Can people change?

[Dennis Mahar]

It's quite simple.
Are you self-established?
Do you run independently under your own steam?

Does the moon 'choose' to orbit the Earth?

You get what you get.
Get it?

Alex, you've been tracking GF for years,
you are a 'reactive experience'.
A No.
You don't know why you are a No.

you think you are special.
you're not.
some kind of pleasure/pain combo's getting it on.
trying to inflict pain/getting pleasure from that.

You went over to KIR to kick heads,
You set up kicking the head of a sick guy, weeks from his death and they threw you out.
You are plugged into all your environments in that way.
getting pleasure inflicting pain
covert hostility.

'Get' your machinery/pattern.
'Grok' it.

Like David said, you got into a fight with your parents and it keeps playing wherever you plug in.

'Get' your machinery.
You get what you get and you got what you got and you will get what you get as a future out of your past.
effect, effect, effect, effect.
causal entanglement,
chain reaction.
'Get' your machinery and the chain reaction snaps.
The aha moment.
You can see the causal chain laid out in your mind's eye, clear as a bell.

You get free of it and experience happiness out of it.

You then set sail on a different course and are 'wised up'.

We're not the same and not different.

[cousinbasil]

you see a girl one day and desire erupts and you follow her around like a puppy
you say I love her

No matter how hard I wish, this never happens!

sometimes you walk in to a room of people and suddenly you feel weak and unconfident

But if sometimes I don't, then this doesn't appear to corroborate what you are saying.

someone calls out stop thief! and a flash of guilt arises perhaps and a sudden, slight reddening of the face

I can only assume that you are talking about yourself with this one.

hunger arises and you go to the fridge

If I am home and if it is convenient. Again, it is difficult to see your point. Is it that I experience hunger? Besides, when I get to the fridge, I choose what I scarf down.

tiredness sets in and you fall asleep

What if I am behind the wheel? I may choose to pull over at the next hotel. Or I may decide that I want to squeeze another hundred miles out of the day.

Dennis, your entire fallacious argument rests on your erroneous belief in this next part:

A techie on an MRI machine can scan your brain
and ask you to choose between several things,
from looking at the screen he can tell what you'll pick between 3-9 seconds before the choice becomes conscious for you.

This is a hazy fragment of a factoid you picked up while dozing through a TV program some time back. For instance, what makes the techie ask you to choose between several things? What is he plugged into?

You're a machine plugged into its environment
tracking pleasure/avoiding pain.
like an electric toaster making toast.

Utter nonsense. And a bad mixing of metaphors, since toasters do not track pleasure or avoid pain - unless they have come a long way since I last bought one.

Although you do seem quite toaster-like, popping out regular posts like slightly burnt, dry uniform pieces of Wonder Bread.

You persist in dumbing-down the human experience. My guess is your own life is not as machine-like as you want to paint all life.

[Dennis Mahar]

You've got to be kidding basil.

the bodymind runs itself.
it's said 99% of its operating is unconscious.
unconscious to who?
It's not unconscious in anyway.
it's monitoring environments directly.
its rapaciously scanning stimuli.
its driven.
its reactive.
its a machine.
its looking for growth opportunity for pleasure and avoiding danger to avoid pain.

I don't do anything. There is no I.

It's not self-established.
It is not running under its own steam.
It's causes/conditions.

How can an I say 'my heart is beating'
I'm breathing.
I'm thinking.
I'm seeing.
I'm hearing.
I'm choosing.

An I is doing none of those things.

Where is the I?
It's never been found except as a thought.

[cousinbasil]

You've got to be kidding basil.

Dead serious, mate.

the bodymind runs itself.
it's said 99% of its operating is unconscious.
unconscious to who?

To the other 1%.

Not every action is a mere reflex. There is a nervous system and an autonomous nervous system, in case you have forgotten.

It is difficult to control one's breathing, but not impossible. It takes a lot of work by that so-called 1% to master. If it is all reactive, then describe the process of learning to control one's breath in purely mechanical terms, the hows, the whys of it.

You can't Which is why you never do. You never respond to particular objections like:

For instance, what makes the techie ask you to choose between several things? What is he plugged into?

I'm breathing.
I'm thinking.
I'm seeing.
I'm hearing.
I'm choosing.

