Luke, The Force, Letter & Law, What is point of Religion?, Memes, Golden Calf, Meditation

 I have never seen a tiger. I have read about them and seen pictures and videos so that I "know" a tiger, but I have never seen one face to face. In French we might say I "savoir" the tiger, but I have not made its acquaitance of "connaitre" the tiger.

Its easy to dismiss the nature of actually experiencing things. They are "like" what you have been told, but the experience is quite different. Really different, really indispensable in fact. This cannot be stated enough, there is no substitute for experience, and knowledge by itself is a poor substitute. When we see what things are actually like we will always be surprised. This is why meditation is so important, amongst its many features it brings us away from "knowing" things to "being with things" to see them in experience rather than thoughts. We actually overlay the world like the Terminator with a drop down screen of data about the world, that gets so dense that in fact we barely see familiar things any more and only see out thoughts. When we start to meditate and we are told to "watch the breath" this is a thought, and when we execute it we find what we "think" is the breath and then watch the drop down display of "in" and "out" and the data turns up about the state of breath we have been told to watch. It actually takes a very long time to start to see the breath itself and start to discard the "data" about it. Eventually the Terminator switches off the scrolling data and looks fresh, or like Luke in Star Wars raises the Targeting computer and switches to The Force. This is exactly the process of getting acquainted with things. Forget what you know, and look again.

And of course Ego is wrapped up in all of this, cos every action "we do" is understood to originate from a "thought entity called Me" and so is automatically inauthentic. Lifting the Targeting Computer is not an action we can just chose to do, we have not just chosen to be inauthentic and get focused on "thought" and "data", this inauthenticity has been a short cut and a mistake made from a belief that truth lies in the Self, and we know the Self so we don't need to know anything else. I've got Me and that is all that matters. I just need to do some knowing about the world and I am complete. Compare this with genuinely allowing the world in and seeing it for what it really is! The Ego has no interest in this, the World is a threat to the Self, knowing things intimately means dropping the Ego and letting other things exist as they are.

Now when you see a Tiger as it is, when you have that actual experience you are in a way "on your own." Even when you meet other people who have seen a tiger, you do yourself an injustice to see kin ship. That experience was yours and of a time and place that was unique and will be--our of respect for the tiger if nothing else--like nothing else. From this out Ego finds proof of its existence, unique experiences need a unique viewer it argues and immediately destroys the experience.  "I saw a tiger" quickly replaces "there was an actual Tiger" and it becomes all bout Me and not the actual point that it was all about the Tiger. People say these days life is about making Memories. That implies that the point of doing anything is the future looking back, when in fact it is the Now. And in fact its not anyone looking in any direction, its just the Thing itself. Give it that respect at least! To give the world full respect, to lift up the Targeting Computer means to be Unique, but that does not mean a Self. This is the dangerous inauthenticity that always creeps in. I had a Jhana once as a kid, the way I expressed it was "I have just had the most amazing experience" and it immediately became about Me. Irony is usually extremely ironic! Big Alarm Bell here!

Now this same thing is true everywhere especially Religion. There is the Letter of the Law, the Torah or the Koran or the Bible or even the Vinaya Rules in Buddhism. Verses that dictate the shape of the Law. And people who get together under that Flag or Identity follow these laws. I mean what is the use of a religion where everyone does things differently?

You find this with Memes. Dawkins envisages the Meme like a thought that replicates through people's minds. But it depends upon a fertile soil. Jesus makes this analogy. He scatters the seed but it only grows in certain soils (that is minds). Meme's work not just because of their intrinsic "DNA" but because of the society in which they grow and in fact are a good barometer of the Zeitgeist or state of Society. The more puerile and faster the Memes spread the more tragic the society! Interestingly of course Meme itself is a meme, and it will be interesting to see how long that lasts! If it has longevity then Dawkins has shown that not everything is a Meme! And indeed Meme is reserved for that flash in the pan Viral content that appeals quickly to the most people, but by virtue has minimal and only superficial content. Meme also depends upon prior knowledge. The "new information" content of a Meme must be minimal so it impacts quick. "It snowed is July" has more information content than "It snowed in December" not because the sentence is more meaningful but because the prior knowledge is being challenged. And so Memes must appeal to an existing knowledge. If you "get it" then you are already in the knowledge society of that Meme. It becomes a "flag" of membership. Jokes are like this. If you tell jokes to people from other cultures they often will not "get it"-- its a flag of identity, it demonstrates your membership of a society and way of thinking. But to reach the broadest group, it must be quite unlike the Tiger Experience above which is unique, of its time, and special. You can't Meme a chance encounter in the jungle with a tiger. You can Meme a Package Holiday where the Tiger is led out or you are led to the tiger to see it within defined place and time parameters "as advertised." True you are seeing an actual Tiger, but it is within very defined parameters that you have thought about "OK I'll give up a day of my holiday to seeing a tiger, at this price and without too much travel" so when we see it, 99% of it is what we were expecting and its tempting to keen the Targeting Computer down. In the 15mins of sighting of a Tiger that a Package Holiday affords its quite a skill to drop the expectations and the lifetime of knowledge about this Queen of Beasts and to grab a unique experience with it. But we can't try to force that either, it either happens or it doesn't. Perhaps we will only see a movement in the undergrowth and not get the full photo of it on the track and some will walk away disappointed cos the Targeting Computer had something else in mind and we missed the target. Other will be happy with a days driving in the jungle and seeing nothing, they perhaps the most are having the authentic experience and enjoying what is there.

Like Meme's religions are based upon Prior knowledge. I saw an Ethiopian arguing with a Ghanaian about who was God. Not unsurprisingly the Ghanaian said Jesus was God and the Ethiopian said Haile Selassie. How do you resolve that argument? Well first thing to realise is prior knowledge. They were arguing based upon their upbringing and so anyone not born in Ghana and subjected to a lifetime of post-missionary beliefs is not going to have the same knowledge as someone brought up as a subject of Selassie. I never understood football supporting or even wars but its like this. To understand you need grow from that society and have those Memes built into you. In reality you can't argue about the truth: you can't argue about seeing a tiger. But when you tell people about it then you can argue. and that includes yourself.

I thought I saw a Golden Eagle once, and spent an hour watching it. I've never paid so much attention to a Buzzard before! I realised afterwards that what I was looking at was not big or massive enough to be an eagle. So we dismiss the experience because the Targeting Computer was wrong. It said Eagle when in fact it was a Buzzard, so my experience was invalid. Was it? That was a very enjoyable hour that I still remember, and all that was wrong was the name of what I was seeing was wrong. Flip the Targeting Computer up and it was what it was. Okay not so great in the pub telling people I saw a Buzzard compared to I saw an Eagle, but that takes nothing from the hour. At a meeting of the Buteo Society the experience would be received much better! Just as with a Meme whether it spreads is just to do with prior knowledge.

Now to wrap up. If authentic experience is what really matters then what is the point of Religion? What is the point of the two people arguing on the bus about Jesus and Selassie? Couldn't a radical Puritan just put it all in the bin and encourage people to find their own personal religion?

But that token couldn't we just ban all Tiger Sight-Seeing Tours, and in fact burn all books with Tigers in  so that people's minds do not become polluted by inauthentic beliefs?

Book burning! How often has this happened. Ripping out of Icons! How often has this happened.

But isn't there a contradiction here. If 100 people gather under a flag and go and rip out icons in the name of "authenticity" are they just a new inauthenticity? We quickly end up as a hermit in the forest living by our self interested only in private and authentic experience. And indeed there is some truth to this.

And yet you can go and live in a Cave and achieve nothing. I have done this. You just replace the inauthenticity of daily life amongst other people, with your own inauthenticity. You have 100 images of what you want to achieve, of what the Truth is, of why you need Go Private and they are all false idiols.

Of course the Jews faced all this in their distant past. While Moses was putting the Law in Stone, the Hebrews turned to worship a golden calf. Something tangible, something attractive, something like what they thought a god should be like. And Moses ends up smashing the Stone Law. Is this a double metaphor of not only the error of grasping for attractive wanted images of God but for also putting the Law into Stone. I always wondered why the Law needed to be broken. Its to warn against turn it into a false Idol itself. How many religious practitioners fall foul of this. In Islam we can pick out the Sunni sect in its entirety. Take not America, Saudi Arabia is Sunni.

And yet we can just go and smash everything and end up in a Cave again, worshiping yet more false idiols.

