Why would I believe that God could create a rock bigger than he could lift? That sounds contradictory. Doesn't creating imply that God has lifted it, in order that it be where it is? — Metaphysician Undercover

If God can see the back of his own head without a mirror he can surely create a rock bigger than even he can lift, but yin-yang dynamics in a paradox of existence make it impossible to create any kind of demonstrable mystical, metaphysical, intellectual, or emotional extreme. A Goldilocks Principle applies to everything along with a paradoxical version of Occam's Razor where the simplest explanation is both true and false and all the more attractive making it all the more often either extremely productive or counterproductive.

So yes okay, Coca-Cola is a money making machine. Suppose my intention is to make another money-making machine competing with Coca-Cola in the production and commercialization of canned coke. How does systems logic practically help me in solving such a problem? This problem cannot be answered by vague words, nor by numbers. So how does systems logic actually help? — Agustino

Henry Ford was the first to develop the assembly line and, today, the major industries and governments are all investing countless billions in self-assembling technology. Reel to reel printing and other types of self-assembly including computers and a new self-assembling quantum computer even. Its analog logic which rules reality as we know it and, while we've master digital logic which is easier for error correction, the analog is about to show us the foundations of mathematics. Self-assembly is pattern matching which means its like assembling a giant jig saw puzzle where you have no real choice but to learn as you go and merely by assembling the puzzle new and greater truths are revealed about how to assemble it even better.

Well yeah good luck with that. Very often when people run out of things to say they speak of love, but they do so vacuously, with love meaning only some vague kind of compassion, with no specific way to implement in practical situations. So it's just like getting each other drunk on cheap wine. — Agustino

Love is synonymous with the truth and not another academic or political platform to be debated. If academics and politicians can't use the word then its because civilization can't because they are always too busy fighting over weapons, money, and resources. Hence, the reason we just elected a bigot, professional wrestling fan, and reality TV star president.

Sure it is used, but that's not what I'm asking for. I've actually studied and worked with chaos theory for engineering purposes with regards to structural dynamics. So I know it exists and it is used. But I gave a specific problem. How does one compete with Coca Cola in the production and sale of canned coke? How does systems logic answer THIS kind of question? This isn't a technical question - what is the weather over there, or what happens to this column in such loading/vibration conditions. I'm asking how systems logic helps address these non-technical, non-numerical problems. — Agustino

Coca Cola is a money making machine and not a product. Already computers have taken over perhaps 30% of the business of Wall Street because they are faster and becoming more complex than even people. Humans are just much too slow for too many of these tasks and systems logic can be self-assembling where you just have to apply the fundamentals and watch what it does.

Okay, but I gave you a practical problem. I wanna beat Coca-Cola. How do I go about it? If this beginning of systems logic cannot even suggest a path to do that, why should I trust it? It seems to be no better than classical theories that we already know - they too fail to give a way.

And you haven't answered the question of what the world actually needs, I'm curious what you think that is! — Agustino

Systems logic is already being used in countless ways including to make weather predictions and meteorologists are already talking about implementing weather control both on local levels and globally. You can run, but you cannot hide from your own truth.

What stops the Republican party from doing the same? And more importantly, if you can predict with mathematical precision, then please predict for me how to destroy the resilience of Coca-Cola because I want to open a beverage company competing with them and winning.

What does the world need then? — Agustino

It will be another twenty years before the computers can spit out the numbers, and probably a hundred before they'll collected most of the basic information required, but the beginning of the end will be within twenty years with the introduction of a Theory of Everything. Robots might take over our jobs, but that's just an indication that money is becoming less important than information and the ability to use it. What the world needs is a metaphoric Theory of Everything and Nothing that can give humanity back their sense of humor which has been suppressed in favor of seeking truth and beauty in the name of growth and progress.

That scares me. — Metaphysician Undercover

Would you rather that God could create rock bigger than even he can lift? Yin-yang dynamics rule existence as we know it.

