Just got this little epiphany while in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania:
“When one does not feel the urge to either criticize or defend a subject or idea, then one retains one’s freedom in that area.”
- Comment
- Reblog
-
Subscribe
Subscribed
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
Geir Isene - uncut 
I would go along with that.
.
Hope you had a nice trip.
Yes, it’s great. Picture to come!
In the high-toned serene sense, yes, because I know what you mean. But written as a broad brush stroke that generality catches the lower toned harmonics as well such as apathy.
I believe that in apathy there is an urge to defend the status quo, albeit a very suppressed urge.
I totally agree with this, yes, though it *may* require some initial criticizing to get there (and maybe not).
Or, they’re stuck in doubt.
Or, they’re not interested in the subject to begin with.
Or……
I’m just messing with you. It’s a great epiphany, Geir.
🙂
But let’s tackle the messing, shall we:
“Or, they’re stuck in doubt.”
Well, then the person would have urges in either or both directions, sometimes alternately.
“Or, they’re not interested in the subject to begin with.”
And then they would have no urges to criticize or defend and would retain their freedom in that area.
“Or……”
That one is the only real messing you came up with 😉
Your arguments are sound. Especially regarding doubt. I admit defeat. 😦
But, in defending your epiphany, are you free? Or… 🙂
I’m working to reach the epiphany you describe, specifically regarding Scn. For only then, will I be free regarding that subject. And from there I can proceed with the tech….or not.
It all hinges upon what I learn from your book. 🙂
😉
Hi Bryan,… Your own epiphany doesn’t need to depend upon Geir’s book. I can promise you that he is not going to reveal a fact so startling that we will all now “know what to do about Scientology.” I am as excited as anyone to read what he has to say. I am even planning to buy it used on Amazon so as to save money! haha. But there are lots and lots of good things to know which all go together to make a happy and productive life. Get out your self-analysis book and practice using these lists until you feel a bit better. Maybe eat a chocolate chip cookie and marvel at the blending of cookie and melty chip. Wash that down with a glass of cold milk and acknowledge the good things in your life and get a good night’s sleep. “Everything” is not hinging on any one thing . . .
Yes. And one’s impartiality on that subject or area.
This reminds me of a poem I wrote long ago as a teenager:
A BLANK MIND
A blank mind
Is a queer sensation.
To think that your mind is blank
Is a sensation queerer still.
Is your mind really blank?
I don’t think so.
‘Else how could you think at least
That your mind is blank?
A blank mind, I think
Is simply a misnomer
‘Else according to Indian Philosophy
Anybody who can keep his mind blank
Will be considered a Saint…
What is then a ‘Blank Mind’?
Can it be a State of Contentment?
A mind at ease with itself,
A state of sweet lethargy
And of sleepy laziness.
You experience it sometimes
On a lovely spring morning
Lying all alone
Contentedly on an easy chair.
Butterflies flitting around
And bees humming at your ear
Fill your heart with bliss
Unknown to you before.
Your mind happy and satisfied
Then invites no thoughts at all.
Can it be a state of frustration?
A mind at war with itself,
When it resigns suddenly
Defeated by itself.
You experience it sometimes
When you can’t fight boredom
And you find it horrible
To have nothing to do.
You long for a company
But you can’t enjoy it
Your interest all gone
Your initiative all killed.
And your mind tired with its restlessness
Rejects all thoughts that come to it.
Can it be an emotional state?
A mind highly strung
A mind in confusion
And full of intense feelings.
You experience it sometimes
When there comes up all of a sudden
Something unexpected.
Or when you finish a novel
Which reflects your emotions
To an unknown conclusion
Not thought by you before.
Then your frustrations grown deeper
And your elatements intensified further
Leave your mind blank
As a nullified mixture of opposite feelings.
All these definitions
Appear plausible enough.
Can they define the same thing
Being so different themselves?
May be not as they stand now
But their essence may
Which must be the same
For all the three.
Then, the blank mind
Is not an emotional state
Or that of frustration
Or contentment.
But it is just a common state of mind
Merely driven
In any one direction.
.
Simply beautiful.
…And purely magical when applied to oneself…:-)
I like it 🙂
Are you now going to close your blog? *loool
Nope. I have no urge to criticize or defend in regards to what I post here. If I seem to get the urge, please point it out so that I can correct. The operative word here is “urge”.
I am joking man 🙂
“When one does not feel the urge to either criticize or defend a subject or idea, then one retains one’s freedom in that area“. Hm! Hm! Hm! Good one!
The subject or idea might not be in your interest or in importance; why bother, just to avoid plus randomity. I rather stay with optimal randomity; and then I retain my freedom.
Either you have an urge to criticize constructively or defend constructively or you don’t have an urge to criticize constructively or defend constructivley a subjec or idea; you have to make up your mind to avoid the gray area. You also have to choose to retain your freedom in that area or not.
Sometimes, I don’t feel the urge to defend or criticize constructively a subject or idea; because it was a waste of time; it could be invalidating; it could be to many unsettling flying particles in the area; which might never solve; and that can make a condition worse. I rather retain my freedom in a subject area or an idea area by using reach and withdraw.
I added the word contructivley otherwise it feels like it could be below 2.0
That one criticizes or defend need does not mean that he/she necessarily have the urge to do so.
I agree also …
Being able to have or not have is a real freedom.
One of the best processes was (not verbatim) ‘What could one dispense with’
There is great freedom in dispensing with hard-held convictions.
It also gives as a by-product, the ability to ‘have’ others’ viewpoints
Why shouldn’t a person be able to
hold a position
while still remaining vigil and sufficiently “light on their feet”
so as to move quickly as facts, circumstances or the situation would wisely dictate
– and still remain free?
P.S. Better modify “position” on second line with:
(hold a) position deemed most efficacious
Sure; But one should not have an urge to do so.
Seems like a lot of significance attached (no pun intended
🙂 ) to the word “urge.” If we are using it to strictly mean “an involuntary or instinctive impulse,” well, okay. But then we are begging the question, aren’t we?
I had more in mind the idea of a postulate, specifically a postulate for freedom! (irony intended). And also in mind are the many quotes, not just LRH’s but many great other thinkers, about the need to defend or fight for freedom…
Second to last line should read “many other great thinkers.”
(Why is it so easy to see your typos after you’ve clicked the post button?)
“All urges are self-created” is again not as useful as differentiating between the ones (in the physical universe) that are compulsive and those that are under one’s control and in one’s present awareness.
Oh, and besides fun, I should have added that discussions can be very useful in respect to enlightenment – when you hold up your ideas for others to reflect back at you from another viewpoint. 🙂
I am specifically talking about the need/urge/compulsion to criticize or defend. Any slightest urge to do so indicates the slightest loss of freedom.
I dunno. Need, compulsion = other-determined, i.e. not self-determined, i.e. not free. Still kinda sounds like begging the question…
But, I’m mostly razzing you. What I read between your lines (knowing you a bit, by now) is that you would actually emphasize and place significance on being *alert* to need, compulsion, or any non-self-determined urge, as these would limit your freedom. Hope I’m not putting words in your mouth. 🙂
I agree … when one has a need/urge/compulsion, it seems to indicate that it is not under his full control … similar to one ‘having to assert oneself’.
Where one can express a viewpoint without having the compulsion behind it, to me, is a much higher level of freedom. This in turn allows one to grant beingness to others opinions without the urge/need or compulsion to forward their own in an effort to defend.
Knowledge is freedom. A compulsion to push that knowledge on others in an effort to defend that knowledge is not.
Sort of a must have/can’t have situation
One might also have urges that are self-created rather than compulsive. No urges at all and we’re getting out of the realm of games, including the physical universe game, and that’s getting pretty theoretical and, for me, not of much use.
Games require barriers so it’s a given that in a game there is no such thing as TOTAL freedom. And no self-created urges in the physical universe game sounds like the ultimate in apathy.
For me too, the urge to forward a dissenting opinion in a discussion can itself be in the spirit of a game – a fun one at that!
Any game is limiting of freedom and any game contains urges. All are self-created.
Sorry, I meant to place this below your comment that all urges are self created.
Definitely worth pondering….
When one goes from not interested (total disconnection) to interest, the test begins.
We live amongst suffering people who struggle to survive. How do we not choose sides?
As impartial observers, dispassionately remote, we can watch the carnage as long as we do not consider our spectatorism an overt of omission. Once we choose sides, we give up our freedom?
I am not sure that there is a safe distance from which to observe genocide, suppressive tyranny, or acts of terrorism. One should be able to take sides and still retain ones freedom of choice in the matter.
That is my viewpoint. Your experience may lead to different viewpoints.
I agree David,
When it comes down to base survival or heavy suppression, one is in a position where one should/must choose.
One should still retain that freedom to choose though.
Turning the other cheek may not be the most survival action in some cases. One must take a stand. As you mention, to do otherwise is an overt of omission.
One could simply take a stand without the need to do so.
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
An urge to murder a person is probably a bad thing.
An urge to encourage people to vote for a sane candidate is probably a good thing.
Urges, in my book, don’t automatically equal loss of freedom.
And let’s not forget the urge to survive.
Urge to survive = loss of freedom
Any urge is loss of freedom
Without loss of freedom, is there any freedom at all?
Yin and Yang.
Without darkness, can we know what is light?
Without a barrier, can we know what freedom is?
OK, those are enough iterations on that theme….
OK, I’ll sit here in my little universe and expound on the above.
Does any freedom exist, until an urge arises?
Is there any freedom at all, in the absence of a barrier?
Without some entrapment, can any freedom be defined?
One might say,”On a water planet without solid ground, there can be a wave without a shore.” But in that case, the surface of the water is itself a limit, and the water is at the bottom of an ocean of atmosphere.
What is prior to freedom? Is it not a potential of freedom? And does not freedom come into being only then, when there is a place where one may not freely go or be?
So I think freedom does not exist in a vacuum. I think freedom comes into being at the same time as a barrier comes into being.
Prior to that, there is no freedom and no barriers, only the potential of freedom and barriers.
Prior to that there are no games, only the potential for games.
“First there is no mountain then a mountain, then there’s not.”
Lacking havingness is a sad state of affairs. Loss of havingness is a sad state of affairs.
That’s why “First there is a mountain then no mountain, then there is.”
@ David… good thoughts. For the purpose of this thread, “taking sides” is a tricky proposition what with all this writing of urges and freedom and all.
If you find that you’ve decided to “play” in the game of “genocide,”
My own answer would be to:
1. Be high toned.
2. Choose all sides.
3. then, Create with vigor.
. . . what do you think about this answer?
One may evaluate the situation of genocide, suppressive tyranny, or acts of terrorism without taking sides. I like the approach per Data Series. You start with a broad purpose and draw up an ideal scene from that, for the mankind or higher dynamics.
Spectatorism will become an overt of omission depending on your ideal scene.
.
A related yet distinct question is whether there is any such thing as a human in a vacuum.
Is it possible to form ideas and opinions that are solely one’s own? Or are all our ideas products of our upbringing, our families, what we have read, the culture we live in, etc.?
In my opinion, there is no such thing as a completely original idea or opinion. Even the urges and feelings of a man growing up in the woods without a single encounter with another human being would be a product of his surroundings. Does this represent a lack of freedom? Freedom is certainly a term that requires defining. In general I define freedom as the ability to use secondary or states to alter primary emotions or states. For example, the ability for one to say “I want to sleep more” or “I want to experience more anger in my life” and enact it. I am not the first to use such a definition.
We all are products of our cultures and micro-cultures. We are all social beings. We may be able to understand mathematical truths but we cannot view them, or anything, with total objectivity (aka real objectivity).
Our notion of freedom should take this consideration into account. Thus I pose the question: Does an urge represent more of a significant deviation from a state of freedom than one’s intractable cultural influences? Is it a difference in *kind* or just in *magnitude*?
Read my article “On Will“
I do not believe this is relevant to my question.
If there is a soul, then I would be inclined to say that the soul is the seat of our opinions, our thoughts, our beliefs, our desires, etc. I would still argue that there is no such thing as a soul in a vacuum, when it comes to its opinions, ideals, etc. It would still be influenced by the ideas it has come across, the books it has read, the television in watched, etc
You can break down “human” into whatever sort of conscious actor you want. There is still no such thing as a conscious, opinionated being in a vacuum. It is still informed by the culture around it. Thus my question still goes unanswered: is the urge you speak of a difference in kind or just a difference in magnitude, in comparison to the cultural influences the human/soul/conscious being is part of? Does this represent a meaningful departure from freedom (which IMO is the ability to act via secondary states upon primary states)?
And can one ever experience true objectivity? If so, why? How do you know?
Did you read the article?
yes
@ Anonymous: I would like to answer your question to Geir.
In his statement about “urges,” he did not make and I see no need for the purpose of his statement to make a distinction between different urges. He has only stated a fact which seems to me to be true.
Your question becomes answered when you consider the relative tone level of the person manifesting these urges.
Higher on the tone scale, without urges, there is serenity.
Lower on the tone scale one says “Let’s play.” Now these are urges, but these have not yet manifested “badly.” One must descend at least to this level of existence in order to “have fun.”
Lower still on the tone scale these urges become gross and unholy wavelengths of something ugly. Down here, one can observe all the friction in life to which we object.
The upshot to Geir’s epiphany is that we can choose to play happily together or we can let our (compulsive) urges ruin this for us.
And how do we know these things? Well, at higher tone levels we begin to know things, maybe all things, and at lower tone levels we continually wonder about things.
usually i would say that freedom a gradientscale is and better said one is looking for “freedom from”. everybody is looking for annother
“freedom from”:
wife, children, barrieres ( in mind or in physical universe), fools, tax office, noise,
job, societey…the list could be endless.
I assume geir meant something which goes into direction of: Able to “(can)have” ,AND able to “can´t have” something which is (for me) freedom.
I can have SCNists im my enviroment, but also can have “Wogs”, “Indies” and
“critics”. I feel able to communicate to them, but i also must not.
Yes.
“Acquiring freedom” implies first the loss of freedom so that you can then again acquire it. All gaming requires some loss of freedom. Better games celebrate the aesthetic way in which a game is played and are sublimely “fair.” Worse games celebrate the loser’s loss and are routinely not games at all but “games condition” or “cheat.” Earth existence has the habit of grinding down the losers at best but is mostly infamous for setting up game conditions of “win for self” and lose for everyone else.
An ambition expressed as an “urge to win” implies there is an anxiety about loss which is a low toned place from which to play. Ambition can be lower or higher toned.
It is the tone level of life which determines the quality and relative happiness of life.
Chris, “urge” is defined as “a continuing impulse toward an activity or goal.” Using that definition (and not “a force or impulse that urges,” which might imply other-determinism and thus lack of freedom), it seems to me that entering into a game always implies “an urge to win” as it means involvement in a activity with an intention (or urge) to achieve a goal – by definition.
Where there is “lower or higher ambition,” as you put it, we’re essentially talking about different kinds of *goals* – which comes down to different *games* to start with.
But I think I actually agree with what you’ve said above, at least the intention behind the words. And Geir’s OP too might depend on how we “define our terms” (Socrates?). Maybe this post subject is one that is prone to semantics problems more than anything. 🙂
@ Thanks Marildi, …
1. I really mean to condense this thread down to “relative tone level” – not particularly toward “different games.”
2. Geir’s “epiphany” holds true regarding freedom in every instance that I fathom.
3. The different semantics – as you put it – dance around but do not bring “responsibility” to the front. Humans have the irresponsible “urge” to make our experience of a tsunami, or genocide, or stubbing our toe into an objective experience so that we can then be the sad effect and thusly a victim so that we can have a reason for our low-toned failure. But this “urge” never resolves the equation of our lives toward a happier better quality of life. Scientologists above all others, whose core religious premise is “responsibility” should know this.
5. The only important factor that resolves and gives sensible language to describe the quality of an experience is the tone level of the Thetan doing the experiencing.
6. Tone level alone correlates to proportionate responsibility.
7. All the relative “determinisms” (pan-, self-, other-) of Scientology condense to relative responsibility which is also proportionate to tone level.
8. These blogs but especially Geir’s offer a fair minded venue where these “contests” of communicating our thoughts about our life’s philosophy can be done in a high toned and fun way.
9. Please remember to give some importance to this and to each other as we express our “urges” to put together our little pieces of understanding into cohesive wholes. The goal of this game for me is a pan-determined one where we better our own and the lives of each other.
Thanks, Chris. Very practical application – basically, to look and act from a higher tone level which would include higher responsibility. Actually, that was my aim too – practical application of a very broad datum. (And if I came across in a less-than-higher-tone way, it was my own semantics problem! 🙂 )
Just one point to differ with you on. I don’t see that the urge to put our experience into an objective one is necessarily an attempt to be sad effect or victim. I see it as an attempt to look from another vantage point, an unbiased one – in case of any blind “urges” we might have. So you lost me on that one.
Yes Miraldi, I understand your concern. I wrote poorly if you inferred I thought your response low-toned. I never think of you as low-toned. You are a thoughtful and diplomatic blogger and I enjoy your comments and points of view.
My reference to “objective experience” was only meant to say that if we can make our experiences originate outside ourselves, then we do not need to take responsibility for them.
This is an interesting exchange. I hope you don’t mind me jumping in.
Responsibility should be accompanied by freedom to respond. Any “must respond” has to be accompanied by an urge to respond. That urge has to come from an attachment to the bundle of related desires, intentions, thoughts, emotions, efforts, viewpoints, etc., known as a being. (see Essay #6: THE NATURE OF BEING)
To be free, one has to stand outside the being. Oops! Words fail me here.
But when the situation is assessed with the “being” also taken into account, the reponse would be much more optimum (I hope!) 🙂
.
Chris, thanks so much for the validation. 🙂 And ditto to you!
Okay, I get it now, what you mean by “objective experience.” And yes, these discussions are fun – and amazingly eye-opening, which still seems to come as a delightful surprise each time it
happens (How’s that for a confession?
🙂 ). “Talk” to you again!
P.S. I probably still don’t quite “get” something about Geir’s idea here on this thread, because I’m not fully resonating with it yet. But it’s there in the “bull pen” and I may get the “EP” (for me) at some later point, like I usually do here. I do think I get – and have a better awareness of – the key upshot of it, though, and for that I’m appreciative and thank him. 🙂
@ Vinaire. I know you were addressing Chris’ comment about responsibility, but let me jump in, in between.
I think I understand what you’re saying and I agree. And wouldn’t you agree that discussion helps one to SEE one’s “being” in order to take it into account?
This is actually central to my difficulty in appreciating Geir’s epiphany as much everybody else seems to have. Just because one defends (at least in the sense of “presents” a viewpoint) or attacks (not in a rigid dogmatic sense, but in the sense of “disagrees”) doesn’t necessarily mean not being open to changing one’s mind – based on how ideas get reflected back from other viewpoints. And that wouldn’t particularly mean lessened freedom (or further lessened, since freedom has already been lessened by having priorly entered a game).
Anyway, I guess my “urge” (self-determined, I like to think) to reject something about the OP is that it seems to discourage (inadvertently!) productive discussion – and that goes against my personal purposes for myself and others.
(You’re so right, words can fail – but thought I’d go for it one more time. 🙂 )
Such an amazing truth and one I’ve found true many times. One can discuss religion, politics, abortion, assisted suicide, really any controversial topic, and learn amazing things from those who believe in other ways, so long as one is comfortable in ones own viewpoint. We learn so much more when we don’t defend or attack and instead open ourselves to knowing.
Exactly.
Very nice way of putting it.
.
Yes, very well said.
It’s been a while since I checked in. What a fine epiphany. I’ve had a similar epiphany, I find it easier to express in a poetic way.
“There is a path, no empty highway
Between the dawn and the dark of night
And if you go, no one can follow
That path is for your steps alone”
For me, freedom lies in my creation of this path, wherever it goes. I cannot walk this path of my deepening truth encumbered by fixed ideas and conditions. I cannot walk this path of creation, of change, of new vistas while clinging desperately to the old and familiar, the right, the wrong and the endless dichotomies.
The past is past, the future is born every moment and with that my path opens, not just for me but for every participant I meet along my way.
“Reach out your hand if your cup be empty
If your cup be full, let it be again”
Thank you for meeting me along the way.
And thank you for being here. You are a gem.
@Maria, beautifully said.
Maria, even your prose is poetry. And often is. 🙂
Maria, it is lovely to meet you too,
.
Wow Maria, “Ripple” is one of my all-time favorite songs! Here are all the lyrics, and a nice audio of it. Enjoy!
RIPPLE by Robert Hunter music by Jerry Garcia
If my words did glow with the gold of sunshine
And my tunes were played on the harp unstrung,
Would you hear my voice come thru the music,
Would you hold it near as it were your own?
It’s a hand-me-down, the thoughts are broken,
Perhaps they’re better left unsung.
I don’t know, don’t really care
Let there be songs to fill the air.
Ripple in still water,
When there is no pebble tossed,
Nor wind to blow.
Reach out your hand if your cup be empty,
If your cup is full may it be again,
Let it be known there is a fountain,
That was not made by the hands of men.
There is a road, no simple highway,
Between the dawn and the dark of night,
And if you go no one may follow,
That path is for your steps alone.
Ripple in still water,
When there is no pebble tossed,
Nor wind to blow.
You who choose to lead must follow
But if you fall you fall alone,
If you should stand then whos to guide you?
If I knew the way I would take you home.
La dee da da da, la da da da da, da da da, da da, da da da da da
La da da da, la da da, da da, la da da da, la da, da da.
Thank you for posting Ripple Valkov! I’ve never figured out how to put the youtubes in a blog post or I would’ve done it. How do you do that?
On Youtube underneath the video as it’s playing, look for the little rectangle that says “Share”. It’s to the left of the one that says “Embed”. Click on “share” and below will appear a short piece of code. Highlight that code and copy it. Paste that code into your WP comment and that’s it!
I keep a lot of these links on Notepad pages I have saved.
PS don’t use the “embed” code, make sure you use the “share” code for your link.
Any problem finding these, let me know!
Thanks Valkov!
Marildi…
“Marildi says:
2011-03-18 at 20:11
P.S. I probably still don’t quite “get” something about Geir’s idea here on this thread, because I’m not fully resonating with it yet.”
from Chris: I don’t think you are missing anything. It is as you said earlier “semantics.” Another way for me to describe what I take from Geir’s epiphany is that to come down-tone to the point where one is “compelled” to act, one does not feel free “not to act.”
When one is high-toned, one simply acts on their own determinism without compulsions. To this degree, they retain freedom in these areas, subjects, and ideas.
Thanks, Chris. Your last paragraph is a good way to put it. It’s a powerful concept, and probably a corollary. I know that it has brought my own awareness up – and no doubt will continue to do so as I bring it along with me and “drill it” in life. 🙂
@ Miraldi
I go more for the ‘knowledge” than the “being”. As I concentrate on the knowledge, the being seems to come apart for me, and then it is no longer absorbing my attention.
A disagreement to me is simply an invitation to look further. I do so until that disagreement resolves itself for me. I just have to be honest, and that is my main effort, that translates as “just see and recognize what is there.”
Freedom can also be treated as an idea, but that is unnecessary. One knows when one is free and when one is not.
To me there is neither rejection nor acceptance. There is simply an isness to view and simplify further.
.
What you say here seems like valid route too. Thanks, Vinaire.
@Vinaire, Hi Vin…I’ve been reading this post of yours every day since you wrote it. I went onto your blog and read what you linked. I’m having a little bit of trouble with your words. I’ve found many things to agree with you recently but if I understand your post, I think I disagree just a bit.
If the first act of being-ness is to assume a point of view then I want to extrapolate here that the first act of pan-determinism is to assume the “other person’s” point of view.
Sometimes when I’m reading you I get that you are using a kind of a “serenity of beingness” or very high toned beingness to resolve the friction of existence here on the ground with others. If I am understanding this correctly, then for me this is a dodge and a substitute for harmonious interaction with others which I will define for my writing as requiring both “lower tone” and “more work.” Please let me know your feelings on this.
@Chris
I must thank you for reading what I write. I don’t get many comments on my blog, so I think I don’t have a big audience. Frankly speaking I write to simplify my own confusions . I suspect that I am autistic and I have a bigger share of confusions. As I mentioned, this disagreement from you may encourage me to look further, and I am really excited about what I may come upon here.
Lately, I have been contemplating over Buddha’s teachings of anatta (no soul). I have tried to express my understanding of it in Essay #6: THE NATURE OF BEING. That is the frame of mind behind most of my writings these days.
What appears as a “being” seems to be a view from afar. A much closer view seems to show a “being” to be made up of different elements. It appears to me that a particular beingness itself is a viewpoint. The aliveness of a being is something unknowable.
So we have as many viewpoints floating around as there are beings. Pan-determinism may simply be not identifying with any of these beings or viewpoints.
I do not understand the meaning of high-tone or low tone. A tone seems to be a characteristic of a being or viewpoint. It seems to measure some sort of complexity or simplicity. You use a very interesting phrase, “friction of existence.” I call it inconsistency in what one is faced with. To me “self” is just another “other”. I don’t know if I am making sense here.
You may be right. I am probably dodging harmonious interactions with others. I have been troubled by not having a knack for harmonious interactions all my life. It doesn’t happen naturally with me. I attribute this to some kind of autism. There has been no lack of trying on my part, but I end up appearing immature. So, I have stopped trying and just be what comes naturally to me.
I don’t think that I am trying to be at “serenity of beingness.” At the moment I am trying to penetrate what beingness is. Please forgive me if I offend you in some way.
.
@ Vinaire:
You are sooo not offensive! I love reading your posts. Your exuberant interaction and clear minded commentary is very fun to read and to participate with. Like you, I also write to lend mass to all these swirling significances that abound in my “brain.” If you will go with me for a minute, I would like to re-iterate and maybe clarify some words that I’ve used and talk about your last post a bit. For my own purpose of communicating clearly, I will state a few things to make my own point of view known. Trouble with semantics, otherwise known as the “misunderstood word,” is for my money the root motivator of all the anguish with which the world is plagued. So if I take this seriously, then I should be careful to try to make myself understandable.
