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Control the Language and You Control the Mind

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Control the Language and You Control the Mind

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Cognitive Dissonance

 

You will always find original articles by Cognitive Dissonance and other authors first on www.TwoIceFloes.com before they are posted here on ZH. If you wish to subscribe to ‘Dispatches’, a periodic newsletter from Cognitive Dissonance and TwoIceFloes Creations, please click here.

 

As is pretty common these days, the genesis for this article was a conversation between Mrs. Cog and me regarding word and phrase definitions within a larger discussion about perception and understanding. In essence the question was this; how do you think outside the box when your language and belief system have you trapped within? While I am most definitely sympathetic when someone protests “It simply never occurred to me……” ultimately only slaves are not responsible for the language they use and the thought boxes they keep.

Precisely what is it you think you ‘know’ for certain? Exactly what ‘knowledge’ do you possess which is of such certainty and veracity that it need never be seriously questioned or examined? Ultimately if something never occurred to me it is simply because I decided the softer easier way forward was to participate in groupthink and not question my ‘reality’.  I alone am responsible for my curiosity quotient or lack thereof.

Since better answers do not come without asking better or different questions, there is no one else to blame for our ignorance but us. Just because I have been trained and conditioned to ‘believe’, rather than to think, doesn’t mean I am incapable of thinking. What it does mean is I simply do not wish to be curious beyond the comforting confines of my own thought walls. Ultimately I am mentally sated and lazy when I accept not only these externally imposed cognitive limitations as mine, but then convince myself I am essentially content and need do no more when the lie, and my inner voice, says otherwise.

Knowledge, information, propaganda and belief, while all distinctly different words with dissimilar meanings, are often conflated to mean nearly the same thing. Or more accurately, the meanings and definitions are blurred, combined and contrived in order to create a controlling thought meme that is skillfully separated from reality and ‘truth’. Herein is the problem as I see it, or at least a major issue that greatly contributes to groupthink, the hive mind and ultimately the sacrifice of the ‘self’.

Let me start by rendering my opinion regarding the definitions of these words, most of which agree somewhat with common definitions, but not necessarily with common usage. I suspect centuries ago, even millennium, our ‘known’ world, that which we had ‘knowledge’ of and knew about, encompassed pretty much all we surveyed and little else.

In my opinion, and contrary to popular belief, the term ‘knowledge’ includes only what I ‘know’ or the entirety of my ‘knowing’ either through personal experience, direct observation or personal self examination……and nothing else. Anything other than this direct ‘knowing’ is simply hearsay and little more. This is contrary to the widely accepted definition of knowledge being the sum total of what we have been ‘taught’ or have ‘learned’, including all knowledge, information, propaganda and belief we acquired through education or other sources aka hearsay.

Of paramount importance here is to imply no judgmental assessment of this definition of ‘knowing’, such as right or wrong, correct or incorrect, good or bad. For example, I might find some wild berries in the woods and decide to eat them. Almost immediately I become violently ill and remain in that state for hours or even days. One might say from that point on that I know those berries to be poisonous and to be avoided. But do I really ‘know’ this to be true and correct based simply upon my experience? The answer is unequivocally NO!

The berries might easily have been quite edible while ripe, only to turn nasty after passing their peak in the same manner cow’s milk is fine for a period of time, but can then make you very sick if ingested after it has turned. We don’t declare spoiled milk poison, so why wouldn’t the same thinking apply to the berries? Or maybe the berries were contaminated by something else in the woods, such as a truly poisonous plant overhead or bird/animal droppings. There are easily half a dozen alternative explanations for getting sick from the berries.

All I truly ‘know’ about those berries is I became very sick after eating them. In reality I ‘know’ very little else based upon my personal experience and observation. In other words my ‘knowing’ does not always imply correctness or truth, nor does it mean my knowledge is necessarily false or not factual.

In our rush to judge in order to satisfy our often imagined need for certainty, sometimes we jump to conclusions and make assumption that don’t really apply. We don’t need to declare with absolutely certainty those berries are poisonous in order for us or others to avoid them. But in a paternal/authoritarian world where to be believed is to be powerful, one must speak with certainty and conviction regardless of information or knowledge to the contrary. This applies directly to our inner dialogue as well. Oftentimes we muster a false sense of certainty in order to bolster personal courage or to push something uncomfortable deep down the denial hole. 

 

Our Thought Boxes

Our Thought Boxes - Image by Rob Woodcox

Image by Rob Woodcox

 

On the other hand ‘information’ is usually purported to consist mostly of ‘facts’ and ‘truth’ and is compiled, sorted, categorized and publicized by others (who it is presumed gathered it themselves, but often do not) as possessing these qualities. Thus many claim to pass on their own ‘true’ knowledge or body of knowing to others for the benefit of mankind and perhaps their personal profit. Because of prior conditioning and cultural norms we/they actually ‘believe’ this information is part of our/their knowing or knowledge. Essentially what we ‘know’ has been twisted to mean what we have been taught.

If someone else ate those berries, got sick and then told you to avoid them, this would be considered information not of your own personal knowing. Regardless of the person’s motive who is informing you of the berries, to those who have not experienced or observed this ‘knowledge’ personally it is just hearsay, though not necessarily true or false. Consider how in the US legal system information deemed hearsay is not admissible as ‘evidence’ because its veracity is questionable and not of speakers own personal knowing. Yet we never consider applying these same rules of evidence to our own personal lives to screen what we believe we know or what we are told or taught.

The true conflation begins when we are given, and accept, information gained from outside our direct experience and observation as both ‘knowledge’, or something we now ‘know’, and as ‘correct’ and ‘true’, a state often referred to as ‘fact’ by those who are promoting their ‘truth’. If that person who ate the berries informed you they became sick and you should be careful around the berries, the information is being passed on to you with no direct bias other than that derived from their personal experience. But if that person tells you the berries are poisonous and you should stay far away from them they are claiming as ‘fact’ something they may or may not actually ‘know’.

Much of what we ‘know’ in this indirect manner (more information than you might think) is often just as suspect as our own body of knowing if not more so. But since the source of the information is often an ‘author-ity’ (someone who authors or creates his or her own veracity, genuineness or authenticity) or the information is ‘taught’ to us by another authority such as a teacher or ‘profess-or’ (someone who orally or in writing professes their ‘knowledge’ as correct and truthful) we accept their information as genuine knowledge of our own knowing rather than information that is, or at least might be, suspect or tainted.

As I discussed in my article The Science Delusion – Reexamining Our Worldview Mindset the fantastic success of materials science and its total infiltration into our daily lives has helped convince us our world is mostly ‘known’, understood and for the most part static and constant. The high degree of confidence the so-called ‘experts’ have in themselves, and we in them, along with the tremendous success basic materials science has achieved in delivering magical consumer devices and products to an adoring public, all combined with the ever greater need for specialization in our work, thought and leisure activities, have conspired to turn modern day fallible humans into demi-gods of ‘true’ fact and knowledge.

Yes, I mention specialization because in a world where on a daily basis the generalists of acquired knowledge through experience and deed are a dying species, we are forced to narrow our focus onto smaller and smaller portions of the global machine. No longer can we be a computer programmer or a machine operator. Instead we must focus our talents as a Windows “Start” button programmer or machine “Start” button pusher.

I am of course being sarcastic, but only barely so for as our world becomes ever more complex we mere humans can no longer be a jack of all trades, master of none, but rather master of one small part of one trade and jack of absolutely none. The effect this has upon our worldview is not readily apparent, but quite obvious once we recognize the forest from the trees. Our directly perceived experience base rapidly shrinks, or is never expanded for those who are conditioned directly into this brave new world from mother’s womb. Thus we ‘know’ very little other than possibly our very narrow range of ‘expert’ experience gained first hand.

