What is reality, what is a 2x4?

Discussion of the nature of Ultimate Reality and the path to Enlightenment.
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Talking Ass
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Re: What is reality, what is a 2x4?

Post by Talking Ass »

Laird, a couple of comments as I have little time. Blake, in essence, seems a very interior sort of man. A classic introvert in many ways. He seems to deal on heaven and hell as the very plane of his own experience of self. His 'process' (though a contemptible word) is interior, and what he deals with is the (inner) marriage of heaven and hell, and hell is in many ways the cruel, thoughtless, physical reality. Though heaven opposes hell, he seems to understand that it is required to achieve internal union between these forces, and the ground for that is in his (our) own self(es). There are.links perhaps to Taoist and oriental notions, but it also seems to have links to alchemical ideas and symbols. Jungians are especially curious about Blake because in his symbols they see much alchemical psychology. Blake is a.radical insofar as he interiorized and also subverted the typical narrative of Christianity, and applied it dynamically within himself. Kierkegaard took up other radical banners...and so did Nietzsche.
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Dan Rowden
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Re: What is reality, what is a 2x4?

Post by Dan Rowden »

guest_of_logic wrote:Sometimes, an expression of concern for another person's suffering serves to delegitimise what they have to say, as in, "Come, you're just unwell. None of this is real. Here, take this pill and it will all be gone in the morning (and we can go back to pretending that reality is nice and simple)".
Yeah, sorry, people suffering certain illnesses should continue to believe whatever they want and should not be discouraged in any way from doing so, right up to the point where they harm themselves or others. Carry on.

Oh, and your characterisation of the difference between being significantly ill and delusional and the reality experienced when one is medicated was simply asinine.
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Re: What is reality, what is a 2x4?

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Simply...asinine. I am.getting.the impression you don't mean that as I would.understand it---a good thing?
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David Quinn
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Re: What is reality, what is a 2x4?

Post by David Quinn »

guest_of_logic wrote:So, for me, the question of why and how evil exists and why it is permitted to exist is still an unanswered one.
Whew! That was a lucky escape! Got to watch out for those answers. They are real devils, answers.

We could say that evil is consciousness and that the human race is firmly on the side of good.

For an atheist, the answer is easy, albeit (in my opinion) lacking: no explanation is required, evil is simply a human interpretation of an aspect of "the way things are".

If the atheist was intelligent he would probably ask you to define or clarify what evil is and then, from that basis, proceed to solve it for you - and in so doing would move over to the side of evil. But I'm sure you would put up a good fight.

If you were to go over to the side of evil, would you still consider yourself to be evil?


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Re: What is reality, what is a 2x4?

Post by guest_of_logic »

Dan Rowden wrote:Oh, and your characterisation of the difference between being significantly ill and delusional and the reality experienced when one is medicated was simply asinine.
The problem is that it's not straightforward to separate "significantly ill and delusional" from "honestly experiencing alternate aspects of reality". Sometimes, being open to and experiencing a wider spiritual reality is the cause of delusions, and not part of the delusions - this is what motivated my last post; that it's wrong to dismiss much of what a "significantly ill and delusional" person says and believes as "merely delusional". Things aren't that cut and dried.

Sometimes, the choice between medicated and unmedicated is a choice between "at peace but very limited in perception, and in a way cowardly for blocking out the parts of reality that frighten and challenge one" and "troubled but honestly and bravely open to a wider perception of reality in which one can grow spiritually (or, yes, fail spiritually)". This choice isn't always an obvious one.
David Quinn wrote:We could say that evil is consciousness
We could, but then we'd be talking about something different. Why change the subject, or do you have some sort of reasoning behind that statement that preserves the meaning of "evil" and justifies the statement?
David Quinn wrote:If you were to go over to the side of evil, would you still consider yourself to be evil?
Probably, yes. I think it is probably true that evil delights in being evil.

But then, I'm answering according to the typical definition of "evil", not by your redefinition of the word.

Actually, though, I think Nietzsche was close to a plausible answer, I'd just modify what he wrote into this: evil exists to force good to evolve higher. Through exposure to the torments of evil, and through dealing with those torments, good becomes more resilient, patient, intelligent, capable, etc. According to this understanding, it is not really "bad" to be "evil", because evil performs a necessary function, and to delight in being evil is not such an unthinkable thing. By this understanding, evil acts out of love too, in the sense of acting to improve others. There is an echo of this in the way the GF dynamic is defined: harshly attacking one another (evil) with the intention (loving) of improving one another (for the good).

