Apech
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Everything posted by Apech
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How did I change from being a new-agey PC Cheerleader to being a vicious thought policeman? Did my crystal chakra alignment back fire or something? If you think it is a saccharine cesspool why on earth are you here? Wang Liping - only heard of him on here and all I know really is that he charges 3000$ a session. Kunlun - same but cheaper. Frantzis - quite an interesting interview published on here but otherwise know nothing of the man. I am not associated with any business ... is there anything else you would like to get off your chest????
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Compulsory periodic rotation of moderators (?)
Apech replied to Stigweard's topic in Forum and Tech Support
As usual interesting ideas Stig. I kind of agree with time limited modding, as you know being a mod completely destroys the TTB experience - or at least changes it. I don't quite buy the reasons stated but that's another matter. I would reflect the following though: 1) 6 months is nowhere near long enough to be a mod - I think more like a year or maybe 18 months even. You need some time to get the hang of the ropes and some effective time and then perhaps time to share skills or at least discuss things with new mods ... so a team of all < 6 month mods doesn't sound effective to me. 2) 100 posts - again I could rack up 100 posts by just saying hi to all the new people in the lobby everyday ... should be several hundred posts and demonstrating some degree of sensibleness ... 3) It seems to me to get consistency you would have to have some kind of super-mod sitting above the others - if this were just Sean then you'd get back to the same problem you started with. 4) I may be wrong but I don't get the feeling that people will be queuing round the block to sign up for modding - so if the recruitment doesn't work then the whole thing falls into disrepute anyway. The way things work Sean has to have some confidence to allow the mods to get on with it and also to trust them with the level of access given. A mod could do damage if they were careless or malicious. As others have said - shame you didn't stay on to give this perspective from inside ... but I think life is better as a TBum than as a Mod. -
Yes, I think the test of reality is the compliance with natural laws. The water from the faucet always goes down - gravity - and so on. So its a kind of predictability in the natural world which confirms reality. The chair doesn't turn into a rabbit ... if it did we would assume that we were dreaming (or too much Scotch maybe?). Physics tells us these laws break down for the very small or very large ... but I don't want to go there ... but its important to remember that there are different perspectives. These natural laws come from somewhere .. we all share them, we didn't make them up ... we might not understand them properly but they still operate. Where they come from is the Tao and the Tao follows its own nature in 'creating' them. Gravity is real, time is real, space is real. But only the Tao is complete. So gravity follows Tao but Tao does not follow gravity. Or you could say Gravity is a specific case of Tao function. The tree is Tao but the Tao is not the tree. This is where I was going.
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I kind of agree with what you said to Stig ... just because the universe is so much vaster and complicated than we can perceive doesn't make what we do perceive any less real. It's refreshing and good to think about everything being real instead of all the 'it's an illusion, man' stuff. We deal with what we have to deal with. I guess sometimes when we get intimations of the infinite beyond ... 'we just step back and bow our heads in humility' (who said that?) I still think its interesting to consider what it is that convinces us that things are real. For instance rather like Chuang Tzu's butterfly dream ... if we dream about a chair it seems completely real in the dream (or can do) but we also know a real chair when we see one. What's the difference? Did Chuang Tzu ever sort out whether he was a man dreaming of being a butterfly or visa versa ... I suspect he did really. So what is it about your chair that makes it not a dream chair? (You must answer the question using both sides of the paper and in less than 20,000 words. If you need a comfort break raise your hand and an adjudicator will guide you to the nearest facility. You may not use a calculator. Marks will be deducted for insane laughter or tears.)
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Eh? What makes you think I was trying to destroy your objective reality? I think we may be at cross purposes ... probably because of my crap explanations ...
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Yes you can give it name as in ... we'll call it Tao but know that this is not the real it ... or rather the name is not the it. Otherwise the 'named' is the 10k things ... the predicate ... they are things that can be said about the Tao. So you can say things like 'the Tao is the tree, but the tree is not the Tao'. So if you say the Tao is the mysterious source, the unnameable, beyond definition, limitless, infinite ...you can also then say all the finites, the named things are modalities, aspects, qualities of the Tao. So Tao = Tao + things Subject = Subject + predicate.
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No the object is the predicate. This is quite deliberate to say that the subject (which is reality itself) is itself + all that can be said about it. So yes S=S+P ... difficult to understand but very profound ...
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A loophole to heaven? This is what you wanted? The rest of your post reads a little like the plot to the film the Omen ... which has been subject to an inferior remake with the actress from the Bourne films as the mother. The one he meets in Berlin on the tram and so on, not the German girl who he takes off with in the first film and gets killed in the second film. I think heroes like this have a kind of Christ-like quality. Outsiders who have super abilities and yet become a victim of the state. Without Jesus we wouldn't have this archetype. I actually like Jesus because the church and the state tried to kill him. Its a good metaphor for how mystics are treated by the worldly or muggles as we now know them ... sorry for so many film references ... it just came out that way.
