VARIOUS EXTRACTS - SECTION 1
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email me <C1> Appreciated the posting on time and now. Personally ... not knowing ... I'd hesitate to dogmatically declare that the center itself, or that which is not reducible to something else, is wholly not structured actually or potentially. An ontology can be more or less fixed or chaotic and the meaning given the word "time" doesn't remove the uncertainty or limitatin of knowing. It seems suspiciously presumptive. I wonder if these structures based on experience that is based in the “center” are supposed to be the structures without referents? <C2> Because it's hard not to become religious in our wishes, if we think the center of experience is not structured, then we will probably conjure and expect mass assent to a traditional structured kingdom of God on earth to provide a traditional infallible guide for erring structures which come from the void of nothing. The alternative is to continue believing – independently --that there's a structure beyond and above our structures and continue hoping and preparing for the kingdom to come while enduring some abusive kingdoms. There is a tendency on the part of large institutional churches to talk about the church, as the Kingdom of God on earth while contrary to such claims there's no such absolute Biblical concept. There's a faith, hope, and love center though and a non-centralized kingdom idea. <C3> There seems to be something familiar with considering the center as unstructured to the point there is no tortoise-handle to grasp for conceptual thinking except a negative or missed one -- unless one's earlier experiences involves remembering things like a preexisting structured sewing machine's painful needle (see my early experience regarding sewing machine in Site Map’s How to Understand Jaspers for timespace consciousness and conscience). Jaspers could say we can only predict the negative, except Jaspers is talking out of experience with regard to predictions. We don't assume absolute structure or unstructure in the center of our world and prepare accordingly, but prepare for the rainy days based on limited experienced-structures which the center of experience seems to modify but we don't really know how far the deviations from structure penetrate into the centerless center. <C4> <C5> The more remote center (vague but real consciousness) is neither structured nor unstructured except in the judgment of authorities with the power to impose and design others’ experiences -- as in some quest for power -- or as free individuals might make room for a healthy faith while stepping into uncertain frontiers. <C6> “Time” is a sign but the significance I'd make of it would describe the way of handling the experience of a deer-hunt relative to the hunter relative to needs, while predicting the way of avoiding missing the target and hitting-or-missing the Ice Man under calm or windy conditions (The Ice Man apparently died of an arrow wound in the back). The hunter predicts missing and aims for the target. We can easily predict Armageddon but aim to prevent it unless we've succumbed to some unavoidable assumed chaos in the center of the will of God. <C7> I feel we could be beguiled by "time" that "flows" to where "Now" becomes an assumed unstructured chaos justified by an idea that can become fixed or subjectively assumed as representative of an objective continuum - flow - inversely imaged. The word "flow" seems arbitrary, too objective to avoid a responsible amount of subjectivity. <C8> It seems healthy though to treat "time" as something that has become a largely subjective structure. Placing its origin in experience and the distinct ground which is defined as necessarily unstructured seems a little off balance. There is too much vivid experience emphasize at the expense of more vague but not less real consciousness. Perhaps it's best to leave this matter as a short note "35" and leave it suspended until we see where this is leading, while remembering there's a very early concept of a "center" which ... became ... chaotic by comparison, and then restructured. I’m referring to the conceptualizations in what was too chaotic to measure in Genesis 1:1 before the structuring in 1:3ff. The idea of measuring “time” is punctuated by emphasizing the distinction between the timelessness of God and the ridiculousness time-measuring the complex manifold. TA1, Commentary 28 (on Adler's C26) <2> Some Maybe Unpredicted Preliminary Ideas: How interesting to observe the movement from a struggle as simple and basic as a mind-brain dialectic to Adler's 1999 "conversion" to Catholicism after he became an Episcopalian in 1986. But it seems relatively insignificant from a philosophical perspective. From a metaphysical-empirical standpoint it might be nothing but repayment for Thomists’ show for greater reverence than the non-romantic might condescend to due to principle. I mean if Adler as a member of the -- Americanized -- High Church of England had been made a knight, if it could mean more than a humorous antidote, perhaps he would not have made the hardly distinguishable short step of "conversion." Otherwise it seems to me hardly worth Hudson's note. It might be significant that he has not apparently rejected the title of Catholic, but then that's true of many on the other side of this life (the deceased), and the other side of Presbyterianism -- the other side being Episcopalianism down from which (the Tiber) runs the broad way to Rome, a trip made easier by emphasizing immaterialist-romanticized inclinations. <3> The last I read of another Adler, Alfred, was his "Understanding Human Nature." That was about 1968, and I was critical of his comment about the soul arising from a "hereditary substance" and being "entirely conditioned by social influences." There's nothing on the name of Mortimer Adler in my Dictionary of Philosophy, nor The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, but it's not surprising to see that Thomistic ... fathers have attempted to charm -- and make famous -- someone into accepting an unofficial sainthood degree. I'm indebted to this posting and the Hudson reference for bringing Mortimer Adler's conversion to Catholicism -- which presumptively began in 1986 after he repeated the Lord's prayer "Our father..." -- to the world's awareness. Perhaps he was having trouble with reducing the heavenly father's imageless to the imagination and needed something more material. <4> Wild Metaphysical Speculations Continued -- Perhaps Adler's middle name, Jerome, gave rise to a romantic idea about the significance of his conversion. At least it offers me occasion to dabble about ... too. There are two, well actually three, outstanding historical Jeromes; not many Mortimers and now at least two Adlers. The first is the Jerome, who upheld the celibacy of clergy, and who was given sainthood in the name of infallibility which means celibacy must be consistently maintained in view of this established procedure for the canonization of Saints. But there's another Saint Jerome. He, only an existential saint, as mind-body, was burned at the stake for, among others things, refusing to pray to deceased once-material but then immaterial Saints -- in the strictest sense of a rigid or religious ontology. He was not made a Saint or knight by an institution but became and remains constantly an indivisible unadulterated tried and tested saint in deed (Foxe's Book Of Martyrs). <5> Then there was that Apache Jerome (Geronimo). That was not his birth name, which was something like Goyakla, meaning yawning baby, and his name changed with character-changes. He was given the name Geronimo by fellow warriors after having reaped vengeance on a village's inhabitants. During the assault his victims had been calling on the village patron, Saint Jerome. After the battle, fellow Apaches were amazed at what Geronimo had done. Looking about at the carnage, it was obvious to them that the spirit of "Saint