He missed a lot of fundamentals as though he's just a hack who has no clue what he's writing about. Utopia tends to be a pretty foreign idea to people living in civilization who often have no clue about how anything remotely like a Utopia actually functions. On the communes I've lived on most people required at least three years just to figure out how group decision making functions because they've been taught all their lives politics is just about fighting for whatever you believe in.

The metaphoric logic of the Pakua is the 12,000 year old origins of the I-Ching and Tao Te Ching. The first half of the Tao Te Ching came from the isolated Taoists in the southern mountains of China who combined Indian pantheism with their tribal wisdom. The book, "Tao Chronicles" is a good introduction to the primitive tribal roots of Taoism and why it is our personal philosophy that matters more than anyone's opinion. Enlightenment is merely accepting who you really are when you no longer make distinctions between who you are and what you are doing, but almost everyone requires taking up some sort of discipline. It is neotenic or the retention of childlike attributes when wonder becomes the beginning of wisdom and we accept the child of God or the Truth that we really wish to become.

Doesn't the opposite of what you said follow logically? If the uncategorized whole is the Memory of God, then to claim that there is such a thing is to claim to be united to God through one's memory. This would imply knowing the mind of God. — Metaphysician Undercover

Even God can't see the back of his own head without using a mirror. We are using nature to study nature, while the void laughs in our faces. The only thing we can ultimately know is that we know nothing, but nothin' from nothing' ain't nothin'.

The uncategorized whole is the greater truth which determines the identity of everything and what Socrates called the "Memory of God" that none can remember in all its glory. To argue against such a thing is to claim you can know the mind of God.

And you reckon the Chinese Daoist masters would consider such gatherings as part of the Daoist practice? I feel they were more interested in statecraft and the art of governance - similar to Sun Tzu. — Agustino

Screw the civilized mystical Taoists, these are the primitive pragmatic tribal roots of Taoism. Contemplating your naval and playing politics might be productive in some ways, but the world needs more than that these days. We allow our poetry to speak for itself and beautiful words are honest words that can defy even unbalanced gravity hanging in the air between us.

Why can't the ones with power and wealth comprehend it? What is the necessary link between power and wealth ability of comprehension in this case? — Agustino

Its memory systems logic with a chicken flock providing the classic example. The lights are on when nobody is home and the mob is going on autopilot just following the money around like so many cattle. Like a good autopilot on an airplane their reactionary politics prevent the cattle from mindlessly stampeding over the nearest cliff more often. Forty years of studies have finally confirmed that the republican party is organized along the lines of a flock of chickens, but they just represent the obvious tip of iceberg of all the revelations coming about how civilization actually functions.

Within twenty years computers will catch up to all this nonsense and the fundamentals of systems logic are now being revealed by the mathematicians and physicists. Already we can predict the tipping point of such systems, like predicting the temperature at which something will boil, and can now mathematically predict how to destroy the resilience of organizations like the republican party. It seems Asimov was right about "psychohistory", except, instead of quantum mechanics it requires systems logic.

Whether you believe everything is causal or not, east and west must meet somewhere on the same ground and our poetry is how we combine the wisdom of both and express it with mathematical rigor. It is egalitarian poetry which is something those with power and wealth can never comprehend.

I googled this rainbow warrior and all I found is some native American tribes, and nothing to do with Taoism. There seems to be no Taoist rainbow warrior - at least not in China. — Agustino

Its a western anarchistic hippie thing that evolved into what is known as the Rainbow Gathering. Back to the land hippies would meet in a national forest every solstice and equinox to celebrate their own holidays. There are no leaders, just hippies who call themselves the Rainbow Family Tribe and organize themselves using a handful of traditions including no violence or money exchanging hands at a gathering. Many of us have invented our own additional traditions including extrapolating poetry from the Tao Te Ching and combining it with Socratic wisdom.

The poetry is actually a well known genre that is popular around the world and all the metaphors it incorporates are agreed upon by the people who read and write it because its all mathematical. You could say we are carrying on a prehistoric tradition in developing the mathematics of nature that express how love rules the physical universe.

