Mailing List 'B' Respondent No. 17

Actual Freedom – Mailing List ‘B’ Correspondence

Richard’s Correspondence on Mailing List ‘B’

with Respondent No. 17

Some Of The Topics Covered

Richard not correcting a figure – Konrad’s metaphysics and economic vision – war deaths – ‘Richard’s wrong apperception’ – pure consciousness experience – Actualism – ‘infinite regress of awareness’ – ‘ethic principles as source of emotions’

September 17 1999:

RESPONDENT No. 20: And what part of what I was saying do you so strongly disagree with? Are you saying that attention is not to the subject, but to who is right and who is wrong? What is serious about an investigation that is not much more than an ego brawl?

KONRAD: You are not really investigating. THAT is what I disagree with so strongly. Your ‘open mind’ attitude makes you open your mind to anything and everything. But I have NEVER seen you admit, that you have learnt something. For at the background, because of your open mindedness, there is that implicit assumption, that you should be able to put everything aside. In fact, there is only ONE occasion where I could see that you had learnt something. That was when I went in ‘open battle’ with Richard, and discovered that he had actual serious troubles with his mind. You remember? I challenged him to correct a number. He couldn’t. And from that I was able to deduce that he had some mental illness. I saw that you were not convinced of this in the beginning, but slowly you began to see that I was right. This is the only time I have noticed that I got a point really across to you.

RICHARD: This is actually quite humorous, Konrad (if it is indeed ‘the only time that you got a point really across to No. 20) because it is a totally erroneous point. I am – as I have always been – only to happy to respond to your ‘challenge to correct a number’ ... provided you successfully answer my question first. The reason I have remained adamant about this issue is that you are so reluctant to acknowledge your propensity to dodge the hard questions by throwing in ‘smoke-screens’ and ‘red herrings’ ... once I had to ask you seven times to retract a glaring misrepresentation you had made about me (and when you finally did admit to lying you called me a ‘whining little boy’ for persisting in insisting on an honest discussion). As these dialogues, on this and some other Mailing Lists, are supposedly about investigating the appalling mess that epitomises human relationship, I do consider intellectual scrupulousness to be of the foremost quality when reading and responding to another’s mail. Otherwise, all that you write amounts to nothing but bombast and blather.

I will re-post the sequence (below) yet once again for your consideration ... you may find that you have built up an elaborate misdiagnosis about my mental health – and my ability to perceive and discern – on blatantly wrong premises after all (but, then again, pigs might fly). And remember to read it with an ACTIVE mind and not an OPEN mind this time, eh?

Vis.:

• [Konrad]: Reality can NOT be observed directly.

• [Richard]: I agree ... reality cannot be observed directly for it is an illusion just like the ‘I’. Only actuality can be directly experienced ... and only when any identity whatsoever becomes extinct.

• [Konrad]: You make a distinction here between actuality and reality, while, in actual fact, there is no real difference. (Notice how these two words are present in the last sentence?) A person on the K mailing list explained that to me. What he said is that both the word ‘actual’ and ‘real’ mean exactly the same thing, namely existence.

• [Richard]: I am well aware that the dictionary makes no distinction between the word ‘real’ and the word ‘actual’ ... and someone does not have to be a genius to be able to read a dictionary. I explained to you some time ago why I use the words differently to the dictionary meaning. Perhaps you might actually read it this time, eh? Vis.:

• [Richard]: ‘For many years I mistakenly assumed that words carried a definitive meaning that was common to all peoples speaking the same language ... for example ‘real’ and ‘truth’. But, as different person’s told me things like: ‘That is only your truth’, or: ‘God is real’, I realised that unambiguous words are required. (To a child, Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy are ‘real’ and ‘true’). Correspondingly I abandoned ‘real’ and ‘true’ in favour of ‘actual’ and ‘fact’, as experience has demonstrated that no one has been able to tell me that their god is actual or that something is only my fact. Therefore this monitor screen is actual (these finger-tips feeling it substantiate this) and it is a fact that these printed letters are forming words (these eyes seeing it validate this). These things are indisputable and verifiable by any body with the requisite sense-organs. Now, to a person who believes ardently in their god, then for them their god is real ... not actual, mind you, but real. Usually they tell me that their god is more real than we humans are ... that is how real their fervency makes of their belief. (It is the same as the child with the Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy example I gave above). So too, is it with regards to this wretched ‘self’. The ‘self’, whilst not being actual, is real ... sometimes very, very real. The belief in a real ‘thinker’ and ‘feeler’ is not just another passing thought. It is emotion-backed imagination at work. ‘I’ passionately believe in ‘my’ existence ... and will defend ‘myself’ to the death if it is deemed necessary. With all of ‘my’ beliefs, values, creeds, ethics and other doctrinaire disabilities, ‘I’ am a menace to the body. ‘I’ am ready to die for a cause ... and ‘I’ will willingly sacrifice physical existence for a Noble Ideal. That is how real ‘I’ am’.

And your smart answer, when I presented this Santa Claus and Tooth Fairy example on the other occasion, shows just how interested you are in finding out about life, the universe and what it is to be a human being living in the world as it is with people as they are. Vis.:

• [Konrad]: ‘We don’t have a ‘Tooth Fairy’ or ‘Santa Claus’ in The Netherlands so your example is not valid’
• [Richard]: Seeing as The Netherlands have Sinterklaas, it is a rather pathetic response from you, isn’t it?
• [Konrad]: ‘Ahh, you know about Sinterklaas. How nice! THAT is a fellow I believe in, although he has been recently wrongly de-sainted. Was I to take that serious, then?
• [Richard]: Of course you were to ‘take that serious’ ... do you think that I am writing to myself?

*

• [Konrad]: Reality can NOT be observed directly. If you believe that, you make such, sorry to say, stupid mistakes as you are making here. If THAT is what Actualism does with the mind, then it is very, very dangerous.

• [Richard]: Oh? And in what way is it dangerous? 160,000,000 people have been killed in wars this century alone ... with these normal minds steering the ship. Scientists – with their highly developed abstract thinking and ‘heavy mathematics’ – invented the atomic and nuclear bombs ... are these not dangerous? What on earth are you talking about?

• [Konrad]: Let me respond to this with a little ‘tease’. Are you not meaning to say: 1.600,000,000 people have been killed in wars this century alone ... and not: 160,000,000 people have been killed in wars this century alone? Haven’t you pushed your ability to be blind to abstract thinking too far? For you consistently make the mistake to be off with a factor of 10. I know, it is just a minor mistake. Not one to draw too big conclusions from. So I will not. However, it proves one point. Your ability to observe reality directly, without thought intervening is less infallible than you pretend it to be.

• [Richard]: Do you see how you neatly side-step answering the actual question that I asked? Another smoke-screen to avoid answering a very valid point. You said that actualism is very, very dangerous because of what you perceive it does to the mind ... and I ask you about both the normal mind’s dangerousness and the abstract mind’s dangerousness. You are making unsubstantiated allegations about actualism’s effect on people’s minds ... and totally fail to address yourself to the real problem. Namely: humanity’s inhumanity to humankind. If you cannot see this very important fact, then this correspondence is just a complete waste of time for you. If you can successfully answer my original question ... then I will successfully answer your ‘little tease’.

<SNIP>

• [Konrad]: And another thing. You constantly use the sentence: [Richard]: ‘You may have noticed that I referred to the fact that 160,000,000 people have been killed in wars this century alone? One cannot be happy unless one is first harmless and one cannot be harmless unless one is first happy’. [endquote]. When are you going to correct the figure? I have once pointed this mistake out to you before. Doing too much copying and pasting, eh?

