Actual Freedom – Selected Correspondence by Topic

RESPONDENT: To thank you, I would like to give back something, a text elaborating on the universe observing itself through us.

RICHARD: You may find the following illuminative:

• [Co-Respondent]: ‘... I should like to ask you also something else. You said that through you the universe is experiencing its self.
• [Richard]: ‘I did nothing of the sort ... I specifically say *as* this flesh and blood body. Viz.: [Co-Respondent]: ‘We are the universe creating its own self and experiencing it’s self. [Richard]: ‘The planet earth not only grows vegetation it also grows people – and all other sentient beings – and, as such, the universe can experience itself as a sensate and reflective human being (just as it also experiences itself as a cat or a dog and so on). [endquote]. And the follow-up e-mail: [Co-Respondent]: ‘... the universe (tree) will not experience any more it’s self in this form (colour) through this human been (me) this moment (now). [Richard]: ‘... the universe does not experience itself ‘through’ a human being: it experiences itself *as* a human being (and as cats and dogs and so on) ... only the identity within the flesh and blood body experiences itself, and its reality, ‘through’ a human being’.

RESPONDENT: It goes: [snip selected passages from ‘Laws of Form’].

RICHARD: I have taken the liberty of snipping the text you quoted because Mr. George Spencer-Brown makes it abundantly clear elsewhere that, whatever it is that he speaks rather mystically of, it sure ain’t this actual world.

• [quote]: ‘... there is a whole world that be, which don’t even exist, and the world that don’t exist is far more real than the world that do’. (from ‘Being and Existence’; Tuesday Morning, March 20, 1973; AUM Conference, Esalen Institute, California).

RESPONDENT: (...) Here we are, in some corner of a pretty far out galaxy, on the same planet although on different sides of it, billions of cells each, equipped with nervous systems, each nervous system composed of billions of cells again, not to mention the possible combinations, using one of our extensions to inquire whether a particular pattern of ‘firing’ has occurred in another nervous system. Hmmm. That’s quite strange, quite normal and a lot of fun.

RICHARD: It is amazing, is it not, that not only does this wondrous universe exist in all its marvellous expanse, but we also get to be here, on this verdant and azure planet, going about this business called be alive in whatever way we see fit ... on top of which we can compare notes, as it were, as to what sense we have made of it all, by being able to be aware of being aware, and thus adjusting our understanding accordingly.

A truly remarkable state of affairs.

RESPONDENT: The universe experiencing itself, as in good old Spinoza or Hegel, in a body.

RICHARD: If I may again draw your attention to the following? Viz.:

• [Co-Respondent]: ‘... You said that through you the universe is experiencing its self ...
• [Richard]: ‘I did nothing of the sort (...) the universe does not experience itself ‘through’ a human being: it experiences itself *as* a human being (and as cats and dogs and so on) ... only the identity within the flesh and blood body experiences itself, and its reality, ‘through’ a human being’.

Similarly, the universe does not experience itself ‘in’ a body ... only an identity (such as both the Dutch philosopher Mr. Baruch de Spinoza and the German philosopher Mr. Georg Hegel evidentially were) experiences itself ‘in’ a body.

RESPONDENT: Philosophically, we can discount their pantheism because something which is equal in everything that exists makes no difference.

RICHARD: As I am neither a philosopher nor have I read any philosophy books – all I do is look-up a relevant encyclopaedia article when someone persists with philosophisation even after having it pointed out that actualism is experiential and not philosophical – I will discount Mr. Baruch de Spinoza’s pantheism and Mr. Georg Hegel’s monism on other grounds than what you propose ... to wit: there is no god/goddess in actuality.

RESPONDENT: Which is the reason why Spinoza was so unpopular with the church of his times and so popular with the following generations of philosophers: his God came without a devil, it was simply everything-there-is.

RICHARD: Whereas the reason why Mr. Baruch de Spinoza holds no interest for this actualist is because he never got off his backside and actually did anything about the root cause of all the misery and mayhem, the animosity and anguish, which epitomises the human condition ... he chose, instead, to spend a lifetime mentally rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic.

RESPONDENT: So he was accused of atheism: because atheism and pantheism are, in the form, identical ...

RESPONDENT: ... (forgive the allusion to poor muddled Spencer-Brown).

RICHARD: Just as a matter of idle interest ... why would you want give back, by way of thanks, a text from someone you consider as being poorly muddled? Viz.:

• [Respondent to Vineeto, Peter and Richard]: ‘To thank you, I would like to give back something, a text elaborating on the universe observing itself through us’. [endquote].

RESPONDENT: (Comparing it to the East: while Descartes proposed a kind of Dvaita philosophy, Spinoza picked up his Euclid-inspired style and created a monist counterpart as a response some years later – Advaita in the West).

RICHARD: Oh? Did Mr. Baruch de Spinoza drop the pantheism he had favoured, through having rejected Mr. René Descartes’ dualism of spirit and matter, when he picked up a style inspired by Mr. Euclid of Alexandria and created his monism ... or are pantheism and monism also identical when they are [quote] ‘in the form’ [endquote]?

