GENIUS FORUMS

Laird wrote:

Leyla wrote: Hey, I’ve got a novel idea! How about everyone faces their delusions instead of skirting around them by inventing new words and reams of useless diatribe?

Right now Leyla I'm afraid that the English language is far more deluded than any of us. It is hopelessly attached to a dualistic notion of gender. I hope that you will recognise the need to compassionately assist it on the arduous path to an enlightened linguistic state in which the false belief in the distinction between masculine and feminine no longer appears to it but rather it perceives the Oneness of its personal pronouns. I know that your critical powers will prove vital in the process of raising our language's egolessness to the point that it realises that it is but an arbitrarily bounded component of greater grammatical causality and that it thereby accepts its lexical reformation without emotion or any of that sort of fuss that one has come to expect with the post-modernist, relativistic, politically correct families of words.

Right now Leyla, you’ve heard the neutered one lay down its fear driven sexist and chauvinistic demands. What critical powers are you going to bring to bear upon it?

What? You reckon pointing at it was too good for it, and that all its huff and puff are just too silly for you to be bothered.

Well, yes – I’d have to agree with that.

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Laird wrote:Elizabeth finds "eer" too effeminate, but how about "eir" (pronounced as in "their")?

I like it, but Pye has a point. Actually so does Bilby (same point, basically). Making up new words is sometimes necessary, but it's generally easier to rework the grammatical rules to expand the usage of the words we already have. What about using "it" as a pronoun? That is currently considered offensive because people think they are more important than objects, but really all our bodies are - are objects. That is not who we are. In referencing a "person's" gender, we tend to be referring to their bodily gender. QRS made an attempt to reassign genders to minds - which was a pretty good idea, but you can see how off-track that worked out. Gender is a worldly thing. I'm just going to start using "it: as a pronoun, and when people get offended, I will use that as a teaching moment to help them realize that they are not their physical bodies, they are not their genders, but they are spirits. These spirits are currently animating bodies, and that's cool - but they mustn't forget who they really are. By calling them "he" and "she" we feed into their delusion that they are their bodies.

Jason wrote:

Elizabeth Isabelle wrote:I propose the word "e" as an androgenous substitute for either he or she.

I propose "it" and/or "stupid", or perhaps "stupit".

Sapius wrote:BTW… how would one respectfully address a she-male?

"That's a huge bitch!" or "Freak!". Shouted preferably.

Erm, I had not read this yet when I made the above post.

Shardrol wrote to Laird:

People are always relating 'remarkable coincidences' as if they're significant but the vast majority of the time we're going about our business & nothing particularly synchronous is happening. Does that have any meaning? It might.

You describe an observation you have made, but you're not prepared to consider the consequences of that observation, which then would enable you to draw a conclusion. I don't consider that a 'thought'. It's just chatting.

But you’re not alone in this wasting of time -

Laird wrote:

I'm not suggesting that coincidences can be relied on - perhaps occasionally things are just caused by some unknown higher force for some higher purpose that we will never be aware of, but that is helpful or progressive in some way. Or perhaps my mind is just overly fond of picking out patterns.

He’s not “suggesting” he or you first think out these concepts before filling up space with your pointless chit-chat. But I do.

Stop confusing vagueness with thinking. At least give yourselves the time to establish a point of view on a topic before throwing it out into the public domain.

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Elizabeth wrote:

Making up new words is sometimes necessary, but it's generally easier to rework the grammatical rules to expand the usage of the words we already have.

Forget about making up new words - people could instead just spend time understanding a few concepts presently in use. Ones like: truth, masculinity, femininity, life, death...

What about using "it" as a pronoun? That is currently considered offensive because people think they are more important than objects, but really all our bodies are - are objects.

Bodies as “objects” – that’ll bring a smile to a few male readers.

That is not who we are. In referencing a "person's" gender, we tend to be referring to their bodily gender. QRS made an attempt to reassign genders to minds - which was a pretty good idea, but you can see how off-track that worked out. Gender is a worldly thing.

Are you saying that gender has nothing to do with psychology, or genetics? I can’t imagine that you are. Therefore, to make clear your point you’ll need to explain your statement: “gender is a worldly thing”.

I'm just going to start using "it: as a pronoun, and when people get offended, I will use that as a teaching moment to help them realize that they are not their physical bodies, they are not their genders, but they are spirits. These spirits are currently animating bodies, and that's cool

Maybe that's cool – but I can’t judge either way until you give a complete explanation of what you think these spirits are.

but they mustn't forget who they really are. By calling them "he" and "she" we feed into their delusion that they are their bodies.

“Spirits” with Alzheimer’s?

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Sapius wrote:No, not the “I”, that would indeed be a new one for me too, but the verb that proceeds has a feminine or masculine quality; hence one knows if it is a female or male speaking.

Oh, so you mean that "I stand" would in these languages be either "I stand-as-a-female" or "I stand-as-a-male"?

Sapius wrote:I can give examples if you like.