This is both good and bad for those who are caught in the web because our narrow experience base requires us to depend upon others to fill in the huge gaps left over as we navigate through life. The good news is since everyone else is also a narrowly trained ‘expert’, each of us can help others navigate past every bump and pot hole in our assigned section of the road, thus no one ever has a ‘bad’ life experience. Or at least that’s the theory anyway. In practice we might experience a slightly different reality on a case by case basis. Thankfully if all else fails we can rely on the experts in government, academia and industry to smooth the way forward when life gets a bit difficult.

Now that last paragraph was a heaping helping of sarcasm, and deservedly so I might add since the above mind meme is constantly being promoted by all those who stand to benefit as the individual cedes more and more sovereignty to the group collective and the hive mind. An extremely complex organism designed to operate within a carefully controlled environment which requires narrowly trained specialists to operate and repair it is inherently unstable and prone to collapse. When this organism collapses both its beneficiary and servant (better described as its master and slave) aka the individual, collapses with it.

This doesn’t mean we can’t or shouldn’t use other people’s information and professed knowledge as we travel our own path. Instead what we must do is treat everything as potentially suspect and fallible, especially our own knowing, because at this point it is extremely difficult (if not impossible) to separate what we ‘know’ from what we have been taught. It is not just computers that suffer from the “garbage in, garbage out” syndrome, yet so many refuse to even consider many of our thoughts and conclusions are the result of corrupted programming, conditioning and ego manipulation, thus we remain swayed and controlled despite our protestations we are awakening.

 

Plugged In as a Control Device

Plugged In - Image by Rob Woodcox

Image by Rob Woodcox

 

There are those who will claim sans a sense of sound psychological ground under our feet, thus always on edge and continuously charged with a fight or flight impulse, we will be wracked with indecision and lacking in purpose and drive. And for the most part they are correct……when describing those who are not mentally and spiritually centered and have repudiated their personal sovereignty. Automatons most definitely are lost when their programming is wiped or corrupted, but a critical thinking sovereign individual is self empowered and not exclusively dependent upon external affirmation, validation and direction.

This brings us to the subject of propaganda, or the deliberate conflation and distortion of information and knowledge to control and direct thought while confirming prior conditioning. Unlike the purveyors of ‘information’, who most often are themselves unaware of their own corruption and, absent critical introspection and self examination, will impart this existing corruption upon any information they produce or acquire, thereby spreading the corrupting virus far and wide, the propagandist consciously, deliberately and with malicious intent preys upon the inattentive and indoctrinated to manipulate and feed upon their fears, prejudices and predilections.

While the ultimate goal of propaganda may be to control and direct the herd, the actual technique used is to divide and conquer the population while promoting illusionary goals and aspirations to keep the wage slave crew rowing while they bicker amongst themselves. The carrot and stick approach is particularly effective when we are conditioned to use it upon ourselves and others like us. The only condition more profitable to the corporate masters and the powerful elite than a kept slave is a slave who keeps him or herself under the auspices of freedom, liberty and justice for all.

The one common denominator among all types of slaves past, present and future is the slave mentality, ultimately defined and expressed as self limiting thought, beliefs and actions. Propagandized information serves to promote and inflame that very condition which, when combined with an underlying economic system that keeps the population striving forward while perpetually underwater, holds the slave firmly in the past or future and never settled in the present. One short leg on a four legged table is always unsettled and an enormous distraction, forever unbalanced and rarely stable other than for extremely short periods of time.

Belief, on the other hand, is a very complex subject in and of itself even without examining any specific belief. While the word ‘belief’ implies a singular conviction or principal (i.e. “I believe in God/Democracy/Capitalism/Money”) in all the cases I have examined this is far from the case. If we are discussing one specific conviction, for example a religion, it is almost always the case that while the faith might have a set of written principals or doctrine, those doctrine are rarely followed to the letter.

Instead, the ‘faith’ as practiced at the individual level often incorporates various other superstitions, traditions, beliefs and ‘truths’. Because of this condition few feel compelled to ‘follow the letter of the law’ and many afford themselves wide latitude in their ‘belief’ while still claiming to be devout, faithful or at a minimum a ‘believer’.  This applies to religion, politics, education, society, career etc.

And while the faith’s ‘authorities’ will protest otherwise in order to maintain the illusion, in practice they would prefer the flock continue to corral themselves under the umbrella of a unifying belief, thus maintaining the power of the authorities of that belief (remember, to be believed is to be powerful) even at the expense of strict devotion to, and the practice of, doctrine fundamentals. Affording the faithful flock some wiggle room by not insisting otherwise is to the advantage of all parties involved.

It really doesn’t matter what psychological method(s) we use to afford ourselves the wiggle room we desire since there are at least seven billion unique variations and counting on Earth. All that matters is for the wiggle room to be created and then occupied. The various psychological techniques to do so are taught to us as children and the skills further refined as young adults. By the time we graduate from high school we are accomplished self deceivers and ready to enter the matrix as productive liars.

While that assessment might sound harsh, it is so close to reality as to be indistinguishable from the truth. Though we claim moral high ground and declare there is either truth or not, our flexible worldview fantasy demands generous quantities of wiggle room in order to function between a rock and the hard place of reality. If we were ever to actually write down our beliefs on a piece of paper, thus exposing them to the light of day, I suspect we would be quite embarrassed by all the leaps of faith, dead ends, contradictions, cognitive dissonances and dangling reasoning we eagerly maintain when hidden within the dark reaches of our mind.

 

Mental Wiggle Room

Mental Wiggle Room

 

This is precisely why we rarely expose our ‘soft’ truths for inspection, especially to ourselves, since to do so would require us to address all of the issues above and several more which would be the product of the cognitive unraveling. One of the reasons I write, as opposed to just think, is to force myself to sort through all my cognitive conflations. When maintained strictly within the ample wiggle room provided by my mind, my ‘truths’ must only meet my low and flexible logic and reasoning standards. Simply put I lie to myself on a regular basis in order to maintain my belief system.

But when my beliefs are placed upon paper and carefully examined by others, if I am to be honest I must at the very least make a concerted effort to root out the inner deception, corruption and conditioning. Or I may maintain and increase my self-deception by finding other like minded individuals who share my cognitive distortions and preach to the choir a la Paul Krugman and tens of thousands of others.

It is the effective manipulation of our belief systems (there are dozens if not hundreds of minor variations we seamlessly switch between as circumstances and needs dictate) that enslaves us to the present day insanity. And by far the number one manipulator is our ‘self’. While everyone claims they desire the truth, in reality we want only what can be absorbed into our existing worldview framework as smoothly as possible. The ultimate propagandist and manipulator we encounter during our lifetime is our ‘self’ (inflamed by our ego) an ugly self truth we carefully avoid ever personally ‘knowing’, let along examining.

It never ceases to amaze me how outraged we become when presented with propaganda/information/knowledge/belief that clashes with our own personal belief systems, yet we accept with little question or examination similarly distorted information that confirms, conforms with or is easily folded into our beliefs. Hypocrisy begins at home and we are all hypocrites in every sense of the word.

I often say we are only as sick as our deepest darkest secrets, and many take this to mean secrets of a sexual, family or financial nature. In fact what I am really discussing is the self subterfuge, hypocrisy and self propagandizing we all engage in on a daily basis, yet keep secret from our ‘self’, our life partners and the world. While many believe what we don’t (allow ourselves to) ‘know’ can’t hurt us, the ultimate self deception, it does inflame such dissonance and discord deep within our own psyche and inner spirit that we are undeniably insane and growing crazier by the day.

