the crystallisation of a RichB

you said you were getting some crystallising thoughts re religion, higher brain functioning and overriding instinctive self protective behaviour mate

anything else floated to the top of the rassodock?

Well it wasn't really about religion, though that made a good metaphor. It was instincts. Looking first at the primary, oldest stuff that tends to come out when the stakes are high, whether that entails great fear or great greed.

Looking at morality as a survival instinct to keep a group from being eaten from inside by that. A higher form of selfishness so to speak. Selfishness by extension through the returns from the prosperity of others. Because members of a loyal, disciplined and organized group stand FAR better survival chances than lone individuals can. Lions hunting in prides, the water buffalo defending as a herd. Real power comes from organized cooperation. A higher form of selfishness.

"Good" being loyalty and pro-tribe effects. Inside the tribe boundaries being the haven (heaven if you will) from the hell that is nature. "Evil" being corruption and what harms the tribe. Note that both stand in relation to what happens within a tribe. If you were the only thing that existed, good, evil and any such thing would be meaningless. It's about other people.

Lower nature says "seek pleasure, avoid pain and conserve energy." Higher nature says "denounce pleasure, suffer pain and expend energy for your tribemates." So we are torn. Always tempted. and just to introduce warriorhood early. Consider the stakes. If the guy you're relying on to have your back suddenly goes selfish and takes off at a run, you could be fucked. A tendency of warrior groups and cultures is to be OBSESSED with all things "higher nature." Sacrifice is the creed of the warrior.

One of the primary meanings of being a warrior in that sense being to sacrifice and fight for the creation and maintenance of inner-tribal conditions. Haven/heaven. "Goodness." All forms of power being means to that end.

Regarding religion. A lot of them seems to transfer well as metaphors for this stuff. If we had no language and suchlike abilities to externalize thought beyond the odd grunt and sneer, would it all be instinctively carried out behavior? You could say other animals may have more "religion" than we credit them with, and we have less than we think we do perhaps. The "matrix-seeing disciplines" are something else though.

I view it more in terms of the yin/yang balance than an either/or thing though. Everything having a time and a place. Our lower nature is old and wise, and has served us well. our higher nature is the road to improvement. If you get all sacrificey, but you're all alone, that's a misplaced instinct that can get you dead. If you listen to your lower nature when it tries to persuade you out of training today, that's a misplaced instinct too. The pain is pleasure in disguise and the energy conserved is VERY abundant. Viewing it as the battle between good and evil might even motivate you to train.

In connection to the conspiracy theory stuff that it came from, you could say as mentioned that When we evolved into cooperating animals, that was the birth of our higher nature. That's where lifeforms begin breaching the ceiling of the hell that is nature. And now we have evil itself crawling up the beanstalk, piggybacking the ride as it's parasitic ways would have it do. Trying to fix us permanently in place - like a ladder - so that it has a free pass out of hell, forever. By enslaving and domesticate the masses, and through technology, living forever off of the sweat and blood of it's host. But as corruption never has enough, even their conquest of heaven will turn itself into hell as the backstabbing begins, and it's back to square one again.

(and freaky-synchronistically the intro to the video game "dragon age origins" I saw a few weeks after writing that part say almost exactly that last phrase about sneaky mages usurping heaven, but turning it to hell with their sin. Are we talking deep instinct and archetypes popping up all over here?)

Not evil as in EEEEvill. But even here, the full possibility that it is ALL hunting and enemy subjugation, animal-domestication and so on, turned INWARD. A higher-DIFFERENT-selfishness. To quote a rant.

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It is the ancient dilemma.

An older version of it is; selfishness Vs. altruism. Hmm... "selfishness" ... A presupposition of it being wrong is built into the very core of the word. That says something about the human tribal instinct. But there you have it. Good and evil.

Good and evil is irrelevant without other people. Good and evil revolves around the tribal instinct.

Cooperation and recoprocity Vs. Corruption and exploitation.

It revolves around resources and danger.

As a creature, you need to eat and avoid being eaten. Others can share their food with you and take chances to aid you against danger. WHY would they do that? Because you'd do the same for them. That is the expectation. That is the soul of the tribe. That is good.

