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Peter says:

hello

Coffee Overdose says:

hello

Peter says:

how are you?

Coffee Overdose says:

super thank you

Peter says:

sorry, i haven’t asked henk for those phd things yet

Peter says:

you sound happy

Coffee Overdose says:

don’t worry

Coffee Overdose says:

I’ve realised that I am Divine

Peter says:

why this sudden insight?

Coffee Overdose says:

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about all this stuff

Coffee Overdose says:

Gnostic experiential knowledge

Coffee Overdose says:

and all that

Peter says:

aha, and?

Coffee Overdose says:

well, I rather enjoy it

Peter says:

the gnostic bit or the experiential bit?

Coffee Overdose says:

I’m not really an expert on gnostic belief to be honest

Coffee Overdose says:

but I’ve been thinking about manifested consciousness

Peter says:

that’s good. Gnostic, as far as I see it, has become some sort of way of giving a vague sense of spirituality to our experiences of consciousness, woithout actually saying God?

Peter says:

Is that right?

Coffee Overdose says:

It’s saying that all that you perceive is God, i.e. you, as creator of the universe of manifested symbols

Coffee Overdose says:

Hence my being Divine

Peter says:

I see.

Peter says:

oh, that means I am too!

Coffee Overdose says:

yes, you may be another consciousness

Peter says:

or, of course it means that god is human

Coffee Overdose says:

and I have no idea what your perceived universe is like

Peter says:

which is true too. That was the whole point of Christ of course

Coffee Overdose says:

yes, it seems that organised religions come very close but miss the point when they get enmeshed in objective reality somewhere “out there” and transcendentalist ideas as separatism

Peter says:

Gnosticism seems to me to be basically a european version of Buddhism in some sense. No difference between the microcosm and the macrocosm, it is all cosmos.

Peter says:

we are all divine because we are all part of the cosmos etc.

Coffee Overdose says:

yes, that sort of thing…. but then there’s the question of what exactly the cosmos is

Peter says:

well, yes, though as an old materialist I wuold of course say that it just is. We jus5t have to find some way of coing to realise that and deal with it

Coffee Overdose says:

some other way of what?

Coffee Overdose says:

coming to realise

Coffee Overdose says:

I see now

Coffee Overdose says:

how would we realise it?

Coffee Overdose says:

How can we know what reality is outside of human observation?

Peter says:

coming to realise that the cosmos is and that wea re part of it, nbut not the centre of it. OUr perception is just a by-product of our being human.

Peter says:

well, of course what we know of hte univrese is conditioned by our perception but its existence isn’t predicated on our perception.

Peter says:

It predates us and it will post-date us as a species

Coffee Overdose says:

how can we know that?

Coffee Overdose says:

there is no valid test

Peter says:

because we have physical evidence

Coffee Overdose says:

but how can we qualify that?

Peter says:

We qualidfy it all the time through scientific analysis and discopvery and the gradual development of our knowledge of the world outseide perception

Coffee Overdose says:

but scientific knowledge has shown itself to be entirely malleable and contextually contingent

Peter says:

of course it is contingent, but it is contingent upon reality, not perception.

Coffee Overdose says:

so reality changes?

Peter says:

no, our perception of reality changes as we become more aware of its concrete nature

Coffee Overdose says:

right… so the more we learn, the more correct our knowledge

Peter says:

yes, though of course, with the proviso that it is alwasy provisional

Peter says:

but of course we are talking about two types of reality as well. IN the first case there is a concrete reality which exists outside of human perception adn which we use our deveeolping perception to interpret, and then ther eis the reality of human perception which is never complete or true but only approoximate.

Coffee Overdose says:

All I can say, and even this is without certainty, is that I feel that I am perceiving reality

Coffee Overdose says:

from there I have to posit a belief

Peter says:

that’s fine, that’s what I eman by the second sort of realtiy, rpovisional, uncertain, incoplete etc. but it is not the whole story. Ther is also a reality which is independent of presception.

Peter says:

Descartes got it the wrong way round. I am therefore I think, should be the motto for life!

Peter says:

The way that I am determines the way that I think but existence is primary

Coffee Overdose says:

yes…though I’m finding it increasingly difficult to think of it as a manifest existence

Coffee Overdose says:

but there seems to be credence in the idea of there being an infinite expanse of symbols

Peter says:

Yes, I think that is true, but there are not only symbols. Ther is also an infinite expanse of reality. the symbols go alonside that reality, sometimes touch, sometimes get close to explaining but reality is there too.