GIVEN:
1. I am the same being that I have always been.
2. I use language rooted in Scientology because it was in Scientology that I learned enough words that described what I already knew.
BEING
3. For me sometimes it is useful to talk about “something vs. nothing.” In this context I use “something” to refer to everything that IS and to everything that we know anything about. “Nothing” refers NOT to the absence of things, but to the presence of that which is “not anything.” In Scientology we mean Theta. You might be using “unknowable” to refer to Theta, but I am not sure. I am going to try to use it that way and see how it goes. In Scientology I think we can agree that we teach that “nothing” created “something.” Can we agree?
TONE
4. You commented about my use of “tone.” In Scientology we say that “the wavelength of emotion is tone.” For me, it is analogous to sound. When Theta acts upon MEST, there are vibrations. The wavelength of these “vibrations” we call “tone” the the “shorter” the wavelength, the “higher” and more “penetrating” the tone. The more penetrating the tone, the more “effective.”
5. “Emotion” is the ripple in the “water of existence” as a creature moves through that existence. Emotion appears to come from the creature, but it actually comes from the UNKNOWABLE THETA which both animates the creature and which intends to emote. Emotion is a window into the health of a THETAN.
6. By definition, “high toned emotion” is what one observes in a “happier and more effective person.”
7. “Serenity of Beingness” is high toned emotion so high that one has “left the building.” This tone for me has its usefulness, but mostly in the “vacation from livingness” sense of the word. For me, one can be so high toned that they are no longer “in the game.” And when I say “game” I mean it in the good sense. The clever and effective person IS high toned but “low enough to play” in the game of life.
8. Playing in the “game of life” has always been and continues to be the goal of living. People say lots of false things about this. The OT must just get over this.
9. We sometimes say things like “stop the world for I want to get off,” but this isn’t true of a happy and successful player in the game of life. This is a statement of a person who has lost their purpose.
10. So “being” means to come forth and exist or to take the form of life even though one is not OF the world. The world is OF us.
11. There is a TRUTH. The truth is US. By us, I mean our theta selves. The UNKNOWABLES which are not OF this universe. The UNKNOWABLE’S’ are the collective sources of this universe. Have I used your term the way you meant it?
12. I totally believe in the possibility of communication. Sometimes this just takes some work. BUT DOESN’T IT FEEL EVER SO GOOD TO JUST WRITE OUR THOUGHTS TO ONE ANOTHER AND DISCUSS INTIMATE IDEAS AND WRITE OUR OPINIONS WITHOUT FEAR OF REPERCUSSIONS AND RETRIBUTIONS FROM THE THOUGHT POLICE? THERE IS SUCH AN ABUNDANT FEELING OF FREEDOM IN THIS! (oops, there goes that damn serenity of beingness again!)
I think I get it now…
Basically, an urge is equal to being pulled in a direction, with a must-have on taking action, whether it be verbal or physical.
This equals vibration, mass, wavelength……all the games you don’t have to play when in native state.
And so, since all games are aberrative and some are fun, an urge is an added component to the thetan. It’s not the thetan. It’s an additive. And perhaps it equals loss of true freedom.
How did I do?
You did excellent.
Actually, I understood it the moment I first read it.
I just wanted to see if I could outsmart you.
I failed. 😦
@ Chris Thompson
Thank you Chris. In my opinion, the mother of “misunderstood word” is the following activity:
(1) Using a word for Unknowable (substitution).
(2) “Describing” that word (giving meaning to that word).
(3) Pretending that by knowing that word “one knows the unknowable” (quite a contradictory statement).
This is the story of the word GOD [see Essay #7: THE NATURE OF GOD]. This is also the story of the word THETA.
The simple fact is that unknowable is unknowable. It just gets covered up with made up considerations. That is the biggest misunderstood.
.
And this is a very interesting and intriguing summary, Vin.
I knew you’ll be intrigued by it, Geir. 🙂
I am too.
.
1. @ Vinaire I very much liked your essay: http://vinaire.wordpress.com/2010/12/05/essay-7-the-nature-of-god/
— very short and adequate.
You are one of the very few who read and respond to my blog. Thanks.
.
Geir:
I would agree with this statement.
I’ve been reading your blog for a few months now and find it intellectually and spiritually stimulating. Having spent 30 years in the corporate church, I find such freedom and expansion of viewpoint in reading your posts and the comments.
So many observations you’ve noted have paralleled my own inner thoughts.
Thank you for speaking your truths.
You are very welcome 🙂
Chris Thompson said: “I am the same being that I have always been.”
Are you sure? 🙂
.
@ Vinaire: …am I sure? Well, yes. My illusions change but I remain static . . . I know this because my illusion of myself tells me so… haha
What is that “I” which remains static? Is it identifiable? Is your “I” different from my “I”?
.
Semantics problems: We are agreeing quite a bit. Sometimes we are practiced using different words to communicate similar packages of thought. I have been practicing with your word “unknowable” and come to like it quite a lot. It is as you say a way to shake out what is known from what is not. Thank you. Re your question: (Following are some examples of how I use some of these words)
1. Static = “I” = unknowable = “no-thing.” This is not identifiable because when it is identified, it becomes known. We conjecture this is “outside” the “determined closed” system. Can we agree on this?
2. I conjecture that your I and my I are similarly outside the knowable but I conjecture that while similar in potential, we are not identical. We are individuals except that adjective is knowable and so may be meaningless to the unknowable.
3. “Outside” is only a way of indicating what is unknowable. “Outside” may be misleading altogether. There might not be any inside or outside at all. There may be only orders of magnitude.
2. Thought =
Chris Thompson said:
“In Scientology I think we can agree that we teach that ‘nothing’ created ‘something.’ Can we agree?”
Well, there is visualization that gives form to the unknowable. This may be called creation. Please see Essay #4: THE NATURE OF THOUGHT.
To say, “Nothing is creating something,” is simply part of such a visualization. It is a created thought.
.
Stated in this way, I am implying that the alternative to this is that “something” created “something.” So then is that where you want to lead?
Think in terms of a closed system. There is no connection of anything in the closed system to outside.
.
1. Does our vector of perception define what is knowable and “close the system?”
2. I understand and can see how to use your statement that “there is no connection of anything in the closed system to outside.”
3. But I can also make that division between knowable and unknowable one of perception only.
4. The term “parallel universes” is popular. What about “serial universes?” There may be universes separated not by “curtains” but by “orders of magnitude.” I will try to clarify that if you are interested.
5. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSyFwh93snk
I think that a better term to use is isolated system for what I am looking at here. This universe is an isolated system of knowable within the background of Unknowable.
1. Unknowable cannot be perceived from a knowable system. It may only be speculated upon. Though it seems that it could be grokked..
2. “Isolated system” probably describes better what I mean.
3. Perception can only bring about unknown but not unknowable.
4. Whatever universe you can think of, it will be an isolated system within unknowable.
5. Mandelbrot leads to Mandelbrot infinitely and nowhere else. So, it is an isolated system. So are the images in two mirrors facing each other.
.
Thank you for your comments. Your essay #4 is very good.
Vinaire writes ” When no inconsistency remains, then no problem, difficulty or situation will remain either” — Very good I see what you mean.
Please bring in the word “intention” and weave it into these statements on creation, visualization, etc.,. Can you share with me your feelings on its importance and how it fits? Anyone else is welcome to jump in.
“Something” and “Nothing” are determined from the reference point of what we know. We cannot use that reference point for determining the characteristics of the unknowable. Unknowable is an excellent concept to shake out our assumptions or suppressed considerations. So, I would not use the term “nothing” for unknowable. “Nothing” simply means “absence of considerations” as far as I can see.
What is manifested is knowable, and what is knowable is manifested. All that is manifested may be regarded as a closed system, or a system that is “circular” (as in circular logic), and which only refers to itself. “Intention,” “will,” etc. are part of this closed system. They do not exist beyond this system as far as I can know. The problem thus reduces to making our understanding of this system totally consistent.
And when we do make our understanding totally consistent then, probably, we are well on our way to as-ising the whole system.
.
Excellent!
1. Consistency: LRH commented that to successfully disagree with the physical universe, one must first go into complete agreement with it. For me, when you talk of “consistency,” it seems you are going down the same line of thought.
2. Is there something “unknowable” going on at all? Is it divided away from the “knowable?” or is this thinking which divides the known from the unknown a blind alley? In other words, we want there to be an unseen cause and so are we therefore not seeing something obvious? We postulate mysticism and then “do not perceive” so that there will be mystical experience?
(1) From the viewpoint of LOOKING, the activity of agreeing, or disagreeing, seems to appear a bit strange. I have to give it some thought. I think that when one is agreeing or disagreeing with the physical universe, one is not really looking.
(2) I don’t think that unknowable is part of any computation at all. It just forms a transcendental background if at all. Unknown is not the same thing as unknowable. Unknown is a knowable that is not known. Yes, we may simply postulate a mystery to have a mystery. But that will be an unknown and not unknowable. The moment we realize that we postulated that mystery it goes away. Mystical experience could be the experience of oneself through some via made up of postulated unknown.
.
Vinaire writes, “Nothing” simply means “absence of considerations” as far as I can see.”
Chris says,
This is how I am understanding your use of “unknowable” as the “absence of considerations” and so I am using it this way. This is certainly what I mean when I refer to “nothing.” Not as the nothing of empty space for that nothing contains at least space. In this context, when I write “nothing,” I am referring to that speculated upon “thing” which isn’t anything. You refer to this as unknowable. I understand when you refer to this as a visualization and as knowable, but how are we going to communicate about “nothing” without resorting to metaphor and simile? It seems to me that we are locking into circular semantical arguments.
Sorry! It is hard for me to describe my understanding of unknowable except to say that unknowable has no reference point.
But “nothing” does have a reference point as in “absence of _____”.
.
Chris said, “4. You commented about my use of “tone.” In Scientology we say that “the wavelength of emotion is tone.” For me, it is analogous to sound. When Theta acts upon MEST, there are vibrations. The wavelength of these “vibrations” we call “tone” the the “shorter” the wavelength, the “higher” and more “penetrating” the tone. The more penetrating the tone, the more “effective.””
Does “tone” apply only to emotion? What is the practical use of this concept outside Scientology? I believe that in Scientology it is used to determine if the preclear is improving or not.
.
“What is the practical use of tone?”
We will learn to measure it. It’s wavelength, when fast enough will pierce status quo notions of physics and will come to define OT more so than “OT Levels.” (This post belongs on the Scientology and Scientific Method thread.)
And also regarding tone,
1. It will be measured.
2. It will be described mathematically.
3. It will be acknowledged as the measure of available creative energy also known as “free theta.”
A bit off topic but I wanted to ask you a question. I’m wondering if part of the game of being in a body and consequently a universe is that you must not find the ultimate answers to who we really are or what’s really going on while alive or else the game is all done.
In other words, is life in a body/universe the same as Star Trek’s “Kobayashi Maru”, a starfleet training exercise which you cannot win.
Yes, pretty much. It is similar to gaining awareness that you are dreaming – it sorta kills the dream.
An area I’ve been meaning to look into is “lucid dreaming”. Apparently a person can learn to”wake up” within their dreaming and then actually guide the direction their dreams take, while the body remains asleep.
There seem to be books about it, and maybe workshops on how to do it.
I haven’t checked for websites but I’ll bet they are there.
This is what I often do at night 🙂
Actual winning would be to find out who you really are. But when you do that, you would be as-ising the “you.”
Then there is a win, but nobody there to savor that win. 🙂
.
Vin “Then there is a win, but nobody there to savor that win. ”
Yes, and so the problem becomes to solve the problem without wrecking the game. A razor’s edge – that.
When there is looking there is no problem… for me at least. 🙂
.
Nice.
@ Chris Thompson
(1) I have seen “I” used for anything that one identifies with. It is a general purpose word, so I won’t use it at the level of discussion we are engaged in. I would not claim “I” = Static = unknowable = “no-thing.” Same argument applies to the word “self.”
(2) “Being” implies manifesting, existing, etc., so this word cannot be equated to the unknowable either.
(3) One cannot say if two “unknowable” are similar or different without knowing something about unknowable. No article or adjective can be used for unknowable. Unknowable cannot be used as a singular or plural.
(4) The moment you say that “you” and “I” are both unknowable but different, one runs into inconsistency. The idea of potential is just a consideration.
.
There is no reason to believe that unknowable cannot differ from unknowable. There may be reason to believe that static is unknowable. That unknowable is potential is fairly obvious.
Any reason is consideration. Anything faily obvious is also consideration.
What is beyond consideration? 🙂
Unknowable… eh!
.
According to that doctrine – any argument you raise for that doctrine is also a consideration and hence defeats the doctrine itself.
That’s correct. Logic has its limits. Logic is not the end all. 🙂
.
And the doctrine was thus nullified 😉
Not necessarily. It is neither nullified nor proven because we are dealing with unknowable. 🙂
On a lower harmonic, it is like dealing with zero.
.
Yes, no reason. Also no reason to predict that we know there exists any boundary between knowable and unknowable.
Yes, every nothing need not be identical.
There is nothing to be identical. Nothing is not a thing.
.
Vin writes, “There is nothing to be identical, nothing is not a thing.”
Chris writes,
0. Our minds meet. I keep writing this and you keep writing that “nothing” is a visualization and hence manifested and thus knowable. I continue to use “nothing” in the sense of “formless and void of anything” and further that it is Not, but it is the Source of what is.
1. When you back up from your looking and notice who is doing the looking, what would you call this? Give me some language to agree with.
2. You repeatedly abhor using “agree and disagree” when writing about “looking.” You are getting into a . . . I can’t say . . . out-of-ARC place with that. My understanding of you when you do this is that you are trying to be pure looking without judgement. Then I have a theory that this is a sort of one-way comm cycle with you receiving comm from MEST and possibly without acknowledgement. I ask you to take a look at this. I am trying to communicate that you are using possibly a wrong definition of agree and disagree thus robbing yourself of the ARC = Understanding which would otherwise naturally occur from your looking.
3. Also, you commented elsewhere asking me if am “sure” I am the “same static” as I have always been. I answered that I thought so, but on further examination now I think that I am changed. I have experience. Thus the being that “I am” is ever changing. The underlying formlessness (static) may not change, but my point of view does change with experience. I believe this is a correct application of Theta-MEST theory and might bring our minds closer to understanding on this language. Thank you for asking me to look at that.
If it’s ‘obvious’ it’s not ‘unknowable’.
Quite the opposite, I would say.
As I understand, LOGIC is consistency within an isolated system. It is consistency among considerations within that system. But the considerations that start that isolated system have to be arbitrary. “Being” is such a consideration.
.
1. Tone is the “ripple in the water” from the “unknowable pebble.” We see the waves but we do not see the source of the waves.
2. Yes, We recognize tone as emotion. This is what we can observe.
3. The Tone Scale is a window or meter into the mental health of a person.
4. It’s use outside of Scientology? Every mother recognizes the tone of their children and makes motherly judgments as a result. Every lover is interested in the tone of their partner. I am inferring a disrespect from you regarding the usefulness of “tone.” Is this correct?
5. Regarding tone: I want to make a correlation between Tone and the energy level of the being. The tone is always seen but the Source of the tone is never seen. Decisions made without energy (tone) or carry-through (intention) are ineffective. Mixed in here are a few things. Tone, decisions, and intention sort of triangulate to become effectiveness. I am not used to communicating these ideas so they feel clumsy to me. Regardless, the usefulness of tone is that it seems to be an energy meter of theta – the unseen unknowable theta.
(1) I believe that any “source” is an apparency. Any “source” is a via through which expression of some sort or another takes place. So, I am not surprised that you find no source for tone.
(2) Emotion seems to be motion at mental (electronic) level.
(3) Tone is a characteristic of mental state for sure.
(4) I neither respect, nor disrespect. I just look. If there are unknown filters that I am looking through, then I hope that this doiscussion will make me become aware of them. I see tone only as a characteristic of mental state. In that sense it is naturally used outside Scientology for sure, as identification of different mental states.
(5) Theta is contrasted from MEST. I believe that both THETA and MEST are part of the same isolated system. Unknowable is something else all together. Unknowable is absence of both Theta and MEST. If tone is an energy meter of theta, then that has nothing to do with unknowable.
.
So what? I believe any chair is an apparency, but I still sit in chairs.
Chris is talking about practical utility here, you are talking about something else.
Also, I don’t believe Theta and MEST are a dichotomy. Theta can create isolated systems, MEST cannot, as far as I know, create anything
They are not the same echelon of isness.
Theta can simultaneously create and maintain more than one universe or “isolated system”, just as I can watch more than one series of events on a split-screen TV.
You may be participating in one universe when awake, and in a completely different one when you are asleep, maintaining both of them the whole while; or alternatively, creating each one only as you want to visit it.
I don’t believe MEST has those kind of abilities, Theta does, thus they are not datums of comparable magnitude (abilitude?) thus they are not a dichotomy.
About the Tone Scale, I was intrigued by Hubbard’s suggestion in that PDC lecture that the entire Tone Scale was an implant that thetans were tricked into acquiring.
I am starting to disbelieve MEST altogether. There is no spoon.
🙂
🙂 Agreed. No spoon. Infinite spoons. Dreams of spoons. I guess we are spooning! LOL
The lyrics refer to a Buddhist saying originally formulated by Qingyuan Weixin, later translated by D.T. Suzuki in his Essays in Zen Buddhism, one of the first books to popularize Buddhism in Europe and the US. Qingyuan writes
“Before I had studied Chan (Zen) for thirty years, I saw mountains as mountains, and rivers as rivers. When I arrived at a more intimate knowledge, I came to the point where I saw that mountains are not mountains, and rivers are not rivers. But now that I have got its very substance I am at rest. For it’s just that I see mountains once again as mountains, and rivers once again as rivers.”
“I am starting to disbelieve MEST altogether. There is no spoon….”
Hmmm… Perhaps the top chart of this scale is quite accurate after all. 4.0 and below – human endeavor. And above?
Its really very difficult to play games without any peers to play with. Its also very difficult to play games when the game seems only cruel and unfair. Or when there is no one to play with. Maybe that only leaves teaching, saving, demonstrating, helping, etc. as a game. And maybe that includes kindess, compassion, and great many virtues leading up to exhilaration and aesthetics…
Then the pure pleasure of action, just action… No thinkinging… And then there are games… But maybe not quite so solid and not quite so full of loss and pain as the MEST harmonics of games. And when the games are over or while the games are on… postulates, in which disbelief and belief and no longer spoons.
And after that?
Reset
40.0 Serenity of beingness
30.0 Postulates
22.0 Games
20.0 Action
8.0 Exhilaration
6.0 Aesthetic
—————————–
4.0 Enthusiasm
And one for you Valkov:
Wear Your Love Like Heaven
Color in sky Prussian blue
Scarlet fleece changes hue
Crimson ball sinks from view
Wear your love like heaven
(Wear your love like)
Wear your love like heaven
(Wear your love like)
Wear your love like heaven
(Wear your love)
Lord, kiss me once more, fill me with song
Allah, kiss me once more that I may, that I may
Wear my love like heaven
(Wear my love like)
Wear my love like heaven
(Wear my love)
La la, la la la, la la la, la la la
Color sky Havana lake
Color sky rose carmethene
Alizarian crimson
(Chorus)
Can I believe what I see
All I have wished for will be
All our race proud and free
(Chorus)
Thank you Maria. There’s nothing in the world like the love of a good woman!
I appreciate Donovan a lot more now, than I did when I was young and serious. As Bob Dylan put it, “I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now…”
Donovan was really one of the bright and airy stars of that 1960s galaxy.
Have you observed all of this for yourself without conditioning?
I haven’t. 🙂
.
Yes Valkov, very good. The Tone Scale is beautiful masterpiece. It exposes LRH’s insight into the workings of MEST as great as any writer – ever.
Its application and window into understanding how we flex our theta-muscle in this universe is peerless.
To understand games we only need to observe and mimic children. They haven’t forgotten how to play – yet. To understand the Tone Scale we only need to observe that we don’t play checkers with baseball bats.
Is this a video of you and Vinnie discussing Being and Nothingness? (Which by the way is the title of one of Jean-Paul Sartre’s major works of existential philosophy). His basic philosophical work is titled “Transcendence of the Ego”, (hint,hint)
Wikipedia has a pretty good article about him.
Or…. based on the one-legged stance the one on the right is taking,
Maybe they are discussing the climactic fight scene in “The Karate Kid” movie, in which because of his damaged knee, Daniel is forced to use the Crane form to defeat his opponent?
Hilarious 😀
hahaha-Valkov! You maniac! hahaha!
They are talikng in circles, or spheres, which is the natural thing in this universe.
.
@Vinaire – Two things regarding (5). You have directed my attention and to consider MEST as a closed system. I can think with this as it seems natural enough, but whether or not this is true is unknown. Reason is our narrow spectrum of perception. For sure we predict there exists MEST outside our extant perception, agreed?
The other thing is back again to the “unknowable.” I am getting confused whether we agree to call “static” unknowable. For me, static is outside and unknowable. Or do you want to refer to unknowable as yet another step behind static and say that I have visualized static and therefore manifested static? I use static when I want to refer to that which is predicted yet has no physical existence whatsoever. I use static when I want to refer to the unseen but predicted source of effects which I can observe – such as tone. Sheesh! This is getting circular.
And as an aside, I understand some of what you want to categorize as unknowable. Not understanding some aspects as well and as you predicted in your essay on God, I have resulting discomfort. The urge to know what is unknowable is strong and I am taking an ongoing look at this. I have previously been prideful about my tolerance for “not knowing” and as troubleshooting is part of my normal job, necessary. However, these discussions lately have uncovered considerations which I was previously unaware. For this I am happy — uncomfortably happy. haha
I believe MEST is a closed but potentially not closed system. There can always be created more.
1. Maybe dark matter is being created ongoing thus filling the cosmos with mass enough to bind the expanding universe slightly together… It would be the fractal creation point at the “center of the universe.” …then,
2. That dark matter would be knowable. . . . but,
3. What of the creator of that dark matter? Again with the old agreements and common denominator of points of view.
4. And if the universe was being created complete every Planck second, . . .
5. Human existence has sacrificed almost all freedom by slowing down our perception and experience until almost everything moves faster and passes us by without our noticing.
6. The “short” lives that we live are almost infinitely long when considering the Planck seconds that we live in our bodies.
7. I predict there is something to this, — this freedom thing and having thusly written I retire to a bottle of beer.
8. And I predict that “tone” has a relationship to this. Just as CPU processor speed is measured in megaHertz, Theta “processing speed” shall be measured by tone.
“I believe MEST is a closed but potentially not closed system. There can always be created more.”
Camera!
Action!
Games!
That’s a wrap…
yes!
What is created is either an isolated system, or contribution to an already existing isolated system.
.
Isolated system
.
Yes agreed when referring to practical macro-sized systems.
Philosophically, I do not think I believe in isolated systems. I will say this because they are deterministic and I am a meta-physician.
I might as well make definitive statements of belief so that they can be shaken out and aired to explore their usefulness. Because I may be wrong I remain open to modification.
@Vinaire… Vin says, “So we have as many viewpoints floating around as there are beings. Pan-determinism may simply be not identifying with any of these beings or viewpoints.”
I am thinking the exact opposite, let’s explore the idea of “identifying with every being and every viewpoint” as the definition of pan-determined.
To me, identification is not “as-isness”. Identification reduces freedom. So, I don’t quite understand your definition of pan-determinism.
.
Chris Thompson said: “You have directed my attention and to consider MEST as a closed system. I can think with this as it seems natural enough, but whether or not this is true is unknown. “
Well, Chris, what is your idea of truth? Mine is as follows:
Essay #9: THE NATURE OF TRUTH
Truth is not black and white.
.
Yes, I like your essay very much and can agree. Truth is a relative term.
But what of pan-determinism? I think there is something here for us to look at.
I am getting dizzy! I am scanning over this thread and see I am writing the same things repeatedly. My apology. Q & A is rampant.
Please see my comment on your take on pan-determiism above.
.
Vinaire: “Truth is not black and white”
Chris: And neither is it of this universe – not if our ideas about illusionary reality have truth in them.
From Wikipedia: Dark matter
In astronomy and cosmology, dark matter is matter that is inferred to exist from gravitational effects on visible matter and background radiation, but is undetectable by emitted or scattered electromagnetic radiation. Its existence was hypothesized to account for discrepancies between measurements of the mass of galaxies, clusters of galaxies and the entire universe made through dynamical and general relativistic means, and measurements based on the mass of the visible “luminous” matter these objects contain: stars and the gas and dust of the interstellar and intergalactic medium.
So “dark matter” is the name given to the inconsistency observed between the predictions from current gravitational theory, which includes relativistic corrections, and the interpretation of certain measurements. It is noted that quite a few assumptions underlie the theory such as, the universe is spatially homogeneous and isotropic. It would be interesting to examine such assumptions.
It appears that galaxies, clusters of galaxies, and the universe as a whole contain far more matter than that which interacts with electromagnetic radiation. In other words, there is more to what we can perceive. So far, there has been no direct evidence of “dark matter”. Most of dark matter is supposedly not formed out of atoms. It does not carry any electrical charge. It responds to gravitational attraction but it is not made of any known particle.
The first person to provide evidence and infer the presence of dark matter was Swiss astrophysicist Fritz Zwicky, of the California Institute of Technology in 1933.[8] He applied the virial theorem to the Coma cluster of galaxies and obtained evidence of unseen mass. Zwicky estimated the cluster’s total mass based on the motions of galaxies near its edge and compared that estimate to one based on the number of galaxies and total brightness of the cluster. He found that there was about 400 times more estimated mass than was visually observable. The gravity of the visible galaxies in the cluster would be far too small for such fast orbits, so something extra was required. This is known as the “missing mass problem”. Based on these conclusions, Zwicky inferred that there must be some non-visible form of matter which would provide enough of the mass and gravity to hold the cluster together.
