Monday, January 5, 2009

THE EVIL THAT MEN DO

“As long as people believe in absurdities they will continue to commit atrocities.”
-Voltaire

“The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.”
-Joseph Conrad

“What is objectionable, what is dangerous, about extremists is not that they are extreme, but that they are intolerant. The evil is not what they say about their cause, but what they say about their opponents.”
-Robert F. Kennedy


Does Evil Exist?

Ask a Christian and the answer will be “of course it does.” And if you tell them that you're an atheist, they'll be happy to define you as part of it.

However the religious Christian defines evil as a metaphysical reality. Evil is like one of the two teams that we can choose to be on. And evil and good are in a constant struggle, the two teams being led by God and Satan respectively. Or is that Satan and God? Yes, that’s it. I get them mixed up sometimes.

Not being a Christian one might think that therefore I’d be likely to say that evil does not exist. And if one were talking about the above metaphysical variety as understood by Christians, you’d be correct. I don’t believe in God or Satan or the conflict between the two, so how could I believe in that definition of evil? To me that definition of evil is itself evil!

(Because it vastly oversimplifies the idea so that those who follow it and believe in it are likely to make errors of judgment that hurt others.)

I use the term evil often in my writings. However not as a metaphysical concept. I use it because it’s a useful word to describe what I would define as human behavior patterns that are harmful or deleterious to other people or to one’s self. These types of behavior patterns are the result (I think) of the person having a basic imbalance within themselves, within their psyche.

So I relate the idea of evil to an internal imbalance.

Now, how do I mean that?

Well, if a person is not properly balanced between their logical/rational side and their emotional/intuitive side, then their behavior will reflect that. Too much or not enough of either side, and the person is incapable of correctly judging reality, and by misjudging it can thereby easily make decisions that others would consider “evil.” But of course it’s not quite that simple. Nothing is ever as simple as it seems.

Everyone has an emotional side and a rational side. But the rational side must be developed (and constantly updated as well) in order to be accurate, and the emotional side also must be developed *beyond the point of self-centeredness* in order to be intuitive or to have access to the higher modalities of emotional function such as agape-type love of others. Mere underdeveloped (self-focused) emotionality with insufficient logic to moderate it is almost always both powerful and very counterproductive, and all logic with no higher emotion to regulate it is either stagnant or tends toward the pursuit of personal power, since where else would such a person derive their motivations from with no higher emotional desires?

As a person matures and hopefully starts to integrate their two sides and seek a balance, both of their “sides” start to come into tune with each other, and cause each other to develop in unison by mutual interaction. Higher feelings such as true selflessness, empathy, and agape-style love do not happen in the person that has not gone through such a process of self-rectification between all elements of the two polarities of the psyche.

Through such an *integration.*

An integration of the Yang and the Yin.
Of Masculine and Feminine sides of one’s own personality.
Of Logic and Intuition
Reason and Emotion
Descrimination and Loving Kindness
Thoughts and Beliefs
And so on, basically forever…

Here’s a very old alchemical maxim that relates to this process and the hoped-for results:

“VITRIOL”

The word, which used to refer to certain solvent acids and is usually used today only to refer to verbal (acerbic) anger, was used long ago as an acronym and mnemonic by the medieval alchemists for the very process of attaining enlightenment itself.

Thus in Latin, we have Visita Interiore Terrae, Rectificando Invenies Occultum Lapidem. V.I.T.R.I.O.L.

In English this reads, “Visit the Interior of the Earth, There, by *rectification* you will find the Hidden Stone.” In modern English without the symbolic frills this means “Go within yourself, and by making things “right” and balancing (rectifying) what is there within yourself, you will attain enlightenment.”

So if Ultimate Balance leads to the light, perhaps then Ultimate Imbalance leads to the darkness.

We are, let’s recall, discussing Evil and not Enlightenment here.

The person that does evil never realizes that they are doing evil. They just think of it in some other way, since if it were evil *to them* they wouldn’t do it in the first place. Most if not all of them believe that they’re doing good and not evil.

Do you think Hitler knew that he was evil?

Of course not. Hitler thought that he was doing the highest good, even possibly that he was doing God’s work for Him…

How could Hitler lie to himself like that?

No internal balance whatsoever. Everything skewed toward the logical/rational side, since his higher emotional/intuitive side was underdeveloped, stunted even. Most of us have at least some development of our higher emotional side, but Hitler didn’t seem to. Powerful primitive emotions like anger and hatred and fear were all there, but not their higher counterparts such as empathy and love.

Such a person can’t even tell when they’re lying to themselves. And there would be no check to his ego; nothing to stand against his logical side when it informed his emotional/desire side, which only desired to “better mankind,” that it “had a plan…”

There was nothing within him to feel the horror and revulsion that he should have felt. It had either never developed, or had been excised. So all his emotional side could answer was “Why not?”

Now the interesting thing is, we all are motivated by our emotional side. Really, all motivation comes from there, no matter how logical we think that we are. We are creatures of emotion, even those of us who deny that to ourselves. That part of our brain, the emotional part, is much older than the rational part. Many of us make the decision to trust our logical sides more than our emotional sides, but even that is ultimately based in emotional desire, the desire to not be wrong all the time. The logical side is a newer acquisition, much more recent evolutionarily speaking. It’s so “new” that it’s almost like a tool that we can choose to use or not to, and not “really” as much a part of our very identity as our emotional side is, and therefore many of us choose to not use it to its best advantage, thinking perhaps that it’s less important, since we don’t really “feel” it. We should try to recall in such instances that after all, it is what differentiates us from the “lower orders.” For properly used, the logical side can shape and mold the emotional side so that it evolves to the point where it can feel the higher, selfless emotions, just as in the process the emotional side in return provides a constant flow of desire to attain a more balanced state and so regulates the logical side so that it conforms to the emotional side’s ever-changing (evolving) desired ideals... all while the logical side in turn is still shaping the emotional side and helping to direct it’s evolution, and so on. It’s a mutual process that is simultaneous and any one part of it is hard to even define without also describing at the same time all of the actions of the other parts. I think of it like a pendulum, or an oscillation back and forth between the two sides, each constantly checking the other.

***

So this is how I think of evil. A psychological imbalance, and perhaps also a spiritual one as well. Nothing to do with religion, however.

So what of Biblical Evil then? What of Satan, the Adversary? The Eternal Struggle?

I cannot begin to believe in some dark deity and a whole system of demons and subordinate demons and various mechanisms that was put in place to tempt us all to stray from the path of righteousness, all decreed somehow by a supposedly loving God. To me, that is by far more nonsensical than anything from the Brothers Grimm.

I’m afraid that I can see this Biblical Evil thing as no more than an elaborate story that was concocted for the poor, ignorant people so as to make them properly fearful and to assure that they forever remain properly ignorant, and thus obedient. I can see that this story of Satan and the Horrors of Hell and Damnation was carefully constructed so as to be the stick in a system of so-called carrot-and-stick conditioning that has sucessfully warped the minds of the multitudes. Warped their minds so as to believe that all the world’s problems are due to this deep dark fearful tangible external EVIL that is some orchestrated metaphysical reality decreed by God and executed by Satan so as to both test and tempt us while we’re alive and to punish us eternally after we die, so we’d all better be really faithful in God and not think of the details too much.

Evil exists, yes. But not the external openly horrific evil of some demonic Satan who wishes to torment us with his hell full of fire and eternal pain. That’s an evil mirage constructed by evil people so as to lead the good astray into their evil fear-based belief system. I see real evil in the internal imbalance of one’s own mind, thereby causing it to misjudge both itself and the outside world enough to do real harm, all the while honestly believing that it is doing the exact opposite.

283 comments:

  1. Saint Brian,
    My personal experience validates you idea about evil, at least in some circumstances. Thanks for the post.

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  2. Brian said,

    "Do you think Hitler knew that he was evil?

    Of course not. Hitler thought that he was doing the highest good, even possibly that he was doing God’s work for Him…

    How could Hitler lie to himself like that?"

    Now, I'm not a neo-Nazi, but I've said as much before. I've even gone so far as to have said that we would all probably have been worshipping Hitler as a demi-god if the results of WWII had tipped to the other side. History is written by the winners.

    This mirrors Nietzsche's "beyond good and evil" concept.

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  3. imatediBrian:
    Another thought provoking post!
    In general, I have to agree with all of it, since I think it clearly represents reality in Human endeavors.
    To me, evil exists because we feel the need to strive for "good", a nebulous emotional concept tnat has thus far defied the efforts of philosophers to define it "logically". Therefore, there needs to be an opposite concept to help us at least be able to examine any human act and decide if it is "good".
    We are born as selfish, totally dependent creatures. Clearly, there is great survival value in an infant being entirely selfish, but, over the years, he/she must "grow up" and become "civilized" in order to succeed within the family and later the tribe, and eventually the World. This "civilization" can be looked at, as you have proposed, as first the recognition of one's "logical" side, and, eventually, learning to use it to balance the emotional (selfish) side.
    It has been proposed that we are all "egoistic Hedonists". This philsophy says that all humans behave in any situation, given a choice, so as to try to achieve what they think will be the most "good" for themselves, or to avoid the most "bad". The key to this concept is that there is no such thing as unselfish behavior; those acts that appear to be so simply represent the subconscious decision that the person committing an apparently unselfish act could not bear the guilt that they anticipate would result if they were to choose not to be "unselfish" (i.e. a mother sacrificing herself to save her child).
    It seems to me that this concept fits nicely with your thoughts about good and evil. Theists feel that we need a Deity to force us to behave in "unselfish" ways; in religious constructs, therefore, one cannot be trusted to recognize and/or utilize "logical" control over one's "emotional" (selfish?) side, without threat of a "bad" outcome (i.e. damnation). Needless to say, those aspects of religion that deal with man's relationship with God, rather than his relationships with his fellow man, are imposed of necessity to make the "threat" appear valid.

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  4. If I perform an action that brings pleasure to another with no gain for myself other than the feeling of happiness at having helped another person, it cannot be truly considered selfish. This form of seeming "selfishness" is actually in reality unselfish since the joy that you perhaps even craved for yourself is entirely derived from the joy of another. Your joy is their joy that you created and are only sharing in. You had to make another happy before making yourself happy at their happiness. Assuming that they don't even know who you are, and that you didn't tell them out of pride, that is the most undelfish that a mere human can be.

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  5. control over one's "emotional" (selfish?) side,
    -------------------------
    Good observation.

    I'm not a psychologist, but it seems to me that all desire is based in emotions, even the desire to be logical. Thus the ego itself is a construct of the emotional mind and not the rational mind. This is why I try to stress that we all have the emotional side, and how! Most of us just haven't developed the higher emotions yet, but those lower ones are only the stronger for that. We all therefore "live" in the emotional mind and "utilize" the rational mind. Uh, hopefully.

    This is because we all start with mostly just the emotional side containing (practically filled up with, at early ages) our ego. Well, Id, to be technical, but I like the word ego since more people get the gist of it. Then the rational side develops and naturally (hopefully again) crowds out some of that huge ego, and some of those high-strung emotions. If you get that far then the now functioning logical side starts to be trusted enough by the skittish ego that it allows itself to become modified into something more managable and realistic for adult life in the world. So your logical side provides your superego, if you will. But at that point the cycle is only getting started. There's no end. The more your logical side causes your emotional side (and thus also your ego) to evolve, the more that your now-more-evolved ego/emotional side is capable of further modifying your logical side (intuition is born here) to work even better, and then you know what that improved logical side does? Well of course it's busy still making the emotional side better. And so on and so on...

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  6. I tend to use "logical" and "rational" interchangeably, and also "side" and "mind." Sorry. I should try for more consistancy for the sake of clarity.

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  7. I find that the goal is to get your logical side so well-trained by your (higher) emotional side that it can accurately find the optimum individual unique balance point in every given individual situation where the returns to the (higher) emotional side are optimal, therefore one is getting the absolute most out of life with every decision.

    For instance, one might decide that they need to work less hours in order to better enjoy their family and be present for them when they need you more than they need the money, so one might decide to change one's entire career around, and be able to do so in the sure knowledge that they have struck the right balance, or as nearly so as was possible, and have no regrets. And derive much joy from their decision that they would have totally missed out on. And make their children healthier in mind due to actually being there for them in person...
    How is that not optimum? And yet that would not be a common decision in today's world. Most are imbalanced (and you know how I mean that now) enough to think the money matters more, and not change their jobs, or even work more and more hours...

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  8. Brian,

    You contradicted yourself in saying that emotion came about first, and then went on to say that emotion couldn't exist without logic and vice versa. I'd have to agree with the latter more than the former. So do turtles and monkeys operate by emotion?

