Sunday, July 27, 2008

The Sunday Timeless

Intellectual intuition (nous) involves the direct perception of Truth. Logic (dianoia), on the other hand, is merely a mental operation that can lead to true or false conclusions, depending upon the data provided it. Logic is particularly useless -- even dangerous -- without the a priori intuition of Truth, without which logic alone eventually leads one over the abyss.

The most important truths are indeed "self evident," that is, evident to the higher self. Clearly they are not necessarily evident to the lower self, which is why liberty and human dignity are a tough sell in the Islamic world, which awaits the day when its progress is not thwarted by the infrahuman majority in its midst. In America, the anti-progressive forces are represented by secular progressives, anti-religious Liztards, and other spiritual medullards.

The application of mere logic would dismiss as silly superstition those transcendent truths that are known directly by the higher mind. This is why you cannot prove the existence of God to such a logic-bound individual, any more than you could prove it to a dog. Religious truths are conveyed through symbolism and analogy (with the assistance of grace), more like a great work of art than a mathematical equation. Although not merely logical, it would be a grave and simplistic error to suggest that the great revelations are illogical, any more than a Shakespearean sonnet or one of Beethoven’s symphonies are illogical. Rather, they are translogical.

In the case of those latter two modes, poetical and musical truth are conveyed directly to something analogous to the senses, only on level that obviously transcends them. Those who demand “proof” of God are almost always coming from a quasi-autistic plane where the transcendent truth is simply unavailable to them -- like someone who listens to the notes but cannot hear the symphony. A musical boob and a connoisseur of music have access to completely different realities when they listen to a great masterwork, and only an ass would reduce the whole of the symphony to its parts, and then think he understands it better then the expert.

This Liztardian attitude involves a kind of invincible ignorance disguised as healthy skepticism. It reminds me of Bion’s description of the psychotic mind, which, he said, combined the characteristics of arrogance, stupidity, and curiosity. When you put those three together, you end up with a kind of arrogant, omnipotent ignorance that is inordinately proud of its own stupidity. Thus the childlike self-assuredness of the Head Lizard in denigrating what transcends him. He is such a mental twerp -- a nothing, really -- in the context of the timeless celestial truth he mocks (and which mocks him right back; I am only the messenger).

This type of mind is too saturated by lower things -- computer programming books, and the like -- and "knows" too much to ever consider the possibility of truths that lie on plane higher than their own meager qualifications. These people too are “impenetrable.” They suffer from a distorting mental hypertrophy that is to the mind what those musclebound bodybuilding freaks are to the physique. Only the delusional members of the cult believe that they actually look good -- mostly to each other, to which the gradually diminishing interest in LGF testifies.

The scientific plane discloses relative truths that provide causal explanations for various material processes. As such, science is obviously entirely appropriate for the horizontal plane to which it is addressed. But religious truths do not have to do with horizontal causation, or only secondarily. Rather, they are intended to provide the higher mind with a means to realize vertical truth (and virtue). There is nothing that can be provided by mere logic alone that can help one ascend this vertical hierarchy.

Again, religious truths are seen directly, in the very same way that one's eyes see directly in the material plane. When you see something directly before your eyes, only a fool would ask you to prove that vision exists. When you hear the obvious beauty in a work of music, to such an extent that it moves you to tears, no one asks you to first prove to them that hearing exists -- as if the existence of mere hearing could explain musical truth anyway. Frankly, you wouldn’t even know how to respond to such an individual. What, prove to a crawling Liztard the truths that are furnished by one's own wings? How about proving to me that your mind exists, and explain how it is able to discover cosmic Truths that transcend the genes, then we’ll talk.

While the lower mind is active, or “male,” it has always been understood that the higher mind is passive, or “female,” in relation to Truth. The lower mind is an acquisitive mind, a grasping mind, even a restless and greedy mind. Part of the reason it is restless and greedy is that it can never be satisfied with what it is capable of acquiring, what with its own inherent limitations. The mind cannot rest until it has found its proper home, and that home is only found in the transcendent metaphysical truths to which it is conformed. There are certain things that the human mind is designed to know, and once it knows them, it "settles down," as in marriage. In fact, it is a marriage -- a metaphysical union.

