How do future expectations (doctor, husband and father, resurrected Man) affect present behaviour?

Possible future expectations need to be confident in order to be effective in shaping present life. 

At least, "confident" to the degree that we can be sure of anything in this mortal life of change and uncertainty.

When I was a medical student I was confident of becoming a doctor; therefore that expectation shaped my present behaviour so that I did far more than the minimum necessary to pass qualifying exams. I looked ahead to being a doctor - and wanted to equip myself for that situation - so I did extra classes, sought ought extra teaching - made more effort to prepare myself. 

In other words, as a medical student I was willing, able, indeed keen to forgo present gratifications (to the extent of which I was capable); when this seemed likely to contribute to my future state as a doctor.

In contrast; as an adolescent and young adult I did not expect to become a husband and father - and did nothing strenuous to prepare for that eventuality - made no serious or significant sacrifices of pleasure, or creation, or career to that end. 

The vague possibility that I might become a husband, a father; was insufficiently motivating to shape my life. 

If I had been confident that was what I wanted and would likely happen - things would, presumably, have been different.  

What about the possible future state of salvation - the possibility of resurrection to eternal Heavenly life?

The lesson of the doctor and husband examples, is that we need to want and be confident of a future state, in order that it shall shape our present life. 

Therefore; if it is desired that Christians' present behaviour be shaped by resurrection; then our understanding of salvation will need to be one that could instil confidence that we could get it if we want it! 

(This understanding of salvation as something anyone can have if he wants it and will follow Jesus; is set out in The Fourth Gospel... Assuming this book can be read and understood as an autonomous text.) 

By contrast; the traditional mainstream Church understandings of salvation that render it not just uncertain, but unlikely. 

e.g. Because these Churches regard salvation as requiring a wide range of particular and mandatory behaviours, knowledge and judgment of which is administered by A (particular) Church

And because damnation is regarded as the natural default state - render our hope of salvation something about which it is impossible (and indeed counter-productive) to be confident...

Which understanding thereby renders our expectation of salvation so feebly motivating as to be incapable of shaping our present life. 

"AI" (so-called) and the "wisdom of crowds" delusion - what is the motivation?

Back in the middle noughties I was a New Agey atheist; keen on modernity, globalization, economic growth, democracy - a sort of libertarian; and saw many applications of evolutionary theory to human life... that kind of person.

(See, for instance, this - written at the time; which tried to provide a coherent underlying mechanism for WoC phenomena; derived from complex systems theory.) 

And I was much taken by the general idea of the "wisdom of crowds" (WoC) that was prevalent at the time and much discussed (and advocated) on the blogosphere. 

This argued (and purported to prove inductively, by empirical examples) the generalizable principle that there was a collective wisdom that transcended the individual's knowledge, ability - and judgment. 

To a considerable extent, the WoC theory was merely making explicit our civilization's existing and pervasive implicit faith in the authority of groups, committees, voting, mass opinion... 

What I then had was a progressivist expectation that things are self-correcting over time; and will spontaneously tend to sort-themselves-out (if left to themselves, and not interfered-with by individual humans or interest groups)...

An expectation that human affairs are actually much better than commonly acknowledged; and are naturally and impersonally trended on an upward and positive trajectory - over a sufficiently long span.

In contrast, was the (correct) recognition that individual humans would often be dominated by short-termism and selfishness, were lazy, could easily be misled, and in general nearly always were misguided in their aims and actions... 

Where I strayed from reality was in sharing the common, hopeful, delusional inference that, because individuals were imperfect therefore, the mass of people, the "system" of people and technologies was preferable - because the mass had an organic tendency towards self-optimization, self-preservation and improvement.

In sum, I believed (and wanted it to be true) that "crowds" reliably exhibited an innate wisdom and virtue which was absent from individuals.  

Such wishful-magical views are actually much more prevalent and dominant than most people would admit - indeed, however vehemently denied when made explicit such assumptions are almost universal. 

For instance, almost everybody implicitly believes - and acts on this belief - that a committee, a vote, is more authoritative than an individual human; that elections are the only morally valid way of choosing a government; that consensus is superior to personal judgment; that (proper) processes and procedures are the best way of conducting important functions such as government, the law, medicine, science, mass media... 

And so forth. 

In sum; there is in Western Civilization an extremely strong and widespread aversion-to and prejudice-against individual persons; and instead a solid faith in the groupish, systemic, and abstract*. 

What this amounts to is a metaphysical assumption concerning the nature of reality. 

People have a solid faith-in and commitment-to the group (no matter how vaguely that group is defined) and to (some kind of) process - as intrinsically superior to any and all individuals.  

I say "people" and I mean... nearly everybody; if you dig-down and are honest about what you find. 

In ancient societies this belief was unconscious and immersive; in modern societies it is conscious - but mediated-by (embedded-in) ideologies and religions. 

The problem is that we are, each and individually, trapped and disempowered by such assumptions - and at the level of thinking.

(ie. Before any question of action can arise we are already blocked by our thinking.) 

We feel (deeply) that we personally cannot and should-not think any thing; unless and until the after relevant group has endorsed it. 

But in a totalitarian world inhabited by people who just-are cut-off spiritually from any group, and self-aware to an unprecedented degree; such an assumption is a prison: a thought prison. 

It is, in effect, a demand that we ourselves must and ought-to inhabit a societal prison; and all our hopes then become fixed upon that prison becoming as kind and efficient as possible; perhaps (the common "therapeutic" value-stance) functioning more like a hospital than a prison... 

But (we believe, because of our assumptions) it is a thought prison society that inevitably must and shall remain.   

+++

How does this related to so-called "AI"?

I think it helps understand the otherwise extraordinary degree of optimism, and indeed existential hope; that so many people place in these new technologies: technologies which operate by rapidly and simply "pooling" and processing vast quantities of anonymous data, under the ruling (but implicit) assumption that this group-process is superior to any individual.

"AI", in other words, is a variant of the "wisdom of crowds" assumption: 

AI = WoC On Steroids. 

"AI" seems - to such people, with such "wisdom of crowds" assumptions - to offer a permanent way out from the inevitable evil and partiality of individuals - a way forward towards a world of universally accessible knowledge, ability, and objective virtue. 

My point here is that - to my judgment anyway - the actual nature of what happens with "AI" systems is - by its nature - obviously not knowledgeable, not competent, and cannot-be wise. 

