Actual Freedom – The Actual Freedom Mailing List Correspondence

Richard’s Correspondence

On The Actual Freedom Mailing List

with Correspondent No. 49


January 23 2004

RICHARD: Yet I never asked for an apology for ‘the ‘boneheaded’ comment’ ... and both respect and disrespect are like water off a duck’s back to me anyway.

RESPONDENT: If someone spit on you and slapped you in the face and wished potential death to you ... would it be any different to them hugging you and caressing your face while they wear a warm smile?

RICHARD: Presuming that the spitting, slapping and death-wishing behaviour is what the word ‘disrespect’ educed for you, and the hugging, caressing and smiling behaviour is what the word ‘respect’ similarly educed, then they are indeed different (which is the whole point of the prefix ‘dis-’ in any word) ... yet there would be no difference in regard to the feeling which occasioned both behaviours being like water off a duck’s back to me.

There are no affections here in this actual world.

RESPONDENT: Of course it would, you would be aware of the exact value and potential for how much your life is in danger at that moment ...

RICHARD: Here you have moved from referring to the feelings which occasioned the behaviour – respect/disrespect – and are referring to the behaviour itself.

RESPONDENT: ... (no feelings included, lucky duck) ...

RICHARD: I do realise you may very well be making an associative pun (from the ‘water off a duck’s back’ phrase) yet even so the total absence of feelings in this flesh and blood body has nothing whatsoever to do with luck.

RESPONDENT: ... but would you care about a possible and probable potential death?

RICHARD: I have over a decade’s experience of interacting with people replete with feelings and am well aware they can cause them to do all manner of things – up to and including possible and probable homicide – and thus always take into consideration that their rationality can be cast aside in an instant.

RESPONDENT: If your arms were free to move, you wouldn’t punch back as it is useless because the force behind a punch is determined by the survival instincts and aggressive motivations right?

RICHARD: Wrong.

RESPONDENT: Does this mean the sport of boxing or a friendly spar now and again is out of the pick?

RICHARD: I have no interest whatsoever in hitting my fellow human being in the name of sport or friendliness.

February 18 2004

RESPONDENT: 1) Is nature a tool by design? (what scriptures call ‘penalty and reward for deeds’, Chris Langan makes a logical substitute for the claim of ‘what goes around comes around’, and uses the name ‘Telic points’ – a term branching from ‘Teleology’.) I have examples in my own experience.

RICHARD: Nothing has changed since I last responded to a similar query from you:

• [Respondent]: ‘There are two kinds of ways to sense ‘Universal Right’ and ‘Universal Wrong’ (...) The first is that the right and wrong can be sensed by the intellect, the second is that is can be sensed by the heart.
• [Richard]: ‘The notion of justice is a human concept and is nowhere to be found in actuality.

And:

• [Respondent]: ‘If [someone] killed you and they got away from the law somehow, some way as this is a rare but possible case, should they receive some penalty in the eyes of the Universe for having killed you?
• [Richard]: ‘(...) I have already made it clear to you, in another e-mail in this thread, that (a) the notion of justice is a human concept and is nowhere to be found in actuality ... and (b) the only eyes this universe has are the eyes of sentient creatures (thus there is no need for your hypothetical questions in whatever form).
Moreover, as your response to (a) was [quote] ‘yawn’ [endquote], and your response to (b) was [quote] ‘duh’ [endquote], it is entirely up to you whether you continue to waste your time or not ... put simply the universe, being physical, is value-free (aka non-judgemental) and your god, being metaphysical, is value-loaded (aka judgemental).
In short: it is entirely up to humans to sort out their own affairs.

RESPONDENT: 2) Richard, is it possible you can be shocked, surprised or agasped at something?

RICHARD: No.

RESPONDENT: For example, discovering that your grandmother has been living in the woods of my backyard for 43 years?

RICHARD: No.

RESPONDENT: Have you been confused about something anytime recently, this should be one?

RICHARD: No.

February 18 2004

RESPONDENT: Richard, I would have thought that living and interacting with others under your state of consciousness would diminish one’s understanding of human behaviour and responses. Doesn’t the intellect have some limitations to sensitivity that emotions do not?

RICHARD: Nothing has changed since I last responded to a similar query from you:

• [Respondent]: ‘Is your consciousness pure intellect?
• [Richard]: ‘No, there is more to consciousness – the state or condition of a body being conscious – than intellect ... much, much more.

February 18 2004

RESPONDENT: Richard, I think it is possible for you to lie, is it not?

RICHARD: As you have titled this e-mail ‘Sincerity’ there could be more to this question than the pragmatic fact that, given the human condition is endemic, it is sometimes necessary on occasion to not provide a truthful answer to an adversarial person or persons in a position of power who, bent on dominance, will not listen to reason.

Even so, I cannot recall any instance over the last x-number of years that I have had to have recourse to lying ... having nothing to hide there has simply been no need to.

It is all so easy here in this actual world.

February 18 2004

RESPONDENT: I’ve left some questions further above that I think need answering ... Please don’t fuck with me.

