Nublog 2: Seeds

This entry did not publish and is out of order, now.

The greatest tree began its journey when, as a seed, perhaps still asleep in a nut, one of many scattered upon the forest floor, it took root in a location that favored growth. The magnificent tree, home to many, grew as it could, but, importantly, it grew as it would.

A tree may have had to adapt to severe weather, or poor soil, or a lightening strike. It grew as it could. Nonetheless, the essence of the tree was preordained. The design of the great tree was within the seed or, as we understand, today, the seed’s DNA. The tree grew as it would. Its nature was defined at birth; its survival depended upon whether that nature was prepared to exist in its environment. Indeed, the seed contained the ideal tree, as Plato would have advised.

When we stand in awe gazing a great tree, we may consider ourselves lucky to have come upon this unique wonder.  However, it is, in the end, the tree is the same stuff within all seeds. We may admire the beauty of the tree, but it is the same beauty as the little sapling off to the side, only time and conditions have not played their great part to influence the sapling. Greatness is merely our judgment placed upon a seed that was lucky. The person in forest is not unlike the tree in an important way.

We are all born with a program up and running, out of the box. We all become what we can, but develop as we would, according to our “seed” and environment.  Tree varieties have different qualities, some are stronger, some bend, but they are what they are. Animals are what they are. There is assessment, not judgment in the jungle or forest. Once a lion has taken a gazelle, the other gazelle stand around, nearby, grazing. They are without anger at the lion. They do not judge the lion - they watch and react.

A chimp may decide it can push around a weaker chimp, but it does not judge the weaker as an inferior being. Group hierarchy is established and life goes on. Yet, our lives are different. We each can see a great divide between our species and that of others. Herein lies important inquiry into our natures as animal with consciousness.

Why do we have a propensity to make “value judgments” of the essence of other humans? What is “hate?” How is it we are immune to information contrary to our beliefs?  Indeed, what are beliefs? Truth?

None of these questions pose a problem once you understand the power of judgment - including the ignored aspect that cripples us. The acceptance of our major flaw, however, requires a profound individual change. The acceptance may be called a spiritual awakening as it encompasses “consciousness,” but the acceptance may be made by the most severe materialist among us. The acceptance of the flaw is nothing less than becoming humble, a task much more difficult for those who pride themselves in their reason.

Humility casts aside pride, the greatest of all sins. Understanding pride is to tame it. Understanding pride takes us back to our “seed” and the consciousness that dwells in our nature. 

Genesis refers to the "fall" of Adam and Eve as that of obtaining knowledge of good an evil. (עֵץ הַדַּעַת טוֹב וָרָע / Etz haDaat tov V'ra ) This knowledge is that of consciousness, which is the nature of God. Genesis reports God saying (to whom?) essentially: "Now, what do we do with them?" The answer is that they had to leave the garden of living without consciousness, a contentment of sorts, and were condemned to living lives of anguish caused by judgment. Perhaps, living in harmony with nature is Eden and, perhaps, we are searching to return; but, that journey is made nearly impossible by our consciousness.

While a beast does not judge, we do. We are both blessed and cursed by the knowledge of good and evil. It is our task to understand the nature of our seed. Only then, can we return to a spiritually contented garden. 

Michelangelo, from the Sistine Chapel:

The Sin Within Consciousness

The greatest tree began its journey when, as a seed, perhaps still asleep in a nut, one of many scattered upon the forest floor, it took root in a location that favored growth. The magnificent tree, home to many, grew as it could, but, importantly, it grew as it would.

A tree may have had to adapt to severe weather, or poor soil, or a lightening strike. It grew as it could. Nonetheless, the essence of the tree was preordained. The design of the great tree was within the seed or, as we understand, today, the seed’s DNA. The tree grew as it would. Its nature was defined at birth; its survival depended upon whether that nature was prepared to exist in its environment. Indeed, the seed contained the ideal tree, as Plato would have advised.

When we stand in awe gazing a great tree, we may consider ourselves lucky to have come upon this unique wonder.  However, it is, in the end, the tree is the same stuff within all seeds. We may admire the beauty of the tree, but it is the same beauty as the little sapling off to the side, only time and conditions have not played their great part to influence the sapling. Greatness is merely our judgment placed upon a seed that was lucky. The person in forest is not unlike the tree in an important way.

We are all born with a program up and running, out of the box. We all become what we can, but develop as we would, according to our “seed” and environment.  Tree varieties have different qualities, some are stronger, some bend, but they are what they are. Animals are what they are. There is assessment, not judgment in the jungle or forest. Once a lion has taken a gazelle, the other gazelle stand around, nearby, grazing. They are without anger at the lion. They do not judge the lion - they watch and react.

