GENIUS FORUMS

Pye wrote:Pardon no-time to fetch up specific quotes, (I still have a ways to go with 4 summer classes at 2 uni's, days at one, evenings at the other), so let me just address in general: that some are missing the most salient point of my protest - that of philosophical skepticism. It runs the entire spectrum from the impossibility of humans to grasp in concept, logic & words understanding of the Tao - as debated herein - to the so-called "waffling" that Laird and Alex supply in re-treating absolutes as assumptions. It is entirely necessary for keeping any scientist, philosopher or logician - any truth seeker - from building the weight of trajectories upon crumbling foundations. Knowledge doesn't come in lines like this - it's built on watersheds - the necessary watersheds that cause shifts, not towers.

I still think that your grasp of this forum is poor and that you continue to misunderstand what is going on here.

You speak of skepticism, which I agree is a vital trait for the philosopher to have. But what about skepticism for skepticism itself? Like the Alex's and the Lairds' here, you seem to assume that it's matter of choosing between skepticism as displayed by the Alex's and the Laird's and the building of dogmatic towers. But I put it to you that this is a very limited dichotomy, and it's not one that I personally suscribe to.

Speaking for myself, I am so skeptical in each and every moment, not only of everything that I think to be true, but of everything that comes my way, including skepticism itself. I don't think you can begin to imagine just how skeptical I am. It is a living, breathing reality that informs every aspect of my mind and keeps it right on the very edge.

It is only through such unrelenting skepticism that true certainty can be uncovered. This form of certainty is something which exists on the other side of skepticism, and is diametrically opposed to the building of dogmatic towers. But because you have unquestioningly accepted the standard, limited, dichotomitic view of things, you automatically assume that I am dogmatic, rigid and that my mind is "done".

Well, I say to you, Pye - up yours!

Of course 1+1=2 is indisputable (David) (inasmuch as numerals are the conceptual, incremental invention of humans in their efforts to do this grasping), but such a fundament does little to advance rising consciousness; a schoolchild can grasp the aforementioned process of naming. It only tells them there might be truth; not what that truth is:

No, you need to be a lot more skeptical of this conclusion as well. I assure you that the act of fully grasping 1+1=2 knocks ordinary consciousness completely out of the water. For in it is contained the full expression of sanity. And I tell you, there is nothing more mind-blowing than sanity.

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evinco wrote:I have to take issue with this. Perhaps for those long-established in these parts it seemed pointless, but as a reader not hugely well-versed in these areas I was finding the discourse quite rewarding (beyond the minor amusement/distraction of the conflict).

I suggest you read previous threads and the archive, the issue has been covered thoroughly, and everything you need to know is there (and indeed in this thread)

evinco wrote: On both sides: I took a lot from Unidian, and Robert, but also from David, Kelly, et al's contributions to the discussion -

If so, you might want to work on your capacity to discern who is right and who isn't. If you think 'both sides' are equally valid/true, then you don't really know what you are reading.

Sorry for the delay, Laird, most of my time is living way out in the country doing carpentry, living in a trailer, with no internet. Only have time for forums on weekends.

Your response is disappointing. I asked you to make an effort to understand my essential point as well as merely criticising any minor problems with how I'd framed that point,

Please be mindful that this all started when you tried to criticize what I meant by totality by assuming a completely different definition of totality than the one I was using. Think about that for a second. It's not much different than if you walked into a book store and picked up a book by Douglas Adams and then complained to the cashier that the book has too many words and lacked a rich gallery of detailed erotic pictures of Norwegian teenagers. The Cashier, after clearing his throat, might explain to you that the book by Adams was categorized as science fiction/philosophy and comedy, not meant to be taken as pornography or a picture book. *Compounding the absurdity, you shout back that he isn't respecting your view of how the book should be!*

The only logical response of the cashier (other than to maybe call security) is to say that he's not the one who has a problem with the book, it's you.

but you didn't even hint at such an attempt. You just nitpicked at my use of the word "contained", when you yourself have used that word in a past post: "All opposites are contained within [the Totality]" (emphasis mine).

Back in 2007, when I wrote that, I was having difficulties, and admitted that much in that very thread. Things have changed since then. Actually, I still have difficulties staying clear, only a couple months ago Anders brought to my attention a lapse I was having when discussing the totality, and I conceded to his point that you can't relate the totality to anything. The totality is what you essentially are, and hence you have no location, no inside, no outside. To say otherwise, is poetic indulgence or simply misunderstanding.

So, now you don't like that word: how difficult would it have been to have replaced it with a word that you do like, and tried to understand what I wrote anyway?

