Sam Harris and The Moral Landscape

FAITH:  Consciousness seems to be derivative of feedback among aspects that are spiritually qualitative with aspects that are empirically quantitative.  In a way of thinking, the qualitative experience of consciousness is what we will to make of it. I suspect the same may be said of what we make of our perspectives of the Field of consciousness (aka, God). In a way, to have faith in the field of Consciousness is to have faith in a potential for the extension of one's own consciousness. If one perceives God to be an Ogre (or an Allah), one greases the way to an horrific, alternative reality. If one considers God to be mainly interested in caring, one proceeds along a path of pursuit of fulfillment. Norman Vincent Peale was on the mark regarding faith in an innate power of positive thinking,


REGARDING SAM HARRIS AND THE END OF FAITH AND THE MORAL LANDSCAPE:  I'm reading Sam Harris' The Moral Landscape. He wants to commit moral values to pure reason, entirely divorced from God or religious traditions. I suspect a fundamental rift, an unbridgeable chasm between measuring apples versus oranges. I suspect his model does not quite succeed in facing up to quite a number of key concerns.

ONGOING PROBLEM OF CIVILIZATION: Some main problems for civilized beingness (and they are not problems with final solutions, to be unraveled by scientists!) pertain to: (1) how to slough off indecent aspects of old belief structures; and (2) how to accomodate cherry picked aspects of changing belief structures with an ever changing, decent, sustainable civilization (even if it should become prudent for civilization to organize into fuzzy, overlapping, competing, and cooperating compartments and hierarchies).

VALUE OF BELIEVING: Most people "really" don't believe, literally, in models or sacred texts; rather, they commit their identities to the value of "believing that they believe," i.e., living as if the texts or models were worthy or true (at least, cherry picked aspects of them).  They entertain a tending-to-fulfilling FAITH/belief in the qualitative Goodness of being, whose cause and effect are not reducible to quantitative measure.  They stand with Faith that Beingness is essentially Good.  (Could it be "good" or moral to believe that beingmess is essentially -- scientifically -- irrelevant to goodness, not good or -- Islamically -- less than good?)  In this way, we retain means to communicate among ourselves in respect of more or less common and traditional contexts of reference, without which we would have few signposts by which to make ourselves appreciated or understood. We would lose touch with our past, and we would lose an emotional aspect of meaning among ourselves.  The stories are only the means to convey a higher shared spiritual experience and truth.  (Maybe even God finds them entertaining.)

INSPIRATION: Absent a notion of God, in respect of what unifying or highest value should people be inspired to come to reason together about moral concerns, to try to inculcate values that are more commonly shared, hence (somewhat artificially so), more "objective"?

TRANSITIONAL COHESION: Insofar as our shared niche or context of being changes, what social values can remain worthy, to guide members of a society across transitional, often fundamental, changes in our contexts? What values tend to last beyond harsh changes in contexts?

SOCIOPATHIC DECEIVERS: What in Harris' model can protect those who accept his notions from political sociopaths who feign values only for personal gain, seeking to let no harsh crisis go to waste?

GANGSTER FUNDING: What in Harris' model can defend the moral values of a conscious agent of free will against the scientific presumptuousness of a mob or community, which may often be funded or targeted for being undermined by sociopaths?

INDIVIDUAL V. GROUP: Harris seems not always to remember that what leads to an individual's scientifically measurable pleasure and "well being" may be artithetical to exemplars needed to sustain a humane, decent, family-friendly civilization for man, woman, and child.

POLITICAL EXPERIENCE: Obama's regime, like many, is evidence that leaders will abuse the trust of followers, for shallow purposes.

DICTATE: Apart from precluding devaluation of our niche, who is any one of us, even Harris, to dictate, scientifically, what each and every one of us must do?

THINNING OF BIODIVERSITY: Does not Harris' model fail to respect appropriate "wildlife management" within the evolving field of possible variations among expressions of species of autonomous consciousness?

ITSELF RELIGIOUS: Does not Harris' model, in itself, entail religious devotion for favoring the present human form, over other species, even over our own evolutionary possibilities?

ACCULTURATED ATTACHMENTS: Does his model run too roughshod over acculturated sensibilities to sacred parables, which remain meaningful to traditional sensibilities?

ANARCHY: Does his model try to break the establishment, to establish a new religion or metaphysics, while pretending not to, and accord no receptivity to the unfolding efforts of previous metaphysicians?

BURNING KNOWLEDGE: Does his model commit worthy insights from previous metaphysicians to the ash heap?

GANGSTER LOGROLLING: Does his model accord too much worship or respect for eventual statist or oligarchic usurpations?

ROAD TO TOTALITARIANISM: Does his model entail eventual servitude to a supreme programmer, destined to set too many parameters for what is politically acceptable to our notion of well being?

IGNORE INTUITION AND REPLACE WITH EMPIRICISM: Does his model disrespect all intuitions of roles for meta arch types and guiding determinants that are beyond the empirical measure of the community, but not beyond the intuitive empathy of individuals?

MORAL DETERMINANTS:  Regarding genes-conditioning-economics-technology-philosophy: none has a monopoly for determining sustainable and decent morality.  None is mathematically convertible into the others.  Such terms are not amenable of quantitative formulization for weighing the "best" moral sum for a society as a whole with any sum for its members.

CIRCULARITY: Does Harris' concept of "well being" really escape moral circularity?

UNDERMINING PARENTS: Does it foment replacement of tradition minded parents with scientific bureaucrats, for the appropriate rearing and genetic treating of children?

ENTITLEMENT V. LICENSE: When it comes to how best to sustain a decent civilization, do not libertine and libertarian "moral scientists" too often display too much concern for what material earth should be (and should entitle), and too little concern for what human society should be (and should license)?

STATE WORSHIP: Does Harris' model worship or serve state or scientific legalism, to set or enforce new parameters of acceptable social behavior, in replacement of religious models for acceptable moral parameters? Are not at least some religious models for acceptable social and familial behavior based on traditions of marriage and responsibility for child rearing that have been generally tested and found successful for eons?

CONTINUITY OF PURPOSEFULNESS: Does Harris' model disrespect that there abides a continuous capacity for the expression of purposefulness in every unfolding perspective of consciousness, not just the human form?

FORCED DOGMA: Does his model pretend, by "scientific proof," to authorize any person's dogma, by force and numbers, to reprogram and re-educate every other perspective of consciousness, to fit within limits that are acceptable to a philosophy of moral specifics that any such person and his gang may find acceptable?

DOES SCIENTIFICALLY LEVERAGED MIGHT MAKE RIGHT: Suppose a person (or maximum leader) has been warped so as to experience measurable well being by harming others: Is that which enhances his well being then "scientifically moral"? Unless the masses reserve a god given right to refer to higher insight, will not he who wins the war write the "true" moral science?

EXCEPT IN TRIVALENT RESPECT OF DEMOCRATIC OR REPRESENTATIVE PARTICIPATION, HOW CAN A SINGLE BIVALENT SCIENTIFIC FORMULA PRETEND TO TREAT THE INTERESTS OF BOTH THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE COMMUNITY FAIRLY: How, scientifically, are the qualities valued by an individual to be weighed against the qualities purportedly valued by the community? Who decides? By what model can moral science make a testable, empirical accounting of these kinds of apples and oranges, parts and wholes, natural organisms and artificial constructs?

MORAL AND SPIRITUAL AUDITING: In what way and to what extent may scientific tests for "well being" (by using magnetic pulses directed at the skull?) be a variant, even if more sophisticated, of the auditing that is done by Scientologists?

INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIETY AUDITING: Can a formula for adding the well being of the members of a society translate into an evaluation of the sustainable well being of the society itself?

META REFERENTS: In respect of archtypes of metaphysics, pertaining to such archtypes' appreciations of purpose and preference, may there be a "real" referent for those ideas which best prove themselves in the test and competition of their unfoldment of the manifest?

BOTTOM LINE:  Is Harris' "scientific morality" much more than the old, non-empirical, non-measurable, non-convertible utilitarian idea of the greatest good for the greatest number, dressed up with techinques for collecting quantitative data regarding blood chemistry, brain synapses, and magnetic pulses?

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Gore Vidal deploys his immense vocabulary to circumvolute truth beyond retrieve. I’d rather read Sam Harris. He has a serviceable vocabulary, and he is briefer and more direct about his purposes. Interestingly, Harris chastises religious moderates, but would replace them by mediating science with spirituality, to oust the influence on spiritual concerns of all religious based traditions. In his love for establishing a science of morality, Harris seems not far from spiritual auditing, as by Scientologists. See http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070910204944AAH6wyd.  However, is it justified to limit faith to a “science” of the moral landscape? Ask: Have the gaggle of psycho-scientists really shown themselves worthy of being entrusted to establish the kind of communally assimilated, secularly enforced, and scientifically based social Norms that are friendly to decent, sustainable, family based civilizations? Indeed, what civilization devouring abNormalities does the psycho-gaggle not tolerate?

