A little Spanish chap...

In our organization we have a little Spanish chap who attends to all our training needs. 

We call him "Instruction Manuel". 

Music (like books, or medicines) can do harm, as well as good. The example of Mahler

Following-up on my post of a couple of days ago, where I described authors who did me some harm by being the wrong books at the worst time for me; the same can apply to music. 

This is all-too-obvious with respect to pop music - especially because it is most targeted at youth, and adolescence is the time of greatest vulnerability. 

From 1967 onwards, a great deal of pop music was calculated to manipulate youth into amplifying the spiritual harm of culture generally. This can clearly be seen in the lyrics, and even the music itself, of the most culturally significant group of that era in the UK, i.e. The Beatles. 

But just as some people regard books as A Good Thing, so people regard Classical music as necessarily beneficial - yet this is absurdly untrue - at least for those who are engaged-with and sensitive to music. 

The classical music culture in the UK is one in which it is regarded as high status to be able to appreciate all the great composers of all eras; and as a late teen and early adult I went along with this, such as always to be trying to appreciate all the high status composers - even when their music seemed to work on me like a poison, or made me (more or less) feel spiritually ill.  

This was the case for Gustav Mahler. In the 1970s, he was being rediscovered as a composer (during his life he had been famous mainly as a conductor) - and promoted to the status of Great, as Wagner's premier successor. 

But for all its musical excellences and strong effects; Mahler's music seemed to me then, as it still does when I occasionally hear it, toxic and cloying. Nonetheless I persevered, attentively working through his symphonies (especially) on LP, and attending a couple of live concerts. 

This stopped after I had bought a recording of Mahler's Tenth Symphony (completed by Deryck Cook) and fell asleep while listening to the slow movement; waking with a profound and powerful mixture of revulsion and misery. 

After this, I was forced to acknowledge that Mahler was bad for me. And that by persisting with listening I was pushing myself towards a feeling of hopelessness and despair. 

This was a realization that all Great Composers were not good - some were harmful by my intuitive estimation! 

More generally; this fits with the observation that anything which has a powerful enough effect that it might do good, for the same reason may do harm. 

This applies to drugs (and other treatments) in medicine; which is why there is no qualitative distinction between therapeutic effects and "side effects" - to be of possible benefit, a drug must have an effects on the body, much change physiology; and because it has an effect, it will do harm to some people nearly-all the time, and other people some of the time.   

It is only because Mahler is a powerful and effective composer, that his music was able to do me harm. 

To generalize again; it is talented artists, authors, musicians; who can do us the most harm. So, for our own good; we need to be able to distinguish between matters of virtue, and matters of ability and effectiveness.   

NOTE: There are so few Real scientists and medics, that the "debates" You hear about are fake

Considering that I spent my working life deeply engaged with science (especially evolutionary biology and human intelligence and creativity) and medicine (especially psychiatry and psychopharmacology); it may be surprising to some readers that I do not notice or comment on the debates about medical therapies or scientific theories that are spread across the internet. 

The reason is that I believe there are extremely few scientists and medical researchers who are real: that is who are strongly motivated by truth wrt the matter under consideration; which motivation (in a subsidiary way) means they become and are sufficiently knowledgeable and competent in the relevant matters being debated. 

There are still very few people who realize both that much more science used to be real; but now extremely little of what is called science is real while there is a truly vast amount of fake science - which is either generic careerist bureaucracy, or generic mass media manipulation. 

Indeed the public debates are themselves typically based on mistaken and false premises; such that they are fundamentally worthless, or indeed actively harmful. 

Unless you are yourself real with respect to that specific matter under discussion, then you cannot genuinely evaluate such debates - you are merely experiencing them as a gladatorial display, and one that is probably being staged with the aim of manipulating you, one way or another. 

And the unreal debaters may themselves convinced that they themselves are real scientists, and outraged by any suggestion otherwise - despite that their motivations are so obviously not-real!  

Real science and medicine is difficult, slow, and rare, especially here and now; and is not a public affair. 

For instance, it is nearly always very difficult to know whether or not a treatment is effective in a general way. 

Science never really has been a public affair; but happens between those few people who are real; and happens largely inter-personally. Same with its sub-type medical research, with added diffiulties of an inter-personal kind. 

**

(Although sometimes in the past the public "overheard" a real debate; and that may be genuinely interesting and enlightening! But now? The odds are overwhelmingly high you are overhearing a fake debate.) 

NOTE ADDED. Quite a lot of the "scientific" debates (and indeed many academic and scholarly debates as well) are in reality failures to clarify and acknowledge metaphysical assumptions. Examples include some of the debates of high-level physics theories (cosmology, particles, forces etc), the nature and origins of Life, and the validity of evolution by Natural Selection. Discussions of such matters need to grasp that science only operates within metaphysical assumptions; such that evidence and reason are secondary to these assumptions. Which means (inter alia) that debates of evidence and reasoning cannot in principle overthrow the metaphysical assumptions that govern a type of science. 

Which is the more Pathetic - to live for this Life only, or a future Life of Heaven?

To live towards a future life, an after-life: to orientate our mortal lives in the expectation of immortality in Heaven - is this good, or just pathetic? 

It is, in the West, is mainstream and normal for powerful, wealthy, high status, vigorous people to regard future-life orientation as dumb, crazy, dishonest, manipulative - but even at best it is pathetic, a behaviour which moves a compassionate Man to pity. 

The idea is that only someone who is Fundamentally A Loser ("retarded") in this world would have a Heavenly orientation. 

