Core Dysfunction and what it does

Discussion of the nature of Ultimate Reality and the path to Enlightenment.
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: Core Dysfunction and what it does

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

jupiviv wrote:There's no real difference in "productivity" between a discussion with Alex about QRS personality disorder and a discussion with any of the other twits on here about anything else.
I agree there. My discussions with everyone but especially the ones with Alex have provided me with opportunity to write some really great stuff on a regular base. Just by virtue of the topics introduced or the demonstrations of particular flavors of ignorance being demonstrated. Anyone would do really but he was(!) an endless tenacious source for me.

This is perhaps the deeper nature of all discussing: facilitating exposition of ones own mind by a complex system of triggers, feedback and opportunities. This as opposed to a more preconceived and shaped monologue. So for me the ultimate quality of the post I'm responding to does not always matter. My focus always has been on my own writing and not as much on the personal problems of the other participants unless it would illustrate a larger point being made.

The only reason to ban certain members would be the volumes of repetitiveness and dullness flooding the forum when someone clearly gets overheated, like Dan remarked about the prima facie thing. But I'd disagree with any notion of looking for the lack of quality discussions in others. On this forum there always has been a lot of nonsense and stupidity. Perhaps less has changed than we might think. Certainly the quantities have, which might cause a different sense of proportion altogether.
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Re: Core Dysfunction and what it does

Post by Leyla Shen »

It means that I am not indifferent.

You, on the other hand, proclaim a clear and definite indifference:
It doesn't make any difference to me whether I ignore Alex or not.
And an underlying contempt when you ignore Alex’s ressentiment in favour of a fancied indifference:
Why do women think that ignoring someone is the best way to hurt them?
Either that, or, by your own reasoning, you are ignorant.

You fail to recognise also the implicit contradiction in your reasoning; that ignorance seldom comes with the intent to harm. So, if a “woman” is being indifferent due to ignorance, it has nothing to do with “her” thinking it will hurt anyone/anything, even if that is the end result in some way.
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Vampires

Post by Leyla Shen »

One could say, then Diebert, that you feed off the dead..
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Re: Core Dysfunction and what it does

Post by jupiviv »

Leyla Shen wrote:It means that I am not indifferent.

You, on the other hand, proclaim a clear and definite indifference:
It doesn't make any difference to me whether I ignore Alex or not.

Yes, I am not driven by any hatred/contempt for him to either respond to or ignore him. It doesn't mean I'm indifferent to him. I want him to broadcast his *actual* thoughts(although I'm not sure he has any) more often rather than continue to argue from any position he imagines to be contra the QRS thought-cult of his imagination.
You fail to recognise also the implicit contradiction in your reasoning; that ignorance seldom comes with the intent to harm. So, if a “woman” is being indifferent due to ignorance, it has nothing to do with “her” thinking it will hurt anyone/anything, even if that is the end result in some way.

What contradiction? I said indifference is contempt when it *isn't* merely ignorance.
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Re: Core Dysfunction and what it does

Post by jupiviv »

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:This is perhaps the deeper nature of all discussing: facilitating exposition of ones own mind by a complex system of triggers, feedback and opportunities.

I always attack what I perceive to be people's flaws as directly as possible, because that makes them attack and expose to me what they perceive to be my mistakes. It's a sort of extroverted auto-critique exercise.
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Re: Vampires

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

Leyla Shen wrote:One could say, then Diebert, that you feed off the dead..
More like burying them, as if I missed my calling as undertaker. It's such a ritualized thing at times.

"Suffer the dead to bury their own dead, but do thou go and announce the kingdom of God." (Luke 9:60)

Is it so hard to see this place has always functioned like a cemetery? It's good to see more people waking up to it.
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Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Post by Leyla Shen »

Yes, I am not driven by any hatred/contempt for him to either respond to or ignore him. It doesn't mean I'm indifferent to him.
If it doesn’t make a difference whether you ignore him or not, then you are indifferent (“to him”, or anyone else) by bloody definition, for crying out loud. Unless, of course, you’re just trying to force off a particular psychology of hatred/contempt on someone else rather than yourself.