The problem we all face is that we start flying with the Targeting Computer: that being Written Law and guidance from Teachers, or a Jungle Guide leading us to the Tiger. But as we learn there come those moments when we find we are not using it. These are very special moments indeed. You cannot be told to do this, there is no Targeting Computer telling us not to use the Targeting Computer! That would be SRH. It must come from "within" -- which is pointless to say, indeed saying anything here contradicts the point. When we flip up the Targeting Computer it must be outside any Targeting Computer. It can't be formalised, we must throw down the tablets and stop worshiping all the false idols we have accumulated.

But we want that experience of authenticity with God so much, we want to be free from idols, we want to smash the stone tablets. But if we do this under direction from some Targeting Computer we are just making it worse. Those unplanned, unplannable moments when we see God are not in the Menu of the Targeting Computer. Now its true that in Star Wars Obi Wan tells Luke to "Use the Force" but we must understand this not to mean that we are being "told to use the Force" cos none of us know what it is. Luke on the other hand is feeling the force at that moment, "Use the Force" makes perfects sense to him at that moment, he is not being "told" to use it like reading it in a book, he is "recognising" that it is there, he is "acquainted with" like it was a Tiger that has turned up, is already feeling the force. He knows what he has to do as a batsman knows how to hit the ball. It comes from within, they are the master of moment. If Luke had missed he would not have cared, as he was the director or writer of what was going on. If the writer decides that a character misses the ball then so be it, that is the story. If Luke has missed then so be it. We feel pressure when we must meet expectations that are not our own. We put the targeting computer down again cos we do not feel confident. This happens in sports all the time. When Harry Kane missed the penalty against France, normally we would do it, but the expectations clearly made him drop the Targeting Computer again. He didn't want to be the writer of this if it went wrong. And ironically as is always the way it then when wrong. But its no use telling him to "Use the Force" if he is not already feeling it. You can't tell a Tiger to turn up.

But I'm very cautious here not to make the classic mistake. This all sounds very like Western Culture. But of course the idea of "being the charge" of your destiny quickly becomes a False Idol cos we build a golden calf called our self and start to worship it, thinking that we carry that around and we are authentic. Was carrying the Arc of the Covenant a moment of inauthenticity? Carrying these heavy stones around everywhere is like having a Targeting Computer. In Raiders of the Lost Arc Indy says that "an army which carries the arc before it is invincible". Are we to question this? The Arc has no power, that is believing that the Targeting Computer can blow up the Death Star by itself. It needs you to blow up the Death Star, it is only a guide, you must do it with or without. Quickly that becomes SRH. You can't tell someone to believe in themselves. If they do not already have power over themselves what power can they summon to get power over themselves!! You can't tell a Tiger to be any more Tiger than it is! All you can do is tell people to ignore unnecessary worries, direct them away from fruitless activity. You would never actually tell someone to carry the Arc or Use the Force if they didn't already have the power. You might say, "okay we're with you; over to you now." I wonder whether Gareth Southgate for all his care and attention to his players and the team in someway does not teach people to just be themselves enough. Perhaps send Harry Kane et al. away on holiday and tell them they are not coming home until the papers are full of their bad behaviour. This is not to encourage bad behaviour, but  to get them used to doing what they want without concern for the consequences. You are potentially the best player in the world, you have done the work, you have that power, we can't improve on that. But you need to own that and take charge of the narrative. Forget the fans, forget the money, forget me, the FA, you play for yourself and you get whatever outcome you want. If you miss the penalty you miss it for yourself. You are in charge. Flip up the Targeting Computer.

But again caution. The wrong person will use that advice to make a false idol out of themselves. This is only true when it comes to the game and playing football. You do not carry this idol before you. I suspect that is the counter error that the likes of George Best or Paul Gascoigne make. Success encourages us to make ourselves into a fixed idol. We start to look at our power from the outside. We start to carry it before us, and it takes us into a desert. And Moses never left the desert because he came to believe in himself rather than God. When he brings water out of the rock he does not tell people it is God but says that He must do it (Numbers 20:10). So big caveat, when we flip up the Targeting Computer we are not replacing it with a new solid ground called MySelf. We are actually removing Targeting Computers all together and just letting the action happen. God is no idol that we can worship, He manifasts through us when we stop worshiping idols (including ourself). And this meets with Buddhism too.

So its no wonder that we live inauthentic lives, and struggle to step outside our false temples, to acquaint ourselves with true life. And its not as simple as doing something like book burning or living in a Cave, there is no formula or anything that we can be told to do. We must wait for quite the opposite time when for whatever reason we turn from all this Display that the targeting computers show up, and see through this to what is really there. Meditation is certainly the most celebrated way of doing this, but even that starts off as a false temple and we must persevere with that until we flip up the trageting computer of even that!

Problem of Consciousness (stub)

So I only skimmed Dennett's Consciousness Explained and that was to get to the root of what he thought. It seemed on that examination he was of the type who thought consciousness was an illusion that arose from self-reference. In other words its the "self" of awareness that makes consciousness. I may be wrong here, cos that was my own thought and I was just confirming he had the same thought.

But to get here he notes that the activity that we wake up for is very much sequential rational processing. We wake up to Know. When a loud noise wakes us from sleep we need to ask what use is the consciousness that gets switched on? Its clearly not "epiphenomenal" because it has a very particular place in the world. We switch it on in particular circumstances. (This is my own thinking but meets with Dennett I'm pretty sure).

So the brain obviously does a huge amount of processing that we are not aware if. We are saved all the minutiae of processing and just get a world present to us. At some point in this chain of processing things enter consciousness. Dennett notes the mess that is involved here and that consciousness is not a discrete level or time with conscious events not really matching experimental reality very well. It all points to consciousness being a "virtual reality" as many have noted. Matrix films work because a simulation of the world is sensorial indistinguishable from the real thing. Dennett goes further to suggest this virtual reality is the product of a Turing Machine that is hosted on the parallel neurons of the brain. Computers he notes are based upon the Turing Machine we simulate in the our own brains that gives us all the sequential thinking that we are so consciously aware of.

That's a precis of what I understood from his book.

Buddhism would agree. All things are caused, and so consciousness (apart from what it actually is) obeys this same law. Consciousness is created and it ceases. We see this again most clearly when we sleep and wake. But throughout the day it ebbs and flows. Sometimes we are alert other times sluggish and virtually unaware. Meditation is an important practice. It focuses the mind and raises consciousness so that the world can be seen more clearly. But importantly meditation is a practice that takes us ultimately far beyond consciousness.

And that is the crux of what I wanted to note here. Don't we habitually think about consciousness the wrong way around. I think even Dennett does not completely undo the Cartesian Theatre. True there is no one "in" the theatre for Dennett but does he go the whole way to say there is no one at all. No one is actually conscious. I will need reread to see that.

But if no one is conscious then what is this "self" awareness that seems so critical? When we are conscious we are not just a candle shining light into the world, that light shines on itself so that it knows itself in that very shining. This seems to be the essence of consciousness. It is this which ultimately points to the intrigue of SRH and why "self" seems to be a more important thing that "other." We are well aware of candles shining their light on other things, but when that light shines on themselves we are attracted to the possibility of "magic." Consciousness seems like magic.

So the reason for the stub here is to note that this is quite possibly a mistake left over from the days we believed in Cartesian Theatre. It is true that within visual consciousness we see the world from the perspective of a set of eyes, but this does not mean that there is someone on top of that seeing through those eyes. That is like painting a picture of a room from the perspective of someone on the other side of the room, and then thinking that there is really someone actually over there. Our brain can paint a picture with all the data without anyone or anything else being added to the situation. Seeing the world is already everything. As noted many times in this blog we seem to want to see the world, and then have a model of "someone" on top seeing the world a second time. A tiger enters the room, we think we are looking at the tiger, but the tiger must have already been seen for us to know it is there. The "looking at the tiger" that we think is secondary and has nothing to do with seeing the tiger which is already there! What is possibly confusing is realising that our brain has done the work "over there!!" not over here where we think we reside. This is Dennett's Turing Machine modelling on top of the world with all the data that has already been gathered.

Consciousness therefore appears to occur at a level below "ourselves." When we turn around and see the tiger in the room chances are we will jump up and get to safety without bothering to "know" what we are doing. Only afterwards do we think back over it and go "wow that was a close thing." But the original present moment action when we first see it is never-the-less consciousness of a type, just without the "putting ourselves in the picture." We ignore that secondary modelling, and just do raw data, and get out of the room.

