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Richard’s Correspondence On The Actual Freedom Mailing List With Correspondent No. 97
RESPONDENT: Thanks, Vineeto, Peter, Richard, for writing so nicely about actual freedom. RICHARD: Welcome to The Actual Freedom Trust mailing list ... and this is an apt place to inform you, up-front and out-in-the-open, that actualism – the direct experience that matter is not merely passive – is experiential and not philosophical. RESPONDENT: I disagree only insofar as you present it to be a ‘discovery’ – I think this mode of perception has been around pretty long, together with different classifications as good – ‘happy and harmless’, or just beyond classifications – or bad – as some mental ‘disorder’. RICHARD: I have travelled the country – and overseas – talking with many and varied peoples from all walks of life; I have been watching television, videos, films, whatever media is available; I have been reading about other people’s experiences in books, journals, magazines, newspapers (and latterly on the internet) for twenty four years now, for information on being a flesh and blood body only (sans the entire affective faculty/ identity in toto), but to no avail. Therefore, if you could provide web page links, book titles, magazine articles, newspaper reports, manuscripts, pamphlets, brochures or whatever it is that you are privy to, wherein the words of the people can be found who have written about a [quote] ‘mode of perception’ [endquote] such as to occasion you to think it be the same as an actual freedom from the human condition, I would be most pleased. We could compare notes, as it were, so as to determine what is idiosyncratic and what is species specific and thus advance human knowledge. RESPONDENT: To thank you, I would like to give back something, a text elaborating on the universe observing itself through us. RICHARD: You may find the following illuminative:
RESPONDENT: It goes: [snip selected passages from ‘Laws of Form’]. RICHARD: I have taken the liberty of snipping the text you quoted because Mr. George Spencer-Brown makes it abundantly clear elsewhere that, whatever it is that he speaks rather mystically of, it sure ain’t this actual world.
RESPONDENT: (...) Here we are, in some corner of a pretty far out galaxy, on the same planet although on different sides of it, billions of cells each, equipped with nervous systems, each nervous system composed of billions of cells again, not to mention the possible combinations, using one of our extensions to inquire whether a particular pattern of ‘firing’ has occurred in another nervous system. Hmmm. That’s quite strange, quite normal and a lot of fun. RICHARD: It is amazing, is it not, that not only does this wondrous universe exist in all its marvellous expanse, but we also get to be here, on this verdant and azure planet, going about this business called be alive in whatever way we see fit ... on top of which we can compare notes, as it were, as to what sense we have made of it all, by being able to be aware of being aware, and thus adjusting our understanding accordingly. A truly remarkable state of affairs. RESPONDENT: The universe experiencing itself, as in good old Spinoza or Hegel, in a body. RICHARD: If I may again draw your attention to the following? Viz.:
Similarly, the universe does not experience itself ‘in’ a body ... only an identity (such as both the Dutch philosopher Mr. Baruch de Spinoza and the German philosopher Mr. Georg Hegel evidentially were) experiences itself ‘in’ a body. RESPONDENT: Philosophically, we can discount their pantheism because something which is equal in everything that exists makes no difference. RICHARD: As I am neither a philosopher nor have I read any philosophy books – all I do is look-up a relevant encyclopaedia article when someone persists with philosophisation even after having it pointed out that actualism is experiential and not philosophical – I will discount Mr. Baruch de Spinoza’s pantheism and Mr. Georg Hegel’s monism on other grounds than what you propose ... to wit: there is no god/ goddess in actuality. RESPONDENT: Which is the reason why Spinoza was so unpopular with the church of his times and so popular with the following generations of philosophers: his God came without a devil, it was simply everything-there-is. RICHARD: Whereas the reason why Mr. Baruch de Spinoza holds no interest for this actualist is because he never got off his backside and actually did anything about the root cause of all the misery and mayhem, the animosity and anguish, which epitomises the human condition ... he chose, instead, to spend a lifetime mentally rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic. RESPONDENT: So he was accused of atheism: because atheism and pantheism are, in the form, identical ... RICHARD: Given that pantheism can be described as ‘the belief or philosophical theory that god and the universe are identical, implying a denial of the personality and transcendence of god, or the identification of god with the forces of nature and natural substances’ (Oxford Dictionary) then what else is atheism – which can be described as ‘disbelief in, or denial of, the existence of god or gods; also, godlessness’ (Oxford Dictionary) – also identical to when it is [quote] ‘in the form’ [endquote] ... deism and/or theism, perchance?RESPONDENT: ... (forgive the allusion to poor muddled Spencer-Brown). RICHARD: Just as a matter of idle interest ... why would you want give back, by way of thanks, a text from someone you consider as being poorly muddled? Viz.:
RESPONDENT: (Comparing it to the East: while Descartes proposed a kind of Dvaita philosophy, Spinoza picked up his Euclid-inspired style and created a monist counterpart as a response some years later – Advaita in the West). RICHARD: Oh? Did Mr. Baruch de Spinoza drop the pantheism he had favoured, through having rejected Mr. René Descartes’ dualism of spirit and matter, when he picked up a style inspired by Mr. Euclid of Alexandria and created his monism ... or are pantheism and monism also identical when they are [quote] ‘in the form’ [endquote]? * RICHARD: ... and this is an apt place to inform you, up-front and out-in-the-open, that actualism – the direct experience that matter is not merely passive – is experiential and not philosophical. RESPONDENT: That’s very nice; having explored things philosophically, I am willing to do something now. RICHARD: Even so ... old habits can die hard, eh? * RESPONDENT: I disagree only insofar as you present it to be a ‘discovery’ – I think this mode of perception has been around pretty long, together with different classifications as good – ‘happy and harmless’, or just beyond classifications – or bad – as some mental ‘disorder’. RICHARD: I have travelled the country – and overseas – talking with many and varied peoples from all walks of life; I have been watching television, videos, films, whatever media is available; I have been reading about other people’s experiences in books, journals, magazines, newspapers (and latterly on the internet) for twenty four years now, for information on being a flesh and blood body only (sans the entire affective faculty/ identity in toto), but to no avail. RESPONDENT: From this, I gather that the usual phrasing that ‘beyond enlightenment, you become ‘perfectly ordinary’ is not what it means to be a flesh and blood body only. RICHARD: As you go on to give Mr. Edgar Hofer, currently known by the acronym ‘OWK’ (from ‘Oh! Who Knows’) as an example of what becoming [quote] ‘perfectly ordinary’ [endquote] is after enlightenment then the following passage from his book may be self-explanatory:
If it is not this one should be:
RESPONDENT: Or – is it? RICHARD: No, a flesh and blood body sans the entire affective faculty/ identity in toto hosts no identity at all/has no feelings whatsoever – thereby living a life free of both the duality and non-duality such a faculty/ entity automatically creates by its very presence – and is thus already always directly experiencing the ultimate experience ... whether doing something (such as writing) or doing nothing. RESPONDENT: The typical Zen saying that mountains are mountains again, only a little more so? RICHARD: What you are referring to is a Koan – from a discourse attributed to Mr. Ch’ing yuan Wei-hsin – and not descriptive prose. Viz.:
It is obviously not descriptive prose because he then asks:
Here is a clue: the second understanding is per favour the comprehension of (buddhistic) emptiness. RESPONDENT: You certainly don’t depend upon hearing your ideas in their exact phrasing to recognize them. RICHARD: I will draw your attention to the following:
And just so that there is no misunderstanding: actualism is not about ideals either ... or beliefs, concepts, opinions, conjectures, speculations, assumptions, presumptions, suppositions, surmises, inferences, judgements, intellectualisations, imaginations, posits, postulations, images, analyses, viewpoints, views, stances, perspectives, standpoints, positions, world-views, mind-sets, states-of-mind, frames-of-mind, or any other of the 101 ways, of overlooking direct reports of what it is to be actually free from the human condition and living the utter peace of the perfection of the purity welling endlessly as the infinitude this eternal, infinite and perpetual universe actually is. RESPONDENT: What distinguishes Actual Freedom from the Zen teachings of Hui-neng or Huang-po? RICHARD: For just one example here is an edited-for-brevity version of Mr. Hui-neng’s final instructions (from Chapter X of the ‘The Treasure Of The Law’ sutra):
Whereas (for example):
And, by way of another example, here is an edited-for-brevity version of what Mr. Huang-po had to say (from a translation found in Mr. Stephen Mitchell’s ‘The Enlightened Mind – An Anthology of Sacred Prose’, Harper Perennial, 1991):
Whereas (for example):
In other words, when this flesh and blood body dies this mind also ceases to operate. RESPONDENT: (They are both sources of Alan Watts, as you know, but I found the originals, at least Hui-neng, more exhilarating). RICHARD: I did not know that Mr. Hui-neng and Mr. Huang-po were sources for Mr. Alan Watts ... and neither did I find either of them at all interesting, just now, whilst copy-pasting the above quotes (let alone exhilarating). RESPONDENT: At first sight, there appear to me to be some similarities, so I would be delighted to learn precisely what it is that you do/ experience differently from them. RICHARD: Just for starters: there is this on-going experience of a world beyond their ken ... to wit: this actual world (the sensate world) which is the world of this body and that body and every body; the world of the mountains and the streams; the world of the trees and the flowers; the world of the clouds in the sky by day and the stars in the firmament by night and so on and so on ad infinitum. RESPONDENT: And could you describe, briefly, in what respect you moved ‘beyond Mr. Nagarjuna’? RICHARD: You can only be referring to this:
