GENIUS FORUMS

Perhaps all of your mistakes are stupid, Dennis. I know I myself at times make mistakes which I later think of as having been stupid, but more often I regard mistakes as part of the learning process which is to be alive. Logically, being able to learn does not preclude one from making mistakes. Might Laird have not called "GFers" stupid because that would have required making an assumption which was not consistent with his intent?

Laird has remained convicted for years GFers are mistaken not 5 minutes.

in the domain 'not mistaken',
there is no chance for dull, dimwitted, incompetent mental machinery to show up and achieve 'not mistakeness'

where does stupidity show up,
in the domain 'mistaken'.
where else could it show up?

It doesn't matter if he's a touchy-feely kind of guy and doesn't like to be seen as the embodiment of rudeness.

When he declares 'mistaken', the sub-text is 'in the order of dull, dimwitted, incompetent mental machinery,
particularly when the issue has raged for years.
there has to be a reason.
either his teaching skills are poor at the task of alleviating 'mistakeness' or those 'mistaken' are deficient in comprehension. he wouldn't go for the poor teaching skills scenario.

Laird suggests a point of inquiry.
it has to be established if players are fit for inquiry.

coming to inquiry prejudicially makes the job very difficult.

by the by, is brokie and basil one and the same?
be straight up.

Dennis wrote:When he declares 'mistaken', the sub-text is 'in the order of dull, dimwitted, incompetent mental machinery, particularly when the issue has raged for years. There has to be a reason. Either his teaching skills are poor at the task of alleviating 'mistakeness' or those 'mistaken' are deficient in comprehension. He wouldn't go for the poor teaching skills scenario.

I am afraid to say that you have it wrong. Having conversed with Laird at length I have never gotten the sense that he considers the GF founders to be stupid, or dim-witted, or incompetent. (Frankly, that sounds more like Alexis's shotgun accusatory style, that is, something out of the mouth of an Ass). Yet, I don't consider the founders to be stupid. The way I have described the origin of their 'errors' is in lack of familiarity with ideas. Lack of background in the world of ideas. 'A partial education is as bad as none'. Or perhaps it's just an Australian thing? (But wait, that can't be so because Laird and others don't show that characteristic). Maybe it's the accent that drives their folly? (No, that can't be right either since Laird also has that funky accent). (Geepers, this IS a toughie...)

Certain people of like minds come together and for many different reasons 'share their agreements'. The ideas get concretized into a sort of dogma (kerygma) and---presto-chango!---they are sent out into the world to 'do their work'. It happens all the time!

In our world, and we are all aware of this, we constantly have to face people (theorists, actors in the world, agents) who we recognize as being misguided, and therefore mistaken. We ask: How can they think (say, do) such a thing? Don't they understand (a b and c, etc.)? People regularly go off into the world 'half-cocked' as the expression goes. I believe we must also assume that it is quite possible we may not be getting the full picture. On what shall we base certainty?

[Oh, that's right, I forgot: A=A. My WHOLE THEORY has just been wiped out! Aaaaarrrrgggghhhhh!]

One problem with the GF formulation is the notion of 'absolute truth'. If it exists, and for simple logical reasons we are forced to suppose it must, it follows there is or should be someone who 'knows' it, who has it, can explain it. And naturally this is where the problem arises. Many many many times I have witnessed David (far more frequently than Dan or Kevin) speak as if he is the spokesman for this Absolute Truth. All other theorists, over the whole planet, are regularly shot down as being 'unwise'. Well folks, that only leaves the great Mahatma himself...

It is a fallacious position to attempt to occupy. Many of the GF followers, for understandbale reasons, pick up this stance and seem to imitate it. True, they demonstrate nothing but buffoonery and make fools of themselves, but they really seem to believe it.

How people are mistaken is a very interesting subject of conversation. And our relationship to mistaken view. Well, your relationship to mistaken view. Since my doctrines are pure & true & right as rain.

Let me ask you.
when you guys throw out there,
GF is binary thinking and therefore wrong,
is not, in that very speech act,
the expression of binary thinking showing out.

same with 'mistaken'.

are you guys fitted up for inquiry?

guest_of_logic wrote:.....and that women are a dangerous hindrance to be avoided.....

Indeed this may be the case for those males who are incapable of love and fullness of manhood. But for men of genuine faith and wisdom a living and loving relationship (oneness) with a virtuous woman is the greatest of gifts and joys. And is also the greatest example, inspiration, and teacher one can possibly be to his fellows.

