Ad break.

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Unfortunately, being free seems to involve being free not to do what one ought to do. I had God complaining to me about this the other day.

I'm saying that Nazi supporters are basically Nazis.

if you want to embarrass yourself by claiming that the difference between Nazi Germany and 1930s England is about the same as the difference between modern Russia and modern Ukraine, then I'm not even going to contest it. It's such a ludicrous claim that it doesn't even deserve comment, you crack on. — Isaac

https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/american-nazism-and-madison-square-garden

https://www.historyextra.com/period/20th-century/britain-adolf-hitler-dictator-admiration-appeasement-relationship-britain-germany/

Cracking on, sir, as ordered.

Trying to characterise the woman... imagine an angry toddler with a bag of spanners painted by Hieronymus Bosch.

Warning. Do not attempt to make sense of this government.

I think we might be talking about different kinds of awareness. My focus has been on SA, inseparable from thought. — Amity

Yes. Self-awareness is awareness of self - a complex of habit, memory, thought, narrative, identification.
I am talking of what awareness is, not of what one might be aware.

Lack of confidence, being too self-conscious are hurdles to overcome. — Amity

Now here is something intriguing, or perhaps it is just a matter of accretions of meaning in different contexts ... you seem to be saying that self-consciousness is a barrier to self-awareness. Now I'm wondering what that could mean?

It is an anti-representation theory. Your model of the world works if the end result is that you managed to make nothing unexpected happen. The goal of the brain is not to be aware in an attentive sense.

So the homunculus in chief is the sense of self that arises from being in full control of the flow of reality. The world is unfolding as you already imagined it in terms of your wants and needs. Life is easy. You don’t even have to pay attention or remember.

The future is being cancelled from mind as fast as it can happen. You are driving through busy dangerous traffic and you can’t even really remember the tune you were listening to on the radio as you vaguely daydreamed about this or that. — apokrisis

That has happened to me a few times driving a familiar route, that I find myself arriving with no memory of the journey. And of course the were no cyclists mown down, because if there were any risk of such, the homunculus would have been alerted. Your account of the functioning of the thinking, remembering and decision making mind rings true to me and accords with my experience.

But in relation to the matter of awareness, it simply avoids the question. While I cannot tell you much about that state of absent-mindedness whilst driving, I can confidently say that there was awareness and attention to the road and traffic, because without it there would have been a crash almost immediately. Rather, i would liken that state of mind to a meditative state of alert awareness without the thought narrative.

My theme for the thread has been to distinguish (particularly verbal) thought from awareness. This is naturally rather hard to do in words, and inclined to provoke resistance and incomprehension from thinking verbal minds that dominate philosophy.

Science begins with the observer:- "I think therefore I am", and it seems natural to presume that if I think not, then I am not, but this turns out not to be the case, and the absence of mown down cyclists rather demonstrates it.

Observing and being aware of patterns in the way I learn to be more aware in different situations is awareness of awareness. — T Clark

No. Learning is about memory, and memories are things one becomes aware of when something reminds one. Learning about learning is doubly so. I could put it this way; "Awareness is the present moment", and one can be aware of the past but not in the past. I remember being aware as I wrote that last sentence, that it would likely be confusing, and I am aware as I write this one that I may not be clarifying things much.

It is then noticing it for the first time which is the tricky bit. — apokrisis

Yes, and that's the tricky bit to even talk about. How to notice, how to even notice what it is to notice or as you put it

to kick it upstairs for a full attentive response. — apokrisis

But who is upstairs if it is not the homunculus in chief?

That experience and awareness was helpful in working on other moves. — T Clark

Thanks for that. It's a good description of becoming aware of a subtle sensation that one probably overlooks completely most of the time. I guess it's somewhat similar to the way a musician develops a very precise sense of exactly where their fingers are in relation to keys or strings, a form of proprioception for which we do not really have words.

But I don't think it's awareness of awareness as such. I lie awake in the dark, and very gradually it dawns on me. That is to say I notice the lightening of the sky. but all my description is of the sky of my developing experience of the sky, not my developing experience of what awareness itself is like.

How can an idea be 'empty'? — Amity

If there is a photograph, there must be a camera, but a camera cannot photograph itself, only another camera or a reflection of a camera Thus a camera cannot obtain an image of itself, but proposes that image 'beyond experience', or proposes itself as the unphotgaphable source of photos. One might say that awareness is a virtual image of the unseen seer. One cannot grasp it, but again one cannot dispense with it.

But perhaps I am wrong about this; perhaps someone can describe the experience of awareness. I await with eager anticipation a better explanation.

I've read this a few times now and the meaning is not yet in my grasp. In other words. I'm :chin:
Perhaps if you rephrase the first 2 sentences? — Amity

1. The content of awareness is experience.
2. Experience is everything one can be aware of -self, sensation, ideas, memories the taste of mango, the fear of flying, the sound of mother's voice. Present feeling, past memories, future imagining.
3. Awareness is an idea one has to have in order to understand the world, of something that is outside experience.
Thus one has the idea, but can give it no content, because if it had content it would be an experience that one was aware of not the awareness itself.

