VARIOUS EXTRACTS - SECTION 8
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email me I got a He He, out of M's AHA, and imagine HM HA'ed a little. It's hoped the following can be read in the good humor in which intended. (Actually, due to lack of time, I missed what M caught.) We have to identify with the editor somewhat and the educational industry he represents, and keep in mind the auspices of the University which demands allegiance and patronization in a way that it appears to represent an inherent university ideal encouraging freedom of thought. Assuming there was a commitment -- other than experimental research -- to a radical subjectivism, and assuming there is a conversion underway via objectivity, there are two things the Herr Muller must guard against: First, a representative of the University must not be shown to have misunderstood KJ the greatest educator of our times, must avoid having it known that he has received guidance from a graduate of a fundamentalist school, or from individual thinkers without the credentials the educational establishment values, like the autobiography listings at the end of TA63. In other words if there's a conviction bringing about a philosophical conversion, the reasons have to found in authors with credentials. The real determinates have to be content with being sacrificed and content with a wink from the Divine. That might not be the editor's preference but it's the hard politics of the educational industry. I for one, will always be grateful that those without popular value have been permitted to participate. Second, "successful" participates must be found with whom the editor can agree, or who can demonstrate that their success has had no meaningful contribution comparable to the "uneducated" Forum participates -- like those influenced by the close appropriation of KJ's philosophy. But, the gross materialism slant might be pretentious too, for materialism, objectivism, occupies the high ground on this battle field of human consciousness, and the real confrontation is yet to come -- the battle with principalities will be horrific. I'll give the editor the benefit of trust here (and I'm an undomesticated cynic), keeping in mind the editor does post, and does provide translations, and has avoided opportunities at eliminating a class of contributors. --------------------------- GETTING A RESPONSIBLE LIFE BEYOND EVOLUTIONISM by Glenn C Wood 16 January 2004, posted 8 May 2004, TA63, C47 <1> Here's offering a hand to restore Paul Roberts (PR) to the field of life, a deliverance from the mire of reductionism in the microbio/ subatomic lab (In nuclear physics there's this danger: "... relative premises become the thing itself; definite cognoscibility in undefinable horizons turn into absolute Being. This is scientifically indefensible and philosophically irresponsible." Karl Jaspers, Philosophical Faith and Revelation, Chapter "Ciphers of Nature.") <1.1> This rescue effort has another effect, i.e. the rescue of the lab from heavy ontological boots. The lab is for cosmopolites; it's an open-ended micro-quantum cosmos. It's no place for a provincial with a bailiwick-like worldview. What's required there is--what PR has shown -- the most vivid imagination, but without allowing reason to lose contact with the absurd. The absurd prevents the imagination from congealing and covering doors of escape and windows of enlightenment. It's in the nature of closed worldviews to stand-watch for contemporary phenomena, leap on even the most irrelevant and infinitesimal display in an attempt to make due with whatever is available to feed the indefinite urges behind definite assumptions. The mind, like the mouth, can take in anything, but a regurgitation requires will and decision and perhaps a cathartic hand. <2> Microbiology as frame of reference ("The one exact science covers only a unity in nature, not the unity of nature." KJ) <2.1> Without being oblivious to PR's frame of reference, i.e., micro and subatomic research for disease, let's get out of this ICU where sermonizing and even thought can interfere with interdisciplined research. What a shame that the quest for power and the defense of ideologies are transformed into evolutionism and retro-evolutionism (bad news wrapped in protein). Here we see a misapplication of the research results of physics, from chemical, molecular, atomic, to the subatomic -- where normal critical minds walk the quantum line between uncertainty and determinism, walk it like a tightrope over serious life or death matters (TSE and HIV/AIDS). PR seems insensitive to the bombardment by uncertainty normally strong enough to shatter dogmatism. Unaffected, a dogmatic and popular mind-set can exploit and misapply the legitimate probabilities of science. (Huxley belonged to that class of those who with science-like credentials interested themselves in philosophy and theology and concluded there is no freedom of choice.) <2.2> I'd like to thank PR for providing the sample of the type of fundamental thinking that inappropriately bridges the gap between "evolution" and evolutionism. The sample (C23) shows how the word "evolution" can shield from criticism the tenets of a too limited worldview, i.e. progressive evolution as the deterministic string of the powerful urge for life, and that there's no space on the crest of this wave for universal personal responsibility, but room for a few academic saints and power-craving autocrats. <2.3> While in the ICU laboratory, PR's worldview was not subject to falsification. All that could be done there was to use special terms so that it appeared that the secret of life had been revealed and mystery overcome. Let's go to the historic field where passion can be seen as sublimated, as from some absurd but sublime source; or maybe we will see passion subjected to evolutionism's survival of the most fit -- what's called "evolution," a misnomer because too often not properly qualified through modifying words. <2.4> Perhaps one lesson from the ICU lab for communicable diseases can be made a part of learned ignorance: that ultimate solutions to suffering and death are not guaranteed. We are tossed back into a world of prevention where things are much more outstanding and require a less flighty imagination. Empirical visualizations are required where the prion and/or virino relation is uncertain, and where infecting agents survive thirty minutes of boiling, two months of freezing, passes through fine filters, and remains suspended in a shroud of protection that might stand the heat of reentry from the infinite universe. The cause of abnormal protein nucleation is as uncertain as ever but the prelates of evolutionism take up the gap as mediators, soothsaying, suggesting the nucleation is God (predestination) in the guise of a virus (a language-concept I borrowed from Richard Rhodes' Deadly Feasts). Here processes are found under momentum but the first cause remains unknown. <2.5> This is where we found PR, in the ICU seeing God not the Devil, an overall good demon, a meliorism, an abstract principle of life from the death camp research room; that's the essential meaning coded in "Evolution is fundamental to the progress of civilization." The question still remains: virus, prion or virino? But enough of this special nomenclature with which I've probably demonstrated unfamiliarity. It's the forms of thought that are applicable here. But more than that it's the misapplication of philosophical and theological concepts. 