Yet the mainstream, normal attitude of living for this mortal Life is equally pathetic, pitiable, in that among those who regard-themselves as Winners, Life is seen optimistically. 

"This Lifers" believe that good times are just around the corner, seeds of improvement are sprouting, the pendulum is about to swing in the desired direction... that History is on the side of Progress. 

"This Lifers" may look at the sad fate, and desperate situations, of so many people around them; yet optimistically (as a matter of faith) believe that they-themselves will somehow be exempt from such a pathetic life. 

Is there anything sadder, more ignorant and insane - or more deviously manipulative - than constantly to be harping on a better future in this mortal life; and absolutely to need to believe in such improvement? 

If both can be seen as pathetic, according to perspective; who is the most pathetic: a this-Lifer or the next-Lifer? 

The answer (like all answers) depends on fundamental assumptions. 

If we assume that resurrected eternal Life in Heaven is real and possible - and from this perspective look back on human history and the experience of our own lives; then mainstream ideological optimism is just ridiculous, and to live by optimism for this-life and this-world is truly the most pitiable state. 

If instead we assume with materialistic-atheism, that this this world is the only world; that mortal Life - between conception and death - is everything; that Heaven is false, a day-dream or a manipulative lie... Well then; to believe in Heaven, and live for Heaven, is indeed pathetic: foolish or childish at best.

Because (such people still argue) by living in light of a false Heaven, we will presumably fail to make the best (or at least make-the-most) of this mortal life; and also by focusing on a fake afterlife we will fail to focus on improving the real world around us... 

Consequently; to live for Heaven is not merely regarded as the pathetic belief of a pathetic loser; but actually a belief that will materially-harm other people, and tend to sabotage the optimistic hope of a better life for me, and a better this-world for everyone*. 

The Heaven believer is then worse than pathetic: subversive, a saboteur, a public menace.  

*(Or, if future life is not better for everyone, then better for everyone that matters to me.) 

Yet materialistic atheism has zero basis for judging value objectively, interpersonally! 

So for mainstream modernity truth is ultimately no better than delusions, happiness no worse than suffering, success and failure are subjective distinctions without meaning. 

Subjectivity is all that is left; and personal preferences and emotions are transient, and externally influenced - hence ultimately meaningless.

And the terrible history of the twentieth century worldwide, and the ongoing artistic/ scientific/ cultural/ spiritual collapse of the West; demonstrates that a this-life atheist-materialist perspective actually does not lead people to focus on make the best and most of their mortal life and of human society. 

What, then, can be more arbitrary than the "confident" assertion that this mortal Life is all-there-is, and anyone who believes otherwise is pathetic?  

Mainstream modern materialistic atheism is a choice; and a choice that, rigorously pursued is itself a recipe for frenzied and psychopathic hedonism in the short term, and for despair and suicide in the long term. 

...As we see especially evident among the more powerful, wealthy, high status, vigorous people of the West - here-and-now. 

And if They think that We are pathetic compared with Them?

Well, I for one don't care what They think - except to avoid it!

 

Elevenses, anyone?

I haven't heard anyone talk about elevenses for quite a while, some decades; but the expression was at one time used almost daily. 

As far back as I remember in the 1960s, and continuing into the 80s; there was a mid-morning break situated roughly half-way between breakfast and lunch - during which people would also eat a snack. That snack was almost always biscuits. 

This applied whether at work - when it was either formally timed programmed in mass employment situations. Or informally a matter of convention in professional situations (such as laboratories). There was a mid-morning break for drinking tea or coffee, eating a biscuit or two - and conversation. 

A treasured memory of my mid-childhood and early teens was attending elevenses at the Bristol Dental School with my father; mainly on those Saturday mornings when I accompanied him to work to visit the nearby public library or bookshops. The event had a delightful atmosphere.  

Among my mother's circle there were "coffee mornings" for women neighbours, especially those with housewives with children, which went from house to house in an approximate rotation. As a pre-schooler, or duing school holidays; I was taken-along to these - but found them terribly boring, except for the biscuits (I was always hungry, and could never eat enough biscuits to satify this!). But for the housewives, coffee mornings were the main frequent form of social interaction. 

In those days in England; coffee was consumed almost entirely in people's homes - either instant coffee at elevenses, or ground coffee (invariably in tiny cups) after dinner in the late evening. The rest of the time, multiple cups of tea were normal. 

But coffee incrementally displaced, and sometimes replaced, tea; and was consumed more often in cafes; rather than at home or in "works" canteens. 

Later still, ground coffee replaced instant; and espresso displaced all other methods of brewing. 

During my working years, this practice of elevenses began as universal and much-valued, but diminished greatly - indeed it had altogether disappeared by the time of retirement.

This decline went hand-in-hand with reduced biscuit consumption; and a feeling that it was weak or wrong to eat anything - but especially anything sweet - between breakfast and lunch.  

The managerial-bureaucratic takeover also suppressed elevenses at work, when it suddenly and somehow became too expensive and/or inefficient to set aside a room for communal drinking and eating. 

Two authors I used to like, but did me harm

I deplore the nonsensical trope that "books" are A Good Thing: only some books are Good - and a small minority. 

Others books are Bad, in the sense that they are actually intended (whether consciously or not) negatively to affect the reader. Indeed; nowadays this applies to a large majority of contemporary and famous books: fiction and non-fiction.

In particular reading the wrong books at certain times in our lives can do us spiritual harm. 

Perhaps this only applies to people like me who seriously engage-with, and are thus influenced-by the books they read. In my experience, to do significant spiritual harm we must like, or at least admire, a book at the time of reading (for whatever reason - and the reason for liking/ admiring may itself be a bad one). 

