As I was saying the glorification of the victims of October 7th to justify ethnic cleansing and genocide.

You’ve just described Palestinians as sub human, as animals. And we know what humans do to animals.

Eastern thinkers are more adept at recognizing nothingness as if it was like a western substance, but they avoid substance talk by leaving things more mystical and less defined (as nothingness would have to be less defined)

I have found that in a study of eastern philosophies one does end up at the point of nothingness, a nothing that is also everything. An everything that is no thing, but all things and no one thing, but less than one, while being ever present.

They do also say that there are beings who go beyond this two dimensional thinking, this human thought process. Also that there are deities in more exalted states of being. This would lead me to the conclusion that the problem we are discussing is something to do with the human condition. It is a peculiarity of what it is to be human. Perhaps a human is at that point where a mind is birthed in a corporeal being. We look around ourselves and see countless other beings who don’t have this faculty of mind. Animals and plants. I find that through being with, communing with animals enables me to be mindless too. They teach mindlessness by example, yet we are one of them. We can be mindless like them, in fact we probably are most of the time, but just don’t realise it.

This brings me to mystical practice. I struggled with the conundrum you describe, amongst others and at some point began to realise that there is another way around the problem. This process was helped by being involved in the New Age movement back in the 1990’s. There were all kinds of crazy ideas and practices going around, it was a time of breaking boundaries, conventions, breaking out of oneself. I realised that these conundrums could be solved, bypassed understood through a practice, a process, a life process, or journey. Like the communion with plants and animals I describe. It’s like you put the mind to one side for a moment and move forward through life. When you bring the mind back in you have changed, something has moved. This gives the possibility for a comparison between the two states, a quadratic equation as a metaphor.

There are numerous other techniques for moving forward like this. One which adds another dimension to this is the idea of the higher self. Basically you consider, or imagine, that there is a higher self in you which is wise, or has a direct connection to a god, or higher being. You imagine entering into a conversation with this higher self. Once acquainted you develop a communion, or close connection, an understanding. At this point, it is nothing more than a thought experiment, an idea. However if adopted as a practice, it opens up the opportunity for it to become more than this. Just like the process of developing a communion with the plants and animals I described, you can also enter into communion with your higher self (if there is one) and with a higher being (if there is one).

This gives one the opportunity to move forward in a number of directions.

Thankyou Wayfarer, you really are a font of knowledge these days.

Yes, in the U.K., the government is pushing the line, that adapting to climate change, net zero policies are expensive. That the poor will end up paying more and due to the severe economic circumstances, they are going to have to move more slowly to help out the poor. We are helping the poor by not addressing climate change.

Maybe the approach could be to reflect on the concepts of import (to a given individual) from the western perspective (since same is unavoidable, like thinking in English is to me), and then, from there, find the parallels in Eastern traditions.

Yes, this is something I’ve tried to do on occasion. There have been attempts to introduce eastern ideas to the West from the pioneering work of HP Blavatsky in the 1890’s followed by numerous Theosophers in the early twentieth century, followed by the hippy movement in 1960’s. Then the New Age movement in the 1980’s and 90’s. With the steady spread of Buddhism throughout the West during the 20th Century. Which now has a world wide reach. This combined with migration of people from east to west and west to east is bringing about the integration of eastern and western philosophies in societies.
It seems to be in academic circles that there is a catch up required.

One eg., upon my own reflections, I come across the problem of Mind and conclude, on my own, from within my western narrative, that Mind might not have any corresponding Being, or Reality, "driving", "grounding" or "behind" it, and that it might just be structured by empty signifiers. Comparing that to eastern philosophies, I find the principle of Sunyata (emptiness of Reality). While I believe that the Mahayanists might have gone too far, and that Sunyata applies only to the constructed reality of human experience, yet still, there is a workable parallel.

Yes an interesting parallel. The Western academic tradition seems to be stuck on a circle, or wheel of logic, like samsara from which it cannot escape and which is abstracted from the real world.

We are all humans, East and West, drawing upon the same nascent constructions input into all of us, and developed collectively throughout the generations. It wasn't just Schopenhaur who first incorporated the East into Western philosophy. I may not be best suited to demonstrate this, but I feel it is not unreasonable for an historian of philosophy to find what is traditionally thought of as eastern patterns weaved through western thought and vice versa, since the presocratics, and likely much earlier.

Yes, I would expect there to be a lineage stretching back over the millennia derived from sources further east. In a sense the Western tradition is a recent, more modern metricated system of thought based on the reductionism of Aristotle. While leaving behind the more reflective philosophies. Perhaps it is time for thinkers to walk backwards and pick up from where they left off.

