Yes. We all are.
We cannot grasp it because we get in our own way. The human condition is that we cannot grasp what it is. The idea of bettering the human condition comes not just from the idea of improving quality, but more specifically building a world where trying to understand it becomes easier for all individuals. By the perspective that it can be improved at all. Those that make the human condition worse, if you bother to look, are the ones that are the most cynical of it, the ones who feel humanity is doomed, and feel that there is no way for humans to better their own condition.

Then you misunderstood. I was trying to point out that you laid your premise that the human condition was a function of time, and that my beliefs, workings, views, and efforts stemmed from the completely inverse view that it is time that is a function of the human condition and experience. Got it now? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) The universe is as much a part of us as we are a part of it. By understanding the holographic parallels, and by looking within ourselves, you will discover that it is the degree by which we understand ourselves that reflects the degree we understand the universe.To us? Or to you? Clearly, I have a different viewpoint, hence, the us does not apply...until you prove it. Personal, individual, utilitarian... what does it mean to you (rhetorical question)? Are we really all that different? The more you explore and understand metaphysics, the more you understand the unity of the Great Machine (universe, work, machine, however the allusion is, but it all refers to the same meme). We really are all connected, almost as one entity. Physics has proven that. When you get to the smallest increments, there is absolutely no way to tell where one entity begins or ends. We are, at best, just nodes in a great webwork. But are we nodes? Or are we webwork? Objectively speaking, the nodes are absolutely webwork, but the webwork are not necessarily defined by the nodes. Similarly, the human condition and experience is something experienced by an individual human being, but you have to understand that because all humans are (arguably, on different levels and through different angles of argument,) the same, then it would be prudent to extrapolate that the factors of the human condition are justly the same. The study of these various factors (and the basis of their similarities on the premise that humans are arguably the same) have been subdivided into sciences known as Sociology and Psychology. Other branches and disciplines exist, but I am too busy devoting my mental energy to addressing your post using as efficient of a means as possible, instead of going into too much detail.

I'm human, just like you! I have as much license as you do! Look at me now, I can do it, and you can too! Correction: You choose to know nothing about. You speak in haste, my fellow scholar. How do you know we cannot know anything about it? I've made great strides in understanding myself, and through my observations, held others in my life to the same standards, and came out correct. Not to mention, my brother, his wife, my father, my uncle, and late grandfather are all psychiatrists. They taught me a few tricks in understanding other human beings. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/13.gif)

As much as your nihilist-style argument does a great job at nitpicking and hairsplitting, you are forgetting a fundamental concept: Magick and metaphysics is meant to create reality. It is in retrospect that humans analyze what they have made for themselves. The collective mix of every factor from every reality of every person alive, and the legacy of the realities left by the dead, playing upon each other simultaneously, THAT is human condition. When we make something that does not ensure both the survival of the species and our happiness, we deconstruct it. If it serves those interests, we keep it.

This post has been edited by Xenomancer: May 31 2010, 03:14 PM

(and the many sentences which were saying basically the same thing)

who is to say that you're typing on a keyboard? can you prove it? absolutely prove it?
no. not absolutely.

"but nihilism in the end slays even itself with it's final act after joyously raping and pillaging the egotism of man's beloved subjective truths..."

you could pick apart any post with a "but how do you REALLY know" line of questioning. any post, in this thread or any thread, on any topic. Nihilistic logic is something which is good for one to ask themselves about when pondering their ideas, and being tempted to believe they have some sort of "absolute truth" (generally a figment IMO). But it's not particularly fruitful to form those questions around someone else's ideas. I mean, I myself might actually enjoy that sort of interrogation, because I subject my thinking to it already, and i would just look at it as a sort of hostile sounding board to bounce my ideas off of. ie- a potential tool.
but generally people just feel like you're picking at them if you do that.

and ultimately, How can you know that xeno needs a certain level of perspective which is out of his reach? isn't that also out of your reach to really know for sure? you cannot question assertion on the footing of nihilistic thinking without also questioning the questioning of the assertion just as harshly.
nihilism is a 'very' double edged sword in debate. pull it out, and your own argument will bleed just as much as the other.

suffice to say, xeno has a paradigm, and you feel it is presumptuous, and he feels your feeling is presumptuous.
and who is right? or is subjectivity ok for determining which feeling is 'truth'? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/hmm.gif)

or do you agree to disagree? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/bigwink.gif)

edit:
in the end nihilism is a zero sum game. it doesn't really change anything, except perhaps to remind one that anything is possible, and anything you think is true might not be. which I think is awesome to bear in mind, always. But it's really just not functionally applicable to saying an idea is 'wrong'. it can only ever say it's not provable, and *nothing* is absolutely provable, so all ideas are equal in that regard, even nihilism itself. which begs the question "so what?"