So in order not to recreate awareness as an experience one has, that would necessitate another 'one' to be aware of it, I say that we have the idea of awareness, but it has to be empty, silent. Unlike the self, which is this complex of memories ideas and sensations that one is aware of and identifies with.

[This is a repetition in other language of the homunculus problem of indirect realism. You know the story - the eye forms an image on the retina and the optic nerve carries the information to the visual cortex where it is processed, and somewhere behind that is the person who is looking at the screen, rather than directly looking at the world. This is indirect realism, and it is nonsense because the person looking indirectly needs also to have eyes and an optic nerve, and a person in the back of that... ]

So Brexit is not so much an aberration as just one side of a tension that runs through the whole project. We have that in common with the USA. I submit my case. — Cuthbert

I don't see much sign of the US breaking up. My theory is that Brexit is a manipulation of the xenophobic tendencies and imperial nostalgia by the disaster profiteers who have taken over the conservative party. The market manipulation continues with the disaster budget. Expect more crises. It would have been so easy to make a deal with the EU, by simply agreeing to the trade rules - but no, we were so desperate to have the US's chlorinated chicken and fake cheese. But then we couldn't even make that deal, because we 'forgot' the Irish border. I say sabotage!

Below is a rough, first-draft which describes two kinds of people. — Art48

Is this a scientific classification, or a prescientific one? If the former, you should include the research and statistics.

What do you mean by the 'self-complex'? — Amity

Ideas and memories that one identifies with. Answers you might give if I asked you what you're like or who you are. I am ... 70 years old, male, a gardener, philosopher, mathematician, red hot lover, I like marmite and hill walking and I speak French and am married to... not the facts, the habitual ideas or thoughts that occur to me.

How would that manifest as a 'silence' or an 'emptiness'? — Amity

I have to say that, not because I experience something, but because in making the distinction, I have necessarily excluded every positive experience as being 'contents of awareness'. It doesn't manifest, it is the condition required for manifestation. Thus if my inner condition is a cacophony of noise, how can I hear anything? If my head is full of thoughts and anxieties about tomorrow, I cannot give attention to what you are saying. So to be aware is to be silent internally. It is to have room for something new.

So, you are arguably aware of an initial thought — Amity

My main concern in such discussions is to distinguish awareness from the objects or contents of awareness.

So one can be aware of feelings, thoughts, memories, sensations, and so on - or one can have these things but be more or less unaware of them. So, if one can be self-aware, the question arises as to what is the thing that one is aware of - what is the content of that awareness? It should of course be easy and clear what the answer is, because one ought to be aware of it. The answer i give is that self-awareness is always awareness of an idea that one has identified with - the self-complex. To the extent that awareness can be aware of itself, it seems (to me) to manifest as a silence, and an emptiness. I don't know if anyone else has another experience?

I'm in the crack business. It's a rough trade, and subject to much government interference, but it makes me a living.

comparatively speaking. — Olivier5

What are you comparing? The concentration camps in S.Africa and those of the Nazis? the holocaust of the slave trade with the holocaust of the Jews? The argument is too odious to continue.

How do we develop our conciousness and self-awareness?

My first thought... — Universal Student

Is your first thought aware of itself? Or is your second thought a reflection on your first thought (as mine is).

My feeling is that thought distracts awareness away from the present into the labyrinth of thought. Thus the suggestion is that thought and effort in this matter are counterproductive, as if one would strain to relax. the only 'how' to relaxation is to strain, and then stop straining. Think very hard about stopping thinking, and then stop.

Surrender assures peace and save lives. — frank

Well that's obviously not always true. But clearly no one involved is much considering the possibility of peaceful resistance.

Those methods have not proved to work against a ruthless, amoral enemy. — Olivier5

Are you seriously suggesting that the British Empire was anything other than ruthless and amoral?

Gandhi brought Satyagraha to India in 1915, and was soon elected to the Indian National Congress political party. He began to push for independence from the United Kingdom, and organized resistance to a 1919 law that gave British authorities carte blanche to imprison suspected revolutionaries without trial. Britain responded brutally to the resistance, mowing down 400 unarmed protesters in the Amritsar Massacre.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/mahatma-gandhi-changed-political-protest

In theory. In practice, how would you suggest Ukraine to resist Putin's fascist regime and invading armies in a non-violent manner? — Olivier5

I am not sufficiently at peace myself to recommend anything. but the methods are well developed by Gandhi, King and others. It isn't an easy option, for sure.

I think the root of the debate is a profound difference in attitude toward conflict. Where there's a bully, you'll say it's the responsibility of the rest of the population to bow for the sake of peace.

The opposing view is that you have to smash the bully in the nose if you want peace. — frank

Reminds me of MalcolmX accusing Martin Luther king of being an Uncle Tom.

Nonviolent resistance is not non-resistance.