Don’t make me exercise my non-indifference, again...
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Re: Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

Leyla Shen wrote:If it doesn’t make a difference whether you ignore him or not, then you are indifferent (“to him”, or anyone else) by bloody definition, for crying out loud.
There's a huge difference between stepping consciously over someone or just walk and talk anywhere you like without preference. In the first case (which is your case) you do some effort not to engage, like you're expressing some preference. But in Jup's case he engages because it doesn't matter at all to him, like there's no real preference considering the choices.
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Re: Core Dysfunction and what it does

Post by jupiviv »

Leyla Shen wrote:If it doesn’t make a difference whether you ignore him or not, then you are indifferent

To be more specific, I am indifferent to my treatment of Alex. Sometimes not responding to someone, or preventing them from responding, may stimulate thought in them.
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Re: Core Dysfunction and what it does

Post by SeekerOfWisdom »

jupiviv wrote:I always attack what I perceive to be people's flaws as directly as possible

A good strategy, save for maybe the word 'attack', I'm considering a similar method.

So far you three look like a pack of wolves.
Deluded to the point that you can't recognize the egotism in almost every one of your posts. I would say this is most obvious with Diebert and Leyla, you two have a knack for asserting a belief in your own intellectual superiority.

Anyone who's in a state of 'clear headedness' shouldn't have trouble seeing it. Just watch your agitation scales go off the charts daily so you can be certain of this truth, then continue lying to yourselves as you have been.

Dennis Mahar wrote:The 4 noble truths are:
1) diagnose a disease,
2) identify its cause,
3) determine whether it is curable
4) outline a course of treatment to cure it
.

An exemplary example of elaboration.

"The only cure is to realize what is seen is not there"

(Avoid getting caught up with "not there", the point is clear, I wholeheartedly agree with it, + the word "only")
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Re: Core Dysfunction and what it does

Post by Leyla Shen »

To be more specific, I am indifferent to my treatment of Alex.
Okay, great. So is that because of ignorance or contempt?
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Re: Core Dysfunction and what it does

Post by Leyla Shen »

So far you three look like a pack of wolves.
Deluded to the point that you can't recognize the egotism in almost every one of your posts. I would say this is most obvious with Diebert and Leyla, you two have a knack for asserting a belief in your own intellectual superiority.
Put up or shut up, you pretentious little git.
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Re: Core Dysfunction and what it does

Post by Dennis Mahar »

"The only cure is to realize what is seen is not there"
Is that concomitant with the idea that ignorance is not a thing, it's a lack.

perhaps the indifferent guy and the guy with cancer are merely form.
dependent origination.
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Re: Core Dysfunction and what it does

Post by Alex Jacob »

A bit of humor, dear ones:
Socrates, in his defense wrote:"I KNOW NOT, O Athenians, how far you have been influenced by my accusers; for my part, in listening to them I almost forgot myself, so plausible were their arguments; however, so to speak, they have said nothing true. But of the many falsehoods which they have uttered I wondered at one of them especially, that in which they said you ought to be on your guard lest you should be deceived by me, as being eloquent in speech. For that they are not ashamed of being forthwith convicted by me in fact, when I shall show that I am not by any means eloquent, this seemed to me the most shameless thing in them, unless indeed they call him eloquent who speaks the truth."
Reading what people write about what I write I would almost be inclined to begin my 'Apology' with a similar flourish!
__________________________________________

THROUGH ALL that I have written---of that critical of the 'core GF position'---it has all been supported by reasoning. It is fallacious and disingenuous in the extreme to say that it has not. But in regard to this, one must start with a basic fact though proving it would be difficult: at a basic and seminal point the so-called ratiocination of Kevin and David and Dan is a sort of mask, a pretense, for a specific, core 'will' that is being expressed. Dan has recently spoken of 'a standard that [would meet] reasonable intellectual criteria' and I find this comical, and for the reasons alluded to above. The GF position, as outlined and expressed by David and Kevin, is at its core an 'emotive' reasoning. It stems from a complex of emotional reactions to aspects of their present, to their confusion about their relations with other human beings, and most certainly to the nature of the bond that exists between man and woman. At times I have conceived of their 'religious philosophy' in a way similar to how I view Andrea Dworkin's robust, but disconcertingly 'pathological', feminism: it contains deep, reactive elements against the problem of being alive and in a body in this strange plane of existence.

