The following premise appears true, initially, to the Noble Mind:
A Creator is perfectly benevolent IF AND ONLY IF His creations are perfectly beautiful.
Looking at the skies above, particularly at night, the noble mind experiences a sense of awe, unparalleled to anything else. Certain objects are more awe-inspiring than others. Looking at M31 for example, one often gets a very distinct feeling that "something" is watching one back through one's binoculars.
In general, everything in Nature is beautiful to the noble mind. I'd even go as far as saying, perfectly beautiful. From the fascinating spiral arms of M31 and a colorfully complex sunset, to a gray white 40 kg English Shephard dog.
As there are very few exceptions to the above (see below), the noble mind is tempted to conclude, (based on the premise above), that Nature must be the work of a perfectly benevolent Creator.
On closer inspection though, it becomes apparent that behind this awesome beauty, there lies horror and violence. Everything gets born, lives through a certain lifespan and dies in obscurity. From clusters of galaxies, to galaxies, to stars and planets, the dead are always consumed by higher or more powerful life forms to produce new life.
The entire universe is highly tragic. Although beautiful, its modus operandi is essentially a continuous cycle of life, death, decay and consumption. For humans, which are part of it, it's even worse, because pain is part of their life.
On deeper thought, the premise above does not appear to hold much water. Certain other possibilities come to the noble mind:
1) The Creator is a sadist.
2) The Creator has abandoned us and the entire universe along with it.
3) The Creator is not exactly what or who we think He is.
4) There never was a Creator.
5) We are the Creator, obfuscated inside human life, in order to avoid the pain of
conscious self realization.
6) There are partial "Creators", who may have created the universe hierarchically, but
the chain of their hierarchy is infinite and does not have a top element.
I tend to believe that 2), 3) and 6) are the most probable possibilities, with 5) also highly probable, although quite unlikely, given our current sociological state.
It appears to me as though 2) is also true and along with that, something else is also true, which sooner or later becomes obvious:
7) Human Life, including its surroundings, is a very well made prison of sorts.
It appears as though this prison has been custom made for us by The (A) Creator. I really cannot fathom the reason as to why this was necessary, but my honest feeling is that we are prisoners on Earth, with no hope of ever escaping.
If the above holds, two possibilities follow immediately: Either 5) or:
8) Humans at some point in time, were not (and still are not) in agreement with The Creator(s), for whatever reason and took a stance against Him (or Them).
Wanting to keep this article simple, I want to avoid all connections to religious dogma and traditions. But everywhere one looks, one finds that according to various people's distant memory remnants human beings at some point in time "detached" from The Creator(s) for one reason or another.
There are two distinct possibilities that follow this:
9) Human beings were (and are) capable of incredible power, which at some point in time threatened to acquire something "valuable" (Godhood perhaps?) of The Creator. More simply put, human beings were, at some point in time, "troublemakers".
If 9) is true, 7) follows immediately, following the classical religious traditions of a possible disagreement with The Creator. I find this highly improbable though. It is true that human beings can develop tremendous powers, particularly as regards science and technology, but it really sounds like a joke to think that we, at some point "threatened" somebody who might have been responsible for things like putting planets in orbits and creating stars. UNLESS, we are talking about a different kind of power, which has been stripped from us in this existence.
The troublemaker scenario sounds more plausible.
If 9) is true, it follows then:
10) We once were not what we are today, either as a species or as a life form.
Having a human being as we know it today threatening The Creator, sounds like a joke from a Gary Larson cartoon. Having a higher life form, which does not resemble today's humans, threaten The Creator, is quite probable, though. So what exactly was the form we had when we disagreed with The Creator(s)?
I have no idea, really and this very fact, that we have no recollection of such existences, really either discredits 9), or perhaps shows that whatever it was we had attempted, must have been really nasty, since we today have no recollection of our previous powers.
A more probable scenario would be 5). If I ever was the ultimate Creator, I certainly would not be very happy knowing that I am the only being in existence, upon first thought. In such a case, I would have to design a carefully crafted container, which would support me for all eternity, keeping me from realizing my sad and tragic lonely fate. This would immediately necessitate the creation of an almost infinite (but closed upon itself) expanse (the Universe), to live in and various pawn creations which would serve to keep me distracted and entertained.
The predominant needs for such a "prison" of sorts, would have to be:
11) The impossibility of escape. (Hence the universe being closed upon itself).
12) The need to suppress my knowledge of conscious self realization, of having been The
Creator at some point in time.
11) leads immediately to:
13) The architecture of a super-complex universe, where the possibility of escape is zero, no matter what kind of knowledge I initially possessed or now possess.
This is essentially 5) and 7).
12) leads to:
14) The illusion of multiplicity.
Partially disassembling my initial existence into billions of smaller pieces and other human beings and animals, I would need thousands of lifetimes to figure out that I am basically alone, since billions of other beings would continuously keep me distracted. Perhaps it's better to not be a God and have company, than to be God and be absolutely lonely.
13) is a consequence of the employment of the five senses in an animal. This works fine so far. The universe does appear to be infinitely vast and our brains which interpret the five senses, cannot really fathom its size or find a means to transcend it.
However, 14) eventually fails miserably. I think this was the most predominant flaw in our existence and creation as a human species. Human beings are basically ALONE. No matter how sociable, how interacting and how well-behaved a human being is, the actual organism is completely isolated from the other human beings, save the sharing of a handful of experiences relating mostly to the five senses.
I see the color "red", but how do I know somebody else experiences it exactly the same way I do? I don't. I can never know. If I ever was The Creator, this could be a direct consequence of 12). I could have MADE a plethora of other existences to either "agree" or disagree (seemingly randomly) with me within the consensus of sensory experience, so I could never tell if I was right or not.
Can I ever know how somebody else really feels? No. Never. All I know is what's inside me. The "I". The "Ego". Society conditions us to learn to "share" experiences, but upon a closer inspection, what does this really mean, apart from being a sort of consensus of "sensory agreement" to retain the very basics of "experience sharing"?
If I ever get reborn as a baby, I need to have someone teach me what it means to "see" red. If nobody exists, i.e. if 14) fails, then I would become again self-conscious and would have failed 12). It's a vicious circle, particularly in view of recent ideas that have been exposed to the public, with films such as The Matrix.
11) and 12) seem to have succeeded, but 14) therefore has failed miserably. The illusion of multiplicity, gradually dissipates, as I acquire more and more knowledge. Not only me, everyone else. I KNOW I am alone. I can't possibly know that YOU know it, but I know it for myself.
Since 14) has failed, the culprit lies elsewhere. I would surmise then, that 5) is probably false. But if 5) is false, we are left with 1)-4) and 6) and we are forced therefore to go back to 2)-3) and 6), validating perhaps 7), which means that we are indeed imprisoned.
What was it that imprisoned us? I don't know. However if 7) is true and we are indeed inside a custom prison, there definitely MUST be a reason.
Various other sub-possibilities come to mind here. 2) 3) and 6) can lead to:
15) We were seeded by higher life forms, who may have had specific agendas in
mind.
16) We have been created by alien herders to exist solely as miners, slaves, workers or
"food".
15) is not very improbable, but alone, (without 16) doesn't make much sense. Why would one, and much less an entire race of advanced species genetically engineer human life forms, unless they had some agenda (obscure or not) in mind?
I certainly am not inclined to believe that such an advanced alien race seeded us out of kindness or benevolence. The way I understand what a "benevolent creator" is, such a creator would certainly be proud of his creation(s) and would like to interact with it(them) often. I know that when I buy a pet, I want to love it, pet it, play with it, cuddle along with it and otherwise take care of it. I love my pet and I show it, to the pet itself and to my companions.
There is no evidence that if there was a creator race that seeded us, this race has any interest in us, apart from sporadic reports of various lunatics who claim to have experienced strange encounters and have reported otherwise strange events. Most of these reports, religious or not , certainly do not show any kind of benevolence or kindness towards the victims. (Who usually proclaim that they are abductees).
Thus, 15) minus an agenda, sounds completely implausible, UNLESS 2) is true. In such a case, either The Creator(s) is (are) planning an eventual return to reap the results of its (their) engineering, or:
17) The Creator race that seeded us, was ousted by force from this planet, for some reason.
17) Is very strange, given our current sociological state of affairs. We are quite advanced, but I don't believe we are advanced enough to forcibly oust a superior race who had knowledge of genetic engineering technology sufficient for our creation as a species. Note that if this had happened, it would have to have happened in the very long past, when (according to our history) we were not even advanced enough.
To conclude: IF there was a creator race that seeded us, then either this race left by choice or was ousted by force. If it left by choice, chances are that 16) is false. If it was ousted and 16) is true, we must have had help from somewhere. From where?
I have no idea. But one thing is certain: Even if we had help from some other race, that other race is nowhere to be found as well.
Personally, I cannot make sense of anything. After 30 years of deep study of metaphysics and various religious doctrines, I can testify with certainty that I now know nothing about any of this. I am not sure whether any of the above is true. I am not sure about even what "truth" is anymore. I have no idea whether there is an afterlife, no idea whether God exists, and worst of all, I have no idea what the hell I am doing here.
The later, produces the worst feeling of all in the noble mind. It is, in a sense, the worst kind of existential void one can ever experience. We are being thrown inside a certain environmental container and we are asked to continue living without any data whatsoever. (Except scientific data, which we gather with blood and sweat). This is like picking a person who doesn't know how to swim and throwing him into the sea, where he has to eventually learn to swim, otherwise he drowns.
As such, human life is the worst tragedy there is, because of the curse to NOT KNOW. We like to KNOW things. I derive pleasure from knowing and understanding how things work. Yet, when one reaches the summits of knowledge, the very knowledge that appears to be relevant to the issue of existence and the final concluding remarks about this issue are taken away from one.
Essentially we don't know anything, save that the container we live in, operates using strict scientific laws. If we are to have any hope of ever understanding the container, we must understand science. But science is hard and not everyone is prone to studying/understanding it. Therefore the greatest percentage of human beings, live in total ignorance.
I sincerely believe that this ignorance is terminal. Neither has science been able to correct the various shortcomings of our society. Things are made worse by greed, money, violence, unkindness, politics, corrupt leaders, the destruction of the environment and the general upheaval that follows human society throughout its history.
I tend to believe that WE are (metaphorically) what Christianity calls "The Fallen Angels". For whatever reason, we are to be found inside an almost infinite prison, with no chance of ever escaping (at least while alive).
I honestly cannot see a solution to the philosophical problem of existence. In my eyes, existence probably has the same net worth as non-existence. "Nothing" becomes "something" and vice versa. The distinction is always subjective and probably illusionary.
If you insist on asking me what are my final concluding remarks, I'd say 7) is
highly likely. This I am almost certain about. Anything else, I am not sure.
The mind is man's most precious commodity. It can be used to understand its
surroundings as well as itself to the extent that the self allows.
The primary characteristic of the mind is that it is infinite. It cannot be bound by
any finite domain and it always has a desire to grow, so like most things in life, it
is greedy. Yet, contrary to material greed which always causes problems when expanding
uncontrollably, the mind may be allowed to be greedy, for its greediness poses no
threat to other individuals or itself, when expanded appropriately.
Greediness here can be defined explicitly: No matter how much knowledge you give the
mind, it will always ask for more. In a sense this is good, because knowledge is never
enough in this universe. There are millions of domains where the mind may engage its
greediness and once it does, it becomes addicted.
This kind of addiction (related to knowledge) is in fact a very sure sign of
healthiness, contrary to any physical addiction, which is always damaging. It is
primarily related to the mind's need to keep itself occupied in the physical domain, as
long as possible.
Once the mind experiences the fruits of further and further knowledge, it can keep
itself occupied with newly found knowledge for a lifetime. This is a trait which is
ultimately related to constructive creativity.
Specifically, constructive creativity is the mind's desire to express itself in any
domain of newly found knowledge.
Such a mind first processes the available information and then proceeds in an attempt
to expand the information, which in turn causes the expansion of the mind itself.
Although there are many avenues which allow for the mind to expand thus, there are also
ways to expand the mind in unhealthy ways. These are related mostly to artificial
expansions, which are mainly the results of hard drug usage.
It can be argued for example that certain hallucinogens cause the mind to expand, but
in ways which are not easily dealt with. Such artificial expansions almost always
distort the mind and cause unwanted side effects: The mind may simply not be prepared
for such expansions and may react violently causing damage to the perceiver. Also, in
these cases usually the mind acts as a passive observer rather than an active
contributor, which is, in and of itself void of any substantial content. Anybody can be
a passive observer. Few can be contributors.
This mind suspects that the mind's natural greediness for knowledge results from a
fundamental need of the mind to understand itself as well as simple pleasure. Minds
which have been conditioned to question their surroundings usually fall in this
category. Minds which have been damaged by abuse, rarely have such a need and usually
become content with whatever stale knowledge they have been fed with.
The above cannot be stressed enough: Most minds in our society are damaged. The reason
is quite simple. Parents abuse their children either physically or psychologically, so
the mind learns to stay within certain boundaries in order to protect itself from
further abuse and to avoid remembering past issues. When it manages to escape the
prison of abuse, the mind resembles a curious child, making small, simple moves
outwards, to discover what lies outside its own artificially created boundaries.
This process can take years until the mind learns to become greedy and healthy, again.
Most minds in our society are simply concerned with trivial things, such as making it
financially or taking care of their basic survival needs. Such minds are completely
oblivious to further expansion, because triteness and triviality have taken a toll: The
mind learns to be satisfied with its smallness.
Society breeds such minds at exponential rates. The few exceptions that show up usually
get absorbed by the rest in an effort to appear conformist. If and when bright minds
manage to escape triteness and triviality they find that they have to confront a
society that's made for trite minds. That usually results in a disaster for the bright
mind, which in the best possible case is labelled "eccentric", in the worse
"maladjusted".
In general, I can say with certainty that after almost 40 years of existence, my dislike and disgust for human society and its people has increased exponentially.
The above is not a simple blanket statement. It is founded upon a very careful examination of all the relevant issues (philosophical, theological, societal, financial, anthropological etc.) and upon extensive experience which relates to various cultures.
I believe the following premise to be true:
1) Human beings are INHERENTLY evil.
1) is based on inspecting how my own mind works, as well as how random people behave or how famous people have behaved throughout history. It has nothing to do with various religious doctrines that make similar claims.
People's activities nowadays revolve around money. The power that money should exert on a random human being should vary proportionally to their need for the acquisition of something "useful". That would be okay, since then there would be only a uniform distribution of like/dislike of money. Unfortunately western society has become the dominant player in this world and as such it has imposed an exaggerated need for money and acquisition of goods in our minds (at least to those that have had a western education, anyway), which unless is controlled by a nobler mind, it can completely destroy an individual, by causing an infinite obsession with it to the point of insanity.
The destruction has multiple sides: Given that more money cultivates greed and more needs, it produces a never ending cycle of more greed and usually some sort of violence, which goes along with it. The following premise appears to be true:
2) Acquisition of large amounts of money is impossible without SOME form of violence.
The violence in 2) can be physical (expulsion of natives from their land, like native indians, slavery of blacks, wars to gain territory, etc.) as well as mental, spiritual or emotional. (Christianization of peoples, the sell-out of education and knowledge which forces science to obey money, various indoctrinations of sorts, brainwashing from the media which forcibly increases the need for acquisition of useless goods, brainwashing from various religious schemes which claim authority on various existential issues and in general the eventual subordination and slavery of everything to money, which forces even noble minds to participate in this precarious scheme).
