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Richard’s Correspondence On The Actual Freedom Mailing List with Correspondent No. 44
RESPONDENT: It was not enough the arbitrary infinity of the universe, now we have also the unhappiness of the animals. RICHARD: There is nothing ‘arbitrary’ about being the actual experiencing of infinitude itself ... but if that is the way you comprehend what I have to report (when I say things like ‘as this flesh and blood body only I am the universe experiencing itself apperceptively; as such this infinite, eternal, and perpetual universe is stunningly aware of its own infinitude’ for example) then that is your business. As for ‘the unhappiness of the animals’ you speak of ... I can only presume you are referring to this:
Perhaps if I were to put it this way? If you can demonstrate that animals have no instinctual passions, such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire, and thus, being always happy and innocent (aka harmless), already live together in peace and harmony I will be most surprised. RESPONDENT: How do you know that? RICHARD: By being born and raised on a farm being carved out of virgin forest I interacted with other animals – both domesticated and in the wild – from a very early age and have been able to observe again and again that, by and large, animals are not happy and harmless ... they are mostly on the alert, vigilant, scanning for attack, and prone to the passionate fright-freeze-flee-fight reaction all sentient beings genetically inherit. Further to the point I was able to observe, and have maintained a life-long interest in observing, the correspondence the basic instinctual passions in the human animal have with the basic instinctual passions in the other animals ... to see the self-same feelings of fear and aggression and nurture and desire, for example, in other sentient beings renders any notion them living in peace and harmony simply ridiculous. For some simple examples: I have seen a dog acting in a way that can only be called pining; I have watched a cat toying with a mouse in a manner that would be dubbed cruel; I have noticed cows ‘spooked’ and then stampede in what must be described as hysteria; I have beheld stallions displaying what has to be labelled aggression; I have observed many animals exhibiting what has to be specified as fear ... and even in these days of my retirement, from my comfortable suburban living room, I can tune into documentaries on this very topic: only a few months ago a television series was aired again about observations made of chimpanzees over many, many years in their native habitat and I was able to identify fear, aggression, territoriality, civil war, robbery, rage, infanticide, cannibalism, nurture, grief, group ostracism, bonding, desire, and so on, being displayed in living colour. I have to hand a National Geographic article on chimpanzees in the wild in which Ms. Jane Goodall uses words such as ‘war and kidnapping, killing and cannibalism’ and ‘affectionate and supportive bonds’ and ‘pleasure, sadness, curiosity, alarm, rage’ and ‘chimpanzees are creatures of extremes: aggressive one moment, peaceful the next’ when describing what she observed over 20-plus years ... here is an excerpt describing cannibalism (she gave each chimpanzee a name):
The text for a photograph has this to say:
And another photograph depicting out-and-out war:
I am only too happy to send you the full article if that would be of assistance. RESPONDENT: Do you have an animal brain to know it? RICHARD: If by this you mean, for example, that only a dog can experience how a dog experiences itself then we may as well stop this discussion right now. RESPONDENT: Or you have proven that also through a PCE? RICHARD: It does not take a pure conscious experience (PCE) to know that the other animals, just like the human animal, have also genetically inherited such instinctual passions as fear and aggression and nurture and desire. RESPONDENT: If it is a matter of observation and logical process, why you don’t use the same observation for the infinity or finity of the universe? RICHARD: Only recently I provided a link to the e-mail where I have explained at length how I intellectually knew, long before I experientially knew, that the universe’s space was infinite, its time eternal, and its matter perpetual – along with an excerpt from that e-mail – and if you had read it you would not be asking this question. As you are asking this question then it would appear you have not read it ... as it was of no interest to you then, despite it being a very important topic for you on this mailing list, there is no point in reposting it once again. RESPONDENT: So nature is completely idiot, it create unhappy humans and unhappy animals. That is what you are saying in other words. RICHARD: No, that is what you are saying ... what I am saying is that, just as it is with other animals, blind nature endows the human animal with instinctual passions, such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire, as a rough and ready survival package and a fearful animal, for example, be it a human animal or not, is not a happy animal. Just because I say that nature is blind – and the universe is not intelligent (except as human beings) – does not mean I am saying nature is ‘completely idiot’ anymore than I am not saying, for instance, that life is a random chance event in an otherwise empty (read mindless) universe ... I am on record as saying that the universe is far, far more than merely intelligent and that, although human beings value intelligence highly, to project this esteemed human trait onto the universe in general is anthropomorphism writ large. Furthermore it is possibly anthropomorphism at its worst at that, as something tremendously significant is happening, and those that speak sagely of the ... um ... the mind of god, or evidence of intelligent design, and so on, are missing the point entirely and are keeping humankind in thralldom to a spirit-ridden bronze-age wisdom which is long past its use-by date. And, perhaps, this is also an apt moment to explain that nowhere do I say that either the human animal or the other animals cannot be (relatively) happy from time-to-time or (relatively) harmless from time-to-time – and even for extended periods – but that the survival passions, and the feeling-being they automatically form themselves into, not only preclude both total happiness and harmlessness and happiness all-the-time and harmlessness all-the-time but occlude the direct experience of the meaning of life as a living actuality each moment again. In short: if anything is ‘completely idiot’ it is to stubbornly insist that bronze-age peoples knew better than a modern-day person can. * RESPONDENT: Animals to my observation ARE their feelings, they don’t separate them selves from their feelings, so there is no one ‘me’ who has the feelings, and so there is no ‘me’ suffering. RICHARD: Whilst the vast majority of animals are not self-conscious (as in aware of being conscious) they are aware of what is usually described as self and other: a dog, for example, when lifting its leg on a tree can distinguish the difference between itself (what we call dog) and the other (what we call tree) ... or can distinguish the difference between what we call dog and what we call cat (and so on for all things that are other than itself). Plus, just as you say that animals are their feelings, they are feeling creatures as well as being aware of self and other ... thus