http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7322113.stm
Seems when it comes to co-operating Rooks do as well as Chimps, but Chimps can plan which the researchers suggest is because Chimp also cheat each other, while Rook society is more stable. I guess if you don't know the value of co-operating then you can't be devious either. So what if a devious Rook evolved?
Monday, 31 March 2008
Wednesday, 26 March 2008
I don't have ego!
What a wonderful statement this is. First note it is self-referential.
Second note that the very belief that one does not have ego stops one seeing the truth that one does have ego.
This is the problem of ego, it blinds us to the truth... and most significantly the truth of itself.
Second note that the very belief that one does not have ego stops one seeing the truth that one does have ego.
This is the problem of ego, it blinds us to the truth... and most significantly the truth of itself.
Tuesday, 25 March 2008
If one does good then one does not do good...
This type of paradox which is present in Christianity and Buddhism I think I have a solution to.
Jesus says if you go to the altar to be seen by your fellow man praying then that is your reward. But, if you go in silence to pray before God then your reward is in heaven.
Likewise Buddha says in the Diamond sutra that if one thinks that one is helping others, then one is still attached to the form of self and others, and what one does is not truely good.
How then are we to do good, without knowing it?
If what we do, is deemed good in reflection then it was good. However if we need to think about what is good or not good before we act, then our actions are inauthentic! A performing monkey, a robot, can do what it is told, this is not the nature of goodness: and knowing intellectually and telling ourselves is not any better than being told.
True goodness is our true nature, we don't have to struggle or think about being good it comes naturally when we are pure... it IS the behaviour of a person free from delusions... they may comment to themselves that "I am being good", but not dwell upon this unremarkable observation because it is just what they naturally do.
If we find we are doing bad, then we must purify the causes of this ignorance. This is the struggle. For this an intellectual knowledge of good and evil is essential, but our true goodness comes spontaneously from within not from pre-programs or learned traits, and will shine all by itself when we are cleansed.
Jesus says if you go to the altar to be seen by your fellow man praying then that is your reward. But, if you go in silence to pray before God then your reward is in heaven.
Likewise Buddha says in the Diamond sutra that if one thinks that one is helping others, then one is still attached to the form of self and others, and what one does is not truely good.
How then are we to do good, without knowing it?
If what we do, is deemed good in reflection then it was good. However if we need to think about what is good or not good before we act, then our actions are inauthentic! A performing monkey, a robot, can do what it is told, this is not the nature of goodness: and knowing intellectually and telling ourselves is not any better than being told.
True goodness is our true nature, we don't have to struggle or think about being good it comes naturally when we are pure... it IS the behaviour of a person free from delusions... they may comment to themselves that "I am being good", but not dwell upon this unremarkable observation because it is just what they naturally do.
If we find we are doing bad, then we must purify the causes of this ignorance. This is the struggle. For this an intellectual knowledge of good and evil is essential, but our true goodness comes spontaneously from within not from pre-programs or learned traits, and will shine all by itself when we are cleansed.
Monday, 24 March 2008
What is Law?
The words Logos in greek, Dharma in Sanskrit can be replaced with the english word Law. But Law is a confused term. Jesus is described by John as being the Logos - the word/law. The planets orbit according to laws of physics and the government votes on the countries laws.
In general a law would be that which determines a behaviour, or a way of being. Legal laws are in place however because people have in the past behaved otherwise, and authority is mobilised to "force" them into adherence. The planets on the other hand can never stray from the physical laws. The moral laws are different again. A wise person always behaves in accordance with the Law, only those who cannot see stray, and the cost of straying is suffering (this is the general religious code). People like Abraham who could "hear the will of God", are what we would call wise. The wise always obey the law.
So the physical law and the moral law are alike in that they refer to a Law intrinsic in nature that the wise or learned can discern. Physics is still advancing its tools and its description of the physical laws (I suspect an endless process because of the well documented issue in this blog of the Woozle problem of Self-Reference that eventually the descriptions will have to refer to oneself at some level). Both the physical laws and the moral laws can best be described as Reality. The scientist and those on a spiritual path are one and the same then, listening with ever growing quietness to the voice of reality. The good scientist and the good student of suffering are both humble servants to reality.
This leaves legality as the odd one out. Legality does not describe a reality, it is something like a social contract or a protocol that enables people to work together harmonously. It is like the rules of a game, that have no fixed nature, and are held temporarily for fun or for some purpose. However legal law can never replace Reality, and where they conflict people are the loser because suffering comes. So in fact better than Legality is just wisdom and adherence to Reality. If everyone did that we would have the perfect society and no need for Law.
