Colin Wilson

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Alexis,

Are you not simply giving expression to inevitable nihilist notions, the unavoidable facts that arise from this destructive nihilism? Put another way, in what way are these ideas of yours non-nihilist?

They aren't. Or at least my ideas are certainly (hah!) born into a nihilist age with its fading horizons. Even this type of analysis of the condition aggravates the condition, thereby echoing Baudrillard's ideas in 'On Nihilism' which you appear to be reading. Take your searching for a more "real" real, or a more authentic authenticity. My movement is not reactionary that way, and it doesn't oppose anything. It's not even much of an analysis I'd say.

Only when one is dead and no longer present can there be said to be 'no-self'.

And why would that be? Everything making "us" now can easily remake us in some simulation , remembrance, time machines and so on. My point is that even our imagined death is no guaranty of an "ending" (actually the ambitious gamble of the suicidal, as if their death would not make their "being in action" continue, that is: having sustenance, for eternity even).

And as the world shrinks all the erstwhile escape mechanisms (conquering new territories, exploring the unknown, racing off to 'new horizons') become untenable (unsustainable too), what possible horizon could ever be proposed? The 'enlightenment freaks' speak of this unreal thing as if it is a real thing, and this forever mystifies me.

The complete imaginary, the 'unreal" is now all the horizon, a recipe for having also the "undead". New horizons might open up the moment something will truly be able to mystify again, to throw everything thought solid in disarray. Not something to wish for however. Aren't "we" too heavily invested in some of our heaviest elements?

It is not, in fact, an 'other' but it is our own self, that is, our own being, here, in this place. That is the unchangeable fact, the one constant. To say 'you and me' only means a (yes, it indeed must be...) new way of understanding the Self, the primacy of self. It is both the horizon and the point from which one never moves.

This is again about the subject/object relationship. The "other" is a special kind of object because of the level of similarities to mirror and as such communicate with. But in the real world the most significant 'other' to relate to, invoking a myriad of feeling can be an idea, a wish, a longed for being, an inner guide or even just a sports car. Necessarily this all has to arise together and one could say "we are the world" or the other is but our own self, etc.

All these symbols: the anointed of God descending to this realm; the world (as we knew it) ending; the dead becoming living (what is deadened, enlivening); a day of reckoning (inescapable): all these things are deep truths that arise in this place where we (you and I) are.

It's always been about existence, of us, world, things, places (the "order of things"). Existentialism in a metaphysical nutshell. But the question remains still: "is it understood well enough"?

When you speak of horizons, what are you referring to?

Nothing appears without horizon, so the answer would be: everything! But lets also say "meaning".

Finally, I am curious what you do with the fact/concept of alienation, so central to Debord's analysis?

One can even make ones home inside [a sens of] alienation, and in those cases ones nature is one of being alien of course!

[Talking Ass]

And why would that be? Everything making "us" now can easily remake us in some simulation , remembrance, time machines and so on. My point is that even our imagined death is no guaranty of an "ending" (actually the ambitious gamble of the suicidal, as if their death would not make their "being in action" continue, that is: having sustenance, for eternity even).

I think you are mixing (up) the fantasy-element with the factual, biological element. When I speak of the 'you and me' I am speaking of the lowest common denominator: the biological entity. Perhaps to that one could add other solid and known things. What of us could be reproduced in simulation is part of another order and is not 'being' but perhaps derived-being.

I think one needs a reference-point and it seems to me the reference point is the physical person, and there is the locus of his being. Also: it is the thing to which all beings, even those who exist in a completely unreal mental world (in the truly postmodern sense), of fantasy structures in relationship to other fantasy structures, would have to settle back in to if the plug were pulled.

Isn't that really the controlling factor of this spectacular existence (existence-as-spectacle)? That it would utterly fall apart if the plug were pulled. And what is that plug exactly? Wouldn't it have to be the material power-source?

The complete imaginary, the 'unreal" is now all the horizon, a recipe for having also the "undead". New horizons might open up the moment something will truly be able to mystify again, to throw everything thought solid in disarray. Not something to wish for however. Aren't "we" too heavily invested in some of our heaviest elements?

Here again I get the sense you have been 'captured' by a marginal zone: the crucial difference between the factual living and some sort of virtual living. While I certainly agree that 'we' now live in a sort of cyberworld of fantastic spectacle, still at the base of it is strictly the material stuff, the biological stuff of it.