• [Richard]: I am waiting for you, Konrad, before responding. Did you not read that bit? Shall I copy and paste? Vis.:

• [Konrad]: ‘Reality can NOT be observed directly. If you believe that, you make such, sorry to say, stupid mistakes as you are making here If THAT is what Actualism does with the mind, then it is very, very dangerous.
• [Richard]: ‘Oh? And in what way is it dangerous? 160,000,000 people have been killed in wars this century alone ... with these normal minds steering the ship. Scientists – with their highly developed abstract thinking and ‘heavy mathematics’ – invented the atomic and nuclear bombs ... are these not dangerous? What on earth are you talking about?
• [Konrad]: ‘Let me respond to this with a little ‘tease’. Are you not meaning to say: 1.600,000,000 people have been killed in wars this century alone ... and not: 160,000,000 people have been killed in wars this century alone? Haven’t you pushed your ability to be blind to abstract thinking too far? For you consistently make the mistake to be off with a factor of 10. I know, it is just a minor mistake. Not one to draw too big conclusions from. So I will not. However, it proves one point. Your ability to observe reality directly, without thought intervening is less infallible than you pretend it to be.
• [Richard]: ‘Do you see how you neatly side-step answering the actual question that I asked? Another smoke-screen to avoid answering a very valid point. You said that actualism is very, very dangerous because of what you perceive it does to the mind ... and I ask you about both the normal mind’s dangerousness and the abstract mind’s dangerousness. You are making unsubstantiated allegations about actualism’s effect on people’s minds ... and totally fail to address yourself to the real problem. Namely: humanity’s inhumanity to humankind. If you cannot see this very important fact, then this correspondence is just a complete waste of time for you. If you can successfully answer my original question ... then I will successfully answer your ‘little tease’.

And you never did answer, Konrad.

September 17 1999:

RESPONDENT: And what part of what I was saying do you so strongly disagree with? Are you saying that attention is not to the subject, but to who is right and who is wrong? What is serious about an investigation that is not much more than an ego brawl?

• [Konrad]: ‘Reality can NOT be observed directly. If you believe that, you make such, sorry to say, stupid mistakes as you are making here If THAT is what Actualism does with the mind, then it is very, very dangerous.
• [Richard]: ‘Oh? And in what way is it dangerous? 160,000,000 people have been killed in wars this century alone ... with these normal minds steering the ship. Scientists – with their highly developed abstract thinking and ‘heavy mathematics’ – invented the atomic and nuclear bombs ... are these not dangerous? What on earth are you talking about?

KONRAD: You have STILL not corrected that figure! As long as you don’t, I cannot take you seriously. You might find this a joke, but I am serious about it. If you cannot correct that figure, I cannot depend on it that you are able to admit to be capable of making errors. And then the discussion can only be one sided. I regret this, for I found my discussion with you very interesting, until I saw that it was one sided, up to the point whereby you could not even admit to innocent errors. Wait a minute! I see that there is a condition I have overlooked then. You write:

• [Konrad]: ‘Let me respond to this with a little ‘tease’. Are you not meaning to say: 1.600,000,000 people have been killed in wars this century alone ... and not: 160,000,000 people have been killed in wars this century alone? Haven’t you pushed your ability to be blind to abstract thinking too far? For you consistently make the mistake to be off with a factor of 10. I know, it is just a minor mistake. Not one to draw too big conclusions from. So I will not. However, it proves one point. Your ability to observe reality directly, without thought intervening is less infallible than you pretend it to be.
• [Richard]: ‘Do you see how you neatly side-step answering the actual question that I asked? Another smoke-screen to avoid answering a very valid point. You said that actualism is very, very dangerous because of what you perceive it does to the mind ... and I ask you about both the normal mind’s dangerousness and the abstract mind’s dangerousness. You are making unsubstantiated allegations about actualism’s effect on people’s minds ... and totally fail to address yourself to the real problem. Namely: humanity’s inhumanity to humankind. If you cannot see this very important fact, then this correspondence is just a complete waste of time for you. If you can successfully answer my original question ... then I will successfully answer your ‘little tease’.

If you reread my recent mails on this list, you will find that I have answered it.

RICHARD: I have re-read everything that you have written to this Mailing List in the past few days and this précis (below) is what I see as being relevant to you ‘answering’ my original question. For convenience I have numbered your ‘answers’ from No. 1 through to No. 7.

• In (No. 1) you completely ignore the evidence of science that empirically demonstrates, via the ‘scientific method’, that sentient beings are born pre-wired with instinctual emotions ... you blame wrong ethical and/or moral values (even when this fact is pointed out to you in No. 7). Thus you have not addressed my original question at all ... yet you have the temerity to say: [Konrad]: ‘If you reread my recent mails on this list, you will find that I have answered it. I have met your condition. Now it is time that you meet mine’ [endquote].

• In (No. 2) you acknowledge that science has found the ‘inner domain’ to be ‘even more terra incognito’ than the ‘outer domain’... and hint that you have a ‘principle’ that will fix the problem whilst declining to expound it. Thus you have not addressed my original question at all ... yet you have the temerity to say: [Konrad]: ‘If you reread my recent mails on this list, you will find that I have answered it. I have met your condition. Now it is time that you meet mine’ [endquote].

• In (No. 3) you say that the solution to ‘the pain of existential need’ (the inner emptiness) is easily solved by keeping yourself busy so as to give a sense of purpose to one’s life! Thus you have not addressed my original question at all ... yet you have the temerity to say: [Konrad]: ‘If you reread my recent mails on this list, you will find that I have answered it. I have met your condition. Now it is time that you meet mine’ [endquote].

• In (No. 4) you say that you ‘think’ that you have found this ‘principle’, which you mentioned (in No. 1), that you are not going to write about on this Mailing List. Thus you have not addressed my original question at all ... yet you have the temerity to say: [Konrad]: ‘If you reread my recent mails on this list, you will find that I have answered it. I have met your condition. Now it is time that you meet mine’ [endquote].

• In (No. 5) you say that there are ‘social laws’ that cannot be violated but in the same breath say that violence must not be used to establish these ‘constructive forces’ without explaining how. Thus you have not addressed my original question at all ... yet you have the temerity to say: [Konrad]: ‘If you reread my recent mails on this list, you will find that I have answered it. I have met your condition. Now it is time that you meet mine’ [endquote].

• In (No. 6) you talk about a ‘quantum computer’ that is going to do marvellous things ... yet all the while you going around in circles trying to ascertain whose principles are the ones to value (your undescribed ‘principle’ I presume) with your version of ‘virtue’. Thus you have not addressed my original question at all ... yet you have the temerity to say: [Konrad]: ‘If you reread my recent mails on this list, you will find that I have answered it. I have met your condition. Now it is time that you meet mine’ [endquote].

• In (No. 7) you take a lot of words to describe the conflict between different thoughts jostling for supremacy of vision until the most logical one wins, and holds the field for a while, with its principle (soon to be discarded for another principle) without acknowledging the major part that the instinctual passions play in influencing decisions. Thus you have not addressed my original question at all ... yet you have the temerity to say: [Konrad]: ‘If you reread my recent mails on this list, you will find that I have answered it. I have met your condition. Now it is time that you meet mine’ [endquote].

Vis.:

1. [Konrad]: ‘A misbehaviour is by its very definition something that goes against either subjective values, or against moral/ethical values. It is by use of such values that we denote a certain type of behaviour as misbehaviour. Even if we denote a behaviour as misbehaviour because we FEEL offended, then if you investigate the root of this feeling, it turns out to arise either out of a subjective value, or a moral/ethical value. For emotions in general are automatic responses of our values to events’. (Message 00869 of Archive 99/09: Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999; Subject: Re: the diseased mind that is entrapped in images).