Jerome" had not materialized, unless it was... yes...unless this Apache warrior had been the answer to prayers. He, they said in effect -- clearly with tongue in cheek –must be the spirit of St. Jerome. Henceforth his second name became Geronimo. Although, if either, I could only guess which spirit of the two saints might match that Apache's vengeance for the murder of his wife and children. <6> How this "recommended" bit of Mortimer Adler's reading throws light on the mind-brain enigma must lie somewhere between a psychopathological complex and a very simple normal existential explanation -- as in illumination. In other words I found the comments hardly moving in a therapeutic sense with regard to solving the problem, but rather a struggling bit of experience such as with an opponent's will to power. It reminded me of something Karl Jaspers wrote -- though he was referring in part to Alfred Adler: "Every intellectual movement is materially determined by the men who founded it." I suppose in some "movements" the significance is found in something as mysterious or immaterial as a "conversion" or in the fact that it's hard to oppose what has been made elegantly...unclear. Jaspers continues, after the above reference, to say that psychotherapy requires a "high order," and such a high order of the whole being could never be "based on Freud, Adler and Jung, and because one grows dependent on one's opponent, no successful engagement with them along their own lines will ever find the way. This can only come by our getting a grasp on the great traditional truth." (Gen. Psychopath. The Human Being as a Whole, p. 815, 1963, University of Chicago Press). So, with this as a precedent, refusing an engagement on predetermined terms, we proceed: <7> That was my experience with Mortimer Adler's comments; that the reader, was being led down dangerously close to a primrose lane to Rome by way of Episcopalianism allured by the hypnotic smell of roses and the suggestion that if some failed to follow regally the historic path -- while backing away from the priestly High Church of England's technique of waving incense -- they might be suffering from ... agnosia. But, those capable of not only detecting a rose by its fragrance, but also by sight, and adept at deciphering linguistic symbols, can also detect something simultaneously unsavory in those Adler samples of agnosia. I detect a potential support for an empirical systematic theology designed to put knots in what binds the intellect to the brain while saying things about the immaterial...moderately immaterial. That can, when combined with religion, contain potential seeds that can restrain the mind rather than serve as a launching pad for the vertical thrust to intellectual ascendancy. <8> A Catholic systematic theology was not the sort of traditional truth Jaspers -- quoted above -- was referring to in his thoughts about a being's search for wholeness. The great traditional truth is more like a romanticized rose of Sharon, or existential art seen in the meaning one gives to the image of the desert's blossoming rose. Converting to something like an institutionalized-inhibition to individual freedom does not restore great traditional truth. <9> So, personally, I don't find it inspiring to dance or analyze with Mortimer Adler to the tune of how many variable ideas can dance on the tips of the enigmatic mind-brain horns. It requires a clear distinction be made with regard to which might be more certain than the other. In my own thinking I've elevated uncertainty to an epistemological principle: Whether one observes tiny particles or waves of brain stuff, or the behavior of other stuff like light waves or particles, macroscopically or microscopically, whether in the so-called material or immaterial purposeful classifications, neither brings more religious or philosophical certitude than the other. Needless to say my mind wanders and wonders more about many other things like why a dual horned animal has teeth only in the lower jaw, or what religion was Descartes associated with that he should have become some pivotal person to go back beyond to escape a "primary" subject/object split. And, by the way, my world of so called sense-experience and my imagination, my memory, is filled more with no-thing than with "nothing but individual objects." So I guess that excuses me from the primrose path. <10> One thing Mortimer Adler clearly did here is confirm his dependence on a misunderstood-Aristotle, Aquinas, and Descartes in some spin-off manner which in turn endeared him to some Thomists still seeking for an updated philosopher to replace Thomas. And there's enough clarified though to suggest that there's an orthodoxy or dogma that can predetermine the intellect's ... deciphering ... processes, but even that degree of clarity is eroded by the following: <11> It's important, while considering Adler's near solution to the mind-brain enigma, to mention the Arabian factor. Aristotle was not properly understood until Averroes' commentaries were rediscovered and he reintroduced him to the world thus breaking the pack string between Aquinas and Aristotle -- though the string is now reappearing in new ... canon ... fodder : Adler, if not Marcel and Heidegger. <12> Averroestic interpretations of Aristotle are more accurate than those Greek texts that Thomas relied on, especially in regard to the theory of the intellect. And though one researches the internet and finds such statements as: there's no doubt about the decisive influence Averroes had on Thomas "the greatest of all Catholic theologians" there's an implication that Averroes is great because influenced by Aristotle and Aristotle is great retroactively by an immaterial "Saint" string. It's a twist not unlike how now the Lord's Prayer is more significant, more Catholic, because Adler uttered it on the road to Catholicism. <13>
From a historical-consciousness perspective, it seems one should keep in mind that accommodation and manipulation by traditional institutional Catholicism (though the name nominalistically begs reality for an ontology because it means universal) is not characteristically unique enough to warrant credit for independent - individual - existential - intellectual derivation. For, the 12th century Averroes could be culturally assimilating too by a unique approach having a special view, which included the suicidal terrorism of the knights involved in the capture of Jerusalem in the 11th century. Making a Saint out of Thomas does not reduce Averroes to a derivative status that's subject to will-to-power remnants of the Holy Roman Empire -- vs. Mohammedanism. TA1, Commentary 30 (on Gardner's C29 on M Adler) My response to David Herman's note on Martin Gardner's commentary 29 (on Adler (26)) <1> I'm grateful to David Herman for the letter and note by Martin Gardner, and for the occasion to continue the precedent set for a bit of religious ribbing, tongue-in-cheek praying, with some of my off-the-cuff comments and predictions after the manner of a modern day ... converted ... Erasmus -- converted to greater fortitude where religious freedom now exists. <2> After having read the Martin Gardner posting, I don't see any reason to change much in my first Adler comments other than now it appears Adler's conversion did not begin with the utterance of the Lord's Prayer while he was hospitalized and with his wife's influence and Episcopal "baptism." Now it appears the conversion began with Gardner's "tongue-in-cheek" published appeal for prayers for Adler's conversion to the one true church. I'm not making light of prayer, but pointing out that light was made of the prayer. It reminds me of the historic Church doctrine that allows for the flow of the grace of God regardless of the sinfulness of the intermediaries so long as they comply with the liturgical structures of the Institution. So we now learn he did not really get to Rome through London but was translated from that road to the Roman road. <3> This time we