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Richard’s Selected Correspondence On Philosophy
An Actual Freedom is Not a Philosophy An actual freedom from the human condition is not a philosophy ... and just so that there is no misunderstanding: it is not a metaphysics either, or an idea, an ideal, a belief, a concept, an opinion, a conjecture, a speculation, an assumption, a presumption, a supposition, a surmise, an inference, a judgement, an intellectualisation, an imagination, a posit, an image, an analysis, a viewpoint, a view, a stance, a perspective, a standpoint, a position, a world-view, a mind-set, a state-of-mind, a frame-of-mind, or any other of the 101 ways of dismissing a direct report of what it is to be actually free from the human condition and living the utter peace of the perfection of the purity welling endlessly as the infinitude this eternal, infinite and perpetual universe actually is. •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• Actualism is not a theory: Not only is actualism not theory it is also not idea, belief, concept, conjecture, speculation, assumption, presumption, supposition, surmise, inference, judgement, opinion, intellectualisation, imagination, a posit, a stance, an image, an analysis, a philosophy, a psychology, a mind-set, a state-of-mind, a frame-of-mind, a perspective, a standpoint, a position, a view, a viewpoint, a point of view, a world-view, a religion, a spirituality, a mysticism, a metaphysics, or a cult ... it is an intimate and thus direct experiencing that matter is not merely passive. •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• Actualism is neither an Idea nor a Perspective:
RESPONDENT: I find your insistence on ideological purity worrying too ... RICHARD: As actualism is not an ideology your worrying is a self-created worry. RESPONDENT: Okay, actualism isn’t an ideology but ... RICHARD: If I may stop the flow just for a moment (before you continue with your ‘but ...’)? This is what actualism is:
This is how I describe the direct experience that matter is not merely passive:
RESPONDENT: ... [but] it is conveyed using a body of language, right? RICHARD: Having taken pause to read the above you will see that what is being conveyed is that actualism is the direct experience that matter is not merely passive. RESPONDENT: The body of language is an ideology that attempts to point to actualism. RICHARD: No, the words are a description of the direct experience that matter is not merely passive. Or, to put that another way, the words and writings on offer on The Actual Freedom Trust web site make it quite clear that actualism – the third alternative to either materialism or spiritualism – is not ‘an ideology that attempts to point to actualism’ ... they are an invitation for the reader to directly experience for themself that they do not live in an inert universe. Put succinctly: actualism is experiential not ideological. And just so that there is no misunderstanding: actualism is not an ideal either ... or an idea, a belief, a concept, an
opinion, a conjecture, a speculation, an assumption, a presumption, a supposition, a surmise, an inference, a judgement, an intellectualisation, an
imagination, a posit, an image, an analysis, a viewpoint, a view, a stance, a perspective, a standpoint, a position, a world-view, a mind-set, a
state-of-mind, a frame-of-mind, or any other of the 101 ways of dismissing a direct report of what it is to be actually free from the human
condition and living the utter peace of the perfection of the purity welling endlessly as the infinitude this eternal, infinite and perpetual
universe actually is. RESPONDENT: To thank you, I would like to give back something, a text elaborating on the universe observing itself through us. RICHARD: You may find the following illuminative:
RESPONDENT: It goes: [snip selected passages from ‘Laws of Form’]. RICHARD: I have taken the liberty of snipping the text you quoted because Mr. George Spencer-Brown makes it abundantly clear elsewhere that, whatever it is that he speaks rather mystically of, it sure ain’t this actual world.
