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Richard’s Correspondence on Mailing List ‘B’ with Respondent No. 44
RESPONDENT: Is conflict endless – or does it begin and end and begin? RESPONDENT No. 21: It is endless until it is resolved. Most people do not resolve it. RESPONDENT: <SNIP> Do you know the adjective ‘passive’ as it is used in language arts (grammar)? Have you noticed how passive most of your language is? The words of Richard and many others you may read or interact with, even this very sentence, are in passive tone (‘voice’). All the definitions and theories are passive. Passive is for ideas, not action. ‘The black widow kills her mate’, now that is active – that is not speculation, yet again, so what? <SNIP> RESPONDENT: Did you share your curiosity or opinion or examinations of passive voice and ideas and so on? RICHARD: Yes ... but you saw them as ‘intellectualising’, ‘manipulation of ideas’, ‘abstract philosophy’ and ‘philosophical splurges’ instead of substantiating your theory that ‘passive tone (‘voice’) is for ideas, not action’ and which makes Richard’s words nothing but ‘definitions’, ‘theories’, ‘ideas’, ‘speculations’, ‘intellectualising’, ‘manipulation of ideas’, ‘abstract philosophy’ and ‘philosophical splurges’. RESPONDENT: I know you did somewhat, but it didn’t directly spark much interest, so ‘try again as you see fit’. RICHARD: 1. (active voice/tone) ‘The terrorist hit the pacifist’. 2. (passive voice/tone) ‘The pacifist was hit by the terrorist’. In both (1) and (2) the pacifist remained physically passive (in foolish obedience to dictums handed down on high by bodiless entities) which knocks your theory for a six. RESPONDENT: I concede that you can make the logical subject into an object technically or whatever you were saying. RICHARD: Good ... this is the only thing I have been wanting to discuss all along: your statement that ‘passive is for ideas, not action’ when discussing ‘language arts (grammar’) is incorrect. It seems that you are confusing the abstract ‘passive tone (‘voice’) with the concrete ‘passive’ (as in physical non-action in the corporal world). Because the ‘active tone (voice)’ example you gave of ‘the black widow kills her mate’ (which describes a physical world activity) and then saying ‘now that is active’ (which indeed it is in the grammatical sense of ‘voice’) is said in the context (further above) by you as if black widow spiders do not sit around all day long pontificating instead of putting their ideas into action. Yet the ‘passive tone (voice)’ of that sentence (which describes an action in the physical world) could read: ‘the black widow spider’s mate gets killed’ (the passive tone does not always require the agent to be expressed). If so, seeing that the black widow spider’s mate is busily getting killed either way it is grammatically articulated, in no way does it substantiate your theory that ‘passive tone (‘voice’) is for ideas, not action’ (which you say indicates Richard’s words are ‘definitions’, ‘theories’, ‘ideas’ and ‘speculations’ with your ‘all the definitions and theories are passive’ statement). * RESPONDENT: This is not a change. Now, put ideas and all the rest into active voice if you wish to ‘six’ me and mine. RICHARD: I already have ... here is an ‘active voice/tone’ sentence: ‘No. 44 ideated Richard’s modus
vivendi RESPONDENT: The fact that one can awkwardly twist actions into passive tone ... RICHARD: It is not ‘awkwardly twisting actions into passive tone’ at all ... this is straight-forward English grammar. A ‘passive voice/tone’ of the same sentence could read: ‘Richard’s modus vivendi was ideated by No. 44’. RESPONDENT: ... does not deny that passive tone is (primarily or essentially or intrinsically) for ideas. RICHARD: Not so ... allow me to give you an example from the ‘Britannica Encyclopaedia’ (and notice that their No. 2 example is not an ‘idea’ but an ‘action’ in the physical world). Vis.:
RESPONDENT: Thank you for revising your contribution rather than merely repeating your criticism of mine. RICHARD: Yet all I did was copy and paste the ‘Terrorist/Pacifist’ example from my second post to you. RESPONDENT: I welcome criticism by the way, but if I don’t understand it, repeating it is futile, yes? RICHARD: Apparently not ... because ‘repeating’ myself worked here.