Then you just haven't argued with any of the dream machine advocates yet. They do exist. Their position is basically to hell with truth and reality, experience is what matters, and having the best possible experience trumps everything else.

Based on what I've seen said about the Cyrenaics, my guess is they would have agreed, since pleasure is the only good for them. — Marchesk

I think they're confused myself and if they want to be a brain in a vat then they can certain help each other out and don't need my help.

You're misunderstanding the scenario; in it people get exactly what they want. They get the life wherein everything turns out exactly as they would want it to. — John

I have yet to meet anyone who wants to be a brain in vat.

Happiness consists of those feelings people say they want making it impossible to give someone the best life possible if they simply don't want it.

Besides, one does not master the Tao, one knows it, and is refined by its subtle breezes. — Wosret

That and five bucks will buy you a cup of coffee.

According to who? It that something that requires validation, or can anyone say that? — Wayfarer

According to me. They say when you master it you become part of what the Taoists call the "Yin World" and whisper about among themselves knowing no outsider could possibly understand much less accept what that means. When you master the text it tells you what to write and, among Rainbow Warriors, the proof is in the pudding with our poetry being considered the best indication of how good someone's personal philosophy happens to be.

Its written in a specific paradoxical style that encourages the reader to interpret it however they want at the time. If you are pissed off you may argue with the text all they way through it even knowing it is paradoxical nonsense and if you are more content you may laugh instead. The greater truth it expresses is the silences between the notes and undetectable pauses between our dance steps when we no longer make distinctions between who we are and what we are doing.

A gestalt is merely a symbolic dialectical representation of yin-yang dynamics which, technically, are supposed to always be in motion as they transform into one another. The problem with their interpretation comes from applying dualistic dialectics to what is actually systems logic. Optical illusions where first you see something there and then you don't are a better example of yin-yang dynamics involved.

The Pale Buddha said, "The past is only a memory, the future is only a dream" but without memories and dreams there is nothing to discuss and nothing to be done about it. Without memories, awareness is nothing more than mysticism and without awareness there is still nothing to discuss and nothing to be done about it because the lights are left on when nobody is home. Instead of object apprehension what is occurring is awareness that the greater context of the truth determines the identity of everything.

It is perhaps the third most published book of all time and its commonly said it takes half an hour to read and a lifetime to master. I'm a master of the Tao Te Ching. If you don't know Chinese, it requires studying six to ten English language translations for at least fifteen years to even be considered competent with the text. Like the game "Go", you have to absorb its fuzzy logic through osmosis and it just doesn't matter how intelligent or sensitive or whatever you happen to be because some things just take time.

What it expresses is a minimalistic Fractal Dragon equation within a broader Mandelbrot pattern of the I-Ching, or what can be described as the assertive masculine within the receptive feminine, and it does so by being able to treat every word as a variable with no intrinsic meaning or value. A complete expression of the text would require some 4,430 poems, but 430 are enough to provide a good representation, however, in over 2,500 years roughly a 150 or so is the best anyone has managed to extrapolate. Within twenty years computers should be powerful enough to do the job.

Boredom is a first world problem and not natural at all. The price of living in an aggressive culture where contentment is for losers.

Theoretically a photon could leave the Big Bang and travel all the way to a Big Crunch without ever doing a damned thing only to repeat the journey all over again, but energy that goes in endless circles for one eternity after another and never accomplishes a damned thing is a contradiction in terms. You can put forth all the causal arguments you want for why it must exist, but the proposition remains entirely hypothetical and about as useful as debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. On the other hand, a context without significant content is a demonstrable contradiction meaning a tree falling in the forest when no one is around must make a noise if it is to obey the same physical laws as everything else and be worth even talking about.

Einstein was bothered by the idea that, according to quantum mechanics, the moon is not necessarily in the sky when nobody is looking. To me, that's no more disturbing than saying there are monsters in my closet when nobody is looking.

