Quality Posts

Some partial backups of posts from the past (Feb, 2004)
Locked
User avatar
David Quinn
Posts: 5708
Joined: Sun Sep 09, 2001 6:56 am
Location: Australia
Contact:

Quality Posts

Post by David Quinn »

This thread will be devoted to archiving those posts which are high in quality and wisdom, as decided by Dan Rowden or myself. Its purpose is to prevent the gems from sliding down the thread board and disappearing into the ether. It should be noted that it is not a discussion thread and will be closed to all members of Genius Forum. You can, however, make a contribution by writing something that is original or timeless. Edited by: DavidQuinn000 at: 12/10/03 8:25 am
User avatar
David Quinn
Posts: 5708
Joined: Sun Sep 09, 2001 6:56 am
Location: Australia
Contact:

Hu Zheng abridged

Post by David Quinn »

Huz Heng's outpourings contain some excellent stuff. He's a real find. He has that wildness of thought which is needed for wisdom; all he needs now is some discipline and he'll really go places ......

Anyway, these are some of my favourite bits:


---


- What is the different between academic philosophy and heroin? When dive into it, they feel very good, they want to dive into it always, but they must get out of it sometime, get money to buy new heroin, just as they often get money by sell heroin to others, the academic philosophy teacher can only earn money by teaching his philosophy to others, when he is out of his mental world, he is weak, both the body and spirit is weak, and, as academic philosophy is just a chronically poison, they can dive into it in their whole life, but they find them must be a professor in a university to earn some money to maintain the life, their philosophy is only theirs, no help to others.



- Most human is still animal, hay and copulation are enough for them, they don't need truth, so don't try to tell them the truth, or they will be angry(such as, you are pigs), they don't need freedom, so don't give the freedom to them, or they will starve to death in the forest.



- When i hear the roommates' words, when i go outside and watch the peoples, their weak, their null spiritual, their non-exists astonished me. How can they be so ignorant? and even they are still call the "elite" as being a university student. One people have no different from one ant. They have nothing filled in their brain, it is not that they can't, but they don't. The present age must be the most important age in human history, human explored the whole earth, the science applied everywhere, Internet spreads to everywhere, and the society become very stable! No big war seems will happen after the invention of atom bomb, it is easy for everyone to alive comfortably...As stable as the ant and honey. Ant and honey have existed for million years, but never developed further in these million years.



- Don't force your opinion on your son, the next generation is always better than you. Let the sapling grown up without your scissors. Never suppress the humanity, such as play games in childhood, such as sex desire, don't you see, most student play computer games everyday in the university now, because they don't play enough computer games ago, this can't be suppressed, i have played many games in my childhood, so I past this state now, and start learning in the university.



- One sentence in a philosophy book can extend to a literature book. It is always like this. Words in a philosophy book are all essence.



- Philosophy is so useful, but most people didn't sensed this, if the philosopher's ideology spread everywhere, it will change the whole world more than science, if i can just spread and explain Nietzsche's thinking to the world, it is BIG enough. I need to understand Nietzsche's thinking completely first.



- Do you want to be Bill Gate? Einstein? Nietzsche? ... No. If there exists god, he let me to choose to be anyone of them or death, I will choose death. If being one of them, then where is me? Death won't eliminate me, because death is one part of my life. So many people are doing things to eliminate himself, to be another one. If god ask me whether want to be god, i will say no too. What i want to do? I only want to be myself, to be me, but i am already myself, i am already me, then i need to do nothing. I walk there, i sit here, i develop StarDict, i think, this is doing nothing. What am i doing? Being myself, or, doing nothing.



- The world is very small in fact, i am related to everything in the world in fact, everything influenced me, i influenced everything, even a star in the sky, have relation to me. I trust this. As said in "Poison for The Heart":"The air you breath in is breath out by me".



- I go out and have classes sometimes, i am in there, i am outside there. I watch them, and think. Have them conscious themselves? They have a ego, but their ego is so small, that they haven't conscious themselves. I look through their head, their conscious to me, is only a little floating smoke, it is there, but if they can't find it by themselves, it will not be there easily. I go out of the classroom when the teacher is still there, there is no rule to me, as i am not in their world. I walk on the road, i am in the world, but i know, the world is just in my conscious, my conscious is so big, that contained the whole world, my conscious extend from my head to the outside, contained the cosmos. Everything, everybody, is just a small part as in my conscious, a small part of Me.



- Once i find the Me, i find it can never be eliminated. Death can't eliminate me. Where i come from? When am i generated? When i was born, i was generated? Or when the oosperm conjugate? or I was inside the gene? The me is so miraculous, that it can't generate from null, it can't be generated, it is always there. The physical me is just some material, these material is there, always there, when the cosmos is there, the physical me is there, it is always changing, but it is always there. Then, the spiritual me, when i am a infant, i know nothing, i only being me, it is only a me, but it is me, the me, is there, always there, it is always changing, from know nothing to know something, from know something to know nothing, but it is always there. The me is not generated instantly when i was born. I can't be generated instantly, then, i can't be eliminated instantly, death is said to will eliminated me instantly, but it can't, as i am not generated instantly. I am there, after the death. The physical me is still there, the spiritual me is still there, the physical me may become the material in other forms again, but it is still there, the spiritual me may become know nothing again as before i was born, but it is still there. I never generated, I never eliminated. Birth didn't generated me, death won't eliminate me. I exist from the start, i exist forever. Where i come from? I am there from the start. Where i go? I am there forever.



- I know i will be alone forever. Once you find the Me, you will get this too. Do I have the desire of to be not lonely? If there is me, there is lonely.

Try to be lonely as me, try to be individual as me, it feel very good, and it is very good :) Be a eagle hover in the air, don't be a sparrow in the many other sparrows.




- If Otto Weininger didn't commit suicide...

Otto was a brilliant student in high school (Gymnasium), exhibiting a special flair for the humanities. Later, he also developed a keen interest in the natural sciences and mathematics. He possessed his parents' talent for languages and at eighteen, apart from German, knew Latin and Greek, spoke French, English, and Italian well, and was fluent in Spanish and Norwegian. At age sixteen, he wrote an etymological essay on certain Greek adjectives found only in Homer and attempted unsuccessfully to publish it in a leading philological journal of the time. He was not, however, a model schoolboy. He frequently disturbed classroom teaching and followed his own inclinations in his studies, rarely paying heed to his teachers. "My pleasure in 'hell-raising' in class is my pleasure in chaos," Weininger noted in his pocket notebook in 1903.

Shortly after the publication of his book Weininger said to a friend "There are three possibilities for me - the gallows, suicide, or a future so brilliant that I don't dare to think of it".



- Television, newspaper, magazine, all garbages.



- To the future reader: when you are reading my articles, you may find what i said is right, but you already know these things, why i say these obviously right things here? but, please don't take these things for granted, I see numerous people didn't understand these things yet, human is much stupider than you thought of. Everyone know the earth is round when he is born? No.



- When i review the sentences that i wrote down, i find, it changed, it can't express what i want to say when writing them, these sentences appears to be the words come from a innocent and passionate child now, most of the things i want to say is lost, if you use your experience to understand my words, you will only get the understanding which fit yourself, our experience are different, but my experience can't be write down, I can't tell these experience to you. The truth need to be taught face by face! So we can share the experience. It is said that only 38% of the truth can be written down, right. How to get the other portion of the truth? You need to build your own experience and be thinking.

I know your feeling after read my articles, such as, when you see i say i am enlightened, you just think this is a lovely boy, but i mean i am really enlightened, you lack the experience of enlightened, so you can't understand what i say, you use your experience to understand it, then you think you just meet a funny boy.



- It is very boring that one people always saying himself being a genius, but, please forgive me, i just wrote down what i thought honestly. And you know, i am only only saying this, i am doing some other things, i am thinking.



- Physics and many other nature science are only one small part of the truth, most truth lie in the human itself. What i am good at is understanding myself, then i understand the others easily too.



- If you don't trust that you can done it, how can you done it? If i don't trust i am a genius, how can i be a genius? So i must trust it, even just for maybe i am a genius. Boy, you need to trust you are genius too, i can tell you:"you are a genius", you can trust me. The different from enlightened or not is very small, every boy have the potential to achieve enlightenment. You are told that you are not a genius because your achievement is not good? No, you are still a genius, your achievement is much better than the young Einstein at least. You are a genius, always remember this, always trust this!

The different between you and I is not i am a genius and you are not, but I trust i am a genius but you don't.



- I can give you a powerful weapon which i find occasionally: You want to defeat him? Always laugh :) Laugh when he is showing his money, his car. He cost many years' toil to get these things, you break he by one second, just by showing your laugh to him :) You will find he can't laugh happily as you, because you have everything that he want in his heart, and he know the car which he have is not wanted by you, he don't want the car too, so he envy you and can't laugh about. Laugh when the teacher ask you to do something with his solemn face, and leave him :) But, to laugh naturally, you need to achieve enlightenment first :)



- Go out, go to feel the earth and the sky, don't always stay in a room, or your view will be limited!

Your everyday life is not ultimate reality, the earth and the sky are neglected in your everyday life, the everyday life is just a world build by many people, it have no different from a world in a book, a world in a computer game.



- To be honest, i confess that i am a little making fun of you, sometimes, my laugh is a little like the laugh when you see a monkey wearing the clothes and doing something. You think the things what the monkey is doing have no meaning and laugh, i sometimes think... :)

Don't tell others that you get a good job which the monthly pay is six thousands, while others heard this and envy you, i laugh, because i begin to imagine a monkey become very happy because she is given six peaches everyday :_)



- Nietzsche go mad, Weininger commit suicide, I laugh :) I am lucky, that i read their books, not write their books. Then...