In my view, to 'prove' (to yourself) what I am suggesting here, since there is no way to prove it in some way that would satisfy a mathematical 'reasonable intellectual criterion', is to go back through their writings and essays (I am thinking specifically of David right now) and note the areas where the 'emotive' reaction shows through. It always arises around the issue of 'relation with woman' and in numerous of his philosophical dialogue/fantasy pieces (notably in his 'screenplay'), he sets up a situation where he, as the wise Sage, interposes himself as an alternative to the 'insanity' of a relationship with a woman. The woman-figure reacts jealously and attempts to block his truth-connection with the struggling male subject, the one David in his dharmic mercy is attempting to 'save', and I suggest it is not at all hard to discern the homosexual content lurking under this bizarre fantasy of religious and spiritual influence. The point here is to suggest a vital and essentially emotional current that underlies a general rebellion against certain facts of existence. Similarly, Dworkin cloaks her 'ratiocinations' about the horror of intercourse, from a female perspective, in all manner and level of intellectual mumbo-jumbo, but her core reaction is against a basic condition. I see the QRS position as sharing a similar basis in reaction. I see it as arising from non-rationalism and dressing itself up as such. (Not a very popular assertion though now is it? In fact, much of my approach and my ideas are deeply disconcerting because they run counter to the 'image-management' that is part-and-parcel of GF as 'game'. But that is not to say that everything that goes on here is 'game'. One must sort through it all).

The following is a segment from the transcript of The Hour of Judgment radio series which I had linked to previously:
Kevin: There is a saying: "There is no infinite apart from finite things." So if we want to understand what is infinite, which is God, we have to understand finite things, which are ordinary things in the world - which means understanding cause and effect. In Buddhism, they have something called "The Graduated Path to Enlightenment" - in Tibetan Buddhism they do, anyway - and the first step on this path, which nobody ever practices, is the understanding of cause and effect. With an understanding of cause and effect, it's understood that there's no real free-will. At the same time as understanding there's no real free-will, there is the understanding that there's no self. At the same time as understanding that there's no self, there is the understanding that one's own self is the entirety of the Universe, which is omnipotent and omniscient. So all of this comes through a reasoning process, through an understanding. And also, with an understanding that there is no self, there's an understanding that other people are a part, literally a part, of one's own self - this infinite self that has no boundaries. So when Jesus says that you should love your neighbour as yourself, it doesn't mean that you should love your neighbour as much as you love yourself. It means that your neighbour is literally your own self. So if you don't love your neighbour as your own self, literally, then there's no understanding of God. There's no faith. Understanding has to come before faith.
As I understand things, I locate a primary problem that runs through all the QRS formulations in their definitions of self.
With an understanding of cause and effect, it's understood that there's no real free-will. At the same time as understanding there's no real free-will, there is the understanding that there's no self.
Now, this is a definitive statement. There is nothing ambiguous here. The use of 'reason' brings us to the understanding that 'there is no self'. One assumes that this is the summa of the QRS philosophical position, and that it was gained through some special view or penetration, by use of reason, into the very structure of the cosmos. It is out of this realization that the entire QRS position comes into existence. It is a deeply problematic assertion. But the assertion is made. Once it is asserted, and established spuriously as an 'absolute tenet' it is regarded as incontrovertible, axial. And from the moment that it is established it takes for itself or is given a great deal of deciding power.