I wonder what reference point is used to formulate the basic theorem and equations used to come up with the idea of dark matter. References, such as the center of galaxy, or cluster of galaxies, are valid only in reference to that galaxy or cluster. It is hard to locate the center of the universe. That would require the perception of the whole universe. It would be an assumption to think we are at the center of the universe. Are we using our viewpoint as the default reference point? That would be as much in error as the old assumption that earth was at the center of the universe. More and more as I look at it, the great arbitrary seem to be the unresolved problem of a reference point. Einstein tried to tackle it, but I do not think it is fully resolved.
Gravitational lensing observations of galaxy clusters allow direct estimates of the gravitational mass based on its effect on light from background galaxies since Dark Matter has the ability to deflect light. In clusters such as Abell 1689, lensing observations confirm the presence of considerably more mass than is indicated by the clusters’ light alone. In the Bullet Cluster, lensing observations show that much of the lensing mass is separated from the X-ray-emitting baryonic mass.
If light is deflected by a greater amount that what is predicted by the Theory of Relativity, then, maybe, it is the theory of relativity that needs to be re-examined. All we know at this moment that the observations are inconsistent with the prediction from current theories. The scientific approach would be to examine the assumptions underlying those theories, instead of making more assumptions to justify those theories.
.
The ultimate problem seems to boil down to the problem of perception. What we cannot perceive, we fill that gap through dub-in.
What is thought? Please see
Essay #4: THE NATURE OF THOUGHT
Essay #9: THE NATURE OF TRUTH
.
When one is agreeing one is not looking independently. One is simply accepting whatever is being presented without examining it thoroughly.
A person who is agreeing is not looking at the premise of the argument. Logic depends on initial agreement with premise. Proof depends on logic.
Freedom comes from looking and not from logic.
.
I could retort that when one is disagreeing one is not looking independently. One is simply accepting whatever fixed idea they are comfortably using for stable data. Both are false major premises and with the conclusion that one must not agree nor disagree if they are to be independant.
I don’t doubt the validity of the above, Chris.
.
On Love and hate (and maybe on Tone levels):
Most people’s attention is fixed on being a Being, and on viewing a Being, and not past the Being. That is the basic aberration pinned in place by the concept of THETAN in Scientology.
Essay #6: THE NATURE OF BEING
Love and hate comes from focus on the being. For me, it is preferable to focus on looking and knowledge.
.
@ Geir
You might like this website a lot. Here is a link to one of the articles on it.
http://www.noetic.org/noetic/issue-eight-march/contemplative-life/
Thanks Maria, it’s being checked out.
@ Chris Thompson said:
“0. Our minds meet. I keep writing this and you keep writing that “nothing” is a visualization and hence manifested and thus knowable. I continue to use “nothing” in the sense of “formless and void of anything” and further that it is Not, but it is the Source of what is.”
Absolute Nothing is not a source of anything.
Relative nothing is what you seem to be talking about. A relative nothing has a reference point. For example, “absence of elephants” have the reference point of elephants. “Absence of considerations” have the reference point of considerations. Even if nothing is manifested, there is a ghost of that reference point, which is manifested.
When you assume a “potential” or a “source” with nothing, then it becomes a relative nothing. Absolute nothing would not be associated with either potential or source.
Unknowable does not have any reference point. It is absolute nothing. Anything you associate with it would be your consideration.
.
What is a space with absolutely no content in it? Would that be an “absolute nothing”?
I think the problem with this conversation is a problem of trying to talk about this in terms of only two terminals. Some “thing” (call it an “element”)needs to hold the terminals apart, or they will collapse in upon each other.
Hubbard mentioned the “base” of an electric motor, that keeps the positive and negative terminals apart. That is the 3rd element.
So there might be a “no thing”, a “some thing”, and a “source” as the 3rd element.
Space itself is “something.”
.
No, according to you, it’s just a consideration, is it not?
Of course. A consideration is something, isn’t it. Please see
Essay #2: SOMETHING AND NOTHING
.
If ‘absence of elephants’ has ‘elephants’ as it’s reference point, then ‘absolute’ nothing would have as it’s reference points ‘absolutely ANYTHING and EVERY THING’ that ever was, is, or will be. Because it’s an absence of anything and everything, right?
It seems a person just can’t get away from reference points, eh?
That’s correct. That is another way of looking at UNKNOWABLE.
.
Vin, Our minds diverge….ahh the unholy and tedious process of communicating with words.
Yes, I mean nothing. Not a reference to an absence of something. You of all people blogging write continuously about the formlessness of god, unknowable, etc.,. and this is exactly what I am referring to. These are your references. There is a definition of nothing which is usual as in there is nothing in the glass, which is of course common speak for there is “no usual liquid which you would be interested in drinking” in the glass.
This is not my reference. I am not speaking of something physical. I am not speaking of the absence of where some MEST might normally be. I am not referring to the existence of a something nor the absence of a something. I am referring to the only thing which isn’t something and that is nothing. Nothing doesn’t exist in the physical universe as far as I know. You blogged about a formless Islamic concept of god which is kind of what I mean. Everywhere and nowhere. Without space or time. Without form and void of definition. No mass. No wavelength., etc.,.
I am misunderstanding how we are missing. I am trying to agree with you but can’t seem to convince you that I know what you are talking about…. haha
Well, you are associating the idea of Source with your “nothing”, which I am not.
There is a big difference right there.
.
That is right, Vin. I noted that in my post just above. The”source” is not a “nothing” in the sense of lacking even quality.
Vin writes “Well, you are associating the idea of Source with your “nothing”, which I am not.”
Chris writes: I am getting the idea that your process of “neti-neti” is leaving you empty of any workable conclusions at all. I am coming to “profile” you as someone who not only negates to shake out “inconsistencies” but who sees inconsistencies “everywhere.” Without balance, we are looking at a very uncomfortable existence. I like temporary discomfort as well as the next person, but I don’t desire a steady diet of it.
Maybe Vinnie is determined to remain incomprehensible. 🙂 hehehehehe
(Bad Valkov! Smack!)
From Janis Joplin, here is the antidote to “nothing”:
“Nothing” is not a good word for this discussion, because “no thing” inevitably brings to mind “thing” or “some thing”. It’s your nature when confronted with a vacuum, to create some things to fill it.
It’s like the old “Don’t think of a white elephant” gag. You inevitably do. But not Vinnie. His gag is “Don’t think of nothing”. That’s because he is from India and elephants are sacred there. They even have an elephant-headed guy there, and you don’t want to make him mad! He has tusks!
@ Chris Thompson said:
“1. When you back up from your looking and notice who is doing the looking, what would you call this? Give me some language to agree with.”
Why should there be a “who” or a “what” that is doing the looking? It seems that this beingness provides a deeply engrained conditioning.
Let’s take a look outside the box. 🙂
.
Let’s back the LOOKING truck right up. Why should there be a LOOKING? Why not have an EATING, and EAT our way out of this universe?
Didn’t Hubbard say “A thetan can eat anything forever” ?
See what all this talk about “nothing” will do? It will make you HUNGRY for something, anything!
haha – yes let’s try! Outside the box is nothing, right? This is the way we talk about it. We either have to talk about it or let it drop, right? If we talk about it we have to use simile or metaphor to suggest the sense of it, right? And if we get the sense of it, then that is visualization and is not it, right? So we agree that there is something and nothing. We agree that everything we know is something.
So we get back to the curiosity about creation. We wonder about that moment of creation where at one moment there suppose there was nothing and then in the next moment there was something. And we miserate over this instant of creation.
So I am feeling that we are speculating on whether – 1. something was created by something or – 2. was something somehow created out of the formless void outside the box of something. This “outside the box” of something is what I am calling “nothing.” In Scientology, this is known as the “static” and “awareness of awareness unit.”
Now I think that you think that by the time there is an “awareness of awareness unit” that we have come forth, assumed a viewpoint and become a being. I think I agree with this. This is in the world and within the system of the physical universe. I think I agree with this.
But what about that moment of creation? Is this inside the box or outside the box? This is inside the box, isn’t it? Because it comes after there has been a consideration to create. You call this knowable. Are we still together?
So before the consideration, there is nothing – the nothing of unknowable. There is not a being there until after the creation of a being. But the beingness is a created thing? Is this also our imagination that there is a creation? And before there is something, what is there? You state “unknowable.” I am alright with this term and can work with it. So would we speculate that the knowable is the subset of the unknowable? But if there is an unknowable then by definition it is not a “set” or anything at all – but we wouldn’t know either because it is unknowable. hahaha… We need our vitamins and a good night’s sleep to “figure-figure” that circle. But as Valkov so aptly quoted Donovon, “First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is!”
For me, first I was religious, then I wasn’t, and now I am. I have given my new religion a name and it is called the “Eternal Church of the Non-Paradox.” I put my faith and trust in the statement that we all share intimately in the woof and warp of the physical universe, that we are a composite of all we that we can perceive but that we are more than this and I firmly believe that the faithful shall have their eyes opened to almost eternal “secrets” in proportionate measure with their earnest seeking and that the seekers will become finders.
And with that, I rest comfortably!
PS: There was going to be a pot-luck but it turned out there was no spoon!
Sorry! I am not trying to be difficult. Ok, take a crack at this Vedic process.
Neti neti
.
Once again, I seem to have fallen short in trying to convince you that I know what you are talking about.
The Neti-Neti results in approximately exactly what I have written.
How about the idea of “source” attached to unknowable? I am not convinced about that.
.
Chris, outside the box is not necessarily nothing. There maybe a bigger box, or perhaps the box is inside a sphere, or a dodecahedron. The box may be inside a pinata, for that matter. Or inside a TV studio.
Like those Russian nesting dolls, you know?
Sure I get it. There may be something outside the something. There surely is nothing woven throughout the something. – Pass the joint, will ya? . . . haha
It is all speculation and consideration, and it is all well within the box. 🙂
.
Vinnie, I think your box floats in emptiness, in the void.
Therefore ’emptiness’ is outside your box.
That “emptiness” you are talking about is also a consideration. One can only know what one considers.
I am using the word “unknowable” for good reason.
.
Vin,
The existence or non-existence of anything “unknowable” is pure speculation, because ‘unkonwable’ has no known referent. There is nothing you can point to, and say “That is unknowable”, because if it were unknowable, you wouldn’t know about it, or even that it existed.
However, the existence of a source or sources is knowable in various ways. By inference, if by no other way. But another way is by communication and inference.
Again, you are looking at “unknowable” as a thing. That is an error.
One can ask a question and can find the answer to be unknowable.
In re: “Again, you are looking at “unknowable” as a thing. That is an error.”
Vinnie you big sophist! There is no way to ‘look’ at ‘unknowable’ because it is unknowable, and looking is a way of knowing.
And, “One can ask a question and can find the answer to be unknowable.”
How do you know this?
Sophist is a label, and I prefer to minimize the use of any labels in a discussion of this nature as labels usually are unnecessary additives.
As I admitted earlier, “unknowable” is a consideration that seems to bring much greater logical consistency in looking as far as I am concerned. It may be different for you and others, and that is ok with me.
I am simply writing what appears to be the most consistent approach from where I stand. I am not writing to make anybody wrong. Please see
Essay #9: THE NATURE OF TRUTH
Each person must find her or her own balance point. You may simply regard me as a blabber mouth if you really want to use a label. 🙂
.
Another label you may apply to me is, “autistic.”
.
Correction: “his or her…”
These words seem to change by themselves after I push the POST button. 😦
Vinnie says, “Let’s take a look outside the box.”
Then just a little further downstream, Vinnie says, “It is all speculation and consideration, and it is all well within the box”, implying there is nothing that is actually “outside the box”.
I sometimes think Vinnie opportunistically or perhaps compulsively counter-posts to whatever another posts. Perhaps he is just running his own neti-neti rather than actually having a discussion?
I knew a guy once who went through a phase like that – anything anyone said, he would agreeably say, “Yep. That’s a consideration.”
I don’t know if he ever actually duplicated anything anyone else said, though. It seemed like an exercise he was doing as way of rejecting or refusing ARC.
Honestly, I don’t know if there is anything outside the box or not. To me it is unknowable.
.
Well then Vinnie, who or what is being conditioned?
“Who” or “what” are considerations as I said before. You may say, “A consideration is being conditioned.” It is simply consideration building upon consideration. Of course, there are variety of considerations.
Yes, I am going around in circles, because that is what it is.
.
But there is surely a difference between what can consider and what can be considered. I know I can consider. I know also that I can consider something which in turn does not have the capability of consideration. So, what is it that differentiates a consideration from being able to consider and not?
The idea of difference is a consideration too. It is Alice in Wonderland. Here logic itself is a consideration.
I get the picture of a bubble (or many bubbles) of consideration simply appearing and then growing and growing. Any effort to figure how that bubble came about only makes the bubble grow more.
Sorry! Please don’t try to comprehand this. It can only make one go mad.
.
But there is an obvious difference between considerations capable of considering and those who cannot. I validate that difference and see that there is something capable of considering, something capable of collapsing the wavefunction. Because; considerations cannot collapse the wavefunction as demonstrated easily in experiments. Something, some causative agent is causing considerations – the collapse of the wavefunction included.
This is where the nightmares come from.
🙂
What is the basic nightmare?
Maybe a person trying to understand oneself.
.
@ Chris Thompson
“2. You repeatedly abhor using “agree and disagree” when writing about “looking.” You are getting into a . . . I can’t say . . . out-of-ARC place with that. My understanding of you when you do this is that you are trying to be pure looking without judgement. Then I have a theory that this is a sort of one-way comm cycle with you receiving comm from MEST and possibly without acknowledgement. I ask you to take a look at this. I am trying to communicate that you are using possibly a wrong definition of agree and disagree thus robbing yourself of the ARC = Understanding which would otherwise naturally occur from your looking.”
Abhor? I think that the idea of abhor in this context is being generated by you. I am simply not looking through the filter of Scientology concepts. Let’s discuss the contradictins. How do you define agreement? To agree there needs to be something there to agree upon. In other words, there need to be something that is not fully looked at. Becuase if you look at something fully it is as-ised and nothing remains to agree upon.
.
Yo Vinnie,
Can you get the idea of a mock-up that YOU DIDN’T CREATE? Can you as-is that?
Yes, that is possible if you first mock up “somebody else.”
.
I don’t think you addressed Valkov’s question.
I challenge you to discuss source without dodging.
OK. Any idea is a consideration and it can be mocked up. So, what Valkov is suggesting can certainly be mocked up. The question then becomes, “Is that idea consistent with other ideas that one is holding?”
Let’s check Valkov’s premises. His question assumes that there are “beings,” and only these beings do the creating. I question the consistency of that premise. Please see Essay #6: THE NATURE OF BEING.
A being is made up of desires, intentions, etc. Who creates these desires and intentions? If you say that a being creates his own desires and intentions then what is a being? Why does one need a term, such as, “being”? Why not just talk in terms of desires, intentions, etc. appearing out of nowhere?
.
They do appear “out of nowhere”, for all intents and purposes. Out of the “Static” state. In a way, the Static state could be described as unstable or ephemeral. LRH has some hilarious exposition about “hidden influences” in “The Factors” lecture series. Since a being has nothing quantifiable about him, he is the ultimate”hidden influence”. Some people get very freaked out about this.
All else is “becoming”, maya or samsara or appearance or the apparency of existence.
If a being manifested nothing, s/he would be undetectable
My point is, all and everything perceptible appears out of nowhere.
That’s why Gotama summed all the apparency of existence as “empty of own-being”.
Or as Geir put it, “I disbelieve in MEST.”
Other wise men have have distinguished between what is “real” and what is “Real”, by capitalizing the one and not the other.
In English some words carry both senses in their definitions.
Vin,
At least part of the problem is that the word “being” in English encompasses both meanings.
I mean it in the primary sense – BE, BEING, is something that by definition, unconditionally IS.
It is not created and will never be destroyed. It just IS. That is a BEING. Think of Gotama’ concept of the ‘unconditioned’.
All the other definitions of the same word refer to ‘conditioned’ or ‘conditional’ realities; these are not true BEINGS, they are ‘becomings’. They partake of the ‘apparency of existence’, the apparent cycle of action of birth, growth, decay, death and cessation of their existence(start,change,stop).
Thus the actual cycle of action was said to be create-create-create-create for as long as one wants to create, then a cessation of creating.
All created things do”come out of nowhere”.
“Nowhere” describes it just as well as “nothing”.
No LOCATION in time or space.
The bottom line is as follows. All we can observe is that manifestations appear and disappear. The terms “Static” and “Being” are simply created considerations to explain the phenomena of appearing and disappearing. The words “who”, “what”, “where”, and “when” point simply to considerations.
Anything that IS, is considered IS. Open your Phoenix Lectures and you will find this statement there. That is one truism, which Hubbard stated, that blew my mind. A BEING is being or existing like anything else that is existing. No difference.
What is beyond being or existing is unknowable. You may only speculate upon it. Those speculations are your considerations.
.
OK Vin,
Let me say that you have laid out your considerations for me to consider, and I have found them to be considerable and have considered them, but I find my considerations preferable to yours. Your considerations are, after all, only considerations, nothing more, and they are your pet considerations, which is fine, I consider that everyone ought to have some pet considerations of their own, they help provide that feeling of having a unique identity and all that.
Carry on.
OK Vinnie, but can you mock up ‘someone else’ that can create mock-ups?
Of course, I can. What is stopping you from considering that?
🙂
What makes you think anything is stopping me from considering that? I’m the one who asked the question in the first place, so I obviously considered it.
Also, thatseems seems like an underhanded question. It’s introverting to put a person’s attention on a barrier rather than a freedom.
What’s stopping you from granting me freedom, for example?
OK, getting back to as-ising other’s mockups –
If you can mockup someone else who can create mockups of others who can create such mockups,
how do you know you are not yourself someone else’s mockup, and could be as-ised at any moment?
I personally don’t believe that mockups can as-is anything at all, so to me the question is nonsense, but……. you introduced the concept, so I thought I’d ask.
hahaha! OMG Valkov, you’ve got me in stitches! Nothing ain’t worth nuttin’ honey but it’s free!
Eatin’s just another word for . . . (oh god my head!)
Vin is patiently waiting for me to blow my brains out!
Geir Miraldi and Maria – all sitting on the sidelines letting me make an ass of myself! hahaha!
Actually it is not that difficult. All you have to do is to realize that whatever you look at can be reduced to your consideration.
.
. . . including your doctrine of unknowable.
That is correct! The strength of a doctrine comes from its consistency.
.
“Actually it is not that difficult. All you have to do is to realize that whatever you look at can be reduced to your consideration.”
Invalidation and evaluation.
.
All right. Here is L.Ron Hubbard invalidating and evaluating per your logic:
There is a level lying between considerations and A, R and C and this is Is-ness. It’s the consideration of Is-ness. Things are because you consider that they are and therefore something that is, is considered is. If you don’t consider that it is, it of course can be considered to be something else. But if you recognize that it is a consideration you only have to recognize that it is. And if you recognize that something is, then you have recognized merely that it is a consideration. As soon as you have recognized that something is, IS, you have reduced it to a consideration, and that’s that. One has affinity because he considers he has affinity. One has reality because he considers he has reality. One has agreement because he considers he has agreement. One has disagreement because he considers he has disagreement. One has a Dynamic (A Dynamic: any one of the eight subdivisions of the Dynamic Principle of Existence — SURVIVE — which are: The urge to survive as, or to the survival of, (1) Self, (2) Sex and family, (3) One’s group, (4) Mankind, (5) Any life forms, (6) MEST: Matter, Energy, Space, Time — the physical universe, (7) Theta, spirit; the Thetan, a spiritual being, thought, etc., (8) Supreme Being — the “Infinity Dynamic”) — one has a Dynamic because one considers he has a Dynamic.
Please look non-judgmentally and stay on course. 🙂
.
OK Vin,
What does this sentence mean?:
“If you don’t consider that it is, it of course can be considered to be something else.”
It means to me that whichever way you look at it, it would reduce to a consideration.
.
Hey Vinnie, I apologize. There was no intent on your part to invalidate. I was skimming the comments and took yours out of context.
It’s evaluation of course, but not in the Auditor’s Code sense, naturally. Same with the quote from Phoenix Lectures – that’s his evaluation of isness etc. Any lecture is bound to be the lecturer’s observations and evaluations on some subject, and that is all your comment is; as I said, I apologize. I misinterpreted it.
I understand. Apology accepted.
.
Another simple thing to realize is that Unknowable is unknowable. That, which is looking is unknowable. “Know thyself to be unknowable.”
Of course, you may consider yourself to be whatever, But realize that that would be your consideration.
Here is one of my realizations on STATIC
.
“Unknowable” is just another consideration.
Yes, “unknowable” is a consideration too, as I admitted in one of my posts on this thread. But “unknowable” brings about a much greater consistency.
.
STATIC
.
Hi Chris,
Now, that’s funny! (Eatin’s just another word for . . .)
Yeah, sort of been sitting on the sidelines, checking in now and then. But not making more of yours and Vinaire’s discussion than – you guys sure are deeper in the meta-philosophical “pool” than where I like to swim around. 😉
But carry on and see you guys on the next one. Well, maybe the next one after the NOV CHAP post – which is even out of my MEST universe depth. 🙂
Oops, I meant metaPHYSICAL. (Goes to show I don’t know a “thing” about this stuff, let alone “nothing.”)
No -Marildi, I think your lack of complexity on the subject speaks volumes of nothing! (Meaning I think you DO get it very well – IMO!)
Chris, you are too kind. But it’s probably just that I don’t want to work that hard!
I think maybe ‘meta-philosophical’ was right Marildi.
And we certainly are ‘deep into it’. Ha ha ha ha I get some funny images off that phrase….
Valkov, wish I could say that I hadn’t just accidentally typed it. 🙂
And I didn’t have in mind the connotations of “deep into it” that inspired those funny images, either. Oh,well, just call me Gracie…
Marildi, try Googling for “Georg Groddeck”. Good Wikipedia article on him.
He made a good case for the proposition that, to a large extent, we are “lived” by “It”.
Valkov,
I’m surprised at you. Georg, you say, with no “e”? I gave you a great straight line and thought sure you’d jump on the immortal words of another George – “Say goodnight, Gracie.” 🙂 (If you don’t follow, think back to TV comedy when you were a kid…)
But I’ll check out this Georg guy later and get back to you.
Marildi, Groddeck, along with Freud, tended to think there were no ‘accidents’, that it is an intentional world. The major question to them was, ‘who’ or ‘what’ does the intending and the acting?
Notice the similarity to Buddhist thinking?
By the way, I am notorious for being a day late and a dollar short, when it comes to picking up on jokes….
That’s okay, Valkov, I was probably dating myself and you might not even go back that far. But I had the impression you do – maybe you were deprived as a kid and just didn’t watch enough TV 😉 (George Burns and Gracie Allen?). Btw, my but you are versed in a wide range of things. You must read a ton!
Anyway, “who” or what” does the intending or acting? – don’t get us listing now(kidding!). Seriously, though, I don’t know very much about Buddhism, but that question seems to me to be the crux of the Bridge up through OT VII. And Groddeck’s other idea about our being “lived” by unseen forces (what an interesting way he put it, eh?) – is also my understanding of Scientology going at least up through OT VII, after which the bank is no longer where we “live”. After that we might still do a lot of living through unseen postulates unrelated to engrams, and through training patterns. Well, no lack of games in this adventure into terra incognita, like LRH said.
I’ll try my hand at this.
It seems to me that there is a need to distinguish between a human being, which is a composite of gazillions of cells, all kinds of assumed identities, personality distinctions, energy fields and a virtual legion of identifiable attributes, past, present and future, which most of us refer to as “me” or “you,” complete with a name tag and the core awareness, which has an ongoing continuum of awareness that is not reliant on identity and can only be self-identified or if involved, identified by effects produced.
The first is transient and in a state of continual change and is really more of a constructed reality than anything else, recognizable only by constants that are held in place as constants, mainly the body, which manages to maintain a fairly consistent appearance over time despite the fact that every cell in it has died and been replaced many times throughout a full lifetime. The second is perpetual, and may or may not be involved in a time stream or even a stream of consciousness.
In our languages, which are wholly reality (things) based, discussion of the second is only possible in metaphors or concepts or by imputed thought. By imputed I mean things like, the room is empty, which relies on an image or idea of a room with a sofa in it. An empty room has no sofa in it, but it is imputed as empty because we remember or have a concept of a room with a sofa in it. The sofa’s not there but we put it there and say the room is empty.
And so we get the ongoing attempts to describe, which are at best attempts and will always be attempts, and for the most part, imputed. The attempts to describe do not affect the second, even as it participates. I suggest that it always acts in a “non-thought” and “non-reality” way. i.e. the thought, “move that leg” is really just a shadow or image of the actual act which moves the leg. And the leg is really just a shadow or image of the actual act which defines leg. Neither of these “acts” alters the second one iota, for there is “no-thing” to alter. Thus, it is also impervious to being altered by its own self-inspection or awareness. Only a “some-thing” can be altered.
And that “no-thing” which cannot be altered because it is “no-thing” is the state of voidness.
It can be thought of being beyond thought, sensation, attitudes, emotions, sensations, pains, memory, ideas, force, energy, time, space, matter and all the recognizable/identifiable elements of life. But beyond is not really a factor of it.
It may choose to be involved at any time. And I do mean ANY time.
But the involvement does not then make it into a “some-thing.”
It seems clear to me that the involvement can certainly include entanglement, confusion and apparent “unawareness,” as it adopts the accoutrements of involvement and utilizes these in place. But since it is “no-thing,” whether it acts in awareness or unawareness, it still is never altered and still is “no-thing.”
And the awareness of itself? Possibly another imputed, at best another metaphor or effort at a descriptive of a “no-thing.”
Of course, one would not feel the need to defend or criticize and idea because an idea is an effect or affect, as the case may be, and when there is no need to do that, there is freedom. There is only void.