A chimp may decide it can push around a weaker chimp, but it does not judge the weaker as an inferior being. Group hierarchy is established and life goes on. Yet, our lives are different. We each can see a great divide between our species and that of others. Herein lies important inquiry into our natures as animal with consciousness.

Why do we have a propensity to make “value judgments” of the essence of other humans? What is “hate?” How is it we are immune to information contrary to our beliefs?  Indeed, what are beliefs? Truth?

None of these questions pose a problem once you understand the power of judgment - including the ignored aspect that cripples us. The acceptance of our major flaw, however, requires a profound individual change. The acceptance may be called a spiritual awakening as it encompasses “consciousness,” but the acceptance may be made by the most severe materialist among us. The acceptance of the flaw is nothing less than becoming humble, a task much more difficult for those who pride themselves in their reason.

Humility casts aside pride, the greatest of all sins. Understanding pride is to tame it. Understanding pride takes us back to our “seed” and the consciousness that dwells in our nature. 

Genesis refers to the "fall" of Adam and Eve as that of obtaining knowledge of good an evil. (עֵץ הַדַּעַת טוֹב וָרָע / Etz haDaat tov V'ra ) This knowledge is that of consciousness, which is the nature of God. Genesis reports God saying (to whom?) essentially: "Now, what do we do with them?" The answer is that they had to leave the garden of living without consciousness, a contentment of sorts, and were condemned to living lives of anguish caused by judgment. Perhaps, living in harmony with nature is Eden and, perhaps, we are searching to return; but, that journey is made nearly impossible by our consciousness.

While a beast does not judge, we do. We are both blessed and cursed by the knowledge of good and evil. It is our task to understand the nature of our seed. Only then, can we return to a spiritually contented garden. 

Michelangelo, from the Sistine Chapel:

Video

A timely video to watch as the statists again attack the Constitution.  If you do not think the message is relevant to our enlightened society, recall that the army can arrest you today on the order of the president and you have no right to habeas corpus, which means no right to be released without a trial.

Habeas Corpus was an essential right of citizens, so much that President Lincoln was rebuked for putting it aside.

The extent of the disembowelment of your rights would fill books. So, for now. Watch the video.

Brave New Blog

There is a theme to this blog. I think of it from time to time. 

My current interests are related to the theme tangentially, but an appearance, here, straight out, would disturb the Force.  It is beneficial to back up and begin thoughts afresh. Rather than continually pointing at the obvious, figuring people would figure out they ought to stop listening to the messenger, it is useful task to look into why people do not care about the logic of any message; they simply follow the messenger that seems most agreeable to their views. 

Tom Stoppard wrote, twice I recall, in Rosenzcranz and Guildenstern are Dead: 

“Audiences know what to expect, and that is all that they are prepared to believe in.”

This play or movie is required, by the way, and there will be questions at the end.  In fact, see this play before or after watching Hamlet. 

Anyway, the actor, literally the actor, offers the above observation. It is a perfect observation. Write it on a sticky pad and put it on your refrigerator.

When you have a “serious” discussion with someone, you will find a limited number of responses. All responses flow from the reaction Stoppard noted.

First, those who agree with you will add on to the point. This is generally not satisfying as you are not sure they really agree or suffer from the same malady as I describe, below. That is, their agreement is not based upon reason, but their reaction to taboo. One should look for an agreement in how to reason to a conclusion, not be happy when someone agrees with a conclusion. An unreasoned agreement is tomorrow's hangman.

Those who disagree, but  are ostensibly objective and claim the position of being open-minded, listen without bluster, but they look for a place to disagree.  They look to small parts of the argument, ignoring the point of the syllogism. They never address their own assumptions other than to pronounce them as a way to stop a discussion. 

Even a cursory discussion of an assumption with the supposed open-minded person soon gives way to a non-sequitur, such as the famous: “Bush did it”reflex. This reaction has achieved joke status among many thoughtful people, but most of them have equally reactive responses.  

There are also reactions from "true believers" who do not for a moment consider your words, arguments, purported facts and struggle to reach a conclusion. They get the feeling you are saying something bad, so they turn you off.  It is hard to say, but subjectively the percentage of these true believers seems to have grossly increased. Likely the result of public schools and our mass university system. The inability to form or discuss an argument has become dangerous; we now have crowds of serfs moving from one fear to the next. 

I once wrote an essay positing Governor Jindal and Senator Rubio were ineligible to be vice president because of the Constitutional requirement that  a candidate must be a natural born citizen. This is a defense of the Constitution, not an attack on two good men, but self-proclaimed conservatives dismissed me, never reading the essay, accusing me of being an epithet or two. One retiree said I am a pot smoker.  This was his response, seriously. The ignorance and ferocity of stupidity cannot be dismissed or ignored. There is no virtue in tolerance. (I did send his email back corrected).