Likewise, there are certain things human beings were not necessarily meant to know. It is not that we should not or cannot know them, only that these things are “accidental” and not essential. Someone who rejects the divine in favor of the material plane has rejected what is essential in favor of what is accidental and contingent. Therefore, their soul will suffer proportionately. It will become deformed instead of deiformed. They will “think,” but the thinking really won’t get anywhere, at least philosophically. Any end to their thinking will, as Schopenhaur recognized, be arbitrary. Even the greatest secular philosopher simply stops asking “why” at a certain arbitrary juncture, and thus founds a school.

On the secular philosophical plane, there is nothing you can prove that you cannot equally disprove. It is “a journey of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing,” a "systematic abuse of language designed for that purpose." If a man doesn’t realize this by the age of 40 or so, he hasn’t learned much in his life's journey. He doesn't necessarily have to do anything about it, but he should at least realize that the intellectual game is up, that it’s all for show -- for vanity and tenure.

The secular philosopher doesn’t only end his thinking at an arbitrary point. The truth of the matter is that he also begins it at an arbitrary point that can never be justified by his own philosophy. Postmodern philosophers like to congratulate themselves on the idea that they begin with “ignorance” or total skepticism, but it is an odd philosophy that begins by declaring to people that they cannot know what they most certainly do know.

These folks take great pride in living in darkness, and ridicule those of us who simply enjoy the sun’s rays, which both warm and illuminate. I certainly don’t care if some scaly bloghard wants to insist that the sun doesn’t exist. That’s fine. We have no quarrel. I know where he's coming from, because I can see the darkness. But he cannot know where we're coming from until he steps outside into the inner Light.

The higher mind is truly a mirrorcle of the absolute. In fact, its very existence establishes its own proof of the absolute, just as eyes prove the existence of material objects that can be seen. If truth exists, then surely it is accessible to us. If it doesn’t exist, then there is no point in pursuing it or even speaking of it. We should banish it from our vocabulary as sort of persistent illusion to which the fallible human mind is subject. Of course, the academic left is already hard at work on this diabolical project of “deconstruction,” but the fact of the matter is, the Left as such -- whatever you wish to call it -- has always been with us, and always will be. In this wider understanding, LGF is part of the material left, and has no intrinsic commonality with transcendent conservatism.

For the deep structure of the Left may be traced all the way back to the first appearance of humanity in its horizontal maninfestation. It is not so much that relativism is incorrect as such. Obviously, our own existence proves that relativism is real, otherwise there would only be God. But by the same token, relativism cannot be absolute. Rather, the absolute is precisely that which makes hierarchical relativity possible to begin with. By definition, there is no such thing as an incomplete hierarchy. To paraphrase Richard Weaver, if a series is hierarchically ordered it is conditioned from top to bottom and so cannot be infinite. If it is infinite, it cannot be conditioned top to bottom, and there is no higher or lower -- only Hegel's "bad infinite," or the black night in which all lizards are dark.

Our existence proves beyond the doubt of a shadow that we inhabit a hierarchical cosmos with degrees of being -- atoms, molecules, cells, animals, Man. Man is an arrow that points beyond himself to his source above, not below or behind.

"Certain things are known; other things have to be thought about. Some of the things we know we don't think we know because we think about them. Yet they are there in front of us and if we didn't consider them separate from ourselves and worthy of thinking about, we would know them for what they are.... The feeling of losing yourself is often the feeling of remembering yourself -- you are losing your personality and gaining your center....

"Our society has chosen its priorities quite clearly: surfaces. So it is no surprise that centers hold no interest. And yet, whether there is interest or not, the lie of the surfaces... is a lie.... Thus we have lost the knowledge of 'wholes.' We can 'think about' and 'talk about' wholes, but we do not know them. As a result, much of our world has been destroyed by... the lack of intuitive knowledge of centers.... Science is a view from exactly one perspective.... its discoveries are discrete and always relate to the world as defined by science.... But only knowledge of centers (or Center) will fix the core of our world... " --Keith Jarrett, Changeless

67 comments:

julie said...