whilst not being an ego-being they are a feeling-being, just as humans are when they are their feelings (to use your way of putting it), only more rudimentary, of course. RESPONDENT: If I have headache and I don’t separate my self from the headache, that means I am the headache, then there is no problem. RICHARD: Are you saying that when you, a thinking/feeling being inside the flesh and blood body, are the headache you are happy (and harmless) ... or are you saying that you, the flesh and blood body only, are happy (and harmless) irrespective of a headache happening or not? Because if you are saying the latter it is impossible to separate oneself from the headache. RESPONDENT: But if I separate from the headache and say how bad it is and what I shall do to end it, then begins the problem, then there is the ‘me’ the ‘I’ suffering. RICHARD: Ahh ... then you are indeed talking of being a thinking/ feeling being inside the flesh and blood body who can separate itself from the headache (or identify with it). As a thinking/feeling being inside the flesh and blood body cannot be happy all-the-time and harmless all-the-time – let alone totally happy and harmless – your ‘then there is no problem’ phrasing indicates a settling for second best, if that, through a sleight of hand (or, rather, a sleight of mind) called identification. RESPONDENT: The body can take certain amount of pain, and then it faints. What is bad in that? Is a protective mechanism. RICHARD: As I have never said there was anything ‘bad’ in that you are having a conversation with yourself here ... I am most pleased that I faint when physical pain becomes unbearable as it means that unbearable physical pain is never experienced. RESPONDENT: They don’t think they will die. RICHARD: There is no evidence that animals think, period ... but it is true that they are not aware they will die someday. RESPONDENT: When they need food they hunt and if they find ok, if not they are not unhappy but still hungry and they keep searching. RICHARD: A hungry animal is a distressed animal – just as a thirsty animal is a distressed animal – and if being distressed is not being unhappy then I would like to know what is. RESPONDENT: And if they eat they don’t say how happy we are we eat a beautiful food. RICHARD: There is no evidence that animals say any words, period ... but a well-fed animal is a content animal – just as a well-watered animal is a content animal – and if being content is not being happy then I would like to know what is. RESPONDENT: They forget about it and they live in the present moment. RICHARD: Just as very young children do and, just like very young children, when there is a drought or a famine they languish and/or die ... in distress (aka unhappily). RESPONDENT: Until another event happen to their life and they will deal with it when it comes. RICHARD: Entirely at the mercy of events, in other words, meaning that they are sometimes happy (aka content) when events are such that food and water are in abundance ... and sometimes unhappy (aka distressed) when events are such that there is a scarcity of food and water. RESPONDENT: And if they are attacked by another animal that’s all they die, they don’t think about it before it happens. RICHARD: There is no evidence that animals think, period ... but, just as the human animal is genetically endowed with the instinctual fright-freeze-fight-flee passionate reaction, they are mostly on the alert, vigilant, scanning for attack ... and being prone to feel panic, for an example of ‘flee’, can hardly be called being happy just as being prone to feeling aggressive, for an instance of ‘fight’, can hardly be called being harmless. Now that I have responded point-by-point, to what you have just said, I will re-present it here, sans the two sentences regarding yourself, as I have an overall question to ask:
Do you see echoes of the kind of attitude which underpins cruelty to animals? * RESPONDENT: There are examples from people that are attacked by tigers or lions and they survived and they said that after the attack they didn’t feel anything no fear no pain they were like in another dimension. RICHARD: Aye ... and instances of this gave the ‘me’ who was inhabiting this flesh and blood body all those years ago encouragement to proceed along ‘his’ path to freeing this flesh and blood body of the instinctual passions which ‘he’ was. To explain at some length for clarity of communication: I had read an account, many years before, by a farmer’s son who was awarded a Victoria Cross for extreme bravery in the face of the enemy (the highest award, under the British awards system, for a conspicuous courage of a nature such that only 1,348 have been awarded since 1856). As I recall his platoon was pinned down by machine-gun fire from a concrete bunker and there was no way forward to keep up with the advancing line on either flank until it was knocked out. According to the citation he showed courage above and beyond the call of duty by charging single-handedly across open ground under withering fire and lobbing a hand grenade into the pill-box. His own report of the incident, many years later, gave me pause to think and consider. He said that he was no hero and that bravery did not come into it. He said that something changed in him, as he lay pinned down with his mates behind whatever cover they could find, experiencing intense fear. He said that all of a sudden he moved past fear into a super-real world of heightened awareness and absolute calm. He found himself running toward the offending enemy position with bullets whistling about his ears ... and he felt no fear at all: ‘fear did not exist here in this other world’ he said (or words to that effect). He said he did not deserve such high recognition for valour because ‘it was not me who charged the pill-box’ (or some-such words). It is relevant at this point to mention that more than a few Victoria Crosses are awarded posthumously. I also watched an account on television, by a U.S. naval pilot flying off carriers during the battle of Midway, and other battles that followed, where he spoke of himself and other pilots experiencing fear prior to take-off. He said that, instead of trying to overcome fear like his buddies, he would ‘go into the fear itself’ (direct quote). He would encourage it to grow and increase in intensity until, sitting strapped into the pilot’s seat as the plane catapulted down the flight-deck, the very intensity of terror would propel him into ‘another world of utter calm’ (or words to that effect) wherein all his senses were heightened and he was spontaneously super-alert ... without any effort. He was able to conduct his designated sortie with outstanding assurance, born out of the enhanced clarity of his unafraid state of being ... until he came back to the ship and – having landed safely – would slip back into the normal world and start compulsively shaking with delayed-action fear at the enormity of what he had just done. I watched intently as this now-old man described his war-time exploits that earned him his country’s foremost military decoration for ‘conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of life, above and beyond the call of duty’ (the Congressional Medal of Honour, instituted in 1861, and marked ‘Valour’). I took it all in with rapidly growing fascination and the thrilling realisation that I already knew of this
unafraid state of being from my personal history where, being in a war-zone as a youth, my life became a living nightmare ...
