The irony, though, is that your cartel government acts just like your enlightened one, with slight variation. — NOS4A2

Yes and you continue to desire what you'll never have. You're stuck with the government your stuck with.

Anarchists/libertarians want to eat their cake and have it too. They always want justice in the absence of a formal system of justice. If everything were perfect, well life would just be peaches and cream until the end of days.

Imagine you're a Mexican avocado farmer and all of a sudden one day a gang of armed men show up and blackmail you to pay protectionist tax. This cartel "government" will always inevitably appear and you'll wish you'd had recourse to be protected by the services of a more enlightened/fair system. Of course there is the option of collaborative defense but that might take a commitment to share resources, to risk defending others so they will risk defending you.

Or, as T Clark mentioned, you have a nice piece of land with a river you rely on for subsistence, and one day it turns a mineral red and stinks to high heaven. You can't drink or fish anymore. Maybe you can't even stomach the smell. Too bad for you, if whoever is contaminating the river has a self-determined right to do so. Better break out the guns again and take back the purity of your river, if you can. Maybe your family is large enough and subservient enough to want to help you go to war.

The oneupmanship is more or less an idea that could have also had a wider effect on theological and ethical discussions. — I like sushi

Javra's distinction of "power over" versus "power with" in terms of competition and collaboration is appropriate. There is just as much room for the evolution of gods/God within mundane collaborative activities, like in the simple retelling of a story which the audience curates through feedback. I suppose you could say wanting to appeal to an audience is a kind of one upmanship of the self, even when there is no direct competitor involved. If everyone has heard the same old story a hundred times before, acceptable novelty might be encouraged.

The capacity to dream up supernormal stimuli and automatic conceptual fusions also may furnish the first abstract ontological dualism (spirit versus matter). The gods may just as well fall out of the dream world, if it is taken as evidence of a whole hidden world-in-itself.

For this reason I think the heart of the matter of the God concept is due to a break in the means of passing on knowledge and/or uninitiated people misconstruing the stories - basically mistaking the map for the landscape. — I like sushi

Still seems like a reductive conclusion, in light of the cool responses in this thread. Are you just saying the God concept is just another meme, like everything else that might replicate through a game of telephone? It's very Dawkinish/Dennetish. The misconstrual is at times intentional, the flourish of a will to subordinate, teach or delight others, like telling your kids a fat man in a red suit delivers gifts globally to deserving children on Christmas Eve (because your parents did it to you).

Suppose we look into the heavens and see our cultural constellations as gods, with narrative exploits attached to them. We've connected the dots of known stars in familiar patterns as a shared mnemonic/coordinating device for potential navigation. Imbuing those patterns with a godly/sacred significance, story, might serve useful functions from an evolutionary point of view.

We are still sharing consensus dreams (myths) insofar as our maps can never fully close in upon the landscape.

Circles don't exist either, just like the gods. They are just another mathematical meme or organizing principle in a game of telephone. Ok...

It's not part of a grand scientific narrative but you should see the blue carousel bird's courtship ritual.



The social aspect of this collaborative dance troop in training is remarkable (as it reminds me of us). Does kinship explain the cooperation of the junior males? Can more genetically distant birds join a troop? How much variation in the style of dance between populations is there? If we could award a species for the most interesting/complex courtship ritual, who are the contenders?

...

A possible metaphor at the root of this post is closed and open structures in the universe and what that means in relationship to growth, adaptation on all levels.

Here we extend the view to any structure which you could draw a circle around: the individual, couple, family, neighborhood, community, town, city, state, nation...

The transgressive self-aware role play of the artist tries to tinker with aspects of a closed structure to change it for the sake of... novelty, amusement, compassion, beauty, justice, catharsis, uility... The reconfiguration of the world can be pushed to all limits but there is inevitably a threshold of destruction, where the potentially adaptive structure falls apart, crumbles, dies. A human dies and so does a nation.

Jesus thinks himself the Jewish Messiah, the young lamb, while the conservatives sigh and shake their fists "this is not the way, you are messing with the way we do things". Such an innocent play by a young man becomes etched into history as a play of the Passion. They nailed this Jew to a cross and it flowered into the rite of atonement. Now we can do it in the school play.

