Bruce Charlton's Notions

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Aside from its power and speed hence cheapness; the pneumatic drill is in every way inferior to the pickaxe as a way of breaking through roads and paths.

It is just about the noisiest, most intrusive piece of technology ever devised. One pneumatic drill in the city may render life stressed and painful for many thousands of people in a radius of hundreds of yards

Yet the pneumatic drill has not been superseded - nor is the modern drill (often mounted on a small digger) any quieter or less frequently used than it was in the past. It is a rare day when I am not seriously disturbed by a pneumatic drill while at work.

(Admittedly, part of this is the socialist notion of creating economic 'prosperity' by paying armies of navvies laboriously to drill holes in roads and paths, fiddling with some utilities, filling them in and re-surfacing such as to withstand the heaviest goods vehicles for five years continuous usage, then re-drilling them a fortnight later.)

...Sorry, I've got to break off this post - a pneumatic drill has just started and I need to close the window, again.

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Glenn Gould: I don't know what the effective ratio would be, but I've always had some sort of intuition that for every hour you spend in the company of other human beings, you need "x" number of hours alone. Now, what "x" represents I don't really know; it might be two and seven-eighths or seven and two-eighths, but it is a substantial ratio.


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Cited in: Solitude, Exile and Ecstasy by Bruce Charlton


http://www.hedweb.com/bgcharlton/solitude.html


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I said in yesterday's post: "modern Evil is characterized and made distinctive by an historically vast and pervasive expansion of The World - of Negligence."

This is why mainstream public discourse can be insane (not why modern society is insane - that is down to secular Leftism - but why or how it is that the insanity is not self-correcting).


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What would it take to restore a sense of reality to mainstream public discourse? - the conviction that there is a reality, that reality is really real whatever we may say or think about it.

Some pretty extreme things have happened, such as communism (which is indeed still happening) yet reality is still denied.

What, then would it take - is anything big enough?

The answer is no, nothing is big enough that the mass media could not absorb it and normal unreality be resumed within an obscenely short period of days.

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Reality cannot be restored at a population level unless and until the mass media has collapsed.

In the meantime, we must work with individuals, with souls.

At a personal level, for some people, sometimes something happens (it need not be nasty, but often is) such that reality becomes undeniable; and that individual may make a decision to acknowledge reality.

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Reality is not a revelation - it is a grasp of the human condition as something given (not made by humans or human minds, not a framing device). 

The condition of reality is what it is but our response to it is a matter of will and choice.

And recognition of reality involves recognizing that our will and choice are not our own, but are caused and corrupted (unless assisted from outwith themselves).

So that reality and our recognition that there is reality are both givens.

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From Unseen Warfare edition published by St Vladimir's Seminary Press, Crestwood, NY, USA, 1987. From Chapter 1 (emphasis added):


There are many who say that the perfection of Christian life consists in fasts, vigils, genuflections, sleeping on bare earth and other similar austerities of the body.


Others say that it consists in saying many prayers at home and in attending long services in Church.


And there are others who think that our perfection consists entirely in mental prayer, solitude, seclusion and silence.


But the majority limit perfection to a strict observance of all the rules and practices laid down by the statutes, falling into no excess or deficiency, but preserving a golden moderation.

we have sinned against you
and against our fellow men,
in thought and word and deed,
through negligence, through weakness,
through our own deliberate fault.


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Flesh, world, devil = weakness, negligence, deliberate fault.

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Flesh/ weakness = Original sin, natural passions, selfishness and short-termism.

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World/ negligence = Distractions. Focusing on Life rather than reality; on status, comfort and pleasure rather than sanctification, deification, salvation.

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Devil/ deliberate fault = choosing to serve as a tool of purposive evil, which is nihilism, which is denial of reality, which is practiced by

systematic destruction of The Good

(i.e. destruction of Truth, Beauty and Virtue and their Unity by denial, subversion and inversion).

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Three sources of  Evil.

The Flesh is pretty much a given factor for an individual, for humanity.

The World is much more powerful in the West now than it has ever been anywhere in human history.

The Devil is an unknown quantity, but as C.S Lewis says in Screwtape Letters:


There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.

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Of course, all these sources of Evil are linked in a unity: but modern Evil is characterized and made distinctive by an historically vast and pervasive expansion of The World - of Negligence.

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From Unseen Warfare edition published by St Vladimir's Seminary Press, Crestwood, NY, USA, 1987. From Chapter 1 (emphasis added):


There are many who say that the perfection of Christian life consists in fasts, vigils, genuflections, sleeping on bare earth and other similar austerities of the body.


Others say that it consists in saying many prayers at home and in attending long services in Church.


And there are others who think that our perfection consists entirely in mental prayer, solitude, seclusion and silence.


But the majority limit perfection to a strict observance of all the rules and practices laid down by the statutes, falling into no excess or deficiency, but preserving a golden moderation.

we have sinned against you
and against our fellow men,
in thought and word and deed,
through negligence, through weakness,
through our own deliberate fault.


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Flesh, world, devil = weakness, negligence, deliberate fault.

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Flesh/ weakness = Original sin, natural passions, selfishness and short-termism.

