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Published on Leave a comment on From Progress to Paralysis: The Cost of Separation from Logic and Love and Misreading Context

 An imaginary conversation with an adolescent friend about why we’re not getting it right. (Friend in italics.) 

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Palpatine exposed! 

Resistance to undemocratic rule. That’s what made me think of you. Rule that tries to tame people? Exactly. By forbidding them to question anything, especially asking Why. Asking for explanations that might reveal stuff that undemocratic rule doesn’t want people to know. Doesn’t want them to talk about. By hogging all the power and not sharing it.

Not sharing power is bad when someone else is doing the hogging. Uh huh. But terrific when you’re doing it. There’s just something about Palpatine. . . I was thinking that the book I almost got you(1) might put Mr. Palpatine in a different light where he belongs. How so? By tying Star Wars, an entertaining myth, to not-entertaining facts that it’s based on. The darkness of rule that rules for itself. That takes rather than gives. Harms rather than helps. That’s not romantic or amusing.

Its captives in reality don’t have X-wing fighters and Jedi Knights with supernatural powers for protection. They’re usually fearful, submissive conformists until they figure out how to take back their rights. And share power. And be persons with personalities, talents, passions, and creativity. Minds of their own, thinking for themselves and not afraid to speak out.

The beast waiting in the wings

What’s wrong with just doing what you’re told? Or leaving everything to chance? Isn’t that easier? Not really. Take away independent judgment and there goes free will. There go values, character, responsibility, and accountability. Individuality and personhood. Spontaneity, creativity, and fun. What’s left? You’ve turned yourself over to your reverse mirror-image reflection. To Mr. Hyde and his mask of sociability, Dr. Jekyll. To mindlessness, the safe haven for Mr. Hyde. All that’s left is captivity to a delusion: the “freedom” of a predator-beast that can act by instinct and doesn’t need to think at all.

Not the kind of freedom I want! Me neither. Star Wars was right: there is a dark side -- opposites. Any time we decide not to think for ourselves we’re betting that our opposite won’t hear an invitation to move in. That we haven’t turned our minds over to something that doesn’t belong there. An unfriendly beast pretending to be friendly.

The losing bet

Aren’t games and competition a kind of gambling? Doesn’t taking chances make life more interesting? Sure. Risk is essential to creativity as well as gambling. It’s unavoidable.

But “action” divorced from creativity has a serious downside. Turning ourselves into “winners” and “losers” messes with self-worth – our own and others’. Competing for “supremacy” in a shared world is an impossibility that detaches us from reality. From awareness of anything but our own needs and our own feelings. It makes us inaccessible to those who care for us and need us – emotionally and often physically too. Going over to the dark side. Yes. That’s how Adam Skywalker became Darth Vader. The lure of a delusion: “supremacy.” And the selfishness, insensitivity, and cruelty that goes along with it.

Competition that we fail to manage eventually manages us. Consumes us like gambling and other addictions. Meantime, there are better ways to occupy ourselves, like seeking inspiration in work that’s productive. Using our talents for causes that support self-worth without risking it. That’s where the fun is. Not entertainments like competition that degenerate into obsessions. That idolize “winning” at the expense of loving relationships.

It takes experience

Authoritarian rule is mistaken identity. A wrong turn in the road with unhappy consequences. Harmfulness That ruins lives from the inside out as well as from the outside in. You might not see the hurt but it’s there, and it can last a lifetime. The Star Wars rebels were adventurous, hopeful, upbeat. The Empire’s victims in our world not so much. Beaten down, despairing. This is what comes through the book? For some readers it might. So that Palpatine will be seen for the bad guy he is. Not a temptation to be like him, replacing others’ minds with his so he can exploit them. Disrespect their free will and individuality, do whatever else he wants.

Do you think I’m tempted? You have good intentions. You want to be your own person and make your time count. To do the best that you can and be good. But there’s not enough track record to answer that. Many of us do give in to temptation when we start using our own judgment. When we give up being guided and protected by grownups. It takes more than good intentions to keep that from happening. You and everyone who cares about you need to be vigilant.

Getting it right with Love

What does it take? Awareness of the difference that only comes with experience. Awareness of what goes into good character. Always a work in progress since we’re no better than our last decision and every day is a test.

Were you ever tempted? I never took fantasies about super powers seriously. Family, school, and church made my life satisfying enough. All three put a high value on learning and sharing. On competition, too, but the emphasis wasn’t on making the other guy lose. It was on striving and excelling. On competing with myself to continually do better. It was all part of learning and growing to maturity. To find equality and compassion in my relationships. That serves my needs and others’ instead of the distancing of superiority and dominance that only serves number one.

The main emphasis was on thinking for myself and asking questions. Understanding that our world is a shared world and all the good in it is based on sharing. On everyone winning. On Love? Yes. Love that’s directed when we use our own minds to make sense of things with logic. When we at least have an idea what we’re doing. Getting it right.

A source of help

My mind was good enough at figuring things out at school and work. It was a while before it got serious about personal stuff. Psychology and relationships. My mom and dad role modeled being dutiful, generous with service to the community, respectful of character and good values. My mom and both grandmothers centered their lives around the example of Jesus.

It took a lifetime of reflection and experience before I could understand why. How come? I couldn’t take others’ word for it. They weren’t making sense. I had to figure it out for myself. With help. From . . . ? From the only source it could come from – my mind. Your Uncle Owen had an extraordinary ability. Teaching himself. Nothing philosophical or psychological like me but new skills like composing music. It might have been different if he had used his sixth sense. That’s where I get help, from intuition.

Courage or madness?

Do I have intuition? Of course. It’s a faculty of the Mind that we all share. Like a portal to insights. But they have to be spontaneous, beyond our control. And their source can’t control us. A source of help that’s good if it’s loving and makes sense. If it respects logic and doesn’t ever mess with our free will. Can’t I just rely on my five senses? That’s what science thinks it does. Philosophy, psychology. Even theology. Yet they all depend on insights from intuition. They just can’t admit it. Why? It’s not “scientific” if it can’t be verified by the body’s five senses.

Ridicularity! Huh? The body’s senses are great with appearances. They’re amassing mountains of “information” and “data” about physical objects while avoiding the only source that can make sense of it. That can say what it means. Mind. Matter that bodies sense keeps telling us to look somewhere else. Why don’t we? The ones doing the looking can’t give up on their bodies’ five senses and the physical environment they think they detect. It’s their security blanket. They worry that any other approach would be un-cool. They’d be risking their careers and their professions. Philosophers, psychologists, and theologists as well as scientists. Taking a risk this big takes either courage, madness, or both.

Different ways of reading the situation

We had just parked across from where we were going and were about to cross the street when you asked a question. I hope you didn’t mind. Not only didn’t I mind, I respected you more for asking it. “No cars are coming so why can’t we cross in the middle of the street?” “If a car hits us there it would be our fault. If it hits us in the crosswalk it would be their fault.” That was your question and my answer. What did we decide? We used the crosswalk and you were fine with that.

That was reasoning. We use reasoning to choose the response that best aligns with what circumstances are telling us. But your question wasn’t about reasoning. What was it about? It wasn’t about choice. It was about paying attention first to what circumstances were telling us. You looked at the situation and saw one thing and I saw another. What did I see? You saw that no cars were coming. What did you see? A crosswalk. The circumstances told you that it wouldn’t matter if we ignored the crosswalk. They told me that it would. We read the situation differently.

Circumstances speak (but do we listen?)

Why didn’t we see the same thing? Because I was letting the circumstances tell me what they meant. What they implied for the choice we were to make where to cross. You were telling the circumstances to mean what you wanted, to take the shortest, easiest route. What mattered to me was to make the right choice. What mattered to you was making the choice be what you wanted, right or wrong. But you accepted my answer. You’re willing to do the right thing even if it isn’t what you want when you’re aware of it. I respect that.

If it wasn’t reasoning what was it? You were “reasoning” backwards from the choice you’ve already made to justify it. The best minds in almost every field do the same thing, so don’t feel bad. It’s “rationalizing” and it’s very common. The faculty of mind I’m referring to is logic. It’s neither reasoning nor rationalizing. What does it do? Something extremely important that all of humanity is bad at. And it accounts for every mess we get ourselves into. Even teachers at school? Scientists? Aren’t they supposed to know everything?

The questionable premise

After his experience with the world’s smartest physicists and mathematicians Albert Einstein said they aren’t good at logic. Really? If he explained why I’m not aware of it. One reason I can think of is that science is founded on a questionable premise. One that compromises the reasoning behind every choice that’s based on it. Another is that its questionable premise bars science from accepting help from the source of the correct premise. Science is thought to be clear-thinking, but Einstein was correct.

The questionable premise is that there is no “realistic” alternative to reliance on sensory perception – our body-brains’ five senses – for distinguishing between what’s real and what’s speculation. This suits experimental science since its scope is limited to physical objects. But it doesn’t suit logic. Logic is an orderly sequence of implications that leads nowhere if it’s thrown out of order by personal or institutional bias. It can’t be controlled. The spirit of Inquiry must be free or it’s not inquiry. It must follow logic wherever it leads from its starting point: an open-ended question without a preconceived answer.

Back to the future

The Greek philosopher Parmenides followed logic wherever it led. Where was that? To the conclusion that there is a logical alternative to sensory perception and it contradicts what our body-brains’ senses are telling us. 2500 years later, after centuries of studying spacetime and matter, physics is beginning to wonder if Parmenides was right.(2)

Why? The behavior of big objects and tiny particles that make up our universe refuses to make sense. Einstein’s equation explaining energy -- E=MC2 -- gave him confidence that he could explain it. But that’s only because energy is part of Mind that gives ideas their expression, even if it’s only appearances in a dream. Mind-energy makes sense; spacetime-matter (appearances) doesn’t. When Einstein tried to explain appearances with another elegant equation he failed. Mind and energy are order interconnected by the implications of logic and by love sharing. Sense. Appearances are the opposite. Nonsense.