Given that the above response of mine was to a co-respondent desirous of [quote] ‘explaining the metaphysics of the world viewed called actualism’ [endquote] to me then the briefest description would be to say that it is not all that difficult to go beyond a philosopher – any mystic is, by default, beyond a metaphysician – and especially one who received occult teachings from the nether world, such as Mr. Joseph Smith, of the ‘Book of Mormon’ fame, did for the west, which Mr. Gotama the Sakyan had (purportedly) considered too profound for his contemporaries to receive, seven or eight centuries prior, whilst he was then residing in a flesh and blood body. In case that is still not clear: my co-respondent, who was not even self-realised (let alone fully enlightened/ awakened), was busily instructing me on how to become a metaphysician like Mr. Alan Watts, Mr. Nagarjuna, and all the rest, were ... even though it had been made clear, to my co-respondent, on many and varied an occasion that I had lived that/was that, which metaphysicians studiously review reports of and make erudite pronouncements about, night and day for eleven years. * RICHARD: Therefore, if you could provide web page links, book titles, magazine articles, newspaper reports, manuscripts, pamphlets, brochures or whatever it is that you are privy to, wherein the words of the people can be found who have written about a [quote] ‘mode of perception’ [endquote] such as to occasion you to think it be the same as an actual freedom from the human condition, I would be most pleased. RESPONDENT: A recent example for becoming ‘perfectly ordinary’ or ‘beyond enlightenment’, although inspired by Osho in the interpretation of his state can be found at the site of an Austrian [www.owk-satsang.com/]. The English version needs your overlooking grammar and spelling. RICHARD: Both what Mr. Edgar Hofer and Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain mean by ‘beyond enlightenment’
is so piddling as to quite possibly qualify either of them for the title ‘Wankasaurus Of The Century’ * RESPONDENT: The ‘provoked spontaneous onsets of PCE’s’ via drugs owe their first lyrical descriptions to Aldous Huxley in The Doors of Perception which you undoubtedly know, he was, however (well or badly, what do you think?), prepared by his previous assembly of a collage of mystics from all times and religions, the ‘Perennial philosophy’. RICHARD: It really does not matter whether Mr. Aldous Huxley was well or badly prepared by his prior understanding of the ‘perennial philosophy’ – the identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body all those years ago had no such understanding at all yet, even so, wound up in the enlightened/ awakened state of being anyway – as what does matter is that there now is, finally, a body of work which clearly explicates just what a PCE is ... and what it is not. Thus no-one need traipse eagerly down the ‘Tried and True’ path ever again (unless they so desire of course). RESPONDENT: Watts picked up quite a lot from Huxley. But I want to get to something else: The PCE’s experienced from taking mushrooms (or did you take the psilocybin in some other form in 1980?) ... RICHARD: No. RESPONDENT: ... remind me of the ‘flow’ experienced by artists while creating or actually anybody merging completely with his activity, as recently again described by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. RICHARD: I have located the following description of how it feels to be in ‘the flow’:
I have reported experiencing the same or similar ... for instance:
And:
And:
RESPONDENT: I have the impression that Actual Freedom could be defined as experiencing the whole life as such a ‘flow’, experiencing the sensory ‘input’ (into what, anyway?) only. RICHARD: There is no ‘input’ ... sensory perception is immediate (direct). RESPONDENT: Closely connected to this is what you name ‘apperception’ ... RICHARD: I found the word in the Oxford Dictionary in 1997, when I was assembling an ad hoc collection of articles into some semblance of being a book form so as to be suitable for publishing, which simply said (as the first of several meanings):
It was that definition – as contrasted to the normal ‘I’ being aware of ‘me’ being conscious type of perception – which appealed ... and not any historical usage of the word. RESPONDENT: ... which also is a central term in western philosophical tradition. A quick look at the German Wikipedia tells one that its career began with St. Augustine as ‘attention’, came via Duns Scotus, Descartes to Leibniz who firstly baptizes the child ‘apperception’, than travels on to Kant, and in the Anglo-Saxon world most prominently to W. James and J. Dewey. However, you use the word ‘apperception’ quite differently, so it might be clarifying to relate to the classics and say what you reject, i.e. in what respects you deem them to be ‘tried and wrong’. (Just making it a little more explicit than it is anyway). RICHARD: I have never looked-up the way other peoples have used the word ... I simply mean it as un-mediated perception (as in no identity whatsoever mediating the perceptive process). RESPONDENT: The newest thing in ‘apperception theory’ seems to be the (information) theoretical result that the capacity of the senses is a million times higher than the capacity of conscious perception. Now, to use this wild metaphor, if the ‘consciousness’ in the form of ‘ego’ is a social interface just as a computer has a graphical user interface where you also neither want nor need to see all that is going on underneath, if this interface disappears – then only direct connection to the senses is left, and then you have an information overkill quite enough for any PCE. A state of mind particularly enjoyable on a warm summer day with nice food in a beautiful setting. RICHARD: The word consciousness refers to a body being conscious (the suffix ‘-ness’ forms a noun expressing a state or condition) just as the word warmness refers to the state or condition of being warm ... the ego (aka the thinker), having arisen from the soul/spirit (the feeler) one is born being (per favour the instinctual passions), is but the tip of the iceberg when it comes to ‘being’ itself (which is ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being). Put succinctly: it is not consciousness per se which is the spanner in the works (aka the ghost in the machine) but identity, as a ‘presence’, hijacking the sensory experience and, whilst thus busily creating an ‘inner’ world, involuntarily imposing its reality over the physical actuality (this actual world) as a veneer (and thereby creating an ‘outer’ world) ... all the while yearning for, and thus seeking, union betwixt its two creations. In other