Why do you say that?

Well can't say what would have happened, but the U.S. would probably have got stuck in Syria and would have been accused of waging war on a legitimate sovereign nation, not to mention supporting rebel groups which could be labelled militants. It would all have been very unpopular back home. An unholy mess and that's not to mention getting in a mess with Russia.

What decision made in the 40's influenced the present situation? It's interesting that you bring up the post-WW2 world-scene. To me, this question is really about what we owe one another on a global scale... and what we don't.

Well take your pick, the alienation caused by U.S. involvement in the Middle East has been building bit by bit since the paranoia over the creep of communism after WW2, led to a cat and mouse game between the U.S. and Russia all around the world.

I can't say if the Arab spring would have happened otherwise, but I doubt it would have been so incendiary.

My first thought was that Veritas represented fire, which represented pain.

Yes, Paul Klee was a big influence at one point, this was before I had learnt to paint. I wasn't going to let that hold me back from being creative. I like those landscapes (Moth creek, Govetts leap), I am beginning to see an Australian style, perhaps its due to the bright light.

Yes I get that, but the fact that it is undefined is not really saying anything about things that might exist. The use of undefined in this maths seems to be more a case of, encountering an unspecified(undefined) value and then concluding we can't go any further because we've lost the content. Out there in the world of things that exist, you can't just deny something that exists simply because it doesn't compute.

Let's say there is an infinite amount of grains of green sand and there is also an infinite amount of grains of blue sand, both exist. We know that if we theoretically count them as one group infinity + infinity and that we will then have an infinite amount of grains of sand, which we know are green and blue, but which are still seperate, because we are only imagining them as grouped together. Now let's imagine we mix them up so that they are all randomly mixed in together, a set of an infinite amount of grains of sand, of undefined colours. Now we could theoretically sort through this set and put all the green ones in one place and all the blue in another until we are back were we started. So we have subtracted an infinite quantity from an infinite quantity.

I am by the way aware of the problems of applying infinity to existence.

I wouldn't be surprised if Deutsche Bank is hiding a gaping casm somewhere with the German paranoia.

l am not a mathematician, so can't get involved in discussing equations. However I don't see the necessity when considering infinity.

You say an "indeterminate form", yes I can see that, but isn't an infinite quantity also indeterminate? I don't see how it is significantly different. You could add infinity to infinity and get infinity. Can't you then take that same infinity away again and leave the first infinity as it was before. I agree that addition and subtraction might come from the finite realm, so in a sense this is trying to discuss an unknown in another room, you can't see into.

Anyway, the Hindu's describe Brahman as infinitely infinite(I'll look for a reference), so there are plenty of infinites around in there for one to be subtracted without diminishing his omnipotence.

I would point out that I don't use infinity much, I find eternity much more fruitful.

I do feel sorry for Cantor, that he was not able to progress further in the direction of the continuum. I think he was lacking some transcendent insight, which might have helped.

Regarding the Hilbert's hotel illustration. It occurs to me that infinity - infinity = infinity. I say this because the Hindus define Brahman as that which is the same if you take something away from it, subtract it, it remains the same infinity.

Yes I'm sure there are some important things to be found out as yet. For me the area of interest is in divine geometry. I have developed some concepts, but they are not fleshed out yet.

Regarding absolute infinity, I feel it is an over simplification. This is not to say it is not the case, rather that it's intricacies may be beyond us at this time. The idea of a kind of transcendent continuum is interesting, but primarily within the sphere of being, rather than anything external. I have developed a thought experiment which attempts to illustrate this.

Imagine you are looking at a transcendent being, like the Christ, a bodhisattva, a god*. As you focus, you feel you are only seeing the surface, the external body of them, the real person is further back(metaphorically), under the surface. You refine your conception to peel back the layers a bit. You imagine a purer more transcendent being, on a higher plane, in a higher dimension. But equally present next to you in your plane, in the same body. It is just your conception which has changed.