Please do if the one that I gave above is inadequate.

Laird: I can imagine this position being able to explain all sorts of things - the feelings of I, the memories of I, the thought processes of I - the one thing that I cannot imagine this ever being able to explain is the inhabitation of the perspective of I.

Sapius: “Perspective” of “I” exists even in a quark by default (duality); otherwise it could not interact with that that is not “it”. Our perspective is simply a highly evolved one based in and off of a quark consciousness; we are essentially a bunch of complex enough quarks interactively at work as an individual thing.

That's an interesting idea - that consciousness is built upon tiny bits of duality.

You've explained the perspective itself, but you've left open in my mind the question of the inhabitation of that perspective. I still can't see an explanation for it in terms of emergence, but I'm interested in following your reasoning.

Sapius wrote:For me, “consciousness” goes far beyond the animal realm, even beyond any known quantum level; it lies at the heart of duality, in fact, it is the heart and soul of existence.

Is there in your opinion any aspect of consciousness that is not related to duality?

Sapius wrote:I would say that speculations are but healthy ponderings, but there comes a stage one is compelled to analyze his speculations and reach some relatively logical conclusions.

I would agree with you when it comes to speculations that have a fairly immediate bearing on behaviour, such as speculations on whether other people feel the same way that I do, how (dis)similar they are to myself, what they like and dislike, what might be the best way to approach them, etc. Even in some metaphysical cases, I might feel compelled to come to a "logical conclusion" to, for example, my self-questioning, "is the Buddhist meditative path the ultimate means of understanding?" because if it is then I will want to adjust my behaviour to conform to it. But the case that we're considering has no bearing on my behaviour - the coincidences that I'm speculating about are unpredictable and therefore nothing that I can use to base my behaviour on - so I'm happy to leave it at speculation.

Sapius wrote:Later on in this discussion I will give some examples that may clarify the idea that although consciousness is purely emergent, it is nevertheless a force that once evolutionarily generated to a certain qualitative level, can live off of any material for survival.

I will be interested to read that explanation because I can't yet imagine how that might be.

Sapius wrote:And please don’t assume how I may or may not argue along the lines that others have. I am not them, and you do not know me yet.

I'll try to make as few assumptions about you as possible.

Laird: If my rationality is under question for considering the possibility of a non-physical mind distinct from but connected to the physical brain, then likewise is under question the rationality of anyone trying to maintain that such experiences arise purely out of our evolved brains.

Sapius: Experiences are necessarily retained impressions acquired through sensual information OR logically deduced thoughts of such information. Who said ‘experiences arise purely out of our evolved brains’? I think you seem to assume too much.

I was referring specifically to the experience of dreams. OK, sometimes sensory impressions do impact on dreams, such as for example if I pick up a ringing telephone in my dream only to wake up and realise that the real phone is ringing. But would you agree that, if consciousness is purely emergent, then a dream must be explained as being *mostly* generated by the physical brain?

Sapius wrote:How much have you studied your own dreams?

I'm not sure what you would count as study - I sometimes think back on my dreams when I wake up and at various random points during my day and during future days. So perhaps: not formally, but a little bit informally.

Sapius wrote:How much do you remember what you dream?

It varies. Sometimes I remember the entire dream quite clearly; other times I can only recollect vague feelings but the dream itself slips out of my reach. Mostly I remember a large amount of my dreams immediately upon waking; often this fades during the day.

Sapius wrote:Are you aware that you are dreaming when dreaming?

Occasionally. This hasn't happened for months now though.

Sapius wrote:And in how many of them?

At a very rough guess, 1 in 100.

Sapius wrote:What perspective do you visualize your dreams from? First person perspective or do you also at times see yourself in a dream from a third person perspective?

First person. I don't recall a dream where it's been third person, although whilst writing this sentence I'm having elusive flash-backs that suggest that it's possible that I've had such a dream that I've since forgotten.

I'm interested in your own answers to those questions.

Sapius wrote:Have you had any out of body expereinces?

I have not.

I don't know whether these are related, but I'll share them here anyway: I have had a dream where my consciousness was pulled apart, and a dream where my body dissolved, and I have frequent dreams where I can fly.

Laird: Finally, I'll comment on what you might have picked up on as a large degree of defensiveness in my above exposition.

Sapius: Again… assumptions. What defensiveness? I did not detect any… I must be blind.

Yar, it might have been a bit of an assumption although to be fair I did write "might have".

Sapius wrote:I haven’t forgotten about what we were discussing on the other thread before my short absence…

Oh good, I was hoping that you'd resume that discussion.

S: I try to do my best, but the truth is that I have pick up such descriptiveness reading good writers such as yourself.

L: Thanks mate, that was a nice and subtle pick-me-up.

S: What is this supposed to mean?

It means that, whether you intended it as a compliment or not, that's the way that I - at least in part - interpreted it. To me, a compliment feels "nice" and "picks me up". As a compliment, it was "subtle" because the compliment itself was peripheral to the main purpose of the statement - that being an explanation of your learning.