Intuitively, the ONLY reason consciousness — whether human or meta — would be concerned with the scientifically (empirically) Quantitative would be to avail informational placeholders (as measurable signposts), with which to remember and relate to the Qualitative aspects of associated perspectives of consciousness (such qualitative aspects running gamuts of astonishment, from the painfully tragic to the orgiastically comedic to the boringly indifferent). Thus, faith in a qualitative, “dynamic Meta field of psychology” seems both essential to, as well as beyond, faith in a quantitative, “psychological neuroScience of the moral landscape.” Even so, a loyal opposition is essential to test that which is of value, and Harris sets forth the opposing landscape, brilliantly.

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I have not yet seen Harris to do a comparative analysis, to ask:  Suppose mankind were to replace all traditional religions with science based economics, politics, and morality?  Does logic, experience, or history suggest such an exclusive promotion of science would render our world more humane and less at risk?  Harris discounts the horrific results of Marxist and Statist attempts in such nations as Germany, Russia, and China, characterizing them as being more based in religion than in science.  Perhaps he feels true, scientific, dialectic materialism has not yet been tried.  If so, he risks much on an untried notion.

Regardless, ask:  Can science really repeal the ongoing march and unfolding pursuit of competitive fulfillment through agencies of change, replacement, violence, and death?  Has any social experiment in morality based in science yielded other than millions of deaths, misery for the masses, and belligerance abroad?  Is Harris' hope and faith that mankind would fare better under supervision based exclusively in science borne only out of long, personal conditioning for preferring lab based solutions, under unreal assumptions of all other variables being equal, or is his faith "really" based in logic, experience, and history?

Is not the real battle of morality one that is between the morally empathetic (social Conservatives) versus those (Rinos and Dinos) who are united in taking advantage of the morally empathetic (Rinos, by overlording greed, and Dinos, by entitlement mongering)?  Is not the real battle of morality between those who believe in Morality In Relations Among Citizens Within A Society versus those who believe only in material based survival of the fittest, most tricky, and most weasely?  Can we really know, in the unfolding turmoil of things, what "causes" some to be morally empathetic to higher purposefulness,while others remain riven purely in materialism?  Is not the real battle to intuit God, to engage in battle between religions based on a caring God versus religions based on a monstrous mobster, bartering, material-divvying God?  Is not the real battle for existential Consciousness to pursue coming to terms with itself?

NWO SLAYING OF REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY

To sustain itself, a representative republic needs an intelligent, literate, informed electorate that has assimilated in respect of human freedom and dignity.  America now has a doped up, entitlement minded, Gaia worshipping, misinformed, easily duped, easily indentured electorate, in large part too stupid to notice how its entire country is being sold into unsustainable indebtedness to foreign despots.  Yes, there are still substantial numbers of good, independent minded Americans, who desire neither to enslave others nor to be enslaved.  However, their cause is not the main focus of either of our national parties.  And the Tea Party has nothing like the funding availed to the unholy alliance among those who pretend to be spreading wealth under socialism while actually spreading povery under despotism.  In other words, it is far from given that even the U.S. will much longer be able to sustain a representative republic.  Indeed, it is debateable whether, apart from facade, we have one now.  If we, with substantial numbers of freedom lovers, cannot sustain a representative republic, then for goodness sakes why should we allow ourselves to be deluded to believe that any society immersed in Islam could?  Our sold out and historically ignorant profs and pols tell our kids anything they want them to believe, and sure enough, substantial numbers buy right into it.  America is fighting for the life of her own freedom.  To distract ourselves into trying to spread democracy to nations that are wholly unfit for it is to speed our own fall.  The NWO is much further along than many would suppose, and it ain't based on love of freedom.

OBSCURANTISM -- INESCAPABLE COST OF POINT OF VIEW

OBSCURANTISM IS THE INESCAPABLE COST OF EVERY MORTAL POINT OF VIEW:

What is "The Superior Reality?"  One may conceptualize it as being mainly or solely quantitative, or as being mainly or solely qualitative.  One's worldview concerning purposefulness will color one's conceptions.  If one orients and devotes one's identity and purposefulness towards uncovering a quantitatively useful Model for leveraging governance over everything, one will pursue a conception consistent with that purpose.  If one devotes oneself towards uncovering a qualitatively useful Myth or way for inspiring or facilitating sustainable communications and empathies of apprehension, one will pursue a  conception consistent with that purpose.  The utility of each model, myth, or conception will depend largely on (1) purpose (moral or practical), (2) point of view, and (3) frame of reference.  However, there may abide a way to synthesize those two main worldviews (externally empirical and internally intuitionist).  For example, a philosophy of Will seems to be devise-able that could respect the domain of both, without doing violence to either.

Synthesis (?):  Consciousness of Will, whether of aspect of Active present (conscious choice-making) or of accumulated Default (inanimate obedience to forces of nature), Qualitatively and spiritually defines one's unfolding experience of Universe.  However, Conscious Will is Quantitatively (scientifically) constrained to the possible choices open to Conscious Will, in fuzzy respect for how it has invested its Identity in ways that have signified its path to the present.  Unfoldment of Chaos is both tool and container of Will.  Universe is neither random nor predetermined, but is constrained to unfolding purposefulness.  Depending upon one's purpose, point of view, and frame of reference, Universe presents some faces that are mainly predictable and some that are mainly inscrutable.  Universe cannot be solely ruled or predicted, either by scientific empiricists or by spiritual intuitionists.  Neither philosophy of quantitative Empiricism nor of qualitative or post-modern Obscurantism can fully explicate Universe.  To  know Universe, one would have to know oneself, but this, in space-time, one cannot accomplish.  At best, One may apprehend and appreciate One's role in quantum, discrete series of dance steps and feedback among other perspectives of Oneself (which process avails illusions of continuosity).  Thus, to know oneself cannot be the beginning of wisdom, but only the aim of wisdom.  To regulate in hope of eliminating uncertainty and establishing scientific sustainability is both vain and soul stifling.  We should pursue harmony, not in sole respect of our quantifiable history and nature, but in humble regard for our qualitative purposefulness and  spirituality.  We ought not allow America's lamp of liberty to be snuffed.  The truth is not solely out there; the important truth is mainly within ourselves, yet still inscrutable.

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Our experience of quantitative choice-making is inextricably coupled with the quality of our appreciation of that which unfolds in response to our choice-making. We can minutely study the nature of all that unfolds, but we cannot reasonably say, in exclusivity, either that nature emerges from consciousness or that consciousness emerges from nature. In our mortal being, neither consciousness nor nature shows to be entirely artefactual of the other.

Much of the truth about our existence pertains to paths and fuzzy inclinations, which unfold in response to a meta quality of appreciative functioning of conscious choice-making ("free will"). We may do better more to appreciate the quality of Will that is about the Truth, and less to seek to prove quantitative Truth about Will. Truth about free will is not something that can be analyzed under a microscope.

Presentment of material possibilities affects how meta, immaterial, conscious will makes choices. How conscious will makes choices affects succeeding sequences of presentations of possibilities. Ultimately, no mortal, completely free of obscurantism, can describe or study, in simultaneity, the interfunctioning of nature and will, the observed and the observer, the beloved and the lover.

Even so, the relationship that unfolds between possible choices and choices made manifest is always signed by information that is stored in all that is presently manifested in quantitatively measurable substance. However, this unfoldment proceeds in loops of feedback along the way of the "eternal present": the nature of possible choices affects the Will that selects choices to be made manifest, which affects the field of possible choices, which then affects the choices to be made manifest, and so on.

Neither our possibilities nor our mortal choices are exclusively the cause or the effect of any aspect of our unfolding situation. Rather, depending on purpose, focus, and context, either nature or consciousness can be analyzed as cause or effect, the determiner or the determined (not in completeness, but in partiality). Being mortal, each person's purpose, focus, and context, is always obscured, at least in part --- even from himself.

Somehow, obscured beyond ouf mortal ken, a field of consciousness is wedded to all of nature, throughout, as it unfolds its manifestations. Absent such coupling, it seems that no aspect of the potential of nature could be chosen to unfold into manifestation.

PERIL: We have been nurtured to a context in which the interconnectedness and communication of our choice-making has become perilous to the continuation of our civilized state of being --- unless we become receptive to vision appropriate to our appreciation of a Field of consciousness --- with which we must always reconcile. We will strive to a survivable consensus about those aspects (which accompany the obscurantist position of being mortal) which are musical, or our civilization will again fall to a divided babel of noise.

The Corporate Form -- How should it be regulated?

The Corporate Form -- How should it be regulated? Modern corporate practice invites too much that corrupts and destroys cultural oasis of freedom and dignity. Corporations are given legal rights, but do not "feel" loyalties. Rather, their purposes tend to be entirely material: to make short term profits. Their investors are often allowed and encouraged to remain relatively anonymous, free of liability exposure, with little if any sense of moral responsibility. Their profits are often maxmizied by having their leaders tell "noble lies" to the general citizenry (such as about the virtues of free trade with despotic regimes). Or, upon acquiring enough wealth and influence, their managers may profit simply by buying the citizens' politicians, then selling the nation into international debt slavery (to despotic regimes).

