November 13, 2015
“An eye-for-an-eye makes the whole world blind…”
To Those Who Judge Without Knowing,
Please allow me to tell you about the true nature of the man who stands before you today — the side of him that only those whom have made an effort to, actually get to know:
Matthew is not some solo maverick who operates with flagrant disregard for the rules. Nor has he been anything but entirely humble about the diversity of talents he has had at his disposal. By no means is he glamorous either. He is not the scion of some high-society family, not the epitome of ‘studly’ masculinity, nor the shining example of flamboyant charisma that immediately and effortlessly wins over people’s ‘hearts and minds’ upon first impression.
No, he is none of these things. He is merely a (naïvely?) hopeful soul whom has, ultimately, never lost faith in the ideas that people are fundamentally good, when given a real chance to be, and: “Love never fails.” {1st Corinthians 13:8}
As a ten year-old boy, he suddenly gained a bottomless well of compassion — rooted in deep feelings of sorrow — for the plight of his fellow, equally fallible human beings. At that tender age, he was profoundly struck by the evil and corruption of the world around him, perpetuated by people who were simply lost, broken-hearted, abused, and/or neglected. The utter tragedy of the ‘human condition’ dawned on him, in all its dystopic ugliness. Despite all his trials and tribulations, enduring the deepest pains and sufferings of life, he never allowed the wickedness of others, that he was incessantly afflicted by, to harden or corrupt his own heart. The core of his soul has always been firmly rooted in and nurtured by the good soil of God’s Love.
As such, despite falling victim himself to irrelevant distractions, a broken heart, a permanently broken body, and psychological traumas, which caused him to stumble in darkness for a period of time, he has — in the end — remained an unperturbed idealist resolved to confront, and help others overcome, the canyon-like gulf that exists between an ideal world (driven by a spirit of love, patience, forgiveness, and hope) and the world as it is now (driven primarily by fear, anger, despair, and the petty, self-destructive desire for ‘eye-for-an-eye’ retribution).
His unusually astute awareness of the ever-widening gap between the two ‘worlds’ had cast, until recently, a shadow over his own state of mind, making him chronically depressed, stressed, and overwhelmingly anxious, sometimes to the point of being fatalistic about whether what he had to offer the world could ever make a difference. Only under the most unfathomably suffocating and unbearable times of near-total hopelessness has he ever cracked under the pressure and done something egregiously bad, in a last-ditch effort (however misguided) to cope with mental torment.
Yet, despite this devastating (if not debilitating) experience — not of his own choosing — by the Grace of God, Matthew stands before you, now, a genuinely ‘new creation.’ Through a complete spiritual rebirth, he has purged all of his formerly paralyzing doubts, fears, and grief; and has achieved a total peace of mind and psychological freedom he had never known before. This all thanks to — he happily admits frequently — a unification of perspective between sciences, philosophies, and Spirituality (guided by a harmonic synthesis of the most fundamental, uncorrupted aspects of Christian, Native American, Buddhist, Taoist, Islamic, Hindi, and other spiritualities).
Matthew is a heart-warming fulfiller, and shining example, of this quotation: “All us stumblers who believe Love rules, stand up and let It shine.” In a world full of talkers, Matthew is a thinker and doer. He doesn’t say much unless you ask him directly, which most folks have learned not to do — to their own detriment. When he does speak, you wonder if he isn’t some sort of alien who sees the landscape of human ideas and experiences on an entirely whole other level. The thing is though, he usually makes uncomfortable sense in a world where most people would rather just hear what they are used to hearing, which is often not anything of any real value.
Those who actually know him generally like him well enough, provided he keeps his thoughts mostly to himself. And when he does talk, it isn’t that they stop liking him — rather, they become less satisfied with themselves. (Common sense and honesty come so naturally to him, people can’t even see them for the gifts they are.) When inclined to, he can speak intelligently about most anything, and even though you sense he has strong convictions, he has a gentle and humble way about him that let’s you keep your own.
Nowadays, his favorite topics are all about God, the nature of the universe, music, and why people believe and behave the way they do. When engaged on these subjects, his eyes light up, he smiles brightly, and suddenly, like a little kid, the tiredness melts away and he becomes ageless and hardly able to contain himself. Such grace seldom makes proper sense for those looking in from the outside.
The last several years of Matthew’s life have represented a true story of personal courage in the face of the darkest depths of remorse, self-hatred, and despair a human being can possibly bear and survive, having pulled himself out of a death-spiral of utter hopelessness. Ever since he was given a second chance at living a life that is actually worth living, he has not taken a single blessing for granted, no matter how small. Nor has he, even once, deliberately hurt himself or others through any choice of his own.
In all the time I have known him, he has been a rather kind and gentle soul. Yet, since his ascension from his own personal hell, he has become all the more impenetrably loving and pure of heart. For the first time in his entire life, he is truly at peace with himself and the imperfect world around him.
Before I close, I must mention this: Matthew’s prolonged dive into the dark depths of “lessons hard-learned and wisdom hard-earned” (as he had once put it) cost him very, very deeply and dearly. He has always profoundly mourned the loss of his daughter, his greatest pride and joy in life, as though she had died in his arms four years ago. Truly, the only thing he seems — at all — to fear any longer is the possibility of finding out something terrible has happened to her, because he hadn’t been there to protect her as her father.
Given all that I have mentioned up to this point, to say that Matthew takes nothing for granted these days would be a gross understatement. He has always had an uncontainable passion for learning, and, though he occasionally stumbles (as we all certainly do), he has never failed to learn from his mistakes — he is not doomed to repeat them.
I implore you to recognize that, to turn your back on Matthew now, after all the remarkably good things he has accomplished and become, would be an unforgivable travesty and miscarriage of justice…
Most Sincerely,
//ORIGINAL SIGNED//
“Matthew’s Best Friend”
Showing posts with label truth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label truth. Show all posts
November 23, 2015
January 11, 2015
Wisdom Concerning the 'Self' (from Some of Humanity’s Greatest Minds)
[The following quote's are some of the ones that were compiled by Maria Popova in her article on brainpickings.org :]
Mindfulness in the Present Moment
"I am alarmed when it happens that I have walked a mile into the woods bodily, without getting there in spirit. In my afternoon walk I would fain forget all my morning occupations and my obligations to Society. But it sometimes happens that I cannot easily shake off the village. The thought of some work will run in my head and I am not where my body is — I am out of my senses. In my walks I would fain return to my senses. What business have I in the woods, if I am thinking of something out of the woods?" — Henry David Thoreau ('Walking' - 1861)
"On the Shortness of Life" by Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 BC – AD 65)
"It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were all well invested. But when it is wasted in heedless luxury and spent on no good activity, we are forced at last by death’s final constraint to realize that it has passed away before we knew it was passing. So it is: we are not given a short life but we make it short, and we are not ill-supplied but wasteful of it… Life is long if you know how to use it."
[…]
"You are living as if destined to live for ever; your own frailty never occurs to you; you don’t notice how much time has already passed, but squander it as though you had a full and overflowing supply — though all the while that very day which you are devoting to somebody or something may be your last. You act like mortals in all that you fear, and like immortals in all that you desire… How late it is to begin really to live just when life must end! How stupid to forget our mortality, and put off sensible plans to our fiftieth and sixtieth years, aiming to begin life from a point at which few have arrived!"
[…]
"Putting things off is the biggest waste of life: it snatches away each day as it comes, and denies us the present by promising the future. The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow and loses today. You are arranging what lies in Fortune’s control, and abandoning what lies in yours. What are you looking at? To what goal are you straining? The whole future lies in uncertainty: live immediately."
Knowing Who You Are
"There is a growing apprehension that existence is a rat-race in a trap: living organisms, including people, are merely tubes which put things in at one end and let them out at the other, which both keeps them doing it and in the long run wears them out."
[…]
"We suffer from a hallucination, from a false and distorted sensation of our own existence as living organisms. Most of us have the sensation that 'I myself' is a separate center of feeling and action, living inside and bounded by the physical body — a center which 'confronts' an 'external' world of people and things, making contact through the senses with a universe both alien and strange. Everyday figures of speech reflect this illusion. 'I came into this world.' 'You must face reality.' 'The conquest of nature.'
This feeling of being lonely and very temporary visitors in the universe is in flat contradiction to everything known about man (and all other living organisms) in the sciences. We do not 'come into' this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree. As the ocean “waves,” the universe “peoples.” Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe. This fact is rarely, if ever, experienced by most individuals. Even those who know it to be true in theory do not sense or feel it, but continue to be aware of themselves as isolated “egos” inside bags of skin." — Alan Watts ('The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are' - 1966)
The 'Fixed Mindset' vs. the 'Growth Mindset'
"Believing that your qualities are carved in stone — the fixed mindset — creates an urgency to prove yourself over and over. If you have only a certain amount of intelligence, a certain personality, and a certain moral character — well, then you’d better prove that you have a healthy dose of them. It simply wouldn’t do to look or feel deficient in these most basic characteristics.
[…]
"There’s another mindset in which these traits are not simply a hand you’re dealt and have to live with, always trying to convince yourself and others that you have a royal flush when you’re secretly worried it’s a pair of tens. In this mindset, the hand you’re dealt is just the starting point for development. This growth mindset is based on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts. Although people may differ in every which way — in their initial talents and aptitudes, interests, or temperaments — everyone can change and grow through application and experience.
Do people with this mindset believe that anyone can be anything, that anyone with proper motivation or education can become Einstein or Beethoven? No, but they believe that a person’s true potential is unknown (and unknowable); that it’s impossible to foresee what can be accomplished with years of passion, toil, and training." — Carol Dweck ('Mindset: The New Psychology of Success' - 2006)
Never Cease to Ask Questions and Pursue Answers About the Unknown
"By posing the unanswerable questions of meaning, men establish themselves as question-asking beings. Behind all the cognitive questions for which men find answers, there lurk the unanswerable ones that seem entirely idle and have always been denounced as such. It is more than likely that men, if they were ever to lose the appetite for meaning we call thinking and cease to ask unanswerable questions, would lose not only the ability to produce those thought-things that we call works of art but also the capacity to ask all the answerable questions upon which every civilization is founded…
While our thirst for knowledge may be unquenchable because of the immensity of the unknown, the activity itself leaves behind a growing treasure of knowledge that is retained and kept in store by every civilization as part and parcel of its world. The loss of this accumulation and of the technical expertise required to conserve and increase it inevitably spells the end of this particular world." — Hannah Arendt ('The Life of the Mind' - 1978)
On 'Perfectionism'
"Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft.
[…]
Perfectionism is a mean, frozen form of idealism, while messes are the artist’s true friend. What people somehow (inadvertently, I’m sure) forgot to mention when we were children was that we need to make messes in order to find out who we are and why we are here — and, by extension, what we’re supposed to be writing." — Anne Lamott ('Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life' - 1995)
On Evaluating the Validity and Usefulness of a New Idea
"The kit is brought out as a matter of course whenever new ideas are offered for consideration. If the new idea survives examination by the tools in our kit, we grant it warm, although tentative, acceptance. If you’re so inclined, if you don’t want to buy baloney even when it’s reassuring to do so, there are precautions that can be taken; there’s a tried-and-true, consumer-tested method."
[…]
"1. Wherever possible there must be independent confirmation of the “facts.”
2. Encourage substantive debate on the evidence by knowledgeable proponents of all points of view.
3. Arguments from authority carry little weight — “authorities” have made mistakes in the past. They will do so again in the future. Perhaps a better way to say it is that in science there are no authorities; at most, there are experts.
4. Spin more than one hypothesis. If there’s something to be explained, think of all the different ways in which it could be explained. Then think of tests by which you might systematically disprove each of the alternatives. What survives, the hypothesis that resists disproof in this Darwinian selection among “multiple working hypotheses,” has a much better chance of being the right answer than if you had simply run with the first idea that caught your fancy.