2. [Konrad]: ‘Science brought improvement from its very beginning. The success of science is remarkable (...) even God had to bow for the logic of Aristotle, thus proving that logic was more powerful than God. This was the new beginning of science in the west (...) the only type of certainty that exists in science is CONTEXTUAL certainty. And an event is then considered to be certain, if its outcome is known to happen in this context with a probability near one, or, in common language, with a probability near 100%. (...) even if some outcome is 100% certain, this STILL does not mean that it will happen in every case (...) if you take the contextual nature of science into account, there is NO scientific theory that has EVER been refuted (...) what has happened with Science is not refutation, but finding better and better explanations, which could be used in ever widening contexts. These better explanations led to different concepts (...) most of science is used constructively ... houses are built with science, we use agriculture with science up to the point where more food is produced than needed, we use computer and telecommunication to communicate all over the world etc. etc. etc. Almost nowhere we can find a place where science is NOT used constructively in some way. So science is used very rationally. I agree, though, that there are problems still to be solved. But this is not the failure of science, but the reason lies simply in the fact, that we have not yet succeeded in finding the right way to apply science. There are particularly two areas wherein science has not reached success. One is the social domain, and the other is the inner domain (...) the study of our inner consciousness is even more ‘terra incognito’. Recently I even have found a principle that can do for our inner life what my principle of economy can do for economy, the theory of Darwin has done for biology, and the theory of Newton has done for physics. I will write about it. I think, however, that this mailing list is not the right place to do this’. (Message 00884 of Archive 99/09: Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999; Re: No Subject (Konrad))

3. [Konrad]: ‘There is no ‘I’ separate from the goals we try to realize and/or uphold ... when there is not a picture present of something to achieve, to accomplish, or to uphold that takes up all of our time ... when there is such emptiness, the question ‘who am I?’ comes up. At such a moment there is only ONE correct answer. Namely ‘nothing’. There is lack of identity, expressing itself in a form of emotional pain that comes from some standard that this is not how it should be. The emotional pain of emptiness is easily ended ... you can end it by making decisions, by collecting some goal that fills the time you have too much. These decisions then create new purpose, and at the same time they end the pain of existential need. In other words, decisions lead to identity. The decisions create an ‘I’ ... we are beings of ‘self-made soul’ ... the correct order is first making decisions ... out of these decisions ... an identity is formed, that is at the same time the end of the pain out of which the question ‘who am I?’ emerges. And if the question no longer emerges, then this means that, in spite of the fact that it is a wrong question, it has been answered. (Message 00896 of Archive 99/09: Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 20; Subject: Who am I?).

4. [Konrad]: ‘Psychology has become a science in recent years. It is, however, not yet an exact science. For that to happen, you must find a way to connect psychological concepts to a number. I think I have found a principle, that is able to connect the capacity of the mind to numbers, like I already have done with economy, and the principle of ‘gains in time’ (...) you say that in introspective study this is not possible. But this is no longer true. There is an indirect way to do it. I give just a sketch, for a complete explanation takes too many words for an e-mail ... if I assert to have found a principle, with which dramatic improvements ... in all areas of the capacity of the mind can be activated, and people try it out (some do it now) and it does INDEED lead to the improvement I have predicted, (it does by them) then, in an indirect way I have proved, at least to them, that I really have got something’. (Message 00904 of Archive 99/09: Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999; Re: criticisms of the contributors to the list).

5. [Konrad]: ‘ANY condition that changes the conditions of Man in such a way, that he sees room to primary improvement I call secondary improvement. As such science gives by far the greatest opportunity of growth, and thus of increasing the measure and degree in which we are alive (...) you must make a distinction between weapons, and the use of them. The fact that we can make such powerful weapons testifies the power of logical thinking, mathematics, and physics. But there is not yet developed a science of society, since the only candidates, economics, and its derivative, the science of rights, have not yet delivered on their promise ... but this does not mean, that the attempt as such is wrong. Only that they have not yet succeeded. But then again, the science of economics is very young ... there are social laws you cannot violate, without it leading to mass poverty. Because there are only beginnings of a real science dealing with society, I point for example to the Libertarians, and their vision on right and violence, there are still wars, prosecutions, and potential threats to mass destruction going on. It is the result of a fear of anarchy, combined with a belief that you can use violence to CONSTRUCT a social order ... I suspect that the problems of war and mass-murder will be over in about 500 years, since the beginning of a social science that can end all of it are already advanced enough to see exactly what the problems are, and how to solve them ... in EVERY country, with NO exception, violence is used in SOME degree as an attempt to make it into a constructive force ... if people learn to recognize violence in all its forms, and understand that it cannot possibly be a constructive force, no matter how well the intentions of the persons using it ... if you want an introduction to this vast subject, I suggest read ‘For a New Liberty’ of Murray N. Rothbard. It contains ... rational ways to show a route to end all violence (...) the more you have studied, and the more truths you have discovered, the more you are in conflict with people who uphold irrational, unfounded beliefs. Therefore, to be in conflict is not necessarily something negative. It can be a sign of development and growth having taken place. To be more precise: As long as you do not use violence to end conflicts, there is nothing wrong, and nothing to be ashamed of with being in conflict with others’. (Message #00932 of Archive 99/09: Date: Thu, 16 Sep 1999; Subject: Re: No Subject (Konrad)).

6. [Konrad]: ‘Within the physics community there is a large discussion going on about quantum mechanics, after the discovery by Bell that von Neumann had made an error in his proof that it is impossible that there are hidden variables. The matter has become actual, because a new type of computer is being developed ... the quantum computer, that makes explicit use of the machinery of quantum mechanics ... a quantum computer will have a far greater impact on society than the computers that are now in existence (...) if in a discussion the epistemological criteria are lacking with which we can determine WHAT is right and WHAT is wrong, then the only thing left is a ‘fight’ about WHO is right and WHO is wrong ... to understand a vision of somebody else is not the same as agreeing with it ... this does NOT bring us together, no matter HOW much I am aware of this (...) so the problem is not that people think differently, and are attached to their vision, but that they are attached to the wrong visions. You should put that what is wrong right, and leave the tendency of people to be attached to their vision alone ... value is that what people act to gain and/or keep. Virtue is the degree of persistence with which they do that ... virtue is needed to uphold value. You cannot demand from people to sacrifice their values in the name of an ‘open mind’, and then expect them to become virtuous. For they won’t’. (Message 00956 of Archive 99/09: Date: Thu, 16 Sep 1999; Subject: Re: criticisms of the contributors to the list 1).

7. [Konrad]: ‘If a computer program is active, there is no need for a separate entity in the computer to drive the program. The active program IS the driver of the computer. In the same manner, there is no need to postulate a separate entity that ‘does’ the deciding. There are systems of selective adaptation present in the brain, that form the brain in a direction so that it is optimally capable to face problems. The way the brains create thoughts to solve problems is much like the way the lymph glands produce antibodies to destroy invaders ... when this same invader enters the body the next time, the lymph glands are more specialized, because it contains exactly enough cells to produce this particular types of antibodies ... now the brains react to problems, that manifest themselves in the form of psychological pain, in the same manner as the lymph glands react to the depletion of certain antibodies. The brain cells try to connect in such a way, that a ‘program’ is formed, that is able to generate a type of behaviour that is able to end the problem. The activity of this program is what we call ‘thoughts’. Now in the beginning stages of the problem, the thoughts that ‘grow’ to deal with the problem are not yet differentiated enough to deal with the problem. However, if you try to be as aware as possible of the pain, the manifestation of the problem in our consciousness, it stimulates the brain to come up with more types of thoughts that can deal with it, and at the same time the thoughts that can solve some parts of the problem become more differentiated ... only ONE thought can control the body with success. If SEVERAL thoughts try to control the body simultaneously, the resulting behaviour is not effective, but chaotic, unless these different thoughts complement each other. This is something they can do by being ‘mutually consistent’, which is the same as being logically consistent. But if a group of thoughts is logically consistent, it can join to become ONE thought. Furthermore, there can be several conglomerate of thoughts that are formed in the brain that have the potential to deal with the problem. Still, only ONE can activate the body. So a competition within the brain between these different (systems of) thoughts happens, all doing their best to show that they are the ‘best’. This determination which is the best is not itself done by some system, but happens in a competitive way, much like the way evolution itself happens in nature. If our brains are in this state, whereby several thoughts are trying to gain dominance over the brain in order to solve the problem, we call this state ‘judging’, ‘evaluating’. And when ONE of these thoughts finally succeeds to obtain control over the body, we call this happening, that ‘a decision has been made, or it is also, more correctly, described as ‘a decision has been reached’. In other words, there is no WHO that decides. It is a WHAT that decides. The WHAT being our brains (...) it is true, that whenever we are born, we have some form ... nevertheless, our brains are not differentiated through the programming of the DNA, or the genes, but they are constructed in such a way, that they ADAPT TO challenges. The reason why we already have SOME form is because the development of our brain, the reactions to signals, already begins in the womb ... the skills that result from the brain are the result of networks formed by the brain cells, that are so complex, that the DNA is simply not large enough to contain the information to dictate the forming of these skills’. (Message 00991 of Archive 99/09: Date: Thu, 16 Sep 1999; Subject: Re: Who am I).