RESPONDENT: Well, Richard, now we have settled it. Indeed what I meant to say you have not really addressed, but technically you are right and as I said I claim no expertise in even relatively simple grammar technicalities (hence my reference to ESL). The fact may be that I didn’t know how to say technically what I see as a fact. When you say the bear was killed, that is a double verb (or helping verb and ‘helped’ verb). The process of killing is the action, but it is not active voice apparently. RICHARD: Yes, this is the only point I am making: ‘passive voice’ is about the sentence structure only and does not necessarily correlate to the event that is being described (what is being described can be active). Conversely, ‘active voice’ does not necessarily correlate to the event that is being described (what is being described can be passive). RESPONDENT: I have no idea what middle voice refers to, by the way. RICHARD: The English language does not necessarily utilise ‘middle voice’ (the Russian language does, for example). The proto-Indo-European language used ‘middle voice’ and the English ‘passive voice’ evolved out of that. The closest (and very approximate) example of ‘middle voice’ that English grammar can use would be ‘the black widow spider’s mate is getting killed’ (wherein the principle interest is in the verbal noun ‘getting’ rather than either the subject or the object). But this is stretching the meaning of ‘middle voice’ more than a little bit. RESPONDENT: Your ideated example did not clarify anything to me. If ideated is just the same as idealized, then we could write ‘One idealized another’. RICHARD: Strictly speaking ‘idealise’ is to mentally make someone or something into being better than they actually are, whereas ‘ideate’ is a neutral mental process of forming an idea about someone or something. Therefore ‘No. 44 idealised Richard’s modus vivendi’ is not an accurate representation of what you mentally do with my modus vivendi. RESPONDENT: To me it is awkward to say ‘another was idealized by one’, and those inversions or whatever you call them are technically grammatically correct, but not a matter of common language, nor is the term ‘modus vivendi’. RICHARD: Maybe ‘modus vivendi’ is not a common part of your personal language, but such egocentricity RESPONDENT: My statement is that ‘one idealized another’ is simpler, clearer, shorter, and, further, not really very active – as I said – internally reactive, but not interactive. RICHARD: Once again, you are confusing the grammatical ‘active voice’ with what is being described ... there need not be a correlation between the two. RESPONDENT: It obviously is referring to ideas, not a concrete event or act, but a process. RICHARD: Aye, and a mental process at that ... but the grammatical ‘voice’ of that sentence (‘one idealised another’) is ‘active voice’ irregardless of whether the process being described is active or passive ... in the mental or physical sense. RESPONDENT: Perhaps this where middle voice comes in, but I don’t know. RICHARD: No ... the closest to ‘middle voice’ would be ‘another idealises one’ (but this is more about ‘tense’ in ‘passive voice’ than anything else). There really is no genuine ‘middle voice’ in English grammar. * RICHARD: Here is an ‘active voice/tone’ sentence: ‘No. 44 ideated Richard’s modus vivendi’. RESPONDENT: Is your example an idea or a matter of fact (true or false)? RICHARD: It is a matter of fact ... you had said that Richard’s words, being ‘passive voice (grammar)’ were therefore ‘ideas, theories, definitions and speculations’ ... whereas they are not. My words are an accurate self-report from a fellow human being sans identity ... which makes them direct to the point of human suffering. You will find that what is written is a factual account that clearly explicates how the human condition came about and how to free oneself from it ... and clear description of life in this actual world where peace-on-earth already always is. This is why I launched into this dialogue with you in the first place. Seeing that you had this notion that anyone who used ‘passive voice’ grammatically must of necessity being sprouting ‘ideas, theories, definitions and speculations’, then you would not even begin to countenance that what is being said could be valid as a modus vivendi. Consequently, it would make it pointless to converse with you about actually becoming free of the human condition. RESPONDENT: Perhaps it is of no consolation, but that is not how I talk, though it may be how you talk, and perhaps that is part of the complexity that led to the ESL comments. RICHARD: Okay ... but you are not the first person to have a problem about another’s erudition and scholarship ... yet the English language has upwards of 650,000 words in it. Surely you do not really suggest that I restrict myself to the usual 4,000 to 6,000 that is the extent of the vocabulary of the average person? If so, why? Must all peoples remain semi-illiterate just because peoples like yourself find linguistic expressiveness to be ‘complexity’? I decline to be dictated to by the lowest