Jesus, the existentialist role player, is condemned for being inclusive. The act of inclusion is the act of compassion, but this warrants the pious moralizers to expel him. It was just a happy accident, if we must look on it that way.

The critical difference between morality and art is that the former prioritizes exclusion, whereas the latter prioritizes inclusion. — ucarr

The dogmatic face of morality prioritizes exclusion for greater or lesser freedoms. The free flying artist prioritizes inclusion at risk but you can just as well envision such work as a great act of exclusion, being set in opposition to the collective "morality" of life's tiresome busybody bullshit. Life is just maintenance of structures until death and in that we must tweak, convulse and dance to make the boredom bearable.

The hunger artist, tired of the morality of eating, says, "not today, not tomorrow, maybe the next day". Perhaps there no food on this Earth that isn't tinged with weariness of living. The Jains have an ancient rite of ritual starvation, Sallekhana, in the name of compassion for all living things, to expunge all karmas. It might be reserved for older folks but as a statement I think it is very beautiful. Should the state make that ritual illegal?

How strange and transgressive it would be to consider suicide an art form.

your dream has a bit of coherence — javi2541997

It has full coherence in the context of my personal experience. It is just an exaggeration of my worries in the mundane realm.

According to your dreams, wouldn't you accept that there could be two realities? — javi2541997

One reality, two reality, three reality... I'll defer to whatever the consensus is on this as ultimately I don't think it makes much of a difference.

Yet I wouldn't say that all dreams lead me to illusional notions. — javi2541997

Often and recently what occurs in my dreams are supernormal stimului which refer directly to the normal everyday world, and just emerge out of interior worries.

In the real world I am a custodian of a meditation center and a Japanese inspired garden.

In the dream world:

I am the sole custodian of a miniature city (think of the Vatican) with endless water terraces. The subterranean pumping network is endless and so are the levers and buttons. It is altogether too much for a single person to take care of (I get lost). As a lone individual I cannot contain or control the pilgrims who come to the city and treat it as if it were a tourist attraction, who transgress every rule that they were blind to from eagerness to see. The crowd is too big and chaotic to learn how to approach the place.

At other times:

The miniature city/state is completely empty and I go in search of company I cannot find, getting lost.

I believe the two worlds (dreamlike and real) exist. — javi2541997

But this is not true with respect to consensus reality. Also the physical world, which everybody would agree "exists" because it is self-evident, has a relative (illusory/dreamlike) appearance to whatever organism is conscious of it.

We're always inevitably going to hit our heads against the old wall of the "world-in-itself", as if it could/should exist without the perspective of the local observer. As a networking species of consensus making, we will always fall back on the common sense notions for knowing the difference between what is meant by an illusion and the thing that the illusion references in a third-party verifiable world.

To scare children on Halloween!? — RussellA

You might be scaring the "adults" too.

Well, Shawn, pack your bags. We're going to Hollywood.

No one is reading the what is in the Lounge, let alone the forum to make that a concern, unless you want to fall into a conspiracy trap. Maybe it could involve the cyber intelligence wing of Scientology. What services would they be using? Cruise has higher aspirations than to be paranoid about critics and fan boys.

Baden is just being a jerk at the jerkfest, to mock the fools as a fool worth mocking, which is different from being a pious philosopher at the forum (I think?). Mysteries of mysteries, who knows WTFIGO.

Baden wrote that story about the Captain needing his sack flipped. That must've been Cruise.

I have a notion that religion and politics are either nearly or even exactly the same thing. There's a Gordian knot linking religion, politics and morality. — ucarr

There is politics in the conservation/construction of any way of being, wherever there are priests and parishioners (politicians and the public) who are "relating to the citizens", promoting the rules and regulation of that way of being in dialectical good will. It's complicated for sure.

Socrates, the founding father of a type of novel dialectic, was condemned by the state.

I heard some notable Rabbi make the comment that Judaism is "portable civilization". You can carry the art of being Jewish from one place to another and endure or enjoy life through it. But one Rabbi might say you have to cut off the skin of your wiener to be a member of the tribe, while another might say that is unnecessary.

And don't forget about Jesus who broke the walls of Judaism wide open to invite the peoples of all nations... if that is what he did. He was the seed of the Christian tree, with all of its ever growing and flowering branches.