These thought have already sprout in my head, so when i read Nietzsche and Weininger's books, i understand their thought easily, and think they are right. If I didn't read their books, i must be me write their books, which will make my life as miserable as theirs.

I am confident, and I must be confident, this is directly related to my life. Nietzsche and Weininger are confident, they trust there will be a person who understand their thinking and agree with them 100 years later. My confidence is easier, there are two geniuses 100 years ago who agree with me.



- Oh, please, please don't think i am genius, i am not a genius, how can you trust the words come out from a child when he is dreaming, don't treat my words seriously, just get joy from them, or you will find you are played by a child :)

If i am not the genius, you are? Yes, if you think i am not a genius, then you are a genius. Yes, you really think i am not a genius, because, you are really a genius!



- When i am thinking, the whole world is in my head, the cosmos is in my head, the history is in my head, everything i know is in my head :) Everybody is in my head, every great man is thinking in my head, i explore this world by my thinking, i see Mao Zhedong, what is he thinking? i start thinking, then i understand what he is thinking :) Their thought is only a part of my thinking.



- Don't neglect any small clue of your thinking, think about it deeply, then surprising thought come out.



- Everyone of you know that human is different from animal is because human can think, but, are you thinking? you are thinking about food, house... animals can think about these things too.



- Genius must often feel that himself is a ignorance, i always feel i am a ignorance, know nothing, now :) So i learn eagerly. The different between ignorance and idiot is that idiot don't try to learn.



- Yes, the more my head is clear, the more clear i know i am the lightning that Nietzsche waited, the more my head is clear, the more clear i know i am the genius of geniuses that Weininger waited. I say the precious words, loudly, with my calm, clear head.

Geniuses in the world! Unite! The lightning is out! The first superman is born! The genius of geniuses is born! Follow me! Enlighten yourself! Geniuses!



- Awake, you are being a monkey! You don't "think" so? Try to record every word you said today, try to record every action you are doing today, then spend one day to watch it tomorrow! You will find a monkey!



- Monkey won't create anything in their whole life, what have you create? The computer you are using is not created by you, the clothes you are wearing is not created by you, everything around you is not created by you, you monkey. You take the material things created by geniuses, but you never take the spiritual things created by geniuses, have you read even one book written by the geniuses in the past so many years? You monkey.




- Everyone of you have these things in your heart too, the desire of truth is in your heart when you were born, but all of you forget it, lost your desire of truth. Why human are born? You are born with the desire of truth, the mission is given to you when you are born, but all of you forget your mission in your life when you grown up.

Start to recollect your childhood, write down it with every detail, you will find your desire of truth again, you will find you are a genius!



- If i am not so wise, i won't go to the way of becoming philosopher :_) I am not dazzling my wise here, you know, being a philosopher is not so wonderful, but it is inevitable to me now, once start your thinking, you can never stop it, hoho. Truth, is not so good too, :) inevitable. Anyway, being a philosopher to me is not so bad presently, i am much happier than ago, although the happy is different from the happy ago, i can always burst into laugh when reading some philosophy books, :) the bad thing will come some years later, that is, become a sage :) look at those sages, so dreadful life they are leading, :_), inevitable.



--


Hu Zheng's full writings can be accessed through his website - <a href="http://reciteword.cosoft.org.cn/yaoguang/" target="top">here</a>.
Edited by: DavidQuinn000 at: 12/10/03 9:43 am
User avatar
David Quinn
Posts: 5708
Joined: Sun Sep 09, 2001 6:56 am
Location: Australia
Contact:

Rotation of Crops

Post by David Quinn »

Matt Gregory posted in this interesting essay from Soren Kierkegaard. I've edited it slightly for the sake of brevity.


--


THE ROTATION OF CROPS

A VENTURE IN A THEORY OF SOCIAL PRUDENCE


People with experience maintain that proceeding from a basic principle is supposed to be very reasonable; I yield to them and proceed from the basic principle that all people are boring. Or is there anyone who would be boring enough to contradict me in this regard? This basic principle has to the highest degree the repelling force always required in the negative, which is actually the principle of motion. It is not merely repelling but infinitely repulsive, and whoever has the basic principle behind him must necessarily have infinite momentum for making discoveries. If, then, my thesis is true, a person needs only to ponder how corrupting boredom is for people, tempering his reflections more or less according to his desire to diminish or increase his impetus, and if he wants to press the speed of the motion to the highest point, almost with danger to the locomotive, he needs only to say to himself: Boredom is the root of all evil. It is very curious that boredom, which itself has such a calm and sedate nature, can have such a capacity to initiate motion. The effect that boredom brings about is absolutely magical, but this effect is one not of attraction but of repulsion.

How corrupting boredom is, everyone recognizes also with regard to children. As long as children are having a good time, they are always good. This can be said in the strictest sense, for if they at times become unmanageable even while playing, it is really because they are beginning to be bored; boredom is already coming on, but in a different way. Therefore, when selecting a nursemaid, one always considers essentially not only that she is sober, trustworthy, and good-natured but also takes into esthetic consideration whether she knows how to entertain children. Even if she had all other excellent virtues, one would not hesitate to give her the sack if she lacked this qualification. Here, indeed, the principle is clearly acknowledged, but things go on so curiously in the world, habit and boredom have gained the upper hand to such a degree, that justice is done to esthetics only in the conduct of the nursemaid. It would be quite impossible to prevail if one wanted to demand a divorce because one's wife is boring, or demand that a king be dethroned because he is boring to behold, or that a clergyman be exiled because he is boring to listen to, or that a cabinet minister be dismissed or a journalist be executed because he is frightfully boring.

Since boredom advances and boredom is the root of all evil, no wonder, then, that the world goes backwards, that evil spreads. This can be traced back to the very beginning of the world. The gods were bored; therefore they created human beings. Adam was bored because he was alone; therefore Eve was created. Since that moment, boredom entered the world and grew in quantity in exact proportion to the growth of population. Adam was bored alone; then Adam and Eve were bored en famille. After that, the population of the world increased and the nations were bored en masse. To amuse themselves, they hit upon the notion of building a tower so high that it would reach the sky. This notion is just as boring as the tower was high and is a terrible demonstration of how boredom had gained the upper hand. Then they were dispersed around the world, just as people now travel abroad, but they continued to be bored. And what consequences this boredom had: humankind stood tall and fell far, first through Eve, then from the Babylonian tower.

On the other hand, what was it that delayed the fall of Rome? It was bread and games. What is being done in our day? Is consideration being given to any means of amusement? On the contrary, our doom is being expedited. There is the idea of convening a consultative assembly. Can anything more boring be imagined, both for the honorable delegates as well as for one who will read and hear about them? The country's financial situation is to be improved by economizing. Can anything more boring be imagined? . . . . .

Idleness, we are accustomed to say, is the root of all evil. To prevent this evil, work is recommended. But it is just as easy to see from the dreaded occasion as from the recommended remedy that this whole view is of very plebian extraction. Idleness as such is by no means a root of evil; on the contrary, it is truly a divine life, if one is not bored. To be sure, idleness may be the occasion of losing one's property etc., but the noble nature does not fear such things but does indeed fear being bored. The Olympian gods were not bored; happy they lived in happy idleness. A female beauty who neither sews nor spins nor irons nor reads nor plays an instrument is happy in idleness, for she is not bored. Idleness, then, is so far from being the root of evil that it is rather the true good. Boredom is the root of evil; it is that which must be held off. Idleness is not the evil; indeed, it may be said that everyone who lacks a sense for it thereby shows that he has not raised himself to the human level. There is an indefatigable activity that shuts a person out of the world of spirit and places him in a class with the animals, which instinctively must always be in motion. There are people who have an extraordinary talent for transforming everything into a business operation, whose whole life is a business operation, who fall in love and are married, hear a joke, and admire a work of art with the same businesslike zeal with which they work at the office. The Latin proverb otium est pulvinar diaboli [idleness is the devil's pillow] is quite correct, but the devil does not find time to lay his head on this pillow if one is not bored. But since people believe that it is man's destiny to work, the antithesis idleness/work is correct. I assume that it is man's destiny to amuse himself, and therefore my antithesis is no less correct . . . .

Now, if boredom, as discussed above, is the root of all evil, what then is more natural than to seek to conquer it? But here, as everywhere, it is primarily a matter of calm deliberation, lest, demonically possessed by boredom in an attempt to escape it, one works one's way into it. All who are bored cry out for change. In this, I totally agree with them, except that it is a question of acting according to principle.

My deviation from popular opinion is adequately expressed by the phrase "rotation of crops." There might seem to be an ambiguity in this phrase, and if I were to find room in this phrase for a designation of the ordinary method I would have to say that rotation of crops consists in continually changing the soil. But the farmer does not use the expression in this way. For the moment, however, I will use it in this way to discuss the rotation of crops that depends upon the boundless infinity of change, its extensive dimension.

This rotation of crops is the vulgar, inartistic rotation and is based on an illusion. One is weary of living in the country and moves to the city; one is weary of one's native land and goes abroad; one is weary of Europe and goes to America etc.; one indulges in the fanatical hope of an endless journey from star to star. Or there is another direction, but still extensive. One is weary of eating on porcelain and eats on silver; wearying of that, one eats on gold; one burns down half of Rome in order to visualize the Trojan conflagration. This method cancels itself and is the spurious infinity. What, after all, did Nero achieve? No, then the emperor Antoninus was wiser; he says: "You can begin a new life. Only see things afresh as you used to see them. In this consists the new life"

The method I propose does not consist in changing the soil but, like proper crop rotation, consists in changing the method of cultivation and the kinds of crops. Here at once is the principle of limitation, the sole saving principle in the world. The more a person limits himself, the more resourceful he becomes. A solitary prisoner for life is extremely resourceful; to him a spider can be a source of great amusement. Think of our school days; we were at an age when there was no esthetic consideration in the choosing of our teachers, and therefore they were often very boring--how resourceful we were then! What fun we had catching a fly, keeping it prisoner under a nutshell, and watching it run around with it! What delight in cutting a hole in the desk, confining a fly in it, and peeking at it through a piece of paper! How entertaining it can be to listen to the monotonous dripping from the roof! What a meticulous observer one becomes, detecting every little sound or movement. Here is the extreme boundary of that principle that seeks relief not through extensity but through intensity.

