GENIUS FORUMS

Alex wrote:

Alex: Anyway, in my own life, it has been only when I have been disarmed by pain, or even agony, that I was able to actually hear something another was saying to me

Carl: So, this is why you miss what is being said here.

Alex: Touche!

Alex shields himself inside the fortress of uncertainty. There is no room for the pain of ignorance to get through.

-

David, really, that was the stupidest thing I have heard you say to date. The two of you, in this last exchange, mimic little boys on the playground, so that if you can interpret something in duo, and force that definition to stick, you 'win'. It is just plain adolescent.

I was really trying to suggest---though it sailed over your heads---that these declarations of absolute certainties (on your parts) seems evidence of a sort of 'ignorance', and that the only cure for ignorance is living in the pain produced by incorrect perception. You seem to have come to a group of conclusions that can only produce pain and separation, as I see things. 'Life' is a potency, a process, that continuously acts and *is*, and no matter what routes we choose or insist on, Life has the final word. 'And so these castles made of sand, fall into the sea, eventually'.

We don't decide, we can only listen, and suggest...

I may or may not have 'certainties'...I rather think that I have very strong hunches that have to do with my own 'dharma', my own path at this time through the world. And that is where the notion of 'the spirit' is relevant: as I gaze out on the waters of the world, certain signs and signals make themselves known, if I am there to perceive, if I have some consciousness, some willingness. But my subjective hookup is not yours, and vice versa. But what 'surfaces' for me, though it may be similar to what surfaces for you, is different, is not exactly the same, and so it is not so much 'uncertainty' as it is allowing the spirit (God, the Tao...) to manifest according to its will, as it always has done and does. In this, there is an allusion to the arrogant intellect that seeks agreements with other arrogancies, seeks to install a dogma, and to enforce a dogmatic approach to 'Truth'.

One flutters down here, like the noble mantic priest in a didactic fairy-tale, and tries to give you boys a little good natured help and instruction, yet you continue to act like snot-nosed brats!

The *AShKeNaZ* Brain of Tel-Aviv begins to lose patience!

I won't give up though, I WON'T!

Alex Jacob wrote:allowing the spirit (God, the Tao...) to manifest according to its will

God sometimes manifests in the form of people who are certain of various things. Sometimes these people are ignorant, and sometimes they are wise.

It is my view that in our day and age it is the doctrine and the dogma of "uncertainty" that we most need to dispell. Like all dogmas, the dogma of "uncertainty" fights against all dogmas other than itself. And it fights imaginary dogmas in the absence of real ones.

I think there is a false sense of power in 'clarification' and in 'clarity', the sort of clarity that philosophy strives for, and by that I mean the sort of philosophy so wedded to processes of mentation, to mere orderings of the mental structure

My philosophy is Zen.

But words and categories are still very useful, and words like "henid", to describe the non-thoughts, and non-consciousness, that most people have, shine a beautiful and revealing light on what would otherwise be dark and hidden.

Such things could give power to a power-hungry person, but it does not necessarily follow. Truth, when it comes only in part measure, can give a great boost to the ego. But we should not for that reason shy away from it.

the artists generally have some advantages over these philosophers, insofar as they give expression to the intangible

Perhaps you're thinking of "academic philosophers", who are in fact not philosophers at all. To me, real philosophers include people like the Buddha, the Zen Master Hakuin, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Sankara the non-dualist, Diogenes, etc.

All these men are great philosophers precisely because they give expression to the intangible. They give fully conscious expression of it, rather than the fully unconscious expression of it we would observe in, say, a cow (or a rock), or the barely conscious expression of the artist.

The artist, and I mean the kind of artist whose work you see in art galleries, gives expression only to the vaguest and merest hints of anything approaching truth. But the audience for this kind of art are so lost to reality, so far removed from truth and from spirit, that it appears to them as the greatest and most profound revelation! To the appreciators of art, the great men of philosophy are invisible and non-existent.

A misty fog veils vision. It is luminous and seems just barely to cover something a little further on. As if one is moving toward something and through the fog, the fogginess begins to clear and a fortress, or is it a temple? appears. Entering through an enormous, fortified door, we enter a large hall with small windows high up on the walls, casting a clear, cool light onto the interior. The floor is of a roseate marble, the undecorated walls are of smooth plaster and off-white. From an adjacent hallway there is heard a whirring sound, a sort of 'whiiiiirrrrrrr-ka-chunk, bsssssssssss-chunk', of small machinery. Then a constant whirring sound as something approaches, the whirring sound echoing from the corridor into the main hall. Enterring from the corridor into the main hall is a small robotic conveyance with a dozen miniature tank-like wheels, supporting a transparent plastic orb containing a pulsating human brain bathed by a constant stream of artificial blood. There are five or six video cameras on the chassis of the conveyance and as it moves they rotate and focus here and there, avoiding obstacles, peering now in front, now behind, and move toward the center of the room where a bearded stranger waits.

