GENIUS FORUMS

Steve wrote:

The moral dilemma of modern man is the plight of the unknown beggar.
The forgotten axiom: 'Know Thyself' enters into nothingness, when rationality is forlorn. But, when the synthesis of a man's history and his present circumstance is justified, there is true meaning, and unfettered free dominion.

Stephen, maybe if I question you enough on this piece of writing then perhaps these thoughts of yours might actually become a part of something insightful –

But on their own they really aren’t contributing much to this thread.

Why don’t you read what was said on this thread so far and try to build onto it in some way? Do you agree with what has been said on this thread? Disagree? Why?

I just feel this comment of yours was more of a rude interruption than a respectful response to the people who have been working on this thread.

I am certain your comment does relate to what we are talking about – but there is no reason why you can’t be more direct considering the stage that this thread has evolved to.

Your post as it is would be better suited for starting a thread rather than contributing to one that has been evolving for a while.

By using quotes from previous posts and responding to what has already been said you both add dimension to the thread and yet you keep the thread moving along smoothly.

I think you should delete your post off this thread and start a new thread (maybe call it ‘modern man –the unknown beggar’).

I’ll do my best to reply to it – and we’ll see where it goes – it could be a great topic.

Seriously.

I’m not trying to be a jerk.

Delete your post and re-post it on a new thread and then I’ll then delete this post of mine and I’ll meet you over at your new thread.

Or - delete your post and re-post something new – something that is more of a direct response and less of an isolated ‘seemingly oblivious’ beginning.

Don’t you think that when a thread has been evolving for a while, it is rude to jump in and say something that hasn’t much of a relationship to the previous posts?

Don't reply to that question on this thread!

Think about it - - - and maybe we'll talk about it later on a new thread of yours. Maybe not. We'll see.

Hey Cory,

Thanks for your suggestions.

--

I'd like to add my own response to your initial question: "...Why are clever people seemingly resistant to emotional restraint..."

--

Cleverness is an act of creation, an action which temporarily releases the afflicted individual from the constraints of emotional variance, and the ineptitude of social pretense. Being a product of ego, the individual's sense of self engulfs its own trademark, as a result, feigning interest in the stability of emotional poise.

Steve wrote:

Cleverness is an act of creation, an action which temporarily releases the afflicted individual from the constraints of emotional variance and the ineptitude of social pretense.

A very interesting definition indeed Steven.

Being a product of ego, the individual's sense of self engulfs its own trademark, as a result, feigning interest in the stability of emotional poise.

Oh my, you are indeed a poet.

The individuals sense of self engulfs it's own trademark?

Wha?

Can you expand on that a bit, maybe give some examples supporting your claim? Don't you think you're being a bit vague here?

What is your trademark Steve? Superfluousness?

And since that is your trademark - I suppose your sense of self becomes engulfed by it? How often does this happen, why does it happen? Why is your trademark superflousness?

Do you read post-modernists philosohpy Steve? - Derrida and the like? P-Modernism reminds me of your writing a bit -- often very original, however in a superflous - peacock sort of way.

"Feigning interest in the stability of emotional poise?"

What about the 'feigning interest' part?

Do you mean an individual uses cleverness to pretend he is interested in something that he really is not 'in order' to establish emotional poise, stability?

Isnt that what you are doing on this post Steve? Are you not merely pretending you're interested in something in order to derieve some sort of emotional state? An emotional state that you are stealing like a thief - rather than working hard for it like a man?

That's why I asked you to delete your first post.

Too many riddles that I fear lead only to silly revelations.

I don't want to have to spend a whole post just trying to decipher your first one Steve. There's no reason you can't learn to express yourself more clearly.

I think you are just being clever in order to establish some sort of emotional poise, and you do this by means of feigning interest in a thread such as this.

You don't always do this, but I think you have this time.

I think one sometimes has the tendency to use cleverness to feel smart, important - - to draw attention to oneself.

I know thats not totally what your doing here - - -but you can do better than this Steven.

If you're feeling angry and frusterated with me Steve, please dont get too discouraged or resentful - -remember - -

"Monks exist to polish each other" - (I heard leonard Cohen say that once - he probably read it from some buddhist text as he is heavily invovled in studying that sort of thing - - alot of cohen songs are lame though - but some are great)

&

"If you are irritated by every rub, how will you be polished?”
~ Mevlana Rumi
13th century sufi poet and mystic

cory,

you can 'put into' Ego anything you so will and it will give back semblances (truth enough)

S: Being a product of ego, the individual's sense of self engulfs its own trademark, as a result, feigning interest in the stability of emotional poise.

C: Can you expand on that a bit, maybe give some examples supporting your claim? Don't you think you're being a bit vague here?

More directly, cleverness, in the case of a person lacking in emotional intelligence, is used to overcompensate for a lack in self-sufficiency, self-confidence. An example would be the scientist who makes up for his "social ineptitude" by spending his time mastering his craft: in this case, cleverness as a catalyst.

What is your trademark Steve? Superfluousness? And since that is your trademark - I suppose your sense of self becomes engulfed by it? How often does this happen, why does it happen? Why is your trademark superflousness?

My mind favors thinking in pictures: I'm more comfortable with expressing my thoughts through music and art. I find pleasure in using the written word as another means for exploring the visual, which is admittedly more time consuming and more prone to limit the literal expanse of the text.

My writing is something I would like to improve on.

Do you read post-modernists philosohpy Steve? - Derrida and the like? P-Modernism reminds me of your writing a bit -- often very original, however in a superflous - peacock sort of way. "Feigning interest in the stability of emotional poise?" What about the 'feigning interest' part? Do you mean an individual uses cleverness to pretend he is interested in something that he really is not 'in order' to establish emotional poise, stability? Isnt that what you are doing on this post Steve?

I don't. "Derrida" just sounds like a cup of two day old coffee. I should have used a word with a more direct relationship, "shunning! interest in the stability of emotional composure . . . at the expense of self-image, leaves the afflicted individual at the mercy of their own creation. The process of cleverness becomes a crutch, for the built up resistance of time, proper emotional investigation.

Cleverness as an escape from time, a momentary vestiage from the reality of the emotions."

:)

I think you are just being clever in order to establish some sort of emotional poise, and you do this by means of feigning interest in a thread such as this.

Yeah, there's some truth in that. :)

Thanks again for your persistance.

Hi Cory,

I cannot express as eloquently as either of you, but I see clear contradictions hence my comments.

Firstly, let’s keep this…

Everything about you Ritz is not a choice on your part. You did not choose or will anything, it only seemed like you did. You’re suffering is created by believing you have achieved something personally, among many other factors.

…in mind and see how and what it implies in relation to the rest.

…rather than holding man responsible, am I not simply challenging him to be more rational?

Not exactly, but even so, are you? Or does it only seem that you are challenging?

To me, being rational 'just so happens' to also be responsible.

That is not possible unless you are deluded, because ‘rationality’ is also subject to causes and hence ‘rationality’ would also seem to be so. That is, according to your first quote. However, I understand what you are saying, but I would say consciousness rather than 'being rational'.

I'm not talking about being responsible in the sense that you and Ritz seem to value.

I haven’t yet told you what I value and why. But according to you, what you value also holds no meaning since everything about you Cory is not a choice on your part, so you did not will, choose or value anything, it only seemed like you did.

What do you mean by responsible anyway?

I said that it seems you hold Man responsible since you say “Most cultures rest upon a way of doing agriculture that depends on the destruction of the very thing they scramble fearfully to preserve and glorify. Man is irrational, not practical”, and not cause and effect, which according to your understanding should be the case.

Hence ‘Man’ being irrational, or impractical, or whatever cannot be attribute to MAN, but cause and effect.

There is no battle between right and wrong in the man who is truly rational. He does what he does because thats what he wants to do. What he wants to do isnt a choice.

Well, is anyone truly rational, or does it seem to be so, that is, according to you?

If you see rationality, then you surely know about irrationality. Now, in the above quote, would there be a battle between right and wrong in the man who is truly irrational? “He does what he does because that’s what he wants to do. What he wants to do isn’t a choice”, applies pretty well also. Don’t you think?

I agree that people generally do things because they see no other way – they do what they do because to them, it is the rational and practical thing to do – however - the truth ends up being different from what they thought was the truth – no?

Well no. Firstly they could not have seen any another way because it is no choice of theirs, and that applies to you and me too. they do what they do not because to them it is rational and practical, but because they have no choice. And the “the truth ends up being different from what they thought was the truth”, also seems to be so, for I have no choice to see it in any other way.

This is what it boils down to; if I have no choice and “I” am not responsible for anything that emerges from a thing called “I”, then who or what is? Cause and effect? If it is C&E and the “me”, that is my consciousness, disappears due to cause and effect, then nothing exists. No need to discuss.

Now I can tell you that “responsible” in this context means ‘because of’.

Irrelevant of the process of cause and effect, which most assuredly every thing is subject to, each and every thing that cause and effect creates can individually be held responsible for its own attributes, without violating the core process of cause and effect which each thing is based on, unless of course one says that a thing is nothing whatsoever because cause and effect goes back infinitely. Are you saying that?

Also, lets not forget to mention and consider the role fear plays in determining peoples actions........

No, they cannot help it. They cannot chose to be fearless, hence cannot actually chose their actions.

Understand Sapius that I’m not upset or regretful about humanity's naive and inevitalbe deviation from the hunter gatherer state –

I do understand, but according to you, either way, it would not be your choice. No?

however – I am urging humanity to see both why our conventional manifestation of agriculture doesn’t work and how food production can work.

Hey, I find it a noble thing to do, but do you? Or do you do it out of no choice of yours?

Sapius: On the other hand, if this discussion and everything with it was inevitable due to no choice of ours, then that renders logic, reasoning and responsibility meaningless.