RICHARD: Where have I ever been anything but up-front and out-in-the-open?

February 18 2004

RESPONDENT: Richard’s responses to stimuli: I was giving some thought to how emotions function to make a thought occur and I realized that they can be independent, but I am still unsure if they are interwoven. Let us consider a stimulus which only emotion can respond to, then one without emotion would have to use some kind of associative analyses to grasp that stimulus, but what if they don’t have one? Now take curiosity for instance, what is the origin of this response? If Richard has unrequited curiosity then I suppose he would accept any reason out of the infinite reasons for why he has not. If Richard were running a long-distance race and he reaches the point of ‘not wanting to continue’, then would he decide to give up on the million dollar prize waiting at the finish line?

Time: Ok, perhaps Richard does not have a sense of time. So what else is there? Actions and events. I’m guessing that Richard measures his life by actions and events that are called for.

Pleasure: Its been said countlessly that Richard enjoys comedy, humour and other forms of entertainment. He can also accept life in a jail cell. This in combination with his loss of imagination and therefore sense of time, would mean that he would enjoy the entertainment as is but would not miss it if it were not presented to him. He literally accepts the moment he is in.

Am I right about all this Richard?

RICHARD: First of all: why were you only ‘giving some thought’ to how emotions function (rather than feel how they do and thus find out experientially)?

Second, what stimulus are you referring to that only emotion can respond to?

Third, what kind of associative analyses is it that one without emotion does not have?

Fourth, the origin of curiosity is sentience itself ... sentient beings are by their very nature inquisitive.

Fifth, what is it that Richard has not (such that he would accept any reason out of infinite reasons)?

Sixth, I would not be running in a long-distance race in the first place.

Seventh, as this moment has no duration it is the arena, so to speak, in which things happen ... have you never noticed it is never not this moment?

Eighth, time is the measure of the movement of form through space and the periodicity of its rearrangement ... although the past did happen it is not actual now; although the future will happen it is not actual now; only this moment is actual.

Ninth, pleasure, or entertainment in whatever form, is but a bonus on top of the sheer delight of being just here, right now, as a flesh and blood body only no matter the situation or circumstance ... hence solitary confinement in some insalubrious penitentiary cannot take away the direct experience of the pristine purity of this actual world.

Tenth, the absence of imagination is not the reason why this time is eternal (as in your ‘loss of imagination and therefore sense of time’ phrasing).

Lastly, as there is only ever this moment there is nothing to literally accept ... as a flesh and blood body only one is already always just here, right now, irregardless.

May 25 2004

RESPONDENT: When I was sleeping I was in a semi-sleep paralysis state and I was dreaming and at the same time I was in the waking state.

There were humming noises in the actual basement (which I also had a dream about) but the noises elevated greatly and it felt like my ears were definitely going to explode, and they (the ears) were changing pressures like crazy. It also felt like the noises of the basement were definitely coming from my insides ... Sort of. Is this a familiar happening?

RICHARD: Yes, hypnagogic (pre-dormient) or hypnopompic (post-dormient) experiences (HHE’s) often accompany sleep paralysis (cataplexy) ... you may find the following link useful in this regard: http://watarts.uwaterloo.ca/~acheyne/S_P2.html#pp

That the humming noises were ‘definitley ... sort of’ interoceptive (rather than unambiguously exteroceptive) is indicative of it being a semi-hallucinatory state (rather than a full-blown hallucination).

June 12 2004

RESPONDENT: Identity has distinct characteristics along with form and function. If it is impossible to believe in something, as in set expectations for something, then can AF have a flaw?

RICHARD: An actual freedom from the human condition is what ensues when identity altruistically ‘self’-immolates in toto (both ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul): as a flesh and blood body only it is patently obvious that identity was both an illusion (‘I’ as ego) and a delusion (‘me’ as soul) ... thus the ‘distinct characteristics along with form and function’ you speak so definitively of are but a chimera.

As to be actually free from the human condition is to be living in the pristine purity (aka the flawless perfection) of this actual world it has no flaw.

*

RESPONDENT: [quote] ‘But 200 years after Newton the theory of electromagnetism was developed into Maxwell’s equations. These equations describe waves with a speed of 1/sqrt (epsilono*muo), where epsilono is the constant describing the strength of the electrostatic force in a vacuum, and muo is the constant describing the strength of the magnetic interaction in a vacuum. This is an absolute velocity—it is not relative to anything. The value of the velocity was very close to the measured speed of light, and when Hertz generated electromagnetic waves (microwaves) in his laboratory and showed that they could be reflected and refracted just like light, it became clear that light was just an example of electromagnetic radiation. Einstein tried to fit the idea of an absolute speed of light into Newtonian mechanics. He found that the transformation from one reference frame to another had to affect the time—the idea of sliding a deck of cards had to be abandoned. This led to the theory of special relativity. In special relativity, the velocity of light is special. Anything moving at the speed of light in one reference frame will move at the speed of light in all un-accelerated reference frames. Other velocities are not preserved, so you can still try to get lucky on speeding tickets’. [www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/relatvty.htm]. Mass tells space to curve such that a time dilation results as does a gravitational field. Black holes produce ‘currents’ that change the course of light which of course is proof of the mass properties of what scientists call ‘photons’.

