(k) me, except quotes, which belong to their copyright holders (probably Audioslave and WB or DC).
-----
a bullet is a man
from time to time he strays
i compare my life to this;
to this i relate
What's the proof of a bullet?
Some people say it's the hole. Others say it's around 120%. Someone said it was ideas.
Me, I'm inclined to go with the last one. It's certainly the proof of me.
Billions of minds have preceded my own. Each of those people left a legacy; material, genetic... memetic. And they all have died or will die, just like I'm going to some day. Some folks believe that the mind stops at death. Some folks believe the spirit persists; that there's another life afterwards. In paradise or purgatory, in hell or on earth. Sometimes people worry about what's going to happen to them after they're dead... some because the infinite gulf of nothingness that comes, the unimaginability of which bears down on their living mind now. Others because they fear very sensual tortures at the hands and hooves of beasts or other damned souls. I ain't worried. I believe in reincarnation.
Some Buddhists call the cycle of reincarnation "samsara." To them, it's a Wheel to be escaped -- a messy thing of unending causality, of aversions and attractions and confusion. Of the pain of having or not having, pain that is to be purely transcended. I'm with them right up until the transcendence part... life is messy and painful. But I wouldn't want it any other way.
Of course, I don't really know or much care if I've got a "soul." If that's all that lasted after my death, what's the point? It's not like you get to take anything with you. The people who claim otherwise are, in my experience, a pile of hucksters and frauds and their dupes. The best "argument" I've heard suggests that there's some utopian kingdom we all (or some of us) get to go to, where we're with our families (the ones who make it) and a bunch of other dead people, and get fed spiritual Prozac by being thigh-high in the Almighty Presence. What's the point? If Heaven's so much like heroin, what's all the fuss of waiting for death about?
No. Besides, I know who I'm the reincarnation of. I'm the reincarnation of Abraham Lincoln and Socrates, Charles Babbage and Jesus, Ayn Rand and Marx. I may not be the whole package, but I've got pieces of each of them -- everyone I've respected or despised enough to study. Little pieces of their minds that got ground off in the Wheel and floated down the stream to me, mutated and recombined by strange ages. It's almost a sure bet that someone who lived before me felt a lot of what I've felt, believed a lot of what I've believed. Whoever that shithead was: I hope I make him or her proud.
And when I die, I may not leave behind much, but I've got faith that nothing that made me up is lost. I don't believe in a universe that wastes. Entropy, sure, but that ain't the same animal.
When the next shithead down the line puts this all together, I hope they think this next part, too: Do good. Do well. Do better. I'm dead, shithead. It's your turn now.
So kill me.
Die!
Die!
Why won't you die?... Why won't you die?
Beneath this mask there is more than flesh.
Beneath this mask there is an idea, Mr. Creedy.
And ideas are bullet-proof.
I give this a 1/9.
Because you're a randite swine. :lulz:
Always with pigs the past few days. There must be something going -----
That was creepy. I didn't even realize what I was about to say.
Anyway, Rand's not on the 'respected' list.
Quote from: Arafelis on June 12, 2009, 05:49:59 AM
Always with pigs the past few days. There must be something going -----
That was creepy. I didn't even realize what I was about to say.
Anyway, Rand's not on the 'respected' list.
Rand was a half wit and more than a bit of a hypocrite. She wrote like a 3rd rate romance novelist, and had the political ideology of a college-aged Nazi.
Great example. :lulz:
QuoteRand was a half wit and more than a bit of a hypocrite. She wrote like a 3rd rate romance novelist, and had the political ideology of a college-aged Nazi.
Third rate? I think you're selling her a bit too highly. Unless you share some of her fetishes.
She was also a major influence on the 20-year chairman of the Fed. She could've been Barney the fucking Dinosaur and I would've tried to understand her philosophy.
Quote from: Arafelis on June 12, 2009, 06:03:16 AM
QuoteRand was a half wit and more than a bit of a hypocrite. She wrote like a 3rd rate romance novelist, and had the political ideology of a college-aged Nazi.