Cory: And what if I am wrong and you are right Sapius? -- Is the right answer Sapius’s choice?

In other words, does Sapius have a say in what the right answer is?

No, it is not up to him. He simply acknowledges what is true, rational and hence acknowledges what is false, irrational.

I don’t understand this. What has right or wrong got to do with the inevitability of either one being out of no choice actually?

Any ways, the fact that you are acknowledging ‘Sapius’, he not only acknowledges true and false but also is able to reject the false, a choice is indeed made by Sapius, although he is ruled by cause and effect, cause and effect does not render him nothing whatsoever.

Did you choose to be born Sapius?

No, no my parents did not ask me.

And did you choose to find yourself speaking your first few words of English to your guardians?

I would have, but it was not their first language, neither is it mine.

..........And did you choose that it just so happens 2 + 2 = 4? Logic is involuntary. You are just one of the lucky ones Sapius – that is all. There’s nothing to be proud of – there is nothing you achieved or accomplished.

This and that I did not choose to be born is where we make mistakes. Physical cause and effect is not in our control, but when it creates a mind, consciousness, it can most definitely accept or reject a concept through reasoning which is also created by C&E. Now just because everything is subject to C&E does not mean that things don’t do what they are supposed to do, and logic and reasoning take decisions, either way.

So it is either “me” who takes decisions, or cause and effect; take your pick. I know there is nothing to be proud of, for other reasons, but I do achieve and accomplish something at least, because I’m not nothing whatsoever. Tell me it is not so.

Sapius: For we had no choice in becoming hunter/gatherers, no choice in becoming farmers, no choice in breeding till the planet goes out of orbit, and no choice in taking any future “rational” or “practical” decision. It just happens!

Cory: Of course, why not?

Because consciousness steps in, unless you believe it is nothing whatsoever.

Hello again Sapius:

Cory: rather than holding man responsible, am I not simply challenging him to be more rational?


Sapius: Not exactly, but even so, are you? Or does it only seem that you are challenging?

I see what you’re getting at, and I agree - 'not exactly'.

It is difficult to communicate this sort of thing.

Language is fragmentation - it is the breaking up of the whole.

However, we must make do with it.

We must use descriptions, even though the description is not the described.

For instance, as you might have heard several times: there is no self. The noun is an illusion. Now - just because this is true, doesn’t mean that we stop using nouns, such as I, you, me, etc, in our communications.

There will always be the odd pedantic sort of fellow who will give us a hard time about it, accusing us of contradiction, but there is no sense in being anything other than patient with these people who are inquisitive, yet reluctant to catch on.

We need to make descriptions of reality and thus it is convenient to use nouns, even though nouns are far from the truth.

Agreed?

So anyway, the crux of disagreement, especially between me and Ritz, stems from my assertion that choice is an illusion.

Ok, so just because I do not choose to say what I say, doesn’t mean that what is written by me isn’t challenging to whoever is listening to me.

However, if one is truly listening – challenge is wiped away.

It is only the deluded who are challenged.

For me to say: “I am the challenger” – is indeed an inferior description as well.

A better description is: I am involuntarily the challenge.

And the reason why I am the challenge - is because I have become that which people are challenged by.

It is only those who are not beyond challenge that are challenged by me.

If they were beyond challenge, if they truly understood why they they don't exist, there wouldn’t be any division between me and them, and therefore there would be hardly anything to say between us.

Now Sapius - - -what if there is only false confidence and language tricks on my part? - - - what if I truly am deluded?

Do you think I’m choosing to be?

Do you at least admit Sapius that deluded people don’t know they are deluded?

Therefore, they do not choose to be what they are.

Surely you don’t think I am being deluded on purpose?

Anyhow, when it all comes down to it, I am asserting with finality that I am not deluded.

But those sorts of assertions are hoepfully regarded as valueless to you and the other readers.

However, my reasoning skills and my presentation of the logic behind my assertions – perhaps that might be helpful to you.

Cory: To me, being rational 'just so happens' to also be responsible.

Sapius: that is not possible unless you are deluded, because ‘rationality’ is also subject to causes and hence ‘rationality’ would also seem to be so. That is, according to your first quote. However, I understand what you are saying, but I would say consciousness rather than 'being rational'.

Why do you separate ‘consciousness, awareness, rationality, responsibility’?

Are they not all synonymous? To me they are. I am all of that.

Cory: I'm not talking about being responsible in the sense that you and Ritz seem to value.

Sapius: I haven’t yet told you what I value and why. But according to you, what you value also holds no meaning since everything about you Cory is not a choice on your part, so you did not will, choose or value anything, it only seemed like you did.

Just because we don’t choose our values, doesn’t mean we don’t have a sense of what is valuable to know and do and what is not. For example, when I grow my vegetables, I value mulching the soil (among many other things)

Why?

Because mulching the soil ‘just so happens’ to be the more sensible thing to do. It really has nothing to do with my volition, my choice, my opinions, etc, etc….

Awareness says: this makes the most sense. It’s just like 2 + 2 = 4. These values are based on facts.

There is the acknowledging of what is factual – and what is factual is not a choice. The involuntary acknowlement of a fact and ones action are one whole.

Cory: What do you mean by responsible anyway?

Sapius: I said that it seems you hold Man responsible since you say “Most cultures rest upon a way of doing agriculture that depends on the destruction of the very thing they scramble fearfully to preserve and glorify. Man is irrational, not practical”, and not cause and effect, which according to your understanding should be the case.

Let me give you another example, in an effort to clarify.

“A large fraction of mankind fools himself into thinking Jesus is his savior and because he does this he becomes very aggressive when anyone try’s to explain to him that his is not true”

Notice how I just described a common phenomenon.

Would you accuse me of denying cause and effect on the grounds that I value the usefulness of arranging words in order to paint a general description of a situation, a phenomenon?

You would be foolish to do so.

One can maintain both the truth of cause and effect ‘and’ describe the irrational behavior of man relative to an event, a circumstance.

Sapius, why on earth do you think that using words to describe irrational human behavior necessitates the negation of a causal understanding?

Sapius: ‘Man’ being irrational, or impractical, or whatever cannot be attributed to MAN, but to cause and effect.

Oh brother. Sapius, here is another example.

What if one of the tires of my car is going flat because of a nail?

It seems to me that it would be rational to search for a particular cause to my tire going flat such as a nail. The tire very well could be patched up. You follow?

Would it makes sense for me to throw my arms up in the air and say: “The tire being flat cannot be attributed to NAIL – but rather it is just plain ol' cause and effect" ?

Surely I would be going nowhere if I did that.

Therefore, in order to make life less of a burden, it is rational to point out the certain behaviors of man which create uneccesary burdens. Man is not suffering on purpose. He feels like he is damned if he does, damned if he doesnt.

Therefore he does, and continues to suffer.

Wisdom makes no senes to the deluded man. To the deluded man, wisdom is apphrended as a much worse alternative to his present folly.

Keep in mind Sapius, that both the description of plight AND the truth of causality are mutually true – really there is no division.

Causality as a concept by itself is much different and much less useful than coming into contact with actual reality (which is indeed comprised of causal relationships).

Being able to abstractly reason with concepts vs. being able to see actuality clearly is what separates the pedantic from the wise. For the wise, subject and object become one.

While the fool becomes more and more dulled and bound to his limted subjectivity(his concepts) and thus increasingly oblivoius to objectivity(non-conceptual actuality).

Cory: There is no battle between right and wrong in the man who is truly rational. He does what he does because that’s what he wants to do. What he wants to do isn’t a choice.

Sapius: Well, is anyone truly rational, or does it only seem to be so, that is, according to you?

Absolute rationality is the awareness that where the self is – rationality is not absolute, but only present in degrees.

Where rationality is absolute, the self is not.

Sapius: If you see rationality, then you surely know about irrationality. Now, in the above quote, would there be a battle between right and wrong in the man who is truly irrational?

Indeed there is. The man who is irrational has notions of superiority – and this notion leads him to pursue a way of life that creates suffering for himself. Within him is a conflict between his notion of superiority which gives him pleasure and the consequence of his actions which give him pain.

The irrational man has a war going on within him between pleasure and pain.

His pleasure his his false knowledge and his false actions -- his pain is the consequences of these actions.

Cory: “He does what he does because that’s what he wants to do. What he wants to do isn’t a choice”

Sapius: Applies pretty well also. Don’t you think?

Yes, that is why I say there is ironic similarities between the absolutely wise/enlightened man and the absolute criminal/psychopath.

Both archetypes have become what they are because they (in different ways, sometimes surreptitiously, sometimes openly) disregarded right and wrong, they disregarded other people’s feelings, both are very cynical and suspicious of humans, they both appear to be fearless, both appear to be extremists, both have found themselves in very vulnerable positions, and both are heavily ostracized by respectable culture.

The significant difference between the great wise-man and the great criminal is the criminal remains a slave to animal impulse, to desire and (although it is often not apparent) fear --

Whereas the wise man has managed to go beyond.

In order to go beyond desire, craving, longing – you must not resist your very longings, and desires.

If you have had a good enough childhood, or/and if you have good influences in your present circumstances, your desire to do what is rational will come to outweigh your desire to do what is irrational.

If you have had a bad childhood, and/or your present circumstances leave you surrounded by bad people, your alienation and isolation will leave your craving to be like your irrational peers, and you will thus probably worsen and become a respectable person which is to be criminal to a certain degree, orr you may possibly become absolutely criminal.

That is why it is good to be in the company of the wise. Simply their pressence will to certain degrees help you go beyond respectability and crime.

Most people are mediocre. They are not great criminals, nor are they very wise – they just live their lives in conflict, self-pity with an almost constant internal and external struggle and confusion.

Cory: I agree that people generally do things because they see no other way – they do what they do because to them, it is the rational and practical thing to do – however - the truth ends up being different from what they thought was the truth –no?