'Whiiirrrr-bzzzzzzzzzzzzzz-vrrrrrrrrrrr-ka-chunck!', the conveyance comes to a stop and the video eyes probe the tall stranger, dressed in worn-out corduroys, a tee shirt and cheap tennies, having just returned from a long, long trip to a barbarous, uncivil land. From an opening, accompanied by characteristic precision whirring, a small telescopic speaker emerges, extends, and comes to rest, 'ka-chunk'. From the speaker a sort of tinny Jewish voice is heard, with just a wee trace of a Brooklyn accent:

"Nu! We finally meet in poison, I mean person! (Ha ha, get it?) The Great AsHkEnAz and Kevin Solway, Mr Way-of-the-Sun himself, oh fisher of men!, howsabout that! Well, this is me alright! Okay, I certainly am not much to look at, but we philosophical types shouldn't be overly converned with externals, now should we? What matters is what's contained in the grey material, and as you see, that's pretty much all I am! (Video eyes probe Kevin, looking at him from all angles, they seem a little uncertain).

Well, let's get down to business, huh? We should really get this on a podcast, don't you think? My agent is still waiting for a call from you shlmazels! My rates are a bit high for you country-bumpkins but we can negotiate, we can negotiate.

When I referred to artists I most certainly was not referring to the artists who hang pictures in galleries, but rather the great artists of music, literature and art, those who have molded culture. I am especially interested in literature, and suspect that you-all have read quite insufficiently, and therefor don't really have a sense of what is being talked about. You remind me of an anecdote: when they told Bob Dylan's father, when Bob was still just a boy, that his son had the temperment of an artist, his father asked, 'An artist, that's a fellow who paints, ain't it?'

When I referred to artists, I perhaps meant, say, someone like Hermann Hesse, in a work such as Siddhartha or Narcissus and Goldmund and perhaps especially Steppenwolf. In this and so many other works, artists and thinkers come to terms with ideas and their implications for our lives. Or the great Russian writers, Dostoyevsky, Turgeniev, Chekhov. It is in these writers that one comes in contact with men really working out the ramifications of ideas, and they do so in a way that is very connected to life, aware of mortality.

You say your philosophy is Zen...but what is your whisky?

My philosphy...is Zen. My whisky...is Jack Daniels...and my six-gun...is COLT! Now, if'n you want to MAKE somethin' of it, then DRAW!

Huaaar huaaaar!. Just kidding. Mine is 'Judeo-Christianity', obviously, because I guess this is the tradition of the West, and it is the one that has produced all these cultural works that I so admire, and me too. There was a time I was interested in exotic religions---it happens to all of us---but I don't think we really have a choice but to come back and work in the vinyards of our ancestors, so to speak. It is not impossible that these new-fangled traditions might augment our own traditions, the work that stands before us, but more often than not they are waylayenaces, detours, and they have tended not to have much impact on culture, not in any significant way.

"It is my view that in our day and age it is the doctrine and the dogma of "uncertainty" that we most need to dispell. Like all dogmas, the dogma of "uncertainty" fights against all dogmas other than itself. And it fights imaginary dogmas in the absence of real ones."

Hmmmm. I sort of like the ring of this. It has a missionary texture that is energizing to the touch, like a scarf with a static charge. You see, that is exactly why I tend to veer away from religious doctrine and toward the concretations, the explorations, of literature. It's the religious Holy Spirit that trransforms itself into a Pure Spirit that can move through the world of ideas, and interact with people. The way I see things, you or I are only going to be able to do some very small number of things in our lives, and then we disappear back into the Nothingness or the great Somethingness (I am not at all an impersonalist, so it's a somethingness for me), and all this confused protoplasm is going to carry on just as it always does! and most likely not a great deal is going to change! To my way of seeing things, the examples in great literature are far more potent and far more moving...than those of religious and spiritual literature.

Well Kevin, it's been real. I have simply got to get back and reattach those dammed electrodes to this busy brain---the Sacred Work of Machiavellian control of the whole wide world waits for no man! There are populations to hoodwink, propaganda to foist, and a whole lotta useless CRAP to convince people who don't have the money for it that they simply must have it, and to extend the credit to them so they can! I'm sure you understand...

Toute a l'heure!

Alex Jacob wrote:the great artists of music, literature and art, those who have molded culture.

They have only had a great impact on culture by default, because the population cannot relate to, and consequently cannot appreciate the truly great men.

When I referred to artists, I perhaps meant, say, someone like Hermann Hesse, in a work such as Siddhartha or Narcissus and Goldmund and perhaps especially Steppenwolf.

I have read "Siddhartha" and thought it was weak as water. I remember being actively unimpressed by it. This was probably because I already had a good understanding of the truths behind Buddhism, and the "Siddhartha" book was an insult to those truths.


But let me talk about a couple of regular artists (ie, non-philosophers), and non-painters too, who do appeal to some part of me: Johann Sebastian Bach and Bob Dylan.