Far from being incoherent, my inquiries are as yet unrecognised by you, let alone answered. I'll try a different approach to try to get you to see what I'm pointing to: this time, please avoid nitpicking, and focus on the essentials.

There are many "possible worlds", where by "world" I really mean "Totality",

and yet one of them is the case, and not any of the others: the house philosophy has no explanation for the fact that this particular "possible world" is the case and not one of the (infinitely?) many others. Do you have such an explanation

That may be what you mean by the word totality, but it isn't what I mean, and hence it is not appropriate for me to entertain your entirely different definition of the totality, since you are the one taking issue with mine. Remember, and I said this already, but I want to be clear, this all started when you tried criticizing the "house philosophy" saying "The irony is that at the heart of their own philosophy lies Magic with a capital M: the Magic of why it is that the Totality is as it is and not some other way." Remember when you said that and started this whole debate?

Laird, why are you trying to criticize something you clearly don't understand? And why are you insisting that I make an effort to show interest in your understanding of the totality when such a requirement is irrelevant to the fact that you are the one trying to criticize my understanding of the totality, which you don't understand?

To borrow from another analogy, only because this is fun, you are like some chap who only understands the decimal numeral system who then presumptuously wanders over to a group of people who are using the binary system, and you cry out at them: "Why are you guys saying the number 10 equals two?! Don't you know that the number 10 equals ten? *When these people defend the fact that they are defining 10 entirely differently than those who use the decimal system, you then cry out at them: "You're not showing interest in my decimal system!" One of them replies, "Pardon me sir, but while you are over there using your decimal system for your purposes, we are over here using the binary system for our purposes. In other words, your decimal system is irrelevant for what we are doing, and is relevant only to what you're doing, and we are not interested in doing what you are dong."

The issue here is that you think you have some valid criticism of your opponents definition, but you only know and understand an entirely different definition of the mere word your opponent wields. You assume you understand him, but you actually don't. You are in vain trying to understand your opponents words through the lens of your own differing definitions, and hence you don't understand your opponent at all, yet you feel entitled to criticize! It's really quite absurd, yet I sympathize, because I've done similar things to what you are doing. I have been there before, my friend.

David Quinn wrote:

Unidian wrote:How is that website self-aggrandizing? Especially compared to this one:

Clearly, I don't have a problem with that kind of promotion. It has an absurdist spine which really appears to me. It puts people on edge and shatters their normal expectations, breathing life into their minds.

A sense of absurdity, irony, and ambiguity were what hit me when I first seen your site, David. Same as when I read Kevin's description of Poison for the Heart, or when I found Genius Forums, or when I seen your beards. It all seemed like a playful joke, absurdity pushed to provocative extremes, yet the content of your works, to me, was undeniably cogent and relevant to everything I had studied up to that point. It amused me endlessly.

One interesting effect of your bizzare self promotion has been the equally colorful QRS counterculture. e.g., the lampooning and satirizing of your ideas and personalities (by Nat, Robert, Alex and others).

I doubt such colorful and spiteful mockery and opposition would have been so prevalent were it not for your choice in, as you admitted, absurd presentation. A dry formal presentation, would have encourage critique of a similar nature, and I'm sure you guys wonder sometimes if your cause would have been more effectively promoted by using a more subtle style of self promotion. E.g., calling Genius Forum something else, like Reasoning Forum, or Forum for Rational Inquiry, etc.

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David Quinn wrote:It's not a trick. You are indeed making the same mistake in both instances.

In the end, this is what all ignorance, confusion and lack of mental clarity boils down to. Double-think. Not recognizing A equals A.

David, I challenged you to justify yourself, and this is what you come up with? There's nothing of substance there. Where's the nitty gritty, mate? I've provided plenty of it in this thread and you plainly and simply haven't dealt with it, choosing instead to dismiss it as "chasing shadows".

Cory Duchesne wrote:Sorry for the delay, Laird, most of my time is living way out in the country doing carpentry, living in a trailer, with no internet. Only have time for forums on weekends.

No worries - I can be pretty tardy in my responses at times too.

With respect to your complaint that I define the Totality differently than you: the core of your (assuming your alignment with the house philosophy) definition of the Totality is "everything", which is the definition I'm using too; also, you define it to be infinite in the sense of being "unbounded", and likewise I'm assuming that in my definition too. I submit that every other part of the way that the house philosophy describes the Totality is (intended to be) derived from this core definition, and, that, therefore, those other parts are correct only so far as the derivations from the core definition are correct.

