Hi Nucleus,
very much liked your two passionate posts and here I will prove that
your intuition about the word 'logic' was right. A quick enquiry into
the word 'Word' (the old Greek word 'logos':) will be followed by a
jolly legend of Genesis. We will see where does all the 'evil' in the
world (word) come from, how did it come in the first place and when
did it come for the first time :)
For a warm up I will start with the relevant paragraphs from your replies
(sci.skeptic) to Bob:
On Fri, 8 Aug 2003, nucleus wrote:
=3D=3D=3D> > You can not apply rules of your monkey logic, that is a syst=
em of
binary delusion on the first place, to that, which is external
to your system and FAR exceeds its scope and domain, pretty
much by definition.
One more time:
=3D=3D=3D> > Logic is a system of binary delusion,
reducing the scope and domain of existence
to a single dimension. Not only that,
it only uses two 'endpoints' of it,
'true' and 'false.
Existence is multi-dimensional.
=3D=3D=3D> > There isn't a SINGLE example of 'true' and 'false'
in entire existence.
You invent all sorts of things,
!! > utterly within your mind,
=3D=3D=3D> > such as logic,
and then you start worshipping it
as though it was god.
You felt intuitively that there was something wrong with this world of
"logic" and reason, can the word 'logos' be "the splinter in our mind"?
MORPHEUS: Let me tell you why you're here. You're here because you know
=09 something. What you know you can't explain. But you feel
=09 it. You've felt it your entire life. That there's something
=09 wrong with the world. You don't know what it is but it's there,
=09 like a splinter in your mind driving you mad. It is this feeling
=09 that has brought you to me. Do you know what I'm talking about?
NEO: The Matrix?
MORPHEUS: Do you want to know what it is?
Neo swallows hard and nods.
MORPHEUS: The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us, even now in this
=09 very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when
=09 you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to
=09 work, when you go to church, when you pay your taxes. It is the
=09 world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the
=09 truth.
NEO: What truth?
MORPHEUS: That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else you were born into
=09 bondage, born into a prison that you cannot smell or taste or
=09 touch. A prison for your mind....
The leather creaks as he leans back.
MORPHEUS: Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is.
"Fortunately" I have found out "what it is", the Matrix of words is the
"prison for our mind" and soul, the Word is "the splinter in our mind
driving us mad", the Logos erects the dull world of objects before our
eyes, reason fixes us in the material world.
Unbelievable, isn't it. "I didn't say it would be easy, Neo" :)
What is 'reason', how do we define 'logic' in the first place. Isn't the
Logos "the tree of knowledge of good and evil"?
The confusion comes from the meaning of the Word. The discussions with Bob
and Co. have shown that we have a private perception of the word 'logic'
and the word 'Word', we all have our own 'reason' and often defend it at
all cost. And when those 'reasons' are conflicting guess what
happens. Actually, I may formulate this as an axiom:
Axiom of death: The reason for all killings in the World is the Word Reason=
=2E
=09=09In the Matrix of the Word we die for a Reason.
What happens when Lord Logos is gone is left as a homework exercise. We
cannot say, basically :), without the Word we can say nothing. Can we
'see' something, that is the next question. To explore it we have to
'know' what is the 'true' meaning of the word Logos, we want to learn the
price of silence.
Before we explore the etymoLogy of the word 'logos' we will proceed
straight to its two major meanings in the present world - word and reason
(thought).
{Remark: Etymology is the science of Word Histories and words meanings.
"Etymology is the study of the origin and the histories of
words. Word Histories, both true and false, sometimes catch the
public fancy and are often repeated. In classical times, Greeks
and Romans showed a similar curiosity about the sources of the
words they used. The Greeks called the derivation of a word its
etymologia."
=09=09 http://www.geocities.com/SouthBeach/4195/words.htm }
Here is a quick check of the word in Merriam-Webster
LOGOS
Etymology: Greek, speech, word, reason
1 : the divine wisdom manifest in the creation, government, and
=09 redemption of the world and often identified with the second person
=09 of the Trinity
2 : reason that in ancient Greek philosophy is the controlling princi=
ple
in the universe
Therefore, next we will check the words 'word' and 'reason'. It comes to
no surprise that big dictionaries have problems describing the reality of
the fundamental words of the Matrix in our mind. The definitions of both
'word' and 'reason' are long and often misleading. Do you know why? Have
you asked yourself what does the word 'Word' mean? Once as a little child
I asked my father (he was busy and has just answered me that a 'tree' was
a word, and the next logical question followed:) and the deepest silence
ensued.
It is not easy to define its reality for one simple reason: whatever we
say about the Word, however we define it the result will be made of words,
a kind of circular tautology, a paradox of the vicious circle. More or
less the same applies to the Western word 'reason'. It is as if trying to
define the circle using the word 'circle', or to describe the "real" line
with the line or the triangle with the word 'triangle'. It doesn't make
the word any clearer, in the end we either accept it or not. Usually we
do, because we love it :). If we choose to imagine it then it becomes
real, first in our mind.
Logos might be a difficult Word but since it is the base brick in our
beliefs tree the dictionary has to give us some explanation. To stop our
curious quest, basically, to prevent any further questions. The Word
defends itself. Let's start with a relaxed view on 'reason':
=09=09 The Devil's Dictionary (1993)
REASON, v.i. To weight probabilities in the scales of desire.
REASON, n. Propensitate of prejudice (or propensity for prejudice, Ann)
And now check the more 'serious' sources:
=09=09 Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
Reason
1. A thought or a consideration offered in support of a
determination or an opinion; a just ground for a
conclusion or an action; that which is offered or accepted
as an explanation; the efficient cause of an occurrence or
a phenomenon; a motive for an action or a determination;
proof, more or less decisive, for an opinion or a
conclusion; principle; efficient cause; final cause;
ground of argument.
I'll give him reasons for it. --Shak.
The reason of the motion of the balance in a wheel
watch is by the motion of the next wheel. --Sir M.
Hale.
This reason did the ancient fathers render, why the
church was called ``catholic.'' --Bp. Pearson.
=3D=3D=3D=3D> Virtue and vice are not arbitrary things; but there
:) :) is a natural and eternal reason for that goodness
and virtue, and against vice and wickedness.
--Tillotson.
2. The faculty of capacity of the human mind by which it is
distinguished from the intelligence of the inferior
:) animals; the higher as distinguished from the lower
cognitive faculties, sense, imagination, and memory, and
in contrast to the feelings and desires. Reason comprises
conception, judgement, reasoning, and the intuitional
faculty. Specifically, it is the intuitional faculty, or
the faculty of first truths, as distinguished from the
understanding, which is called the discursive or
ratiocinative faculty.
:) =3D=3D=3D> We have no other faculties of perceiving or knowing
common=09 anything divine or human, but by our five senses and
sense:=09 our reason. --P. Browne.
"Know!"
=3D=3D=3D=3D> In common and popular discourse, reason denotes that
tree power by which we distinguish truth from falsehood,
of and right from wrong, and by which we are enabled to
knowledge combine means for the attainment of particular ends.
--Stewart.
Reason is used sometimes to express the whole of
:) :) those powers which elevate man above the brutes, and
constitute his rational nature, more especially,
perhaps, his intellectual powers; sometimes to
express the power of deduction or argumentation.
--Stewart.
=3D=3D=3D> By the pure reason I mean the power by which we
:) become possessed of principles. --Coleridge.
The sense perceives; the understanding, in its own
peculiar operation, conceives; the reason, or
rationalized understanding, comprehends.
--Coleridge.
=09=09=09=09 WordNet
reason
n 1: a rational motive for a belief or action; "the reason that
war was declared"; "the grounds for their declaration"
[syn: ground]
2: an explanation of the cause of some phenomenon; "the reason
a steady state was never reached was that the back
pressure built up too slowly"
3: the capacity for rational thought or inference or
discrimination; "we are told that man is endowed with
=3D=3D> reason and capable of distinguishing good from evil"
=09[syn: understanding, intellect]
=3D=3D> 4: the state of having good sense and sound judgment; "his
rationality may have been impaired"; "he had to rely less
on reason than on rousing their emotions"
=09[syn: rationality, reasonableness]
5: a justification for something existing or happening; "he had
no cause to complain"; "they had good reason to rejoice"
[syn: cause, grounds]
6: a fact that logically justifies some premise or conclusion;
"there is reason to believe he is lying"
All three dictionaries (Webster, WordNet, Devil's) point in the same
direction, which cannot be a coincidence. Reason is seen as the propensity
to tell right from wrong (good from bad), the ability and the habit to
judge. The linear Logos orders (fixes) the objects, outcomes and thoughts
on the "real" line of desire, it decides what is big or small (though
check Eleatic Zeno for whether it is truly possible:), positive or
negative, right or left. Judgement is when we see the world looking
through the spectacles of reason.
In other words, the Logos is "the tree of knowledge of good and evil".
If we like a theory reason makes it seem true for us, through 'his'
spectacles we see it as if it is real. And to crush a theory (like
'evolution', 'infinity') in my mind all I needed to do was to give reason
good reasons (convincing arguments) not to like it, i.e. to change the
balance in 'his' scales of desire. Basically, a great deal of the
scientific method consists of proving that a theory and the assumptions
are 'good' or 'bad'.
If the result is 'good' (for whom:) then the theory is accepted, to then
find the documented proofs is the easy part: we see what we would like to
see. In my word-crushing journey (in the Castaneda group) I had to show
that a given theory or word was 'bad'. If I managed to prove 'badness'
(the second point of view on a 'word' or 'thought':) the rest was easy. A
mystery actually, suddenly the theory started to shake and felt less
real. Proving 'badness' of a given theory makes us reasonably detached
from its words, its reality becomes suspect.
Rereading the dictionary definitions of 'reason' above I sense that it is
the organiser of the rational world, the common sense determines how we
perceive us and 'reality outside'.
Notice, that to avoid a possible mistake it is defined more or less as
everything (or nothing, you see, the authors also have only a vague idea
what it is, therefore they just quote or paraphrase Plato, Aristotle and
the other giants:) a phenomena we shall meet again with the word 'Word'
(and 'Logos':). Ironically, it is not far from the 'truth', today we live
in the consensus universe of the Logos (reason). Actually, why is the
universe expanding?
Maybe, because the galaxy of words is expanding, the dictionaries (and the
ones in our mind) grow bigger and bigger. The greedy Word is like "a
virus" that has invaded our soul, "a plague", a growing "cancer of this
planet", spreading in all directions faster than the speed of light.
INT. EXECUTIVE OFFICE - DAY (Interrogation)
Agent Smith sits casually across from Morpheus who is hunched over,
his body leaking and twitching.
AGENT SMITH: I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my
=09=09 time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your
=09=09 species. I realized that you're not actually mammals.
=09 Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a
=09 natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment
=09 but you humans do not. You move to an area and you
=09 multiply until every natural resource is consumed. The
=09 only way you can survive is to spread to another area.
He leans forward.
AGENT SMITH: There is another organism on this planet that follows
=09=09 the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus.
Almost smiling.
AGENT SMITH: Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this
=3D=3D=3D>=09=09 planet. You are a plague, and we are the cure.