In a harsh world with small margins separating life from death you cannot afford parasites to leech on you. Taking but never giving.

Evil is the parasite and the predator.

Good is he who helps you - Evil is he who harms you. That is level one, but it goes further.

Good is he who supports and reinforces the TRIBAL SYSTEM - Evil is he who selfishly exploits it, threatening it.

Hmm... but there is more. High corruption is in forming a exploitative and destructive (ENEMY) tribe, secretly WITHIN the tribe. Even more evil is doing it while having them trust you to be highly beneficial to the tribe.



Evil is how dangerous something is to you, compounded by how safe it decieves you to feel about it.

Good is how beneficial to you something is, componded by how it consistently surprises you by helping you despite all logic.


Both motivate you to reciprocate. Harm evil, assist good.


Parasites and predators by definition are ineffective as groups by this model. Evil must feed on good or feed on itself. An evil tribe cannot gain the full benefits of being a tribe by it's own. Each take more than they pay for, and have more power that way. But the collective power of a good tribe is always higher, because true power comes from cooperation and organization. BUT... a good-tribe host can hold evil tribes together.

This is where ultimate evil enters the picture. Beyond the wolf hunting the sheep, there is the SHEPHERD. Domesticating the entire species. Safeguarding it as a resource, so there is always "a good tribe" to feed off. And hold together the parasite tribe. cultivation; manipulation of the species and making it dependant on the shepherd.

Blah, blah, nature being the real matrix within which we're all just programs and so on.

Well, for now it'll do. Tired, and it seems to require some digging in the mental folders to find this stuff. Too many nutty ideas swirling around to maintain order.

I've only read this through once, and it's dense, so will only comment with first thouights:

I think it was a guy called Peter Ralston, who made a connection between ego and the survival instinct. As I remember it, he pointed out that 'life' has no high expectations, survival means just survival, even in the basest terms. As long as you crawl around in the mud until you breed, it's OK - life continues. That he posits, is what ego is.
Any higher form of living above bare survival involves letting the ego go, leaving yourself vulnerable, and forcing you to connect with others. This can lead to a better life experience, but is dangerous as far as the survival instinct is concerned.

I'm not sure how this fits in with the parasitic shepherd model ..... but anyhow .....

So RichB, is it possible to live in a parasitic sheepfold without getting fed upon? Or does one have to leave?

thats awesome stuff RIchB

about the concept of warriorhood and selfishness/cowardliness being the highest social taboo or "evil" in warrior cultures - well one mans cowardice could killa hundred men was something I wrote about in response to roadkills question: why do we feel more motivated to protect others than ourselves

I actually lost that reply! and it was a humdinger...

but something I wrote there and I would toss into your mental process on this one is the richard dawkins selfish gene concept

if we believe that our very genes selfishly use us as mere human sock puppets, just carriers of DNA then anything that threaten the propagation of DNA is at a deep level to be thwarted- the most taboo practises will therefore be murder, worse yet to murder a family member (threatens DNA) but the worst is to have your child killed (your DNA being passed on, the whole purpose of your existence according to Dawkins rather depressing world view!)

its Tribalism as you put it for sure, just adds an extra layer to it : a biological imperative, and inner mafia boss bully who is the same sadistic fucker who will torture you with heartbreak if you split with someone who isnt right for you

the DNA mafia boss doesnt care if your partner was an arsehole or not, they only care if they can help you pay your genetic dues: REPRODUCE or we give you pain!

this is why I think heartache is such a bitch, your fighting your biology, you pairbonded and your body is ready to procreate

even if your body cannot procreate you will still feel pain, becuae its blind dumb low level animalistic, as you put it "Hell" lower level instinct

very strong, but not terribly bright

like a thug

the evil enemy

if you dont write a blog RichB can I put some of your posts on my blog? I'll just link back to forum

The selfish gene is a part of it all. Reading that thing a few years ago basically had me reinventing radical subjectivism.