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World/ negligence = Distractions. Focusing on Life rather than reality; on status, comfort and pleasure rather than sanctification, deification, salvation.

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Devil/ deliberate fault = choosing to serve as a tool of purposive evil, which is nihilism, which is denial of reality, which is practiced by

systematic destruction of The Good

(i.e. destruction of Truth, Beauty and Virtue and their Unity by denial, subversion and inversion).

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Three sources of  Evil.

The Flesh is pretty much a given factor for an individual, for humanity.

The World is much more powerful in the West now than it has ever been anywhere in human history.

The Devil is an unknown quantity, but as C.S Lewis says in Screwtape Letters:


There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.

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Of course, all these sources of Evil are linked in a unity: but modern Evil is characterized and made distinctive by an historically vast and pervasive expansion of The World - of Negligence.

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When I was working in the area of Niiklas Luhmann's systems theory+, I devised a handy way of conceptualizing the complexity of a system - which was as the ratio of internal communications within a system, divided by the amount of communication between a system and its environment.  

This can be applied to thinking:

the complexity of cognition would then be a ratio of an organism's internal cognitive activity over the amount of communication between the organism and its environment (including other organisms).

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If cognition is measured using time, then this roughly translates to:

Time thinking/ Time communicating

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Time spent thinking is mostly solitary.

Time spent in communicating includes conversation and other social interactions, the media and news, and also the learning of new information etc (including learning of all types including scholarship, including writing) and the expounding of information (including teaching).

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This means that an increase in time spent in social interaction, in contact with the media and in learning new stuff (time in-putting data) will tend to simplify thought unless the amount of (mostly solitary) thinking time is proportionately increased.

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This explains why the European Middle Ages attained the highest complexity of coherent abstract thought (Thomas Aquinas and the environment in which he operated) - since there were few books, no mass media, 'monastic' seclusion - and in general a great deal of time spent thinking relative to the amount of stuff flowing into and out-of the mind.

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This explains why the internet has not led to any advances in genuine understanding, since the millions-fold expansion in the amount of data (plus increased social interaction via electronic media, plus increased volume and usage of the mass media) have led to an equally vast simplification of cognition.

The average modern human mind is now more like a relay station than a brain - performing just a few quick and simple processes on a truly massive flow-through of data.

This applies equally, or especially, to intellectuals who are plugged-into oceans of data in a way never before possible.

When all (almost all) intellectual output is simply a summary of un-assimilated input, as we see all around; then we can perceive that intellectual processing has become grossly simplified.

The 'sound bite' is simply a literal transcription of the (largest) unit of modern thinking.

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This explains (in general terms) the importance of sleep - when the mind becomes more-or-less cut off from the environments and cognitive processing is almost-wholly internal.

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To improve the complexity of cognitive processing is, however, a simple matter: more time alone and thinking, less time socializing and in-putting.

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+Note: For some theory, see the Appendix to my 2003 book: 
http://www.hedweb.com/bgcharlton/modernization-imperative.html
modernization-imperative.html 
I should point out that I now regard the basic argument of this book as wrong - however, the description of systems theory seems correct. 

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James Kalb -

http://turnabout.ath.cx:8000/node/2909

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Blogger 'Bonald' -

http://bonald.wordpress.com/2011/08/11/
thought-prison-the-fundamental-nature-of-pc/

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Blogger 'Proph' -

http://collapsetheblog.typepad.com/blog/2011/08/
hell-and-the-politically-correct-mind-a-review-of-bruce-charltons-thought-prison.html

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SciFi writer John C Wright -

http://www.scifiwright.com/2011/11/
political-correctness-is-the-substance-of-darkness-part-i/

&

http://www.scifiwright.com/2011/11/
political-correctness-is-the-substance-of-darkness-part-ii/

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Thanks very much for these - such engaged and thoughtful consideration is exactly what this author yearns for.

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Two great favourites of mine are Merlin the wizard (whose legends are all around Britain, including the nearby England-Scotland borders) and St Cuthbert the Wonderworker (who also lived fairly near to me on the island of Lindisfarne, and is still quite well remembered locally - at least in the names of places and institutions)-

http://www.orthodoxengland.org.uk/stcuth.htm

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Merlin and Cuthbert present interesting similarities and contrasts.

There is, of course, no remotely definitive story of King Arthur - since it is the dominant piece of genuine 'folk-lore' of England (even though British rather than English - having pretty much displaced the specifically English folk hero of Robin Hood). Like everybody, I have encountered innumerable versions of the Arthurian legends.

But the general character of Merlin is pretty consistent: a powerful wizard: kindly, broadly well-meaning, but irritable and prone to sarcasm - and morally ambiguous.

Merlin is essential to the creation and survival of the Good kingdom and the Good King; yet he is a worldly figure: he does dubious enchantments for dubious reasons (e.g. the shape-shifting spell to satisfy the King Uther's rapacious lust, leading to the birth of Arthur).

And, in many versions, Merlin comes to a sticky end - often by falling in love with a beautiful but wicked enchantress (e.g. Nimue or Vivienne) and teaching her his secrets - as a result Merlin may be imprisoned forever (or for centuries) in a tree, or crystal cave.

