A “Karl Jaspers Applied” to Glenn Beck’s pause at deep-throat counsel relative to the Weimar economics; McCain and Obama, jesters in a chilling exposure before a Canossa-like “Eminence”; Extra: The bestiality-“false prophet” collusion in John’s “Revelation” and what the phenomenology of it meant/means for the German/American soul.(November 1, 2008)
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PREFACE: A DO-IT-YOURSELF COMPARATIVE OVERVIEW: The failure of Germany’s Weimar experience can be compared to the American experience with some major adjustments and tweaking here and there. The following Weimar items of information have been gathered from the Internet and admittedly presented here in the “preface” almost in quotation form and lifted out of context. That admission is made to avoid taking credit for another’s labored research, and it should be cautioned that a word or two of my own might not reflect the interpretation of the author quoted. An example of my interpretation is that it is well to keep in mind that the geographic area under examination was the seat of the Reformation including the kicking by the counter-reformation. Inflation profiteering––The economic impact of the Treaty of Versailles was crushing. Germany lost 13 percent of her territory, 10 percent of her population, 15 percent of arable land, 75 percent of iron and 68 percent of zinc ore, 26 percent of her coal resources, the entire Alsatian potash and textile industries, and the communications system built around Alsace-Lorraine and Upper Silesia. Huge amounts of ships and shipping facilities and of railway rolling-stock were delivered to the Allies. The amount of reparations fixed in 1921 was estimated by J. M. Keynes to exceed three times Germany’s ability to pay. During the Weimar period no German government before 1923 made any attempt to stabilize the currency, because German industrialists worked out a system of “inflation profiteering”. They would obtain short-term loans from the central bank for improvement and expansion of their plant, and then repay the loans with inflated currency. The elections of 1920 resulted in the “Weimar Coalition” losing its majority in the Reichstag, never to recover it. The governments of the period of inflation were led by the members of the Catholic Center Party and were open to influence from industry. All of the above and more can be considered more important than the reparations payments imposed by the treaty, although the latter attracted greater attention. Not to be underestimated was the morale shattering effect of the link to reparation costs in treaty’s so-called “war –guilt” clause. It bothered the Germans greatly. Absolution from accusation could not be bought with money or bartered for in goods. TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Glenn Beck’s apparent struggle with Weimar economics and the current American economic crises–– 1. Glenn Beck’s apparent struggle with Weimar economics and the current American economic crises––Objectively I occasionally would catch Glenn Beck’s CNN program. On one of the last CNN appearances before leaving, apparently for Fox News, he revealed that he does seek counsel by those in the know––or words to that effect. The context of this particular counsel involved Germany’s Weimar history. If I recall correctly, he metaphorically referred to such counselors as his deep-throat sources, which suggest some secrecy or unwillingness to make intelligent connections without admitting to inadequacies. Following up on what there is about Weimar that is on the sly, my posting here is a following-whims, a kind-of intuitive and counter-intuitive balancing endeavor to encompass and penetrate Weimar phenomena while not getting bogged down in immanence. It’s an effort to see what there was, and now is teachable about Weimar phenomena. 1.1. If I apply Jaspers’ Transcendence cypher (God) to avoid bogs, immediately religiously held worldviews are implicated. Glenn has not been silent about his religious affiliations, nor have I, nor has Jaspers. Glenn is Mormon by marriage, I am non-denominational by family, and Jaspers is more of a theologian than any theologian, and political theocracy is involved in determinable degrees especially uniquely so in regard to Mormonism. 1.2. Glenn Beck uneasily attempted to wrest something from the German Weimar period’s circumstances, including economics and politics that could serve as a historical lesson about something that should not be repeated here and now. This something he feared was being repeated in the current American politico-economic crises especially with a view to the legislated Wall Street Bailout phenomenon vs. some common law “Main Street” phenomenology. Glenn is probably sensing something familiar about, among other factors, the war debt being comparable to Weimar-Germany’s inability to pay imposed reparations, and, true, one is awe-struck by the media’s attention to what appears to be inflation-profiteering ensuing from the Wall Street bailout. 1.3. Barth and Bultmann––I have to start somewhere (where I feel most comfortable) so here is following an urge to touch down here and there, while transcendentally gliding, and momentarily to look at NT biblical church organization vs. the theocratic. This is a “Karl Jaspers Applied” Website, so it is reasonable to approach Weimar phenomena by mentioning Karl Barth, for he is propagated as something like the Protestant soul, but ought not be thought of as a protestant and not as representative of what the German or American soul ought to be. Jaspers’ critique of his theology of predestination and institutional revelationalism was no less effective than his shattering critique of Rudolph Bultmann theology of demythology. Jaspers’ arguments against them were almost sanctified by “Vatican” approval of these theologians. For instance, the seeds of allegiance to vatic authority were substantiated when “pope pius XII” describes Barth as the most important theologian since Thomas Aquinas. Barth’s predestination theology could fertilize the Teihard-predicted growth of his “Church of Evolution”. There was some advantage to be had in inviting Barth to the Second Vatican Counsel in 1962 to cope with the disadvantage being mustered around the same time through Jaspers’ launching of evaluations about philosophical faith and revelation. What I am pointing at is the outstanding degree of involvement of established religion to show its relativity to the Weimar situation. 