Bach reminds me of the joy of Nature. Dylan . . . of the pain of it. That's good . . . but what of it really? Neither really awaken me to God, the All, in any significant way. Bach comes closer to that than Dylan, for me, but that is probably because of what I am contributing to the experience rather than what Bach put into it. Bach provides a meadow through which I can go for a nice walk. That's all.

It is in these writers that one comes in contact with men really working out the ramifications of ideas, and they do so in a way that is very connected to life, aware of mortality.

Yes, I just wish they'd work out something true.

There was a time I was interested in exotic religions

Zen, like the Tao, is the Way of Nature. Really, nothing exotic.

I tend to veer away from religious doctrine and toward the concretations, the explorations, of literature.

I'm not drawn to religious "doctrines" either, but I am attracted to truth. The problem with the expressions like "art" (Bach, Dylan), and nearly all literature (Hesse, Shakespeare), is that truth is sacrificed for the sake of a story that will appeal to the baser instincts. All you will find of truth in these works is a couple of relatively harmless grains, and you need to be a kind of forensic examiner to be able to bring them to light.

The way I see things, you or I are only going to be able to do some very small number of things in our lives, and then we disappear back into the Nothingness or the great Somethingness (I am not at all an impersonalist, so it's a somethingness for me), and all this confused protoplasm is going to carry on just as it always does! and most likely not a great deal is going to change!

Yet things do change. At one time there was no conscious life on this earth, so far as we know, and now there is! That's quite a change.

At one time there were no written words explaining the spiritual truths of "the All", and now there are!

Personally, during my short time alive, there is not a lot I can do, and there is little I can change. But I see myself as part of a much bigger machine that will continue to work long after my part has expired.

To my way of seeing things, the examples in great literature are far more potent and far more moving...than those of religious and spiritual literature.

As I say, the standard literature and art are more moving only because people are insensitive to the work of the truly great men. There is not enough spirit in the average person upon which the great men can gain any purchase.

Hi. I'm Ace Backwords. I stumbled onto your site when Greg Shantz posted Dave Sim's prayer on the Comics Journal Message Board earlier in the day ( http://www.tcj.com ) . So I've been perusing your site and I checked in because, well, I suppose I should have some brainy reason for checking in, but in truth (whatever THAT is, philosopher-types) it seemed like a cool way to blow a Monday evening.

Like what Alex Jacob has to say about "uncertainties." Alan Watts -- a writer I am no longer particularly fond of -- wrote a book entitled "THE WISDOM OF INSECURITY." The book was a dud, but the basic concept was a keeper. I'm suspicious of anybody who is too sure of themselves and their philosophies. How much do ANY OF US really know for sure? Life is ultimately a very mysterious thing. And the Tao shall manifest according to It's peculiar logic. And usually, at best, I only figure it out dimly, after the fact.

And I'd thought I'd throw in a personal jibe, just to infuriate all the eggheads on this site. I've enjoyed a lot of the dialogue I've perused on this site. Its nice to see people kicking around all the Big Issues. Beats talking about them '9ers anyways (they're having another dismal season of gridiron action: So there's your sports update). But a lotta' you guys sound like eggheads that were roped in by the "genius" title of the thread. And now you want to prove what brainy types you are by nit-picking arguments and proclaiming your superiority over the lesser minds. Well, feel free to pick apart my post if it wins you some points.

That said, interesting site.

There's nothing to pick at, so you're safe. Way to introduce yourself though. Did you ever stop to consider that it's arrogant to think that others don't have the answers you lack? Is there a cogent reason you can offer to support the idea that it's unlikely they do?

Acebackwards wrote:

I'm suspicious of anybody who is too sure of themselves and their philosophies. How much do ANY OF US really know for sure? Life is ultimately a very mysterious thing. And the Tao shall manifest according to It's peculiar logic. And usually, at best, I only figure it out dimly, after the fact.

It's good to be suspicious of anyone who seems too sure of themselves, but you undermine this fine trait by preempting the whole matter by stating grandly that "life is ultimately a mystery". Suddenly, you seem a bit too sure of yourself there.

I'm not simply an egghead engaging in petty point-scoring here. I consider this to be a vitally important issue. If a person decides at some point, for whatever reason, that nothing can ever be known with certainty, then he automatically begins to close himself off from the possibility of his ever attaining ultimate knowledge in the future. In effect, he is agreeing to diminish his own future consciousness, purely on the basis of some arbitrary speculation on his part.

Let's be honest here. If a person is currently uncertain of everything, then he really has no idea whether ultimate knowledge can be accessed by the human mind or not. He has no basis for extending his own uncertainty to utterly everyone in the universe. His uncertainty is his alone. It has nothing to do with anyone else.

If he were to say to himself, "Ok, I don't really know whether ultimate knowledge exists or not, but I'm going to try as hard as possible to seek it. I won't rest until I find it" - if he were to say this, then he would have my admiration and respect. For it shows that he is being honest with himself and genuinely values truth.

But if he were to say, "I'm uncertain of everything, therefore everyone must be equally as uncertain as I am. Ultimate knowledge will always be impossible to find" - then he would automatically earn my contempt. For he is clearly being dishonest with himself and with everyone else, and he is showing that his love of truth is lukewarm at best.