In other versions Merlin became a military leader, but was defeated, escaped into the wilderness to die as a raving lunatic bewailing his loss of power and prestige.

While Merlin's damnation is not definite, and repentance and salvation is not necessarily ruled-out - at best the possibility is suspended.

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St Cuthbert, by contrast, is perhaps the holiest Saint of England.

And, by contrast with the garbled legends of Merlin, Cuthbert's principal biographer was the first and one of the greatest English historians: The Venerable Bede of Jarrow and Monkwearmouth.

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Cuthbert was a monk (later and briefly a Bishop): an extreme ascetic, who prepared for his miracle-working years by many years of disciplined prayer, learning by heart of scriptures, fasting, vigils (staying up all night praying), participation in Church rituals and other hardships.

St Cuthbert, in contrast with Merlin, was one of those Saints who were regarded as having lived both in Heaven and on Earth in his later years, he had a glorious and inspiring death and went (it is presumed) to the high place prepared for him.

Cuthbert was immediately widely venerated, many Churches were founded in his name, and his memory and scattered relics were the subject of marvellous stories and the attributed cause of  numerous miracles.

A long distance footpath called St Cuthbert's Way was recently created to trace the important places of his life and the route of his posthumous remains:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Cuthbert's_Way

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Yet, for moderns, the powerful but flawed and ultimately tragic figure of Merlin seems much more exciting than Cuthbert.

The hints (and more than hints) of intoxicating and depraved lust which were Merlin's downfall, and which he seemed to embrace either helplessly or willingly, are just the kind of thing to strike a chord in our era.

The comparison illustrates a change of ethos, and a scaling-down of ambition. St Cuthbert's example is so far above anything attainable to us moderns that it is almost intimidating rather than inspiring to weak and corrupt individuals such as myself!

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The comparison also illustrates the Eastern Orthodox understanding of miracles, magic and wonders.

The Orthodox belief is that miracles and magic are real and accessible, but hazardous - because they can be achieved with either divine/ angelic or demonic assistance (and because demons are deceptive and can masquerade as angels).

Merlin was certainly attributed with advanced magical powers and in some version was actually demonic in origin - e.g. with a demon father magically inseminating  a virgin mother, with the intention of producing an Antichrist; but then having been blessed and baptized in the womb by a Saint, to emerging as the morally ambiguous - but broadly benign - trickster figure we know.

At any rate, it would be expected that some, at least, of Merlin's powers were demonic rather than divine; and that the demons exacted the usual payments.

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A traditional Orthodox view would probably be that Merlin came to grief in using magic because he was (ultimately) proud and lustful rather than humble and loving; because he sought and served power rather than disinterested knowledge; and insofar as he did not repent his pride and lust.

(Repentance not being the same as regret, or shame, or wishing things had turned-out otherwise.)

While St Cuthbert had - by long ascetic preparation - attained the necessary humility and love to be able (after this was attained, not before) to be permitted to deploy divine and angelic powers in the service of Good.

This seems to be the essential difference between a Saintly Wonderworker and a wizard like Merlin - and the (non-Saintly) White wizard's goodness is seen as inevitably tenuous, and mixed; and the temptation to darkness un-ceasing and eventually irresistible.

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This is only one aspect of a general abuse of language, but it is striking how the Liberal/ politically correct impute to their enemies attitudes which are false opposites of the attitudes of the Left.

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For example, there are various groups, often 'victim groups' for which the PC express Love and Admiration.

They impute to their enemies what they regard as the opposite of Love and Admiration, which they claim is is Fear and Hatred - hence the imputed label of 'x'-phobia' used to characterize the non-PC.

However, although some victim groups are indeed feared, and others are perhaps hated - the true attitude may more accurately be characterized as Pity and Disgust.

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In effect, Leftism conflates Fear and Disgust.

Yet Fear and Disgust are, according to a lot of research, distinct emotions, with different biological functions, instantiated in different parts of the brain.

And of course they feel different - we might fear a savage dog, but be disgusted by that dog's excrement. 

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So if a group evokes disgust, this is a very different matter from evoking fear.

But - for the group under discussion, it is much 'cooler' and more self-gratifying to suppose that you are feared than to admit that others find you disgusting.

People often, indeed usually, fear high status groups - but if they are disgusted by a group, then they regard that group as being of intrinsically lower status.

A person might even want to join a group that they hate (if the group has high status and if they got the chance); but would almost-never want to join a group which evokes their disgust - unless as a deliberate act of humility (a Saintly act, perhaps).

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Furthermore, Disgust is distinct from Hatred.

In general the attitude towards entities which evoke disgust is to keep one's distance - it is akin to a fear of infection or contamination.

Disgust - if carried through - may lead to destruction of that which evokes disgust; as one might exterminate plague rats to remove the threat of infection.

The Nazi attitude toward Jews seem to have been one of disgust, indeed disgust, specifically, was carefully cultivated by Nazi propaganda.

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What prevents the destruction of that which Disgusts is pity.

If humans are threatened by something that disgusts them; then they may try to destroy that threat.

But if not threatened, they may instead pity.

But usually people don't like to be pitied - they want to be admired. And if they can't be admired they prefer to be feared than pitied.

