Wednesday, January 07, 2009

Free Will, Authentic Evil, and The Infectiousness of the Morally Unrepressed

Bolton points out that "the last animal of a species spends its life doing exactly the same things as were done by the first one. Only man does not have to keep doing the same things ad infinitum, regardless of their value."

But it wasn't too long ago that human beings were caught in that same evolutionary rut (and most still are). As I wrote in the book, one of our immediate predecessors, Homo erectus bumbled around the evolutionary stage for a million and a-half years with no evidence of change in the archaeological record, despite having a bigger brain than most Raider fans. As one scholar put it, "As a whole, the archaeological record between 1.4 million and 100,000 years ago seems to revolve around an almost limitless number of minor variations on a small set of technical and economic themes." Imagine the numbing repetition of hip-hop, only for a million years instead of 20.

But this is how mere Darwinian evolution works. With the exception of modern human beings, all animals are trapped in an evolutionary rut. Animals find their successful adaptations, and stick with them. That's called "winning the Darwinian lottery."

But to what is free will an adaptation? First of all, as we touched on yesterday, if it is adapted to bad ideas or to a faulty conception of reality, it "will result in changes which would be for the worse" (Bolton). As such, although this gives the superficial appearance of freedom, it cannot really be free in any useful way, "because it is worse than no change at all."

No, freedom, if it is to be truly free, must be an adaptation to Truth. Truth must be anterior to freedom, or there can be no real freedom. More pointedly, to the extent that you have internalized bad ideas, you are a slave, even though you probably feel subjectively free. But that's just the pseudo-freedom of a kind of reactionary rebellion. You are still bound to the truth, but in revolt against it.

Materialism necessarily results in loss of liberty, because in identifying with matter, the mind inverts the cosmos and shares in the materialistic mode of being.

But if for no other reason than the fact that we have two cerebral hemispheres which regard the world and process information in radically different ways, we cannot really identify with the material mode. As I have written before, human beings are bi-logical; it is not so much that we operate with two different modes of logic, but that, in a healthy person, we synthesize those two modes into a "higher third," or what Grotstein calls the "transcendent position" (and Ogden calls the "historical position," more on which later, as it has important implications for the eradication and control of mind parasites).

What this means in reality is that human consciousness is proportioned to the "transcendent object," which necessarily bifurcates into the two modes of logic in the herebelow (or herewithin). In other words -- or symbols -- you could once again draw a triangle, with the transcendent object at the apex, which in turn bifurcates into right and left hemispheres, and all they imply (or better yet, Matte Blanco's symmetrical and asymmetrical logic, respectively). In short, you need no less than two brains to know the One. Which is why reductionistic Darwinians and other materialists are such half-wits.

It's way too vast a subject to get into in detail at this point, but Balthasar's magisterial Glory of the Lord only spends about 10,000 pages going into why it is necessary to understand God in this more hyperdimensional, aesthetic manner, and conversely, how we are foredoomed to failure if we attempt to comprehend God and revelation in solely naturalistic terms. In short, theology becomes positively deranged in the absence of the third transcendental, beauty. He has so many arresting passages that illuminate this point, that it's difficult to just pick one or two. Here are a couple of random quotes:

"Will this light not necessarily die out where the very language of light has been forgotten and the mystery of Being is no longer allowed to express itself?... The witness borne by Being becomes untrustworthy for the person who can no longer read the language of beauty."

Or better yet, "Whoever insists that he can neither see it nor read it, or whoever cannot accept it, but rather seeks to 'break it up' critically into supposedly prior components, that person falls into the void and, what is worse, he falls into what is opposed to the true and good."

Do you see the problem? God is not only whole, but the very condition and possibility of wholeness. Therefore, to treat God as, say, a biological object that one dissects on a table, is to kill the very object one wishes to understand. God cannot be understood from the bottom up, only the top down (and only then from the bottom up). The apprehension of God is like a "form" that radiates celestial beauty that is inseparable from its truth and goodness. "If form is broken down into subdivisions and auxiliary parts for the sake of explanation, this is unfortunately a sign that the true from has not been perceived as such at all." The form is seen first, just as a biologist must first be able to apprehend life before dissecting it into parts

But it is no different with man. To treat a man as an object is to have failed to understand what man is. Likewise, to treat scripture as a literary form to be deconstructed is to have failed to see the object one is so casually dismembering. One must first see the "whole," and then understand how it radiates into all the parts. If you don't first "see" Jesus, you can't possibly begin to understand him, for "the Incarnation uses created Being at a new depth as a language and a means of expression for the divine Being and essence."