:) :) :)=09 Evolution, Morpheus, evolution. Like the dinosaur.
=09=09 A word dissolved (in tears:)
Evolution is the law of policies: Darwin said it, Socrates endorsed
it, Cuvier proved it and established it for all time in his paper on
"The Survival of the Fittest." These are illustrious names, this is
a mighty doctrine: nothing can ever remove it from its firm base,
:) :) nothing dissolve it, but evolution.
=09=09=09=09=09=09=09=09Mark Twain
In my opinion the time has come "to dissolve this illustrious name" (to
its most natural state of being just a word), "to remove this mighty
doctrine from its firm base". And where is "its firm base"? In our mind,
we remove it from there, let it be (or remain) real elsewhere :)
We continue with God Logos and Lord Reason. Plato and especially Aristotle
made the Word Reason (Logos) the "highest good" (reason declared itself
God:). In his ethics he recognised the intellectual faculties as the only
source of happiness, the highest virtue, "virtue is the perfection of
reason". The Greek tradition of God Logos is very long, indeed. Later two
major religions were taken by the idea, until it was finally embraced and
worshipped by the warriors of modern science (there was another Greek
tradition, which we were made to forget, and we shall revive:).
To describe the all-encompassing words 'logos' and 'reason' is a
formidable task, primarily because it is like a God, everywhere and
nowhere. We worship it but we don't see it, cannot touch or smell
it. Moreover, it is a word whose reality is entirely in our sub-conscious
mind. It is nowhere else in simple Nature.
And our perception of it is subjective, we have different notions about
'logic', the common sense is not that common at all :) We need only read
Septic's threads "zero gods" and "Ann argues ad _ignorantiam_" to see its
controversial nature. While I thought I was bringing forward an argument
Bob thought that I was "ignorant". There is no "ideal form" of 'logos'
(and 'reason'), there are no universals apart from the word itself (in our
mind:), in real reality we meet only particulars :)
And that is what the jolly dictionary told us (we met a sincere Devil): we
weigh the World of Words in reason's scales of desire. We see what we
would like to see and then try to justify it by giving it a 'logical'
explanation. Let us check another honest dictionary:
=09=09=09 REASONING (Mark Twain)
That is the way we are made: we don't reason, where we feel; we
just feel.
=09=09=09=09- A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
...when we badly want a thing, we go to hunting for good and
:) righteous reasons for it; we give it that fine name to comfort our
:) :) consciences, whereas we privately know we are only hunting for
plausible ones.
=09=09=09=09=09- No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger
Let us quickly check the second meaning of the Word 'logos' (i.e. Word:)
Online Merriam-Webster Abridged (by sweet intellectual property rights:)
WORD
1 a : something that is said
b plural
(1) : TALK, DISCOURSE <putting one's feelings into words>
(2) : the text of a vocal musical composition
c : a brief remark or conversation <would like to have a word with yo=
u>
2 a (1) : a speech sound or series of speech sounds that symbolizes and
=09 communicates a meaning without being divisible into smaller
=09 units capable of independent use
(2) : the entire set of linguistic forms produced by combining a
=09 single base with various inflectional elements without change in
=09 the part of speech elements
b (1) : a written or printed character or combination of characters
=09 representing a spoken word <the number of words to a line> --
=09 sometimes used with the first letter of a real or pretended
=09 taboo word prefixed as an often humorous euphemism <the first
=09 man to utter the f word on British TV -- Time> <we were not
=09 afraid to use the d word and talk about death -- Erma Bombeck>
(2) : any segment of written or printed discourse ordinarily appearing
=09 between spaces or between a space and a punctuation mark
c : a number of bytes processed as a unit and conveying a quantum of
=09 information in communication and computer work
3 : ORDER, COMMAND <don't move till I give the word>
4 often capitalized
a : LOGOS
b : GOSPEL 1a
c : the expressed or manifested mind and will of God
5 a : NEWS, INFORMATION <sent word that he would be late>
b : RUMOR
6 : the act of speaking or of making verbal communication
7 : SAYING, PROVERB
8 : PROMISE, DECLARATION <kept her word>
9 : a quarrelsome utterance or conversation -- usually used in
=09 plural <they had words and parted>
10 : a verbal signal : PASSWORD
Do we know more now? Oh, yes, we learned about the "particles" of the
Word, the bricks, the characters and symbols of which the written Word is
made. By the way, they themselves are also words, and I am not sure about
their precedence. It is entirely possible that the Word appeared before
its 'particles' on the arrow of time, go figure :)
We see as well that the most abstract word 'Word' can be pronounced,
i.e. made of sounds, i.e. other particles. This is also a very useful
information :).
What we don't see in the above definition (why, actually:) is that it is
also an image in our mind, a thought; and that we are going to realize
when inquire into the 'logos'. The major characteristic of the dictionary
is that it (its authors) is scientific, i.e. external (extrovert), it
stresses the Word's great importance ('goodness') in communication. And
'communication' and 'interaction' outside are 'Good' per definition (of
the "social animal").
{Aristotle coined the "political term and many more. None of us can be
completely happy without the Word, that was the message in his
phrase. Speechless animals, gorillas, tigers and fish are unhappy. Very
small children and babies too. He commanded us to fight silence and hate
solitude and, if you think about it, we obeyed the Master of rhetoric.}
Let us summarise the extrovert definitions of the word 'Word':
- something that is said
- talk, discourse
- remark, conversation
- speech, sound communicating meaning
- indivisible, smallest unit of speech
- written combination of characters
- order, command
- LOGOS
- mind and will of God (a glimmer of introvert hope, if this "mind" is ours=
:)
- news, information
- rumour
- saying, proverb
- promise, declaration
This extrovert situation is quite similar to the dictionary word
'language': we look for it elsewhere but not within us. We shift the
detachable burden of responsibility away from us, on the shoulders of
'reality' outside. The Word is something said or written for the purpose
of communication. Whereas, in fact the Word is also the World of ideas and
thoughts in our mind. Without the Word the reasonable world will stop,
cease to exist. The reason we see and fix the World outside as it is is
the Word of Reason. If we don't talk to ourselves there will be no
'reality'.
This is what the definitions above hide from us, the Word is the
fundamental particle, the indivisible, smallest unit of our thoughts, the
Word is the root of our beliefs tree. The Word is the base of the Matrix
of words in our mind. What we have there is also what we see. We cannot
'see' something if we don't 'know' the word for it.
We cannot see that we are "naked" if we don't know the meaning (logos) of
the word 'naked'. A baby sees nothing, its brain is empty of words. Is it
unhappy, though?
=09=09=09 Song of Childhood
=09=09=09 ("Wings of Desire")
=09=09=09When the child was a child
=09=09 It walked with its arms swinging,
=09=09 wanted the brook to be a river,
=09=09=09the river to be a torrent,
=09=09 and this puddle to be the sea.
=09=09 When the child was a child,
=09=09 it didn't know that it was a child,
=09=09=09 everything was soulful,
=09=09=09 and all souls were one.
=09=09 When the child was a child,
=09=09 it had no opinion about anything,
=09=09=09 had no habits,
=09=09=09it often sat cross-legged,
=09=09=09 took off running,
=09=09=09had a cowlick in its hair,
=09=09 and made no faces when photographed.
=09=09 When the child was a child,
=09=09 It was the time for these questions:
=09=09 Why am I me, and why not you?
=09=09 Why am I here, and why not there?
=09 When did time begin, and where does space end?
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D>=09=09 Is life under the sun not just a dream?
=09=09 Is what I see and hear and smell
=09 not just an illusion of a world before the world?
=09=09 Given the facts of evil and people.
=09=09=09 does evil really exist?
=09=09 How can it be that I, who I am,
=09=09 didn't exist before I came to be,
=09=09 and that, someday, I, who I am,
=09=09 will no longer be who I am?
=09=09 When the child was a child,
=09 It choked on spinach, on peas, on rice pudding,
=09=09 and on steamed cauliflower,
=09and eats all of those now, and not just because it has to.
=09=09 When the child was a child,
=09=09 it awoke once in a strange bed,
=09=09 and now does so again and again.
=09=09 Many people, then, seemed beautiful,
=09=09 and now only a few do, by sheer luck.
=09 It had visualized a clear image of Paradise,
=09=09=09and now can at most guess,
=09=09 could not conceive of nothingness,
=09=09 and shudders today at the thought.
=09=09 When the child was a child,
=09=09=09It played with enthusiasm,
=09 and, now, has just as much excitement as then,
=09=09 but only when it concerns its work.
=09=09 When the child was a child,
=09 It was enough for it to eat an apple, ... bread,
=09=09=09 And so it is even now.
=09=09 When the child was a child,
=09 Berries filled its hand as only berries do,
=09=09=09 and do even now,
=09=09 Fresh walnuts made its tongue raw,
=09=09=09 and do even now,
=09=09 it had, on every mountaintop,
=09=09 the longing for a higher mountain yet,
=09=09=09 and in every city,
=09=09 the longing for an even greater city,
=09=09=09 and that is still so,
=09 It reached for cherries in topmost branches of trees
=09=09 with an elation it still has today,
=09=09 has a shyness in front of strangers,
=09=09=09 and has that even now.
=09=09=09It awaited the first snow,
=09=09 And waits that way even now.
=09=09 When the child was a child,
=09 It threw a stick like a lance against a tree,
=09=09 And it quivers there still today.
If all our life we dream about our childhood then probably the soul
tries to remind us of something, maybe we were happier than. If it was so
do we know why? What is it that we lose when we choose to grow up and
become serious, what do earnest adults lack?
Silence, maybe. And peace of mind, perhaps when we were children the
"splinter driving us mad" wasn't there or wasn't that big :)
often only until we get old
do we become consciously aware of something,
that we had known all too well
unconsciously in our childhood
=09=09=09=09=09Tolstoy
Aristotle (the guy who said that "the body is prior in order of generation
to the soul", I guess he meant the ego:) decided that "the child is
imperfect and therefore obviously his virtue is not relative to himself
alone, but to the perfect man and to his teacher". Consequently, his
Science (the Cunning redefined the word of his dead teacher:) was called
for to educate the "imperfect child". With his scholastic words, of
course, his empirical truth. And we (Westerners) followed his advice, from
an earliest age we are educated with the same words, the same textbooks
and the world seems more and more the same to us.
He also told us that we shouldn't work on ourselves, but instead
specialise and in case of doubt ask the experts. His teacher Plato said
that noble philosophic natures should be kings
=09I said: Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of
=09this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and political
=09greatness and wisdom meet in one... cities will never have rest
=09from their evils -- nor the human race, as I believe, -- and then
=09only will this our State have a possibility of life and behold the
=09light of day. Such was the thought, my dear Glaucon, which I would
=09fain have uttered if it had not seemed too extravagant; for to be
=09convinced that in no other State can there be happiness private or
=09public is indeed a hard thing.
=09Socrates, what do you mean?
=09=09 (From Republic "The paradox: philosophers must be kings"
=09=09=09=09=09 written 360 BCE, 2363 years ago)
"Kings should be philosophers", said Plato. To which Aristotle later
replied that only the kings' advisors should be philosophers, i.e any
puppet could be a king provided he "takes advice of true philosophers".