1.4. Helmut Thielicke’s theology connected to the economic soul––Thielicke’s sermon “XII” from The Waiting Father is about Jesus’ economics, i.e., prudent banking and investments. Jesus’ awareness of the way the system works can be taken as a sign of approval. It was a proper enough system to serve as an example, a parable about investing talents and improving self-images but from the basic standpoint of critical self-reflection. His parable about investing hints at the practicality of a protestant ethic. So we point to Thielicke as a good German soul; he, like Jaspers, also argued against Bultmann’s theology of dymythology. The argument against dymythology was an argument against dialectical materialism and epi-idealism at a time, as now, when naturalism was under momentum and needed to be inhibited by holding onto the mystique of the faith in the heavenly father. (See Luke 19:11-26) 1.5. The Thielicke soul coming across in his sermons counters the effects of Barth and Bultmann and the patronizing effects of the vatic-harvesting forces. It helps avoid misconceptions; especially the conception that all this subtlety and theological rationalism is reflecting against NT economics, or that NT economics and community aid to widows etc. is a standard for pushing talk about “social isms”. It helps avoid the thought that biblical fundamental ethics is responsible for…Weimar-like problems that are bent to show a need for mobile Canossas ready for maneuvering anywhere in the Galaxy and multi-universes, etc. 1.6. A prefatory point to Item 2. Below is this: The struggle between church and state in Bismarck’s Germany was nothing more than (well, more than less than) a continuation of the same struggle during the Middle Ages––And the struggle and interference from established religion from beyond the Alps continued and continues to this day. 2. Bold Cherry-cloister picking at the outer periphery of the Weimar tree of knowledge––I want to approach this search for Weimar similarities from a transcendental worldviewing of immanental worldviews: (1) The Edict of Potsdam 1685 allowed French Huguenots safe harbor. The truly German paideia, the academician Kant @ 1789-1797 gave ethical attention to the matter of religious freedom—a taste of a definable protestant ethic (as regard the German soul, Jaspers depicts Kant as “our philosopher”––Kant could play around with origins uninhibited by Oxford Darwinism and pre-Vatican involvements and canonizing thereof). (2) In @1872 Bismarck managed to expel from Germany the Jesuits and their institutions (in counter-reformation missions they had established vocations in the education industry where the battle for souls subtly raged, rages). (3) The…propagated…result of Bismarck’s effort to free the State from an ultramontane (intervention from across the Alps) priesthood was that 1300 parishes were without priests (propaganda nonsense, see item 5. below). (4) The Constitution of Weimar (1919) clarified individual religious freedom; Article 137 allowed for associations with the purpose of cultivating a worldview to have the same status as religious associations (and that goes to the essence of my rejoinder to the Pennsylvania Dover Trial showing that biological fundamentalism is a worldview). (5) The Weimar stylistic tidying-up the German Constitution was motivated in large part by the requirements for participation in Versailles, and to impress Woodrow Wilson with something that looked like a presidential system that would discourage the infiltration by religious persecutors. 3. Current items of interest about fiscal church membership gleaned from the WWW––German novelist Heinrich Boll was asked if he was still a Catholic. He said he was a fiscal Catholic. He “had just lost his case before the Federal Republic’s highest court in a challenge to the country’s burdensome century-old church tax” (reference below 3.1.). The church-tax was apparently executable due to Constitution styles that were hazy enough to act as spoiling cloisters affecting the philosophically seasoned Kantian spirit relative to the separation of church and state, i.e., freedom of faith. 3.1. German seminarians recently complained that the greatest danger for the churches is not financial but rather the anonymity and inapproachability of its functionaries. (I might say through my experience as a public service employee that defensive-buffer attitude is practiced by many civil service employees). The same seminarians said that if churches relied on voluntary donations, as in the United States, they would be more popular (However, the subtle maneuvers to circumvent the separation clause are disreputable…though popular––see below). Catholic church officials, however, said it would be difficult for the church to get by without coerced public support. So, I can agree that there is some real truth that “The lessons from Germany and Canada should be painfully obvious: separation of church and state is…best…for preserving social harmony and democratic government…and saving money”. 