An I is doing none of those things.

More burnt toast.

This is uncritical at best. Breathing is autonomic because it is crucial - so you do not have to think about each breath. This frees you to think about other things.

I agree that repeated action tends to make it unconscious and automatic - this is a feature of the creature, so to speak. Put a Stradivarius into your hands and what comes out? Terrible sounds, random groaning of a piece of wood that you claim a machine made. Put it into hands of a maestro, and the result is different. This is because the hand/mind/eye/soul connection has been honed. One wills the pretty notes. The maestro gets them, but you don't. Why? Effort. Effort you are claiming is reactive and machine-like. Countless hours of labor went into making this moment seem effortless. This effort is deliberate. It cannot happen without an I. There is your I. The maestro has practiced, and you haven't. You never will - wouldn't your view of the human animal prevent such a thing?

[Talking Ass]

*scratches head, truly puzzled*

Dennis, then who is writing your posts? Who, or what, is the one who sees here? It seems to me that we have to accept the (perhaps better expressed as) 'non-conscious' as what drives a great deal of our 'understructure'. But though this is so---and you would have to admit it is true unless you declare that you are a robot, in which case you have no standing at all to offer any sort of opinion---humans and animals (to a more limited degree) are part of consciousness that can choose. Personally, I do indeed think we are largely determined, but I also think there is a part of us that is not, and it is this part that we have to work with. Everything hinges upon that. So much seems to turn on beginning to see what is being determined, what runs unconsciously, and how our consciousness decides to deal with that fact.

An unrelated, or partially related thought:

• What is an eclipse except a disruption in the machinery of the creation? With no warning the life-giving sun is attacked, impinged upon by an invisible force, some sort of demon, who swallows the sun and threatens to consume it---indeed does consume it and challenges the celestial power that seems to man invincible, eternal. In the brightness of the day the blue and bright sky turns dark, the stars come out, and the world believes it is night. But this only lasts a few minutes and then, even more strangely, the sun is released from imprisonment, the shadow-demon passes over, the world returns to normalcy as if nothing had happened. For ‘the world’ has no memory. But for men this memory, like a wound, is an ominous warning and a presage of things to come, and it stays with him. We understand that this life we have, even the understructure of it, its solidity and predictability, is really not so substantial after all. That at any moment, and determined by the will of incomprehensible forces we cannot control, the fabric of life will be punctured, ripped open, and we will get a terrifying, magnificent, glimpse behind appearances and see the glowing fibers upon which the creation is strung, against a background of incomprehensible, dark force.
  
  (From a story I am working on called Eclipse) (I am, after all, a flea-bitten ass with great good-will and literary pretensions...)

[Bob Michael]

The reason I put things in such stark terms is in the hope that these words will penetrate *someone* or *anyone* around here and at least cause them to consider things with a little more depth and seriousness.

A few words to the potentially wise will suffice. But you just don't seem to get it, TA.

[mental vagrant]

You've got to be kidding basil.

Dead serious, mate.

the bodymind runs itself.
it's said 99% of its operating is unconscious.
unconscious to who?

To the other 1%.

Not every action is a mere reflex. There is a nervous system and an autonomous nervous system, in case you have forgotten.

It is difficult to control one's breathing, but not impossible. It takes a lot of work by that so-called 1% to master. If it is all reactive, then describe the process of learning to control one's breath in purely mechanical terms, the hows, the whys of it.

You can't Which is why you never do. You never respond to particular objections like:

For instance, what makes the techie ask you to choose between several things? What is he plugged into?

I'm breathing.
I'm thinking.
I'm seeing.
I'm hearing.
I'm choosing.

An I is doing none of those things.

More burnt toast.

This is uncritical at best. Breathing is autonomic because it is crucial - so you do not have to think about each breath. This frees you to think about other things.

I agree that repeated action tends to make it unconscious and automatic - this is a feature of the creature, so to speak. Put a Stradivarius into your hands and what comes out? Terrible sounds, random groaning of a piece of wood that you claim a machine made. Put it into hands of a maestro, and the result is different. This is because the hand/mind/eye/soul connection has been honed. One wills the pretty notes. The maestro gets them, but you don't. Why? Effort. Effort you are claiming is reactive and machine-like. Countless hours of labor went into making this moment seem effortless. This effort is deliberate. It cannot happen without an I. There is your I. The maestro has practiced, and you haven't. You never will - wouldn't your view of the human animal prevent such a thing?