In On Kingship Aristotle wrote that it is:-
... not merely unnecessary for a king to be a philosopher, but even
a disadvantage. Rather a king should take the advice of true
philosophers. Then he would fill his reign with good deeds, not
with good words.
http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Aristotle.ht=
ml
Then Aristotle employed himself by redefining the word "true philosopher"
to mean a scientist. Note how the cunning stalked us: he said that "the
king would fill his reign with good deeds, not with good words" and we got
the 'right' impression; it sounded convincing, i.e. we stopped asking
questions. And what are the "good deeds" of the king?
"Good words", in the beginning of any "good deed" is a "good word". And
most of the time kings talk, give orders or write laws, these are the
"deeds" of the politician. With his assertion Aristotle just made the king
a slave to his advisors and other 'experts'. We again obeyed. Let us
revert to the 'hidden' meaning of the word 'Word'.
=09=09=09 Inner dialogue
The introvert property of the words is that we carry them with us all the
time. We constantly repeat them in our mind, every new word we learn
becomes part of our internal dialogue. And increases our anxiety,
especially if it is a very long Latin word (a medical or genetic one:). To
silence that self-talk is not easy, because it has become a persistent
habit, part of our perception of the word 'reality'.
=09"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."
=09=09=09=09=09=09=09 Einstein
Some dictionaries make the task (to remember the first word we have
accepted) even harder, how to stop the inner dialogue if we are unaware we
have one.
INT. EXECUTIVE OFFICE - DAY (Interrogation)
Agent Smith stands, staring out the windows at the city below
shimmering with brilliant sunlight.
AGENT SMITH: Have you ever stood and stared at it, marveled at its
=09=09 beauty, its genius? Billions of people just living out
=09=09 their lives, oblivious.
The only word in the Merriam-Webster definition of the word 'Word' that
points in the 'right' direction is the mysterious word "LOGOS". And we
will jump to it in a minute. Let us first summarise our findings: the word
'reason' turned out a Cunning child of our sacred desires, the word 'Word'
is still a word :)
TANK: I knew it.
=09=09=09 The Word 'Logos'
is the key to the Universe as we 'know' it now. Again someone gave us the
word (order) to become that word. Can you guess who that teacher was?
The first one I know was Heraclitus born 535 BCE (who said "Mortal
immortals, immortal mortals, living their death and dying their
life."). Logos was his personal God. He probably meant something else from
what we think (they call him the "obscure philosopher"), which is not
surprising bearing in mind that we have different heads and word-containers
(dictionaries in our mind). And the threads about "counting gods" and
"agnosticism" have shown it. We say and write the same words but the
corresponding meanings and ideal forms we imagine in our mind differ
(usually, it is the image we fixed there the first time we learned the
word).
=09=09=09 Heraclitus Logos (Tao:)
Zen:) Listening not to me but to the Logo's it'is wise to agree that all
Tao things are one.
Of the Logos which is as I describe it men always prove to be
uncomprehending, both before they have heard it and when once they
have heard it. For although all things happen according to this
Logos men are like people of no experience, even when they
experience such words and deeds as I explain, when I distinguish
each things according to its constitution and declare how it is; but
the rest of the men fail to notice what they do after they wake up
just as they forget what they do when asleep.
Therefore it is necessary to follow the common; but although the
:) Logos is common the many live as though they had a private
understanding.
=09=09=09 http://www.forthnet.gr/presocratics/heracln.htm),
The quotes are rather mystical though some got the impression that he
probably referred to the Word "common" sense, which is like reason. Who
knows, maybe indeed his Logos was the "meaning of things" (words), maybe
his God was the Word:
14. Heraclitus perceives the meaning (logos) of things. An early
riser who fills his soul with the intelligence that surrounds him,
he shouts to wake up his sleeping fellow citizens. He tells them to
listen not to him, but to the Logos. {or to his Words :)}
Heraclitus points beyond himself to the common (available) Logos
which anyone can see. His manner of speech - - clearing/obscuring,
revealing/hiding -- mirrors the subtle discourse (Logos) of the
kosmos. He both speaks and keeps silent; his words are measured
carefully. His sayings, by binding what is apparently contrary and
by identifying what is apparently different, reveal the same vital
tension shown in the kosmos.
Thus, words taken together (gathered) are whole and not whole, a
sense (meaning) which is being brought together and brought apart,
:) which is in tune and out of tune; out of all words there comes a
=3D=3D> logos and out of a logos all words.
=09=09=09=09 http://www.fred.net/tzaka/logos.html
In the above Logos is defined as meaning, common, sense, that can be
listened to, discourse: "out of all words there comes a logos and out of
a logos all words". Logos is the Word and "out of all words there comes"
reason. The one who actually married us to the "rational" Word was again
the Godfather (Aristotle), he declared reason the highest virtue, his
science 'ethics' professed that there can be no happiness without the Word
of Reason. And we believed him, we accepted his Word (world) in our
gullible hearts and minds.
Aristotle established the classical definition of man, according to
=3D=3D> which man is the living being who has logos. In the tradition of
the West, this definition became canonical in a form which stated
that man is the animal rationale, the rational being, distinguished
from all other animals by his capacity for thought. Thus it
rendered the Greek word logos as reason or thought.
=09=09 http://faculty.ccri.cc.ri.us/paleclerc/index.shtml
"Animal rationale", that is what we have become after Aristotle, "a living
being who has logos". Let us think for a second: is it true that our only
"distinguishing" feature "from all other animals" is "our capacity for
though", i.e. Logos (thought, word, language)?
I don't think so. Indeed, when we stop talking (including to ourselves)
the world stops, we see it differently, "everything is soulful and all
souls are one". We cannot make the binary distinction anymore between
'here' and 'there', 'higher' and 'lower', 'me' and 'animal', we know
nothing and yet everything. We don't become a predator the minute we stop
talking, only reason is gone. It may as well be the opposite, complete
silence to have a healing effect on the dark desires of the predator in
us. A jolly possibility that shouldn't be excluded ("without proof":).
The Internet link above tells us that the Greek word Logos means language,
word and though, but also concept and law. Finally we learned the true
meaning of the word 'Word'. It is not only the interactive language and
extrovert words (cheap talk:) but also the words in our mind, our
"concepts and thoughts", our inner dialogue.
We are starting to see through the cunning strategy of the Word. Everyone
who embraces it is made to worship it at the end. Heraclitus made Lord
Logos his God. Plato also did it, though in a covert fashion, his "God"
(highest Good, the Truth) consisted of ideal "forms" (but again words in
his mind, there was his divine world of universal "ideas"). Reason made
him think that there was such a think as the universal truth. Later his
successors in the Academy realised the scholastic illusion.
Aristotle made the scholastic idea a universal law of nature. His love for
the word of reason was absolute, in logos he achieved the highest
happiness, to exist the man has to be a "living being with a logos",
"animal rationale". Moreover, his reasonable pride concluded (somehow:)
that he was the highest animal, the first Darwinist weighed the animals in
his scales of desire and ranked them.
His work on the classification of animals by means of a scale
ascending to man (without implying evolution) was not fully
appreciated until the 19th century: Darwin acknowledged a debt to
him.
=09=09=09=09=09=09=09Oxford Dictionary
In his politics he also discovered that we are the "social animal". And
nothing could ever remove the Word "from its firm base, nothing but
evolution".
Later the Catholic and Islamic churches swore allegiance to
Aristotle. They agreed with his physical view (i.e. every now and then we
have a Holy Communion and like cannibals imagine dining with Jesus' flesh
and blood; the poor Son can take no rest). I do not mean that the word
'matter' is 'bad' or something, but by making it the highest good (an
intrinsic part of us, of "oursouls") he forced us to defend the word at
all cost, to defend it to 'death'. Thus, detachment from all words and the
Word won't be easy.
Think about it: what is 'matter', how do we define 'matter'? I will ask a
quantum physicist :)
I guess, what the churches liked the most was the first line of the first
paragraph on the first page in the first part of the first Book of his
holy book "Metaphysics" where the "social animal" decided that "ALL men by
nature desire to know. With our senses; and above all others the sense of
sight". The Master of words fixed us to reality outside. And didn't bother
to say what was there to be known, what does "to know" mean?
He just assumed that the true and objective 'knowledge' ("the
psychological result of perception and learning and reasoning", WordNet)
exists in independent 'reality' out there.
=09=09=09 The Devil's Dictionary
REALITY, n. The dream of a mad philosopher.
=09 That which would remain in the cupel if one should assay a
=09 phantom. The nucleus of a vacuum.
It was just a word but we collectively entered "the dream of the mad
philosopher".
=09Aristotle, more than any other thinker, determined the orientation
=09and the content of Western intellectual history. He was the author
=09of a philosophical and scientific system that through the
=09centuries became the support and vehicle for both medieval
=09Christian and Islamic scholastic thought: until the end of the
=0917th century, Western culture was Aristotelian. And, even after
=09the intellectual revolutions of centuries to follow, Aristotelian
=09concepts and ideas remained embedded in Western thinking { and
=09Western science. He defined the modern meaning of the word
=09'science' and gave the names of the major sciences names}.
http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Aristotle=
=2Ehtml
=09=09=09 "the Word was God"
Here is how the bible made the Word of Reason our God.
"When all things began, the Word already was. The Word dwelt with
=3D=3D> God, and what God was, the Word was. The Word, then, was with G=
od
at the beginning, and through him all things came to be; no single
thing was created without him. All that came to be was alive with
his life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines on
in the dark, and the darkness has never mastered it."
=09=09=09=09 [Prologue to the Gospel of John: 1-5]
=09=09 http://www.bizcharts.com/stoa_del_sol/logos/logos_1.html
=09=09=09 John, chapter 1
1: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
=09 and the Word was God.
=09 2: The same was in the beginning with God.
=09 3: All things were made by him; and without him was not any
=09 thing made that was made.
"The Word was God", the highest good. If we write that in the most sacred
book then the word 'Logos' becomes untouchable.
It is not wrong, though, "in the beginning" of our reasonable world and
the holy book itself "was the Word". The Word was that singleton of
infinite mass, which attracted us in its orbit. After the Big Bang
explosion it was again our abstract help that caused the universe of words
to expand.
The Word was indeed the God that allowed us to distinguish between
"things", He was in the beginning of the dual world, "without him was not
any thing made that was made". The judgement of Reason told us right from
wrong, up from down, light from night, life from death, just from unjust,
good from evil, me from other, man from animal, highest from lower
animals, most favoured from less favoured races.
So far so good. What I object to is the surreptitious impression that the
first line conveys. Because Good and God are almost substitutes it asserts
with fanatic certainty that the Word is Good. And if we hear that from an
earliest childhood (and why is it that one way or another most children
hear it:) later we will never question the 'goodness' hypothesis. It will
stay fixed in our mind like a universal law of Nature.
{Actually, do we know of any other truly universal law?}
Several iterations of the 'truth' are enough to shock the little soul and
accept the "law". Suddenly we are made to defend the Word (not oursouls:)
at all costs. And everything we do in religion, theology, philosophy or
science will be marked by our universal love for the Word.