literally. I was trapped in an horrific world of revulsion and repugnance, dread and foreboding Thus I knew from experience that it is possible to generate an unreality (dissociate) in order to evade the grim and glum ‘real-world’ reality. 26 years later I came to realise that the ‘Greater Reality’ was nothing but another evasion – the mystical realm is a culturally revered dissociative hallucination – and that completion was already actually just here right now ... and had always been actually just here all along. There are three world’s altogether ... the natural ‘reality’ that 6.0 billion people live in and the super-natural ‘Reality’ that .000001 of the population live in ... and this actual world. I call it actual because it is the world of this body and these sense organs only ... and nary a god or goddess or a devil or a demon to be found. Both the grim and glum ‘real world’ and the glamorous and glorious ‘Greater Reality’ vanished when ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul became extinct. I would not – and could not – live a lie. * RESPONDENT: By the way I paste and copy from the internet about the Hubble’s LAW not theory. The big bang is a THEORY but the expansion of the universe is a FACT, proven with photos. [quote]: ‘The Hubble Law and Hubble Constant are the foundations of the Big Bang theory. To test the theory, astronomers attempt to make reliable measurements of the expansion rate to determine the size and age of the Universe. The evidence that stars and galaxies are moving away from us comes primarily from the red shift of the light from them. These measurements are checked against independent estimates based on the ages of the oldest stars in the Universe. Debate continues concerning the exact value of the Hubble Constant. The animation pictured is a sequence of photos (http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/gif/M100CphB.gif), taken with the NASA Hubble Space Telescope, of a variable star in galaxy M100. These variable stars help astronomers calculate distances to other galaxies. Before 1910, Harvard astronomer Henrietta Leavitt began measuring the brightness of stars in a class known as Cepheid variables, which are bright, young stars with masses 5 to 20 times our own Sun. She discovered that these stars reveal their true brightness by the way their light varies, and that this makes them reliable markers for measuring astronomical distances. Astronomer Edwin Hubble used these Cepheid variable stars to discover that the more distant a galaxy is from Earth the faster it moves away. There is a proportionality between the distance to a galaxy and its recessional velocity. This relationship is called the Hubble Law. The ratio of velocity to distance is known as the Hubble Constant. Hubble’s observations led to the realization that in a uniformly expanding universe, galaxies would have been closer together in the past. Early in the Universe, the density (and temperature) of matter would therefore have been very high. This leads to a model for the evolution of the Universe called the Big Bang theory. The theory says that the Universe began in an extremely hot and dense form and has been expanding ever since. The age of the Universe is estimated to be equal to the inverse of the Hubble Constant. One of the primary uses of the Hubble Space Telescope has been to search for very faint Cepheid variables (as shown above) in distant galaxies and to use them to determine galactic distances in an attempt to improve our estimate of the Hubble Constant. The current estimate of the Hubble Constant suggests that the Universe is between 8 and 15 billion years old’. [endquote]. I should like to add here that when we say that when we say that the distance between galaxies becomes bigger we don’t mean that the galaxies are moving, but the space is expanding. And I make the question, how can one already infinite space, as you say, expand? RICHARD: As I do not say that space is expanding your question has no relevance to what I report ... and as there are many other ways of explaining red-shift it is not a ‘FACT’ that the universe is expanding no matter how big the letters are that you write it with. RESPONDENT: And when you say that you know through a PCE that the universe is infinite, what exactly you mean? RICHARD: I mean ‘exactly’ what I say and I say ‘exactly’ what I mean ... do you think I am writing poesy when I say that, as this flesh and blood body only I am the universe experiencing itself apperceptively and that, as such, this infinite, eternal, and perpetual universe is stunningly aware of its own infinitude? RESPONDENT: Do you mean it literally? RICHARD: When I say ‘apperceptively’ I mean it literally, not fancifully. RESPONDENT: Because if you can not know in a PCE what exist behind a door, then to say that you know what happens beyond millions of light years, then you are entering a metaphysical state. RICHARD: No, the unmediated experience of infinitude – the apperceptive experience of boundless space, unlimited time, and perpetual matter (mass/energy) – is not a metaphysical experience ... the metaphysical experience, during the eleven years of spiritual enlightenment, was of a timeless and spaceless and formless ‘infinitude’ known as God or Truth or Ground of Being or Implicate Order and so on. RESPONDENT: And may be that a PCE is one ASC. RICHARD: Only in your dreams and schemes ... as I have intimate knowledge of both the on-going altered state of consciousness (ASC) popularly known as spiritual enlightenment (night and day for eleven years) and the on-going pure consciousness experience (PCE) I chose to call an actual freedom (night and day for over a decade now) you are talking to the wrong person if you plan on convincing somebody by logical argument. In other words: actualism is experiential ... not abstract theory. * RESPONDENT: Finally the evolution LAW as said me Richard, not theory, does it needs human effort and methods? RICHARD: You must be referring to this exchange:
Neither did I say it is ‘LAW’ nor am I aware of any law of evolution (but I am not all that well-read on the subject) ... and I do not know of any ‘human effort and methods’ that are needed for evolution to naturally (aka blindly) take its course. The names given to purposeful evolution are [‘selective breeding’] and ‘genetic modification’ or ‘genetic engineering’. Editorial note: the phrase ‘selective breeding’, which preceded genetic breeding by many centuries, was added later due to an oversight at the time of writing. RESPONDENT: As far as I know evolution of species happens spontaneously. RICHARD: As I understand it, which understanding is quite scant, when the carrier of genetic information, deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), a self-replicating material which is especially found in the chromosomes of nearly all living organisms, lays down the blueprint, so to speak, when the spermatozoa fertilises the ova a mutant blueprint (a blueprint somewhat out of the norm) can occur in the rapid shuffling of the genes. If the resultant embryo/foetus can survive and be born, and further survive to puberty and propagate, it reproduces its mutation. If the mutant species thus engendered is more fitted to the environment than the norm (aka the survival of the fittest) the mutant species prospers and becomes the new norm as the old norm, less fitted to the environment, gradually dies off. This is what happens in the microbial evolution I referred to earlier: it is not that microbes ‘develop an immunity’ as it is rather that mutant species unaffected by the antibiotics in the first place can prosper whilst the affected microbes die off in droves ... until there is only the mutant microbes (the new norm) already resistant by accident, as it were, to the antibiotics left alive and multiplying. Hence the necessity to genetically modify antibiotics so as to stay ahead of the game.