(Yet, in reality, we are all piteous creatures; and it is pride which makes us resent the pity of others.)

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So a group which actually evokes Pity and Disgust may deny this is true, and claim that they are instead Feared and Hated - yet, it may be pity which defends that group from the consequences of disgust.

Disgust coupled with Fear may be a deadly combination.

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Hatred is more complex and variable in its manifestation - it is more like a belief that others have evil intentions; and this may or may not be true.

It is rational to hate that which is motivated to harm you. 

In a sense, then, hatred is potentially a virtuous human emotion - although, of course, one which may lead to evil.

For Christians it seems that hatred is necessary (e.g. 'hate the sin, love the sinner'), or at least allowed; while resentment (refusal to forgive) is completely forbidden - so resentment-free hatred might be a valid and virtuous state.

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This, then, is another false antithesis of the Left: the Left claim to Love, and impute Hatred to their enemies.

The Left (therefore?) regard Hatred as a sin, indeed the cardinal sin - and advocate that people should never allow themselves to experience hatred.

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(What actually happens if Hatred is suppressed is that it may be replaced by Disgust. And Disgust leads to the desire to avoid contamination, to cleanse that which is disgust-evoking. When they will not allow themselves to Hate their enemies views but Love the enemy himself; then Leftists may begin to feel disgust for their enemies as entities: to regard them as noxious vermin. And people may actively seek-out and exterminate that which disgusts them - especially if they fear 'contamination' by the disgust-evoking group.)

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But the opposite of Love is not hatred but Pride.

This Leftist error of assuming the opposite of Love is Hate therefore does the further harm of disguising the cardinal sin of Pride; and Pride becomes - for the Left - a virtue.

Think about it: the greatest Christian sin is remade into a Leftist virtue. 

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So these false antitheses have a way of ramifying, and causing damage in all kinds of places.

As Charles Williams used to have it (I paraphrase):  

Precision, Precision - always and everywhere. The devil is imprecise.

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Paganism is much better than nothing, as we are beginning to recognize, but requires completion by Christianity.

From a Christian perspective, I venture to suggest three main things wrong with paganism: pride, cruelty and meaninglessness.

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1. Pride

Pride is the worst of sins for Christians, it is to prefer oneself to God. But for pagans, pride is a virtue - it is, indeed, the only thing holding life together and providing some kind of motivation.

2. Cruelty

Cruelty is not a virtue for paganism, but it is an endemic feature because there is no prohibition of cruelty - therefore when cruelty is expedient or pleasurable there is no compelling reason to refrain.

(Christians are also cruel, obviously - but this is against the core imperative of Love: so by being cruel they are not being Christian; whereas cruelty is compatible with paganism.)

3. Meaninglessness

Paganism offers no meaning for life - or more exactly no human meaning for human life - or the human soul.

Paganism offers only a spark of life in an infinite universe of darkness, or the 'hope' of being extinguished or absorbed into nature, or recycled - at any rate there is no human meaning, no preservation of the essential self.

The pagan soul may be eternal but is not individual.

Pagan immortality is merely an indefinite extension of human life, perhaps more focused on pleasurable things.

(The Christian hope for salvation and eternal life is of the human life made God-like - individuality preserved but enhanced, eternity made not merely bearable but wonderful. Indeed, I am convinced by Pascal that properly-considered *only* Christianity offers a meaningful life - and that no other religion or philosophy does so.)

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http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.com/2011/11/what-did-charles-williams-bring-to.html

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Easy. 

In a word: politics.

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Real pagans are Right-wing, indeed Reactionary;

while Neo-pagans are Left-wing/ Liberal/ Socialist.

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In other words, Real pagans fit their politics into their religion;

while Neo-pagans fit their religion around their politics.

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Does it have a name?

It is used a lot - everywhere from politics to everyday life.

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It relates to large scale and imprecise policy and action taking place in large scale and imprecise situations - there can be no formal proofs or controlled experiment.

But the situation is one where action must be taken (or else there must be a choice to take no action) and there is a choice of a possible actions.

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The logic is that if there is something that you want to be done, or you think needs to be done, or from which you personally benefit - then the fact that it has been tried before and failed - perhaps tried several times before and failed - is not counted as evidence against trying it again because this time things are different.

In one sense this is correct, things are different, things always are different - yet what this means is that past experience has zero influence on future action.

The reason is that just because it happened like that then, does not necessarily mean that it will happen the same now.

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The logic is that there is no necessary link between the past and the future; therefore the link can and perhaps should be ignored.

The fact that communism used to be bad does not mean that it is necessarily bad to be a communist now; the fact that a person used to behave badly does not mean they will necessarily continue to do so.

Give them another chance/ ignore experience.

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However... when the situation is such that there is disapproval: when you want something not to be done, when the people involved are disliked, when there is a personal disadvantage from a potential course of action - then a single past experience in a different situation may lead to an absolute prohibition.

Nobody give Nazis a second, third, fourth and tenth chance like they do with Communists!

(Indeed, potential or imaginary Nazis are regarded as a bigger threat than actual, existing, massive, expansive, aggressive Communist Empires!)

