What is wrong with Homosexuality?

 Just repeating stuff already produced in this blog but summarised for an answer on youtube.

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No one has ever had a problem with lesbianism, not sure even the Jewish Law mentions it. The problem in West has been with sodomy and that true for both homosexuals and heterosexuals so its not to do with gay. So think the whole issue is misunderstood here. The question is what is wrong, if anything, with sodomy? So we remind ourselves what the point of sex is. If in doubt think that every human who has ever lived including me and you is the result of sex between a woman and a man. Sex is profound and is how we make people. Marriage is the institution around making people. (Marriage primarily is a way for men to ensure that women bear their children, women always bear their own children regardless; conversely women need help raising their children so good to bind a male in by promising him fidelity). So the problem with Sodomy is that it is not sex, it is not productive and is not profound, it is something else. Its true that in Bonobo apes sodomy is used as a social bonding activity. Indeed we could use sodomy in public like this. But we don't. The problem is that sodomy and gay marriage is confused with productive sex, they are completely different, and this has led to a decay of their meaning. Today sex in post 60s West is used like a drug. A heroine addict once said to me, if you want a high then ignore sex and do heroine. Sex activates about half your endorphin receptors, heroines does the lot. For most people these days they should just do heroine and stop faking sexual relationships. Sex just for pleasure is as pointless as drug use and is life wasted. In true sexual relationships in most cases once children are born all the love and hormones transfer to care for them. After all we are actually related to our children not our partner, the only thing that binds us to the partner is love and marriage. Its interesting that gay marriage tries to copy heterosexual marriage by adopting children, but gays know that in its essence their relationship is not about producing children. Surely if sodomy was all that mattered then why are gays not happy with that? So they prove that productive sex is the point, and yet they do not take part in productive sex. The chimerical nature of what they are trying to do should be obvious. My persona belief is that if homosexuality is to be accepted by society then gays need to develop a framework for it. Heterosexual have been very creative inventing love and marriage. Homosexual need to invent their own institutions. I mean in Homosexuality why are you limited to just 2 in a partnership? In Heterosexuals that is what you need for a child, but in homosexuals you can have as many as you like. And why are heterosexual a union of male and female? Again that is what you need for a child. Homosexual could be anything. Do some plastic surgery invent new organs and ways to do "sodomy" it is unlimited. A friend used to joke about drilling new holes. Why not? So its not really moral, that is too simplistic. There is just a lot of confusion. Worth noting that interpretations of the past are uncertain and hard to make. We pick and chose. Human sacrifice was practiced by some societies as was sodomy. Why use Past to justify one and not the other? Ancient Greece is often quoted regarding homosexuality, but think the male paedophilia of the aristocracy was considered perverted by the rest of society who didn't write much. Such analysis is complex.

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Was looking up the Karma Sutra. Apparently it does mention sodomy and homosexuality, but that is it. It is certainly not a focus of attention and not considered important to a good life. I did skim read it years ago but perhaps time for another look... 

What has "From River To The Sea" got to do with Jews? It's only about Israel!

Simon Sharma and it seems all Jews are completely oblivious to the problem. Millennia after millennia they stubbornly continue wading through problem after problem but they never seem to awaken to the problem with them. Consider the actual problem that Sharma's has with the "From River To Sea" slogan. He makes it about race! But it him who is racist not the people chanting it. The people chanting it just want to get rid of Israel, nothing to do with Jews! It's the Jews themselves who always make everything about race, because they are all irreversibly racist and that is the problem. Anti-Semitism is in the heart of every Jews; they are Semitic which is why Anti-Semitism will never leave Jews alone and will harass them, everywhere they go. It is this primitive way of thinking which rather contradicts the Jew's own view that they have something to offer the world. In fact it is the people of the world who must one day (hopefully) educate Jews of their profound mistake. 

The Problem With Philosophy. The Guest and The Host.

The problem with micro analysis of the world, ourselves and our place in the world is not that it is not true, but that invariably it distracts from the real truth.

I'm guilty of an error recently.

1) After reading Thich Nhat Than's account of the 8 consciousnesses I took a nihilistic attitude to self. If we imagine consciousnesses in and of themselves then there is no room for a self. There are the 5 senses, the 6th realm of thoughts and imagination consciousness, the 7th self consciousness and the 8th "store" consciousness of unconsciousness. That last one sounds like a contradiction how can "un" consciousness be a consciousness. Well it is very near the 6th and 7th consciousness, like the background consciousness and we are certainly aware of it (or should be) as the cause of our world. This perhaps is the most basic ignorance thinking that our everyday consciousness arises directly from the world not realising that it is senses layered over by unconsciousness, thoughts and self. So layered over that Buddha says that "our thoughts make the world." Senses by themselves are not a world. If the sense are the sails of a boat then the mind is the wind that propels the boat along. Clearly the life we live is entirely driven by the mind.

Anyway driving off down the idea of consciousness occurring in-and-of themselves I negated a very important element indeed. The Truth.

It's not a terribly bad approach as it forces us to see our habitual usual self as just a conscious overlay on the world.

But it rips the heart out of the world.

When we dismiss and no longer take as a foundation the mortal self, which is that person standing in a crowd, we do not end up with nihilistic nothing.

What we do is steal back the "existence of the world" and give that foundation.

Problem with science and philosophy is we can almost end up saying that "I" cause existence. Looking at cognitive science and the brain and the processing that is undertaken to create the world we can almost say that "My Brain" makes "My World."

In a lower sense we think this cos we work hard and accumulate money and then buy "our world." We (as the male) can wake in the morning (at least in the traditional family) in "My" house next to "my" wife and send "our" kids off the school and get in "my" car and everything is chosen and in a sense made my "me."

Philosophy and science just continues this into "my" brain and all the work it does to perceive the world work it out, and my thoughts to understand it and make "my" choices. And again more superficially "my" legs to run the marathon, and "my" determination and "my" will and from last blog "My" doll or action-man that I live my life through.

Looking at the picture above, its always been odd that "I" am completely fundamental to "My" life and  yet in reality I'm almost indistinguishable from all the other people. In a NAZI concentration camp I am just a nameless number and it seems I do not matter more than anyone else, in fact if I am selected to be killed that is the closest I get to being a separate being, different and important.

At the heart of all this is "my."

All this is true, BUT what is not true is that "my" belongs to anyone. If anything my body and life belongs to God or if we don't like God it belongs to Nature and the planet and the billions of years of evolution that brought me into existence. And if I don't like that then something else, but what it doesn't belong to is "me." I can't belong to myself?

And this is where the Truth comes into it.

In Shurangama Sutra there is a great exposition of Host and Guest. A Guest comes and then goes. A Host HAS NO WHERE TO GO. This is the confusion we make throughout our lives. We are always coming and going in our life: growing, getting older, learning, making mistakes, moving on, building, changing, buying, getting happy, getting sad: we are always coming and going. We are always only ever the guest in our own lives!

What we tend to ignore is that our lives are already here. The world is already here. In a sense we do make the world, but not in the sense that we are part of the process, but in the sense that we are the stage onto which the world comes along and happens and then goes. The world is the guest, we are the HOSTS to all this business. We don't need to come and we have no where to go. The host just waits for the guests and then opens to door to let them go. That is all we need do in our lives.

Now any analogy gets corrupted. Put like that we think "My" stage, which play shall I book and start rehearsals for. Which guests shall I invite, which food, drinks and music shall we have. Who sits next to who at dinner? But even this getting a play or party ready is more Guest like behaviour. We are now just moving onto planning. Even the putting a show on is just a play itself. Even thinking out this blog is just the soliloquy of an actor on the stage. We ARE the stage itself. Shakespeare is wrong there, we are not actually the actors in reality, although we can adopt their perspective as needs be like the audience does. 

So then we think (and I'm back in the same place as dolls in the previous post) so I'm just passive dead planking on which actors live and work. No that is the nihilism this post is about, all the stuffing has been taken out.