3.2. Ir-regardfulness for the Constitution’s pretentious spirit since Weimar appears as a German lesson applicable today. I hope to be wrong, but it appears that in Germany there is a large fiscal church patronizing membership, for, being affiliated with a church increases one’s income tax bill by @ 8%. If you want to save on taxes you have to declare yourself an apparent unbeliever, and this has consequences for unbelievers running for public service on one hand. On the other hand the government apparently distributes the church-tax to approved denominations for schools, hospitals, and church maintenance. As inflation increases, the church membership seems to decrease, and tax-funded priests then deceptively use stats as an argument for more coerced support for the universal mission of a tax-supported taxable worldview. 4. From white ties to prelate regalia––I mentioned this church-tax phenomenon to one of my daughters, and she was shocked at hearing about Germany’s church tax. Such a thing is not part of her culture. I immediately answered that it must be due to religio-politico-patronage. 4.1. Catholic Center Party––Then, though leading up to relative to Weimar, I remembered something found in Jaspers’ Essay on Max Weber: “he [Weber] attempted to make it clear…that [a] campaign platform…must be directed…against the [Catholic] Center Party…[but due] only for patronage” (202). My off the cuff answer seemed more than plausible, that the church-tax is a lobbied way to dual-regurgitatingly harvest forces for votes and special mundane competitive worldviews. It becomes politically prudent for Government officials to be fiscal church members or functionary friends of the more forceful and subtle. And it could become politically fruitful to run disguised as an atheistic statesman unconnected to historical moral standards. The apparent pre-Weimar freedom of religion spirit taken to and required for Versailles was being compromised by ways not so subtle as done in America. 4.2. In America, like a few days ago, a church “Eminence”, regaled in a colorful uniform, patronized current and possible officials and the two presidential personages in turn regurgitated. (It was enough for an ethical protestor to vote via write-ins, or flip two-bits while praying to wash one’s hands of the inevitable––In my case two bits having been accidentally dropped increased the by proxy effect.) The prelate regalia was embarrassing enough, but the obvious subtlety was compounded by the primacy’s white-tie requirement, the latter therefore being agreed to, was obviously designed to excuse the pretentiousness of the former––and protests, such as mine, must be ranked as paranoid rantings, for it was propagated as a Church’s only concern (while making American politics seem insincere and deceptive) being to meet the needs of children. Who in their right immanent mind would dare point at the patronage hidden behind used children! 5. That “without priests” argument for public-state support is non sequitur, i.e., not necessarily relevant to the reformation of individuals and society. There’s an example of a historical memory in need of preservation, preserved by the membership of the invisible church not the taxed public: “No body of Christians was ever more entitled to the distinction of being a martyr-church than the Huguenot Church of France…The remnant of the faithful that survived was driven to worship, almost without pastors, and literally in ‘dens and caves of the earth’” (Fisher, Church History, 336). 5.1. The German atmosphere of the intuitive spirit of worshiping in the wildwood, i.e., that …understood…separation of church and state is detectable by putting a finger in the atmosphere of the Edict of Potsdam which (1685) which allowed French Huguenots safe harbor. The Edict had economic effects probably relative to the protestant ethic’s direct affect on the economy and the un-inhibiting feeling of relief from patronage and other forms of persecution (See other thoughts too on Economic Rationality in the West, @p. 53f, Max Weber by Reinhard Bendix). Individualistic endeavors and a feeling of brotherhood predetermined the creativity in the marketplace; while the unchallenging membership in a theocratic centralized religious institution and its community became a disadvantage in Bismarckian protestant Prussia. Preserving the history of meeting in caves and in secret is not something that can be used to circumvent the separation clause; it’s not like public funds used to preserve “historical” counter-reformation edifices in Old Towns and old parishes still linked to and through special plumage. 6. Propaganda or the propagation of a “Faith”––It is difficult for the independent religious thinker, not given to the theocratic premise, to see how withdrawing funding by the State could leave a local church without leadership—like 1300 churches left without priests. It’s easier for those under the influence of an ultramontanist (the other side of the Alps) call for solidarity in the form of an outcry against being left out of the allocated funds which hit at the economic heart of the political church’s designs on coercive funding for a world-wide organization. After all, and for example, the funding problems of the Catholic Church in America, struck hard by pedophile priests, has resulted in a leadership assumed by local and more meaningful “ersatz priests”––but still with no protection against “saint patronage” and the influence of uniforms in terms of festival and fiesta parades led by saint patronage. 