Sort of off topic, but Re symphonies (and therefore classical music), I was thinking yesterday of something you said once, Bob - that for most classical music you can't get inside the structure of it. I realized that that's actually mostly true for me, too - the one major exception being when I'm performing it. My iTunes playlist is virtually empty of classics, and I tend to avoid the radio stations like the plague.

But the process of reading the music and focusing on my particular part among all the interweaving threads is like having a backstage pass that allows me to hear it from the inside out - esoterically, if you will.

Anyway, I thought that was interesting - rather like the difference between knowing about faith and practicing faith.

Joan of Argghh! said...

I think I've enjoyed this essay best of all within this series.

The timbre of it is "settled" in a complementary way, in that the previous were stirring. Perhaps a fitting hem to the fabric of your thoughts this past week.

Or perhaps my own spirit is more settled. Either way, it's a fine and well-written exposition. Just... right.

julie said...

Ooo, yes - the addendum sums it up nicely.

Gagdad Bob said...

I added that for ironic purposes, as Charles is a fan of Keith Jarrett, despite the fact that he cannot possibly understand his music. For if he did, he would apologize for his offenses against the Spirit.

Gagdad Bob said...

I've never heard Charles' music, but I'm guessing that he plays like a competent mechanic.

Anonymous said...

Charles just has to deal with it: Sophia is just not that into him.

julie said...

Oh, irony. So it works on a couple of levels :) Even better.

Sibylline Zipper said...

In your description of the acquisitive, grasping lower mind you were basically writing my biography. More facts, more info, more input and someday I would know enough. I gradually began to intuit the absurdity and inner poverty of this position, but it wasn't till I stumbled upon One Cosmos that I found the vocabulary to really understand it.

Anonymous said...

Only by knowing little may you know much!

Ho!

walt said...

There are certain things that the human mind is designed to know, and once it knows them, it "settles down," as in marriage.

Again, a scientific, medical, cultural, or Darwinist view of such "settling down" would read very differently.

But while I feel more and more "settled" these days, I also sense an ability to choose -- so I'll go with the B'ob's definition, since it rings my interior Gong, and is by far the more elegant description.

This, while I work on my correspondence.

Really well-written, Bob!

turn said...

Well said.

Anonymous said...

The intuition pops up in the Jarret quote, and in sybilline's comment, and I intuit myself that this part of the human mind is the one to focus on.

Perhaps Lizards have a stunted or undeveloped intuition? Perhaps raccoons and aspirants to raccoonhood have a functioning intuition. Perhaps certainty in Basic Goodness Vishnu God Yahweh filters in via the intuition. There is a case to be made that either ya got it or ya don't, and people will fall out along this schizm into the two camps we seem to observe.

To evaluate it, one would have to prefer the intuitive camp. It is the upward evolving trend, the different thing, the direction of the flow.

For those left behind there is always the next incarnation to play catch up?

Regards from "Greybeard" the troll.

Ephrem Antony Gray said...

Crazy Book.

Mind hurty.

Bar said...

Designing web sites and wearing spandex are all that is needed to decide what science is and science isn’t and if you disagree its because your are an idiot.

But of course don’t trust spandex wearing web designers about anything.

Anonymous said...

Web designers. Is there anything they don't know?

Anonymous said...

The latest idiocy from the dreadful Deepak: the cold war was won through magic!

"Obama was right to mention the Berlin Wall multiple times in his visit to that city, because the Wall was not pushed over by force, unless you mean the force of consciousness. Right timing and mass will came together perfectly; resistance and opposition were rendered powerless. Can the same magic strike again?"

Anna said...

Joan of Arghhh (sp..) said:

Perhaps a fitting hem to the fabric of your thoughts this past week.

That was equally as lovely.

Anonymous said...

Bob wrote:
"They suffer from a distorting mental hypertrophy that is to the mind what those musclebound bodybuilding freaks are to the physique. Only the delusional members of the cult believe that they actually look good -- mostly to each other, to which the gradually diminishing interest in LGF testifies."

Please, let me paraphrase:
Not true because it's hilarious, but hilarious because it's true!

Anonymous said...

I continue to monitor and treasure that which seems vertical to me, but have little to add.

I wish I could say better what blooms in the misty reaches.

