Actual Freedom – General Correspondence

General Correspondence

Page Number 14


Respondent No. 1

Continued on from The Actual Freedom Mailing List: No. 122

September 26 2006

RESPONDENT: There is an answer to a question being asked in ‘Selected Correspondence’ that I haven’t understood, and I would appreciate if you or Richard will clarify that.

[Co-Respondent]: Are you saying then that in order to eliminate the ‘I’ and the ‘me’ that the instinctual passions themselves have to be eliminated ...

[Richard]: No ... and the reason why not is this simple: who would be doing the eliminating of the instinctual passions? As ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’ it is an impossibility because the result of trying to do so would be a stripped-down rudimentary animal ‘self’ (seemingly) divested of feelings ... somewhat like what is known in psychiatric terminology as a ‘sociopathic personality’ (popularly known as ‘psychopath’). Such a person still has feelings – ‘cold’, ‘callous’, ‘indifferent’ and so on – and has repressed the others.

Richards says here – ‘who would be doing the eliminating of instinctual passions?’ – Isn’t it apperceptiveness doing so? The third I? What is the difference between investigating instinctual passions and eliminating them?

I would like to add another quote posted in the same correspondence section I have misunderstood, here it is:

[Richard]: ‘If one deactivates the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings and activates the felicitous/ innocuous feelings (happiness, delight, joie de vivre/ bonhomie, friendliness, amiability and so on) with this freed-up affective energy, in conjunction with sensuousness (delectation, enjoyment, appreciation, relish, zest, gusto and so on), then the ensuing sense of amazement, marvel and wonder can result in apperceptiveness (unmediated perception).’ Richard, Selected Correspondence, Self-immolation 2

What is the difference between 1. de-activating the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings and activating the felicitous/ innocuous feelings, 2. eliminating instinctual passion (the action that is impossible and advised to be avoided), and 3. investigating emotions and instinctual passions?

RICHARD: Dear Vineeto, I received the e-mail you forwarded (entitled ‘A Question Of Something Misunderstood In AF ‘Selected Correspondence’) ... the answers to the specific queries contained therein are as follows:

1. As apperception (unmediated perception) only occurs when identity in toto/the entire affective faculty is either in abeyance – as in a pure consciousness experience (PCE) – or where it is extinct (upon an actual freedom from the human condition) there is no way that apperceptiveness could be doing the eliminating of the instinctual passions.

Besides which, my rhetorical question was about who, and not what, would be doing that proposed elimination of the instinctual passions.

2. As the term ‘the third I’ refers to the flesh and blood body only (as in sans the instinctual passions/the entity formed thereof) there is no way that such an freed organism could be doing that proposed elimination of the instinctual passions.

3. The difference between ‘me’ investigating what ‘I’ am fundamentally made up of (the instinctual passions) and ‘me’ eliminating that which ‘I’ am fundamentally made up of (the instinctual passions) is that in the former ‘I’ get to stay in existence and in the latter ‘I’ cease to exist ... simply because ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’.

4. The difference between de-activating both the ‘good’ feelings (those that are loving and trusting) and the ‘bad’ feelings (those that are hateful and fearful) and activating the felicitous and innocuous feelings (those that are happy and harmless) is that not only does it have the immediate benefit of feeling good or feeling happy and harmless or feeling excellent/ perfect for 99% of the time, as one goes about one’s normal everyday life, it has the ultimate benefit of assisting in the rewiring of the brain’s habitual circuitry before the once-in-a-lifetime event – altruistic ‘self’-immolation – happens which wipes out the entire affective faculty/the identity in toto (aka the instinctual passions/the entity formed thereof).

5. The difference between de-activating both the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings, and thus being able to activate the felicitous/ innocuous feelings, and eliminating instinctual passions (the action that is impossible and advised to be avoided) is that in the former ‘I’ get to stay in existence and in the latter ‘I’ cease to exist (‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’).

6. The difference between de-activating both the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings, and thus being able to activate the felicitous/ innocuous feelings, and investigating emotions and instinctual passions is that with the former one’s normal everyday life is able to be enjoyed and appreciated each moment again and in the latter one is finding out why one is not being able enjoy and appreciate one’s normal everyday life each moment again.

Lastly, in that e-mail exchange I was clearly making the point that, although it is hypothetically correct that the elimination of the instinctual passions would be the elimination of ‘I’/’me’, it does not work that way in practice (for reasons such as already explained in the part-quoted text).

To wit: not only is it a dangerous approach – as ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’ then the result of trying to do so would be a stripped-down rudimentary animal ‘self’, seemingly divested of feelings, somewhat like what is known in psychiatric terminology as a ‘sociopathic personality’ (popularly known as ‘psychopath’) – it is an impossibility anyway.

Only altruistic ‘self’-immolation, in toto, will do the trick.

September 26 2006

RESPONDENT (to Vineeto):

Reading a section of the mailing correspondence on the site I’ve stucked upon something, being posted by Richard I haven’t quite understood:

(...)
• [Richard]: Whilst you are considering that [how living with a person with whom there is no possibility of a sexual congress would make me open to your scrutiny] I will draw the following to your attention:
1. Fellatio/Irrumatio: that person would have to have no mouth.
2. Anilingus/Anal Sex (Sodomy/Buggery): that person would have to have no tongue/no anus.
3. Hand Job/Foot Job: that person would have to have no hands/no feet.
4. Axillary Intercourse/Interfemoral Intercourse/Mammary Intercourse: that person would have to have no arms/no thighs/no breasts.
5. Frottage/Frotteurism: that person would have to have no clothing/no skin.
6. Infantophilia/Nepiophilia: that person could not be 0-5 years old.
7. Pederasty/Paedophilia: that person could not be an adolescent boy/a prepubescent child.
8. Ephebophilia/Hebephilia: that person could not be a postpubescent adolescent.
9. Gerontophilia: that person could not be an aged person.
10. Incest: that person could not be a parent/a sibling/a son/a daughter/a grandchild/an aunt/an uncle/a cousin.
11. Autogynephilia: that person could not be a transsexual.
12. Necrophilia: that person could not be dead.
• [Co-Respondent]: All of these include ejaculation in one form or the other. Hence, I consider them sexual acts.
• [Richard]: You do seem to have missed the salient point that there is nobody – nobody at all – on this planet with whom there is no possibility of a sexual congress with for me to live with (so as to really sound convincing to you that I am free of the instinctual drive to copulate).

(...) If you can ask Richard, to give a better explanation of this, it would be great. Does he mean he is not capable of having sex with all of these people, or is he capable of having sex with them? Thanks a bunch.

RICHARD: In the context of that e-mail exchange it matters not just what a person actually free from the human condition may or may not be capable of in regards paraphilia – an umbrella term used by clinicians to cover a wide variety of atypical sexual interests – as all I was pointing out is that my co-respondent’s assumptive premise (that there be people with whom there is no possibility of a sexual congress) is demonstrably invalid. Vis.:

• [Co-Respondent]: ‘... I have serious doubts as to whether Peter, Vineeto and Richard are free from the need for sexual congress. Vineeto claims she is free, Richard too claims the same. But why they choose a life of heterosexual co-existence instead of a solitary life? Simply a matter of preference? Doesn’t really sound very convincing
• [Richard]: ‘What would really sound convincing, then (according to you)?

• [Co-Respondent]: ‘That you are living with a person *with whom there is no possibility of a sexual congress*. Why do you choose to live with a woman, by the way, and not a man?’. [emphasis added].

It must be borne in mind that my co-respondent had written the following only five sentences prior to the section you quoted:

• [Co-Respondent]: ‘... did you ever propose to a man to start living with you? (Of course, sex wouldn’t enter the picture at all then). And therefore, it would be much more convincing that you don’t need sex anymore’.

Whilst on the topic of assumptive premises: more than a few of my correspondences involves getting the other to see that their entire argument is an elaborate edifice resting upon an invalid premise – somewhat akin to a pyramid teetering (upside-down) on its cap-stone – and that had they examined same for themselves they would not have needed to write to me in the first place.

In other words, more often than not my communications are all about having my fellow human being think for themselves.