To quote some old stuff:

Quote :

"Is the only semblance of meaning in life to be found in cold mathematical calculations of "gain" in the form of replicating molecules? Is such a reality something I even need to pay attention to regarding how I live my life? Wont such a reality render EVERYTHING, money, power, utopias and dystopias utterly meaningless except for how they affect our subjective likes and dislikes? Wouldn't I perhaps be far better off pursuing all the subjective things? In a pointless existence, isn't it better to just utterly abuse my imagination and laugh all the way to the grave?"

"We assume animal life to be something special and unique just because it moves. But all the billions of people in the world are like plantlife, some grow until they wither, others are eaten right quick." ... "Both plantlife and animal life are the phenotypes of genes, which are replicating molecules or at least owe their existance to them. Humans are a destructive weed on this space rock. Don't let the dazzling movement and noise fool you. Our entire "civilization," it's all just a damn weed."

It's something else today. But it is primarily based on evolutionary biology and such.

When you talk about biological imperatives altering your perception of reality to motivate you. It's crazy, but everything we percieve, everything we think has been proven again and again to be just something going on in our heads. A nice overview in this book.

Making up the mind, by Chris Frith. http://www.amazon.com/Making-Mind-Brain-Creates-Mental/dp/1405160225/ref=tmm_pap_title_0

To include the ego into it again, this one goes into that. The ego tunnel, by Thomas Metzinger. http://www.amazon.com/Ego-Tunnel-Science-Mind-Myth/dp/0465045677/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1260020357&sr=1-1

And it's a deeply imperfect machinery. As per: Kluge, by Gary Marcus. http://www.amazon.com/Kluge-Haphazard-Evolution-Human-Mind/dp/B002ECETZY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1260022318&sr=1-1

Recently I was having a good day, nothing special, but nothing to complain about. Just a day. Then I start feeling heavy, low. I attribute it to something - can't even remember what it was, maybe something about money - and didn't even question it initially. But something didn't add up about it all, a nagging feeling. I go over it again and I find the true cause. I'd been skipping training.

What the fuck? In real life today, it is nothing whatsoever. But to biology it seems to have been a tale of tribes, betrayal, rejection, shame. On MRI social rejection reads just like physical pain. Maybe that's what clued me on to it. In this case, ancient hardwiring does an estimate about consequences of some actions, and pulls some motivational levers to correct it. Same principle as the heartbreak mafia enforcer you mentioned. (BTW just take stuff to the blog if you like)

THAT is why we literally CAN'T "get over the stone ages for one fucking second." We ARE the stone ages.

The parasitic sheepfold... It's just simple betrayal taken to a high level. I regard corruption as an instinct probably just as strong as that of cooperation. Once you belong and the going gets tough, you have a choice. Do you share the meat, or take it all? Do you help fight off something, or use your allies' fighting as an opportunity to get scarce? Greed can be seen as a pre-emptive approach to this. To betray and accumulate stuff in case it should get tough some time in the future. Survival and evolution is no more moral and ethical than a mathematcal equation. The parasitizing of a tribe is basically hunting and domestication stuff turned inward by boss-apes with corruption as a survival tendency. Might as well quote more old stuff.

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The masses are asses, as the adage goes, and while it can be interpreted to describe them as being a bunch of idiots, it is more suitable to think of them as pack-asses - domesticated working-animals. Indeed, they are asses. they slave away in unending drudgery and see nothing unnatural in that. They have been called sheeple as well, while likely intended as nothing but an insulting observation, it is better to view it from an angle where it becomes functional. If they are like sheep, then it would only be natural that there be a shepherd in the equation. Amusingly they have in their religious practice referred to themselves as sheep, with "the lord" being their shepherd. Certainly it isn't unlikely that someone titled a Lord is one of their many shepherds, but the true nature of a shepherd seems to be entirely lost on them.

It is not out of altruism and a sense of compassion that a shepherd will watch the sheep and keep them out of danger. The shepherd has exactly the same motive for doing what he does as does the big bad wolf. It's just that he as opposed to the wolf is capable of building fences and selective breeding to make his prey docile and easily collectible. A higher form of hunting if you will. while it lacks the thrill of the hunt it is without doubt far more effective and efficient.