The first author to have a significantly bad influence on me was probably Michael Moorcock; whose Jerry Cornelius books I began reading aged 21 at a time when I was somewhat depressed, or at least frustrated. I also read quite a few other Moorcock books, but the Jerry Cornelius series were the ones that did the job. 

I got onto Moorcok via another writer called Jack Trevor Story, who was a friend of Moorcock and said that M was one of the major living writers, an excellent writer. 

So I read Moorcock with that expectation and belief; although I could not actually experience Moorcock's excellence. His prose seemed flat and drab, and I had great difficulty following what was happening. 

This difficulty (deliberate, in these "experimental" novels) had the effect of making me engage more intensely on the basis that I "must be missing something"; and as a result Moorcock's calculatedly "hip" hedonistic nihilism synergized with my mood of the time to produce its bad effects.  

A similar phenomenon came a couple of years later, when I read a good deal of Kurt Vonnegut, starting with Slaughterhouse 5 - which was actually recommended and lent to me by Alasdair Gray, at our first meeting. 

Vonnegut is a far better writer than Moorcock; being extremely skilful at construction, highly inventive, and deeply witty in his early books (up to Breakfast of Champions). 

But underneath this is an aggressively bleak, hope-less, and immiserating ideology; rooted in ultra-materialist assumptions; a trait that got worse and worse as V grew older. 

Vonnegut apparently sets-out to generate the belief that despair is the only outcome of honest realism - and he did a pretty good job on me - again at a point in my life when I was tending that way myself. 

In sum; at a couple of periods of my life in which - for whatever other reasons that were primarily causal - reading Moorcock and Vonnegut made bad things significantly worse; and tended to make me "get stuck" in a bad place. 

My interpretation nowadays is that M and V were both people who had chosen the dark side in the spiritual war of this world; and who chose further to propagate and infect others with their negative world-view by means of their writing. 

Moorcock - a lesser writer - did this in an obvious and in-your-face way; the brilliant Vonnegut sugared his bitter pill with wit and skill. 

Consequently, I have no desire to re-read anything by either of them*, and on-the-whole regret the attention I once gave them.

*Except for Cat's Cradle by Vonnegut, which is such a well-written, ideas-packed, and clever black comedy, that it is worth the temporary net-depression of spirits induced by reading.  

The heartless laughter of (some) elves in Tolkien

Discussed over at my Notion Club Papers blog.

There is no substantive difference between ortho-trad Christian monotheism, and Hindu-Buddhist pantheism

There is no substantive difference between, on the one hand, the theology of orthodox-traditional Christian monotheism - with its Omni-God who created every-thing from no-thing; and, on the other hand, the pantheism of Hindu-Buddhist philosophy - where God is the totality of everything.

Metaphysically-speaking: monotheism just-is pantheism - and the differences are matters of superstructure: of doctrines, dogmas, attitudes, practices etc.  

Because if one God made every-thing, then God is everything.  

This happened (probably) because Jesus Christ's actual work and teaching was swiftly embedded-into pre-existing, Greek-Roman-descended "Platonic" philosophy that itself had Indian-Hindu roots; and is the likely reason why so-many self-identified ortho-trad Christians, past and present, have so-easily slid into de facto pantheism. 

Orthodox-traditional Christian theology tried to distinguish its Omni-God from pantheism by emphasizing the Hebrew tradition of monotheism, with a personal creator God. But because this was a monotheism it left no space for a divine Jesus Christ - which is why Jesus the Son had to be conflated with God the Father in the paradoxes of Athanasian Trinity dogma.

(i.e. The historical Jesus of Nazareth could not be affirmed to be essential to salvation, except by assimilating Jesus into the Omni-God of the Father.) 

And, this assimilation of Jesus with the Father, restored Hebrew monotheism (and also metaphysically united ortho-trad Christianity with the yet-to-happen Islam) - and thereby pantheism... 

Orthodox-traditional theology is stuck with this metaphysical incoherence - of trying to assert the essential role of Jesus in context of a monotheistic-pantheistic reality; and there is no way out of it given the assumptions - except by deceptions of obfuscation through abstraction, complexity, and the declaration of incomprehensible "mystery". 

Understanding Boromir's funeral rites

At my Notion Club Papers blog; I discuss the question of why Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli, spent so much time and effort on conducting Boromir's funeral; when it seems like a more urgent and vital necessity to pursue Merry and Pippin, and rescue them from captivity by the orcs. 

Note: I like the atmosphere of the above illustration - which captures the spirit of the occasion. But it looks rather as if Boromir had had most of his legs cut-off by the Uruk Hai; and surely Legolas would not wet his bowstring in the River Anduin. Also (contra Peter Jackson), according to Tolkien, Boromir did not have a beard, due to his Numenorean/ part-Elvish ancestry. 

Geopolitics and national interest: pervasive, seductive - but not a real thing

Geopolitics is everywhere, you can't get away from it, and it is nigh impossible to escape falling into engaging in it. 

People do geopolitical analyses and offer geopolitical explanations, every day many times a day; in politics, media, academia, and conversations; relating to all kinds of things from wars to other types of inter-national conflict. 

Yet, I have said elsewhere, geopolitics is intrinsically evil; but I would add here that it is gratuitously evil. It is not necessary: we don't need to do it. 

I have come to the conclusion that geopolitics isn't a real thing; and probably never has been a real thing.

Geopolitics is an artificial abstraction that treats nations as agents - as purposive "beings" that interact, inter-relate, cooperate or compete - and the like. 