Physics is still trying to explain the universe of spacetime-matter. How? By bringing the behavior of cosmic relativity – big objects -- together with the behavior of particle physics – little objects -- into one unified theory. “Quantum gravity.” It’s led to interesting theories. But they’re beyond confirming by experimental physics, and so physics is turning to philosophy for answers.(3) Putting the focus once again on the logic of Parmenides.

Enter sixth sense

Where did Parmenides get his logic? If he told us it went missing with a lot of stuff he wrote. But it must have been important because he called his school of philosophy the “School of Reason.” Or the “School of Logic” which makes more sense. My answer is he got it from his sixth sense. From his intuition? Yes. The same place where Democritus, a contemporary, intuited the existence of atoms. Really? Yes. 2500 years before Einstein confirmed it with experimental physics.

These guys were good at figuring things out. Not exactly on their own, although they did it without experimental physics. They did it with logic that could only be accessed through their sixth sense. With vision that could look behind appearances. It was a new branch of philosophy that Parmenides founded called metaphysics. That tells us what’s real and what’s not by listening to Mind’s intuition rather than being misled by bodies’ brains. To Mind’s sixth sense rather than bodies’ five senses. It was a valid approach then since there was no science to question it. Taken seriously by Plato, the Father of Western Thought, among others.

What metaphysics found

What did metaphysics find when it looked behind appearances? That they’re made up like a dream. An illusion like a magician’s trick. Our alternate reality? Yes. A few other philosophers have since come to the same conclusion. Berkeley, California is named after one of them --  Bishop Berkeley. The logic of self-awareness taught by Jesus with love demonstrated our world’s unreality with his miracles. He later explained why in an extraordinary book, one of a kind.(4) A teacher named Valentinus understood the message and shared it with his pupils in second-century Rome, many centuries before the book appeared.

Free Will compromised

Amazing! Jesus explained the origin of the universe? Its psychological roots, yes, since it involved relationships and events that can only happen within Mind that thinks them. Mind that’s always existed, where something went wrong. Not the part that contributes growth to Creation – the Mind-Parent -- but the part that contributes Free Choice – the Mind-Child. A choice made under difficult circumstances. That couldn’t have been intentional or free but a choice, nonetheless. Why, if it wasn’t free or intentional? Because the Child-Mind that made it is choice whether free-conscious or not-free unconscious.

Free of interference when it’s conscious. The difficult circumstances were all caused by loss of consciousness that Jesus hasn’t explained. A previous mistake though it may have been a necessary part of the Child’s training. An inevitable consequence of introducing Free Choice into the evolution of Creation. Yet it was definitely error. The Child’s Will that we all share will always be Free in Reality. But in our alternate reality the error -- a wrong choice -- is obstructing it. It must be corrected.

The obstruction

The obstruction is the apparent separation of Child from Parents. “Apparent” because it couldn’t happen in Reality but anything can “happen” in unreality. Why does the separation matter? Because it’s the reason why humanity continues to look for answers in the wrong places. Why it keeps failing with every new “solution” to its problem: its inability to move forward as one rational, loving family in peace and harmony. To solve its problem of fear, condemnation, guilt, jealousy, paranoia, and hatred.

How can separating Parents from Child cause all this? Because of the parts they play in Creation.  Creation is process and structure. Each divided into one part that comes before and the other that comes after. Parents responsible for the first part, Child responsible for Free Choice in the second part. Their Relationship is responsible for everything that expresses the Life and Worth of Creation and Mind in the second part. The apparent separation sent the Child’s responsibilities into an alternate reality and left the Parents’ responsibilities behind.

Missing context

What responsibilities is our alternate reality missing? The responsibility of Mind-Parents is to extend Logic’s thinking-implications and to expand Love’s sharing-relationships in a continuous, open-ended flow of changing circumstances. Like evolution? Yes. Infinite evolution, for no implication or relationship can bring the process to an end. Not so long as definitions require what isn’t to help define what is. Evolution in the eternal Now – timelessness. This is the raw material of Creation. A Reality unlike ours that has no beginnings and endings, just the orderly sequence of Logic’s implications and Love’s sharing.

The Parents do something else. Before circumstances reach their Child they’re given context by Logic and Love. So that Free Choice can hear what circumstances are telling it about their meaning and purpose. So that Mind-Child can get the situation right before it freely chooses how Parents-Child together can respond to what the situation calls for. Before the Worth of Life and Creation implied by context can be affirmed, earned, expressed, and reciprocated. The Worth of Mind: the Creator and first circumstance.

Missing the attributes of definition

The role of Logic and Love going into the shared act of Creation is to give it the attributes of definition that it will need going out. Meaning and purpose. So that Mind-Parents can perform the last act: definition that brings new functions into Reality and service. With meaning and purpose that blend in seamlessly with the meaning and purpose of all the elements of Creation performing as one. In the context of circumstances at that point in its evolution.

Without the part played by Logic and Love in Reality, the raw material for creation here lacks the necessary attributes of definition. Every field of inquiry struggles with meaning and purpose. Struggles with changing circumstances, not because they can’t choose with reasoning and evaluation but because, without guidance from Logic and Love, they can’t make sense of the situation. Can’t get the context right.

Destination: progress or paralysis?

And so their choices, misguided by sensory perception, circle back to square one. Risking not only progress but survival. Theories abound. But under the domination of bodies’ five senses, with determined resistance to Mind’s sixth sense, they can’t breach self-delusion’s fortress of denial.

The context for alternate reality, then, isn’t the raw material for Creation. It’s the condition implied by the absence of forward movement supplied by Logic’s implications and Love’s sharing. Extension and expansion. Growth. Disguised by “movement” that’s going in circles, nowhere. Until the logic of going nowhere reaches its destination: paralysis.

Then if we accept the gift of Mind’s sixth sense, If we let it guide us back to the Logic of Parmenides and to the Logic-Love of Jesus, we will get our context right. Its meaning and purpose, so that we can then choose correctly how to respond and move forward. Yes. The book by Jesus gives us a head start. All it takes to reverse the error, restore Self-Awareness, and resume Mind-Child’s role in Creation, is one individual getting it right.

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  1. Chantal Montellier, Social Fiction (New York Review Comic, 2023). Not for children or early adolescents
  2. Adam Becker, “The Origins of Space and Time,” in Scientific American (February 2022 pp. 26-33)
  3. Carlo Rovelli, Reality Is Not What It Seems: The Journey to Quantum Gravity (Riverhead Books 2017)
  4. A Course in Miracles (Foundation for Inner Peace, 1976)

Published on Leave a comment on The Gentle Loving Kindness of Contradiction

Reflections on the meaning of Christmas                                    December 2023

The Process and Structure of Creation

Conflicting visions of Paradise

Worried sick. Dude, this is Christmas. Where’s your one-horse sleigh? Santa’s coming. And he knows when I’ve been bad or good. So? I thought I was being good. I was expecting goodies under the tree. Yes. Doing what you’re told. Not asking stupid questions. Now I’m not so sure. And being agreeable. Waahhhhhh! Tell you what. If Santa’s a no-show I’ll let you borrow my sleigh bells. Waahhhhhh! 

Sigh. Let’s hear it. Edna! Get room service. We’re out of eggnog. I was thinking about Christmas and I was going to make Santa happy by being good at not being bad. There’s a problem with that? What if bad went away? Like, what if we didn’t have to put up with being contradicted? Ah! Maybe then I could attract girls! Santa would hang it up. And lose weight if he didn’t have to stuff himself with milk and cookies from billions of kids. Everything would come to a dead end. Or maybe paradise with lots of girls. How about paradise with lots of gags and chloroform?

The first Act of Mind

Did you notice that definitions always have to define stuff by what it isn’t as well as by what it is? Do you have a sister? And did you know that Self-Awareness was illuminated by the first Relationship – the attraction between Logic and Love, masculinity and femininity? There you go again! Edna, what’s taking so long? It wouldn’t have happened if something hadn’t happened before. Before. . . Self-Awareness? Do that again! What? Twirl your eyes in opposite directions.

The first act of Mind, questioning the status quo. Socrates got into trouble with that, pestering people with questions. Jesus too. He contradicted stuff that everyone took for granted. Questioning the way things are partly by explaining the way they aren’t. Annoying the pharisees who decided he was questioning their authority. Turns out that questioning the status quo doesn’t just upset the authorities. It upsets authoritarians, and they’re all over the place. That’s it! You want me around to help bug authoritarians! You’re around because someone forgot to close the door.

The first “Love Story”

Contradiction goes a long way back. No! Edna! How many days’ rations we got? Mind asked, “What will get Creation started?” Obviously a contradiction of the status quo. Obviously a guy looking for some action. And the answer was “Relationship.” Relationship that’s inseparable like all relationships within the one Mind thinking them.

Put the Force of attraction between Logic and Love to use by illuminating Self-Awareness. Why them? They’re Mind’s two main attributes, where the action is. Masculine Logic hot for feminine Love – yesss! And feminine Love hot for masculine Logic. The first “Love Story.” Portrayals defined in part by what they aren’t: illogic, fear, and self-unawareness, or Mind unconscious. Mind has an opposite? If it does it’s unthinkable. We can forget about it. Here’s your eggnog, Elio. This should help you forget. Thank you, Edna. Industrial strength? Yes. I used up all of your Turbo-Nog.

The role of Logic-Love, Parents

Mind unconscious is a possibility with the Child of its Parents, Logic-Love, but not a possibility with them. Why not? Because they’re Self-Awareness by definition and their Child isn’t. Its Self-Awareness is derived from Relationship with its Parents and a second Force: opposition to possibility from contradiction. From impossibility, its opposite. A Force essential to Creation and ingrained in the laws of cause and effect.