Law can never be given that much significance because it is at best a bad copy of Reality, and at worst a recipe for suffering. So the adage, 'Rules are for the instruction of fools and the guidance of wise men' proves its worth.
Is not the lesson of King Knut this? He made the common mistake of believing that his authority was real, rather than simply an agreement with the people. So he sat before the sea and ordered the tide to recede. Of course the tide knows nothing of human "law" and obeys only reality and so King Knut got his feet wet.
Human authority is a fantasy as real as the significance attributed to that ball going on one side of a line rather than the other ... which they call a goal in football... but it never really happens ... balls often cross lines and mean nothing!
In general a law would be that which determines a behaviour, or a way of being. Legal laws are in place however because people have in the past behaved otherwise, and authority is mobilised to "force" them into adherence. The planets on the other hand can never stray from the physical laws. The moral laws are different again. A wise person always behaves in accordance with the Law, only those who cannot see stray, and the cost of straying is suffering (this is the general religious code). People like Abraham who could "hear the will of God", are what we would call wise. The wise always obey the law.
So the physical law and the moral law are alike in that they refer to a Law intrinsic in nature that the wise or learned can discern. Physics is still advancing its tools and its description of the physical laws (I suspect an endless process because of the well documented issue in this blog of the Woozle problem of Self-Reference that eventually the descriptions will have to refer to oneself at some level). Both the physical laws and the moral laws can best be described as Reality. The scientist and those on a spiritual path are one and the same then, listening with ever growing quietness to the voice of reality. The good scientist and the good student of suffering are both humble servants to reality.
This leaves legality as the odd one out. Legality does not describe a reality, it is something like a social contract or a protocol that enables people to work together harmonously. It is like the rules of a game, that have no fixed nature, and are held temporarily for fun or for some purpose. However legal law can never replace Reality, and where they conflict people are the loser because suffering comes. So in fact better than Legality is just wisdom and adherence to Reality. If everyone did that we would have the perfect society and no need for Law.
Law can never be given that much significance because it is at best a bad copy of Reality, and at worst a recipe for suffering. So the adage, 'Rules are for the instruction of fools and the guidance of wise men' proves its worth.
Is not the lesson of King Knut this? He made the common mistake of believing that his authority was real, rather than simply an agreement with the people. So he sat before the sea and ordered the tide to recede. Of course the tide knows nothing of human "law" and obeys only reality and so King Knut got his feet wet.
Human authority is a fantasy as real as the significance attributed to that ball going on one side of a line rather than the other ... which they call a goal in football... but it never really happens ... balls often cross lines and mean nothing!
Fred Dibnah, techne & Auschwitz
Great TV program over the break on this great entertainer who has amazed me at making things i'd never looked at before like steam engines and pit lifts become fascinating bits of history.
In particular I wish to celebrate his appreciation for craftsmanship. A word that has lost its meaning in a capital/profit driven world. But, as I'm always reminded: what is the point of money if there is nothing to buy with it? What underpins an economy is not the capital, but the wealth of craft and skills in its culture and its people. Of course the rich don't hold this view, because they wish to be held as the pivots of society, but sadly everything around them is built not with their money but the hands of their fellow men.
I'm more familiar with logic than history, and through the sense of logic I would say that a great injustice has been done to the aristocracy. Whipped up by greed, the industrialists turned the crowds against the aristocracy, and supplanted their evolved and refined etiquette with their own cheap gutteral lifestyles and tastes. Now we have a new aristo-crass-y of people with money but no idea what to spend it upon. Combine this with a system that worships only profit and you have an unskilled, automated and pressured workforce manufacturing what amounts to only paper-wealth from the dark satanic mills. There is no place for skill or craft anymore.
Adding to the downfall of craft is the rise of bourgeois arts. Art became more and more isolated from its roots in craft to grace only the pompous stages and picture frames of Europe's monied classes. Where once art had been true to its greek origin as techne, true to the notion of anything that requires skill to make, now art was distilled from the mass produced profit infected produce of the factories. Money, money everywhere but nothing of value to buy.
Likewise a "qualification" these days, like the bank note, is paper-wealth it refers to nothing - a new type of fiat currency. Once 5 years experience would have been qualification, but now this immesurable skill is worthless against the artifice of hurdles and jumps that is a paper qualification. And, upon the subject of the immesurable nature of skill Plato for one has written copiously.
Not that I am in favour of vocational qualifications. Education is not about employment and profit! It is about the mind, it is about broadening horizons, giving the mental skills to master a world. Language, maths, history, religion amongst the most valuable things that exist. Without these there is no man. And, especially in a democratic society where each person is to take responsibility for the country's governance - are these not even the more important? A recent catalogue of naive and embarrassing government re-enactments (esp. the wars) easily foreseen by a public with even a slight knowledge of history and ethics (there is nothing new under the sun - know the past, know the future).