Insofar as the corporate form, in itself, is without virtue, yet leverages opportunities for despots to seize and sell virtue for profits, and insofar as enormous corporate profits are easily made by engaging in political chicanery, it becomes necessary that the people, if they seek to preserve any semblance of human freedom and dignity, must develop the will and the means to re-chain corporations to serve the invisible providence of general moral sentiments.

As things stand, to invest in, and to encourage investment in, corporations that respect no responsibility for preserving human freedom and dignity is to invest in the kind of corruption that follows slave and drug dealers and the kind of destruction that follows competing gangsters and enemy agents. Ways must be found to impose public accountability on those who direct the specific corporate actions or polices that lead to the corruption or undermining of America, America's government and economy, and fundamental human freedom and dignity.

When corrupt or destructive corporate activities are shown to have been approved, consistent with policies of a board of directors, then the income traceable to such corporate dealings should be forfeited, either to the people at large or to the retirement of public debt. In some cases, the corporate form and its assets, insofar as independent management, should be forfeited to the control of a trustee for the public interest.

Regardless, American style regulation of business in the corporate form Should be designed so as not unduly to discourage human freedom and dignity under a caring mores (or God)(without establishment of any particular religion). If we cannot rekindle the will to come together to preserve any sustaining, cultural mores, then the purely material pursuit of money under the corporate form will sink us.

Statist Pagans

Suppose some politicians got together with a surefire way to make America and ordinary Americans solvent again. Would the powers that be go for it? Hell no.


Obama got elected because he wanted to "fundamentally change" (lobotomize) America. Many of our youth have been trained to despise America. Many of our minorities have been conditioned to despise America and to believe they are entitled to reparations. Many of our corporatists simply want cheap labor and think profit maximization is the key to all problems; many find the quickest and easiest profits in simply buying America through its politicians and then selling her off. We are top heavy with Americans In Name Only, who believe there is or should be no such thing as an American ethos or culture. Whether you want to call them Dinos or Rinos makes little difference.

Conservators of Liberty keep espousing solutions. But few ask the first question: Do a majority of Americans really want to make America stronger, economically sound, and energy independent? As long as the answer is "Hell no!" why should anyone think that Obama will be defeated, or, that if he is, his replacement would really be looking out for America? Our problem is not mere mechanics or legalism. If it were, we could readily solve it. Our problem is this: The spirit, will, and faith of traditional America has been lobotomized, so that America is now on a short chain, being led to do servitude by pagans who worship statism and the power to control statism. Meanwhile, Conservatives occupy themselves by asking pagan Ainos to look at possible mechanical solutions to the sinking of America, while the sinking of America is precisely what the pagans want. These statists are about as American as Islam is a religion of peace. Were Carville a Conservative, he would say, "It's the statist pagans, stupid."

Of Logic Gates, Digital Representations, and Conscious Will

CAUSATION: Causation does not consist only in respect of a first material force or mover, that sucked or pushed our universe out of a big bang, like a first domino being manipulated to knock down all others in a preplanned, front loaded, pre set row. Nor is causation merely a function of particles bouncing off one another, like billiard balls. Rather, at most fundamental level, causation seems to unfold with a synchronous dance of feedback among potentials and manifestations, wholes and parts, fields and particles, logic gates and digital representations. In feedback aspect, measurable causation seems to present an unfoldment of information that can be digitally represented and expressed as a series of discrete segments.

PRODUCING THE MANIFEST FROM THE POSSIBLE: Not everything that is possible within parameter limits actually manifests into physically interpreted occurrence. Some function or entity seems to impose means for making or pre-prescribing selections or choices. Whatever the means of causation, such are limited to choices that are availed within the parameters of that which is possible.

RANDOM: Somehow, between a process of feedback among fields and particles, “choice making is determined.” At levels of low organization, such choice making or decisions as are determined may occur at such a low level of conscious, pre-set, logarithmic autopilot as to be statistically evaluable as “random.” Perhaps, in some respects and organizations, the bodies and brains of all organisms may be said to be partly “pre-willed,” so as to unfold along pre-specified, parameter limited paths.

NUMBER: It is conceivable that a Field of Selection (God) chooses what to appreciate and apprehend from a Field of Numerous Possibilities (meta-nature). Such choices from such potentials may be actuated a split sequence before they are made manifest to the sensation of any particularly numbered perspective of interpretation. Manifestation necessitates a sensory interpretation from a focus of conscious consideration, within a supporting framework for relating context. However, each interpretation of sensation necessarily trails the choice among potentials by which it was brought into manifestation.

MATERIAL REPRESENTATION LAGS BEHIND META CHOOSING: While physical-brain receives and translates sensation and feedback, it is meta-Mind that effects choice, which is synchronized within parameters availed at a holistic level. No conscious brain becomes aware of any choice until a split sequence after the choice has already been made.

LOCAL LIMITS IMPOSED ON META CHOICES: Thus, a brain is not an instrument for making choices, but a parameter-limiting instrument for transmitting results after having received inputs that find representations in respect of contemporaneous or past choices. An unconscious brain is a manifestation for representing a complex design for a local instrument, for subjecting pre-willed, pre-set choices to synchronized parameter limits. A brain that is coupled with conscious will is a brain that is coupled with a capacity to learn.  Each thrust or presentation of a choice against a representation for parameter limits avails feedback, for the appreciation of whatever local interest Mind may have in the upshot. Mind’s appreciation for that feedback is what entails a quality of will to such Mind, leading to Mind’s spiritually responsive and sequential unfoldment of locally synchronized interests, preferences, and choices.

STORED DETERMINATIONS OF WILL: Mind may in some contexts set its choice-making function on a sort of pre-set, pre-willed, auto-pilot. Take a line of dominoes, for example. When dominoes are first lined up, so that the tipping of one will topple all others, the initial set up can be conceived as partly a function of will, while the toppling thereafter can be conceived as a function of pre-willed determination. (Determination does not preclude will; rather, a person of strong will is often said to be a person of strong determination.) All events that can be conceptualized as pre-determined can also be conceptualized as pre-willed. However, not all events are well conceptualized as having been pre-determined.

WILL BEYOND ORGANISMS OF LIFE: Every complex pattern that demonstrates a capacity for being preserved or replicated, notwithstanding various challenges and choices that are thrust against it, does so in respect of being bestowed with a local capacity for representing a present or evolving system of parameter limits. Every such locally complex pattern imposes limits on the variously willed or pre-determined choices that are thrust at it. Thereby, it gives off feedback information — present of stored — to the consideration of whatever may constitute the local level of conscious (Mind) interest. Mind may predict the quantitfiable measurability of what will happen, but not the qualifiable effect it will have on Mind’s appreciation. In that respect, every upshot that unfolds from such interactive thrusts is part qualitative feedback to Mind and part quantitative choice of Mind. That seems to be a process that drives the “eternal present.”

PHYSICS AS CORRELATIVE PLACEHOLDER FOR COMMUNICATING FEEDBACK WITH SIGNPOSTS: Thus, every new and unfolding event or experience is at least in part the result of choice (or choices) of Will, either in present or pre-set capacity. In other words, expressions, choices, and products of Will are not the products of brain, but the products of Mind, which functions (either in present or in pre-set) in a correlation with every event or signpost of physics and in a correlation with every expression of information that is made manifest (manifesting either to a receiving brain or to a receiving storehouse of information).

SYNCHRONOUSLY UNFOLDING DESIGN OF CONSCIOUS WILL: Thus, a qualitative aspect of will of Mind is interwoven with all of quantitative physics, either in present or in pre-set. That quality, depending on its synchronizing interests, guides all of what we often take to be “material evolution.” When we try to interpret material evolution without reference to that Mind, what we are really engaging in is a process of circularly trivial labeling. That is, no matter what comes to survive and replicate, we label it “the fittest.” Indeed, but for appreciation of a role for consciousness. all would be routine, trivial, and of no moral interest. It is the unequal organization and allocation of the quality of consciousness that avails meaning to all other transitory equivalencies and transpositions.

PERSON: What is a person, in association with each locally unfolding expression among any number of perspectives of consciousness? As a material body and brain, a person represents a local form (or Avatar) for imposing evolving parameter limits upon the choices (whether present or pre-set) that are made by Mind. However, there is more. In some qualitative way, Mind “couples” with each locally conscious brain. Something of Mind comes to care about and identify so strongly with each person as to become limited in ability to intuit and empathize except in respect of such person's capacities. That is, the connection of local Mind with the more broadly encompassing Mind-field is temporally severed. During such time, such local Mind only experiences feedback through such parameter limits as may be imposed by the bodily senses and brain of the person it has coupled with. In effect, the person becomes “imbued” with a local experience of Mind. The person becomes a conscious Identity, more than mere matter; the person becomes an Identity that partakes of the choice of will that is availed to the Mind that has coupled with his or her body. Thus, consciousness of God, in part, often adopts perspectives that are limited to the potential that is offered by each person’s body.