In Church the service is sometimes spiritless, rote, depressing, restrictive. You skip out and go to the movies to watch Euripedes', The Bacchae, to watch in indignant horror, Pentheus, get ripped apart by his own deluded mother, who is possessed by the madness of a cruel god. All for what, the poor guy (though he was a king) didn't believe in a foreign deity of some pantheon. So turns the wheel of Samsara.

Pentheus, as they guy who transgresses good taste or law, by impiety, is here to be considered in the guise of an evil artist as a sacrificial victim, much like Jesus (perceived to be impious by whatever transgression got him killed). Oh the virtue of piety! What impious artist makes a Christian run back to church?

If ucarr is transgressing the bounds of implicit/explicit virtue/etiquette as an artist contra the philosopher, maybe he is the evil artist.

He must run back to church to give what that unanimous crowd demands, in an alignment of the sensible wills of such a peer group: good, clear, hygienic, rigorous and rational sense in selfless service.

Chatgpt may give us a lecture on piety:

"Piety" refers to a deep respect for and devotion to religious practices, beliefs, or duties. It often involves a reverence for the divine, as well as a commitment to moral and ethical principles associated with one’s faith. People who exhibit piety typically demonstrate their religious devotion through regular worship, prayer, rituals, and adherence to religious teachings.

In a broader sense, piety can also encompass loyalty, respect, and duty toward one’s family, community, or country, reflecting a sense of duty and honor in relationships and responsibilities. The concept is commonly associated with virtues such as humility, reverence, and obedience to higher moral or spiritual authority. — ChatGPT on Piety

We're not supposed to talk about Cum Cruise.

In fact, not the least bit evil and in no ways like a writing-desk. — Vera Mont

Thanks for humoring me a bit. :pray: It maybe healthy to leave the desk behind now and again to watch the birds.

Makes me feel rather guilty. I should just STFU and become a nun. :death:

Though there is a perceived lack of humility and good will in the elites, which trickles down the line.

It is another one of my central points of focus: the artist wants to threaten the beautiful woman with something of interest menacing her composure. — ucarr

Am looking forward to Robert Eggers Nosferatu, and the premise is related, pushed to the limit. A young bride is being possessed to the horror of everyone around her, by a really awful demon that wants to copulate with her and she with it (my assumption based on trailer).

But that demon represents what is in us, both men and women, turned up to a degree which threatens an entire community. It is the Id overgrown into a deity, our shadow grown titanic (before which we awe and tremble), the frightful nightmare of human desire gone awry. The transgressions which threaten the status quo in concentric circles from family to nation is a vision of the monster. What is monsterous (akin to all that is deified) is the breakdown of the boundaries of the sacred order, as all kinds of terrible fusions/transgressions occur (like in the transitions of H. Bosch's paintings).

The whole drama is just a meditation on those sinful desires, which can serve a moral function, in so far as we can become aware that they represent the forces within us.

Your thesis sounds in someway evocative or at least relevant to Rene Girard's work (a very weird but interesting kind of Christian). He draws a line between unanimous expulsion of the scapegoat, to the sacrificial rites as what imbues archaic culture with its powers to keep order. It's all very mysterious, archetypal and mythic but it resonates with me.

We are within the ring of the cult/community which may expel us at any time. It just a never ending set of taboos that forms the thresholds of our social structure.

Art makes us aware of those parts of our human nature that, for one reason or another, we are blind to, so the evil-mongering artist who speaks to your soul should not be foregone because s/he drives you home to yourself, and without your homecoming to yourself, you can make no authentic approach to virtue. — ucarr

I think you are right. Artists are another kind of God's priests. They form the other pole of the oscillation you speak of that keeps us on the middle path between two kinds of hell.

Moralizers often carry a lot of filth in their own shadows. The evil-mongering artist can do a lot with that.

@Vera Mont

In the following link, a bird watcher hears a greater racket-tailed drongo mimic the sound of a crested serpent eagle to protect its nest. It's a bit of a taxonomic gap from the corvids but am sure the corvids have some interesting predator/prey dynamics on account of how intelligent people say they are. The sociality of corvids probably makes such defensive/offensive mimicry unecessary.

Tale of the Avian Trickster

The calls and croaks of ravens/crows may direct other scavengers, like coyotes and wolves, in tracking quarry. No mimicry is necessarily involved here (but I'd like to know if it ever is). It's just like the association that forms for the cattle egret, as the birds are drawn by the sound of lawn mowers for what it draws out of the grass. What can be stolen from, opened or left behind by the canids/mowers is propitious for the birds.

