Multiverse & SRH

Think I had it in for the Multiverse concept at some stage; obvious change of mind now. Multiverse is the concept that instead of quantum waves collapsing into discrete recordable events, instead they create new universes, one for each event. David Deutsch champions this idea in connection with quantum computing where the possibilities in many universes can be utilised to compute results in this universe.

My problem with this is—after recent developments in the SRH—just linguistic. A universe suggests already that there is nothing outside it. To coin the term “multiverse” is completely oxymoronic and contradicts the meaning of universe. What quantum theory has opened is the realisation that what we thought was the limit of the universe is really just the limit of one bubble of space-time and other bubbles might exist. The “multiverse” is just a name for our better understood universe. For analogy how absurd to call the other planets multiverses in the days when the universe extended to just this planet and its atmosphere.

It might seem trivial but this lies at the heart of the SRH conception. A SRH Universe is unlimited just as Cantor showed that the sets of numbers are unlimited—that is not just that the numbers in each set is unlimited by the sets of infinities is unlimited in a way that can’t be grasped by any set! A fractal that extends in both directions with an infinite hierarchy of scale going upwards and downwards—the proper conception of Universe is something that in its very nature is ungraspable. The SRH says why very simply—if a body of understanding ever did try to grasp the scale of the Universe it would always need something outside itself in order to say something meaningful about itself. It cannot by the SRH ever say anything meaningful about its own existence, because that is a given from which the theory necessarily already depends rather than explains.

QED

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SRH (summary) and Time

Technorati Tags: God,proof,meaning,cogito,self,existence

The SRH is purely linguistic. There are no contradictions in reality—things just are—problems only occur when we try to assert things one way and then change our mind. The reader is left unsure what we mean and complains.

To summarise: the SRH (which needs a new name) notes that when referring to something by some description (essence) or asserting its existence one cannot then meaningfully attribute that essence or existence to the subject e.g. “(Ex) x exists”, or “(x) P(x) & Q(x) –> P(x)” respectively “there exists something which exists” or “for all x where x has quality P and quality Q it has quality P”. These tautologies sound ridiculous in logic but “all black swans are black” sounds almost meaningful and “I think therefore I exist” is famous.

To recap further the problem with these tautologies lies in their negations: they are contradictions or at least always false. Respectively above: “(x) x ¬exist”, “(Ex) P(x) & Q(x) & ¬Q(x)” that is “for all x, x doesn’t exist” and “there exists an x such that x has P, Q and doesn’t have Q”. The latter is a typical contradiction the former is a type I don’t know that i’m calling existential contradiction. The famous Descartes’ statement has this SRH problem at root: its very appeal and certainty lies in the tautology that to be thinking at all he must exist (we know what he means even if it doesn’t technically imply an existing self like entity). But the statement is misleading because its negation is an existential contradiction and so there being no situation under which it can be false (it is always true) and so fails to convey any particular meaning! We know nothing after reading it that we didn’t know before. Another way to put that is there is nothing to learn about such a sentence’s use; we can say it anytime and anywhere in any imaginable universe.

The relevant to a proof of God is firstly not to prove “(Ex) x is God” i.e. there is a thing called God. This is clearly nonsense at first sight since God made “all” things so one presumes he either made himself or he isn’t a thing. It staggers me that Dawkins et al. waste time pursuing this dead end. It makes more sense for God to be a principle (principal perhaps) namely that nothing can assert its own existence, instead depending upon other things. The name of God in the Arahamic religions is Yahweh in Hebrew which means “I AM”. It is important to realise that because of the SRH we cannot meaningfully assert this for our self. Any sense of “I am” comes from outside us.

Returning to the thread if this blog entry. The SRH and existential contradiction is linguistic. There is one famous field of existential contradiction namely time travel typified by the paradox of going back in time and killing oneself. The problem then arises was there a murder? If there was then the person who was murdered is also the murder. But if there was a murder it also means that the murderer was killed before he did the murder. However if there wasn’t a murder then what exactly did the time traveller do?

It is only an embryonic thought at this stage but similarity to the SRH signals an alarm bell that this “time travel” and indeed “time” itself may be only linguistic at root and not real. This wouldn’t be a new idea but I don’t grasp it yet. I read earlier in the year (but can’t remember where) a poem in which it is said that “self” is only a feature of our Indo-European languages and with a different language structure we would be able to avoid this cultural artefact all together.

SRH : Existential Contradiction

A month ago I had a brain wave. It occurred to me that the SRH is to do with existence.

I use the logical syntax:

(x)   : for all x it is true that
(Ex) : there exists x such that
¬ : not/negation
<statement>

Thus the proof of God is this:

The simple sentence “this sentence exists” seems unproblematic:

• <(Ex) x is this sentence>

But consider:

• <¬(Ex) x is this sentence>, or equivalently
• <(x) x is not this sentence>

These sentences are equivalent and are false because the sentence itself serves as an entity which contradicts them.

Now we can’t say that the sentences are “not sentences” because that would eliminate the entity we need to make them false. So it is not that self-reference is impossible as was naively proposed by the SRH.  However there is something odd.

The sentences are necessarily false. Once we have read the sentence we cannot then deny that the sentence exists, for what did we just read? So by the time we have understood the sentence we are already committed to its existence; we are already committed to its falsity. It is an analytic statement false by virtue of the definition of its own words. However it is a posteriori to the extent that we must have experienced it to have proof that it exists. (This is in contrast to Kant’s synthetic a priori.) It is thus a necessary contradiction.

It follows that its negation (statement 1) is not just true but necessarily true. It is a tautology, an analytic a posteriori.

So all the sentences above carry no information that the reader isn’t already familiar with by virtue of reading them. While they seem to make profound statements they are actually meaningless just as “Black swans are black” doesn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know: if we can find a black swans we already know it is black. More generally then for any predicate:

• (x) S(x) & B(x) –> B(x) 

clearly doesn’t tell us anything i.e. anything which is S and has property B has property B… i.e. all swans(S) which are black(B) are black(P).

What this means is that no entity can carry information about its existence or any feature which is required to identify it.

This means, and this is the SRH, that entities can only be meaningful about the existence of other entities apart from themselves.

To put it another way: we are very unlikely to hear that we have died and if we did we would know it was false. Thus the statement that we are alive is meaningless to us. It is this meaninglessness which means that we must be silent when it comes to issues of our self-existence and non-existence. Death, or indeed any word, doesn’t make sense here.

In contrast however other people can die and so we can make meaningful statements about their being alive or dead. When someone else makes a statement that we are alive then it is meaningful, but only from their point of view. This is social consciousness. If we attribute meaning to “I am alive” it is because we have adopted a social consciousness. This is not a good thing because why would we do this when we can see with our own eyes the truth? I suspect that the search for fame and social status derives from this weakness of our own eyes. The need to make noise and words (as I do here) is also such a weakness. For such a consciousness Death is a very real thing.

From this stems all the rest of the SRH. Most importantly that no system can exist independent of another because if it was an Ultimate theory of Everything it would need another system to state meaningfully that it did indeed existed as the ultimate system.

Likewise for every entity that seeks knowledge of its existence there is always an Other outside it that it must acknowledge first. This is the God Proof. Not the proof of a particular entity amongst all the others (the naive view of God) but the principle that there is always and necessarily an entity outside.

This also explodes the narcissistic, solipsistic world view. No self can know its existence before it knows the existence of another, and worse for the self it is the view point of the other that it adopts as its own proof of its existence! If it really looked at itself with its own eyes it would be speechless because what can its eyes “see” that his “seeing” hasn’t already told it?

Relativity, Self-Reference, Subject/Object

So it's back (after a 25 absence) to the conviction that "All things are relative" (or conditional in Buddhist speak).