But everything I have discovered on these subjects, or at least everything about which I am confident, goes against this way of reasoning.

To be more exact, I don't think that things ever happen because such a course of action is "good for the national interests" of a country. 

There may be a lot of other possible reasons why things happen - but not the "good for national interest" reason: this seems always to be a false (and usually incoherent) excuse for something much smaller scale and specific than the nation - something personal, clannish or tribal.

**

Furthermore, "promoting the national interest" is a positive motivation - something intended to improve. 

But I have come to believe that the real reasons of inter-national events and policies are nearly always negative. 

In other words; the real reason for actions, policies, and wars is not to promote positive benefit, but instead to cause negative harm. 

What I mean is that the primary motivation in geopolitics is almost-always something like hatred, disgust, or resentment, a desire to cause suffering, destruction, death - rather than any genuine and strong idea of "doing good".  

And these negative motivations are best understood as operating at a level much closer to the personal (e.g. individual, clan, tribe) than to the national. 

Such negative motivations seem to be almost invisible to analysis (certainly on "our side"), partly because positive motivations are much more positively regarded; but also because the possibility of primarily negative motivation is seldom entertained*. 

We deny the strength and dominance of negative motivations inter-nationally, ultimately because we deny this in our-selves.  

There is a genuine reluctance to interpret international affairs in terms of hatred, disgust, resentment, and the desire to harm - yet such motivations may be openly-acknowledged, or expressed frequently in casual speech and writing, inter-personally or inside groups, and off-the-official-record. 

We may do, we almost certainly do, exactly this ourselves! 

But furthermore, aside from open admissions; primarily negative motivations may easily be inferred from consistent long-term patterns - so long as we actually look at these.   

Of course; negative motivations are operative in many inter-personal and intra-national affairs as well  as globally - fuelling all sorts of conflicts and violence from that between sexes, classes, jobs, regions, races, religions, ideologies... 

Indeed, anything about which people have strong preferences and convictions is potential ground for the operation of negative motivations - the desire to harm; being masked by false explanations and excuses concerning an alleged desire to protect or promote some larger values and entities. 

In a nutshell; I am saying that spitefulness - which I regarded as the worst of all sins - is a much bigger influence on life in this mortal world than is commonly acknowledged. 

And furthermore; the frequency and strength of that extreme evil of the sin of spite needs first to be recognized in ourselves; before it can be recognized, and taken account of, in others.  

We need to be honest about the microcosm that we know from primary personal experience, before we can understand the macrocosm that we know by inference from secondhand reports and reasoning. 

*NOTE ADDED: Because of this reluctance to consider the primacy of negative motivations; the way that negations usually operate in current Western geopolitics, is by the most powerful people and groups successfully convincing the less powerful that policies and strategies which are in truth motivated by hatred, revenge and sheer spitefulness; are instead going to benefit those persons and groups whose cooperation is needed. This pattern of negative masquearding as positive is transparently evident in the current warmongering - if one can entertain the possibility: evident from the incoherence and inconsistency of positive "national interest" justifications. But it can also be observed in the oppositional nature of all modern politics. Since positive intent became inconceivable (due to the denial of God and cosmic personal purpose) and opposition by default became core to public discourse, negative evil has had open season.   

Purgatory? How Good do people need to be, in order to enter Heaven?

Purgatory is one of those concepts that I regard as false, but having some truth behind it. 

That truth is mortal Men differ greatly in goodness, and that none are good enough for Heaven - so something must be done to transform us first. 

Instead; my understanding is that all resurrection is into Heaven; and that resurrection is simple and fast and waits upon nothing - if the dead soul's decision is immediate. 

If the dead soul desires it (and will make the necessary "sacrifices") we die and then are resurrected into the Heavenly state of incarnated eternal life, straight away. 

Any delay to resurrection is a matter of uncertainty of choice, caused by a delay in the decision of the dead soul. 

Delay before resurrection is therefore not because of differences in goodness and evil between Men. 

My notion of resurrection is that what gets resurrected of a Man, and which moves-on to the state of Heaven; is that which is compatible with Love. 

All else, not compatible with Love, is not-included in the resurrected Man; is left-out and left-behind at resurrection. 

However; this process can conly happen with full consent of the dead soul. The deal soul must be willing to leave-behind (be "purged" of) all of himself that is incompatible with love. 

My belief is that anyone who makes a firm commitment to choose to follow Jesus Christ to Heaven after death, and to be transformed thus - will do so immediately; without any need for delay or further processing such as purgatory.  

However, I presume there are also people who are unsure whether or not they want resurrection into Heaven; and for them I assume there are various (probably many) temporary ways of delaying a commitment or choice - which ways may include (but not be restricted to) something functionally akin to purgatory. 

The necessity of philosophy, of understanding the needful

If we can all accept that being a (real) Christian entails making a personal commitment to the primacy of (real) Love as a value - while leaving the details and implications undefined at present - then what is the value of "truth", of seeking understanding of the world, and of people?

The question seems worth asking - because it seems that many people regard personal philosophical endeavor as optional in the Christian life, and the seeking of understanding as a distraction.   

The value of understanding is its necessity for living by Love. 

Truth and understanding ought to be directed at Love. 

And we need to understand enough to live in accordance with the primacy of Love. 

In other words; abstract and generic understanding is not of value. 

But it is necessary for each of us to understand reality sufficiently well that we can live properly. 

(Whether we actually do then live properly is not a matter of understanding, but instead a decision and personal commitment.) 

In practice, nowadays and in the West; people's actually-existing understanding is a severe obstacle to their living well. 