In my experience, almost all people who go around proclaiming the uncertainty of everything fall into the latter category. I think of them as cowards who seek refuge in mediocrity.

-

I'm suspicious of anybody who is too sure of themselves and their philosophies.

What the founders of the board, Quinn, Solway and Rowden (QRS), state is nearly always more accurate than anywhere else I've seen, but I and many others still find tonnes of justification to argue about just how "absolutely" correct they are when it comes down to the nitty gritty.

Of all past philosophers, Nietzsche is the only dude I'd place above them in relation to seeing the deepest into reality, but even he had many failings - to me he failed to explain his reasoning to a sufficient degree, and left his some of greatest philosophical ideas as mere aphorisms too readily open to misinterpretation, and even non-interpretation.

In saying this I realise I am placing myself above both - but really anyone who argues consistently agianst the QRS is doing the same thing. Nietzsche was a 100 times more philosophically inventive than me, and the QRS are 100 times more devoted to "truth" than me, but in a way that has become their failing - they see too much god in reality (which is why they like the masculine "worldly transcendence hero" of Zarathustra, and I reckon it is one of his lesser works - starts off well then dissolves into crap). I'm not extremely intelligent and haven't read any classics, so in their defence I may be "missing" much of the reasoning for their ideas, but in my own mind I make up for this by an excellent ability to generalise and think laterally.

Jamesh wrote:Of all past philosophers, Nietzsche is the only dude I'd place above them in relation to seeing the deepest into reality, but even he had many failings - to me he failed to explain his reasoning to a sufficient degree, and left his some of greatest philosophical ideas as mere aphorisms too readily open to misinterpretation, and even non-interpretation.

Perhaps he did it on purpose? He wrote for a small amount of people and didn't want to be figured out by others. He writes about how much he has to keep secret throughout his books. In some of his notes he even talks about how the commanders should use morality and religion as a tool to get the masses to submit to them. Perhaps all he writes is meant for some similar purpose. Ultimately the individual has to figure it out for himself and Nietzsche didn't want to present a dogmatic philosophy.

From another thread:

Neil wrote:

Dan wrote:Dan Rowden wrote:
Come off it, Jimbo. You know quite well each individual has to do it from scratch, even with the wealth of supporting and helpful info that exists. It's just the way it is; anything less is religion.

But why should anyone do it from scratch? Such a long waste of time it would be for everyone to do it. I know you feel personally attached to this understanding but the majority of people simply don't want or need to spend the time. Most of them can be happy without resorting to philosophy.

We're only talking about people interested in philosophy, aren't we? The rest may be content with being sheeple, but I don't care about them especially. The reason each person has to start from scratch is because the only alternative is to engage in belief. That automatically makes you religious. Believing or accepting the truth of what someone has said, without understanding it yourself, is folly.

Kevin Solway wrote:I'm not drawn to religious "doctrines" either, but I am attracted to truth. The problem with the expressions like "art" (Bach, Dylan), and nearly all literature (Hesse, Shakespeare), is that truth is sacrificed for the sake of a story that will appeal to the baser instincts.

What's the point of truth if, in seeking it, you can't enjoy the "baser instincts?" To understand truth, you have to understand life; to that end, those baser instincts are as essential as logic. True knowledge comes from experience, and well-made art is an experience. Now, if a certain type of art isn't your preference, that's different than saying no truth can be found there.

What is "truth," anyway? I can understand "knowledge," "wisdom," and "growth," but "truth" sounds like an end goal, a destination. There is no end to growth.

Dan,

The reason each person has to start from scratch is because the only alternative is to engage in belief. That automatically makes you religious. Believing or accepting the truth of what someone has said, without understanding it yourself, is folly.

The problem is that it is quite impossible to start from scratch. We are plopped in the middle. I can't go back 20,000 years ago to see if humans are evolving, 2000 years ago to see if Jesus was real, etc. We have to have beliefs. In fact that is all we have.

In the end does it really matter who believes what? All we philosophers want is our happiness. We are outcast in a world where survival is almost guaranteed. We want to be important, successful, happy, etc. Everyone does and everyone has a different means to it, whether that be "truth", understanding, religion, etc.

Neil Melnyk wrote:Dan,

The reason each person has to start from scratch is because the only alternative is to engage in belief. That automatically makes you religious. Believing or accepting the truth of what someone has said, without understanding it yourself, is folly.

The problem is that it is quite impossible to start from scratch. We are plopped in the middle. I can't go back 20,000 years ago to see if humans are evolving, 2000 years ago to see if Jesus was real, etc. We have to have beliefs. In fact that is all we have.

Those things are ultimately irrelevant to philosophical inquiry. I'm not talking about science or history and suchlike, I'm talking about understanding Reality.

In the end does it really matter who believes what?

Yes, it damn well does matter! Would you care if people believed that all person's named Neil were evil and should be castrated with a rusty butter knife?

All we philosophers want is our happiness.