Dennis wrote:Laird has remained convicted for years GFers are mistaken not 5 minutes.

This "sentence" makes no sense to me. It is some kind of terse point you are making but the meaning simply eludes me. Has Laird been convicted of something?

It doesn't matter if he's a touchy-feely kind of guy and doesn't like to be seen as the embodiment of rudeness.

No one would like to be seen as the embodiment of rudeness, I daresay. I have never met Laird, and only know him from what he chooses to write. I must have missed every single instance in which he chose to be rude, that is certainly a possiblity. Because I cannot for the life of me think of a single example of Laird (g_o_l) being rude. Why, Laird is so non-rude, it difficult to discern that he is Australian!

in the sense...of a conviction, being convinced.

Laird has a well thought out, well crafted Public Persona, ethical, has rules of engagement,
unlike trickster ass who threw out the rule book.

You guys, as mothers little helpers are in there to soothe the Public Persona.

I'm trying to get to the Private Persona.

by the by, is brokie and cousin one and the same?

Alexis Jacobi wrote:Well damn. There you go.

I...

I...

I...

(*shrugs*)

Good answer. Thoroughly disingenuous, facetious and bullcrappy. Just like you Alexi.

cousinbasil wrote: Has Laird been convicted of something?

Congratulation with your cunning discovery of another potential spelling error and your incredible witty way to exposing such a grave blunder! Although a less convicted mind might consider that Dennis uses words a bit more intuitive and freely, bending the normal rules somewhat. And as it happens, being convicted is certainly more accurate in this context than just being "convinced".

Anders wrote:This means that whatever you imagine will always be caused by whatever it is not, hence there can be no free will, you are exactly as the rest of the universe makes you.

This requires an a priori assumption that whatever is not A causes A. How does one prove that? Being that A can be "whatever you imagine"?

A priori assumptions on identity relations are called axioms. The moment A is asserted or imagined, one defines it by offsetting it with "not A". In the same way asserting of imagining "not A", offsets it with "A". This means by a simple logical axiom (which by definition are always a priori assumptions) that asserting a "thing" invokes the world in which the thing exists in contrast. The world (not A) contains the whole set of causes for the thing (A). And the thing (A) contains the whole set of causes of the assertion of "world" as a thing (not A). This paradox is only resolved in the continuous, becoming and non-duality.

Alexis Jacobi wrote:I believe we must also assume that it is quite possible we may not be getting the full picture. On what shall we base certainty?

The question preceding this is: what is meant with certainty? And to answer that one has to be certain about this definition (otherwise one looks for a contradiction: a search which will self-implode, leaving simulacra in its wake, that is: ignorance). To approach a definition of certainty one has to start with approaching that was is certain beyond doubt. Like the sense that existence exists, as opposed of there being nothing whatsoever (to use a Quinnian brilliant).

If [ 'absolute truth'] exists, and for simple logical reasons we are forced to suppose it must, it follows there is or should be someone who 'knows' it, who has it, can explain it. And naturally this is where the problem arises.

It doesn't follow. The whole essence of all which has been said about absolute truth is that nobody can "have it", or "know it". It only becomes apparent when you stop having, knowing or trying to explain it. And yet people still keep asking for explanation and knowledge on it, so something (a 'poison') is knowingly given. And then you come along complaining and outlining how "poisoned" the teaching is!

All other theorists, over the whole planet, are regularly shot down as being 'unwise'. Well folks, that only leaves the great Mahatma himself...

Well, if any "other theorist" would know and express something equaly good or better, why not just referring to him and be quiet? The very act of speaking out on the subject yourself makes one or a copycat, a biographer or a critical challenger. There's obviously relativity at play on all sorts of levels when it comes to determining exactly how unwise or wise some teaching might be in some absolute sense. The wise don't need this being explained to them!

Many of the GF followers, for understandbale reasons, pick up this stance and seem to imitate it.