The law in this context becomes the measures a sheperd takes to protect his livestock from predators and to keep the livestock under his control. The fences and sheepdogs. Interestingly an old Vietnam veteran described society as the common people being sheeple, the bad guys wolves while the military and law enforcement were sheepdogs. The wolf will not eat the sheeple, but nor will the sheeple be allowed to leave their enclosure.

While real shepherds actually eat their livestock, the metaphorical shepherds obviously do not truly eat the sheeple in a literal sense. They are working-animals used to drag carts and slave away. They use their time and energy through work. An individual cannot single-handedly in the course of one lifetime build enormous buildings or create advanced technology such as a computer, but by harnessing the energy and varied skills of the sheeple there are scarcely limits to what can be achieved.

The sheeple are slaves. Wage-slavery is a very well-chosen term. The domesticated sheeple need money in order to live and eat, scinse any other way to sustain themselves has become near impossible or involve all but forgotten skills. They only know how to obtain it through working for it, recieving it from someone who has mastered the principles of acquiring wealth. Because they are ignorant and deluded about how the world really works they step willingly into the yoke and begin slaving away on their own initiative. An ox is enslaved with a physical yoke, the human ox is kept in an economic yoke, locked in with conceptual restraints, his beliefs about how the world works. The human is a conceptual creature. Minds are structures of information, and they are controlled through choosing what information their minds are made of. Humans are never as trapped within a physical prison as they are within conceptual prisons, and in their idea-prison they are their own prison guards.

In this day and age it is money that is the prevalent form of influence. Money however is just crystallized time and energy used as a bargaining tool for basic necessities and pleasures. The key issue is the dependence of the sheeple toward the shepherd. Any controllable necessity will do.

If the face of that, what options are there?

Live a good life as a sheep. "Easy in the harness." - Popular choice.

Rise high enough toward the parasites that maybe some leftovers fall in your lap. - Also a popular choice, but requires more work.

Seek to destroy the parasites and restore the loyalty-based tribe. - what many want to do, but lack the will to sacrifice for.

Basically, complacency, corruption or loyalty. This world has shrunk so much there is no escape.

Most people initially resist and seek to destroy the parasites. When push comes to shove either through a requirement of sacrifice or the simple formlessness of the parasitism. They drift back to complacency. If they can't be at rest with that then they may seek to "join the winning side." If they can figure out how. In any case it is various forms of self-preservation. Sure I can judge it, but I can't take that seriously. Typically it's going to boil down to something like this:

Quote :

Evil is how dangerous something is to you, compounded by how safe it decieves you to feel about it.

Good is how beneficial to you something is, componded by how it consistently surprises you by helping you despite all logic.

Because it too is essentially just a survival instinct. The nature being the matrix again... Heck, it brings me back to this.

Quote :

"Is the only semblance of meaning in life to be found in cold mathematical calculations of "gain" in the form of replicating molecules? Is such a reality something I even need to pay attention to regarding how I live my life? Wont such a reality render EVERYTHING, money, power, utopias and dystopias utterly meaningless except for how they affect our subjective likes and dislikes? Wouldn't I perhaps be far better off pursuing all the subjective things? In a pointless existence, isn't it better to just utterly abuse my imagination and laugh all the way to the grave?"

Quick post for now .... I'm still 'on the road' but back home in a couple days.
For now, a thought that occurred after I read your last post.
I have a friend who is a botanist, spends her time flying around the rainforest canopy, hanging in a net suspended from a dirigible .... I kid you not. Reason they are there is to research brazil nut trees and their flowers ... Anyway, after many years of research she has come to believe in a different theory of survival - that of abundance. An ecosystem has plants and trees that reproduce flowers and fruit way more than is strictly necessary for the survival of the individual plant/tree, but of course the eco system the individual lives in, stands a better chance of survival as a whole, if there is abundance.
So ..... did we lose something between the plant and animal kingdom? Or does this idea of abundance crossover into animal eco systems?

Interesting job that.