7. Plebiscite Presidential voting––We can learn something from that bit of history surrounding Weimar stuff but it will probably not help much in determining how one should vote in America, for; anyway one looks at it, the popular vote will be of the nature of a plebiscite. It’s too late to be otherwise. Barring fate or providence, and the populace moving in mass like a flock, the results are already arranged and paid for with depressing amounts of mass-produced money adding to inflation. The real-time candidates are hidden behind the politico-time facades, i.e., dishonesty or lying for the sake of the state seems like an unfortunate given (except when an ethical personage is needed as a Carter-like sacrifice to distract from periods of outstanding dishonesty to shroud its momentum). 7.1. The vice candidate on one side expounds a religious persuasion on the forehead. The vice on the other side is touted by forces on the WWW as one with the potential for returning to the same persuasion—a back handed branding. (See: the evangelical converted to Catholic on the internet “The Catholic Knight” for an effective “praxis” of his membership in the order of the Knights of Columbus, the International Alliance of Catholic Knights, his comment about Palin’s hoped for re-conversion. And I understand even the organization of Evangelicals and Assemblies in Germany accept church-tax funds. Just previous to the Weimar period, a type of bailout, i.e., the Kaiser’s colonial budget, was demonstrated against; it’s that strong reaction from the Catholic Center Party and Social Democrats (1906) that Jaspers speaks of regarding Weber’s awareness of the depth of the Catholic Center Party’s patronage problem. 8. Leading up to Weimar––Bismarck attempted in @ 1872, 1873, to legislate something that should have been a matter of universal conscience (especially since Kant 1724-1804, one philosophical soul depicting the spirit of education, e.g., his critique of pure reason and judgment). That universal conscience, at the time being constitutionally tested in America, was or ought to have been a sincere constitutional principle relative to the separation of Church and State––already codified in the U.S. constitution and ratified more than less in the States. (Mormonism can be considered a reaction to the fear of a State Church void, and the Campbell movement for a restoration of the biblical standard can be considered a willingness to risk going about the a non-denominational mission with not much to worry about regarding the separation clause. One was at odds and the other went on with the mission within the system of government. So there…Glenn.) 9. Lack of conscience––Jaspers presents Max Weber (and Kant) as a personage truly representative of the German soul (Kirkbright 90 and any of Jaspers views on Weber and Kant). Weber is seen (Essay) as not essentially disagreeing with the battle for the German soul in the Kulturkampf, that culture battle still raging. I mean he did not openly oppose the separation of Church and State though the protestant ethic could not relate to the State’s funding of the priesthood; it was a brazen conflict of the spirit of a people’s bill of rights including the violation of the common-law prudent protection of religious freedom. So, like Kant could not without risking martyrdom, Weber objected to the motivation, i.e., the unification of the State, or nationalism, without safeguards against ultramontanism’s patronage. 9.1. This lack of conscientiousness, Bismarck’s desertion of Protestant Prussia (“Order of Christ”), was evident in how easily the cultural war subsided when “pope leo XIII” decorated Bismarck with the “Order of Christ”. Jaspers, clearly to me, shows that Weber did not approve of the way the Kulturkampf was called off; it reflected against proper motivation. “The inglorious peace was an admission of injustice” and ‘“we acted without conscience”’ for it pointed at “ethical indifference and hypocrisy” (Essay196 f). Bismarck manifested ethical insincerity when he made light of concessions to Catholic forces as being incomparable to Canossa. In 1906 Weber spoke out against the Catholic Center Party…apart…from the economic allocation question; his objection was a matter of principle, i.e., the Catholic Center Party stood for “patronage” (Essay 202). The Social Democrats also rejected the Emperor’s budget––another case of one force cross-pollinating and harvesting another. 10. Where was Glenn Beck on the Canossa subtleties––Glenn Beck refers to himself as “I am a thinker” and though a foxy hubris secretes in his tone, he appears to be a thinker of the critical or protesting ken––so much so that I found myself tuning into CNN’s Glenn Beck’s time to see what he might risk and dare to say about the presidential candidates appearance before “eminence”––where both were awarded a right-and-left seat beside a vestured prelate, a subtle harvesting stratagem, a form on the “Order of Christ” like that awarded to Bismarck. I was wondering how a thinking-critic could circumvent the religious institutional mounting of a Children’s Charity fund-raising dinner for the uniformed propagation of the Catholic Faith. I was wondering whether the soul of the Constitution, Article I, section 9 and 10, would be felt relevant. I’m referring to that display of brown colors about which Jaspers referred to as…not…representing the German soul. Max Weber speaking from the German soul said there was a time to put away uniforms. Now is the time too if it can be done modestly. 10.1. The brown colors that darkened the German soul and the cover of Jaspers’ book. The association with regal colors, letter designs, fonts, and pictorials is strategically significant in competitive journalism and that current struggling book industry. Jaspers’ book on Weber appeared with enough brown to identify it with the Nazi regime’s colors such as that depicting brown shirts (Kirkbright 91). Those are the colors that Weber reacted to when admonishing the Workers’ and Soldiers’ Council, “let us cease to display the insignia of pride beseeming a proud people at a time when they have become a mere front and self-deception; no more colors; anyone who wears [colors] when Germany is down in defeat is a dog” (Essay 215). It is appropriate to speak of the significance of colorful regalia in this time of the (R)evolutionary battle for the American soul when Catholicism and Protestant catholicity is so guilty of the conflict-crimes of illogicality. 