5. Try not to get overly attached to a hypothesis just because it’s yours. It’s only a way station in the pursuit of knowledge. Ask yourself why you like the idea. Compare it fairly with the alternatives. See if you can find reasons for rejecting it. If you don’t, others will.
6. Quantify. If whatever it is you’re explaining has some measure, some numerical quantity attached to it, you’ll be much better able to discriminate among competing hypotheses. What is vague and qualitative is open to many explanations. Of course there are truths to be sought in the many qualitative issues we are obliged to confront, but finding them is more challenging.
7. If there’s a chain of argument, every link in the chain must work (including the premise) — not just most of them.
8. Occam’s Razor. This convenient rule-of-thumb urges us when faced with two hypotheses that explain the data equally well to choose the simpler.
9. Always ask whether the hypothesis can be, at least in principle, falsified. Propositions that are untestable, unfalsifiable are not worth much. Consider the grand idea that our Universe and everything in it is just an elementary particle — an electron, say — in a much bigger Cosmos. But if we can never acquire information from outside our Universe, is not the idea incapable of disproof? You must be able to check assertions out. Inveterate skeptics must be given the chance to follow your reasoning, to duplicate your experiments and see if they get the same result." — Carl Sagan (' The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark' - 1996)
Get Lost to Find Yourself
"Leave the door open for the unknown, the door into the dark. That’s where the most important things come from, where you yourself came from, and where you will go. Three years ago I was giving a workshop in the Rockies. A student came in bearing a quote from what she said was the pre-Socratic philosopher Meno. It read, “How will you go about finding that thing the nature of which is totally unknown to you?” I copied it down, and it has stayed with me since. The student made big transparent photographs of swimmers underwater and hung them from the ceiling with the light shining through them, so that to walk among them was to have the shadows of swimmers travel across your body in a space that itself came to seem aquatic and mysterious. The question she carried struck me as the basic tactical question in life. The things we want are transformative, and we don’t know or only think we know what is on the other side of that transformation. Love, wisdom, grace, inspiration — how do you go about finding these things that are in some ways about extending the boundaries of the self into unknown territory, about becoming someone else?"
[…]
"How do you calculate upon the unforeseen? It seems to be an art of recognizing the role of the unforeseen, of keeping your balance amid surprises, of collaborating with chance, of recognizing that there are some essential mysteries in the world and thereby a limit to calculation, to plan, to control. To calculate on the unforeseen is perhaps exactly the paradoxical operation that life most requires of us."
[…]
"To lose yourself: a voluptuous surrender, lost in your arms, lost to the world, utterly immersed in what is present so that its surroundings fade away. In Benjamin’s terms, to be lost is to be fully present, and to be fully present is to be capable of being in uncertainty and mystery. And one does not get lost but loses oneself, with the implication that it is a conscious choice, a chosen surrender, a psychic state achievable through geography. That thing the nature of which is totally unknown to you is usually what you need to find, and finding it is a matter of getting lost." — Rebecca Solnit ('A Field Guide to Getting Lost' - 2005)
Be Like Water
"After spending many hours meditating and practicing, I gave up and went sailing alone in a junk. On the sea I thought of all my past training and got mad at myself and punched the water! Right then — at that moment — a thought suddenly struck me; was not this water the very essence of gung fu? Hadn’t this water just now illustrated to me the principle of gung fu? I struck it but it did not suffer hurt. Again I struck it with all of my might — yet it was not wounded! I then tried to grasp a handful of it but this proved impossible. This water, the softest substance in the world, which could be contained in the smallest jar, only seemed weak. In reality, it could penetrate the hardest substance in the world. That was it! I wanted to be like the nature of water.
Suddenly a bird flew by and cast its reflection on the water. Right then I was absorbing myself with the lesson of the water, another mystic sense of hidden meaning revealed itself to me; should not the thoughts and emotions I had when in front of an opponent pass like the reflection of the birds flying over the water? This was exactly what Professor Yip meant by being detached — not being without emotion or feeling, but being one in whom feeling was not sticky or blocked. Therefore in order to control myself I must first accept myself by going with and not against my nature."
[…]
"Water is so fine that it is impossible to grasp a handful of it; strike it, yet it does not suffer hurt; stab it, and it is not wounded; sever it, yet it is not divided. It has no shape of its own but molds itself to the receptacle that contains it. When heated to the state of steam it is invisible but has enough power to split the earth itself. When frozen it crystallizes into a mighty rock. First it is turbulent like Niagara Falls, and then calm like a still pond, fearful like a torrent, and refreshing like a spring on a hot summer’s day." — Bruce Lee ('Bruce Lee: Artist of Life' - 1999)
Making 'Good' Out of 'Evils'
"Throughout our nervous history, we have constructed pyramidic towers of evil, ofttimes in the name of good. Our greed, fear and lasciviousness have enabled us to murder our poets, who are ourselves, to castigate our priests, who are ourselves. The lists of our subversions of the good stretch from before recorded history to this moment. We drop our eyes at the mention of the bloody, torturous Inquisition. Our shoulders sag at the thoughts of African slaves lying spoon-fashion in the filthy hatches of slave-ships, and the subsequent auction blocks upon which were built great fortunes in our country. We turn our heads in bitter shame at the remembrance of Dachau and the other gas ovens, where millions of ourselves were murdered by millions of ourselves. As soon as we are reminded of our actions, more often than not we spend incredible energy trying to forget what we’ve just been reminded of."
[…]
"To show you … how out of evil there can come good, in those five years I read every book in the black school library. I read all the books I could get from the white school library. I memorized James Weldon Johnson, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Countee Cullen and Langston Hughes. I memorized Shakespeare, whole plays, fifty sonnets. I memorized Edgar Allen Poe, all the poetry — never having heard it, I memorized it. I had Longfellow, I had Guy de Maupassant, I had Balzac, Rudyard Kipling — I mean, it was catholic kind of reading, and catholic kind of storing."
[…]
"Out of this evil, which was a dire kind of evil, because rape on the body of a young person more often than not introduces cynicism, and there is nothing quite so tragic as a young cynic, because it means the person has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing. In my case I was saved in that muteness… And I was able to draw from human thought, human disappointments and triumphs, enough to triumph myself."
[…]
"We need the courage to create ourselves daily, to be bodacious enough to create ourselves daily — as Christians, as Jews, as Muslims, as thinking, caring, laughing, loving human beings. I think that the courage to confront evil and turn it by dint of will into something applicable to the development of our evolution, individually and collectively, is exciting, honorable." — Maya Angelou (Documentary: 'Facing Evil with Maya Angelou' - 1988)
Living by Your Own Standards (the Basis for 'Happiness')
"Happiness is not a goal, it is a by-product. Paradoxically, the one sure way not to be happy is deliberately to map out a way of life in which one would please oneself completely and exclusively. After a short time, a very short time, there would be little that one really enjoyed. For what keeps our interest in life and makes us look forward to tomorrow is giving pleasure to other people."
[…]
"Someone once asked me what I regarded as the three most important requirements for happiness. My answer was: ‘A feeling that you have been honest with yourself and those around you; a feeling that you have done the best you could both in your personal life and in your work; and the ability to love others.’"
[…]
"It’s your life — but only if you make it so. The standards by which you live must be your own standards, your own values, your own convictions in regard to what is right and wrong, what is true and false, what is important and what is trivial. When you adopt the standards and the values of someone else or a community or a pressure group, you surrender your own integrity. You become, to the extent of your surrender, less of a human being." — Eleanor Roosevelt ('You Learn by Living: Eleven Keys for a More Fulfilling Life' - 1960)
Mindfulness in the Present Moment
"I am alarmed when it happens that I have walked a mile into the woods bodily, without getting there in spirit. In my afternoon walk I would fain forget all my morning occupations and my obligations to Society. But it sometimes happens that I cannot easily shake off the village. The thought of some work will run in my head and I am not where my body is — I am out of my senses. In my walks I would fain return to my senses. What business have I in the woods, if I am thinking of something out of the woods?" — Henry David Thoreau ('Walking' - 1861)
"On the Shortness of Life" by Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 BC – AD 65)
"It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were all well invested. But when it is wasted in heedless luxury and spent on no good activity, we are forced at last by death’s final constraint to realize that it has passed away before we knew it was passing. So it is: we are not given a short life but we make it short, and we are not ill-supplied but wasteful of it… Life is long if you know how to use it."
[…]
"You are living as if destined to live for ever; your own frailty never occurs to you; you don’t notice how much time has already passed, but squander it as though you had a full and overflowing supply — though all the while that very day which you are devoting to somebody or something may be your last. You act like mortals in all that you fear, and like immortals in all that you desire… How late it is to begin really to live just when life must end! How stupid to forget our mortality, and put off sensible plans to our fiftieth and sixtieth years, aiming to begin life from a point at which few have arrived!"
[…]
"Putting things off is the biggest waste of life: it snatches away each day as it comes, and denies us the present by promising the future. The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow and loses today. You are arranging what lies in Fortune’s control, and abandoning what lies in yours. What are you looking at? To what goal are you straining? The whole future lies in uncertainty: live immediately."
Knowing Who You Are
"There is a growing apprehension that existence is a rat-race in a trap: living organisms, including people, are merely tubes which put things in at one end and let them out at the other, which both keeps them doing it and in the long run wears them out."
[…]
"We suffer from a hallucination, from a false and distorted sensation of our own existence as living organisms. Most of us have the sensation that 'I myself' is a separate center of feeling and action, living inside and bounded by the physical body — a center which 'confronts' an 'external' world of people and things, making contact through the senses with a universe both alien and strange. Everyday figures of speech reflect this illusion. 'I came into this world.' 'You must face reality.' 'The conquest of nature.'
This feeling of being lonely and very temporary visitors in the universe is in flat contradiction to everything known about man (and all other living organisms) in the sciences. We do not 'come into' this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree. As the ocean “waves,” the universe “peoples.” Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe. This fact is rarely, if ever, experienced by most individuals. Even those who know it to be true in theory do not sense or feel it, but continue to be aware of themselves as isolated “egos” inside bags of skin." — Alan Watts ('The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are' - 1966)
The 'Fixed Mindset' vs. the 'Growth Mindset'
"Believing that your qualities are carved in stone — the fixed mindset — creates an urgency to prove yourself over and over. If you have only a certain amount of intelligence, a certain personality, and a certain moral character — well, then you’d better prove that you have a healthy dose of them. It simply wouldn’t do to look or feel deficient in these most basic characteristics.
[…]
"There’s another mindset in which these traits are not simply a hand you’re dealt and have to live with, always trying to convince yourself and others that you have a royal flush when you’re secretly worried it’s a pair of tens. In this mindset, the hand you’re dealt is just the starting point for development. This growth mindset is based on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts. Although people may differ in every which way — in their initial talents and aptitudes, interests, or temperaments — everyone can change and grow through application and experience.
Do people with this mindset believe that anyone can be anything, that anyone with proper motivation or education can become Einstein or Beethoven? No, but they believe that a person’s true potential is unknown (and unknowable); that it’s impossible to foresee what can be accomplished with years of passion, toil, and training." — Carol Dweck ('Mindset: The New Psychology of Success' - 2006)
Never Cease to Ask Questions and Pursue Answers About the Unknown
"By posing the unanswerable questions of meaning, men establish themselves as question-asking beings. Behind all the cognitive questions for which men find answers, there lurk the unanswerable ones that seem entirely idle and have always been denounced as such. It is more than likely that men, if they were ever to lose the appetite for meaning we call thinking and cease to ask unanswerable questions, would lose not only the ability to produce those thought-things that we call works of art but also the capacity to ask all the answerable questions upon which every civilization is founded…
While our thirst for knowledge may be unquenchable because of the immensity of the unknown, the activity itself leaves behind a growing treasure of knowledge that is retained and kept in store by every civilization as part and parcel of its world. The loss of this accumulation and of the technical expertise required to conserve and increase it inevitably spells the end of this particular world." — Hannah Arendt ('The Life of the Mind' - 1978)
On 'Perfectionism'
"Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft.