The ultimate personal and group blackmail occurs not when someone discovers our secrets and then extorts us using that information, but when we keep secrets from our ‘self’, thereby exposing ourselves to outside manipulation and control precisely because we are never settled and stabilized into a state of self ‘knowing’ and acceptance. This underlying psychological and spiritual tension also contributes greatly to our poor physical health and is the root cause of much of our chronic illness, disorder and dis-ease. Incredibly not only do we often willingly accept the blackmail, but frequently we embrace it as our own rather than travel down the ultimate rabbit hole, the one we find within.

 

Inner Tension

Inner Tension

 

I am fairly certain quite a few of my readers have grown weary of my relentless and unchanging beating of the ‘look within’ drum. I suspect many feel this is a negative and unproductive view of life, that a more ‘positive’ outlook would work wonders and go far towards enabling and engaging others in self discovery and self enlightenment. My only response is the following. How can we ever possibly know what we need in order to grow and progress if we have never truly and thoroughly looked within and aired our dirty laundry?

Receiving an artificially induced feel good experience from an external source to help paper over an ugly dissonance and the emotional trauma that results can only be considered ‘positive’ in an insane asylum and truly mirrors the method society in general uses to refrain from engaging in the truly hard work of self examination.

This is not to say there is no joy in Mudville, that there is no respite from the self imposed hard work of personal growth and rejuvenation. But only in a society obsessed with distractions, entertainment and pleasure seeking behavior would more of the same be considered conducive to breaking our addiction to what ails us. In this case a little hair of the dog is not the correct prescription.

While we all seek external affirmation to validate our ‘self’, sadly a glaring symptom of our repudiated personal sovereignty and the inner insanity, true affirmation and satisfaction for successful (incremental) self examination occurs naturally and is a healing product of the hard work of self discovery.

There is nothing wrong with basking in the glow received from a job well done……as long as we recognize there is much work left to be done and this is simply a rest stop along the road of life and our journey of self discovery. One is never ‘cured’ of our insanity, at least not at this stage in the cycle, because every interaction with an insane society tends to re-infect and reassert the seductive desire to let go and be (re)absorbed into the wonderful embrace of the collective insanity.

Some good friends of ours who teach English to recent Chinese emigrants to America were visiting mutual friends this summer, affording Mrs. Cog and I the opportunity to visit with them several times. Something said during one of our visits remains ever present in my mind. While discussing the different culture in China, ‘Jim’ said not only did he ask his students to speak in English, but to think in English as well. When they successfully did so the most remarkable questions sprang from their minds, questions he had never heard before let along personally considered. It was more than cultural though because those questions were rarely expressed in English when the speaker was thinking in Chinese.

For me nothing could better illustrate how our language controls our thinking, and thus our mind, more than this simple observation. Temporarily, though imperfectly, freed from their own native language constraints, Jim’s students were free to explore the world, and their own minds, using another language they were not indoctrinated into. The results were clear and compelling and well worth remembering when we complain about ‘them’ controlling us. The act of controlling our language, and thus our minds, begins with and is aided from within. We are the ultimate propagandist extraordinaire.

 

08-17-2014

Cognitive Dissonance

 

Mind Control

 

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Mon, 08/18/2014 - 09:06 | 5108170 Weisshaupt
Weisshaupt's picture

"A family is like a gun, you point it in the wrong direction you're gonna kill someone..." - Trust ( A hal Hartley Film)

Social Arrangements - families, tribes, religions, governments are all just tools. ( Is a screwdriver a helpful household gadget or a stabbing weapon?)

The tension isn't so much between these various  institutions but in the individual's need (and/or desire ) for security vs. their need (and or desire)  for personal freedom.

These social  arrangements are about creating security  and in so doing you loose personal freedom because you enter into arrangements dictated by social rules and  customs - which provide predictable rules of interaction, the grease for the machine of that group, and allow larger tasks to be undertaken, and in general raise the standard of living of the group.   Most are born into one arrangement or other, and that is really what creates the thought box - language being only a part of it.

Seeking a healthy balance between freedom and security is really the purpose of these institutions - but not everyone agrees at what point that balance should be set. Sadly some of these groups feel so strongly about their system they feel justified in imposing that balance on others because for them it is TRUE - "Live and let live" is rejected as a philosophy because one group is sure their way is a way of living better.  Then out come the guns and the declaration that other people are the property of the group and can therefore be forced at gunpoint to join or die. The leftists will make others participate in  Obama care, Muslims  will force you to declare Allah God,  The Catholic Church will run an inquisition ,  because those groups want the security provided by more members,  a "purer" membership or both.

In the end its always the "the same old serpent that says you work, I eat. You toil, and I will enjoy the fruits of it." as Lincoln suggested, because making others provide for you gives you extra security and extra freedom.  Any group that denies other groups the right to exist, to form, to dissolve is of its nature tyrannical - and that is what causes the tension between institutions.. but underlying that tension is ALWAYS the individuals need to feel safe, secure and loved.

Sun, 08/17/2014 - 18:05 | 5106226 Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive Dissonance's picture

"Who do we trust?"

Knowing my faults and honestly attempting to deal with them actually instills more confidence in myself. As I begin to more clearly 'see' my blind spots I am less often blindsided. While the pun was intended, the words are true. I am almost always blindsided because I do not know where my blind spots are....or I choose to be in denial of them. :-)

Our daughter was recently gifted a car that has side-view mirrors that contain a small piece of special glass which is supposed to help her check her blind spot when using her side-view mirrors. As well, the vehicle has a rear-view/backup camera that shows the image of what is directly behind the car in her rear view mirror when she puts the car in reverse. This is wonderful technology....and extremely dangerous if the operator doesn't understand the blind-spots they create while clearing others up.

I took great pains to physically illustrate to our daughter what those limitations were and how to use her new 'tools' without abandoning the old ones. Time will tell if my lesson in newly created blind spots takes hold. Maybe a monthly refresher course for the first year might help. :-)

<Daughter rolls eyes.>

Mon, 08/18/2014 - 20:02 | 5106492 nmewn
nmewn's picture

"I took great pains to physically illustrate to our daughter what those limitations were and how to use her new 'tools' without abandoning the old ones."

lol...I kid you not, I was treated to the story this weekend (actually true, not a story) of a young lady who became locked in her car because of a dead battery. The automatic door locks wouldn't unlock the car door without the battery, so she was trapped inside the car, you see.

I thought I would piss my pants from laughing so hard but then later I realized, she drives a car.

/////

My anonymous junker(s) apparently take the bus now.

//////

Taxis? ;-)

Sun, 08/17/2014 - 18:34 | 5106346 ILLILLILLI
ILLILLILLI's picture

Followed shortly thereafter by the exclamative utterance "Dad....!" and the shaking of her head.

Sun, 08/17/2014 - 18:57 | 5106412 Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive Dissonance's picture

As an adult I shake my head and wonder how I ever survived my teenage years. As a teenager I would shake my head and wonder how I would ever survive my parents. Thankfully I survived both.

Sun, 08/17/2014 - 19:40 | 5106017 Radical Marijuana
Radical Marijuana's picture

"I am fairly certain quite a few of my readers have grown weary of my relentless and unchanging beating of the ‘look within’ drum."

I love attempting to present how infinitely paradoxical that effort to "look within" becomes. I will try to explain that by using some basic metaphors about understanding general energy systems, with a radical critique of our current understanding of the concept of entropy.

First, every thing is an energy system, whose structure is that of a toroidal vortex. Consider what happens when one "looks within" at a tornado or a whirlpool. There is no water in the center of the whirhpool. The same happens with the much more hyper-complicated tube of flesh we human beings manifest. When one "looks within" enough, there is nothing there!

All toroidal vortices are actually made of infinite loops through their environment, of the flows of energy and matter, that take those forms, such as tornadoes, whirhpools, or in the shape of the tube of flesh, in the form of human beings. Furthermore, all the different toroidal vortices are nested within other toroidal vortices.