In any case, I was saying that 'being' is only a possession of living, biological beings, and that we have being as long as we are not dead, and when we die we cease to be. This doesn't mean that effects put into motion while alive cannot live on, but that was true in any age.

It's always been about existence, of us, world, things, places (the "order of things"). Existentialism in a metaphysical nutshell. But the question remains still: "is it understood well enough"?

• "If you assume, as I do, that reality is really made up, then you are automatically launched into this wild project conflating fiction and non-fiction. The only choice you've got is whether to acknowledge this or not, whether you will exploit the joints and seams, or not, and whether you will allow the sheer act of writing itself to seem a self-conscious activity, drawing attention to the continuous work of make-believe in art no less than in politics and everyday life. Because they expand the notion of theater in these ways, and because they animate the magic of the state, Brecht and Kafka make congenial company for anyone working with the mix." ----Michael Taussig, Interview

I would say that the answer is most definitely 'no'. And yet there is a temptation to avail ourselves only of the 'analytical residue' in a kind of superficial intellectualism and to get stuck in that. Many people do and it produces some of the most resilient nihilistic stuff. Obviously this would lead one to a 'desperate' grasp after a sort of neo-Taosim (or Buddhism), and perhaps that has valid features, or is part and parcel of an arising New (existential) Knowledge, but it could also be a cop-out, or an easy out. (PS: I mention neo-Taoism, neo-Buddhism because it seems to me it is the 'logical' refuge of the overriding nihilism, a last-ditch effort to regain 'meaning' and a sense of correct movement in a world of chaos).

[Diebert van Rhijn]

While I certainly agree that 'we' now live in a sort of cyberworld of fantastic spectacle, still at the base of it is strictly the material stuff, the biological stuff of it.

Stuff which is multiplying towards the spectacle; and then the obscene. While you're introducing some stuffed pyramid with a "material" base and "ethereal" apex, that model it too static, too limited to work with for me. As if lets say the animal, its behavior and complex of its ritual has for us much to do with biology. Animals do not deal with "material stuff". Its "naturalness" does not lie in any biological aspect.

[Tomas]

While I certainly agree that 'we' now live in a sort of cyberworld of fantastic spectacle, still at the base of it is strictly the material stuff, the biological stuff of it.

Stuff which is multiplying towards the spectacle; and then the obscene. While you're introducing some stuffed pyramid with a "material" base and "ethereal" apex, that model it too static, too limited to work with for me. As if lets say the animal, its behavior and complex of its ritual has for us much to do with biology. Animals do not deal with "material stuff". Its "naturalness" does not lie in any biological aspect.

What? Just when we were about to explore the reasoning behind the building of: The Kings Chamber of the Great Pyramid http://www.ancientegyptonline.com/kingschamber.html

.

[Bob Michael]

You just don't seem to get it, TA. Nor can I make myself any clearer regarding the matter. I suspect you, like the vast multitude, lack keen organismal sensitivity and enough years of life under your belt, both of which are necessary in order to clearly see the tragic nature of the fallen human condition and the way out. Taking off the rose-colored glasses society put on us as youngsters is also a must if we're to live in the solution. Hence, I continue to sit understandingly restlessly-content.

I would add here that taking off the rose-colored glasses (self-delusion) that society put on us as youngsters is impossible for most of us. Hence the ongoing violent, me-me-me, dog-eat-dog nature of the human condition. Since in most of us our minds (consciences) have been structurally malformed by our enculturation by fallen, dehumanized, loveless, and thereby "human, all-too-[rottenly]-human" societies in such a way that reality, truth, or right-action cannot be correctly perceived and discerned. Nor is there any awareness at all that one's mind is damaged or that it functions essentially in a lifeless and time-bound 'thoughtsphere'. One might too say here that in most of us our intuitive mechanism or vital sixth-sense has been murdered by our subpar critical early formative year conditioning. Never to be born again. Hence for most of us, life, from the cradle to the grave, is not a thing of overflowing aliveness and joy, but rather it's more of a living death. If there's such a thing as 'hell', it would be going through one's existence here on the planet earth without living in that glorious, though very, very rare, dimension of love and free-spiritedness.