RESPONDENT: Do you have an animal brain to know it [the unhappiness of the animals]? RICHARD: If by this you mean, for example, that only a dog can experience how a dog experiences itself then we may as well stop this discussion right now. RESPONDENT: Yes I mean exactly this. RICHARD: And thus does this discussion come to an end ... on to a much safer topic, such as the metaphysical, eh?
RESPONDENT: I should like to ask you if you are interested for me to bring in the list a new subject, the so called, metaphysical? Is something that science can’t explain it, but they are overall phenomena. There are many frauds in this area, but this does not mean that there are not genuine ones. Science for example can not explain the reason of many illnesses, but this does not mean that the diseases does not exist. I am copying and paste a subject that I founded interesting. The first question that will arise to your brain is, what is there to be reincarnated? RICHARD: You may find a review of the following exchange helpful:
RESPONDENT: I really DON’T KNOW, but because I don’t know I can’t reject the evidence altogether. RICHARD: The only way to know it is experientially.
RESPONDENT: I could not resist to send you one article that I found yesterday to internet. Is explaining what I tried to explain some months ago about the outer world and the way we perceive it. RICHARD: There is no ‘outer world’ here in this actual world (there is no inner world here). You may find the following to be of interest:
And:
And:
And:
There are other references but maybe these will do for now. RESPONDENT: I don’t remember if I used the expression soup of energy, or soup of atoms, because I don’t keep records. RICHARD: You will find all the e-mails you have posted to The Actual Freedom Trust mailing list in the public archives at the following URL: http://www.topica.com/lists/actualfreedom/read And you will find this exchange in those archives:
May I ask why you take such little notice of what your co-respondents write to you? RESPONDENT: Is this collective subconscious? [quote]: ‘1. Introduction to Consciousness: Abstract: Experiences are physical properties of certain brain states. These brain states are given forms representing the external world by information processing in our brains. The model of the world thus created is the conscious world of our experience. It is a Map used to compute navigation for our organisms. The contextual relationships within the model give meaning to its various images. It is the intent of this paper to make it clear that experiences (qualia and sensorial consciousness) are properties of physical brain states and to show how things are given appearance and meaning. Statistics: 10 pages, 3639 words, 40kb. Published: March 29, 2000. [snipped remainder for reasons of space and copyright restrictions]. There are six more articles. RICHARD: As the abstract for the article you posted also refers to [quote] ‘the external world’ [endquote] what it has to say has little, if any, relevance to what I report ... however this exchange does:
Here is a suggestion: try taking more notice of what your co-respondents have to say ... it would not only save a lot of repetition but provide (a) a focussed reading ... and thus (b) an engaged response. ‘Tis only a suggestion, mind you.
RESPONDENT: I could not resist to send you one article that I found yesterday to internet. Is explaining what I tried to explain some months ago about the outer world and the way we perceive it. RICHARD: There is no ‘outer world’ here in this actual world (there is no inner world here). You may find the following to be of interest: [snip four quotes from previous discussions]. There are other references but maybe these will do for now. RESPONDENT: I don’t remember if I used the expression soup of energy, or soup of atoms, because I don’t keep records. RICHARD: You will find all the e-mails you have posted to The Actual Freedom Trust mailing list in the public archives at the following URL: [snip URL]. And you will find this exchange in those archives: [snip previous advice regarding the exact same issue]. May I ask why you take such little notice of what your co-respondents write to you? RESPONDENT: Is this collective subconscious? [quote]: ‘1. Introduction to Consciousness: Abstract: Experiences are physical properties of certain brain states. These brain states are given forms representing the external world by information processing in our brains. The model of the world thus created is the conscious world of our experience. It is a Map used to compute navigation for our organisms. The contextual relationships within the model give meaning to its various images. It is the intent of this paper to make it clear that experiences (qualia and sensorial consciousness) are properties of physical brain states and to show how things are given appearance and meaning. Statistics: 10 pages, 3639 words, 40kb. Published: March 29, 2000. [snipped remainder for reasons of space and copyright restrictions]. There are six more articles. RICHARD: As the abstract for the article you posted also refers to [quote] ‘the external world’ [endquote] what it has to say has little, if any, relevance to what I report ... however this exchange does:
Here is a suggestion: try taking more notice of what your co-respondents have to say ... it would not only save a lot of repetition but provide (a) a focussed reading ... and thus (b) an engaged response. ‘Tis only a suggestion, mind you. RESPONDENT: Richard, thanks for answering. RICHARD: You are very welcome ... I am pleased that the issue of qualities (qualia) being sourced in the properties of the object, and not in the brain as some people maintain, has finally been cleared up. RESPONDENT: I should like to tell you, that the moment you are speaking about consciousness, PCE, etc., and that you perceive the infinity of the universe through apperceptive awareness, then you have already entered the field of metaphysics. RICHARD: No, the unmediated experience of infinitude – the apperceptive awareness of boundless space, unlimited time, and perpetual matter (mass/energy) – is not a metaphysical experience ... the metaphysical experience, during the eleven years of spiritual enlightenment and called by some as being ‘choiceless awareness’, was of a timeless and spaceless and formless ‘infinitude’ known as god or truth or ground of being or implicate order and so on. When I am speaking about consciousness I am referring to the condition of a flesh and blood body being conscious (the suffix ‘-ness’ forms a noun meaning a state or condition) as in being alive, not dead, awake, not asleep, and sensible, not insensible (comatose), and when I am talking about pure consciousness I am referring to the condition of a flesh and blood