Friday, November 23, 2007
Computer security and science fantasy
It just occurred to me that the reason there is no reliable rootkit protection for computers, is for the same reason Jan Cox said that maps cannot know their creator. This despite the widespread fantasy among the scientific world that computers are approaching a point that they will be as smart as their creators, that is, people. Won't happen, and that is because of the nature of our planet.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Holidays and Real Groups
Holidays are the very embodiment of habit and so to help his students see freshly Jan Cox mainly ignored the normal holidays --- he would say when he was finished talking, is anybody going to be around the 25th, and if enough were, we would meet and get to listen to him talk on Christmas day.
Enough folks meant a certain critical mass that was necessary or else he was wasting his time talking. He knew his own worth and would not speak if there were too few people present, but I do not recall that happening on a normal meeting night. Maybe once, in decades of talking. Sometimes we met 5 nights a week.
And a party on Saturday night. Beer was the drink of choice for most. It meant of course being less conscious, and he reminded us of this sometimes. The beer drinking is an example of the reality of 'no rules.' The enjoinment was to struggle constantly to be aware, to extend that moment when you are able to remember both your internal and the external environment. Yet the bonds of community which encouraged the struggle were helped by partying together. Even if the drinking meant lowering your potential to be aware. And he knew the reality that folks were perfect. Hmm -- can't seem to phrase that so it is not ordinary cant. So skip that last point, perhaps I will come back to it.
The group of people Jan gathered around himself were he said sometimes, the equivalent together of an awakened man. The group was not, could not, be an ordinary social group, that would be mechanical and the opposite of our aims. One way he insured that the group was not ordinary was the composition --- staying in the group meant being around people who were not your type. This does not happen in an ordinary social group---those are formed with some communality among the types of people composing the group. I like to think of the Friends sitcom to explain this better: In real life an anthropologist and a afternoon tv actor would not be best buddies. This would only happen in tv land, and in a real work group. Remember the women on that show-- actually they could have really been friends, despite the differences which fed the comedic purpose. That says something about women though. It does not invalidate my point.
And the mechanicalness of holidays does not diminish the warm feelings I have for people who have already been reading my words.
Enough folks meant a certain critical mass that was necessary or else he was wasting his time talking. He knew his own worth and would not speak if there were too few people present, but I do not recall that happening on a normal meeting night. Maybe once, in decades of talking. Sometimes we met 5 nights a week.
And a party on Saturday night. Beer was the drink of choice for most. It meant of course being less conscious, and he reminded us of this sometimes. The beer drinking is an example of the reality of 'no rules.' The enjoinment was to struggle constantly to be aware, to extend that moment when you are able to remember both your internal and the external environment. Yet the bonds of community which encouraged the struggle were helped by partying together. Even if the drinking meant lowering your potential to be aware. And he knew the reality that folks were perfect. Hmm -- can't seem to phrase that so it is not ordinary cant. So skip that last point, perhaps I will come back to it.
The group of people Jan gathered around himself were he said sometimes, the equivalent together of an awakened man. The group was not, could not, be an ordinary social group, that would be mechanical and the opposite of our aims. One way he insured that the group was not ordinary was the composition --- staying in the group meant being around people who were not your type. This does not happen in an ordinary social group---those are formed with some communality among the types of people composing the group. I like to think of the Friends sitcom to explain this better: In real life an anthropologist and a afternoon tv actor would not be best buddies. This would only happen in tv land, and in a real work group. Remember the women on that show-- actually they could have really been friends, despite the differences which fed the comedic purpose. That says something about women though. It does not invalidate my point.
And the mechanicalness of holidays does not diminish the warm feelings I have for people who have already been reading my words.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Who is this Jan Cox?
Dear Anonymous, you have raised excellent questions. First--who is Jan Cox. A contemporary writer, dead now for two years. During his life he gathered students interested in following him on a path of mysticism. Those students, of whom I am one, are tasked with making sure his words reach as wide an audience as possible. Of course while he was alive this was a major goal of his, he referred to it as shooting blinding into the woods in the hopes of hitting something. This description points to the difficulty of attracting folks since the interest in this area of human experience, while genetically based, is unpredictable, often undecipherable, to an external observer. It is hard to know who will be interested and so the publicizer is "shooting blind." Finding a real teacher is an incredible lucky life event, and this is NOT what his students are offering now. We do have though an enormous amount of his writing and videotapes, and they are what remains of a unique life, the writings and the effect he had on the people around him.