Sapius: Well no. Firstly they could not have seen any another way because it is no choice of theirs, and that applies to you and me too.

Actually, this is a good point. The confused mind is often bewildered before an array of different possibilities – however- what he ends up doing is what he has been caused to do, rather than what he chooses. There is no chooser to choose.

Sapius: They do what they do not because to them it is rational and practical, but because they have no choice.

Yes, however, just because they dont have a choice, doesnt mean they do not weigh and consider possibliites. You seem to think, just because i deny the reality choice, that I deny the reality of contemplation, the reality of weighing and considering factors.

Sapius: This is what it boils down to; if I have no choice and “I” am not responsible for anything that emerges from a thing called “I”, then who or what is?

Its not so much that you are 'not' responsible for anything –

what I’m trying to say is that you have no choice to be, to certain degrees, or even to no degrees: responsible. It all depends on your environment, as well as your genetic constitution.

It is foolish to not be responsible.

People who are irresponsible do not clearly see the suffering that they are sowing for themselves.

If they did see clearly, then that very seeing would force them to do that which is more rational, more responsible.

Sapius: if I have no choice and “I” am not responsible for anything that emerges from a thing called “I”, then who or what is? Cause and effect?

I think what your getting caught on is cause and effect as a mere concept.

Causality exists, but not as a concept. Causality needs only to be confirmed and acknowledged by observing and acknowledging the difference between thought and actuality.

Study with great subtlety: vegetation, gardens, trees, human anatomy/biology, cultures, anthropology. That is where you will find causality.

But causality as a mere concept will not tell you anything useful.

It will just cause you to confusedly parrot QRS rhetoric.

Sapius: If it is C&E and the “me”, that is my consciousness, disappears due to cause and effect, then nothing exists. No need to discuss.

No, there really isn’t much need to discuss if we both understand the truth.

That is why you rarely see Solway, Rowden, and Quinn debating and conversing amongst each other on this forum.

The wise often speak to the deluded. The deluded often speak to the wise. And the Deluded often speak to the deluded.

The wise do not often have much to say to the wise.

That is why man and woman get stuck together. There is plenty to talk about.

That is not to say that wise men do not share their thoughts –

but its much more minimal, incisive, cooperative and seemless -

Whereas the foolish are abrasive, competitive, emotional, clumsy, shallow, superflous and confused in their speech.

Who knows if the QRS get together and talk about their feelings about what goes on at this board, and who knows if any sort of resentments or competitiveness is harbored between them.

My guess is that to participate on any message board, let alone this one, there has to be a certain level of immaturity.

If one is supremely mature then I doubt one would be on this message board at all.

Personally, I’m going to following through with my desires,
longings, and cravings in part by means of this board until they have been exhausted and I am left feeling sick.

The sickness for this board will create a desire for a cure that will not be of this board. And then perhaps i shall return to the board for more! :)

I feel this board is a good place to study the ways of the self - for now.

Sapius: Each and every thing that cause and effect creates can individually be held responsible for its own attributes

Can you draw from actuality and point to an actual example?

Sapius: [are you saying that] a thing is nothing whatsoever because cause and effect goes back infinitely?

Yes I am, however, surviving peacefully is in part what wisdom is about as well.

That is why it is perfectly correct to make critiques of the behavior of man, of culture and society.

There are superior conceptions of causality to be employed in the place of the more inferior approaches that we presently employ.

Conventional approaches to architecture, agriculture, education, obstetrics, psychology (just to name a few) need to be improved if we are to correct man’s appalling trajectory.

Cory: Also, lets not forget to mention and consider the role fear plays in determining peoples actions........

Sapius: No, they cannot help it. They cannot chose to be fearless, hence cannot actually chose their actions.

You are correct in saying that one cannot choose to be fearless.

Rather, man will become fearless via a longing for truth that he cannot control.

He must not resist his longing for wholeness.

However, if he resists, he does this because he is not strong enough to live without resistance - and his weakness is not a choice.

His investigations and explorations can only go on for so long until he reaches that point where he is sick of everything.

He has reached death reluctantly.

All his efforts to find truth in happines, and happiness in truth eventually proved that truth is not an answer, and it is only answers that can give happiness, and happiness can only cause pain –

At this stage he has nothing left but his own emptiness, his feeling of loss, his grief - infinite despair.

There is only the involuntary process of withering away, dying (I am not talking about the physical death that we all go through from old age).

This sort of thing cannot happen to the prudent nervous anal retentive individual who is constantly organizing his affairs in a fearful greedy way, who has such strong likes and dislikes.

Men who are truly enlightened are men who have passionately followed their instincts, who have exhausted themselves totally, who have become sick of life – they are men who have welcomed death out of despair, they are men who have been resurrected, renewed.

The difference between the absolute criminal and the enlightened man, is the criminal is not resurrected and renewed and that is because his aims are too low.

The tragedy of the limited prudent and anal retentive individual is that he hasn't the reckless abandon of the potential sage or great criminal and thus lives in envy and jealousy.

The tragedy of the great criminal is he is deeply and incorrigibly ashamed. Because of his childhood, he hadn’t the self-esteem and learning opportunities to aim for the greatness he very well may have been suited for. The great criminal was/is much more suited for enlightenment than the more timid respectable man.

The tragedy of the sage is that he must helplessly watch the prudent, pedantic, bourgeois anal retentive man arrogantly and foolishly wrest and claim false superiority over him(the sage) by doing that which oppresses and confuses mankind, by doing that which begets more and more criminals.

These criminals are really the victims of this false cowardly man, even though the false cowardly man is victimized by these criminals.

The sage watches helplessly as an outsider, speaking to the very few who will listen.

Cory: Understand Sapius that I’m not upset or regretful about humanity's naive and inevitalbe deviation from the hunter gatherer state –


Sapius: I do understand, but according to you, either way, it would not be your choice. No?

Exactly – for instance – I have indeed felt disturbed, upset, felt hatred and felt regretful about facts I have acknowledged – and it was not a choice to feel that way.

But those sorts of feelings wither away and you are left with a passion to live, to communicate and act more rationally.

By acknowledging the source of your hatred, and by feeling hatred/sorrow/pain in its totality, it withers away and you are left with incredible energy and passion to eradicate the causes of suffering in yourself and thus in mankind.

Cory: however – I am urging humanity to see both why our conventional manifestation of agriculture doesn’t work and how food production can work.

Sapius: Hey, I find it a noble thing to do, but do you?

There is a significant relationship between nobility, self-esteem, heroism, and superiority.

A sense of superiority, self-esteem, heroism and nobility have indeed driven me, just like they do for most males.

The brains of males have been strongly conditioned to construct sensibilities of heroism.

The forces I have been driven by most of my life have been for the most part unbenownst to me.

It is only recently that I have developed enough awareness to be aware of the impersonal cravings and passions that drive males.

For instance, in grade school I wanted to be popular and liked by my more well-bred peers.

So in order to draw attention to myself and be liked, I would do whatever I deemed would best bring me into the favor of the particular people I wanted to belong to.

Having some jokes, pulling pranks, working hard at basketball, wearing the cool clothes, smoking pot, drinking alcohol, not going to classes, having a car to drive to school.

All my desires were born from the influence of my mother, combined with an unconscious desire for self-esteem, to be special, heroic, etc, etc.

Other kids in my school were also driven by such feelings, and sometimes their manifestation was similar to mine (and thus they were my so-called friends) and other times their manifestation was much different – for instance – some would wear black trench coats and brood, others would play hackey sac, skateboard and listen to Bob Marley, others would come to school with grease on their hands and talk and brag about cars and hunting.

By the time I was 20 I was pretty conflicted, lonely, depressed, tortured, and alienated.

I felt like I wasted a good portion of my life trying to please other people and be someone that I was not.

I felt really stupid, yet I also felt like there was something in me that I once had as a child, something that could be recovered, nourished, and grown.

I had a tremendous passion and longing to be a great man, yet my memories of past experiences in relationship to the challenges I was facing (losing a girlfriend, getting set up in a job I hated) seemed to indicate quite strongly that I was a very stupid, unworthy man.

My unprecedented self hatred and my longing for greatness had been the foundation for a new chapter in my life.

This chapter of my life was devoted to trying to become a genius.

Much like I prayed to God in highschool to help me get a really pretty girlfriend (which I got) - - I then prayed to God to help make me a genius.

Usually when I think about his I laugh out loud as I am doing now while I type.

Sapius: On the other hand, if this discussion and everything with it was inevitable due to no choice of ours, then that renders logic, reasoning and responsibility meaningless.

Cory: And what if I am wrong and you are right Sapius? -- Is the right answer Sapius’s choice? In other words, does Sapius have a say in what the right answer is?

No, it is not up to him. He simply acknowledges what is true, rational and hence acknowledges what is false, irrational.

Sapius: I don’t understand this. What has right or wrong got to do with the inevitability of either one being out of no choice actually?

Good point. Nothing. I guess I was just trying to show you that rationality and irrationality are not matters of opinion, nor are they a matter of choice.

For instance: if I am wrong – I don’t know I am wrong, nor did I choose to be wrong.

And if I am somehow caused to both realize that I am wrong and discover what is ‘more right’ – then I am not only caused to do this, but furthermore, what is right (or better, what is more rational) is also not a choice.

Sapius: Any ways, the fact that you are acknowledging ‘Sapius’, he not only acknowledges true and false but also is able to reject the false, a choice is indeed made by Sapius, although he is ruled by cause and effect, cause and effect does not render him nothing whatsoever.

Sapius, Why would you choose the false over the true? Isn’t acknowledging the true, simply an action in itself, rather than a choice?

Sapius: So it is either “me” who takes decisions, or cause and effect; take your pick.

I simply say there is no decision, it just seems like there is.

Sapius: I know there is nothing to be proud of, for other reasons, but I do achieve and accomplish something at least, because I’m not nothing whatsoever. Tell me it is not so.