And the same applies to the (various) systems of democracy, the processes of bureaucracy, the work of voting committees... 

Once you become aware of, and explicitly consider, what actually happens inside these "black boxes" then it is obvious that they cannot be good. 

For exactly analogous reasons; "AI" cannot be good. 

But people have the metaphysical assumptions that they have; and these are often buried deep, and are typically regarded as facts. 

Most people evidently do not want to become aware of their fundamental convictions; nor to acknowledge that they are indeed assumptions - therefore not the consequence of evidence and logic. 

Yet it is these assumptions concerning what is effective, true and good; that lead to the absurd conviction and hope that "AI" is (whether actually already, or potentially) wise, competent, and will be beneficial overall and in the long term. 

Until these ridiculous, but pervasive, "wisdom of crowds" assumptions are exposed and acknowledged**; then many or most people will remain spiritually help-less and resistant to help; emotionally and intellectually in thrall to those who designed, created, implemented, and administer the "AI" systems.  

+++

* Another version of this - although rare nowadays, especially in practice, is faith in the truth and rightness of "tradition" - belief in "the wisdom of the crowds of the past", perhaps. 

But due to modern self-awareness, it has become impossible to establish unambiguously what is tradition. Tradition itself becomes contested; and then the problem reverts to the modern one of who-or-what entity has the authority to declare what is the real and true tradition. 

That tradition is a variant of the wisdom of crowds delusion; is evident in the way that so many self-identified traditionalists have embraced and become advocates of "AI". They apparently believe (or hope) that "AI" (properly designed and used...) will become a (generally-accessible and easily-usable) supreme source and repository of the wisdom of the crowds of the past.

** It was, I think, the fact that I had exposed and made explicit my own atheist, modernizing, groupist, progressivist etc assumptions; that ultimately led to my recognizing their arbitrary incoherence and inadequacy - then abandoning them, and consciously choosing and adopting something better. 

"Froth on the surface of life": Our civilization's paralysis by Metaphysical Dissonance

Metaphysical Dissonance is what we experience when our superficial and everyday motivations are contradicted by our metaphysical convictions. 

In other words; when our everyday, on-the-surface specific attitudes, beliefs, and behaviours; are contradicted by our basic understanding of the nature of reality. 

Metaphysical Dissonance is the normal and almost universal state of nearly-everybody in the West today - including the religious, including the Christian. 

It is maybe the single deepest cause of of our civilizational paralysis, of our mass demotivation (hence mass cowardice). Metaphysical Dissonance explains our chronic inability to do anything positive and helpful about the many potentially lethal attitudes and behaviours that beset us. 

Our primary motivation in life comes from our metaphysical convictions - and ultimately everything else is merely froth on the surface. 

Therefore, when metaphysical convictions fail to provide a primary motivation - then we are left with nothing-but froth on the surface... 

Our behaviour becomes merely a froth blown about by the winds of culture and society. We have become the most easily-manipulated society in history - because our everyday attitudes, thoughts, actions are severed from fundamental roots.

Indeed, it is the officially endorsed and taught conviction that there are no fundamental roots. 

It is officially articulated that the ultimate reality began as a dead universe of physical matter, to which life and consciousness were later added by abstract processes, forces, laws. 

The ultimate reality is that we and everything-else is made of dead-stuff; the past just happened to happen the way it did by the operation of causes and chance; and there is no underlying direction, no deep purpose, no meaning, to things-in-general.

And this metaphysics is a matter of conviction - it is not treated as a theory or an assumption, but as a fact; and as such it is the underlying structure of human existence whatever religion is put on top of it: In effect, religion is just aspect of the froth on the surface of life. 

Our cultural paralysis is a consequence of Metaphysical Dissonance; because our underlying metaphysical convictions can have no relation to our surface "beliefs" about values, ethics, virtue, truth, beauty. 

The passions and despairs of everyday life amount just to froth, because they are unrooted, unintegrated, and motivate only feebly and briefly - the oceanic tide of existence is towards dissolution of meaning, paralysis of thought and action. 

And the passivity of despair is alleviated by sporadic frenzies of hedonism, self-gratification, and self-assertion. 

All this derives from the self-contradictions inherent in trying to build a purposive, meaningful, motivated life; upon foundations that deny the reality of such a life.  

Because the consequences of Dissonance are so bad, and seem in-practice unavoidable; there is therefore - I believe - an absolute necessity for each of us to strive to attain Metaphysical Coherence.

In other words we need to build our surface attitudes, thoughts, behaviours upon foundations that are coherent with them - the foundations and and the superstructure need to be mutually consistent. 

Instead of (as at present) being At War; our convictions need to be mutually supportive.  

For Metaphysical Coherence to be possible and effective in supporting our everyday discernments and aspirations; requires that we personally are able to perform this integration between depth and surface. 

This means that our metaphysical convictions must be:

1. Genuinely understood. 

Metaphysical beliefs cannot be second-hand, or mystical; nor can they be forms of words; nor taken on trust from external authority (all of which have proved demonstrably useless in the past several generations) we each must personally understand, fully grasp the meaning of, our fundamental convictions - in order that we can work-with them. 

2. Regarded as really-real.

Our metaphysical convictions need to be such that we regard them as reality - else they will lack power to shape and motivate our lives. 

We see this at present in that people regard the "physics" description of things as deep reality; and we observe that the nihilism (purposelessness, meaninglessness, indifference to the individual person...) of such conviction subverts, weakens, and negates any amount of religious "beliefs".

3. Genuinely endorsed.

So far it seems we must genuinely understand our metaphysical beliefs, and need to regard them as descriptive of reality; and on top of these we must endorse them: we need to desire that they be fulfilled. 

 

The basis for Metaphysical Coherence is therefore to insist upon a full understanding and grasp of fundamental assumptions that we personally regard as real and desirable. 

It may sound as if this is impossible, but we were all incarnated and born with innate but unconscious metaphysical assumptions concerning life.

I personally believe that these innate assumptions are God-given, because needed for anyone to live life as God intends. 

Therefore, the process of achieving Metaphysical Coherence is mostly a matter of becoming-conscious-of, evaluating, and then choosing to endorse; that which already exists within each person...

(Although, in practice, such recovery may need to be achieved by conscious intellectual effort; by searching, analysis, learning from experiences etc; in other words a Spiritual Quest - whose results need to be checked and confirmed by intuition, meditation, prayer and the like.) 

Hawkbit update!