Peter says:

to believe that there are only symbols is the height of anthropocentrism

Coffee Overdose says:

yes, infinite realities for all reflexive symbols (consciousness)

Coffee Overdose says:

which do not need to be human

Peter says:

If “The Clever Animals” as Nietzsche called us were to all die out tomorrow, reality would still exist

Coffee Overdose says:

but what did he mean by Uebermensch?

Coffee Overdose says:

that’s what I’m thinking about

Peter says:

someone who comes to realise what I just said!

Peter says:

Amor Fati etc.

Peter says:

The Ubermescnh is the Ja Sager, the person who says yes to his own fate and insifgnificance

Coffee Overdose says:

and then what?

Peter says:

die

Peter says:

happily

Coffee Overdose says:

insignificance of the perceived realm as objectove reality which exists in itself…. and this is a death, then a rebirth

Coffee Overdose says:

into a synthesis between symbols and their translation into manifestations

Peter says:

yes, but he didn’t really beileve in rebirth, he simply invented a categorical imperative to live as though you would be reborn an infintie number of times and live the saem life an infintie number of time. If you say yes to that, you say yes to life and then you become an uebermesnch

Peter says:

I’m not sure I understand what ythat last sentence of yours means

Peter says:

symbols do not translate into manifestations, symbols are manifestations of something underlying them, that is why they are symbols. The something underlying them may in turn be only a peception. It is justa question of how far down one has to go to dinf a non-symbolic real, or indeed if there is one

Peter says:

find, not dinf!

Coffee Overdose says:

I’m thinking about the idea of conciousness as a reflexive symbol in the non-material, spiritual sense, which gains experiential knowledge (in an infinite number of ways, infinite perceived reality) through a perception of those symbols as manifest… the manifestations cannot be said to have an independent existence somewhere “Outside” (and here I suppose we differ), and thus are not important in

Coffee Overdose says:

themselves

Coffee Overdose says:

in terms of intrinsic, fundamental value

Peter says:

in the beginning was not the word. IN the beginning was the thing,w emade words up to describe it

Coffee Overdose says:

they are important in terms of their symbolic analysis

Coffee Overdose says:

well, Ancient Greek versions of that story say that in the beginning there was a system

Coffee Overdose says:

and it was translated into word

Coffee Overdose says:

which makes it seem entirely different

Peter says:

yes, absolutely, but a system itself implies a creator of the system

Coffee Overdose says:

but that system isn’t necessarily manifest

Coffee Overdose says:

yes, me

Coffee Overdose says:

or you

Coffee Overdose says:

same thing

Peter says:

sophistry

Peter says:

we impose system on chaos through ourr perception of something which is probably unknowable; namely totality

Coffee Overdose says:

but do you understand that totality to be concrete?

Peter says:

no, because totality is a process, both in time and space, I suppose I think of the process as concrete but plastic

Peter says:

and we are just a tiny tiny miniscule aprt of it.

Peter says:

our existence or non existence is ony important to us

Peter says:

and that brings us back to perception, but perception is a buble produced by brains. It is just that we have reached a point where we tend to think that the buble creates the brain

Peter says:

bubble

Coffee Overdose says:

yes!

Peter says:

which is kind of upside down it seems to me, but characterstically bourgeois ;)

Peter says:

haha

Coffee Overdose says:

which bit is bourgeois?

Peter says:

well, bourgeois thought has to believe in the ability of people to change their lives and obnjective reality through their own mental effort. Liberalism means to be free from the constraints imposed by the outside world. The working class knows that it is stuck in the real worlkd, the bourgoisie revels in its freedom and believes it is all down to its own mental efforts, rather than the physical

Peter says:

efforts of others

Coffee Overdose says:

but it still believes in objective reality

Coffee Overdose says:

and so both the bourgeois and working class are caught in the same trap

Coffee Overdose says:

which splits the mental and the physical unreflexively in the first place

Peter says:

yes, indeed, but the trap is a social one, I don’t think one excapes it by imagining it is not there

Coffee Overdose says:

you don’t escape it, you change it and realise you perceive it

Peter says:

That is true, but it is possible to split the menatla dn the physical replexively, which seems to me much more fruitful than to believe that there is no split

Coffee Overdose says:

yes, it is not denying the split on the level of felt perception, which is just as important as if it were to exist “outside”

Peter says:

I am going to hav to use the dread worphrase:

Peter says:

It’s a dialectic!