And that's a bad thing, how? It's an illusion to think imitation does not play an important part in any development, being it art or philosophy. "Imitation, if noble and general, insures the best hope of originality", as the Great Unwashed once said.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: If the 'ad hominem' is the absolute fallacy it is said to be, it should be useless in argumentation, but in fact it is not. The questions Diebert poses are not in my mind irrelevant. But they are distracting, presented as he presents them. '

The ad hominem doesn't have to be a fallacy at all. There's actually a fallacy which uses accusations of "ad hominem" as way to dismiss a statement. Of course it doesn't require much brain power to see that in the context of you calling the forum "not a place for open dialogue and exploration of existential ideas" and "it is a place where those ideas and that process of discovery is insulted", any reference to your own behavior and experiences on other forums is actually very relevant to the topic. Which is the topic of yourperception of this place being hostile to how you would like to discuss certain ideas. My god, I make you sound here like a totalitarian control freak, don't I? Are you like that in all your relationships? Do you want absolute control over the exchange, do you want your rules to be in place and do you get all emotional if others do not respond "correctly" in your eyes? Heheh, there you have your ad hominem fallacy!

You see, you might have participated in a more substantial way in this particular conversation at an earlier point, and you might have actually conversed the ideas. But you seem to do this less and less.

Of course I could also simply state you're just increasingly incapable to read my replies, to interpret them. But I won't go that low. Indeed I'm sometimes revisiting covered ground or starting over again with seemingly childish points. But the reason for that is simple because I'm aiming for something which is so fundamental, so "childishly" simple, that the average human being is way too far removed to consider it (again). The first step therefore is for someone to start considering they might have missed something so obviously. But then again, it's not about missing it, it's about not wanting it. You aim for something I gave already up a long time ago. And not because it's bad or evil, just because I realized it was not what I was really searching for. It's a personal realization which I don't expect or even desire for others to embrace. It all depends how badly one desires truth. It has no other ultimate goal or blessing (and this might be one case where I seem to fundamentally disagree with some things Quinn and Solway have said over time, to those who actually pay attention on this forum, which I don't think actually includes you yet Alex).

"You were 'vomited out' of this one."

Well no, I think this forum is one of the few forums left which has only few rules, giving you unprecedented freedom to articulate your criticisms and insights for years now. But I've witnessed a couple of other places which didn't give you that opportunity and audience.

IDEAS HAVE CONSEQUENCES

Yes, since the self or person is nothing but idea, any alien enough idea quickly becomes god or devil, mother or destroyer.

I am attempting to think and feel things through. I am looking for ideas that are 'key' and 'absolutely relevant'. I am looking for defenses against a mad exterior world (forces) that, given the chance, would dice me up only to be a particle in the machinery.

But why would do you it here, or if you're still attempting it, looking for "defenses" as some powerless victim, why even hint at being able to offer anything to the lost in the exaggerated sense as you have been doing ("I carefully write out differing 'conceptual pathways' that a person can follow")? Is it like being like a Roman, when being with the Romans? But you do not present yourself as an equal, you present yourself as authority, as superior 'source'. This makes your criticism look very insincere.

But I set to work AGAINST a group of machine-like persons, with machine-like ideas, whose 'purpose' was to cut up, dis-integrate, break apart and dehumanify the PERSON.

Your intention is right but your aim appears as wrong! You are not presenting yourself as the defender of persons but of the machines. You're playing the "agent", not the "one". Of course it all starts with talking about what makes a human human. And it's not his ability to bullshit, that's for sure! Much of nature already constantly bullshits to get along.

You will NEVER critique David or Dan or Kevin.

Well, speaking off: where are Dan and Kevin? Dan still drinking in his personal suffering and dependency on pub camaraderie or did Kevin perhaps reach the limits of his possibilities and did he retire with a house and family? The reason I rarely have critiqued them is that they don't say much to find fault with. Sometimes it is because they just don't say much at all. But silence is still golden, so you see Alex, there's still a great improvement in store for yourself there.

back in the day the prisoner was brought before the jury and tried. the prosecution argued its case in order to convince the jury of the prisoners guilt.
the point was the jury had to be convinced beyond reasonable doubt.
if so the jury had to record it's conviction or express it's convictedness.
the jury was convicted.

then the issue played on from there and the judge convicted the prisoner to do time and the prisoner became known as the convict.

but really it was the jury who was convicted. the prisoner who got convicted didn't really want to be convicted and can't understand why he became the convict any way because he wasn't convinced of the jury's convictedness in the way the prosecution managed to convince the jury so that the possibility of the jury recording a conviction against him could come about because the jury was convicted.

it all works out somehow.

and if I was his lawyer I would take it to appeal, not only for the money but to destabilise the prior convicted jury's reasoning that got my man convincted and made him a convict.

