GENIUS FORUMS

I don't know, I'm just fooling around. I'll stop. :-)

That's cool.

clyde,

And to state that most people are unconscious is silly.

Oooh... now I can see where my grammar was misleading. I wasn't saying "most people are unconscious", I was saying "people are mostly unconscious", as in if you were to take all the things an average person does (not including accidents, like getting struck by lightning), some of it is planned consciously and some occurs based on unconscious motives.

However, much more of human behaviour is due to those unconscious motives than conscious deliberation. And even when the things do become conscious, the reasons are often still unconscious and poorly understood (this colour of wallpaper makes me feel warm and cozy).

Zen Master Slamalamadingdong disagrees.

So does Lao-Tzu.

See chapters 6 and 28 of the Tao Te Ching in particular, but the theme of receptivity and flow is found throughout the text.

Unidian wrote:

Zen Master Slamalamadingdong disagrees.

So does Lao-Tzu.

See chapters 6 and 28 of the Tao Te Ching in particular, but the theme of receptivity and flow is found throughout the text.

Who's to say that receptivity and flow can't also encompass perception of unconsciousness and its detrimental effects?

Trevor;

OK, I can agree with that (and I appreciate that there were no gratuitous gender references). But so what, for if by reasons you meant causes, then human behavior, including consciousness, like any other occurrence, arises due to causes and conditions, and the causes and conditions are imponderable.

clyde

Uni,

To say that most people are "unconscious" is clearly not consistent with the conventional use of the term.

To see how my grammar was misleading, see my response to clyde.

I use the conventional definition of consciousness. Every person who is not asleep or dead is conscious to some degree.

Stylistic clothing, consumerism, celebrity worship, and other such foolishness is associated with ignorance, not "femininity." If 97% of women and 95% of men structure their lives around such concerns, is that 2% difference really proper justification for talking about ignorance in terms of femininity?

If you know what they are talking about, do the terms really matter? I like to imagine the word "feminine" shocks a lot of people at first, since the word has many meanings (often many of these meanings based on stupid prejudice: feminine does not carry its dictionary definition of "ovary-bearing", but rather to a common person means sensual, emotive, unconscious, flighty, etc.) -- and that shock-value is part of its use.

When you delve too deeply into the propriety of the term, you "mistake the finger for the moon". That too should be taken as a lesson, since I don't think any of the moderators would ultimately justify their use of this term empirically, based on how human females really are (like nearly everything they say, it follows from definitions, and is tautologically true if you accept their definitions). I'm sure you are mostly in agreement with the moderators on the message, if you permit them their eccentricity in its presentation.

If you want to say the same thing, but don't want to say it so offensively, just call it ignorance.

Tell her that and see what happens. Then again, I suspect her response would simply be interpreted as "evidence of lingering femininity." I forgot, you can't argue with religious doctrine.

I would not use that term with her, since wise people do not often share the prejudices of common folk -- she would likely go by the dictionary definition of "masculine" and think I was claiming she had a penis.

"Lingering attachments" will be the answer, I suppose. But feel free to surprise me. :)

I just think you are tired of the moderators usage of the word. They aren't using it for your benefit though; even I can tell that you are in agreement with what they are saying.

The audience is not you. As I understand it, these big three like to focus on those younger minds that are at the greatest risk of falling into dangerous delusions.

Unidian wrote:If 97% of women and 95% of men structure their lives around such concerns, is that 2% difference really proper justification for talking about ignorance in terms of femininity? I think not - and yet, QRSco readily admits that if all women are "unconscious," almost all men are as well.

There is a big difference between saying 97% of men are unconscious and men are 97% unconscious. As Trevor made clear he meant the latter, so lets discuss this a little bit further.

Say a cow is %99.999999999 unconscious and women are %99.999999 unconscious. The %.000000999 difference might not seem like it would make a big difference in how the beings in question percieve the world. Yet there is a vast difference between how a woman and a cow view the world.

Now say men are 98% unconscious compared to woman being %99.999999999 unconscious. You can clearly see how that %1.999999 would make such a huge difference that one might wonder if men and women percieve the world even remotely the same when compared to eachother. The fact of the matter is they don't, not even close. So going by what I've just said one would be very justified associating ignorance with femininity.

clyde "the bulldozer",

But so what, for if by reasons you meant causes, then human behavior, including consciousness, like any other occurrence, arises due to causes and conditions, and the causes and conditions are imponderable.

You just trumped my elementary psychology with metaphysics. I've drowned at the river. :(

Nick Treklis wrote:Yet there is a vast difference between how a woman and a cow view the world.

O RLY?

Yeesh.