11. Encompassing Weimar––Whether the circumstances of the Wall Street bailout is comparable to the August 19, 1934 plebiscite is questionable, but then that vote marks the final end of the Weimar Republic, and the end of the earlier Prussian Constitutional period immediately preceding the Weimar period, in the midst of which, and since, one can find some movement to continue the bailout of a state supported Church. The plebiscite was simply a (three week) later embroidering of Hitler’s amalgamation of the functions of the Reich president and chancellor, and his assumption of those offices. A party already in control by a rigged parliament gave him the “Enabling Act”. The Act released Hitler from constitutional restrictions––not wholly unlike how the Iraq War has compromised the U.S. Constitution’s restrictions against a monarchical enhanced presidency and placed the future in risk of an overbalancing reaction. 12. Finding parallels is easy if one’s intellectual data is limited (and as Jaspers says that parallel or analogy thinking is typical of primitive humankind thinking)––Now the history of that Prussian Constitution, mainly the amendments, marks the beginning of the Weimar period, the beginning of efforts to participate at Versailles. What transpired during the Weimar period included the challenge that war reparation burdens imposed, but also challenging were forces below the public eye, such as freedom from the restraints of accountability and regulation, intentional abetting of inflation by those benefiting. Any referendum under those threatening conditions is hardly comparable to the results of liberating victories as reflected in U.S. Constitution, which engenders freedom exponentially though carrying the dangers too of providing the potential license for the immanence of a fundamental naturalism. There’s little doubt that the force of campaign money in this presidential election, and the force of irresponsible mis-reactionism to terrorism in colonial like aggression, can find parallels in the Weimar period. Some primitive concepts based on analogy can be found. 13. Primitive concepts based on analogy and Cypher language 13.1. Thales and Jaspers on primitive analogous thinking––One already mentioned is the primitive idea of the State funding the prelate primates, i.e., priesthood. The other analogy involves the tendency to look for origins and settling on anything most resembling humankind morphologically. Again that settling on conclusions depends on the availability of information obtained and some forgotten too. For instance Thales is alleged to have said that a magnet has a soul because it can move iron. Hermeneutically I am at liberty to say he was joking or poetically bashing the “evolutionary” thinking he was accused of having. But if a magnet were the only thing in the world that could be seen moving, humankind’s autocrats would be tempted to see it as the singular source of their “species”—especially if recoil or attraction could be interpreted as gratifying or painful––and in turn then impose the origin idea unto a developing culture. Assuming Thales alleged statement was serious is to yield to the premise that he had not yet “evolved” to full humankindness. The joke is on biological fundamentalists. 13.2. That allows us to spin into talk about quantum phenomena as analogous thinking too. To distinguish delusion from primitive thinking Jaspers refers to the latter as the tendency to “conclude by analogy, on the basis of purely external criteria” (Italics mine GP 197)––a consciousness or subjectivity far short on objective phenomena. One can arrive at a practice or vocation via too limited experience. Jaspers is distinguishing delusion from conclusions drawn from limited educational data, limitations like being too busy avoiding starving to death to seek nutritious data for the intellect. The biblical John of Revelation had sufficient quality time and data for contemplation. 14. And didactic data provides for an examination and application of the concepts of the biblical John of “Revelation”. John continued the culture of going beyond the paralytic effects on thinking where failure to progress results in every image becoming reality, “every idea seems correct without regard to wish or purpose” every content seems real (GP 197). Let’s see how the phenomenologist, biblical John (of “Revelation”), handles some of the predominating cyphers of deity, cyphers of nature, and cyphers of rational beings, in the concepts and language of his time, then and now as old as the known history of humankind—Remembering that humankind has always been nothing more or less than humankind as such and never anything different, while recalling that “primitive” is within that humankind’s horizonless existence. 15. John’s phenomenology of analogical thinking; bestiality and false prophet, the philosophical revelational faith vs. the faith in naturalism––Let’s approach John as a reasonable observer, for instance, seeing the beast of the sea as every bit an artificial intelligent state-of-the-arts phenomenon as sophisticated an image as Humboldt’s lab’s homunculus’ eventual bewitchment and absorbance into the quantum sea. John is more empirically realistic, having the greatest proneness for flesh and blood pain––compared to that, artificial intelligence is nothing (unless artificial apparatuses are attached to neurons and pain is not buffered). John is more hermeneutically real too because he has close regional ties to the predominating “evolutionary” ideas attributed to Anaximander (c. 610-546). Those analogical observations concluded that originally humankind was a fish and developed from “animals of another species” (Great 10). I think we can find several “stages” in the “evolutionary” delusions imputed to Anaximander and probably there are earlier sources of a mystic seven-headed scheme of origin. 