Now this is the subtle thing. That Shakespearean analogy doesn't quite work. A better one is booking a room. If there are people already in the room we can't use it. It is the emptiness of the room that makes it useful. This is Daoism as well. "I" exist in the "space" or "silence" or "absence of light" that gives the world room to happen. That means when something happens we are intimately involved in it, not in the "shape" or "nature" of the occurrence, but in the invitation for "happening" itself.

This is essentially the same as Kant's "condition for the possibility" except there is just One. What is the point of dividing the "condition for the possibility" into as many possibility as there are things. What is the condition for that plurality? Why not just have that root one as The Condition?

This is also Heideggar's "hiding of Being" in the emergence of beings or things. In Heideggar we can see Being as what gave way in the emergence of things. It is the "lighting up process."

"Lighting up" is directly relevant to the experience of sight where literally "light" is what brings the world into presence. But as Buddha argues in the Shurangama, light is not all that is needed for seeing. You light a candle does the table now see? The seeing of our True Self is very close to light, so close that the analogy works. When we do any seeing what is most obvious is that there is light. That "light" is standing right next to our true self... just one step away. The "lighting" is literal but it issues directly from the empty room in which the world happens.

The other senses are not "lit" up exactly, but the analogy is again right next door. The sudden arising of a sound like a bird call "lights" up our hearing. There was nothing and then suddenly it awakens into a form or an "appearance" in our hearing. The sight and light analogies work seamlessly for the other senses. The reason is that they are right next door to the truth.

When Buddha says to Sariputra that "Form is Emptiness and Emptiness is Form" he is telling us to have no step between these, the sudden appearance of the sound is the same as the room or space or silence  in which it happens: they transform one into the other, and they are the same, as one side of a coin is on the same coin as the other side when the coin is so thin that there are only 2 sides. When something happens we can chose to see the form or we can chose to see the emptiness.

My own great insight came as a kid seeing that the circular light cast by an angle poise lamp over my shoulder was "illuminated" by the darkness around it. No darkness around it then no circle of lamp light. At that point my mind expanded to fill all space so that as I remember "I was able to see in that mysterious space behind my head." I've been told by a very advanced meditation teacher that this was not jhana. But the 5th Jhana is the "infinity of space" so what else was this? Not that it matters beyond questioning the limiting of Jhanas to 4 by some schools. Jhanas are not ends in themselves, but help us step above the wrong views and orient us, exactly like compasses toward the EXACT direction of truth. We can think and have rough ideas about all this but to get it laser sharp requires real focus, attention to detail and work.

That "seeing" is our "True Self." So that the woman standing in the crowd above looking out is looking in the right direction (kind of). The ability to see at all comes from our True Self. Not the ability to perceive and make out things, like "I see the sun", nor even to be consciousness, not the light entering an eye or stimulating a sense: all this belongs to her body standing there. But the actual "seeing" the ability to ignore thoughts and sense of a body or world, to have a venue and be able to put out an invitation for the world just to happen: that is the True Self.

Which has one interesting feature. Now we let go of our body as the heart of our "True Self" we also let go of everyone else. "We" all share in One Self, in that "we" is not the place where "truth" comes from, but rather the other way around. Once the world has happened then we get a chance to make the mistake of choosing a body and then all the problems of "which body?", and "why are there so many like me but different?" all start. And those bodies start thinking about this problem given to them and the suffering, the difficulties and the being born and dying, it all beings.

Free Will & Meditation & Puppet Master

 The classic antimony is between :

(1) action that is chosen freely and 

(2) action that comes about through physical causation.

To date no instance of a physical event in the brain or body has ever been traced to a non-physical cause suggesting there is no free will. But our experience of the world is that we have chose between things and are free to make that choice. The entire West in fact is based upon this idea of "Freedom" which is taken to extremes in philosophies like Sartre or in the US Ayn Rand. Freedom begins its story in the Bible which argues that disobedience of God's order not to eat from the tree Knowledge was original caused by the Devil and represented freedom of choice. Odd that the Post-Renaissance West now celebrates this freedom despite claiming to also follow God.

Anyway we can see this duality in meditation. When we struggle to sit to meditate there is a conflict between what we want to do and the knowledge that we should meditate. Even when we are sitting there is a will to draw us away from meditation and then after the mind wanders that moment comes when we realise we have let the mind drift and we return it to the object (the breath if we are doing breathing meditation).

So meditation seems to be on the "outside" and something that we bring ourselves towards. Even meditating the breath seems to be on the outside and we bring ourselves towards it and then wander off. It is though we then need to pick up our attention and then put it back down next to the breath. The breath is over there and seems to happen by itself. We have breathed ever moment of our life from that first breath in the maternity ward with our mum, perhaps our dad, and surrounded by nurses and perhaps a doctor. Even if we have held our breath we are still in the process of a breath of some type. Yet how many of these breaths did "we" do? Nearly every breath happens by itself. So when we are meditating we can see breathing as happening by itself. This is like the physical causation side above. The world is actually doing the breathing.

When we start to watch the breath closely we can start to see it as "our" breathing. We can stop it, start it by will and then it really becomes "our" breath. If we try to count 10 breaths in perfect concentration without our mind wandering we may deliberately take over the breathing to speed it up to get to 10 breaths more quickly thus achieving the goal! "We" are now doing the breathing. We sit behind it and push and pull the chest to make the breath happen. This is the "free will" side above.

So which is it? Do we cause breathing, or does it happen by itself?

And equal question is: do we do the breathing, or does it happen to us! When the body is breathing by itself then it appears to be happening to us now. We are watching it as something on the outside and receiving the experience coming in from outside to our awareness.

So which is it? Are we watching the breath from the outside or are we making it happen from the inside?

Well it's neither and both. It's actually in the middle.

The point is that sitting to meditate and watch the breath is not pushing "anything" to take a seat and watch the breath. There is not the decision to sit, and then some force needed to make an entity come and seat. There is just the sitting. Struggling to sit and meditate is not a battle to get "ourselves" to sit, and then we decide and we then make the sitting happen. There is no middle man. The struggle to sit is just a struggle to sit and ends with the sitting. There is no struggle to set "someone" to sit . No inner entity needed to be convinced and then get involved as a second stage.

Likewise no one is being brought near to the breath to see it and watch the meditation happen. As argued recently, when breathing is being seen we are already there, there is no realising the breath has gone and then bring ourselves back to it. We have already been brought back at the moment we realise!

"Happening" happens in the instant at the moment we realise. But we try to force a wedge in there so that there is a gap between "happening" and the person it happens to. In that gap we introduce choice so that the "person" can take on board the happening and then decide. But like with seeing, what is seen is already seen. Things "far away" do not then get seen again by the person "near by" they are already seen. Likewise what has happened and been chosen has actually already been chosen. The deliberation we experience is not conducted by a "person" inside, it is happening now.  

There is no ball of "self" being tossed around. The forces we think are pushing the "self" around represent thing that have already happened. We are already going to sit when we think we have decided. We are already focused back on breathing when we think we just realised we have drifted off. The delay is because we are not in the Present Moment and are instead dancing a doll around a mental stage duplicating everything that is happening. When we become aware of the breath again why bother to instruct the doll to pretend its doing a "bringing of the awareness back": that already happened in order to give the stage direction! Just "Be" Present.

However we can go too far and start to think "we" are just a distant observer on the world. Putting the doll down and just watching the stage directions now without bothering to re-enact them in some imaginary "self" it seems like we are completely unnecessary. An epi-phenomenal ethereal observer of the world like the air, or the lighting of the stage.

But we are still operating a doll! Except this doll is now a spirit doll that has stepped off the stage into the air to watch the stage directions. This is too far the other way toward free-will.

