"Begin by learning 'how to discern what is from what is not and then align expectations – beliefs – with what is'" — 180 Proof

That's where we differ. I come from a family of architects, and the architect functions by imagining a building that is not and then seeking to realise it.

I often think all language is metaphor, whatever it might be. — Tom Storm

I agree. It's all pattern recognition; a cat is a thing like another thing called a cat, and a big cat is another thing like a cat, only bigger. An engine runs like man runs, with rhythmic movement.

This is an interesting thesis. I've often argued that we replaced the worship of god with note worship of 'reality' and I don't think we have access to reality or can even define it, except in the shallowest terms.

Where do you see the solutions to these problems you have described? — Tom Storm

The way I sometimes put it for modernist consumption is that something or other must be the most important thing in your life, or else nothing is important. That thing, or nothing is your god. From there, I will say that the worst thing to put at the centre of your life is Self, and the best is Love.

And then I would like to forbid any discussion about the existence or non-existence of these, because the game is to realise them in one's life. One might believe in 'truth, justice, and the American way', but no serious person could claim they exist, only that they seek to manifest them in the way they conduct own life. Gods such as Sophia, that we claim to be lovers of here, are our own potential, aspired to, and sought after.

"Where are these gods?", the literalist asks; and whatever answer they are given, they will go and not find them; not in the sky, and not on Mount Olympus. For the literalist, wisdom is the belief in its own non-existence.

I'm not saying that Christianity has the answers, or that any religion has the answers. I'm not saying that things were better in the good old days. Humans live in conflict because conflict lives in them. Mainly what I am attacking is the implied moral superiority of the modern mind. It is the same mind as the primitive mind, but has lost the language with which to even talk about the conflict, never mind resolve it.

The language of human psychology is always mythological, because psyche cannot contain a complete understanding of itself. The scientific mythos is so impoverished as to be useless - mind as malfunctioning computer. Switch yourself off and on again, or take yourself to a technician.

Was its concern with how people should live exercised with more tolerance and open mindedness? — Tom Storm

We burned witches and apostates, as I recall, and enslaved the heathen. More tolerant and open minded than who, though? Are you seeing the triumph of open-minded tolerance all around you?

I'm seeing supposedly civilised countries that are poisoning the world and so concerned with perfecting their weapons that they cannot even feed and house their own citizens. I tolerate it, though.

Well that's put me in my place, Cartoon god. Leaving Irony to reign supreme.

Thanks for your interest everyone; excuse me for not responding to all individually. I hope to have covered above the two main themes of the responses: the attempt to understand the primitive mind, and the attempt to defeat the primitive mind.

Unfortunately, there does not seem to be much appetite for the reflexivity of critically understanding modernity itself, or the roots of its catastrophic destructiveness. The topic arises as I reflect on the question - "how has humanity gone so terribly wrong, that we can control everything except ourselves?"

So critical intelligence is the cause of literal-minded ignorance? Freethinking causes unthinking violence? Logical thinking causes magical thinking? — 180 Proof

In this case, critical intelligence is literal minded ignorance, because its is directed at questions of what is and what is not, when the topic is how to live.

"Foxes cannot speak, therefore the fox did not say that the grapes were sour."
"Foxes can so speak, because Aesop says, and Aesop is the fount of all wisdom."

Literal minded ignorance producing literal minded ignorance. This exchange did not happen, and therefore can be ignored.

From a broader perspective though the way I see the process is that Religion was culture; then it became politics; then it became science. Culture itself was fundamentalist in isolated groups and Religion couldn't be separated from it. In order to have a Self at all, you believed and your belief was your Self. There was no other option or reality. — Baden

The way I would prefer to start is that religion was abstraction, where abstracts were personified as gods, - wisdom, war, sex, death, etc, because personhood is the natural explanation for everything. The river floods because it is angry, or because it is bountiful, depending on the circumstances. Motion is always the result of motivation. The tide is the slow breathing of the Sea...

Climate, for the ancients is the disposition of Gaia.

The idea of unmotivated motion - of things just rattling around for no reason is a peculiar modern perversion. No, this is nonsense, there is no difficulty about self, and no belief or establishment required. Quite the reverse, that difficulty is created as the result of the Cartesian depersonalisation of the world, that leaves one with thoughtless things, and thinking things, and seemingly no connection between them.