Anyway the question of a "self" being conscious now seems less important. The candle indeed does shine on other things, and the shining on itself is a secondary add on. It is not the magic bit.

So if consciousness is not about the self, then who is consciousness?

Buddha actually warns against the two extremes here. Its interesting that 2500 years ago there were Hippies around who thought of a great cosmic consciousness. If conscious is greater than myself, its tempting to go the whole way and say the Universe is consciousness and mine is just a part of that consciousness. Indeed this is often said in Hinduism. But we need be careful. This is just swapping myself out for a Great Self. we are still putting a solid personality at the root and so nothing has changed.

The real change is when we realise "no one." In purely logical SRH terms, if we wish to understand ourselves we need go beyond the idea of self and personality. If the Universe is to be really Great it needs be more profound than selves. Not dismissing the Atman and Brahman they have their place, but to really understand we need uproot Atman and Brahman from being core entities. They exist in mutual balance. Some conceptions of God get stuck on the "person in the sky" image, just as some conceptions of self get stuck on "person in the body" image. If we really want to deeply ground ourselves we should look to go beyond this "person in" explanation of things.

So the Problem of Consciousness is mostly a problem of who is conscious and where to place ourselves in consciousness. Once this is resolved Consciousness becomes just the activity of senses and the world. Still remarkable, but then life and the universe in its entirely is all remarkable.

Jesus mentions the SRH :O

24 If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. 25 And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand.

Mark 3:24-25

This is SRH.

Although SRH points at this being necessarily true through the avenue of self-reference. As soon as something has a relationship with itself then it has a relationship with a thing which has self-reference.

And whatever function it applies to that thing, is automatically applied to itself via the isomorphism.

An entity stands in authority over the subject. But once the subject is linked to the entity then it becomes a constraint on itself.

A King has power over his subjects. Consider the set of all things a King can do his subjects = A. If the King now becomes a subject this cannot increase A. The power of the king must be constrained to B which is a subset of A.

Now is there something a King can do to himself that he cannot do to a subject? In other words is there something a King can do to a self-referential entity that is himself, as opposed to a regular subject?

Well this is the crux really of both self-reference and Ego.

If a King looks in the mirror, is he looking at a free entity? The problem that emerges is that the King may not like what he sees. In which case he comes to judge himself and that then creates a problem:

Does freedom lie in the right to judge, or to be without judgement?

An old style Pre-Magna Carta King in England is above the Law. They cannot be judged in a court or by anyone on Earth.

And at the same time they have complete freedom of Will without constraint. They can do whatever they want, and their subjects are bound to follow this will.

But SRH. What happens when the King has a judgement about them self? There is a contradiction and the house falls.

So the Todo always for SRH is to find some proof that self-reference ALWAYS leads to a reduction in power.

That the issue raised by Jesus is not just the "divided" but the condition for that which is the "itself". Without self-reference there is no opportunity for division.

And that raises a question about hierarchy and structure.

A body is divided into organs. And when the body is well these are in harmony. But already the opportunity is there for a body to divide against itself. So does this mean that a body has self-reference?

The very activity of a mind in classifying an entity sets up self reference. We say that component parts of an entity combine to create that entity. And we say that an entity is composed from its components. we call those components parts of the self, and since those components combine to make the self we have a self reference.

So emergence is actually essential to avoid a contradiction here. The component parts of an entity combine to create something New, that cannot then refer back to the parts!

Eating a cake is more than eating flour, butter, egg and feeling some warmth. And it must be because if a cake was just its ingredients then you would have 100% complete self-reference and a contradiction by SRH.

Short of time to examine this but all entities would be divided against themselves if there was not "emergence" so that an entity becomes more than its components!

If everything is the same then does not matter what you do????

 So we have a crude grasp of emptiness. We think ah ha all things are just phenomena, of temporary status, they have been caused, they will exist and then they will decay into non existence again. There is no permanent substance there, nothing passing through. If you wait time will erase them completely and transform them into completely different things. There is no fundmental essence behind the phenomena. There is no absolute ground to the universe.

Great I can do whatever I want.

No.

Sometimes we make the right choice. We know that. No complicated thinking, or analysis, we know it was the right choice.

Sometime we make the wrong choice. We know that. No complicated thinking, or analysis, we know it was the wrong choice.

How can this be if all things are empty?

The point is both the right choice and the wrong choice are empty. It does not stop them being right and wrong. The rightness is empty and the wrongness is empty.

But we protest, are they not the same then? Can I not ignore that I did the wrong thing?

No.

It is still the wrong thing, even when it is empty.

The problem that is emerging here is that the "self" the "ego" the thing (we think) that is doing these things is stuck at the level of good and bad.

We think if good and bad are empty then they are the same. But that is only true if we are at eye level with good and bad. If we rise up beyond good and bad, then we can now see them as good and bad, but against a deeper level of emptiness.

So its been put to me like this before. As we deepen our grasp of reality we do not simply remove one coat of ignorance, we remove layers.

When we know that we did something right we are at a layer. Within this layer it is absolutely right. But when we get to the next layer, we can see that behind the "right" is another layer that is neither right or wrong. This does not stop the right/wrong layer being right or wrong! It just enables us to see the rightness and the wrongness as empty.

This is the difference between sunyata and nihilism. It is translated as "emptiness" but its also "fullness." Right is full of rightness, and this fullness is from the next layer of the onion itself empty.

This is a complex way of saying that when the ego attaches to a layer, it has no where to do. When the ego is stuck in the right/wrong layer then like a pin ball its bouncing around between right and wrong decisions.

I mean our lives are like this. We have so many decisions to make and they can all be right or wrong. Some with bigger outcomes than other to be sure. But the problem is that when "we" are inside the ball being bounced around its a very full existence indeed. And it means we are constantly slipping into right and wrong things.

Again this is life. But "we" don't need to be going through the pin ball. It can be happening all by itself. we can eb making our decisions quite happily, without feeling we're on a toboggan run.

In real disaster situation where we need make instant and critical decisions its amazing how it all "just happens." Only afterwards looking back do we have time to "put ourselves in the picture." "Wow did I really do that?" we think. I never knew I had it in me. Of course that can go both ways. Sometimes we look back and think, wow I was a bastard how could I have been so mean. But this denarrativising that occurs after the event, is clearly very different from what happened at the time. And when its a panic situation when we don't have time to put ourselves in the picture is when its most obvious we are not really there anyway. It happens by itself.

Oh that's a worrying feeling for the ego. You're not so important mate. I don't need you! Ouch. Quickly lets renarrativise to make ourselves important. Perhaps a bit of self destruction, like, "well you are a bad person, see you were there when you did this etc". Ah ha, not so unimportant now am I. I can even destroy myself.

So Ego insists on being present and Good/Bad is a great place for it to invite itself in.

But once embedded at this layer of the onion, we can't think without it. Ok you say "good is empty" well that means "I" can just ignore good then, and do whatever "I" want. Ego was sitting quite happily inside "Good", "I am a good person" but when you beat the hornet's nest and turf it out into the open it starts running towards something else like bad. If Good and Bad are empty then why not go and live in Bad. Can do whatever "I" want.

Stupid ego. You know what is good and bad before you even start complaining. And, no amount of running around, or grasping at "emptiness" changes that. The running around is all empty too. Just STOP.

So we know what good is and we know what bad is. We know when we make a good decision, and we know when we make a bad one. Okay ego may try and deny we made a mistake, and may throw up a justifying smoke screen to confuse the matter and try and come out good. We wouldn't be arguing in our own favour if we didn't already know we messed up. Just STOP.

So we know what good is and we know what bad is. Once we STOP and accept that then we are ready for the next layer of the onion. From there we can see the goodness and the badness as not belonging to us but just the decision. Oh I did good today, I got that right: nice feeling, proud, people happy, things good. But none of that needs to belong to anyone. Its good enough just as it is.

More difficult oops I did bad today, I got that wrong: bad feeling, ashamed, people unhappy, things bad. But none of that needs to belong to anyone. That will probably automatically encourage improvement, but right now its good enough just as it is.

This is the next layer of onion. This is how good and bad are empty.