Third rate? I think you're selling her a bit too highly. Unless you share some of her fetishes.
She was also a major influence on the 20-year chairman of the Fed. She could've been Barney the fucking Dinosaur and I would've tried to understand her philosophy.
Don't look at me, I'm not the one that claimed to be her reincarnation. :lulz:
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on June 12, 2009, 06:08:22 AM
Don't look at me, I'm not the one that claimed to be her reincarnation. :lulz:
It would be a shame if you were only the reincarnation of people that you
liked.
Quote from: Arafelis on June 12, 2009, 06:12:55 AM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on June 12, 2009, 06:08:22 AM
Don't look at me, I'm not the one that claimed to be her reincarnation. :lulz:
It would be a shame if you were only the reincarnation of people that you liked.
I wouldn't exist.
However, there is no Ayn Rand in me. A little Phyllis Diller, maybe.
So, how's Objectivism working out for you, Ayn?
Pretty shittily, I gotta say. Recently the most famous one admitted that he might have accidentally misunderstood humanity and could be potentially responsible for the downfall of Western society.
However, the Jesus part keeps saying, "toldja so!".
Dickweed.
Quote from: Arafelis on June 12, 2009, 06:19:36 AM
Pretty shittily, I gotta say. Recently the most famous one admitted that he might have accidentally misunderstood humanity and could be potentially responsible for the downfall of Western society.
However, the Jesus part keeps saying, "toldja so!".
Dickweed.
Naw, you're supposed to be all about why it's okay for John Galt to rape women, as long as he is that woman's ideal man.
Fuck Galt. And men! She's bouncing around in my head with Salome.
Now there's a ship.
Quote from: Arafelis on June 12, 2009, 06:26:42 AM
Fuck Galt. And men! She's bouncing around in my head with Salome.
Now there's a ship.
Doin' it wrong.
Huh. So are you actually saying that you're the literal reincarnation of those people, or that by studying them, they kind of live again through how you use their ideas?
Closer to the second one.
Okay. Now this makes a lot more sense. Sorry about Marx more than the Rand. Both were idiots, but Marx led to Rand.
Marx wasn't so bad, he just didn't understand human beings. His philosophy would have worked great with robots.
Plus his philosophy has been successfully altered in certain areas and then reapplied (see: Frankfurt School for more). Like most generally decent philosophers (Locke, Hume, Mill, Nietzsche etc), he had failings, and other people came along and corrected those failings and did something interesting with the ideas that were presented.
Rand only ever produced cultists and more cultists. Hell, I rate Robert Nozick, Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman above her, as libertarian inclined thinkers.
I like the link between memetics and reincarnation. Both are systems of passing something forward through time like a relay race. But the soul lasts a lifetime, and information is instant. I'm intrigued by this notion that we're being reincarnated every day, through the actions of those around us.
We all here these voices of mentors past. When I get really angry, I hear myself channeling my dad's voice and it humbles and quiets me. Or when I start bullshitting about something, I can hear my college advisor, shaking his head and calling me out on it, as he loved to do when I got off on a tangent. :p
The link between memetics and karma is an interesting one because it implies the notion of ascendence. As you move through the wheel of Karma, you're supposed to be trying to get into better and better forms, eventually transcending this material world, right? And as we move through the memosphere, we are constantly building on our old ideas. New logos are born every day. But is it progress? But is it art?
If I understand it, and I'm not sure I do, the buddhist hopes to transcend the wheel of karma one day. I don't think our ideas are moving towards the same kind of nirvana.
file this piece under "Shrapnel", I think. (one of our vague, seldom coalesced, themes)
Quote from: Cramulus on June 12, 2009, 01:59:09 PM
The link between memetics and karma is an interesting one because it implies the notion of ascendence. As you move through the wheel of Karma, you're supposed to be trying to get into better and better forms, eventually transcending this material world, right? And as we move through the memosphere, we are constantly building on our old ideas. New logos are born every day. But is it progress? But is it art?
If I understand it, and I'm not sure I do, the buddhist hopes to transcend the wheel of karma one day. I don't think our ideas are moving towards the same kind of nirvana.
