Monday, July 14, 2008

See, Learn, Breathe, Remember, and Know

Little time this morning, and this time I mean it. It all depends upon how long Future Leader decides to sleep. I feel like the great Art Pepper playing with a broken saxophone between drug busts. If he can touch the eternal under those circumstances, then so can I!

Some people complain about the lack of continuity around here, but frankly, I don't even remember what I wrote about last Friday, so there's nothing to continue. I guess you could say that the continuity is always in the vertical, not the horizontal. And the vertical, as it extends downward, is always fresh; this is because it is not caused by the past but rather, is a recollection of the above, only presented in a novel formulation. In other words, the expression may be novel, but the truth it expresses is entirely objective and unchanging. This is in contrast to scientific truth, which is always changing, but doesn't value novel expression.

Along these lines, this weekend I read a provocative, possibly apocryphal, story about Plato, who was asked toward the end of his life what he had hoped to achieve with his life's work. After rolling the question around in his prodigious melon, he responded that it was "to have raised human debate above the level of opinion."

I don't think it would even occur to the great majority of our contemporary sophisticates that this is even possible for philosophy or theology. In short, it's a non-issue. But oddly, they do seem to think it is possible for science, even though science cannot even account for the existence of the truth-bearing scientist. As we were discussing yesterday, science doesn't even have a category for the Cosmic Inside where human beings have access to a realm of transcendental truth, beauty, virtue, and other realities that shade up toward divinity, not back and down toward dead matter. Thus, the scientolatry of trolls and lizards is in reality a metaphysical non-starter.

Now, as far as we know, Plato (or Socrates) was the first to recognize the essential relationship between Truth and Beauty. In the Coonifesto, you will perhaps recall that, of the three transcendentals, I felt that our relationship to Beauty was even more problematic (on strictly Darwinian grounds) than our access to Truth and Virtue.

The latter two categories also become silly in the hands of a Darwinist, but at least they have some arguments, weak and self-refuting though they may be. The reason they become silly is that both categories must be rendered relative by Darwinism, so that they can no longer be what they are -- very similar to "homosexual marriage," which is obviously impossible in principle, so they must redefine the word.

Likewise, since Truth is impossible in the Darwinian paradigm, they simply redefine it, which automatically makes it less than what it is. Again, as Plato implies, truth is not opinion, nor does it change. Rather, truth is true, eternally. It does not "evolve," and requires no context or qualifiers. It simply is. We must adapt to it, not vice versa.

In the human realm, mathematical truth perhaps comes closest to this, in the sense, for example, that 2 + 2 will always = 4. But that is a trivial truth compared to the deeper metaphysical truths disclosed -- or simultaneously veiled and revealed -- by revelation.

As I wrote in the Coonifesto, there are at least a couple of insurmountable hurdles for any Darwinist explanation of our humanness. First is the inexplicable suddenness with which it occurred, and second is the vast new dimension that was awaiting us when we arrived there some 35,000 to 40,000 years ago. If you cannot appreciate the weirdness of this, then you just can't appreciate weirdness, because it is without a doubt the weirdest thing that has ever happened, dwarfing even the creatio ex nihilo of the Big Bang or the ife-lay ex atter-may of the biological singularity. (If I were Terence McKenna, I might recommend a heroic dose of psilocybin, which can apparently flatten the most resistant ego. But I'm not, so I won't.)

Again, materialism is not just a dysfunctional and subhuman philosophy unfit for Man. Rather, it has the insidious effect of rendering the person who believes it less than a man. In this regard, it is a kind of auto-genocide. If it were ever to happen that all -- or even a significant majority of -- humans fell into it, it would spell the end of mankind, because Man is not a machine, but a living soul or divine spark which is in conformity to a divine archetype.

Again: the Raccoon struggle is on two fronts, against those who reduce religion to a kind of dense and stupid materialism (the Islamists, and to a lesser extent, the "spiritual materialism" of any fundamentalism), and those who turn materialism into a dense and stupid religion (lizards and other scientolatrists who are refractory to human Intelligence, and who would childishly eliminate the realm of eternal truth and the uncreated intellect that may uniquely know it).

With regard to mankind's sudden "creative explosion" that occurred some 40,000 years ago, I posed the question in my book of just what humans discovered when they discovered the realms of art, religion, love, truth, beauty, language, music, etc. In other words, what is the ontological status of these things, without which we would not be human? Again, for a reductionistic Darwinist they cannot be "real," so that the human state must be nothing more than an absurd aberration from the cosmic norm. We are just "refugees from nothing," or "fugitives from entropy."

I suppose these thoughts have been provoked afresh by reading Schuon's Art from the Sacred to the Profane: East and West, which is actually a compendium of his writings on beauty in general and art in particular, assembled by his widow. Platonist that he was, I know of no one who was more profound and sensitive than Schuon to the meaning and importance of transcendental Beauty in the total Divine-Cosmic economy. The book is full of countless passages that essentially make the same point in different ways, that beauty, like truth, is a mode of Divine-to-human communication; and therefore, like truth, it carries an obligation. For, just as truth is what we must believe, beauty is what we must create.

Therefore, it is surely no coincidence that so much falsehood and ugliness emanate from the left, which erodes the entire basis of truth (e.g., multiculturalism, deconstruction, moral relativism, political correctness, etc.), and produces ugly and soul-corrupting works of "art" that have no right to exist (in other words, such dreadful works must be "permitted" but never condoned, just as Lie-bearing groups such as the KKK or ACLU or CAIR must be permitted but not condoned).