As I said, that's a topic for another 100 posts. Back to Bolton. He points out that "the lack of free will which can be seen in animals results from the fact that their wills relate only to objects in the outside world." Now, don't you know, it is the same problem vis-a-vis mind parasites and man. This is another huge topic, and I'm not sure I can do justice to it in such a short space, but a mind parasite essentially comes down to an unconsciously internalized relationship with the environment, that then goes on repeating itself in a circular way.

For example, say the infant is abused or emotionally abandoned by a parent. This relationship -- which consists of two subjects and an affective link between them -- is internalized, say, into an oppressor-victim constellation. Later in life, the person will unconsciously re-enact the mind parasite, but due to the magic of symmetrical logic, he or she can at times sadistically identify with the oppressor in relationship to a projected victim, or masochistically identify with the victim in search of a persecutory oppressor.

Thus, in a perverse way, victims need their oppressors and cannot live without them. The Democrat party is proof of this. Many blacks, for example, are "addicted" to racism, just as so many Muslims are addicted to "Islamophobia." Again, because of the magic of symmetrical logic, they convert their own bloodthirsty impulses into the insane idea that 10 million Jews control and persecute a billion Muslims. Madness. A "proportionate response" would actually to be to nurture genocidal impulses toward Muslims, so Muslims should be careful what they wish for.

Note, by the way, that the Palestinians can never recognize the right of Israel to exist, because that would spell the death of their mind parasites -- a kind of "interior auto-genocide." They would rather physically die than allow their parasites to perish. Which again puts an interesting spin on the Darwinian aspect of all this, because the so-called "Palestinians" are not adapted to external reality; rather, they must bend reality to the will of their mind parasites, even at the cost of their own physical survival. Nor can you grant them "freedom," because they will only use the freedom to enslave themselves, as they have done in Gaza.

Morality -- i.e., conformity to the Good -- can only enter in the space between freedom and necessity. Free will is actually "movement" in a higher dimension, and one of those dimensions is the dimension of objective morality. Are Palestinians free to choose the Good? Hardly. If you do that, you will be murdered by another Palestinian.

Ironically, Bolton points out that in Islamic terminology, such beings are known as "saints of satan," that is, "authentic beings who are either evil or deranged, or both, but who have all the self-assurance of those who know themselves to be authentic."

In America, our problem is that half our population has no such-self assurance. For these totolerantarians reject the beautiful moral basis of our own civilization, but identify with the monstrous "authenticity" of the Palestinians. There is nothing like the "infectiousness of the morally unrepressed" (Becker) to get a liberal's heart pounding, since they are so free of everything liberals despise about themselves and their civilization.

Long day. Gotta run. Vote (remember, you can vote once a day):

The 2008 Weblog Awards

35 comments:

julie said...

"God cannot be understood from the bottom up, only the top down (and only then from the bottom up). The apprehension of God is like a 'form' that radiates celestial beauty that is inseparable from its truth and goodness. 'If form is broken down into subdivisions and auxiliary parts for the sake of explanation, this is unfortunately a sign that the true from has not been perceived as such at all.'"

While you were typing that, I was posting this:

In a small, small world
color is universal
and matter is made
of endless repetition

Playing with my new toy this week, it becomes abundantly clear that everything on either side of our level of perception - the macro and micro worlds - is but repeated patterns, blocks of matter in fractals stacked on top of each other in uncountable layers. Seeing that, it becomes abundantly clear that the most remarkable thing of all - the most different and unusual thing in all of the universe as we know it, is that these patterns have managed to stack up in such a way as to be aware - and not just aware, but alive and individual. It just makes no sense whatsoever that life could have sprung from the bottom up.

julie said...

"Free will is actually "movement" in a higher dimension, and one of those dimensions is the dimension of objective morality. Are Palestinians free to choose the Good? Hardly."

Going back to matters of scale, it's interesting that just as there is one particular sweet spot in the universe where the conditions are just so for life to exist, within which the conditions are just so for intelligence and free will to develop, there is further a sweet spot (a place, a time and a state of mind) wherein the conditions are just so for freedom and the knowledge of the True, the Good and the Beautiful may develop. I can't help wondering what sweet spot is contained within that knowledge, and within, and within...

Anonymous said...

Somebody's en fuego this morning.

Anonymous said...

Can I buy some pot from you?

julie said...

Naw, I smoked it all already, can't you tell? But I can tell you who I got it from, some crazy cat, said his(?) name was, mellysew.

jp said...

Julie writes:

"Playing with my new toy this week, it becomes abundantly clear that everything on either side of our level of perception - the macro and micro worlds - is but repeated patterns, blocks of matter in fractals stacked on top of each other in uncountable layers. Seeing that, it becomes abundantly clear that the most remarkable thing of all - the most different and unusual thing in all of the universe as we know it, is that these patterns have managed to stack up in such a way as to be aware - and not just aware, but alive and individual."