The description of the Totality as "neither existing nor not existing", for example, is one that strikes me as a matter of doctrine or perspective rather than as strictly derivable from the definition - that it "does not exist" is maintained by a redefinition of "existence" as applying to ("finite") things only, and that the negation ("does not 'not exist'") is maintained for reasons that I've never seen well explained - perhaps it is maintained simply because it would be plainly ridiculous to say "everything does not exist".

The question of whether or not it's legitimate to describe the Totality as "containing" or "producing" things falls into the same category of derivations, and it seems to me to be mostly a matter of personal choice or convention: David, for example, is quite happy to use the word "producing", whereas you won't even allow "containing". So you can see that there is even "within the ranks" some lack of consistency as to how the Totality is described; some lack of consistency as to what can be derived from the core definition.

And so, Cory, I put it to you that the core definition that I'm using of the Totality is identical to that which you are using (and thus that, fun as they may have been, your analogies miss the mark), even if we might quibble over minor descriptive issues, which should be resolvable through a discussion of the logical implications of that core definition, but which don't seem to affect my point anyway. I requested you twice to - minor quibbling aside - try to see my essential point, but it seems that you're not willing to do that. C'est la vie.

Unidian: How is that website self-aggrandizing? Especially compared to this one:

David: Clearly, I don't have a problem with that kind of promotion. It has an absurdist spine which really appears to me. It puts people on edge and shatters their normal expectations, breathing life into their minds.

Cory: A sense of absurdity, irony, and ambiguity were what hit me when I first seen your site, David.

Claiming motivations of "absurdity" is weak sauce in my book. If it's intended to be "absurd", then it can't really be true, can it? And yet QRS truly do believe that they are philosophers to rival their "spiritual brothers"... unless THIS WHOLE ENDEAVOUR IS A SELF-SATIRISING JOKE! That would be pretty weird, but very cool, to find out that you-all (or even just those in the know) have been playing a practical joke on the rest of us - QRS: Ultimate Trolling!

Laird, sup. Please excuse me while I talk as if you're not here for a moment. I'm sure you understand.

Ok, so a simple way of looking at all this is seeing the difference between the heart and the mind. Use your imagination and pretend that reality is like looking at an infinitely large map that goes on and on in all directions. And let's say the content of the map is a maze . . . a maze that never ends.

Laird, wanting to know what reality is all about, runs over to Kevin's house and swipes a high quality pair of BInocuLARs that Kevin ordered years ago and has used perhaps once. He then scampers back to his house, looks out the window and brings the binoculars up to his eyes.

Bam!!! He sees the Maze!!! With his binoculars he can see all the details and talk to himself and other people about the issues of reality. It certainly isn't false, he's looking right at it!!! He can even trace the various paths around to see where they go. Of course, when he moves the binoculars, he loses sight of what he was looking at before, because he is so zoomed in. But he can hope to use his memory to help fill in the pieces to get a good overall picture, though, that never seems to quite work out. There is much to discuss in all the millions of perspectives he sees.

Now, wouldn't it be easier if Laird could widen his gaze and see more at once . . . more context!!! Well, here is where real philosophy comes into play, and it means starting to cut out the heart. The more heart you cut out, the more room there is for the MIND. And the more mind you have, the more maze you can see all at once. A zoom in/out feature pops up on Laird's binoculars, and he smiles.

But how hard it is to be rational about Everything!!! Being totally rational about things close to the heart makes the heart MOURN and CRY. Rationality attempts the Ultimate Evil: taking away your sacred treasures. The sparks, light and magic that connects you to childhood memories and seemingly life itself. The things that make you feel safe and warm . . . take those away?! ALL of them?! (I don't think Laird wants to do this).

If you want to see more of the maze, and it is your reason that has them fading away, then yes. The maze is not exactly heart warming, and it's not made of delightful dreamscapes and fantasy . . . it is only interesting. Intensely interesting. The more you discover how interesting it is, and the more you think about things rationally to discover more and more, the more powerful the zoom out feature gets, and this greater context WOULD allow Laird to connect smaller perspectives into larger ones, like putting together a puzzle.

You have to be brutally honest with yourself about what you hold deep in your heart if you want to see more maze and put the whole puzzle together. You have to expose every sacred feeling and look at them all rationally, with your mind, not with your heart.

If you are not willing to give up the heart, then you must concede the fact that when you speak rationally of reality, you are only looking at a very small perspective. And even with knowledge that there are MANY OTHER perspectives, you will not see the principles that rationally connect them. Only when you are all mind and no heart will you be able to zoom ALL THE WAY OUT and hold the infinite maze in the palm of your hand.