Now, human beings would not have access to truth, beauty, and virtue unless they themselves were a "mode of the infinite." As I wrote in the book, the existence of human beings tells us much more about the nature of the cosmos than physics, biology, or any other form of reductionism will ever tell us about the human station (and our role in the cosmic economy).

This is so obvious, and yet, it apparently needs to be "relearned" by a mankind that has fallen into the metaphysically opaque world of materialism, which reduces man to either a hardened (in the case of the scientolaters) or dispersed state (in the case of the animal hedonists and libertines of the left). But it shouldn't be controversial to say that even a Darwinist knows more about evolution than it can know about him, because to know is to simultaneously transcend and contain, two categories that science assumes but can never explain.

That humans may know universal truth -- even universally true scientific truth -- means that humans are universal. In other words, just as it is presumed that the laws of physics apply universally to all of creation, it is presumed that the human state gives us unique access to these universal truths. Thus, the human being is, in a sense, the universe. As Aristotle observed, the soul is all it knows, and since it can know the All -- well, you figure it out.

Again, I am not making any kind of "horizontal" argument here. Rather, I am making a timelessly true vertical "argument"; but even this is misleading, because I am again simply riffing on the invariant chords of vertical truth, hopefully in a pleasing way, for this truth must be clothed in beauty, which is to say rhythm and musicality. In other words, it must share in the essence or substance of what it is attempting to coonvey, something the troll never fails to forget (for the ugly state of troll-stupidity is vertical I-amnesia, precisely; just watch).

Yesterday we spoke of the Great Within which science (super)naturally assumes but is powerless to explain. This Great Within is only available to us now, which ultimately means that we have access to the Eternal in all times and places. It is here -- at this crossroads -- that we achieve the divine union of reason and faith, those quintessentially horizontal and vertical, or male and female, modalities.

"It is within this marriage that logical reasoning is transcended by in-sight, in-tuition, and in-spiration. Each of these words, by their etymology, re-cognize the inner nature of direct cognition or in-tellection" (Critchlow).

So, get in more often, and See, Learn, Breathe, Remember, and Know.

85 comments:

Magnus Itland said...

"For, just as truth is what we must believe, beauty is what we must create."

I have reflected recently on the nature of inspiration / revelation. To me these seem at least closely related, if not the same process in different domains.

As a rule of thumb, I say that lower worlds are the worlds we create, higher worlds are the worlds that create us. Typical lower worlds, such as daydreams or games, are malleable but oh so temporary. In contrast, higher realities such as matemathics or true religion are hard and painfully unyielding, but far outlast our flesh.

And yet it is possible to create beauty. Clearly some works made by man are higher than man. They are more luminous, more durable, and denser in content. (The lower is always fluffier, which is why it is so pleasantly malleable.)

If we keep apart those few who have themselves ascended (internally) to an even higher level than what they transmit, there are clearly some - even some pitiful individuals - who are given something well above them, and faithfully bring it into being.

To trot out the parallel to religion, Jesus tells his students that they should not worry about what to say, for it would be given them at the same moment. But he also talks about how a teacher educated in the Kingdom is like someone able to fetch both new and old goods from his storehouse. Clearly then there are two different (but not mutually exlusive) forms of revelation - and, I expect, inspiration as well. For they both open doors to something higher.

Anonymous said...

I never could get a handle on the everpresent Now.

Anonymous said...

Bob --

You mentioned of Terrence McKenna in your blog. He apparently believed that hallucengentic drugs (esp. dmt and psilocybin) revealed real, alternate worlds. What is your take on the effects of these drugs in terms of your vertical/horizontal metaphysics? Are they providing a quick and dirty glimpse of the vertical?

Gagdad Bob said...

I have to leave for work. The short answer is "no."

And erasmus -- As Einstein knew, physics is absolutely powerless to explain the existence of the Now.

NoMo said...

Again, when Bob's short on time...Watch Out!

“…since Truth is impossible in the Darwinian paradigm, they simply redefine it, which automatically makes it less than what it is.” Absent a transcendent context, every concept from the mind of man must be less than it is and ultimately futile and meaningless. (Hmmm. Sounds like I’ve been reading Ecclesiates).

“…materialism…has the insidious effect of rendering the person who believes it less than a man.” Without God, everything is less than it appears.

Anonymous said...

"As I wrote in the Coonifesto, there are at least a couple of insurmountable hurdles for any Darwinist explanation of our humanness. First is the inexplicable suddenness with which it occurred, and second is the vast new dimension that was awaiting us when we arrived there some 35,000 to 40,000 years ago. If you cannot appreciate the weirdness of this, then you just can't appreciate weirdness, because it is without a doubt the weirdest thing that has ever happened, dwarfing even the creatio ex nihilo of the Big Bang or the ife-lay ex atter-may of the biological singularity. (If I were Terence McKenna, I might recommend a heroic dose of psilocybin, which can apparently flatten the most resistant ego. But I'm not, so I won't.)"

This of course reminds me of Arthur Clarke's vision in 2001, A Space Oddysey. This also brings up the whole realm of SF. There are some seriously good SF books out there, not so many but they are there. I am out of touch now with the field but back in the day, I graduated in elementary school straight from comic books to my Dad's SF collection. Then I started my own, read all the books in the library and had to negotiate with reality in order to feed my habit.

The myth that slowly built up for me was the hope that science was good and true and would lead to a better world. Of course there was the other vision, the apocalyptic one. I was fascinated by that one too.

A huge piece of my at-homeness with science comes from that experience. Later, I started learning the realities of tenure and publishing and scholasticism and corporatism and so on. I entered the engineering trades and discovered the frankly human character of scientists and engineers.