If this is the correct understanding, then the next questions I'd ask would be:

1. Is this process of evolution eternal, or will at some point (perhaps periodically) evil be reintegrated with good?

2. Does good retain ultimate control, so a balance is assured, or is it possible that the balance between good and evil could sway into evil's favour with no guarantee of it returning?
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Re: What is reality, what is a 2x4?

Post by Elizabeth Isabelle »

guest_of_logic wrote:evil exists to force good to evolve higher. Through exposure to the torments of evil, and through dealing with those torments, good becomes more resilient, patient, intelligent, capable, etc. According to this understanding, it is not really "bad" to be "evil", because evil performs a necessary function, and to delight in being evil is not such an unthinkable thing.
But good does not always evolve higher after being exposed to evil. Sometimes good gets crippled, sometimes good goes over to the evil side, and sometimes good literally just dies.
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Re: What is reality, what is a 2x4?

Post by cousinbasil »

Elizabeth Isabelle wrote:
guest_of_logic wrote:evil exists to force good to evolve higher. Through exposure to the torments of evil, and through dealing with those torments, good becomes more resilient, patient, intelligent, capable, etc. According to this understanding, it is not really "bad" to be "evil", because evil performs a necessary function, and to delight in being evil is not such an unthinkable thing.
But good does not always evolve higher after being exposed to evil. Sometimes good gets crippled, sometimes good goes over to the evil side, and sometimes good literally just dies.
That this is debatable is really, really alarming.

When I was in college, I worked in a bakery during the summer. It got to be 120 degrees in front of that huge oven. My boss and co-worker would guzzle hot coffee all morning. He always looked like he was about to keel over. So I asked him why he drank a hot beverage in such a steam-bath atmosphere. He answered, "Boy, are you stupid! When you drink something hot, the heat goes from the inside out - which is where you want it to be!" It rarely pays to argue with the boss, especially this one, but I may have pointed out that the heat may go from the inside out, but you have just put more in there in the first place. No, I decidedly found guzzling cool water was the answer - it even made me sweat more, which is what my genius employer was trying to get at with his coffee.

Which is like tolerating evil situations because they eventually spur you to become a better person. And one might bang one's head against the wall because it feels so good when one stops.

I have to agree with Elizabeth here. Evil is evil. "Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil."

So, Laird - you really can't be serious that it isn't necessarily "bad" to be evil. Of course it is. Evil isn't some serious disease that one recovers from and is heretofore immune. Even such diseases can kill you, and one would be foolish to deliberately expose oneself to them or knowingly allow exposure. Unless you are speaking of a tiny, targeted, manageable dose of evil - but have they come up with that yet? A vaccine for evil? Besides rap music, I mean?
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Re: What is reality, what is a 2x4?

Post by David Quinn »

guest_of_logic wrote:
David Quinn wrote:If you were to go over to the side of evil, would you still consider yourself to be evil?
Probably, yes. I think it is probably true that evil delights in being evil.

Right, so the Devil thinks he is good and that God is evil, while God thinks the reverse. Who is right?

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cousinbasil
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Re: What is reality, what is a 2x4?

Post by cousinbasil »

Laird wrote:The problem is that it's not straightforward to separate "significantly ill and delusional" from "honestly experiencing alternate aspects of reality".
Not if you put them in quotes like that. Otherwise, you would be saying it is not straightforward to separate black from white. Which of course it is. You must admit that either condition in quotes is possible. But I think you are saying that when you encounter a given situation in real life, it is not a given which quoted diagnosis fits better.
Sometimes, being open to and experiencing a wider spiritual reality is the cause of delusions, and not part of the delusions - this is what motivated my last post; that it's wrong to dismiss much of what a "significantly ill and delusional" person says and believes as "merely delusional". Things aren't that cut and dried.
I very much agree with this. It was a shock and a turning point in my own life when I realized I had witnessed things which I might never be able to convey to another person without being so dismissed. How did I realize this? It comes down to one's own level of involvement, one's motivation, if you will. A delusion is something one clutches, like a security blanket or a rattle. The quote goes something like when I grew up, I put away the things which were toys of my youth. True delusions are as obvious as if I saw a grown man on the street dragging a blanket and a rattle and a teddy bear... Of course, it could be a politician with a bleach-blonde trophy wife always on his arm - the delusions are no less apparent. But Laird, I don't think you are speaking mere of delusions, but rather of what could be spiritual experiences or realizations. The mis-characterization is more demonizing than "delusion." It goes to "hallucination" and "dementia."
Sometimes, the choice between medicated and unmedicated is a choice between "at peace but very limited in perception, and in a way cowardly for blocking out the parts of reality that frighten and challenge one" and "troubled but honestly and bravely open to a wider perception of reality in which one can grow spiritually (or, yes, fail spiritually)". This choice isn't always an obvious one.
Rarely is! A number of years ago, a doctor put me on Effexor. He asked my subsequently if it helped. The only way I could describe it was - I still get very depressed, only now I don't give a shit. He thought this was amusing, but it isn't, not really. A girlfriend of mine bravely decided to go off her prescription for Zanax. She was weathering the highs and lows of menopause with it, and had a sense that she would somehow be better off actually feeling life as it changed.