What is conciousness, I'd wager that it is valid and pertinent to ascribe different layers of conciousness to different definitions; it is mechanical whether we like it or not. The pot of gold hinges upon a fair hair like stand, depending on how we examine the gold we could loose some to our pockets. Gentility is the humour of the hour.

The sympathetic nervous system, that which the parietal lobes crouds ethics dictate the Tango of said Stradivarius's with wand, is be definition a higher order process involving complex procedural memory and other stuff. Autonomic nervous system which is the sympathetic and para-sympathetic reside in the brain stem - It is plausible that control over certain processes is illusionary, and if not a partial

[Talking Ass]

I don't get what, Bob? That you can talk until your tongue goes numb and your wrist dislocates from gesticulations and they don't, nay never will 'geddit'?

But YOU geddit, right? Or, you geddit and I don't?!

Oh now I'm getting confused...

;-)

[jufa]

Talking Ass states: I certainly agree with what you say, and it is certainly true that differences in view are the cause of conflict, but I am not at all sure if that can be avoided. It cannot be avoided. Relativism assures this.Yet, because there is a multiplicity of view, there is also not a monopoly of view, which would be a sort of intellectual fascism, wouldn't it? Intellectual facism can only occur, from my point of view, when mind control is absolute.

There is another potential ramification of 'not stepping up to the plate' and CONFRONTING what we (you, me, anyone) perceives as a badly formulated idea, and that is that our complacency may allow certain ideas and views to spread, like a virus.Fear of stepping up and becoming responsible is indeed a fear factor. But in the final analysis, whatsoever maybe influential upon one can only take place if one bend from their own integrity. The buck always stops with the individual. Should it stop with the individual it cannot spread. With this, and sincerely and without reservations, I say in direct terms and without mincing words: I believe the neo-Buddhist formulations I critique are destructive ideas and they can and will do harm in the persons they infect. I have, in truth, very little negative animus against anyone here and a great part of my shtick is feined anger.This is something you must deal with. You can keep opening the door for anger to enter, or you can close it

The interesting thing is how an idea-set that once we believed and defended, at another period, is one we no longer accept---we have outgrown it. It is therefore wise to hold to a little humility. One might have to 'eat one's words. Indoctrination sets individual idealism from my point of view. But in the end, I say Righteousness shall prevail. Righteousness to me is consciously attempting adherence to the the first two commandments

They will come for her in the morning, and they may come for you in the evening...if both of you are preaching, and inciting, a violent, 'revolutionary' confrontation with the state, and if you desire to unite your urban army with that of other urban armies peopled by romantic, resentful, sons and daughters of the very same structures one is fighting, rather blindly, against. With your example, I would *simply mention* that ideas have consequences in our world, and that sometimes, at least for the sake of an exercise, we have to take a side. In fact, we really do have to take a side. We have to define our values and we have to live those values in the world. And we may even have to fight for our values, even if we are very imperfect people. Agreed with your analysis from this point of view. The Jewish community of post ww11 Germany would not.

I see this as a sophistry, to be quite honest. You have begun from an idealistic position, almost of a Platonic Absolute, and with that assertion seem to go on to define all possible ideas and choices as relative to your ideal. At least that is what I read. But in actual fact, there may very well be very concrete and real things worth fighting for, and even dying for. If it is true, and I am not saying I believe it true or accept the source from whense it came, that "Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends", what might this mean in our world? What *value* in fact is being talked about? True, this is a mystical quote from a mystical, Christian document and refers, more than anything to the (supposed) Christian sacrifice, but does it have any other, general value? What solid and concrete values do we live for? Or does it all become indistinct and hazy ['valueless, meaningless'] in a relativistic and dim (fading) light? Will you apply this to your relationship with Dennis? It surely seems as though you will not let anything concerning your stance opposing his turn you around. I do not consider the quote mystical.