Any way I'm convinced Laird is convicted that GF is stupid.

and basil, if you don't answer the charge 'is brokie and basil one and the same' levelled at you by prosecutor tomas,
this jury may be convicted beyond reasonable doubt,
hand it back to the judge who will convict you and make you a convict.

[posting error]

Diebert wrote:A priori assumptions on identity relations are called axioms.

Diebert, I know you can do better than this. Please read this whole response you gave and tell me if it answers my question. I'll try to explain why, though it is a lucid explanation, it exists not to reply to what I have asked, but to appear to do so by dint of its own lucidity. Let me begin by pointing out I did not say axiom because I wanted to stress that something was being assumed, and I did not want to afford it the status of axiom because this is my entire point.

The moment A is asserted or imagined, one defines it by offsetting it with "not A". In the same way asserting of imagining "not A", offsets it with "A". This means by a simple logical axiom (which by definition are always a priori assumptions) that asserting a "thing" invokes the world in which the thing exists in contrast.

Nicely worded. Next, show me show to tie my shoes and I'll think that is nice, too.

The world (not A) contains the whole set of causes for the thing (A). And the thing (A) contains the whole set of causes of the assertion of "world" as a thing (not A).

This is the part that should have contained the actual answer to my point. I know you know you have not answered it by your conclusion:

And the thing (A) contains the whole set of causes of the assertion of "world" as a thing (not A). This paradox is only resolved in the continuous, becoming and non-duality.

The "continuous becoming and nonduality" does not explain anything, that is, it does not resolve the paradox to which your own clear, concise - and nicely worded - logic has brought you. In other words, here is my problem: If you are saying it is an axiom that whatever is "not A" has caused A, then it must also be axiomatic that A must have in turn caused "not A." Or at least, that A contains within it all the causes of not A. Anders said in his post A can be "whatever you imagine." Let us then imagine an idea. Let us make it specific. There is no apple sitting on my table, yet let me picture one -I have an idea of it in my head - and I am letting that idea be A. How can the idea of an apple which does not exist (although the idea exists) cause everything that is not that idea? In general terms of course so a moron like me might understand it.

Dearly Beloveds: Don't think about it, don't 'ponder', just click here and let it go to work on you. What needs to become clear will become clear...
___________________________________________________

Diebert wrote:The whole essence of all which has been said about absolute truth is that nobody can "have it", or "know it". It only becomes apparent when you stop having, knowing or trying to explain it. And yet people still keep asking for explanation and knowledge on it, so something (a 'poison') is knowingly given. And then you come along complaining and outlining how "poisoned" the teaching is!

It seems to me a 'mistake' originates here. In Zen texts, and Taoist texts, everything is presented as a riddle that cannot be solved through any typical method. With those texts, and certainly with a Zen personage, all one's 'methods' is exactly what needs to be somehow gotten around. Anyone who has read those texts, or been in that environment, is aware of this. Pretty much, this is what you have described above.

But the next part---about knowingly giving 'poisons'---is disingenuous. Still, one needs to linger for a moment over the whole construct of the GF position. It is wrapped up with the statement that a pure rational mentation, a strict 'logical' activity and engagement, will reveal 'the truth'. This is a core precept. I suggest that this precept is nearly completely at odds with the Zen method, as far as I know it, and my experience is the following: I grew up next to one of the most important Zen Centers along the California coast, and my parents and many in my community were intimately involved with Zen practice, Zen activities, Zen associations: the surrounding social matrix with its sharing of ethical values, ideas, hopes, aspirations, etc. From the time of my early teenage years I have had the opportunity to converse with people moving around in that world. It is true that it never called out to me and I never jumped into it an become a member of that community, but I have spent time with it and around it, so it is not unfamiliar material to me.

This idea of yours, that of handing out 'poisons', seems to me based either in a misunderstanding, something like wishful thinking or idealistic thinking, or a lie. As we all know, the problem of self-deception is one we are all aware of. I assert that QRS 'self-deceive' themselves, and you-plural are involved in the same game. Take for example Dennis the Maharaja's recent: 'I'm trying to get to the Private Persona'. That is to say, get a peek behind the mask that is persona. This is where we all glide in and out and back and forth with the 'ad hominem'. Okay, since I'd rather not believe that you are lying, I have to believe that you suppress or choose not to acknowledge the wide field of ethical recommendations that are insisted upon by the forum and by those who express themselves here. Two stark examples come to mind: David and Kelly. (Kevin is absent and Dan is largely irrelevant). If you examine their discourse, and their ethical recommendations, I suggest they are in stark contrast with both the desired result of Zen meditation, and with even the (Zen) notion of 'poisoning' the obstructing self so that some level of realization occurs. Adamant and very rigid praxes are suggested, but in truth they are insisted upon. The 'praxis' of GF, at least in the hands of David and Kelly, becomes a harsh and radical enterprise which has more in common with an Evangelical position, or a Calvinist position, than it does with a Zen position.