KONRAD: Besides, in my very extensive next to last mail I have answered it also, by presenting you with a full-blown, completely worked out economic vision.

RICHARD: Yet I never asked for a ‘full-blown, completely worked out economic vision’, Konrad ... I was drawing your attention to the real problem: Namely: humanity’s inhumanity to humankind. Even if your economic vision were to be breaking new ground in economic reform, it would be put into practice by malicious and sorrowful peoples ... and fail just as spectacularly as any other economic vision in the history of humankind.

KONRAD: Maybe NOW you are prepared to correct that figure? I have met your condition. Now it is time that you meet mine.

RICHARD: Where in the above (No. 1 through to No. 7) have you answered the original question? Perhaps if I arrange my basic position sequentially? Vis.:

1. 160,000,000 people have been killed in wars this century alone by people with normal minds. Is this not dangerous?
2. Scientists with their abstract minds invented the atomic and nuclear bombs ... is this not dangerous?
3. Is it not humanity’s inhumanity (the malicious and sorrowful impulses) to humankind that is dangerous?
4. As actualism works to eliminate (not sublimate and transcend) the malice and sorrow that arises out of the instinctual passions, in what way is being happy and harmless (actualism in action) dangerous?

I do look forward to your considered response, Konrad.

September 18 1999:

KONRAD: Richard, I have checked your last mail with the number 1.600,000,000, and the key F3 (search). I did not find a text to the effect: ‘If you insist so much on it, to please you, I can correct the flawed number: 160,000,000 people have been killed in wars this century alone ... into the correct number: 1.600,000,000 people have been killed in wars this century alone ...’ or something similar. Therefore I will not bother to read your last mail.

RICHARD: It is always fascinating discussing issues of great import with you, Konrad ... it would seem that when all else fails, you are now attempting to bludgeon me into agreeing with you. Your modus operandi is to demand that I ‘please you’ by falsifying statistics just because you ‘insist on it so much’ ? Is this a foretaste of how you will be operating when you become ‘Dictator Of The World’? You will stifle reasoned opposition to your views by petulantly crying: ‘I ain’t gunna read your E-Mail ’cos you won’t agree with me’? Is this the same Konrad who pontificated on this Mailing List just recently about the benefits of having an ACTIVE mind rather than an OPEN mind?

KONRAD: For you STILL have not proved to me, that you can admit to errors.

The International ‘War Child Organisation’ estimate the figure to be a conservative 60,000,000. Vis.:

‘Sixty million people have been killed in wars during the 20th Century. As you read this, over 30 wars and conflicts rage around the world. Some fill our TV screens with appalling images of distress, emphasising war’s brutalising effect on man. Many of these wars go unreported, often due to political expediency or lack of interest. They reveal a shaming pattern: Over 80% of war casualties are now civilians – mainly women and children. Children are amongst the first casualties of any armed conflict, always the most vulnerable and innocent of victims. In the last decade alone 1.5 million children have died in wars. Four million have been disabled and a further 10 million traumatised’. www.warchild.org/aims.html

A quick round-up of the most obvious of the major western conflicts are as follows:

World War One: 22, 000,000

World War Two: 55,000,000

Korean War: 5,056,000

Vietnam War: 4,000,000

Total: 86,056,000

This total of 86,056,000 is why I had stuck to my (rounded-out) 100,000,000 figure for so long (before switching to Mr Robert McNamara’s estimate). So it would appear that the amount lies somewhere between 60,000,000 and 160,000,000 ... which is nowhere near to the total that you are trying to brow-beat me into using.

Where do you get your figure of 1.600,000,000 from? Will you provide a table of statistics to demonstrate where you are correct and I am in error? Or will you climb down off your High Horse and converse reasonably once again with a mere mortal like myself?

KONRAD: And as long as you are unable to do that, ANY discussion with you is an exercise in futility.

RICHARD: Konrad, if anything I say does not accord with the fact of what I experience twenty four hours a day – and someone can point that out to me – I will freely acknowledge that I am in error.

KONRAD: By the way, I think you are right about my opinion of you being mentally damaged. It is flawed. I have learnt a lot about the human brain lately. And I know it can adapt to anything and everything. So I think that it is possible to switch off the emotions as you assert it can.

RICHARD: The word I use is ‘eliminate’ ... not ‘switch off’. Some thing ‘switched-off’ can be ‘switched-on’ again ... actualism is a one-way trip wherein malice and sorrow will never again rear their ugly heads. I could not get angry or sad if my life depended upon it ... I have no buttons to press ... nor anything under where the buttons used to be.

KONRAD: And I also think that it has probably happened in the way you describe it. I also think it is possible to design a special training that accomplishes that in others.

RICHARD: Good ... there is a distinct possibility for peace on earth after all.

KONRAD: I only think, contrary to you, that it is a bad idea.

RICHARD: I gain the distinct impression, Konrad, that you do not think ... maybe you chew a thistle (or something) which makes your ears flap ... and you mistake this activity for the action of thinking? Because what you are saying (above) is that you think that being happy and harmless (eliminating malice and sorrow) is a ‘bad idea’. Is this why there is no peace on earth?

KONRAD: Good luck!

RICHARD: I neither need ‘good luck’ nor does ‘luck’ exist outside of passionate human imagination. What I am today is the result of eleven years of diligence, application, patience, perseverance, determination and much internal and external observation, investigation, uncovering and discovering.

I know where I am at, where I came from and how I got here.

September 18 1999:

KONRAD: I will not bother to read your last mail. For you STILL have not proved to me, that you can admit to errors.

RICHARD: But where is the error? Up until about a year ago, I would use the figure of 100,000,000 killed in wars this century (which figure I gained from my ad hoc reading years ago during my pacifist/hippie days). Then I watched the BBC ‘Hard Talk’ interview with Mr Robert McNamara (US Secretary for Defence during the Vietnam War) one night. He estimated that 160,000,000 people have been killed in wars this century ... and I considered that he had access to statistics that enabled him to be more informed so as to know better than me. So I ‘admitted my error’ and changed to using his figure of 160,000,000 peoples killed. The International ‘War Child Organisation’ estimate the figure to be a conservative 60,000,000. Vis.: ‘Sixty million people have been killed in wars during the 20th Century. As you read this, over 30 wars and conflicts rage around the world. Some fill our TV screens with appalling images of distress, emphasising war’s brutalising effect on man. Many of these wars go unreported, often due to political expediency or lack of interest. They reveal a shaming pattern: Over 80% of war casualties are now civilians – mainly women and children. Children are amongst the first casualties of any armed conflict, always the most vulnerable and innocent of victims. In the last decade alone 1.5 million children have died in wars. Four million have been disabled and a further 10 million traumatised’. ( www.warchild.org/aims.html). A quick round-up of the most obvious of the major western conflicts are as follows: World War One: 22, 000,000; World War Two: 55,000,000; Korean War: 5,056,000; Vietnam War: 4,000,000; Total: 86,056,000. This total of 86,056,000 is why I had stuck to my (rounded-out) 100,000,000 figure for so long (before switching to Mr Robert McNamara’s estimate). So it would appear that the amount lies somewhere between 60,000,000 and 160,000,000 ... which is nowhere near to the total that you are trying to brow-beat me into using. Where do you get your figure of 1.600,000,000 from? Will you provide a table of statistics to demonstrate where you are correct and I am in error? Or will you climb down off your High Horse and converse reasonably once again with a mere mortal like myself?

KONRAD: Okay, Richard, so it is a maximum of 160.000.000.

RICHARD: Good ... maybe now you may begin to appreciate how easy it is to become so enamoured of one’s own beliefs and suspicions – and thus erroneous conclusions – that it makes one blind to the facts? Perchance you would care to re-visit some of your wildly inaccurate diagnoses (below) so that you might re-consider your position carefully? Then, when all this bombast and blather is cleared up and out of the way, it mayhap that you and I can have an honest and reasoned discussion about life, the universe and what it is to be a human being living in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are?