Your "obstacles" 1 to 3, (which I know you are exposing and not endorsing) are ways in which we "deliberately" construct barriers out of prejudice.

Yes, it is the curse of materialism.

1. "test" it? arguably the east has a better test, doing, i.e. yoga and meditation. If mind's conclusions are admittedly questionable (hence, phenomenology), what better test than to silence mind?

I was thinking more of a test within academic circles. There is no way to anchor the theory of a “spiritual realm” into philosophy. There is the theological tradition as I mentioned, but this seems to have been disregarded. Philosophy is happy to talk about the spiritual, or the divine. But it is increasingly seen as nothing more than a hypothetical, a flight of fancy. (Although I would accept that there is a creeping sense of something else to reality, but which is undefined.)

2. "physical world?" arguably sitting in meditation for the purposes of silencing the chatter and perceiving the world through the Body for a change, is exactly approaching reality through the physical world. What is more empirical than what your body tells you without interference of concepts?

Yes, very much so. A module dedicated to being a being, absent the mind. The acceptance that a being isn’t just a mind, there are other layers, realities, experiences, more immediate, more real than thoughts.

3. "subjugation of mind to soul?"

Forgive my Theosophical terminology. What I am referring to is the notion that a being can become a pure still being absent the mind. When the mind is banished, the being has not been banished, the being is still present. The word “soul” has a lot of baggage, a better word might be something like Atman, the atmic, or something.

Firstly, that is the problem I see with western metaphysics in the traditions of Plato, Descartes, Hegel etc. Moreover, Mahayana blatantly denies the "soul." The subjugation part, the so called goal to reach Satori/Kensho or Moksa, is intended to liberate you from the mundane chattering of the Subject Self. Descartes tried to do the same but got stuck in the chattering and gave privileged status to the Subject Self, I (see Heidegger's ontic, everyday vs ontological Being, which I think, he ultimately remains in the ontic everyday, but that's another discussion).

Yes, they were already stuck on the wheel of mind by that point.

Thanks for the suggestions, Harmless looks interesting I’ll give it a look.

We each cast our net depending on our place and time and come up with different sources. For me it was a mixture of the more orthodox Theosophy and the far out new age movement in the 90’s.

An infinite number of omnipresent gods, perhaps.

The obstacles I found when presenting mysticism to philosophers could be delineated into three categories;

1, It is a mythology, or fairytale, with no logical basis, there is no starting point from which to philosophically test it. Some of the people who level this criticism are idealists. They are stuck in ideas that necessitate a logical foundation.

2, It doesn’t have any basis in the physical world. It’s magical thinking about imaginary beings, in an imaginary world, who never turn up in the physical world. To the people who level this criticism, there is only a physical world.

3, It proposes the transfiguration of the self, this necessarily includes the subjugation of the mind, in favour a soul, or spirit, or something which is not in the physical world. To the people who level this criticism, the mind is everything, we are logical minds and there is nothing else.

I was aware of the elevation of the victims of October 7th victims to an exalted state, even deification, martyr’s ( a Muslim martyr has a lower status than a martyr in a Western country), in the West a martyr has a god like status. This cry across the airwaves was deafening right from day one. The atrocities were on a new level, so bad that any kind of response, retaliation was justified. Even ethnic cleansing, genocide was on the table.

No worries. How many gods, or deities are there on the head of a pin.

That’s why I said Deity.

So mind is fully there, but still I ask the question and wonder if I can see one distinct feature about "mind" that is there. And we have nothing.

Mysticism does address this and go beyond this insurmountable barrier. But academically the teaching is spread across a broad span of disparate and unrelated sources. The main religions each have mystical schools and traditions. There all pretty much say the same thing, so a study of these is worthwhile and identifying the similarities is a good way of finding one’s own way through without being drawn into one school’s anachronistic practices.

As far as I have found only one school has developed a system of practice which introduces one on to the mystical path. Hinduism, via yoga teachings. Personally I use the Hindu scriptures of Patanjalli as interpreted by Alice Bailey in the book The Light of The Soul**. I have found that each mystic searches for teaching or texts until they find the one that works for them.

There is no one definitive teaching, or truth on this. But in reality it is a process of personal self discovery.

**I can link to the book later. You can access it for free as a PDF file, along with all the Alice Bailey publications.(you would be jumping in at the deep end, I would be happy to help out)

Either way, it's possible that Western Philosophy "proper" (with some exceptions) only avoids these schools because of prejudice concerning connections with religion. And that, to the former's detriment.