Sapius wrote:I mean what I said, and you are not the only one that writes quite coherently. There are others that I have learnt from.

I'm not so presumptuous as to assume that I am the only one - you wrote as much. But, thinking about it, what might have been presumptuous of me was to respond at all as though your comment was a (probably peripheral) compliment, rather than to respond to the explanation. Perhaps it would have been better if I had simply appreciated without response what you wrote.

Elizabeth Isabelle wrote:What about using "it" as a pronoun?

Again, that reduces the expressiveness of our language. There's power in distinguishing between conscious and inanimate things within a word. The distinction is meaningful.

"The boy is holding an apple. It is red."

Is the boy embarrased or is he holding a Fuji apple? When "it" is purely applicable to objects - as it currently is - then it's plain that it is the apple that I'm describing as red. When "it" takes on a new meaning as a personal pronoun then it becomes unclear whether I mean the boy or the apple. I think that it's less helpful to introduce this ambiguity than to introduce new words.

Elizabeth Isabelle wrote:That is currently considered offensive because people think they are more important than objects, but really all our bodies are - are objects.

We are more than our bodies. People can (at least until/if artificial intelligence blossoms) operate in far more complex and directed ways than inanimate objects. In this sense they are more important than objects. There might be other senses in which people and objects are equally important but I recognise this sense as the most meaningful one.

Sue Hindmarsh wrote:At least give yourselves the time to establish a point of view on a topic before throwing it out into the public domain.

Sue, this is a discussion forum. Sometimes with unknown or new topics the point of discussion is to explore the theme before coming to any firm conclusions. Is it unreasonable to seek insight from others and to share the pathways that you've trodden so far on something that you haven't studied and that no one else seems to have any firm knowledge of?

Laird wrote:

Elizabeth Isabelle wrote:What about using "it" as a pronoun?

Again, that reduces the expressiveness of our language. There's power in distinguishing between conscious and inanimate things within a word. The distinction is meaningful.

"The boy is holding an apple. It is red."

Is the boy embarrased or is he holding a Fuji apple? When "it" is purely applicable to objects - as it currently is - then it's plain that it is the apple that I'm describing as red. When "it" takes on a new meaning as a personal pronoun then it becomes unclear whether I mean the boy or the apple. I think that it's less helpful to introduce this ambiguity than to introduce new words.

I disagree. We are able to structure out sentences to remove the ambiguity. In another thread I wrote:

When I was a kid I had one jealous bone in my body, but I had it removed.

What does the "it" refer to in this sentence? Did I have my body removed? "Body" is the most previous noun before the modifier "it" - yet we don't consider this a misplaced modifier AND we can figure out that i meant that the bone was removed, not the body (figuratively speaking, of course).

It would make more sense in the example you provided that the apple be red than the boy (hehe - did you know what the "it" referred to in this sentence even though the referent was not close by?), but if one wanted to indicate that the boy was red, one could say "An apple was being held by a boy. It was red." Now that would be odd, so we would naturally have to explain why anyway. "An apple was being held by a boy. It was red because earlier that day, it's teacher made fun of it because it had a typo in it's paper reading "And Cheryl wins the Miss Apple Bosom title." It was supposed to read "Miss Apple Blossom."

We can even figure out that the last use of the work "it" in my example refers to the phrase in the boy's paper, and not to the boy. Someone could claim that it wasn't clear, but I'd think that person was just being dense or stubborn. "It" is always a bit unclear, which is why teachers discourage it's use unless necessary.

While we're at it, i don't like having to capitalize the personal pronoun "i" so i'm not going to do that anymore unless it is at the beginning of a sentence. I couldn't possibly count the number of times i have had to correct my posts for forgetting to capitalize the word i. What's with the self-importance that we capitalize this pronoun? Now that we all type a lot more than print, it's actually more convenient to skip pressing the shift key to capitalize this pronoun.

I may mess up and use a he or she, or capitalize an "i" out of habit, but i'm going for a new habit now - the habit of just doing what makes sense to the higher purpose.

Sue Hindmarsh wrote:

Elizabeth wrote:but they mustn't forget who they really are. By calling them "he" and "she" we feed into their delusion that they are their bodies.

“Spirits” with Alzheimer’s?

I actually did laugh out loud on that one, which unfortunately sent me into a coughing fit, but I appreciated the humor anyway.

Sue Hindmarsh wrote:Bodies as “objects” – that’ll bring a smile to a few male readers.

Why should it? Imagine this scenario: You and a friend walk into your home:

Friend: What is that?

Sue: What is what?

Friend: What is that object on the table?

Sue: Oh, that is something Tris made in kindergarten. I wonder what it's doing on the table?

An object is a physical thing. Your body is a physical thing. Therefore your body is an object. What is there to smile about? Ah- you automatically inserted the word "sex" in front of "object." Hmmm, well, i suppose Tris could have made some sort of clay structure in kindergarten that you used as a dildo, which would then make it a sex object, but most people don't think like that. Why should they automatically think of bodies as sex objects just because they are recognized as objects? We shouldn't sidestep Ultimate Truth just to avoid triggering the perversions of some minds.