One of my friends has a quote which he often repeats to the effect of, "Annihilation and transcendence both look the same from the outside."
When I was a bit younger, I absolutely
loathed Buddhist thought. I felt like it was the most horrific thing in the world to aspire to... well, annihilation. I had a mental image (which if I had any skill I would have tried to capture) of a lobotomized Buddha, smiling happily because everything meaningful about life had been excised from his brain.
Gradually, the concept was introduced to me that this needn't be how it is seen -- that is, that in each stage of "being" or "development" or whatever, the next one is practically incomprehensible and the one following that absolutely so. I'm still not much of a fan of Buddhism (as my piece illustrates), but I can acknowledge the idea that what's being sought might simply be so far removed from our current sphere of reference that it's impossible to call by any other name than 'transcendent.'
And I absolutely do think that the memetic structures, the ideas, of humanity slouch gradually in that direction. I see the major "progressing" factor of history as technology... almost invariably, what completely revolutionizes our society is a technological development. Agriculture, masonry, the blast furnace, powered engines, mass production; and also the social technologies. Wealth-signifiers (coinage), psychology, etc. We are slowly but seemingly inevitably progressing towards a point where we will be able to literally control our own evolution, and may even get to the point where we have to decide if we "are" our meat bodies and brains or our collection of experiences and outlooks.
It's terrifying. It's quite probable that humanity as we know it will no longer exist after that point. Nirvana or nihil?
Quote from: Arafelis on June 12, 2009, 07:13:47 AM
Closer to the second one.
"closer"? Answer the fucking question.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on June 13, 2009, 05:47:46 PM
"closer"? Answer the fucking question.
One of the themes I wanted to present was the idea that it's very likely there has been and will be other people whose lives follow patterns extremely similar to my own (and that this is true for anyone). To me, that's 'literal' enough. But that wasn't one of the two choices presented, and I suspect by 'literal' Dr. James Semaj meant something more like 'in the psychospiritual sense of Hinduism or Buddhism.'
Quote from: Arafelis on June 13, 2009, 02:26:44 AM"Annihilation and transcendence both look the same from the outside."
When I was a bit younger, I absolutely loathed Buddhist thought. I felt like it was the most horrific thing in the world to aspire to... well, annihilation. I had a mental image (which if I had any skill I would have tried to capture) of a lobotomized Buddha, smiling happily because everything meaningful about life had been excised from his brain.
You got that from Daniel Goleman's book on meditation? Cause if there's one book that describing meditation and the road to and state of enlightenment, that completely put me off doing meditation exercises, it was that one. Kind of for a similar reason as you describe. He described destruction of the ego and such in not very nice words, killing your gods and indeed annihilating the mind ... didnt seem like an idea one would strive for.
QuoteBut that wasn't one of the two choices presented, and I suspect by 'literal' Dr. James Semaj meant something more like 'in the psychospiritual sense of Hinduism or Buddhism.'
Ya, that was what I meant.
Quote from: Triple Zero on June 13, 2009, 07:00:28 PM
Quote from: Arafelis on June 13, 2009, 02:26:44 AM"Annihilation and transcendence both look the same from the outside."
When I was a bit younger, I absolutely loathed Buddhist thought. I felt like it was the most horrific thing in the world to aspire to... well, annihilation. I had a mental image (which if I had any skill I would have tried to capture) of a lobotomized Buddha, smiling happily because everything meaningful about life had been excised from his brain.
You got that from Daniel Goleman's book on meditation? Cause if there's one book that describing meditation and the road to and state of enlightenment, that completely put me off doing meditation exercises, it was that one. Kind of for a similar reason as you describe. He described destruction of the ego and such in not very nice words, killing your gods and indeed annihilating the mind ... didnt seem like an idea one would strive for.
On the other hand, if you go to the opposite polar extream like the church of satan you end up nukeing your mind even more.