I keep looking for a change of state much like the one you write of here, GBob. Just around the corner, down the block, under a tree, waiting for me ala West Side Story. To me it is the only hope left for some way out. That is my inner heart speaking. The rest of me engages life and continues the business of living and the cultivation of spirit.

Weird. Yessir. Something happened and it was over a short span, already shown not to be directly connected to language itself, which is older at least in prototype. The ability to manipulate signs and symbols in fact does exist in higher mammals and possibly some birds. But what you write of is more than that.

As you say, there is a realm. We have a privilege and a responsibility to that realm.

Anonymous said...

Bob wrote:

Again: the Raccoon struggle is on two fronts, against those who reduce religion to a kind of dense and stupid materialism (the Islamists, and to a lesser extent, the "spiritual materialism" of any fundamentalism), and those who turn materialism into a dense and stupid religion..."

I ask the question, why does the Raccoon struggle against others? Cannot the raccoon mind his own business?

robinstarfish said...

vitamin b12
concentrated sapience
transcendental tongue

julie said...

Anonymous, if only it were that simple. We are in the world, even though we try not to be of it. Life, by its very nature, is a struggle. If we were to sit idly by, pretending not to see the evil in the world, or seeing, pretending to be too busy to act against it, we'd be no better than the people who refused to stop and assist after a traffic accident. And we would be completely unworthy to call ourselves raccoons.

The fact that you can even ask that question (hiding behind an anonymous moniker, no less) rather suggests that you'd be the kind of person to drive past the scene, goggle a bit at the debris, and then hurry along before anyone can ask you for assistance.

Anonymous said...

If you will recall, one of my early posts named GBob a knight of the realm. This is the realm of which I spoke, this spaciousness between Heaven and Earth called Man.

walt said...

Anon sez:
I ask the question, why does the Raccoon struggle against others? Cannot the raccoon mind his own business?

If this were a comedy routine, you'd be the straight man. The answer is: The Raccoon Struggle is his own business -- of course!

Anonymous said...

The struggle is first internal against the influence of the Proglodyte. Until the oppression demands action.
But then the question was rhetorical was it not? As if you had dicovered some deep hypocrisy?
The cultural state and direction of society IS one's business.

Anonymous said...

"Some people complain about the lack of continuity around here..." (?!) ?

" I guess you could say that the continuity is always in the vertical, not the horizontal. And the vertical, as it extends downward, is always fresh; this is because it is not caused by the past but rather, is a recollection of the above, only presented in a novel formulation.

(discussing) the Cosmic Inside where human beings have access to a realm of transcendental truth, beauty, virtue, and other realities that shade up toward divinity, not back and down toward dead matter.

Again, as Plato implies, truth is not opinion, nor does it change. Rather, truth is true, eternally. It does not "evolve," and requires no context or qualifiers. It simply is. We must adapt to it, not vice versa.

(Bobservations are) full of countless passages that essentially make the same point in different ways

making a timelessly true vertical "argument"

to know is to simultaneously transcend and contain

simply riffing on the invariant chords of vertical truth, hopefully in a pleasing way, for this truth must be clothed in beauty, which is to say rhythm and musicality.

share in the essence or substance of what it is attempting to coonvey

This Great Within is only available to us now, which ultimately means that we have access to the Eternal in all times and places. It is here -- at this crossroads

So, get in more often, and See, Learn, Breathe, Remember, and Know."

(just say'n)

Anonymous said...

Anon said:
"I ask the question, why does the Raccoon struggle against others? Cannot the raccoon mind his own business?"

The struggle for Truth IS Raccoon business; so is struggling against others who would promulgate lies.

Anonymous said...

The following is an excerpt from a City Journal article, "Obama, Shaman". Food for thought, and maybe some commentary down the road?

"Dostoyevsky was among the few who grasped the momentousness of the change that Machiavelli initiated in the West’s conception of diablerie. Near the end of The Brothers Karamazov, he describes an encounter between the devil and Ivan Karamazov. The devil appears, not with claws and horns, but in the guise of an elegant man of the world: he phrases his mordant taunts in French and laughs at modern intellectuals who believe that he doesn’t exist or who worry that to admit his existence would harm their “progressive image.” Dostoyevsky implied that it was precisely when the devil became a wit that the intellectual classes of the West succumbed to the most familiar form of diabolic temptation: the belief that men can transcend the limits of their condition and “be as gods”—demiurges with the power to heal the world’s pain and reshape it in accordance with a beautiful idea."

Dougman said...

Ximeze 11:25:00

Reading that was like i crawled up to a shimmering pillowy cloud...drifting away to ,...mmmm,,,,slack

Anonymous said...

The Racoon Struggle presumably is a personal choice which is taken under the larger context of service to God and Man.

Anonymous said...

I question the Raccoon "struggle." If you have a roof over your head and three squares, then for you there is no personal issue. Now you have to look at the media, read, start trying to find trouble spots outside of your personal experience.

This will to make/find trouble is not spiritual. Rather, it feeds the ego's need for opposition. If ego is relaxed and happy with what is, ego tends to attenuate. It then gets frightended and searches for boundaries--i.e, evil people who must be struggled with.

Why do you think I'm here? To struggle with raccoons reinforces my ego, my false sense of self.

Until you can give up the struggle, paradoxically you are not spiritually fit to struggle at all. Take it from one who is very unfit.

So stop struggling and prove to me that you can, indeed, wage a spiritual struggle. That means all of the more violent raccoons here better just keep mum.

Anonymous said...

"So stop struggling and prove to me that you can, indeed, wage a spiritual struggle."

