Suñña Sutta
On nihilism I wrote a lot about on this forum and it's clearly something else than you are trying to use it as. In fact, it's commonly thought to be a belief that "nothing at all can be known or communicated" or that all values are "baseless" (and as such not matter). Only God knows why you are using this particular stick here. Just because you grab whatever is lying around, I suppose? No rhyme and reason to it. You're just afraid of "void" of finding out what you are, that would be my guess.
just to say 'ideas have consequences' is to remind them (in my own view) of something about their volitional self. Maybe the real end of a nihilistic no-philosophy is in its essence to inculcate no-volition? A surrender to nihilism as a strategy to defend oneself against it?
Everything has consequences and causes. It's what you could have learned on this forum and yet you try to teach it now!

Here's some other thoughts for you. Enlightenment has been defined as the lack of ignorance regarding the nature of reality. But since it cannot be any permanent state as our states are always changing and caused, fully out of control, we cannot have an actual enlightenment as state although many states could indeed occur along the way which probably will remain beyond description and also completely relative to a context. But what is reached for, rediscovered as it were, is called "beginner's mind" or just "clarity", a "clearing out" not to be confused with Scientology. Clarity is always the start of philosophy or any meaningful, qualititive activity at all. In that sense this is not even a philosophy forum. It's just one of he many attempts to promote and discuss any states conductive to thought, reason and higher purpose. But the fruit is not the topic. How could it? The principle of causality prevents that to be meaningful. Any foundation is true because its principal is. It can not be reasoned towards but one can discover all reason is done stemming from it.
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Russell Parr
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Re: Impossible to know with accuracy

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Gustav Bjornstrand wrote:A few preliminary comments. It is interesting to note Russell 'reply' through a group of time-tested, almost canned, responses. The glory of the System is that it is invincible. With it one can 'take on all comers'. It can appear to hold its own against every faction within ideation: the scientific platform (biological materialism); against any branch of formal philosophy; against any platform founded on reason or ratiocination; against any religion or metaphysical view; in brief against 'the whole world'. I just think this is such a notable and interesting feature insofar as it provides, in our age and against so much that is confusing and in turmoil, the Perfect Refuge for a certain kind of mind.
Disregarding your distorted portrayal of it, the philosophy aimed at here is indeed fit for only a certain mind, a worthy mind. A mind that is more passionate about and interested in eternal Truth than it is in the superficial and temporal pleasures of the body, ideology, and tradition.
The question you ask is the question I answer though in fact you despise the answer (and you don't want an answer, you only wish that your label could stick): We have to discover inside of ourselves the living link to our civilization. And a good part of this is certainly 'religious' (I prefer to say metaphysical), and so we HAVE to understand how it has happened that we have been attacked and eaten apart and why our civilization is crumbling. I assert it is because there have been attacks on the very Self. Thus, the first order of reconstruction is of the Self.
The crumbing of our civilization has nothing to do with what we're aiming for here at this forum, which is the transcendence of self. The "deconstruction" of self that you refer to, is in my opinion, in actuality, the death of a self, a very certain self. The self I refer to, is that of the modern Western world, with its transfixed values and cultures. As with all selves, there is a birth, a life, and a death. We are merely approaching the end of a life. (Truthfully, this subject is irrelevant to this side of the forum. Your mentioning of this crumbling prompted me to create a discussion to this topic, the "fall of the West," over in Worldly Matters. Feel free to share some thoughts there if you (or anyone) would like.) (And no, this isn't some conspiracy to control your expressions. I'm genuinely interested in this stuff.)
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jupiviv
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Re: Impossible to know with accuracy

Post by jupiviv »

I think Alex, so far, has posted the most inspiring and insightful comments on this thread (apart from me of course).
Alex wrote:To propose an Absolute Truth, and to send up an Absolute Program, and to make Absolute Declarations, and to knock down other people and other approaches (say those of a specific religious arrangement) and other philosophical approaches and even the entire Conversation, but then to complain when someone rises to the task and takes this assault seriously, is just whining.
Hear hear.

I've had it up to here with the DRS (Diebert-Russell-Seeker) cult! And especially Diebert! We have a saying where I'm from - "the jackal is king of the bamboo grove". It means that, contrasted against the *completely* worthless, even the *partially* worthless seem worthy. Alex, wise as he is, has thus far merely *pretended* to be incapable of seriously contemplating anything besides the lackadaisical ream of the foal in order to cause Diebert to be unduly obsessed with debunking this philosophical patsy and thereby receive an excuse for ignoring the glaring faults in his own reasoning. Thus, Diebert's folly is exposed for all to see.
The world as world, if now one of difficulty abd suffering, is that now and will be so tomorrow.

Thus 'we have to work with it as it is'.
Alex is shooting pearls at us! Only the unworthy shall run for cover!
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Gustav Bjornstrand
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Re: Impossible to know with accuracy

Post by Gustav Bjornstrand »

'The Ass is King in his paddock' is how it's expressed in my neck of the woods. I wonder if it's some ancient Indo-Aryan wisdom-saying?
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Russell Parr
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Re: Impossible to know with accuracy

Post by Russell Parr »

I find it highly ironic that you, jupiviv, who greatly admires K.Solway, are now comfortable with aligning yourself with Alex, who had been trashing Solway's work for around a decade now.
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Gustav Bjornstrand
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Re: Impossible to know with accuracy

Post by Gustav Bjornstrand »

(Since before time began.)

Kevin will soon invite me to golf with him.
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: Impossible to know with accuracy

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

That, or he's being even higher ironic and tries to puff up the balloon with some hyperbole praise. Or he's into older men, to guide his uncertainties.
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Gustav Bjornstrand
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Re: Impossible to know with accuracy

Post by Gustav Bjornstrand »

Except I've been shooting pearls at you so consistently there's a dent in your forehead. How do you explain that?
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: Impossible to know with accuracy

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

So you admit you're attempting to drive people crazy and damage their heads? It's also a pretty strong metaphor for gun violence or sexual obsession.
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