Well, it is sometimes neccesary, for the sake of being able to describe reality in a conventional convenient sort of way, to regard someone in the first person and say that they have done this, achieved that, accomplished this........however, the truth is that no decision is actually being made, there was and is in actuality no 'doer'. Hence there was/is only a degree of consciousness, of rationalty operating involuntarily.

Sapius: For we had no choice in becoming hunter/gatherers, no choice in becoming farmers, no choice in breeding till the planet goes out of orbit, and no choice in taking any future “rational” or “practical” decision. It just happens!

Cory: Of course, why not?

Sapius: Because consciousness steps in, unless you believe it is nothing whatsoever.

Sapius, do you think consciousness inherently exists? Do you think consciousness ‘chooses’ to step in?

Certainly it does not.

Hi Cory,

For instance, as you might have heard several times: there is no self. The noun is an illusion. Now - just because this is true, doesn’t mean that we stop using nouns, such as I, you, me, etc, in our communications.

It isn't true. Self is no illusion.

There will always be the odd pedantic sort of fellow who will give us a hard time about it, accusing us of contradiction, but there is no sense in being anything other than patient with these people who are inquisitive, yet reluctant to catch on.

If you can be and are in fact given a hard time over this, it is because you can be and are in fact given a hard time over it.

So anyway, the crux of disagreement, especially between me and Ritz, stems from my assertion that choice is an illusion.
Ok, so just because I do not choose to say what I say, doesn’t mean that what is written by me isn’t challenging to whoever is listening to me.

Nothing is an illusion. I don't need to assert it, but I can, and do.

It is only those who are not beyond challenge that are challenged by me.

If they were beyond challenge, if they truly understood why they they don't exist, there wouldn’t be any division between me and them, and therefore there would be hardly anything to say between us.

No-one can ever truly understand why they don't exist, because they do.

Now Sapius - - -what if there is only false confidence and language tricks on my part? - - - what if I truly am deluded? Do you think I’m choosing to be? Do you at least admit Sapius that deluded people don’t know they are deluded? Therefore, they do not choose to be what they are. Surely you don’t think I am being deluded on purpose?Anyhow, when it all comes down to it, I am asserting with finality that I am not deluded.

It's down to it. Your assertions in the face of mine don't stand.

But those sorts of assertions are hoepfully regarded as valueless to you and the other readers. However, my reasoning skills and my presentation of the logic behind my assertions – perhaps that might be helpful to you.

Aren't you of the kind that imagines hope is for the deluded alone?

Just because we don’t choose our values, doesn’t mean we don’t have a sense of what is valuable to know and do and what is not. For example, when I grow my vegetables, I value mulching the soil (among many other things) Why? Because mulching the soil ‘just so happens’ to be the more sensible thing to do. It really has nothing to do with my volition, my choice, my opinions, etc, etc….

What you mean is we can't help but choose our values.

Cory: There is no battle between right and wrong in the man who is truly rational. He does what he does because that’s what he wants to do. What he wants to do isn’t a choice.

No, what he can only do is not a choice.

Actually, this is a good point. The confused mind is often bewildered before an array of different possibilities – however- what he ends up doing is what he has been caused to do, rather than what he chooses. There is no chooser to choose.

Choice is causal. To assert and maintain it is illusory is superfluous.

Yes, however, just because they dont have a choice, doesnt mean they do not weigh and consider possibliites. You seem to think, just because i deny the reality choice, that I deny the reality of contemplation, the reality of weighing and considering factors.

If you deny choice and choosing you deny value and evaluating.

Causality exists, but not as a concept.

It exists as concept also.

Causality needs only to be confirmed and acknowledged by observing and acknowledging the difference between thought and actuality.

In other words, by conceptualizing it, by actualizing your thought.

Sapius: [are you saying that] a thing is nothing whatsoever because cause and effect goes back infinitely?

Yes I am, however, surviving peacefully is in part what wisdom is about as well.

Why say it at all then?

Sapius, do you think consciousness inherently exists? Do you think consciousness ‘chooses’ to step in?

Certainly it does not.

Certainly it doesn't do what? Inherently exist or choose to exist? It does the former, not the latter.

There is an inclemency to all these notions of inherency that make me stare and see. :D

Cory, I’m afraid most of your responses are generally irrelevant to the point made, so I really don’t know what to say, except…

Sapius: [are you saying that] a thing is nothing whatsoever because cause and effect goes back infinitely?

Cory: Yes I am…

If that is true, then a nothing whatsoever response from a nothing whatsoever is saying nothing whatsoever.

.

Ritz,

Cory: Although it is interesting to note that it seems spiritual creative individuals breathe life and novelty into a culture and in part help shape how it evolves - so therefore, most change that you see in culture has it’s origins in spontaneous individualities which diffuses and percolate and live through the masses over time.

Ritz: Technology is by nature cumulative, and thus can be said to evolve.

I agree, but does it do this by itself? It seems rather apparent to me that there is a creative as well as user element as well. It’s just like saying the mere material of a beehive evolves on its own and thus it is the material of the beehive that creates the culture.

The truth is that the bees are actually creating and organizing the material that comprising the beehive. Therefore it is the bees who build and evolve their culture, the material of the culture is just material.

Likewise, in human culture, ideas and technologies are mere building material that is created, organized and maintained by individuals.

However, I find the beehive metaphor hides that which is very peculiar and unique about the human situation.
For instance:

Non-individuals (mediocre-dull people) who haven’t the depth of understanding that is needed to create ideas and technology - get organized, controlled and shaped by the very ideas and technologies that they think they are using.

They are actually unwittingly being used, controlled, shaped and exploited by the very material that they think they are using to their advantage.

Their lives are indeed totally determined, much like the life of the wise, however one is more vulgar and bewildered than the other.

So Ritz, when you say:

Ritz: Culture and society, however, evolve only by means of technology and ideology

.

Your assertion begs the question:

Where does technology and ideology come from Ritz? What are the origins of technology and ideology? And would it not be the origins of technology and ideas that create culture, rather than the mere technologies and ideas?

Ideas and technology are born from the insights of those who are/were closer to being individuals, or who were maybe even absolute individuals.

And to this day - don’t these ideas and technologies (whose origins lie in individuals) function to blindly exploit and control people to different degrees?

I say that it is individuals who evolve culture and society.

Ideas and technology are just incidental secondary effects of a much more root phenomenon: the wandering penetrating mind of the individual in relationship to the willful superficially creative obsessive compulsive ways of the more mediocre man (not to mention the dullest of men who just blindly consume and conform.

Don’t you agree?

Keep in mind Ritz that I originally said: “It is interesting to note that it seems spiritual creative individuals breathe life and novelty into a culture and ‘in part’ ‘help’ shape how culture evolves”

I kind of get the sense that you want to make a distinction between the process of natural selection of cultural evolution (which technology and ideas indeed play a very significant role) and mutation/transformation.

To me, great individuals are examples of positive mutations, and these great individuals (mutations) seriously effect the future shape of society, or in fact, are the essence of what a culture is destined/fated to evolve into.

It is these positive mutations that are the essence of evolution – not the mere ideas and technology (which are only incidental by-products of positive mutations/transformations in individuals)

The technologies and ideas are indeed significant factors in natural selection, however the essence of cultural evolution is spontaneous transformation, mutation. In other words: refinement of individuality, perception.

Ritz: This is not the case. The ancients of Greece and Rome do not fit this model, nor do the Australian Aborigine peoples.

What model exactly? Sorry, you’re going to have to help me out a bit here, not quite following.

Ritz: Society and culture evolve, but by different means and to different ends than "biological evolution," or, to be precise, macro evolution.

Ritz, if you don’t mind, I need you to clarify what you are saying.

Are you saying that society and culture evolve by ‘macro-evolution’?

If so, I would have to reply by saying: no, the very essence of change and progress in culture is via ‘unprecedented refinement in the perception of individuals’ – the micro.

Cory: All species that I’m aware of seem shaped and streamlined perfectly.

Ritz: Does this point more to coherent design or to the product of random chance and billions of years?

What do you mean by a more coherent design? Are you suggesting that you entertain the possibility of an intelligence of much higher dimension – one that is overseeing and designing life?

What is your take on God?

And hey, what about our (anatomically speaking) appendix?

Isn’t that some superfluous organ in our body that doesn’t seem to exist for any good reason (but that very well may have been useful at one time)? You also mention auxillary hair.

So, that being said: all species are not shaped and streamlined perfectly – there are useless features (features that were once useful, but have been rendered useless) to be found upon and within both a particular species as well as upon and within a culture.

But - the birth of new features that are useful – that is still a mystery to me.

Cory: Any mutations you find in the odd creatures seen nowadays always seem to be caused by pollution or lab experimentation and leaves the creature at a disadvantage in terms of survival.

Ritz: Please don't talk out yo' ass, son. Mutations occur billions (if not more) times daily in organisms of every kind. Mutations are not limited to the dramatic and notorious six-legged frogs found near radiation. They have occured throughout the natural history of our planet, and indeed those caused by pollutants and experimentation are in the extreme minority. You don't seem to understand what a mutation is, what it can be caused by, or what it accounts for. Think diabetes, sickle-cell anemia, and premature baldness, not X-Men.

This seems a bit unfair of you Ritz. I don’t think I said, was implying, or had my eyes searching for mutations that were limited to dramatic 6-legged frogs near radiation. I was actually looking for miniscule ‘positive mutations’, and I seen the possibility of Ritz providing some enlightening information on this subject.

But instead you tried to land a punch.

I asked you why we don’t witness ‘positive’ mutations in present day species. If you recall properly, you’ll remember that I was focusing on how species outside the human kingdom seem to be streamlined and endowed with features always for a reason.

And then I asked why we don’t actually witness any beginnings of new ‘positive’ developments, mutations.