    It seems that a proto-logic, in essence a form of logic is present in the very fact of survival. Bacteria have a "logic" and they don't have brains! We didn't survive by our emotions, they didn't come first. In fact they probably came last.

    Granted Thag the Caveman could've just wanted his woman to stop nagging him about the cold so he "invented" fire. Or maybe Thula the cave woman "invented" fire because her stupid man wouldn't snuggle. Who knows for sure?

    As per evil, I believe in certain things to a point but in terms of evil and good there's a mixture of physics, psychology and spirituality. The physics comes from the eventual disorder of systems. It seems to make sense in a world governed by physical laws that even complex biology would still be influenced by them.

    -----------------------------------

    Harvey,

    The idea that all your actions come from selfish motives is deterministic. It states simply that you cannot choose to not be selfish.

    Are you more in the camp that altruism and selfishness shouldn't be separated (conceptually) but are somewhat distinct in thought? Or is there simply the force of selfishness (implying the negative)?

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  9. Oh, and a really, REALLY common belief that absolutely prevents men from being able to even accept that they HAVE an emotional side:

    A lot of men think that the emotional side is "faggy." That it's their "feminine" side (true) so to try to express what is in there to the world or even to yourself, to allow the 'femenine" side to even TOUCH your "masculine" side, is to become Gay or something. So wrong, it's comical, of course. Much misery is caused in our culture by this belief.

    For one thing, for a man, getting in touch with one's own "feminine" side (while not letting it attain dominance of course) can make one a hellishly good lover. You'll "get" your woman a lot better, emotionally and physically, and that's all it takes.

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  10. You contradicted yourself in saying that emotion came about first, and then went on to say that emotion couldn't exist without logic and vice versa.
    ------------
    Higher emotion. Sorry. Everyone has emotions. Lower (self-focused) emotions. Tons of 'em. But the higher (other-focused) emotions eventually (hopefully) displace the lower. So the logical side is required to attain the higher emotions through the balance it brings to the table, and the higher ones eventually start crowding out the lower ones, or shrinking them away, take your pick. They can't exist side-by-side as it turns out. Presto! We have evolution! Theoretically if one ever attained a state of such balance that the lower emotions had been utterly displaced by the higher, I suppose you could call the point at which that paradigm shift occurs enlightenment. As good a name for it as anything, I suppose. A bit boasty-sounding for my ears, but nevertheless...

    I'm nowhere near that point, by the way. Not even in the neighborhood. In fact, lately I've been feeling like I've been regressing. Anger rears it's ugly head from time to time, and I don't have Sarah Palin watchin' my south'rn border with a pair of binoculars, y'know?

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  11. And again, we all have enough of the logical side to survive. I should have said that. But this puny logical side is by default a scrawny weakling as compared to that huge ego every child has, no? And so if that logical side isn't developed (by teachers and parents etc) enough to ever be able to shave some off that ego, that ego will always be the master, and no higher emotional side can follow. It will all stall at some point. The pendulum stops. Stasis is acheived. Stagnation. Spiritual death occurs. A circle of false belief is established by Great King Ego that blinds the individual from accurate self-perception. All is lost.

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  12. I cannot so easily equate disorder with evil as you can.

    Before order there is disorder. Order is not mutable, and the world changes, so eventually order must change, and all change is disorder compared to the ordered state beofr and after the change... So in order for there to be order, there must be disorder!

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  13. Then again, things fall apart, the center cannot hold...

    I guess disorder is rarely good, huh?

    Oh, wait a minute, even in disorder there is order to be found. Fractals. Strange attractors.

    But I get how you mean it.

    I see evil in many organizations, and they're pretty ordered... The Nazi's were REALLY ordered, no? (ordered to kill, ha ha)

    Disorder can kill. But so can order, no?

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  14. "And again, we all have enough of the logical side to survive."
    -I should have added "Those of us that do survive and don't win Darwin Awards, I mean."

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  15. So do turtles and monkeys operate by emotion?
    ----------------
    I think that they are pretty much all feelings, in that they just sense what is and don't have verbal conceptions of it at all in any way. The turtle even less than the dog, which recognizes many sounds and uses sounds for alerts and many other reasons itself, but cannot construct a sentence in it's mind. They both demonstrate fear and terror well enough for their physical limitations. Lust, well, I've seen turtles humping so they must be doing it for some reason... And what is a DOG if not lustful? They seem to demonstrate happiness, the dog more so than the turtle again, but who know's how happy that turtle might really be under those unexpressive scales?
    They have ids. Senses of identities. Hungers. Doggy loves a scratch, turtle chomps with gusto on an earthworm or piece of lettuce...
    No verbal side means no logical side. (Or very minimal, you get my drift here I hope) Words are the numbers of the math of logic.

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  16. Turtles and dogs can both be pissed off, too. Most any living thing can, except a plant. Even possibly an ameoba, who knows? That's an emotion.

    Lesser creatures (animalia) aren't "just instinctive" and therefore their apparent emotions aren't real. The instinct is in itself a wired-in emotion. An instruction to have a particular emotion if you get this or that stimuli. It works that way in us, too.

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  17. A bear, when it attacks you for invading it's territory, is incredibly pissed off at you. It's not an act.

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  18. You seem to be agreeing with me that we have no free-will here, Brian.

    Interesting.

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  19. OneBlood:

    "Harvey,

    The idea that all your actions come from selfish motives is deterministic. It states simply that you cannot choose to not be selfish.

    Are you more in the camp that altruism and selfishness shouldn't be separated (conceptually) but are somewhat distinct in thought? Or is there simply the force of selfishness (implying the negative)?"

    I had not intended to get into details regarding egoistic Hedonism as a philosophical construct, but I must point out that this viewpoint in no way is completely deterministic. Herein, the Christian "free will" is represented by the realization that when one has a choice of actions in any given situation and, providing one both has adequate information and the time to "predict" alternative outcomes of those choices, one will always try to choose the one that will either "gain" the most or "avoid" as much negative return as possible. In fact, this is a learned response to "growing up" and/or becoming "civilized". Of course one can (and, unfortunately, too many of us sometimes do) choose the truly "selfish" action, either because we don't really care about the negative effects on others or, as Brian suggests, we have not gotten sufficient control of our emotional side by having developed our "logical" side. Perhaps the term "selfish", with its negative implications in modern society is the problem. In this construct it simply refers to using your own personal perceived beneficial or negative projections for any action. It in no way suggests that people cannot or do not choose an "altruistic" action. It simply says that the individual, for whatever reason, expects a positive emotional or physical return or to avoid emotional or physical negatives.

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  20. Well Brian.

    If it just boils down to who trained you to think they way that you do and they just trained you like that because they were trained by their care-givers and so on ... back .. back..

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  21. Picture yourself, say two years old Brian.

    You've made a mess. Depending on your care-givers reaction, this might influence YOUR reaction to making a mess in the future, your reaction to other people's messes etc. etc.

    We might think that we live in the 'moment' of reality, but we really live in the 'moment' of our mental model of reality.

    If your care-giver(s) pumped such things as, "Cleanliness is next to Godliness!", "Praise the LORD!"(every time that you happened to 'do good', and such, into your growing mind-model of reality, you might never break that training.

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  22. Oh no, it's down to if your caregivers allowed you to find your center, or if they kept you from it. Once you find your center, which is when you can strike a balance where the results are optimized in just about any situation, the importance of their influence is done.

    And even if they do everything right, thre are so many other influences on a growing person that there's never any guarantee... Conversely many people that have had terrible caregivers have still found their centers. Just took a lot longer since they had to do it for themselves and overcome so much negative programming.

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  23. We might think that we live in the 'moment' of reality, but we really live in the 'moment' of our mental model of reality.
    -------------
    No, we actually live in a mental model of reality, pboy. Remember? :-) We think there's a time lag between actual happenings and our perception of them, but then again, that's what we would think. In reality there is our perception of them. That's it.

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  24. You can't just invent a 'center' to suit your own 'argument' when you feel like that, Brian.

    Did your mom and dad give you permission to do that?

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  25. If your care-giver(s) pumped such things as, "Cleanliness is next to Godliness!", "Praise the LORD!"(every time that you happened to 'do good', and such, into your growing mind-model of reality, you might never break that training.
    ---------------------
    True, but then they would not be serving your best interests, they would only be serving their own. But they would think that they were serving your best interests. Which refers us riiiiight back to my definition of Evil in the first place.

    Which is incredibly common unfortunately.

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  26. Okay, balance, ability to balance, so center. Thought it was obvious.

    Is that allright by you, or do I need a hall pass?

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  27. Yea, my mental model of reality versus what you said?

    Were you disagreeing with the exact same thing that I said there?

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  28. Once again, you can't just invent 'balance' to suit your model.

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  29. Parent need to actively teach this very desire for balance to the child, so that they desired it with their egos. Once they do that, the child at least is on the road to balance. The egoic desire will stimulate the logical side to develop itself and to start it's modification of the emotional side.

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  30. " Which refers us riiiiight back to my definition of Evil in the first place."

    ... and it leaves the notion of free-will in tatters, as just another idea pumped into your mind model of reality by your trainers.(for good or evil)

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  31. I didn't just invent it, my post is all about it!

    You DID read the original post?

    Hell I even quoted medievel alchemists talking about it!

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  32. First of all, I've never even defended the concept of free will. For all I know, we don't have any.

    If we do, it arises in the chaos of the complexity of our "bicameral" minds.

    Our "handlers" and our environment shape us, and if they get it right, we start to shape ourselves. Because we can do a much better job of it.

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  33. "Parent need to actively teach this very desire for balance to the child..".

    But Brian, that is NOT what actually happens. You can see this 'teaching the balance', but you don't really believe that this is what ACTUALLY happens, do you?

    Everyone and everything that influenced you as a child with a growing mental model of reality is to 'blame' for you being you!(If blame is being doled out here.)

    Parents, siblings, grandparents, uncles, aunts, teachers(including clergy), school-friends, neighbors, radio, television etc. etc.

    It's all there, who you ARE, 'graded' by your mental model of the moment as to future influence.

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  34. "First of all, I've never even defended the concept of free will. For all I know, we don't have any."

    Well, you seem to be doing a helluva job pretending to defend it in those last few comments, Brian.

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  35. Second of all, I happen to think that we all are one identity, remember? Only so far down in our subconscious that all we get from it is the basic sense of identity, the "I am" sense...
    Therefore, all of us being identical at the core, essentially one being, true free will is thus the one will of the universe as expressed through this vehicle of my body and ego, through this viewpoint.

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  36. This will show as anonymous, but you know me. Ex-Christian. Albert Einstein once said "the world is a dangerous place to live; not because of those who are evil, but because of those who do nothing about it." As smart as Einstein was, he missed the glaring error in this statement. As you pointed out, Hitler saw what he thought was evil, and did something about it. Any action towards any percieved "evil" must be tempered by humanity, or you're just creating more evil. Be it burning at the stake, or extermination camps - torture and murder are evil - period. Justification of such can only be made by people without concience.

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  37. Ex-Christian! Great to see you here! Welcome!

    Well, you sound rather evolved...

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  38. Well, you seem to be doing a helluva job pretending to defend it in those last few comments, Brian.
    ----------
    I'm thinking a lot of this up as I go along here. Not making it up. there's a difference. So my initial impulse was to defend it. Now I'm not even so sure.

    I'm here to learn too. And I am. And also, I'm open to discussion here on a lot of things. I'm in the process of "getting" all of this myself. A lot of what I wrote here today I've never put into words before.

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  39. I meant that I haven't really been involved in the conversations that you always have about free will with others, except to drop in a comment now and again. I've argued often enough with Christians that their God knowing the future of my life takes away my free will, but I've not really argued in favor of my free will itself before. I've more concentrated on other areas.

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  40. Ex-C, you are correct. Einstein missed the obvious there.

    When you see evil, before you do something about it, you'd better make sure that it's evil, because if it's not, then what you are about to do about it is.

    And you can't make sure that it's evil without compassion and the higher emotions. No amount of logical development alone can do it.

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  41. Brian said,

    "...God knowing the future of my life takes away my free will..."

    Atheist = no god = free will is mine!

    Thanks, Brian. THAT was the equation!

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  42. I thought that the difference between doing good and doing evil as explained by you, the Christian Ideas being dismissed by you and your notion of finding balance and a center and such, really boils down to whether we have free-will or not.

    Seemed to me that invoking the yin-yang/male-female/logic-emotion is dodging the issue of how each of us create a mind model of reality which can contain these 'balance' notions in the first place.

    Do we have the free-will to alter our programming/training?