So our pockets are now lined in this age of machines and sweat shops, but alas we are the less wealthy because the quality of what we buy is poor. Once enjoying a single good purchase of something that would satisfy for many lifetimes, now we make do with weekly shopping trips to replace and feed the decaying insubstantial materials that fill our saturated houses.
But what has become worse in recent decades is that even that paper wealth has started to erode. The money that once we had in our pockets (a token recompence for the loss of worth in our labour and our shops) has been eroded by inflation, taxation, and gradual monopolisation of the markets. We are poorer today than ever before, the edifice of our once rich lives fossilised by nominal wealth, government regulation and edifice. The house of cards is held in place by glue now, much of the value leeched away as society turns upon its head and the fight for nominal value tokens tightens the noose ever further.
Economists like Thorstein Veblen argued long ago that the wealth of nations lay in the skill and labour of the people, not in the capital accumulation at the top of the pyramid. The powerful are becoming more and more naive of the most important feature of power, it only exist where people accept the authority. The moment that trust is gone, the power evaporates like darkness in the dawn. The darkness of global authority seems to think that it can exist all by itself, a hark back to that dismal mediaeval belief in Divine Right of Kings. Kings ancient and modern all know that power is a relationship with the people. If they chose to ignore you, then power is gone. Fascists have learnt that you don't need the support of all the people, just enough to provide an army to protect the status quo. Sad are those pigs caught between the authority they sold their souls to and the will of their fellow people! I think always of the pigs who worked in the concentration camps. Doing their days work, taking the money, lapping up the praise of their masters like dogs and driving their brothers and sisters to putrify and haunt their dreams. Pity on all those pigs who become mindless hounds trapped into the bidding of a master... and almost every news carries stories of the atrocities caused by the "police" and "armies" be they China, Iraq or America. People whose consciences are afraid to refuse orders are the bricks that built Auschwitz. This is the cost of the truth that society is built upon its people, and not upon its leaders. It is the people that must chose who to support and work for, and not allow any individual in their ranks to do this work for them.
All this because we accept an authority that has forgotten that it is the skill of each and every one of us upon which the society is built and which Fred Dibnah once rejoiced in so infectiously.
In particular I wish to celebrate his appreciation for craftsmanship. A word that has lost its meaning in a capital/profit driven world. But, as I'm always reminded: what is the point of money if there is nothing to buy with it? What underpins an economy is not the capital, but the wealth of craft and skills in its culture and its people. Of course the rich don't hold this view, because they wish to be held as the pivots of society, but sadly everything around them is built not with their money but the hands of their fellow men.
I'm more familiar with logic than history, and through the sense of logic I would say that a great injustice has been done to the aristocracy. Whipped up by greed, the industrialists turned the crowds against the aristocracy, and supplanted their evolved and refined etiquette with their own cheap gutteral lifestyles and tastes. Now we have a new aristo-crass-y of people with money but no idea what to spend it upon. Combine this with a system that worships only profit and you have an unskilled, automated and pressured workforce manufacturing what amounts to only paper-wealth from the dark satanic mills. There is no place for skill or craft anymore.
Adding to the downfall of craft is the rise of bourgeois arts. Art became more and more isolated from its roots in craft to grace only the pompous stages and picture frames of Europe's monied classes. Where once art had been true to its greek origin as techne, true to the notion of anything that requires skill to make, now art was distilled from the mass produced profit infected produce of the factories. Money, money everywhere but nothing of value to buy.
Likewise a "qualification" these days, like the bank note, is paper-wealth it refers to nothing - a new type of fiat currency. Once 5 years experience would have been qualification, but now this immesurable skill is worthless against the artifice of hurdles and jumps that is a paper qualification. And, upon the subject of the immesurable nature of skill Plato for one has written copiously.
Not that I am in favour of vocational qualifications. Education is not about employment and profit! It is about the mind, it is about broadening horizons, giving the mental skills to master a world. Language, maths, history, religion amongst the most valuable things that exist. Without these there is no man. And, especially in a democratic society where each person is to take responsibility for the country's governance - are these not even the more important? A recent catalogue of naive and embarrassing government re-enactments (esp. the wars) easily foreseen by a public with even a slight knowledge of history and ethics (there is nothing new under the sun - know the past, know the future).
So our pockets are now lined in this age of machines and sweat shops, but alas we are the less wealthy because the quality of what we buy is poor. Once enjoying a single good purchase of something that would satisfy for many lifetimes, now we make do with weekly shopping trips to replace and feed the decaying insubstantial materials that fill our saturated houses.