Incidentally, the only convincement worthy of the name is personal experience ... for instance (from the home page of my portion of The Actual Freedom Trust web site):

• [Richard]: ‘I invite anyone to make a critical examination of all the words I advance so as to ascertain if they be intrinsically self-explanatory ...
and if they are all seen to be inherently consistent with what is being spoken about, then the facts speak for themselves. Then one will have reason to remember a pure conscious experience (PCE), which all peoples I have spoken to at length have had, and thus verify by direct experience the facticity of what is written (which personal experiencing is the only proof worthy of the name) ...’.

Needless is it to add that, upon being free of the instinctual desire to copulate, sexual congress is a freely made choice each moment again?

September 28 2006

RESPONDENT (to Vineeto): Reading a section of the mailing correspondence on the site I’ve stucked upon something, being posted by Richard I haven’t quite understood:

• [Richard]: ‘Whilst you are considering that [how living with a person with whom there is no possibility of a sexual congress would make me open to your scrutiny] I will draw the following to your attention: 1. Fellatio/Irrumatio: that person would have to have no mouth. 2. Anilingus/Anal Sex (Sodomy/Buggery): that person would have to have no tongue/no anus. 3. Hand Job/Foot Job: that person would have to have no hands/no feet. 4. Axillary Intercourse/Interfemoral Intercourse/Mammary Intercourse: that person would have to have no arms/no thighs/no breasts. 5. Frottage/Frotteurism: that person would have to have no clothing/no skin. 6. Infantophilia/Nepiophilia: that person could not be 0-5 years old. 7. Pederasty/Paedophilia: that person could not be an adolescent boy/a prepubescent child. 8. Ephebophilia/Hebephilia: that person could not be a postpubescent adolescent. 9. Gerontophilia: that person could not be an aged person. 10. Incest: that person could not be a parent/a sibling/a son/a daughter/a grandchild/an aunt/an uncle/a cousin. 11. Autogynephilia: that person could not be a transsexual. 12. Necrophilia: that person could not be dead. [Co-Respondent]: ‘All of these include ejaculation in one form or the other. Hence, I consider them sexual acts. [Richard]: ‘You do seem to have missed the salient point that there is nobody – nobody at all – on this planet with whom there is no possibility of a sexual congress with for me to live with (so as to really sound convincing to you that I am free of the instinctual drive to copulate)’. [endquote].

If you can ask Richard, to give a better explanation of this, it would be great. Does he mean he is not capable of having sex with all of these people, or is he capable of having sex with them?

RICHARD: In the context of that e-mail exchange it matters not just what a person actually free from the human condition may or may not be capable of in regards paraphilia – an umbrella term used by clinicians to cover a wide variety of atypical sexual interests – as all I was pointing out is that my co-respondent’s assumptive premise (that there be people with whom there is no possibility of a sexual congress) is demonstrably invalid. Vis.:

• [Co-Respondent]: ‘... I have serious doubts as to whether Peter, Vineeto and Richard are free from the need for sexual congress. Vineeto claims she is free, Richard too claims the same. But why they choose a life of heterosexual co-existence instead of a solitary life? Simply a matter of preference? Doesn’t really sound very convincing
• [Richard]: ‘What would really sound convincing, then (according to you)?

• [Co-Respondent]: ‘That you are living with a person *with whom there is no possibility of a sexual congress*. Why do you choose to live with a woman, by the way, and not a man?’. [emphasis added].

It must be borne in mind that my co-respondent had written the following only five sentences prior to the section you quoted:

• [Co-Respondent]: ‘... did you ever propose to a man to start living with you? (Of course, sex wouldn’t enter the picture at all then). And therefore, it would be much more convincing that you don’t need sex anymore’.

RESPONDENT: I still fail to understand what exactly you mean with the [above]. The correspondent have said that if you are living with a person with whom there is no possibility of a sexual congress, it will prove him that you are free of the need of a sexual congress. Sounds fair.

RICHARD: Yet there is no such person – be they either of a hetero-sexual or homo-sexual orientation – and even if (note ‘if’) there was such person as that then there is the whole range of mono-sexual practices to consider, anyway.

RESPONDENT: I fail to understand how by giving him examples of paraphilia, do you explains that you are free from the need to copulate ...

RICHARD: I am not explaining any such thing by giving those examples ... I am pointing out that my co-respondent’s assumptive premise (that there be people with whom there is no possibility of a sexual congress) is demonstrably invalid.

RESPONDENT:  ... (I don’t need a proof for that, as I understand more and more in recent weeks the direction of becoming more free and more free from the need to copulate) ...

RICHARD: And, in matters pertaining to consciousness studies, such personal experiencing is the only proof worthy of the name.

RESPONDENT: ... and what is the logical connection to the quote in my previous email.

RICHARD: The quote in your previous e-mail – now re-presented in full at the top of this page for convenience – clearly demonstrates that there is no such person (a person with whom there is no possibility of a sexual congress) to live with.

RESPONDENT: Also, this is bewildering: 5. Frottage/Frotteurism: that person *would have to have no clothing/no skin*. 6. Infantophilia/Nepiophilia: that person *could not be 0-5 years old*. So Frotteuism is sex with someone who has no clothing/no skin.

RICHARD: No, frotteuism is the practice of touching or rubbing against the unclothed body of another person as a means of obtaining sexual gratification (frottage the practice of touching or rubbing against the clothed body of another person).

RESPONDENT: So, to conclude logically, Nepiophilia is sex with someone who *is not* 0-5 years old?

RICHARD: No, nepiophilia (aka infantophilia) is sex with someone who *is* 0-5 years old.

RESPONDENT: Maybe this a typing/ logical mistake and it ought to be – ‘Nepiophilia: that person would have to be 0-5 years old’?

RICHARD: It is not a typing mistake ... if there were to be a person with whom there is no possibility of a sexual congress such a person could not be 0-5 years old.

RESPONDENT: That same mistake must include clauses 7 to 12 then.

RICHARD: No, all those examples (1-12) are a demonstration that there is no such person, as my co-respondent thoughtlessly proposes, to live with.

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

P.S.: In regards your other queries, in the latter half of your e-mail, about mathematical models of the universe I will first draw your attention to the following (already quoted at least twice on my portion of The Actual Freedom Trust web site):

• ‘Poincaré put forward important ideas on mathematical models of the real world. If one set of axioms is preferred over another to model a physical situation then, Poincaré claimed, this was nothing more than a convention. Conditions such as simplicity, easy of use, and usefulness in future research, help to determine which will be the convention, while it is meaningless to ask which is correct. The question of whether physical space is Euclidean is not a meaningful one to ask. The distinction, he argues, between mathematical theories and physical situations is that mathematics is a construction of the human mind, whereas nature is independent of the human mind. Here lies that problem; fitting a mathematical model to reality is to forcing a construct of the human mind onto nature which is ultimately independent of mind’. (www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/HistTopics/World.html#s54).

And then, because you specifically mention the Global Positioning Navigation System, to this URL:

As there are many other instances such as that, where this issue (mathematical models of the universe) has been discussed over and over, it is not at all necessary to ask me to look into it yet again.

Put simply: mathematical models have no existence outside of the ratiocinative process.

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

January 11 2007

RESPONDENT: I would like to ask you something about the universe and our world and our instinctual passions. Humans have survived and are beginning to flourish. In our world. But what about other planets, if there are other civilizations. If people would leave in a utopia without instinctual passions, in peace, and an alien powerful instinct-driven race would attack our planet, we won’t have any military to defend ourselves as a first defence.

So how would we survive then? Maybe that is the reason humanity won’t give up its instincts because such an attack is a possibility, and there’s no way to survive it without being constantly not in peace as a race, for the fire to be on, for the heat to be up, as we simply won’t have any weapons.

I understand that what I’m saying is the survival projection of survival of the species and the fear to examine passions. But isn’t there any validity to this question, as the big scheme picture might not be just the humanity, animals and this planets, but other planets and other raging species?

Thanks for your time.