Sue Hindmarsh wrote:Are you saying that gender has nothing to do with psychology, or genetics? I can’t imagine that you are. Therefore, to make clear your point you’ll need to explain your statement: “gender is a worldly thing”.

You're right; i'm not. Worldly things are those things having most direct manifestation in the physical world, and spiritual things are those things that have their most direct manifestation in the spiritual world. The spiritual world is the world of thought - emotion, intention, Meaning, etc.

Note that i said "most direct." That means that the physical world does impact the spiritual world, just as the spiritual world impacts the physical world. Gender is a result of physiology, and there are gender-related physiological differences in male and female brains. Therefore gender does have a great deal to do with human psychology, but nothing to do with transcendent psychology. Transcendent psychology (another term i just made up) has to do with psychology from the Ultimate perspective.

Sue Hindmarsh wrote:Maybe that's cool – but I can’t judge either way until you give a complete explanation of what you think these spirits are.

Spirits are the essence of the thing. Whether such spirits are, as Kevin suggested, bound to the brain - or as i have suggested, independently coherent - does not matter. Spirits are the intent, the meaning.... oh, here, look it up yourself.

Sue does have a point to an extent though. Sometimes it is appropriate to use a gender pronoun, and sometimes it is appropriate to reference it to the physical gender, and sometimes it is appropriate to use it to reference the psychological gender. I understand; it's just cumbersome to put into words to explain when is when. It should be obvious, but i see how it isn't to most people... Perhaps i'll explain later, but i have other things i must attend to at the moment.

Laird: "The boy is holding an apple. It is red." Is the boy embarrased or is he holding a Fuji apple?

Elizabeth: We are able to structure out sentences to remove the ambiguity.

Well, sure - I could have written instead "The boy is holding a red apple" or "The red boy is holding an apple". But this merely proves my point - the less flexibility that we have in our choice of sentence structure, the poorer the expressive power of our language is.

Elizabeth wrote:When I was a kid I had one jealous bone in my body, but I had it removed.

What does the "it" refer to in this sentence? Did I have my body removed? "Body" is the most previous noun before the modifier "it" - yet we don't consider this a misplaced modifier AND we can figure out that i meant that the bone was removed, not the body (figuratively speaking, of course).

We can work that one out because the bone is the subject of the sentence and is the most plausible of the alternatives - there's still some subtle ambiguity there.

Elizabeth wrote:It would make more sense in the example you provided that the apple be red than the boy

Really? To me it's no different than: "Brad and Brett joined hands. He was happy."

Elizabeth wrote:(hehe - did you know what the "it" referred to in this sentence even though the referent was not close by?)

There was no referent that I could see.

Elizabeth wrote:but if one wanted to indicate that the boy was red, one could say "An apple was being held by a boy. It was red."

Actually, that sentence is still ambiguous. The apple is the subject of the sentence, suggesting that "it" should apply to "apple", yet "boy" occurs last and is also a potential referent. Consider: "An apple was being held by a plastic vice. It was red." If I had to guess, I'd guess that the apple was red, but it's a strong possibility that the writer was referring to the plastic vice.

In any event, it's an awkward sentence (passive voice - E-prime advocates would spit chips) which again only goes to prove my point - if we are forced into awkward sentences due to problems of ambiguity then we are reducing our language's expressive power.

Elizabeth wrote:so we would naturally have to explain why anyway. "An apple was being held by a boy. It was red because earlier that day, it's teacher made fun of it because it had a typo in it's paper reading "And Cheryl wins the Miss Apple Bosom title." It was supposed to read "Miss Apple Blossom."

We can even figure out that the last use of the work "it" in my example refers to the phrase in the boy's paper, and not to the boy. Someone could claim that it wasn't clear, but I'd think that person was just being dense or stubborn. "It" is always a bit unclear, which is why teachers discourage it's use unless necessary.

Yes, sometimes we infer the referent because out of all of the possibilities, one is far more plausible than the rest. Context takes care of the problem for us and I'd agree that in your example, anyone who argued that the referent is unclear in the context was being dense or stubborn.

Elizabeth wrote:What's with the self-importance that we capitalize this pronoun ["I"]?

"I" is (am) an aspect of God; God is the highest power and deserves the respect of capitalisation, as does His personal aspect. What do you think of that reasoning?

Sue Hindmarsh wrote:Right now Leyla, you’ve heard the neutered one lay down its fear driven sexist and chauvinistic demands. ... all its huff and puff are just too silly

Not a big fan of playful satire, huh Sue? I'll be sure then not to make you the subject of any in future.

Laird wrote:Really? To me it's no different than: "Brad and Brett joined hands. He was happy."

Brilliant example. That is obviously deliberately ambiguous, which is my point. It would be more natural to say "Brad and Brett joined hands. Brad was happy because e finally found someone who could be discreet about their relationship."