Nobody says things are different now - just because Fascism/ National Socialism led to bad results in the past does not means that it will necessarily do so in the future. Nobody imagines the experience of the Holocaust is irrelevant to future policy.

A single specific unreplicated instance has absolute authority over all present and possible future actions.

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So this logic works such that on the one hand:

1. No past experience or possible future evidence is ever sufficient to condemn that which is pre-approved.

The onus of proof is that to reject communism entails demonstrating that communism must - under ALL possible and imaginable circumstances - lead to the worst possible results.

And if this cannot be proven beyond doubt we shall give communism another try!

2. Minimal or no past experience is necessary to absolutely rule out that which is pre-loathed.

The onus of proof is that to accept fascism entails demonstrating that under NO possible or conceivable circumstances could it ever lead to any kind of harm.

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In sum, to reject communism requires showing that it is totally evil; while to accept fascism requires demonstrating that it is totally good.

No evidence is ever sufficient to reject that of which we approve, no evidence is ever enough to get us to accept that of which we disapprove.

Probabilities, amount of data, strength of evidence have absolutely no affect on things.

Because this logic is absolutist not probabilistic.

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Policy choices - personal choices - are thus pre-determined, pre-immunized.

Vast edifices of research, analysis and critique are rendered utterly ineffectual.

All that needs be done is change attitudes - and from attitudes this all else follows.

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What to call this style of absolutist reasoning in which attitude is 100 percent determinative of outcome?

In the past it would have had a name: something rather like 'un-manly logic' - and its current dominance would have seemed easily explicable.

Its dominance also seems strongly related to the rulership of society by  bureaucracies - by committees not individuals, by democracy and voting.

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In many ways this kind of logic - a logic based wholly on attitude, on prejudice - is the natural, default mode of human functioning.

There is something to be said for a society which knows what it likes and want, knows what it hates and fights against, and just gets on with the job.

But the domination of a society ostensibly devoted-to knowledge and ruled by research and evidence by covert yet determinative prejudice is simply dishonest and irrational, hence evil.

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So - what to call it?

The logic of prejudice, perhaps?

Or just plain prejudice - a prejudice that - once established - orders all past, present and possible experience to confirm itself?

Yet a prejudice that is ultimately ashamed of itself, that therefore lies about its own nature and operations. That disguises itself with borrowed trappings of skepticism, reason, evidence.

(And the plain fact that the logic of prejudice utterly rules exactly those individuals and groups who claim to be most opposed to prejudice really ought to have been a dead give-away!)

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"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence".


This is only true when the claim really is extraordinary. 


And the criterion of extraordinary ought to be that of common sense - the wisdom of the ages - extraordinary cannot be defined by whatever weird beliefs Westerners of 2011 have been filled-with.

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This phrase "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence"is attributed to Carl Sagan - which is hardly any kind of recommendation for its validity in my book - but it is a common, near-universal, rhetorical move used by people to dismiss claims that they want to dismiss. 

It is a standard method of 'debunking'. 


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Let's think of one extraordinary claim, as it is perceived to be in mainstream modern discourse: 'psychic dreams'.

I mean dreams that mean something more than having reference to personal psychology and physiology - especially dreams that foretell future events or provide knowledge of remote or inaccessible matters.

Does the claim that there really are psychic dreams count as extraordinary, such that it should not be believed without extraordinary evidence?

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1. Every child apparently believes in psychic dreams. Such a belief is apparently spontaneous.

2. All of the hunter-gatherer, nomadic tribes I have ever read about seem to regard psychic dreams as not just real but very important for tribal well being - having and interpreting such dreams may be the role of the 'shaman'.

3. Educated intellectuals in, say, medieval Europe, seemed to believe in psychic dreams. For instance, Chaucer did, and wrote about little else. Langland's great poem Piers Plowman is also structured as a series of symbolic and insightful dreams.

4. JRR Tolkien, C.S Lewis and some of the Inklings believed in psychic dreams and were indeed fascinated by them - as I have documented on this blog and the Notion Club Paper's blog.

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5. A lot of modern people in modern societies actually do believe in psychic dreams, as I see from a recent article by Erlendur Haraldsson in the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research (2011; 75: 76-90).

In Iceland 36% men and 41% women (30% of university graduates) report having had experience of psychic dreams. This proportion rose between 1974 and 2006.

In terms of attitudes, 30% Icelanders thought psychic dreams were likely, a further 26 percent thought they were certain - more than half the population.

In other countries, 40 percent of people in Virginia USA reported experiencing psychic dreams, 35% of people in the UK said they believed in psychic dreams.

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So it seems that most people of most types in most places seem to believe in the reality of psychic dreams, and even in modern societies at least a quarter of people still do.

So, why are psychic dreams counted as extraordinary claims requiring extraordinary evidence?

(In practice, to state this about psychic dreams means that there is nothing which would ever be enough to convince the skeptic of the reality of psychic dreams.)

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The matter of psychic dreams is important because it shows how a common sense belief, a universal and cross-cultural human belief, and what is more a belief held by some of the most intelligent and able people in history, can be framed by mainstream modern discourse as being so utterly extraordinary that there is no point in considering the evidence of the matter since any evidence is certain to be insufficiently extraordinary.