When see see the stage direction come in, that is it! There is no point operating a doll at all so we can say we have "decided" to act on these stage direction cos its already happened. But at the same time there is no point in inventing a doll to watch the stage directions either. There are just the stage directions. When our mind comes back to the breathing that is all that has happened. No one was drifting off and has been brought back, and no one lost control and how now taken control again. There is just the object of meditation (which is usually the breath).

This can then be expanded to the classic antimony above. When we imagine "free will" we are creating a mental doll which we manipulate through the unfolding events so we can say "I choose." When we imagine causation and reflexes then we imagine that doll going behind stage to watch the stage direction which are the forces and stimuli of the physical world. In fact no one needs be behind stage or on stage for the direction to exist. The directions are what make the play and are all we need. That is "Present Moment" and links directly to "Non-Self."

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The above can be seen in team sports. In the thick of the game when there is no longer time to manipulate mental dolls we start to behave immediately. We absorb "into" the game so that we are present "in" the game, not on the outside as an ego or person "deciding" to take part.

That famous faked clip of Evan Longoria catching a ball during an interview. Now it doesn't matter that it was staged, it illustrates--albeit in an extreme form--those moments when we are focused on one thing but the brain is able to respond to another. That "other" part of us is not imagined and modelled in consciousness there is no mental doll, it is just happening as it was happening. This is unlike the main action, in the case taking an interview, which is often well modelled and we experience a self actually doing it. For those automatic things we do we are not separate from the event, we are present IN the event. If this was real, then Evan here would be conscious of having the interview, that would be the mental doll, but he would actually be IN the catching of the the ball!

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This reminds me of a very simple Zen story. I can't remember all the details but a novice monk was pestering his master to explain what the true self was. After some time the master explains that he was not ready to understand and dismisses him from the monastery. As he walks away the master calls his name and the novice turns around: that, says the master, is your true self. True self exists IN the world, indeed AS the world. It is not a separate thing that MAKES decisions and has things happen TO it. There is no WORLD vs SELF distinction. All that "separation" happens in our thoughts as we try to make sense of the world and make up stories about what is going on.

Returning to previous blogs on vision. When we see something, even far away, the "hallucination" of it existing there IS the seeing. A thing "far away" has already been seen (else how would we know it was there far away!). The secondary process of it being "seen" by the body/person/being "over here" that we call our self is a secondary thing that happens in narrative and thought. The actual seeing was already done to make the thing "over there"! The "being seen" is a thought about how we got to see it and who saw it!

The "true self" is present IN the "hallucination" of the world around us. The presence of a world IS SEEING. The narrative of a person with a name at the centre of it all doing the seeing and thinking and living a life, that is all story that we layer onto the world mentally.

So it is with action. We exist like Evan Longoria IN what we do. The narrative of somebody making decision and then deciding and then doing is a mental story we add to the world.

Now this realisation can go adrift. The two extremes are that everything that happens starts with a Self that decides what to do with FREE WILL. The other extreme is that we have no part to play and the body operates like an automaton. I spent some time in this view as a teenager and it is scary. What if I do something terrible, how will I stop myself, I am a passenger in a car with someone else driving kind of feelings (indeed western teenagers often dream of being in a car with no one driving or with someone else driving to narrative the awakening of their adult life of making choices for themself).

Both these extremes are too far. The truth is that we EXIST IN the middle. We are not outside the moment either "inside" pushing the body along, or "outside" watching the body be automatic. Reiterating what is said above we are the actions themselves. We are the doubt, we are the deliberation. It does not mean that action is instantaneous. Some decisions are hard and we need to think. But we ARE the thoughts. That mental representation we create like Rodin's "The Thinker":

That is not what it is like at all. This is pure EGO. We are not thinking, we ARE the thoughts.

This separation in our lives between things and ourselves is the illusion created by the brain narrativising the world and ourselves. But its a mental creation, its not the Present Moment truth.

So why do Human do this? When the tiger enters the room all this evaporates and we go into Immediate mode to escape. Only afterwards thinking back do we see what we did and go "wow" was that really "me?" In less stressful moments that "wow is this really me" can catch up almost to the present moment so it looks like we are the person in the thought. We can manage ourselves this way by swapping out the truth with our mental image which is "almost the same." But an instinctive action is needed to push them apart again.

We do all this as a defence. But its actually a perversion of what the narrative thing is about. The narrative thing is about recording and writing things like this blog. But we pervert it to make a "hero" out of ourselves in our own life. We are safe with this made up mental hero. But the seemingly harmless switch from the true self to the fiction has an enormous impact because it means we start living a fake life of a soulless doll.

We are the puppet master who has got fixated by the doll that we operate. That doll can do anything I like and that gives us power and freedom. We forget that the truth is that the true self is operating that soulless doll.

When we look at what we think is "our self" sitting at the desk or where ever we are reading this its odd that this thing is actually rather flat and empty. We can see the inside (obviously as eyes take what is outside in), we can feel the inside somewhat but not a lot, we have the overlay of "thoughts" and "feelings" swirling around appearing from nowhere and going nowhere but there is no explanation of how all this happens we can't see that, its all rather flat and mysterious: you could even say soulless you certainly can't see the soul supposedly in all this. The soul does not reside in the thing at the centre of my world. All the activity is going on outside or in that swirling overlay of thoughts, feelings, imaginings but not clear where that is.

Argument against Quine–Putnam indispensability (completed)

Post now completed.

Saw this on today's Wikipedia front page:

Quine–Putnam indispensability argument

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quine%E2%80%93Putnam_indispensability_argument

Expressed as this syllogism:

1. We ought to have ontological commitment to all and only the entities that are indispensable to our best scientific theories.
2. Mathematical entities (ME) are indispensable to our best scientific theories.
3. Therefore, we ought to have ontological commitment to mathematical entities.

So in summary:

1. The Quine–Putnam indispensability argument is not "indispensable to our best scientific theories."
2. So we have no ontological commitment to it.
3. If ontological commitment is necessary for validity then this invalidates the theorem.
4. So the theorem represents an example of a valid argument to which we need no ontological commitment.
5. This means that "ontological commitment" and existence has no bearing on the validity of an argument.
6. So the Quine–Putnam indispensability argument still stands in that things indispensable to our best scientific theories may exist. But it also says (by contradiction) that valid things may also not exist. This makes existence a rather arbitrary and unimportant consideration.

In more depth:

Well Quine is a smart chap and a preeminent logician so should I really be arguing?

Anyway I smell a rat. He's an American and as a rule Americans seem unable to conceive of the Abstract preferring to force it into simple boxes like "existence" or "matter" or something rigid. If there is one limitation of US thinking: it is rigid.

Now Richard Feynman is on record as saying:

"I believe it is the atomic hypothesis (or the atomic fact, or whatever you wish to call it) that all things are made of atoms"

NOTE ON SRH:

However by SRH we know there is a contradiction by self-reference here. Let me note that the proof of SRH in the general case has not been shown yet. But it has been noted that the proof of the "existence of a contradiction by self-reference" namely SRH would require self-reference and so imply a contradiction of itself. We then showed that it may be possible if the SRH was a proof of the type "all rules have exceptions" this allowing for itself to be an exception.:

But if the statement "All self-reference implies the existence of a contradictory statement" is true then it itself implies there is a statement that contradicts itself. Which is a contradiction and so makes it true! Need think more carefully whether this allows for an escape clause.

Perhaps we could also argue that self-reference cannot occur in a contradictory statement for what is it referring to? Casual argument but things like that.

BACK TO FEYNMAN

So by SRH anyway obviously Feynman's statement is not true because if it is a thing then it is not made of atoms. So Feynman is either saying that:

• not everything is made of atoms (if he is presenting a contradiction) , or he is saying that
• the Atomic Hypothesis is not a thing.

So we are making a distinction between the:

• existence of things that we can sense and physically interact with, and the
• existence of the ideas about things in the mind.