The more resourceful one can be in changing the method of cultivation, the better, but every particular change still falls under the universal rule of the relation between recollecting and forgetting. It is in these two currents that all life moves, and therefore it is a matter of having them properly under one's control. Not until hope has been thrown overboard does one begin to live artistically; as long as a person hopes, he cannot limit himself. It is indeed beautiful to see a person put out to sea with the fair wind of hope; one may utilize the chance to let oneself to towed along, but one ought never have it on board one's craft, least of all as pilot, for it is an untrustworthy shipmaster. For this reason, too, hope was one of Prometheus's dubious gifts; instead of giving human beings the foreknowledge of the immortals, he gave them hope.

To forget--this is the desire of all people, and when they encounter something unpleasant, they always say: If only I could forget! But to forget is an art that must be practiced in advance. To be able to forget always depends upon how one experiences actuality. The person who runs aground with the speed of hope will recollect in such a way that he will be unable to forget. Thus nil admirari [marvel at nothing] is the proper wisdom of life. No part of life ought to have so much meaning for a person that he cannot forget it any moment he wants to; on the other hand, every single part of life ought to have so much meaning for a person that he can remember it at any moment. The age that remembers best is also the most forgetful: namely, childhood. The more poetically one remembers, the more easily one forgets, for to remember poetically is actually only an expression for forgetting. When I remember poetically, my experience has already undergone the change of having lost everything painful. In order to be able to recollect in this way, one must be very much aware of how one lives, especially of how one enjoys. If one enjoys indiscriminately to the very end, if one continually takes the utmost that enjoyment can give, one will be unable either to recollect or to forget. That is, one has nothing else to recollect than a satiation that one only wishes to forget but that now torments with an involuntary recollection. Therefore, if a person notices that enjoyment or a part of life is carrying him away too forcefully, he stops for a moment and recollects. There is no better way to give a distaste for going on too long. From the beginning, one curbs the enjoyment and does not hoist full sail for any decision; one indulges with a certain mistrust. Only then is it possible to give the lie to the proverb that says that one cannot eat one's cake and have it, too. It is true that the police forbid carrying secret weapons, and yet there is no weapon as dangerous as the art of being able to recollect. It is a singular feeling when in the midst of enjoyment one looks at it in order to recollect it.

When an individual has perfected himself in the art of forgetting and the art of recollecting in this way, he is then able to play shuttlecock with all existence . . . . .

The art of recollecting and forgetting will also prevent a person from foundering in any particular relationship in life--and assures him complete suspension.

Guard, then, against friendship. How is a friend defined? A friend is not what philosophy calls the necessary other but the superfluous third. What are the rituals of friendship? One drinks dus; one opens an artery, mingles one's blood with the friend's. Just when this moment arrives is difficult to determine, but it proclaims itself in a mysterious way; one feels it and can no longer say De to the other. Once this feeling is present, it can never turn out that one has made a mistake such as Gert Westphaler made when he drank dus with the executioner. --What are the sure signs of friendship? Antiquity answers: "agreement in likes and dislikes, this and this only is what constitutes true friendship"--and is also extremely boring. What is the meaning of friendship? Mutual assistance with counsel and action. Two friends form a close alliance in order to be everything to each other, even though no human being can be anything for another human being except to be in his way. Well, we can help each other with money, help each other into and out of our coats, be each other's humble servants, gather for a sincere New Year's congratulation, also for weddings, births, and funerals.

But just because one stays clear of friendship, one will not for that reason live without contact with people. On the contrary, these relationships can take a deeper turn now and then, provided that one always--even though keeping the same pace for a time--has enough reserve speed to run away from them. It may be thought that such conduct leaves unpleasant recollections, that the unpleasantness consists in the diminishing of a relationship from having been something to being nothing. This, however, is a misunderstanding. The unpleasantness is indeed a piquant ingredient in the perverseness of life. Moreover, the same relationship can regain significance in another way. One should be careful never to run aground and to that end always to have forgetting in mind. The experienced farmer lets his land lie fallow now and then; the theory of social prudence recommends the same thing. Everything will surely come again but in a different way; what has once been taken into the rotation process remains there but is varied by the method of cultivation. Therefore, one quite consistently hopes to meet one's old friends and acquaintances in a better world but does not share the crowd's fear that they may have changed so much that one could not recognize them again. One fears, instead, that they may be altogether unchanged. It is unbelievable what even the most insignificant person can gain by such sensible cultivation.

Never become involved in marriage. Married people pledge love for each other throughout eternity. Well, now, that is easy enough but does not mean very much, for if one is finished with time one is probably finished with eternity. If, instead of saying "throughout eternity," the couple would say "until Easter, until next May Day," then what they say would make some sense, for then they would be saying something and also something they perhaps could carry out. What happens in marriage? First, one of them detects after a short time that something is wrong, and then the other one complains and screams: Faithlessness! Faithlessness! After a while, the other one comes to the same conclusion and a state of neutrality is inaugurated through a balancing of accounts by mutual faithlessness, to their common satisfaction and gratification. But it is too late now, anyway, because a divorce involves all kinds of huge problems.

Since marriage is like that, it is not strange that attempts are made in many ways to shore it up with moral props. If a man wants to be separated from his wife, the cry goes up: He is a mean fellow, a scoundrel, etc. How ridiculous, and what an indirect assault upon marriage! Either marriage has intrinsic reality, and then he is adequately punished by losing it, or it has no reality, and then it is unreasonable to vilify him because he is wiser than others. If someone became weary of his money and threw it out the window, no one would say he is a mean fellow, for either money has reality, and then he is adequately punished by not having it anymore, or it has no reality, and then, of course, he is indeed wise.

One must always guard against contracting a life relationship by which one can become many. That is why even friendship is dangerous, marriage even more so. They do say that marriage partners become one, but this is very obscure and mysterious talk. If an individual is many, he has lost his freedom and cannot order his riding boots when he wishes, cannot knock about according to whim. If he has a wife, it is difficult; if he has a wife and perhaps children, it is formidable; if he has a wife and children, it is impossible. Admittedly, there is the example of a gypsy woman who carried her husband on her back throughout life, but for one thing this is a great rarity and, for another, it is very tiring in the long run--for the husband. Moreover, through marriage one falls into a very deadly continuity with custom, and custom is like the wind and weather, something completely indeterminable. To the best of my knowledge, it is the custom in Japan for the husbands also to be confined during childbirth. Perhaps the time is coming when Europe will import the customs of foreign lands.

Even friendship is dangerous; marriage is still more dangerous, for the woman is and will be the man's ruination as soon as he contracts a continuing relationship with her. Take a young man, spirited as an Arabian horse; let him marry and he is lost. At the outset, the woman is proud, then she is weak, then she swoons, then he swoons, then the whole family swoons. A woman's love is only pretense and weakness.

Just because one does not become involved in marriage, one's life need not for that reason be devoid of the erotic. The erotic, too, ought to have infinity--but a poetic infinity that can just as well be limited to one hour as to a month. When two people fall in love with each other and sense that they are destined for each other, it is a question of having the courage to break it off, for by continuing there is only everything to lose, nothing to gain. It seems to be a paradox, and indeed it is, for the feelings, not for the understanding. In this domain it is primarily a matter of being able to use moods; if a person can do that, an inexhaustible variation of combinations can be achieved.

Never take any official post. If one does that, one becomes just a plain John Anyman, a tiny little cog in the machine of the body politic. The individual ceases to be himself the manager of the operation, and then theories can be of little help. One acquires a title, and implicit in that are all the consequences of sin and evil. The law under which one slaves is equally boring no matter whether advancement is swift or slow. A title can never be disposed of, it would take a criminal act for that, which would incur a public whipping, and even then one cannot be sure of not being pardoned by royal decree and acquiring the title again.

Even though one stays clear of official posts, one should nevertheless not be inactive but attach great importance to all the pursuits that are compatible with aimlessness; all kinds of unprofitable pursuits may be carried on. Yet in this regard one ought to develop not so much extensively as intensively and, although mature in years, demonstrate the validity of the old saying: It doesn't take much to amuse a child.

Just as one varies the soil somewhat, in accordance with the theory of social prudence (for if one were to live in relation to only one person, rotation of crops would turn out badly, as would be the case if a farmer had only one acre of land and therefore could never let it lie fallow, something that is extremely important), so also must one continually vary oneself, and this is the real secret. To the end, it is essential to have control over one's moods. To have them under control in the sense that one can produce them at will is an impossibility, but prudence teaches us to utilize the moment. Just as an experienced sailor always scans the sea and detects a squall far in advance, so one should always detect a mood a little in advance. Before entering into a mood, one should know its effect on oneself and its probable effect on others. The first strokes are for the purpose of evoking pure tones and seeing what is inside a person; later come the intermediate tones. The more practice one has, the more one is convinced that there is often much in a person that was never imagined. When sentimental people, who as such are very boring, become peevish, they are often amusing. Teasing in particular is an excellent means of exploration.