Yep, interfering patterns and non-interfering patterns with different amplitudes.

And not just physical (and energy)patterns. Patterns of thought, too.

Gotta use your free will to change those thought patterns. Can't just throw them into a volcano to get rid of them or use a hammer to change them. Just doesn't work.

Ephrem Antony Gray said...

"Leaving earthly matters aside, let us turn toward spiritual gifts. How long are we going to remain in childish games and thereby not acquire any mature manner of thinking. If it is strange to witness an adult sitting on a pile of ashes and drawing childish images in the soot, then it is more so to see people, called toward the enjoyment of eternal blessings, scrabble in the dust of earthly cares. The reason for this divergence lies in that we imagine that there is nothing more important than the perceptible — not realizing the insignificance of existing benefits and the superiority of future blessings — and blinded by the dazzle of the present, adhere to it with all our might." (St. Nilus of Sinai)

mushroom said...

Humans do a sort of meta-adaptation, as you've pointed out in discussing the triad of infant-mother plus father. It as if we reached a point in biological adaptation where we stepped back (in a purely material world, where would "back" be?) and began a whole new level of evolution.

julie said...

"But to what is free will an adaptation? First of all, as we touched on yesterday, if it is adapted to bad ideas or to a faulty conception of reality, it 'will result in changes which would be for the worse' (Bolton). As such, although this gives the superficial appearance of freedom, it cannot really be free in any useful way, 'because it is worse than no change at all.'"

Today's illustrative example.

julie said...

Money quote at the end of that article:
"We will be reachable," said the man, who was sharing a glass of homemade wine with friends on New Year's Eve. "But we don't want to answer."

(and sheesh, where is everybody today? I feel like I'm hogging the floor or something)

robinstarfish said...

Nah. We're all just enraptured.

robinstarfish said...

In short, you need no less than two brains to know the One.

When you have only two pennies left in the world, buy a loaf of bread with one, and a lily with the other. -Chinese proverb

Gagdad Bob said...

When mind parasites speak:

"Zionism in general is a barbaric, racist movement that really is the cause of the situation in the entire Middle East."

"Go back to the oven. You need a big oven, that's what you need."

julie said...

Heh - that puts my worries about my own parasites into perspective; it's highly unlikely I'll raise my kid(s) to be such vessels of hatred, anyway.

Yikes.

Ephrem Antony Gray said...

"God cannot be understood from the bottom up, only the top down (and only then from the bottom up). The apprehension of God is like a 'form' that radiates celestial beauty that is inseparable from its truth and goodness. 'If form is broken down into subdivisions and auxiliary parts for the sake of explanation, this is unfortunately a sign that the true from has not been perceived as such at all.'"

Of course, keeping in mind that God's essence is unknowable, except to himself - in fact it would seem that part of his nature is to be able to know essences. It's a hyperdimensional thing, I believe.

Ephrem Antony Gray said...

I was thinking about this, but I think it's important to note that God's power is natural, like, a part of his nature - the way he is. So his knowledge of essences is not, as though it were possible - something he has by fiat. I recall the Fathers saying that the enemy, Satan, thought he could become God because he thought God was just the oldest and most powerful entity, rather than being something utterly different and naturally beyond even the angels.

It might be helpful, I guess, to think of these things as side effects of the nature of God - it is not as though God has the biggest computer or a list of all things - just as fire produces heat, God knows. It is more like he 'inhabits knowledge and truth' than has them, or I guess one can even say, he really IS knowledge and truth. Insofar as knowledge is true it has it's little way of participating in God... something like that.

Done rambling!

Joan of Argghh! said...

Found a way to deal with my mind parasites.

It's customizable.

wv:prowsing: this should totally be a word for some very bad mind parasite activity.

Anonymous said...

Godd evening gang. I ran across this link, and thought I'd pass it on. Book catalogue
All the books are on line right there at the site. I've started G.K. Chesterton's The Everlasting Man Which is 90 proof coon juice. Good stuff.

wv:cophess
But I didn't do it, I'm tellin' ya'.

JWM

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Sheesh! I really am starting to develop a hatred for flooding.
It's so annoying.

But I am grateful we still have power. Anyone know where I can get a cheap canoe?
Let me rephrase that, anyone know where I can get a good canoe for cheap? :^)

julie said...

Criminy, Ben, not again!

I think you guys need a house that comes with its own pontoons. (Seriously, I wonder if you could weld some on to the undercarriage, and make sure it's well-anchored for next time? Hm.) In the meantime, you're back in the top of the prayer rOtation.

I hope you guys can stay mostly high and dry!