It will be our base assumption, the axiom of "Word is Good" will bury
itself all the deeper into our sub-conscious mind. Whenever we reach the
fundamental of our belief system we will stop further thinking and quit
the enquiry. We will not ask the next question: What is a Word?
Only children can do it, kids like Albert sticking out their tongues:
"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its
own reason for existing."=09=09=09Albert Einstein
=09=09=09 Rebels against the dogma
Before the Aristotelian church (replaced later by his science) became in
control of our lives there were independent men who questioned the
rationality of (his) reason.
It is true that the "obscure philosopher" Heraclitus made Logos his God
but he also added that
"To God all things are beautiful and good and just,
but men have supposed some things to be unjust, other just"
Which suggests that he knew exactly where the judging scales of desire
come from, not from "God" but from "men", we are kind of delusional when
we "suppose some things to be unjust, other just". Basically, he told us
gently to suspend judgement if we want to reach God. Who listened?
=09=09=09 Classical skepticism
Perhaps independently, the Plato's successors in the Academy reached the
same conclusion.
- Grandfather, who were those men?
- They were the skeptics.
=09=09 Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
Skeptic
Of or pertaining to a sceptic or skepticism; characterized by
=09 skepticism; hesitating to admit the certainly of doctrines or
=09 principles; doubting of everything.
The skeptical system subverts the whole foundation of morals.
=09=09 =09=09=09=09 --R. Hall.
Skeptics share a universal disbelief in any claims of ultimate knowledge,
they avoid the extreme certainty of the fixing question 'Yes or No?' ('Is
or Isn't?', 'Good or Bad?'). By balancing in the uncertain middle ground
they break the duality of binary reason. The words 'good' and 'bad'
dissolve to their most natural state (and most other words actually, but
that later). Their avoidance of the polar extremes and doubt of the single
truth relates to Huxley's idea of agnosticism (which, by the way, in
WordNet is given as a synonym to skepticism:).
=09=09 Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
Skepticism
An undecided, inquiring state of mind; doubt; uncertainty.
That momentary amazement, and irresolution, and confusion,
which is the result of skepticism.=09=09 --Hune.
Metaph. The doctrine that no fact or principle can be
=3D=3D=3D>=09 certainly known; the tenet that all knowledge is uncerta=
in;
=09 Pyrrohonism; universal doubt; the position that no fact or
=09 truth, however worthy of confidence, can be established on
=09 philosophical grounds; critical investigation or inquiry, as
=09 opposed to the positive assumption or assertion of certain
=09 principles.
Skepticism to me means to "question" the reality of every Word, no matter
how sacred it is, even the existence of 'reality' itself. Why is it a
'good' strategy? Because "curiosity has its own reason for existing".
Logical, isn't it :).
There was a 'recent' (failed:) attempt to revive skepticism, which is known
as Renaissance humanism, some of them wouldn't believe at all in the
existence of an "absolute truth". And because of that they adopted an
"anti-dogmatic viewpoint, that is, they stressed toleration to different
points of view, including different religious points of view." Perhaps
scientists ("tyrannical and autocratic" Newton, for example, a recent post
in sci.skeptic) put an end to this tolerant movement, once they replaced
religion in our gullible hearts and minds they didn't need skepticism any
more. They just resumed their search for the absolute truth. And I think
it is more than obvious that today we live in their machine-like dogma -
the mechanical dream of da Vinci and Newton.
The world wouldn't be the same if the skeptical (or just Platonic) school
was still around, only a conjecture. Of course, any rival thought is a
threat to the dogma (as if words are more than just words, what about the
key to the universe:). Therefore in "529 AD Plato's Academy was closed
down by the Christian Emperor Justinian who claimed it was a pagan
establishment".
Let us see why dogmatic minds feared the word 'skepticism'. The late
classical philosophy known as skepticism assumed nothing. That is, they
beat the scholastic truth with true probability (non-existence of absolute
zero or probability mass of perfectly round 1, i.e away from the polar
extremes). "There is only probable knowledge", no absolute certainty.
According to Diogenes Laertius, Arcesilaus (c.316-c.241 B.C.) was
"the first to argue on both sides of a question, and the first to
meddle with the traditional Platonic system [or: discourse,
logos] and by means of question and answer, to make it more of a
debating contest"
=09 http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/s/skepanci.htm#Academic Skepticism
To "argue on both sides of a question" means to attach to and detach
ourself from a word, repulsion and attraction until the Word becomes
neither 'good' nor 'bad', i.e. until its reality is crushed (or just
shaken) in our mind.
=09=09=09 Suspending Judgement
Arcesilaus claimed that we should suspend judgment. By arguing
for and against every position that came up in discussion he
presented equally weighty reasons on both sides of the issue and
made it easier to accept neither side. Diogenes counts the
suspension of judgment as another of Arcesilaus' innovations and
refers to this as the reason he never wrote any books. Sextus
Empiricus and Plutarch also attribute the suspension of judgment
about everything to him.
Then came Carneades (213-129 B.C) who "sometimes argued so zealously in
support of some view that people reasonably, but incorrectly, assumed that
he accepted it himself. Thus we may say that Carneades only advanced
views dialectically but remained uncommitted to any of them", even to the
word "to pithanon". It was a funny "practical criterion of acting in life
to attain happiness when we suspend judgement". Perhaps, he was joking
"uncommittedly", for when we suspend the Word hardly anything is
'practical'. Ask a small child what the word 'practical' means, you'll be
amazed :)
NEO: I'm going to show them a world without you, a world without rules and
controls, without borders or boundaries, a world where anything is
possible.
Arcesilaus and Carneades were not far from general relativity, they proved
(similar to Einstein and Dali:) that our senses cannot be trusted, because
they produce different truths in different people (and children:) at
different times. The constant reality of the senses is a "persistent
illusion". We can know nothing with utter certainty, the "universal truth"
is relative, not absolute. The magic words are again tolerance and
possible, parallel realities.
=09=09=09 Pyrrho the First
Circa 360 BCE (till c. 270 or more) arrived Pyrrho of Elis (Arcesilaus had
a very high opinion of him). He gave the classic definition of sobriety,
suspending of judgement and detachment from the Word (stopping the inner
dialogue, maybe:):
The most important testimony to the nature of Pyrrho's skepticism
comes from Aristocles, a Peripatetic philosopher of the 2nd
Century C.E.:
It is supremely necessary to investigate our own capacity for
=3D=3D=3D> knowledge. For if we are so constituted that we know nothing,
:) there is no need to continue enquiry into other things. Among the
ancients too there have been people who made this pronouncement,
and Aristotle has argued against them.
=09Pyrrho of Elis was also a powerful spokesman of such a
=09position. He himself has left nothing in writing, but his pupil
=09Timon says that whoever wants to be happy must consider these
=09three questions:
=09- First, how are things by nature?
=09- Secondly, what attitude should we adopt towards them?
=09- Thirdly, what will be the outcome for those who have this
=09 attitude?
=09According to Timon, Pyrrho declared that
=09[1] things are equally indifferent, unmeasurable and
=09 inarbitrable. For this reason
=09[2] neither our sensations nor our opinions tell us truths or
=09 falsehoods. Therefore, for this reason we should not put our
=09 trust in them one bit, but we should be unopinionated,
=09 uncommitted and unwavering, saying concerning each individual
=09 thing that it no more is than is not, or it both is and is
=09 not, or it neither is nor is not.
=09[3] The outcome for those who actually adopt this attitude, says
=3D=3D=3D>=09 Timon, will be first speechlessness, and then freedom from
=09 disturbance . . .
=09=09=09=09=09Aristocles apud Eusebius
=09=09=09http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/s/skepanci.htm
Away from the orbit of the Word there is no reasonable "disturbance", even
'anxiety' ceases to exist, we attain "speechless" happiness, or in Brett
Banfe's words:
=09 "Silence is the only language we all speak"
And notice the fundamental characteristic of the true philosophic nature
(as defined by introvert Plato, not by his ambitious pupil Aristotle):
Pyrrho de Tao was no wiseacre, he was an active participant in his theory.
His life was an unseen before example of tranquility:
Diogenes notes, however, that according to Aenesidemus, Pyrrho
exercised foresight in his day-to-day activities, and that he lived
to be ninety. So it seems his tranquility did not paralyze him
after all. This may be either because Pyrrho (or Timon) was
disingenuous about what he was up to intellectually, or more
charitably because he followed appearances without ever committing
himself to the truth or falsity of what appeared.
In other words, like Plato he was not a fanatic "lover of sights". I see
no reason why should suspending judgement lead to "paralysis after
all". Do children or animals judge? Are they "paralyzed"? Pyrrho "reached
a godlike state of calm and tranquility" and 'nevertheless' (or because of
it:) "exercised foresight in his day-to-day activities". A miracle or
what? Or a happy soul detached from the Word.
The anecdotal evidence for Pyrrho tends to be sensational. Diogenes
reports, for example, that Pyrrho mistrusted his senses to such an
extent that he would have fallen off cliffs or been run over by
carts and savaged by dogs had his friends not followed close by.
He was allegedly indifferent to certain norms of social behavior,
taking animals to market, washing a pig and even cleaning the house
:) :) himself.
For the most part we find his indifference presented as a positive
characteristic. For example, while on a ship in the midst of a
terrible storm he was able to maintain a state of tranquility.
Similarly, Timon presents Pyrrho as having reached a godlike state
of calm, having escaped servitude to mere opinion.
Did his "indifference" make him a nervous and "fearful" man with
"irrational temper" like Newton? On the contrary, people liked the
word-crusher, I guess they sensed his freedom:
He was also held in such high regard by his native city that he was
appointed as high priest and for his sake they made all
:) philosophers exempt from taxation. We also find a tantalizing
report of a journey to India where Pyrrho mingled with, and
presumably learned from, certain naked sophists and magi
(the connection with Indian Buddhism is explored by Flintoff [1980])=
=2E
If his life is the 'price' of detached skepticism then I'd rather be a
Neo-Pyrrhonian type character. I am afraid, it is an offer I can't refuse:
to "mingle with naked sophists, magi and Buddhists", to be "appointed as
high priest exempt from taxation" and consequently "reach a godlike state
of calm" - if that is not happiness.
And he reached ninety without any heart-transplants or antibiotics to
salvage him from the 'evil' viruses. I guess, he couldn't see 'evil'
anywhere. All his detached "foresight" could observe were big egos hiding
behind their edifice of reason (and occasionally shooting words at
others:).
Note how we intuitively liked him and so did his friends, "he was held in
such high regard by his native city". In the presence of a word-crusher
our soul senses freedom from the Word. We like to have calm philosophers
around, we want them to continue crushing our problem words. That is why
Pyrrho's native city exempted him from taxes, and that is why I liked the
liberating words of Plato, Wenders ("Wings of Desire"), Wachowski
brothers ("The Matrix"), Handke ("Song of Childhood"), the Sturdy Beggar
Appreciation Society, the Devil's dictionary, Twain, Einstein and
countably many other allies.
