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Richard’s Correspondence on Mailing List ‘B’ with Respondent No. 33
RESPONDENT No. 34: Richard, you seem to be positing a ‘mind’. Would not this imply in a separate ‘mind’ being aware of itself? RICHARD: In what way ‘separate’? The human mind is the human brain in action in a human skull. As a human skull is part and parcel of a flesh and blood body waking and sleeping, eating and drinking, urinating and defecating, walking and talking and so on in the world of people, things and events, and as it is patently obvious that this human mind that is the human brain in action in the human skull is the carrots and the beans and the cheese (or whatever food) eaten and the air breathed and the water drunk, then there can never be ‘a separate ‘mind’’ (as in separate from this body) ... or, for that matter, any separation whatsoever betwixt this body and anything or anyone else. Just because each consciousness is the private domain, as it were, (as opposed to the public domain) and that this body is discrete (physically distinct) to that body, it does not imply separation (unless an ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul identity is in residence asserting property rights). A hill or mountain is the very earth it seems to sit upon, for example. Everything and everyone is the very self-same stuff that this physical world – and this material universe – is ... hence no separation whatsoever. RESPONDENT: Richard, this sameness may not be the way you make it out to be. Differences between two human beings may be more fundamental. No two human beings are exactly alike; not even two identical twins. RICHARD: Yes, gene mapping is showing that no two people are precisely identical – law enforcement agencies have seized upon the gene-print as being more exact than the finger-print – and that the chances of the maybe 100,000 genes in any cell in any one of the 6.0 billion human bodies being identically matched to any other one are something to the order of 30.0 billion to one (as the gene-mapping is not yet complete the figures vary according to various estimates). RESPONDENT: At a very basic level, not two anythings are alike. RICHARD: If by ‘alike’ you mean ‘precisely identical’ I agree, but slight variations do not constitute a difference in kind ... but a difference in degree. RESPONDENT: It can even be argued that there are no ‘two anythings’. RICHARD: Yes, although material forms, physically distinct through time and in space, do have a life of their own as in being born, living for a period and then dying (if organic) or an existence as in taking shape, existing for a period, and ceasing to have shape (if inorganic), nothing exists as a ‘thing’ in its own right separate from this infinite and eternal universe. RESPONDENT: But at the level of the human consciousness; the thing inside the skull ... RICHARD: Consciousness is not a ‘thing’ (as in an entity, a ‘being’) ... it is an energised neuronal activity (energised by a food-calorific energy) happening inside the skull (and I am not merely nit-picking as this is a vital distinction to be aware of). RESPONDENT: [But at the level of the human consciousness] ... there are (apparently) wide differences. RICHARD: At the level of human consciousness per se there is no fundamental difference ... differences in the content of this consciousness do not signify physiological differences. RESPONDENT: This might well have something to do with the human being develops: a small fraction of the cerebral growth takes place inside the womb while a large part of that growth takes place outside the womb (probably around 90%). A baby chimp, on the other hand, is born with his brain (almost) fully developed. So, we are what we experience, what we learn. RICHARD: Yet it is not observing with the objectivity of the scientist to focus on the 90% and conveniently overlook the remainder so as to leap to a ‘we are what we experience, what we learn’ conclusion. The other 10% is critical to investigation ... therein lies the instinctual affective memory that dominates all experiencing and learning with its inbuilt passions such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire. RESPONDENT: Individuality of Richard is the effect of his learning, his environment, etc. and so is mine. RICHARD: Richard’s idiosyncrasies are ‘the effect of his learning, his environment, etc.’ ... the ‘individuality of Richard’ is the effect of the elimination of all the genetically-inherited instinctual passions ... the extinction of the rudimentary animal ‘self’ that is umpteen thousands of years old and carried in the germ cells of the spermatozoa and the ova. RESPONDENT: The two are not the same: cannot be the same. Even identical twins must be different because they are exposed to different stimuli and hence grow differently. RICHARD: The study of identical twins certainly demonstrates that differences such as gender, racial and era cultural beliefs, truths, morals, ethics, principles, values, ideals, theories, customs, traditions, superstitions and so on are the result of ‘different stimuli’ ... one such study was of orphaned twins accidentally separated at birth in the immediate post-war Germany: one was sent for adoption in the USA and the other was raised in the West German culture. When re-united in their thirties there was the one who was self-righteously triumphant at winning a just war ... whilst the other carried the self-deprecatory guilt at waging an unjust war. Such superficial studies are used to justify the ‘nurture versus nature’ view-point over the ‘nature versus nurture’ view-point ... but I ask: where in all this is their precious ‘individuality’? How is any person ‘unique’ when each and every one of the perhaps 10.0 billion human beings – 6.0 billion human beings now living and the maybe 4.0 billion now dead – on this otherwise fair earth that we all live on are all robotically run by being, at root, a ‘self’ born of the same-same instinctual passions of fear and aggression and nurture and desire genetically endowed by blind nature? RESPONDENT: So, when you say ‘hence no separation whatsoever’ that is a very general statement, based upon the argument ‘human brain in action in the human skull is the carrots and the beans and the cheese (or whatever food) eaten and the air breathed and the water drunk, then there can never be ‘a separate ‘mind’ (as in separate from this body)’. RICHARD: It is not a ‘very general statement’ ... it is an exact and easily observable fact. Put it this way: you demonstrate to me that the flesh and blood body (which includes the mind that is the human brain in action in the human skull) that answers to the name <No. 33> came from ‘outside’ this universe and I will sit up and take notice of the observing that you are, presumably, making with the objectivity of a scientist that you are indeed separate from everyone and everything. RESPONDENT: Human reality, human identity, the brain, the perceiving mind is not just the carrots and beans and cheese eaten: it is a lot more complex and involved phenomena than that. RICHARD: Yet, physiologically, there is no separation whatsoever between this body and that body or anything ... it is the lost, lonely, frightened and very, very cunning entity known as the ‘self’ that feels separate and desires ‘oneness’ with ‘All That Is’ (a super-self by any name) to supposedly end the aching void within. There are three I’s altogether ... but only one is actual. RESPONDENT: We can probably make an argument that a cow is the cud that she chews. Hence, probably, some rationale for processing her to be sold at McDonald’s. RICHARD: Okay ... I am quite happy to go with your red-herring: equally the rationale for creating a social entity (a psychological identity) is for processing him and/or her for cannon fodder and/or a baby factory. RESPONDENT: But we can’t, most likely, make the same argument for a human being because a human being is a /separate entity/. RICHARD: I just did. RESPONDENT: I think what is of essence in a human being is his/her innate creativity ... RICHARD: Oh, there is much, much more than that. RESPONDENT: ... the capability of the individual to grow as a totally separate person, who looks at the world as never before. RICHARD: How on earth can a ‘totally separate person’ look at the world ‘as never before’? Such a person does not exist. RESPONDENT: Hence I am sceptical of the argument that we are all the same. RICHARD: But I never said ‘we are all the same’ ... I said that everything and everyone is the very self-same stuff that this physical world – and this material universe – is ... hence no separation whatsoever. And a freed person’s idiosyncratic characteristics allows for a far-ranging ingenuity ... not one that is tethered like as to a post hammered into the ground. RESPONDENT: You and I may eat the same food, etc. but will still be two different human beings and will contribute to this creative growth and evolution in uniquely different ways. That capability, that capacity, to innovate, to be creative, has been the hallmark of our species and that is – most likely – the reason for our survival. RICHARD: Aye, yet whilst being a animal ‘self’ run by the instinctual passions practically any benign and benevolent and beneficial inventiveness is virtually dead on the ground for want of originality in motivation and goal-orientation. Rearranging the deckchairs on the ‘Titanic’ and calling the resultant culturally aesthetic effect ‘unique creative growth and evolution’ does not constitute worthwhile resourcefulness in my book. RESPONDENT: Some thoughts from one who is not really sold on the same-same schools of thought. RICHARD: I can assure you (for what that is worth) that I am not a ‘we are all one’ advocate.