Okay -- he has a web site we maintain==
www.jancox.com, where an huge quantity of material is available. This though is only a small part of his written and taped words and those are currently being prepared for archival storage and public distribution. And also there is an email list mainly populated by his students, plus those who encountered his writing after his death. I will gladly send anyone the link to this list, privately, since it is set up as a private yahoo group, but all are welcome there.
You also asked why "American" mysticism, when this aspect of human experience transcends transitory geographical bounds. My intent here is to focus attention on Jan's position in a continuum of mystics. Specifically in recent history (twentieth century) there has just been Georges Gurdjieff and Jan Cox. Between them they brought mysticism out of the church and into the scientific era. These contentions of mine will be discussed more fully soon. So I myself picture Gurdjieff as bringing eastern mysticism to Europe, and Jan picking up the mantle and positioning mysticism in the modern American dominated world.
Though since there were no other teachers alive of his stature, he welcomed everyone with the proper sincerity, or what he perceived as potential. In fact, he was incapable of resisting someone who sincerely asked for help on "The Path."
Anonymous -- thank you for the questions.
Okay -- he has a web site we maintain==
www.jancox.com, where an huge quantity of material is available. This though is only a small part of his written and taped words and those are currently being prepared for archival storage and public distribution. And also there is an email list mainly populated by his students, plus those who encountered his writing after his death. I will gladly send anyone the link to this list, privately, since it is set up as a private yahoo group, but all are welcome there.
You also asked why "American" mysticism, when this aspect of human experience transcends transitory geographical bounds. My intent here is to focus attention on Jan's position in a continuum of mystics. Specifically in recent history (twentieth century) there has just been Georges Gurdjieff and Jan Cox. Between them they brought mysticism out of the church and into the scientific era. These contentions of mine will be discussed more fully soon. So I myself picture Gurdjieff as bringing eastern mysticism to Europe, and Jan picking up the mantle and positioning mysticism in the modern American dominated world.
Though since there were no other teachers alive of his stature, he welcomed everyone with the proper sincerity, or what he perceived as potential. In fact, he was incapable of resisting someone who sincerely asked for help on "The Path."
Anonymous -- thank you for the questions.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Horror vacuii 2
The following quote from a book review quotes Eliot's reaction to Gurdjieff. It seems like the reviewer has categorized Eliot's attitude well.
...
the publisher's reports - relaxed, unbuttoned, but (on the basis of the samples Schuchard gives) carefully thought out none the less - give insight into what Eliot thought about the barren shores of mysticism. "The addiction to Asiatic mysticism, separated from Asiatic religion, produced... something which to me is very much ... repellent in Gurdjieff and Ouspensky."
from
http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/classics/story/0,,2212357,00.html
and more:
"Eliot's suspicions were aroused by any form of mysticism which had not evolved out of, and was not supported by, a religion."
Ah yes, mysticism not supported by a religion. What could this mean -- what could a mysticism be which was not supported by --- words. And yet what mysticism COULD be supported in any healthy way by ---words???
It is a barren place we seek, barren of the past, barren of words, ...
...
the publisher's reports - relaxed, unbuttoned, but (on the basis of the samples Schuchard gives) carefully thought out none the less - give insight into what Eliot thought about the barren shores of mysticism. "The addiction to Asiatic mysticism, separated from Asiatic religion, produced... something which to me is very much ... repellent in Gurdjieff and Ouspensky."
from
http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/classics/story/0,,2212357,00.html
and more:
"Eliot's suspicions were aroused by any form of mysticism which had not evolved out of, and was not supported by, a religion."
Ah yes, mysticism not supported by a religion. What could this mean -- what could a mysticism be which was not supported by --- words. And yet what mysticism COULD be supported in any healthy way by ---words???
It is a barren place we seek, barren of the past, barren of words, ...
Upcoming topics
in our blog about Jan Cox.
The arguments that suggest his significance is of the century defining kind.