But what has become worse in recent decades is that even that paper wealth has started to erode. The money that once we had in our pockets (a token recompence for the loss of worth in our labour and our shops) has been eroded by inflation, taxation, and gradual monopolisation of the markets. We are poorer today than ever before, the edifice of our once rich lives fossilised by nominal wealth, government regulation and edifice. The house of cards is held in place by glue now, much of the value leeched away as society turns upon its head and the fight for nominal value tokens tightens the noose ever further.
Economists like Thorstein Veblen argued long ago that the wealth of nations lay in the skill and labour of the people, not in the capital accumulation at the top of the pyramid. The powerful are becoming more and more naive of the most important feature of power, it only exist where people accept the authority. The moment that trust is gone, the power evaporates like darkness in the dawn. The darkness of global authority seems to think that it can exist all by itself, a hark back to that dismal mediaeval belief in Divine Right of Kings. Kings ancient and modern all know that power is a relationship with the people. If they chose to ignore you, then power is gone. Fascists have learnt that you don't need the support of all the people, just enough to provide an army to protect the status quo. Sad are those pigs caught between the authority they sold their souls to and the will of their fellow people! I think always of the pigs who worked in the concentration camps. Doing their days work, taking the money, lapping up the praise of their masters like dogs and driving their brothers and sisters to putrify and haunt their dreams. Pity on all those pigs who become mindless hounds trapped into the bidding of a master... and almost every news carries stories of the atrocities caused by the "police" and "armies" be they China, Iraq or America. People whose consciences are afraid to refuse orders are the bricks that built Auschwitz. This is the cost of the truth that society is built upon its people, and not upon its leaders. It is the people that must chose who to support and work for, and not allow any individual in their ranks to do this work for them.
All this because we accept an authority that has forgotten that it is the skill of each and every one of us upon which the society is built and which Fred Dibnah once rejoiced in so infectiously.
Sunday, 23 March 2008
Tibet & the issue of Violence
It is remarkable to see the attitude of the Chinese people following the unrest in Tibet (for example in http://news.xinhuanet.com/) because it so closely mirrors recent Western prejudice regarding anyone who challenges the West. People in the West think they are educated and well informed, and yet the Chinese who we have argued are ill informed and naive are arguing exactly the same as we have done!
Something is wrong. Either the Chinese people are well informed and it is not the Communist government which is spreading anti-Tibetan propaganda but our own spreading pro-Tibetan; or the Communist government has been successful in spreading anti-Tibetan propaganda as have our own governments in spreading anti-Taliban and anti-Hussein propaganda. You can't have it both ways!! This is a bad catch-22 for the West because either way they lose tremendously.
The general rule, plain and simple, is that whoever disagrees with us is wrong.
For this reason I would say that the Chinese are wrong, because they have a vested interest in keeping Tibet, and so are bias against the Tibetan's and anyone more powerful than the Chinese government. But that makes the West wrong in Iraq and Afghanistan because we have a clear vested interest in these areas (and have had for over a hundred years).
So I suppose the only thing the Chinese people must learn, exactly as the West needs to learn it: is never listen to anyone who has anything to gain from their point of view... because it is inevitable that this point of view will be biased in their favour.
Of course in the rare occasion you find someone saying anything that is against their interests then you know for sure you have found truth.
China has learned well from America tho. Ever since its inception and before America has excelled in this type of argument. I stamp on your foot, scratch your car, spit in your food and mount a prolonged and irritating offensive against the intended foe... until the point where the foe retaliates. All you need do is make sure that everyone sees the retaliation and then they look like the bad guys and you can then attack with impunity.
The sad think is the naive public fall for it every time... but maybe because the public have their vested interests also.
This is the way of the world I have noticed for a long time now, and at the moment I have no solution to what can best be described as the devil amongst us.
The path of non-violence (ahimsa) takes a "long time" so the Dalai-Lama says in Kundun. I have thought about that a lot. A "long-time" I have assumed means as long as it takes, in other words until the conditions that have caused something dissipate of their own accord. Fundamentally those conditions can be traced back to actions of our selves, it is karma that we must bear.
Last week however he admitted that "his" had got no results. This is something I have noticed also. If we show a weakl face to the devil then he will exploit that weakness. However if we express a strong face to the devil, we can be guarenteed that he will only fight the harder. How do you passify an agressive and ignorant agent?
Firstly one must act not from self-interest (after all that is part of the ignorance of the agent themselves), we must instead act with the interests of the agent at heart. If we can only raise hatred against the agent then there can be no resolution. But, at the same time not against our own interests where possible. This is often impossible where interests fundamentally conflict as in Tibet.