[…]
Perfectionism is a mean, frozen form of idealism, while messes are the artist’s true friend. What people somehow (inadvertently, I’m sure) forgot to mention when we were children was that we need to make messes in order to find out who we are and why we are here — and, by extension, what we’re supposed to be writing." — Anne Lamott ('Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life' - 1995)
On Evaluating the Validity and Usefulness of a New Idea
"The kit is brought out as a matter of course whenever new ideas are offered for consideration. If the new idea survives examination by the tools in our kit, we grant it warm, although tentative, acceptance. If you’re so inclined, if you don’t want to buy baloney even when it’s reassuring to do so, there are precautions that can be taken; there’s a tried-and-true, consumer-tested method."
[…]
"1. Wherever possible there must be independent confirmation of the “facts.”
2. Encourage substantive debate on the evidence by knowledgeable proponents of all points of view.
3. Arguments from authority carry little weight — “authorities” have made mistakes in the past. They will do so again in the future. Perhaps a better way to say it is that in science there are no authorities; at most, there are experts.
4. Spin more than one hypothesis. If there’s something to be explained, think of all the different ways in which it could be explained. Then think of tests by which you might systematically disprove each of the alternatives. What survives, the hypothesis that resists disproof in this Darwinian selection among “multiple working hypotheses,” has a much better chance of being the right answer than if you had simply run with the first idea that caught your fancy.
5. Try not to get overly attached to a hypothesis just because it’s yours. It’s only a way station in the pursuit of knowledge. Ask yourself why you like the idea. Compare it fairly with the alternatives. See if you can find reasons for rejecting it. If you don’t, others will.
6. Quantify. If whatever it is you’re explaining has some measure, some numerical quantity attached to it, you’ll be much better able to discriminate among competing hypotheses. What is vague and qualitative is open to many explanations. Of course there are truths to be sought in the many qualitative issues we are obliged to confront, but finding them is more challenging.
7. If there’s a chain of argument, every link in the chain must work (including the premise) — not just most of them.
8. Occam’s Razor. This convenient rule-of-thumb urges us when faced with two hypotheses that explain the data equally well to choose the simpler.
9. Always ask whether the hypothesis can be, at least in principle, falsified. Propositions that are untestable, unfalsifiable are not worth much. Consider the grand idea that our Universe and everything in it is just an elementary particle — an electron, say — in a much bigger Cosmos. But if we can never acquire information from outside our Universe, is not the idea incapable of disproof? You must be able to check assertions out. Inveterate skeptics must be given the chance to follow your reasoning, to duplicate your experiments and see if they get the same result." — Carl Sagan (' The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark' - 1996)
Get Lost to Find Yourself
"Leave the door open for the unknown, the door into the dark. That’s where the most important things come from, where you yourself came from, and where you will go. Three years ago I was giving a workshop in the Rockies. A student came in bearing a quote from what she said was the pre-Socratic philosopher Meno. It read, “How will you go about finding that thing the nature of which is totally unknown to you?” I copied it down, and it has stayed with me since. The student made big transparent photographs of swimmers underwater and hung them from the ceiling with the light shining through them, so that to walk among them was to have the shadows of swimmers travel across your body in a space that itself came to seem aquatic and mysterious. The question she carried struck me as the basic tactical question in life. The things we want are transformative, and we don’t know or only think we know what is on the other side of that transformation. Love, wisdom, grace, inspiration — how do you go about finding these things that are in some ways about extending the boundaries of the self into unknown territory, about becoming someone else?"
[…]
"How do you calculate upon the unforeseen? It seems to be an art of recognizing the role of the unforeseen, of keeping your balance amid surprises, of collaborating with chance, of recognizing that there are some essential mysteries in the world and thereby a limit to calculation, to plan, to control. To calculate on the unforeseen is perhaps exactly the paradoxical operation that life most requires of us."
[…]
"To lose yourself: a voluptuous surrender, lost in your arms, lost to the world, utterly immersed in what is present so that its surroundings fade away. In Benjamin’s terms, to be lost is to be fully present, and to be fully present is to be capable of being in uncertainty and mystery. And one does not get lost but loses oneself, with the implication that it is a conscious choice, a chosen surrender, a psychic state achievable through geography. That thing the nature of which is totally unknown to you is usually what you need to find, and finding it is a matter of getting lost." — Rebecca Solnit ('A Field Guide to Getting Lost' - 2005)
Be Like Water
"After spending many hours meditating and practicing, I gave up and went sailing alone in a junk. On the sea I thought of all my past training and got mad at myself and punched the water! Right then — at that moment — a thought suddenly struck me; was not this water the very essence of gung fu? Hadn’t this water just now illustrated to me the principle of gung fu? I struck it but it did not suffer hurt. Again I struck it with all of my might — yet it was not wounded! I then tried to grasp a handful of it but this proved impossible. This water, the softest substance in the world, which could be contained in the smallest jar, only seemed weak. In reality, it could penetrate the hardest substance in the world. That was it! I wanted to be like the nature of water.
Suddenly a bird flew by and cast its reflection on the water. Right then I was absorbing myself with the lesson of the water, another mystic sense of hidden meaning revealed itself to me; should not the thoughts and emotions I had when in front of an opponent pass like the reflection of the birds flying over the water? This was exactly what Professor Yip meant by being detached — not being without emotion or feeling, but being one in whom feeling was not sticky or blocked. Therefore in order to control myself I must first accept myself by going with and not against my nature."
[…]
"Water is so fine that it is impossible to grasp a handful of it; strike it, yet it does not suffer hurt; stab it, and it is not wounded; sever it, yet it is not divided. It has no shape of its own but molds itself to the receptacle that contains it. When heated to the state of steam it is invisible but has enough power to split the earth itself. When frozen it crystallizes into a mighty rock. First it is turbulent like Niagara Falls, and then calm like a still pond, fearful like a torrent, and refreshing like a spring on a hot summer’s day." — Bruce Lee ('Bruce Lee: Artist of Life' - 1999)
Making 'Good' Out of 'Evils'
"Throughout our nervous history, we have constructed pyramidic towers of evil, ofttimes in the name of good. Our greed, fear and lasciviousness have enabled us to murder our poets, who are ourselves, to castigate our priests, who are ourselves. The lists of our subversions of the good stretch from before recorded history to this moment. We drop our eyes at the mention of the bloody, torturous Inquisition. Our shoulders sag at the thoughts of African slaves lying spoon-fashion in the filthy hatches of slave-ships, and the subsequent auction blocks upon which were built great fortunes in our country. We turn our heads in bitter shame at the remembrance of Dachau and the other gas ovens, where millions of ourselves were murdered by millions of ourselves. As soon as we are reminded of our actions, more often than not we spend incredible energy trying to forget what we’ve just been reminded of."
[…]
"To show you … how out of evil there can come good, in those five years I read every book in the black school library. I read all the books I could get from the white school library. I memorized James Weldon Johnson, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Countee Cullen and Langston Hughes. I memorized Shakespeare, whole plays, fifty sonnets. I memorized Edgar Allen Poe, all the poetry — never having heard it, I memorized it. I had Longfellow, I had Guy de Maupassant, I had Balzac, Rudyard Kipling — I mean, it was catholic kind of reading, and catholic kind of storing."
[…]
"Out of this evil, which was a dire kind of evil, because rape on the body of a young person more often than not introduces cynicism, and there is nothing quite so tragic as a young cynic, because it means the person has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing. In my case I was saved in that muteness… And I was able to draw from human thought, human disappointments and triumphs, enough to triumph myself."
[…]
"We need the courage to create ourselves daily, to be bodacious enough to create ourselves daily — as Christians, as Jews, as Muslims, as thinking, caring, laughing, loving human beings. I think that the courage to confront evil and turn it by dint of will into something applicable to the development of our evolution, individually and collectively, is exciting, honorable." — Maya Angelou (Documentary: 'Facing Evil with Maya Angelou' - 1988)
Living by Your Own Standards (the Basis for 'Happiness')
"Happiness is not a goal, it is a by-product. Paradoxically, the one sure way not to be happy is deliberately to map out a way of life in which one would please oneself completely and exclusively. After a short time, a very short time, there would be little that one really enjoyed. For what keeps our interest in life and makes us look forward to tomorrow is giving pleasure to other people."
[…]
"Someone once asked me what I regarded as the three most important requirements for happiness. My answer was: ‘A feeling that you have been honest with yourself and those around you; a feeling that you have done the best you could both in your personal life and in your work; and the ability to love others.’"
[…]
"It’s your life — but only if you make it so. The standards by which you live must be your own standards, your own values, your own convictions in regard to what is right and wrong, what is true and false, what is important and what is trivial. When you adopt the standards and the values of someone else or a community or a pressure group, you surrender your own integrity. You become, to the extent of your surrender, less of a human being." — Eleanor Roosevelt ('You Learn by Living: Eleven Keys for a More Fulfilling Life' - 1960)
January 5, 2015
Discovery & "Form"
The following quotation, including the footnote, is taken from George Spencer Brown's, "The Laws of Form", Appendix 1:
"Discoveries of any great moment in mathematics and other disciplines, once they are discovered, are seen to be extremely simple and obvious, and make everybody, including their discoverer, appear foolish for not having discovered them before. It is all too often forgotten that the ancient symbol for the prenascence of the world* is a fool, and that foolishness, being a divine state, is not a condition to be either proud or ashamed of.
"Unfortunately, we find systems of education today which have departed so far from the plain truth, that they now teach us to be proud of what we know and ashamed of ignorance. This is doubly corrupt. It is corrupt not only because pride is in itself a mortal sin, but also because to teach pride in knowledge is to put up an effective barrier against any advance upon what is already known, since it makes one ashamed to look beyond the bonds imposed by one's ignorance.
"To any person prepared to enter with respect into the realm of his great and universal ignorance, the secrets of being will eventually unfold, and they will do so in measure according to his freedom from natural and indoctrinated shame in his respect of their revelation.
"In the face of the strong, and indeed violent, social pressures against it, few people have been prepared to take this simple and satisfying course towards sanity. And in a society where a prominent psychiatrist can advertise that given the chance, he would have treated Newton to electric shock therapy, who can blame any person for being afraid to do so?
"To arrive at the simplest truth, as Newton knew and practiced, requires years of contemplation. Not activity. Not reasoning. Not calculating. Not busy behaviour of any kind. Not reading. Not talking. Not making an effort. Not thinking. Simply bearing in mind what it is one needs to know. And yet those with the courage to tread this path to real discovery are not only offered practically no guidance on how to do so, they are actively discouraged and have to set about it in secret, pretending meanwhile to be diligently engaged in the frantic diversions and to conform with the deadening personal opinions which are being continually thrust upon them.
"In these circumstances, the discoveries that any person is able to undertake represent the places where, in the face of induced psychosis, he has by his own faltering and unaided efforts, returned to sanity. Painfully, and even dangerously, maybe. But nonetheless returned, however furtively."
[* wer = man, ald = age, old. The world may be taken to be the manifest properties of the all, its identity with the age of man being evident through the fact that man is a primary animal with a hand ('manifest' coming from manus = hand, festus = struck). Thus the world is considerably less than the all, which includes the unmanifest, but considerably greater than 'the' universe (more correctly than any universe), which is merely the formal appearance of one of the possible manifestations which make up the world.]
Remarkable how much this sounds like something I would say, given my recent understanding of the hypostasis of "Form".
December 24, 2014
A Word (or Two...) On the Truths Concerning Existence
[A Forward: from www.truthcontest.com :
"We as conscious beings now have the opportunity to become aware of the truth of Life by way of reason, attention, and honest intention."]
