Is the passage from Beyond Good and Evil? It's author has a nice turn of phrase.

I think that Nietzsche did believe "reality" is chaos. It is becoming, not being. He believed that based on philosophical and scientific views he took from others. — Πετροκότσυφας

Why do you think this? I'm asking because I tend to be heavily reliant on a Schopenhauerian outlook when I'm interpreting N. I occasionally wonder if I'm taking that too far.

Yes, I can't help imagining a a group of monkeys, or primitive humans sitting on a ridge in the Rift Valley, dreaming up complex patterns of grunts and interpretations of grunts, becoming gradually more sophisticated until they are organising themselves into religious and political groupings. Each pattern of grunts becomes a competing ideology with the most effective and persistent outliving the others and corralling the groups. And that we are still continuing the tradition, while imagining we are superior to this in some way. — Punshhh

But Christianity didn't exactly outlive the other worldviews that existed in its infancy. It absorbed them. I think that's generally how conversion works. If I want to convert you, I find out what's important to you and just swap names. Voila. You're converted.... maybe dunk you in water and then call you converted.

In that way, when people convert, they change the religion they're converting to. Chinese Buddhism has Taoism in it because Taoist words were used to translate it. Those words already had meaning in Taoism.

Are we talking about the stickiness of memes?

Going back to Christianity, they went to great lengths to set their identity and ideology in stone, literally quite often. As I write this I look up and see a church tower that was built in 1100AD, so it has sat in the middle of this village for nearly a thousand years.

What's the stickiness of memes? I agree that Christians put some effort into reinforcing the Christian identity, but the religion had been around for centuries before that happened.

You're looking at a Gothic structure for which I'm insanely jealous. Ever read Otto Georg von Simson's book on Gothic architecture? I had a weird experience of that book.

Memes, ideas, ideologies that stick around, infiltrate.
Here's the church, flint construction as most are around these parts.

(L)

As Punshhh said, Nietzsche has a "nice turn of phrase"; it's good literature. However, I think wisdom should be expressible in simple terms that the average man or woman could understand. A passage may be as complex, subtle and allusive as you like, but whatever wisdom is in it should be able to be distilled to a few words, and rendered as a simple truth; even if the simple expression of that truth might be seen to be, in a certain sense, a kind of 'lessening', or even inappropriately concrete hypostatization of the more subtle expression. What, in the simplest terms, do you think Nietzsche is trying to say in this passage?

That's the issue. The mind is not so much an obstacle as an irrelevance. Quiet sanctuary is achived by many. Anyone can do it. All it takes is living the moment rather than theorising about what logic, description or concept amounts to your existence.

The mystic tells a falsehood: that respect for being and noumenon is given by abandoning thought and saying the (conceptual!!!) "mystery" formed them. Rather than quieting of the mind, it is the mind yelling at the top of its lungs, demanding that respect for being and the noumenon requires this concept of mystety (which is what makes the mystic profound over everyone else).

No doubt in living, the mystic achievies contentment, as do many others, but that's not the issue. It's understanding of contentment which the mystic gets wrong. It sees them demand contentment is a matter of realising that being is given by concept of "mystery."

What you write shows so little understanding of what mystics in general speak about that it leads me to doubt that you ever read any mystical texts, or made any serious attempt to understand them.

What do you think my point is? It's exactly that: disagreement; the mystic's understanding is incoherent. Of course I don't understand as the mystic does. If I understood like the mystic, I would think it's true that contentmentmust be made thinking the concept of "mystery" and living the practices connected to it.

Despite understanding what the mystic thinks and how the mystical is important to them, I certainly don't understand as they do. I think their account of meaning is (descriptively) mistaken. My realisation of being's mystery and its profundity is only hypothetical. I can think like a mystic, but it's only ever pretend. I know what they argue, what they think is important, but I do not live it.

Here your accusation doesn't make sense because whether I know what the mystic thinks doesn't make a difference to my point. I could be ignorant of what they thought, just consider mystics "monstrous madmen," and my lack of living the mystic philosophy would be just as strong.

The only way your accusation makes sense is if you expectation of "making a serious attempt to understand" would result in me holding mystics had a coherent postion. It's quite literally to consider the point I'm making to be impossible, as if somoeone couldn't seriously consider mystical thought and come away with a conclusion it was incoherent.

But you haven't seriously considered it, have you? So, you don't know whether it's possible and your point is vacuous.

↪Punshhh

That's the issue. The mind is not so much an obstacle as an irrelevance. Quiet sanctuary is achived by many. Anyone can do it. All it takes is living the moment rather than theorising about what logic, description or concept amounts to your existence.

Quite, but it is your assumption that the "theorising about what logic, description or concept" is in some way an alternative to quiet sanctuary. It might be for some, including those who are being mislead, or exploited, but for genuine practicing mystics part of the practice is in developing the discipline to manage ones own internal life and experience. For example, a mystic will have all their philosophical, spiritual ideology as a kind of reference library in their memory. But this is kept seperate (including its content) from other action and being through disciplined practice. Likewise when it comes to their living in the external world and likewise for when they take sanctuary, or any other of a number of other practices. None of these regions of their being impinges on the other and the practiced mystic will easily draw from a number of these regions for a specific purpose, or action, while maintaining an inner freedom from their uncontrolled impinging on their internal space. There are systems and practices specifically developed to enable this kind of mental discipline.

The mystic tells a falsehood: that respect for being and noumenon is given by abandoning thought and saying the (conceptual!!!) "mystery" formed them. Rather than quieting of the mind, it is the mind yelling at the top of its lungs, demanding that respect for being and the noumenon requires this concept of mystety (which is what makes the mystic profound over everyone else).

This is an incorrect assessment, perhaps because you are observing mystics who have succumbed to forms of vanity. This is understandable as we are human and this is human nature. This is nothing that a healthy dose of humility won't dispel.

No doubt in living, the mystic achievies contentment, as do many others, but that's not the issue. It's understanding of contentment which the mystic gets wrong. It sees them demand contentment is a matter of realising that being is given by concept of "mystery."

Again you display a lack of understanding here. It is as I say understandable for there are people around who for whatever reason do make these mistakes, as in any walk of life. For the mystic the role of mystery is in the acceptance of the mystery in life. Or in other words to develop an awareness of what we don't know, or understand and the extent to which some aspects of our life are mysterious even in the face of logic and reason.

Essentially the processes in the life of a mystic are to develop an awareness of, a control of and an alteration in the orientation of the person within the world. The primary step taken before this can be done is to strip away metaphorically the person from the being and establish a communion with the noumenon (God in traditional language). Thus establishing a stable anchor for the self which could be put off course during the practice. Provided these processes are done well none of the mistakes, or dubious ideologies you allude to are of any concern.

However I do realise that due to there not being any academically established and regulated mystical school in the world at this time(with the exception of those that can be found within a few religious traditions), it is a "Wild West" out there and any budding mystic will have to establish their own foundations to their practice which is not easy especially when there is no one telling them what information is useful and what is a distraction.

OK, that's a fair start, What attributes, then, would you say Nietzsche thinks science has, such that it would be a "precious tool" for the job of aiding philosophy in its task of telling us how to live?