Maybe ravens don't know what they are doing, just like the writing desks.

(There is a proffered escape clause, but nowadays that business is too controversial, so I’m leaving it out.) — ucarr

Very interesting post but you should've left this out if you don't want us to ask what this controversial escape clause is. Is it obvious? You must be sinning here.

can't be fooled by sound — Vera Mont

Many species do predator call mimicry. If the nest is being attacked they make the sound of even larger predator to scare off and deter the threat.

The urge to think is a strong one, and one of my big questions is why evolution switched from non-thinking (animals) to only-thinking (humans). But any meditation practice is meant to relax that urge. — Carlo Roosen

An interesting analogy would be in the dance of sexual selection, where the subject/object of your desire demands a great performance. If you pass the test, you get to mate. On the other side, you play competitive sports with your own rivals to practice for ever new encounters. The competition of either the love or war dance ensues, age after age, and they are both linked (ex. the Trojan War of Homer's epic). The evolutionary pressure in competition generates new ways of doing (grows the capacity for doing) which get copied for all kinds of ends.

The ability to manipulate the world via thought has been so tremendous that what constitutes the transient subject/object of anyone's desire is so incredibly varied. But behind it all everyone is still just "getting off" in one way or another, under the restrictions and sublimation of culture.

@Vera Mont



Maybe their imitation is in very limited in scope and range, as their squawks sound much lower frequency than many little song birds. Haven't heard anything very delicate or melodic from them. So yes, am attributing far too much in their capacity, as harsh squawky black birds.

Neither can sing. — Vera Mont

Ravens can mimic song like many other Corvids. I wonder what they get up to in a natural setting, whether they imitate other birds. Could ravens lure prey out with imitation, as a tactic? I would be comfortable with the belief that no birds sing, if primarily a human affair. So, neither can sing if none ever do sing.

Both are evil. — praxis

Well, I imagine you're wearing your Puritanical vestments, brush in hand, looking forward to guiding the wayward spirits this All Saints' Eve to their proper places in hell. The dark raven man is menacing and inky, standing on his desk. Perhaps he is Poe's vengeful spirit.

They aren't evil. It is the third figure that fuses them together in mind, the weirdo animal that sits, thinks, writes and paints, is the most cunning agent of strife, who ponders nonsense riddles. It is the lunatic raven man that turns the charming bird meeting of a "murder" and a "conspiracy" into real murder and conspiracy (sometimes at a desk).

Looks like AI generators have the same skill issue that Adolf Hitler had. Either the perspective is wrong or its just an aberration of architectural features.

Now that the story level problem is solved, how do you solve the windows and doors problem?

How is a closet like a blue tit? — Baden

If only we could make Socrates a bit glad and mad with the question.
He is somewhere, strolling about, talking with poets,
Extolling the virtues of stranger comparisons.

How is a closet like a blue tit?
Half of the question is up in the air, flitting about, like those birds I can't see.
Half of one solution is in a gun closet.

To shoot or not to shoot, that is the question
For the sake of an innocent inquiry.

Rather we also wait with patience, a cage in hand
Adventuring in dales of the countryside
Cunning and quiet
Climbing trees to steal (t)its progeny.

One dead, one living
One closeted, one caged

All for the sake of a needful comparison:

How is a blue tit like a closet?

Perhaps I'm missing the deeper meaning of this topic — Outlander

Doubtful. The topic is as shallow or a deep as you'd like it to be. It actually requires others, like yourself, to give it depth or shallowness. And books, mountains of books! Maybe a living and a dead Raven would help too.

The negative feedback from both sources tortured Edgar Allen Poe while inspiring him at the same time. — Paine

Henry James wrote the following, perhaps on or at a desk: “An enthusiasm for Poe is the mark of a decidedly primitive stage of reflection.” I wonder if James would say that about Borges.

Bryan W. Proctor: “Edgar Allan Poe was incontestably one of the most worthless persons of whom we have any record in the world of letters.” Ouch. Quoth the Ravens: "Nevermore!"