I have found that compassionate strength is the right way. That is we are powerful enough to be fearful, but we do not aim to harm. On an individual level that is fairly easy, on a national level it seems impossible. How can the Tibetan people form a Gandhi like resolve that would be prepared to be entirely massacred without any act of violence, and then simply not-cooperate with the authorities.
The other way of course is simply to become Chinese and give them what they want. The Dalai-Lama becomes a spirirtual leader out-side Chine like the many that already exist (including the master I have followed), and the Tibetans who wish to remain Tibetan must leave Tibet. The rest just become Chinese under the Communists. Big deal! "Communism" is a temporary formation, "Chinese" is a temporary formation that I would argue has already disintegrated (ask any Chinese what it means to be Chinese and they have no clue - its meaningless already), so what arethe Tibetans fighting for? A temporary formation called Tibetan? or spiritual enlightenment. If they want the latter they can do that anywhere under any name.
Something is wrong. Either the Chinese people are well informed and it is not the Communist government which is spreading anti-Tibetan propaganda but our own spreading pro-Tibetan; or the Communist government has been successful in spreading anti-Tibetan propaganda as have our own governments in spreading anti-Taliban and anti-Hussein propaganda. You can't have it both ways!! This is a bad catch-22 for the West because either way they lose tremendously.
The general rule, plain and simple, is that whoever disagrees with us is wrong.
For this reason I would say that the Chinese are wrong, because they have a vested interest in keeping Tibet, and so are bias against the Tibetan's and anyone more powerful than the Chinese government. But that makes the West wrong in Iraq and Afghanistan because we have a clear vested interest in these areas (and have had for over a hundred years).
So I suppose the only thing the Chinese people must learn, exactly as the West needs to learn it: is never listen to anyone who has anything to gain from their point of view... because it is inevitable that this point of view will be biased in their favour.
Of course in the rare occasion you find someone saying anything that is against their interests then you know for sure you have found truth.
China has learned well from America tho. Ever since its inception and before America has excelled in this type of argument. I stamp on your foot, scratch your car, spit in your food and mount a prolonged and irritating offensive against the intended foe... until the point where the foe retaliates. All you need do is make sure that everyone sees the retaliation and then they look like the bad guys and you can then attack with impunity.
The sad think is the naive public fall for it every time... but maybe because the public have their vested interests also.
This is the way of the world I have noticed for a long time now, and at the moment I have no solution to what can best be described as the devil amongst us.
The path of non-violence (ahimsa) takes a "long time" so the Dalai-Lama says in Kundun. I have thought about that a lot. A "long-time" I have assumed means as long as it takes, in other words until the conditions that have caused something dissipate of their own accord. Fundamentally those conditions can be traced back to actions of our selves, it is karma that we must bear.
Last week however he admitted that "his" had got no results. This is something I have noticed also. If we show a weakl face to the devil then he will exploit that weakness. However if we express a strong face to the devil, we can be guarenteed that he will only fight the harder. How do you passify an agressive and ignorant agent?
Firstly one must act not from self-interest (after all that is part of the ignorance of the agent themselves), we must instead act with the interests of the agent at heart. If we can only raise hatred against the agent then there can be no resolution. But, at the same time not against our own interests where possible. This is often impossible where interests fundamentally conflict as in Tibet.
I have found that compassionate strength is the right way. That is we are powerful enough to be fearful, but we do not aim to harm. On an individual level that is fairly easy, on a national level it seems impossible. How can the Tibetan people form a Gandhi like resolve that would be prepared to be entirely massacred without any act of violence, and then simply not-cooperate with the authorities.
The other way of course is simply to become Chinese and give them what they want. The Dalai-Lama becomes a spirirtual leader out-side Chine like the many that already exist (including the master I have followed), and the Tibetans who wish to remain Tibetan must leave Tibet. The rest just become Chinese under the Communists. Big deal! "Communism" is a temporary formation, "Chinese" is a temporary formation that I would argue has already disintegrated (ask any Chinese what it means to be Chinese and they have no clue - its meaningless already), so what arethe Tibetans fighting for? A temporary formation called Tibetan? or spiritual enlightenment. If they want the latter they can do that anywhere under any name.
Thursday, 13 March 2008
Wednesday, 12 March 2008
If i think i am praying then i am not praying
So says the coptic monastic in a BBC radio documentary. Exactly! this is one of the most fundamental truths. Jesus says if i go to the altar to be seen at the altar then that is my reward. If you go silently to pray to God then your reward is boundless and in Heaven. So says exactly the Buddha: if you think you are helping then you are still bound to the illusion of self and other.
