Logic Of The Psyche

Logic Of The Psyche:

Re: http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/04/psychology_the_hard_truth_abou.html

This interesting article does well to explain the mess that results from substituting psychology to the complete elimination of religion. However, it yields little insight about a necessarily subjective aspect regarding many values. If there is one objective moral command that should be inculcated to apply to the conscience of all, it may consist in this: “Be empathetic!” However, such a value only states a general command, while offering no objective specifics. To reach for specifics, we rely on faith that empathy may more often lead us in good faith to consensus. But, when consensus is not availing — ay, there’s a rub that cannot be cured — not by religion, not by psychology, and not by pure logic or hard science!

Tree Falling In Forest

(by Dlanorrenrag*)

Tree Falling In Forest:

Broadly, what one takes to be objectively “inanimate” may be considered as consisting in that aspect of ultimate ineffability which is mathematically organized for representing to us physically.

Broadly, what one takes to be subjectively “conscious” may be considered as consisting in that aspect of ultimate ineffability which is mathematically organized for receiving and channeling spiritual will to act, however faintly, subject to choice within parameters availed, in respect of that which is representing physically.

In respect of such definitions, whether a “thing” is considered to represent the interacting presence or causal association of an inanimate or a conscious thing will depend upon its holography — that is, it will depend upon each relative perspective, context, history, and purpose of that which may be considering it.

Every particular thing that we take to be existential, both inanimate and conscious, requires a relating holography. The only thing that may not require a relating holography may be a Holism, being that ultimate ineffability of which all that emerges into particular manifestation or implication is derivative and inferior.

When a device for recording signals is related to a source of signals, it will, upon recording, affect and change the pattern or signal being sensed. As a whole, it would be uncommon to consider such a device itself as being conscious. Yet, under the above definition, an aspect of consciousness would have associated with such device, as it was recording the signal.

In other words, the reason a tree falling in a forest not inhabited by any animal nevertheless makes a “sound” (signal) is because some aspect of consciousness is always present to receive it.

And, other aspects of consciousness, potentially, if talented enough, may later translate, decode, reconstruct, or replay the information recorded in respect of such signal.

Each particular inanimate and each particular consciousness interpenetrate, depending for appreciation and interpretation upon each relating holography.

No particular exists without an inextricable relation to a holography. The holography that I experience as being existential may be somewhat different from the holography that you experience as being existential. While we will have different interpretations about what exists, there will be much of what we each consider to exist that overlaps to touch and concern both of us, in common.

What associates with me as being expressive of an inanimate may overlap in "the ultimate ineffability" in order to associate with some other as being expressive of a consciousness.

For any particular to be "indifferently random" or "empathetically conscious" depends upon locus of relation and context of perspective.

In itself, no particular (that is not a holism-in-itself) is either indifferent or empathetic. Rather, relational locus and context are determinative.

In other words, not even "inanimate things" exist in any particularity in themselves. Rather, they exist only in respect of holography.

To improve our understanding of physical, material things and forces, we will need to bring to bear a better understanding of holography.

Coming better to appreciate holography, we may come better to appreciate a pervasively empathetic aspect of consciousness --- or Will.

Blinded By Empiricism

Dave,

You, rightly so, are skeptical of notions of "anthropic coincidentalism."
As a skeptic, might you also wish to consider notions of "anthropic scientism"?

Consider: A person who finds his motivation exclusively in the scientific method will always expect that there is a scientific, physical, "objective" explanation that can be found in an indifferent randomness of everything — regardless of whatever may happen or how amazingly coincidental it may seem — simply by going to whatever level of analysis as may be necessary in order to find his own kind of “anthropic confirmation” that everything is explained in randomness.

In other words, every empiricist can self-fulfill his expectation of pure randomness simply by selecting to whatever level of analysis he may need to go in order to demonstrate that all events, after all, unfold in subordination to a highest principle of randomness.

As each such person encounters each new situation (and each event that sequentially unfolds within our universe is new, at least when considered holographically), how, then, shall he derive what he should try to do with it, based exclusively and only on empiricism?

Insofar as each unfolding situation is new, even upon consulting Isaac Asimov'ian psychohistory (or historoscicence), from whence, then, comes each new decision?

At such consideration, I punt, not to offer an "objective explanation," but to offer a term of interior reference. For that, my term of preference seems often to relate to "intuition of empathetic will."

Others may simply "Borg-down" and subordinate their own wills to a local Shaman, Guru, Priest, Religious Fundamentalist, Scientific Foundationalist, or Party Hack.

I fear the complexity of modernity weighs many to seek psychological refuge and a false sense of certainty in such "Borg'ing Down."

A main challenge of the 20th century pertained to nationalism. For our century, "Future Shock" may be driving us towards "Borg'ing Down." From time to time, as you peruse modern media, academia, politics, business, entertainment, and pharmaceuticals, consider whether most folks appear to be surrendering minds and wills to Borg-land.

As Mr. Chugarr said to the motorist he stopped in No Country For Old men, "Hold still!"

Who’s The Bigot?

(by Dlanorrenrag*)

Who’s The Bigot?

In my philosophy, I intuit and believe there is a superior, unifying, and interconnecting Source of Conscious Empathy (aka “God”), who/which appreciates and expresses ITself by engaging perspectives, from which IT interacts among many manifestations of holography. (Compare Ben Stein’s new movie, “Expelled.” Even were God to manifest as jumping up and down and yelling, "I'm here!" what empiricist worth his or her scientific salt would fail to hypothesize in order to attribute any such demonstration merely to some unexplained material technology? Space aliens, anyone?)

In any event, in respect of a common Source of empathy, I seek to appreciate a moral compass for my opinions and positions concerning laws and/or mores that can or should guide the experience of civilization. I believe some such notion, regardless of how faint, may guide most of us. Without some such guide, each of us easily deconstructs to selfish bigotry.

When mere bigotry of others comes to be attributed as the most prominent, necessary, or likely explanation for their behavior, devoid of any basis in good faith, must not each of us so attributing, in ourselves, be respecting no better philosophy than that of a bigot?

There are good faith reasons to believe traditional family values, such as relating to marriage, are being radically undermined, however unknowingly, unintentionally, or unskillfully.

In an opinion article published in newspapers on April 24, 2008, titled “What marriage is – and isn’t,” Rich Lowry, of the National Review, wrote:
The dynamic of polygamy is that older, higher-status men take as many women as they can. They work to crowd out young men and to make young women as pliable as possible, so as to eliminate competition from the former and inhibit any tendency on the part of the latter to fall for men of their own age. It inherently features brutish sexual competition among men (the winners get many wives, the losers none) and the subjugation of women who are made serve a man not, in turn, fully devoted to her.
That’s how FLDS works. It looks for any excuse to kick out teenage boys. Those “lost boys” are left to fend for themselves on the streets. Meanwhile, teenage girls are taught obedience, which can mean, as 13 year olds, marrying men old enough to be their grandfathers.
With its emphasis on hierarchy and the degradation of individual choice, polygamy is traditionally associated with authoritarian cultures.
…
Now, polygamists are trying to ride on the liberal wave of nonjudgmentalism and of hostility to traditional marriage.
Who are we to say what marriage is? As liberal democrats, we’ve said it before, and have to again.

ANTHROPIC PSEUDOSCIENCE

ANTHROPIC PSEUDOSCIENCE (OR SCIENTIFIC DELUSION?):

Suppose one were to accept a mainstream understanding of scientists regarding limited time availed to our universe, before it is expected to “flicker out,” in order for its laws and forces to express variously evolving sequences and organizations of interacting combinations of representations of patterns of material and/or information.

Then, given an “anthropic perspective” of an observer who happens to accept mainstream cosmology, may such an observer ever reasonably calculate mathematical probabilities for or against the past or future emergence of various kinds or qualities of representations of stored information (such as bodies of life)?

To the satisfaction of science, may some such method for calculating mathematical probabilities be reliably testable, falsifiable, or replicable? If so, what sort of evidence based on analysis of probabilities should or would (ever?) suffice, in order to suggest to a rational empiricist that Something beyond Nature is likely involved in guiding Nature?

In other words, must every “rational empiricist” always take it as being deemed-true-by-assumption-of-science that no kind of mathematical analysis of probabilities could EVER support that Nature is other than closed to the influence of any Superior (supernatural) or Compatible Source — REGARDLESS of however improbable or coincidental it may be demonstrated by mathematical analysis that any known or measurable natural law or force could support a full accounting?

In other words, should or must “science” entitle empiricists to turn a blind eye to all evidence or demonstrations of mathematical improbabilities that all parameters within our universe are “closed” to the continuing influence or Will of any supernatural Source — simply by calling all such demonstrations “anthropic pseudoscience”?

IN OTHER WORDS, MUST EVERY GOOD SCIENTIST TAKE IT THAT, EVEN IF A CONSCIOUS OR SUPERIOR WILL OR GOD MAY EXIST, NO SUCH A GOD COULD EVER LEAVE A SIGNATURE THAT COULD SATISFY ANY GOOD SCIENTIST?

Even were God to manifest as jumping up and down and yelling, "I'm here!" what empiricist worth his scientific salt would fail simply to hypothesize in order to attribute it to some unexplained material technology? (Space aliens, anyone?)

As God bootstraps us out of mere imagination and math, so may we choose also to bootstrap as if God were mere delusion, subservient to a natural explanation of purely random physics.

Compare http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2008/marchweb-only/113-42.0.html.

Signature of “Spaghetti-San”

(by Dlanorrenrag*)
Signature of “Spaghetti-San”:

Every perspective of Will expresses itself within functional parameters availed in respect of degrees of significance and orders of magnitude. Such functional aspects as may be beyond any given perspective’s apparent influence, in respect of degrees of significance and orders of magnitude, may just as well be considered, relative to each such perspective, as being part of “Nature.”