Source -->Twenty-Five Ways to Roast the Raven

I guess it just seems to me there's always more "going on" when it comes to a negative experience or circumstance than a happy positive one where basically nothing is "going on" or like was said "requires no response" and "sets no challenge". — Outlander

One could just as well affirm the opposite of this. Some states of first world discomfort, the emptiness of modern material life from the perspective of a depressed person, "require no response" and "set no challenge" if everything worth pursuing has been given up on. There is no energy left beyond the rutted work of the high standard of our wealthy subsistence (eat, sleep, work, repeat). That is pretty dull.

Though one could characterize the battle to hold on and keep pushing that rock up the hill as a challenge too, to strive against the final surrender to the unknown or the fear of a downward spiral, becoming those sad, forgotten people on the street.

It sounds like a state which "requires no response" and "sets no challenge" isn't really a contented one. Hedonic adaptation is possibly a big complicating factor of our human experience. I think it is going to destroy society (ongoing). One can become accustomed/jaded to ever new levels of experience. I always think about Peter Thiel in this regard of boundless desire. He has 5 billion dollars in a tax free Roth IRA and yet has some weird motivation to mold the world according to his immoral Libertarian dream (that the world should belong to those who can take/shape it and flavors of "might makes right"). There is definitely something wrong with Thiel and maybe it is that he is deeply unhappy. He needs to forever ascend to new challenges, no matter how terrible they seem to us.

The archaic metaphysics/myths of Indian religion (Vedanta/Hinduism) seems to have room for all manifestations of God.

Paramatman/brahman is supposedly devoid of all attributes, despite the attributes of the "absolute", "eternal" and "blissful" sticking to it. It is a true enigma. Is it just the space in which all things occur?

God is empty of God, until some representative/avatar swoops down to try to tell you about extending your cars warranty.

Depression/anhedonia as a sort of locked flat state without the alternation of good emotion, could be characterized as one dimensional. Though even here there is a rhythm of what the mind presents to itself in pulses of exacerbating negativity as a vicious circle, as if one had an itchy wound which when scratched causes both relief and new pain. Maybe sadism/masochsim could be means for such folks to find relief by emotional alternation, or as an solution for a dullness which seems at times intolerable.

Happy lives perhaps are full of wonderful dynamism, balanced in a natural cycle of highs and lows. Contentment pursues itself, not without challenge; it just hasn't been upended and forever frustrated by intractable problems/situations or a perpetual feeling of doom.

If I was God, I wouldn't do what I would do if I was God. — unenlightened

But what would you do that you wouldn't do? That is what we do and don't want to know.

It's less a story than it is an attempt to sketch a picture/scene by words.

Perhaps a "mathematically invalid" structure could employ illusion or contradiction that breaks or bends classical/known laws of physics. But non-classical physics/phenomena, however bizarre, still is captured by the language of maths, assuming one has the time, and resources and body of knowledge to model its recurrent patterns. Detailed observation from either Shang or Xi would make it more interesting -- what precisely are they seeing that leads them to what make such an inference. If their instruments are compromised, why would they jump to the conclusion?

Maybe the structure changes radically depending on their location. Shang might register a Parthenon while Xi sees something like a giant coral. They share each other's data to know the structure pattern is seemingly location or observer dependent. Data sharing could also change the structure.

Though if this happens may they should just flee at this point and return to their consensus reality if at all possible. Back to their home, where Shang and Xi open the fridge to find the cold beer is cold beer and the couch is as soft and comfy as they remember. Hopefully they are not forever entangled/changed by what they encountered in a harmful way.

Facts are only an ideal perfection, something we would like to achieve but cannot. — Plex

Many facts aren't ideal perfections written in stone, they're relative, provisional, ephemeral, context dependent, general or specific bits of information that help us navigate the world and achieve goals (whether "foolish" or "wise").

I always tell the protagonist in a horror movie or thriller to stay the hell out of that basement; I yell and swear at them, but they never listen. God probably feels the same way sometimes. — Vera Mont

God wouldn't get to watch the dramatic unfoldment by his own (atrocious) desire if no one comes around to open the basement door. Someone will always open the basement door. You can count on it.

Having just watched Robert Eggers The Lighthouse, after learning he is reviving the cinematic tale of Nosferatu, the horror fantasy influence is too much on my mind. Halloween is going to last until the very end of this year what with the scary election in Nov and the cult of the skin wearing orange man. Will we survive?