With a great deal of (attempted) humor (in the form of a cartoon character I might add, with an 21 inch pecker, yellowing teeth and a messianic mission) I am suggesting that there is a great deal more to be thought about. That 'our traditions' and the intellectual and spiritual work of uncountable generations of men (I mean 'the Occidental Opus') is not to be simply dismissed with an imperious, arrogant gesture by some young Vandals high on Zen fumes. I have made many different attempts to explain this, indeed all my posts are filled with references to ways that truth, beauty and value have been, can be, and are expressed in our highly perishable world. To this I say

Every element of life which enters and exist as an individual unit in the word of matter is consciously aware. This awareness automatically makes one intelligent in their own manner regardless. This intelligence is ones flow of knowledge adaptable to ones living conditions, circumstances and situations. Knowledge brings forth the grasping of ones particular life style. Grasping becomes the foundation of ones understanding of give and take. Understanding is ones comprehension of their outer objective vision and inner subjective feelings of thinking in order to move with ease in awareness, intelligence, knowledge, grasping, understanding and comprehension of one living between two worlds. Yet in all this, one lacks the Wisdom of being able to incorporate all these avenues of thought into the fruit of the Spirit of "the law of the Spirit of life." - jufa

I find these 'conversations' facinating when they RISE to be actual, bona fide, consequential debates and arguments. Unfortunately for me, Dennis doesn't rise...he sinks! ;-)

In agreement.

Quote:
Jufa wrote: Everything in the known universe, whether consciousness, free will thought, or man himself is a solid mass without inertia until the vibration of movement give purpose to intent.
Shouldn't you have written "Everything in the known universe, whether consciousness, free will thought, or man himself is a solid mass with inertia [a solid, inert mass] until the vibration of movement give purpose to intent"?

Aren't you trying to say that it is the Idea (whatever in truth this is) that sets in motion?

I am saying just what I meant. Thoughts, ideas, and man himself lies dormant until the Spirit OF moves. You, I, nor anyone else could be until the Spirit of desire moves from intangible to tangible awareness.

Never give power to anything a person believes is their source of strength - jufa

[Dennis Mahar]

If your 'I' was choosing.

'Your' Life would show up differently would it not?

'You' would probably 'choose' not to grow old, get sick, die.

'You' would probably 'choose' that your loved ones would not grow old, get sick or die.

'You' would probably 'choose' to be more handsome, richer.

Are 'you' self-established?
Are 'you' in control?

Is there another scenario going on?

Is eyesight something 'I' chose or 'I' got, like a condition?
In the case of a blind man,
Is blindness something 'he' chose or 'he' got, like a conditon?

Is the sense of an 'I choose' something 'I chose',
or is it something 'I' got,
like a condition?

[Dennis Mahar]

MV,

What is conciousness, I'd wager that it is valid and pertinent to ascribe different layers of conciousness to different definitions; it is mechanical whether we like it or not.

Yes.
It looks like most of the existential machines showing up on this forum have abandoned Reason for beliefs.
When an Inquiry into their beliefs is conducted,
they disappear or resort to insult.

Inquiry into belief gets violence as automatic reaction.

[Tomas]

-Ass Munch-
I find these 'conversations' facinating when they RISE to be actual, bona fide, consequential debates and arguments. Unfortunately for me, Dennis doesn't rise...he sinks! ;-)

-jufa-
In agreement.

-tomas-
Alright. Explain the two of you.

[Talking Ass]

Ass-Munch replies: Jufa has ascended to the 33rd level of inter-spacial harmony. I have been hovering right around 50-52 for about 6 years now. My wonderfulness stays constant even as I try to drag y'all to the higher zones. And I admit I underestimated the difficulty. So far, I have brought 7 (seven) to the Promised Land but I promise I won't give up on you! I am indeed wonderful. Tomas, taking this into account, could you give a L'il Ass a kiss? Hmmmmm?

[Blair]

So what is your point, Alex?

That everything is a joke, fodder for humour and we dance through life without a care in the world because it's not worth getting stressed about. Something like that?

Be honest now. Is that the case? and if so it also applies to you; being a joke, not worthy of anything but being laughed about.

So what is your point now? What are you getting at? Would it perhaps have something to do with you are a sinking ship and you want to take everyone with you?

Your script is old, tired, been heard before, was once amusing but no more.