Given that most of today's citizens are forced to make it financially inside the country they reside one way or another and survive under whatever circumstances are present by becoming a "good consumer", (usually with a house, a dog, a couple of kids, a good job and an expensive car), most such citizens turn into brainwashed consuming machines, with ever increasing needs, who will sidestep most everything else in order to participate in the creation of what society has labelled as a "successful" human being. Much more so for business men, presidents, country leaders and religious leaders.
All the latter are the filth of this planet. The eternal filth which has been imposed upon the lay man, the "sheep" as they call them, who follow and obey their orders without ever complaining (or complain usually ineffectively). Of course, this infestation of filth is partially the fault of The People. If The People were any better, their leaders would be good too. Unfortunately, it's precicely because The People are inherently bad (as in bad quality), that they elect the kind of filth that you see in most of the important electoral positions.
In a sense, the evil of the rulers, is just punishment for the inherent evilness and bad/low quality of The People. Unfortunately, it takes a very long education to transform a human being from an insensitive brute to a noble mind and such education costs money. Since money is largely scarce, the brute is usually denied the privilege, as a result (and because he/she doesn't know any better) propagates his/her own genes, producing more stupidity and bad quality. It is again a vicious circle, perpetrated by the rulers, who having recognized the futility of human existence, must have a way to control the brutes en-masse, so that they can retain their authority. The way to do that, is to keep The People uneducated.
It appears as though the following premise is also true:
3) Irresponsible Consciousness produces filth.
No animal can be found that does not live in peace with its surroundings. From the lion to the cockroach, all have a useful purpose to perform. The interesting thing is that they perform their tasks without ever complaining or turning against other life forms, unless they have a need to satisfy their hunger, which is of course excusable.
Human beings on the other hand interfere with everything and whenever and wherever they involve themselves, usually oblivion follows (local and/or global). They destroy the environment, torture and kill animals for no serious reason (sometimes they call it "medical research", other times production of cosmetics and consumer goods such as fur, or, the worse of all, which they call hunting), and in general have a tendency to seriously disturb the very fine balance of life's ecosystem on this planet.
Acquisition of land has become a high priority. In order to do that, thousands of acres of trees have to give way to bulldozers and cranes, with skyscrapers and ugly houses substituting those areas.
The sheer fact that such practices continue (and will probably continue long after anybody's death), indicates a much deeper problem, which probably sits at the very soul of human existence. But what is it that sits at a human being's soul, but its consciousness? Therefore, consciousness MUST be the culprit, reinforcing 3).
I believe that a human being will, (in general) acquire an overall face shape which will be proportional in ugliness to its intentions. And by "ugliness" I certainly don't mean physical ugliness. You can have a physically ugly person who can be very lovable and vice versa: A physically attractive person who reeks of evil and bad intentions. This kind of ugliness, which is somewhat intangible, (and which I am speaking of), is like an identity signature for all of us. Like our fingerprints, although recognizing a person's intentions probably has to do more with instinct than with their physical appearance, in a way.
When I get out of my house, I am bombarded by ugly faces. By faces which hate, which
look at you as if you are filth, which are contorted and distorted from a wounded inner
world, which are just sick and tired of everything. Faces which reek of ugliness.
Occasionally, a gentle and noble face emerges. But such events are rare.
Most of us, in order to survive in this society, will have to perform some kind of job, in order to have an income and this is one of the most demanding tasks for the nobler mind, for one has to train oneself to eventually become oblivious to The People's internal ugliness. Particularly when the noble mind has to interact with bosses, employees and coworkers who are determined to step over dead bodies in order to succeed, because they have been conditioned by society to transform into "successful" and "productive" human beings.
This sort of interaction, I find disgusting and I personally try to avoid it as much as I can. I would prefer, for example, a lower paying job, where I can have free time to do as I please and produce what I consider worthwhile, than a job in some fortune 500 company, where they'd pay me huge amounts of money in exchange for 12 out of my day's 24 hours, performing some sort of mundane and stupid task.
Many people seem to think that a career with a fortune 500 company really determines who they are in a tangible way, whereas in all reality, what they don't realize, is that they are, for all practical purposes, highly paid slaves.
In exchange for their freedom they get paid well. The signs of the good slave:
1) Loves money
2) Wears suit and tie on the job
3) Owns expensive car
4) Owns (or is in the process of owning) expensive house
5) Performs mundane or otherwise boring/uninteresting tasks for somebody else
6) Most of the time, actually hates those very tasks.
You can recognize a slave, when one confides in you (usually on Friday/Saturday night), that one really hates every single moment of his job, giving special emphasis on how one hates going to work on Monday morning.
Perhaps the most important trait of the good slave is one's existential void. Everyday triviality, unimportance and routine, usually cause the slave to cease thinking freely and fall into a sort of eternal mental slumber. The slave's consciousness, then, has been conquered. Often, a consequence of this, is a psychological void, as well. Psychology and psychoanalysis usually thrive in countries and places where good slaves abound.
Society needs good slaves. Always did, always will. One only needs to take a quick look at the Sunday paper to see the numerous adds from big companies, offering such and such benefits in exchange for such and such a mundane task. Some employers go so far as to have the nerve to not even offer a decent salary to a good slave. In such a case, the intensity of slavery doubles, because the particular person who will get the job, surely cannot even feel dignified.
What most people don't realize, is that the very need for slaves from big corporations or companies, usually declares a very simple fact: That somebody else, who occupied this very position, long time ago, woke up (perhaps because one's dignity was trampled, perhaps because one realized that one was a double or triple slave, or perhaps because of some other reason) and either resigned or caused his/her ejection from this company. Therefore:
7) For every "wanted" add in the Sunday paper, somebody else tried it and at some point in time realized that he/she "had been had".
Which naturally leads to the next premise:
8) The chances of the noble mind finding a decent/likeable job from a Sunday paper ad, are virtually nil.
Particularly also because the nobler mind has a very clear idea of what one likes to do. Unfortunately, those of us who know what they like are not always lucky enough to work on the subject of our likes. Being able to work on a job that one likes to do and making good money from it, presupposes at least some partial self realization and usually this realization comes around the age of 35-40.
This realization should ideally come around 18-20, so the prospective employee can at least have a remote chance of finding some suitable job. Of course, at this age, most of the people are not even aware of what it means "to like" something, much less can they choose their future course correctly/successfully. This problem has the following consequence:
9) The greatest percentage of all working people, dislike/hate their job
9) Is of course understandable, given 1-6) and 8).
What is particularly interesting, is that countries which people consider "advanced"
(like the US or Japan) have the highest percentage of good slaves. In most of these
countries, psychoanalysis really thrives, yet internal ugliness increases. (Or, when it
does not increase, one gets strange syndromes which include symptoms such as
unexplained heart attacks, death or premature mental/bodily deterioration).
On Cars and on Car and Oil Companies
Accordingly, I find most such companies mundane and stupid. From large computer and oil corporations, to companies that produce most consumer goods, from clothes to shoes and cars.
I particularly abhor cars. I have never owned one, neither will I ever own one in the future. One quick look at the Monday's rush hour, at 9 am, is enough to convince the noble mind that cars and car and oil companies are a pestering curse in our society.
Unfortunately, the "advanced" western style of living has imposed on us the acquisition of cars and in most cases one can judge the financial state of the owner by the type of car one owns.
During the older times, people wore feathers, jewelry and ornaments to declare their status. Then, it worked, because real authority was intricately tied with the owner of such objects in a quiet and effective way. Today, one declares one's status, by owning an expensive car.
To the naive mind, an expensive Mercedes 600 SEC, really declares premises 1)-6) in the previous section. To the noble mind, in addition to 1)-6) of the previous section, it declares:
1) The owner must have been a very good slave throughout his career, to have been rewarded with a Mercedes.
1) holds true whether the owner is younger or older. If one is older, 1) can be interpreted literally. If one is younger, it can be interpreted as the owner having engaged in some extremely passive or consonant behavior as a child for one's dad to reward one with such a car.
In either case, the owner is a slave. In multiple ways: In both cases somebody will become very angry if that Mercedes is damaged or crashed. If the owner is older, chances are one has wasted one's life having been a slave. If one is younger, chances are one is the offspring of stupidity and slavery that is directly analogous to that of the offspring's parents. In other words: Like father like son.
On the other hand, cars use gasoline and all the problems associated with their emissions are starting just now to become obvious. The greenhouse effect is slowly progressing and Earth huffs and pants trying to catch up with all the oil related emissions. Various environmental organizations have realized the danger and are just now starting to raise signs of caution. Of course, Oil and Car companies are oblivious to all that.
Every year we get bombarded with new adds about new models and makes, although the technology to produce viable electric cars without harmful emissions has existed since 1950. The Car companies know this, but naturally, they don't care. Who on Earth will want to buy a car running on batteries? Well, I for one, would.
But of course, my opinion doesn't matter much, cause I am not a sheep. And non-sheep
need to be silenced.
Money is simple. Like people have always said:
1) Money is a necessary evil
Money can be either an attractive fixed obsession or a repulsive fixed point, depending
on character and experience. We all need it to function in society, but for some of us
our destiny is to never have lots of it. On the other hand, for some people, fate has
decided that they deserve oodles of it as a birthright.
The precise details as of WHY money becomes an attractive fixed obsession, escape this
author as of this writing. The closest explanation he can come up with, is because it
appears to offer some intangible form of security: People with lots of money, attract
interested parties and perhaps this (concealed) interest gives the rich person a false
sense of security.
The question that rears its head is, is this security REALLY false? It is a given that
the way things have progressed in this planet, nobody cares about anybody. So perhaps,
this sense of security that comes from money gives us some sort of false hope over how
things COULD have been, had they been otherwise. This holds true particularly of old
people, of whom nobody expects anything EXCEPT their money. Usually, when rich old
people are near their death, otherwise uninterested and unknown relatives show up. The
motives of such people are clear: They want to "inherit" the sense of security from the
rich person.
In other words:
2) Money is the closest thing to SECURITY in our society
however one interprets the word "security". One may want to interpret it as "emotional"
security, another as "financial" security, a third as "existential" security. Being the
token than can buy anything, it can also "buy" in a tangential sense things which many
of us lack. For some people it can perhaps buy love, for others it can perhaps buy
company or something to keep them distracted, while their mind forces them to face the
existential void.
The problem with money is that it can also be an "unstable" fixed point. A rich person
can lose all his property in one night of unlucky gambling and a poor person can win
the lotto in one lucky streak. As such, the two camps of rich and poor people,
continuously exchange members, as if trying to share experiences.
This Mind has found the two following premises true:
3) Rich people attract rich people and more money
4) Poor people attract poor people and more misery
It is the author's sincere belief that 3) and 4) are fundamental laws in our society,
in order to force the two factions (of rich and poor) to expose themselves better and
thus become more "visible" to the rest of the players, whose fate applies 3) and
4).
A poor self-conscious scientist, for example, would have zero chances coupling with a
rich woman, simply because they have different agendas in life. The notion of
"entertainment" for both of them, is very different, (being a function of money) as
such their interests will surely collide sooner or later at some point in the
future.
In general, people with lots of money seem to want to lead lives which depend on
spending vast amounts of it for extravagant entertainment, whereas a poor person may
count his daily income in order to secure a roof above one's head. As such, couplings
of people who belong to those two different camps, are bound to fail.
Let us continue with the next important premise:
5) Money is power.
Ever since money's inception, society has been divided into the camps of the poor and
the rich. The game of money acquisition, has become a key element in evolution. Whereas
in the animal kingdom "power" is defined solely on "good genes", in human societies
there has been a second factor: Money. A person with bad genes may PAY now to have his
genes propagated, so the game has been effectively shifted from a paradigm of "good
genes" to a paradigm of those with money and those without it. As such, "goodness" or
"suitability" of genes, however one has defined them, have lost their importance.
The key issue today, is WHO HAS THE MONEY. He who does, wins. At least insofar as the
new game rules are concerned. People with noble ideas about anything else, including
science, philosophy or whatever else, will eventually learn that all is subservient to
money sooner or later. If science itself is, which is the most powerful creation of
ours as a species, it follows that everything else WILL be, eventually. So, it follows
therefore, that:
6) Money is freedom
It is freedom for one to do as one pleases, to not work as a slave in various jobs and
to acquire anything one needs. It is freedom to engage in anything one wants without
being sidetracked by the artificial "needs" of society. These needs, which have been
outlined elsewhere, have been created BY those with money FOR those without money, so
that the former can become richer.
Our entire history has been a war between those with money (and thus power) and those
without it. As a result, please don't hold any absurd hopes that one day Earth will be
a paradise-like camp where all will live in harmony. This is by definition impossible.
Actually it will be MADE impossible by those with money. Otherwise, they have gained
nothing through their painful toil of acquisition of large sums of it.
When one is free, one needs to invent a purpose. What better purpose therefore than to
create a battlefield of two factions, those who make it well versus those who starve to
death? Doesn't that give life some tangible meaning? Granted, one may find meaning in
engaging in sofa making for a living, but unless this endeavor brings in some good
money and the laborer starves in the process, any sensible person would "discard" this
endeavor as "meaningful". We arrive therefore at another crucial premise:
7) For most people, money gives their lives, meaning.
The more money, the better. When one has money, one can invent all sorts of new games
for the poor, like keep them busy with all sorts of nonsense and mundane tasks. It
takes a big man to have money. It takes a big man to keep the sheep busy and "involved"
all the time, and imply that life is serious. It takes a big man to be the rich head of
a company. He/She must really be a professional CON MAN/WOMAN and professional
LIAR.
That's the way things are. If, dear reader you find yourself being poor, don't worry.
You and the rich man will still be buried 4 feet under the very same ground one day. Of
course, the difference is that you earn your bread with the sweat of your head, whereas
the rich man has gone through his life not caring about anything. One of my older
landlords, a Greek-American with extensive experience in life, summed it all up into a
nice motto:
Life is like a cucumber:
Some who eat it, get refreshed,
others "eat" it, and get "stretched".
Life isn't always fair, is it, now? Whoever said that it would be? That's why it's
important to always be grateful for what you've got. Others
don't have even that.
Survival in the animal kingdom is defined in terms of an animal's ability to
procreate and replicate its genes. While this works well for animals, for humans the
situation is much too complex to warrant success with the application of just this
rule. Examples abound: The ignorant, uneducated and the poor, all apply this
methodology in order to "show" perhaps nature perhaps fellow humans, that their genes
are worth remembering. As a result, overpopulation in poor countries occurs easily.
One can see why this definition of "survival" is plain wrong, when applied to humans:
The introduction of "intelligence" (however one wants to define it), imposes additional
restrictions on who's a survivor and who's not. For example, who is a "better"
survivor? A poor Indonesian native who has 10 kids or a L.V.Beethoven who left a
tremendous artistic inheritance to humanity and had no kids?
After a couple of generations nobody will remember the Indonesian peasant, while
Beethoven may still be remembered after 100 generations or even for as long as humanity
exists.
The apparent contradiction stems from the misapplication of the previous definition of
"survival" to human beings. The difference between humans and animals is that for human
beings a new consensus exists, called "collective human consciousness", which somehow
acts as a filtering valve, deciding who "survives" in a totally "new" niche, which
isn't necessarily carnal, rather mental.
This new niche, picks up a great artist's/scientist's works and although the
artist/scientist may have had no kids, feeds them to new generations via schooling or
education. As a result, the person's works (and thus part of his/her mindset) survive
THROUGH the minds of his/her artistic/intellectual disciples.
The above is a new survival mechanism, which isn't found in animals. Religions for
example, often commemorate "great" men/women, in an effort to "sustain" their authority
in our mental space as long as possible. Efforts to this extent can be found even in
simple memorials of people who have died. ("May his/her memory last FOREVER", etc).