RICHARD: The nearest star (Proxima Centauri) is over forty trillion kilometres away and the US space shuttle, which travels at about eight kilometres per second, would take a hundred and sixty thousand years to reach it. The fastest spacecraft to date (Helios II), which set a speed record of seventy kilometres per second, would take eighteen thousand years to travel that distance ... far, far beyond the lifespan of both the crew and the craft.

Also, if there were to be a planet hospitable to life-forms orbiting that star, and if an alien species were to be inhabiting that hypothetical planet, and if that hypothetical species inhabiting that hypothetical planet were to be of the opinion that planet earth was worth attacking, then the ‘alien condition’ (to coin a phrase) would render any such interstellar voyage of aggression and domination untenable as they would be at each other’s hypothetical throats long before they arrived.

Indeed, one of the biggest stumbling blocks to long-distance human space travel is the human condition itself (as is evidenced by wintering over in the Antarctica for instance).

As for the intergalactic voyages so ubiquitous in the sci-fi genre: the nearest major galaxy (the Andromeda galaxy) is located at a distance of two million light-years away and, as a light-year is about nine and a half trillion kilometres in length, one does not even have to do the maths in order to gain sufficient comprehension of the sheer impracticability of any voyage of that magnitude.

Incidentally, if there were to be an alien species sufficiently advanced technologically to have developed a super-fast means of transport then their weaponry would be so far in advance of the current human arsenal anyway that it is pointless to even contemplate any such scenario as needing to continue being a [quote] ‘raging species’ [endquote] in order to defend planet earth from any such hypothetical attack.

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

P.S.: You may find the following helpful.

• [Mr. Donald Scott]: ‘It is very difficult, if not impossible, for us to relate conceptually to how far something is from us when we are told its distance is, say 14 light years. We know that is a long way – but HOW long?

In his ‘Celestial Handbook’, Robert Burnham, Jr. presents a model that offers us a way to get an intuitive feel for some of these tremendous distances. The distance from the Sun to Earth is called an Astronomical Unit (AU); it is approximately 93 million miles. The model is based on the coincidental fact that the number of inches in a statute mile is approximately equal to the number of astronomical units in one light year. So, in our model, we sketch the orbit of the Earth around the Sun as a circle, two inches in diameter. That sets the scale of the model. One light year is one mile in the model.

The Sun is approximately 880,000 miles in diameter. In the model that scales to 880,000/93,000,000 = 0.009 inches; (Approximately 1/100 of an inch in diameter). A very fine pencil point is needed to place it at the centre of the (one inch radius) circle that represents the Earth’s orbit.

In this model, Pluto is an invisibly small speck approximately three and a half feet from the Sun. All the other planets follow almost circular paths inside of this 3.5 foot orbit. If a person is quite tall, he or she may just be able to spread their hands far enough apart to encompass the orbit of this outer planet. That is the size of our model of our solar system. We can just about hold it in our extended arms.

The nearest star to us is over four light-years away.

In our model, a light year is scaled down to one mile. So the nearest star to us is four and a half MILES away in our model. So when we model our Sun and the nearest star to us, we have two specks of dust, each 1/100 inch in diameter, four and a half miles apart from one another. And this is in a moderately densely packed arm of our galaxy!

To quote Burnham, ‘All the stars are, on the average, as far from each other as the nearest ones are from us. Imagine, then, several hundred billion stars scattered throughout space, each one another Sun, each one separated by a distance of several light years (several miles in our model) from its nearest neighbour. Comprehend, if you can, the almost terrifying isolation of any one star in space’ because each star is the size of a speck of dust, about 1/100 inch in diameter – and is miles from its nearest neighbour.

When viewing a photographic image of a galaxy or globular star cluster, we must remember that the stars that make up those objects are not as close together as they appear. A bright star will ‘bloom’ on a photographic plate or CCD chip. Remember the two specks of dust, miles apart.

Even in our model, the collection of stars that makes up our Milky Way galaxy is about one hundred thousand miles in diameter. This is surrounded by many hundreds of thousand of miles of empty space, before we get to the next galaxy. And on a larger scale, we find that galaxies seem to be found in groups – galaxy clusters. On this gigantic scale even our model fails to give us an intuitive feeling for the vastness of those distances’. (http://www.electric-cosmos.org/localspace.htm).

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

April 04 2007

RESPONDENT (to Vineeto): Was wondering if it is possible to have a comment from Richard on a correspondence he had on the site.

VINEETO: I passed it on to Richard but as far as I understand, his writing days are over. One decade and roughly 4 million words of answering questions about and objections to an Actual Freedom is plenty to go on, I should say.

RESPONDENT: I’m certainly not interested in starting a long discussion about things have been discussed through and through on the site. All in all, from the 4 million words that contain discussions on what’s it like to be a human being in the universe, life, humanity, and that are also contain questions and objections, this is something that hasn’t been discussed at all, and I don’t see how it is something to be neglected. I’ve started discussing this with Richard, but he had just answered once, and not to the question I have asked, and hadn’t continued the discussion since then ... For what it worth, I’ll just leave it here, maybe he’ll find a time and an interest to further discuss it, or at least to be precise and to correct his correspondence. To me it looks like something very important to discuss ...

• [Respondent]: ‘... But what about other planets, if there are other civilizations. If people would live in a utopia without instinctual passions, in peace, and an alien powerful instinct-driven race would attack our planet, we *won’t have* any military to defend ourselves as a first defence. So how would we survive then? Maybe that is the reason humanity won’t give up its instincts because such an attack is a possibility, and there’s no way to survive it without being constantly not in peace as a race, for the fire to be on, for the heat to be up, as we simply won’t have any weapons’. [emphasis added].
• [Richard]: ‘... Incidentally, if there were to be an alien species sufficiently advanced technologically to have developed a super-fast means of transport then their weaponry would be so far in advance of *the current human arsenal* anyway that *it is pointless to even contemplate any such scenario* as needing to continue being a [quote] ‘raging species’ [endquote] in order to defend planet earth from any such hypothetical attack’. [emphasises added].
 

The above correspondence was about the future, like 300-1000-5000-1,000,000 years ahead or so, not the current times.

RICHARD: Here is how dictionaries define the word which prefaces that ancillary paragraph of mine (above) which you have isolated:

• ‘incidentally: as a minor or subordinate matter; apart from the main subject; parenthetically’. (American Heritage® Dictionary).
• ‘incidentally: in an incidental manner, as a casual or subordinate circumstance; (introducing a remark not strictly relevant) as a further thought’. (Oxford Dictionary).
• ‘incidentally: used to introduce additional information such as something that the speaker has just thought of’. (Encarta Dictionary).

Why you snipped out the main part of my response – the part wherein I did indeed answer to the futuristic question you asked – so as to make it look as if I am some kind of idiot whose correspondence needs correcting simply defies sensibility.

RESPONDENT: As there is such a possibility ...

RICHARD: As you appear to have fallen under the spell of the ultra-cautious canon ‘always decide in favour of safety’ (nowadays known as the ‘precautionary principle’) it would be to your advantage to become cognisant of the fact that just because something – anything – is envisaged to be a possibility it does not necessarily mean it is a probability.

I have written about this elsewhere ... for instance:

• [Richard]: ‘The entire thrust of your argument conveniently ignores what has sometimes been called ‘the law of probability’ (or ‘the probabilist theory’) upon which 99% – if not 100% – of all human endeavour is sensibly based ...’. 

Further to the point: what you are insistently proposing is, in effect, an interstellar/intergalactic arms race which is wholly dependent upon second-guessing the type of weaponry an hypothetical species (postulated as existing in some indeterminable future on a conjectural planet circling a theoretical star situated at a distance so vast it is measured in light-years) may or may not develop.

Put bluntly: it being such a fantastical supposition it is no wonder that it be [quote] ‘something that haven’t been discussed at all’ [endquote].

April 08 2007

RICHARD: Why you snipped out the main part of my response – the part wherein I did indeed answer to the futuristic question you asked – so as to make it look as if I am some kind of idiot whose correspondence needs correcting simply defies sensibility.

RESPONDENT: Nope ... It’s not my thing to make it look like you’re some kind of idiot whose correspondence need to be correcting.