• [Konrad]: ‘It is 1,600,000,000 people. You constantly forget one zero. This figure of yours is not impressive. It is just 3 to 4 % of the people living now, not a major crisis in humanity. But the actual figure is a staggering 1/3 of the population living now. What is wrong with your apperception?’ [endquote].

In light of the validity of the 160,000,000 figure you may care to re-visit the subject of Richard’s ‘wrong apperception’?

• [Konrad]: ‘I have never seen you admit to any mistake. Even that 160.000.000 number that is actually 1.600.000.000 you have not corrected yet. So this statement is flatly contradicted by your actions. As far as I know, you think that you are incapable of making mistakes, even innocent one’s. I suggest you learn how to play chess. Maybe, after losing some 100 games will teach you some modesty’. [endquote].

In light of the validity of the 160,000,000 figure you may care to re-visit the subject of Richard’s need for ‘some modesty’?

• [Konrad]: ‘Do you admit, that the figure should have been 1.600.000.000, and NOT 160.000.000? I just want to know whether this statement of yours (‘... if I am wrong about something then I am able to acknowledge that freely’) is idle talk, or whether you mean this. You are clearly mistaken about this figure. Still, despite the fact that I have pointed it twice out to you, you still have not corrected it, and in this way you refuse to face the fact, that you make an error. Or if you do, you do not correct your errors. And this made me wonder. So, Richard, are you able to admit that your figure is erroneous? It is a minor error, you know. Something nobody has to make a lot of fuss about. However, NOT to correct this error is NOT a minor mistake, but a major blunder. For, obviously, it is pointless for me to discuss any matters of some depth with somebody who is not even able to correct minor mistakes. A dialogue with such an individual is pointless. One can only talk AT such a person, and not WITH such a person’. [endquote].

In light of the validity of the 160,000,000 figure you may care to re-visit the subject of Richard’s ability to be ‘talked WITH’ and not ‘talked AT’ ?

• [Konrad]: ‘It is a demonstration of such immense ignorance, that I have troubles to understand that somebody with so much pretence could be THAT ignorant. It made, that I failed to recognize it for what it was. Why on earth would you wait to correct an obvious mistake? If something is wrong, it should be acknowledged, independent of who made you aware of this error. To act otherwise, is the same as being guided by argumentations of a ‘personal’, i.e., emotional character. In other words, your reluctance to correct this error is, again, a clear demonstration of your own ignorance’. [endquote].

In light of the validity of the 160,000,000 figure you may care to re-visit the subject of Richard’s ‘ignorance’?

• [Konrad]: ‘So, do you admit that you have made an error? And are you able, to correct this figure in all of your mails from now on? Or is there some ‘handicap’ that prevents this? Are you an invalid, sitting in a wheel chair or something? I do not know anything of your personal situation, you know. I only ‘know’ you through this e-mail medium, and therefore know nothing about your personal circumstances. I have, however, the distinct feeling that there is something about your situation you are hiding. Something, that can put a completely different light on your already by this above error contradicted attempts to demonstrate that you are perfect’. [endquote].

In light of the validity of the 160,000,000 figure you may care to re-visit the subject of Richard’s ‘situation’ and what you believe ‘he is hiding’?

• [Konrad]: ‘I allowed Richard in his own way to make clear what he has to offer. I put a lot of energy in it, and finally I saw that his position was one of a mental defect that causes him not to be able to feel his emotions, although they are still functioning. It even has a name. Alexithymia, a diagnosis I came up with independently from those two psychiatrists Richard himself speaks about, and who have actually investigated him first hand. I understand, that Richard thinks that it is not a disturbance, but an improvement. So I have also given this the benefit of the doubt, and tested it by looking whether he is able to correct his mistakes, which he said he was able to. He was unable to do this. (If you are curious, he constantly used the sentence: ‘160.000.000 people killed by war in this century alone’ that is one zero short. No less than 4 times I have pointed this mistake out to him, even once in a mail completely devoted to it. He was not able to correct it, and even showed an unawareness of the necessity to do this. This is a mental disorder that goes by the name of anosognosia. So anosognosia is one of the consequences of alexithymia, and therefore his condition is NOT an improvement.)’ [endquote].

In light of the validity of the 160,000,000 figure you may care to re-visit the subject of Richard’s ‘anosognosia’?

• [Konrad]: ‘There is one person on this list, called Richard who has attempted to convince me, in a one-year debate, that having emotions is a bad thing. And he is also very proud (why that is not an emotion is beyond me) to have eliminated them all. This has made me aware of emotions, and to investigate them very thoroughly lately. I have discovered something about emotions I will present very soon on this list. This discovery is something I applied on him to see, whether he really functions better, as he asserts he does. And from this, purely by e-mail, I discovered that not having emotions is a dysfunction, not an improvement. I was even able to diagnose the particular deviation he had. It was alexithymia’. [endquote].

In light of the validity of the 160,000,000 figure you may care to re-visit the subject of Richard’s ‘dysfunction’?

• [Konrad]: ‘Richard has a psychological dysfunction, diagnosed as: alexithymia. In the head there is a centre, called the amygdala. It is at the base of the head, between the limbic system and the spinal chord. It is the centre where the emotions are stored and released. What probably has happened with him, is that the connection between the amygdala and the neocortex is no longer functioning, although the connection of the amygdala with the limbic system is still there. This causes a neurological disorder that results in him not being aware of his own emotions, although they are there, and they all function. So he shows every emotional functioning you can observe in everybody else. Only he himself is not aware of them. Like I said, I have studied him thoroughly. Only after my recent studying of emotions I understood what was wrong with him. I also want to add, that doctors who have actually investigated him came to exactly the same diagnosis’. [endquote].

In light of the validity of the 160,000,000 figure you may care to re-visit the subject of Richard’s emotions that you believe ‘are there’ and ‘all function’?

• [Konrad]: ‘In fact, there is only ONE occasion where I could see that you had learnt something. That was when I went in ‘open battle’ with Richard, and discovered that he had actual serious troubles with his mind. You remember? I challenged him to correct a number. He couldn’t. And from that I was able to deduce that he had some mental illness. I saw that you were not convinced of this in the beginning, but slowly you began to see that I was right. This is the only time I have noticed that I got a point really across to you’. [endquote].

In light of the validity of the 160,000,000 figure you may care to re-visit the subject of Richard’s ‘mental illness’?

You will notice that I have not included the correspondence you had with my ex-wife (wherein you specifically asked her about my mental condition) which is the correspondence that enabled you to state (proudly): ‘I saw that Richard’s position was one of a mental defect that ... has a name: alexithymia, a diagnosis I came up with independently from those two psychiatrists Richard himself speaks about, and who have actually investigated him first hand’. This is because one rarely gets an accurate account from a disillusioned ex-spouse, eh?

I do so look forward to your considered response, Konrad.

September 28 1999:

RESPONDENT No. 12: Stare at the finger (the words) and what is pointed to is missed.

KONRAD: What you do here is making a distinction between the words and the meaning of them, and making a big deal out of this, which it isn’t. In effect you are putting something forward that everybody knows as if it is a very deep wisdom. A trick that Richard is also very good at. The difference with you and with him is, that he has redefined the ordinary into a complete system of new terms, like actualism, and PCE, etc. In comparison with him you are a complete amateur. I suggest, study him thoroughly, and you might become aware of your own confusion by understanding his.