(Nietzsche, if you're watching from the afterlife, you know i luv ya, but I gotta ask "Cummon, was that so hard?")

This post has been edited by Kath: May 31 2010, 04:15 PM

Hey Xeno and Kath~

In response to the general use of the word nihilism, i'm kind of put off by that. My philosophical paradigm isn't what I understand nihlism to be (there is no purpose to the world and everything is nulled, and inevitable and foolish etc etc etc. Things Kafka would probably giggle at.) I feel that rather we as beings with egos are insignificant motes of dust in the face of the infinite, but, what we do have control over is how we react and change to the world. This by proxy does change the world, but I don't feel that as an entity that we have much right to claim these changes as our own, but a collective shift. But this deterministic (I didn't actually study this branch of philosophy so correct me if I'm using it wrong) business does not mean that we don't have what we perceive as free will, rather our free will is already apart of this grand machine (so pretty much wallowing in the inevitability of all of it isn't exactly a very productive or useful thing.)

As of now, my paradigm does think that as individuals, its a bit much to claim that our idea of better is okay. Maybe Hitler really believed he was bettering the human condition, as many people we consider genuine altruists did. I can't say which ones really did better the human condition: all I can see is what (in my perception of the world) brings beneficial results. Whenever I sink back into the source/the machine as deeply as possible, I'm honestly awestruck, and I realize how insignificant of a force individual agency is. We're all cells in the metaphorical tree, each one contributing and working together in a completely sublime way, and from what I picked up, in a sense beyond the understanding as the individual cells in the tree. Our individual actions are yes, individual dominoes, but without one of us or another, but we're feels like replaceable.

Right now, I agree to disagree with Xeno's paradigm. But this opinion may change since I'm still trying to figure out what the hell is really out there. I believe that without necessarily our validation, we're unanimously working towards something. That something is beyond my own comprehension, but what I do know is that compared to the infinite tide of we/us, the only way to really understand the nature of the infinite requires us/we to be infinite. Grounded as mortal individuals, we are very much (or what appears to be finite.) I think this is really just a paradigm that's in limbo, but its currently what I agree with.

I'm currently at what feels like the cusp or something. A 'veil' may fall, or something like that, but its fairly obvious I saw the shadow of the metaphorical tree, and we're nothing compared to it. I haven't seen tree itself, or truly comprehend that i've already seen it a million times,

On subjectivity~ I think that's really the only thing we have. I don't have a problem with it, but I don't think that its appropriate to claim that because I feel a trunk and he feels an ear, that we're inherently right or wrong.

So I think that what I really disagree with xeno about is (perhaps?) the basis of claiming agency for our actions. I don't feel we have any right to claim it~ what 'we did' was never really our doing, we were just there to put the cherry atop the cake then say we baked the whole thing. I think xeno, that you do claim we have it?


Just a really random but interesting in difference paradigm I felt the urge to point out, but it doesn't really make an immediate difference. I feel that reality is an illusion, but not in the sense you can wake from it like a dream, but that its fluid and bendy(?). It isn't static, magick isn't about making things real, given that nothing is static, magick is about crafting the illusion and allowing it to ebb in a way that satisfies you. Are we playing with semantics? It sounds like it if our definitions are actually the same (which they may be.)

Lots of edits~ Oh! I re-read your post xeno, and more wording threw me off and I felt the urge to show that I'm not Kafka 2.0 without the literary skill(z).


This was in response to me asking about bettering the human condition. Is bettering the human condition by aiding others understand it? Is that all that is required, or does that implicitly acknowledge that individuals will change their paradigms and everything else once they draw closer to it?



I'm under the impression that the machine has designs beyond our understanding. As individuals we can improve our own paradigm and make ourselves happy in the process. We aren't going to be ideologically damned or something~ its just I think we have no clue what's going on, and we might as well admit it and learn to just carry on with our lives as well as we can. (Reference to earlier stuff)


Lol. Either my mind is subconciously shifting itself every time we talk about this subject, or I actually do agree with you every single time. That's my whole thing on subjectivity and why I don't think that we have to right to claim that one paradigm can claim that its bettering something. I also agree with the idea of micro/macrocosmic universes


This viewpoint resonates all over your post, so consider it me generally addressing the concept of self and such, and I'll sound redundant, but I promise you there is a point here I'm trying to make. My natural urge is to say that an individual cannot completely understand oneself as one cannot completely understand the universe. We can feel its flow and ebb, but to say that we truly know every spot and corner, from I know is inherently impossible (even from I think? modern psychology)

