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Holden

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A Conspiracy Theory
« on: November 18, 2016, 01:48:08 pm »
Modernity is  committed to the dogma of rank materialism without question.  The first faulty presupposition is naive empiricism.  The scientific and academic establishment is still dominated by naive empiricism as its sole epistemological approach.  Believe anything you want, in fact, just so long as undergirding all of it is the ridiculous idea that “all knowledge comes through sense experience.”  This is the ancient error of the sophists, nominalists and Enlightenment empiricists.

 Since most in this school follow some form of what they would term “logic,” it is very easy to demonstrate that the claim “all knowledge comes through sense experience” is false by appealing to the sentence itself.  The claim itself is an exceptionally strong universal claim about both knowledge and metaphysics.  Given the propensity of those in this strand to bully theists for unsubstantiated claims, there is no possible way, on empirical grounds, to prove such a claim.  The claim itself necessarily entails a whole host of metaphysical preconditions, too, which are anathema to naive empiricism.   So the very dogmatic claim of naive empiricism is still quite impossible.

Since modern academia is not much more than a vast machine of brainwashing and propaganda, we cannot expect much, but as with most “educated intellectuals,” knowledge of Plato rarely consists of more than a smattering of the Republic and a few dialogues.  My concern here is not to delve into Plato’s theory of the polis, but to highlight the metaphysics.  Modern academia being the machine it is, they only know to follow the popular line of Plato as this, that or the other, and almost never hit on the fact that Plato was part of an esoteric tradition extending from Egypt and older cultures that had a specific cosmogony and cosmology that closely connected with anthropology, embodied in the classic microcosm/macrocosm analogy.


Kurt Godel's  incompleteness theorem is a great example of why no system can be explained solely by the axioms that undergird the system.  Godel showed this against Bertrand Russell’s challenge, yet many people are unable to make the connections as to what the implications of this are.  Not only does it show that mathematical sets cannot be justified by reference to other mathematical sets, as Godel, Escher, Bach shows, this pattern emerges in other disciplines and areas of life.  But even Hofstadter cannot seem to make the connection between this and why materialism is false. Is there something more sinister at work in terms of the suppression of Platonism and the promotion of rank materialism?   I certainly think the promotion of communistic dialectical materialism is demonstrably true and “conspiratorial,” but is there a flipside to this idea, where truth about the actual nature of reality is being suppressed? 



Perhaps the greatest logician of all time, Kurt Godel uncovered the existence of a world-wide conspiracy to make men less intelligent. For years Godel had been very interested in the work of  Leibniz, whose characteristica universalis influenced Godel’s use of symbolism in his famous incompleteness proofs, and went so far as to request copies of the voluminous Leibniz manuscripts to be brought to the United States during the second World War. Godel initially claimed to have discovered evidence of a conspiracy suppressing Leibniz’s work—that Leibniz had in fact completed the famously unfinished (and unfinishable) universal language of thought, but had been prevented from publishing it. In conversation, Godel suggested that the Viennese Academy of Science, officially inaugurated in the mid-19th century, had in fact been founded by Leibniz in secret some centuries before; its record books, which contained references to the complete characteristica universalis, had been systematically destroyed.


 Godel has made  remarks about manuscripts disappearing,  which have sometimes been dismissed as symptoms of a possible mental instability on Godel’s part.

La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.

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Re: A Conspiracy Theory
« Reply #1 on: November 28, 2016, 05:58:11 am »
Quote
... truth about the actual nature of reality is being suppressed? 

If taken out of context, this fragment would have me question why so much attention is paid to professional sports by the media.  Why do men in football helmets clutter the front page of Yahoo?

Do they expect us to take any of these "games" and "contests" seriously?  Do they not suspect what bafoons they appear to the thinking man?

Now, for more context:

Quote
Kurt Godel's  incompleteness theorem is a great example of why no system can be explained solely by the axioms that undergird the system.  Godel showed this against Bertrand Russell’s challenge, yet many people are unable to make the connections as to what the implications of this are.  Not only does it show that mathematical sets cannot be justified by reference to other mathematical sets, as Godel, Escher, Bach shows, this pattern emerges in other disciplines and areas of life.  But even Hofstadter cannot seem to make the connection between this and why materialism is false. Is there something more sinister at work in terms of the suppression of Platonism and the promotion of rank materialism?   I certainly think the promotion of communistic dialectical materialism is demonstrably true and “conspiratorial,” but is there a flipside to this idea, where truth about the actual nature of reality is being suppressed? 

It is evident that modern academia is a kind of control grid - and how humbling to witness how quickly a student (or professor, for that matter) can be transformed into a patient, client, or inmate on a psychiatric ward or "emergency ward" of the local hospital, a hospital where the employees, from the nurses to the security guards, are trained to play the role of their official capacity!   Fascism with white suits and the authority of "Medicine", i.e. "Medical Professionals".   [COUGH]  [FART]

In such institutions, one is expected to do as one is told, to lay in the cot all day and not question their Kafkaesque situation.

Talk about a "control grid"!   

Does all knowledge come through sense experience? 