Elizabeth Isabelle wrote:It would make more sense in the example you provided that the apple be red than the boy (hehe - did you know what the "it" referred to in this sentence even though the referent was not close by?),

Laird wrote:There was no referent that I could see.

You jest. The referent is the concept that the apple be red, not the boy. True you can not see a concept - hence the joke.

Laird wrote:if we are forced into awkward sentences due to problems of ambiguity then we are reducing our language's expressive power.

I don't believe it would be awkward - and as I said, sometimes a gender pronoun is appropriate, but mostly it is not. As i also said, it would be cumbersome to explain. Just watch me, and see if you like it.

Laird wrote:"I" is (am) an aspect of God; God is the highest power and deserves the respect of capitalisation, as does His personal aspect. What do you think of that reasoning?

Yes, You are. So is He, She, It, They, and Them - amongst Others. But it's pretty inconvenient to hit the shift key all that often. It is wrongly egotistical to go out of one's way to emphasize one's importance.

Laird,

Oh, so you mean that "I stand" would in these languages be either "I stand-as-a-female" or "I stand-as-a-male"?

That example is good enough, but to elaborate; the ‘as-a-female/male’ part is covered by adding one alphabet to the verb. For example, (this will not make much sense in English, but however…) generally a female would say “I stande”, and a male would say “I standa”. Most of the verbs end with an E sound for a female, and with an A sound for a male, but not necessarily in all such languages that I mentioned. Further more, In Arabic when addressing there is a different YOU for a male and a different YOU for a female. If it is a male I address, I will say Ayent (you), and if it is a female, I will say Ayenti (again YOU, but it is a female that I address). There are other subtleties where even the tense is incorporated in the verb without adding an ‘am’, ‘was’, ‘is’, etc. to the sentence. Thai male will speak with more R based stronger sound, but not the female. For example – Sawadee kharp,(male speaking), against Sawadee khap, (female speaking) = Hi – hello – good-day.

It is not that easy to explain the grammar of one language in another, at least not for me. The other thing in such cultures is that one needs much lesser words to describe an intricate relationship in most cases. For example there is a single word for ones father’s elder brothers wife, and a different word for the father’s younger brothers wife, and a different word for the father’s elder sister’s husband, and different words for realtions on the mother’s side. And so on… I think that’s it for me on the subject.

That's an interesting idea - that consciousness is built upon tiny bits of duality.

May be, but not exactly built upon tiny bits of duality; but that consciousness is duality itself since they are inseparable. Consciousness is but the reflection (awareness) of all that it is not, operating at different levels dependant on the bounded complexity of things.

You've explained the perspective itself, but you've left open in my mind the question of the inhabitation of that perspective.

Now you have to explain to me exactly what you mean by ‘inhabitation’? As far as I know, it is the continued memory of such perspective that gives us a sense of inhabitation. “My” consciousness and “I” are one and the same thing; “my” perspective and “me” are the one and the same thing.

I still can't see an explanation for it in terms of emergence, but I'm interested in following your reasoning.

Humm… emergance... well, lets see... Consciousness (as in and of duality) itself does not “emerge” (is born) as it were; only different levels of that which is already imbedded in the fabric of a dynamic duality, evolves (“emerges” as human consciousness) or devolves (as in dissipate to a different level/form)]. Operating at different levels, i.e., from quark to human, or even a different consciousness. So only the level changes, not that Consciousness itself emerges, as in is born where it was not there at all. Consciousness always is, will be, and it was never that it was not; same goes for duality. Each individual consciousness is absolutely unique due to its own causal chain irrelevant of the operating principle being exactly the same, namely, recognition through differentiation and thence reaction, which necessarily requires duality, hence is inseparable. Just like energy and matter are inseparable, or may be even interchangeable, like waves and particles are known to be interchangeable under certain conditions.

Is there in your opinion any aspect of consciousness that is not related to duality?

Which aspect do you have in mind? Consciousness without duality cannot exist, nor any particular aspect of it. Be it the retention through memory part, the calculative and reasoning part, or the feelings and emotional part.

But would you agree that, if consciousness is purely emergent, then a dream must be explained as being *mostly* generated by the physical brain?

I can agree to that. The point being?

I'm not sure what you would count as study - I sometimes think back on my dreams when I wake up and at various random points during my day and during future days. So perhaps: not formally, but a little bit informally.

I didn’t mean formally as in being hooked up to probes and machines, but yes, informally, but something really though over intensely.

It varies. Sometimes I remember the entire dream quite clearly; other times I can only recollect vague feelings but the dream itself slips out of my reach. Mostly I remember a large amount of my dreams immediately upon waking; often this fades during the day.

The moment one awakes is the best time to reflect and try to remember a dream. With enough practice most of it will be very clear.

First person. I don't recall a dream where it's been third person, although whilst writing this sentence I'm having elusive flash-backs that suggest that it's possible that I've had such a dream that I've since forgotten. I'm interested in your own answers to those questions.