People live how they want to live and are pretty similar with at least half being enough to drive anyone mad. As Yogi said, "90% of this game is half-mental".

It can be if you want it to be, but its the only sizable butch matriarchy left in the world today and their lifestyle is rather primitive.

If I were in Putin's place, I don't think I would see the US as being able to offer anything except to get out of the way. The US has already destroyed itself socially and economically and burned most of its bridges with its allies. China would a great ally as it would pragmatically shift toward a similar political and economic structure. If the US burns its bridges with NATO and China, Russia would be looking forward to a new golden age.

I remember the stories my father told, serving under NATO exchange projects. The US has fiercely guarded relationships with member countries. I remember stories about how many things had to be done to maintain those relationships that was rarely shared with the general public. It seems to me that we aren't so much in control as we are a guest who has long overstayed our welcome. Even the suggestion of trying to change the current arrangement is enough to create an economic and political crisis. — swstephe

You have it backwards, alone and often combined the US NATO allies could not fight their way out of a wet paper bag by themselves. That is why we keep funding both NATO and the UN because its empire and we make more money off protecting mutual investments with weapons being our number one manufactured export. Even the countries we give aid to return more to the US than the aid we provide, we consume half the world's resources, and the military has become so large we have taken on the role of coming to almost anyone's aid in a natural disaster. We are the new landlords in town and everyone knows damned well what their alternatives are. In the movie Life of Brian Monty Python elaborates on how everyone complained about the Roman empire giving them all their public services. An estimated 1,700 international conglomerates are running the world economy and here in the US we sometimes refer to our government as McDonalds or a bank. That kind of money takes on a life of its own which is something people often don't appreciate fully, but its true, all roads lead to Rome.

If you study military and political strategy, a lot of the efforts between the US and Russia in the area make perfect sense. Why Russia wanted to "liberate" Crimea and supports Assad, while the US help "rebels" seeking to overthrow Assad. The whole area has been a "proxy war". Remember the "red line" that, if crossed, would mean direct US intervention, (which was almost unanimously rejected by Americans)? It is currently in a very precarious position. The dissolution of NATO would be a disaster for the US side and many of the allies it has built up in the region. — swstephe

The US has no interest in allowing Russia anything. If Assad wins the war with Russian help it is much more advantageous for the US to finally invade on humanitarian grounds and control the port themselves. Germany needed a port during WWII and preventing its acquisition would have prevented all hell from breaking out. Russia is the Bear waiting to escape its cage with the real question being what will the US be willing to trade with them instead. Putin's provocative international politics give him something he can leverage at the bargaining table with the remaining question being how much is it worth, but the idea the US or even China will allow a dictator in charge of that kind of industrial power and resources to run wild is laughable.

NATO is a US organization just like the UN. We pay half the bills and provide all the real resources and if nobody else likes it they can go to hell. We are the eight hundred pound gorilla in the room that already brought that bear to its knees and nobody trusts that bear as far as they can throw it, while the US has been called an enemy you can trust, if for no other reason, because all we care about is the money and weapons which we already control. If by some weird chance NATO fell apart despite it expanding in recent years it would mean that WWIII has broken out and new alliances are being made.

If Trump or anyone else attempted to dissolve it without being prepared for WWIII the Pentagon and Secret Service would execute him on the spot.

Transgenders have to contend with the fact that the males who resent them the most are the ones who find themselves most tempted by homosexuality and often don't even like to watch gays relaxing in public and are horrified at the thought of mistaking a man for a woman. There is one matriarchal culture that supports such things, but modern civilization is based on patriarchal culture and money takes on a life of its own.

Any proof or evidence for any of this? Where do you get this stuff from? — Agustino

I offer free lessons in how to use a dictionary and search engine. These are just the things they allow the public to know about. Micrsoft just announced they are about to build a topological quantum computer and the race is heating up to produce the next scientific revolution. The world is about to change fundamentally and either you can follow all the action going on or you will be left behind with your head spinning. However, the next five years should be the beginning of the end where a new disruptive technology is introduced every few years.