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  43. Brian said,
    A lot of men think that the emotional side is "faggy." That it's their "feminine" side (true) so to try to express what is in there to the world or even to yourself, to allow the 'femenine" side to even TOUCH your "masculine" side, is to become Gay or something. So wrong, it's comical, of course. Much misery is caused in our culture by this belief.

    For one thing, for a man, getting in touch with one's own "feminine" side (while not letting it attain dominance of course) can make one a hellishly good lover. You'll "get" your woman a lot better, emotionally and physically, and that's all it takes.
    January 5, 2009 12:50 PM

    --------------------------------
    A lot of men think its a sign of weakness to show emotion.
    Real men don’t have a feminine side.
    What you refer to as a mans feminine side is actually a part of his gentle nature.

    I believe If a man acts womanish or sissified he is acting out what he has “chosen to become” not what he was born to be.

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  44. I don't think that's it. Duality is one of the most basic components of the consensual reality. Of the BB, if you will. Light, dark, hot, cold, we perceive by contrasts of duality. We could not perceive anything without duality, so it must be there. The Yin-Yang concept is more basic than we are. It was a pre-existing aspect of the BB. It likely was set into place during the Big Bang or even prior to that. You may recall that since all matter is in my view consciousness, and all energy also, thus to me the Big Bang is an outpouring of consciousness. That consciousness was dual in nature. Light and darkness. The Big Bang, and the void it exploded into. Even if the void came out of it as well.

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  45. So, Observant, then if a man becomes deceitful, underhanded, backstabbing, sychophantic and or etc. are they just acting out their choices?

    How about you, Observant, are you just acting out your choice?

    Do you feel that you could, if you wished, change your mind?

    That is, do you believe that you have a choice to believe or not believe that there is a GOD?

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  46. Real men don’t have a feminine side.
    What you refer to as a mans feminine side is actually a part of his gentle nature.
    -----------------
    Terminology problem.

    Masculine and feminine sides ARE the logical and intuitive sides. Sexuality or femininity are not implied here. Not biologically nor in one's thought. So if I'm in touch with my "feminine" side I am in addition to being logical, also intuitive. And caring, and loving, and nurtering perhaps, that "gentle nature" you mentioned, whenever I need to be. And also I can opt to "take no shit from anyone" when that is the correct choice for the situation. As a person that has both sides to choose from, I adjust for each situation. I also explore my masculine side, by the way. Both sides are needed here for balance. For instance, I love to practice thinking logically, as in an argument or debate. Great workout for that masculine side. Also I can be agressive at will, when I *intuit* that it is called for. Say for instance sexually even. But if I am not in touch with my intuitions, how can I tell that the woman is really receptive to an agressive approach? Not everyone likes that, and some women really hate it, and sometimes it's a matter of what *mood* they're in. If they're not into it, I'd better realize that or I'm up for assault, no? So that feminine side is way useful even to a "real man." And perhaps especially to one. Oh, and having a feminine side also allows one to empathize with your partner, learn what pleases her, and thereby become better in technique as well.

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  47. I believe If a man acts womanish or sissified he is acting out what he has “chosen to become” not what he was born to be.
    ---------------------
    Yeah, see, I so wasn't talking about that at all. It's closer to your ideas there of a man's "gentler nature." That's really quite close.

    And I know that you think it's a choice. The gayness thing. We have had that argument, I think. :-)
    If it's some kind of choice, then a lot of people seem to be making it in the womb... When a person honestly can't remember ever choosing one over the other, isn't it best to act as if it isn't their choice? For the sake of not being evil to them, I mean.

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  48. I have a huge problem with supposedly STAIGHT MEN telling me that sexuality is a choice.

    It tells me that they themselves had to make one, in order to be straight.

    Which means, they're really not. Straight, I mean. They chose to be. But they weren't before they chose it. Either they were naturally bisexual, or naturally gay, and then chose to be straight.

    If they had to choose the straight thing, why didn't they "choose" it originally? See, here's the deal. And this is absolute truth here, so please don't think I'm dissembling.

    I never made a choice. Not ever, that I can recall. I've always been drawn to women, and have just never found any man attractive in the least sexually. I even have trouble telling if a man is considered handsome by women. I have to ask my wife if the guy is good looking.

    So why is sexuality a choice to you, Observant? That's strange to me... Now I'm interested.

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  49. I've even talked to christian men that simply don't believe me when I tell them that I never had to make a choice!

    Again, because they did. And while their minds are all self-congratulatory about it, about the "holiness" and "goodness" of their "choice," inside it's all bottled up, their REAL sexuality, and one day it bursts out like a huge load of... Well, you get the idea. Think Ted Haggard, Larry Craig, etc.

    I saw a film on young college republicans, shot by an undercover liberal, and one guy was so proud of his choice to be straight, the film maker tricked him into admitting that "It's even better when you beat the urge, the temptation, to be gay, than if you never had the temptation..."
    !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    He was SO gay! Talk about DENIAL!

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  50. I remember my sister narking me out for getting into my dad's stash of porn when I was about 10. I got a righteous ass-whupping, but I still peeked when I thought I could get away with it!

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  51. When did you choose to like naked women, Ed?

    :-)

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  52. "Before order there is disorder. Order is not mutable, and the world changes, so eventually order must change, and all change is disorder compared to the ordered state beofr and after the change... So in order for there to be order, there must be disorder!"

    -----------------------------------

    Brian I think you went off topic. I didn't negate order or disorder's existence by comparing it to good and evil. I just think there can be a correlation made that "evil" is our default compliance with disorder, and "good" with order.

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  53. Remember that film of good old Ted Haggard, talking about how Christians have the best sex? And more frequently?

    In retrospect, very funny.

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  54. "I think that they are pretty much all feelings"

    -----------------------------------

    1. Feelings are not necessarily emotions in semantics. Please don't change the words we were using.

    2. A definition of emotion needs to be made as opposed to reaction, or logic.

    3. I reassert that emotions came later in human history than a proto-logic.

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  55. I just think there can be a correlation made that "evil" is our default compliance with disorder, and "good" with order.
    -----------
    Ahh. You are correct. I did, but only because you did first. :-)

    Interesting thought. Not sure about it. Is it more ordered to love others, or to only love yourself... Can you elaborate on this? I mean, generally speaking it *seems* that order is nicer and chaos is not pleasant. But I see both as necessary, and both yet another instance of everything being presented to us in this life in a duality format. True goodness is when you care about others... How is that order or disorder? Isn't it a mixture?

    How am I missing your point? I think I still am, maybe.

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  56. Why are we ascribing value judgements to things like order and disorder? Those are states of being without the subjectivity we want to ascribe.

    I chose to like naked women when I saw pictures of some...

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  57. But I may be subjective about that, too. I mean, if I'd seen shots of a gang of fat grannies on a nude beach instead of Playboy bunnies...

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  58. Feelings are not necessarily emotions in semantics. Please don't change the words we were using.
    -----------------
    How are feelings NOT emotions? How are they logic? And how did I change anything?

    I am not a semanticist. To me that sounds like a smokescreen.

    So to you, animals have no feelings, or are you saying that they had "proto-logic" first?

    Instinctual seemingly logical behavior is not equal to actually being capable of logical comtemplation, either...

    That "logical half" or the "logical mind" that I'm always on about... That's a functioning contemplation machine. Animals don't have anything like that. And they also lack the higher emotions. Just the primitive ones, the self-focused ones.

    Although I really sometimes think that my dog actually loves me, and with an agape-type love... He's even offered me a cookie when I've been acting (intentionally) sad. More than once, too. And to my son as well.

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  59. And are you so sure that an amoeba has no feelings? They avoid unpleasant environments and seek comfort, they actively hunt for food, they seem to fear death... Hard to say. But they sure don't have thoughts. No real mind to have them in. Feelings, I like to think, are universal to consciousness, even that of an ameoba. Possibly even that of a rock. If my BB thing is even half-correct, that is. (If a rock has feelings, they would likely be quite limited to feelings of "rock-ness..."

    I know, that last part is pretty flaky. Dennis Kucinich flaky. Sorry. Just had to include it as a possibility here.

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  60. Although, what's sillier, a rock with a sense of "rockness" or a Loving God that created a Hell and a devil and sent his son to die, and never punished the devil for rebelling against him but promoted him instead, and who was always killing people by the score until His son came and after that mellowed out, but still will roast you if you don't believe in his son? Who's all-powerful and all-knowing but makes bets as if it could lose, and punishes a snake by making it act like a snake forever for not being really a snake but the devil in disguise?

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  61. 2. A definition of emotion needs to be made as opposed to reaction, or logic.
    ------------------
    I'll give it a shot...
    Let's define emotions then as a type of thought generally characterized by lateral and not linear progression, and a general lack of conscious volition over them and the physical reactions that they invariably induce. Emotions lack the clarity of logical thoughts, because they're diffused rather than precise, lateral rather than linear. They're biologically programmed thoughts, if you will, programmed reactions to various common stimuli. At least the baser ones are.

    What's your definition? :-)

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  62. Let's pick hatred.

    It's definitely an emotion. And a feeling.

    I might have logical-side (erroneous) reasons to hate, but the hate itself is a feeling. One feels it inside them everywhere. Logical thoughts aren't felt lkke that, not ever. When you for example feel elated because you've solved a complex logic problem, the part of you that solved it isn't the part that's feeling happy about it.

    Also, and just thought of this, logical thought is much more verbal thought. Intuitive or emotional thought, either one, involves more imagery, pictures, sound, the visual imagination, everything. All of the senses. You can use your logical side to examine a picture in your head of course, but you created that picture with your emotional, visual side. Your imagination is influenced by your logical side, but it really "lives" in your emotional side. Which is why a flash of intuition can often solve a logical problem that the logical mind has given up on. Your imagination (emotional mind) can solve logical problems too if it's trained well enough to do so by your logical side, and that's all intuition is really.

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  63. The thing is, even though emotional thought is programmed response to stimuli, the stimuli do not have to be external. The stimuli could be a logical thought that you happened to be having, or another emotional thought... Very complex stuff here.

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  64. I think that you're making it more complex than it really is.

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  65. You may be right, pboy. I have no way of knowing if this is the way it is. I'm more talking now to try to figure it out as I go along. And to hear people's objections to what I'm talking about and consider them of course.

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  66. I was trying to describe the very comlex ways in which we might experience an emotion, the reasons for it. Said reasons may be impossible to trace due to the complexity of the mechanism involved. I mean, you can be sad because you just got fired, or because you just thought that you're going to get fired, or because you just thought that you might get fired, or that you thought about having the money to pay for the kid's dental bill, or any number of reasons, for basically the same emotion.

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  67. The "moral" compass of christianity is constantly changing. Slavery is in the book, and god didn't seem to have a problem with it. Abraham, god's man above men, had several wives. Now, they claim it's a sanctioned one to one setup. It sanctioned child "rodding," yet never really set any limits to how much rod could be applied. The "evil" of christianity is just as fluid as the secular "evil."

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  68. It seems to me that emotions are always in response to something in one's external and/or internal environment. They don't "just sit there". We seem to be born with them in rudimentary form, perhaps having evolved in us because of survival value. Inasmuch as all biological systems seek entropy, but never achieve it except in death, we are always under some kind of stimulus or stress; hence, our emotions are responding to these stimuli. Because we can contemplate "for instances" at a much higher level than most other animals, even creating these mental situations out of "whole cloth", as it were, and absent any current outside stimulus, our emotions may seem spontaneous, when they really are not. Our "logical" side, on the other hand, is entirely a learned process with which we may eventually get control over our "self -directed" (better than selfish??) emotions. BTW, it seems using the terms "masculine" and "feminine" is getting in the way of the key issues here. Perhaps we should stick with "emotions" and "logic", which don't seem to carry such sexual connotations.

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  69. "How are feelings NOT emotions? How are they logic? And how did I change anything?

    I am not a semanticist. To me that sounds like a smokescreen."

    -----------------------------------

    Before I read the rest of your post I must clarify. I was in no way throwing that out to be inferred that your switch in words was purposeful.

    As far as the semantics themselves, I pointed it out because it's true (this time).

    Feelings and emotions have differences in applications even though they are mostly similar. You can feel sick but not necessarily emote it. Saying 'feelings' can have the connotation of pain and sickness which are (I would think) not in the pantheon of higher or lower emotions.

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  70. "So to you, animals have no feelings, or are you saying that they had "proto-logic" first?"

    -----------------------------------

    This is what I'm talking about Brian. You see where we ended up?

    I need to clarify too. The drive to survive could be based off of feelings to me but not emotions. In my mind I make that much of a difference. And frankly I have no idea where that leaves us :-)
    A better starting point?