Of course, that's not really what I find reality to be like at all. It's clearly romanticized. But it IS true that if anyone is interested in fundamental knowledge, you have to honestly (and I can't say that with enough emotion) . . . you have to HONESTLY allow pure reason into every part of your heart. And, squealing if you must, let go of your treasures when you're ready, that is, when you see that you HAVE TO.

It sounds bad, but if you HAVE TO KNOW the absolute fundamentals, because the more you discover, the more interesting it gets, then you'll do it. Besides, there is plenty of time to have fun with your imagination and playing pretend once you really KNOW what you're doing!!! That's when, IMO, life gets really awesome.

skipair wrote: Besides, there is plenty of time to have fun with your imagination and playing pretend once you really KNOW what you're doing!!!

If you truly and consistently comprehend the totality, there is no time.

Sorry, you fail.

guest_of_logic wrote:

David: Clearly, I don't have a problem with that kind of promotion. It has an absurdist spine which really appears to me. It puts people on edge and shatters their normal expectations, breathing life into their minds.

Cory: A sense of absurdity, irony, and ambiguity were what hit me when I first seen your site, David.

Claiming motivations of "absurdity" is weak sauce in my book. If it's intended to be "absurd", then it can't really be true, can it? And yet QRS truly do believe that they are philosophers to rival their "spiritual brothers"... unless THIS WHOLE ENDEAVOUR IS A SELF-SATIRISING JOKE! That would be pretty weird, but very cool, to find out that you-all (or even just those in the know) have been playing a practical joke on the rest of us - QRS: Ultimate Trolling!

Can this be true? Is that a little glimmer of light suddenly appearing in the deep recesses of Laird's mind .....?

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I'd be careful there David. Laird's recently posted that he thinks everyone's perspectives are equally valid and useful, and his main complaint is against the "absolutist", "one law" approach. So he's likely to interpret self-satirisation as a chalk-up for post-modernism, and not get the deeper meaning.

Don't take anything seriously. We all want to party, have fun, take the piss, get blind drunk every weekend, and promote a tolerance of differences. The only authority and officiality allowed is your university qualifications. That's post-modernism, in a nutshell.


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Diebert: Anyway, perhaps you want to rethink "the impossibility of humans to grasp in concept, logic & words understanding of the Tao". The contradiction is glaring to me since you're at least asserting a very definite concept in words regarding the Tao: that it cannot be grasped.

Pye wrote: philosophical skepticism. It runs the entire spectrum from the impossibility of humans to grasp in concept, logic & words understanding of the Tao - as debated [by others] herein -

David: I still think that your grasp of this forum is poor and that you continue to misunderstand what is going on here.

Quite right, David, but not from lack of understanding; it's disagreement. My thinking is not conforumable to each and every of your thoughts. Or some of your methods, paths, or certain conclusions. We share in one thing, and that is the spirit of truth; the raising of consciousness. I have been, for the last 4 and a half years, responding to thread themes in a relatively consistent way, presenting a coherent view that suffers the fate of all views other-than the house philosophy. Because of this, my agreement with some things here is held suspect, and sometimes even completely missed due to the suspicions that set in when I haven't conformed to everything as forwarded here.

Anyway, thanks for the link over to KIR. I am not particularly internet savvy in the sense of different forums and historic connections, and people from here who know each other in person (as well as internet time to pay attention to all of it), but it was eye-opening in some unpredictable, surprising ways. It's given me some rest; a minor, personal satori-lette, and if and when I come back some day, I might assemble in full this view, rather than spend my time responding/countering piecemeal to [collectively] yours. Meanwhile, there is much work in the 'other' 'virtual' world, and it is time to bring my bedclothes in from drying on the line . . . .

guest_of_logic wrote: And so, Cory, I put it to you that the core definition that I'm using of the Totality is identical to that which you are using (and thus that, fun as they may have been, your analogies miss the mark), even if we might quibble over minor descriptive issues, which should be resolvable through a discussion of the logical implications of that core definition, but which don't seem to affect my point anyway. I requested you twice to - minor quibbling aside - try to see my essential point, but it seems that you're not willing to do that.

How about I try it from a different angle,

First:

The irony is that at the heart of their own philosophy lies Magic with a capital M: the Magic of why it is that the Totality is as it is and not some other way. ..