Philosophaster wrote:

Nick Treklis wrote:Yet there is a vast difference between how a woman and a cow view the world.

O RLY?

Yeesh.

Alright you got me, I exagerated a bit when I said there is a vast difference between how women and cows percieve the world. I should have only said a fairly vast difference. Thanks.

Nick Treklis wrote:Say a cow is %99.999999999 unconscious and women are %99.999999 unconscious.

Um, no thanks. Why don't we say a black man is 99.9% evil and Satan is 99.99% evil? Or a Jew is 99.9% worthy of death and a mass murderer is 99.99% worthy? My, aren't we being generous to blacks and Jews!

The %.000000999 difference might not seem like it would make a big difference in how the beings in question percieve the world. Yet there is a vast difference between how a woman and a cow view the world.

Amazing! And one would expect there would be no difference at all, right? I dunno how women do it. So cow-like, and yet they do manage to tie their own shoes. Yep, it must be that .000000999% difference between them and all things bovine.

Now say men are 98% unconscious compared to woman being %99.999999999 unconscious. You can clearly see how that %1.999999 would make such a huge difference that one might wonder if men and women percieve the world even remotely the same when compared to eachother. The fact of the matter is they don't, not even close. So going by what I've just said one would be very justified associating ignorance with femininity.

Of course men and women don't percieve the world the same way. There are biological and cultural differences. But that doesn't make one group inherently unconscious and hopelessly ignorant. It's silly, like I said.

Unidian wrote:

For a group of people who think so little of "woman," certain GF participants certainly do spend a great deal of time talking about her.

Nearly everyone in this world spends a great deal of time talking about women. It is a huge attachment in most people's lives. It's just that the talking on this forum has a different focus.

I think that QRS and followers would do better to simply talk about consciousness and wisdom without introducing the gender issue. It is their Achilles' heel.

And pretend that this huge attachment that nearly everyone has to women/femininity doesn't exist ....?

It is clearly the other way around. Not speaking against women and feminine values would be a philosopher's Achilles' heel.

It would be like a Galileo or a Bruno trying to pretend that the massive attachment to the Christian religion that people had in the Middle Ages didn't exist. Short of closing your eyes and putting your hands over your ears, it's just not possible to do this.

Attaching the label "feminine" to worldly consciousness and "masculine" to abstract consciousness is silly.

Agreed. It is a bit more complicated than that.

For example, worldly consciousness can come in different forms. In men, it tends to be a product of mental compartmentalization. Men are quick to block out their higher thoughts and aspirations because they intuitively know just how demanding and dangerous they could become. And so they erect solid mental blocks and try to fashion a more comfortable, sleepy existence around them.

By contrast, the worldly consciousness in women is more a product of their natural functioning. They have no need to suppress things and erect mental blocks because their flowy, ever-changing minds precludes the very possibility of their ever pursuing a higher path. They are eternally safe from the demands from Truth - which is partly why their behaviour is more spontaneous and free, compared to men. They don't have that sword of Damascus constantly hanging over their heads.

So the value of using the terms "masculinity" and "femininity" is that they describe different kinds of consciousness and unconsciousness. It's not just a straight one-on-one correlation.

There's also the fact that such talks drives the woman-junkies nuts, which has its benefits as well.

The trouble here, coarsely put, is that the members of QRS have "pre-wisdom" negative attitudes toward women stemming from various life experiences, as all openly admit in their bios.

You say this as though it were a problem. In my view, if don't have a negative attitude towards women, then there is something fundamentally wrong with you. It shows that you have been completely taken in by the spell.

Of course, it's not really the women themselves that one should have a negative towards. The actual physical women are largely unimportant. The far more significant issue is the attachment that people have towards women, which a single glance at the world reveals is massive, and also to the comfortable, non-idealistic, feminine type of existence which women embody and more and more men crave. As far as the spiritual path is concerned, these kinds of attachments are killers.

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If something is repeated often enough, such as "women can't think" it becomes "true" to the listener, whether or not the facts support it (aka "programming"). Especially if the listener finds that most women can't think, and even if he knows when he repeats that to himself that it is just a generalization, when he then goes about his daily life in a mostly unconcious manner, he will allow his preprogrammed "thought" that women can't think and allow it to override empirical evidence. A female could say something and he wouldn't even listen because "women can't think" and a man could parrot her and "his" thought would be given consideration.

Also, if a person got so attached to the belief that women can't think, it would upset him if he encountered a thinking woman because she would represent a dichotomy between his reality and the greater reality. He will then feel compelled to prove her wrong, not so much having anything to do with her or her thought, but to protect his view of reality.

