Karl

In a sense I agree, she isn't a Marxist, but she uses Marxism. She is more closely a facist than a communist, in the sense that 'communism' is seen as falsely having some claim to goodness. Essentially both communism and Marxism are the same collectivist ideologies benefitting a small group of elite over everyone else. People more readily swallow the idealist, utopian bait of communism since the defeat of Hitler; Nazi has become a perjorative word for 'anything that is bad' without ever debating what that thing is. The USA is already well on the way to a statist authoritarianism and that could easily become tyranny. I don't see people necessarily waving a little red book, but shutting down free speech by surveillance, prosecution and press reporting by the MSM is already well established. The Police force look much like an occupying army, shaking down the population for cash and have turned from 'keeping the peace' to 'law enforcement'. Freedom is becoming an increasingly dirty word in the USA and justice has been corrupted. The constitution has been twisted, burned, run over and torn into pieces-particularly by the Obama presidency. It won't get better under Clinton, nor I suspect, Trump. However Clinton is a known debaucher, statist and crook which only seems to leave Trump-if one must vote for a binary.

^^^^ yes, that. The 'strongman' cometh. Just as Hayek predicted. Of course Trump might not yet be that dictator-I have my doubts-but he certainly is one more step in the acceptance of one. Obama has put the USA on a track to dictatorship by his power grabs and destruction of the constitution, he accelerated the process. Clinton is something else, she is a crook, a mafia boss looking for a pay off from the syndicates and cartels that she protects. She is a Saddam Hussein. A woman wanting the position of power to benefit herself, her fawning entourage and anyone that will help to keep her in that position whilst paying their respects and dues. In many ways she is most qualified to run a 'crooked' USA. Clinton will have a foreign policy designed to maximise personal power. Trump would have wars to support an ideology of the USA as the greatest country-not necessarily because those wars are just. Clinton will have a domestic policy as Obama-division through cultural Marxism. Trump, for all his claims, is more socialist than anything else, he supports minimum wages, socialised medicine and welfare. Clintons economic policies are the same ruinous cronyism Obama practised, Trump seems wedded to the idea of protectionism and 'new deal' make work schemes. How anyone can choose either one is a mystery, they are the very worst of the worst the USA has ever managed to produce. Trump is the most principled, but his philosophy is full of error. He is like the well meaning uncle that neither has the skill, nor the experience to fix the car, but in an effort to help, he makes things mechanically worse, but pays for a respray and a new interior. Clinton has no intention of trying to fix the car, she is too busy figuring out how she can get you to sell it in order that she gets a better one.

Yes, I thought I was agreeing with 9th. Stronger ego-stronger mind. A confident, independent person that values their own life as their moral standard. It's easy to build a new fragile ego by remodelling the old fragile ego. Its like adopting a new persona, but the shakey foundations remain unchanged. Putting lipstick on a pig. First it is necessary to know exactly what we have absorbed by having a listen in to the way our thoughts are arising, but not yet judging because we don't yet have a way to judge them. Once we get used to listening in at all times it becomes easier to seperate out emotions and the sense that we are on a kind of auto pilot. I think of it as a debugging procedure, but it can't begin until we can read the lines of code accurately, then later we can remedy the program and remove all the bugs. The program then runs properly without crashing and creating weird loops and irregularities, it also runs much, much faster.

Definitely wouldn't see that DSO with an 8" Dob. Wouldn't see the chocolate bar either.

I wasn't intending to start an argument over who is right. You write 'the inescapable emptiness of infinity....' it's this kind of wording that is over complicated. What does it mean ? Infinity means greater than any amount-more than there is. Emptiness when related to existence means non-existence. To say it is 'inescapable' is a direct contradiction to non-existence. You might well know what you mean, but it sounds more like poetry than a description of what someone might experience. If Inread between the lines of what you have written it sounds right, but if I add the poetic parts it wouldn't make a lot of sense if you were writing a manual on how to get from A to B. I tried to use plain language. In effect-sit quietly and be aware of the rise of thoughts. However, there is so much complexity, rules, things that the meditator should/should not experience. Add in various guru phrases and poetic allegory and it sounds rather similar to having an LSD trip. Its not nearly as complex, nor is it anything special, but people want it to be.