Great epiphany Geir!
Nicely put. Well done!
.
Thanks Vinaire!
I have been struggling for so long to find a way to express this. The words of our language are so poor in these expressions.
In part, my breakthrough in expression came from devouring a website called the Berzin Archives, a collection of translations and teachings by Dr. Alexander Berzin primarily on the Mahayana and Vajrayana traditions of Tibetan Buddhism.
Dr. Berzin, who is a skilled translator, has been working through the challenge of translating Buddhist works from their original languages to English and other languages. As I read his translations, I found my own experiences related in ways and in words/expressions I never thought of and that has helped me immensely to find clarity of expression.
I think you would really, really like the Berzin Archives.
http://www.berzinarchives.com/web/en/index.html
Thank you, Maria. I plan to study the material at this link. I have added this link to Vinaire’s Blog.
.
Great post. Your attention span is awesome Maria! and you put it to good use.
“Urges” are very interesting.
I am wondering if there are urges which are not subsets of the general “urge to survive?”
Interesting. Falsifying LRH’s basic principle. I wonder…
Btw; The urge to survive is a very basic aberration.
I like this direction. What immediately came to mind were the purported “9th and 10 dynamics outside the MEST universe.”
Ethics and Esthetics, if I remember correctly. Are there “urges”associated with those?
Isn’t the “urge to survive” the cornerstone, the basic urge designed to monitor this particular game, this particular universe we call the MEST univers?
I am sure there are more basic urges than that – also as described in the Factors.
Just for fun I expanded on Geir’s comment on the Factors:
(sorry it is so long Geir, but the etymology of these terms is truly fascinating and quite revealing)
from The Factors:
————————————————————————-
1 Before the beginning was a Cause and the entire purpose of the Cause was the creation of effect.
2 In the beginning and forever is the decision and the decision is TO BE.
3 The first action of beingness is to assume a viewpoint.
[…]
18 It is the opinions of the viewpoints that some of these forms should endure. Thus there is survival.
19 And the viewpoint can never perish; but the form can perish.
——————————————————————————-
Apparent Cycle of Action:
Create…. Survive… Destroy
Actual Cycle of Action:
Create… Create… Create…
——————————————————————————
Just for fun, I checked out the etymology of key words in the above quotations:
From the online etymology dictionary:
creator
c.1300, “Supreme Being,” from Anglo-Fr. creatour, O.Fr. creator (12c., academic and liturgical, alongside popular creere, Mod.Fr. créateur), from L. creator “creator, author, founder,” from creatus (see create). Translated in O.E. as scieppend (from verb scieppan; see shape). Not generally capitalized until KJV. General meaning “one who creates” is from 1570s.
create
late 14c., from L. creatus, pp. of creare “to make, bring forth, produce, beget,” related to crescere “arise, grow” (see crescent). Related: Created; creating.
shape (v.)
O.E. scapan, pp. of scieppan “to create, form, destine,” from P.Gmc. *skapjanan “create, ordain” (cf. O.N. skapa, Dan. skabe, O.Fris. skeppa, O.H.G. scaffan, Ger. schaffen), from PIE base *(s)kep- “to cut, to scrape, to hack” (see shave), which acquired broad technical senses and in Germanic a specific sense of “to create.” O.E. scieppan survived into M.E. as shippen, but shape emerged as a regular verb (with pt. shaped) by 1500s. The old past participle form shapen survives in misshapen. Phrase Shape up (v.) is attested from 1865 as “progress;” from 1938 as “reform;” shape up or ship out is attested from 1956, originally U.S. military slang, with the sense being “do right or get shipped up to active duty.”
crescent
late 14c., “crescent-shaped ornament,” from Anglo-Fr. cressaunt, from O.Fr. creissant “crescent of the moon” (12c., Mod.Fr. croissant), from L. crescentum (nom. crescens), prp. of crescere “come forth, spring up, grow, thrive, swell, increase in numbers or strength,” from PIE base *ker- “to grow” (cf. L. Ceres, goddess of agriculture, creare “to bring forth, create, produce;” Gk. kouros “boy,” kore “girl;” Arm. serem “bring forth,” serim “be born”). Applied in Latin to the waxing moon, luna crescens, but subsequently in Latin mistaken to refer to the shape, not the stage. The original Latin sense is preserved in crescendo. A badge or emblem of the Turkish sultans (probably chosen for its suggestion of “increase”); figurative sense of “Muslim political power” is from 1580s, but modern writers often falsely associate it with the Saracens of the Crusades or the Moors of Spain. Horns of the waxing moon are on the viewer’s left side; those of the waning moon are on his right.
genius
late 14c., “tutelary god (classical or pagan),” from L. genius “guardian deity or spirit which watches over each person from birth; spirit, incarnation, wit, talent;” also “prophetic skill,” originally “generative power,” from root of gignere “beget, produce” (see kin), from PIE base *gen- “produce.” Sense of “characteristic disposition” is from 1580s. Meaning “person of natural intelligence or talent” and that of “natural ability” are first recorded 1640s.
kin
O.E. cyn “family, race, kind, nature,” from P.Gmc. *kunjan (cf. O.N. kyn, O.H.G. chunni, Goth. kuni “family, race,” O.N. kundr “son,” Ger. kind “child”), from PIE *gen- “to produce” (see genus).
genus
(pl. genera), 1550s as a term of logic, “kind or class of things” (biological sense dates from c.1600), from L. genus (gen. generis) “race, stock, kind; family, birth, descent, origin,” cognate with Gk. genos “race, kind,” and gonos “birth, offspring, stock,” from PIE base *gen-/*gon-/*gn- “produce, beget, be born” (cf. Skt. janati “begets, bears,” janah “race,” janman- “birth, origin,” jatah “born;” Avestan zizanenti “they bear;” Gk. gignesthai “to become, happen;” L. gignere “to beget,” gnasci “to be born,” genius “procreative divinity, inborn tutelary spirit, innate quality,” ingenium “inborn character,” germen “shoot, bud, embryo, germ;” Lith. gentis “kinsmen;” Goth. kuni “race;” O.E. cennan “beget, create;” O.H.G. kind “child;” O.Ir. ro-genar “I was born;” Welsh geni “to be born;” Armenian chanim “I bear, I am born”).
purpose
late 13c., from O.Fr. porpos “aim, intention” (12c.), from porposer “to put forth,” from por- “forth” (from L. pro- “forth”) + O.Fr. poser “to put, place” (see pose). On purpose “by design” is attested from 1580s; earlier of purpose (early 15c.).
intent (n.)
“purpose,” early 13c., from O.Fr. entente, from L.L. intentus “attention,” from L. intentus (fem. intentia), pp. of intendere “stretch out, lean toward, strain,” lit. “stretched out” (see intend). Intentionally “on purpose” is from 1660s.
intend
c.1300, “direct one’s attention to,” from O.Fr. intendre “to direct one’s attention,” from L. intendere “turn one’s attention, strain,” lit. “stretch out, extend,” from in- “toward” + tendere “to stretch” (see tenet). Sense of “have as a plan” (late 14c.) was present in Latin. A Germanic word for this was ettle, from O.N. ætla “to think, conjecture, propose,” from P.Gmc. *ahta “consideration, attention” (cf. O.E. eaht, Ger. acht). Intended (n.) “one’s intended husband or wife” is from 1767.
tenet
“principle,” properly “a thing held (to be true),” early 15c., from L. tenet “he holds,” third person singular present indicative of tenere “to hold, to keep, to maintain” from PIE base *ten- “to stretch” (cf. Skt. tantram “loom,” tanoti “stretches, lasts;” Pers. tar “string;” Lith. tankus “compact,” i.e. “tightened;” Gk. teinein “to stretch,” tasis “a stretching, tension,” tenos “sinew,” tetanos “stiff, rigid,” tonos “string,” hence “sound, pitch;” L. tendere “to stretch,” tenuis “thin, rare, fine;” O.C.S. tento “cord;” O.E. thynne “thin”). Connection notion between “stretch” and “hold” is “to cause to maintain.” The modern sense is probably because tenet was used in M.L. to introduce a statement of doctrine.
tantra
type of Hindu religious book, 1799, from Skt. tantram, lit. “loom, warp,” hence “groundwork, system, doctrine,” from tan “to stretch, extend,” from PIE base *ten- “to stretch, extend” (see tenet).
entire
late 14c., from O.Fr. entier “whole, unbroken, intact, complete,” from L. integrum (nom. integer; see integer).
integer
c.1500, “whole, entire” (adj.), from L. integer “whole, complete,” figuratively, “untainted, upright,” lit. “untouched,” from in- “not” (see in- (1)) + root of tangere “to touch” (see tangent). Noun meaning “a whole number” (opposed to fraction) first recorded 1570s.
integrity
mid-15c., “wholeness, perfect condition,” from O.Fr. integrité, from L. integritatem (nom. integritas) “soundness, wholeness,” from integer “whole” (see integer). Sense of “uncorrupted virtue” is from 1540s.
entirety
also entierty, mid-14c., enterete, from Anglo-Fr. entiertie, O.Fr. entiereté “totality, entirety; integrity, purity,” from L. integritatem (nom. integritas) “completeness, soundness, integrity,” from integer (see integer).
urge (v.)
1550s, from L. urgere “to press hard, push, drive, compel,” from PIE base *werg- “to work” (cf. Avestan vareza “work, activity;” Gk. ergon “work,” orgia “religious performances,” organon “tool;” Armenian gorc “work;” Lith. verziu “tie, fasten, squeeze,” vargas “need, distress;” O.C.S. vragu “enemy;” Goth. waurkjan, O.E. wyrcan “work;” Goth. wrikan “persecute,” O.E. wrecan “drive, hunt, pursue;” O.N. yrka “work, take effect”). The noun is first attested 1610s, from the verb; in frequent use after c.1910.
energy
1590s, “force of expression,” from M.Fr. énergie (16c.), from L.L. energia, from Gk. energeia “activity, operation,” from energos “active, working,” from en “at” (see en- (2)) + ergon “work, that which is wrought; business; action” (see urge (v.)). Used by Aristotle with a sense of “force of expression;” broader meaning of “power” is first recorded in English 1660s. Scientific use is from 1807. Energy crisis first attested 1970.
act (n.)
late 14c., “a thing done,” from O.Fr. acte “(official) document,” and directly from L. actus “a doing, a driving, impulse; a part in a play, act,” and actum “a thing done,” originally a legal term, both from agere “to do, set in motion, drive, urge, chase, stir up,” from PIE root *ag- “to drive, draw out or forth, move” (cf. Gk. agein “to lead, guide, drive, carry off,” agon “assembly, contest in the games,” agogos “leader;” Skt. ajati “drives,” ajirah “moving, active;” O.N. aka “to drive;” M.Ir. ag “battle”).
synergy
1650s, “cooperation,” from Mod.L. synergia, from Gk. synergia “joint work, assistance, help,” from synergos “working together,” related to synergein “work together, help another in work,” from syn- “together” + ergon “work” (see urge (v.)). Meaning “combined activities of a group” is from 1847.
compel
mid-14c., from O.Fr. compellir, from L. compellere “to drive together, drive to one place” (of cattle), “to force or compel” (of persons), from com- “together” (see com-) + pellere “to drive” (see pulse (1)). Related: Compelled.
pulse (1)
“a throb, a beat,” early 14c., from O.Fr. pous (late 12c.), from L. pulsus (in pulsus venarum “beating from the blood in the veins”), pp. of pellere “to push, drive,” from PIE *pel- “to shake, swing” (cf. Gk. pallein “to weild, brandish, swing,” pelemizein “to shake, cause to tremble”). The verb meaning “to beat, throb” is first attested 1550s.
press (n.)
“crowd, multitude,” early 13c., from O.Fr. presse (11c.), from L. pressare (see press (v.1)). Sense of “to urge, compel, force” (now mostly in adj. pressing, 1705) is recorded from late 14c. Basketball defense so called from 1961. Meaning “machine for squeezing” (e.g. winepress) is recorded from mid-14c., from M.Fr. presse. Specific sense “machine for printing” is from 1530s; extended to publishing houses by 1570s and to publishing generally (in phrases like freedom of the press) c.1680. This gradually shifted c.1800-1820 to “periodical publishing, journalism.” Meaning “journalists collectively” is attested from 1926. Press agent is from 1883; press conference is attested from 1937, though the thing itself dates to at least World War I. Press secretary is recorded from 1959.
press (v.1)
“push against,” c.1300, from O.Fr. preser (13c.), from L. pressare “to press,” frequentative of pressus, p.p. of premere “to press, hold fast, cover, crowd, compress,” from PIE *prem-/*pres- “to strike.” Weight-lifting sense is attested from 1908.
survive
late 15c., originally in the legal (inheritance) sense, from Anglo-Fr. survivre, O.Fr. souvivre, from L. supervivere “live beyond, live longer than,” from super “over, beyond” (see super-) + vivere “to live” (see vivid).
vivid
1630s, from L. vividus “spirited, animated, lively,” from vivus “alive,” from PIE *gwei- (see vital). Extension to colors is first recorded 1660s. Sense of “strong, distinct” (as of memories, etc.) is from 1680s; that of “very active or intense” (as of imagination, interest, etc.) is from 1853. Related: Vividly; vividness.
vital
late 14c., “of or manifesting life,” from L. vitalis “of or belonging to life,” from vita “life,” related to vivere “to live,” from PIE base *gwei- (cf. O.Pers. *jivaka- “alive;” Gk. bios “life,” zoon “animal;” Lith. gyvata “(eternal) life;” O.E. cwic, cwicu “living, alive;” O.Ir. bethu “life;” cf. also bio-). The sense of “necessary or important” is from 1610s, via the notion of “essential to life” (late 15c.). Vital capacity recorded from 1852.
life
O.E. life (dat. lif), from P.Gmc. *liba- (cf. O.N. lif “life, body,” Du. lijf “body,” O.H.G. lib “life,” Ger. Leib “body”), properly “continuance, perseverance,” from PIE *lip- “to remain, persevere, continue, live” (see leave). Much of the modern range of meaning was present in O.E. Extended 1703 to “term of duration (of inanimate objects).” Life cycle is attested from 1873. Life-and-death “vitally important” is from 1822.
leave (v.)
O.E. læfan “to let remain, remain, bequeath,” from P.Gmc. *laibijan (cf. O.Fris. leva “to leave,” O.S. farlebid “left over”), causative of *liban “remain,” (cf. O.E. belifan, Ger. bleiben, Goth. bileiban “to remain”), from root *laf- “remnant, what remains” (see life, live), from PIE *lip-/*leip-. The Gmc. root has only the sense “remain, continue,” which also is in Gk. lipares “persevering, importunate.” But this usually is regarded as a development from the primary PIE sense of “adhere, be sticky” (cf. Lith. lipti, O.C.S. lipet “to adhere,” Gk. lipos “grease,” Skt. rip-/lip- “to smear, adhere to.” Seemingly contradictory meaning of “depart” (early 13c.) comes from notion of “to leave behind” (as in to leave the earth “to die;” to leave the field “retreat”).
——————————————————————————
the entire purpose of the cause…
create… create… create…
Now add to this:
—————————————————————————–
From HCO PL 13 March 1965 What is Policy?
Thus when you are interpreting policy it should be interpreted only against EXPANSION as the single factor governing it.
For example, policy bars the entrance of the healing field. This is solely because there is too much trouble with the occupiers of that field and only outright war (with no demand) could solve them. This seems to be a brake on expansion. It is only a brake on expanding by war in the absence of demand. Therefore the right way to expand is to gradually build up a general public demand, let experience by the public see that we heal and when the demand is there and howling for us, reinterpret the policy or abolish it as a brake to expansion. As one can only expand by external demand for the produce, if one seeks to expand the absence of a specific demand for the product, one has war and war doesn’t lead to expansion any more than burning heretics and other brutalities expanded the Catholic movement.
So one interprets policy against PROPER EXPANSION that is proper.
———————————————————————————
And consider homeostasis in terms of optimum randomity
Definition: homeostasis
–noun
1. the tendency of a system, especially the physiological system of higher animals, to maintain internal stability, owing to the coordinated response of its parts to any situation or stimulus tending to disturb its normal condition or function.
2. Psychology . a state of psychological equilibrium obtained when tension or a drive has been reduced or eliminated.
I leave it to everyone to decide whether “entire purpose” is an urge, something compelled.
IMO it is certainly a super set over survival.
WOW. You never fail to Amaze. Great work. Thanks.
The idea of “cause” is a stretch itself. All thought is a stretch. From BIBLE: GENESIS,
“That there are manifestations (heavens and earth) is self-evident. That these manifestations appear and disappear is also self-evident because all this can be observed. But the claim that there is God prior to creation is not self-evident. It is only from the use of logic that we surmise that there ought to be an ultimate creator. Some may feel that “there is an ultimate creator”. Since logic and feelings themselves are part of creation, we may logically conclude that God appears as part of creation or after the fact of creation. “That” before creation is UNKNOWABLE because it is not manifested. Anything we say or feel about “that” would simply be a creation.”
The basic stretch seems to be the desire to know the unknowable. The universe wants to know itself.
desire:
1200–50; Middle English desiren < Old French desirer < Latin dēsīderāre; see desiderate
desiderate:
1635–45; < Latin dēsīderātus (past participle of dēsīderāre to long for, require), equivalent to dē- de- + sīder- (stem of sīdus ) heavenly body, constellation + -ātus -ate1
Speaking of urges and aberration, have you seen a Nicolas Cage movie called “City of Angels” (1998)? – an interesting treatise on urges and desires from “outside” the human experience.
Don’t think I saw that one…
Another movie with an awesome concept is the original “Star Trek – The Movie”
The premise is that our own little “Voyager” exploratory satellite has been gone from Earth for hundreds of years. During its voyage – damaged – it is discovered on a far-away “machine-planet.” The machines examine it, resurrect its original mission of discovery, repair it, embellish it’s mechanical abilities and send it back home. Now self-aware, it comes back to Earth looking for “The Creator.”
An “urge” is also a created thing.
.
First Theta wanted to know MEST.
Later, Theta-as-MEST wants to know Theta.
I don’t believe MEST exists. I believe you see what you create and I see what I create. The interesting thing is how we sync.
Yes. Interesting – How do we sync? Leads me to believe in ancient agreements setting up great “automaticities-in-the-sky.” haha!
Your earlier comment about creation-in-the-Planck second has really stuck in my head. I keep finding excuses to map this into my perception. It is a very pleasing concept for me. There are solutions in this to explain creation and decay. Also for the illusion of persistence.
Yep.
LRH says the sync’ing is done with ARC.
My take on this is that massive understandings sync our experiences.
Do our computers sync in this way and bring about the reality of the cyber universe? I ask because my PC seems to have been built in the image of my own mind. hahaha!
The question goes deeper – if nothing truly exist, then how do we actually sync the creations we see every 5*10^-44 seconds?
My conjecture has been that the beings (viewpoints) share a field of awareness, similar to magnetic poles in an electromagnetic field. I admit this conjecture is very crude at the moment.
.
Something there is which gives a “clock rate” to this processing. You have named the Planck second. I like this. We conjecture that if there is processing going on that there is a clock rate. That this illusion appears smooth and seamless may suggest other processes utterly un-named or guessed at.
0. Right, how do we sync? How do I move my fingers and type? How indeed.
1. At the root can be some fractal iteration — if vibrating at Planck rate can appear very multi-dimensional and smooth and real.
2. Then is the iteration rate consistent throughout the universe?
3. Attention can have a part in persistence and transience, as in plus and minus attention units (give this a name.)
4. Free will together with intention factors into creation.
5. Admiration is part of the equation.
6. I continue to harp on the tone scale – this will matter.
7. When you write “…goes deeper” (than my reference to ARC) ” I think you may not be giving a full measure of consideration to ARC. 8. Is tone the iteration rate of theta? Could this be measured for real?
9. This is a fun game.
Well; If I create reality as I see it and you happen to create pretty much the same from your viewpoint, there would have to be some inherent sync’ing that does not involve exchange of particles (as those are also created in the same way and thus does not represent a solution to this conundrum). Pointing to ARC as a general solution is not enough. How exactly is the sync’ing between my creation and your creation facilitated?
I wonder.
I remember some explanation LRH gave, in a lecture, I think, about how it is that we are all in the same time continuum. It had to do with the idea of a certain, specific rhythm being kept by each and every being in any given universe – all marching to the beat of the same drummer, so to speak. I think the lecture was on The Factors.
What Marildi is referring to is stated in the Phoenix lectures of 1954.
.
Here is Hubbard’s Factor # 1: “Before the beginning was a Cause and the entire purpose of the Cause was the creation of effect.”
I believe that I have discovered the outpoint of ALTERED SEQUENCE in this Factor. Please see,
THE NATURE OF CAUSE
.
@ Vinay – I see your point. It is hard for me to use this without making it a circle. See my answer on your blog.
Here are both question and answer:
COMMENT 307
.
And, of couse, considerations always make a circle. Only when the circle is too large that we see a section of it as a “straight line.”
.
Actually, considerations seem to make a sphere much like a balloon, and not just a circle.
.
@ Valkov and Vinaire,
and is the sphere filled? Say a bit more about this concept. Does it expand like the tree growing on its surface and leaving the dead carcass of its cellulose to build it’s diameter on the inside or does it expand in the complex plane only and leaving empty or possibly “unconsidered” space only on the inside? or what?
You sure are on a roll, Chris. You may have answered the question with that analogy of the tree. More fixed considerations may make the center.
.
Vin,
I read your essay about “Cause”. It seems tautological. You may be referring to “cause” in the sense of “conditioned genesis”(a deterministic series or chain of causes), but that is not how Hubbard (nor Geir) mean it, they are referring to it as “the uncaused Cause”. That’s why Hubbard refers to it as “before the beginning was a Cause”. Geir’s essay about “Free Will” explores the logic here:
“Furthermore, as the free will is exterior to the physical universe, it supersedes time. Hence it was never created and will never be destroyed. It may or may not be the cause of the physical universe but it was not caused by it. In fact free will cannot be caused by the physical universe as nothing can beget something outside its realm of influence. Or in a simpler form: “Nothing can beget something with greater potential than its own”.
Valkov, I do not think it is a tautological description of Cause. My argument (for logical consistency) is
(1) Nothing exists before beginning (by definition).
(2) Therefore, one may only assume that something exists before beginning.
Please explain how do you see the description of Cause, as provided, to be tautological.
.
Because (!) Cause has neither beginning nor end.
As Geir put it in his essay on Will, “Furthermore, as the free will is exterior to the physical universe, it supersedes time. Hence it was never created and will never be destroyed. ”
Will and Cause are pretty much the same thing in this context. According to some religions, the world was created by God’s Will, etc. God said “let there be light, and there was light”, etc. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word WAS God.” “The Word” is the postulate. God postulates the world into existence.
It’s creation by the postulate of the Increate (Increate- that which was not created), thus existed from before the beginning of time.
Another way to express it is, agreeably enough with your statement #1.) Vin, is: “nothing” does indeed exist before the beginning. It is a very fertile ‘nothing’.
How about a song?
If God had a name, what would it be
And would you call it to his face
If you were faced with him in all his glory
What would you ask if you had just one question
And yeah yeah God is great yeah yeah God is good
yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah
What if God was one of us
Just a slob like one of us
Just a stranger on the bus
Trying to make his way home
If God had a face what would it look like
And would you want to see
If seeing meant that you would have to believe
In things like heaven and in jesus and the saints and all the prophets
And yeah yeah god is great yeah yeah god is good
yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah
What if God was one of us
Just a slob like one of us
Just a stranger on the bus
Trying to make his way home
He’s trying to make his way home
Back up to heaven all alone
Nobody calling on the phone
Except for the pope maybe in rome
And yeah yeah God is great yeah yeah God is good
yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah
What if god was one of us
Just a slob like one of us
Just a stranger on the bus
Trying to make his way home
Just trying to make his way home
Like a holy rolling stone
Back up to heaven all alone
Just trying to make his way home
Nobody calling on the phone
Except for the pope maybe in rome
“Cause has neither beginning or end” is just an added consideration.
“Exterior to physical universe” is also an added consideration.
A postulate is the beginning of a consideration.
A postulate itself is created.
“Increate” itself is a created consideration.
This is how I see it.
🙂
“Increate” is a placeholder for whatever it is that creates considerations. “That” is not itself created or a product of considering.
You may call it ‘nothing’ if you wish, or ‘unknowable’. It doesn’t really matter what we call it, or even if we call it anything at all.
Some religions personalize it, some refrain from doing so. Perhaps that is because like Shrodinger’s cat, it could be considered to be either, or neither, or both.
It’s just language, Vin. What we’re talking about transcends logic, that’s why so many end up chasing their tails trying to find a logic to it all.
It’s the central paradox of Buddhism and a big inside joke. Buddhists espouse the most extreme paradoxes with a completely straight face. What Buddha was doing is attacking “discursive thinking”, also called”automatic” or “mechanical” thinking in some schools.
If it’s unknowable, it’s also incomprehensible, imperceptible, unspeakable, etc. It can neither be affirmed nor denied.
Valkov, that’s how I see it too.
.
“Cause has neither beginning or end” is just an added consideration.
But is it? It could be indicating the absence of these considerations, as in “the absence of beginning or end”, as in “no quality of beginningness or endingness”.
“Nothing” (or nothingness) has no beginning or end, as well as no location, etc.
hmm… interesting.
Except “Something must do the creating” is also a consideration.
.
Just like “unknowable gives rise to knowable” is also a consideration. However, it makes neither of those statements less useful.
Only difference is that I don’t look at Unknowable as a noun. It is difficult to describe but I don’t see unknowable being a source. It could be a condition that acts as a catalyst, but then I don’t see it as something out there.
Sorry! 🙂
Do you need “Cause” in addition to Unknowable?
.
Vin, did you write what you meant?
“(1) Nothing exists before beginning (by definition).