In contrast to over-ambitious geniuses (Aristotle, da Vinci with some
notable exceptions, Newton, Cantor) word crushers are by nature witty and
tolerant, a preferred company. Notice also that although "he lived to be
ninety" his "shadowy figure wrote nothing himself". He was wise enough not
to expand the universe (in his mind) or 'just' create new words. The
Sturdy Beggar was after inner "speechlessness", his happiness was not in
writing (publishing:) books (hmmm, maybe I still have some problem words
to crush in my mind:).
Before the concluding legend let us see what is this mysterious skeptical
"connection with Buddhism" alluded to at the end of the quote above. On
the wings of imagination we will fly (faster than light:) to six century
China (India will be next time:).
Once upon a time there was a child with the Buddhist name Seng-ts'an
("Jewel of the [Buddhist] Community.", his real name unknown). One day he
was extremely lucky and met the second patriarch (nagual:). "Fate, it
seems, is not without a sense of irony", he became the third patriarch in
the lineage of the Chinese Zen Sect. In 592 he initiated Tao-hsin (D=F5shin=
)
into the profound doctrines of zen. And sang his song of childhood
"Hsin-hsin Ming".
What does "Hsin-hsin Ming" mean?
Do you think it is a trivial question?
"Far from it", especially if you see the original 'letters' :)
INT. HOVERCRAFT (Nebuchadnezzar)
Neo's eyes flutter open. We see Morpheus' face above us, angelic
in the fluorescent glow of a light stick.
=09NEO: Am I dead?
=09MORPHEUS: Far from it.
Do you know why it is not that easy to translate an ancient Chinese text?
Or any other text? Words are not universal constants, their meaning and
thought concept (logos) changes with time, space and individual. Why?
Because they have 'reality' in our mind (i.e. this 'independent' reality
outside may also be inside, who knows; and what is there to be
known:). The only universally constant word I know is the Number, maybe
that 'fact' beguiled old Plato into embracing the mental universe of
mathematics as the ideal truth. To problem was that the "real" numbers are
not that real, and the "natural" ones not that natural. They cannot live
without the mind.
Maybe that prompted the cautious warning in the bible. You concentrate on
the exact "number 666", while in my opinion we shouldn't take it that
seriously. Instead we may interpret the sacred message in a broader sense:
any number is a potential Number of the Beast if we start worshipping
it. Even the divine trinity of Number three. To me the most treacherous
illusions among them are the numbers (or symbols for) total zero and
infinity.
Anyway, apart from the pure Number the other regular words change with
time and mind. Each of us may have a different image for each of them even
if we are in the same space-time location and share the same
language. Check the "zero gods" and "Agnostics" threads (sci.skeptic) for
the words "proposition", "burden of proof", "Huxley", "agnosticism", "God
is", "logic", "science", "knowledge", "belief", "truth", ...
Now add to this the difficultly of the foreign language (as simple as
Chinese), plus the time dimension (for example the native language in
America 1400 ago:) and we see the challenge for the interpreter. It is a
formidable task. The only one who could deliver a perfect translation is
the author himself. And this provided he is fluent in both languages.
If that is infeasible, the next best option is for the linguist to become
the author, i.e. try to be as close as possible in time and space to the
third patriarch. And even then the outcome will be only an educated guess,
there can be no 100% certainty as to the precise content, context and
meaning (logos) of the original documented evidence. Each interpreter will
view it slightly differently. Here are some of the translations of the
title of the Buddhist song of childhood:
Various Translations of the Title
Hsin-hsin Ming (Xinxin Ming)
Literally: Believing Heart (Mind) Inscription or
=09 Faith-Heart (Mind) Inscription
Different Western and Eastern translators have rendered the title
"Hsin-hsin Ming" in different ways:
1. Trust Mind Inscription (Hae Kwang)
2. Inscription on Trust in the Mind (Burton Watson)
3. Inscribed On the Believing Mind (Daisetsu Teitar=F5 Suzuki)
4. On Believing in Mind (Daisetsu Teitar=F5 Suzuki)
5. Words Inscribed on the Believing Mind (Heinrich Dumoulin)
6. Verses On the Faith Mind (Richard B. Clarke)
7. On Faith in Mind (Dusan Pajin)
8. Faith in Mind (Sheng-yen)
9. Trusting In Mind (Hae Kwang)
10. On Trust in the Heart (Christmas Humphreys)
11. Trust in the Heart (Thomas Cleary)
12. Poem on the Trust in the Heart (Thomas Cleary)
13. Trusting In Mind (Stanley Lombardo)
14. Song of Trusting the Heart (translator unknown)
15. A Poetical Manuscript on Belief in the Mind (Katsuki Sekida)
16. The Mind of Absolute Trust (Stephen Mitchell)
17. The Mind of Absolute Trust (Robert F. Olson)
18. The Perfect Way (translator unknown)
With that preparation we are (almost:) ready to meet Eastern (Tao, Zen)
skepticism. This translation by professor Dusan Pajin (the link provided
by Small Tortoiseshell: http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/zen/fm/fm.htm) is
as interesting as the first (analysed in the Castaneda group some weeks
ago) and probably more precise. It adopts the Zen Buddhism point of view
of the author, while the other one stressed the Taoist influence. It
featured the specialised "Words! The tao is beyond language" in stanza
145, which I liked, of course, for it reminded me of the "speechlessness"
of Pyrrho.
Here it is replaced by the colloquial "Discourse here stops", which is
also great :) Why?
=09=09 Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
Discourse v.i.
=091. To exercise reason; to employ the mind in judging and
=09 inferring; to reason.
=3D=3D=3D>=09=09 [Obs.] ``Have sense or can discourse.''
=09=09=09=09=09=09 --Dryden.
2. To express one's self in oral discourse; to expose one's views;
=09 to talk in a continuous or formal manner; to hold forth;
=09 to speak; to converse.
Bid me discourse, I will enchant thine ear. --Shak.
3. To relate something; to tell. --Shak.
4. To treat of something in writing and formally.
Discourse n
1. The power of the mind to reason or infer by running, as it
=09 were, from one fact or reason to another, and deriving a
=09 conclusion; an exercise or act of this power; reasoning; range
=09 of reasoning faculty. [Obs.]
Difficult, strange, and harsh to the discourses of
natural reason.=09=09=09 --South.
Sure he that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not That
capability and godlike reason To fust in us unused.
=09=09=09=09=09=09=09 --Shak.
2. Conversation; talk.
In their discourses after supper. --Shak.
=09=09 Filling the head with variety of thoughts, and the
=09=09 mouth with copious discourse.=09 --Locke.
3. The art and manner of speaking and conversing.
Of excellent breeding, admirable discourse. --Shak.
4. Consecutive speech, either written or unwritten, on a given line
=09 of thought; speech; treatise; dissertation; sermon, etc.; as,
=09 the preacher gave us a long discourse on duty.
5. Dealing; transaction. [Obs.]
Discourse \Dis*course"\, v. t.
1. To treat of; to expose or set forth in language. [Obs.]
2. To utter or give forth; to speak.
3. To talk to; to confer with. [Obs.]
Therefore, when the third patriarch tells us at the end "discourse here
stops" he probably stops "employing the mind in judging and inferring" he
ceases "to reason" and "talk". Like Pyrrho he suspended judgement and
stopped the inner dialogue, became speechless. And what about us? :) Well,
we shall see.
Basically, the Zen master sequentially crushes all the basic words of the
matrix. In that he places a special emphasis upon the dual children of
binary reason: the self-supporting and mutually reinforcing
word-pairs.
The child asked: 'What is to be alive?' and the educator replied: 'Not to
be dead'.
'Aha-AAA! That's the name of the cunning game'. And we accepted the word
'life', simply like that, the word 'death' scared us to death and we
"stopped questioning". The world 'life' got a life of its own in our mind,
became real to us.
The Buddhist master reminds us that the word-pairs are not that real, it
is a habit of mind to stick to them, a persistent life in pretence. Here
is how the dis-creation of the Logos tree goes, it resembles (back in the
"mirror" and later a.d.castaneda threads) tracing the bifurcation tree to
the ROOT WORD. Which is? The Discourse of the Word Logos.
=09 Dissolving 'dualism' by crushing word-pairs:
"love-hatred" (in stanza 3),
"for-against" (7, 59),
"longing-loathing" (9),
"lacking-excess" (13),
"grasp-reject" (15),
"rest-motion" (21, 103),
"words-thoughts" (29:),
"speaking-thinking" (31:),
"right-wrong" (43, 91),
"subject-object" (51, 53, 55, 57),
"coarse-fine" (59),
"easy-difficult" (61),
"goes-abides" (67),
"strange-familiar" (73),
"liking-disliking" (85),
"profit-loss" (91),
"resting-movement" (103, 21),
"memory" (113:),
"other-self" (119),
"urgent-extensive" (127),
"moment-eon" (127),
"here-there" (129),
"small-large" (131, 133),
"being-nonbeing" (135),
"one-all" (139) (one for all, all for one:),
"present-future" (145),
"discourse" (145) (or "words and language" in the Tao version).
Now let us sing the song and pay special attention to the skeptic
stanza 39.
=09=09=09 Hsin-hsin Ming
=09 By Third Ch'an Patriarch Chien-chih Seng-ts'an
=09 (http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/zen/fm/fm.htm)
=09=09=09 Faith-Mind Inscription
1. The best way is not difficult. It only excludes picking and choosing.
3. Once you stop loving and hating, it will enlighten itself.
5. Depart for a hairbreadth, and heaven and earth are set apart.
7. If you want it to appear, do not be for or against.
9. To set longing against loathing, makes the mind sick.
11. Not knowing the deep meaning (of the way), it is useless to quiet thou=
ghts.
13. Complete it is like great vacuity, with nothing lacking, nothing in ex=
cess.
15. When you grasp and reject, there is no suchness.
17. Do not follow conditions, do not dwell in emptiness.
19. Cherishing oneness in the hearth, everything will stop by itself.
21. Rest to stop motion, and rest will move you again.
23. If you are merely in either, how will you know oneness?
25. Not understanding oneness, you will miss in two ways.
27. Expelling being you will be without it, following emptiness you are
always behind it.
29. The more words and thoughts the more you will go astray.
31. Stop speaking, stop thinking and there is nothing you cannot understan=
d.
33. Return to the root and obtain the purport. Following the outcome you
lose the source.
35. For a moment turn inward, and surpass the emptiness of things.
37. Changes that go on in emptiness all have their cause in ignorance.
39. Do not seek the true, only abstain from views.
41. Do not dwell in dual views, be careful not to pursue them.
43. The slightest trace of right and wrong and mind is lost in confusion.
45. One being is the source of the two, however, do not even maintain the =
one.
47. With one mind there is no arising, then everything is without blame.
49. No blame, no things. No arising, no mind.
51. The subject follows when the object ceases. The object is expelled
when the subject sinks.
53. The object is related to the subject. The subject is related to the ob=
ject.
55. If you want to know these two, their origin is one emptiness.
57. In one emptiness both are equal, evenly containing innumerable forms.
59. Do not differentiate coarse and fine, and you will not be for or again=
st.