words, both duality (‘self’ and ‘other’) and non-duality (‘oneness’) have no existence in actuality ... any identity is forever locked-out of paradise (this actual world). * RESPONDENT: To thank you, I would like to give back something, a text elaborating on the universe observing itself through us. RICHARD: You may find the following illuminative: [Co-Respondent]: ‘... I should like to ask you also something else. You said that through you the universe is experiencing its self’ ... RESPONDENT: As I understood Advaita teachings, the ‘Self’ and the ‘Universe’ are identical; why should the ‘universe’ have a ‘self’ separate from itself? As you say in your reply: [Richard]: ‘I did nothing of the sort ... I specifically say *as* this flesh and blood body. Viz.: [Co-Respondent]: ‘We are the universe creating its own self and experiencing it’s self. [Richard]: ‘The planet earth not only grows vegetation it also grows people – and all other sentient beings – and, as such, the universe can experience itself as a sensate and reflective human being (just as it also experiences itself as a cat or a dog and so on)’. [endquote]. RICHARD: I was not referring to the ‘Self’ and the ‘Universe’ being identical as I had clearly said [quote] ‘itself’ [endquote] ... it was my co-respondent who evidently split that word, which I had used four times in the previous discussions, into two so as to make what I had said into meaning something they were partial to. The word ‘itself’ is nothing other than a reflexive form of ‘it’ ... and there have been others trying to get similar mileage out of it too. Viz.:
* RICHARD: ... [Richard]: ‘I did nothing of the sort ... I specifically say *as* this flesh and blood body. Viz.: [Co-Respondent]: ‘We are the universe creating its own self and experiencing it’s self. [Richard]: ‘The planet earth not only grows vegetation it also grows people – and all other sentient beings – and, as such, the universe can experience itself as a sensate and reflective human being (just as it also experiences itself as a cat or a dog and so on). [endquote] ... RESPONDENT: This last part is almost a literal quote of Alan Watts – the universe as ‘peopling’, ‘treeing’ and so forth. RICHARD: It has nothing to do with Mr. Alan Watts’ whimsical penchant for using verbs instead of nouns ... as the word ‘experience’ refers to a sentient creature participating personally in events or activities then the universe quite obviously does not experience itself as a tree. * RICHARD: ... [Richard]: ‘And the follow-up e-mail: [Co-Respondent]: ‘... the universe (tree) will not experience any more it’s self in this form (colour) through this human been (me) this moment (now). [Richard]: ‘... the universe does not experience itself ‘through’ a human being: it experiences itself *as* a human being (and as cats and dogs and so on) ... only the identity within the flesh and blood body experiences itself, and its reality, ‘through’ a human being’. [endquote]. RESPONDENT: On that ‘I’ ‘agree’, too. RICHARD: Okay ... the distinction between ‘through’ a body and ‘as’ a body is not at all a trivial one. * RESPONDENT: It goes: [snip selected passages from ‘Laws of Form’]. RICHARD: I have taken the liberty of snipping the text you quoted ... RESPONDENT: Please, actually, feel free to do whatever you want to do. RICHARD: The main thing I am wont to do, which some find objectionable, is to interject part-way through a sentence whenever the first part, used either as as a premise for the following part, or to build further upon, is invalid ... on some occasions two or three times in a sentence. * RICHARD: ... because Mr. George Spencer-Brown makes it abundantly clear elsewhere that, whatever it is that he speaks rather mystically of, it sure ain’t this actual world. [quote]: ‘... there is a whole world that be, which don’t even exist, and the world that don’t exist is far more real than the world that do’. [endquote]. RESPONDENT: Yeah, Spencer-Brown has a strange 7-level esoteric cosmology probably inspired by Tantrism which my curiosity has obliged me to reconstruct. RICHARD: Hmm ... why would you want to give back, by way of thanks, a text from someone who has a strange 7-level esoteric cosmology probably inspired by Tantrism? RESPONDENT: In it, he recounts seeing what you call ‘Radiant Being initially seen to be Pure Love’, although he does not write about having noticed her as being Pure Evil, too. But it reminds me of people experiencing something which they called ‘blazing horror’ in the Nazi concentration camps. Unfortunately, they have not recognized it to be Pure Love, although Hitler could have told them. This ‘other side’ of Pure Love being Pure Evil starkly reminds not only me of C.G. Jung and his observations on polarity. RICHARD: Aye ... but Mr. Carl Jung, being quite the studious metaphysician, justifies that polarity by saying it represents [quote] ‘complexio oppositorum’ [endquote] as if by so doing nothing else then needs be done. Viz.:
Mystical literature often mentions how the polar opposites continue to exist (as complimentary poles) in enlightenment. Indeed, one of the appellations used to describe the integration of the divine/diabolical divide upon transcendence, wherein the opposites unite without ceasing to be themselves, is the phrase ‘coincidentia oppositorum’ (coincidence of opposites). And thus have all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides, and so on, gone on forever and a day. * (end Part One)