The imposition of a dead person's (famous or not) memory into our mental space is
simple and direct proof that this kind of procedure is more efficient as a "survival
mechanism" than the simple gene propagation scenario. Johann Sebastian Bach for
example, had 21 kids total, of which 6 or 7 survived and left descendants. There are
even some of his descendants in existence today, but who is it we remember Bach THROUGH
today, as a "collective consciousness"? Through his real descendants or through his
works? Through his works of course. His actual descendants, whoever they are, bare
little or no relevance to his works. In a sense, Bach or Beethoven, have achieved
"immortality". Therefore, although dead, they have tangentially "won" in the game of
"survival", at least in the Earth plateau.
The above is simple and direct "proof" that "surviving means having kids" is as absurd
as it can get. A further reason why this (default) strategy is almost completely
useless, is because although when one has descendants half of his genes "survive"
through the offspring in one generation, the survival of the genes, does not guarantee
the "survival" of the original "consciousness". You can try the following little
gedanken experiment: For example, my father is dead and he was a great man, so what is
it that has "survived" in me BY my father? The first thing I am certain about, is that
I am NOT my father. The way I remember him, we had different likes/dislikes, we liked
different foods, we involved ourselves in different activities and although we are
biologically similar, we are not identical. There are certain interests which we shared
(he liked Mathematics and the music of Bach for example), but otherwise I have no
recollection of BEING my father.
Although we are very similar genewise, we have been two DISTINCT
consciousnesses/entities. So, what, (if anything) has "survived" in me, through my
father's genes? I'd say with certainty that the only thing that I can safely identify
as BEING my father IN me, is part of his likes/dislikes. In other words, some of the
things that I do, are the only things that have continued in me, past my father's death
bed. So, in a sense, although part of the genotype seems to have passed along, I
PERCEIVE only of part of the phenotype as being the real survivor. Not even the entire
phenotype.
This is ok. In a sense, part of what was my dad, is now me, but in a totally
"external"/"tangential" sense. Part of the phenotype survived, but not the IDENTITY,
which is is what I consider the most important trait that deserves to survive. Who
cares if I like to listen to Bach's music? Nobody. What would people care about would
be having the great man that my father was, PRESENT in a new incarnation, extending his
life a few years.
Let us summarize:
1) The IDENTITY of a person doesn't survive the person's death (in this realm) through
procreation.
Necessarily then, the act of "having kids" must serve some purpose other than just the
"survival" of the originator's genes, for we saw that even in the best cases, the
identity is not preserved. The only logical conclusion that comes to mind is the
simplest one:
2) Humans "must" have kids so that life (as a collective consciousness) can
continue.
Anything other than that, leads to various absurdities. It seems that "having kids"
serves a higher directive of life itself as a process, and is not a tool to "preserve"
individual consciousnesses. But if 1) and 2) hold, what then is the difference between
having/not having kids on the level of individual choice? None. There is no difference
whatsoever. If the lame, the diseased, the weak, the impoverished, the poor, and the
stupid manage to have kids on one hand, and the intelligent, the bright, the worthy,
the great and the significant fail to have kids at the same time on the other hand, the
entire scheme is a travesty.
It would be something if every individual's efforts were focused to this extent, with
having kids being the culmination of one's efforts in great works, the arts, science
and philosophy. In other words, it would be indeed good if only the "worthy" were
allowed to have kids on this planet, however one chooses to define "worthy". In the
absence of any such definition or application thereof, and in the presence of all sorts
of extreme examples, such as murderers for example, being able to procreate, the entire
scheme is as ridiculous as anything can be. In vew of the last paragraph, an old
aphorism comes to mind:
3) (Human) Nature is a whore. And then you marry one.
On Compassion, Kindness and Traitors
The animal kingdom, although perfectly in balance with its environment, is dictated by brute force. Survival depends on the strength of the fittest and the entire process of all animal interacting life, is inexorable and relentless. The weak and the unable, very rarely survive and even more rarely propagate their genes.
Strangely, human beings, as much as they are capable of extreme evil, they do possess certain traits which tend to differentiate them from animals. At least the nobler ones. I really cannot stand to see any life form suffering. This trait of mine includes both animals and human beings. I would say that it probably applies more to animals than human beings, too.
It is one thing to kill a life form, forcing it to go through a brief moment of pain and permanently removing it from existence and another to partially maim one, leaving it alive, yet unable to function effectively. For better or for worse, killing a life form may be partly justified if the human's need to be satisfied is one of a fundamental survival kind, such as hunger and/or clothing.
Such cases, although justified, have eluded the ethics of society till today, to the point of many becoming, for example, vegetarians. Of course, being a vegetarian causes equal damage in the noble mind, simply because the sanctity of life knows no artificial boundaries, such as those between animal and plant. The noble mind considers all life equally valuable, sanctified and sacred, so to the rational mind there is no guarantee that killing a plant causes less pain than killing a farm animal.
As all life is sacred by definition, torturing a life form, whether human or animal is ethically unacceptable. There is no real justification behind this, apart from some sort of basic instinct that the noble mind experiences. This mind, feels a need to protect and nurture a wounded life form, even resurrect it (if one could).
Eventually the noble mind "learns" to feel pain and compassion, upon seeing a wounded life form. The pain is identical for an ant, a ladybug, a cockroach, an elephant or a human being. I am not really sure why this happens, but perhaps it is the result of the noble mind having suffered itself to some extent.
If this is the case, then it follows that:
1) If one has suffered, then one can feel compassion.
It appears as though the more one has suffered, the more compassion one can feel, although I am not sure the opposite holds. That is:
2) If one hasn't suffered at all, then one cannot feel any compassion.
In fact, 2) may be false, although as I have indicated elsewhere, only personal experience counts in this case, since one cannot really be sure of how much suffering someone else has gone through.
Is 1) valid for animals? I don't know, but it would appear as though compassion doesn't play a major role in the animal kingdom. Perhaps for a reason. Perhaps compassion is a trait that presupposes the existence of consciousness. On the other hand, "consciousness" here, needs to be defined better. How does one know that animal and plant life forms don't have some sort of elementary "consciousness"? Well, whatever they possess, they seem to be unaware of death, so perhaps their general lack of compassion stems from this very fact. So perhaps:
3) Compassion presupposes understanding of the notion of death
In other words:
3) I UNDERSTAND what it means to die, THEREFORE I am compassionate
It follows immediately then, that:
4) People with no compassion for life forms, have no clear understanding of what it means to die
Therefore, it appears as though the following is true:
5) I have suffered and I have a pretty good understanding of what it means to die, that's why I am compassionate
It would appear as if 5) is an attempt by the noble mind to minimize suffering. Yet if suffering is minimized, much less if it's eliminated we get 2), which implies 4), so we again have a vicious circle of sorts.
If one manages to eliminate all suffering from someone else then, does one help that someone to become insensitive? If that's the case, it really makes no sense to be compassionate. If everyone was compassionate, all suffering would be eliminated, which would imply a virtual transformation of all new generations into insensitive brutes. The old generations (the compassionate ones) would still be in existence for a while, but they would eventually die off, leaving society in a state of insensitivity. So what's really going on?
5) appears to work because it also makes the ego feel good and that's probably the true reason, as it is the true reason behind good behavior, in general. In other words, the noble mind develops a feedback reward mechanism using compassion and kindness. Being kind and compassionate makes the ego "feel good", so in a sense, compassion and kindness are probably related to some sort of conditioned stimulus-response mechanism. To the noble mind, it appears as though the following is true:
6) The resultant feelings from being kind and compassionate are "better" than the resultant feelings from being insensitive and noncaring
It is strange that although 6) appears to have some good validity, society pushes us towards the opposite direction with a fervor. The very process of trying to survive under today's adverse circumstances, presupposes one's conditioning to good doses of insensitivity. Particularly sensitive human beings are often labelled "problematic" and often are attached a plethora of characterizations which psychological nomenclature often labels as "psychoses".
Such humans, often are dysfunctional and are ostracized from normal society, either directly or indirectly. Very sensitive people who have been through very intense emotional cycles and times, recognizing the stupidity and silliness of the entire game, often have severe problems "adjusting" to what the brute considers a "normal" job. Extreme sensitivity usually implies mental breakdowns and side or occasional hospitalization. Such people, naturally, can have no decent chance to advance through a "career", because of obvious reasons.
The following dilemma rears its ugly head: Either learn to be an insensitive brute and survive or stay sensitive and become maladjusted to the whole thing.
Nature and society push towards brutality and insensitivity. The noble mind feels overwhelmed by feelings of kindness and sensitivity. Therefore:
7) The noble mind is, usually, maladjusted and often "dysfunctional"
What's also quite paradoxical, is that education, in some of its "ideal" forms at least (however many of these have survived anyway, like religion, philosophy, arts and sciences), makes an honest attempt to teach new generations the fruits of nobility. In most cases where and when this is achieved, the mind (which is ready to transform into a noble one) faces a grand contradiction: To be sensitive and kind and be publicly ousted or to be insensitive, a brute and survive. The later leads to a grand dichotomy, which results in what I call "the traitors" (the brutes) and the noble ones.
The traitors, who are those that have seen the fruit of nobility but have reconditioned themselves to become brutes in order to survive, are the worst kind.
These are the presidents, the CEO's, the religious leaders, the country leaders and the ministers of society's public affairs. They are "the filth" I spoke of, elsewhere.
The noble ones, who are those that have seen the fruit of nobility and have fallen in love with its higher ideals, ignoring the viciousness of society and the relentlessness of the system (as a result of which they usually have been directly or indirectly ousted from it), are the ones that are responsible for all the real "progress" of human beings as a species.
Usually the latter avoid public positions like the plague. Simply because occupying such positions is highly contradictory to their ideas and ideals, given that those very positions presuppose a high dose of corruption and irresponsible behavior. Therefore:
8) The nobler minds NEVER occupy higher public positions
Slightly differently put:
8) The chances of finding a nobler mind occupying a higher public position, are virtually nil
The noble mind will retract itself from the system and work on its own agendas. Usually quietly and continuously, but not always effectively. Progress is slow and painful. The system has almost infinite inertia, which unless directly opposed by the noble mind, (consciously every single day) will trample the noble mind in a moment's notice.
This very inertia is often responsible for bouts of discouragement and depression. Although depression in official psychological nomenclature results from a chemical imbalance, many forms of it are triggered from this very contradiction that the noble mind faces. Namely: How LONG should one continue to fight the system in order to achieve minimal progress? The last question can very easily transform the noble mind into a raging psychotic. Oftentimes the result is a sensitive dysfunctional schizophrenic.
In order to avoid becoming a schizophrenic, the nobler mind has to have tremendous reserves of love for what it does, for all life, for the very progress of society, in general. It is expected therefore that such minds should rely on some sort of higher force to sustain their efforts for betterment, because relying on human help and kindness is futile and useless.
No wonder then some of the nobler minds are obsessed with religion and philosophy. It would be nice to have some serious external help in our efforts, unfortunately such help is not always available. Whenever this kind of help was available (usually through higher faith), the results were miraculous.
Without such help, the results are usually disastrous:
9) The nobler mind is usually psychotic, often depressed and schizoid
On Religion, Death and the Afterlife
The following premise appears to be true:
1) Man is the only animal that has an understanding of its own eventual termination
1) has caused an avalanche of religious leaders and doctrines throughout history trying to remedy the problem. The most common premise which (at least the major 5) religions claim to be true, is:
2) Life continues after death
For the noble mind there exists a dichotomy which continuously pulls one in two opposite directions: The nobility of some of the religious creators, which implies that their doctrines (and particular 2) may be true, and rationalistic thought which testifies that 2) is false.
Reason points towards termination, i.e. non-existence. Love for all things and life in general, points towards the infinitely good, which perhaps can entertain some hope of eternal sustenance. As such, the noble mind continuously alternates between "spiritual death" and "spiritual life".
There is evidence for both sides: The amount of people who are religious exceed by far the number of people who are atheists, yet the former seem to be characterized either as "uneducated" or as "primitive". On the other hand, reason offers no evidence for the existence of an afterlife. There appears to be a contradiction here and reason cannot easily resolve it, simply because the number of theists is overwhelming.
The natural tendency of life is to want to preserve itself, indefinitely. Perhaps the former is the cause of some sort of mass delusion, which can spread from mind to mind and which starts out from one particular person, who, from all appearances, seems to have good intentions in general. However, good intentions are not enough. Reason demands proof and proof does not exist. Those who have been convinced of the existence of an afterlife, call this evidence, "faith".
Faith, however, goes contrary to reason, so the noble mind must choose either one:
3) Believe in an afterlife through "faith", or
4) Trust reason and believe in permanent and irreversible termination
Faith and reason are incompatible, so the choice between 3) and 4) is exclusive for the noble mind. In general the noble mind has enough knowledge to trust reason, yet this very reason points towards the infinite and the divine, and the infinite can accommodate eternity (if it wants).
The noble mind is usually humble. Humility can easily reveal the infinite beauty of creation, as a result of which the infinite beauty of the particular can be easily recognized. It is quite difficult to put this into words: The noble mind recognizes something like a "potentiality" for infinite sustenance, yet one's own reason denies one the privilege of exploring this potentiality, i.e. offers one no tangible evidence. As a result, the noble mind can never be sure of which one (3) or 4)) is true.
Most times things are left at that and the noble mind becomes an agnostic, since an impasse is reached. This, oftentimes, is quite sufficient. Other times it's not and the noble mind continues to be overwhelmed by the question to the point of actual mental exhaustion.
In order to decide, the noble mind must first resolve WHAT is the need for it so that it can believe in an afterlife. Before this is cleared once and for all, the actual resolution to the question cannot be reached. Let's see, therefore, if we can proceed in this direction. The following premises are true:
5) Life has a desire to continue indefinitely
6) reason dictates (with evidence) that life terminates at some point
5) and 6) are again incompatible. Not only they are incompatible, but MUCH worse: A perfect understanding of both, implies a detrimental conclusion: EVERYTHING in one's life is futile. In other words, 5) and 6) imply:
7) Life is (eventually) futile for one
Conclusion 7) can be detrimental to the point of oblivion, if (and when) the mind is not prepared for it. If "the system" (the current consensus of knowledge) manages to convince the majority of human beings that 7) is true, the results in society will surely be detrimental. (If not oblivious). Human beings who have been (or are) suppressed and oppressed, will naturally demand a reasonable explanation for this behavior by their fellow humans. (In particular, by the "filth", spoken of, elsewhere). Such an explanation is possible, but not a very pleasant one. The true reason why such oppression has existed (or exists) has to do with personal motives, such as (usually) money gain and exploitation.
To summarize:
8) If 7) is revealed to the oppressed, the oppressed will demand an explanation
9) Since an explanation involves (almost always) some sort of exploitation, the
oppressed will demand retribution
10) If the oppressed demand retribution, they will question authority in the process of
doing so
11) If they question authority, in the long run, the "filth" will lose their advantage
over them (and more importantly, their public positions)
12) If the "filth" lose their public positions, one gets anarchy
But anarchy is not desirable, therefore:
7) must never be shown to be true to The People.
There are many ways to "protect" the naive mind from understanding 7). For example:
13) Propagate (silently or invisibly) religious doctrines which contradict 7)
14) Keep the naive mind busy with worrying about inane details
15) Imply that life is serious (in whatever sense), etc.