Centers are everywhere, vertical rising and descending. Centers are everywhere I seek north south east, west, reaching oceans and diving deep deep to the black smokers on the bottom, finding yet more centers in the heat and cold below. The lizard bleeds my blood, and the cross is my cross. But when I sit in the lap of God, caressed in the way that only He can, when I sit within my own heart just so, the noises of the opposites cease and the harmony is revealed in the present and forever.

walt said...

Bob,

Perhaps you underestimate our esteemed Guru Dee. While he did use the quaint term "magic," the man is at heart a scientist.

His Complete Theory of History is based, at least in part, on the Scatter Effect, and the very modern Maharishi Effect, which he learned, by the way, from the Man himself.

Obviously, he has thought Deep-ly about these subjects . . . .

robinstarfish said...

Wonderful Keith Jarrett quote. Having seen him a couple times at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, I can say it was high holy church and can still to this day revisit those concerts in my imagination. I didn't know how he did what he did at the time, but it makes perfect sense now. I imagine his later illness of several years could have been a result of swimming with the seraphim, the price he had to pay for such penetration of heaven. It nearly killed him. But he opened to his listeners a direct window into the Divine, for those who knew what they were hearing.

Anonymous said...

This is bullshit. The Scatter Effect has to do with the reaction of people who see a chimpanzee driving a Rolls Royce.

Deepak's gonna hear from my lawyers. Either that or a little midnight knock on the door from Dupree and LaFayette.

Gagdad Bob said...

Robin--

I agree about Jarrett -- probably a kundalini-related illness. The man channels an overwhelming amount of Force. Probably blew his circuits.

walt said...

Sheesh!

I feel a strange urge to write a song about that poor critter . . . .

Anonymous said...

bob, i read often but never comment... the deeps are so very deep here but i love it!

today's essay reminds me of my favorite CS Lewis quotation:

"I believe in Christianity as I believe in the rising sun; not because I see it, but by it I can see all else."

with deepest regards.
joyvox

Anonymous said...

Walt:

Take anything Lamar and Billy say with a grain of salt. They're in the "Elvis business," so certain tales get taller with time. A man's gotta eat.

Suffice it to say, there was no cattle prod in the bath tub. True, there was an incident with a blow drier by the jacuzzi, but even then, the extension cord was too short.

Aloysius said...

This book about Bachis very worthwhile. Bach was consciously aware of esoteric truth.

Joan of Argghh! said...

Thanks, Ms. Elephant. Very kind of you. Do be careful, however, in being seen speaking with me. It's mostly frowned upon.

I was totally stoked to see Walter Wangerin Jr. in your book list! It's almost time to read him again.

Anonymous said...

Bach was a fraud, just like Newton! Both believed in the intelligent design hoax!

Van Harvey said...

Excellent post today... can't seem to get my fingers jumpstarted, but brains a whirling.

Van Harvey said...

Joan said "Do be careful, however, in being seen speaking with me. It's mostly frowned upon."

(psst! Someone you want I should lean on?)

Joan of Argghh! said...

Lean on, Van? Nah. I'm the youngest of eight, five of them brothers. I could never fake that helpless female bit, as tempting as it is.

Meanwhile, Charles Johnson booted me out after one little post. Deleted the post and kicked me to the curb within minutes.

(Thanks to my anonymous name donor!)

Van Harvey said...

Ho! Must have landed a good body blow! That's the Joan of Argh! we know and love!

Anonymous said...

- Would he find people hostile? If criticised, would he feel unjustly persecuted?

- That's part of the picture.

- You have testified that these symptoms exist in Johnson's behaviour: Rigidity of personality, feelings of persecution, and a neurotic certainty
he is always right. Isn't there one psychiatric term
for this illness?

- I never mentioned any illness.

- Thank you for the correction. What would you call a personality with all these symptoms?

- A paranoid personality. But that is not a disabling illness.

- What kind of personality?

- Paranoid.

- I would like to protest the counsel's twisting of words. There's a difference between mental illness and mental disturbance.

- Could Johnson have been disabled by the strain of Joan stealing the key to the mess hall and then eating the strawberries?

- That's absurdly hypothetical.

- Is it?

julie said...

Theme for this past week
scales and claws lurk all around
bacterial bite*

(Oddly enough, I saw a lot of lizards on my travels.)