The idea makes sense. If you think about it, it's very similar in principle to everything else we see on joining forces in nature. Single-cell things joining forces and becoming multicellular and all the way up to us humans forming gangs that gang up on other gangs. There is strength in numbers. If you want to look at it that way, you could say that ecosystems are the tribes and societies of plantlife.

Strengthen the tribe and you strengthen yourself. It's really the same principle. Dawkins again wrote a book called "the extended phenotype" about natural selection favoring genes that have an effect far outside the actual organism, into the environment. Which could fit the abundance ecosystem idea very well.

So ..... did we lose something between the plant and animal kingdom? Or does this idea of abundance crossover into animal eco systems?

Maybe we gained something instead. Animals, fight over territory, hierarchy and so on. To say the least, animals have a lot more BEHAVIOR. Great danger or reward becomes a lot more significant because of the fact that we CAN do things to increase or decrease the effects of it. The dilemma of loyalty or corruption may be entirely meaningless for plantlife for instance, while for social animals it can be a theme. In any case we tend to fight over stuff. The less there is of it, the more we fight. Maybe completely drowning that "economy" with resources could make us fat and lazy instead. Which appears to be the case where that happens. So perhaps it does cross over.

I'm not sure it would change the dominance game aspect of human behavior though. And the tribal warring. It seems to be deeply embedded in our hardwiring.

Hey I know what we need! What we need is a new world order. A world governed not by the laws of the jungle, but by the laws of man.

Well it's actually true. But sadly if that comes around it'll just be like communism. All hype, abysmal execution. I wonder... is that the backlash - the bitchslap from reality - we get for pretending and acting as if we are rational creatures, or do people really sit down and plan that type stuff? I guess a little of both.

I say nature is the matrix, and we need to hack it and move on. Nature is mindless. It's almost time to almost shed it. Human nature is the enemy.

So it seems like you have abundance and empathy on the one side, upping the chances of the survival of the individual, and on the other, predatory and parasitic behavior, also on the face of it, upping the chances of survival of the individual ....hmmmm.

..... damn, just getting my head around this and it's time for pho, aka lunch. Back soon .....

been busy for the last week, this thread merits a proper reading but just an initial quick thought

Quote :

I'd been skipping training.

What the fuck? In real life today, it is nothing whatsoever. But to biology it seems to have been a tale of tribes, betrayal, rejection, shame. On MRI social rejection reads just like physical pain. Maybe that's what clued me on to it. In this case, ancient hardwiring does an estimate about consequences of some actions, and pulls some motivational levers to correct it. Same principle as the heartbreak mafia enforcer you mentioned. (BTW just take stuff to the blog if you like)

there is THAT but dont forget the fact that as simple biological entities our mental and emotional states are very much affected by our physical states - I know you know this but just to sort of say (I need reminding of this on a weekly basis)

STATE is EVERYTHING when it comes to psychology

that you are missing training means you are also simply missing the heavy oxygenation of your blodd stream, the cleaning out of toxins, release of endorphins, burning residcual bits of unused adrenaline/stress hormones, unblocking your trapped chi, expressing creative energy etc etc and all the other funky stuff that makes you feel good when you train


back in 3 hours

Russ says he cant sign in? you guys had any trouble?

No problems here. Maybe at the old forum adress? Cookies? Though probably not. Maybe the settings are to blame?

State and training, absolutely. This was different though. More time/event-specific. I felt just fine on all levels. The thought "get your ass to the gym" was in the back of my mind, then a magical deadline passes by and the motivational enforcer kicks in. Well and good. The thing that made me go WTF was catching the explainer function just cranking out some plausible-sounding bullshit and the fact that I never even questioned it initially. I was only able to spot and break the illusion because something didn't add up and I could sort of backtrack it and reference it against various psychological stuff. Upon discovery it went *pop* and disappeareed. A fine day continued as before.

No question about the benefits of training. I know I want it, and like it. But I am lazy and I like that too. Laziness is comfortable. Oh well... There are no two ways about it. I've let myself slide! Though taking a quick glance over time I can see events and dynamics that has chipped away at and disrupted things. I guess I've already been doing it unconsciously in a more sporadic pattern - collecting and using pieces of the mind it takes - but I'm going to put them together and make a full fledged supra state for training out of them.

