Saturday, December 1, 2007

A glimpse of freedom--starting with a news report

Starting off with a Reuters news report:

DONETSK, Ukraine (Reuters) - A crocodile that escaped from a travelling circus in Ukraine and evaded capture for six months died on Friday after two days back in captivity, officials said.
"The crocodile was lying in the water and suddenly he just floated to the surface," Oleksander Soldatov of Ukraine's Emergencies Ministry said in the eastern city of Donetsk.
"We pulled it out of the water and the body felt all cold. It seems clear he was alive before and just died."
Ministry officials, unsure whether the crocodile was comatose or dead, had earlier called in a vet to examine the reptile. Nicknamed Godzilla or Godzi, it was captured alive this week after escaping from a travelling circus in May.
It had been spotted several times lurking around industrial sites near the city of Mariupol, on the coast of the Sea of Azov. But it repeatedly eluded search teams.
It was finally found basking in a pool at a thermal power station, where the water was warmer than the nearby sea.
The crocodile, which was over a metre (yard) long, was then taken 100 km (60 miles) by car to Donetsk where it was freed into a fire service tank.
The crocodile's owner, quoted by the daily Segodnya, said he could only collect it on Monday because of circus commitments.
Soldatov said Godzilla would be cremated.
"This is an exotic animal. He simply cannot be buried," he said.
(Reporting by Lina Kushch; Writing by Ron Popeski; Editing by Michael Winfrey)"

Jan Cox would have understood the dying of this beast. Jan was this crocodile.
A thirst for freedom defines the life of Jan Cox. But looking at this story makes me wonder if perhaps this thirst, oh so feeble in most people, yet extends beyond the range of mammals on this planet. In most people, over 99%, this craving for freedom is satisfied by (deliberately produced) fiction. Very interesting.


Friday, November 30, 2007

Ordinary thought and the thought of scientists

Physicists are rock stars to the students of Jan Cox. Except any time someone else is viewed as a hero you are off track. But aside from that oft-repeated rule, what unites many of us on an ordinary level is an avid interest in the sciences. In the natural sciences the normative function of ordinary thought can be viewed -- the external world is reshuffled with a view to seeing what is going on. The thought of those in the natural sciences can produce an effect which is similar though not identical to that of the thinking of those on a "mystical path."

One of the main methods Jan Cox used with his students was pushing rational thought to its limits. Any sincere and persistent attempt to follow through on the implications of a train of thought will result in being closer to objective reality -- to keep pushing thought through to its limits is to position oneself for true insight. You cannot think too hard. Pushing the rational mind to its limits is a major tool for the so-called seeker.

What happens with the scientist is that the creativity involved in a sincere attempt to understand the external world produces effects similar to the glimpses one receives on the somewhat different path which is the subject of these shortl essays. These appercus are so lovely and satisfying that the scientist does not suspect they are mere trinkets compared to greater possibilities available to someone determined to push stoutly through to the ultimate implications of one's thinking. Trinkets, that distract. Yes we all love them -- we simply cannot settle for whipped cream only when there is vaster buffet.

Thursday, November 29, 2007

The Real Alchemy

The alert reader will perhaps have reached the conclusion that progress in "This Kind of Stuff" is impossible -- how after all if the secret is fresh thought, can you communicate anything to anyone, and how, if the weight of an entire planet, the mechanical genetic heritage which we are born with, and which surrounds us, how with this weight can one speak of freedom at all.
Understand the reality of these strictures, contemplate the impossibility that is being pointed at.
And think about those stories of alchemists. Those alchemist who said they had transmuted lead to gold---those people understood first that lead would always be lead.

The fact is that progress in seeing point blank reality IS impossible. Perhaps that sentence should be rephrased to read sustaining the vision, remembering the quest, is impossible. Yet some men have succeeded.