Ray Ingles said...

So, I think I've got it now.

Forests are at a higher ontological level than trees. Symphonies are at a higher ontological level than notes. Wind is at a higher ontological level than air. Climate is at a higher ontological level than weather.

But it's impossible that minds are at a higher ontological level than brains, right?

Ray Ingles said...

Again, religious truths are seen directly, in the very same way that one's eyes see directly in the material plane.

But... we don't see directly. Vision's a very complicated, active and interpretive process that involves lifelong training, as shown by people with eye problems early in life that have their vision restored later. Their brains have to learn how to process the input. (Oliver Sacks' account of this in "An Anthropologist on Mars" was fictionalized into the movie "At First Sight".)

Van Harvey said...

Good lord ray, move beyond seventh grade, will ya?

Van Harvey said...

From rays crapy (no I'm not feeling grumpy on 3 hours sleep, why do you ask?) 'hail to determinism' link "...Gregory’s patient, so well adapted to blindness before his operation, was first delighted with seeing, but soon encountered intolerable stresses and difficulties, found the "gift" transformed to a curse, became deeply depressed, and soon after died..."

A far better book on the subject (), is Crashing Through: The Extraordinary True Story of the Man Who Dared to See by Robert Kurson , "Kurson's biography of Mike May, a highly successful entrepreneur, athlete, husband and father who undergoes experimental surgery to regain the vision that he lost in a chemical explosion at age three. When May chooses to pursue the risky procedure, he rejects the notion of blindness as an infirmity that requires healing. Instead, May views the restoration of sight as a new adventure to explore with the same gusto that he has demonstrated in all facets of life. Without pathos or pity, Welch vividly portrays May's challenge of processing the mental complexities of his newfound vision"

Or the C-Span talk with Kurson and May, is still viewable online.

Illustrates the difference between machine (ray's), and Human (mine), and the necessity of Free Will to become either - by default, or by choice.

Joan of Argghh! said...

Actually, I was polite. I did not argue for or against ID, but merely posited that IF I were an Islamo-fascist, then I would certainly appreciate all the excitement and hand-wringing about the Christians, as it would make my plans much easier.

I pointed out that millions of young minds had been taught the Bible story in their youth and still went on, unassailed, to learn sound scientific principle.

I ended with a lament that the real damage done to young minds was in forcing them to read JD Salinger.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Hi Joan!
I could see why Gornzilla banned you! Why, that's a horrible thing to say, even if it is true...

Ha ha! Musta hurt his little lizard brain with that one.

Anonymous said...

"like someone who listens to the notes but cannot hear the symphony"

This strikes me as being in line with whoever said "religion is a defense against a religious experience".

Secular Humanism has now latched down enough unwavering dogma to fit this assessment to a "T".

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Thanks Van!
For reading the crappy link so we wouldn't hafta (actually, I wasn't gonna read it anyway, but nevertheless, good show!).

I also like your book selection better, btw.
You know, I was thinkin'...maybe Ray is tellin' us he's the hopelessly depressed blind guy in his choice of books.

Maybe, just maybe, ray is really sayin' he doesn't want to see because if he does he'll kill himself, like the guy in the book.

Ray, you gotta choice. If seeing is too scary for you, than fine, don't see. You aren't ready for it.

What? You though i would say somethin' different, like, "it's not really like that>" Or somethin'?

No I won't say that, 'cause that's what you expect it to be, so yeah, it will be depressing for you.

Hell, I was depressed for awhile, more than once, but I got over it...I CHOSE to get over it.

But I can't say what you would do, or how you would feel, or that everything is just hunkydory after you see, because it's different (and sorta the same in some ways) for everyone.

That's somethin' you gotta decide.
All I can say is hope beats the hell outta hopelessness.
But that won't mean bupkis to you.

Anyway, it is funny how you misinterpret plain english sometimes, and yet, Johan and Magnus understand this language better than I do!

That's because it ain't the letters they're hearin' but the Spirit of the words. :^)

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Petey said...
"Only by knowing little may you know much!

Ho!"


I know much to little...or a little too much. :^)

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Walt said-
"But while I feel more and more "settled" these days, I also sense an ability to choose..."