common denominator. RESPONDENT: Ironically, when you and No. 45 were writing, sometimes I understood his scrambled English better than yours – I found his statements interesting partly as a matter of language, while I found yours to be dense (abstruse?). RICHARD: Hmm ... he was simply reiterating the ‘Tried and True’ lullaby whereas what my words describe requires one to actually think, to actually stretch their comprehension by adroitly negotiating the mental barrier of cognitive dissonance and so on. RESPONDENT: This is not a comment on truth or falsehood, but lucidity or fluency. As fluent as you may be, you were not speaking my language. RICHARD: Apparently not. RESPONDENT: But I know you have not made many narrations on this list. RICHARD: Am I take this to mean that you are saying that I do not tell a story or give details about day-to-day personal living and life-style? RESPONDENT: The content of all my feedback remains. I still consider passive to be for ideas or ideas to be for passive. RICHARD: Well then, this extensive dialogue betwixt yourself and myself has achieved zero. Zilch. Carry on being ignorant then, if that is what you prefer. RESPONDENT: Maybe I am saying it wrong, but again, that is why I request you treat these as the words of an ESL student, but you just demand fluency and technical proficiency and vocabulary that are not here. And so to and fro we go. RICHARD: If you could only grasp this one thing – and this one thing only – then all will be well. Vis.: ‘passive voice’ is about the sentence structure only and does not necessarily correlate to the event that is being described (what is being described can be active). Conversely, ‘active voice’ does not necessarily correlate to the event that is being described (what is being described can be passive).
RESPONDENT: Your ideated example did not clarify anything to me. If ideated is just the same as idealized, then we could write ‘One idealized another’. RICHARD: Strictly speaking ‘idealise’ is to mentally make someone or something into being better than they actually are, whereas ‘ideate’ is a neutral mental process of forming an idea about someone or something. Therefore ‘No. 44 idealised Richard’s modus vivendi’ is not an accurate representation of what you mentally do with my modus vivendi. RESPONDENT: You are reading idealized much like idolized (in reference to people). That is the common meaning. RICHARD: No ... ‘idealise’ means ‘to represent or perceive (a person or thing) in an ideal form or to elevate into a model state of perfection’ (synonyms: beglamour, romanticise, perfectionate, glamorise); whereas ‘idolise’ means ‘to make an idol of, worship idolatrously; adore or love to excess’ (synonyms: worship, bow down before, glorify, exalt, revere, deify, adulate, lionise, venerate). Whereas you demote my words into being ‘definitions’, ‘theories’, ‘ideas’, ‘speculations’, ‘intellectualising’, ‘manipulation of ideas’, ‘abstract philosophy’ and ‘philosophical splurges’ ... which is neither ‘idealising’ or ‘idolising’. And as you are ideating my modus vivendi you are not reading what is written with both eyes RESPONDENT: Still, this is not action in the general (external) meaning. The activity of thought dissociated with senses – such as dreaming – is activity as in neurological activity of firing synapses. This activity fits with nerves, but to say that it is my action to dream is to me a blurring of passive and active. Dreaming is not acting in the sense I am using it – of individual action. RICHARD: Goodness me ... this abstract/concrete misunderstanding of yours knows no end. Grammatically, ‘active voice’ is about the sentence structure only and does not necessarily correlate to the event that is being described (what is being described can be passive). Conversely, ‘passive voice’ does not necessarily correlate to the event that is being described (what is being described can be active). The example I gave (‘No. 44 ideated Richard’s modus operandi’) is ‘active’ only in the ‘active voice’ grammatical (abstract) sense, otherwise it is ‘passive’ in the ‘passive event’ physical (concrete) sense ... which example is what you originally asked me to provide an instance of. Or, in your example, the grammatical ‘voice’ of the sentence ‘one idealised another’ is ‘active voice’ irregardless of whether the event being described is active or passive ... be the event a mental or physical event. * RESPONDENT: My statement is that ‘one idealized another’ is simpler, clearer, shorter, and, further, not really very active – as I said – internally reactive, but not interactive. RICHARD: Once again, you are confusing the grammatical ‘active voice’ with what is being described ... there need not be a correlation between the two. RESPONDENT: I have never been particularly interested in the technical usages. RICHARD: As I have previously remarked ... carry on being ignorant then, if that is what you prefer. It does make it all rather pointless discussing anything with you, however. RESPONDENT: I think there is quite a connection between acting and active voice with actor (agent) and