Why causality is an illusion

[movingalways]

Movingalways, lol. Got to laugh at your signature when contemplating this 3 legged argument.

So you give me the one-legged argument, which, of course, is no argument at all?

[mental vagrant]

Not an argument contribution. Simply observing an incongruity between signature and writings. I thought you might appreciate the irony.

[Dennis Mahar]

Not an argument contribution. Simply observing an incongruity between signature and writings. I thought you might appreciate the irony.

Language is an ontological phenomenon (being).
not an auditory phenomenon.
So you wanna be clever huh?
Welcome anyway.

[mental vagrant]

I do appreciate irony. I also appreciate the difficulties of communicating over the internet.

No, i was being playfull. Where trying is an abnormally excessive nature of relatively temporal brevity.

Thank you.

[Dennis Mahar]

playful?

what's the ontological flavour of 'mental vagrant'?
as you bring that to me, what am I meant to be tasting?

playful?

it has the look of announcement to it.
announcing trouble.

[mental vagrant]

'mental vagrant' is a polychromatic composition of it's experience. Taste what you will, that is, as it can be.

Yes playful probably does indicate trouble, it's one way of learning. No offence is intended when i inquire is such a manner, that would be pointless.

[movingalways]

Not an argument contribution. Simply observing an incongruity between signature and writings. I thought you might appreciate the irony.

Since you did not explain why you believe there is an incongruity between my signature and my writings, and I do not believe there is an incongruity between the two, how can I appreciate what you believe is irony?

[Dennis Mahar]

Playfulness it is then.
can't see any meanness.
To get an orientation of the forum's purpose,
can I recommend Dan Rowden's youtube channel men of the infinite,
'Nature of existence' parts 1,2,3.?

can you commit?

[cousinbasil]

Not an argument contribution. Simply observing an incongruity between signature and writings. I thought you might appreciate the irony.

Since you did not explain why you believe there is an incongruity between my signature and my writings, and I do not believe there is an incongruity between the two, how can I appreciate what you believe is irony?

@ mental vagrant
I have mentioned to Pam in the past that I think her signature should be the other way around. Is that what you mean? It seems that way would be more consistent with her ongoing themes.

[Talking Ass]

An Ass, Forced By Prior Causes No One Can Know (Nor Resist, Apparently) Breaks His (Week-Long) Silence, To Post The Following:

Dan's video is, in very truth, a kind of farce of thinking delivered with a Golden Voice. I just listened to those 3 parts and was able to stay awake. In truth there is nothing particularly substantial in these ideas. However, the whole set-up with its slick imagery and the hypnotic voice seems to intend that there is some revelation lurking in it. There is no such revelation. It is almost nothing more than a statement of certain facts, one being that any thing, and you and me, occur within a grander scheme and that we are connected and interpenetrated by 'it'. But at a certain point the Q-R-S mystification begins and a group of things are asserted about this state of affairs (this reality) that are not much more than sheer mystification. Once again, this Ass Who Talks notes that it is only a peculiar sort of mind who gets attracted to the 'knowledge' contained in these philosophical assertions, and to all appearances it is a sort of dullard. It is very important to state this (after seeing it). It would seem that this vortex of 'thinking' attracts a sort of person and mind deeply attracted to tautologies, and while I would not say 'irrelevancies' because (at least) the notion that boundaries are not a precise as we imagine is interesting and thought-provoking...

And we do indeed live within a system in which all things are connected, and for which beginning and ending are not as certain as we suppose (are 'forced' to suppose), yet, what comes out of this (what is extruded from it)(by Rowden and Q and S), is far less consequential than should be supposed. And, importantly, it is an attempt at a kind of mental sytematizing, bound to harsh binaries, that are so attractive and 'domineering'.

