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Tuesday, February 2, 2016

Some Wider Issues in a Larger Discussion which Are Usually Assiduously Avoided

Here is a video of an interview of Dr. Charles Hartshorne, Prof. Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin. He died at his post at the age of 103, retiring from all duties just four years prior. We say "just" four years only when we cannot imagine how much life can be packed into such a large number of days, especially with the coherent body of work done stretching over that long duration of time to which someone like Dr. Hartshorne can take credit for creating. And with great merit.

In this video is an excellent discussion on the metaphysics of logical analysis, and some of the reverse. Why logic is what it is as a way of knowing what is, as such. It is not merely a concatenation of terms going through formulations of categorical thought about entities and properties and basically all the topics of ontology, mereology, metaphysics, logic and so on. It is more than words can ever say, more than symbols can directly symbolize. He knows this because Pierce made it clear in his very EFFORT to reach the semiotic LIMITS of ANY language, ANY event in existence or which is devised into existence by the mind of man. The result is that the semantic force, the causes of meaning, are not reducible to things or thoughts about things, however such things and thoughts about things must be so that such a semantic force can be expressed in this world, by a human mind. His discussion of concrete existents being in no positive way contrary to psychicalism. His very position is very akin to the thoughts of Berkeley on the nature of minds as distinct and non-reducible to matter. Yet he doesn't seem to understand that "feelings" or "subjective states" follow a course of processes which have to have an order, a nature, a form, and these must have an origin IN PRINCIPLE AND SUBSTANCE. All decisions, however independent in themselves in a given entity, cannot be said to be "unlike" the decisions of their Origin, however "volitional". So how can an evil decision be made? Only if it has something UNDIVINE about it. That is not a GENUINE FREEDOM BY DEFINITION. IT IS AN ERROR, A DEFORMITY, A SIN. That is what has led to our problems, this confluence of determinism and volition, which cannot have no cause, and yet cannot have Divine Cause. Therefore, it must have an EVIL cause, and that must be a mind, but it must be a mind with a DEFECT, not a mind whole and complete in its own nature. The only question is whether it can and should be corrected. Well, if that defect is not the result of Divine Negligence (?), and isn't Divinely Planned, then it is not a divine responsibility PER SE! Yet something is to be done about that. Otherwise. Otherwise, we have to say that "God" is just the asshole that lets evil exist, or even plans it to exist, and so far takes no responsibility for it, AND expects man to do nothing about it, yet blames him for it. Sometimes this weirdo version of "God" even wipes the debt clean (what debt? to whom? for what?), and does this be torturing himself as a strange, schizophrenic being, still putting a guilt trip on ant-like mushrooms who are called "who-man?" , who allow themselves by all forces to be kept in the dark and fed bullshit, and like it. That's a nightmare theology. UNLESS, it is the Truth, and "reality" is a nightmarish illusion. And so is its "God"... In which case, whatever REALLY IS DIVINE, is NOT OF THIS WORLD. How could this not be the most fundamental theological issue? How? I have said nothing new. This is some more of that "unsettled because undiscussed" information. The one-sided perversions after and beyond the massacres of those who didn't agree when threatened by force and torture and other punishments, DO NOT COUNT. That means the world of religion has been, aside from the Gnostic-content-based discussions, an EMPTY ROOM, filled only by cardboard cut-out CHARLATANS straight out of THIS Painting:


And look at both wings and center of this painting, which is the Triptych. But leaving this issue, which is paramount, to the side temporarily, the discussion about comparative religious issues in trying to understand the metaphysical structure which underpins religious beliefs, the specific issue of how Jainist conceptions, and in this case also Jewish conceptions of God (or God's inexistence, or irrelevance), and here one might include Deists and even some forms of what I call the General Gnosis (with different specific forms, such as Zoroastriansm, Buddhism, Confucianism, Daoism, Christianity, and really all religions with a similar structure of doctrine about Good and evil, the mind and the body, the Self and the world, these and other religions at least in their presumed original, uncorrupted forms). Both Jainists and Jews have a different "conception of God", and also have very different conceptions of the importance of the afterlife, and other matters of great importance such what to do with other life, other people, one's own body, what to eat, what to say or not say, what things to allow the mind to focus upon, what to never allow it to focus on, what to ensure it must always focus upon. All these things so different, but probably in most people's minds the EXACT OPPOSITE of what people would expect to result from their respective "beliefs about God". Frankly, the Jews display a very unJainlike behavior, but insist upon their "God", their boogey-man-in-the-sky, while the Jains insist on their principled ways of life, and don't speak of "God" as such. Nevertheless, the Jews DON'T consider an afterlife (except mockingly), but the Jains main focus is that afterlife as an extension of what is done in this life! It is a permutation of the logic of reincarnation theory, and very ethically focused. So some very ethicocentric people, regardless of their moral nature and actual conduct, have no interest in an afterlife, and believe in God, whereas another speak nothing of God, and firmly think that the afterlife is somehow the whole point of this temporary exercise of life, and they are also very ethicocentric, and with very different and much better and more respectable results. It's not as simple as saying that "belief in God" is good or holy or even right, and it is not as simple as saying having rigid and complicated ethical code means being really ethical, and it is not as simple as saying that a concern for the afterlife requires a belief in "God" (as most would mean it), and there is nothing incompatible of any of these with one another in any permutation, as they all can fit into the framework of a single man's body/mind/soul/spirit complex under many configurations. And that just brings us back to the paramount issue, which is the solving of problems which are so fundamental that they have appeared in "Reality as such", and that is whether or not you personify that Authority. Reality as such is "Authority" understood metaphysically, and not a relativized construct of organic robots milling about in open air urban prison environments, a.k.a. "who-mans?" It is about an ABSOLUTE TRUTH which when understood MORALLY leads a person to understand REALITY AS SUCH, and to chose to be IN ACCORD WITH THAT OR NOT. Now, why would that be so hard to understand for some? It is because they don't have that substantial accord WITHIN THEM EVEN AS A REAL POTENTIAL UNTAPPED. They are, as Jesus rightly said, "Children of the Liar". They are "philosophical zombies" of a spiritual sort. This has not been addressed adequately at all by the mainstream thought on religion for obvious reasons. They seem uncomfortable broaching a subject like this because it mirrors the reality about them in an unfavorable way both practically and ultimately. Suppressing this Truth about the world has been the whole objective of those who have gotten their demonic paws all over it. Psychotronics is currently involved. This is more as concrete of an event, this conflict between types of beings, categorized as different SUI GENERIS due to their different moral essences (Good and evil), as Hartshorne could ever have hoped to encounter.

And out of respect for Hartshorne, I have to say I am enamored with this way of expressing the absolute and relative perfections, their manner of expression in possible world terms, and the logic of his "de facto" Best. Brilliantly put. I have always held the same view of the (ironic) immortality of the past (and of the future, and hence the present), and also of the consequentialist aspects of Divine Experience (what I refer to as "Divine Luxury"). Dr. Hartshorne discusses these matters with the overarching idea that things can be made more precise, and dogma needn't necessarily obstruct this process just as long as this process leads to the Truth, but it isn't necessarily the other way around. Truth is not predicated upon the failure to overturn dogmas, no matter how well-cherished by whom. It is the ultimate fraud of this world to have corrupted all these notions into physicalist, monarchist terms and forms. As I said Bosch could paint it better than anybody could say it.

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