"My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" :death:

the concept of God arose through a combination of competitive story telling (one-upmanship) fed into real life boasting to the point where slowly a Higher Being came into fruition — I like sushi

Most of the commentary in this thread seems mutually compatible and complimentary to your idea here.

Gods are definitely inflated and deflated by human rivalry/competition. The divine right of kings is an example of leveraged belief to secure/conserve power. One invokes the bigger fish of spirit as a representative of official sanction.

"The doctrine asserts that a monarch is not accountable to any earthly authority (such as a parliament or the Pope) because their right to rule is derived from divine authority." — wiki: Divine right of kings

One can imagine the endless stories that serve to secure or depose one who enjoys the blessings/curses of a high status positions. If gods are not born from politics per se, they certainly evolve through it.

In Mandrills, sexual competition between males results in a hormone feedback cycle. Successful males gain a phenotype change. The troop leader is adorned by a phenotypic aura of color and shape, which serves as a signal to all others. Now throw story telling into the mix. His color might be a sign of his divine right as a king. If he may potentially be deposed by a rival, there is "always another Mandrill" to take his place. One may fantasize about the other (if fantasy is possible) and dream of all kinds of unsettling surreal exaggerations. These stories generate from all tellers, all dreamers, and are shaped by desire and fear. Mutually recognized/affirmed status between unequal members might favor the perpetuation of a shared story from shared desire. A rival might seek to subvert consensus belief for personal advantage.

I think both form and content are missing from the blob Bob received. — frank

You mean that intended, desired or expected form and content are missing. The blob is still a form and generates content for Bob. If it didn't have form or content, as the thing he knows should be otherwise, Bob wouldn't know what he received.

Bob's blob would be more interesting if it were a story entry. Bob watches The Blob after receiving the blob. The unformed blob now terrorizes Bob, makes him feel nauseous because he cannot grasp its form or content. It becomes for Bob a mentally pernicious all consuming entity. Bob must form it himself, must tame the clay, to calm an agitation or cure his ill. The newly fired figure he makes works for a while but serves as memory of its origin. Bob is contaminated by endless spontaneous content of the blob and is driven into madness and ends his life.

Bob's ashes happen to be dispersed into a clay deposit, from which an artist of a future period takes source material.

I'd be afraid to tell humans that they are the children of God (my children), for fear of what that privilege entails in their own minds.

Whereas Adam and Eve were caste out of the garden for a transgression they didn't understand, some new great reversal might occur by putting up a sign on my (God's) basement door that reads: "Do Not Enter!"

Do you dare go into the basement? That odd smell coming from the basement is a sign that you should not go in there. It's locked, you can't get in. Don't try. You're not allowed in the basement. You wouldn't understand what you see there anyway. It's nothing. Don't worry about it.

Under no circumstances are you permitted to go into the basement. There will be consequences if you do.

Indubitably, you will copy me (God) as soon as you see what I'm doing in the basement. So stay out!

You can't be God if I am God. Duh!

Simply because you don’t share your boss’ motor-cortex. You are responsible for what you do while your boss is responsible for what he does. It’s simple physics and biology. — NOS4A2

This could be a matter of mutable perspective. I might as well be a mechanical limb at this point, controlled by speech impulses, which he would gladly toss if it stopped working.

Would The Malleus Maleficarium cause you to kill someone? I doubt it. — NOS4A2

It's much more a condition of mass belief, or socially pressured acts. If everyone was in danger of being targeted as a witch it is possible I'd be much more likely to participate in finding witches as a survival mechanism.

False information cannot cause people to believe false information or act on false information. — NOS4A2

This seems to me like a ridiculous generalization. If I lie to my boss this morning which makes him take unnecessary action, why can't I be held responsible for causing my boss to take action? False information has probably driven people to commit suicide on rare occasion. There have been those sextortion crimes of young folks on social media recently causing suicides. The Malleus Maleficarium of the 15th century caused paranoid adults to kill a lot of people. It is an example of the dispersal of a text ramping up domestic terror.

Global society is built on the power of people acting on information they trust is true. Misinformation at an excessive level undermines this trust.

Let's see which injuries you can inflict on me with your speech. — NOS4A2

Jesus Christ NOS. We could get you killed with speech.