For all you Hawkbit fans, I have an important update...

I took a slight diversion to walk through the 30-40 acre urban field (Little Moor) that forms the densest Hawkbit concentration hereabouts; when I discovered that most of the bright yellow flowers I reported just a fortnight ago; have turned into mini- dandelion-clock-style seed heads (each a little less than half the diameter of a dandelion-clock). 

So, it turns out that not just the flower but the seed-heads resemble their cousins who were thriving about three months ago. It is the smaller size and solid (rather than hollow and white-sappy) stalk of the Hawkbit that seems to provide the simplest differentiation. 

One God or many?

We posit one God because we need to explain the cohesion of reality - why things hang-together and don't fly apart; why there are values; why there is is structure, coordination, predictability etc. 

We posit many gods because we need to explain free-will/ agency, evil, love, creativity, the possibility of change and newness. 

The main religions and philosophies do a very bad job of covering both these requirements, of explaining how we can actually have "all the above".

[Although - given that historically is is believed that polytheism/ many gods is spontaneous and natural and came before monotheism/ one God; it could plausibly be argued that there is an innate tendency of those who posit many gods to unite them under a dominating leader ("henotheism"), thereby providing some of the unifying and cohering attributes of one God. While, in practice if not theory; monotheistic religions exhibit a spontaneous tendency to divide their reverence and supplications among many beings; that are accorded co-deity/ semi-deity nature (such as the Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost, or the Blessed Virgin Mary); and/or specially significant influence on life and creation (such as spirits, saints, holy persons). Thereby answering some of the questions for which polytheism provides answers.]     

Either they pick one, or many, God/s and ignore the need for the other...

Or else they "explain" how things work with language of such abstraction and complexity that it does not count as an explanation....

Or they try to stun and deter people from questioning by spouting mystical paradoxes. 

The result? Look around... Nihilism. 

People have no coherent and comprehensible explanation for why and how things are; so they have just given-up on understanding; and instead focus on getting-through each hour/ day/ year - with the maximum of pleasant and minimum of unpleasant experiences.

So; if you want to do better, you won't get off-the-peg help from religions or culture - nobody that you would trust can tell you a valid answer. 

You will have to do it for yourself.  

Which end of a slice of bread do you prefer? Booly or Clappy?

Booly end is at the top, clappy at the bottom

From my childhood (by oral transmission, with no spelling); a Northumbrian dialect ("Pitmatic") term for the ends of a slice of traditionally-shaped bread is booly - i.e. because round like a ball (or bool); and clappy - because flattened as if clapped, or slapped-down-upon, a table (or anything else).

As a kid I much preferred the clappie end, and would always take it for preference. 

But now I'm grown-up my taste has reversed, and I will go for the booly end - if given the choice.  

In Medieval times, bread was cut horizontally so the booly ends and most of the bread, were detached from the clappie end - which was used as a plate or "trencher"; which after the meal, having soaked up various juices, might be given to The Poor. 

This was because bread ovens were insulated stone or brick boxes, pre-heated with burning wood. The ash was then mostly raked out, and the bread baked ASAP while the oven still retained its heat... 

But the clappy end would inevitably be permeated with wood ash, which is why it was sawn-off before serving.   

Whether this is relevant to my current booly preference is doubtful -- My worry is that the change signifies a covert transfer of allegiance from the Saxon peasantry of my ancestors (who would have got the clappie trenchers to eat, if they were lucky) to their evil Norman overlords that kept the booly for themselves. 

The replacement of disinterested judgment by the rule of the uninterested

It has been... interesting to observe how the word disinterested, which means impartial; has become co-opted as a synonym of uninterested - which means not having one's mind, feelings or motivation engaged by a thing. 

Properly speaking, a good judge in a court of law ought to be disinterested, but not uninterested. 

That is; a good judge ought to be impartial about the guilt of the accused, and guided by the legal process and its evidences. But the judge needs to be interested in the sense of engaged with the case, paying attention, and giving it active thought. 

Such a slovenly destruction of meaning as has happened to disinterested, is typical of a society in which people are uninterested - on a massive scale; from top to bottom of social institutions and discussion.

Our society is one in which an immense and increasing amount of "data" is hosed upon people 24/7, most of which is untruthful (lies, distortions, manipulation), and concerning matters about which hardly anybody has any interest - but for which there is a demand that "everyone" forms a judgment - and is ready to express and defend it.

Such everyday judgment is profoundly uninterested - as is necessarily so with such large amounts of stuff. And by the fact that nobody lifts a finger to verify the validity of what is discussed: neither by application of common sense nor personal experience; not by reasoning, not by seeking-out further and better information. 

On top of this there has been the totalitarian takeover of all major functional social institutions under a single multi-national bureaucracy-media-complex. 

Such that nowadays no sensible person would expect a judge to be disinterested; because any personal motivation a judge may have with respect to The Law (which concept he probably would not recognize as autonomously valid) will be subordinated to pursuit of the Establishment agenda.  

Yet an ideal and good judge would be disinterested about a case, while being intensely interested in the case; exactly because he was strongly motivated by the desire that justice be done in accordance with the spirit and letter of The Law.  

Likewise in what used to be science and the arts... 

Science used to be - when it really-was science - disinterestedly evaluated by a small group of individual scientists, each of whom was truthful and whose main interest was the same species of scientific truth. 

The disinterestedness of scientific evaluation, was therefore a product of intense interest in truth. 

Now that science is a mass bureaucracy manned by officials and functionaries who are uninterested by the truths they pretend to pursue; the guiding evaluations are provided top-down - by those who manage the system in accordance with ideologies provided by a totalitarian leadership class (in accordance with priorities that have nothing to do with real-truth - but only with manipulation). 

Scientists no longer run professional science, and it has been decades since they did; consequently, "science" has nothing to do with truth. 

And, since truth-seeking/speaking scientists are grit in The Machine; over the decades, scientists have been eliminated from the system (except sometimes, as isolated individuals, at a low and system-powerless level).  

When the arts were good, artistic evaluations (eg. of music, poetry, fine arts) were dominated by those few individuals who were intensely interested by the species of aesthetic beauty that the particular art provided. 

Therefore, the arts could be disinterested in their evaluations of quality, exactly because there were powerful and personal artistic interests driving them. 

Now that the arts are incorporated in the state systems of bureaucracy and the corporate worlds of trading. I mean especially the visual fine arts; painting, sculpture and the like) - where nobody involved is genuinely interested-in and motivated-by aesthetic beauty. 