Arbitrariness is the whole secret. It is popularly believed that there is no art to being arbitrary, and yet it takes profound study to be arbitrary in such a way that a person does not himself run wild in it but himself has pleasure from it. One does not enjoy the immediate object but something else that one arbitrarily introduces. One sees the middle of a play; one reads the third section of a book. One thereby has enjoyment quite different from what the author so kindly intended. One enjoys something totally accidental; one considers the whole of existence from this standpoint; one lets its reality run aground on this. I shall give an example. There was a man whose chatter I was obliged to listen to because of the circumstances. On every occasion, he was ready with a little philosophical lecture that was extremely boring. On the verge of despair, I suddenly discovered that the man perspired exceptionally much when he spoke. This perspiration now absorbed my attention. I watched how the pearls of perspiration collected on his forehead, then united in a rivulet, slid down his nose, and ended in a quivering globule that remained suspended at the end of his nose. From that moment on, everything was changed; I could even have the delight of encouraging him to commence his philosophical instruction just in order to watch the perspiration on his brow and on his nose.

Baggesen tells somewhere that a certain man is no doubt a very honest fellow but that he has one thing against him: nothing rhymes with his name. It is very advantageous to let the realities of life be undifferentiated in an arbitrary interest like that. Something accidental is made into the absolute and as such into an object of absolute admiration. This is especially effective when the feelings are in motion. For many people, this method is an excellent means of stimulation. Everything in life is regarded as a wager etc. The more consistently a person knows how to sustain his arbitrariness, the more amusing the combinations become. The degree of consistency always makes manifest whether a person is an artist or a bungler, for up to a point everyone does the same. The eye with which one sees actuality must be changed continually. The Neoplatonists assumed that people who fell short of perfection on earth became after death more or less perfect animals according to their merits; those who, for example, had practiced social virtues on a minor scale (punctilious people) turned into social creatures--for example, bees. Such a view of life, which here in this world sees all human beings transformed into animals or plants (Plotinus also believed this--that some were changed into plants) offers a rich multiplicity of variation. The artist Tischbein has attempted to idealize every human being as an animal. His method has the defect that it is too serious and tries to discover an actual resemblance.

The accidental outside a person corresponds to the arbitrariness within him. Therefore he always ought to have his eyes open for the accidental, always ought to be ready if something should come up. The so-called social pleasures for which we prepare ourselves a week or a fortnight in advance are of little significance, whereas even the most insignificant thing can accidentally become a rich material for amusement. To go into detail here is not feasible--no theory can reach that far. Even the most elaborate theory is merely poverty compared with what genius in its ubiquity easily discovers.



User avatar
David Quinn
Posts: 5708
Joined: Sun Sep 09, 2001 6:56 am
Location: Australia
Contact:

Postmodernist denial of reality

Post by David Quinn »

For the sake of other readers of this forum, I'd like to analyize the belief that "everything is open to error" or "our every thought is false". It is a fairly widespread view in our society today and, even though it is easy to expose, one comes across it all the time. It is popular with aimless hedonistic types because it gives them a lazy way to justify their rejection of all idealism and their pleasure in being passive.

It should be noted that when a person asserts - or in most cases, preaches - that every thought is false, he is, in the very moment of preaching it, affirming something which he believes to be true - namely, that every thought is false. He asserts it as a truth in his attempt to tear down the idealistic position of his listener. But then, suddenly, in the very next moment, he completely disowns what he has just done and pretends that it didn't happen at all. For he realizes (subconsciously) that he is stuck with the idea that every thought is false, which immediately traps him in a flat contradiction. And because there is no way of dealing with such a fatal contradiction in a rational manner, the only way he can deal with it is by blocking it out of his mind altogether.

And so that is what he does. One minute he asserts a truth so powerful that (in his mind, at least) it defeats every great philosopher in history, the next moment he disowns it and assumes a pose of nothing ever happening at all. A bit like a robber denying point blank that he had robbed the bank he just came out of, even though he is wearing a balaclava and carrying bags of cash. It's a case of arbitrarily rewriting history to suit one's egotistical purposes, a form of denial of reality.

So not only is the person who asserts every thought is false (or every belief is crap, or everything is prone to error) being lazy, he is also being duplicitious and hypocritical. No one who actively engages in thought and values purity could possibly get stuck in it. But alas, millions do.

David Quinn
User avatar
David Quinn
Posts: 5708
Joined: Sun Sep 09, 2001 6:56 am
Location: Australia
Contact:

Comedy

Post by David Quinn »

Otto Weininger on the nature of comedy:

The essence of comedy seems to me to be an undue stressing of the empirical, thereby to reveal its unimportance. Everything realised is in principle laughable, and comedy bases itself on this, and so is the counterpart of the erotic. While the latter seeks to go from the bounded to the unbounded, comedy lowers itself to the bounded, pushing it alone to centrestage, and exposing it, by viewing it from all angles. The comedian has no need to travel; only he has the sense and tendency to the minor; his kingdom is neither sea nor mountain range, his home is the flatlands. He thus has a great fondness for idylls and delves into every individual particular: but always only to expose his incongruity with the thing in itself. He mocks the immanent by separating it completely from the transcendent, indeed no more giving the latter a name. Wit seeks contradiction within phenomena, comedy injures it the most by representing it as a self-contained whole; both show everything that is possible, and thereby most profoundly compromise the experiential. Tragedy, by contrast, represents what for all time is impossible, and so tragedy and comedy, each in their own way, refute the empirical, although they appear to be the opposite of each other .......


- Excerpt from a translation by Martin Dudaniec
User avatar
David Quinn
Posts: 5708
Joined: Sun Sep 09, 2001 6:56 am
Location: Australia
Contact:

Murdering women's souls for sexual pleasure

Post by David Quinn »

The question needs to be asked as to why men constantly need to praise to the skies women's multi-knobbed nature. It can't be for intellectual reasons. Women very rarely produce anything of intellectual interest. Whatever thoughts that a woman expresseses, it can be guaranteed that they have already been expressed in a far more powerful and interesting manner by men. Women only echo, in a far more diluted way, things they have heard from others or read about in a book. As such, only the most dull-witted of men could possibly find women intellectually stimulating.

It can't be for entertainment reasons. If you take away all of the sexual/whorish elements from a woman's behaviour, what do you have left? Someone who oscillates between juvenile inanity and matronly boorishness. The only thing that stops these behaviourisms from being unbearably tedious is the infusion of the sexual element. A woman gains her charm through the combination of sexuality and juvenility/motherliness/intellectual echoing. Without the sexual component, only the most lifeless of men, those who have absolutely no inner life to them at all, would find delight in women and give them the time of day. This is why old women are the most ignored class of people in society the world over.

Thus, the constant praise of women's multi-knobbed (i.e. her multi-faceted, incoherent, all-over-the-place, flowey) kind of behaviour ultimately comes from men's sexual desire. Men constantly praise women and defer to their banal concerns because they want to remain in their good books, and thus keep the possibility open for future sexual relations. They might not want to bonk every woman they meet - indeed, they might only want to bonk one or two of them out of the entire species - but they still continue to pour out the praise on all women regardless. For they subconsciously know that all women are just manifestations of the one entity - WOMAN - and that you cannot really praise one woman without praising all of them, just as you cannot disparage one of them without disparaging all of them.

The trouble with constantly praising women for their multi-faceted, incoherent, all-over-the-place, flowey behaviour is that it discourages them from developing a penetrative, coherent, consistent form of consciousness which is needed to make philosophical and spiritual progress. Hence, my beef with Thomas Knierim's misogynistic worship of women. I tell you truly, if women suddenly decided that they were going to make every effort to become Buddhas, he and his sixteen dogs would be horrified.

David Quinn
User avatar
David Quinn
Posts: 5708
Joined: Sun Sep 09, 2001 6:56 am
Location: Australia
Contact:

Karma and Reincarnation

Post by David Quinn »

Here are some of Kevin Solway's thoughts on karma and reincarnation. They have been garnered from a series of posts in which Kevin responded to the traditional/populist views of reincarnation put forward by a conventional Buddhist:


- The word "karma" can mean many different things, depending on the context in which it is used.

The kind of karma that consists of delusions and deluded actions, and which keep one from being a Buddha, is really only a sub-category of the larger category of simple cause and effect, and plain determinism. Therefore the rules that apply to cause and effect also apply to this kind of karma. That is, this kind of karma consists of particular kinds of causes, namely, those that cause one to be deluded.



- Forces are changing all the time, fanning-out, and absorbing, and mixing with other forces, so a karmic, or causal force cannot be identical from one moment to the next. You might perceive a thread of similarity between two forces, or in myself from one moment to the next, but that's all it is.

We could mentally group all those actions together into a single force and give it a name. We could even call it a "self" of sorts, that "reincarnates" as it is manifest in different forms.

But this kind of reincarnation doesn't happen in a neat and narrow linear way, from one single body to another single body, as in the traditional reincarnation belief. Rather, this kind of reincarnation fans out infinitely in all directions. One person reincarnates in a thousand different places each and every moment. So this is a completely different kind of reincarnation to that held by religions like Buddhism and Hinduism.



- The language of reincarnation; eg, "A deceiver is reborn as a fox", is only meant to be used as a language tool, like poetry, to succinctly point to the workings of cause and effect.

It effectively means: A deceiver is a fox, a form of life lower than human, and his actions lead to further forms of lower life.

"Bad karma" essentially means "delusions" - mistaken conceptions about the nature of reality. These cause one to be "born" in the deluded state of "samsara", where there exist mistaken notions about birth and death, and life is full of fear, boredom, false enjoyments, going in circles, not learning from mistakes, toiling for no gain, and suffering in general.

Once you rid yourself of these delusions you cease to have mistaken conceptions about the nature of reality, and you become a "Buddha" in Nirvana, residing in the "Buddha-realms", which is really just here, minus the delusions.

This is similar to Jesus's teaching that the Kingdom of God is right here on earth, only we can't see it.



- As I understand it, rebirth is entirely like waves [in the ocean]. For example, a student may appear to have inherited a lot from his teacher (just as the future wave appears to have inherited a lot from the current wave), and thus we may be able to "see his teacher in him". Thus he is the future wave of the previous wave that was his teacher. He is not exactly the same wave, because no wave is identical for two consecutive moments. And no person is identical for two consecutive moments.