are again given a by-the-way bit of proselytizing by referring the reader to Gilbert Chesterton for he produced "...the greatest of modern Catholic apologies, almost fifteen years before he joined the Church." I might say, the time is even riper for apologies (pun), so let's have them freely posted. I can at best only dream about Jaspers and myself debating with Adler and Chesterton -- pleasantly handicapped by the Notre Dame philosopher Ralph McInerney's declaration that Adler's conversion is like that of the Apostle Paul's on the road to Damascus only on the preferable road to Rome. (Bill Buckley would probably be the moderator.) I take that Notre Dame source to mean along with saint Paul we now have saint Mortimer, the latter saint being more relevant because more recent(ly recognized as useful). But I'm champing at the bit to get started on this dialogue. (I mean no disrespect for these good fellows but like to shoo away pouncing institutionists from the remains, for in the largest institutions there can be good and evil infiltrators.) ------------------------------------------ EDITORIAL NOTE BY MULLER (Note: the cross reference for this note remains to be found) [*] The reason for the choice of the name of this Forum is given in the second paragraph of the statement of purpose. The topic of the reaction of philosophers and theologians to evolution is of general interest, and if you feel you have a good case, and do not mind sparks flying, you might present your ideas about this for discussion in a Target Article. – HFJM ------------------------------------------- CHARDIN, BERKELEY, AND POPE by Glenn C. Wood 26 June 2003, posted 8 July 2003, TA60, C3 <1> Nothing essentially new presented here by Grandpierre. It's reminiscent of Pierre Teilhard De Chardin in general, and comparable to Joseph Johnson's TA in particular. <2> In 17th century England, George Berkeley merited the eulogy of Alexander Pope on the issue of natural religion for it was as popular then as attempted now. Berkeley sought a defense of theism in an ideal theory of matter not unlike TA60. Berkeley held that only minds exist and the notion of a hard lump of matter is a figment of fancy. I don't disagree with the flux of stuff, but his idea that the divine mind imparts ideas according to a fixed order and such is clearly seen in the laws of nature is one of those miracles that can be used by an established Church's claims on nature's humankind. That establishment, presumed to be the evolving or unfolding unquestionable nature of things, includes collusion between nature and nature's Church. It corresponds with the idea that religion is a natural and necessary stabilizing force, and the test is the forcefulness of the application of its administration and the execution of its laws. <3> Due to the misuse of established Church authority, it easy for me to see the need for a safe standard, and the standard being the Bible, as an undeniable part of an empirically grounded general consciousness. Natural religion then can be entertained if the Bible is the authority and not some organization's traditions so prone to error. HM might adamantly object to this peri-echontology charging it's a dogmatic ontology. But what is preferred as substitute for the stability HM sees as good ? Church Tradition as ultimate authority does what Hume warns against; it creates habits of thinking. When one thing follows another we transfer without warrant the necessity to the things themselves and belief then can become a habitual association of mental states. That's why visual aids and icons are utilized, and why some degree of healthy iconoclasm has existed since Moses. The will of humankind is dissolved by an illusive inference. <4> A. Pope was reared Catholic in an environment which made his parents relocate for Catholics were forbidden from living within ten miles of London or Westminster. His mistreatment at a Catholic school could have contributed toward his tolerance for erroneous treatment and erroneous bishops -- like Berkeley. He wrote "Nor in the Critic let the Man be lost." "To err is human, to forgive, divine ..." <5> Those forgetting history are prone to the vain repetition of some of it, and that is unnatural and less than divine. TA60 can be credited for stimulating this response. ------------------------------- CERTAINTY AND UNCERTAINTY IN SCHIZOPHRENIA by Glenn C. Wood,13 August 2002, posted 3 September 2002, TA35, C36 Comments to Pies and Meijden comment 34 TA35, and references to Symposiasts Glasersfeld, Dongier, and Muller. (1) Ron Pies' and Adrian van der Meijden's notes about the questions surrounding the justification for involuntary treatment of some schizophrenia reminded me of a case I once had as a caseworker providing assistance to families in need of protection. Pies' statement left me wondering a bit when he said "...of course schizophrenia is not contagious..." Although he probably means contagious in a specific sense, however it seems to me the disease can still be catching, and it seems the statement is a bit absolute when considering the uncertainties before and after diagnosis -- or in this case's dynamics, diagnoses. The following case dynamics might show those uncertainties. (2) The Agency was the Lake County Department of Public Welfare in Gary Indiana and in the late sixties. The Division Head and my Supervisor had been contacted by concerned parents that their adult and independent daughter was obviously mentally ill and not capable of properly caring for her children. An appointment was made at a community Mental Health Clinic for evaluation. The diagnosis was schizophrenia. The parents and agency administrators were pressuring for involuntary action to be taken and the relatives were told that the only way involuntary treatment could be provided was if a judge would determine a need for confinement at the Westville Institution. Those concerned met with the judge along with their daughter and he decided on institutionalization. (3) I provided the transportation to Westville and when the screening psychiatrist came into the room, he looked at all of us and asked who the "patient" was. The "patient" who had appeared withdrawn and confused had become more normal in behavior the nearer we got to the Institution. Whereas she had appeared also disorientated she now knew she was where she did not want to be. (4) The Institution's psychiatrist made an immediate diagnosis, too -- after a few murmuring disrespectful comments about the clinician and the judge. His was that her condition was "undifferentiated" and recommended out-patient treatment at the Mental Health Clinic back in the local community (not the end of this case history). (5) I suppose this example can demonstrate the dynamics of various pressures from a family, from institutions, the legislated need to provide protection, the complications of agency personnel familiar with local families and groups in the execution of statutes for protecting families, and of course the judicial side too could not escape the social and individual institutional influences nor the recorded diagnosis from the Clinic. It also shows how situations are dumped here and there and the unintended resolution occasionally coming about in the process due to the will of the individual in reaction or transaction with society. (6) Meijden's comments about Nash and rewards brought to mind an early preschool experience when I was about four. I was the youngest and my brother and sister now were both in school. Playing alone, I conjured an imaginary playmate. The playmate was real enough for me to communicate with. The playmates name was "honey." (When my mother was in a good mood, she called me "honey." When she was unhappy my name was "Glenn.") (7) My playmate was real until my mother overheard me apparently talking to somebody. She came out on the porch near where I was and looking about asked who I was talking to. I said "honey." She laughed, and I suddenly realized my imaginative playmate