(2) Therefore, one may only assume that something exists before beginning.”
Yes. You will misunderstand what I wrote if you look at “nothing” as a thing.
.
@ Maria – says, “I leave it to everyone to decide whether ‘entire purpose’ is an urge, something compelled. IMO it is certainly a super set over survival.
hahaha! I almost missed your excellent point for wading through your research! This is definitely the type of response I was hoping for.
Your post has me correlating “purpose” and “urge” as the higher and lower harmonics of one another. At the higher wavelength, we have the creation of effects such as “Let’s Play.” At the lower wavelengths we have the attempt to survive the playing of these games as they degrade and become more aberrated.
The Tone Scale again becomes pertinent as it pertains to lower and higher harmonics and as to the effectiveness of theta activity.
And again,
The point being that at higher tone, we have “purpose.”
At lower tones, we have “urges.”
Before we have any Tone at all, we may yet have purposes.
Yes, quite correct but this is not my point.
My point is more like that tone is the first manifestation and the prime indicator of the health of a being as relates to its interaction with MEST.
So at higher tones we would find the thetan operating in the realm of purposes and postulates and with more freedom.
When a being is not so well, when a being has too many considerations, when a being has become sluggish, she then operates in the realm of reactive urges and effort.
Thus retaining less freedom.
Tone is a thermometer, no more or less.
Agree. It is just like a temperature scale in many ways.
I don’t know at what point freedom is something one can “retain”.
It would be a matter of degrees. One could retain a certain degree of freedom.
One approach to ‘retaining freedom’:
One could ‘retain’ freedom to the degree that one could place the barriers where one wanted them to be.
This can get complex as there may be others who are also placing barriers that might infringe on the freedom one has retained for oneself.
@ R – interesting way to put it.
For me and in my concept of myself as “responsible,” and in my concept of myself as having “free will,” – this question you propose of “retention of freedom” comes down to the choices that I make.
When I pose off dichotomies like freedom and barriers against one another they seem inversely proportional to each other.
If there is no free will, then I suppose there is no retention of freedom at all.
But if my model of the physical universe contains personal responsibility, then I parse out freedom to myself inversely proportionate to the barriers that I set.
And then I wonder if there could ever be all of one and none of the other.
Valkov said: “Another way to express it is, agreeably enough with your statement #1.) Vin, is: “nothing” does indeed exist before the beginning. It is a very fertile ‘nothing’.
Logically inconsistent… you are looking at NOTHING as a thing. Please stick to the definition of NOTHING.
.
When you look at NOTHING as a thing, you simply create new considerations.
.
Any and all words are just added considerations, duh.
“The word is not the thing.” Words are just vessels for the conveyance of meanings. It’s redundant to say “words are added considerations” – it’s tautological. What’s the point of saying it at all?
Things(phenomena) come from nowhere and nowhen.
Of course. This is a joke, a play on words.
I see the size of the “ego” as a measure of the amount in which a “spirit” is being a force (that is also a measure of its solidity, of its attachment) which turns it into a slave to the laws of motion, hence the urge to criticize or defend.
Ego is basically a system of considerations, at the core of all other considerations. I can see how it can have mass and, thus, subject to the laws of motion. Urge could build up from “spiritual bosons” in that core.
.
If there is a universe (or Universes) from which our´s is only a sub-set, anything coming from them would just seem to be appearing from “nothing”
Yes. Been dwelling one this myself and dont know how to rationalize the ramifications. But I am sure it would be a mistake to take ourselves too seriously.
True. Part of the superset would be beyond the beginning and end of a cycle.
.
Any Scientologist which accepts Ron as “Source”, becomes his sub-set, and therefore, his slave.
“Source” is a tricky consideration.
.
Tricky is just a consideration. This is not tricky if one considers that things exist and that they come from somewhere.
Do things have to come from somewhere?
.
Well, apparently they do – reality is created (wave function collapse).
I wonder from where did the first ever location come from! I know that the apparency is very strong.
.
“Where ” they come from is no-location.
The problem we have talking about this is with our languages, that we are forced to use nouns, as Vin says, to discuss something that is not really a noun, in the sense of having no location in time or space. “It”, the source, is neither when nor where.
That’s why some of the old Zen guys spoke in non-seq and apparent non-sense. They were trying to break a person out of discursive thinking habits and automatic, dream like thinking.” What Hubbard called ‘figure-figure’. To “wake”the person up by giving them a ‘shock’ to their usual way of thinking.
Buddha actually started it by saying to people of his time, “You think you exist, but maybe you actually don’t. Maybe you are just a bunch of temporary processes of rather short duration”.
But then he had to give them some hope of something, he gave them various stable data to keep them motivated.
That is an excellent observation by Valkov. The weakness has been in the language all along. Maybe the use of the word “consideration” as introduced by Hubbard, may be able to resolve this conundrum.
I’m not following you. “Source” of what, Raphael?
Hi Valkov!
You pointed exactly to the fallacy,
The concept of Ron as source incide the Church of Scientology has been changed from relative to absolute
I find that the ultimate identification of “who”, “what”, “where” and “when” to be unknowable. I don’t know what others’ experience has been in this regard; but for me the ultimate identification has been unknowable. I have to accept that.
Any “who”, “what”, “where” and “when” then must be self-generated and self-contained somehow. From this comes the idea of “ballooning of considerations in a background of unknown.” All considerations in this “balloon” or “sphere” must be interconnected. All these considerations must support each other somehow. We try to look for linearity, and a beginning and an end; but, on the ultimate scale, I do not find such conditions to be there.
No wonder, Valkov and Chris are frustrated with me, thinking that I am going in circles again and again. There is definitely a truth in what they say. I do not have an ultimate answer. Nor do I think that anybody else has the ultimate answer. An “apparent” ultimate answer would also lie in this self-contained and self-generated “sphere of consideration.”
Sorry! This is my conclusion.
There is freedom in the unknowable. And then there is an idea of “freedom” in that sphere of consideration.
.
I rarely have the consideration of “conclusion” except in the negative of discarding false data.
Thank you. How about linearity being a false datum!
.
oh yeah, I think we’re together on that one. . . now tell me how agreeing with you proves I don’t know what I’m talking about! haha
Vin writes “There is freedom in the unknowable. And then there is an idea of “freedom” in that sphere of consideration.”
Chris: Since we are defining the uknowable, there would be “total freedom in the unknowable.” But that’s just my consideration about the in-considerable. But we all agree that total freedom is not a good thing (pun intended).
One issue with the use of Unknowable here is this inconsistency:
Fully Unknowable cannot be relevant to any theory whatsoever. Because if it was relevant, then the relevance is a property of the Fully Unknowable making it Not Fully Unknowable.
If it gives rise to Knowable, then we Know something about the Knowable – that it gives rise to Knowable.
Vin writes “All considerations in this “balloon” or “sphere” must be interconnected. All these considerations must support each other somehow. We try to look for linearity, and a beginning and an end;
Chris: haha – I have not been looking for linearity for a long time. But I have been looking for “re-iteration” and with Geir’s statement about the correlation of the Planck-second I feel that I may have found the re-iteration that I have been looking for. If at all true, it exposes the Matrix for what it is – a matrix. It begins to state constants such as “clock speed” so that it becomes simply a mechanism which makes it both knowable and subject to theta “will” and theta understanding. But if it is a step – a real step in the right direction – then Geir has just jumped mankind up one whole click above the mysterious point where it formerly resided with regard to understanding the basic origin and mechanics of MEST. I can barely express how huge this seems to me.
I am working on a several-clicks theory in the direction of nailing it. Need to get through a couple of research things before I post this.
Hi Vinaire,
1. To be more clear, my own frustration is not generated from your theories of unknowable, etc., but from your lacking of TR-2 — your comm cycle. I have written quite a bit to you which you do not acknowledge but stream more of your mantra. Maybe you have a simple misunderstanding about a 2-Way Comm. Maybe you have an un-flattened grade 2 or 4. For sure you lecture more than discuss. If I need to write more about this to you, I will if you ask. I hesitate to write this way because we are long distance and if I create an ARCx of importance then it will be hard to repair and I assure you that I would like to be in communication with you. It is my perception that these “communication problems” that you describe do not come from a bad place in you. My perception of you is as a very good and likable person – someone who if we lived in the same town, I would seek out and ask over for dinner. This is my perception.
2. I disagree with you labeling yourself as autistic. I don’t know why you are speaking a disability over yourself, but it is a wrong why. Even if you have a congenital disability, if you can speak about it, give it a name, be aware of an antagonism that you create through your comm cycle, then you can change this. This is my belief.
3. You have reasoned out some amazing things and stated some things very eloquently and I admire you for this very much. I am reading what you dish out because I respect the results of your thinking and respect all the hard work that you are putting into understanding our existence. I am not agreeing with everything, but I am agreeing with very much. I especially liked your comments about ideas like the ” ‘mother of all mis-understood words,’ ‘the ballooning sphere of considerations,’ and your ability to call a consideration a consideration.
4. I like both your stances of being firm in stating your beliefs and of your ideas of how to define the undefinable unknowable. But I warn you to look for and to attempt to find balance. It is my opinion that balancing between “stating firmly” and experiencing an “urge to defend” is a fine balancing act. Stating simply the “prediction of an unknowable” and “obsessing” about defining requires balance. Mentally it is seductive to obsess about these challenges but for our own mental health we should seek balance.
5. You and Valkov use unknowable as a placeholder – I liked that. And you stated that there is freedom in unknowable. I get that and it is okay but my warning would be to make it a small category. As a scientist, it would be a sin of magnitude to become lazy and use this placeholder for too many things. As scientists, our curiosity is important but maybe our “hope” is more important. If the undefinable Unknowable could be defined, then I would say that it shrinks. I know that’s a wrong statement and an emotional one, so you don’t have to explain it to me.
6. Lastly, remember to go outside and notice things and have a chocolate chip cookie. Relax and enjoy a good night’s sleep. “Soon, you’ll feel ‘right as rain’.”
LOL! Thank you. I needed that upbraiding.
As far as acknowledgement goes, it is hard for me to acknowledge until I fully understand.
.
Well, this what the half-acknowledgement is for. If you hear or read what someone says and you don’t quite understand, then if you care about the comm cycle you must draw out more information until you do understand.
LRH said “understanding is basically us telling ourselves what we know.” I read a lot of that on these internet blogs — people telling themselves what they know. I do it myself. Sometimes I write to put my thoughts out of my head. When I read my written words they become more objective to me. Writing is for me like one of your vedic processes as it helps to more fully expose my thoughts and they become more tangible. But sometimes it just comes across as lecturing. If you mean to lecture, then fine. But if you are having a discussion then lecturing doesn’t work so good.
But sometimes I am writing and then asking questions because I am interested in the answers. This requires correct 2Way Communication and I hope that my interest in what you have written comes through to you.
My Scientology experience was a lonely one for me. Isolated by warnings about “verbal tech” I studied for thousands of hours alone except for the occasional drilling with a twin. My mind and heart were brimming over with ideas and applications but my KSW implant had my earlier lower toned considerations restimulated to such a degree that I never spoke of my ideas to anyone. Not my friends on course, not my friends at work or at meals, not my wife when we finally collapsed exhausted in bed at night. So the point is that today I enjoy talking and writing my ideas to my real world friends as well as my cyber friends and I very much enjoy listening and reading their ideas about what they are thinking about our shared human experience.
My ego wants to think that others care about what I think as well.
I understand where you are coming from. Please let me know some of your ideas that I have failed to acknowledge, and I would really give them a thought.
.
Just as the celebrated and infinitely elaborate Mandelbrot set is created from the simple formula, many of us ignore the simple formulae and seek complicated solutions to solve our “oh-so-complicated-lives.” It is a cliche’ that the more highly trained the case supervisor, the more simple the programming. MEST is extravagantly complicated but built up from simple formulae.
Geir, sync’ing of the physical universe is right in front of us and on the bridges of our noses and all around us. There must be something very simple at the root of this and I think we should keep the basics in mind such as affinity, reality, and communication as the formula for understanding when we consider these enormous GPM’s.
Another wonderful observation! You are on a roll, Chris! 🙂
.
That “ballooning sphere of considerations” is a nice concept, isn’t it? Allowing room for many other conceptual understandings such as “expanding universe” to dovetail.
That is an interesting observation indeed! 🙂
.
When discussing the success of philosophy, LRH said Eastern had intelligence and Western had force. Both lacked the other. He stated that a correct balance of force and intelligence was necessary. I have found this thinking useful.
I believe LRH used the word “urgency” instead of force… and that in the east people had enough time just to sit and think the thought through. It is not a matter of intelligence and force. It is simply a matter of thinking the thought through (which takes time) and urgency (which tells you that you don’t have too much time at your disposal).
.
That thinking the thought through takes time… is simply a consideration.
True. I should have said, “which took time.”
Apparently, the people in the East didn’t have the sense of urgency and they took their sweet time in thinking thye thought through. Could they have thunk the thought through must faster, I don’t know. They were drunk on soma and were having a good time. I wish I were there.
🙂
.
He said the West had the”urgency to ARRIVE”.
Here is the reference from The Phoenix lectures:
“Had the information of the Veda not been available to me, if I had not had a very sharp cognizance of earlier information on this whole track, and if at the same time, I had never been trained in an American university, which gave me a background of science, there could not have been enough understanding of the western world to apply anything Eastern to and we would have simply had the Eastern world again. But the western world has to hit with a punch. It has to produce an effect. It has to get there. Nobody urged Asia to get there. You could sit on a mountain top for a thousand years and it was perfectly all right with everybody in the whole neighborhood. In the west, they pick you up for vagrancy. So, we combine the collective wisdom of all those ages with a sufficient impatience and urgency, a sufficiency of scientific methodology. I think, by the way, that Gautama Sakyamuni probably had a better command of scientific methodology than any of your Chairs of Science in western universities. We had to depend, though, upon scientific methodology and mathematics to catalyze and bring to ahead the ambition of 10,000 years of thinking men.”
FORCE AND INTELLIGENCE
Having not studied Scientology for more than 20 years, I may not remember correctly so cut me some slack. However, the velocity with which Vin and Val have raced to make me wrong bolsters my confidence a little bit! The quote that I remember is something called “The Winning Combination” and goes something like -‘All battles are won by a combination of two elements — force and intelligence. You take something like an atomic bomb that can obliterate an entire country with tremendous force and this succeeds in the short-term, but the wise men in Tibet were driven out of their mountain fortress by the dumbest Chinese infantrymen the world ever knew. The long-term win is achieved by a balance between force and intelligence.’ -(my own paraphrase)
He said you can trace your own lack of success to an imbalance of one or the other. He said that Eastern philosophy is overweighted on the side of using “intelligence” using too much “thinking.” Western philosophy is overweighted on the side of using “force” which he called “hit hard.” I am mildly certain that I am not making this up even though I may have read it in an Auditor magazine or some-such.
In the final analysis it does not matters what somebody else says. What matters is your own integrity behind what you say. It should be your assessment backed fully by your integrity, and not because some “authority” said it.
So, what is your assessment?
.
My assessment?
1. That it doesn’t matter what you say, unless you say something wrong enough to the wrong person.
2. That we can pretend to have not been taught, but we have.
3. We can pretend that all our considerations and opinions are our own, but they aren’t.
4. We can pretend that there aren’t opinion leaders but there are.
5. That it’s fine to talk about integrity and that talking should include acknowledgement to the ways and routes and through whose authorship our opinions have been formed. For myself, I have opinions, but they aren’t new to the world nor are they original with me.
6. Sometimes I work my brain off to understand something and have some big 4-star realization only to find out later that my “newfound” knowledge is very old hat to the people “in the know.”
7. My assessment is that we live lives mostly alone separated by illusionary space that keeps us from co-existing. We hang out with so few people that it hardly happens. Almost every being in existence will pass through this existence without so much as an awareness of one that the percentage is zero except that the collective postulates create an enormously large space interspersed with particles that seem so solid that they can be both touched and tasted.
8. “Native State” – Isn’t that a beautiful sounding term? I’ve seen people attest to this and yet what did it mean? “The potentiality of knowing everything.” Isn’t that quite a large order of magnitude of knowing? – Everything? I’m not being cynical – just talking practical here. What is it I am talking about? In our Native State, if my intuitive conceptualization (seeing how many syllables I could string together) is correct, there would be no space. That’s quite a brain bender. Co-existence without space. Nope, I don’t know what that is. A person would have to be nothing to make that work – oh yeah, that’s what I’ve been saying and Vin has been saying and Valkov has been saying except that nobody thinks I agree with them but I do.
9. Paradoxes? I don’t believe in them. The biggest paradox of all is MEST. Big bad MEST universe – haha! We try our darnedest to identify with it, to be it, to eat, sleep, and taste it. And yet, it cannot hold us or else we cannot hold it except in the very most temporary terms. It is both breezy and solid as a sledge hammer at the same time.
10. The one smartest newest most original idea I ever read was Geir’s proposition that the Universe is utterly non-linear and (I say “fractal”) being created newly every 5 x10^-43 seconds or (in my words) “vibrating” in and out of existence like some ultra-high speed movie. The possibilities are obvious and endless. But how? What transpires? It’s right here. It’s right in front of our eyes and next to our ears and “in contact” with (as much as anything is ever in contact with anything) our skin and happening and streaming and sizzling. The insanely rapid start and stop of it all allows for “variables” such as free will to be injected every 5 x 10^-43 times per second which can provide for both creation and erosion of what’s been created in a transparently silky smooth motion that makes the entire thing seem analogically continuous rather than digitally streamed and contains in it the answer to how “the wave packet is reduced by the observer.”
11. I’ve even wondered if this is what I am listening to when concentrating on my tinnitis! . . . Or at least that’s “how I see it” while drinking beer and with eyes crossed.
In a universe of infinite possibilities can false data be true?
If not, then the physical universe may definitely be finite?
I don’t know what kind of argument I just stated but this morning I already kind of decided on an answer. . . . about finite vs infinite anyway.
An infinite number need not contain the number “5”. Se the relevance to your comment here?
Yes, I think I get the sense of it.
What if I asked, “In a universe of infinite numbers can the number 5 be missing? -Then I guess the answer would depend upon whether I had defined the number 5 to have been a member of the set of “infinite numbers” to which I was referring. If it were, then no, and if it was not, then yes.
I was just considering the logic of the words finite and infinite. Finite seems to define a closed set or system. Infinite seems also to be possibly “without ending” within a closed set or system.
A subset seems to be able to contain infinite qualities yet within the confines of a finite superset. So it seemed that both these terms can be irrational.
“Orders of Magnitude” used to be the subject of OT8 as addressed on an old grade chart I have around here somewhere. Maybe I don’t remember that rightly. Regardless, it seems that context has everything to do with how we can rationally talk about physics.
In every practical aspect the universe seems infinitely small and large and ever changing and growing or in some locales – shrinking. We say it’s not infinite, as though we can comprehend the size and scope of our “finite” considerations. But in any practical sense the universe is omnipresent.
We say the universe is part of the “knowable.” But is it? Well “some” of it is. We create the consideration that there is “unknowable” which is not “within” the knowable. I don’t know about that – no pun intended – sorry.
But there do seem to be orders of magnitude and depending on the “order” we seem to be able to experience a little bit of the universe and then if the order is too small or large, we seem to be overwhelmed and sensor-ally unable to experience it and so go train and hire expert geniuses to dig into a “different order” of magnitude and then “report back.”
Not sure where I’m going with this, but it feels liberating.
“Order of magnitude” = OT 9
heh-heh! Well, I knew I read it on there somewhere! What I really remember about it was the total relevance of Orders of Magnitude as a goal worth looking at. When I first saw it, I was like “oh yeah! (with fist pump)”
The most salient points of importance that I’ve gotten from this and Vinaire’s blog are:
1. The relevance of the Planck second.
2. The ballooning sphere of considerations.
3. The way these concepts dovetail with my own earlier significances about the fractal nature of the universe.
4. New understandings about the “computational” (per Scientology definition) qualities of A. Finite; B. Infinite; C. Unknowable; D. Orders of magnitude.
5. The natural relevance of the orders of magnitude of space-time and how this ordering might be a quality which gives rise to parallel universes; our “senses” of time and distance; pertinent elements of “successful” space exploration; defining the microcosm and macrocosm; (still percolating, just ran out of steam for a minute)
Finite mean “with limits” as in “defined.”
Infinite means “without limits.” You may attach your considerations to it.
It is the consistency of considerations which makes anything interesting! Inconsistencies stand out and need to be investigated.
How small a number can be is also infinite as in the decimal place error in writing “PI”.
I consider “knowable” to be a bubble within the “unknowable.” But this is just a crude analogy, and that is the best I can come up with.
.
True and false are just relative considerations. depending on your criterian anything can be shown to be false or true.
So, what are you looking at?
.
I’m looking at posing off the words “finite-against-infinite” like one of your Hindu processes in order to shake out their similarities and differences until they both looking like foolish adjectives spawned by a gullible mind.
I’m terribly late here. The reason for it is that when I read the epiphany for the first time, I said “ok”, but didn’t get really interested. That lasted until recetly, when Jeff Hawkins closed his blog — BTW, it really seems that the short, but extremely interesting golden age of independent blogs is over — and Marty Rathbus started to profile the independents as opposed to “squirrels”. First I backfired a bit, but then I wondered what I was doing. Although I see his recent argumentation as embodiment of the “KSW state of mind”, in which I dislike quite a few aspects, I had an urge to reply and I was being an effect of it. So I just calmed down, lay down an confronted the urge in my universe. After a while, it got much, much better. I still have the same issue about creating my own blog, but it’s also a little better. And then I got back to this article of yours and suddenly perfectly saw what you were writing about 🙂
Good job! 🙂
.
Thanks!!!
That is a good win.
Finite and infinite are both useful exaggerations because they red-flag logical inconsistencies in our language and point to the need for a different way of thinking about universe.
CAUSE is a logical inconsistency.
Essay #11: AN ANALYSIS OF CAUSE
.
If Knowable arises from Unknowable, then Unknowable contains a grain of Knowable rendering it inconsistent.
The article seem to hinge on the premise that something started time or that time is a stream or that there was a creator. If nothing exists at all unless created by the observer, then there is not necessarily an original beginning as everything is created fresh and anew at the rate of creation. Every moment may be seen as the original creation.
Yes. This is one reason why I am disbelieving unknowable. There is in fact no such thing. I believe we can discover that the separation between knowable and unknowable is a fallacy. This is because every other “hard line” in universe dissolves into “not a line” when looked at closely. There exists only a graduated scale of knowing.
“Knowing” might be too weak of a word. If you think about it, “knowing” can be either a transitive or intransitive verb. If intransitive then it becomes the effect of the assimilation of “knowledge” or “facts” about universe. In the transitive sense it becomes more nearly akin to “deciding.” – Much better if you can agree that a philosophy of being cause is better than a philosophy of being effect.
Knowing at the top of the scale, in the highest sense, is not because of “mind” but in spite of mind.
We give ourselves a name even when we minus our dynamic manifestations and come full circle to the only condition of existence which is unknowable: “That-Which-Is-Knowing.”
Also known as “Theta, Static, Unknowable.”
Interesting re the grammar of “knowing”. Thanks.
I have been studying on the exact point where we veer away from one another. It is not clear to me. What is your idea?
I haven’t totally followed all the comments, so this may already have been expressed by someone. But I was reading something that mentioned Buddha’s statement that suffering can be ended by ending all desires, and it occurred to me that Geir’s epiphany is very similar to that idea of Buddha’s. Maybe even a corollary, but I’m not sure if that is quite the relationship between the two.
I don’t see the reply button, so I don’t know how to reply directly to your post, Gier. But re: your comment on ANALYSIS OF CAUSE, that essay simply tells it like it is.
Any premise made would simply be a starting consideration, and on the quality of that premise would depend the whole system of philosophy generated from it. What I am writing here is itself a consideration, so you can see how circular (or spherical) it all can get. In a sense, this is very mathematical.
So, the essay doesn’t make any assumptions of its own. It simply looks at what seems to be there.
.
https://isene.wordpress.com/2011/03/10/an-aspect-of-freedom/#comment-3716
Unknowable would be neither relevant or irrelevant to any theory. A theory would be a self-contained sphere of consideration.
.
However – you seem to build your theory on the Unknowable, hinging the Knowable on the Unknowable in that the first arises from the latter. That is relevance. That is a connection. That embodies the Unknowable with a property or link, rendering it less than Unknowable and thus exposing an inconsistency in your theory it seems.
https://isene.wordpress.com/2011/03/10/an-aspect-of-freedom/#comment-3710
LOL!
.
https://isene.wordpress.com/2011/03/10/an-aspect-of-freedom/#comment-3709
That’s deep!
.
The “Reply”-button appears/manifests as you hover the mouse over the comment you want to reply to.
https://isene.wordpress.com/2011/03/10/an-aspect-of-freedom/#comment-3726
There seem to be a language barrier here because that is not what I intend or want to say.
There is no such THING as unknowable.
Unknowable is not a noun. It is an adjective, pointing to a state of affairs.
.
Of course. But it cannot be relevant or made part of any consistent theory.
https://isene.wordpress.com/2011/03/10/an-aspect-of-freedom/#comment-3724
You dont have to believe or disbelieve. You just have to look. It is like this:
If one can only know one’s considerations then one cannot know THAT which is not a consideration. But then we don’t know if there is any such thing as THAT.
Here we seem to be running into a difficulty of expressing it through language.
.
https://isene.wordpress.com/2011/03/10/an-aspect-of-freedom/#comment-3728
That doesn’t seem to be happening on my laptop. I shall check it out later on my desktop.
.
https://isene.wordpress.com/2011/03/10/an-aspect-of-freedom/#comment-3725
I don’t know. It seems “unknowable” to me. 🙂
.
If Unknowable is made part of any theory, then there is a relevance of the Unknowable to some consideration (the theory) rendering the Unknowable not Unknowable and thus presenting an inconsistency in the theory itself. Thus, to be consistent, no theory can include Unknowable as a part of its makeup.