In the case of my changing from moment to moment, there is a very considerable similarity between each momentary incarnation. However, once my brain physically dies, the mechanism for this concentration of similar forces is dismantled. While cause and effect goes on as before you no long recognize a strong resemblance of "Kevin" - unless of course you read "Poison for the Heart" or suchlike. Or you might meet someone who has been strongly influenced by my thought and recognize "Kevin", yet the resemblance will not be anywhere near as strong as if I were still physically alive.

Similarly with a wave. While the wave is in the deep ocean, and unimpeded, its form continues through time and is generally recognizable. However, once it smashes up against the beach (absorbed by sand and seaweed) its recognizable form disappears. The mechanism for its "staying together" has dissipated, yet it continues in other, less recognizable forms.

If there is a mechanism other than the brain to keep a stream of consciousness more or less "together" and recognizable over a period of time, and past the physical death of the body, then this has yet to be demonstrated.

Similarly with the wave: if the wave really continues in the same easily recognizable form, even after it has smashed up on the beach and disappeared, then this has yet to be demonstrated.



- All waves necessarily "fan out" so to speak, taking entirely different forms. The future wave we see is only one of the infinite consequences of the present wave (incidentally, we cannot know for sure that the future wave is directly/immediately related to the present wave, as it may have arrived through a different source). Every wave has an effect on the water immediately below it, which in turn has an effect on the deeper water, and ocean floor, etc. Every wave has an effect on the air around it, which in turn has an effect on the whole atmosphere. A wave reflects radiation, such as light, into space, and has an effect on objects in space.

Of course I concede that the wave crest is not really an "entity" as such, yet appears as such through a period of time - exactly the same as with a person. My point is that the reality is much more complex.

By "fanning out" I don't mean becoming more chaotic, only that the effects, the influences, fan out infinitely. The effects of the flapping of a butterfly's wings fan out infinitely into the environment, but they do not do so in a truly chaotic sense, as the effects conform to the strict laws of Nature, and the strict laws of cause and effect.

Let's take a work of spiritual literature for example. It may be the case that it becomes more and more diluted and corrupted with time, "fanning out" to its detriment. On the other hand, the forces of cause and effect may determine that it "fans out" in a beneficial way, evolving into a work which is even more pure and potent than the original, as it is handed down, slightly different, from one generation to the next, with different people learning from it, clarifying it, and perfecting it.



- Karma is just cause and effect, and it will do whatever it wants to do, regardless of what we might like it to do for the sake of justice or fair play. If cause and effect wants to erase this entire galaxy in an instant, in some kind of cosmic vaporization, it will do so. It has no concern for any of our petty misdeads, or whether Thomas or Kevin want to perfect something they have been working on, or have any unresolved business, or whether they think they have had a difficult life and believe they deserve an easier one. All that is consolation for old grannies.

It is extremely conceited of today's Buddhists for them to think the Universe cares so much about them. As if there is some kind of personal clerk somewhere, jotting down everything they do, virtuous and non-virtuous acts, and painstakingly plotting how these will all resurface in some future life. That is complete madness.

If the wave that crashes on the shore, momentarily and by sheer chance attained consciousness and the desire for Buddhahood the moment before it was annihilated on the sand, it doesn't mean that it will come back in another life to continue its pursuit - not if cause and effect determines that it won't.

Common Buddhist blind faith would say that it will continue its pursuit for perfection - not for any reason that they have, but just because that's what they have been told, and that's they want to believe. That is exactly the same kind of pitiful blind faith we see in Christians, with their believe in heaven and hell (and funnily enough, a lot more believe in heaven than hell).



- . . . . . And it's also amusing that the only people I've met who do remember their previous lives are fruitcakes. Even the Dalai Lama has said he doesn't remember his past lives. That's one thing in his favour. He is ashamed that several of the past Dalai Lamas were much, much better writers and poets than he is.

"Not remembering previous lives" is in reality only poetic talk for not remembering the past, for not reflecting on history, and not remembering one's own life from day to day, and from minute to minute. That's why people are doomed to go in circles, repeating their mistakes.


--


The entire conversation can be read <a href="http://pub86.ezboard.com/fgeniusnewsfrm ... =1&stop=20" target="top">here</a>


User avatar
David Quinn
Posts: 5708
Joined: Sun Sep 09, 2001 6:56 am
Location: Australia
Contact:

The role of lying in the life of truth

Post by David Quinn »

It is interesting to analyze the role of lying in the mind of the perfectly truthful individual. Contrary to what one might expect, telling a lie needn't be at odds with being perfectly truthful. Sometimes even the perfect sage has occasions to lie.

A person who speaks the truth at all times and in all circumstances is essentially an aimless person who has no values. He just articulates what is on his mind without thought for the consequences. His truthfulness is actually the product of a deeper lie which underpins his entire existence - namely, that he refrains from systematically promoting consciousness of truth in others. In other words, his truthfulness is, at best, confined to his own mind. He does not bother himself with promoting truthfulness in others. His commitment to truth is thus selective and halfhearted.

A classic example which illustrates this principle concerns the man who is running away from an axe murderer and takes refuge inside your house. The axe murderer knocks on your front door and asks if you have seen the man he is chasing, and you have the choice of whether to lie or tell the truth.

The impulsive truthteller who tells the truth in all circumstances, no matter what, will obviously choose to condemn the man hiding in your house to death. But what if the man in hiding is an enlightened sage? By telling the truth and condemning him to death you effectively undermine the cause of wisdom by eliminating a potent teacher. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of people in the future would be robbed of an important source of wisdom. Thus, the compulsive truthteller would in fact be harming wisdom and truth in the long run by telling the truth in this circumstance.

So in a very real sense, the compulsive truthteller is still quite unconscious in his perceptiveness and still a long way short of being wise.


--

If you value anything at all in this world, even as something as lofty as the promotion of wisdom, you automatically create the need to protect this value, even to the point of lying for it. If you didn't, then your commitment to this value would be piece-meal.

The key issue for the wisdom-valuer, then, is not whether he can refrain from lying at all times - which, as I have just articulated, is impossible due to the value he places on wisdom - but whether the lies he creates are wise in nature and lack any trace of ego. Obviously, he would want to minimize the telling of lies as much as possible, if for no other reason that to maintain his credibility as a teacher of Truth. But if he does need to lie, then ideally, it would need to be from the purest of motivations.

The recognition that it is impossible not to lie on occasion is part and parcel of being perfect truthful.


--

Q: Perhaps you could give a clearer example of being forced to lie for the cause of truth.

A: Here is an interesting example. It may well be that the religion of Buddhism is little more than a giant lie concocted by Gautama Siddharta (the original Buddha) for the purpose of preserving his highest wisdom. In other words, he created a religious community in which everyone was required to wear the same robes and the same haircut, and flooded it with realms of simplistic dogma and superficial rules, knowing that it would attract sheep-like individuals in droves. Although sheep-like individuals have no potential for wisdom, they tend to be very good at mundane things like building temples, copying texts, organizing lectures, administrating communities and so on. The Buddha saw, perhaps, that they could be harnessed to create a vehicle in which his deepest truths would be preserved for the sake of those few advanced thinkers in future generations.

The process is a bit like a bird eating a tasty seed and flying away to defecate the seed in another spot. What attracts the bird is the taste and smell of the seed, while the most valuble part of the seed is the genetic material contained within it, which the bird knows nothing about. Similarly, the rituals, rules and dogmas of the Buddhist religion are the "tasty" elements which attact multitudes of witless monks, and it is through their mundane. sheep-like activity that they unwittingly preserve the genuine wisdom which exists deep within Buddhism. In other words, the Buddha created a lie for the sake of truth.

I don't know if this is what really happened, but I cannot think of any other (wise) reason why Buddhism was created in the first place. There is no other way that its existence can be justified from the point of view of wisdom. Unless, of course, the Buddha was really a Rashneesh-type charlatan. (But if that were the case, then the presence of the genuine wisdom which does exist in certain parts of Buddhism would still need to be explained.)


David Quinn
User avatar
David Quinn
Posts: 5708
Joined: Sun Sep 09, 2001 6:56 am
Location: Australia
Contact:

Aphorisms from Weininger's Notebooks

Post by David Quinn »

Aphorisms from Weininger's Notebooks:

--

- Innocence is ignorance. To know and remain innocent would be the highest.


- Morality expresses itself thus: Act in full consciousness, that is, act so that in every moment you are whole, your entire individuality is there. Man experiences this individuality over the course of his life only in successive moments: that is why time is immoral and no living person ever holy, perfect. If man once acts with the strongest will so that all universality of his self (and of the world, for he is indeed the microcosm) is set in the moment, then has he overcome time and become divine.


- There is no such thing as chance. Chance would be a negation of the law of causality, which demands that even the temporal meeting of two separate causal chains still has a cause. Chance would destroy the possibility of life . . . It would nullify the connectedness of things, the oneness of the universe. If there is chance, then there is no God.


- Crime and punishment are not two, but one.


- A person lives until he enters either into the Absolute or into Nothingness. In freedom he himself determines his future life; he chooses God or Nothingness. He annihilates himself or creates himself unto eternal life. For him a double progress is possible: one toward eternal life (to perfect wisdom and holiness, to a condition fully adequate to the idea of the True and the Good) and one toward eternal annihilation. However, he continually advances in one of these two directions; there is no third.