Indeed, the standard and mainstream understanding of most people constitutes an actual barrier to living well. 

I mean that if we live in accordance with standard mainstream modern Western understanding (atheist, materialist etc) - then we cannot live as we should, and we cannot live in accordance with the primacy of Love. 

So much for atheistic-materialism; however, understanding is a two-sided thing - which situation entails a particular person engaging with particular assumptions and values.  

On such a basis; it also seems evident to me that many of the assumptions and values of religions, including Christianity, also function as obstacles, barriers, even blockages - preventing people living in accordance with the primacy of Christian love. 

In other words; many religions, including many self-identified Christian religions (denominations, churches), here-and-now, constitute forms of understanding hostile to the reality of Christianity. 

Such are reasons why understanding is important, and often spiritually vital. 

Insofar as our actually-existing understanding is an obstacle, barrier or blockage to living in accordance with Love; then we must strive to understand that which it is necessary for us (me/ here/ now) to understand. 

Gaining understanding, doing-philosophy in the specific way described above, should be a major priority in the lives of most people.

In this ultimate and simple way; for most people here-and-now, seeking understanding is non-optional, doing-philosophy is necessary. 

NOTE: As I have often said here, what I mean here by understanding is grasping for-ourselves (not outsourced, not by trusting an authority), as a single "instantaneous" mental act of comprehension. And what needs understanding are things like the basic nature of reality - the universe and our-selves, and the relations between. Basic matters such as whether reality is alive or not, has purpose or not, the nature of freedom/ agency. In technical terms "metaphysics". In short: we must have a valid understanding of that metaphysics necessary to living by Love.  

Why So Many Kinds of intellectuals have been captured by "AI"

The vulnerability to "AI"-capture seems to run deepest among intellectuals - but this vulnerability extends across a very wide range of intellectual types - politicians, media executives, corporate managers, finance entrepreneurs, technocrats, academics, teachers, totalitarians, atheists and traditionally religious, New Age spiritual seekers... 

Indeed, no class or kind of intellectual persons seem to have much resistance to capture.

It seems that almost all have by now succumbed; and with those who have not succumbed... well, it seems like just a matter of "not yet"*.  

Why are intellectuals especially vulnerable?

My best guess is that intellectuals have always tended to engage with life via models; and models are abstract simplifications of the boundless complexity of reality. Such models include mathematics, sciences, politics, economics; and indeed all academic and bureaucratic subjects. 

This second-hand engagement via abstract simplifications is valuable insofar as the models are useful; albeit the usefulness of a model may not have been checked, and even if a model has been checked these checks are only retrospective (can only be retrospective). 

The prospective, future limitations of a model (which limitations are many and intrinsic exactly because it is an abstract simplification) are not knowable or predictable in advance; and indeed when the model has captured a person, the failures of a model will usually be denied, explained-away.  

The value of intellectuals is not that they understand Life, or The World, or The Universe, or God; but that they understand the model. 

Insofar as the model is useful or valued, so intellectuals are useful or valued. 

But the problem, the weakness, is that intellectuals (of all kinds) so-often depend for their position and self-esteem on maintaining the special value of second-hand understandings (of all kinds). 

One malign tendency among intellectuals is to assert the primacy of the model: that the model is itself The Thing being-modelled. 

And another tendency is to increase the abstraction and complexity of the model, partly to protect their own expertise - e.g. to keep the model difficult enough to elude external analysis and critique, and to impress/ bamboozle/ subordinate the layman. 

I mean that intellectuals are prone to elaborating or generating a complex model that covers ever-more ground. 

Indeed, intellectuals tend to press their models to such a degree of complexity and abstraction, that they themselves do not understand the model in which they claim expertise. 

Instead intellectuals may claim expertise in using the model.

So the situation arises that many intellectuals suffer the profound and existential disadvantages of a belief-in, a commitment to, the primacy of merely secondhand models of reality...

Yet these are models which the intellectuals themselves do not understand; instead these are models that the intellectual merely serves (or claims to serve).

This situation, although common, is wrong - is indeed evil; insofar as service to the un-understood, service to something whose nature is not known, is evil.  

So-called-AI is a cluster of abstract, highly complex, and un-understandable models of reality. 

There can be no expertise in understanding an "AI" model.  

As such; "AI" technologies suffer all the intrinsic disadvantages of all models; but "AI" also intrinsically lack the potential value (which is a pragmatic and retrospective value) of the most valid models.   

Therefore, the special vulnerability of intellectuals to capture by "AI" is in the first-place a consequence of the evil abuses of secondhand models as a way of relating to reality; secondly that "AI" models are of a model-type that cannot validly be used, since they are un-understandable. 

The answer to this situation is in striving to eschew un-understandable models of reality - and to reject their primacy; and to recognize that to be useful a model must genuinely be understood. 

Such a moral discipline will reject a great deal more than "AI" - but exactly that is necessary+. 

Because all abstract models of reality need to be simple enough that we genuinely understand them: and if we are to regard them as central to our lives, we need personally to understand them. 

It is not difficult, as a mental process. 

I believe that we all already-have a simple, innate and direct (because God-given) contact with primary Life and Reality. 

The intellectual deception is in demanding a more comprehensive, hence too-complex, typically too abstract, understanding - than that which is understandable and knowable.

In a nutshell; modern intellectuals of all stripes and types have become experts at self-validating, self-serving, self-deception; by pretending (for advantages of self-esteem, for claimed social expediency) to understand that which they do not understand...

Which is why intellectuals are so especially vulnerable to capture by the un-understandable models of "AI". 