 

This is what was wrong with Richard Dawkins

In 1995 they created the Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science (SPPUS) and appointed Richard Dawkins to the post. It evidently got to him cos he gradually worked himself into a positivistic Enlightenment lather and went on witch hunt to root out irrationality, superstition and unproven beliefs amongst the hoi polloi.

Well he got a lot of backing particularly in America from people sick of having Christianity piously forced down their throats. And there is nothing worse for a non-believer than having a believer condescend them.

But a quick look at SRH should have brought Mr Dawkins to a quick stop. What was actually rational about rampaging around the world pursuing the rational? What is actually scientific about Science? Scientists have no more idea why they do what they do than non scientists. So Dawkins never actually stopped to ask the sense of this post he held, and the concept of the "Public Understanding of Science", or why he was the one who should do it, and why no one else was doing it etc etc etc.

And that actually illustrates what is wrong with Richard Dawkins. One thing that Science encourages is a total removal of self, and self reflection. The good scientists is not present in their experiments at all. Science is absolute never about the self, it is anathema to self. If self ever turns up in Science then it becomes invalid. A scientists is here and what they are studying must by definition be on the other side of the glass, testtube or whatever container (be that physical or mental). I mean what use is a science that creates knowledge that is only for me, and where I need be present for it to be true. The very essence of scientific knowledge is that it makes no difference who is present (or who does the experiment) for it to be true, or even in its strongest sense that even with no one present it is still true! 

And there is the problem with Dawkins. He's in a container, with the world outside, pristine and awaiting enquiry from the mind.

So its no wonder he does not understand Religion which is almost the complete opposite. Religion is all about self, all about understanding our place in the world, all about our relationship with things. It is not as some think about persecuting the self and sacrificing ourselves like Jesus. Anyone can die on a cross, indeed two thieves died with Jesus on the very same day. Dying on a cross is a very easy thing to do. Jesus did far more, he forgave from the cross is amazing thing one. And for the faithful he rose again from the dead. That last thing is far outside ordinary experience so will leave that as hot potato. But for the ordinary its easy to grasp the amazing quality of forgiveness for those who are killing you. That is not mindless self destruction, that is maintaining a positive relationship with others even when facing death. Religion is all about relationships. And so can never be science which is about cutting the relationship between the scientist and the world so that only the world remains as pure unpolluted, universal Fact.

What was wrong with Dawkins is he never understood the importance of the near, and how the far is not that important. He thinks that Religion is all about God, is all about abstract factual speculations about the universe, something to discuss over a beer on a Friday. Yes for the religious this is the least important. Christians in particular "follow Jesus" and that means considering what they do right now, right here. About transforming themselves to be like Jesus and fulfil the goodness they lies within them. And while God may be at the root of what they do, it is not something that gets much thought. Its the last thing to discuss not the first. While for Dawkins its the only think to discuss. This is faith. Transformation of ourselves based upon a compass bearing, rather than a map and photo of the destination. No one knows where life takes us, no one knows where Jesus will take us. There is just the compass bearing within us that we follow and wait to see.

Dawkins never realised that he was following his own compass bearing. Nothing in science told him to do what he did. To argue what he did. Science does not have an opinion on how we live, or what we believe. That is an internal compass that Dawkins it seems had switched on by the panel that set up the SPPUS. So it wasn't even his own compass bearing, how unscientific!

Head-in-the-Sand is door to Profound

Someone once said to me during a messy divorce that he felt much better if he just didn't think about it.

It turns out on investigation this is true for literally everything.

Ah say the detractor, but burying your head in the sand does not make it go away, it just puts it off. You will need to bring your head out of the sand one day and face it.

But the advocate will ask, but how does not thinking about something change anything? Doesn't that suggest the problem is not in the thing, but in the thinking!

Oooo wow!

Turns out on investigation something Buddha said in the first line of the Dhammapada. Translated here as

“All experiences (dhammā) are preceded by mind (manopubbaṅgamā), having mind as their master (manoseṭṭhā) created by mind (manomayā).”

 Now thoughts are a tricky thing. They are really, really, really convincing. We take "thought" to be as real, in fact more real than reality. What we think about things really does seem to be them.

But what we see above is that the moment the thought goes peace returns. Reality is Peace, it is the thought that causes the disturbance.

Although that is complex cos the probability is we think Peace and we think Catastrophe, to really uncover Peace we don't think.

So that enters the whole cess pool of "not thinking" with people trying to clear there minds, and sit in blank minded meditation. Hui Neng castigates this attitude saying if there is nothing in a heads it just makes room for bad things to come in. Being brain dead is no solution. That is "head in the sand."

The real approach is this above of see "thoughts" for what they are. Its as simple as entering a movie and spending a hour or so absorbed into the story of someone quite different from us. Leaving the cinema is just returning to another story of another person we call ourselves. They are all "thoughts" we live in the movie of ourselves and there is no way out. We join the monastery and start a new film for ourselves.

Anyway they teach in English classes at school these days to be aware of the impact of your writing on the selected audience. This applies to thought too. We should observe the impact of what our brain says on ourselves, but importantly not to identify with that Ourselves.

There are two "ourselves" there. The small ourself is the one in the cinema at the whim of the mind creating all its ideas about the world. The one in fact absorbed into what is said here. The Big Ourself is the one reading this! Only the small one gets us affected, the big one is quite outside all of this. That Ourself could never fit inside the cinema cos the cinema fits inside it!

When my friend said that he felt better when he stopped thinking about it, his Big Self started to gain the power not to get dragged in. As that progresses the Big Self will not just not think about it, but be able to think about it and stull not be affected. That is Moksha, letting go and freedom.

Where does an English person go to see English people on TV?

UK is a multi-ethnic and diverse place. Possibly amongst the most diverse in the Old World. Obviously the New World is more diverse as its composed from "new" people imported by Capitalists to do work for them. And the New World also has the remnants of the actual natives of this land - at least the ones who survived the genocide and disease.

Much is said in UK about making immigrants feel at home and comfortable in the UK. UK is for everyone.

And in the spirit of this TV channels bend over backwards to include programming that suits the wide range of people living in the UK.

The argument goes that people of other backgrounds like African, Indian, Chinese, Russian etc need to be able to access their own people and cultures on TV. Especially the BBC which is funded by the tax payer and is supposed to represent everyone democratically.

However there is one asymmetry here. Not all people in the UK are equal.

An African or a Chinese or an Indian have 2 ways to access their culture and people. They can watch the BBC and makes demands for inclusivity and equality. Or they can buy a settop box and access programming from their native lands where they will be overwhelmed with people of their own backgrounds and culture.

The asymmetry is where can English people go to access people from their own background and culture? The answer is that there is only UK programming. But if UK programming is obsessed with meeting the demands of the diversity it means that actually people from other countries are being spoiled with choice at the expense of the people with English backgrounds.

It is certainly a complex one. If the BBC was to say that it represents the values and culture of the country in which is was set up and not the values and cultures of other countries then immigrants might say well why are we paying a licence fee.

And if the BBC said well that is okay, people who are not from an English background don't need to either watch or pay for the BBC then you start the process of ghettoisation where areas of the country descend into Little Indias and Little Chinas. This is fine for novelty and vive la differance, but a country that has a shared national identity like Britain needs people to live, vote and work together and not descend into little expat regions of their home country.

So a balance must be sort. But some ethnic minorities appear to think they own the UK and that it exists for their own future and welfare.

It must never be forgotten that at root England is the land of the English and is the place English people can come to experience their own people and culture.

Caveat that "English" is not a discrete entity. For instance the most popular food amongst the English is a cuisine invented in Birmingham by Bangladeshi immigrants. And the most popular soft drink is a leaf infusion originally invented in China but then developed by the British Empire especially in India. And the English religious community is imported from the Middle East via the Roman Empire. It is a global world and England reflects this diversity ALREADY. There is a particular tapestry of international culture that the English call English. And it is different from what other people call their own.

The proof of this is how much other cultures fight to protect their own identities. Particularly the "Black" community (whatever that means given that it amalgamates tribes and cultures from across the vast diverse continent of Africa combined with Caribbean and American Slave cultures). So say "Black" is as absurd as calling people "Asian" to mean all of Far East, Middle East, North Asia, South Asia and Europe all in one people. But if we accept "Black" means something then people who so identity are very keep to protect their identity and culture. And that is exactly the reason why they need to protect English culture.

No one can win this conflict. The more anyone pushes for their own culture, the more they must  acknowledge the identical need in other people.

