the zen equation

[Buddha's Penis!]

just something i'm thinking about:
the cause and effect of reality makes everything an equation, a natural consequence of everything that has come before. everything you observe is a product of its equation, and how you perceive these things is a product of yours. however, this is not a heisenberg thing; by simply observing you don't change the observed. in this sense, reality is objective.
to see the truth of a situation, the object instead of the subject, you have to be able to un-relate the factors that affect your observing a certain situation by "subtracting" them from both sides; observational algebra.
by cancelling your factors from a situation, you are left with the simplfied equation of reality. you on one side, unaffected by circumstance, a pure objective You, and the reality of the observed situation on the other, without your perceived prejudices and defenses. you have taken your self, your ego, out of the equation and are left with the truth. mathematical zen.

no real point, i suppose. thank you for your time. edited for stupidity.

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my typewriter is tombstone still and I am reduced to bird watching.
just thought I'd let you know, fucker.

[This message has been edited by Buddha's Penis! (edited 03-20-2001).]

[Buddha's Penis!]

i don't have a background in anything, but thanks.

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my typewriter is tombstone still and I am reduced to bird watching.
just thought I'd let you know, fucker.

[Koliedrus]

I think......

That needs to go on the main page!

My skull may lose integrity when the light goes on.

[Buddha's Penis!]

ramblings become the exclusive property of thehypertribe.net upon submission.

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you don't know anything until you know everything.

[Buddha's Penis!]

hey, thanks. first step to cult leadership, right?

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you don't know anything until you know everything.

[Koliedrus]

You've got a formula, so yeah. Now we need to work on your charisma. Get some followers and have them hand out PDAs at the airport for a small donation. You'll go broke at first but just THINK about the happiness you'll spread!

I'm gonna go shave my head.

[Buddha's Penis!]

ps!
one more thing, of little importance but pleasing in an aesthetic semantic way.
zen=objectivity=o=zero
zero cannot be factored, or multiplied, or multiplied BY. zero can be acted upon, but not changed or divided or squared. for my own purposes of thought, and your own if you like, mathematical zen=zero.

i feel obliged to invite questions, and i do so. you are not obliged to ask.

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you don't know anything until you know everything.

[MuffyTheVampyreLayer]

Ok, forgive me for being a picky shit, but I'm really fucking bored, and this may spark some interesting discussion...

Your original premise of the cause and effect of reality presupposes any causative link between a series of potentially unrelated events. Also, the logical outcome of everything being causually related, and reality being the outcome of event, leaves you in the position where;

A and B = C
C = Reality
But (due to reality in itself being a 'cause')
A and B and C = D
therefore
D = Reality...

That is not my idea of mathematical zen.

Also, in seeing the 'truth' of any situation through the methodology suggested, one is at risk of letting subjective thought created from the very situtation alter the objectivity used by the subject when determining exactly which parts are subjective or objective, thus you are left with an subjectively assessed belief about what is objective, which is kind of redundant.

(hope your with me on that one, badly worded I know... hell, its two am.)

Of course, I could be wrong. http://www.thehypertribe.net/ubb/biggrin.gif

[Buddha's Penis!]

motherfucker. i just wrote a goddamned THESIS, then erased it through pure stupidity. ojectively speaking, i am a retard.
i have to go to school now, but i will attempt to rewrite this later.

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you don't know anything until you know everything.

[Buddha's Penis!]

ahem.
pickiness is good.
now, this will be nowhere near the pure flowing enlightenment of the first time i tried to respond, but what can you do?

1) presupposed causative link: yes, i presupposed a causative link, because all things are causatively linked. everything you have experienced has gone into making your ego (sorry about the jargon, it's set in my head now). and even beyond your own experiences, you are affected by things that have transpired completely unknown to you, such as minor details in the lives of your parents or a car accident thirty years ago in india in which no one was hurt.
reality is not one single outcome, it is the sum total of all outcomes. i'll have to clarify some of my terms: reality as whole is constantly changing due to the almost infinte factors involved in the everyday lives of billions of people, however "the reality of a situation" does not change. once an event occurs, its reality is set. "mathematical zen", when completely internalized, is a state of mind and not of reality. by removing yourself from the equation of circumstance and putting yourself in an objective state, you are unable to be affected by the factors that built up to your life today or by any new factors that may arise. reality is kept external.
an example: narration. a third-person narrator is unchanged by the events of a book. objectivity=third person perspective.