Magic is generally understood to refer to uncaused phenomena, and with that said, it is true that totality is magical insofar as it has no cause. And all pheneomena are the face of the totality, and so things are, in a deeper sense, ultimately uncaused, because causality implies a thing causing another thing, but closer examination shows that these "things" are not really there. So there is a certain magic to truth. But this does not give us license to believe in worldly magic, which is an entirely different category of magic.

then:

From my perspective, that doesn't answer the question. Perhaps we could try coming at it from this angle: hypothetically speaking, could the Totality as an entirety be other than it is right now, such that, for example, rather than reading my post at this instant of time, you are instead making a cup of tea, or, even more drastically, you never even existed?

No.

You have already accepted the "moment" as it is, this "acceptance" is implied in your very question, so you can't cast doubt on something you already accepted, it's contradictory. You have to pick your faith, reason or unreason.

Unidian wrote:

So if I was to to take a knife to your throat, and slit it open, that would be your throat slit.

Not A=A? Not; your throat slit by prince=your throat slit by prince..?

Do you want to try it out.

Yeah, I do.

Nice segue into your misanthropic violent fantasies. But trust me, poser, I had you beat at that years before you were born.

I am going to expand a little, to assist you appreciate my point (no pun intended..)

Under the circumstances of having your throat slit, ie. a highly visceral, immediate and intense experience, your mind would not have room to conceptualize (and therefore disqualify by abstraction) A=A, it would simply be accepted as the ultimate truth.

Pye wrote:

David: I still think that your grasp of this forum is poor and that you continue to misunderstand what is going on here.

Quite right, David, but not from lack of understanding; it's disagreement.

It's both, but the disagreement comes from lack of understanding. For instance, about two months ago, Pye, you listed various feminist stances that - in your opinion - were similar to those of this forum. You said:

5. I would seriously love to see some self-education here on this issue, because most person's framework when they discuss "feminism" is based on a definition from the dark ages and knows nothing about the fractal and conflicting notions that inhabit the rubric now. You might be surprised to find how a few of these notions are quite sympathetic to a number of the aims and grounds of this very forum.

But you showed your basic lack of understanding through the list. They were only superficially sympathetic. To keep it very simple:

- Environmental sustainability. Superficial sympathy: awareness of the interconnection of all things. Actual method: avoid the masculine (domination, hierarchies).
- Monotheistic religion. Superficial sympathy: unravel belief in gods. Actual method: avoid the masculine (domination, hierarchies).
- Economic theory. Superficial sympathy: decommodify women using socialism. Actual method: avoid the masculine (individualism).
- Victim-mentality. Superficial sympathy: women create their own oppression. Actual method: avoid the masculine (simply avoid the masculine, as if it is inherently off-limits for women).


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Skip, hey man,

I know that your post was well-intended, but I also think that it's a little confused.

I'm focussing on one aspect of the house philosophy's view of reality for the purpose of pointing out that that philosophy doesn't answer all meaningful questions (and thereby introducing some skepticism as to its true qualification as "Ultimate Truth"); this doesn't mean that I don't see the bigger picture of that philosophy. In any case, how could one ever zoom out far enough to see the entirety of an infinite maze? It's impossible. You're conflating (1) the reality that the house philosophers point to with (2) their philosophical perspective on that reality.

Also, having a heart doesn't preclude using your head. I take your point that some truths are hard to deal with emotionally, but that's the way it is when you have a heart: you're vulnerable to being hurt; the positive converse is that you're also open to love and delight. Even you ("No, surely not!? Can it really be true?" *the crowd gasps*) have a heart, and a pretty passionate one at that.

David Quinn wrote:Can this be true? Is that a little glimmer of light suddenly appearing in the deep recesses of Laird's mind .....?

Haha, that's either something of an admission of a "major felony" and an implication that one cannot take anything that you say or that goes on at this forum at all seriously henceforth, or the ultimate disproof of my conjecture. I wonder which one it is. ;-)

Cory,

Magic is generally understood to refer to uncaused phenomena, and with that said, it is true that totality is magical insofar as it has no cause.

Fairly put, and I'm glad that we can agree that the house philosophy's conception of the Totality has a magical aspect to it, but you don't go far enough for me:

guest_of_logic: From my perspective, that doesn't answer the question. Perhaps we could try coming at it from this angle: hypothetically speaking, could the Totality as an entirety be other than it is right now, such that, for example, rather than reading my post at this instant of time, you are instead making a cup of tea, or, even more drastically, you never even existed?

Cory: No.

Cory[cont]: You have already accepted the "moment" as it is, this "acceptance" is implied in your very question, so you can't cast doubt on something you already accepted, it's contradictory. You have to pick your faith, reason or unreason.

