the Meteors WAS Re: [ox-en] Some thoughts upon the GPL society
- From: Adam Moran <adam diamat.org.uk>
- Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 05:29:30 +0000
On 16-01-04 Stefan Merten wrote:
Yes, I know this does not sound sweet. But I think this is how the
world is regardless of the concrete form of society. So at least it
makes no sense to ignore this. I even think it is dangerous to ignore
these nasty things because if they can not be removed from some social
construct then they will exist in one way or the other. And for me it
is better to approach theses things openly instead of denying their
existence. The positive aspect is that if they are approached openly
then they can be discussed and changed. This is far more difficult if
they actually exist but everybody denies their existence. That is BTW
one reason why I'm so keen to discuss this topic.
... and on 19-01-04 Stefan Merten wrote:
In fact
I think capitalism is the best money based system we can think of. As
a result every system wanting to be better than capitalism needs to
abolish money - or at least make it as unimportant as religion is
today in money based societies.
I find these two statements contradictory - Watch the ships sail out of
harbour, & the Bodies come floating back.
I suggest the following analysis and metaphysics:
the Meteors
===========
Aristotle wrote it often seems that the concept provides evidence for
the phenomena and that the phenomena provides evidence for the concept.
("Was wahr ist, ist vernuenftig, und was vernuenftig ist, ist whar" as
Hegel puts it.)
In general any 'I' who has a concept of the Gods has connected the Gods
to Heaven; they have connected the immortal with the immortal.
According to the memories that have been passed down to from 'I' to 'I',
nothing seems to have changed, either in Heaven as a whole, or in part
of it. Even the name seems to have been handed down from the ancients to
the present time, and they assumed then what is said to this day - *The
primary content of Heaven is Eternity*. Heavens primary content is
something different than that of our sensuous perceptions of the
material world, the earth, fire, air and water of ancient Greece - Its
content is 'ether' from *thein aei*, meaning 'to run always', giving
Heaven its by-name and concept, Eternity. [1]
Not once, not twice, but a thousand times have the same ideas come down
to us.
If the Gods exists then what 'We' say about the content of Heaven is
also true; this in turn corresponds to the sensuous perception of the 'I'.
Aristotle wrote "It is a tradition propagated by the ancients and
surviving in the form of myths of later generations, that the heavingly
bodies are gods and that the devine encompasses all nature. The rest was
added in mythical form for the belief of the masses, as useful for the
laws and for life. Thus the myths make the gods resemble man and some of
the other living creatures."
Aristotle continues "If we discard the additions and hold fast only to
the first, namely, the belief that the primary substance are gods, then
we must consider this as having been divinely revealed, and we must hold
that after all sorts of art and philosophy had, in one way or another,
been invented and lost again, these opinions come down to us like
relics." [2]
Epicurus, on the contrary, says:
"To all this we must add the greatest confusion of the 'I' arises from
the concept that the heavenly bodies are blessed and indestructible ...
and have at the same time conflicting desires and actions; the 'I'
conceives some Evil according to the myths."
"As for the Meteors, we must believe that motion and position and
eclipse and rising and setting and related phenomena do not originate in
them owing to One ruling and ordering or having ordered, One who at the
same time is supposed to posses all bliss and indestructibility. For
actions do not accord to bliss, but they occur due to *causes related to
weakness, fear and need*. Nor is it to be supposed that some fire-like
bodies endowed with bliss arbitrarily submit to these motions. If one
does not agree with this, then this contradiction itself produces the
greatest confusion in our minds"
How then would Epicurus explain the Gods / Meteors ?
----------------------------------------------------
"Every explanation is sufficient, Only the myth must be removed. It will
be removed when we observe the phenomena and draw conclusions from them
concerning the invisible. We must hold fast to the appearances, the
sensation. Hence analogy must be applied. In this way we can explain
fear away and free ourselves from it, by showing the causes of Meteors
and other things that are always happening and causing the utmost alarm
to other people"
"The great number of explanations, the multitude of possibilities,
should not only tranquillise our minds and remove causes for fear, but
also at the same time negate the heavenly bodies their very unity, the
absolute law that is always equal to itself. These heavenly bodies may
behave sometimes in one way, sometimes in another; this possibility
conforming to no law is the characteristic of their reality; everything
in them is declared to be impermanent and unstable"
*The multitude of the explanations should at the same time remove
[aufheben] the unity of the object*.