But, such “natural functions” may also just as well be considered as being subject to influence of other or higher perspectives of Will, for whom such functions may well be within their potential power or choice to change or influence.

Thus, even appreciating “Nature,” no one need interpret empirical experience (or evolution) as being inconsistent with a worldview based on interactions among holographic levels and perspectives of Will.

Consider even those fundamental parameters which we experience as hardly changing: Assuming other levels of conscious Will may just as well wish to participate in our sustenance, why should we not expect that such fundamental parameters of “design” may be sustained in (anthropic?) respect of sustaining life on Earth?

Suppose “Nature” were sustained in respect of fundamental functions requisite to sustain life on Earth: Then, should we have noticed or measured fluxes in some patterns or forces that we otherwise would tend to consider as being “absolute” or fundamental to our capacity to experience “Nature?”

Well, have there not been measurements or evidence of some such changes in fundamentals? Have not physicists taken empirical measurements suggesting fundamental forces in early phases of our “Big Bang” were at one time organized and operating quite differently than what seems presently observable? To rationalize such changes, have we not found it necessary or expedient to resort to various notions (dark energy?), in order to label or explain (rationalize?) various fundamental changes (such as in rates of spatial expansion and material radiation, force changes, phase shifts, and/or parameter changes)?

Suppose higher perspectives of conscious Will were to wish TO SIGNIFY THEIR PRESENCE: How could they do so, empirically, without remaining faithful to parameters necessary to sustain our forms of life? In respect of such parameters as are necessary to define and sustain us, is it not merely trite that, of course, we can always rationalize our experiences as being strictly “empirical” (or consistent with “random Nature”)?

It hardly surprises that anyone of a strictly empirical bent may always disdain the observing of even the most remarkable of coincidences as mere anthropic posturing and pseudoscience. But, is it not “pseudoscientific” to assume that reality must be closed to any Will that is in any way superior to empiricism?

Now, if one wishes to define science as encompassing only such approaches as assume a complete closing of reality to the influence of any non-empirical influence, then, of course, in would be pseudoscientific to engage in any approach to reality that is based in complementary intuition, analysis of fundamental coincidences, or non-empirical considerations. In that case, strict empiricists should be taken as only assuming superiority in their approach for all purposes. In that case, choosing a “pseudoscientific approach” to complement concerns one believes to be beyond empiricism need hardly be inappropriate. (For example, to what "science" should a strict empiricist refer, in order to guide us about how we should engage never before experienced situations?)

What is “less bright” than for an atheist to assume he or she has PROVEN that all parameters availed in Nature are closed to any non-empirical Source merely by assuming such to be proven? (An atheist may say: “I think God does not exist; therefore, God does not exist; ommmm.” How “bright” is that?)

From the very experience that “Nature” so remarkably and coincidentally avails us to sustain consciousness, cannot such experience just as easily support conscious intuition and reason to believe that Something of conscious Will cares about us? Should not such caring, insofar as mutual, enhance each perspective’s experience of empathetic meaningfulness?

Choosing to interpret the remarkable coincidences essential to our being as consistent with our anthropic sustenance, it becomes not irrational to interpret such coincidences as being consistent with a “SIGNATURE OF GOD.” Choosing to interpret a “signature of God” may say more about one’s innate spiritual intuition, psychological conditioning, or moral health than about one’s capacity for appreciating limits of empiricism (or for being “Bright” enough to appreciate that reality may not be “completely closed” to science).

BTW --- “Adonai-San” may be a more appropriate term of endearment than “Spaghetti-San.” Compare http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adonis (“… a variation on the word "adon" meaning "lord" that was also used, as "Adonai", to refer to Yahweh in the Old Testament) and http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2271.html : (“san: (for example Sato-san): This is the most neutral and famous title, and can be used in most situations. Only in formal situations, san may not be polite enough.”)

I have made reference above to “Spaghetti-San” only in order to reflect upon those who are most fond to invoke a “Giant Flying Spaghetti Monster,” thereby childishly mocking all who believe a proper appreciation of reality should entail respect for a source of “should” (i.e., a source of moral Will, in respect of Whom no resort to mere Nature can ever produce a closed or complete explanation).

After all, is it not reasonable to suppose that “should happens?”

RESPONSIBLE EUGENICS

(by Dlanorrenrag*)

RESPONSIBLE EUGENICS:

Whether or not we consciously think we choose to play a role in favoring or designing genetic traits or mutations, our wider environment forces us to choose --- even if only in subconscious neglect.

Regardless, whether or not we feign indifference, the way we conduct our affairs necessitates that our activities will play a role in the genetic design of traits for each next generation.

As our activities come more obviously to be globally interdependent, soon to be subject to computer analysis, our credibility in feigning indifference will continually recede.

Presently, strategies within civilized parts of our world necessarily and grossly affect demographic influencing of policies for favoring various kinds and degrees of immigration, trade, taxation, social and family organization, child rearing, birth planning, and health providing.

Necessarily, such policies significantly impact the course of our genetic development. Necessarily, information about such course is gathered for computer analysis.

This begs an important question: For how long can we feign not to be participating, artificially, in the course of evolution, insofar as it affects traits chosen or suitable for sustaining and fulfilling various preferences among our perspectives of consciousness?

Of old, elders could admonish us to leave such concerns to God. Of recent, we begin to appreciate that part of the “body of God” may consist in us.

In any event, I pray we come to respect a more enlightened and humane philosophy or consensus regarding evolution and eugenics than did Hitler.

However, I do not expect an enlightening philosophy to be derived solely in respect of either Values De-Constructivism or Darwinism. Certainly, I do not think an enlightening philosophy will be derived from childishly hedonistic notions of “equal fairness” (even though I do admire Something about the Golden Rule).

Unfortunately, in America, each of our prevailing political parties espouses a philosophy that serves an impoverishing and presently dangerous globalism. I find little to admire in Republicans’ present advocacy-by-default of open-border free-trade, and I find even less to admire in Democrats’ extension of radical Marxist fairness for protecting political correctness to all who seek special minority status.

Rather, I believe reasoned consideration of spirituality, philosophy, science, and history can and should lead us to a more civilizing and better moral compass. I only pray that we soon receive better insight, as we continue to go about, unavoidably, practicing “responsible eugenics.”

Sub-Sensation

(by Dlanorrenrag*)
Sub-Sensation:

Suppose means were discovered for temporarily disconnecting and then restoring each and every one of a brain’s senses, including senses of sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell, and balance. And, suppose such brain’s sense of, or access to, memory were also temporarily disconnected.
Would such a brain then presently sense anything about its environment?
For how much time, if any, would cells of the rest of the body assoicated with such a brain continue to coordinate, in respect of a "cellular memory"?
May there be a near meta-level of sensation, like “sub-sensation”?

May there exist something like a most rudimentary Sense Of Will?
If so, may Something like such a rudimentary sense of will, over time, have bootstrapped a graduating access to ever increasing levels of sensation, leading to sentience, leading to supernatural power over forms of mathematics?

Math Flesh

(by Dlanorrenrag*)
Math Flesh:

What “fleshes out” our perspectives of will seems to be naught but variously interacting, fluxing, sequencing logarithms. Still, may we not at least discover and define what are such logarithmic relations?

Well, yes --- but only to degrees of significance and orders of magnitude, which themselves are eventually subject to such parameter changes and phase shifts as may be brought on by changing interactions among perspectives of Will, including our own.

Superior reality may consist in a Will which drives variously interacting functions of a system of logarithms which gives rise to our flesh. Ideas of genes, cells, species, point particles, energetic quanta, vibrating strings, membranes, and raw information represent mushy, ambiguous notions ---- which notions occur to us, derivatively inferior to the superior reality.

Of course, such mathematical relationships as are most fundamental for availing our perspectives may also be most removed from our capacities to influence or change (in respect of degrees of significance and orders of magnitude). Insofar as the most fundamental of relationships tend to be armored against our influence, we may ever more precisely experiment about them, in order to discover, with ever increasing but never exact completeness, the mathematics that defines their relationships with us.

Less fundamental relationships may be so close to our influence that our very observing of them simultaneously alters them. Between the most difficult and the least difficult of parameters to change and phases to shift, our expressions of Will vie, as we pursue our arts and sciences. Regardless, the interaction of even an individual perspective of Will provides feedback, which, however imperceptibly, influences the entire, holistically-synchronous, system of Will.

While we may pursue complete explications concerning the math entailed in our relationships, no mortal may ever “advance” to obtain mathematical completeness. Each holographic pursuit will engage in its own relationship with the holistic system. Such engagement may result in changes in perspective concerning the relationship, but no mortal may ever advance to achieve a complete comprehension of the relationship.

For us, the pursuit of meaningful understanding --- that is, the “play” --- is the thing.
(See http://www.enotes.com/shakespeare-quotes/play-s-thing.)

Behold A Vibrating Nothingness

Behold A Vibrating Nothingness:

Why trust ye only in fluxing concepts and mushy definitions of genes, cells, species, point particles, energetic quanta, vibrating strings, membranes, raw information, and other arbitrarily-constricted ambiguous-units of images and concepts of metaphysical nothingness? Why trust ye only in science for summoning your arts?

I tell ye truly: Except as ye appreciate Will, your units of information are as units of empty space. For ye --- your holographic perspectives of conscious will --- are the point particles and strings ye seek for your arts and sciences. For art without science is blind, and science without art is lame.

Your raw information is meaningless to ye, except as ye are common derivatives of Consciousness. Except in perspective of appreciative reflection, should a Derivative measure that of which it is derivative?

Look to your soul to appreciate the nature of God for being mathematical, but not to mathematically measure the character of God.
***
Suppose God is most fundamentally a sort of Dissonant Will, superior to nature (physics); and suppose nature reduces to mere bootstrapped interpretations and perspectives of interacting mathematical functions. If so, "what is," and what may come to pass, in our present universe or another, are limited only by (1) the "confines" of the logic of mathematics and (2) the "imagination of Will."