My own experience is that this is broadly right, but an over complication of something far more simple. It is this complication combined with mysticism and badly defined terms that has led to confusion, gurus, retreats and a myriad of advice coupled with businesses. If our minds are so jumbled up with thoughts it's usually because we are unsettled in some way, the world isn't making sense to us and we feel add odds with life. Instead of dealing with life as lots of people do day to day, instead our minds churn constantly and produce strong emotions which are mostly fear, unhappiness, guilt and misery sometimes I dispersed with a manic kind of over exuberant happiness. First we have to stop trying to fit in and realise the machine is broken-we have to accept that we are basically a mess and no amount of trying to evade, rectify or lifestyle is going to make it better. Basically we are just feeding more stuff into an ever more confused mind which reacts by churning even more. We have to hear our minds in an impartial sense, to act as witness to our thoughts in order to give us a chance. This process can be long and confused in itself-it can add to the confusion if it is done without the right sense of what is trying to be achieved. We should not be trying to rectify, find bliss, go astral flying, lucid dreaming, healing, gain powers or any other thing. All that is necessary is to gain sufficient quietness to sort out the thoughts arising. It's like counting to ten before saying something we regret. We can get that space through meditation. We should realise that this is forcing ourselves to sit physically still and begin the process of mental surveillance. We are observing. Sitting in awareness of our thoughts, neither pushing them away, or rejecting them. It is an introspective process in which we become aware that thoughts are distinct and seperate from the external world. It's at this point that there is a danger of divorcing external from internal by making consciousness awareness the focus and ascribing to it powers of control. It happened to me, I see it in the posts I read on this forum. The whole process becomes distorted as another little ego is developed. It is a more confident ego than the confused one that it replaces. It gives the feeling of being in a kind of special club, having a knowing, being slightly/greatly remote and aloof from all the other people who haven't learned this special secret way-but, I can tell you that most people are already well adjusted and don't need to sort out a head full of loose wiring. If we head down this route we are only adding to the mess, but, at least for a while it feels we captain the ship and get a sort of blissful, ecstatic calm. However, though it may last minutes, hours, or years, it is temporary only. Eventually the walls of our little ego will be breached either all at once, or bit by bit. So, let's not add to the confusion, let's not replace one little ego with another. Instead, be introspective and watch the thoughts arise without attempting to do anything. That's ALL that is necessary, to be aware through our waking hours of the jumble of thoughts that are blooming. It begins to happen through short sessions of active, aware, physically quiescence and then carries across to our every day lives. This is really what staying in the moment is, but it's really far more simple-it is awareness of our thoughts on an increasing basis. Once this awareness has stuck then we begin to exert control on those thoughts by clearing up the confused philosophies from which they Spring. It's possible, I think, to go straight from A to B missing out the meditation, but, something in the minds need for water wings at first, before swimming, takes away some of the terror of diving straight in. The point is to develop the strong ego. Instead of the fractured, manufactured small egos that generally make us feel scared, unloved and unlovable. When talking of 'killing the ego', that is a bad approach, we kill one weed and another pops up like wacka-mole. If we get to the state of actually killing all the wacka-moles by self inquiry carpet bombing we are in danger of falling into a pit in which we lose all sense of life completely. It's a little suicide of the mind and I imagine, in the mind of the less stable it can become real suicide. This little suicide is only another state which is recoverable by going back to square one and simply being aware of arising thoughts without doing anything else.

There isn't a totally quiet mind, there is a quiescence when something is completed and we can rest and contemplate the achievement with a sense of pride and feel happiness at the accomplishment of a task well done. To understand that there is no necessity for a quiet mind only an untroubled mind, that neither a busy, nor an troubled mind should be regarded as anything that shouldn't be. So, sort out the trouble and come to terms with tthe possbility of more trouble in future and that the mind will be busy when it is and quiescent at other times. Take time to enjoy the moments as they arise, but don't wish them to arise, force them to remain, nor try to gain them dishonestly.