Back to where I was and way beyond. Enter the hagakure, masochist, pain-freak warrior, sacrifice... guy.

Quote :

The thing that made me go WTF was catching the explainer function just cranking out some plausible-sounding bullshit and the fact that I never even questioned it initially.

ah right sorry I get ya now

Quote :

Human nature is the enemy.

being in thailand I often find myself pondering that one : human nature without training and discipline is pretty ugly left to its own devices, I used to think compassion was instinctive/ natural - maybe it is with your own offspring and tribe but not when it applies to people outside of that

without training and self discipline there can be no compassion it seems

This thread already has too many aspects to it ..... every time I think I have formulated an idea to reply ... it disappears, and even a lovely bowl of pho could not organize the brain cells into a coherent whole yesterday .....
So ...I'm thinking something along the lines of there not really being a survival imperative to some human behavior ..... I feel like I'm fixating on their always being logical reasons for behavior, like the survival instinct etc, but what happens if people are like they are ...because ... then can ....
If an infinite spectrum of behavior can exist, like snowflakes, then all will exit.
OTOH, I heard a programme on the radio - http://blogs.wnyc.org/radiolab/2009/11/30/numbers/ about the strange properties of numbers in a group .... apparently more random samplings of numbers start with 1 and 2, than with 8 and 9. Weird huh?
There's even a fraud investigator on the show that can detect when people have cooked the books by looking at the numbers.
Is behavior like this?
Then there is the 'probability well' concept in eco systems .... diversity and all, that helps a system survive .....

Then there's the duality thing ... how sometimes struggle makes you happier, discipline creates freedom .... etc etc....

AAARGH my brain hurts, stopping now.

Quote :

So ...I'm thinking something along the lines of there not really being a survival imperative to some human behavior ..... I feel like I'm fixating on their always being logical reasons for behavior, like the survival instinct etc, but what happens if people are like they are ...because ... then can ....
If an infinite spectrum of behavior can exist, like snowflakes, then all will exit.

The large recurring patterns of behavior probably make logical sense and has had some impact on survival and reproduction, large and for long enough that it has become a significant part of our programming. Then I guess it goes incrementally down from there until you hit chaos, coincidence and mutation and so on into that probability well. I find it easier to boil it down to the large, general patterns.

Still, the question remain - how to be in this society? If I'm aware of 'the matrix', what are the options?
Just wrote the same question on the Weasel forum. (I know it's probably a 'honey badger', but 'weasel' is funnier )

I'm personally a big believer in the unpredictability of change, though I am still unsure how much the planet itself is a player in finding balance .....
Perhaps this imbalance of ignorance and violence in youth culture (If there is an imbalance, rather than just perceived) is getting a generation ready for something?
OTOH, perhaps it's a result of the imbalance caused by a lack of something in the previous generation? Example - Parents who hated being cogs in the machine give children the message that they are special individuals who deserve to be happy and follow their dreams, resulting in a generation of narcissistic, whiners who feel unfulfilled. One generation creates the next ....
This kinda ties in with struggle making you stronger ...... but too much struggle keeping you weak. Balance and Opposites .....
Law and Chaos ..... Stillness and Motion ....

Quote :

Example - Parents who hated being cogs in the machine give children the message that they are special individuals who deserve to be happy and follow their dreams, resulting in a generation of narcissistic, whiners who feel unfulfilled. One generation creates the next ....
This kinda ties in with struggle making you stronger ...... but too much struggle keeping you weak. Balance and Opposites .....
Law and Chaos ..... Stillness and Motion ....

I think its this one, just an opinion

Cant find any evidence that the "youts" are getting more violent, though the nature of that violence might change

the tendency to "WORSHIP" kids in our culture is pure poison

love, attention yes, balanced with discipline and strong boundaries... the sugar coated sickly sweet fawning over ones spawn makes me want to kill/ vomit on the perpetrators

killomit

your guaranteeing a life of ,mental suffering for the child, guaran-fucking-teeing it!