Do mental objects exist? Well thoughts must exist because we can distinctly say when we have one and when we don't like "Eureka!" was Archimedes noting the occurrence of an idea. That which occurs must exist?

But then we have the instance of an idea, and the general idea that we may not be thinking about right now but we can think about any time we like after it is learned. That entry in Wikipedia that logs the nature of idea like a blueprint or program for anyone who wishes to think it. That Wiki page you would say exists in the sense it takes up disk space in California, and that can be copied into any number of other existence of data on machines around the world and displayed so people can read it. Indeed the question of digital copies does raise the question of what form the "copy write" on the original applies to. Yet Archimedes idea now exists whatever form it takes.

And the idea that "Abstract things exist" itself exists, at least according to Quine. Yet it is weird that while Scientific phenomena can be tested, why can't Quine's idea? If it exists like a scientific observation where is the observation? Quine must argue that because Abstract ideas are involved in science then they too must exist. They are clearly different from scientific theories themselves.

But does Quine's idea itself get involved in Scientific Theories?

And here is the proof he is wrong. No!

So Quines Abstract Idea that "Abstract ideas exist" does not itself have to exist. SO it stands as an example of an Abstract Idea that does not need to exist. Regardless whether Scientific Theories require the existence of existing theories, Quine idea does not and shows that this need not be true. So it totally defeats itself.

Indeed this is generally true. If we do not already know whether "abstract ideas" exist we cannot provide any abstract proof that they do. This is a "castle in the sky." If your foundation does not work, no mater how much you build on it is will not work.

Quine is trying to create an "Abstract idea" in support of "abstract ideas."

2 take homes:

1. This is yet another demonstration of SRH. How many do we need before we see the general proof itself?
2. Americans are generally stuck in a "narrowing" of thought. The American tendency to take short cuts, hammer things down, fix things in stone, make things simple and solid and saleable means they ultimately reject the very foundations they started with. The US needs to understand that if it is not already sufficient then no amount of work built on that foundation can be better.

Q.E.D.

.END

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 V

Below are fragments when preparing this post. They include a partial investigation of the difference between things and idea; of general ideas, actual thoughts, and reality. Obviously thoughts have an actual existence as they take place in time and can be detected in the brain, but they are "about" abstract things. So we could have the idea about an idea. As I am doing here. They are not the same. Like a "name" is not the same as the "thing". In here lies fuel for SRH.

So the problem I'm looking for is a 3rd Man Argument type regress.

Let us use the abstract mathematical concept of a Circle.

C = ∀x : |x-P| = R & x ∈ ℝ2

Given a point P and a radius R then all the points from space of Real Numbers squared that are distance R from P

However a problem: the set of points that form a circle is not actually a Circle: it is a set of Points. Points and Circles are completely different objects.

Now let us say that Points and Circles both exist. Perhaps we can express a Circle as the definition above.

So Quine is saying that both the set of points C and the expression that defines those points C' are both existing things.

For example these 4 points fit the description of a circle in that they all lies the same distance from the central point. So they are a subset of a C. But they are also a subset of a Square and an infinite number of definitions.

So the collection of points and the definitions that they belong to are indeed different. Looking at this picture you can see four points and then think to fit them into a Square or Circle or any shape you like at will. The shape they fit into is different from the points. Now Quine is saying both the points and the definitions exist.

Now both the definitions of Circle and Square belong to another set "Regular Shapes." And all 3 belong to "Shapes" and then you have powersets and the order of the set of definitions is Aleph 1. So Quine is saying that there are uncountably many existent things.

Okay no problems here yet... TBC

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So if Quine is going to start arguing that Abstract Mathematical Objects "exist" he is saying that "ideas" exist. Can we agree in this syllogism:

1. All Abstract Mathematical Objects are thinkable.
2. All thinkable things are ideas.
3. Therefore All Abstract Mathematical Objects are Ideas.

>Quine is arguing that Abstract Mathematical Objects "exist" and exist independent of ideas. Like a Unicorn is an idea, but they don't exist. And presumably galaxies existed before the idea. They are not the same. Abstract Mathematical Objects

It is interesting to consider proofs by contradiction gained by assuming that something does not exist. So we can show that something must exist before actually finding it. Constructivists would argue this was impossible. One must assume then that Quine was such a thinker, as he seems to suggest that Mathematical Objects MUST exist before discovery. 

Famous philosophical arguments like the Ontological Arguments for God are like this. There must be a "greatest entity." Firstly there must be a greatest entity of mind. And then an entity that does exist is greater than one that does not exist so the greatest entity of mind exists.

>Let me recap exactly what Quine says. Scientific theories imply existence of certain things. Since ME are among the certain things then we must add ME to our ontology.

What do we mean by existence? Let me go back to real basics for my own recollection...

The Andromeda galaxy exists. You can see it, and record data from it. But do "galaxies" exists?

Suppose there are only 2 galaxies: a, b.

That means there is a set G = {a, b}.

G = ∀x | x is a galaxy

There may be another galaxy 'c' that has not been found yet. So we can never know how big the set G is, although we know it is at most countably infinite.

Now one question is: does 'c' exist before it is found?

So we separate the issue into Ontological (what Exists) and Epistemological (what is Known).

The thing to note is that the question is Epistemological. We are asking:
"do we know that c exists, before it is found."
But we can:
"only know something exists by finding it".

So we cannot answer this question unless there is a way to know something without finding it.

One way is by collecting evidence. So we have Bayesian Inference to help us here. But the problem here is that by Bayesian Inference you never have a certainty. As evidence mounts we become more certain but never certain.

This is almost the question of Evolution of Species. Challengers of Evolution look at the difference between variation and species. All evidence for actual evolution has been for gradual changes in form. While people look at Elephants and Giraffes and say how can that difference be accounted for by accumulated variation. They are absolutely "different" species. This idea comes from the Biblical idea of "God make the wild animals according to their kind" [Genesis 1:25]. But a philosopher might say this is a limitation of language. Famously it was Gilbert White who separated the Chiffchaff from the Willow Warbler. To a modern birder two species so different that it's amazing they were confused. Their songs being completely unalike for a start.

As well as the idea of species being cast in stone, it is just as common today to see all life as connected in a family tree. In fact all life was connected before because it was all made by God. You could argue the modern idea of completely separate species could be a "rigid" US view like I'm accusing Quine. 

So did the Chiffchaff and Willow Warbler and in fact Wood Warbler exist before Gilbert White identified them as? It's a mixed up question. People saw all these birds but classified them probably under some name like LBJ (little brown job). So all White did was reclassify them. That is give them new names.

LBJ = ∀x | x is a small brown bird.

After Gilbert White's work:

GW = ∀x | x ∈ LBJ & (x is Willow Warbler || x is Chiffchaff || x is Wood Warbler)

So the x are all the same before or after Gilbert White, just the categories different. We can call this Type C discovery.

Russel and Whitehead originally came up with Predicate Logic to solve this ontological problem:

"Unicorns are white."

the problem is what thing are we saying is white? Normally we apply a predicate like The Sun is yellow. This presupposes a Sun and then says it is yellow. No problem. But to say Unicorns are white suggests that there are unicorns. If we say it is false then are we saying that unicorns are not white? So we presume there is a "World of Things", and then ask to select those things that are unicorns and those which are white. We can then make a statement saying there are no such things. True there may be black unicorns but that is a separate statement, we are not committed to unicorns in this sentence.

This "World of Things" is the Ontology and we presume it exists. Type B discovery would be finding an 'x' which fits an existing classification. Like the Higgs Boson. Higgs proposed such an elementary particle before it was found.

∃x | x is Higgs Boson

This was unknown before experiments found an 'x' which fitted Higgs description.

The other possibility is finding an 'x' that does not fit existing descriptions like Dark Matter. There is evidence for something but no one has any idea what it is. This is classic Type A discovery.

This interaction between x and the "bins" we put the x in can lead to all kinds of issues.