[Bob Michael]

Bob, forgive me if I have made this point before, but you seem to lack a frame of reference. For you to view humanity as fallen, you must first establish in your own mind where it has fallen from. I contend that you might have taken off your rose-colored glasses but you clearly have not mislaid them. Mankind cannot be in a tragic condition unless it was at one time in a relatively exalted or sublime condition from which it has descended. When might that have been? When men painted caves at Altimara? At the height of the Roman Empire? Maybe during the Dark Ages, or when the Yellow Man chased the Red Man across the intercontinental land bridge between Asia and the New World, or in deepest, darkest Africa before the White Man came.

The past is dead and gone, c/b. And unfortunately man has not learned much from it. However, the 'present and ongoing' human tragedy remains that the species has deteriorated (devolved) to the point that man everywhere lives a state of dehumanized, joyless robotism. Though on the other hand it could be said that he's joyful in his robotic state, such is the terribly botched or 'fallen' condition of the human species.

If there ever was a Garden of Eden, it came at a time when the world was already populated with brutes and savages; having served its purpose, it then disappeared. Humanity has been seeded with the essence of its full flowering, which has yet to come. You cannot compare humanity with a senescent culture on a Petri dish. Bacteria cultures eat the agar, they do not invent new food sources. Humanity has evolved to the point where it is exhausting natural energy resources at the same time it is harnessing solar, wind, atomic, and geothermal energies.

Yes, and with it all this so-called 'progress' man continues to devolve humanly, morally, and spiritually. Which is to also say he's harnessed or is harnessing everything but himself, his own ass. And payback day is soon approaching.

I agree with Alex in that your take on the state of mankind as expressed here reflects a cynicism of yours, and if his point is that the cynicism is not entirely warranted by observable facts, then I agree with that as well.

Cynicism? No, just realism or clearly seeing what-is. Which requires having an exceptional mind. A mind that has managed to make the return to its 'natural state'.

"The sick are the greatest danger for the well. The weaker, not the stronger, are the strong's undoing. It is not fear of our fellow-man, which we should wish to see diminished; for fear rouses those who are strong to become terrible in turn themselves, and preserves the hard-earned and successful type of humanity. What is to be dreaded by us more than any other doom is not fear, but rather the great disgust, not fear, but rather the great pity - disgust and pity for our human fellows.....The morbid are our greatest peril - not the 'bad' men, not the predatory beings. Those born wrong, the miscarried, the broken - they it is, the weakest, who are undermining the vitality of the race, poisoning our trust in life, and putting humanity in question. Every look of them is a sigh, - 'Would I were something other! I am sick and tired of what I am.' In this swamp soil of self-contempt, every poisonous weed flourishes, and all so small, so secret, so dishonest, and so sweetly rotten. Here swarm the worms of sensitiveness and resentment; here the air smells odious with secrecy, with what is not to be acknowledged; here is woven endlessly the net of the meanest of conspiracies, the conspiracy of those who suffer against those who succeed and are victorious; here the very aspect of the victorious is hated - as if health, success, strength, pride, and the sense of power were in themselves things vicious, for which one ought eventually to make bitter expiation. Oh, how these people would themselves like to inflict the expiation, how they thirst to be the hangmen! And all the while their duplicity never confesses their hatred to be hatred." (Nietzsche)

You can't pull the "years-under-the-belt" seniority or that would that would make Tomas more "organismally sensitive" than any of us. Ahem.

I think I said keen organismal sensitivity and having enough years of living experiences under one's belt were necessary. And years of living have nothing to do with one's organismal sensitivity. And even Christ in his time (while he was indeed very highly sensitive) didn't have enough years and living experiences under his belt to be a Master and thereby be effectively instrumental in the genuine liberation of anyone.

One cannot reject all theories of morality and at the same time assume the mantle of Ultimate Moral Arbiter as you do so consistently. And you do not appear to "advocate" anarchism (as in to promote it as a practice), but rather "sit understandingly restlessly-content" (whatever that means) anticipating anarchy for the masses as well as your own inexplicable personal physical salvation.

True morality must be self-determined, not imposed on us by others. Including myself. And anarchism is a dead end street. It's but a vain assertion of a blind and egoic self. One must get away from the blind, ignorant, and violent masses if he's to ever create something revolutionarily new, shining, and above all, everlastingly bright. So it must definitely be an esoteric adventure, since only a very few are fit for successful self-overcoming. And among these few even fewer are willing to take the necessary leap into the unknown. Or undergoing a total death and rebirth experience.