61. The great way is all-embracing, neither easy nor difficult.
63. Small views are irresolute, full of doubt, now in haste, then too late=
=2E
65. Grasp beyond measure, and you will go astray.
67. Letting go leads to spontaneity, essence neither goes nor abides.
69. Accord your nature with the way, and go free of troubles.
71. Fettered thinking strays from the real, it darkens, sinks and spoils.
73. To weary the spirit is not good. Of what use are strange and familiar?
75. In taking the One vehicle, do not dislike the six sense-objects.
77. Not disliking the six sense-objects turns out equal to perfect awakenn=
ess.
79. The wise performs through non-action. The fool ties himself.
81. Things are not different, ignorance leads to preference.
83. To use the mind to hold the mind, is it not a great mistake?
85. Out of confusion arise rest and disturbance. Awakening negates liking
and disliking.
87. All opposite sides lead to absurd consideration.
89. Dreams, illusions, flowers in emptiness. Why strive to grasp them?
91. Profit and loss, right and wrong, away with this once for all.
93. If the eyes are not closed, all dreams stop by themselves.
95. If the mind does not discriminate, all things are of one suchness.
97. In the deep essence of one suchness, resolutely neglect conditions.
99. When all things are beheld as even, you return again to spontaneity.
101. Put an end to the cause, and nothing can be compared.
103. Cease movement and no movement arises. Set rest in motion and there
is no resting.
105. When both do not make a whole, how will one be for you?
107. Investigate to the end, and there is no principle or rule retained.
109. Accord the mind with Impartiality, which stops every action.
111. All doubts are cleared, true faith is firm and harmonized.
113. Nothing is detained, nothing to remember.
115. Vacuous, enlightened, self-illumined, power of the mind is not exerted=
=2E
117. Thought is useless here, sense or feeling cannot fathom this.
119. In the real suchness of the thing-realm, there is neither other nor se=
lf.
121. Swiftly to accord with that, only express non-duality.
123. In non-duality all is equal, nothing is left out.
125. The wise from all directions all belong to this teaching.
127. This teaching is not urgent, or extensive, beyond a moment, or an eon.
129. Not here, not there, everywhere in front of the eyes.
131. Very small and large are equal. When boundaries are forgotten,
133. Very large and small are equal, the limits cannot be seen.
135. With being there is nonbeing. With non-being there is being.
137. If not so -- do not hold on to it.
139. One is all, all is one -
141. Merely with such ability, worry not for finality.
143. Faith in mind is non-dual. Non-duality is faith in mind.
145. Discourse here stops -- with no past, present, future.
=09=09=09 Child in Time:
=09=09=09 When did time begin?
=09=09 Sweet child in time, you'll see the line
=09=09 Line that's drawn between good and bad
=09=09 See the blind man shooting at the world
=09=09=09Bullets flying taking toll
Why is the child in time? How do we define 'time'?
In rivers, the water that you touch is the last of what has
passed and the first of that which comes; so with present time.
=09=09=09=09=09=09 Leonardo da Vinci
Memory is the key word of time, it fixes the reference point in our
mind. And makes life boring. We need memory if we "desire to know" and to
store that 'knowledge'. And in his opening paragraph of "Metaphysics" the
Architect assumed that "ALL men by nature desire to know", i.e. we have
to.
=09=09=09A skeptical Buddhist song
=09=09=09When the child was a child
=09=09 It was the time for these questions:
=09=09 Where is the 'truth'? What is 'knowledge'?
=09=09 Given the facts of evil and people.
=09=09 does knowledge really exist?
knowledge [WordNet]
n : the psychological result of perception and learning and
reasoning [syn: cognition, noesis]
What is 'right' or 'wrong', 'good or 'evil'? Who defines 'evil'?
=09=09 Given the facts of evil and people.
=09=09=09 does evil really exist?
What is there to be known?
=09=09 Is what I see and hear and smell
=09 not just an illusion of a world before the world?
Aren't we happier children when we don't 'know', when every morning we
wake up in a 'different' bed and marvel at the new sun?
The sun ... is new each day.
=09=09=09=09=09Heraclitus
Alas, the Scientist forced us to know, to love "the tree of
knowledge". And in his second paragraph made us proud of our "sensational
memory" for words, and we felt superior to the stupid ("less intelligent")
animals. A passionate ode for the word-container that produced blissful
certainty in our gullible hearts, he was a great scholastic master, pretty
much the only universal truth in his words :)
"learning", "teaching", "intelligence" "hearing", "sensation" we develop
love "by nature" for his extrovert words of the "delightful senses" and
reason.
By nature animals are born with the faculty of sensation, and
from sensation memory is produced in some of them, though not in
others. And therefore the former are more intelligent and apt at
learning than those which cannot remember; those which are
incapable of hearing sounds are intelligent though they cannot
be taught, e.g. the bee, and any other race of animals that may
be like it; and those which besides memory have this sense of
hearing can be taught. Aristotle, "Metaphysics"
Indeed, "they cannot be taught", what a pity! He wanted to teach the
animals but it turned out they "cannot" store his words. Or maybe they
don't want to, shouldn't be excluded :). For example, why should we assume
that "bees" (gorillas) are "incapable" of "hearing sounds" (speaking)?
Maybe they were intelligent enough to refuse to do so, and perhaps we
don't know. The only sure way to 'know' it is to become the animal. If it
is infeasible then we can ask them, they are honest. Otherwise (any other
'learning' strategy), we can only infer and only from our point of view,
weighting the theoretical result in reason's scales of desire.
It is this "intelligent memory" and the inner dialogue, those words in our
mind that fix the 'independent' world before our eyes. And so with the
word 'time', we were not born with it, for some years I was a child in
timelessness. Until one day I was given a present (a 'carrot') - a
wristwatch, and chose to learn how to read the time. And all of a sudden
the arrow of time (and the Number and counting the identical days) became
real to me, I saw it and promised myself never to forget, i.e. made 'time'
part of my inner talk. I mean, I had to make use of the watch.
=09=09=09 How real is time?
=09=09=09 What's the time?
If you have noticed we inverted the direction of time, we flew back to the
Logos of our Genesis. Only in our mind, of course, but remember we still
don't know where is reality. Moreover, we stopped the greedy expansion and
started contracting the universe by crushing words. A very basic one is
linear 'time'. What is a clock face? A linear circle? A rolled up "real"
line?
In the circumference of a circle the beginning and the end common.
=09=09=09=09=09=09=09 Heraclitus
Is the arrow of time real or merely "a stubbornly persistent illusion"?
How do we know? Whom to ask? A child, maybe :)
Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of
me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics,
=3D=3D> know that the distinction between past, present, and future is
only a stubbornly persistent illusion.
=09=09=09=09=09=09=09 Albert Einstein
This teaching is not urgent, or extensive, beyond a moment, or an e=
on.
(Words! The tao is beyond language, for in it there is no
yesterday, no tomorrow, no today. --Clarke's transl.)
=3D=3D> Discourse here stops -- with no past, present, future.
=09=09=09=09=09=09 "Hsin-hsin Ming"
=09=09=09 A jolly past
In the next evolutionary joke we will assume that 'time' is a real word
and not just an abstract word. It is a strange conundrum that may have an
unexpected effect on "evolving" minds (give them anything but a good
sleep). While on the other hand, our gale of laughter is guaranteed.
Assume that pure (or other:) randomness exists and not only in our mind
but also elsewhere in nature (where?). That is, contrary to Einstein's
intuition we let "Nature play dice" and select mutants from a certain (but
unknown:) distribution. Like a natural, 'real' random number generator, a
miracle, basically.
=09=09 Hayward's Unabridged Dictionary
Random Number, n. In computer science, the output of a deterministic
=09 algorithm carefully designed to produce output according
:)=09 to a specific distribution, deemed far too important to
=09 leave to chance.
Alas, the situation is not much different outside of the "computer
science", but assume for the moment that the ideal image of pure chance
(and randomness) in our mind (and textbooks) can be met independently in
Nature outside. We proceed to the next problem word:
=09=09=09=09 Billions
Have you ever counted to a billion?
The next curious question:
Do you believe in the millions and billions of years of evolution?
First of all, I am fundamentally suspicious of big numbers, "it is so
distinctly a matter of feeling with me, and is so strong and so
deeply-rooted in my make and constitution...". They are like bullets
usually 'shot' to shock soul and silence our curiosity, they are
carefully chosen so as to halt our enquiry. The numbers (of years,
neurons, cells, atoms, particles) in their answers rise exponentially with
the number of our questions until we abort the quest. If they don't help
the sturdy beggar is shot at with the heavy artillery - 'infinity'.
Do you believe in the Number?
And I don't mean only "666", just any?
The answer would most probably be yes, because it is considered reasonable
nowadays to believe in huge numbers, the bigger they are the more credible
(i.e. make us stop thinking, counting them causes a severe headache:). Do
you know how scientist count the years?
=09=09 D-e-n-d-r-o-c-h-r-o-n-o-l-o-g-y, wow!
Their counting procedures are dubious inferences based on theories based
on 'religious' beliefs (axioms:). There are several methods (theories)
around based on the Aristotelian method of induction that build on other
absolutely true theories and a couple of "particular" observations. Even
the 'secure' dating method "dendrochronology" {"simply put, the dating of
past events (climatic changes) through study of tree ring growth"} is
questionable.
The induction and the basic assumption of independent nature outside is
hidden in "the principle of uniformity in the order of nature", "a
principle basic to any study of the past". It is conveniently interpreted
to mean that "the variations in conditions present today must have been
present in the past", but were they? We are talking here about 100 000 or
200 000 years (the logs of supposed early settlements preserved in water).
Let us for now accept the axiom and see why the method still can fail (in
fact, I wonder why they do not admit in public of its shortcomings). The
reason for its unreliability is very simple: a child will not distinguish
the rings in the same way an adult professor will. And what about two
adult professors? When they disagree the dispute is resolved by a
reasonable compromise, but our problem remains, no matter how refined
their statistical methods are.
The thresholds are unclear, the rings blur and someone has to judge and
draw the line.
=09=09 Sweet child in time, You'll see the line
=09=09 Line that's drawn between good and bad
Often it is a matter of imagination to choose where one ring ends and
another one starts. In other words, we may have to set the borders
arbitrarily or in agreement with other divine (say, alchemical)
methods. Another dendrochronological problem I recently heard of is the
missing rings phenomena. Yeah, it turns out that many trees choose to
neglect a season and a year, simply like that. That is, the fixed number
of rings is not a mechanical function of trees. Though, it can be :), if
we absolutely believe that it is so, i.e. have true faith. And I had, not
so long ago :)
A third and potentially most serious problem is that trees even from the
same region may choose not to obey the "principle of uniformity" of rings
structure. If somewhere in the world such a non-homogeneous effect can be
found to be statistically significant, the result for the theory will be
devastating. My intuition is that trees are not the same. Furthermore,
piercing them and cutting samples for the purpose of divine research may
seriously hurt them. We conveniently assume it doesn't (i.e. they and the
vivisected animals are less important than us) but we don't know what is
going on in their mind :)
We can further discuss the additional statistical assumptions made, for
statistical probability and estimation is also a theory based on funny
axioms and curious approximation theorems, but the remarks made above
should be enough to shake the 100% confidence in the dogma. "Simply put",
the method (http://www.sonic.net/bristlecone/dendro.html) is not flawless.
