Messages

I was thinking about this a lot, and it started really making sense to me, but i don't know how clear I can be about it, so if you have questions or don't feel like it rings true, i'll argue for it or expand on it or whatever.  maybe some people already have this view on things, but i didn't 'til recently


Free will exists, but the choices a person will make are casually determined.  When thinking about choices, it is important to remember that people do not choose their choices.  For example, if a man is asked a question on the street, he suddenly is given the choice to answer the question or ignore it.  He did not ask for that choice, it presented itself to him through a casual chain of events.  Similarly, a man does not choose freely, but is determined by every thing that has transpired before the moment of choice. 

You can not have a moment of life experienced without making a choice.  Conscious life without choice does not exist.  Even if someone decided to kill themselves, in an attempt to stop making choices, they would still be choosing to not make choices in the future.   And after they were dead, their lack of choosing would be a result of not existing, so it is correct they wouldn't be choosing, but they also wouldn't be not choosing, because there would be no choice presented to them to not choose.

The first paragraph seems disjointed.  "There is no internal essence of things outside of what we give them, but because we give them meaning, they have meaning" seems to conflate a few separate ideas with a flash of solipsism.

The second paragraph creates an "either/or" system, and then chooses door C.  "When we choose to believe in god, we then create an image of him in our likeness" doesn't explain all the non-human gods mankind has belived in.

Objects don't have any meaning beyond what we give them.  A knife, for example, could be used to cut things if I gave it that purpose.  But i could also look into it in order to see my reflection, and suddenly it's purpose has changed.  If I view life as an object also, then just because the meaning isn't intrinsic, it doesn't mean it's not functioning if I allow it to.  So that's what I was saying with the first paragraph, if it's similar to other philosophies, it wasn't entirely intentional.

In the second paragraph, I'm saying that if we choose to believe in god, we then develop an idea about it.  We never know god, only our ideas about god.  and those ideas develop according to what we're taught, or even what we reject. 

When one constructs a philosophy, he or she is making up a theory of how the universe works, and logical conclusions are mental tools that enable theories to work.  If we didn't have mental theories we wouldn't be able to cope in an objective universe. As subjective-feeling creatures we are forced to theorize about "how we fit into the big picture" in order to operate objectively.  There is no internal essence of things outside of what we give them, but because we give them meaning, they have meaning.  This does not depreciate the value of these objects.   They are important because we have the power to make them important, and it just happens that one of the theories we like to believe in is that objects must be valuable in-them-of-themselves in order for them to be authentically valuable.  The only reason this value-system seems necessary to us is because it was logically concluded to after theorizing about how we fit into the world.  It is like living in a world where everyone sees the color green differently.  We then all agree to label it as the word green.  So we can agree on it but that doesn't make us see the same thing.  If we say that it looks the same for everyone, we're obviously speculating.  But let's say the taste of oranges brought joy to everyone, but everyone's actual experience of the taste was different.  Like we were programmed to taste goodness so that we could keep eating it, but the actual experience of what joyfulness was, was up to everyone's imaginations after absorbing the stimuli.  Well does this mean the enjoyment is gone.  As long as your saying it's a joyful experience, you will experience joy.  So as long as you say that life is meaningful, you will experience meaning in the same way.  Life is life.  It doesn't have meaning or a lack of meaning.  We create that.  So to be bothered by this fact is like setting up a machine that has artificial intelligence and telling it to be unhappy. 

To conclude that there is a god is just as much a theory as concluding that there is no god.  Neither has more going for it or against it.  The world working according to laws means that the world works according to laws.  It does not mean there is no god, or there is a god.  Take your best guess, but you do not know either way.  Belief is different then religion.  You can belong to a church and not believe in god, and you can believe in god and not go to church.  When we choose to believe in god, we then create an image of him in our likeness.  We make him reward and punish whatever our culture happens to tell us that he rewards and punishes.  So we imagine god seeing murder bad, and that becomes one of the things he told us in the ten commandments, Over-active imaginations lead to crusades and things like that. 

Does anybody have thoughts on that.  I'm sure it's been talked about before, but it was the first time I thought it, i guess, I'm curious to see if people wanna build off that.  Like life being an onject that we experience subjectively.

