js
Flashlight Enthusiast
Re: They aren\'t just lights!
[ QUOTE ]
xochi said:
"For the record, I utterly reject your conflation and confusion of drug use, Dionysian ritual, religion and mysticism. If you think they are all essentially the same, so much the worse for you, and I am sorry."
Listen Jim, great for you , that you don't mind believing whatever feels good. If you're going to 'utterly reject' something at least do it on some basis that exists somewhere beside your own mind...communicate it! I said nothing of dionysian ritual (do some research and you'll see drugs though). What experience do you have with either of these, drugs or mysticism? You say you've practiced zazen for a few hours and read some books from the eastern religion section at barnes and noble. Ever taken part in an ayahuasca ceremony? I have. Using such a pop culture word like 'spirituality' is an insult to the whole thing. I use words like drugs so that people with massively limited perspectives (lowest common denominators)can at least understand one level of what is being said. What about fasting? Ever gone a week on water alone? I have. What about , 80 hours without sleep (without chemicals)? Read Tolkien all you want (read the trilogy 3 times myself) but don't think that silly , 9th grade english lit essay material is going to make what you said anything but: " I believe it because I want to , and I'm right. I feel sorry for you because you can't experience the wonder of my delusion. "
Jim, people like you are the reason there is so much violence in the world. People like you refuse to just LET PEOPLE FEEL GOOD! For some reason you and those like you insist that every good deed and every good feeling be steeped in cosmic signifigance. That is a total freaking nazi like attitude and you don't even realize that the source of wonder is the MUNDANE. For some reason, I believe it's a personal inadequacy, you must pull something from beyond the cosmos to give everything meaning otherwise you all just want to run off and blow your brains out because you can't take being without cosmic signifigance. Maybe it's being fed too much disney and tolkein. As soon as cosmic signifigance is even a little bit verified you are off on some kind of crusade.
People who believe anything , based on nothing, end up contributing nothing. So your luddite attitude of the evils of science and the superiority of ...fairy tales produces what? Sure as hell didn't get you to work or send the signal that lit up my screen.
Not to mention attempting to maintain anything like civility when you begin a paragraph with "I'm laughing now, thinking of how you will react to this". At least grow some balls and drop the passive aggressive bs. I don't pity you, or feel sorry for you. If I were to say that I'd be lieing to myself and being a slimy, self righteous sob. Really, I think you are a moron whose own self importance and overestimation of his own intelligence is threatened, therefore you start quoting literature and talking about fairies when If you had any respect for me, or yourself, you'd just say "Hey Man, I'm enjoying my fantasy, Don't rain on my parade" Or maybe you'd debate with some real facts rather than 'greeting card' prose.
Listen if this discussion is going to be placed up for a vote, surely, your 'skyhook' position will win more votes (your diction is pretty unoriginal, the listing of savored passions that you will continue, in particular). Personally I find reality and the process of discovering it (science) to be much more fantastic than the mental masturbation available from 'the New Age'.
[/ QUOTE ]
Xochi, this is out of line. You misunderstood me and my comments, especially the one about "I'm laughing now". I don't know where all your anger and offensive language comes from, nor why you thought you needed to spell out your credentials and belittle mine, but I wasn't "laughing at you" in the sense of dismissing or making fun of you. I was laughing because of the difference between us and how you would probably react strongly to my position. I did not for a moment think that you would react as strongly as you did.
You go so far as to link me and my thinking with violence and compare it to the Nazi's?
Might I suggest, to start, that you do not know me very well, nor is it very sound or safe to extrapolate a persons philosophy and entire view of life from a few exchanges in a thread.
Let me start with my credentials. You say,
[ QUOTE ]
Really, I think you are a moron whose own self importance and overestimation of his own intelligence is threatened, therefore you start quoting literature and talking about fairies when If you had any respect for me, or yourself, you'd just say "Hey Man, I'm enjoying my fantasy, Don't rain on my parade" Or maybe you'd debate with some real facts rather than 'greeting card' prose.