3. History and AIDS 3.1 Now outside the ICU lets defer to a statement by the director of Global Program on AIDS, World Health organization, Jonathan Mann: "A future historian may be able to explain why the HIV pandemic, more than any other health issue of this century, has stimulated our ability to see the weaknesses (and strengths) of health and social systems. Meanwhile, we have the historic responsibility to ensure that the maximum benefit for health is developed through the painful process of preventing and controlling AIDS." Launching from this quote it seems proper to take a closer glance at the diseased side of socio-history. <3.2> The prevention efforts should extend to HIV, that area where it seems PR has made a consensus-conjured nihilistic god; i.e. when it's suggested that evolution has shown us that basic sexual urges cannot normally be restrained due to a principle of retro-process inherent in evolution. But there are restraining phenomena that can inhibit and direct impulses; and includes, unfortunately, in reaction, concomitant special interests to disguise success by a subtle misfolding of data--attacking like an infectious agent on a host to destroy influences. <4> The sacking and burning of evolutionistic thinkers <4.1> There's another area missed due to skipping in the way only a proponent of evolutionism or other isms would do. PR wants to reduce social influences to the mysterious or abstract side of meme-like forces with emotive symbols like: 9-11, death camp exterminations, "etc." Let me assist with the itemization: There's the burning alive of those even remotely influenced by Averrroes' ideas about life's unfolding ("evolution") that could be and was interpreted as too remote from the language of the Koran. But the burning of heretics was not Moorish. Averroes was only deprived of his position of influence. The Inquisition from Catholic forces went unmercifully further, not to be outdone by Mohammedans, by burning alive anyone who might be a by-product threat, those influenced by any view that might replace Catholicity with laissez-faire. It was another case of jumping on the bandwagon set on a roll by social forces. It was not really a matter of Biblical creation vs. biology; it was that spirit of opportunism cleansing the ranks of individuality in the name of Catholicity. But it gave the Genesis account of Creation a persistent blemish, and the occasion to use the Bible as an easy scapegoat. <5> A Hit and run cover up of a "meme" victim To color "memes" so that these paradigmatic forces can be bright enough to see, let me use one case. Let's go to evolutionism's Mecca, where freedom of thought and religious practices flourished--relatively speaking. You know, where that debate between Huxley and Wilberforce took place within an atmosphere then charged with emotion. When Wilberforce wondered aloud if Huxley's grandfather was an ape the reaction was, in effect, that he would rather be the offspring of a mammal primate than a religious primate. The polarization continues to this day to the delight of the spirit of catholicity waiting for the day of reconciliation. Oxford academia could overlook the value of religious commitment in a relatively free society. We must see in retrospect the struggle with Catholic catholicity which cast a shadow of suspicion upon Anglican churchmen, for this school's -- Oxford -- history shows again a situation leaped upon by continental Catholicity for the school became again Catholic. The dynamics of this process we can only hint at here; under such influence it was in the best interest to castigate any Anglican influence as only a cascading evolutionism could at the time, i.e., only evolutionism could overcome the influence of an anti-Catholic martyr like John Hooper -- our first "meme" substitute. If evolutionism can fan the flames of deceased heretics, that's a miraculous prerequisite for evolution's Sainthood, and fulfills that Oxford-Jesuit influence that the end (Catholicity) justifies the means (use anything including murder). <6> The test of Heat -- Heat shock proteins My "meme" substitute witness is drawn from a condensation of the account given in the Dictionary of National Biography, vol. xx., by S.L.Lee, and editor W. Grinton Berry, and the work by John Foxe, Foxe's Book of Martyrs; his strong leaning toward Protestantism led to his resignation from Oxford in 1545. We will leave judgment whether even an evolutionist can reduce this account to quantum motors in some survival-of-the-fittest scheme. <6.1> I'll be brief as possible without losing the point. This churchman of good works, John Hooper, dared to marry (a woman...) and dared to say that he did not believe in the corporal presence in the sacrament, i.e., the presence of the body of Christ in the host, the bread -- "transubstantiation." This was the recorded excuse to burn him alive (but his refusal to ware a square hat on his round head was a real factor). He refused to be chained around the neck; probably due to the executioner's discretion as to whether to strangle or not. His execution was moved to the community where he was best known, and where his influence would have been less if he had allowed strangling. Foxe: "And these were the last words [I'm not worthy to repeat them and leave it to the reader to research--GW] he was heard to utter. But when he was black in the mouth, and his tongue swollen that he could not speak, yet his lips went till they were shrunk to the gums: and he knocked his breast with his hands, until one of his arms fell off and then knocked still with the other, what time the fat, water, and blood, drooped out at his fingers' ends, until by renewing of the fire his strength was gone, and his hand did cleave fast, in knocking, to the iron upon his breast. So immediately, bowing forwards, he yielded up his spirit. Thus was he three quarters of an hour or more in the fire." <6.2> That martyr, that fundamental manifestation from the absurd is powerful enough to be seen as a threat for centuries and the spirit of Catholic catholicity at least indirectly attempts to bury that influence years later at Oxford. 7. Terrorism <7.1> The fundamentalism seeping through terrorists' attacks is that radical ism manifested in PR's faith that "evolution explains why the sex drive is so powerful among the young, with passion often overcoming prudence and preaching...." Isn't there some comparison here with the motivating factor of a promise of having many sexual partners in the hereafter if the terrorists' efforts are successful? Isn't there an inherent reason for giving in to the promise? Evolutionism promotes immorality in such fundamental ways, but it takes an in-depth imagination equal to retro-visualization to see it. (Evolutionism is a word not used much. It should be used no less emphatically than Creationism for it's far more dangerous as a new religion prone to harvesting by a worldview's catholicity. I found the word evolutionism used -- in the Dictionary of Philosophy, 55 edition, By Littlefield, Adams and Co.