_____

+ I mean that if someone tries to reject "AI" while retaining their commitment to some abstract, complex, un-understood model/s - then that person will end-up by embracing "AI". 

And this is exactly what has happened to so many intellectuals over the past four years. 

As they come to realize that "AI" is not qualitatively different from that-to-which-they-have-outsourced-their-thinking-and-judging; rather than rejecting their practice of outsourcing, such persons instead expand their outsourcing such as to include "AI". 

*NOTE: My concern here is spiritual. Of course; the effect of "AI" will be to hasten the destruction of Western Civilization. But in that resepct "AI" is just one of many, simultaneous and synergistic global strategies (e.g. everywhere war, financial parasitism, purposive economic and agricultural destruction, mass migration, the CO2 Climate agenda etc etc). And, after all, the West is by-now (and increasingly) the most extremely and unrepentantly evil civilization in world history - such that striving to "save" WC in the absence of a prior spiritual rebirth, entails a personal commitment to advance purposive evil. No: The most significant harm of "AI"-capture is spiritual: 1. spiritual outsourcing; and 2. spiritual outsourcing of almost the worst conceivable kind - its being evidently both addictive in the short-term, and purposively soul-destroying in a cumulative and self-stoking fashion. To observe more and ever-more once-respected persons, across the board of thinkers and intellectuals, so-willingly succumbing to AI-dolatry of one sort of another - is a spiritually-dismaying experience. I should add that although AI-capture is common across the board, and not confined to intellectuals; I believe that its spiritual damage is most severe and pervasive - and negatively transformative - among the intellectual class.  

Tree-surgeons versus the "topiary" school of tree-butchers

I live in a relatively leafy suburb containing many forest-sized trees such as oaks, beeches, horse chestnuts, limes - plus common sycamores that grow as weeds around here. 

Since the trees are large, and grow near to houses, paths and roads - they need to be pruned from time to time - either as treatment, prevention, or after storm damage. 

So, I know both from personal experience and a good deal of observation, that there are two distinct kinds of arboreal operative. 

There are real tree-surgeons; and there are tree-butchers - who nonetheless claim "surgical" status, and evidently get way too much employment in these parts. 

The difference is that real tree-surgeons know and love trees, and carefully enhance the appearance of the trees upon which they operate. 

They do this by maintaining complete branches, and cutting back to the joints of branches - aiming at a natural tree-shape. 

A year or two following tree-surgery; the tree usually looks better than before; as well as being healthier and safer. 

In total contrast; the tree-butchers are gloried hedge-trimmers; whose training is apparently restricted to the usage of power saws in difficult conditions - but utterly excludes botany. 

The tree-butcher's idea of a well-cut tree is one that has a geometrical outline. 

I have seen these intrepid characters at work. Their inspiration is of a forest tree that has been shaped as-if it were massed boxwood or yew plantations and rows; perhaps topographically decorating one of those abstractly-un-biological Louis XIV type French formal gardens. 

So they cut branches to fit a predetermined, usually more or less spherical, silhouette; such that all branches (large or small, trunk or twig) are sheared to end abruptly at whatever point they reach the predetermined circumference. 

After a year or two the bigger branch ends of these once-magnificent-mutants become covered in multiple sprouts, rather like the Whomping Willow in Harry Potter. A sinuous beech or gnarled oak becomes more like a basket-maker's pollard of the Somerset levels*. 

And the saddest thing is that the damage of tree-butchery is irreversible; except by starting-again with a new seed or sapling. 

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* Note: the pollarding method is deliberate, purposive; and quaintly-characteristic of my childhood landscape of water-meadows - the "summer lands" of legend and history. 

BTW - The photos are NOT of my locality, but representative images grabbed from the interwebs. 

The question of Life, versus the many questions of Living

One effect of modernity (and our atheist, materialist, utilitarian ideological assumptions) is that the question of Life has all-but disappeared from thought, to be replaced by the many questions of Living. 

The question of Life is concerned with this mortal Life between conception/birth and death; considered as a whole entity - asking what Life is about; its purpose, meaning. 

Whereas the questions of living are those innumerable matters of surviving, thriving, being happy, remaining functional, reducing suffering - getting-through and doing-well. 

The question of life is a matter of Why? 

But modern culture and its people have already decided that there is no answer to Why? - have already decided that there is not purpose, meaning - and that Life is "about" nothing. 

So this question of Life, which was so obvious as to be unavoidable for most of human history is ignored, suppressed; and replaced by the endless parade of questions of Living.

The Why? is replaced by a How?

Why think about Life when we already know (i.e. have already decided) that there is no answer? 

By far the best thing, the only sensible thing, is therefore Not to think about Life. 

...To stay focused on questions of living, and of how to live "well"; and to mock, or distract ourselves from, asking the question of Life. 

Such is Western culture, now: such is the nature of our civilization. 

There is never a necessary, nor even an appropriate, time or place for asking the question of Life.

Nor do people feel any need to answer it, and find ridiculous or contemptible any attempt to do so - and regard as idiotic or insane any claim to have done so. 

And is this not evil? And evil of a very advanced and un-repentable form: for so many people, with such determination, to be so sure of the futility of Life as to refuse even to formulate the most important question of all? 

My hardening perspective against the mass media and official information

"The official story" is always wrong, and also fundamentally misleading*. 

And it probably always has been - albeit getting worse and worse, more and more rapidly, about more and more things.

So that here-and-now the wrong and misleading nature of public knowledge must be kept in mind, much of the time.  