* RESPONDENT: (...) Here we are, in some corner of a pretty far out galaxy, on the same planet although on different sides of it, billions of cells each, equipped with nervous systems, each nervous system composed of billions of cells again, not to mention the possible combinations, using one of our extensions to inquire whether a particular pattern of ‘firing’ has occurred in another nervous system. Hmmm. That’s quite strange, quite normal and a lot of fun. RICHARD: It is amazing, is it not, that not only does this wondrous universe exist in all its marvellous expanse, but we also get to be here, on this verdant and azure planet, going about this business called be alive in whatever way we see fit ... on top of which we can compare notes, as it were, as to what sense we have made of it all, by being able to be aware of being aware, and thus adjusting our understanding accordingly. A truly remarkable state of affairs. RESPONDENT: The universe experiencing itself, as in good old Spinoza or Hegel, in a body. RICHARD: If I may again draw your attention to the following? Viz.:
Similarly, the universe does not experience itself ‘in’ a body ... only an identity (such as both the Dutch philosopher Mr. Baruch de Spinoza and the German philosopher Mr. Georg Hegel evidentially were) experiences itself ‘in’ a body. RESPONDENT: Philosophically, we can discount their pantheism because something which is equal in everything that exists makes no difference. RICHARD: As I am neither a philosopher nor have I read any philosophy books – all I do is look-up a relevant encyclopaedia article when someone persists with philosophisation even after having it pointed out that actualism is experiential and not philosophical – I will discount Mr. Baruch de Spinoza’s pantheism and Mr. Georg Hegel’s monism on other grounds than what you propose ... to wit: there is no god/ goddess in actuality. RESPONDENT: Which is the reason why Spinoza was so unpopular with the church of his times and so popular with the following generations of philosophers: his God came without a devil, it was simply everything-there-is. RICHARD: Whereas the reason why Mr. Baruch de Spinoza holds no interest for this actualist is because he never got off his backside and actually did anything about the root cause of all the misery and mayhem, the animosity and anguish, which epitomises the human condition ... he chose, instead, to spend a lifetime mentally rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic. RESPONDENT: So he was accused of atheism: because atheism and pantheism are, in the form, identical ... RICHARD: Given that pantheism can be described as ‘the belief or philosophical theory that god and the universe are identical, implying a denial of the personality and transcendence of god, or the identification of god with the forces of nature and natural substances’ (Oxford Dictionary) then what else is atheism – which can be described as ‘disbelief in, or denial of, the existence of god or gods; also, godlessness’ (Oxford Dictionary) – also identical to when it is [quote] ‘in the form’ [endquote] ... deism and/or theism, perchance? RESPONDENT: ... (forgive the allusion to poor muddled Spencer-Brown). RICHARD: Just as a matter of idle interest ... why would you want give back, by way of thanks, a text from someone you consider as being poorly muddled? Viz.:
RESPONDENT: (Comparing it to the East: while Descartes proposed a kind of Dvaita philosophy, Spinoza picked up his Euclid-inspired style and created a monist counterpart as a response some years later – Advaita in the West). RICHARD: Oh? Did Mr. Baruch de Spinoza drop the pantheism he had favoured, through having rejected Mr. René Descartes’ dualism of spirit and matter, when he picked up a style inspired by Mr. Euclid of Alexandria and created his monism ... or are pantheism and monism also identical when they are [quote] ‘in the form’ [endquote]? * RICHARD: ... and this is an apt place to inform you, up-front and out-in-the-open, that actualism – the direct experience that matter is not merely passive – is experiential and not philosophical. RESPONDENT: That’s very nice; having explored things philosophically, I am willing to do something now. RICHARD: Even so ... old habits can die hard, eh? (...) * RESPONDENT: Closely connected to this is what you name ‘apperception’ ... RICHARD: I found the word in the Oxford Dictionary in 1997, when I was assembling an ad hoc collection of articles into some semblance of being a book form so as to be suitable for publishing, which simply said (as the first of several meanings):
It was that definition – as contrasted to the normal ‘I’ being aware of ‘me’ being conscious type of perception – which appealed ... and not any historical usage of the word. RESPONDENT: ... which also is a central term in western philosophical tradition. A quick look at the German Wikipedia tells one that its career began with St. Augustine as ‘attention’, came via Duns Scotus, Descartes to Leibniz who firstly baptizes the child ‘apperception’, than travels on to Kant, and in the Anglo-Saxon world most prominently to W. James and J. Dewey. However, you use the word ‘apperception’ quite differently, so it might be clarifying to relate to the classics and say what you reject, i.e. in what respects you deem them to be ‘tried and wrong’. (Just making it a little more explicit than it is anyway). RICHARD: I have never looked-up the way other peoples have used the word ... I simply mean it as un-mediated perception (as in no identity whatsoever mediating the perceptive process). RESPONDENT: The newest thing in ‘apperception theory’ seems to be