    I know you addressed the higher cognitive function that goes along with "superior" emotions. So it seems to me that you see feelings as "lower" emotions?

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  71. "Emotions lack the clarity of logical thoughts, because they're diffused rather than precise, lateral rather than linear. They're biologically programmed thoughts, if you will, programmed reactions to various common stimuli. At least the baser ones are."

    -----------------------------------

    So since that's only a definition for the baser ones, what's the definition in total?

    Also I disagree that emotions are all lateral. Sometimes the emotions we have are quite linear (if you mean logical to have).

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  72. You can feel sick but not necessarily emote it.
    -------------------------
    Feeling in the sense of feeling sick is direct neural sensation. It is not a kind of "feelings" even though the word is the same. It's a different usage of the word, a homonym.

    If you feel sick enough it can affect your feelings, but not necessarily.

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  73. Like "I feel that pin stuck in my foot" is not a feeling.

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  74. I know you addressed the higher cognitive function that goes along with "superior" emotions. So it seems to me that you see feelings as "lower" emotions?
    --------------------
    I see feeling as in neurally sensing something, as a neural sensation. I see feelings as emotions. Another word. Synonymous.

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  75. "Emotions lack the clarity of logical thoughts, because they're diffused rather than precise, lateral rather than linear. They're biologically programmed thoughts, if you will, programmed reactions to various common stimuli. At least the baser ones are."
    -St. Brian
    -----------------------------------

    So since that's only a definition for the baser ones, what's the definition in total?

    -The higher ones are derivative of the baser ones, but are in response to more complex stimuli and more complex combinations of stimuli than we needed to be able to "react" to just in order to survive. Like for instance, the learned data that learning to be truly empathetic to others is actually far more personally rewarding than not to learn to be. So the logical mind provides a stimulus of that idea if you will, and the lower emotions are co-opted to try out the new way of thinking. When it is discovered that indeed, it is very rewarding in many ways to become empathetic, then it becomes easier for the lower self-focused emotions to slowly adapt themselves to higher sources of gratification. And therefore to change to higher emotions. Other-focused. Agape instead of eros for example. Self-love becomes other love, and the emotions react accordingly.


    Also I disagree that emotions are all lateral. Sometimes the emotions we have are quite linear (if you mean logical to have).
    -------------------------

    No, sorry, I was unclear. Hmm... How to 'splain?

    Emotional thought including especialy intuition is a lateral thought process. Logical thought is a linear thought process. In the latter you have a goal and you take mental steps toward it. In the former progress is not only generally toward the goal but also laterally at each step toward it, pausing to absorb it and it's context. The linear thinker thinks about the results and the steps to get there; the balanced lateral plus linear thinker does that but also what the result implies, and what each step along the way toward getting it implies, and even what the seemingly bad data might imply, and whether the person that you heard it from is trustworthy, and what other people and sources including especially their enemies are saying, and if that might be true, and how to test that, and so on till they pass out. And at each step they ask themselves, "Does this *feel* right? Does this pass the smell test? And so on...
    And the lateral thinker without the ability to also think in a linear fashion reads horoscopes. We consider them flakes. Sometimes they're very sensitive emotionally, but they aren't even logical enough to sound sane while they're telling you all about it.

    Think Monk. The TV show. A fantastic example of a linear plus lateral thinker, with a huge storehouse of knowledge and process and detail on the logic side, but with this MUTANT intuitive ability on his emotional side. So he can see not just what the cops see, but what they miss, what everyone misses. He notices every detail and files it away in his logical side, which SHARES IT with his emotional side, and the result is eventual flashes of staggering insight.

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  76. Brian,

    This just sounds like a basic logic. The whole shebang, not just what I'm quoting.

    "the balanced lateral plus linear thinker does that but also what the result implies, and what each step along the way toward getting it implies..."

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  77. Or maybe more accurately he (Monk) files it away in his memory, and then the memories are processed by both sides of his psyche and not only his linear side. I dunno.

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  78. "the balanced lateral plus linear thinker does that but also what the result implies, and what each step along the way toward getting it implies..."
    ------------
    "Implies" not only logically but emotionally... the feel if it all. This is actually accessing a plurality of data, some not even conscious anymore...

    Check this out... It seems close.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lateral_thinking

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  79. I like it when you get me to think, oneblood.

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  80. But I dye gress. It's a lovely color.

    Gress: stressfully green? Only Kermit would know.

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  81. Ooh look, a bird!

    I'm with you, 'blood...

    This has been fun, thanks.

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  82. How about 'Monk" just knows what is going on because 'he' read the script?

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  83. It has occured to be (big whoop) that the memory is not a part of either "side" of the psyche but is a general storehouse of memories of both sides. Yes, that makes sense.

    Think I'd better retire for the night... Best to all of you! Pick this up again sometime soon? Or whatever...

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  84. Thanks for crapping all over my nice illustration there, pboy.

    I know that, silly... But he's a comic caricature of exactly the type of thought process that actually can go on in such an individual with both sides firing...

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  85. Hey, you crap all over my notion that we are all 'trapped' in our own mind model of reality which changes with additional interference which explains 'intuition' WAY easier than a 'centered mind' and I get to crap on fictional illustrations of 'the centered mind', okay?

    Example. I'm typing this out on my pc and I can see the clock on the wall out of the corner of my eye. NOW, if the clock started changing, say into a dog, then a moose, then a naked girl than a .. well you get the idea.

    THEN, since this 'reality' would not be corresponding with my mind model of reality, THAT 'changing' would grab my attention.

    BUT, if I had bought myself a holographic projector clock that did 'change', after a short time it would not 'intuitively' grab my attention, no, it would be 'in sync' with my mind model of reality.

    I think we call it the subconscious mind, but now we know different(wink!)!

    (I ought to be making money for this.)

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  86. I just created a new post, but it's not a serious one, so I hope that discussion will continue here as well.

    It's a funny video contest. Hope to see you all there.

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  87. OHHHHH! All this stuff hurts my brain! ~dismay~ So wait... Emotions are kind of like... TV tubes? They send signals that just kind of happen?

    I am confused...

    (and probably sound stupid again... sigh...)

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  88. Logical thoughts are thoughts that you have.
    Emotional thoughts are thoughts that have you.

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  89. Emotional thoughts are more holistic, and because of that difussed and harder to quantify, and (perhaps because of that) are connected to physical reactions. We have the emotional thought "fear" and our body excretes adrenaline etc... We "feel" emotional thoughts in our bodies, because they are thoughts that we are evolved to have to get us to do something in response to a given stimuli.

    And since we feel them, we tend to trust them, and think that they're always valid when they're not sometimes.

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  90. "Emotional thoughts are more holistic, .. We have the emotional thought "fear" and our body excretes adrenaline etc..."

    I call bullshit, Brian.

    Every single thought that you have is emotional, every SINGLE one.

    "..more holistic..."

    Are you TRYING to make me pukey sick?

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  91. ho·lis·tic (hō-lĭs'tĭk) Pronunciation Key
    adj.
    Of or relating to holism.

    Emphasizing the importance of the whole and the interdependence of its parts.
    http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/holistic

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  92. Every single thought is considered and reacted upon by the emotional side. Another way of putting it.

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  93. I call bullshit, Brian.
    --------------------------
    If you didn't, you wouldn't be you, my friend.

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  94. I mean honestly, are you trying your absolute hardest to come across as 'sounding' like Ben Stein.

    His 'drone' is just a smug affect you know, a learned thing.

    Imagine ol' Ben stuck in a room with Mike Tyson, who, let's say just 'hates' Ben's affect.

    "Oh, what have we here, harrumph, a battle of wits? I'm afraid you're unarmed Mike."

    Biff! Bang! Boof! Pow!

    "Hmm, perhaps I've miscalculated the fragility of your psyche.."

    Pow! Scud! Boink! (shattering teeth)

    Ben (with no affect at all, not even a pretense of having one single nucleotide of a 'smug arrogance gene') "Okay, please, stop hitting me!"

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  95. Hey Brian, does your wife ever play with your emotions, for fun?

    Emma was in the living room and she started to move around.

    A few moans, groans and squeals from her got no response from me.

    (I've heard this tune before.)

    Some more squeals and groans, and a, "Fuck!"

    (nothing)

    This goes on for a while ending with an exasperated, "Jesus Christ!"

    Finally on her way back to her room she 'let's me have it'!

    "Why didn't you help me?"

    "Well, I knew that as soon as I opened my mouth, you were going to be mad at me, that was the point of the entire exercise, wasn't it?"

    "You could have helped!"

    "You could have asked!"

    "Shut up, you're giving me a headache!"

    "Hey, look, you found your voice!"

    :-)

    But she's playing on the fact that she knows that I WANT to help her, and she, well she just wants to be pissed off at me for not being psychic, I guess.

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  96. Pboy, I just read your post to Mary and she cracked up and said "I think we've actually had that exact conversation!"

    She's cool... But yeah, sure she's done that.... lol...

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  97. When I mentioned the Ben Stein thing, it was a joke!

    And you've responded ever since then as if I'm really saying everything in a Ben Stein voice.

    I was just trying to get across that I have a dry sense of humor. Not that I'm anything like that caricature of a self-important pseudointellectual nebbish.

    Jeeze! That guy is so annoying! Is that REALLY how you're seeing me?

    I'm crushed here.

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  98. Pboy, if you haven't seen the Vince Vaughn Jennifer Anniston movie "The Break Up" you should. Perhaps without Emma, since, well, look at the title...

    But they have an exchange in it that is SO much like what you described there, only it was about doing the dishes.

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  99. Well, Brian, my mother would occasionally do that too.

    Here's a good point. How can I logically, coolly KNOW what is going to happen, defend my POV in a calm(as possible, you tend to shout back at someone shouting at you, right?), yet I feel so horrible about it.

    Hey, what's a guy to do, tell EVERY woman, "Remember, just ASK me if you want help, I'm not psychic!"

    What's the thinking here, "If you can't be psychic, I'll be psychotic!"?

    But this is silly, the reason for this odd behavior is that the woman is looking for a target for her (already)bad feelings about something. Could be you, could be the damned cat, but SHE KNOWS, that's a fact-jack!

    I think that this leaves your logical versus emotional theory in tatters!

    Every guy ought to know, if he's not the complete low-brow that some guys pretend to be with women that when a woman says, "You don't understand!", she means that if you even hint at 'understanding' SHE WILL CHANGE, because, she doesn't WANT you to understand.

    This is cunning logic, step by step 1,2,3,4 logic, but any woman will TELL you that you 'neanderthal' you try to use 1,2,3,4 logic and can't 'get' women's 'special' 6,3,7,2 alogic, intuitive, oh-so-sisterhood-feminine.

    LOL, bullshit.

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  100. "I'm crushed here."

    Biff! Pow! Schmargle!

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  101. No pboy, it proves the left brain-right brain thingy.

    Women are naturally (on average; there are exceptions) more "yin" side, more emotional intuitive side than men are.

    Men think linear, women think lateral...

    (I'm talking about what dominates the personality here; of course both use both sides to sime extent)

    So she's thinking "If he loved me he'd care enough to hear when I'm having a problem and come and help me out, but he jokes about it instead, so as much as he says (says---linear) that he loves me (I don't trust linear as much as...) he mustn't because he isn't acting or emoting like he does so my intuitions aren't confirming that he does... (I trust them more)

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  102. Oh, and the reason that you feel badly is that she's trying to manipulate you with guilt to act more like she wants you to. Don't sweat it, it's practically universal.

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  103. If you're expecting her to make sense, well, sense is not necessary to make, for an emotional side dominant person.

    Of course it doesn't make sense. It isn't supposed to. It's supposed to make you demonstrate your love by being as intuitive to her needs (emotional needs) as she thinks that she is to you, something just as unfair as you expecting her to be as logical to you as to think that you are to her. You're yang and yin. You're supposed to interlock, not match.

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  104. Man, you are so full of shit, you are hilarious.

    Is this actually you talking or are you letting your wife say this?

    Hey, we've had to go through every little manipulation trick in the book, Brian.

    "Oh, you don't like shopping, why can't you like taking me shopping?"

    So, I take her fucking shopping but SHE makes it HELLISHER than the Hell is already is for me.

    Why? Because she wants me to be her fuckin' girlfriend. She wants to freekin' immasculate me.

    Tonight, for example, she was being a twat to me because her crack-head son was calling from anger-management/dryout, guess what, angry, because he couldn't get in touch, instantly with his crack-head bitch.

    I said 'Hey, he's got anger issues and he's jealous, but she, whether she's back to crackin' up or not, she's still manipulating him.