Disinterestedness does not happen in the fine arts now. 

The evaluations of fine arts are based on interest - and the strongest interest now is a not-artistic mixture of finance, ideology, careerism, and the usual human corruptions (e.g. sexual). 

Artistic evaluations are nowadays utterly worthless with respect to aesthetic beauty - whether these evaluations come from (so called) artists, academics, critics, galleries, auctioneers, investors - or whoever. 

In sum: Uninterest in art among those who evaluate art systemically, has led to the loss of disinterested evaluation throughout the institutions of the arts. It also leads to the astonishing degree of aesthetic-incompetence among those who evaluate the fine arts; which is evident in all areas - awards and prizes, prices in sales, content of exhibitions, and the high prevalence of forgeries and fakes. Competence requires motivation, and therefore is also a product of genuine interest.  

In sum; genuine interest enables disinterestedness; while lack of interest is the same thing as uninterested. 

In the world of the uninterested, disinterestedness is impossible and becomes extinct.  

So... mass linguistic absorption of the word disinterested into meaning simply lack of interest-in, has paralleled the disappearance of interested-impartiality from public discourse. 

Why? Because motivations are what determine systems; and motivations derive from our world view... from our beliefs about the basic structure and purpose of reality. 

When it has been generally decided that reality has no purpose - and when that truth has sunk-in fully and everywhere (which took a few generations); then deep and powerful motivations become impossible; and we get the present world where people function in terms of superficial, labile and short-term motivations - which are easily manipulated top-down.... 

Which is why disinterestedness has been - deliberately - driven to extinction.  

It has now reached the point where many people cannot even conceive of the world that actually-existed 50-plus years ago, and more so in the more remote past; and deny that it ever existed or was possible. 

It seems impossible, because it was a world where it was normal for many people to be so interested by some-thing that they could - sometimes - be dis-interested about it.  

A good way forward can only come from revealing and challenging those fundamental (metaphysical) assumptions about the nature of reality that have so annihilated deep motivation as to render it unimaginable. 

The conflation of Christianity and Church - once inevitable, now impossible

By my understanding; it was once (almost) inevitable that Christianity would be conflated with "Church" (although exactly which Church, was very soon a matter of deadly dispute). 

Whether or not such conflation of Christianity and Church was once inevitable, so that it was natural, spontaneous, and necessary for a self-identified Christian to conceptualize his religion in church-terms; this conflation is now contingent upon personal choice.

Indeed, the situation is almost reversed; in that it is now natural and spontaneous - and almost unavoidable - for each Christian to conceptualize his own Christianity separately from Church. 

The tendency to mental separation between Christianity and Church happens in the modern Christian's own mind; even when that Christian asserts and believes in one of the orthodox-traditional, church-defined conceptualizations of being-a-Christian. 

The inner mental separation of Christianity from Church probably explains the progressively-increasing over the decades, shrill-aggression of Church-first Christians in their advocacy and apologetics. 

In other words, in arguing for an external and groupish conceptualization of Christianity as necessarily Church-originating and sustained; they are arguing, primarily, with themselves!

In other words; the trad-orthodox advocates are fighting their own recurrent inner tendency to separate their Church from Christianity - a tendency that is forced upon them by the continual crises and conflicts and profound schisms, endemic within all the Christian churches - as of 2025.   

I believe that human consciousness, human thinking, has changed over the centuries; and what was once natural, universal, and almost irresistible; has become a forced-choice - and almost impossible.  

A Western anthropologist watches a "shaman" working with spirits; the tribe sees the spirits but the anthropologist does not. What next?

A spirit; naturally seen by the shaman, invisible to Westerners...

Consider, as a thought experiment, a situation that happened for many Western anthropologists who were observing native tribes in various parts of the world. 

A tribal "shaman"/ medicine man/ spirit healer would perform some kind of ceremony - perhaps of healing - in front of the tribe; and everybody present would see spirits (or, claim to see spirits) - except the anthropologist. 

What does this mean, that everybody present perceives some-thing, except for one person - who is looking, but does not see? 

1. One possibility is that the majority are correct, and the minority of one who cannot see spirits has "something wrong with him" - some kind of perceptual deficit. 

Since spirit blindness is so common in the West, it is presumably some combination of racial and cultural "sensory defect".

The "answer" would seem to be for Westerners to become able to perceive spirits; and if this is taken seriously it leads Westerners towards exploring manipulations of consciousness such as happen during hypnosis and trances (perhaps assisted by music and dance), dreaming sleep, between sleep and waking; or in psychosis, delirium, and from the effects of some kinds of psychoactive drugs. 

2. Another possibility is that the majority, the tribesmen, are deluded by their expectations, or perhaps have been duped by a conjuring trick of the shaman. 

The idea is that the tribesmen are like young children in the West; who are fooled partly because they want to be fooled, and partly because they lack sufficient knowledge and experience. In other words; the testimony of the tribe is irrelevant: the Western anthropologist is right, and everybody else present is wrong.

The "answer" implied is that the tribesmen need to be Westernized, and educated in science - so that they will stop seeing what is not really there. 

3. For some traditional orthodox Christians, the spirits seen by the tribesmen are really spirits, and are really there; but are of demonic origin - designed to mislead, corrupt, and spiritually-harm the tribesmen. They are seen by the tribe because the tribes are in thrall to the devil; devil worshippers. 

The Westerners are immune to this demonic deception - either for the positive reason that they are Christians and reject demonic visions. Or the negative reason that Western anthropologists usually do not believe in the reality of the devil or of spirits - or indeed of Goad and angels; and made themselves incapable of perceiving either. 

So, in the imaginary tribal situation; the demonic influence on the Western atheist is present, but unseen and unconscious.  

Because the spirits perceived are real but of evil intent; to, the "answer" to the problem of tribesmen seeing spirits is to convert them to Christianity, and train them to discern demonic deceptions - so that the tribesman will cease to see the spirits conjured by shamans. 

(And the same applies to an atheistic anthropologist!) 

4. A less common interpretation is found among those influenced by Jung; which is that the spirits are real but in an intermediate and "imaginal" realm - situated between (and bridging between) objective-public-physical reality and subjective-personal reality. 