Quote from: Triple Zero on June 13, 2009, 07:00:28 PM
You got that from Daniel Goleman's book on meditation? Cause if there's one book that describing meditation and the road to and state of enlightenment, that completely put me off doing meditation exercises, it was that one. Kind of for a similar reason as you describe. He described destruction of the ego and such in not very nice words, killing your gods and indeed annihilating the mind ... didnt seem like an idea one would strive for.
I haven't read that... my education in Buddhism extended over most of my college career, in one way or another, and I have enough Buddhist friends that it continues on now.
I've found the approach to nirvanna varies pretty widely by tradition and by Buddhist. So I've been kind of unwillingly dragged into a more nuanced view.
Quote from: Arafelis on June 13, 2009, 07:24:02 PM
Quote from: Triple Zero on June 13, 2009, 07:00:28 PM
You got that from Daniel Goleman's book on meditation? Cause if there's one book that describing meditation and the road to and state of enlightenment, that completely put me off doing meditation exercises, it was that one. Kind of for a similar reason as you describe. He described destruction of the ego and such in not very nice words, killing your gods and indeed annihilating the mind ... didnt seem like an idea one would strive for.
I haven't read that... my education in Buddhism extended over most of my college career, in one way or another, and I have enough Buddhist friends that it continues on now.
I've found the approach to nirvanna varies pretty widely by tradition and by Buddhist. So I've been kind of unwillingly dragged into a more nuanced view.
I figured as much. Look, kid, those Buddhists are no good. Sure, the
first shot of sartori is free, but before you know it, you're hooked and you're on your knees in some filthy bathroom, "launching" enough head to earn your next fix. It's a tragic story that happens all too often. Get out while you can, before you discover the hideous truth about those saffron robes.
Quote from: Aufenthatt on June 13, 2009, 07:14:47 PM
Quote from: Triple Zero on June 13, 2009, 07:00:28 PM
Quote from: Arafelis on June 13, 2009, 02:26:44 AM"Annihilation and transcendence both look the same from the outside."
When I was a bit younger, I absolutely loathed Buddhist thought. I felt like it was the most horrific thing in the world to aspire to... well, annihilation. I had a mental image (which if I had any skill I would have tried to capture) of a lobotomized Buddha, smiling happily because everything meaningful about life had been excised from his brain.
You got that from Daniel Goleman's book on meditation? Cause if there's one book that describing meditation and the road to and state of enlightenment, that completely put me off doing meditation exercises, it was that one. Kind of for a similar reason as you describe. He described destruction of the ego and such in not very nice words, killing your gods and indeed annihilating the mind ... didnt seem like an idea one would strive for.
On the other hand, if you go to the opposite polar extream like the church of satan you end up nukeing your mind even more.
Goddamn. That means we're left with Aristotle.
:argh!:
Quote from: Cain on June 13, 2009, 11:58:06 PM
Quote from: Aufenthatt on June 13, 2009, 07:14:47 PM
Quote from: Triple Zero on June 13, 2009, 07:00:28 PM
Quote from: Arafelis on June 13, 2009, 02:26:44 AM"Annihilation and transcendence both look the same from the outside."
When I was a bit younger, I absolutely loathed Buddhist thought. I felt like it was the most horrific thing in the world to aspire to... well, annihilation. I had a mental image (which if I had any skill I would have tried to capture) of a lobotomized Buddha, smiling happily because everything meaningful about life had been excised from his brain.
You got that from Daniel Goleman's book on meditation? Cause if there's one book that describing meditation and the road to and state of enlightenment, that completely put me off doing meditation exercises, it was that one. Kind of for a similar reason as you describe. He described destruction of the ego and such in not very nice words, killing your gods and indeed annihilating the mind ... didnt seem like an idea one would strive for.
On the other hand, if you go to the opposite polar extream like the church of satan you end up nukeing your mind even more.
Goddamn. That means we're left with Aristotle.
:argh!:
:lulz:
Quote from: Arafelis on June 13, 2009, 07:24:02 PM
Quote from: Triple Zero on June 13, 2009, 07:00:28 PM
You got that from Daniel Goleman's book on meditation? Cause if there's one book that describing meditation and the road to and state of enlightenment, that completely put me off doing meditation exercises, it was that one. Kind of for a similar reason as you describe. He described destruction of the ego and such in not very nice words, killing your gods and indeed annihilating the mind ... didnt seem like an idea one would strive for.