IMO, you display a classic personality disorder that is based in extreme ego-centrism. Because you believe the world to be a shit-hole, it will suffer physical calamity. Because you see your fellow humans as monstrosities, most of them will perish in this Armageddon.

Yes, a grand cleansing of the all-too-many "weak and the botched" is definitely necessary and will soon take place. And many were there that thought Christ and Nietzsche had "personality disorders". Making me sort of pleased that I'm given such a label too, along with "extreme ego-centricism", which is also quite understandable. And I'll be nice here and say no more in this regard.

"The weak and the botched shall perish: first principle of our charity. And one should help them to it. What is more harmful than any vice? - Practical sympathy for the botched and the weak - Christianity." (Nietzsche)

Let me just postulate a random historical example. Let's take the Industrial Revolution in its heyday, before modern wasn't new enough and some genius coined the dubious term "post-modern." Are you, Bob, saying that there was no one who felt the same "organismal" disenfranchisement that you do now? I believe the opposite to be the case. The world that produced Nietzsche must have spawned countless souls who felt population accelerating beyond acceptable bounds, who felt the pace of life becoming increasingly unfriendly to the human soul.

Many have seen the problem but they never got to the root of it. Nor did they find the right approach that's necessary to fix it. That is what can be fixed. Which isn't all that much, that many, I should say. Along with the fact that it's only in the last half century or so that man has developed the means to successfully (and of necessity) destroy most of himself.

"Just as cosmic law controls the devastation man can wreak upon the earth at any time, so cosmic restraint has so far prevented him from unleashing the nuclear force now at his disposal. The balance is so fine that nuclear devastation is a possibility at any moment even though it subsides periodically as a perceived threat. The only certainy - guaranteed by man's current state of self-knowledge - is that he will survive in sufficient numbers to perpetuate the race. This is hardly a comforting thought for the billions who will be destroyed; nor for them to know that the holocaust will have been absolutely necessary for the inevitable progress of westernized culture towards the enlightened race man must someday become.....Man, in spite of his nuclear might and biological villainy, still does not possess the power to wipe out the human race. But he can destroy most of it. And, as I have said, this will be necessary for his evolutionary advancement." (Barry Long)

I suggest that even at that point in history, such apprehension of impending Armageddon was nothing new. I would have to be convinced otherwise - all I have are your assurances that everyone else was lacking, Jesus himself, and you, Bob of Reading, are uniquely competent to ascertain this. Can you explain why previous people who believed just as sincerely as you do that the Big Purge would occur in their lifetimes proved to be deluded, and why you will not ultimately be likewise regarded by those who may remember you after you die?

Yes, those who fully, or near-fully, transcended their humanness clearly realized that they lived in a world of dead and joyless human robots. And that their only hope for experiencing genuinely joyful, unselfish, and harmonious living with their fellow human beings was that a "Big Purge" took place in their lifetime. Which of course never happened for them. Hence they were doomed to live out their days surrounded by unhuman or sub-human human beings. Which is not a very pleasant destiny. One which I continue to suffer first-hand myself.

Just as surely as we are all born to die, every single prediction about the End of Days has so far not come to pass. Might the Big Kahuna not have something else entirely up His sleeve than making the fate of Mankind responsive to one man's disillusionment?

Time alone will tell. Though I remain hopeful and above all sane and selfless through it all. The latter being a feat which many enlightened beings weren't able to do.

Again, people speak of spiritual things without coming to grips with what a Spirit actually is.

Indeed 'spiritual materialism' runs rampant everywhere in these last days.

"Walking the spiritual path properly is a very subtle process, it is not something to jump into naively. There are numerous sidetracks which lead to a disturbed, ego-centered version of spiritually; we can deceive ourselves into thinking we are developing spiritually when instead we are strengthening our egocentricity through spiritual techniques. This fundamental distortion may be referred to as 'spiritual materialism'." (Chogyam Trungpa)

[Bob Michael]

On 'Understanding' Nietzsche.....

The conditions under which any one understands me, and necessarily understands me, I know them only too well. Even to endure my seriousness, my passion, he must carry intellectual integrity to the verge of hardness. He must be accustomed to living on mountain tops--and to looking upon the wretched gabble of politics and nationalism as beneath him. He must have become indifferent; he must never ask of the truth whether it brings profit to him or a fatality to him.....He must have an inclination, born of strength, for questions that no one has the courage for; the courage for the forbidden; predestination for the labyrinth. The experience of seven solitudes. New ears for new music. New eyes for what is most distant. A new conscience for truths that have hitherto remained unheard. And the will to economize in the grand manner--to hold together his strength, his enthusiasm.....Reverence for self; love of self; absolute freedom of self.....