It's all about me, really. The raccoons purpose is to do what I say (and not what I do).

Van Harvey said...

aninnymouse said "So stop struggling and prove to me that you can, indeed, wage a spiritual struggle. That means all of the more violent raccoons here better just keep mum"

I cheerfully fail your test. Regarding the rest of your comment, no point in puncturing what holds no water to begin with...just go ahead and imagine I'm attacking you - that should work just fine.

Van Harvey said...

"After rolling the question around in his prodigious melon, he responded that it was "to have raised human debate above the level of opinion." "

And as you mentioned, until the debate again revolves towards Truth, it can contain nothing but opinion.

Van Harvey said...

"Now, as far as we know, Plato (or Socrates) was the first to recognize the essential relationship between Truth and Beauty. In the Coonifesto, you will perhaps recall that, of the three transcendentals, I felt that our relationship to Beauty was even more problematic (on strictly Darwinian grounds) than our access to Truth and Virtue....Therefore, it is surely no coincidence that so much falsehood and ugliness emanate from the left, which erodes the entire basis of truth (e.g., multiculturalism, deconstruction, moral relativism, political correctness, etc.), and produces ugly and soul-corrupting works of "art" that have no right to exist ...."

And again, without acknowledgement of Truth, how can it be - or seek - anything but the ugly and the false?

Van Harvey said...

"Again, materialism is not just a dysfunctional and subhuman philosophy unfit for Man. Rather, it has the insidious effect of rendering the person who believes it less than a man. In this regard, it is a kind of auto-genocide. If it were ever to happen that all -- or even a significant majority of -- humans fell into it, it would spell the end of mankind, because Man is not a machine, but a living soul or divine spark which is in conformity to a divine archetype. "

Sheesh. The pixels on the html I've yet to post aren't even dry, and they're already leaking out over here...(or more likely, vice versa). But I suppose ya can't really lay claim to the Truth, since... if you could it wouldn't be... It was older than time even when Socrates found it anew.

Anonymous said...

Warfare is acceptable in the Jewish and Christian Traditions, especially under the conditions of claiming the Promised Land (from the followers of false gods).

Now we need a definition of the current Promised Land.

Hinduism takes war for granted and raises it to a spiritual realm. We need to always ask if that realm can manifest in the current war.


That a war is just is not enough.

And war has a curious way of rewriting the history of whose side God was on.

It is certain that among those under attack, should they perceive that they are being attacked, there are some who will fight back and feel justified. This is sufficient motivation for fighting, and usually home turf is sufficient for winning.

Anonymous said...

Anony 12:00 said:
" Take it from one who is very unfit."

No problem believing that.



Dullard

julie said...

Anonymous,
though it's probably yet another exercise in futility, I'm going to give a straightforward rebuttal to your insistence that we not struggle.

Bob said:
"Again: the Raccoon struggle is on two fronts, against those who reduce religion to a kind of dense and stupid materialism (the Islamists, and to a lesser extent, the "spiritual materialism" of any fundamentalism), and those who turn materialism into a dense and stupid religion (lizards and other scientolatrists who are refractory to human Intelligence, and who would childishly eliminate the realm of eternal truth and the uncreated intellect that may uniquely know it)."

Contrary to your implication ("If you have a roof over your head and three squares, then for you there is no personal issue. Now you have to look at the media, read, start trying to find trouble spots outside of your personal experience. This will to make/find trouble is not spiritual."), this is not something we seek out in any frivolous fashion. Speaking for myself, I in fact did try not struggling with both of the above options. It would certainly be an easier way to live, and as I'm working toward something of a metaphysical doctorate in slack (MPhS?) as a non-tenured scholar-for-life (I expect to graduate sometime around the 12th of never), I am a huge fan of ease. But both flat materialism and spiritual literalism led to severe dis-ease and mal-aise, a spiritual deadening impossible to repair by material means.

So you see, the only way for me to not-struggle is to engage in the deadly serious slacker struggle against that which is evil, ugly and stupid and toward all that is Good, True and Beautiful. To do otherwise is to drift away from that crOss point I long so deeply to reach; to sin, in other words, and I do quite enough of that as it is. Even if I'm only taking one teeny step closer for every hundred steps back, this struggle is worth the effort.

Van Harvey said...

Christopher said "Now we need a definition of the current Promised Land."

A-M-E-R-I-C-A

(Hint: It may be found in North America, but not within its geographical borders alone; without the hierarchical historical maps, or the Vertical cOMpass, it can be lost smack dab in the middle of the continent.)

Van Harvey said...

... and what Julie said (both)

Magnus Itland said...

Intriguingly, America and modern Israel were both selectively settled by non-complacent people. The complacent ones stayed behind (or died trying to).

Anonymous said...

No raccoon seek trouble or struggle, all we want is to have our slack time.

Trouble and struggle gets in our way sometimes, and we deal with it.

Just an example: No raccoon wents out and fetch the trolls who drools around here. The trolls alway come here to us, by own will. Just like you did, little anonymous friend.

walt said...

Pursuing my earlier entertainment theme, I re-worked and updated an old joke:

So the Raccoon says to the Darwinist, "By your reckoning, you are 'an absurd aberration from the cosmic norm,' a 'refugee from nothing,' and a 'fugitive from entropy.'

And the Darwinist says, "I resemble that!"



I know, I know. It's not funny.

Anonymous said...

P.S.

We don't have to prove sqat to YOU.

Again: get your own f'n blog & run it the pure way you see fit.


More Violent Raccoons®? Do we get a medal?

julie said...

"More Violent Raccoons"

:D

Sounds like the name of a punk band!