Vast areas of basic human conviction and experience are eliminated from mainstream public discourse by this method: once a belief has been labelled extraordinary, then that belief becomes intrinsically and irrevocably absurd such that only stupid or evil people could hold it.

The knowledge and experience and wisdom of the ages - matters we all used to know as children - matters which in fact are believed by a quarter or half the population - become (sometimes quite suddenly) excluded from all serious consideration.

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Yet the truly extraordinary claims - extraordinary claims made by the intellectual elite concerning matters of the greatest human import such as morality, beauty and the nature of truth; matters of vital fact - such extraordinary claims distinctive to the Leftist rulers rapidly are progress from oddball hypotheses, to careerist intellectual fashions, then to become not merely accepted in public discourse, but positively encouraged, subsidized and rewarded, then ruthlessly enforced...

This is the actual nature of skepticism in modernity.

The official skeptic makes a big display of gagging and spitting on ideas such as psychic dreams which are human universals, then effortlessly swallows great draughts of socially-approved poisonous, nihilistic drivel.

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Kids read and watch vast amounts of fantasy and make believe - many kids, (and I was one) find the world of fantasy more appealing than this world.

Indeed, it seems that this world - for all its distractions and excitements - is simply not enough.

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Kids want so much for the fantasy to be real.

They ask: But is it real?

(If not real here and now, is it real at some place and time, or could it become so?)

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So there is, on the one had, this world - which is not enough to satisfy the human spirit; and, on the other hand... what?

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There is the perspective which says nothing.

That this life is real and all there is, fantasy may be nicer, but it is make believe and exists only in your mind.

And if you don't like this life, then that's tough - your life will be a miserable waste of time.

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What can this perspective advise? There is only one thing: you must try to enjoy this life: it is absolutely imperative.

You must cease to yearn for the impossible, and make do with the attainable. The attainable may seem crumby - but that is all that is on-offer.

Grab and hold as much attainable pleasure as you can cram-in; don't waste a moment, fill your life with it (and use attainable pleasures to displace dissatisfaction and the yearnings).

*

Yet if this advice succeeds, then all it achieves is to convert a miserable waste of time into a pleasurable waste of time.

Is that what we should tell our kids?

Is it true?

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For much of my adult life, especially the decade c 1998-2008, I was a sort-of Jungian; which was in fact not much different from the above.

As well as Jung, I  read deeply in James Hillman, Joseph Campbell, Daniel C Noel - and sampled 'new age' writers widely.

Although this Jungian view claimed to have solved the problem of meaningless this life versus meaningless fantasy, in fact the problem was still intact.

*

The Jungian view has it that everything is psychology - nothing is outside of psychology - but psychology is shared.

Reality is wholly subjective, because the mind 'creates' everything; but not solipsistic exactly because the mind is (in some way) shared between people.

So, for Jung and his followers, everything is as-if. Fantasy is just as real as this life; but neither are realer than ideas in human heads.

*

But if my own imaginations are inadequate for life, then so is Jung's psychology; because it merely expands the scope from my psychology to human psychology - but does nothing to affect reality - because reality is regarded as a product of psychology.

In effect, Jung says that delusional reality is the only reality, but asks us to be happy about this because at least the delusion is (to some extent) shared among all humans.

We are not alone in our delusions...

*

Talking with a child makes one realize that while such tortuous abstractions may (apparently) satisfy adult intellectuals - they do not satisfy the basic human craving for reality.

Children want to know 'but is it real': they are at root not satisfied with make believe, even if that make believe can be sustained almost indefinitely by the abundance of modern media.

*

A thought experiment.

Suppose you love The Lord of the Rings and were totally absorbed by it on first reading. Suppose you feel that the fantasy world of Tolkien is more real than this life.

Would it be enough to spend your whole life reading LotR?

Okay - you would get used to it, habituated, it would lose its effect...

But, supposing your memory was wiped between each reading; such that each time you read LotR it was like the first time and undiminished?

(Something of this type happens in certain forms of brain damage, and might in principle be possible with some technical interventions.)

Would that be enough?

*

Ah, but you would know at the back of your mind that LotR was fantasy...

Suppose that that knowledge could be removed; suppose you dwelt in LotR as you read it - like an alternative or virtual reality, and unaware of the fact?

(Technically, this might too be possible - insight and awareness disappear in some psychotic illnesses - so they should be able to be abolished artificially.)

SO - you can read and re-read Lord of the Rings each time as fresh as the first, and this is taken to be this world in which you dwell - is it enough?

*

Well, is it enough for the creature who actually dwell in Middle Earth? The Hobbits, Men, Elves, Dwarves, Ents?

Is Middle Earth enough for them?

Obviously not.

*

So when a child yearns for the reality of fantasy, and implicitly recognizes the inadequacy of this life; in fact the fantasy is not itself an answer.

So this life does not satisfy, and the fantasy would not satisfy even if it became our own life (or was apparently our own life, by some kind of technical intervention - some kind of subtle brain damage).

*

The child's yearning, sparked by fantasy, in in fact a profound statement of the human condition; and a heart-felt recognition of the inadequacy of this world, and of any imaginable world, to our desires.