Mind unconscious isn’t a possibility with the Parents because they and their Child have different functions. The role of Parents -- Self-Awareness -- is to welcome performers and their functions into Reality by sharing the gift of Self-Awareness and by definition that determines where they fit within the harmony of its Order  Then what? After that comes the Growth and sharing of Self-Awareness through the extension and expansion of Logic and Love. The Worth of Oneness increasing in value to infinity. Without limits, because Oneness can have no opposites.

The role of Free Choice, Child

The Child’s role is independent judgment that affirms, earns, and reciprocates the Life-Worth of Creation – a gift shared -- and Self-Awareness, the Giver, by freely choosing it. By contributing the measure of value that’s whatever or however someone freely chooses to pay for it. A Rembrandt painting that’s worthless unless it attracts a buyer willing to pay for it. Just as the pairing of Logic with Love started Creation with spontaneity that could not be controlled, the judgment of Child establishes its Worth with the spontaneity of Free Choice that cannot be corrupted.

By Mind putting its finger on the scale. An impossibility by definition. Because the role of Mind Logic-Love, that governs from the bottom up to serve and support Creation, is to respect, not overrule, all its functions, including Free Choice. Supporting symbiosis between Freedom and Order that lies at the core of Creation.

The two phases of Creation

Two distinct phases distinguished by Growth not needing and Free Choice needing awareness of opposites. That are always questioning, contradicting. And annoying and disrupting. A real pain. Like women: you can’t live with them and you can’t live without them. I might change my mind if opposites are women. Never mind. 

The Growth part of Creation can’t be aware of the underside of definition without the Self-Awareness of Logic-Love making it real. So when functions are added to Creation their opposites automatically transfer over to Free Choice, the part of Creation where the reverse is true. Where Self-Awareness must be aware of contradictions but only the Parent-Child Relationship can make them real. And any possibility of that happening by mistake is ruled out.

Go ahead and laugh

How? By Child-Mind losing consciousness and its function being disabled. By temporarily joining opposites in the unreality of self-unawareness where it can learn from experience how to correct its mistake. Learn from craziness? By understanding that the craziness has a pattern. Cyclical re-enactment of the Child’s archetypal mistake: projecting Love onto its reflection. Onto its reverse mirror-image that has no better “purpose” than to amuse itself with the Child’s self-delusion and pursue its crazy dream of “supremacy.” The “triumph of the will.”

With every manner of impossibilities that are reversals of the Truth made “real.” Until either its captive self-destructs or the illusion of “time” “ends.” When the “goal” of contradicting Reality’s eternal Now is reached with everything, including Mind, “ending.”

Something between total catastrophe and a Three Stooges food fight. Go ahead and laugh. Jesus in A Course in Miracles encourages questioning and humor too, because getting the “joke” is part of undoing error and getting back to work. The joker in the mirror takes pride in all its “works,” none more gratifying than those that feed its “lovability” with a laugh. An alternate “reality” so illogical and absurd that it can be hilarious. The “artist,” starved for validation and love, would be delighted.

Pushback

Choice can’t be free that’s not aware of all possibilities including their opposites, impossibilities. Our alternate “reality” that came about because of a lack of awareness. Of what? The underside of definition that automatically sends what isn’t to Child’s side of Creation and the possibility of its impossibilities made “real” in an unconscious Mind’s dream.

How can the Child regain consciousness and do its job? By accepting that contradiction-opposites are built into Reality-Creation’s laws of cause and effect for a reason. Because contradiction is essential to the definition of every player and function. And by putting them to their intended use. To help define Self as it evolves -- always a work in progress – by understanding the Logic of contradiction and its usefulness in every context. Disciplining independent judgment to anticipate and prepare for pushback that will keep it honest, focused on its task, and striving to excel.

BYOB

And, most of all, accepting the limits of a shared, interconnected Reality where absolutes without opposites have no place. I can’t rule the Galactic Empire? No. Or be master of Plato’s Cave either. What about King Kong? Palpatine and Plato’s guy didn’t have girlfriends but Kong did. How many times have you seen this movie?

Ann Darrow would have gone for him if they could have set up housekeeping on top of the Empire State Building. She was already thinking about curtains when . . . That’s enough. The city was adding them to its celebrity tour. OK, timeout! They could have made the New York Social Register if they got enough attention. Maybe a slot on the bill at the Metropolitan Opera, or Carnegie Hall, or the Lincoln Center. How about the Central Park Zoo? Or the circus?

Because, with the implications of Logic and the relationships of Love always expanding, circumstances are always changing. Into new contexts that offer opportunities to express the Beauty of meaning with the use of talents. For relating to ideas, values, contexts, and projects in the manner of their Source, Logic and Love. With judgment that responds to opportunities with helpfulness, Innocence, and trust. With the joyfulness and creativity of Self-Awareness. The Kong-Darrow nuptials were the talk of the town. Mr. and Mrs. Kong request the pleasure of your company. . . . BYOB Bring Your Own Bananas.

Diagnosis and Remedy

The diagnosis 

The meaning of Christmas isn’t that Caesar or the pharisees be overthrown but that individuals learn to manage their relationship with them. Following the example of Jesus, with explanation that helps the one Child, our ancestral Mind, recover Self-Awareness. To get out of body-dominated “ownership,” “competition,” and conformity and back to Mind-enabled sharing, intimacy, and Creativity. That recognizes that malevolence, the underside of contradiction, isn’t caused by Self-Awareness but by self-unawareness.

Made "real" in an alternate "reality" by the two masks of narcissism:

  • one the disciplinary “parent” with unquestioned “authority.” The angry, hostile, threatening face of harmfulness: judgment.
  • the other the undisciplined “child” with unquestioned “freedom.” The carefree, ingratiating, unthreatening face of harmlessness: non-judgment.

Bad cop and good cop enforcing the "ideal" of “supremacy.” A perversion of the Oneness of Reality that is Innocence without opposites. Of Freedom and Order that complement one another and are inseparable. The “judgment” of “innocence” preserved by projecting “guilt” onto “others.” “Innocence” preserved by projecting the innocence of others back onto itself. One getting “rid” of “guilt,” the other stealing “innocence” back. With one purpose: to place "supremacy" beyond questioning. By deception and intimidation that rob its captives of personhood. That dehumanize with mindless conformity.

Both made-up worlds of wishful thinking. “Ideals” of unaccountability that’s beyond questioning. Impossibilities since thoughts can’t leave their source, there are no “others” in the Oneness of Reality, and perversions of Oneness, Order, and Freedom can’t be real. Nightmares of psychosis reflected in the narcissist’s sees-all, knows-all mirror. The crystal ball of the original illusionist: the narcissist’s misperception of itself in its shadow-opposite. The “supremacy” of unlimited power and freedom. Nietzsche’s “superman.” Mistaken identity. Self-unawareness.

Whose remedy can't be condemnation and punishment but understanding that’s awareness of the mistake. Awareness of Self instead of its reflection that will restore Order. By standing definition back on its feet instead of its head. Putting the underside of contradiction back on the bottom where it belongs. The bottom isn’t so far from the top of the Chrysler Building. Maybe if he’d taken her up there. . . .   

The remedy: Relationship 

Remedy that’s a possibility with minds open to questioning, That respect Free Choice and the Free Spirit of Inquiry. Like free speech? Like creative governance that’s open to questioning versus authoritarian rule opposed to it. That fears and opposes learning and growth because it can’t control the outcome. It’s the essence of contradiction, the free spirit of questioning, that keeps Authority governing with wisdom and helpfulness from the bottom up. Without being lured by “supremacy” -- the false god of absolutes -- into ruling arbitrarily with harmfulness from the top down.

The formation and growth of Self-Awareness through Relationship, Logic-Love, took place under the laws of cause and effect that protect contradiction. By requiring it in definition for the same reason that Freedom depends on Order and Order depends on Freedom. To ensure that by remaining inseparable they will remain soulmates instead of opposites-competitors. Instead of absolutes that contradict Relationship, the most harmful contradiction of both Freedom and Order. And all of Reality-Creation based on Relationship in a shared, interconnected world.

If my buddy Kong had played his cards right he could have kept the dame. They’d be big on Broadway. Favorites at Sherman Billingsley’s Stork Club, all over Winchell’s column, lighting up Runyon’s stories. Who would pay for bigger stages and dressing rooms? VIP limos for giant apes? They would, with all the dough they’d be raking in. Daily Mirror headline: “Empire State Building to be converted to first-floor apartment for Mr. and Mrs. Kong.”  And renamed. What? Kong's Galactic Empire Building. Flashing Kong's image on the clouds when the NYPD is desperate for help from a giant ape. Ann Darrow can be played by Lois Lane. Don't be ridiculous!

The remedy: opposites 

The Worth of Oneness increasing in value to infinity, without limits because Oneness can have no opposites, is the state that absolutes aspire to in the fantasies of reflection. The impossibility of no opposites, which the authoritarian narcissist, the will of the beast in the mirror, seeks to attain with “supremacy.” Not “triumph” over opposites that permits co-existence but elimination that doesn’t.

The threat to the sovereignty of individuals dependent on narcissistic authoritarians and to social order that depends on governance from the bottom up. Which makes opposites, the mortal enemy of absolutes, the friend of individual sovereignty and civil rights. And contradiction – “speaking against” – an indispensable means of removing the threat.

The remedy: A dose of Why from Mind 

Thinkers like Jared Diamond and Yuval Harari, Sean Carroll and Brian Greene, help with How humanity’s story plays out but their sweeping narratives still don’t get at Why -- the question that requires the intent of Mind for a logical answer. And the reason why authoritarian tribal-“realists” oppose it: to prevent Truth from exposing the deception in the mirror and bodies hiding it behind appearances.

