I cannot answer all your points, but I will address one and hope you can extrapolate.

How would one buy the particular paints one would need for a particular art project, without having a mental image of one's plan for the canvas or even wanting to trying painting. — Coben

Obviously one needs to have an image of the colours in such a case. Likewise an architect imagines a building, and even a speaker foresees the end of his sentence. Buddhists are not idiots, and they do not seek to stop all thought or suppress all images.

...identification with this image... — unenlightened

This is the step that one does not need to make when buying paint. There is a whole process of knowledge from the past projected into the future that is the basis of science and much of what we do day to day. It is very effective as long as it is directed outwards to the world. It is when it is directed inwards that it becomes identification and gains the power to cause suffering. there, it extends the self in time.

So here's the Animal Farm slogan for you - Plan to do, good; plan to be, bad.

To understand the philosophy and psychology of Buddhism, it is necessary to make some careful distinctions.

Appetite v desire.

Appetite is the physiological condition of hunger, typically triggered by an empty stomach.
Desire is psychological; a thought; an image of hot crumpets dripping with honey (from memory) - the image of myself eating them - imagined pleasure - identification with this image (projected into the future).

Appetite is present, or absent, whereas desire connects past to future and is always lacking - one never wants what one has.

Pain v suffering.

Similarly, pain is physiological, and suffering is psychological; the projection of a self without pain, a desire to be other than one is.

So one can see that desire and suffering are related and arise from absence of mind. Hence the focus on presence of mind through meditation that eliminates desire and suffering, but does not prevent one from eating or stubbing one's toe.

Writing desks can't write, and ravens can't rave.

So, if we consider human minds to be the environment in which ideas breed and grow, then I wonder what the measure of fitness is for an idea? — Roy Davies

The measure of fitness is survival.

Dumb ideas are like dandelions that seed themselves in poor disturbed soil minds and spread like gossip. Social forms are like trees that stabilise the soil mind and enrich it with falling leaves implications and ways of living. Philosophy is like a cow that eats ideas and shits all over them and also enriches the soil.

The idea that ideas are like organisms in the environment of mind is an analogy that can be pushed too far.

we need some correction to the free market here. — ChatteringMonkey

A regulated market therefore. Or possibly some other institution altogether - there are other ways to cooperate than markets.

It is difficult to fight against the 'quick serotonin hit' of social media. Funnily enough, I've only just joined this forum, but I am finding it intensely rewarding, but then again I am a thinking engineer who is used to critical thought, so I guess I'm getting my serotonin hits here. — Roy Davies

As I already pointed out, this site is very unlike the social media being discussed, and more like Wikipedia. No personal data is collected, no profits are made, and the site is the same for everyone. No adverts of any kind and no scope for political or commercial exploitation. There's nothing wrong with a bit of serotonin (except I hate the biochemical way of talking about happiness). If you get pleasure from eating nourishing food, or from learning together in a social setting, that is completely different from eating junk food and being fed sensational fake news and 'likes'.

This site looks the same just as good food looks just like junk food.

One cannot answer the op's question in the negative, without admitting the very thing one wishes to deny. One would have to maintain that the op is senseless. Too late for some. Personally, i refer to myself quite often - look, I just did - and again. And as you can see, I sometimes talk about the things I am saying. and if you can understand me, then I must be able to speak thus.

Doubtful an algorithm can make a person narrow minded, however, at this point. — praxis

Hmm. That is of course what the AIs want you to think. :scream:
No, they can't make you, a particular individual, narrow minded. but they can attract your interest, intermittently reward you, keep your attention, and raise your anxiety level. And that 1% raise in anxiety level might just make you liable to be wee bit more narrow minded than you were. Overall, there is really no question that propaganda can massively impact public opinion, even though no one thinks they can be influenced by it. and that elections have been managed and consent manufactured.

One of the things that, for instance, the Trump campaign had from, ahem, Cambridge Analytica (deceased) is data on all sorts of citizens and voters that included good estimates of their personality on many dimensions, including some rather like narrow mindedness and influencability. So they would know in advance, for instance, whether to try and get you to vote for Trump, or just try to put you off voting against him, and target ads, news items, and so on accordingly. It wouldn't work every time, but enough of the time to change the election.

Where is evolution in all this? — TheMadFool

Nowhere at all. That's another topic entirely.

I think the more general problem is that the goals of something that has that much influence and power over us is determined merely by profit incentives. — ChatteringMonkey

Yes, and it doesn't have to be that way. We seem to be stuck between private capitalism and state capitalism, each scaremongering about the other, as if they are somehow fundamentally different.