But we can measure things. Being relative we can say where things lie relative to one another. So it is true that we can say that one person is richer than another, or has a bigger house or car etc. However this alone is not logos. To become logos we need to mix in a "standard" against which all things become relative. So we have the "metre" as the standard of length. Now we can say how things are relative to the metre and we have the practice of measurement we are familar with. Now we feel we can get the "absolute" length of things. Blue whales have been measured at 30 metres long ... fact!

Two things from this: 1) What is the metre, for example, of wealth? 2) How long is a meter?

Taking Q2 first: Because measurement depends upon relativity and comparing, when asked how long is a metre we try and compare a metre with itself (this is both habitual and a logical implication of the practice of measurement). What does our mind come up with? It's a blank. Suddenly a metre loses its solidity - it becomes a blank space with disconnected ends. When we try to put a start and an end on that space we still don't understand how "far" we have travellend between those ends - what sort of answer could be give? What logos is this? This blank is the same blank we get when trying to think about ourselves. This blank is NULL.

So I argue that self-reference is impossible but I realise that it is possible, just not measurable. When something refers to itself it lies outside/inside the relative, comparable world of symbols and logos. The first rule of self-reference club then is that you do not talk about self-reference club - indeed you can't because what symbols could you use to refer or compare oneself to oneself? This is why they say in matters of this kind that there is One because the self measures itself in a ratio of One:One - but this is actually inaccurate. There is not One God for the same reason that 0/0 is not 1 and NULL/NULL is not 1. Self does not measure self - you can't talk about it. It isn't a rule either actually since "rules" are measurements. That is why rulers measure distance and justice!

So what is the standard of Wealth? It can be chosen and become a custom and norm and a rule - the UN has done exactly this. We accept a standard of wealth, but it is no more real than a metre. It is simply a socially accepted way of doing things, a custom, a bit of culture - a rule in the game of measurement that we do.

And, what is Absolute then in this view? I spoke already of God and NULL. These are the Absolute Judges the measures of all things in antiquity. What of them today in the world of different standards like the metre? Well objectivity is the world of "external" measures where things are put side by side to see how they rank. Subjectivity is the name we give to the "inside" where something tries to relate to itself - subjectivity is then a nullification of objectivity.

While objectivity gives the sense of knowledge in that we can give a symbolic expression of something, I know that Blue-whales can grow to 30metres but I don't actuallty know how big this is. Someone usually says that this is the the length of 3 double-decker buses, not because we wanted to know that a double-decker bus is 10meters long, but because we have stood next to a double-decker bus and so we can compare the whale to ourselves. So how big then are we? Protagoras once said that "Man is the measure of all things"; I prefer "each man is the measure of all things"; when Man is asked to measure himself with himself, Man gets the answer NULL.

Yet NULL is not zero and it is not something. When they say we will become Nothing after death this is neither a ceasing to exist nor a beginning of some other existence - it is NULL, neither up nor down, neither full nor empty. I realise that the translation of sunyata in Buddhism which is usually emptiness is equally fullness cos really it means NULL. When NULL comes to play objective measurement is completely thrown into disarray. What was big when compared to small is now small against NULL and vice versa because NULL is both big and small objectively. I am both big and small - against a mountain I feel very small, but I look down at the ant following its intricate map and suddenly I am very big. How big am I? The best we can say (inaccurately) is that I am "me" sized but its better to leave it as NULL. What is perhaps a suprise then is that after death we are NULL sized and before death we are NULL sized - that is exactly the path to the deathless and ever lasting life which the religions speak of and which the objective world of metres and worldly laws mocks and crucifies. It is not that we are the same before and after death it is just there is no comparison - that too is NULL.

The Logos, the Dao, the Dharma etc are ironic then which I hadn't quite appreciated before. logos with a small letter and dharma with a small letter actually mean the opposite. I don't know about dao (it means path or way usually I think). logos are the things which are measured. dharma is sanskrit of "things". Its a deliberate irony then to use these words for the Absolute because it is quite the opposite. Logos is NULL against which all things have no measure and when you try to measure of compare with NULL you get the opposite of what you expected - it dumbfounds the comparing mind - the mind which is not at ease with itself and NULL. The Dharma is everything but a "thing" - I never understood the deliberate irony before. The middle-way to enlightenment and liberation requires everything but things and measurements (Buddha is meticulous in warning us away from extremes without posing any new "things" like limits etc to measure against).

Now where I got stuck all those years ago was in question like "green". How do we measure green? Doesn't green seem to occupy a place all by itself. It is certainly a lot different from simple distances. Yet there are standard colours (7 at last count) and some extras and we speak about all others using these measures - blue-green etc. It is when we compare green with itself that it becomes NULL and we are left dumbfounded about what green really is. Because green comes in areas rather than a distance I think this is what seems to give the problem its extra piquance. And so of emotions and feelings do we compare how we feel from day to day? Do we try and measure these things to find out if we are happy or not? Do we read magazines to try and find out how to be "happier". Yes we measure these against the standards also. But what is sadness compared to itself? and what is happiness compared to itself? NULL. Mahayana Buddhism (unlike Theravada) says that they are then the same - this is another comparison and not strictly accurate - but then they aren't different either - there are incomparable as is God.

Faith, happiness & the mind

What is the mind? Not easy to answer but its main feature is concentration (not consciousness! **). Concentration is the heart of the mind (literally and figuratively). The more we can concentrate the more healthy our mind is. The more healthy our mind is the happier we are. The more healthy the more subtle our consciousness becomes and the wiser we become. [This understanding I imagine appeals more to those who take sides with what is called the 'secular'. The more restricted 'secular material' understanding takes a lot more work because of limitations in the ideas of 'matter' and what counts as 'material truth' - being worked on]

What stops us from being concentrated? Easy because it has been well documented in Buddhist writing. There are 5: hatred, fear, doubt, laziness and lust. All these I'll term distraction.

What is Faith?
Faith is not belief - that is belief! Faith is more unusual than belief because by definition it must be without Reason! If it had Reason then why do we need faith? (Kierkegaard analyses this well.) Faith is not rare however - it is essential to the mind. We have faith in many things: ourselves, our partners, our families, other people, our governments, our teachers, The Institutions, The Law, scientific method and truth, our senses, Reason itself! Yet if we try to justify any of these we only find ourselves picking other articles of faith because what stands by itself? Faith.

The problem with the "lower" items of faith is that we easily find reason to doubt them. How can we have Faith in the Law for example that so often lets the bad guy off? How can we have Faith in Other People who so often have hurt us? How can we have Faith in our sense that are so eaily confused? Most importantly how can we have Faith in ourselves when we will die? So we enter the next level of absurdities and Faith in more permanent entities like G-d and Buddha. Its all absurd however - that is the nature of Faith!

Faith & The Mind
Putting those together and the reason for the post is this suggestion that they do go together: A strong faith in something is healthy for the mind. I listed a few Reasons why our faith gets distracted above - yet when did Faith have anything to do with Reason? Faith is distracted by doubt and as Buddhism notices doubt is the enemy of concentration, the heart of the mind. When we can devote our Mind 110% to an object of faith we have concentration and that is a healthy mind. That object can be anything from science to our children to God.

What is maybe less clear to people of other Faiths is the other distractions to Faith: hatred, fear, laziness and lust. Certainly they are told to deal with these but it is never made clear how or why. With Faith however these disappear.

In a nutshell then the suggestion here is that Faith and Concentration are the same thing.

This implies that practices that aid faith achieve the same purpose as those that aid concentration. "Being Good" which curbs hatred, laziness and lust is linked to reduced fear and doubt by strengthening Faith and Concentration. Meditation and Prayer likewise achieve identical goals.

What distracts a huge amount of Faith and which has been solved in the Indian subcontinent is the issue of how faiths interact. When we meet someone of a different faith we almost by definition cannot accept their object of faith - to do so amounts to a loss of faith in our own Faith. How can I have faith in two Gods? Your God cannot be the True God. The teachers teach exactly this because we cannot have 110% faith in anything and also harbour faith in something else - that is the definition of distraction. That is the reason for the teaching. Faith is ironic then because in the same way it unifies our mind it divides people. This is only one level of Faith however. A True faith isn't even distracted by accepting other peoples' faiths.