What I refer to, then, is other motivators, other agendas, other tendencies. I have hardly even and possibly never taken a stance against Japanese Zen. I have taken a stance against what I perceive as---now check this out---a constructed and dubious persona (GF as constructed persona) that incorporates Zen as a kind of false front through which to (pushing your analogy) inject poison into the individual. The crux of my argument is here. There is no other 'place' and hardly any other concern of mine that I focus on. This is where I suggest the possibility of 'unconscious motivators' and a sense of destructive will.

I also suggest susceptibility: I suggest that certain people, and it is mostly men, young men in fact, of a certain intellectual disposition, seem to the ones most inclined to desire to drink down these 'poisons'. So, the questions arise (naturally it arises from my presuppositions which I expond on constantly): What is being drunk down, why do certain people submit to it, what are they trying to 'kill', and is this desire and process as conscious and aware as it is represented as being, or does it mask (persona again) other, unconscious desires? Essentially, this is the area I operate in. And I have explained this dozens and dozens of times: we are part of a culture that is in crisis. We are in crisis. We are desperate. Desperate people seem to be willing to try anything, even 'poisonsous medicines'. Dan David and Kevin, when one examines their writings (early writings) each gave clear evidence of this desperateness. Out of this crisis or persons arose what we see here: GF forum, a declaration of values and ideals, a system, a set of beliefs, a praxis. It takes very specific stances in regard to very specific things, and is founded upon certain axioms and precepts, and we all know them. One of the main ones, of course, is a Wienengerian (self-described) misogyny, and all these strange, rather dark, links to Nietzscheanism, an anti-Christian position, and a decided group of ideas and ideals that border upon dangerous formulations. These 'dangerous formulations' are many and varied, and they can be mentioned and discussed.

Ah, right. The problem is that there is no one to discuss them! No one of the Main Players is even aware of the dangers in the territory into which some of these Wienengerian-Nietzschean formulations tend. David time and time again states he has no interest in 'context'. No one seems to grasp the psychological implications of this radical project of cutting off from self, of turning against the 'heart', the emotive self, the creative self, and the self that is capable of relatedness with the female of the species. The implications in this are simply VAST and cannot be swept under the table. Now, in this context I suggest anyone reading my words will readily understand why I often, yet always with humor and irony, unleash the fury of my discourse upon those utter idiots, those drooling slobs of sheer stupidity, those sycophantic third-graders who rally to a reflexive defense of the GF Poisons and who yet have no comprehension of the implications of those forumlations.

No. It is not seen and it is not understood by them. Yet all this strange content is a subtext here. All this odd, unconscious content yet finds a way into expression: it seeps out from underneath this Zen Mask.

and basil, if you don't answer the charge 'is brokie and basil one and the same' leveled at you by prosecutor tomas,
this jury may be convicted beyond reasonable doubt,
hand it back to the judge who will convict you and make you a convict.

I know I am one and the same, and I would imagine brokenhead is as well, whoever he is. I might have to go back and read some of his posts, though, because now I am curious. (Curious - oops, there's that word again!) He must be erudite and loquacious if Tomas believes I sound like him. I did search for "uncle brokie" and it seems this is a moniker Tomas coined. That may be what is getting conflated in his aging grey matter, the "cousin" and "uncle" thing even though he himself came up with the "uncle" tag.

I don't like to be too hard on Tomas because he is a vet after all, a few pieces of shrapnel in the skull and what not. Plus I was raised to respect my elders. But as I get up there in years myself I tend more and more to reserve even that respect for those who would engender it.

Alexis Jacobi wrote:In Zen texts, and Taoist texts, everything is presented as a riddle that cannot be solved through any typical method. With those texts, and certainly with a Zen personage, all one's 'methods' is exactly what needs to be somehow gotten around.