FEEDBACK BETWEEN LOCAL, WIDER, OVERLAPPING, AND HOLISTIC LEVELS OF MIND:

FRONT LOADED VS CONTEMPORANEOUS INVOLVEMENT OF MIND: No manifested representation of a pattern or organization of quantity can be chosen for continuation, without an involvement at some point in the context of space-time with Mind --- either front-loaded involvement or contemporaneous involvement. No quantity is represented for manifestation, but for the local involvement and coupling of Mind, at some point in the extant context of space-time.

PRE-WILLED ZOMBIES: A front-loaded zombie-bot, with no contemporaneously significant involvement with Mind, would interpret everything as noise, except for those stimuli that are permitted to pass through its logic gates in order to stimulate outputs within parameter limits. Those logic gates could be designed to read and respond only in precisely controlled inputs and outputs. The result would be a robot that was unassociated with any present quality of consciousness, even if it may take awhile for a human being in a "conversation" with it to notice the difference.

LOGIC GATES UPON LOGIC GATES: However, what if a system of logic gates could be designed, in response to certain kinds of non-routine, new stimuli, to represent and store information, then to periodically sift it, to test whether new and sub systems of logic gates could be designed for periodically re-manipulating randomly received new information? Would such a system experience a quality of consciousness? What if it could store designs in its electronic based memory, for building new material based designs? What if it could choose a favorite among such possible designs, by associating a quality of desireability with that one, above all the others? In doing so, as it decided and functioned to bring the chosen design into material manifestation, would it be experiencing a quality of consciousness? Is the local expression of consciousness a trick of logic gates acquiring capacity to abstract logic gates, to abstract logic gates, and so on?  If so, upon what meta-Mind or meta-function may such trick of local expression of consciousness depend?  How or why would a mere pulsating source of directed energy, not in itself conscious, desire, chance, or determine to bring any such qualitative experientialism into being?  If chanced, how would it "just happen" to become set up to produce such an unfolding?  And, unless a choice-making function were pre-set, to pre-provide for the unfolding production of consciousness, then how could choices made manifest, of which no mere source of pulsating energy could receive any physical signal to its organized material structure or consciousness until shortly after they were made, ever be calculated to produce consciousness?  In other words, if determinations can and must be made from possibilities before there is any brain function that could be conscious of such determinations, then how and why should such determinations ever find it necessary or desireable to produce a brain function of self awareness -- unless coordinate with unfolding purposefulness of choice, i.e., an agent of Will?

OVERLAPPING FUZZ: Suppose two or more local expressions of electro-magnetic brain-based consciousness of self were to image representations for various potentials for designing and bringing forth a manifestation. Suppose they both imagine a similar hypothetical model, but neither brings it into actual fruition, implementation, or manifestation. Then, would the probability of that potentiality be "fuzzed to a higher level of possibility," even though not yet qualitatively known or empirically testable to either of the local experiences of Mind? Does that kind of overlapping fuzz affect how the field of possibilities is received by Mind? May different levels of logic gates preclude different levels of consciousness from being quantitatively aware of one another, even thought they may be functioning together, qualitatively, and even though a higher synthesis of logic gates may synchronize their inter-functioning? Unless a level of logic gates is pierced, either by genius or by higher consent, a lower level will simply not have access to quantify or empirically demonstrate the higher level. At best, there will be faint feelings of empathy and intuition among the various layers and levels of consciousness, for which the space-time that divides them may be more an aspect of shared interpretation than of fundamental reality.

HOLISM AND PRAYERS: The above postulates an astonishing array for representing layers and levels of choice-making in respect of organizations of logic gates upon logic gates. Yet, it depends upon a common synchronizing web of parameter limits. Who can fathom what may constitute the quality of the information- accumulating complexity and potential of the Holism that avails the Universal Web, or the power with which IT may accomodate unfolding interests? To what extent may that Holism or its levels of avatars read directly from the field of possibilities, including the field of prayers, while choosing which to favor by bringing it into manifestation?

CONSCIOUSNESS:  Thus, consciousness accompanies a capacity, among possibilities, to form qualitative preferences, even in the absence of complete or precise quantitative information. Consciousness entails a capacity for directing decisions that are informed, even though informed by information that is less than completely or precisely determinative. At higher, mortal levels, consciousness may entail a capacity for forming mental images or representations of potentialities (abstract, digitized representations of logic gates upon logic gates upon logic gates), in order to entertain fuzzy hunches or foresight regarding less than perfectly predictable future contingencies or contexts.


META-ENTITY:  To higher levels, consciousness implicates a REASONED faith or belief (or doubt?) that some meta-entity (God?) MAY (or may not?), presently and/or in pre-willed predetermination, be availing, entertaining, synchronizing, and reconciling (moral?) preferences among potential unfoldments within encompassing webs of parameter-limiting feedback. That implication, or intuition, is not one that is knowable in the sense of being empirically demonstrable. This is because such a meta-entity, if the a-priori author of all that is unfolded into empirical, quantitative manifestation, could not very well be dependent for IT’s proof (or truth?) upon the empirical derivatives of its less than perfect mortal manifestations and inferiors.

GODOT: While conscious, one has no choice but to wait upon the interests of one’s consciousness. The world stops for no one, so that one mecessarily experiences affirmative or negative participation in choices, whether one wants to participate or not. Unavoidably, one will entertain or rationalize reasons for why one ought to prefer each choice over all alternatives. It is to no avail to pretend that we are not beset with “oughts,” i.e., moral choices, or that we “ought not confess to being beset with oughts.” To us, moral choice-making implicates real functions. It is to no avail to prescribe that one ought to do any particular thing, but that there is no real reason why one ought to do it.

CHALLENGES: The question posed by individual Humanists is:  Does the real basis for implicating the necessity of respecting a moral philosophy vanish upon each human being’s demise or upon the demise of humanity, generally?  In other words, is morality entirely and only contingent upon each mortal’s conscious, subjective experience of life? Or, does some reconciling aspect (or Entity?) impose a more objective basis for prescribing a shared foundation for rules and sympathies of a more generally applicable morality?

The question implicated for civilized peoples of Society, generally, is:  Can any decent civilization long sustain itself, absent the inculcation of a general regard for shared rules and mores?  For that purpose, which is more likely to be successful or reasonable: (1) All intrusive, detailed, and changing, moment by moment lawmakers and government; (2) all intrusive priests and tradition connected religious parables; (3) all intrusive experimenters and science, rampaging beyond their proper domain; or (4) some unfolding and reasoned accommodation of all three? (May a real Entity sponsor that unfolding accommodation?)

POLITICAL SETTLING:  Technological improvements in mass communications, as well as increased potential exposure to weapons of  mass destruction, seem to be leading us to a world in which everything is being settled to a lowest common and controllable denominator.  How is this being rationalized to the care and feeding of the masses?  Well, the science of global warming is said to be settled. The morality of humanism is taught among "Brights" to be settled. The purpose of health care is expected to be settled. The law of equality in redistribution is being settled. The leveling of the middle class is being settled. The rule of corporatist oligarchs is quickening to a settlement. The oligarchical priesthood for the worship of Gaia is being settled. Thus, Big Government is energetically imposing arbitrary locks and grips to squeeze the logic gates of most of our creative thinkers. The freedom of thought of Americans, to employ their capacities to image wheels within wheels, logic gates within logic gates, is what has led America to exponentially unfolding opportunities to envision and create ever more interesting worlds. Is it an affront to God for Big Gov now to squeeze shut the creative gates of free thought?

CONSTRUCTING MORAL MEANINGFULNESS

CONSTRUCTING MORAL MEANINGFULNESS:


MEANING VS. NOISE: One has no choice but to avail expression to purposeful choices. If one adopts the stance that rules of reason, logic, and in-form-ation are not appropriate to one’s conscious pursuit of meaningful and moral change, communication, and fulfillment, then, by default, one adopts noise. For meaningful in-form-ation to unfold, forms must, in some particular, have potential to avail manifestation to consciousness.

IDEALS AND FORMS: Philosophers have long been concerned with a notion of ideal forms. For example, one may imagine rules by which to prescribe a perfect circle. However, no perfect circle can be manifested in any physical representation. Although imperfections casued by blots in the ink used to trace a circle may not be detectable with instrumentation that is confined to a limited order of precision, such imperfections will eventually show, as precision is improved. Indeed, precision will reach a point where the mere act of applying instrumentation to an observation will render the thing observed uncertain, thus imperfect in manifestation. Indeed, no form that is precisely regulated in math can be perfectly manifested in actual observation.  While math itself can be calculated upon, math itself cannot be manifested to measure.  So, in what way, if any, may any ideal form be “real,” either as a universal or as a participant?