Listen if this discussion is going to be placed up for a vote, surely, your 'skyhook' position will win more votes (your diction is pretty unoriginal, the listing of savored passions that you will continue, in particular). Personally I find reality and the process of discovering it (science) to be much more fantastic than the mental masturbation available from 'the New Age'.
[/ QUOTE ]
OK. I'd say you've really gone over the top here. My intelligence was not threatened by anything that you said, and I did not say "Hey, man, I'm enjoying my fantasy. Don't rain on my parade" because it is NOT my position. I do not believe in whatever makes me feel good. Really, xochi, what's going on here, cause I must have missed it? I mean, why are you so outraged? Can't you accept the possiblity that I have good reason for believing what I believe, and that it is not "nothing based on nothing contributing nothing"?
Anyway, yes, my credentials. I have a Masters degree in Physics and an undergraduate degree in Engineering Physics with concentrations in Electrical and Mechanical Engineering. I am currently one of only 8 operators here at Cornell University's positron-electron collider, known by its' acronym CESR (Cornell Electron Storage Ring). When I am on shift I oversee the entire operation of this extremely complex machine, from the creation of the electroncs at the "gun" and the positrons at the tungsten target (high energy electrons bombard the high-Z tungsten atoms and through bremsstrahlung radiation positron-electron pairs are created from which we collect the positrons) through to filling the storage ring and bringing the two beams into collision in the detector. I am responsible for repairing or replacing many of the components in the accelerator, should something fail while I am on shift, and I am the second person in charge of the surveying and alignment group, responsible for placing all of the components in the ring to within a mm of their design position.
In the middle of getting my Masters, I took a leave of absence to apprentice to tune, repair, refinish, and rebuild grand and upright pianos. After completing my two year apprenticeship I went on to work for a year at Ithaca Piano Rebuilders here in Ithaca NY. I can (and do) put a concert level tuning on a piano, and I have completely rebuilt many different pianos, both grand and upright.
I have also taught 6th, 7th, and 8th grade science, as well as English and Catechism, to my students at an inner city Catholic school in Syracuse, NY.
I have mastered Mathematics through the graduate level of Partial Differential Equations and Differential Geometry (the Mathematics of n-dimensional curved surfaces and spaces, and also the Mathematics used to describe General Relativity). I have derived the Lorentz Transformations of Special Relativity on my own, from scratch.
I can read Latin and Attic Greek. I can read Chaucer in the Middle English, and can recite the Prologue from memory.
So you see, I hardly think I am a stranger to reality and "the process of discovering it" which you call science.
Perhaps my diction is unoriginal. So what? The question is not whether it is original or not, but whether what I am saying is TRUE or not.
Now, I honestly and sincerely apologize if you found my posts to be belitting or condescending or insulting. I solemnly swear that I did not intend for them to come across that way.
I have a good friend who is a Tibetan Buddhist, and we discuss our differences at length, and we quite enjoy doing so. I have complete respect for his position; it's just that I don't believe it and don't agree with it.
Let me start again on the question of what you were saying about drug use and religion and what not. You said:
[ QUOTE ]
I suspect, you are refering to a certain type of 'twilight' type mystical feeling that people get when they look out from high vistas or at rainbows or irridescence, or the rings of saturn, or stuff that glows in the dark, or clear skys at twilight when purple blue hues and brilliant points of starlight fill the eyes? I believe that you are romanceing the sensation of religious signifigance and tying it in to flashlights. I certainly agree that lasers and leds and hid's certainly do evoke these feelings in some people. They aren't any more signifigant than other feelings though. If you really want to experience some cosmic signifigance eat 4 grams of some types of psilocybe mushroom or take 200 mcg of acid, drink ayahuasca or smoke some dmt or smoke some bufo alvarius venom. Most of these have been included in ancient religious traditions in various forms. In fact dimethyltryptamine has even been isolated from human cerebrospinal fluid as a natural constituent. Or, if you prefer a more natural "God Buzz" go to a christian rock concert, hold your hands up and close your eyes and reflect on the glory of god and the supreme sacrifice made for us, you can't help but soon cry tears of joy that will bring you very close to the complete stranger to your right. This is naturally produced 'ecstacy'.
