GENIUS FORUMS

Laird appears to come from Sophistry of yesteryear which is Postmodernism today. He has gravitated to that way of playing, thinking it is the strong suit.
For the Sophist what counts is not the Truth but who wins the argument.
Denies that anything in the World is really stable.
Thinks human language is subject to endless interpretation.
Affirms rhetoric over philosophy.

Dealing with Laird reminds of Sysyphus, rolling the stone up the hill to have it roll down again.
Nevertheless dealing with Laird causes posters contributing magnificent posts.
In that way Laird 'rocks'.

Not sure if he rocks, but I do sometimes get the feeling he's stoned :)

High Times indeed.

cousinbasil wrote:

prince wrote:Laird's posts make me feel filthy. Like I've been doused with a big bucket of ignorance goo.

And I can't wash off the stink, no matter how hard I scrub.

Hey Laird, you revolt me, taint me, contaminate me.

I hope you are proud of yourself you ignorant, blathering, ugly ass scrap of shit.

This does not sound very enlightened.

I'm not obliged to sound enlightened. Try Deepak Chopra.

Skip,

I won't respond to your post point by point this time - instead I want to comment on something that I noticed in it. In response to my question as to whether there is anything that you can know absolutely and positively, you wrote, "The only thing I positively know is that I'm not guessing about the nature of what I experience, and if I am guessing, I know that I'm doing it!" Then, later, you spoke of discarding various beliefs: "There is no room for keeping bullshit around when all you want to know is what's NOT bullshit." According to your earlier statement, though, the only "non-bullshit" that you can know absolutely is "the nature of what [you] experience", which is pretty limited. If you were to truly jettison everything that you didn't know absolutely and positively then you would be left with so little that you would be unable to function in the world... but I say this not expecting it to be news to you, more to point out that you seem to make somewhat contradictory statements, and to emphasise the point that beliefs are practically unavoidable, which you acknowledged yourself in this statement: "Everywhere we go we are carrying around a self-image the [sic] defines the quality of experience we have with other people and determines the kind of benefits we get out of every situation. The self-image is 100% belief-based."

"Belief is either faith or it's a conscious, provisional guess. Do you understand this? Do you understand how faith is the definition of irrationality? Faith is just making shit up, perhaps because it feels good."

I don't accept that stark dichotomy (faith versus conscious, provisional guess). I think that the reality of belief is more nuanced than that. Nor do I accept that faith is "the definition of irrationality" and "just making shit up". There's an aspect of faith that anti-religious people tend to ignore: that aspect is something like the maintaining of respect for a promise. For example, in a disaster your friend might tell you that he's going for help and promises that he won't give up until he finds that help - you might then say, "I have faith in my friend", meaning that you believe that your friend will honour his promise. This is one aspect of religious faith: faith that the promises recorded in the scriptures will be honoured, and that God's word (or the words of sages, prophets, etc) can be trusted. Now we can argue about the basis for believing that those scriptures actually are holy, or inspired, but that's in part an empirical matter, and needn't reduce to "irrationality" or "just making shit up".

Religious faith operates by a fundamentally different paradigm to the one which you're advocating, because it assumes that there are some things that can't be arrived at through logic alone, yet that are important and relevant. You seem to have missed a problem with your approach: what if, in your haste to jettison everything that you can't know for sure, you throw the baby out with the bathwater?

David,

Your post was essentially devoid of meaningful content. Describing my questioning as "fearless and unblinkered" is a step up from describing it as "chasing shadows", but you still haven't responded legitimately to it - you've simply cast allusions. You've said that the question can be resolved by "immersion in non-duality" - great, so presumably you're "immersed in non-duality" and have resolved the question: so then share that resolution with us, for pity's sake. Enough beating around the bush - cut to the chase. Likewise, you claim that I've reduced your answer to a parody - but you make no attempt to describe the actuality of your answer: more beating around the bush and failing to get down to the nitty-gritty. Your final sentence is a doozy: fine and grand imagery, but utterly lacking in any practical resolution to the question I'm posing - mere poetry from a man who claims to have the logical answers to the ultimate questions? The most reasonable explanation is that actually, you have no adequate direct answer - but feel free to prove me wrong...

By the way, I did notice that you reworded my question, and I don't accept the rewordings, even though I agree that they are related questions.