Additionally, this Ass wishes to proclaim that Pam, and Dennis, and Jufa, are involved not in 'productive thinking' of ANY SORT at all, but of masturbatory metaphysical play-house and really quite obvious newage gimcrackery. I would also suggest that this represents a tendency (heh heh: symptomology) of Advanced Decay of thought, of a kind of depletion of mental resources, and it is as if the little motor, on its last legs, just starts whining on and on out of control, as if this *means* something, as if it *matters* and has relevance!

I see now that this is the meaning of extreme decadence in thinking, and I wonder,(terrified, trembling): What comes next? Oh God, Oh God...

At this point, this Ass---a Voice Crying in the Wilderness!---goes down on 4 knees and prays to Divinity and Demonity that sOmEoNe, AnYoNe around here sees the light and UNDERSTANDS what he is saying...[Insert Psalm 18:6 here and hope for a raining down of fire and brimstone...]

Help! Help! The Ass Cries Plaintively...

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Talking Ass:

".... awake... In truth ... nothing particularly substantial... no such revelation..... mind deeply attracted to tautologies.....far less consequential....

Then again, it's not supposed to be some kind of new or old thought system. It only has the appearance of one.

"Pam, and Dennis, and Jufa, are involved not in 'productive thinking' of any sort at all"

Sure but what kind of product would you desire here? I think they still produce too much personally.

"I see now that this is the meaning of extreme decadence in thinking, and I wonder,(terrified, trembling): What comes next? Oh God, Oh God..."

It's the cry of all ages ("what comes next"). Anyway the sixth card is always and unavoidably death. Decadence is not yet understood by you simply because you are representative of it. But it's card five refusing six by manifold manifestations of the prolonged and the denied.

"and hope for a raining down of fire and brimstone"

Even fire and brimstone needs the right type of surface to have any impact: "But he who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy yet he has no root in himself, but endures only for a while".

[mental vagrant]

Does Pam = movingalways?

Sure when i have a little free time i will watch them.

[Talking Ass]

Diebert Wrote: "Then again, it's not supposed to be some kind of new or old thought system. It only has the appearance of one".

The operative word here is 'system'. I was just reviewing Twilight of the Idols (in a rather wounded, downcast state after your terribly painful comments that I was not a Nietzsche scholar *harumph*) and was reminded how The Old Grouch hated 'systematized thought'.

I am going to state this plainly and openly, listen very carefully:

Please consider closely the medium and the message in those videos. The systematized order of the presentation. The tone (the chummy, sidling even cloying tone) that a Master is laying down some highly relevant factisms and that if you follow closely you will be led to a sort of revelation; some truth-vista will open before your weary eyes. Even the (so-called) wise of former ages didn't get this shit, man! (which failing, Dan, compassionately, forgives) but now it is going to be explained succinctly, in a systematic manner, logically, a=aeally. Pay attention to the calm, stable, fatherly, guiding tone of voice. This is a sort of sermon. But it is also a kind of seduction. How many women and girls out there is cyberspace are rubbing their juicy haunches to the 'tune' of this crooning voice? A frightening thought, I know!

I suggest that this is an invitation to enter a mental space, a mental-space-system, and like EST training it is bounded by a phraseology that (to all appearances) is very attractive to certain folks. In a few hours of hearing it, and allowing yourself to be seduced by it, you begin to internalize the 'meaning' and the phrasing, and with that phrasing down you are on your way to adopting the System. That is what I got from it.

Consider the Pied Piper of Hamelin (Rattenfänger von Hameln).

1. a charismatic person who attracts followers.
2. one that offers strong but delusive enticement.
3. a leader who makes irresponsible promises.
4. an Ass in sheep's clothing (?)

Now, I am hamming (hamelining?) it up a little, but the idea is still very considerable: these 'ideas' are enticements to enter into a mental system, and the mental system (soon) becomes a sort of sink-hole, or a burrow.