"The greatest derangement of the mind is to believe in something because one wishes it to be so . . ." Louis Pasteur

Cognative biases happen naturally, and generalizations can be a way to take a general approach to the world, but if those generalizations lead to hasty generalizations in practicality, truth is not realized. This can be avoided if one remains concious at all waking times, but most people do not do that.

The truly unfortunate thing about the QRS definitions is that despite that they are referring to mindsets that they found most often displayed in females, occassionally someone will simply decide that they are saying that there is no such thing as a woman who can think.

When such a person encounters a thinking female, she will so unbalance the way he has decided to see the world that he is subject to refusing to see what is in front of his eyes, and to "prove" his "reality" he would have to resort to illogical "proof" that his world view is the correct one.

A truly concious person would be able to take the generalization as a generalization and be able to see the exceptions. An unconcious person takes a generalization and tries to make reality "fit" into a generalization.
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Trevor;

There is a point and your response to Uni[dian] is in accord with this.

The point is you (and others) may know your intentions, but you cannot know the totality of the causes and conditions of your actions and speech. You cannot perfectly know the effect of your actions and speech, but you have some notion and with greater wisdom, which is seeing reality as it is, you can have a better notion. You can know how much wisdom you have by how much compassion your actions and speech exhibit.

Do no harm,
clyde

David Quinn wrote:Nearly everyone in this world spends a great deal of time talking about women. It is a huge attachment in most people's lives. It's just that the talking on this forum has a different focus.

Nearly everyone in the world spends a great deal of time talking about women for the simple reason that they are half the human species. It isn't so much an "attachment" as a fact of nature.

And pretend that this huge attachment that nearly everyone has to women/femininity doesn't exist ....?

It exists because women and femininty exist. Do you happen to have a "final solution" for that "problem," by any chance?

It is clearly the other way around. Not speaking against women and feminine values would be a philosopher's Achilles' heel.

It would be like a Galileo or a Bruno trying to pretend that the massive attachment to the Christian religion that people had in the Middle Ages didn't exist. Short of closing your eyes and putting your hands over your ears, it's just not possible to do this.

Again, the Christian religion and similar ideological structures are not facts of nature, they are just made-up delusions. Are women made-up delusions we can simply dismiss from existence? Is there a way to stop talking or thinking about women and feminity while 50% of the species remains biologically female?

Just curious...

Attaching the label "feminine" to worldly consciousness and "masculine" to abstract consciousness is silly.

Agreed. It is a bit more complicated than that.

For example, worldly consciousness can come in different forms. In men, it tends to be a product of mental compartmentalization. Men are quick to block out their higher thoughts and aspirations because they intuitively know just how demanding and dangerous they could become. And so they erect solid mental blocks and try to fashion a more comfortable, sleepy existence around them.

By contrast, the worldly consciousness in women is more a product of their natural functioning. They have no need to suppress things and erect mental blocks because their flowy, ever-changing minds precludes the very possibility of their ever pursuing a higher path. They are eternally safe from the demands from Truth - which is partly why their behaviour is more spontaneous and free, compared to men. They don't have that sword of Damascus constantly hanging over their heads.

Although largely accurate, this is meaningless outside a QRS conception of "Truth" and its value. Taoism, for example, values the "flowy" sort of consciousness as highly as it does the logical, linear sort ("know the yang, keep to the yin").

So the value of using the terms "masculinity" and "femininity" is that they describe different kinds of consciousness and unconsciousness. It's not just a straight one-on-one correlation.

Why not use other terms? Seriously, you guys' audience would triple.

There's also the fact that such talks drives the woman-junkies nuts, which has its benefits as well.

What is a "woman-junkie?"

The trouble here, coarsely put, is that the members of QRS have "pre-wisdom" negative attitudes toward women stemming from various life experiences, as all openly admit in their bios.

You say this as though it were a problem. In my view, if don't have a negative attitude towards women, then there is something fundamentally wrong with you. It shows that you have been completely taken in by the spell.

Alright. There's something fundamentally wrong with me, then, because although I am well-aware of the differences in male and female consciousness, I don't exalt one at the expense of the other. We need both approaches. I wonder how great thinkers and philosophers of the future are going to be born without mothers...

Of course, it's not really the women themselves that one should have a negative towards. The actual physical women are largely unimportant.

To you, perhaps. For those of us with wives, mothers, girlfriends, they are quite important indeed.

I know, these are attachments - kind of like the attachment to "enlightenment." That's the final one that has to be given up before rivers are once again rivers and mountains are once again mountains.

But that last step is bad news for the "salvation" business in all its forms, of which Genius Forum's "Rational Enlightenment" is one.