One you have established there is no self, once you have undermined the core experience, the basic 'intuitive' ontological platform of any living man ('I exist'), and once you have defined this as a result of the process of ratiocination and your use of the highest possibilities of use of intellect, you can then proceed to undermine any and all notions of value associated with man's achievements within this plane of existence. No-self is the primary tenet and the next one is 'no free will'. This automatically turns all human attainment even of the highest sort into some level of automatic activity. If there is no free will then every human attainment is labelable as some manifestation of 'false ego' and something that operates against the fantasy (in this context) of 'enlightenment'. 'Enlightenment' as it is used here is a term of special meaning that is handled or wielded as I have said. In no sense is it a neutral word or description. In David and Kevin's discourse it carries militant notes, it is a snapping flag that is carried into a battle.

I say, and I have said this hundreds of times, that these are reductive ideas. They are reductions out of genuine possible conversations about the nature of our world and ourselves in it, that are wielded by certain men for certain purposes. In most of my writing I have argued from consequences and I still prefer to argue from that perspective. And to this end I have used examples of the way that these ideas are used. I have often referred to Dennis as an almost chemically pure example of the destructive, acid-like use of these ideas, but that use is evident in varying degrees in many of those who embrace QRS doctrines (which they may also modify or embellish for their own purposes). Here it is very important to point out, because it is true, that most who appear in these pages do not grasp and may never grasp what in essence I am arguing against, and why. For example, here and now, Leyla does not have even a minimal understanding of these issues nor any interest in them. She comes out in opposition to me but with no understanding of what I am attempting to describe, and why. Her reaction is motivated almost 100% by an emotionally-based resistance which is also linked to her anti-Jewish sentiments (the first 'conversations' I had with her were on that subject, back in 2006). It is I suppose embarrassing to point this out but it is essentially true. Many people here are operating from an emotional platform, or 'unconsciously motivated' platform and seem not to be able to see it, at the very least. I think it is important to express it openly.

But along these lines I want to offer an 'example' of how these core ideas that negate self, as well as free will, can function. And I have mostly argued from this position and asked people to use their skills in discriminating about how ideas are used. (There are two sides, aren't there? An Idea Set and then the way that idea set is put into motion. This dialectic has to be considered, it seems to me). Once you have *seen* that everything is caused, that there is no free will, and that all of man's doings are the doings of ignorant false egos, it provides you with a unique if utterly reductive tool to go back through all human creations and, at least in your own mind, wipe them off the map. Devalue them. See through them. See into them as emblematic of 'ignorance' and everything evil and stupid and unnecessary in human affairs. Once you have embraced this peculiar QRS-Buddhism, you have no choice really but to see, for example, the figure of Jesus only as David does: a sort of a mushroom that should have popped up in Asia but somehow popped up in Judea. Using this strange 'acidic' view, you can undermine every aspect of 'context', and eliminate every aspect of teaching that does not conform to the only view that you can hold: that all spirituality is one thing and only one thing, this thing that you call 'enlightenment'. And what seems to happen (I cite Dennis as an example though it is also evident in David, in Kevin, in Dan and others in varying degrees---even Diebert the most 'informed' of the Genii) is that a willful person appears, who has a strange agenda, who takes hold of these basic ideas as tools, and proceeds to destroy whole areas of human attainment which are unintelligible to that person. This is the 'breaking of connection' first to one's own self, and then to the possibility of unified activity in this plane of existence, of 'moral responsibility', and then to everything that has gone before us: our entire context of discovery and definition.

This is one of the reasons why consideration of the presence and the activities of Ortega y Gasset's 'mass man' are relevant to this conversation (to my critique of QRS doctrines anyway). Given certain reductive tools, a willful mass-man begins a burrowing activity into the very possibility of genuine existence in the world. That is the process of 'negation of self'. It proceeds from there to undermining of the possibility of conscious activity by conscious, concerned persons, in the present, and is of course complicated by the whole problematic of 'willful, tendentious person'. I do not think there is any way to 'prove' in any definitive sense how 'willfulness' as I am defining it works within a religious-philosophical platform. I appeal to common sense.

There is much more to be talked about. If one reestablishes the self as a vital instrument of being in this plane of existence, and if one understands that free will is indeed a real possibility and indeed---in comparison to automatonism---the crucial gift of consciousness, one's whole outlook can change, and life and also spirituality become very different.