If all things are relative including time, then does an instantaneous awareness only sense an instantaneous space and time?

RICHARD: As time is not relative – except in the mathematical models theoretical physicists posit (in lieu of direct experience) – your query has no substance in actuality.

RESPONDENT: In other words, would you see space and time as two unrelated characteristics?

RICHARD: Time and space (and matter) are seamless.

RESPONDENT: Are you still able to set expectations?

RICHARD: As you have already delineated ‘to set expectations’ as being another way of saying ‘to believe in something’ (further above) then ... no.

RESPONDENT: Is actual freedom a freedom from the human condition and nothing else?

RICHARD: An actual freedom from the human condition is, of course, indeed an actual freedom from the human condition ... your ‘and nothing else’ addendum is so amorphous as to render the question meaningless.

RESPONDENT: Is this testable and how?

RICHARD: If you would specify just what your ‘and nothing else’ addendum refers to your follow-up query might have some substance.

June 14 2004

RESPONDENT: Identity has distinct characteristics along with form and function. If it is impossible to believe in something, as in set expectations for something, then can AF have a flaw?

RICHARD: An actual freedom from the human condition is what ensues when identity altruistically ‘self’-immolates in toto (both ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul): as a flesh and blood body only it is patently obvious that identity was both an illusion (‘I’ as ego) and a delusion (‘me’ as soul) ... thus the ‘distinct characteristics along with form and function’ you speak so definitively of are but a chimera. As to be actually free from the human condition is to be living in the pristine purity (aka the flawless perfection) of this actual world it has no flaw.

RESPONDENT: Is it possible to bring further awareness into an actual freedom?

RICHARD: The ‘awareness’ you are referring to is apperceptive awareness – unmediated perception – which ensues when identity altruistically ‘self’-immolates in toto (both ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul): as the phrase ‘in toto’ means ‘completely, without exception; altogether, in all’ (Oxford Dictionary) there is no way that apperception is anything less than a 100% awareness.

RESPONDENT: The humour which you enjoy must be identifiable to the intellect.

RICHARD: I draw your attention to the following:

• [Respondent]: ‘Is your consciousness pure intellect?
• [Richard]: ‘No, there is more to consciousness – the state or condition of a body being conscious – than intellect [‘the faculty of knowing and reasoning; power of thought; understanding; analytic intelligence’ (Oxford Dictionary)] ... much, much more. (20 January 2004).

And this:

• [Respondent]: ‘Richard, I would have thought that living and interacting with others under your state of consciousness would diminish one’s understanding of human behaviour and responses. Doesn’t the intellect have some limitations to sensitivity that emotions do not?
• [Richard]: ‘Nothing has changed since I last responded to a similar query from you: [Respondent]: ‘Is your consciousness pure intellect? [Richard]: ‘No, there is more to consciousness – the state or condition of a body being conscious – than intellect [‘the faculty of knowing and reasoning; power of thought; understanding; analytic intelligence’ (Oxford Dictionary)] ... much, much more.

RESPONDENT: Can you appreciate irony as well?

RICHARD: If you are meaning the word in its ‘dissimulation, pretence; especially the pretence of ignorance practised by Socrates as a step towards confuting an adversary’ primary meaning (Oxford Dictionary) there is nowt about such conduct between fellow human beings that can be appreciated.

If you are meaning the word in its ‘mockery, ridicule, derision, scorn, wryness, sarcasm’ synonymic meaning (Oxford Dictionary) this may be an apt moment to point out that such is designed to make the recipient feel the effects of ridicule – humility via humiliation – as in the repentance engendered by the remorse of feeling rueful ... as such it sucks big time.

If, however, you are meaning the word in its ‘discrepancy between the expected and the actual state of affairs’ figurative meaning (Oxford Dictionary) I can definitely appreciate it as I have learnt much about ill-founded expectations via such discrepancies over the course of more than half a century of being alive on planet earth.

RESPONDENT: Does the mathematics of probability serve a purpose in your life?

RICHARD: No (not directly, that is) ... but everyday probability does. Vis.:

• [Richard]: ‘The entire thrust of your argument conveniently ignores what has sometimes been called ‘the law of probability’ (or ‘the probabilist theory’) upon which 99% – if not 100% – of all human endeavour is sensibly based ...’.

In short: I can reasonably expect the sun to rise tomorrow (that the earth will keep on turning) ... bearing in mind that such is not an ironclad certainty.

*

RESPONDENT: (...) Mass tells space to curve such that a time dilation results as does a gravitational field. Black holes produce ‘currents’ that change the course of light which of course is proof of the mass properties of what scientists call ‘photons’. If all things are relative including time, then does an instantaneous awareness only sense an instantaneous space and time?

RICHARD: As time is not relative – except in the mathematical models theoretical physicists posit (in lieu of direct experience) – your query has no substance in actuality.

