DavidQuinn000 wrote:Well, I think you're too easily caught up in his theological upstream to be unbiased in this matter. I personally find his ideas too boring to give any sustained attention to, and hence I pulled out of that discussion after a short while. -
This is true. My mind continues to be very flowy. I flit from one thing to the next - but is it this way because I do not have as many solid attachments as others? I'm still learning, growing (I hope).
This is my initial response. What is your opinion? I just can't see how you are being rational relative to the circumstances. If you want wisdom to survive then you must work to create a world that humans can survive in, one of the first steps should be to remove the massive distraction of petty conflict. Nor quite frankly do I accept the boredom reason, I think you talked yourself into being bored.
What this terrific discussion clearly shows is the need to identify objective truths. David badly lost this argument even though he was often right, albeit that TM was more often right. (I haven't read the last part of the discussion yet).
Really what the argument is about is the need to convince others of a value judgement dealing with the STRATEGY required to progress humanity. In such discussions the facts need to be identified and values need to placed on each fact. Only then can the most rational strategic decisions be made by THIRD parties. The third party in a discussion like this is the individual, the self, whether it be the reader or the participants, and not the ideas or CAUSE being presented.
As far as I can see there are only two strategic options relative to the people involved.
Option 1 – TM’s. The world utilises some form of OS012 methodology to solve issues affecting human groups, PRIOR to then going through the process of ridding itself of attachments.
or
Option 2 - Davids. A limited number of individuals, free thinkers become enlightened and spread wisdom to others until it becomes a dominant way of life, in which case an OS012 process will occur by default.
Option 1 has:
a) An identifiable structure
b) A method
c) A desired win/win scenario (meaning it can be of advantage to all)
d) is not a significantly different process so as to be too great a burden for the believer. Any time we cooperate we are using the underlying principle of OS012. The shift to win/win could occur in a step by step process.
Option 2 has:
a) No structure – you must decide to cause it to occur, the ability to decide such must be pre-existing within you. One must find their own structure.
b) No method – its teaching path is random and uncontrolled.
c) A zero win scenario – that is the concept of winning would need to be abandoned, which is something completely foreign to all entities, material or biological.
d) Requires a significantly different way of life. It requires a quantum shift in one’s way of thinking. The pursuit of realities truths is completely foreign to most people. Those seeds that do germinate truth have difficulty in reproducing themselves. The sum of causes for most humans are not presently of the nature that would cause an abrupt shift in one’s perspective. Those who hold positions of power are largely unaffected by the direct personal experiences of the hardships that would be needed to cause the abrupt change.
It is quite obvious that Option 1 is a superior strategy to option 2. The odds of OS012 or some closely aligned dialectical system might be low (due to David’s points about ego, or more particularly what drives ego) but the odds of David’s philosophy being successful are almost non-existent. It would require the pain of something like a significant worldwide disaster that had the affect of destroying a portion of that which one holds dear, such as people or the ease and security of modern life, before people would be caused to undertake the hardships that David’s philosophy requires. Even then one would have to fight against it’s opposite – believers in the QRS philosophy would have to battle against the descent into domination by religious fundamentalists who would flourish in such an environment.
I think David is making a fundamental error in his decision that his sort of wisdom is what is required at the moment. He is far too idealistic.
In being idealistic he is making the “error of relative free-willâ€. While he doesn’t cognitively believe in free-will in any way, underneath he must, otherwise he would be rational rather than idealistic. What he seems to believe in is relative-free will. He recognises that ultimately there is no free will, yet he spends his life trying to achieve just that. Enlightenment is a form of relative free will – it is relative to other humans. He is saying that he is free from the affect of emotions and of irrationality and thus has a higher, more noble consciousness. He says that they free themselves from irrationality and in the process free themselves from the binds of strong causes such as morality, conventions, conformity, mental barriers. Is a mind with less barriers of the nature of a freer will? (Ultimately it isn’t, it is one that is just based on memory and the brains CPU). It is NOT a higher form of consciousness, but merely a different form – it has a different mode of operation. If it was a higher form than he would have to call himself a mystic, which he doesn’t.
Now there is nothing wrong with all this, what is wrong is that he is projecting his living experience, his experience of a freer will, onto the whole of humanity and is saying that one size fits all –when clearly it does not.
The QRS still have some instinctual desires, namely the desire to propagate themselves. Their wisdom of reality becomes their dicks, the tool by which they can reproduce themselves, the mental control impulse that can steer their will. As they are deeply involved in this freer will world they live in, and it sustains them and gives them some form of masculine satisfaction, they then project that others should be capable of achieving the way of life that they have completely disregarding the likely negative outcomes of their choices for the average human in today’s world.