Very well, then! of that sort only are my readers, my true readers, my readers foreordained: of what account are the rest? The rest are merely humanity. One must make one's self superior to humanity, in power, in loftiness of soul--in contempt.

(Nietzsche - preface to 'The Antichrist')

[cousinbasil]

Hence they were doomed to live out their days surrounded by inhuman or sub-human human beings. Which is not a very pleasant destiny. One which I continue to suffer first-hand myself.

You do see my point, I will grant you that. Why can you not also see that this destiny is self-inflicted? You are a mindful person. I am trying to disabuse you of the erroneous, grand, cataclysmic conclusions with which you have inflicted yourself.

Your point is well-taken that historically we now live in an age in which mankind literally can wipe himself from the face of the earth. Nonetheless, I submit that many Armageddonish deadlines have come and gone since the advent of nuclear weapons. I submit nuclear energy has saved more lives tan it has taken. I submit that natural catastrophes have taken more lives than man-made ones in this modern era. (I think it was jupiviv that pointed this out in another thread.)

I also submit that most doom-and-gloom purveyors are in it for material profit and for self ego-stroking.

You can also look at it in a practical way: every body is going to die no matter what. You can do it alone, or you can have company. It won't matter to you.

If in fact you "suffer" something first hand, to what end? Whom does it benefit? Assuming it is not misguided, which I assure you it is. This "restless-contentedness" in which you say you sit sounds like you are on some kind of fence. It is a barbed-wire fence, my friend - you are suffering from being stuck in the behind. Just get off.

[jupiviv]

I actually agree with Bob that mankind is headed for annihilation, as is everything else in the universe, but what I'm concerned about is the annihilation of consciousness, not of joy or life.

The situation that mankind finds itself today is indeed quite bleak, especially if we look at it in the light of the future, but Bob is using this situation to reinforce his own delusions. Being very intelligent, he is able to form a conception of his environment that is in conformance with reality to some extent, and then place it in stark contrast with what he perceives as himself.

Therefore, he lives in his own Castle of Eden waiting to be saved, while looking down contemptuously on the miserable masses outside. I take this as a sign of spiritual and moral bankruptcy.

Bob likes to quote people. In order to show how abysmal the difference between him and the true man of genius is, I leave this extract from Kierkegaard's journals:

"The crowd" is really what I have aimed at polemically, and that I have learned from Socrates. I want to make men aware so that they do not waste and squander their lives. The aristocrats take for granted that there is always a whole mass of men who go to waste. But they remain silent about it, live secluded, and act as if these many, many human beings did not exist at all. This is the wickedness of the aristocrats' exclusiveness — that in order to have an easy life themselves they do not even make people aware.

That is not what I want. I want to make the crowd aware of their own ruin, and if they are unwilling to respond to the good, then I will constrain them with evil. Understand me — or do not misunderstand me. I do not intend to strike them (alas, one cannot strike the crowd) — no, I will constrain them to strike me. Thus I will still be constraining them with evil. For if they strike me first — they will surely become aware — and if they kill me — then they will become unconditionally aware, and I will have won absolute victory. In that respect my constitution is thoroughly dialectical. Already there are many who say, "What does anyone care about Magister Kierkegaard? I'll show him." Ah, but showing me that they do not care about me or taking the trouble to get me to realise that they do not care about me is still dependence. It will work out just that way if one simply has enough ataraxy. They show me respect precisely by showing me that they do not respect me.

Men are not so corrupt that they actually desire evil, but they are blind and really do not know what they are doing. Everything centers on drawing them out into the area of decision. A child can be somewhat unruly toward his father for a long time, but if the father can only get the child to make a real attack, the child is far closer to being saved. The revolt of the "masses" is victorious if we step aside for it so that it never comes to know what it is doing. The crowd is not essentially reflective; therefore, if it puts a man to death, it is eo ipso brought to a stop, becomes aware, and deliberates.