RESPONDENT: In the spirit of paraphrasing, here are the main points of this discussion so far: 1. [Richard]: human beings are the same at the level of instinctual passions. 2. [No. 33]: human beings are different as each one experiences the world differently. 3. [No. 33]: genetically we are different, and we grow to be different human beings. 4. [No. 33]: these differences – how each one experiences the world – is the essence of creativity and the reason for our species’ survival and (apparent) superiority. I will grant you (1) that there are certain instincts that we are born with. RICHARD: Would you care to name and describe these ‘instincts that we are born with’ so that we have a common ground for discussion? RESPONDENT: I will still argue that the human being can transcend (at least some) instincts: for example, human beings can transcend sexual, reproductive instincts as also life preservation instincts. A human being is, in my opinion, unique in that respect. RICHARD: What is it that you are conveying with the use of the word ‘transcend’? Are you conveying it in its ‘beyond the range or grasp of human experience, reason, belief, etc.’ meaning (Oxford Dictionary) ... as in ‘of, pertaining to, or belonging to, the divine as opposed to the natural world’ meaning (Oxford Dictionary) ... and thus being ‘above and independent of and existing apart from the limitations of the material universe’ (Oxford Dictionary)? I only ask because you refer to Mr. Aurobindo Ghose (below) as being a prime example of ‘meta-evolution’ and Mr. Aurobindo Ghose’s ‘meta-evolution’ can be described as follows:
RESPONDENT: Looked another way, each human being is a unique experiment on nature’s part to understand itself. Only in the human being does nature achieve a self-reflective consciousness that is capable of understanding itself. This point, in my opinion, is one essential driver for knowing oneself: the wonder, the awe, the curiosity as to ask these questions (who am I, where does the universe come from, etc.) is a uniquely human prerogative. RICHARD: Yes ... no other animal can do this and (so far as space exploration has currently ascertained) the human race is on its own with this agenda. RESPONDENT: In asking those questions, in the ensuing inner growth, essentially, nature is growing, evolving. RICHARD: Apart from the ‘inner growth’ phrase I agree (‘inner growth’ is blind nature’s legacy and is what is holding back evolution). RESPONDENT: Aurobindo calls this meta-evolution. But we need not get side-tracked by Aurobindo’s philosophy. Krishnamurti expresses this growth and wonder in his own poetic prose and so do, in my opinion, many a perceptive writer and poet. The key, I think, is that inner movement, which is the movement of nature itself. RICHARD: This ‘inner movement’, which ‘many a perceptive writer and poet’ expresses (along with Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti and Mr. Aurobindo Ghose), is the movement of blind nature and, as such, is the spanner in the works as regards any further evolution into a freed consciousness. Until the ‘Tried and True’ is seen for what it is (the ‘Tried and Failed’) the personalising potentiality of the material infinitude that this universe is will remain a non-actualised personalising potentiality. A human being, totally emptied of the ‘inner movement’ which precipitates ‘inner growth’, is the universe experiencing itself as a freed human being and, as such, the universe is intelligently experiencing its own amazing, marvellous and wondrous physical infinitude. RESPONDENT: It is redundant, also erroneous, to posit this movement as movement towards ... there is no towards as it is evolution of nature/matter/consciousness/totality/whatever. This is how I interpret the following exchange from the previous post: [No. 33]: ‘I think what is of essence in a human being is his/her innate creativity ...’. [Richard]: ‘Oh, there is much, much more than that’. What do you say? Thanks for your time. RICHARD: I beg to differ in that it is the evolution of matter (mineral) into animate matter (life and/or nature) and thus animate matter (flora) into sensate animate matter (fauna) and sensate animate matter (saurian – mammalian – simian) into hominid sensate animate matter (proto-human) and hominid sensate matter into tool-making proto-human sensate matter (homo-habilis perhaps 2.0 million BCE) and tool-making proto-human sensate matter into tool-making fire-using human sensate matter (homo erectus perhaps 1.6 million BCE) and tool-making fire-using human sensate matter into tool-making fire-using symbol-writing human sensate matter (homo sapiens perhaps 100 thousand BCE). It is not until the advent of thought does the capacity to notice, remember, reflect, plan and thus implement considered activity for beneficial reasons (intelligence) evolve ... along with the amazing ability to pass this information to others of the species, including the next generation, via language communication skills rather than grunt and gesture conveyance. Then, and only then, emerges the trait that you describe as the ‘one essential driver for knowing oneself: the wonder, the awe, the curiosity as to ask these questions (who am I, where does the universe come from, etc.)’ which, as you say, is ‘only in the human being [where] nature achieves a self-reflective consciousness that is capable of understanding itself’. I could not agree more where you then say: ‘this point, in my opinion, is a uniquely human prerogative’. Therefore, as to why thought, thoughts and thinking gets castigated as much as it does on this Mailing List, one can only thank the Masters and Messiahs, the Gurus and God-Men, the Saints and Sages and the Avatars and Saviours of the last 3,000 – 5,000 years for their outstanding contribution to the retardation of evolution ... to the point where they induce you (an Assistant Professor of MIS holding PhD and MS (MIS) degrees) to say: ‘it is redundant, also erroneous, to posit this movement as movement towards ... there is no towards as it is evolution of nature/ matter/ consciousness/ totality/ whatever’ as if it were a profound truth. But, then again, evolution is not nowadays known as a ‘mosaic evolution’ for nothing, eh?
RESPONDENT: There are certain instincts that we are born with. RICHARD: Would you care to name and describe these ‘instincts that we are born with’ so that we have a common ground for discussion? RESPONDENT: Fear, aggression, reproduction, preserving one’s life, to name a few. RICHARD: Okay ... the study of the ‘instincts that we are born with’ is largely over-looked and any information on the subject is surprisingly scant. The ‘Tabula Rasa’ doctrine still holds sway in many circles and other schools of thought cannot agree among themselves as to what is instinctual and what is not ... as epitomised in the ‘nature versus nurture’ debate. However, in all of my ad hoc reading on the subject over many years, there is some basic agreement as in regards the ‘freeze or flight or fight’ impulses (what I call ‘fear and aggression’), the ‘propagation of the species’ instincts as epitomised by the sexual urges and cravings (what I call ‘desire’) and the ‘protecting and preserving’ drives as epitomised by bonding alliances (what I call ‘nurture). There are others like ‘territoriality’, ‘gregariousness’, ‘homing’ and so on, but for purposes of focussing on the nub of the issue (human suffering) I consistently keep to the four basic passions: fear and aggression (savage) and nurture and desire (tender). If we were to take the first instinctual passion you mentioned (above) – fear – so as to investigate an area that is of mutual agreement, I would propose, that as it is a genetically encoded passion humans are born with, psychotherapy or psychoanalysis and so on can only go so far in investigating fear; even if carried out successfully such therapeutic introspection could only ever uncover the various and many conditioned fearful responses and the conditioned fearful causes thereof ... and never the source of fear itself as emotional memory precedes cognitive memory. Thus, as the source of fear – fear itself – is not a product of ‘conditioning’ it therefore cannot fit into Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti’s category of ‘content of consciousness’ (whilst fully acknowledging and allowing that many of the fearful responses are indeed conditioned responses put into the child by the peoples already here before the child was born as is ascertained by psychology and psychiatry). Whilst the gender, racial and era beliefs, truths, morals, ethics, principles, values, ideals, theories, customs, traditions, superstitions and all the other schemes and dreams are obviously conditioning – and therefore the ‘content of consciousness’ – these societal imprints would not be able to have the tenacious hold that they have if the human brain was indeed the ‘Tabular Rasa’ brain that so many peoples believe they are born with. All the many and varied ‘contents of consciousness’ have such a persistent grip only because of the powerful affective energy of the genetically inherited instinctual passions (such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire) that the ‘contents’ are glued in place with ... and the instinctual passions stretch back to the dawn of the human species. In light of this biological fact, it is obvious that all the animosity and anguish that has beset humankind throughout millennia comes from that which is a lot deeper than ‘the thinker is the thought’ because all the misery and mayhem stems from an animal affective energy which is much, much more powerful than thought, thoughts and thinking. Indeed, it has been demonstrated that some animals – chimpanzees for just one example – have a distinct sense of ‘self’ and ‘other’ and therefore ‘self’ is not, at root, caused by thought, thoughts and thinking. That ‘the thinker is the thought’ (‘I’ as ego) is but the tip of the iceberg ... to put it in the same lingo, ‘the feeler is the feeling’ (‘me’ as soul at the core of ‘being’) and ‘being’ is instinctual ‘being’. RESPONDENT: I will still argue that the human being can transcend (at least some) instincts: for example, human beings can transcend sexual, reproductive instincts as also life preservation instincts. A human being is, in my opinion, unique in that respect. RICHARD: What is it that you are conveying with the use of the word ‘transcend’? Are you conveying it in its ‘beyond the range or grasp of human experience, reason, belief, etc.’ meaning (Oxford Dictionary) ... as in ‘of, pertaining to, or belonging to, the divine as opposed to the natural world’ meaning (Oxford Dictionary) ... and thus being ‘above and independent of and existing apart from the limitations of the material universe’ (Oxford Dictionary)? I only ask because you refer to Mr. Aurobindo Ghose (below) as being a prime example of ‘meta-evolution’ and Mr. Aurobindo Ghose’s ‘meta-evolution’ can be described as follows: [quote]: ‘Sri Aurobindo began his practice of Yoga in 1904. At first, gathering into it the essential elements of spiritual experience that are gained by the paths of divine communion and spiritual realisation followed till now in India, he passed on in search of a more complete experience uniting and harmonising the two ends of existence, Spirit and Matter. Most ways of Yoga are paths to the Beyond leading to the Spirit and, in the end, away from life; Sri Aurobindo’s rises to the Spirit to redescend with its gains bringing the light and power and bliss of the Spirit into life to transform it. Man’s present existence in the material world is in this view or vision of things a life in the Ignorance with the Inconscient at its base, but even in its darkness and nescience there are involved the presence and possibilities of the Divine. The created world is not a mistake or a vanity and illusion to be cast aside by the soul returning to Heaven or Nirvana, but the scene of a spiritual evolution by which out of this material inconscience is to be manifested progressively the Divine Consciousness in things. Mind is the highest term yet reached in the evolution, but it is not the highest of which it is capable. There is above it a Super-Mind or eternal Truth-Consciousness which is in its nature the self-aware and self-determining light and power of a Divine Knowledge. Mind is an ignorance seeking after Truth, but this is a self-existent Knowledge harmoniously manifesting the play of its forms and forces. It is only by the descent of this Super-Mind that the perfection dreamed of by all that is highest in humanity can come. It is possible by opening to a greater divine consciousness to rise to this power of light and bliss, discover one’s True Self, remain in constant union with the Divine and bring down the supramental Force for the transformation of mind and life and body. To realise this possibility has been the dynamic aim of Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga’. [endquote]. (www.miraura.org/bio/sketch-a.html). RESPONDENT: In the last sense that you mention above. RICHARD: Yet to be ‘above and independent of and existing apart from the limitations of the material universe’, especially in view of Mr. Aurobindo Ghose’s example of ‘meta-evolution’ that you refer to, means to be ‘spirit’ and not ‘matter’ ... or, in other spiritual peoples’ words, to realise that ‘I am not the body’. * RICHARD: A human being, totally emptied of the ‘inner movement’ which precipitates ‘inner growth’, is the universe experiencing itself as a freed human being and, as such, the universe is intelligently experiencing its own amazing, marvellous and wondrous physical infinitude. RESPONDENT: Interesting. I will have to think about this a bit more. RICHARD: Okay ... just so as to be up-front, in my personal experience I eventually sourced all the ‘inner movement’ (which did indeed precipitate much ‘inner growth’) to be – in toto – the instinctual passions genetically encoded in all human beings. It was a staggering discovery, to say the least. * RICHARD: Evolution is the evolution of matter (mineral) into animate matter (life and/or nature) and thus animate matter (flora) into sensate animate matter (fauna) and sensate animate matter (saurian – mammalian – simian) into hominid sensate animate matter (proto-human) and hominid sensate matter into tool-making proto-human sensate matter (homo-habilis perhaps 2.0 million BCE) and tool-making proto-human sensate matter into tool-making fire-using human sensate matter (homo erectus perhaps 1.6 million BCE) and tool-making fire-using human sensate matter into tool-making fire-using symbol-writing human sensate matter (homo sapiens perhaps 100 thousand BCE). It is not until the advent of thought does the capacity to notice, remember, reflect, plan and thus implement considered activity for beneficial reasons (intelligence) evolve ... along with the amazing ability to pass this information to others of the species, including the next generation, via language communication skills rather than grunt and gesture conveyance. Then, and only then, emerges the trait that you describe as the ‘one essential driver for knowing oneself: the wonder, the awe, the curiosity as to ask these questions (who am I, where does the universe come from, etc.)’ which, as you say, is ‘only in the human being [where] nature achieves a self-reflective consciousness that is capable of understanding itself’. I could not agree more where you then say: ‘this point, in my opinion, is a uniquely human prerogative’. Therefore, as to why thought, thoughts and thinking gets castigated as much as it does on this Mailing List, one can only thank the Masters and Messiahs, the Gurus and God-Men, the Saints and Sages and the Avatars and Saviours of the last 3,000 – 5,000 years for their outstanding contribution to the retardation of evolution ... to the point where they induce you (an Assistant Professor of MIS holding PhD and MS (MIS) degrees) to say: ‘it is redundant, also erroneous, to posit this movement as movement towards ... there is no towards as it is evolution of nature/ matter/ consciousness/ totality/ whatever’ as if it were a profound truth. RESPONDENT: Let me try explaining what I have in mind: as you also agree, this curiosity as to ‘who I am’ is a human trait. It comes from the self-reflection that we possess. Man thinks and with thinking his brain evolves, changes in unique ways. Therefore no two human beings are exactly alike and that is why human life has sanctity. This change that is going on within my mind is nature’s quest to understand itself. In thus understanding itself, nature is evolving. But what it is it evolving towards cannot be ascertained with any certainty because at every moment there is change. RICHARD: The particular moment changes, yes, and the components, parts and elements of this specific moment change in regards to that specific moment (the variety is infinite) ... but this moment itself, as an arena for events to occur in as it were, never changes. It is always this moment; this moment is already here ... it is eternally now. Thus there is no ‘going anywhere’ nor any ‘coming from’ anywhere. The evolution that I am describing (above) is purely local to this planet because the universe itself as a totality is already always utterly complete. Thus ‘what it [nature] is it evolving towards’ can indeed be ascertained with certainty ... it is the ability of the universe to experience itself (in this instance) as a freed human being intelligently experiencing its own amazing, marvellous and wondrous physical infinitude. And it is the experiencing of this utter completeness that requires matter to evolve into carbon-based human sensate animate matter (in this case here on planet earth). Elsewhere it may be evolving as ... um ... hydrogen-based life-forms, for an outlandishly speculative example, whom carbon-based life-forms might never be able to ascertain because such life-forms may not be accessible to sensate apprehension ... and so on through any variation of such science-fiction stuff. RESPONDENT: Hence, no God or Truth can ever be posited with any certitude. As you mentioned, this moment of being alive is the Truth. RICHARD: Oh dear ... I never, ever said that and never ever will. I am not talking of any God or Goddess or Truth whatsoever. RESPONDENT: But this moment of being alive is Truth only if there is that inner change, the evolution, the discovery of something new. The ’murtis of the list are not evolving, not changing, not experiencing anything new. For them the moment of being alive is better described as the moment of being comatose. RICHARD: Ha ... I like that one: ‘this moment of being comatose’ conveys a certain poetic nescience! RESPONDENT: So, while this moment of being alive is truth, where is that truth leading to cannot be ascertained. Hence this change, this evolution, is open-ended. That is what I implied. RICHARD: Okay ... I am going to have to do some research to find out where you gained this notion that I said ‘this moment of being alive is truth’ from, but in the meanwhile let me say again that this moment of being alive is the universe intelligently experiencing its own amazing, marvellous and wondrous physical infinitude as a sensate and reflective flesh and blood human being. * RICHARD: But, then again, evolution is not nowadays known as a ‘mosaic evolution’ for nothing, eh? RESPONDENT: I don’t know what that means. RICHARD: I meant it in the sense that different species evolve at different rates at different places around the world ... that there is no uniform evolution wherein a change here automatically happens there. Vis.:
I was therefore commenting that (in this specific instance) Indias’ paramount contribution to the retardation of evolution over the last 3,000 to 5,000 years (in that after maybe the millions of years of evolution necessary to evolve thought, thoughts and thinking (intelligence) in one animal species alone, the Masters and the Gurus and the Avatars and all the God-Men would have us value being thoughtless and mindless as if that is the highest virtue one can aspire to) is part of the mosaic of the evolutionary process and would soon become superseded when a mutation more fitted for survival takes precedence over such fantasy. But maybe not if this moment of being comatose continues, eh?