the (information) theoretical result that the capacity of the senses is a million times higher than the capacity of conscious perception. Now, to use this wild metaphor, if the ‘consciousness’ in the form of ‘ego’ is a social interface just as a computer has a graphical user interface where you also neither want nor need to see all that is going on underneath, if this interface disappears – then only direct connection to the senses is left, and then you have an information overkill quite enough for any PCE. A state of mind particularly enjoyable on a warm summer day with nice food in a beautiful setting. RICHARD: The word consciousness refers to a body being conscious (the suffix ‘-ness’ forms a noun expressing a state or condition) just as the word warmness refers to the state or condition of being warm ... the ego (aka the thinker), having arisen from the soul/ spirit (the feeler) one is born being (per favour the instinctual passions), is but the tip of the iceberg when it comes to ‘being’ itself (which is ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being). Put succinctly: it is not consciousness per se which is the spanner in the works (aka the ghost in the machine) but identity, as a ‘presence’, hijacking the sensory experience and, whilst thus busily creating an ‘inner’ world, involuntarily imposing its reality over the physical actuality (this actual world) as a veneer (and thereby creating an ‘outer’ world) ... all the while yearning for, and thus seeking, union betwixt its two creations. In other words, both duality (‘self’ and ‘other’) and non-duality (‘oneness’) have no existence in actuality ... any identity is forever locked-out of paradise (this actual world). * RESPONDENT: To thank you, I would like to give back something, a text elaborating on the universe observing itself through us. RICHARD: You may find the following illuminative: [Respondent No. 44]: ‘... I should like to ask you also something else. You said that through you the universe is experiencing its self’ ... RESPONDENT: As I understood Advaita teachings, the ‘Self’ and the ‘Universe’ are identical; why should the ‘universe’ have a ‘self’ separate from itself? As you say in your reply: [Richard]: ‘I did nothing of the sort ... I specifically say *as* this flesh and blood body. Viz.: [Co-Respondent]: ‘We are the universe creating its own self and experiencing it’s self. [Richard]: ‘The planet earth not only grows vegetation it also grows people – and all other sentient beings – and, as such, the universe can experience itself as a sensate and reflective human being (just as it also experiences itself as a cat or a dog and so on)’. [endquote]. RICHARD: I was not referring to the ‘Self’ and the ‘Universe’ being identical as I had clearly said [quote] ‘itself’ [endquote] ... it was my co-respondent who evidently split that word, which I had used four times in the previous discussions, into two so as to make what I had said into meaning something they were partial to. The word ‘itself’ is nothing other than a reflexive form of ‘it’ ... and there have been others trying to get similar mileage out of it too. Viz.:
* RICHARD: ... [Richard]: ‘I did nothing of the sort ... I specifically say *as* this flesh and
blood body. Viz.: [Co-Respondent]: ‘We are the universe creating its own self and experiencing it’s self. [Richard]: ‘The
planet earth not only grows vegetation it also grows people – and all other sentient beings – and, as such, the universe can
experience itself as a sensate and reflective human being (just as it also experiences itself as a cat or a dog and so on).
[endquote] ... RESPONDENT: This last part is almost a literal quote of Alan Watts – the universe as ‘peopling’, ‘treeing’ and so forth. RICHARD: It has nothing to do with Mr. Alan Watts’ whimsical penchant for using verbs instead of nouns ... as the word ‘experience’ refers to a sentient creature participating personally in events or activities then the universe quite obviously does not experience itself as a tree. * RICHARD: ... [Richard]: ‘And the follow-up e-mail: [Co-Respondent]: ‘... the universe (tree) will not experience any more it’s self in this form (colour) through this human been (me) this moment (now). [Richard]: ‘... the universe does not experience itself ‘through’ a human being: it experiences itself *as* a human being (and as cats and dogs and so on) ... only the identity within the flesh and blood body experiences itself, and its reality, ‘through’ a human being’. [endquote]. RESPONDENT: On that ‘I’ ‘agree’, too. RICHARD: Okay ... the distinction between ‘through’ a body and ‘as’ a body is not at all a trivial one. * RESPONDENT: It goes: [snip selected passages from ‘Laws of Form’]. RICHARD: I have taken the liberty of snipping the text you quoted ... RESPONDENT: Please, actually, feel free to do whatever you want to do. RICHARD: The main thing I am wont to do, which some find objectionable, is to interject part-way through a sentence whenever the first part, used either as as a premise for the following part, or to build further upon, is invalid ... on some occasions two or three times in a sentence. * RICHARD: ... because Mr. George Spencer-Brown makes it abundantly clear elsewhere that, whatever it is that he speaks rather mystically of, it sure ain’t this actual world. [quote]: ‘... there is a whole world that be, which don’t even exist, and the world that don’t exist is far more real than the world that do’. [endquote]. RESPONDENT: Yeah, Spencer-Brown has a strange 7-level esoteric cosmology probably inspired by Tantrism which my curiosity has obliged me to reconstruct. RICHARD: Hmm ... why