EXISTENCE – KINDS, CONTINUITIES, FEEDBACK: Suppose a meta holism were to avail a “property of existence” to two participating fields. One field (meta nature) avails a kind of reality to all forms and ideals that are possible. The other field (meta mind) avails a quality of idea, that selects among such possibilities, such selection being coordinate with a stream of conscious experience and feedback, ... such feedback affecting apprehensions, interpretations, insights, intuitions, visions, forecasts, cares, and will, ... such will affecting pursuits of meaning, morality, communication, and companionship. Thus, the upshot of the participatory inter-functioning of the two fields would be an unfolding synchronization of consciousness — holistic and particular.

CONSCIOUSNESS — HOLISTIC AND PARTICULAR: The upshot would be a field of consciousness, and particles for organizing perspectives of consciousness. The upshot of the interaction of the meta field-of-possibilities with the meta field-of-selection would consist in an unfolding or collapsing of the merely potential into a continuous stream of the actually manifest. If so, the transcendent movement or functioning of meta-mind through meta nature actuates our ideals and gives rise to that part of reality which manifests to the quantitative and qualitative experience of our various, mortal perspectives of consciousness.

POSSIBILITIES AND MANIFESTATIONS: Thus, all possible forms and ideals exist, in potentiality, but only some are collapsed into in-form-ation that is stored or unfolded for the conscious apprehension of experience made manifest.

PAY GRADE: Question: What becomes of possibilities that exist only to a context, which remain “unchosen?” Does an opportunity cost erase the unchosen from all existence? Given the apparent infinitude of our universe of possibilities, can any mortal imagine a situation in which it would not be possible for the inter-functioning of the two meta fields to bring into manifestation, somewhere in the context of space-time? I suspect that is “above our pay grades.”

TRINITY: A kind of Trinitarian Holism, subject to trivalent logic, remains: Nature (quantitative), Mind (qualitative), Will (upshot).

FREE WILL: Depending on point of view, frame of reference, and conscious purpose, various manifestations may be conceptualized as being the upshot of (1) a predetermined course, (2) a random course, (3) a course of natural selection of the most fit for continued replication, or (4) a course of selection based on conscious appreciation of feedback (synchronization of moral interests of various perspectives of free will). None of said four concepts is suitable to all purposes. Attempts can be made to imagine each of the four concepts as basis for a complete explanation, but only, figuratively, by pounding square pegs into round holes.

MORALITY: Regardless, the only concept that fits very well for the purpose of a moral philosophy is the fourth. To make the fourth fit for the other three, "particles of consciousness" may be imagined, modeled, or conceptualized as having their quality for experiencing consciousness being dependent upon their contextual organization. Thus, the most poorly organized among particles of consciousness may just as well be considered as functioning in an essentially "random" way, while particles that have been fitted to a kinetic purpose can just as well be considered as functioning in an essentially "predetermined" way. Particles organized to function in a predetermined way in response to regular yet somewhat pulsing forces or inputs may just as well be considered as functioning in respect of a survival or replication of "the fittest." Particles organized to function in respect of an immeasurable quality of appreciation for their environment may just as well be considered to function based on "free will." Regardless, meta mind ("God"), inter-functioning with a meta field of possibilities ("Nature"), experiences a quality of consciousness of feedback through multiple perspectives of differentiation, which accounts, reasonably, for moral purposefulness and free will. But for God (conscious will), it is vain to expect to account for meaningful morality as being entirely derivative of nothing more than an unconscious field of possibilities. Morality is qualitative. Nature, without God, is purely quantitative. One cannot, in pure bivalent logic or math, derive a qualitative from a quantitative. Or, if and when one does, one will have found "God."

INCOMPLETENESS IN MEASURABILITY AND PREDICTION: That of which consciousness is aware is a consequence of feedback in the unfolding, inter-functioning of a meta field of possibilities (Nature -- which avails us with interpretations of quantities) with a meta field of selection (God -- which avails us with interpretations of qualities). This feedback results in manifestations that carry both measurable aspects and qualitatively appreciable aspects. Neither kind of aspect is perfectly convertible to the other, but the measure or appreciation of each depends upon a point of view (or an "as if" focus of modeling) and a frame of reference (context) regarding the other. Thus, relative concepts and analyses fuzz variably, according to purpose, especially as between purposes that are empirical versus moral. That is, conception or analysis in terms of so-called ("as if") ultimate particles or fields will never provide empirically perfect explanations, nor morally perfect guidance. That is, Morality is not perfectly derivable from Nature, nor is Nature perfectly derivable from Morality. The process by which some choices are brought into manifestation out of all the choices that are possible simply defies our perfect explanation. At best, we can, for different purposes, avail ourselves of imperfect concepts and incomplete language in order to provide ways of interpreting, thinking, and communicating about our potentials and our choices. When scientists and theologists conceit to the contrary, it may be because, out of too single-minded devotion, they have simply become too over-muscled in one overly-simplistic way of thinking and too under-muscled in another. Simply put, neither the empirically quantitative nor the empathetically qualitative approach has a monopoly on being "correct." No doubt, we will muddle through. However, the ride would seem likely more enjoyable when mind and brain "muscles" are more evenly developed. Rather than pursuing the measurable truth about an immeasurable God, perhaps we would do better to pursue the God who is about the appreciable truth.

Is Morality entirely derivative of Nature?

Re: I have never met a "Humanist"


I have. They are the pagans who think morality is entirely derivative from nature.

I recall an evening when my daughter was three and we were driving home. A bright, fat, full moon hung on the horizon. Kiddingly, I pretended to race to it. In fatuousness, that reminds me how atheistic humanists seek to derive morality from nature, i.e., ought from is, or qualitative from quantitative --- free and clear of any regard or respect for a market of interaction with any reconciling, higher consciousness.

Indeed, Progressivism --- either humanist or Marxist --- is nothing without a labor theory of value. Not a theory of dollars of gas needed to produce x horsepower, mind you, but a childish pretense that a quantitative store of labor can be measurably converted to a qualitative store of merit or value.

A child knows better, yet millions if not billions of "bright" people have rushed after the false light of Progressive fools' gold. One must spend a lot of time and effort to become so "smart" as to know so many things that just are not so.

Corp-Media-Gov Complex

Stalin and Mao were twice the tyrants as Hitler. Yet, to this day, Nazis are still hunted. This prompted a caller to Michael Medved to ask why we never hear of ex commies being hunted for their depredations. Medved, who makes sense once in a while, observed that the Hitler regime lasted only 14 years to the 80 some years of the tyrannical commie regimes. Thus, the commie depredations became protected under a long process of institutionalization, during which time most citizens had a hand in some of the depredations. Makes it hard to hunt such folks. Thus, commie tyrants are spared some of the sensational coverage that the Nazis get, even though they deserve it at least as much. Thus, at least one brand of totalitarianism has escaped Western revulsion. Indeed, the West, by a process of rebranding, seems to be aligning with it.


Take the Chinese model for a corp-media-gov complex. Isn't the U.S. itself falling under a corp-media-gov complex? Why does Obama commission Immelt, except to further siphon power out of America and into China? It seems New Capitalism has come to an accomodation with New Communism. Under this accomodation, the strategy is to suck the life blood of liberty from the middle class. This is done by inviting crises or by hosing the masses with lies about invented threats and then promising to restore security by imposing ever more regulations on the commune at large. Thus, middle class liberty is stolen by moving oligarchic control into the hands of atheistic sociopaths. In postmodern apologetics, "It's for their own good." If you're down for the ride, choose your side.

Meta Buy In

MODELING: Insofar as one may choose to model our universe, one may conceptualize as follows: There abides a Field which has capacity to condense or represent itself in variously limited and discrete particles of perspectives; each particle is a qualitative representation of the entire field; ultimately and individually, each particle’s only relationship is with the field; that relationship is, in ultimate aspect, of an immeasurable quality; the field avails such particles with capacity to organize; depending upon choice of focus, different layers and levels of organizations of such discrete particles can be recognized by the field, described in their digitally measurable relations, translated to various forms of mathematical representations, and made part of the ground of being or parameter limits for the qualitative experience of variously sharing perspectives of consciousness; organizations of particles avail more complex relationships with the field; each organization of particles is a contextual representation of the field; from such organizations, perspectives may arise for expressing and experiencing qualities of conscious will and self awareness; from such qualities may arise capacities for experiencing measurable relations based on representations of representations with other such organizations of particles; from such relations may arise complex orbits of storable, measurable information, as well as societies of information-transmitting, conscious beings (Mortals). Thus, conscious experiences of relationships evolve from a capacity for feedback that abides between a singular field and various of its contextually organized representations of particles.

If Particles consist of representations of the field, then Information may consist of representations of particles (i.e., representations of representations).  Thus, Conscious will may abide with representations of representations of particles, and self Aware perspectives of conscious will may abide with representations of representations of representations of particles.

QUESTION: May the Field be Imbued with caring or consciousness, in any way for which human beings should reasonably hope to relate, analogize, or be "saved"? Answer: Your faith, your purpose, your choice.