There is a possibility that history itself shields the naive minds from 7), using occasional mind viruses, which continuously fight 7) in one's mind. It may be difficult to ascertain wherefrom such memes originate or have originated, but all evidence points towards the founders of the various religions. (It is clear for example, that Saul of Tarsus is responsible for the meme of Christianity. The Jesus Christ Christianity speaks of, can be seen to have had little or nothing to do with the actual spreading of the actual religion).
The interesting question now is: What was it that these religious founders had in mind? (Metaphorically AND literally)
What happened to Saul, for example, on his way to Damascus? What happened to Mohammed as a result of which he started preaching the Koran? Why were human beings prone to such mind memes? Note that such memes are not exclusive to any particular peoples. Ancient Hebrews, Greeks, Egyptians, Summerians, the Chinese, Indians, etc., all have had some strange and ancient tradition to propagate. The phenomenon is universal.
There is a distinct possibility that "primitive" people, deified things they did not understand and some anthropologists are certain that their religions are the result of such mental associations, aiming in protecting the naive mind from fear. The latter does not explain however WHY history keeps bringing up new religious memes. One would think, for example, that as human beings become more reasonable and logical, the larger percentages of such infections would have been eliminated by now. Instead, there are billions of religious people. WHY?
Another interesting fact is that such beliefs are infectious in the more general sense, so they are indeed propagating memes of some sort, by using the human brain as a host. The logical mind therefore must conclude, that SOMETHING has been surviving in our minds for thousands of years, whose traces can be found today inside any religious person's mind. WHAT is this "thing"?
Let us label it "thing", because we can have no better handle to describe it. If the corresponding meme of faith has been so strong throughout history, surely, it must have originated from somewhere.
The safest position for the Noble Mind is the agnostic position, with an alternating
tendency for that incomprehensible, noble, infinite and supreme "essence", which
internally directs all life, (including humans), towards the unknown future, where
nobody knows what awaits for us.
The Ancients had several words for love: Agape, Eros, Storge, Latreia, Pothos and Pathos. Agape is pure love, not necessarily sexually related. Eros is sexual love. Storge is what you feel for your mother or grandmother. Latreia is adoration for humans and possibly non-human subjects. Pothos is desire. Pathos is passion.
Modern man focuses on Eros and Pothos mostly. As such, there is a certain misunderstanding concerning these two: Most people consider victims of these two kinds, as being noble, whereas in all reality experiencing these is akin to being diseased.
Several modern stories have popularized and exalted Eros, the most notable being Romeo and Juliet. Truth is, unless this kind of love is reciprocated, it resembles the worst kind of torturous disease there is.
By definition, when one feels erotic love, one expects. What one expects depends on the person being loved and on what the one who loves has to offer in exchange for reciprocation. Expectation causes imbalance. A strong gradient gets created: A gradient of desire for acquisition and possession. A gradient of sexual pathos. The one who loves, desires to possess the subject of one's desire, so one can reap fruits (sexual or otherwise) that relate mostly to self-fulfillment.
If the person being loved responds and reciprocates, the gradient of desire that gets created from that person, naturally cancels the desire of the person who loves and thus, balance and equilibrium get restored. Then, both people usually delve into the realms of cupid and enjoy each other. This kind of situation usually excites both participants so much, that occasionally, both feel like their life has acquired some new, hidden meaning. The experience itself resembles being under the influence of a strong hallucinogenic drug, where everything is seen under a different perspective.
In all reality, this is actually a travesty. Where there exists no meaning in life, no meaning can exist while feeling euphoric, no matter what the source of euphoria is. Lazy, uneducated and hopeless brutes will only find that this feeling is transient. The existential voids that have been created by today's society cannot be cured this easily.
The difference here between the Noble mind and the brute, is that the brute considers erotic love to be a panacea, whereas for the Noble mind, erotic love (if and when it happens) complements one's appreciation for life, which preexists, prior to the emergence of this sort of thing.
As a result, whenever Cupid strikes the brute, even when it is reciprocated, it usually results in complete disaster after the good feelings eventually wither away.
All the above, when erotic love is reciprocated. When it's not, the progression of erotic love resembles the progression of a cancerous disease. The gradient that gets created (and is pointed towards the person who's being loved) eventually causes tremendous amounts of energy to be drawn away and expended from the poor subject who feels in love.
It is unfortunate that Nature has arranged for the greater percentage of us to experience this kind of unreciprocated erotic love. Perhaps there is a reason for this experience. In any case, the Noble mind considers this experience an anomaly. Once one has a stable, non self-centered psychology, the chances of experiencing this sort of nightmare diminish greatly.
For the Noble mind, the only kind of love that makes sense (if there is to be any), is pure Agape. Selfless pure feeling, without expectations. Once this kind of love settles in and gives the Noble mind a chance to express oneself similarly, sexual feelings can follow voluntarilly, wherever and whenever the situation calls for them.
Having someone to share life with is a wonderful thing, but it ain't worth it, if what the respective members feel lingers on the verge of insanity. And it will be so, if it's all based on sexual love or Eros.
On the contrary, building a relationship based on true love and respect, first, almost guarantees that the participants will be together for a long time.
As such, erotic love has no place with the Noble mind. The Noble ones may need to experience it in order to know what it is like, but once the effects of this disease are over, it has to be ousted completely out of their system and substituted with Agape.
The Noble mind likes to love and to be loved, but also likes to be sane. And judging
from their effects so far, all other kinds of love (including sexual love) except
Agape, eventually bring about some sort of dementia.
Children are always unpretentious and always approach other children with a straight face and without any predispositions or assumptions. When a child wants to play with another child, the first child will approach the other child as a potential player without assuming in advance any positional advantages, seeing the other child only as a companion in playing. Then both players may agree on assuming appropriate game roles, but only after the game starts. The first child for example, may impersonate a military General and the second an Admiral so the game may take place.
Adults assume all kinds of things in advance. When an adult approaches another adult in order to interact with one in some meaningful way, the "lower ranking" adult, must always take several bows in front of the "higher ranking" adult, consciously or subconsciously. A soldier will salute vigorously a General for example, even though the deeper interaction between the two adults is not very different essentially from the interaction between the two children playing a game, as the two adults as people are equal.
There is a reason for the antithesis, above: The culprit is that the roles that we have been assigned by life, IN The Great Game Of Life, have been engraved so hard in our brains, that we have lost the true meaning of what it means "to play", even though everything in Life is but a game.
Some games are more brutal than others, some are more pleasant, some more satisfying and so on and so forth. Difficulties are part of The Game Of Life. So are good times and moments. Not coming to terms with the fact that Life is a wonderful, (albeit sometimes tragic and brutal) game, can easily result in losing the sense of what it means to participate in this game.
Once the sense of gaming is lost, roles and practices are taken for granted and various assumptions are made: An adult General of the army for example, expects inferiors (as well as lay people) to respect him and salute him, although his role is in essence a very specific gaming assumption. Expecting to be saluted and respected outside the particular environment this adult operates in (in this case: The Army), is highly ridiculous and lingers on the verge of being hilarious.
Similar things happen when other roles are exaggerated outside the environmental constraints inside which those roles have meaning. It is expected for example of lay people to show respect and "admiration" for the President of a certain country even outside the political confines of the President's job. So when the President walks on the street, the lay people usually cheer in excitement showing their respect. This is similar to an adult showing respect to another adult, just because the second adult wears a big and fancy hat.
In fact, the very frivolity of the situation is reflected perfectly with religious and military officials: They will, almost always wear some sort of fancy costume and hat, to "remind" the lay person (you and me) that their roles demand respect, even outside the gaming constraints. The higher the corresponding position, the more numerous the related decorations on their costumes and often the bigger the dimensions of the hat. (So if God for example followed this tactic, he'd have to wear a tiara as big as the universe. He'd just be one giant hat, where everyone in the universe would be supposed to continuously salute it).
Similar assumptions are implied even when lay people wear exorbitant decorations and ornaments, such as fancy rings and necklaces. The wearing of such items clearly implies an underlying role playing assumption which is indicated by the person's need and desire to "broadcast" this very role into society, via those items.
But I digressed. Children know instinctively when and where a game ends. Adult brutes will gradually transform from a child good-intentioned player to an actor impersonating a desired role continuously. This creates confusion not only in other players, whether good-intentioned or not, but in The Game Of Life, generally. Responsibilities get mixed up, roles get mixed up and abuse follows easily, particularly from those adults that are convinced somehow that their role is fixed and non-changing. The mess we are in, then, follows easily.
Children (and intelligent creatures in general) have a fundamental need for game play. It can happen that they themselves, are oftentimes bad players within specific gaming constraints, wanting to cheat for example or otherwise bend the rules, but you won't find a child that wants to impersonate a military General throughout a continuous period of 10 years. Children appear to have a fundamental need for variation in gaming and this variation is very healthy.
The Noble Mind finds that everything is a game, including the very process of Life. As such, it doesn't make sense for The Noble Mind to take anything more seriously than a child's game. Better put: The Noble Mind IS an eternal game playing child, with good intentions and good heart, but without wild tantrums. Should The Noble Mind decide to cheat or bend the rules, one knows that one will pay the whatever consequences, repercussions or appropriate game fines. The Game Of Life doesn't like cheaters and everyone gets rewarded according to the quality of their game play, whether legal or illegal.
In order to teach a child to become an eternal and perpetual good player when it turns into an adult in The Game Of Life, the parent has to first know what it means to play, by being a good game player him/herself. The child is taught by example, by seeing the parent play.
The reason why this society has so many bad players and brutes, is because it consists of grownup children who were never shown the true meaning of what it means to be a good player and/or were denied the privilege to know that everything is a game, with their parents implying directly or indirectly at one time or another that "Life is serious".
The resulting "seriousness" has spread like a cancer in our society, messing up not only the rules of The Game of Life, but other good players. The Noble Mind now faces an additional responsibility, and that's to not only play by the rules, but try to chase other players' cheats and illegal moves and if possible correct them.
This is too much of a distraction for the Noble Mind which often has lots of creative work to do. Particularly when one takes into account the seriousness with which "the filth" spoken of elsewhere present themselves in public.
Children reveal to the Noble Mind all the subtle nuances of human personality. They can be inspiring, revealing, annoying, crazy, wise, evil (within their own domain sometimes MUCH more evil than adults), friendly, comforting, loving, hating and many other things, which taken as a sum total, give a very clear picture of the (contradictory and unknown) face of God.
In a sense, raising and educating a child is akin to raising and educating a (potential) God. The process of having a child to begin with, is also a game with its own rules and often a very difficult one. Do yourself a favor and spare all of us from the terror of having to face one more failure: Don't do it, unless you completely understand what's involved.
The State, any State, is man's worse oppressor and enemy. Many famous philosophers have gone so far as to label it: The Beast.
We are born in The State by force and are asked to contribute to its growth (whether financial or territorial), although it, looks more like a cancerous growth than a benign and friendly protector of its inhabitants.
States must ideally grow. Never shrink. When a State shrinks, it is considered a "defeat" and the State's inhabitants feel very bad about such an event. They feel so bad, in fact, that it is not unusual for The People to overthrow their State's government when such an event occurs.
Therefore:
1) In the best possible case (i.e. non-war situation), a State keeps a constant size
Also:
2) A State which prospers economically, attracts more inhabitants
An immediate consequence of 1) and 2), is:
3) The population density of a State which prospers economically, at peace time, always increases
From 3) we see that all prosperous States are essentially organisms with a tendency to become carcinogenic.
The State has other interesting properties as well: It ideally claims that it can protect one of its individual inhabitants, when an unfortunate event occurs, however it will always put first the ruling party's interests, therefore the individual inhabitant is essentially unprotected. (Locally and globally).
A State will tax individuals to support its existence, although the ones who configure taxing laws are usually the governing elite's members, who will first look after their own interests, occasionally overtaxing middle to low class inhabitants. Such inhabitants never have a second option as to how to control their tax paying.
The State always proclaims that it is the voice of The People, no matter who's in charge, whereas in all reality any State is just the voice of the ruling party and its cohorts. Of course, the ruling party, HAS been elected by The People. But the entire electoral process is a nicely labelled fraud, that usually goes by the name of "Democratic Elections". Besides, today's "Democracy" has little (if anything) to do with some of the earlier kinds, including those of the Ancient Greeks.
A State is defined using territorial boundaries. Therefore it is defined using an intangible means, as land continuously changes hands from those who currently own it to those who will own it in the future. As such, the entire existence of a State is similar to the existence of money. You can see both of them manifest in cases of emergency, but in all reality neither one exists.
A State can force its inhabitants to perform other intriguing acts, as well. It can force me (or you) to go to war, if it determines that its interests are at stake.
It can force you to work as a slave, particularly if you are a foreigner, so it can boost its economy. You won't be very lucky, for example, if you are a Mexican working in the United States or an Albanian working in Greece.
It can almost guarantee you a basic salary of 500 Euros/month (even this is not sure
anymore), but in order to get anything more, you'd have to install a red light outside
your house and do the obvious.
Problems between people are almost always the result of problems between States. In
the name of the State's best interest, a State will cheerfully consider attacking
another State. This forces the inhabitants of both States to
start seeing each other as enemies. Prior to the attack chances were the respective
inhabitants of the two States hardly knew or cared about each other. The very existence
of the State, implies a strong potential for creation of enemies.
You can never "escape" the influence of the State. Wherever you go, the State will
always discover you and will come and start milking you dry of your resources. The only
way to escape the State, is to go to completely uninhabited land or on primitive land
where people have not yet adapted to our so called "Western Standards". Such places do
still exist, but are disappearing fast. On the other hand if you go to uninhabited
land, you will have to face the trial of not having the usual comforts you were used to
while in the State and the State has made sure you became addicted to at least one such
thing, be it your computer or your tv.
There are two kinds of people: Creators and bored ones. Sheep are usually of the bored kind, as everyday triviality has stripped their minds of any trace of creativity. The Noble Mind HAS to be a Creator, simply because anything else brings to one severe depression and anxiety.
A Creator is not someone who always creates something wonderful. It is someone who in order to cure the severe existential void that has plagued one or in order to give some meaning to one's life, delves deeply in one or more subjects, investigates them and hopes to (perhaps) extend them. The particular subject may be quite obtuse, unpleasant, dark or even unconventional, although none of these is of course necessary.
Creators crave THE ACT of creation, as a means to cure their existential void. The end means, although important, is not as important as the act itself.
In a sense, a Creator and his/her creation are tied together with a bond that oftentimes supersedes in strength and power even parental bonds.
Usually the very process of Creation demands the Creator's exclusive attention and we all know what happens in today's world if this attention is not followed by some monetary justification: The Creator will starve. However, even though most Creators are penniless, they continue to involve themselves with the object of their creation.
For the Creator, the act of creation, is akin to a mental food of sorts and such food is superior to any real food. Of course the Creator will have to eventually eat, so one must often engage in a side job which usually distracts the Creator long enough so as to sometimes cause one's eventual detachment from one's creation. Therefore:
1) Today's world has a tendency to destroy Creators.
1) is to be expected, especially since we have managed to be unaware of THE Creator (of all this) one way or another. One would think that if we managed to destroy (metaphorically) The Creator, we will surely manage to destroy any lesser ones.
What follows immediately from 1) is, therefore:
2) In today's world, artists, musicians, poets and any fine art person will probably starve to death unless they engage in some sort of side job
Of course, we all know that, don't we?
Let's go over now to the WHY the Creator loves to create:
3) A Creator's creation, gives partial meaning to the Creator's Life
We see thus, that for the Noble Creator, it is of the utmost importance to be able to create. Not only that, but the creation should ideally keep the Creator busy throughout one's lifetime. We conclude therefore that:
4) A True Creator must never cease creating
Doing so, will cause the Creator's mental starvation and stagnation. Such an event, will eventually and undoubtedly cause the Creator's death.