It’s really not that stupid of a question considering you yourself gave me examples of negative mutations – diabetes, cancer, etc, etc.

The X-men comment was unfair and was totally your own projection.

Just letting out some pent up malice? Good for you. Let it all out Ritz.

I know your not intentionally trying to misunderstand me Ritz –

I understand that what you are is something you just can’t help it.

Perhaps you are a bit threatened, irritated and/or frustrated by me and this is causing you to lash out?

Ritz: I never said we should dismiss the collective work of Darwin, I merely said that (biological) evolution is a falsehood.

No, you actually made a distinction between mutation and natural selection.

Are you saying that natural selection is not a biological process, and therefore not biological evolution?

I say that natural selection is a biological process, and therefore a part of evolution – however, like you know very well, natural selection is not the end all be all explanation for life. But it is helpful. (i'm not accusing you of thinking it is unhelpful, i am just finishing a thought)

Ritz: But other truths are found to be depressing for other reasons.

Cory: Can you name some reasons?

Ritz: If you need an example, I'd be happy to provide one.

I find the truth that the vast majority of human beings have no aspiration for "higher" things to be depressing not because I am conditioned to the comfort of higher things (indeed, I think we can both agree that many higher things are uncomfortable by nature)

Do you agree that the higher things are only uncomfortable if you are comforted or pleasured by the lower things and vice versa? People who are comforted by the lower, are depressed by the higher. Likewise, people who are comforted by the higher are depressed by the lower. Do you agree with that?

Don’t you think that our suffering basically comes down to self-pity: loneliness, alienation, agitation, isolation, guilt, shame, fear of being a nobody, fear of being unloved, fear of being hurt, of being humiliated, jealousy, envy, etc, etc?

And don’t you agree that all of these examples of suffering are the result of having a sense of self?

And isn’t this sense of self the result of having likes and dislikes?

Ritz: I find the truth that the vast majority of human beings have no aspiration for "higher" things to be depressing because I know higher things to be superior to lower things.

Do you see a way out of this suffering? Or do you think one must always be emotional about these sorts of things?

Ritz: I have known people who use philosophy as a shield from responsibility, in one way or another.

By claiming no control over their will they relinquish their will and dissolve all sense of personal responsibility, making themselves pathetic.


Cory: Yes, but I don’t think you should say ‘they use philosophy’ to shield from responsibility. The etymological root meaning of philosophy is ‘love of truth’.

Ritz: I'll rephrase: They use the philosophical insights of others out of context and without understanding as a shield from responsibility.

Well then they will suffer the consequences of being irresponsible(irrational) won’t they? And then maybe, because of the undesirable situation that their iresponsibility carried them to, they will reconsider things a bit deeper.

But maybe not, most people are incorrigibly dull.

Cory: We will only become mature through following through with what we desire.

Ritz: Too bad you also say we have absolutely no control over ourselves, our choices, or anything else.

Ok Ritz - -- how about this: there is the man who followed through with his desire and grew – and then there was the man who fearfully suppressed his desire because he feared punishment and ridicule.

One was strong, one was weak.

Neither one had control over the matter.

Maybe I am weak Ritz, and speaking with you will make me stronger?

Did I choose to run into Ritz?

Did I choose to find myself reading his response to my thread?

Did I choose the way I felt when I read his post?

My brain was capable of coming up with response to Ritz…..

Do I choose my brains level of awareness?

Did I choose the way Ritz’s writing provoked me to think?

I say no, it is involuntary – this thing called living.

Cory: Our suffering, boredom, isolation, alienation that result’s from getting what we want - will cast our eyes in a new direction.

A new desire and curiosity will be born and thus the process of pleasure to pain repeats itself at an increasingly more subtle level (ones insights and genius become more apparent and frequent) or if we are unlucky enough, the cycle repeats itself at an increasingly more gross level (one becomes closer and closer to drug, sex or gambling addiction, or/and one falls into various patterns of neurosis, depression, psychosis, etc, etc) –

Ritz: What about those who want not material things but abstract things, like lack of suffering, stimulation, company, or comfort?

Oh, those people. They are mediocre. They are the ones who get stuck in the middle.

Those sorts of people are frightened of themselves, they are frightened of their desires, of the truth - and so they compromise, conform, they get married, they work very hard to make their front lawn nice and green, they go to church, they are diplomatic, they are bourgeois, they suppress their desires in order that they don’t hurt peoples feelings, yet they like gossipy shallow malicious social games, they like being fake, they are loyal to family, subservient to woman, pedantic, obsequious toward doctors, policemen and politicians, etc, etc.

That is why I say: the true enlightened man, (the revolutionary, the sage, the wise) the highest --- and the true criminal (the addict, the abuser, the thief, the murder, the suicide), the lowest -have much in common.

Both sides are incredibly selfish and uncompromising, and for the most part, they do not suppress their desires in order to avoid hurting people’s feeling’s - they do not resist their inner impulses. They do not resist all of that which drives them to be who they are.

The true wise man and the true criminal are both very vulnerable. And both are despised and ostracized by the respectable mediocre man.

The very highest and the very lowest are indeed ironically similar.

The main factor differentiating them is quality of environment, opportunities, and genetic disposition.

The criminal is just plain unlucky. He is an innocent victim in the eyes of the wise.

In the eyes of the wise, the criminal is often seen as closer to god then the respectable man.

Not that the respectable members of society are not seen as innocent – however, they are seen as much more cowardly, they are much more contemptuous because of how secure and untouchable they make themselves, well, that among other reason which I will go into.

In the eyes of the wise – the respectable member’s of society, the so-called ‘well adjusted’ are the true criminals.

In the eyes of the wise, the criminals locked away and condemned by the respectable are seen as the true victims.

The respectable man indignantly regards himself a victim of the actions of the criminal. He is oblivious to the fact that his lifestyle creates the very criminal that he is victimized by.

The craven, shallow, indignant well-paid member of society who flaunts and congratulates himself proudly, values positive false emotional states and displays his power.

He hence functions to create confused negative emotional states in those who aren’t so lucky.

He functions to give momentum and food to the spirit of the criminal.

The respectable shallow man functions to create the inevitability of the criminal.

The more a man gathers prestige, wealth, fancy clothes and food – the more the criminal is a pre-determined inevitability.

The more people with great luxuries, the more angry criminals there will be.

Therefore the Mediocre respectable man is a criminal.

While the man who robs, abuses drugs, commits suicide, murders and rapes the members of respectable culture or even members of his own kind – he is the true victim.

The respectable ‘in the middle man’ is very proud – oblivious to the truth that he is, if anything: merely lucky.

If you were to clearly point out to the mediocre proud man that he cannot logically think of himself as anything but lucky -then he would begin to feel angry, confused, frightened – The closer he comes to understanding you, the closer he comes to understanding himself. The closer he comes to understanding, the more unlucky he starts to feel. That is why he gets so angry by truth.

Pride and hope are both defenses against the pain of losing the pleasure of illusion. The man of pride and hope is deluded.

Cory: It all depends on how many positive factors were present in childhood and ‘are’ present now.

Ritz: Right, because people have absolutely no say in their actions, no responsibility for their actions, and are just as animate as a rock. According to you, that is.

No, I didn’t say that they are just as animate as a rock. If you were to say ‘people are like programmed robots’ – then you would be getting close.

But you exaggerate and distort me because my logic is making you upset.

You have been comforted by that which I oppose, and thus you are feeling negative upon reading my words.

Cory: Notice how the moderators of this forum ban certain people. They do not do this because they desire a particular experience, they do this because they want to deny particular experience.

Ritz: Or it could be said that they wish to experience a realm free of un-desirable elements. This, like many of your assertions, boils down to semantics.

Yes, they wish to experience a realm that is purged of people who desire ‘particular’ experiences. However, just because a person is close to the truth, doesn’t mean he doesnt have experiences. On the contrary, one must. However, the more you know the truth, the less you value any particular experiences.

If you design a message specifically for the function of making people more truthful, then obviously you are going to want to prohibit and deny those who wish to use the message board as means to protect their desire for particular experiences.

The moderators of this forum won’t put up with people for very long who wish defend and preach the important of particular ‘limited’ experiences.

The thing about an experience is it is limited, it is conditioned.

The infinite is not an experience because therein it,

the ‘experiencer’ comes to an end.

Anyone who isn’t interested in such a thing as ending the experiencer shouldn’t last on the forum for very long.

Cory: They do this because they are close to the truth, and thus they forsake anyone who wants to be far away from the truth.

Is the truth an experience? No, it is beyond mere experience.

Ritz: Truth is a noun, experience is an event. A noun is not an event.

Truth a noun? I would say that truth can best be described with verbs, although nouns are necessary to use as well.

Regardless, nouns and verbs are both words and words are not the truth.

Have you ever heard the sayings:

the word is not the thing? The description is not the described? The signifier is not the signified?

You seem to think that thought is something more than a mere reflection. It is not. Thought is a distorted reflection of the truth. The more calm the pond of mind is - the clearer the reflection will be.

Ritz: We can have control over our thought processes, to a degree. It is not easy, it is rationality, reason, and discipline.

Cory: Men of rationality, reason and discipline are men who hate otherwise. The hatred is not a choice, and the hatred of vulgarity is the essence of the highest.

Negative feelings such as hatred, discontent, boredom, and sorrow are involuntary.

Ritz: Yes... they are emotions. As such, would a truly rational man hate, in the "truest" sense of the word, anything?

No, but in order to become truly rational, it is necessary for him to feel emotions such as hate. In order for a man to be truly rational, he must love the truth. The consequence to loving truth is hatred for untruth.

Ritz: he would dislike things, but dislike, especially that which results from rationality, is not the same as hatred.