Anonymous said...

More Violent Raccoons, the punk rock band...

I have three guitars, a set of conga drums and two keyboards.

I wanna play.

Van Harvey said...

Julie said "So you see, the only way for me to not-struggle is to engage in the deadly serious slacker struggle against that which is evil, ugly and stupid and toward all that is Good, True and Beautiful. To do otherwise is to drift away from that crOss point I long so deeply to reach; to sin, in other words, and I do quite enough of that as it is. Even if I'm only taking one teeny step closer for every hundred steps back, this struggle is worth the effort."

I hear the comments often, when someone has said something like "Things were better in the 50's" and are met with slap downs of "No way...there was NO Ozzie & Harriet! There was repression... back alley abortions... McCarthyism... angstttt!!!"... they miss the most important point, as temporally bound flatlanders usually do. The important part isn't that people did bad things in the 50's, of course they did, there was nothing non-human about that or any other period in our history, but that the bad things were recognized as being bad and which you tried to avoid them, rather than brazenly emulate them, and that the good things were aimed at, even if never achieved.

That is an enormously important perspective to have... and to suffer the loss of. While it is true that we can do better than succeed, we can deserve to (as in Addison's Cato "’Tis not in mortals to command success. But we’ll do more, Sempronius, we’ll deserve it.”); it is also true that we can do worse than fail to achieve success, we can deserve to.

For Americans to seek the 'Promised Land' is extremely important, but it is equally important not to seek it with GPS coordinates... or mortgage guarantees... or through whining for it.

Anonymous said...

"No raccoon wents out and fetch the trolls who drools around here."

Ooooooobaby, really love it when Johan getsdown in English. More Johan More!

Van Harvey said...

"Ya! Poppa de kork o' de booblie booblie! Der Sweedish Chef ist making troll meetballs!"


;-)

Anonymous said...

Johan wrote:

"No raccoon wents out and fetch the trolls who drool around here."

True. Yet, trolls are necessary to make this blog commentary section run smoothly. I've seen the results of a no-troll week: a case of the blahs.

What could be more disheartening than to reach out and prod the enemy leftists, only to have them ignore you?

I am the embodiment of the the leftist response and you're lucky to get one, so be grateful. Or you'll end up cooing yourselves into a coma.

I'll tot out the lefty platform for ya'll to throw eggs at:

Global warming: Yes, its real.
Green Tech: Up
Petroleum: Down
Buddhism: Up
Catholicism: Down
One world Government: Up, with the caveat that Barack be presiding.
War: Up, so long as its BIG. Small wars we don't want.
Cronyism in Business and Finance: Down
Privatizing Education: Down
Socialized Medicine: A big, big thumbs up.

There you have it, folks. Line up and start throwing.

PBT ("puckerbutt troll")

Van Harvey said...

(yawn)

Van Harvey said...

(If you actually look through the comments, the far more interesting comments grow out of Walt, Julie, Magnus, River comments and discussions of, than any troll retorts)

walt said...

"...you're lucky to get one, so be grateful. Or you'll end up cooing yourselves into a coma."

Often lucky, yes; properly grateful, as it should be! But, Raccoons don't play comas.

Raccoon sleep is refreshing!

Anonymous said...

These anonomous trolls aren't worth the bridges they hide under.

If I'm going to argue with trolls, I need a name. Any name will do. You can even call yourself Ray.

Joan of Argghh! said...

More Violent Raccoons

I'm your huckleberry...

I don't fashion myself dwelling anywhere near the den of the Exalted Raccoons, but I do patrol the fuzzier borders of their happy kingdom because they are my friends.

But you should know: Violence is not a struggle for me. In fact, the Kingdom of Heaven suffers me, and I take of it what I will.

And I am the least of these happy warriors.

****

You do, however, get points for being much more amusing than most trolls. This was quite well-worded and made me laugh," I am the embodiment of the the leftist response and you're lucky to get one, so be grateful. Or you'll end up cooing yourselves into a coma."

No, no comas. We're just playin' possum!

Anonymous said...

Geez PTB, waste a perfectly good egg on that lineup?
Not bloody likely

Anonymous said...

Julie,
re: your 11am comment conjecturizing pb anon's character -

it's this kind of leftist, emotion-driven reaction that assures me we all, coons and trolls alike, are busy studying the same curriculum. I'll forever be a troll here in spite of Bob's daily invocational hims because I don't want to belong to any group rooted in discourse and dismiss. I prefer the action-based gangs, where talk is exposed for talk, and walk gets you where you truly mean to go. At days end judge me by my actions, not my blog comments.

I wait for the apuckerlips, the day when a coon will actually acknowledge the worthiness of a troll for that troll's own sake, acknowledge that kissing Bob's Purty Line guarantees one only a seat at the moveable Bobfeast and nothing more. JofA actually comes close here, but finally offers only a pissing contest, not a compliment. Typical of a wordsmith.

I'm always asked, "why don't you leave?" or some such similar effort at reaching out, and the answer is "because I still haven't found what I'm looking for." There's too much truth here for me to pull a (insert your favorite well-muscled coon's name here) and generalize about all coons. I know many of you must be fine, fine people. I'm still digging for the why of the discord, the why of the "absolute truth spoken here, especially when you consider what tripe they're speaking next door" sign Bob posts daily outside his blogeasy.

When I finally get past the sideshow aspect, I'll be gone. Lord knows I deserve it. I envy the Wills and the Kahns and the Lisas and the JWMs, those who came, ate, found it good and moved on. I hate to see them belly up again. I'm up to my gills in pride and criticism all for the sake of Bob's insights, which are often so fine. But still I return. I'll figure it out, without any conscious help from a coon or a Bob. And I'll be as grateful for that lesson as I've been for all the others I've learned here. And maybe then, I'll be gone. And you will be the last to know.

