Shredding Occam's Razor

This principle of logic is a charming fantasy to which the ordinary binary intellects clings in a manner which precludes the possiblity of insight into reality. The quality of the clinging betrays the desperation which underlies this principle of ordinary logic. If Occam's Razor was recognised as training steps for real understanding it would be unobjectionable.

But the principle of Occam's Razor, dating from medieval times, specifies that the simplest explanation is the right one. What this boils down to, is, simply put, that the view of the ordinary binary intellect is the correct view. And this is not always the case: the ordinary intellect cannot even contemplate the vast (yes billions and billions) number of intersecting events which actually DO create an explanation for any one detail that occurs. And this does not even bring up how to consider the fact that what does not happen is just as important, the near misses, the totally close calls which you are never aware of---all this is actually effective and explanatory---but not manageable by the binary logic which defines the ordinary intellect. The ordinary intellect says something is either this, or that. In actually the correct view includes this, that, and that, and so on, on, on....

Just because the ordinary intellect cannot comprehend it, does not make reality any less real.
As Jehovah, mascarading as reality, once said, I am what I am.

Machinery

War is not the almost constant state of mankind that history presents to us, according to Jan Cox. It certainly can be be productive though to contemplate. Here you have men courageous enough to walk into bullets. What greater courage could there be? And yet there may be one, which however, is not the direct topic here now. Back to war, and soldiers following orders they may or may not realize are bad, ill thought out, serving someone's vanity, wasteful of life. (Yes, I got started on this watching Ken Burns's latest, on The War. ). Yet the soldiers follow orders for the most part, they do as their officers direct.

What occured to me was the reason Humanity grows under these circumstances. If you had soldiers on the battlefield running around without following directions, you would harm the larger organism. This failure to follow orders may be seen as a kind of illness in the body. Certainly the larger point that the society with such a malfunctioning army is less safe is obvious if you pause over it. One basic aspect of an army's usefulness is quick effective response to danger. This better protects the society of which it is a part. This is because the soldiers are cogs in a larger mechanism.

What is harder to see is that such a scenario also well describes the mental realm. We like to think we are free thinking beings who evaluate and act based on a well informed consideration of whatever issue is at hand. In fact though, the thoughts in our heads are soldiers some well commanded, some pathetically poorly commanded, but in neither case is the commanding officer anywhere nearby. Certainly not in your head. Did you invent your language? Your use of words, fundamental to the thinking process, is part of a larger process in which your darling self is but an illusion. The words have a purpose, they function as cogs in a larger unit, but the purpose and function are not what we assume. Certainly the transfer of information is the least of the functions of verbal speech, though not the least important if you consider just speech intending to describe the external world.

No conspiracy theory is being suggested here, simply the expansion to a mental view wherein we can acknowledge the possibility that things might not be what we assume.

Examples

James Joyce was one of the more notable rejecters of Catholicism. Right after he died a priest tried to persuade his widow to have a religious burial. Said Nora, "I couldn't do that to him." The relevance of this anecdote in the context of comment on the uncommentariable work of Jan Cox is that you can see how important his position on Catholicism was to James Joyce. Which points up the reality that so-called opposites are just one whole. This example, that of an atheist was actually one example Jan Cox used to illustrate the point that to reject something is to accept that very thing. Could one be a real atheist one would be quite calm about the church and not even think about the church at all. To oppose something is to give that which you oppose, vitality. This applies also within.

Hearing Jan

What will never be captured in words now, is the experience of listening to Jan Cox talk. I at least cannot begin to explain, among other things, the way he could say two different things, literally at the same time in a public (well at least the group) setting. Not two contradictory things, but two separate intellectual points.

He could also direct his comments in this group setting to one person, or --- sometimes he could give the impression he was talking directly to you, while HE was on stage and sharing his speech to a group of people.

And then there was his speech to individuals which was based on his knowledge of that person, his knowing exactly what at a certain moment had the best chance of helping that person look in a certain direction. In a sense this description applies to all his talks to a group of people he allowed to stay based on their purpose and potential. These were the people he did not kick out, deliberately scare away, or gently discourage. (This last I to myself called the velvet boot.) This speech to individuals, though, may be information that was not really relevant to others. A street level example of this last, is his telling me that I should take my car to the dealer to get it fixed. This advice was based on his knowledge of me, and was not at all transferable to others in general.