I have been struggling with this for years and have tried many times on this forum to make progress. But it always stalls and doesn’t even get started. There are eastern philosophies which work, but the fact that they start from the assumption of God, gods, deity, Western philosophy just doesn’t go there, or reduces it to some peculiarity of the human mind. Essentially dismissing it. Theology does go there, but seems to disappear up its own derrière once the Catholic apologists get to work. It accepts mysticism and that mysticism can be a real pursuit, but doesn’t really get past the enthralled saints like St Francis for example.

I would be happy to lay out the obstacles, some insurmountable in terms of philosophy that I have encountered.

(Not just now, I have to go to work shortly)

As I thought.

With the support of Egypt. The Arab countries don't want them in either due to their history. Whether "prison" is an appropriate term is debatable. Gazans can certainly get out of Gaza and there are beautiful homes there. Ultimately, no one really trusts them with their borders... and who would? I'm sorry, but national security comes first. Tons of aid has come to Gaza. By letting them control their own border and imports that creates a serious national security threat. It's not just Israel -- none of their neighbors want them having unfettered access to their borders where they'll be able to import whatever.

Struth, someone has boiled your brain, unless it is just performative.

And that's the most compelling argument you could offer, so far.

A statement of fact actually.

Besides I’m not playing any geopolitical chess.”
“I know, but you have been using it as a hammer.

I thought this was quite a good analysis.

Yeah Exon Mobil was there right at the beginning of climate change denial. They played a big part in spreading the denial and disinformation.

It was reported on BBC radio4 at lunchtime and it’s on sky news now.

I have verified this through multiple sources.
https://x.com/ToryFibs/status/1763178221149782108?s=20

Sure, they are not the only ones to live in refugee camps. And it is reported that they aren’t even listed in the five largest refugee camps in the World:

As a percentage of the population?

Anyway, primary trigger might be more important than primary cause.

As I said, I’m interested in conceptual analysis, so if I can’t split hairs here, in a philosophy forum, where else can I? Besides I find it a worthy exercise as long as it helps better understand things.

Yes, of course please continue, I would like to myself on occasion. But I am short of time and level of concentration at the moment due to other commitments. Also I am more someone who looks for the root of things, or bigger picture in current affairs.

You do not seem able to provide a compelling argument for why it wouldn’t possible to separate moral case from a legal case.

You seem to impugn me here, (this is not the only time.)
Perhaps I would not mention the moral case (to separate it) if I were in a court of law (although I expect I would mention it)

This doesn’t need to be framed in human rights terms, not even for the international law:

The victims of oppression here have had various human rights violated. This reflects on the actions of the occupying, or controlling authority under which they are subject and under which they are confined. Yes you are right about nation state status etc. But we are talking about an apartheid state confining a subjugated population. Part of the case of the Palestinians is this treatment, it’s disregard of their rights and liberty against their will.

Besides I’m not playing any geopolitical chess.

I know, but you have been using it as a hammer.

I won’t answer any other points in your post here, because the discussion is expanding and I don’t have enough free time to address long posts right now. (But thanks for engaging and please continue, it is enjoyable).

I don’t recognise your characterisation. It’s true that in the post WW2 settlement there was a tacit understanding that Germany in particular and Europe in general were not going to fully re-arm, but rather the U.S. and U.K. would maintain a strong presence and provide security under the umbrella of NATO.

At the very moment Putin threatened NATO with nuclear weapons on the day of the invasion of Ukraine, that understanding ended and we will now see the re-arming of Europe. The U.S. will be glad of this as they are likely to become overstretched if they pivot to the east.

The racism issue has become politically weaponised in the U.K. However the reality on the ground is not so bad. Although there are workforce issues and residential status issues due to Brexit.

By the way, the constituencies of Norfolk are Conservative. The Labour Party no longer held the urban constituencies they once held in Norwich North and Great Yarmouth, leaving them with no MP's. Norfolk
I don't know if this is a paradox or a contradiction. :chin:

Norfolk is Conservative due to the farming community and the middle and upper middle class communities. I would think a lot of them are changing their minds about now. The Green Party is doing well in Norfolk and Suffolk. Norwich is a really nice city, not to big, about 250,000, or there about with a rich history and cultural life. Definitely worth a visit.

I know the Wye valley well, I particularly like Hay on Wye and Monmouth.

Very Alan Partridge, ha haaa haaaaa.

If you do make your way to Norfolk you would be very welcome to visit.

Agree about the class divide and cap doffing in Suffolk. I much prefer Norfolk in this respect.

