no one is guilty

[Marblehead]

There is no analog for 'cutting the bindings' in reality. Who could do such a thing? What would be the outcome? The collapse of all order and connection, utter irredeemable chaos? A book ripped to shred is no book at all. Even the sage who goes into the emptyness comes back into the flow of the story, and the book remains intact.

 

8)

 

I said cut the bindings and you ripped the freakin' book to shreds.  You Buddhists are so violent!

 

Any Anarchist has cut the bindings.  It does mean that (s)he does flutter with other pages, it just means that they are individual pages.  And all the pages can be brought back together again so that the complete story can be read.

[Marblehead]

I would say that cause is not merely 'external'; or, the difference between 'internal' and 'external' is meaningless ontologically. We ARE causes and effects, inside and out. The key is to see how none of these causes--whether coersed from outside or initiated from inside--are separate, original, spontaneous events, but that all are seamlessly connected and can be traced back through themselves until the whole universe is involved. Wave upon wave upon wave.

 

 

I actually agree with you regarding "Cause and Effect" but you are leaving no room for Spontaneous Daoist Enlightenment.

 

Tzujan is the concept here.  Self-actualization.  Self-becoming.

[Brian]

Causation and determinism are often conflated but the distinction is significant. (That's separate from the discussions about the "reality" of either...)

[Astral Monk]

I think maybe a better way of stating my position is this--responsibility is merely a practical concept. In seeking blame or guilt we localise causes to some small set of individual acts then discard the rest.

 

So the murderer is identified by the act of killing, but since that is our primary social concern, we willfully ignore the context that brought it about. So looking from that act forward we can say 'X is guilty of murder cause X did the killing'. Sometimes we cast a bigger net and round up more indirect offenders, but we still cut off the connection at some point.

 

If we didnt cut off, then pretty soon the whole universe is implicated, which is no good for the courts.

 

Morally we should recognize this and understand how nothing exists in a vacuum or arises without precedent, even while insisting on political enforcement of justice. Legal and moral 'guilt' here can mean 2 different things.

 

8)

[Astral Monk]

Causation and determinism are often conflated but the distinction is significant. (That's separate from the discussions about the "reality" of either...)

I think the difference is how time is viewed. But boy is THAT a whole nother complex discussion, lol.

 

8)

[Marblehead]

I think maybe a better way of stating my position is this--responsibility is merely a practical concept. In seeking blame or guilt we localise causes to some small set of individual acts then discard the rest.

 

So the murderer is identified by the act of killing, but since that is our primary social concern, we willfully ignore the context that brought it about. So looking from that act forward we can say 'X is guilty of murder cause X did the killing'. Sometimes we cast a bigger net and round up more indirect offenders, but we still cut off the connection at some point.

 

If we didnt cut off, then pretty soon the whole universe is implicated, which is no good for the courts.

 

Morally we should recognize this and understand how nothing exists in a vacuum or arises without precedent, even while insisting on political enforcement of justice. Legal and moral 'guilt' here can mean 2 different things.

 

8)

 

I do understand your perspective and will never say you are wrong.  It's just that I look at it a little differently.

 

Back in the day when I was still searching for a label to put on my forehead I read some Zoroastrian writings and that saying I use about responsibility came from there and I find it so true to the bone that even though it is from religious doctrine I still hold firmly to it. 

 

Yes, cause and effect is a valid concept.  The links go all the way back to the Big Bang (we can't go back any further.)

 

And I agree with you regarding extenuating circumstances.  And mental capacity to know the difference between "right and wrong" is also a consideration.  Our judicial system is supposed to consider all  these things before making judgement.

[Marblehead]

I think the difference is how time is viewed. But boy is THAT a whole nother complex discussion, lol.

 

8)

 

Yeah, we have enough work with the guilt concept right now.

[Astral Monk]

We might also observe how 'guilt' and 'responsibility' are quite different, separate.

 

Tho we say 'X is guilty!!' we usually mean they are responsible or the most evident localized perpetrator to fix blame on.

 

Whereas 'guilt' is actually an internal emotional state one experiences, often related to some form of concealment, shame, regret.