Originally there were 2 entities in the sky: the morning star called Phosphorus and the evening star called Hesperus. They had very clear descriptions: one appearing in the morning sky and one in the evening sky. But there was a clue: they never occurred at the same time so we could not be sure they were separate entities. Indeed it turned out that a new theory was possible where they were the same x but due to its orbit and the Earths orbit it sometimes appeared in the evening and sometimes in the morning. This is Type C where a reclassification which reduced the bins, but that included a reduction in the number of 'x' too. Occam's Razor is don't have any unfilled bins. If Phosphorus and Hesperus are exclusively empty then replace them with the one bin Venus with one entity in all the time.

Now where does this get us with Quine. When Quine says that scientific theories include mathematical objects then some 'x' are mathematical objects.

TBC 

But then is not discovery just the same as reclassifying it?

The problem with this question is that we can't answer it. If we could answer it then it would be found!

  

So we can expand Quine's musings to do "Ideas Exist?"

Let us propose the following proposition and syllogism:

1. All Ideas exist
2. The idea of "exist" is an idea.
3. Therefore the idea of "exist" itself exists.

Quine should be getting uneasy now: a use and mention! And from SRH (see blog) we know there is a contradiction lurking in here. In fact if SRH was proven we could just end the proof here. But it isn't so I need to find the actual contradiction.

And I don't have time right now...

But what we are going to see is that a "particular thought" like "oh I just realised I need to go to the gym today because tomorrow we're going shopping" is embedded in time. You have the thought and then you don't have the thought. This is what we mean by the "thought existing."

IF you then try and argue that the idea of the "gym" exists outside this context, like its sitting there in a Platonic Space waiting to be thought by someone then you have 2 types of existence. An actual instance of the thought AND the general abstract entity commonly called Type and Token.

However, and not sure this has been shown before, but once you have made that split you can go mapping isomorphs and splitting recursively forever like Cantor's infinite ascent of numbers. That is to say like a fractal, once you can find resemblance or mapping between the whole and a part created by a split (or any operation), then you can apply the split again on that part and then continue forever recursively.  

Types need be split into an ascending hierarchy of Types. Which is interesting because this is Russel and Whiteheads solution to their paradox in Principia Mathematica. However other logics have got around this without types.

Anyway suffice for now to conclude that Quine needs introduce at least 2 types of existence which he does not. The actual instance of a mathematical object in an actual debate or real-time event, and the Abstract existence he is proposing. Obviously Platonic thinking does this but reduces the real-time existence to a "shadow" of the Form thus trying to reduce existence to just a single concern. In that there are many apples which gain their "similarity" through resemblance to a "Normative" Apple in the world of Forms. Biology does this in real life with the type designation. But unlike Plato's mysterious idea world of Forms the "type" specimen is just a particular specimen itself. Plato's "existence of Forms" leads to the exact same contradiction hinted at here because to explain existence you need create new existences (namely forms) and then you end up in an infinite regress.

So broadly isn't Quine doing the same? Anyway definitely no more time now, was opening wiki for actual work not a huge diversion... to be continued...

Youths n Violence (2009) addendum

https://riswey.blogspot.com/2009/10/youths-n-violence-uk.html

===

this was originally tagged onto the end of the above post.

understand that...Update 16/11/2022

One thing missing from this account is is that we are a illusion also. The above is slightly too centred on a population that is opposed to a leadership. What is more accurate is that leadership is a natural product of a society as much as an individual is.

People live in groups where they all interact. Even the recluse living alone in their home still interacts with the people who built their home through living there, and they must eat so interact we food growers and the many who work in that industry, and the people in the energy and chemical industry who enable that and fuel the supply trucks and fertiliser. And even the people in the council who plan the villages and maintain the roads upon which food is supplied. And so on. We are completely involved with other people at all levels regardless what we think. Our very existence right now is proof of other people, our own parents for example. So people living together and interacting is the start. From here we develop a social identity on one hand, and on the other we develop a leadership.

If we consider how we might  remove a leadership it can't be done alone. We need to encourage a mass of people to join us in over throwing them. And then what do we have, another group of people in charge. Leadership is always the interaction of people itself. It is not a separate thing.

Consider Iraq and how when the leadership were hunted down and executed by the US mafia, the country erupted into civil war. Without a leadership there was nothing to stop groups getting together and trying to rule each other. Eventually a stable, albeit weak, leadership was agreed on. For a leadership to work there must be agreement. Clearly the US never had the agreement of the people. I guess that is what happens when you invade a country.

Most famously in the UK the British people having tried a Republic decided again on a strong leader to keep the peace. The fear of Civil War, like Iraq, was still so great that they preferred a Monarch to returning to in fighting. This is an example of a Nash Equilibrium where the individuals do not try and steal power--knowing that will lead to war-- but prefer instead to take a second place and promote a single person to lead. That was they all lose equally and swap total power for lesser power but peace.

This type of Social Contract is exactly how the world works. It is not just a matter of the powerful taking charge, but that to take charge they need support, and that support comes from people who are prepared to equally follow in return for peace. Power by itself never creates peace.

Something the US fails to understand is that all countries that are at peace have achieved an equilibrium where leaders and led have achieved a harmony. The people are not so oppressed that they abandon peace for war, and the leader is suitably secure and supported not to become a tyrant. However of course it is not a misunderstanding, the US who studies all this stuff knows they can tip stable political systems out of equilibrium and into civil war. You see US CIA attempts at unrest all round the world from Hong Kong to Iran. All they need to do is create enough doubt in the leadership that the people start to think about war, and in turn the government is forced to become tyrannical to keep order. The irony of course is that the US is one of the most militarised and tyrannical countries on Earth with 1 in 150 people in prison. This far exceeds all the countries the US tries to make out oppose freedom like China, North Korea, Russia or Iran. By comparison these countries are free. But these countries have a much longer and more stable peace. The US is full of poor ex-slaves who do not agree with the system. But the point here is to start thinking of countries and governments as equilibriums of people rather than static groups of leaders separate, above and in control of the people.

Capitalism is a health emergency

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2016/may/hair-root-understanding-our-stress-levels

"The results showed that cortisol concentration was 20% higher in the group of women who earned the least compared to women who earned the most."

If stress is the biggest killer in the West being behind all the chronic diseases like heart attack, stroke cancer, dementia and low income is linked to stress then to improve the health of the population we need to increase everyone's income.

Now Capitalists argue that the way to increase incomes is economic growth. Then there is more economy, more market, more jobs, and more money in circulation to raise incomes.

But there is a problem Capitalism raises EVERYONE'S income, so after the raise you are still in the same place! If you were on lower income to start with then no amount of Capitalism can change that! Capitalism and economic growth can't cure the stress above.

In fact Capitalism will make it worse as the income distribution does not just shift to the right, it also stretches to the right. The wealthy get ever more relatively wealthy.

Current US wealth distribution (2023)

So you see someone on the TV with an income of $1million per year and your income is $40,000. So you are 4% as wealthy as them.

In 10 years you see someone with an income of $1billion per year and your income is $60,000 so you are just 0.006% as wealthy as them. Have you grown more wealthy or less? Well the way the human brain works you have grown less wealthy because it is relative.

This is why Capitalism actually spreads poverty whilst appearing to make people more wealthy.

Have argued at length in this blog why this is. But its easy to see it is true. Go back 100 years and the wealthy travelled in horse drawn coaches. Now even the poorest can travel by car. Yet did the wealthy feel poor in the past? No! Relatively the best that was on offer was horse drawn carriage so that made them feel wealthy.

Likewise the time will come in the not so distant future when we can take genetic treatment to stop aging. Soon even the poorest will be able to stop aging. How rich will they be! Richer than anyone in the Past even Chinese Emperor Chin who put all the resources of his empire into trying to gain immortality. But do the billionaires today feel poor knowing they will age? Well yes they do when compared against future progress.

