Karl

I'm pleased to see that you are also an advocate of logic and agree in totality that it is the only way to establish truth.

Do you really believe all this stuff as it is written ? The world is full of myths and legends, gods and immortals. Parse any civilisation or culture and it is riven with examples. Even in my home town we have a legend of a dragon killed by a great sword. This that was only a few centuries ago. Where the story came from and why it persists is unknown. Perhaps it's a metaphor ? But certainly we did not have fire breathing, flying lizards prowling the villages a few hundred years back. However the man who supposedly despatched the dragon lived a very sweet life from then on. That hundred word inscription though is a different thing altogether, although the wording is somewhat strange - being and being can be interpreted in two senses and so there is equivocation. If it is, as I think it is intended, not as beings ( supernatural creature ) but just as 'being' then it makes perfect sense to me.

Being capable of disagreement with me makes it right, regardless of statement of the disagreement which may be valid or not. It is entirely possible to make a valid statement-in the sense of inductive reasoning-but still be ignorant of why it is valid. A thing is a thing and no other thing. This was the reasons monks battered their students with sticks once they moved into subjective illusion and believed they had transcended mortality . It literally was 'to knock sense into them'. It's very hard to deny a stick is a stick, a body is a body and pain is pain. We have one tool and that's logic. It is a birth right, but it can be abused and oppressed. Remembered knowledge is mistaken for true knowledge. We are losing the ability to use logic effectively. This is a modern world of skills and specialisation, in which the incredible progress afforded by the division of labour and the laws of comparative advantage have led to a situation in which logic has been largely usurped by the instantaneous nature of our lives. It has created a longing for a return to a simpler time, but without logic to guide our understanding, we have become attracted to a mash up of facts, pseudoscience, religion, mysticism, superstition and Magic. These things are entirely knowledge based-in effect it's another skill. If all we have to guide us is emotional intuition ( feelings ) then we are in danger. If you don't know what a Tiger is, or if you dispute that it is a Tiger, or believe that it is nothing but an illusion of consciousness subjectivity-akin to a dream-then you are seeking to hide from reality. The legend of King Canute is a classical example of that mode of thinking. The Tiger will attack you if it is its intention to do so and the sea will advance. It's been the case for many years that those prepared to shout truth from the rooftops usually get short shrift by the residents. If they are lucky it's only verbal abuse.

'like' that quote- empty headed may I be:-)

Dogs and Salmon is all I got asking those types of questions. Then somewhere there was Hamlet and Julius Ceaser who was a romulan by consensus. Why take LSD I say. Spend a few hours here. Just because I've never read Hamlet because I came from a poor school where we begged for soup and stole pocket watches they picked on me. :-(

Existence exists. The universe exists regardless of you being conscious of it. Things are things. Anything you argue is prefaced by existence or you could not argue it. You can have the belief that everything is illusion, but that thought must be framed objectively or how do you know your thought is not illusion and that thought is illusion etc etc ?

It's erased. There were no patterns or connections because you have hidden yourself within the subjective. Quintessential is Alchemical/mystic aether, but reality is the pattern of five. Water molecules, reproduction, flow, dynamic life, apples, flowers, pentatonic, the major third, 3:4:5 triangle. Dogs, salmon ? A dog is not a rational human being ?

Hamlet: that makes sense 'cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war' and all that good stuff uttered by the Klingon. I take my head very seriously as it's the only one I have. :-) Im not surely what I can get from your answer. It just felt right to ask, but no issue.

ah, that was A Star Trek film was it not ? If its undiscovered though how do you know there is a country ?

Return from where?

Yes. A beautiful flower for instance. Beauty is subjective, flower is objective perceptual reality However it is entirely objective to have known oneself to have the thought "this is a beautiful flower" this is internal objective perceptual subjectivity. At this point the penny might drop ;-)

Agreed.

Did they ? How ?