But in England, the English are the most important because this is where English culture comes from. Africans can go to Africa for African culture, but there is no way they cannot acknowledge that England is the Africa for the English.

Capitalism is the biggest swindle in History

UK National debt 1998 to 2021 including the 2008 Sub-prime mortgage crisis and bank liquidity crisis of financial bailouts there after. The Tories say they have had austerity to cut spending but its increased from £500 billion to over £2000 billion with COVID only being responsible for £300b

I love everyone complaining about the strikes. IF you voted Tory you voted for this. It was always your choice. Its the other voters in the system who are hard done by. Not only were they right, but they have to suffer the systematic breakdown of the society they have worked and voted tirelessly to support.

Where has the £1.5 trillion pounds of government you have spent actually gone Tories? You have sat on the biggest period of peacetime spending in UK history and people are still broke? And you can't blame the public sector, the workers in the private sector are broke too.

But yes of course you've been bailing out your super wealthy Capitalist backers in History's greatest ever swindle and corruption.

The media may try and distract attention from the daylight robbery in the West by focusing on other countries and regimes, but actually they are doing fine and the West has to resort to endless sanctions and war to try and keep them back so they don't show up the crime that is Western Capitalism.

Its been said many times that the Ruling Elites need Capitalism in order to stop ordinary people doing well. This is where we are today. Capitalists stealing from the government here, and waging war on other countries there.

And what is most worrying no one in the media is allowed to say any of this! That is how total the stranglehold the totalitarian rulers of the West have over us.

Adam Smith's Dangerous Idea + SRH the Saviour

While Dennett takes up Darwin's Dangerous Idea, really the most dangerous idea ever printed is not something from Marx or Hitler or Mohammad but from a Scottish thinker called Adam Smith. His opus magnum the Wealth of Nations published in 1776 introduces us to the idea of the Invisible Hand of the markets.

Its the same idea that Dennett is talking about. The idea that forces of nature are behind all aspects of humanity, that we can replace humans with mechanical machines. For Dennett both Humans, Human Will and Consciousness can all be explained in terms of impersonal mechanical forces of nature.

This is actually SRH and Dennett is not wrong. You cannot explain Humans in terms of Humans. Inventing a great Human in the sky called God to make humans is logical folly. To explain human intelligence and design in terms of another designer is pointless, nothing has been explained. To explain the diversity of life on this planet in terms of another celestial life is pointless. There is no explanation and nothing being said in all these statement and beliefs.

So far so good. So why am I about to take Dennett and Smith to task?

The problem is that as Dennett would agree himself when we move the debate from God into the World we are moving the explanation from something we don't understand to something else we don't understand. There is a lot more to the world than we can understand. Quantum Physics is constantly throwing up new things and science will forever pursue ever changing theories of the world. "The World" is not so discrete as to be grasped in any amount of thinking and philosophy.

This is the essence of SRH. "The whole" can never be explained because it would need to explain itself, and that becomes a pointless loop. Explaining everything looks like great achievement until you realise you used everything to do it. If you explain Everything in terms of Everything then you may as well go back to God. If you don't already know what everything is then how can you explain everything? Human endeavours of explanation must always base their explanations on something else. We explain A in terms of B which means A can never become B and the world is necessarily split. The opening endeavour of mankind to explain something in terms of something else, already had us doomed to live in a divided world. We were doomed from the start. Everything will always be unexplainable.

So Dennett desire to explain will always be limited.

Now Adam Smith. His idea is that the price of things is best found in a "free market." The issue lies in that word "free." He actually meant a government regulated market where property rights were protected by law and coercion and mafia like behaviour was clamped down on. Each individual buying what they wanted at the price they felt fair, and working for the income they felt fair to get the money they felt they needed was the best way to match labour and consumption, supply and demand.

He is not wrong. Although there is a better system. Since you have a government in charge to stop wrong doing, why not a system of giving like religions preach. In an exchange system like Adam Smith envisaged you need 2 factors to complete a transaction. You need the buyer and the seller to agree. The buyer must have the money and the seller must have the goods. This eliminates all the possible transactions where the buyer does not have the money. This leads to borrowing where buyers have to arrange debt and it actually slows the system down. In a system of giving then only the supplier needs complete the transaction. And the religions argue with increased throughput and velocity you end up with a more efficient economy which is actually wealthier than Smith envisaged and so the giver actually ends up with more for that initial risk of giving without receiving. Religions tend to say you receive 10x what you give. It would be interesting to model this and see if its true. The great fear of course is cheats. People who take but never give. Smith's free market is based on this idea that in exchange economies everyone comes out of the transaction happy so there is no further processing. But this isn't actually true when people have to borrow. There us all the fall out of debt payments even after the transaction has cleared. As we see in the world today Smith economics leads straight into a world of debt and actually incomplete transactions where debt takes centre stage. The world is currently facing a vast liquidity problem from FX Swaps amounting to $25 trillion. This is more debt than the entire wester economy. It means no actual transaction in the West has really completed for many years and has all been done on credit. If we are never going to complete our transactions then what was the point of exchange economy anyway? Why don't we just give what we can to those who need it like the Pre-Smith teachings always said we should?

But the really dangerous part of Smith far worse than this self-destructive economy above, is that people think they need only work and shop for themselves. His idea is based upon and cements the idea of the Ego as a self contained unit in an economy cut off from everyone around. If this single cellular automaton just shops for what it wants, and works for a sufficient income then the economy and society as a whole will be best. But this completely reduces the human being to a box with inputs and outputs and society to just a collection of cells. This may make sense to an C18th Enlightenment thinker, but it is really pure darkness. Where for instance did the English language that Smith was writing in come from? Where was the exchange that occurred to ensure that there were reader for his work? How much is English language worth? Who is selling and who was buying? Its a nonsense. English language comes to people in the British Isles like rain or sunshine comes from the Sky. It is free, and that free is the real free that enables life to happen. If birds and plants had to pay from water and sunlight then there would be no life on the planet at all. The real free market actually is free! A mother does not charge her child for the labour she invests. A parent does not charge for teaching their child English. The heart does not charge the person for beating every minute of their life. The brain does not charge for even thinking all this. It all just happens naturally. This is the real "free market." As the religions say everything comes from and belongs to God so there is nothing for us to claim or own, Even the work our our hands is only possible because we were given hands at birth. None of it belong to me. And in fact as explored elsewhere in this blog there is not even a me.

So Dennett and Smith far from explaining Wealth and Consciousness and Human Existence they have simply thrown out 99% of what is there and then forced the remaining 1% into a rigid box of algorithms and systems that they think stand alone. In fact all Dennett's explanations and all Smith's Wealth come from the 99% they have ignored. No A then not way B can be explained in terms of A. No free world of natural abundance or society of humans and then no wealth at all.

These are small thoughts in a world more vast (and necessarily so) than we can imagine. What is dangerous about Darwin and Smith is that they make people think small, and believe that is all there is. It is the throwing away of 99% that Enlightenment thinking trained people to do.

Its no accident I think that Smith published in the same year as America gained independence. America is the smallest place on Earth, the one that thinks biggest but with the smallest brain. It seems 1776 was a special year when Mankind, rather than face the puzzle of the vastness of the world, decided instead to throw away everything they could not see clearly and gain certainty from what was left. It was the year we gained illumination by drawing closet to a dimming candle rather than increase it brightness. It was the year that the West born and the year that Mankind died.

SRH remains as the thorn in the Enlightenments project. That Totalitarianism that the West sort from its inception, that Totalitarianism where every human on Earth thinks enlightenments thoughts and lives in enlightenment harmony and understands a universe with enlightenment totality, that Totalitarianism which the West sees in anyone who opposes the totality of the west: that Totalitarianism is its own weakness because what is left for the Conquer when everything is conquered?

The Greater Self

The very first thing anyone ever said to me about Buddhism was that it says that the Ego is bad. And it is bad because it rejects the greater self.

I realise now that if you were to summarise Buddhism in a simple statement this would be it. In fact you could summarise religion and philosophy and psychology in its entirety to this,

Now what is so confusing about this statement that it is both hard to understand and hard to take on board?

I now believe that the key to this is that the True Self is not reflexive. The key feature of the Ego is that in its essence it refers to itself.

The "I" of the Ego is a self-contained entity which issues the self-reference. When we say "I am happy" this I positions itself within itself as a King within his Castle makes statements about the affirs of his castle. The whole thing depends upon a belief in a discrete bounded knowledge of a self that exists within the world.