*

RICHARD: ... and this is an apt place to inform you, up-front and out-in-the-open, that actualism – the direct experience that matter is not merely passive – is experiential and not philosophical.

RESPONDENT: That’s very nice; having explored things philosophically, I am willing to do something now.

RICHARD: Even so ... old habits can die hard, eh?

(...)

*

RESPONDENT: Closely connected to this is what you name ‘apperception’ ...

RICHARD: I found the word in the Oxford Dictionary in 1997, when I was assembling an ad hoc collection of articles into some semblance of being a book form so as to be suitable for publishing, which simply said (as the first of several meanings):

• ‘apperception: the mind’s perception of itself’. [endquote].

It was that definition – as contrasted to the normal ‘I’ being aware of ‘me’ being conscious type of perception – which appealed ... and not any historical usage of the word.

RESPONDENT: ... which also is a central term in western philosophical tradition. A quick look at the German Wikipedia tells one that its career began with St. Augustine as ‘attention’, came via Duns Scotus, Descartes to Leibniz who firstly baptizes the child ‘apperception’, than travels on to Kant, and in the Anglo-Saxon world most prominently to W. James and J. Dewey.

However, you use the word ‘apperception’ quite differently, so it might be clarifying to relate to the classics and say what you reject, i.e. in what respects you deem them to be ‘tried and wrong’. (Just making it a little more explicit than it is anyway).

RICHARD: I have never looked-up the way other peoples have used the word ... I simply mean it as un-mediated perception (as in no identity whatsoever mediating the perceptive process).

RESPONDENT: The newest thing in ‘apperception theory’ seems to be the (information) theoretical result that the capacity of the senses is a million times higher than the capacity of conscious perception. Now, to use this wild metaphor, if the ‘consciousness’ in the form of ‘ego’ is a social interface just as a computer has a graphical user interface where you also neither want nor need to see all that is going on underneath, if this interface disappears – then only direct connection to the senses is left, and then you have an information overkill quite enough for any PCE. A state of mind particularly enjoyable on a warm summer day with nice food in a beautiful setting.

RICHARD: The word consciousness refers to a body being conscious (the suffix ‘-ness’ forms a noun expressing a state or condition) just as the word warmness refers to the state or condition of being warm ... the ego (aka the thinker), having arisen from the soul/spirit (the feeler) one is born being (per favour the instinctual passions), is but the tip of the iceberg when it comes to ‘being’ itself (which is ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being).

Put succinctly: it is not consciousness per se which is the spanner in the works (aka the ghost in the machine) but identity, as a ‘presence’, hijacking the sensory experience and, whilst thus busily creating an ‘inner’ world, involuntarily imposing its reality over the physical actuality (this actual world) as a veneer (and thereby creating an ‘outer’ world) ... all the while yearning for, and thus seeking, union betwixt its two creations.

In other words, both duality (‘self’ and ‘other’) and non-duality (‘oneness’) have no existence in actuality ... any identity is forever locked-out of paradise (this actual world).

*

RESPONDENT: It goes: [snip selected passages from ‘Laws of Form’].

RICHARD: I have taken the liberty of snipping the text you quoted ...

RESPONDENT: Please, actually, feel free to do whatever you want to do.

RICHARD: The main thing I am wont to do, which some find objectionable, is to interject part-way through a sentence whenever the first part, used either as as a premise for the following part, or to build further upon, is invalid ... on some occasions two or three times in a sentence.

*

RICHARD: ... because Mr. George Spencer-Brown makes it abundantly clear elsewhere that, whatever it is that he speaks rather mystically of, it sure ain’t this actual world. [quote]: ‘... there is a whole world that be, which don’t even exist, and the world that don’t exist is far more real than the world that do’. [endquote].

RESPONDENT: Yeah, Spencer-Brown has a strange 7-level esoteric cosmology probably inspired by Tantrism which my curiosity has obliged me to reconstruct.

RICHARD: Hmm ... why would you want to give back, by way of thanks, a text from someone who has a strange 7-level esoteric cosmology probably inspired by Tantrism?

RESPONDENT: In it, he recounts seeing what you call ‘Radiant Being initially seen to be Pure Love’, although he does not write about having noticed her as being Pure Evil, too. But it reminds me of people experiencing something which they called ‘blazing horror’ in the Nazi concentration camps. Unfortunately, they have not recognized it to be Pure Love, although Hitler could have told them.

This ‘other side’ of Pure Love being Pure Evil starkly reminds not only me of C.G. Jung and his observations on polarity.

RICHARD: Aye ... but Mr. Carl Jung, being quite the studious metaphysician, justifies that polarity by saying it represents [quote] ‘complexio oppositorum’ [endquote] as if by so doing nothing else then needs be done. Viz.:

• ‘The self appears in dreams, myths, and fairytales in the figure of the ‘supraordinate personality’, such as a king, hero, prophet, saviour, etc., or in the form of a totality symbol, such as the circle, square, quadratura circuli, cross, etc. When it represents a complexio oppositorum, a union of opposites, it can also appear as a united duality, in the form, for instance, of tao as the interplay of yang and yin, or of the hostile brothers, or of the hero and his adversary (arch-enemy, dragon), Faust and Mephistopheles, etc. Empirically, therefore, the self appears as a play of light and shadow, although conceived as a totality and unity in which the opposites are united. [italics in original]. (par. 790, Volume Six, ‘The Collected Works of C. G. Jung’; ©1953-1979 Princeton University Press, Princeton).