RICHARD: As the action of snipping out the main part of my response (leaving only an ancillary sentence of mine as support for your allegation that my response was about the current times and not the future) had that effect then, were it ever to be your thing, it would be quite a doddle for you as you are still insisting in this e-mail (a mere two sentences below) that, whilst you were asking about a future scenario, I had answered by referring you to a present day scenario.

RESPONDENT: The main part of your response that I snipped out was about that the scenario is improbable because of the vast distances between planets in universe and because of the troubles of the interstellar journey that will be because of ‘alien condition’.

RICHARD: What I actually wrote about was the vast distances between stars (and not planets) because, whilst some astronomers claim to have found over two hundred exoplanets (aka ‘extra-solar planets’) through indirect methods (via astrometry, radial velocity, pulsar timing, gravitational micro-lensing, and the transit method), no exoplanet has yet been confirmed to exist by direct imaging ... although two astronomical objects detected by infrared imaging, and known as 2M1207b (about 200 light-years distant) and GQ Lupi b (about 400 light-years distant), are thought by some astronomers to be planetary bodies.

Assuming, just for the sake of your argument, that those two astronomical bodies are indeed exoplanets (some astronomers are of the opinion they are dwarf stars) then the import of the part of my response you snipped should become startlingly obvious as 200 light-years is more than 1,900 trillion kilometres and 400 light-years is over 3,800 trillion kilometres.

RESPONDENT: I was asking about a future scenario and you have answered me referring to a present day scenario.

RICHARD: As you have just stated (immediately above) that the main part of my response which you snipped out was about [quote] ‘the vast distances between planets in universe’ [endquote] and the [quote] ‘troubles of the interstellar journey that will be because of the ‘alien condition’’ [endquote] you do yourself no favour by continuing to insist that, whilst you were asking about a future scenario, I had answered by referring you to a present day scenario.

*

RICHARD: What you are insistently proposing is, in effect, an interstellar/ intergalactic arms race which is wholly dependent upon second-guessing the type of weaponry an hypothetical species (postulated as existing in some indeterminable future on a conjectural planet circling a theoretical star situated at a distance so vast it is measured in light-years) may or may not develop. Put bluntly: it being such a fantastical supposition it is no wonder that it be [quote] ‘something that haven’t been discussed at all’ [endquote].

RESPONDENT: It haven’t been asked on the actual freedom site, however this issue is something that is on many human minds, as you can see in modern movies, culture, and internet talk.

RICHARD: Although I do not watch sci-fi movies, participate in the sci-fi culture, or interact on sci-fi talk sites, I have no reason to suppose that fanciful issues such as this are not on many human minds.

RESPONDENT: It is not something that just I thought about ...

RICHARD: Oh? Yet here is what you wrote to me (on Thursday, 18/01/2007, AEDST):

• [Respondent to Richard]: ‘Gladly, all the scientific-spiritual concepts loose their intensity and need here without denying them. All that is necessary is to just look around, and see how am I when looking. Than it becomes clear to me that they are imaginary and not the actuality (...) When coming to a major part of my social identity, I’ve been digging deeper into what holds ‘me’ . I see vaguely but it’s clear that’s it is so, that’s it’s survival of the human species. *A futuristic thought from our last conversation came on*: ‘Who knows what the future holds for human species? Maybe this raging ability would give us the super-travel ability as the hypothetical aliens would have, because we race between us, and thus it will give us a whole new surviving dimension through all the galaxy and further.’ I know it may sound sci-fi, but ...’. [emphasis added].

Be that as it may ... it would appear that, whilst it has become clear to you that all the scientific-spiritual concepts are imaginary and not the actuality, those ubiquitous sci-fi concepts are yet to lose their [quote] ‘intensity and need’ [endquote] in you, eh?

RESPONDENT: ... [It is not something that just I thought about] or a few others. Also, I cannot see how this is so improbable taking into account the many possibilities that the universe has.

RICHARD: No matter what those many possibilities are, which you may or may not imagine the universe as having, there is no way that the vast distances will all-of-a-sudden cease being vast distances ... plus there is no way that an alien condition will all-of-a-sudden cease being an alien condition, either.

Indeed, your entire futuristic scenario is dependent upon those hypothetical aliens of yours being a [quote] ‘raging species’ [endquote].

RESPONDENT: Ignoring this scenario not only I cannot but so are many other ...

RICHARD: You are not being asked to ignore it ... in the same way it became clear to you (by looking around and seeing how you are when looking) that all the scientific-spiritual concepts are imaginary, and not the actuality, so too can all those sci-fi concepts so ubiquitous in that genre lose their [quote] ‘intensity and need’ [endquote] in you.

RESPONDENT: ... what I’m interested most in discussing is, whether humanity in actual freedom are better capable of handling such a scenario than humanity that is in human condition ...

RICHARD: If you had read what I had to say with both eyes open you would have found out first-hand that a person actually free from the human condition is indeed better capable of handling such a scenario ... demonstrably much better than at least one person who is still in the human condition and, presumably, also much better than those [quote] ‘many human minds’ [endquote] you referred to further above.

RESPONDENT: ... [what I’m interested most in discussing is, whether humanity in actual freedom are better capable of handling such a scenario than humanity that is in human condition] in the future.

RICHARD: While I obviously cannot speak for those hypothetical peoples, who are not even born yet, there is no reason why they would handle such a scenario all that much differently than I did when you first sent it to me ... the vast distances and/or the alien condition still existing then would render any such futuristic scenario so highly unlikely as to be nothing but a classic example of rampant imagination in its ages-old doomsday mode.

RESPONDENT: Because, if not, then, how exactly can I wish the best for other humans by heading to an actual freedom from the human condition?

RICHARD: Here is what a dictionary has to say about that little two-letter word which opens up all manner of doom and gloom possibilities for you:

• ‘if: (1) introducing a condition where the question of fulfilment or non-fulfilment is left open: given the hypothesis or proviso that, in the event that; (2) in the hope that, on the off chance that’. (Oxford Dictionary).

Somehow I am reminded of an old (circa 1670) nursery-rhyme doggerel from England:

• ‘If wishes were horses then beggars would ride,
If turnips were swords I’d have one by my side.
If ‘ifs’ and ‘ands’ were pots and pans
There would be no need for tinkers hands!’ (First published in ‘Nursery Rhymes of England’, by James Halliwell, in 1844).

As a suggestion only: the next time you feel a doomster ‘if’ coming on simply lie back, close your eyes, and think of England.

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

P.S.: Vineeto was quite right in her understanding inasmuch as I gave a decade of my life (from 1996 to 2006) to sharing my discovery with my fellow human being via a keyboard – spending something like eight-ten hours a day, six-seven days a week, responding in meticulous detail to all manner of queries and objections – and currently have no intention of being drawn, either now or in the foreseeable future, into more of the same.

Consequently, I will leave you with a reminder of what I wrote to you five months ago:

• [Richard to Respondent]: ‘(...) more than a few of my correspondences involves getting the other to see that their entire argument is an elaborate edifice resting upon an invalid premise – somewhat akin to a pyramid teetering (upside-down) on its cap-stone – and that had they examined same for themselves they would not have needed to write to me in the first place.
In other words, more often than not my communications are all about having my fellow human being think for themselves’. (‘Re: Some Other Question’; Thursday, 26/10/2006, 7:29 AM AEDST).