    So, it was pause, pause, "I'll show you manipulation, you asshole! My son and his woman can be crack-heads if they want, how DARE you have any insight into it!"

    I talk to her about my poker, about what's going on in the blogs, about jokes, what does she want to eat, to drink, does she need a smoke, anything?

    It's all a big 'hmph!'

    But I have to hear every little detail about her shining(but sadly crack-headed and angry at the world) son and his fuck-up old lady. I have to hear how her daughter is not getting along with HER boyfriend(newsflash! In 1990 and two or three boyfriends ago that was a newsflash!)

    I have to hear how her youngest boy needs money YET AGAIN!(newsflash, both the 'boys' ALWAYS need money because if they have money now, oops, it's spent now!)

    Then she'll be, "Oh, honey, you know I love you and you look after me blah blah blah.."(her wonderful kids can't keep their shit together for five minutes in a row and I'm the only fool that Emma can lash out at.)

    If thinking 'laterally' means sucking up your kids 'stupid' and blowing it out at me, I guess I'm living in a fucking soap opera world.

    Oh, what else could she be 'mad' at me for?

    How about SHE cashed a five grand bond and since our car was snowed in her daughter drove her around.

    She says that she reinvested four grand with the bank but she sees it in my eyes that I think she reinvested it in her daughter. And she KNOWS that that is a stupid move.

    What is so fucking lateral thinking about taking out your frustations about your daughters bad relationships and your sons' and your own idiocy ON ME!?

    Pull my other leg, it's got bells on it.

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  105. Maybe I am full of shit, as far as your situation goes. I was just putting it out there extempore.

    But I do want to point out that what you're describing is exactly lateral thinking, without the vertical thinking. Remember what I said about them? Astrologers? Flaky? The primitive emotions are run amok. They can be very difficult and unfair. Oh, and seriously bad with money, a logical-side specialty I'm afraid.

    Just sayin, is all.

    And I pulled the other one, and those weren't bells, liar!

    I'll shut up now about it. I hope I didn't hit a nerve. I like you and I'd hate to piss you off in a genuine manner.

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  106. Don't worry Brian. I'm cool.

    I knew 'this' about Emma long ago. These days on top of all that crap she can also be screwed up on the different drugs that she gets.

    I was in 'two minds' whether to publish that last comment, but whatever you answered it would have been cool.

    Believe me, if I can put up with Emma... well...

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  107. I STILL think that you're full of crap and it's all learned behaviour.

    Not a 'choice' or anything insane like the nutbar Christians, by 'learned' I mean crammed into 'your' head behaviour!

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  108. Is this actually you talking or are you letting your wife say this?
    -----------------
    This is how a man that understands the feminine side of himself sounds to a man that thinks that's silly. Like his wife. Like a woman.

    But, you were asking me about one.

    And I didn't see anything in what you've told me that didn't make perfect sense in terms of this logical-emotional side dichotomy thingy that I've been talking about. I'm just being honest.


    Why is it that you seem to love to think the worst of my motivations at all times and yet seem to not hate me? I ponder that one sometimes. Boredom perhaps? Anyhow, don't start now.

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  109. I STILL think that you're full of crap and it's all learned behaviour.
    -----------------
    Not all of it.

    This really makes no sense to you, huh?

    I trust your opinion. I consider you intelligent.

    I am not trying to make up a story, I promise you. I really think about this stuff.

    Glad you weren't pissed. Emotions do not convey well in print.

    The print is too logical to get the emotions.

    (That last one was a joke)

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  110. It just seems to me that you are the oddestly Godless person that i could imagine.

    Given your BB Theory, you are 'saying' that we actually live in an insane asylum.

    It's not a question of 'like you' or 'dislike you' personally Brian, but your BB theory is almost EXACTLY the opposite of reality and every individual's own personal little mind model of reality.

    I'm just making 'shit' up as I go along too.

    In out D'Souza(ptoo) 'bashing' days I learned to overcome the 'philosophy' angle, that good is not Godly and that the best atheist 'position' is that there are no gods, not even one(to avoid favoring or disfavoring any particular religion).

    This idea of a world model in each of our minds replacing the idea of free will is 'new to me'.

    Probably thought of someone else already, but (shrug), what can 'you' do?

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  111. It's not a question of 'like you' or 'dislike you' personally Brian, but your BB theory is almost EXACTLY the opposite of reality and every individual's own personal little mind model of reality.
    ----------------------
    Really????

    :-) Fantastic!!!

    I had no idea that it was that likely to be true!

    You made my night, thanks!

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  112. To be serious, thanks for the candor of that last message, and I'm relieved to know that I'm not on your shit list. The feeling is mutual.

    I don't do this to start a church you know. That would horrify me.

    I have no snake oil to sell.

    Just craving feedback, alla time.

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  113. LMFAO.

    My words = 'false' as seen through the mind of Brian, apparently = 'true'

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  114. It just seems to me that you are the oddestly Godless person that i could imagine.

    Given your BB Theory, you are 'saying' that we actually live in an insane asylum.
    -----------------------
    Interesting interpretation. A dark one.

    Are you dark by nature?

    If we choose to see it that way.

    Hey, look around. Try living in Amarillo for a few months. Or wherever the religion has really taken hold. Not that far from an asylum to me.

    If it's all one, that means that in a real sense, I am Manson. Both Marilyn and Charles. I was Hitler. And Jesus, if he ever really did walk the earth.
    (I am not against that, by the way; I hope he did in fact. Its just that as you well know pboy, the evidence is spotty.)

    And everyone including whatever consciousness inhabited that first protokaryote. Except of course, being like a dream in many aspects, there's no way to tell if much of what we think really happened really happened, or of it was changed somehow along the way.

    I guess it does sound weird at that. But it just doesn't sound that *wrong* is the thing, not to me. A lot of my specifics are likely wrong, but I am *intuiting* that I've got the gist right, is the thing.

    If I'm a nut, at least I'm a fairly original one.

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  115. For the sake of clarity I will state that I of course got what you were saying and intentionally took it the other way for humor purposes, in case you think me that neolithic. But my point was twofold; the joke, but also the fact that if the whole world thinks one way about God and the universe and nobody's ever got a satisfactory answer doing it their way yet, then the fact that I'm the "exact opposite" to all of them is buoying, to say the least. Let's just say that it in no way discourages me.

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  116. "Check out what the Obama girls are having for lunch today.."

    This is news? Hey, I'm willing to guess, 'some kind of food', and leave it at that!

    I must be from an entirely different Big Brain than the Amarillo Christ-mongers and the people even ever so slightly interested in the Obama kids' freeking menu!

    Hey, maybe you ought to rename your theory the Tiny Brain Theory or the Cracked Brain Theory?

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  117. Incidentally, the "insane asylum" outlook makes sense from the viewpoint of a very logical person that doesn't give creedence to the possibile validity of intuitive thought, and it's possible usefulness when coupled with said logical ability.

    Intuition is very often wrong, when the logical side is underdeveloped. But that doesn't stop the person that lives on that emotional side from relying on it nevertheless. They have no other choice. Its just "who they are" to them. Just like "being logical" is who you are, or a part of it, to you. As it still is to me, by the way. I want both. I'm greedy.

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  118. Okay, I'm 'down' for the night Brian. Later.

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  119. Well, it's called a Big Brain because there's room for everyone, you know.

    And as bizarre as you and I think the Amarilloites etc. are, they're still not bizaree enough for us to logical types to not believe that they can exist, so no rules of consistancy broken. All parties are satisfied tonight that they go to sleep on a real world and dream dreams in their head, when the real world is also "in their head," just on digital widescreen and not on a 4-inch diagonal b&w.

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  120. Hey, you were keeping me up, as far as I could tell..

    :-) May the great bird of happiness......... Ah, you know the rest.

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  121. To clarify a point about feelings versus logical thoughts.

    We react with emotion to some thoughts and not to others for one reason. Those thoughts that we are reacting to emotionally we are connecting to our ego somehow. To our own survival or happiness. Naturally the organism (our evolved bodies) would prod us when we have such a thought in some way.

    So feelings and emotions are felt by us when we have thoughts that relate to our survival (or our happiness, our "emotional survival") somehow, or the survival of others that we care about. Not when our thoughts are about matters not connected to us in that manner, to our egos. Until we learn that focusing on all others and not so much on ourselves is actually more deeply rewarding in the long run, while having the benefit of diminishing the ego and allowing us to accept change within ourselves. At that point we can begin to grow. For all growth is change, no?

    I was led to this process by my own ego, but now ironically the process won't let my ego get through it, since that's the whole point of the process, so now I'm grinding my egoic gears about that. My ego doesn't want to give up it's little kingdom.
    I like to think I'll kick it eventually.

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  122. What to do when your egotistical desire to be a better person leads you to a path that seems to actually do that, but it does so by destroying your egoic desires, including of course what caused you to embark on the path in the first place?

    You wait for further instructions, I guess... lol. Then you try to discover them.

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  123. Oh, and to pboy,

    It occurs to me that when I talk about left and right-brained individuals, the logical versus the emotional, that you might take it to mean that I'm saying that these distinctions actually exist as I'm describing them.

    My description of all of this duality stuff is just the best way that I've ever found how to think about reality and people. How to evaluate them both as well. A useful shorthand, if you will. Not what reality (or people) actually is. So it's more a way that we can visualize things and thereby vastly simplify them in our minds, than it is an accurate description of what's actually going on.

    I realized that you might be thinking of it in a linear fashion, and thus might be taking me too literally. :-)

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  124. I mentioned that I "intuited" that the Big Brain idea has merit, if not exactly or even possibly not nearly correct.

    Intuitions can always be wrong.

    So I could be totally full of shit. I have to never forget that.

    But I've spent a lot of time training mine with my "logical side" to conform to this consensual reality we all call life. To be a reliable tool.

    So if mine are, I wanna know why.

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  125. Fess up, Brian...

    You got the idea for the video clip contest afteryou watched the "Curly Shuffle" clip, din'cha?

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  126. OK, just had to share this:

    word verification = "bryam"

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  127. Brian, you say, "..when I talk about left and right-brained individuals, the logical versus the emotional, that you might take it to mean that I'm saying that these distinctions actually exist as I'm describing them."

    My head hurts from thinking about that.

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  128. I know, boy. It doesn't sound very sensible, does it?

    I'm trying to get across here that this is a useful way to think about reality and about people, but the actual truth is likely much more complex, more subtle, and probably quite beyond us to grasp at this point. But the duality thing, used as a loose guideline, is a useful tool and does seem to prove valuable in judging things and people.

    Same for the kaballah, by the way. There is no actual "tree of life," no ten spheres or emanations. They're a mental construct, a map to something that is inherently unmappable. Useful, but not really real.

    Sorry to hurt your brain.

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  129. I love Curly, but I don't recall thinking of the video contest because of that clip.

    I'm an old Stooges fan from way back.

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  130. On a related point, in this post I mentioned the ancient alchemists word "VITRIOL."

    Many people aren't aware that the Alchemists weren't "actually" tryinig to turn base metals into gold. Well, I'm sure some of them did, but their main purpose they called "The Great Work" and that was turning the "base metals" in their own personality into the "Gold" of an enlightened man. They had another saying, "Aurum nostrum non est aurum vulgi." Our Gold is not the common Gold. That was code for the fact that they weren't looking for physical gold, the metal. That was just the symbol they used for enlightenment. Alchemy as it turns out was a valid spiritual path. All the clde words and cryptic references were there because the alchemists were working under the watchful eye of the Church, which would happily flay them if they knew what it was really all about. But turning base metals into gold? Great cover story! ANY FOOL could see the value in THAT, so the kings and princes and pincelings would give them money for their research.... never knowing that they were financing an unchristian activity like actual spirituality!

    And Issak Newton was an alchemist, even more than he was a physicist. It was his great love.

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  131. And the Philisopher's Stone was the key factor in the balanced personality that turned it from "base metal" into "gold."

    Visit the interior of the earth, there by rectification you will find the hidden stone.

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  132. Isaac Newton. Typo there.

    Oh, and code words, not clde words. And princelings, not pincelings.

    I'm sloppy today.

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  133. Even the other different base metals were codes for different personality factors, very similar in effect to the ten spheres of the tree-of-life.

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  134. In fact if you hunt down the portrait of Newton in my now huge picture gallery it links to his translation of The Emerald Tablet of Hermes Tresmegistus, also called Mercury Trimaximus. The core document of hermetic philosophy, translated by Newton himself. I love that.

    It took me years to understand that document. It looks like silliness on the surface. The language is highly symbolic. Check it out.

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  135. In fact, I'll just post the Newton Translation here for your perusal so you don't have to hunt down that picture...