I can remember almost all my dreams and am 90% of the time aware that I am dreaming. In my experience, logic and reasoning works perfectly well within a dream. Generally we do not remember a third person perspective dream, but we do have such dreams. If one has strong intentions to “look” into (study) dreams, he will be aware of this third person perspective, where he will see himself walking or flying around, and if he has created enough awareness through intent, he will immediately know that he is dreaming by the mere fact of the third person perspective. It is also possible with the first person perspective though.

Third person perspective is more common than one might think, but the problem is generally we do not pay attention to the perspective of the dream; when we wake up we just think that ‘hey’ I was there’. More than half of the dreams are in colour, and rest is shades of blues and grays. One should try and remember this too. The more details one tries to remember, the more he will be aware that he is dreaming the next time.

I don't know whether these are related, but I'll share them here anyway: I have had a dream where my consciousness was pulled apart, and a dream where my body dissolved, and I have frequent dreams where I can fly.

Not enough information to know what the "consciousness was pulled apart" really was, but next time you fly; try to remember hard if you saw yourself flying, or that you were looking out from your eyeball socket perspective. And of course, try to remember other details as much as possible.

I mentioned this somewhere before I think; In a dream; How come just the memory of light is more than enough to light up objects never ever seen before, whereas otherwise light is necessary to see objects from which it bounces off. Do we have a lighted bulb in our skulls?

Sue wrote:

It is clear that Leyla is pointing to the fact that when considering the sexes, more discrimination is needed, not less.

Yes. Among other things, I am really sick of seeing young Australian males wearing those flippen fluffy-hooded parkas.

~

Laird wrote:

Not a big fan of playful satire, huh Sue? I'll be sure then not to make you the subject of any in future.

Every fire that burns leaves in its wake a soft blanket of ashes that disintegrate into nothing between the fingers. Why do you romp there in the ashes whilst the fire passes you by? Most people, like ashes, are destined only to blow about in the ensuing hot breeze and float happily to the ground.

By camouflaging it as nothing more than inflammable rubble, are you not wont to see the fuel live in such darkness for its own sake rather than die by the necessary fire which must consume it?

Would you, like Mr Burns, try to block out the sun for the sake of superficial light?

Laird writes:

"I" is (am) an aspect of God; God is the highest power and deserves the respect of capitalisation, as does His personal aspect. What do you think of that reasoning?

myself, I think the capitalization is of less a problem than the genderized personification.

Sapius wrote:Further more, In Arabic when addressing there is a different YOU for a male and a different YOU for a female. If it is a male I address, I will say Ayent (you), and if it is a female, I will say Ayenti (again YOU, but it is a female that I address).

What do you do if you have no idea if you are addressing a male or female?


I have a great idea for phasing in the e's. I'm just going to use e sometimes when it is acceptable to ignore the gender, and only on people I believe will be cool with it. Laird's cool with it, so e' an e, not a he, unless someone needs to know e's gender for some particular reason (e substituted for he or she is pronounced with a long e, and e's replacing his or her is pronounced with a short e). I'm cool with it, so please refer to me as an e rather than a she (and to avoid abbreviation confusion, since my name is Elizabeth, i'll keep the capital E for my name).

I think this will, in the long run, eliminate confusion. Take Kelly for example; Kelly is either a male name or a female name. Kelly Jones is biologically female, but not everyone knows that because Kelly prefers to think of e'sself as a man. This would be a point of confusion in the Woman philosophy on what gender pronoun to use.

example:

John went to the store, but Kelly said he went to the lake.

What does that mean? Did John go to the store and Kelly to the lake? Was Kelly lying or mistaken about where John went?

By eliminating the gender pronoun, we are forced to be more clear in our speech.

John went to the store, but Kelly went to the lake.

or

John went to the store, but Kelly said John went to the lake.

Jesus went around saying/doing what e thought was right for Truth, and it didn't matter to Jesus if e offended people along the way. Look where that got him - nailed to a cross. He didn't do anything wrong, but he pissed off enough people that they'd rather let a true criminal go than e so they could get their revenge. The frontal cortex is where reasoning takes place, and the hindbrain is what all animals have. The step of human evolution that we are currently in is evolution inside the skull. That's what this Indigo revolution is all about. Jesus was one of the earliest mentally evolved humans, like the Buddha. More of us are forming. I believe i was the first Indigo, but when i was 6 years old, i knew i couldn't do this job all by myself so I asked the Universe for more of me (Jesus was also a bit cocky - He thought e could do it all alone. Eh, it's a guy thing). I have not mentioned any of this to Laird yet, but i see that Laird is an indigo, too. We are all different people with different personalities, but we have certain things in common as well. Observe, and you will see.

Now before I get shot for calling Laird and myself more evolved - it's okay if you think of us as mutants instead. There is no real difference between evolution and mutation - so call us whatever makes you feel better.