Over the last several years, through exhaustive studies across a multitude of disciplines, I personally discovered real Truth of what God is and is not, about my world, and my self... purpose, meaning, the 'how it works' answers, and 'what it all means', by identifying and recognizing relevant macroscopic and microscopic patterns (e.g. observing fractal "self-similarity" being present in our universe {reference: Chaos Theory}) across a multitude of vary different types of systems and making a final leap--a leap I ultimately had to make with the help of a little bit of "intuition". Ironically, I also learned that all my intellectual toil was not necessary; all along I could have discovered truth through simple subjective, unanalyzed observation and simply 'knowing' (e.g. the Buddhist story about a man smiling, having attained "enlightenment", after a long period of meditating on a flower he sat before):
One Love Unites All; All is God and God is in all--not separate at all (reference: "pantheism"). Your Conscious Mental-State in the "Now"/"Present" Moment is an infinitesimal slice of the omniscient consciousness of God. Every Conscious Being is Both the Cause and Simultaneously the Result of the Universe Being Experienced/'Observed'. All Possible Configurations of the Universe Exist, Always & Forever, within an ∞ Manifold (Even though We are not Able to See it All from Our Limited Perspective as Human Beings). All Information is Saved--Never Lost--because It Always Existed and Always Will. "Past" and "Future" Always Exist--Just as Much as the Present Moment Does (it is Simply the Case that the Nature of Our Limited Consciousness Does Not Allow Us to Experience Anything but the "Present" at any Moment). Nothing Exists as "Physical" objects; Everything is a "Projection" of Universal Consciousness (reference: "panpsychism"), an ∞ Emanation of Light/Energy/Heat/Warmth/Love/Life into the ∞ Manifold of All Existence. Each of Us can Only See an Infinitesimally thin, singularly Unique, Slice of Existence. The State of the "Universe" is Unique to You at Any Given Moment. You Have "Free Will" Only in the Sense that, Subjectively, You Sense You Are "Navigating" which Particular Universe Will Unfold Before You 'this Time' through Your Subjective Perception that you are Choosing the Path that Unfolds Before You (Out of an ∞ Many Other Paths the Other "You's" Are Traveling); Objectively, from a Universal Frame of Reference, You Do Not Have Free Will because an ∞ number of Different Universes are Unfolding for Each of an ∞ Number of "You's." I Realize that I am in ∞ Synchrony/Interconnection with the Rest of Existence, as All Things Are with Each Other. The Purpose of Life (Universally Speaking) is to Be and Experience All Possibilities. Achieving the Ultimate Zenith of the Unification and Comprehension of All that is 'Knowable' (through Science, Philosophy/Logic, and "Spiritual" Experience)--or the Simplest, Thought-less Subjective Experience of the World--Either can Yield Equal Wisdom.
All conscious beings in the ∞ omniverse are experiencing one 'slice' at one particular scale of perspective along an infinitely-scalable dipolar spectrum ("Yin & Yang"); a spectrum that is ∞ in the "resolution" of its ∞ degrees and has ∞ scale, and yet is All/One Construct. Time is an illusion of an inherently ∞-limited perception, which is dependent upon the conscious neuro-sensory system that is experiencing its "world". The perception of the passage of time is different for each consciousness and is defined by the being's neurological resonance frequency at that moment (i.e. its neuro-sensory awareness "refresh rate"/"frames per second", to borrow from the modern lexicon).
Everything must exist relative to something else, by definition and the inherent necessity for geometric stability and self-consistency. The only thing that is 'real' or 'physical' in the world are the things your particular consciousness, at any given moment, is causally linked to through observation (reference: quantum mechanical effects of an observer on the things being observed). You are made of the same ∞, universal consciousness (reference: "panpsychism") that everything is bound together by. Your mental state right now, which is one configuration of conscious experience out of ∞ many that exist--your awareness and perception of the universe--is causally defined by everything you are observing at this very moment (including your memories of one particular past through your memory engrams, which are quantumly-entangled with that particular past--a lower resolution echo of the original).
All My Love & Peace My Brothers & Sisters; remember that what you do to others, you are literally doing unto your 'universal' "self".
"We as conscious beings now have the opportunity to become aware of the truth of Life by way of reason, attention, and honest intention."]
Over the last several years, through exhaustive studies across a multitude of disciplines, I personally discovered real Truth of what God is and is not, about my world, and my self... purpose, meaning, the 'how it works' answers, and 'what it all means', by identifying and recognizing relevant macroscopic and microscopic patterns (e.g. observing fractal "self-similarity" being present in our universe {reference: Chaos Theory}) across a multitude of vary different types of systems and making a final leap--a leap I ultimately had to make with the help of a little bit of "intuition". Ironically, I also learned that all my intellectual toil was not necessary; all along I could have discovered truth through simple subjective, unanalyzed observation and simply 'knowing' (e.g. the Buddhist story about a man smiling, having attained "enlightenment", after a long period of meditating on a flower he sat before):
One Love Unites All; All is God and God is in all--not separate at all (reference: "pantheism"). Your Conscious Mental-State in the "Now"/"Present" Moment is an infinitesimal slice of the omniscient consciousness of God. Every Conscious Being is Both the Cause and Simultaneously the Result of the Universe Being Experienced/'Observed'. All Possible Configurations of the Universe Exist, Always & Forever, within an ∞ Manifold (Even though We are not Able to See it All from Our Limited Perspective as Human Beings). All Information is Saved--Never Lost--because It Always Existed and Always Will. "Past" and "Future" Always Exist--Just as Much as the Present Moment Does (it is Simply the Case that the Nature of Our Limited Consciousness Does Not Allow Us to Experience Anything but the "Present" at any Moment). Nothing Exists as "Physical" objects; Everything is a "Projection" of Universal Consciousness (reference: "panpsychism"), an ∞ Emanation of Light/Energy/Heat/Warmth/Love/Life into the ∞ Manifold of All Existence. Each of Us can Only See an Infinitesimally thin, singularly Unique, Slice of Existence. The State of the "Universe" is Unique to You at Any Given Moment. You Have "Free Will" Only in the Sense that, Subjectively, You Sense You Are "Navigating" which Particular Universe Will Unfold Before You 'this Time' through Your Subjective Perception that you are Choosing the Path that Unfolds Before You (Out of an ∞ Many Other Paths the Other "You's" Are Traveling); Objectively, from a Universal Frame of Reference, You Do Not Have Free Will because an ∞ number of Different Universes are Unfolding for Each of an ∞ Number of "You's." I Realize that I am in ∞ Synchrony/Interconnection with the Rest of Existence, as All Things Are with Each Other. The Purpose of Life (Universally Speaking) is to Be and Experience All Possibilities. Achieving the Ultimate Zenith of the Unification and Comprehension of All that is 'Knowable' (through Science, Philosophy/Logic, and "Spiritual" Experience)--or the Simplest, Thought-less Subjective Experience of the World--Either can Yield Equal Wisdom.
All conscious beings in the ∞ omniverse are experiencing one 'slice' at one particular scale of perspective along an infinitely-scalable dipolar spectrum ("Yin & Yang"); a spectrum that is ∞ in the "resolution" of its ∞ degrees and has ∞ scale, and yet is All/One Construct. Time is an illusion of an inherently ∞-limited perception, which is dependent upon the conscious neuro-sensory system that is experiencing its "world". The perception of the passage of time is different for each consciousness and is defined by the being's neurological resonance frequency at that moment (i.e. its neuro-sensory awareness "refresh rate"/"frames per second", to borrow from the modern lexicon).
Everything must exist relative to something else, by definition and the inherent necessity for geometric stability and self-consistency. The only thing that is 'real' or 'physical' in the world are the things your particular consciousness, at any given moment, is causally linked to through observation (reference: quantum mechanical effects of an observer on the things being observed). You are made of the same ∞, universal consciousness (reference: "panpsychism") that everything is bound together by. Your mental state right now, which is one configuration of conscious experience out of ∞ many that exist--your awareness and perception of the universe--is causally defined by everything you are observing at this very moment (including your memories of one particular past through your memory engrams, which are quantumly-entangled with that particular past--a lower resolution echo of the original).
All My Love & Peace My Brothers & Sisters; remember that what you do to others, you are literally doing unto your 'universal' "self".
Metaphysical Physics Propositions for Your Consideration
//Universal Quantum Entanglement?//
Since the universe began with the "Big Bang" in which all matter, energy, and space-time in the universe we see today were once infinitesimally adjacent and combined, would that not make it the case that all particles in the universe are quantumly entangled from that moment forward? Since the nature of the "Big Bang," including the property of the "inflationary period," caused the even distribution of matter throughout the universe wherein any random pair of entangled particles could be on completely opposite sides of the universe, or anywhere within the boundaries of the universe, is it not the case that any particles observed by conscious beings throughout the universe would cause their entangled partners throughout the other areas of the universe to instantly take on a specific state? If this is the case, the implication is that localized conscious observation has instantaneous effects on the behavior of matter in every region of the universe.
//The 3 Primary Qualities of the Universe and How they are Linked//
On macroscopic scales, there are three relatively distinct phenomenon of the universe: matter and energy (including dark matter and dark energy), space-time itself, and consciousness. While they seem relatively distinct aspects of the universe from the vantage of the human scale, in truth, they are intimately interconnected to the point that they are actually indistinguishable from each other (meaning that there is no identifiable threshold of interaction between them where there is a significant, definable distinction between each of these three aspects of the universe). Through what we call "forces" which are the ways in which matter and energy interact within the parameters of the innate properties of space-time's geometry, physicists have already well-established that these two aspects of the universe are completely interconnected and interrelated to each other, and can even be considered to constitute a unified structure or construct. The unified nature of matter-energy and space-time has been identified and well-established on the macroscopic scale, including our understandings of the direct connection between the behavior of electromagnetism and motion relative to space-time, as well as the forces of gravity and dark energy and their direct effects on both the macroscopic behavior of matter-energy and the fabric of space-time throughout the entire universe, and also on the smallest of scales, including through our understandings of quantum mechanics. But what of the relation between these two aspects of the universe and consciousness?
Because of what we know through quantum mechanics and verified experiments such as the two-slit experiment, we know that the act of observing any particular particle at any specific moment decides the particular location and/or vector for that particle. Since, by definition, the act of observation requires a consciousness to be involved in the measurement process, it follows from our vast empirical evidence that consciousness directly effects the behavior of all matter-energy that is observed at any given region of space-time observable by a consciousness. Therefore, consciousness is indistinguishably interconnected with the behavior of the matter-energy component of the universe.
As far as the interconnection of consciousness with space-time, we know through the theories of Special and General Relativity, which have been empirically proven repeatedly, that the movement of a conscious observer through space distorts space-time in specific ways, including that the observer must use exponentially increasing amounts of energy to continue accelerating as they come ever closer to the speed of light limit, which shows that the distortion of space-time is not just an external perception but a reality within their own frame of reference. As modern physicists agree, there is not a universal frame of reference in space-time, only relative frames of reference from the point of view of individual observers. It necessarily follows that consciousness and space-time are completely and indistinguishably interconnected. To add one additional argument, which is a logically deductive one, involves the fact that a conscious observer can only observe one finite moment of space-time at any particular moment, which we call being in "the present." The total pattern of brain and nervous system activity of a conscious being can only be in one specific state at any one instant in time. That is why a consciousness can only experience one infinitesimal slice of space-time from moment to moment. Now, consider that the total qualia experienced by that consciousness at a particular instant is a direct effect of the total interaction the entire universe's influences have had on that conscious being at that instant in time. The exact conscious state of the observer and the exact state of the "observed" part of the universe are directly and completely co-dependent and interconnected. If the observed universe were even slightly different, the pattern of the observer's conscious state would necessarily be slightly different, and vice-versa. If an observer's conscious state were slightly altered, say by electrically stimulating a part of their brain, from what it otherwise would have been, then the universe would be in a slightly different state than would otherwise have been, because the person's observation of particles would have been slightly altered, thus altering the state the universe ended up being in at that precise moment.