RESPONDENT: Have you met women who have actually perceived ‘The Absolute’ as masculine? RICHARD: Not physically met ... no. * RESPONDENT: Now, maybe it will be fun to tell you how I got here: I had, in a process beginning seven years ago now, begun to examine all of my beliefs, goals and thoughts systematically. The trigger was the combination of four facts: I had at my disposal spare time (doing military service), a laptop and a mind-mapping computer program together with a good dosis of distress and unhappiness. I used the computer to mind-map my ideas, fears and wishes; brainstorming, arranging, rearranging, linking, re-linking for hours. This process has procured me months of delight at surprising insights, new connections, old connections unravelling, things getting much more simple, then more complex again, simplifying once more etc. I kept arranging and rearranging according to the leitmotif of the day or week – be it fun, energy, goals, information, brain, matter, relativity, universe or multiverse etc. Every fundamental belief was there, and ‘dualism’ started to appear as an important underlying question. Another factor in this process of dismantling began four years ago, when I began to examine the ‘social traditions and customs etc.’, via sociology and legal history, guided by the work of N. Luhmann. A nice reading for you might be his ‘Social systems’. Luhmann was, as far as I can tell, happy and harmless, except when making jokes pitying the intellectual fate of Habermas. Via him, I came to the subject of the dialectical ‘unity of the differences’ – the problem of dualism got a surprise solution. As Luhmann cites Spencer-Brown’s logic, I wanted to explore Laws of Form and was quite astonished to find the ‘mystical’ stuff. I needed his work on logic which was very useful insofar as it reduces propositional calculus (the logic of if-then, and, or, neither-nor, both etc. and syllogisms which is also used in law) to the act of distinguishing. Starting from the Laws of Form, I began surfing the web, coming first, funnily, to U.G. Krishnamurti with his very unattractive personality, then soon to Ramana Maharshi and the rest of the east/western Advaita bunch first, and next to the ‘beyond enlightenment’ views – not having had any remarkable experiences myself up to now. So, in the end, what started seven (actually, twenty-seven) years ago has undone itself: I had begun it in order to find out what I wanted to do, but on the road I lost all the goals I had made up or ‘found’; I lost interest in ‘the future’. However, I suspect the iron grip of my culture and my ‘character’ has never been quite as iron on me, having played a lot with expatriate Japanese children as a child and later going to schools in Scotland and France, thus having as one as my first experiences that there is not ‘one way’ to do things. A year ago I deleted all the notes I had made, including all of the backups. Zen/Advaita disease? Probably. Fun? Certainly. RICHARD: It is quite common to find [quote] ‘mystical’ stuff’ [endquote] in the works of various mathematicians/ logicians ... theoretical physics, for an obvious example, is full of it (if not based upon it). * RESPONDENT: May I quote you again, Richard, this time on death as a relief?
[Richard]: ‘... this planet, indeed the entire solar system, is going to cease to exist in its current form about 4.5 billion
years from now (or some-such figure). All these words – yours, mine, and others (all the dictionaries, encyclopaedias, scholarly
tomes and so on) – will perish and all the monuments, all the statues, all the tombstones, all the sacred sites, all the
carefully conserved/carefully restored memorabilia, will vanish as if they had never existed ... nothing will remain of any human
endeavour (including yours truly). Nothing at all ... nil, zero, zilch. Which means that nothing really matters in the long-term
and, as nothing actually is of enduring importance (in this ultimate sense), it means that life can in no way be a serious
business’. RICHARD: Somewhat bemused by what you say there I have just now re-read the extract bearing that in mind ... and I cannot see how what I wrote in the above quote is even remotely like what Mr. George Spencer-Brown was speaking of (let alone being actually what his text was about). RESPONDENT: Never mind. RICHARD: Okay. * RESPONDENT: Oh, happy and harmless people – what about the cynics? RICHARD: The Cynics were not happy and harmless (free of both malice and sorrow and their antidotal pacifiers love and compassion). RESPONDENT: Diogenes telling Alexander to get out of the sun? RICHARD: Tradition ascribes to Mr. Diogenes (a Greek Cynic philosopher circa 400-325 BCE) the famous search for an honest man conducted in broad daylight with a lighted lantern. As he wound up espousing an anarchist utopia, in which human beings lived [quote] ‘natural’ [endquote] lives, it is a fair bet to say that he was not an honest man himself. * RESPONDENT: Another similar group, the successors of the cynics, is represented by Epicurus, best known defender of hedonism in ancient Greece. RICHARD: Yet the article at ‘Wikipedia’ has the following to say:
RESPONDENT: His most famous quote is saying something like ‘Don’t worry about death, for while we live, it is not there, and when it is comes, we will not be here any longer.’ Do what makes you happy, avoid what makes you unhappy – harming other people makes you unhappy. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicureanism]. RICHARD: As the article at ‘Wikipedia’ has the following to say I am none too sure why you are bringing his pursuit of conditional happiness/ pacifism to my attention:
RESPONDENT: Maybe you might be interested in Diderot, too, when not too busy with your busy mailing list. His Rameau’s Nephew is very funny, as is Jaques the Fatalist. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis_Diderot]. RICHARD: I have just read the ‘Wikipedia’ article on the French philosopher Mr. Denis Diderot ... and this is an apt place to inform you, up-front and out-in-the-open, that actualism – the direct experience that matter is not merely passive – is experiential and not philosophical. * RESPONDENT: Another parallel you might like to explore or might already have – as a method, not in its premises – and which could be considered a ‘precursor’ of AF would be phenomenology. RICHARD: I have just now looked-up that word in a dictionary:
There is no way that description could even remotely be considered a precursive method to the actualism method ... so much so that this is an apt place to inform you, up-front and out-in-the-open, that actualism – the direct experience that matter is not merely passive – is experiential and not philosophical. RESPONDENT: The names connected with it are Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, Heidegger, Edith Stein, Sartre, Derrida. Unfortunately, I cannot tell you whether they or who of them were happy and harmless. RICHARD: I can ... the German philosopher Mr. Edmund Husserl was not happy and harmless (free of both malice and sorrow and their antidotal pacifiers love and compassion); the French philosopher Mr. Maurice Merleau-Ponty was not happy and harmless (free of both malice and sorrow and their antidotal pacifiers love and compassion); the German philosopher Mr. Martin Heidegger was not happy and harmless (free of both malice and sorrow and their antidotal pacifiers love and compassion); the Silesian philosopher Ms. Edith Stein was not happy and harmless (free of both malice and sorrow and their antidotal pacifiers love and compassion); the French philosopher Mr. Jean-Paul Sartre was not happy and harmless (free of both malice and sorrow and their antidotal pacifiers love and compassion); the French philosopher Mr. Jacques Derrida was not happy and harmless (free of both malice and sorrow and their antidotal pacifiers love and compassion). RESPONDENT: I have a strong suspicion for Stein and Derrida, though, for Derrida at least towards the end of his life. But I’ve been wrong before. RICHARD: All it takes is to provide (attributed and suitably referenced) quotes which unambiguously report freedom from both malice and sorrow and their antidotal pacifiers love and compassion. * RESPONDENT: Another quote which rang a bell is from [...]. Here you state that [Richard]: ‘Speaking personally, I have no problem with things like thought as in ‘analysis and mathematics’ ... because it is understood that they are abstract concepts and – while being useful tools – have no substance in actuality. For a person in the real-world, such tools are taken to be real in themselves ... that is, substantial’. [endquote]. RICHARD: Here is the relevant portion of that exchange:
RESPONDENT: This is the age-old debate on universals – the warring fractions being known in the West as realism and nominalism (vaguely identical with the debate between idealism and materialism, insofar as idealism (reality is based on consciousness) and realism (ideas are real) are the same. You appear to me to be reformulating the nominalist position (which I share) ... RICHARD: Whereas all I was doing was responding to a question about the inferences of thought, analysis and mathematics from a co-respondent who first asked [quote] ‘why is your concept of reality limited to what is perceived through the senses’ [endquote] as if it were somehow meaningful to so after having just read my words which clearly said that reality is the world which is perceived through the senses by the psychological entity that resides inside the body. In case that is not clear: as the direct experience of actuality (apperception) can in no way be a ‘concept of reality’ – nor can it be perceived ‘through the senses’ – then the only way such a query could be responded to, without picking the entire sentence apart, was to say that things like thought in analysis and mathematics were not a problem by virtue of them being abstract concepts. I will say it yet again for the emphasis it deserves: actualism is experiential ... not philosophical. RESPONDENT: ... which in antiquity was defended by the Sophists, later the Sceptics, in the middle ages prominently proposed by William of Ockham, known for his razor (cut out unnecessary assumptions). The same debate recently showed up in mathematics, where you usually find the most hard-headed Platonists (as Mr. Spencer-Brown, although he is not a mathematician by training anyway). But there are people who share the nominalist conception, linked most prominently to Brouwer and his mathematical ‘constructivism’ or ‘intuitionism’. Spencer-Brown can be seen as, ignoring Brouwer, reconstructing logic as topology and subsequently, like Buddha, the mystics or myself, taking distinctions to be identical with the ‘created’ world, with the aim to ‘undo’ all the distinctions and rid oneself of the ‘collective hypnosis’, as Spencer-Brown calls it with Alan Watts. In law, which is my background, the debate is whether there is ‘one correct solution’ to a case (the Platonist view, usually coupled with a belief in some ‘values’ which are to be ‘discovered’ and ‘applied’). The view of the most rebellious legal theorists, applied nominalism, is that ‘law is what you do when you’re doing law. It’s a practice, a trade. There is no ‘eternal justice’, looking for it is pointless.’ To sum up this part : the debate of ‘actualists’ vs. ‘spiritualists’ is commonly known as ‘realists’ vs. ‘nominalists’. RICHARD: Having never heard of nominalism I have just now looked it up in a dictionary:
As all I was doing was responding to a question about the inferences of thought, analysis and mathematics you are indeed stretching a long bow to try and make out that the discussions betwixt actualists and spiritualists are commonly known as the debate of [quote] ‘realists’ vs. ‘nominalists’ [endquote]. RESPONDENT: What appears to me an original contribution in AF is that at least you, Richard, before arriving at the nominalist position, have travelled extensively to the spiritual world, actually right up to the end of the path. RICHARD: I have not arrived at any nominalist position ... readily comprehending that abstract concepts – while being useful tools – have no substance in actuality is simply a by-product of being sensible, down-to-earth, practical. RESPONDENT: Then, you came to nominalism but gave it an ethical twist ... RICHARD: No, all I was doing was responding to a question about the inferences of thought, analysis and mathematics from a co-respondent who first asked [quote] ‘why is your concept of reality limited to what is perceived through the senses’ [endquote] ... with nary a trace of ethicality to be found anywhere. RESPONDENT: ... (prescribing it as necessary to cure, i.e. get rid of the human condition ... RICHARD: As the only thing which will get rid of the human condition is altruistic ‘self’-immolation in toto (for the benefit of this body and that body and every body) there is no way that the mere prescription of nominalism can ever be curative of same. RESPONDENT: ... i.e. making a ‘moral injunction to avoid ‘malice’ and ‘sorrow’ at all cost’) ... RICHARD: There is no morality whatsoever in actualism ... indeed, only a little further on in that discussion you quoted from, even my co-respondent comprehended that much (albeit in their own way). Viz.:
RESPONDENT: ... combined with a the view that everything is perfect the way it is ... RICHARD: No, actualism is not a [quote] ‘view’ [endquote] ... and neither is it an idea, an ideal, a belief, a concept, an opinion, a conjecture, a speculation, an assumption, a presumption, a supposition, a surmise, an inference, a judgement, an intellectualisation, an imagination, a posit, a postulation, an image, an analysis, a viewpoint, a view, a stance, a perspective, a standpoint, a position, a world-view, a mind-set, a state-of-mind, a frame-of-mind, or any other of the 101 ways of overlooking a direct report of what it is to be actually free from the human condition and living the utter peace of the perfection of the purity welling endlessly as the infinitude this eternal, infinite and perpetual universe actually is. RESPONDENT: ... if only you experience the world through your senses, and only your senses... RICHARD: The exchange you obtained the quote from clearly has me reporting/ describing/ explaining that reality is the world which is perceived *through* the senses (by the entity residing inside the body) whereas actuality is the world that is apperceived at the senses (by the body itself). RESPONDENT: ... which can be achieved through contemplation as opposed to meditation. RICHARD: No, what can be achieved by contemplation (considering, pondering, thinking about, reflecting over, mulling over, musing on, dwelling on, deliberating over, cogitating over, ruminating over), as opposed to meditation (entering into a dissociative and timeless/ spaceless/ formless trance and/or a thoughtless and senseless cataleptic state of being), is apperception ... the direct (unmediated) perception of this actual world. RESPONDENT: In this, AF is a creative combination I never explicitly encountered – so I take back the challenge, made at the beginning of my first mail, that it is quite a frequent ‘mode of perception’. RICHARD: An actual freedom from the human condition is not a [quote] ‘creative combination’ [endquote] ... to be actually free of the human condition is to be a flesh and blood body only (sans the entire affective faculty/ identity in toto). RESPONDENT: It is indeed, unfortunately, rather rare ... RICHARD: So rare as to be entirely new to human experience/ human history. RESPONDENT: ... and you have done a great job in synthesizing things that have been around for a long time – clearly and explicitly. RICHARD: I have done nothing of the sort – I have been here all along simply having a ball – as it was the identity in residence all those years ago who did what was necessary ... which was to altruistically ‘self’-immolate, in toto, for the benefit of this body and that body and every body. RESPONDENT: If the ‘age of enlightenment’ has been characterized by ‘disenchanting the world’, the ‘New Dark Age’, as you call it, is driven by what Freud calls ‘tries to get the magic back in by taking ‘magic’ or ‘psychic powers’ literally. AF is, insofar as it is most likely to be found by people on the ‘eastern path’, a re-disenchantment while conserving the mystic’s greatest achievement – [Richard]: ‘A vast stillness lies all around, a perfection that is abounding with purity. Beneficence, an active kindness, overflows in all directions, imbuing everything with unimaginable fairytale-like quality’. [endquote]. RICHARD: No mystic has ever achieved what the identity in residence all those years ago did ...
voluntarily and cheerfully, with knowledge aforethought, forsake the highly-prized state of being, popularly known as spiritual
enlightenment/ mystical awakenment, and go willingly and blessedly * RESPONDENT: The statement that ‘this moment has no duration’ can also be found in St Augustine’s autobiography, as you are certainly aware. The meditation on time is a nice read, although the rest is the usual religious stuff, filled with virginity, sinning, repenting, grace, heaven and hell. RICHARD: Having never read anything by Mr. Aurelius Augustinus I did a little research: presuming that by autobiography you mean his book ‘The Confessions’, and further presuming that the passage you speak of is to be found in ‘Book XI’, nowhere could I find anything relating to what ‘this moment has no duration’ refers to ... to time itself (the arena, so to speak, in which objects move) being without any movement whatsoever. * RESPONDENT: Last, I would like to remind you that the phrase ‘the unexamined life is not worth living for man’ is by Plato, Phaedo :-). RICHARD: Why would you like to remind me who the phrase ‘the unexamined life is not worth living for man’ is by? * RESPONDENT: May you always remain infinitely happy and harmless. RICHARD: There is no ‘may’ about it ... an actual freedom from the human condition is irrevocable (as in the Oxford Dictionary ‘unable to be annulled or undone; unalterable, irreversible’ meaning). It is all so simple here.