[/ QUOTE ]
And even after re-reading it, it still seems to me to put true religios experience, such as found in meditation or mental prayer, on a par with taking drugs. To my mind there is a difference both in kind and in degree. Do you disagree with me on this? And if so, do you think drugs can be used to bring about enlightenment?
You also say:
[ QUOTE ]
The reality is that if a nation of arahants (buddhist saints) came about they would be very boring to the rest of the world, mainly growing food to provide one meal a day to continue living , meditation, instructing those who ask for it, helping those who ask for it and that's about it. They wouldn't own flashlights because they would have no need to be rid of the dark.
[/ QUOTE ]
And this is what I was thinking about when I was talking about the passions and chopping wood, carrying water. From my own understanding of these things (very limited) and from what you have said and what my Buddhist friend has said, I see that in such a complete Buddhist society Art and Technology and many other things would have a character that would be completely different than most of us are used to. I see that someone like Beethoven or Schubert would not exist, because to place oneself so totally in the service of music (in this case) would be contrary to the teachings of the Buddha.
Is this a correct perception?
Now, as for "New Age" and it's relation to me, I would bet you any amount of money that if you asked any of my friends or family (or acquaintances) if I was into "New Age" philosophy, he or she would laugh out loud--again, not AT you, but at the huge difference between the assertion and the reality.
I do not go out in the woods looking for Fairies.
I do not believe that Fairies exist in this world.
I do not own crystals or consult my Horoscope or do Tarot readings.
I have no truck with such things.
What I was trying to say about Faerie was simply that it is a much truer description of the real world than anything science can offer.
If you think about it, everything important is invisible and inaccessible to science proper. My wife is invisible, in the sense that the most important part of her can not be seen or measured by any scientific instrument. Her soul, her personality, her emotions, her thoughts--these are all invisible, except in their effects. And this is the only way that science can study them. Science can see the effect of depression or anger on brain chemistry, but that is not the same as the way that I see them in my wife, or she sees them in herself.
To illustrate my point, consider a printed book. To an animal, the book is only another object of a certain shape and size and texture, and nothing more. To an illiterate savage, or primitive human, the book will be seen as something made by other humans, but the little black marks on the page will be only that: little black marks. To a foreigner, the book will be seen as a book, as something that contains words and sentences and paragrahps and chapters: in other words, MEANING. He or she may not know what it says, but just knowing that it says something, means that he or she has understood the most important, the most essential thing about the book. And finally, to a native speaker, the book is a book that can be read, that tells a story or conveys information.
Science studies the book of the world at the level of little black marks. It excludes from the beginning any higher grade of significance (much the same way you excluded "spirit" from consideration). Science has nothing to say about the soul or about what the world "means." And this is all well and good for science, and as a scientist, that is the way that I have trained my mind to think--when I want to.
But the problem comes when people extrapolate from this that the world is nothing but atoms in motion. This is exactly like saying that a book is nothing but black marks on a page. It is factually correct at that lower grade of significance, but totally untrue.
This is what I mean when I say that Fairy Land is a better and true description of the world than a practical, matter of fact, scientific or business-like description.
Consider the unique tone and atmosphere which is found in the fairy tale. Let me state it this way by paraphrasing from more of Chesterton, and some of Tolkien: there are certain sequences or developments which are, in the true sense of the word, REASONABLE. Such would be the logical and mathematical sequences. If Cinderellas sisters are OLDER than she is, then it is NECESSARILY so that she is younger than they are. There is no way out of it. If Jack is the son of a miller, then a miller is the father of Jack.