This is because the official story is currently generated and sustained by people whose net-motivations are always (increasingly) bad and whose nature is always dishonest: i.e. the people who run things, the ruling class, the leadership class of all the major institutions (including churches).

Therefore; I know what is Not true; but very seldom know what is true; and there is really no way of me finding-out what is true -- except in a few areas where I have personal knowledge or contacts; and except when it comes to knowledge in very general (not detailed) terms. 

However, this little is also sufficient for my purposes. 

What I do not know, is not essential (not least because I could not do anything constructive about it) - and what I need to know, it is possible for me to know. 

*Of course there are always some elements of true knowledge used in the construction of every effective deception, manipulation, and lie. We must not be misled by this: it is merely a rhetorical necessity. 

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(In theory I have known this for a long time; but in practice I always made exceptions where I was actually believing, and being-shaped-by, too-detailed-to-be-real knowledge that was in fact attained wholly secondhand. And I still do make such false exceptions, unfortunately; although eventually (sometimes) I catch myself; and realize I have been fooling-myself and/or been-manipulated yet again. This happens because nature abhors a vacuum, and on any given topic we must positively-believe some-thing - so we had better be clear about what it is that we are assuming, and our grounds for it.) 

How can we improve and strengthen our motivation?

So much depends on motivation; but can it be improved?  

Yes, I think so - but this is not easy or straightforward, and needs to be approached indirectly. 

(I mean, we cannot - because it does not work, and anyway is not what is required - simply decide on what is better, and then do-it by sheer will-power. A process of discovery is entailed.) 

First; we need to stop trying to fulfil somebody-else's agenda. 

This is, of course, merely negative and permissive: we then need to replace external motivation with an internal motivation that is both good, and sufficiently powerful to make a difference.

Secondly, therefore, we must discover our inner agenda - but that inner discernment needs to focus upon our eternal agenda. 

By "eternal" I particularly mean our post-mortal agenda: i.e. what do we want to happen to us on a timescale going beyond death*: an open-ended timescale.  

And this eternal agenda, in turn, depends on what we most value. 

We need, therefore, to discover/ decide what is is that we most want. 

For example (others will disagree); I personally most-value love, and from that creativity. In other words; what I most value and want on an open-ended basis, would be to live in a context of permanent inter-personal love, and to be active in creative (which includes procreative) ways. 

For me, therefore, having clarified my ultimate motivation; I am then in a position both to improve and strengthen my here-and-now and proximate motivation - so that current behaviour better fits the intended goal. 

How this can work is that - having made this choice and commitment - I can (and should) explore this imaginatively.

...Imagining that I am in the situation I believe that I want; and following-up its consequences and possibilities; to check that it really is what I want; and most want. 

If the initial choice of wanting survives that test; then my motivation is improved by being brought into-line with what I most want; and strengthened by my having explored and affirmed what this wanting actually implies.

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*Any this-worldly agenda is merely expedient; being temporary and destined to fail, because of unavoidable entropy and death - plus, of course, the presence of evil. 

The difference between truthfulness and (mere) honesty

People confuse honesty with truthfulness. 

Truthfulness implies a positive motivation to know reality - essentially for its own sake; because knowing reality is (for such people) among the highest of values. 

Honesty, by contrast; is in practice mostly negative; it is a commitment not to lie, or (much more rarely) not deliberately to mislead. 

In science - and indeed in scholarship more generally - negative honesty is necessary but insufficient: what is necessary is truth-full-ness - a positive commitment to know and describe reality, as best we may. 

Trying to make sense of something that does not make sense - the normal, official, imposed situation in life

In those days - now receding fast! - when real science was happening at a large scale, as a social system; its progress functioned by individuals trying and failing to understand, comprehend, make-sense-of existing theories - then coming-up with something better (or at least, something which solved the problems of the earlier theory). 

When we learn something like a scientific theory, we are supposed first to understand it - and this is what school and college education are about. 

But some theories are hard to understand, or cannot be understood. 

A failure to understand may be due to various deficiencies in the understander: e.g. lack of ability, lack of effort, lack of necessary knowledge...

However; some theories are hard to understand because they have errors, and are not coherent (with themselves, and with observations) - indeed this is a common, usual, situation. 

In other words; some theories cannot be understood, because they do not make sense. Yet these incoherent and un-understandable theories are nonetheless taught and propagated in many ways, built-into research programs, fund-raising, prestige and career structures, used to justify public policies and marketing etc. 

In such cases where incoherent and un-understandable theories are built-into The System - and these situations are very common! - then people do Not really understand them (because incoherence cannot be understood) - but nonetheless think that they do understand. 

The situation is harmful, potentially lethal; because people either do not understand but pretend to understand, or else they convince-themselves into supposing that they do understand something which they do not! 

Then, ignorance and delusion replace understanding, and on a large scale... 

Welcome To Our World!

Such a situation, in which a majority of people, usually the most influential and powerful people, falsely believe that they understand some theory that actually does not make sense - can be stable and resistant to change, lasting over long periods. 

Indeed, large-scale fake understanding of the incoherent is normal - which is why real science was only an influential social system for a relatively short time - about three or four hundred years, starting from the 1600s.  

To make progress entials people acknowledging that they do Not understand, that they have been propagating and enforcing error; that their theories are incoherent in ways that are significant and are causing some significant problems. 

Such an acknowledgement is apparently impossible to most  people - indeed it apparently needs people to be strongly motivated by the desire to seek and know truth; which is not usually a strong motivator in humans. So there never are many real scientists in any society or situation; and often there are none - in which case truth will not primarily be pursued, and other motivations will prevail. 