So you repeat the process, imagining an even higher purer form, perhaps in a divine realm next to God. Again you are seeing exactly the same person, in the same place nothing has changed other than your perception. Then you repeat the process and begin to realise that each time you peel back a layer it curls up and folds back behind the being like a hair on his head. Then you notice there are many thousands of hairs alongside it. The being becomes in your imagination transcendent. Traversing many dimensions, even realms worlds, times. While all the time absolutely present in this one place. You realise that the dimension they inhabit is of another order another kind and for them to step into the manifest world's we find ourselves in is like dipping their toe into the water. You look again and the being is as before before you looked closer, just another person standing next to you, all along it was your conception which had changed.

* I have experienced something along these lines in person with a guru, I once new, which helped me to develop the idea.

Yes, 2D abstract ideas around concepts of skin/membrane/change.

Thanks, I don't seem to have much time for reading at the moment. To much time spent painting, or restoring my house.

I was at the old site and still am a believer that actually infinity is a number. We just don't have the correct definition of a number. Because infinity and it's counterpart, which we avoid by talking about limits, are so useful and so obvious in mathematics that the former shouldn't be just taken as an axiom an left there. (And I do believe that there's an absolute infinity, actually)

Interesting, I do play with the idea of an actual infinity from time to time, it always ends with with some kind of fractal. Although when I contemplate Brahman, as defined in Hinduism I can conceive of that kind of infinite in the sense of infinitely transcendent.

Are you thinking of something multidimensional, or transcendent in some way?

Well I don't know what his reasoning was for pulling back from the conflict, but in hindsight it looks to have been a good call.

As to whether the U.S. caused the war and the destruction of Syria. I think they are certainly culpable, but the causes go back to the first gulf war and before. A legacy of foreign policy decisions in regard of the Middle East going back decades, perhaps even to the late 1940's.

I love Japanese gardens!
I happened upon an interesting Australian artists the other day, Sydney Long, I'm already drawing inspiration from his work.

Some of my abstract pieces.

If we could generalise the notion of an "observer", an act of measurement or individuation, with matching rigour, then we would really be closing in on a fundamental view of things. We could finish what the Greeks started.

This is simple enough, one is simply required to accept that "Platonia", or number, is appealing to the conception of mental or abstract forms which have a reality(presence) in a divine(transcendent) reality, as well as our reality. In which all forms in that divine reality are as fundamental as number appears to us. Another such form is the form of self or being, which is both present in the divine reality and the world. So in measurement we find the divine witnessing the divine in concert with the person waving rulers around. Hence the fascination of the Greeks with number and Platonia, they can intellectually sense something absolute going on.

Mind~world dualism treats consciousness as some definite Cartesian substance - a concrete soul stuff. While divine~world can ease you back towards a more pantheistic and immanent rendering of the situation. It starts to sound more like my organic and pansemiotic conception.

This is only superficially a duality, there is always a third veiled component, of spirit. Or an imminent divine self, or being. This being is simply a witness, eye, a lense. So we have a triad, world, mind, spirit. Mind, body, spirit. Spirit being as universal as number, but immutable, so is essentially veiled to us. In the absence of specific tutoring to know the spirit for what it is.

As I see it what the OP is thinking of is not whether idealism or realism is indicated, or supported. But rather the possibility that we, the personal self, might through some unknown, or veiled mechanism in our reality be able to be switched, or transferred to another reality, rather like we seem to be when we have a dream.

I don't think an idealist ontology is required for this, there could just as well be "real" structures in our existence which are a mechanism for this to happen. For example a mechanism for the process of the transmigration of souls, enabling our "self" to be reborn in a newborn after our death. Or the mechanisms employed by enlightened beings to inhabit more than one place at a time, or walk between worlds, times.

It occurs to me that God would have to follow the rules on this one. I don't know what the implications are for so called omniscience.

That was an early painting it didn't turn out as I intended, apart from that it is a nice painting. I should do it again and it should turn out right now, the idea was very much in the Turner style.

Oh, my images have disappeared, I'll try and get them back. The've mysteriously returned.

Yes I know the extent of the chaos. I wouldn't stress the proxy war to much though. It might be going on in some level within the respective armies of Russia and the U.S. But their administrations are not in that game.