RESPONDENT No. 30: Is there a division between the observer and the observed, fundamentally? I think what quantum physics points to is the lack of any real division between the two: there is none.<SNIP> RICHARD: I would ask whether this ‘the observer and the observed’ relationship in quantum mechanics (which relationship seems to carry more than just a little weight on this Mailing List) has any validity at all. Mr. Victor Stenger, for example, is very clear on the subject in regards to ‘conventional quantum mechanics’. Vis.: <SNIP> I am no physicist, and I am not particularly enamoured of quantum physics anyway, but the little I do understand of this – mostly mathematical and theoretical – physics tells me that it is the instruments which measure the sub-atomic ‘thingamajigs’ that affects these ‘thingamajigs’ being thus investigated ... not the human being (aka ‘the observer’). Mr. Victor Stenger writes about the ‘holistic quantum mechanics’ advocates in rather mordant terms: <SNIP> I submit these quotes purely in the spirit of questioning whether quantum mechanics even remotely supports Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti’s ‘the observer is the observed’ proposal ... and not because I claim any proficiency in quantum physics whatsoever. I do note, however, that more than a few mystically inclined peoples have enthusiastically jumped upon the quantum band wagon by claiming that science now supports and proves what mystics have been saying for centuries. I also note that the recent probes to the planet Mars – and to all other destinations for that matter – were predicated upon and guided by the very ‘Copernican Principles’ and ‘Newtonian Mechanics’ and ‘Euclidean Geometries’ so scorned by the latter day ‘popular-press’ pseudo-scientists posing as quantum experts. Although I am more than willing to be advised otherwise on the matter. RESPONDENT No. 46: Quantum mechanics does not completely support K’s assertion that ‘the observer is the observed’. RICHARD: Ah, okay ... in what ways does ‘quantum mechanics support K’s assertion that ‘the observer is the observed’ then if not ‘completely’? RESPONDENT: Not in any direct way, as far as I can see it. However, there is an interesting simile in the Schrodinger’s cat’s paradox. [For those who don’t know the paradox: a cat is kept in a box with some element that has a certain probability of disintegrating and giving of a toxic gas which would kill the cat]. The observer has no way of finding out if the cat is alive or dead unless he opens the box. So, at a given time, the (observation) ‘state of the cat’ is totally dependent on the (observer). RICHARD: Except that the (actuality) ‘state of the cat’ is not dependent upon the observer at all (unless one also buys that hoary adage about whether a tree falling in the forest actually falls without an observer as well). RESPONDENT: To extrapolate, any physical reality (observation) is a probabilistic event and presumes an (observer). RICHARD: To extrapolate from the (actuality) ‘state of the cat’, any physical actuality happens independent of an observer. RESPONDENT: This view is somewhat similar to the Sankhya view of Reality as a unison of Purusha and Prakriti. RICHARD: Of course it is ‘somewhat similar to the Sankhya view’ ... Mr. Erwin Schrodinger made no secret of the fact that he was a metaphysician. His metaphysical outlook was expressed in his last book ‘Meine Weltansicht’ (‘My View of the World’) and closely parallels the mysticism of the Vedanta. In a similar vein, the ‘Big Bang’ theory is somewhat similar to the ‘Creationist’ view probably because Mr. Georges Lemaitre, who proposed it in 1927, was a Christian Abbé ordained a priest in 1923 after five years study in a seminary. More than a coincidence, non? RESPONDENT: Prakriti is the Reality in its dormant form while Purusha is the active force that causes Prakriti to manifest itself. The world, as we know it, is what it is making itself known at a particular moment to an observer (consciousness). It could have manifested itself quite differently as well. RICHARD: But as it did not ‘manifest itself quite differently’ this view-point can only ever be unverifiable speculation. RESPONDENT: The manifest reality of the world is quite different in this world view from what it actually is. RICHARD: I am sure it would appear to be ‘quite different from what it actually is’ to anyone gullible enough to accept this wisdom as being valid. RESPONDENT: What matter actually is, in the quantum view, is a probabilistic event, and does assume an observer, implicit or implied. RICHARD: Yet this implies that human beings create actuality ... such solipsism RESPONDENT: This in my view is the relationship between Quantum Mechanics and observer-observed analogy. RICHARD: Okay ... saying ‘the observer is the observed’ is the same as saying ‘I am everything and everything is Me’, eh? RESPONDENT: Bohm goes as on to posit consciousness as the third ingredient in which the universe manifests itself (as matter, energy, and consciousness). Please check www.wie.org/j11/peat.html for more details. RICHARD: Yet the universe already always is (it does not ‘manifest itself’ from, or out of, something unknowable) and matter arranges and rearranges itself endlessly in innumerable forms with delightful variety. And, on planet earth, matter has arranged itself as carbon-based animate matter (life and/or nature) and also sensate animate matter wherein matter is conscious. In one such species, such conscious animate matter can think and therefore reflect and consciousness is thus conscious of being consciousness. No need to posit an ‘unmanifest’ realm at all ... here, all that exists exists now. Infinitude has no secret reservoir. * RESPONDENT No. 46: I refer you to the Heisenberg Principle as an excellent example – one cannot measure both the speed and the position of an electron simultaneously. RICHARD: Firstly, are you saying that ‘the act of observation of an electron with an inanimate instrument perturbs the electron such that the inanimate instrument cannot completely measure both its speed and position’? Does the inanimate instrument give off ... um ... an electromagnetic field or some such similar force? If not, what is it that the inanimate instrument’s measuring activity is doing to the electron? Secondly, if I am to apply this ‘excellent example’ to a human being’s observation of themselves – as the applicable correlation – in what way does one’s observation of oneself cause what one is observing (oneself) to be perturbed? In what way, shape or form does this perturbation manifest itself? And why (as in what is the principle involved) would one be thus perturbed? And so as to be up-front as in regards myself, I have always enjoyed immensely finding out what made ‘me’ tick ... down to the finest, the most minute examination of the tiniest, the most trivial-seeming detail. After all ... it is me that gets to live this life. RESPONDENT: I think the way in which this uncertainty (indeterminism) arises in such measurements is that matter itself has wave-like properties. These waves are too small (being in 10 to the power of -15 or so meters’ order) that they don’t interfere with ‘gross’ measurements (for example, motion of a baseball ball), but at the atomic and sub-atomic level, where the size of the particle is of the same order as the order of waves associated with the particle, it is not possible to determine simultaneously both the velocity and the position of the particle accurately. RICHARD: I fully acknowledge there is matter such that cannot be ascertained with the naked senses and requires extensions to the senses (such as telescopes and microscopes and all the rest) but I am sure that you are aware that the ‘sub-atomic level’ is the realm of mathematical equations and has no actuality whatsoever? RESPONDENT: At any given moment of time, the material world is but a probabilistic wave (function). RICHARD: Yet this material world is what it irrefutably is each moment again ... there is nothing ‘probabilistic’ about actuality. RESPONDENT: What I find intriguing is what is that gives this (apparently chaotic) mass-energy function a stability and order. I think Bohm refers to this order as the ‘implicate order’ of things. RICHARD: His ‘implicate order’ is a dimension where there is no time or space or form ... and his ‘explicit order’ is the world of time and space and form. RESPONDENT: In his world-view, the ultimate reality of the (material) world cannot be determined with any certainty, but the ‘implicate order’ of nature/universe can be grasped intuitively (and non-verbally). RICHARD: Yes ... this is the same-same as ‘The Truth’ is ineffable and can only be accessed in a thoughtless mindless state. RESPONDENT: The entity that thus grasps the ‘order’ is but that ‘order’ itself. RICHARD: Aye ... ‘I am God’ or ‘I am That’ or (if one is really cunning): ‘There is only That’. RESPONDENT: That is the best that I can do so far in explaining the observer-observed paradigm in Quantum Mechanics/Bohmian terms so far. This view also seems to tally with the Vedantic view of the world (the inner reality being the same as the outer reality) that I posted on this forum two days back. RICHARD: But of course it ‘seems to tally with the Vedantic view of the world’ because it is derived from Vedanta. In the west, the nineteenth century was optimistically called the ‘Age of Enlightenment’ (knowledge enlightenment) until eastern mystics came onto the world stage at the turn of the century with spiritual enlightenment ... busily being hell-bent on returning a burgeoning thoughtful part of humankind to the darkness of superstition. Western civilisation, which has struggled to get out of superstition and medieval ignorance, is in danger of slipping back into the supernatural as the Eastern mystical thought and belief that is beginning to have its strangle-hold upon otherwise intelligent people is becoming more widespread. Prior to the recent influx of eastern philosophy, if one realised that ‘I am God’, one would have been institutionalised ... and, to some degree, rightly so. One has stepped out of an illusion, only to wind up living in a delusion. However, the trouble with people who discard the god of Christianity and/or Judaism is that they do not realise that by turning to the Eastern spirituality they have effectively jumped out of the frying pan into the fire. Eastern spirituality is religion ... merely in a different form to what people in the west have been raised to believe in. Eastern philosophy sounds so convincing to the western mind that is desperately looking for answers. The Christian and/or Judaic conditioning actually sets up the situation for a thinking person to be susceptible to the esoteric doctrines of the east. It is sobering to realise that the intelligentsia of the West are eagerly following the East down the slippery slope of striving to attain to a self-seeking divine immortality ... to the detriment of life on earth. ‘Implicate order’, for example, is simply another term for ‘God’ (aka ‘The Truth’). At the end of the line there is always a god of some description, lurking in disguise, wreaking its havoc with its ‘Teachings’. I have been to India to see for myself the results of what they claim are tens of thousands of years of devotional spiritual living ... and it is hideous. If it were not for the appalling suffering engendered it would all be highly amusing.