Perhaps, therefore, this is the true reason behind all this:
5) The entire Universe may be the result of someone's extreme love for Creation (literally speaking: "Creation" the act, not "Creation" the Universe)
IF 5) is true, this would explain various other sections as well, analyzed elsewhere.
The following is true:
6) The act of creation, for all Creators, is mainly fuelled by love for one's creation
The importance of 6) cannot be stressed enough. Note also that it is unimportant
what kind of creation the Creator loves and wants to create. It can be a programming
project, a musical composition, a painting or a child.
The above however, is not an excuse for creating junk, alive or not. It is assumed
that the Noble mind has some sense of what is beautiful and what is ugly, what is
proper and improper and what kind of talents one has. I may desire to be an Olympic
weightlifter, but if my body type is not appropriate, it would be a futile
endeavor.
The act of beautiful creation, entails a certain amount of maturity and
responsibility towards others. One day the Creator's work will be displayed and judged
by those others and by history. It is often useful to remember that judges are usually
failed Creators themselves who have nothing better to do than bring down others, so
they will be more than happy to trash your average junk creation. Sometimes they will
trash good creations as well, because their creations never got a chance.
It helps here to remember that most serious and beautiful creations throughout
history, have been made in silence, often under severely adverse circumstances and
almost always without any public recognition prior to the Creator's death. Let me put
it this way: If Johann Sebastian Bach went through his entire life, mostly penniless,
without being known as a good composer and in infamy for almost 300 years, you better
think twice about starting this "rock band" of yours.
Insofar as human Creators go, (since we cannot know what a divine Creator might think) they usually do it for one of three additional reasons:
7) Sharing
8) Fame and Recognition
9) Money
I'd say with certainty that among 7)-9), 7) is the most important, because the
desire to share, presupposes love of some sort. 8) and 9) are less important. When 8)
and 9) become predominant over 6) and 7), you can be sure that the end result will
probably be junk, whether animate or inanimate.
From 3) follows:
10) A Creator's worth is directly proportional to the worth of one's creations
Therefore, I am, roughly, what I have created so far. Others are what they have created so far also. It also follows:
11) A non-Creator is worth nil
11) can easily be validated, when one looks at the kind of people that have ruled
this planet for eons. The filth, spoken of, elsewhere, or the kind of junk that
circulates in the media.
Of course, the easiest way out of 11) is for one to have kids. If one's creations
are worth nil, perhaps if one passes the chance to one's offspring, maybe one can
tangentially BE a Creator. The brute (because he/she doesn't know any better) often
applies the strategy: If you cannot create anything, create someone who perhaps can do
it. This is the strategy of the loser: Chances are if the parents are a failure, the
kids will be too. That's how we got to be 6 billion, with 99% being miserable failures
already.
In the author's opinion, the act of creating gets fuelled also mainly by an obscure
desire to understand what/why other, more advanced creators have created, leading to a
noble hierarchy of creators, with The Creator of all this (if there is one) sitting on
top of the chain, as the most masterful and skillful Creator out there. A solid
understanding of why life came about, presupposes mimicking the act of creation to some
extent.
Every single act of creation by a human, seems to expand the known universe some,
since now or at some later date there is always the chance of someone devoting mental
energy to review the creator's work. As such, creating new work provides a very small
insight into what The top Creator thought/loved/considered when he created all this. In
a sense, the act of creation is a mirror of sorts, providing clues about the ultimate
Creation, Universe/Nature.
Engaging in the art of creating something, provides one with the necessary
perspective in that regard. Compared to a possible ultimate Creator, we are of course
much smaller and much less skillful, but nevertheless we engage in a similar act. The
similarity of the act temporarily gives us some clues as to why there is a WILL or
DESIRE to create.
Because the will or desire to create is not always there as a conscious desire, (or
is dormant some times) Nature has provided humans with the sexual desire, which is the
precursor of the highest possible (in terms of complexity) human creation,
offspring.
A complete implementation of this desire leads to a virtually new universe, or
rather, a new super-complex organism which can perceive the universe in new ways, some
times unfathomable to the ways of the parents. This however, includes pain, which is
part of life. In a sense, the parents are never completely off of their responsibility
to their kids. The offspring can always ask the reason WHY he/she was created, but it
will always receive the parental response: Because at some point in time the parents
DESIRED to have a sexual union. If the sexual union/love was not there, the process of
childbearing would not be there either.
As such, creating offspring brings about issues of a tremendous responsibility: The
responsibility of carrying the weight of a new human life forever. No matter how old
one becomes, his/her creators were (and still are) one's parents. That's why
irresponsible parents are the worst trash that exists in our world. On the other hand,
nobody KNOWS how to be a perfect parent, so the possibility of the offspring being a
failure or becoming trash always exists.
There is another way to look at childbearing. When parents create offspring, along with life, they also create death. Or rather, they force someone else to go through birth and death. Knowing this is enough of a reason for this Noble Mind to not want to create offspring. In a way, if there is a sense where parents achieve some sort of temporary immortality through their offspring, this Noble Mind willfully refuses this immortality, instead, at least until an indication shows up that provides for some hope for humankind.
On the other hand, constructive creativity is a very serious barrier to sexual
relationships when one of the members leads an idle life: The amount of time consumed
by creation (by the creative member) is usually disproportionate to the time allotment
required for joint ventures, with one member usually complaining about lack of
attention.
The above cannot be stressed enough: A Creator's life revolves around one's
creation. Therefore such a person usually will devote huge amounts of time to one's
creations, in the process reducing the time the couple spends together, unless the
other member is a Creator as well.
People who lead idle lives, are usually people with severe psychological problems,
most notably insecurities of various sorts, which have to be attended to one way or
another. The victim is of course, the Creator, who usually is being used as a clutch or
substitute for the other person's lack of interest and has to learn to divide his time
between one's creation and attending the other member's desires for amusement.
What these people don't understand, is that for the Creator, "amusement" is
synonymous to one's creation. Such relationships are bound to fail: Unless a person
finds a purpose in life, or, if you will, something to keep them interested for life,
their life is bound to be boring after a while. Their boredom is not the Creator's
fault. As such, if you are a Creator and find a person attractive, make sure that THAT
person is also a Creator or is interested in something for life, otherwise they will
eventually blame you for lack of attention.
Of course, if you are not a Creator, you'll have more chances coupling with someone
who's as bored as you are.
This Noble Mind believes in The Holy Trinity of the Three B's:
The Noble Mind has a fundamental need for good quality music. Fortunately such music is available through the great classical composers. One cannot even begin to start listing most of them, or even in order of preference. This Noble Mind likes anything that's considered "Classical Music", modern music written in this style, as well as people's folk music. He also likes all forms of church music very much.
It is really strange to see people listening to various dissonant noises which they claim is music. If the noise from the speakers resonating is louder than the produced music, chances are that the speaker output is not music at all, rather crashing/banging noises accompanied by a beat.
Usually music is accompanied by an appropriate mentality behind it. One can tell a lot about someone, knowing what kind of music this person listens to. Although there are no clear boundaries and descriptions for this kind of characterization, I wouldn't expect a Noble pacifist, for example, to be listening to Black Sabbath or Kiss, neither a violent/raging psychotic to listen to The Art Of Fugue, unless one was trying to cure one's psychosis.
Good music has specific effects on the Noble mind. First, it is company. Perhaps the ultimate company. Second, it elevates the mind and hints towards even more noble thoughts.
Considering the fact that the Noble Mind is often plagued by extraneous thinking and tends to be distracted by various side thoughts, good music provides for a means to keep one's thoughts under control.
The Noble Mind believes that one's affinity towards good music is highly dependent upon one's desire to assimilate the Creator of the music. As such, it considers this affinity, a "desire" for understanding, as well as a vehicle for pleasure. The two cannot be separated.
In listening to any good composer's music, the Noble Mind is interested in understanding both the composer's specific mind set as well as one's own mind set when listening. There exists an implicit identification when this process takes place, and this identification stems primarily from the Noble Mind's desire to understand what is Noble and external to self, so one can assimilate it. A "communion" or "noble assimilation" of sorts, if you will.
This desire for communion is not limited to music. It assumes existence in everything the Noble Mind is involved with. With good music this communion is very intense. It couldn't have been otherwise, for the Noble Mind knows how hard it is to engage in constructive creativity, so one readily appreciates another mind's efforts to communicate in a similar way.
This kind of communication is two-sided: The Noble Mind understands The Creator of the music FIRST, and then one understands oneself. While this understanding takes place, the mind enjoys the music as a bonus.
It is not uncommon for the Noble Mind to completely immerse oneself and perhaps momentarily completely assimilate the creator's psyche. This is a fundamental need for the Noble Mind, as conventional communication often proves quite limited. The amount of information conveyed by good music is huge compared to other means of communication for example.
Some people are afraid of this kind of assimilation: Besides its obvious "dangers", there are also some unwanted side effects, such as musical memes continuously circulating inside one's mind. The obvious "dangers" are of course cathartic revelations of the self which often get initiated BY good music. It is not a coincidence that the Church, for example, has always used music as a way to "elevate" the psyche of the believer.
For the brute, there is no fundamental need to identify with anybody or anything else, much less a noble composer, as the brute's ego size is often prohibitive. For the noble Mind, one of the fundamental needs in life is to first identify potential sources of interest and identification. As such, such activities are often craved upon, rather than shunned.
The Noble Mind is tempted to make the conjecture:
1) A knower of good music, cannot be a brute.
There are examples in history where the above has been shown false, (during Nazi Germany for example), but one is tempted to conclude that in these cases the listener was either not a good "knower" of what one was listening or that one had limited understanding of the "communication" part, reaping only the fruits of pleasure. As such, it wouldn't be unfair to conjecture with a good certainty:
2) A brute cannot understand/appreciate good music
which is, in all honestly, a very good indicator used by this Noble Mind to judge
the quality of other people's minds.
By language here, I mean language AND speech.
They say that the way you speak shows who you are. Unfortunately language has deteriorated so much in our days that it would appear as though almost everyone is a brute, judging from the way they speak. From the long "Duh"'s, "Uh"'s and "Eh"'s to improper use of words and erroneous syntax.
Language is a hard nut to crack. It is one of those areas (of study) where one has to devote many hours to it to even begin to claim that one understands it, much less to claim that one uses it properly.
To the lay person, language is nothing but a tool. To the Noble mind it is a game (like everything else), with expandable rules. You can extend it, by forming new words and you can change it, by sometimes bypassing the rules.
In general, the level of complexity of one's use of language, matches the corresponding level of complexity of their inner world. As such:
1) One cannot be any better than the way one speaks like
1) is very important, because one can use it to filter out unwanted messages, particularly those we are being bombarded with, from the tv and the media.
On the other hand, it is a joy to listen (or read) well formed sentences. Whether the source is a book or a good movie, the Noble mind delights in picking apart well formed sentences.
The delight does not come only from the nice sequence of sounds which are produced by the well-formed sentences, but also from the realization that whoever it is that speaks (or writes) has delved deep enough into the language to understand even its innermost details. And that is, by itself, immensely satisfying.
A much nicer (and deeper) result comes about, when (and if) those sentences actually convey some meaningful content. As this is quite rare in our days, for the Noble mind it has become almost a challenge to find places where this occurs.
One particularly good solution to the problem of lack of good speaking, is for the Noble mind to start writing. In the beginning the result will not be as good as intended, but as more practice is being applied, the results can be very satisfying.
This article has been written by a non native speaker who simply enjoys good, simple and clear reading and writing.
In its simpler forms, good writing and speaking invoke to the reader and listener a more noble feeling, akin to looking at a beautiful work of art.
Many famous people of the past have used language and speech to trigger emotional responses in the public. Sometimes the response was quite extreme, which proves only how far good use of language can go.
The brutes are afraid of good use of language. When a brute encounters good use of it by a specific person, one of two things can happen:
1) The brute recognizes the other person's superiority in nobility
2) The brute recognizes one's own complexes of inferiority and insufficiency
If 1) happens, although rare, it instills a certain nobility to the brute, but as higher positions in any hierarchy are usually occupied by brutes with less than good intentions and rarely noble, 2) happens more often. As a result good speakers are usually marked for expenditure as soon as they are discovered in the private sector.
It is not a coincidence that the "filth", spoken of elsewhere, rarely command speech and writing well enough to be noble.
Good use of language and writing are intricately tied with the property of BEING a Noble mind, as such keep 1) in mind when you are reading material written by anyone.
Anyway you look at it, whether as God's gift to man or as man's best achievement, language (in Greek: Logos) has been (and is) THE most precious gift to human society.
As such, anyone who does not appreciate its use, cannot be but a brute or a
savage.
There is a strong desire in the Noble mind to understand the way things work, particularly with regard to the Universe itself, but not excluding other areas.
Engaging in the endeavor of understanding most serious things, however, takes an infinite effort and time. Therefore:
1) The Noble mind considers oneself an Eternal Student
1) is crucial, because it puts a very clear bound that separates the Noble mind from the brute. Oftentimes, people will proclaim that they really understand something, whereas in all reality what they understand is a very small percentage of the entire issue, similar to the tip of an iceberg.
Here's then another characteristic of the brute:
2) A brute will often claim one understands something perfectly well
When applied consistently, 2) yields arrogance. Therefore:
3) A brute is usually arrogant
3) is particularly silly, in view of:
4) For any human endeavor and area of knowledge, the chances of finding somebody else who's better at this endeavor are close to 100%.
The above means that if there is to be any hope for the Noble mind to improve upon itself (and the knowledge it has possessed so far) for whatever reason, 1) must hold.
Society doesn't care for people who are uninformed, much less for any kind of "Eternal Student". Surviving in today's world requires that one is "knowledgeable". The more, the better. This requirement is especially stringent for public officials, of whom it is REQUIRED that they know what they are talking about, if there is to be any real progress.
By definition then:
5) The Noble mind will have trouble with modern society's infrastructure, as it cannot realistically claim that it "knows" anything.
On the other hand, a Noble mind can (realistically) be much more informed and knowledgeable than a brute who occupies a corresponding position (or higher) in society. However, the Noble mind has one more important trait which distinguishes it from the brute:
6) The Noble mind is humble
For this mind, humility is not a trait that's necessarily associated with particular
religious beliefs. It is the naturally borne fruit of one's recognition of one's
limitations. It's exactly because some people have no sense of limitation on certain
things (Πάν μÎÏ„Ïον άÏιστον=Measure in Everything) that's why they become arrogant. When
things have a measure, there are boundaries and limits. Bypassing those measures and
limits (which are set by the individual mind) may be a good thing if done once in a
while and wisely, but it is best to avoid trespassing upon one's limits, as the
collapse of limits always brings upon one new burdens and new troubles.
Humility is a function of the individual's knowledge of such limits. More exactly
put:
6a) Humility results from knowing your limits.
It is sad that 6a) comes only as a result of a long and meticulous study of the
universal body of knowledge and careful introspection, because most brutes who have no
desire to learn, not only are not aware of those limits, but have always the tendency
to trespass upon other people's limits. Therefore:
6b) Arrogance tends to infuse itself into and permeate everything.
The balanced mind knows exactly what 6b) means and in its quest for knowledge tries
to limit the domains of this infusion, because it knows that the carefully crafted
container which sustains us all, never permeates or interferes with our life. In other
words, God himself or Nature, however you may want to view the universe, although
ultimately wise, never desired to willfully permeate our minds. Instead, Nature gave us
Freedom of Choice with respect to recognizing an ultimate Creator, meaning that such a
Creator is necessarily humble. Otherwise God could have chosen to create a huge rapture
and have everyone on their feet, after seeing what's out there. Instead, Nature is
always sweet, non-obtrusive, pleasant and always in perfect balance with
itself.