would you want to give back, by way of thanks, a text from someone who has a strange 7-level esoteric cosmology probably inspired by Tantrism? RESPONDENT: In it, he recounts seeing what you call ‘Radiant Being initially seen to be Pure Love’, although he does not write about having noticed her as being Pure Evil, too. But it reminds me of people experiencing something which they called ‘blazing horror’ in the Nazi concentration camps. Unfortunately, they have not recognized it to be Pure Love, although Hitler could have told them. This ‘other side’ of Pure Love being Pure Evil starkly reminds not only me of C.G. Jung and his observations on polarity. RICHARD: Aye ... but Mr. Carl Jung, being quite the studious metaphysician, justifies that polarity by saying it represents [quote] ‘complexio oppositorum’ [endquote] as if by so doing nothing else then needs be done. Viz.:
Mystical literature often mentions how the polar opposites continue to exist (as complimentary poles) in enlightenment. Indeed, one of the appellations used to describe the integration of the divine/ diabolical divide upon transcendence, wherein the opposites unite without ceasing to be themselves, is the phrase ‘coincidentia oppositorum’ (coincidence of opposites). And thus have all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and
sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides, and so on, gone on forever and a day. * RESPONDENT: Now, maybe it will be fun to tell you how I got here: I had, in a process beginning seven years ago now, begun to examine all of my beliefs, goals and thoughts systematically. The trigger was the combination of four facts: I had at my disposal spare time (doing military service), a laptop and a mind-mapping computer program together with a good dosis of distress and unhappiness. I used the computer to mind-map my ideas, fears and wishes; brainstorming, arranging, rearranging, linking, re-linking for hours. This process has procured me months of delight at surprising insights, new connections, old connections unravelling, things getting much more simple, then more complex again, simplifying once more etc. I kept arranging and rearranging according to the leitmotif of the day or week – be it fun, energy, goals, information, brain, matter, relativity, universe or multiverse etc. Every fundamental belief was there, and ‘dualism’ started to appear as an important underlying question. Another factor in this process of dismantling began four years ago, when I began to examine the ‘social traditions and customs etc.’, via sociology and legal history, guided by the work of N. Luhmann. A nice reading for you might be his ‘Social systems’. Luhmann was, as far as I can tell, happy and harmless, except when making jokes pitying the intellectual fate of Habermas. Via him, I came to the subject of the dialectical ‘unity of the differences’ – the problem of dualism got a surprise solution. As Luhmann cites Spencer-Brown’s logic, I wanted to explore Laws of Form and was quite astonished to find the ‘mystical’ stuff. I needed his work on logic which was very useful insofar as it reduces propositional calculus (the logic of if-then, and, or, neither-nor, both etc. and syllogisms which is also used in law) to the act of distinguishing. Starting from the Laws of Form, I began surfing the web, coming first, funnily, to U.G. Krishnamurti with his very unattractive personality, then soon to Ramana Maharshi and the rest of the east/ western Advaita bunch first, and next to the ‘beyond enlightenment’ views – not having had any remarkable experiences myself up to now. So, in the end, what started seven (actually, twenty-seven) years ago has undone itself: I had begun it in order to find out what I wanted to do, but on the road I lost all the goals I had made up or ‘found’; I lost interest in ‘the future’. However, I suspect the iron grip of my culture and my ‘character’ has never been quite as iron on me, having played a lot with expatriate Japanese children as a child and later going to schools in Scotland and France, thus having as one as my first experiences that there is not ‘one way’ to do things. A year ago I deleted all the notes I had made, including all of the backups. Zen/ Advaita disease? Probably. Fun? Certainly. RICHARD: It is quite common to find [quote] ‘mystical’ stuff’ [endquote] in the works of various mathematicians/ logicians ... theoretical physics, for an obvious example, is full of it (if not based upon it). * RESPONDENT: Oh, happy and harmless people – what about the cynics? RICHARD: The Cynics were not happy and harmless (free of both malice and sorrow and their antidotal pacifiers love and compassion). RESPONDENT: Diogenes telling Alexander to get out of the sun? RICHARD: Tradition ascribes to Mr. Diogenes (a Greek Cynic philosopher circa 400-325 BCE) the famous search for an honest man conducted in broad daylight with a lighted lantern. As he wound up espousing an anarchist utopia, in which human beings lived [quote] ‘natural’ [endquote] lives, it is a fair bet to say that he was not an honest man himself. * RESPONDENT: Another similar group, the successors of the cynics, is represented by Epicurus, best known defender of hedonism in ancient Greece. RICHARD: Yet the article at ‘Wikipedia’ has the following to say:
RESPONDENT: His most famous quote is saying something like ‘Don’t worry about death, for while we live, it is not there, and when it is comes, we will not be here any longer.’ Do what makes you happy, avoid what makes you unhappy – harming other people makes you unhappy. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicureanism]. RICHARD: As the article at ‘Wikipedia’ has the following to say I am none too sure why you are bringing his pursuit of conditional happiness/ pacifism to my attention:
RESPONDENT: Maybe you might be interested in Diderot, too, when not too busy with your busy mailing list. His Rameau’s Nephew is very funny, as is Jaques the Fatalist. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis_Diderot]. RICHARD: I have just read the ‘Wikipedia’ article on the French philosopher Mr. Denis Diderot ... and this is an apt place to inform you, up-front and out-in-the-open, that actualism – the direct experience that matter is not merely passive – is experiential and not philosophical. * RESPONDENT: Another parallel you might like to explore or might already have – as a method, not in its premises – and which could be considered a ‘precursor’ of AF would be phenomenology. RICHARD: I have just now looked-up that word in a dictionary:
There is no way that description could even remotely be considered a precursive method to the actualism method ... so much so that this is an apt place to inform you, up-front and out-in-the-open, that actualism – the direct experience that matter is not merely passive – is experiential and not philosophical. RESPONDENT: The names connected with it are Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, Heidegger, Edith Stein, Sartre, Derrida. Unfortunately, I cannot tell you whether they or who of them were happy and harmless. RICHARD: I can ... the German philosopher Mr. Edmund Husserl was not happy and harmless (free of both malice and sorrow and their antidotal pacifiers love and compassion); the French philosopher Mr. Maurice Merleau-Ponty was not happy and harmless (free of both malice and sorrow and their antidotal pacifiers love and compassion); the German philosopher Mr. Martin Heidegger was not happy and harmless (free of both malice and sorrow and their antidotal pacifiers love and compassion); the Silesian philosopher Ms. Edith Stein was not happy and harmless (free of both malice and sorrow and their antidotal pacifiers love and compassion); the French philosopher Mr. Jean-Paul Sartre was not happy and harmless (free of both malice and sorrow and their antidotal pacifiers love and compassion); the French philosopher Mr. Jacques Derrida was not happy and harmless (free of both malice and sorrow and their antidotal pacifiers love and compassion). RESPONDENT: I have a strong suspicion for Stein and Derrida, though, for Derrida at least towards the end of his life. But I’ve been wrong before. RICHARD: All it takes is to provide (attributed and suitably referenced) quotes which unambiguously report freedom from both malice and sorrow and their antidotal pacifiers love and compassion. * RESPONDENT: Another quote which rang a bell is from [...]. Here you state that [Richard]: ‘Speaking personally, I have no problem with things like thought as in ‘analysis and mathematics’ ... because it is understood that they are abstract concepts and – while being useful tools – have no substance in actuality. For a person in the real-world, such tools are taken to be real in themselves ... that is, substantial’. [endquote]. RICHARD: Here is the relevant portion of that exchange:
RESPONDENT: This is the age-old debate on universals – the warring fractions being known in the West as realism and nominalism (vaguely identical with the debate between idealism and materialism, insofar as idealism (reality is based on consciousness) and realism (ideas are real) are the same. You appear to me to be reformulating the nominalist position (which I share) ... RICHARD: Whereas all I was doing was responding to a question about the inferences of thought, analysis and mathematics from a co-respondent who first asked [quote] ‘why is your concept of reality limited to what is perceived through the senses’ [endquote] as if it were somehow meaningful to so after having just read my words which clearly said that reality is the world which is perceived through the senses by the psychological entity that resides inside the body. In case that is not clear: as the direct experience of actuality (apperception) can in no way be a ‘concept of reality’ – nor can it be perceived ‘through the senses’ – then the only way such a query could be responded to, without picking the entire sentence apart, was to say that things like thought in analysis and mathematics were not a problem by virtue of them being abstract concepts. I will say it yet again for the emphasis it deserves: actualism is experiential ... not philosophical. RESPONDENT: ... which in antiquity was defended by the Sophists, later the Sceptics, in the middle ages prominently proposed by William of Ockham, known for his razor (cut out unnecessary assumptions). The same debate recently showed up in mathematics, where you usually find the most hard-headed Platonists (as Mr. Spencer-Brown, although he is not a mathematician by training anyway). But there are people who share the nominalist conception, linked most prominently to Brouwer and his mathematical ‘constructivism’ or ‘intuitionism’. Spencer-Brown can be seen as, ignoring Brouwer, reconstructing logic as topology and subsequently, like Buddha, the mystics or myself, taking distinctions to be identical with the ‘created’ world, with the aim to ‘undo’ all the distinctions and rid oneself of the ‘collective hypnosis’, as Spencer-Brown calls it with Alan Watts. In law, which is my background, the debate is whether there is ‘one correct solution’ to a case (the Platonist view, usually coupled with a belief in some ‘values’ which are to be ‘discovered’ and ‘applied’). The view of the most rebellious legal theorists, applied nominalism, is that ‘law is what you do when you’re doing law. It’s a practice, a trade. There is no ‘eternal justice’, looking for it is pointless.’ To sum up this part : the debate of ‘actualists’ vs. ‘spiritualists’ is commonly known as ‘realists’ vs. ‘nominalists’. RICHARD: Having never heard of nominalism I have just now looked it up in a dictionary:
As all I was doing was responding to a question about the inferences of thought, analysis and mathematics you are indeed stretching a long bow to try and make out that the discussions betwixt actualists and spiritualists are commonly known as the debate of [quote] ‘realists’ vs. ‘nominalists’ [endquote]. RESPONDENT: What appears to me an original contribution in AF is that at least you, Richard, before arriving at the nominalist position, have travelled extensively to the spiritual world, actually right up to the end of the path. RICHARD: I have not arrived at any nominalist position ... readily comprehending that abstract concepts – while being useful tools – have no substance in actuality is simply a by-product of being sensible, down-to-earth, practical. RESPONDENT: Then, you came to nominalism but gave it an ethical twist ... RICHARD: No, all I was doing was responding to a question about the inferences of thought, analysis and mathematics from a co-respondent who first asked [quote] ‘why is your concept of reality limited to what is perceived through the senses’ [endquote] ... with nary a trace of ethicality to be found anywhere. RESPONDENT: ... (prescribing it as necessary to cure, i.e. get rid of the human condition ... RICHARD: As the only thing which will get rid of the human condition is altruistic ‘self’-immolation in toto (for the benefit of this body and that body and every body) there is no way that the mere prescription of nominalism can ever be curative of same. RESPONDENT: ... i.e. making a ‘moral injunction to avoid ‘malice’ and ‘sorrow’ at all cost’) ... RICHARD: There is no morality whatsoever in actualism ... indeed, only a little further on in that discussion you quoted from, even my co-respondent comprehended that much (albeit in their own way). Viz.:
RESPONDENT: ... combined with a the view that everything is perfect the way it is ... RICHARD: No, actualism is not a [quote] ‘view’ [endquote] ... and neither is it an idea, an ideal, a belief, a concept, an opinion, a conjecture, a speculation, an assumption, a presumption, a supposition, a surmise, an inference, a judgement, an intellectualisation, an imagination, a posit, a postulation, an image, an analysis, a viewpoint, a view, a stance, a perspective, a standpoint, a position, a world-view, a mind-set, a state-of-mind, a frame-of-mind, or any other of the 101 ways of overlooking a direct report of what it is to be actually free from the human condition and living the utter peace of the perfection of the purity welling endlessly as the infinitude this eternal, infinite and perpetual universe actually is. RESPONDENT: ... if only you experience the world through your senses, and only your senses... RICHARD: The exchange you obtained the quote from clearly has me reporting/ describing/ explaining that reality is the world which is perceived *through* the senses (by the entity residing inside the body) whereas actuality is the world that is apperceived at the senses (by the body itself). RESPONDENT: ... which can be achieved through contemplation as opposed to meditation. RICHARD: No, what can be achieved by contemplation (considering, pondering, thinking about, reflecting over, mulling over, musing on, dwelling on, deliberating over, cogitating over, ruminating over), as opposed to meditation (entering into a dissociative and timeless/ spaceless/ formless trance and/or a thoughtless and senseless cataleptic state of being), is apperception ... the direct (unmediated) perception of this actual world. RESPONDENT: In this, AF is a creative combination I never explicitly encountered – so I take back the challenge, made at the beginning of my first mail, that it is quite a frequent ‘mode of perception’. RICHARD: An actual freedom from the human condition is not a [quote] ‘creative combination’ [endquote] ... to be actually free of the human condition is to be a flesh and blood body only (sans the entire affective faculty/ identity in toto). RESPONDENT: It is indeed, unfortunately, rather rare ... RICHARD: So rare as to be entirely new to human experience/ human history. RESPONDENT: ... and you have done a great job in synthesizing things that have been around for a long time – clearly and explicitly. RICHARD: I have done nothing of the sort – I have been here all along simply having a ball – as it was the identity in residence all those years ago who did what was necessary ... which was to altruistically ‘self’-immolate, in toto, for the benefit of this body and that body and every body. RESPONDENT: If the ‘age of enlightenment’ has been characterized by ‘disenchanting the world’, the ‘New Dark Age’, as you call it, is driven by what Freud calls ‘tries to get the magic back in by taking ‘magic’ or ‘psychic powers’ literally. AF is, insofar as it is most likely to be found by people on the ‘eastern path’, a re-disenchantment while conserving the mystic’s greatest achievement – [Richard]: ‘A vast stillness lies all around, a perfection that is abounding with purity. Beneficence, an active kindness, overflows in all directions, imbuing everything with unimaginable fairytale-like quality’. [endquote]. RICHARD: No mystic has ever achieved what the identity in residence all those years ago did ...