--

(posted in by Hu Zheng)
User avatar
David Quinn
Posts: 5708
Joined: Sun Sep 09, 2001 6:56 am
Location: Australia
Contact:

Intellectual Knowledge verses Enlightenment

Post by David Quinn »

From Kevin Solway:

- You can only properly recognize a delusion through intellectual knowledge, the discriminating force. That intellectual knowledge in itself moves you closer to Truth, but not by any means all the way there. Then, the more you think about Truth, and the more you fill you mind with thoughts of Truth, and the more you love the Truth, you automatically move even closer to Truth, and the direct consciousness of Truth gradually becomes your normal state of being. It is like a process of osmosis. For example, if you spend a lot of time in the fog, then eventually your clothes become soaked, through no extra effort on your part.

Some people try to force their mind into altered states of consciousness, thinking they a getting direct intuitive experiences of Truth, and that they are taking a shortcut to enlightenment. But they are mistaken. They are short-circuiting, and ending in a cul-de-sac.


- [An enlightened] person's wisdom can be applied to any particular problem, and see the underlying Truth in it. For example, the ability to see through all genuine koans, or, in fact, any occurance in life. It would include the ability to correctly understand all genuine spiritual teachings.

The person whose knowledge was merely intellectual would struggle with koans, or difficult philosophical or moral problems. That is, even though they would be able to come up with some kind of reasoned response to koans, or religions teachings, or any occurance in life, their response would not be spontaneous and effortless. They would be struggling, and would make mistakes, and would be inconsistent. Their responses would be mostly from their mind, rather from the depth of their character, and dare I say "heart".


- If a person were perfect they would not feel the slightest trace of boredom at any time, neither gross (marked) nor subtle (faint traces) boredom.

A person who has mere intellectual knowledge, even of all delusions, doesn't necessarily escape even gross boredom (and other delusions), because the knowledge does not pervade all parts of their mind. Their knowledge is compartmentalized. You could call such a person "enlightened" if you wanted to, as indeed "a light has been turned on", but I wouldn't use the word in that case, as the person hasn't achieved anywhere near enough consistency, and hasn't developed enough love of truth. They are not a shining beacon. They are like a person who has just started walking in the fog, and has not get become drenched to their bones. Or they are like a person who has been walking in the fog for some time, but they have remained relatively dry because they are wearing waterproof clothing, as they have no great desire to be drenched.

I would call a person "enlightened" when their intellectual knowledge of Reality extends to everything, plus that intellectual knowledge has largely pervaded all parts of their mind, dispelling all gross delusions and inconsistencies in thought and behavior, and they have a deep love of Truth which shines from them.

Such a person will still experience very subtle boredom, or disappointment, etc. But these subtle remaining delusions will be fleeting and very insubstantial. They will not be able to influence the person's primary thoughts and behaviours in any way. They will be like a barely detectable mist that does not obstruct their vision in any real way, and quickly evaporates.


- When I said that enlightenment consists of "removing delusions" that means doing a lot more than simply being aware of truths, and being aware of one's delusions.

For example, a person might know fully why it is wrong for them to eat too much, and not exercise enough, and be overweight. Yet they continue to eat too much, not exercise, and put on weight.

Or they might know why it is irrational for them to feel bored, yet they sometimes feel bored.

Having the intellectual knowledge of a truth is still a long way from removing the delusion, as many delusions have subtle roots, are deeply ingrained, and are habitual.


- If a person only has subtle delusions left, then there is nothing in that person which can become aroused, or inflamed.

For example, there is nothing in them which is inflammable enough that it will burst into flame when fanned. There is at the most only a barely noticeable, mild warmth.

However, it is true that stress treatment will show-up any imperfections, and can reveal a person to be harbouring stronger delusions than they thought they were.

For example, an unexpected sharp blow directly on the thumb with a powerfully swung hammer can momentarily stir up some deep and irrational feelings. But if a person is solidly enlightened, they will feel little more than the actual physical pain.


- If you don't have an emotional attachment to your own life, or the lives of others, or your own future, or the future lives of others, then it doesn't matter much what kind of bad situations you might find yourself in. The enlightened person sees all situations simply as inevitable situations of cause and effect.

So the enlightened person, though tortured, would continue to think and behave as an enlightened person.

At the most they would have to contend with the subtle, very mild hindrances I spoke of before, and these would not distract them from their primary thought.

User avatar
David Quinn
Posts: 5708
Joined: Sun Sep 09, 2001 6:56 am
Location: Australia
Contact:

David Quinn's expulsion from the Ne Plus Ultra forum

Post by David Quinn »

A full copy of the events that lead to my expulsion from Ne Plus Ultra forum can be viewed <a href="http://home.primus.com.au/davidquinn/wo ... index.html" target="top">here</a>.

I have also written an <a href="http://home.primus.com.au/davidquinn/wo ... 00npu.html" target="top">essay</a> which analyzes the psychology of academic intellectuals, using the events at Ne Plus Ultra as a reference point.

DQ


Edited by: DavidQuinn000 at: 2/25/04 11:26 am
User avatar
David Quinn
Posts: 5708
Joined: Sun Sep 09, 2001 6:56 am
Location: Australia
Contact:

Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics

Post by David Quinn »

From: David Quinn
Date: 2/12/04
Thread: Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics

--

Hello everyone,

There is a common perception at the moment that quantum mechanics "demonstrates" that events happen without cause in the sub-atomic realm. It is a view regularly expressed on this forum by the followers of science, or more accurately, by those who like to read popular books on science. I thought it would be interesting to travel around some physics forum and ask serious observers of quantum theory what they think.

The results were very interesting. Almost no one agreed with the idea that events happen without cause in the quantum realms. Most believed this constituted a gross misunderstanding of quantum theory. They believed that while things are "indeterministic" in the quantum realms in terms of our ability to predict events, the quantum realm is nevertheless fully causal. This is exactly what Kevin, Dan and I have been arguing for years.

The first post I sent into these forums was this:

Quote:Quote:<hr>I was wondering if an expert in quantum physics can clarify a couple of things for me.

I read this in the Wikipedia:

Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics:

Quantum mechanics is a physical theory which is extremely non-intuitive. The equations have been very successful in predicting experimental results, but there have been a wide range of interpretations of what those equations mean.

The need for a large range of interpretations of quantum mechanics becomes clearer once it is mathematically demonstrated that no quantum theory can have all of the properties one would like quantum mechanics to have.

One inituitively would like a theory of quantum mechanics

- that is complete and not requiring any outside theory

- that is local in that the events at one point are only effected by nearby areas

- that is deterministic which is that given one set of circumstances, there is only one possible outcome

- that has no hidden variables

- that predicts only one universe

However, Bell's theorem appears to prevent quantum mechanics from having all of these properties. Which property is removed results in different interpretations of quantum mechanics.

This seems to suggest that are at least five different interpretations of quantum mechanics, each one the result of eliminating one of the five properties listed above.

My questions:

(a) Do any of these interpretations conflict with what is physically observed in the quantum realm?

(b) Do any of these interpretations hinder the practical application of the theory and its equations? <hr> In every forum, the standard response to both questions was "no". It doesn't matter what interpretation you adopt from the five listed above, the practical application of quantum theory remains unaffected. Indeed, the majority of respondents thought that quantum mechanics shouldn't be interpreted at all, that physicists should just "shut up and calculate".

I then asked them this:

Quote:Quote:<hr>If that is the case, then why has the "Copenhagan interpretation" - which removes the 3rd property listed above - gained currency in the scientific and non-scientific communities?

This is particularly strange, given that the removal of the 1st property (that QM is complete and not requiring any outside theory) would seem the most reasonable thing to do. The fact that physicists have chosen to reject determinism in the quantum realsm, instead of accepting that QM is an incomplete theory, seems incomprehensible to me.

Can you explain this? <hr> Here are some of the responses from a couple of the more intelligent forums:

--

The Copenhagen interpretation is a kind of pretense that physicists had
adopted so they can stop calculating useful things for a while and discuss
it with people that aren't interested in the math. The Copenhagen
interpretation was an early effort, I think it was the first attempt to
interpret the theory, and you'll find a lot of dissatisfaction with it.
The whole "collapse of the wavefunction" thing and the role of the
conscious observer, in my opinion, comes from a misguided effort to
consider an observer to not be a quantum system.

Gregory L. Hanson (Science Forum)

--

The interpretations are attempts to express QM, to some degree,
in terms of things with which we are familiar. Some people find that
this helps them get a feel for the subject. However, when physicists
were polled on which interpretation they preferred, the 'shut-up-
and-calculate' interpretation came top.

In other words the results of QM are so weird that attempts to
express them in terms of everyday experience fail, or at least
lead to bizarre situations. Of course these are always useful
for adding dramatic appeal to the subject.

Martin Hogbin (Science Forum)

--

If all you want to do is use QM to solve a particular problem
then you do the "shut up and calculate" thing. But that is not very helpful
if you want to have science progress and see if there is something more
fundamental than QM. The mind is a wonderful thing in that we can imagine
all kinds of scenarios. And imaginative scenarios based on past history can
be very powerful. A basic mindset right now is that of "turtles all the way
down". If we find something more fundamental to QM then what is more
fundamental to that? So why not just stop somewhere and call it quits since
we can calculate many useful things. Quantum field theory is that spot for
right now. But eventually our knowledge will progress to the point of
realizing something more fundamental than QM. It is just a matter of time
really.

FrediFizzx (Science Forum)

--

I question the "need" for interpretations. It is not a duty of a theory to
be "interpretable". Its only function is to be able to produce reliably
correct answers to questions put to it. Besides.what does it mean to
"interpret" a theory? To crudely reword it in terms of what the statte of
our intuition requires at the moment? Why bother, apart from the
intellectual pleasure it gives some to venture into metaphysics.

Franz Heymann (Science Forum)

--

If you could lay hand on a copy of a book by Franco Selleri that was
prefaced by Karl Popper, you would get a rather clean explanation
about this.

I suppose it has been translated to English, but my own copy is in
French and it's the only title I can refer you to:

"Le grand débat de la théorie quantique", by Franco Selleri.