This tries to posit a psychological objectivity, distinct from literal-physical objectivity. And that this psychological realm is unconsciously collective, shared among all humans (whether they are aware of this or not). So the spirits are symbols (archetypes) of the collective unconscious, being reacted-to differently by tribesmen and the Westerners, due to cultural differences in attitude.

The Jungian answer to the different experiences of tribesmen and Westerners, is that the Westerners need to learn of the reality of the archetypal realm of the collective unconscious, reconnect with it and become conscious of it; and develop a relationship with the objective-but-symbolic images that inhabit that realm. 

Thus may Western alienation of Men from themselves and The World be alleviated.  

5. A perspective derived from  Rudolf Steiner and Owen Barfield (which I also believe is correct) is that the spirits are really there, they are not symbols but actual Beings; but whether spirits are seen is a matter of the development of consciousness. 

Some adult tribal people (like some Western children) are less developed in this respect, and still have the ability to perceive spirits - indeed they cannot help but perceive spirits, just as Westerners cannot help but perceive physical objects such as trees, chairs and other people. 

In the West; most adolescent and adult people have lost the spontaneous ability to perceive spirits; and this has also (like the Western anthropologists) made Westerners largely resistant to the communications of spirits. 

Negatively, the Westerners have lost the ability to see what is there. 

Positively; Westerners have gained independence from (freedom from) the previously inescapable influence of spirits - which include both good (angelic) and evil (demonic) spirits - as well as other spirits perhaps more neutral (elementals, "Fairies", or nature spirits). 

(This development of consciousness is divinely driven; and understood to be part of God's plan for the world. So the development of consciousness through an individual person's life, or throughout the history of Mankind; is something that happens by means of the incarnation of various kinds of spirits as mortal Men, and the attributes and needs of individual pre-mortal spirits.) 

The "answer" from this Steiner/ Barfield perspective; is not to ignore spirits, nor to try and perceive them again, nor to relate to spirits via symbolic intermediary symbols or archetypes; but instead to move forward a new relationship with spirits that is rooted in direct knowing of spirits. 

Instead of a spirit being spontaneously seen and communicating with the Man by means of perceived stimuli such as visions, speech or symbolism; the idea is that the spirit is known by the Man, in thinking. 

So, to return to our thought experiment; the tribesmen would see the spirits, because they could not help perceiving spirits. But the observing Steiner-Barfield anthropologist would not see the spirits; because he would would instead know by experienced thinking, that the spirits were indeed present and active here-and-now. 

This knowing would not be by any intermediary such as picture, sound or symbol; but the knowing would instead be direct knowledge, as intuition; as an experience of knowing occurring in the ongoing stream of thinking. 

 

Notice - The 2019 movie "Cosmos"

Much of the movie takes place inside or near a Volvo Estate car, parked in a wood, after midnight - the car sardine-packed with three astronomers, masses of equipment, and far too many cables for comfort or convenience

I just re-watched the 2019 movie Cosmos (currently on Amazon Prime), and again found it to be well worthwhile seeing. 

Cosmos is unlike any other movie I've seen. It's an almost moment-by-moment (with a few time-skips) account of a night spent doing detailed astronomical observations by three young men (all professionals in astronomical research, but engaged in their hobby); using various sensing techniques. 

The movie is "about" science and engineering in its idealistic and best sense, the friendship and conflicts of the three men, and the shock and implications of discovering that "we are not alone". 

In other words, it's a very serious and heartfelt movie, with a (mostly) slow-burning pace; so it would not be a surprise to learn that it was made as a labour of love by two brothers over several years and with "zero budget" - because such a film could not have happened otherwise. 

It is a gripping and thought-provoking story, which stuck in my memory. 

Why the biggest Western civilizational strategies have Zero validity? A multi-level explanation

It is an interesting aspect of the most recent giga-dollar projects, schemes, and strategies (characteristic, especially, of Western civilization in its end-stage) - that they consist almost entirely of coloured lights, smoke and mirrors, vapour and blank-assertion. 

Among currently active projects of colossal size, scope and expense; there is the climate scam, the birdemic/peck scam, the antiracism scam, the AI scam, and the war-everywhere scam... 

These all share:

1. An absence of mass and grass-roots origins or support. Such projects are imposed top-down, multi-nationally. By simultaneously coordinating the many functional specializations, and integrated goals and bureaucratic-media methods, of the global totalitarian system. 

2. An absence of coherent reality in terms of need. Ends and means are alike invisible to personal experience. The rationale for these projects is wholly manufactured, and disseminated by "research" and mass media propaganda. 

3. An absence of rational credibility for the effectiveness of the vast schemes of "intervention". 

No demand, no coherence - no genuine need, no potential effectiveness...

There must be some reason why nothing-burgher projects are consistently chosen, in preference to schemes addressing real needs by valid measures?

In fact there are many reasons and at many levels by which to understand why strategy is rooted-in and aimed-at Nothing, rather than... something.

At the deepest (spiritual evil) level it seems obvious that to organize the world on the basis of nothing, fits with the nihilistic - anti divine creation - stance of the demonic motivation. Insofar as creation is subverted by incoherence and lies; the anti-God alliance is winning. 

At the level of the most powerful human leadership class; a strategy based on nothing, is - once established and launched - impossible to refute. Nothingness cannot be critiqued on the basis of either data or individual human experiences. 

At the level of the puppet-leadership class - those heading the nations, major corporations and most significant institutions - the only requirement is that strategies be backed-up by the largest possible and longest sustainable infusions of money and other resources; so that multiple forms of (mostly-legal) corruption can redirect benefits to their pockets. 

And when the entire project is phony, then such vampirism is less noticeable and less likely to be suppressed than would be the case if there was a real problem being addressed by a potentially valid solution. 

(Consider CO2 climate strategies or the Birdemic-Peck... When the whole vast theoretical scheme is shaped from nothing and lies, then nobody really expects anything to work - and they wouldn't know if it did.) 

In consequence; nihilistic indifference prevails; and nothing is done to prevent, limit, or punish the overwhelming incidence of tyrannical self-enrichment, expedient policy contradictions, and obscenely flagrant hypocrisy,   

At the level of senior and mid-level bureaucrats/ managers/ intellectuals - these types are indifferent to content, and wholly focused on proximate matters such as careers and status. They will willingly say and do anything required of them by their bureaucratic superiors - so long as this aligns with incentives; and will eagerly manufacture the necessary rationale or obfuscate the obvious: on demand.

