and now for some of my crazy.

ok lets just lay down some shit because Adam quite frankly all our discussions have been far too one sided and i need you to start being more offensive and forcing me to learn more and to think, by asking questions and picking holes.

The soul is the eternal immortal spirit of man. it is the very essence of who we are, and our bodies are a mere physical representation of our selves (whether or not this body is reincarnated upon death or if life is a one off event is irrelevant at this point). It exists on a higher plane where it is connected to all other beings as one, and in a close proximity to god (god will need clarifying at some point) it knows all knowledge and understands universal truth (understanding universal truth is a point of contention as it reduces the need for physical existence).

The soul is connected to the mind and to the body (this references the holy trinity, mind being god. as we were created in his image, meaning we have free will and are conscious as is god.) All knowledge and guidance of the soul is accessible to the mind and the body, this is generally recognised as Intuition. Intuition is not something that is beyoung our control an it is possible to directly understand the soul. this is of course what the art of meditation was designed for. It is the ability to clear the mind of all chatter and motives to a place where Intuition is all consuming and all answers are known, the perpetual state of this relation with the soul is the idea of enlightenment.

Adam you read that Edward Bach paper on true cause of disease and suffering. that basically explains my view of human nature pretty well,

this is the basis of what i know to be true, much of everything else is mearly ideas trying to fill the gaps

so yea that pretty much puts intuition on a very high pistole compared to reason. especially coming from a man who has been accused of only believing in reason. but of course it is always hard to be sure that intuition has not been tainted by external motives especially when dealing with emotional issues.  i truly believe that Intuition and Reason go hand in hand and are both equally valid and must both be used in conjunction with each other. perfect balance in all things or something.

ed denton.

The flaw of Aesthetics

lets us assume that Beauty is the recognition of truths that are within ourselves, and that there is an object truth.

As non-perfect beings some of what we recognise inside ourselves as truths are infact non-truths, this leads to representations of these non-truths as being percieved as beautiful. This could be described as False Beauty, for a perfect being would not find such an object to be beautiful.

and i’m afraid this leaves us in a similar conundrum to where we started, for beauty is a representation of truth, however things that are not true can apear to be beautiful.

this could be used as an argument against modern art which strives for the subjective rather than the objective, and in so doing decieves itself with false beauty.

Aesthetics, a quicky

Kant breaks Beauty into Pure Beauty and Dependant Beauty. Pure Beauty being devoid of all motive, while Dependant Beauty requires motives i.e. it becomes beautiful when other factors are taken into account, but may not be thought of as being beautiful upon first impressions.

i think this distinction is in some ways false, i would instead say that Dependant Beauty is simply the beauty of understanding. it is the very act of understanding the concept that is beautiful rather than the object that embodies the concept.

ok thsi needs a complete overhaul its reall pretty terrible.

beauty

kk so i had this thought in the shower this morning and ithink i might be kinda good so feebback would be nice.

anyway so i’ve allways had different ideas as to what beauty is, its one of my favorite puzzels. ahve to take that beauty means everything from

alot of my ideas have come noting the differences between beautifull women and sexual attractive women. which is fairly substancial. and this lead me to the idea that beauty was in the small details and imperfections. however this means that a perfect being would not be beautiful. i came to the idea that beauty is truth as have many other people. now i’m not sure if turth is the right word or if ‘real’ might be a better substitute but i’ll stick will truth for now.

but anyway so this gets interesting. because their are three things i’m not sure if its possible to rationalise (you can probaly explain it rationaly… maybe) ; love, faith and beauty. cool ay. i mean yeah sure there are ways to apply maths to beauty with the golden section etc etc but i’m not sure if you can apply that to a plastic bag floating in the wind or a dead bird. you just intuitivly know its beautifull, or rather you more feel that its is beautifull.  and if beauty = truth then turth can also be know inutitively!!!

and also as a side its notable that morals are also intuitive, you can rationalise it all you want but in the end you have to do what feels right.

so for all our ability to undertand reason we have almost no concept of intuition.

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ED | Thu, 11/29/2007 – 03:36

Immanuel Kant,
writing in 1790, observes of a man “If he says that canary wine is
agreeable he is quite content if someone else corrects his terms and
reminds him to say instead: It is agreeable to me,” because
“Everyone has his own (sense of) taste”. The case of “beauty” is
different from mere “agreeableness” because, “If he proclaims something
to be beautiful, then he requires the same liking from others; he then
judges not just for himself but for everyone, and speaks of beauty as
if it were a property of things.”^[1]

iewer interpretations of beauty possess two concepts of value:
aesthetics and taste. Aesthetics is the philosophical notion of beauty.
Taste is a result of education and awareness of elite cultural values;
therefore taste can be learned. Taste varies according to class,
cultural background, and education. Poor taste is usually seen as a
product of ignorance. According to Kant beauty is objective and
universal; thus certain things are beautiful to everyone.