The far more significant issue is the attachment that people have towards women, which a single glance at the world reveals is massive, and also to the comfortable, non-idealistic, feminine type of existence which women embody and more and more men crave.

I agree that to the extent men are allowing their own natural brand of consciousness to be overrun and sublimated by feminine consciousness, we have a problem. And yes, there's plenty of that going on. Men are now the butt of jokes and the ignorant buffoons in all TV commercials while women always save the day, for example. So yes, I hear you on this. Men should be men.

Where we differ is on whether women should be women.

As far as the spiritual path is concerned, these kinds of attachments are killers.

As far as the spiritual path goes, excluding any element of humanity is a killer, too.

Unidian wrote:Um, no thanks. Why don't we say a black man is 99.9% evil and Satan is 99.99% evil? Or a Jew is 99.9% worthy of death and a mass murderer is 99.99% worthy? My, aren't we being generous to blacks and Jews!

The example you gave is completely subjective while mine was objective. You can't logically compare what you just said to what I did.

Unidian wrote:Amazing! And one would expect there would be no difference at all, right? I dunno how women do it. So cow-like, and yet they do manage to tie their own shoes. Yep, it must be that .000000999% difference between them and all things bovine.

Dogs can be trained to sit and roll over, women can be trained to tie their shoes. This doesn't relate at all to how a being percieves the world.

Unidian wrote:Of course men and women don't percieve the world the same way. There are biological and cultural differences. But that doesn't make one group inherently unconscious and hopelessly ignorant. It's silly, like I said.

So it's silly to say that the biological differences between a man and a cow deems cows hopelessly ignorant? If this is the case then maybe India is on to something the way cows are treated the same or better than human beings. Please, the differences between men and women have far greater implications that most are in complete denial about. This is not to say that it is impossible for a woman to be as conscious as men, it's just not probable. It is even less probable for a woman to become wise, when comparing that probability to a man's.

Then I guess it all hinges on your narrow, religious definition of "wisdom," which no one is obligated to accept, and which is not reflected in the great spiritual texts of the world.

Okay, thanks for the sport. :)

BTW, extra sycophant points for putting women and dogs in the same sentence. That's a classic David Quinn move from way back.

Dogs can be trained to sit and roll over, women can be trained to tie their shoes. This doesn't relate at all to how a being percieves the world.

Maybe she can tie her shoes and roll over. Ya think?

I dunno. That's a bit much. Besides, she might change her mind halfway through.

True. There I go again, overestimating women. Guess I'm not enlightened yet.

Unidian wrote:Then I guess it all hinges on your narrow, religious definition of "wisdom," which no one is obligated to accept, and which is not reflected in the great spiritual texts of the world.

Just keep telling yourself that over and over again. I'm not obligated to accept anything, I'm not obligated to accept anything.

Unidian wrote:BTW, extra sycophant points for putting women and dogs in the same sentence. That's a classic David Quinn move from way back.

Consider it a Nick Treklis move now.

Nick Treklis wrote:Just keep telling yourself that over and over again. I'm not obligated to accept anything, I'm not obligated to accept anything.

Sure will, because I'm not obligated to accept any view of "Truth" or "Enlightenment" or "Wisdom" or whatever else. And what's more, I don't need to. And beyond that, I shouldn't. At least not if traditions like Zen and Taoism are to be given any credence. They have quite a bit to say about the folly of substituting views, beliefs, positions, and other forms of babble for the real (and wordless) "truth" of direct experience.

Reality is not what anyone says it is.

Unidian wrote:

DQ: Nearly everyone in this world spends a great deal of time talking about women. It is a huge attachment in most people's lives. It's just that the talking on this forum has a different focus.

U: Nearly everyone in the world spends a great deal of time talking about women for the simple reason that they are half the human species. It isn't so much an "attachment" as a fact of nature.

Well, we both know there is far more to it than that.

DQ: And pretend that this huge attachment that nearly everyone has to women/femininity doesn't exist ....?

U: It exists because women and femininty exist. Do you happen to have a "final solution" for that "problem," by any chance?

I think the best solution would be to phase "woman" out of existence via genetic technology, selective breeding over successive generations, cultural education, etc. After a few generations, no one would miss her. Most of the wars and violence and foolish behaviour would vanish with her, and the human race could finally start directing its energies to more interesting matters.

DQ: It is clearly the other way around. Not speaking against women and feminine values would be a philosopher's Achilles' heel.

It would be like a Galileo or a Bruno trying to pretend that the massive attachment to the Christian religion that people had in the Middle Ages didn't exist. Short of closing your eyes and putting your hands over your ears, it's just not possible to do this.