At the level below the middle-managerial-myrmidons of evil - it does not matter what the masses think about these projects. The schemes are done-to such people; whose only job is to do the needful stuff and provide the necessities of living. The masses are the despised host; whose existence merely enables the thriving of an extractive parasitic superstructure.      

In sum, there are many reasons, from up-front and proximate to long-term and ultimate; why it suits the totalitarian system to prefer ruling the world on the basis of nothing, rather than something. 

A lesson of Tolkien's Numenor: Mortal life can only be partly enchanted, even in Faery

Over at my Notion Club Papers blog; with reference to the Numenor story by Tolkien, I discuss the implications of the tragic fact that an "enchanted life" is only partly or temporarily available to Men - and how this interacts with ideas of elves and fairies; and the hope, or delusion, that a Faery life of continuous and complete enchantment might be a full answer for Men's existential yearnings.  

A motivational explanation of "Lawful evil" - and its development into "Chaotic evil"

Lawful evil is totalitarian and systemic evil - its core aim is to create a machine for the corruption and eventual damnation of mankind. 

For this ultimate goal to happen entails the participants foregoing the upfront gratifications of short-termist and purely selfish satisfactions.

Lawful evil embodies some virtues (or partial-virtues), some at-least-somewhat positive values - in service to its long terms goals: values such as obedience, loyalty, hard work, deferred gratification. 

Chaotic evil is (by contrast) short-termist and selfish - but the gratifications it seeks are of a negative kind. 

(In Dungeons and Dragons terminology, the earliest most primitive form evil - coming before Lawful, which comes before Chaotic - is mostly positive in its rewards; and might be termed "Neutral" evil - I mean the evil that seeks short-term selfish gratification of a positively rewarding kind, such as the gratification of greed, lust, excitement, luxury etc.)  

Chaotic evil is therefore spiteful; it seems to harm others more than to benefit itself - or, more exactly, its greatest self-benefit (its greatest pleasure) is the harm of others. 

(The negative gratifications of Chaotic evil are a late corruption of evil; developing after someone has been sated or jaded by positive rewards.) 

Therefore Chaotic evil is primarily motivated by emotions such as resentment, revenge, and sadism. 

Ultimately; both Lawful and Chaotic evil are motivated by hatred of God and divine creation, and indeed anything created or creative. 

Lawful evil will always trend towards Chaotic evil, because Lawful evil entails doing some good in order to achieve a greater evil. 

Therefore, every individual who serves Lawful evil will continually be tempted by the opportunity for "me" to to do immediate evil, here and now; breaking the laws of Lawful evil - instead of putting-off present temptation in order to pursue some delayed overall goal.

So, Lawful evil is intrinsically unstable. 

The closer Lawful evil gets to achieve a system of damnation, the greater the commitment to evil goals of the system participants, and the greater the opportunities for doing evil ahead of time, and reaping the rewards personally rather than vicariously. 

Thus it was that when Lawful evil achieved its goals of a global totalitarian system in 2020, in the birdemic coup; within weeks The System had begun to self-destruct with Chaotic evil - e.g with "MLB" antiracism; and then escalating chaos and wars in many nations and on many fronts. 

The "necessary evils" of civilization, lead to the ascendancy of chaotic evil (under conditions of modern consciousness)

I am pessimistically convinced that the "chaotic evil*" of the self-imploding Western totalitarian system is going to prevail; and for deep, inescapable reasons. 

If we survey the history of civilizations, it is always apparent that each is characterized by "necessary evils" - most often in the form of human coercion and manipulation. All military and police activities are an example of necessary evils; and all religions include them as well. 

Nonetheless, in the remote past some civilizations (e.g. Ancient Egypt, Eastern Roman "Byzantine" Empire) were intrinsically stable and lasting - although any society can, of course, be overcome by attack from a more powerful external threat.

(The contrast is with civilizations that destroy themselves; whether passively by neglect and/or by stupidity; or - as now - actively, with self-hatred and by value-inversion.)

My understanding is that this multi-generational innate stability of ancient civilizations was made possible by a more groupish form of human consciousness, whereby there was a spontaneous (mostly unconscious) sharing of awareness between people - especially when there were hereditary links. 

In such conditions, it seems that the necessary evils were tolerated long-term for the benefit of the group - such group benefits as civil peace, defence against invasion, stable food supply, greater comfort and convenience; and the consolations and joys of religion.

Necessary evils were tolerated - but more importantly they were constrained, confined, encapsulated; so that the evil did not expand - and destroy the society. 

It is this restriction of necessary evils - preventing their longitudinal increase - that has become impossible in modernity.  

It has always been the case that individuals, especially the most powerful individuals, had to give-up personal gratifications to attain these group benefits. 

This happened in the past (I am suggesting) due to spontaneous and unconscious reasons; sometimes from to genetic relatedness between the rulers and the ruled; and/or from a shared and powerful religion. 

However; human consciousness has changed, and become increasingly more self-aware and individual, especially over the past two-three hundred years. 

So that powerful individuals are now much more aware of their own personal wants and how these conflict with the "good of the group"; more aware of their immediate and certain gratifications and how these differ from long-term probabilistic benefits; and they lack the unconscious and spontaneous sense (and duty) of being immersed inside a valued societal group that would once have constrained such selfishness and short-termism.

In spiritual terms; in the past individual evils were (most of the time) innately restrained by groupishness; whereas with modern consciousness this has ceased to be the case. 

Furthermore, all historical societies functioned "inside" religion: their world view was involuntarily through the lens of religion, which was larger than any individual. 

(This is a generalization - albeit a strong one, But there probably were exceptions, when an individualistic - perhaps psychopathic/ incapable of empathy - individual would act with increased selfishness and callousness (a.g. Caligula); or would disbelieve the state-religion and therefore broach its restraints - e.g. Some of the perpetrators of the great horrors of history probably ensued, when such a person was in a position of power (e.g. Akhenaten).   

The situation at present is that all the nations and international groupings of the modern world (even the better ones, even the best of them) are totalitarian in nature - which is a kind of "lawful evil"*; and, as such, are net-evil.  

All are societies in which the civilizationally-required elements of "necessary evil" are very strong, and core, and ineradicable.

(Which is why, especially since the 1960s, there has been such a strong counter-cultural tendency - rooted in opposition to the particular necessary evils; but - dishonestly and fatally - without understanding or acknowledging that such evils are inevitable in any possible civilization.) 