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I'm going to suggest this. Real is real. Its not a 'thing', its not the tree or the man observing the tree. It includes these but is not them. Like this. Subject (the real) = Subject + predicate ... where predicate is everything that can be said about the real. E.g. its hard, its soft, its hot, its cold, its a tree, its not a tree ... The terms objective and subjective only arise because of observation. As in ... objective only arises because subjective exists ... sounds quite Taoist, eh? We look at a chair. Or sit on it even. It's real. Why not we're not Buddhists (wash my keyboard with soap and water) . Its real ok ... but what is it? What is it's nature beyond just saying ... oh. its a chair of course. Philosophers argue for centuries and struggle to define what it is. Descartes got in a real tizz over the ontological gap between his thoughts (he thunk so he was) and the objective ...he struggled to link the two ... because although intuitively we know its real .. but we can't ever quite say what it is. Taoists say ... you can't give it a name (the real) because as soon as you do ... its not the true real.
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Ok, what does real mean? Maybe that's the same question so its a bit unfair I suppose. Or better what does Taoism say about what is real? How about that ... or are you going to go back to your tree now.....
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But then subjective reality is also within the Tao ... if you are going to use those terms. What is the test that we should use to decide if something is real?
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Stig you are ultimately right! (WARNING : this message may include disinformation)
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Not exactly but I suppose the presence of so much Buddhist discussion (no bad thing in itself) has led to the idea that it would be good to have an exclusively Taoist Discussion part of the forum. The renaming of Taoist Discussion to General Discussion is really to acknowledge that the free flowing nature of discussion there ... also gives another option to mods if say a strictly non-Taoist debate kicks off on the Taoist section we can just switch it back to general. Its just an idea to make TTBs better ... and we see how it works out ...hopefully people will like it.
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Click here: Weavesilk
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Hi and welcome. Suggest you post your questions in general discussion - see what answers you get from there. A.
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That's interesting. You seem to be using a particular application of the terms subjective and objective ... as in 'subject to judgement' and 'not subject to judgement' i.e. is this thing useful or not ... being a subject value placed upon the thing. Whereas Chungtzu accepts the thing-as-it-is and looks for whatever value to has in itself. The other theme of that story is that that which appears to be useless endures (i.e. is not cut down and converted into furniture or whatever). That which endures, is constant or eternal is the Tao and we know that the Tao cannot be given a name ... cannot be spoken. If this is what is fundamentally real then can we apply a phrase like 'objective reality' to it????? No I don't think so. But we can say, I think that the Tao is real and as a consequence that the 10k things are real also ... I'm not going to mention the B (ism) word ... but this is different to it.
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Questions that come to mind: Do Taoists have a concept of 'objective' as such? (in English 'objective' from 'object' comes from roots meaning something like 'thrown against' (see note below from online etymological dictionary).) Interesting that this 'jacere' = 'to throw' is there in 'subject' and hence 'subjective' also. So one is thrown 'against' or perhaps 'out' and the other is thrown 'in' or 'under' = sub. So in English anyway both have the sense of something projected. So both the idea of a an objective reality and a subjective reality are thrown or projected by arising from a reality which is neither 'ob' or 'sub'. The sense of an ultimately real objective (and hence physical) reality ... which is totally dependable, i.e. will always remain to be itself ... is as much a projection or 'pie in the earth' as opposed to the 'pie in the sky' of imagined totally subjectivity. BUT what is important here in Taoist Discussion is what exactly does Taoist philosophy say about this question.
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Agreed. Commercial vs. creative.
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Please let me have the numbers of the posts where you were requested to mame yourself and hatefully ridiculed ... I can't find anything like this. You are making serious accusations and need to back them up.
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Could you point me to the posts where you were threatened, please?
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**** Moderator Message **** We are currently trying to make some sense of this thread - which to be honest is not easy. At present I have noted that Vmarco has called people 'rapists' and 'nitwits' which are clear insults. So I am asking him on this open forum to remove these insults. He has also made accusations that people are trolls or using 'sock puppets'. If you have any evidence of this please make it known to the moderators immediately. Otherwise stop making these accusations as they can be deemed insults in their own right. As ever ... could everyone remain calm and address the ideas and issues being discussed and do not insult or belittle or indeed accuse the other poster. We are deciding if further action is needed or appropriate. Apech for Mod Team **** Mod Message Ends ****
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Hello stingray
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The more I read this thread the more I value and admire people who find they have a genuine connection to tradition and lineage and are able to practice positively in that way.
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