Oh. One more thing, lest you start to think kindly on me: I hope Ximeze and Joan meet up some night in a dark alley. The psychic scarring will be invisible for lifetimes.

Van Harvey said...

one sows faust said "At days end judge me by my actions, not my blog comments."

psst it's a blog. Your comments are your actions. Vapid is as vapid does.

Anonymous said...

" I hope Ximeze and Joan meet up some night in a dark alley."

That's old news bubba. And we had a lovely time too.

Anonymous said...

Bob,

Is there such a thing as a 4 dotter? (....)

Kaz Maslanka said...

Bob,
In other words, the expression may be novel, but the truth it expresses is entirely objective and unchanging. This is in contrast to scientific truth, which is always changing, but doesn't value novel expression.
This seems to presuppose a couple of ideas. The first idea being that that one’s expression is an archetypical one. And two that scientific truth comes without aesthetic expression. The former is highly debatable however; the later certainly is in error.
Cheers,
Kaz

julie said...

Ayawnymous,

"it's this kind of leftist, emotion-driven reaction that assures me we all, coons and trolls alike, are busy studying the same curriculum."

Okey doke, keep telling yourself that if it makes you feel any better. I'll admit that my first, knee-jerk reaction may not have been one of my finest comments, though I know for a fact it's also not one of my worst.

I don't pretend to sanctimonious perfection, I simply call them as I see them. Which is not to say that I always call them correctly. Hence the second, more thought-out comment. And sure, I could have removed the first. But then that would have been a nice bit of white-washing, wouldn't it? For the most part, I prefer my mistakes to remain seen. It keeps me honest with mysoph.

So yeah. Knock yourself out. Equate me with a leftist, if it makes you feel any better. But here's the thing: I don't really post my comments here for your benefit, or Ray's, or any of the other trolls I am drawn to argue with from time to time. I do it because it's a way of organizing my own thoughts and testing them outside my head. And when I find that they don't express me as I would like to see myself - when they don't reflect the Truth - I can more easily learn from my mistakes. Sometimes, it's a slow process, but it's as good as any other I have found. I'm only glad that there are people here who are willing to read my occasional thoughts, flawed and foolish though they may be.

It's time for the Best Part of the Day; g'night, Raccoons!

Anonymous said...

(Sounds of footsteps shuffling down a worn dirt path, a merry tune whistled badly. Suddenly we see a hand poking through the thicket near water's edge and a long arm parts the undergrowth. A figure kneels down and begins pulling in a trotline, tossing small fish in a bucket as if picking berries. We lean in closer to hear the words....)
"..and I always will love you Marie....Huh. Woodja looka thar..Van, Siamese, Hoarhey....nothin but hardheads, eels an suckers bitin. Who'da thunk? An' here I was expectin RC, Robin, and Magnus...
But hey, Thank You Lord jest the same. Thow 'em to the hogs an they'll taste jest like.... bacon."

Julie: leftist comments do not a leftist make. Your follow-up explanations add weight to my own supposing. I have no issue with the process you go through, only the half-baked emotional conclusions often posted as fact, similar to any leftist rag herr lederbobben might hold up for ridicule. Apply the process to yourownselfs fer cryin out loud. Walt Kelly said it a long time ago: We have met the enemy and he is us. That's a big ol key free for the using.

I learn more here than mostelsewhere, generally by negative example. Shoutouts to the Coonhood of the Aforementioned Carp:

Van, you old earth reaper you...I take your comment to mean that riding herd on the Cuz is just a part-time job you approach with full-time fervor. So you say, God. Here's an idea for a what-the-hoarhey experiment sometime: Take more steps away from the flatscreen than toward it. You might find something out there you like. Maybe your kid would like it too.

Simese, that you and JofA could have "a lovely time" in a dark alley doesn't strike me as news of any type. And yes, that'll leave a mark. Har Har.

Br'er Hoar: So Braaayyyve of you interrupt your busy schedule. Here you go, old fella –

HEEE HAAWWW!

Joan of Argghh! said...

Ximeze! LOL!

:o)

Troll, how disappointing you've become in this latest permutation of your faith-works fen.

You seek no conclusion, but some sort of acknowledgment of your cherished ideals. Whatever floats your prayer candle, man.

Now... shush. The grownups are talking, and you've told us how much that bores you.

If you come back,we shall have to describe to you the violence done on a cellular level merely by the presence of Salt and Light doing nothing more than being what they are. It only looks violent to the poor little cell that has positioned itself too closely to either.

Anonymous said...

(Sounds of footsteps shuffling down a worn dirt path late at night, a merry tune whistled badly. I arrive at the barn. Suddenly we see a hand picking up the latch of ole Bessie's stall, she's a favorite.
Sounds of a zipper being opened are heard over the nervous stirrings of the mule and then a moment of quiet anticipation as we hear........

HEEE HAAWWW!

Anonymous said...

Uhhhh, on second thought, make that a five dotter. (.....)

Anonymous said...

Gee grandma, what pretty words you have. Gee grandma, what deep thoughts you think. Gee grandma, how your eyes brighten at the thought of Grace...whazzat? Oh. You were watching the dogs fighting outside the window.

Amazing how effortlessly you get to the heart of your preconceived meaning of other's words. I wonder what I'm saying now? How have you learned to bend others actions to your will even after they've taken place? Whazzat? By reading the greatest spiritual thinkers you can find that you agree with? Oh. You must be a great worrier indeed, oh mitey one. That would explain then why you're safely here among "friends"?