Maybe you could start by making an actual argument with evidence? — Tom Storm

It is, of course a mere dogma that identity is or ought to be unitary, and that dogma, that demands that 'other' voices be silenced, does tend to make those voices antagonistic and sometimes violent; which then becomes the 'evidence' of pathology. — unenlightened

This was the actual argument I started with, which you passed by, and continue to pass by. The evidence is already linked to on the hearing voices network site, that when 'voices' are engaged with and responded to, they are less likely to be negative and violent.

a determinedly negative view you've put based on what seems to be prejudice. — Tom Storm

Do you have some evidence for that? I have presented a particular criticism of psychiatry that it legitimises unitary identity and delegitimises divided identity, without any justification. Your response is not to attempt any justification, but instead to delegitimise my view by fiat and without argument. That seems to me to be prejudicial on your part.

I was talking about psychiatry, not psycho-social and peer support — Tom Storm

The distancing is noted. and it seems, therefore, that the dogma of unitary identity remains in psychiatry. and the 'support' you speak of is that condescending kind that give not an inch of power but 'allows' what was previously forbidden, because it is conveniently cheap.

The hearing voices approach is supported by all the psychiatrists and mental health services I know of here. I think it is well understood that not all voices are problematic. — Tom Storm

I'm very glad to hear it. Shame you waited for me, a rank amateur, to point it out. Such support, mind you, is a rather recent development.

In case you are unaware, there is an alternative view that is at least semi-respectable. https://www.hearing-voices.org

It is, of course a mere dogma that identity is or ought to be unitary, and that dogma, that demands that 'other' voices be silenced, does tend to make those voices antagonistic and sometimes violent; which then becomes the 'evidence' of pathology.

The queen is dead, long live the king!

It's called 'aristocracy'. It's the default system of government of which capitalism is a manifestation. The alternative is the communal ownership of wealth which is disgusting, as every schoolboy know.

Not good news, but good reporting, if you see what I mean. Here's the blog referred to: https://slantchev.wordpress.com/2022/09/25/endgame/

So the US military, DoD, and government are a collection of honest, open individuals working toward collective goals? I don't buy it. — Isaac

Nor do I. And I wasn't selling it either. Western democracies are not in a good state either, and human nature is not that different around the world. The world is in a state of collapse due to cognitive dissonance, and Putin is one amongst many.

These are the two narratives I can't seem to square. — Isaac

Think Achilles, maybe. Think every tragic hero destroyed by hubris. Think Samson, and be afraid. The dark side is always about lies, and the devil is the father of lies. But lies are parasitic on truth, and so the habitual liar destroys the world of communication that they depend on; to the extent that community continues, it establishes communication lines that exclude the liar, who is fed back the lies that he projects.

This means in some ways that there are two worlds ("two narratives", exactly), and two societies, the official vision of order, v the messy reality. The books are always cooked - like the tanks - but the tanks are never cooked in the master's books, and the masterful hero loses touch with reality.

I think one of the lessons of this war that power crazed politicos would do well to learn is that war is a cooperative venture, and relies on good communication because the chaotic situation cannot be planned for in advance. This puts any government that has undermined its lines of communication with habitual lying at a great disadvantage. Those that do not tell the truth, end up not hearing it either.

Philosophy rules them all, obviously, and adjudicates between them, and in the darkness binds them.

Please stop pressing buttons!

I assumed the game has been from the beginning (of Brexit) to bankrupt the country and then move to Panama.

I'm with @Oliver5. The EU has to have some control of its external borders; We could have agreed to stick with the single market, but we didn't, we could have stuck with the customs union but we didn't, we could have stuck with free movement but we didn't. And now there is complaint that because we don't want to cooperate on any these issue, the EU insists on having some checks on the flow of goods into its territory. How very dare they!

(I think I might have to change my handle to 'undelighted'. )

It is time folks stopped talking about religions as thought they are singular entities. They tend to start as counters to the establishment, because otherwise there would be nothing exciting or new; thus in some sense as at least, they start as moral revolutionaries. So boo to rich men and their camels, and hurrah to widows and their mites, for example. This is critical of the established religion of the temple and wants to overturn its moneychangers' tables because they are corrupt, and so on. But almost every religion either dies out or never really develops, or becomes established, because in an anarchy, no one can prevent you from forming a government.

No religion that really insists on peace can become established - Jainism, for example, but tolerance for doublethink is amazingly high, and people are quite capable of banging on about turning the other cheek whilst also banging away with their kalashnikov at anyone who disagrees.

I think the UK should get passed Brexit finally and tackle the present problems. — ssu

Unfortunately, there is no getting past Brexit, hence the slogan 'Get Brexit done'. The Irish question cannot be resolved. As long as North and South were in the EU, the border could be open and thus demilitarised, and the EU functioned as an overseer of fair play. But separation entails a border, so the options are the breakup of the UK and reunification of Ireland, or the imposition of a manned border and resumption of civil war. The current fudge of a paper border in the Irish sea pleases no one and and cannot be sustained forever.

So no deal with the US at least while Biden is king. As far as I can see, the scheme is now to bankrupt the country and move to Panama or somewhere more conducive with the takings. There is no attempt to deal with the crisis at all.

Talking of calculators:
"Nearly 100,000 Russian citizens have crossed into Kazakhstan alone since last week, the country’s interior ministry said on 27 September."
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/putin-mobilisation-russians-flee-across-borders-kazakhstan/

Estimates seem to be very variable as to how many Russians are leaving. Has anyone done any sums yet?