[Tomas]

Ass-Munch replies: Jufa has ascended to the 33rd level of inter-spacial harmony. I have been hovering right around 50-52 for about 6 years now. My wonderfulness stays constant even as I try to drag y'all to the higher zones. And I admit I underestimated the difficulty. So far, I have brought 7 (seven) to the Promised Land but I promise I won't give up on you! I am indeed wonderful. Tomas, taking this into account, could you give a L'il Ass a kiss? Hmmmmm?

No, no no no. It was in relation to Dennis. How jufa says, 'In agreement'. I, too, find Dennis a bit difficult to translate and so it's 'easier' to not read as carefully maybe it's the Oz behavior or he just consumed too much beer and LSD in his younger years...

I happened to be here and saw jufa was surfing and didn't reply himself. Maybe he needs his wife's permission to post (formulate) all replies to you. Since you and him are in agreement regarding Dennis, he may be the better kisser at this time, 'specially so close to xmas..

And if Rudolph isn't leading Santa's reindeer .. will you be standing in?

PS - jufa may be hovering at 33 and you 50-52 and Dennis down under numbered at Oz .. but I'm still 16th Degree Scottish Rite Free Mason.

[cousinbasil]

If your 'I' was choosing.

'Your' Life would show up differently would it not?

'You' would probably 'choose' not to grow old, get sick, die.

'You' would probably 'choose' that your loved ones would not grow old, get sick or die.

'You' would probably 'choose' to be more handsome, richer.

Now you are the one who must be joking. This is why I am saying you are "choosing" to believe this nonsense instead of accepting and understanding the real world.

I submit to you if you never made a choice (or, equivalently, if there was no such agency that made choices) your life would show up differently - that is, if it showed up at all. If it did, it would most likely not be for very long.

You are summarily dismissing every human struggle, every triumph of the human will, every ounce of human effort. It is true that many men are born into wealth - but if even one man has wrested it from the ground by the sweat of his brow and the callouses on his hands and soul, your viewpoint is entirely worthless.

Are 'you' self-established?
Are 'you' in control?

Am I an island? Just because I am not in control of the entire world does not mean I do not exist, or das Ich is merely a delusion. Honestly, Dennis, you sound like someone who ran into a disappointment at a certain point in time and decided to substitute rational thinking with this cartoonish philosophy.

If the I is such a delusion, then try to remove it from your life and see what happens. Society still holds you accountable for your actions and inactions. However, there is an encoaching mass delusion that nothing is anyone's fault, that no one can be held responsible for anything, because someone or something else always made one do whatever one has done. Your view, in short. If the buck stops anywhere, then it stops everywhere. Why can you not see this? No - you fail to come to grips with your own mediocrity. If I had any choice, we'd all live forever, and never be sick, and all be rich, too. No one's blaming you, that's not the point.

Tomorrow it will be cold outside. I will be sorely tempted to pull the covers over my head and call in sick. Since I am a mere machine, suppose you tell me what I will decide to do?

And again, you fail to respond to specific points I am making.

[Dennis Mahar]

Tomas,

he just consumed too much beer and LSD in his younger years...

that's a nasty aspersion Tomas, you have no evidence of that.

[jufa]

-Ass Munch-
I find these 'conversations' facinating when they RISE to be actual, bona fide, consequential debates and arguments. Unfortunately for me, Dennis doesn't rise...he sinks! ;-)

-jufa-
In agreement.

-tomas-
Alright. Explain the two of you.

I should have added my agreement with Talking Ass did not include the second sentence concerning Dennis.

Dennis, I have no problem with you, your way of thinking, nor the Founders of this Forum. You are the one who inspired me to write my post "Indoctrination which shape destinies subliminally" when I read your story how you were taught from age three, told who you were and your football team was, etc, etc.

Never give power to anything a person believes is their source of strength - jufa

[Dennis Mahar]

If I had any choice, we'd all live forever, and never be sick, and all be rich, too.

Yes, you have no choice because you don't exist in the way you think you do.
You are causes/conditions...pieces/parts.
There is no independent I separately existing.
To think otherwise is the delusion.

[Dennis Mahar]

Thanks jufa,
as I've come to understand your message due to more exposure I've connected with it and love it.
Keep up the good work.

[cousinbasil]

If I had any choice, we'd all live forever, and never be sick, and all be rich, too.