Ryan,

"you need to ask the question of why you are so concerned with a fantastic/mysterious explanation of why the totality is what it is."

In the context of this forum, I'm concerned with it because the house philosophy touts itself as Ultimate Truth, which is a claim that I reject, and the house philosophy's lack of meaningful answer for the question that I'm posing validates my rejection. I'm here in part as a skeptic and critic, Ryan - surely you know that by now.

In the broader context, I couldn't tell you specifically why I'm concerned with it, beyond simply noting that the big, ultimate questions have fascinated me since I first became capable of thinking about them.

"By saying, it just is, is a direct reference to the fact that some posters here are experiencing that fantastic reality moment by moment, from the depths of emptiness, where all mystery dies and is born again in every moment, and in such a reality, such a question loses all meaning and becomes pointless. Actually, the mystery of many of your questions loses all meaning when the brain touches that vast infinite emptiness."

Like David, you resort to poetic writing, indicating that you, too, have no answer to the question that I'm posing. That's completely fine in general - I have no answer either, and we all experience and live in a "fantastic reality" regardless of whether or not we have the answers to the big questions - but in the context of a philosophy that claims to be Ultimate Truth, it's decidedly not fine. You do recognise that, right? If I were to get out of those who see fit to argue with me an admission like, "OK, look, we just don't know the answer to this question - we'd better stop claiming to have access to Ultimate Truth and instead claim something along the lines of what Skip suggests: that the house philosophy pursues the limits of what can be known for sure", then I'd consider the conversation to have come to a conclusion, and would stop pursuing it.

prince wrote:I'm not obliged to sound enlightened. Try Deepak Chopra.

Deepak Chopra might sound enlightened - in the shower.

Dennis Mahar wrote:Laird appears to come from Sophistry of yesteryear which is Postmodernism today. He has gravitated to that way of playing, thinking it is the strong suit.
For the Sophist what counts is not the Truth but who wins the argument.
Denies that anything in the World is really stable.
Thinks human language is subject to endless interpretation.
Affirms rhetoric over philosophy.

The key word there being "appears", and the missing follow-on phrase being "to me, in my confusion". Like Kelly, you throw around a whole lot of presumptions as to where I'm coming from. My approach here is not sophistic, it is skeptical.

Dan Rowden wrote:Not sure if he rocks, but I do sometimes get the feeling he's stoned

Nah, although I sometimes get the feeling I'd be stoned were I to enter the physical presence of certain folk around here...

DQ wrote:This is why I have no problem with prince's outbursts, even though they are emotional and sometimes violent in nature. To me, they are like blasts of fresh air that sweep away the cobwebs in a stale and boring world.

But here you have said much, David. Is the world in fact stale and boring? Viewed rationally, it cannot be - nor can it be fresh and interesting. Rather one may find it to be either one of these extremes, or more likely somewhere in between. To hear how you find it is rather telling, since you espouse a particular philosophy. If such a Weltanschauung is the result of your self-described arduous mental efforts, might one not be tempted to look elsewhere for philosophical guidance? I do not think I am asking a frivolous question. Buddha is often quoted as having said that all life is suffering, but I have always taken this to imply the addition "...if you do not seek enlightenment, for then your burden becomes light." Have you yourself not on occasion described yourself as sitting at a banquet?

Laird wrote:Nah, although I sometimes get the feeling I'd be stoned were I to enter the physical presence of certain folk around here...

I would not feel so all alone/Everybody must get stoned...

guest_of_logic wrote:David,

Your post was essentially devoid of meaningful content.

That's okay. Go back to sleep now ....

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cousinbasil wrote:

DQ wrote:This is why I have no problem with prince's outbursts, even though they are emotional and sometimes violent in nature. To me, they are like blasts of fresh air that sweep away the cobwebs in a stale and boring world.

But here you have said much, David. Is the world in fact stale and boring? Viewed rationally, it cannot be - nor can it be fresh and interesting. Rather one may find it to be either one of these extremes, or more likely somewhere in between. To hear how you find it is rather telling, since you espouse a particular philosophy. If such a Weltanschauung is the result of your self-described arduous mental efforts, might one not be tempted to look elsewhere for philosophical guidance? I do not think I am asking a frivolous question. Buddha is often quoted as having said that all life is suffering, but I have always taken this to imply the addition "...if you do not seek enlightenment, for then your burden becomes light." Have you yourself not on occasion described yourself as sitting at a banquet?