You had me (and were pretty well on) up until "oranges tasting of joy".

ehy does the oranges part throwe you off?

it's intelligible. give it a shot at least.

When one constructs a philosophy, he or she is making up a theory of how the universe works, and logical conclusions are mental tools that enable theories to work.  If we didn't have mental theories we wouldn't be able to cope in an objective universe. As subjective-feeling creatures we are forced to theorize about "how we fit into the big picture" in order to operate objectively.  There is no internal essence of things outside of what we give them, but because we give them meaning, they have meaning.  This does not depreciate the value of these objects.   They are important because we have the power to make them important, and it just happens that one of the theories we like to believe in is that objects must be valuable in-them-of-themselves in order for them to be authentically valuable.  The only reason this value-system seems necessary to us is because it was logically concluded to after theorizing about how we fit into the world.  It is like living in a world where everyone sees the color green differently.  We then all agree to label it as the word green.  So we can agree on it but that doesn't make us see the same thing.  If we say that it looks the same for everyone, we're obviously speculating.  But let's say the taste of oranges brought joy to everyone, but everyone's actual experience of the taste was different.  Like we were programmed to taste goodness so that we could keep eating it, but the actual experience of what joyfulness was, was up to everyone's imaginations after absorbing the stimuli.  Well does this mean the enjoyment is gone.  As long as your saying it's a joyful experience, you will experience joy.  So as long as you say that life is meaningful, you will experience meaning in the same way.  Life is life.  It doesn't have meaning or a lack of meaning.  We create that.  So to be bothered by this fact is like setting up a machine that has artificial intelligence and telling it to be unhappy. 

To conclude that there is a god is just as much a theory as concluding that there is no god.  Neither has more going for it or against it.  The world working according to laws means that the world works according to laws.  It does not mean there is no god, or there is a god.  Take your best guess, but you do not know either way.  Belief is different then religion.  You can belong to a church and not believe in god, and you can believe in god and not go to church.  When we choose to believe in god, we then create an image of him in our likeness.  We make him reward and punish whatever our culture happens to tell us that he rewards and punishes.  So we imagine god seeing murder bad, and that becomes one of the things he told us in the ten commandments, Over-active imaginations lead to crusades and things like that. 

Does anybody have thoughts on that.  I'm sure it's been talked about before, but it was the first time I thought it, i guess, I'm curious to see if people wanna build off that.  Like life being an onject that we experience subjectively.

i think i smoked too little.  i got high and came down and wrote this after thinking hard about it, but i think it kind of makes sense, but i[m high, so i might be posting something nonsensical.


When one constructs a philosophy, he or she is making up a theory of how the universe works, and logical conclusions are mental tools that enable theories to work.  If we didn't have mental theories we wouldn't be able to cope in an objective universe. As subjective-feeling creatures we are forced to theorize about "how we fit into the big picture" in order to operate objectively.  There is no internal essence of things outside of what we give them, but because we give them meaning, they have meaning.  This does not depreciate the value of these objects.   They are important because we have the power to make them important, and it just happens that one of the theories we like to believe in is that objects must be valuable in-them-of-themselves in order for them to be authentically valuable.  The only reason this value-system seems necessary to us is because it was logically concluded to after theorizing about how we fit into the world.  It is like living in a world where everyone sees the color green differently.  We then all agree to label it as the word green.  So we can agree on it but that doesn't make us see the same thing.  If we say that it looks the same for everyone, we're obviously speculating.  But let's say the taste of oranges brought joy to everyone, but everyone's actual experience of the taste was different.  Like we were programmed to taste goodness so that we could keep eating it, but the actual experience of what joyfulness was, was up to everyone's imaginations after absorbing the stimuli.  Well does this mean the enjoyment is gone.  As long as your saying it's a joyful experience, you will experience joy.  So as long as you say that life is meaningful, you will experience meaning in the same way.  Life is life.  It doesn't have meaning or a lack of meaning.  We create that.  So to be bothered by this fact is like setting up a machine that has artificial intelligence and telling it to be unhappy. 