2) subjectively assessed objectivity: yes, one is at risk. the thing is that objectivity is, i imagine, a state of mind. i don't think it could honestly be mistakenly diagnosed.


last time i replied to this it was maybe four times as long. this seems a little incomplete, lacking effort and precision. that 2) was a total hunk of shit. please rebutt, so as to kickstart my head.


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you don't know anything until you know everything.

[MuffyTheVampyreLayer]

If you take the line of everything being causatively linked, then you must accept predetermination, this being the case, you must concede that there is no such thing as free will, unless of course, you are a dualist, but even dualists must admit that dualism is just a namby pamby position of fence sitting in the hope of saving the theory.

I never did like the whole 'if a butterfly farts in china will there be an earthquake in america' drama, but I am willing to accept the possibility of there being validity to the argument.

One of the problems with causation, is the argument from the first cause. If everything is causatively linked, then what the hell caused the first thing ever?

Yes, reality is constantly changing, I'm glad you saw my point. I can see how your theory of mathematical zen works, but does this not translate merely to complete apathy? If so, do you think this is a good thing?

Objectivity is very well a state of mind. But - under predeterminism, wouldn't the cause determine whether the outcome was going to be subjective or objective regardless of freewill? Are we to accept that things are causatively linked but that we can separate ourselves from this chain to objectively assess the situation? If so, then have we not stopped the chain of causation by stepping outside of it? If so, then presupposing causation is a bad premise for this argument...reductio ad absurdum?

I am keen to keep this debate going, most bloody interesting post I have encountered in a long time. http://www.thehypertribe.net/ubb/smile.gif

[Buddha's Penis!]

it's very late, but here i go:

predeterminism: you are right. cause-and-effect seems to say that certain stimuli will create a certain reaction, and so, taken to the extreme, this is a predictable and unbreakable sequence. however, the notions of fate and destiny, while central to so much thought, are pointless.
if something is fated to happen, you can't stop it. if you did stop an event from occuring, that new non-event would have been what was fated to occur. so you see, predeterminism is completely extraneous. whether or not you belive something is fated to happen, something is going to happen. you were fated to read this if you read it, and fated to pass by if you didn't. belief or non-belief in fate doesn't change the fact that things happen. unless you have an infalliable Book of Destiny, fate is like god; unable to be proved or disproved. this is a bit hard to explain, but i think you see my point.
again, the individual influences of an infinite number of things make it impossible to predict the future.

i don't know what dualism is. for all my fancy-talk, i'm completely ignorant of philosophy.

i don't know what the first cause is, either. however, i don't think you need to know. of course if we're god's plan this changes a lot of things, but it doesn't change the fact that i am a compilation of lessons learned from past experience, and so does not change my point. until god returns my calls, he's dead to me and i will continue to live as i see fit.

apathy: i considered adding this earlier. i'm glad you saw that. no. in the past a seeker of enlightenment could be a hermit, but i don't have the skills. i recognize that i will need money to live, and so have chosen to pursue one of the only careers in which i can see myself living a fulfilled and interesting life. does this not translate to ambition? when you see things and yourself honestly, you are left to find what is necessary. i seek to live within my means. what you are left with is a view of what you need, not what you want. i'm sure that this would mean apathy when a nirvana-like state is acheived, but that is either a hell of a long way off or impossible, so i'm making interim plans.
for others, this might mean a minimum-wage job and roommates until they're dead. any conscious choice is acceptable to me.

inseparability of self from causality: yes again. as long as you exist you will be exerting influence over certain events. to retain objectivity is to see your effect and recognize it for what it is.
in relation to predeterminism, you can't stop the chain of causation, you can simply view your part in it from a third-party perspective. your perceiving events does not change them, and so reality continues undisturbed (for all practical and realistic circumstances. this being mainly an idea of self- and philosophical perception, electron-microscopic shroedingeresque situations are not really relevant).


i have not the time nor the energy to read that before i post it. i hope it's all coherent.

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you don't know anything until you know everything.

[This message has been edited by Buddha's Penis! (edited 03-29-2001).]