You cannot argue with trees, but we should figure out how it is the trees accept what they believe in.  Understanding what their beliefs are is only marginally useful because the beliefs are not part of an intellectual system. They are emotional, religious beliefs.  People are programmed. You can never discuss these beliefs with the Ents precisely because they are "beliefs."  If you have the same beliefs, you are OK; if you believe the opposite, you are the enemy. So, most of us go about in a non-committal way which encourages the opinionated.

In the Time Machine, the protagonist goes to the future and finds the Eloi. They are simpletons who think of nothing. Rather, they eat the food provided for them so they can be fattened up to eat. You could not talk to the Eloi. They had no interest beyond their beliefs.

I am of the opinion all of us, but for a few of us with short circuits, can apply reason to a set of assumptions and are fully capable of reaching a conclusion after understanding the assumptions - but few of us do that. We get nowhere near a syllogism as the correct answer is announced. The belief is stated and reinforced.  On the other hand, we can sit with a book and figure out why an engine does not work or why a program is not running. 

It is critical we understand why people do not reason with respect to matters philosophical and, ultimately, political; if we do not encourage critical thinking, then we are lost. It is that simple. We will be swept up in the audience of puppets afraid to say anything that would appear taboo. We are not so far from NAZI Germany and Stalin's Russia that we cannot see this. Look around, today. Nothing is new and nothing disappears.

 What is your reaction to:

Nothing is better than heaven

Half a loaf of bread is better than nothing

Therefore, half a loaf of bread is better than heaven.

There are several immediate reactions, here. Very few of us react in the correct manner. Think about it. Yes, this is on the test, too. 

I amaze myself by  stopping at this point.  I remind myself this is a blog!  Something to be read over half a cup of coffee, i.e. heaven.  The take-away (great phrase) is that most people do no apply critical thinking to their core beliefs, though they can.  This failure is at the heart of most of our problems in the modern world. This is not an abstract philosophic idea. Our unhappiness, poverty, sense of hopelessness. and so on directly relate to our being self-righteous in our ignorance.

Buddhists do not go on and on, like this, they just say we live in delusion and each of us has to figure it out for himself. This is good advice, but the modern mind will dismiss that belief and never accept the premise.

Two major considerations arise, at this point. One is we never review our own beliefs, knowing they are correct, and we react to threats to our intellectual beliefs in the same way an animal reacts to a noise in the forest: flight or fight. Thus, we react, without reason, to any confrontation to what we know is truth. We react. There is no arrival at a conclusion. As demigods, our reactions are proper.

In the end, pride is the greatest of all sins. 

You may want to read a good paper

Conrad Black: Canada's front-row seat for the American disaster

Conrad Black, National Post
Saturday, September 22, 2012

Canadians are peering through the portals of their stout solid home, transfixed and astonished by the fall of the United States.

Read more »

I have to add:  Is he holding an "air" bat?   Anyway, keep up the buzz and send this sort of reminder into the tentacles of the web.  Only very ground level buzz can present a way to turn back toward a republic. Once the center no longer holds and things unravel, consciousness will turn to those crack pots who called everything right. 

Of course, people still make fun of Beck pushing gold when it was $700 per ounce. He was even accused in Congress of being some sort of evil that statists see in the cobwebs of their minds. 

Greshamite Democracy in Israel (and here)

Entropy is the rule of the universe save, it has always been my feeling, for brief moments of conscious life. 

Life and society, too, eventually devolve, but for a little time, there is an organizing pattern. History shows this pattern follows upon clear moral understanding and "virtu" or the personal will to abide by truth. Greek and Roman empires declined upon the moral decline of the indivual.  Americans, for the first two centuries, religious or not, believed in the sanctity of individual life and in something beyond this moral coil.  Ten of thousands died to protect ideals such as freedom.

The West is now in decline because morality is in decline, which is, in turn, in decline as most individuals no longer have religion, in any of its forms, or respect for individual life and property. We are in a pig pen and entropy has arrived to reclaim us. Moral relativism is the abscence of morality.