Mystical literature often mentions how the polar opposites continue to exist (as complimentary poles) in enlightenment. Indeed, one of the appellations used to describe the integration of the divine/ diabolical divide upon transcendence, wherein the opposites unite without ceasing to be themselves, is the phrase ‘coincidentia oppositorum’ (coincidence of opposites).

And thus have all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides, and so on, gone on forever and a day.

*

RESPONDENT: Now, maybe it will be fun to tell you how I got here: I had, in a process beginning seven years ago now, begun to examine all of my beliefs, goals and thoughts systematically. The trigger was the combination of four facts: I had at my disposal spare time (doing military service), a laptop and a mind-mapping computer program together with a good dosis of distress and unhappiness. I used the computer to mind-map my ideas, fears and wishes; brainstorming, arranging, rearranging, linking, re-linking for hours. This process has procured me months of delight at surprising insights, new connections, old connections unravelling, things getting much more simple, then more complex again, simplifying once more etc. I kept arranging and rearranging according to the leitmotif of the day or week – be it fun, energy, goals, information, brain, matter, relativity, universe or multiverse etc. Every fundamental belief was there, and ‘dualism’ started to appear as an important underlying question. Another factor in this process of dismantling began four years ago, when I began to examine the ‘social traditions and customs etc.’, via sociology and legal history, guided by the work of N. Luhmann. A nice reading for you might be his ‘Social systems’. Luhmann was, as far as I can tell, happy and harmless, except when making jokes pitying the intellectual fate of Habermas. Via him, I came to the subject of the dialectical ‘unity of the differences’ – the problem of dualism got a surprise solution. As Luhmann cites Spencer-Brown’s logic, I wanted to explore Laws of Form and was quite astonished to find the ‘mystical’ stuff. I needed his work on logic which was very useful insofar as it reduces propositional calculus (the logic of if-then, and, or, neither-nor, both etc. and syllogisms which is also used in law) to the act of distinguishing. Starting from the Laws of Form, I began surfing the web, coming first, funnily, to U.G. Krishnamurti with his very unattractive personality, then soon to Ramana Maharshi and the rest of the east/western Advaita bunch first, and next to the ‘beyond enlightenment’ views – not having had any remarkable experiences myself up to now.

A year ago I deleted all the notes I had made, including all of the backups. Zen/Advaita disease? Probably. Fun? Certainly.

RICHARD: It is quite common to find [quote] ‘mystical’ stuff’ [endquote] in the works of various mathematicians/ logicians ... theoretical physics, for an obvious example, is full of it (if not based upon it).

*

RESPONDENT: Oh, happy and harmless people – what about the cynics?

RICHARD: The Cynics were not happy and harmless (free of both malice and sorrow and their antidotal pacifiers love and compassion).

RESPONDENT: Diogenes telling Alexander to get out of the sun?

RICHARD: Tradition ascribes to Mr. Diogenes (a Greek Cynic philosopher circa 400-325 BCE) the famous search for an honest man conducted in broad daylight with a lighted lantern. As he wound up espousing an anarchist utopia, in which human beings lived [quote] ‘natural’ [endquote] lives, it is a fair bet to say that he was not an honest man himself.

*

RESPONDENT: Another similar group, the successors of the cynics, is represented by Epicurus, best known defender of hedonism in ancient Greece.

RICHARD: Yet the article at ‘Wikipedia’ has the following to say:

• ‘Although some equate Epicureanism with hedonism or a form of it (as ‘hedonism’ is commonly understood), *professional philosophers of Epicureanism deny that*’. [emphasis added].

RESPONDENT: His most famous quote is saying something like ‘Don’t worry about death, for while we live, it is not there, and when it is comes, we will not be here any longer.’ Do what makes you happy, avoid what makes you unhappy – harming other people makes you unhappy. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicureanism].

RICHARD: As the article at ‘Wikipedia’ has the following to say I am none too sure why you are bringing his pursuit of conditional happiness/pacifism to my attention:

• ‘For Epicurus, the highest pleasure (tranquillity and freedom from fear) was obtained by knowledge, friendship, and living a virtuous and temperate life. He lauded the enjoyment of simple pleasures, by which he meant abstaining from bodily desires, such as sex and appetites, verging on asceticism. He argued that when eating, one should not eat too richly, for it could lead to dissatisfaction later, such as the grim realisation that one could not afford such delicacies in the future. Likewise, sex could lead to increased lust and dissatisfaction with the sexual partner’. [endquote].

RESPONDENT: Maybe you might be interested in Diderot, too, when not too busy with your busy mailing list. His Rameau’s Nephew is very funny, as is Jaques the Fatalist. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis_Diderot].

RICHARD: I have just read the ‘Wikipedia’ article on the French philosopher Mr. Denis Diderot ... and this is an apt place to inform you, up-front and out-in-the-open, that actualism – the direct experience that matter is not merely passive – is experiential and not philosophical.