Thankfully we conduct our discussions outside of a psychiatric ward, and, better still, outside of the Church of Reason that is modern academia, what some say is not much more than a vast machine of brainwashing and propaganda

I have often heard, and said so myself, that man created God and the Devil.  Where else would these ideas come from?   Those guilty of bringing life into the world explain this world to their children with such ideas as God and the Devil.   The perceptive child soon realizes nobody really knows what the fuuck is going on.  And yet, what about mathematics?   Did man create mathematics or is this something inherent in the nature of reality itself, as Raul has suggested?

Does mathematics precede man?

Were numbers invented by some members of a priestly sect or are numbers part of the fabric of reality itself?  And who has the time to consider such questions besides university students, inmates imprisoned in one of the countless holding tanks of the Industrial World, or just some poor slob who wakes up in a situation where, for the time being, he has nowhere he particularly has to be?   

The Devil makes work for idle hands, I see.  Is this why so much energy is put into demanding the kids keep their eye on the ball?   Are that many people interested in watching games, the cakes and circuses for the masses?   Why is it one is more likely to get into an intellectual discussion in a psychiatric ward than at the lunch room table at their "yhab"?

All we need to do is use our imaginations and we will see the conspiracies all around us to suppress interest in the nature of "our" reality.   Do we have a shared reality?   I suppose we must. 

If you explore the Internet, following the links of this topic, you will find some dead ends.   That might spark your interest ... who will actually be at liberty to track down On the Philosophical Development of Kurt Gödel?  One has to be some kind of weirdo even to take an interest in a conspiracy to suppress knowledge of the true nature of reality.   Shouldn't one be concerning oneself with finding an employer so one might save up for a diamond ring and give it to a prostitute so she can get another fix?

So, Godel claims that important works were removed.  It is not too difficult to make a case against anyone concerning their sanity or mental stability.   We human creatures are quite vulnerable.   All it takes is a few days of sleep deprivation and we turn into basket cases. 

Certainly this post must be an invitation to explore the questions raised, and so I will leave a few links to what may lead to some kind of answers or even more questions.

First of all, we have the term characteristica universalis.  I found refererences to this in Calculus Ratiocinator vs. Characteristica Universalis? The Two Traditions in Logic,
Revisited


We can only pray this research does not land us in the insane asylum.   Then again, as long as we go insane in a way that does not "disturb the peace" or put our own lives in danger, then perhaps we will be permitted to continue our investigations without summoning the regulators.

Of particular interest is section 3, on page 6 of the 15 page document linked to:  3 ---> Calculus  ratiocinator and Characteristica universalis

Leibniz stresses that all human reasoning is based on the use of signs or characters.  Characters are signs perceptible with the senses, e. g. by writing them down, or cutting them into stone.  But such abbreviating signs should not only be applied to the things themselves, but also to the ideas of things. ‘Abbreviating’ means that as soon as a characteristic sign has been established for a complex object, memory can be relieved of the burden of retaining all the characteristic elements of this object.  Natural languages are not sufficient for this job of designating objects unambiguously. Only in the language of arithmetic and algebra has this idea been partially realized. All reasoning in these branches consists in using characters. Errors in reasoning prove to be miscalculations. Leibniz was convinced that all human thoughts could be reduced to a few, so to speak primitive, thoughts.



According to Leibniz, to deny a mathematical claim is to contradict yourself.

Supposedly, this actually matters a great deal to the issue of whether we can develop a universal characteristic and rational calculus. For, if Leibniz is right, we can found all of mathematics and other forms of reasoning on necessary propositions.  Personally, my gut intuition is that this is simply a "control freak" issue where certain types of men simply cannot bear to exist in a world of choas and absurdity (irrational), and so they spend their entire lives building "systems" to impose order on expereince.

Contrast with Kant:  Kant argued that much of mathematics is given through synthetic a priori intuitions or judgments. This means that these are not just matters of meaning (that's what "synthetic" means: there is more here than just definition) but that we know these things without having to learn about them from experience (that's what a priori means).

If some of reasoning (including especially mathematics, which is reasoning par excellence) is given in this way, then it becomes unclear how we could ever create something like the universal characteristic with its rational calculus. We need to discern what is given to reason, and how.



« Last Edit: November 28, 2016, 06:28:31 am by Gorticide »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

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Re: A Conspiracy Theory
« Reply #2 on: November 28, 2016, 01:02:48 pm »
Similar to the obstacle to discussing "positive" vs "negative" or "optimism" vs "pessimism", when challenging "materialism", there is the lack of a clear definition and understanding of what materialism is.

Those unfamiliar with the philosophical meaning may confuse it with basic greed and obsession with image and status.  Likewise, the word "idealism" is rarely associated with the philosophical meaning, and more often taken as a description of someone who does not face the cold brute facts of life.

The world of appearance "appears" to be made of matter.  What is the stuff of reality if not matter?  Is it a mental experience?   I love Schopenhauer's way of highlighting this paradox, this riddle of the world itself, with the statement, "The world is in my head and my head is in the world."

If the world of experience is entirely mental, what is the nature of the instrument itself: the brain is a physical material organ.  If the world were etirely a mental construct,  there is no dualism of phenomena and noumena.   Isn't Schopenhauer's "Idealism" a view in between Materialism and Spiritualism, where the world of appearance, the phenomenal world that we experience as existence, can only be known to us as mental representation?   On the other hand, he does not deny the existence of the noumenal world itself. 