"Looking within" enough ends up looking out at everything.

One of the fundamental critiques of our current understanding of energy systems is that an arbtrary minus sign was inserted into the equations of entropy, in thermodynamics, that was extrapolated into information theory. Actually, all power and all information have relative negative values. However, the biggest bullies' bullshit world view dominated the philosophy of science, the same as it dominated all other social enterprises, so that we ended up living in a Bizarro Mirror World, where everything looks proportionately backwards and distorted.

In my view, this article above barely scratched the surface of the degree to which it is correct to say "Control the Language and You Control the Mind!" One of the most important ways that was done was to advance the human mind's natural tendencies towards thinking using dualities. Instead of assisting people to develop more critical thinking regarding those presumptions, our established systems do all they can to reinforce people thinking using false fundamental dichotomies, and therefore promoting the related impossible ideals.

What I believe is that post-modernizing science has reconverged back with ancient mysticism, from where it started out, long, long ago. I try to main a more rigorously consistent view that all human realities are always organized lies, operating robberies. The fundamental process is SUBTRACTION. Any part that we perceive was necessarily relatively subtracted from the whole. We are taught to perceive that process of subtraction in perfectly backwards ways, such as how an arbitrary minus sign was inserted into the entropy equations, in order that the measurements of power and information would have positive values, rather than negative values.

When it comes to "knowledge," the fundamental situation is that there can only be relative illusions, or relative lies, because any possible knowledge is based on some original subtraction of a part from the whole, which was never absolute. That kind of epistemology is completely consistent with the paradoxes found in the limits of measurement, which are now built into the foundation of basic sciences such as quantum mechanics. Attempting to measure anything changes it, in ways which can never be caught up to by subsequent measurements. All "knowledge" is necessarily always relatively wrong, and that can never be overcome. Everything that human beings "know" is always necessarily based on relative illusions, or lies. There is no finite "truth" that did not depend upon some original subtraction. However, that original subtraction is like original sin. As soon as we define anything as separate from its environment, and give that thing a name, and properties, and then incorporate those into narrative stories, everything we are doing is always based on relative illusions or relative lies, because the original subtraction was never absolute.

All of those basic concepts of thinking about human beings as energy systems that operate as entropic pumps (which applies to the flow of information, as well as to the flow of material), then applies throughout human civilization. For instance, all private property is based on backing up claims with coercions. The most abstract form of that manifests as that money is measurement backed by murder.

By definition, as soon as we perceive human beings as separate from their environment, then they must necessarily operate as gangs of robbers in their environment. Furthermore, the stories that they tell themselves must necessarily be the organized systems of lies that operate those robberies. All groups of human beings, as soon as we define them, must necessarily be toroidal vortices, operating as energy systems, or entropic pumps. When one studies that more thoroughly, it becomes clear that the best descriptions of human beings acting as entropic pumps are the principles and methods of organized crime. That is why every good analysis always reveals that sort of situation, which is why governments are the biggest form of organized crime, controlled by the best organized gangs of criminals.

At the present time, we are profoundly trapped in the increasingly serious social paradoxes caused by the war against consciousness waged by the ruling classes against those they rule over. Instead of teaching people to think more critically, they are taught to believe in the bullshit social stories approved by the biggest bullies. Therefore, instead of understanding the real mechanisms through which things actually work, people are taught to continue to perceive things using various false fundamental dichotomies, which is relatively easy to do, since the human mind naturally likes dualities. Progress in basic sciences like physics has had nothing like that done in political science, because attempting to do that is in a head-on collision with the biggest bullies, who are able to dominate society with their bullshit social stories.

In the real world, our human ecology runs death controls based on the maximum possible deceits, while our political economy operates through the maximum possible frauds. Instead of basing a democratic republic operating through the rule of law on the basis of recognizing that everyone has some power to rob, and power to kill to back that up, and must necessarily be like that, as soon as define them as beings which are separate from their environment, a whole bunch of bullshit about "rights" and "freedoms" conceals and camoflages the basic facts that societies operate as systems of organized lies operating robberies. Therefore, the fact that the government is the biggest form of organized crime, controlled by the best organized gangs of criminals has become extremely unbalanced, because the citizens have become incompetent political idiots, who are too easily tricked to believe in bullshit, and therefore, do not effectively resist the deceits and frauds that control the ways that they think and behave.

The ways that our established systems work is that the controlled opposition groups stay within the same frame of reference promoted by the biggest bullies' bullshit. The controlled opposition groups continue to agree with the same ways that developed through history, in order to "Control the Language and You Control the Mind!" Hence, the controlled opposition promotes the same basic false fundamental dichotomies, and therefore promotes "solutions" based on impossible ideals, that actually cause the opposte to happen in the real world. The political systems become more unbalanced, because citizens do not understand that they are actually members of an organized crime gang, called their country.

Meanwhile, paradigm changing progress in other sciences have made breakthroughs, which have enabled working technologies to become orders of magnitude more powerful and capable. For instance, quantum mechanics and the special theory of relativity has allowed civilization to develop globalized systems of electronic frauds, backed up by the threat of the force of atomic bombs. Civilization was always based on lies backed by violence. Modern civilizations merely became more sophisticated systems of legalized lies, backed up by legalized violence, because human beings were always, due to the basic nature of their brains and bodies, entropic pump energy systems, which were organized lies operating robberies, as necessarily the way that those operated, as soon as one subtracted them from their environment.

All countries, corporations, and churches, were always systems of organized lies, operating robberies. However, those most doing that thereby became the best at being dishonest and backing that up with violence. It was absolutely necessary, due to the original subtractions, that the history of warfare was based on backing up deceits with destruction. Furthermore, it was naturally necessary that economics was built on that foundation, so that finance became based on enforced frauds. However, paradoxically, civilization is now facing the dilemma of final failure from too much success at enforced frauds. Way too few people are able to understand human realities enough to work towards better dynamic equilibria between the different systems of lies operating robberies, because of the degree to which those who were relatively the best at doing that were able to excessively brainwash everyone else to believe in the bullshit descriptions of what was happening.

Meanwhile, most people want to continue to think in terms of false fundamental dichotomies, and promote the related impossible ideals, as being the ways to provide better solutions to human problems. However, that continues to understand the mechanisms of toroidal vortices backwards. In fact, as soon a human beings do what human being do, which is tell stories, then every good analysis is always going to discover that social realities are systems of organized lies operating robberies. Therefore, the only genuinely better resolutions to chronic political problems is to try to make and maintain better dynamic equilibria between the different systems of organized lies operating robberies.

Of course, the main obstacles in the way are those which were identified in this article above, that too many people have been too conditioned to believe in bullshit, and therefore, not be able to think more critically, and moreover, been conditioned not want to. Therefore, I repeat what I started saying at the beginning of my comment. This article was correct, but only scratched the surface. I will not bother to say much more, nor present my views more carefully, because that will not make any real difference. The world is already so totally dominated by the biggest bullies' bullshit social stories, which most people so totally take for granted, that these systems are wildly out of control now, powered up by science, which most people inside society continue to deliberately ignore.

Theoretically, we should go through intellectual scientific revolutions, which then apply to politics, so that our political science could catch up to our physical sciences. However, that is practically pointless to promote inside of a runaway political reality which has become unbalanced to a degree that is greater than a ratio 1 to 100, while that is actually getting worse, rather than better, since almost all of the controlled opposition groups, in the forms of old-fashioned religions and ideologies, are now way more part of the problem than able to provide any genuine solutions. Those old-fashioned ways of thinking are integrated into the ways that the ruling classes "Control the Language and You Control the Mind!"

Mon, 08/18/2014 - 22:22 | 5111028 juangrande
juangrande's picture

"Looking within enough ends up looking out at things".