Good philosophers abandon the idea of happiness quickly.

We are outcast in a world where survival is almost guaranteed. We want to be important, successful, happy, etc.

Hmm, you must be thinking of academics. They are hardly philosophers. Spiders spinning webs, etc...

Everyone does and everyone has a different means to it, whether that be "truth", understanding, religion, etc.

Well, that's all very egalitarian of you, but I'm not especially interested in people's false beliefs.

acebackwords wrote:I'm suspicious of anybody who is too sure of themselves

Can we be sure who is too sure?

Life is ultimately a very mysterious thing.

"Ultimately".

Does this mean that you are yourself too sure?

Neil

Perhaps he did it on purpose? He wrote for a small amount of people and didn't want to be figured out by others. He writes about how much he has to keep secret throughout his books. In some of his notes he even talks about how the commanders should use morality and religion as a tool to get the masses to submit to them. Perhaps all he writes is meant for some similar purpose. Ultimately the individual has to figure it out for himself and Nietzsche didn't want to present a dogmatic philosophy.

Yes, I accept this comment. Was thinking a similar thing - that he only wrote for the select few that would have a chance of understanding.

In some of his notes he even talks about how the commanders should use morality and religion as a tool to get the masses to submit to them.

I wasn't aware of that, but I can see him thinking that, as it is something I also sometimes think about.

Dan,

NM: The problem is that it is quite impossible to start from scratch. We are plopped in the middle. I can't go back 20,000 years ago to see if humans are evolving, 2000 years ago to see if Jesus was real, etc. We have to have beliefs. In fact that is all we have.

DR: Those things are ultimately irrelevant to philosophical inquiry. I'm not talking about science or history and suchlike, I'm talking about understanding Reality.

Granted. However when we take it all away what are we left with? I am sitting in a room thinking with some concepts that I don't know how valid they are. I am seeing things and I don't know if they are real or not. I am confused. I don't know if other humans are real. I am not sure if my body or mind is real. I don't know -- anything. Where am I? Canada. Who am I? Neil Melnyk. No no no... I meant where am I and who am I? -- I don't know. All I have are my beliefs, whether I admit it or not is just a matter of degree.

NM: In the end does it really matter who believes what?

DR: Yes, it damn well does matter! Would you care if people believed that all person's named Neil were evil and should be castrated with a rusty butter knife?

This would make me unhappy... I think. It would go against my natural instincts for survival and reproduction. Therefore I think I will do anything to avoid it -- even lie, harm, kill, etc. I will do anything to avoid it up until that critical point where, if I overstepped it, the consequences would no longer seem to justify the means to me (perhaps sacrificing my beliefs or bliss for a penis would not be worth it).

NM: All we philosophers want is our happiness.

DR: Good philosophers abandon the idea of happiness quickly.

They abandon a certain primitive view of it, the type that they see the majority of human beings engaging in. Some fool themselves into thinking they are going completely against it, the "selfless" ones. However what is will to truth or will to understanding other than a will to overcome (understand, know the root of) suffering, a will to happiness? You want to be complete, to be able to handle anything, to be secure. You want to have something that distinguishes you from others or satisfies your desire to be better than others -- that or you want to submit to others because you derive your happiness out of submitting rather than dominating, as women do.

NM: We are outcast in a world where survival is almost guaranteed. We want to be important, successful, happy, etc.

DR: Hmm, you must be thinking of academics. They are hardly philosophers. Spiders spinning webs, etc...

There is just a degree of difference. Academics sit in offices and do academic things for money. Philosophers do a more personal study of life and usually gain no money from it, but they reap other, greater rewards like personal satisfaction, the idea that they are superior to others, belief that they understand life, etc.

NM: Everyone does and everyone has a different means to it, whether that be "truth", understanding, religion, etc.

DR: Well, that's all very egalitarian of you, but I'm not especially interested in people's false beliefs.

Only your own, and only in casting others' beliefs as "false" to distinguish your "true" and superior ones from theirs. Hey I don't blame you, we all do it, even what you and I would call the lowest of the lowest human beings. :)

divine focus wrote:What's the point of truth if, in seeking it, you can't enjoy the "baser instincts?"

One can enjoy the pleasure of the higher instincts - the instinct for truth. It is a pleasure to be able to dissolve any mental ailment through the brave application of reason.

This pleasure in truth is not a very lofty achievement, but it's a start.

To understand truth, you have to understand life; to that end, those baser instincts are as essential as logic.

Good thinkers are able to understand one small corner of a problem and then accurately extrapolate all the other corners using the principles they have discovered. They don't need to experience everything themselves, but are able to learn from the experience of others (poetically called "remembering one's past lives").

True knowledge comes from experience, and well-made art is an experience.

Yes, it's an experience. But not necessarily a constructive one.

Does a person learn from art (eg, music) the identity of the most fundamental mistakes he has made in his thinking, and how to avoid making them again? I don't think so. At least, not for the vast majority of people.

Now, if a certain type of art isn't your preference, that's different than saying no truth can be found there.