RICHARD: Any metaphysical identity (a psychological, emotional, psychic or autological ‘being’) is an epiphenomenon of the rudimentary animal ‘self’ that forms itself, out of survival necessity, as the centre-point of the instinctual passions that blind nature genetically encodes in all sentient beings at conception in the genes ... ‘I’ am the current end-point of myriads of survivors passing on their genes. ‘I’ am the product of the ‘success story’ of blind nature’s instinctual passions such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire. Being born of the biologically inherited instinctual passions genetically encoded in the germ cells of the spermatozoa and the ova, ‘I’ am – genetically speaking – umpteen tens of thousands of years old ... ‘my’ origins are lost in the mists of pre-history. ‘I’ am so anciently old that ‘I’ may well have always existed ... carried along on the reproductive cell-line, over countless millennia, from generation to generation. And ‘I’ am thus passed on into an inconceivably open-ended and hereditably transmissible future. In other words: ‘I’ am fear and fear is ‘me’; ‘I’ am aggression and aggression is ‘me’; ‘I’ am nurture and nurture is ‘me’; ‘I’ am desire and desire is ‘me’ and so on. This is one’s ‘Original Face’ (to use the Zen terminology); this is the source of the ‘we are all one’ feeling that is accessed in spiritual practices and mystical mediation. Because, genetically speaking we are indeed ‘all one’ inasmuch as all carbon based life-forms – not just sentient life-forms – have a common hereditary ‘survival instincts’ origin. RESPONDENT: True, Richard, but only as an extrapolation, isn’t it? RICHARD: Okay ... but ‘an extrapolation’ from ... what? From ‘I’ as ego (by whatever name), perchance? Or from ‘me’ as soul (by whatever name), mayhap? RESPONDENT: When we look at ourselves, we don’t look at the genetic, cellular level. RICHARD: I do ... and, more importantly, the ego/soul entity that was inhabiting this body all those years ago did. And ‘he’ psychologically and psychically ‘self’-immolated as a result of this ‘looking’. That was the end of ‘the genetic, cellular level’ ... over, finished. Kaput. RESPONDENT: The aggregation point, I think, is more gross than what you write. RICHARD: If I may ask? What could be more gross than the passionate instinctual behaviour that is evident in all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and suicides and the such-like? What holds the ‘aggregation’ together? What is the glue that binds? RESPONDENT: For example, the ‘me’ right here is not as ancient or continuous as you make out a human being to be. I was born 45 years ago and have been shaped by events that happened in those 45 years. RICHARD: Please correct me if I misunderstand ... but are you saying that the 45 year-old ‘me’ is more gross than the instinctual passions – those furious urges, that inborn animosity, those impulsive rages, that inveterate hostility, the dreaded fear with its evil disposition which gives rise to those malicious tendencies – which passions hijack, subvert, sabotage your every best intention? RESPONDENT: Of course there is chain of events that led to those events, but, that is an extrapolation in my view. RICHARD: Again ... ‘an extrapolation’ from what? If extrapolated from the ‘shaped by events’ 45 year-old ‘me’ then the question is this: How come those events have such a tenacious hold, as they would have to have on the 6.0 billion people now living and maybe another 4.0 billion once living, to produce such a persistently sticky 45 year-old ‘me’? Which means: what is the adhesive, the bonding agent, which is innate in both the 0 year-old ‘me’ and the 45 year-old ‘me’ that these events latch on to? RESPONDENT: What purpose does going back a million years in time serves? RICHARD: To find the root cause of all the misery and mayhem that epitomise all human suffering through the aeons. RESPONDENT: Instead, I think it will be worthwhile to focus on things that have an immediacy and deal with those issues. For example, immediate issues of boredom, listlessness, fear, apprehensions, etc., are real. The aggregate me, the one who feels those emotions, is also real. Hence, practicality would demand that we deal with issues at the appropriate level of aggregation. Like, when we buy tomatoes at the super market, we buy them by pounds (or kilos) and not delve on their molecular/genetic details, which are the appropriate levels of analysis for chemists and biologists. RICHARD: Are you suggesting, that in order to be free of ‘boredom, listlessness, fear, apprehensions, etc.’, one can effectively do this by ... um ... paddling around on the surface and re-arranging the conditioning so as to ease one’s lot somewhat? If one does not investigate, explore, uncover, discover, then the root cause of one’s ‘boredom, listlessness, fear, apprehensions, etc.’ will remain unexposed forever and a day ... with the license to wreak its havoc ad nauseam with indemnity. Why would anyone do this?