At this level the problem is inevitable and insoluble.

The problem can, indeed, be solved only at a transcendental level; and in a manner which cannot be understood.

Just as any actually imaginable fantasy would leave us yearning; so we cannot imagine what would satisfy our yearning to be ourselves-yet-transformed in a world which was like this-world-but-transformed.

Yet that is precisely what we yearn for; and nothing less could or would ever satisfy.

That is what the child's question 'but is it real?' is telling us.

*

*

From:

http://www.cslewis.org/journal/shine-as-the-sun-cs-lewis-and-the-doctrine-of-deification/

By Chris Jensen

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When he was president of the Oxford Socratic Club during the 1940s and 50s, C.S. Lewis featured weekly discussions on “repellent doctrines.”

By these, he meant traditional Christian teachings that seemed puzzling or implausible—teachings on suffering, miracles, hierarchy, and the like.

Lewis thought these doctrines conveyed truths that modern people most needed to know but were least likely to recognize: “We must never avert our eyes from those elements in [our religion] which seem puzzling or repellent; for it will be precisely the puzzling or the repellent which conceals what we do not yet know and need to know.”

*

For many Christians today, deification would be such a doctrine. Deification (also known as theosis or divinization) sees salvation not merely as divine pardon but rather as a process of spiritual transformation that culminates in mystical union with God.

As Lewis understood it, human beings could one day enter into the very beauty and energy of God and become “true and everlasting and really divine persons.”

In his book Mere Christianity, which can be seen as a manifesto on the subject, Lewis argues that the whole purpose of Christianity is to turn people into what he variously calls “new men,” “little Christs,” “Sons of God”—and “gods and goddesses.”

*

Lewis knew such language might give many of us a shock, but he insisted that this is “precisely what Christianity is about.”

Although largely forgotten by Christians today, deification is at the heart of Lewis’ vision of reality. From his sermons to his apologetic essays, from his space fiction to his children’s stories, one can hardly find a corner of his literary universe that is not illumined by the idea.

(...)

Lewis encountered the idea of deification everywhere from St. Athanasius to George MacDonald, and he knew the doctrine was held from earliest times by many church fathers (like Athanasius) who helped establish the canon of the New Testament and the doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation.

These fathers taught that Adam and Eve were created in the image and likeness of God, but after the fall they were estranged from their creator and subject to pain, sorrow, and death.

Deification, then, is the restoration of the divine likeness that humanity lost along with its beauty, purity, and incorruption.

In holding to deification, not only was Lewis in harmony with Eastern Orthodoxy, where the doctrine remains a distinguishing mark, but with many voices in the West like St. Augustine and St. Bernard of Clairvaux—and a forgotten strand of Anglican tradition including Lancelot Andrewes, Richard Hooker, Charles Wesley, and Ann Griffiths.

(...)

Lewis didn’t follow the path of Emerson or others who blurred dogmatic boundaries by confusing God and creation or by teaching that human beings are naturally divine.

Only God is transcendent, uncreated, and divine by nature.

Therefore deification does not mean the “actualization” or “realization” of one’s latent divinity, a belief that is less Christian than monistic or pantheistic.

Nor does deification mean that human beings eventually will evolve into something essentially equal to God (...) Lewis was always clear on the difference between creature and Creator—an irreducible ontological distinction.

Deified human beings forever remain human while at the same time sharing in divine grace or energy, just like blazing iron in the fire shares the properties of flame but doesn’t cease to be iron. Human beings will not melt into an impersonal God like a salt statue tossed into the ocean, or become new and independent divine beings in a type of polytheistic evolution.

*

For this reason, Lewis cannot be categorized with Neoplatonists, Hindus, Mormons, or even certain Christian mystics who seemed to lose sight of the essential distinction between God and humankind.


***


Note:

I agree that deification is a vital part of a coherent concept of Christian life: indeed I believe that it is deification which primarily sets Christianity apart from Judaism and Islam - because it is what the incarnation and resurrection of Jesus Christ made possible, over and above monotheism.

The concept is found in all legitimate Christian traditions, but most centrally in Eastern Orthodoxy - as theosis - marking its superiority.

*

So, becoming a Christian is properly a two-step process: first conversion and then deification.

Salvation is certainly possible without deification (e.g. The Good Thief) - but it is deification which is the purpose of Life and which potentially fits humans for their proper place in an hierarchical Heaven.

It is deification which makes Holy Elders and Saints, and enables them to do what they do.

*

But for some, probably for me, deification is merely the turing back to God again and then again, taking the first step and back-sliding a step. It is the qualitative movement towards God - even if it gets no further than that - but of course it has, in some people, in some times and places - gone much further than that.

For instance,  theosis went much further than that in C.S Lewis himself...

*

*

I sometimes think we need pagan missionaries, almost as much as we need Christian missionaries. Indeed they could be the same people - adjusting their strategy.

Christian missionaries are very good at converting pagans, but nobody seems able to convert modern secular hedonists.

The jump between secular hedonism is too great - between believing whatever you like to believing a complex set of interlocking propositions (which perhaps don't make any better sense than secular hedonism unless they are all present and correct).