*

RESPONDENT: Another parallel you might like to explore or might already have – as a method, not in its premises – and which could be considered a ‘precursor’ of AF would be phenomenology.

RICHARD: I have just now looked-up that word in a dictionary:

• ‘phenomenology (Philos.): the theory that the pure and transcendental nature and meaning of phenomena, and hence their real and ultimate significance, can only be apprehended subjectively; the method of reduction whereby all factual knowledge and reasoned assumptions about a phenomenon are set aside so that pure intuition of its essence may be analysed’. (Oxford Dictionary).

There is no way that description could even remotely be considered a precursive method to the actualism method ... so much so that this is an apt place to inform you, up-front and out-in-the-open, that actualism – the direct experience that matter is not merely passive – is experiential and not philosophical.

RESPONDENT: The names connected with it are Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, Heidegger, Edith Stein, Sartre, Derrida. Unfortunately, I cannot tell you whether they or who of them were happy and harmless.

RICHARD: I can ... the German philosopher Mr. Edmund Husserl was not happy and harmless (free of both malice and sorrow and their antidotal pacifiers love and compassion); the French philosopher Mr. Maurice Merleau-Ponty was not happy and harmless (free of both malice and sorrow and their antidotal pacifiers love and compassion); the German philosopher Mr. Martin Heidegger was not happy and harmless (free of both malice and sorrow and their antidotal pacifiers love and compassion); the Silesian philosopher Ms. Edith Stein was not happy and harmless (free of both malice and sorrow and their antidotal pacifiers love and compassion); the French philosopher Mr. Jean-Paul Sartre was not happy and harmless (free of both malice and sorrow and their antidotal pacifiers love and compassion); the French philosopher Mr. Jacques Derrida was not happy and harmless (free of both malice and sorrow and their antidotal pacifiers love and compassion).

RESPONDENT: I have a strong suspicion for Stein and Derrida, though, for Derrida at least towards the end of his life. But I’ve been wrong before.

RICHARD: All it takes is to provide (attributed and suitably referenced) quotes which unambiguously report freedom from both malice and sorrow and their antidotal pacifiers love and compassion.

*

RESPONDENT: Another quote which rang a bell is from [...]. Here you state that [Richard]: ‘Speaking personally, I have no problem with things like thought as in ‘analysis and mathematics’ ... because it is understood that they are abstract concepts and – while being useful tools – have no substance in actuality. For a person in the real-world, such tools are taken to be real in themselves ... that is, substantial’. [endquote].

RICHARD: Here is the relevant portion of that exchange:

• [Richard]: ‘This moment does not exist in the ‘real world’, it exists in the actual world. Only the present can exist in reality. Reality is not actuality. Reality is the world that is perceived through the senses by ‘me’, the psychological entity that resides inside the body. Actuality is the world that is apperceived at the senses by me as this body-consciousness’.
• [Co-Respondent]: ‘(...) Why is your concept of reality limited to what is perceived through the senses, what about the inferences of thought, analysis, mathematics?
• [Richard]: ‘Speaking personally, I have no problem with things like thought as in ‘analysis and mathematics’ ... because it is understood that they are abstract concepts and – while being useful tools – have no substance in actuality. For a person in the real-world, such tools are taken to be real in themselves ... that is, substantial’.

RESPONDENT: This is the age-old debate on universals – the warring fractions being known in the West as realism and nominalism (vaguely identical with the debate between idealism and materialism, insofar as idealism (reality is based on consciousness) and realism (ideas are real) are the same. You appear to me to be reformulating the nominalist position (which I share) ...

RICHARD: Whereas all I was doing was responding to a question about the inferences of thought, analysis and mathematics from a co-respondent who first asked [quote] ‘why is your concept of reality limited to what is perceived through the senses’ [endquote] as if it were somehow meaningful to so after having just read my words which clearly said that reality is the world which is perceived through the senses by the psychological entity that resides inside the body.

In case that is not clear: as the direct experience of actuality (apperception) can in no way be a ‘concept of reality’ – nor can it be perceived ‘through the senses’ – then the only way such a query could be responded to, without picking the entire sentence apart, was to say that things like thought in analysis and mathematics were not a problem by virtue of them being abstract concepts.

I will say it yet again for the emphasis it deserves: actualism is experiential ... not philosophical.

RESPONDENT: ... which in antiquity was defended by the Sophists, later the Sceptics, in the middle ages prominently proposed by William of Ockham, known for his razor (cut out unnecessary assumptions). The same debate recently showed up in mathematics, where you usually find the most hard-headed Platonists (as Mr. Spencer-Brown, although he is not a mathematician by training anyway). But there are people who share the nominalist conception, linked most prominently to Brouwer and his mathematical ‘constructivism’ or ‘intuitionism’. Spencer-Brown can be seen as, ignoring Brouwer, reconstructing logic as topology and subsequently, like Buddha, the mystics or myself, taking distinctions to be identical with the ‘created’ world, with the aim to ‘undo’ all the distinctions and rid oneself of the ‘collective hypnosis’, as Spencer-Brown calls it with Alan Watts. In law, which is my background, the debate is whether there is ‘one correct solution’ to a case (the Platonist view, usually coupled with a belief in some ‘values’ which are to be ‘discovered’ and ‘applied’). The view of the most rebellious legal theorists, applied nominalism, is that ‘law is what you do when you’re doing law. It’s a practice, a trade. There is no ‘eternal justice’, looking for it is pointless.’ To sum up this part : the debate of ‘actualists’ vs. ‘spiritualists’ is commonly known as ‘realists’ vs. ‘nominalists’.