Heh. Foiled by grammar, perhaps. Try replacing "be other than it is right now" with "have been other than it is right now". In other words, if the entire causal web of the Totality had been different, then the present moment would have been different. Of course these tenses are not quite correct, because the Totality itself is beyond time, but you take my point, I hope: if there is no reason for the Totality to be the way that it is, then there is no reason it could not have been some other way either. I take your point that when we accept the present moment, we accept that it cannot be other than it is, but this does not require us to accept that it could not have been other than it is: without a reason for being as it is, it might equally as well have been some other way.

Perhaps, given your position, one way for me to press the issue onwards is to ask: if you disagree that the Totality could have been other than it is, then why is it the way that it is? Is your answer, "magic"? If so, then it seems reasonable to question what this "magic" is. It can't be a "thing", because there can be no things outside of the Totality, and (according to the house philosophy, so far as I understand) a thing within the Totality cannot cause it. This means it must be... nothing. So then "magic" has no properties whatsoever - it is a synonym for "nothing". The Totality is the way it is due to... nothing - this is clearly nonsensical.

I put it to you, then, Cory, that using the framework of the house philosophy, we are left with absolutely no a priori logical justification for the Totality being as it is (I accept that there is an a posteriori justification). This is clearly untenable for a philosophy that claims Ultimate Truth.

I want to make one other point and/or explore a couple of other questions. Ignoring the reasoning in the preceding paragraph, and assuming that "magic" actually does have some sort of definition other than "nothing", then why do you deny that this magic could likewise apply in other contexts ("But this does not give us license to believe in worldly magic, which is an entirely different category of magic")? What do you mean by it being "an entirely different category of magic"? How do you justify this? Surely magic is magic, wherever it occurs.

guest_of_logic wrote:I'm focussing on one aspect of the house philosophy's view of reality for the purpose of pointing out that that philosophy doesn't answer all meaningful questions (and thereby introducing some skepticism as to its true qualification as "Ultimate Truth");

Yeah, I gotcha. You're right, it's not so much "Ultimate" as much as what's absolutely knowable.

this doesn't mean that I don't see the bigger picture of that philosophy. In any case, how could one ever zoom out far enough to see the entirety of an infinite maze? It's impossible.

Yeah, of course you can't. You can only see expressions of it. (Not that there is anything else behind that expression.) But being able to get that sense of infinite is in itself the ultimate, unbiased, objective zoom out. It's what connects all perspectives together. Causation. Not that that is absolute either. And yet it is, being all that's left.

The point I was trying to make was just "emptiness". The wind blows, some people walk by, someone is talking to me, things are quiet. The boundaries of my personal bubble expand and disappear, and both everything and nothing is personal at the same time.

I think a lot of people know how to stop making assumptions, but there is a big difference between knowing that and knowing it down to your soul.

You're conflating (1) the reality that the house philosophers point to with (2) their philosophical perspective on that reality.

Meh. :)

Also, having a heart doesn't preclude using your head. I take your point that some truths are hard to deal with emotionally, but that's the way it is when you have a heart: you're vulnerable to being hurt; the positive converse is that you're also open to love and delight. Even you ("No, surely not!? Can it really be true?" *the crowd gasps*) have a heart, and a pretty passionate one at that.

Hahahaha, Laird, are you trying to seduce me? This is what women do when they get a guy that they like all alone...start making suggestions about the inherent nature of heart and love, and that one need only not block it. See if the guy opens up. But I know compassion is your drug of choice, so no worries. Frankly, I think it's why we get along.

The truth is, when I have a heart, I do. When I don't, I don't. The only way I feel free is when I take myself out of all the frames within frames within frames within frames to keep myself grounded and to pick and choose my aura, feelings and destiny.

skipair wrote:I think a lot of people know how to stop making assumptions, but there is a big difference between knowing that and knowing it down to your soul.

Most people are unaware of their assumptions, but they make them nonetheless. It is a dire waste of energy for the most part. Making assumptions often prevents one from learning what one needs to learn and from doing what one should be doing.

Cory, magic refers to something happening without apparent explicable cause, a mysterious event that defies the ability to understand. So it is wrong to say that the Totality's not being caused is magic.

The Totality includes all causes.

If it were caused, then there would be a cause that weren't included in the Totality.

It wouldn't be the Totality.


In other words, it is wrong to even think of the Totality as being caused. Things - finite things - are caused. But the Totality is not finite.


...

Whenever I read one of Laird's posts now, I'm reminded of this twit...

skipair wrote:Yeah, I gotcha. You're right, [the house philosophy is] not so much "Ultimate" as much as what's absolutely knowable.

I like it when we agree.