I haven't read that... my education in Buddhism extended over most of my college career, in one way or another, and I have enough Buddhist friends that it continues on now.
I've found the approach to nirvanna varies pretty widely by tradition and by Buddhist. So I've been kind of unwillingly dragged into a more nuanced view.
Buddhism?
God some people are just never fucking sastified
Quote from: Thurnez Isa on June 23, 2009, 07:05:49 AM
God some people are just never fucking sastified
I call a lot of them "Discordians."
Fuck that
Middle road up my ass...
pick a road and go with it
Buddha was fucking pansy, tell them to get a real God
Hell even Jesus told his followers to give away their possessions just to have the privilege of following him (even the fucking fundies wont to that anymore)
Then he practiced some symbolic cannibalism,
then got tortured and crucified
Now THAT is "Bad Ass"
When choosing Gods make sure you pick
1) what seems the most powerful God there
or 2) the most craziest
When the shit hits the fan you don't want to be stuck behind one of the loser Gods... like Buddha... what's he going to do for you?
Quote from: Thurnez Isa on June 23, 2009, 07:25:23 AM
like Buddha... what's he going to do for you?
Well, he seems to be pretty good with dogs (http://www.sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=3194).
Quote from: Arafelis on June 23, 2009, 07:28:42 AM
Quote from: Thurnez Isa on June 23, 2009, 07:25:23 AM
like Buddha... what's he going to do for you?
Well, he seems to be pretty good with dogs (http://www.sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=3194).
:|
Eris goes nuts cause she doesn't get invited to a party
Mohammad beheads infidels who draw his ugly mug
Jesus appears at the end of the book dripping in blood and throwing swords out of his mouth
and
Buddha... makes dogs happy
:|
Quote from: Arafelis on June 23, 2009, 07:11:08 AM
Quote from: Thurnez Isa on June 23, 2009, 07:05:49 AM
God some people are just never fucking sastified
I call a lot of them "Discordians."
QuoteDesire brings discontent; happiness springs from a peaceful mind.
-Buddhism
& this ^ is the main reason why I prefer Discordia to Buddhism. Desire is all there is. Without desire, there's no breath.
Desire is the spark! :musak:
& I'm too damn jumpy to *sit*. I prefer the meditation provided by the practice of movement. Happiness schmappiness – Joy leaps from a heart & mind filled with passion!
Then there's the whole thing about how
living your fucking life is somehow a "distraction", and you need to "withdraw from the world" because "existence is suffering."
Quote from: the Chao Te Ching, Chapter 5Life is unfair, wear a helmet.
The wise spag wears a helmet, but also drops hammers.
Anything could be a punchline.
Even the wise spag gets punched.
Chaos never ends!
Even its vacuum has a presence.
To struggle against it,
Is like pissing in the wind.
My favorite take on Karma.
Quote... returning from school one afternoon, Luna was beaten and robbed by a gang of black kids. She was weeping and badly frightened when she arrived home, and her Father was shaken by the unfairness of it happening to her, such a gentle, ethereal child. In the midst of consoling her, the Father wandered emotionally and began denouncing the idea of Karma. Luna was beaten, he said, not for her sins, but for the sins of several centuries of slavers and racists, most of whom had never themselves suffered for those sins. "Karma is a blind machine," he said. "The effects of evil go on and on but they don't necessarily come back on those who start the evil." Then Father got back on the track and said some more relevant and consoling things.
The next day Luna was her usual sunny and cheerful self, just like the Light in her paintings. "I'm glad you're feeling better," the Father said finally.
"I stopped the wheel of Karma," she said. "All the bad energy is with the kids who beat me up. I'm not holding any of it."
And she wasn't. The bad energy had entirely passed by, and there was no anger or fear in her. I never saw her show any hostility to blacks after the beating, any more than before.
The Father fell in love with her all over again. And he understood what the metaphor of the wheel of Karma really symbolizes and what it means to stop the wheel.