And so in the end there is no reason but my reason — Self has replaced the gods. The Nietzschian Abyss of Self become vacuous arbitrary god.

Behold the unholy trinity of unenlightened!

Verily I say unto you, there is an old fart in the mythical realm of Wales, who does a bit of gardening. And it came to pass that the old fart sent his only seagull avatar even unto the old philosophy forum, and he was called "unenlightened". And behold, unenlightened was made administrator and did perform many wonders of banishment and casting out of trolls, calming the storms, and editing the 5,000. And His task being accomplished with the passing of the old forum, he did resign his post, and did not take it up in the new philosophy forum. But he did send his frog/horse avatar to be a discomforter, and to lead his people from the back-benches in the ways of philosophy. And though the gardener is not the administrator, and the administrator is not the annoying poster, yet they are the same person. This is a mystery unfathomable to mere mortals, and must be accepted on faith.

Holy shit, man. Why not just totally flip out about something that really doesn't matter? — frank

Why not just retire disgracefully? Why go on defending something you think doesn't matter? Why try and make out that I've got a problem, because I dare to question your bullshit?

Is your ego that fragile?

I predict a triumphant and decisive victory for Ukraine, that does not extend to severing the land bridge, retaking Mariupol, re-taking Crimea, or re-establishing the old borders at any point. Russia utterly humiliated, and yet undefeated, and undeterred.

I hope I am wrong.

The term started out as a derogatory term. — frank

Wiki says not. Do you have any evidence that wiki is wrong?

I'm not sure what you're asking. — frank

I'm asking as politely as I can whether you have any evidence of its being used as a derogatory term, aside from the derogatory attitude sensible folks have subsequently taken to the online self- styled internet groups?

And I think I have my answer; you got nothing.

My give a damn is busted. — frank

I give a damn, though, that you are peddling blatant untruths on the forum, and thereby derailing and undermining a proper discussion.

a derogatory term for a guy who can't get laid. — frank

https://www.google.com/search?q=Is+%22incel%22+a+derogatory+term+for+a+guy+who+can%27t+get+laid.&client=safari&rls=en&ei=N1pzZOexOZCR8gKkppHIDA&start=20&sa=N&ved=2ahUKEwinqYCbkpj_AhWQiFwKHSRTBMk4ChDy0wN6BAgFEAc&biw=1252&bih=598&dpr=2

There are two meanings of "incel.". One is a derogatory term for a guy who can't get laid. The other is a self-applied term for guys who think there's something wrong with our society that would be corrected by reducing the autonomy of women. — frank

Can you provide anything to suggest that you have not just invented this? Wiki has only the second meaning :

An incel (/ˈɪnsɛl/ IN-sel, a portmanteau of "involuntary celibate")[1] is a member of an online subculture of people who define themselves as unable to get a romantic or sexual partner despite desiring one.[2][3][4] Discussions in incel forums are often characterized by resentment and hatred, misogyny, misanthropy, self-pity and self-loathing, racism, a sense of entitlement to sex, and the endorsement of violence against women and sexually active people.[5][17] The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) described the subculture as "part of the online male supremacist ecosystem" that is included in their list of hate groups.[18][19] Incels are mostly male and heterosexual,[13][15][20] and are often white.[21][22][23][24][25] Estimates of the overall size of the subculture vary greatly, ranging from thousands to hundreds of thousands of individuals.[26][27]

Since 2014, multiple mass killings have been perpetrated by self-identified incels, as well as other instances of violence or attempted violence. Incel communities have been increasingly criticized by scholars and commentators for their misogyny, the condoning and encouragement of violence, and extremism. — wiki

Ukrainian Counteroffensive is Coming Soon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCrZ-FqMyDg&ab_channel=TheInfographicsShow — RogueAI

As pro Ukrainian propaganda goes, that video was pretty depressing. Ukraine has some 2000 new armoured vehicles, hurrah. But Western enthusiasm and supplies are running out, Russia has 400,000 new troops, arms from abroad, hardened defences, and now help from China. Oh, and they're busy in the occupied territories annihilating any trace of a resistant Ukrainian population, and Ukraine have just given away all their troop dispositions in an intelligence loss.

