Abstracts vs Actualities: What Do You "Know" is "Happening?"

"The Tilled Field", Joan Miro, Oil on Canvas 1924

If you haven't already, read PART 1 of this particular series HERE. Everything will make much more sense. If not, carry on, and let the confusion hopefully inspire you to new heights of philosophical self-inquiry.

What's "Happening"?

YOU ARE. "Reality", as only YOU can define is, IS happening right now. Understand that "reality" requires consciousness to qualify it as "reality" in the first place. Minus conscious awareness there is no "reality". Anyone that attempts to argue otherwise is using irrational (contradictory) logic. Contradiction is not knowledge, nor "truth", whatever that may be. It's contradiction, and that sums 0.

(ASIDE - If you want to argue consciousness is an illusion, I'll rationally ask you to please explain "an illusion of what?" You might reply "of reality". This implies you have empirical knowledge and evidence of a reality existing somewhere that is the base layer projection for this illusion, which begs even more rational questions. Meet me in the comments for that stuff.)

Consciousness is a prerequisite for claiming "reality" is "reality", and consciousness is NOW. Always NOW. Absolutely NOW. When is consciousness? Consciousness is NOW. Kind of a funny way to think about it, but that's exactly what it is. NOW.

What Do You "Know", for Certain?

Your consciousness is the only thing you've ever actually known for certain; you are conscious/self-aware. This is key to understanding how to appropriately apply the concept of balance into a useful tool, that actually yields measurable (and pleasurable) results to your life and experiences.

Ontologically (not just psychologically), there is nothing outside of the "present". Your "projections" about what took place in the past, or what may or may not happen in the future, are just that; projections. 

People love to call each other delusional for a variety of things, but this right here takes the cake; projecting your awareness outside of the present moment directly dilutes your actual ontological relationship with what's happening. 

You ARE, and You ARE (Happening) NOW

The word "happening" implies NOW. NOW-ness. 

Everything you've ever experienced since you can recall becoming self-aware, is happening right now. Even the language used to describe that is a concept; an abstraction, not an actual. It exists only in the mind of the observer. 

The conscious, self-aware agent using that very self-aware consciousness to conceive concepts that are useful for the mastery of its environment...The only thing that exists to give anything meaning in the first place is YOU. YOU (SELF) exist, and you exist absolutely. The only constant is you as an existential singularity; consciousness is the ability to conceive concepts in the first place. This cannot be overstated. 

Rationally, it then follows that the only constant is your self-awareness, your consciousness. 

Everything you "know" is relative to this existential singularity anchoring of awareness. 

Epistemologically you don't know shit other than YOU ARE YOU, and OTHER THINGS ARE NOT YOU. This is where it all starts.

The World is an Ideological Shopping Mall of Contradiction as "Fact (I.E. "Truth")"

To continue to sleepwalk via treating concepts as real (Plato's Big Fuck Up) vs appropriating them as descriptions, not determinative of ontological reality is to thus elevate those concepts over reality itself. 

Welcome to insanity. 

This just so happens to be how the modern world functions without so much as a second thought.

Yes, they call those of us who refuse to settle for contradiction, paradox, and mystery as legitimate rational explanations for reality are the insane, conspiratorial, schizo ones. 

I don't settle for that bullshit, and neither should you if you've read this far. 

Come get a hot cup of coffee (or tea, juice, water, etc.) and a breather, you've fucking earned it.

Part 3 of this series is already written and being edited now. Stay tuned. Most importantly...

Stay rational, stay sane.

-Loaded Shaman

Abstracts vs Actualities: Introduction

""The Floating Intellect - a mechanical behemoth disconnected from the ground of objectivity."" -Montalk.net

Introduction

Readers of this particular blog know I don't mess around. There's no time for easily-misconstrued bullshit. The world is already rife with that. There are an infinite number of shallow resources that leave more questions asked than they answer. Not only do I submit that a return to rationality is required, but an extreme one at that. Centuries of bullshit have poisoned the minds of everyone. Contradiction is heralded as explanation, with no second thought. Hell, there's not even a first thought, and that's the problem. Even in grade school, I always argued that critical thinking is just thinking. People just have low standards for thinking in the first place, so anything outside of their comfort zone is labeled "critical".