To reiterate, with what we know from quantum mechanics, consciousness, which is the basis of the kind of observation that determines the particle-wave properties and locations of particles, directly determines the exact state of the observable universe at any instant in time, and that the exact state of the observer's universe directly determines the conscious state of the observer in that same instant in time. In summary, the three seemingly unique aspects of the universe, space-time itself, matter-energy, and consciousness are not distinct from one another, but are instead completely interconnected and interrelated and all three can only be addressed as being along a smooth spectrum of what makes up the whole universe.
//An Infinite, Fractalinear Structure within the Omni/Multi-Verse?//
[If you are unfamiliar with the multi-verse interpretation that is strongly suggested by the findings of multiple major fields of study in physics (particularly in the ways in which they support the "many-worlds" interpretation through how these originally-segregated fields are now understood as complimenting one another supporting the same conclusion (that existence is a multi-verse within which our own universe is merely one small part), I suggest reviewing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation .]
It is a reasonable conjecture that every time a blackhole forms, a new, "child" universe is born within the blackhole (the blackhole's singularity being the source of the "big-bang" for the child universe; the "arrow of time" is inverted within the blackhole's space-time geometry as compared with the "parent" universe) whose matter-energy content is determined and provided by the massive amount of matter-energy that is already present within and immediately surrounding the blackhole at the moment it is formed, and that everything the blackhole consumes in its "lifetime" continues to add to the total matter-energy content of the child universe, which is a likely explanation for the impetus (driving force) behind the accelerating cosmological expansion that cosmologists observe in our own universe and which physicists currently can only attribute to some mysterious anti-gravity force they have dubbed "dark energy." Since the blackhole / child universe is completely self-contained within the blackhole's infinitely curved space-time, the child universe is completely cut-off from the parent universe and any internal observer would be unable to directly observe that there is more to "existence" than just their own universe, and certainly unaware that their perception of the unidirectional flow of time is reversed as compared to their parent universe and their own child universes forming within their own.
//Quantum Neurology//
This is perfect for understanding how our perception of time and quantum computing power is derived.
"Cognitive System Level 1" (S1) Individual Neuronal Quantum Computing:
is the base layer of information processing in which individual neurons use the biological structure that's within each of their nuclei which permits basic quantum processing of incoming signals from other, physically connected neurons that results in useful/meaningful outgoing patterned signals to other neurons to which they are connected.
"Cognitive System Level 2" (S2) Subconscious Processing:
involves the subconscious processing by clusters of neurons (many of which have a particular type of information processing that is their specialty) in the brain that inherently maximize their collective processing power through the utilization of "parallel (entangled) quantum computing" with other neuronal clusters in order to determine the most relevant, therefore most useful information results to pass on to S3, which is selective in what incoming S2 information to pay attention to and consciously analyze, due to S3's inherently limited conscious capacity.
"Cognitive System Level 3" (S3) Conscious Awareness:
is the conscious, serial (temporally non-parallel), "active" thinking that serves to evaluate 'relevant' information passed to it by S2 sources, and initiates requests to S2 clusters to conduct additional, followup subconscious analyses.
//A Quantum Field Proposal//
There is a quantum "aether" (the Higg's Field?) through which information/matter-energy propagate, within which there is a constant distortion of the quantum probability fields/waveforms (QPFs) of individual particles, and consequently, that of the aggregate QPF fabric (the ether, which is actually just the overlapping, interacting QPF's of all matter-energy).
Relative velocity can be expressed as an elongation of the QPF relative to all the other QPFs, with the particle's median line of symmetry of its elongation coinciding with / being its velocity vector.
The inertial force experienced during acceleration (positive or negative) would therefore be the effect experienced by the changing geometry of a particle's QPF relative to all other QPFs. Our classical physics view of inertia would therefore, in fact, be describing the property of QPFs to want to maintain their current geometry (as opposed to Newton's ideas of "at rest" and "in motion," which are clearly arbitrary notions given the relativistic nature of the universe. In other words, the underlying nature of relative inertial frames of reference and the transference of information/matter-energy between particle-waves (certainly the ones that have "mass") is the aggregate influences of all particles' QPFs on one another. "Friction" can perhaps by seen as being the result of the QPFs of the various particles involved becoming partially entwined geometrically, causing inter-particle resistances to changes in the individual particles' momentums.
The reason matter can never achieve absolute zero is because that would result in an infinitesimal, 1-dimensional QPF and the particle would then cease to have a past or future, which would require suspending the law of causality and the law of conservation of information. This is because changing the energy level of a system of particle, or altering the "temperature" if you prefer, has the effect of expanding and shrinking the QPF for each particle in the system.
Perhaps, some of the odd effects of Special Relativity, such as relativistic compression of space-time dependent on relative velocity, as well the exponentially increasing energy demand required to maintain a constant acceleration as one approaches the speed of light, can be better comprehended as an increasingly elongated quantum probability field that is approaching a maximum geometrical limit.
The quantum probability field (QPF) of a particle-wave does not "collapse" into a specific state, location, and/or velocity upon observation, but continues to exist as a probability field/wave during and after observation, but beyond our ability to perceive from our particular frame of reference at the moment of observation. That of course means that conscious beings are only experiencing one infinitesimal "slice" of the QPF "halo." There is amble support in the physics community for this interpretation of conscious perception of a universe that is, at all times from our individual perspective, fully and specifically defined (reduced to) one particular "state." This perception cannot be used a premise in arguing that there are not an infinite number of states behind our consciousness' "field-of-view."
In the two-slit experiment--as classically setup, with one photon at a time and the placement of a photon detector before the placard with the two slits--the photons start to behave like "particles" over time (instead as "waves" over time) if and when a chain of causally-defined events (or alternatively, "space-time cross-section") link a conscious perception with the photon's existence. Everything on the future side of that moment/point of observation is perceived as 'defined' (as limited by the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle) only for each particular conscious observer. In other words, the truth is that matter-energy, space-time, and "forces" are simply the consciously perceived aspects of the aggregate QPF waveform rippling, flowing, and distorting over time, and a consciousness is both the creator of the future it will experience, over time, and the conscious observer's "present" is uniquely defined by the observer's past "observations," over time. Your "now" is the conscious perception of only an infinitesimal cross-section of a timeless, infinitely complex waveform.
Since the universe began with the "Big Bang" in which all matter, energy, and space-time in the universe we see today were once infinitesimally adjacent and combined, would that not make it the case that all particles in the universe are quantumly entangled from that moment forward? Since the nature of the "Big Bang," including the property of the "inflationary period," caused the even distribution of matter throughout the universe wherein any random pair of entangled particles could be on completely opposite sides of the universe, or anywhere within the boundaries of the universe, is it not the case that any particles observed by conscious beings throughout the universe would cause their entangled partners throughout the other areas of the universe to instantly take on a specific state? If this is the case, the implication is that localized conscious observation has instantaneous effects on the behavior of matter in every region of the universe.
//The 3 Primary Qualities of the Universe and How they are Linked//
On macroscopic scales, there are three relatively distinct phenomenon of the universe: matter and energy (including dark matter and dark energy), space-time itself, and consciousness. While they seem relatively distinct aspects of the universe from the vantage of the human scale, in truth, they are intimately interconnected to the point that they are actually indistinguishable from each other (meaning that there is no identifiable threshold of interaction between them where there is a significant, definable distinction between each of these three aspects of the universe). Through what we call "forces" which are the ways in which matter and energy interact within the parameters of the innate properties of space-time's geometry, physicists have already well-established that these two aspects of the universe are completely interconnected and interrelated to each other, and can even be considered to constitute a unified structure or construct. The unified nature of matter-energy and space-time has been identified and well-established on the macroscopic scale, including our understandings of the direct connection between the behavior of electromagnetism and motion relative to space-time, as well as the forces of gravity and dark energy and their direct effects on both the macroscopic behavior of matter-energy and the fabric of space-time throughout the entire universe, and also on the smallest of scales, including through our understandings of quantum mechanics. But what of the relation between these two aspects of the universe and consciousness?
Because of what we know through quantum mechanics and verified experiments such as the two-slit experiment, we know that the act of observing any particular particle at any specific moment decides the particular location and/or vector for that particle. Since, by definition, the act of observation requires a consciousness to be involved in the measurement process, it follows from our vast empirical evidence that consciousness directly effects the behavior of all matter-energy that is observed at any given region of space-time observable by a consciousness. Therefore, consciousness is indistinguishably interconnected with the behavior of the matter-energy component of the universe.
As far as the interconnection of consciousness with space-time, we know through the theories of Special and General Relativity, which have been empirically proven repeatedly, that the movement of a conscious observer through space distorts space-time in specific ways, including that the observer must use exponentially increasing amounts of energy to continue accelerating as they come ever closer to the speed of light limit, which shows that the distortion of space-time is not just an external perception but a reality within their own frame of reference. As modern physicists agree, there is not a universal frame of reference in space-time, only relative frames of reference from the point of view of individual observers. It necessarily follows that consciousness and space-time are completely and indistinguishably interconnected. To add one additional argument, which is a logically deductive one, involves the fact that a conscious observer can only observe one finite moment of space-time at any particular moment, which we call being in "the present." The total pattern of brain and nervous system activity of a conscious being can only be in one specific state at any one instant in time. That is why a consciousness can only experience one infinitesimal slice of space-time from moment to moment. Now, consider that the total qualia experienced by that consciousness at a particular instant is a direct effect of the total interaction the entire universe's influences have had on that conscious being at that instant in time. The exact conscious state of the observer and the exact state of the "observed" part of the universe are directly and completely co-dependent and interconnected. If the observed universe were even slightly different, the pattern of the observer's conscious state would necessarily be slightly different, and vice-versa. If an observer's conscious state were slightly altered, say by electrically stimulating a part of their brain, from what it otherwise would have been, then the universe would be in a slightly different state than would otherwise have been, because the person's observation of particles would have been slightly altered, thus altering the state the universe ended up being in at that precise moment.
To reiterate, with what we know from quantum mechanics, consciousness, which is the basis of the kind of observation that determines the particle-wave properties and locations of particles, directly determines the exact state of the observable universe at any instant in time, and that the exact state of the observer's universe directly determines the conscious state of the observer in that same instant in time. In summary, the three seemingly unique aspects of the universe, space-time itself, matter-energy, and consciousness are not distinct from one another, but are instead completely interconnected and interrelated and all three can only be addressed as being along a smooth spectrum of what makes up the whole universe.
//An Infinite, Fractalinear Structure within the Omni/Multi-Verse?//
[If you are unfamiliar with the multi-verse interpretation that is strongly suggested by the findings of multiple major fields of study in physics (particularly in the ways in which they support the "many-worlds" interpretation through how these originally-segregated fields are now understood as complimenting one another supporting the same conclusion (that existence is a multi-verse within which our own universe is merely one small part), I suggest reviewing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation .]
It is a reasonable conjecture that every time a blackhole forms, a new, "child" universe is born within the blackhole (the blackhole's singularity being the source of the "big-bang" for the child universe; the "arrow of time" is inverted within the blackhole's space-time geometry as compared with the "parent" universe) whose matter-energy content is determined and provided by the massive amount of matter-energy that is already present within and immediately surrounding the blackhole at the moment it is formed, and that everything the blackhole consumes in its "lifetime" continues to add to the total matter-energy content of the child universe, which is a likely explanation for the impetus (driving force) behind the accelerating cosmological expansion that cosmologists observe in our own universe and which physicists currently can only attribute to some mysterious anti-gravity force they have dubbed "dark energy." Since the blackhole / child universe is completely self-contained within the blackhole's infinitely curved space-time, the child universe is completely cut-off from the parent universe and any internal observer would be unable to directly observe that there is more to "existence" than just their own universe, and certainly unaware that their perception of the unidirectional flow of time is reversed as compared to their parent universe and their own child universes forming within their own.