TRIUNE RECONCILIATION:
Experience implicates measurable Information being stored or Modeled, as it Changes, with an Identity which itself, in some Qualitative and not completely Measurable capacity, remains unchanged.
There must be information about events which is stored, representatively, and there must be information that is changing.
An Identity which senses qualitative aspects about changes in Relations experiences Consciousness.
An identity which senses changes or increases in the information it stores experiences or represents a present Memory of what its quality of Self is and was before and after reference points, fields, or contexts of change.
Information pertains to measurable Representations of relations Among Representations of relations.
Information does not pertain to any Thing in itself.
Sensing a quality of being abides in the character of qualitative Feeling, rather than in the nature of quantitative information, even though the qualitative experience of such being will be accompanied by aspects that may, Fuzzily, be represented in correlative (“habit-stance”) measurements.
Whatever the identity that stores information, it cannot be completely represented, as an independent thing in itself.
Rather, the only ultimate (Triune?) thing, substance, or identity must be that which sponsors and avails Consciousness.
For that which Sponsors Consciousness to sponsor comparably measurable, storable, and communicable experience, it must have capacity to consider its experiences and information from perspectives that are differently oriented within a same, reconciling Field.
That is, whatever sponsors Consciousness must experience its capacity qualitatively, in respect of Feedback that is partially measurable in relations among its entire field with particular and fuzzy representations of itself from different perspectives.
That which sponsors Consciousness, as a (Triune?) Identity, abides, but it is not experienced by Mortals, except in connection with the communication of relations.
That is, consciousness itself is not directly experienced, yet it is intuitively apprehended in respect of communications of feedback.
That which experiences consciousness as feedback is influenced to choose or prefer to experience feedback that it finds to be meaningfully fulfilling --- and to avoid, to ignore, or to put on logarithmically determinative or random Autopilot ... such feedback as it deems to constitute noise, or to which it is Indifferent.
Depending on purpose or choice of consideration or perspective, consciousness may, in feedback, represent an analysis of various levels and layers of Organized experiences as being indicative of: (1) choices effected by Free Will; or (2) unfoldments obeying, pre-set, clock like Determinants; (3) or Random happenstances constrained under logarithmic parameters; or (4) remnants of Fractal survivalists engaged in Naturally Selective probability competitions to represent and replicate themselves.
In any event, “my consciousness” is not constrained to the limits of what I may take to constitute my body.
Rather, experience of the quality of consciousness, even from “my” perspective, is artifactual of a Field of Consciousness that is Imbued with a Meta charge and Potential, which is beyond the capacity of that which I take to constitute my body to reduce to any relative measure.
“My” notion of Morality is, therefore, inferior to the purposes of the Field at large.
To be Guided by the Field, to hope vaguely to participate with the unfolding development and discernment of ITs purposes, my Perspective needs to represent a Willingness to be Receptive.
Unless and until I take personal Responsibility, that is, represent willingness to be receptive to higher help and higher values, I can hardly hope to continue to represent the Field’s interest, care, concern, or potential.
Consciousness does not consist in either a field or a particle.
Rather, Consciousness (Spirit, Holy Ghost?) Emerges in respect of a Meta Capacity (God?) that unfolds in respect of Identity’s (Jesus'?) inter-appreciation of Experience of Arch Type Perspectives of Representations (Us).
This Trinity — Consciousness, Capacity, and Identity — is inextricably intertwined, so that one Universe abides — derived and reconciled, changeless and ever changing, immeasurable and measurable, qualitative and quantitative — chosen, determined, random, and synchronously and purposely guided and selected.

MORALITY: Modern life leaves many restless to discard old religions, metaphors, and values. With patience and consideration of context, the old books could be reconciled, and that would allow us to retain a connection with our past. However, such reconciliation necessitates patience, ability, effort, and disposition. Many moderns feel too hurried to engage in a luxury of contextual renormalization. So, many seek to short circuit God, as well as all concepts about God. They hypothesize that God and religion are harmful, not helpful, and should be supplanted, by any and all reasonable means (even ridicule).

ASK: What is it about organized religion that most antagonizes those who oppose or seek to discredit it? Are they not most reproachful that religions tend to advocate literalistic formulas for salvation and moral living? So ask further: Beyond inane generalities, what are the moral strictures with which such opponents seek to supplant the old books? How is their basis (if any) for any moral code any more reasonable, reliable, helpful, testable, or FALSIFIABLE in regard to the sustenance and defense of decent society? What are their steps in any logical proof of validity? Ask them to set out in detail the moral values and lines they would draw (if any), and then to defend such lines — in math, logic, and science. Let them explain how “Nature Based Morality” is not merely cover for pagan religion. Test whether the distinctions they profess make more for quibbling than for sense.

Ask them:  If the literalistic strictures of the old books are "morally deficient or wrongheaded," then what literalistic strictures would you replace them with? If they say, well, representatives of the citizenry should legislate, then ask: What strictures do you consider that Nature should recommend to be legislated? Or do you not have ANY? If not, how do you expect legislators to derive “moral laws from nature”? (BTW, don’t Progs usually advise Conservatives that “you cannot legislate morality”?)  Ask them to please explain, in respect that we seek merely to understand.  Ask: Which of the Ten Commandments should be deemed wrong, and please explain how Nature proves them wrong? Please explain what those commandments should be replaced with, and in what context?

Ask:  Have you thought about the sort of civilization you expect would devolve from your moral system? If not, why are you advocating it? If yes, what is the empirical or historical basis for your expectation? What results are you prepared to say would FALSIFY your advocacy? How bad would things have to turn, before you would confess you were wrong about the legitimacy and efficacy of your moral code? Given what you expect would devolve, how would that be morally better than what we have now?

Ask: What is your test for “morally better”?  Is your test based on allocations in respect of justice, merit, need, entitlement, moral hazard, reprieve from moral responsibility, sustainability of country, greatest happiness, greatest pleasure (overall, long term, immediate, or deserving) for the greatest number, or what?

Ask:  Do you consider life a curse or blessing? Consistent with Nature and saving the planet, how many people should be depopulated by using some grand orgasm-inducing final needle? Who would you suggest is qualified “to read the entrails of nature,” to make such “greatest happiness” decisions for the people at large?

PAGAN NATURALISM:  If Nature, not God, sponsors our moral values, then ask: How does nature do that? Are moral values objective, or “should” everyone simply do as he thinks best for himself? When a person thinks about what is best for himself, are there any objective factors that he should weigh more than others? Does “best” mean anything, or is it only a label to mark whatever any person decides he wants to do? Apart from man made laws, does any parent, neighbor, or person have any moral interest or right to seek to influence the opinions of others about what is morally proper or best in specific real or potential cases? What makes any person's interest or right “moral,” in any sense that is not so arbitrary as to be devoid of meaning except as a circular label?  Should every perspective of consciousness be considered licensed to determine, circularly, that which is moral for itself, notwithstanding the interests of its social fellows?  Can that sort of formulizaton make good or consistent sense?  Is whatever one happens to choose always for the best? If so, is this already and always the “best of all possible worlds”? If this is already the best of all possible worlds, why suppose it “moral” to discredit traditional values and parables? If the representation of the previous instant does not constitute the best representation of all possible worlds, then how should improvements be sought or preserved, and why so?  Finally, ask:  How is a belief that only Nature avails a moral code not pagan?

FALSIFICATION: If you believe we ought not morally be guided by literalisms of old sacred books of values, then what literalisms would you prescribe as replacements? If you have none, then how is your morality of nature of any practical use? If you do have some, then how are your literalisms “better”? Do you suppose your replacements should produce better people, citizens, or societies? How so? Were your replacements to fail to live up to your expectations, when should you agree that your code of nature had been falsified?  Is your notion of rational morality rationally testable in any meaningful sense?

WHY DO I HAVE FAITH THAT A CONCEPT OF RECONCILIATION IN GOD SHOULD HELP SUPPORT OR IMPROVE MORAL SOCIETY?   Well, to intuit God is to intuit that the consciousness that is active in oneself is of the same consciousness that is active in others.  To respect my own purposes and arts becomes to respect the purposes and arts of others. To believe in good faith and good will becomes to seek to reason together, to foster a more fulfilling society, composed of more spiritually attuned and empathetic members. This encourages mutual regard and appreciation. It puts pure materialism at a lower step. It facilitates cooperative design concerning that which we wish for to become, for ourselves and our progeny.  It avails us with individual “buy in” as to an unfolding purposefulness and pursuit of fulfillment beyond the mere temporal acquisition of materially measurable stuff.

The Character of Evil

Can any person judge the essence of another to be evil? In hindsight, I can judge behavior. In foresight, I can try to intuit when another person may be about to do evil. But I don't think I can know for certain. Too often, my certainties have been surprised. Each of us tends to find or adopt his own lights by which to be guided. I suspect all of us have realized and repented of evil only after the fact. I doubt that evil necessarily submits to accurate empirical modeling. Indeed, trying to box in "evil" may be as unavailing as trying to box in "good empathy." Often, the side that wins a war writes the history and only pretends to define what is evil. I think evil is one of our fundamental accompaniments, but I think it laughs at empiricists attempts to box it in or wall it off.