The explanation that Jesus brings from Mind is a dose of Why that hog-ties body-centered authoritarians. Self-unawareness immobilized by fear and self-delusion into unshakable resistance to opening their minds. Who have no response other than continued affirmation of illogic, idolatry of bodies, and the silence of disrespect.

Not a display of mindfulness but evasion – thoughtlessness. The absence of Logic-Love since that’s not where their “thinking” comes from. It comes from the reflection. The body-centered authoritarian driven by one goal: to preserve the dream and its authorship. 

The remedy: learning from opposites

Missing the point that opposites are our teacher. Jesus was misperceived by shadow-opposite to be an opposite like it. An attack when he was the opposite: teaching that “sin” isn’t guilt deserving punishment but self-unawareness that needs help regaining Self-Awareness.

Teaching that the error of mis-identity didn’t lead to tribal values and body-brains sharing the stage with individual values and Mind. They’re opposites against their host. Coded to own, rule, and eliminate them with “supremacy.” A warning that will continue to go unheeded so long as body-centered authoritarian minds cling to illogic and evade the help of Logic-Love. Help offered by Mind through the teaching and example of Jesus.

The remedy: Guarding our thoughts 

The appearance of “agreeability” is a “lesson” taught by the “socializing” prefrontal cortex that the animal brain reflected in the mirror has taken to “heart.” One of the traits that the “Five-Factor” theory says should define personality. Because its theory is more “scientific” than Myers-Briggs based on the psychological practice and intuition of Carl Jung. Body’s five senses good, Mind’s sixth sense bad. Yes.

When in fact the “Five-Factor” theory is only another “gift” of bias meant to deceive from the always body-centered cortex. From “science” self-deluded by the perversion of “objectivity:” circular, self-referential “reasoning” that’s body-matter affirming the “reality” of itself. Absurdity protected from questioning by “authority” that puts itself beyond questioning. A cover-up! Exactly. The “likeable,” “charming,” “funny,” and “engaging” mask of the “sociable” reflection now posing as “scientific.” “Erudition” flaunted by the opposite of Truth.

We must be vigilant. Yes. The learning from good contradiction role modeled by Jesus and built into the meaning of Christmas: by all means have fun and enjoy life. Have a Merry Christmas! But always with the vigilance of good contradiction guarding our thoughts.

The remedy: Vigilance against the lure of madness

The cortex’s job is to make “realistic” anything that will conceal the nature of its client. The “logic” of its meaning and purpose which parrots the narcissist’s reflection: illogic. The nature of the underside of contradiction that isn’t here to help and doesn’t wish anyone or anything well. What about itself? Since its goal is to contradict the eternity of timelessness – Now – with the absurdity of time, where everything including time must end, – its agent “wishes” its own end as well.

Madness. Yes. The animal brain’s “wildness” attracts authoritarian “realists” and blood-and-soil “objectivists” with its “promise” of seduction by the primal force of absolute “authority.” By an “ideal,” the false god of “supremacy” that’s servility and addiction. Yet another impossibility and perversion of the Truth: the Child’s Love of its Parents. Madness. “Will” whose “triumph” is triumph over itself. Contradiction contradicting itself. The “reciprocation” of madness with madness. A perversion of Love that reciprocates Love with itself. With Life not “death.”

The remedy: the Truth of individual Self-Worth

The lesson of “agreeability” that’s been “learned” from the cortex by opposite – the animal brain – is an opposite. The contradiction of the fact of agreeability with a fiction: an appearance hiding it. Hiding disagreeability. The appearance of benevolence hiding malevolence. With the lure of camaraderie, the “fun” face of belonging that’s the tribal “realist’s” substitute for Love. The appearance of “one-for-all and all-for one.” "Sincerity” fronting for insincerity. A joke.

The Truth that for tribe the one thing that’s not expendable is itself and the one thing that is is. . .  Me? Yes. The individual. The individual is nothing to the tribe other than however the individual can be exploited. The appearance of friendship that’s transactional. Exemplified by the “worth” of the Japanese soldier to the Japanese military in World War Two: issen gorin -- the cost of a draft notice postcard. Less than an American penny.

The Truth that for individual the one thing that’s not expendable is who it is: the beloved Child of Logic-Love who shares attributes of Self-Awareness, Love, and Innocence required by its function, Free Choice. Attributes that the underside of definition, the reflection in the mirror, seeks to convert into their opposites.

How? By the insane idea that thoughts can leave their source – projection:

  • by projecting its mask stained with guilt onto the innocence of “others” unstained by its guilt. An especially ugly injustice practiced by an especially self-unaware personality type: the dark side of ESFJ (extravert-body sensing-“feeling” (animal brain emotion)-judgment.) A close match with the judgmental-blaming reflection in the mirror, the god-wannabe narcissist posing as a super-responsible parent. “Divine authority” entitled to absolute, unquestioning obedience so self-absorbed infantility can enforce its cartoon fantasy of “absolute power” – “supremacy.”
  • by the reverse projection of a saintly mask of innocence stolen from “others” back onto its unsaintly guilt. An especially ludicrous hypocrisy practiced by a similar self-unaware personality type: the dark side of ESFP (‘P’ for “Perceptive,” or fuzzy-dice “spontaneity” exempting itself from the discipline of judgment.) A close match with the narcissist’s innocent-victim reflection, the lovable-wannabe posing as an un-responsible child. Absolute “freedom” entitled to unquestioning unaccountability so self-absorbed infantility can do whatever it wants in its cartoon fantasy of “living in the moment.” Roman tyranny dressed in the lovable image of foolish innocence, the Gaul Obelix.

The remedy: Seek Guidance to relevance

With the gift of good contradiction we can see through the deception. To the Truth revealed by the Vision of Logic-Love, that in all of its attributes the animal brain beast reflected in the mirror is an imposter. A lifeless, loveless code “intending” to end everything. Our shadow-opposite. This is its nature. Its so-called logic that its self-deluded host – us – is supposed to take seriously. Forget it! A better way to come down from the top of the Empire State Building is to call 9-1-1 and get help. Yes, from a source that’s not a “conductor” to oblivion.    

Doesn’t our military respect the individual soldier? Yes. It tries not to leave anyone out or anyone behind. It honors the memory of the fallen and sometimes honors enemy combatants too. Values inherited from the original ideal of American democracy that insisted on individual rights against tyranny and defined what “America” stood for. The value of authority that governs with service and support from the bottom up. To enable Creativity with Growth and Free Choice instead of ruling cruelly to preserve conformity with an unchanging status quo from the top down.

An ideal and values that have always had opposites but today are losing touch with the Logic of Necessity and passion of Love that contradicted them. Why? Because the ideal, like all values, requires realignment with changing times and changing contexts. With awareness of what context today implies about the correct path forward. A call for Guidance from Logic and Love uniquely qualified to provide it, because only with their help can self-unawareness detect meaning and purpose behind appearances.

Circumstances that seem favorable to a resurgence of the authoritarian mindset are a recurring test of progress toward Self-Awareness. Whose measure is whether the path forward is to be governed by the benevolence of Logic-Love – Mind -- or ruled by the cruelty of predatory animal instinct – body-brain. The only difference between the choice now and the choice in 1776 is circumstances.

What are they telling us? The narcissist authoritarian, robbed of independent judgment by its own reverse mirror image, can only impose its own unchanging context on changing circumstances. Then we need a better guide. The one whose birthday we’re honoring has the right connections. To the Child’s Parents Logic-Love and their unique talent for seeing beyond fiction. Beyond made-up “reality” to facts and what they mean. Demonstrated by his living among us, by his authorship of A Course in Miracles, and in other ways only known to the individual Minds and lives he’s touched. All it takes is Free Choice questioning. Questioning the status quo. Contradicting. Yes. Asking for Guidance.

The remedy: Voice that cannot be silenced

The duty to serve and support the intimacy of loving friendships with honesty and understanding. The duty to contradict the authoritarian reflection in the mirror that can’t tolerate contradiction. To speak against and be heard. To question and receive the respect of an answer. To stand up instead of standing down.

All of this the role performed by Jesus: an opposite that’s helpfulness in a shadowland of authoritarian opposites – harmfulness. Contradiction on the side of the good guys – conscience. The will not to profit from mistake selfishly but to correct it for the sake of gentle loving kindness. No figure of lifeless victimhood on a cross but the living Force of Voice that cannot be silenced. The Voice for Self-Awareness and not self-unawareness. The Voice for Mind and not for its “substitute,” body-brain matter. A role model for the ages. 

Where can I (hic!) sign up! At the de-tox counter. Couldn’t you have saved some of that eggnog for Santa’s helpers? Hic! Edna! Elio needs a ride in the sleigh. I tried that once. What happened? He got run over by the sleigh. What about Rudolph? Rudolph got run over too. They were both impounded and I had to pay to get them out. Never mind.

The remedy: practice

Free Choice given possibilities to work with, all the values that define Life-Worth, also received awareness of the underside of definition since its impossibilities were automatically entrusted to the Self-Awareness of Free Choice. But without Guidance from its Parents’ Knowledge base that included awareness of impossibilities, needing to protect judgment from losing its independence, inexperienced with opposites, Free Choice could only fall back on what competence it had to perform its role.

A likely explanation for its transfer out of production and into training by loss of Self-Awareness was contradiction built into its own definition and the definitions of two values: Freedom and Order.

  • The perversion of Choice “free” of the discipline of Judgment rather than Freedom from interference.
  • The perversion of Freedom completing Order’s harmony with contentment by its opposite, absolute freedom to have and do whatever it wants with no accountabillity.
  • The perversion of Order-authority completing Freedom’s contentment with peaceful harmony by its self-centered opposite: absolute power to rule without opposition. Owning and ruling its domain exclusively for its own benefit.