That should show you how poor of a starting point we often give ourselves. An immediately self-imposed limit. "Stepping on your own dick", as the brash Dan Pena would say. No matter; we need to get rational (use non-contradictory definitions and explanations) regarding some basic stuff, so that we can make use of it. So it can have efficacy for us. We need to smash the philosophical pinta wide open and examine things in uncomfortable - and hyper rational - detail.

Thus, this series, or folder, or subsection of articles will be dedicated to the blunt, rational attack on supposed commonly-accepted-as-fact assertions. Abstracts vs Actualities will dive uncomfortably deep into the ways we humans sleepwalk through our own definitions, often in contradictory fashion, and how this has a subtle, but massive impact on our behavior, and thus results in life. I've yet to come across a particular resource that unites philosophy, psychology, and physics in this manner. It's my goal to show you that in "reality", there's a thin, thin line between what we think we're doing, and what we're actually doing. Returning to rational thinking will make all of this crystal clear, because your thinking will be clear. There will be no room for doubt or anxiety because you'll "see" how contradiction was holding you back, usually in areas you were previously "unconscious" (unaware) of.

Thus, a return to rationality is a return to conscious awareness of "what in the fuck is actually going on".

Part 2 is being edited now and will be up in the coming days.

Until then,

Stay rational, stay sane.

-Loaded Shaman

Physics is Not a Recipe for Ontology Part 1

YOU ARE, first and foremost.

YOU ARE a metaphysical singularity, and absolutely so.

Every "thing" you "think", "believe", and "know" is a direct result of your conscious existence.

Your consciousness is the only unmoving, unwavering, constant frame of reference for anything.

Your consciousness and existence are a prerequisite for anything to have any meaning whatsoever, even the claim "Freewill is an illusion" (an illusion of what, and for whom?).

"Past", "present", and "future" are psychological abstracts. They aren't actuals. They're descriptive, not determinative. 

To treat them as actuals is to elevate conceptual paradigms over actual ontological reality.

Physics is not a recipe for ontological reality.

Consciousness/existence IS...and absolutely so.

Stay rational, stay sane.

-Loaded Shaman

Information is NOT Knowledge Part 1

"Information isn't knowledge. Knowledge is information with a commensurate amount of experience to go along with it." -Al Snow

In this day and age, we're drowning in information. The real question is, what's the quality of any said piece of information at any given moment? How can you tell what's "shit" from what's "legit"? 

Who decides? 

Who can you trust? 

What sources aren't trying to deceive people for some sort of gain, be it monetary, political, or both?

The answer is rooted in understanding and reaching a rational EPISTEMOLOGY - HOW you "know what you know" is actually valid. 

The majority of human beings on this planet substitute rational epistemology for arguments rooted in authority (scientists have this all figure out). 

The reason these people have to argue via fallacy is because their root assumptions contain contradictions. Ingredients that don't belong. There is nothing to make sense out of because you have nothing to begin with. Multiply anything by 0 and see what you get.

In general people are going to be clueless that they're either abiding by or violating rational consistency, let alone where in the philosophical chain that actually IS - and how to rectify it rationally:

Metaphysic > Epistemology > Ethic > Politic > Aesthetic.

Let's use baking bread as an example.


What The F#*% Are You "Baking"?!

Could you take the ingredients used to make bread - flour, water, sugar, yeast - eat each one separately, and get the same nutritional value of those ingredients separated, as you would if they were combined into a successful loaf of bread? 

Technically yes, but you're going to have an incredible stomach ache in the process. 

This process is contradictory to health and nutrition despite containing ingredients which should feed you. 

This is an example of the correct information being applied incorrectly due to lack of experience (Part 2 is all about this portion). 