If one were to propose that we have only mental experience (phenomena), and that's all there is, then there are no noumena behind some 'veil of perception'.  This worldview could be called psychism.    Immaterialism states that matter does not exist, and that there is no objective material world beneath or beyond our sensory experience.  If there is no noumena, then, because it has no objective reality, the world as we experience it may simply be a dream or illusion (maya), a phantasmagoria

Idealism may be a compromise between Materialism and Psychicism/Spiritualism.  When discussing Platonic Idealism, we usually have to make clear that the colloquial use of idealist,
to mean an impractical dreamer, has no connection with what we mean by Idealism.  This presents quite a challenge.  It is similar to trying to convince someone that evil and suffering is what is 'positive', and the absence of pain a 'negative'.   The terms we use have been popularized and associated with our likes and dislikes, which totally confounds conversations.

The main thing for me these days is not to become too overwhelmed with the amount that has already been written by so many about the nature of reality and to just go with the flow.  As I have mentioned recently, I am noticing that my attention is decreasing.   I have no patience for rigorous details, especially in mathematics, and find that I am most comfortable when focusing solely on the mechanical procedures of solving specific types of problems.

Do you think it is possible that I no longer care to understand or explain reality, that it could be an unnecessary burden we impose on ourselves? 

Sometimes I just want to sleep through life as though it were a jail sentence.  The children who have recently arrived in this world do not have to wait until they are adults to be welcomed to the nightmare.   I am sure they experience this as they walk to the school or are transported by the bus. 

Yes, I do like philosophy and mathematics, but they do not make life worth living.

I appreciate Ligotti's take on things.  We are hunks of flesh on disintegrating bones.  Getting an A in "Calculus" did not transform me into someting other than that.

And so, nearly twenty years later I lay on the floor in a sunbeam next to a napping cat.  I try to motivate myself to continue with my "studies".  I've been in worst situations.  I allow myself not to care ... I embrace my laziness and simply stay stuck in this limbo.
« Last Edit: November 29, 2016, 07:13:25 pm by Gorticide »
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The Philosopher is the Perpetual Beginner
« Reply #3 on: November 29, 2016, 10:55:42 am »
I was considering continuing work on chapter 8 of Dead End : A Strong Dose of Madness, focusing on the theme of How to Get Through a Life Not Worth Living.  I'm not quite sure how I would go about this.  Most likely, I would start from scratch and write from the perspective of this 50 year old hunk of flesh on disintegrating bones.   It's just a thought.  If I am going to write anything, it will be a philosophical satire focused on how to get through a life not worth living.  It's audience will be those who have evolved to the point where they are able to acknowledge the pointless absurdity of existence.  The mood I aim at evoking will be one between deep depression and cosmic satire, where we might even be able to emit a chuckle from beholding our true nature, the inner being of Nature itself, as the absolute ludicrous in the flesh.

This writing project I have in mind would be slow going.  It would not include any notes from A Strong Dose of Madness, as that was written from a different perspective, when I thought, for sure, I would always have recourse to drinking whisky and chasing it down with beer while sitting in a hot tub of water.

While going through that relatively long chapter I came across some notes that may offer us some food for thought about the world as a mental construct, specifically where Schopenhauer suggests that Intellect and Matter are one in the same.

I will leave bits and pieces of those notes here.

___________________________________________________________________________
Once I choose to continue living, how am I to exist?

Phenomenology confirms absurd thought in its initial assertion that there is no truth, but merely truths. Is the phenomenological reduction an absurd procedure? “Intention” characterizes consciousness. Returning to consciousness, as we “awaken,” we escape from everyday sleepwalking and move toward absurd freedom. It’s not so much about explaining and solving as it is about experiencing and describing.

I have become alienated, marginalized, and superfluous. I can’t explain how I’ve come to be this way. I merely experience and attempt to describe experience. Radical intellectual honesty seems to be a necessary component in this process. I want to push through the barriers that prevent us from deep experience – self-deception, delusion, and downright blindness as to the motivations underlying behaviors which baffle us.

Scientific training/education imparts an unrealistic, rational picture of the world, where the individual body-subject plays a minor role. The individual, however, as an irrational datum, is the true and authentic carrier of reality (Jung). Rationalists are incapable of psychological insight. Feeling like an insignificant statistic or “vote,” and that life has lost its meaning, the poor gort is already on its way to State slavery. The individual personality is the real life-carrier.

Science and technology made reason ascendant over our emotional system (instinct, intuition, unconscious animal responses), and from this comes the prime assumption of modern humanism: “All problems are soluable.” Emotion is held up to contempt and ridicule. Industrial society believes reason to be superior to emotion, and yet, as complex neurobiological organisms, we can’t reason without our complex emotional systems. Emotions are the mechanism that Nature has given us for fitting ourselves into our world (Ehernfeld).

A body (corps) is not reducible to an organism, any more than espirit de corps is reducible to the soul of an organism.

The essence of animism is a radical rejection of Cartesian dualism. Animism is the recognition that we are our bodies and not ephemeral spirit wrapped in an arbitrary fleshy shell; animism is the simple belief in our own experience. This is where phenomenology and animism merge. The body becomes the symbol for the I.

Alone, without the body, the I is an empty concept.