I present as evidence my esteemed anti-colleague Dennis's brown-nosed question "Can you commit?" as if there is really something to commit TO. See, what happens is that some wayward children are deeply attracted to those authorial tones and (I guess) seek to emulate them. They want to master the rap so they can talk that way, influence people, gain a following. I think this is a subtext, dear Diebert, that you would do well to begin to consider. Or, are you not perhaps some sort of truth-crooner too?

As to Jufa and Pam (movingalways), their lust and their love is expressed in convoluted metaphysics, whole contructed abstract 'meanings' that they toss up like a juggler's brightly colored balls. They assemble like some rare birds---I imagine the early twilight against the backdrop of a serene lake---and call out in Glorious Abstractions, which abstractions, as if by magical enchantment, rise up and form whole Worlds, whole glorious worlds! Oh, how beautiful it is! Then, the other one takes over while the first one's musical intonations still hang in the air! Point and counter-point, a dazzling word-complex emerges and fills the sky. It is somewhere between praying and barfing, I'm not sure where.

Can anyone make sense of it?!?! The answer, of course, is 'No'. I think this just has to be stated. Generally when one states it, they go silent for a moment. 'How can the infidel challenge us so?' runs through their little heads. 'We speak Grand Truths that are True Medicine!'

This is, of course, the terrible down-side of disconneted metaphysics...

Diebert Wrote: "Decadence is not yet understood by you simply because you are representative of it".

Isn't it more truthful and accurate to say that we are all decadent outcomes, each in our way? But if this is true, is there a cure? But wait! We need a definition of 'decadence' and I suspect you have one. Why don't you bring it forward?

This points us, perhaps, in the direction and yet---as with ressentiment---certainly Nietzsche means a great deal more:

1. deterioration, esp of morality or culture; decay; degeneration
2. the state reached through such a process
(from French, from Medieval Latin dēcadentia, literally: a falling away; see decay)

B'sides, I'm not merely decadent, I'm decalicious....

[Dennis Mahar]

Can anyone make sense of it?!?! The answer, of course, is 'No'. I think this just has to be stated. Generally when one states it, they go silent for a moment. 'How can the infidel challenge us so?' runs through their little heads. 'We speak Grand Truths that are True Medicine!'

You can't project the condition 'mystification' to all and sundry, you wouldn't know.
If you can't be rational, at least be honest and confine your projections to yourself.
When does exit mean exit?

[Dennis Mahar]

The self is real (conventionally true, i.e., it exists in a dependent reality along with everything else we derive from experience)
The self is not real (ultimately true, i.e., it has no essence)
The self is both real and not real (conventionally real but ultimately unreal)
The self is neither real nor not real (neither ultimately real nor completely nonexistent).

That's the logic.

[mental vagrant]

The ass entertains me greatly, don't exit.

Pam : I'm confounded that you don't see the contradiction. It jumps from my screen to tickle me silly. :)

[Dennis Mahar]

The ass entertains me greatly, don't exit.

May as well watch reruns of The Simpsons.

[Talking Ass]

'I' (we?) are causèd to appear here, Dennis, but were we ever really here? Not here and yet here we were never here or away. Examine 'exit' and tell me When did 'exit' really occur? Show me that border. Only the observer, subjectively, designates. Never being here and never left, never 'me' but never 'you', what shall the non-disappearing Ass be askèd to do? Coming, yet I am never there. Leaving, yet I enter stage left. Great Sage or Homer Simpson? Donkey extraordinaire or irritating derrière? Neither, all: I and We still have a ball...

[mental vagrant]

The self is real (conventionally true, i.e., it exists in a dependent reality along with everything else we derive from experience)
The self is not real (ultimately true, i.e., it has no essence)
The self is both real and not real (conventionally real but ultimately unreal)
The self is neither real nor not real (neither ultimately real nor completely nonexistent).

That's the logic.

Yes. This sounds like existential nous to me. We are each a function of limited perception within an infintely expanding and possibly infinitely complex realm. By definition as you wrote, we each have our percieved appreciation of a part. If we accept thermodynamics we can never fully grasp true reality because it is ultimately inaccessible. Though we might be exposed to infinite realities in infinite and stable time which by definition is impossible.