Will To Math

(by Dlanorrenrag*)

WILL TO MATH:

Nothing but a holistic system of logarithms defines the holographies with which each of our perspectives of Will participates.

Each of our perspectives is mathematically constricted, defined, and nurtured so as, at least on some level, to have no choice but to believe in, and to seek fulfillment by choosing among, holographic interactions.

As each system-of-perspective comes no longer to believe in, to seek fulfillment from, or to be mathematically compatible with, its associated holography, such holographic experience annihilates.

As each perspective annihilates, the only real trace that may remain of its ever having existed must remain or be preserved in whatever IT is that may comprise, source, or define the system of logarithms in respect of which our previous holographic perspectives were defined.

In empathetic respect of such Holism (“Spaghetti-Man”?), all perspectives --- past, present, potential, and recurrent --- are inescapably interconnected.

INFORMATION

(by Dlanorrenrag*)

INFORMATION:

Who or what is information “in-form-ing” --- if not some becoming-potential-of-consciousness --- even if consciousness at a rudimentary level of sensation?

Should one intuit that a fundamental, continuous Inclination exists, which wills to be in-formed, in mathematically measurable increments?

I seem unable to intuit or sense: whether such Inclination has always existed; or whether, as IT is informed, IT is also continuously and/or constantly learning.

Regardless, it seems not unreasonable to believe that IT may “bootstrap itself,” by leveraging ever-increasing mathematical skills upon nothing more than IT’s innate mathematical capacity.

The best analogy I can think of is a poor one, depending as it does upon analogizing holographically particular perspectives against a Holism. Still, consider: we humans may eventually acquire ability to increase our brain faculties by using electrodes to attach modems for enhancing brain capacity for storing, organizing, and analyzing information. Thus, we may come to conduct many experiments entirely within our individually holographic minds.

INFORMATION ENTROPY: Thus, does it make more sense to intuit that information should be measured (objectively?) in respect of how it increases in “anthropic” relation (subjectively?) to each perspective of consciousness?
Or, should information better be measured in relation to some arbitrarily modeled system of (unconscious) “physics,” in respect of some arbitrarily defined notion of “raw information”?

Interfacing With Immortality And Morality

(by Dlanorrenrag*)
Interfacing With Immortality And Morality:

Conundrum (?): Well, it seems no particular perspective of conscious mind could measurably or palpably express or manifest itself except in association or receptivity of a physical brain --- replete with nerves and synapses for stringing and conveying impulses. So, why, in respect of preserving parsimony and avoiding redundancy, should anyone conceptualize a spiritual or meta-mind as a necessary addition to a physical brain, merely in order to express moral consciousness?

This problem of how to facilitate or explicate an interface between spirituality and physicality seems to be --- “A hit, a very palpable hit.” (http://shakespeare.mit.edu/hamlet/hamlet.5.2.html).

Yet, there is a response. After all, one cannot palpably hit an eternally recurrent spirit.

If conscious mind is the superior reality, then matter, even a physical brain, is an inferior derivative. Intuitively, each particular expression of a brain serves merely as a perspective (or mathematical placeholder) for a common, superior source of conscious Mind.

The apparent death or conclusion of a particular expression of brain may entail merely the absorption of its perspective, either presently or potentially, into a holistic or meta source of Mind --- of which the time and space parameters for each apparent physical brain (or system for experiencing sensation) represents only a holographic perspective.

If so, each holographic brain-manifestation of consciousness would be merely a differently evolving perspective of one common, underlying, holistic consciousness (or source of consciousness).

In respect of such Source, mathematical potential for eternal physical recurrence is preserved --- in the revival, continuation, continuity, or evolution in becoming’ness of each of its perspectives --- regardless of apparent fits, starts, or deaths.

In that both “you” and “I” are derivative of such common Source, we are all merely perspectives of a same empathetic Identity, i.e., God.

Thus, such a notion is hardly redundant or without purpose. Rather, it is in respect that the perspective of each of us derives from a common source of consciousness that each of us has innate spiritual capacity for developing (and being inculcated with) an enlightened appreciation of empathy, i.e., a shared sense of moral purposefulness.

Now, if some scientist can find, explicate, or rationalize a rational, physical, non-spiritual basis for a civilizing ethos that is more parsimonious, consistent, effective, inspiring, sensible, or better, then I would be quite interested to learn about it.

Moral Compass

Moral Compass:

About value-pluralism, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_pluralism.

I think the plurality of moral truths, principles, and values we come to share in common may be reduced or subsumed in respect of a few:

1) we share in holographic limitations;
2) we each nourish a perspective of consciousness;
3) we each intuit empathetic interests;
4) we each need companions who cooperate, compete, and challenge us in respect of our interests.

In respect of such value-pluralism, in society and politics, it becomes significant to envision: what present course will best tend to sustain and strengthen a civilization that can avail our common pursuits of fulfillment?

In that, may God help us.

****

Without some such moral compass, we drift to moral nihilism.

Nietzsche would seem more suitable, had he appreciated that the Ubermensch is The Source ("God"), in which we are all plugged.

Regardless, about nihilism, various snippets are quoted below, from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihilism:

Nietzsche defined the term as any philosophy that results in an apathy toward life and a poisoning of the human soul—and opposed it vehemently. Nietzsche's deep concern with nihilism was part of his intense reaction to Schopenhauer's doctrine of the denial of the will. Nietzsche describes it as "the will to nothingness" or, more specifically:
A nihilist is a man who judges of the world as it is that it ought NOT to be, and of the world as it ought to be that it does not exist. According to this view, our existence (action, suffering, willing, feeling) has no meaning: the pathos of 'in vain' is the nihilists' pathos — at the same time, as pathos, an inconsistency on the part of the nihilists.
– Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power, section 585, translated by Walter Kaufmann

The nihilist continues to believe that only "higher" values and truths are worthy of being called such, but rejects the idea that they exist. Because of this rejection, all ideas described as true or valuable are rejected by the nihilist as impossible because they do not meet the previously established standards.

In this sense, it is the philosophical equivalent to the Russian political movement: the leap beyond skepticism — the desire to destroy meaning, knowledge, and value. To Nietzsche, it was irrational because the human soul thrives on value. Nihilism, then, was in a sense like suicide and mass murder all at once. He considered faith in the categories of reason, seeking either to overcome or ignore nature, to be the cause of such nihilism. "We have measured the value of the world according to categories that refer to a purely fictitious world". He saw this philosophy as present in Christianity (which he described as 'slave morality'), Buddhism, morality, asceticism and any excessively skeptical philosophy.

According to Nietzsche, it is only once nihilism is overcome that a culture can have a true foundation upon which to thrive. He wished to hasten its coming only so that he could also hasten its ultimate departure.

Recognizing the chaos of nihilism, he advocated a philosophy that willfully transcends it. Furthermore, his positive attitude towards truth as a vehicle of faith and belief distinguishes him from the extreme pessimism that nihilism is often associated with.

Postmodern and poststructuralist thought deny the very grounds on which Western cultures have based their 'truths': absolute knowledge and meaning, a 'decentralization' of authorship, the accumulation of positive knowledge, historical progress, and the ideals of humanism and the Enlightenment.

Jacques Derrida, whose deconstruction is perhaps most commonly labeled nihilistic did not himself make the nihilistic move that others have claimed. Derridean deconstructionists argue that this approach rather frees texts, individuals or organisations from a restrictive truth, and that deconstruction opens up the possibility of other ways of being.

Deconstruction can thus be seen not as a denial of truth, but as a denial of our ability to know truth (it makes an epistemological claim compared to nihilism's ontological claim).

"In lieu of meta-narratives we have created new language-games in order to legitimize our claims which rely on changing relationships and mutable truths, none of which is privileged over the other to speak to ultimate truth."

... since nihilists believe they have learned that truth cannot be attained in this life, they look upon the activities of those rigorously seeking truth as futile. Of course one may add that nihilism is a self fulfilling prophecy, as without making any attempts to attain the truth one is presumably less likely to find it.

REGARDING KAFKA:
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kafka :
Kafka maintained his indifference to formal religion throughout most of his life. While he had a sense of Jewish identity, this identity was complicated by a sense of alienation from Judaism and Jewish life: "What have I in common with Jews? I have hardly anything in common with myself and should stand very quietly in a corner, content that I can breathe."

The Source

(by Dlanorrenrag*)

The Source:

A “universe-as-it-exists-in-itself” is an ineffable thing which, as its holistic self, can sponsor presentations, but cannot itself be represented. Yet, in representations, it can source the presentation of holographic perspectives, sensations, and consciousness of itself.

Each holographic presentation, as such, has an aspect of indivisibility in respect of the indivisibility of its sponsoring Source. Yet, each such holographic presentation will sponsor such sensations or appearances of divisibility as will be experienced or recorded as it discretely contacts, vibrates against, or intersects with others.

Each holographic presentation of various kinds or levels may come into, or be brought into, association with others, to various degrees or extents. Yet, all associate with expression and translation of feedback, sensation, sentience, or consciousness --- to some fluxing level or extent of being’ness and becoming’ness. In sum, they represent what I fondly refer to as a “flying spaghetti algorithm” --- or Allie Allah Algorithm (or “AlGor,” for short).

Depending upon level of association, various mathematical systems of representation may come to be shared among variously compatible holographies. Thus, at the level of human holography, we happen to share perceptions of such appearances of basic discrete quanta and forces as have facilitated the morphing into being’ness of our shared human capacity to appreciate perceptions of “physicality.”

However, such apparent quanta, forces, and physicality seem to be derivative of an aforesaid superior Source. The Source sponsors such variously interacting holographies of sensation as come to avail, at human level, our shared capacities to interpret ourselves as interacting among appearances, translations, or representations of our “physical reality.”

The “physical” result would be no different --- regardless of whether the Source-in-itself (and/or all said holographies) were “conscious-in-itself.”