voluntarily and cheerfully, with knowledge aforethought, forsake the highly-prized state of being, popularly known as spiritual
enlightenment/ mystical awakenment, and go willingly and blessedly * RESPONDENT: The statement that ‘this moment has no duration’ can also be found in St Augustine’s autobiography, as you are certainly aware. The meditation on time is a nice read, although the rest is the usual religious stuff, filled with virginity, sinning, repenting, grace, heaven and hell. RICHARD: Having never read anything by Mr. Aurelius Augustinus I did a little research: presuming that by autobiography you mean his book ‘The Confessions’, and further presuming that the passage you speak of is to be found in ‘Book XI’, nowhere could I find anything relating to what ‘this moment has no duration’ refers to ... to time itself (the arena, so to speak, in which objects move) being without any movement whatsoever. RESPONDENT: Sorry, I had forgotten the title when writing to you but assumed you knew it. ‘The Confessions’ are indeed his autobiography. I thought that your statement ‘this moment has no duration’ could be compared to Augustine’s, Confessions, book XI, chap. XV: ‘(...) If any portion of time be conceived which cannot now be divided into even the minutest particles of moments, this only is that which may be called present; which, however, flies so rapidly from future to past, that it cannot be extended by any delay. (...)’ [endquote]. I think ‘not extended by any delay’ and ‘no duration’ are rather similar. But if the word ‘moment’ in your sentence, contrary to what I presumed, doesn’t mean ‘this present moment’ but refers to ‘time itself (the arena, so to speak, in which objects move) being without any movement whatsoever’ then this sounds dangerously 4-dimensional to me. RICHARD: Have you not ever noticed that it is never not this moment? If not, then are you aware that time as a measure of the sequence of events (as in past/ present/ future) is but a convention? To explain: presumably some pre-historical person/ persons noticed what the shadow of a stick standing perpendicular in the ground did such as to eventually lead to the sundial – a circular measure of the movement of a cast shadow arbitrarily divided into twelve sections because of a prevailing duo-decimal counting system – and then to water-clocks/ sand-clocks and thence to pendulum-clocks/ spring-clocks and thus to electrical-clocks/ electronic-clocks and, currently, energy-clocks (aka ‘atomic-clocks’) ... with all such measurement of movement being a measure of the earth’s rotation whilst in orbit around its radiant star. Put succinctly: it is not time itself (eternity) that moves ... it is objects existing in (infinite) space which do. * RESPONDENT: Last, I would like to remind you that the phrase ‘the unexamined life is not worth living for man’ is by Plato, Phaedo :-). RICHARD: Why would you like to remind me who the phrase ‘the unexamined life is not worth living for man’ is by? RESPONDENT: Well, I haven’t anywhere seen you giving credit to the author of this quote which you fondly and regularly use. RICHARD: I copy-pasted [quote] ‘the unexamined life is not worth living for man’ [endquote] into the search engine of this computer and sent it through everything I have ever written ... only to return nil hits. If you could provide the relevant texts where I have regularly used that quote it would be most appreciated. RESPONDENT: I thought it might be nice to provide this mailing list with the source ... RICHARD: Why did you think it might be nice to provide this mailing list with the source? RESPONDENT: ... i.e. Plato, Phaedo, a dialogue featuring Socrates. RICHARD: A search through an on-line version of ‘Phaedo’ for that quote returned nil hits ... a search through ‘Apology’, however, found the following passage:
If that is indeed the phrase you are referring to it has also been rendered as follows:
RESPONDENT: An unhappy and harmful specimen of the intellectual kind, although quite good at contemplation. RICHARD: In which case, and for whatever it is worth, then ... Mr. John Elson, in a review of Mr. Isidor Stone’s book ‘Gadfly’s Guilt: The Trial Of Socrates’, considers that the author [quote] ‘argues persuasively that the beloved Socrates was in reality a cold-hearted, elitist, pro-Spartan snob who was openly contemptuous of Athens’ vaunted democracy and favoured totalitarian rule by a philosopher-king’ [endquote]. (p. 66, ‘Time Magazine’; January 25, 1988). The article at the following URL, originally published in ‘The New York Times Magazine’ (April 8, 1979, pp. 22 ff.), sheds some light upon why: www.chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/essays/ifstoneonsocrates.html There are occasions where I am particularly pleased not to have ever studied philosophy ... and this is one of them. RESPONDENT: But with a serious lack in repetitiveness, probably due to the absence of the copy & paste function in 400 BC. RICHARD: Ha ... you would have to be referring to this exchange:
There is a distinct possibility, now, that you will never again misconstrue just what unconditional