However, no theory can be both consistent and complete.
I suspect creativity to be an integral part of that conundrum.
Apparently there is nothing unknowable in this universe.
Is there is anything beyond this universe?
May be… May be not…
.
The answer is “yes” if you say so.
The answer is “no” if you say so. You can be right either way or wrong either way.
We decide how to define knowledge of the universe. We can “decide to discover” what there is to know, or we can “decide” what there is to know. As long as you’re defining things without definition, I say you might as well define them to have definition.
You can also decide that you cannot know, it’s all a matter of consideration anyway, and sometimes just a leap of faith. Makes the blood sizzle.
I am beginning to believe the “unknowable” is an implant because it smells of “computation.” It is a cute one too because is foists “logical conundrum” in a big steaming heap on the solver. I think I can write the wording if anyone is interested.
Without Vinaire’s tenacious and invaluable assistance, I wouldn’t be looking so hard at this. Thank you Vin for not letting it slide.
Implant is a consideration implanted by Hubbard! LOL!
I don’t know what I just said.
.
… but not “theta” or “Static.” LOL!
.
https://isene.wordpress.com/2011/03/10/an-aspect-of-freedom/#comment-3734
“Unknowable” can be part of a theory only in the form of a conjecture, and that would not be what I am struggling to express.
It is like not even knowing what you don’t know. One can never approach it logically. It is like being in a universe, and no matter what you do, how far you look, what distance you travel, you still find yourself to be in that universe.
You don’t even know if there is anything beyond that universe. You can only speculate. But any speculation just keeps you in that universe.
It is extremely irritating and frustrating; but that is what it is.
.
Making it a part of a theory indicates relevance. Relevance renders it less than Unknowable. Inconsistency.
It is more like lack of a theory as Chris pointed out somewhere accusing me of laziness… LOL!
.
https://isene.wordpress.com/2011/03/10/an-aspect-of-freedom/#comment-3707
I hope the following essay will help reduce all the confusion that I have caused.
Essay #12: Is there Divinity?
.
An urge toward agreement can be rooted in a basic mechanism which holds MEST together.
Yep. What if that urge came about because we are actually one?
I know LRH refutes that off hand, but I wonder.
oh man, the space around me is becoming very thin!
If I think about the way a child plays with toys like toy soldiers and lines them all up and gives them different personalities and has them talking to each other and what not… There is something to this. Do you get my idea? And then we not only live life after life serially, but we live a trillion parallel lives wide as well. . . my TA is so floating.
Can this possibly be the right track?
I for one am exploring this possibility. There is something here to discover methinks.
Are one what?
One ultimate cause.
One ultimate ’cause’, maybe, depending on what you mean by ’cause’. But nonetheless there are many beings, and we are not all ‘one’.
All beings are ‘sourced’ from the ‘non-quantifiable’, ‘no-thing-ness’ which is potential only.
We discussed this on The Scientology Forum, remember? It was your thread, “Life, Universe,and Everything”:
http://www.scnforum.org/index.php?t=msg&th=546&prevloaded=1&S=eba9b6ec5c96d3304b0605c807fcfd65&start=0
We cannot say there is ‘one’ or ‘many’ about the ‘unquantifiable’, because that’s quantification. However, beings are individual and there are many many many beings.
Why are you sure there is no “oneness”?
Sure, there can be ‘oneness’, and there can also be ‘manyness’. Neither can be the ultimate truth or the ‘ground’ on which everything stands.
It is a fallacy to think this can be resolved in favor of one or the other.
It is like Shrodinger’s cat all over again.
I guess I would need to know more about your frame of reference to discuss this effectively. Also I would need to know if by “Cause” you still mean “potential”, as we discussed before.
If so, it is not logical to me,that we could be “all one”, as, if we are all one, who would be left to do the counting?
If we are talking about “before the Beginning”, there is also the question of “Before the beginning of WHAT?”
Certainly there can be second and third order creations and so on, but I didn’t think we were talking about those. I thought we were trying to establish the ultimate basis of not only everything that exists, even worlds we are not perceiving at the moment, but the ultimate basis of everything that ever was,is,and will be, in the sense of everything that could ever possibly be in an infinity of infinite time(s).
I am partly basing my exploration of this on some ideas of P.D. Ouspensky’s as he expressed them in his work “A New Model of the Universe”. He was a Russian mathematician and philosopher who was ahead of his time, and prefigured quantum physics in some ways.
His model is that “space-time” is actually a solid of 6 dimensions – 3 dimensions of space,and 3 dimensions of time.
This page explains it pretty concisely:
THE THEORY OF 6 DIMENSIONS
http://www.rahul.net/raithel/otfw/dimensions.html
Also,his book is accessible here:
A NEW MODEL OF THE UNIVERSE
http://books.google.com/books?id=B9FRwgBX0DEC&pg=PA426&lpg=PA426&dq=ouspensky+6+dimensions&source=bl&ots=zF0qC1BT63&sig=thW6St1KSV9RZK8cetvRvC48pT8&hl=en&ei=By3CTaztFIjHgAeZ9LmAAg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&sqi=2&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q&f=false
What I find interesting is that even thought “space-time” can be viewed as a 6 dimensional “solid” in a sense, I don’t see how it could really be a closed system because it is theoretically endless both spatially and as to it’s duration. Except that possibly it could be viewed as an ever-expanding 6-dimensional bubble. If we were capable of viewing such.
One of the things I found interesting about The Pilot’s work was the idea that the reason we did not perceive additional dimensions is that we have had blocks or inhibitions installed, to perceiving them.
Well,I’ve wandered far. I guess in my next post I will try to be more focused on the specific question!
My basic position is the question only makes sense in the context of “we can be one,or we can be many,depending on which we chose to be.”
We can experience both or either. When we are ‘one’ there is no ‘we’ – you see? As soon as we cease being ‘one’ only then is there multiplicity.
Which comes first, the chicken or the egg?
The egg.
In my frame, potential is cause; potential is as you have outlined in another comment here and as discussed before.
I am exploring orders of creation and the possibility of: POTENTIAL – VIEWPOINT – MULTIPLE VIEWPOINTS – MULTIPLE VIEWPOINTS YET – etc
OK Geir, I get that, but I do not think the egg necessarily comes first.
And I do not think it is necessarily POTENTIAL > VIEWPOINT > VIEWPOINTS > MORE VIEWPOINTS > etc.
Because:
POTENTIAL is not necessarily limited.
Therefore, it could go
POTENTIAL > MULTIPLE VIEWPOINTS > etc.
I don’t see any logic or reason for just ONE viewpoint to arise ‘first’,and all other viewpoints then devolve from that one.
All viewpoints are latent and can be simultaneously. Each of those can of course split or whatever leading to succeeding generations of viewpoints – perhaps.But then wouldn’t each successive viewpoint would have to be of lesser magnitude, wouldn’t it?
Of course; multiple viewpoints can be a first in the line there. But that is no reason why there could not be one-then-many.
Oneness or manyness are equally probable as the beginning point. Both are considerations.
.
I like the way you have stated that. When all the differences, similarities and identities are as-ised, I wonder what is left.
.
Vin, food for thought:
1. As we approach that, more peace on earth.
2. Incrementally waking from the dream by dynamics.
3. Increasingly co existent with diminishing separation and ballooning beingness.
4. Fully awakened into omniscience & omnipresence.
5. As-isness of MEST game.
6. New LifeForm / New Gameplan or whatever makes sense to us from that new state of Beingness.
7. Unknown.
8. My reactive mind says this will take a long time. But my analytical mind thinks if the correct lynch-pins are discovered, the manifested world might unravel very quickly.
Nothing. Only the potential of things being.
I know where you are going with this. This week I am looking at the same thing. All my training and all my experience refutes this – so much so that it makes my stomach lurch. My physical reaction such as body somatics is so strong that it is causing a red flag for me to investigate the reason for my revulsion.
1. This might resolve the problem of a “sync’ing mechanism” if one is not needed.
2. There is a maybe explanation in it for the same matter showing up in two places at once.
3. Omnipresence becomes more consistent.
4. It is the grandest manifestation of multi-tasking ever proposed.
The problem for me is that I don’t get an idea of how
never mind the tag end of that comment it was non-sequitar…”the problem for me…” scratch that.
Indeed. I am looking at how this could be or not – you know, the good old learning drill 🙂
Geir, you may have dished up some of the best food for thought yet! I’m thinking of the ethical implications alone, at least for those of us who haven’t really considered this notion before – possibly a shift in our view of others… I would say that, besides Seeker, you are the classic Teacher/Philosopher. 🙂
Thanks for that.
Here’s my line of thought:
If we are One, then my perspective on hurting another would completely change.
“No arbitrary number of beings” resonates with me too. Unless you postulate a Big Being, I guess. (I was word clearing a student once, maybe FDS’ing, and she told me about having created another thetan back on her track. That got me really thinking…)
And yes, that’s what I meant too about perspective on others.
I didn’t follow you, though, on how total ARC = sameness would create a synch problem.
No, it’s not that it would create as sync problem (two different things pointing in the same direction – i.e. the sync problem is one thing that indicates Oneness – the other is that of ultimate ARC).
i.e. Wouldn’t that be the ultimate synchronization?
I think it would. And I believe that the total synchronization as we have must have total Understanding (ARC) at its root.
I got it. Total understanding (=oneness)at the root of total synchronization seems obvious, now that you say it. What a “neat” theory.
I think of LRH’s idea, that “in the beginning,” at Tone 40, with total ARC and understanding, there was a coming away from total knowingness in order to have a game. Except that he seemed to be describing what happens with each of all the different thetans. If he had been around longer, he might have come out with one of those issues that starts out with something like “I’ve just discovered that there is no such thing as…” 🙂
I really like this idea of a “whole bunch” of viewpoints all belonging to just one “being.” This might even handle my problem with the difference between “theta” and “thetan”, which I never got totally clear.
And it would explain how a person can generate new viewpoints that seem compartmented from himself. And there you have my core realization about the upper levels of Scientology. Got it?
Yes, I think so. Thank you!
Your core realization – holy cow. Like I said, this is food for thought. And I’m still digesting and assimilating…
🙂
I am doing some serious research into this.
Scientific research? Primary or secondary? Or whatever beans you might be willing to spill…
Spilling will be done. Right now I am on a reading spree. I need to get to the bottom of Quantum Mechanics first.
Well, that’s a hint. Carry on, O alter ego of ours. 😉
Hey Geir, we covered all that in your thread on The Scientology Forum.
At the root of it all is Potential. Out of the potential arise beings.
Potential is like the infinite number of monkeys sitting at an infinite number of typewriters. Given infinite time, they will produce every great work of literature known to Man, as well as all those not yet written.
‘Synching’ is by agreement, just as the individuals in a band sync by agreeing on what tempo and meter they will use to play any particular piece together.
There is no ‘inborn’ synching because each being is different. Their only commonality is they also have potential – to postulate and perceive, ie, to create, or have things arise from them.
If you varied the rhythm your creativity is marching to, change the tempo of it, you may drop back into a universe running on a rhythm that’s just a tad slower than this one, or if you speed your tempo up a hair, you might pop into a universe running on a rhythm just a tad faster. Full of beings all running on that same rhythm.
Really you would just be extending your perception and presence to these slightly different ‘Planck seconds’, right?
I am questioning the “there is no oneness”-postulate, that’s all.
OK Geir, I gotcha. The fact is, it is a postulate, just as “we are many” is also a postulate. Or as Vinnie would say, “JUST a postulate.” Only he usually says ‘consideration’ instead of ‘postulate’.
Both are valid postulates, but neither is THE primary postulate or the basic truth, in my view.
But, a common basic viewpoint (even though that is one or many steps away from The Basic Truth) could explain ARC, empathy, God and multiple religions.
OK Geir, I get that, but I don’t see that ‘having one common viewpoint’ as necessarily being because we were once all one being from whom we split off or were split off. Each one of us is basically ARC, so we have the capacity to communicate and agree, thereby achieving understanding of a common viewpoint.
If I had enough time, for example,I could perhaps learn Norwegian, then we would have more of a common viewpoint in some ways.
Now,could there be beings who are composed in some other way? To be consistent I must say “Yes”, but it’s not easy for me to imagine such. What’s senior to ARC?
Chris, my first physical-emotional reaction was to feel a loss – what, no terminals? 😦
And then I thought about a “perception” or notion that I have had a few times (unlooked-for), that I am the one who “shapes” what’s going on in the world; and not just in a “ripples” sense, but that I am somehow at cause through my own viewpoint or mindset – not to say I’m achieving a great effect, ha ha – but it’s a big, big ship to maneuever, after all. 🙂
And yes, the “synching” mechanism might be more easily explained (“everyone” keeping the same rhythm of time, as described by LRH).
Omnipresence, you mentioned. I was thinking something similar, that the eighth dynamic – allness of all – might have a whole new meaning. And, come to think of it, if one is going to BE the eighth dynamic, how is that different from Nirvana? (Vinaire or Valkov might have something to say on this.)
“Greatest manifestation of multi-tasking ever proposed” – now there’s a somatic! LOL
https://isene.wordpress.com/2011/03/10/an-aspect-of-freedom/#comment-3749
In my opinion, it is neither one nor many. There is no identification either as Hubbard feared. There is simply no beingness “before the beginning.”
Beingness is essentially a basic viewpoint. The idea that there is “a beingness that assumes viewpoints” is inconsistent.
Beingness starts in the beginning as a viewpoint, which keeps on morphing as time passes.
.
Vinaire,
You say, “beingness STARTS as a viewpoint.” Isn’t there sine causal factor here?
type – make that “some” causal factor
Maybe, maybe not… I don’t know.
You may only assume one, or the other, or none.
.
. . . or both
A “spiritual big bang” theory or “spontaneous combustion of the spark of life” – right or wrong, that would be hard to assume, don’t you think?
I think 🙂
I might tend to subscribe to something like a “steady-state theory” of the spontaneous manifestation or arising of latent beings.
Spontaneous manifestation or arising of latent beings (or viewpoints)… that is interesting.
So, Valkov, is that the same idea as given by The Pilot (which I assume is an interpretation of The Factors and other LRH data). Both yours and The Pilot’s description sound like MY (;-)) theory (somewhere on this thread), which is a variation of Genesis: original viewpoint begets more viewpoints, and those beget more viewpoints, etc. etc.
Also (@ both Geir and Valkov), didn’t you find it interesting that in The Factors, LRH talks about THE viewpoint and how it comes about, but as to “other viewpoints” just introduces the notion with “there are other viewpoints,” leaving it wide open! And he also refers to “the many viewpoints” with no further elaboration. Seems strangely unlike LRH, unless he knew what he was doing somehow…
It’s similar to the Biblical story. The first two people on earth meeting “other people”…
Yes Geir, I always thought that was a hoot – about Adam and Eve going down to a town and meeting other people!
Either the editors who put together “The Basics” of Christianity were careless, or someone intentionally left that in there as a clue to those “who have ears to hear”?
And Marildi, I have always interpreted that about viewpoints as him explaining how a viewpoint, any viewpoint, arises. I don’t buy the “original viewpoint” as begetting ALL other viewpoints; potential being what it is, it can beget any number of, shall we call them ‘first-order viewpoints’? Yes, these can split off or disown parts of themselves thus creating second, third, fourth-order etc viewpoints, eventually resulting in the condition Hubbard called “buttered all over the universe”.
First-order viewpoints are ‘uncreated’, they are latent. They are statics or thetans, perhaps.
I have never been comfortable with the word ‘thetan’, although I like the word ‘theta’.
Guess I need to LOOK at that, as Vinnie would say.
“Guess I need to LOOK at that, as Vinnie would say.” Cute, Valkov, and very ARC-ful. 🙂
I’m now looking at theta as being “potential” and thetans as viewpoints.
And I agree, it should be understood more like potential (rather than original or one/first viewpoint) begetting viewpoints. But I’m thinking that each of “the begotten” have potential too and can beget other viewpoints, which (having potential) can beget more viewpoints – and so it goes. This could explain “older and younger thetans.” (Doesn’t all that correspond to The Pilot’s description? And I’m assuming he is interpreting LRH’s description.)
Also, the above would be a very different thing from descending orders of viewpoint, in terms of quality (but not in terms of time). And having created viewpoints is not at all the same as “buttered all over the universe” – implying creations which have no potential, i.e. no ability to decide TO BE, ability to make postulates, have considerations. Remote,“buttered-all-over-the-universe viewpoints are “viewpoints” that are simply points from which to view (other def).
1 Before the beginning was a Cause and the entire purpose of the Cause was the creation of effect.
2 In the beginning and forever is the decision and the decision is TO BE.
3 The first action of beingness is to assume a viewpoint.
My sense is that one can be without assuming a view point.
Agree Vinnie, neither one not many. Because what underlies all and everything is pure unquantifiable potential, out of which everything quantifiable arises. Including individual beings,of which there are potentially, an infinite number.
But who’s counting?
haha Marildi! Yes, Geir is the winning valence, isn’t he? I am loving that guy and you too. “alter ego”-funny!
. . . I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together . . .
I was trained to think that “one-ness” was just a lot of hippie-drug-addict conceptualization. Determined to create a separate and fiercely individualistic personality I have successfully remained separate from others for a long time now. The ruin of my life has been the problematic compartmentalization of my beingness. In other words, I’ve been a different person to different people and different situations. Walled up in rooms – my problems would begin when I could not reconcile one beingness with another.
Taking a new look at one-ness newly and in a new unit of time and with the particular goal of resolving our basic nature, I am finding that this concept is fitting very well with several problems.
Consequently after initial physical reactions to this idea, I am settled back down but suffering from persistent FN. Oh well! hahaha!
I felt that – a really good and personal response. Chris – you’re da man.
Chris, love you too!
And I know! It does seem to make things gel and solve some incompletenesses (how’s that for stringing together many syllables, like another alter ego of mine likes to :-)). And besides, it feels somehow liberating, as I know you are saying too. Seems to be one of those things that keeps expanding (like a good cog – no wonder you’re F/Ning). Gives new meaning to things like, “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” LOL For me, it even solves “theta vs. thetan” in a way I never got from LRH (did you, btw?).
I’m thinking it’s a nifty tool for expanding into the dynamics – BEING them. Seems to sort of grease the road.
You say you’ve successfully “remained separate” and that sounds familiar – having gotten saddled sometime early in life (or an earlier life) with the notion that there are more “important” things – like, in a nutshell: “achievement”(i.e. people and even aritistic endeavors – not important).
The thing about compartmentalization of beingness (if I get your meaning) is something LRH talked about and I have thought about it a fair amount – valences, right? Some are knowing and causative (differentiated usually as “beingnesses,” rather than “valences”) and, like each of the tone levels, have their analytical uses. Others are “knee jerk” and not under our control, right? Auditing would ultimately solve them, I’m sure, but I also think we do have some ability (maybe a lot!) to “willfully” become aware of them and do something about them as we wish.
Not sure I duplicated where you said, “Walled up in rooms – my problems would begin when I could not reconcile one beingness with another.” You were walled up (separate from others) or the beingnesses were walled up in “rooms”(compartmented). I guess the former.
Your earlier comment about not being able to discuss Scientology in the Church – oh my god! That was such an impediment, eh? But now, here we are able to talk about anything we want, thanks to Geir and this platform of his (you called him a winning valence, I was thinking an OL too – who has more stature?). And you are a wonderful “player” here because you freely communicate and that encourages it in others (your other selves ;-)). I would say you are really making up for lost time in respect to being yourself (not a valence) and relating to others, which may even be the best of all doingnesses.
Guys; THIS is what I hoped could happen as I started blogging. This is it, right here.
Not totally sure exactly what THIS refers to but I’ll say one thing – you laid the foundation for a virtual community more real than most of the real ones.
Careful now, you’re going to make OTs here even before your book comes out. D)
🙂
“THIS” refers to people exchanging epiphanies, being personal, getting somewhere…
And I was thinking you may have meant any – or all of the above. Me too. D:)
Great ack!
We are starting to ask the right questions, thusly nullifying the paradox.
I want to write back to Marildi clarifying my earlier vagaries about some of my lying-escapist activities, but can’t just yet. . . going through my work day today, turning over 15 miles of ethernet cable that we installed in a factory and de-bugging a new processing machine that we are commissioning in a few days + blown out of my skull and snickering idiotically to myself + walking through a factory of 300 people and really “seeing” them . . . hahaha! . . . at the end of “The Matrix,” Neo is fighting Mr. Anderson after coming back from the dead. Anderson is having a psychotic break and throwing all his punches – and Neo is just blocking it all with one forearm while staring boringly at the floor and thinking about something else . . . if you could add Neo snickering to that scene, then you’d get how I felt today. hahaha!
hahaha! fucked that up-my bad! Neo is fighting “Agent Smith” (Neo IS Anderson-as Shelley has so politely pointed out to me- I hope no one’s head exploded over my mistake!) hahaha!
The picture you drew came through and it was a lot of fun experiencing it vicariously with you!
This “urge” to be an individual is very aberrated.
It now seems wrong to me that through years of Scientology study to have revered the word “individual” while scandalizing the word “individuated” without challenging this.
At 18 years of age, on my own, I observed a few things and made a few personal policies.
1. I observed that most of the stable data which I had been taught my whole life up to that point seemed wrong.
2. I observed that I wondered about “things” and then I observed that other people wondered about those “same things”, but they called them “philosophical questions.” Then I observed that people had been wondering about “these things” since man had been around. (yes, I was really quite the rube.)
3. Then I observed nobody seemed to know everything but that lots of people knew a little truth about something. Before reading KSW, I realized on my own that by a ratio of about 10,000:1 that people would dream up bullshit and tell it to you for the truth, so you had to be careful.
4. Do I developed a personal policy that I would talk to lots of people about my questions about life and I would listen to them (…even the dull and ignorant, for they too had their story…) And I would just sift through all this information with a critical eye and I would use what I could and round-file the rest. This worked very well for me.
5. A little over 4 years later my “asking of questions” landed me on a friend and neighbor who would be my original FSM introducing me to Scientology. I read a few basic books-the usual. I was unimpressed. One day my friend showed me The Factors and I was IN.
6. Always hungry for the “seratonin-rush” of reading “validating” literature that made me feel unique and in-the-know, I violated the policies I had made for myself only a few years earlier. At the mission where I took my first course; I received, listened to, and went into an agreement with a berating that I received about why I was out-ethics for wanting the mission to comply with a promise that they made and broke. The famous Scientologist who did this unimportant but what is very important is how in violating my own integrity – in what at the time was a small way – started me on a chain of similar integrity violations which I couldn’t put a halt to and become myself again for 30 years. A rude aspect of this is how I accepted the implants with open arms (…thank you sir, may I have another?…).
Today I feel like that 18 year old self again — Not in body but in mind. My purpose is resurrected and is as fresh and as wholesome and as the same as it ever was.
My reason for being?…is to know who I really am.
(I know-I know…but then I’ll take it from there.)
Geir, thinking about your research hypothesis of “we are all one,” I remembered a paragraph in History of Man –
“A common history of the theta line, as applied to your preclear, starts with his SEPARATION FROM THE MAIN BODY OF THETA, continues through HOME UNIVERSE, runs into his ENTRAPMENT BY MEST BEINGS and then through life as we know it – with its cycle of birth, MEST body living, death, between-lives wipe-out, and birth again.”
You noted on one of your earlier comments that LRH rejected the idea of “all one” and I recall getting that same idea from him, but I haven’t been able to reconcile it with the above. Can you? Maybe this is just another one of those “inconsistencies” that has to be resolved by looking at dates or context or whatever.
Sorry, didn’t meant to put this under Chris’ comment. Should have been over to the left.
Geir, I don’t see the original comment of mine (to you) that this “Sorry…” comment was referring to, so I’m wondering if there was some kind of a glitch. This one got posted but the first one is still “awaiting moderation” on my screen, from yesterday.
Ah, sorry – I am trying to find a reference for you in the comment to that post of yours.
Okay, no rush. It just seemed odd, so thought I’d ask. Interested in the reference you have in mind…
Here is a contradictory reference:
ONENESS, people have had the idea that there was a main body of theta and
everybody became “one” when you got to the top of the tone scale. Fortunately
that isn’t true. But you go down tone scale and everybody becomes one. And the
oneness is mest. There’s no individuality whatsoever in mest. (PDC 6)
But this “fortunately that isn’t true” does not seem to hold for me.
Got it, and “doesn’t seem to hold” indicates to me too, at least on a gut level so far.
I looked at that HOM paragraph again and thought maybe the key (or the “MU”) is in the phrase at the beginning, “A common history…” That doesn’t quite say it actually happened that way, if you see what I mean. Thanks for the reference!
I understand SEPARATION FROM THE COMMON BODY OF THETA, HOME UNIVERSE, ENTRAPMENT BY MEST BEINGS, etc all as incidents that may be found on the tracks of many beings and that may need to be run, not as any kind of descriptions of reality, Reality, or REALITY.
It’s not that these actually happened, but he was led to believe or made to believe they happened. In other words the content is fictitious, perhaps implanted, just as in post-hypnotic suggestion.
Although some of it I believe is part and parcel of “Entrapment by MEST beings”. Previous to that, there was entrapment by other theta beings.
That’s pretty much what I decided too when I looked closer at exactly what LRH said – COMMON history, and not even THE but A common history. And we know how precisely he chooses his words.
He also doesn’t often (IMO) miss the boat, however, and this particular idea would seem to be a basic among basics! So now I’m applying the study tech of “how it is and isn’t that way”. One thing I thought to ponder is his mention of older and younger thetans…hmmmm.
Here’s where I am in my ponderings. I started thinking about the metaphorical description of creation in the Bible and how that might align with not just The Factors (obviously) but also LRH’s idea about individuality (as opposed to oneness).
Roughly paraphrased, the Bible says that in the beginning, God (corresponds to – “before the beginning was a Cause”) created the heavens and the earth (dimension points) and then created Eve and from the rib of Eve created Adam (“there are other viewpoints”).