Essentially, the view of the axioms of QRS doctrines are those I have been arguing against. I think there are secondary and tertiary counter-arguments to secondary and tertiary ramifications of the QRS doctrines. But as I discern it, that outlined above is the 'core' of my opposition.
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Re: Core Dysfunction and what it does

Post by jupiviv »

SeekerOfWisdom wrote:Deluded to the point that you can't recognize the egotism in almost every one of your posts. I would say this is most obvious with Diebert and Leyla, you two have a knack for asserting a belief in your own intellectual superiority.

I do recognise egotism in my posts when it is present, which is why I make no attempt to protect it with the armor of equanimity, unlike you and Dennis. I let it all hang out. You may be stronger, but my nuts hang much longer.
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Re: Core Dysfunction and what it does

Post by Dennis Mahar »

That's a bit of a stretch.
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Re: Core Dysfunction and what it does

Post by Kunga »

jupiviv wrote:I let it all hang out.
Hippie !
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Re: Core Dysfunction and what it does

Post by Dennis Mahar »

do not grasp and may never grasp what in essence I am arguing against, and why
.

Alex,
You are supplying a list of causes pertaining to conditions.
insufficient causes, probable causes, causes beyond reasonable doubt etc...

Tossing out your contents for the minnie which is an act of blessed relief from an ordeal of hard labour.
You are coming out of a context of Causality.

Therefore you are in wholehearted agreement with QRS without realising it.
To level the charge of 'core dysfunction' at QRS is the equivalent of shooting yourself in the foot.

You are arguing dependent origination.
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Re: Core Dysfunction and what it does

Post by SeekerOfWisdom »

Dennis, ignorance as the lack of "realization"?

A 'sister' who I never see or speak to recently mentioned how I've either become depressed or crazy as she doesn't see me laugh or talk much or smile. The irony. It's normal to assert ones self constantly and fabricate opinions out of thin air on every topic. "Ignorance" has a different meaning everywhere you go.

And not 'perhaps' but certainly, merely form.
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Re: Core Dysfunction and what it does

Post by Dennis Mahar »

Dennis, ignorance as the lack of "realization"?
If we go back to the metaphor of the master builder and the apprentice.
What is distinguished is, in the case of the apprentice, a lack, in the order of:
a) lack of knowledge
b) lack of know-how

He is useless except in the eyes of a cannibal where lunch is a possibility.
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Re: Core Dysfunction and what it does

Post by Dan Rowden »

Alex Jacob wrote:A bit of humor, dear ones: THROUGH ALL that I have written---of that critical of the 'core GF position'---it has all been supported by reasoning.
That was a cheeky edit, but I had to do it. No, I really did...
One you have established there is no self, once you have undermined the core experience, the basic 'intuitive' ontological platform of any living man ('I exist'), and once you have defined this as a result of the process of ratiocination and your use of the highest possibilities of use of intellect, you can then proceed to undermine any and all notions of value associated with man's achievements within this plane of existence. No-self is the primary tenet and the next one is 'no free will'. This automatically turns all human attainment even of the highest sort into some level of automatic activity. If there is no free will then every human attainment is labelable as some manifestation of 'false ego' and something that operates against the fantasy (in this context) of 'enlightenment'. 'Enlightenment' as it is used here is a term of special meaning that is handled or wielded as I have said. In no sense is it a neutral word or description. In David and Kevin's discourse it carries militant notes, it is a snapping flag that is carried into a battle.
And that's where we'll stop. Now, if we set aside for the moment the complete absence of any appreciation of the nuances of the "no-self" "doctrine - i.e. that the position is that there's no inherently existing self in the same sense that no things exist inherently, and that this is quite different from simply denying that there's a self of any kind, which is the equivalent of saying nothing exists - setting that gigantic problem aside, there remains the quintessentially Alexian absence of an argument. Where does he refute the proposition that there's no inherently existing self and that free will is illusory? Nowhere. He doesn't give a fucking toss about what's actually true, he just wants to argue from "consequences". He merely alludes to there being a cogent argument against such propositions.