RICHARD: Having never heard of nominalism I have just now looked it up in a dictionary:

• ‘Nominalism (Philos.): the doctrine that universals or abstract concepts are mere names without any corresponding reality; opp. Realism [the doctrine that universals have an objective or absolute existence]’. (Oxford Dictionary).

As all I was doing was responding to a question about the inferences of thought, analysis and mathematics you are indeed stretching a long bow to try and make out that the discussions betwixt actualists and spiritualists are commonly known as the debate of [quote] ‘realists’ vs. ‘nominalists’ [endquote].

RESPONDENT: What appears to me an original contribution in AF is that at least you, Richard, before arriving at the nominalist position, have travelled extensively to the spiritual world, actually right up to the end of the path.

RICHARD: I have not arrived at any nominalist position ... readily comprehending that abstract concepts – while being useful tools – have no substance in actuality is simply a by-product of being sensible, down-to-earth, practical.

RESPONDENT: Then, you came to nominalism but gave it an ethical twist ...

RICHARD: No, all I was doing was responding to a question about the inferences of thought, analysis and mathematics from a co-respondent who first asked [quote] ‘why is your concept of reality limited to what is perceived through the senses’ [endquote] ... with nary a trace of ethicality to be found anywhere.

RESPONDENT: ... (prescribing it as necessary to cure, i.e. get rid of the human condition ...

RICHARD: As the only thing which will get rid of the human condition is altruistic ‘self’-immolation in toto (for the benefit of this body and that body and every body) there is no way that the mere prescription of nominalism can ever be curative of same.

RESPONDENT: ... i.e. making a ‘moral injunction to avoid ‘malice’ and ‘sorrow’ at all cost’) ...

RICHARD: There is no morality whatsoever in actualism ... indeed, only a little further on in that discussion you quoted from, even my co-respondent comprehended that much (albeit in their own way). Viz.:

• [Richard]: ‘When ‘I’ cease to exist as a psychic entity, so too does the diabolical disappear. To put it bluntly: ‘I’ am a mixture of Good and Evil ... both are psychic forces which have waged their insidious battle in the human psyche for aeons. ‘I’ try heroically, but vainly, to attain to ‘The Good’, hoping thereby to conquer ‘The Bad’, for so have humans been taught, been mesmerised, with precept and example, by the Saints and the Sages throughout the ages. All this is a futile drama played out in the realm of reality. In actuality, neither Good nor Evil have any substance whatsoever. With utter purity prevailing everywhere, virtue has become an outmoded concept. It is vital only in reality, in order to curtail the savage instincts that generate the alien entity’.
• [Co-Respondent]: ‘Yes, the moral obligation does bring with it suppression and inner conflict’.

RESPONDENT: ... combined with a the view that everything is perfect the way it is ...

RICHARD: No, actualism is not a [quote] ‘view’ [endquote] ... and neither is it an idea, an ideal, a belief, a concept, an opinion, a conjecture, a speculation, an assumption, a presumption, a supposition, a surmise, an inference, a judgement, an intellectualisation, an imagination, a posit, a postulation, an image, an analysis, a viewpoint, a view, a stance, a perspective, a standpoint, a position, a world-view, a mind-set, a state-of-mind, a frame-of-mind, or any other of the 101 ways of overlooking a direct report of what it is to be actually free from the human condition and living the utter peace of the perfection of the purity welling endlessly as the infinitude this eternal, infinite and perpetual universe actually is.

RESPONDENT: ... if only you experience the world through your senses, and only your senses...

RICHARD: The exchange you obtained the quote from clearly has me reporting/ describing/ explaining that reality is the world which is perceived *through* the senses (by the entity residing inside the body) whereas actuality is the world that is apperceived at the senses (by the body itself).

RESPONDENT: ... which can be achieved through contemplation as opposed to meditation.

RICHARD: No, what can be achieved by contemplation (considering, pondering, thinking about, reflecting over, mulling over, musing on, dwelling on, deliberating over, cogitating over, ruminating over), as opposed to meditation (entering into a dissociative and timeless/ spaceless/ formless trance and/or a thoughtless and senseless cataleptic state of being), is apperception ... the direct (unmediated) perception of this actual world.

RESPONDENT: In this, AF is a creative combination I never explicitly encountered – so I take back the challenge, made at the beginning of my first mail, that it is quite a frequent ‘mode of perception’.

RICHARD: An actual freedom from the human condition is not a [quote] ‘creative combination’ [endquote] ... to be actually free of the human condition is to be a flesh and blood body only (sans the entire affective faculty/identity in toto).

RESPONDENT: It is indeed, unfortunately, rather rare ...

RICHARD: So rare as to be entirely new to human experience/human history.

RESPONDENT: ... and you have done a great job in synthesizing things that have been around for a long time – clearly and explicitly.