It's more than that, it's supposed to be penetrated, it's supposed to illuminate the unsettling fact of how ones current way of approaching zen (and everything existential) is deeply flawed and as well it's meant to deeply disappoint the moment the first few layers are peeled off. A good zen text functions like a rough but still walkable road into disbelief and shock. And the beauty of crafty zen is that even when one fails to grasp the text, one still learns to flex a certain muscle which might become handy later on. Like running to catch a bus might not enable you to catch it but at least you got exercise so you can more easily run next time! The bus driver of course will in case you do catch it mug you and then kick you off again. So perhaps it's best for the runner to keep missing it.

It is wrapped up with the statement that a pure rational mentation, a strict 'logical' activity and engagement, will reveal 'the truth'.

To remove erroneous mentations blocking the right view, rational mentatons and logical activities are indisputable as disinfectant. Any other "method" around only serves to enable one, or ones brother, to have at some point the proper rational mentations.

my parents and many in my community were intimately involved with Zen practice, Zen activities, Zen associations: the surrounding social matrix with its sharing of ethical values, ideas, hopes, aspirations.... t I have spent time with it and around it, so it is not unfamiliar material to me.

Well, the same could be written about myself and Christianity, its matrix, values, theology and related wisdom traditions. It doesn't mean such "church" is anything but a vessel which like an old crypt contains remains which might be of use to the straying wise individual. It's also possible the nursing matrix of values and its more dead than alive knowledge is where a young genius occasionally might start his long and winding journey.

I suggest they [David, Kelly or anyone else you disapprove off] are in stark contrast with both the desired result of Zen meditation

Not sure where you are talking about. In what way for example you find David rigid, or insisting on a certain praxis?

In your post:

• You expanded on what Zen could be and is. You amplified my simple definition and described how it can be or is relevant or even necessary and 'good'. I have no argument against it. But the Zen you are talking of, in my view, is very very distinct from the psuedo- or neo-Zen of David et al.
• You have described what appears to be your understanding of David's et al method in their use of reasoning: as 'disinfectant'. That rational analysis can be used to clear away dead material, to cut into old structures, to 'prune', and to establsih a new base for additional growth, is nothing I can argue against. I also see and recognize that GF declares itself as serving these functions, and in that I am with them 100%.
• You have drawn a parallel between your upbringing in Protestantism (I assume) and my upbringing in proximity to Zen-in-California. And you have described that on some levels it may not really mean much of anything. For example, one could go and sit in a church all day and never really now much about it, and never decide to become apostled by God, or to read the texts, etc. This certainly true, except I will differ from you in this sense: the people who launched into Zen practice (that I grew up with) were just as committed as David, Dan or Kevin, and in some senses much more so. Because they worked through the ideas and the implications, because they came from backgrounds that gave the some of the analytical tools to do this. You may say, as David so often seems to says, 'No, none of that is relevant at all! What WE DO with our grasp of Zen is of another, far more radical order! We scoff at what these lukewarm souls do!' (And then David spins off into some strange Zen Orbit or evaporates into thin air). But the core Buddhist ethical imperative is service, and when one grasps service, one works within the community of persons. I fully accept, however, that an individual may begin his path in the context of such a 'church' and may go through who knows how many shifts and transformations. But in the end, you really haven't said so much here.
• You ask a question about 'what I am getting at' in the last paragraph, as if you don't understand. But all of that I explained as clearly as I could in those parts of my post that were the most relevant to the points I wished to make. You have brought up secondary issues, and tertiary issues. Since I'd rather not repeat writing out my post, I will refer you back to the post above where I did that. Please comment on some of those points or, if thou wishest and if it please thee, demonstrate that I am a psychopath. (I admit I am sort of waiting around for that one).

Alex and Laird.
GF is not mistaken.

Who?, what?, when? where? how? why?

The moment of truth.
To relate the experience in time and space is to falsify it.
It simply cannot be explained in words.
What happened had no form. It was timeless, unbounded, ineffable, beyond language.
No words, no emotions or feelings, no attitudes, no sensations.
What came from it formed itself into words and feelings and emotions and into an altered process of life itself.

human being knows nothing, spends its life learning things, thinking it just needs to know a few more things and it will have the secret and be allright.
all its knowledge is skewed to some end which is survival or success.

After you realise you know nothing you know everything.
All the things heard and read, all the hours of practice suddenly fell into place. It's so blindinglly simple.
There are no hidden meanings!
Everything is just the way it is.
and it isn't the way it isn't.

the end, its all over rover.