Yes, you have no choice because you don't exist in the way you think you do.
You are causes/conditions...pieces/parts.
There is no independent I separately existing.
To think otherwise is the delusion.

You missed my gist here - I put this in Italics to indicate this is what I think your viewpoint is - it certainly is not mine! I am paraphrasing what I hear you saying.

You keep saying this and have not even attempted to back it up, despite my assorted objections.

First, you do not have an accurate view of "the way I think I exist," so you cannot logically tell me that I do not exist in the way I think I do.

I wonder if you understand how puerile your assertions are. Your objection is: If I had any choice, we'd all live forever, and never be sick, and all be rich, too. We do not all live forever, etc., therefore I have NO choice.

This is like coming up with the triumphant realization that there is no old man with a beard in the sky and concluding therefore there is no god.

It's not even juvenile, it's infantile.

You may not have gotten that puppy you wanted for Christmas one year. Who knows? But agreeing with your assertion that there is no I anywhere - that no one can do anything but robotically react - is completely equivalent to to claiming that no one can be responsible for even the slightest action. Let's open up the prisons because their very existence is based on the delusion that the incarcerated had any responsibility for the acts that got them there. Let's not waste time with concepts like ethics and moral values.

Your viewpoint is quite convenient if you expect to be taken care of, because you are philosophically indisposed to taking care of yourself, let alone anyone else.

Good luck.

[mental vagrant]

If I had any choice, we'd all live forever, and never be sick, and all be rich, too.

Yes, you have no choice because you don't exist in the way you think you do.
You are causes/conditions...pieces/parts.
There is no independent I separately existing.
To think otherwise is the delusion.

You missed my gist here - I put this in Italics to indicate this is what I think your viewpoint is - it certainly is not mine! I am paraphrasing what I hear you saying.

You keep saying this and have not even attempted to back it up, despite my assorted objections.

First, you do not have an accurate view of "the way I think I exist," so you cannot logically tell me that I do not exist in the way I think I do.

I wonder if you understand how puerile your assertions are. Your objection is: If I had any choice, we'd all live forever, and never be sick, and all be rich, too. We do not all live forever, etc., therefore I have NO choice.

This is like coming up with the triumphant realization that there is no old man with a beard in the sky and concluding therefore there is no god.

It's not even juvenile, it's infantile.

You may not have gotten that puppy you wanted for Christmas one year. Who knows? But agreeing with your assertion that there is no I anywhere - that no one can do anything but robotically react - is completely equivalent to to claiming that no one can be responsible for even the slightest action. Let's open up the prisons because their very existence is based on the delusion that the incarcerated had any responsibility for the acts that got them there. Let's not waste time with concepts like ethics and moral values.

Your viewpoint is quite convenient if you expect to be taken care of, because you are philosophically indisposed to taking care of yourself, let alone anyone else.

Good luck.

From what i've read, cousinbasil and Dennis Mahar, stop talking about a page ago. You've regressed to expressing emotions in your separate ways. Loose the petty insults, they detract from your contribution (since they aren't funny :P).

The syllogism is illogical to me, but DM is applying a umbrella metaphor to a small case and we know aphorisms aren't scalable, hence rarely apply to low order cases. To say that mechanics we are, is not to diminsh our value to ourselves, morality, ethics, poetry, etc are still embued in reality. Must label things properly and take a step at a time, distinguishing entirety in a few posts is fatuous (to be generous). Identities, mosaics, clouds, to give them Proper Nouns is natural and not in conflict with either view (as far as i can read).

We need to establish what things are before allowing ethics affect them, morality should be free to evolve as i'd argue it does, based on my introspective talks.

[Tomas]

-Ass Munch-
I find these 'conversations' facinating when they RISE to be actual, bona fide, consequential debates and arguments. Unfortunately for me, Dennis doesn't rise...he sinks! ;-)

-jufa-
In agreement.

-tomas-
Alright. Explain the two of you.

I should have added my agreement with Talking Ass did not include the second sentence concerning Dennis.

Dennis, I have no problem with you, your way of thinking, nor the Founders of this Forum. You are the one who inspired me to write my post "Indoctrination which shape destinies subliminally" when I read your story how you were taught from age three, told who you were and your football team was, etc, etc.

Never give power to anything a person believes is their source of strength - jufa

Thank you. We have ways of making you talk plain english. That is, middle american.