Critique of Plutarch's Polemic Against the Metaphysics of Epericurus:
---------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Religious Feudalism - The Hell of the Multitude
--------------------------------------------------
Plutarch's view of the *polloi* / Multitude:
"In the masses, who have no fear of what comes after death, the
myth-inspired hope of eternal life and the desire of being, the oldest
and most powerful of all passions, produces joy and a feeling of
happiness and overcomes that childish terror. Hence whoever has lost
children, a wife, and friends would rather have them continue to be
somewhere and continue to exist, even in hardship, than to be utterly
taken away and destroyed and reduced to nothing. On the other hand, they
willingly hear such expressions as 'the dying person goes somewhere else
and changes his dwelling', and whatever else intimates that death is a
change of the soul's dwelling, and not destruction ... and such
expressions as 'he is lost' and 'he has perished' and 'he is no more'
disturb them ... They hold in store for them utter death who say 'We man
are born only once; one cannot be born a second time' ... For the
present is of little account to them, or rather of none at all, in
comparison with eternity, and they let it pass without enjoying it and
neglect virtue and action, spiritless and despising themselves as
creatures of the day, impermanent, and beings worth nothing to speak of.
For the doctrine that 'being-with-out-sensation and being-dissolved and
what has no sensation is nothing to us' does not remove the terror of
death, but rather confirms it. For this is the very thing nature dreads
... the dissolution of the soul into what has neither thought nor
sensation; Epicurus, by making this a scattering into emptiness and
atoms, does still more destroy hope of immortality, a hope which (I
would almost say) all 'I' are ready to be torn asunder by Cerabus and to
carry constantly [water] into barrels [of Danaides], so that they may
[only] stay in being and not be extinguished." [4]
Plutarch tells us that the desire of being is the oldest love; to be
sure, the most abstract and hence oldest love is the love of the self;
the love of ones 'I'. But he then surrounds this empirical 'I' with an
ideal form, that is the sentiment for a loved 'I' lost / dead. To this I
must add:
1. If the issue were only of love, what better place to cherished lost /
dead 'I' than in our empirical 'I' and the greater 'We', the Multitude ?
Why place them at a metaphysical distance, a dark-spot so to speak ?
2. That there is only one Sky / Meteors / Heaven / Eternity is evident
from our senses; that these myth-inspired artifacts of eternal life have
forked and are now many-fold. That each myth-script is conceptualised as
a god who is the Landlord of a particular Heaven / Eternity. That these
landlords are competing in divine space are supported on the ground by
many 'I' with a conceptualised interest in that devine space.
We find ourselves in Religious Feudalism and this is the Hell of the
Multitude.
Would you consider now the Metaphysics of Epicurus ?
----------------------------------------------------
"Every explanation is sufficient, Only the myth must be removed. It will
be removed when we observe the phenomena and draw conclusions from them
concerning the invisible. We must hold fast to the appearances, the
sensation. Hence analogy must be applied. In this way we can explain
fear away and free ourselves from it, by showing the causes of Meteors
and other things that are always happening and causing the utmost alarm
to other people"
"The great number of explanations, the multitude of possibilities,
should not only tranquillise our minds and remove causes for fear, but
also at the same time negate the heavenly bodies their very unity, the
absolute law that is always equal to itself. These heavenly bodies may
behave sometimes in one way, sometimes in another; this possibility
conforming to no law is the characteristic of their reality; everything
in them is declared to be impermanent and unstable"
*The multitude of the explanations should at the same time remove
[aufheben] the unity of the object*.
[1] taken from *the Heavens* I
[2] taken from *the Metaphysics* XI
[3] taken from *Diogenes Laertius* X
[4] taken from *Plutarch* 1.c.
Critique of Plutarch's Polemic Against the Metaphysics of Epericurus.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
2. Religious Feudalism - The Hell of the Multitude
--------------------------------------------------
"It's war" ... she cried, ... "It's war" ... she cried, "THIS IS WAR!"
Drop your possessions, all you simple folk,
You will fight them on the beaches ... in your underclothes,
You will thank the good lord ... for raising the union jack,
You'll watch the ships sail out of harbour, & the Bodies come floating back.
Watch the ships sail out of harbour, & the Bodies come floating
back.
Islam is rising
The Christians mobilising
The world is on its elbows & knees
It's forgotten the message & worships the Creeds
But God didn't build *himself* that throne
God doesn't live in Israel or Rome
God doesn't belong to the 'yankee dollar'
God doesn't plant the bombs for Hezbollah
God doesn't even go to church
And God won't send us down to Allah to burn
No, God will remind us what we already know
That the human race is about to reap what it's sown
The world is on its elbows & knees
It's forgotten the message & worships the Creeds
:Armageddon days are here, (again) : taken from *the The* - Mind Bomb
Critique of Plutarch's Polemic Against the Metaphysics of Epericurus.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Hope in The Hell of the Multitude
---------------------------------
My life's the disease
That could always change
With comparative ease
Just given the chance
My life is the earth
'Twixt muscle and spade
I wait for the worth
Digging for just one chance
As prospects diminish
As nightmares swell
Some pray for heaven
While we live in hell
My life's the disease
My life's the disease
If you get yours from heaven
Don't waste them
If you get yours from heaven
Don't waste them
If you get yours from heaven
*the Disease* :taken from Echo & the Bunnymen
_______________________
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