was unreal. I felt my thinking was unacceptable in a serious way, but good for a laugh. I then had no longer an awareness of the playmate. (It was then, going to the other side of the porch, sitting on the grass, that she came out again to toss slop to the chickens, that I asked that question -- referred to elsewhere -- "how can I be me and not my mother, sister, or brother?") (8) I can imagine the imaginary playmate may not have disappeared if there had been reinforcement as-if what was not, was, such as: what if my mother had displayed a fear of the unknown, a susceptibility to belief in ghosts or an unholy Ghost, and exhibited a look of fear as though some entity was really there but only I by fate or providence could see; or what if she began talking about my aberration, or simply providing undue attention by telling others about my vivid imagination? She simply made this noise, a laugh, interpreted by me as the grandiose poetic metaphor mentioned by Glasersfeld in TA43[9] (and this early memory is my attempt to explain exactly how I came to know something about reality). The laughter-symbol also shows the correctness of Glasersfeld's reminder that noise needs interpreting, and Dongier's response showing intentions can be transported empathetically with the noise even though the less said or written the better -- sometimes. (9) This memory suggests to me that Meijden's concern over rewards for certain unusual behavior is well grounded in experience and is not only theory, and that the precocious child can in fact be convinced of a superiority whether real or not by the childish verbalizations of adults. (10) I still question Pies' comment that the difficult-to-define schizophrenia is absolutely not communicable if that's the meaning of "contagious." Such certainty and disregard for non-localization makes me uncomfortable but not to the point of being as unhappy as the barber -- who in this ... modern ... "post-modern" time (snicker) of alleged un-delightful confusion -- still cuts his own hair even though ordered to only cut the hair of those who do not cut their own hair (see TA43 Glaserfeld's response 2, item <3> to Meijden's C3). (11) Meijden adds to my modern "post-modern" confusion when in an effort to clarify how superior judgments are to be displayed he says -- if I understand him -- that Italian or Islamic societies don't display superior feelings or judgements. It might be worth discussing if he's speaking of the long term effects -- "long term memories...[result] in deposits in cortical areas..." (Muller to Bone Symposium Part 3, C6, {6} by Muller to Bone's C5) -- of a divine lineage type of romanticism in Romanism, and the later Islamic reaction to Romanism as a religio-political force to be reckoned with on equal terms. (12) Hard absolute doctrinal memories could leave chemical deposits that ring as in in-depth subjective tinnitas like Pavlovian bells. Such, I believe, can be shattered by experiences of greater intensity, such as "Existenz" therapy -- not unlike the symposium's experts who remind us of the conditioning affect of therapy upon the brain. This structured way of dealing with memories elevates Muller's "principle" to practice; that is, elevated from Muller's certainty that it has been "known" at least "in principle" that long term memories are formed with the help of limbic function resulting in deposits in cortical areas from where they can be elicited like during seizures or electrical stimulation. --------------------------------- REVELATION AND AUTHENTICITY by Glenn C. Wood 13 March 2002, posted 9 April 2002, TA39, C30 You've apparently found your niche. Is your book free, or online? Revelations might come to an individual, and I think Karl Jaspers would agree with that statement. In his The Great Philosophers he gives examples of those who stand out from others, those paradigmatic few, to name two: Socrates and Jesus. "They wrote nothing..." says Jaspers, but "became the foundations of powerful philosophical movements." Your written and yet unwritten accounts of personal experience might be helpful to the forum and lead to a clearer understanding of his last greatest work, Philosophical Faith and Revelation, where he states "I don't believe in revelation" but in the section Step From Immanence to Transcendence he says: we have a source outside the world and "it is from this source that we affect the world." Could you point out areas where your views and book coincide or depart from the therapeutic nature of Jaspers' book? I think the book can still be purchased. If you decide to make such a comparison, it would be so kind of you to somehow give me yours for an in-depth third party review. ----------------------------------- FEVERS AND APPARITIONS by Glenn C. Wood
19 May 2002, posted 4 June 2002, TA39, C37 <1> Perhaps we can do something with your subjective experiences "for the future of Mankind." An attempt here will be made to begin the process handicapped or even benefited by not having your book. <2> Biblically, Gabriel appeared to have appeared to a man called Daniel recorded in the Old Testament's book of Daniel. In the New Testament, a physician, Luke, found it important to report all data, including what would normally be considered subjective and even unusual. Physicians have this way of not eliminating data in their diagnoses. Luke reports that Gabriel appeared to a priest, Zacharia, and to Mary the mother of Jesus. Luke probably found it interesting too that Daniel was ill and perhaps a fever-like condition was material and substantial for the Gabriel appearance. What is meaningful is that God doesn't make a direct appearance, thus maintaining the psychology of religion, which excludes in principle the reduction of being to an ontology while using the phenomenological method in the interpretation of appearances. Such a psychology can--if misunderstood--have an appeal to those requiring content to myth; and if understood give those not needing to know or capture God a greater sensitivity towards those who do--those who are seen to need to be kept restrained from imposing their harmful wills on the weaknesses of others. <3> More recently, a similar personage has reportedly appeared to Joseph Smith – Latter-Day Saints -- and not excluded from that report is the obvious symptoms of illness. His father reportedly sent Joseph home from work thinking he was ill, and Joseph's testimony refers to a state of unconsciousness into which he had fallen on the way. <4> Currently I'm now aware of two authors of books reporting similar supernatural phenomena. They report being influenced directly by God but leaving some room for an open ended solipsism -- a sort of short cut to authority by unavoidably bypassing science. Both these authors report having inclinations to be priests -- mediators between God and man. They both wanted to be priests or studied for the priesthood after the Catholic tradition. It seems but a short substitution or step from wanting to be an institutional priest to being an independent priest. The independent strong-willed priest has even more authority outside the institutional controls or some semblance thereof. He can take advantage of the freedom of religion, and capitalize on it simultaneously after the American traditional way. (This is not as much a moral judgment regarding the authors, as it is recognition that there's a demand for current books. It's recognizing what the financially alert understand, like one reason a weekly televised church pastor has weekly interviews with authors of books and then sells the books thereby gaining at least indirect support for the church. It's not a symptom of religious survival in a capitalistic and free society though, for there's a very successful -- in terms of numbers -- church effort out of Houston and there's never a word -- yet -- about financial support.) <5> These apparitions are nothing new, but perhaps what is new is the advantage we have of current historical perspectives. Seeing