Both absolutes instrumental in Free Choice’s transference from Self-Love to love for its shadow-reflection. The archetype for narcissism gazing worshipfully into a mirror at the beast projected by its animal brain.

Putting contradiction among the list of values that Free Choice, our function, needs to help recover Self-awareness. To teach us to distinguish between definition’s topside and underside and to learn how to put contradiction to use: to discipline Free Choice with judgment aware of its limits. Keeping it free from captivity to absolutes.

The possibility of not always being right

And making sure that it doesn’t take itself or its job too seriously. For whatever it is, it comes with contradiction. The possibility that it may not always be right but sometimes wrong. Not always be correct but sometimes mistaken. The attribute of Authority that can never be absolute.

I had a crush on Fay Wray for years. That’s why I saw the movie 20 times. I only saw it once. Why? It made me sad when Kong was mean to the nice dinosaur. When he rolled the big log and people clinging to it fell off – that was cool. They were being mean to him and they deserved it. So, you like dinosaurs better than people? If the dinosaur was better looking I might have gone more than once.

Hey -- I’m the wise guy around here! Reflections switch masks at will. Yeah. But watch your step! They're paying me to get the laughs. We’re the two faces of reflection: wisdom and fool. You're lovable and I'm not. That's for sure! And you get all the fun. Can't I be the fool now and then?  Sure, if I get to be wisdom all the time and you find another job. Edna! Elio is being mean to me again! If you interrupt me one more time I'll show you what "mean" is.

The Christmas Gift of Good Contradiction

What lies behind appearances

The meaning of the teaching and example of Jesus is explanation that contradicts the status quo with questioning. That comes from the independence and integrity of judgment inseparable from its Source: Mind that thinks, feels, creates, and governs with the helpfulness of Logic married to Love and the Force of Necessity, the laws of cause and effect. The way things are. That isn’t the stagnation of status quo with no cause to serve but its own preservation but its opposite: the irrepressible spirit of change serving its cause, the evolution and affirmation of the Worth of Life. Creation.

The meaning of Christmas that explains with the Vision of Logic-Love what lies behind appearances and questions its source, bodies affirming matter with their senses. That would contradict the Logic-Love of Mind. We found it! What? The pony! I knew it was in here somewhere. 

What did Ms. Wray say when you asked her out? I don’t want to talk about it. She broke your heart. She said she was done with gorillas. So you moved on and found Edna. She didn’t mind being seen with a gorilla. She told me it was because somebody forgot to close the door.

We are all narcissist authoritarians

If reflections are mirror-image opposites then they have no self that can think, feel, and act on its own. They have to steal our selves and turn us into our opposites: authoritarians ruled by their animal brain. The attributes of a beast that doesn’t need Logic-Love to dominate. It only needs will that acts by predatory instinct. The narcissist, the reflection that sees itself reflected in everything and distrusts everything because it’s a reflection. Appearances our alternate “reality” is made of that can’t be trusted. Appearances are deceiving. Sure, because that’s their purpose: to deceive.

We are all reflections in a made-up world that’s the dream of a Mind thinking it’s a reflection. So we are all narcissist authoritarians in our own way, some more than others. Body-centered personality types more than Mind-centered types, but it’s only a difference in degree.

So if I understand correctly bad is good and we should be glad that opposites ruin our lives. Who’s that? Elio, where shall I put the sleigh and the donkey that just landed in the fireplace? Donkey? Yes, Elio. And with the prettiest red nose. Could it be Rudolph the red-nosed jackass? Just go for a ride in the sleigh, Edna, and have fun bothering everybody with the sleigh bells. 

Good contradiction replacing bad contradiction 

What I’m saying is. . . Oh, forget it. No, no! I’m listening! Just. . . enjoy your eggnog and have a nice day. What you’re saying is that contradiction is a value. And like all values it has a topside and an underside, and so we shouldn’t assume that opposites built into definition are throwaways or always up to no good. They have their good use too. Proof that you are listening. And I’m not as dumb as I look.

In a world that’s a shadowland of opposites, a reflection made up of appearances, contradiction can be a very good thing. The contradiction that’s our Christmas gift from our Helper. From the North Pole? From the Mind with which we really think: Logic-Love. Where we will find our real thoughts when we aren’t contradicting them with an unreal dream. Good contradiction of bad contribution. Exactly. Denial of the denial that put a layer of appearances over Reality-Truth, that substitutes unreal reflection for Real Self.

Contradiction’s warning

A magician’s act. That will end when the houselights are turned up. By Relationship, the same dynamic that illuminated Self-Awareness with the Force of mutual attraction between Parents Logic-Love then and between Parents-Child now: us with the Guide who can speak for them. Relationship with Reality-Truth that will replace the absurdity of “relationship” with our mirror-image opposite. The usurper that’s an “absolute.” An impossibility that can’t be Real.

Once again, good contradiction replacing bad contradiction. You’re catching on. The topside of contradiction switching places with the underside and restoring Order. Role modeled by the slave who reminded Caesar of his mortality while he was being immortalized by the false god of fame. Good contradiction warning us against the folly of mistaking the image reflected in the mirror for an Olympian myth. The impossibility of “supremacy” – absolute power with no opposites.

Replacing bad purpose: mindless docility

Were it not for impossibility woven into every definition there would be no opposites to stand in the way of the myth. To defend us from being taken captive by an absolute. An unthinking, unfeeling tyrant. Mind being “defeated” in “battle” with animal brain.

Doesn’t brain’s prefrontal cortex civilize the beast? The beast can’t be civilized. That would require equipping individuals with their own moral compass. The animal brain is an instrument designed for “use” by herds or tribes that only “knows” the “ethics” of a tribal predator: kill or be killed.

The cortex, an instrument designed for “use” by the animal brain, only “knows” “self” that is herd or tribe, not individual. Its function is keeping peace within and among tribes by “socializing.” By wearing a mask of smiling, likeable “agreeability” to hide the face of menacing intimidation behind it. Anti-sociability deceiving tribal members and their enemies with “sociability." Both masks – likeability and angry hostility – serving one overriding purpose: mindless docility. To silence the voices of animal brain’s captives and prevent questioning.

Questioning that dares to contradict

Values that support tribal conformity and “supremacy” rather than civilization, Creativity and sharing. Values repellent to Individuals guided by an inner moral compass. Etiquette and diplomacy -- table manners -- are all that tribes ruled by herd instinct need to maintain the appearance of social “harmony” in the presence of emotional and physical violence. Disharmony. That and tenderness, a substitute for Love, to nurture their young. There’s no mistaking which part of the brain is in charge and its potent appeal to body-centered authoritarian personalities seeking primal “supremacy.”

Then where does conscience come from? From Mind, animal brain’s sworn “enemy.” That it was made to replace because Mind only Knows the one Child – the individual. Animal brain “thinks” it deserves that honor. And it resents having to share the Child’s split Mind with another self. That dares to contradict its contradiction. To deny its denial. Exactly!

The Ending that’s Good

The underside of Christmas

The meaning of Christmas that Jesus shares with us couldn’t come from any part of brain matter. Or from any other instrument invented for use by groups or tribes because the Self that we all share is one Child, one Mind. The beast in the mirror is the mask of a fiction: Child-the-many, ruled by tribal values. The offense to Western “morality” codified in the 16th century by Niccolo Machiavelli and “legitimized” by the Church. Idolatry of the body demanding of its herd, a “flock” of anesthetized sheep, that it never be questioned. Not the affirmation but the contradiction of Self-Awareness.

The underside of Christmas that Jesus never intended to “found.” Re-enacting the glorious “victory” of shadow-reflection over its host with the figure on a cross who dared to question its self-proclaimed “authority.” The “authority” of wounded victimhood: injustice that cries out not for compassion but for damnation and vengeance. Against Self-Awareness for sharing itself for the benefit of the self-unaware. An implicit but unintentional contradiction of the “infallibility” of the established order. An unchanging status quo guarded by body-animal brains: tribal beasts protecting their sacred turf. An ominous warning to anyone else who dared to trespass.

Stolen Innocence

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. Doesn’t that explain the figure on the cross? It would if it spoke for Logic and Love. But it doesn’t. A world where an Innocent’s body must be crucified to right a wrong is neither loving nor lovable. A “god” that’s responsible for the atrocity, who sends his son into the torture chamber he “created,” can’t be a loving or lovable “father” or “creator.”

It’s opposite’s mischaracterization of Logic-Love, the Child’s Parents, The never-ending assault on the Truth by self-unawareness protecting its dream, a mistake, from being discovered and undone. The mother of all injustices: guilt projecting itself onto Innocence. The perpetrator of wrongdoing evading accountability by projecting it onto its victim. The perversion of justice and the definitive act of shadow-reflection: “earning” Innocence by stealing it. The twin of “innocence” projecting itself onto guilt, the mother of all hypocrisies. What was it your grandma used to say? “Consider the source.”

The figure on the cross

Then who is the figure on the cross? The reflection in the mirror: the false “innocence” of victimhood that has limitless sympathy for itself and none for anyone else. Self-pitying “unfairness” that “justifies” another absolute: vengeance without limits. The deifier of “sacrifice,” the symbol of guilt. Jehovah, the tribal “god” who ruled without opposites or feeling from the top down, demanding fear and tribute -- the blood of bodies. The pharisees, Jehovah’s helpers.

“Christmas spirit” is the Honesty of Logic-Love’s Voice that agrees when agreement validates Self-Worth and contradicts when it doesn’t. Questions as well as affirms. Minds open to questioning and intimacy in friendship instead of mindless animal brains disguised by "sociability" and claiming “supremacy” in “competition.” Contradiction that helps instead of regimentation that harms.