On the other hand, these drugs are life enabling for so, so many. If they help you relate to existence - relating to those people with whom you are in regular contact - the world changes subtley for the better. If people cease punishing themselves, the world seems to follow suit.

My point here is that my heart breaks when I see a severely OCD person confined to shackles from which those who love her cannot break her free. Yet if she can just as bravely decide to begin a regimen of a suitable prescription, those chains could begin to fall off, one by one.

No, you are right - speaking of a person's inner, unique biochemistry- there is no one right answer for all.
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Re: What is reality, what is a 2x4?

Post by cousinbasil »

David Quinn wrote:
guest_of_logic wrote:
David Quinn wrote:If you were to go over to the side of evil, would you still consider yourself to be evil?
Probably, yes. I think it is probably true that evil delights in being evil.

Right, so the Devil thinks he is good and that God is evil, while God thinks the reverse. Who is right?

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But David, didn't you just entirely misread what Laird said? The Devil delights in being evil - he doesn't think he's good. He scorns God - it is rather convenient for the truly evil - which the Devil supposedly would have to be - not to think in terms of good and evil. He simply delights in himself. Aleister Crowley: Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law...
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Re: What is reality, what is a 2x4?

Post by David Quinn »

cousinbasil wrote:
David Quinn wrote:
guest_of_logic wrote:
David Quinn wrote:If you were to go over to the side of evil, would you still consider yourself to be evil?
Probably, yes. I think it is probably true that evil delights in being evil.

Right, so the Devil thinks he is good and that God is evil, while God thinks the reverse. Who is right?

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But David, didn't you just entirely misread what Laird said? The Devil delights in being evil - he doesn't think he's good. He scorns God - it is rather convenient for the truly evil - which the Devil supposedly would have to be - not to think in terms of good and evil. He simply delights in himself. Aleister Crowley: Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law...
The Devil wouldn't think that he himself was evil, any more than a freedom fighter would consider himself to be a terrorist. The label "evil" is a word we slap on the Devil's behaviour from the outside. Even the name "Devil" is a projection on our parts.

God represents the complete opposite of everything that the Devil stands for. They utterly oppose each other in their values, beliefs and behaviour. The Devil delights in his behaviour and thinks it is the highest - and as a result, He regards God to be evil.

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Liberty Sea
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Re: What is reality, what is a 2x4?

Post by Liberty Sea »

It seems to me that the key to the confusion that prolongs this discussion is our difference in the unspoken definition of Evil, our presupposed understanding of what evil is. It is important to clear that up.
To be evil is to be wrong. It is clear to me that such is what David means by evil. The Devil doesn't think what he does is wrong, therefore if we accept this definition of evil, the devil obviously would not consider himself evil. He doesn't seduce man by saying :"Come on, I am wrong, so do what I say. Be false, be wrong, be mistaken, and tread the erroneous path!"
He would consider himself evil if and only if he accepted God's standard of right and wrong, of good and bad.
We automatically accept that God is in the right. We unquestioningly acknowledge God as the ultimate judge of good and bad, that is why we unthinkingly fall into the assumption that the Devil too would accept God's system.
The Devil considers himself evil no more than a genius considers himself insane. Under the eye of society's common sense, the genius is insane. And to the genius, it is society that is insane. He, however, is aware of common sense, and that is why although deep inside he considers himself utterly sane, the genius takes delight in calling himself insane. He rejoices in his eccentricity, his vast contrast with ordinary people, and borrows the words of their limited, deluded, blinded perspective to mock his genius, which is in fact to mock common sense.
Such action, of course, does not exclusively belong to the genuine genius who is right about his genius. Since the day of Nietzsche insanity has become somewhat of a fashion, a trend, a logo employed by self-proclaimed geniuses - people who are honestly mistaken that they are genius, people who deceive themselves into thinking they are genius and people who want to make themselves marketable alike.