now the turmoil between the Moslem or Muslim and "Christian" ("Christian" not meaning Christian in the Biblical sense) world. The will to power of these dynamic movements can be seen in the Fatima event -- an obvious and conscious point in the angelic wrestling for myth-power in the establishment of a religious institution in an in-your-face miracle from one institution to another. Fatima is more Islamic than geographic. <6> Solipsism -- If there is such a category and it has a name, the post-Biblical appearances seemed to qualify for being placing here. They fit the mode or form from a methodological and metaphysical perspective. Self-experiences are safely outside any practical test but yet constitute a standard of truth based on subjective testimony and the criteria includes statistics like the number of books sold must mean something; and metaphysically myth is confined to these experiences but apply to others universally--without tolerant discussion and no means of verification except individual testimony hoping to peripherally edge it-self into science through the apparition of mind-independent reality. Solipsism though in our "enlightened" age must be refined by some degree of subjective pragmatism that gives the "tough minded" endurance for the stresses of "tough times." Here, though the self-image might be reduced or absorbed into "nothingness" it bulges back reinforced by a will to power now accompanied by a clear and distinct image direct from Being or God ... with which some needy can identify. God's messenger's -- the medium -- degree of participation in the racial-mean is not clear to the community except the entity is beautiful -- harmless enough unless we press for a detailed description. <7> Enough has been said here to at least get the data into the realm of a meaningful discussion within the metaphysical-medical realm and as good hypothetical material: A phlogistic hypotheses -- fever -- is still material enough to be reconsidered as substantial. Enough has been said perhaps also to suggest there is now no better-suggested indicator of the need for a standard for determining the value of what could and should be interpreted -- by the community -- as hallucinations or miracle. The standard would admit freely that there is nothing new under the sun and that miraculous events ought to be viewed as not worth a whole lot regarding the future of mankind and that one need only examine the Biblical miraculous events to determine the extent of their value upon morality. Confining particular miraculous events to a past epoch would protect the myth area without giving myth-content reinforcement to political and economical assumptions -- safely illuminating further that power corrupts and providing current myth-content provides a corporeal-transubstantiation or priestly absolution from guilt. ------------------------------------- UNDERSTANDING HALLUCINATIONS AND EXPERIENCE by Glenn C. Wood 22 May 2002, posted 18 June 2002, TA39, C41 <1> After reading Rifat's qualifying analysis of Archambeault's experience with "Gabriel" -- something similar to what I had done a few days prior and routed to KJF -- I had to pause and reread Rifat's comments about the Fatima report -- which was also mentioned in the previously routed comments. At first reading he appeared to be using a similar form of thinking as Archambeault. This is not to discount the experiences, but rather to consider them as data, but not as a revelation of some definitive truth different from what has already been revealed long ago. <2> After rereading Rifat's Fatima comments it was noted that he wisely placed quotes around the word miracle but was perhaps a little too cautious about not questioning the existential significance of the event. It almost appeared he had once again forgotten his "phylogenesis" (I hope he means by that his personal history only). Further comments though indicated the well-known event could be partially explained by atonement with consciousness, an immediate and normal way of giving some rational image to our imagined nothingness. Consciousness -- and moral values or guilt conscience -- should not be ignored, and if such was involved with Fatima, then it should be brought to where it can be examined. <3> The difference between Rifat's Fatima-consciousness and Archambeault's experience is the former has become universal consciousness by potential institutional decree or acceptance and the latter is an individual's testimony of experience with unrealized public acceptance -- now. Both are mentioned to presumably resolve some intellectual difficulty as a substitute for some unavoidable uncertainty that rides in the saddle of process on the back of humankind. I take it that Rifat's "consciousness" reference includes more the Muslim lady Fatima then the "Our Lady of Fatima." Giving him the benefit of trust rather than doubt, Archambeault's Gabriel experience is an apparent honest description but it is primarily subjective though objective to him and now objective as data to those who trust his account. He doesn't seem to be claiming a new revelation except he seemingly interprets the appearance as confirming what he had written in his book -- which I've not read. Continuing to give him the benefit of trust is not easy for the critical mind. He being very astute or attuned -- in a businessman manner -- knows where there might be a perceived need and how to fill it, so he has reported. (That is no more a criticism than a mere suspicion like the editor of the KJF request's to post certain published material and it is refused. Why is it refused ? My guess is that to post it and subject it to criticism would endanger the sale of books, and so if we don't have the publishing industry objecting then we would have the heirs or profiting corporations including some churches objecting. The editor does not publish the material as a matter of honor and for fear of litigation if it can be proven their substantial loss of funds as a result.) <4> The occasion seems now appropriate to relate another early childhood experience, and though subjective, it could show how precipitating experiences can provide the content for hallucinations. The precedent for this testimony is based on Karl Jaspers statements in his General Psychopathology, English edition pages, p 410 and p. 536. In speaking of abnormal mechanism he says of delusions that "from time to time and incidentally attempts have been made to understand the contents of delusion as well as other psychotic symptoms" and regarding the meaningful content of delusion-like ideas the difficulty in finding a meaningful content from experience is because there's been a "parting of the association-links." This "sejunction can explain a large number of hallucinations without counter images" he says. As long as we are in this type of field, please bear with me, and at least consider the testimony as hypothetical. In other words, we must not assume there are no experiences that cannot shed light on hallucinations -- not even avoiding the suggestion inferred by the title "Larry King Live" and what potential "saint" might possibly have been wished interviewed. <5> The Possible Hallucination Content -- My mother's cutting high pitch voice drew my attention to a puppy crawling on the floor. She was screaming at my father for putting him there because the puppy was wetting. I can still see the puppy and the puddle. The puppy was probably the replacement for a dog he had around that time accidentally killed running over it with a steel rimmed farm wagon, a dog which provided in other circumstances my earliest fearful experience at 18 months, a dog he had on occasions thereafter told how after he'd buried it, it later walked along side him in the orchard then ran on ahead and disappeared. My father grabbed the puppy and left. After a while he returned and my mother ask "What did you do?" I do not remember an answer. Later I was told he had shot the puppy and it seemed consistent with the