A glance of a history of mysticism----what can such a phrase mean? His words on the subject
ref other mystics, his points about history
What is history---the nature of progress
Conspiracies -- their nature, the nonsense of thinking an ordinary person could pursue such, or that you as an ordinary thinker could detect such, his interest in, his hints about (Peru?)
His significance in terms of American history on the political level. Did he give Jimmy Carter the idea to run for president.
The arguments that suggest his significance is of the century defining kind.
A glance of a history of mysticism----what can such a phrase mean? His words on the subject
ref other mystics, his points about history
What is history---the nature of progress
Conspiracies -- their nature, the nonsense of thinking an ordinary person could pursue such, or that you as an ordinary thinker could detect such, his interest in, his hints about (Peru?)
His significance in terms of American history on the political level. Did he give Jimmy Carter the idea to run for president.
The Nature of Ordinary Thought
The nature of ordinary mentation
Ordinary thought, that mentation of which most people are unaware of an alternative, operates solely on the principle of polar opposition, and this is a main reason it cannot be relied upon to assess reality. There are uncountable and unaccountable so called causes for any (so-called) event. In these circumstances to single out ONE cause, and think something has been explained is illusory. The complexity of the surrounding and internals worlds of man is simplified by the mind or the ordinary intellect could not function. The intellect has a proper function, but that is not describing reality. The failure to understand the appropriate uses of the intellect is a source of pain ultimately.
The mind of man simplifies reality, and enables itself to function, by defining any and everything in terms of opposition. It never really specifies anything at all, in itself (the things self is what I mean). It uses words and these words only make sense at all if they are defined in contrast to something else. Take the word "table." A definition opposes this piece of furniture to a chair, or to the floor. This is called binary logic. It makes computers work fine. Computers do not assess reality either.
Ordinary thought, that mentation of which most people are unaware of an alternative, operates solely on the principle of polar opposition, and this is a main reason it cannot be relied upon to assess reality. There are uncountable and unaccountable so called causes for any (so-called) event. In these circumstances to single out ONE cause, and think something has been explained is illusory. The complexity of the surrounding and internals worlds of man is simplified by the mind or the ordinary intellect could not function. The intellect has a proper function, but that is not describing reality. The failure to understand the appropriate uses of the intellect is a source of pain ultimately.
The mind of man simplifies reality, and enables itself to function, by defining any and everything in terms of opposition. It never really specifies anything at all, in itself (the things self is what I mean). It uses words and these words only make sense at all if they are defined in contrast to something else. Take the word "table." A definition opposes this piece of furniture to a chair, or to the floor. This is called binary logic. It makes computers work fine. Computers do not assess reality either.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Fanfare for the common dog
My dog belongs to the same pack as Dmitri Shostakovich and Aaron Copland. Both composers have inspired in Sunny the sing along urge. It is so cute, -- I did not say euphonious, I said cute. Last night on the telly we watched a special on wolves, and the sound of howling puzzled and riveted him. But only at the sound of the masters did he add his voice to the pack.
The sound of my dog gurgling to classical symphonies presents the spectre of gaps, gaps of which if we are unaware, we risk a punitive ignorance. The gap I mean is the gap between what you consider the known world and what the world actually is. The mystic participates in point blank reality, on occasion. The distance between ordinary humanity and someone like someone like Jan Cox is at least the distance between a canine and a classical composer.
This is not elitism. The world is as it is. I did not invent this planet. I am merely trying to point with fluffy words to a certain spotless reality. As inhabitants of this planet it behooves us to struggle to know what is. If for no other reason than to avoid getting our heads knocked through ignorance of the surrounding structure.
The sound of my dog gurgling to classical symphonies presents the spectre of gaps, gaps of which if we are unaware, we risk a punitive ignorance. The gap I mean is the gap between what you consider the known world and what the world actually is. The mystic participates in point blank reality, on occasion. The distance between ordinary humanity and someone like someone like Jan Cox is at least the distance between a canine and a classical composer.
This is not elitism. The world is as it is. I did not invent this planet. I am merely trying to point with fluffy words to a certain spotless reality. As inhabitants of this planet it behooves us to struggle to know what is. If for no other reason than to avoid getting our heads knocked through ignorance of the surrounding structure.
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