RICHARD: Any metaphysical identity (a psychological, emotional, psychic or autological ‘being’) is an epiphenomenon of the rudimentary animal ‘self’ that forms itself, out of survival necessity, as the centre-point of the instinctual passions that blind nature genetically encodes in all sentient beings at conception in the genes ... ‘I’ am the current end-point of myriads of survivors passing on their genes. ‘I’ am the product of the ‘success story’ of blind nature’s instinctual passions such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire. Being born of the biologically inherited instinctual passions genetically encoded in the germ cells of the spermatozoa and the ova, ‘I’ am – genetically speaking – umpteen tens of thousands of years old ... ‘my’ origins are lost in the mists of pre-history. ‘I’ am so anciently old that ‘I’ may well have always existed ... carried along on the reproductive cell-line, over countless millennia, from generation to generation. And ‘I’ am thus passed on into an inconceivably open-ended and hereditably transmissible future. In other words: ‘I’ am fear and fear is ‘me’; ‘I’ am aggression and aggression is ‘me’; ‘I’ am nurture and nurture is ‘me’; ‘I’ am desire and desire is ‘me’ and so on. This is one’s ‘Original Face’ (to use the Zen terminology); this is the source of the ‘we are all one’ feeling that is accessed in spiritual practices and mystical mediation. Because, genetically speaking we are indeed ‘all one’ inasmuch as all carbon based life-forms – not just sentient life-forms – have a common hereditary ‘survival instincts’ origin. RESPONDENT: True, Richard, but only as an extrapolation, isn’t it? RICHARD: Okay ... but ‘an extrapolation’ from ... what? From ‘I’ as ego (by whatever name), perchance? Or from ‘me’ as soul (by whatever name), mayhap? RESPONDENT: An extrapolation from the palpable reality of ‘me’. RICHARD: Which indicates that you take ‘the palpable reality of ‘me’ to be primary and anything else to be an extrapolation from that ... where does ‘the palpable reality of ‘me’ originate from if you were not born with it? Was it drilled into you along with the times-table? Did you breath it in from some noxious air? Did it soak in through the skin by some form of osmosis? What is the origin of ‘the palpable reality of ‘me’? * RESPONDENT: When we look at ourselves, we don’t look at the genetic, cellular level. RICHARD: I do ... and, more importantly, the ego/soul entity that was inhabiting this body all those years ago did. And ‘he’ psychologically and psychically ‘self’-immolated as a result of this ‘looking’. That was the end of ‘the genetic, cellular level’ ... over, finished. Kaput. RESPONDENT: How can you look at yourself at the genetic level? RICHARD: Speaking personally, in my investigations I first started by examining thought, thoughts and thinking ... then very soon moved on to examining feelings (first the emotions and then the deeper feelings). When I dug down into these passions (into the core of ‘my’ being then into ‘being’ itself) I stumbled across the instincts ... and found the origin of not only the affective faculty but the psyche itself. I found ‘me’ at the core of ‘being’ ... which is the instinctual rudimentary animal self common to all sentient beings. RESPONDENT: This whole thing – we being as old as the humanity, etc. – is a concept. RICHARD: It was not ‘a concept’ for the ‘being’ that was inhabiting this flesh and blood body all those years ago ... it was ‘him’ in ‘his’ utter nakedness. RESPONDENT: You, Richard, are real as a thinking, emoting, feeling being. RICHARD: Not so ... this brain thinks thoughts all of its own accord and the ‘emoting, feeling being’ is no longer extant. RESPONDENT: And you are unique. RICHARD: Are you saying that the 6.0 billion human beings currently on this planet are ‘unique’? RESPONDENT: Your joys, sorrows, etc. are all yours. So am I. You are you and I am me. RICHARD: If this were true then no communication would be possible. * RESPONDENT: The aggregation point, I think, is more gross than what you write. RICHARD: If I may ask? What could be more gross than the passionate instinctual behaviour that is evident in all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and suicides and the such-like? RESPONDENT: Wars and murders etc. are, again, conceptual. RICHARD: Try telling that to someone who has just been raped; try telling that to someone who is in a trench on the front-line; try telling that to someone being tortured; try telling that to the person on the receiving end of domestic violence; try telling that to the recipient of child abuse; try telling that to someone sliding down the slippery-slope of sadness to loneliness to melancholy to depression and then suicide. More specifically, try saying that to the Buddhist woman who is being raped by a Hindu soldier; try saying that to the Hindu mother whose son has been brutally tortured by Muslim terrorists; try saying that to a Jewish grandmother whose entire family has been wiped out by zealous Christians; try saying that to a Taoist girl whose life has been violated and ruined by Buddhist/Shinto soldiers; try saying that a Zen monk whose whole city has been razed by an atomic explosion. If your wife and/or daughter and/or mother and/or grandmother and/or sister was being brutally raped, would you really stand by saying to her: ‘this brutal rape is, again, conceptual’? RESPONDENT: There is misery on TV and in press. But that is not real. RICHARD: There has to be real people for a camera to record them ... it is only the movies that are not real. RESPONDENT: My pains, as I experience them, are real. I am my universe. RICHARD: May I ask? Are you suffering from dissociation ... or just playing some silly game with me? * RICHARD: What holds the ‘aggregation’ together? What is the glue that binds? RESPONDENT: My existence, my being. That is real and at that level alone reality (as feelings and emotions) exists. There is a real computer in front of me, but at the emotional level, my own emotions alone are real. RICHARD: Okay ... these ‘feelings and emotions’ which are the glue that holds the ‘aggregation’ together: where did they came from if you were not born with them? Were they drilled into you along with the times-table? Did you breath them in from some noxious air? Did they soak in through the skin by some form of osmosis? What is the origin of these ‘feelings and emotions’ which are the glue that holds the ‘aggregation’ together? RESPONDENT: The rest is an Oscar show; virtual reality – virtual, not real. RICHARD: Hmm ... then you may be surprised to know that 6.0 billion human beings (whom you call ‘unique’) all have precisely these same-same ‘feelings and emotions’ which are the glue that holds the ‘aggregation’ together. You are not so ‘unique’ after all. * RESPONDENT: For example, the ‘me’ right here is not as ancient or continuous as you make out a human being to be. I was born 45 years ago and have been shaped by events that happened in those 45 years. RICHARD: Please correct me if I misunderstand ... but are you saying that the 45 year-old ‘me’ is more gross than the instinctual passions – those furious urges, that inborn animosity, those impulsive rages, that inveterate hostility, the dreaded fear with its evil disposition which gives rise to those malicious tendencies – which passions hijack, subvert, sabotage your every best intention? RESPONDENT: Yes. Those furious urges are only 45 years old and will cease to be in another 45. RICHARD: Okay ... these ‘furious urges that are only 45 years old’ ... where did they came from if you were not born with them? Were they drilled into you along with the times-table? Did you breath them in from some noxious air? Did they soak in through the skin by some form of osmosis? What is the origin of these ‘furious urges that are only 45 years old’? RESPONDENT: The universality of human emotions is a fiction. RICHARD: If this were true then no communication would be possible. RESPONDENT: Only the wearer knows where the shoe pinches. RICHARD: Yet there are 6.0 billion peoples all wearing the same-same shoes. RESPONDENT: After 60-70-80-90 years, the shoe stops pinching. RICHARD: Aye ... but you have already passed those ‘pinching shoes’ onto your daughter (and/or son). RESPONDENT: Another’s pain is her own. RICHARD: Yet there are 6.0 billion peoples all having the same-same ‘pain’. RESPONDENT: I own mine, 100%. Never shall the twain shall meet. RICHARD: Yet they do daily for those peoples who have not dissociated from their fellow human beings. * RESPONDENT: Of course there is chain of events that led to those events, but, that is an extrapolation in my view. RICHARD: Again ... ‘an extrapolation’ from what? If extrapolated from the ‘shaped by events’ 45 year-old ‘me’ then the question is this: How come those events have such a tenacious hold, as they would have to have on the 6.0 billion people now living and maybe another 4.0 billion once living, to produce such a persistently sticky 45 year-old ‘me’? RESPONDENT: Respectfully, you are imagining a ‘universal tenacious hold’. RICHARD: Not so ... people tell me what is happening for them and I listen. It is truly global in its extent ... a pandemic. RESPONDENT: What holds you alone is real. RICHARD: Nothing holds me. * RICHARD: Which means: what is the adhesive, the bonding agent, which is innate in both the 0 year-old ‘me’ and the 45 year-old ‘me’ that these events latch on to? RESPONDENT: My existence, my being. I have existed for 45 years, I exist now, will exist for another xxx years. And that’s the summum-bonum of existence. The most that I can do to make my own existence painless is the best that I can do for anyone. There is nothing – absolutely nothing – that anyone can do for anyone else. None can get under another’s skin. RICHARD: May I ask? Why are you writing to this Mailing List and not to one set up under the aegis of Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti? * RESPONDENT: What purpose does going back a million years in time serves? RICHARD: To find the root cause of all the misery and mayhem that epitomise all human suffering through the aeons. RESPONDENT: Respectfully again, that is a romantic idea that people borrow from romantic authors. Only my suffering is real. Rest is a fiction and I can do nothing about it. I don’t even know what another’s misery is. RICHARD: Are you aware of the word ‘self-centred’? * RESPONDENT: Instead, I think it will be worthwhile to focus on things that have an immediacy and deal with those issues. For example, immediate issues of boredom, listlessness, fear, apprehensions, etc., are real. The aggregate me, the one who feels those emotions, is also real. Hence, practicality would demand that we deal with issues at the appropriate level of aggregation. Like, when we buy tomatoes at the super market, we buy them by pounds (or kilos) and not delve on their molecular/genetic details, which are the appropriate levels of analysis for chemists and biologists. RICHARD: Are you suggesting, that in order to be free of ‘boredom, listlessness, fear, apprehensions, etc.’, one can effectively do this by ... um ... paddling around on the surface and re-arranging the conditioning so as to ease one’s lot somewhat? RESPONDENT: Yes. Boredom is a conditioned response. One can learn to cope with it. So are other emotions. Different people have different coping mechanisms. RICHARD: Speaking personally ... I have no need for ‘coping mechanisms’ at all. RESPONDENT: Maybe yours is to find the root of it and (try) to ease the suffering of the mankind. Some people use that technique to relieve their own angst. RICHARD: Speaking personally ... I have no ‘angst’ whatsoever that needs relieving. RESPONDENT: But, ultimately, each one fends for him/her self. RICHARD: Okay ... how are you going so far? * RICHARD: If one does not investigate, explore, uncover, discover, then the root cause of one’s ‘boredom, listlessness, fear, apprehensions, etc.’ will remain unexposed forever and a day ... with the license to wreak its havoc ad nauseam with indemnity. Why would anyone do this? RESPONDENT: If that works for you, that is fine. If going to movies works for someone else, that is fine for him. Sex, TV, children, alcohol, God, K ... whatever relieves the boredom. RICHARD: Yet you said (above) that ‘boredom is a conditioned response’ ... why not just decondition yourself and save all this trouble of ‘movies, sex, TV, children, alcohol, God, K’ and so on? Are you not making unnecessary work for yourself? RESPONDENT: It appears that you took a particular route to make your own life work. That doesn’t mean that is the only route. Ultimately, whatever makes us happy and relieves our misery is what we need to do. People make a mistake of thinking that what works for them would work for everyone else. That just is not true. RICHARD: It is only ‘not true’ if each and everyone of the 6.0 billion peoples were indeed ‘unique’ ... but they are not. Human suffering is global in its incidence ... the end of human suffering is equally the same for each and everyone. RESPONDENT: Life, like an orgasm, is a very personal experience. RICHARD: What is ‘an orgasm’? RESPONDENT: Does this make (at least some) sense to you? RICHARD: Nope ... you have tried this philosophy on me before in past E-Mails ... and as I did not buy it then I am unlikely to do so now. Do you never get tired of writing this same old nihilistic existentialist stuff again and again? Why did you write to me?