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Thanks Julie.
That's what I said, except for criminy and Ben.

IMO, or inner climatologist, this won't be as bad as last the one 13 months ago, but it's hard to tell in the dark. It is very windy too.

Our neighbors bugged out at the first sign. Can't say I blame 'em after last time.

I'm more concerned about losing power than the flood itself, at this point. It crests in a few hours, so I'll know for sure then if I'm right. :^)

Anonymous said...

Ben, could Gaia be getting even for all those years you spent riding her waves?

Thanks for that Big Hollywood link yesterday: most encouraging.

Perhaps you've heard that HBO has made Taking Chance, based on "Marine Lieutenant Colonel Strobl's account of escorting the remains of Lance Corporal Chance Phelps. It's a long and beautifully written and it deserves to be read in it's entirety. It's about Valor, Honor and Respect" that was posted on Blackfive April '04. Kevin Bacon plays Strobl.

Have hankies/tissues at hand for the above links. The movie will air on HBO February 21 at 8pm. Reaction to it [by the usual suspects] will be most interesting.

God bless & protect America's military members. Kudos to all, past & present, who've donned the uniforms of this great nation & kept us safe here at home.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

I dunno, Ximeze.
Coulda been somethin' I said.
I'd like to think it's not personal. :^)

You're right, that is beautiful! I hope HBO has filmed an accurate version of those events. If they did this would be the first pro-military film since 9/11 of the guys and gals fighting the war on terror(ists).

Yes indeed, God bless them all!

Anonymous said...

Stobl has said it's 95% accurate/as it happened. He's listed as 'writer' on second youtube short. Course, with your weather bad up there right now, dial-up it must be.

robinstarfish said...

wv = goddin.

Damn wordver is freakin' me out. Can't even remember what I was gonna say.

Oh yeah. Ben, if you want to build a treehouse, post a notice. If the Amish can rally round, we can too.

Anonymous said...

Strobl that is.

Watched Band of Brothers last weekend - must have Sobel on the brain.

Anonymous said...

Why while watching Richard Dawkins on tv do I feel like a muslim towards a jew. I hate that. Why can't my free will help me. Why can't I acknowlege the elephant in the room. Or maybe that's what I'm doing, I just don't recognise it. As saint Theresa once said ~ Love is all, I can say no more.

Anonymous said...

really, the answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind...the answer is blowin' in the wind...

Van Harvey said...

"Free Will, Authentic Evil, and The Infectiousness of the Morally Unrepressed"

Geez, the title alone says it all... and there's more?

Cool.

Van Harvey said...

"No, freedom, if it is to be truly free, must be an adaptation to Truth. Truth must be anterior to freedom, or there can be no real freedom. More pointedly, to the extent that you have internalized bad ideas, you are a slave, even though you probably feel subjectively free. But that's just the pseudo-freedom of a kind of reactionary rebellion. You are still bound to the truth, but in revolt against it. "

If that could be taught to students, maybe inscribed above all the blackboards of the classrooms, they'd be innoculated against whatever foolishness any professor might try to profess. It would have to be done without the professors knowledge though, or they'd explode, and the hazardous material cleanup costs would be astronomical.

Van Harvey said...

"Will this light not necessarily die out where the very language of light has been forgotten and the mystery of Being is no longer allowed to express itself?... The witness borne by Being becomes untrustworthy for the person who can no longer read the language of beauty."

wo

Van Harvey said...

"There is nothing like the "infectiousness of the morally unrepressed" (Becker) to get a liberal's heart pounding, since they are so free of everything liberals despise about themselves and their civilization."

Nothing to alarm the mind parasites, all is well in hell.

Van Harvey said...

Julie said "...there is further a sweet spot (a place, a time and a state of mind) wherein the conditions are just so for freedom and the knowledge of the True, the Good and the Beautiful may develop. I can't help wondering what sweet spot is contained within that knowledge, and within, and within..."

Definitly hit the sweet spOt with that one!

Van Harvey said...

Ximeze said "...Have hankies/tissues at hand for the above links..."

That's like warning those in the path of a hurricane that chance of precipitation is high.

Prepare for dehydration. Then click Ximeze's links. Good to know that exists. Thanks Ximeze

Van Harvey said...

Well... I checked out the competition in the webblog awards, and I think I've figured out why OC isn't in first place. You know that curvy part near the beginning of the race track? had a wall by it? Turns out, where OC just lept over the obstruction, and cOntinues On through the landscape, all those other blogs just keep going around and around... so while OC is actually covering distance, they are busy counting laps.

I like the scenery better here.

(turns out someone else actually judges how well the race was run, anyway)

wv:nostrati
Yep. No castrati here.

Theme Song

Theme Song