All this is to show how evil is a matter of perspective. In the Devil's eyes, to be wrong may mean two things: 1. to adopt a view that will eventually lead to failure, and cause harm to the one adopting it; 2. to adopt a view that is ultimately false, regardless of prevailing perspectives or popular opinions. The Devil is obviously aware that God's standard is the more commonly accepted one, and if he says he takes delight in being evil, it is to mock God himself.
Hopefully this analysis has, to some degree, succeeded in its task to provide an insight into the Devil's mind.
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Re: What is reality, what is a 2x4?

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Evil only 'exists' in the human world, don't you think? There is no evil in the natural world. If some strange persons---perhaps short and black-haired like in Donald's visions---came in through the second story window and immobilized and ate alive your dear old grandmother, I will assume you will certainly identify this as pathological: evil. But, take your dear old granny on a picnic in the jungle, leave her alone for awhile then come back and find her half-devoured by roving army ants, you will find no 'evil' there, just natural inevitability.

The platform for the identification of 'evil' is represented, at least I think, by imagination-enhanced ways that we (conscious beings, or semi-conscious beings, which really is to say recently awakened hominids who are only just beginning a radical new phase in a long line of natural evolution that now is entering the phase of self-conscious evolutionary modification) view our 'natural situation'. We project the image and the 'memory' of our perception of the natural world (a rather horrible world as it has been for almost all of human evolution) through imagined narratives, fables, myths, creation stories, and also do this (unconsciously) through our dreaming activity, and in this way throw up an imagined scenario onto the screen of reality.

This process of visualization can be refined. The original 'vision' is simply of the elements of the natural world: wind, dawn, night, fire, water, horizon, sound, word, etc.) which are 'personified'. Much later in that process, one is dealing with whole imagined (and recorded) 'worlds' where demigods battle demigods, where our own platform, the earth, is seen as a battleground between chthonic and spiritual forces of a higher order. One imagines worlds infinitely more material and brutal than the world we live in (which is rather strange and terrifying as it is), but connected to that vision or imagination one sees worlds of infinite light and brightness, of resonant harmony, worlds of pure sentiments, worlds so rarified and 'pure' (i.e. stripped of all the terrors of flesh-life, flesh-incarnation), in which consciousness exists in other kinds of containers.

What is interesting is that we all live in the aftermath of a sort of afterbirth of emerging consciousness, and like some creature climbing out of the slime, we have no choice but to carry all the slime of our imagined 'reality' (Blake's 'inner world': the vision of being strung between material horror and 'spiritual' beauty, 'goodness', and harmony) with us. Now though, all the historical imaginings, all that strange material projected onto the walls of dark caves as the fire recedes and the imagination soars, no longer has any 'reality'. It has been made to seem unreal when once it was 'truthful description of the world'. If any of us gets into a pinch, say by extreme psychic pressure, extreme trauma, or even by some sort of unforeseen psychic uprupture: a psychotic crisis, the powerful psycho-physical images can overjump their (natural) barriers and enforce themselves (again) on our perceptual system. But anyway all that stuff is still there: we regularly dream of impossible, weird, semi-'demonic' entities or activities in our sleeping world.

When I said I was interested in Donald's visions, I meant it more in these ways...

I believe that human consciousness is a sort of 'novelesque reality'. As Nietzsche said: we destroy only as creators. We can replace imagined worlds with new models of imagined worlds, but we can never replace the mental 'place' where such models of reality are held, envisioned, etc. It becomes therefore a question and an issue and a process of 'purifying' the novelesque imagined world that we stand, in the course of our living, in relation to.

It must be mentioned that Sri David and other, minor sris, attempt to point out an unmodified 'Reality' (David's God: 'the All, the Absolutely Everything!') and also Dennis's (where has that guy gotten off to, anyone know? Haven't seen him around lately...) unmodified 'world' of Tao. These 'worlds' (more properly 'This World' in the A=A sense) is only what It is. It is almost inexpressible what it is, but it is there, somehow, swirling and changing and ever-modifying in front of us, and we in it. They desire to strip away all the many layers of secondary and tertiary imaginal vapors that we cast out onto Reality.

That is sobriety. That is the moment that sober, spiritual life can begin.