I don't say that no truth can be found there, but that you need the skill of a forensic examiner to find anything worth finding.

Of course, there is the same kind of truth in the song of a bird, or in the sound of waves crashing on the shore, as there is in any piece of music (the song of a human). That's easy enough to see. But as to anything more than that - there's not much. The song of a human is little different to the song of any mindless animal.

What is "truth," anyway? I can understand "knowledge," "wisdom," and "growth," but "truth" sounds like an end goal, a destination. There is no end to growth.

You say, "There is no end to growth.".

If that statement were true, then it would be an example of truth.

Once you reach the truth, there's nowhere further to go. That's why it is absolute.

Wisdom is the knowledge of the fundamental truths of life, beyond which it is not possible to go.

Not a great deal is to be measured by how the vulgar masses receive or relate to the Great Men, of any age. In times gone by the majority of people lived in the most simple and direct manner, and only have relatively recently begun to be cultivated, that is, tended, directed, manipulated, prodded, stimulated, sated, etc. I am not at all sure why you are concerned for the average person. In our present---and we too are related to this---a population, to quote Mr Dylan, is little more than something others invest in, a sort of pig farm, a human nursery, bottled embryos out of Brave New World. I think you have to admit, though your *ends* may be different than the protagonist in Brave New World, that his struggle was peculiarly the same: a stumbling across something precious, the desire to recognize it, privelage it, distinguish it, value it, describe it, present it, represent it. And what? You want to represent the supreme value to the pigs on the pig farm? You set yourself up as religious reformer, but there is no reforming that is not self-interested, and in the end, Qui Bono? The culture that is described int he best of the best literature is very much on a par with the sources you mention, and the individuals who layed out their thoughts, hopes, dreams, aspirations in their literary and artistic work were in many senses far more well rounded than you-all seem to be. At the risk of coming across as too judgmental, you-all seem very young and very, very inexperienced in your presentation of 'knowledge'. In that, you seem to represent essentially a middle-class awakening, and a middle-class missionary zeal. So many others have questioned themselves, and deeply considered though what means 'knowledge' could be brought to people who lacked it. I don't mean to be insulting of your project, but I think you really must do away with this air of superiority, this sense that you are the first to come to these gates, to this impass, to this difficulty, and you would do well to continue to *mine* 'in the words and deeds of the past', to fill out your knowledge, and not to act so dammed sure of yourselves, so dammed cocky.

Your analysis of Siddhartha is a sort of case-in-point. Ultimately philistine! Most likely you took it as a dogmatic text and compared it to the True Essence of Buddhist texts, which you 'understand' and interpret, and so this work appeared to you 'thin as water'. I suppose that you completely missed the point of Siddhartha, which might be that every man has his road to travel, and every man must divine the message and the meaning of that road, and when we follow other people's dharma and ipso facto negate our own, we make a grave mistake. You or I may come into contact with texts of any sort, religious or philosophical, and they may have a great influence on us, but that influence (*contact with meaning*) is not a monolith, and you cannot present people before your monolith and (seem to) ask them to have the same sort of experience as you. No no no no. You seem to have missed the point. Not only did you fail to perceive a wonderful delicacy in the art itself, which stands beyonf rhetoric and dogma, but you failed to recognize how an individual represented his coming into contact with *knowledge*, and so you deprecate another's experience, and on top of that fail to recognize (it would seem) that this particular artist had a very strong effect on culture, on the idea of seeking, and produced many tangible effects. There are likely twenty or more major writers who have played music to the masses, and whose music has, well, caused some of the pigs to fly. And how shall the pigs in your school be taught to fly, I ask? Shall they fly prettily? For example after reading 'Poison for the Heart'? (Such a title!)(I haven't read it and only have the vaguest idea what it is about).

"Bach reminds me of the joy of Nature ... Bach provides a meadow through which I can go for a nice walk. That's all."

What Bach 'reminds' you of is not at all an indicator of what Bach is, and what he is for other listeners. Even to make that statement, with such surety, with so little humility, so assumingly, is almost an insult to the Great *AsHkEnaZ!* (Great trembling of monuments, violent thunder from over the horizon! Screams are heard, there's a running for the exits, a crushing of bodies). The statements you make, and the way you make them, are sickeningly parallel to the sorts of declarations, assertions, and other croakings you make about 'the Absolute' and about 'Truth'. Artlessness! You assume, in se, that you understand it, that you can represent it, and you act like some prophets from up in the Judean Hills who come down, like Zarathustra in reverse, to get the masses to drink from your Bitter Chalices. And so, just as you have no real understanding for the work of great men, on rather futile seas, on those oh-so-tragic-seas, you don't really grasp the essence of your parrot-phrases about Truth, etcetera, etcetera. Any criticism offered is shot down: you cannot hear for all that you have ears.

"Yes, I just wish they'd work out something true."