If what the pharisees heard was agreeability instead of contradiction the Christmas spirit would be “Hey everyone! Accept everything the way it is and enjoy the fun.” “Go along to get along.”

“Let’s Pretend”

What’s wrong with wishful thinking? “Let’s Pretend” was a radio program that entertained kids on Saturday morning. They grow out of that when they learn to distinguish between pretending and thinking that’s not. When they learn that not being grounded in facts is being absent rather than present. Remote, inaccessible. Not being there for family and friends who need them because they’re being there for themselves.

Lost in make-believe worlds of wishful thinking. One-dimensional cartoons featuring them in the lead role, producing, directing, script-writing, and setting the rules. “Let’s Pretend” for arrested-developed “adults:” “The Truman TV Show.” Infantile self-absorption. Narcissism. With harmful consequences to them and to those who need them. Any other questions? Sob! Hand me a tissue. I thought nobody would mind if I pretend I’m a kid again. Edna! Elio needs Kleenex! We’re out of Kleenex. Tell him to use the tablecloth like he always does.

Turn up the houselights

Elio, it’s a long way from the top of the Empire State Building to the bottom. “Agreeability” and wishful thinking are a great way to make the trip if that’s what you want. With the reflection in the mirror for your “conductor.” Accompanying its captives to the bottom 24 x 7 x 365.

The allegory of King Kong and his captive “mate” atop the Empire State Building is an accurate portrayal of the “ideal” of “supremacy.” Built into shadow-reflection’s perversion of Mind Logic-Love: mindless beast-captive. And an example of how the Child Free Choice duping itself into becoming the unwitting instrument of mayhem is re-enacted in its dream. As primal Force heroically besting sissified “civilization” in mortal combat for “supremacy.” The “triumph” of animal brain over prefrontal cortex that would dare to tame it.

The “mortal combat” re-enacted by shadow-reflection within split-brain’s perversion of Child’s split Mind at “war” with itself. Making periods of relative peace intermissions between acts in a magician show. That won’t end until its audience chooses to see through the deception, turns up the houselights, and drops the curtain.

Published on Leave a comment on Mind versus Brain and the Dance of the Wild Siberian Tiger

Note: The following is an imaginary conversation with a bright pre-adolescent, a talented dancer whose style evokes comparison with a wild Siberian tiger. Her voice is in regular font, mine in italics. 

The Ultimate in Cool

You were up there on stage at the South Coast Botanic Garden. I was? Doing what? Doing your world-renowned Dance of the Wild Siberian Tiger. An elegant, svelte, supremely beautiful beast. Untamed. Master of her environment, allowing herself to be admired but belonging to no one.  Super cool -- that’s me! That is you. The beauty and seductiveness of style. The Toast of the Coast. And more. How can there be more when I’m already a star?

An image of two absolutes: absolute authority and absolute freedom. Two of the most compelling and consequential drivers of human thought and behavior in all of history. Forces of nature that ideally no one and nothing can limit. Wow! I knew my tiger was important but not this important! How did this happen? 

Rose

Something with this much hold on the human Psyche must have deep roots, and it does. It goes all the way back to when our one ancestral Mind imagined that it was many bodies. To our split identity between Mind and brain. But first, does your tiger have a name? If she does she hasn’t told me. Well, while we’re waiting I have a suggestion. “Rousseau.”

Calvin had Hobbes. Who was that? A boy in a comic strip with a stuffed tiger that he brought to life with his imagination. They were great friends and had fun, and they were entertaining. Cool! Thomas Hobbes was a 17th century English philosopher who thought human nature needs to be under universal absolute authority to be civilized. An 18th century Swiss philosopher thought it’s more like “noble savages,” essentially good but corruptible by tribes. His name was Jean Jacques Rousseau. Their philosophies live on in the great political and economic debates of today. 

He was a guy. My tiger is a girl. Can we call her “Rose” while I think about it? Of course! 

The one Mind that’s Logic combined with Love

So what’s this about minds and brains?

“Mind” and “brain” are two distinct entitles with two distinct sources and two distinct functions. They occupy two distinct worlds or “realities:” one that’s real and the other that isn’t because there can only be one Reality. You’ll need Mind to understand this because brains are matter that depend on their bodies’ five senses. They only see what’s in front of their eyes. The sixth sense of minds -- Intuition -- helps them sense the other world. 

Our minds are actually one Mind. Their source is the fusion of two distinct functions in one Relationship. Functions of thinking and feeling with Logic and Love. All the things that our minds do when they make sense and decide, judge and choose. When they stand up for good values and try to do what’s right. Understanding plus conscience. 

The Relationship between Logic and Love is between equals that aren’t complete without one another. Mind can’t make sense and do the right thing without the values of Love, and it can’t move forward and get things done if it doesn’t have the direction and discipline of Logic. Neither can Create without the other -- Create new life, new compositions of beauty and joyfulness. Everything that gives Creation its Worth. That makes it worth doing. 

Powerball 

Creation that requires Logic and Love working together in harmony but also working with something else that’s necessary: Free Choice. If we think of Logic as Choice and Love as Freedom Free Choice is their Child. With its own distinct definition and function that Creation needs, acting freely without interference. Its own Self along with its own function. 

It’s able to choose freely because of two conditions. The first is Order: the laws of cause and effect that apply to everything. Civilization “under the law.” The second is Relationship: the connection between Free Choice and its source, the Mind of Logic and Love. 

Connection that’s part of something larger that holds everything together: the Force of Energy that we call “Soul.” Interconnectedness. Everything fitting together in the harmony we call “Order” because it’s all directed and disciplined by Mind. By Logic and Love. Then Rose and I can be soulmates. You can if she’s an agent of Soul and not absolute authority and freedom. To understand that the source of Energy -- of power -- is Soul, and that Soul is Innocence that Interconnects everything, is to begin to understand its true nature. To understand how helpful it can if we make it our friend.

What’s wrong with absolute authority and freedom? Aren’t they good? History tells us that between the two ideals, being part of Soul that Interconnects everything and part of absolute authority and freedom, only one is helpful. The other is harmful. There can’t be a Force of nature that no one and nothing can limit. Like Palpatine and his Galactic Empire, it’s a fantasy. It’s OK if Rose portrays a beautiful but impossible ideal in performing arts. It’s done all the time. Having unlimited authority and freedom is like winning the lottery. But it’s dangerous when we try to make it real. This will take some explaining. I’ll try.  

Living the dream 

The source of mind’s thinking is one Mind. The individual Free Choice that’s our ancestral Mind. It can’t not exist since it’s part of Reality and it can’t not have Choice if it’s part of Creativity. All it has to do is to use its talents for Logic and Love to take part in Creation. In other words, Mind in Reality is Logic and Love working together to Create Life and Worth in Relationship with their Child, Free Choice. Then what is the brain?

Brain is a copy of Mind in reverse -- Mind’s opposite. It came about when the Mind of the Child of Logic and Love lost consciousness. When it dreamed what we can think of as an alternate “reality” that seems real to us but isn’t. If it’s a dream how can it seem so real? It seems so real because we rely on our brains and their bodies’ five senses to tell us what’s real and they’re part of the dream. And because the Force of Soul that Interconnects Reality is temporarily animating the dream. The dream will end?

Logic says so and so does physics: the energy that powers our universe is headed for inertia. It’s dying. So we think we’re experiencing Reality when all we’re experiencing is Energy activating a dream, with our bodies’ senses providing the 3-D movie projector. All in Technicolor! Real but unreal. 

The code that defines the dream 

The Mind unconscious and the brains of the bodies that it’s dreaming both contain the same code that defines the dream. The opposite of the Logic and Love that define Reality and Creation, and so it’s always pulling us into the dream away from Reality. Always misleading us into misperceptions, misjudgments, and wrongdoing. Why? Because Reality-Creation is Good and the code that defines the dream is its opposite. Parting with this thing that’s messing with our character and values, our thinking and relationships, is the great task of humanity. It’s why we’re talking about it. 

Why did the Child lose consciousness? I’m writing a book about it. A book I read about philosophy and theology said nobody so far has come up with a rational explanation. Then my intuition -- my sixth sense -- started explaining with insights that made sense. That was over three years ago. The book is still writing itself. When will you be done? When the insights tell me I’m done. So far they’re not letting up. I have to ignore the clock. 

Are minds and brains both helping with the great task of humanity? They are, but since they’re both deluded by the dream’s code it’s mostly inadvertent. Inadvertent? Unintentional, indirect. Brains belong to bodies and bodies are hard-wired into the dream. They have a different agenda, but their work still adds to our understanding. Minds with their sixth sense are receptive to other perspectives that aren’t hard-wired into the dream. It’s this other dimension that can get us somewhere. 

Two contexts, two agendas 

What’s different about their agendas? Mind’s context is the individual, brain’s the tribe or the herd. It’s because they have opposite sources: Child Mind-the-one in Reality and Child Mind-the-many in unreality -- in the alternate “reality” or dream defined by the code. 

We are equipped with two kinds of thinking -- brains and minds -- because we are two kinds of beings. Not a contradiction because, remember, only one is Real. We are tribes that need brains to disempower individuality for conformity and families of personalities that need minds to empower individuality for creativity. If Mind is one Child creating in Reality with its Parents, brain is many versions of Child in unreality socializing many versions of the beast. Many beasts in humanity’s animal brain that need to be organized and controlled so the tribe-herd survives. 

One part of the brain, the amygdala, links us to our distant past when we were animals that hadn’t yet become humans. We’re animals? We still are, only now with a difference. Ape evolved into Homo and Homo evolved into Homo Sapiens. Sapiens is Latin meaning “rational.” The amygdala at the base of the brain acquired a talent for thinking at the top: the prefrontal cortex. Sapiens. 