OK gotta dash... distracted toward food...

== Update 5/9/09 ===
** there are states of concentration which are not-conscious e.g. the Jhana but to my knowledge there are no states of consciousness without concentration.

I realise that the world "faith" in the above text can be replaced with the word "love" without changing the meaning. This is quite revealing! Faithfulness takes on a particular meaning in sexual relationships - I hadn't realised before how central Faith was in partnerships (maybe should have listened to George Michael). Interesting how "lust" in thus a hindrance to Love if you follow the logic. Marriage, Faith and Love are all connected. But of course in this analysis they are just small versions of a feature of mind which covers all scales from the personal to the cosmic - namely concentration.

This seems a far cry from the expression of Buddhism for which it is famous in the West namely a rational philosophy. This was my entry into Buddhism. Yet pursuing this path has been fruitless by itself. The analysis and reasonable dissection of the mind by itself can only fill catalogues. What is secretly happening is the disassembling of the distractions of mental phenomena and the resulting strengthening of concentration - the same move as faith. The analysis of Logos and NULL preceding these posts on Faith is exactly this - the freeing of the rational discursive mind from the prison of dualisms which state that events are either one way or the other. In dialectics each depends upon the other so nothing actually happens. The mind is free from distractios - its concentration can become pure.

Mark 6 - The Nature of Faith

Consider this passage from the Bible:

Mark 6

¹And he went out from thence, and came into his own country; and his disciples follow him.

²And when the sabbath day was come, he began to teach in the synagogue: and many hearing him were astonished, saying, From whence hath this man these things? and what wisdom is this which is given unto him, that even such mighty works are wrought by his hands?

³Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us? And they were offended at him.

⁴But Jesus, said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house.

⁵And he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them.

⁶And he marvelled because of their unbelief. And he went round about the villages, teaching.

If I read that right (and I first read it in the New International which has a longer passage for comparison) we have Jesus going to His hometown and people not seeing Him as the Messiah but rather as the son of the carpenter who they knew before and they cannot believe that he can make the transformation to Messiah. Stuck in their ways of thinking they cannot believe. Not believeing Jesus has no power!

This parallels the events elsewhere where Jesus says things like "Go your faith has already healed your daughter" etc etc. It has become evident as I read through the Gospels again that it is by Faith in Christ that the miracles happen not through Christ himself.

But this is a very subtle point indeed. If we doubt Christ then we have no faith and Christ becomes powerless which reinforces our doubt. But, if we believe then anything becomes possible and this reinforces our faith.

^{Mark 11: 24} Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.

Exactly like the stockmarket our fortunes follow our attitude to Christ, they do not come from Christ. But thinking this is because of My Faith and not Christ destroys our faith and so My Faith dies. It is a very subtle circular argument which requires great mastery of oneself to maintain. It is a playground for the devil who can easily topple peoples faith and trip them in positive feedback into Hell. We doubt, things go wrong and we doubt more, and things go worse and we fall faster and faster. Eventually (in America) we pick up a gun to protect ourselves and our world transforms into the bottom levels of Hell.

Now this is a very radical departure from the image of Christ that remains since Medaeval times where he is almost a magician with huge powers. It is through our relationship with Christ that these miracles can happen and the Power of Heaven is opened up. Christ alone cannot do anything!

This now has good parity with teachings from other faiths, in particular my own area of "practice" Buddhism.

In the Medicine Buddha Sutra Ananda says to Buddha and Buddha replies:

Ananda: "World Honored One, there are sentient beings deficient in faith who hear about the extremely profound practices of all Buddhas and think to themselves,' How could one obtain such supreme merit and benefit merely by reciting the name of a single Buddha, Medicine Master Vaidurya Light Tathagata? 'Due to this lack of faith, they give rise to slander. During the long night they lose great benefit and joy and fall into the evil destinies, where they wander ceaselessly."

The Buddha told Ananda, "If these sentient beings hear the name of the World Honored One, Medicine Master Vaidurya Light Tathagata, and sincerely accept and uphold it without any doubts, they cannot possibly fall into the evil destinies.

In Buddhism deep faith is associated with Samadhi, or level of concentration, and doubt is a distraction that means that the mind will not allow itself to become focused.

The implication from both Christian sources and Buddhist sources is that no deity alone can confer any blessings or powers, but that they assume these powers only when we believe with pure heart and without distraction and without doubt in them.

It is an odd circular argument which leads the mind into feedback. If you have doubt the doubt is only made stronger if you believe the belief will only get stronger.

The choice then depends upon our own mastery of our minds and their ability to focus and avoid the trap of loss of faith. Once our mind is pure and focused on whatever object of Faith we have infinite power and nothing becomes impossible.

This is the greatest Truth. The greatest Logos even greater than the Law of suffering caused by sin. Next up: how does this relate to the previous analysis of Logos and NULL?

Finally on a personal note I'm hoping the long sort after recioncilation between my two streams of activity may have been found - between the Christian and Buddhist.

===

Update 27/8

Of course this also treats a critical problem. According to each Abrahamic Faith the other Abrahamic faiths are going to Hell. This is not true in other faiths.It seems like a bug in the comprehension of the teachings yet Jesus clearly says that He is the only way.

Well looking at Mark 6 if you consider any other path than Jesus then you are entertaining doubt and so your faith is weak and it won't work. So it is true that you must remain faithful to Jesus 110% and no-one else will do.

But, this does not mean that were you to meet someone else who had 110% faith in someone else that they are doing anything different than you.

The problem then is to understand how to have 110% faith in our own Teacher, but at the same time accept that other Teachers exist and other people have 110% faith in them. i.e. Those teachers are not for us, but this teacher is: and vice versa our teacher is for us, but not for others.

It is the weakness of Faith which requires the crutch of Absolutism and Necessity: it seems so that we translate Faith into Necessity so that we have no chance to be weak in Faith. Yet if you HAD to believe in Christ then where is the Faith? So it must be a choice, and so it must be personal.

If this little issue could be cleared up how peaceful the paths of religion would become.

What has NULL got to do with Logos

Seeds of this were sown yesterday writing the last blog... If G-d is to be considered as the Void which rather than thought of like Emptiness I have realised is better considered like NULL (see computer science for a definition) then what has this to do with The Word or The Logos?

To recap The Logos is the Law of the universe described variously around the world. Cudely: if we do wrong we suffer.

In the Middle East it is the anger of G-d who punishes those who disobey or ignore him (in Christianity) or who are not favoured (in Judeism) - but as I have discussed previously this cannot be the only conception because punishment is also conceived as being administered in Hell by Satan which makes Satan in the employ of God and thus not His rebellious angel afterall! It was explained to me in Church group in 7oaks that really Hell is created when we are abandoned by G-d and I was given a conception of an empty void - cold, dark and lonely. A better conception of Hell but also extremely ironic.

In the East while the Logos is usually thought about in the same way as in the Jewish faiths - as seeking favour with spirits/gods/buddhas etc who then alleviate suffering - it also has another conception. It is a Law of the universe called Karma enacted by "no-one" to which all "beings" are subject. (If you enacted it then you are a "being" and if u aren't a being how can "you" be subject - i.e. enlightenment). In Madonna's (mother of Jesus?) libretto 'Every little thing that you say and do ahaa (pain :-) its coming back to you'.

The latter exposition of The Logos is the key which explains the relevance of NULL.

recap: Logos is the Greek for measure, law, word. Thus a scale is logos because it measures the weight of things. Justice is analogously measured and it is logos. Words of Law are logos. Words, in that they name and distinguish things, are logos. To illustrate: to make a judgement that this is a tree is logos. When the planets move around the sun according to Laws in Physics that is logos. The heighest indisputable laws of the Universe are capitalised Logos of which there is only One. When G-d speaks it is Logos. That Logos is that human life and death is miserable without G-d. In other languages the same idea if expressed variously as Dao in Chinese, Dharma in Sanskrit, Dhamma in Pali. These are the highest Law which is taught by the wise. Pre-Socratic Western philosophy used the Logos in this way. (They say Socrates began Western Philosophy actually I think there is a case to say Plato ended it because he began to distinguish parts in the Logos). (God written G-d to respect the original conception of G-d as being beyond names - as indeed the all powerful would be, no?).