    Newton's Translation of the Emerald Tablet

    It is true without lying, certain and most true. That which is Below is like that which is Above and that which is Above is like that which is Below to do the miracles of the Only Thing. And as all things have been and arose from One by the mediation of One, so all things have their birth from this One Thing by adaptation. The Sun is its father; the Moon its mother; the Wind hath carried it in its belly; the Earth is its nurse. The father of all perfection in the whole world is here. Its force or power is entire if it be converted into Earth. Separate the Earth from the Fire, the subtle from the gross, sweetly with great industry. It ascends from the Earth to the Heavens and again it descends to the Earth and receives the force of things superior and inferior. By this means you shall have the glory of the whole world and thereby all obscurity shall fly from you. Its force is above all force, for it vanquishes every subtle thing and penetrates every solid thing. So was the world created. From this are and do come admirable adaptations, whereof the process is here in this. Hence am I called Hermes Trismegistus, having the three parts of the philosophy of the whole world. That which I have said of the operation of the Sun is accomplished and ended.

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  136. Pboy, that head pain you're feeling that seems like frustration with my silliness to you is actually your linear mind trying to grasp intuitive concepts that I'm throwing at you. It always hurts at first.

    :-) :-) :-)

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  137. "..that head pain you're feeling that seems like frustration with my silliness to you is actually your linear mind trying to grasp intuitive concepts.."

    Nono.. What you said was that you really didn't believe anything about what you were saying.

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  138. Oh wait, I get it. You're opening doors that aren't there through the walls of reality into the nothingness that you can analyse as the eight sacred corners of the eldritch sphere to gain the secret of the ultimate answer.

    What was the fucking question?

    Their gold was not ordinary gold, because they were a bunch of headcases.

    No beer and T.V. makes Homer something something.

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  139. Oh, and you just called Newton a headcase.

    Pretty silly.

    You're a cynic, but you are also closed-minded. I prefer to be an open-minded cynic.

    You as it turns out, are also a classic example of someone that is blind to intuitive thought. I get the same reaction from you when I speak like that, as I do from certain Christians when I speak of evolution. Huge blind spots, and righteous indignation.

    No wonder you're having trouble understanding women.

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  140. Their gold was not ordinary gold, because they were a bunch of headcases.
    --------------
    That's just sad, pboy. I mean, it literally makes me sad to hear you dismiss them like that. Their brilliance is not in the surface, (except for Newton of course) and apparently you're one of those that must evaluate everything on the surface level, and if it's doesn't make sense to you at that level you deem it utterly worthless without ever thinking that the problem might lie within you. To me you sound like an Englishman that is visiting China and complaining out loud that the residents are just too stupid to speak the Queen's English properly.

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  141. Pboy, a semi-tangential question:

    What's your favorite poem?

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  142. I'm not trying to be insulting either here...

    You've got a really excecllent logical side. (again using my peculiar parlance, forgive me)

    Like a Swiss Watch, really. Your logical side is one of the best that I've run across. I wish everyone were so logical. (In addition to being intuitive of course) In fact, its a refreshing pleasyre to talk to someone so logical.

    I gently and timorously put forth that perhaps, just perhaps, you haven't developed your intuitive side as much as you might have, nor even given it any validity or credit in your mind whatsoever.

    No harm meant with my responses tonight, pboy. I was enjoying the freedom of being able to just say what is on my mind. You seem relatively thick-skinned, as I hope that I am myself, so I trust that there are no hard feelings.

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  143. Oh, and Pboy...

    And everyone else for that matter...

    Read THIS...

    And while you do, think about my Big Brain Scenario...

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  144. Nono.. What you said was that you really didn't believe anything about what you were saying.
    ------------------
    Did I?

    Really?

    To me, that sounds funny. Why would I say that?

    Since it's obvious (or it certainly should be) that I wouldn't say such a thing, I humbly suggest to you that perhaps my statements require more contemplation before such a dismissal.

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  145. I mean, I've read the ancient alchemists and read about them and the one thing that stands out is that they were pursuing a spiritual path that they knew that they would be punished for if they were found out, so they couched everything that they wrote down in a symbolic language that was designed to appear to the typical person that hadn't developed their intuitive senses enough to understand it as hogwash, and so when someone in this day and age tells me how it's hogwash all I can think of is how well they designed it, that it's still working like a charm today.

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  146. Anyone can be cryptic and engage in obfuscation; that the alchemists had an excuse to do so is understandable, given the religious climate at the time. So let's hereafter strive for clarity (all of us humans, not just the ones in this little room).

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  147. "What's your favorite poem?"

    Jabberwocky!

    This layer upon layer of 'mystery' that you are giving Alchemists was also given to John of Revelation fame.

    Shit, Brian, the 'mystery' of THAT is easy to solve. He, John just rewrote the Booklet of Daniel.

    The mystery of the Booklet of Daniel is 'confusion', to confuse the reader.

    Here we have a Nostradamus style future teller. But whoever wrote Daniel was also a cheater! Daniel wrote his prophecies as if he had lived in the time that his prophecies had happened and knew more about the future than he did about his 'so-called' present. He botched the lineages of the leaders of the time, both Hebrew and Babylonian.

    This 'confusion' was brought right up to the present when some theologists tried to make a case that since Daniel and John NeVER MET, then both stories HAVE TO be 'God inspired'.

    Apparently it never occured to them that John could just study the Booklet of Daniel and paraphrase it.

    But it's no wonder that they so easily tricked themselves, their heads are full of magic, like some other people that I could mention.

    Brian, you say, "..when I talk about left and right-brained individuals, the logical versus the emotional, that you might take it to mean that I'm saying that these distinctions actually exist as I'm describing them."

    And what am I supposed to take this piece of sophistry as?

    You are taking back that you think what you're saying is 'real'?

    Or, you just want me to think you said that your backpedalling, but it's just an impression that you want to give me, while ACTUALLY standing 'firm' on your 'lateral thinking/logical thinking'(everything that you have said and that I'm 'arguing against')view?


    Back to the alchemists for a second. What were the alchemists ON ABOUT if we can strip away the bullshit put there for the sake of fooling the church?

    Cut/paste what they wrote, paraphrase THAT leaving out the anti-persecution 'style'(to fool the church, remember) and reveal to us the true nature of whichever passage you picked.

    That ought to be fairly simple for you, Brian, since you insist that the writings WERE 'mystified' specifically to avoid church persecution.(twice already you mention this).

    Finally, I think we 'talked' about the difference between a skeptic and a cynic before.

    I feel that you are being a bit of an asshole here, adding 'closed-minded' even though you're 'softening' this by declaring yourself a cynic too.

    This would be exactly equivalent to a xian calling me a closed-minded sinner and BTW they are a sinner too, even AFTER you took exception to being called a sinner(no God = no crime against God = no sin, y'see).

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  148. Perhaps that short quote was misleading you about what you actually said.

    Here:-

    "It occurs to me that when I talk about left and right-brained individuals, the logical versus the emotional, that you might take it to mean that I'm saying that these distinctions actually exist as I'm describing them.

    My description of all of this duality stuff is just the best way that I've ever found how to think about reality and people. How to evaluate them both as well. A useful shorthand, if you will. Not what reality (or people) actually is."

    We can see clearly that you are, while later calling me a 'closed-minded cynic', that you don't believe it yourself!

    You're 'open-mindedness' amounts to your willingness(according to the above quote) to employ a 'not actual' model, for the sake of 'not actual' clarity, I imagine?

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  149. I didn't mean to call you closed minded, but you're still not getting it...

    I said that it's a useful too, so obviously it corresponds to SOMETHING in the psyche and in reality, but no way to know what exactly. The human mind DOES seem to divide things into duality, does seem to be dual in nature itself, but it is probably a lot more complex that my simple theories suggest. That's all I meant, and you're not being a very nice person insisting on taking it to mean that I've just admitted that I don't know what I'm talkng about. That wasn't how I meant that, and so you are wrong.

    You want me to interpret the Emerald Tablet? Sure. I'll have to do it later on since it'll take me a while... Plus I'll need to refresh my memory about a few terms... I've done it before for someone else. Unlike scripture the symbols, their meanings, are known. All you have to do it understand them and it makes sense, unlike scripture.

    You won't like the translation though. Its very similar to the Bib Brain theory.

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  150. You're being the sort-of asshole by insisting that I said that when that's not what I meant, and I've explained what I meant. You're not GETTING this, dude. Face it.

    When I tell you what the Emerald Tablet means, will you "get" it? No. Because it means something very similar to my BB thing, and you don't get that either, or refuse to, either way. (I got some of the BB thing, some of the ideas, from the Emerald Tablet!)
    I'm not mad at you for it, but you don't get it, do you? I mean, you've just proven it. I've told you that the duality thing (and the tree of life) are useful guides, so they MUST correspond to something in reality. There is a duality about this place. But it's probably a lot more COMPLEX than my simplified way of looking at it. However, that dosn't mean that my way of looking at it isn't useful and therefore "true" in as far as it goes. It may mean that SOME of my way of looking at it is in error. Not all of it though, or it wouldn't still be useful. So I continually refine what I'm thinking as I see parts that need refining.

    Still not getting it, I bet. Still insisting that you've "won" something herre by "proving" that I have "admitted" that I'm all wet. That's pretty frustrating to me, but I can't seem to stop you from doing it.

    I'll get back to you with that translation of the Emerald Tablet. I need to do it all over again, since it's been years, and I'll need to look up a few things. The last time I did it I didn't need to look up a thing, though. I've just forgotten a few terms. I'm sure I'll go throught the trouble of doing it for nothing, but what the heck.

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  151. Jabberwocky has no intuitive content. It's all fun made-up words. Humor. No deep content.

    See, even your favorite poem is all linear. :-)

    Now if it were "the Second Coming" by Yeats or something like that I would have been shocked.

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  152. You're 'open-mindedness' amounts to your willingness(according to the above quote) to employ a 'not actual' model, for the sake of 'not actual' clarity, I imagine?
    --------------
    No. For the sake of the fact that it's all we've got to go by in this. We don't know the actual nature of reality. But the lens of duality is still a very useful one to look at it through. It opens it up a lot to the mind, allows deeper comprehension into it's nature.

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  153. "..so they MUST correspond to something in reality.."

    Two things, first they correspond to your mind-model of reality, and that's important to you.

    SO IMPORTANT in fact that you use one, to back up the other.

    Point two. There are, 'in fact' tiny sparkling beelike beings called Zorks that construct PC monitors. What proof can I give you of this?

    Just the BEST PROOF EVER!

    You're looking at a PC monitor right now, aren't you? (therefore Zorks must exist)*

    I wish you would quit whining that I 'just don't get it'. You're sounding like a girl. LMAO

    (Is that you Mary?)

    *Doesn't the argument for Zorks 'sound' familiar to you? It's called reverse logic(NOT 'lateral thinking' at all!).

    Can YOU grasp THAT, Brian?

    Start at the beginning of this entire post and try to notice that you don't address my points EVER.

    You just keep piling on the bullshit as if that'll 'hide' the bullshit underneath, much like Christian apologists/philosophers HAVE to do.

    YOU must see that the BB Theory is EXACTLY the same 'scenario' that Christians believe EXCEPT that they call their 'all pervading' consciousness GOD.

    Or have you simply compartmentalized that so your mind-model of reality can NEVER peek at each other?

    Hey, unless you are, in reality, an apologist who is just 'taking' the 'NO GODS' stance to try to gently 'sweep' us first towards the teeniest possibility of a spiritual realm?

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  154. "We don't know the actual nature of reality."

    RU-HEALLY!? What is this mumbo-jumbo, Brian.

    You seem to be willing to start from this worn out superstitious mind-model that people have been getting pawned off with forever.

    How can you even THINK that there are no gods at all, Brian, with all the rest of that baggage that goes with it still FIRMLY ENTRENCHED in your mind model of reality?

    "Ooo how dare I call Newton a headcase!?"

    Well, he's just doing the same as you, Cue-ballists(?) and every other garden variety theist and spiritualist, have always done.

    And what is at the 'root' of ALL the magical thinking?

    We're fucking 'special', WE have free will!

    But you don't GET free will with a 'mind-model of reality' "mind".

    We can say that we make decisions all the time, "Not to stab ourselves in the eye with our cutlery at meal-times!", and a billion little thingies that we just 'do' every day.

    BUT, if you've just been squeezed out, if you're fresh out of the 'box'(as it were), your brain started doing what it just DOES. It created for you a 'mind-model' of reality and you had NO CHOICE but to take in all the information about reality and make that mind model.