In any event, it seems every meaningful holography must sponsor or be accompanied with some expression (or at least potential expression) of sensation, sentience, or consciousness. That is, at some level, consciousness seems necessarily to accompany, pervasively, all holographically presented representations of the Source.

All expressions of interaction seem to be systemically entangled to some level and/or extent, such that events seem to unfold within parameters in ways that are: not entirely indifferent, nor entirely empathetic; not entirely determined, nor entirely chosen.

That is, Empathetic Will seems pervasive, in that each observer seems to exert some effect, however minute or unpredictable, on his or her entire, entangled holography.

So: Is such a notion testable, rather than merely intuit-able or rationalize-able? It seems not. Does such a notion in any untoward way inhibit the “advance” of science? It seems not.

So: Why is such intuited extension of consciousness of interest? Because, it suggests or helps rationalize a moral basis for civilized, enlightened empathy.

So: Is enlightened empathy important? Well, to some of us, it seems so.

What about parsimony: A post-modern notion of “Allie-Allah-Algorithm” (Consciousness) does not violate, but advances, an aesthetic of parsimony. That is, it rationalizes a basis for moral empathy, yet attributes no unnecessary surplusage to “God.”

BTW --- Does AlGor seem more esoteric than string theory?

(And, given the rife ambiguity of our world, should we expect our Author to be other than ambiguous?)

***

NAME THAT TUNE: Of The Source, each person can call his or her own tune: For elegance, call for Allie Allah Algorithm; for tragedy-farce, call for Allah; for androgynous farce, call for Elohim; for farce-farce, call for Spaghetti Head; for absurdly indifferent farce, call for AlGor; for lovely-farce, call for Allie.

DEFIANT HOBGOBLINS

(by Dlanorrenrag*)

DEFIANT HOBGOBLINS:

IN-BUILT LIMITS OF MATH AND PHYSICS: For any particular attempt to rigorously and completely “close,” list, and assign weights or values to encompass each and every measurable variable that may impact any quality or thing being studied, it appears there may be an uncertain realm, role, or value tied to another variable which is not entirely measurable, i.e., the variable property for being a conscious, choosing observer, representative, or perspective of “will.”

INCOMPLETENESS, INCONSISTENCY, AND UNCERTAINTY: Immeasurability of the property of being a willful, conscious observer, carrying an uncertainly contextual frame of reference: foredooms every attempt to achieve a closed system of measurement; and relegates every such attempt to aspects of incompleteness, inconsistency, and uncertainty.

ART OF CONSCIOUSNESS: That being so, should each person, in practicing the general art of life and consciousness, perhaps be respected as much or more in his or her appreciation of such realm as any nerd of mathematics or science?

ADULT PATIENCE: When little minds append “scientific” to every upshot, whatever it may happen to be, should adults, then, entertain the nerdy little pretense that each and every upshot proves its exclusively scientific providence to have been predetermined?

GROWING UP: Regarding those nerds whose noses are stuck so far up test tubes as to lead them to wish to pretend that “rigorous science” can demonstrate some supposed monopoly over physics as a system that is “closed” to consciousness of “God”: Does there not come a point where such nerds should simply be told: “Grow up, already!”

ENTROPY: To the perspective of each human being of the algorithmic system that constitutes our world, his or her receipt of consciously measurable INFORMATION is accelerating in increasing orderliness, even as the ENERGY needed to appreciate and make use of such information is experienced as being dissipated in accelerating disorderliness.

META-BALANCING ENTROPY: Relative to our consciousness, is the entropy of energy increasing (energy is becoming increasingly disordered), even as the entropy of information is decreasing (information is becoming decreasingly disordered)?

META-MEASURING ENTROPY: Should we so choose, may we find we have capacity, within shared parameters of our holographies, to assign means for measuring our acceleration in consciously measurable information in correlative balance with our acceleration in dissipating energy? May we fulfill a useful, correlative, coincidental flux or relation between our explosion in information vs. our accelerating dissipation in energy?

FREE WILL WITHIN COORDINATE PARAMETERS: It would seem that any particular course that may happen to morph in respect of our relations need no more be purely derivative of (or inferior to) a competition among measurably confined forces of physics than to a competition among immeasurably free perspectives of a source of conscious Will.

LIMITS OF LOGIC: Must the moral purposefulness or fulfillment of consciousness be sought, inextricably: as much in aesthetics and Hegel-ian dialectic as in Kierkegaard-ian logic; as much in intuitive art as in empirical science; as much in emotional subjectivity as in indifferent objectivity; as much in metaphysics as in physics; and as much in becoming'ness as in being'ness?

TRANSCENDENCE: Must human perspective eventually be transcended, when it can no longer function in relation to a limit of energy dissipation and/or a limit of information acquisition?

GOD: May there be a transcendently higher reality (as source for expressing some holistic algorithm of “active information”), in relation to which the dissipation of energy as we experience it is merely an “illusory ground of being” for entertaining such derivatively inferior perspectives of beings as are constituted in ourselves?

"AAA" --- "Expelled" --- "Flying Spaghetti Logarithm"

Regarding Ben Stein’s new movie, Expelled:

Or: Revenge of the Flying Spaghetti Logarithm
(sometimes affectionately called "Allie Allah Alogarithm")

From http://www.enotes.com/shakespeare-quotes:
“Why then 'tis none to you; for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”


From a comment on http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/french-theory-in-america/index.html?8ty&emc=ty :

Proposition:
there once was a man who said `God
must find it extremely odd
that this tree
continues to be
when there is noone about in the quad.’

Reply:
`Dear Sir, your astonishment’s odd.
I am always about in the quad.
So therefore this tree
will continue to be
since observed by, yours faithfully, God’

*************************************

SUMMARY FROM:
http://www.math.utep.edu/Faculty/sewell/articles/article.html :

In a recent Mathematical Intelligencer article ["A Mathematician's View of Evolution," The Mathematical Intelligencer 22, number 4, 5-7, 2000] I asserted that the idea that the four fundamental forces of physics alone could rearrange the fundamental particles of Nature into spaceships, nuclear power plants, and computers, connected to laser printers, CRTs, keyboards and the Internet, appears to violate the second law of thermodynamics in a spectacular way.1 Anyone who has made such an argument is familiar with the standard reply: the Earth is an open system, it receives energy from the sun, and order can increase in an open system, as long as it is "compensated" somehow by a comparable or greater decrease outside the system. S. Angrist and L. Hepler, for example (again in Order and Chaos ) write, "In a certain sense the development of civilization may appear contradictory to the second law.... Even though society can effect local reductions in entropy, the general and universal trend of entropy increase easily swamps the anomalous but important efforts of civilized man. Each localized, man-made or machine-made entropy decrease is accompanied by a greater increase in entropy of the surroundings, thereby maintaining the required increase in total entropy."

According to this reasoning, then, the second law does not prevent scrap metal from reorganizing itself into a computer in one room, as long as two computers in the next room are rusting into scrap metal -- and the door is open. (Or the thermal entropy in the next room is increasing--though I'm not sure what the conversion rate is between computers and thermal entropy.) This strange argument of "compensation" makes no sense logically: an extremely improbable event is not rendered less improbable by the occurrence of other events which are more probable. To understand where this argument of compensation comes from, one needs to understand that of the example applications mentioned in the Ford text above, the coffee cup example is special: the application to heat conduction is special not only because it was the first application, but because it is quantifiable. It is commonly used as the "model" problem on which our thinking about the other, less quantifiable, applications is based. The fact that thermal order cannot increase in a closed system, but can increase in an open system, was used to conclude that, in other applications, anything can happen in an open system as long as it is compensated by order decreases outside this system, so that the total "order" in the universe (or any closed system containing the open system) still decreases.
....
The "compensation" argument was produced by people who generalized the model equation for closed systems, but forgot to generalize the equation for open systems. Both equations are only valid for our simple models, where it is assumed that only heat conduction or diffusion is going on; naturally in more complex situations, the laws of probability do not make such simple predictions. Nevertheless, in "Can ANYTHING Happen in an Open System?," [ The Mathematical Intelligencer 23, number 4, 8-10, 2001] I generalized the equation for open systems to the following tautology, which is valid in all situations: "If an increase in order is extremely improbable when a system is closed, it is still extremely improbable when the system is open, unless something is entering which makes it not extremely improbable." The fact that order is disappearing in the next room does not make it any easier for computers to appear in our room -- unless this order is disappearing into our room, and then only if it is a type of order that makes the appearance of computers not extremely improbable, for example, computers. Importing thermal order will make the temperature distribution less random, and importing carbon order will make the carbon distribution less random, but neither makes the formation of computers more probable.
....
What happens in a closed system depends on the initial conditions; what happens in an open system depends on the boundary conditions as well. As I wrote in "Can ANYTHING Happen in an Open System?", "order can increase in an open system, not because the laws of probability are suspended when the door is open, but simply because order may walk in through the door.... If we found evidence that DNA, auto parts, computer chips, and books entered through the Earth's atmosphere at some time in the past, then perhaps the appearance of humans, cars, computers, and encyclopedias on a previously barren planet could be explained without postulating a violation of the second law here (it would have been violated somewhere else!). But if all we see entering is radiation and meteorite fragments, it seems clear that what is entering through the boundary cannot explain the increase in order observed here." Evolution is a movie running backward, that is what makes it special.
....
French biologist Jean Rostand [ A Biologist's View, Wm. Heinemann Ltd., 1956], writes "I believe firmly in the evolution of organic Nature," yet says

It does not seem strictly impossible that mutations should have introduced into the animal kingdom the differences which exist between one species and the next...hence it is very tempting to lay also at their door the differences between classes, families and orders, and, in short, the whole of evolution. But it is obvious that such an extrapolation involves the gratuitous attribution to the mutations of the past of a magnitude and power of innovation much greater than is shown by those of today.
....
A National Geographic article from November 2004 proclaims that the evidence is "overwhelming" that Darwin was right about evolution. Since there is no proof that natural selection has ever done anything more spectacular than cause bacteria to develop drug-resistant strains, where is the overwhelming evidence that justifies assigning to it an ability we do not attribute to any other natural force in the universe: the ability to create order out of disorder?
....
Harvard paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson in "The History of Life" [in Volume I of Evolution after Darwin, University of Chicago Press, 1960] writes:

It is a feature of the known fossil record that most taxa appear abruptly. They are not, as a rule, led up to by a sequence of almost imperceptibly changing forerunners such as Darwin believed should be usual in evolution...This phenomenon becomes more universal and more intense as the hierarchy of categories is ascended. Gaps among known species are sporadic and often small. Gaps among known orders, classes and phyla are systematic and almost always large. These peculiarities of the record pose one of the most important theoretical problems in the whole history of life: Is the sudden appearance of higher categories a phenomenon of evolution or of the record only, due to sampling bias and other inadequacies?