Reason seems impotent when confronted with the depths of existence. The ultimate truth of our condition cannot be known rationally, because this truth is elusive, and any attempt to objectify it can delude us. The Hegelian philosophy of history is meaningless. Worse yet, it is cruel and coercive.

Heidegger viewed reason as an obstacle to thinking.

If there is no consciousness outside of the neural nerve net (the brain), if there is no soul outside the brain, where does consciousness come from? What causes consciousness?

What does the great Oracle, Arthur Schopenhauer, have to tell me about soul or consciousness?

“The maintenance of an empirical freedom of the will, a liberum arbitrium indifferentiae, is very closely connected with the assertion that places man’s inner nature in a soul that is originally a knowing, indeed, really an abstract thinking entity, and only in consequence thereof a willing entity. Such a view, therefore, regarded the will as a secondary nature, instead of knowledge, which is really secondary.”

Of course, according to Schopenhauer, the will is first and original; knowledge is merely added to it as an instrument belonging to the phenomenon of the will.

Do mental states have non-physical features? Schopenhauer says that everything is most certainly physical, yet not explainable. Paul M. Churchland offers an explanation with neurocomputational terminology. The existence of one’s auto-connected epistemic pathways, their origins, and their current cognitive functions are all intelligible on purely physicalist assumptions. Isn’t this going about things counter to implementing Husserl’s “pre-scientific awareness”? I don’t think so.

Husserl’s phenomenology is a bringing us into contact with things through their being perceived in their fleshly presence. Each of us, including non-human creatures, has a proprietary way of knowing about the occurrence and character of one’s own internal states. Truth cannot be limited to what can be gained through the application of the scientific method. Merleau-Ponty went as far as describing scientific points of view as “always naïve and at the same time dishonest.” Many truths we arrive at intuitively through our living bodies.

I have a strong ambivalence towards professional, academic philosophy.  What about the old issue about the essentially objective nature of physical phenomena and the essentially subjective nature of mental phenomena? We can now see that there is nothing exclusively objective about physical phenomena, since they can occasionally be known by subjective means as well, specifically, by the activity of one’s auto-connected epistemic pathways. Neither is there anything exclusively subjective about one’s mental states. While our mental states are known by way of one’s auto-connected pathways, our states can also be observed by Others. The very faculties of understanding are themselves physical in nature.

Consciousness flows. Consciousness is not me, but I am of consciousness. I am a species of consciousness. Husserl can’t transcend the ‘unknown forces of Nature” without invoking specific “magical” terminology such as the phenomenological act of reduction (epoche, bracketing off, suspending judgment). “Magic” is a simple direct way of escaping the narrowness of everydayness. Instead of turning to the great thinkers, the student of the occult turns immediately inward and tries to reach down to his subliminal depths, into the cognitive unconscious itself, what Husserl imagined to be a “pure consciousness,” a primordial pre-scientific awareness, the ground of non-conceptual, “spiritual” knowledge. I think the chief thing is to establish a link between the conscious and subconscious mind.

“There is indeed the inexpressible. This shows itself; it is the mystical.” (Wittgenstein)

According to Western neuroscience, consciousness is a product of the physiological processes in the brain, and thus critically dependent on the body. We have absolutely no proof that consciousness is actually produced by the brain. We do not have even a remote notion how something like consciousness could possibly happen. That consciousness is a brain process remains one of the leading myths of Western materialistic science and has profound influence on our entire society (Grof).

Experiences originating on deeper levels have a certain quality Jung called numinosity. The term numinous is neutral and preferable to similar names, such as religious, mystical, magical, holy, or sacred. The mystics do not need churches or temples or universities.

Alcoholism and dependence on street drugs may represent a misguided search for transcendence. “Mystical states” offer richness of philosophical insights, but drunkenness does not offer such insights. People go into therapy trying to make the unconscious conscious. And yet, our spiritual ancestors close to the origins of our species realized the conscious and subconscious are linked together through the process of breathing.

Husserl had a deep conviction that Western culture had lost its direction and purpose. The individual is threatened from both sides: by the State and by God. It seems there is a psychological opposition between the phenomenal Natural World and the monotheistic God. The peasants starve and the police are kept well-disciplined and well-fed. Who is this goon lumbering around as my government?

To me, radicalizing phenomenology is simply acknowledging that when Husserl attempted to use rational means for attaining a transcendental state, he unleashed into the world a confusion. When I refer to myself as a “radical phenomenologist,” I mean that I fully embrace the confusion Husserl has exposed; in fact, I rest in this confusion. Edmund Husserl, without trying to do so, has undermined Reason, the god of the Industrial World. As a radical phenomenologist, I call into question the conventional scientific worldview. In so doing, I set about to further undermine mass industrial society. The connection between science and totalitarian control has become apparent. The general population finds itself existing within a gargantuan industrial apparatus which it admires, worships, and idolizes, and yet cannot comprehend. Hence, the general population defers to the authority of the experts and specialists.

Albert Camus writes, “Husserl’s manner of proceeding negates the classical method of reason, disappoints hope, opens to intuition and to the heart of the whole proliferation of phenomena, the wealth of which has something about it inhuman. These paths lead to all sciences or to none.”