Just so that there is no misunderstanding: your futuristic scenario rests upon several invalid premises and many and various unsupported assumptions and suppositions ... for instance (not necessarily an exhaustive list):

1. That there are, as a fact, exoplanets.
2. That there are, as a fact, exoplanets which are conducive to life-forms developing.
3. That there is or will be, as a fact, a developed life-form which is a [quote] ‘raging species’ [endquote].
4. That such a species has or will have, as a reality, the desire to embark on long voyages of aggression and domination.
5. That they have or will have, as a reality, the technological capacity to design and build space vehicles capable of travelling vast distances.
6. That they have or will have, as a reality, the logistical capability essential to successfully travelling vast distances.
7. That they have or will have, as a reality, the ability to amicably coexist in confined spaces for an extended period despite being a [quote] ‘raging species’ [endquote].
8. That no other planet is more suitable to colonise (closer-by, uninhabited, resource-rich, and so on).
9. That they know or will know that planet earth, being as it is a relatively tiny astronomical object, actually exists.
10. That they know or will know that the conditions on planet earth are similar enough to their planet (atmosphere, pressure, temperature, and so on) so as to be a feasible enterprise.
11. That they are of the opinion that planet earth is worth colonising (2M1207b and GQ Lupi b, by way of example, are many times larger than planet earth).
12. That an armed response by human beings still run by the instinctual passions, to an alien species with the technological capacity and logistical ability to successfully undertake long voyages of extended duration, is the wisest course of action (that the disadvantages of invasion and occupation far outweigh the benefits to be gained).
13. That human beings still run by the instinctual passions have, or will have, sufficient or superior weaponry to successfully defend planet earth.
14. That human beings still run by the instinctual passions have, or will have, the capability of putting aside their congenital separatist agendas so as to be able to unitedly co-ordinate defensive strategies and tactical manoeuvres.
15. That a highly imaginative sci-fi scenario inspired by [quote] ‘modern movies, culture, and internet talk’ [endquote] is worth considering for more than just a moment or two (let alone be worthy of discussion).

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

September 6 2007

RESPONDENT: Lately I was reading the section on AF site where you reported about your lack of dreaming. I was confused by this part:

[Richard]: ‘...After the end of the intuitive/ imaginative facility the dreams were ‘word-scenes’ of circumstances or ‘word-descriptions’ of events (no images) with no ‘dreamer’ as a participant ... somewhat akin to arbitrary, or stray thoughts, which sometimes wander around in day-time and are associated with nothing at all.’  http://www.actualfreedom.com.au/sundry/frequentquestions/FAQ60a.htm#1

Weren’t you telling on other place of the same page that you aren’t aware of anything during the sleep or that sleep is oblivion?

RICHARD: Yes ... the reference to sleep nowadays being oblivion is towards the end of the paragraph just before the one immediately preceding this paragraph you quoted from. Vis.:

• [Richard]: ‘(...) sleep is total oblivion’. [endquote].

And the reference to not currently being aware of anything during sleep is at the beginning of the paragraph immediately preceding the one you quoted from. Vis.:

• [Richard]: ‘I sleep like a log, as an old saying goes ... unconscious, unaware and (...)’. [endquote]..

RESPONDENT: Thanks for your attention.

RICHARD: Perhaps the confusion you speak of comes from not taking notice of how the paragraph you quoted from began. Vis.:

• [Richard]: ‘It has not always been like this ...’. [endquote].

To put those three paragraphs as succinctly as possible:

1. In all the years before the ending of the intuitive/ imaginative facility dreams were in full-colour imagery (same-same as ‘seeing in my mind’s eye’) complete with a ‘dreamer’ participating ... somewhat akin to a fully immersive three-dimensional surround-sound first-person computer gaming experience.
2. Immediately after the end of the intuitive/ imaginative facility the dreams were ‘word-scenes’ of circumstances or ‘word-descriptions’ of events (no images at all) with no ‘dreamer’ as a participant ... somewhat akin to arbitrary, or stray thoughts, which sometimes wander around in day-time and are associated with nothing at all.
3. Whereas nowadays sleep is total oblivion; if there be dreaming occurring during the three, four or five hours I have no awareness of it whatsoever ... I currently sleep like a log, as an old saying goes, unconscious, unaware and (probably) dreamless.

I am none too sure just how long it took, with the continued application of (what I later found was called) lucid dreaming, to get from situation No. 2 to situation No. 3 ... probably somewhere around thirty months or so.

If you were to want more information on how that works you could access the e-mail exchange at this link (and the one immediately following it):

September 7 2007

RESPONDENT: I’m adding this mail to my earlier request

Upon further reading the whole dreams section trying to understand what was discussed and shared there, not being fussy but consistent and attentive in my reading, I found more content, which, if I’m right in evaluating the description of the condition upon those descriptions had been written about being after-expiration-of-the-intuitive-facility, is blatantly inconsistent and I don’t understand as to why it is so, and what to conclude. Let me share: http://actualfreedom.com.au/richard/selectedcorrespondence/sc-dreams.htm

[Richard]: ‘For all those years both dreams and nightmares were in full-colour imagery (same-same as ‘seeing in my mind’s eye’) with a fully-committed ‘dreamer’ participating helplessly. After the end of the intuitive/ imaginative facility the *dreams were ‘word-scenes’ of circumstances or ‘word-descriptions’ of events (no images) with no ‘dreamer’ as a participant ... somewhat akin to arbitrary, or stray thoughts*, which sometimes wander around in day-time and are associated with nothing at all…

(…)

‘By ‘tracked’ (and ‘trailed’ or ‘traced’) I mean in the sense of locating, pinning down, and thus exposing, the entity within ... the identity cannot stand the bright light of awareness as its presence depends upon being able to lurk in the shadows protected, at root, by the very fear that it is. *With the end of ‘the dreamer’ then dreaming became as if watching TV with the sound turned off* (rather banal) and could be seen for the spasmodic play of ad hoc dreamtime representations of the real-life people, things and events (and previous dream-people, dream-scapes and dream-events) that it was ... there was nothing worthwhile to be discovered as only ‘my’ presence had made the dream sequences meaningful....

(…)

‘Okay ... to sum up, then, my experience shows that *both the imaging and the emotional content disappears but not necessarily the arbitrary and stray thought.* To this very day there sometimes is, upon waking, a vagrant thought aimlessly occurring just as during the waking hours there sometimes is the sporadic wandering around of a meaningless thought.

But in the main there is nothing going on at all ... let alone any ‘busyness’...

(…)

‘As I drop off to sleep at night there is the diminishing awareness of being a flesh and blood body situated in physical surroundings – always delicious – until there is no awareness at all ... whereupon there is the growing awareness of being a flesh and blood body – always delicious – situated in physical surroundings upon awakening a ‘split-second’ later. Upon looking at the bed-side clock I can determine whether I have slept for three or four or five hours ... for there is no other way of knowing: sleep is total oblivion. * If there be dreaming occurring during the three, four or five hours I have no awareness of it whatsoever.*’ [endquote]

So as I understand it, on first occasion you talk about having sometimes stray thoughts during sleep, on the second occasion you talk about TV with no sound during your sleep where there’s no dreamer, just dreaming, on third occasion you again talk about stray thought during sleep, and on fourth occasion you talk about no awareness whatsoever during your sleep.

Is it possible to have it cleared out for the sake of clarity of reading the correspondence?

RICHARD: Sure, the first quote you provide above is about what occurred during the thirty months or so after the end of the intuitive/ imaginative facility. Here is how I explained that to you in my previous e-mail:

• [quote]: ‘2. Immediately after the end of the intuitive/ imaginative facility the dreams were ‘word-scenes’ of circumstances or ‘word-descriptions’ of events (no images at all) with no ‘dreamer’ as a participant ... somewhat akin to arbitrary, or stray thoughts, which sometimes wander around in day-time and are associated with nothing at all’. [endquote].

The second quote you provide above is about how those thirty or so months were experienced: it was all rather banal (as banal as watching TV is with the sound turned off) inasmuch there was nothing worthwhile to be discovered as only ‘my’ presence made dream sequences meaningful.

The third quote you provide above is about how my experience shows that while both the imaging and the emotional content disappears, immediately after the intuitive/ imaginative facility ends, the arbitrary and stray thoughts do not necessarily cease.

Indeed, to this very day there sometimes is, upon waking, a vagrant thought aimlessly occurring (just as during the waking hours there sometimes is the sporadic wandering around of a meaningless thought).

The fourth quote you provide above is about how it is all currently experienced (after the thirty or so months of continuing to apply the lucid dreaming process) in that sleep is total oblivion and if there be dreaming occurring I have no awareness of it whatsoever.

In short: there is nothing inconsistent at all (let alone blatantly so).

September 10 2007

RESPONDENT: After not having a response,

RICHARD: My records show that I responded to your e-mail entitled ‘Further Request For Clearance’ at 8:49 AM on Friday 7/09/2007 and, given that this further request of yours had arrived in my mail box at 6:02 AM on that day (Friday 7/09/2007) it means that I sent my response a mere 2 hours and 47 minutes later.