Yet still, historically, the people who have existed on this planet and have jumped into that process of looking (at the world), and trying to understand what the things they see mean, or what has put them into motion, and what such a terrible fate as entering such a realm as this means, and in what way(s) we humans can interact with our Fate and move either Up or Down (up toward lighter and more pleasant, even eternal, realities, or down toward restrictive, binding, more painful and 'hellish' realities), the people who have done this have left written records that are desciptions or stories of their visions and discoveries. They went into, perhaps one could see it like this, those Blakeian 'inner worlds' and followed them back to their internal sources. They interacted with 'Divinity' and received more inner-dimensional revelations which reveals hidden and imagined (inner) dimensions to 'this Reality' in which we exist.

If 'perceiving our whereabouts', understanding it and describing it, is a particularly human tendency or task, we have a great deal of previous material that seems to impinge on us. How do we get clear about 'all this'? And what if elements of those 'stories' from perceptive-models-gone-by suddenly jump back out of the shadows and reveal themselves in force, not as 'imagined' but as 'real'?
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Re: What is reality, what is a 2x4?

Post by cousinbasil »

All this is to show how evil is a matter of perspective. In the Devil's eyes, to be wrong may mean two things: 1. to adopt a view that will eventually lead to failure, and cause harm to the one adopting it; 2. to adopt a view that is ultimately false, regardless of prevailing perspectives or popular opinions. The Devil is obviously aware that God's standard is the more commonly accepted one, and if he says he takes delight in being evil, it is to mock God himself.
Yet David has made them so symmetrical as to be equivalent, where they are but two poles and which one is "up" is mere a matter of convention. If the Devil and God are so symmetrical, then does God mock the Devil?

I don't know that such is the case at all. What may be a matter of perspective is the degree of evil one sees. But if one can really say this is more evil than that, then evil has a recognizable direction. The question is what makes it recognizable? To what do people align their moral compasses? The Devil does not regard God as his superior. Logically, then, he can claim he does not regard himself as superior. Again: Do what Thou wilt shall be the Whole of the Law, but simply less... demanding. Look, the Devil doesn't want your soul! He just doesn't want the Other Guy to have it either.

Only when one recognizes the lack of symmetry between Good and Evil can one choose between the two.
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Re: What is reality, what is a 2x4?

Post by David Quinn »

cousinbasil wrote:
All this is to show how evil is a matter of perspective. In the Devil's eyes, to be wrong may mean two things: 1. to adopt a view that will eventually lead to failure, and cause harm to the one adopting it; 2. to adopt a view that is ultimately false, regardless of prevailing perspectives or popular opinions. The Devil is obviously aware that God's standard is the more commonly accepted one, and if he says he takes delight in being evil, it is to mock God himself.
Yet David has made them so symmetrical as to be equivalent, where they are but two poles and which one is "up" is mere a matter of convention. If the Devil and God are so symmetrical, then does God mock the Devil?

From the Devil's point of view, mocking is a great virtue and an expression of the highest good.

The behaviour of the Devil and God might be different, but that isn't relevant to the issue at hand. Each, from their own perspective, is performing the highest good.

Only when one recognizes the lack of symmetry between Good and Evil can one choose between the two.
Or alternatively, one can follow the truth. One can recognize the symmetry of good and evil and reject both as being the relativistic chimeras that they are.

It is impossible to find God (i.e. the Tao) without abandoning the good.

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Talking Ass
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Re: What is reality, what is a 2x4?

Post by Talking Ass »

It is not possible to abandon the good and hope to find God.
It is not possible to find God without abandoning the good.
Trust in a Talking Ass and do what you know you should.
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Re: What is reality, what is a 2x4?

Post by Dennis Mahar »

Or alternatively, one can follow the truth. One can recognize the symmetry of good and evil and reject both as being the relativistic chimeras that they are.
In the experience,
to love means to nurture.
to affirm, to approve, to support, to bolster, to look out for, to cherish.
by thought, word and deed.
and the receiving of that.

to not-love is the withdrawal of all that and more, that is, to actively set out to denigrate or cause harm by thought, word or deed.
and the receiving of all that.

In the human projection,
God is imagined as the supporting parent. (pleasure).
Devil is imagined as the negative parent. (pain).

The astonishing fact is that for love and not-love to take a hold and all the misery that entails,
there has to be a possibility set forward in motion and believed in,
that possibility is the invention of a Self.
Love and not-love are found to be conditional.

love and not-love, themselves, being of empty nature,
are projected on to empty identities,
as if the identities existed from their own side.
giving rise to massive confusion.
co dependancy.

Wisdom soars magnificently above all that,
for in it's clear eye of sheer intelligence,
it realises,
people and things are impermanent,
are causes/ conditions,
Self is an hallucination.

love and not-love are set free,
are not craved after in the sense of holding postures in order to catch love and holding postures in order to avoid not-love.