[MAC]

Pardon me folks.
I believe what Muffy is missing here is the perspective part.
She's seems to have a good grasp on the "all things add up to reality" angle but she fails to see that "free will" is not about your ability to change your effect. Its about changing how you percieve it.
1+2=3
is and equation
1 apple + 2 apples = 3 apples
is 3 real apples. you can smell then or eat them or not like them because of brand. Liking or not liking apples is perception. You are picturing red and someone else is pisturing yellow.
Perception is fluid.
It is the VARIABLE in Buddah's equation.
That's why if you can remove your perception totally from the equation you will find reality.


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My name is Forrest Gump
You can call me Forrest Gump.

[MuffyTheVampyreLayer]

<BLOCKQUOTE><HR>Originally posted by theMAC:
Pardon me folks.
I believe what Muffy is missing here is the perspective part.
She's seems to have a good grasp on the "all things add up to reality" angle but she fails to see that "free will" is not about your ability to change your effect. Its about changing how you percieve it.

[/quote]

Ahhh... No. You pretty much just summed up dualism, a theory I see as being fundamentally stupid. But each to their own I guess.

[MuffyTheVampyreLayer]

OK BP, let me see if I have this right...

You concede that predeterminism leaves you in a position where everything is fated. Thus you accept that something is going to be either subjectively or objectively viewed from the beginning, and there is not alternative.
But, you also think it is a good thing to convince ourselves that introspection on this is a worthy passtime?

[Buddha's Penis!]

i don't know of your isms. you're fucking me lawyer-style, but that's okay.

i think you missed my point about fate. it doesn't matter whether something is said to be predetermined, it has no effect on the event or its consequences. you do have free will, but that free will is just another tiny bit of the things that lead up to the unfolding of reality. discussing whether we are fated to do certain things is like discussing what colour moses' hair was. i can't continue to discuss fate because i don't think that way. it doesn't figure into my reasoning in any way.
an example: you are hit by a car. this is fate. OR, you narrowly avoid being hit by this car. this is fate.
only one thing happens, and this is reality.

about perception being fluid: not exactly, no. by changing your perception you can't change reality. that is my point. by knowing the factors of your self that affect your perception, you can allow and compensate for those factors and so see reality undisturbed. is this dualism?

is introspection worthwhile? to me it is. say that it's fated that i think about myself until i see things more clearly. to not know how and why you think and act the way you do is why people beat their wives and get hooked on heroin. to not relate the self to the outside world, to instead relate the world in terms of yourself, seems to be the flaw of modern philosophy. (this comes from my uneducated viewpoint. i'm thinking about subjective reality, and how it's an "unbeatable" theory. a bullshit theory, but unbeatable)

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you don't know anything until you know everything.

[MuffyTheVampyreLayer]

<BLOCKQUOTE><HR>Originally posted by Buddha's Penis!:
i don't know of your isms. you're fucking me lawyer-style, but that's okay.

Actually, I'm fucking you philosophy style http://www.thehypertribe.net/ubb/biggrin.gif

i think you missed my point about fate. it doesn't matter whether something is said to be predetermined, it has no effect on the event or its consequences.

No, it is not that I am missing your point, it is just that this makes absolutely no sense to me. HOW can you have predeterminism without it effecting the event or the consequences???

Ok, I personally want to believe in free will, I can not do this while accepting predeterminism... You see where I'm coming from, it is not that I want to disagree with what you are saying, but just that I think it is logically unsound.

I can't continue to discuss fate because i don't think that way. it doesn't figure into my reasoning in any way.

Thats ok. I was actually enjoying this... and I do think that it is a BIG flaw in your argument, but if you want to ignore it.... thats your prerogative.


is introspection worthwhile? to me it is. say that it's fated that i think about myself until i see things more clearly. to not know how and why you think and act the way you do is why people beat their wives and get hooked on heroin. to not relate the self to the outside world, to instead relate the world in terms of yourself, seems to be the flaw of modern philosophy. (this comes from my uneducated viewpoint. i'm thinking about subjective reality, and how it's an "unbeatable" theory. a bullshit theory, but unbeatable)

Ok..personally, I think introspection is a good thing. However, it conflicts with the ideat of predeterminism... you see predeterminism as X, I see it as Y. Predeterminism means that because of causation EVERYTHING is fated, including choice, responses, emotions.

E.g. I factor in to a computer that 'sarah' has experienced x, y and z in her life. Under predeterminims, sarah can be given a choice, BUT her decision is innevitable, there is only ever one possible outcome due to the causative chain.