//Quantum Neurology//
This is perfect for understanding how our perception of time and quantum computing power is derived.
"Cognitive System Level 1" (S1) Individual Neuronal Quantum Computing:
is the base layer of information processing in which individual neurons use the biological structure that's within each of their nuclei which permits basic quantum processing of incoming signals from other, physically connected neurons that results in useful/meaningful outgoing patterned signals to other neurons to which they are connected.
"Cognitive System Level 2" (S2) Subconscious Processing:
involves the subconscious processing by clusters of neurons (many of which have a particular type of information processing that is their specialty) in the brain that inherently maximize their collective processing power through the utilization of "parallel (entangled) quantum computing" with other neuronal clusters in order to determine the most relevant, therefore most useful information results to pass on to S3, which is selective in what incoming S2 information to pay attention to and consciously analyze, due to S3's inherently limited conscious capacity.
"Cognitive System Level 3" (S3) Conscious Awareness:
is the conscious, serial (temporally non-parallel), "active" thinking that serves to evaluate 'relevant' information passed to it by S2 sources, and initiates requests to S2 clusters to conduct additional, followup subconscious analyses.
//A Quantum Field Proposal//
There is a quantum "aether" (the Higg's Field?) through which information/matter-energy propagate, within which there is a constant distortion of the quantum probability fields/waveforms (QPFs) of individual particles, and consequently, that of the aggregate QPF fabric (the ether, which is actually just the overlapping, interacting QPF's of all matter-energy).
Relative velocity can be expressed as an elongation of the QPF relative to all the other QPFs, with the particle's median line of symmetry of its elongation coinciding with / being its velocity vector.
The inertial force experienced during acceleration (positive or negative) would therefore be the effect experienced by the changing geometry of a particle's QPF relative to all other QPFs. Our classical physics view of inertia would therefore, in fact, be describing the property of QPFs to want to maintain their current geometry (as opposed to Newton's ideas of "at rest" and "in motion," which are clearly arbitrary notions given the relativistic nature of the universe. In other words, the underlying nature of relative inertial frames of reference and the transference of information/matter-energy between particle-waves (certainly the ones that have "mass") is the aggregate influences of all particles' QPFs on one another. "Friction" can perhaps by seen as being the result of the QPFs of the various particles involved becoming partially entwined geometrically, causing inter-particle resistances to changes in the individual particles' momentums.
The reason matter can never achieve absolute zero is because that would result in an infinitesimal, 1-dimensional QPF and the particle would then cease to have a past or future, which would require suspending the law of causality and the law of conservation of information. This is because changing the energy level of a system of particle, or altering the "temperature" if you prefer, has the effect of expanding and shrinking the QPF for each particle in the system.
Perhaps, some of the odd effects of Special Relativity, such as relativistic compression of space-time dependent on relative velocity, as well the exponentially increasing energy demand required to maintain a constant acceleration as one approaches the speed of light, can be better comprehended as an increasingly elongated quantum probability field that is approaching a maximum geometrical limit.
The quantum probability field (QPF) of a particle-wave does not "collapse" into a specific state, location, and/or velocity upon observation, but continues to exist as a probability field/wave during and after observation, but beyond our ability to perceive from our particular frame of reference at the moment of observation. That of course means that conscious beings are only experiencing one infinitesimal "slice" of the QPF "halo." There is amble support in the physics community for this interpretation of conscious perception of a universe that is, at all times from our individual perspective, fully and specifically defined (reduced to) one particular "state." This perception cannot be used a premise in arguing that there are not an infinite number of states behind our consciousness' "field-of-view."
In the two-slit experiment--as classically setup, with one photon at a time and the placement of a photon detector before the placard with the two slits--the photons start to behave like "particles" over time (instead as "waves" over time) if and when a chain of causally-defined events (or alternatively, "space-time cross-section") link a conscious perception with the photon's existence. Everything on the future side of that moment/point of observation is perceived as 'defined' (as limited by the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle) only for each particular conscious observer. In other words, the truth is that matter-energy, space-time, and "forces" are simply the consciously perceived aspects of the aggregate QPF waveform rippling, flowing, and distorting over time, and a consciousness is both the creator of the future it will experience, over time, and the conscious observer's "present" is uniquely defined by the observer's past "observations," over time. Your "now" is the conscious perception of only an infinitesimal cross-section of a timeless, infinitely complex waveform.
Debunking the Myth of Cannabis Contributing to Mental Illness
(Originally posted on October 5, 2011 at 12:55 am)
[The following excerpts are from "Debunking the Myth of a Link Between Marijuana and Mental Illness" by Paul Armentano, Deputy Director, NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws).]
"...less than 24-hours after the shooting [of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, and 18 others,] former George W. Bush speech-writer David Frum posed the question, 'Did pot trigger the Giffords shooting?' to which the longtime conservative commentator answers, 'Increasingly, experts seem to be saying "yes."'
...one month later... the mainstream media highlighted a report in 'The Archives of General Psychiatry' purporting to have linked marijuana use with psychosis.
...In truth, the supposed new 'study' contained no new findings at all.
...'There are no new data. I want to emphasize that. This is a meta-analysis, which means it (reviews) the studies that were already out there,' SUNY Albany psychology professor Mitcch Earleywine, author of the book Understanding Marijuana; A New Look at the Scientific Evidence, explained.... 'What you're not hearing in the media is that, in fact, this (reported association) is probably early-onset folks self-medicating (with cannabis).'
There are several published reports to back up Earleywine's suspicion. For instance, a 2005 study of 1,500 subjects that appeared in the scientific journal 'Addiction' reported that the development of 'psychotic symptoms in those who had never used cannabis before the onset of (such) symptoms ... predicted future cannabis use.' [A large portion of the study population (with no prior history of cannabis use) began to use cannabis after the onset of psychotic symptoms, in most cases to treat the symptoms of mental illness, since cannabinoids offer mind-calming and mood-elevating properties without being physiologically (biochemically) addictive.]
[The human body is equipped with a vast number of endo-cannabinoid receptors throughout most of its tissues. Endo-cannabinoids are created naturally by our bodies and are a necessary component for the optimal functioning of those tissues. Both endo-cannabinoids (those self-produced within animals) and photo-cannabinoids (those produced by particular plant species) do not act upon the dopamine system of the brain, like most "addictive" drugs do (e.g. caffeine, alcohol, a dozen or so byproducts of tobacco combustion, opiates, methamphetamines, heroine, etc); hence cannabis' very limited "habit-forming" potential. In fact, coffee is more physiologically (biochemically) addictive. From a psychological viewpoint, cannabis use can become a habit, though that should not be surprising since users of cannabis recognize and appreciate that they are getting very effective physical and psychological medicinal benefits, which are far broader in their potential applications to a variety of medical conditions than any standard medication on the market—without the negative side-effects that commonly accompany standard medications.]
Other studies reinforcing Earleywine's 'self-medication' theory include a 2008 study published in the 'International Journal of Mental Health Nursing', which found that schizophrenics typically report using cannabis to reduce anxiety and 'improve their mental state.' Marijuana use has also been associated with clinically objective benefits in some schizophrenics. Recently, a 2010 report in the journal 'Schizophrenia Research' found that schizophrenic patients with a history of cannabis use demonstrate higher levels of cognitive performance compared to nonusers. Researchers in that study concluded, 'The results of the present analysis suggest that (cannabis use) in patients with SZ (schizophrenia) is associated with better performance on measures of processing speed and verbal skills. These data are consistent with prior reports indicating that SZ patients with a history of (cannabis use) have less severe cognitive deficits than SZ patients without comorbid (cannabis use).'
A 2011 meta-analysis published online by the journal 'Schizophrenia Research' also affirmed that schizophrenics with a history of cannabis use demonstrate 'superior neurocognitive performance' compared to non-users. Investigators at the University of Toronto, Institute of Medical Sciences reviewed eight separate studies assessing the impact of marijuana consumption on cognition, executive function, learning, and working memory in schizophrenic subjects. Researchers determined that the results of each of the performance measurements suggested 'superior cognitive functioning in cannabis-using patients as compared to non-using patients.'
...Other clinical literature also casts doubt on Large's claim that marijuana use accelerates mental illness. In a study published last year, a team that included researchers affiliated with the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Yale University, and the National Institue of Mental Health assessed whether lifetime [cannabis] use was associated with an earlier age of onset of symptoms in schizophrenic patients. They concluded, 'Although cannabis use precedes the onset of illness in most patients, there was no significant association between onset of illness and (cannabis use) that was not accounted for by demographic and clinical variables.'
The researchers also criticized the findings of previously published studies that purported to have uncovered a "pot trigger" for mental illness. 'Previous studies implicating cannabis use disorders in schizophrenia may need to more comprehensively assess the relationship between cannabis use disorders and schizophrenia.'
...authors of a 2009 study published in "Schizophrenia Research" said definitively that increased cannabis use by the public has not been followed by a proportional rise in diagnoses of schizophrenia or psychosis. Investigators at the Keele University Medical School in Britain compared trands in marijuana use and incidences of schizophrenia in the United Kingdom from 1996 to 2005. Researchers reported that the 'incidence and prevalence of schizophrenia and psychoses were either stable or declining' during this period, even though the use of cannabis among the general population was rising.
...'The expected rise in diagnoses of schizophrenia and psychoses did not occur over a 10 year period,' they concluded. 'This study does not therefore support the specific causal link between cannabis use and incidence of psychotic disorders. ...this concurs with other reports....'
[Regardless,] health risks connected with drug use--when scientifically documented--should not be seen as legitimate reasons for criminal prohibition, but instead, as reasons for legal regulation [similar to regulation of alcohol because of its adverse health effects]. ...drug warriors' fear-mongering surrounding the issue of marijuana and mental health does little to advance the cause of tightening prohibition, and provides ample ammunition to wage for its repeal."
[Copyright Notice: The use of these excerpts are protected from copyright censor under the Fair-Use provisions of copyright law (17 U.S.C. § 107), because their use herein is strictly noncommercial and is for educational purposes only.]
{For a personal account of how medicinal use of cannabis alleviated my combat-induced PTSD and anxiety disorders, download the article the publication "NW Leaf" did on me for their January 2012 issue. [©"NW Leaf" - 2012. Used with permission.]}
[The following excerpts are from "Debunking the Myth of a Link Between Marijuana and Mental Illness" by Paul Armentano, Deputy Director, NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws).]
"...less than 24-hours after the shooting [of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, and 18 others,] former George W. Bush speech-writer David Frum posed the question, 'Did pot trigger the Giffords shooting?' to which the longtime conservative commentator answers, 'Increasingly, experts seem to be saying "yes."'
...one month later... the mainstream media highlighted a report in 'The Archives of General Psychiatry' purporting to have linked marijuana use with psychosis.
...In truth, the supposed new 'study' contained no new findings at all.
...'There are no new data. I want to emphasize that. This is a meta-analysis, which means it (reviews) the studies that were already out there,' SUNY Albany psychology professor Mitcch Earleywine, author of the book Understanding Marijuana; A New Look at the Scientific Evidence, explained.... 'What you're not hearing in the media is that, in fact, this (reported association) is probably early-onset folks self-medicating (with cannabis).'
There are several published reports to back up Earleywine's suspicion. For instance, a 2005 study of 1,500 subjects that appeared in the scientific journal 'Addiction' reported that the development of 'psychotic symptoms in those who had never used cannabis before the onset of (such) symptoms ... predicted future cannabis use.' [A large portion of the study population (with no prior history of cannabis use) began to use cannabis after the onset of psychotic symptoms, in most cases to treat the symptoms of mental illness, since cannabinoids offer mind-calming and mood-elevating properties without being physiologically (biochemically) addictive.]
