Important links (RE: "Some Unsupported Assertions")

http://www.teotw.net/energy_EROI.html

These links are a good introduction to the challenges of calculating eroi, deciding on the viability of renewables as a total replacement for fossil fuels, and charting out possible transitions from a political and economic standpoint.

The future of modern, technological civilization is definitely in the balance--a fact that is not even on the horizon of academic philosophy , which sits comfortably air-conditioned in government offices. Even a maverick like Manuel De Landa remains ignorant of the implications, despite his interest in thermodynamics and energy. We cannot ignore it, however, and must instead position ourselves as lives lived with this predicament in mind, whatever the choices made.

Some Thoughts on the Eurasian System:

I've said before in other contexts--and this sort of continues my other post on Buddhism--that Chinese Buddhism is first the bearer of an Indo-Europeanism that simultaneously imports the Brahmanic culture of the one, while also serving as a protest and, at best, an escape. This is done by exaggerating reincarnation to infinity to find a vantage out of hierarchy and caste that could silently indict caste, making it untenable. This all confronts the indigenous Tao, and in doing so forms the wider significance (for all Eurasia, and the world history that it has created together) of the becoming-God of the Tao. That is, the exiting of the one into the multiple.

This is consummated in Japanese Buddhism, which seems to say, "nirvana and Samara: the same." But in this sameness, though not in any sense an equation, does transfer the attributes of the one to the other, making not only illusion already into nirvana--but, also, nirvana into illusion. Instead of Samara being desire, and desire being a kind of rift that will, existing within a fantastic/projective capacity, opens in nirvana--nirvana becomes the rift that is opened by man in the endless and simple desire, which is innocent; which is just love.

In the manner I described earlier, this gives love a gravity and direction. But nirvana is where no love can go (I hazard a definition,) so that it is the direction of desire; it is in but not of desire, being a kind of hole that desire tends to across infinite time. And this hole is (as far as desire is concerned) simultaneously everywhere and nowhere, so that it draws all desire in contradictory directions, begetting violence and strife. Desire desires to be sated.

Meanwhile Christianity says: God is love. And where no love can reach is hell. I hope I won't be accused of a fundamentalism--something like: "Buddhists worship the devil!" First of all, Nirvana can easily function is precisely as the "intensity=0" that Deleuze and Guattari, for instance, call the body without organs. Like anything, there is always a revolutionary intonation that is formed by saying in the same words in the same places--but then also combining those words with utopian acts of love/charity. Explosive acts.

But there is also the pure land! This brackets nirvana; has it hanging in the sky like a distant star. Right here is the pure land, always promised. present as soon as one says the name "Namu Amida Butsu." The realm where beings coexist in infinite love, exploring, delving into each other through eternity. no strife is to be found. No "competition for finite resources." All are welcome to be themselves, in the same infinite place.

Some Kierkegaardian Delusions (a hallucinogenic:)

All the world's a stage; and salvation, when viewed from the world as a backdrop, makes of the play an the infinite convergence of the tragic and the comic. With any life lived in the world, there is always the irony "To think that what they were seeking, in so many things and with so much suffering, was right there all time, but they did not have the wits to see it!" To this the tragic adds the rejoinder "and now its too late..." But there a comedic aspect, too, like someone searching the house high and low for the keys in his pocket.

The eschaton, too, is a backdrop, and it cooperates with salvation in being an ever-present, offensive indictment of the world; to think of the milieu's ending is to violently rip one's self out of it; to not be able to care anymore about titles and trinkets. In this way, the backdrop reveals itself as a mirror for the players, who see "through a glass darkly" and hence gain a self consciousness, and some dim insinuation of the place of the spectators--that chorus who sings "holy, holy, holy is the lord almighty." This, however, as any actor would surely tell you, is the death of acting to think of one's self, and to think as well of the audience watching you. One would freeze; forget one's lines; stumble in the midst of the action. Be dumbstruck, and play the fool.

Before such a spectator this is quite understandable. Is the spectator none other than God, though? The throne of God, indeed! But there is something wondrous and monstrous that we see in the mirror, when look at us looking at ourselves; what revelations portrays:

"At once I was in the Spirit, and there before me was a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it . And the one who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian. A rainbow, resembling an emerald, encircled the throne. Surrounding the throne were twenty-four other thrones, and seated on them were twenty-four elders. They were dressed in white and had crowns of gold on their heads. From the throne came flashes of lightning, rumblings and peals of thunder. Before the throne, seven lamps were blazing. These are the seven spirits of God. Also before the throne there was what looked like a sea of glass, clear as crystal. In the center, around the throne, were four living creatures, and they were covered with eyes, in front and in back. The first living creature was like a lion, the second was like an ox, the third had a face like a man, the fourth was like a flying eagle. Each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around, even under his wings. Day and night they never stop saying: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come."