Add to this that evil is not static; but tends to feed upon itself and increase - especially when evil is un-repented, as happens (usually) when evils are necessary to continued worldly survival. 

Thus I believe and have often argued that - under modern conditions - lawful evil degenerates inevitably into chaotic evil, due to the (sooner or later) irresistible pressure of increased selfishness and short-termism among those with power. 

I get a strong sense that exactly this is happening - that the agents of lawful evil are progressively weakening, and those of chaotic evil are strengthening, at a world civilizational level; and that will become evident very soon - perhaps within a few days. 

Because of the "compromises" (i.e. necessary evils) of modern totalitarianism, and because of the nature of modern consciousness; modern societies cannot hold-the-line at the necessary evils of a nation. The necessary evils will expand, and the goodness will be eroded. 

So; I mean that there will be (under whatever lying disguise, and will the self-blinded collusion of the totalitarian bureaucrats) a major action that will tend to provoke global chaos. 

But if not now then soon - because there are no countervailing material powers that are sufficiently aligned with good, and sufficiently strong/ cohesive, to stop and reverse the waxing trend towards chaos. 

*See this later post, for further explanation of Chaotic and Lawful types of evil. 

Is it difficult and complicated to discern the reality behind official propaganda and the mass media deception? No. It is easy for The Good.

Those who urge modern people to look behind the deceptions and manipulated of the totalitarian system we inhabit, usually make the process of discerning truth in a world of lies to be terribly difficult and complicated - almost a life's work. 

But this is not so. The problem is not of that kind. It is not a matter of increasing effort and expertise. 

The root of the problem is that Modern Man is easily fooled because he is not good, and does not even want to be good.

Discerning that we are being lied-to and manipulated all the time is something that any Good Man (Jesus, for example) would find utterly obvious: a simple matter.

It could be summarized as the obvious sense of not-believing the words of known liars, combined with noticing that we are being asked to share inferences and interpretations of people and events that lack innate common sense, and are indeed inversions of The Good.

It is because Modern Man has chosen (and keeps choosing) to discard innate common sense, and to believe those he knows to be liars; that he makes-himself so extremely susceptible to propaganda, so extremely resistant to de-programming.    

There are many reasons of expediency (of short-term self-benefit) why so many people choose to believe officialdom, corporate and educational pronouncements, the mass media etc. 

There are extreme social and psychological pressures to conform with these beliefs. 

But... We also know, without needing to be told, that all these pressures to conform and believe are actually powerful reasons why we must therefore doubt the truth of such coerced belief.   

A Good Man would not be so easily, so eagerly, fooled as we are - because a Good Man would know that a system of idea enforcement by manipulation of personal expediency, has nothing to do with reality and truth - but implies exactly the opposite.

It is the powers and servants of evil who claim that coercion and appeals to selfish and hedonic expediency are reality and truth. 

(And this applies also when the coercion and appeals to hedonic expediency come from within religions, including from within Christianity.)

It is Modern Man's lack of Goodness, our lack of commitment to live in accordance with divine creation; that makes us so very easy to fool, and so very resistant to undeception.   

"As a dog returneth to his vomit..." Why plans for making people happier/the world better - inevitably go nowhere

 As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly. 

Proverbs 26:11. 

Every day our speech and writing, our conversations and media; the world of academia, medicine, officialdom, news and education... are such all replete with analysis, reforms and strategies for making the world "a better place", or making some class of people happier, or less miserable - or whatever...

Oh so many "good intentions" from so many directions, and unrelenting. 

Yet it all adds-up to a Great-Big Nothing-Burger...    

Indeed, things overall keep getting worse, the decline being actively fuelled by the endless affected-attempts at betterment.

Why? 

Because our fundamental understanding of the world is false. 

In other words: 

When our basic understanding of the nature of life and the universe is qualitatively-wrong; then no amount of quantitative activity will make a dent in things.

When deep understanding is wrong; then our sense of the purpose and meaning of life will be wrong, feeble... or (mostly) absent. 

Socio-psychological therapy and reform constitutes no more than patterns of evanescent ripples that sweep and swirl across the surface of an oceanic swell. 

When our basic understanding of oceanic reality is that the universe is purposeless, meaningless, and (mostly) dead - then this underpinning assumption is the vomit to which the dog shall inevitably return; again, and again, and again. 

When Men have become such fools as to pretend that they can have purposeful and meaningful mortal lives without anything to underpin this in fundamental and ultimate reality; such folly will always  undercut all and any superficial efforts at betterment.

   

The outrageous imposture of Christian Churches as gatekeepers of Heaven

Looked at retrospectively; it seems extraordinary that all the major Christian churches went down the path of claiming to be the gatekeepers of Heaven: of claiming that the eternal salvation of every individual Man depended on the say-so of a church on earth. 

It is not really difficult to understand this in terms of sociological advantage; in terms of how a church - which is a mortal, material, human institution - can enable itself to grow, survive and expand. 

It is clearly an advantage in this-world, if an organization can persuade enough people that it is essential for resurrected life in the world-to-come. 

This applies even when the fundamental basis of the Christian religion is one of the primacy of each individual person's spiritual relationship with the ascended Jesus Christ. 

While there are insufficient historical records concerning the mainstream Christian churches, the trajectory can be seen for the Mormon church (CJCLDS). 

Mormonism was built around assertion of the primacy of personal revelation (a direct spiritual relationship between each person and the divine), and a conviction that salvation to a kind-of Heavenly state was the default outcome for all but the most depraved persons. 

But the church rapidly developed a gatekeeping role analogous to (although not identical with) the mainstream Christian churches; in that access to the highest levels of eternal Heavenly exaltation after death; were asserted to depend upon church membership and the performance of particular rituals on this mortal earth. 

I suppose that something similar applied to the mainstream churches. For example, the individual and non-church family-like Christianity described in the Fourth Gospel ("John"), lost out to the organizational church by which salvation was institutionally mediated. To be "a Christian" soon became a matter of formal membership of (and submission to) a defined institution, and participation in official and prescribed procedures.  

Such gate-keeping claims as churches make, elide the distinction between earth and Heaven. Of course anyone can claim anything, and we need to ask why such claims were accepted. 

I think the ability of churches to make this elision probably rests on a capacity to provide - albeit briefly and partially, but with some degree of sureness and reliability - experiences of Heaven while still on earth.