further that this somehow was related to the topic of conflict and the ending of conflict. RICHARD: Aye ... it is the basis of your theory about a verb being more appropriate rather than bringing conflict to an end. And your theory is based on a grammatically erroneous assumption that passive tone (‘voice’) is for ideas, not action ... we have been through all this before ad nauseum. It leads to you falsely concluding that Richard’s words are therefore ‘definitions’, ‘theories’, ‘ideas’, ‘speculations’, ‘intellectualising’, ‘manipulation of ideas’, ‘abstract philosophy’ and ‘philosophical splurges’. I am certainly not going to revisit that exercise in futility ... methinks you are now just being stubborn. * RICHARD: Here is an ‘active voice/tone’ sentence: ‘No. 44 ideated Richard’s modus vivendi’. RESPONDENT: Is your example an idea or a matter of fact (true or false)? RICHARD: It is a matter of fact. RESPONDENT: And were you not presenting this example as an idea in active voice? It is a narration of an event as you use it – not an idea as in speculation and so on. RICHARD: Good grief ... it is a fact that you ideated Richard’s modus vivendi (as in it is a fact that you speculated about Richard’s modus vivendi). Therefore it is an accurate example of a passive event (an idea that you have about me) written in ‘active voice’ (grammar). You are on a hiding to nowhere with this mulish refusal to face a grammatical fact. * RICHARD: You had said that Richard’s words, being ‘passive voice (grammar)’ were therefore ‘ideas,
theories, definitions and speculations’ ... whereas they are not. My words are an accurate self-report from a fellow human being sans
identity ... which makes them direct to the point of human suffering. You will find that what is written is a factual account that clearly
explicates how the human condition came about and how to free oneself from it ... and clear description of life in this actual world where
peace-on-earth already always is. This is why I launched into this dialogue with you in the first place. Seeing that you had this notion that
anyone who used ‘passive voice’ grammatically must of necessity being sprouting ‘ideas, theories, definitions and speculations’,
then you would not even begin to countenance that what is being said could be valid as a modus vivendi RESPONDENT: Here you are perhaps ideating my modus vivendi, but I am not sure. RICHARD: No, I am not ‘ideating your modus vivendi’ at all ... I am taking what you wrote at face value and am not reading anything into it whatsoever. Vis.: ‘the words of Richard ... are in passive tone (‘voice’) ... all the definitions and theories are passive ... passive is for ideas, not action’. RESPONDENT: I did not invalidate passive voice or theories, but this does not mean I presume the validity of a theoretical proposition or even technical definition. Perhaps you are familiar with the notion of ‘operational definition’ in scientific/academic lingo. Your use of a word in no way limits my use of the same word, but this can certainly can be a factor in confusion. RICHARD: May I suggest? Stay with this one issue (‘active/passive voice’) until it is resolved before further confusing yourself? RESPONDENT: Last, what do you mean by becoming free of the human condition? What do you mean by the human condition? Can we presume that your understanding of human condition is definitive and applicable to me and my understanding or anyone else’s? RICHARD: I am not the least bit interested in discussing becoming free of the human condition whilst you doggedly hold onto the erroneous viewpoint that anyone who uses ‘passive voice’ grammatically must of necessity being sprouting ‘ideas, theories, definitions and speculations’. * RESPONDENT: The content of all my feedback remains. I still consider passive to be for ideas or ideas to be for passive. RICHARD: Well then, this extensive dialogue betwixt yourself and myself has achieved zero. Zilch. Carry on being ignorant then, if that is what you prefer. RESPONDENT: Carry on being passive and philosophical. RICHARD: Can you not see your erroneous understanding of ‘active/passive voice (grammar)’ in operation in this short sentence? You assume that if what I write is in the ‘passive voice (grammar)’ it is, of necessity, ‘philosophical’. This is why I am not interested in discussing becoming free of the human condition with you ... your mind-set automatically precludes you from even beginning to understand what I write and what the ramifications and implications are of an actual investigation into one’s psyche. RESPONDENT: Carry on being holier than moie (isn’t that the appropriate French personal pronoun?). RICHARD: There is nothing ‘holy’ about me ... I am an atheist. Look, if you would only grasp this one thing, and this one thing only: ‘passive voice’ is about the sentence structure only and does not necessarily correlate to the event that is being described (what is being described can be active). Conversely, ‘active voice’ does not necessarily correlate to the event that is being described (what is being described can be passive).