That's going to have to be a completely stunningly impressive counteroffensive.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/childhood-adverse-event-life-expectancy-abuse-mortality/#:~:text=A%20difficult%20childhood%20reduces%20life,large%2Dscale%20epidemiological%20study%20finds.

https://www.cdc.gov/genomics/disease/epigenetics.htm#:~:text=Epigenetics%20is%20the%20study%20of,body%20reads%20a%20DNA%20sequence.

I commend to you all the film, The Sessions. It is about a man paralysed from the neck down who wants to have sex. This is no more an incel than I am an involuntary non-climber of Everest. Allow your compassion free rein.

https://www.imdb.com/video/vi2836703001/?ref_=tt_vi_i_2

An old joke - Shut up he explained. — T Clark

I don't think this is a joke at all. Feeling disempowered doesn't imply anything. It is a common and understandable reaction to an unsatisfying life.

Then you need to start being a bit more clear what it is you disagree with and on what basis.

Perhaps, but it doesn't imply "...that there is a male need/right to heterosexual sex that society, (women specifically,) ought to provide and does not. — T Clark

No, that's implied by the other half of the word IN(voluntary)CEL(ibate). The complaint is that they are disempowered from heterosexual sex. Dude, It's looking like you have no idea what is being talked about. 8 pages in that is not a great look.

Feeling disempowered doesn't imply anything. — T Clark

Feeling disempowered implies feeling a desire or need for power. Do you feel wingless? Probably not unless you wish you were a butterfly or an angel or a pilot or something.

Modern liberal democracies, while remaining patriarchal, no longer see fit to so self-describe. — Baden

if you take the incel movement as a filter to view society you get neither an entirely clear nor an entirely distorted view. — Baden

If you listen to the rhetoric, you get a totally distorted view where Kings and queens and politicians and functionaries are all selflessly "serving" civil society.

If you listen to the rhetoric, rape is a terrible crime that must be a top priority to investigate and prosecute.

If you listen to the rhetoric, God, himself is a suffering servant, and He has appointed the great and the good to wisely rule over the people.

The way doublespeak works is that the preaching is "It doesn't matter whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game." but the practice is that it doesn't matter if you cheat as long as you win. This is mainstream culture, and as old as politics and patriarchy. Rape is a terrible punishment for wayward women, that is rarely itself punished because it 'encourages the others'. The incel movement is patriarchy without the bullshit – patriarchy exposed. OF COURSE, no patriarch will admit this, even to themselves. We are lovers of women, not haters.

Here's a question, would you say what ideologies are in power, what is culture and what is counterculture, can change over time? And what then would be the criterium by which we judge that? I'd say that criterium would be power. — ChatteringMonkey

Sure, culture changes. I presume that matrilineal culture was dominant in prehistory, simply because we knew where babies come from - between the legs of a woman. Somewhere about 1-2 millennia BC. patriarchy came to dominate. But I don't know how you measure power in this context. The ruler needs an army; the chess player needs pawns, and the little people are what the culture is made of, more so than the powerful's ablity to control it.

To change the mix of metaphors; the powerful can only blow the dog- whistle that the dogs have already been trained to respond to.

Power is a vital aspect of the patriarchy. I don't think Incels have much power, on the contrary, they seem very much a marginal group. — ChatteringMonkey

But appearances are deceptive. Compare with the case of the poor white racist:

The deputy sheriffs, the soldiers, the governors get paid
And the marshals and cops get the same
But the poor white man's used in the hands of them all like a tool
He's taught in his school
From the start by the rule
That the laws are with him
To protect his white skin
To keep up his hate
So he never thinks straight
'Bout the shape that he's in
But it ain't him to blame
He's only a pawn in their game. — Dylan

Maybe counter-culture vs mainstream is not the right binary — Baden

But it is the right binary.
1. The culture is patriarchal.
Therefore:
2. The counterculture is feminist.

3. The incel movement is aligned with and has the same goals as the culture.
Therefore:
The incel movement is aligned with mainstream culture.

I think this is step one for understanding and dealing with the situation. Conflating those two groups isn't helpful. Both may experience self-loathing but the characteristic trait of incels is that they see women as animals to be used and abused for their pleasure and resent any social structure that prevents that. — Baden

what I think is important to understand is that the incel movement is not part of the counter-culture, it is part of the mainstream, just as rape is, and just as laws against abortion are. They all function to control women's sexuality in society in support of patriarchy. They are part of the system of punishment for women that are not under the control of a man.