Now this isn't so bad because you already have the correct information, but you just need the experience to put it all together correctly. It's an obvious two-step process that creates a third step that transcends both steps via the genuine Knowledge created by the combination of that initial information, and the proper experience to correct your actions/behaviors accordingly.

The reason I use this example first is this is best case. Most people aren't only NOT using the correct ingredients to bake their bread, they're using foreign objects, then claiming those foreign objects are indeed yeast, flour, and sugar. They are also so programmed by contradiction they eat their own bread and convince themselves that it's bread, instead of the reality of sugar, rusty nails, a little flour, some sawdust, and glue. 

My friends, that information is not only completely irrational, it's nowhere near Knowledge.

Replace "Bread" with "Rational Philosophy"

Instead of flour, sugar, water, yeast, think metaphysic, epistemology, ethic, politic, like the previous section:

Metaphysic > Epistemology > Ethic > Politic > Aesthetic. 

When those ingredients - those "steps"- don't contradict, at all, you have solid philosophical position. 

You're "baking the bread correctly", so to speak. 

You're arguing a RATIONAL PHILOSOPHY (the entire point of this blog)!

Philosophically, many claim to be making bread, but they're actually using completely foreign objects (I.E. contradiction) in place of every correct (rational, I.E. non-contradictory) philosophical ingredient. 

Most people are substituting yeast with rusty nails, and are unable to tell the difference because everything is infinitely relative to them...because they have BOTH a contradiction somewhere in their reasoning...AND they lack the commensurate amount of experience, study, etc. to correct it.

Then, when someone else - someone with experience, and thus genuine Knowledge of this same situation/topic/etc. - bites into their bread and kindly alerts them to the fact that there are rusty nails in their bread, instead of conceding and and thanking you for enlightening them, they double down and instead argue that you don't actually know what you're tasting, and science has used this method and it works, and is thus the most valid, accurate form of information, and thus knowledge. 

Scientists have been baking bread with nails in place of yeast because that's how it is because science says so. 

Circular reasoning city. 

Circular reasoning is the only reasoning because there is no rational reason.

Their metaphysic contradicts, their epistemology is incomplete, and thus their ethic and politic are flawed by extension. 

Start with the wrong ingredients, get the wrong result. 

This is plain as day obvious when baking, but not so much when dealing with the mind. 

So, how the hell do we know what's going on here? 

How do we course correct? 

The first step is understanding and accepting that not all ingredients - information - is/are equal, and then learning how to discern the correct ingredients so you bake an indestructible philosophy that will feed yourself and the masses, for life, in terms of "philosophical nutrition".

Stay tuned for the next several parts of this article series as we delve into just how to combat this bullshit...rationally.

A Rooster Lays an Egg on a Rooftop...

The Premise: 

A rooster sits on a rooftop, facing due east.

Said rooftop is shaped like a pyramid, with four sides coming down from its peak.

The sun is rising slowly, with a south easterly wind of approximately 10 mph/km.

The rooster cries, laying an egg precisely at sunrise.

With the information provided to you, what direction does the egg end up rolling off the pyramid-shaped roof: north, south, east, or west?


The Problem with The Premise:

If you're smart, you should have stopped at the very idea of a rooster laying an egg. 

Roosters don't lay eggs. 

Hens lay eggs.

Roosters are male birds.

The entire premise of the "question" presented - even though a bunch of seemingly pertinent additional information is provided to help you calculate some scientific, deterministic/probabilistic way of predicting which direction the egg will roll - is at its root irrational. 

The definitions contradict the reality of what is observed.

It's an ontological impossibility (a hen is a hen, a rooster is a rooster) before it even leaves the gate. 

The entire point is this: if violating reason is a prerequisite for your theory or claim to make any sense, you have no "leg to stand on" regarding claims to the nature of "just what the hell is going on" regarding consciousness, humanity, and our place and function in the universe we observe. 

Stick around as I explain in plain English just exactly why this is the case.