Karma, in the original Buddhist scriptures, is a blind machine; in fact, it is functionally identical with the scientific concept of natural law. Sentimental ethical ideas about justice being built into the machine, so that those who do evil in one life are punished for it in another life, were added later by theologians reasoning from their own moralistic prejudices. Buddha simply indicated that all the cruelties and injustices of the past are still active: their effects are always being felt. Similarly, he explained, all the good of the past, all the kindness and patience and love of decent people is also still being felt.
Since most humans are still controlled by fairly robotic reflexes, the bad energy of the past far outweighs the good, and the tendency of the wheel is to keep moving in the same terrible direction, violence breeding more violence, hatred breeding more hatred, war breeding more war. The only way to "stop the wheel" is to stop it inside yourself, by giving up bad energy and concentrating on the positive. This is by no means easy, but once you understand what Gurdjieff called "the horror of our situation," you have no choice but to try, and to keep on trying.
http://www.deepleafproductions.com/wilsonlibrary/texts/raw-karma.html
Quote from: Ratatosk on June 23, 2009, 06:02:15 PM
My favorite take on Karma.
Quote... returning from school one afternoon, Luna was beaten and robbed by a gang of black kids. She was weeping and badly frightened when she arrived home, and her Father was shaken by the unfairness of it happening to her, such a gentle, ethereal child. In the midst of consoling her, the Father wandered emotionally and began denouncing the idea of Karma. Luna was beaten, he said, not for her sins, but for the sins of several centuries of slavers and racists, most of whom had never themselves suffered for those sins. "Karma is a blind machine," he said. "The effects of evil go on and on but they don't necessarily come back on those who start the evil." Then Father got back on the track and said some more relevant and consoling things.
The next day Luna was her usual sunny and cheerful self, just like the Light in her paintings. "I'm glad you're feeling better," the Father said finally.
"I stopped the wheel of Karma," she said. "All the bad energy is with the kids who beat me up. I'm not holding any of it."
And she wasn't. The bad energy had entirely passed by, and there was no anger or fear in her. I never saw her show any hostility to blacks after the beating, any more than before.
The Father fell in love with her all over again. And he understood what the metaphor of the wheel of Karma really symbolizes and what it means to stop the wheel.
Karma, in the original Buddhist scriptures, is a blind machine; in fact, it is functionally identical with the scientific concept of natural law. Sentimental ethical ideas about justice being built into the machine, so that those who do evil in one life are punished for it in another life, were added later by theologians reasoning from their own moralistic prejudices. Buddha simply indicated that all the cruelties and injustices of the past are still active: their effects are always being felt. Similarly, he explained, all the good of the past, all the kindness and patience and love of decent people is also still being felt.
Since most humans are still controlled by fairly robotic reflexes, the bad energy of the past far outweighs the good, and the tendency of the wheel is to keep moving in the same terrible direction, violence breeding more violence, hatred breeding more hatred, war breeding more war. The only way to "stop the wheel" is to stop it inside yourself, by giving up bad energy and concentrating on the positive. This is by no means easy, but once you understand what Gurdjieff called "the horror of our situation," you have no choice but to try, and to keep on trying.
http://www.deepleafproductions.com/wilsonlibrary/texts/raw-karma.html
Sounds like Karma is the first four circuits out of control.
Sounds like The Machine™.
Quote from: Kai on June 23, 2009, 06:06:25 PM
Sounds like Karma is the first four circuits out of control.
Indeed.
It kinda seems like a form of memetics the way Bob described it here as well. Good or Bad spreading from person to person until someone decides to not pass the infection on.
Quote from: LMNO on June 23, 2009, 06:09:00 PM
Sounds like The Machine™.
A thousand ways to talk about similar ideas, eh ;-)
Quote from: Kai on June 23, 2009, 06:06:25 PM
Sounds like Karma is the first four circuits out of control.
Maybe just operating in a closed system without input. Or, "doing exactly what they're built to do." One "wise man" I read a few paragraphs of said that wise men had to manufacture their own karma to survive (remain in contact with the lower circuits). I'd classify that as providing new input.