• reply

»

ED | Mon, 12/03/2007 – 00:46

ok thatsright i remembered this after someghng dins said. and it kinda discounts my argument because it make beauty less universal.

but i think a more likely definition is beauty is a self truth. so when you see somthing as beautiful it is beacuse you recognise that it reflects a truth within your self

this brings in the element that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. and rather than beauty it self being universally true, objects that are universally beautiful are representative of a truth that is inside of everyone and is a greater universal truth. .

so great universal beauty would be representative of somthing that is true to everyone.

on a hyopothetical idea of what love could be.

‘m real interested in ur idea of what love is adam?. i have no idea what the christian attitude towards it is.

anyway i’ll have somme kind of an attempt to explain one possible explaination of it, with references of christianity of course

ok lets take adam ( not u but the original adam) he was created in god image – and its bollocks to belive that means he looks like god, rather it means he was made of god and his mind was concious like gods etc. however god seeing the futility of creating another perfect being split adam in half creating eve, both being half of a formerly perfect being.

so love is reconising your missing atributes in others. and true love or your soulmate is finding someone that completes you. and then because you are a perfect being again (you probally ahve to attain enlightenment together or somthing adam/eve diddn’t do to become one again- which is also the perpose of life- ) you become one with god again.

or maybe because adam and eve had so many children now that all humanity must love each other to become a single being again.

on how the process of choosing to belive in any religion is the same (26/11/07)

i can say that choosing christianity over any other religon and beliving that bible it ture are all decisions based on intuition ( there may be a complelling arguement towards them but the decision is still based on intuition.) so then comes the question, how can millions of people all making decisions based on intuition come up with different answers in the form of different religons. and also how can you justify believing your right when ur using the exact same method to choose as they are.

consiracy theory #1 (10/12/07)

ok this is just an idea atm moment aa i need to consider it to be able to determine is it is plausible or not, but anyway.

so like the us is falling to bits at the moment. the early signs of which have been given the tag line “subprime”  however the whole economy is stalling. badly. and the only reason people do not see how badly it is in freefall is because the stock market has been relitively healthy. however things can be deseaving and complicated. because public buisness operate on an international level, and there value is relative to their international compeditors.

the falling  value of the us dollar has hidden the fact that the us stock market has almost halved in value over the last 4 years. leaving people especially americans completly oblivious. now the question is, is theri a benifitm to this? and yes when your economy is stalling the last thing you want is for people to pull their money out of their investments, you want them to put it into them to help the economy recover.

and also and perhap more scarely, is it is a way of saving the us goverment, which is in a whole pile of debt like 7trillion or somthing. but their debt is in us dollars. so that debt has effectivly halved. all they need is an income sorce seperate from the us dollar. ie oil.

so could the us intentionally reduce the value of it own currency.

i’m sure i’m missing some things but there somthing there possibly. it realy quite complicated.

Justice. 1.

Justice  has come to stand for a combination of three thing;  a means of repayment of the crime to the victim (Retribution), a method of deterring others from committing the same crime (Deterrence) and lastly as a system to teach the criminal a lesson (Rehabilitation).

I intend to bring into question of morality of the first two factors of  justice and by thus doing present the primary criteria for justice as: the best method of teaching the criminal the errors of their ways.

At the very least i intend to prove that ideas of justice are fundamentally flawed when they negate the possibility for the judged to learn from their mistakes.

In understanding Retributive justice and Deterrence we must look at the reasons they exist and the outcomes they hope to achieve.

Retributive justice is an attempt to balance out the wrong that has been committed with and equal and opposite action. It has history in the jewish laws of Moses,  ”life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.” In modern law the retribution can be considered to have equal value to the crime but in a differing form.

Deterrence is an attempt to discourage the general public from committing the same offense. It is a method of controlling the public using fear of consequences.

is it possible to right a wrong?, how can this be achieved?, what benefit does retribution achieve?, who does it benefit? how is retribution different from revenge? how can the justice system be above the moral law it is trying to protect?

is it possible for people to learn new morals or strengthen old ones? how can this be achieved? is fear a good method of achieving this? is it moral for a governments to use fear as a method of governance?

is free will and thus the ability to change not what defines humanity?

these question will be examined and with any luck answered in future posts. but i think you can see were i’m heading.