RICHARD: I have done nothing of the sort – I have been here all along simply having a ball – as it was the identity in residence all those years ago who did what was necessary ... which was to altruistically ‘self’-immolate, in toto, for the benefit of this body and that body and every body.

RESPONDENT: If the ‘age of enlightenment’ has been characterized by ‘disenchanting the world’, the ‘New Dark Age’, as you call it, is driven by what Freud calls ‘tries to get the magic back in by taking ‘magic’ or ‘psychic powers’ literally. AF is, insofar as it is most likely to be found by people on the ‘eastern path’, a re-disenchantment while conserving the mystic’s greatest achievement – [Richard]: ‘A vast stillness lies all around, a perfection that is abounding with purity. Beneficence, an active kindness, overflows in all directions, imbuing everything with unimaginable fairytale-like quality’. [endquote].

RICHARD: No mystic has ever achieved what the identity in residence all those years ago did ... voluntarily and cheerfully, with knowledge aforethought, forsake the highly-prized state of being, popularly known as spiritual enlightenment/mystical awakenment, and go willingly and blessedly into oblivion.

*

RESPONDENT: The statement that ‘this moment has no duration’ can also be found in St Augustine’s autobiography, as you are certainly aware. The meditation on time is a nice read, although the rest is the usual religious stuff, filled with virginity, sinning, repenting, grace, heaven and hell.

RICHARD: Having never read anything by Mr. Aurelius Augustinus I did a little research: presuming that by autobiography you mean his book ‘The Confessions’, and further presuming that the passage you speak of is to be found in ‘Book XI’, nowhere could I find anything relating to what ‘this moment has no duration’ refers to ... to time itself (the arena, so to speak, in which objects move) being without any movement whatsoever.

RESPONDENT: Sorry, I had forgotten the title when writing to you but assumed you knew it. ‘The Confessions’ are indeed his autobiography. I thought that your statement ‘this moment has no duration’ could be compared to Augustine’s, Confessions, book XI, chap. XV: ‘(...) If any portion of time be conceived which cannot now be divided into even the minutest particles of moments, this only is that which may be called present; which, however, flies so rapidly from future to past, that it cannot be extended by any delay. (...)’ [endquote]. I think ‘not extended by any delay’ and ‘no duration’ are rather similar. But if the word ‘moment’ in your sentence, contrary to what I presumed, doesn’t mean ‘this present moment’ but refers to ‘time itself (the arena, so to speak, in which objects move) being without any movement whatsoever’ then this sounds dangerously 4-dimensional to me.

RICHARD: Have you not ever noticed that it is never not this moment?

RESPONDENT: What other moment could it be except this one, always?

RICHARD: Am I to take it that you are answering in the affirmative (that you have indeed noticed that it is never not this moment)?

RESPONDENT: Yes.

RICHARD: In which case it be patently obvious that it cannot be something which [quote] ‘flies so rapidly from future to past’ [endquote] portions of time, eh?

*

RICHARD: If so, what would make you think that my statement ‘this moment has no duration’ could be compared to what Mr. Aurelius Augustinus had to say about a conceptual [quote] ‘portion of time’ [endquote] which cannot be divided into even the minutest particles of [quote] ‘moments’ [endquote] and which portion of time only may be called [quote] ‘present’ [endquote] but which such a moment however [quote] ‘flies so rapidly from future to past’ [endquote] then?

RESPONDENT: I have never been to the future, neither to the past, except when thinking about it.

RICHARD: Are you referring to future and past events ... or future and past time?

RESPONDENT: My girlfriend once remarked that even consciousness is a function of memory, given that it is always a quarter of a second late compared to the ‘actual’ time ‘outside’ of the nervous system.

RICHARD: Given that your usage of [quote] ‘even’ [endquote] links your girlfriend’s remark to your previous sentence it is apposite to point out that, by observing that this moment has no duration, I am not referring to a function of memory ... on the contrary:

• [Co-Respondent]: ‘... the point of reference exist only in your memory.
• [Richard]: ‘The point of reference for an event which is not currently occurring can also be recorded in video/audio/print format (to name but a few examples ... fossilised records are another instance).
*This moment, however, cannot be remembered/recorded as it is never not this moment*.
• [Co-Respondent]: ‘If exist in your memory only, you can not speak about actuality, because actual means what is happening NOW.
• [Richard]: ‘The whole thrust of this e-mail exchange you have entered into revolves around the question of whether this moment – which is ‘what is happening NOW’ – is always this moment (without qualification), or not, and whether it is only the events which change/ flow/ move ... or not.
I am reporting/ describing/ explaining that, here in this actual world, the world of sensation, it is always this moment – that this moment does not change/ flow/ move (and neither does it renew itself either) – which means that this moment is what is always actual.
Thus I am indeed speaking about actuality’. [emphasis added].

RESPONDENT: Augustine operates ad absurdum. He says: imagine a moment with a duration. He then proceeds to show that this proposition is absurd: ‘the present’ is always divisible (modern physics would add the question if this is indeed the case after reaching the shortness of the Planck time. But this is a discussion list on actuality, not on physics). So, finally, the extension of the moment approaches zero; indeed, if we follow Augustine’s reasoning, it is zero: It is ‘not extended by any delay’. Equal, in my first (mis)understanding, to your ‘no duration’.