--to describe the off-the-Darwin-wall views of Huxley. He used his scintillating style to establish evolutionism. The good works of Huxley aren't comparable to that of Wilberforce, but that can be looked at later. Later too we can pursue the epidemiology of HIV and AIDS in the US, and the pandemic requiring the continued experimentation with pitiful primates -- abused perhaps in many ways. ) <7.2> Parts of the above paragraph are distasteful for it's felt I've stooped to a level comparable to seeing a complex from a superficial perspective captured in two categories: fundamentalism or evolutionism. The analogy showing the role of the sexual urge is dialectical whereas the Middle East problem requires extraordinary understanding without condoning chronic or acute homicide-suicide. <8> Back to the lab with absurdly soft shoes In science the absurd is real enough but as a source must be treated almost as-if nonexistent. In the socio-historic setting absurd behavior (John Hooper) occurs in times of stress when individuality is repressed, but suddenly, unpredictably, unreasonably it makes a phenomenal movement. In the historic setting and in the struggle between creationistic and evolutionistic strains of thought, the distinction becomes obscured. Is it too careless to make a comparison with the difference between prion and virino respectively? Prion admits something acceptable as knowledge, an element that is accepted knowledge, I guess. Virino is what is still, quietly, open to the absurd. It teeters toward the hypothetical. In General Psychopathology (Chapter on "Society and History"), KJ under "Psychopathy and religion" makes a distinction between Catholicism and some religious movements, the latter are seen as emerging out of the absurd; they have, though seen only in process, a cause remaining in the ground of absurdity. Catholicism "discarded absurdity" KJ says. The absurd is only that which is beyond understanding but not contrary to reason, i.e. institutionally guided reason. But it seems to me it vocalizes only that which is beyond understanding and when something wiggles out of absurdity and reveals it's location, the prion mechanism triggered by the mere possibility of heresy strikes to satisfy an insatiable appetite for survival. That's the essence of evolutionism too; It's evolution in the guise of religion under momentum; it's an absurdity leaning toward the corporeal more than toward the infinitesimal and infinite. ---------------------------------------------------- CHURCH CONFIRMS EVOLUTIONISM, USING OWSLEY by Glenn C Wood 4 December 2003, posted 14 December 2003, TA64, C8 <1> Introduction HM has provided translations when asked, if he could, and once provided a piece -- unavailable to me -- by the late Leonard Owsley (referred to below). Though greatly appreciated, my approach has been to not owe any person anything for the sake of intellectual honesty. The following comment is anything but a kiss of a papal toe -- though I interpret HM's mention of the Vatican's soul and position on evolution as a weakening in that direction. I cannot hide my disappointment in the erroneous reasoning in the defense of "0-D" and against what seems to HM like an encompassing world of others' MIR. I'm growing weary of being in the disadvantageous position by the editor's preemptive privileged position. (Note: I've not taken the time to screen this piece for unintentional errors in details.) <1.1> A quote from KJ Philosophical Faith and Revelation seems in order here. He is speaking of the religious institutionalism's coercion when he says there are milder political exertions today: "One result ... is political patronage for communicants, possibly in proportion to the membership strength of a country's denominations, to the detriment of non-practicing Christians and at the risk of ruining a free spiritual life. ... The basic phenomenon is that the Church, a group of men, turns the call upon God into an instrument of worldly power. The human will to power is disguised as God's will." Item 2 below and following shows how this type of coercion is used by HM. The rest of the chosen quote is reserved for the last sentence of this TA64C4 Comment. My guess is that HM has made a decision about the strength of religious denominations. <2> A miracle or collusion with the mystical ground of "0-D" -- My Moses and HM's Moses On 12-1-03 I routed a reaction to TA63C8. I was surprised to find HM's TA64C4 posted with no definite date than November. (Due to a change in e address, I've recently not received the weekly contributions.) I'd like readers to know that my yet-to-be-posted TA63C can be referred to as an appropriate response to HM's TA64C4 -- even though it was routed prior to my awareness of TA64C4. I’m calling attention to my comments about “evolution””, i.e. the calling attention to some large religious institutions use of “evolution” as something more than as-if or a working ontology. Please note the references and comments about the difficulties -- according to KJ -- of “evolution” when it becomes an ontology. Note especially my reference to a fallback evolution- line for zero-derivationists. Moreover, I'd like the reader to know that my comment to TA63C1 -- routed 11-29-03 contains critical observations about HM's view of Moses. It's possible it was received prior to the final draft of HM's TA64C4. Perhaps my suspicion is baseless but probably not subject to fair falsification. The alternative is to believe a collusion with the HM's mystical apeiron has occurred -- if not a rush-to-press advantage, or the last minute changes an editor has the advantage of making to his own postings to make the ground right for a squatter's-like claim on whatever critical thinking is involved in "0-D." <3> The need for HM to eliminate viewpoints comparable to but not limited to "0-D" through the misunderstanding toward KJ In response now to HM's TA64C4 and further review of TA58C2 I'd like to here show how "0-D" must support itself, (or that, like the Church that HM refers to justifies its existence by showing influential individuals are influenced somehow by the Church) i.e., HM must also eliminate "view points." He must show that "0-D", as he has said: " is the only view point -- that I am aware of -- which can deal with the mind-brain problem" (<11>). Though an adequate view point could be found in KJ there seems to be the need to eliminate competition, to link KJ unfairly with the ontologism of Heidegger (see TA64C4,<21>), and then show that KJ could not have used a similar critical thought process without Anaximander. HM seems to need a Genesis-like authority from antiquity, and from that remote and obscure point, attack KJ. Am I the only one seeing this? To eliminate the weight of KJ views, HM uses Leonard Owsley a somewhat notable expert on Heidegger and Jaspers, to show that KJ got his encompassing ideas from Anaximander. Owsley was involved in the Karl Jaspers Society of North America, one of the founding signatories, and that association is supposed to provide supplemental support for his comments that KJ was influenced by Anaximander. I argue that Owsley as interpreted by HM is incorrect. Owsley passed away 2-16-03 shortly before TA 58's date, so he's not available for self-defense. <3.1> Note my question regarding Owsley's quote in TA58C5 regarding which church he's referring to when he seems to quite unnecessarily have said "at best Jaspers may be said to provide a kind of prophetic philosophy which is a ['poor'] substitute ['for theology']." My question still remains: Whose theology? Protestant or Catholic philosophy of theology? Karl Jaspers is sectarian-Protestant friendly that inherently involves the concept of direct access