Also, RAW suggested in Illuminatus! a forcible process with end result of schizophrenia or illumination. (Read: the survival instinct is shut down, what replaces it, if anything?) It's just a plot point, I guess, but a viable illustration nonetheless.
Also, it's why you can't escape the machine alive.
Circuit or Labyrinth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labyrinth)
BIP or Cell (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0209958/)
Quote from: yhnmzw on June 25, 2009, 02:55:37 AM
Maybe just operating in a closed system without input. Or, "doing exactly what they're built to do." One "wise man" I read a few paragraphs of said that wise men had to manufacture their own karma to survive (remain in contact with the lower circuits). I'd classify that as providing new input.
Hmm. I haven't heard that before. It sounds interesting; do you have a source?
QuoteAlso, RAW suggested in Illuminatus! a forcible process with end result of schizophrenia or illumination. (Read: the survival instinct is shut down, what replaces it, if anything?) It's just a plot point, I guess, but a viable illustration nonetheless.
Perhaps because it's so hard to describe when you're out of it (and when you're in it, it's hard to describe anything), madness is the most popular metaphor for being in that crucible, and for 'failing' to pass through it as well. Bradbury put more than a little of that in his work, and there's definitely some sympathy there.
Quote from: Thurnez Isa on June 23, 2009, 07:32:05 AM
Eris goes nuts cause she doesn't get invited to a party
Mohammad beheads infidels who draw his ugly mug
Jesus appears at the end of the book dripping in blood and throwing swords out of his mouth
and
Buddha... makes dogs happy
:|
On the whole, I sympathize most with Eris. In fact, I would have done worse.
I like the Egyptian? Arabic? expression, "Not all fingers are the same." When you say it, it's also nice to wiggle or wave your fingers. :wave:
QuoteIf the mind is happy, not only the body but the whole world will be happy. So one must find out how to become happy oneself. Wanting to reform the world without discovering one's true self is like trying to cover the whole world with leather to avoid the pain of walking on stones & thorns. It is much simpler to wear shoes.
-Ramana Maharshi
Make mine spiked!
Pan is not dead. Neither is Eris.
Quote from: yhnmzw on June 25, 2009, 02:55:37 AM
Quote from: Kai on June 23, 2009, 06:06:25 PM
Sounds like Karma is the first four circuits out of control.
Maybe just operating in a closed system without input. Or, "doing exactly what they're built to do." One "wise man" I read a few paragraphs of said that wise men had to manufacture their own karma to survive (remain in contact with the lower circuits). I'd classify that as providing new input.
Also, RAW suggested in Illuminatus! a forcible process with end result of schizophrenia or illumination. (Read: the survival instinct is shut down, what replaces it, if anything?) It's just a plot point, I guess, but a viable illustration nonetheless.
Also, it's why you can't escape the machine alive.
Antero Alli (Cf. Angel Tech) suggests that when one of the first four circuits is overloaded (or shut down), it leads to insanity, rather than wisdom. The first four are needed to ground the individual. Only when that occurs can you take on the upper circuits.
I kind of agree, but at a different angle: When weird shit happens, you need to be able to understand what your circuits are doing; otherwise, they just run their default programs.
However, I also thing that attempting to deliberately overload one of your circuits is a great way of "re-imprinting" (Leary), or "Reverse engineering the robot" (me) -- That is, when you analyze how your body and mind freaked out, you can understand how that circuit or program works, and then you can begin to get control of it.
Quote from: LMNO on June 25, 2009, 02:58:49 PM
I kind of agree, but at a different angle: When weird shit happens, you need to be able to understand what your circuits are doing; otherwise, they just run their default programs.
However, I also thing that attempting to deliberately overload one of your circuits is a great way of "re-imprinting" (Leary), or "Reverse engineering the robot" (me) -- That is, when you analyze how your body and mind freaked out, you can understand how that circuit or program works, and then you can begin to get control of it.