RICHARD: Okay ... as what I have to report/describe/explain about this moment having no duration cannot be even remotely compared with Mr. Aurelius Augustinus’ conceptual [quote] ‘present’ [endquote], which flies rapidly from future to past similarly conceptualised portions of time, then that is the end of that mode of perception being what a flesh and blood body only (sans the entire affective faculty/identity in toto) directly experiences.

All that remains to be settled now, before moving on to other topics, is the matter of what Mr. Plato has Mr. Socrates say in ‘Apology’.

*

RESPONDENT: Last, I would like to remind you that the phrase ‘the unexamined life is not worth living for man’ is by Plato, Phaedo :-).

RICHARD: Why would you like to remind me who the phrase ‘the unexamined life is not worth living for man’ is by?

RESPONDENT: Well, I haven’t anywhere seen you giving credit to the author of this quote which you fondly and regularly use.

RICHARD: I copy-pasted [quote] ‘the unexamined life is not worth living for man’ [endquote] into the search engine of this computer and sent it through everything I have ever written ... only to return nil hits. If you could provide the relevant texts where I have regularly used that quote it would be most appreciated.

RESPONDENT: Richard, please don’t pretend not to understand that I was quoting the original, Plato, while your version replaces ‘for man’ with ‘second-rate living’ ...

RICHARD: If you could provide the relevant texts where I have regularly used that quote, with ‘for man’ replaced with ‘second-rate living’, it would be most appreciated.

*

RESPONDENT: Well, I haven’t anywhere seen you giving credit to the author of this quote which you fondly and regularly use.

RICHARD: I copy-pasted [quote] ‘the unexamined life is not worth living for man’ [endquote] into the search engine of this computer and sent it through everything I have ever written ... only to return nil hits. If you could provide the relevant texts where I have regularly used that quote it would be most appreciated.

RESPONDENT: I thought it might be nice to provide this mailing list with the source ...

RICHARD: Why did you think it might be nice to provide this mailing list with the source?

RESPONDENT: By now the mailing list has made it clear that they are familiar Plato, so it was useless name-dropping; at the time, given your passion for referencing I wondered why in this case you were not as intellectually honest as usual.

RICHARD: If you could provide the relevant texts where I have regularly used that quote, with ‘for man’ replaced with ‘second-rate living’, it would be most appreciated.

RESPONDENT: I thought that the reason could be that Plato is known for his mystically inspired idealism which you wouldn’t like to be associated with.

RICHARD: If you could provide the relevant texts where I have regularly used that quote, with ‘for man’ replaced with ‘second-rate living’, it would be most appreciated.

RESPONDENT: I know, I know, there isn’t any ‘you’ to despise anything, let alone an association, except maybe with impurity and the human condition.

RICHARD: If you could provide the relevant texts where I have regularly used that quote, with ‘for man’ replaced with ‘second-rate living’, it would be most appreciated.

*

RESPONDENT: ... i.e. Plato, Phaedo, a dialogue featuring Socrates.

RICHARD: A search through an on-line version of ‘Phaedo’ for that quote returned nil hits ... a search through ‘Apology’, however, found the following passage:

• ‘... if I say again that daily to discourse about virtue, and of those other things about which you hear me examining myself and others, is the greatest good of man, and that the unexamined life is not worth living, you are still less likely to believe me’. (‘Apology’, also known as ‘The Death of Socrates’; translated by Benjamin Jowett, February, 1999).

If that is indeed the phrase you are referring to it has also been rendered as follows:

• ‘If again I say it is the greatest good for a man every day to discuss virtue and the other things, about which you hear me talking and examining myself and everybody else, and that life without enquiry is not worth living for a man, you will believe me still less if I say that’. (page 443, ‘The Apology’; Great Dialogues of Plato, Mentor Books).

RESPONDENT: But you have the point that I misquoted the source (thanks for the lesson never to quote from memory); it is indeed the passage you gave from ‘The Apology’.

RICHARD: I did not have any such point: I was clearly (a) ascertaining if that is indeed the phrase you are referring to ... and (b) pointing out that, were that to be the case, there is another rendering of the phrase.

Having never studied philosophy, and being thus unfamiliar with the quote, I wanted to ascertain if the crux of the phrase – the blanket assertion that such a life is [quote] ‘not worth living’ [endquote] – was consistent throughout various renditions or but a vagary of the translation process ... because nowhere have I ever said that the unexamined life/life without enquiry (aka a normal life) is any such thing for any person irregardless of gender.