feelings surrounding the situation. <6> Around this time -- the sequence is not knowable except from dated photos -- I awoke from a nap. There was no one around and the house was quiet. I climbed out of the crib and had a bowel movement between the crib and the pot. My sister came in -- everybody was in the garden -- looked at the feces, turned and screamed "Ma!" as she ran out the screen door. I was relieved when my mother laughed and then said: "How did you get out of the crib?" I then saw the crib for the first remembered time and remembered just how I got out of the crib, i.e., which side and which end. <7> Another relevant memory during this period of events, was my brother pulling me in a red wagon. A tire was missing on the right rear making noise on the gravel drive. Leaning to see why the noise my finger was run over by ... the wagon wheel. Yet another, the first viewing of a body in a casket killed in an auto accident and I overheard she was pinned under the car's wheel. All these experiences were prior to the following: <8> Now, more to the point. Several years later the immediate family of five except one was sick with what we thought was the flu for there was an epidemic at the time. I was very sick, vomiting and having no control over bowels. A gigantic -- two story high -- steel rimmed wood-spoke wagon wheel came from the left front, rolled by my head and then roll away behind me off the same side. It kept recurring. As my mother came in I was leaning away trying to avoid being run over while pointing it out to her. She reassured me there was nothing there, felt my head, and then applied cold cloths. <9> This experience shows me how minor traumatic events can provide content for hallucinations. Such experiences if intense enough might be repressed especially if guilt is religiously and institutionally superimposed on the experience. If I'd been abused for making a puppy-like mess rather than indirectly complimented for an effort and accomplishment, who can guess what fixating content might be given to imagination during various phases of life's unfolding crises. Perhaps even unusual religious emphasis on Icons might inappropriately replace or absorb more or less intense normal experiences. <10> It is no surprise to me that Mr. Archambeault's better judgment required a confirmation of revelations, and that he has struggled with this angel, and probably still struggles; at least he did not tell us what was said and one hopes that's not because one must obtain a book for the mystery to be revealed. It's no surprise because apparently he had taught such Biblical matters as the appearance of Gabriel confirming something to Mary. He has also with admirable integrity shared his feeling when he "took of the Host" leaving an opportunity for one of another religious persuasion to point out that there's common sense cannibalistic poor psychology and unavoidable guilt in the idea of trans-substantiation. We must also recognize he didn't see the mother of god, but rather still a representative of God. There is intellectual honesty in that too. <11> Regarding my hallucination I'd place it in the general direction of the category of meaningful connections considered by Jaspers in his "(b) Delusions in schizophrenia" meaning: it's not suggested that's where Archambault's experience should go, but rather that without the presence of one guiding me toward another reality there but for the grace of God go I toward an undifferentiated edge of schizophrenia. If the two categories referred to by Jaspers are used, Archambault's experience might fit in "sejunction" or a parting of the association-links, i.e., without recognized counter images except the links with his religious history but only he could give first-hand testimony to that. ------------------------------------------ COMMUNITY HYPNOSIS AND FATIMA PHENOMENA by Glenn C. Wood 5 June 2002, posted 25 June 2002, TA39, C43 <1> Thank you Claude Rifat for your quick response wherein you stated certain phenomena you have not apparently experienced -- Fatima -- were not hallucinations and in part because there was a certain consensus. I'd like to refer you to Karl Jasper's General Psychopathology, (The Abnormal Psyche, pp. 737, 739, Univ. of Chicago Press) where he addresses Mass-psychology. "The Mass no longer thinks or wills but lives in pictures and passions." Under Archaic Psychic states he refers to "The kind of thinking found in a primitive state of consciousness is something essentially different from psychotic disorder. It results from a collective development and serves the actual community whereas schizophrenic thinking isolates the individual and separates him from the community." (KJ is used as a basis or a sort of Bible in my responses because it's felt there's a need for some standard to avoid chaos, and until such time as Karl Jaspers' name no longer belongs to the forum.) <2> It's my hypothesis that the phenomena you have described regarding Fatima and other religious processions are similar to hallucinations and in a community sense, and may even have been initiated by the hallucinations of some individual of importance or usage. It's not surprising to see local autocrats in a religious procession yielding to the forces represented in the images of the religious community. It's good business especially if one's economical power depends on talking and walking and bowing or just remaining silent in affirmation. Whether some of those in or about the procession were "atheists" or not is really hard to tell. <3> Hope I've not been misunderstood. Hallucinations do not mean there's not some discoverable truth in them nor the surrounding hypnotic effects. <4>
With the above in mind, I'd hoped you would have gotten the connection with Fatima, the daughter of Mohammed, and seen at a glance the historical and political connectedness. It's something to give attention to from the standpoint of collective consciousness -- not excluding ethics. ------------------------------- CLAUDE - HOPPING HUGUENOTS by Glenn C. Wood 19 June 2002, posted 9 July 2002, TA39, C46 Comments to Claude Rifat's leadership and anti-leadership 22 may 02, posted 18 June 02 (and a hint at coming field work in one brief response to Mr. Muller's C51 in the concluding paragraph) It's indeed a pleasure to see one, educator Rifat, so deserving of at least a doctorate degree, out in the a field cultivating with his dopamin-ergic limbo-cortical axis of will. He is plowing deeply, but perhaps not going the full length of the field, but he is well within boundaries without being so far a field or so far out of sight historically into Anaximander's field, i.e., apeiron (here a slight smile and look toward Mr. Muller). Mr. Rifat's epistemology, or theory of knowledge, and the political-economical test of it's truth brought to his mind the historical image of the Huguenots, i.e., French Protestants and their migration to the new world. He classifies an Indian leader as an anti-leader because he attempted to use updated military equipment to deal with adversaries. My view is that the leader probably ought to be classified better under "leader" for attempting to deal with "Spanish Florida" and maybe even considered it more humane than burning enemies alive at the stake. To clarify this view, I want to quote from a several part piece I did for a local newspaper in 1998. I was responding to efforts to immortalize Onate and thereby reinforce political-cultural power in the State of New Mexico. I was sympathizing with some native American reaction to Onate's chopping off the feet of Acoma Indians. To demonstrate their displeasure, the foot was removed from a statue of Onate. I'm quoting from Part ll "Onate's Untold Militant Destiny" of my article below: "...While Rome celebrated the atrocities against the Huguenots there was comparable widespread rejoicing in Spain where repressive measures had already crushed Protestantism. Spanish religious nationalists must have been quite concerned upon