 

My experience has been looking within enough ( initially within the guidelines of an effective discipline) eliminates the false perception of the dichotomy of "me and everything else". No within/no without.  If you get there, you start to lose the big Fear, the mother of all fear:the fear of what happens when "I" end. (This "knowing" is experientially based and very difficult, if not impossible, to rationally will into mind). When it is clear that "me" is just another false perception convenient to the dualistic mind, then the nature of existence is clarified. An effective meditative practice is essentially practicing dying. It is not a self helping practice. It is a self dissolving practice.

I feel the collective conscious of humanity is being moved away from dualistic prardigms, perhaps slowly, but surely. However, the ruler of that paradigm, the egoic mind, will not go down without an all out fight. An extreme fight in which we are now all fully engaged! The paradigm of duality shall either end with our species demise, thru the forces which you describe or we will collectively wake up.

 

BTW, I really like the part about the center of the human energy vortex being nothing. 

Sun, 08/17/2014 - 20:49 | 5106654 VWAndy
VWAndy's picture

So to sum it up. Basicaly its hopeless and we should give up? And you dont want to talk about it.

Sun, 08/17/2014 - 23:34 | 5107062 Radical Marijuana
Radical Marijuana's picture

No, VWAndy, it is only as hopeless as the degree of one's attachment to the original subtraction, which then defines the situation. The apparent paradoxes are due to the ways that we still take for granted that time and space are independent absolutes, which is the common sense view, which was also the basis of classical physics. That mistake leads to understanding entropy backwards, or to understanding the ways that energy is distributed through time and space backwards.

I regard Energy as Spirit, while entropy is the devil, and similarly and so forth throughout an entire way that one can resurrect the ancient languages of transcendental poetry, found throughout mysticism, which were then more rigidly codified in various religions and ideologies. With reference to more contemporary political ideologies, there are no rights without remedies, and no freedoms without forces. The source of everything is the energy. However, our experience of that can only be in time and space. Our typical mistake is to regard the illusions as ultimate reality. However, since the subtraction is never absolute, the robberies are never finished.

People who like to make a big deal about "freedom" or "liberty" tend to want to have their cake and eat it too. However, as soon as one defines a finite being as separate from their environment, then, to the degree that one is attached to those boundaries, which defined that finite being, then they must take energy from their environment to continue living, or to continue to act as entropic pumps of the flow of energy. From that perspective, then exactly to the degree that one defines a human being as finite, then they are not free. Their degree of freedom come from the extent to which they are still the whole environment, i.e., they ARE the flow of energy, which does not start and stop, when that crosses the relative boundaries of their defined being, whose finite limits are the sources of all the problems thereafter, in the sense that the original subtraction was similar to original sin.

To the degree that we perceive ourselves, and others, as separated, then to that degree the relative differences are mistaken to be absolute. Human slavery systems were based on a war on consciousness, which tried to drive people to believe that those relative difference were absolutes. That is a typical characteristic of the biggest bullies' bullshit, or the language that the ruling classes developed to control those who were ruled over. Of course, those relative differences can be extremely large, such as the relative difference between bodies and minds. For instance, one of the forms that energy can take is to be matter. However, matter is actually an extremely concentrated form of energy, as demonstrated when atomic bombs go BOOM!

As I said, post-modernizing sciences reconverge with ancient mysticism. Ideas like those found in the special theory of relativity, that make atomic bombs possible, also demolish our common sense ideas about time and space, as well wipe out the presumptions that there are fundamental dichotomies between the material and spiritual world, or between matter and energy. Of course, the ability to apply force to the body can control the mind, to some degree. The classic ways that was done was that access to food controls people, and money controlled the access to food. Thereby, the control over the monetary system controls people's lives. Since the monetary system is literally base on enforced frauds, those are what control the ways that most people behave. Clearly, that is an extreme form of how the control of the language about money controls how people think about money.

Not surprisingly, one of the main themes of American history has been the meaning of "money" being systematically inverted and perverted, in ways which most people were unaware happened! In that context, considerable relative futility exists at the present time, due to the degree that the political world is still dominated by old-fashioned religions and ideologies, whose rigid codifications can not cope with the degree to which the basic paradigms of physics have been changed, and those changes have been proven to have merit by the degree to which the technologies based upon those technologies work!

For all practical purposes, I have given up any reasonable hope that enough people will go through enough intellectual scientific revolution, in order that civilization will cope with having developed technologies which are trillions of times more powerful and capable than ever before in known human history. Anyone who has made a serious effort to talk to many different people about the monetary system will discover that the vast majority of people believe in bullshit, to the degree that they feel that they are not interested in learning more about the radical truth. (The Zero Hedge readership is relatively atypical in that regard, which is why there appears to be a tiny minority of that tiny minority who say they like to read my comments.)

Despite that the vast majority continue to be deliberately ignorant does not mean that I have given up on the ability of energy to continue being conserved, as it flows through its transformations. I regard all the typical attributes of "God" to have their source in the conservation of energy and momentum, which then also implies a more subtle principle of the preservation of information. In my view, it is quite possible to develop a new kind of religion or ideology, which is consistent with a radical understanding of the concepts of science. The practical political fact that almost nobody is interested in doing that does not change the theoretical possibility of doing that, nor the theoretically imperatives that more people should do that.

However, in order to do that, before science can become a more liberating influence, science itself, as a social institution, would have to be more liberated from the degree to which the philosophy of science was another victim of being dominated by the biggest bullies' bullshit world view. For instance, bizarrely, the proof that inorganic chemicals could be transformed into organic chemicals, was then interpreted to mean everything was dead, instead of the alternative that everything was alive. During the history of science, scientists came to a compromise with the dominant religion that they would study the dead material world, while the living spiritual world continued to be the domain of religion. However, if one makes the transition towards perceiving that Energy IS Spirit, then everything in the domain of science becomes a radicalized religion.

Within my own lifetime, I despair of enough people understanding the kinds of intellectual scientific revolutions that they should go through, IF civilization is going to survive things like using the power of those sciences to make weapons of mass destruction. At the present time, it is almost impossible to imagine how society could avoid madly destroying itself, instead of sufficiently going through a real, radical revolution, in order to adapt so that it could survive.

As far as I can tell, less than one person in ten thousand is remotely interested in what I have to say. Especially when it comes to the monetary and taxation system in the Canadian situation, where my on-going political experiments with the political contribution tax credit through Electoral District Associations continues to constantly prove, day after day, that 99.9999% of Canadians continue to act like incompetent political idiots, in the sense that more than 99% of them routinely never use their own rights and freedoms, but rather continue to do nothing, and prefer to never participate.

When one looks at the ways that the enforced frauds found in the American monetary and taxation systems actually work, one is also sees that, similarly, only a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of the American people benefit from the ways that those systems are set up, which the overwhelming vast majority of Americans continue to act like Zombie Sheeple, in the face of the facts about how the public "money" supply was privatized, through institutions such as the Federal Reserve Board, which demonstrates the degree to which the government of the USA is the biggest form of organized crime, controlled by the best organized gang of criminals, the biggest gangsters, the banksters.

Those observations are all social facts, which primarily manifested through the history of the funding of all aspects of the political processes. Within that context, of the runaway triumph of the biggest bullies' bullshit dominating society, where the language of economics controls the ways that people think, and behave, despite that language having become almost totally based on bullshit, it is impossible to have any reasonable hopes for the foreseeable future of American society, which has already developed a system of debt slavery to the point of debt insanities. However, despite that probably provoking death insanities, through some series of severe social storms, those social storms will not disprove the basic theory of the conservation of energy, but rather confirm that when one pumps enough energy into a system, long enough, then it is forced to go through changes of state.