RICHARD: Where does ‘the palpable reality of ‘me’ originate from if you were not born with it? Was it drilled into you along with the times-table? Did you breath it in from some noxious air? Did it soak in through the skin by some form of osmosis? What is the origin of ‘the palpable reality of ‘me’? RESPONDENT: Why is the origin important? RICHARD: Only a person who does not view the study of human behaviour with the objectivity of a scientist would ask such a question. Empirical science is firmly based upon cause and effect: proposing various working hypotheses; rigorously testing theories one-by-one; the objective elimination through patient trial and error of those that do not meet the scientific criteria and so on ... until the genuine cause is found. RESPONDENT: At the molecular level we are all C, H, O. The whole universe is nothing, at least indescribable at the level of quarks or whatever the current building block of reality is. RICHARD: Hmm ... can we get back on-topic? Which is: the instinctual animal passions. I was proposing to another correspondent (in the paragraph you snipped off) that at root the ‘self’ is genetic ... to which discussion you joined in with: ‘true, but ...’. May I ask? Was the ‘true, but ...’ sentence-opener just rhetoric to suck me into considering you were genuinely wanting to examine the hypothesis? * RESPONDENT: How can you look at yourself at the genetic level? RICHARD: Speaking personally, in my investigations I first started by examining thought, thoughts and thinking ... then very soon moved on to examining feelings (first the emotions and then the deeper feelings). When I dug down into these passions (into the core of ‘my’ being then into ‘being’ itself) I stumbled across the instincts ... and found the origin of not only the affective faculty but the psyche itself. I found ‘me’ at the core of ‘being’ ... which is the instinctual rudimentary animal self common to all sentient beings. RESPONDENT: Doesn’t make sense to me. It appears that you found the core of your being. The rest of it is extrapolation. Socrates is a man, all men are mortal, hence Socrates is mortal. But Socrates the mortal is not the same as Sai Baba the mortal. RICHARD: I have never studied logic and never wish to ... I have always been a practical person. Which means: does it deliver the goods? Can you not have the objectivity of an ‘applied science’ scientist such as an engineer who has to ask: does it work? Not that academia-land ‘pure science’ scientist who asks: is it a logical proposition? * RESPONDENT: You are unique. RICHARD: Are you saying that the 6.0 billion human beings currently on this planet are ‘unique’? RESPONDENT: Yes. No two human beings are alike. Not even identical twins. That is how human beings develop. RICHARD: We have been down this path before, you and I, in previous posts: I fully acknowledge near-uniqueness such as fingerprints and DNA ... this topic is about the affective faculty ... feelings such as emotions, passions and calentures. They are global in their spread, and by and large, are present to some degree in all sentient beings and not just humans. If you cannot agree to the commonality of the affective feelings then we have nothing to say to each other. I would much prefer to discuss with persons who do not play silly games. * RESPONDENT: Wars and murders etc. are, again, conceptual. RICHARD: Try telling that to someone who has just been raped; try telling that to someone who is in a trench on the front-line; try telling that to someone being tortured; try telling that to the person on the receiving end of domestic violence; try telling that to the recipient of child abuse; try telling that to someone sliding down the slippery-slope of sadness to loneliness to melancholy to depression and then suicide. More specifically, try saying that to the Buddhist woman who is being raped by a Hindu soldier; try saying that to the Hindu mother whose son has been brutally tortured by Muslim terrorists; try saying that to a Jewish grandmother whose entire family has been wiped out by zealous Christians; try saying that to a Taoist girl whose life has been violated and ruined by Buddhist/ Shinto soldiers; try saying that a Zen monk whose whole city has been razed by an atomic explosion. If your wife and/or daughter and/or mother and/or grandmother and/or sister was being brutally raped, would you really stand by saying to her: ‘this brutal rape is, again, conceptual’? RESPONDENT: The very question that you ask proves my point. I can conceptualise what I would say if some female related to me is being raped. Only my rape will be real. RICHARD: You are ducking the question ... which is: would you really stand by saying to her: ‘this brutal rape is, again, conceptual’? I only ask because that is what you told me it was in this discussion – which is a discussion and not the actual situation – but a discussion does not get anywhere unless you relate it to your life. Otherwise this dialogue amounts to nothing but undergraduate cleverness. * RESPONDENT: My pains, as I experience them, are real. I am my universe. RICHARD: May I ask? Are you suffering from dissociation ... or just playing some silly game with me? RESPONDENT: Neither. Just stating my point of view. RICHARD: Okay ... does ‘your universe’ admit any other ‘feeling emoting beings’ who experience emotional and/or mental suffering such that you can relate to and/or with and therefore recognise commonality? * RICHARD: What holds the ‘aggregation’ together? What is the glue that binds? RESPONDENT: My existence, my being. That is real and at that level alone reality (as feelings and emotions) exists. There is a real computer in front of me, but at the emotional level, my own emotions alone are real. RICHARD: Okay ... these ‘feelings and emotions’ which are the glue that holds the ‘aggregation’ together: where did they came from if you were not born with them? Were they drilled into you along with the times-table? Did you breath them in from some noxious air? Did they soak in through the skin by some form of osmosis? What is the origin of these ‘feelings and emotions’ which are the glue that holds the ‘aggregation’ together? RESPONDENT: What is the relevance of the question ‘where did the feelings and emotions come from?’ I can discuss with you – conceptually – where they come from, but to me that would be as much an exercise in futility as tracing my origin to molecular/quark level. RICHARD: Only a person who does not view the study of human behaviour with the objectivity of a scientist would ask such a question. Empirical science is firmly based upon cause and effect: proposing various working hypotheses; rigorously testing theories one-by-one; the objective elimination through patient trial and error of those that do not meet the scientific criteria and so on ... until the genuine cause is found. Therefore can we get back on-topic? Which is: the instinctual animal passions. I was proposing to another correspondent (in the paragraph you snipped off) that at root the ‘self’ is genetic ... to which you replied: ‘true, but ...’. May I ask? Was the ‘true, but ...’ sentence-opener just rhetoric to suck me into considering you were genuinely wanting to examine the hypothesis? * RICHARD: You may be surprised to know that 6.0 billion human beings (whom you call ‘unique’) all have precisely these same-same ‘feelings and emotions’ which are the glue that holds the ‘aggregation’ together. You are not so ‘unique’ after all. RESPONDENT: My wife’s sons are identical twins. Even they have more dissimilarities than similarities. RICHARD: We have been down this path before, you and I, in previous posts: I fully acknowledge near-uniqueness such as fingerprints and DNA ... this topic is about the affective faculty ... feelings such as emotions, passions and calentures. They are global in their spread, and by and large, are present to some degree in all sentient beings and not just humans. If you cannot agree to the commonality of the affective feelings then we have nothing to say to each other. I would much prefer to discuss with those persons who do not play silly games. * RESPONDENT: For example, the ‘me’ right here is not as ancient or continuous as you make out a human being to be. I was born 45 years ago and have been shaped by events that happened in those 45 years. RICHARD: Please correct me if I misunderstand ... but are you saying that the 45 year-old ‘me’ is more gross than the instinctual passions – those furious urges, that inborn animosity, those impulsive rages, that inveterate hostility, the dreaded fear with its evil disposition which gives rise to those malicious tendencies – which passions hijack, subvert, sabotage your every best intention? RESPONDENT: Yes. Those furious urges are only 45 years old and will cease to be in another 45. RICHARD: Okay ... these ‘furious urges that are only 45 years old’ ... where did they came from if you were not born with them? Were they drilled into you along with the times-table? Did you breath them in from some noxious air? Did they soak in through the skin by some form of osmosis? What is the origin of these ‘furious urges that are only 45 years old’? RESPONDENT: Same as before – why is the origin of urges important, other than as a topic of dissertation? RICHARD: Only a person who does not view the study of human behaviour with the objectivity of a scientist would ask such a question. Empirical science is firmly based upon cause and effect: proposing various working hypotheses; rigorously testing theories one-by-one; the objective elimination through patient trial and error of those that do not meet the scientific criteria and so on ... until the genuine cause is found. Therefore can we get back on-topic? Which is: the instinctual animal passions. I was proposing to another correspondent (in the paragraph you snipped off) that at root the ‘self’ is genetic ... to which you replied: ‘true, but ...’