Well yeah, shock puts you in an experience of the self that is a defeat for the ego, getting into a state where you can reprogram. However, it works best if you reprogram your lower circuits before you work on the programming of your higher circuits.
True dat. But keep in mind that I'm dubious of anything above the 5th circuit.
Quote from: LMNO on June 25, 2009, 03:25:42 PM
True dat. But keep in mind that I'm dubious of anything above the 5th circuit.
Rapture is as far as you go, eh?
As far as I've experienced/gained glimpses. Ok, maybe 6th circuit, as it seems to deal with reprogramming.*
Genetic memory, ESP, quantum consciousness? Eh, the jury's still out.
Quote from: LMNO on June 25, 2009, 03:32:52 PM
As far as I've experienced/gained glimpses. Ok, maybe 6th circuit, as it seems to deal with reprogramming.*
Genetic memory, ESP, quantum consciousness? Eh, the jury's still out.
I think those latter things are just different names for other things. I'm not sure what those other things are yet, or how they work, but I'll let you know when I get there.
Whoops. Forgot to add my footnote.
* If the 6th circuit is metaprogramming, then how the hell do you re-program the lower circuits so you can get tho the 6th circuit in the first place?
Quote from: LMNO on June 25, 2009, 03:54:13 PM
* If the 6th circuit is metaprogramming, then how the hell do you re-program the lower circuits so you can get tho the 6th circuit in the first place?
I thought the 6th circuit was an extention of the emotional circuit, a realization of the relativity of life, or the equality of value?
I guess I fudged a bit above. Alli talks about not the reprogramming of your robot at the lower circuit work, but rather the awareness of it and of cementing yourself in some sort of map (at least for a time). The idea is, you have to have some sort of reality to start with, you can only change whats already there. If you're stuck in existentialism without a clear reality from which to work, you can't really change anything cause you don't have anything to change.
Or maybe its supposed to be contradictory.
No, it makes sense. If all your circuts are freaking out, it's like a blank piece of paper and no pencil. Everything is possible, so nothing can be done. Immobilized by infinite perception. Since humans are pattern makers, they cannot function without a pattern.
Quote from: LMNO on June 25, 2009, 04:03:45 PM
No, it makes sense. If all your circuts are freaking out, it's like a blank piece of paper and no pencil. Everything is possible, so nothing can be done. Immobilized by infinite perception. Since humans are pattern makers, they cannot function without a pattern.
Yeah, you gotta have a pattern to start with :) Then you can change it.
And I thought psychoanalysis was a bullshit magnet.
Quote from: Cain on June 25, 2009, 04:14:51 PM
And I thought psychoanalysis was a bullshit magnet.
Oh, you.
Quote from: Cain on June 25, 2009, 04:14:51 PM
And I thought psychoanalysis was a bullshit magnet.
I'm really not sure where you're going with this.
Eh, to be honest, my "blanks sheet/infinite perception" riff did kind of sound like bullshit.
Quote from: LMNO on June 25, 2009, 04:28:09 PM
Eh, to be honest, my "blanks sheet/infinite perception" riff did kind of sound like bullshit.
Maybe if you replace "blank sheet" with "unorganized jumble of symbols, thoughts and beliefs" and "infinite perception" with "unclear maps into uncharted territory", it would be less like bullshit?
Quote from: Arafelis on June 25, 2009, 04:50:31 AM
Quote from: yhnmzw on June 25, 2009, 02:55:37 AM
Maybe just operating in a closed system without input. Or, "doing exactly what they're built to do." One "wise man" I read a few paragraphs of said that wise men had to manufacture their own karma to survive (remain in contact with the lower circuits). I'd classify that as providing new input.
Hmm. I haven't heard that before. It sounds interesting; do you have a source?
This book:
http://www.amazon.com/Mystic-Eye-Sadhguru-Jaggi-Vasudev/dp/8179928837/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1246392239&sr=1-6
This guy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaggi_Vasudev
The author reiterated a story that a certain guru seemed self-indulgent because he always ate an (extra?) afternoon meal. He said that that was the way he stayed around--his friends should expect him to die soon after the day that he did not ask for the meal. And then it happened that way.