I think you are describing a very, very mediocre and timid man. That man thinks he knows what rationality is, but really is just more or less a pedant who wants to get married, and/or wants to please his parents, who is afraid to go against his parents shallow wishes, or who, later down the road: is afraid of losing his wife, his stupid job, and is afraid of death.

Cory: Responsibility is not an illusion. The ‘personal’ however is an illusion.

Ritz: Of course cause and effect (non-personal responsibility) is not an illusion. But may I ask you why, if you say there is no personal responsibility, you do not disagree with the laws against rape, or all laws for that matter?

The reason I think rules are important is in order to establish greater efficiency, smoother day to day living.

For example, when you are in a line up at the bank machine – you don’t butt in front of people, do you?

It’s good to have rules to prevent emotional chaos – because emotional, angry people are inefficient, wasteful.

So it is not for any moral reasons that I think we should have rules and laws.

There is no sense in having jumbled, messy functioning, when the possibility of operating smoothly is clearly available.

You see Ritz, as you know, humans are quite vindictive creatures.

We need to have laws and justice systems, because if we don’t – victims of a crime will interrupt ‘society as usual’.

We need vindictive acts to take place in an organized fashion – otherwise things would be too chaotic.

It is purely utilitarian.

So I only disagree with laws in the sense that – I personally don’t need them. I don’t need to be governed by a law that tells me not to rape, kill or steal – simply because I have no desire to rape, kill or steal. Nor do I need an organized process of getting revenge.

I have nothing to lose.

For instance, if my mother or my sister get raped, then that is for them, my father, other family members, police, and courts to deal with. Sure I will feel negative about the situation. My vindictive feelings, unlike those who are shallow, will wither and die upon perception of truth.

I don’t need an organized process of getting revenge to deal with my hatred.

For those that don’t have the understanding to deal with their hatred and vindictive desires - then they will be provided with laws to insure that the inevitable vindictive emotions that follow a crime get invested efficiently and cleanly.

We need to keep the streets, the traffic, the school, and the workplace nice and predictable – this is order to keep survival efficient.

Having these random acts of revenge interupting our daily routines is undesirable to people - so we organize rituals of revenge and punishment.

It’s all about surviving as efficiently as possible.

Rationally says: efficient is good.

And again, rationality/efficiency is just one of those involuntary facts of life that some of us are lucky enough to be secure in.

What is more efficient that nothingness, emptiness, truth?

Cory: The absence of will is the willingness to be the truth. Wisdom is willingness to be nothing.

You cannot will yourself to truth.

Ritz: You cannot simply will yourself to truth, but you do will yourself to find truth; you will yourself to meditate, do you not?

Cory: Your negative feelings and your desires for the highest are not a choice, do not resist them. Searching, investigating, researching – these are all good things – but however personal it may feel to you – your actions are driven by that which is very common and involuntary, your actions and experiences however unique they may seem to you, rest upon the universal, your actions are very impersonal archetypes, and your discoveries are absolutely involuntary.

Ritz: If they are truly involuntary, if we truly have no choice, then the truth is worthless and useless.

Yes, exactly.

You can’t attribute worth to that which is priceless.

Truth can’t use itself.

It is false of you to regard truth the way that you perhaps regard a woman.

You can’t use truth.

You can only use that which you are not a part of.

There is nothing you are not part of.

There is only the illusion that you are divided from what you observe.

Truth is not the woman that you have perhaps made it out to be Ritz.

Cory: However, I think it is just as cruel if not more cruel to treat women like they are so weak and incapable that they cannot be rational as well as take the steps to be less susceptible to being abused.

Ritz: Protection is not prevention of prevention, nor are women rational.

Cory: There are degrees of rationality and women are indeed capable of becoming rational and male to a significant and helpful degree. This world has produced helpful, decent masculine women – although not in high numbers, nor in the form of a sage.

Women desire to please, and if the majority of men place value on rationality – if power starts shifting more to the hands of the good, then the women will gravitate towards wanting to please the good (and surely they will do their best to make the good men bad - - but they will fail if the men truly are good and the women will thus gradually come to do what please the good).

Right now the power lies with bad men - therefore, women gravitate towards bad men.

Ritz: I'm sure you've heard it said that power is corruption, or that power corrupts, or some variation thereof.

Yes, a tired cliché.

Control and dominion over others is a form of power.

Excellency in knowledge is also power.

Ritz: You say that women are rational and should be treated as men.

You misread. I said that one should treat a woman like a child who one understands has the potential to be more male.

If she is rational, then you don't have to talk to her like a child, although occasionally she may mis-behave and you thus may have to occasionally rebuke her.

I just think you are seeing things too black and white.

Women are mostly irrational, but do have a kernel of rationality that can be developed.

Likewise, men are also feminine (irrational) – sometimes even more feminine than your average women - but men are also endowed with much larger doses of rationality on average.

Sometimes men can be both highly rational yet have a powerful streak of femininity.

This can beget very powerful and popular individuals in a culture.

The sage is mostly masculine with a femininity that is freed from thought.

For the sage, thought is never a sensual and/or sentimental affair.

That does not mean that sage’s perception is not without sensuality, but it is a sensuality that he dies to daily.

Ritz: Yet you also say that they can be improved only by the improvement of men? That they act as they do only because of men?

Feminine men(most men) create feminine(most) woman.

Masculine (rare) men can help bring about more masculine (rare) women. This is not a complicated issue Ritz.

Cory: And it’s not really their fault. How the ‘so called males’ treat women (in part) makes women stoop so low to begin with, with their clothing, their makeup, etc.

She is just doing it to please us (and thus please herself).

They are (in part) molding themselves to our dreams.

And then we blame them for it.

Women are not guilty.

Ritz: not even most women dress in a truly indecent manner.

Cory: I would say, in this day and age, if a woman has the package, she will flaunt it. Even if she doesn’t have the right package, she often wants to and tries to flaunt it anyway – to the dismay and entertainment of those who are aesthetically involved in the show.

Sometimes the overweight and/or very unattractive girls allows enough rationality to keep things covered up.

Ritz: I beg to differ. Drawing from personal experience, I have known many attractive young women who hide their endowments for one reason or another. I knew one girl in particular, when I was still in high school, who had a body that would put to shame all those around her, a pretty face, etc etc. She dressed in baggy jeans and loose sweaters because she hated to be treated differently due to her physical beauty.

Why do you think she disliked being treated like she was more special? Isnt that what femininity wants, to be treated special? She sounds more masculine and rational, from your description. Had she given life deeper thought then most women? Come on Ritz - let us go into the psychology of this girl. Are you sure that she was/is not more masculine than your average girl?

Ritz: Also drawing from personal experience, I find that all too often overweight/very unattractive females do not have the presence of mind to cover their jelly rolls.

That’s exactly what I said. You are just repeating what I said as if you are being contrary to me. When really, you are agreeing with my point exactly. Here is the way I presented it:

Cory: Even if she doesn’t have the right package, she often wants to and tries to flaunt it anyway – to the dismay and entertainment of those who are aesthetically involved in the show.

Cory: I dont think womans situation is quite as extreme as you make it to be.

Ritz: This could be because you do not have much or as much experience with women. There are good women, few and far between, and I do not think these women deserve to be called such (women, that is).

Isn’t that all I’ve been saying all along? That there are a few good women who are more masculine – who are proof that women can be improved?

Why not just call women who have rationality – masculine women? Why go so far as to call them male? You are all over the place Ritz, one minute you say women can’t be rational, the next minute you say that there are rational women who should be called males.

I don’t think they are ‘that’ rational that we should call them males.

But women, without too much trouble, are indeed capable of being rational enough to be helpful, they are rational enough to be called masculine women. Perhaps the most extremely rare one we could call a male - but only to make a point.

Cory: However, women occasionally get raped and beaten unjustly, and our society takes these crimes very seriously, and should continue to do so.

Ritz: Occasionally? When has a woman ever been raped justly?

Cory: Bad things happen to unwise people - - A severely traumatic experience will provoke some deep thinking and thus maybe some good will come out of the rape.

We have laws that punish woman beaters and rapists, and this is fine.

Sometimes rape happens anyway despite the laws – and this can also be good.

It encourages women to be more aware, to learn to protect themselves, to be more rational, responsible, to be less optimistic and stupid.

Ritz: Just because some good can come out of a heinous act does not mean that act is just. It is heinous. It is lemonade from lemons. It is not and is never just that a woman be raped. Any rape that is rape is unjust necessarily.

Yes, rape is indeed a fairly shocking and barbaric fact of life.

It is acknowledging and being disturbed by these pre-determined and utterly inevitable sorts of events that cause me to focus my energy on the very root of all injustices.

All injustices can only be effectively treated in one way.

I’m not concerned with treating the symptoms of a disease.

I’m going for the very root.

However, by all means, don’t resist your passions Ritz.

Maybe you are suited to be a nurse to help rape victims? Or maybe you might make a better psychologist who helps women work through such tragedies? Maybe you might be suited for working within politics to help improve the justice system, or maybe you might be a good policeman, a lawyer, a judge, who knows?

– what do you want to be when you grow up Ritz?

Maybe you might like to make a donation to some sexual abuse-support organizations, or get intimately involved in such an organization.

You might like this website:

http://www.dancinginthedarkness.com/ - they have a message board and I’m sure they’d appreciate your views.

Cory: I am not one of the humans who will have anything to do with policing and maintaining laws. That is not my purpose in life. Life is cruel, the truth is cruel, and I am the truth - -- so call me cruel.

Ritz: You claim to be truth, and this makes you suspect.

This is a good thing Ritz. Be very suspicious my friend. It doesn’t matter to me what you think of my character. Does what I say make sense to you? If yes, then my words causing you to apply the logic yourself is all that matters. If no, then go do what you will. I'm assuming that I, for the most part, am disagreeable with you.

You probably equated my claim of being the truth with being a perfect, flawless human being at every moment. You would be mistaken to assume such a thing.