to the zero-derivational rationalistic side of theology, in contrast to the Catholic mediating authoritative realities independent of the minds of the membership. See item 4 below regarding HM when meaning is gained by association the Vatican with "0-D." <4> My position is: We know the KJ-Anaximander better since Jaspers looked at him as we know Nietzsche better since KJ work "Nietzsche, an Introduction to the Understanding of His Philosophical Activity." <4.1> KJ has clearly revealed in his autobiography which of the philosophers, sociologists, ordinary individuals, had influenced him. He also has provided enough insight to his life's history for anyone to clearly see how well balanced was the family in which he was reared and that he married into -- a balance where jumping in and out of concepts is so natural the "0-D" formula seems distracting -- to those who can be awakened from a deep sleep with critical responses already engaged. Those attracted to the formula are those with the need for help with absolute determining concepts. To them a formula containing the “MIR 0-D” formula brings as much comfort as some glean from practicing religious vain repetitions. We know much about the life of KJ from his own testimony. <4.2> Here we have KJ, a balanced person, successful as a physician, and notable psychopathologist that turned his expertise to Anaximander. If one looks at what is said of Anaximander in dictionaries of philosophy and texts relating to the history of philosophical thought, it is clear that KJ brought to Anaximander more than what is provable from original source material. But as with his patients, he did the best he could, leaning toward a humane trust in the intellectual honesty of a wholesome thinker. One knows Anaximander better after KJ gets though with him than perhaps Anaximander himself, and certainly more than the respectable HM or Owsley. It is only after KJ that it can be said that there can be a distinction seen between the immanentalistic thinking of Anaximander and the transcendental thinking of Moses. So, the Anaximander of Owsley and Muller is the Jaspers' Anaximander. One knows Anaximander better now as one knows Nietzsche better since Jaspers work on him. <4.3> Simply put; it is not only a fiction that KJ encompassing was influenced by Anaximander, it is an obvious disservice to even a working as-if use of a fallback to ground zero. In this sense only can Owsley be most correct if he had said or meant: "the boundless or unlimited of Anaximander becomes the encompassing to -- rather than for -- Jaspers." <5> I suggest HM's support for the Vatican's position is more a reaction to Karl Jaspers' avoidance of the possibility that large religious institutions might exploit his reasoning powers; that it's a reaction to Karl Jaspers' seeming leaning toward the ground of independent Protestant sectarian thinking that HM finds unacceptable. <5.1> HM begins paragraph <19> by stating his "0-D" can be a bridge between culture and scientific thinking. Here he recognizes the problem a commitment to culture can have. He shows there's a need for the application of "0-D" in cultural factors such as religion. There is, I say, indeed only culture mulch not The Culture. After saying that creationism contrasted with evolutionism was harmful to science -- or words to that effect -- he reminds us that "0-D" has been used by the Vatican in its acceptance of evolution. I take it this is wholly argument by divine association. Catholicism, to HM, is on the right track except for matters concerning the soul -- the word soul is used so that the Catholic Church might not be classified as atheistic because of HM's friendly comments. There's an obvious need here to align oneself with the large and/or popular religious institutions to protect a patent on a "0-D." <6> Conclusion HM's comments about KJ do not represent an understanding of the quality of KJ's thinking. I'm beginning to wonder if my mission is complete. The "Forum" foundation is flawed. Would it not be best for the name to be changed to something most appropriate now since TA64 C4 -- something like "Father Teilhard De Chardin Forum.?" "Ecclesiastic politics deals a death blow to communication, peace and loyalty. There is no talking to religious warriors." (Philosophical Faith and Revelation, p.44) When a Church declares there's no problem with evolution it carries the weight of confirmation of a mind-independent reality not subject to falsification. ---------------------------------------------- TEILHARD ON FIXISM AND TRANSFORMISM, RELIGIOUS EVOLUTIONISM by Glenn C Wood 1 January 2004,posted 18 January 2004, TA 65, C 3 Wood's comments on TA65 C1. Page numbers following quotes are from Karl Jaspers' Philosophical Faith and Revelation, Collins, London 1967. (Teilhard is considered parenthetically in 1.01 below; its' a partial answer to HM's previous inquiry about my view on evolution, and the parenthetical paragraph-notation in 1.04 is my effort to make sense of the opaqueness of HM's views.) 1. KJ's Biblical views versus HM apparent Evolution of religion; a Church/State Issue HM's item <9>'s biblical geocentrism versus science, and Darwin versus creationism has a tone of praise for the Vatican in it's position on evolution, but followed by some disappointment that "still" the soul is not viewed as having "evolved." (The tone can be seen consistent with the perspective HM takes in his objectifications -- which becomes hard nihilistic problems when misapplied like in all religion.) In effect he correctly sees that the Church awards an honorary degree on evolutionism, but perhaps doesn't see that ordained evolutionism must then with increased arrogance honor that organization, being tolerant of the Church's limitations while eternally grateful for evolutionism's exoneration. This approving tone can be seen in that HM speaks of creationism but, I think, does not use the word evolutionism though aware of naturalism. (1.01 Teilhard (T) tries to resolve evolutionism versus creationism by making a distinction between fixism and transformism and by dialectic means moves to logicalism and physicalism. Similarities can be seen in the mind-brain problem discussions reflected in the KJF. He (T) sees the need for a change of language, but it's a change within evolutionism's arena's premises. He admits the danger that the "transformist's question becomes a tangle of misunderstandings;" 109 and regarding fixists "Transformism [discussions] are generally fruitless because there is no common meeting ground." 108 He then sets about to establish a common ground dependent on an understanding of the dynamics of logicalism and physicalism. 1.02 I see the benefits of entanglement and the threats of a common meeting ground while evolutionism prevails within the education industry -- a powerful voting bloc supported richly by public funds. But the greatest danger is the failure to see that a logical slant is more prone to consider moral and ethical matters, though physicalism by feedback, e.g. pandemics, can affect morality belatedly. Though T doen't see it the transformation of the mind and a categorical imperative regarding conduct is more a product of what he classifies as logicalism and fixism, while not even a hypothetical imperative to restrain aberrant conduct is appropriate to an approach to physicalism's transformism. Teilhard doesn't need to see this connection because of his faith in the Catholic Church's assumed control over morals. See T's attitude to the "...Official Church..." Quote references: See The Heart of the Matter, a Harvest Book, 1980.) 