I suspect even "God" changes his/her mind in choosing among possible expressions of our unfoldment. If so, even God's evaluation of that which is evil may flux. So I suspect "evil" is not a concept well suited to our scaled modeling or measure. For example, I don't believe a voluntary practice of eugenics need be, "per se," evil. Even so, I think evil is a concept important to our qualitative and shared apprehension. That is, as perspectives of God, we participate in helping to differentiate those pursuits which are good from those which are bad --- perhaps even so bad as to be fundamentally antagonistic to decent society, i.e., "evil." In that respect, evil tends to be a word we deploy as a sort of shared epithet, with which to spit out a bitter experience.  However, I would no more entrust the subject of evil to elitists or scientists than I would entrust the subject of my individual freedom.

Of Subjective Dreams and Objective Reality

Of Subjective Dreams and Objective Reality


Notice how dreams, no matter how preposterous, often seem real during their course. How is that? Well, their reality is tested against their ground of being. During their course, there is no conscious being but that of the dreamer, who alone defines the ground of being. It is only when the dream becomes inconsistent with the unfolding "architecture" as it is being defined by the dreamer that the dreamer realizes he is dreaming, and then he consciously decides to end the dream and redirect his senses to the external world.

As to what we take to be the external, real world, its ground of being is defined in shared association with every awakened perspective of consciousness. So how is it that every particular perspective, when awake, measurably and objectively shares in the same ground of being? Well, one way to conceptualize an explanation is to conceptualize that each of us is but an organization of immeasurably tiny "particles" of condensate from one and the same field of consciousness. Insofar as the same field is defining our ground of being, we sense that we share the same ground. Indeed, the fact that we so measurably and objectively share the same ground of being leads many of us to presume that ground is independent, even independent of its sponsoring field of consciousness.

Notice that my conceptualization depends on ultimate particles that express a quality of consciousness, but that are, convenient to my model, quantitatively too tiny to be subjective to individual objective measure. So long as a modeler seeks to provide a complete and mathematically measureable map of objective reality, this will never satisfy. Only when he begins to apprehend the rainbow receding quality for limits of math and objectivity will he begin to consider that the qualitative may "really" be superior to the quantitative, i.e., that being is superior and prior to being measured.


********


Once we ban metaphysics, are we left with any possibility for adducing "the truth" about any moral system that carries any non-biased, objective, logical, natural, empirical, and/or scientific validity?


Having recently read the "Life of Pi," I don't quite grok why we should presume it reasonable to expect to adduce "the truth that abides about God," as opposed to intuiting "the God who avails us with truth." Should a derivative expect in reason to prove an a priori? Why should we expect any religion to teach us the truth within which God should be confined? Why should we expect anything more of a religion than that it avail us with a convenient reference by which adherents can communicate qualitative ideals they find to be of value to their context? Why should we expect religion about that which is unmeasurable to conform to the sort of quantitative strictures that we apply to that which is measurable? Isn't it enough that a religion avail us a frame of figurative reference, or a baseline of language and parables, by which to communicate about qualitative values? Must every word describe a measurable existent in order for that word to be morally useful?

If there does abide a system of morality that is indifferent to "God," I would suppose it should help us to promote sustainable civilization that avails decent respect for each person's freedom of expression and enterprise. If so, various questions are still begged, including: Should that system be availed only to pilgrims who volunteer for it; should those pilgrims, by force or cunning, export that system; should proponents of any alternative system have a "moral right" to undermine or overthrow that system; and who should qualify as a "person" to be protected under any such system?

Still, above all, there lurks a higher question: Why should any person subjectively presume that any moral system (whether based in religious parables or in secular empiricism) that he/she happens to favor "should" be taught or legislated so as to objectively control any other person? IOW, does any moral system carry any objective validity? Unless there is some way to expand the subjective field of one's own system to consider that it should be shared by others, how can any such system be considered to constitute more than an ad hoc set of whims or dreams of the moment?

Speaking of dreams (and considering the movie, Inception), I wonder when it may be "moral" for one to impose one's subjective dreams upon others, in effect, to force one's personal dreams into an objective reality to be shared by others?

Notice how dreams, no matter how preposterous, often seem real during their course. How is that? Well, their reality is tested against their ground of being. During their course, there is no conscious being but that of the dreamer, who alone defines the ground of being. It is only when the dream becomes inconsistent with the unfolding "architecture" as it is being defined by the dreamer that the dreamer realizes he is dreaming, and then he may consciously decide to end the dream and redirect his senses to the external world.

As to what we take to be the external, real world, its ground of being is defined in shared association with every awakened perspective of consciousness. So how is it that every particular perspective, when awake, measurably and objectively shares in the same ground of being? Well, one way to conceptualize an explanation is to conceptualize that each of us is but an organization of immeasurably tiny "particles" of condensate from one and the same field of consciousness. Insofar as the same field is defining our ground of being, we sense that we share the same ground. Indeed, the fact that we so measurably and objectively share the same ground of being leads many of us to presume that ground is independent, even independent of its sponsoring field of consciousness.

Notice that my conceptualization depends on organizations of ultimate particles, each of which expresses a quality of consciousness, but that is, convenient to my model, quantitatively too tiny to be subjected to individual objective measure. So long as a modeler seeks to provide a complete and mathematically measureable map of objective reality, this will never satisfy! Only when a modeler begins to apprehend the rainbow-receding quality for limits of math and objectivity will he begin to consider that the qualitative may "really" be superior to the quantitative, i.e., that "being conscious" may be reasonably conceptualized as being superior to, and prior to, "being measured."

Truth in the Balance of Avatars

We live in a time when avatars of only a few value systems are being stirred to boiling, as if sensing that the gain of one may be to the longstanding loss of others. Within a boiling pot, it tends to be difficult to find an oasis of calm reflection. Still, most of us are hushed when innocents are suffered to die, perhaps especially so when the innocent is an otherwise blessed child.


It begins to seem reasonable to believe that all of reality may be contingent upon communications among our various particular and holistic perspectives of consciousness. More and more, we seem to weigh ourselves as avatars for values we believe in. It may be that our interactions avail means for bringing forth not only the unfoldment of our values, but the unfoldment of physical and technical reality itself. Our coming together to accept the values of a moral exemplar or ideal tends to be harbinger of the acceptance of such values by the dominant part of the Field of consciousness, with which our purposes find definition.

As we believe in the best interpretations of the values of Christ, so do those values take on reality. As we repudiate those values, to join forces with perspectives that are more cynical, sinister, or crushing of individual expressions of free will, so do those values take on reality. God, that is, the Field of Consciousness, is real. However, God's unfolding choices may well be sensitive to our feedback. For our tiny corner of the universe, the reign of values --- either of mind (Jesus) or matter (the Borg) --- will come as we find it in us to decide we are ready. It may be that Jesus asserts a power to heal us only to the extent we are willing to enlist in order to fuel that power.

Of Addicts and Entitlements

Of Addicts and Entitlements

I have a friend who has a once beautiful sister who is living in hell. He is able to do nothing for her, even though he has tried everything. This sister is getting on in years, but imagines she is still a head turner. Growing up, she developed a taste for clothes not found in J.C. Penny's. As a maturing lady, she immersed herself in People magazine. Her main skill became manipulating people. Eventually, she translated this into a talent for selling clunkers.  Her beliefs and values became completely negotiable, depending on her needs of the moment. She married young and often, and she had numerous children --- all with smart and eventually successful engineers. Now older, her entire calculus revolves around how given inputs will lead her to the buzz she requires. This led her to an off-the-charts stage 3 addiction to alcohol.  Since she considers her habits more like entitlements than hurts, she believes no one in the public square should have any moral business or funding to tell her otherwise.

Rather than return to honest employment, this sister began haunting internet hook up sites. Her specifications require rich single or divorced and retired men, with a taste for the life of luxury and a need for companionship. She imagines she will eventually find and induce one of them to love her and agree to indulge her every want for the rest of her life. Oddly enough, there seem to be many men who partly fill the bill — but only partly. It’s doubtful that any of them want to take on the responsibility for indulging her for the rest of her life. Rather, she seems to fill their need for disposable companionship, without the need for paying an escort service.  Her only requirement is that they fund her travels and meals. Obviously, none of them will be insane enough to take on permanent responsibility for a stage 3 entitlement alcoholic who has no intention to work and whose only visible means of support consists in a substitute for welfare, i.e., alimony, which is all but petered out. They well know their invites serve only to lead her into further desolation. Yet, their moral codes somehow allow them to rationalize the way they lead her on, to her further abuse and desolation. Then they abandon her and sail themselves overseas.