I find philosophical consolations in taking the principle of the conservation of energy seriously. I find that doing that reproduces all of the same notions as found in the idealized goals of old-fashioned religions and ideologies. However, the ways how one understands that is then provided with much more detailed mechanisms. Despite those mechanisms tending to understand things in ways which are backwards to the ways that impossible ideals are supposed to work, those mechanisms provide ways to world towards more idealized social goals which would not necessarily continue to backfire badly, and make things happen the opposite to what the impossible ideals were supposed to achieve.

There is nobody to "give up" to. There is no way to "give up" on the ways that energy will continue to be conserved. However, I believe that one must "give up" on the notions that the established systems could be reformed. We are already committed to having to go through some kinds of revolutions, sooner or later, in one way or another. Personally, I have been forced to "give up" on the idea that enough people are going to soon wake up enough to the degree to which it really is that case that the biggest bullies control the language and control the mind.

The established systems have become runaway criminal insanities, and that is going to become a very rough ride for a lot of people! I believe that will continue to get worse, faster, especially because almost all of the opposition is controlled, so that most of the apparent, alleged, opposition groups are merely reactionary revolutionaries, or Black Sheeple, who continue to try to lead the Zombie Sheeple backwards, in ways which continue to backfire, and make things worse. In that context, I have adapted to discovering that the real social situation is that we are controlled by believing in bullshit, while the vast majority of people want to continue to believe in that bullshit. Paradigm shifts change the ways that we perceive the world. That is what we need with respect to politics. I have been working at developing a different way to use the English language, to perhaps provide ways to enable going through some more real, radical revolutions.

Perceiving that the government is the biggest form of organized crime, controlled by the best organized gangs of criminals, requires radical transformations in the ways that most of us were originally taught to understand the world, which should go far beyond returning to old fashioned notions that we should stop that from happening. I have a sort of "hope" that we will go through some serious transformations, although much of that may well be nothing more than crazy collapses into chaos, due to the psychotic breakdowns of the established systems of enforced frauds, such as when the levels of debt insanities reaching some breaking points.

Eventually, I believe that we will go through changes of state, since the psychotic breakdowns of the established systems could open opportunities for new systems to emerge. Of course, I have no way to be sure that the established civilization will have not destroyed itself, and the natural world, so much that there is no recovery after that which will be really possible. Right now, that looks entirely possible, especially since the overwhelming majority of people continue to act like Zombie Sheeple, or incompetent political idiots, that are not interested in changing the ways that they think.

But nevertheless, throughout my lifetime I have amused myself by enjoying efforts to try to understand how things work. I write because writing is tool to help with thinking, and I enjoy thinking for its own sake. Gradually, I have been forced to face the social facts that more than 99% of the public have their minds so totally controlled by bullshit language that they are not the slightest bit interested in changing that. Hence, I have come to terms with the ways that the audience of people who are interested in what I am talking about appears to be considerably less than 1 in 10,000.

However, that does not mean that I have given up all hope, because the back-up system to artificial selection is still there, as natural selection forces. Despite that the overwhelming vast majority of people use a language that controls their minds, in ways which are profoundly stupid and self-destructive, the longer term consequences from doing that are continuing to accumulate. Thus, for a long time, I have been hoping that I might live long enough to see more people begin to understand what I am talking about ...

The core of any real, radical revolution would be to change the monetary system. Not too many decades ago it was quite reasonable to say that not one individual in a million understood that system. However, now it would be possible to reasonably say that some small percentage of people understand that, (although probably not yet up to some critical threshold, like 10%). Meanwhile, what I am doing is attempting to provide a much more radical critique of the Federal Reserve system, and the global monetary system in general, which provides some guidance regarding what to follow up with after End the Fed might finally happen.

The primary point made in this article above was that:

"It is the effective manipulation of our belief systems that enslaves us to the present day insanity."

THERE IS NO DOUBT THAT IS CORRECT! However, most of my comments were to point out how much deeply, through almost infinite tunnels of deceits, that problem goes. Obviously, the monetary systems, based on upon government enforced bankster frauds, is an extremely important way that people's belief systems are dominated by a language which drives runaway debt insanities. However, better resolutions to those problems requires going past the levels of bogus "solutions" proposed by the controlled opposition groups, who continue stay too much within the old-fashioned frame of reference, and therefore, propose returning to their preferred impossible ideals as the source of "solutions."

I do not believe that we have any other chances, but to have to continue to muddle through the madness of the dynamic equilibria of different systems of organized lies operating robberies. However, I do believe that we are going to be forced to go through some drastic changes of state in that respect, and that could be catalyzed better IF enough people understood better how and why that was happening. As the established systems automatically get more screwed up, more people will be forced out of their comfort zone of habitual ways of thinking. When people are frustrated by their habits being impeded, then they will be forced to start thinking more. At that point, perhaps, more of them will start to question the language that they were using, that was controlling their minds?

Mon, 08/18/2014 - 06:58 | 5107816 Optimusprime
Optimusprime's picture

"Energy is eternal delight."

 

Wm. Blake, Marriage of Heaven and Hell

Mon, 08/18/2014 - 06:59 | 5107815 Optimusprime
Optimusprime's picture

"Energy is eternal delight."

 

Wm. Blake, Marriage of Heaven and Hell

Mon, 08/18/2014 - 01:43 | 5107569 VWAndy
VWAndy's picture

You might want to start hanging out with a different crowd. Many true masters do grasp it. A lot more than one might think.

 Talk to your plummer or the guy that fixes cars across the street. They know. Ask any family farmer about money or credit. They sure as hell know. They never forgot. They knew from the start about money for nothing. Ask any roofer they found out the hard way.

 An fancy spellin,,, thats how they knowd it was bullshit. Well that and the suit.

 Really I like you RM your stuff is great. But many more understand in the skilled labor crowd.

Mon, 08/18/2014 - 06:14 | 5107770 acetinker
acetinker's picture

If it takes you 5000 words to describe an idea that might aptly be described in a paragraph or two, you're probably full of shit.

Mon, 08/18/2014 - 17:43 | 5110883 juangrande
juangrande's picture

Actually, RM has attempted ( very well attempted, I might add) to explain in a linear fashion, that which can't really be grasped by a linear mind or dualistic mind. That character Jesus tried the same thing. He confused the shit out of a lot of people, for a long time!

Mon, 08/18/2014 - 14:55 | 5110035 Radical Marijuana
Radical Marijuana's picture

It appears that the only reply you ever post, acetinker, that that same accusation. Pretty useless.

Mon, 08/18/2014 - 23:23 | 5112622 acetinker
acetinker's picture

We get it RM. Organized lies, organized crime, debt controls, death controls, we get it and we got it a helluva long time before you did.

You're looking at all this from a cozy academic's perch.  Some of us have personally experienced the shit you prevaricate about, and we think, scratch that we know you're absolutely fulla shit.

You had to go downthread to even see what I wrote.  I wasn't talking to you, in any case.

Lemme tell ya' what's useless RM; the theoretical musings of some dipshit who's never really known life outside of academia.  Yeah, you're that easy to spot.

Personally, I think you should travel to Ferguson MO and dispense your superior intellect amongst those folks, surely it will quell the riots, no?

Alternatively, you could apply for an advisory position on the Federal Reserve Board.  That would better suit you.

Wait! I got an idea!  Let's pool some money to send RM to Ferguson and provide him a platform with bunting and shit, and a podium from which he can drone on about the obvious shit he drones on here about.  In no time, the rioters will fall asleep, and thereafter forget whatever it was that they assembled for.

May God help us!

Tue, 08/19/2014 - 14:12 | 5115465 Radical Marijuana
Radical Marijuana's picture

Acethinker, you presume to know a lot about me, when most of your presumptions are incorrect.