It has been the progressive decline, since Medieval times, of Western churches ability to provide to the mass of people such "religious experiences" (e.g. by means of their earthly symbolism, ritual, scriptures, and spiritual training); that has perhaps done more than anything to erode belief in the necessity of any particular church to salvation. 

And when a person "sees through" the false claims of any Christian church to gate-keep Heaven; this involves a recognition that the church is constructed upon a lie. 

At this point, most people seem to give-up on both church and Christianity, together and altogether. 

But the proper conclusion is to separate church from Christianity. 

And then to choose Christianity, while recognizing that any particular church is secondary - maybe helpful to our salvation, but maybe (and more often!) not helpful...  

But responsibility for our salvation after death is always primarily our own; and a matter of our spiritual relationship with Jesus Christ. 

My (or your) decision to be or not to be a Christian, and to choose to follow Jesus to eternal salvation, should not be mediated.

And cannot be blocked, by any earthly church...

Unless you choose to make it so. 

Mega fake page views on blogs, coming from Vietnam, Brazil, Singapore, and Hong Kong - what's going-on?

As William James Tychonievich notes; these four countries (but, for me, especially Vietnam) have been the sources of millions of fake "page views" on at least three Blogger blogs.

I could speculate; but does any reader have any solid insight into why these places, and what's going-on? 

Q: Do you believe in God? A: What do you mean by "God"?

If somebody asks: Do you believe in God? 

Then the true answer depends on what is meant by "God" - and there are very wide divergences indeed between understandings what is meant by "God" - even among Christians. 

The only valid answer would be some version of: First; what do you mean by God? 

So, you cannot, and indeed should not, answer the question without getting clarification of what the enquirer is assuming about (what he is calling) God.

Otherwise, by saying "yes", you are assenting to buy a Pig in a Poke. 

For example, my understanding of God, the God in whom I believe;  is one that many/most Christians, Jews, Muslims would not consider to be actual God at all - or, at best, only a selective sliver of what they believe God to be. 

To such people, because I regard the Omni-God as false (and indeed incoherent), I am a kind of pagan - whatever my attitudes to Jesus Christ, whatever my desire for salvation.  

While to me; the Omni-God believers (insofar as they are real Omni-God believers, rather than those who are merely parroting forms of words, in obedience to the authority and doctrines of their church); are all de facto monotheists...

Monotheists whatever their Trinitarian protestations; and as such they do not really regard Jesus Christ as essential to anything (not even salvation) - nor do they believe in evil or freedom.   

And I regard all Omni-God monotheists as metaphysically indistinguishable from proponents of Oneness spirituality - and therefore their many practical differences are varieties of incoherent with their metaphysics.

I mean that the Omni-God is reducible-to/ metaphysically-indistinguishable-from the "deity" of "Deists" - which is not a person, but Just Is. Such a God-Deity is The Way Things Are.  

Answering "yes" to "do you believe in God?" therefore means very little or nothing - and a "yes" is more like to mislead than enlighten. 

Of course, in the West hardly anybody believes in God of any kind - so a negative reply to "do you believe in God?" is usual, and informative.   

But before assenting to belief in God we ought to be clear what we really mean by this - what we regard as vital to our understanding of God. 

Once someone has honestly (and without veiling-abstractions that serve to disguise incoherence or incomprehension) explained what he means by "God" - he has gone a long way towards explaining how he regards ultimate reality. 

He has also, potentially, done himself a big favour - because it may be that, once he has explained what he means by God, in terms that he himself can clearly grasp - then he will discover that this God is not really what he does believe or desire: in his heart of hearts. 

Is metaphysics important to being a Christian? Here-and-now it is Vitally important

Metaphysics is discourse concerning our fundamental assumptions regarding the nature of ultimate reality. 

It was the case through much of Christian history that disagreements about what was fundamental reality didn't make much difference to being a Christian; because all the necessary assumptions are natural to children - hence were common to pretty much all of humanity. 

But things have changed. 

In our civilization (which dominates the world) the fundamental assumption underlying all of our official and public discourse is that everything-that-is, the universe, arose without purpose as a consequence of physical "laws" plus "randomness". 

Most of this universe, the ultimate particles, elements, compounds; water and rocks and gases; are not alive...

So life, consciousness, Mankind - inhabits a dead reality that has no purpose or meaning. 

We need to be clear that these modern assumptions are neither spontaneous nor natural; all have been deliberately and elaborately inculcated and are sustained via social systems - education, employment, mass media, propaganda etc.   

This is probably the main reason why Christianity - and the other religions - is almost entirely absent from the world, and especially from The West; and feeble when it does exist.

Christianity contradicts our fundamental understanding of reality.  

In other words; Christian faith tries to survive as a thin film of psychologically-asserted purpose and meaning, life and consciousness - floating on the surface of a world-pervasive metaphysical assumption of death and nothingness.

So Christianity is rootless, unmoored, adrift; and strikes the modern person as arbitrary-believing, wishful-thinking, and/or psychological mass manipulation.  

Which would be true if modern metaphysics was valid. 

As we find it, here and now; Christianity is both rare and weak.  

The implication is that - unless we focus-upon and evaluate our fundamental assumptions regarding the nature of ultimate reality, and reject them - then Christianity will be contradicted by our deepest beliefs. 

Unless we know, reject, revise our metaphysics - Christian evangelists are wasting their time because real Christianity is doomed. 

Lacking which; even when Christianity is asserted, it will be incoherent with life and society, therefore experienced as irrational and honestly-indefensible. 

Hawkbits, Hawkbits everywhere...

This is the first year I have been aware of the Hawkbit as a dominating flower on areas of grass - city and countryside alike in July and into August; taking over as the Buttercups faded.

I have always known about these flowers, but never before found-out their name - I just used to categorize them as "looking like a Dandelion - but not". Even as a kid I realized that, while the Dandelion had a hollow stem that leaked milky sap, this similar-looking flower had a solid stalk. 

Another difference is that Hawkbits don't make a spherical seed-head like the Dandelion "clock"* - and that the Hawkbit is much more sensitive to the absence of direct sunlight - with the head closing-up at night or in gloom (as does the Daisy). 

Anyway, I have gained considerable pleasure from the Hawkbit this year; often it has been the only splash of colour on the grassy areas of the city. 

Not quite as glorious as the shining and reflective masses of Buttercups (perhaps my favourite wild flower), but very welcome all the same. 

Hawkbit - Remember the name! 

* This turns-out to be completely wrong - Hawkbits do produce a "dandelion clock".