 

8)

[centertime]

In case of multiple personality, I wonder who is guilty... One will be guilty, the rest will not be but all will be punished..

and who knows what possibilities did the other personality parts have to stop the crime?

 

Even for normal people, they can have many sides... One side commits, the rest would not...

[Rocky Lionmouth]

Throwing an attempt out there, i'm tired and on a residual runners high here

 

I wonder where the concept of guilt comes from? What factors make it relevant and what sustains guilt? Who is guilt for?

 

Being the actor of a certain deed in a delineated situation, is that being guilty?

Is it being responsable to admit guilt? It could differ from situation to situation as well right?

 

The whole innocence-thing just rubs me wrong. It sounds attractive to me as a romanticisation of someone who isnt very good at surviving. Imo, or imco (c is for current), its like claiming that having freedoms means you're Free. There is no freedom, not in That Sense, just a larger range of options available in various situations.

Isn't innocence another chimera if no one is really guilty? Whats innocence if there isnt a whole set of qualities that is fulfilled by it?

Is there such a thing as not being guilty in a world where the standard implements of telecommunication are manufactured as cheaply as possible in a part of the economy where exploit of labor (and labor itself) is oppressive speculation and the materials they contain do horrible damage while being produced and harvested?

 

One cluld argue innocence is naivite, maybe even vanity-wolf in innocent lamb-clothes. Willfully denying attachment to a dirty and complex world? Are innocent people blind or ignorant not to see their place in this mess? Or would we even be in this mess if all were to be as if innocent? Would there be a whole other mess?

[johndoe2012]

Throwing an attempt out there, i'm tired and on a residual runners high here

 

I wonder where the concept of guilt comes from? What factors make it relevant and what sustains guilt? Who is guilt for?

 

Being the actor of a certain deed in a delineated situation, is that being guilty?

Is it being responsable to admit guilt? It could differ from situation to situation as well right?

 

The whole innocence-thing just rubs me wrong. It sounds attractive to me as a romanticisation of someone who isnt very good at surviving. Imo, or imco (c is for current), its like claiming that having freedoms means you're Free. There is no freedom, not in That Sense, just a larger range of options available in various situations.

Isn't innocence another chimera if no one is really guilty? Whats innocence if there isnt a whole set of qualities that is fulfilled by it?

Is there such a thing as not being guilty in a world where the standard implements of telecommunication are manufactured as cheaply as possible in a part of the economy where exploit of labor (and labor itself) is oppressive speculation and the materials they contain do horrible damage while being produced and harvested?

 

One cluld argue innocence is naivite, maybe even vanity-wolf in innocent lamb-clothes. Willfully denying attachment to a dirty and complex world? Are innocent people blind or ignorant not to see their place in this mess? Or would we even be in this mess if all were to be as if innocent? Would there be a whole other mess?

So you are saying unless we fix the whole world first only then can we be happy and content?

 

A content and happy person would be light on material possessions and psychological wanting so would be less likely to keep the exploitation going.

Edited January 24, 2017 by johndoe2012

[Rocky Lionmouth]

So you are saying unless we fix the whole world first only then can we be happy and content?

A content and happy person would be light on material possessions and psychological wanting so would be less likely to keep the exploitation going.

Good question!

 

I'd say i'm saying the other way around, there is no need to fix the world to be content and happy. Many seem to be able to do just fine. I'm not saying i know a way to fix it either, heheh that would be trying to hit the moon with a slingshot, awkward and the fallout is potentially hurtful

 

I'm not even sure that we can be content and happy, but we might be able to be content enough and happy enough. Guilt stays in our head as unacceptable wether or not its ours or OPP.

 

Dont get me wrong, we ought to fix the world.

Maybe if humanity was more content and happy the world would be fixable?

 

Guilt is(?) constructed, it's relevance is relative to inocence, vindictiveness, greed, betrayal and the whole thing tends to go very abstract quickly, as well as taking a shape of a catch-all we feel uneasy about with our interactions with people.

Or maybe guilt is a clever word to describe a state where empathy trumps selfishness? Its hard to say, i get lost in context and detail roundabout 95% of the time.

 

It's the attachment to innocence that bugs me. Maybe projecting but innocence often seems valued by a destructive lust as well as possessivity...

 

 

Welcome to the yarn-mess that is my mind.