So its relative. If you look into the Past everyone feels wealthy, if you look into the future everyone feels poor. And this is always true, true for people 1000 years ago and true for people in 1000 years. You can't cure this with Capitalism and progress. We are both wealthy and poor at the same time, it just depends what you compare yourself too. Feeling rich or poor is purely relative.

So Capitalism creating more of everything is not solving the problem. Cortisol levels will continue to grow under Capitalism and people will continue to get ever more unwell as it progresses.

Perhaps the Capitalists will create a drug to compensate for increased cortisol so they can continue the economics of inequality.

But its only a plaster over the root problem. And will the Capitalists be able to bandage up the planet and all life itself that is under stress?

You can't keep avoiding the truth for ever. Capitalism is wrong at every level and needs to be dismantled.

The usual argument then is, we can't dismantle Capitalism cos we have nothing to replace it with. Well its not like any money has been spent trying to replace it. Where is the incentive for investors hungry for profits to invest in a system that will not afford them profit? Well it doesn't matter, it's all already been solved and done and this argument from Capitalists is just filibustering.

The stress free alternative to Capitalism

In the UK we have the John Lewis department store. It began life under English founder John Lewis much like any other company. But his son John Spedan Lewis ,

"On his father's death he formed the John Lewis Partnership and began distributing profits among its employees in 1929. He transferred control of the company to the employees in 1950 and resigned as chairman in 1955"

On one hand we think its good for workers to get the profit. But its much, much more important because it means that Capitalists don't get the profits and economies stops being driven for the profit and benefit of the rich. And it means that money does not constantly leak out of the economy into the pockets of a wealthy elite. This wealth money is then used to buy up things for rent which inflates prices of ordinary things like houses and so increases the money that the poor must pay the rich. The amount of money in the ordinary economy reduces causing further inflation and actually slowing the economy. Governments must then undertake "quantitative easing" to provide liquidity, but all this does is further inflate the wealth of the rich as QE us always handed to the Capitalists to prop up stock markets. The poor then have to pay raised taxes to cover this spending. Gradually Capitalism, like a disease, consumes the whole economy putting the mass into poverty.

The simple change of returning profits into the main economy again via the pockets of workers shuts down this leak and keeps the economy healthy. So the co-operative movement and mutual banking system it is far, far more than just rewarding workers. It is how an economy really works.

This also protects democracy. By stopping a super class of wealthy Capitalists from forming the wealth to buy political parties and politician is reduced. Given that all Capitalists want is protection of their wealth and further wealth leaked in their direction, once Capitalists start funding politics then the economy is forever twisted towards this destructive path. And since media is owned by the Capitalists no newspaper or book in any Capitalist funded business school will ever say what is said here.

It also protects the planet. With wealth in the hands of the workers there is a desire for growth but it is checked by other concerns like work conditions and the life of workers. Gone are the days of slave driving by profit driven capitalists with only profit figures as measures of performance. At the end of the day profit is of little interest to ordinary people. Since they spend much of their lives at work, whether work is enjoyable is of equal importance and for consumers good value and quality are far more important than profit. Profit only actually matters to Capitalists. Without the drive for profit pressure on resources and the planet is automatically reduced.

American are well aware of the co-operative movement because it is the core of George Bailey's business in "It's a Wonderful Life" which used to screen at Christmas time in the US. The business side of the film is a battle between a cooperative Building and Loan and a Capitalist bank. Obviously the wealthy hate the poor joining mutuals because they end up paying no interest and furthermore that interest does not make them even richer (namely Capitalism). Capitalists will do anything to discredit and destroy Mutuals as we see in the film. But obviously a collective fund that pools money to enable complex purchases like house building leverages the power of the collective to benefit everyone in the collective. No one outside the collective is able to exploit the people in the collective and the people in the collective enjoy all the benefits. This type of mutual reinforcing of benefit encourages people to remain loyal to the system because they can see the immediate benefits of supporting it. And everyone in a mutual benefits equally. It is the perfect economy. But US Capitalists have spent billions brainwashing people, and even more bombing people to make sure that Capitalism, and stress, is the only option we have. 

So the alternative has always been there from before even the start of US Capitalism. But unscrupulous US Capitalists have worked tirelessly to brainwash  the West to accept giving them vast amounts of money effectively for free (risk is minimal for top Capitalists, and is underwritten by the tax payer and corrupt politicians in bailouts these days too).

Nephesh

 just for reference 

https://biblehub.com/hebrew/5315.htm

Interesting that the "life" or "soul" was seen to exist in the blood hence the prohibition from eating blood and separating the flesh from the blood.

But of course in Christianity the flesh and blood have very special meaning and the "soul" of Jesus is conveyed through the communion wine. 

The 7 Levels of Existence (revised schema)

Had a think about this new scheme I'm using. Following the questions on the two Gods in the bible, namely the jealous God "Yahweh Aleph" and the forgiving God "Yahweh Bet" it seems that they occupy different levels of the schema. The Jews are positioned at Level C. Indeed anyone who wages dualistic war between people on "sides" is at Level C. So since Yahweh Aleph supports the Jews against their enemies then "Yahweh Aleph" is actually an entity at Level C too! Perhaps this is why Yahweh Aleph is so jealous he lives alongside the gods of all the other nations and so has strong competition not least that favourite of the Israelites the god Baal. This is why Yahweh Aleph says "no gods before me," there are other gods but you Jews must place me at the front. This is Level C existence.

Now I don't know if a Jew ever showed mercy for a non-Jew. They always complain that non-Jews have often shown them no mercy, but ask not what your country can do for you: has a Jew ever shown a non-Jew mercy. At some point they must have. At some point a Jew must have looked at a non-Jew and thought this person has a right to live: we share the same life. This thought is Level D.

It's remarkable that the moment that Jesus had this experience is recorded in the Bible.

“It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs” [Matthew 15:26]

He is refusing help to a woman based just on her race: a Canaanite. Jesus was a racist to begin with. Even he was at Level C. But during this encounter he says that her faith has saved her daughter. Suddenly being born a Jew is not the only requirement to get Yahweh Aleph's blessing, those with faith can get it. Suddenly the whole of humanity has access to God. Jesus realises that God is really Yahweh Bet the God of all! And this is Level F in the schema.

I mean it is ridiculous if you think about it that God would divide his creation into favourite and least favourite creations, especially when all these creations are made from the exact same dust that they return to. This is Level C: separating creation into parts.

So just recap the other levels which are simpler.

A - psychopaths. People who can see no further than themselves. The world and everyone in it exists just to serve them.

B - mafia. People at this level can see that other people matter, but only if they have some family or other personal connection.

C - states. This includes all people who can only see as far as their country, leaders, religion, race. The reason for writing so much about this level at the moment is both Remembrance Day and the Israel war. To takes sides in war we need only be able to see as far as our own side. Blindness of the other side, sticks us at Level C.

D - humanity. People at this level see the connection between all humans. we all have a mother, we all feel sorrow, we all want to be happy (even if some of us try to find it in the weirdest ways). When John Donne says "the bell tolls for you" he is showing awareness that all humans share the same life.

E - all life. Expanding our awareness we see it is not just humans that want to be safe and well. Our pet dog does, even our hamster. Actually all life is irreplaceably precious and should be treated like it were a diamond. God made all this, it is to be marvelled at not exploited. Vegetarians and Vegans probably occupy this level realising that the life of animals is as valuable, if not more valuable, than the meat. We get more pleasure from knowing an animal is well than eating its flesh. 

F - this awareness is beyond Things. The Creator is not himself created. So when you appreciate that there is an existence at all then you enter Level F. It's not an inventory of the Universe, Level F can be appreciated looking at a raindrop: it is there! This God is not jealous cos there is just One. When Jews talk about being the creators of Monotheism they need take a step back and think what they are talking about. Jesus was the first (and perhaps last) Jew to get to Level F for when you hear Rabbis and Jewish teachers speak they seem oblivious to this. Being Jewish has you firmly stuck at Level C.