And this is exactly the point of self-reference... that if we think we are reflecting upon ourself then we are not.... why because it is ourself that is doing the reflecting! We are always outside the frame because we are the camera and a camera cannot take a picture of itself. This does not mean that a camera does not exist, but to itself if is nothing... (and what is not to itself is irrelevant anyway).
Now take Descartes. I think therefore I am, should actually be "I think I am thinking therefore I am not".
Kierkegaard (apparently; after Wayne's World), ' If I name thee, I negate thee'. That which comes under scrutiny so that we think we know it, actually we are doing the opposite and knowing it's illusion and it's mask.
A moment of contemplation, a moment of prayer, a moment of goodness, a moment of self all occur without us calling them that... indeed without us thinking "about" it. To think about it we must stand apart from it and have a look. As i realised on Ben Macdui mountain: ironically the more effort I put into climbing the mountain the less of the mountain I could see and the more of its neighbours. We always see what we are not, what is past, or out of reach. What we are, what truely exists, is known because it is the air that we breath, the light that enters our eyes, the ground upon which we walk... things we never think about when they are real. But here I refer to unreal things, ideas, words, images, thoughts; things we can't breath, or see or stand upon, things which we only see on the horizon from the unknown mountain upon which we stand as we read this.
But don't search for this mountain: the dog chasing it's tail, the camera dreaming of what it looks like, Pooh searching for the creature that made the tracks: truth is Being not knowing. Accepting that reality is already here; we don't move.
Last night I dreamed I was a butterfly
Today I am a butterfly dreaming I am a man.
What is the use of imaging what we are! A butterfly or a man; it makes no difference. We are. Stop.
But!, we protest, I must know what things I need to do tomorrow, what items to buy, who I must meet, the doctors appointment, the appointment at the bank, the pension and holiday plans...
And Sherlock Holmes will solve the murder, but that isn't reality!
Yes we do swim in the vast ocean of unrealities that we call "life", and to get out would be like Sherlock Holmes just walking off the stage... and he might fall in the process and hurt himself... but then was that in the play or not?
Let the play continue, and let the audience from the safety of their seats watch the illusion. But each and ever person there is abandoning the reality for the spectacle of the play, for reality is no spectacle, it doesn't unfold on any stage; we know reality when we suddenly find the stage around us, the spotlight upon us and a script forced into our hand: that is reality. And, we may as easily be alone when it happens, and it matters not what the script says, because Reality is always there and so never changes.
And this is exactly the point of self-reference... that if we think we are reflecting upon ourself then we are not.... why because it is ourself that is doing the reflecting! We are always outside the frame because we are the camera and a camera cannot take a picture of itself. This does not mean that a camera does not exist, but to itself if is nothing... (and what is not to itself is irrelevant anyway).
Now take Descartes. I think therefore I am, should actually be "I think I am thinking therefore I am not".
Kierkegaard (apparently; after Wayne's World), ' If I name thee, I negate thee'. That which comes under scrutiny so that we think we know it, actually we are doing the opposite and knowing it's illusion and it's mask.
A moment of contemplation, a moment of prayer, a moment of goodness, a moment of self all occur without us calling them that... indeed without us thinking "about" it. To think about it we must stand apart from it and have a look. As i realised on Ben Macdui mountain: ironically the more effort I put into climbing the mountain the less of the mountain I could see and the more of its neighbours. We always see what we are not, what is past, or out of reach. What we are, what truely exists, is known because it is the air that we breath, the light that enters our eyes, the ground upon which we walk... things we never think about when they are real. But here I refer to unreal things, ideas, words, images, thoughts; things we can't breath, or see or stand upon, things which we only see on the horizon from the unknown mountain upon which we stand as we read this.
But don't search for this mountain: the dog chasing it's tail, the camera dreaming of what it looks like, Pooh searching for the creature that made the tracks: truth is Being not knowing. Accepting that reality is already here; we don't move.
Last night I dreamed I was a butterfly
Today I am a butterfly dreaming I am a man.
What is the use of imaging what we are! A butterfly or a man; it makes no difference. We are. Stop.
But!, we protest, I must know what things I need to do tomorrow, what items to buy, who I must meet, the doctors appointment, the appointment at the bank, the pension and holiday plans...
And Sherlock Holmes will solve the murder, but that isn't reality!
Yes we do swim in the vast ocean of unrealities that we call "life", and to get out would be like Sherlock Holmes just walking off the stage... and he might fall in the process and hurt himself... but then was that in the play or not?