Flat lenses, graphene supercapacitors and dirt cheap high performance motors in everything will be among the first things people will notice on the market. A single supercapacitor can charge your phone in seconds with enough juice to last a week and should eventually be enough for a month and half. It means what costs $1,500.oo bucks now for a motorized skateboard or bike or whatever should come down to a couple of hundred bucks and eventually be solar powered and as environmentally benign as throwing leaves on the ground, while with flat lenses your cellphone would act as though it had a foot long telephoto lens. Cameras are about to follow everyone everywhere with enough fidelity to diagnose you with skin cancer.

The NSA already has the first gigapixel camera in orbit that can take a single photograph of Manhattan and read any gum wrapper on the sidewalk. They are also making significant strides with terahertz radiation towards building a cellphone sized device that can see right though your cloths and a shoebox sized one that can look through walls merely by shinning the equivalent of an infrared flashlight. You can already buy a cellphone with its own built in microscope.

Do you actually believe this Sci-Fi stuff of self-assembling robots? >:O We can't even cure diseases - like cancer for example - and we'll create self-assembling robots which swarm the ocean, and self-assembling robots of milimeter size which hunt you down? >:O Like for real? — Agustino

There are already contingency plains to put self-assembling robots on the moon to mine helium 3 for nuclear fusion. You send one assembled robot and have it assemble the rest from parts when it gets there. Then you reprogram them to do whatever you want. A 150 million dollar consortium has already formed to explore the technology required to capture an asteroid, bring it to geosynchronous orbit, and mine it for enough platinum alone to replace every aluminum and copper telephone cable and circuit board in the world. Empires are ruled by the distribution of materials and already there are people also investigating mining the ocean floor with robots. The Pentagon has spent over twenty years perfecting the biomechanics, still has research to do on its actual implantation, but the semi-conducting industry is already moving towards putting artificial intelligence in every desktop within five years, and IBM should be finished at that time with their plans to put somewhere between the intelligence of a cat and a human being inside a coffee can sized container that uses a 100 watts.

The planned drones the Pentagon is working on filling the oceans with some 30-40 thousand of can operate on their own for up to a year drawing power from the water itself without having to be recharged. Its what is now referred to as "disruptive technology" that could ruin the world economy overnight, with the looming issue being who gets to disrupt the world economy, how, and when. The money, technology, and weapons are literally taking on a life of their own and the Pentagon has no clue as to how to begin to address such issues. Success has bred paranoia and they have every reason to be very afraid because nuclear weapons were just the beginning of how easy it is becoming for anyone to destroy the world.

The last estimates I saw for genetic engineering suggested anyone with a few million dollars can design their own biological warfare.

Putin needs to expand the Russian economy. Almost nobody can compete against the US, Europe, and Asia dominating the world economy and Russia is being squeezed in the middle and pounded on politically by the US. Putin needs a place at the table and has to at least start haggling for the privilege. The division in US politics is his opportunity of establishing himself as someone worth making deals with.

I'm really not sure which is worst about USA's understanding of the world, its staggering arrogance or its mind-numbing ignorance. If you seriously think that Russia can not call upon any allies then I despair. Belarus, China, and India all consider Russia a primary ally and in a fight there is no doubt that countries facing sanctions from USA at present, Cuba, Iran, North Korea and others would be more than willing to pitch in. Meanwhile where exactly on the border do you think you could amass this invasion force? Kazakhstan? China? Estonia? — Barry Etheridge

Again, my enemy's enemy is my best friend and if Russia thinks that China, Belarus, and India will come to their rescue if they aggressively attempt to expand their borders or start a serious fight with the US they are sadly mistaken. Cutthroat poker is the game, and Russia would not have a snowball's chance in hell of winning that fight even if they all combined their efforts. Its political suicide which is something even insane megalomaniacs like Saddam Hussein and Idi Amin understood.