There is infinite knowledge in the Universe. There is infinite knowledge here on Earth, even. Being arrogant with respect to any particular subject, is all but ridiculous.
As a result, when the Noble mind encounters the arrogance of someone, claiming one has such and such qualifications and degrees, it can only respond with a good and hearty laugh. Such encounters are usually quite amusing and result in the Noble mind inadvertently saying or doing something that abruptly and in shame silences the brute.
We are here to learn. What it is we MUST learn, I don't know. Maybe the process of learning is, in fact, more important than what we learn.
Although 1) holds, this doesn't of course mean that ALL knowledge is permissible:
"He who reveals to himself what his conscience has prohibited commits a sin. And he also is a sinner who denies himself what his conscience has revealed". -Kahlil Gibran.
Also:
"Do not meddle in the affairs of Dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup".
The major religious manuals have outlined the importance of acquiring knowledge which is not permissible. The "not permissible" adjective here, needs to be applied with caution. The above quotes do not mean that there exists knowledge which is "forbidden" in any way. It means something which needs to be instantiated:
7) For any specific human being, there exists knowledge which is not permissible
and:
8) For the Noble mind, not ALL kinds of knowledge are permissible
8) cannot be made more specific, apart from a small clarification:
9) There exist kinds of knowledge which are not fruitful to the Noble mind.
As such, these kinds of knowledge are best left alone. Knowledge is best judged by the fruits its possessor bears. My favorite motto here is Matthew 7:16: "By their fruit ye shall know them". It really doesn't matter who wrote this. What matters is that certain kinds of knowledge can bear fear, anger, strife, war, dissonance and arrogance. As such, the Noble mind leaves them for others to explore.
I won't go into details about what this knowledge is, mainly because everyone has a
rough idea of what is and is not permissible for one, including the brutes.
We like to be certain about things. Human beings have an inherent desire to profess
their knowledge, when they possess it. The greater the certainty and accuracy of the
professed subject, the better. Humans have classified all their collective knowledge
and young people's parents spend considerable amounts of money to educate them. The
kinds of knowledge that have emerged, can be roughly classified into two
sectors:
1) Scientific knowledge
2) Knowledge based on belief
The boundaries between the two areas are not very clear, even to this date. For
example, psychology is often deemed "science", whereas it appears to be more of an
empirical model for certain types of behavior, with huge unknown areas or areas where
we have no clue about.
New disciplines are being added to both sectors as we speak. In order for a new
subject to qualify as scientific knowledge, it has to be based on logic and if it
relies on experiments, the results of the experiments have to be repeatable and
reproducible by anyone with a sufficient scientific background.
In order for a new subject to qualify as belief, it simply suffices for one to cause
the subject's propagation to a large sample, so as to create "believers". Such
disciplines include all non-scientific areas, such as religion, astrology, shamanism,
etc.
Knowledge based on belief, simply requires THE DESIRE to acquire it. Knowledge based on
science, apart from the desire, additionally requires being trained in logical thinking
and processing. On the other hand, BEING scientifically logical, is not an inherent
trait of the human brain and as such, one has to spend considerable effort and time to
educate oneself in such thinking. Such training never stops, simply because the brain
tends to believe nonsense, in a moment's thought. Reiterated, because I consider it
vital:
3) The brain has a tendency to believe all sorts of nonsense.
3) is the direct result of the brain being by nature lazy. Scientific knowledge, logic
and correct philosophical thinking, are all hard, require EFFORT and often do not give
the expected (or even all) answers. Knowledge based on belief is EASY and gives fast
answers. It can be digested easily by anyone and can be easily communicated to others,
whereas scientific knowledge often requires the use of Mathematics or other abstract
symbolic languages, which are hard to learn and to express to others and it requires
difficult (and often expensive) studies to learn.
Because scientific knowledge is hard, it naturally propagates slower than knowledge
based on belief, which is often widespread. As a result, most people believe in
non-scientific knowledge. (for example, religion)
The fundamental difference between those two kinds of knowledge, is the existence of
faith and/or belief in non-scientific knowledge and their lack for areas of scientific
knowledge. Science and scientific laws, exist independently of us believing in them.
The universe's mode of operation doesn't really depend on us understanding Newton's Law
of Gravitation, Relativity or the underlying Tensor Mathematics of space-time, whereas
the collective body of Christianity, for example, depends heavily on people believing
the Christian dogma.
The survival of the universe does not depend on us understanding or explaining its
operations, whereas the survival of a social or religious movement depends on us to
continuously replenish it with new believers, otherwise it becomes history.
To a non-scientist, science appears very similar to a belief movement. A person who's
untrained in logical/scientific thinking, usually has no clue about any of the inner
details of any scientific discipline, so for practical purposes, such disciplines
appear externally to be similar to a certain set of beliefs. A person has to acquire a
rigorous scientific training in order to fully appreciate the power of logical
reasoning and science.
The strange thing is that a certain amount of belief must pre-exist in an untrained
prospective scientist before such a scientist starts studying science. For example, if
the prospective student does not have SOME sort of confidence that science will prove
to be a rewarding and fulfilling experience, one will not undertake the task of
studying it. The difference here, however, is that after the prospective student
studies science, he/she can have tangible and rational proof that the subject of study
was logical and reasonable, whereas a believer in Astrology can never have
RATIONAL/LOGICAL proof that Astrology actually works. It may work sometimes, other
times it may fail and other times, still, it may be completely unpredictable.
Predictability and consistency are the key issues here, as any scientist knows. In
order for an experiment to qualify as scientific, the results of the experimenter have
to be repeatable in a consistent way and predictable. If they are not, either the
theory behind it is faulty or the experimenter has applied one's theories in a faulty
way. There's no inbetween path.
In a sense, predictability and consistency are the absolute and undeniable proof we
have that something actually works. We have no other way of knowing if something
actually works, except to reproduce an application of it and be certain that the
results are reliable and consistent.
When theory is validated by experiment, we can be sure that the whatever scientific
model or theory we have so far is "within epsilon" of the Truth about this particular
subject. The theory may be incomplete as a whole or in conjunction with other areas,
but our model seems to be sufficient for the purposes of what we know so far about a
certain issue.
Non-scientific extravagant claims, cannot be tested scientifically. It may or may not
be true that the planets affect an individual at birth, as Astrology claims, however it
is utterly impossible to test or validate such a hypothesis using any kind of
experiment, if only for practical reasons. As such, what kind of "knowledge" is the
belief: "The positions of the planets affect a person at birth"? It is useless
"knowledge" at best, nonsense at worst. It is the kind of "knowledge" which propagates
only because people WANT to believe it. It has no practical value and from a scientific
standpoint it can never be tested.
Belief in irrational ideas and dogmas, seems to be inherently tied with our survival as
a species. Although on first thought such "knowledge" serves no practical purpose,
apart from mystifying and impressing the gullible, it has persisted in our society for
eons. The Noble Mind is tempted to think that sociologically and anthropologically it
must serve SOME purpose, otherwise there'd be no need for it to exist in society. Here,
the chain of events is fairly easy to follow:
a) An unknown event or phenomenon occurs.
b) The unknown phenomenon causes fear to the "primitive mind".
c) The "primitive mind", therefore, has to explain the phenomenon as quickly as
possible to dispel the associated fear for itself and the other members of the
tribe.
d) Deriving a scientific explanation is costly, difficult and requires vast amounts of
pre-existing scientific knowledge, things which tribal members lack.
e) Deriving a nonsensical explanation is easy (anybody can do it) and such an
explanation can be propagated fairly easily among the members of a tribe.
Therefore e) has proliferated, as it was the fastest path to dispel fear among the
tribal members. d) is still difficult, today, that's why, for example, Astrology still
has followers. That's why Christianity, Judaism or Buddhism still have followers.
Because the answers the corresponding dogmas give, are EASY.
Easy answers and explanations seem to be particularly efficient meme propagators. The
propagation of memes which contain non-scientific theories, is in natural battle
against the propagation of scientific memes. The battle seems quite futile for science,
as scientific theories are hard to propagate, however one has to keep in mind that by
many standards we are still quite "primitive" and the outcome has not been decided,
yet. More and more people get educated and more people become scientifically oriented,
dropping any irrational thoughts in the process.
Finally, scientific memes are very hard to shake, once established, so scientific
training is a very efficient "trap" of sorts, for irrational memes. Once a person
becomes a scientist, rarely if ever starts believing nonsense, although there are (as
with everything), exceptions.
As knowledge is so crucial in modern society, the flow of data which transmits this knowledge is also essential. Unfortunately, along with the data of information, flows data of misinformation and trash. Regardless, modern man has been conditioned to crave this flow (no matter what kind) and often, his well-being depends on this flow:
1) Modern man is an informavore
The Noble mind has a heightened instinct and knowledge about what is trash and what is valuable information, yet overall it craves information like everyone else. So 1) holds especially for the Noble mind, who continuously searches for explanations. In particular:
2) The Noble mind is an informavore
The internet explosion has caused an explosion on the transmission of information. Although trash undoubtedly gets transmitted along with the good things, the net has helped greatly in the acquisition of information. Because 1) holds equally well for brutes and because brutes have an equal (if not greater) desire to transmit information, we also get loads of trash.
The transmission of information has grown faster than exponentially. In nature, whenever something (or someone) grows beyond certain bounds, there always exists some kind of balancing mechanism to bring the undue growth back to a state of equilibrium. With the internet information this was not possible, until the 80's, when the first viruses showed up.
Today we are plagued by computer viruses. Computer viruses have been growing exponentially ever since, with today counting in the hundreds of thousands.
Viruses have a tendency to incapacitate the host machine and otherwise wreak havoc by spreading themselves to other machines, so it is natural why many people have problems understanding why computer viruses showed up and especially why hackers continue to create them.
The answer lies above. The tremendous growth of information exchange which has occurred with the net, could not be limited in a natural way, so an artificial way was created, indirectly. This artificial way is the viruses, which (in a way) limit the exchange of information by incapacitating various machines.
On the other hand, computers were (and are) accessible by a large number of people, including many lay people, who use a computer with relative ease, without knowing the computer's internal workings.
The later are particularly vulnerable to infection, as they don't quite understand how viruses operate, therefore they are more prone to avoid taking precautionary measures to avoid infection by viruses.
Today one cannot survive if one is computer illiterate. The explosion of viruses however, introduces a new parameter into the game of information exchange: It attempts to sort out those who are computer literate from those who REALLY are computer literate. In other words:
3) Viruses appear to be making an effort to limit the information exchange
Maybe after a decade only those who know how to disinfect their machines will be able to use computers. This is of course speculation, but it does appear as though one has to have a relatively high know-how, in order to survive in the world of computers, particularly in view of the recent virus outbreaks.
The above has nothing to do with the true reason why a young spoiled brat may write and release a virus, yet this very brat may be falling victim to a larger scenario, whose purpose is to control information exchange through the internet. The exact mechanics of such a scenario would be tremendously difficult to analyze, because those mechanics are basically dictated by social behavior, memes and younger "revolutionary" philosophy.
It is not uncommon for virus writers who are caught to be given high positions in programming companies. Therefore, we may be also witnessing a different kind of "survival mechanism". Young kids perhaps foresee that in the end what awaits them is fame and glory, so they write and spread a virus.
Society is being paid back by exactly the same token it has taught its younger members with.
By pain here I mean both physical and emotional pain.
Most people instinctively avoid pain and seek pleasure. This is only natural to some
extent for all animals, yet few people realize that human life is almost synonymous
with the existence of pain, so just about everyone will sooner or later experience
one's share, whether physical or emotional.
Physical pain is body's warning that something is wrong (with the body functions) and
although emotional pain sits on a more abstract level than physical pain, it still
carries a very similar message.
People, in general, are afraid of pain much more than anything else, including death.
Fear of death is present in all of us, but upon closer inspection, what we are afraid
of really, is THE MOMENT of death, rather than death itself. Recent medical evidence
however shows that the brain may actually anesthetize the body (partially or totally)
during the process of dying, so there may not be any pain present DURING the moment of
death.
Physical pain long before death oftentimes becomes so intolerable that it might be
ethically acceptable to apply euthanasia to sufferers of terminal illnesses with no
hope of cure.
Excluding such extreme cases, the Noble Mind finds the following to be true:
1) Pain is the ultimate teacher for all of us
While as parents many people apply more lenient forms of 1) to their kids, by causing
either direct or indirect punishments forcing them to somehow comply with expected
behavior, those same people forget that life may, as a system, often apply the very
same directive to all of us.
The boundaries of what is and is not justified in terms of pain in one's life are not
always clear. Even though there's certainly very much pain which is the result of human
stupidity, arrogance, irresponsibility and carelessness towards others (including
animals), most kinds of personal pain are usually the direct result of bad choices
and/or self-abusive behavior. If you've been smoking for 30 years, it doesn't
make much sense for you to complain to God or fellow humans about not being able to
breathe, while suffering from lung cancer.
On the other hand, there are cases where people suffer from terminal illnesses which
seemingly are not the result of self-abusive behavior. For example, there are people
who suffer from cancer without ever having smoked and children which carry the AIDS
virus, because someone else gave it to them either by a mistaken blood transfusion or
by birth.
Such cases, as cases where people are victims of natural disasters or natural
accidents, are beyond the scope of this article. This mind cannot offer any viable
explanation for such happenings, except to say that if the sufferer survives, one will
usually find some value in the experience (as a whole) and use it to become stronger.
In general, the more pain is involved with certain situations, the stronger the
survivor, emotionally.
It is often said that being "brave", does not necessarily equate with not fearing pain.
It equates with not being afraid to FACE pain, when necessary. (Although in order to BE
brave, one has to have first hand experience with certain kinds of pain).
Being "brave", does not equate to being stupid, either. The fact that I may have gone
to battle 10 times, does not necessarily imply that I LIKE to do physical battle and
put myself in danger for the heck of it. To the Noble Mind, there's something
fundamentally wrong with people who seek dangerous activities for sheer pleasure.
If you like driving formula cars, then you somehow forfeit any rights to complain about
any possible pain that may result from accidentally crashing your car against a wall
with a speed of 300km/hr. If you have decided to delve into the occult for the heck of
it, you shouldn't complain if your brain gets fried after a while, from all the
stupidity that can be found in there. If you fall in love with a monster, then you have
no right to complain if the relationship goes awry. If you use recreational and/or
heavy drugs and they fuck up your mind, you have no right to complain about losing your
sanity or health. That's why God gave you a brain and logic. Use them.
In general, this Noble Mind abhors whiners and people who cannot tolerate their share
of pain in life. If for some (obscure or not) reason, life has decided to give you
pain, physical and/or emotional, the best way to deal with it is to accept it first,
try to correct the cause (however possible) and try to use the experience as an
advantage for your future experiences.
Complaining and whining about how life's "unfair" to you for such and such pain or in
general, is nauseating. The very definition of "life" reeks of unfairness. We all have
pain. Some of us more, some of us less, but nobody has none.
It is PRECISELY because life may decide to give you pain unfairly, unsuspectingly and
unpredictably, that you have to learn to appreciate life as much as you can. Every day
on this planet is a miracle. Every day when you wake up and see the sun shining through
your window, some precarious trickster out there has decided that you deserve another
chance, for reasons only he/she knows.
The Noble Mind learns to appreciate life every day, by continuously practicing its eyes
to "see" and "feel". This is not easy and certainly not automatic or spontaneous.