[MY COMMENT: Much of what the author suggests seems sound, but he may here be stretching a point too far. It seems not hard to imagine that species and classes may further and quickly differentiate as geographical boundaries (such as plate movements, island formation, changing river courses) separate them from interacting in space and time.]

An analogy may be useful here. If some future paleontologist were to unearth two species of Fords, he might find it plausible that one evolved gradually from the other through natural causes. He might find the lack of gradual transitions between automobile families more problematic, for example, in the transition from mechanical to hydraulic brake systems, or from manual to automatic transmissions, or from steam engines to internal combustion engines. He would be even more puzzled by the huge differences between the bicycle and motor vehicle phyla, or between the boat and airplane phyla. But if he is a Darwinist, heaven help us when he discovers motorcycles and Hovercraft, that will constitute spectacular confirmation of his theory that all forms of transportation arose gradually from a common ancestor, without design.
....
Eldridge reminded the meeting of what many fossil hunters have recognized as they trace the history of a species through successive layers of ancient sediments. Species simply appear at a given point in geologic time, persist largely unchanged for a few million years and then disappear. There are very few examples--some say none--of one species shading gradually into another.
....
SCIENCE HAS BEEN SO SUCCESSFUL in explaining natural phenomena that the modern scientist is convinced that it can explain everything, and anything that doesn't fit into this model is simply ignored. It doesn't matter that there were no natural causes before Nature came into existence, so he cannot hope to ever explain the sudden creation of time, space, matter and energy and our universe in the Big Bang. It doesn't matter that quantum mechanics is based on a "principle of indeterminacy", that tells us that every "natural" phenomenon has a component that is forever beyond the ability of science to explain or predict, he still insists nothing is beyond the reach of his science. When he discovers that all of the basic constants of physics, such as the speed of light, the charge and mass of the electron, Planck's constant, etc., had to have almost exactly the values that they do have in order for any conceivable form of life to survive in our universe, he proposes the "anthropic principle" [eg, A.J.Leggett, The Problems of Physics, Oxford University Press, 1987] and says that there must be many other universes with the same laws, but random values for the basic constants, and one was bound to get the values right. When you ask him how a mechanical process such as natural selection could cause human consciousness to arise out of inanimate matter, he says, "human consciousness -- what's that?" And he talks about human evolution as if he were an outside observer, and never seems to wonder how he got inside one of the animals he is studying. And when you ask how the four fundamental forces of Nature could rearrange the basic particles of Nature into libraries full of encyclopedias, science texts and novels, and computers, connected to laser printers, CRTs and keyboards and the Internet, he says, well, order can increase in an open system.

The development of life may have only violated one law of science, but that was the one Sir Arthur Eddington called the "supreme" law of Nature, and it has violated that in a most spectacular way.
....
I should have said that the underlying principle behind the second law is that natural forces do not do macroscopically describable things which are extremely improbable from the microscopic point of view.
....
If we toss a billion coins, it is true that any sequence is as improbable as any other, but most of us would still be surprised, and suspect that something other than chance is going on, if the result were "all heads", or "alternating heads and tails", or even "all tails except for coins 3i+5 , for integer i ".
....
Although it is true that we sometimes are not sure what the second law predicts, it is not true that there are so many macroscopically describable phenomena that the second law cannot be expected to hold when applied to all of them---there are relatively few macroscopically describable phenomena. It is not true, as the new argument asserts, that there are so many types of order that computers and TV sets need no explanation.

***************

MY TAKE:

WILL: There is Something more complex at work than pure random, mathematical chance. There is also partial randomness, choice, even determination --- or Will.
But, I think such Will “wills” from a number of holographic perspectives.

FSL: So, what emerges and manifests to our experience is not the product of a single perspective of Will, but a product of perhaps innumerable perspectives of the same Will (“Elohim”) — all competing, cooperating, and interacting (in a sort of Flying Spaghetti Logarithm, aka “FSL,” or Allie Allah Alogarithm, aka "AAA," if you will) — and all constituting simply a different perspective of one common underlying source of Holistic Will.

MORPHOGENESIS: The upshot of such “reindeer games” among various levels of consciousness and intelligence is “morphogenesis” — which subsumes natural selection, but does not attempt scientifically to contradict natural selection.
This is because natural selection, being neither testable nor falsifiable, but only an after the fact label for a result, is, itself, in pretending to be a complete explanation, not a scientific concept.

Without morphing, "Natural selection" cannot constitute a “complete” explanation.
Natural selection does not render it unreasonable to believe or appreciate that our existence entails something like competitive-cooperative interactions among perspectives of an all-pervasive meta-consciousness.

META-MATH: Obviously, no “complete” account will be explicable entirely by resort to “natural physics.” Rather, every non-trivial account must resort in part to intuition (and, perhaps, to an intuitive appreciation of meta-math).

PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS: It may be true that a notion of morphogenesis serves no practical empirical purpose. For empiricists bent too long over test tubes, anything that serves no empirically practical purpose may be said to be meaningless drivel or, worse, noise. (If so, what, then, is music, or moral purposefulness, or enlightened empathy?)

MEANINGFUL APPLICATIONS: A notion of higher consciousness need not constitute Marxist "false consciousness," but may instead serve an important philosophical purpose --- perhaps a purpose at least as meaningfully important, if not more so, as any empirical purpose. That is, a notion of higher consciousness (or morphogenesis) may help guide appreciation of moral purpose and enlightened empathy.

ORTHODOXY: In that both natural selection and morphogenesis are non-testable and non-falsifiable, both are not altogether unlike religion. Thus, it is mystifying why evolutionists become so frothy, shouting the equivalent of blasphemy, every time someone like Ben Stein raises his hand to pose a question to the prevailing orthodoxy. (Go get 'em, Ben!)

OVERSTEPPING BOUNDS: IF BEN STEIN MEANS THAT SOKOL, DAWKINS, ET AL, HAVE OVERSTEPPED THE BOUNDS (and let "off clouds of rhetorical vapour of their own") OF THEIR SCIENTIFIC CREDENTIALS, I CERTAINLY AGREE.

Compare http://www.lrb.co.uk/v20/n14/stur01_.html:

"The pessimism of their conclusion is not only extravagant but also patronising, as if our subscription to the ideals of justice and progress, which are not dead, were in the end dependent on our sharing the extraordinarily restrictive attitude towards the life of the mind of the authors of Intellectual Impostures. Having spent a good many tart words attempting to wring the neck of eloquence, they really shouldn’t have quit the field, and headed back to the lab letting off clouds of rhetorical vapour of their own."


POPE OF SCIENTIFIC ORTHODOXY: It will be interesting to see Stein's new movie, “Expelled” — that is, if the Pope of Scientific Orthodoxy (i.e., NYT) does not succeed in having its release delayed.

*****

INCREDIBLE LIGHTNESS OF CONSTRUCTIVISM:

1) Appreciating “superior reality” consists in empathetic intuition of consciousness — not in physics.
2) We do not have “knowledge” of physics, but we may have intuition of a competitively-cooperative, mathematically-based morphology for constructing models.
3) Among our perspectives of consciousness, pretend-play in constructing models is what we do as we seek fulfillment while we pass our time.
4) As models, Darwinism and the Scientific Method “work” — empirically and scientifically — insofar as we, as “playmates of consciousness,” have vested interests or tendencies for attaching to associates who are not too widely disparate in capacity to appreciate our inter-competition and co-operation.
5) That is, the Scientific Method is self-fulfilling to our constructivist play.
6) Sokol is partially correct, that the Scientific Method is our best method for understanding physics — “such as it is.”
7) However, Sokol is without support, proof, or civilizing inspiration when he says or implies that physics exists in respect of a “physical reality” that is superior to Consciousness (aka, “God”).
8) Above nature’s physics, an intuitive explication for Evolution may be subsumed under the super-natural — that is, in Morphogenesis, which emerges in respect of competitive and cooperative “play” among perspectives of consciousness (“Elohim”).
9) From among all mathematically possible morphologies, the only one for which our perspectives of consciousness happen to share in capacity to appreciate is the “physical” universe and world with which we presently happen to find our “play” inter-associated.
10) Obviously, the scientific method, if inferior to consciousness, cannot very well prove the alternative — that consciousness is inferior — merely by assuming such superiority.
11) As to proof of superiority of consciousness to physics, there is no “physical” proof; there is only reason to believe.
One may believe or not believe; if one believes, reason to believe may be found in intuition and, perhaps, in appreciating the incomplete nature of mathematics (perhaps in appreciating an astonishing effect of each perspective-of-consciousness-of-context upon the character of components of any system — for being, becoming, or morphing among random, partially random, chosen, and/or determined representations).
12) Apart from intuitive appreciation of some such (spiritually based) morphogenesis as basis for moral inter-action and (spiritually) enlightened empathy, what basis is offered by the likes of Sokol and Dawkins?
Do they believe in nothing as a basis for moral interaction?
If so, WHY SHOULD ANYONE CARE what they may prescribe about what we “should” do or about what we “should” believe?
13) Compare http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hedgehog%2C_the_Fox%2C_and_the_Magister%27s_Pox.