For this acknowledgement of error actually to lead to progress then requires replacing the old erroneous theory with another theory that is better... 

However, the new theory will also have errors! And some of these errors usually seem obvious to those who desire to stick to the old theory. 

Indeed, any proposed new theory, designed to solve particular problems of the old theory, may overall be worse - that is, the errors of the new may be more significant than the errors of the old!

Nonetheless; the "errors" pointed-out by critiques of the new theory may not be errors; but instead are simply false implications of the erroneous old theory. And this happens A Lot, when a critic does not really understand either the theory he is defending, nor that which he is attacking! 

How then can we know which theory is better? 

Only by understanding both old and new theories, including their errors - and making a comparison. 

And, as I said at the beginning: Understanding Is Difficult - requiring (at least) a combination of Motivation, Ability and Effort. 

Understanding can only be done by individual persons; and for any person it is a significant sacrifice to deploy motivation, ability, and effort to understand both the old theory and the proposed new theory ... 

And therefore most people will resist even trying to understand either the old or the new theory - yet most people will claim to understand both theories nonetheless!

Also; there may be good reasons to resist making this attempt at understanding, and wasting our finite and precious resources of time and energy. 

We may therefore resist evaluating a new theory for good reasons - because understanding is difficult and we judge the person proposing the new theory to be one who does not even understand the old theory! 

Or perhaps we regard them as someone who lacks the knowledge, experience, right-attitudes, motivations (etc) to devise and understand a new and better theory. 

(For instance; we may regard the propagator as too ignorant on the subject, indifferent to truth or even an habitual liar; or as someone pursing another agenda - ideological, careerist, or whatever. We may regard that person as evil - and "using" the discourse to pursue evil ends...) 

All this emphasizes that science is, and always has been, difficult! But also that its difficulties are only seldom and partially conceptual - and that it is often (usually?) difficult to understand a theory because of its errors: because that theory is incoherent. 

In other words; the amount of ability and knowledge required to recognize error, and devise something better; may be much less than commonly assumed - because when theories are badly wrong, then most of the knowledge is irrelevant, and much of a person's ability is confused and corrupted by attempting (and claiming) to understand the un-understandable!

The real difficultly of understanding is therefore in trying to make sense of something that does not make sense - and such is the nature of most of public discourse; and such situations of institutional error and incoherence are indeed normal, and usually impossible to remedy. 

But any individual person who is truth-motivated and has sufficient ability and knowledge (which may be much less than usually supposed), and who makes the effort to understand; can do better for himself.

An individual can know better than anyone else who has not made that effort; when, as so often, nobody else actually-has made that effort*. 

This is, I believe; an encouraging, as well as realistic, conclusion. 

*Note: Of course, to do better than everybody else around at knowing the best theory, entails that your motivation must be better than theirs! Perhaps not all that difficult nowadays - but nonetheless a vital factor. Furthermore, any theory has errors, so your theory will have errors. When science is functioning as a social system, there will be "other people" who are competent and motivated to discover the errors in your theory; in a honestly comparative spirit, understanding and evaluating with respect to rival theories. But when you are doing sicence for yourself; nobody else will make the effort to understand your theory; so you will need to do all the critique youself. And need means need - it must be done. This underlines why a strong and relevant truth-motivation is so vital - because self-critique is usually painful! 

The Synoptic Gospels are actually Apocryphal

If it is agreed that the Fourth Gospel is of primary validity; then the other three "Synoptic" Gospels (Mathhew, Mark, and Luke) should be categorized as Apocryphal scriptures - which is, indeed, the way I think of them. 

The Synoptics are also Apocryphal in the sense that they are later, non-eye-witness, collected and compiled accounts of Jesus's life and teachings. 

Added to which; Luke, and Matthew - especially, seem to be written with a distinct added-theme relating to the prophesied Messiah - to such an extent that Jesus is deemed to have failed in his ministry to such an extent that he must needs return (at some point) to complete his work of salvation (i.e. the Second Coming). 

So; the Fourth Gospel should really be regarded as the only "canonical" source about Jesus; and the other Books of the New Testament are Apocryphal to various degrees - Mark, probably the least apocryphal, and Revelation/ Apocalypse the most.  

Jesus was Not a "suicide by cop"

Note: In what follows; I take the Fourth Gospel ("John") as my eyewitness source for the life of Jesus final years. 

If we are to regard Jesus's life and behaviour as, in significant ways, exemplary; we should notice that he did not cling to his mortal life - did not try to delay his death. 

This has sometimes been taken to mean that Jesus did not value mortal life, and that we should not value it.... 

That because Heaven is eternal, and mortal life is finite; "therefore" mortal life has not ultimate value except insofar as it leads to Heaven. That "therefore" we should live now, as-much-as-possible, as if we were already resurrected, immortal, and in Heaven. That "therefore" the sooner we die, the better...

But it is equally important to recognize that Jesus did not court his death: that Jesus was not in any sense a "suicide by cop" - nor was Jesus (as-it-were) using the Jewish and Roman authorities in order to bring about, as speedily as possible, the kind of death that was prophesied, ordained, necessary. 

Instead; the way we should think about this; is that Jesus knew when it was "time to die". 

He knew when it was time to stop struggling against the dying of the light, and prepare for transformation and the next phase of our existence. 

And this is something that we can learn from his example; we also need to recognize when it is time for us to die, and when the time has arrived to choose and prepare-for what comes after.

And "what comes after" depends, substantially, on what we personally believe is possible; and of these possibilities - which one we personally most-want.