15.1. So John had some several-known centuries of awareness about prevailing thoughts regarding origins, and he some feelings and understanding about the implications for humankind. The forces then as now were harvested by other forces conscripted in the battle for the substratum, for the soul of humankind. Empirical data was not in short supply in John’s time--either. What was lacking was a novel way of giving expression to disturbing trends. His task was to breathe new death into the dragon of philosophical naturalism countering the revelations of biological fundamentalism. The greater task was to breath new life via captivating raw-nerve terms into philosophical faith. He had to overcome primitive analogical superficial thinking by using language that could not be interpreted as enforcing biological fundamentalism but rather releasing those captive to it. 16. New book old ideas: Eric J. Chaisson’s Epic of Evolution: Seven Ages of the Cosmos––Eric’s title, and I assume the book’s contents, amounts to a continuation of this idea that humankind developed from beasts of various ranks over time. Immediately one is stuck with a theology that is not only not deism, and not theistic, for it would take a miracle of revelational intensity to argue that God, the imageless origin of humankind, is simply an abstraction at least and at best an epiphenomenon objectified into existence. There is no escape from the logic that if humankind developed to the point of humankind-consciousness then God is simply a figment of the imagination. That miracle in principle is required even if the same inhibiting thinking is applied to multi universes and galactic life––for it involves infinite regress and as Kant said resorts to the ontological argument as being the only superlative alternative of an immanent sort. It would take a bad faith in the supernatural and in miracles, and a “church of evolution” confirming their sanctification, to think and talk otherwise. Oh, wait…that has already happened. 16.1. I don’t believe in that creed expressing that tenet of biological fundamentalism––regardless of how large the church –secular monastic choir. In securing biological fundamentalism, natural rationalism cannot avoid the question of the origin of consciousness, cannot avoid sounding like the problem is humankind-soluble. When presumptuously resolved, philosophical naturalism’s verbiage from the quantum priestly class, those with special knowledge and symbols, can ride roughshod over philosophical faith––if (now I’m spinning off into) David Deutsch’s hopes and goals for quantum computers are engaged in the battle for the soul of humankind. The potential exist as with computerized voting machines that there will be enough beastly verbiage-debris and road-kill on the International WWW speedway to be manipulated by quantum computer search engines. The www quantum computer search engine’s police cruisers can become the academia’s dragoon-media comparable to John’s dragon. 17. Filiz Peach’s (Philosophy Now) interview with David Deutsch on life, “evolution”, DNA, quantum computerized measuring of consciousness, and harvesting by quantum search engines David speaks with a loose theoretical drawl (eoui in “evolution”) the hard-core language of quantum physics and from the platform of an Oxford University’s center of logical quantum positivism (quantum computations in ideological form). He makes an effort to be logically consistent and meets the origin of consciousness head on with a logical positivism (about which he is critical and logically inconsistent) that is strangely peculiar to biological fundamentalism. His Website’s links reveal that David is in “big bro” company. 17.1. Peach’s interviewing tactics kinder than objective––Filiz Peach, in my view, being more kind than objectively critical, introduces David Deutsch as a pioneer of a new field of physics whose ideas are worthy of the alleged status of “not-yet”. He is presented as one having overcome the Zeno paradox, the capturer of the tortoise from the Quantum Sea, and only anti-rationalists in the “scientific community” fail to cooperate in David’s conclusivity. David’s reached goal is portrayed as something like cleanliness; it is next to Godliness––being in God-particle territory fearfully walked by angels, tiptoed on by some researchers humbled by research as a constant, and with non-hubris ideological blinders on so as not to offend possible guardian angels. 17.2. He is introduced as a personage offering new hope for a re-unification (my “re” prefix in keeping with the drift of this posting) of scientific forces (a unifying multi-universal-theory of the universe in the 21st century)–unifying once again the contemporary “evolutionary” thinking on a roll since humankind’s succumbing to analogy with no less the momentum now then during John’s time. The messianic prayer for unity (John 17) is reduced to a union of forces in David’s prophetic foresight about the reunification of the infinite relativity of things small and great, particular and general. This scientificism, this catholicity in the “scientific” community is not a brotherhood of unity regarding research but rather a union of harvested forces waiting to be leaped upon and religiously conscripted into the propagation of a type of Theihard “Church of Evolution”. 