There are certainly some spaces between the dots being joined up. And certainly tech is not the fount of all evil. There is some evidence, but not that much afaik, that connects a rise in body dysmorphia amongst the young with photoshopped images on social media. That the ability to change your image on line leads to an increased dissatisfaction with the reality. It make sense intuitively as well.

Satisfying corporate greed at the expense of consumer well-being, and the science of persuasion, is hardly anything new. — praxis

That's why I flag this as a successor to the Century of Self series that narrates the rise of consumer society, and the influence of psychology. Nazi propaganda is of course part of that story. AI controlled social media adds another layer to the high rise shit-pile of modern history.

Seems wrong to blame the science for how it is abused — Kenosha Kid

I do make that argument elsewhere, but I'd rather discuss the program here. The down and dirty précis is thus: science is objective; the science of psychology treats the individual as an object of study; when you study individuals as objects you only learn how to manipulate them. There are psychologies that begin elsewhere, by treating people as equal participants in the relationship... they are 'unscientific'.

But then again, can we really trust government or any group of humans for that matter with this much power? I think that is the problem, it's just to much potential power. — ChatteringMonkey

It's not even a question. We are driving our children insane. Or rather the machines we have invented are doing so at our command.

'

Jamalrob has done a terrific job of addicting me to this site. — praxis

No he hasn't.

I'm sorry but your remark trivialises something rather important. Jamal collects no data, though google certainly does. Jamal does not present a different site tailored to each individual and designed to work on their particular insecurities. Jamal probably spends money rather than makes money from the voluntary contributions to the site's running costs. And this is important. There is no need for things to be as they are This site and wikipedia and others demonstrate that we can arrange things in other ways than by allowing greedy manipulators to run things people. The machines do not care... they will do whatever we tell them to do.

Not a new theory.

Wasn't sure whether to put this here or in the white privilege thread.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-54248507

So I suppose I am committed to not bending "convention". — Banno

It would be inconvenient if conventions could not be convened. But of course it remains the case that one cannot be the only one to attend a convention. We come together, nudge nudge wink wink. Say no more.

Love is ... — bcccampello

I don't need you to tell me what my life is about. I was trying to engage, with respect, with your topic. But I think I've gone as far as i want to on this occasion.

So, it is not really about being rare or ordinary, but truthful. — bcccampello

I understand that; truthful in the context of the fiction that I am dead, and some other speaks my life summary. But is the fiction that I died this morning, or that I died at a ripe old age having reached the end of the road I have in mind to travel, as it were. Not in my case that there is that much difference, decrepit pensioner that I am, but it's the principle I'm looking for.

In the case of unenlightened, he remained faithful from the age of 14 to his self-dedication to the understanding and manifesting of love. He failed of course, but he died still trying - weakly and grumpily trying.

One has to wonder why someone who is cognisant of the terrible effects of trauma on human development is so negative, aggressive, accusatory, and unsympathetic to us, the traumatised, who are merely wasting our damaged lives in a fruitless roundabout of words as a diversion from the pain we all suffer. It is as if he sought to cure alcoholism by interrupting the winos on the street and smashing their bottles and beating them up.

Really.

I been double-crossed now
For the very last time and now I'm finally free
I kissed goodbye the howling beast
On the borderline which separated you from me
You'll never know the hurt I suffered
Nor the pain I rise above
And I'll never know the same about you
Your holiness or your kind of love
And it makes me feel so sorry
Idiot wind
Blowing through the buttons of our coats
Blowing through the letters that we wrote
Idiot wind
Blowing through the dust upon our shelves
We're idiots, babe
It's a wonder we can even feed ourselves. — Bob Dylan

I don't see how anything you are saying is addressing the issue I am raising. — Punshhh

The one thing we know for sure from thousands of years of experience is that sitting with the guru under the pear tree isn't a sufficiently scalable solution. — Hippyhead

One of you externalises the problem, and the other complains that they cannot externalise the solution. No wonder you agree. You are the problem, and only you can be the solution. I'm not going to solve it for you anyway, I'm unenlightened.

Anyway, moving on and trying to avoid triggering anyone ...

I came to understand better not only who I am for myself, but who I want to be to realize the potential that was given to me — bcccampello

I'm not entirely clear what the exercise is in relation to this. Should I assume I will fulfil my potential for enlightenment in the obituary? I'm interested, but it is a rather alien way of thinking. When people used to ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I used to say 'a man'. That remains my aspiration, really - to be a husband to my wife and father to my children, friend to philosophers and implacable enemy to slugs in the lettuces. Am I allowed to aspire to the ordinary?