But this is like a child playing with its dolls house and commanding a particular figure that it identifies with.

The Greater Self is not so discrete and graspable. In that dolls house analogy the child is the Greater Self that is manipulating the doll it identifies with.

Whatever we consider of the Ego we forget that the Greater Self is the one doing that considering, not the being that is considered.

It seems unnecessary to pull in SRH here, but we can never consider the True Self as a discrete entity because it is the one doing the considering. If Descartes had instead of doubting everything, had decided to consider everything he would have arrived at an identical realisation. The doubter cannot doubt that they are doubting. The considerer cannot consider that they are considering. There is only considering.

And this is where the Ego fails. When we say "I am considering" we are not the child considering, we are the doll in the dolls house that the child pretends is considering.

When we make discrete statements about the present we are always referring to a fake self, and Ego. And the reason is that what is really happening is that the Greater Self occupies that present moment and is the "thing" really behind what is going on. "thing" in quotes because the temptation when talking about the Greater Self is to make a doll called "Greater Self" and put it on display in the dolls house. The child is the Greater Self and it is too big for the dolls house so is always outside. This inability to actually grasp the Greater Self and put a proper boundary on it, is where all the problems occur for thought, conceptualising and text.

It has been put to me many times that the key to this door is to ask "who?" Who really commands the world? Who really has these thoughts and lives its life? In our dreams and thoughts it is easy we just superficially say "me." But "who thinks it is 'me'?" starts to come into the present moment and cause SRH problems. If we enter the Present fully as ask "who?" we see that there is no one, at least no one discrete that we can put a boundary around and separate from the world and other people. We see that the ego is fake. Its obviously fake cos after we are dead people remember that Ego and put our name on a grave stone or plaque and we live on. But like celluloid heroes we only live on because we were already dead. The living bit is separate from the Ego, it surrounds the Ego, it is the boundless space around the Ego, that while deluded and unclear on things holds onto the Ego instead of letting go of this fake entity and realising the formless and boundless nature of the True Self.

So the True Self does have a relationship with itself, but not discrete and with form. In fact so immediate that its actually pointless to say that. That relationship lies in the nature of the Present Moment as Present. The very presence of the Present Moment is the True Self. That boundless space in which--as Heideggar calls it-- Ontic things exist is the True Self that enables existence itself.

The thing then then which is difficult to grasp is that the True Self does not have a particular personality or identity. The key thing about Ego is that we know ourselves as one of many people. "That is me" we think. "I want this" we think. "That is mine" we think. This self is discrete, has boundaries separate from other things and has a particular identity as a separate entity. This identity has a personality that separates it from others. But this is all Ego. The True Self does not have particular identity, it has no personality and it is not separate from other Selves. In many ways it is actually not us at all. For the Ego it seems like a stranger. The child fully involved with the the doll in the dolls house imagines the doll looking out of the house towards themselves as a stranger. This is how easy it is to be a stranger to our self and not even recognise our self in the world of thoughts and imagination. Yet all the while the child is there completely unaffected by any of the goings on in the dolls house. This is how we are actually unaffected by any of the things we think or believe happens to the Ego. All this is fake. A mental construction. A dream. Once absorbed and attached to the world and the Ego we no longer know our self! This is why Ego is so fundamentally dangerous!

But through meditation and being in the Present Moment we can begin to look away from the doll and start be Be ourselves again, fully involved in what is going on not as the receiver of what is going on but as part of what is going on, as the game of dolls houses. The child no longer the subject of what happens to the doll, but aware of the game of playing with the dolls house as it happens. With what happens to the doll, not the receiver of what happens. The simple playing dolls houses is the True Self, not any of the dolls. This is why they say that the Self is empty - where is the child when they are playing dolls houses? There is just dolls and a house! Jung would say that the House in dreams is a symbol for, and represents, the self. But it only represents, just as a doll or the Ego are just representations.

It is worth noting that the child who is with what is going on in the dolls house is much safer than the one absorbed into a character in the dolls house, If a tiger were to walk into the room then the child would be with the tiger and able to respond. Entranced by the game of dolls house the child may not notice. So we see again how dangerous Ego is. Transfixed by our Ego we are not with the world as it happens. We see the world as things happening to a fake self--the Ego, like a movie. So when we think abandoning the Ego as dangerous we are missing the point. Unattaching from the Ego and not looking after and attending to the self may seem dangerous. Who will look after me if I let go of myself is the cry of every Right-Wing person and Capitalist. It is our own responsibility to look after ourselves is the West's mantra. The child moves a tiger into the dolls house. The socialists come to power in the dolls house. Oh no we are in danger we think. But this is only a fake copy of what is happening. The Ego cannot be hurt cos its not real. We don't care for the tiger in the dolls house that is threatening the doll, we care about the tiger in the room threatening the child! So being in Present Moment is not dangerous, although to our thoughts who attach to symbols and dolls it will seem.

And for reflexive completeness of course this entire text here, with everything it has said, and all the images and imaginations is just a game of dolls houses. I have set up my dolls, child, tiger and even Ego and True Self in a dolls house of words and manipulated them and played games with them. But all the while untouched by anything said was the True Self who was reading all this completely unnoticed! This is how the world distracts us from our true self, and yet the true self is not separate from the world. Our True Self just then was in the reading, or for me in the writing. And perhaps lies in the thinking that has started. Its always there in what is Present, no more and no less and inseparable.

So is True Self immortal is the question that is most pertinent to us. What happens to True Self when we die? Well this is a question for the doll in the dolls house that we identity with. The problem is that True Self is Present and you can't dissect it out of the Present to put in a jar and study. It doesn't need to be fed, it would just be the starvation. It doesn't need to be pampered to in anyway. It is the truth of what is happening right now. It is not fake. It is not a representation in words or in dolls. How can something that is only ever present be something that dies? When we are dying it is dying itself! When we are dead... well this is always a fake thing to imagine so is no concern to the True Self. In Present Moment there is no time, there are no thoughts of "what will happen" there is only happening. True Self is only ever happening, it is never happened or never to happen. If we are thinking like this we are still in the dolls house. And we still need let go of that doll, that ego, we call ourselves and be the thinking of those thoughts themself.

Isn't Will the core of me? Whose will is it anyway?

 So this has been the #1 puzzle for me. You can contemplate reality and see many things, but before long you will return to the usual state of doing things. And when we decide to do things that seems irrefutably to be proof that we exist as separate entities that can chose what we do quite separately from other people and the world. Sartre says we chose what we are, placing choice even above any sense of existence. We may progress to the realisation that there is no substance called "me" no soul, but we just move this me into the Will wherever that comes from. A pure self sitting at the centre of all our decisions like a King.

So this is work in progress but two obvious avenues blow this apart.

(1) What do we chose? A King may have whatever he wants but he doesn't chose what he wants. SRH blows this apart immediately. Armed with the power of do what we want, we are immediately powerless to want what we want. So choice enters this crazy realm where we might chose what we don't want just to prove our freedom and independence. What an apparent fool is this.

But its worse cos a little psychological investigation reveals all kinds of problems with choice. There is "suggestion" used at its extreme in Hypnosis and advertising. And then seduction, persuasion and basic advertising. There are many ways to get us to change our mind. Often people will be left refusing to change their mind just on principle to prove their mind and choices have integrity.

One thing to note is that investigations into hypnosis reveal that we can't be persuaded to do anything. We a have deep sense of morality that stops us from going "crazy." People may suggest crazy things but actually deep down, even when we are confused, we know what we are not going to do. Although soldiers have a huge amount of training to weaken this so they do in fact do things they don't want to do, like killing, but this leads to huge psychological conflicts and struggles. It's not easy. And we can say that this deep morality is in part determined by our culture. What is normal is the West like eating animals, is cruel and horrible in many places. And even eating people which the West considers horrible, is acceptable in some places. So even many of our deep decisions are determined from outside us. Now at its deepest level when we see "truth" then we have a solid basis, but this "truth" is not decide by us. To get there we need go beyond ourselves.

So our "choice "is not so singular and isolated. Our most personal choice is really part of a wider world!

(2) The other thing is that while Will exists, it is not about us. As we develop our Will becomes less concerned with "me" and more concerned with the general state of affairs. At its peak we go beyond self-interest and Will what is best. We are compassionate and motivate by a will to make things better and help people. This is a much greater more magnanimous Will than the small one that is only concerned with me.