I’m very much a mystic rather than religious. I had this experience and various others like it in the early 90’s when I was exploring spirituality. I also looked into religions as well and compared them.

Yes I found Jung interesting, I did keep a dream journal and explore dreaming and lucid dreaming in those days. I had experiences like the others in the thread had. As I say I found the more transcendent aspects the most interesting as part of my spiritual journey.

We are mainly going by climate, a little drier and sunnier, so the southwest, or northeast, like Suffolk. We are pretty flexible and hoping to find something nice since we are free to resettle where we want!

I live in Norfolk near the boundary with Suffolk and lived in Suffolk for ten years before that. I would highly recommend it. We enjoy the peace and tranquility here, one of the quieter parts of the country in terms of traffic congestion, or population density. I rarely lock my car at night and don’t expect anyone to come snooping around. There is a strong sense of community around here and social justice, although we don’t get involved in village life.
We value nature and have many nature reserves and good habitat within a few miles and the diversity of species in our garden is really high compared to the rest of the country.
Regarding the weather though, it is relatively warm, we have only had maybe ten nights of frost this winter, which would rise above zero by mid morning. The issue with the weather here is the number of cloudy and wet days. It can get you down when more than half the time it is raining, or overcast and you don’t know if you can go out without getting wet. Our garden is currently very muddy, it’s even reached the point this year where we have to wear wellies to go around the garden to feed our chickens and sheep. We have to take our shoes off at the door, always, the mud is clayey. But once you get to spring the weather is much better and the summers are glorious and rarely to hot.

There is an issue with the economic decline and lots of infrastructure is neglected and falling apart. Poverty is spreading and public services are in crisis most of the time. Many councils are going bankrupt at the moment, resulting in increases in council tax. However if you have money, or a secure income these things are not a problem. If I weren’t watching the news, I probably wouldn’t notice the decline. Except when I want to see a doctor, or want socially funded dental care. Both are very difficult to access. However if you are happy to go private, there is plenty of provision.

Quite, kills two birds with one stone. Keeps Europe weak and keeps Russia weak also. But I don’t think that the U.S. intended a war in Ukraine, but rather now that there is one they can capitalise on it. It is performing a useful role of keeping Russia occupied and weakened while it has imperial ambitions and it kicks the EU up the backside forcing them to increase their military spending and so take the Russia problem off their hands.

NO PRIMARY CAUSE OF THE CONFLICT,

There are still people alive who were uprooted in the Nakba, many and their descendants still live in refugee camps. Anyway, I think you’re splitting hairs a bit here. I agree there are other things in the regional political situation that play into it. I would have thought that there is more nuance in the current political situation in the region than in the origins of the current conflict.

I’m not sure what you mean by “moral case”, if you want to argue for a moral right to land, go ahead, I’m all ears. I limited myself to question a LEGAL right of Palestinians/Israelis over such disputed lands prior to the end of the British mandate.

I don’t think one can separate the moral case, or cause, from the legal case. I doubt that a Palestinian would seek to separate them. Without wanting to sound Woke, I would think there is a human rights issue here as well. There is an overwhelming case for grievance with the Palestinians. Something which many Israeli’s seem blind to.

“Merely”

Merely in the sense that it is an on/off lever, with little more control than that.

Fourth, your humanitarian standards seem also unfairly applied: why should Israel comply to your humanitarian standards, while Hamas shouldn’t? Is it because Israel looks much stronger so it has to apply greater restraint than Hamas? Would you think that independently from whatever the consequences are?

My humanitarian standards in this discussion may appear to be one sided. So is the level of aggression in the conflict and the regard to person and property.

I see now that you are hammering a nail with a geopolitical hammer. Feel free to play geopolitical chess. I doubt that many among us have the background knowledge of the political situation in the wider region to do more than broad brush predictions and generalisations.

From the moment Putin threatened NATO with nuclear weapons (was it the first day of the Ukraine war, I think). It sent a shiver up the spine of the EU. They will be building up their forces and perhaps forming an EU army asap.

After all, following WW2 I thought the idea was that Germany wouldn’t have a strong military, but the U.S. and U.K. would maintain a strong presence to hold the Ruski’s at bay. That time has passed now and it’s time for Germany, or should I say the EU to rearm.

When he made those casual threats it wasn’t directed at Ukraine, it was directed at NATO. Look at it this way, say Russia invaded Poland next. If NATO then made a nuclear threat, do you think Putin would pull his troops out? I doubt it.