The truth lies simply in seeing things as they are. I see myself as undivided from you, to everyone, and to everthing.

I am everything, I am you, you are me, we are all, and all is nothing - and that is the truth.

But these are indeed mere words.

I really am not interested in arguing and trying to convince someone the truth who isn’t ready for it.

And I'm sure you have no interest in learning anything from someone who seems deluded. But perhaps you can bring me to the light? If you feel you can show me the way - then by all means.

Ritz: You contradict yourself (no personal responsibility, but necessary law all the same?)

No, I don’t contradict myself. You simply misunderstand.

Ritz: And you rely on the tricks of language far too much. You are not truth, you only claim to be.

You make a great case Ritz. A lawyer might be a good career choice for you.

Cory: Nor do I have any close relationships to women, and if I did, or if I do, they will be wise enough to not get themselves into a situation where they might get raped.

Ritz: Do you mean to say that you can envision yourself raping a woman under certain circumstances? Or do you not care, because it wouldn't be your choice anyway? Is this truth?

I don’t have a desire to rape a woman - therefore the laws don’t even apply to me. The laws are there to deal with those who have a desire to rape, as well as for those who need an organized outlet to channel their untamable vindictiveness.

Cory: If we wish to tackle the problem of rape and abuse then I think we need to focus on both being wise/male, and providing the material and support for those who desire absolute clarity, certainty, and truth.

Ritz: Unfortunately, those who would rape and abuse likely won't be the ones seek out higher things.

Cory: Those who rape have failed as human beings, and there are reasons for their failure. The reasons for their failure is the responsibility of the philosohper to identify and bring to peoples attention - thus we evolve.

Ritz: The responsibility of the philosopher? Not the responsibility of philosophy? You say there is no personal responsibility, yet here you say there is.

I say responsibility is rationality. To be one is to be the other. Why do you divide them? Yes the true philosopher is of responsibility, he is of rationality, he is of truth.

Ritz: If you are truth, then how can you contradict yourself?

It only appears contradictory to you because perhaps you aren’t ready to understand all of this.

Ritz: You are not truth. You are deception, and deceive yourself into believing otherwise.

Are you choosing to believe this? Or is it one of those involuntary reactions/responses to the way life appears to you?

The truth is against your will.

Hey Sewer-Gas

Cory: For instance, as you might have heard several times: there is no self. The noun is an illusion. Now - just because this is true, doesn’t mean that we stop using nouns, such as I, you, me, etc, in our communications.

S: It isn't true. Self is no illusion.

Cory: Weren’t you warned a few times already to refrain from posting glib pointless one-liner oppositions? Like Solway said: you are ruining threads.

Cory: There will always be the odd pedantic sort of fellow who will give us a hard time about it, accusing us of contradiction, but there is no sense in being anything other than patient with these people who are inquisitive, yet reluctant to catch on.

Suergaz: If you can be and are in fact given a hard time over this, it is because you can be and are in fact given a hard time over it.

Sewer-gas, your presence on this forum does nothing but dilute the quality of the threads. Why haven’t they banned you yet? You are the most uninteresting and consistently boring person on this forum.

Cory: So anyway, the crux of disagreement, especially between me and Ritz, stems from my assertion that choice is an illusion. Ok, so just because I do not choose to say what I say, doesn’t mean that what is written by me isn’t challenging to whoever is listening to me.

suergaz: Nothing is an illusion. I don't need to assert it, but I can, and do.

Oh Mr. Tough Guy eh? You are epitomize pointlessness.

And your right – you don’t need to assert it, but you do because otherwise you have nothing better to do with your life. Needless to say - your pathetic.

Cory: It is only those who are not beyond challenge that are challenged by me. If they were beyond challenge, if they truly understood why they don't exist, there wouldn’t be any division between me and them, and therefore there would be hardly anything to say between us.

Sueg: No-one can ever truly understand why they don't exist, because they do.

Do you know the difference between a reasoned argument and a mere assertion? You seem to have mere assertion down to a tee. My 3 year old cousin is at that level as well. You two would probably get along great.

Cory: Now Sapius - - -what if there is only false confidence and language tricks on my part? - - - what if I truly am deluded? Do you think I’m choosing to be? Do you at least admit Sapius that deluded people don’t know they are deluded?

Therefore, they do not choose to be what they are. Surely you don’t think I am being deluded on purpose? Anyhow, when it all comes down to it, I am asserting with finality that I am not deluded.


Suergaz: It's down to it. Your assertions in the face of mine don't stand.

You are bragging about your ability to make assertions? You are a buffoon.

What about my well reasoned observations and didactic anecdotes in the face of yours? It seems you don’t even have any mere observations and anecdotes let alone well-reasoned and didactic ones. All you have are these glib shallow assertions that clearly do nothing but waste time and space on this forum.

But those sorts of assertions are hoepfully regarded as valueless to you and the other readers. However, my reasoning skills and my presentation of the logic behind my assertions – perhaps that might be helpful to you.

S: Aren't you of the kind that imagines hope is for the deluded alone?

I see that your mind is evidently limited to criticisms of that which sensible people see as merely a figure of speech. I’ll be careful to refrain next time – knowing how easily some readers like your self get confused.

And yes I do see hope as a thing for the deluded. So instead of hope that you get banned from this forum, I am actually going to do something about it. Maybe it will work, maybe it won't. But personally, I find you do nothing but drag this place down. The only positive thing you do is you occasionally flatter and praise someone when they do something that you interpret is strong, which isnt a virtue - but a womanly tactic aimed at dumbing down the people you want to control.

Cory: Just because we don’t choose our values, doesn’t mean we don’t have a sense of what is valuable to know and do and what is not. For example, when I grow my vegetables, I value mulching the soil (among many other things) Why? Because mulching the soil ‘just so happens’ to be the more sensible thing to do. It really has nothing to do with my volition, my choice, my opinions, etc, etc….


Su: What you mean is we can't help but choose our values.

Yes, but instead of just plainly saying that, I actually make an effort to show the logic behind my assertion.

This forum isn’t a place to just blurt out opinions. You should make an effort to show the logic behind your conclusions. If you can’t do that, then don’t post your assertions.

Cory: There is no battle between right and wrong in the man who is truly rational. He does what he does because that’s what he wants to do. What he wants to do isn’t a choice.

Sue: No, what he can only do is not a choice.

What he wants to do isn’t a choice because there is only one thing to do that makes supreme sense. There could very well be an alterative that is even more rational, however he is not aware that it exists. A better alternative may exist or it may not exist - but regardless, he does what he is sees as best.

Cory: Actually, this is a good point. The confused mind is often bewildered before an array of different possibilities – however- what he ends up doing is what he has been caused to do, rather than what he chooses. There is no chooser to choose.

Sue: Choice is causal. To assert and maintain it is illusory is superfluous.

The self is causal and to show why it is illusory by illustrating its relationship to choice, and possibilities is perhaps helpful to some people. At least that was the intention.

Thankfully, not everyone is so dull that they are content with merely believing something just because it is easy and pleasant to believe.........this is not only what you seem to do, but you then proceed to blurt out your beliefs at whoever presents a philosophy that undermines you.

Cory: Yes, however, just because they dont have a choice, doesnt mean they do not weigh and consider possibliites. You seem to think, just because i deny the reality choice, that I deny the reality of contemplation, the reality of weighing and considering factors.

Sueg: If you deny choice and choosing you deny value and evaluating.

How can you be so foolish as to continually settle for such glib one-liners when you’ve been told on countless occasions to smarten up?

Cory: Causality exists, but not as a concept.

Su: It exists as a concept also.

It exists insofar as a reflection of the sky exists on a pond.

Cory: Causality needs only to be confirmed and acknowledged by observing and acknowledging the difference between thought and actuality.

Sueg: In other words, by conceptualizing it, by actualizing your thought.

How about: by seeing that ones conceptualization is not the conceptualized?

Conceptualization is a tool, but for the most part, it is a limitation imposed about the infinite. One must come into contact with the infinite without conceptualization of it. If you try to capture it, it eludes you.

Cory: Sapius, do you think consciousness inherently exists? Do you think consciousness ‘chooses’ to step in? Certainly it does not.

Suergaz: Certainly it doesn't do what? Inherently exist or choose to exist? It does the former, not the latter.

There is an inclemency to all these notions of inherency that make me stare and see. :D

Stare and see what? Your favorite TV commercials and Top 30 pop-songs repeating over and over in your head?

The inclemency to your notions of inherency makes you a frightened, womanly dolt.

... well. I DID think "sewer-gas" was funny.

Cato: Well. I DID think "sewer-gas" was funny.

Your admiration for suergaz is born not so much out of the quality of suergaz's words (which are consistenly poor) but out of an admiration for yourself.

Suregaz shrares your values, and that makes you feel a bit more secure and comforted than you would if she wasnt around here talking the crap that she talks.

Therefore, it doesnt take much for suergaz to earn your support and praise. You praise suergaz in order to win more support for your own shoddy values that constitute your self.

People who are drunks, like to be around drunks.

Cory,

Your admiration for suergaz is born not so much out of the quality of suergaz's words (which are consistenly poor) but out of an admiration for yourself.

Um, no.

I did not read a single thing on this thread but the name "sewer-gas".

So, it would NOT mean that I was either assessing "sewer-gasess" words (poor as they may or may not be) NOR interposing my admiration for myself with some feeling of superiority.

I just thought it was funny!

Ever thought something was funny before?

If not, I say "Lighten up Francis"!

Cory: For instance, as you might have heard several times: there is no self. The noun is an illusion. Now - just because this is true, doesn’t mean that we stop using nouns, such as I, you, me, etc, in our communications.

S: It isn't true. Self is no illusion.

Cory: Weren’t you warned a few times already to refrain from posting glib pointless one-liner oppositions? Like Solway said: you are ruining threads.