RICHARD: I see in this paragraph that you are, once again, building a case on a deliberate lie: [Konrad]: ‘a trick that Richard is ... very good at ... is that he has redefined the ordinary into a complete system of new terms, like actualism, and PCE, etc’. We have discussed this propensity of yours to build an hypothesis from a false premise before ... back in the days when you would talk to me directly rather than casting incorrect allusions about me and what I say in your writing to others. Vis.:

• [Konrad]: ‘... the ‘I’-ness of your I is the actualism you talk about with others. For this vision of Actualism is the source of the actions of your body’.
• [Richard]: ‘Actualism is not a vision of mine, it is simply an accurate description of the actual world of sensual delight. I chose the name rather simply from the Oxford Dictionary. It said: ‘Actualism: the theory that matter is not merely passive’. That was all ... and I did not investigate any further for I did not want to know who formulated this theory. It was that description – and not the author’s theory – that appealed. For, living as I do in the fairy-tale-like actual world with its quality of magical perfection and purity, everything and everyone takes on a lustre, a brilliance, a vividness, an intensity and a marvellous, wondrous vitality that makes everything alive and sparkling ... even the very earth beneath my feet. The rocks, the concrete buildings, a piece of paper ... literally everything is as if it were alive. A rock is not, of course, alive as humans are, or as animals are, or as trees are. This ‘aliveness’ is the very actuality of all existence ... the actualness of everything and everyone. We do not live in an inert universe’.
• [Oxford Dictionary]: ‘actualism (noun): the theory that nothing is merely passive (now rare); actualist (noun): an advocate of actualism; actualistic (adjective): of the nature of actualism’.

Now I ask you: where have I ‘redefined’ the word ‘actualism’, eh? As for PCE (pure consciousness experience):

• [Konrad]: ‘... there is no such thing as a PCE’.
• [Richard]: ‘This is just crazy ... everyone I have ever questioned has reported at least one PCE in their life. Usually more than one ... and they can last from as little as one-two seconds to several hours. One person (a woman) I spoke with had it last all afternoon and night, finally going to sleep at 2.00 AM ... only to find it still happening upon waking. It gradually diminished during the course of the morning. And it is not only my observation ... many are the accounts I have read of this ... the subject is currently being discussed around the world in the fields of academia. It comes up in the new study (of the last fifteen years or so) called ‘Consciousness Studies’. This is where I obtained the phrase ‘PCE’ from ... I had called it a ‘Peak Experience’ (after Mr. Abraham Maslow) until then. Oh, there are many, many websites discussing the nature of consciousness itself ... one such site is called ‘The Journal Of Consciousness Studies’ and operates out of Cambridge University in the UK ... if my memory serves me correct. Their URL is: www.zynet.co.uk/imprint/home.html

If this does not convince you then another example can be found in a paper called ‘What does Mysticism have to Teach us About Consciousness?’ where Mr. Robert Forman says:

• ‘PCE’s, encounters with consciousness devoid of intentional content, may be just the least complex encounter with awareness per se that we students of consciousness seek. (...) This experience, which has been called the pure consciousness event, or PCE, has been identified in virtually every tradition. Though PCE’s typically happen to any single individual only occasionally, they are quite regular for some practitioners. The pure consciousness event may be defined as a wakeful but content-less (non-intentional) consciousness. (...) Now, as I understand them, advanced mystical experiences result from the combination of regular PCE’s plus a minimization of the relative intensity of emotions and thoughts. That is, over time one decreases the compulsive or intense cathexis of all of one’s desires. The de-intensifying of emotional attachments means that, over the years, one’s attention is progressively available to sense its own quiet interior character more and more fully, until eventually one is able to effortlessly maintain a subtle cognisance of one’s own awareness simultaneously with thinking about and responding to the world: a reduction in the relative intensity of all of one’s thoughts and desires. (...) What do we mean by mysticism? What is generally known as mysticism is often said to have two strands, which are traditionally distinguished as apophatic and kataphatic mysticism, oriented respectively towards emptying or the imagistically filling. These two are generally described in terms that are without or with sensory language. The psychologist Roland Fischer has distinguished a similar pairing as trophotropic and ergotropic, experiences that phenomenologically involve inactivity or activity. Kataphatic or imagistic mysticism involves hallucinations, visions, auditions or even a sensory-like smell or taste; it thus involves activity and is ergotropic. Apophatic mystical experiences are devoid of such sensory-like content, and are thus trophotropic. When they use non-sensory, non imagistic language, authors like Eckhart, Dogen, al-Hallaj, Bernadette Roberts and Shankara are all thus apophatic mystics. Because visions and other ergotropic experiences are not the simple experiences of consciousness that we require, I will focus my attentions exclusively on the quieter apophatic forms’. www.imprint.co.uk/Forman.html .

Because of the confusion (‘trophotropic’ and ‘ergotropic’ and ‘kataphatic’ and ‘apophatic’), I merely took the academically accepted phrase (Pure Consciousness Event) and substituted ‘Pure Consciousness Experience’ for it, a couple of years ago, so as to regain the actual purity of the PCE back from those who ascribe ASC properties (mystical purity) to it. Before that I had been using the expression ‘Peak Experience’, as popularised by Mr. Abraham Maslow, for about eleven years. In the beginning I used hippie terminology (from my ‘alternate’ background after the sixties) but PCE (Pure Consciousness Experience) seems most suitable. I also favoured the word ‘experience’ over ‘event’ because Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti makes such a thing about his ASC not being an experience. An actual freedom is very earthy and, as living this experience twenty four hours a day is all new in human history, I get to describe qualities and properties like any explorer ... it is all good fun.

I am only too happy to discuss any other words you claim I have redefined (just writing ‘etc.’ is not good enough). Meanwhile, I will leave you with the following past correspondence for consideration:

• [Richard]: ‘I must ask, at this point: Do you ever read what I write and send to you?’
• [Konrad]: ‘To be honest, sometimes I am sloppy about this’.
• [Richard]: ‘Golly, Konrad ... I am not sure how to proceed now ... because I write to you with the full knowledge of what I have already written to you ... mistakenly assuming that you are following all this and engaging in a two-way dialogue with me. This explains why you do not understand what is being talked about ... and here was I being under the impression that you were either not good with words or were undiscerning ... even just plain stupid. I even failed to see how you could possibly be teaching logic as a profession ... that is how inadequate I found you to be in your replies. So ... now we know why this correspondence flounders and I find myself endlessly repeating ground already covered. But ... I have to ask just what game you are playing with me? Because ... how do I know whether you are going to read all that which I have just written above? If you do not read that, then you are just going to go on accusing me of not understanding you ... these things I write are essential to a mutual understanding. Speaking personally, I read everything you write because I need to know where you are coming from in order to respond accurately. No wonder there has been so much misunderstanding on your part. If you cannot see this very important fact, then this correspondence is just a complete waste of time for you’.

September 28 1999:

RESPONDENT No. 12: Stare at the finger (the words) and what is pointed to is missed.

KONRAD: How can I discover if something is a false premise, if you do not deliver me the data from which I can determine myself whether it is false or not? Calling something a false premise does not make it so. And what is a false premise anyways?

RICHARD: The false premise is that you consider that ‘a trick that Richard is ... very good at ... is that he has redefined the ordinary into a complete system of new terms, like actualism, and PCE, etc’ when I have not. You have asked me about these words before and I have answered each and every one of your requests.

The data on your latest (two) words you claim I have redefined is as follows:

1. ‘actualism’:

• [Konrad]: ‘... the ‘I’-ness of your I is the actualism you talk about with others. For this vision of Actualism is the source of the actions of your body’.
• [Richard]: ‘Actualism is not a vision of mine, it is simply an accurate description of the actual world of sensual delight. I chose the name rather simply from the Oxford Dictionary. It said: ‘Actualism: the theory that matter is not merely passive’. That was all ... and I did not investigate any further for I did not want to know who formulated this theory. It was that description – and not the author’s theory – that appealed. For, living as I do in the fairy-tale-like actual world with its quality of magical perfection and purity, everything and everyone takes on a lustre, a brilliance, a vividness, an intensity and a marvellous, wondrous vitality that makes everything alive and sparkling ... even the very earth beneath my feet. The rocks, the concrete buildings, a piece of paper ... literally everything is as if it were alive. A rock is not, of course, alive as humans are, or as animals are, or as trees are. This ‘aliveness’ is the very actuality of all existence ... the actualness of everything and everyone. We do not live in an inert universe’.
• [Oxford Dictionary]: ‘actualism (noun): the theory that nothing is merely passive (now rare); actualist (noun): an advocate of actualism; actualistic (adjective): of the nature of actualism’.