    Then you make tiny insignificant decisions based entirely on this. "Laugh when daddy farts in your face, cry when mommy bounces you off the wall for being gripy 'cos your little belly hurts, and such!"

    If that is free will, the tiny decisions then absolutely every living thing that has eyes has the 'free will' to look around, yes?

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  155. So I guess I won't bother with that emerald tablet thing then.

    Okay pboy. I'm not mary, so I know where you stand and can still respect it. Sorry to irritate you with my pseudotheistic thinking.

    I do wish we could have talked about more without you summarily dismissing it until we had gone a bit further into it. Still, I can no more force it on you than mary could on me. I take your point.

    Peace, my friend. If I'm bored later I might still post my take on the Emerald Tablet, just for shits and giggles. Hope you don't take it personally.

    Oh, I just looked at my word verification. You might like this.

    It's a "sign" I think... lol..

    Word Verification: dissedn

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  156. you say, "..they were pursuing a spiritual path.."

    There's NO 'spiritual path'..

    ".. that they knew that they would be punished for if they were found out, so they couched everything that they wrote down in a symbolic language that was designed to appear to the typical person.."

    This is a diversion. If they 'hid' their meaning, it doesn't make their 'studies' or 'insights' ANY MORE VALID, now does it?

    " that hadn't developed their intuitive senses enough to understand it as hogwash, and so when someone in this day and age tells me how it's hogwash.."

    No, they hid bullshit under MORE bullshit!

    " all I can think of is how well they designed it, that it's still working like a charm today."

    Meaning that you 'buy' their bullshit.

    Just like Christians 'buy' that the Booklet of Revelation was written in code to hide it's meaning from the Romans.

    It just makes a simple 'trap' into a more complicated, "Oh, I HAVE the 'key' to the code!", now I can see the bullshit underneath SO MUCH CLEARER than atheists.

    Blech!

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  157. If the significance of my comparison to the Booklet of Revelation has eluded you, I ask you to ponder how much time did Isaac Newton waste decyphering, or trying to decypher, the symbolism of that little puzzle?

    Doesn't that give you pause, at all?

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  158. Here's another way to try to explain 'men's logic' versus women's intuition.

    Men have a plan and stick to it. Women juggle three plans are defy men to figure out what the 'plan-du-jour' is.

    If they have an inkling that you're figuring those plans(which some good 'decypherer' type guys can eventually, the women will drop all the balls and pick up new ones, plan C,D,and E.

    This is as much to gain and keep control of the guy as religion is, don't think it's not.

    And BTW, to say that you understand this is to piss off the woman, and she's going to tuck THAT little gem aside 'til you least expect it.. then she will show YOU absolute CHAOS and smugly think to herself, figure THAT out, ya think yer so fuckin' smart!

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  159. Saint Brian’s restatement of Newton's Translation of the Emerald Tablet

    “It is true without lying, certain and most true. That which is Below is like that which is Above and that which is Above is like that which is Below to do the miracles of the Only Thing.”

    -There is a correspondence between all levels of reality. The macroscopic levels, for example the stars and planets, have a loose correspondence with events on earth, and even in the microscopic and submicroscopic world. It’s all like a fractal, in other words, each level not duplicated but echoed on all other levels. And all of it is really just one thing, one basic thing that has differentiated itself into all the many things but still retains its basic unitary identity.


    “And as all things have been and arose from One by the mediation of One, so all things have their birth from this One Thing by adaptation.”
    -An elaboration on the nature of this one thing and how everything is just an aspect of it, everything is made of it. The One acts upon itself and produces all things.


    “The Sun is its father; the Moon its mother; the Wind hath carried it in its belly; the Earth is its nurse.”
    -The Sun in this sentence represents primal fire, the element of Fire as known to the ancients as more of a quality that things partake of than fire itself. The “Yang” side.
    The Moon is primal water, the Yin side. These first two things are the first duality, the masculine-feminine duality that all other dualities are an echo of.
    The Wind is the element of Air, logical thought specifically.
    The Earth, the element of earth, is the final “grounding” of any manifestation. So we now have the four elements represented in this sentence. What all things are “made of.” And most importantly, in the correct order. The idea being that this is not only how WE make things, but how this reality does as well. By combining qualities rather than just mere chemicals, if you will. By acting like a mind. See also next part below…


    “The father of all perfection in the whole world is here. Its force or power is entire if it be converted into Earth.”
    -By converting the force of a manifestation into earth, by “grounding it” one achieves real-world results. So say that one is inspired to have an idea (fire/ “masculine” inspiration from the One Thing) then one refines the idea by expanding on it, by thinking about it so that the idea “gestates” into a full-fledged concept with the help of intuitive input and visual imagination. (water/ “feminine capacity to allow the “seed” of an idea to grow) then one plans out the precise execution of the idea using logical thought (air) along with charts, graphs, blueprints, and possibly complex mathematics, or whatever. But you haven’t made it yet. It’s still in your head. You haven’t ‘earthed’ the process. It’s only complete when you do that. So you convert it into earth. (Note shifting meanings of words. All must be derived from context.)

    “Separate the Earth from the Fire, the subtle from the gross, sweetly with great industry.”
    -Use your rational mind to look at things and categorize them in your mind by these standards, and you will better understand yourself and everything else. You will find the “hidden stone.” Separation is division is Air. That’s why Air is sometimes equated with a sword.


    “It ascends from the Earth to the Heavens and again it descends to the Earth and receives the force of things superior and inferior.”
    -Reality, all manifestation, is cyclic. This process of manifestation doesn’t stop after it is earthed. All things end, and are recycled into new things. But really, they’re all just the One Thing acting on itself.

    (Hey, maybe reality is just God masturbating!)

    “By this means you shall have the glory of the whole world and thereby all obscurity shall fly from you.”
    -Thinking like this is the key to understanding this complex reality well enough to know the true from the false.


    “Its force is above all force, for it vanquishes every subtle thing and penetrates every solid thing.”
    -This way of thinking penetrates to the core of all things whether conceptual or actual.


    “So was the world created. From this are and do come admirable adaptations, whereof the process is here in this.”
    -From this simple process of manifestation not only was the world created long ago by the One Thing, but is still continuing to be created in the same fashion moment-by-moment.


    Hence am I called Hermes Trismegistus, having the three parts of the philosophy of the whole world.
    -Because in alchemical symbolism, the four elements are represented by the three alchemical symbols of Sulphur, Salt, and Mercury. Sulphur is Fire, Salt is Earth, and Mercury doubles as Water and Air, with some additional blending of meanings.

    “That which I have said of the operation of the Sun is accomplished and ended.”
    -The Sun, Primal Fire of all manifestation and alchemical Gold, but also the Solar Logos, the “local universe” if you will.

    Phew! I’ve forgotten some of the subtleties of Sulphur, Salt and Mercury, so this is hazier than I recall it being the first time that I did it.

    It’s not as clear as I thought it would be, but to summarize the whole thing by only taking the things that ARE really clear about it to me, we have:

    All reality is one thing, but differentiated into all that we know. Because it is all one thing, there is a pattern to it echoed at all levels from the very very small to the very very large. Absolutely everything is a part of this one thing with no exceptions. Everything can (for convenience) be thought of as partaking of four qualities, really based in two. When we think of everything that way, we can see further into reality and more of what reality really is than if we do not use such tools.

    (Oh, and I’m really, really, really smart, signed Hermes… )

    Best I could do on short notice. 

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  160. Pboy, I'm not saying that the alchemists were right about everyting. But their way of thought is a useful one. Other paths have also come up with useful ways that are similar. In India we have the tattvas. Same basic thing. In many ways, more useful than the four elements.

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  161. The four elements which are based in duality, by the way.

    Fire is male, water is female, air is male again, and earth is female again.

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  162. Or in Hermetic Kaballah, Yod Heh Vav Heh.

    They use the four letters of the name as code for the four elements.

    Again, in proper order of course.

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  163. And of course the Chinese Yin-Yang symbol. Duality. A useful concept.

    And to be precise, while Hermetic kaballah also uses the four elements scheme, in addition it offers us the ten spheres and twenty-to paths between them, so it's a pretty complex system comparable to the tattvas.

    All useful tools. Intuitive ones, though. To the linear thinker it's going to look like utter nonsense of course.

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  164. And BTW, to say that you understand this is to piss off the woman, and she's going to tuck THAT little gem aside 'til you least expect it.. then she will show YOU absolute CHAOS and smugly think to herself, figure THAT out, ya think yer so fuckin' smart!
    ---------------------
    Not my woman. She knows that I understand her better than she does. Doesn't always want to admit it, but actually she has on occassion.

    Pboy, what do you see in her then? Just curious. She's way emotional, and you're not. No need to tell me, but maybe you need to ask yourself... Dunno.

    I used to use the four elements in dating once I got the hang of the concept. And they worked very well indeed. I'd ask myself, "What areas of the four are we compatable in." Fire is passion, sexual pasion included, but also passion for life in general, desire for betterment of self, etc... Water is emotionality, how loving they are, how demonstrable of affection, but also how easily angered, etc... Air is mental capacity, logical ability, etc. And earth is MONEY, finances, practical things, who washes the dishes, does it really irritate one of you if the other one leaves the cap off the toothpaste, etc. Earthly matters.

    The idea was that one didn't need to match the other in a given category, but one had to be able to "get along" in that area, to be able to strike a balance that is mutually satisfying.

    It was rare for me to find a woman that met two of my criteria, so when I ran into someone that met all four of them I married her and have had no regrets.

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  165. Oh, and in that last I mean "desire for betterment of self" as self-improvement, personal growth.

    Fire is also spiritual compatability. I forgot that one. If you aren't spiritual, it's still an important category to be able to match your partner in somehow. So either she better not be spiritual too, or her spirituality doesn't bother you at all...

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  166. One can use a pentagrammaton version of the four elements, including "spirit" over the four "lower" elements. Then of course you'd attribute spiritual compatability to the quintesenntial element of Spirit.
    The tattvas do this as well. Akasha, they call it.

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  167. Although I personally think that while perhaps real spirituality is attributable to Fire, that religion is more appropos to Water. Any thoughts? :-)

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  168. When does the dead badger, the grass skirt the rattle and the sceptre from Queen Liz come in?

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  169. I dunno fellas.

    I think the most spiritual moment a person can have is those blissful moments one experiences during orgasm. Which is why I think pigs may, indeed be the most spiritual among us- their orgasms can last for up to 30 minutes !

    And to think I was insulted when my wife called me a pig bastard ;-)

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  170. Wow mac, your wife must be really int..int.. int.. int.. int.. (30 minutes later).. int.. int.. int.. intuitive.

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  171. When does the dead badger, the grass skirt the rattle and the sceptre from Queen Liz come in?
    ----------------------
    Give me time. I haven't even gotten your credit card number yet.
    :-)

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  172. Pboy, are you calling Mac a pig?

    They not only have half-hour orgasms, but their penises and vaginas are corkscrew-shaped...
    So they quite literally "screw" when they screw.

    Hey, what happens if a right-hand-threaded boy piggy meets a hot left-hand-threaded girl piggy?

    They get religion.

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  173. Some people believe that during orgasm a person experiences a second or two of "gnosis." So therefore there is a history of people trying to perform magic while cumming. Seriously.

    The alchemists did that too. An "athanor" is an alchemical furnace, but also a code word for the penis... A curcurbite, a type of container, is code for vagina... Gluten of the white eagle is I believe mixed sexual fluids used to annoint, etc...
    they had code words for everything.
    There is also a history of sex magicians in the old days creating a ceramic vessel designed to be, well, fucked. It had an opening for "insertion" and a container vessel at the end where you placed a sigil or inscribed piece of paper denoting your 'magical intent' and then you screwed it while you thought of your intention and came on the piece of paper or sigil inside.. Supposedly very powerful stuff.

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  174. It is said that Aleister Crowley used to practice holding his concentration during sex by having sex with his mistress in one room while his buddy had a chess board in the other room and called out moves to him. So he had to play a game of chess in his mind while screwing.

    Probably not true, but one hell of a concentration exercise if it were.

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  175. Pboy, I know that you're not about to buy into any of this, my friend. And I seem to not really have a problem with that. But I am wondering if you can grasp the idea of the four elements used as descriptions of qualities of things as opposed to their literal desscriptions. In other words, can you kind-of see what they were meaning when they talked about fire, water, air, and earth? That they were not referring to them as elements like the chemical elements are in the periodic table. Or can you even get the idea of male-femal duality? Like Yin and Yang. Or is it absolutely all utter bullshit to you and therefore you don't even want to think about it? Just curious here.

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  176. Speaking of EVIL, I just got one of the new generation of penis enlarger spam emails. "Replace your pants snake with a python!"