But fairy tales avoid the scientific reductionism that puts things like sunrise and gravity and history on the same level, as if THEY were rational and inevitable. You can easily imagine a world where things are different, but you could never imagine a world where two horses and one horse did not make three horses.
Thus you are left with the truly (in my opinion) important things about life. You are left with things like free-will and good and bad intentions, and honesty and dishonesty, and with the wonder of things as they are.
I have absolutely nothing against the mundane, despite your accusation. I know that the mundane is WONDERFUL and full of magic. I believe that in the fairy tale, the apple is made to be golden to remind us for one startling second that they are green and red. It's wonderful; it is, strictly speaking, magical. i.e. it could have been otherwise, and certainly is otherwise in other worlds. I don't need to "pull" some significance in from beyond in order to prevent myself from blowing my brains out. I believe that the significance is there, if you only know how to READ it, and we all do to some extent.
I have absolutely no problem letting people feel good. I'm happy to let them feel however they want. But I do not believe that I should restrict myself to the so-called mundane. I do not see why I shouldn't live also for art and science and hobbies and love.
You know, you still haven't answered my questions: what is your purpose in all of this? I know initially that you wanted to present the other side of the argument about flashlights and their use--and that was appropriate--but what are you doing now? I honestly want to know, because it seems to me that if you truly believe that the self is a delusion, why are you getting angry at me? Why are you arguing with me?
And if you think--as it seems you are saying--that I am somehow damaging the minds and lives of others in taking the position that I do, then isn't this a belief in a significance in actions which goes beyond the material? This I would place in the realm of the spiritual, of the moral.
If you were just meditating in a small house with a large garden, quietly and calmly going about your daily life (for which I would honestly admire you) then that would be self-consistent with your position as I see it. But by arguing with me on these things, and even insulting my person, my intelligence, my intentions, as well as my position, you seem to me to be acting against your stated philosophy. The talk does not coincide with the walk, as I presently see it.
I do not say this to anger you or to attack you, but rather to point to a question and confusion about your position in my own mind. If you would like to explain it to me, I will do my best to try to grasp it, and I would appreciate the same good-will from you.
[ QUOTE ]
xochi said:
"For the record, I utterly reject your conflation and confusion of drug use, Dionysian ritual, religion and mysticism. If you think they are all essentially the same, so much the worse for you, and I am sorry."
Listen Jim, great for you , that you don't mind believing whatever feels good. If you're going to 'utterly reject' something at least do it on some basis that exists somewhere beside your own mind...communicate it! I said nothing of dionysian ritual (do some research and you'll see drugs though). What experience do you have with either of these, drugs or mysticism? You say you've practiced zazen for a few hours and read some books from the eastern religion section at barnes and noble. Ever taken part in an ayahuasca ceremony? I have. Using such a pop culture word like 'spirituality' is an insult to the whole thing. I use words like drugs so that people with massively limited perspectives (lowest common denominators)can at least understand one level of what is being said. What about fasting? Ever gone a week on water alone? I have. What about , 80 hours without sleep (without chemicals)? Read Tolkien all you want (read the trilogy 3 times myself) but don't think that silly , 9th grade english lit essay material is going to make what you said anything but: " I believe it because I want to , and I'm right. I feel sorry for you because you can't experience the wonder of my delusion. "
Jim, people like you are the reason there is so much violence in the world. People like you refuse to just LET PEOPLE FEEL GOOD! For some reason you and those like you insist that every good deed and every good feeling be steeped in cosmic signifigance. That is a total freaking nazi like attitude and you don't even realize that the source of wonder is the MUNDANE. For some reason, I believe it's a personal inadequacy, you must pull something from beyond the cosmos to give everything meaning otherwise you all just want to run off and blow your brains out because you can't take being without cosmic signifigance. Maybe it's being fed too much disney and tolkein. As soon as cosmic signifigance is even a little bit verified you are off on some kind of crusade.
People who believe anything , based on nothing, end up contributing nothing. So your luddite attitude of the evils of science and the superiority of ...fairy tales produces what? Sure as hell didn't get you to work or send the signal that lit up my screen.