RESPONDENT: I’m adding something,

RICHARD: You are not adding something. On the contrary, you are removing something ... to wit: the words [quote] ‘rather banal’ [endquote] from the second sentence of mine. Vis.:

• [Richard]: ‘With the end of ‘the dreamer’ then dreaming became as if watching TV with the sound turned off (rather banal) ...’.

And this is how I explained that passage to you in thee-mail I sent a mere 2 hours and 47 minutes later:

• [Richard to Respondent]: ‘The second quote you provide above is about how those thirty or so months were experienced: it was all rather banal (as banal as watching TV is with the sound turned off) inasmuch there was nothing worthwhile to be discovered as only ‘my’ presence made dream sequences meaningful’. [from ‘Re: Further Request For Clearance’; Fri 7/09/2007 8:49 AM AEST].

RESPONDENT: Please don’t read it with prejudice:

RICHARD: Why on earth would you even consider for a moment that I would read it with prejudice? Look, here is how a dictionary describes the phrase [quote] ‘as if’ [endquote]:

• [Oxford Dictionary]: ‘as if : as the case would be if (with cl. containing an explicit or understood past subjunct. or an inf. expressing purpose or destination)’.

RESPONDENT: Since I didn’t have the chance to meet and get acquainted with Richard, and I’m on my first groping with the AF method, it would be helpful to have a consistency from the composer of the content,

RICHARD: What would actually be helpful would be for you to not chop bits off sentences of mine.

RESPONDENT: In the same way, If I’m to guess, that Vineeto would have more confidence to explore the AF method if what Richard have said to her when they met would be basically consistent, than if it wasn’t consistent.

RICHARD: As I observed in my previous email: there is nothing inconsistent at all (let alone blatantly so) in my words.

RESPONDENT: I’m not asking to open a new debate nor I’m suggesting new objections to the material. What I’m asking is very simple and as the content on the AF site may change fates,

RICHARD: Ha ... the content on The Actual Freedom Trust web site is not going to changes fates (whatever that may mean) just because you have seen fit to chop bits off sentences of mine.

RESPONDENT: It would be more than fair to explain this basic inconsistency in correspondence:

RICHARD: What would actually be more than fair would be to not chop bits off sentences of mine.

... dreams were ‘word-scenes’ of circumstances or ‘word-descriptions’ of events (no images) with no ‘dreamer’ as a participant ... somewhat akin to arbitrary, or stray thoughts ...

... With the end of ‘the dreamer’ then dreaming became as if watching TV with the sound turned off ...

...both the imaging and the emotional content disappears but not necessarily the arbitrary and stray thought ...

... sleep is total oblivion. If there be dreaming occurring during the three, four or five hours I have no awareness of it whatsoever ...

RESPONDENT: Thanks again.

RICHARD: All I can do is provide a modified version of what I sent to you at 8:49 AM on Friday 7/09/2007, in an e-mail entitled ‘Re: Further Request For Clearance’, as there is nothing new to say on the matter. Vis.:

• The first part-sentence you provide above is abstracted from a paragraph which is about what occurred during the thirty months or so after the end of the intuitive/ imaginative facility. Here is how I explained that to you in my first response to you: [quote]: ‘2. Immediately after the end of the intuitive/ imaginative facility the dreams were ‘word-scenes’ of circumstances or ‘word-descriptions’ of events (no images at all) with no ‘dreamer’ as a participant ... somewhat akin to arbitrary, or stray thoughts, which sometimes wander around in day-time and are associated with nothing at all’. [endquote].

The second part-sentence you provide above is missing the parenthesised words: [quote] ‘rather banal’ [endquote]. Vis.:

• [Richard]: ‘With the end of ‘the dreamer’ then dreaming became as if watching TV with the sound turned off (rather banal) ...’.

And that part-sentence is abstracted from a paragraph which is about how those thirty or so months were experienced: it was all rather banal (as banal as watching TV is with the sound turned off) inasmuch there was nothing worthwhile to be discovered as only ‘my’ presence made dream sequences meaningful.

The third part-sentence you provide above is abstracted from a paragraph which is about how my experience shows that while both the imaging and the emotional content disappears, immediately after the intuitive/ imaginative facility ends, the arbitrary and stray thoughts do not necessarily cease. Indeed, to this very day there sometimes is, upon waking, a vagrant thought aimlessly occurring (just as during the waking hours there sometimes is the sporadic wandering around of a meaningless thought).

The fourth part-sentence you provide above is abstracted from a paragraph which is about how it is all currently experienced (after the thirty or so months of continuing to apply the lucid dreaming process) in that sleep is total oblivion and if there be dreaming occurring I have no awareness of it whatsoever.

In short: there is no inconsistency at all (let alone a basic one).

November 06 2007

RESPONDENT: I didn’t think you replied to me on the correspondence page. (it was also the case with my 2 other recent posts)

RICHARD: I replied to you by sending my response to m...@walla.com (as was also the case with your two other recent posts). The specific details are as follows:

1. You sent your first e-mail, entitled ‘A request for clearance of some content on AF site dreams section’, at 3:53 PM on Thursday 6/09/2007 using your m...@walla.com e-mail address.
2. I sent my response, entitled ‘Re: A request for clearance of some content on AF site dreams section’, seven hours and seven minutes later (at 11:00 PM on Thursday 6/09/2007) to m...@walla.com.

3. You sent your second e-mail, entitled ‘Further request for clearance’, at 6:02 AM on Friday 7/09/2007 using your m...@walla.com e-mail address.
4. I sent my response, entitled ‘Re: Further Request For Clearance’, two hours and forty-seven minutes later (at 8:49 AM on Friday 7/09/2007) to the m...@walla.com e-mail address.

5. You sent your third e-mail, entitled ‘Further writing’, at 1:22 AM on Monday 10/09/2007 using your m...@walla.com e-mail address.
6. I sent my response, entitled ‘Re: Further Writing’, six hours and forty-eight minutes later (at 8:10 AM on Monday 10/09/2007) to the m...@walla.com e-mail address.

RESPONDENT: I only now have found your recent responses. Thank you.

RICHARD: As a suggestion only: as it is now two months since the first e-mail exchange try looking in the e-mail account which you send your e-mails from (rather than the correspondence page) for my responses as it may be days, if not weeks, before the formatted and made-anonymous copies are eventually uploaded to The Actual Freedom Trust web site.

And the reason I suggest this is because this time around you have e-mailed me from your m...@hotmail.com account.

*

RESPONDENT: You describe situation No. 2 as immediately after the ending of the imaginative/ intuitive facility.

RICHARD: You are referring to a succinct summation I made (in my first response, sent to m...@walla.com, at 11:00 PM on Thursday 6/09/2007) regarding what is contained in the paragraph immediately preceding the one you quoted from (in your first e-mail, sent at 3:53 PM on Thursday 6/09/2007, using your m...@walla.com e-mail address) ... vis.:

* [Richard]: ‘2. Immediately after the end of the intuitive/ imaginative facility the dreams were ‘word-scenes’ of circumstances or ‘word-descriptions’ of events (no images at all) with no ‘dreamer’ as a participant ... somewhat akin to arbitrary, or stray thoughts, which sometimes wander around in day-time and are associated with nothing at all’. [endquote].

RESPONDENT: My question is: Isn’t ending of the imaginative/ intuitive facility is also the extinction of identity?

RICHARD: The extinction of identity, in this flesh and blood body, was the ending of the intuitive/imaginative facility in toto ... however, during an ad hoc research of the topic in June 2001, I read several reports posted on the internet from otherwise normal people lacking the ability to form mental images.

RESPONDENT: If so, then my question is: how could you do lucid dreaming [quote] I am none too sure just how long it took, with the continued application of (what I later found was called) lucid dreaming, to get from situation No. 2 to situation No. 3 ... probably somewhere around thirty months or so. [/quote] after the event.

RICHARD: The continued application of (what I later found was called) lucid dreaming did not depend on either having the ability to form mental images or there being a ‘dreamer’ as a participant.