body being conscious sans identity in toto – both ego-self (the thinker) and the feeling-self (the feeler) – which means that perception is bare perception (unmediated perception) ... the term ‘apperceptive awareness’ is but another way of referring to this simple perception (aka naïve perception) and being thus direct it is non-separative (not separated from the physical). Thus there is nothing metaphysical about being apperceptive ... indeed, if anything the normal way of perception – a mediated, or indirect and thus separative, perception – being once-removed from the physical, is arguably already well on the way to being beyond time and space and form. RESPONDENT: I define metaphysics as ‘meta ta physsika’, a Greek word meaning beyond nature and physics. RICHARD: As the word ‘physics’ – plural of ‘physic’ from the Latin ‘physica’ from the Greek ‘ta phusika’ (‘the natural’ understood as ‘things’) – is derived from the Greek ‘phusis’ (‘nature’) it properly refers to the science of the natural world (as in knowledge of the physical world of animal, vegetable and mineral) ... thus to say nature *and* physics is to separate it [physics] from the physical. And I am not just nit-picking over the meaning of words here as it is glaringly obvious that the late nineteenth-century/early twentieth-century physics departed from being a study of the natural world (the physical world) and entered into the realm of the mathematical world ... an abstract world which does not exist in nature. Indeed the word ‘metaphysical’ also refers to that which is ‘based on abstract general reasoning or a priori principles’ (Oxford Dictionary) as well as the more common meaning of that which transcends matter or the physical (as in immaterial, incorporeal, supersensible, supernatural and so on). And quantum theory, for an instance of this, is most definitely based on a mathematical device (Mr. Max Planck’s ‘quanta’) initially designed to solve the hypothetical problem of infinite ultra-violet radiation from a non-existent perfect ‘black-box’ radiator and never intended to be taken as being real (until Mr. Albert Einstein took it up for his own purposes). RESPONDENT: You have entered in a field beyond science. RICHARD: As science is the state or fact of knowing – knowledge or cognisance of something physical – based upon observed facts, and/or with demonstrated truths, in that it is both an intellectual and practical activity encompassing those branches of study (the natural sciences) which apply objective observation (the scientific method) to the phenomena of the physical universe, in what way is determining that the universe has boundless space, unlimited time, and perpetual matter (mass/ energy), by both intellectual reasoning and direct observation entering into a field beyond science? As you cannot be saying that all those people with the scientific training sufficient to qualify for the title ‘scientist’, who also say the universe is infinite, eternal, and perpetual, are not operating in the field of science (and only those people with the scientific training sufficient to qualify for the title ‘scientist’ who say that the universe is finite, temporary, and depletable are operating in the field of science) it would appear that, according to your rationale, only non-apperceptive observation (a mediated, or indirect and thus separative, perception) is within the field of science and apperceptive observation (an unmediated, or direct and thus non-separative, perception) is not. In other words, for it to be scientific, observation must be done by an entity within the flesh and blood body, eh? RESPONDENT: You are perceiving something with other means than body senses. RICHARD: First of all, as I am ‘body senses’ I am unable to perceive ‘with’ them – I perceive *as* them – and as there is no identity in situ inside this flesh and blood body I would be most interested to hear your theory as to what ‘other means’ you say I perceive with. Meaning that as there is no affective faculty whatsoever operating in this flesh and blood body – thus no epiphenomenal imaginative/psychic facility – there are no other means than sensorially (and reasoning therehence). And sensible reasoning at that.
RESPONDENT: So to recapitulate, your statement is, that you or me is the universe experiencing it’s own self AS a human being not like a human being. RICHARD: This is what I wrote in a previous discussion with you:
RESPONDENT: Is this right? RICHARD: No (although you have got the ‘as’ part right) ... you have changed ‘itself’ into ‘it’s own self’ when I do not mean that at all. Viz.:
Thus there is nary a ‘self’ to be found in the sentence I wrote ... I was simply referring to the thing in question. RESPONDENT: So you and me and everybody else IS the universe. RICHARD: No ... the universe is experiencing itself as this flesh and blood body, and as that flesh and blood body, and as any flesh and blood body (which includes as a cat and as a dog and so on). RESPONDENT: Then you say after the death of this body there is oblivion, which to my logic is a contradiction, because you have said that the universe will continue, but the body will go to oblivion. RICHARD: I have not said ‘the body will go to oblivion’ at all ... what I have said is that consciousness (the state or condition of the body being conscious) goes into oblivion and that the body breaks down into its constituent parts (just as it sheds bits of itself moment-to-moment all the while it is alive). RESPONDENT: How is that possible the universe to continue, and the human being to go to oblivion? RICHARD: Simply because the human being is not the universe ... to say that ‘you and me and everybody else IS the universe’ is what you have made of my words. * RESPONDENT: Another point is that you are saying that the universe always was existing. So you are speaking about something that has not being created but although always existing. RICHARD: Yes, the universe is a veritable perpetuus mobilis. RESPONDENT: So you reject the law of cause and effect for the first time in human logic. RICHARD: Ha ... Mr. Werner Heisenberg, of the uncertainty principle fame, for just one instance, dispensed with causality (cause and effect) before I was even born:
RESPONDENT: Not even something create it’s own self, because this is absurd, for something to create it’s own self must exist prior of it’s own creation, which is absurd. RICHARD: What has this got to do with what you said (further above)? Viz.:
The words ‘always existing’ not only indicate ‘not being created’ but also indicate ‘not creating itself’ ... the words ‘always existing’ means no creation, period. RESPONDENT: Do you understand what it means ALWAYS existing? RICHARD: Yes ... do you? RESPONDENT: Means trillion of trillion of years, and even that is nothing in front of ALWAYS. RICHARD: Yep, forever is a long, long time ... beginningless and endless time, in fact. RESPONDENT: THAT ALSO MEANS THAT LIFE WAS ALWAYS EXISTING, dna/rna, amino acids, etc. RICHARD: As it is entirely reasonable to assume that wherever the conditions are ripe some life-form has been, is now, and will be, existing then ... yes (although as to whether it would necessarily be ‘dna/rna, amino acids, etc.’ is another question). RESPONDENT: Life consciousness was always existing. RICHARD: If by this you mean the condition of a life-form being conscious – which does not include viruses for example – then again it is entirely reasonable to assume that at some place, at some time, there was, is now, and will be, some-such creature ... meaning that if a human creature does not get it act together it makes no difference to the universe per se. It makes a lot of difference for that human, however. RESPONDENT: Where is space for oblivion then? RICHARD: Hmm ... oblivion is not a place: the expression ‘going into oblivion’ is a way of describing what happens, for example, upon being anaesthetised, being knocked-out, fainting, or in any other way being comatose (unconscious) ... even each night upon going to sleep (unless there be dreaming). RESPONDENT: You accept oblivion ... RICHARD: If I may interject? Have you never been anaesthetised, knocked-out, fainted, or in any other way been comatose (unconscious) ... even each night upon going to sleep? Or, to put that another way, have you been conscious, night and day, for the 50+ years you have been on this planet? Only if it be the latter can you truly say you have no idea of what oblivion is. RESPONDENT: ... but from the other hand you accept that life that is all that exist has no beginning and no end. RICHARD: I do no such thing ... I clearly say that the universe has no beginning or end (either spatially, temporally, or materially) and that a life-form, by being born and then dying after living for x-period of time, does have a beginning and end. RESPONDENT: Are you noticing a contradiction and one conundrum here? RICHARD: No ... and that is because there is none. What I do notice is that you are determined to make one, or the other or both, out of what I have to report (presumably so as to have something to refute) no matter how convoluted or silly it may be. What I have to say is actually very, very simple ... and sensible. * RESPONDENT: I should like to tell you, that the moment you are speaking about consciousness, PCE, etc., and that you perceive the infinity of the universe through apperceptive awareness (...). RICHARD: (...) When I am speaking about consciousness I am referring to the condition of a flesh and blood body being conscious (the suffix ‘-ness’ forms a noun meaning a state or condition) as in being alive, not dead, awake, not asleep, and sensible, not insensible (comatose), and when I am talking about pure consciousness I am referring to the condition of a flesh and blood body being conscious sans identity in toto – both ego-self (the thinker) and the feeling-self (the feeler) – which means that perception is bare perception (unmediated perception) ... the term ‘apperceptive awareness’ is but another way of referring to this simple perception (aka naïve perception) and being thus direct it is non-separative (not separated from the physical). RESPONDENT: The feeler, can be eliminated, but why the feelings? RICHARD: Contrary to your (intellectual) assertion there cannot be feelings sans the feeler – ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’ – and the elimination of the one is the elimination of the other. RESPONDENT: Is as you want to eliminate the senses too. RICHARD: This is just a waste of a sentence. RESPONDENT: You told me that you can not perceive through your senses because you are the senses. RICHARD: Yes, what I am (what, not ‘who’) is these eyes seeing, these ears hearing, these nostrils smelling, this tongue tasting, this skin touching ... whereas who ‘I’ was looked out through ‘my’ eyes as if looking out through a window, listened through ‘my’ ears as if they were microphones, and so on. In short: what I am is this flesh and blood body only being apperceptively aware. RESPONDENT: Agreed. But you still have sensorial awareness. RICHARD: Even though you may say ‘agreed’ it is evident you do not comprehend what you are agreeing with ... I do not ‘have’ sensorial awareness I *am* that. For example:
I do realise that there is an enormous amount of words on The Actual Freedom Trust web site ... but I would have considered that someone who professes to be interested in what I have to report – even if only to refute what I have to say – would, at the very least, have read the home page on my portion of the web site. It, more or less, says it all. RESPONDENT: Why the same can not be applied to the feelings? RICHARD: I have no interest whatsoever in being enlightened again (even if I could which I cannot) as I experientially found it to be wanting. RESPONDENT: There is not feeler, but you are the feelings. RICHARD: When the feelings become a state of being – as in the altered state of consciousness (ASC) popularly known as spiritual enlightenment – one no longer has feelings one is the feelings ... ‘being’ instead of ‘becoming’ (to put in a way you might be more familiar with). In other words one is nothing but the feeler ... the feeler is the state of being. This is because ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being is ‘being’ itself (quite often capitalised as ‘Being’ upon self-realisation) ... any god or goddess is affective by its very nature. RESPONDENT: As you have sensorial awareness, why not to have feelings awareness without the feeler? RICHARD: Simply because who ‘I’ am, at root, is ‘my’ feelings – ‘me’ and ‘my’ feelings are one and the same thing – and the elimination of the one is simultaneously the elimination of the other. * RESPONDENT: ... and that you perceive the infinity of the universe through apperceptive awareness, then you have already entered the field of metaphysics. (...) You have entered in a field beyond science. RICHARD: As science is the state or fact of knowing – knowledge or cognisance of something physical – based upon observed facts, and/or demonstrated truths, in that it is both an intellectual and practical activity encompassing those branches of study (the natural sciences) which apply objective observation (the scientific method) to the phenomena of the physical universe, in what way is determining that the universe has boundless space, unlimited time, and perpetual matter (mass/energy), by both intellectual reasoning and direct observation entering into a field beyond science? RESPONDENT: I accept the above of yours ... RICHARD: Good ... I am pleased that this issue (that the apperceptive awareness of pure consciousness experiencing is not metaphysical) has finally been cleared up. RESPONDENT: ... but why not to apply it also in the supernatural phenomena? RICHARD: As it was the scientific method (such as applying objective observation and determining facts for example) which, amongst other things, enabled me to break free from the supernatural clutches of the massive delusion known as spiritual enlightenment, I can thoroughly endorse such a course of action being most definitely conducive to helping deliver the goods so longed-for by humankind for millennia. RESPONDENT: Like ectoplasm mediums that communicate with dead persons, documented with scientific observation? RICHARD: You may find a review of the following exchange helpful:
Put succinctly: there is nothing which survives physical death for ‘ectoplasm mediums’ to communicate with. RESPONDENT: There are many frauds, yes, but are also documented phenomena. RICHARD: The few times I have looked-up the subject of scientifically observed psychic phenomena – and there are plenty of instances to look at – it has always turned out to have been a fraud ... as I have no expertise on the subject, nor have any intention of gaining any, you may find the following to be of interest:
And there are many other people, who have also made it their business to investigate the ‘documented phenomena’ you speak of, as well. * RESPONDENT: You were for 11 years in one enlightened state. For sure then you had eliminated already the ego, the self, but not the me, the soul, as you defining it. Was only the absolute, God, Soul, truth, whatever name. Now 10 years ago you made a shift to AF. RICHARD: If by ‘you made a shift to AF’ you mean that the identity within – ‘the me, the soul’/‘the absolute, God, Soul, truth, whatever name’ – altruistically ‘self’-immolated for the benefit of this body and that body and every body then you are correct ... though going by what you have to say below it would appear that this is not what you mean. RESPONDENT: I think the only difference is that you eliminated the me, as being, as soul. RICHARD: As ‘the me, as being, as soul’ was ‘the absolute, God, Soul, truth, whatever name’ I do look askance at your ‘the only difference is’ phrasing ... it is an enormous difference with far-reaching implications and ramifications. RESPONDENT: But from the other hand seems to me that now the absolute is the universe. RICHARD: No, the universe has always been absolute ... what happened was that the identity within, who had arrogated this property for its own devices (narcissistic ‘self’-aggrandisement and a spurious immortality), ceased to exist and that which is actual became apparent. RESPONDENT: What difference does it make to say God was existing always and created the universe, or if we go one step further and say the universe was existing since ever? RICHARD: Try putting it the other way around: why go one step further, than the universe being always existent, and propose an always existent god/goddess creating/ destroying the universe? I suggest this because what cosmogony does (not to be confused with what cosmology does) is shift the issue of infinitude into the realm of creation/discreation fantasies ... such as believing in a ‘Creation’ ex nihilo/ ‘Destruction’ ad nihil, if one is a religious cosmogonist, or believing in a ‘Big Bang’ ex nihilo/‘Big Crunch’ ad nihil, if one is a scientific cosmogonist, for example. In other words (‘ex nihilo’ is Latin for ‘out of nothing’ and ‘ad nihil’ is Latin for ‘to nothing’) the issue of infinitude has been shifted onto a non-temporal (timeless) and non-spatial (spaceless) and non-material (formless) and therefore non-existent, and thus metaphysical, nothing or nothingness ... which posited nothingness, or non-existing void, is further proposed as being both the source, or origin, of all things physical (all time, all space, all form) and the eventual destiny for all its (supposed) manifestations. In short: it bespeaks of credulity stretched to the max. RESPONDENT: Is god any obstacle to AF? RICHARD: As there are no gods or goddesses here in this actual world then any god you may instinctually know, feel, and thus think yourself to be is but an obstacle to your freedom and your freedom alone ... I only get to meet flesh and blood bodies here. RESPONDENT: AF is a method to live in peace, harmless, etc., so if god was existing should it be any difference? RICHARD: As an actual freedom from the human condition is not ‘a method’ to live peacefully and harmoniously, but actually being peaceful and harmonious in this actual world of sensate delight where there is nary a god or goddess to be found, then any god you may instinctually know, feel, and thus think to be ‘existing’ will only make a difference to your life ... and, of course, to any gullible peoples you come into contact with. Such as impressionable children, for example. RESPONDENT: Somebody could blame god then, for everything wrong, but even now somebody can blame the universe and blind nature. RICHARD: Sure, but as it is an exercise in futility to blame blind nature, for continuing to provide the instinctual survival passions which were necessary all those thousands of years ago, what is the point in doing so? Now that intelligence, which is the ability to think, reflect, compare, evaluate and implement considered action for beneficial reasons, has developed in the human animal those blind survival passions are no longer necessary – in fact they have become a hindrance in today’s world – and it is only by virtue of this intelligence that blind nature’s default software package can be safely deleted (via altruistic ‘self’-immolation in toto). No other animal can do this. RESPONDENT: What exist exists independently of our belief in it. RICHARD: The pristine purity of this actual world is beyond belief ... it is unimaginable, inconceivable, and incomprehensible, to a normal person, that such peerless perfection could exist. I walk around in constant amazement and wonder that it does. RESPONDENT: The universe is or finite or infinite, independently of what I think. RICHARD: Not when the infinitude, which this universe indubitably is, is apparent in all its wondrous amazement – as in a pure consciousness experience (PCE) – for then this infinite, eternal, and perpetual universe is stunningly aware of its infinitude ... and thus thinking, on occasion, how enormous infinitude is. Because nothing comes bigger than that. RESPONDENT: What good is for me, if is infinite or finite? RICHARD: When its space is (experientially) known to be infinite, its time (experientially) known to