RESPONDENT: Would you care to study quantum physics?

RICHARD: You may find the following informative in this regard:

• [Richard]: ‘Speaking personally I am not at all concerned about either the big bang theory or the relativity theory – or quantum theory for that matter – and it is only when my fellow human being chooses to settle for second best because of a man sitting in a patents office nearly a century ago having the happiest thought in his life (that a person falling from a roof has the right to interpret their state of motion as being a state of rest and thus conclude there is no gravitational field for them) that I go looking up such things in encyclopaedias and other places.
Quite frankly, I would rather sit and watch paint dry on a wall than read about the imaginative/intuitive speculations of theoretical physicists.

As quantum theory is based upon a mathematical device (Mr. Max Planck’s ‘quanta’) initially designed to solve the hypothetical problem of infinite ultra-violet radiation from a non-existent perfect ‘black-box’ radiator, and never intended to be taken as being real (until Mr. Albert Einstein took it up for his own purposes), I have no interest whatsoever in studying it.

RESPONDENT: If I were to become actually free would it make sense that I inevitably fail quantum physics?

RICHARD: Ha ... it would fail you.

*

RESPONDENT: Are you still able to set expectations?

RICHARD: As you have already delineated ‘to set expectations’ as being another way of saying ‘to believe in something’ (further above) then ... no.

RESPONDENT: Would there be any other alternative to setting expectations?

RICHARD: I can reasonably expect certain things to occur ... physical death (for example).

RESPONDENT: Or you set an expectation without any beliefs then.

RICHARD: Where something is reasonable not only is no belief required such an activity would be counter-productive to any amendment of an expectation in the light of further discovery ... as in what the (misnamed) term ‘cognitive dissonance’ refers to.

*

RESPONDENT: Is actual freedom a freedom from the human condition and nothing else?

RICHARD: An actual freedom from the human condition is, of course, indeed an actual freedom from the human condition ... your ‘and nothing else’ addendum is so amorphous as to render the question meaningless.

RESPONDENT: Is this testable and how?

RICHARD: If you would specify just what your ‘and nothing else’ addendum refers to your follow-up query might have some substance.

RESPONDENT: The and nothing else refers to other aspects of existence besides human identity and actual freedom.

RICHARD: And just what ‘other aspects of existence’ would they be, then?

June 17 2004

RESPONDENT: Richard, is your refusal to respond to my last follow-up query due to: a} it being irrelevant? b} the questions escaped your comprehension? c} you had to run? d} they were the wrong questions? e} you are stumped? f} all of the above.

RICHARD: Have you stopped beating your wife yet?

June 19 2004

RESPONDENT: Richard, is your refusal to respond to my last follow-up query due to: a} it being irrelevant? b} the questions escaped your comprehension? c} you had to run? d} they were the wrong questions? e} you are stumped? f} all of the above.

RICHARD: Have you stopped beating your wife yet?

RESPONDENT: This joke might have a humorous effect on someone if the idea of beating one's wife were funny. I never dreamed that by entering into what I believed to be the opportunity for an innocent discussion, I would be letting myself open for accusations of domestic abuse. Still, if it even remotely resembled a pun on making wild guesses, then it should at least denote to what and to whom the pun is being made on.

P.S. Is there a reasonable explanation as to why you averted my questions?

RICHARD: Have you lost your horns?

June 19 2004

RESPONDENT: Richard, is your refusal to respond to my last follow-up query due to: a} it being irrelevant? b} the questions escaped your comprehension? c} you had to run? d} they were the wrong questions? e} you are stumped? f} all of the above.

RICHARD: Have you stopped beating your wife yet?

RESPONDENT: This joke might have a humorous effect on someone if the idea of beating one's wife were funny. I never dreamed that by entering into what I believed to be the opportunity for an innocent discussion, I would be letting myself open for accusations of domestic abuse. Still, if it even remotely resembled a pun on making wild guesses, then it should at least denote to what and to whom the pun is being made on.

P.S. Is there a reasonable explanation as to why you averted my questions?

RICHARD: Have you lost your horns?

RESPONDENT: Gosh Richard... how unassuming, how innocent you are... nobody and I mean NOBODY else on this list knows who you REALLY are but me, yes, ME, so stop with the ACT and come forth from behind that angelic mask of innocence and reveal the true EVIL behind who you REALLY are!!!! You can't get rid of me THAT easily! Your gonna have to expel me from this list!

RICHARD: http://www.fallacyfiles.org/loadques.html; http://io.uwinnipeg.ca/~walton/99interrog.pdf

July 06 2004

RESPONDENT: Is it possible to bring further awareness into an actual freedom?

RICHARD: The ‘awareness’ you are referring to is apperceptive awareness – unmediated perception – which ensues when identity altruistically ‘self’-immolates in toto (both ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul): as the phrase ‘in toto’ means ‘completely, without exception; altogether, in all’ (Oxford Dictionary) there is no way that apperception is anything less than a 100% awareness.