Let the play continue, and let the audience from the safety of their seats watch the illusion. But each and ever person there is abandoning the reality for the spectacle of the play, for reality is no spectacle, it doesn't unfold on any stage; we know reality when we suddenly find the stage around us, the spotlight upon us and a script forced into our hand: that is reality. And, we may as easily be alone when it happens, and it matters not what the script says, because Reality is always there and so never changes.
Monday, 10 March 2008
Saturday, 8 March 2008
Maybe this the meaning of life?
Carol Barnes dies today at the untimely - in these days - age of 63. My mother comments that she died of a broken heart from the loss of her daughter. My God-mother also suffered greatly from the loss of her daughter and she slowly declined. "My muse" too declined from the loss of her greatly loved father, saying that something inside died and according to her sister she was never the same afterwards. Something too died inside me when she died, but unlike the above i instinctively fight and to decline upon the loss of anything is to lose even more: the battle.
Indeed the last girl who I had designs to marry left the country last month - for good. The closing of a final chapter in my life : the end of any aspirations to being "happily married". I now officially have no reason to be alive save for supporting my widowed mother and my sister when she needs a support, and a few friends etc who sometimes like me around. I've no desire for career, possessions, achievements or anything... I am ready to die and at least see "my muse" again.
Its an interesting state of affairs, not in any way unhappy, its just very, very honest. In fact if I could use this gaping honesty which my life now possesses devoid of any compromises or split loyalties I feel I could really find peace and happiness. "what point is there to life?", is a question I have been almost too afraid to ask for all my life: what if there was no answer? what if really it matters in no way at all what we do? why be happy, why be sad? What reason separates the two? Am I the only judge of what is good and bad? simply that I don't like being unhappy makes a life meaningful? after what is written in this blog on self-reference this sounds a very hollow thud! That this life should determine for itself what makes it live rather than die? This vacuity like trying to take a breath in space has no nutrition, no wonder I am afraid of that question!
It is awakening in me however an unbelievable awareness that there is life beyond desire and self, beyond the "I want"; just I am unable to see it at the moment, just catching a hint of its scent in the back of my mind's nostril.
You see I'm still very much of the mind set which states that there is but one motivation in life and that is desire. It is desire of love, friendship, companionship, food, happiness, excitement, contentment etc and driven by this our lives map out - driven almost completely by an unseen navigator. The above mentioned had very strong desires for people: daughters, father or potential partner and each based their life upon that. The corruption of that desire brought their life to a pathetic standstill.
It occurred just now in the shower. The "self" is clearly a vacuum. I cannot see myself, I have searched! i cannot "think" myself, I have searched! I cannot even think how I might think myself, and here I have searched too! The self is always illusive, always just around the next corner... reminding me of my favourite story as a kid after which my father even nicknamed me: Woozle (Pooh goes hunting a Woozle). After searching for some time Pooh finds a set of tracks... the story continues until Owl points out that Pooh has simply joined his own tracks... this is the Self in action!! There is no self to see for it always escapes. Dream we may of what the Woozle looks like, but we can never know because it is "ourself", it is as they say "empty"; existent but hidden at once.
So the ignorant build their lives upon the vacuum of empty self, when blatantly the obviously existing thing is other people. It has been a dull mantra told me by everyone of any religious persuasion that helping others is the path, yet I never got it. Why help others? what if I need help? why don't we help ourselves first then we wouldn't need to help each other? what use is there in giving other people what they want, when we should be teaching them mastery of desires? etc yes it is a dull mantra, because its not quite true.
It is not that we should "help" others, as a doctor might help his patients. It is not about us "doing" anything at all. It is about stepping away from finding the answers within ourself, within the shadows cast by the candle of the world. Watching that shadow we believe we know ourself, but the world moves and then so does the shadow it casts: but we hold on and persuade ourselves it was the shadow that moved. Looking for ourself, we grasp the shadow: something is wrong! (bit of pseudo-haiku there).
I cannot believe how hard this is. How vast the sacrifice, how much we must lose before I hope this transformation can happen. Jesus had to die upon a cross, I only hope there is an easier way.
Really the self is the problem. The slavery of being driven by desires, and the fear of having no other reason to exist. If we stop getting what we want then the suffering, the painful thoughts that plague our minds, the evil that arises drives us into a darkness of cold, painful suffering and we come our running toward the comforting arms of desire again, or some even die! This is the trap. Through that very fearsome darkness i am hoping lies the way out. If not then I go the way of Carol Barnes and wither in the drought.
It is not the life of those we desire, but the life of all others which is the only meaning and life of ourselves.