RESPONDENT: Or is it still possible to lucid dream after the extinction of identity?

RICHARD: In that thirty or so months, after the extinction of identity, where the dreams were ‘word-scenes’ of circumstances or ‘word-descriptions’ of events (no images), with no ‘dreamer’ as a participant, it was indeed still possible to know it was a dream whilst dreaming (for the awareness of being aware, which daytime consciousness so deliciously allows, to operate) ... as detailed in that link I sent you in my first response. Vis.:

*

RESPONDENT: Also, a slightly different and short thing I want to talk with you about actual freedom, sleep, and my general fearfulness, if I may: you describe on one correspondence that it takes an unusual sensation to awake you [quote] I sleep like a log, as an old saying goes, unconscious, unaware and (probably) dreamless. It would take an unusual noise (a window being broken) or an unusual smell (something burning) or an unusual sensation (a creature crawling) to awaken me. [/quote] What I find out is that the less ‘I’ interfere the more there is a attention to all the surroundings, which is a beneficial thing to all kind of situations that my endanger this body. What about sleeping then: If the situation is as you describe it in the quote, it is more dangerous for body sake to sleep without the ‘Me’ that is alert in a nature/ camping surrounding.

RICHARD: No.

RESPONDENT: Do you have any thoughts on this you could share?

RICHARD: It is not a case of what I think but what I experience ... in any such [quote] ‘nature/ camping’ [endquote] situations since the ending of identity unusual noises/ unusual smells/ unusual sensations have indeed awakened me.

RESPONDENT: Thank you.

RICHARD: As it has now taken four e-mail exchanges, spaning a two month period, to attend to a non-existent inconsistency this is an apt moment to point out that I gave a decade of my life (from 1996 to 2006) to sharing my discovery with my fellow human being via a keyboard – spending something like eight-ten hours a day, six-seven days a week, responding with millions of words in meticulous detail to all manner of queries and objections in thousands of e-mails (all archived on the internet for ready access) – and currently have no intention of being drawn, either now or in the foreseeable future, into more of the same.

November 22 2007

RESPONDENT: I mis-structured my last question and so it came out wrongly and unclearly. I wish you would answer to what I meant. I’ll implement your request of not wishing to participate in these queries from now on till further notice if there’s to be one.
What I meant was – This body sleeps well now, and awakes only from an unusual sensations, but in a dangerous situation (like sleeping in cheap boarding house where my belongings could be easily stolen, or in a camping situation) I don’t let this body to sleep so well (or so unconciuosly), in order to be able to wake from all kind of sensations – even from quiet but suspicious sounds – these are times and places where I need to be more sensitive during sleep. The question I asked you is whether without an identity it is possible too, to be more sensitive during sleep (in comparison to ‘sleeping like a dog’), if there’s need for that.

RICHARD: The expression I use in that quote you provided in your previous e-mail was [quote] ‘sleep like a log’ [endquote] and not, as you have put it, sleeping like a dog. Vis.:

• [Richard]: ‘I sleep like a log, as an old saying goes ... unconscious, unaware and (probably) dreamless. It would take an unusual noise (a window being broken) or an unusual smell (something burning) or an unusual sensation (a creature crawling) to awaken me’.

Here is what a dictionary has to say about that phrase:

• ‘sleep like a log: sleep very soundly’. (Oxford Dictionary).

As you obviously equate sleeping very soundly with being less sensitive (in contrast to being more sensitive) your restructured query cannot be answered as-is.

By way of explanation I will first draw your attention to the following:

• [Respondent]: ‘Although you are freed from the psyche, the flesh and body known as Richard has electric properties (your brain processes work with/on electric impulses (...) The operating of the electric processes is that which differentiates between a sleeping body and an awakened one (in both cases the senses are operating).
• [Richard]: ‘As all it takes to bring this flesh and blood body into wakefulness, when asleep, is an unexpected/unusual touch (the cutaneal sense), or smell (the olfactory sense), or sound (the aural sense), or light (the ocular sense), or taste (the gustatory sense), or posture (the proprioceptive senses) it does not follow that it is the operating of electric processes which differentiates between a sleeping and an awake body ... the operating of *some* electric activity would be what distinguishes.
Whether awake or asleep a body subconsciously processes sensation continuously ... there are, if memory serves correctly, on average up to maybe 150,000 nerve impulses firing in any given second.

And then to this:

• [Respondent]: ‘(...) there are 3 things that I can be compared with a computer in terms of my functioning: [1] When I am asleep, my senses are on HIBERNATE and take a longer time to come online. [2] When I am awake and not thinking then my senses are on STANDBY. [3] When I am functioning and doing a task because of discomfort of the body, or out of necessity, then my senses are ON. And my hypothesis is when my senses are off – either they are not functioning (e.g. to be blind) or I am dead. The only thing is that to get from STANDBY to ON is only necessary when I need something’.
• [Richard]: ‘(...) whether awake or asleep, thinking or not thinking, the senses are functioning anyway – all it takes to bring this flesh and blood body into wakefulness, when asleep, is an unexpected/unusual touch (the cutaneal sense), or smell (the olfactory sense), or sound (the aural sense), or light (the ocular sense), or taste (the gustatory sense), or posture (the proprioceptive senses) – so it does not follow that the senses can be hibernating, standing-by, or switching-on ... they are always on, so to speak, for as long as a body is alive and not dead’.

As it also does not follow that the senses are [quote] ‘more sensitive during sleep’ [endquote] it may now be possible for you to see that this query of yours comes out of your [quote] ‘these are times and places where I need to be more sensitive during sleep’ [endquote] preamble.

Just so there is no misunderstanding: it is the word [quote] ‘too’ [endquote] in your re-structured query which is the operative word. Vis.:

• [Respondent]: ‘... these are times and places where I need to be more sensitive during sleep. The question I asked you is whether without an identity it is possible *too*, to be more sensitive during sleep ...’. [emphasis added].

In short: it is the identity who experiences the [quote] ‘need to be more sensitive during sleep’ [endquote] in those times and places.

And here is a clue as to why (excerpted from what you are now saying was a mis-structured query):

• [Respondent]: ‘Also, a slightly different and short thing I want to talk with you about actual freedom, sleep, and *my general fearfulness*, if I may: you describe on one correspondence that it takes an unusual sensation to awake you ...’. [emphasis added].

In other words: your fearful need, as an identity, to be more sensitive has no correspondence with what happens when without an identity.

Here is my reply to what you are now saying was a mis-structured query:

• [Richard to Respondent]: ‘It is not a case of what I think but what I experience ... in any such [quote] ‘nature/ camping’ [endquote] situations since the ending of identity unusual noises/ unusual smells/ unusual sensations have indeed awakened me’. (Sent: Tuesday, 06/11/2007, 8:09 AM).

In one such occasion, earlier this year whilst at anchor one night up a sheltered mangrove creek during a four-day sea-trial on a six-metre trailer-sailer just recently purchased, the unusual sounds and unusual sensations of mosquitoes – I normally bed down in an insect-screened residence – awoke me in the wee small hours even though sleeping very soundly (aka sleeping like a log).

As it was a warm, humid and moon-lit night in a sub-tropical area I arose and spent a delightful couple of hours reclining at ease in the cockpit (dousing myself liberally with insect repellent in sensual preference to clothing myself) thoroughly enjoying and appreciating simply being alive ... after making a mental note to someday fit the yacht with insect screens as they had entered via a crack where the folding cabin door was not able to close tightly enough.

On another occasion, a few months earlier, while sleeping in a small and lightweight hiking-style tent during an intense sub-tropical storm I awoke several times during the night whenever the tent walls flapped unduly (an unusual sound) and/or became dribbling wet on the inside (an unusual sensation), due to extra-strong winds holding the tent’s micro-thin awning against the sheer material of the tent itself, yet the numerous claps of thunder and brilliant lightning flashes, even when nearly overhead, did not disturb the very sound sleep.

My companion, by the way, had a mostly sleepless night (and quizzed me, on one occasion, about what was deemed to be my uncaring/unconcerned attitude).