Not to mention attempting to maintain anything like civility when you begin a paragraph with "I'm laughing now, thinking of how you will react to this". At least grow some balls and drop the passive aggressive bs. I don't pity you, or feel sorry for you. If I were to say that I'd be lieing to myself and being a slimy, self righteous sob. Really, I think you are a moron whose own self importance and overestimation of his own intelligence is threatened, therefore you start quoting literature and talking about fairies when If you had any respect for me, or yourself, you'd just say "Hey Man, I'm enjoying my fantasy, Don't rain on my parade" Or maybe you'd debate with some real facts rather than 'greeting card' prose.
Listen if this discussion is going to be placed up for a vote, surely, your 'skyhook' position will win more votes (your diction is pretty unoriginal, the listing of savored passions that you will continue, in particular). Personally I find reality and the process of discovering it (science) to be much more fantastic than the mental masturbation available from 'the New Age'.
[/ QUOTE ]
Xochi, this is out of line. You misunderstood me and my comments, especially the one about "I'm laughing now". I don't know where all your anger and offensive language comes from, nor why you thought you needed to spell out your credentials and belittle mine, but I wasn't "laughing at you" in the sense of dismissing or making fun of you. I was laughing because of the difference between us and how you would probably react strongly to my position. I did not for a moment think that you would react as strongly as you did.
You go so far as to link me and my thinking with violence and compare it to the Nazi's?
Might I suggest, to start, that you do not know me very well, nor is it very sound or safe to extrapolate a persons philosophy and entire view of life from a few exchanges in a thread.
Let me start with my credentials. You say,
[ QUOTE ]
Really, I think you are a moron whose own self importance and overestimation of his own intelligence is threatened, therefore you start quoting literature and talking about fairies when If you had any respect for me, or yourself, you'd just say "Hey Man, I'm enjoying my fantasy, Don't rain on my parade" Or maybe you'd debate with some real facts rather than 'greeting card' prose.
Listen if this discussion is going to be placed up for a vote, surely, your 'skyhook' position will win more votes (your diction is pretty unoriginal, the listing of savored passions that you will continue, in particular). Personally I find reality and the process of discovering it (science) to be much more fantastic than the mental masturbation available from 'the New Age'.
[/ QUOTE ]
OK. I'd say you've really gone over the top here. My intelligence was not threatened by anything that you said, and I did not say "Hey, man, I'm enjoying my fantasy. Don't rain on my parade" because it is NOT my position. I do not believe in whatever makes me feel good. Really, xochi, what's going on here, cause I must have missed it? I mean, why are you so outraged? Can't you accept the possiblity that I have good reason for believing what I believe, and that it is not "nothing based on nothing contributing nothing"?
Anyway, yes, my credentials. I have a Masters degree in Physics and an undergraduate degree in Engineering Physics with concentrations in Electrical and Mechanical Engineering. I am currently one of only 8 operators here at Cornell University's positron-electron collider, known by its' acronym CESR (Cornell Electron Storage Ring). When I am on shift I oversee the entire operation of this extremely complex machine, from the creation of the electroncs at the "gun" and the positrons at the tungsten target (high energy electrons bombard the high-Z tungsten atoms and through bremsstrahlung radiation positron-electron pairs are created from which we collect the positrons) through to filling the storage ring and bringing the two beams into collision in the detector. I am responsible for repairing or replacing many of the components in the accelerator, should something fail while I am on shift, and I am the second person in charge of the surveying and alignment group, responsible for placing all of the components in the ring to within a mm of their design position.
In the middle of getting my Masters, I took a leave of absence to apprentice to tune, repair, refinish, and rebuild grand and upright pianos. After completing my two year apprenticeship I went on to work for a year at Ithaca Piano Rebuilders here in Ithaca NY. I can (and do) put a concert level tuning on a piano, and I have completely rebuilt many different pianos, both grand and upright.