I don't think you can conclude this. The main problem, at the moment is not things like feeding the poor etc. But our systems of political control and the quality of the people in those roles are more of a problem. — Punshhh

Well if you are not hungry, then hunger is not a problem for you. But it is quite a big problem for a lot of people. But the people in leadership roles is a reflection of the nature of humanity. No one can lead without having followers.

Everyone agrees about one thing - "it's not my fault". Unfortunately everyone is wrong about that.

Is the plight of humanity of any importance to these prophets? Or is it an irrelevance, because it is a natural process, or something? These are interesting questions. — Punshhh

Of course it is of importance. The question is what can one do about it. Humanity has only one problem and that is humanity. Lift humanity's finger to solve the problem of humanity? It turns out that the problem of starvation cannot be solved by producing more because people are greedy and prefer to kill themselves with obesity rather than share their food. Let's both lift our fingers and wag them in admonishment! That'll work. :down:

If it was an external problem, a great leader would solve it, and we wouldn't have to change, but it is an internal problem and a great leader can only make it worse.

Would you argue that I don't have the right to refute error or call it into question? — JerseyFlight

No I would not. But you have refuted nothing, you have merely contradicted in a more dogmatic way something that the op recounted as his personal understanding, resulting from his method. When you do the exercise, you will come to your own self-understanding and express it in your own way.

Preaching God is not philosophy. — JerseyFlight

Your ex-cathedra pronouncement is hypocritical and inappropriate. The op is a practical exercise proposal that need have no relation to any god. There is no preaching going on, except your own.

So is this a great reversal for Davidson? To some extent, yes, but then Davidson's program was always moderated by interpretation. — Banno

A philosopher (or a scientist) is necessarily in the third position, triangulating the language of others. Here is a little clue as to what the function of triangulation is.

There is no need for anyone to starve, or to be homeless, or to lack basic medical care or a clean water supply. We could sort all that out for everyone in a year or less. It is a trivial logistical problem of redistributing resources.

What prevents it from happening is greed, and a terrible fear that someone will get something from me for nothing. It's a psychological problem.

You are confusing the teaching that in order to progress towards personal enlightenmet one must withdraw from the world and find the answer/route internally. — Punshhh

What did I say about withdrawing from the world? I missed it.

Look, if you want to feed the world, or cure a disease or organise a society, that is a practical matter, an externality, and one can operate externally with the intellect, mechanically. You don't need an ascended master to grow corn, you need a combine harvester.

What you need an ascended master for is not to upgrade the combine, but to upgrade the driver.

I would take issue with your conclusion. — Punshhh

Yes, it is an unpopular message, and always has been.

Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. — Matthew16:24

In the pursuit of learning, every day something is acquired.
In the pursuit of Tao, every day something is dropped.

Less and less is done
Until non-action is achieved.
When nothing is done, nothing is left undone.

The world is ruled by letting things take their course.
It cannot be ruled by interfering. — Tao Te Ching 48

Man cannot come to it through any organization, through any creed, through any dogma, priest or ritual, not through any philosophical knowledge or psychological technique. He has to find it through the mirror of relationship, through the understanding of the contents of his own mind, through observation and not through intellectual analysis or introspective dissection. — Krishnamurti

Everyone wants to go up, and no one wants to go down.

Should these wise folk lift a finger, or just sit there and descend into hell with the rest of them? — Punshhh

Descend into hell, obviously. One has to relate to people where they are, not where one wishes them to be. Every ascended master agrees with this, from Lao Tzu to Jesus.

but is there not a duty for people who get the message to apply it in their lives to some extent? — Punshhh

I wouldn't say that, because duty implies conflict and division. But in this field, if one does not live according to one's understanding, then one hasn't really understood.

You might point Susan in the general direction of The Hearing Voices Network.

As a very general rule, it is wise to listen to your voices and treat them with respect as friends; If you try to silence them, they are liable to get louder and angry. One might reject the terminology of daemons in favour of 'the voice of the unconscious' or some such locution.

But time travel is an insane idea! :razz:

Define "god" or specify which conception of divinity is at issue, otherwise the question is incoherent. — 180 Proof

Yes no maybe, I don't know, can you repeat the question. (song)

According to definition I think I can make all three answers feel correct to me. For examples...

Def: God (your god) is whatever is of central importance in your life; whatever you give your life up to. It might be money, or power, or justice or law, or love, or sadly, your own pleasure.
Answer - yes.
Def: God is the big guy in the sky who hates faggots, and likes everyone to sing His praises every Sunday, and doesn't want anyone to have any fun.
Answer - no.
Def: God is whatever, beyond the universe of space and time, had some purpose for setting things up just so, that we are participants in.
Answer - maybe.