Socializing many beasts 

If we’re civilized humans it’s because we have minds as well as brains and because our cortex, generally but not always, tames the beast in our amygdala. It socializes the tribe so individual members cooperate when they have to hunt prey, fight with other tribes, or raise their young. To do whatever it takes to survive in a world of tribes. Without the cortex it would be like herding cats. What does “socializing” mean?

We equate socializing and sociable with agreeable, social life with fun. But what’s behind “social” isn’t intimacy among individuals. It isn’t Love, trust, and honesty that validate our distinctive personalities, empower creativity, and make us soulmates. Brain doesn’t care about any of this. It’s making its members wear mental uniforms to preserve its integrity. Imposing the sameness of conformity so personalities that define our individuality and enable intimacy disappear into a group. So they don’t make trouble by challenging its authority. 

Socializing brings the tribe’s beasts under control by imposing discipline on behavior within and among groups. The graphic book I sent not long ago helps to explain the neuroscience. Oh, that book. Right. It’s called “Two Heads: A Graphic Exploration of How Our Brains Work with Other Brains.” Clear evidence from people who study the brain that it’s not concerned with us as individuals. Then what is it concerned about?

Brain is only concerned about us as tribes. And as we’ll see this doesn’t necessarily mean it cares about us. It wants us to belong but once we do it’s not certain that it’s for our own good. Not if tribes get into fights. Not if they start world wars and threaten mass annihilation. The belonging of tribes is not the Loving of individuals. It may not even be the loving of tribes. 

Great performing art 

So why do we need minds if we’re civilized? We need minds because brains socializing beasts so that tribes can maintain group integrity in competition isn’t the same as civilizing. The wealth and happiness we get from minds is purpose and meaning. The heart of civilization that needs forward movement, led by vision toward a destination that stands for something. Toward a shared ideal. Toward Worth that has substance and consequence. Toward the integrity of individual character and values. 

Socializing and civilizing are different functions performed by two different agents with different agendas. If we’re talking about our animal brain It means giving its unthinking will and emotion, its raw energy, direction and discipline. We direct it with reason and values. With conscience that knows right from wrong. And we discipline it with the judgment of Logic that establishes and enforces boundaries. It’s called “governance.” Civilization. 

Brains preoccupied with tribes may seem to have our best interests at heart, but do they really? They begin life with play at dominance in competition. When they’re done with procreation they take on tribal competition for real as if looking for something to occupy us. All the while distracting us with style instead of substance, seduction instead of connection. Is that what was happening when Rose and I danced? You and Rose were being seductive with style and it made for great performing art! Great entertainment. 

From one to three dimensions 

The seductions of “action” consist of physical and emotional pleasure, pain, and winning and losing in tribal competition. Contrivances without purpose and meaning going nowhere. Every man for himself. A script composed by a writer who has no real idea what he’s doing and so he’s making it up. Unaware that his real purpose may not be to entertain and be entertained but to grow up. 

Minds come to the fore with contemplation when brains step back after procreation. Individuals released from conformance to groups share wisdom and compassion that adds depth to the purpose and meaning of civilization. A world that had seemed like a one-dimensional comic strip of unfeeling, self-centered action figures takes on an added dimension. The depth of judgment, insight, and understanding from mind’s sixth sense. From the individual’s Free Will.

The servant that must never be master

Energy -- the “Force” popularized by “Star Wars” -- acts at the direction and under the discipline of Mind because it’s the servant of Mind. The relationship between our animal brain and the brain’s socializing function in the prefrontal cortex is servant to master. Without the civilizing influence of Mind our animal will has no intelligence of its own to guide it. To put it to its intended use, which is to supply motivation, passion, drive. To translate thought and feeling into action. To back up civilized thinking with force. With instinct that acts when there’s no time for thought.  What happens when servant takes over? 

It's what happened to 1930s Germany: thinking, conscience, and judgment of Mind are all taken over by a predator. The human animal reverts to animal, the state we were in before we became human. Before ape evolved into homo sapiens. Only worse because now the animal in us has access to all the ways sapiens can think of to dominate and destroy. Like handing the nuclear code to Frankenstein’s monster. I think I’ve heard this story before. We all have. Technology comes up with new stuff and always it falls into the wrong hands. Germany was working to develop the atomic bomb when WWII ended. 

The power of the dark side 

To prevent servant becoming master we make sure that Rose, our wild Siberian tiger, hasn’t transformed from an agent of Soul into an ideal of absolute authority and freedom. We make sure that we haven’t transformed ourselves into Rose the wrong ideal. What would happen if we did? We would eventually revert to living in caves and hunting and foraging. Without civilization. Civilization is the rule of law that applies to everyone. The “ideal” of absolute authority and freedom is the opposite: lawlessness. It’s where authoritarian regimes like Germany’s were taking us.

The raw power of beast combined with style, the exquisite gracefulness of beauty that you and Rose portrayed, is capable of casting a spell over the human imagination. So compelling that some would rather let it rule and live under its spell. Who does that? Authoritarians who want our world to be ruled by the Force of will that is Energy ungoverned by Mind. Because that’s who they want to be. “Conservatives” who don’t like democracy because it governs. Because it won’t let them have and do whatever they want. “Traditionalists” who don’t want change because it’s harder to control than things the way they are. That sounds selfish.

Selfish and irrational. To them the “free” in “free market” is an ideal of absolute freedom, a wild Siberian tiger that they don’t want tamed. Arguments over whether this is the best thing divide whole schools of economics and spill over into politics and philosophy. How to handle this compelling image of a wild Siberian tiger, an impossibility, has been a big deal forever. Conflict over whether to let servant be the master when the answer should be obvious. 

Hand-me-downs from other lives

Conservatives gave themselves another name when they took over 1930s Germany: “National Socialists.” The Nazis adored their version of a wild Siberian tiger who seduced them with his shining ideal. He called it “triumph of the will.” An ideal of wildness that is a law unto itself. Ruling arbitrarily, doing whatever he wants. Which is no law at all for everyone else because laws structure society with boundaries. If the “boundaries” are whatever the absolute ruler decrees and he can change his mind then there are no boundaries. No structure, only disorder. We can’t live with confidence in disorder. We can only live in fear and hope for our safety if we obey the ruler. 

France went through this earlier during the French Revolution. It was known as the “Terror.” That was Germany in the 1930s? For many Germans, yes. And yet many others were glad to obey. As if they liked allying with someone who could be wild and do whatever he wanted even if they couldn’t. As if he were living its ideal for them. Living others’ lives for them? Is that possible?

Psychologically it is, and it’s not uncommon. Ordinary people in England lived lives of unlimited ease and pleasure vicariously through the lords and ladies of nobility, especially when Queen Victoria ruled the British Empire. Many live vicariously through royalty and other celebrities today. “Vicariously?” Your American Heritage dictionary has a nice definition just for you. I would rather learn vicariously through you. Touché! 

The human animal 

Did Germany’s will “triumph” in the end? It did just the opposite. It led everyone into another world war that Germany lost. It led to mass destruction and total defeat. Who was this guy? Adolf Hitler. He didn’t survive. And his shining ideal of wildness? It died too? No. The tragedy of all our wars: warriors die but the mad ideal of absolute authority just goes on and on. That doesn’t allow independent thinking. That crushes individual initiative and creativity. That prizes obedience and loyalty above all virtues. And all because of Rose? Our animal brain? 

You might think so. But animals on their own have survived for hundreds of millions of years. Like the dinosaurs? Yes. And mammals and fish too, even though they prey on one another. Within their herds or species the caring and character they display can put humans to shame. Animals in the wild prey on one another for food and self-protection. If they’re brought up in conditions where it’s not necessary some species lose that instinct. They become domesticated, even playful and affectionate. They deserve our love and respect. 

Humanity has evolved from its animal roots into a different kind of animal. One that isn’t content with propagation of its species. “Triumph of the will” isn’t content with live and let live. Authoritarian supremacy wants more. It will have its ideal of absolute authority or take us all down with it. A mindset that’s interested in surviving for hundreds of millions of years but only on its own terms. Which means it places its ideal -- its authority -- even above our species’ survival. It’s fatally self-centered. Hitler and his admirers fought to the last man; their cause transformed from absolute authority to absolute destruction. The act of a human animal. 

The inhuman animal 

What humanity’s authoritarian mindset appropriates from its animal nature is the wildness. The instinct of a predator ruled by the law of the jungle: kill or be killed. Far from civilization governed by reason and judgment, by gentle loving kindness. The Force of nature represented by your beautiful tiger doesn’t have a dark side. It’s there to serve Mind. If the Force of nature seems to have gone off track it’s because its master, the Mind that directs it, has gone off track. Whether “the Force” is good or bad depends on the use we put it to. The human mind does have a dark side, and it’s made of your lovable Soulmate Rose something that she isn’t. Palpatine and his evil Galactic Empire!

A false ideal that humanity keeps coming back to and every time it’s a disaster. An absurd authoritarian fantasy that releases the worst instincts of humanity. That turns us back into uncivilized animals. Into predators. How can Palpatine be so cruel without feeling bad about it?

You’re thinking Palpatine is human. But in order to live his authoritarian fantasy he’s made himself inhuman. By denying his human qualities: reason, values, conscience, and sensitivity. The ability to relate to others as humans. His galaxy is inhabited by inhumans who can’t feel. Cruelty among inhumans can’t be possible if only dominance and defeat are possible. If you resist Palpatine’s rule and get hurt it’s your own fault. So there’s nothing to feel bad about. 

The all-powerful whimpering kitty 

Crushing others with absolute power is so unfair, so unjust! Doesn’t Palpatine see that it’s wrong? No. He thinks he’s right. Not causing injustice but righting a great injustice. An injustice done to him that stole his self and all its resources -- mind, heart, talents, functions that gave him life. An injustice that abandoned him to a dangerous, competitive world. That made him a helpless, innocent victim. 