What other ways are there to come to terms with progress in science and technology making weapons of mass destruction than more progress in political science?

(The degree to which that is apparently impossible is the degree to which the human species looks like it is going to commit suicide.)

Meanwhile, there are no reasons why I would want to go to into some stupid riot, which is merely a symptom of the psychotic breakdowns of the established systems, as poorer and poorer people are being driven to despearation.

I prefer to imagine that some transnational scientific community may survive through the coming collapses into chaos. IF human beings have a future, it will be by continuing progress in science into political science. That is what I talk about and promote. Of course, that is academic theory now, but it is still the only one which makes any sense in a world that has weapons of mass destruction that make all old-fashioned kinds of fighting insane.

Tue, 08/19/2014 - 23:46 | 5118438 acetinker
acetinker's picture

Brother, know that I don't want any harm to come to you.  Also know this; your science is making you obsolete.  We are talking past each other, and I don't claim to be an acethinker, please re-read my username.

I'm a tinker.  I have computers and machines that can execute the code I write.  I actually make stuff that other people are willing to pay for.  I won't do any work for any municipal, state or federal .gov agency.  I simply refuse it.

They, like you, think I'm batshit crazy.

Ok, I admit that sometimes I remove a broken bolt or some such asinine thing from a backhoe for the local guys, but rest assured, I'm doing it for them, not their employer.

My science will eventually make me obsolete, too. When me and my kind are gone, who's gonna fix the backhoe?

Thu, 08/21/2014 - 07:48 | 5124368 blindman
blindman's picture

what is a "backhoe"? what language is that? is it a verbe
or a noun?

Thu, 08/21/2014 - 23:17 | 5128361 acetinker
acetinker's picture

What is a verbe?  Maybe it's a French verb.  For you too, I wish no harm.  This is a backhoe-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNOXuWukF6w

Gimme a similar explanation of verbe ;)

If that was sarc, blindman, please accept my immediate and heartfelt apology for my ascerbic reply.

There ain't many on here I would extend that to, just so you know.

 

Sun, 08/17/2014 - 20:21 | 5106594 radiobomb
radiobomb's picture

excellent post RM. agreed. although the  'robbery' could be altruistic, but rarely is.

Sun, 08/17/2014 - 16:31 | 5105953 New_Meat
New_Meat's picture

Yo, CD: Popper and Kuhn can help us all in this. - Ned

[Ed. and of course Orwell in all of his writing.]

Sun, 08/17/2014 - 16:51 | 5106011 Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive Dissonance's picture

I did not know that reference. I do now. Thanks!

Sun, 08/17/2014 - 16:26 | 5105939 are we there yet
are we there yet's picture

I have inherited over 200,000 pages of family paper journals and documents going back to the early 1800s. The stories I read in them are greatly out of sync with history with regard to the old South, Merchants, farmers, and a general attitudes. The age we live in has slowly rewritten history and changed language to simplify false or cherry picked concepts of the past.

Sun, 08/17/2014 - 16:48 | 5105996 Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive Dissonance's picture

And yet that simple concept is so humongous and life altering that many will simply dismiss it with a wave of their mental hand as rubbish, preposterous and totally ludicrous. Sad, so very sad.

Sun, 08/17/2014 - 16:28 | 5105951 Urban Redneck
Urban Redneck's picture

Understatement of the century. Rinse, Repeat.

Sun, 08/17/2014 - 16:25 | 5105938 pauhana
pauhana's picture

I absolutely know that humans are responsible for climate change.  The science is settled.  My president told me so so it must be true.  (sarc/on)

Sun, 08/17/2014 - 16:47 | 5106000 Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive Dissonance's picture

Not just the President....but the highest author-ities in the land say the same thing so it must be true.

<The more certain I am the higher the probability I am wrong if for no other reason than I am now blind to alternatives.>

Mon, 08/18/2014 - 18:45 | 5111247 juangrande
juangrande's picture

The process of arriving at truth only involves the removal of that which is not true. That might be an eternal process, however.

Tue, 08/19/2014 - 09:56 | 5114061 Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive Dissonance's picture

"That might be an eternal process, however."

Progress, not perfection is just fine with me.

Tue, 08/19/2014 - 10:28 | 5114234 juangrande
juangrande's picture

Yep. The single biggest obstacle to "enlightenment" may very well be the desire to reach it. The fact that I think I need to arrive somewhere implies dualism.

Tue, 08/19/2014 - 10:42 | 5114310 Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive Dissonance's picture

This is why I do not like to use the word "awakened" which implies the arrival at a destination or an ending, but rather "awakening" which implies a process and not an ending.

I also never wish to imply I have awakened, but rather I am still crawling around on all fours searching for the way forward during my awakening.

Sun, 08/17/2014 - 16:59 | 5106032 LawsofPhysics
LawsofPhysics's picture

Again, his language is chosen carefully.  "Climate Change" versus "Global Warming" etc.  There is at least one glacier in Utah that I would visit as a kid that isn't there anymore.  Who's reasponsible?  Who fucking cares?  it's the lack of fresh water that will be the issue, can we deal with that already?

Sun, 08/17/2014 - 16:07 | 5105892 Squiddly Diddly
Squiddly Diddly's picture

"I am fairly certain quite a few of my readers have grown weary of my relentless and unchanging beating of the ‘look within’ drum. I suspect many feel this is a negative and unproductive view of life, that a more ‘positive’ outlook would work wonders and go far towards enabling and engaging others in self discovery and self enlightenment. My only response is the following. How can we ever possibly know what we need in order to grow and progress if we have never truly and thoroughly looked within and aired our dirty laundry?"

 

Cog,

It's an empty void, that's Paul's conclusion. 

Rom 7: 18For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

21So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

 

The solution is not endless navel gazing, there is no there there. The solution is a  new creation.

Eph 4: 20But that is not the way you learned Christ!— 21assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, 22to put off your old self,f which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

 

Sun, 08/17/2014 - 19:31 | 5106473 James T. Kirk
James T. Kirk's picture

"It's an empty void, that's Paul's conclusion."

Actually, no. If you read all of Paul's writings, and assume his writings do not conflict with the rest of the bible (which he himself would certainly agree), you come to the inescapable conclusion that at the bottom of it all, our actual enemy is a sentient being of incalculable evil. Said sentient being continually operates by trying to redefine the meaning of words. Read Luke chap 3, where Satan uses holy scripture against Jesus Himself. Or Genesis 3, where Satan quotes God's very words and then deceives Eve into rebelling (Paul says that Eve was clearly deceived, therefore validating the Genesis story, 1Timothy 2:13, 2Corinthians 11:3). Talk about attempting to control the very definition of word meanings.

I just thought that an article about controlling people by controlling word meanings should give honorable mention to the Father of lies.

Mon, 08/18/2014 - 05:58 | 5107763 acetinker
acetinker's picture

'Tis interesting, to say the least that when called upon to look within, many will fall back on some ancient text for validation.

The good and the evil of which you speak live exclusively within you, my friend.  Don't externalize it.  That's simply the first, and biggest lie that makes possible all of the other lies.

Mon, 08/18/2014 - 07:38 | 5107867 acetinker
acetinker's picture

Since I'm being junked w/no explanation, let me expand a bit.  After all, Jesus was crucified, no?  You can't hurt me with red arrows, I am merely an idea.  I will live, unmolested, forever.

To me, and this is just my observation, when we put our 'faith' into unseen, disconnected from humanity, 'powers' we automatically and necessarily absolve ourselves of responsibility.  Jesus never answered questions directly, but in parables.  Did he mean to deceive by this?  I say no, his purpose was to prod the questioner to think for himself, rather than seek the advice of 'experts'.