=09=09=09=09 Alchemy
There are other, say, chemical methods of (paleontological) dating that
again require a serious belief, this time in the divine table of elements.
To shake it is beyond the scope of the post. Note in passing, that even
the artificial materials around us are composite, we rarely meet an
isolated gas in its pure form in simple or other Nature. That the
laboratory experiments and the industry based on them work most of the
time means that we've gathered a huge practical experience with
manipulating the word 'matter'. But it doesn't necessarily mean that the
theory behind them is certain knowledge. Far from it. We imagine it were
so, the table is in our mind.
This may sound to you like a science fiction, such is our firm belief in
chemistry and the beautiful pictures of molecules in the
textbooks. However, the correspondence between practice and theory is not
one to one. The table is just the most convenient explanation we have now
for the miracles of alchemy. But for now we will also assume that the
table, the dating methods and the resulting paleontological time (the
millions and billions) is the certain truth (it will make the joke
funnier:).
Thus, with the above reservations we may accept the independent reality of
the arrow of time, the random mutations and the billions of years and feel
free to proceed with the naughtiest discrete event I could
imagine. Hopefully, my ingenuity will be appreciated.
=09 The very first opening of the mating season
Let us assume that the theory of evolution is the single truth. Now it is
becoming increasingly easy to do just that. Why? If (a scholastic)
somebody 'informs' us that there has to be one truth and then makes us to
"desire to know", all we need is to select the fittest one for the moment.
We just pick the one legend in circulation that fits 'best' the 'facts'
(i.e. performs better in some sense than the fittest competitors, selected
by homo-Logos according to some commonly accepted criteria based on
skillfully disguised assumptions and weighed in the scales of desire:).
That is, we agree that inorganic matter "is prior in order of generation
to the soul", we were somehow formed from gases (although they still have
problems with making a flea, i.e. 'so far' the verifying test fails:) in a
process guided by some external God (the Evolutionary Process or Nature)
and his "natural" mutations. It was a 'gradual' process, the story goes,
that took some million, billion and so on years, important is the number
to be round and very big.
The key observation: note again the stalking trick, which resembles the
"fluxions" of Newton. The key word is 'gradual'. It leaves us with the
impression of a steady flow, like a river. In fact, it allows them to
escape (in their mind) in infinitesimal continuity, which to me is clearly
a distraction manoeuvre. We are seduced to imagine a divinely continuous
process and suddenly forget that it is made of discrete steps driven by
jump mutations. We are "gradually" forced (by instinctive impression) to
think in a smooth manner and avoid focusing our attention on the real,
discrete events. Here we will correct their hard-wired tendency to smooth
out the theory, without violating its assumptions.
=09=09=09 Chance or Choice
Imagine further that we are the first animals who have yet to mutate and
learn how to mate (i.e. have glorious sex and produce children as a
byproduct). That is, no other animals or living creatures have done it
(sex) before, we have no archetypal memories and hard-wired instincts.
A reasonable assumption, which is actually built into their theory: linear
reason requires that some lucky creatures have to be the first on the
arrow of time, the first to discover (or to imagine, or to be "selected"
to see) the advantages of the sexual intercourse and to mutate. It is like
that:
=09 |
=09=09=09|
{no seX in Nature }|{from moment X on there are animals who have seX}
|-----------------------X----------------------------------------------->
Origin=09 (discrete event of discovery of sex)=09=09 Arrow of Time
Before point X on the line above there were no sex organs in the animal
kingdom, or even if there were any, the less favoured "species" didn't
know how to use them, the ignorant animals were unaware of their
function. I don't care when this X moment was, thousands, millions or
billions of years ago, all I need is X to exist :) And it must, there has
to be one such turning point however continuous the smooth process might
be, at this decisive moment a pair of lower animals decided or were
selected to become higher species, metaphorically speaking.
On the wings of imagination we fly exactly to that precise moment of the
evolution, to the blissful threshold: before that sexual intercourse (and
mating multiplication) didn't exist in Nature, after that it became the
rule, the most natural thing in the "higher" animal world. I mean, there
must have been such a defining moment (if we trust Logos and the
evolution), every improvement or progress has its discrete beginning -
logical, isn't it :)
And we don't care much how the moment or the couple were "selected":
"naturally" and randomly (by dice playing Nature:) or deterministically by
an omniscient Reasoning Power. So we are those first species who are
about to discover (mutate) the virtue of sex (mating). For simplicity (and
without loss of generality) let us assume that those first species were
called Adam and Eve. It doesn't matter whether they were homo sapiens,
monkeys or other "lower animals". Thus, that original Genesis couple is in
Paradise, it is the first encounter, they stand and stare at each other
with curiosity.
:)=09=09=09 "Imagine" (it)
=09=09=09 "it's easy if you try"
:) :)=09=09 though "I wonder if you can"
You see, from our point of view the choice to mate may seem random (drawn
by playful Nature and her dice) but to Adam and Eve it was anything but
random. It is them who have to send "the electrical signals" from their
"brain" (and cause erection and the rest). It cannot happen instinctively,
I am afraid, it cannot be caused by hard-wired biological functions,
because it will contradict the "very first" assumption: we assumed them to
be the first couple, no past, no mating memories, no inherited sex
instincts. Go figure :)
To the researcher (independent and impartial observer:) it may appear
random but to the couple? And which viewpoint weighs more in the scales of
sobriety? From their point of view it was a choice, they tried to play and
experiment something new (i.e. radically different from their evolutionary
predecessors) and it suddenly worked (in terms of fun and pleasure, or
"survival" if you like:).
I know, it is difficult to imagine ('gradual' biologists wouldn't like to
do that) but what if we go back in time to that initial moment of truth
(some call it "original sin" but I see nothing 'wrong' or 'right', 'good'
or 'bad' about it, it is just different from what have been done before,
the creatures decided to evolve). Logically, and from the theory follows
that there should be such a defining moment. Random?
Random choice, how does it sound.
Now, tell me: can you imagine such a moment? Be honest.
Why is it hard to imagine?
It has to do with linear reason, and the 'reality' of the arrow of
'time'. We simply reached the bounds of rationality. The almighty
explanatory power of the Logos is an illusion.
=09=09=09=09 Summary
We started from the word 'logic' and decided to inquire into the Word
'Logos'. We discovered that the sacred Word was both inside (thought,
inner dialogue) and outside of us (spoken word, language, speech). Here is
the quick reality check:
Logos speech, word, reason (Merriam-Webster)
Logos word, thought (Greek-English Dictionary, check Ancient Greek)
=09=09 Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
Logos [the word or form which expresses a thought, also, the thought,
=09 fr. to speak.]
=09 1. A word; reason; speech. --H. Bushell.
=09 2. The divine Word; Christ.
Then we traced the 'evolutionary' process of elevating Logos to the status
of God, we started with the "obscure philosopher" (Heraclitus of Ephesos)
who was just playing with the Word. Aristotle took the Word seriously and
made it our permanent God by nature. Reason was declared the "highest
Good" and the source of all happiness. He ordered us "to desire to know"
the 'truth' by means of Logos. The "intellectual faculties" and
"delightful senses" were made our highest priority, our task became
through them to study the 'independent' reality outside.
Then major religions bowed down before the Word 'Logos' ("and the Word was
with God, and the Word was God"), totally forgetting about the Original
Warning (Sin:) in their first book. Note that Jesus himself was a
reason-defier, he crushed so many of the civilised words ('money',
'wealth', 'pride', 'possessions', 'property', 'rules and controls',
'authority', 'lust', 'greed', 'envy', 'revenge', ...). With his life he
fought the rationality (of the Number) on all fronts, everything that
seemed logical to us (weighed in our scales of desire:) was illogical to
him. Anyway, after His departure, "the tree of knowledge of good and evil"
(Logos, Reason) became our God in the holy book, His book.
=09MORPHEUS: Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony.
Classic Greek skeptics mistrusted the Word of scholastics, even such words
like 'absolute knowledge' and 'divine truth'. For them our "delightful
senses" and especially the common one are not supreme but imperfect
Creators of illusions that cannot be trusted, 'knowledge' is only
'probable'. Their way to happiness went through suspension of judgement
and speechlessness (Pyrrho), back to the "less favoured races" and
Paradise of Eden.
Not surprisingly in the sixth century the Academy of Plato was closed down
by the Christian emperor, skepticism and other independent thought was
recognised as a 'heretic' rival to the dogma. I conjecture that had the
"pagan institution" existed in the Middle Ages a 'democratic' institution
like the Inquisition wouldn't be possible.
heretic (WordNet)
n 1: a person who holds religious beliefs in conflict with the
dogma of the Roman Catholic Church
=09 [syn: misbeliever, religious outcast]
2: a person who holds unorthodox opinions in any field (not
merely religion)
unorthodox
adj 1: independent in behavior or thought;
2: breaking with convention or tradition;
And again "fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony": now religious
and spiritual "opinions" are regarded as heretic ("unorthodox") by the
scientific majority.
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to
reform (or pause and reflect).
=09=09=09=09=09=09Mark Twain - Notebook, 1904
Coincidentally, at the end of the same century (after the closure of the
Academy) skepticism emerged in another point of the world - Chinese Zen
Buddhism. In his song "Hsin-hsin Ming" the third patriarch advised us to
break the "dual" chains of reason and suspend its judgement (of what was
'good' or 'evil'). Like Pyrrho he saw the problem in our trust and love
for the Word (Logos): "Discourse here stops; Words! The tao is beyond
language."
=09=09 In the beginning was the Word
It all began with Adam. He was the first man to tell a joke--or a
lie. How lucky Adam was. He knew when he said a good thing, nobody
had said it before. Adam was not alone in the Garden of Eden,
however, and does not deserve all the credit; much is due to Eve,
the first woman, and Satan, the first consultant.
=09=09=09=09 Mark Twain - Notebook, 1867
Who was "Satan, the first consultant"? The Logos of the serpent, maybe :)
=09=09=09=09 Genesis
"Welcome. As you no doubt have guessed" we are prepared to resolve an
ancient paradox and give a new interpretation of the Original Sin. It has
less to do with the words 'sex' and 'naked body', I am afraid, and more to
do with the Word of Reason in general, with Logos itself :)
=09=09 From The holy Bible, King James version
=09=09=09=09Genesis 2
9: And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that
=09 is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life
=09 also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of
=09 good and evil.
15: And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of
=09 Eden to dress it and to keep it.
16: And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the
=09 garden thou mayest freely eat:
17: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not
=09 eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt
=09 surely die.
25: And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not
=09 ashamed.
=09=09=09=09Genesis 3
4: And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
5: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes
=09 shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
6: And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that
=09 it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one
=09 wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also
=09 unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
7: And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they
=09 were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made
=09 themselves aprons.
8: And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in
=09 the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from
=09 the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden.
9: And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art
=09 thou?
10: And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid,
=09 because I was naked; and I hid myself.
11: And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten o=
f
=09 the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?