One might look at the defining features of such a group and the direction in which it seeks to influence society.

The incel is male, and self-defining as disempowered ( because 'involuntary') as a sexually active person. This immediately implies that there is a male need/right to heterosexual sex that society, (women specifically,) ought to provide and does not.

Incels demand vaginas like wheelchair users demand ramps, and parents of infants demand changing facilities, and black people demand fair policing. If one felt great sympathy with this deprived group, one might suggest state funded sexual social workers, to fill their needs. No one seems to have suggested that here , though. Ordinary private prostitution is the other obvious option for a freedom loving capitalist society, but again, that hasn't been put forward here, and is not indeed considered a solution by the movement itself.

What is left to agitate for, but the enforced subservience of women such that they do not have the right to refuse? This is called "rape culture".

Patriarchy is the necessary accompaniment to patrilineal inheritance. It is important to understand this because the essence of patriarchy is the control of women's sexuality. It is easy to see this in how attitudes to promiscuity differ between the sexes — "Boys will be boys", but girls must never.

And the reason is that fatherhood is uncertain ( short of the very modern DNA test) unless the man has control over the woman. There is very rarely any question of who a child's mother is, and for this reason, a matriarchal society is by no means an inversion of patriarchy; the need to control sexuality simply does not arise.

The logic is very straightforward: IF men inherit property, name, and status from their father, THEN the father must be confident that his son is his; and therefore that his woman is exclusively his. Therefore marriage, therefore virginity, therefore monogamy, therefore patriarchy, therefore rape culture.

Matrilineal inheritance means that a woman's daughters inherit property, name, and status from their mother, then biological fatherhood loses its importance former and women alike. A man's allegiance is as much to his sister's children as to his wife's, and maybe more so. Thinking through the implications is difficult, and needs great care because the patriarchal model is the default, and almost none of its needs regarding sexual politics are needed in matrilineal matriarchy.

It's a protest against the liberation of women. A man without a woman is like a bully without a victim.

How childish of you! Reminds me of 'The Emperor's New Clothes.'

Our economic beliefs are making the planet ill. We are pulling the cards out from the bottom of a finely stacked pyramid. And planet earth's immune defences are coming against us slowly but surely. She is getting feverish — Benj96

Sadly your diagnosis is entirely correct, and @Varnaj42 will no doubt welcome the cleansing medicine that Nature will prescribe. But personally I'm not down on the children, I blame the parents.

But can we be aware of our soul, or must we accept its existence on faith? If we can't be aware of our soul, then why should we care about its eternal fate? — Art48

I'm not sure. I think I'm articulating a fairly commonplace conception of soul as having its home in another world, such that "now we see through a glass, darkly", etc. The soul as something that cannot be contained in Earthly form, be that Earthly awareness or Earthly body. I think we can have intimations of something beyond what we are clearly aware of, but I don't have anything solid in the discussion. 'Why should we care?' is a dangerous sort of question. We cannot be aware of the complex activities of our body cells, but we do care that they are maintained and ordered so that -for example voluntary movement can happen. Why should we care about what is beyond our awareness? Because our awareness is limited and small.

If we can be aware of our soul, then doesn't that mean that soul can be contained in awareness?

I don't see why? I am aware of you, but you are not contained in my awareness.

Yes, climate fluctuations, population crashes, and mass extinctions are normal features of Earth history.

I'm not worried at all about the next one, because I've got my stash, and everyone else is an idiot.

How would you describe the relationship between awareness and soul? — Art48

I would liken awareness to the way vision works; that one is sharply aware of whatever is the centre of attention, that might be part of oneself, a toothache perhaps, or might be (in my case just now) a question one has been asked, and vaguely aware of other things - the sun streaming through the window, the rattle of the keys as I type, a buzzing fly. And beyond that there is a world of things I might turn my attention to, a memory of a job I have to do later, a rumbling stomach because I am ready for lunch, the movement of the trees outside ...