As you may gather, the possible English title could very
well turn out to be "The Great Debate of Quantum Theory", but
who knows!

Of course there are as many opinions on this as there are authors,
as I observed as I went through quite a few of them, but Selleri's
account seems quite objective and thorough.

Although there is talk and rationalization about many interpretations,
they all boil down to either causalist or non-causalist, all
non-causalists on last analysis turning out to be plain and simple
followers of the Copenhagen school of thought.

What seems to have happened is this:

The most famous causalists (Einstein, Planck, Shrödinger, de Broglie,
et al.) believed that fundamental objective reality, that underlies
the theories that we elaborate about it, is not chaotic and obeys logical
laws that can be identified and understood, while the Copenhagen-Götingen
school of thought headed by Bohr, Eisenberg, et al. believed that there
exists no fundamental reality beyond what Quantum Mechanics can describe.

A strange turn of history seems to be responsible for the debate to
eventually die down, even before Einstein passed away, for lack of
fighters on the causalist side. Arnold Sommerfeld for example, a major
original proponent of the copenhagist view, was so viscerally opposed
to it, that he apparently taught for an extended period of his career
only the copenhagist view to group after group of students.

He was thus almost single handedly, at the origin of a complete
generation of eminent professors who had apparently only superficially
glanced at the other side of the coin and who concluded, with no reason
other than the conviction of their eminent teacher that the idea was
worthless, which translated into the causalists views and theories to
progressively cease being referred to in textbooks and thus came
to not even be minimally explained to students of the following
generations.

The non-causalist ball had started rolling and is still in full swing.

Today, physicists are unknowingly trained from the start as Copenhagists
in almost all colleges and universities without really being made
aware of the fact, and if they never personally question their own
philosophical orientation with respect to reality, naturally tend to
not even become aware that they are.

No reference book expounds anymore on the causalist viewpoint beyond
a few well known traditional showcases, like the EPR experiment for
example, which have simply become traditional causalists scapegoats
to be flogged in public, presumably because it simply is not possible
to completely disregard the major contribution of causalist scientists.

In fact, so little consideration has come to be afforded to causalists'
opinions at the international level, that despite his immense stature
as the last remaining major architect of modern physics, Louis de Broglie's,
last book seems not to even have been translated to English, although he
possibly was the keenest mind on electromagnetism of the 20th century!

From my analysis, the wide acceptance of the non-causalist option finds
its roots in the copenhagist philosophy which involves the acceptance of
irrational premises as an integral part of Quantum Mechanics, which in
turn seems to make it easier for the promoters to more readily accept
other irrational explanations to rationalize every observation that does
not logically fit accepted theories, which seems to satisfy them
sufficiently for them to consider searching for other explanations a
waste of time.

In other words, indeterminism simply is the easy way out.

Doesn't everybody love magic? :-]

Regards

André Michaud (sci.physics.particle)

--

I believe that is not the only reason. The "underlying" reason is that
in doctoral programs excellence in philosophy has been entirely and
without second thought divorced from the requirements to obtain a PhD
degree. Today, we educate science automatons, not scientists and for
that unphilosophical unconscious drones of today's "big and glorious
science" are sufficient.

Otherwise, a moderate physicist who had had a fleeting glance of
philosophy of mind would have known that statistical behavior might
not be primarily caused by a fundamental existence of randomness.
Fortunately, the school of Leibniz has been revived and through works
of digital physicists we are seeing a formidable alternative to the
Copenhagen interpretation!

Regards,

Eray (sci.physics.particle)

--

As I recall the Copenhagen interpretation evolved out of Bohr's desire
to present a unified interpretation to the world, and Heisenberg's
regard for his old teacher, together with a few bits from other
contributors. I think it was most accurately described in sci.physics as
a sort of Danish Smorgasbord, from which you take the bits you like.

Bohr's central contribution seems to have been the notion of
complementarity, the idea that something can be both wave and particle,
and that we only seen a part of its nature in any type of experiment.
This idea has itself been taken to mean different things by different
people but is widely subscribed, particularly in , and is probably at
the centre of most of the "crackpot" arguments about quantum mechanics
on sci.physics. From my general reading I have become convinced that
Heisenberg did not subscribe to complementarity, but I regret that I
have not read any of Heisenberg's own writings, and am about to correct
this by getting one of his books from Amazon. From what I do know of his
discussion of uncertainty, I think it was pretty on the ball, and lead
into the Dirac interpretation and indeed to my own understanding of
uncertainty - namely that the (crisp) position of an object cannot be
defined or discussed except relative to other matter, and since the
(crisp) position of other matter equally cannot be defined or discussed
except relative to still other matter, any definition of position in
classical (two valued) logic is bound to degenerate into recursive
argument.

If Heisenberg was not 100% clear, either in his own mind or to his
readers about this discussion, I think the reason is that he was
struggling with these ideas for the first time in history. Moreover many
valued logic was in its infancy, and there was no way that Heisenberg
could distinguish crisp from unclear statements, and this stuff is
extremely difficult to talk about if one is restricted to making
statements in crisp logic (classical or two valued logic, in which every
statement is either absolutely true or absolutely false).

Regards

Charles Francis (sci.physics.particle)

--

DQ: I've been repeatedly told, by scientists and non-scientists alike, that quantum physics has proven that things arise without cause in the quantum realm. Now I find that this is not true at all. It is just one particular interpretation that has been adopted by the physics community at the expense of rejecting the commonsense view that QM is an incomplete theory. I find this extraordinary.

Franz Heymann: That is horse dung. Whoever told you that did not know his arse from his elbow. QM is fully causal, but not fully deterministic.

(Science Forum)

--


I think the main reason that the Copenhagen interpretation has been
the preferred one is that it was the first, and most people will
stubbornly cling to the earliest version of a theory, especially when
later versions supply no additional working predictions, and so
maintain the same old physical content.

I also think that the notion of non-determinism in QM has been
overstated. So you can't predict with certainty how a system will
evolve in phase space, but we should not be too concerned about that.
The quantum realm has its own set of rules and we have to live with
them. Certainly, the wave function evolves in a deterministic way in
its own space. If you look at it that way, I think you can take a lot
of the mystery out of the theory . . . . .

André Michaud (sci.physics.particle)

--

All through history, self appointed "judges" of political correctness
of potential discoveries (today they name themselves "peer review
panels") have granted themselves the right to accept or refuse
publication of potentially promising papers based strictly on their
own understanding of the subjects. Understanding that can certainly be
questionned if the premises of the papers proposed were currently
unpopular.

As far back as the beginning of the 20th century, Poincaré himself
considered that they were not wrong in doing so and that they ran no
risk of smothering any serious discovery, for, as he explains: « If
you had asked academics [regarding this], they would have answered:
"We have compared the probability that an unknown scientist had found
what we have been looking for in vain for so long, to that of there
being one more fool on the Earth, the second would have appeared
greater".

Paradoxically, to explain the reluctance of academics to consider
any new idea and their recurring belief that all has already been
discovered, Poincaré wrote in the same book: "Each of us carries
within himself his own conception of the world, which he cannot so
easily dismiss." ; which, of course, is a psychological problem
that affects all humans and has nothing whatsoever to do with
science.

After having invested years of their life becomimg comfortable
with Minkowski's 4-dimensional space geometry, Special Relativity,
General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics and QED, fledgling physicists
then tend subscribe to them for good.

They are afterwards very unlikely to ever risk again losing intellectual
footing by reconsidering the whole structure, including the premises.

Unfortunately, despite the importance of the remaining problems, orthodox
theories always seem too satisfactory, and life too short, for them to
consider investing even part of their precious remaining time and
required effort in looking for potentially more appropriate alternatives
at the fundamental level.

To them, reconsidering fundamental space geometry, for example, or
trying to explore where would lead the idea that electron spin could
be due to pulsating instead of spinning, seem like useless extreme
mindbenders, or quite wrongly feel inadequate to deal with such
re-questioning, even if it could potentially cause our theories
to evolve towards solving the remaining problems.

Peer pressure to conform to the norm is also a major extinguisher
of personal initiatives.

André Michaud (sci.physics.particle)

--

Contrary to the common perception quantum mechanics becomes
intuitive when you grasp the difference between a fluid-like
quantity and a quantized quantity.

Be that your wife/girlfriend/concubine acts very different
to your idea of 'the women'. The fact that you may or may not
*** at a certain time is also expressed by a probability.

Company owners /CEOs who consider their mass of workers as
fluid are overlooking that few key persons at the right
places decide over success or failure of a project.

Rene Tschaggelar (Science Forum)

--

If you look and dig long enough, you will eventually come to the
conclusion that under the thick cloak of flashy mathematics that
fill so much space in so many physics papers and books, the real
stuff is not increasing in complexity, and the complexity of the
math cover often simply is an indication of the circuitous way
that the author used to get at some minute side detail of the
main subject.

André Michaud (sci.physics.particle)

--

FreddiFizz: If all you want to do is use QM to solve a particular problem then you do the "shut up and calculate" thing. But that is not very helpful if you want to have science progress and see if there is something more
fundamental than QM. The mind is a wonderful thing in that we can imagine all kinds of scenarios. And imaginative scenarios based on past history can be very powerful. A basic mindset right now is that of "turtles all the way
down". If we find something more fundamental to QM then what is more fundamental to that? So why not just stop somewhere and call it quits since we can calculate many useful things. Quantum field theory is that spot for right now. But eventually our knowledge will progress to the point of realizing something more fundamental than QM. It is just a matter of time really.

DQ: You seem to be saying that the "Copenhagen interpretation" is a kind of pretense that physicists have adopted so that they can stop for awhile and calculate many useful things. Is that correct?