PS - There will be a "group hug" 'round the xmas tree awaiting Santa. Dennis and jufa will circle around to the back yard of the house and confront Talking Ass, who's sitting in for Rudolph (the red nose). He will be easy to spot.. the one with the glow-in-the-dark, 21-inch pecker.. and if he isn't circumcised, well, Blair will be bringing his Australian outback machete for such an occasion.

Last, but not least, as this thread was created by Alice .. she'll decide what happens to Ass Munch's "1 pound lighter" remains.

BTW, I'm not circumcised.

Happy Hanukkah everyone.

Warm Regards,
Tomas (the tank)
Prince of Jerusalem
16 Degree
Scottish Rite Free Mason

VietNam veteran - 1971

[Talking Ass]

According to Jufa's own doctrine, he cannot disagree with anyone or come out against any particular mental construct, and must say: "I have no problem with you, your way of thinking, nor the Founders of this Forum" and "Who can teach another the ways of life when life is unconditional and all man's beliefs, acknowledgments, and laws for and of living came to him from the same source of those he sees his reflection in?"

It is the perfect, universalist viewpoint. It's the viewpoint for the one who sits in the Catbird Seat...

I was going through some of my notes yesterday evening and came across a quote, by Hugo Rahner in 'Greek Myths and Christian Mystery' which, if I underdstand Jufa's position (not that easy in fact), may reflect it or express it in some way:

• "The divine word of Scripture is a mystery and behind the immediate sense of the words and images, nay, behind the whole historical account of our salvation, there are hidden unimaginable riches of the spirit and possibilities, wholly beyond our conception, of ascending to that truth of which we can form no picture at all. If a man has been granted the power to behold the truth, then all that his senses perceive is for him nothing more than the ultimate extremity, jutting into this dark world, of another world infinitely more real than this. It is but a petty reflection, a mere imprint of what, in the vastness of the mind of God, is the ultimate ground and ultimate end of all things."

What I find a little odd is how our own Dennis---bless his robotic, non-existing 'I'---can concur with such an expression of mystical Christianity---that is if I am right in ascribing such a view to Jufa, or as one expressing similitude. I have to confess that I myself find Jufa very difficult to pin down. I have begun to accept that his metaphysic is simply of another, incomprehenisble order and I'll never *understand* it. Indeed, it is not meant to be understood. It is perhaps that with this Dennis 'agrees', since Dennis's position is essentially untenable, incommensurate with basic logic, and indeed is disproved and contradicted by every post of his. His own self is a refutation of his own argument!

Right, right, excuse me: I forgot! We are somehow allowed such astounding contradictions if it fits into a certain aesthetic, supported by something like 'groupthink' (I mention David Quinn as one who has made the mystical plunge into the logically untenable).

I wish to point out that though this is true (about illogical positions that self-contradict) there is still very much a 'will-to-power' expressed through it. It desires to demonstrate itself as 'correct', to strut around in a logical crown. To receive honors, etc. With all this it does not surprise me that Dennis, Jufa and David (the Founders) seem to be able to find commonality and have agendas one and the other can support: their core position is not dependant on logic! It doesn't matter if it is shown to be unsupportable! Inconsistent! It magically resurrects even if you have cut it to peices, literally shredded it! (And for myself I see that Basil, with a very simple application of a basic logic, did just that. Done. Argument defeated.)

But if the 'will' is there, even a sheer falacious construct need not die! In fact, it rises from the dead and haunts the world...(a rather pathetic reference to the death and resurrection of Jesus).

One small note, for humor's sake:

Dennis wrote: It looks like most of the existential machines showing up on this forum have abandoned Reason for beliefs.

An 'existential machine' could have no reason nor any 'belief'. The very construct negates itself. Its negation is contained within itself. One needs a viewer, a seer, who is not such an existential machine. And who might that be? Could a robot make such an observation that was not merely robotic?

;-)

[Dennis Mahar]

everything that is happening can happen without 'I'.


go around the other way and show me how you are self established.

An 'existential machine' could have no reason nor any 'belief'.

Why not?
an existential machine can have characteristics, properties, functions.
The 'I' claims ownership of those characteristics,
properties, functions.

That is what is refuted.
The existence of an I and its claims of ownership.