So the issue here is that a Will that is concerned for the world and other people as much as the self, Is this really "my" will?

The problem for small wills is not who they belong to, but who they serve.

Where is music? Its in the mind!

When trying to write a song how often do you slip into something you already know? But sometimes you slip into something that hasn't been done yet. That is an extraordinary experience. It is like walking into a familiar place that you and no one else has ever been. Think Paul McCartney famously experiences this and many people say his songs have a nostalgia to them as though they were long forgotten songs rediscovered. But you write a new song and end up asking people whether they know it cos it sounds familiar in a way and yet you are the first to hear it.

Likewise with highly engineered pop music you hear on the radio. It becomes the sound track to your life and it seeps into your brain without you ever really paying attention. You never really know the words, you never really know the song. It is just familiar. Then year later your consciousness kicks in and you find the lyrics on the web or you hear it played live or in another style and you realise that you know nothing about this song. What you know is some impression that is in your head. How many times are you shocked that a cherished song has the most rubbish lyrics. Or you hear it played live and that magic of mix is stripped away and you can see the quite ordinary parts that are layered by to create that memorable sound. Had that recently due to the sad death of Christine McVie. I've never liked Fleetwood Mac. They are famous for the lightest piece of pop trash as far as I was concerned. But that famous album got so much air play that it seeped into your bones. Hearing a recording of it played live on TV last week and seeking out the parts you could see the skill with which the songs were constructed and how that delicious pop sound was actually created from the simplest components.

This is Buddha. The sum of the parts is very different from the parts. And we are left there with the slightly unsettling realisation that that thing we like has no real substance. It comes about somehow from the magically fusing if parts that by themselves seem ordinary.

And so it is with writing a new song. Somehow a very ordinary arrangement of notes and chords, possibly not even that unique gets a soul ignited in it that makes it quite unlike anything else. Feeling that soul emerge is a quite spiritual experience. And it happens in a flash. Suddenly we are writing and it just flows through us. After months of trying suddenly something comes together and it is there, ready made. Well that is one way it happens. The other is that we try and build a fire, but it doesn't catch. So we try again. And gradually through continual editing we get the fire right, and when we light the spark it catches. Perhaps they are the same. Its not like sparks of musical genius happen by themselves, they are always in the middle of a mess of hard work that hasn't managed to catch. We fill the room with so much tinder that the next time we sit to write it just catches and we have a song.

Now the point of this whole blog is to highlight something I just realised. The art of the musician, indeed and artist in general, is actually the art of an illusionist. The artist takes some tool and tricks the senses and the mind into seeing something brand new. In the case of a musician this is often a melody. A melody does not exist in the instrument or even in the sound waves, it is triggered in the mind of the listener. The listener is tricked into hearing the melody that isn't really there. But obviously music is much more complex than just melody. Chords, sound textures, rhythms are all mixed in there. Its amazing how a melody sounds rubbish in one mix, but in the hands of someone else takes on a whole new meaning. Once ignited though we can often go back to the origin al and appreciate it in a whole new way.

One example for me was Chvrches "Clearest Blue." I had heard this and thought nothing of it. But then Gryffin did this incredibly profound and moving much more ambient version that really captured the desperation of the singer. A beautiful version

But now I got the song. Got what it meant. Then I was able to return to the original and get what Chvrches was about in general.

Now the original is singing about the same thing. But its filled with positivity and the epicness is affirming. That punch-the-air affirmation is all Chvrches even while singing possible sad lyrics.

So music I realise is all in the mind. And while becoming a virtuosic musician or DJ is important the skill lies in using these soulless tools to create an illusion in the mind of the listener(s). I say listeners cos music is not an individual experience. The reason I probably gravitated to Gryffin first is because of my experience in clubbing music. he was the gateway drug to get to Chvrches which is quite different from the community I'm usually exposed to.

So those moments of musical virtuosity where musicians show off their technical skill are part or it, but often we are left looking at the sheer "physicality" of the music and there is no illusion. It is there like a solid thing. But then the musician returns to musicality and an aura starts to shine again as the illusion warms up and we get "music" again.

So the art of music is the art of manipulating these illusions.

That said I remember a music producer saying of demo tapes that what he was looking for was people trying to push stuff through their equipment. There is that type of music where you get bogged down in the technology. An orchestra is a hugely complex piece of technology but luckily you only get to to write for orchestra after you have cut your teeth on smaller simpler technologies like solos or duets. But these days with computers it is possible to explore orchestra without much experience. You might say film music was suffering from this and the orchestra has become a very stripped back entity not really developing or evolving and audiences get used to either sweeping strings or punchy brass and not much else. The days of oboe innovation with Stravinsky for example are kind of gone.

So you can say that musical ideas transcend their technology in another way too. Not just that the DJs and mixers and arrangers are able to mould sound to create particular illusion, but that the song writers are able to express ideas through the limitations that is physical instruments.

That is kind of saying the same thing in different ways. Music is in the mind. But the means to create that illusion are either in spite of the technology as with Dylan with just his beat up guitar which is a vehicle to transmit an idea mind to mind, or through the technology where it becomes instrumental in creating that illusion. In both cases music only works once an illusion is created in the mind of the listener.

But that is complex. Continual exposure to music reprograms the brain to become receptive to certain ideas. The music industry understands this and has led to our overwhelming exposure to "samey" music. Why challenge audiences where you can reinforce their musical prejudices and just switch on the same only illusions they like and want to hear again.

Obviously avant garde still exists by it doesn't make money. Why would a music company back a musician who has to build new roads when they can just back musicians who agree to send traffic down the existing ones.

Digital music and internet has virtually removed the costs of music production and distribution. But then you still have the problem of "new roads." In a world where you click and listen for 10 secs before clicking on something else the time taken to build new roads in your brain has been reduced and we risk listening to the same stuff endlessly.

So our very behaviour and environment is linked to the types of musical and artistic illusions we are able to create. And the types of illusions artists will be able to create in us.

Finally I've always suspected the avant garde artists are the ones who are not very good. If you are not Mozart and able to dominate the existing music world then go off and make your own.

Absolutely incredible musicians technically but what does this cause in the mind? I've listened a bit to see if I can "access" it but to no avail. Obviously to those radicals who want to smash up the establishment and head off out into the desert it will appeal ideologically. But for the illusions of music what is going on. Big discussion, not taking sides. But this shows how rational ideologies cross over into music ideas and experiences too.

Certainly much avant garde is just bad musicians who lack ideas trying to fill space. But some are genuinely ground breaking and pushing new ideas into the musical landscape. Just cos it sounds unfamiliar at first does not mean with some perseverance we do not start to experience new illusions.

So in conclusion music is all in the mind, and the musician is not a master of technology to make sounds, but the skilful users of technology and sounds to create illusions in the mind and make the audience hear something that is not actually there.

PsyOps in China?

Its no secret that the West has been trying to subdue China for almost 200 years. And, if Opium Wars are anything to go by, will stop at nothing to do this.

Currently the method used to crash China is the argument that the people are "not free". This in fact is not true. People in China are less likely to spend time in gaol than even British, and far less than Americans whose government imprisoned more of its own people than any other government on Earth. The Chinese state does less to restrict freedom than most countries in fact.

We also know that the West is not really concerned about freedom given that it supports the worst dictatorship in the world in Saudi Arabia where it is illegal to even criticise the government, and such criticism will end you up in prison if not publicly beheaded. While the media was looking at who murdered Jamal Khashoggi they rather neglected to point out the elephant in the room that it is illegal in Saudi Arabia to even criticise the government and the death penalty is available for those who break this law. The West does not apparently care for freedom at all and happy turns a blind eye to the worst excesses of totalitarian dictatorships like Saudi Arabia.

We also know that the CIA and MI6 are experts in causing unrest in countries. This was famously demonstrated in the MI6 overthrow of the democratic system in Iran to reinstall the corrupt dictatorship of the Shah who in turn agreed to carry on allowing the West to exploit Iran and extract oil and wealth from the country.

The history of the West is very much the subduing of countries and the extraction of their wealth. And when people rise up the West will violently oppose this where possible or seek terms of independence through which they can maintain the best terms for exploitation. Most famously when Germany rose up against the West in the 1930s Churchill was prepared to begin a global war to suppress their freedom.