Anyway I am more concerned about the carnage in Allepo at the moment, because there is a large trapped population. Allepo is(was) the largest city in Syria, so if the supply lines are cut there may be mass suffering of the civilian population. I heard a Syrian in Allepo on the radio this morning claiming that there is heavy cluster bombing going on in some neighbourhoods. Specifically designed to kill people hiding in buildings.

Oops! I didn't intend to put the cybosh on the thread. I will discuss the war in the thread on the Third World War in the politics section.

Nice, I used to do doodle art, very enjoyable. Also it developed into abstract art for me.i'll fish some out.

If reality were truly radically different, it would be unrecognizable, unintelligible. We cannot even imagine such a scenario, so it is effectively meaningless. The 'real' reality is always 'brains in vats' or 'mad scientists" or "demons" in other words constructed out of familiar elements taken from the reality we do experience. Our imaginations have access to no other material.

I actually largely agree with your position, but I don't render the unknown reality as unrecognisable, unintelligible, or effectively meaningless. This is principly for two reasons; that it can be considered as an undescribed necessary being, in terms of its necessary roles in our known reality. Also that it is possible for our imaginations to access other material through both creative activity and revelation. Such revelation can be accessed through dreams to which I can testify myself.

Nice, do you plan it out, draw it spontaneously, or is it more like a doodle?

Aldeburgh in a squall

Saw a nice bird rabbit the other day.

I have had similar experiences, when I was a teenager I became fascinated by dreams, I studied dream interpretation, tried to cultivate lucid dreaming etc. I didn't really get very far in learning to understand the process, I think because I was going through adolescence at the time and had a lot of emotional angst. What did happen though was that I began to dream more, at times it felt like living a week in dreams every night and I was getting short of sleep, so stopped and poured all my resources into drinking and partying at college.

In hindsight I can see how what I was dreaming about and the form of the dreams I was having were dictated by what was going through my head at the time and that age in my life, with a strong component of emotional anxiety.

So in reply I would say that although the dream state is experienced as quite real, it is entirely determined by, reflective of, your mental life and state in your body. Also it is entirely reliant on your brain activity for it to happen atall. If it were to be a true alternative reality as you speculate, it would require an equivalent hardware to produce the mental activity.

Although in principle I agree with you, in your speculation, which is partly why I was so fascinated by it myself in my youth.

I really like your abstract and impressionist works, Archie, semiosis and topos. I think you've got something there. I must say, I was struck with the way in which they suggested to me an aboriginal theme, could be a direction perhaps.

Oh I forget to answer your question about prints. If you have a painting that is good enough or is suitable for becoming a print this increases the income from one painting, also some people prefer a print, sometimes due to cost. The standard printing technique for professional artists is Giclee printing. This uses a high resolution scan, or photograph and real paint inks to produce a print which can look as good as the original, without the same surface texture. If I have a good painting I would look to have the software of the image produced which costs around £50, then I can have copies printed on demand, between £10 and £30 each. There are cheaper printing techniques, which are appropriate on ocassion.

If I may ask, which region of Australia are you in?

Here's one of my favourite Portishead tracks, Roads. A suitable prayer for those suffering in Syria right now.

http://youtu.be/Vg1jyL3cr60

It's hotting up in Aleppo now, this means that The Russians are getting irrefutably involved in a genocide, I hope the reaction around the world is not to incendiary.

I just want to say a word for the people of Aleppo who are literally experiencing hell right now. There are news reports that as of this morning there are 2 million people in a desert without water, being attacked with barrel bombs.

Please join me and say a prayer and think of them.

Yes they sell for reasonable money, the following painting took about 4 hrs and sold for £200 the other day, to a friend, if I had put it in a gallery I might have asked for £300 or £400 and they would add commission of 20%.for example.

The difficulty is in finding your market.
You either have to generate followers yourself or attempt to fit in to a tradition from which a wider audience will purchase. For example in my case, there is a tradition of landscapes in East Anglia where I live. With many galleries, many buyers, and tourists and holiday makers, who have followed and developed an appreciation of the local styles and tradition. If you were to visit just about any house around here you would find original works from this tradition on the wall, with much appreciation. You just tap into that market.