Below is an excerpt giving comment on Israel's condition, which sound very much like that of Europe and, now, the United States

...Gresham’s Law rules in politics, where falsehood and half-truths drive out full-truths.  The reason is this.  Full-truths impose greater demands on the integrity and courage of politicians.  The norm of democratic politics is compromise punctuated by deviousness.           
Contemporary political scientists never tire of saying that politics means power. To gain power in a democracy one must appeal to the lowest common denominator.  Contemporary democracy is “Greshamite” democracy. Greshamite democracy entails, at best, a politics of half-truths, but very often of falsehoods. To utter full-truths in such democracies is to risk being labeled an “extremist,” an “ideologue,” an “absolutist.” As one high-ranking Israeli official confided to me: “We can’t lie as well as the Arabs.”
The political as well as the intellectual elites of Greshamite democracies insist on being seen as a “moderate,” a “centrist,” a “pragmatist” Why? Because there are no moral truths in this democratic age wherein everything is “relative.” It’s precisely because there is no truth that public opinion polls -- but therefore opinion-makers or manipulators -- play a decisive role in politics. 

Given the eclipse of truth -- which is to say, given the ascendancy of opinion over reason and knowledge -- to refute an opponent nowadays you don’t have to examine his opinions on logical or empirical grounds. It’s enough to label him a “right-winger” or a “hawk.” I say “right-winger” and “hawk” rather than “left-winger” and “dove” because the latter dominate the mass media, as well as the media of education, including political science. Thus, if you are a critic of Greshamite democracy, its mandarins will call you a “fascist,” just as critics of the Oslo “peace process” were labeled “hawks.”      

   
This dishonest way of dealing with matters of life and death is the staple of “value-free” political science, which prevails even in Israel (the only country in the world threatened with annihilation).  Thus, in a Jerusalem Post op-ed piece, one Hebrew University political scientist calls it “Kahanism” to require more than 51% in a popular referendum on whether Israel should withdraw from the Golan Heights. His “reason”?  A 51% requirement would render nugatory the votes of Israel’s Arab citizens!  No elaboration on such intellectual dishonesty is necessary. 

Political scientists foster falsehood by never referring to any politician as “mendacious.” Such politicians abound in Israel. Almost all encourage people to believe in “peaceful coexistence” between Jews and the Arabs in Judea and Samaria knowing well enough that militancy is deeply ingrained in Arab-Islamic culture. Indeed, for Israeli Prime Ministers to speak of peaceful coexistence with the Arabs of Judea and Samaria is nothing less than expecting those Arabs to forsake their 1,400-year culture and cease being Muslims! But to call such politicians liars is to make a “value-judgment,” something “value-free” or morally neutral political scientists must never do if they are to be “objective” or “scientific.” An “objective” political science must therefore be either a trivial or a “truth-free” political science! 

Since morally neutral political scientists preclude themselves from moral criticism of democracy’s political elites, they tend to reinforce the power of these elites, which means they perpetuate the reign of lies and liars. Confronted, however, by despotic Islam, of which academics must also obscure the truth­, it follows that morally neutral political scientists are subversive of democracy. Gresham’s Law is deadly.

Prof. Paul Eidelberg is a political scientist, author and lecturer; Founder and President, Foundation for Constitutional Democracy, a Jerusalem-based think tank for improving Israel's system of governance. He is a valued contributor to JewishIndy. 
His books are available at Lightcatcher Books, http://www.lightcatcherbooks.com. His most recent book is: Toward a Renaissance of Israel and America. His recent books are: A Jewish Philosophy of History and The Myth of Israeli Democracy: Toward a Truly Jewish Israel. His previous book, Jewish Statesmanship:  Lest Israel Fall, provides the philosophical and institutional foundations for reconstructing the State of Israel.  It has been translated into Hebrew and Russian. He is the author of Toward a Renaissance of Israel and America (Lightcatcher Books, 2009).

The Foundation for Constitutional Democracy 
POB 23702, Jerusalem 91236
E-Mail: Eidelberg@foundation1.org;
Tel. 02-586-9208; Cell phone 0544-407581
Visit his Web site:  http://www.foundation1.org  

Something different

Hi,

I am working on several projects and will present capsules here. The result should be less rambling and of a different slant.  I see no need to waste my brain working on irresolvable chaos caused by foolish clients, avaricious lawyers, sleepy judges, and a tyrannical government. So, not having any real useful skills that I will be hired for, having some gray hair, I will try writing.

Oh, I am also working with Ken on establishing a business out of New Brunswick, CA wherein U.S. citizens can become solo owners of a Canadian corporation.  Not a cheap affair, but not expensive either. Depends on whether you want to have your money in Argentina, the U.S., or Canada.

For now, a reminder:


  There was happy talk when the last time the GOP rolled over. There is happy talk now and Obama is doing nothing, waiting for the GOP to roll over.  Keep in mind that happy talk, see above, does not trumpt economic reality in the mid and long term. The market is about where it collapsed in 2011 and all that has happened is companies are stockpiling case, wealth is leaving the U.S., and the dollar has been slated to be devalued for years. Thank God the Europeans need to put their money here.