Hoar, you follow so well. Today we'll try watering the mint on the porch all by yourself!

julie said...

"I have no issue with the process you go through, only the half-baked emotional conclusions often posted as fact, similar to any leftist rag herr lederbobben might hold up for ridicule. Apply the process to yourownselfs fer cryin out loud."

Oh, really? Well, I'm dreadfully sorry. I'm only a human, after all, fallen and flawed, with a tendency to make mistakes. I beg your forgiveness for not being fully enlightened but daring to speak and look the fool.

"Gee grandma, what pretty words you have. Gee grandma, what deep thoughts you think. Gee grandma, how your eyes brighten at the thought of Grace...whazzat? Oh. You were watching the dogs fighting outside the window.

Amazing how effortlessly you get to the heart of your preconceived meaning of other's words. I wonder what I'm saying now? How have you learned to bend others actions to your will even after they've taken place? Whazzat? By reading the greatest spiritual thinkers you can find that you agree with? Oh. You must be a great worrier indeed, oh mitey one. That would explain then why you're safely here among "friends"?

Hoar, you follow so well. Today we'll try watering the mint on the porch all by yourself!"

Ah, yes, brilliant.

*clap clap clap*

Your wit, your compassion, your example of fully baked non-emotional conclusions completely at odds with (and vastly superior to) any leftist rag Bob might hold up for ridicule, is truly worthy of admiration and emulation.

I see now the error of my ways - clearly it is you who have the facts on your side and the keys to the bus of Truth, Beauty and Goodness.

Magnus Itland said...

What would become of OC without the trolls?

Enlightened communication beyond Ego. (Bring your own beer.)

I for one don't enjoy waking up to a comment section that looks like a report from the annual whack-a-mole championship, but such are the perils of free will.

walt said...

Julie -

Old Chinese proverb:

What you pay attention to grows!

Van Harvey said...

hoarhey said "Is there such a thing as a 4 dotter? (....)"

Now that's pithy!

Van Harvey said...

one cows faust said "Take more steps away from the flatscreen than toward it."

Heh. Having just walked back in from driving the mid kid to football practice, and getting ready to head back out for work, I gotta say, it's the other way around hoss, the other way around. Hey, got any work yet? Other than as a medical research subject, I mean... just askin'.

And now, another episode of Raccoon Den Theater:
Hoarhey Finn and Van Sawyer are amblin down the path, headed for the 'Coon den clubhouse, when,
"Wo... careful Hoarhey, there's another pissant on the sidewalk, wanna poke it with a blade of grass?"
"Sure!"
"Heh, look at it grab on for dear life! "
"yeh..."
"I know, boring, let him have it."
"Look at it prance away carrying the blade of grass, like it defeated a mortal enemy!"
"They sure are funny... hey let's see if Ben's showed up yet!"
"Yeah, c'mon... race ya!"


Truth is naginteoy, you're comments are something like having BudLite commercials flash in the midst of watching Hamlet. Completely out of place, though somewhat amusing, and they do give a chance for a bathroom break.

Still laughing.

Van Harvey said...

What Julie said, again... and again.

Sorry Magnus... I know Walt, I know.

Ooh... good idea Joan, I'll get the salt Hoarhey....
(I know, I know... just once more)

Ray Ingles said...

So, the truths that "can't not be"... they couldn't be different, right? I mean, even God couldn't have made 2+2=5, right?

In that sense, the "vast new dimension that was awaiting us" couldn't not be, right? The new dimensions available to a driven pendulum with "inexplicable suddenness" - given just that tiny bit more "oomph" in the drive - were always "waiting" there, too.

But they weren't created, right? If they can't not be, then they are as eternal as anything could ever be. As Einstein put it, "Did God have a choice in creating the universe?"

So, in the cosmology here on this site, is God "the set of all eternal things", or is it something else that sits 'on top of' all of them?

Anonymous said...

Ray,

I have an idea. Let's spend all day talking about how brown is a different color than blue. Or better yet, how the number 2 is different than the number 3.

The driven pendulum is not visiting other dimensions.

Anonymous said...

Ray,

You can probably get a sense of Bob's cosmology by reading his book, I would think. And the other books he mentions.

Just out of curiosity, what is your cosmology?

Ray Ingles said...

Erasmus, people aren't visiting other dimensions either, in the sense of a penteract or whatever.

If you don't want to talk about that, though, you could just answer the last question I asked. Might be more productive anyway.

Van Harvey said...

Erasmus, I believe that you already replied to ray long ago.

Anonymous said...

I'm not an expert on Bob or Bob's cosmoslogy. I haven't read the books.

I think that in Bob's cosmoslogy, God contains the cosmos.

Ever read A New Kind of Science?
http://www.maa.org/reviews/wolfram.html

I think that you keep talking about cellular automata. You seem to like the driven pendulum.

I have another question. Why are you here?

Anonymous said...

Julie, for the record:

I wasn't directing the grandma tale to you, but to the s/he man JofA, so anxious to take no prisoners she's locked herself outside of heaven, she would have us believe. I don't hang well with those women who brag about the size of their...well, you know.

You, for the record, have consistently exhibited (from my vantage point) the capacity to make mistakes, to learn from them, to move forward with pride slightly bruised. I gotta respect that. It's not a coonish trait. Now that I think about it, I'm sorry I picked on you in the first place. I just saw the reference, remembered how the actual event had been misrepresented by this video, and did my own bit of hasty jumping. I apologize.