CONSTRUCTIVISM — TU QUOQUE AND BIEN SUR

(By Dlanorrenrag*)

CONSTRUCTIVISM — TU QUOQUE AND BIEN SUR

Sokol vs. Deconstructionists vs. Constructivists; Darwin-ism vs. Morph-ism

From http://www.enotes.com/shakespeare-quotes:
“Why then 'tis none to you; for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
From Dlanorrenrag: “Truth is imagination, and Walt Disney is its prophet.”


INCREDIBLE LIGHTNESS OF CONSTRUCTIVISM:

MY TAKE:
1) Appreciating “superior reality” consists in empathetic intuition of consciousness — not in physics.
2) We do not have “knowledge” of physics, but we may have intuition of a competitively-cooperative, mathematically-based morphology for constructing models.
3) Among our perspectives of consciousness, pretend-play in constructing models is what we do as we seek fulfillment while we pass our time.
4) As models, Darwinism and the Scientific Method “work” — empirically and scientifically — insofar as we, as “playmates of consciousness,” have vested interests or tendencies for attaching to associates who are not too widely disparate in capacity to appreciate our inter-competition and co-operation.
5) That is, the Scientific Method is self-fulfilling to our constructivist play.
6) Sokol is partially correct, that the Scientific Method is our best method for understanding physics — “such as it is.”
7) However, Sokol is without support, proof, or civilizing inspiration when he says or implies that physics exists in respect of a “physical reality” that is superior to Consciousness (aka, “God”).
8) Above nature’s physics, an intuitive explication for Evolution may be subsumed under the super-natural — that is, in Morphogenesis, which emerges in respect of competitive and cooperative “play” among perspectives of consciousness (“Elohim”).
9) From among all mathematically possible morphologies, the only one for which our perspectives of consciousness happen to share in capacity to appreciate is the “physical” universe and world with which we presently happen to find our “play” inter-associated.
10) Obviously, the scientific method, if inferior to consciousness, cannot very well prove the alternative — that consciousness is inferior — merely by assuming such superiority.
11) As to proof of superiority of consciousness to physics, there is no “physical” proof; there is only reason to believe.
One may believe or not believe; if one believes, reason to believe may be found in intuition and, perhaps, in appreciating the incomplete nature of mathematics (perhaps in appreciating an astonishing effect of each perspective-of-consciousness-of-context upon the character of components of any system — for being, becoming, or morphing among random, partially random, chosen, and/or determined representations).
12) Apart from intuitive appreciation of some such (spiritually based) morphogenesis as basis for moral inter-action and (spiritually) enlightened empathy, what basis is offered by the likes of Sokol and Dawkins?
Do they believe in nothing as a basis for moral interaction?
If so, why should anyone care what they may prescribe about what we “should” do or about what we “should” believe?
13) Compare http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hedgehog%2C_the_Fox%2C_and_the_Magister%27s_Pox.

****

From a comment on http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/french-theory-in-america/index.html?8ty&emc=ty:

Proposition:
there once was a man who said `God
must find it extremely odd
that this tree
continues to be
when there is noone about in the quad.’

Reply:
`Dear Sir, your astonishment’s odd.
I am always about in the quad.
So therefore this tree
will continue to be
since observed by, yours faithfully, God’


REGARDING INTELLECTUAL IMPOSTURES:
See http://www.lrb.co.uk/v20/n14/stur01_.html:

“were this the only point that Intellectual Impostures was making, it wouldn’t have required a whole book: fifty dismissive pages would have done the job. A whole book we have, however, and an unwontedly priggish one, written by two scientists able to read all manner of disastrous implications into the intellectual misdemeanours that they list, even though these loom pretty small in the work of the various authors they object to, only one of whom, Bruno Latour, might want to claim any scientific credentials. For this two-man vigilante patrol has something bigger in mind than simply to catch out a few LFFs in acts of lese-science. It has set out from the lab with the aim of discrediting

those intellectual aspects of Post-Modernism that have had an impact on the humanities and social sciences: a fascination with obscure discourses; an epistemic relativism linked to a generalised scepticism toward modern science; an excessive interest in subjective beliefs independently of their truth value; and an emphasis on discourse and language as opposed to the facts to which those discourses refer (or worse, the rejection of the very idea that facts exist or that one may refer to them).

This is quite a programme, and undertaken here in an oddly roundabout way, since Sokal and Bricmont have chosen to take on the influential Parisians they regard as a prime source of the infection, rather than their infatuated surrogates on the campuses of the US, where the influence of these particular intellectual exports has been noticeably greater than in France itself.
....
After which, it’s no surprise to discover that Sokal and Bricmont are especially unforgiving of ambiguity. This they look on, not as a characteristic of natural language which we can none of us avoid, given the glorious economy of linguistic forms compared with the infinitely much there is to be written or said, but as a ‘subterfuge’, the all too convenient and dishonourable resource of the impostor, enabling as it does the sentences they write to be interpreted in ‘two different ways: as an assertion that is true but relatively banal, or as one that is radical but manifestly false’. When one reminds oneself that the history of thought as a whole has been one of assertions being made that have been proved, if not at the time then subsequently, to bear more than one meaning and to be open to literally interminable re-interpretation, it becomes obvious that the notion of natural language underpinning a book like Intellectual Impostures is alarmingly impoverished. These authors are linguistically reductionist, holding to a view that inside every ‘assertion’ there is an unequivocal kernel which Parisian obfuscators will be doing their devious best to dress up in some fancy and misleading way. I carry no torch for Jean Baudrillard, but will defend him on principle when his ‘verbal veneer’ is held to account, as it is here: in the marginal lands between the literary and the sociological that Baudrillard inhabits, the ‘verbal veneer’ is the very thing, so that to read it as a disguise rather than a display is to misread it in a particularly philistine and irrelevant way. Where language is concerned, Sokal and Bricmont, bigots to the last, lose the plot altogether, and sink to the low point of declaring that their gallery of impostors have no title to any ‘poetic licence’ (a concept I was startled to discover was still in the land of the living), for their intention is clearly to produce theory, and . . . their style is usually heavy and pompous, so it is highly unlikely that their goal is principally literary or poetic.’ The noise you hear, reading an insultingly simplistic sentence like that, is of the ocean rushing hungrily back to fill the channel dividing those time-honoured adversaries, the Two Cultures.
....
They are nostalgic for the days when the Left trusted and promoted hard science, rather than decrying and even regarding it as proto-fascist, though the line that they follow in Intellectual Impostures will do more to bear out this last anxiety than to invalidate it.
....
The pessimism of their conclusion is not only extravagant but also patronising, as if our subscription to the ideals of justice and progress, which are not dead, were in the end dependent on our sharing the extraordinarily restrictive attitude towards the life of the mind of the authors of Intellectual Impostures. Having spent a good many tart words attempting to wring the neck of eloquence, they really shouldn’t have quit the field, and headed back to the lab letting off clouds of rhetorical vapour of their own.


See http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/physics/pdf/0601/0601108v1.pdf:
“Sokal and his friends are right to denounce the anarchic migration of concepts from the hard sciences to the humanities which can only lead to a semblance of rigor and validity. But the moderate relativists are also right to denounce the desire expressed by certain scientists to ban the dialogue between science and culture.”


DECONSTRUCTIVISM:

From http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/french-theory-in-america/index.html?8ty&emc=ty :

It was Bacon who saw early on that the danger to the project was located in its middle term — the descriptions and experiments that were to be a window on the reality they were trying to capture. The trouble, Bacon explained, is that everything, even the framing of experiments, begins with language, with words; and words have a fatal tendency to substitute themselves for the facts they are supposed merely to report or reflect. While men “believe that their reason governs words,” in fact “words react on the understanding”; that is, they shape rather than serve rationality. Even precise definitions, Bacon lamented, don’t help because “the definitions themselves consist of words, and those words beget others” and as the sequence of hypotheses and calculations extends itself, the investigator is carried not closer to but ever further way from the independent object he had set out to apprehend.
....
Instead (and this is the killer), both the “I” or the knower, and the world that is to be known, are themselves not themselves, but the unstable products of mediation, of the very discursive, linguistic forms that in the rationalist tradition are regarded as merely secondary and instrumental. The “I” or subject, rather than being the free-standing originator and master of its own thoughts and perceptions, is a space traversed and constituted — given a transitory, ever-shifting shape — by ideas, vocabularies, schemes, models, distinctions that precede it, fill it and give it (textual) being.
....
In short (and this is the kind of formulation that drives the enemies of French theory crazy), what we think with thinks us.
....
This may sound impossibly counterintuitive and annoyingly new-fangled, but it is nothing more or less than what Thomas Hobbes said 300 years before deconstruction was a thought in the mind of Derrida or Heidegger: “True and false are attributes of speech, not of things.” That is, judgments of truth or falsehood are made relative to the forms of predication that have been established in public/institutional discourse. When we pronounce a judgment — this is true or that is false — the authorization for that judgment comes from those forms (Hobbes calls them “settled significations”) and not from the world speaking for itself. We know, Hobbes continues, not “absolutely” but “conditionally”; our knowledge issues not from the “consequence of one thing to another” but from the consequence of one name to another.
....
Three centuries later, Richard Rorty made exactly the same point when he declared, “where there are no sentences, there is no truth … the world is out there, but descriptions of the world are not.” Descriptions of the world are made by us, and we, in turn, are made by the categories of description that are the content of our perception. These are not categories we choose — were they not already installed there would be nothing that could do the choosing; it would make more sense (but not perfect sense ) to say that they have chosen or colonized us. Both the “I” and the world it would know are functions of language. Or in Derrida’s famous and often vilified words: There is nothing outside the text. (More accurately, there is no outside-the-text.)
....
...the program of drawing closer and closer to a truth independent of our discursive practices, a truth that, if we are slow and patient in the Baconian manner, will reveal itself and come out from behind the representational curtain — is not, according to this way of thinking, realizable.
....
All we lose (if we have been persuaded by the deconstructive critique, that is) is a certain rationalist faith that there will someday be a final word, a last description that takes the accurate measure of everything. All that will have happened is that one account of what we know and how we know it — one epistemology — has been replaced by another, which means only that in the unlikely event you are asked “What’s your epistemology?” you’ll give a different answer than you would have given before. The world, and you, will go on pretty much in the same old way.
....
When a deconstructive analysis interrogates an apparent unity — a poem, a manifesto, a sermon, a procedure, an agenda — and discovers, as it always will, that its surface coherence is achieved by the suppression of questions it must not ask if it is to maintain the fiction of its self-identity, the result is not the discovery of an anomaly, of a deviance from a norm that can be banished or corrected; for no structure built by man (which means no structure) could be otherwise.
....
... which doesn’t mean that a social construction cannot be criticized, only that it cannot be criticized for being one.
....
Deconstruction’s technique of always going deeper has no natural stopping place, leads to no truth or falsehood that could then become the basis of a program of reform. Only by arresting the questioning and freeze-framing what Derrida called the endless play of signifiers can one make deconstruction into a political engine, at which point it is no longer deconstruction, but just another position awaiting deconstruction.
....
American academics “forced deconstruction against itself to produce a political ’supplement’ and in so doing substituted for “Derrida’s patient philological deconstruction” a “bellicose drama.”
....
That is, deconstruction cannot possibly be made either the generator of a politics you like or the cause of a politics you abhor.
....
The result is the story Cusset tells about the past 40 years. A bunch of people threatening all kinds of subversion by means that couldn’t possibly produce it, and a bunch on the other side taking them at their word and waging cultural war. Not comedy, not tragedy, more like farce, but farce with consequences. Careers made and ruined, departments torn apart, writing programs turned into sensitivity seminars, political witch hunts, public opprobrium, ignorant media attacks, the whole ball of wax. Read it and laugh or read it and weep. I can hardly wait for the movie.