My point being the following, the contradiction exists because the two exist mutually, we are ultimately talking about set theory. Causality through the tree model is not refuted by establishing a difference between the n realities. The subsection is imperfect by a causal derivative of the supersection.

It's picture of a tree & the signature: the only way out is the way through - this is the irony when stating imperfection is qualitatively an illusion. From perfection yes, though does not destroy causality. If you want to talk causality which by the way is imo utterly pointless given how pathetically stupid we are then we have to look at space time, i think.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Alex Ass: "...that if you follow closely you will be led to a sort of revelation; some truth-vista will open before your weary eyes. Even the (so-called) wise of former ages didn't get this shit, man! (which failing, Dan, compassionately, forgives) but now it is going to be explained succinctly, in a systematic manner, logically, a=aeally."

It's methodical for sure. But the "secret" and always tricky bit is certainly the very obviousness and undeniability. It's not as if the wise of former ages "didn't get it". It's more likely they were dealing with other topics using causality each and every step to help them with all the clarity, creativity and consistency. But to say that truth (method) of causality automatically would lead to creative or philosophically impressive outpourings would remain delusional and utterly meaningless. It might clear up some mess though.

Alex Ass: "This is a sort of sermon. But it is also a kind of seduction."

Well I'm not a great fan of any video as medium for wisdom for those reasons and the few I've seen certainly are seductive in one or more ways. But that seems to be like more of a side-effect of the medium itself. Are you perhaps just looking for anything to add to your clumsy semi-intellectual assassination attempts? It's rather embarrassing.

Alex Ass: "They want to master the rap so they can talk that way, influence people, gain a following. I think this is a subtext"

The process is in my view not that simple but even if it were so: what's exactly the problem? Let them all have a go at it and seduce the weak. Perhaps that's why your rants are met with silence and the occasional feeble fan boy. They are mostly missing the whole point as it doesn't matter in this context, for example this forum, if it would be true or not. It certainly cannot be established and what remains is endless innuendo and gossip, like a bunch of whispering old wives!

Alex Ass: "We need a definition of 'decadence' and I suspect you have one. Why don't you bring it forward?"

You recently quoted from Jean Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation, the chapter 'On Nihilism'. You probably didn't read the thing, as you like quick and dirty cherry-picking after all but he mentioned melancholia (was Lars von Trier reading it?) as being our fundamental passion now as opposed to just ressentiment, like a brutal disaffection characterizing our saturated systems.

It's this aspect of over-saturation and sur-plus-reality which I've referred to often enough in our discussions and which I see as a better description of decadence. It's still born out of decay and disease, or better: it are the mechanics of decay, like cancer cells, tumors, mushrooms, worms and so on. It's an over-presence of forms, products, ideas and "fluorescent lights" which are not a sign of rich and healthy culture but of a dead and decaying one. Like Baudrillard's simulacra or how I would call them: zombie simulations.

[Dennis Mahar]

I' (we?) are causèd to appear here, Dennis, but were we ever really here? Not here and yet here we were never here or away. Examine 'exit' and tell me When did 'exit' really occur? Show me that border. Only the observer, subjectively, designates. Never being here and never left, never 'me' but never 'you', what shall the non-disappearing Ass be askèd to do? Coming, yet I am never there. Leaving, yet I enter stage left. Great Sage or Homer Simpson? Donkey extraordinaire or irritating derrière? Neither, all: I and We still have a ball...

Yes, thanks for the enjoyment.
The highlight of the show is Diebert mothering you,
in turn scolding you and petting you,
and you seeking his approval.