The only thing I'd add is that this whole "uncaused Totality that just happens to be the way that it is for no particular reason" business is very suspect, so I'm not sure that it can be classed as "absolute knowledge".

skipair wrote:The point I was trying to make was just "emptiness". The wind blows, some people walk by, someone is talking to me, things are quiet. The boundaries of my personal bubble expand and disappear, and both everything and nothing is personal at the same time.

I think I know what you mean. It's an almost detached perspective on reality, where nothing has any inherent meaning; things just happen, and such is as it is - nothing to get invested in, unless that too just happens, or if you choose it.

skipair wrote:I think a lot of people know how to stop making assumptions, but there is a big difference between knowing that and knowing it down to your soul.

At the same time, though, I don't think you really believe it's possible to relate to other people without guessing at what's going on in their minds; at finding meaning in relationships, even if you don't think that that meaning is inherent. Isn't that a type of assuming?

skipair wrote:Hahahaha, Laird, are you trying to seduce me?

Ha. I'm sure you're very attractive and all, Skip, but you know I just don't swing that way.

skipair wrote:This is what women do when they get a guy that they like all alone...start making suggestions about the inherent nature of heart and love, and that one need only not block it. See if the guy opens up. But I know compassion is your drug of choice, so no worries. Frankly, I think it's why we get along.

That and our mutual interest in professional jelly wrestling. I take what you said as a compliment, by the way, so thanks.

skipair wrote:The truth is, when I have a heart, I do. When I don't, I don't. The only way I feel free is when I take myself out of all the frames within frames within frames within frames to keep myself grounded and to pick and choose my aura, feelings and destiny.

Ultimate free will in the midst of determinism...?...

prince wrote:Whenever I read one of Laird's posts now, I'm reminded of this twit...

And prince, whenever I read one of your posts, I'm reminded of this.

guest_of_logic wrote:

skipair wrote:Yeah, I gotcha. You're right, [the house philosophy is] not so much "Ultimate" as much as what's absolutely knowable.

I like it when we agree.

The only thing I'd add is that this whole "uncaused Totality that just happens to be the way that it is for no particular reason" business is very suspect, so I'm not sure that it can be classed as "absolute knowledge".

The only thing that is "suspect" is your inability to grasp such a simple point. Just the way you speak about it is laughable. I know you don't see the joke, but it's a doosy. Tell me this, if the Totality could be some other way, what way would it be? And, how is this possibility not already part of what the Totality necessarily is?

Kelly Jones wrote:Cory, magic refers to something happening without apparent explicable cause, a mysterious event that defies the ability to understand. So it is wrong to say that the Totality's not being caused is magic.

I didn't mean to say that the totality is being caused by magic, I just meant that all the things we see ultimately have no cause, so it is magical to that extent. It is empirically inexplicable, and hence somewhat magical, in a loose sense.

If by magic we mean a mysterious cause eliciting an effect, then that's not what I mean at all, which is why I made the distinction between worldly magic and the magic of wisdom.

The Totality includes all causes.

If it were caused, then there would be a cause that weren't included in the Totality.

It wouldn't be the Totality.

In other words, it is wrong to even think of the Totality as being caused. Things - finite things - are caused. But the Totality is not finite.

I definitely wasn't thinking of the totality as being caused, not at all. I was thinking of all things as uncaused, and magical only in that context. In hindsight, magic is not the best word because it implies the magic is causing something to be or to happen, and that's not what I mean. I only mean that we tend to think of all things as having a mechanical cause, but ultimately, they don't. But that doesn't mean causation isn't a useful concept for realizing the emptiness of things. To me, causation is a thorn to remove a thorn.

If the Totality is Infinite... then is everything in that Totality also infinite ?
Example: Birth and Death
We appear to be born and die...but acually the substance that we are made up of is infinite ?
An infinite Energy that always existed ?
BUT HOW CAN ANYONE KNOW THAT ?

guest_of_logic wrote: Heh. Foiled by grammar, perhaps. Try replacing "be other than it is right now" with "have been other than it is right now". In other words, if the entire causal web of the Totality had been different, then the present moment would have been different. Of course these tenses are not quite correct, because the Totality itself is beyond time, but you take my point, I hope: if there is no reason for the Totality to be the way that it is, then there is no reason it could not have been some other way either.

But there is a reason. The fact that the totality is the way that it is is the reason it is not some other way.

I take your point that when we accept the present moment, we accept that it cannot be other than it is, but this does not require us to accept that it could not have been other than it is: without a reason for being as it is, it might equally as well have been some other way.

You really need to stop talking about it in the past tense. ;) It is fantastically unnecessary and, in fact, incredibly wrong. But we've been through that.