REGARDING CONSTRUCTIVISM EPISTEMOLOGY:
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructivist_epistemology :

Constructivism epistemology ... maintain that scientific knowledge is constructed by scientists and not discovered from the world through strict scientific methods.

The common thread between all forms of constructivism is that they do not focus on an ontological reality, but instead on the constructed reality.[citation needed] Indeed, a basic presupposition of constructivism is that Reality-As-It-Is-In-Itself (Ontological Reality) is utterly incoherent as a concept, since there is no way to verify how one has finally reached a definitive notion of Reality. One must already have Reality in mind--that is, one must already know what Reality consists of--in order to confirm when one has at last "hit bottom". Richard Rorty has justly said, therefore, that all claims to Realism can be reduced to intuition (Consequences of Pragmatism, chs. 9, 11). At bottom, then, it seems that the Realist/Anti-Realist debate can be reduced to a conflict of intuitions: "It seems to us that..." "Well, it seems to us that...". A realist would not like to construe the argument in this way, and would say that someone is misled, that one of these groups seems correctly, and another group perceives incorrectly. Again, though, constructivists will complain that there is no way to confirm one way or another, since the goal of inquiry (Reality) must be assumed to be understood at the outset. The Realist hope, in a constructivist understanding, is simply an arbitrary freezing of the infinite regress of circularity that plagues human reasoning which vainly hopes to validate itself with a secure foundation.

Famously, this rather relativist theory is seen by some to contradict itself as a true affirmation: because this view also is "constructed," that is, made and not found, built by human hands rather than discovered in Nature or Reality. Consistent constructivists, however, will reply to this tu quoque (your theory, too!) critique with a rejoinder of their own: bien sur! (of course our theory, too!). It is an obvious and foolish claim for a constructivist to play a realist with regard to his or her own perspective. It is the basic claim of constructivism which allows one to reject altogether claims to universalism, realism, or objective truth. Consistent constructivists will not make any of these "hard" claims for their views, for they believe that their position is merely a view, a more or less coherent way of understanding things, that has thus far worked for them as a model of the world. This notion is deeply indebted to Darwinian theory, as it is claimed by constructivists that human understanding, as the product of Natural Selection, can be said to provide no more "true" understanding of the world as it is in itself than is absolutely necessary for human survival. Naturally, one will ask constructivists why they accept Darwin as a foundational thesis, if there are no "truer" explanations of the world than any other. Constructivists will reply that Darwinism epistemology undercuts itself as a transparent window onto the world, and reveals only its plausibility as an account. Insofar as someone desires a naturalistic account of the world that makes sense of a variety of data, Darwinism is the best (indeed, virtually only) explanatory schema that meets the requirements of modern scientific inquiry. Modern scientific inquiry, however, constructivists wish to point out, is itself subject to the contingencies of history, culture, language, and the tenuousness of the human intellect. For many, though, this self-reflexive anti-epistemology will not prove useful, desirable or very sturdy as an explanatory framework. An excellent account of the Self-Refutation Charge is given in Barbara Herrnstein Smith's Belief & Resistance, chapter 5 (pp. 73-87; "Unloading the Self-Refutation Charge").

Freedom Within Castes

(by Dlanorrenrag*)
APPRECIATING FREEDOM EVEN WITHIN CASTE ASSIGNMENTS:

Does it mean anything to appreciate that nothing is as constant as change? Regarding every system, pattern, or form that emerges out of chaos: Consider the course of random-evolution and willed-morphology, conjoined in respect of three fundamentals of I Ching: (1) Simplicity (interpenetrating pervasiveness), (2) Variability (flexibility in strategies for surviving change --- or, “Hegelian becoming’ness”), and (3) Persistency (permanence and enduring survivability in constancy --- or, “Kierkegaardian being’ness”).

Regardless of presently appreciated form for any evolving system, such system must be constant and must persist long enough (in being’ness) in order for it to be considered as a system. Yet, to be appreciated, such system must also be changing enough (in becoming’ness) in order for it to be sensed as a system.

Because our very sensing of a system changes it, we do not sense a system as it remains appreciable, but only as it was appreciable. That is, our sensed reality is not contemporaneous, but is only experienced as rationalized --- one step behind. We forever meet each next challenge by relying on past sensed information in order to try to make a best intuitive guess about what may next challenge us.

Even as we seek to preserve systems (being’ness) we consider to be meaningful, our wider holography demands constant change (becoming’ness).

For conservators to preserve a system of social order, they may find it helpful that various kinds and degrees of perspectives of consciousness should be molded, led, indoctrinated, and assigned to fill or fulfill either “this or that” among necessary functions. Conservators will sense advantage in some rigid assignments of caste or trade.

Eventually, conservators will sense advantage in intentionally and artificially designing inferior bodies and minds in order to fulfill necessarily menial or repetitive tasks and functions. To compete with other systems, conservators will also find it necessary to try to design loyal forms for expressing imaginative libertines of superior intellect.

Thus may arise a design of social systems for arraying forms of consciousness, some to be rigidly and constantly confined to menial tasks (which may be changed only upon design and permission of others), versus others (who are to be allowed parameters of freedom and creative self-expression).

Should any mortal adjudge morality of such a system? How may or should each such system be changed, preserved, or respected? To considerable extent, must it be enough: to appreciate that every such system must eventually surpass and replace itself; to hope that each perspective of consciousness may be availed opportunity to experience creative self fulfillment appropriate to its capacity of appreciation; to intuit that all perspectives serve God; to hope that each perspective of consciousness, in some sense of enlightened empathy, may respect all others?

Indeed, may just such a system be in place --- even at a meta-level --- among Elohim fluxing and competing within a meta-system of hierarchical functions and parameters? Perhaps, consciousness of each of us is meta-tied to such Elohim.

JAZZ OPERA WITH LIVE AMMUNITION

(by Dlanorrenrag*)
JAZZ OPERA WITH LIVE AMMUNITION:

EMPOWERING ANGER: Look at those most evidently unhappy and desirous of: acting out, militancy, tearing down systems, anarchy, nihilism, and even apocalypse: Is their anger being managed, or is it being empowered?

EMPTY MATERIALITY: Compare what American residents have, materially, that billions of people world wide do not have. Can it not reasonably be concluded that much of prevailing rage and angst has less to do with missing materiality than with missing spirituality --- that is, widespread spiritual malaise, failure of nerve, and mal-focus of attitude and Will?

Does all the material saturation of glands, stomachs, and pleasure centers --- via foods, wines, and pharmaceuticals --- fulfill us or just leave us empty?

SUSTAINABLE DECENCY: To avail decency need not be to avail nihilism of sustainable values. For example, to avail decent regard for civil unions need not be to entitle precisely the same social or tax incentives as a sustainable society may wish to confer upon traditional marriages.

GREED: Who is financially benefiting and/or working hand in hand to stimulate and trump up resentments? Look at corporate financiers and greed predators of: entertainment industry, media, academia, and even churches.

RATIONALIZED RIDICULE IN SERVICE OF GREED: Consider how every fundamental value that has heretofore sustained us is now being subjected to rationalized ridicule by so-called elites, many of whom are financially motivated to lead us into self-hatred.

PRETZEL RATIONALISM: Apart from trumped-up and pretzel-rationalized resentments and self-justifying Marcuse’ian double standards, why are haters of America, criminals, rappers, gay advocates, atheists, fundamentalists, and minorities so troubled, self-pitying and/or angry?

PREVAILING SOCIAL CONDITIONING: Do America’s schools condition children to be empathetic problem-solvers or to be bitter and angry self-justifiers? When troubled kids go on to college to find themselves, are they being led to enlightenment, or to self-pity, rage, and self-justification?