Nuclear deterrence doesn’t work anymore. Because Russia is just carrying on with conventional war regardless. We know Putin is not scarred by nuclear threats, because he casually made them himself when beginning the invasion of Ukraine.

There are people who claim to have met God in their lucid dreams. But obviously and unfortunately the claims cannot be verified in objective sense. All minds are locked up in one's own brain, and no one can access to it apart from the owner of the mind.

I have had such a dream and what I find interesting is how one can experience other forms of consciousness, or other forms of experience than what we are used to.

For example in one dream I was lifted up out of my world by the Christ and as I looked back I could see my life laid out beneath us as though different experiences at different times were side by side, or in separate rooms and my whole life was visible in some sense. The perception I had was as if we stepped out of time and all time was before us like a landscape.

These experiences are difficult to describe as I am trying to relay something inconceivable to us as we are. The explanation I like to think of and which is described in religious text is of being hosted by a higher being. Such that one experiences something of their consciousness.

Quite, time to stock up on thermal clothing.

So it’s a tutorial now is it?

I asked you 3 questions evidenced in bold, you didn’t answer any. What are your compelling reasons to take your “specifically referring to the more recent nation building exercise by the British in 1948” or the PERCEIVED injustice of ONE SIDE (the Palestinian) as the starting point for an explanation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

I don’t have a compelling reason, or perceive an injustice on one side. These are established facts and opinions. Unless you are going to explain why the Nakba and subsequent Apartheid state is not the primary cause of the current conflict? So why should I answer that question?

Also are you arguing now that the people living on the land who were displaced during the Nakba should have, or had, no moral case for grievance now?

Another counterfactual. Why are you sure? Jews fled from their land ALSO because of the Arab/Muslism colonization and oppression. Arab/Muslism still today massacre civilians belonging to other Christian and Arab/Muslim communities.

It’s a comment on the inhumanity of the British imperialists.

Again you didn’t address any of the points I brought up, you keep just repeating what you think it is the case, maybe inspired by a self-serving understanding Hamas’s own declarations

My point was and is that the geopolitical players are playing a game of geopolitical chess alongside the conflict in Israel and Palestine. They are not playing a game of chess in amongst the conflict. There are backers of the two sides as you say, but they merely turn on, or off, the tap of arms/money supply, or turn the dial of urging restraint, or allowing unrestrained activity. The strategy on the Israeli side is determined by the Israeli government and the strategy of Hamas presumably is gorilla tactics from their hiding place, with some hostages as a bargaining tool.

I would even go so far as to say that the “increased tensions between Israel and Gaza and West Bank in the past two years” as the exclusive or far more relevant motivation of Hamas to conduct the massacre of October the 7th, is totally irrelevant wrt its international repercussions of the massacre and Israel’s threat perception.

Well that may depend on your perspective. I’m amenable to the possibility that the timing of October 7th attacks was orchestrated in some way by regional geopolitical pressures. I know that Israel and Iran have been facing off against each other for a long time and that geopolitical moves by Israel along with it’s partner the U.S. prior to the attacks will have inflamed tensions in the region.

I agree with everything you say in your last point with the following caveats.

Regarding the historical record of the inhabitants of the land in question. I am aware of this history, however I was specifically referring to the more recent nation building exercise by the British in 1948 and the fact that it produced an injustice in the minds of the people who were uprooted. The past 75yrs of tension and conflict originated here, as far as I’m concerned.

I agree that the Jewish people had a pre-existing claim and right to live there, as did the Palestinian people who were living there at the time. But the way it was done was in the superior imperial manner adopted by the British colonialists at the time, which set up this tense situation from the beginning. I’m sure if it had been gone about in the right way, a successful settlement could have been reached.

Regarding the wider geopolitical situation, I see the other actors around the world as bystanders with a bit of influence here and there, the geopolitical situation of the region. But they are in no way instigating this current crisis, but rather seeing it as an opportunity for geopolitical game playing. Russia stands to gain the most from this, while Iran is happy with how things are going. I wouldn’t be surprised if Putin were pulling some strings behind the scenes which we are not aware of. Putin needs to win Kiev in order to recover his reputation, the reputation of his country and to realise his vision of a rebuilt Soviet Union. If he fails his legacy will be greatly diminished, or seen as a failure.

So if there is an everlasting mastermind behind all this, we know who it is.

This is a recipe for the cycle to continue. With Isreal becoming armed to the teeth, if it’s not already.

It is nice to meet somebody who knows more about Australia than Australians do.

Why is it that many Australians are willing to "fry" despite the calamitous bushfires?

From your post;

The number of climate deniers in Australia is more than double the global average, new survey finds