A little philosophy from Wittgenstein and Plato.

[ananda]

"All there is is the case." -- Ludwig Wittgenstein

I don't like Wittgenstein that much, but that line
nailed it. And here we are...

Also, Plato's Cave allegory really speaks to me
these days.

I think of the human mind/brain as the projector,
and the cave wall as the screen... which is the
world as that mind sees it.

Thus, the logical conclusion is that many faulty
brains have projected a world with false or inaccurate
images which they believe are true...

And they have forced on us a bizarre, violent real world
based on those images

Here I should add Jean Paul Sartre... no escape.

It's like going down the rabbithole into a nighmaris
NeverNeverLand that we can't escape from ... because
we have operated from truth and clearsightedness,
and an ability to foresee what's to come.

[mr715]

1. I love Plato.

His writing has so much elegance in its structure that his philosophy is encoded as much as it is stated.

Plato (or perhaps Socrates) was a proto-fascist, though, with his virtuous lie and absolute rulers.

I do agree that today's current events leaves me reflecting on Plato's cave, much as you.

I'd also add Nietzsche for his hatred of those without critical thinking. Another smart guy. But, yeah, crazy. But a great writer!

[ananda]

2. Nietzsche is a great one too.. in his own odd but prescient way.

Beware that, when fighting monsters,
you yourself do not become a monster...
for when you gaze long into the abyss,
the abyss gazes also into you.

This is what happened with Netanyahu
and Israel (not to all Jews, for sure).

Trump and his crazy band of fascists
are their zombie enablers... or is it
the other way around? I can't tell
the difference.

[mr715]

3. Companions, the Creator seeks

not herds nor believers.

Fellow creators the Creator seeks
Those who carve new laws upon new tablets.

~Zarathustra


Gives me tingles.

An indictment on those who follow without thinking, and easily applied to the MAGA crowd in how anathema they are to Jesus, etc.

[ananda]

4. Brilliant!

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr

[H2O Man]

5. Recommended.

Thank you for this. As I sit here, I am beside a shelf that holds artifacts from Olduvai Gorge, dating 1.88 to 1.78 million years old, an important era in brains in development, to Neanderthal from France, about 40,000 years old, down to our branch of the human family. I am fascinated with the evolution of the brain, the the roles that various layers & regions play. Lately I have been pondering the roles of the collective unconsciousness in the troubling behaviors w are witnessing.

We are in a heap of trouble. But we can pull through this difficult time.

[ananda]

6. Thank you also. The collective unconscious...

absolutely a driver in what's happening to day.

I think of our western unconscious as basically fascist
based on the way our society is formed, with just about
every single facet top down... and both students and
workers thought of as parts of a whole in institutions
that are also top down.

Parenting -- people basically parent top down and
schools reinforce that.

We are just numbers in a kind of human assembly
line... like machines, thought of as parts of awhole
instead of one whole in a holistic world.

I have aligned my thinking with holism since a
very young age. This got reinforced when I learned
what holism was; and I feel like the quantum physicists
just validated my whole life and all the weirdness in it.

This mechanistic view was seriously installed in the
western world by Descartes and his idea of people as
Beast Machines, based on his infatuation with the
hydraulic statues on his estate.

Newton reinforced it more, and then the Industrial
Revolution.

And here we are.

[MayReasonRule]

7. I Truly Value The Lessons From Philosophy And Mythology We're Able To Gain

Sisyphus peered into the mist
A stone's throw from the precipice, paused
Did he jump or did he fall as he gazed into the maw of the morning mist?
Did he raise both fists and say, "To hell with this" and just let the rock roll?

So he packed his bags and he saddled up
And he was headed out of town
Past this little club
And from inside he heard this girl band
Called The Sirens
Well he wanted to stay and hear a few
But his buddy said "Naw man we gotta move"
So he threw a big ol' tantrum
Then he got on back to ridin'
When he got home all of these men were there
Eatin' all the food from his Frigidaire
And not just two or three
But like fourty-somethin
They was hittin' on his wife
And makin' a scene
So he killed 'em all
And got away clean
Didn't have to do community service or nothin'
His wife said "I've been so faithful babe"
And he said "Uh, yeah, uh, me too
Except for that girl in that cave and a couple more
And that beautiful woman on the island shore
For like two years
Anyways baby I've been so faithful in my heart"

Odysseus
Why did you have to go
Odysseus
What ever did you know
Odysseus was hard
Odysseus was fast
That cowboy could really kick some ass
That cowboy could really kick some ass

[ananda]

8. Excellent Now Oedipus Rex

Remember the curse on the city of Thebes
caused by the killing of Laius?

Oedipus is called upon to cure it, the tragic
irony being that he is the one that caused it.

This is an apt metaphor for our country over
the past ten years.

Now the tyrant kills amuck, new and old plagues
run riot, and rotten generals have turned against us
and our friends.

It really feels like a curse of our own making.

[MayReasonRule]

9. Indeed, It Is Of Our Own Making - Second Order Change Is An Exceptionally Rare Beast

What we're each ultimately describing, is the iterative nature of change, and how the more things tend to change, the more they tend towards staying the same.

True second-order change occurs when those iterations stop merely compensating for dysfunction, and instead re‑encode the system around more rational, freedom‑enhancing principles.

Here's to the ongoing restoration of our freedoms through our nation's iterative return to reason's rule.

[malaise]

10. K & R

for visibility