1.1 Sympathetic Understanding HM reminds me of a wrestler having gotten in a position of having to avoid questionable contacts by skipping about so the referee won't rule that there's been a violation of religion-and-state mores. If he stands in Jaspers' spot public funds might support the Protestant camp. If he stands in the Vatican's "eternal" spot, tax support questions most surely must apply. Then finally the evolutionism stance is taken in hopes there's enough consensus to avoid being discovered as a religion -- especially possible if out of evolutionism a moral imperative is codified and believed comparable in weight to the Ten Commandments. 1.2 The hind part of processes mistaken for the front of life In speaking about the end of a natural process KJ says: in the extinction of species "nature itself seems to undermine its magnificent efficiencies. Its products carry the seeds of their own destruction." 205 If the Church is considered to have evolved--and the soul too -- the undermining seed of its own destruction is in the biblical narrative not the Church's Biblical exposition. The front must not be confused with the rear here, i.e. the Bible not confused with exploitative exposition. Does HM hope for the collapse of the narrative due to poor exegesis, poor defenses of an "infallible" institution's momentum? With the extinction of the meaningful narrative -- i.e., the end of the exploitation of the biblical-soul misinterpreted to prop up traditions -- the Church dies too, and then the church of evolution can mutate in it's void. 1.3 Collapsing the Biblical narrative requires the collapsing of KJ's works In <22> HM proposes God as an entity structured in analogy to humans and then extrapolated, then codified in the Bible. And in the last paragraph the Bible is seen losing credibility and replaced with nothingness (non-theistic religions) when the soul is seen to have evolved "like life." It's hard to mask the hope for the theistic narrative's -- Bible -- demise. Well, the same hope for extinction can be said of KJ works, the father of theistic existentialistic thinking. It's this sort of thinking that justifies wondering if the Forum is called the KJF because of an agenda to stifle his influence through misrepresentation. Why? Because he says "The Bible is as rich as life ... does not document one faith; it is an arena in which possibilities of faith vie with each other for the depth of the divine"? With regard to the entity -- phenomenon and the objectifications of it, i.e. God, in the narrative, i.e. Bible -- collapsing in the light of scientism referred to as science's objectifications; even a Kantian like moral imperative is essentially personal, implying an ontic ground (the world of others as it is and acting creatively to change it) or categorical imperative status for humanitarian attributes. 1.4 Personalistic qualifications Though it's sometimes difficult to glean a clear personal commitment from KJ works, the following quote represents his clear view of the value of the personal Encompassing, God (and it agrees with KJ's views elsewhere like in the introduction to "The Origin and Goal of History"): "The unresolved tension over the roots of evil and wrong will rise to a peak if two premises are clearly kept in mind. First, all things come from one, from the One. Every antithesis, whether dualistic or polar, is secondary. Secondly, the One is the one personal God, the almighty, all-merciful, all-knowing fount of the moral law. The more powerful, personal, moral, and exclusive the concept of this one God, the more impassioned the question." 219 HM's 0-D sees the "one" as zero--neither no thing nor some thing -- neither as something fundamentally simple nor complex, and this zero precludes a personal state in which the ground, closer to the soul, can reveal something like a passionate identification with others' similar painful feelings. HM then seems to take a leap of faith when nothing, i.e., nothingity-somethingity, is given divine status and personality enters only in so far as Anaximander is believed to have been a person who believed religiously in evolution. (Notation: HM, I think, received some influential education from a school in the heart of the Reformation which school "Pope" Urban the VI signed off on. This "Pope" was caught up in powerful political forces reaction to which contributed to Urban's leaning toward a dependency on Greek thought. The underlying spirit of this dependency and conciliatory attitude between Lutheranism and Greekish Catholicism could probably be traced to McGill University. Such awareness helps to understand what flutters unreasonably in HM's approach to reality. The tension in Catholicism still exists with subtlety, e.g., Anaximander's evolutionism versus that of the Frenchman, Teilhard. Evolutionism is carried along through the education industry like a weapon of distruction is carried along in an arms race.) 2. Revelation and Philosophical Faith repeated I'd like again to quote from KJ on this matter of the possibility of revelation to show differences between HM's comments and Jaspers' views (similarity seems implied when "KJ encompassing" is annotated parenthetically by HM). In Philosophical Faith and Revelation KJ says: "... however impossible it seems to me to believe it [revelation] -- I want no thinking that would ultimately bar a revelation. Philosophical faith is a source of its own, but it admits the possibility of revelation for others even though it cannot understand it. It wants honesty, not enmity; communication, not rupture; liberalism, not violence." This honesty begins within the individual, communicates individual to individual without hiding behind the limitations of the Church. HM's observations of evolution's effects on the Church comes across as not only a leap of faith but a leap deferring "... to an esoteric, would-be dictatorial theological science." 330 3. Geocentricity is not Biblical, it's an exposition resulting from the opacity of the stained glass imagery, HM, unlike KJ doesn't seem to zero in on the derivation of that deception The Church's geocentric position is a private institutional interpretation. Its a defense against anything that might endanger the institution's "eternal" structure, though that institution had influenced canonization, i.e. the preservation of the Bible which is most threatening to its catholicity (universality). The matter of the Church's support of evolution is a farce: "If threatened and weakened by schisms ... it was the more strictly reinforced within the narrowed sphere. Depending on the social, economic, and political structure of the West at large, the Church adjusted to feudalism, to absolutism, to bourgeois nationalism, to parliamentary democracy, to socialism." 47 We can now add: "to evolutionism [my comment]" because that Church "has come to delude itself radically about realities, as in the case of its pact with Hitler in 1933." 