It can't be done, you can enjoy the moment but you cannot stay in the moment. Our survival and happiness requires long range planning anything else is evasion. There are times in every life where we feel it is impossible to know what to do next, we remain frozen like rabbits in the headlights of our own fear, or perhaps we drift along hardly caring, but our continued existence eventually means we must do something or we experience a sense of increasing panic, frustration and guilt at the amount of time that has passed. Mostly the thoughts are conflicts between what we think we should be and what we are, perhaps between what we think we should have done, but what we avoided, or an evasion of our present circumstance by trying to live in a moment of time.

This is something I practised for a very long time. It's an affirmation of sorts, an acceptance of how one feels without rejection, or ignorant acceptance. This is the beginnings of 'the witness' which is a more objective sense of self. The next thing to do is to explore what thoughts the feeling is connected to. It isn't just a feeling, there are words behind it. This is a further development of the witness in which feelings become of less importance and now the words/thoughts are seen and there is no particular need to follow the feeling. I was thinking that this stage can be short circuited if there is already enough-I will use the AYP term of 'stillness of mind'-to facilitate an objective view of thoughts as they arise. The emotion remains, it's like a signal lamp, but tracing the wires reveals that the emotion is not the cause, it is only the effect. Fastening on the emotion as a true arbiter without having developed sufficient stillness, is like non-relational self inquiry, it can lead to the idea that emotions are the true guides, that instinct and feelings are preferable to reasoned thought and that creates its own problems. in addiction, the emotions have become a substitute for rational thought and it become easier to obey those feelings than to confront the problem, the action to a bad feeling is to have more drugs, eat, sex, buy, gamble in order to bring on a temporary feeling of pleasure, but this is pleasure without value, it is pleasure for pleasures sake and is destructive.

Where am I ? How do I know it ? What should I do ? Is this what you are asking ? You want to be in bliss, but then I don't. I don't subscribe to it, don't look for it or want it. It looks awfully like the somatic lifestyle from Aldous Huxley, the hippy dream. Turn on, tune in, drop out. For a long while I wanted that, but it looks like evasion now. I wouldn't want it even if I could have it.

This is totally correct. People talk about there being no absolutes, when that statement is an absolute; they say there is no black and white, when that statement is a black and white statement, they say existence cannot be proven whilst being incapable of seeing that proof relies on existence. As you have discovered the little snag in the subjectivists philosophy. This is why existence has primacy over consciousness. We have to find our own way through life and the happiness from it. There are no certainties of success. As the saying goes 'get busy living or get busy dying'. For myself this is liberating. It's something like being a knight of the round table, having a concise, moral guide to action that is completely self-determined. However, this is a hard transition, it offers no shield or whimsical hope, things are what they are and that can be a daunting and produce anxiety/depression. There is no cure for it, it's like leaving the nest, we must fly or fall. I discovered that most of the dark stuff was the result of conflicted, irrational thinking that had been digested by the mind like a bad diet.

For those of us who still believe in the importance of free speech-not speech advocating violent action, but the voicing of genuine, heartfelt concerns instead of resorting to the alternative-physical violence to settle disputes, please sign up http://www.spiked-online.com/freespeechnow/fsn_sign_manifesto Sent from my iPad

The ultimate value is life. The primary virtue is rationality. The proper beneficiary is oneself. Happiness is the only moral purpose of ones life. Happiness is the state of consciousness which proceeds from the moral achievement of ones values. Or as Rand put in her own words: "My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute." None of that is any kind of guarantee that happiness is achievable, but for certain, it is a necessity for achieving it. It is also dependent on first choosing life as the primary value and it is a choice that has to be made from second to second, day to day, year to year, throughout our entire lives. Whilst reason is the absolute, there can never be such a thing as error free reasoning, we can and do make irrational decisions based on emotions and poor thinking. There is a story I read of a man who regularly explored cave systems by himself; at the point in history where he was exploring the caves there were few others doing the same and no rescue teams ready to rush out to find a missing person. The only light sources were unreliable carbide and oil lamps or candles. It is easy to become lost, disoriented or even stuck in an unfamiliar cave and as a last resort, the man carried a loaded revolver in the event of circumstances which prevent his exit to safety. After many succesful solo exploits the man pushed his luck too far and became wedged in a tight crawl at which point he also lost his illumination. He spent several hours trying to get his lamps to re-ignite, but the matches were so damp that each one disintegrated the moment it was extracted from the packaging. It would no doubt have become clear to him that he would most likely die a long and lingering death as a result of lack of water and food. The intense blackness, cold and the press of the rock against his body must have felt as if he was being buried alive. No one knows how long he waited, perhaps several days hoping and praying that someone or something would rescue him as the long hours ticked away. The men that eventually recovered the mans body found that it was in remarkably good condition with little sign of serious malnutrition or dehydration. The blood from the self inflicted gunshot wound appeared relatively fresh and they concluded that he had only been dead for around 12 hours. Had he hung on a few hours more he would have been rescued and have escaped with little more than a heavy thirst and a chilled body.