[The human body is equipped with a vast number of endo-cannabinoid receptors throughout most of its tissues. Endo-cannabinoids are created naturally by our bodies and are a necessary component for the optimal functioning of those tissues. Both endo-cannabinoids (those self-produced within animals) and photo-cannabinoids (those produced by particular plant species) do not act upon the dopamine system of the brain, like most "addictive" drugs do (e.g. caffeine, alcohol, a dozen or so byproducts of tobacco combustion, opiates, methamphetamines, heroine, etc); hence cannabis' very limited "habit-forming" potential. In fact, coffee is more physiologically (biochemically) addictive. From a psychological viewpoint, cannabis use can become a habit, though that should not be surprising since users of cannabis recognize and appreciate that they are getting very effective physical and psychological medicinal benefits, which are far broader in their potential applications to a variety of medical conditions than any standard medication on the market—without the negative side-effects that commonly accompany standard medications.]
Other studies reinforcing Earleywine's 'self-medication' theory include a 2008 study published in the 'International Journal of Mental Health Nursing', which found that schizophrenics typically report using cannabis to reduce anxiety and 'improve their mental state.' Marijuana use has also been associated with clinically objective benefits in some schizophrenics. Recently, a 2010 report in the journal 'Schizophrenia Research' found that schizophrenic patients with a history of cannabis use demonstrate higher levels of cognitive performance compared to nonusers. Researchers in that study concluded, 'The results of the present analysis suggest that (cannabis use) in patients with SZ (schizophrenia) is associated with better performance on measures of processing speed and verbal skills. These data are consistent with prior reports indicating that SZ patients with a history of (cannabis use) have less severe cognitive deficits than SZ patients without comorbid (cannabis use).'
A 2011 meta-analysis published online by the journal 'Schizophrenia Research' also affirmed that schizophrenics with a history of cannabis use demonstrate 'superior neurocognitive performance' compared to non-users. Investigators at the University of Toronto, Institute of Medical Sciences reviewed eight separate studies assessing the impact of marijuana consumption on cognition, executive function, learning, and working memory in schizophrenic subjects. Researchers determined that the results of each of the performance measurements suggested 'superior cognitive functioning in cannabis-using patients as compared to non-using patients.'
...Other clinical literature also casts doubt on Large's claim that marijuana use accelerates mental illness. In a study published last year, a team that included researchers affiliated with the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Yale University, and the National Institue of Mental Health assessed whether lifetime [cannabis] use was associated with an earlier age of onset of symptoms in schizophrenic patients. They concluded, 'Although cannabis use precedes the onset of illness in most patients, there was no significant association between onset of illness and (cannabis use) that was not accounted for by demographic and clinical variables.'
The researchers also criticized the findings of previously published studies that purported to have uncovered a "pot trigger" for mental illness. 'Previous studies implicating cannabis use disorders in schizophrenia may need to more comprehensively assess the relationship between cannabis use disorders and schizophrenia.'
...authors of a 2009 study published in "Schizophrenia Research" said definitively that increased cannabis use by the public has not been followed by a proportional rise in diagnoses of schizophrenia or psychosis. Investigators at the Keele University Medical School in Britain compared trands in marijuana use and incidences of schizophrenia in the United Kingdom from 1996 to 2005. Researchers reported that the 'incidence and prevalence of schizophrenia and psychoses were either stable or declining' during this period, even though the use of cannabis among the general population was rising.
...'The expected rise in diagnoses of schizophrenia and psychoses did not occur over a 10 year period,' they concluded. 'This study does not therefore support the specific causal link between cannabis use and incidence of psychotic disorders. ...this concurs with other reports....'
[Regardless,] health risks connected with drug use--when scientifically documented--should not be seen as legitimate reasons for criminal prohibition, but instead, as reasons for legal regulation [similar to regulation of alcohol because of its adverse health effects]. ...drug warriors' fear-mongering surrounding the issue of marijuana and mental health does little to advance the cause of tightening prohibition, and provides ample ammunition to wage for its repeal."
[Copyright Notice: The use of these excerpts are protected from copyright censor under the Fair-Use provisions of copyright law (17 U.S.C. § 107), because their use herein is strictly noncommercial and is for educational purposes only.]
{For a personal account of how medicinal use of cannabis alleviated my combat-induced PTSD and anxiety disorders, download the article the publication "NW Leaf" did on me for their January 2012 issue. [©"NW Leaf" - 2012. Used with permission.]}
December 19, 2014
Some Perspective on "Knowledge"
//Excerpts from:
"On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense"
("Über Wahrheit und Lüge im außermoralischen Sinn") — Friedrich Nietzsche (1873)//
"Once upon a time, in some out of the way corner of that universe which is dispersed into numberless twinkling solar systems, there was a star upon which clever beasts invented knowing. That was the most arrogant and mendacious minute of "world history," but nevertheless, it was only a minute. After nature had drawn a few breaths, the star cooled and congealed, and the clever beasts had to die. One might invent such a fable, and yet he still would not have adequately illustrated how miserable, how shadowy and transient, how aimless and arbitrary the human intellect looks within nature. There were eternities during which it did not exist. And when it is all over with the human intellect, nothing will have happened...
"The pride connected with knowing and sensing lies like a blinding fog over the eyes and senses of men, thus deceiving them concerning the value of existence. For this pride contains within itself the most flattering estimation of the value of knowing. Deception is the most general effect of such pride, but even its most particular effects contain within themselves something of the same deceitful character...
"Deception, flattering, lying, deluding, talking behind the back, putting up a false front, living in borrowed splendor, wearing a mask, hiding behind convention, playing a role for others and for oneself — in short, a continuous fluttering around the solitary flame of vanity — is so much the rule and the law among men that there is almost nothing which is less comprehensible than how an honest and pure drive for truth could have arisen among them. They are deeply immersed in illusions and in dream images; their eyes merely glide over the surface of things and see 'forms.'
"...What does man actually know about himself? Is he, indeed, ever able to perceive himself completely, as if laid out in a lighted display case? Does nature not conceal most things from him — even concerning his own body — in order to confine and lock him within a proud, deceptive consciousness, aloof from the coils of the bowels, the rapid flow of the blood stream, and the intricate quivering of the fibers!
"...The liar is a person who uses the valid designations, the words, in order to make something which is unreal appear to be real. He says, for example, "I am rich," when the proper designation for his condition would be "poor." He misuses fixed conventions by means of arbitrary substitutions or even reversals of names. If he does this in a selfish and moreover harmful manner, society will cease to trust him and will thereby exclude him. What men avoid by excluding the liar is not so much being defrauded as it is being harmed by means of fraud. Thus, even at this stage, what they hate is basically not deception itself, but rather the unpleasant, hated consequences of certain sorts of deception. It is in a similarly restricted sense that man now wants nothing but truth: he desires the pleasant, life-preserving consequences of truth. He is indifferent toward pure knowledge which has no consequences; toward those truths, which are possibly harmful and destructive, he is even hostilely inclined.
"...Are designations congruent with things? Is language the adequate expression of all realities?
It is only by means of forgetfulness that man can ever reach the point of fancying himself to possess a "truth" of the grade just indicated. If he will not be satisfied with truth in the form of tautology, that is to say, if he will not be content with empty husks, then he will always exchange truths for illusions.
"...The various languages placed side by side show that with words it is never a question of truth, never a question of adequate expression; otherwise, there would not be so many languages. The "thing in itself" (which is precisely what the pure truth, apart from any of its consequences, would be) is likewise something quite incomprehensible to the creator of language and something not in the least worth striving for. This creator only designates the relations of things to men, and for expressing these relations he lays hold of the boldest metaphors. To begin with, a nerve stimulus is transferred into an image: first metaphor. The image, in turn, is imitated in a sound: second metaphor. And each time there is a complete overleaping of one sphere, right into the middle of an entirely new and different one...
"We believe that we know something about the things themselves when we speak of trees, colors, snow, and flowers; and yet we possess nothing but metaphors for things — metaphors which correspond in no way to the original entities...
"Every word instantly becomes a concept precisely insofar as it is not supposed to serve as a reminder of the unique and entirely individual original experience to which it owes its origin; but rather, a word becomes a concept insofar as it simultaneously has to fit countless more or less similar cases — which means, purely and simply, cases which are never equal and thus altogether unequal. Every concept arises from the equation of unequal things. Just as it is certain that one leaf is never totally the same as another, so it is certain that the concept "leaf" is formed by arbitrarily discarding these individual differences and by forgetting the distinguishing aspects.
"...We obtain the concept, as we do the form, by overlooking what is individual and actual; whereas nature is acquainted with no forms and no concepts, and likewise with no species, but only with an X which remains inaccessible and undefinable for us...
"What then is truth? A movable host of metaphors, metonymies, and anthropomorphisms: in short, a sum of human relations which have been poetically and rhetorically intensified, transferred, and embellished, and which, after long usage, seem to a people to be fixed, canonical, and binding. Truths are illusions which we have forgotten are illusions — they are metaphors that have become worn out and have been drained of sensuous force, coins which have lost their embossing and are now considered as metal and no longer as coins...
"We still do not yet know where the drive for truth comes from. For so far we have heard only of the duty which society imposes in order to exist: to be truthful means to employ the usual metaphors. Thus, to express it morally, this is the duty to lie according to a fixed convention, to lie with the herd and in a manner binding upon everyone. Now man of course forgets that this is the way things stand for him. Thus he lies in the manner indicated, unconsciously and in accordance with habits which are centuries' old; and precisely by means of this unconsciousness and forgetfulness he arrives at his sense of truth...
"The venerability, reliability, and utility of truth is something which a person demonstrates for himself from the contrast with the liar, whom no one trusts and everyone excludes. As a "rational" being, he now places his behavior under the control of abstractions. He will no longer tolerate being carried away by sudden impressions, by intuitions...
"Everything which distinguishes man from the animals depends upon this ability to volatilize perceptual metaphors in a schema, and thus to dissolve an image into a concept. For something is possible in the realm of these schemata which could never be achieved with the vivid first impressions: the construction of a pyramidal order according to castes and degrees, the creation of a new world of laws, privileges, subordinations, and clearly marked boundaries — a new world, one which now confronts that other vivid world of first impressions as more solid, more universal, better known, and more human than the immediately perceived world, and thus as the regulative and imperative world...
"One may certainly admire man as a mighty genius of construction, who succeeds in piling an infinitely complicated dome of concepts upon an unstable foundation, and, as it were, on running water. Of course, in order to be supported by such a foundation, his construction must be like one constructed of spiders' webs: delicate enough to be carried along by the waves, strong enough not to be blown apart by every wind...
"As a genius of construction man raises himself far above the bee in the following way: whereas the bee builds with wax that he gathers from nature, man builds with the far more delicate conceptual material which he first has to manufacture from himself.
"...When someone hides something behind a bush and looks for it again in the same place and finds it there as well, there is not much to praise in such seeking and finding. Yet this is how matters stand regarding seeking and finding "truth" within the realm of reason. If I make up the definition of a mammal, and then, after inspecting a camel, declare "look, a mammal' I have indeed brought a truth to light in this way, but it is a truth of limited value. That is to say, it is a thoroughly anthropomorphic truth which contains not a single point which would be "true in itself" or really and universally valid apart from man. At bottom, what the investigator of such truths is seeking is only the metamorphosis of the world into man...
"Only by forgetting this primitive world of metaphor can one live with any repose, security, and consistency: only by means of the petrification and coagulation of a mass of images which originally streamed from the primal faculty of human imagination like a fiery liquid, only in the invincible faith that this sun, this window, this table is a truth in itself, in short, only by forgetting that he himself is an artistically creating subject, does man live with any repose, security, and consistency. If but for an instant he could escape from the prison walls of this faith, his "self consciousness" would be immediately destroyed. It is even a difficult thing for him to admit to himself that the insect or the bird perceives an entirely different world from the one that man does, and that the question of which of these perceptions of the world is the more correct one is quite meaningless, for this would have to have been decided previously in accordance with the criterion of the correct perception, which means, in accordance with a criterion which is not available...