Laird - before you get mad at me for suggesting that people might want to think of you as a mutant, keep in mind the people here have known me for a lot longer than you have, and they sort-of understand what I mean by this. I don't think they quite understand me yet, but they won't hold anything I say against you.

Does everybody get it why Jesus got nailed to the cross now?

Leyla Shen wrote:Every fire that burns leaves in its wake a soft blanket of ashes that disintegrate into nothing between the fingers. Why do you romp there in the ashes whilst the fire passes you by? Most people, like ashes, are destined only to blow about in the ensuing hot breeze and float happily to the ground.

By camouflaging it as nothing more than inflammable rubble, are you not wont to see the fuel live in such darkness for its own sake rather than die by the necessary fire which must consume it?

Would you, like Mr Burns, try to block out the sun for the sake of superficial light?

Would you then look on as I suffer through and in the unquenchable flames, or do you enjoin all consciousness to relegate itself to such a living hell? Do you swat at my conception of fire-as-torturous-agony by pointing to the monk on the cover of the first Rage Against the Machine album, calmly self-immolating with apparent unconcern? How and why then, might I cultivate such immunity to suffering, when I need not enter the flames at all, but rather splash in the shallows, wallow in the wind-blown waters and descend to the depths of the pressing ocean?

Satire is of its nature multi-layered, and my "camouflage" was a pointer that might have softened a harsh critique. Was that critique the result of an attachment of the form that the subject (a philosophy) of the satire ostensibly decries? Might then that attachment be weakened by considering a less threatening perspective from which my words might be approached?

Elizabeth,

What do you do if you have no idea if you are addressing a male or female?

You use logic. I think you haven’t really read through the rest of it. The problem arises with English and languages with similar grammatical structure, not in the languages I mentioned, because one already knows the gender of the person through his/her speech. That is if one is writing or is on the phone, and it doesn’t matter if a male has a female voice or the other way around, or even if the person is a she-male; gender or preference is still clear through his/her structure of grammar, and we know how that person would like to be addressed. And what does one do otherwsie....? ask, and hopefully expect the truth.

On the other hand, in person, things are much apparent; but if one is still in doubt, and the ambiguous grammatical structure of the language doesn’t help, one can always ask the other person to undress. Its truth and certainty we want… isn’t it? Hmmm….

Sue Hindmarsh wrote:Shardrol wrote to Laird:

People are always relating 'remarkable coincidences' as if they're significant but the vast majority of the time we're going about our business & nothing particularly synchronous is happening. Does that have any meaning? It might.

You describe an observation you have made, but you're not prepared to consider the consequences of that observation, which then would enable you to draw a conclusion. I don't consider that a 'thought'. It's just chatting.

I think you may have gotten hold of the wrong end of the stick here. You seem to have taken my saying 'it might' to mean that I'd just had a vague idea that this was possible, & rushed to chat about it without having thought it through.

The reason I said 'it might' rather than 'the idea that you can make any kind of assumptions from apparent coincidence is a lot of nonsense since all you're doing is focusing on a tiny proportion of incidents & ignoring all the others - you ignorant slut' is because I was addressing a particular person, not just trumpeting my subjectivity into the wind. 'It might' was intended as a suggestion that Laird might be interested in considering.

Stop confusing vagueness with thinking. At least give yourselves the time to establish a point of view on a topic before throwing it out into the public domain.

The compulsion to establish a point of view on a topic about which one cannot be certain is one of the most pernicious of human behaviors & leads to unending conflict up to & including wars & genocide.

That's my point of view.

Elizabeth Isabelle wrote:The frontal cortex is where reasoning takes place, and the hindbrain is what all animals have. The step of human evolution that we are currently in is evolution inside the skull.

We who? Humanity? Humanity in general is not currently in any sort of evolution that I can see.

That's what this Indigo revolution is all about.

What Indigo revolution? Yeah, I've heard the new age line about Indigos, but I've seen no concrete evidence that there is any real group of them, or any revolution.

Jesus was one of the earliest mentally evolved humans, like the Buddha.

This is certainly not fact. Why do you say it? Just because we only have a few thousand years of recorded history...um, recorded?

More of us are forming.

What, mentally evolved humans? What about emotionally evolved humans? I like to think Jesus was right up there in that category, too. No talk of wholeness, but only of mental acuity?

I believe i was the first Indigo,

Numero Uno, seriously? First ever in the world? Pioneer of pioneers? That's quite a belief.

but when i was 6 years old, i knew i couldn't do this job all by myself

What job?

i see that Laird is an indigo, too.

What tells you?

We are all different people with different personalities, but we have certain things in common as well. Observe, and you will see.

What should I look for?

Now before I get shot for calling Laird and myself more evolved - it's okay if you think of us as mutants instead. There is no real difference between evolution and mutation - so call us whatever makes you feel better.

I see that you are almost as much in your head as the QRS, but I'm not sure that's something to be proud of. I don't see Laird that way. He lives more from his emotions.

Does everybody get it why Jesus got nailed?