So how do we get from a conception of the Void as NULL to the Logos which mankind has observed since the dawn of time. Why is being bad the source of suffering?

NULL expresses itself in a beautiful way to mundane man: irony. As Lao Tze loves to baffle his readers with, the tall is short and the short is tall when you stand with the NULL. The problem with the mundane mind is that we take what "is" as itself. Thus "what is tall is tall dumb arse!". With irony comes hubris tho. The certainty that the mundane mind has in its pronouncements is actually sinful and so comes suffering - only G-d can make such pronouncements (so words of caution to myself - if I call what I write here Logos then I instantly erase any value that it has - just write and read).

What our mundane stereotype forgets is that tall is only tall next to short, and vice verse. Compare "tall" with NULL and then what? So Mohammed, Krishna or Buddha takes a mountain. The mountain is large in the world of men and takes many days to climb over. It is a large massive thing and there is no question. Our mind stands this mountain against the many small things in the world and it looks big. Yet stand it next to NULL and suddenly there is nothing small to compare it to. NULL looks huge instead and limitless and then what was large is also small. Then we do the same with small and what was small next to the mountain is suddenly large next to NULL. Actually large and small are themselves NULL but the habitual force of the mind to produce dialectics creates these ironies. Mohammed, Krishna and Buddha with the power of G-d subdue the mountain and it becomes nothing at all.

So how is badness created. The most habitual dialectic is between ourselves and other people. Badness can only occur in a relationships with other people (or lack of). So we think there are other people and as sure as large things need small things to tower over, we believe in ourself. The more other people the more self. The more self the more other people.

Standing next to NULL however the Self no longer has Other people standing over it. NULL seems like the Self and we seem like the Other. This is the experience of those who find personality in NULL. An assumption in Jewism religions but only an argument in Hinduism - most say Brahman has personality but some say not. Actually I assume when the habitual dialectical comparison of things calms down you get the Buddhist conception of NULL being without personality - its a trivial point really whether G-d has a personality... does the soul?

When we don't learn to stand with NULL however and tall becomes tall and short becomes short then sadly I become me and you become you. A relationship is then necessary between me and you. Relationships that respect the illusory nature of the division between people are good, those that abuse that reality are bad. The happiness of good relationships is really discovery of the true nature of undivided reality. The misery of failed relationships is the suffering of enforcing a fake structure on reality - how can something fail if it never even existed? Loss of faith is simply this - giving into the belief that I and You are separate and accepting the myth of isolation. No wo(man) is an island...(John Dunne). When Jesus heals it is by the faith of the ill not Jesus Himself. The suggestion then is that illness itself is a product of the myth of separation - getting out of my depth here but certainly if I and You are not separate then how can the experience of You or I dying happen? Faith in the absurdity that what looks like nonsense is actually the truth is the way of G-d and NULL.

Faced with the myth of separtion - that I am I and You are You - we end up doing some silly things. So the right-hand and the left-hand have a fight over who is going to be the writing hand. And the right hand ends up cutting off the left hand. It has won and can enjoy being the writing hand. Won the battle, lost the war. It goes to applaud a friend and find it can make no sound. So it is with I/You creatures. We fight to win but actually we lose. Prisoners Dilemma only works when you see the truth and have faith in it. Start to really believe in the isolation myth and the applause dies. Just watching War of the Worlds on TV - the whole Cruise escaping in the car and then people stealing it off him thing - the people escaping in the planet Earth and the Aliens stealing it off them - sides of the coin of no-faith. So we suffer because blind to the truth, we try to save ourselves only to find other people attack us more; ignoring NULL we put the mask of self on and attack ourselves in the darkness.

But this is only the mundane view of sin. It goes further. Standing next to NULL how can "I" even be hurt? So those who go to their deaths in the Name of the Logos really do gain eternal life because no longer can "they" die.

The benefits of NULL

It has become clear to me what a friend NULL is. On first approach it seems negative and depressing - the idea of a void with nothing in it is like space - lonely, barren, cold and lifeless; not a welcoming place. But this is not the void because it is not NULL. Such a conception is simply negating what we call the world of things. We think: what if I remove everything I can think of - then I have the Void... No!

I got angry with my sister yesterday so I position myself against the void. Something had been important to me but against NULL it is pointless. We are all going to die and remember nothing and take nothing with us so what is the point. So I found no more reason to be angry. We are only angry I saw when we hold onto something too tightly and someone tries to take it away.

But then we can grasp at that level of negation and think that all of life is pointless so why are we alive, why do we bother to do anything? We can get very depressed. So we stand next to NULL again and realise that there is no point in being depressed, or lamenting the pointlessness of everything either! Such a move is really just holding on to tightly to something else. The point about NULL is that whatever we think we can just stand next to NULL and it will give us an alternative point of view.

So being the alternative to all things we never need get stuck with anything. Our mind can escape the clawing tentacles of ideas, identities and beliefs.

Now some might say that this is irresponsible that as adults we need to get an identity, we need to become someone, to be a part of society: it is normal to have favourite things and familiar habits so that people can say that we are like so and so. Well yes and no. Yes because against NULL it doesn't matter if we do and no because against NULL it doesn't matter if we don't.

My current understanding of NULL and Void - that is Logos, Dharma, Dao, G-d etc - is that being outside all things we can always turn our back on anything and stand next to NULL. It is thus like the centre from which all things radiate. This now sounds like the more classical descriptions of it.

SO I could continue with an endless series of refutations and counter-refutations and analysis and descriptions but each of these stands next to NULL and makes the exercise rather pointless.

Being Good

I don't claim to be writing a consistent, coherent, organised argument here - this blog is as it says a scrap book to capture "states of thought" during the process above cos my head ain't big enough to keep track of all the bits at once (yet). Its the stage before the polished product normally found in text.

Anyway Goodness ain't a new subject and I'm sure I repeat myself here...

I've resisted "goodness" as the key tolife. There is a book called "Being Good" written by the master of my temple. .. I hated that title and haven't read the book! Why?

Goodness is in my mind associated with fakeness, dogmatism, dualism, criticism and hypocracy.

Being Good seems to me to be avoiding the truth and aiming for something we "want" to be, or feel we "ought" to be, rather than firstly seeing things as they are.

Yet this view is poisoned and itself fake.

Good is a huge word and covers many things. Being Good is also

Being Excellent (after Bill and Ted)

Being Skillful

Being True

Being Noble (after Arya)

Being Graceful

Being Happy

Being Peaceful

Unfortunately Goodness has become an imperative rather than a Way of Being, and Goodness has become "imposed" as the rules (law) of society is imposed. It has become dogmatic, fixed, and separated from the people that it instructs. It has become a Platonic Leviathon against which we are all sinners and all imperfect miscreants who do not deserve the Life that we have been given.

Ironically then Goodness makes us Bad! How many people shun the law or adopt heretical views simply to escape the gravitational force of this monster of Goodness! It drives an Existential mob to rise up against the Law so that they can gain some semblance of true Life. Where does this hyperbolic individualism in the West come from? It is Lutherism and the rejection of the Catholic church born again and again as we seek both Truth but also Life. Kierkegaard a favourite of mine struggled with this (at least officially - he was clearly working with personal issues in the subtext). How can we align ourselves with the Universal Truth in which we are all the same - timeless and spaceless and characterless - yet also live our own particular life (and death)? How in other words can we have death as well as Truth? Or: What is the Truth of Death? How am I to face this inevitability? Ironic to since Death is what we would avoid, and what the Law tells us is the cost of sin! Yet we would taste it all the same - a chance to be ourselves alone for 1 moment and face Death in his true terror. Somewhere between Existentialism and the Catholic church lies Truth!