48 Swamped by the tides of an intellectually superior world "It keeps employing its political methods, seeking as ever to work through the believing masses like with the pact with Hitler in 1933." That Church has simply leaped on a corporeal body of knowledge, and one might think that HM noticing it then implies the Catholic Church is evolving along quite well and has only the soul to go. HM must know that what is preeminent with that Church is the willingness to give up the soul to remain a viable and exclusive institution. If Evolutionism works as a means, the Bible is quickly but inconspicuously dropped. ---------------------------------------- AN EXAMPLE OF A NEED FOR OBJECTIVITY by Glenn C Wood 5 April 2004, posted 24 April 2004, TA67, C10 Hope A will pardon this presumptive comment. C7 shows a common thread of subjectivism (ism meaning leaning toward the dogmatic or orthodox in some form if not objectively religious than subjectively religious). I reviewed A's "IT" book in which experiences are interpreted "according to [A's] reality." Experience though can be too restricted, either by lack of opportunity, or perhaps due to an introspective withdrawal in reaction to unfortunate objective experience such as the abuse of reason by religious authority (and to me there are strong hints of disillusionment in A's literary works).. A reading of KJ's Descartes (Three Essays, Leonardo, Descartes, Max Veber; Helen and Kurt,,,Inc, NY, '64) would be a good critical exercise and guide to accompany a search for certainty or stability in the subjective domain. That's the benefit of the historical when subjected to the scientific attitude; it helps avoid repeating what others ignored or fooled themselves about. KJ shows that doubting everything but "I think" does not lead to faith, especially a subjectivism-like faith. "Descartes invokes revelation in essential matters such as the immortality of the soul [a similar thing to what HM seemed to have done when mentioning how well the Catholic Church has evolve in accepting "evolution" in all matters except for the soul]" and of course this revelation comes to us from God but due to the restraints of one's private historicity; for Descartes that includes the ever present threat of his church. The only real objectivity for subjectivism is nominalistic, i.e., words to avoid excommunication or worse. Without the threat of Descartes' church, his ground for certitude differs little from A's. For instance, without fear of life threatening consequences, A can receive revelations without objectivism or institutional authority. Scrutinizing any objectification of selfhood is a good starting point for good thinking after we have thought for a while following our earliest experiences if including balanced parental-like guidance. But our thinking about the self is not only the reality peculiar to each; it includes the consciousness-ground, however objectively vague, out of, in which, through which thinking and decision momentarily ends and always too soon unless spontaneous in natural-science experience (like running outdoors to escape poisonous fumes, i.e., biology; ducking to avoid being hit by an arrow, i.e.., physics, and withdrawing from heat soon enough, i.e. chemistry; all which overlap in circularity somehow when not viewed from one particular purpose). Decision is less spontaneous when dealing with humanitarian or altruistic situations, like deciding to re-enter a burning building to save another, leaning again longer on heat and not feel it to save a child, taking the next arrow for the other person. Mr. A's honest and daring sharing of innermost thoughts including what seems too unusually eidetic, permits the feeling that one can respond bluntly, or confrontationally. Along with the Forum's weightiness toward subjectivism, A seems to be seeking support for his personal subjectivism. Obviously, to me, A cannot go to an authoritative source such as his "Church" nor to the book the acceptance of which would imply the authority of A's church experiences. That’s why A implies the book is incorrect when emphatically affirming the eternality of everything. There's an A-oversight here, in that the biblical author could not speak to thinkers who think in terms of beginnings any other way, except to start out with "God" to which the mature thinkers eventually return upon realizing the limitations of thinking and still be motivated to reenter the atmosphere of critical thinking. I can identify with A's reasons, but not the points in which thinking stops and image takes over. --------------------------------- DUALITY OF TIME AND MENTAL VECTOR PROTOCOLS
by Glenn C Wood
16 March 2004, posted 3 April 2004, TA68, C An attempt is made here to appropriate the thought forms involved in TA68 and Responses (hereafter referred to as B). To do this there must be a translation into my own experience that is not wholly uninfluenced by Karl Jaspers -- which might make for some general interest. There may be little consensus or no B statistical significance to this effort at translation for the sake of my understanding -- except the few (0 to more) that might read and see the human and humane significance. Justification is: first, that in a sense the rational individual is the measure of all things, and consequently, two; 100,000,000 minds might be convinced the earth is flat, whereas one, like the biblical Job, might know better. I'm especially mindful of the need for B's tolerance while perhaps addressing my earliest memories which demonstrates to my satisfaction for the "new time concept" that memory is simultaneously retrospective and prospective and that Memory is as much now as "ex-essos" -- if I understand that form of handling experience by B (Regarding this latter matter after completing item 11 below I decided to refer to this later). <2> I must add that the HM C1 has provided the point that wetted my interest, especially in that it revealed B's evolutionism. HM's thoughts on time departs from my own and probably Kant's and Jaspers when he cuts off objectivity in a way that my reason cannot follow, which led B to utter a prayer-like "Good Lord!" -- or perhaps he was addressing the editor with a full spectrum of respect to survive in the face of what's interpreted as "evolutionary" pressures (that's meant to be humorous). <3> The title Duality of "Time" is irreproachable for such a split is unavoidable due to the minimum prerequisite of the thinking or phenomenological limitations or restraints of piece-meal reasoning. The subjective and objective side is unavoidable but the question probably concerns which has preeminence regarding potential, i.e., objectivity or subjectivity, and what are the implications for science, philosophy, and religion if time is seen as a form of measurement which includes the potential and simultaneously the perceptive and conceptive forms of experience which -- controlled/ constructed or not--becomes the content of forms. The duality, being conventional, is not static, and moves along with dimensional overlapping of the ways of thoughtfully handling experience. The duality of time is also found in Genesis in that two time concepts are needed in "In the beginning, God..." Forgetting the timelessness or eternality of Being is not the fault of the text. <3.1> In an attempt to comprehend B's ideas, I'm going to respond directly to only a few of of B's paragraphs and hope for clarification in signs and symbols whether in clear language or glossolalia-like noises of various intensities supposedly some directional (and predictable), and some non-directional and stressful because mysteriously difficult to locate within the understanding. <3.2> Everybody's supposed to know what