I am moving towards an embodied realism, and yet I trust Schopenhauer when he writes, “True philosophy must at all costs be idealistic; indeed, it must be so merely to be honest. For nothing is more certain than that no one ever came out of himself immediately with things different from him; but everything of which he has certain, sure, and hence immediate knowledge, lies within his consciousness. Beyond this consciousness, therefore, there can be no immediate certainty; but the first principle of a science must have such a certainty. It is quite appropriate to the empirical standpoint of all the other sciences to assume the objective world as positively and actually existing; it is not appropriate to the standpoint of philosophy, which has to go back to what is primary and original. Consciousness alone is immediately given, hence the basis of philosophy is limited to the facts of consciousness; in other words, philosophy is essentially idealistic.”

But I digress. Spiritualism is the false safeguard against materialism; but the real and true safeguard against materialism is idealism. In spiritualism, what is proved is the knower’s independence of matter, but in idealism, what is proved is the dependence of all matter on the knower. Husserl always reminds us that consciousness is always consciousness of something. Schopenhauer says that consciousness without object is no consciousness at all. Both appear to be transcendental idealists.

Intellect and matter are correlatives. They are one and the same thing – not opposites.   From one point of view, we have intellect, from the other point of view we have matter; and both are this one thing, the phenomenon of this will-to-live, the primordial one, Ur-Einen.

Immanuel Kant’s proposition, that the “I think” must accompany all our representations, is insufficient, for “the I” is an unknown quantity. The I itself is a mystery and a secret. Isn’t the I Ur-Einen? Isn’t the I the thing-in-itself?

We partake in the unconscious omniscience of the inner being of Nature.

In the emerging post-modern world, the drive for authenticity is thwarted by the entire social system in which our lives are embedded.

Why am I so intensely concerned with philosophical questions? Isn’t the real world directly accessible to us through intuition? Intuitions are the hard-won insights akin to mathematical discoveries. My insights become part and parcel of my mental equipment.

Dostoevsky’s “Underground Man” is a reflection of the chaos left in the wake of Kant.

My motive is not to drive myself insane, but to overcome the fear of insanity. Losing objective consciousness might be mistaken for insanity by the “sane” who are stuck in objective consciousness. I’m too engrossed in my own transformations to be disturbed by the images my presence of mind produces in the heads of others. Most likely, I will be forgotten in the silence of history, and so, while walking upon the earth, I’ll not live for an image, for those impressions are in others’ minds, and hence are but mere phantoms, constructions intended to give them an impression of me.

Phenomenology is a kind of trained introspection and self-observation. Our so-called “outer-perception” presents us with nothing that appears the way it really is. We are subject to some serious illusions with respect to rest, motion, figure, and size. All we know are the effects of these physical things on our sense organs.

Enter philosophical movements disguised as jokes or jokes disguised as philosophical movements. These are grim days indeed. Jokes are in high demand, but a few hearty laughs may shake us from our angst so that we might become more focused on the task at hand, whether it is sleeping, feeding, warming, or even contemplating our own death. I wish we could organize a movement to keep writers, scholars, and artists physically alive – to permit them to continue their work in this most difficult century. Studios could be organized where we form our own schools.

Dressed in old coats, chilled and hungry, we could become totally absorbed in discussions of literature, philosophy, comedy, wilderness survival, and “the end of history.” My “true” inner self is different from the self that appears in conversations with others. I need writing to supplement the misleading signs of my speech. In other words, in my speech and action I may seem to be going along with the status-quo, so I need my writing to pick up on the elements within me resisting. I need writing because my speech gets misinterpreted.

The most important lesson the [phenomenological] reduction teaches us is the impossibility of a complete reduction. The philosopher is the perpetual beginner. The unfinished nature of phenomenology is not a sign of failure. It is inevitable because phenomenology’s task is to reveal the mystery of the world and the impotency of reason when confronted with the depth of our lived experiences (existence itself).

Husserl believed we should not assume any philosophic or scientific theory, and furthermore, must avoid deductive reasoning (which presupposed logic) and mathematics as well as any other speculative theory of psychology and philosophy, in order to concentrate on describing what is given directly in intuition (Anschauung). This involves the most radical form of self-questioning, involving a kind of overthrow of all previous assumptions to knowledge, and a questioning of many of our ‘natural’ (common sense, scientific) intuitions about the nature of our mental processes or the make-up of the so-called objective world.

Husserlian phenomenology focuses totally on what is given in intuition and is not meant to rely on logical inferences, or mediate knowledge of any kind.

Phenomenology must be able to cope with the most radical denial of the world, with the challenge of the most hyperbolic doubt which sees the whole world as a dream or even as non-existent. As Dermot Moran says, “The objects focused on in phenomenological viewing must be neutralized with respect to the question of actuality.”

Phenomenology is riddled with as much paradox and mystery as life itself: How can a science which claims to remain true to experience seek to be a pure science stripped of all experiential elements? Phenomenology is remote from common sense. In the phenomenological reduction, there is a radical upheaval and consciousness even ceases to be human, loses all connection to the empirical, natural, human ego and its psychological states.
« Last Edit: November 29, 2016, 11:12:40 am by Gorticide »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

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Re: A Conspiracy Theory
« Reply #4 on: November 29, 2016, 01:11:14 pm »
That was beautiful & very profound Mr.H –as beautiful as the World as Will and Representation.You see I go to office everyday & need to take care of a lot of files & I try to talk as little as possible to the others and yet its not possible to be completely quiet as I need to respond to their questions from time to time.