18. David’s “Misconceptions vs. misconceptions” and learned ignorance not taken seriously––David names certain areas besides relativity and quantum measuring, i.e., computing the trends, that will lead to unifying the scientific community: epistemology, some philosophy (by “some” he must mean philosophical naturalism not philosophical faith) and math (crypto math peculiar to quantum phenomena), all going to promote the area premised by the saluted major “theory of evolution”. This sounds like logical positivism to me. With that answer David has captured in quantum cosmological terms the beast from the deep soup and also transported science to the high elevation of standing before the false prophet at Canossa thus participating in the collusion and collaborating of the seven headed beast’s institutional religions’ establishment of the immaculate conception, the mother of all of David’s multi-universal “misconceptions”. David half jokingly uses “misconception” in the same way I would say, that, even in half joking he is far more wrong than right, and that the weary truth contained in that humor is that humankind tends to be left without historic moral guidance and at the mercy of radical constructivism naturally bent toward liberalism. But this talk about Popper-like misconceptions occurs later in the interview. 19. At the start of the interview––Immediately David’s certitude takes the form of “glimpses”, and then absolute certitude when he says there are, to him, no “fundamental mysteries” in quantum mechanics––thus making him the quotable friend of lobbyists for funding “evolutionary” science. Such an absolute pro-position must contain not only Popper contradiction but also delusions of logic––illogicality (Popper once made a metaphorical patronizing smile at Dawkins once at Oxford and Dawkins swooned…too). For then he says there are mysteries that need to be solved to establish a quantum and general relativity solidarity union but the solution he says can come at anytime (a subtle prophetic-like use of the concept of the second coming with all the hopes and dreams thereof––less non-fundable talk about 2000 years). All these expressions of fundable certitude-ity are expressed in the single paragraph that begins with “no mysteries” but ends with a “So, I do not know” (regarding the exact time of the coming unification of universal quantum thinking and general relativity). 19.1. David is probably referring to the mechanical results that are classifiable as known and that work for some designed purpose, including some relativistic simultaneity, while avoiding the complementarity affects imposed on experimentation by thinking and consciousness. Only a catholicity of conscience and consciousness could avoid or ignore such interference, so we certainly do not want the science lab moved to a vatican where protestors are unwelcome. Learned ignorance practiced by the counter intuitive scientific community is an established enough principle for revealing the propagandizing aspect of this talk about no mysteries. Talk about no mysteries cannot subdue the neural activity effects. Like nuclear bombs quantum computers will (maybe shall) be harvested readily if a union of forces replaces learned ignorance and the protestant ethic’s constant falsification of infallibility. 19.2. Lobbyist talking the Oxford Babel-babble––David returns to displaying a captivating optimism so befitting to one lobbying for funding special interests that includes explicit agendas in educating the souls of students. The argument about solidarity in goal oriented research is a second coming of the geocentric argument with an epistemic spin, a spin twisted by state-of-the-art credentials and turf-profanity like “evolved” “adapted” and “species”. The talk is “bro” slang and graffiti stuff marking the immanent territory where humankind (my word, his word is “man”) by force of will and street-pilgrimage-wise knowledge is inversely affecting our universe, our “galaxy”––and beyond, getting the attention of high heaven. 20. Strangely enough in the infinite multi-universes there is no incoming from Transcendence; there is only an immanent singularity. “Evolutionary” emotive words are used with the fervor of a tent revival preacher of the “gospel of evolution”. These are nice sounding words that glorify “man” and in turn acquire “amens!” from ultramontanistic prelates elected by men, emotionally aggrandizes institutional unions and edifying the membership. The campground is cultivated into pact-ground where forces feed off one another. The institution is needed to give vatic like confirmation to the quantum intuitive vocation that…realizes, that understands, that the fundamental processes of nature, at the sanguine of the counter intuitive, is not in the suspension mode of science as such. “Man” must not only understand the substratum of nature but also then worship the institution awarding confirmation about the conclusive finding. That eventuality follows from both “misconceptual” premises, i.e., the “descent of man” and the “ascent of man” (with “men” warding off gender-engendered criticism through a process for certifying Marian-ism’s miracles in a man-designed atmosphere of Mariolatry). 21. Filiz gets to what should have been gotten to first: Consciousness!