It's all quite canny.

Nevertheless,
in the experience,
the experience of Self exists,
that's not the cause of suffering.
The cause of suffering is the belief.
the belief in a Self existing from it's own side.
recognising non-self,
affords,
detachment and relative freedom.
clarity and unconditional presence.
a coming from empty.
Last edited by Dennis Mahar on Sat Mar 17, 2012 3:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: What is reality, what is a 2x4?

Post by David Quinn »

Talking Ass wrote:It must be mentioned that Sri David and other, minor sris, attempt to point out an unmodified 'Reality' (David's God: 'the All, the Absolutely Everything!') and also Dennis's (where has that guy gotten off to, anyone know? Haven't seen him around lately...) unmodified 'world' of Tao. These 'worlds' (more properly 'This World' in the A=A sense) is only what It is. It is almost inexpressible what it is, but it is there, somehow, swirling and changing and ever-modifying in front of us, and we in it. They desire to strip away all the many layers of secondary and tertiary imaginal vapors that we cast out onto Reality.

That is sobriety. That is the moment that sober, spiritual life can begin.

Yet still, historically, the people who have existed on this planet and have jumped into that process of looking (at the world), and trying to understand what the things they see mean, or what has put them into motion, and what such a terrible fate as entering such a realm as this means, and in what way(s) we humans can interact with our Fate and move either Up or Down (up toward lighter and more pleasant, even eternal, realities, or down toward restrictive, binding, more painful and 'hellish' realities), the people who have done this have left written records that are desciptions or stories of their visions and discoveries. They went into, perhaps one could see it like this, those Blakeian 'inner worlds' and followed them back to their internal sources. They interacted with 'Divinity' and received more inner-dimensional revelations which reveals hidden and imagined (inner) dimensions to 'this Reality' in which we exist.
A kind of spiritual fairground. But isn't that just for kids?

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Re: What is reality, what is a 2x4?

Post by jupiviv »

David Quinn wrote:The Devil wouldn't think that he himself was evil, any more than a freedom fighter would consider himself to be a terrorist.

Why not? He may enjoy being evil, i.e, disapproved of by everyone who is good.
The label "evil" is a word we slap on the Devil's behaviour from the outside.

You are slapping a label on the Devil's behaviour yourself when you say that he would think of himself as good.

A conscious being can never escape the duality of good and evil. It will arise naturally, just like 8 naturally arises as the product of 2 and 4. For example:
Or alternatively, one can follow the truth. One can recognize the symmetry of good and evil and reject both as being the relativistic chimeras that they are.
Here you are creating a symmetry between people who reject the symmetry of good and evil, and those who don't. This is itself a dualism/symmetry between good and evil.
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Re: What is reality, what is a 2x4?

Post by guest_of_logic »

Alex, apologies for not responding in my last post to your comments on Blake - I needed more time to reflect on them. I'm sure you have studied the man far more than I have, so I will simply accept your comments on his introversion. As far as the marrying of heaven and hell in this work goes, my interpretation is that, in rejecting the metaphysics of religion, he rejects heaven and hell as anything other than symbols, and it seems to me that in their literal senses he is not so much marrying them as dissolving them. As I see it, the "marriage" applies only to the symbolic senses of heaven and hell - as representatives, respectively, of the religious, analytical world-view and the irreligious, poetic world-view.

The symbolism of heaven and hell is so rich in this piece that I'm not sure I could cover it all in a single post even if I understood it all, but it seems to me that one passage key to understanding the symbolic marriage is the interlude with the angel, where, due to their respective (opposing) world-views, each is seen to impose hell on the other and grant heaven to himself. I think Blake advances through this that the religious and irreligious world-views are married in that, relatively, they mean the same thing to their adherents: the religious see themselves as heavenly (correct and/or virtuous and/or living a superior life) and see the irreligious as hell-bound (incorrect and/or unvirtuous and/or living an inferior life), and, similarly, the irreligious see themselves as "heavenly" (again, correct and/or virtuous and/or living a superior life) and see the religious as "hell-bound" (again, incorrect and/or unvirtuous and/or living an inferior life).

Perhaps, too, heaven and hell are "married" in the sense of being (as asserted by Blake in this work) equally unreal in literal terms.