Life being what Life is you apply a force and it evolves. Life will outstrip all churches and all governances - but what is sad is that it is the rejected "peripheral speciation" which will make the chief cornerstone (Matt 21: 42-43).

NOTE: yes this is not how it is "officially" interpreted but show me the book which tells us the official interpretation and I will reinterpret that! Logos v Mythos - SRH again - how things are interpreted is the received wisdom - the Tradition as I called it recently - the Holy Spirit in chrisitian terminology - so how can the book itself actually "be" the word of God? It is only The Tradition - the Spirit - which insists so! I know this is huge issue in Islam (sort it out guys).

Why do we waste our time going round and round in circles millenia after millenia. Get to the Truth - the empty axle hole at the centre of the wheel - and lets get off this ride!

So "Being Good" is essential - it is the Truth - but I at least have had to rid myself of many centuries of built in rejection of this Truth because it has developed a rather monolithic quality suggesting oppression and death rather than freedom and life!

To litter or not to Litter? - meditations on Lydney

Just returned from holiday to Wales. Arriving in Lydney last Wednesday it was a real pleasure to step immediately into beautiful woodland but the local clearly didn't appreciate it as forest and waterways were piled high in burger boxes and other takeaway rubbish. How odd I thought that they should litter their own doorsteps. Then I realised that for us who had travelled the 130 from London the forest at the back of their garden was their doorstep, but for them in Lydney - - who evidently didn't travel far - their garden was their doorstep but the forest was removed and far away. I imagined immediately an alien arriving at Earth and seeing us littering our "doorstep" with utter carelessness!

There is a lot in this. My first take was seeing the downside of the concept of "property". That which people feel to be "theirs" they take care of - which is good. But the implication present in this "care" is that things which are "not theirs" they do not take care of. It is a short sighted and two faced concept of "care". Yet I (coming from London) should not have cared about Lydney or its people at all by this measure.

Evidently the appreciation of Nature transcends petty property boundaries as does an appreciation of people. But a trap is set because the person who appreciates Nature may come to own that appreciation and form a new type of property (as I have done in the past). An offence against Nature is perceives as an attack against them. This is another myopic type of "care" because hatred is then extended to those over the fence who do not appreciate Nature. Those who litter Lydney are not enemies of those who appreciate Nature at all.

Adding to this I realise that even travelling to Lydney is an act of ego. I have begun to realise that I can travel hundreds of miles in the UK and find new species of insect and plant ... and then returning home I find them in Berkshire or Kent. Going on holiday gives us the belief that things are "new". It hightens our senses and causes us to look at things again. But I realised in Paris (and noted in this blog) what the tourist calls "new" is really "everyday" to the people who live there. What causes the tourist to look again at Paris is nothing about Paris but simply a hightened state of mind causes by the act of travel. A Parisien can look at Paris with new eyes just as easily if they want. As my sister once said, the purpose of travel is to return home and see it as home. Or, I'll rephrase, the purpose of travel is to enable us to be have a strangers eyes upon our own home. The wildlife of Berkshire is every bit as amazing as that of the Forest of Dean (outside Lydney). Before criticising the people of Lydney for overlooking the natural paradise outside their gardens maybe I should look at my own life on Reading.

Later in the week in Hay-on-Wye, in a bookshop, I found an excellent quote from Heraclitus: Dogs bark at those they do not recognize (fragment XVI). Ignorning the official understanding I understand it to mean that people who have not yet travelled beyond themselves (experienced ecstasy) take great care of themselves but leave litter in the world around themselves. They also make a great noise about that which is "new" [to them] and forget that which is "old" [to them]. The world is so divided according to their own perspective. Yet we know that the Truth (or Logos, Dao, Dharma, Dhamma) is the same for all people so it follows that our opinions and personal experiences and whims are not truth. The foolish - as Heraclitus calls us - are fixated upon the world according to only ourselves.

The problem with all this littering and not littering is that each of us is fixated upon looking through our own perspective. Some will say that we have no choice as we are stuck within individual bodies and individual eyes and literally have different perspectives. Yet SRH! to say such a thing is already to have access to a universal truth which applies equally to all people. This is the first statement of LOGOS which is beyond mortal conception.

During the holiday this Dogs bark at those they do not recognize developed into a more settled conception of dialectics and the Logos. All things are empty because they are nothing until they are split by the mind into oppositions. It rained a lot on holiday. Those who have always been wet however never seek dryness and so they never realise they are wet. Those who have always been dry know nothing of wetness and never realise they are dry. It is only I who are wet and now seek dryness who is wet. And if I see the clouds amassing I anticipate the rain and feel my dryness more acutely than ever. Existence is created in tension between opposites. This is exactly why "My Muse" has been so long lived because somehow I understood this a long time ago and created a "real" "girl" by holding our sexuality so close but never releasing the tension. Male and Female are opposites each experiencing the other through the tension.

It matters not whether you like being dry or like being wet - the point here is that they are exist in relation to one another and when they are not held side by side for comparison they fade away and eventually cease to exist. How can one desire dryness or wetness when one doesn't even know that one is wet or dry!

The foolish mind like the dog is always raised to barks by the arrival of the Other - the arrival of wetness to show up our own dryness. This is the trivial life of the mortal who is brought to realise his own Life too late when Death comes knocking to scatter and make litter of him.

Of Life itself - the root questions...

An excellent source of Buddhist scriptures

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/index-sutta.html

Read the Sigalovada sutta yesterday. Finally I have found a sutta that is aimed at worldly and not monastic life... and what a difference there is!!! Walking through London yesterday I felt reconnected with "the people" because this sutta explains in very simple terms the "Way of the Householder" and it speaks a very ancient code that I recognised in my heart. Some of the contents are a little odd by modern standards but it holds together pretty well as a guide to worldly living.

Seeing what the Buddha said about the domestic life I realise that I have got a very great deal wrong. For example on desire:

It seems that in this sutta Buddha has not bad things to say about desire itself. The problem it seems is when desire is one of the 4 reasons for commiting evil -

"Whoever through desire, hate or fear, Or ignorance should transgress the Dhamma"

This brought me up short and made me re-examine my view on desire. Cycling over Waterloo Bridge I realised that I have had a wrong view on desire since the outset. Thinking back to the situation with "my muse" I saw that intrical to my view of desire was that desire should be stronger than the will. For some Romantic reason I felt that destiny could only lie in desires that were too strong to resist because otherwise it was tainted by one's own rationality. If one could chose a girl then one could also not chose the girl and so it was never a certain destiny. If "my muse" was to Be-The-One then it followed logically that I could not chose her. So the view of desire must be that the Ego is extinguished in desire so powerful that one is helpless and is killed - but from that conflagration one is reborn in a new self and a new destiny. This has been the Romantic dream for almost ever - my desire to stop thinking, my desire to self-destruct in desire and oblivion - so that I might be reborn in a New and Better Life ... this has been the ERROR all along.

From what Buddha says in this sutta "desire" is one of the 4 sources of Evil and therefore we must never let desire become stronger than "us". I knew this as a child and "my muse" was an attempt to break the strangle hold on this as well - to find some kind of Good Desire - what I called Irreason at the time.

It seems that "desire" itself is neither Good nor Bad and we must remain on guard to protect ourselves from actions generated by Bad Desire.

It is fair to say this entire journey has been in the wrong direction. It is wrong to seek annihilation and rebirth through desire and destiny - this is not the message of Christ. To lose ourselves is akin to walking away from the controls of a plane, a ship or a car. Being in control need not be an effort, but we do need to be there.