We are here and the moon is there. I don't know if there is a correlation I stated a fact that's all and then added the possibility that if it were anywhere else but where it is at this moment, would we exist. I'm probably still explaining it in a crooked way. I mean here we are with the disc of the moon just covering the disc of the Sun which, in terms of the cosmos doesn't mean anything in particular-probably. Maybe it does ? Something could be about space/time/gravity/mass ?

I hope you have it ticked off in your 'one in ten thousand things' spotters guide ?

I know, it's quite a thought that one day there will be an Earth with a moon so far away it will look like one of the other planets. That's why I queried if at that time there would be anyone around to see it.

I'm getting grouchy.

Yes, do that.

LOL :-) I enjoyed the gravity thread, I now think of gravity made up of eels that exert force in a given direction and like each other's company. I am an amateur observer not an Astro physicist. I like to look, not to calculate, it's too hard for me, I just find out where the object is I want to look at then go hunting amongst the night sky for it. It's like fishing for nerds.

I believe the moon is made of green cheese. ;-) I gave you a non scientific answer and I doubt I'm up to going head to head with you over an answer I'm not looking to defend. All you want is a fight that you can win, but I'm not even in the arena. I mumbled something from the back rows of the spectators. Now I'm tucking into a juicy burger with a fattening coke.

You think whatever you wish to think. I point out the flaws in their communications with me, I cannot point out flaws that I'm unaware of. We sit at a table and play cards, you start cheating, or pull out a weapon and I will challenge you. I expect no less from anyone else. If you think I'm cheating, or out to 'hurt' anyone then prove it. Your attempts to hook someone else into your defence should be something for you to ponder.

We are here it is there. If it were significantly closer the world would be spinning more quickly and the tidal forces/volcanic activity far greater. If it were further away isn't something I give much thought to, perhaps the Earth tilted/wobbled at an angle that creates ice sheets across the entire globe, or without the protection of a large mass the Earth would fall pray to far more meteors and comets. I don't think that the actual position is significant, only that if it was not in that position would we be here ? It's intereresting from that view point.

Why not start by abandoning the repetition of your original statement ? That would be a good start. Apologists are either bullies who want to get away with their violations, people that are in the grip of emotional whim and are always apologising because they can't control themselves, or people that hold no firm comittment to their own principles and are attempting to gain peer acceptance. The second can be excused as mentally unstable, the first is a thug that doesn't mean it, the third is lacking integrity, honesty and pride. To the third we can add that he is of course naturally humble, because grovellers need to be, then he isn't to be trusted as he is always looking for a new master and has no loyalty beyond that. Don't rate the apologist LD, they are either slightly crazy, bad to know, or totally untrustworthy. After many years of experience I find that to be not just philosophically sound, but empirically so.

'Bothersome' I would stop digging if I were you.

When we are young we accept virtually all prepositions. We accept them on face value without question. As we age, then we begin to question these prepositions and to do so we climb a mountain and stare down on all the small, miniature things which gives everything a sense of unreality. Finally we have to climb back down and we should by then have answered the questions we set out when we began the long climb towards the summit. If we have done so succesfully then we see that both mountain and plain are part of the same landscape, that the high view is just a high view and perspectives resolve into knowledge. Some are stuck on the mountain and some never try to climb it. It is not the same thing for those who remained on the plain as it is for those who climbed and descended back to the plain. The climbers have undergone a metamorphosis during the decent. The question and answer have cancelled themselves out in the process. The climbers are no longer as ignorant as they were before they began the climb, nor as evasive as they were on the mountain top. They are enlightened. That is the meaning I ascribe to the 'first mountain, then no mountain, then mountain".