I have also taught 6th, 7th, and 8th grade science, as well as English and Catechism, to my students at an inner city Catholic school in Syracuse, NY.
I have mastered Mathematics through the graduate level of Partial Differential Equations and Differential Geometry (the Mathematics of n-dimensional curved surfaces and spaces, and also the Mathematics used to describe General Relativity). I have derived the Lorentz Transformations of Special Relativity on my own, from scratch.
I can read Latin and Attic Greek. I can read Chaucer in the Middle English, and can recite the Prologue from memory.
So you see, I hardly think I am a stranger to reality and "the process of discovering it" which you call science.
Perhaps my diction is unoriginal. So what? The question is not whether it is original or not, but whether what I am saying is TRUE or not.
Now, I honestly and sincerely apologize if you found my posts to be belitting or condescending or insulting. I solemnly swear that I did not intend for them to come across that way.
I have a good friend who is a Tibetan Buddhist, and we discuss our differences at length, and we quite enjoy doing so. I have complete respect for his position; it's just that I don't believe it and don't agree with it.
Let me start again on the question of what you were saying about drug use and religion and what not. You said:
[ QUOTE ]
I suspect, you are refering to a certain type of 'twilight' type mystical feeling that people get when they look out from high vistas or at rainbows or irridescence, or the rings of saturn, or stuff that glows in the dark, or clear skys at twilight when purple blue hues and brilliant points of starlight fill the eyes? I believe that you are romanceing the sensation of religious signifigance and tying it in to flashlights. I certainly agree that lasers and leds and hid's certainly do evoke these feelings in some people. They aren't any more signifigant than other feelings though. If you really want to experience some cosmic signifigance eat 4 grams of some types of psilocybe mushroom or take 200 mcg of acid, drink ayahuasca or smoke some dmt or smoke some bufo alvarius venom. Most of these have been included in ancient religious traditions in various forms. In fact dimethyltryptamine has even been isolated from human cerebrospinal fluid as a natural constituent. Or, if you prefer a more natural "God Buzz" go to a christian rock concert, hold your hands up and close your eyes and reflect on the glory of god and the supreme sacrifice made for us, you can't help but soon cry tears of joy that will bring you very close to the complete stranger to your right. This is naturally produced 'ecstacy'.
[/ QUOTE ]
And even after re-reading it, it still seems to me to put true religios experience, such as found in meditation or mental prayer, on a par with taking drugs. To my mind there is a difference both in kind and in degree. Do you disagree with me on this? And if so, do you think drugs can be used to bring about enlightenment?
You also say:
[ QUOTE ]
The reality is that if a nation of arahants (buddhist saints) came about they would be very boring to the rest of the world, mainly growing food to provide one meal a day to continue living , meditation, instructing those who ask for it, helping those who ask for it and that's about it. They wouldn't own flashlights because they would have no need to be rid of the dark.
[/ QUOTE ]
And this is what I was thinking about when I was talking about the passions and chopping wood, carrying water. From my own understanding of these things (very limited) and from what you have said and what my Buddhist friend has said, I see that in such a complete Buddhist society Art and Technology and many other things would have a character that would be completely different than most of us are used to. I see that someone like Beethoven or Schubert would not exist, because to place oneself so totally in the service of music (in this case) would be contrary to the teachings of the Buddha.
Is this a correct perception?
Now, as for "New Age" and it's relation to me, I would bet you any amount of money that if you asked any of my friends or family (or acquaintances) if I was into "New Age" philosophy, he or she would laugh out loud--again, not AT you, but at the huge difference between the assertion and the reality.
I do not go out in the woods looking for Fairies.
I do not believe that Fairies exist in this world.
I do not own crystals or consult my Horoscope or do Tarot readings.
I have no truck with such things.
What I was trying to say about Faerie was simply that it is a much truer description of the real world than anything science can offer.