The path to salvation then is actually the other way. We simply need to become more and more skillful pilots. My suffering of the past 10 years has been a desperate attempt to regain control of a plane that I deliberately stalled in the mistaken belief that it would somehow magically be carried upon a wind of destiny. "My Muse" was such a coincidence and occurring of such good fortune that I believed that God might even pilot me to New Lands that I had never been able to dream of in my small and petty Ego.

There are no new lands for the whole universe already exists in our own soul. To arrive at those new lands we need only become the better pilot of ourselves.

It takes a great man to command an army:

But a greater man to command himself.

Of Hamlet? I realised at the time that I had become Hamlet - unable to kiss her because to do so deliberately would be to chose my new life and so always be haunted by the possibility that I might not have chosen her. What kind of certainty and security lies in a world that we have chosen? We could just as easily have not chosen it. The difference is because we "desired" it - so logically desire must be greater than our choice else what we do becomes arbitrary. I hate the arbitrariness of my life - the fact that so much could be otherwise. I could have been a vet, I could have been in the army, I could have been an explorer, I could have been in a band, I could have been an artist, a scientist, I could have been cool, I could have been in so many relationships, I could have been so many people: like Hamlet I have chosen nothing - I neither was and I neither wasn't. This space has fascinated me - the Costner character in Fandango. And while we wait we die.

Now Duty is a solution because we "have" to do our duty and this gives us a force outside ourselves by which our Life can be constructed. The Dao, Logos, Truth and Dharma are Duties and forces outside ourselves - altho it is our True Nature which recognises them. Doing Good is the Law - this way we Live a Good Life. This is what the Sutta above is about. So again I say that I was wrong to seek "destiny" in Desire. Destiny - if anywhere - lies in Duty. Ultimately when we attach no more to our Ego then we achieve the non-action of Divine Grace where all things arise because of Karmas and Happenings and we act only through Good Decision, Duty and Wisdom.

Yet while I've known what I just said since reading Kant in university and later from reading the Bhagavad Gita I still don't get it. Is marriage a Duty? Is "continuing the family line" - as it says in the ibidem sutta - a Duty? If they are then how do the Monastics "chose" a different destiny? There are 2 dharmas here - the worldly and the monastic with different Laws. How can that be - do we chose between them? And if we are free to chose then are we free to chose Evil as well as Good? These existential questions have terrified me since I was a child - how often have I voiced them in this Blog - Not Many! - they are terrifying. Yet are these not the root questions of this Blog - of Life itself?

The Dharma says that if we chose evil we suffer and if we chose good then we prosper. Yet to suffer is this something we "don't want"? in which case if it is then we are driven by desire and so are unable to chose Good over Evil. The arguments go around and around in circles but at least I'm voicing them coherently now - the nausea, the apathy, the suffering at the root of Life.

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,

And enterprise of great pitch and moment

With this regard their currents turn awry

And lose the name of action. -- Soft you now,

The fair Ophelia! -- Nymph, in thy orisons

Be all my sins remembered.

Even as I agonised over the issue of a new life with "my muse" I used to quote this to myself. I am not Hamlet in that I am afraid of what is right and what consequences await me, I am Hamlet existentially in that I see no substance in resolution. Either we are not free and what we do is destined and solid or we are free and what we do is abitrary and in another universe we do the other.

A Life built upon nothing but choices is no more than a destination

arrived at a thousand tosses of a coin.

Unless we desire a certain path - in which case we are slaves to that desire and our only role is to succeed or fail our master.

As a society we adopt similar desires and believe they are universal - then we measure ourselves against one another by our favour with that global Master. Those who are rich, well housed, in happily families - these are those favoured by the Master of our society.

Yet my conscience has always been revolted with the idea of satisfaction, security and complacency if I was ever favoured by that Master. What of all the other people who are not favoured? I don't want a master who is so poor that He cannot favour All.

If the Jewish God for an example has one weakness in the eye of my conscience it is His lack of Magnanimity.

The True God loves All - for He is All. Why would He spite himself? Those who suffer and fall from Grace are simply those who cannot see He is All. We turn from the All, we turn from having God's Eyes and when we turn from having God's Eyes we end up not seeing the hurt we bring upon ourselves.

Father forgiven them for they know not what they do.

Such is the nature of all wrong doing and suffering. So The Good is easy for those who see the All. The Dharma is a road well signposted for those who have God's Eyes.

Yet again I've known this yet again returning to My Life, My Desire, My Destiny: What do I do? Must we not seek the Eye's of God before we do anything? Certainly this has been my first goal since a very young child. Yet I face death before even having started to attain such divine insight and wisdom.

So simple question. Do I get married and treat my wife dutifully and protect the family name and lineage - seek immortality in the eyes of a Lover. Or, do I become monastic and seek immortality in the Eye's of God. Buddha gives two Dharmas! Are we supposed to chose? And so it starts again... I have only one avenue that I think may resolve this and that is extinction of the Ego. But this sounds very like the path I took with "my muse". Here are the issues laid bare at least...

Way Of Life

The post on Grasping Nothing leads to a new approach to issue of Life.

Life is not to be approached as a concept. It is rather a "practice" which must be undertaken. It is only when we have perfected the practice that the concept will have any meaning!

This is the concept of Dharma (Dhamma) or I believe also Logos and Tao. Jesus was not the conceptual Truth but the Way.

Dao, Dhamma, Dharma, Logos and Word

Are these all the same thing? I am lately inclined to think so.

What is the Law at the centre of Life? What is it that Man seeks to fulfill His existence? What is it all about? I'm lately inclined to think it is this Dao, Dhamma, Dharma, Logos or Word.

For each word we have a teacher. Dao is Lao Zi. Dhamma is the Pali for what Buddha taught. Dharma is the Sanskrit for the plethora of Hindu teachings. Logos is the Greek which became adopted by early Christian writers for the Law of God and also in John's gospel Jesus Himself. In English it is transcribed weakly as The Word. I'll use Logos in place of all these.

What is Logos (Word). Logos is the measure. Ordinary words are logos because when a word matches with a thing we know what it is: it becomes measured. Jesus is The Ruler: He is The Measure of all things: The Final Judge. All these are logos.

In Dhamma and Dharma there is also the implication of the Relgious Life. This is understood by Christians to be the "following of Jesus" which means the acceptance of his Rule. As indeed Islam itself means (submission to the Will/Rule of God).

Dao has a further implication which means Path or often translated as Way. The Way of Lao Zi, The Way of Jesus, The Way of Mohammed, the Way of Buddha: Logos is also Dao.

So comparing these terms is actually insightful as to the meaning of each one. As I have found myself studying Buddhism has led me closer to Jesus rather than away! In that we see a snippet of the Logos. This Law is truly profound, something that sets the mundane mind from the transcendent mind. So what is the Logos of Life?

It was covered in the dialectics post previous and I propose now (tho it will take a long time to full sink in - if at all) that this is the same insight as the Logos. This if I am right is the door to Heaven.

The Logos is the Fundamental Law from which all other things become. This is why Lao Zi says that for those who know the Dao the short look tall and the tall look short. Both tall and short depend upon the Dao. This is why Jesus' teachings seem counter intuitive. Nietzsche made a life's work from showing that Jesus teaches the exact opposite of what life is all about. Yet Nietzsche didn't see that from the Logos all things look upside down. It is not the powerful proud leaders who will inherit the Earth (as we would naturally expect) it is the meek: completely incomprehensible to the mundane mind: yet log-ical to the logos.

So why is everything upside down in reality? It is because of dialectics. A very tall person taken to a universe where everything was the same length: would they still be tall? This is a many layered question. It is not simply a matter of there not being anything taller or shorter than the person. In such a world there would not even be a concept of height or length. It is hard to imagine a world where things have no length, but it is important to realise that this does not mean that they have no matter. We can all exist quite happily as we are without length! Infact we do. Length only arises when we come to compare things. A tall thing is only tall when it is intentionally compared with a short thing, and vice versa. Thus the person who identifies with being tall can only do so by living in relation to short people. Ironically (and irony, hubris and tragedy are the eternally appearing cracks in the mundane reality reminding it of the Transcendent Divine Logos) then the tall person sees himself through the eyes of the short person. They are thus a short person! QED: and the Logos creates its mark upon the living and the dead.