. May I ask? Was the ‘true, but ...’ sentence-opener just rhetoric to suck me into considering you were genuinely wanting to examine the hypothesis? * RESPONDENT: The universality of human emotions is a fiction. RICHARD: If this were true then no communication would be possible. RESPONDENT: Only the wearer knows where the shoe pinches. RICHARD: Yet there are 6.0 billion peoples all wearing the same-same shoes. RESPONDENT: Not at all. Me and my brother feel entirely differently. What gives ‘A’ joy can send ‘B’ into a depression. There are differences galore. RICHARD: Yet will you – can you – acknowledge that you are saying that person ‘A’ has joy or depression (or whatever) just the same as person ‘B’ has joy or depression (or whatever) irregardless of whether triggering factor X sends person A thisaway and yet person B thataway? Were you agreeing with your ‘true, but ...’ initial response that human beings are all born with the same basic instinctual passions and, no matter which culture one was socialised into being a member of, all peoples throughout the world have the same emotions and passions or not? Anger and forbearance, for instance, is anger and forbearance wherever it lives. There is no difference at root between English anger and forbearance and American anger and forbearance and African anger and forbearance and so on. Or love and hatred, enmity and alliance, jealousy and acceptance ... whatever the emotion or passion may be, they all have a global incidence. The affective feelings are unambiguously global ... and have been demonstrated to be so in the many, many scientific studies around the world. These basic passions (such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire) are the hallmark of virtually any sentient being ... they are blind nature’s instinctual software package genetically encoded into the germ-cells of the spermatozoa and the ova. And these survival instincts are what has enabled us to be born at all; they are what has enabled us to be here today after multiple generations of the development of the evolutionary ‘weeding out’ process of the ‘survival of the most fitted to the environment’. This ‘natural selection’ hypothesis was first publicly proposed jointly by Mr. A. R. Wallace and Mr. Charles Darwin in 1858. Their simultaneous publishing of their account of evolution was, says the Oxford Dictionary somewhat dryly, ‘to the consternation of theologians’ ... which is the same-same response that Mr. Galileo Galilei faced in 1610. Yet peoples today – 141 years later – are still in massive denial of this oh-so-obvious common animal ancestry. Many is the person who has protested to me that ‘I am not an animal’ ... thus shutting the door on their investigation into what it is to be a human being living in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are. What a shame, what a pity ... no, what a sin it is to persist so tenaciously in holding on to ‘being’ a ‘higher soul’ (by whatever name) – which ‘being’ is but the end-product of all animosity and anguish through the aeons – when this actual world, which is so perfectly pure, is right under one’s nose. Are you – you who study human behaviour with the objectivity of a scientist – in denial of empirical science or not? * RESPONDENT: After 60-70-80-90 years, the shoe stops pinching. RICHARD: Aye ... but you have already passed those ‘pinching shoes’ onto your daughter (and/or son). RESPONDENT: No one passes on anything to another. RICHARD: Am I to take it that your ‘true, but ...’ was just rhetoric after all? RESPONDENT: My daughter will invent her own pinching shoes. RICHARD: How? What is the adhesive, the bonding agent, which is innate in her that this inventing latches on to? * RICHARD: What is the adhesive, the bonding agent, which is innate in both the 0 year-old ‘me’ and the 45 year-old ‘me’ that these events latch on to? RESPONDENT: My existence, my being. I have existed for 45 years, I exist now, will exist for another xxx years. And that’s the summum-bonum of existence. The most that I can do to make my own existence painless is the best that I can do for anyone. There is nothing – absolutely nothing – that anyone can do for anyone else. RICHARD: May I ask? Why are you writing to this Mailing List and not to one set up under the aegis of Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti? RESPONDENT: I don’t even know about a Mailing List of UK. Can a person speak only certain kinds of truths on this list? That would be kind of devotional, isn’t it? RICHARD: Yes ... I agree completely: that was an ill-considered response of mine. Because I certainly do appreciate this Mailing List for its openness to any aspect of any topic related to human suffering. And, as I was wanting to convey that your ‘there is nothing – absolutely nothing – that anyone can do for anyone else’ ... um ... ‘truth’ is the same-same wisdom that Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti proposes I would have been much better off writing something like: ‘have you been reading Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti lately’? As for a ‘Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti Mailing List’, I wandered to the official Web Page just now to see what I could find ... and found the following:
Thus any discussion forum would not get of the ground even ... I see that ‘the reader is not in a position to either agree or disagree with what he says’. * RESPONDENT: What purpose does going back a million years in time serves? RICHARD: To find the root cause of all the misery and mayhem that epitomise all human suffering through the aeons. RESPONDENT: Respectfully again, that is a romantic idea that people borrow from romantic authors. Only my suffering is real. Rest is a fiction and I can do nothing about it. I don’t even know what another’s misery is. RICHARD: Are you aware of the word ‘self-centred’? RESPONDENT: Yes. It is a great word, much abused by flag bearers of the Church of Universal Consciousness. It means that a person is centred in the self and doesn’t make hypothetical forays into universal consciousness. RICHARD: Hmm ... given that I am not a ‘flag bearer of the Church of Universal Consciousness’ I was asking if you knew another meaning? * RESPONDENT: Boredom is a conditioned response. One can learn to cope with it. So are other emotions. Different people have different coping mechanisms. RICHARD: Speaking personally ... I have no need for ‘coping mechanisms’ at all. RESPONDENT: I told you: we are all different. RICHARD: Uh-huh ... I was not born this way. * RESPONDENT: Ultimately, whatever makes us happy and relieves our misery is what we need to do. People make a mistake of thinking that what works for them would work for everyone else. That just is not true. RICHARD: It is only ‘not true’ if each and everyone of the 6.0 billion peoples were indeed ‘unique’ ... but they are not. Human suffering is global in its incidence ... the end of human suffering is equally the same for each and everyone. RESPONDENT: That is what believers of certain faith think. RICHARD: As I am not a believer of anything – let alone of ‘certain faiths’ I was more pointing to the many, many scientific studies around the world which show empirically that the affective feelings are unambiguously global ... and have been demonstrated to be so in virtually all sentient beings so far studied and not only in the human animal. RESPONDENT: Does this make (at least some) sense to you? RICHARD: Nope ... you have tried this philosophy on me before in past E-Mails ... and as I did not buy it then I am unlikely to do so now. Why did you write to me? RESPONDENT: To give you my view point. RICHARD: I can see that, but why?
RETURN TO CORRESPONDENCE LIST ‘B’ 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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