So, you see, I am arguing your logic, you can not make the conclusion you arrive at based on the premises of the argument... it is like saying:

All planets are green
The earth is green
Therefore;
Earth is a planet.

OK... so although the conclusion may be correct, it does not follow from the premise(s) Because it is not the case that all planets are green.

I am not trying to undermine your IDEAS, I just have a problem with the structure of your argument... like I said, I was being picky.

And yes... your argument does look decidedly like dualism... sorry.

[/B][/quote]

[Buddha's Penis!]

that's okay. i can try to further outline my view of predeterminism, but i had a feeling that my thoughts on fate wouldn't be understood. here's a thing that i just read (coincidentally, in so many ways)

Holding up the Zen stick, Soen Sa said "This is a stick, but it is not a stick. Originally, there is no stick. It is the same with God for originally there is no God. God is only name. The same is true of all things in the universe."

"Then is there no God?"

"The philosopher Descartes said, 'I think therefore I am.' If you do not think, you are not, and so the universe and you are one. This is your substance, the universe's substance, and God's substance. It has no name and no form. You are God, God is you. This is the 'big I,' this is the path, this is the truth. Do you now understand God?"

"Yes, I think that there is no God, and I have no God."

"If you say that you have no God, I will hit you thirty times. If you say that you do, I will still hit you thirty times."

"Why will you hit me? I don't understand. Please explain."

"I do not give acupuncture to a dead cow. Today is Tuesday." replied Soen Sa.


see? fate is irrelevant.

i'll go on the offensive, then. how does your actions being fated to happen affect your actions? whether ot not you believe that your choices affect the outcome, you make choices, and they affect the outcome. if there is a flaw, it is elsewhere. i'm not arguing the classic idea of determinism, as i haven't studied it to do so.

my lack of education may be a detriment, but i think your wealth of the same is also.

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you don't know anything until you know everything.

[MuffyTheVampyreLayer]

I don't think my 'wealth' of education is detrimental. I can see why you would think that though. Nor do I think that your lack of training in FORMAL philosophy is detrimental. The way I see it, it just makes for interesting discussion, you speak from an intuitive point of view, and I love to see that... I would like to think that any input of mine merely helps you frame your beliefs in a way that is easier to digest in a logical form.

Also, I think you may think that I completely disagree with you, which is not true, my personal views clash with my beliefs about what is sound philosophy and what is not, simply because I understand more about what can be signed and dotted as an 'academically acceptable' argument. I also think that formal education is a crock of shit, as I have said before, anything can be learnt from a book, University just gives you the piece of paper you need to say that you know it. So, forgive my isms. http://www.thehypertribe.net/ubb/smile.gif

Anyway, back to the argument.

Freshers are living proof that descartes was wrong http://www.thehypertribe.net/ubb/biggrin.gif

So, in a nutshell... a positive attitude will get you everywhere?

[Buddha's Penis!]

"detriment" sounds a tad defensive, and was, so i apologize. i'll amend that to say that i am not able to spar in such a learned colloseum. i don't want to give the impression that this was anything but interesting and stimulating. my "style" obscures my intent sometimes, and that's my fault.

and yes, maybe so. a positive attitude, a grasp of what is important (very little), and a willingness to let things go. one thing this has all taught me is that life is simple.

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you don't know anything until you know everything.

[MAC]

<BLOCKQUOTE><HR>Originally posted by MuffyTheVampyreLayer:

Ahhh... No. You pretty much just summed up dualism, a theory I see as being fundamentally stupid. But each to their own I guess.
[/quote]
Muffy, your a fucktard (term of endearment in America)
You just do not comprehend that a variable is "variable" it changes. It can be changed. But what ever you change it to decides how it affects the equation.
Please feel free to get the last word. And stop bothering Buddha he has a tree to go sit under for 60 years or some shit.


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My name is Forrest Gump
You can call me Forrest Gump.

[MuffyTheVampyreLayer]

I am familiar with variables :P

You add a variable to the equation, and it does look a lot like dualism....

Christ! I feel like a parrot.

I'll stop bothering everyone now and let you go back to your indepth discussion...

[Mattdecay]

Topfucking top top top.

Hey new people: Reply to this!

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This body holding me reminds me of my own mortality.
Embrace this moment. Remember. We are eternal.
All this pain is an illusion.