See? You can have your choose cake and eat it too. Ha ha!

Ray Ingles said...

Van - Yes, the choice to engage or not is important, and nothing I wrote (or linked to) denied it. But my point was not about determinism, or that the challenges of regained sight are insurmountable. The point, as your book notes, is that "processing the mental complexities of... vision" is a "challenge".

It's a challenge most of us surmount in our first few months of existence, usually so well that we don't even grasp how much of a challenge it is. We aren't even conscious of the active and complex processing we perform in the act of vision. It's "hidden" from us. But if even "plain sight" on a material level is more complex than we normally grasp (until something goes wrong), then why is it so hard to think that "sight" on other ontological levels might not be as pure and simple as it 'feels'?

Anonymous said...

Bar said...
"Designing web sites and wearing spandex are all that is needed to decide what science is and science isn’t and if you disagree its because your are an idiot."

I wore spandex once. But I couldn't find the zipper.

So...you know...

But it didn't help me comprehend quantum physics.

Alright it was a bet! Happy!?

Ray Ingles said...

Ben - That's been another of my points for a while now. I'm not 'hopeless', or scared. The prevailing theories here don't seem to account for such a possibility, though. It's actually been kind of interesting seeing all the theories about me so far, despite the fact that I've been quite straightforward about my views and motivations.

jp said...

I think that Ray is perfectly content at the moment.

Ray can correct me if I'm wrong.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Ray-
Point taken. But I did say IF you were scared.

"But if even "plain sight" on a material level is more complex than we normally grasp (until something goes wrong), then why is it so hard to think that "sight" on other ontological levels might not be as pure and simple as it 'feels'?"

Well, it is pure, and it is simple but it's also complicated and very challengin, so I don't think anyone here is sayin' it's a walk through the park.
It also involves new hearing as well as sight.

But what's your point? That it's hard?

Bar said...

Skully.

LOL

I was picturing Charles wearing spandex while looking up and telling Michael Bebe he is an impostor.

See its only news if Pat Buchanan says maybe Hitler was right or some crap like that.

If Richard Dawkins says the same thing many, many times its not news.
When Paul Myers openly said he would like to desecrate some Roman Catholic symbols, its not news, its just atheistic fun.

Beware of pseudo-conservatives wearing 9/11 clothes.

Van Harvey said...

ray said "We aren't even conscious of the active and complex processing we perform in the act of vision"

Duh.

"It's "hidden" from us."

Double Duh.

"But if even "plain sight" on a material level is more complex than we normally grasp (until something goes wrong), then why is it so hard to think that "sight" on other ontological levels might not be as pure and simple as it 'feels'?"

ray, anyone who has opened a biology book, or paid close attention to any living thing, is aware that there is more to life than breathing, and more to the mechanics of sight than opening and closing the eyelids. The links you continually throw up which do no more than point out the obvious, are just a wee bit patronizing and all the while you continue to miss the more important and more obvious points being made - seemingly in your absence - while continuing to belabor points most here got many mucho moons ago.

How Vision get's to, and is recognized and processed in the brain and mind IS fascinating, but it does nothing to alter the fact that given a functioning visual and mental system, YOU SEE, and more to the point you see SOMETHING, and even more to the point YOU and SOMETHING are engaged in an act of SEEING which involves at least two entities which do in fact EXIST.

Unless of course, you choose to keep your I-lids closed.

Van Harvey said...

"This type of mind is too saturated by lower things -- computer programming books, and the like -- and "knows" too much to ever consider the possibility of truths that lie on plane higher than their own meager qualifications."

Ray, just as May sought to see... not just let it wash over and by him, but actively, by intention, sought to make connections his brain wouldn't make without his direction, you have to seek to see, and acknowledge that there is something there to be seen which you do not yet "See", before you can re-establish your inwardly outward sight.

I too used to know too much to see what wasn't there; you have to open the door and trust that there is a Reason behind the knocking. And it doesn't contradict what you already know, it extends it. Upgrade your Interface.

Ray Ingles said...

Van, you're right - "YOU and SOMETHING are engaged in an act of SEEING which involves at least two entities which do in fact EXIST". Just like when you see a sunrise. The horizon and the sun and you all exist.