MORAL EDUCATION: What is “education?” What may we learn from empirical studies and introspective meditations and analyses about the character of “consciousness”? May such studies and meditations lead us to a more common and worthwhile moral philosophy?

JAZZ OPERA: Birth foists us into a life and death competitive-dialectic (like a Jazz-Opera, replete with wondrous harmonies and violent dissonance, where instruments come with live ammunition).

****

CRIME RATES:
See http://w3.ag.uiuc.edu:8001/Liberty/Tales/CrimeAndDrugWar.Html

Liberals appear to be correct in this: That the war on drugs is making the drug business lucrative for gangs, which leads to crime, just like alcohol prohibition led to Al Capone.

However, Liberals are incorrect, I believe, in failing to appreciate the add-on effect of glorifying drug crime by Hollywood, video games, and gangsta’ rap --- even if that add-on effect is the tail of the dog, and the dog is the illegality of drugs.

Conservatives tend to take credit for the recent drop by pointing out how so many would-be recidivists are kept locked up, thereby precluding each of them from becoming “one man crime waves” --- especially since many of crimes of recidivists go unreported or unsolved.

Other dangers and factors:
1. Healthy, conservative families fear the influence of cheap, legal drugs on unsophisticated, vulnerable children who may not recover from a peer-induced first-exposure to some of the junk drugs that are out there.
2. They also fear a San-Francisco-like culture that is ripping apart traditional family values, making it more acceptable to experiment with dangerous pastimes.
3. Recidivism is especially high among addicts, such as sex and drug addicts.
4. The gypsy-like rootless-ness of many families that find it necessary to move ever more frequently as jobs become ever less stable may also undermine previous social reinforcements for resisting addicting pastimes.
5. The present political climate entails so much bickering at the fringes that it is hard to be hopeful that good sense can prevail.
“A Clockwork Orange” came out sometime around 1971. It may be worth seeing again. Sometimes, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

TOLERATION

(by Dlanorrenrag*)
TOLERATION OF CIVILIZATION:

REGARDING UNITED RELIGIONS INITIATIVE
and William Swing: See http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/40/wf_swing.html; http://www.firmstand.org/books/unitedreligions.html; http://www.uri.org/; http://www.uri.org/About_URI.html.

REGARDING PROBLEMS WITH SYNCRETISM:
See Lee Penn and False Dawn, at http://www.mgr.org/LeePennBio.html; http://fatima.freehosting.net/Articles/Art7.htm; and http://www.contenderministries.org/articles/uri.php:
“Swing’s view of “fundamental” (orthodox) Christianity is a negative one. He once said, “Fundamentalism...comes about where people feel more and more insecure, and grab harder and harder to the exclusive claims of one religion or another...The sense of the freedom that there must be in God, and the generosity of God, and the compassion of God, gets frozen out with the exclusive claims.” He makes no secret of the fact that he views religious believers who uphold their faith as a matter of truth, as threats to world peace. Bishop Swing is such a moral relativist, his moral compass shows “north” in every single direction. How can he square his beliefs with the words of Jesus in John 14:6, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” The answer is that Bishop Swing interprets the Bible only in the manner that fits with his relativist worldview. This worldview is only too popular today. Bishop Swing was the recipient of the International Diplomacy Council’s Citizen’s Diplomacy Award. Congratulatory messages were received from California's Governor Gray Davis and President George W. Bush. In his message, the president not only praised Swing for winning the award, but also saluted the URI for “facilitating international understanding.”
The URI is attracting a great many followers. As yet, there are no evangelical Christians listed among the membership of the URI. The reason for this is not hard to figure out. As Christians, we know that truth does not change, regardless of anyone’s beliefs. To put Christianity on the same level with Shamanism, Druidism, Hinduism, or Satanism is to deny the words of Christ. In doing so, we would deny Christ Himself. Moreover, the URI by all appearances is a perfect avenue to institute the world religion presided over by the Antichrist’s false prophet. Mystery Babylon may be in her infancy, but she’s here nonetheless.”

CHEERING APOCALYPSE: It would seem a worthwhile victory or goal to try to convince leaders of major religions, if nothing else, to abhor suicide and apocalypse, rather than to cheer adherents to bring on apocalypse.

PURPOSE: By “leaders” is meant those who value and promote a purpose for each of us to serve as a perspective of Higher Consciousness.

OUTLAWRY: For religions and believers who hold no such value, the rest of the civilized world would do well, while there yet may be time, to take such measures as are needed in order to outlaw or constrict them.

PROMOTING SUSTAINABLE CIVILIZING VALUES: It would seem worthwhile to consider: (1) what sort of human freedom and dignity helps sustain and nourish purpose for serving as perspective of Higher Consciousness; and (2) what sort of values undermine civilizations that otherwise would value such purpose?

SELF-DEFEATING STRATEGIES:
A radical civilization that outlaws or punishes freedom of thought and worship that deviates from a narrowly prescribed dogma has already --- just by its propagation --- undermined human freedom and dignity.
A civilization that tolerates invasion by such a radical other, in effect, tolerates its own diminishment and eventual destruction.
A civilization that fails to inculcate in its children and students respect for the value of its own survival undermines itself.
A civilization that equally values all pursuits undermines all pursuits.
A civilization that does not respect means for propagating and nourishing its next generation undermines itself.
A civilization that is indifferent to family values, sexual roles, and the moral upbringing of its next generation undermines itself.

VISION ABOUT SUSTAINABLE VALUES: Members of each church, society, or civilization need and have means for trying to choose what kind of sustainable civilization and members they want.

HARSH REALITY: THIS MEANS SOME TRAITS COMPETE, EVOLVE, OR MORPH TO BE DESIRED --- AND SOME DO NOT. Not every trait proves worthy of being sustained in a civilized gene or cultural pool merely because of sympathy or because it happens to have appeared.

GOD DOES NOT ORDAIN: that all inferior animals must be wiped out in deference to a limitless supply of humans; that all less competitively equipped humans, beyond decent respect, must be specially recognized, promoted, or privileged; that civilizations should be precluded from taking measures to promote sustainable values.

SUSTAINABLE CIVILIZATION: A healthy civilization needs leaders with vision to help inspire traits that may best tend to sustain, defend, and fulfill the civilization’s health and goals.

BEGINNINGS OF INSPIRATION: So, how is a “perspective of consciousness,” person, society, tribe, culture, or civilization to be inspired to accept, nourish, represent, and defend a worthwhile set of traditions, customs, or sectarian or secular commandments --- such as about sexual relations, marriage, family, politeness, diet, drugs, medications, dress, fashion, discourse, symbols, sacrifices, ceremonies, debts, obligations, promises, trusts, options, rights, taxation, homage, obeisance, and hierarchies?

EMOTIONAL ENGAGEMENT VS. RATIONALIZATON: We begin by being born into a holographic state of affairs, wherewith we are assigned a beginning DNA, parents, environment, and culture. From there, we build, expand, and rationalize senses of self, consciousness, interest, emotion, desire, enmity, and empathy.

IDEALIZATION: Perhaps every person respects, wants, and needs ideal exemplars, as reference models for good living, which merit emulating --- regardless that no mortal can live up to an ideal.

BEGINNINGS OF CHOICE: Birth foists upon each of us the beginnings of choice. From the starting point of birth, each perspective tries to navigate a course that is subjectively right and best for it. What is right for one perspective need not be what is right for others. That what is right for me may not be right for others need not mean that I should tolerate or surrender to such others as seek, even if unwittingly, to diminish or destroy that which interests or sustains me. Thus, birth foists us into a life and death competitive-dialectic (like a Jazz-Opera, replete with wondrous harmonies and violent dissonance, where instruments come with live ammunition).

CULTURAL CONDITIONING: We become exposed and conditioned to evolving cultural stories and parables --- free of need to rationalize a final or perfect synthesis, such as a synthesis predicated on idealized computer modeling as opposed to messy actual life.

EVOLVING RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD: As life exposes us to ever greater challenges and complexities, we come less to need new religious parables than to need new insights about God.

FUNDAMENTALS UNDER ATTACK: Presently, civilizations are challenged about appropriate stances to take concerning biological fundamentals, such as: sexual roles, gender ideals, homosexuality, polygamy, bestiality, and contraception.

COMING CHALLENGES: However, much bigger challenges will soon be upon us, relating to: machined biology, genetic manipulation, design of superior beings, artificial intelligence, “artificial evolution,” and “omega computers” --- perhaps, eventually, leading to capacity to bend or reshape reality in ways that will fundamentally alter division of labor and psychological divides and divisions in wealth, skills, capabilities, power --- and spiritual empathy.

REALITY: Assuming there exists basis for “reality,” we mortals only empirically represent and interpret it indirectly, through our senses, which only avail us with a translation of reality. Depending upon one’s system, means, and perspective for decoding, translating, and rationalizing --- the same underlying “reality” may be interpreted differently among parallel holographies or universes. (Ain’t words funny “things”?)

OPEN QUESTION ABOUT FUTURE OF CIVILIZATION: Does competition among civilizations to endure necessarily entail the evolution of two most powerful competitors, each to acquire means for destroying the world in common? Must a blind push to Western technology collide with a dumb inculcation of Eastern fanaticism, eventually to annihilate both, much as matter annihilates anti-matter? Or, may there exist hope and reference to a unifying Source of transcendent empathy? Will a fundamental aspect of spiritual empathy sustain civilization in the face of coming challenges in relations across cultures, species, and new forms of life and consciousness?

CHALLENGE: Of those who wish to sustain civilization, more is required than merely to function as agreeably happy faces tied to sticks, blowing round and round. Verbal power for rationalizing tolerance cannot justify or convert every moral direction into true north. To survive, a civilization must make sustainable choices. Becoming soft or addicted to non-sustainable habits and modes of rationalization, a civilization fails to transcend or survive.