U: Again, the Christian religion and similar ideological structures are not facts of nature, they are just made-up delusions. Are women made-up delusions we can simply dismiss from existence?

Yes. The "woman" that women the world over try to embody is as much a cultural fiction as the Christian God, and just as destructive. But most people don't want to face up to this, since it is a fiction which provides too much pleasure.

DQ: For example, worldly consciousness can come in different forms. In men, it tends to be a product of mental compartmentalization. Men are quick to block out their higher thoughts and aspirations because they intuitively know just how demanding and dangerous they could become. And so they erect solid mental blocks and try to fashion a more comfortable, sleepy existence around them.

By contrast, the worldly consciousness in women is more a product of their natural functioning. They have no need to suppress things and erect mental blocks because their flowy, ever-changing minds precludes the very possibility of their ever pursuing a higher path. They are eternally safe from the demands from Truth - which is partly why their behaviour is more spontaneous and free, compared to men. They don't have that sword of Damascus constantly hanging over their heads.

U: Although largely accurate, this is meaningless outside a QRS conception of "Truth" and its value. Taoism, for example, values the "flowy" sort of consciousness as highly as it does the logical, linear sort ("know the yang, keep to the yin").

If a vital psychological truth of this world is regarded as meaningless by a particular system of thought, such as Taoism, then what does it tell us about that system?

At the very least, it tells us that it is still being hampered by mental blocks.

In any case, there is a world of difference between the perfectly rational sage who consciously flows along with Nature in full understanding of Her ways, and the irrational, emotional, incoherent feminine mind which cannot maintain any consistency from one moment to the next.

DQ: So the value of using the terms "masculinity" and "femininity" is that they describe different kinds of consciousness and unconsciousness. It's not just a straight one-on-one correlation.

U: Why not use other terms? Seriously, you guys' audience would triple.

I'm happy enough with the terms, but if you can think of any others, I'm all ears. "Consciousness" and "unconsciousness" aren't accurate enough for my liking, so it would have to be something else.

DQ: There's also the fact that such talks drives the woman-junkies nuts, which has its benefits as well.

U: What is a "woman-junkie?"

Someone whose mind is still spellbound by woman. In other words, the average person.

Any man who has ever been on the outer with women would instantly recognize the addictive symptoms.

U: The trouble here, coarsely put, is that the members of QRS have "pre-wisdom" negative attitudes toward women stemming from various life experiences, as all openly admit in their bios.

DQ: You say this as though it were a problem. In my view, if don't have a negative attitude towards women, then there is something fundamentally wrong with you. It shows that you have been completely taken in by the spell.

U: Alright. There's something fundamentally wrong with me, then, because although I am well-aware of the differences in male and female consciousness, I don't exalt one at the expense of the other. We need both approaches.

Do we really need to keep the irrational, incoherent, emotional, changeable, unconscious-of-the-bigger-picture form of consciousness ....? I don't think so.

The beauty of masculine consciousness, when it becomes refined and purified by the exposure to truth and the practice of logical thought, is that it takes the very best of what feminine consciousness has to offer and improves it a million-fold.

For example, what is instinctive, anxiety-driven intuition in the feminine mind becomes ultra-flexible, highly intelligent, profound insight in the masculine mind.

I wonder how great thinkers and philosophers of the future are going to be born without mothers...

With genetic tools to change the nature of human psychology at hand, I believe we can resolve those sorts of issues.

DQ: Of course, it's not really the women themselves that one should have a negative towards. The actual physical women are largely unimportant.

U: To you, perhaps. For those of us with wives, mothers, girlfriends, they are quite important indeed.

I know, these are attachments - kind of like the attachment to "enlightenment." That's the final one that has to be given up before rivers are once again rivers and mountains are once again mountains.

That is true. But that final relinquishment can only occur after all the other relinquishments have been made.

This business of relinquishing the ideal of enlightenment while still being attached to women, love, happiness, emotions, etc - all the while believing that this is spirituality - is absurd. It is the very definition of worldliness. And yet this is what is being preached within modern religious circles, particularly in modern Buddhism and Taoism.

DQ: The far more significant issue is the attachment that people have towards women, which a single glance at the world reveals is massive, and also to the comfortable, non-idealistic, feminine type of existence which women embody and more and more men crave.

U: I agree that to the extent men are allowing their own natural brand of consciousness to be overrun and sublimated by feminine consciousness, we have a problem. And yes, there's plenty of that going on. Men are now the butt of jokes and the ignorant buffoons in all TV commercials while women always save the day, for example. So yes, I hear you on this. Men should be men.

Where we differ is on whether women should be women.

I personally think women should be human.

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