But maybe, simple paganism could be restored - and later on the person might be amenable to Christianity?

*

Simple paganism is the natural, spontaneous understanding of the world we had when children; and then there is also the complex philosophical paganism of the Ancient Greeks.

Intellectuals ought to be able to follow the logic of Plato or Aristotle to discover that there must be a god (or gods) for the universe to cohere at a very basic explanatory level.

This god/s is not, of course, the Christian God (although Christians might consider  them to be angels). It is not a personal God, and it is not a loving God - indeed it is not even a creator God (it is a mistake to try and prove the necessity of a creator God to an atheist - this necessity was not apparent to Plato or Aristotle so why should modern butterfly intellectuals be compelled by the argument?).

What I am suggesting is that missionaries stop - for a while - at the necessity of god/s - and refrain from pushing straight on to God.

At any rate, if modern intellectuals can be got as far as the intelligent pagans of the Greek and Roman era, that would be an enormous advance in Truth.

*

And if the mass of ordinary people could be got as far as paganism (even if they denied Christian revelation) - then there is something-to-work on, and a perspective from which Christian conversion might happen in the blink of an eye.

But so long as the modern Western populations are distracted 24/7 by media and gossip and drugs and busyness and the deliberate derangements imposed by the Left... well, for so long no reasoning at all is possible, apparently, no illogic too extreme; and from this unrepentant state where even the need for repentance and the fact that there is anything even in principle to repent seems unclear - Christianity seems almost impossibly remote.

*

*

http://thomism.wordpress.com/2011/10/29/its-not-about-evolution/#comment-6993

"The fundamental problem is whether natural science suffices to explain human beings."

James Chastek

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Continuing discussion from: http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2011/10/natural-selection-as-metaphysical.html

Chastek's is an excellent framing of the discussion - with evolution by natural selection seen as merely a subtype of the general class of 'scientific' (non-divine, natural) explanations.

*

Science gets precision as a by-product of its metaphysical simplification - that which science leaves-out, it does not first disprove, it simply ignores and proceeds on that basis.

The consequent model of reality has no intrinsic validity (no matter how self-consistent that model may turn-out to be) because it is built on deliberately-simplified, and therefore presumably incomplete, foundations.

For the conclusions of science to be valid, would require a demonstration that the deliberate incompleteness of the foundations of science did not (?significantly) affect the validity of the model built upon them.

*

Interestingly, one of the ways that science has used to assume (without needing to demonstrate) its own completeness is to denigrate common sense, spontaneous knowledge, natural law, the consensus of human history etc.

If common sense is regarded as having zero validity, then the fact that aspects of common sense reality have been left-out of the scientific model is of no consequence.

If the consensus of history is ejected wholesale, this does not matter since it was, anyway, arbitrary.

*

Humans are (by this metaphysical account - it is not an empirical discovery) born into the world naked of mind and body, to be shaped by society - which itself has no intrinsic validity.

In a word: nihilism.

*

*

There is a natural, inbuilt, spontaneous knowledge of the nature of the world: that the world consists of Life and Reality.

Life is this world: the world of change, of growth and decay and transformation.

Reality is another and less obvious world: eternal and unchanging and the source of knowledge.

*

From this metaphysic of Life and Reality; arise all questions, all philosophy and all religions.

*

Questions such as the relation between Life and Reality: why are things set-up this way?

What things are eternal and changeless, what are ephemeral?

Why don't Life and Reality coincide? Or, if they do, why is this not obvious - why is the relationship not spontaneously felt?

What can Life know of Reality, and how?

What is Life for?

And so on.

*

It is the denial of this knowledge of Life and Reality - denial of the basis of all human thought - that has un-moored modernity and led to endemic insanity.

*

For modern man, there is only Life and no Reality. Only change and no eternity. Reality is an illusion, there is no source of knowledge, there is no knowledge - there is only growth, decay and transformation.

To believe this is insane, because it makes no sense - worse, it violates sense.

*

Denying the basis of all philosophy and religion, modern man is unable to reason.

(This applies especially to the most educated intellectuals).

*

*

There is a natural, inbuilt, spontaneous knowledge of the nature of the world: that the world consists of Life and Reality.

Life is this world: the world of change, of growth and decay and transformation.

Reality is another and less obvious world: eternal and unchanging and the source of knowledge.

*

From this metaphysic of Life and Reality; arise all questions, all philosophy and all religions.

*

Questions such as the relation between Life and Reality: why are things set-up this way?

What things are eternal and changeless, what are ephemeral?

Why don't Life and Reality coincide? Or, if they do, why is this not obvious - why is the relationship not spontaneously felt?

What can Life know of Reality, and how?

What is Life for?

And so on.

*

It is the denial of this knowledge of Life and Reality - denial of the basis of all human thought - that has un-moored modernity and led to endemic insanity.

*

For modern man, there is only Life and no Reality: Only change and no eternity: Reality is an illusion, there is no source of knowledge, there is no knowledge - there is only growth, decay and transformation.

To believe this is insane, because it makes no sense - worse, it violates sense. 

*

Denying the basis of all philosophy and religion, modern man is unable to reason.

(This applies especially to the most educated intellectuals).

*