a signal is. They range from clear commands to almost imperceptible indicators like when silence precedes danger. There are even signs beyond whisperings of sweet nothings that could qualify for "another means" of communications. One proper question might be: In what way are rhythm based communication techniques different or similar to Jaspers' ciphers or the existential script Existenzen read? <3.3> It's unclear to me in common sense levels -- this differentiation by comparison made between timing and signals. Anyone who has worked on machinery, and I suppose quantum machinery, knows the importance of timing and signals. If one hooks up a timing-light to an engine the light-signal plus a fixed sign shows advancement or retardation, and measures synchronization. Light and secondary qualities of perception are involved. But a designed light is not required for understanding all time and signals. Shifting a transmission might depend on signals and timing and the distinction is not difficult to comprehend. Light can be shed on the process if the trans-case were open to daylight or trouble light, for when the transmission receives an appropriate signal all gears might appear as one. When in high gear or direct drive all lower gears are synchronized and cannot be seen as separate but disappear in a unified cluster. The speed of light is needed because perceptibly it's not possible to follow the signs of engine pistons' position at high revolutions, but light-timing is unnecessary for gear-teeth to gear-teeth synchronization to avoid grinding. But above, beyond, and within all this timing and synchronizing is the potential for doing so, like the speedy events must have a potential ground which is in some way greater, e.g., than light's measured speed. <3.4> These forms of thinking about mechanics are probably applicable to the passage of signals in frames of references with minimum nonconductivity. It seems to me that mentioning the Schrödinger wave equation is not as essential for elucidating meaning as it is to gain authoritative meaning by association with established subatomic physicists. At least it does not make clearer to me the distinction between timing and signals. Obviously time and signals includes a means of measurement that involves reason, a differentiation by comparison, and an agreed upon standard of measurement with enough uncertainty as to still wonder whether God or the Devil is in "new" details when human kind comes face to face with "evolutional" stresses. It also does not measure the importance of relying on historical texts that speak to what behavior should be avoided or conducted that our existence might be long and meaningful. <4>
In TA68R1 in answer to HM's request for concrete examples none really were provided except that some experimentation had been done to show how animals such as cats respond to stimuli other than words. My daughter had a cat that would respond to hand movements. My cat responds to my imitation of a panting coyote a little less in the security of the living room than in the outdoors. These are not the normal communicative linguistic symbols and signs I guess. But B's clearest response came in the form of a proclamation about evolutionism: "evolutionary selection pressures ... known..." which more than implies a consensus/ authoritative source, a quite natural naturalism source, for the salvation of humankind in terms of altruistic behavior. Whenever that word is used the less scientific users seem to become vulnerable to the criticism that "... evolution means progress" (Dictionary of Philosophy, Ancient, Medieval, Modern, Dagobert D. Runes editor). <6> Please show how "mental vector protocols" (mvp) and rbc work as in KJ's view that there seemed to be a universal B's-like "now-time" occurrence in history when during a relatively short period of...time...similar qualities of thought appeared "almost simultaneously in China, India, and the West, without any one of these regions knowing of the others. (See his Origin and Goal of History.) <7> B appears to me to say all time is now time, a master clock and local time is located in consciousness but yet there's an objective time or essos time -- I take it as having edges at least like a feathering and the spatial distance can be measured by a formula. Is this the speed involved in the nervous system's reaction time to, say pain, or the time lapse between experience and anxious awareness? <8> The "master clock"... is this mainly the potential for response to danger due to something being out of synch with individual preference and/or cultural codes including violations of social/psycho comfort zones? <9> Please apply your Duality of Time to the debate between the theologian Bultman and the philosopher Jaspers regarding demythologizing (Myth and Christianity). I take it the master clock is objective to consciousness though not measurable as such but only as related to an activation in consciousness and recognized (remembered-essos) as belonging to the area or edge of myth. Bultman tries to remove the myth of the absolute occurring in a local place and a certain time in history, while maintaining that the church that followed the event is authoritatively influential over individuals. Jaspers maintained that revelation does not occur only in history in a certain place at a certain time, and that it is primarily the responsibility of the individual standing alone without intermediate authority. He refers to his view as "liberal" and Bultman's as "Orthodox" -- liberal meaning individual responsibility without ecclesiasticism’s (established tradition religion) mediation but seeing the indispensable need for biblical-like faith. Which of these positions would be considered a proper consequence of rhythm-based communication? Where in such a debate do you see the "face of known, evolutionary selection pressures" and how does the mental vector protocol function in this application? <10> What might be more obvious than the wonders of experimentation with animal communication is the obviousness of humankind's essential attributes used as techniques in approaching animal experimentation, and being in this case claimed as something novel, some new time concept. That is a marvel: an objectified idea where memory fails to recall the source. It appears to be demonstrated by B that it's being used by animals and that it being a factor in "evolution" therefore man can learn something from it -- that humankind's thoughts' structures when in synch have practical consequence and that proves evolutionism (which seems to always take on an attitude of progress as seen in B's listing of consequences). It seems to me this "new time" as structured by humankind is nothing more but maybe less than Kant's critique of time. I mean animals communicate in mysterious ways, but I believe this because of the mystery of human communication as the analogue while analyzing animal behavior -- I was reared around farm animals. <11> Continuing to use human concrete examples, applying this new time concept and rhythm based communication, and mental vector protocols; it would be interesting to relate such to Nietzsche's extraordinary appreciation and an extraordinary horror for music. B's enthusiastic commitment to the "Duality of 'Time'" might welcome showing how the formula works in terms of these other disciplines. It also throws the burden of communication into a balanced