Indeed the last girl who I had designs to marry left the country last month - for good. The closing of a final chapter in my life : the end of any aspirations to being "happily married". I now officially have no reason to be alive save for supporting my widowed mother and my sister when she needs a support, and a few friends etc who sometimes like me around. I've no desire for career, possessions, achievements or anything... I am ready to die and at least see "my muse" again.
Its an interesting state of affairs, not in any way unhappy, its just very, very honest. In fact if I could use this gaping honesty which my life now possesses devoid of any compromises or split loyalties I feel I could really find peace and happiness. "what point is there to life?", is a question I have been almost too afraid to ask for all my life: what if there was no answer? what if really it matters in no way at all what we do? why be happy, why be sad? What reason separates the two? Am I the only judge of what is good and bad? simply that I don't like being unhappy makes a life meaningful? after what is written in this blog on self-reference this sounds a very hollow thud! That this life should determine for itself what makes it live rather than die? This vacuity like trying to take a breath in space has no nutrition, no wonder I am afraid of that question!
It is awakening in me however an unbelievable awareness that there is life beyond desire and self, beyond the "I want"; just I am unable to see it at the moment, just catching a hint of its scent in the back of my mind's nostril.
You see I'm still very much of the mind set which states that there is but one motivation in life and that is desire. It is desire of love, friendship, companionship, food, happiness, excitement, contentment etc and driven by this our lives map out - driven almost completely by an unseen navigator. The above mentioned had very strong desires for people: daughters, father or potential partner and each based their life upon that. The corruption of that desire brought their life to a pathetic standstill.
It occurred just now in the shower. The "self" is clearly a vacuum. I cannot see myself, I have searched! i cannot "think" myself, I have searched! I cannot even think how I might think myself, and here I have searched too! The self is always illusive, always just around the next corner... reminding me of my favourite story as a kid after which my father even nicknamed me: Woozle (Pooh goes hunting a Woozle). After searching for some time Pooh finds a set of tracks... the story continues until Owl points out that Pooh has simply joined his own tracks... this is the Self in action!! There is no self to see for it always escapes. Dream we may of what the Woozle looks like, but we can never know because it is "ourself", it is as they say "empty"; existent but hidden at once.
So the ignorant build their lives upon the vacuum of empty self, when blatantly the obviously existing thing is other people. It has been a dull mantra told me by everyone of any religious persuasion that helping others is the path, yet I never got it. Why help others? what if I need help? why don't we help ourselves first then we wouldn't need to help each other? what use is there in giving other people what they want, when we should be teaching them mastery of desires? etc yes it is a dull mantra, because its not quite true.
It is not that we should "help" others, as a doctor might help his patients. It is not about us "doing" anything at all. It is about stepping away from finding the answers within ourself, within the shadows cast by the candle of the world. Watching that shadow we believe we know ourself, but the world moves and then so does the shadow it casts: but we hold on and persuade ourselves it was the shadow that moved. Looking for ourself, we grasp the shadow: something is wrong! (bit of pseudo-haiku there).
I cannot believe how hard this is. How vast the sacrifice, how much we must lose before I hope this transformation can happen. Jesus had to die upon a cross, I only hope there is an easier way.
Really the self is the problem. The slavery of being driven by desires, and the fear of having no other reason to exist. If we stop getting what we want then the suffering, the painful thoughts that plague our minds, the evil that arises drives us into a darkness of cold, painful suffering and we come our running toward the comforting arms of desire again, or some even die! This is the trap. Through that very fearsome darkness i am hoping lies the way out. If not then I go the way of Carol Barnes and wither in the drought.
It is not the life of those we desire, but the life of all others which is the only meaning and life of ourselves.
Friday, 7 March 2008
Finally a depression looms :-)
Looks bad on paper, but it's a wonderful break for the planet :-) No longer are the world's resources going to be pressured by the continually expanding disease which is capitalist economics. People will have to learn to live (for a while at least) in a contracting economy which will force us to consider what we really need and what we can simply do without (which is most of the weeks shopping except raw unprocessed food, fuel for cooking and boiled rain water). When the consumerist enduced haze has worn off and the shopping cold-turkey gone through, then the reviving planet might get a look in. The only threat we now face is a revitalising of the disease again and an economic up turn.
Wednesday, 5 March 2008
Neural-Net algorithm identifies images from brain patterns
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/03/080305-brain-scan.html
p.s. need to think about this... but is this remarkable or obvious?
p.s. need to think about this... but is this remarkable or obvious?
50% of our happiness correlated with our genes
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7278853.stm
So 50% genetic and 50% environmental... half nature and half nurture... hmmm that was unlikely ;-)
So 50% genetic and 50% environmental... half nature and half nurture... hmmm that was unlikely ;-)
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