And beyond all that a dark universe of people and things that I can imagine living their lives around me in their own houses, that I am unaware of, along with all the bodily processes that I presume must go on - circulation of blood, tissue repair, digestion, etc. And the soul is also dark to the greatest extent, because I am absorbed in this carnal life, just as within this incarnation, I can be absorbed in a book, or absorbed in the attempt to express something as best I can.

I imagine my soul as inhabiting another realm - call it a 'higher reality', or 'heaven', or the 'spiritual realm', and voluntarily immersing itself in this particular life as an educational, or character-building exercise, or just an entertainment, as one might play an interactive game, or listen to a lecture. A physicalist would explain it simply as 'the unconscious', but they have no more warrant for that than I have for my imaginings. Whereof one is unaware, thereof one can only bullshit.

It seems that either awareness and soul are identical, or awareness contains soul. — Art48

I don't feel this is right. If I am reading a good book, or watching a film, or playing a game, my awareness is absorbed in the 'action', to the extent that I lose any awareness of, and temporarily forget, my body sitting in the armchair. This is my experience, that my awareness can be focussed on, and filled with, one thing to the exclusion of others. One hears of sportsmen playing on with broken bones, so absorbed in the game that they do not notice the damage and feel the pain.

And of course the detachment from the body of a rugby player is not the realisation of the adept. On the contrary, the awareness of the holy man is very present and sensitive to the physical world in all its interactions with the body. I suggest that he does not make an identification either as 'pure consciousness' or as body, but makes no identification at all.

Attachment to the body, you have dealt with, but consider the sin of attachment to the mind; the attachment to the idea of oneself as having risen above the mundane world - that is where pride - even pride in one's imagined humility - can imprison awareness in a very small cell.

The truth of a sentence can generally not be determined by the theory. The general case is that it must be externally supplied. — alcontali

Thanks for your very clear exposition of the logic.

Applying this to ordinary language, which does not separate T1 and T2 and is therefore liable to get into a bit of a mess when talking about itself and 'truth', one finds that the language itself cannot decide whether "The cat is on the mat." is true or false. This is exactly what most of us want, because we do not want to be talking about the language, but about the cat. Generally, the cat determines where the cat is, and thereby the truth value of the sentence. This is only a problem for folks that want to live entirely in their own heads and have their inner monologue determine everything.

a fair amount of the presently adopted "to do" list is pointless gesturing. — frank

Indeed, and everyone is rowing back even on the pointless gestures. Had to laugh at the UK leading the way on carbon reduction by tanking the economy. Half the country is dependent on food hand outs and cannot afford to cook or heat their homes. Quite the achievement! Of course when Bangladesh is 90% under water, they may overtake us.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/commentisfree/2021/apr/13/sea-level-rise-climate-emergency-harold-wanless

This article is an old one, but predictions have not changed all that much for the more optimistic since.
Rather than argue back and forth about whether humans will go extinct or merely become an endangered species, let's have a bit of a think about the loss of major cities, and arable land that result from a sea level rise of 20ft (6m.)

Two to three feet of sea level rise may not sound like much, but it will transform human societies the world over. In south Florida, where I live, residents will lose access to fresh water. Sewage treatment plants will fail, large areas will persistently flood, and Miami Beach and other barrier islands will be largely abandoned. In China, India, Egypt and other countries with major river deltas, two to three feet of sea level rise will force the evacuation of tens of millions of people and the loss of vast agricultural lands.

This by 2050. If I was a mortgage company, I would be stopping lending in low lying coastal towns.

And of course it's not going to stop at 3ft, nor at 6m.

Argue if you like about whether to call it sea level change, or sea level emergency, extinction or population reduction. Call me an alarmist, though; I aim to cause alarm, rather than playing 'abide with me' while the ship sinks.

Colonization is a fiction too because tribes had no governments and thus nothing could be stolen. — NOS4A2

Of course, theft is a corollary of property, as is government.Hence the anti-government slogan, "Property is theft." Property is necessarily appropriated from the commons — what is appropriated to personal use and control, everyone else is deprived of the use and control of. That is the process of colonisation.

Property is the first superstition. Property rights are what government is built on. As the man said "Render unto the federal government that which has the federal government seal upon it" - that eye in the pyramid thingy, or whatever.

Libertarians do tend to forget that the privacy of their estates, large or small, are a fiction maintained by government.