Okay, you've got me there. :) You're an intelligent bloke, I can see that. You're right, the world is neither stale nor boring, and I never experience it as such. My intention was to cast prince's behaviour in a different light, to highlight that he isn't really a "second-grader", as you put it, but someone with a keen eye for hypocrisy and bullshit. In comparison with standard human behaviour, his words are full of life.

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David Quinn wrote:

guest_of_logic wrote:David,

Your post was essentially devoid of meaningful content.

That's okay. Go back to sleep now ....

-

You've really got nothing, haven't you?

David Quinn wrote:My intention was to cast prince's behaviour in a different light, to highlight that he isn't really a "second-grader", as you put it, but someone with a keen eye for hypocrisy and bullshit. In comparison with standard human behaviour, his words are full of life.

-

Prince can be charming and act like a crazy yogi at times...but I think an apology would be the craziest charming thing for him to do ...or he will turn into a frog by midnight.




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by Dan Rowden » Fri Jul 08, 2005 4:30 am

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Dan Rowden

Laird,

In the context of this forum, I'm concerned with it because the house philosophy touts itself as Ultimate Truth, which is a claim that I reject, and the house philosophy's lack of meaningful answer for the question that I'm posing validates my rejection. I'm here in part as a skeptic and critic, Ryan - surely you know that by now.

The absolute truth is a package, it is knowing the limits and nature of knowledge, but also going beyond the self, and getting rid of as many vices, mental blocks and delusions as possible. That is all the ultimate truth has ever been. I think you are imagining that it is something else. The old timers here do not believe the ultimate truth is simply a belief or even systems of belief, it represents years of insight and wisdom into the self and the nature of thought affecting and changing the very manner in which the brain operates. And it involves taking logic to his limit without getting caught up on fundamentalist belief or imaginative nonsense.

Like David, you resort to poetic writing, indicating that you, too, have no answer to the question that I'm posing. That's completely fine in general - I have no answer either, and we all experience and live in a "fantastic reality" regardless of whether or not we have the answers to the big questions - but in the context of a philosophy that claims to be Ultimate Truth, it's decidedly not fine. You do recognise that, right? If I were to get out of those who see fit to argue with me an admission like, "OK, look, we just don't know the answer to this question - we'd better stop claiming to have access to Ultimate Truth and instead claim something along the lines of what Skip suggests: that the house philosophy pursues the limits of what can be known for sure", then I'd consider the conversation to have come to a conclusion, and would stop pursuing it.

It is not that i don't know the answer, it is that the answer cannot be known because the question is unanswerable by its very nature. It would be like asking I wonder how all the galaxies would be arranged if they weren't arranged the way they presently are!? Or I wonder how gravity would work if it worked differently!? Or I wonder how large my penis would be if I wasn't born a short stubby caucasian!? Do you follow? To know the answer, you would need to be able to manipulate a myriad of variables of this new imagined reality, without affecting the fundamental existing laws, and then observe how the changes affected things. However, such an exercise is mental masturbation at best.

Btw, all of those absurd questions are extensions of your first question, but taken into smaller and smaller detail...

Do you see yet that your question doesn't make the cut of decent philosophical questions? However, a decent question might be something like: how much of my day do I spend unconsciously coming up with bizarre entertaining questions as a means to escape the deep boredom I have of reality/myself? (dual)

Kunga wrote:Prince can be charming and act like a crazy yogi at times...but I think an apology would be the craziest charming thing for him to do ...or he will turn into a frog by midnight.

Why ever should prince apologize? And to whom?

guest_of_logic wrote:

David Quinn wrote:

guest_of_logic wrote:David,

Your post was essentially devoid of meaningful content.

That's okay. Go back to sleep now ....

You've really got nothing, haven't you?

Not a thing.

We all have to prioritize about what is important in life. I mean, I could look at an object on my table and ask myself, "Why is that a cup and not, say, a banana?" And then, after reasoning that the cup is there due to cause and effect, I could continue to ask - like a madman - "But why? Why has cause and effect delivered a cup and not something else?" And all I would be doing is chasing shadows.