OK, brokie and cuz ain't one and the same.
you can leave the dock.
thanks.

Dennis wrote:...the end, its all over rover.

If that is so, can you just pack it up and go home?!

;-)

And as you begin that looooooooooonnnnnnngggggggg trek to your odd planet, take some soundtrack with you.

Hit the road Jack?

So much misunderstanding here .... :(

-

Anders,

I'm not sure whether you're aware, but from the outside, what you presented was barely recognisable as logic. It was more like a loose connection of semi-related statements:

Anders Schlander wrote:It logically follows that a person is recognized by being whatever that isn't around the person, and the rest of the universe is recognized by being whatever that isn't the person. It follows that because the two appear by each other's boundaries, they cause each other to be distinctly what they are. The small tiny person is seen in light of the big universe, the big universe is seen in light of the small tiny person. This means that whatever you imagine will always be caused by whatever it is not, hence there can be no free will, you are exactly as the rest of the universe makes you. If love and hate rest upon each other, pretending that they are utterly distinct would be rather foolish right?

My suggestion (a challenge to you) is this: that you try to make this argument as explicit as possible by constructing it in point form: state your premises (including definitions), infer your supporting inferences and then deduce your conclusion, all in as many numbered steps as you need. Only after you've done that will it even be possible to assess the argument on its merits. Right now it's just too vague.

I don't have the energy to respond to the rest of your post. You're so obviously very invested in the position, "QRS philosophy is the logically indisputable Ultimate Truth" that it would take too much out of me to keep on offering an alternative perspective.

jupiviv,

Your interpretations of what I mean are pretty ... creative. I don't feel like getting into an extended discussion, but I'll respond briefly to one of your interpretations:

jupiviv wrote:But that is not what you are saying, is it? Your position(and Alexis') is that two people can see the same thing as two different things, and still see the same thing(or conversely, see two different things as the same thing, and still manage to see two different thing).

What I'm saying (and I won't speak for Alex) is more like: "two people can see the same thing and conceptualise it, model it, interpret it and respond to it in two different ways".

Dennis,

Why, you cunning chap. I see what you've done here. It's something like a Liar's Paradox, isn't it? If I call you stupid, then you will be right (that I think you're stupid), and thus you will be not mistaken, and thus not stupid, and in fact I will then be mistaken (that you are stupid), and thus it will be me who's stupid! Ah, such a fiendishly clever trap that you've set for me, and a damn good thing that I recognised it in time to keep from falling in!

Diebert,

It's a good question, "What is a good principle?", and I don't have a complete answer for you, but I will suggest that at least sometimes (and perhaps even often or generally) what makes a good principle is that it leads on average to desirable and beneficial effects.

As for the fact of perception being Ultimate Truth, I think we all know that this forum's notion of what constitutes Ultimate Truth goes a lot further than that.

That GF has fanboys and proselytes is as plain as day to for anyone to see, and yes, I noticed it independently. As far as this being "intellectually lazy" and "dismissive" to point out, I think Alex's observation of the type of people who become GF fanboys and proselytes is pretty interesting to consider.

As far as the themes of the forum not differing from other sources and traditions, I see this forum as a distortion and perversion of many of those ideas. The interpretations that David, for example, offers of various "sources" is typically dubious at best.

Laird,

Neither you nor Alex are prepared to do the one thing that would resolve all these issues - namely, open your mind to "that" which is everywhere and everywhen and comprises all things, all worlds, all perspectives. If you would do this, the light would be turned on and you would suddenly see how this forum makes perfect sense.

Instead, you both spend your time trying to find excuses not to do it.

This opening up process has to take precedence above all else. You have to dive fully into it and then and only then can you proceed to make judgments about everything else. As it stands, you're both like blind men in a dark room trying to guess about things you do not see.

-

Why, you cunning chap. I see what you've done here. It's something like a Liar's Paradox, isn't it? If I call you stupid, then you will be right (that I think you're stupid), and thus you will be not mistaken, and thus not stupid, and in fact I will then be mistaken (that you are stupid), and thus it will be me who's stupid! Ah, such a fiendishly clever trap that you've set for me, and a damn good thing that I recognised it in time to keep from falling in!

No.
mistaken and stupid go together.
one cannot exist without the other.
one is the statement of the other.

David wrote:If you would do this, the light would be turned on and you would suddenly see how this forum makes perfect sense.

Dennis too?

Don't push me...