Moronic to the core. Tedious beyond description. Alex's approach is not one whit more profound nor sophisticated not meritorious than this: it's wrong and horrible and inhumane to tell a child that Santa doesn't exist because it makes that child unhappy.

That's it; that's all he's got. Cosmic Yawn.
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Re: Core Dysfunction and what it does

Post by Dan Rowden »

Having dismissed Alex so summarily, I should make one important point - that I agree with the generality of his idea/observation of the importance and status of values and valuation in all this. I do not hold, and at no point have held that Alex or anyone else should share my value structure. There are no absolute, objective or necessary values given to us (other than those that may arise within a specific context - e.g. one must value reason if one values truth); there is only disposition and the various ways in which disposition is engendered (despite what Alex appears to think, there's no way to fully untangle that, however many books one reads). However much it may occasionally make him look like a dillberry, it does not make Alex an inherently worse person than me that he patently doesn't value Truth above all else.

Life and the human experience is very much a battle of values and one that realistically cannot be other than waged, whether consciously or unconsciously, whether implicitly or explicitly, whether overtly or covertly, whether with a sword or in Alex's case, a wet hankie. His value structure and the agenda it creates are in quite direct opposition to mine, and, I think it fair to say, mine to his. Therefore, I have to destroy his agenda, as it were, to give life to mine, and vice versa.

This is a fact that oft' reminds me of the Nietzsche quote recently posted by Sphere70.
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Re: Core Dysfunction and what it does

Post by Alex Jacob »

There may be 'nuances' as you say in the doctrine of 'no-self' but there is no nuance whatever in the manner with which that doctrine, and other sub-doctrines that stem out of it, have been and are wielded by you, by David and by Kevin. There is a sort of brutality that has not much to do with a sword and much to do with a club. With a good deal more 'nuance', which may indeed be a spiritual gift, and a gift of the combination of intelligence and thoughtfulness, I think it would be possible to make something *more* out of the QRS critical position, though its *flaws* will always drag it down (or rather it seems that way).
Dan wrote:...there remains the quintessentially Alexian absence of an argument. Where does he refute the proposition that there's no inherently existing self and that free will is illusory? Nowhere. He doesn't give a fucking toss about what's actually true, he just wants to argue from "consequences". He merely alludes to there being a cogent argument against such propositions.
It is not that there is an 'absence of argument', no, that is not right. It is that argument is carried out through other means. I think it is fair to say 'more subtly'. Let's make a comparison. David and Kevin (and you perhaps at another time) barge in on people who are 'stuck in their ignorance' (as you define it). You come in with such violence, so insultingly, in such a manner as mimics (or does it embody?) an ego-driven brute. You hammer people. You bash people's understandings, whatever they are. You insult. But you are also ignoramuses each in your own way, a tragic fact that doesn't enter your heads since your forward-facing headlamps are lit with your overblown sense of superiority. I am not making this up, it really is there in the record. Not isolatedly but as the main trait. But it is not just this. It is that you utterly lack 'nuance' in your grasp of what it is you are criticizing---the traditions of Christianity as just one example. While it is indeed true that I understand you have much less of substance at your disposal, and to teach, than you assume, and oodles yet to learn, it is not at all impossible to distinguish 'positive features' in the program generally.

I think it is a more powerful position, both to start with and to conclude, of 'suggesting' possibilities to other people. Alluding. For example, I am largely certain that I have 'rightly' located a source of error in your doctrines. I think it is indeed located within, or has circling around it, deep problems with an understanding of 'self' as a 'divine value', and it is true that I am forceful also in my presentations. But why do you suppose that I'd desire to emulate your specific brutal approach? You suppose that I am required to appear on the same level as you and to operate within a limited realm as you, to 'argue' the point you feel I must make? To 'formally refute' your doctrines? I do not feel that is necessary, and I prefer another approach. And the approach, though it varies, is one that argues from consequences. It may be my limitation but it is the way I choose to do things.