The object is a cup because it isn't something else. It isn't a banana because it is a cup. It is on my table because it isn't anywhere else. Problem solved. It's that simple. To push it anymore than this is to chase shadows. It is to manufacture questions which have no meaning and admit of no answer.

There is no significance to existence. God doesn't care about what exists and what doesn't. To Him, existence is like a casual after-thought, a trivial by-product of his own Nature, something barely noticeable. There is nothing riding on any outcome whatsoever.

So if a person wants to enjoy the fruits of wisdom, he would be far better off focusing on comprehending the true nature of all things, rather than waste time worrying about why certain things exist and others don't.


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Laird to Dennis wrote:Like Kelly, you throw around a whole lot of presumptions as to where I'm coming from. My approach here is not sophistic, it is skeptical.

It's more that I hoped you would put in an effort and think logically. But you're deeply skeptical of doing that sort of thing.

Religious faith operates by a fundamentally different paradigm to the one which you're advocating, because it assumes that there are some things that can't be arrived at through logic alone, yet that are important and relevant.

As you say, you are a guest of logic, just visiting briefly for some "reason" of yours. You're not interested in exploring the region, or making your home here to stay, and no one is expecting you to. You've just dropped in to take a few photos with your well-used camera, to enjoy a bit of the scenery, before you head back to where you're happiest. But do be a bit more respectful of those who live here, before you leave. After all, you don't know the area as well as they do.


.

The key word there being "appears", and the missing follow-on phrase being "to me, in my confusion". Like Kelly, you throw around a whole lot of presumptions as to where I'm coming from. My approach here is not sophistic, it is skeptical.

Hi Laird,
Here we are facing each other. You are aware and I am aware. A sense of separation.
Let's get rid of the pronouns.
Only awareness remains. No separation.
Appearances arise to Awareness. No separation.

Awareness is like the light that is on in a room so the things appear to it. No separation. Arising as one.

You can easily verify this. When you fall into deep sleep, the light goes out and the appearances vanish. Upon arousal the light goes on and the appearances rush in.
This is what the QRS conversation is about.

'Being skeptical' is an appearance to attach to that opposes 'believer'.

Both these appearances happen in a conversation. They do not exist outside of conversation.They arise because of conversation.
First believer then skeptic, part of an intricate web of causation concerning the phenomenon of conversation.

Coming to the table as believer or coming to the table as skeptic doesn't cut it as a modus operandi in the QRS conversation.
It misses the point.

Being skeptical is looking at the finger that points to the moon and the 'glory of heaven' is missed.

Back here in my existential frame I worry I look too much like 'lecturing'. If only I had better skills. Sorry chief.

Laird thinks he can pick up a grain of sand with a pair of chopsticks...

Look into my eyes Laird, the truth is there. My Eyes

Ryan Rudolph wrote:It is not that i don't know the answer, it is that the answer cannot be known because the question is unanswerable by its very nature. It would be like asking I wonder how all the galaxies would be arranged if they weren't arranged the way they presently are!? Or I wonder how gravity would work if it worked differently!? Or I wonder how large my penis would be if I wasn't born a short stubby caucasian!? Do you follow? To know the answer, you would need to be able to manipulate a myriad of variables of this new imagined reality, without affecting the fundamental existing laws, and then observe how the changes affected things. However, such an exercise is mental masturbation at best.

Btw, all of those absurd questions are extensions of your first question, but taken into smaller and smaller detail...

They're not at all - those questions are neither extensions of nor analogous to my actual question. My question wasn't "How would things be if they were not as they are?", it was instead, "Why are things as they are and not some other way?" The difference is significant: you're straw-manning me.

Ryan Rudolph wrote:Do you see yet that your question doesn't make the cut of decent philosophical questions? However, a decent question might be something like: how much of my day do I spend unconsciously coming up with bizarre entertaining questions as a means to escape the deep boredom I have of reality/myself? (dual)

We all find our stimulation in different ways, and thinking is a lot healthier than some of the alternatives I know of. Who knows, perhaps some truly wise person will come along with a meaningful answer/resolution to the question - at least it's out there now.

guest_of_logic: You've really got nothing, haven't you?

David: Not a thing.

That's the admission I've been looking for.