2. PCE (pure consciousness experience):

• [Konrad]: ‘... there is no such thing as a PCE’.
• [Richard]: ‘This is just crazy ... everyone I have ever questioned has reported at least one PCE in their life. Usually more than one ... and they can last from as little as one-two seconds to several hours. One person (a woman) I spoke with had it last all afternoon and night, finally going to sleep at 2.00 AM ... only to find it still happening upon waking. It gradually diminished during the course of the morning. And it is not only my observation ... many are the accounts I have read of this ... the subject is currently being discussed around the world in the fields of academia. It comes up in the new study (of the last fifteen years or so) called ‘Consciousness Studies’. This is where I obtained the phrase ‘PCE’ from ... I had called it a ‘Peak Experience’ (after Mr. Abraham Maslow) until then. Oh, there are many, many websites discussing the nature of consciousness itself ... one such site is called ‘The Journal Of Consciousness Studies’ and operates out of Cambridge University in the UK ... if my memory serves me correct. Their URL is: www.zynet.co.uk/imprint/home.html

If this does not convince you then another example can be found in a paper called ‘What does Mysticism have to Teach us About Consciousness?’ where Mr. Robert Forman says:

• ‘PCE’s, encounters with consciousness devoid of intentional content, may be just the least complex encounter with awareness per se that we students of consciousness seek. (...) This experience, which has been called the pure consciousness event, or PCE, has been identified in virtually every tradition. Though PCE’s typically happen to any single individual only occasionally, they are quite regular for some practitioners. The pure consciousness event may be defined as a wakeful but content-less (non-intentional) consciousness. (...) Now, as I understand them, advanced mystical experiences result from the combination of regular PCE’s plus a minimization of the relative intensity of emotions and thoughts. That is, over time one decreases the compulsive or intense cathexis of all of one’s desires. The de-intensifying of emotional attachments means that, over the years, one’s attention is progressively available to sense its own quiet interior character more and more fully, until eventually one is able to effortlessly maintain a subtle cognisance of one’s own awareness simultaneously with thinking about and responding to the world: a reduction in the relative intensity of all of one’s thoughts and desires. (...) What do we mean by mysticism? What is generally known as mysticism is often said to have two strands, which are traditionally distinguished as apophatic and kataphatic mysticism, oriented respectively towards emptying or the imagistically filling. These two are generally described in terms that are without or with sensory language. The psychologist Roland Fischer has distinguished a similar pairing as trophotropic and ergotropic, experiences that phenomenologically involve inactivity or activity. Kataphatic or imagistic mysticism involves hallucinations, visions, auditions or even a sensory-like smell or taste; it thus involves activity and is ergotropic. Apophatic mystical experiences are devoid of such sensory-like content, and are thus trophotropic. When they use non-sensory, non imagistic language, authors like Eckhart, Dogen, al-Hallaj, Bernadette Roberts and Shankara are all thus apophatic mystics. Because visions and other ergotropic experiences are not the simple experiences of consciousness that we require, I will focus my attentions exclusively on the quieter apophatic forms’. www.imprint.co.uk/Forman.html .

I must ask, at this point: Do you ever read what I write and send to you?

September 28 1999:

RESPONDENT No. 12: Stare at the finger (the words) and what is pointed to is missed.

RICHARD: I see in this paragraph that you are, once again, building a case on a deliberate lie: [Konrad]: ‘a trick that Richard is ... very good at ... is that he has redefined the ordinary into a complete system of new terms, like actualism, and PCE, etc’. We have discussed this propensity of yours to build an hypothesis from a false premise before back in the days when you would talk to me directly ...

KONRAD: Yes, I was talking to you directly. But you did not return the favour. You just tried to hammer your ‘actualism’ in me, without any investigation in what I brought forward. You may protest against this. For didn’t you go extensively into what I said? Yes, you did. But not with an attempt to investigate what it was, exactly, what I was getting at, but from the biased assumption that everything I put forward is something you either already knew ...

RICHARD: If someone puts something forward that I have already heard about, read about or discovered for myself, am I to pretend that I do not already know it just to please you?

KONRAD: ... or from the assumption that it was wrong ...

RICHARD: If something is incorrect it is incorrect ... thus it is not, then, an assumption.

KONRAD: ... and then trying to gather evidence for this assumption of yours.

RICHARD: This is a prime example of a false premise.

KONRAD: This does not qualify for a honest dialogue.

RICHARD: This is an example of an erroneous conclusion drawn from the false premise.

KONRAD: When we communicated, I did my very best to understand your position, up to experimenting with what you put forward. But when I began to see, that your evaluation of ‘the process’ was wrong ...

RICHARD: Did it occur to you that the reverse may also hold true? If so, then this erroneous ‘seeing’ becomes your next false premise.

KONRAD: ... and therefore your claim, that your condition is something beyond enlightenment was made by somebody who did not really know what he was talking about, you made every communication impossible.

RICHARD: Yet if the premise is incorrect then this conclusion is erroneous.

KONRAD: The only thing you could do was cling to your precious actualism ...

RICHARD: An erroneous conclusion leads to erroneous speculation.

KONRAD: ... instead of really (in your words actually) investigating whether there might be something in what I put forward.

RICHARD: I examined every one of your words and concepts carefully ... which is more than I can say for you. Vis.:

• [Respondent]: ‘Up until now Konrad, I have read, and done my best to understand, every word of your correspondence with Richard – something you do not appear to do with other’s correspondence with you’.

• [Konrad]: ‘Would you like to read endless explanations of somebody explaining astrology to you, or the cabala? Would you like to read endless explanations of somebody who tells you about his encounter with Martians? As soon as people begin to describe things that contradict things I KNOW, I have the natural tendency to stop reading’.

KONRAD: From that moment on you could only respond in one, and one way only. Namely by trying to dismiss anything and everything I put forward.

RICHARD: I did not ‘try to dismiss ...’ Konrad, I have been eminently successful in answering each and everyone of your ever-changing theories.

September 28 1999:

RESPONDENT No. 12: Stare at the finger (the words) and what is pointed to is missed.

RICHARD: I see in this paragraph that you are, once again, building a case on a deliberate lie: [Konrad]: ‘a trick that Richard is ... very good at ... is that he has redefined the ordinary into a complete system of new terms, like actualism, and PCE, etc’. We have discussed this propensity of yours to build an hypothesis from a false premise before back in the days when you would talk to me directly rather than casting incorrect allusions about me and what I say in your writing to others.

KONRAD: You see? You dismiss everything I put forward beforehand. How do you know that I am wrong, if you do not investigate the position from which I make those statements?

RICHARD: Yet I do investigate ... I read everything you write and consider carefully.

KONRAD: How can you be certain, that it is not you, but it is I that is making the mistake?

RICHARD: The facts speak for themselves ... and not your theories that change from day-to-day (and sometimes in the same E-Mail).

KONRAD: Let me mention one thing that is clearly your mistake, and that has blocked every communication between us two. (I have tried to make you aware that you are capable of making mistakes, by that number of 160.000.000, that was my last attempt to make clear to you that you are able to make mistakes. For without you admitting that you are able to make mistakes, I cannot make you aware of making this particular mistake. THAT was the intent. And you have missed even that.)

RICHARD: Whoa up there, Konrad ... it was you who was in error with this example. You acknowledged so yourself. Vis.:

• [Konrad]: ‘I will not bother to read your last mail. For you STILL have not proved to me, that you can admit to errors.
• [Richard]: ‘But where is the error? ... I watched the BBC ‘Hard Talk’ interview with Mr Robert McNamara (US Secretary for Defence during the Vietnam War) one night. He estimated that 160,000,000 people have been killed in wars this century ... The International ‘War Child Organisation’ estimate the figure to be a conservative 60,000,000 ... it would appear that the amount lies somewhere between 60,000,000 and 160,000,000 ... which is nowhere near to the total that you are trying to brow-beat me into using. Where do you get your figure of 1.600,000,000 from? Will you provide a table of statistics to demonstrate where you are correct and I am in error?
• [Konrad]: ‘Okay, Richard, so it is a maximum of 160.000.000’.