RESPONDENT: Going on the assumption that an actual freedom is a freedom from the human condition and thus the psyche, it should have no trouble curing any psychological disorder. A disorder caused by injury not of the body but of the brain, wherein one inevitably experiences delusion or hallucination would be a case in point of an awareness of reality holding greater tangibility over an awareness of the actual. Thereby illustrating that an awareness of the actual is only complete when an awareness of reality is. Hence one may conclude that an awareness of reality is the foundation of an awareness of the actual. Therefore, ‘actual reality’ should be the goal of any actualist since in the unlikely event of brain injury, a mediated awareness would disallow one from certain aspects of reality.

RICHARD: There does appear to be some misunderstanding ... I draw a sharp distinction between the words ‘actual’ and ‘real’ for the sake of communicating what life is like when the psyche is no more (when identity altruistically ‘self’-immolates in toto). Thus ‘an awareness of reality’ is a superimposition on the ‘awareness of the actual’ – the ‘real world’ (as experienced by maybe 6.0 billion peoples) is a veneer imposed over this actual world – as, in the perceptive process, the sensations are primary, the affections are secondary, and the cognitions are tertiary.

Therefore it is preposterous to conclude that ‘an awareness of reality is the foundation of an awareness of the actual’ ... let alone propose an idealistic goal based upon such a conclusion.

*

RESPONDENT: Can you appreciate irony as well [as the humour you enjoy]?

RICHARD: (...) If you are meaning the word [irony] in its ‘discrepancy between the expected and the actual state of affairs’ figurative meaning (Oxford Dictionary) I can definitely appreciate it as I have learnt much about ill-founded expectations via such discrepancies over the course of more than half a century of being alive on planet earth.

RESPONDENT: If I were to define irony as basically: ‘a confliction to one’s plans and expectations’, then if someone were to make a plan or an expectation of you, and it expectation conflicted with your physical well-being, as in threatened your life, you would react to this in accordance to laws as you’ve already said to me.

RICHARD: This is the exchange you are referring to:

• [Respondent]: ‘Richard, if a fellow human being threatened to kill you, how would you respond to that?
• [Richard]: ‘In accord with the legal laws of the country, of course.
• [Respondent]: ‘If they succeeded, and got away with that would it be justifiable that they receive some kind of penalty for it?
• [Richard]: ‘How would such a person have ‘got away with that’ when, in accord with the legal laws of the country, such a threat was duly reported to the police and thus recorded on file for later reference?

RESPONDENT: However, assume, there were no laws governing humanity.

RICHARD: As I now comprehend it you are asking me whether I can as well appreciate (as the humour I enjoy) some as-yet-unspecified confliction to the plans and expectations of some hypothesised person threatening my life ... provided I further assume there are no legal laws of the country to respond in accord with.

RESPONDENT: Would your choice then be a strictly logical action that would be in logical parlance to an actual freedom?

RICHARD: No ... by and large logic is a matter I leave to the logicians.

RESPONDENT: If so, can you explain why it is? If not, can you explain why take any course of action against this expectation made of you?

RICHARD: As you are asking me why take any course of action, if that action be not ‘a strictly logical action that would be in logical parlance’ to an actual freedom from the human condition, which would be a confliction to the plans and expectations of some hypothesised person threatening my life (and further assuming there are no legal laws of the country to respond in accord with) my answer would perhaps be best put this way: I did not become actually free from the human condition so that someone – anyone – who is still run by the instinctual passions they were born with could do with me whatever such passions impelled them to do.

I may be a lot of things ... but I am not silly.

*

RESPONDENT: Would you care to study quantum physics?

RICHARD: You may find the following informative in this regard:

• [Richard]: ‘Speaking personally I am not at all concerned about either the big bang theory or the relativity theory – or quantum theory for that matter – and it is only when my fellow human being chooses to settle for second best because of a man sitting in a patents office nearly a century ago having the happiest thought in his life (that a person falling from a roof has the right to interpret their state of motion as being a state of rest and thus conclude there is no gravitational field for them) that I go looking up such things in encyclopaedias and other places.
Quite frankly, I would rather sit and watch paint dry on a wall than read about the imaginative/intuitive speculations of theoretical physicists.

As quantum theory is based upon a mathematical device (Mr. Max Planck’s ‘quanta’) initially designed to solve the hypothetical problem of infinite ultra-violet radiation from a non-existent perfect ‘black-box’ radiator, and never intended to be taken as being real (until Mr. Albert Einstein took it up for his own purposes), I have no interest whatsoever in studying it.

RESPONDENT: Consider Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle: The more precisely the position of a particle is determined, the less precisely its momentum is known. Under what you classify this phenomenon? Classical Physics, Quantum Physics, or nonsensical misreading of actual phenomenon?

RICHARD: If you were to re-read my detailed response to your question (further above) you would see that I classify it as ‘the imaginative/intuitive speculations of [a] theoretical physicist’.