Coffee Overdose says:

instead of ignoring it, you think about why its there, symbolically

Coffee Overdose says:

and through that thinking, transform it

Peter says:

or mayeb you think symbolically about why it is ther?

Coffee Overdose says:

yes

Coffee Overdose says:

both

Coffee Overdose says:

you think carry out a symbolic analysis on the symbols as manifest

Peter says:

and thourgh symbolic thought transform it, absolutely, but only by acting on it, not just thining about it. Other wise you believe in the power of prayer

Coffee Overdose says:

its not prayer because you’re not praying to something Outside yourself

Peter says:

which brings us back to Christ as symbol

Coffee Overdose says:

organised religion cosntantly undoes itself in thismatter

Coffee Overdose says:

and is back in objective reality

Coffee Overdose says:

as is seeking to contrive change in this perceived objective reality

Coffee Overdose says:

it will happen on the level of perception after the symbols are rearranged throguh symbolic analysis

Peter says:

well, in something transcendentla. Chistianity actually gets close to what you are arguing because the poitn in Christ is that he is in you, not outside

Coffee Overdose says:

yes, they get close but not quite there

Coffee Overdose says:

they split God into us/Him who is Outside

Coffee Overdose says:

hence the idea of the man/entity in the sky

Coffee Overdose says:

or wherever the hell they think he is, somewhere Outside

Peter says:

yes, but no proper christian believes that. That is an atheist construct of what christains belive. Christ is father son and holy ghost, i.e. totality

Peter says:

ie, materialised symbol

Coffee Overdose says:

any organsied religion is of course separatist and again adheres to the violent divisions necessary for objective reality

Coffee Overdose says:

adheres to them as absolute

Peter says:

that is what they have become, certainly, but I don’t hink that is what unperpins their origins

Peter says:

I think it rests in a desire to be more than a speck, to ahve hope that it all matters etc.

Coffee Overdose says:

yes, the difference is in what way you assume it to matter

Peter says:

and that is achieved through a symbol which elevates man to the level of a god

Peter says:

Christ again

Coffee Overdose says:

To the level of a consciousness which creates, but is more than the division of masculine-feminine symbiosis into perceptions of separated male and female human beings…

Coffee Overdose says:

the whole Christ things still assumes that that man Is

Peter says:

what?

Peter says:

or do you mean just Is

Coffee Overdose says:

just Is in an absolute, manifest, objective sense

Peter says:

IN which case that seems reasonable, because he IS

Peter says:

man, I mean, not christ

Coffee Overdose says:

he feels he is, at least

Coffee Overdose says:

or at least I do

Coffee Overdose says:

which amounts to the same thing

Peter says:

we are just clever aninmals, all this perception business is liek the hum of a washing machine. It gets very loud but it is not the point of the machine

Coffee Overdose says:

what is the point of the machine?

Peter says:

to wash clothes

Coffee Overdose says:

that’s a good analogy

Peter says:

ie. to live

Coffee Overdose says:

because the washing of perceived stains could be seen to represent symbolic analysis…

Peter says:

oh bugger off…

Peter says:

very good though

Coffee Overdose says:

and the hum is objective reality

Coffee Overdose says:

as perception, like you said!

Peter says:

the stain, the machine, the hum, it’s all real

Coffee Overdose says:

but with regard to “perception is a bubble produced by brains” as you said earlier…

Peter says:

AMYWAY, I have to work. That is my reality, and it is not a perception!

Coffee Overdose says:

oh dear.

Peter says:

no, it’s ok, finish what youw ere going to say

Coffee Overdose says:

You clearly represent a part of myself which cannot quite leave behind objective notions ;)

Coffee Overdose says:

I need to symbolically analyise what you mean, Peter.

Coffee Overdose says:

to transform my perception of you and all reality

Peter says:

well, good luck with that! If you manage ytou really have found the philosophers stone

Coffee Overdose says:

and thereby the symbiotic infinite

Coffee Overdose says:

indeed

Coffee Overdose says:

thanks for the nice chat

Coffee Overdose says:

enjoy your work

Peter says:

you too. I enjoyed it. I might put it on my blog

Coffee Overdose says:

I shall be honoured to appear in your blog.

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