KONRAD: You said, that it is impossible for awareness to become aware of itself, because it leads to an infinite regress. And such a thing is clearly impossible, you said.

RICHARD: An ‘I’ being aware of ‘me’ being conscious can lead to infinite regress ... apperceptive awareness (the mind’s perception of itself), however, is total, complete, consummate.

KONRAD: Now I observe clearly, that the infinite regress part is right, but the conclusion that it is therefore impossible is wrong.

RICHARD: Would you care to re-examine this?

KONRAD: In fact, there exist many processes in nature, some of which are partly and some are even totally feedback mechanisms. It is even conjectured, on good grounds, that ‘feedback’ is an essential quality of all living matter. It might even be THE distinguishing characteristic that distinguishes it from dead matter. But if this is so, and if it is also so that the kind of feedback defines both the kind and intensity of life, then it might be very well so, that a feedback within consciousness marks the beginning of a totally new transition within consciousness.

RICHARD: Am I to understand that you can have a theory about the possibility of ‘a totally new transition within consciousness’ but Richard is not to have the actuality? Is this not one rule for Konrad and another rule for Richard?

KONRAD: As long as you approach me from the wrong assumption, that such a process of continuous feedback is either impossible within consciousness, or it is akin to something you have gone through, (which is impossible, due to its recursive nature) you do not approach me at all, but are just upholding some distorted picture you have from me, especially constructed to ‘fit your vision’, and to function as a straw man to direct your attempts to prove me wrong.

RICHARD: What you are saying here is that, as I am living something that you reason to be impossible, then I am not approaching you at all. Would you care to rethink this paragraph in light of what you have said just previously about me doing this very same thing?

I always considered that logic was about consistency.

September 28 1999:

KONRAD: Principles do not contain information. They are rules, that tell how to evaluate information, but they are themselves devoid of any informational content.

RESPONDENT No. 25: Could you provide a simple example?

KONRAD: Okay. Let us take an ethical principle, like ‘thou shalt not kill’. Does it tell that no killing is going on? No, of course not. Then does it tell, that killing IS going on? Again, the answer is: no. What, then, does it tell about the world? If you think about it, it says NOTHING about the world, nor about the human beings in it. Therefore, because it says nothing in terms of what is, or what is happening, it does not contain any information.

RICHARD: Sometimes it is helpful to take a less-emotive example so as to be able to see with the clarity that the absence of a vested interest brings. I would propose the ubiquitous ‘Keep Of The Grass’ injunction, to be found in Public Parks and Gardens anywhere I have been in the world, as being a suitable example. The information implicit in the command is (a) that people have been and are currently prone to be walking/lying/sitting/running/jumping/and in all other ways conceivable doing things on the grass; (b) that unless such a sign is displayed they will continue to do so; (c) that such activity is considered (by some people) as being detrimental to what the grass is for; (c) that what the grass is for is a visual effect (look but do not touch); (d) that other peoples allegedly more thoughtful than the average park user (the ‘authorities’) have considered the implications and ramifications and/or had experience of an ‘user knows best’ approach to grass usage and are directing a different usage; (e) that some (unnamed) penalty will be incurred for transgressions (an order is pointless if not enforced); (f) that such penalty-enforcers have the biggest guns (the requisite ‘might is right’ force) necessary to back-up the order ‘Keep Off The Grass’; (g) that the average park-user can read (is at least somewhat educated) and therefore has a socialised concept of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ (implicit in the education process) and also in that there are no armed guards standing next to the sign for on-the-spot active retaliation of infringements ... and ... well (a) to (g) is just for starters. Therefore, contrary to what you say (above) I cannot comprehend that the injunction is devoid of informational content.

It seems to be loaded with information.

Anyway, the injunction ‘thou shalt not kill’ implicitly provides the information that there is (and has been) killing going on ... or else there would be no need for the commandment in the first place.

KONRAD: But this does NOT mean, that the ethical principle has no meaning. The meaning this principle has is as a criterion of evaluation. What it says, is that WHEN killing is going on, you should condemn it. And when somebody stops killing, you should welcome it. This ethical principle is therefore something to use to EVALUATE facts, but, as an ethical principle, it is ITSELF not a fact.

RICHARD: Likewise I cannot comprehend that contained in the injunction is the evaluative meaning in that one should condemn walking etc. on the grass and that one should welcome abstaining from doing so ... it may only imply that other peoples with the requisite ‘might is right’ force (those with the biggest guns) have decided it be so. In fact, the use of brute force to enable the so-called desired result shows that the evaluative power of the principle is not universal after all ... and may only reflect the dominant group’s particular mind-set.

If what you are saying is that a principle does not provide particular information about precisely what is going on – where, when, how and by who – then I agree. But if that were to be the case, as there is the hourly news up-dates to do that, then all that is being discussed is a trivial and obvious point.

KONRAD: It is interesting to see, that whenever somebody has accepted an ethical principle, he has, at the same time, created a source of emotions.

RICHARD: I would demur about principles ‘creating emotions’ (genetically-inherited emotions have been demonstrated to exist both in animals and in the infant human animal prior to cognition) and suggest instead that principles trigger these already existing genetically-inherited emotions. You may very well be confusing the effect with the cause (and thus making it into the cause in your mind) because, although principles do not create emotions, it is obvious that principles cultivate and refine the already existing genetically-inherited emotions. Indeed, there is a name for this process: socialisation.

KONRAD: For, whenever somebody has accepted this principle, he has a negative emotional response when he sees killing going on, and a positive one when a war ends.

RICHARD: Indeed ... constant application of reward and punishment provide the necessary positive and negative emotional responses. However, this negates your proposal that it is the principle as being the source of the positive and negative emotional responses. The principle simply supplies the conceptual framework needed to justify the application of reward and punishment. Once again, it may very well be the dominant group that sets the criteria.

It would appear to me that the principle appeals to ‘something’ for its effect ... which means it must contain information of some nature.

KONRAD: But this response only occurs when killing is either observed, or imagined, (or the stopping of it).

RICHARD: Is there some other instance when this response can occur, then? When else can it occur? In the actual doing of the killing? If so, does it work to stop the killing ... as it is happening (before it is too late)? The ‘thou shalt not kill’ principle has presided over a lot of killing this century.

KONRAD: In both cases, the ethical principle forms a RESPONSE to something, be it an observed fact or a thought. But this does not mean, that it has itself informational contents. For it needs something that consists of information, before it can generate an emotion.

RICHARD: Now this is puzzling, Konrad, because you wrote (above):

1. ‘Principles do not contain information’
2. ‘The meaning the principle has is as a criterion of evaluation’.
3. ????????????????
4. ‘Whenever somebody has accepted an ethical principle, he has, at the same time, created a source of emotions’.
5. ‘The ethical principle forms a RESPONSE to something’.
6. It [the principle] needs something that consists of information, before it can generate an emotion’.

Could you fill in No. 3 so as to explicate how something that contains no information (a principle) can evaluate something so as to create a source of emotions? Or, to put it another way: with what is the principle evaluating in order to cause someone to accept it – and on what basis – if there be no information in the principle? And, secondly, can the principle evaluate itself for inherent surety if it contains no information? If so – given that it contains no information – how does it do this self-referent appraisal? Thirdly, what happens in the jump that is appearing to happen between No. 2 and No. 4? For example: If a principle contains no information yet serves as a responsive mechanism (creating emotions in the process) how is it responding? Emotionally? And with what desired result? And what determines the appropriate result anyway if the principle contains no information? Which means, to what end (what result) does the principle aspire to? Does the principle not contain information about what it is assumed/predicted life would be like ... if only all peoples accepted it?

I still see loads of information.

KONRAD: This is an ethical principle. But there are more kinds of principles than ethical principles alone. For example, there exist, in physics, the laws of mechanics. You can ask the same questions. <SNIP>.

RICHARD: As I am not a physicist or mathematician, I would appreciate it if you could flesh this out before moving on to principles of physics in the laws of mechanics. And, as I personally have no need for morals, ethics, values, principles and so on, I have no expertise in ethics whatsoever and am very intrigued by the workings of your ethical system.

Is it a fail/safe system?

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