arena where communication requires putting oneself into others' mode of experience and thought. --------------------------------------------------- JASPERS CORRECTS JEAN HERSCH by Glenn C Wood 2 April 2004, posted 17 April 2004, TA68, C13 <1> C9 presents the opportunity to respond to the limitations of tradition. One of the concluding comments about what KJ's said to Jeanne Hersch (JH) TA58 [22 and or 23] should now be addressed. The refuge sought in tradition such as that felt by Pi while visiting the Sistine Chapel, and the misinterpretation of KJ words - a suggested death-bed confession of futility which is suppose to show the worth of tradition over independent reasoning -- as reported by JH and supposedly sustained in TA58 and now TA68C9, deserves answering. If allowed to stand it could result in talking about tradition and art at the expense of the meaningfulness of KJ's philosophical and scientific works. JH and Pi appear to be of similar ilk. <2> KJ clearly did not think JH exercised the potential for comprehending his views. In the Library of Living Philosophers, ed. Schilpp, '57, Tudor, pp770-770 and 834ff he answers JH's critique of him. Here he speaks of her "pessimistic view of the present" and responding to her criticism that KJ inadequately participates because not traditional enough--and of course we are talking about religious institutional tradition and pictures in chapels -- iconology. Against JH's view that tradition is valid as a universal truth KJ says: "Against this...pictures, symbols, and assertions ... are not universally valid..." (773) And: JH "seems to argue as if she were standing outside, as if one could see how the world must run ... [as though speaking inside the Chapel looking out -- GW]. She speaks of tradition in the same fashion." (774) JH "sees and thinks and expresses indirectly by letting the intellect make its leaps, which she herself does not quite believe." (776) And "Jeanne Hersch reports a conversation, in which I am supposed to have said ... (834) and "...if it took place" is true but not in the way JH interpreted it. (836) and he clarifies the meaning (on 836). <3> ----------------------------------- MORE ABOUT THE DUALITY OF TIME by Glenn C Wood
16 April 2004, posted 8 May 2004, TA68, C15 Agreeing with the two-pole or dichotomous process of thinking, the title containing the word "duality" is irreproachable. It was not a compliment as much as a statement of what is not new, and that if B's symbolism were translated, B could be shown to be in historical company, such as Kant. Kant said "time is given a priori" "is not an empirical concept" "time has only one dimension..." and referring to one dimension and different times he says "common experience teaches us that it is so; not that it must be so" and there is where Kant's views of time depart from the fixed species formfit idea. Different times has to do with the synthetic and does not have its origin in the concept of a priori time, Kant says, made possible by one single time that underlies. While reasoning and communicating about time we are in the synthetic, so why AM comes down on subjective dimension pole of time is open to the guesswork suggested above. In AM's comments there seems to be confusion about the subjective and objective measurements while using the subjective. "Nevertheless, [Kant says] in respect of all appearances, and therefore of all the things which can enter into our experience, [time] is necessarily objective." (See Critique of Pure Reason, Section II, Time.) Duality of time is supported by KJ's "Consciousness operates in the dichotomy between the thinking subject and the thought object" and "[time for Kant was] contingent on the subject." (The Great Philosophers, '62, Harcourt, Bruce and World, p 246, 247.) Kant said, "the world is appearance not illusion" and "space and time have empiric reality, but transcendental ideality." (Ibid. 248.) But discussion here cannot continue because AM has stated a lack of interest in phenomenology, which probably is why Kant is understood differently, and why my comments are easily perhaps conveniently misinterpreted and seen through "formfit" glasses with limited "species specific potential." AM is thanked for the 5000 page suggested reading but, praying for mercy, I'd rather repent now of my limitations and thinking and ask AM to make intercession for me as one who has hacked a path through the current wilderness of books. --------------------------------------- EVOLUTIONAL RELATIVISM CONSENSUS’ OR JASPERS by Glenn C Wood 13 March 2004, posted 20 March 2004, TA69, C7 <1> Here's another puzzle worthy of some healthy speculation: HM's motivation for being the dolce-far-niente exception, and now including Hugh Bone on board and only 248 or so KJF members to go. So what are the real perceptible and conceptual reasons for what seems to fail to make sense -- other than the revelation out of particulate-air that the editor's aims are to be unquestioned: <2> First, it smacks of consensus leanings, that is; how can one justify the use of KJ name? By applying a magical formula that would succeed in getting a majority to talk the evolutionism talk. Then of course with the interest of those who are in agreement and not carelessly participating, i.e., disagreeable, a vote can be taken to democratically disapprove of objections to the misuse of Karl Jaspers. <3> Second, Munévar, for instance, and like Plinius, has written several books and that as such amounts to more than 37 forces to awaken the members from their slumber while the only outstanding novelty in "Evolutionary Relativism" is capitalizing the powerful term "evolution" while a simple statement that everything can be seen as relative would be more objective. Now the difference between everything being relative and Evolutionary Relativism is that relativity is made an ism via evolutionary modification, something exclusively truthful if leaning always toward denying anything that could be historically substantial. <4> Thirdly, Though a member may have been begging for biographical information to further understand heretofore formulas, the need for biological material is now only understood because it's associated with evolutionism? The need for biographical history is all the more obvious now for understanding how relativity can be turned into an evolutional absolute. That's the psychopathological challenge here; that's possibly the reality of avoiding what is clearly pertinent to Karl Jaspers. <5> Fourthly, there's this apparently carte blanche search for evolutionistic uniqueness, while the uniqueness is seemingly intentionally overlooked; that evolutionism is a slogan like "evolution is beautiful" or "evolution power." The more the word is used the greater grows its popular strength. There's not a lot of spectrum difference in saying God did it then taking a reductionistic segment and saying evolution did it. The ormer however still leaves room for reasoning about the origin and goal of reason and leans away from reason's extinction while realistically aware of how deceptive ism-thinking can bring about the extermination of humankind. The latter can easily fall into a superiority-complexity, like: humankind can conceive of something greater than its whole or sum total of parts, and then take that relaxed leap into oblivion (let us sin that grace may abound). |
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