Now. Why is it that Bobsong, when deposited by some outlander no one can call by name, seems so foul? Doth not a coon's feces emit any odor? Look at today's steamin new pile of Bobdigestion and ask why someone might come away with the understanding that here in BobLand a healthy fistful of dung-slinging goes hand-in-hand with an enlightened mind....

....so long as yer a coon. No thanks "friends". With that kind of "light", I'll sit out here in the "dark", taking notes.

Anonymous said...

Hee hee hee hee haw haw, HEE HAW!

Ray Ingles said...

Erasmus - I guess I'll have to put up a FAQ or something. The question of why I'm here seems to come up about once a week.

I'm not confident my question would be answered by the Coonifesto - I've been here a little while and I've not seen a clear (or even loosely veiled) attempt to address it. That's sort of why I asked.

Anonymous said...

Ray said;

"I'm not here to be 'evangelical' or 'deconvert' anyone. Mostly it's like I said at first - if people are going to disagree with me, it might as well be for what I actually believe and not a caricature thereof."

That is the closest thing you've stated in your links that could be interpreted as an answer to the question of, 'why are you here?'.

No wonder people are still asking.

Van Harvey said...

"I'm not confident my question would be answered by the Coonifesto - I've been here a little while and I've not seen a clear (or even loosely veiled) attempt to address it. That's sort of why I asked."

Hmm... hey there ray, you seem to have a lot of faith in what you don't know, about what you haven't investigated, and objectively verified, with your own eyes.

Van Harvey said...

one sows faust said "No thanks "friends". With that kind of "light", I'll sit out here in the "dark", taking notes."

Promises, promises....

Anonymous said...

hoarhey, it's like negative theology.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_theology

We cannot know the reason why Ray is here, we can only eliminate possible reasons why Ray is here.

It can't be curiousity, because he is seeminly uninterested in reading Bob's book.

Van, Well at least hs is admitting that hs is arguing from ignorance.

I'm going to take a crack at Ray's worlview. Ray, please correct any errors that you find:

1) God does not and cannot possibly exist
2) Prayer does not work
3) Humans are only unique arrangements and processes of molecules
4) It's endlessly entertaining to post and argue with other people on Bob's blog.

Ray Ingles said...

Van - Since even Erasmus isn't sure the question would be answered there, I don't feel too bad for expressing doubt, too. Can you offer a more definitive pronouncement?

Van Harvey said...

ray said "So, the truths that "can't not be"... they couldn't be different, right? I mean, even God couldn't have made 2+2=5, right?"

No one here is making any "If God wanted to have three sided squares, he could have!" arguments. If you're going to miss the point, at least miss one that's been made.

Van Harvey said...

ray said "So, the truths that "can't not be"... they couldn't be different, right?"

It's pointless, but I've still got an idle moment or two. It's more a case of truth wouldn't be different, because that would be untrue... but that's not it either. It is what it is, and it is as it is, because it is. Things are as they are, because of what they are, and the context within which they are. And if you can't explain some portion of 'it', to your satisfaction, because the nature of 'it' is immeasurable, 'it' doesn't give a rats ass whether or not you like it.

It IS, and you only are.

There. Is that clear?

(BTW, I thought Erasmus's points summed it up perfectly clearly)

Anonymous said...

Ray,
Are you here to be understood?

Ray Ingles said...

Erasmus - What motive must I have other than being interested in discussing some of the issues here? Of course I approach things from a different vantage point than most here, and I find some of the contentions made here incorrect (or at the very least overstated), but is discussing that forbidden in some 'terms of service' I missed?

As to my worldview...

1) Depends on the definition of the term 'God'. One of the reasons I, you know, asked the question above.

2) Depends on how you define the term 'work'. In terms of healing things, not so much. In terms of affecting how people feel about things, it certainly can. Not too different from C.S. Lewis on that one.

3) That seems the most likely, but is not absolutely established. It's in principle testable, though not in practice yet.

4) Replace "endlessly" with "often" and you're close.

Hoarhey - And to understand. I do tend to focus on things that I've got a decent handle on that don't seem to fit here, but assuming that can be sorted out it should be possible to build from there.

Ray Ingles said...

Van - I actually said that 'No one here is making any "If God wanted to have three sided squares, he could have!" arguments,' and just asked for confirmation.

The point that follows from that, though, is that while it's true that 2+2=4 "doesn't give a rats ass whether or not you like it", that's not a terribly profound statement since 2+2=4 doesn't give a rat's ass about anything, even 2+2=4. It's eternal, and just IS in some sense, but it's not anything like a conscious being, a mind, that could care or love. Nor would a collection of such things, or all of them, be a Subject, to use Bob's terminology, right?

Van Harvey said...

ray, the problem is that the issues you want to focus on, or are interested in, are not questioned by, or of interest to, those who are here. I know you won't get it, will probably try to linksplain where I'm wrong, but you really are just like a kid who's mastered basic math running into the Algebra II class and explaining how "n" and "x" don't really have any meaning.

You aren't challenging or stretching the boundaries of those who are here, but are attempting to shrink us back into what we've already understood and 'outgrown'(wrong word, but I've got to go)

Van Harvey said...

ray said "...that's not a terribly profound statement since 2+2=4 doesn't give a rat's ass about anything, even 2+2=4..."

twang.... foofthish
twang.... foofthish
twang.... foofthish

(the sounds of ray missing points)

Anonymous said...

"It IS, and you only are."

Tisktisk Van, depends on what the definition of IS is
(HT Bubba)

Van Harvey said...

Doh!

Ray Ingles said...

Van - Can you direct me to a more appropriate venue, then?

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