Sherman Krebbs

I might write more later, but I think conceptually there can be no universal system of truth--and I think that applies to ethics too. I can establish this through the statement: "This sentence is false" It seems silly, but this statement (and ones like it) get at incompleteness, which I think applies to morality as well. That there can be no universal system of ethics, only individual preferences weighing things as net good and less net good, on the balance. For example, there is the argument that 1) crime is evil and eliminating crime is good 2) Giving anyone who commits crime the death penalty will eliminate crime -> therefore, it would be good to give anyone who commits a crime the death penalty. This is valid logic and will virtually eliminate all crime, but on the balance will kill a whole bunch of petty thieves an shop lifters. It would also make me really nervous to j-walk across the street. so I think any sort of ethical or moral decision, like this, is going to involve tradeoffs and different people may come to different balances. What is good and what is evil though? I have no problem killing a fly, but I would feel bad killing a small bird. I indirectly kill chickens by eating them, but I dont really think about it. I have butchers in a factory do the dirty work for me. I feel there is something primordial to good an evil. I know at my core what is good and bad, and dont need a math formula to tell me that. Here is how I think of it: just as I know what is good art and what is bad art (like ethics, there can be no universal system to define what is good art and what is bad), I know what is good and what is evil, and when I act against that primordial understanding, its like hitting a flat note in a symphony.

Been slow to respond to these. (been busy funding the increasingly expensive food products in my pantry.) Been thinking, (and anti-thinking) about this. Will write a more coherent response if I ever think (or anti-think) of a good one. probably is none. For now, I'll just say that my rambling and incoherent thinking is that desire some kind of integral of pleasure and fear is some kind of integral of pain. But, desire and fear are really the same thing--pain. desires and fears can be good or bad. A man with none is depressed. He will starve physically and mentally. Desire and fear are necessary for survival, as are all other phenomenon, and emotions all seem to fall on this plane, but maybe not. Yet they require much more mindfulness than other phenomena. If I see (with visual phenomenon) that a car is driving towards me and is going to hit me, I will jump out of the way (in fear) that I might get hit. If I feel jealous (emotion) because my neighbor drives a fancier car than I, what do I do? The reflex, i suppose would be to compulsively go to the dearer, take out an expensive loan and fulfil my desire by buying an even fancier car. Yet, I know that is a bad decision, and will cause me even greater pain as a toil to repay the loan, but I still have to endure the pain of seeing my asshole neighbor every day. Its irrational, sure, and maybe I can "train" away the pain of jealously, but it still arises. This is why I think some kind of training (whatever it is: fasting, jogging, meditation, martial arts, iron crotch, endurance roller skiing, swimming in ice cold water, etc.) has value in being able to deal with and endure emotions, giving one strength to not act reflexively to them, and respond clear-eyed as they arise. There is, however, a state of equanimity, which I don't think it is an emotion at all, but a more of a state of being. It is not pleasure, it is not pain. It is just observation, without reflecting or reifying the emotions and experience appearing and then disappearing as quick as they came. As an emotion (or any phenomenon) arises, you observe it, and acknowledge it. But do not hold on to it, good or bad. Let it float freely and disappear. Then, recognizing you were angry, sad, happy, jealous, hungry, tired, etc.., calmly act in a rational/authentic way.

Julie Andrews performance was amazing. Agreed!

Maybe... Maybe I was in a bad mood when I wrote this. I did think about writing it both ways. But then I thought: are joy and bliss an emotion, or just the absence of emotion? Is pleasure distinct from pain, or is it just the absence of pain? Is a desire a wont of pleasure, or just the pain of not having the thing desired? Is love an emotion, or just the fear and pain of losing the thing loved? Are we running from pain, or running towards pleasure? I stop running.

My thinking: Emotion is just varied forms of pain. We tend to differentiate between physical pain and emotional/mental pain, but it is really the same, or at least on the same spectrum, just manifested different ways and for a different biological purpose. There are lots of different names for emotion, but its all the same pain. Think about anger. When I am angry there is this compulsive force, a gnawing pain within me causing me to curse at the poor old lady in the car in front of me who was too bashful to make a rash left turn across oncoming traffic. It is no different, in my theory, than the pain and reaction, when I touch a hot stove, and reflexively pull my hand away from the pain. I don't really know how to control my own emotions very well. My working theory is that if you can master reaction to pain, you can master reaction to emotions. Basically like iron crotch training for the mind. I have also found if you just observe emotions mindfully without reacting reflexively, you can understand what they are telling you and act more authentically, perhaps sparing yourself the embarrassing/painful memory of giving some poor old lady the bird because you were late for accounting class.