"Between two absolutely different spheres, as between subject and object, there is no causality, no correctness, and no expression; there is, at most, an aesthetic relation: I mean, a suggestive transference, a stammering translation into a completely foreign tongue — for which there is required, in any case, a freely inventive intermediate sphere and mediating force. "Appearance" is a word that contains many temptations, which is why I avoid it as much as possible. For it is not true that the essence of things "appears" in the empirical world. A painter without hands who wished to express in song the picture before his mind would, by means of this substitution of spheres, still reveal more about the essence of things than does the empirical world. Even the relationship of a nerve stimulus to the generated image is not a necessary one. But when the same image has been generated millions of times and has been handed down for many generations and finally appears on the same occasion every time for all mankind, then it acquires at last the same meaning for men it would have if it were the sole necessary image and if the relationship of the original nerve stimulus to the generated image were a strictly causal one. In the same manner, an eternally repeated dream would certainly be felt and judged to be reality. But the hardening and congealing of a metaphor guarantees absolutely nothing concerning its necessity and exclusive justification...
"If each of us had a different kind of sense perception — if we could only perceive things now as a bird, now as a worm, now as a plant, or if one of us saw a stimulus as red, another as blue, while a third even heard the same stimulus as a sound — then no one would speak of such a regularity of nature, rather, nature would be grasped only as a creation which is subjective in the highest degree. After all, what is a law of nature as such for us? We are not acquainted with it in itself, but only with its effects, which means in its relation to other laws of nature — which, in turn, are known to us only as sums of relations. Therefore all these relations always refer again to others and are thoroughly incomprehensible to us in their essence...
"We produce these representations in and from ourselves with the same necessity with which the spider spins. If we are forced to comprehend all things only under these forms, then it ceases to be amazing that in all things we actually comprehend nothing but these forms. For they must all bear within themselves the laws of number, and it is precisely number which is most astonishing in things. All that conformity to law, which impresses us so much in the movement of the stars and in chemical processes, coincides at bottom with those properties which we bring to things. Thus it is we who impress ourselves in this way."
"On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense"
("Über Wahrheit und Lüge im außermoralischen Sinn") — Friedrich Nietzsche (1873)//
"Once upon a time, in some out of the way corner of that universe which is dispersed into numberless twinkling solar systems, there was a star upon which clever beasts invented knowing. That was the most arrogant and mendacious minute of "world history," but nevertheless, it was only a minute. After nature had drawn a few breaths, the star cooled and congealed, and the clever beasts had to die. One might invent such a fable, and yet he still would not have adequately illustrated how miserable, how shadowy and transient, how aimless and arbitrary the human intellect looks within nature. There were eternities during which it did not exist. And when it is all over with the human intellect, nothing will have happened...
"The pride connected with knowing and sensing lies like a blinding fog over the eyes and senses of men, thus deceiving them concerning the value of existence. For this pride contains within itself the most flattering estimation of the value of knowing. Deception is the most general effect of such pride, but even its most particular effects contain within themselves something of the same deceitful character...
"Deception, flattering, lying, deluding, talking behind the back, putting up a false front, living in borrowed splendor, wearing a mask, hiding behind convention, playing a role for others and for oneself — in short, a continuous fluttering around the solitary flame of vanity — is so much the rule and the law among men that there is almost nothing which is less comprehensible than how an honest and pure drive for truth could have arisen among them. They are deeply immersed in illusions and in dream images; their eyes merely glide over the surface of things and see 'forms.'
"...What does man actually know about himself? Is he, indeed, ever able to perceive himself completely, as if laid out in a lighted display case? Does nature not conceal most things from him — even concerning his own body — in order to confine and lock him within a proud, deceptive consciousness, aloof from the coils of the bowels, the rapid flow of the blood stream, and the intricate quivering of the fibers!
"...The liar is a person who uses the valid designations, the words, in order to make something which is unreal appear to be real. He says, for example, "I am rich," when the proper designation for his condition would be "poor." He misuses fixed conventions by means of arbitrary substitutions or even reversals of names. If he does this in a selfish and moreover harmful manner, society will cease to trust him and will thereby exclude him. What men avoid by excluding the liar is not so much being defrauded as it is being harmed by means of fraud. Thus, even at this stage, what they hate is basically not deception itself, but rather the unpleasant, hated consequences of certain sorts of deception. It is in a similarly restricted sense that man now wants nothing but truth: he desires the pleasant, life-preserving consequences of truth. He is indifferent toward pure knowledge which has no consequences; toward those truths, which are possibly harmful and destructive, he is even hostilely inclined.
"...Are designations congruent with things? Is language the adequate expression of all realities?
It is only by means of forgetfulness that man can ever reach the point of fancying himself to possess a "truth" of the grade just indicated. If he will not be satisfied with truth in the form of tautology, that is to say, if he will not be content with empty husks, then he will always exchange truths for illusions.
"...The various languages placed side by side show that with words it is never a question of truth, never a question of adequate expression; otherwise, there would not be so many languages. The "thing in itself" (which is precisely what the pure truth, apart from any of its consequences, would be) is likewise something quite incomprehensible to the creator of language and something not in the least worth striving for. This creator only designates the relations of things to men, and for expressing these relations he lays hold of the boldest metaphors. To begin with, a nerve stimulus is transferred into an image: first metaphor. The image, in turn, is imitated in a sound: second metaphor. And each time there is a complete overleaping of one sphere, right into the middle of an entirely new and different one...
"We believe that we know something about the things themselves when we speak of trees, colors, snow, and flowers; and yet we possess nothing but metaphors for things — metaphors which correspond in no way to the original entities...
"Every word instantly becomes a concept precisely insofar as it is not supposed to serve as a reminder of the unique and entirely individual original experience to which it owes its origin; but rather, a word becomes a concept insofar as it simultaneously has to fit countless more or less similar cases — which means, purely and simply, cases which are never equal and thus altogether unequal. Every concept arises from the equation of unequal things. Just as it is certain that one leaf is never totally the same as another, so it is certain that the concept "leaf" is formed by arbitrarily discarding these individual differences and by forgetting the distinguishing aspects.
"...We obtain the concept, as we do the form, by overlooking what is individual and actual; whereas nature is acquainted with no forms and no concepts, and likewise with no species, but only with an X which remains inaccessible and undefinable for us...
"What then is truth? A movable host of metaphors, metonymies, and anthropomorphisms: in short, a sum of human relations which have been poetically and rhetorically intensified, transferred, and embellished, and which, after long usage, seem to a people to be fixed, canonical, and binding. Truths are illusions which we have forgotten are illusions — they are metaphors that have become worn out and have been drained of sensuous force, coins which have lost their embossing and are now considered as metal and no longer as coins...
"We still do not yet know where the drive for truth comes from. For so far we have heard only of the duty which society imposes in order to exist: to be truthful means to employ the usual metaphors. Thus, to express it morally, this is the duty to lie according to a fixed convention, to lie with the herd and in a manner binding upon everyone. Now man of course forgets that this is the way things stand for him. Thus he lies in the manner indicated, unconsciously and in accordance with habits which are centuries' old; and precisely by means of this unconsciousness and forgetfulness he arrives at his sense of truth...
"The venerability, reliability, and utility of truth is something which a person demonstrates for himself from the contrast with the liar, whom no one trusts and everyone excludes. As a "rational" being, he now places his behavior under the control of abstractions. He will no longer tolerate being carried away by sudden impressions, by intuitions...
"Everything which distinguishes man from the animals depends upon this ability to volatilize perceptual metaphors in a schema, and thus to dissolve an image into a concept. For something is possible in the realm of these schemata which could never be achieved with the vivid first impressions: the construction of a pyramidal order according to castes and degrees, the creation of a new world of laws, privileges, subordinations, and clearly marked boundaries — a new world, one which now confronts that other vivid world of first impressions as more solid, more universal, better known, and more human than the immediately perceived world, and thus as the regulative and imperative world...
"One may certainly admire man as a mighty genius of construction, who succeeds in piling an infinitely complicated dome of concepts upon an unstable foundation, and, as it were, on running water. Of course, in order to be supported by such a foundation, his construction must be like one constructed of spiders' webs: delicate enough to be carried along by the waves, strong enough not to be blown apart by every wind...
"As a genius of construction man raises himself far above the bee in the following way: whereas the bee builds with wax that he gathers from nature, man builds with the far more delicate conceptual material which he first has to manufacture from himself.
"...When someone hides something behind a bush and looks for it again in the same place and finds it there as well, there is not much to praise in such seeking and finding. Yet this is how matters stand regarding seeking and finding "truth" within the realm of reason. If I make up the definition of a mammal, and then, after inspecting a camel, declare "look, a mammal' I have indeed brought a truth to light in this way, but it is a truth of limited value. That is to say, it is a thoroughly anthropomorphic truth which contains not a single point which would be "true in itself" or really and universally valid apart from man. At bottom, what the investigator of such truths is seeking is only the metamorphosis of the world into man...
"Only by forgetting this primitive world of metaphor can one live with any repose, security, and consistency: only by means of the petrification and coagulation of a mass of images which originally streamed from the primal faculty of human imagination like a fiery liquid, only in the invincible faith that this sun, this window, this table is a truth in itself, in short, only by forgetting that he himself is an artistically creating subject, does man live with any repose, security, and consistency. If but for an instant he could escape from the prison walls of this faith, his "self consciousness" would be immediately destroyed. It is even a difficult thing for him to admit to himself that the insect or the bird perceives an entirely different world from the one that man does, and that the question of which of these perceptions of the world is the more correct one is quite meaningless, for this would have to have been decided previously in accordance with the criterion of the correct perception, which means, in accordance with a criterion which is not available...
"Between two absolutely different spheres, as between subject and object, there is no causality, no correctness, and no expression; there is, at most, an aesthetic relation: I mean, a suggestive transference, a stammering translation into a completely foreign tongue — for which there is required, in any case, a freely inventive intermediate sphere and mediating force. "Appearance" is a word that contains many temptations, which is why I avoid it as much as possible. For it is not true that the essence of things "appears" in the empirical world. A painter without hands who wished to express in song the picture before his mind would, by means of this substitution of spheres, still reveal more about the essence of things than does the empirical world. Even the relationship of a nerve stimulus to the generated image is not a necessary one. But when the same image has been generated millions of times and has been handed down for many generations and finally appears on the same occasion every time for all mankind, then it acquires at last the same meaning for men it would have if it were the sole necessary image and if the relationship of the original nerve stimulus to the generated image were a strictly causal one. In the same manner, an eternally repeated dream would certainly be felt and judged to be reality. But the hardening and congealing of a metaphor guarantees absolutely nothing concerning its necessity and exclusive justification...
"If each of us had a different kind of sense perception — if we could only perceive things now as a bird, now as a worm, now as a plant, or if one of us saw a stimulus as red, another as blue, while a third even heard the same stimulus as a sound — then no one would speak of such a regularity of nature, rather, nature would be grasped only as a creation which is subjective in the highest degree. After all, what is a law of nature as such for us? We are not acquainted with it in itself, but only with its effects, which means in its relation to other laws of nature — which, in turn, are known to us only as sums of relations. Therefore all these relations always refer again to others and are thoroughly incomprehensible to us in their essence...
"We produce these representations in and from ourselves with the same necessity with which the spider spins. If we are forced to comprehend all things only under these forms, then it ceases to be amazing that in all things we actually comprehend nothing but these forms. For they must all bear within themselves the laws of number, and it is precisely number which is most astonishing in things. All that conformity to law, which impresses us so much in the movement of the stars and in chemical processes, coincides at bottom with those properties which we bring to things. Thus it is we who impress ourselves in this way."
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