Put succinctly: what is known in the trade as ‘sub-atomic particles’ have no substance ... they are sub-atomic postulates. Vis.:

• [Richard]: ‘I do understand the value of pure science (theoretical science), as contrasted to applied science (practical science), in the area of research and development – just as I understand the value of pure mathematics as opposed to applied mathematics – as evidenced by the technological revolution and the main point I am emphasising is the dangers of taking the latest (supposedly) scientific discovery to be fact, as propagated by the popular press for instance, because theoretical science does not describe the universe ... mathematical equations have no existence outside of the ratiocinative and illative process.
Perhaps this might go some way towards explaining what I mean:

• ‘It must be realised, however, that the world of experience and observation is not the world of electrons and nuclei. When a bright spot on a television screen *is interpreted as* the arrival of a stream of electrons, it is still only the bright spot that is perceived *and not the electrons*. The world of experience is described by the physicist in terms of visible objects, occupying definite positions at definite instants of time – in a word, the world of classical mechanics. When the atom is pictured as a nucleus surrounded by electrons, this picture is a necessary concession to human limitations; there is no sense in which one can say that, if only a good enough microscope were available, this picture would be revealed as genuine reality. It is not that such a microscope has not been made; it is *actually impossible to make one* that will reveal this detail’. ~ (Prof. Sir Alfred Brian Pippard; ©1994; Encyclopaedia Britannica).

Once the not-observable as objects in space and time basis of sub-atomic particles is established – (as distinct from “visible objects occupying definite positions at definite instants of time” that is) – the mathematical processes involved unfold further mysteries accordingly. Vis:

• ‘The process of transformation from a classical description to an equation of quantum mechanics, and from the solution of this equation to the probability that a specified experiment will yield a specified observation, is not to be thought of as a temporary expedient pending the development of a better theory. It is better to accept this process as a technique for predicting the observations that are likely to follow from an earlier set of observations. Whether electrons and nuclei have *an objective existence in reality is a metaphysical question to which no definite answer can be given*. There is, however, no doubt that *to postulate their existence* is, in the present state of physics, an inescapable necessity if a consistent theory is to be constructed to describe economically and exactly the enormous variety of observations on the behaviour of matter’. ~ (Prof. Sir Alfred Brian Pippard; ©1994; Encyclopaedia Britannica).

Almost needless is it to say, once this postulation is accepted – and as “an inescapable necessity” at that – there is no prize for guessing what will happen. Vis.:

• ‘The habitual use of the language of particles by physicists *induces and reflects the conviction* that, even if the particles elude direct observation, *they are as real as any everyday object*’. [emphases added]. ~ (Prof. Sir Alfred Brian Pippard⁾ ©1994; Encyclopaedia Britannica). Videlicet:

Thus the sub-atomic postulates (i.e., ‘particles’ aka ‘corpuscles’) have become “as real as any everyday object” and thereby assume the status of factoids in the minds of theoretical physicists and thusly to the general public – as revealed unequivocally by Prof. Pippard, a leading theoretical physicist in his day, in the Encyclopaedia Britannica of 1994 – via a sleight of hand (or, rather, a sleight of mind) which would be the envy of many a confidence trickster

*

RESPONDENT: Does an actual freedom resolve the apparent paradox of consciousness?

RICHARD: As there is no such ‘apparent paradox of consciousness’ (outside of philosophical musings that is) there is nothing to resolve ... the word ‘consciousness’ refers to the state or condition of a flesh and blood body being conscious (the suffix ‘-ness’ forms a noun expressing a state or condition) and to be conscious is to be alive, not dead, awake, not asleep, and sensible, not insensible (comatose).

For more than a few people, however, the word ‘consciousness’ refers to the identity within – as in the popular phrase ‘consciousness has left the body’ upon physical death – in which case it (the identity) is indeed not located ‘among the data of the senses’ as the author you quote immediately below observes.

RESPONDENT: [quote] ‘The paradox of consciousness is, also, this: Our science and philosophy are based on empiricism and rationalism. And this leads immediately to a two-fold problem: First, empiricism works only because we experience the data; second, reason works only because we experience the abstract logical relations. Both empiricism and rationalism – the very essence of science – depend, inevitably, on an experiencer, on consciousness. But nowhere among the data of the senses, nor even among the abstractions of logical relationships, will we ever locate the concrete reality of consciousness as an experience ...’. [www.imprint-academic.demon.co.uk/SPECIAL/01_07.html#58].

RICHARD: In short: the ‘experiencer’ the author is referring to is not consciousness per se – the state or condition of a flesh and blood body being conscious – but the identity within ... and, as identity is both an illusion (‘I’ as ego) and a delusion (‘me’ as soul), it is all a lot of huff and puff about nothing.

As is most (if not all) philosophising.

*

RESPONDENT: Is actual freedom a freedom from the human condition and nothing else?

RICHARD: An actual freedom from the human condition is, of course, indeed an actual freedom from the human condition ... your ‘and nothing else’ addendum is so amorphous as to render the question meaningless.

RESPONDENT: Is this testable and how?

RICHARD: If you would specify just what your ‘and nothing else’ addendum refers to your follow-up query might have some substance.