Now, it seems to be a consensus that this is a description of God the father. And, in fact, it is the only direct description of the experience of God the father that I know of. Not just attributes, not just a description of what he does. And not a metaphor. I've never been able to understand Revelations, but feel like I've stumbled upon something here. I'd like to explore the passage in more detail. It seems to me as if what we find imbedded near the center of this vision is something like the sphinx "with the face of a man." But this vision is immediately multiplied into other creatures, who are then said to be "covered with eyes" (c.f. Deluze and Guattari on the face, and its multiplication through the addition of borders, or "wings" (really, these are folds) on page 183 of A Thousand Plateaus.) On top of that, we have a throne with someone made of precious stones, a green-colored rainbow, seven lamps, lightning, a sea of glass--and, finally, the spirit who encompasses the whole thing. The passage is puzzling.

The Philosopher as User

Drugs are given a bad name, really with out drugs we couldn’t think at all. I mean the chemicals that change the way we think. If modern neuroscience is to be believed all thought is interaction of different drugs. For the philosopher thoughts are like drugs. As the druggie may seek out Pot to escape the troubles of the day, the philosopher may seek out Watts; as the druggie seeks out cocaine, the philosopher may seek out Nietzsche; as the druggie may use LSD the philosopher uses Heidegger or Deleuze.

The question “what are you thinking?” is asked as if it could always be answered quickly, but some thoughts take hours of effort and conditioning to be thought, or maybe even months or decades. Philosophers tend to seek out these rare and hard to attain thoughts, and for the same reason that the druggie seeks out his chemical of choice, to change the way their mind works, often to self medicate.

Some druggies become addicted to one particular drug that the try to stay under the influence of. Philosophers can be the same way, often the most religious or dogmatic philosophies come from this addiction. The most stingy man will share with you a smoke if he is a smoker, something about addiction is contagious, it tries to spread itself to others. And philosophic addictions are the same way, some religions go door to door pushing their fix of choice.

Other druggies have a very different kind of addiction, on to exploration, those that don’t prefer one drug over all other, but will try anything thrice, just to see where it can take them. And this addiction can be just as pushy. There are philosophers like this, trying to push the limits of though, to see what they can think. Personally I have more sympathy for this addiction, the high of thinking something truly out there is most wonderful.

Thoughts and drugs both have different affects on different users, and both have short term and long term effects. The effects I am referring to is the way that they change the experience of though, the way things are. Some thoughts (drugs) have a vivid and quick effect that leave little long term effect beyond a possible memory of doutable accuracy. Other thoughts (drugs) forever change the way thought works. The history of philosophy is rich with a pharmacopia of thought drugs to get high or alter the mind forever.

Of course we only notice drugs when they change, for example the normal neuro transmitters in your brain are not of much notice, until they are suplimented with some DMT, or LSD. Thoughts are the same way thinking as you normally do never feels like much of a drug until you are exposed to something novel. This is a focus for philosophers, and thinkers in general, to learn and teach and discover new thoughts, hopefully ones that are wild trips that change the meaning of everything. Some thoughts become so common that we desensitize to them as a trip and they become the norm. Generally such thoughts are a cultural addiction, just as some peoples regularly use certain chemicals, all peoples have certain thoughts that are needed to make them a particular people.

Modern science has created drugs that put us close the the point of being able to sculpt new types of consciousness, and this has scared many people, that we will enter a brave new world situation. But this has been the norm for thousands of years in the realm of human thought, with new thoughts being discovered and spread through cultures often destructively to the thoughts that came before. We keep creating new kinds of human, those toxic to their predecessors are most likely to succeed.

We rarely think of thoughts as being drugs, because in everyday life most thoughts seem so common that the idea of a truly foreign though doesn’t come up. That there are thoughts which are not easy to access beyond the scope of our education system is often ignored. And that certain thoughts could take years of effort to attain is often ignored out of arrogance. And how powerful of a change these thoughts can have is not often appreciated. A work of a great thinker can change the way the world seems just as much as a large dose of a hallucinogen. A great poet can be more calming then any opiate.