But just because it looks like a sunrise doesn't mean the sun actually rises. Instead, the Earth turns. Vision sees real things, but we also actively build on that to understand what we're seeing.

So, we can "see" truths like the Golden Rule on a different ontological level, too. But exactly how that is constituted may not be so directly perceptible. That's all I've been saying. Having a different understanding of what morals are composed of is not the same thing as denying morals exist, for example.

Van Harvey said...

Again, Duh.

"Just like when you see a sunrise. The horizon and the sun and you all exist.
But just because it looks like a sunrise doesn't mean the sun actually rises. Instead, the Earth turns. Vision sees real things, but we also actively build on that to understand what we're seeing."

You state the point and miss it at the same time. Just because it looks like nothing is there doesn't mean there is nothing there.

Ray, are you there? Do you accept that YOU exist... or are you sticking to "you" as just being a complexity of flipping switches?

Ray Ingles said...

BTW, kinda sad that more people didn't look at the Sacks link. I was expecting someone to bring up the word 'metanoia' commenting on the passage about how "one must die as a blind person to be born again as a seeing person". Though I suppose Van's most recent comment comes close.

Of course, my point has been that I do see truth and beauty and order, I just understand them in a different framework.

Anonymous said...

Ray...

Cheer up! It's WORSE than you think!

Sincerely...lurker uncloaking

Ray Ingles said...

Van - "Ray, are you there?"

Yes. In the same way as a symphony or a forest or the meaning of a poem is really there.

(Just struck by something, rereading Bob's post here. "These folks take great pride in living in darkness, and ridicule those of us who simply enjoy the sun’s rays..." Can anyone point to something I've written here that is ridiculing rather than disagreeing?)

Van Harvey said...

ray said "I was expecting someone to bring up the word 'metanoia' commenting on the passage about how "one must die as a blind person to be born again as a seeing person"

Yes, I saw it. Sort of like someone commenting on how pretty the plastic flowers are, though.

"Of course, my point has been that I do see truth and beauty and order, I just understand them in a different framework."

Yeah... but your framework is more like a 2D emulator, because you won't upgrade to a 3D Graphics card. You're on Windows 3.1, while the rest of us are on XP or Vista.

(Hey! Mac users! Shut UP! Thank you.)

"Can anyone point to something I've written here that is ridiculing rather than disagreeing?"

No, that's why you made mascot. You are well behaved. And clean. Relatively speaking.

Van Harvey said...

But now, having seen tomorrow,

"But Bion recognized that there are equally people who "unhallucinate" what is there. In my writing, I call this a "dimensional defense mechanism," because the way it most commonly works is to render the meaningful meaningless by unconsciously attacking the links that connect them. This is very different from repression or from denial, the latter of which is much more crude and obvious. In contrast, the dimensional defense is reconizable by a kind of intellectual "flatness" that we recognize in out scientistic mascot, Ray, or in Queeg and the rest of the anti-intellectual neo-Liztard rabble of little Queeglings.
"


I see Bob's already been there ahead of me.

How surprising.

(sigh)

Back to the Future.

jp said...

I'm actually enjoying yesterday. It has that retro feel.

Van and Ray say:

"Can anyone point to something I've written here that is ridiculing rather than disagreeing?"

No, that's why you made mascot. You are well behaved. And clean. Relatively speaking."

I think that the word you are looking for is "nice".

Ray Ingles said...

Van - Actually, I mostly run Linux. Make of that analogy what you will. :->

Van Harvey said...

Erasmus said "I think that the word you are looking for is "nice"."

Ray said "Actually, I mostly run Linux."

Sorry, they're mutually exclusive.

;-)

Ray Ingles said...

Aw, Van, clearly it's been years since you took a look at Linux. Try Ubuntu sometime. :->

Van Harvey said...

Oh... I dunno... I'm so enjoying Vista's more elegant take on the blue screen of death - simply restarting without warning - it adds a whole new dimension of adventure to computing.

Anonymous said...

Your interpetation of metaphysical union is in error. Male or female energies can assume either of your projected positions depending on how you think. It would be well for you to weigh your perspective and write from a broader viewpoint.

Gagdad Bob said...

Thanks for the tip!

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