A long time ago, I used to make paintings to illustrate what I then thought was my understanding (perhaps delusionaly so) of this chapter. Here is an example. I made few hundred of these. It is hard to explain the point of it and maybe there was none, but if you look closely the badly photographed composition, it is made up of shapes organized in sets of 2s and 3s, composing increasingly larger prime numbers arranged as a harmonic whole. for example, 2+3= 5; 2+2+3 = 7, 5+3 +3=11; 7+3+3=13; 5+5+7=17; 11+13+17 = 41, etc. The artistic theory I was trying to prove was that all form has its basis in prime numbers, based on a fugue composed of twos and threes under this principle: The Tao gives birth to the One. The One gives birth to the Two. The Two give birth to the Three. At that time in my life, I think I was drinking a lot of french brandy, which don't really do any more and which may better explain the genesis of this.

ducks glide by in pairs still lake blends seamless with sky islands float in air

what good is good without evil

Wow, thanks for this. I have been thinking about this for some time. This is good advice. I will look into the Awakening the Luminous Mind book. Also good advice to try to avoid too much analytical and technical thoughts on topics such as this, although my mind is greedy for them. Always searching for deep secrets and truths, meanwhile the plumbing on my water heater is spraying water all over the place! This reminded me of a thought I had the other day. People use the term "non-dual," but isn't that somewhat of misnomer, or at least a bad name. In using the modifier "non-" aren't we implicitly asserting the validity or reality of the non-thing, in this case dualism. Like dualism is something that has validity or something that must be rebutted. I am a non-Christian, a non-communist, a non-drinker, and a non-triangle. We posit a concept such as unbounded wholeness in terms as the opposite of "dualism", when it seems to me to be something much definite. Like saying a person is a non-fish.

Even the selfless must keep food on the table. I guess this raises a follow up question: Is it a contradiction to be selfless and shrewd (i.e. self interested)? I look out for my self-interest and my family's, not necessary for the pleasure of worldly things, but to survive and provide for them. As much as I believe in non-duality of being, I also believe that karma holds a better place for me by virtue of the value I create in society than living in a dumpster eating cookies. Where does the cookie monster get his, anyway? I don't know if this is right, and it may be different for different people, but for me it is more about getting past the lust of the end result, and acting in a way that enriches myself and all around me. (lots of "I" 's in there ) Neapolitan, for sure.

This is super silly, but can someone drop the "self" and still have a name? Arhat John goes to back to work on monday: "Hey John, how was your weekend?" "Who is John" "John, are you alright?" "The person you call John is an illusion of the mind, he does not exist" "I guess that explains the illusory TPS reports that you were supposed to have on my desk by Friday." "Peter, if only you understood, you see, all is one. There is no differentiation between me and you, or between us and the TPS reports. It is all the same, and by our very presence here, the TPS reports are here also." "Just get me the reports by 3:00 pm John or your fired" "... [Deep Sigh]... Okay Peter"

How is one to regard meditative insight views then? Northern lights, ripples like a pebble thrown in still water, stings of beads. Do they have meaning or significance or just an aberration of the mind, or perhaps just light adaptation of the eye?

It was the chapter "Little Harmonic Labyrinth" from the book Gödel, Escher, Bach.

Hilarious. I love Kaufka's chart, who incidentally used to be one of my favorite authors, although I can't read German and dislike the idea of being violently stabbed in the back by some overzealous, clandestined debt collectors. My favorite short story of his is Before the Law, here. Might have some connection to free will. Like, quit thinking philosophically about everting and just walk through the f...ing door. What arbitrator of good and bad choices is there other than pain avoided or pleasure obtained. I eat the count chocula because of the ungodly pleasure it brings me, though I balance that with the condition of my teeth and its effects on my metabolism. Usually the scales tip towards the later, and I just eat some ground up cardboard. If free will is anything, thats it. Its the pain of not eating count chocula. BUT (and this is where I get crazy), I believe there is a deeper balance to be obtained which has nothing to do with pain or pleasure, although count chocula still plays a major part in it. "GOD" is an acronym which stands for "GOD Over Djinn"

What do you have against plankton? The "you have the right to choose anything" quote was a part of a sarcastic quip about god punishing people for their bad choices., so don't take it out of context. Although, maybe the question you are asking is what is a choice? A choice involves actual alternatives, not made up or impossible ones. I am too old, and my coordination is too bad to become a professional hockey player even if I dedicated every day for the rest of my life towards that goal. That is not a choice that I can make. Do we have choices. One could maybe say there are no actual alternatives or maybe that all choices are preconditioned. My experience at the grocery store, however, tells me otherwise. I spend most of my time in the cereal aisle contemplating whether I want to experience the sensation of unicorn shaped strawberry filled oat squares or the demonic pleasure of count chocula's magic bits. (this is only a joke, I eat porridge for breakfast..) I don't know how to express this well, but the end of my thinking on this topic is that exercising free will is really just having the ability to expose oneself to pain and suffering. The kid who trains tirelessly day and night to become a pro hockey player, instead of eating count chocula on the sofa binge watching Seinfeld reruns, he exercises free will through the pain he experienced, or at least in his attempt to do so. Those who yield to pain at every corner have no free will. Those who train to endure it and thrive in it, they are the ones that have free will, and at some point the pain and pleasure dissolve, leaving nothing but authenticity, or at least this is how I have been thinking of things.