You fool! The Great AshKenAZ turns red in the face! Oooooooh! Aaaaaarrrrggghhhh! (Shifting of the Ground, Rupture in the Subterranean Layers, Fissures Open, Plumes of Lava Erupt!) Oh lowly mortal! You eaters of Wombats! I shall smite you with the Smite Button if you don't show more humility! That's it, now I'm mad!

I am not so sure you'd recognize 'truth' if it came and sat on your nose!

"The problem with the expressions like "art" (Bach, Dylan), and nearly all literature (Hesse, Shakespeare), is that truth is sacrificed for the sake of a story that will appeal to the baser instincts."

It is not 'the problem', it is one of the odd facts of this existence, this realm! All of us had to have been 'unconscious' at one time or another, and likely we still are, and yet there along the path---What is that, that shining thing, do you see it?!? There, over there, I think it's something glowing! Yes, it's glowing! Let's move in closer for a look! What IS it!?! I've...I've never seen anything LIKE it! I think..I...I think it must be a METAPHOR! Yes a Giant Metaphor. Let's get hold of it, shall we? (Moving in close, they pick it up and all on the sudden the Metaphor ExPloDeS, raining *meaning* down all around.)

You want you metaphors all dissected on a plate with oil and vinegar, some salt and a dash of pepper?

Well, I lay all the blame on bad readings of Thus Spake Zarathustra. These revelations of yours seem to be analogous to boy scouts around the starlit bonfire exchanging comic book stories.

There is much more, so much more! I am come to bring you Home! to take you by the tether to the Promised Land, to bathe you in Milk and Honey, to dress you in your Sunday best, to pat your little heads with those cute cowlicks!

Now scamper along! AJ has a world to cruelly manipulate!

Dan Rowden wrote:There's nothing to pick at, so you're safe. Way to introduce yourself though. Did you ever stop to consider that it's arrogant to think that others don't have the answers you lack? Is there a cogent reason you can offer to support the idea that it's unlikely they do?

I can be plenty arrogant. But I'm not particularly arrogant about THAT. Like I said, I'm "uncertain" about nearly every aspect of my own thinking and perceptions of reality (so-called). So I'm plenty uncertain about what's in the heads of these others, too. Maybe indeed they "have the answers (I) lack." Judging from my outside-looking-in perceptions of most of these others, I'd say: Thats possible. But in most cases, hardly likely.

Someone else wanted to play the game of: "Yes, but are you certain of being uncertain about whether things are certain?" And we can go around in circles in that loop if you want.

David Quinn wrote:Acebackwards wrote:

I'm suspicious of anybody who is too sure of themselves and their philosophies. How much do ANY OF US really know for sure? Life is ultimately a very mysterious thing. And the Tao shall manifest according to It's peculiar logic. And usually, at best, I only figure it out dimly, after the fact.

It's good to be suspicious of anyone who seems too sure of themselves, but you undermine this fine trait by preempting the whole matter by stating grandly that "life is ultimately a mystery". Suddenly, you seem a bit too sure of yourself there.

I'm not simply an egghead engaging in petty point-scoring here. I consider this to be a vitally important issue. If a person decides at some point, for whatever reason, that nothing can ever be known with certainty, then he automatically begins to close himself off from the possibility of his ever attaining ultimate knowledge in the future. In effect, he is agreeing to diminish his own future consciousness, purely on the basis of some arbitrary speculation on his part.

Let's be honest here. If a person is currently uncertain of everything, then he really has no idea whether ultimate knowledge can be accessed by the human mind or not. He has no basis for extending his own uncertainty to utterly everyone in the universe. His uncertainty is his alone. It has nothing to do with anyone else.

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Of course I have a "basis" for this conclusion. It's called a "hunch." Maybe that term sounds a little mundane, compared to some of the more high-fallutin' philosophical terms being bandied around here. But there you go.

You think "I'm sure of myself" when I say I think life is largely a "mystery," and you feel that is somehow a contradiction? Ridiculous. The very word "mystery" implies that "I'm not sure of myself." I'm mystified by the mystery of it. Or. Its a mystery to me whether it even IS a mystery. We need not go any further down that road.

If others are not mystified, if it all makes certain, irrefutable sense to them, thats cool. Like I acknowledged: Perhaps they know something I don't know. For example: Many fundamentalist Christians feel that way, that they've experienced the certainty of salvation in Jesus Christ that is the missing piece I lack. But another possible explanation is that they're just as mystified as me, only moreso in that they don't realize how mystified they really are.

I'm not saying that there is no ultimate, certain truth out there. We all know that there is such a thing as a "lie." So that would imply there is also something that is the "truth." How much of that truth people are actually in touch with is open to debate.

In all fairness, and likely because my brain keeper, bless his heart and soul! has added a smidgen of Passover wine to my synthetic brain fluid, such a blessing for this over-worked brain, imprisoned in the work of imprisoning, to enable me to feel a bit of warmth toward the cretins who came up with this site...

...I think that when David and Dan and Kevin speak of wishing to come out of this fog of uncertainty which has most of us all suspended and immobile, like bugs caught in honey, and to move toward a sort of 'knowing' or decisiveness that helps one to act, to become motivated toward 'self-knowledge' (knowledge of the Self in a more Vedic sense), I think they are making reference to a unique and important activity.