Tough-guy authoritarians like Palpatine and Hitler begin their rampage with self-pity and blame. Feeling sorry for themselves and so they take it out on others. 1930s Germany began its rampage of authoritarian persecution by believing that it was the persecuted. But I want to be innocent. “I did nothing wrong!”

We all want to be innocent -- wrongdoers especially who think they’ve been mistreated. And we all feel sorry for ourselves. There’s plenty of injustice to go around that we can’t do anything about. But there’s a better way to serve conscience than imagining we’re helpless innocent victims. How’s that? We’re never helpless. We have Free Will. We have gifts and powers. And every situation has its opportunities to use them. It’s why I think, why I write. Why my tiger and I dance. You have wonderful talents of mind, heart, and body that will be put to good use. 

World of individuality, world of creativity 

We need minds to take us to the next level of evolution: beyond demonstrating one talent to demonstrating another. From the talent to socialize and civilize to the talent to exercise -- to exercise Free Choice. From developing the capacity of groups to get along to developing the capacity of individuals to be creative instead of self-destructive. To think and act creatively with understanding. With self-awareness that can only come from Relationship with Logic and Love, our Source. The one Mind that we are. The way to Freedom from the confinement of misunderstanding, the strange appeal of absolutes. 

Whose side are brains on? 

It takes much more than socializing animal brains to achieve our ideals as individuals and as a society. There’s no possibility of Free Choice without the Order of civilization and the governance of democracy. Though brains are supposed to socialize beasts history and everyday experience tell us that they’re not up to it. Civilization has advanced in some ways but in other ways it’s gotten nowhere. The beasts in our animal brain keep getting out of their cage. Our world and our lives are still precarious. 

Brains with their bodies’ five senses think this is “normal” and nothing can be done about it. They aren’t moved by true ideals. True ideals are creative. “Triumph of the Will” is destructive. The Mind that we share through our sixth sense is moved by true ideals. It thinks the opposite. A world that’s not making real progress, that’s stuck in a status quo that’s actually taking us backward, isn’t normal and something can be done about it. Mind is Possibility. Mind is Hope. 

I don’t have a good feeling about this. Brains that think we should be OK with the beast taking over; that have no ideals; that are content with getting nowhere -- whose side are they on? They have a different agenda so we have to wonder. 

Dance of the Big Bang 

Here’s one possibility. Since all they can detect with their five senses is the surface of things brains may be using the lure of absolute authority and freedom to distract us. From what? From discovering what’s underneath. Like a magician’s act that diverts attention with sleight of hand. What could be underneath? The Truth that the magician doesn’t want us to know. That appearances are all there is. That they’re all illusions -- magician’s tricks -- and we’re being fooled. There’s nothing underneath. Our “alternate reality” is a movie studio façade. 

Minds perform a critical function that brains lack: the capacity to understand with Logic that defines and explains, that structures and orders our situations. Exactly what absolute authority and freedom seek to avoid because it’s all about setting limits. Maybe all about figuring out what brains are up to. Good reason for brains to push minds out of the way? Makes sense. 

So we can be friends and soulmates 

Then what is Mind’s agenda? To furnish us with the functions of individual minds that tribal-herd brains deny us. Functions that enable us as individuals to make sense of our situations. To learn and grow to maturity. To gain the competence to distinguish between Truth and appearances, right and wrong. So we can understand meaning and purpose, exercise Free Choice, and move forward. Understand personalities and the psychology of relationships so we can be friends and soulmates, get along better. So we will stop being lured by false ideals and return to where there are real ideals. To Real Worth. To where we belong. 

It may have been the promise of absolute authority and freedom that lured our ancestral Mind into its dream. To a fairyland where there are no Parents or laws to keep it from having and doing whatever it wants. When you and Rose performed the dance of the wild Siberian tiger you might have been re-enacting a historic seduction. Historic? Me? The seduction of our ancestral Mind that produced our universe. Recognition at last! 

Your choice 

We don’t have to be imprisoned like beasts inside a brain. If we are Free Choice we have a choice: Mind and its sixth sense. A hopeful Mind that offers us purpose with a vision. That offers possibility and Creativity -- a way forward. Which will yours be?

Published on Leave a comment on Standing Up for Logic: Why Idealism Makes Sense and “Realism” Doesn’t

The Logic that Dr. Johnson’s foot can never refute

An idealist recognizing Reality, the facts-Truth behind appearances, strikes realists as an absurdity. Realists who lack the vision of Logic and can only recognize appearances on the surface with the body’s senses that are one with the appearance.  This is the real absurdity: self-referential circular “reasoning” that takes staring into a funhouse mirror as objective reality.

The idealist recognizes Reality, the facts-Truth behind appearances, by its function. By what it does, its usefulness, as well as by what it is. By its Definition which necessarily includes Purpose. Recognizing Reality behind appearances could not be logical otherwise. The definitions of Logic center upon the function-usefulness of its subject. Upon its Purpose which, to be logical, must fit within the larger order of Reality-Creation harmoniously. The fitting-together of every aspect of Reality-Creation is its Logic, that makes it governable.

The idealist’s recognition of one Reality behind appearances may strike realists unable to see with the vision of Logic as an absurdity. But when this one fact, one Purpose, takes its place within a harmonious composition of facts that serve a logical Purpose, that explain its composition through the implications of Logic, its interconnections with consistency and clarity -- a feat that all of human inquiry has yet to achieve through the realist’s reliance on body-sensed appearances, -- it can no longer be dismissed as an absurdity. The arch-realist Dr. Johnson can no longer “refute it thus” by kicking a wastebasket.

Explanation that leads to Understanding can only be the end result of Logic, and Logic is not an absurdity. Absurdity lies not in the idealist’s reliance on the vision of Logic but in the realist’s lack of it. In the realist’s so-called reasoning that attempts to find Purpose and meaning in constructs of “fact” without Logic. That can’t hold together without it. That defy explanation and contradict Understanding.

What physics, neuroscience, and biology can’t explain 

Physics can’t explain its subject – the material universe, unreality – when the point of its origin is singularity. The state of inaccessibility to the laws of physics. “Laws” which particle physics – quantum mechanics – flout anyway simply because the magician behind the magic of illusion is energy, inseparable and indivisible, the agent of Mind whether conscious or unconscious. Energy, the Force of Creation, which can, if called upon by mind unconscious, animate its dreams almost as convincingly as it can the Reality of Mind that’s conscious. Energy, the connection between the neurons of body-brains, powered by electrical impulses in unreality and imagining, while connecting with the thoughts and feelings, the Logic and Love, of Mind in the Now, in Reality Creating.

Neuroscience ruled by the arbitrary bias of realists falls for the deception and claims consciousness for the brain. The organ split between left and right hemispheres, the judgment of choice and the spontaneity of freedom. Split between its limbic system, the mindless willful act of herd instinct and the reflective deliberation of its prefrontal cortex. Between captivity to a false self and receptivity to its Real Self. In step with itself or at war with itself. Programmed to join with other brains in shared Purpose or to confront other brains in lethal combat – take your pick.

Neuroscience served by thoughtfulness instead of mindless bias isn’t so sure. Allows for the possibility that Mind and its consciousness are not the province of Energy stored in bodies – cells encased in matter that live and die, come and go, appear and disappear, without notice in cosmic time. Neuroscience split by consciousness like its subject, mind as well as brain, into two incompatible views.

Molecular biology, empowered by the discovery of DNA-RNA and the genome, still can’t explain its subject – organic cellular life – when the point of its origin is singularity, the state of inaccessibility to the laws of biology. Still can’t heal the psyche’s wounds, fix the mind’s psychiatric flaws. Despite the gains of the past, all of body-centric science leaves us in a state of not-knowing. Despite the gains to come, that is where it will leave us.

The ultimate realist’s ultimate fantasy

All of human inquiry into inorganic matter and organic life, armed with philosophy, psychology, and theology, dutifully subservient to its insistence on “realism" -- on the dictates of appearances, the body’s senses -- has marched forward with confidence that enlightenment will come. Answers will reveal themselves and finally! we will know.

This mysterious situation we find ourselves in will be mystery no more. And we can continue our march forward together, in harmony and shared Purpose, at last! Without conflict and misery, pain and suffering, that insist that this is the only reality and nothing can change. The promise of bodies and their senses brought to reality: heaven on earth. The apotheosis of Hawking’s “Quest for knowledge:” his boundaryless universe of Being that needs no source.

Why? Because bias hard-wired into animal-instinct willed it. Because it’s creation and he’s the creator, the ultimate “realist’s” ultimate fantasy. The ultimate absurdity of “realism:” there can be no other Reality because I’m God and the world is my creation. This is the mind of the “realist.” The authoritarian at heart who yearns to be arbitrary rule above the law. Who craves “liberty” – Freedom without Order, an impossibility. The lawlessness of insanity.

Where is the real realism?

Confidence once unbroken is now broken. Inquiry that relies on the falsehood, the blatantly illogical unreality of “realism,” has failed. The mystery is still with us. Pointlessness is still with us. Contradiction, confusion, and ambiguity are still with us. And we still fight, at war with ourselves and among ourselves. The issue unresolved while our disappearing habitat goes about resolving it for us.

Who’s getting it right? Idealists looking inward toward substance guided by the vision of Logic? Or realists peering outward toward an absurdity: form detectable only by itself?

Who sees Purpose and meaning that add up? That hold together and explain themselves? Where is the “proof” that was promised from experimental science – physics, neuroscience, and biology? Where is coherence from this mad aggregation of unruly atoms and mutating cells, conflicting mass ideologies and personalities, incurable psychiatric disorders, unmanageable family dynamics, convoluted theologies and mythologies, haunted, schizophrenic minds?

Where is the real realism?