And my answers are cut and dried –what else can they be. Sometimes I feel the urge to respond to them in an authentic way and when I do I just end up becoming the laughing stock. You know as Liggoti says-hide from horror in the heart of the horror. I do like horror movies-not the slasher ones but ones which entail philosophical horror.

Of course there are times when I am so sad that I lose interest in everything completely.You have said that you have lost interest in literature.
I’d like to suggest to you Cormac McCarthy,paticulary his book called “Blood Meridian”.
Maybe you have read him already though.
By the way,I really liked Rust in True Detective,in the end they turned him into an optimist-what else can they do when all the moms and dads out there are watching the telly,but for the most part I felt he was onto something.



Your ideas about philosophy have been every enlightening to me-I have learnt a lot.
I have recently come across a book & its main thought matches with Schopenhauer’s in a weird way-its called” A Random Walk down the Wall Street( I am not trying to talk about making money per se,I am trying to emphasize upon its central pessimistic thought).The book in a way says that reason is very much fallible.

It’s a financial investment book,but lo and behold a pessimistic one & I really liked that.
Here is the summary-
The past history of stock prices cannot be used to predict the future in any meaningful way.
"For example, technical lore has it that if the price of a stock rose yesterday it is more likely to rise today," Malkiel writes. "It turns out that the correlation of past price movements with present and future price movements is very close to zero."
Malkiel rejects the main premise behind technical analysis, which is that there are repeatable patterns in stock movements.
In his chapter addressing technical analysis, Malkiel presents a mock stock chart created with flips of a coin: heads goes up, tails goes down.
Malkiel writes that this chart appears to display "cycles," much like many stocks on the market today, but Malkiel argues that the "cycles" in stocks charts, "are no more true cycles than the runs of luck or misfortune of the ordinary gambler."
Why then have technicians at all?
Well, Malkiel has a few theories for that.
Malkiel writes that humans like order, and people finding it hard to accept the idea of randomness, technical analysis, is able to impose a wide array of potential reasons for the random movement of stock prices.

But more cynically, Malkiel sees technical analysis as a facile way for brokers to sell stocks.
"Technical strategies are usually amusing, often comforting, but of no real value," Malkiel writes.

"On close examination," Malkiel writes, "technicians are often seen with holes in their shoes and frayed shirt collars. I have personally never known a successful technician, but I have seen the wrecks of several unsuccessful ones."
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.

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Re: A Conspiracy Theory
« Reply #5 on: November 30, 2016, 12:04:19 am »
Quote
You have said that you have lost interest in literature.
I’d like to suggest to you Cormac McCarthy,paticulary his book called “Blood Meridian”.

I found this book at library genesis and began reading the epub version.   It's a western, yep.  There's a great deal of fist fighting and bashing heads with liquor bottles.   It's set in the 1840's so they use the word ngger a great deal.

I knew the author sounded familiar.  I think his books are well liked by some inmates in the county jail.  Anyway, I think I'll pass on it.   Thanks anyway for the suggestion. 

I reckon I'll read some Schopenhauer and nod off ... and get back into the Calculus text in the morning.   I'm covering integrals of hyperbolic functions and then move on to something I like very much, "methods of integration".   I have to see the probation officer tomorrow.  I want to let her know about the pain-killers I took last week just to cover my a-s-s.

I was a picky reader in jail too.  I hardly liked any of the books being passed around.  I preferred to find the factors of random numbers and see if they were prime.   I would fill pages and pages of scrap paper with long division like some kind of madman.

I figure this is how my brain is wired.   Calculating and computing decreases my anxiety.

Stay well friend.
« Last Edit: December 01, 2016, 09:53:52 am by Gorticide »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

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Holden

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Re: A Conspiracy Theory
« Reply #6 on: November 30, 2016, 06:25:47 pm »
Good luck for your meeting with the probation officer. You have said that she is not unduly cruel,which must be a relief.
I liked Blood Meridian because the writer is committed to pessimism. McCarthy depicts relentless pain,which has a way of provoking metaphysical complaints-like "one feels right to have so grievous a case against the gods.”  “If God meant to interfere in the degeneracy of mankind would he not have done so by now?,”  “You can find meanness in the least of creatures, but when God made man the devil was at his elbow."
« Last Edit: November 30, 2016, 07:20:14 pm by Holden »
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
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Re: A Conspiracy Theory
« Reply #7 on: December 01, 2016, 01:18:57 am »
Yes, the probation officer, she is kind to me.

I was nervous for no reason.  She said, "Your offense had nothing to do with drugs."

I guess I have had a rough time with the authorities, so I can be filled with anxiety quite easily.

Speaking of drugs, I know nothing about the stock market, but is there a way for you to invest in stocks for marijuana sales in the USA?   Several states have legalized it, and considering what alcohol does to people, I imagine many will be wanting to make life bearable with marijuana to give their bodies a break from Satan's p-i-ss.