There are many readers and writers that complain about how all they get is words. And I am always sorely tempted to tell them to shut the fuck up. 'The word is not the thing,' the guy kept saying, and I suspect that there was a communication of his presence that the records, whether written or video, cannot convey precisely because they are there and then, not here and now.
So I think we are singing the same song with variations.

I think the thing with questions (as with thought generally) is exactly that answers lead to more questions until you arrive at The Question that can only be answered with your life; that "show me your every-minute zen." question. I don't really read K. any more, because the message is so very simple and all the complications are my own. So now I'll take my own advice and shut the fuck up.

Tis not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger. — Hume

But I don't think he was recommending this as a moral philosophy.

the responses to my discussion have been very hostile — Jack Cummins

Hmm. I wonder what you found to be hostile here? It all seemed fairly sympathetic to me. I assume you are familiar with J. Krishnamurti, as he was presented by Blavatsky as an ascended master, and world teacher. Of course he famously rejected any leadership role, but spent his life teaching and discussing.

My own studies have touched on Steiner, Gurdjieff, Ouspensky, Maurice Nicoll, but have settled on Krishnamurti as the clearest and most consistent voice. But I find it very difficult to discuss my own limited understanding of these things - I don't know if I have anything to contribute apart from what you already seem to see as hostility.

Hi @Jack Cummins. You have studied for many years, and you still do not know if the thing you are studying exists.

Well one tradition is that these people of higher consciousness recognise each other straight away. But the rest of us cannot tell the difference between an ascended master and a psychopathic charlatan. But let us assume that they exist, but do not post here. Let us assume that we are not qualified to recognise them, but have some intimation of the possibility of something 'out of reach' yet 'close at hand'.

Do you think we need to do something in the meantime, or just 'wait patiently'? Does studying help?

it seems to me that defining the end point of it is a subject to be discussed, since the concept of "fall" has as many characteristics as a moment of decay and still, both things are different. — Gus Lamarch

Decay is a process, and falling is a faster process. But philosophers, lawyers and clerics still use the Latin language and thus still come under the sphere of influence of Rome, but even the politics is ambiguous. Were the holy Roman Emperors still rulers of the Roman Empire? Arguably, the Roman Catholic church is the Roman Empire modified, and still holds some sway over much of the world.

Do you know how Gibbon distinguished decline from fall?

EDIT: A titbit from wiki suggests that he originally intended a work on the decline and fall of the City of Rome, rather than the Empire. Now when it comes to a city, the walls might literally fall on a particular day and the the city metaphorically fall into the hands of Some Damn Foreigner on that day. But that would be an uninteresting resolution ...

The one that leapt to mind for me was Kant! — Srap Tasmaner

I already banned Kant for trolling on the old site.

What is the Purpose of the Universe?

It's an educational toy. I thought everyone knew that.

It could be said that in the case of no deal it is the EU who will put up trade barriers between NI which is part of the UK still and Eire.. — Tim3003

Yes, it could be said. I don't know what would be done and by whom, but I do know that the EU cannot leave that border open without a deal of some sort. They cannot allow, for example, US chlorinated chicken to flow across that border and compete with the higher standard chicken mandated in the EU. So the EU will probably eventually have to put up a hard border itself if the UK breaks its commitments to maintain harmony between North and South trade regulations. That's after punitive trade war on other fronts amounting to almost a blockade, I imagine. Blaming the EU is already the main policy of this government, so I doubt more blame will cause much anguish in the EU.

I'm not clear on the Good Friday agreement. — Tim3003

Keeping it really simple, the Good Friday agreement between the UK and the Republic of Ireland is the treaty that ended the civil war in Northern Ireland. It is founded on power sharing both within the province of Northern Ireland, (between Catholic Republicans and Protestant Unionists) and between the Irish and UK governments. A central plank is that there shall be no hard border between North and South.

This means that all matters pertaining to movement of goods and people need to be harmonised between the two jurisdictions.

However, the whole project of Brexit relies on ending the harmonised jurisdictions on just these matters between the UK and Europe. This gives rise to an immediate contradiction between the separate internal markets of the EU (including the Republic of Ireland), and the UK (including Northern Ireland).

Both sides are committed to a free internal market, and The EU in particular, needs to control its external borders.

Applications of fudge in the form of backstops, imaginary borders, and imaginary brexits, have failed to resolve or cover over this contradiction, and we face the prospect of a hard border followed by a renewal of violence and/or the breakup of the UK and the reunification of the Island of Ireland. I think that's about right, but maybe @Baden can make any corrections and add subtleties and complications ...