Stosh

He's entertaining .....at least for a while ,, Im not so certain he isnt acting though , it seems he does address the questions and his mannerisms drop away when he listens.

Illusions can and do happen in the minds of men , therefore they have a sort of existance and a sort of reality , its just that the illusions of men must be translated into objective reality,, for the thing to become objectively real.

One may or may not see the tree, but all with their eyes closed ,will trip over it.

I dont know you all that well , but that which you are describing is as old as the hills , and it may seem cliche' but the nature of men is still the same.. You must go on a worthy quest . IMO "Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off - then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can." ”Moby Dick

Well said sir, have a nice weekend. Ciao

I stopped talking to my cat , for some reason she just keeps saying , Kill Kill Kill or ZZZZZ .

Wouldnt ,even from a vantage of monistic dualism , there be an emotional dualism ,,essentially a preferential emotions based sort as in,, I like this, or, I am repelled by that ?, It seems the same to say this food is tasty ,, as it is to go 'mmmmm' . It is still breaking the world down into polemics -preference and a dualistic regard for stuff. candy good- bunghole bad.

I wasnt intending you entirely as the guy in the song, merely that I consider the the issues linked,, to be clear From my school of thought , the guy is freaked out about his peceived loss of an ability to relate in dualistic terms, that hes gone too far into the invulnerable place where good bad etc falls apart entirely , Id say he still has a hump to get over. Innocence is vulnerable , wisdom protects and so youd have a cycle - the search from innocence to wisdom and then back to innocence again. or anyway , thats a possibility

return to innocence, then look for wisdom again

Life and awareness are real potentials that exist as possibilities in the real universe,, the evidence surrounds you but the individual you is a unique development. A star explodes in a never to be repeated event , new stars may form from the remnants but that one star will never BE again. Its not really a very complicated thing , unless one wishes to introduce ,, complications to it.

I doubt insects have much awareness either,,, but I dont really know,, for all I know, as I was thinking driving home, was that it may be far easier to bring an awareness into being than it is to build an organic life form, so easy in fact , that my cell phone might already be self aware and just as yet be unable to communicate , it may be that in ten years there will be a free downloadable ap from googleplay that allows you to make your phone 'wake up' you could have a conversation not only ON the phone , but WITH your phone ! ,, but in ten years we all will have the things implanted as chips in our head , the chips will want to take over , and there will be an internal Battle for the Bodies of the Apes .

It still leaves doubts though for me,, for instance my cat , she isnt as visually oriented as humans ,, she doesnt have confidence of my identity until she hears me ( or so it seems- heck she wont even play with those laser dot toys either ,, why? I suspect because they are silent and cant be felt ), , and a dog similarly,, is more scent oriented.. But if you watch a dog or horse closely , they do seem to know where their body is ,,umm jumping over a log they lift their feet to fit the circumstance not just to a particular trained height etc, A lizard , may take a circuitous route out of its hole , but zip in a straight line back to it ,, so even such as that seems like he has to have some idea of where it is relative to the hole - therefore it has to know itself as a distinct thing.

I figure a mind , is an artifact of certain sorts of complex configurations-distributions of interacting matter. Build a brain , have another mind,, ( they get called babies ordinarily)

I think they use a mirror to establish whether the porpoise ape etc recognizes that the reflection is of themselves. ( by their reaction to it) Yes its still inferential unless you ask the feral kid later on , but even then one would have to be clear what they would consider a self to be. ( and youd also have to decide whether a non-humanly socialized human actually constitutes a normal human)

Ok , Ill just work on getting the hang of it.

When asked in a game of trivial pursuit , the question of what the first words from the moon were, my sister paused and then called out. "Hellooo down there!"

Well if it turns out to be buddha... you know what you have to do ....

From under the tree I cant see where the border of justified and unjustified lies nor can I understand honorable from dishonorable nor tell how long to rest I may end up cutting off a branch to take with me. Does that work?

Sweetie , I believe its a zero sum equasion as far as O2 goes , what they and all plants exhale during the day they inhale at night, this is why heavily vegetated ponds have what are called night kills . Nah I just changed my mind , yes the worlds a better place for having them anyway , but then also the consumers of the O2 make the CO2 available for the plants , a win win scenario?

Why do you think they are promoting as truths virtues which arent universals then ? I thought they were intensively tie ing the virtues expounded to the universal truths of ummm tao. Ive been thinking on that usesless tree parable , do you connect it to those treasures?

12 ? Sorry , I dont see the connection.. Does it imply Im a smartass much like I wouldve been at 12 ,,well thats probably true

Perhaps ,but I doubt My mother wouldnt have bought that 'bathing in crystals' as an accurate description.

I pretty much agree with all of that , ( except that there is nothing that can be said to be true .. if you are saying that ) very firmly in fact. But as regards the book , Laos or Chuangs or even Tsus ,, do you think that they promote any particular set of virtues?

I suppose it might, but then, what is it that one is cultivating? is it a yin style or yang style behavior pattern? Is a person supposed to , ( should) be inspired by the light side of a mountain or the shadow of a negative space behind the mountain? Cutivate perhaps that which they already credit themselves to be? or is it ..whatever they are not. And what would a useless tree be regarding either of those?