12: And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she
=09 gave me of the tree, and I did eat.
13: And the LORD God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast
=09 done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.
14: And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done
=09 this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of
=09 the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat
=09 all the days of thy life:
15: And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy
=09 seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt
=09 bruise his heel.
16: Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and
=09 thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and
=09 thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.
17: And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice
=09 of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded
=09 thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for
=09 thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy
=09 life;
18: Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou
=09 shalt eat the herb of the field;
19: In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return
=09 unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou
=09 art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
Strong words from the Lord, aren't they. Strong because we know their
meaning (concept), their Logos echoes like a bell chime in our mind. They
shock our soul, because "we know" the Word. In the same way a modern
scientist can come around and shock us with another 'stick':
"In six months thou shalt surely die" (if a physician) or
"One day this planet and the Sun will die" (if a physicist).
Then they can give us some 'carrot', like shooting (promising us) the
cure-Word of machine-like 'immortality' of the Artificially Intelligent
supreme mind (this Cyborg society). But what is 'immortality' if we don't
know the words 'life' and 'death', how do we define 'immortality' and the
other AI words?
The earnest words of the Lord above cannot scare a child. First, it has to
be educated, initiated into the Logos of the Word. And the same with the
'ignorant' (unaware of the Logos) animals, we can't scare them with our
books. If we shout (shoot:) at them, then it is another matter, then we
may shock their soul.
=09=09=09 Here is the legend.
The LORD God took the man (Adam and Eve), and put him into the garden of
Eden. The Logos tree of knowledge of good and evil was in the midst of
the garden. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of
the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the Logos tree, thou shalt not
eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
In the day they taste from the 'Logos' they will surely learn the
'meaning' of the Word 'to die'. The Cunning serpent seduced the man 'to
know', Adam and Eve we beguiled into playing the Creator themselves and
erecting the Logos matrix of words in their mind. They tasted from the
tree of Logos, their spirit was forever trapped in the enchanting orbit of
the 'Good' Word. In the beginning of Our World was the Word Logos.
The first word they learned was 'naked', they suddenly 'knew' its meaning
and judged that the naked body was 'bad'. And they sewed fig leaves
together, and made themselves aprons. Logos was the beginning of our
descent from the Higher animals. From then on we defended the Word at all
costs, we fought for Logos to death.
To justify the fall of man we declared in all our books that we were the
Nature's favourite race, the serpent (reason) called (our) descent (his)
ascent. More or less we proclaimed ourselves God and took charge of Nature
and the "lower animals", i.e. started killing them for our own Good, for
the survival of the fittest race. The Architect (like Agent Smith)
programmed us and we began with the erection of "the perfect world", "the
peak of our civilization". Evolution, buffaloes and American Indians,
evolution.
AGENT SMITH: The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum
=09 kept trying to wake up from. Which is why the Matrix was
=09 redesigned to this {he gestures to the window implying the
=09 skyscraper city outside}, the peak of your civilization. I
=09 say your civilization because as soon as we started thinking
=09 for you it really became our civilization which is, of
:)=09 course, what this is all about. Evolution, Morpheus,
=09 evolution. Like the dinosaur.
Morpheus is trying not to show the pain racking his mind.
AGENT SMITH: Look out that window. You had your time. The future is our
=09 world, Morpheus. The future is our time.
The Logos was the splinter in our mind driving us mad, the Word spread
from one area to another, a virus (the "social animal"). The Logos turned
the human being into a disease, we are the 'intelligent' plague, the
cancer of this planet. Reason was a descent in our evolution, the fall of
man. We were the only animal the Cunning could beguile into talking.
=09=09=09 "The Lowest Animal"
=09=09=09=09Mark Twain
It now seems plain to me that that theory ought to be vacated
in favor of a new and truer one...the Descent of Man from the
=09=09=09 Higher Animals.
Best,
Ann
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
Att: Another song from the "Misplaced Childhood" of Marillion Fish
=09=09=09 Childhood's End?
=09=09=09 And it was morning.
=09=09 And I found myself mourning,
=09 for a childhood that I thought had disappeared.
=09=09=09 I looked out the window,
=09 And I saw a magpie in the rainbow, the rain had gone
=09=09 I'm not alone, I turned to the mirror,
=09=09 I saw you, the child, that once loved.
=09=09 The child before they broke his heart,
=09 Our heart, the heart that I believed was lost.
=09=09 Hey you, surprised? More than surprised,
=09=09 to find the answers to the questions,
=09=09 Were always in your own eyes.
=09=09=09=09 ...
=09=09 So I see it's me, I can do anything
=09=09=09 And still the child,
=09 'Cos the only thing misplaced was direction
=09=09=09 And I found direction.
=09=09 There is no Childhood's End.
=09=09 There is no Childhood's End.
=09=09=09=09 ...
=09=09 You, the child that once loved,
=09=09 The child before they broke his heart.
=09 The heart, the heart that I believed was lost
=09=09 So it's me I see, I can do anything.
=09=09=09 I'm still the child.
'Cos the only thing misplaced was direction, and I found direction.
=09=09 There is no childhood's end.
=09=09 There is no childhood's end.
=09=09 There is no childhood's end.
=09=09 I am your childhood friend.
=09=09=09 Oh.. lead me on.
On Fri, 8 Aug 2003, nucleus wrote:
"Bob White" wrote:
=3D> How many gods are there by your count?
=3D
=3DI can prove/count at least one. My black lab is named "God".
Scratch that example, then. You can name a spoon "Fork",
but it's still a spoon.
__________________________________________
True if you and I accept both definitions of spoon and fork, my point
is that many atheists say "define god and show me evidence", meaning
they have not nor will they produce their own definition for god.
We have no god to define.
Yes, I know it is an excersize in futility
to talk to the blood boiling idiots of your grade.
In 'fact', if it was in 'real' life,
somewhere in the lands of evillest empire that ever was,
you'd probably 'resolve' it with a gun,
so intolerant you are,
mr. ***** against the wind.
First of all, speak for yourself,
mr. weewee. My screen is getting wet
with all your ***** against the wind.
Secondly, 'to define god' is simple idiocy.
If God does exist, how can your lil stupid mind,
filled with limitations of all kinds,
can even BEGIN to 'define' it?
Even if It does not exist,
you still can make but hissing sounds
as 'definitions'.
Evidently gods are just part of the theist
true-believers'
'True believers' are mostly religious fanatics.
God is a business for them.
Now, as far, as recognition for something grander
than your limited 'I' is concerned, it is slightly
a different matter.
It is 'experiential'.
There are certain events in everybody's life
that do not seem to fit anything you know.
Certain 'coincidences', such as you are in deep
mud, having no means of supporting yourself,
and, just as you spend your lust buck,
all of a sudden, "out of the blue', money arrives.
You've been having a hard time for a while,
doing all you can, and all in vain,
then...
The same thing is with MANY different events,
even in your own life, if you could ever notice.
Sure, the fools of your kind blame it on statistics,
'chance' or whatever you can manage to convince
yourself and others with.
But, a 'chance' of those things happening
are much less then one in a lifetime of not only you,
but several genetations before you.
Looking from another angle
and comprehending that there are no closed systems,
where is the boundary of you?
Where do YOU 'end' and the 'external' begin?
Kirlian photography clearly shows you have aura
around your body but ONLY if you are alive.
That is undeniable.
Certain projections of yours extend to any place
on the globe. That is undeniable by now.
You can perceive certain things from far away
distances. Also undeniable. Sure, if you totally
disallow yourself to even pay attention,
you can deny it. But that is YOUR 'problem',
not mine.
Now, Carl Jung has discovered collective
subconscious. That is undeniable by now.
You form that subconscious when you align
yourself with ideas and models of others.
Thus, you form a certain super entity,
you become one as a whole with them,
regardless of what you blabber here
as an 'argument'.
That simply implies that Intelligence
is not limited by the boundary of your
body, filled with limitations of hunger,
diseas and so on.
If you realize existence is multi-dimensional,
and that is undeniable by now,
you have a chance to comprehend
that 'where you end', it does not end.
It includes you as a part of dynamic,
ever expanding structure.
You align with others holdind similar views
on some aspects and so are others.
'Together', you, those others, and all other
spicies form an aggregate entity,
extending literally to 'infinity',
depending on how many limitations
you place upon yourselves.
Yes, you can adopt ANY belief system you wish.
No one is to prevent you from doing so.
But...
ALL you have is but belief system,
no matter how you cut it, gnostic or agnostic.
Not only that, but your belief system
may turn out to be nothing beyond the mind games,
utterly out of touch with even those things
that are obvious to others
and out of their experience.
You do not even experience what you blabber
about God. It is purely mental masturbation,
an excersize of self-pleasing devoid any reality
beyond mind spinning excersize in futility.
In 'fact', your 'science' is actually a religion,
lil did you know.
You invent all sorts of things,
utterly within your mind,
such as logic,
and then you start worshipping it
as though it was god.
But you are such a blind fool,
that you do not even begin to realize
that if you present your religion
to other 'scientiests',
all you are likely to have
is but bloodied noses.
They will flately deny your religion
and you will flately deny theirs.
Amazingly enough, you, personally,
had it SO many times over in your life,
that it is fair to call you not only fool,
but an idiot,
because you never became aware of it.
You bloody each other noses,
even within the same field of study,
and not not realize the meaning
and significance of it.
Because you are 'blind and death'.
The hell will sooner get frozen
before you see the simpliest thing there is,
and that is light of day.
You never even pay attention to that grandior.
You simply take it for granted.
Well, the meaning and significance
of you bloodying each other noses
is that it is ALL religion you are fighting about.
It is ALL belief.
You undestand?
ALL.
So, you are sitting here,
peddling this logic dogma,
forever inventing new 'proofs',
but you fail to realize
ALL of it is but a tale told by the idiot,
full of fury, signifying nothing at the end.
What is so difficult to comprehend?
Even a five year old,
whose mind is still uncorrupted
with all this materialist brainwashing propaganda,
bombarding you from any place you look,
can comprehend this.
But yes, you need that awareness,
simple as it is.
Right now, you, personally, are totally unconscious.
You are this deep delusion,
"chasing shadows in the valley of darkness".
Further consequences are that you become a vessel
for the demonic forces and energies
that utilize you
to promote their agenda,
and that is to destroy,
you lil speck of dust.
Your master is the beast,
whose sign is 666,
regardless of wether you realize it or not.
That is why you are in such an agony.
You can never quite relax
and enjoy that grandior of existence
that is forever there,
waiting for you,
right smack in the middle of your being,
untill the final bell rings.
When you go to bed for a last time,
you'll have a chance to look at
what an idiot you are.
You missed the whole show
and now the curtain is drawn.
delusional disorder (impaired contact with reality),
Yes, on YOUR part at least.
You won't be even able to define 'reality',
or would you?
What IS it you call 'reality'?
their
belief that their imaginary playmates are real.
http://www.psychologynet.org/delusion.html
You can concoct ANY kind of thing.
It all depends how dishonest and cunning you are
and whose agenda to you serve.
I understand that to the theist true-believers the term, "a god" means a
hypot |