Why retreat to others opinions? Can't you refute the truth? :D

Cory: There will always be the odd pedantic sort of fellow who will give us a hard time about it, accusing us of contradiction, but there is no sense in being anything other than patient with these people who are inquisitive, yet reluctant to catch on.

Suergaz: If you can be and are in fact given a hard time over this, it is because you can be and are in fact given a hard time over it.

Cory:Sewer-gas, your presence on this forum does nothing but dilute the quality of the threads. Why haven’t they banned you yet? You are the most uninteresting and consistently boring person on this forum.

An irrational, block-headed reply, again a blundering attempt to divert the matter at hand.

Cory: So anyway, the crux of disagreement, especially between me and Ritz, stems from my assertion that choice is an illusion. Ok, so just because I do not choose to say what I say, doesn’t mean that what is written by me isn’t challenging to whoever is listening to me.

suergaz: Nothing is an illusion. I don't need to assert it, but I can, and do.


Cory: Oh Mr. Tough Guy eh? You are epitomize pointlessness.
And your right – you don’t need to assert it, but you do because otherwise you have nothing better to do with your life. Needless to say - your pathetic.

It's the truth Cory, that's why I don't need to assert it.

Cory: It is only those who are not beyond challenge that are challenged by me. If they were beyond challenge, if they truly understood why they don't exist, there wouldn’t be any division between me and them, and therefore there would be hardly anything to say between us.

Sueg: No-one can ever truly understand why they don't exist, because they do.

Cory: Do you know the difference between a reasoned argument and a mere assertion? You seem to have mere assertion down to a tee. My 3 year old cousin is at that level as well. You two would probably get along great.

The question is do you have the capacity to reason against my assertion as opposed to having recourse to incredulity?

Cory: Now Sapius - - -what if there is only false confidence and language tricks on my part? - - - what if I truly am deluded? Do you think I’m choosing to be? Do you at least admit Sapius that deluded people don’t know they are deluded?
Therefore, they do not choose to be what they are. Surely you don’t think I am being deluded on purpose? Anyhow, when it all comes down to it, I am asserting with finality that I am not deluded.


Suergaz: It's down to it. Your assertions in the face of mine don't stand.


Cory: You are bragging about your ability to make assertions? You are a buffoon.

What about my well reasoned observations and didactic anecdotes in the face of yours? It seems you don’t even have any mere observations and anecdotes let alone well-reasoned and didactic ones. All you have are these glib shallow assertions that clearly do nothing but waste time and space on this forum.

My assertions speak my reason more clearly than your didactic anecdotal observations do. Again, why don't you assert your reason over my own? Calling me this or that won't validate it.

But those sorts of assertions are hoepfully regarded as valueless to you and the other readers. However, my reasoning skills and my presentation of the logic behind my assertions – perhaps that might be helpful to you.

S: Aren't you of the kind that imagines hope is for the deluded alone?

Cory: I see that your mind is evidently limited to criticisms of that which sensible people see as merely a figure of speech. I’ll be careful to refrain next time – knowing how easily some readers like your self get confused.
And yes I do see hope as a thing for the deluded. So instead of hope that you get banned from this forum, I am actually going to do something about it. Maybe it will work, maybe it won't. But personally, I find you do nothing but drag this place down. The only positive thing you do is you occasionally flatter and praise someone when they do something that you interpret is strong, which isnt a virtue - but a womanly tactic aimed at dumbing down the people you want to control.

By all means, make a fool of yourself. As one who has heart enough for certain fooleries, I may even forgive you it. :D

Cory: Just because we don’t choose our values, doesn’t mean we don’t have a sense of what is valuable to know and do and what is not. For example, when I grow my vegetables, I value mulching the soil (among many other things) Why? Because mulching the soil ‘just so happens’ to be the more sensible thing to do. It really has nothing to do with my volition, my choice, my opinions, etc, etc….


Su: What you mean is we can't help but choose our values.


Cory: Yes, but instead of just plainly saying that, I actually make an effort to show the logic behind my assertion.

This forum isn’t a place to just blurt out opinions. You should make an effort to show the logic behind your conclusions. If you can’t do that, then don’t post your assertions.

What this forum is or isn't a place for is your opinion. Go to others to bolster what you believe to be the accuracy of your opinions if you wish, it will ultimately make no difference. The effort you made to show the logic of your assertion was at the expense of your expression, and consequently defeated it.

Cory: Actually, this is a good point. The confused mind is often bewildered before an array of different possibilities – however- what he ends up doing is what he has been caused to do, rather than what he chooses. There is no chooser to choose.

Suer: Choice is causal. To assert and maintain it is illusory is superfluous.


Cory: The self is causal and to show why it is illusory by illustrating its relationship to choice, and possibilities is perhaps helpful to some people. At least that was the intention. Thankfully, not everyone is so dull that they are content with merely believing something just because it is easy and pleasant to believe.........this is not only what you seem to do, but you then proceed to blurt out your beliefs at whoever presents a philosophy that undermines you.

The ease and pleasantry of belief in the truth does not change it. That the self is not illusory for instance, appears to hurt you, but the truth of it is left unaffected. Such escapism is not undermined by the genuine love of wisdom, it undermines itself.

Cory: Yes, however, just because they dont have a choice, doesnt mean they do not weigh and consider possibliites. You seem to think, just because i deny the reality choice, that I deny the reality of contemplation, the reality of weighing and considering factors.

Sueg: If you deny choice and choosing you deny value and evaluating.

Cory: How can you be so foolish as to continually settle for such glib one-liners when you’ve been told on countless occasions to smarten up?

How can you be so foolish as to imagine you can disprove their truth by reminding me that they have been met with disapproval in the past?

Cory: Causality exists, but not as a concept.

Su: It exists as a concept also.

Cory: It exists insofar as a reflection of the sky exists on a pond.

I take it you mean causality as concept. No, because it
only ever conceived consciously.

Cory: Causality needs only to be confirmed and acknowledged by observing and acknowledging the difference between thought and actuality.

Sueg: In other words, by conceptualizing it, by actualizing your thought.

Cory: How about: by seeing that ones conceptualization is not the conceptualized? Conceptualization is a tool, but for the most part, it is a limitation imposed about the infinite. One must come into contact with the infinite without conceptualization of it. If you try to capture it, it eludes you.

I can hack that. Except for it being a limitation imposed 'about' the infinite for the most part.

Cory: Sapius, do you think consciousness inherently exists? Do you think consciousness ‘chooses’ to step in? Certainly it does not.

Suergaz: Certainly it doesn't do what? Inherently exist or choose to exist? It does the former, not the latter.

There is an inclemency to all these notions of inherency that make me stare and see. :D

Cory:Stare and see what? Your favorite TV commercials and Top 30 pop-songs repeating over and over in your head?
The inclemency to your notions of inherency makes you a frightened, womanly dolt.

Stare, and see the truth of inherency. This reminds me, what is your music?

Cato,

I thought you meant suergaz's comments were funny.

You thought 'sewer-gaz' the name was funny?

Oh, well in that case -

I still dont like you.

Ah no, I'm kidding.

It all depends on how serious you are about having serious discussions.

If, after reading enough of your posts I find your comments are shallow and unpassionate - well then I'm going to probably not like you too much.

It really isnt a choice. I love what makes sense to my brain - and if anyone asserts what I dont love - I pretty much dislike them, or even hate them.

I'm a pretty intense person.

Cory,

I thought you meant suergaz's comments were funny.

No I did not.

Oh, well in that case -

I still dont like you.

Is there a reason this should upset me?

It all depends on how serious you are about having serious discussions.

Sometimes I am serious, sometimes I am not. Life is not always serious.

If, after reading enough of your posts I find your comments are shallow and unpassionate [sic] - well then I'm going to probably not like you too much.

Again... so what? (By the way, not that I am a perfect grammarian, because I surely am not, but "unpassionate" is not a word. You might have said "... and without passion..." Just a little advice from a shallow person.)

I'm a pretty intense person.

Also quite arrogant. No humor there, for sure.

I suppose that some people imagine they are the first person on the planet to ever "figure it all out", though. They will be surprised at their assumptions when they get older, most likely. Should they be much for introspection, of course.

On the other hand, I do not think man is perfectible, so that leads me to bemusement at human behavior quite often. I sure haven't the intellect to "figure it all out". I have never seen a single human who ever did. I'm fairly certain there won't ever be one that does, either. So, when I meet someone that is sure they have, bemusement is all I can muster for them. A shrug of the shoulders and a move on from them is what I end up doing.

Intensity is good. But sometimes, often times, misdirected. Davinci is celebrated for his. Hemingway is excoriated for his.

Anyway, I am forewarned of your personality. We shall see what becomes of it.

Although this is not the topic of this thread, I just want to state my opinion of evolution.

Biological evolution is not false, but only partially correct. IMO, it simply lacks recognition of cause and effect changes that occur during a beings lifetime.

I think quantum jumps in evolutionary change occur because of very rare successful mutations and thus can occur quite rapidly. However, I think that most adaptation occurs through gradual bodily change during each beings lifetime, as a result of changing environmental conditions. As these bodily changes are being caused by the consistent experiences of the being, this means that their brains or control centres are storing information about what their body must do in order to survive. For instance a hunter gatherer on a prairie would be caused by experience to grow strong muscular legs. When we exercise some part of the body it changes.

I suggest that such bodily changes that occur during a beings life, firstly form an instructional program in the beings processing centre, then due to repeated use of this program, due to repeated use of certain sets of chemicals, that these chemical changes cause structural changes to the bodies genes. Certain patterns within the beings genes are strengthened through use, just like muscles, and certain other parts atrophy. These changes result in more rapid utilisation of the most relevant immediate survival related segments of genes in the newborn.

To deny that genes can be changed in this manner is to dismiss a potential cause and effect scenario.