felicity/ innocuity is, eh? RESPONDENT: What if we feel empty inside? RICHARD: It is really very, very simple (which is possibly why it has never been discovered before this): you felt good previously; you are feeling empty inside now; something happened to you to end that felicitous/ innocuous feeling; you find out what happened; you see how silly that is (no matter what it was); you are once more feeling good. RESPONDENT: What if nothing happened to you to end that felicitous/ innocuous feeling ... RICHARD: Speaking for the identity in residence all those years ago: there never was an occasion where nothing happened to ‘him’ to end that felicitous/ innocuous feeling – there always was a trigger for the loss – and this has been amply corroborated by everyone I have ever spoken with who has put the actualism method into practice. RESPONDENT: Suppose I feel bad for some reason. Isn’t the traditional way to fix the situation as opposed to seeing how silly it is? RICHARD: The traditional way may take many forms (such as philosophising, psychologising, analysing, for instance) but never something so simple as seeing how silly it is, as opposed to sensible, to spend the only moment of ever actually being alive – this moment – feeling miserable or malicious (or antidotally loving and compassionate) when it is so easy to be happy and harmless. The past, although it was actual whilst it was happening, is not actual now; the future, although it will be actual when it is happening, is not actual now; only this moment is actual. The exquisite attention engendered, by the exclusive focus upon how this moment is being experienced, will reveal via felicitous/ innocuous and thus naïve sensuosity that this moment has no duration in actuality – it is never not this moment – which means that time, being thus eternal, does not move. There is a vast stillness here in this actual world (the sensate world). RESPONDENT: How does the mere seeing how silly it is make us happy once again? RICHARD: Because nothing, absolutely nothing, is worth getting malicious or miserable about (let alone compensatingly loving and compassionate) when the realisation that this moment is the only one there ever is becomes the actuality it already always is. To explain: just as space is an arena for objects to exist in so too is time an arena (so to speak) for events to occur; just as the arena called space does not move neither does the arena (so too speak) called time move, either. A clock (originally a primitive sundial) measures the rate of rotation of planet earth on its axis; a calendar measures the rate of its orbit around its star (the sun); neither is a measure of time as time eternally stands still. Is it not silly to be malicious/ miserable (or counteractively loving/ compassionate) where felicity/ innocuity is eternally available? Is it not sensible to be felicitous/ innocuous instead? * RESPONDENT: SO then what do you think is the purpose of life? RICHARD: I must acknowledge how I just sat here, simply looking at your query, as the implications and ramifications of
the full extent of your ignoration For what is the point of responding to someone – someone who first wrote to me over six years ago – who has all that while ignored the very raison d’être for The Actual Freedom Trust’s web site? To explain: the question of the meaning of life has been the greatest quest of all time, for philosophers and metaphysicians
alike, and even artists (such as Mr. Paul Gauguin for instance) have pondered that hoary puzzle: D’où venons nous? Que sommes-nous? Où
allons-nous? (Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?) But what it took was a naïve boy from the farm to discover the answer to that most basic question of the millenniums: does life have significance (aka meaning) or is it all just a chance, random event in an empty (meaningless) universe? The theologians, on the one hand, maintained that their god gave life meaning (purpose) – albeit enigmatically and from behind a veil – and the existentialists, on the other hand, argued that humans had to give life meaning (reason) else the only true option be suicide. Yet all the while the actual meaning of life is already always out in the open, plain to view for those with the eyes to see, as it has never been hidden and never will be. I have written of this on umpteen occasions, of course, and here is one instance:
Here is another version:
Lastly, and relating to the wording of your query (‘the purpose of life’), the following is quite explicatory:
(See also Selected Correspondence: Noumenon
RETURN TO RICHARD’S SELECTED CORRESPONDENCE INDEX The Third Alternative (Peace On Earth In This Life Time As This Flesh And Blood Body) Here is an actual freedom from the Human Condition, surpassing Spiritual Enlightenment and any other Altered State Of Consciousness, and challenging all philosophy, psychiatry, metaphysics (including quantum physics with its mystic cosmogony), anthropology, sociology ... and any religion along with its paranormal theology. Discarding all of the beliefs that have held humankind in thralldom for aeons, the way has now been discovered that cuts through the ‘Tried and True’ and enables anyone to be, for the first time, a fully free and autonomous individual living in utter peace and tranquillity, beholden to no-one.
Richard’s Text ©The Actual Freedom Trust: 1997-. All Rights Reserved.
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