Like, you have the right to choose anything, but if you make the wrong one, you are subject to the eternal wrath of a white-clad, seemingly benevolent wizard in the sky, or rather he turns you over to his friend, darth vader, to whom he turns a blind eye and lets him have his way with you. Now, the real question with this is does god have free will? if he does, what ethical system does god follow and where did he get it. If he got it from his overlord, where did that overlord get it, and so on.

Dear friend, F**k what @Nungali or anyone else says. He's not looking down on you. He just does not care, and neither should you. I am sorry you felt cheated in this money situation, but you need to accept responsibility for what happened, whatever it was. You, and only you, hold the key to this life. You need to accept the outcome of your own choices and your own free will in the matter. Was it god's choice to let it this unfortunate thing happen? Was it some other god hating person that did it? it does not matter. Despite what anyone says, you need to be selfish, shrewd, and diligent to solve these problems. A man who leaves his door unlocked bears more responsibility over the theft of his TV than the perpetrator, though I can't say I know anything about this particular pilfering. Also, get the idea out of your head that the balance of your bank account and the importance of what you are doing in your life gives you the right to look down on anything or anyone. It doesn't. This is good clarification. I'd probably flip this around, and delete the "old news" part, but may be true. One could also make the same argument, however, about nihilism -- one is more likely to be a nihilist if one is an atheist, but that does not establish the validity of nihilism. And, it cant be flipped around another way and imply that believing in god is prerequisite to free will, or that only those who believe in god believe in free will. I think the real question that @Nungali was after was the extent to which one-and-only-one-god-fearing people exercise their authentic free will, as opposed to reactively following religious theology. That they believe they are exercising free will, but only when its not the doing of the one-and-only-one-god. god let xyz happen to me, therefore, I bear no responsibility. Maybe I am wrong on what he was thinking though.

What does god have to do with free will? Feels like there is a deeper frustration being expressed here, which is being blamed on those that are not one-and-only-god fearing people, that free will only arises by those that blindly exercise it at the behest of their one-and-only creator in the heavens, and none else.. well except his human son... oh yeah, and that other wispy holy spiritual tart. Likely I am misinterpreting what you are saying, however, although this feels more like a reflection of internal personal feelings that one is trying to overcome by preaching them outwise. I mean no ill will in this observation, just projecting my own internal frustrations symptomatic of the same malaise and interested if this is truly what is being implied; however, feel free to "lay it on me," if what I have said is viewed as offensive. IMHLOL

The problem with this question is defining "will" and defining "free". Both of these words are infinitely equivocable, making it possible to come up with nearly any logical proposition as to their philosophical existence, with the latter modifying the former. My thinking is that when we talk about "will," we really just asserting existence--that I am real and that my movements, and actions, impact the ether in which I exist. When we talk about "free" we are really just asserting that our existence is meaningful, and not arbitrary. That it means something when I get an idea in my head and pursue it to the fullest extent possible. I know existence is meaningful, because if it weren't, what's the point. In my view, the concept of free will, however, can not be confuted through the demonstration of incapability or lack of self control. As involuntary and animal-like that an action may be, all of us have within us the capability to cultivate the ability to act in accordance with our authentic being, and the fact that anyone (but not necessarily me) has realized that enlightenment is proof that there is a free will, so to speak. Isn't that the whole point of cultivation, and really, existence---to develop the capacity to be authentic and to preside equanimously over the full limits of the realm of phenomena.

I have thought about this. It is very interesting. I sometimes go to this Lutheran church by me. I don't understand much, since its in a language I only pretend to understand, but I love the organ music and the rituals they conduct are absolutely breathtaking. They sing these magical chants, and then, if you want you can go up and drink the blood of their guru and a baked cracker. I sometimes sneak up there and have some. I might go to hell. Its funny, though, the blood tastes a little like wine. It is really a magnificent experience, a magical ceremony of purification, which if delivered by any other means, or understood as magic, might be highly objectionable to those participating. They also wear magical sigils on their cloaks. The sigils and rituals change from season to season. I don't know why , nor the spells that they use when the adorn them, but I am sure there are some and that they are quite elaborate. And the building is covered in symbols and has a massive picture of their guru, lying naked, save a conveniently dangling loose towel, dying on a cross ominously overseeing the dias, and constantly reminding of the pain and suffering in life, but also the resurrection and redemption from that pain and suffering that can be achieved by accepting his blessing. It is really cool, but the point is that, until recently, I never really understood it as a magical ceremony. Most people involved in it would probably not understand it as such, but it is. And I say this as one who does not really practice magic, or really practice anything at all for that matter, excepting laughter.