Really, what they are talking about is turning the head backwards to see, not merely the projections on the wall that have us all captivated, but that which is projecting them, and why...

Thereforly, if you are AJ, and that all you ever got when you did this is equivalent to opening a box of CrackerJacks and instead of finding one Special Prize finding TWO (Oh God, you indeed exist! Thank you! *Slobber, grovel, genuflect*), instead of that, which is keeping the eyes so close to the ground, when you ask a question of that sort with enough insistance, when you go to the center of the heaviest sort of question one could ever ask! when you take your life seriously enough! when you accept none of the easy comforts that come clammoring for you (dreaded Maya, that devilish entchantress!), those waylaying comforts, those satin sheets, the lightly scented flesh, the gazel-like legs---or all the bricabrac of material life; fancy cars with all leather upholsery, fine houses designed by ingenious architects, and bank accounts filled to the brim with gelt gelt and more gelt, when you do THAT you receive, perhaps, the revelations of a Ramakrishna, or a Ramana Maharshi...

It would seem that there is no easy route to the highest of high revelations, if indeed they exist, and in this life you only get out what you are willing to put in, and life rewards you with the equal and proportional to your longing, in precise and mathematical proportion, rarely varying a centimeter or an ounce, so you had better be dammed careful what you are wishing for, and to what Moloch you are sacrificing! And in the end all things are perishable, and all is really a 'chasing after winds', vanity of vanities...and so to what are you going to dedicate yourself? To what, to what?

Yes, yes, it is all becoming clear to me, my conscience is awakening, and the pheonix shall RISE from the ASHES! I hear a music, a celestial music, a music of the spheres!

Or is it a Magic Flute? And to where is it calling me?

Alex Jacob wrote:...I think that when David and Dan and Kevin speak of wishing to come out of this fog of uncertainty which has most of us all suspended and immobile, like bugs caught in honey, and to move toward a sort of 'knowing' or decisiveness that helps one to act, to become motivated toward 'self-knowledge' (knowledge of the Self in a more Vedic sense), I think they are making reference to a unique and important activity.

Yes. Dan has talked about how he wants "completeness". What they really want is something "absolute", something to grasp onto in this world where everything is changing and uncertain. They need to fill the void inside of themselves and they do so by creating their own void, this one paradoxically bound tight by the chains of their logic and reasoning. Through metaphysics they now have something absolute. They can dangle by the chains of the infinite. They can comprehend the basic laws of "Everything" -- Or so they have convinced themselves.

Isn't this what religion is after all? -- creating some absolutes or foundations upon which one can strap oneself to combat the unstable world in which one lives. Beliefs, convictions.

Kevin Solway wrote:

acebackwords wrote:I'm suspicious of anybody who is too sure of themselves

Can we be sure who is too sure?

Life is ultimately a very mysterious thing.

"Ultimately".

Does this mean that you are yourself too sure?

As the Firesign Theatre used to say: "Everything you know is WRONG!" Course, if that statement is right, then its wrong. Kabeesh?

I'm not certain of most things, because I've been wrong too many times, about too many things I was certain of in the past.

Course, it could be I was wrong about thinking I was wrong. In which case, I was right about being wrong about being wrong. Right?

acebackwords,

You think "I'm sure of myself" when I say I think life is largely a "mystery," and you feel that is somehow a contradiction? Ridiculous.

Well, you did say that life is ultimately a mystery. A bit of a difference there.

If others are not mystified, if it all makes certain, irrefutable sense to them, thats cool. Like I acknowledged: Perhaps they know something I don't know. For example: Many fundamentalist Christians feel that way, that they've experienced the certainty of salvation in Jesus Christ that is the missing piece I lack. But another possible explanation is that they're just as mystified as me, only moreso in that they don't realize how mystified they really are.

I agree that kind of certainty is worthless. It is not the feeling of certainty that I'm interested in, but the supreme clarity of mind which has successfully pierced all delusion and understands the ultimate truth through and through, without any shadow of doubt. This is an infinitely different attainment from that of the Christian fundamentalist.

In fact, from my perspective, I regard Uncertaintists as being virtually indistinguishable from Christian fundamentalists. Both have settled down into easy pre-packaged answers provided by an external authority (in the case of the Uncertaintists, from the doctrines of postmodernism) and both have abandoned any attempt to form a serious relationship with truth.

I'm not saying that there is no ultimate, certain truth out there. We all know that there is such a thing as a "lie." So that would imply there is also something that is the "truth." How much of that truth people are actually in touch with is open to debate.

Well, as I say, if you are striving as hard as you can to uncover the ultimate truth, then you would have my respect. For it show me that you place more value on truth than on the pleasure of remaining uncertain.

If you're not, then I would have no choice but to dismiss you as a flake who is just filling up the world with hot air.

Come to think of it, I wonder if there is a link between the recent rapid rise of postmodernism and global warming ....?

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