    Hmmm... Wouldn't wanna KILL anyone, so I'll pass...

    OH NO! Just at this second (after typing the above) noticed my word verification!
    "THERNIA!"

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  177. Floyd said,

    "...And BTW, to say that you understand this is to piss off the woman, and she's going to tuck THAT little gem aside 'til you least expect it.. then she will show YOU absolute CHAOS and smugly think to herself, figure THAT out, ya think yer so fuckin' smart!..."

    Have you been channelling my ex-wives?

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  178. Yea, Brian, of course I can see where it all comes from.

    The sky is male, pouring fertility on the land, which then grows.

    Water falls from the male sky therefore water is female.

    All things are mixtures of these four.

    Water, air fire and earth give us food and wood.

    We can experiment to show the nature of things.

    Fire needs air. (cover a pot of burning wood and the fire will go out.

    Fire comes from wood, straw etc. meaning the fire that went into it can be made to come out.

    We can build up a list of properties of any substance using this parlance, the science of the day PLUS elemental gods whereby recipes become spells, incantations.

    But they were looking for more than just that, weren't they?

    But you are just as intrigued as Bible believers for thinking that alchemists efforts to find the essence of life, time etc. and finding instead, mysteries which they cloaked in the language of their time and felt the need to mystify THAT further to conceal their secrets.

    But their studies didn't lead to anything more than an ancient version of 'Dianetics', really now, did it?

    I pointed out that Newton studied the Book of Revelation and your' 'cover' of that is, "Well, surely they couldn't always have been wrong!"

    You just said that backwards, "Well they weren't always right!"

    Well, Brian, seems to me that that leaves you in the enviable position of denying that what your saying is ALL bullshit without having to point out anything truthier that what you believe and the awe that you bring to those mysteries.

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  179. I don't think you're getting it. No, hear me out. I'm not just saying that, and I'm not talking like a religious person here. You're missing what I'm saying.

    The things you mention are common impressions of the elements, but not what I was talking about at all. I was talking about how say, you can look at an individual and once you get to know them a little you can judge their personality by how much of each "element" it has in it. Very approximate of course. Or even forget the elements, just use the idea of male/female duality. Yin-Yang type. A very useful lens to look at things through. You can even do it with yourself. Most men are mostly male side, most women mostly female, but they vary tremendously in this. There are many applications of this type of thought with no spiritual connotation whatsoever, just as an aid in judging the qualities of things. In fact it's most useful in judging people, and not things. Like a crude type of psychological profiling, I guess. No different, really.

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  180. " I was talking about how say, you can look at an individual and once you get to know them a little you can judge their personality by how much of each "element" it has in it."

    Really now, you were talking about THAT and you didn't notice that I was talking about the alchemists which you were also talking about?

    MAN are you 'shite' at this kind of thing! You seem to be willing to tell me I'm so wrong about what I wasn't talking about SO much that you want to Imagine that I won't notice you changing the subject.

    Sorry Brian, I guess that must count as a 'FAIL'?

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  181. I was saying that that is what the alchemists were saying, in part. You are like, blind to this stuff, huh?

    And Pboy, you're being rude. Stop it. I'm getting tired of you insisting that I'm lying when you're just not intuitive enough to know what I'm talking about. To you, intuition is itself a lie! Now cut the crap. I don't like being insulted for something I didn't do. I'm not lyinig or dissembling or anything like that, or changing the subject. YOU CAN'T FOLLOW IT, so you keep thinking that it changed.

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  182. And now you'll get all defensive and try to prove to me that I'm changing the subject by telling me back what I said to you, but you didn't get what I was saying from the get-go so all it's proving to me is the depths of your misunderstanding. The emerald tablet speaks of a WAY OF THINKING, and that's what I'm trying to get across here. You're too trapped inn the surface. It's like, kind of funny actually, if you weren't so rude about it.

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  183. But I am wondering if you can grasp the idea of the four elements used as descriptions of qualities of things as opposed to their literal desscriptions.
    ------------------
    This is where I asked you if you could "get" what I meant, and what the alchemists meant also, about the elements. Because you don't realize that this is what the alchemists meant by them, you think I'm changing the subject. I asked this very question to SEE IF YOU WERE FOLLOWING THIS. And no, you aren't.

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  184. Sorry Brian, I guess that must count as a 'FAIL'?
    -----------------
    Don't lose hope. It's only the mid-term. You can still pull it up to a "D." :-)

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  185. So enough about the Alchemists. We're just spinning our wheels on that subject. I brought them up to make a point about balance, in my explanation of what I think evil is. Alchemy wasn't supposed to take up this much space in the argument. My point remains though. To me a person becomes capable of evil because of an imbalance between their rational side and heir emotional side. That was my point.

    Pboy, what do *you* think the definition of evil is? If you use the word, I mean.

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  186. Oh, and just one more thing...

    From the wiki entry on alchemy:

    Several early alchemists, such as Zosimos of Panopolis, are recorded as viewing alchemy as a spiritual discipline, and in the Middle Ages, metaphysical aspects increasingly came to be viewed as the true foundation of the art. Organic and inorganic chemical substances, physical states, and molecular material processes as mere metaphors for spiritual entities, spiritual states and ultimately, transformations. In this sense, the literal meanings of 'Alchemical Formulas' were a blind, hiding their true spiritual philosophy, which being at odds with the Medieval Christian Church was a necessity that could have otherwise lead them to the "stake and rack" of the Inquisition under charges of heresy.[5] Thus, both the transmutation of common metals into gold and the universal panacea symbolized evolution from an imperfect, diseased, corruptible and ephemeral state towards a perfect, healthy, incorruptible and everlasting state; and the philosopher's stone then represented some mystic key that would make this evolution possible. Applied to the alchemist himself, the twin goal symbolized his evolution from ignorance to enlightenment, and the stone represented some hidden spiritual truth or power that would lead to that goal. In texts that are written according to this view, the cryptic alchemical symbols, diagrams, and textual imagery of late alchemical works typically contain multiple layers of meanings, allegories, and references to other equally cryptic works; and must be laboriously "decoded" in order to discover their true meaning.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alchemy

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  187. Hiss, hiss, Brian.

    You say, "To you, intuition is itself a lie!"

    Perhaps if you kept repeating that you yourself like a 'mantra' you might get an "Aha!' moment there. (just saying)

    "Pboy, what do *you* think the definition of evil is?"

    Evil, much like Good, is something that is hard to describe, like time.

    Evil is the thing that make the husband a wife-beater.

    But evil is also the kids in street that want to 'cock-you-off' because they have a big bruiser buddy backing them up.

    And evil is the fella that thinks he can use the law(eminent domain) to rip people off(make a profit) on the land that he wants to make (say) a baseball or football stadium on.

    Evil is the thing that makes religious people put scriptures in starving people's hands instead of food and also people who put food in people's hands and let then sit bored in the fuckin' desert. (I'd rather be dead).

    Evil twists reality into something 'mysterious' and makes things black and white pitting IT against 'good' which is usually not 'good' at all, but 'Godly' or 'spiritual' or some 'gawd-awful' abortion of reality.

    Word verification:- "pliess".. LOL

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  188. Brian.. do you really want me to 'footnote' you wikipedia quote?

    I mean 'really'?

    Can you 'handle' that many, " AHAHAHAHAHA!"'s?

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  189. So the idea that they used words symbolically, and the idea of the elements used as metaphor, or even the idea of duality, like in yin-yang, is just humor to you.

    Just want to get it clear.

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  190. You gave examples of evil, and I agree with them, but they're examples of it and not an explanation of the mechanism. That's what I was trying for.

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  191. And I see the imbalance in all of your examples. Do you? What kind, if so?

    See, that's what I'm getting at here. What kind of a mental imbalance causes people to do evil.

    To me it's an imbalance of the logical/rational and the emotional/intuitive side.

    Beliefs are a function of the emotional side and not the rational side. And beliefs can be evil. Or rather they can make the believer act in an evil manner.

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  192. Shit, shit and fuck! Brian.

    Evil is the ball-busting wife/mother that immasculates all her male children and is responsible for any damage that they do.(including wife beating)

    Evil is the bitch that flirts with everyone in the bar forcing her boyfriend to fight.

    PLUS all the examples WERE guys but two out of three were illogical so you get to pick which way to go with the 'duality' thingy, right?

    If you think that George W. Bush was being illogical because HE wanted MORE money and he didn't give a crap who 'lost out' in the deal, I don't know.

    I'm not going to bother critiquing the wiki quote right now.

    Imagine you are me, read your quote, NOW, try to stop laughing.

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  193. Why are you talking about women now? Not following you here.

    I don't get the significance. I'm not talking about people's sex when I talk about duality. Did you think I was saying that women can't be evil?

    I'm not trying to be difficult, but I'm not getting what you are saying.

    And I already have imagined what it is to be you. I do that automatically. That's how I can see that you don't see the duality thing at all. Yet. I have hopes maybe someday. :-)

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  194. "I'm not trying to be difficult.."

    Don't sell yourself short, Brian.

    First you say, "See the examples.. can you see?"

    What was I supposed to see except that the examples were all guys?

    Now, this, "I'm not understanding you.."

    At this point I think that you are trying to be intuitive and irritating, or just irritating.

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  195. What was I supposed to see except that the examples were all guys?
    ----------------
    -All people have feminine (emotional/intuitive) and masculine (logical/rational) sides. And it's not really related to their sexuality. That is what I had hoped that you'd see. If you could perceive it in others, you'd be able to see it in yourself.

    "If you think that George W. Bush was being illogical because HE wanted MORE money and he didn't give a crap who 'lost out' in the deal, I don't know."
    ----------------------
    The logical side is a tool. With insufficient emotional development that tool can be made to serve only the self, and serve it well. So in Mr. Bush's case, and even more so in Mr. Cheneys as well I think, a lack of proper emotional maturity meant that while all the lower-self-serving emotions were all there and strong, the higher, other-focused ones were stultified. So in both cases any subsequent development of the logical side, no matter how extensive, will not ever reflect back on the emotional side, will not cause it to evolve further, but will only serve to keep in in it's undeveloped state forever, right where it wants it. King Ego in His Royal Castle. This type of person can often effectively use logic as long as the results are a direct benefit to itself. Never could such an individual in a million years use that logic to ask themselves if they're right, if they're hurting others, if they're crazy... It just can't occur to such a person. To them it's all "What's in it for me?" and "I'm never wrong..."

    I used to think that Hitler had too much logical side, but on reflection it was obviously his emotions that drove him like everyone else, so that's not technically correct. Hitler was the same type as the first two mentioned above. His higher emotions were never developed. Nonexistant. But his lower emotions were insanely strong. They drove him to develop his rational side to a high degree. One's emotional side is always what drives one to develop their rational side. And then one's rational side continues to shape the emotional side. But the emotional side is always first. It's where we all live, really. So if it's warped at an early age, it will not be able to cause the logical side to develop correctly. It will be warped as well. And much like the process of enlightenment, it's reverse (de-enlightenment?) is also a "vicious cycle" in that regard. One side warps the other which in turn further warps the first which in turn can now warp the second even more, and so on...

    So therefore when I say a "logical type" person, that would mean someone that values logical over emotional thought, not someone that is not emotional at all. You can't get away from that and still be human. I mean, you're a rational-type person, and you have plenty of emotions, no? And your emotions help you to remain rational by making you not take anything seriously that conflicts with your logical side. Hence the laughter, which is obviously a product of the emotional side. Why does your emotional side react with derision when you see "poppycock?" Because your logical side has shaped and trained it to, to better serve it. To better serve you.

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  196. At this point I think that you are trying to be intuitive and irritating, or just irritating.
    -----------------------
    Some logical person you are, getting so *emotional* so easily...

    I am sorry that you see it that way. I assure you that your irritation was entirely of your own doing. I was trying to get through to you, so why would I intentionally irritate you in the process? In fact, I kept having to tell myself to not get irritated at you since it seemed that all you wanted to do was to mock me and everything I'd been trying to tell you. Funny thing.

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  197. Maybe there's something even more basic in the universe than "I AM."

    Something like...
    "I WANT TO BE"

    Just a tangential thought. Is desire more basic than identity itself? The obvious answer may be wrong...

    Any deep thinkers out there? Help out a fellow philos of sophia?

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  198. Pboy, ironically while I've caused you no end of frustration here, my own thoughts on duality have been clarified more than a little by all of this. One doesn't get to discuss this very often, and certainly not with a very smart skeptic. Very valuable. So I actually owe you thanks for something that you have no idea that you did or how you might have done it. So, um, thanks. :-)

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