Actual Freedom – A Request from Konrad Swart

September 17 1999:

RICHARD: This is actually quite humorous, Konrad (if it is indeed ‘the only time that you got a point really across to the respondent’ 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? Viz.:

[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’.

KONRAD: 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 having ‘answered’ 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 below). 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 above), but 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].

Viz.:

No. 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).

No. 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)).

No. 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?).

No. 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).

No. 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)).

No. 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).

No. 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).

Now I ask: where in the above (No. 1 through to No. 7) have you answered the original question?

*

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

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.