Another route is through art competitions, local art schools, local galleries. These routes are not easy with mixed success. Sometimes something controversial or striking can get local media attention, but again difficult.

Ideally you would just want to produce paintings that people want to buy at first sight, but this requires an exceptional talent, or something very unusual.

Are there any artistic traditions in your area?

Nice work there. Yes my photography was a bit spontaneous, also I didn't crop them to show that they are canvases. The wide landscape is supposed to be unframed which is popular these days.
Once I have a body of work sufficient and which I judge are suitable, I will have them printed in Giclee, but I mainly sell them as unframed canvases at the moment. They are quite popular.

Thanks for the links, I'll listen to them later today. And thanks for giving some idea of what you're about, it's interesting. I know a guy like you, I spent a lot of time (24/7 at times) with him in the 90's we went questing in the Himalayas too, some wild times. As I see it you folks are at a certain stage in your "spiritual"* awakening where the intensity of experience is greatly heightened. There is a sense of breaking out, hitting out at walls, recoiling into the shadows etc...

It is a great experience provided you are able to avoid getting into trouble. However you will I expect, and certainly in the case of my friend, not find it easy to get into disciplines like meditation and quiet contemplative periods. If this is the case (I can't tell without meeting you in person), then that is ok, just enjoy the ride. You shouldn't struggle to achieve what your body is not in the right phase of activity to engage with. I return to what I said earlier, our bodies are finely tuned machines(spiritually as well as materially) you have to learn to work with your body, rather than struggling against it. Many folk have to struggle against it to get some impetus, but in your case the intensity comes naturally. For me the stillness and contemplative phase comes naturally at the moment and I did have to struggle to gain intensity when I was younger.

* by spiritual, I am using to word loosely to refer to a deeper part of yourself than the material, but not in any sense tying it to any precise spiritual school or belief system.

Hey! Portishead Dummy is one of my favourite albums. Get some good speakers and turn up the volume and you're away. An ocean of emotion.

But who has died, was it the badges of personality, was it the I that never changes?if the former, I would argue that that wasn't the person anyway, just a mask being worn by the I. If the later, how can it die? it is still alive in the next person to be born, or those that are still alive in bodies.

In reference to what WhiskeyWhiskers is saying, it can be described in a different way by analogy.

If one imagines that when a being is reborn, the body of the baby they become is rather like a suit of clothes(a vehicle of incarnation). During the beings life they attach experiences to the suit like badges, or stylistic details. These badges are like the personality of the being shaped by experience and learning. When the being dies they leave behind the suit and get a new one and in the next life they attach new badges. The being has not changed, it is the same person, but wearing a different suit. All the suits are the same to begin with and all beings are the same, that is you, or me. It is only the badges of the personality where there is variation.

Yes it is a complex subject and the truth of it is currently veiled from us. For me what is of interest is seeking a broader wisdom of the nature of existence rather than the detail, which we will only know when the veil is lifted. Also I am not interested in the specifics of my own development, or what will happen to me, I passed the point of affirming "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done" many years ago. So in a very real sense, my development is out of my hands, but this does not prevent me from fully developing my interests, such as the pursuit of wisdom and creativity.

Yes I had that thought too at an early age, long before I knew what philosophy, spirituality or religion was.

it seems obvious that consciousness has evolved, both from an evolutionary perspective and also, culturally and quite radically, as Hegel has shown, as the Western philosophical tradition

Yes and considering a spiritual cosmogony is quite reasonable, provided one remembers that it is not known to be the case other than through the personal experience of some people and even there it might come across as an idiosyncratic interpretation and that any spiritual school is likely to be the same.

Anyway I have come to consider this approach on my own through personal experience and contemplation. All we know is that we find ourselves here, how we got here and what is going on is unknown to us, so a considered interpretation of the nature of the world we find ourselves in may provide an understanding of what is going on behind this veil of ignorance. Surely this pursuit is one path followed by the mystic.