The reformer who, as they say, fights a power (a pope, an emperor, in short, an individual man) has to bring about the downfall of the mighty one; but he who with justice alone confronts "the crowd", from which comes all corruption, must see to it that he himself falls.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

but what I'm concerned about is the annihilation of consciousness

Why would you be concerned? Or do do just find yourself to to concerned about it, without reason? I also mean: where or what is this total summa of consciousness and how could you know it would diminish or increase? Is it concern about a possibility then?

[cousinbasil]

I actually agree with Bob that mankind is headed for annihilation, as is everything else in the universe, but what I'm concerned about is the annihilation of consciousness, not of joy or life.

There can be no consciousness without life.

The situation that mankind finds itself today is indeed quite bleak, especially if we look at it in the light of the future, but Bob is using this situation to reinforce his own delusions. Being very intelligent, he is able to form a conception of his environment that is in conformance with reality to some extent, and then place it in stark contrast with what he perceives as himself.

What do you mean by "look at it [the situation in which mankind finds itself] in light of the future"? If you mean that the present will seem bleak when it enters into history and is seen from the future, I think I agree. This implies that "things will get better." I agree with this also, if it is what you intended, jup. But in the future when those "things" get put on a chart somewhere, that chart will not be monotonic. There will be plenty of periods in which "things get worse before they get better."

[Dennis Mahar]

Rain falls,
humans die.
there is no rain that doesn't fall,
there is no human that doesn't die.

A raindrop in a heavy shower,
according itself special status,
discloses,
that the mystery is ignorance.

[jupiviv]

but what I'm concerned about is the annihilation of consciousness

Why would you be concerned?

For the same reason a rock falls down a cliff. To the degree a person is conscious, he prevents unconsciousness from existing.

I also mean: where or what is this total summa of consciousness and how could you know it would diminish or increase?

I didn't mention anything about a total summa of consciousness. If consciousness exists anywhere, then it is impermanent, just like everything else.

[jupiviv]

There can be no consciousness without life.

If consciousness is defined as "being aware of things" and life is defined as the replication of certain substances, then there can in fact be consciousness without life.

What do you mean by "look at it [the situation in which mankind finds itself] in light of the future"?

I mean that the future seems grim, so the situation in the present is far worse than it looks, since it will lead to that future.

[cousinbasil]

cousinbasil: There can be no consciousness without life.
jupiviv: If consciousness is defined as "being aware of things" and life is defined as the replication of certain substances, then there can in fact be consciousness without life.

I seem to recall lengthy exchanges between yourself and others on this point. I managed to sidestep those, and likewise intend to steer clear of one now. Let me just point out that you make a needless, artificial distinction here. Consciousness is not merely being aware of things, unless one gives vast license to what is classified as a "thing." And life being defined as the replication of "certain substances"? Both definitions are argumentatively restrictive, so I reject them and stand by my statement: Consciousness ==> Life. But not the other way around.

I mean that the future seems grim, so the situation in the present is far worse than it looks, since it will lead to that future.

Of course. How could I have been so off the mark as to interpret your prognosis for mankind to be anything but abysmal? (Forty lashes on self with a wet noodle.) It's not as if I do not read your posts, jupiviv. Perhaps if I walked about Calcutta every day I would feel the same.

I may have mentioned that my own ethnicity is mostly Germanic, which brings with it a corpuscular-level dark outlook which I fight every day. I had a personal physician once with whom I truly identified (also a Kraut) who defined life as the day by day process of dying. He was truly delightful. His job, as he saw it, was merely to retard his patients' demise, which in many cases was getting them (us) to cease suicidal behavior such as smoking, etc. My guess is that this doctor was never asked to be anyone's Little League coach.

I do not look at the world and point to any particular juncture in history and wish I was living then. If that is the case, why would I have been born at a time when things were at their best? There is no reason. Unless people are always born when "things" (in the large) are at their best. Which means in general, over all, shit just gets better. Irrefutable.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

To the degree a person is conscious, he prevents unconsciousness from existing.

But such concern is not the same as the act of "preventing" unconsciousness. It's about being anxious or very interested at least in that possibility of [its own?] annihilation.

A falling rock isn't concerned about that fast approaching surface either, it just prevents weightlessness from existing!

I also mean: where or what is this total summa of consciousness and how could you know it would diminish or increase?

I didn't mention anything about a total summa of consciousness. If consciousness exists anywhere, then it is impermanent, just like everything else.

But you are not concerned about the impermanence of consciousness, are you now? You must have been suggesting some specific instance of annihilation. But it's not clear to me where that annihilation where you concern lies is exactly taking place. Unless it's a theory you're entertaining.