But more typically his speech to individuals was not about such mundane matters, but focused the same knowledge of the person he was speaking with a regard for their potential at that moment. Speech received in this mode could be something the individual remembered well, though it may actually be only relevant to that individual, at least only relevant to that individual regarding the surrounding details of what he said. Thus he might frame a point to someone who was given to hero worship differently than he would speak to someone who grasped that a certain respect was appropriate when relating to a real teacher, rather than the "horizontal guru" to use an exact quote from Jan Cox.

Such talents that a real man could possess are one way myths about psychic powers begin. I use the word myths to stress that when a man has a certain base of knowing, then the usual descriptions just do not apply. There was nothing psychic per se about some of his talents, it was just that most men do not think themselves, really think, at all, and so were impressed by what was really a minor aspect of the talent of a man who knew the source of his knowledge, and remembered it.

Poorly Packed Pickups Pinned Up Again

Picking poorly packed pickups back up- --because this is a graphic glimpse of a reality which is hard to point at. I mean the lurching quality of progress, any kind of progress, the half falling, stumbling, of Life itself. Look at the load on the truck bed, trussed haphazardly, piled peculiarly,and if you following the same pickup I am, as you study the load , you feel a little nervous. You do not want to meet a ladder unexpectedly. This picture, the poorly packed pickup, though is a reality at the axel of things. In the words of Jan Cox--there is a core of confusion to everything. And it could be that this reality ripples though everything. Certainly there is no reason to be surprised at spotted, jagged margins. The surprise would be a rhythmic, regular progress, because that would mean you certainly were not paying attention at the moment you so categorized it. Let me point out, as he did occasionally, we are not pointing to the regularity of physical functioning itself, like breathing, which should not be messed with.

Ugandan history

Today is apparently the anniversary of Idi Amin's assumption of power in Uganda in 1971. Televised news pictures of Amin and ambassadors to Uganda gave Jan Cox an interesting picture of -- the circuitry of man. He shared with us the discomfiture of some of the ambassadors as they tried to dance on the same stage as Amin, who would break into dance steps alot. I guess that is one reason why people say it is good to be king. In this pictures of men in suits on a stage, Amin would be the all powerful hormones, and the ambassadors and/or ministers -- neurons. This relationship is unchanging.

Fluffy Cats to Fat Brains

You have seen cranky cats--they can swell to a seemingly larger animal by bristling their fur. This is a similar effect to dogs finding something elevated to mark. The position on the fire hydrant tells the message RECIPIENT the important data--how big the dog is who shares their neighborhood. Think what critical tinformation that is--kind of like the reason you laugh harder at your boss's jokes.The point here is the advantage size offers in a world of constantly changing chemical flux.

Which makes me wonder if the motive for building the pyramids was similarly biological and motivated. What if the drive that ordered the monumental architecture was like a cat expanding in physical size. Of course, one motive does not rule out other explanations--such either/or logic is fundamental to ordinary mentation (I mean since there is explanation A for the motive of building the pyramids, that rules out explanation B being potent) and a hindrance to considering anything beyond the actual rearranging of the external world. The examples of such rearrangement in this paragraph are not the useful scientifically needed reordering that are obviously useful--like windmills. The very obscureness, of the reason for the size and shape of the pyramids stresses the necessity to look elsewhere for an explanation of their building. My suggestion is that monumental buildings are an attempt by men to fluff up themselves. And it should work, imagine an invading army encountering the pyramids for the first time. Not Napoleon, but the very first time, wouldn't the leader of the invading army think, "what have I gotten myself into?"
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And what if---most of man's thinking, most of human words, words like 'Yale' (to use one of Jan Cox's favorite examples) are similarly the result of a need for mortal man to fluff up himself against a reality of the unknown. Perhaps words which do not refer to the external world have a purpose that is hormonal rather than denotative. Only people are unaware of their motives and the reality of the cognitive import of what they are saying.