RICHARD (to Respondent No. 33): 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 No. 33: 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. Hence, no God or Truth can ever be posited with any certitude. As you mentioned, this moment of being alive is the Truth. 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. 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. RESPONDENT: To limit intelligence to the supposed advent of thought is indeed limited. RICHARD: There is nothing ‘supposed’ about the ‘advent of thought’, nor is there anything ‘limited’ about applying a word to that which it properly applies to. When I use the word <intelligence> I mean the same thing as the dictionary definition of intelligence: the cerebral faculty of understanding (as in intellect) and with the quickness or superiority of understanding (as in sagacity) or the action or fact of understanding something (as in knowledge and/or comprehension of something) which means the ability to rationally and thus sensibly notice, reflect, plan and implement considered activity for beneficial reasons and to be able to convey information to other human beings so that knowledge can accumulate around the world and to the next generations ... no other animal can do this. If you wish to rewrite the dictionaries single-handedly, then go ahead ... until then I will stay with the generally accepted convention as it avoids confusion and aids clarity in communication. RESPONDENT: Isn’t the reproductive passage of genetic information intelligent? Other generations are informed by the adaptation of last year’s flower. Grunts are intelligent, are they not? We think we are intelligent and those or that one is not. The advent of self-reflection is quite a potential but also involved in the workings of the everyday neurosis so prevalent in modernity. It is like some are stuck in the intelligence of the mind or head and removed from other intelligence – that movement of celestial bodies and atomics and the genius of the snail and oak tree and human. Intelligence is life – the factor that assembles the human body and keeps it from being a corpse (for a limited time only, of course). RICHARD: If you wish to talk of the energetic process that is ‘the reproductive passage of genetic information’ and ‘grunts’ and ‘that movement of celestial bodies’ and ‘atomics’ and ‘the snail’ and ‘the oak tree’ and ‘life as the factor that assembles the human body’ then you are quite obviously not referring to the cerebral faculty of understanding (as in intellect) and with the quickness or superiority of understanding (as in sagacity) or the action or fact of understanding something (as in knowledge and/or comprehension of something) because in no way can intelligence generate these wondrous happenings. It has taken countless aeons for carbon-based life-form to evolve through to being intelligent in one species alone: the human animal. Of course the human animal values intelligence highly but to take this faculty which humans value highly and seek to impose it upon this marvellous, amazing, wondrous and magical universe is to commit the vulgar error of anthropocentricism. Thus, you are belittling what this universe actually is by calling such marvellous processes ‘intelligence’. These amazing processes are much, much more than intelligence in operation. RESPONDENT: Perhaps I am using an extremely christian science view of intelligence, but I thought that might interest you. RICHARD: All religious, spiritual, mystical and metaphysical ‘views of intelligence’ hold no interest for me whatsoever ... I find the whole furore about what ‘intelligence’ really is very amusing: there are people who talk sagely about ... um ... dolphins, for just one example, as being ‘intelligent’ and will argue their case vigorously and vociferously and scorn IQ tests as being a measure of intelligence. Yet when these self-same people turn their attention to ‘outer space’ or ‘deep space’ (as the SETI peoples do), they all of a sudden know precisely what intelligence actually is ... when they say that they are searching for extraterrestrial intelligence they do not for one moment mean that they are looking for ‘intelligent’ creatures like ... um ... dolphins, for example. No way ... they are looking for what intelligence actually is as per the dictionary definition.
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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