Yet how does the Logos operate in less personal reality? I return to 1985 and the white board at school registration with my friend Tim. In a world all of green then nothing is green. Its an inexact thought experiment so it didn't reveal the truth very clearly: and I was ridiculed by others for the propositions of worlds of green and pure geometric shapes. Yet in a world without other colours how can there be any colour? It is not that things do or do-not have colour in this world, the point is that "colour" simply isn't applicable. The inhabitants of such a world just don't look for colour in things - there is no intention. It is interesting in the mundane world how humans (who don't have a colour) have become stuck with this concept and applied it to one another and themselves!

At the root then is the issue of existence. It was by birthday yesterday and I am each year becoming more aware of my mortality and conditional existence. In particular the practice that remains in the East of recognising the crutial role played by ones mother in our existence. It brings up the central problem of our Life that of trying to exist. Very quickly viable individuals balance their body functions and learn to feed thesmelves, but from here onwards the struggle is for "recognition": trying to exist socially and be recognised by others. Don't we see the Dao already?

For the mundane we seek to understood and acknowledged by other people: this gives us our spiritual nourishment. It is no accident that I missed "My Muse" yesterday: she was the One who for me at least gave me a belief in myself as a "real entity": through her eyes at least I could Live. Yet she died: what a catastrophy for that model of existence! This is mundane life: I livd through her eyes. When she died so did I!!! Yet I didn't: how ironic - the sign of lacking transcendence.

To the transcendent, from the standpoint of those who see from the Logos, those who Exist infact do not exist and those who do not exist do infact exist. Those who Live are Dead and those who are Dead Live. Why? Because to be recognised socially is to accept another persons word that you exist! Thus it is actually their existence that you know and not your own! "My Muse" existed while I did not! (This is a negative Hegelian dialectics).

Thus to see myself as Alive is really to see myself through the eyes of Death - I am Dead to have such a thought. To see myself as Dead is really to see myself from the position of the Alive. It is the understanding of Mortality which confers the meaning of Life. Tentatively suggest that this may be a more fruitful approach to the relationship between Jesus' Death and Eternal Life. In reality however we know that we neither live nor die outside the dialectic, and those who see the Logos see those who run to Life as the Dead and those who face Death as the Living.

And so the mirror world goes on. Those who are convinced they are morally good are really looking through the eyes of the Evil... etc

Those who think they are Correct are really looking through the eyes of the Ignorant: and at that point I must stop incase I come to think that this writing is either Logos or not-Logos!

Pulp Fiction and morality

I was just watching Pulp Fiction last night - a simply superb film and one of the most rewatchable I think there is.

I was washing up during a part of it: where Marcellus gets raped (which is one of the funniest moments in cinema :-) and Butch returns to sort things out. Through the stylised posing with japanese blades it is a moment of kindness toward Marcellus. There is a good morality which runs through the film.

But while washing up I took a kitchen knife and held it to my finger to examine what this meant in reality. What if I did just decide to slice my finger off? Thoughts like this can drive you mad, and if you have OCD they can seem to get very dangerous, and if you are depressed you might just think it is a good idea to harm oneself. But with a strong enough mind to fight off the distrortions that arise it is actually a situation like oil and water. A knife belongs no where near my finger, and to cut my finger off is (while possible in the imagination) makes no more sense than rain falling upwards. There are many delusions swirling in the mind (I mentioned a few at the start of the paragraph) which cloud the issue but in reality the two simply don't fit together.

Looking again at Pulp Fiction one can see the illusions that it has created. The gangster world of people set against one another, polarised in a sequence of mexican style stand offs (the hallmark of Tarentino), the violence and style with which they interact a pantomime of carefully crafted illusions. It is believeable world, one that we enjoy being part of - the result of two centuries of American culture and before that European input.

But, in reality, it is absolute fantasy. Every single part of it could never be real. Yes people may carry guns and shoot one another - but the reality is not what we see in Pulp Fiction. This then turns to the press in the UK at the moment and moral panic about youth violence.

It is an extraordinary world we like in where filmic illusions are played out by people in reality. In true reality our relationship with all things is one of non-violence. A stone cannot commit violence against another stone, an arm cannot commit violence against another arm. It is our interpretation of the events that makes it violence or non-violence. The youths stabbing one another I doubt sees this - they have believed that worlds like Pulp Fiction or that manufactured by 2Pac (who believed it himself) are real. But looking slowly and carefully it is like crafting a ducks head onto an orange: it only works in make believe.

We criticise the kids but the politicians are equally at fault. The recent spate of wars are simply no different from youth crime: why the press sanctions one and not the other is another illusion. But, I must be careful not to let such thoughts sour my relationship with the people in the press or the politicians.

So finally I saw it clearly. Good and Evil has always been a Christian struggle for me between the nobility of the good and the temptations of the evil, yet they say that the Enlightened are beyond good and evil. Plato would agree that evil is not a struggle against temptation, so much as a struggl;e against ignorance. It is not selfish men or the tyranny of evil which beset the righteous man, but simply illusion. When we are fooled by illusion then we develop wishes and desires which have no reality, and then we commit evil. But with mind freed from mistaken seeing then reality is just that and what we do in accordance with reality is only good. That is what Goodness is, no more and no less than Reality.

This kind of fits with my analysis of Law (previous blogs). Scientific and Religious law share the common feature that you cannot break these Laws: they are Laws of reality - they represent how things are they are the truth. They are the word of God.

Legal law however is quite different. It is a measure: a ruler: It is logos. We are judged by the law to be on one side or the other. It is not that we could not break the law - it doesn't govern action like this - it simply decides where our actions have fallen according to a standard. The standard being a complex amalgam of religious, cultural and procedural rules.

In reality if I stab someone then sadly for me the consequences are already under way. Such an action doesn't happen by accident and I must have a profound cloud of illusion about me to have performed such an action, a cloud which this action will have fuelled. I can expect a life of hostility, confusion, anger, hatred, loss and pain simply from this action. The legal system is only there to catch me with its scales and to help me from spiralling further into illusion.

Its a simple understanding. Good and Evil are thoughts belonging to us the illusioned. I think this was good and that was bad as I reflect upon my confused actions in life. But what I call Good now will when I am purer and wiser become simple the natural and obvious course. Often people call this process habit, it is more: it is the seeing things truthfully and our being straightforward and honest.

What is evil? What is goodness? What is life?

This is actually very simple... but a complete hash is made of it in modern culture and religion.

Firstly there is no such things as evil, in the same way there is no such thing as darkness. All there is in the latter case is a lack of light, and all there is in the former case is a lack of wisdom.

As argued in a recent post, the wise one treats his enemies with care whilst only the idiot antagonises them with threats of violence. If you threaten a good person with violence you are unlikely to get a favourable response, how much more likely then are you to make things worse if you threat a bad person like this! It's common sense but a mistake we all make.

So the 3 evils are identified in the East as anger, greed and ego. When I first heard this i thought i didn't really have any of these. Then I realised how angry I got; now I realise that I am often unhappy not with what I actually have, but rather with what I could have - this is greed - and of course we are all obsessed with ourselves. Everyone thinks that they are the most important person in the world. Even with family and friends its only because they are "our" family and friends that makes them important. Problem is we tend to justify our poisons and evils. We think they are normal and usual and we don't become aware of how damaging they are. Evil of course is the last thing we will see, this is the nature of evil: seductive, alluring, persuasive, blinding us to the light. This is why people do evil things, simply because they don't see them as evil. If they/we really knew they were evil we wouldn't do them. You think a murderer must be mad to do what they do, but then our soldiers are out there murdering and we think it is ok! Ask the murder I'm sure they think they are right to.