Why appeal to others to be judges ? You are confident in your subjective view of the world, then what point inviting 'imaginary' others to support your argument ? My hubris is reality for you ? Then that's how it is for me, but not to you. Everything is subjective to you is it not ? I can be certain this is your judgement, but can you ? It's not my intention to win, only to discover what is true for both of us. If none is, then I am talking to a shadow. I am certain this is not the case, but you must prove that reality for yourself. If you cannot know what is objective and what subjective then how can you read anything with certainty ? Thus my question, but not assertion. It is you that have concluded these things I only wish to prove that you are an objective person and existent in reality. It is you that wishes to devalue that.

Article podcast : Tom woods show about the communist activist Eugene Genovese who wrote an essay after the crash of the socialist countries entitle 'the question': https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-tom-woods-show/id716825890?mt=2&i=347744347

Depends on the setting. Mine is currently at room ambient temperature so maybe today is the day ?

Anything that is heavy enough to prop the door open.

Socialism is just another version of collectivist serfdom. However it is one of the nastiest for those who live under its heel. The body count in the USSR is staggering. Socialist don't like to uncover these harsh realities. They try to say socialism isn't like communism. Yet it is explicit in Marx works that it is the precursor to communism. A kitten eventually grows into a cat. If it happens to be a Tiger, beware.

Who is tub thumping ? I'm simply reacting to things like litmus paper to acid. I do not say this is true, that is true. I only say 'find the truth' . Your reality is your reality. If you dream this or that, then can I say it is not true that you dream it ? No. I cannot. If you say there is a green goblin that I must see, then I shall ask you to prove it. This is all I can do.

It does not matter what others say no matter how celebrated, it only matters what you can unequivocally prove. Find a way. I don't know why I'm here, do you? Why is anyone anywhere ? Why are you here ? Eastern, Western, it doesn't matter, you need to understand the words in context. You might be able to read, it does not mean you can read. Once you can know the unequivocal reality of a thing, you can know the reality of self. First search for the truth within yourself and then know all others by that. It's very difficult to do that in reverse if you cannot yet know what is objective and what is subjective. I shall break a rule I have, because I do not like to prove things by pointing to what was said, but in this case you misinterpreted einsteins words: In an essay entitled The World As I See It, first published 1933, Einstein explained his reverence for God as Eternal Universal Intelligence. But he rejected prevalent religious ideas of individual survival of physical death, reincarnation, or of reward or punishment in heaven or hell after physical death. He said: I am a deeply religious man. I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the type of which we are conscious in ourselves. An individual who should survive his physical death is also beyond my comprehension, nor do I wish it otherwise; such notions are for the fears or absurd egoism of feeble souls. Enough for me the mystery of the eternity of life, and the inkling of the marvelous structure of reality, together with the single-hearted endeavor to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the reason that manifests itself in nature. [The World As I See It] On learning of the death of a lifelong friend, Einstein wrote in a March 1955 letter to his friend’s family: “Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”

Can an apple judge it's flavour? It's your analysis, so it is your reality. I can only say what is.

All it means is that he didn't believe in free will-certainly not for those he considered as uneducated dross-the vast unwashed. His musical equivalence was the same thing that we see applied by modern intellectuals who treat people as mathematical numbers and are happy to try theories on people as if they are some giant experiment. As I said previously, in chemical terms-Iron and Gold. We see this reflected in Darwins thesis in which marked out Irish people as an underclass unfit to breed and only to be governed like cattle. Plato was using the mysteries and Pythagorean edicts to try and evaluate humanity and put them in boxes according to his theory. The Prussian model was built on much of this system and today's state schools are the ultimate realisation of those theories.

Socialism has its roots in the name 'social'. Capital has its routes in its name 'capital'. Socialism is therefore a social ideology in which traditional economics does not play a part. Indeed the idea was not to pay workers at all. Everyone works for the collective whole. Capitalism - though often touted as a political ideology is simply the deferred consumption of production and its availability to increase productivity/reduce risk as a result. Were you a staunch capitalist ? You were a staunch supporter of deferred consumption then ? Now you don't know and are happy to have no opinion what so ever, except when you have an opinion, but not strong enough to be an opinion in case you have to argue it ? Fantastic. I used to be indecisive but now...I just don't know ;-)

Yes, that, obviously :-)