[Talking Ass]

Stuff which is multiplying towards the spectacle; and then the obscene. While you're introducing some stuffed pyramid with a "material" base and "ethereal" apex, that model it too static, too limited to work with for me. As if lets say the animal, its behavior and complex of its ritual has for us much to do with biology. Animals do not deal with "material stuff". Its "naturalness" does not lie in any biological aspect.

If there is a 'pyramid' form to the way 'it' might be conceived, it would relate to Debord's core analysis which is Marxian. I suppose one could make the choice to organize one's perception of 'it' any way that one wanted and whatever view could be made to produce fruit. You tend to get too fancy (and use too many italics) and I think your feet start to come off the ground, which surprises me since you seem so inclined to 'the grounded'. But going back to the original point (my point in any case): nihilism. I have a feeling that 'nihilism' arises from disconnection with meaning(s), meanings that are basic, understandable, common. One way that we might combat the nihilist mood is by sanely coming down from the clouds (of excessive analytical thought, of addiction to and retreat from 'reality' into spectacle)(and perhaps so many other ailments). And one part of that might have to do with relocation on Earth, in the material and biological stuff that is where we are taking place, occurring. It is true, in a Marxian sense, that at the bottom we are all (only) engaged in elaborate and yet mathematically quantifiable material exchanges, transfers, loans, thefts, etc. In any case, I am not at all sure if the basic (pyramidal) model (your interpretation btw) is not perhaps a useful one.

And I am not sure why you moved from spectacle to obscenity. You might just as well have chosen, say, blasphemy or simply the ridiculous.

So, I am not at all unconvinced that there is not a 'more real real' and I am not at all certain that it could not be defined. In fact, unless I have read incorrectly (highly doubtful) everything about the stated purpose of this forum is about defining, discovering and locating oneself within a 'more real real'.

My movement is not reactionary that way, and it doesn't oppose anything. It's not even much of an analysis I'd say.

I wasn't aware of your stating or defining some special movement, but I only hope that if so it doesn't turn out as nebulous and hard to pin down as the term 'infinite' was...

Your statement about animals and 'naturalness' is incomprehensible to me.

[Talking Ass]

Finally, what can anyone say about Bob's strange amalgam of philosophy, religion and myth? There are some places out in the ocean where there converge currents, one from the north, another from the south and one that comes very strong from the east. They meet in a place where there is also a strange upwelling from below. There, the waters are particularly strange and also dangerous, but not 'uninteresting'. On one hand, with a tweak or two, Bob could become an SS trooper with a National Socialist agenda. Or some kind of Opus Dei with a 12-Step twist. It has nothing at all in common with the core of Pauline Christianity, nor does it really assimilate and grasp Nietzsche (though Nietzsche had his own dangerous waters that certai nly have to be considered). Bob's view and perception, on one level, flies in the face of reason and accurate perception and is tied to a sort of resentful emotionalism, simply because he is not able to discern just how really good things are compared to how they have been, not to mention how really bad they might have become. We all can easily become disgusted with ourselves and with others but the dream of annihilation, the desire for it, is that really the way to go? Still, it is a great 'machine with one moving part' (as Bob demonstrated yet again), which is similar to various other 'machines with one moving part' one often hears here.

[Talking Ass]

Nice quote from Kierkegaard, Jupiviv. More evidence of how deeply motivated (in precisely the 'Christian' sense) Kierkegaard was. It is that entire part of Kierkegaard that is deliberately excluded, not seen, certainly in the QRS perception of him. I have never heard you speak in any such terms as Kierkegaard does in that quote. My question: why do you value that? If you value it I assume you imitate it (in your way), and is that how you define yourself? As desiring something for those 'masses'? As being interested and capable of instructing them?

[Three jackasses in a row. For some that equals a Jackpot.]

[Bob Michael]

Seems no one here is sensitive enough or awake enough to realize that everywhere men are machines, and are consequently as good as dead. I suggest studying some of Gurdjieff's works. Though without having sufficient sensitivity even this will be but a thing of vanity.