That's at least the best sense I can get out of the marriage - the piece otherwise seems to advocate in favour of "hell" (passionate irreligion). I must admit that I'm not quite sure where you're getting hell as "cruel, thoughtless, physical reality" from, at least in this work, nor where you get the understanding of the need for "internal union between these forces [of heaven and hell]". I do though see links to Taoist and oriental notions in the work's references to infinity, and perhaps there's some alchemy to his symbolism, but I wouldn't really know, not having studied that subject. To be honest, aside from the emphasis on fulfilment of passions, which is opposed to their views, this piece seems to me to be the sort of work that David, Dan or Kevin might produce had they the literary and poetic tendencies.
Elizabeth: But good does not always evolve higher after being exposed to evil. Sometimes good gets crippled, sometimes good goes over to the evil side, and sometimes good literally just dies.

cousinbasil: I have to agree with Elizabeth here. Evil is evil. "Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil."
OK, so that's two votes against the notion of evil as force for evolution of good. What would you guys suggest, then, is the answer to the question of why and how evil exists and is permitted to exist?
cousinbasil wrote:So, Laird - you really can't be serious that it isn't necessarily "bad" to be evil. Of course it is. Evil isn't some serious disease that one recovers from and is heretofore immune.
Well, one way of looking at it is along the lines of the Cold War. If, say, the USA represents evil (just to mix it up a little) and the USSR represents good, then the existence of evil forced good to evolve (nuclear, space and no doubt plenty of other technology of which I'm not aware), and, on a higher level, that evil could be seen as beneficial (in terms of those consequences). The evolution needn't be just on an individual level; it could be on a group level too.
guest_of_logic: The problem is that it's not straightforward to separate "significantly ill and delusional" from "honestly experiencing alternate aspects of reality".

cousinbasil: [...] I think you are saying that when you encounter a given situation in real life, it is not a given which quoted diagnosis fits better.
Yes, exactly.
cousinbasil wrote:But Laird, I don't think you are speaking mere of delusions, but rather of what could be spiritual experiences or realizations. The mis-characterization is more demonizing than "delusion." It goes to "hallucination" and "dementia."
You understand me well. Except in "safe" environments, one often refrains from relating one's experiences, knowing the condescension, minimisation, reduction or simply "scepticism" to which they will be subjected.
cousinbasil wrote:On the other hand, these drugs are life enabling for so, so many. If they help you relate to existence - relating to those people with whom you are in regular contact - the world changes subtley for the better.
I know that some of these drugs can block pathological thoughts, I'm just not sure that they are the best means of achieving that. I see them very much as a tool of convenience, like fast food. Long-term, they're not good for your "diet", even if they might be an acceptable short-term choice. One of my personal projects is to research alternative methods of alleviating mental and spiritual suffering; I think there's a lot of work to be done in this area, or at least a lot of work in bringing holistic methods from the fringe to the mainstream.
David: If you were to go over to the side of evil, would you still consider yourself to be evil?

guest_of_logic: Probably, yes. I think it is probably true that evil delights in being evil.

David: Right, so the Devil thinks he is good and that God is evil, while God thinks the reverse. Who is right?

cousinbasil: But David, didn't you just entirely misread what Laird said? The Devil delights in being evil - he doesn't think he's good.
Precisely, cousinbasil. David, in (deliberately?) misreading me, was being simply evil whilst thinking himself good.
Liberty Sea wrote:To be evil is to be wrong.
[edit: I've adjusted and clarified in my next post what I wrote below, so please read that one before responding]

But Liberty Sea, this doesn't actually clear things up; this redefinition of "evil", as with David's redefinition of that word, means that you are really talking about something different than what is usually meant by the term, and what had, until you and David joined in, been meant by the term in this conversation. We are talking about different things, but you and David are the ones who have introduced your atypical definitions into an existing conversation predicated on the typical definition, thus derailing that conversation. Of course, you are free to change the topic, but I'd be more interested in reading your re-analysis of evil given the typical definition of the word - are you up for that?
Talking Ass wrote:Evil only 'exists' in the human world, don't you think? There is no evil in the natural world.
I would tentatively answer "Yes", if by "in the human world" you mean "predicated on (conscious) moral choices". In my world-view, humans are not the only (concious) moral agents. I'd also argue that, to the extent that the "rules" of the natural world are a consequence of the choices of (a) (creative) moral agent(s), the natural world, too, can be evil.
Talking Ass wrote:If 'perceiving our whereabouts', understanding it and describing it, is a particularly human tendency or task, we have a great deal of previous material that seems to impinge on us. How do we get clear about 'all this'? And what if elements of those 'stories' from perceptive-models-gone-by suddenly jump back out of the shadows and reveal themselves in force, not as 'imagined' but as 'real'?
I'm glad that at the end of your post you recognised the possibility of "real" perceptive models, because before then it had seemed that you were designating all perceptual models as imaginings.