be eternal, and its matter (experientially) known to be perpetual, the ‘good’ for you is blessed A win-win situation, in other words. RESPONDENT: The agnostic is in better position, because he does not loose energy for things that will not make him better. RICHARD: As a person who is agnostic is still experiencing self-induced suffering, just as anyone else trapped in the human condition is, the question of anyone being in a better position or not is moot. RESPONDENT: Now to eliminate the self the ego, is not so difficult I think. Is a matter of logic. Nobody is inside my skull to see through the eyes that I call my eyes. I think the self is only a matter of language. I eat, you eat, he eats, etc. And a matter of identification, with whatever I call mine. My house, my wife, etc. RICHARD: Thus in one fell swoop you have (logically) solved the problem of why 99.99999% of the population never become enlightened, eh? RESPONDENT: The problem is with the feelings. The me as soul. Not all the so called enlightened people are teaching necessarily with the concept of higher self, or atman, etc. RICHARD: As none of them deny an after-death state of being it is just a matter of disagreement amongst them as to what name-description that after-death being should go by ... none of them speak of physical death as being the end, finish, oblivion. RESPONDENT: The thing that bothers me is the oblivion. RICHARD: Why does it bother you if, as you say, not all enlightened people teach necessarily with the concept of a higher self (by whatever name) ... for surely, if what you are implying were to be true, then their higher self (by whatever name) has gone into oblivion too? RESPONDENT: As I see AF is a mix of materialism, spirituality (in a good way, no nonsense), atheism, and nihilism. RICHARD: Hmm ... materialism, as a generalisation, typically holds that life is a chance, random event in an otherwise empty (meaningless) universe; spirituality, as a generalisation, typically holds that life is a purposeful manifestation by or of the supreme being who created or creates the universe; atheism, as a generalisation, typically holds that, as there is no such supreme being, ethical considerations and human love and/or compassion – instead of moral dictates and divine love and/or compassion – are the way to live (somewhat) peacefully and harmoniously; and nihilism, as a generalisation, typically holds that life is whatever one makes of it and, as it is all pointless anyway, the only true philosophical question is whether to commit suicide, or not, and if so, then whether now or later. As actualism is none of the above (bearing in mind that they are all generalisations) then whatever ‘mix’ it is that you are seeing it has nothing to do with what is on offer on The Actual Freedom Trust web site. RESPONDENT: Atheists are of two types, the one that care about humanity and the others that are caring only about their selves. RICHARD: Yet whatever caring they do it is still an affective caring ... and a feeling of caring is not actually caring. RESPONDENT: I am beginning to see the whole universe like one atom. Scientists does not know what is happening in this atom, but the atom knows. RICHARD: So as to keep with this analogy I will put it like this: when this infinite, eternal, and perpetual universe is stunningly aware of its own infinitude, as a flesh and blood body only being apperceptively aware, it can experientially know what is happening ... as distinct from an atom which, not being either sensate or reflective, can never know what is happening. RESPONDENT: I don’t want to continue like this persona I have now ... RICHARD: If I may interject? Try saying it thisaway:
Those two little words – as/like and am/have – make a world of difference. RESPONDENT: ... but I cannot intuitively accept oblivion. RICHARD: Ahh ... back to the topic of the higher self (god by whatever name) even if obliquely, eh? RESPONDENT: I think there is only one consciousness, only one being. RICHARD: As in the god you instinctually know, feel, and thus think yourself to be, by another name, perchance? This intuitive ‘only one being’ thought is why I oft-times say that ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being is ‘being’ itself (quite often capitalised as ‘Being’ upon self-realisation) ... as in ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’. For to intuitively know something is to instinctually know it ... all gods/goddesses are affective by their very nature. RESPONDENT: And this consciousness seems to me impossible to go to oblivion. Is rather pessimistic to think so. RICHARD: Why? When god/goddess ceases meddling in human affairs (via altruistic ‘self’-immolation in toto) peace and harmony prevails and the meaning of life becomes apparent as an on-going actuality. RESPONDENT: You say that in the moment the self does not exist any more, and the soul, the being, does not exist any more, then there is nothing to survive physical death. RICHARD: Yes, indeed I do ... and that includes any consciousness, being, presence, mind, god, goddess, truth, ground of being, implicate order, and so on, by whatever name. RESPONDENT: May be there are other phenomena unknown, the science is still primitive with comparison with what will be in a 100 years for example. RICHARD: As you have already indicated being 50+ years old that would make you 150+ years old ... and suffering all the while, whilst waiting for some people in white coats in a laboratory somewhere to come to your aid, into the bargain. RESPONDENT: May be the mind is different from the brain, or outside the brain. RICHARD: Hmm ... and next you might very well be saying something like this:
RESPONDENT: Somewhere, I don’t remember where, I read in your scripts that mind is the brain in operation. RICHARD: Yes, and to project the brain in operation onto the universe at large and/or beyond it is, just as the same-same projection of intelligence is, anthropomorphism writ large ... this universe is much more than merely a mind. Much, much more.
CORRESPONDENT No. 44 (Part Five) RETURN TO THE ACTUAL FREEDOM MAILING LIST INDEX RETURN TO RICHARD’S CORRESPONDENCE INDEX The Third Alternative (Peace On Earth In This Life Time As This Flesh And Blood Body) Here is an actual freedom from the Human Condition, surpassing Spiritual Enlightenment and any other Altered State Of Consciousness, and challenging all philosophy, psychiatry, metaphysics (including quantum physics with its mystic cosmogony), anthropology, sociology ... and any religion along with its paranormal theology. Discarding all of the beliefs that have held humankind in thralldom for aeons, the way has now been discovered that cuts through the ‘Tried and True’ and enables anyone to be, for the first time, a fully free and autonomous individual living in utter peace and tranquillity, beholden to no-one.
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