RESPONDENT: The and nothing else refers to other aspects of existence besides human identity and actual freedom.

RICHARD: And just what ‘other aspects of existence’ would they be, then?

RESPONDENT: The aspects which defy awareness and the available methods of logic we currently use to explain phenomenon.

RICHARD: But just what ‘aspects which defy awareness’ are they which you are referring to?

*

RESPONDENT: P.S. For fun I would like to ask: For what amount of money would you exchange an actual freedom for?

RICHARD: An actual freedom from the human condition is irrevocable – as such it is priceless – and if (note ‘if’) it were exchangeable it would not be worth anything.

July 13 2004

RESPONDENT: Richard, you experience instantaneous time to the point of time being not there.

RICHARD: I experience no such thing ... time is actual (as is space and matter).

RESPONDENT: Yet, is it not true that you have memory ...

RICHARD: Yes ... memory is operating very well (much better, in fact, than when an identity was in situ).

RESPONDENT: ... and hence, your mind keeps a time of its own, in a logical order?

RICHARD: No ... this mind keeps the succession of events in a sequential order. This is what (actual) time is in regards to memory:

• [Co-Respondent]: ‘... the point of reference [for a prior event] exist only in your memory.
• [Richard]: ‘The point of reference for an event which is not currently occurring can also be recorded in video/ audio/ print format (to name but a few examples ... fossilised records are another instance).
This moment, however, cannot be remembered/recorded as it is never not this moment.

RESPONDENT: What if your mind ceased to keep time?

RICHARD: As this mind does not keep a time of its own neither this nor your follow-up questions (immediately below) have any substance.

RESPONDENT: Then wouldn’t you experience existence as a single moment of creation inevitably following anti-creation leading to nothingness? In other words, do we experience existence as a sort of logic?

RICHARD: It would save a lot of to-ing and fro-ing of e-mails if you would take note that when I say that, by and large, I leave logic to the logicians I actually mean it. Vis.:

• [Respondent]: ‘Would your choice then be a strictly logical action that would be in logical parlance to an actual freedom?
• [Richard]: ‘No ... by and large logic is a matter I leave to the logicians. (Tuesday 6/07/04).

Incidentally, not only do I mean what I say I also say what I mean.

July 15 2004

RESPONDENT: Richard, if your flesh and blood body can be called a sort of ‘universe’ necessary to house your blood cells, and you are a definitive totality as opposed to an un-definitive one, would an inconceivable infinity beyond their simplistic operativeness, you, set rules for their function that determines the ‘good’ from the ‘bad’?

RICHARD: Nothing has changed since I last responded to a similar query from you:

• [Respondent]: ‘There are two kinds of ways to sense ‘Universal Right’ and ‘Universal Wrong’ in my personal observation, if one defines it as balanced and unbalanced justice.
• [Richard]: ‘As I do not define it as ‘balanced and unbalanced justice’ – I know it to be a fantasy – your personal observation is irrelevant to a discussion about facts and actuality.
• [Respondent]: ‘The first is that the right and wrong can be sensed by the intellect, the second is that is can be sensed by the heart.
• [Richard]: ‘The notion of justice is a human concept and is nowhere to be found in actuality.

And:

• [Respondent]: ‘If [someone] killed you and they got away from the law somehow, some way as this is a rare but possible case, should they receive some penalty in the eyes of the Universe for having killed you?
• [Richard]: ‘(...) I have already made it clear to you, in another e-mail in this thread, that (a) the notion of justice is a human concept and is nowhere to be found in actuality ... and (b) the only eyes this universe has are the eyes of sentient creatures (thus there is no need for your hypothetical questions in whatever form).

RESPONDENT: I have come to believe it is useless for me to tell you my certain experiences beyond your’s and anyone’s simplistic understanding, but if I were to tell you everything about yourself, would you still have the same points of view?

RICHARD: You can, of course, believe whatever you like – such as believing my understanding is ‘simplistic’ and believing my reports/descriptions of life sans identity/ affective faculty are ‘points of view’ – yet when you bundle them together into a sentence, assert that your ‘certain’ experiences are beyond your beliefs about me, and ask me to respond to them as if you were asking a valid question based upon fact there is nothing of substance for me to respond to.

Put simply: you cannot know ‘everything’ about somebody else – anybody else – so the hypothetical question as to whether a proposed demonstration of such an imagined omniscience would somehow revoke an actual freedom from the human condition (via the miraculous implantation of an identity/ affective faculty for instance) is but vaporosity masquerading as meaningful communication.

July 16 2004

RESPONDENT: Is Prayer Sensible?

Prayer seems to be in direct confliction to everyday sense, in my experience. There have been reports of an overwhelming force circulating through human beings via prayer that are not connected to the ego-self, yet it is of the mind and ‘heart’. It is an incomprehensible experience. This force has been known to grant those who bear witness to it powers that cannot be considered of earthly origin. Belief transcends the will at some point where it becomes a glimpse of limitlessness. Existence is undefinable, but we simply believe that the undefinable exists apart from us. Adjusting the sensory apparatus so that it is in a perfect correspondence to the physical self does not necessarily mean that human beings have mounted the summit of knowledge in the meaning of existence, which is in fact, indefinitive ... but only to us and other beings of approximate order. Therefore, contrary to popular belief, there is no true difference in nature between you and I except that you are egoless and I have ego among us, the perceived difference comes from seeing the actualist and the ego-self as the only two kinds of human being.