Neither can it be done continuously. Society teaches us to gradually become blind to
the beauty of life that surrounds us, on a personal or global level. We gradually
become isolated from people and nature. Everyone has seen trees, but when was the last
time you stopped next to one and actually "saw" it with your soul's eyes? When was the
last time you saw the infinite beauty that a single tree branch or leaf displays?
On a more personal level, if you have someone to share your life with, when was the
last time you thanked whoever sits up there, call it Fate, God, Satan, Life, the Grand
Conspirator or whatever have you, for that someone? When was the last time you felt
grateful, that you are not (if you are not) diseased? There are thousands of people
alive, who are stranded on a hospital bed and cannot even SEE the tree outside their
hospital garden, closely. There are thousands of people who starve everyday.
The fact that you possibly CAN see and feel all those good things now, does not
necessarily imply that these things will continue to exist tomorrow. Tomorrow you may
be dead. Anyone could be dead by tomorrow.
Being grateful when you have it well, is a lost art in a way. It doesn't matter WHO you
are grateful to. What matters is the contemplation. The key idea here, is that the
Noble Mind learns to be grateful so that one can learn to appreciate the good things in
life when they exist, either voluntarily or involuntarily. This is a fundamental need,
since life may snatch any or all of those things away from one at a moment's notice and
fill one's life with pain for years to come. Such things happen everyday. Take a look
at your local news for examples.
Pain, like everything in nature, is an ordered set. Probably a well-ordered set, too,
as the experience of pain is so universal, that anyone can immediately say which pain
is less "painful" and which is more. In general, this Noble Mind is of the opinion that
life has the tendency to "honor" human beings with increasingly more painful
experiences, because usually previous experiences which involve certain amounts of
tolerable pain, are quickly forgotten by our stupidity, carelessness and egotism.
It is this mind's opinion that it is EXACTLY because we do not appreciate what we have
enough, that we are forced to go into experiences which are more painful. A painful
experience serves basically two specific purposes:
2) To recall our actions and look for cause BEHIND the latest pain
3) To remember that we were not appreciative enough in the past for whatever we had
2) Causes a major reshuffling of idea bases, which upon careful introspection, reveals
various past truths to the person who suffers from pain. Many times the latest pain is
so insufferable, that along with the actual causes, some intense paranoia will
inevitably enter the scenes. Don't be fooled though: The ACTUAL cause of pain WILL be
there if you search deep enough.
3) Is a vital fault of our society as a species. We always want more and we are
continuously greedy. This, coupled with our loss of appreciation for the things we
have, tends to remind us that "happiness" (however one defines it) is really a
temporary state of affairs. That's why, whenever we are to be found inside a painless
(or relatively happy) situation, we have to continuously be grateful. The reason is
obvious: There exist people in this world who perhaps are more worthy that certain
individuals, and yet they have been plagued with much more pain than ourselves. To this
extent, it is really a miracle of divine providence that we are happy, whenever we
are.
This Noble Mind, suspects that EVENTUALLY, all causes of pain are rationally
understandable. Whether by internal introspection, some sort of personal
revelation or perhaps rational explanation. For the kinds of unexplainable pain that
exist in our world, such as those mentioned in previous paragraphs, such as natural
disasters and unforseen disease, although this Noble Mind cannot fathom the true
causes, it suspects that they exist. This is more like a gut feeling, rather than an
actual rational explanation, because some such events defy human logic altogether. This
does not mean, however that some greater logic, perhaps something akin to "divine
providence" or some sort of nobler justice doesn't exist.
Most people have experienced lots of pain in their lives. If we are therefore to assume
that a "higher justice" exists in our universe, the most pertinent question that is
going to be asked of this "higher justice" would be:
4) What was the purpose of me going through all of this pain in this life?
If 4) can be answered using some kind of logic, rational, super-rational, or whatever,
then this Mind thinks that there is indeed something to be learned from life, taken as
a sum experience.
If 4) cannot be answered using ANY kind of logic, the section on contradiction and the conclusion given at the end are inevitable.
Brave and intelligent people are never afraid, right? WRONG. For every human being
out there, there exists a specific fear which can drive this particular human, insane.
When we are kids, horrible ideas and experiences often get imprinted in our minds along
with what's necessary for our development, because most parents are fuckups themselves,
as a result of which fears get developed. The brain usually shields the conscious from
those fears in order to protect one from crises and emotional shocks later in life, but
still remains a very effective fear repository throughout one's life.
Although fears accumulate in the subconscious and usually exhaust themselves in dreams,
there are experiences which can cause the brain to fish out those fears from the
subconscious and force them to resurface causing a crisis (often accompanied by a
psychosis). When such an event occurs, the conscious part of the brain is forced to
face the fear and deal with it.
Certain forms of psychotherapy address this problem by teaching psychologically damaged
individuals to deal better with their fears. Although sometimes this is partially
successful, eventually (or in the long run) it is useless, for reasons which are to be
given below.
Fears in people resemble a mathematically well-ordered set. Fears are ordered by their
subjective severity and by the intensity of the crises (and psychoses) they trigger,
once surfaced. This set is an infinite ascending chain containing no top element. This
means that from a practical standpoint, there is no "worst" fear. There is no guarantee
that once a specific fear is faced and/or conquered, another, new one will not
resurface and cause havoc.
The above presents the most serious shortcoming of psychotherapy and analysis.
Supposedly psychology helps heal fears, except that for every fear that's being
addressed, a new fear may resurface anytime, depending on circumstances. It appears
that the aforementioned "ascending chain of fears" is a specific trait of our race,
perhaps aiding in the intellectual advancement of our species.
When man was primitive, he was afraid of nature's elements, because he didn't know any
better. Today, although most fears related to nature are pretty well understood, we are
afraid of more mundane things, such as not making it at work, or not being good at it,
or not having enough money or resources. This paradigm shift has occurred mainly
because certain artificial needs have been imposed on us, as an "advanced" society by
the Western system of thought. For better or for worse, technology shields us from
nature's tantrums, therefore higher elements in the chain of fears get activated. Today
we are more concerned with fears of inadequacy, fears of sexual impotence (note the
incredible increase of spam related to Viagra), fears of potential failure, fears of
burglars and murderers, fears of ridicule and shame, fears of failing socially,
etc.
Some fears cannot be addressed, altogether. Fear of death being one, although there
certainly are situations where death might be preferable against the mental or
emotional torture generated by a really demented script, say, in a war situation.
What's really annoying in today's society is also the well known deadlock which results
from the "fight or flee" primitive directive. Primitive man had a choice as to whether
to "fight" or "flee" when faced with a situation that caused fear (such as an encounter
with a wild animal), yet modern man cannot act similarly: When your asshole boss yells
at you because you made a mistake in your overdue report, you can neither "fight" nor
"flee". If you do either, you risk losing your job. As a result, you are forced to
swallow your pride and suppress your body's readiness for either scenario. Repeated
exposure to such experiences results in various tangential psychosomatic complexes,
which gradually become detrimental to one's health.
Given that wars or some form or other of terror continuously happen on Earth, it
appears thus that the following is true:
1) Life continuously generates new fear scripts and it is expected of us to address
them
1) is as ridiculous as something can be. It means, that as a species we are stupid
enough to continue manufacturing fears in the name of "advancing" our collective
intelligence, on the road to deification. Individuals don't have much control over the
overall shape society takes, but the point still stands from the perspective of our
species' collective adaptation. We think that being able to "adapt" to such scenarios
is akin to "being advanced". In reality, this is sort of a travesty, because there's no
end to the experiences that man as a species cannot be afraid of.
In a sense, such fears are the direct result of the kind of life we have chosen to
pursue socially, that's why for the Noble Mind it doesn't make much sense to
psychoanalyze them. Our "advanced" society has made provisions for an inexhaustible
fear production engine and what's worse, our intelligence *demands* that we address
those fears successfully as a species. This is as ludicrous as having a dozen armed
grenades next to your bed and your intelligence *demanding* that you relax comfortably
next to them, in order to be "intellectually advanced" or "efficiently adapted".
In effect, we as a species on Earth, have manufactured an elaborate Hell, where it is
expected of us to be able to cope with our "worst" fears, imaginary or not. This is
very similar to a scenario where if you are afraid of heights, life demands that every
day you have to sit for 2 hours higher and higher on a pole which extends infinitely
high above Earth, with gravity always present. Eventually you will go insane.
That is the most obvious trait of life on Earth:
2) Life's new fear scripts, have the tendency to drive anyone insane.
What was that you said? You don't have any fears? Why don't you go smoke some cannabis
while in the presence of some disagreeable individuals and then come back and tell me.
Chances are your brain will bring to the surface all kinds of preexisting crap, sooner
or later.
The following is true:
1) Fraud and victimization have been ever present in our society
This is not very surprising, given the fact that a more lenient form of it, called
"camouflage" is used by many animals for both offensive and defensive purposes. In
human society however, these two have become an art in and of themselves.
A good number of people consider them the easiest, fastest and most reliable way with
which to achieve their goals. As such, such brutes may spend their entire life and
resources trying to perfect this kind of art, hoping that at some point in the future
they will be rewarded, financially or otherwise.
Fraudulent brutes exist and act in many diverse areas of human endeavor. Potential
lovers and pretenders who are liars, employees who pass other people's work as their
own, scientists who steal or alter ideas and patents, businessmen who are continuously
on the lookout for potential financial victims, politicians who without any remorse or
shame keep lying to The People, religious leaders who know the truth yet continue to
falsely guide "the sheep" making money on the side, merchants who sell garbage
knowingly, con artists who spend their entire life designing viable con schemes,
thieves, etc. The examples are just too numerous to be listed here.
There appears to be a fundamental reason as to "why" so many people are fraudulent and
this reason becomes clear only after extensive observation:
2) Most humans are inherently stupid
If 2) was false, i.e., if the majority of humans was smart (relatively speaking),
con-artists and fraudulent brutes would not invest in their endeavors so happily, as
the chances of defrauding and victimizing subjects would be minimized. The continuous
presence of fraudulent brutes and con-artists and their efforts necessarily then
implies the existence of an ever replenishing pool of idiots, against which the
fraudulent employ their weapons of deceit.
Although certain kinds of fraud are easy to detect by a Noble Mind, there are other
kinds which are more subtle and require a keener eye to spot, so chances are most
people have fallen victims of some fraud at one time or another. Particularly when it
comes to fraud on a personal level, lots of experience is required to recognize the
fraudulent, because people are not prophets and so naturally cannot predict in advance
the behavior of other humans, regardless of how insightful one is.
Innocence is a sure way to lead one to a fraudulent human, even if one doesn't try.
Therefore:
3) Society REQUIRES that you become non-innocent, otherwise you will be victimized one
way or another
Nature seems to provide for both the offensive and the defensive mechanisms in us. We
are born innocent, yet we have to gradually transform into careful onlookers and
examiners of other peoples' actions and behaviors. Paranoid people who are on the
lookout for fraud all the time, seem to be safer than innocent individuals, who often
are quite unsuspecting of potential fraud. However, avoiding fraud is learned the hard
way, at the expense of falling victim OF fraud to begin with. Therefore:
4) If one knows how to avoid potential fraud, one has fallen victim of some fraud at
least once
4) is indeed quite funny. It implies that victimization is virtually unavoidable, in
one form or another. Upon deeper inspection however, it becomes a bold truth,
particularly in view of the "filth" spoken of elsewhere and of the fact that we cannot
avoid being victims of certain things or people, namely our leaders, our country, our
family, our economy, our tradition, our own desires (natural or acquired), etc.
Even many seemingly benign systems imply fraud and victimization of some kind.
Believing certain ideas, dogmas or philosophies implies that one's mind falls victim to
those very ideas by definition. If you are a religious Jew or Christian, you are a
victim of your religious beliefs. People sometimes call this, "tradition". In the name
of "tradition" humans have devised all sorts of fraud and have engaged in all sorts of
abusive behavior against fellow humans. More on this, in the section On Truth.
It is very rare for two human beings to start interacting, without a potential gradient
(although involuntary, admittedly, most of the times) of fraud and victimization being
created. In general there is a tendency by people to try to "force" their ideas,
philosophies, methods, technology and general behavior against fellow humans.
Particularly annoying are the cases of con-artists who not only manage to defraud
people, but collect money for it too, in exchange for "services provided". Mediums,
self-proclaimed prophets, astrologers, metaphysicists, spiritual "guides", oracles, and
unfortunately many psychologists and psychoanalysts as well, are such examples. Seeking
such people out, one is looking for trouble. Unfortunately, many people are so fucked
up psychologically, that they NEED to be victimized in order to satisfy a deeper desire
which often comes from an abusive past, particularly a past where one has been
victimized repeatedly early in life, either by parents or by external fraudulent
conditions. You'd be surprised of how many people crave to be victims, subconsciously.
And this is exactly what victimizers and the fraudulent take advantage of.
Excluding conscious fraud, defrauding and/or victimization behavior is many times
subconscious or automatic, which brings us to the next level of revelation concerning
fraud. Upon graduating from some basic experiences which teach one how to learn to
recognize potential fraud,
5) The directive to victimize and defraud others, becomes a standard trait in most
humans
When 5) works consciously, one gets a fraudulent human or con-artist. When it works
subconsciously one gets the average case. When it doesn't work at all, one gets an
idiot.
It is interesting to note here that although we are used in seeing attempts of
victimization and defrauding between two different humans, there's nothing that
prevents attempts of victimization to originate FROM the self and to be directed
TOWARDS the self. Oftentimes, such attempts are successful, too. There are many cases
in official psychological nomenclature, where a person's own thoughts can victimize and
defraud a person's mind.
Although rare, such cases are very interesting, because their existence proves the
existence of a deeper characteristic in learned or conditioned social behavior, namely
the (subconscious or conscious) desire "to victimize and defraud" anything available,
in a more abstract or mental level. Although such cases are probably psychologically
deviant by any modern definition, they basically show that in the absence of a
potential victim, the self may occasionally turn against itself, in a desperate attempt
to satisfy its need for victimization, when it cannot find external victims.
For the Noble Mind, it takes a lot of effort to minimize the application of 5) and to
consciously avoid victimizing others on some level. This implies that the Noble Mind
has learned self-restraint, patience, tolerance, has a good self-image and one is happy
with oneself. It is also crucial that one has no desire to cause harm and/or pain to
others. This last characteristic is particularly difficult for the Noble Mind, in view
of the fact that 99% of all humans have been conditioned to apply 5) the first chance
they get, either consciously or subconsciously, to their fellows and to the Noble Mind
itself.
Before I embark on this issue, I urge you to read the section on Fraud. This will partially prepare you for what's to come. Also,
by "Truth" here, I don't mean "logical truth", i.e. Mathematical Logic. By "Truth"
here, I mean the deeper, perhaps intangible, spiritually and intellectually higher
cognitive essence that humans have been seeking ever since they stepped foot on this
planet.
Attempting to define Truth exactly is a futile endeavor for obvious reasons. For the
purposes of this presentation, let's limit its domain somewhat: The general consensus
seems to be that when people think of "truthful", they also seem to think of various
side notions, such as "honest", "reliable", "consistent", "beautiful", "sincere",
"pleasant", "hopeful", "accepting", "supporting", "true to itself", "caring", and
"loving". (although love has many definitions).
Some of the above adjectives are apersonal. For example, any garden flower or plant, is
"beautiful", "pleasant", and "true to itself", simply because it can't be otherwise.
That's the way it was created by Nature or God, and that's the way it remains to this
very day. Thus most plant life is "truthful" by the above definition. Similar ideas
apply to most of Nature: The Earth and most animal life on it, are "truthful", simply
because they can't be otherwise. That's the way they've always been. The Sun and
planets are too. So are the stars, the night sky, and any celestial formation or
object. Nature, IS the very definition of beauty. The balance between lack and excess
of traits in Nature is perfect.