David Quinn wrote:I mean, I could look at an object on my table and ask myself, "Why is that a cup and not, say, a banana?" And then, after reasoning that the cup is there due to cause and effect, I could continue to ask - like a madman - "But why? Why has cause and effect delivered a cup and not something else?"

And when you admit that you don't have an answer to that question, then you are no longer justified in going on to describe your own philosophy as "ultimate" truth.

David Quinn wrote:The object is a cup because it isn't something else. It isn't a banana because it is a cup. It is on my table because it isn't anywhere else.

In other words, "it just is": how now can you justify labelling that answer a "parody" of your actual position? It's spot on.

David Quinn wrote:To push it anymore than this is to chase shadows. It is to manufacture questions which have no meaning and admit of no answer.

To push it like this is to explore the limitations of our mental conceptions of reality and of our understanding of reality. The actual ultimate truth would break through those limitations: yours simply denies them. This is hubris.

David Quinn wrote:There is no significance to existence. God doesn't care about what exists and what doesn't. To Him, existence is like a casual after-thought, a trivial by-product of his own Nature, something barely noticeable. There is nothing riding on any outcome whatsoever.

Grand assumption and devious equivocation.

David Quinn wrote:So if a person wants to enjoy the fruits of wisdom, he would be far better off focusing on comprehending the true nature of all things, rather than waste time worrying about why certain things exist and others don't.

The why is part of the true nature. If you don't understand why a thing exists, then you don't understand its true nature.

Dennis Mahar wrote:This is what the QRS conversation is about. [...] Coming to the table as believer or coming to the table as skeptic doesn't cut it as a modus operandi in the QRS conversation.

How long have you actually been following the conversation so as to speak authoritatively on it? I really want to know. I've been here for years - you joined just over two weeks ago; my mind is clear when I post here - you admit to confusion... and you presume to lecture me on what's really going on?

guest_of_logic wrote:

David Quinn wrote:I mean, I could look at an object on my table and ask myself, "Why is that a cup and not, say, a banana?" And then, after reasoning that the cup is there due to cause and effect, I could continue to ask - like a madman - "But why? Why has cause and effect delivered a cup and not something else?"

And when you admit that you don't have an answer to that question, then you are no longer justified in going on to describe your own philosophy as "ultimate" truth.

It's justified because such ultimate truth turns the question of "why thus" into an academic, irrelevant question - unless one happens to explore a particular set of probable causes, like in science or studying history.

Thus does not function as answer of course, it functions as an attempt to pull attention away from the fern seeds far away toward the elephant taking a shit into ones eye socket.

prince wrote:Look into my eyes Laird, the truth is there. My Eyes

Hahaha, prince, are you trying to seduce me?

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:

guest_of_logic wrote:

David Quinn wrote:I mean, I could look at an object on my table and ask myself, "Why is that a cup and not, say, a banana?" And then, after reasoning that the cup is there due to cause and effect, I could continue to ask - like a madman - "But why? Why has cause and effect delivered a cup and not something else?"

And when you admit that you don't have an answer to that question, then you are no longer justified in going on to describe your own philosophy as "ultimate" truth.

It's justified because such ultimate truth turns the question of "why thus" into an academic, irrelevant question - unless one happens to explore a particular set of probably causes, like in science or studying history.

It's not academic, because we're talking about what lies beyond the causal conception of reality. We're taking it beyond the point where the causal web explains things, to what explains the causal web itself.

guest_of_logic wrote:...what lies beyond the causal conception of reality. We're taking it beyond the point where the causal web explains things, to what explains the causal web itself.

No, you are talking about things beyond causality. Anything beyond causality necessarily gives rise to more causality since a logical contrast is created between "causality" and "what's beyond it". The link you've just forged is causality again! One needs causality to be able to go "beyond" it and now a "beyond" is there to explain the "causal web". And then we need to take it beyond the beyond and explain what explains causality. Such hall of mirrors is purely self-created once you can see what you're doing.

Just to make it clear: any "beyond" forms causal linkage as it implies relation between a "here" and "further than here", and "explaining" is just another way of describing causation and "taking anything anywhere" certainly remains part of the causal web, whatever one might find out. It's all by the way how these things are defined, which is what makes it so absolute. But please do challenge it! With all your heart and mind. But the hardest part is to know when to concede.

Laird writes:

my mind is clear when I post here

Your mind is it?
Are you claiming authorship?