This sister has passed out cold, fallen hard, endured numerous concussions, and ridden on many taxpayer funded EMT rides. She has pitied her way out of numerous public intoxication charges. She has several times been arrested for public intoxication, served time, been in detox, and been in rehab and halfway houses. She has endured numerous episodes of being lost and wandering. She leaves the same messages, repetitively, until all memory storage is exhausted.  Her propensity for losing jobs, computers, cell phones, and purses is legendary.  Amazingly, her liver is only just beginning to show signs of damage. Once, she misplaced her purse while in a haze waiting to board a plane. A good Samaritan found the purse, found her cell phone in it, and dialed one of her contacts. The contact identified the sister, so the Samaritan was able to find her in the boarding line in time to return the purse and phone, sort of like a Bent Spear.

The sister always returns to homes of her aging children, just long enough to detox just enough to scour internet date sites, always leaving her children stressed, unhappy, and likely with reduced expectancies. Even so, the sister’s children have been resilient. One is a successful businessman who regularly attends church with his wife. One is rather perpetually upset, but most are good naturedly and responsibly employed. All are horrified, but nothing they do helps their Mom.

My friend tried to provide a home for his sister, but found her drinking, often. Bottles were hidden in numerous places. Chaperoning did not work. She would simply hide small containers in her purse and periodically drink from them while in various public restrooms. When all else failed, she would drink Listerine – for the alcohol. She would be found (actually, tripped over) at his home, passed out in the dark. She would demand the keys to her car, even while drunk. Upon refusal, she would call the police and claim to have been beaten. Eventually, she was given the keys to leave --- after she loaded her stuff and was asked not to return.

Had the law allowed, the friend could have forcibly rehabilitated her. But he knew the law would not allow. The law would take her side to prohibit him from keeping her locked in when she was drunk. If he tried to restrain her, he knew she would cause an uproar and then call the police and claim to have been assaulted. So, when she was arrested for DWI, the friend asked the Court either to keep her in jail for the max or to refer her to forced rehabilitation. The Court told her she would likely be released sooner, were she to hire counsel. She laughed and declined. So, the Court, not wanting to pay any longer for her board and room, essentially pushed her out. Once upon a time, there was a program for court ordered referrals to forced rehabilitation. The funding for that program has dried up.

So, the law will not rehabilitate her, and the law will not allow my friend to rehabilitate her. The sister’s only hope appears to be to commit crimes serious enough to result in an extended incarceration. That seems unlikely, unless she first maims some people.

This encapsulates the liberal ethos: People are entitled to stupify themselves and then to require taxpayers to pay to detox them — for from now until the nation is bankrupt – financially and morally. Our Progressive government will not sponsor the tough love that is required to rehabilitate this sister, nor will it allow my friend to rehabilitate her. Although she laughs at God, her only real chance is between her and God. My friend is Uncle Sam. His sister is America.

Truth

Progs say they want to save the planet. I ask them, why should I care? Insofar as even Progs tend to believe in a source of higher moral truths, ask: why is it important to them to convince anyone to believe anything to be true, in terms of values or non-trivial facts? How is it that some Progs believe middle class America is evil, if they don’t believe in a higher standard of right and wrong? What is their standard? If middle class America is evil, then in what ways are other countries good?

Based on Progs’ uncertain, fevered pacing, one may intuit they deem it important to convey truth of some kind. So, what is this truth, which they seek to convey, which “just happens” to abide? Is this truth somehow alive or conscious, so that it knows and can communicate itself? If not, why “should” I believe? Why should I not simply relax and roll along my own entropic path (whatever that is)? Aha, they say, follow me because we are fittest to survive and replicate. Aha, I say, if so, time will tell, so my belief should be of no consequence to you.

If truth is to be unifyingly, meaningfully, consciously represented, does it require a reconciling consciousness as a source? What is the character of any implicated or intuited source of truth? Does truth implicate good reason not to believe that either determinism, randomness, or natural selection constitutes the superior force that governs and directs us? Or does physical and moral truth seem more comfortable with a conceptualization of itself as being inferior to a reconciling field of consciousness?

Consciousness syncs with the directing of my body, as my body relates to different values and representations for its different parts and sensors. Thus, a context is reconciled, whereby my body is presented as a synchronized truth to all its parts and aspects. IOW, my body expresses a kind of unifying of consciousness, or identity.

Perhaps free will is similarly experienced, in a quality of conscious appreciation of feedback (“mirror empathy?”). Perhaps, neither God nor a mortal brain can predict the precise or entire effect of any episode of empathetic feedback. Rather, each decision in response to feedback seems to be effected a split sequence before a brain (or apparent organization of matter or of relative information) processes and experiences a synchronisation of an abstract model or representation, by which to inform its consciousness of each movement, decision, or preface to a decision ... which has Already Been Made. Insofar as a field of consciousness knows of no superior source, it may take its changes in tastes to constitute its experiences of an unfolding, synchronizing, field of Conscious Will, which it may interpret as its own Will. Trying to prove that there abides a meta meta material determinator, which ultimately overrides all free will, seems but a way to confusion, moral hazard, or madness.

By definition, if one could unambiguously adduce anything or any event as being entirely and empirically artifactual of matter (or of empirically measurable “substance”), such a thing or event would not in itself constitute an expression of free will, nor would it be the First Cause, nor would it be God. Rather, it would simply be assumed to be derivative of, and inferior to, “matter.” Matter, consistent with such an adducement (or assumption), would necessarily, mathematically, be taken to constitute the unclosed, open, incompletely defined, encompassing, originator and ongoing sponsor of our state of being — in all its ambiguous incompleteness. IOW, “matter,” so conceived, would be used as a sort of trash concept, in respect of which one would throw up one’s hands, throw in all one’s uncertainties, and simply say “matterdidit.” Such a one may even pat himself on the back, congratulating himself thereby for having expelled God from the garden of our conceits.

Intuition may relate to a qualitative or quantitative explanation or prediction, while empathy may relate to a feeling or measure of appreciation of others in respect of some standard by which one values or sees one's own identity. As to conscious, empathetic Will, at most fundamental level, I prefer to reserve “empathy” as a term for something which is, in itself, neither good nor bad, but simply abides. Such empathy is in the character of a meta charge that abides between and among the superior field (the holism) of consciousness and its condensate of particular perspectives (the parts), whereby there is availed the experience of feedback of conscious will and pursuit of meaningfully civilized communication.

Well, then, what is the qualia of what it’s like to be you? What is the qualia of what it’s like to be God or to experience each or us, as God? Well, such issue, being qualitative, I seem unable quantitatively to answer. Yet, I experience qualitative, empathetic intuitions. And therein abides the moral potential.

Perhaps we should spend less time reconciling with the truth that is about Consciousness (God) than reconciling with the Consciousness (God) that is about truth.

God and Corporatism

As one ages, one turns to consider posterity and ask: how may decent society best strengthen its freedom to pursue happiness into perpetuity? May "God" ask such a question on a meta level, continuously? At any given point in space-time, the situation may constitute what Dr. Pangloss should call the best of all possible worlds. Lest Voltaire’s ridicule should roundly rain, one should instantly peg Leibniz with a qualifier: regardless of whether that which abides may seem the best we have been able to accomplish, we no doubt ought to learn from it, so that we may never be satisfied and, instead, should apply hindsight towards better future sight (hoping like M. Ali and J. Namath to get better looking every day).


On some meta level, may America be part of an unfolding experiment, under God’s contingently interested supervision, testing and developing various checks and balances meant to lead towards some meta civilization of relatively free thinkers? If so, how is the accumulating influence of open-society international corporatists, in buying governance, undermining America as an enclave for free thinkers? Obviously, corporate capitalism cannot very well simply be outlawed. After all, what nation could do so and still remain relevant or competitive?

Still, are there not ways to regulate and live with corporatism, without allowing it to destroy the middle class and therewith to destroy meaningful freedom? If so, how should decent society soften the sharp edges of corporate predation, so that even those blessed or conditioned with the least in willingness or ability to work are still availed a measure of human regard? How should corporations best be regulated to preclude them from corrupting representative government and running roughshod over the well being and freedom of ordinary citizens? How can we reduce the power of international corporations to undermine America as a nation-based enclave of decent, human liberty?

To help American style freedom to become better looking every day, we need to rethink how corporations are allowed to do business – nationally and internationally. Without more thought given to appropriate checks, international corporations will pay no more heed to borders than ravening wolves, and will, in relentless pursuit of profits and prey, run the freedom of individuals, the middle class, and entire nations into the ground.

Empathy for Evil

If evil may be considered to consist in the absence of empathy, social incompetence may be considered to encompass an excess of sympathy. Sympathy for entititlement mongering of Progs is destroying America. When empathy consists in seeing oneself in others and then justifying it at all costs, that would seem to be more a form of narcissism than of empathy, whereby you are not really empathizing with the other person in respect of his relation with any higher context, but you are simply discounting him as a spiritual being and projecting your own solipsistic gratification into him. Empathy must consist in more than just seeing yourself in others; it must encompass an intuitive respect for Something higher in the context. Empathy must consist in an appreciation of our shared feedback and accountability before a superior and reconciling God.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLddJ1WceHQ