Nonetheless, the totality can't be other than how it eternally is. Whenever you start wondering about how it could have been different you entirely misunderstand that past tense doesn't even apply, it is entirely wrong headed to think of it as something that exists in the past, present or future. As soon as you start doing that you are immediately confused.

Perhaps, given your position, one way for me to press the issue onwards is to ask: if you disagree that the Totality could have been other than it is, then why is it the way that it is? Is your answer, "magic"? If so, then it seems reasonable to question what this "magic" is.

Ok, so maybe I regret entertaining your interest in introducing the word magic into this! It's not what you think, at all, and it may have been superfluous on my part to bother with it.

What I meant was that the magic is the very totality itself. I don't mean magic is causing the totality, because that contradicts what the totality means, the totality is uncaused, nothing causes it, and the magic lies in it's very uncaused nature, producing phenomena without ultimate, mechanical cause.

It can't be a "thing", because there can be no things outside of the Totality, and (according to the house philosophy, so far as I understand) a thing within the Totality cannot cause it. This means it must be... nothing.

So then "magic" has no properties whatsoever - it is a synonym for "nothing". The Totality is the way it is due to... nothing - this is clearly nonsensical.

The totality is the way it is due to it's eternal, beginningless, endless, boundless, sizeless nature. It's definitely not nothing, it is in fact everything.

I put it to you, then, Cory, that using the framework of the house philosophy, we are left with absolutely no a priori logical justification for the Totality being as it is (I accept that there is an a posteriori justification). This is clearly untenable for a philosophy that claims Ultimate Truth.

The reason things are is because they are. A=A. That's the a priori logical justification, and we can make definite a priori claims of nature's properties (eternal, beginningless, endless, etc), as I did above.

I want to make one other point and/or explore a couple of other questions. Ignoring the reasoning in the preceding paragraph, and assuming that "magic" actually does have some sort of definition other than "nothing", then why do you deny that this magic could likewise apply in other contexts ("But this does not give us license to believe in worldly magic, which is an entirely different category of magic")? What do you mean by it being "an entirely different category of magic"? How do you justify this? Surely magic is magic, wherever it occurs.

Worldly magic tends to work in the context of defying mechanical cause and effect, where things happen in ways that can't be empirically, mechanically understood, and in this sense it has something in common with the totality. However, humanity does not go far enough with this, evidenced by it's need for incantations and wands to cause the magic phenomena it fantasizes about. In other words, people enjoy abandoning causation to an extent, but they will only go so far. They will not abandon it altogether, which is the key difference between the two types of magic. But I encourage you to not get attached to this word magic, it is not important at all. Perhaps even a mistake for entertaining the usage of it! Remember as Chang Tzu said:

The fish trap exists because of the fish; once you have caught the fish, you can forget the trap. Words exist because of meaning; once you have grasped the meaning, you can forget the words. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words so I can have a word with him?"

Cory Duchesne wrote:I just meant that all the things we see ultimately have no cause, so it is magical to that extent. It is empirically inexplicable, and hence somewhat magical, in a loose sense.

There's no magic whatsoever. When something is completely inexplicable and defies the understanding, which never happens to the intelligent, then that something is regarded as magic.

It is probably better to write "totality" instead of "all things", because the former focusses on the whole. Particularly if you're communicating with people who ignore the whole, like Laird.

I definitely wasn't thinking of the totality as being caused, not at all. I was thinking of all things as uncaused, and magical only in that context.

Two things:
- The Totality is all things. But it is better when speaking to people who ignore the whole, to focus on the whole.
- It is wrong to think of the Totality as uncaused or caused, because causes cannot apply outside of the Totality. They only apply to finite things.

Also, you need to be very careful with Laird, with the meanings of your words. He misses the subtleties. Notice the subtle difference in the meanings of the following:

The Totality of all things
All things

I only mean that we tend to think of all things as having a mechanical cause, but ultimately, they don't. But that doesn't mean causation isn't a useful concept for realizing the emptiness of things. To me, causation is a thorn to remove a thorn.

Laird's nowhere near that stage. He doesn't yet understand causation, so it's too soon to concentrate on removing the tool.


...

Kelly Jones wrote:The Totality is all things

So if the Totality IS ALL THINGS ...then dosn't that mean even the things that makes no sense to you ? Or whatever anyone want's to conjecture about the TOTALITY ?

All things means ALL :

Misinformation/Information
Ignorance/knowlege
Right/wrong
Duality/non-duality
God/Godless
Infinity/finite

EVERYTHING WOULD HAVE TO BE INCLUDED IN THE TOTALITY !