RICHARD: No.

July 16 2004

RESPONDENT: Does actualfreedom say it all?

Prayer seems to be in direct confliction to everyday sense, in my experience. There have been reports of an overwhelming force circulating through human beings via prayer that are not connected to the ego-self, yet it is of the mind and ‘heart’. It is an incomprehensible experience. This force has been known to grant those who bear witness to it powers that cannot be considered of earthly origin. Belief transcends the will at some point where it becomes a glimpse of limitlessness. Existence is undefinable, but we simply believe that the undefinable exists apart from us. Adjusting the sensory apparatus so that it is in a perfect correspondence to the physical self does not necessarily mean that human beings have mounted the summit of knowledge in the meaning of existence, which is in fact, indefinitive ... but only to us and other beings of approximate order. Therefore, contrary to popular belief, there is no true difference in nature between you and I except that you are egoless and I have ego among us, the perceived difference comes from seeing the actualist and the ego-self as the only two kinds of human being. In believing this, you would be incorrect. Hence, actualism is nothing more than a very remote point of view from humanity. That’s all it is. Considering phrases like, ‘nothing to do with the ... business of being alive’ as what Peter hinted to me in his last post actually says nothing about the meaning and direction ... of life. We may as well say, ‘nothing to do with ... the liveness of being alive’. So the question becomes: can you say that actualism says it all?

RICHARD: Yes.

July 16 2004

RESPONDENT: Prayer seems to be in direct confliction to everyday sense, in my experience. There have been reports of an overwhelming force circulating through human beings via prayer that are not connected to the ego-self, yet it is of the mind and ‘heart’. It is an incomprehensible experience. This force has been known to grant those who bear witness to it powers that cannot be considered of earthly origin. Belief transcends the will at some point where it becomes a glimpse of limitlessness. Existence is undefinable, but we simply believe that the undefinable exists apart from us. Adjusting the sensory apparatus so that it is in a perfect correspondence to the physical self does not necessarily mean that human beings have mounted the summit of knowledge in the meaning of existence, which is in fact, indefinitive ... but only to us and other beings of approximate order. Therefore, contrary to popular belief, there is no true difference in nature between you and I except that you are egoless and I have ego among us, the perceived difference comes from seeing the actualist and the ego-self as the only two kinds of human being. In believing this, you would be incorrect. Hence, actualism is nothing more than a very remote point of view from humanity. That’s all it is. Considering phrases like, ‘nothing to do with the ... business of being alive’ as what Peter hinted to me in his last post actually says nothing about the meaning and direction ... of life. We may as well say, ‘nothing to do with ... the liveness of being alive’. So the question becomes: can you say that actualism says it all?

RICHARD: Yes.

RESPONDENT: Um ... how do you know?

RICHARD: Intimately ... I lived that/was that ‘limitlessness’ which you refer to, night and day for eleven years, and had ample opportunity to suss out whether such a state of being ‘says it all’ or not.

It does not.

And in the twelve years since going beyond that state I have similarly had ample opportunity to suss out whether an actual freedom from the human condition ‘says it all’ or not.

It does.

RESPONDENT: Are you aware that this is a rather bold (to the point of laughable) statement to make ...

RICHARD: As it is not a ‘rather bold (to the point of laughable) statement’ your query has no application.

RESPONDENT: ... when existence is indefinitive and matter and energy are not the only to properties of it?

RICHARD: As existence is not indefinitive – ‘not definitive; indeterminate’ (Oxford Dictionary) – and as I have never said that ‘matter and energy’ are the only properties of it there are now three reasons why your query has no application.

*

RESPONDENT: Did you make some kind of ultimate deduction of existence that if tested, can explain everything including the unexplainable aspects of existence?

RICHARD: I see you are now referring to the subject matter of following unfinished exchange:

• [Respondent]: ‘Is actual freedom a freedom from the human condition and nothing else?
• [Richard]: ‘An actual freedom from the human condition is, of course, indeed an actual freedom from the human condition ... your ‘and nothing else’ addendum is so amorphous as to render the question meaningless.
• [Respondent]: ‘Is this testable and how?
• [Richard]: ‘If you would specify just what your ‘and nothing else’ addendum refers to your follow-up query might have some substance.
• [Respondent]: ‘The and nothing else refers to other aspects of existence besides human identity and actual freedom.
• [Richard]: ‘And just what ‘other aspects of existence’ would they be, then?
• [Respondent]: ‘The aspects which defy awareness and the available methods of logic we currently use to explain phenomenon.
• [Richard]: ‘But just what ‘aspects which defy awareness’ are they which you are referring to?

Over to you.


CORRESPONDENT No. 49 (Part Three)

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