In Judeism we have 10 commandments. I'll just try and fit these into the schema of 3 evils above. That was the real point of this blog... just looking at wikipedia I see that actually there are 12 sentences that have been grouped into 10.

I am the Lord your God
You shall have no other gods before me
You shall not make for yourself an idol
You shall not make wrongful use of the name of your God
Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy
Honor your father and mother
These 6 are ego. The point being that one should not put oneself above the creator who made even us, and to whome we owe everything including the power of our hands, and the world in which we live. We owe almost everything to our parents also and we are told to remember this lest we make that worst sin of thinking that we belong to ourselves.
You shall not murder
This is the poison of anger and hatred.
You shall not commit adultery
You shall not steal
These 2 are greed, basically not appreciating what we have and taking what is not our.
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor
If one lies it might be with the intention of harming someone, in which case it is anger and hatred. If however we lie to get something that we desire then it is greed.
You shall not covet your neighbor's house
You shall not covet your neighbor's wife
These two are greed again.

Another point of confusion that is made very clear is Eastern writing, but less so in Western writings is the source of evil. My grandfather used to say that "it is not what you do but the reason why you do it". This is almost correct. More importantly it is your "motive" in doing it. What exactly drove you to do it. We call all decide to do things and then make up a good reason for it. The point is what initiated this process in our minds. It is this inception point, which requires great honest from us, which is what brings either the praise or the wrath of God (or the causation of karma).

IF someone says something to me and I am caused anger by what they say, I might bite my tongue and think hard why they are wrong in saying this. Then I might be unco-operative with them afterwards, or use an opportunity to argue that they are wrong, or try and prove that I am right. In all these cases no matter how right I am and unjustified they are, the problem is that I am being motivated by anger. This is always wrong, and can only make my own life miserable, make the current situation un pleasant and set up wrath from God in the future. Moments of anger will lead to an ugly future of hostility, difficulty, ugliness and eventually even mental illness.

Likewise if I dump my girlfriend because I have seen a beautiful girl in the night club actually this is greed, maybe also elements of anger. Following this logic we will be always be walking a treadmill because there will always be attractive things waiting to be got forever. This is the sadness of greed.

If we consider ourselves more important than others - which is manifest in both greed and anger where we think that we are the only ones who deserve things or have been hurt - then we will find ourselves becoming more and more isolated. Friendships and relationships will be shallow and uncaring, and the world around will become unharmonious and distant.

These are the punishments that arise from poisons, either by God or Karma depending upon which words you are accustomed to (the logos is the same either way). The wise and good understand this and seek to tame these poisons. The foolish and evil give into these poisons and mount of endless sufferings in the future.

The only difference between a saint and sinner is that the saint never gives up trying. We are all in this, we all have our poisons, and we are all weak in the face of them. Given this it seems right to help one another out in mastering poisons, but it is very hard to inform someone of their own poisons because they really will think they don't have them as indeed I have done. I know inside I have these very severely, and I am becoming more aware of them as I tackle them. This is a good sign and means very gradually (20 years) I'm winning the struggle.

Anyone who doubts this logic should simply watch the way of things. Find the evil darkness inside themselves (the anger, greed or ego) and let it flourish and see if it creates suffering or peace and happiness. On the other hand they can look for some light; some sentiments of care, joy, love or equality between people for these are the 4 lights. Stand under these and ask is this where you truely wish to be? Hard to do when we are poisoned and hurting inside, but if we are caring to ourselves is this not where we want to be? If so then we should work to spread the light inside and outside. A lifetimes work, but the only path to a good future.

What is Law?

The words Logos in greek, Dharma in Sanskrit can be replaced with the english word Law. But Law is a confused term. Jesus is described by John as being the Logos - the word/law. The planets orbit according to laws of physics and the government votes on the countries laws.

In general a law would be that which determines a behaviour, or a way of being. Legal laws are in place however because people have in the past behaved otherwise, and authority is mobilised to "force" them into adherence. The planets on the other hand can never stray from the physical laws. The moral laws are different again. A wise person always behaves in accordance with the Law, only those who cannot see stray, and the cost of straying is suffering (this is the general religious code). People like Abraham who could "hear the will of God", are what we would call wise. The wise always obey the law.

So the physical law and the moral law are alike in that they refer to a Law intrinsic in nature that the wise or learned can discern. Physics is still advancing its tools and its description of the physical laws (I suspect an endless process because of the well documented issue in this blog of the Woozle problem of Self-Reference that eventually the descriptions will have to refer to oneself at some level). Both the physical laws and the moral laws can best be described as Reality. The scientist and those on a spiritual path are one and the same then, listening with ever growing quietness to the voice of reality. The good scientist and the good student of suffering are both humble servants to reality.

This leaves legality as the odd one out. Legality does not describe a reality, it is something like a social contract or a protocol that enables people to work together harmonously. It is like the rules of a game, that have no fixed nature, and are held temporarily for fun or for some purpose. However legal law can never replace Reality, and where they conflict people are the loser because suffering comes. So in fact better than Legality is just wisdom and adherence to Reality. If everyone did that we would have the perfect society and no need for Law.

Law can never be given that much significance because it is at best a bad copy of Reality, and at worst a recipe for suffering. So the adage, 'Rules are for the instruction of fools and the guidance of wise men' proves its worth.

Is not the lesson of King Knut this? He made the common mistake of believing that his authority was real, rather than simply an agreement with the people. So he sat before the sea and ordered the tide to recede. Of course the tide knows nothing of human "law" and obeys only reality and so King Knut got his feet wet.

Human authority is a fantasy as real as the significance attributed to that ball going on one side of a line rather than the other ... which they call a goal in football... but it never really happens ... balls often cross lines and mean nothing!

Art of Life (the start of main enquiry)

So the two questions posed in this blog are :

1) What is life? - which seeks to determine the special qualities of life and what makes life. Like for example: What is music? These questions I will deal with when the threat of question 2 goes quite for a bit.

2) The Art of Life - which would be the skill to craft a good life. How to be a good musician.

The Art of Life is what they talk about in religions. It is variously: The Logos (pre-Socratic Greeks), Virtue/The Good (Socratic Greeks), The Word - Logos (Christianity), Dharma/Dhamma (Hinduism/Buddhism), Dao (Chinese religions esp. Taoism) etc.

The idea is that a life lived with knowledge of the Art of Life is more living than one which lacks such skill. In its worst case people might be viewed as dead or unawake without such knowledge. Life comes in grades it seems, there is an objective judgement.

Key points of the a well lived Life are that it did not cause suffering to others, and generally treated others with respect and consideration. This is universal. It can be generalised that a well lived life was beneficial and harmonious with the whole world around.

The various teachers of the Art of Life agree that it is very subtle and hard to attain a good skill at Life, and humility in the face of that great difficulty is essential. It would be like learning the violin - to be the best we have to constantly aim higher and not expect it to be easy. What makes a master violin player different from his pupils is impossible to express in any other way than to show them and correct the subtle nuances of play in practice.

Practice is the key point of the Art of Life. It must be learned the hard way through trial and error, rejection and perseverance and hard work. Lectures on the Way are essential to get us started and to correct our practice, but they cannot actually impart the "know how" (connaitre in french) that comes from practice.

Inner contemplation of ones weaknesses combined with a genuine desire to improve ones skill at life is essential also to ensure that grow is fixed and maintained.

Being Alive then is quite like a "test" as many religious people do believe, there is an objective judgement. The test is to find the objective Goodness that separates the fully living and enriched Life from the dead Life and to inspire others to find it too.

There is no ontology (belief in what exists) in this account of the Art of Life beyond the notion that there is an objective Good. Many people would drop the 'o' and call it God, others have other ideas - I'm not going to speculate. The point is that we find the Goodness by any means.

Life by this account is about emmersion in our experiences and our lives with the aim of enriching them by doing what is Good, improving our skill at doing this and aiming for a day when we can play our Life like a violin virtuoso to bring about the best in the world around us.