Now, since God created Man in his own image, Eve (in the image of God) may actually be the Cause that created Adam – what else would explain why the metaphor has it that he was created from HER rib? (But maybe some theologian has actually answered that, I don’t know.)
And, incidentally, this might also answer how a person could have the idea that they have created another thetan, as a student of mine in a word clearing (maybe FDSing) session once told me she had done (earlier on her track). This would be a different and separate phenomenon from the creation of a valence/circuit or a compartment of the mind, but I don’t know if LRH ever mentioned this kind of thing.
Anyway, assuming the creation of viewpoints worked as above – where The Viewpoint assumed another viewpoint and that viewpoint, unaware of it’s own origin, assumed another viewpoint, this one also unaware of its true identity – then we are all part of one and the same continuous “spiritual protoplasm line” – and that is how it could be that we are all one. (Did I spoil the concept completely now, Geir? :-))
Yes, that was a spoiler for my next blog post 😉
Well, that’s intriguing!
P.S. I forgot to say that this theory of mine could also explain LRH’s mention of younger and older (“degraded”) thetans. Maybe someone has another explanation about that, either LRH’s or their own…
Anyway, Geir, let the presses roll!
Oh boy, one more thing to add to that last point about so-called younger and older thetans – it is an attempt to understand how it could be that immortal beings, could be attributed relative AGE.
Yes, it is strange.
There’s some about ‘older’ and ‘younger’ beings and about the origin of beings here:
http://caersidi.freeshell.org/FZA/pilot/sscio/ss2a.htm
Yes, The Pilot does speak to the question of older and younger thetans – and so much else. Lots to think about…
Not to give the impression that I know much about the Bible (never was “drawn” to religion/Christianity, at all) but there is another parallel to the Bible in that book – Jewel of Knowledge=Tree of Knowledge. Seems there may have been some very intuitive beings way
back when the Bible was written.
Anyway, it seems to me there is truth to both oneness and individual-ness – and I’m glad because they both indicate! Could it be that this controversy is yet another problem in semantics amongst the different schools of thought?
Chris,
Happy for you on your “resurrection” – nothing so energizing as being on purpose!
Your point about individual vs. individuated reminded me of the definition of a “team,” specifically, the part that goes something like – the trick is to be an individual and a member of the team at the same time, and the only way to do that is to just come uptone and do it. (I’m pretty sure it’s in the Admin Dict, but mine got left behind somewhere along the way…) Does that do anything for you? It did me. 🙂
Integrity violations? Oh yeah, and I imagine few of us escaped that pitfall. But think of the LESSON that was learned! Utterly priceless. I just wish I could be sure the lesson won’t be lost – such an easy trap to fall into. Maybe the old “moderation in all things” is the applicable guiding principle, but I don’t know…
Your comment gave me an idea, though. Wouldn’t it be interesting if someone compiled an anthology of memoirs of Scientologists? I bet it would reveal some interesting, common threads running through. And variety too – from decade to decade and place to place, mission to org to sea org, “post” to “post” etc.
Hi Marildi,
Thanks for your thoughts.yes sometimes we just have to come uptone and do it. Your ideas about tone and team seem god.
I am trying to understand
Chris, good you reminded me of this “team” definition. I posted a comment earlier today to the effect that I am leaning toward believing there is both oneness and individuality. Maybe “individual and member of the team at the same time” is the microcosm within the macrocosm. I would like that. 🙂
Thanks for your kind comments Marildi. I agree with your comment on tone. On “moderation” – usually I do agree, but sometimes if a person is going to accomplish a goal, they’ve got to stretch the envelope a little. I know your reference was to our experiences as giving up entire life-styles to becomes members of CoS and I agree that large movement pendulum swings are usually unwise. Yet I do not regret the life I lived as I am still arriving where I ever “wanted to go.” Yes, there are as many interesting stories out there as there were of us living them!
Agreed, on all you said. As for “moderation in all things,” I guess that would include the principle itself – apply it in moderation. 😉
I see having an ‘urge to be an individual’ as comparable to having an ‘urge to survive’, as one can’t actually be or do anything else!
But that can get boring.
So,as Hubbard said somewhere, an individual’s problem can then become, How can I succumb?
I misposted this way downstream somehow. It really belongs here as a response to Chris’ statement that:
This “urge” to be an individual is very aberrated.
My response:
I see having an ‘urge to be an individual’ as comparable to having an ‘urge to survive’, as one can’t actually be or do anything else!
But that can get boring.
So,as Hubbard said somewhere, an individual’s problem can then become, How can I succumb?
However Chris, I believe I can help you with your finalsentences:
Your name is Chris Thompson. You are sitting with your computer reading Geir’s blog. You are in a delimited space of some kind. If you are in a room, notice that wall, then acknowledge yourself for doing so.
Now, notice the space between that wall and yourself, and acknowledge yourself for doing so.
Do that with each wall and the floor and ceiling too.
🙂
haha! Thank you Valkov. I needed that!
This is excellent, Chris. I am with you on this.
“Being” implies “individual” for me. There is no permanent being or individual. There is no inherent beingness or individuality. Everything is changing and is in a flux.
.
Well guys I’ve been away. As good as this thread is, some fresh blood is needed.
Have y’all read this thread on Marty’s blog?
http://markrathbun.wordpress.com/2011/04/14/l-ron-hubbard-in-perspective/
It’s long, many comments,but lots of good stuff there, with Indies, various Buddhists, Feral White Russians, and even Pierre weighing in.
To tantalize you, here are a couple of snippets from a maverick poster named Michael, who posts as “OnceUponaTime”:
“Underlying every explanation of truth is the actual truth.
To me, the bright approach to all this discussed in philosophy and religion and science is to not depend on the explanations but to experience as intimately as possible that which underlies those explanations.
To become enamored of explanation is to court a false bride. If I must marry, I would choose to marry what is actual rather than delusion.” – Michael
There are probably over 500 comments now, but worth the time.
Valkov, OnceUponATime/Michael is one of my favorite posters too. I also quoted him one time, right here on one of Geir’s threads. (Those Feral White Russians, does that include anyone we know by any chance?)
I like Marty’s blog too but you have to kind of get to know the posters so you don’t spend too much time on a lot of sarcastic jokes, which I get kinda tired of. RJ and Joe Howard (Dan Koon) make some pretty interesting comments, as do others who “were there.” Yours are good too, btw!
Holy cow, Valkov. I just checked out that thread and you are so right. Some very impressive – and educational – conversations going on there, including especially the ones you are taking part in, on Buddhism and on squirrels and on the tech.
So, you ARE a “Feral White Russian” :-). Your name for sure looks Russian but you speak (write) like English is your native tongue. But I gathered from what you said of where you were born that it isn’t. You may just have an excellent aptitude with language, You and Geir both seem like Americans to me (or at least 🙂 British). Or maybe the sense of “kinship” is because of the fact that I too am (part) White Russian (my mother’s family immigrated from Russia). Or maybe the kinship is just the “mere” fact that we are all one ;-). Oh, and my joke above about your not having watched much TV as a kid may not have been just a joke, eh?
I liked that you recommended Geir’s blog on that thread as you did Marty’s on this one. And that cool Buddhist guy (another George! come to think of it, ha ha) said he checked it out and thought there were some interesting discussions here too.
I’m thinking again about that Buddhist poster (George) and how his highly spiritual beingness really came through in his communication. Got me more interested in Buddhism. I can understand why you have delved into it so much.
And OnceUponaTime/Michael is in top form on that thread. I’m going to have to go back and see if I can more fully duplicate some of the stuff he was saying – the conversation was like a book you can’t put down, but it was getting pretty late by the time I hit the close button! (Geir, you may find him a terminal of comparable magnitude, although you are probably more judicious and he sort of let’s it all hang out in his philosophical “looking out loud” – I like both styles!)
Thanks Marildi!
I started learning English at a young age. Russian was my first language but English is now my primary language, and has been for many years.
In my family, facility with languages was assumed and expected, and kids were sent to whatever school was available whether or not they spoke the language the teaching was being done in! I was sent to an American kindergarten on our first visit to the USA. I doubt my English was that good at the time. In general,literacy and education was prized among Russians of our class, and Russian schools did not use watered-down books – the classics were used right from first-grade on. So the Tone 40 expectation was always “you can learn this”. And my mother always encouraged me to read, especially philosophy, history, and even science-fiction.
Growing up as a “stranger in strange lands” diverse languages were a barrier to be studied and overcome.
It also meant I had no-one much to talk with, as I lived outside of my cultural matrix, first in Japan, then in the USA.
That’s why I call myself “feral”. But I had much time to myself just to ‘be’, observe, and to read.
My name is Ilya Valkov, but I also have an English/American name under which I have lived most of my life, but unfortunately it has never really felt like “my real name”. It is my agreed upon name. At heart I am my original name. It is my BP.
I have also retained some viewpoints on life and philosophy in particular, from previous existence. However, LRH has improved my understanding of some of these considerably. I think I had exhausted what some other traditions could give me. At any rate, I felt so.
An early influence was Nicholai Berdyaev. I read a couple of his books way back when. Here’s a quote I particularly like:
“Philosophy … is the creative perception by the spirit
of the meaning of human existence.”
— from his book, Solitude and Society
There are a lot of good quotes of him here:
http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/Philosophy/Sui-Generis/Berdyaev/
Vakov, really interesting background you have! I love having more “context” to go with the posts. And that’s an eloquent definition of “philosophy” you quoted –“creative perception…” mmmm…
BTW, I found a good definition of metaphilosophy after you mentioned it earlier: “Metaphilosophy is the philosophical examination of the practice of philosophizing itself. Its definitive aim is to study the methods of the field in an endeavor to illuminate its promise and prospects.” Or, philosophy of philosophy.
I would say there’s a bunch of “meta-philosophers” around here, wouldn’t you? 🙂
Yep, nice find, Marildi. A word I coined a few years back to humerously describe myself is “Philosophologist.”
If you break it down to it’s roots, it actually has simple meanings which makes sense.
Maybe we here are also ‘philosophologists’, in addition to being ‘metaphilosophers’.
I broke it down and I think you’re right –your coined word (yes, humorous-sounding!) fits each of us here, to one degree or another. I myself have had a reach for philosophy as far back as I can remember (I mean this lifetime, but I’m sure before too – maybe back with the Greeks no less, if I picked that up right, in session one time). Less of the old zeal nowadays though, it seems. I’m less into a lot of significance – unless there’s practical application that I can see. And what’s now practical is different from when I was younger, if you know what I mean.
You guys, on the other hand, might be interested in knowledge for its own sake, eh? But, for me, I realized at one point that these blog discussions are valuable to a large degree for the simple “playing of (theta) catch” (communication) with others of like mind, and for me like mind means mainly Scientologists, i.e. ye ol’ basic ARC at work. Even better, is the fact that it’s a sort of road to truth – you learn about things, and about yourself and others and interrelating. Ah but, there I go philosphizing! 🙂
When considering one-ness as a theory of origin, I am asking myself if our intelligence “as individuals” is artificial.
There is no ‘oneness’. The ultimate ‘root’ of everything is a ground of unquantifiable potential.
Out of potential can arise beings of infinite degrees of intelligence.
Unfair as it seems, some can be very bright, others might be not so smart. However, since each one also has potential, each one can get more intelligent, too.
Thus it’s better to light one candle, than to curse the darkness.
I must amend myself – there can be ‘oneness’, and there can be ‘manyness’, but neither is a basic truth.
I am wrestling with a paradox.
1. The dynamic urges as laid out in concentric circles in Scientology from 1 through 8 are ordered counter-intuitively. In “birth” order God would naturally have been created first, and so forth, with the “individual” having been created last.
2. Then I draw a diagram of 8 concentric circles with a “nothing” label in the center circle, 8 or god labelled around this, 7 around this, etc.,. 1 is on the outside. I imagine this to represent a “ballooning sphere of considerations.” I’ve labelled “1” outside the 8th circle and “unbounded” by a 9th circle on its perimeter as I am not sure if it should be bounded. If I bound it with a 9th concentric circle, what do I label outside the 9th circle? or more precisely, what types of things would lie within the subset of the individual? Do our inventions such as technology fit in this subset? Is there a dynamic urge toward survival as say, technology?- or other various disciplines? What about our inventions? They are formed of MEST but they are the creations of individuals, no or yes?
3. Then using the Mandelbrot Set as a graphic model, I find myself looking at a boundary with increasingly complex boundaries “on the inside of the outside.” I imagine the repetitive iterations of the Mandelbrot polynomial to represent consecutive considerations as they add as representing a “ballooning sphere of considerations which shrinks.”
4. I seem to be wrestling with the idea of an “infinitely large and small subset of a finite consideration.”
5. I suspect that:
A. The answer might be connected to a relevancy problem between differing orders of magnitude.
B. I have not ask the question correctly.
C. Maybe using concentric circles is wrong.
D. Maybe there are problems with The Factor beginning with “In the beginning…” and including the “Three Universes” doctrine.
Chris, I was going to post a couple of weeks ago about the diagram, and never did. I believe it has been incorrectly described for some decades now, with the instruction being to label the circle in the middle as Dynamic 1.
I believe the more correct way to represent the Dynamics is to label the first concentric ring as Dynamic 1, leaving the circle in the center empty.
The empty center circle could be designated as “static”, “void”, “emptyness”, “source”, “cause”, Tao, or whatever, if one really must name it something. Vinnie may call it “unknowable” if he wishes; it is the ‘space’ within which everything exists and is also the source of that and other space(s).
The white paper outside of the concentric rings could be considered “that” also, as the actual 8 Dynamics maybe represented as existing in and sourced from an infinitely fertile white glowing dimensionless ’emptiness’ or ‘void’.
Would you like some of what I’ve been smoking? 🙂
In short, I believe the current official description of how to draw this diagram of the Dynamics was alter-ised from the original somewhere along the line.
So, the empty center circle and the entire white sheet of paper could be labeled ‘latency’ or ‘potential’.
Of course that partakes a little of reification, but what the hell? If we’re going to draw a diagram, it’s inevitable that some people will interpret the abstraction as a concrete ‘thing’.
Hopefully most of us here will realize we are trying to represent an abstraction in a somewhat concrete form. What other choice do we have? To always speak in non-seq koans?
(That could be a fun game too, mmmm?)
haha Valkov! It worked for James Joyce and he at least was able to buy scones to eat while writing his koans. haha!
6. So therefore I speculate and propose that we may be living our lives within a very narrow vector of the extant physical universe.
7. . . .That there exists at both ends of this vector imperceivable existence.
8. . . .That this imperceivable existence is only invisible to the naked eye but not to the mind’s eye.
9. . . .That the static exists omnipresently and while I am conjecturing add omnisciently as well.
10. …if so, this would help solve my previous conjecture that there is no hard line between knowable and unknowable and that in fact unknowable is a dodge and should have the letter “i” written after it to show that it is imaginary or rather illogical.
11. . . and Valkov – You definitely need to stop bogartin’, and pass the reefer!
Chris et al, maybe we could use The Pilot’s writings about IMPLANT UNIVERSES as a point of departure, sorta to get on the same page or starting line?
He has a lot in his writings about several of the topics brought up in this thread, like the ‘synching’, ‘static’, ‘history of man’, the dynamics(all 16 of them),etc.
Here are the chapters I’m thinking of:
SUPERSCIO #5A IMPLANT UNIVERSES http://caersidi.freeshell.org/FZA/pilot/sscio/ss5a.htm
Here’s the entire book he wrote:
Click to access Super%20Scio.pdf
And at the beginning of his book, The Pilot speaks to Geir’s question about whether we are One Cause or Many:
http://caersidi.freeshell.org/FZA/pilot/sscio/ss2a.htm
Ooooops! This is the link I meant to post….. Cuts right tothe chase on origin of thetans, are we all one, younger and older thetans, etc:
http://caersidi.freeshell.org/FZA/pilot/sscio/ss2a.htm
@Chris re your comment:
My reason for being?….Is to know who really I am.
That is also my reason for being, but lately I kind of prefer to see it as:
Life´s reason for being is ….Life´s desire to know itself.
But I´m not saying it with a big ego, I guess that before I can possibly answer that question, I have to get rid of all ego (or all me, he, he).
Of course,words and logic fail us when we try to adress this issue.
Should we use a logic which says is not possible to be individual and to be one with all individuals also?
Maybe down the scale is the oneness of mest in total isolation, but on top of it is there is oneness in total communication, and above that oneness, is the potential (individual?) creativity of any oneness.
Maybe there is not really any beginning or end, but just continual creation of beingnesses and universes, and who really are we, or what really is life, is really an answer which is ever changing as “we” create it, and as higher levels of awareness are achieved, new universes are being created.
The only thing I really know, is that knowledge itself can become very solid and fixed the moment we start becoming dependent upon it, and creativity, and creativity alone, is our only hope.
Yes Rafael – creativity and free or freed will.
Could you believe me? I see creativity and free or freed will as the same thing.
Or at least to me creativity can only exist as a manifestation of freed will…..
Creativity occurs at start of cycle, new beginning, as-isness. And inside this universe I guess it can be seen as a manifestation of self-determinism and individuality…….but I would like to consider it also as something which is really appearing from outside this universe as a manifestation of freed will or pure potential, which I believe is also part of us (or maybe, what we really are).
And, also, individuality is only meaningful inside this universe……
Yes, I get your meaning.
It is true that our language is a closed but expanding set. Seemingly setting up another fractal paradox.
I don’t believe there is necessarily an ultimate ‘reason for being’. Reasons are individual. Each person may have one or more ‘reasons for being’.
From http://caersidi.freeshell.org/FZA/pilot/sscio/ss2a.htm
“Before anything exists, there can only be nothing, But the preternatural nothingness must have a potential, and that potential must be infinite because an infinity of creations has descended from it. If there had been no potential, then we would not exist, and if the potential had been limited, we would have ground to a halt long ago.”
The basic error that I find in all pronouncements, such as the above, is that “nothing” is treated as “something.” “Something” can exist, but “nothing” cannot exist because there is nothing to exist. “Nothing” can only be thought of in terms of something. If there is no “something” then there is no “nothing” either.
The idea of potential is simply a consideration put there as an explanation of how something came about. It is a backward projection. Then one attaches further considerations, such as “infinite,” to the consideration of potential. It is very similar to what has happened to the consideration of “GOD.” Please see
Essay #7: THE NATURE OF GOD
To me, the observation above makes the whole “Super Scio” article suspect. It is just another speculation. Nothing more, nothing less.
.
OK Vinnie, please name something that is NOT SPECULATION.
Even UNKNOWABLE is 🙂
Yes, UNKNOWABLE is a consideration too. Any truth is a consideration.
I am not going for a lack of consideration. I am going for consistency among the considerations I have made.
.
Vinnie,
That may be impossible, because “Time states the untruth of consecutive considerations”.
A person always makes a liar of himself, sooner or later.
Or as some one else put it, “Change is the only constant”.
How can you hope to find consistency in the considerations you have made,in the face of that?
Or as Ralph Waldo Emerson said,
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do.”
The essay is here, it’s very good in context:
http://quotesnack.com/ralph-waldo-emerson/a-foolish-consistency-is-the-hobgoblin-of-little-minds-ralph-waldo-emerson/
Everything is a consideration. Speculation is a type of consideration.
.
Vinnie,
I have been examining some of your posts and the key word you often use that caught my attention is the word “reduce” and “reduces”, as in “Everything reduces to considerations”. This is simply not true.
I have decided this is where you are stuck. Everything is NOT a consideration.
You have collapsed ISnesses with Considerations, and are considering them to be the same. A=A. They are not the same. Considerations are considerations. ISnesses are ISnesses.
Yes, you must consider there is an ISness for you, for there to be an ISness for you. But the ISness and the consideration are not the same thing. ISnesses do not “reduce” to considerations. Carried to the extreme, this desire to’reduce’ ISness to considerations amounts to denial of the reality of ISness. It’s a Not-ISness.
Now, with all this messing around with significances or lack there of, I also think maybe your havingness needs to be remedied, so I suggest Geir take you down to the Mediterranean on his yacht, and then overboard you. There’s nothing like a brisk dip in cold water to pull a guy out of his considerations and right into the ISness of things.
Hopefully that will do the trick, as the next step I am considering for you should the overboarding fail to bring you to your senses, you would like much, much less!
I do believe everything has consideration as its base – what else could it be? And I have QM to back it up 😉
LOL!
.
😀 Very clever! Nothing like injecting a note of levity now and then.
Geir, I just realized in reading a later post of yours mentioning quantum mechanics, that by “QM” in the comment above you probably meant quantum mechanics. Ha ha – at first I thought you were chiming in with Valkov’s kidding Vinaire about overboarding him – QM meaning “Quarter Master”! (As in – yacht-overboard-backed up by a Quarter Master…LOL)
I meant the above validation of humor for all of you – Valkov’s and Geir’s witty humor and Vinaire’s appreciation of it!
Vinnie, I read your essay on The Nature of God and posted the following criticism:
“How do you know what is ‘unknowable’ and what is ‘knowable’?
These are just your opinions. Your essay doesn’t make sense to me. It has a lot of assumptions in it, and generalizations about what motivates ‘people’ as a generality to invent various ideas and speculations. They are not true and applicable for everyone, as I see it.”
Your essay is basically a psychologistic explanation of why some people might have invented the concept of a “God” of some kind.
If you said it was to explain to themselves phenomena they otherwise had no explanation for, it might make some sense. But your introduction of ‘unknowable’ really makes no sense. People have used the concept of “gods” or “God” to account for things they didn’t know – yet. As science and knowledge advanced, other explanations were found for the unexplained phenomena in question.
But by no means were these things ‘unknowable’ except in a very relative sense. They just weren’t known yet.
You keep beating the dead horse. Here:
po·ten·tial (p-tnshl)
adj.
1. Capable of being but not yet in existence; latent: a potential problem.
I think you need to understand this particular definition of ‘potential’.
Let’s see if we can state it without using the word ‘nothing’, ‘nothingness’, emptyness, void, whatever.
Let’s see if we can speak about ‘it’ without reifying ‘it’. Let’s see if we can speak about ‘it’ without even using the word ‘it’.
Before your computer existed, it had the potential of existing. Before your chair existed, there was the potential that it could exist. Before you existed, ‘you had’ or ‘there was’ the possibilty that you could and would exist.
‘Potential’ is not ‘some thing’, yet we speak of it and it is a word that can have meaning.
You are being concrete about everything, and it doesn’t facilitate communication.
And yes,you are right, ‘nothing’ is not a ‘thing’. The word means ‘absence of things’, ‘absence of any thing’.
That’s it’s meaning, I think we all know that. It’s a word, ya know? Do you know what a ‘word’ is? You have to look past the word to get the meaning it is intended to carry, ya know?
All words are ‘placeholders’ for an underlying reality, ya know?
Here’s the other word:
la·tent (ltnt)
adj.
1. Present or potential but not evident or active: latent talent.
Not manifest or apparent. Existing only as a possibility.(Added by me.)
So,instead of saying the world came form ‘nothing’ we can simply say the world was ‘latent’ until it appeared. We don’t even have to mention any ‘void’, ’emptiness’, ‘nothingness’ that it came from.
Does that sufficiently avoid the potential for reification that is inherent in trying to talk about this matter?
I believe Valkov is paving a path. Good.
Good comment, Val.
Here’s how I see it now:
The idea of “All Things Knowable” has the background of the “Unknowable” is philosophically neat. Except that the Unknowable must have relevance in order for this philosophical statement to bring about any forward progress. The relevance is that “All Things Knowable” arises from the “Unknowable”. But then we know something about the Unknowable – we know that the Unknowable has the potential of having the Knowable arise from it. So instead of calling it “Unknowable with one known attribute”, I prefer to call it by that known attribute, i.e. Potential.
This is what I have posted on my blog in response to all the objections spawned by my last post here:
“To me, the common denominator of everything that can be thought, sensed and perceived, can be expressed succintly by the idea of CONSIDERATION.
Futhermore, to me, the common denominator of all considerations is the consideration of UNKNOWABLE, because it is the consideration of UNKNOWABLE that gives rise to all other considerations.”
~Vinaire
And this is good. From that one could deduct that Unknowable has the Potential to give rise to the Knowable.
I do not accept the concept of Unknowable because it is a stop, it places us under a limit.
In terms of sets it says: there is no bigger set than this one. In terms of knowledge it says I know there is nothing else to know or I can´t know more……this universe is not inside a bigger one….no other universes are possible…
Of course opens the door to running out of control in a wild chase of butterflies…..je je
I guess it ultimately could deny our potential or creativity.
As a personal preference, I agree with Rafael. I am not much in love with the word unknowable. With everyone’s point in this thread well taken, unknowable is my least favorite and for the same reason that it draws a line in which I do not believe. It seems inconsistent and births a paradox: defining the undefinable.
Ups…my last comment should be read as:
Of course opens the door to running out of control in a wild chase of butterflies….(And my wife has some strong opinions about that…je je….ahem….).
Ups.. and ups again…seems I´m using HTML where I shouldn´t…I need an edit button…
My last comment should read as follows:
Of course MY POSITION opens the door to running out of control in a wild chase of butterflies…(And my wife has some strong opinions about that…je je…ahem…).
Geir said, “And this is good. From that one could deduct that Unknowable has the Potential to give rise to the Knowable.”
I would correct it as follows:
“From that one could deduct that the consideration of Unknowable has the Potential to give rise to the Knowable.”
Unknowable is a consideration like the consideration of anything else. I have already said in the essay on CONSIDERATION that a consideration may give rise to many more considerations. This is the property of the “sphere of consideration” that I have been talking about.
My basic consideration is that we can only know what we consider. We cannot know what we haven’t considered. And that underlies the consideration of Unknowable.
You may take this to whatever degrees of fractals you want, but you still would not know how a consideration comes about in the absence of other considerations. And that also underlies the consideration of Unknowable. 🙂
.