The following will throw some light on how sentience operates sans identity:

• [Respondent]: ‘As the senses operate in both cases [awake and asleep], it results that you are not the senses per se, but the ‘awareness’ of the senses, in other words: consciousness per se.
• [Richard]: ‘As the first person pronoun is used by the flesh and blood body writing these e-mails (for both convenience and so as not to be unduly pedantic) to refer to this flesh and blood body only it may all become clear if it be put this way: when the flesh and blood body writing this e-mail is asleep the flesh and blood body, whilst not consciously aware of being sentient, is subliminally aware of sentience ... or, put differently, upon waking this flesh and blood body’s subconscious awareness of being alive heightens (into being a conscious awareness).
In other words ... a difference in degree and not of kind’.

Maybe this will also be of assistance:

• [Respondent]: ‘You wrote [Richard[: ‘An actual freedom from the human condition is a freedom from the instinctual passions – not the instincts per se’. [endquote]. I am asking you without their passions, exist any more instincts?
• [Richard]: ‘One example of an instinctive reaction in oneself, that is not necessarily affective, is the automatic response known as the reflex action (inadvertently touch a hotplate, for instance, and there is an involuntary jerking away of the affected limb) or the startle response.
A classic example of this occurred whilst strolling along a country lane one fine morning with the sunlight dancing its magic on the glistening dew-drops suspended from the greenery everywhere; these eyes are delighting in the profusion of colour and texture and form as the panorama unfolds; these ears are revelling in the cadence of tones as their resonance and timbre fills the air; these nostrils are rejoicing in the abundance of aromas and scents drifting fragrantly all about; this skin is savouring the touch, the caress, of the early springtime ambience; this mind, other than the sheer enjoyment and appreciation of being alive as this flesh and blood body, is ambling along in neutral – there is no thought at all and conscious alertness is null and void – when all-of-a-sudden the easy gait has ceased happening.
These eyes instantly shift from admiring the dun-coloured cows in a field nearby and are looking downward to the front and see the green and black snake, coiling up on the road in readiness to act, which had not only occasioned the abrupt halt but, it is discovered, had initiated a rapid step backwards ... an instinctive response which, had the instinctual passions that are the identity been in situ, could very well have triggered off freeze-fight-flee chemicals.
There is no perturbation whatsoever (no wide-eyed staring, no increase in heart-beat, no rapid breathing, no adrenaline-tensed muscle tone, no sweaty palms, no blood draining from the face, no dry mouth, no cortisol-induced heightened awareness, and so on) as with the complete absence of the rudimentary animal ‘self’ in the brain-stem the limbic system in general, and the amygdala in particular, have been free to do their job – the oh-so-vital startle response – both efficaciously and cleanly.
Cattle, for example, are easily ‘spooked’ by a reptile and have been known to stampede in infectious group panic’.

Put somewhat simplistically (for emphasis): the body’s autonomic reflex action, or startle response, does the job much better than any fearful identity deluding itself that it is being [quote] ‘more sensitive’ [endquote].

November 22 2007

RESPONDENT: I have recently wrote you an email, inquiring something I mis-phrased on my mail before that (and before you corresponded on it and then said [quote] this is an apt moment to point out that I gave a decade of my life (from 1996 to 2006) to sharing my discovery with my fellow human being via a keyboard – spending something like eight-ten hours a day, six-seven days a week, responding with millions of words in meticulous detail to all manner of queries and objections in thousands of e-mails (all archived on the internet for ready access) – and currently have no intention of being drawn, either now or in the foreseeable future, into more of the same. [/quote]).

If you have answered this mail to m…@walla.com, then I didn’t get it (I never got emails from you to that box).

RICHARD: As all I have ever done is click ‘Reply To Sender’ (whereupon that response is automatically sent to whatever e-mail address the sender sent it from) then there is no error from this end which could possibly explain why you never got e-mails from me to that box (else they would have bounced back to me).

Be that as it may ... I have just now sent an extensive response (so as to pre-empt any further restructuring of your query), to that e-mail you are referring to above, to the mailbox it was sent from (m…@hotmail.com).

RESPONDENT: If you haven’t read my mail and you are reading it now by any chance, then in short my question was – Is it possible to be on-guard during sleep when needed, as it is possible with the identity?

RICHARD: It is not necessary to be on-guard (as it is with an identity) ... sleep here in this actual world is so peaceful that only 3-4 hours (sometimes 4-5 hours) are all that is needed.

RESPONDENT: Or in other words – when there is a reason to be more sensitive during sleep, are the waking-up abilities (the sensitivity to wake from a particular sound, even small, but specific, or any small sound that might be important to wake up from in a particular situation) less superior without the identity, more superior or the same?

RICHARD: It is not a question of being more (or less) sensitive – being on-guard is what an identity does – as the word sensitive is used thataway only in reference to affective impulses. For example:

sensitive: very susceptible or responsive to emotional, artistic, etc., impressions, possessing delicate or tender feelings; spec. (a) easily offended or emotionally hurt, touchy; (b) naturally perceptive of the feelings etc. of others; tactful, sympathetic, compassionate. Freq. foll. by to. (Oxford Dictionary).

Whereas the primary meaning of the word is do with purely sensate sensing:

sensitive: having the function of sensation or sensory perception; connected with or derived from the senses; having the faculty of sensation. (Oxford Dictionary).

RESPONDENT: The reason I’m asking that, in a tenacious matter, is that though this body can experience a PCE, and know exactly how it is during day, the chance (in this year, at least) to experience how it is to wake up in night in PCE vs. not in PCE vs. on guard situation vs. not on guard situation are small, but there is a good chance I would be needed to sleep on guard (as I needed during my army service) so I asked you to share your experience and knowledge.

RICHARD: As I too did army service – and served out my allotted span in a war-zone – complete with a full suite of affective feelings and the identity which automatically forms thereof I can speak from a comparative experience and assuredly say that being sans identity is a far superior way of operating.

RESPONDENT: How can I knowingly proceed on examining my identity with the knowledge that it might make my waking up ability less superior? I’m stuck.

RICHARD: For what it is worth: it was not an issue for the identity residing in this flesh and blood body all those years ago ... having the utter confidence (from numerous PCE’s) that life sans identity was superior in all respects ‘he’ just blithely went ahead and gladsomely ‘self’-immolated.

‘Tis as simple as that.

*

RESPONDENT: Addendum: Just to add: although you clearly expressed your wish of not participating in these kind of correspondences no more, my motive for rephrasing my wrongly phrased question (it was asked when you still haven’t expressed the wish not to be asked anymore), and sending it to you is because although the scenario I was talking about is possible and likeable in my life, it is, as opposed to waking life, difficult to experience how I am awaking from a sensation during sleep, mostly because it is a rare occurrence, and also because I can’t propel myself into actual freedom now, to experience how it is to get awaken in a situation described in my question, and then go back to identity-like experience and comparing the two experiences. Thus it would be great to hear your experience on the matter.

RICHARD: My experience on the matter, when comparing the two experiences, is that the autonomic reflex actions operate far, far better – both efficaciously and cleanly in fact – where there is no identity in situ to stuff things up with all manner of fears, worries, anxieties, and so on, and so forth.

Continued on Mailing List ‘D’: No. 9


RETURN TO GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE INDEX

RETURN TO RICHARD’S CORRESPONDENCE INDEX

RICHARD’S HOME PAGE

The Third Alternative

(Peace On Earth In This Life Time As This Flesh And Blood Body)

Here is an actual freedom from the Human Condition, surpassing Spiritual Enlightenment and any other Altered State Of Consciousness, and challenging all philosophy, psychiatry, metaphysics (including quantum physics with its mystic cosmogony), anthropology, sociology ... and any religion along with its paranormal theology. Discarding all of the beliefs that have held humankind in thralldom for aeons, the way has now been discovered that cuts through the ‘Tried and True’ and enables anyone to be, for the first time, a fully free and autonomous individual living in utter peace and tranquillity, beholden to no-one.

Richard's Text ©The Actual Freedom Trust: 1997-.  All Rights Reserved.

Disclaimer and Use Restrictions and Guarantee of Authenticity