hearing about the destination of immigrating Huguenots. While Onate was chopping feet in the Southwest, Huguenot immigrants, though not allowed in Spain, had already settled but quickly absorbed or disappeared into the new world's east like Carolina (1562) and Florida (1565). If the standard around that day was to dismember the Acoma Indians, we can make an educated guess what New Spain would have done to the Huguenots on the southeast part of the continent. The point is that French liberal Roman Catholics also had a 'by today's standard.' The atrocities against the Huguenots lead these religious liberals to separate from their radical brethren. It resulted in some temporary tolerance and in 1576 almost complete religious and equality rights were granted. But in Spain there was renewed commitment to annihilate any Islamic protesting or any type of Protestantism, and then as a result of some French political-religious alliances with a Spain and Rome coalition, the radical element again led to the establishment of religious ... intolerance ... in France toward those protesting a literal centralized religious headquarters. That educated guess mentioned above ... ? To escape the civil wars in France some French Huguenots settled about 50 miles north of St. Augustine. A National Monument -- Fort Caroline -- exists there today about two miles east of Jacksonville. The Spanish under Pedro Menendez de Aviles came to Florida to evangelize the Indians and to destroy the Huguenot colony; they attacked and massacred the settlers in 1565. This was the same year (Sept. 8) that Mass was first celebrated at St. Augustine. The Huguenots were exterminated in October. United States statesmen -- by remembering and analyzing such historical events -- ventured to separate religions and politics once and for all. The urgency of the separation of Church and State was obvious and that's one reason for it being given priority in the bill of rights." Concluding statement -- The radical incarnation of Jesus in the transubstantiation -- miracle -- in the Mass -- see above -- can be symbolic of the dangers of immanentalizing the incarnation of Jesus while forgetting the constancy of the transcendence of Christ's invisible God talked about in tolerant loving terms as the heavenly father. This radical incarnation seems to me like a reality independent of the mind of the most dangerous confined intensity. It seems most dangerous: this denial of reality in the religious ontological immanentalism given the pseudo status of the unadulterated harmlessness of imageless transcendentalistic thinking ... but then given the force of pure far-a-field-experience and near concomitant rational decisiveness toward a will to power while ignoring the metaphysical. In other words, one can be committed to a reality independent of mind while in the name and sound of “mind” denies the mysterious ground of mind. But more on this ... incarnated religious ontology ... in another part. --------------------------- LEADERSHIP BY SLAUGHTER by Glenn C. Wood 20 June 2002, posted 16 July 2002, TA39, C50 Anti-leadership -- Appreciate the extra data from your perspective. I didn't mean to appear to question the perceived purpose of the two types of leadership categories nor that leadership from partly to wholly cannot fit in both simultaneously. But one ought not be too judgmental -- while being justly critical -- regarding leaders regardless of what political and economical concepts allow for developments. I was saying, using your quote, that in "Spanish Florida", in that encompassing threatening atmosphere it might be slow to attach "anti" to an individual in view of large institutional inquisitional forces. The French, through shame, became tolerant of the protestant movement. As the KJF moves into the religious, the relativity of leadership is going to be necessarily addressed in greater detail. Some sparks to ignite the dialectic hopefully are coming from T51 such as local and/or centralized leadership. There's plenty of data for consideration ... from the field ... like the recall of three Truth or Consequences City Commissioners and the involvement of religious leadership. Your out-of-the-lecture-hall and out-of-mind (don't take that wrong) contributions are like a refreshing bit of air albeit dangerous. But perhaps not as dangerous as the insanity of being in a mind out of touch with reality. I sincerely hope you can spend more time in the field for you've probably done all you can at this point in the mind's brain (here I'm looking about for Mr. Muller to wink at him and say "as one has spent ample time for now and for all practical purposes in the brain's mind"). Hope also that as you use tools with complex titles especially known to specialists with "beautiful mind[s]" that the fieldwork will show the productiveness of the concepts. ------------------------------- DYKSTRA, RIEGLER, MULLER--POST MODERNISM by Glenn C. Wood 26 May 2002, posted 4 June 2002, TA 40, C6 Wood's commentary to Muller's TA40 (Dykstra) commentary 5 (to C4 by Riegler) regarding Zero-derivation and contructivism that looks and sounds like conceptualization. ABSTRACT (0+) The following is a brief and meek philosophical, theological, psychological, sociological unity or connectedness of ideas, anchoring here and there in both ends of the cosmos, that is, sub-atomical phenominalizations too. ------------------------------------- <1> I struggled through your comments -- critique about cognitive apparatus as a closed system having no anchors for phenomena in a "secure" objective reality -- including the effects of experimenters' cognitive processes on the means of testing in subatomic-like experimentation. Hope you understand the need ... yet ... for me to translate and relate your words -- and other forumers -- to my own experiences. <2> In {11} "Disconnection of Systems" I, having tiny feet or not enough faith or understanding, got bogged down and hope for some special or spiritual guidance toward understanding what is meant. I'll try to rephrase what you said: The subject-object split is incorrectly often seen as belonging to a reality independent of mind. Rather it is a practical simple dichotomy constructed by the subject based on reality appearing as constructed reality and for some responsive purpose to that reality. <3> Continuing to rephrase: Mind-nature experience is inescapable and subjective structures are word-conceptual images. Some of the word-conceptual images are mind-independent real, but the more all encompassing or comprehensive the word-concept -- such as theos -- it is treated, by the subject, as a mind-independent reality. Continuing to rephrase: That becomes a problem because the words about theos are in fact identified with subjective experience and not identical to some mind-independent reality or even as-if-mind-independent reality. <4> Continuing with rephrase: emphasizing the imagination -- imaging -- side of the word-conceptual entity, reduces a certain conceptual or structural problem. Rephrase is concluded. <5> I can see the need for caution while leaning toward a strong imagery rather than leaning toward the less visible to avoid less troublesomeness in the application to the inescapable mind-nature experience. With regard to religion even greater care is needed, and it would help if I could see what strong imagery diminishes what problem caused by what theistic doctrine. It's inevitable that as learned ignorance increases with or knowledge, that more and more emphasis will be shifted to ephemeral religious perspectives; for the bombarding intellectual particles or waves must explode or implode and we know what the latter means -- a temporary closed structure with a lot of destructive power. A perpetually transfiguring religious faith absorbs and helps defuse intellectual forces and that's a threat to rationalists and positivists. <6> I too don't see how closing off a cognitive system can make it trustworthier unless it's so simple it doesn't apply