If you think about it, everything important is invisible and inaccessible to science proper. My wife is invisible, in the sense that the most important part of her can not be seen or measured by any scientific instrument. Her soul, her personality, her emotions, her thoughts--these are all invisible, except in their effects. And this is the only way that science can study them. Science can see the effect of depression or anger on brain chemistry, but that is not the same as the way that I see them in my wife, or she sees them in herself.
To illustrate my point, consider a printed book. To an animal, the book is only another object of a certain shape and size and texture, and nothing more. To an illiterate savage, or primitive human, the book will be seen as something made by other humans, but the little black marks on the page will be only that: little black marks. To a foreigner, the book will be seen as a book, as something that contains words and sentences and paragrahps and chapters: in other words, MEANING. He or she may not know what it says, but just knowing that it says something, means that he or she has understood the most important, the most essential thing about the book. And finally, to a native speaker, the book is a book that can be read, that tells a story or conveys information.
Science studies the book of the world at the level of little black marks. It excludes from the beginning any higher grade of significance (much the same way you excluded "spirit" from consideration). Science has nothing to say about the soul or about what the world "means." And this is all well and good for science, and as a scientist, that is the way that I have trained my mind to think--when I want to.
But the problem comes when people extrapolate from this that the world is nothing but atoms in motion. This is exactly like saying that a book is nothing but black marks on a page. It is factually correct at that lower grade of significance, but totally untrue.
This is what I mean when I say that Fairy Land is a better and true description of the world than a practical, matter of fact, scientific or business-like description.
Consider the unique tone and atmosphere which is found in the fairy tale. Let me state it this way by paraphrasing from more of Chesterton, and some of Tolkien: there are certain sequences or developments which are, in the true sense of the word, REASONABLE. Such would be the logical and mathematical sequences. If Cinderellas sisters are OLDER than she is, then it is NECESSARILY so that she is younger than they are. There is no way out of it. If Jack is the son of a miller, then a miller is the father of Jack.
But fairy tales avoid the scientific reductionism that puts things like sunrise and gravity and history on the same level, as if THEY were rational and inevitable. You can easily imagine a world where things are different, but you could never imagine a world where two horses and one horse did not make three horses.
Thus you are left with the truly (in my opinion) important things about life. You are left with things like free-will and good and bad intentions, and honesty and dishonesty, and with the wonder of things as they are.
I have absolutely nothing against the mundane, despite your accusation. I know that the mundane is WONDERFUL and full of magic. I believe that in the fairy tale, the apple is made to be golden to remind us for one startling second that they are green and red. It's wonderful; it is, strictly speaking, magical. i.e. it could have been otherwise, and certainly is otherwise in other worlds. I don't need to "pull" some significance in from beyond in order to prevent myself from blowing my brains out. I believe that the significance is there, if you only know how to READ it, and we all do to some extent.
I have absolutely no problem letting people feel good. I'm happy to let them feel however they want. But I do not believe that I should restrict myself to the so-called mundane. I do not see why I shouldn't live also for art and science and hobbies and love.
You know, you still haven't answered my questions: what is your purpose in all of this? I know initially that you wanted to present the other side of the argument about flashlights and their use--and that was appropriate--but what are you doing now? I honestly want to know, because it seems to me that if you truly believe that the self is a delusion, why are you getting angry at me? Why are you arguing with me?
And if you think--as it seems you are saying--that I am somehow damaging the minds and lives of others in taking the position that I do, then isn't this a belief in a significance in actions which goes beyond the material? This I would place in the realm of the spiritual, of the moral.
If you were just meditating in a small house with a large garden, quietly and calmly going about your daily life (for which I would honestly admire you) then that would be self-consistent with your position as I see it. But by arguing with me on these things, and even insulting my person, my intelligence, my intentions, as well as my position, you seem to me to be acting against your stated philosophy. The talk does not coincide with the walk, as I presently see it.
I do not say this to anger you or to attack you, but rather to point to a question and confusion about your position in my own mind. If you would like to explain it to me, I will do my best to try to grasp it, and I would appreciate the same good-will from you.