G - there are many levels even for God.

===

We do not occupy just one level, but swirl between them. There may be a moment when we dive into the queue at the supermarket thinking about what we want, and are oblivious to the elderly person struggling with their shopping. Our mind has shrunk to A. Perhaps afterwards with Type C mind we may recall this Type A mind and think it was small and narrow and we would have been wiser to offer our place in the queue and even help with the shopping. This is why you get these odd contradictions. A person can be loving to their dog, and then sit down to eat a steak. You might think the life of a dog and the life of a cow were the same. Although for many a dog becomes part of the family and so that is just Level B existence. This is why a Nazi can shoot a Jew and then return home and be a loving husband, or a Jew can shoot a Arab, or anyone kill in war and then return home a hero. This is what you expect from Type C mind. Likewise you expect a person to kill their neighbour over a dispute if they have Type A mind. Type C people have a legal system that restricts the freedom of Type A. God at Level F has a spiritual system that restricts the freedom of people below that system especially Type C. So while Type C may think they win the war, they always lose in the long run. Violence always breeds violence. Pax as discussed before is the peace that comes from superior firepower. But empires and Pax are only temporary and all come to grief. Even Type A mind can get a kind of "peace" this is where we get the freedom to do whatever we want even at the expense of other people. If we were fearsome and powerful the world can indeed seem to walk in step with us, and we feel like we are getting everything we want. But being at Level A we don't see the wider picture of how we impact the people around us. Before long what looked like the world being in step, starts to be a world out of step and things get hard again. We start to think the world is against us again and this cycle continues until we glimpse Level B. But this cycle occurs at all levels. Its my provisional belief that there is nothing special about Jews other than their consciousness. They behave in a way that leads to hatred, and I believe that stems from an implicit hatred at the heart of Judaism. Being Type C entities committed Jews cannot see the hatred they cause in the Gentiles. They can use as much power and prayers to Yahweh Aleph but without awareness of Type D Jews can only ever see half the picture, and the other half will always eventually come crashing in as a complete mystery that disrupts the otherwise perfect Type C world.

Few people will ever get to Level D solidly. We will find our minds crash down to Level C sometimes and feel hatred of a "side" perhaps in politics or in war. We will find our minds crash down to Level B and get angry at someone at the school gates for acting superior and disrespecting our family. We will often crash down to Level A and feel personal hurt and feel we need to protect ourselves and act only for ourselves. But as our consciousness grows the number of times we crash down reduces and we stay down for less time.

It seems to me that one of the main attacks on people of higher consciousness is pointing out hypocrisy. An "animal lover" who does huge amounts of work to help animals is seen eating a steak. The moment people see them exhibit a lower than Type E mind it is assumed that Type E mind does not even exist. People below Type E who have no perspective in Type E mind use this to justify their own mind. Of course they don't notice that eating a steak is just one instance of lower than Type E, and they are being selective to not look at all the other evidence of a higher mind.

Political Media is very good at cancelling people by selecting instances of a particular mind and ignoring the rest. This is why Yahweh Bet is so important. Level F and the forgiving God allows for the slow process of gradually growing and for mistakes and trips and collapses to smaller minds. "Its not the falling, its the getting up again" kind of logic. Those who repent of lower states express firm growth and solid brightness in higher levels. That is literally the only thing that matters. Looking down on lower levels and seeing they are lower is what growth is all about.

BUT there is no ultimate level (well there is but from this "level" the issue is no longer levels at all, and any "mind state" can be looked down upon). It means that there is no possibility of feeling "superior". True a mafia type individual who has the protection of their family (Level B) can look down on a basic psychopath and see them as weak and isolated (Type A) but the Police (Type C) then slam a mafia person in prison and they look down on them. And so it goes on. We are best being happy to have risen above lower levels, help others do that, and spend our time growing into the next level.

America is Satan

 I know this is a common thing said by parts of the world that disagree with the US Empire and don't want to be part of it. That could be because the people do not want it, or because the leadership does not want to answer to another leadership. But this is just rebellion.

When I say America is Satan I mean that the US is a deceiver and thief that will entice you with lies and rob you of everything.

But how can this be says the US. We have spread freedom and democracy around the world, and improved the lives of billions through technology. We even have people around the world wanting to be American and tearing down walls like the Berlin Wall so they can escape their own leaderships. How can the US be bad? 

Well people in the US may believe this but it misses the point.

Ed Finn on the BBC Radio 4 discussing Future Cities. I'm not listening to it but get the general motivation. It is true that architecture and town planning has a profound influence on the people who live within it. But its all superficial.

I'm only using the metaphors of religion, not being ontological, but God made the world. He gave us everything we need. We have eyes to see, hands to make things, lungs to breathe, the Sun rises each day bring light and warmth, plants grow by themselves giving us food, rains come by themselves, the worms till the soil by themselves, bacteria recycle waste all by them self, and mankind came to be on the planet by itself. The world already has everything we need.

Now with the advent of Agriculture we entered a trap. Populations grew and we could not turn back. Mankind started to enjoy the fruits of its own labour more and more, until now where we have almost lost sight of the natural world that give us everything already.

Now I say that US is the Satan because, like its Hollywood, it fills our lives with fantasies and mirages and makes us lose sight of the truth.

Meditation is an extraordinary practice because it rids us of all this American clutter and returns us to the truth.

Unpeel the Onion to find Peace + Thought shall not kill + Jews are potentially fake

After Remembrance Day we have probably had our fill of people promising us peace by fighting. This is clearly nonsense *. The way to Peace is totally different from all this activity. In its simplest form if people stopped fighting then war would end, there is literally nothing to do to end war.

One way to look at the path to Peace is like wrapping up an onion. There are levels to this.

The lowest level is Level A where people operate only for themselves. Psychopaths fit this level. Working in a prison like Broadmoor for example, you will have met many people at this level.

Eventually someone hits our mother, wife or children and we step in to protect them. We are suddenly caring about people beyond our self and we crawl into level B.

Eventually our country is attacked and we sign up to defend it and we enter level C.

While fighting we bayonet an enemy soldier and hear him crying out for his mother we suddenly realise he is human just like us. When this sense of us being the same becomes greater than our training by our leaders to see him as alien and enemy, then we start to see level D.

Levels D/E/F are really, really confused. During Remembrance Day we hear lots of references to Christ when Christ never once said take up arms against anyone. He said "turn the other cheek" [Matthew 5:39] and "he who lives by the sword shall die by the sword." [Matthew 26:52]. People at level D realise that hurting anyone is hurting them self. By the time you enter Level E hurting anyone is hurting God's creation, its quite the opposite of lower behaviours.

So the god/God levels no longer involve violence. It is almost comical how people in the name of God embark on Jihads and Crusades. Surely God is powerful enough to punish wrong doers by himself, our job is simply to make sure we are not among them when punishment comes. Hence another of Jesus' famous lines, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone" [John 8:7] Give up condemning others, focus just on making yourself ready for God, there is more than enough work in that alone,. You look at the Jewish, Muslim and Christian worlds and you realise that really these worlds follow the Devil. 

It gets very sophisticated up here beyond level D and anyone who gets here is probably high enough evolved to continue by them self... keep exploring the levels of the onion.

=== Addendum

* So there is the idea of Pax as in Pax Romana, Pax Brittannia and now Pax Americana. When you have a strong mafia in town then there is peace, because everyone is afraid to argue. This is a kind of peace that I have called Pax before in this blog. Periods of Pax in history are associated with growth in trade and culture because there is stability. It's a very practical time. When people say "fight for peace" what they mean is "fight for Pax" which means supporting a mafia so that it becomes so powerful that all other mafia stop fighting. Iraq was an excellent example of this. Once the Pax Hussein was ended the country turned into a violent brawl as all the old mafia starting fighting for power. The US basically turned out to not be powerful enough to enforce Pax. To do this you need deep connections, collaborators and information about a region: what Hussein had but the US did not in the infinite ignorance about the art of Empire. They still need more schooling by the UK who was a lot better at this and has centuries of experience.