You might want to look into stocks for pot sales ... Just a thought.
« Last Edit: December 01, 2016, 09:53:13 am by Gorticide »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

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Holden

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Re: A Conspiracy Theory
« Reply #8 on: December 02, 2016, 03:48:24 am »
Thanks for the tip.I will bear it in mind.
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
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Re: A Conspiracy Theory
« Reply #9 on: December 04, 2016, 11:06:12 am »
I guess I was half kidding, half serious.

I've never even entertained any thoughts of investing in stocks.  I'm certainly no man of the world.  Even with all my interest in mathematics and computer programming, I am a relatively "simple" man.

I know this sounds contradictory when one considers my interest in such things as "phenomenology," but my interest is in what is underneath the terminology.   I do not consider myself "sophisticated" in the least.

I do think I would strongly consider smoking some marijuana if it became legal to grow it oneself for one's own consumption.  For the time being, I am not too concerned about it at all.   I think I'm getting used to a very boring life.   I get my kicks from using quality 2B pencils and working on problems in notebooks with no lines. 

Take care.
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

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Re: A Conspiracy Theory
« Reply #10 on: March 21, 2017, 10:53:43 am »
Those preachers would bring out the Devil in me, one more than the other, of course.  Disdain.  That word sums up my attitude towards such nonsense.

One preacher is obviously a little more in touch with reality than the glamour boy, but both preachers irk me.

One would get much closer to the kernel of "Christianity" by reading the atheist Schopenhauer, namely the fourth book of the World as Will and Representation.

These Christian preachers and those who pay deference to them are worse than fools.   What compels you to place that here with no explanation?    Are you pointing out to me how childish are the thoughts floating around in many peoples' heads?   

Witnessing such nonsense reminds me of something I read in "The Goebbels Diaries".   It was actually in the old county jail library (in 1997), but all those books have been long since removed.  I may have copied some notes from it.  Maybe it was on one of the pages I managed to digitize before burning such notes.  Most likely in set H-51_1997_cat.pdf

That's the one.   Page 22 of 68.  It is the only part of his diaries that I felt was worth noting.  I see it starts from the top of page 375 of  The Goebbels Diaries.

Shall I type it here?   Maybe after my morning tobacco ritual.

A note from my own diaries [ 7 September 1997 ] refers to a note from Goebbel's Diaries [ 12 May, 1943 ]:

Quote
The Fuehrer spoke very derogatorily about the arrogance of the higher and lower clergy.  The insanity of the Christian doctrine of redemption really doesn't fit at all into our time.  Nevertheless there are learned, educated men, occupying high positions in public life, who cling to it with the faith of a child. [ skipped some ]

Whereas the most learned and wisest scientists struggle for a whole lifetime to study but one of the mysterious laws of nature, a little country priest from Bavaria is in a position to decide this matter on the basis of his religious knowledge.  One can regard such a disgusting performance only with disdain.  [A church that does not keep step with modern scientific knowledge is doomed.  It may take quite a while, but it is bound to finally happen.]  Anybody who is firmly rooted in daily life, and who can only faintly imagine the mystic secrets of nature, will naturally be extremely modest about the universe.  [The clerics, however, who have not caught a breath of such modesty, evidence a sovereign opinionated attitude toward questions of the universe ...

The Fuehrer showed that he had read about and studied all these problems. There is hardly a fact, hardly a theory, hardly a date, that he doesn't know and that he isn't able to cite from memory. I have the greatest respect for the Fuehrer's tremendous intellectual achievement in all fields of knowledge. It is a pity that such talks can't be made known to a lot of people. Their veneration for the Fuehrer could only be increased thereby.
]


I can't recall why I was drawn to this book, but I was impressed with this entry.  I must have skimmed through most of it out of curiousity, and this passage left an impression on me.

Still, it's no wonder that I prefer to fill my brain with arithmetic and algebra!  It keeps me humble and modest.

When one can witness first hand how easily we make arithmetic miscalculations, we can have nothing but disdain for those who prance about speaking about the nature of the universe in such terms as the TV preachers, Sunday School teachers, et al.

And yet, think of how I would appear to those who go on and on about "their Heavenly Father", or about how "the Lord Jesus died on a cross for our sins, you ingrate."   It would get them quite upset if I were to quote Goebbels diary.   Even though what he wrote in there made sense, because he and his "Fuehrer" have been demonized as monsters, and I suppose they were monsters in comparison to one who would surrender without a fight to be crucified by Roman Soldiers with the blessings of the Rabbis.    At this point we could go on a tangent exploring the roots of Nietzsche's animosity towards Christianity, or even Freud's theories about the roots of anti-Semetism in Europe having to do with pagans being poorly Christianized.  They resent Judaism since Christianity was a Jewish cult, and they feel they were robbed of their powerful gods in exchange for Christ who is utterly mocked and humiliated by the force of the State.

Now, someone like Schopenhauer, especially because he is such an unapologetic atheist, was able to appreciate, not only the way of life of figures such as Francis of Assisi, but to sincerely appreciate the Christ figure as an archetype of the denial of the will.  You must have noticed by now that, while Schopenhauer shows disdain for the religious instructors of his early education, he certainly has a high opinion of saints and the like.   

This is why I like getting into mathematical calculations. 

How did Cioran put it?

Quote
"You must do some work, gain your livelihood, muster your strength."

"My strength?  I've wasted my strength, used it all up erasing whatever traces of God I could find within myself ... and now I'll be unemployed forever!"