It is neither correct to assert, though it is a common tactic for one who argues brutally, that I don't care a toss for what is 'true'. I do indeed reject almost across the board the ridiculous declarations of 'absolute truth' in the manner that it is presented, and the conclave of boisterous boys in their game of slamming the feminine, swaggering about, crowing 'enlightenment', and in general making a spectacle of themselves. But what is really 'true' about this life, about 'the right way to live', or what and how to value, and how to love, and how to influence the world we live in---those are very important questions where 'truth' indeed comes into play. I know you have your head stuck up your own asshole and you must stumble and stumble again over these things, but you really have no right or justification to make those assessments about me (or anyone). What I care about, here and now, are the group of ideas I am working with, and within that group of ideas and possibilities all that I see right now is quite deeply concerned for 'truth'. But I do recognize, and naturally I do assert, that in general terms the QRS position is by brutes and for brutes. It is really important to understand how this is so and why it is so. Do I expect you to get it? No, I don't. You are not unintelligent, in my view, but through time you seem to have gotten hardened.

Here, let's take a listen to the familiar yarn:
Moronic to the core. Tedious beyond description. Alex's approach is not one whit more profound nor sophisticated not meritorious than this: it's wrong and horrible and inhumane to tell a child that Santa doesn't exist because it makes that child unhappy.
As one who has fed himself on reductionism since who-knows-when I will assume that no other assessment is available to you. This is what a conversation with a Gfer reduces to: hurling brute insults. I know, and I think other people also recognize, that the critique I offer is not at all without merit. I am not settling every possible point, or wrapping it up in a neat package, but there is a good and cogent argument *there*.

Now, here we come to the 'turnaround'.
Having dismissed Alex so summarily, I should make one important point - that I agree with the generality of his idea/observation of the importance and status of values and valuation in all this. I do not hold, and at no point have held that Alex or anyone else should share my value structure. There are no absolute, objective or necessary values given to us (other than those that may arise within a specific context - e.g. one must value reason if one values truth); there is only disposition and the various ways in which disposition is engendered (despite what Alex appears to think, there's no way to fully untangle that, however many books one reads). However much it may occasionally make him look like a dillberry, it does not make Alex an inherently worse person than me that he patently doesn't value Truth above all else.
You did not really do any 'dismissing', friend, not in a way that I recognize. You may be said to have wiped off the table though. Par for the course. That is 'pretty much what gets done around here' by those who work on brute levels, and within brutal reductionism, with little 'nuance'. Still, I am speaking of 'valuation' in a wider sense, a sense that extends beyond you and me and our skirmishing. Because I am describing a 'mode of mind' that allows, if it does not produce, 'destructive activity'. First in the area of primary violence to 'the self' (as a whole series of bizarre mind-fucks) and of course the darker zennish 'mind control' aspects that Ernst Becker wrote about, and others have also written about. What primarily concerns me, oddly enough, is how 'your' definitions and axioms and choices become essentially destructive currents within thinking and within culture. The reason? I watch and observe how these ideas function in people. What they do with them when they pick them up.

As to your assertions about 'no absolute, objective or necessary values given to us' and 'there is only disposition and the various ways in which disposition is engendered', I find that I don't exactly know how to respond. This is the area where things get knotty and require much more work and thought. As you may gather I am 'deeply suspicious' of your methods and tactics as a prelude to any investigation of 'truth' (of as Dennis might say 'truth for human being') but I am rather inclined, also, to note with 'alarm' the natural destructiveness that seems to proceed from your particular and as I say 'reduced' group of axioms.
However much it may occasionally make him look like a dillberry, it does not make Alex an inherently worse person than me that he patently doesn't value Truth above all else.
Luv that capital 'T'. In the end it is, of course, impossible to 'argue' with one who has and holds the Absolute Truth.

And from this point on, friends, you will see the same replay of tearing apart of ideas in order to arrive ... once again ... at the same ...reduced ... platform ... of possibilities! Let the games begin!
Last edited by Alex Jacob on Wed Jul 10, 2013 12:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Dennis Mahar
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Re: Core Dysfunction and what it does

Post by Dennis Mahar »

That's just a victim statement.
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Alex Jacob
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Re: Core Dysfunction and what it does

Post by Alex Jacob »

An example of Primary Reductionism---in action.
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