He knew who His Father was, and wished for all that they could grasp this simple wisdom.  Alas, most have chosen to follow the words of men in favor of the wisdom of the Universe.  It's so simple, yet so difficult for a poisoned mind to grasp.

Mon, 08/18/2014 - 18:56 | 5111300 juangrande
juangrande's picture

To me the character Jesus spoke in parables because what he was trying to convey was reality from a non dualistic  (non)point of view. The dualistic mind not only cannot grock that, but actually will fight tooth and nail anything that challenges it's false dichotomy, for that would be its very demise. (Anyone who has ever made an honest effort at meditiation will testify to the cunning ferocity of ego). From that statement, it is easy to see what happened to all religion.

Mon, 08/18/2014 - 21:19 | 5112113 acetinker
acetinker's picture

Thx for the reply.  I suppose people need to believe that the good/evil thingy exists outside themselves.  It makes all the stuff they think is evil easier to blame on 'those people'.

 

I think Mick Jagger shared a rather profound observation in his lyric in Sympathy For The Devil-

"...I shouted out,

Who killed the Kennedys?,

When after all,

It was you and me..."

 

Another example is Jim Dandy Mangrum in Lord Have Mercy-

"...Oh well,

I walked through,

The Halls of Karma.

I shook hands,

With both,

The Devil,

And God..."

 

They were both just kids then.  How did they know?  Were they born with it?  Did they attend special schools?  I dunno.

One thing seems clear, some apparently small number can grok it, and those that don't, never will.

To me, the Universe and all that's in it is one great big inter-connected organism.  From that perspective, things look quite different, don't they?

Don't think I didn't catch your reference to the character Jesus.  Whether He actually existed or not is immaterial, isn't it?

Whether physically manifest or simply another idea, He is, for now at least, immortal.

Mon, 08/18/2014 - 22:04 | 5112382 juangrande
juangrande's picture

I nearly put the same quote from the Glimmer Twins!

 

And exactly! Whatever the real story of Jesus is, it's easily gleaned that somebody was aware of some deep shit!

Tue, 08/19/2014 - 00:05 | 5112933 acetinker
acetinker's picture

I'll be honest, I don't know fuck all about no Glimmer Twins, but the important thing is that YOU are aware of some deep shit.  Nothing else really matters.

Sympathy for the devil is here-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBecM3CQVD8

Lord have mercy is here- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCgs8KMU-nI

If you decide to watch, please watch the last one first.

Tue, 08/19/2014 - 00:47 | 5112996 juangrande
juangrande's picture

Glimmer Twins = Keith and Mick. 

 

Many don't realize, but the vibration of "awareness" is contagious. So, to me, my reflective work is my vote for sanity. 

 

Black Oak Arkansas...  I grew up in the 60's and 70's in Louisiana. I've completely forgotten about them. Thanks for the reminder! I never saw them live or on TV, but now I know who David Lee Roth got his schtick from.

Wed, 08/20/2014 - 00:50 | 5117984 acetinker
acetinker's picture

Bot: An algorithm that can via computation recognize speech and/or text and respond in such a way that it seems human.

To be fair, I had forgotten that Mick and Keith tried to disguise themselves as the anonymous producers (of their own stuff) as the glimmer twins.

The recording business is no different than the Mafia, or the Imperial Federal Government.  It's basically an extortion racket.

I dunno so much about 'vibration', or even 'awareness', but I wonder what you think of the situation in Iraq, or Ukraine, or Ferguson?

BTW, you would have known long ago where David Lee Roth got his 'schtick' from, if you'd actually known Jim Dandy Mangrum. His middle name is officialy listed as L. Being from Michigan (he, not me) it's probably Lamar.

What is the square root of sixty-nine?  Eight something.

Fun fact; Both Mick and Keith were Knighted by 'The Crown'.  Mick accepted, Keith declined.

Edit: Sorry about all this in your space, Cog.  Either juangrande is asleep or hospitalized, or just a bot.

Tue, 08/19/2014 - 00:21 | 5112985 acetinker
acetinker's picture

Hey Cog, I may have been conned by a bot.  I feel like a dumbass.  Forgive me.

Tue, 08/19/2014 - 00:42 | 5113056 juangrande
juangrande's picture

I'm unclear what a bot is.... but I don't think I'm one.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTv9AhCuSU4

Sun, 08/17/2014 - 15:58 | 5105861 petruchio2100
petruchio2100's picture

Cognitive Dissonance, from one epistemologist to another, good work and be more succinct.

Sun, 08/17/2014 - 16:03 | 5105878 Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive Dissonance's picture

I don't know about you but I got my degree in a box of Cracker Jacks. :-)

 

Cracker Jacks

Sun, 08/17/2014 - 19:21 | 5106466 MontgomeryScott
MontgomeryScott's picture

That's one hell of a collection!

I remember the green/white whistle!

Got one of these in '71 (when less than a mile down, the four gas stations on the corners offered regular at $.269, complete with Blue Chip stamps, S&H Green stamps, coupons for dishes; or animals to be placed in a plastic 'Noah's Ark').

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UX3vEmkrMQ

Sun, 08/17/2014 - 15:55 | 5105853 El Vaquero
El Vaquero's picture

RE: The berries.  I would say that they're probably poisonous and wouldn't mess with them until something definitive saying otherwise came out.  You don't know, but if you know that somebody got sick right after eating them, that is enough warning to say that the risk is too high to be casual about them.

 

On science, if you really delve into the philosophy behind it, it ties right into your ideas about the difference between knowledge and information.  Science has two basic definitions, and I'll give them to you in my own words:

 

1) A methodology used to derive descriptions of natural phenomena and those descriptions must be based on natural causes.  (Supernatural causes of events are, by definition outside of the realm of science.)

 

2) The body of knowledge, or as you would put it Cog, information, that has been derived from the methodology.  

 

Science is not some search for "truth" as some believe it to be.  The knowledge derived from science must have predictive value in order for it to be verified, but just because it is verified does not mean that it is "truth."  Take Newtonian mechanics for example.  I can take F=MA and derive a series of equations that allow me to predict with great accuracy where an artillery shell will land.  Newton's laws work on the scale that the were first observed, and then some.  Then some guy with crazy hair came along and said, you know, we have Maxwell's equations that point to things not being as they seem.  Special relativity was born, eventually leading to general relativity.  Gravitational lensing has been observed and GPS satellites had to rely on general relativistic calculations to be properly calibrated.  General relativity works in that it gives us usable predictions.  But, at about the same time GR was being developed, people were noticing that there were some contradictions and that shit got weird when it was really small, and quantum mechanics was born.  Scanning tunneling electron microscopes work and components in computers are starting to get small enough that QM is a real issue.  It works too.  

 

Now, here's the real kicker: QM and GR contradict each other when you get down to super small scales.  Scales so small that we have no practical way of observing them.  One of them MUST be wrong, and there is no guarantee that the other is right when it comes to predictions on that scale.  (In fact, I'll bet that both would get superseded if some new genius came up with a workable grand unified theory.)  Yet, like Newtonian mechanics, they both work on the scales that they have been observed.  

 

Does that make them wrong?  Or just limited?  I'll go with limited, but that is a very subjective judgement.  Even with their limitations they are very powerful when it comes to allowing us to manipulate our environment.  They have allowed us the power to destroy ourselves completely.  The methodology, while never actually leading one towards some grand "truth," produces real tangible results.  It gives us the ability to predict how our environment is going to react given a set of actions that we take.  

Mon, 08/18/2014 - 11:49 | 5108990 Kayman
Kayman's picture

El V

Maxwell, on whose shoulders Einstein stood.

Cog

We are bound partly by our language, but English shamelessly will adopt any word to fill in a void.

Say hi to Mrs. Cog- she seems like a keeper.

Excellent article. K

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