[Talking Ass]

If this document is so important to you, why don't you make it available to the local masses? Jean Baudrillard, On Nihilism. Myself, I only tolerate postmodernese up to a point, though I am sure that if you dug hard within that text (which is tossed up like a juggler's silver & black balls, and there are three dozen of them, and they defy gravity!) it seems possible that one could mine some good stuff. But that isn't what I asked, Diebert, I didn't ask for some stock definition, I asked for you to reveal in your own self the destructive effect of nihilism and the symptomology of decadence. To do THAT would require a bravery that you just might not have.

All of my critiques are wholesome critiques. I could write here until a second moon appears in the sky and could articulate in the most precise prose just where the flaws (and there are many) in this 'thinking system' lie, but you (and you especially) will roundly avoid it all. No matter if you delivered Substance by the truckload, y'all have your ways to avoid dealing with substance, and each of you, in your unique way, throws up elaborate defenses. And this is precisely the point, or the area in which my point takes form: are you real philosophers? real thinkers? real 'spiritual people'? or are you farsantes (from Old French, from Latin farcīreto, to stuff), or are you really capable of dialogue? Now, you say that no one responds to me, as if that means that I make no sense, but even that is a twist on both truth and lie. What is intolerable to people who take themselves utterly seriously (eg: the narrator of those Men of the Infinite vids)(and the very name 'Men of the Infinite' is in itself laughable, overblown, ridiculous...) is to be ridiculed (successfully). You see, these folks (and you in your way) are dead serious about their whole, contrived rap. At the core, there is a very 'severe' being, most grave indeed! and one who really does believe he has in his hands some Absolute Truth. The whole scene is predicated on this assumption, and for this reason it is like a religious position. You especially were always offended at a deep level that one such as I resort to irony. But irony is the ONLY TOOL to even begin to break through the hard shell y'all have constructed around yourselves.

Diebert wrote: "Are you perhaps just looking for anything to add to your clumsy semi-intellectual assassination attempts? It's rather embarrassing."

Note the characterization, as if I am 'assassinating' anyone (and as if I've ever run from self-embarrassment!) I am in fact bringing to the surface a whole range of material, observation and (potential) fact that y'all syuff under the mutherfucking rug! Genius Forum is a game, largely, that is played not in honesty but through deceptions, image-management, false-appearances: all that can be summed up precisely in those videos we are referring to!

Consequently (note the reference to causation) 'you' attract a crowd of mad-hatters and drive away those who actually want to converse things through! When we deceive ourselves at a fundamental level, this deception has consequences! When our ideas are bound up in our self-deceptions and our lies at that fundamental level, all our creations are marred. The solution: to begin to be honest.

The Talking Ass, Bless His Brown Hide,
Attempts To Bring Forward All The Truths
(Like 'Garbage', Like 'Waste',
Like All Things Swept Under the Rug)
And Make Them Part Of The Conversation: Subject.
(And this is just one of the many reasons he is so wondefulicious!)

Diebert wrote: "It's this aspect of over-saturation and sur-plus-reality which I've referred to often enough in our discussions and which I see as a better description of decadence. It's still born out of decay and disease, or better: it are the mechanics of decay, like cancer cells, tumors, mushrooms, worms and so on. It's an over-presence of forms, products, ideas and "fluorescent lights" which are not a sign of rich and healthy culture but of a dead and decaying one. Like Baudrillard's simulacra or how I would call them: zombie simulations."

I neither accept nor deny your definition. I note that you seem taken in, at least to some degree, by the 'abstract metaphysics' of the Baudrillardian description. For me, it is not that useful. I read postmodernese and it just doesn't stick. You can read that stuff all day and what do you actually take away from it. It is a means of expression that is distasteful, to me anyway. (But interesting).

But your diagnostic (or your preferred diagnostical language) implies a state of health. Is health attainable? And how, through what means? And I will interject another pet point of mine: the RX offered by QRS, to my mind, is NOT a medicine, though parts of it (simple sobriety, etc.) CAN indeed produce tonifying effects. But because of its errors and what it denies (and what you also deny and refuse to examine) produces another form of sickness!