Britain ruled the waves, and after WWII the US ruled the waves, the air, and space itself. The next race is to conquer self-assembling robots with the navy putting 30-40 thousand robots in the oceans alone. Swarm technology is going to make predator missiles look quaint with millimeter size robots that hunt your down wherever you go and larger ones that blow up in your face. With quantum technology they are even intent on conquering time itself and China has already forbidden the use of time travel as a plot device in their mass media. You can run, you can hide, you can threaten all you want, but your ass will belong to someone else. That's what has Putin all pissed off.

Again, international politics are always about my enemy's enemy being my best friend. China getting along better with Russia than the US is merely more diplomatic schmoozing. When push comes to shove all the little countries align with whoever can support their independence and Russia only supports that of the Slavic states because they have a mutual need for defense. What everyone wants is the money with the US controlling the world's wallet and the largest armory. Without the guns and the money, sooner or later, my enemy's enemy becomes my best friend.

My enemy's enemy is my best friend and Islam hates capitalism without something like sharia law imposed, which isn't terribly capitalistic. Like communism, they are ideologically driven and, if you ask me, both communism and fundamentalism support the same Three Stooges slapstick. The problem is, Christian fundamentalism supports capitalism, while Islam is more neutral on the subject.

I find it quite condescending to say that some nation that has given so much in culture (and science too) needs a strong man, a dictator. The argument that "some countries need strong men" is in the end quite condescending towards the people. — ssu

They aren't a single culture or even a single nation, but a bunch of warring states that been fighting among themselves forever and repeatedly invaded by outsiders. Europeans understand Americans better, just one of our fifty states is the size of an average country, almost everyone speaks the same language and we even tend to all dress the same, yet, we are also the third most populous country in the world and you can drive anywhere in the country without crossing a border. You might as well compare Malaysia to the US as compare Russia because its another marriage of convenience made at the point of a shotgun. Hell, even with all our shared commonalities the US had a civil war, and even China has a lot more unity going for it than Russia.

Hahahaha! That's why Obama talks like a kitten to all world leaders and went on an apology tour. That's why Obama has been allowing the Russians to take Ukraine and install their support for the Assad regime. Remember the line in the sand? — Agustino

Timing is everything and in international politics my enemy's enemy is my best friend, but Russia is nobody's friend and everyone's enemy. Obama can sweet talk Putin all he wants, and Putin knows the reality of the situation that there are no friends in politics and he has no allies. So long as the oil in the mideast keeps flowing dirt cheap to support Assad's war effort the US is looking great with $2.28 gas.

Does anybody actually believe this crap? USA can't even quell a tiny enclave of religious fanatics in the Middle East. Russia occupies 1/8 of the world's total land mass! — Barry Etheridge

Russia is not the whole continent. If Putin wants to live in Siberia I'm sure we can make arrangements. Russia proper is just another country surrounded by border states where familiarity doth breed contempt. If Putin doesn't play nice we'll just keep taking them away from him. "Liberating" them. That's why he hates NATO because he knows Russia has almost no neighbors or anyone else willing to back them up.

And that "buffer zone" is the problem as it makes Russia quite aggressive in reality. It does seek dominance over these countries, just like the Soviet Union. Just ask yourself, why is then it acceptable for Russians to seek a "buffer zone" against a new Napoleon/Hitler coming from the West, that basically isn't coming? In reality it's Putin himself needs an enemy, the evil American elite lead globalists, to give a reason for his police state. He needs it, because otherwise the Russian would be against his cleptocratic rule. — ssu

Russians support strong men dictators like Putin precisely because that is what their situation requires, but its simply not in the US interest to allow them to take those territories without paying the price. Either they learn how to play ball with the US or we'll prevent them from protecting themselves. They know it, we know it, and Putin can threaten nuclear war all he wants and we'll just invade Russia. We've been cussed out by more vicious dictators before and the US has already installed the first Star Wars defense system in response. What we cannot tolerate is someone thinking they can get anything for free.