If so, it raises another couple of interesting questions:

- Why do physicists need to create a pretence in order to "stop for a while"? Why can't they just stop for a while (in the knowledge that QM is a transient, incomplete theory) and get on with their calculations? Why all this extral bullshit?

Franz Heymann: Physicists generally speaking *don't* concern themselves with what you (rightly) call this extra bullshit. They get on with their experiments and their calculations. It is the folk who are concerned with the philosophy of science who bother with "interpretations". In that respect they do not indulge in physics, but in metaphysics.

DQ: - And secondly, if they had known all along that the "Copenhagan interpretation" is merely a pretense, a kind of metaphysical tool of convenience, then why has indeterminism been presented to the general public for the past eight decades as though it were a firm philosophic truth?

FH: That is a good question. Probably because pop science writers have a good nose for what makes exciting reading, and because religious proselytisers rather fancy the idea that there is a god somewhere who pulls strings in the background and manipulates the uncertainties.

DQ: Why do I feel like I've been lied to by the physics community?

FH: You have been lied to by the *metaphysics* community. You would be quite safe to disregard all they have to say.

The Copenhagen interpretation is not physics. Physics would progress in its merry way whether the Copenhagen interpretation is true or false. The interpretation of a theory is itself a set of philosophical statements about a theory. As such it is *metaphysics*.

(Science Forum)


-----------

<a href="http://www.sciencegroups.com/viewforum.php?f=1" target="top">Science Forum</a>

<a href="http://groups.google.com/groups?dq=&hl= ... s.particle" target="top">sci.physics.particle</a>
User avatar
David Quinn
Posts: 5708
Joined: Sun Sep 09, 2001 6:56 am
Location: Australia
Contact:

Hu Zheng abridged - part 2

Post by David Quinn »

From: Hu Zheng
Date: 2/21/04
Thread: Enter into Absolute

--

While being a child, never forget to train yourself as being a superman.


Genius, remember, always make yourself happier than others, so it is you laugh at them, rather than they :_) People feel good when they know genius feel not good(so they often ask you "Are you well?", and my answer "super well" often make them disappointed) .....


I sit in the dining hall and have lunch, i look at the passing students by my innocent eyes, the pure human is so seldom, i didn't meet one in the past half an hour.


"Pleasure is to be defined even more generally then than the feeling of creation. It can only be defined unequivocally as the feeling of life, as becoming conscious of existence; pain as the feeling of some kind of death (thus is sickness painful)." -- Weininger


The secret of success is, never stop, so he is impossible to fail.


"We can thus note this much against eudaemonism, that the goal of the striving must not be mistaken for the feeling that arises at the goal (which I can know from experience). When I strive for the higher life, I strive for something whose accompanying phenomenon is higher pleasure, but not for pleasure itself. Likewise, man longs for woman, and woman for man, not directly for pleasure." -- Weininger


Oh, Weininger saved my life, i know this is true. I am alive till now is a miracle, i have experience death for so many times(several electric shocks, drowning, appendicitis, many death accident i didn't aware or escaped and many chances to commit suicide :) i am laughing now, this is common in geniuses, genius like try everything, the lovely genius) in the past years. God is a miracle.


Animals and plants are the unconscious in man.


"Society expresses its sympathy for the geniuses of the past to distract attention from the fact that it has no intention of being sympathetic to the geniuses of the present." --Celia Green. Too right, genius is said to be awaited by them, but genius is not welcomed when come. "When a true genius appears in this world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him." --Jonathan Swift.


I have no interest to discuss whether i am a genius, let's discuss whether you are a idiot :)


I am always joking, until more and more things become true, we are always laughing, until you know the meaning of my laugh :)


"Universality is the distinguishing mark of genius. There is no such thing as a special genius, a genius for mathematics, or for music, or even for chess, but only a universal genius. The genius is a man who knows everything without having learned it." -- Weininger


"There are many kinds of talent, but only one kind of genius, and that is able to choose any kind of talent and master it." -- Weininger


"If a common theory, especially popular with the philosophers of the coffee-house, be true, that productive men (because they are always covering new ground) have no memory, it is often because they are productive only from being on new ground." -- Weininger


"Maternal love is an instinctive and natural impulse, and animals possess it in a degree as high as that of human beings. This alone is enough to show that it is not true love, that it is not of moral origin; for all morality proceeds from the intelligible character which animals, having no free will, do not possess. The ethical imperative can be heard only by a rational creature; there is no such thing as natural morality, for all morality must be self-conscious." -- Weininger


"Napoleon, the greatest of the conquerors, is a sufficient proof that great men of action are criminals, and, therefore, not geniuses." -- Weininger


"Great men of action, then, must be excluded from the category of genius. The true genius, whether he be an artist or a philosopher, is always strongly marked by his relation to the constructive side of the world." -- Weininger


"Geniuses experience a second adolescence, whereas other people are only young once." -- Goethe.


IQ test is certainly can't test the wise quality, and the genius often think about those problems more deep and from various aspect, so they can't get very high mark in the IQ test, but if give they enough time they should can get very high mark. Einstein is not good at psychology, this can be explained as he is not wise, and his face will give you this impression directly too, so Einstein is not a true genius as Napoleon.


Weininger think there only exist two type of genius, genius as artist or genius as philosopher, but i think, the absolute genius(the greatest genius, the genius of geniuses) can only be a philosopher(or religion founder ago). Weininger find him have musical genius later on as "I now have the conviction that I am yet born to be a musician", i can understand this, when i have good mood i will begin to humming, the rhythm which come out from my heart will be a music if i get enough training on music, and if i draw down what i see when i walk on the road, which make me feel i am the god, it will be a good drawing too. Artist is still not absolute genius can be know by their face(Beethoven, Von Gang), that is still not very humanly. All other type of geniuses(artist, literateur, scientist, emperor, politician, psychologist...) are just have some portion of the absolute genius, or the absolute human.


Geniuses are the most easy to get on with people in fact, except they make you ashamed when you compare yourself with them, but this is not their fault, they never despise you in fact, they smile to you sincerely when meet you, you should build up your self-respect, and, only when you insist on your stupidity in front of them, as it will destroy their good mood, they will play with you and reveal your stupidity in front of you to the extreme, so you should start to recognize your ignorance as Socrates, as geniuses.


If you love yourself, you are in your reality. The happiest people's reality, who never decline is called the ultimate reality. How to keep never decline?


The universe is one. Physics terminated :_) I am not joking, this is the most simple formula which physicists pursued, science was always only philosophy's helper, it tell you truths, and only philosophy can tell you the one truth, the utmost truth.


I know my utmost truth will change the whole human, but my last vanity, the vanity for immortality, have already disappeared :) As i know i am immortal, even no one know my name :)


"Genius never desires what does not exist." -- Kierkegaard.


I run on the playground, Weininger didn't died, Nietzsche didn't died, their spirit are completely filled the whole world, my spirit is completely filled the whole world, many geniuses' spirit are completely filled the whole world, they become the same as the whole world, as the nature, become the happiest, and so will never be eliminated. Buddha's highest realm should be the same as mine, entered the happiest world, the eternal world, Weininger entered this world too, i paste this again, "A person lives until he enters either into the Absolute or into Nothingness. In freedom he himself determines his future life; he chooses God or Nothingness. He annihilates himself or creates himself unto eternal life. For him a double progress is possible: one toward eternal life (to perfect wisdom and holiness, to a condition fully adequate to the idea of the True and the Good) and one toward eternal annihilation. However, he continually advances in one of these two directions; there is no third", yes, Buddha tell you enter into the Absolute too, or you will become Nothingness.


Just like whether you are a genius depend on whether you believe you are a genius, whether you entered into the Absolute depend on whether you believe you have already entered into the Absolute. I have already believed this.



-----

From: Hu Zheng
Date: 2/21/04
Thread: Live and propagate

Make your ambition be higher than anyone else in the world, so they won't worry about you that you will envy their things.


-----


From: Hu Zheng
Date: 2/20/04
Thread: pure human

--

I look at the television, animals sit together and are so happy :_)


Genius don't like herd together as they don't like to be the same as others while they know they are different from others.


Human is thinking, god is laughing. I always laugh while you are thinking :_)


Read over a book of Lao Zte, Lao Zte have get to know the harmoniousness. The essence of his thinking is written in the first two sentences, others are mainly used to cheat stupid people, so his wisdom can save to today.


On girl, speak very fast is the indication of high intelligence, the beautiful face is the indication of emotion, the good shape of body is the indication of will. Just like most boy is weak on will, most girl is weak on intelligence.


When i input my thinking notes which was written on the paper into the computer, i find, my thinking that only several days ago was so naive, but i know, but the people, those adults, are as naive as my old thinking, they get one position of my thinking, then stopped thinking, develop that thinking to detail, which seems very complex but the essence is still very naive as mine.


Why "The earth is around" is accepted by children so naturally and easily while it was so ridiculous ago? My thinking will be accepted by everyone too, but you must remember, it was very ridiculous ago too.


One experience, always write down your thinking honestly, even you are thinking about many very "bad" things, you will get to know your old "bad" thinking is just very naive soon, be thinking bravely, or you can't make your thinking get progress. I have the experience of fear "dangerous" thinking too, but you should know, you are only a child, everyone will forgive you even you have "bad" thinking :) I understand why only i can do the work of enlighten human now, as only a child can be so brave.


I know what i am good at, i can make your thought which you think is very deep become as naive as mine just by reply several words, it is because your thought is really very naive. I can make all of you become naive children again :_)


Why he teach you while he know that he needn't teach you? Because there are several women pretending to listening to him. People all start to pretend when herd together. They haven't much things learned, so they need to pretend. They have no valuable things to do, so they have time to pretend.


Make idiots understand me is impossible.
If i can see Nietzsche and Weininger after commit suicide, i will do it immediately.
Tears are flowing on my face.
Why i am so ruthless? Because i have devoted all my love.



Locked