to the complex. There is necessary phenomenology in the communication process between mind and nature. There doesn't seem to be a more secure substitute for phenomenal experience, and no substitute for the insecurity we can't avoid in intellectually honest conjuring. Objective reality -- in all the encompassings -- is all we now have; but this reality has a greater invisible dimension than visible -- like: the more we know, the more we know we don't know. But how would making an image out of talk about hopes, feelings, and the ground of potentiality diminish the insecurity? Perhaps you mean that our enlightened philosophical logic of theos must corporealize within the real world to be effective and waste away quickly if it really fits a gritty encompassing. This is what Jaspers means, I think, when he says, "what is fresh is this guidance by ideas as virtual points of approach." This statement is made within the context of his distinctions between idea ("methodologically subjective") and Eidos ("confronting us objectively") in his General Psychopathology. Eidos I interpret to include the phantom side of the phenomenological method. <7> The idea of a zero-derivation beyond the subject-object dichotomy appeals because it means there are no progenies produced of the devil -- none ... derived ... or ascended from nihilism and no one can say the devil is in the details of the resultant constructs. It also keeps a gap between the cognitive apparatus and the wish for descendency from divinity thus allowing the constructs to be earthy and unassuming enough to test. Between the two extremes divinity and deviltry, zero-derivation can also prevent inferiority and superiority complexes in the structurer and enhance acceptability of others because it means it doesn't matter what one's lineage -- immanentally inclined brains inbreeding in a closed unfavorable or diseased cumulative system notwithstanding. <8> I'm trying not to lose sight of what seems to be your honorable urge to build and start structures rather than discover them or have them revealed from beyond while not being indifferent toward powerful religious data or principalities. It's the mark of great thinkers -- or wanna-be thinkers if I could be so bold to say. Perhaps we can learn how to religiously chant and shuffle while approaching problem's resolutions and yet not have to kiss any big toes. Constructions may need adjustments in the approach to detect objectively subatomic phenomena or sensitive matters. We might have to start with the way our apparatus leans while observing the experimentation. The apparatus should lean toward the invisible a little more than toward the visible as one might lean away from a black hole while approaching it, or disincline one's brain -- fooling the phenomena -- away from subatomic experimentation. We want the formula to be unlimited enough to not exclude an attachment to transcendence or reduce the transfiguring effect of unavoidable but temporary functional images even if it means preferring emotive words over quantitative images. Case in point is the following mind-brain experiment from the field. <9> While participating in some intensive training at the Georgian Clinic I was privileged to see the apparatus for observing schizophrenia's affect within the family. Within the Institution's structure was an apartment structured with one-way observation glass. It was an apartment into which was to be placed a family with one or more diagnosed with schizophrenia for the purpose of observing the possible epidemiology of the disease starting within the family. <10> If memory -- it's been 30 years since -- has not failed me, we were shown this laboratory by a very wise "doctor" of psychiatry. The apartment was not occupied, but we -- following the doctor's example -- were being very quiet. If we were being quiet, it was hard to detect why. Whether the psychiatrist was approving or disapproving I don't know but have my suspicions. (It was not unlike my first experience with handling one of Karl Jaspers’ books "The Perennial Scope Of Philosophy" while browsing in the philosophy section of the library at Lincoln Christian College. Professor of philosophy and theology Robert Drake happened by at that moment pointed at the open pages and whispered, "He's a Good man." Drake, deceased, was the sort of gentleman that would whisper in a library, but also realistic enough to not speak aloud those words in that religious setting. He along with my next major professor were "let go" for leaving liberal -- current meaning of the term -- images within the supporting brotherhood.) <11> I still wonder what trick was used to get a family of brains and minds voluntarily into that Georgian Clinic's apparatus without tipping them off. Maybe the family was culturally adjusted to thinking in self-deceptive images and repetitious murmuring of conceptual sounds resonating in inhibited closed minds. The point here being it's best to initiate an experiment while it's clear about immanental vs. transcendental leanings, and admitting the disfiguring rather than transfiguring effects -- or effect on affectations in this case. In this experiment the family chosen to participate in the experiment would have to have cultural histories that may have essentially contributed to the problem or at least determined the symptomatic images. <12> Titles of distinction -- The difference between constructionism and conceptualizing can most easily be seen by what's implied by words like modernity vs. the older ways of the deceased no longer able to defend themselves. Titles of distinction can be ongoing ways of protecting jobs and/or dignity. A good example of this is the difference between the 1946 and 1947 "Frazer" Automobile. The only difference was that the chrome insignia "Frazer" was chrome-underlined in 1947, and the spirit of "modernity" in the marketplace sold the newer car. Underlining also protected the labor-force when designs were too stable to entice the modern in-crowd -- identified by liberal factors like freedom, independence, and the consequential quest for a variety of new experiences, where, when there's nothing else distinguishing, simply score by underlining some word. Perhaps that's the apparent difference between constructivism and old fashioned ideas that work or don't work. The Frazer for its day was more aerodynamic than other autos. The underlining -- Frazer -- made it a smidgen less dynamic on the road but it moved faster in the marketplace. <13>
So to protect the positions of academicians and the educational industry as a whole, positional distinctions have to be underlined to declare symbolically a commitment to ... "post modernity" ... and to emphasize and justify the funding of the university in the race to produce something that appears different by simply adding to complexity and complicating the return to simplicity. The university then, having once created enough confusion to detain students within the educational plant, when all else fails can underline the indispensability of high-cost educators by demonstrating how effectively the teaching apparatus can lead some students back to normalcy. The confusion is partly the result of the loss of the unity of linguistic use -- lost when "construction" replaced the more immaculate "conception" and then ... "radically" -- underlined the former. I suppose this is what you, Mr. Muller, mean when saying image is more important here than the words in constructionism. I wonder if you're discretely honoring titles of distinction while trying not to laugh -- if you have a smidgen of humor left. Discretion is good and usually the best part of valor. To emphasize an appreciation for your discretion, we can compare it with my lack of discretion -- having no dependency on the education industry or forum responsibility, I can -- at a distance -- effectively and cowardly play the part of the heavy without claiming valor or discretion. |
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