One might add here that Nature is also "reliable" (the Sun rises every morning and the
Earth doesn't suddenly leave its orbit towards Vega), "accepting", (it hosts a plethora
of life forms) and "supporting" (all resources needed by all life forms on Earth can be
found here).
Is Nature perhaps "loving" and "caring" as well in some abstract way? This is a
difficult issue, because there is evidence either way:
On a personal level, I cannot say that Nature is NOT "loving" or NOT "caring". By
definition I am allowed to exist in it and although there is no guarantee that cosmic
or local accidents cannot happen, Nature is the perfect container for my existence and
it continuously provides for a reliable base or "platform" for my seating and
excursions. Isn't this tangible proof that Nature cares about me? Imagine having been
born into chaos and darkness, with no reference points whatsoever. Horrible.
One the other hand, on a global level, one cannot say that Nature IS "loving" and
"caring". Weather conditions have made (and still make) life difficult for many people,
extreme weather phenomena cause the death of hundreds of people every year, wild
animals attack people, illnesses abound so we have to continuously be on the edge for
new medical knowledge, and there is no guarantee that in some future date a 20,000,000
ton meteorite from outside the confines of the Solar System won't crash on Earth and
completely annihilate all life forms here, particularly in view of such past
events.
We therefore see that our tendency to "personalize" Nature into something which
resembles abstractly a "caring mother" of sorts, cannot exactly be applied here. Nature
neither IS, nor IS NOT "caring" and/or "loving", because Nature is not a human
being.
Thus, Nature is an example of a systemic, super-complex "organism", (for lack of better
word), which is perfectly "beautiful", "pleasant", "true to itself", as far as
I am concerned quite "honest", "reliable", "consistent" and
"sincere" (so far), but apersonal. It hasn't killed me by some freak accident, but
neither has it shown me "love" or "affection" in any direct way. (except through human
intelligence). Therefore,
1) Nature seems to be an example of an "indifferent Truth", but a Truth
nonetheless.
Something similar holds for science: Picking the queen of sciences as a representative,
Mathematics, it possesses similar attributes to those of Nature. Mathematics is
"beautiful", "reliable", "honest", "sincere", "consistent" (for most things), although
it is far from "caring" and/or "loving". Of course it is only natural for science to be
a Truth, since the entire Universe operates using science. Although humans have managed
to utilize and apply science, it doesn't serve anyone. In particular, it doesn't serve
humans. We like to THINK we have mastered several aspects of it, but in all reality, we
are the ones who serve it and contribute to its growth.
This is as good as it gets, for non-human examples. For human examples, things are a
mess. There certainly exist people who are or have been all these things at one time or
another, but it becomes harder and harder to learn to differentiate between truthful
humans and fraudulent ones, as society becomes more and more "advanced", in view of the
ideas analyzed On Fraud, particularly when there is a
lack of historical evidence concerning a particular historical figure.
Generally speaking we judge historical figures based on their recorded actions, but
oftentimes history is biased and/or erroneous. People are not always famous enough, so
that their actions are not recorded in history and there exist cases where past figures
have (apparently) defrauded even history itself. The later concerns various "Truth
revealers", "prophets", "religious leaders" and otherwise people who appear to have
made attempts to impose various doctrines on society, successful or not, based on some
bogus idea that they, themselves, somehow possessed higher authority on issues related
to the Truth.
History is full of such examples. In general, there is no solid evidence for the
rational and Noble Mind that a particular human has any better idea about THE Truth
than anyone else. And I say THE Truth, because there can exist people who are
knowledgeable in certain areas of Truth, but THE Truth is a different cookie. There
exist of course idiots who have no idea whatsoever about certain issues, including
Truth, but for a Noble Mind who has searched Truth to some extent, any other Noble
Mind's opinion about THE Truth, is as valid as one's own. People who claim they have
"revelations" of Truth or who claim they "have spoken with God" are at best delusional,
at worst con-artists.
When you hear someone say "I KNOW what Truth is" or "it has been revealed to me from
above...", run for your lives.
The above concerns mostly people who claim things about THE Truth. Claiming things
about MY (or YOUR) Truth (on a personal level), on the other hand, is perfectly
acceptable. When someone makes claims about one's Truth, that someone is making an
honest statement about what the meaning of Truth is, for him/her. Such a statement does
not impinge on anybody else's Truth, because it inherently carries with it the
characteristic of "personal" and usually there are no attempts to proselytize a
personal Truth, neither does anyone have good reason to doubt that such a Truth is not
meaningful for its believer.
Not that it makes sense to proselytize a personal Truth either: One's Truth might well
be to be a 24 hour wino. Another person's Truth might be to be a heroin addict, to
engage in Bungee-jumping every day or to solve Mathematical Olympiad problems every
Tuesday and Saturday, the rest of the days sleeping. As such "personal" Truths are no
more valid globally, than what someone likes to do in life. For the later there are
billions of likes and combinations, so no personal Truth is less or more valid than any
other such Truth.
Problems start showing up when people start claiming that "their Truth" is "better"
(alternatively more "correct") than someone else's and/or are convinced that
propagating "their Truth" is a God-given task, which should be completed one way or
another, no matter what the cost. The "official" name for such beings is, "memeplexes".
They usually initiate an idea, which once spread, it creates "followers". Add a bit of
oral tradition, a bit of myth, a couple of "learned fathers" who will argue endlessly
about some inane dogma detail to be settled in a subsequent synod, a lot of conning and
lying and you've got your average religion ready to bloom and prosper.
Occasionally memeplexes manage to infect entire nations with such "Truths". For
example, although the Ancient Greeks managed to resist Christianity for almost 400
years, modern Greeks have fallen prey to it. This says something about the power of the
new doctrine.
The spread of the Judeo-Christian "Truth" is only one example of such social memes.
Various other nations and races have fallen prey to their own mythological "Truths" as
well. Arabs are victims of the Muslim dogma and the Koran, which is the creation of a
desert vagabond, looter, paedophile and murderer, while Jews are victims of their own
traditions which includes all sorts of "prophets" and "oracles", who were "in direct
contact with God". Of course the silliness of such traditions is evident today when
there are thousands of purported "prophets" and "seers" who can put you "in contact
with God", for a small reimbursement.
Other nations are not on a better path either: Thibetans believe that their leader,
Dalai Lama, keeps reincarnating and reappears after death. (Nevermind that we have no
clue about what happens after death). Hindus worship cows and consider cow pee to be
"holy", so they wash their faces with it. Buddhists have figured everything about
reincarnation out. In short, there's lots of nonsense out there and one only has to be
willing to be victimized, in order to fall prey to various memes that are circulating
inside those systems. One only needs to WANT to believe in a "Truth" and one
immediately becomes a potential victim.
Although certain myths and stories may carry a grain of Truth having been based in
historical events, for the most part "tradition" has been synonymous to "nonsense" as
far as "Truth" is concerned. This actually proves something much more subtle in human
society:
2) Intelligent consciousness always had and still has a distinct desire to victimize
and be victimized
Which camp you end up in, is not always predictable, neither it is always a matter of
only rational thought. There exist highly rational people, who otherwise succumb to
their nations' traditions and follow irrational local or foreign beliefs, without ever
questioning them.
2) implies a huge tragedy insofar as human existence is concerned, because as if the
fact that we are basically wandering sheep who have no idea about what Truth is is not
enough, we all live inside a huge cauldron of circulating deceit, fraud and lies, which
at a moment's carelessness can turn one's mind into putty, with all sorts of irrational
beliefs.
Clearing one's mind from irrational "Truths" and beliefs is not a easy task. Assuming
one desires it to begin with, (because there are people who don't even WANT or desire
to know anything outside their belief system), it implies deep education and first and
foremost very deep and intense PAIN. Only pain applied
consistently and continuously to one, eventually clears one's mind from irrational
thought. All other methods are futile. (You might want to check what holocaust
survivors for example, have to say about religion).
The above does not justify pain as a remedy in and of itself. Rather it allows the
Noble Mind to make a rather tangential conjecture:
3) If one has gone through a lot of pain in one's life, chances are one is free of
irrational thoughts about the Truth.
3) seems to reinforce the analysis On Pain and On Fear.
Partial or local "Truths" may well exist independently of a more general Truth. There
exist human works which are proof of such Truths. These have the tendency to
proliferate and multiply with the Noble Mind, but in a more subtle and unobtrusive way.
Good and worthy work produced by people who hold certain ideas or beliefs, has the
tendency to exhalt the creator's beliefs along with the creator of such work.
The same thing happens when humans become "credible", "consistent", "caring", "loving"
and "nurturing" as a result of certain personal Truths. Their behavior tends to exalt
their personal Truths along with themselves, in the eyes of others.
Any work by a great classical composer for example, possesses all of the attributes
given above in the definition of Truth, so such work IS (some sort of) Truth, although
its value lies more on a personal level. The Noble Mind is interested in what makes
great creators tick, and even if sometimes this involves determination coming from some
sort of faith, such faith becomes exalted in the eye of the examiner, BY the works of
the creator.
Contrast the above to most current musical work, which lacks at least one of the
aspects given above. Would you be able to say with confidence that music by Black
Sabbath or Kiss for example, possesses the attributes, "caring", "loving", "nurturing",
"hopeful", "honest", "beautiful", "pleasant", "sincere", etc?
Are you able to say with confidence that an arbitrary State (as a system of operations)
or a State politician is "honest", "caring", "consistent", "reliable" and
"sincere"?
To conclude: Excluding Nature and Science (I would also include the music of Johann
Sebastian Bach here) which are probably the only absolute Truths out there (albeit the
first two being indifferent as indicated) any Truth that results from human
consciousness is always relative and carries a high probability of being bogus.
Contradiction is one of the main characteristics of existence. People who do not encounter it so often, are called "lucky". People who encounter it often, usually have a miserable life. The following is true:
1) Contradiction is ever present in anyone's life
1) implies some sort of conflict. Therefore:
2) Conflict is inevitable sooner or later
The power of 1) and 2) can be witnessed directly, since in anyone's life, there's bound to be some evidence of conflict, be it local or global. Small and quiet children are bullied around in their schools, accidents happen, people get injured, people lose their jobs, people fight over money and territory and entire nations engage in contradictory behavior, often with one part of the government supporting one position and another part supporting another.
Many people witness emotional contradiction: How can I love her (or him) and she (or he) cannot love me back?
Others witness material contradiction: How can I be so good at a certain subject (or my job) and not have oodles of money?
Many witness physical contradiction: How can my son (or daughter) have such an ugly face, even though both my and my husband (or wife)'s genes were so good and we were so pretty?
Others witness the contradiction of "revolution": How can my son (or daughter) be such a spoiled brat, even though we both tried our best to raise him (her) properly?
Worse yet: How can my son (or daughter) be a drug or heroin addict, even though we both tried our best to raise them properly?
Science cannot escape the wrath of contradiction, either. If you are familiar with Quantum Physics, (and in particular with Bell's experiment) and with Goedel's Theorem in Mathematics, you will understand what I mean.
Other contradictions are more severe, like premise 20) on Religion, above, or even worse: How could Jesus have had (indirectly) initiated such a global religion if he was such a good man (or someone else)?
How could Bach, who was one the smartest Creators to ever set foot on this planet, be a Lutheran and devote ~70% of his works to God?
And of course, the worst contradictions are those that involve notions of good and evil: How come God allows Evil in this world, even though He is all benevolent?
The above is only a very very short list of contradictions in one's life. The actual list is endless, simply because the human mind is dualist, and as such it is very prone to this kind of thinking.
Contradiction has been faced by the greatest human minds and philosophers. Some have written about it, others have ignored it and chose a stance which kindly obfuscated it, giving the impression that they had the issue resolved.
The issue can never be resolved. Our biggest and most important philosophical and religious manuals thrive with contradiction. The Bible contains contradictory verses. So does the Koran. Zen Buddhism and Hinduism abound with it.
Can there be a resolving?
Not really. To the Noble mind, contradiction IS the way out. An eternal struggle with oneself, where all the data separate into two factions which continuously fight themselves. Therefore:
3) The Noble mind cannot be BUT contradictory
The above means that this kind of mind can never settle for constancy and consistency, because by definition it KNOWS that:
4) existence is contradictory.
Therefore:
5) Any particular consciousness within existence, cannot be BUT contradictory
5) implies 3) of course.
How does one resolve contradiction, then? One doesn't. One accepts it and tries to embrace it. Contradiction appears to be so far the stronger force inside the entire of Creation. Therefore:
6) Contradiction IS God
Better yet, IF God exists:
7) God IS Contradiction
which finally implies:
The keen mind, will inevitably come to a conclusion similar to 8) of the previous
section, or something very similar. Let us repeat it:
1) Everything is nonsense
Funny that Ecclesiastes 1:2 already mentions that? I don't know.
Note however that if 1) is valid, it follows immediately:
1) is nonsense, as well. Therefore,
2) NOT Everything is nonsense. Thus:
3) There exists SOMETHING sensical
The question is now tantamount to WHAT if anything makes sense? This question really
digs deep into the sores of Epistemology, which is the philosophical branch which
concerns itself with what is indeed knowledgeable. Can we REALLY KNOW anything? Well,
we can partially know science. But what about anything APART from science? Not really.
Things which are apart from science, rely on subjective (or perhaps empirical) premises
therefore one could conceivably construct a "truth" that negates any such given
nonscientific "fact". For every believer in Astrology, there is a non-believer. For
every believer in Scientology, there is a non-believer. For every believer in Religion,
any Religion, there is a non-believer. Even in science, things are not always clear cut
as far as applying "scientific Truth" into our lives. Does anybody for example REALLY
care if the Mandelbrot set is locally connected? And if it is, how does that affect ME
or YOU?
What then, is the difference of being a "believer" versus being a "non-believer" of
"fact x"? In essence, there is none. A believer of Christianity, for example, who bases
his/her belief on empirical evidence or faith, is not any more (or less) deluded than
somebody who believes that one day a sufficiently complex chaotic mathematical model
will be able to explain Earth's weather fully, or somebody who hopes that science will
inevitably explain everything.
Both persons are essentially "long term believers" in their very own niches. The first
believes that eventually everything is understandable through sufficient study of the
Bible, the second that eventually everything is understandable through sufficient study
of science. In reality, neither one's knowledge is "attainable" through a rigid
practical mechanism. In the eyes of a sufficiently objective bystander, the two
persons' "beliefs" are equipotent. In a sense this leads to the "illusionary"
premise:
4) Knowledge is (practically) impossible.
The deadlock that results from 4), is actually caused by the lack of one additional
very important premise:
5) Life has the meaning YOU give it. So GIVE IT A MEANING!!
It easily follows that IF one wants their life to have ANY sensical meaning whatsoever,
one has to reconstruct life's meaning from scratch. Ready made recipes (including mine,
such as what you are reading) will eventually fail, simply because each one of us is
unique, so the teachings of others will eventually fail to satisfy us.
The best thing for one is to decide what one DESIRES to believe and construct an
appropriate doctrine, by which to abide, preferably for life. Such a doctrine will
eventually be what others will judge you by.
If you find yourself unable to reconstruct a suitable doctrine, the best alternative is
to follow some other accepted doctrine, perhaps a doctrine that a large number of
people believe (for whatever reasons), but FIRST, sit and think WHY you'd like to
believe that. If it doesn't appeal to you, believing it is futile.
My best wishes for your quest of The Truth in life.