"Humanity is fast asleep - trapped in interacting patterns of individual neurosis and collective psychosis." (Gurdjieff)

"All the people you see, all the people you know, all the people you may get to know, are machines, actual machines working solely under the power of external influences.....Machines they are born and machines they die. (Gurdjieff to Ouspensky)

"Men are machines. Machines have to be blind and unconscious, they cannot be otherwise, and all of their actions have to to correspond to their nature. Everything happens. No one does anything. 'Progress' and 'civilization' in the real meaning of the words, can appear only as the result of conscious efforts.....And what conscious efforts can there be in machines?....And the unconscious activity of a million machines must necessarily result in destruction and extermination. It is precisely in unconscious involuntary manifestations that all evil lies." (Gurdjieff)

"To restore conscience, requires conscious labors and intentional suffering, carried out through fearless self-observation, self-sensing, self-remembering, and genuine remorse." (Gurdjieff)

These are precisely my views also. Though like so many Gurdjieff never found the right approach for solving the ongoing human dilemma either.

[jupiviv]

Both definitions are argumentatively restrictive

They are if you have different definitions - which means there is no argument in the first place!

Of course. How could I have been so off the mark as to interpret your prognosis for mankind to be anything but abysmal? (Forty lashes on self with a wet noodle.)

I would call it realistic. When the internal aspect declines, the external aspect swells up, sort of like a cancerous tissue. That's what is happening now. But as I said, the only thing I'm concerned about is the survival of consciousness or wisdom. So even if mankind survives for a 100 million more years, it wouldn't be of much value to me if consciousness did not survive with it. At present, I see a serious decline in consciousness in the human race.

[jupiviv]

To the degree a person is conscious, he prevents unconsciousness from existing.

But such concern is not the same as the act of "preventing" unconsciousness. It's about being anxious or very interested at least in that possibility of [its own?] annihilation.

I am conscious of the fact that unconsciousness exists, and that consciousness is essentially my "concern". It has nothing to do with emotions etc.

...you are not concerned about the impermanence of consciousness, are you now? You must have been suggesting some specific instance of annihilation.

Yes, I was talking about the way consciousness is being annihilated within the human race. The evidence for this is really all around you, unless you happen to live on a different planet from mine.

[Bob Michael]

"The crowd" is really what I have aimed at polemically, and that I have learned from Socrates. I want to make men aware so that they do not waste and squander their lives. The aristocrats take for granted that there is always a whole mass of men who go to waste. But they remain silent about it, live secluded, and act as if these many, many human beings did not exist at all. This is the wickedness of the aristocrats' exclusiveness — that in order to have an easy life themselves they do not even make people aware.

Kierkegaard? But another failed flash-in-the-pan. The Aristocrats were just as dead (unconscious) as the masses were.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Yes, I was talking about the way consciousness is being annihilated within the human race. The evidence for this is really all around you, unless you happen to live on a different planet from mine.

Actually I do, miraculously the internet uplink is still acceptable as long as the black hole at V4641 Sagittarii doesn't act up again.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

I have a feeling that 'nihilism' arises from disconnection with meaning(s), meanings that are basic, understandable, common. One way that we might combat the nihilist mood is by sanely coming down from the clouds (of excessive analytical thought, of addiction to and retreat from 'reality' into spectacle)

It's one thing to assert a "disconnect", it's another thing to know why this happened as a process. Why is this disconnection taking place and did anything happen with those "basic understandable common" meanings or did something happen with "us" and are the good old meanings still there to return to? This is an area to explore but using which tools?

And I am not sure why you moved from spectacle to obscenity. You might just as well have chosen, say, blasphemy or simply the ridiculous.

Yes I might have just as well. I only went with it because of the visual relationship between spectacle and scene. In French/Latin it means more like indecent or more interestingly an older meaning of omnious. There are some links with dowsing and divination here you might like. But I didn't realize that when I wrote it at first. I'm not such a clever philologist like Nietzsche!

everything about the stated purpose of this forum is about defining, discovering and locating oneself within a 'more real real'.

It draws the flies all right.

Your statement about animals and 'naturalness' is incomprehensible to me.

The lack of clarity lies mostly in your use of the phrase "the material stuff, the biological stuff of it". Never mind what "it" is. Perhaps it's obvious to you but it really isn't. Did you mean perhaps chemistry? Would that be like invoking hard materialism (at the "base") as a "given". But the materials, its science do not supply meaning and interpretations at all! They do not carry in themselves signs which disqualifies it "as base" from any spectacle or realm of appearances. As such there is no "base" at all where any "material stuff" could lie. It's this lumping together of two quite different ontologies which might block any further fruitful philosophical inquiry here.