If someone like Francis of Assisi, John the Baptist, or Jesus of Nazareth were to appear before the one TV preacher (glamour boy), the preacher would call the police and have the dirty clothed rubble sent to a psychiatric ward.   The other preacher at least has the sense to see this contradiction.

Myself, I am with Cioran and the Devil on this issue. I've wasted my strength, used it all up erasing whatever traces of God I could find within myself.

They have the faith of a child.   I wish Raul would log in to comment upon this, but I fear his eye troubles may have made this too much to ask.

I am curious, Holden.  What are your reactions to such preachers, especially the glamour boy with the shiny white teeth?

You must surmise that there are many idiots in the United States to pack stadiums to listen to such hogwash.   It's disturbing to contemplate.  I can't help but feel like that Ligottian character in True Detective.  I really have to question the mental capacity of true believers, especially those who are not thoroughly disgusted by such performances.
« Last Edit: March 21, 2017, 01:05:09 pm by Raskolnikov »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

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I am the man with the water pistol
« Reply #11 on: March 21, 2017, 10:27:16 pm »
I wanted to highlight how senseless Osteen & similar televangelists can be.
Anyway, I am no intellectual unlike you and Schopenhauer. I don't say that with pride but with shame.
Hell,I can barely divide one number by another.
All I know is that I keep feeling like weeping all the time.

I might end up like this after all,despite Schopenhauer's advice on the matter.

« Last Edit: March 21, 2017, 10:36:13 pm by Holden »
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Re: A Conspiracy Theory
« Reply #12 on: March 21, 2017, 11:55:01 pm »
Quote from: Holden
I wanted to highlight how senseless Osteen & similar televangelists can be.  Anyway, I am no intellectual unlike you and Schopenhauer.

I figured as much.  I also have to consider that you might not have access to a regular keyboard.  If you are checking into the message board with some kind of phone, I fully understand why you might prefer not to type any words.  I apologize if I forget this.  I like a keyboard that is like a type writer.

By the way, I think you are a very deep thinker.  Don't be too concerned about the "difficulty" of computations.  Schopenhauer also found arithmetic very tedious.  You probably go through moods like I do, like many of us do.

You're not considering "death by cop" ?  I like to think you just have a very sick sense of humor.   "I'm the guy with the water pistol."

As your namesake used to say, "That kills me."

Stick around, lay low, go through the motions at work, and follow this trail we are on.

I think studying von Hartmann's work might be a great supplement to your study of Schopenhauer.

There's also Schopenhauer's Encounter with Indian Thought

Being a Schopenhauer Scholar certainly does not require you to be overjoyed, that's for sure!

You said yourself, quoting the Nazarene, "Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted."

My interest in math is not so very "intellectual" anyway.  I like to compute, to calculate, and to see if I can deepen my understanding of things I've been exposed to over this short lifetime.  For me, it's all just a spiritual/intellectual exercise.

Take care, Brother Holden.
« Last Edit: March 22, 2017, 02:23:03 am by Raskolnikov »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

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Re: A Conspiracy Theory
« Reply #13 on: March 22, 2017, 02:30:01 pm »
Comrade Raskolnikov,
That name suits you,Herr Hentrich.I am typing these words with some difficulties. I read your words by getting closer to the screen. The last time I have written was on February 5th, then I saw Holden´s comments. Then I stopped writing. Sometimes I go into very bitter moods. I have become an insomniac with headaches. I endure many people with bad attitudes against me. I suppose that´s the price I pay for not having a regular job, a home, a wife,children and a fat bank account. You see I would like to have  a bank account like the late David Rockefeller. Let´s say he is the "my model" for a billionaire. Next month I need to go to Hospital de Clínicas for another shot of Avastin on my right eye. I am also beginning to suffer the first stages of diabetes. Sometimes I see all blurred. It is very hot in Asuncion. I am going to keep up with your blog. As always you think too much and Holden thinks too much too. Lethal combination.
You see, Comrade,. I saw that movie Falling Down, here in Spanish the title was Días de Furia.

I read your words about the preachers. Well, they have a job and that job is to make people accept their slavery, that they are unworthy of reaching the heavens, that they must kneel down before the unseen divinity and give the tithes. Money is very important. Religion and money and language go together. Languages have a good part in creation of wars. Divide and Conquer. That´s what the gods do against humanity. And of course last but not least there is no salvation outside the church.Jesus was nailed in the cross for you and because of you.  God, that genocidal guy sent his own son to save earthmen and earthwomen. In this case He chose the people of Israel, the chosen people. The chosen people chosen to be cannon fodder for God´s whims. Remember King David? He fought against Israel with the Philistines but he was blessed by the Mighty. God is watching you, sinner, you creature born in dust and in lust. Beware of your filthy thoughts!.
Take care in New Jersey,Tovarich Hentrich and Holden. Raúl 

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Re: A Conspiracy Theory
« Reply #14 on: March 22, 2017, 02:47:05 pm »
It is a relief to hear from you, Raul.  You have confirmed my concerns about your eyesight and the diabetes. 

May you find some peace in a well-deserved nap.  If you have difficulties sleeping at night, you will have to get your rest during the day.  When you sleep, all those who slander you can do you no harm. 

Take care.
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~