Only the Dancing & Truly Lyrical Ass
Can Be Said to Be
Truly Healed...
(but that is, of course, another story...)

Dennis writes: "The highlight of the show is Diebert mothering you, in turn scolding you and petting you, and you seeking his approval."

He's a rascal, isn't he? And I turn violently from the maternal tit but so much need the nourishment from it! Still, I am content, just as long as he doesn't try to squeeze his hand into my trousers, which is what I half expect from that Man of the Infinite of those vids! Mein Gott in Himmel!

[Tomas]

Diebert wrote: "Are you perhaps just looking for anything to add to your clumsy semi-intellectual assassination attempts? It's rather embarrassing."

Note the characterization, as if I am 'assassinating' anyone (and as if I've ever run from self-embarrassment!) I am in fact bringing to the surface a whole range of material, observation and (potential) fact that y'all syuff under the mutherfucking rug! Genius Forum is a game, largely, that is played not in honesty but through deceptions, image-management, false-appearances: all that can be summed up precisely in those videos we are referring to!

Dan, David, Kevin, Diebert, Elizabeth, Dennis (and a few other brave souls) use their given birth names. How about you? Seems you are the one 'assassinating'.

Why you continue to cover for Cousinbasil/Brokenhead being two separate persons when even Cousinbasil hasn't come out and denied being Brokenhead.

deceptions, image-management, false-appearances.

.

[cousinbasil]

Why you continue to cover for Cousinbasil/Brokenhead being two separate persons when even Cousinbasil hasn't come out and denied being Brokenhead.

I have denied it but you don't seem to want to hear that, which is fine with me, since it is fun watching you obsess. Life must be getting smaller and smaller for you, Roddy. I noticed that you continue to capitalize my alias, and so I checked and sure enough, you are deliberately doing the same thing with brokenhead. Yet you bristle when someone spells your name as "thomas." Let alone uses your real name "Roddy the Rank." If you were a thinker - which you are not - you would be a petty one, with foul moods and small ideas.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

But that isn't what I asked, Diebert, I didn't ask for some stock definition, I asked for you to reveal in your own self the destructive effect of nihilism and the symptomology of decadence.

To reveal "in my own self". Lets first agree on what we're talking about when using words like "decadence" and of course "self". Otherwise you're asking for a walk in the foggy swamp, which you prefer of course since you are like a swamp creature, a will-o'-the-wisp. Reveling in your own self indeed.

Genius Forum is a game, largely, that is played not in honesty but through deceptions, image-management, false-appearances: all that can be summed up precisely in those videos we are referring to!

Then show me a place, forum, site, group or video which is not all these things in some ways and by contrast we might learn!

When our ideas are bound up in our self-deceptions and our lies at that fundamental level, all our creations are marred. The solution: to begin to be honest.

Sure. Begin with the simple things. Own up to your self, perhaps your name, or stick with one board name at least and submit to definitions before arguing any further. Your "honesty" is just a form of "power trip" you so easily point out in others. It's perhaps your way of being honest, your topics, your type of self-revelation you are demanding.

postmodernese.... is a means of expression that is distasteful, to me anyway. (But interesting).

The point of me raising it - and Baudrillard's lingo is not postmodern really but that aside - was to provide a context to my opinions on modern culture. It doesn't satisfy you but I think you asked for them. They're not at all relevant in the context that much but to illustrate here and there. Some good minds might be interested in tracking these side paths, others probably not and why would they. You on the other hand might insist to wrap all philosophy in cultural or social terms but you're doomed from the start. It will go nowhere. You will go nowhere with it apart from exchanging irrelevancies while calling it trade.

...and what you also deny and refuse to examine) produces another form of sickness!

I do not philosophically acknowledge the concept of any psychological "sickness". Some here do that, but not me. Otherwise I'd already have discounted you as severely afflicted and basically a lost basket case. But with insistant madness lies also a spark.