The key technique used in 1953 in Iran was the buying of hooligans to create violent unrest which western backed media then sold in the press as a popular uprising against the democratic government. Simply by staging protests and violence the West was able to fake the idea that there was a popular movement against the government. The West then violently stormed the central media building took over the media of the country and the rest was easy. When a militia, backed simply by the West, surrounded the compound of  the democratic leader Mossadegh and started to attack it with tanks they sold it again as a popular uprising. And when the Shah walked back in, it was made out in the media to be a triumphant return of the true leader of Iran. When in actual fact a democratic vote had shown that Iranians were actually sick of being exploited by the West and their corrupt puppet leader Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. But Iranians were fooled into thinking the popular mood had moved against Mossadegh even though the whole thing was performance was staged by just a few hundred people paid by the West.

This is how dangerous the media is. Control of the media, and the ability to create unrest are all that is needed to fake the idea of popular movements.

And when we look at China this more than anything looks like CIA backed unrest.

It is more complex than just finding a few people who will agree to fake it for cash. The CIA sets up groups and organisation so that people think they are working for one thing when in fact they are working to bring down the establishment that the CIA wants to overthrow to replace with a US aligned regime. US choses anyone who is useful and it is rarely democracy, despite officially using Democracy as the excuse for most CIA activity. Saudi Arabia is the best example of this.

In the TV series Narcos, as blogged before, the DEA is moved into Colombia by the CIA to remove Pablo Escobar. To the DEA it looks like a noble thing to do. But actually the DEA is pointed at Escobar not because of the drugs. There are dozens of other drugs barons and when Escobar is removed they just take over and the drugs trade to US actually increases. The DEA were not there to do anything about drugs, they were there to remove Escobar because he was a popular leader who threatened to end US control of the region and upset the corrupt US backed leaders in Colombia. CIA goes to huge lengths in South America to stop socialist and communist uprisings in order to stop the people controlling their own countries and resources. So DEA is just used by the CIA for purposes other than what they think they are doing. And so it is across the world. I know someone who was invited into Ukraine to set up government infrastructure. Like DEA a noble thing. But really I suspect its at the request of the CIA who is using them to remove Russian influence in the region so the US can take over and corrupt the leadership.

And we do not know the details but those we are told are rioting in China are going to be a complex mix of people, but I suspect very few of them will not have seen US dollars in one way or another for what they do.

Now governments are in a difficult position. If they quite rightly suppress the illegal unrest (that is the job of governments to keep the peace) the West can use media footage of this as evidence that the government is oppressing its people. Obviously that is nonsense the government is just suppressing the illegal foreign backed unrest. But if the government does nothing to suppress the unrest then it will look weak and the people will ask why they are not suppressing this illegal activity. People like effective governments that stand up for rule of law and protect their interests. Having riots is not a good look. US regularly has riots over the huge number of people who die in detention (around 450 a year) but its interesting how the media down plays this. Iran has a max of 11 a year and news is following the riots there. CIA may even be fuelling the riots.

Now the West is claiming the issue in China is over democracy. But actually no one in the West or the East had any say in their government's COVID policy. There was no difference is the democracy in America, Britain or China and people took to the streets in all countries to complain about lockdowns.

What was different was the degree of lockdown. In America which has the least over a million people have died. That is a lot of people losing their life to a government policy. In fact it amounts to a Holocaust. China by contrast has shown considerably more respect for life and despite being 4 times the size of US only 5,233 people have died! This is actually a spectacular achievement and demonstrates extraordinary care for the people.

Now what has probably happened is people have seen pictures of the West out of lockdown but as is typical the sacrifice made has been hidden in the media. If China followed the US policy then 4.5 million people would be in coffins. Do the demonstrations in China realise they are demanding the early deaths of 4.5 million people! That is almost like asking for the gas chambers to be rebuilt in terms of the magnitude of death. Its a tricky thing indeed. But Western propaganda as usual is just spinning it into nonsense in order to play psyops.

Bottom line when you see riots and protests on TV don't necessarily believe what you see! CIA PSyops are extremely sophisticated and far reaching.

Russia Today in Britain

https://www.rt.com/

And Facebook will show a thumbnail but will warn you:

Now we might wonder why the Russian Government is not allowed a voice in the West. Why does the West care what Russia says?

Well first off there is one problem. Who is the "West." Someone somewhere has decided that Russia does not want to tell the same story that they want. That was not me, that was not you. So despite claiming freedom the "West" is controlled by some very powerful people who want to control what you are exposed to. That is already incredibly revealing about the West.

The irony of course is that the West says that it is Russia that is controlled by incredibly powerful people who control what the Russians are exposed to. Yet already we have proven that the West is actually like this. Wow. Big reveal. And since we are exposed to what a narrative designed by a small minority in the West we now know not to trust our own media.

Another problem is you do not see this on Facebook :

BBC is funded by the British State government and should carry a warning. Yet it does not. So Facebook has no problem with State Media itself. It has a problem with Russian State Media.

Now BBC is an interesting entity. Very famously it took on the UK Government over US claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons he could deploy in 45 minutes. I've said before the US never tells the truth and anyone with their head screwed on should have had alarm bells ringing when it turned out it was US intelligence. Hans Blix of the UN weapons Inspectors had clearly said there were no WMDs and weapons experts in UK were prepared to agree with this. Yet the British Government for whatever reason chose to listen to the US.

The result was the UK government moving to shut down the BBC. They were told withdraw the story or you will be closed.

Now this was very revealing. It means that until 2003 the BBC has some independence from the UK government. But the UK government did not like this and moved to make the BBC obedient to the government and not inclined to criticise the government. The BBC then has become exactly what Facebook has warned us about RT. It has become a mouthpiece for the government. One might say the West is worried out RT cos it knows exactly how its own press works.

Now why should we listen to the State controlled BBC any more than RT when BBC is just a biased mouthpiece of government just like RT.

The issue then is that the West does not want us to listen to the Russian Government and only the British Government.

Now its arguable whether the American press is independent of the Government. But it is objectively obvious that the press never really criticises the US Government. And when whistle blowers like Edward Snowdon go around the controlled media system we see just how much the US wants to control the narrative.

What all this points to is that there are very powerful people in the West who will stop at nothing to control what people in the West think. And countries like Russia which the West wants to destroy are fundamentally not allowed to have a voice in case people the West start to realise that they are being lied to by the Totalitarian Government of the West that actually closes down freedom of speech and is committed to brainwashing.

The really worrying thing is that the West is clearly concerned about whatever Russia wants to say. And this really suggests that Russia has something damaging to say! We can only guess what that is. But I have never heard Russia lie! Unlike America where everything they say is a lie. Without any bias it seems that American really needs to turn to dirty tricks and press control in order for the absurdity of what they say to stick. In a free press where countries around the world were free to talk the US narrative would quickly start to look stupid and absurd.

Really basic stuff makes no sense from the US. US and UK are continually at war, yet claim to be interest in peace. US and UK claim to be about freedom and yet the 1000s of tons of bombs they need to drop each year to force people to be free look more like control of people. US claims to be right, yet spends 40% of global military spending. Clearly the US thinks Might is Right. And anyone who needs that much Might is actually wrong. US claims to be about freedom, and yet it an ally of Saudi Arabia which is the least free place on Earth. US claims to be about freedom and yet you are 10x more likely to be put in prison by the US Government than the Chinese government. West says its interested in free press, and Chinese firewall is Dictatorship and yet most Chinese closing down of media is actually in retaliation for the West closing down foreign media. It is actually the West that is trying to control global media. The list of nonsense is endless. Everything the US says is just nonsense and it seems they can only maintain this level of rubbish by eliminating any other media that challenges them.

Well I have no idea what RT said that was so worrying to the West. But now I want to know, cos we know the West is always talking nonsense. Now I want to hear what the Bullshitters think is bullshit! I also want to know who is so powerful in the West that they can close down the ideas of other countries. we are not free in the West and its possible we are even less free than the countries we are told by the bullshitters are not free.

The heavy hand of the West really has stung them and undermined everything they said they stood for!

Plus we know the West has been running Empires around the globe for centuries, which have sort to control people and extract their wealth. The West can accuse China and Russia, but really the onus is on the West to demonstrate that it has turned over a new leaf and represents freedom rather than Imperial Capitalist control. The West hurling stones at other countries looks a lot like the West trying to distract people away from its own Totalitarianism.

All fingers point at the West!