On the contrary:

• [Richard]: ‘... whenever I discuss these matters with my fellow human beings there is indeed always a comparison with life in the ‘real’ world as contrasted to life in the actual world ... it is what I came onto the internet for.
• [Co-Respondent]: ‘Yes, I have no problem with comparison – it would be pointless not to compare the two. What would be pointless is render those in virtual and actual freedom as the only people on the planet who have *a life worth living*. And this is indeed what I was beginning to wonder if you were saying is the case. What is indeed difficult to swallow is that one’s life is useless – as in pointless or meaningless. It would hardly seem worthwhile to actualise an actual freedom amongst others whose lives are pointless or meaningless anyway. Writing this out makes this interpretation look pretty silly, but it also doesn’t seem so far-fetched when one’s life is called ‘pathetic’ or ‘useless’.
• [Richard]: ‘As an actual freedom is complete unto itself it would not matter that one was living ‘amongst others whose lives are pointless or meaningless’ (if that were to be the case *which it is not*) if only because an actual intimacy is not dependent upon either reciprocation or cooperation.
There is much that is meaningful or *worthwhile* in normal human life ... as I have already touched upon in an earlier e-mail:

• [Co-Respondent]: ‘... what about the meanings that we ‘humans’ experience on a daily basis? Like the ‘point’ of something – for example, the point of going to the grocery store is to get groceries to sustain oneself.
• [Richard]: ‘I can concur with what you say here ... sustaining oneself (and one’s family if there is one) is *certainly not pointless*. Furthermore there are *many meaningful experiences in everyday life*: providing shelter (building, buying or renting a home); being married (aka being in a relationship); raising a family (preparing children for adult life); having a career (job satisfaction); achieving something (successfully pursuing a hobby) and so on. However, to rely upon transient experience to provide an enduring meaning to life is to invite disappointment.
• [Respondent]: ‘I can see that the ‘meaning’ that ‘I’ experience would be only an illusion of ‘the secret to life’ – but when you say that any meaning other than the actual meaning is meaningless – does that mean our lives are ‘pointless’?
• [Richard]: ‘*No* ... but again what is certainly pointless is to expect to find the secret to life in the ‘real world’.
• [Respondent]: ‘Isn’t there relative meaning (real)??
• [Richard]: ‘Such relative meaning as to be found in the everyday experiences (as discussed above) ... *yes*. [endquote].

If this relative/ultimate issue is now clarified satisfactorily I will take this opportunity to point out that there is, however, one area where ‘I’ am not useless (in the ultimate sense) for it is only ‘me’ who can enable both the [actual] meaning of life and the already always existing peace-on-earth into becoming apparent ... by either going into abeyance (as in a pure consciousness experience) or by altruistic ‘self’-immolation (as in an actual freedom from the human condition).
The (future) quality of human life is all in ‘my’ hands’. [emphasises added].

Do you see I am clearly not saying, as Mr. Plato has Mr. Socrates say, that the unexamined life/life without enquiry is [quote] ‘not worth living’ [endquote]?

*

RESPONDENT: An unhappy and harmful specimen of the intellectual kind, although quite good at contemplation.

RICHARD: In which case, and for whatever it is worth, then ... Mr. John Elson, in a review of Mr. Isidor Stone’s book ‘Gadfly’s Guilt: The Trial Of Socrates’, considers that the author [quote] ‘argues persuasively that the beloved Socrates was in reality a cold-hearted, elitist, pro-Spartan snob who was openly contemptuous of Athens’ vaunted democracy and favoured totalitarian rule by a philosopher-king’ [endquote]. (p. 66, ‘Time Magazine’; January 25, 1988).

The article at the following URL, originally published in ‘The New York Times Magazine’ (April 8, 1979, pp. 22 ff.), sheds some light upon why:

www.chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/essays/ifstoneonsocrates.html

There are occasions where I am particularly pleased not to have ever studied philosophy ... and this is one of them.

RESPONDENT: But with a serious lack in repetitiveness, probably due to the absence of the copy & paste function in 400 BC.

RICHARD: Ha ... you would have to be referring to this exchange:

• [Respondent]: ‘Another parallel you might like to explore or might already have – as a method, not in its premises – and which could be considered a ‘precursor’ of AF would be phenomenology. The names connected with it are Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, Heidegger, Edith Stein, Sartre, Derrida. Unfortunately, I cannot tell you whether they or who of them were happy and harmless.
• [Richard]: ‘I can ... the German philosopher Mr. Edmund Husserl was not happy and harmless (free of both malice and sorrow and their antidotal pacifiers love and compassion); the French philosopher Mr. Maurice Merleau-Ponty was not happy and harmless (free of both malice and sorrow and their antidotal pacifiers love and compassion); the German philosopher Mr. Martin Heidegger was not happy and harmless (free of both malice and sorrow and their antidotal pacifiers love and compassion); the Silesian philosopher Ms. Edith Stein was not happy and harmless (free of both malice and sorrow and their antidotal pacifiers love and compassion); the French philosopher Mr. Jean-Paul Sartre was not happy and harmless (free of both malice and sorrow and their antidotal pacifiers love and compassion); the French philosopher Mr. Jacques Derrida was not happy and harmless (free of both malice and sorrow and their antidotal pacifiers love and compassion).
• [Respondent]: ‘I have a strong suspicion for Stein and Derrida, though, for Derrida at least towards the end of his life. But I’ve been wrong before.
• [Richard]: ‘All it takes is to provide (attributed and suitably referenced) quotes which unambiguously report freedom from both malice and sorrow and their antidotal pacifiers love and compassion’.

There is a distinct possibility, now, that you will never again misconstrue just what unconditional felicity/ innocuity is, eh?