(...) RESPONDENT: The statement that ‘this moment has no duration’ can also be found in St Augustine’s autobiography, as you are certainly aware. The meditation on time is a nice read, although the rest is the usual religious stuff, filled with virginity, sinning, repenting, grace, heaven and hell. RICHARD: Having never read anything by Mr. Aurelius Augustinus I did a little research: presuming that by autobiography you mean his book ‘The Confessions’, and further presuming that the passage you speak of is to be found in ‘Book XI’, nowhere could I find anything relating to what ‘this moment has no duration’ refers to ... to time itself (the arena, so to speak, in which objects move) being without any movement whatsoever. RESPONDENT: Sorry, I had forgotten the title when writing to you but assumed you knew it. ‘The Confessions’ are indeed his autobiography. I thought that your statement ‘this moment has no duration’ could be compared to Augustine’s, Confessions, book XI, chap. XV: ‘(...) If any portion of time be conceived which cannot now be divided into even the minutest particles of moments, this only is that which may be called present; which, however, flies so rapidly from future to past, that it cannot be extended by any delay. (...)’ [endquote]. I think ‘not extended by any delay’ and ‘no duration’ are rather similar. But if the word ‘moment’ in your sentence, contrary to what I presumed, doesn’t mean ‘this present moment’ but refers to ‘time itself (the arena, so to speak, in which objects move) being without any movement whatsoever’ then this sounds dangerously 4-dimensional to me. RICHARD: Have you not ever noticed that it is never not this moment? If not, then are you aware that time as a measure of the sequence of events (as in past/ present/ future) is but a convention? To explain: presumably some pre-historical person/persons noticed what the shadow of a stick standing perpendicular in the ground did such as to eventually lead to the sundial – a circular measure of the movement of a cast shadow arbitrarily divided into twelve sections because of a prevailing duo-decimal counting system – and then to water-clocks/ sand-clocks and thence to pendulum-clocks/ spring-clocks and thus to electrical-clocks/ electronic-clocks and, currently, energy-clocks (aka ‘atomic-clocks’) ... with all such measurement of movement being a measure of the earth’s rotation whilst in orbit around its radiant star. Put succinctly: it is not time itself (eternity) that moves ... it is objects existing in (infinite) space which do. * RESPONDENT: Last, I would like to remind you that the phrase ‘the unexamined life is not worth living for man’ is by Plato, Phaedo :-). RICHARD: Why would you like to remind me who the phrase ‘the unexamined life is not worth living for man’ is by? RESPONDENT: Well, I haven’t anywhere seen you giving credit to the author of this quote which you fondly and regularly use. RICHARD: I copy-pasted [quote] ‘the unexamined life is not worth living for man’ [endquote] into the search engine of this computer and sent it through everything I have ever written ... only to return nil hits. If you could provide the relevant texts where I have regularly used that quote it would be most appreciated. RESPONDENT: I thought it might be nice to provide this mailing list with the source ... RICHARD: Why did you think it might be nice to provide this mailing list with the source? RESPONDENT: ... i.e. Plato, Phaedo, a dialogue featuring Socrates. RICHARD: A search through an on-line version of ‘Phaedo’ for that quote returned nil hits ... a search through ‘Apology’, however, found the following passage:
If that is indeed the phrase you are referring to it has also been rendered as follows:
RESPONDENT: An unhappy and harmful specimen of the intellectual kind, although quite good at contemplation. RICHARD: In which case, and for whatever it is worth, then ... Mr. John Elson, in a review of Mr. Isidor Stone’s book ‘Gadfly’s Guilt: The Trial Of Socrates’, considers that the author [quote] ‘argues persuasively that the beloved Socrates was in reality a cold-hearted, elitist, pro-Spartan snob who was openly contemptuous of Athens’ vaunted democracy and favoured totalitarian rule by a philosopher-king’ [endquote]. (p. 66, ‘Time Magazine’; January 25, 1988). The article at the following URL, originally published in ‘The New York Times Magazine’ (April 8, 1979, pp. 22 ff.), sheds some light upon why: www.chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/essays/ifstoneonsocrates.html There are occasions where I am particularly pleased not to have ever studied philosophy ... and this is one of them. RESPONDENT: But with a serious lack in repetitiveness, probably due to the absence of the copy & paste function in 400 BC. RICHARD: Ha ... you would have to be referring to this exchange:
There is a distinct possibility, now, that you will never again misconstrue just what unconditional felicity/ innocuity is, eh?
CORRESPONDENT No. 97 (Part Two) RETURN TO THE ACTUAL FREEDOM MAILING LIST INDEX RETURN TO RICHARD’S CORRESPONDENCE INDEX The Third Alternative (Peace On Earth In This Life Time As This Flesh And Blood Body) Here is an actual freedom from the Human Condition, surpassing Spiritual Enlightenment and any other Altered State Of Consciousness, and challenging all philosophy, psychiatry, metaphysics (including quantum physics with its mystic cosmogony), anthropology, sociology ... and any religion along with its paranormal theology. Discarding all of the beliefs that have held humankind in thralldom for aeons, the way has now been discovered that cuts through the ‘Tried and True’ and enables anyone to be, for the first time, a fully free and autonomous individual living in utter peace and tranquillity, beholden to no-one.
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