This post has been edited by kaboom13: May 31 2010, 07:51 PM

YES!! THAT'S WHAT I WAS TRYING TO SAY ALL ALONG!! @_@


Why am I not surprised? But what's even more curiouser, we came to the same conclusion from completely opposing starting points. Fancy that. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

It implies that by helping others to understand it, I would improve it, and they would improve it. That it is a function of learning. I help others to be able to learn it by pointing out what will help them learn more about the universe they never knew before. By doing so, I improve it for them, because they are then able to improve it for themselves, and in turn, the work they do would reflect in their everyday actions. Collectively, overtime, the results should come back to me to make my world a better place.

And I'm from the position that when we learn more about the machine, the more we can manipulate it for sake of our happiness. Hence, "Causing change in conformity with the will."

Of course not. We are growing. The universe is growing. We learn, the universe expands. We have a duty to not lag behind. The only time when a human does not learn is when they are dead. The only time motion does not resume is when there is a stop. Hence, this is why we must explore ourselves in limited context of our mortality, address the same in others, and then extol the immortality we have via our progeny (children). The passing on of knowledge ensures that we, as a species, as an entire collective entity, never stop learning about what it means to be human. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)


This post has been edited by Xenomancer: May 31 2010, 08:04 PM

ahhh, i would differ on what 'nihilism' is. many MANY people say it is the denial of the reality of anything & everything. I can even find that in some dictionaries. But, nihilism is a philosophical field which has sat in the church's crosshairs almost as despised as satanism, and this has affected even supposedly officious definitions to a degree.

Nihilism is a denial of the 'provability of anything & everything'. Not a denial of it's existence. not an endorsement of it's existence. just a logically sound argument about the utter uncertainty of perception & world view & collective reality. If nihilism denied the existence of everything, totally, then nihilism wouldn't exist either, right? Which would be like saying "I don't think therefore I am not" which has a major paradoxical flaw. it would be a self defeating silliness. ideally nihilism is about talking about reality in hypothetical terms, rather than in "oh i know XYZ to be true". I mean, nihilists do eat, and such. even though the food *may* not exist (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

anyway, your approach struck me as using a nihilist style of logic to it. which is more a sort of "do you REALLY absolutely know that?" and ultimately you can never say yes to that sort of question, not if you're brutally and totally honest. So i think of it as sort of 'the nihilism cheat' in debate. but it cuts both ways, as you can't really know that someone's wrong just because they can't really know they're right. hehe.

I think it's a really healthy thing to ask oneself though, when forming ideas about how reality works, and such. keep that element of 'maybe' alive, so you don't get stuck in a paradigmatic trap (like my former religion, oy)


i don't disagree with that at all (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
but, just speculating with my own ideas rather than xeno's, do we *have* to be just finite individuals? or can we be more?
and if we were more... would we then actually have any desire to effect change?

Fast reactions, Kath!

To answer your questions, I would follow my current nihilistic viewpoint then. The ego is what chains us to subjectivity, and to be unchained, we are no longer existent as individuals. So, I feel that is basically impossible for an individual to really know. But at the same time, if I really could transcend my own existence, right now, I would love to in that state, with the degree of power exploded, do everything in my power to my dying breath to make the light burn brighter if it really could help everybody (if it could.)

But, as I think you said, that's really all speculation right now; we're guessing if the grass is greener on the other side right now.

You'd make a great bodhisattva (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
we perceive the same problem of "infinity being infinitely depersonalizing".

The entire focus of my path right now is on examining the possibility of engineering a sort of paradoxical existence, both finite and "not finite" at the same time. to sort of become a finite, persona-containing, face of the infinite, whole with the infinite, yet also individual. A sort of truncated model, like a cone with an ending point at the tip, and no end to it on the other side. I am led to believe that this is an even more difficult task than just merging with the infinite. While some might consider it an incomplete attainment, I feel the result is (from a certain perspective) actually "more vast" than just touching aum and going to nirvana. Since infinity in and of itself actually does fail to encompass one thing, 'finite-ness'.