––David’s answer exposes the reason that the question regarding the origin of consciousness was not given primary status. David had to have the opportunity to give expression to easy talk about the infinite data available through parallel thinking or the primitive tendency to draw paralytic conclusions based on analogous observation––i.e., biological fundamentalism. The infinite data (due only to humankind’s finite limits) is camouflaging foliage enough for naked consciousness as such to hide behind. That confining verbigeration is manifested in dropping the name of some very important personages, David being touted as one of the excellent students so nurtured. Standing with the very large array of personages is not quite distracting enough to avoid the public spectacle regarding the illogicality in the contradiction (knowing and not knowing the origin of life but not consciousness nor its origin); there is no pretense of avoiding the illogicality of concluding that biological fundamentalism gives scientist the license to say “we today understand what life is, whereas once this was a deep mystery”. Hubris! The ambiguity of anything is sufficient evil unto itself and needs no brazen contradictory use of “mystery”. The illogicality is so outstanding it can make the most methodical phenomenologist say, “I can’t believe what I just saw and heard”. 22. Speaking with the air (for that is all there is now) of authority about the origin of consciousness David spins off the ambiguity of terms, unto a platform of absolute certainty where he speaks authoritatively about what is more mysterious than life (though I think he had already said and agrees that life is no longer a mystery to the biological fundamentalist). He wants to make sure none in his community of peers thinks he is anything but a philosophical naturalist, thus he says “I do not believe in the supernatural”––While in fact he does religiously think the natural fundamentalist creed. The illogicality is exhausting as David goes on to argue that the “explanation of life” (he said life is understood, so it is not an argument as much as a platitude or truism) “requires a substantive new theory, namely the theory of evolution [emphasis mine––though hardly necessary for this is the emotive word so paralytic to reason, a primitive analogy in new garbled talk]”. The very epistemic seat of consciousness, the theory upon which everything depends is now spoken of in terms like “consciousness…needs a different mode of explanation” and it has not “yet been invented”––an unconscionable display of radical constructivism. The same forms of thinking are being used as were used when Thale’s is alleged to have said that a magnet has a soul because it moves and moves iron. As said previous above, if nothing else in the world obviously moved the philosophical naturalist (which is really a metaphysician) would extrapolate from that analogy that it must be the origin of humankind––especially the person over there. 23. The beast of creativity and the multiple heads of the multi-universes in need of a voice––At this point in the interview we have seen the beast of creativity with its multiple heads of illogicality, and David’s admission that a prophet revealing new truth is needed. He would be content with one as false as the prophetic mouthpiece for multi-universes, analogical, parallel universes (now leaking ufo stuff) like that now given to biological fundamentalism (other than the general support referred to by Dawkins’ “all major religious establishments…”). For this prophetic confirmation of biological and quantum fundamentalism’s sainthood, one needs to depend on the special infallibility, the ultramontanism of quantum-truth worming its way through time travel––revelations of the sort about which lonely John of Revelation is not guilty. To simply report on what is seen and heard in the prevailing winds of the times is empirical. John does not need to draw-in immanental mystiques from multi-universes. John is too empirical to plead or pray for a David modal “time travel”. David’s scientific dis-ease, discomfort, reveals a need for something beyond biblical traditional dimensional thinking. John did not need several hundred-quantum computer search engines to monitor and garner his observations. He spoke in such a fashion that even quantum computers would be ineffective screeners, for though the key words are not there, the key concepts are unavoidable and immeasurable except in their effect. Understanding John’s work requires explanation more than the sort of revelational predictionality that David’s search engines could be rigged for by chip-priests. Rigging is the quality side of the problem with quantum computer search engines. 22.1. John’s observations expressed in poetical angelic-cypher language is as relevant today as then (for multi-dimensionality is nothing new under this galaxy’s suns or others as well). The beast from the sea is easily seen as the origin-sin concept that humankind emerged from the sea (Thales and Anaximander, Hellenism). The dragon can be seen as the dragoon force of the information highway, today the Internet and the search engines. The false prophet is the religionist of the established Churches, Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Mormon, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Islam, and Evangelical collaborating to the point of collusion with the fundamentalism of the biological tenet. Each of those through Internet search can be found to be giving voice to the beastly origin idea of humankind. That tenet can be seen as a anti-conceptual. As super-naturalism it is “evolutionism” for it’s a big bit of banging on the concept and the healthy psychology of the imageless God concept as it goes to the origin of humankind. More deeply the bestiality-origin concept effectively denies the divine origin of humankind-consciousness. The beast is given a voice through religious primates’ sanctification of the beastly origin idea. The martyrdom, suffering, and the resurrection of Jesus injured the head of the beast by pointing back to the heavenly father as the Transcendental origin of humankind. At least it seems plausible.
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