To conclude that there is a god is just as much a theory as concluding that there is no god.  Neither has more going for it or against it.  The world working according to laws means that the world works according to laws.  It does not mean there is no god, or there is a god.  Take your best guess, but you do not know either way.  Belief is different then religion.  You can belong to a church and not believe in god, and you can believe in god and not go to church.  When we choose to believe in god, we then create an image of him in our likeness.  We make him reward and punish whatever our culture happens to tell us that he rewards and punishes.  So we imagine god seeing murder bad, and that becomes one of the things he told us in the ten commandments, Over-active imaginations lead to crusades and things like that. 

So should I say the barstool didn't hurt when I was hit over the head with it?  It just seemed to me that it hurt?

if it's all lines on a map, and i'm too fixated on the map to see the actual terrain, what do i need to do to see the terrain?  or how do i know that there's a map if i have no frame of reference because i've never seen the terrain? 

I'm not trying to be contrary and i probably sound like an idiot, maybe i am one, i'm just trying to get a grip of discordianism, I guess.

sometimes my thought process goes like this:

1. there's a cup on my table
2. i can't prove there's a cup on the table because all i have to base that on is my sensory perception and not the inherent knowledge of the cup being on the table
3. do I know anything, then?
4.  No.  I believe a shitload of things, and I theorize a shitload of things.
5.  Isn't what I just said a theory then?
6.  Yes, it is.
7.  So why am I so sure of myself?
8.  I'm not.
9.  Is there an authentic way to perceive?
10.  Ideally, the authentic perception is to experience truly and not perceive.
11.  Is that attainable?
12.  I won't know unless I attain it.
13.  Well, let's say there's an authentic, singular, true way to experience things... if I were to attain that ability, then (following the theory that everything is a theory) wouldn't I wonder if it was just me theorizing and I would actually inhibit myself from experiencing things authentically, because I was so skeptical of inauthenticity?
14.  I'm too lazy to finish this train of thought.

I Am No Weeping Boy

at:

www.myspace.com/electrictoydanger

I'm not used to writing poetry, but this is my feeble attempt at a poem dealing with what I've read into discordianism.

We are all playing a game to keep things interesting.
Just like when you used to pretend the asphalt was lava.

"Hey let's pretend this piece of paper is worth something and compete for it"

Here are the games you can choose to play.  The one where she was trying to get close to you but you blew her off.  The one where you're both not trying hard enough to come together.  The one where you try to get close to here but she doesn't know how to open up to you.  The one where she wants you to say the right thing but you don't know which thing to say.  The one where you're crazy.  The one where you'll be a successful musician.  The one where you'll get a career or job eventually but you might as well enjoy yourself while you're young.  The one where you're disappointing everyone you meet.  The one where you're the star of the room.  The one where death could grab you at any time.  The one where one of these things makes you happy or sad.  The one where it doesn't effect you either way.

The one where you're analyzing all the games you can play

Choose your game wisely. 

read up on intersubjectivity.

very intewesting.

too tired to think to hard about it, but will definately pop a concerta or two tomorrow and absorb it again and then think think think.

haha, i state the obvious i guess.  just more pointing out i'm annoyed i can't have an objective understanding of anything except for things being subjective but even that is probably a subjective understanding of things.

i know a lot of you guys have thought about this or read this idea somewhere or something but i was just reading principia discordia and thinking. it seems like all of us, or most of us are sufferers of paranoid ideation.  like an idea is either delusional or it's not, so just because my delusions are socially accepted and don't directly harm others, that doesn't mean i'm not delusional.  like if a child dies, most people (including myself) are going to see that as sad, but in reality it's just lacking any inherent qualities like sad, ugly, beautiful, etc.  so we're reading into everything and applying qualities and meaning where there is none.


but even to believe this is to be subscribing to some sort of ideology, so it's like inescapable if i'm even correct in my thinking.

It's like no matter what I think, I am reading into things.  Like to say there is no objective truth is flawed because that would assert that there is an objective truth, that being there is no objective truth.  it seems like there's an infinite amount of truths and even to think that is one of them.  like you just can't avoid it but you can at least be kind of aware of it.

well i talk about stuff not to say i've discovered something new for mankind, just for myself.  So sorry if i'm a little behind you guys.  we all end up in the same place.  that place being the gravvvvvve.