But I wonder at just how such a blended state would play out, and whether one would (in full knowledge of the 'grand clockwork' and the meaninglessness of meaning) actually ever want to act upon it. I think that touches on the paradoxical aspect of my notion.
I'm afraid I have yet to really work it out.
It is my feeling that to do so will require shifting the throne of one's self anchor to the "higher self" rather than the physical self, or essentially merge with one's HGA, as I agree that it looks like it may well be beyond the capacity of a limited human brain/body to resolve this paradox.

no telling for certain what will make this notion workable though, without actually doing it.
as for the possibility of it, I feel that my patron would not spend the past decade helping and instructing unless it was possible.

that's what I would do by the way... like in your 'dying breath' act, to make the world a better place. my bodhisattva-like 'good will' would be to in turn instruct anyone who is capable, ready, and desirous, to help them realize the same spiritual growth. (i'm really more tantrik than buddhist though)

actually, from an infinite perspective, depending on how you look at time, perhaps I already am doing that, if i, in the future, succeeded. and maybe that's exactly what the higher self/hga is...

This post has been edited by Kath: Jun 1 2010, 03:02 AM

I don't use magick to solve my problems, I use it to make me aware of other peoples' problems so that I can work on solving those (through mundane means wherever possible). I'm a little altruistic to be honest. I also use it when there's a huge issue at hand environmentally - i.e. the oil spill, which I'm trying to curb but apparently having no success with whatsoever.

Self-improvement/awareness/empowerment/control. That's about it!

Am I to infer that you are able to manifest matter from thin air, or fly? If so, I'd like to hear more about it.

I use magic for several things really - guidance, grounding myself, communication with other people and spirits, creative inspiration, self improvement, and understanding the world.

I'm also currently using it to explore an idea I've had in my head for quite a while - no one knows exactly where tarot cards come from, but one of the stories is that they came from Thoth, who also in one story gave mankind the gift of the writing and in another story created everything by uttering its name. My idea is that if there is any truth to these stories, then it could be that the tarot and the archetypes within it is a kind of blueprint of all of existence. I know that even if this IS true I most likely will never be able to comprehend it all, but I'm still exploring the idea anyway. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

My primary use for magic is spiritual evolution, but also healing and the like when I get the chance. Magic has a wide range of uses, so I try not to specifically limit myself to any one of them; nor any group of uses either. You never know when you'll need flexibility to get the job done. *grins*



In hermetics, The Major Arcana of the Tarot actually IS said to represent the 22 Pillars of Wisdom--22 steps of spiritual evolution that takes the human soul from mundane to....well, to the highest peak of human spiritual evolution, I guess--whatever that may be. Franz Bardon's writings are based upon this teaching, and his three books on practical magic are supposed to cover the first 3 pillars of Magic, Evocation, and "True" Kabbalah.

Whether you personally believe it or not is up to you and whatever traditionalism your personal paradigm allows, but the books and related material may be worth a look if your genuinely interested. ~_^



~:Shin:~

Ah, yeah I came across that quite a while ago! It's not quite the same thing I'm getting at but it's along the same lines. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif) I've yet to check out Franz Bardon's work (mainly because I'm got a massive pile of books I'm still reading through (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) ), but it sounds like it'd be well worth my time! I shall have a look! Thanks for the help. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/egypt1.gif)

Edit

This post has been edited by ☞Tomber☜: Aug 18 2010, 10:47 AM

World peace can mean for the world to shut up and leave you alone sometimes.

^alright, that's cool man

"Could you elaborate on how my signature is a contradiction?" sure. Not trying to argue but I'll just point out my perspective on it.

Stand strong for what's true in your heart, your mind and your soul. Be different. Be true. Be real.
"I have no interest in using magic for my own needs or desires"

Well from what I understand about people they are all care about themselves quite a bit and when someone says they care about others, as opposed to themselves then I see it as a red flag. And (my opinion too) what that is a red flag for is a under fed conscious, or mars. Do you happen to have any Mars/ Neptune connections in your natal? Maybe I'm way off but I just call it like I see it and hope it doesn't get me in too much trouble. I also have gotten a DUI also in the past but fortunately I have changed a lot.

"Sometimes it's neccessary in this competitive world"
Yes. But the thing is I think it might always be necessary. With Mars anyway. That's something I am still figuring out.

This post has been edited by ☞Tomber☜: Aug 18 2010, 09:48 AM

oh sure sorry about that. I was referring to the practice of astrology, I'm a big fan. It would be really cool if you wanted you throw up your chart though, if you have ever been interested in that. Natal refers to the birth chart of a person. The planets and their aspects, signs and houses describe the person. I don't mean to lecture at all but it would be cool for my own personal experience if I got the chance to check it out.

If you go to here and enter your birth data then it shows your personal natal chart. And if you wanted to save the image and throw it up here or PM it could be interesting for both of us (if you even cared). And I could do it without lecturing you too (hopefully (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) )

This post has been edited by ☞Tomber☜: Aug 18 2010, 03:31 PM