How to distinguish between the two is a brutal question, especially when one's own perceptual models are "paranoid", and subjected to criticism by others as such: how much of it all is a game that others refuse to acknowledge, or are incapable of acknowledging? How much scepticism ought one to bear in turn on "consensual reality"; how much ought one to trust one's own perceptions and intuitions over "conventional wisdom"? How vast are the consequences of getting it wrong?
Last edited by guest_of_logic on Sat Mar 17, 2012 11:43 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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jupiviv
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Re: What is reality, what is a 2x4?

Post by jupiviv »

guest_of_logic wrote:I think it is probably true that evil delights in being evil.
And good delights in being good. But is it good to delight in being good, and is it evil to delight in being evil? Perhaps it is good to regret being good, and evil to regret being evil.
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David Quinn
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Re: What is reality, what is a 2x4?

Post by David Quinn »

jupiviv wrote:
David Quinn wrote:The Devil wouldn't think that he himself was evil, any more than a freedom fighter would consider himself to be a terrorist.
Why not? He may enjoy being evil, i.e, disapproved of by everyone who is good.
More likely, he enjoys the notoriety of being evil. But behind that, in the core of his being, he would believe himself to be good - or at least not loathsome enough to want to torture himself to death.

jupiviv wrote:
The label "evil" is a word we slap on the Devil's behaviour from the outside.

You are slapping a label on the Devil's behaviour yourself when you say that he would think of himself as good.

If he thought himself to be evil, just like God, then he would behave more like God.

jupiviv wrote:
Or alternatively, one can follow the truth. One can recognize the symmetry of good and evil and reject both as being the relativistic chimeras that they are.
Here you are creating a symmetry between people who reject the symmetry of good and evil, and those who don't. This is itself a dualism/symmetry between good and evil.
I reject them too.

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Re: What is reality, what is a 2x4?

Post by cousinbasil »

jupiviv: A conscious being can never escape the duality of good and evil. It will arise naturally, just like 8 naturally arises as the product of 2 and 4.
DQ: Or alternatively, one can follow the truth. One can recognize the symmetry of good and evil and reject both as being the relativistic chimeras that they are.
jup: Here you are creating a symmetry between people who reject the symmetry of good and evil, and those who don't. This is itself a dualism/symmetry between good and evil.
DQ: I reject them too.
This seems like more Quinn pot-stirring rather than serious argument. It doesn't seem jupiviv is doing anything here other than making an observation. You are rejecting, in essence, 2x4 (2x4!!!) = 8, to follow jupi's example.

So David, come clean. Is it you lack a moral compass? Or that yours has led you into unpleasant situations so you have stopped following it? Like life is supposed to be easy. Or did you hock it for a case of Foster's - "Australian for Philosophy." You cannot possibly be claiming you are immune to or unaware of what is right and what is wrong in every possible situation you face in life.

Of course it is easier not to care, not to get involved. But can such a life truly be enlightened?

Sometimes you seem full of so much hot air. You reject the dualism of good and evil as somehow false - that they are identical from their respective vantage points. Yet I think if you saw a bunch of neighborhood punks trying to set fire to a cat, you might try to stop it - or at least be repulsed. You yourself don't buy half the shit you say! But I suppose after another Fosters you can explain why you extol compassion but eschew distinguishing between good and evil...

See, David, I think your attitude is really that you don't want to have to follow any compass if you don't feel like it in the moment, not that yours is broken. And I think it irritates you to see people being slaves to theirs, as irritating as watching every other pedestrian or motorist chattering on a cell phone.

But you yourself have a cell phone, so to speak. You refuse to answer when it rings because you don't want to be like the rest of the "sheeple." Little do you know you have missed the call from Publisher's Clearinghouse with your 20 million USD check...
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Re: What is reality, what is a 2x4?

Post by cousinbasil »

DQ wrote:From the Devil's point of view, mocking is a great virtue and an expression of the highest good.

The behavior of the Devil and God might be different, but that isn't relevant to the issue at hand. Each, from their own perspective, is performing the highest good.
But isn't it precisely the issue at hand? Since we none of us are either God or Devil, each of has has yet a different perspective, like moral triangularization, if you will. That being the case, we can see the behavior of God and Devil to be different in character if nothing else. Therefore, they are not symmetrical.

You cannot allude to what God or Devil is thinking, what each's perspective is, because you don't know that. Therefore, you must rely solely on their respective acts.
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