Anyway this is Pax. But it is not peace. There is no good will toward Pax, it is simply treading water until opportunity arises for people to fight for power again. Empire's fall, incompetent leaders take over and fighting can resume. Pax and War are brothers. Pax is like drug addicts who have had their drugs confiscated, but will start taking them again as soon as they are available. Peace is drug addicts who understand this is not their best life and want to reform. Even when drugs are present they work to avoid them. Very different things.

Peace is different. Once you understand that fighting is stupid then you no longer do it. A peaceful nation does not fight cos it can't, it doesn't fight cos it doesn't want to. Very different. Differences are not solved by beating up people until they stop arguing, they are diplomatically and intelligently approached looking for mutual agreement. Alexander the Great for all his mythological military prowess actually created his empire through agreements and marriages. The fighting was not so important. Unfortunately he did not have the acumen to maintain an empire.

===

So there is a contradiction. At no point does Christ point to violence. When asked what is the most important commandment he says:

'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the greatest and first commandment. And the second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbour as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. [Matthew 22:37–40]

His words are in both verses shall-love or Ἀγαπήσεις/Agapíseis.

This love is translated here  :

To love (25) (agapao - see related study of noun agape) means to love unconditionally and sacrificially as God Himself loves sinful men (John 3:16), the way He loves the Son (John 3:35, 15:9, 17:23, 24).
Note that agapao is a verb and by its verbal nature calls for action. This quality of love is not an emotion but is an action initiated by a volitional choice.
MacArthur writes that agapao "expresses the purest, noblest form of love, which is volitionally driven, not motivated by superficial appearance, emotional attraction, or sentimental relationship. (MacArthur, John: 1 & 2 Thessalonians. Moody Press) In his commentary on 1 Peter MacArthur says it this way "agapaō expresses the ideal kind of love, that which is exercised by the will rather than emotion, not determined by the beauty or desirability of the object, but by the noble intention of the one who loves."

So Jesus always talks in terms of compassion and profound commitment to God and other people. Not a passive nice feeling of support, but a deep drive to associate and nurture.

So we turn to the 6th Commandment:

"Thought shall not kill."

It is an unfortunate translation, and rather confusing because the Old Testament is literally full of people killing. The Greek is Οὐ φονεύσεις which is from the root φονεύω meaning murder. So the proper translation is more narrow than kill, it is illegal killing. Obviously the Old Testament would not condemn war as it is full of it, and extreme war as well. Consider the wiki page analysis.

The Hebrew word is Retzach and this is expanded in the wider Mitzvot commandments:  

The 613 Mitzvot extend the notion of lawful killing to the nations that inhabited the Promised Land, commanding to exterminate them completely. Deuteronomy 20:10–18 establishes rules on killing civilians in warfare:

the population of cities outside of the Promised Land, if they surrender, should be made tributaries and left alive (20:10–11)

those cities outside of the Promised Land that resist should be besieged, and once they fall, the male population should be exterminated, but the women and children should be left alive (20:12–15)

of those cities that were within the Promised Land, however, everybody was to be killed.

So "Not Killing" even includes genocide if done within the context of war.

So how does Jesus who never disagrees with the Old Law but simply revises the writing of it to focus on the true meaning reconcile his teachings of Agapao with Retzach. Even faced with the lawful stoning of the adulteress something clearly stated in the Hebrew Law he asks the accusers to consider their own moral status before executing the law. If people cannot even execute the law of God on this small scale then how would Jesus encourage them to destroy whole cities?

It all points to the Jews having major misunderstandings of their own Laws. Either that or they must discredit the Prophet Jesus.

I do not know the answer. But since God encourages genocide within the Promised Land it did occur to me that the Jews should not be surprised if they experience genocide outside the Promised Land.

And that seems to me to be the failing of Judaism. It is remarkable given the depth of Jewish scholarship like Adorno and Levinas that no one has considered the Dialectic Jew/Gentile. Judaism is a limited concept because it divides the whole into opposing parts, and these parts are always in Hegelian conflict. It is no surprise that Jews massacre people inside the Promised Land and it is no surprise that Gentiles massacre Jews outside the Promised Land. It must in fact logically be like this. But as any dialectic will point out this will eventually lead to transcendence or aufhebung.  Of course this dialectic only exists within Judaism because outside Judaism there is no such thing as a Gentile. Indeed many people outside the Promised Land wonder what all the fuss is about: a storm in a teacup that only makes sense within the Judaic paradigm. That in itself is proof that there is nothing fundamental about Judaism: you cannot experience it, you must learn it! A Gentile is not born a Gentile they must learn they are a Gentile. And through the mirror a Jew is not born a Jew, they must learn they are a Jew. For some reason entire race of Jews seem stuck at Level C above and are unable/unwilling to conceive of a broader Humanity (Level D). How especially ironic as in the schema above you need to get to Level D before even appreciating True God. How can you appreciate the Creator God if you are still hung up on particular aspects of that Creation!

It all points to Judaism being fake. And the problems get deeper. I do not know who the God of Abraham was, but he was not the same God that sent the most famous Jewish prophet Jesus. The God of Abraham was a jealous God while of Father of Jesus is infinitely forgiving to those who have faith. The God of Abraham and Moses spends all his time punishing people. He commands 3000 executed for the transgression of worshipping the Golden Calf. Are we to presume that none of them were repentant of their sin? If any were repentant then we have a God executing those asking for forgiveness. This is not a merciful God. While the God of Jesus places mercy and forgiveness ahead of all things. The sins of the truly repentant are forgiven. This does not make Yahweh Bet a push over. You need be "truly repentant" and God knows what you deepest intentions are, so any sneaky attempts to cheat justice will fail. But for those who have seen the error of their ways Yahweh Bet will kill the fattened calf as the father does to celebrate the return of the prodigal son.

Yahweh Bet and Yahweh Alef are absolutely not the same Gods!

So who knows what God the Jews follow. I'm even prepared to think there was a switch and it is Jacob who breaks the Jewish line.

Genesis 27:
Jacob went in to his father and said, “Father.”
And his father said, “Yes, my son. Who are you?”
Jacob said to him, “I am Esau, your first son. I have done what you told me. Now sit up and eat some meat of the animal I hunted for you. Then bless me.”

So Jacob tricks his father and become the illegitimate lineage that we now call Jews. Obviously God saw all this, God is not tricked, so God leaves the bible at this point. 

Then we pick up "God" (or a god) again in the next chapter. But I don't think spirits that visit you at oasis in the night can be trusted. This is where the desert jinn hang out. I believe that Jacob, the illegitimate heir of Abraham, was tricked by a jinn or demon to follow him.

We have Jesus being tricked and tempted in exactly the same way in the desert and Jesus rejects the temptations of the devil. So it seems quite possible, altho arrogant speculation because this has been studied for 1000s of years and who am I, that the Jewish line to Abraham is broken and Jacob was the liar who fooled his heirs and broke the link . However this does not explain how YaHWeH Alef was a completely different God from YaHWeH Bet that Jesus spoke of. And it does not, as it stands, explain why the Jews are never at peace. Work to do... 

For reference the (possible) tricking of Jacob by a desert jinn. In Genesis 28:10-17:

Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Harran. When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep. He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. There above it stood the Lord, and he said: “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”

When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” He was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.”

So this means that the descendants of Abraham are the Edomites and not the Jews. And it means that a desert Jinn is what promised Moses the Promised Land and he made the mistake of accepting it (unlike Jesus later on). Uh ho you do not accept gifts from a devil! Perhaps this explains the constant grief the Jews have since experienced?