And beyond consideration there would be a Potential for consideration.
Vin: “My basic consideration is that we can only know what we consider. We cannot know what we haven’t considered. And that underlies the consideration of Unknowable.”
Chris: I totally get it. Unknowable is the declaration that there is nothing to know about nothing. You cannot know what cannot be known and therefore your assertion that there is nothing that you can know about nothing nullifies your postulate that you can confidently consider there is such a nothing as unknowable. Simple.
It is impossible to know what you don’t know. You may speculate over it, but then what you’ll know is your speculation.
.
But you didn’t know that before you speculated, right?
Nor do you know afterwards. You may only know what you speculate at any moment.
.
Sure. I was only pointing out that you Can know what you don’t know. “Can” as in potential.
Someone, I can’t know who, has told me I should ‘LOOK’ instead of speculating.
What do y’all think about that?
Vin: “It is impossible to know what you don’t know. You may speculate over it, but then what you’ll know is your speculation.”
Chris: “Yes, I believe I wrote approximately just that. And you are speculating that there does not exist a non-area that is the Unknowable. You have well documented that you do not and cannot know anything about this. Your saying it as a mantra won’t make it any less so than it already is not. Thus ending the circle which isn’t any circle nor circuit nor anything at all as there is not nothing not travelling on it’s non-circuituous circuit.
Because Vin refuses to acknowledge that I know what he is writing about I shall now both acknowledge and correct myself:
“Chris, that is just your consideration. You cannot know what you don’t know and any statement on the subject at all simply adds to the ballooning sphere of nonsense!”
(I really should do this for a living!)
“…I shall now both acknowledge and correct myself”
😀 Hilarious.
Vin: “It is impossible to know what you don’t know. You may speculate over it, but then what you’ll know is your speculation.”
Perhaps if one ‘looked’ at it one could then ‘know’ it?
Chris says-
(I really should do this for a living!)
Maybe we could go on the road as the Incredible Smothers Mothers or sumpin’
Hmmmm. If Vinnie went too, that would be 3 of us and we could be the 3________
Oh, never mind
You guys could have a Variety Act and bill yourselves as The Erudites or Sumpin’- with everything from the Sublime to the Ridiculum. Ha ha!
I guess I better go read that essay on Considerations, because off hand I’d say that a consideration cannot give rise to anything else at all, as any consideration is an effect.
In this I believe you are in error. I would say consideration equal postulate equal creation.
In this I believe YOU are in error as Vin quite ably proved that because there is nothing to know about nothing and therefore there is only a ballooning sphere of considerations germinating from other considerations and hence nothing created – only considerations considering other considerations – swimming in a consideration sea of considerations . . . but there is at least ballooning . . . this arises from the consideration that there exists infinite hot-air. hahaha!
Experiments show that considerations created are not capable of collapsing the wavefunction, hence decide or consider. Therefore, I would conclude that the beingness surrounding a cause point is not what considers – it is the cause point that considers. Or the Potential if you like. As I said, it is evident in the very least that the vast majority of considerations (as used by Vin) is not capable of further creation. I go further to conclude that no considerations are capable of considering (i.e. collapse the wavefunction) and only a cause point can. My question then become “can a cause point split”?
What are those experiments? Cause Point and Potential are just considerations like God that act as a placeholder for the Unknowable. You only know the placeholder. You don’t know what underlies it. As I said earlier, you can only know your own consideration.
.
And here I have come to the conclusion that your philosophy is wrong. It doesn’t predict considering, only consideration. It does not explain why something has the potential to give rise to consideration while other things do not. I cannot see that it brings progress to philosophy.
@Vinnie:
“Cause Point and Potential are just considerations like God that act as a placeholder for the Unknowable.”
Perhaps, but in that case Unknowable is just a consideration that acts as a placeholder for….. what?
Don’t say anything, because whatever you say will only be a consideration that acts as a placeholder for ________.
You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of blah.
Laotze was wise on this matter.
+1
Interesting. Tending to agree. Geir disputes but only I think because the thread of logic got lost. Geir wants to understand creation but when you read Vin enough you can tend to drift toward a MEST only viewpoint. . . I am saying that a consideration can create a consideration in that a robot machine can manufacture, but is that creation? Generally we are referring to creation at that activity which brings something into existence where, before the consideration, nothing was. Right?
Having past 500 comments on this tiny blog post, and since the cat is out of the bag, it is time to release the lion. New post on The Blog Near You awaits. Just hold your breath.
Geir said, “And beyond consideration there would be a Potential for consideration.”
I don’t think so. The idea of Potential would itself be a consideration. I doubt if you can escape the fractal of considerations.
Hence, there is this consideration of UNKNOWABLE.
Q.E.D. 🙂
.
You are arguing in circles – there is no forward progress in arguing that the consideration Unknowable is a background that gives rise to other considerations. Also in that you have admitted that in the consideration of Unknowable has the potential of giving rise to other consideration.
The Unknowable only exists for one who is ‘thinking’ instead of ‘looking’.
Your postings about ‘unknowable’ seem to apply only to people who are at the level of ‘aware only of own evaluations’. (It’s in the Scientology 0-8 book).
Perhaps it doesn’t apply to you but I think you should be overboarded in the Mediterranean just in case. A good swim is very invigorating and healthy for a person. See? I am only concerned for your welfare, good buddy! 🙂
I just don’t see anywhere above ‘looking’ where ‘considering’ comes into it – unless you want to ‘consider’ that it enters in at NOT-KNOW, just below NATIVE STATE?
Well, above LOOKING you have POSTULATE 8according to LRH, that is) – and CONSIDERATION is a continuous postulate.
Yes. My little 0-8 book says th eExpanded scale is
Native State(omniscient)
Not Know
Know About
Look
etc
The first postulate is, I believe, Not-know (in order to be able to have a game)
I recently downloaded all the lectures of the 4th London ACC, which covers just these things and more – stuff like the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th postulates, in just the early lectures. Yum yum.
So perhaps Vinnie is just trying to keep himself from floating up,up and away! into Omniscience?
Better get him on your yacht so you can do you-know-what to help bring him back to Earth!
Otherwise he might end up back up there in that Golden Vedic Cloud he descended from prematurely, up there in the Andromeda galaxy or wherever it is.
OK, so you bring about UNKNOWABLE by your consideration of it, and Geir brings about POTENTIAL by his consideration of it.
“In this corner,wearing the Blue trunks…..”
Ding!
And may the best ISness win!
Anything is there because it is considered to be there.
“Neti, neti.”
.
In which case it is the considering that ’causes’ it to be there?
And from that, couldn’t I argue that in considering Unknowable, you are actually creating Unknowable?
That is, if ISness comes about as a result of considering.
Yep
And by doing so, aren’t you then creating your own personal “Cloud of Unknowing”?
Cloud of Unknowables, Unknowablenesses, and Unknowingness. Multiple Unknowingnesses!
Re: You are arguing in circles… (Geir)
It must be some deficiency of language that I cannot get myself across. A consideration giving rise to other considerations does not imply a potential that is beyond considerations. You may consider that though.
And, yes, it is circular… or rather spherical…
.
I am looking at the value of this line of thought, and I see little. I see a great deal of value in the practice and tech of Looking. That is Very Valuable. But the circular arguments based around the Unknowable seems to get me nowhere. It may get me somewhere at some time – but for now I will explore the essence of creation through understanding the most successful theory in the history of Mankind – Quantum Mechanics.
I understand.
.
Mission accomplished.
https://isene.wordpress.com/2011/03/10/an-aspect-of-freedom/#comment-3943
“But there is an obvious difference between considerations capable of considering and those who cannot.”
Agreed! And the search will go on, as it has gone on until now. We have done a good job in mapping the structure of the physical universe, but we cannot complete that mapping, until we also map the considerations underlying that universe.
At their base, the considerations are totally arbitrary without any logical structure. We are entering a new territory. Call it “mathematics of arbitrariness.” It is a whole new universe at the base of our current universe. I have no idea where the investigation of this universe will take us.
.
Geir: “Experiments show that considerations created are not capable of collapsing the wavefunction, hence decide or consider. Therefore, I would conclude that the beingness surrounding a cause point is not what considers – it is the cause point that considers. Or the Potential if you like. As I said, it is evident in the very least that the vast majority of considerations (as used by Vin) is not capable of further creation. I go further to conclude that no considerations are capable of considering (i.e. collapse the wavefunction) and only a cause point can. My question then become “can a cause point split”?
Chris: Agreed, but (minus your question about a cause point splitting) this is covered by basic Scientology, isn’t it? By this I mean that the definition of Static easily covers what you are referring to as cause-point. Right?
1. We are not bring up nor are discussing intention.
2. Sandwiched between the cause-point and the caused, is intention.
3. or do you prefer to label cause-point as synonymous with intention?
4. But language-wise, intention sounds like a tool of Theta, doesn’t it? I believe we were taught this.
5. How does this dovetail with your lucid dreaming and the splitting of the cause-point?
Cause considers (intends). The result is considerations.
On 5; I am exploring this.
As for the point on static: Yes, right.
How is this different than my statement that (the resulting) considerations are effect, and therefore not causitive of anything?
By causitive I mean creative, rather than a mechanical chain of causes.
It’s not different. We agree.
https://isene.wordpress.com/2011/03/10/an-aspect-of-freedom/#comment-3927
What Emerson seems to be talking about is keeping consistent with one’s fixed ideas and notions, or with what is generally agreed upon in the society, and not questioning it. Here I am talking about questioning inconsistency among observations as science does.
These are apples and oranges. I didn’t expect you to be so literal, Valkov, like a 1.5 on the Tone scale. Were you serious or just kidding? According to your argument Einstein would be a “little mind” for exploring the inconsistency of classical mechanics.
.
https://isene.wordpress.com/2011/03/10/an-aspect-of-freedom/#comment-3967
Vinnie,
Did you actually read the whole page? Or even the whole quote?
I entirely fail to see how you get this – “What Emerson seems to be talking about is keeping consistent with one’s fixed ideas and notions, or with what is generally agreed upon in the society, and not questioning it”,
out of this –
“Emerson, above all, advocated self awareness and independent thought, sometimes challenging that authority should not be accepted unless validated by a brutally honest inner truth.”
“What is true for you in your private heart is true for all men.”
from Emerson’s essay titled Self Reliance, as is the ‘hobgoblin’ quote.
Then I don’t understand the initial point you were making because I am essentially saying the same thing that Emerson is saying.
.
Well Vinnie, this all started with my comment on your statement that “I am going for consistency among the considerations I have made.”
Me, being Feral and oppositional personality that I am sometimes, immediately thought of some quotes on the subject, that appeared to refute the likelihood or even the desirability, of trying to achieve an overall consistency of considerations.
Upon reflection, though, it is possible that we are all striving for such a ‘consistency’ – by striving to re-integrate ourselves with our myriad creations and achieve ‘Integrity’.
However, I have a suspicion that such a ‘consistency’ is not to be found ‘out there’ in the world of considerations, but being true to our own basic – are you ready for this – Individualities!
So perhaps it is the world that is such a hodge-podge of contradictory considerations that it lacks consistency, and not really ourselves. If we are mirrors, then perhaps we are simply mirroring the inconsistent considerations around us, and the best we can do is take ownership of them the best we can.
I am sorry that I tend to be abstract and mathematical, but the following is my view:
(1) Inconsistency is introduced by the practice of alter-isness and not-isness.
(2) Removal of inconsistency paves the path for as-isness.
(3) The sequence is removal of inconsistency to achieve consistency; and then viewing the consistent whole to achieve as-isness of the whole.
(4) Thus, as-isness may be achieved at a level, sub-level, sub-sub-level, etc., as and when practiced.
This is how consistency appears in my scheme of things. I do not think this to be the consistency that Emerson is talking about.
.
The unkowable that I refer to is so only from the viewpoint of knowable universe. Until one as-ises the viewpoint of the knowable universe, the unknowable cannot be grasped if at all.
You may make fun of this view, but this is where I am at the moment.
.
My current effort is to as-is the viewpoint of the knowable universe. Granted that this a pie in the sky, but it is worth going for.
And this means spotting all possible inconsistencies in the knowable universe.
.
Essay #13: The Paradox of Unknowable
“One may say, “Cause considers (intends). The result is considerations.” That explains Cause only as an observation. It does not tell you how that observation came about. Thus, the idea of Cause itself is nothing more than a consideration. One may also say, “The resulting considerations are effect, and therefore not causative of anything.” This is an observation with some thought added to it. Thus, the idea of Effect also is just a consideration. What I have said here is consideration too by the same token…”
.
However it does not explain cause or predict that cause even exists – although it is obvious that considerations are caused.
I will abandon this line of research in favor of research into QM.
Vinaire, I haven’t closely followed this whole conversation with you guys, but would you say that – the only knowable isness is *consideration* (the def meaning the act of considering)? It seems so because if we looked at THAT idea as being a consideration (the other def – the product of considering), in so doing we are in fact involved in the act of considering, and thus left with consideration still going on, still there, still being in place, sticks like glue, just can’t get rid of it, can’t shake it off… 🙂 (You’re right, hard to communicate this stuff.)
Marildi, I am pretty much done considering the subject of UNKNOWABLE after writing the essay on THE PARADOX OF UNKNOWABLE on Vinaire’s Blog.
Thanks, for your comment.
.
Okay, and I think I got your basic answer already in the comment you made on the next blog thread, about placing two mirrors facing each other. I wonder, is your mirror, like LRH’s, actually a static – as described in Scn 8-80? (You can take that as rhetorical, if you like.)
Myself, I just find it hard to get away from the fact that even if I am only *considering* that I am considering (i.e. something is going on), then I or some-thing must exist. Similar to “aware of being aware” – I am aware that I am considering, and thus I am (or there is) a “consideration unit.” To paraphrase Descartes also – I consider, therefore I am (a consideration unit). Or – based on your own wise emphasis – I “look,” therefore I am. 🙂
Anyway, I think I do get your viewpoint too. I should add that I hope you knew I was just razzing you guys in my comment above, about you all going “from the Sublime to the Ridiculum.” I actually believe “all roads lead to Rome” in this search of ours and your route may even be faster, but we will all get there, one route or another and with a little help from our friends (just my considerations 😉 ).
And don’t forget to smell the flowers and enjoy the warm sunshine along the way Marildi.
I will! And all the flower children too. 😉
https://isene.wordpress.com/2011/03/10/an-aspect-of-freedom/#comment-4091
Marildi, thank you for your interest. To me UNKNOWABLE is a dimension that one is totally unaware of.
Right now I am revisiting KHTK 2, and comparing LOOKING to THINKING. It appears that there are always some input to look at. In LOOKING, one simply compares the input to one’s existing considerations for a match. The recognition of a match tells one what is there. THINKING comes about when there is no match, and one starts to newly consider a match with the input. Dub-in lies in this domain.
LOOKING does not involve creation of new considerations, but THINKING does.
.
I got you, and I don’t equate the two either. But what I wanted to say was that any of the three – think, look, or consider – implies an existence that is capable of each of these. LRH’s “mirror,” not only records images of motion but can create motion to record – i.e. even a “concept” is a high-wave thought (wave=motion),which is also in Scn 8-80. I guess we could add “conceiving” to the other three, eh? Anyway, this mirror has the Ability to think, look, consider, and conceive and is designated as Life or Static. And I don’t think it’s just giving a name to an unknownness, but naming an actual conception – something conceived, rather than merely mirrored. We’re talking here about creativity and about free will vs. determinism, aren’t we?
https://isene.wordpress.com/2011/03/10/an-aspect-of-freedom/#comment-4091
Marildi,
No, I am using two mirrors as an analogy. The images that are created are infinite in number, but the basis of those images is a finite configuration. By as-ising that finite configuration, one can as-is those infinite images.
In other words, the infinity of considerations may be as-ised. What is then left is beyond consideration, and cannot be described. That is why I call it UNKNOWABLE. That term is just a place holder.
.
https://isene.wordpress.com/2011/03/10/an-aspect-of-freedom/#comment-4096
Marildi,
To me, there are existing considerations held in place, and there is capability of (a) to look at existing considerations, and (b) to bring forth new considerations. I call (a) above as LOOKING, and (b) above as THINKING. Who holds the considerations, and who does the looking and thinking is unknowable to me at the moment.
I do not know if there is any recording of images. That seems to be an apparency. There seem to be only three phenomena: (1) manifestation of considerations, (b) holding of considerations (c) looking at considerations.
I do not yet know what self-determinism or free will is. It all goes into the bin called “unknowable” for me.
I don’t want to assume anything.
.
That’s funny, Vinaire – I was just about to answer your post above this one and say, “I get it. You don’t want to assume ANYTHING” – and now you say just that. Take a win!
And I see now that you’re not saying there is no “basis” of considerations, just that you know nothing about that basis (i.e. nothing other other than that it is the basis of considerations) and are calling/naming it “unknowable.” Fair enough. And I take it this “basis” is different from “Cause” in that you make no assumption of it being the CAUSE of considerations. But then, in what sense is it a basis?
Am I supposed to know that?
~Vinaire
Okay, let me ask you something else. If all a person does is to look, doesn’t think or consider or conceive or anything else but look, how would that be different from an actual mirror, which is just MEST and does nothing more than reflect. In other words, if only looking is validated, then only MEST is validated. (Correct me if I have this wrong.)
But I don’t see that you, yourself, are like a mirror! You are a philosopher and philosophers do a lot more than MEST does. They come up with theories, with ideas, with postulates, with considerations. You are not preaching what you practice, Vinaire. 😉
The difference would be that looking IS creation while consideration receiving another consideration is reception (here is the difference between me looking at an electron effectively deciding its nature whereas an electron hitting another electron is a reception and involves no decision of its nature).
Looking is recognizing what is there. If nothing is there then one recognizes that nothing is there.
In looking, it seems that one ends up looking at one’s own considerations. The recognition of that fact brings about as-isness.
All that ensues then is watching considerations appear and disappear. There are no longer any fixed considerations.
.
Yes, of course. Guess I got tangled up in the words, thinking of the mirror analogy and Vinaire’s approach of only talking about considerations, leaving out of the picture the considering itself.
Though Vinaire himself does like looking. Maybe I should ask him to look at look, anatomy of.
What do you say, Vinaire? Sorry I misrepresented your idea, but I still don’t understand how considerations (the products of considering), relate to other considerations. These are all mere waves (high-wave thoughts) according to the definition of “concept” in Scn 8-80 and thus wouldn’t be able to do any looking, would they?
OK, here is some more explanation of my theory. It is perfectly fine to notice inconsistencies, but one should know what one is assuming as differentiated from what one is confronted with.
LOOKING is simply recognizing what is there without adding anything more to it. If one is looking at a consideration then one is simply recognizing the existing consideration. One is not creating a new consideration. At no point in looking does one create anything. Of, course, THINKING is all about comparing, manipulating and creating considerations. THINKING is not LOOKING.
Now you may ask, “Who is looking?” If the answer is, “I am looking,” then the next question is, “Who or what is this ‘I’?” As far as I am concerned I don’t know what “I” is. I may speculate about it, but, honestly, I don’t know. So, I shall call it “unknowable” until it becomes possible for me to know it.
According to my theory, one may only know one’s considerations. Thus, one may know one’s considerations about “I”. But, “I” is beyond consideration, and therefore, unknowable to me. Yes, that is my theory, and theory is made up of considerations.
Does any of you know what “I” is? Or, these are just speculations that you are holding?
One considers a consideration. We are doing it all the time. Here we are looking at a verb (consider) and a noun (consideration). Great! So, a verb is different from a noun, but that doesn’t shed any light on “I”. “I” is still unknowable to me.
Maybe, one of you know about it. But I don’t. I am just being honest.
.
Here goes for clarity from me as well:
The Unknowable you refer to as the core of “I” is not unknowable if you can possibly know it in the future. It should then be referred to as Unknown.
Also, that Unknowable is different from some Unknowable that does not have the capability of Looking.
Thus, this Unknowable that can look and speculate is not fully Unknowable as we do know that it can look and speculate.
Therefore, we should not name it Unknowable.
Since it can consider, we know it has the potential for creating consideration. Therefore I propose the term Potential. That would set it apart from the true Unknowable which in fact cannot have relations or capabilities in any way in any part in any theory in order for it to be Unknowable. The latter Unknowable is of course wholly irrelevant in any and all contexts – because any relevance would render it less than Unknowable.
For me. what I refer to as UNKNOWABLE, simply does not lie in the dimension of knowledge; just like the “square root of negative one” does not lie in the dimension of real numbers. The UNKNOWN would be something that may still be found in the dimension of real numbers.
For a long time people thought that the “square root of negative one” was irrelevant, just the way you are looking at UNKNOWABLE to be irrelevant.
.
The problem is the form Unknow-ABLE means it cannot be known ever ever ever ever ever ever by anyone. It means ‘not ABLE to be KNOWN’.
But what we are talking about, that your ‘unknowable’ is your ‘placeholder’ for, is something we can know something about, that’s why you are getting all the flak for using that word.
Gurdjieff was reputed to be planning a book that as far as I know, was never written. It’s title was supposed to be “Life Is Real Only Then, When ‘I AM’.”
When you are real, life is real. When you are not, life is not.
The chicken and the egg arise simultaneously.
Every single point Geir has articulated I have been thinking too. With what you just posted it now seems there has not really been any inconsistency with your actual meaning but with the semantics involved among all of us.
I get that you do actually recognize the existence of an “I” but don’t feel you can say anything with certainty about the nature or qualities of that I, other than that it considers. I can totally have that!
By “unknowable” you are simply referring to the nature or qualities of “I”. That is probably the key point where the understanding has broken down, with me and I would guess some others. IF I have finally duplicated what you are actually saying, would you please use another word so that all us admirers 🙂 won’t get confused?
You are right. I am not negating spirituality and promoting materialism. I am simply questioning what people believe in the name of spirituality.
Please see my last response to Geir where I provide the analogy of the “square root of negative one” for UNKNOWABLE.
.
Vinaire, you indicated above that there is a “basis” for considerations and that you are “not negating spirituality.” How are you meaning “basis for”? That is unclear to me. Since you applied the term, you must have had in mind exactly what you meant by it. This might clear up the failure to communicate amongst us.
But… but…. Vinaire is The International Unknowable Man of Mystery!
Here is a bootleg clip of him demolishing the Britney Spears fembot sent to assassinate him!
And here is the Unknowable Man of Mystery in Japan…..
The secret identity of Austin Powers is revealed. Sorry Vinnie, I’ve blown your cover haven’t I?
These didn’t “work”. You have to make them computer-challenged proof for some of us.
Looking without judgement results in no seeing. I don’t think this is a correct goal for looking.
In fact, looking without judgement would not even be looking according to what Vinaire himself said above: “Looking is recognizing what is there. If nothing is there then one recognizes that nothing is there.”
Why do I say that? Because every definition of
“recognizing” involves either “identifying” or “acknowledging” and each of those would have to involve judgement – which is defined with such terms as “decision, opinion, conclusion,” the very things one would be doing when recognizing.
I wanted to say that before but resisted. So now I’ve completed the comm! 🙂
Very thorough Marildi. I feel the “urge” to say that you are quite quite a bright and positive force on this blog. Kind of the peacemaker. I like your obvious focus on understanding the comments you read before commenting back … very conscientious – you don’t seem to have the same “foot-in-mouth” disease that I have.
Just as a note for anyone interested, I am really enthusiastic to begin solo auditing. I am feeling really alive with purpose – the way we all should feel about whatever we are working on in life. I have definite personal goals and hope to be able to contribute more in the future.
Oh my gosh, Chris, thank you for the validation! I do sometimes attempt to be a peacemaker and appreciate being “recognized” (ha ha – there’s that word). And as for the rest of your kind remarks, well, ya know what they say – takes one to know one… 😉
But I hope you got in my reply above that I was actually chiming in with you on what you said about looking and seeing, and was taking off from there. You’re right – so-called looking without judgment means one would not even SEE what was there, because he wouldn’t RECOGNIZE what he was “looking” at. No matter how you cut it, there’s no getting away from some sort of judgment – recognition, evaluation, decision, conclusion, opinion, etc. (all the things connected to a life unit that can postulate, which is basic to each of them). This is what we in fact EXPERIENCE and in that sense at least, we KNOW it to be an isness. All you have to do is to LOOK at the experience itself and this is evident…
I know that you were directing your comment to Vinaire, and so was I with mine. It may very well be that Vinaire is onto something totally valid and is simply not communicating it in a way that doesn’t come across as inconsistent. And that is why my attempts have been to have him clarify what he is saying, especially by defining the words being used. “Worst” possible scenario for him is that he may decide his theory IS inconsistent and would then be able to modify it accordingly.
(You got me on a roll here, Chris, and now you’ll know better than to encourage me!)
Hey, “foot in mouth” never occurred to me with you – more like things along the lines of thoughtful (in the sense of looking :-)) and “up front” and in honest COMM. You have often emphasized the value of ARC and I’ve noticed that even when you get pissed you come back later with the obvious intention to get the comm, the ARC, back in. You see, I recognize you too! (Dontcha love our mutual admiration society. LOL)
Last but not least – that is so well done on your starting to solo soon! You already contribute plenty but I agree, it can’t help but increase. Hurray for you! And hurray for us, your other selves!
in second paragraph “…postulate, which is basic to each of them” = basic to each of those words (judgment, recognition, etc)
“urge”
I define as a compulsive reaction or as a compulsion to react to stimulus.
Remove the compulsions, then the MEST universe must look very different.
Maybe we will play a new and better MEST game, or maybe we’ll have new ideas about gaming and MEST will become irrelevant. . . . Who has thought this one through, anybody?
“Love the one you’re with.”
That’s my take so far. 🙂
🙂
And when one feels fear or any mis-emotion at all toward a
subject or area, they also lose freedom.
Freedom is what one experiences when they are free from their computations in the Tech dictionary sense.
All computations result in loss of freedom. And all loss of dreedom is the result of someone’s computation.
Love this epiphany!