I'm glad you have a cross to bear. It surely gives you strength.

Sapius wrote:On the other hand, in person, things are much apparent; but if one is still in doubt, and the ambiguous grammatical structure of the language doesn’t help, one can always ask the other person to undress. Its truth and certainty we want… isn’t it? Hmmm….

Eegads - If someone were crawling into a window, and i could not identify it's gender, i would call out "What are you doing?"

In Arabic, would you shout "strip?" If you told em to stop, and e could not but for a good reason, you would not know if their disobedience of your command was for legitimate or nefarious reasons - and you would not have prompted a clarification of the behavior.

Carl G wrote:We who? Humanity? Humanity in general is not currently in any sort of evolution that I can see.

Here - brush up on your evolution. Do you think any of the homo habilis species recognized evolution in progress? We are talking about a progression over millions of years.

Carl G wrote: E: Jesus was one of the earliest mentally evolved humans, like the Buddha.


This is certainly not fact. Why do you say it? Just because we only have a few thousand years of recorded history...um, recorded?

See? You also recognize that there are only a few thousand years of recorded history. Read the old texts and analyze the behavior described. Then look at the differences between them and us. There have only been minute changes in these few thousand years.

Yes i am saying Jesus and Buddha were of the first mentally evolved humans because i am only counting recorded history as the time period indicating mentally evolved humans. If you think there was an enlightened australopithecus running through the forest, then that would not be a human. Other species are evolving as well, and just because they can not communicate like humans do does not mean that they are not intelligent life forms. Homo habilis used tools, and that species is considered a transitional human - not a full human - but they had brains 30% larger than australopithecus, and was the fist stage in which our lineage had consistently larger brains than apes. Homo erectus is considered the next species - so even still, we were not yet up to our current general stage of evolution. Would you not consider recording history to be in a separate stage of evolution - much like the stage of before using tools to using tools? I'm not going to spell the whole thing out for you; you can read it yourself and then think on the matter.

Carl G wrote:What Indigo revolution? Yeah, I've heard the new age line about Indigos, but I've seen no concrete evidence that there is any real group of them, or any revolution.

Fine.

Carl G wrote:Numero Uno, seriously? First ever in the world? Pioneer of pioneers? That's quite a belief.

Whatever

Carl G wrote:What job?

I'm here to bring world peace.

Carl G wrote:What tells you?

His intentions are pure.

Carl G wrote:What should I look for?

Just be observant - as any good thinker should be about anything.

Carl G wrote:I see that you are almost as much in your head as the QRS, but I'm not sure that's something to be proud of. I don't see Laird that way. He lives more from his emotions.

E''s only about 30. Us indigos take longer to develop than previous lifeforms.

Carl G wrote:I'm glad you have a cross to bear. It surely gives you strength.

What cross do you believe that i bear?

S: On the other hand, in person, things are much apparent; but if one is still in doubt, and the ambiguous grammatical structure of the language doesn’t help, one can always ask the other person to undress. Its truth and certainty we want… isn’t it? Hmmm….

E: Eegads - If someone were crawling into a window, and i could not identify it's gender, i would call out "What are you doing?"

In Arabic, would you shout "strip?" If you told em to stop, and e could not but for a good reason, you would not know if their disobedience of your command was for legitimate or nefarious reasons - and you would not have prompted a clarification of the behavior.

You are right Elizabeth… I may have a huge language barrier. However, it is better than being thick skulled and not getting a joke at times. I don’t see any logical connection between your story and what was being discussed, nor what I said above. No need to elaborate any further… please. I’m not interested in such discussions. Thanks.

Sapius, I do not believe I have ever seen you mad before. I did get the joke, I did volley the humor - and you get mad? It is annoying to me as well that so many people fail to see my humor, but I don't get mad at them for not getting it.

The language barrier comment was because nothing that I said was unclear to me - and you are quite bright, so I concluded that it must just be the language barrier getting in the way of you understanding me. Is it a gender barrier instead? Are you bothered by not being perfect, and worse yet, having something explained to you by a female?

Let me draw out the logical connection for you because it is relevant, and although I was employing humor, I also had a valid reason for asking the question. I do want to understand how your language deals with such issues as androgeny. My example was merely a hypothetical instance of when one might be legitimately uncertain of the gender of the addressee, but ought to speak to that person anyway. I suspect that your language does not have a way of addressing such things because gender is such an important distinction in your culture. That is my point - when gender is irrelevant, why address it?

Not only do I want to know what your language does, but I also want to know why you responded in what appears to be anger. Please tell me.

Not only do I want to know what your language does, but I also want to know why you responded in what appears to be anger. Please tell me.

It may appear to you to be so, but you are totally off the mark… most of the times you are, Elizabet. But then again… no one is perfect. You don’t know which is my native language… none of the languages I specifically spoke of is my native language. I am simply aware of such things due to extensive traveling, and that I’m naturally curious, and very glad to share the little knowledge I acquire.

Here... :) is that better.