Actual Freedom – The Actual Freedom Mailing List Correspondence

September 02 2004

RESPONDENT: But an ego-less man does not have any desires or beliefs, that is, desires of the essence of belief whatsoever hence the inability to objectify anything let alone a deity.

RICHARD: As the narcissistic state of being popularly known as self-realisation, or spiritual enlightenment, is a solipsistic state of pure subjectivity there are no objects – as in the term ‘Consciousness Without an Object’ to describe an egoless state or condition of being conscious (inasmuch all existence is intuitively known to be but a manifestation of being itself) – let alone the capacity to objectify that which has been realised ... which is the profound realisation that one *is* being itself (usually capitalised as ‘Being’).

An argument (as in your ‘but’ and ‘hence’ phrasing) predicated upon a category error is fatally flawed from the get-go.

RESPONDENT: Which poses the problem of whether or not God is real.

RICHARD: For one in the egoless state of being a god/goddess is indeed real – more real than anything else – but is never actual (as in having objective existence).

RESPONDENT: For without belief there can be no God for him at all ...

RICHARD: If I may interject (before you go on with your ‘which means’ explanation)? There is a vast difference between believing in a god/ goddess and in realising that god/goddess ... insofar as the belief has become (is) a reality for the egoless person.

RESPONDENT: ... [For without belief there can be no God for him at all] which means, he is completely closed up to any possibility of believing let alone believing in God without tangibility or some kind of *experience* of God.

RICHARD: What the word ‘tangibility’ usually refers to – being tangible, palpable, sensible, perceivable, touchable/ feelable, smellable, audible, visible, tastable, observable, noticeable, detectable, distinguishable, discernible, appreciable, and so on – is not generally what a god/goddess is ... the distinction betwixt an extrinsic experience (objectivity) and an intrinsic experience (subjectivity) is a marked distinction.

Thus would it not be more in keeping with the general thrust of your (non-objectification) argument to say, for example, ‘without realizability ...’? Vis.:

• [example only]: ‘... without realizability or some kind of (intrinsic) experience of god/goddess’.

RESPONDENT: My rational self is inclined to go with the logic of believing simultaneously, in the simple, straightforward paradoxical conundrum of the mysterious nature of God as two infinitely opposing truths, natures, or things both of which are in complete opposition to each other as should be the essence of omnipotence as a Being comprehensible to none other than itself.

RICHARD: Mystical literature often mentions how the polar opposites continue to exist (as complimentary poles) upon self-realisation. Indeed, one of the appellations used to describe the integration of the divine/ diabolical divide upon transcendence, wherein the opposites unite without ceasing to be themselves, is the phrase ‘coincidentia oppositorum’ (coincidence of opposites) and/or ‘complexio oppositorum’ (union of opposites/ united duality).

For example:

• ‘The self appears in dreams, myths, and fairytales in the figure of the ‘supraordinate personality’, such as a king, hero, prophet, saviour, etc., or in the form of a totality symbol, such as the circle, square, quadratura circuli, cross, etc. When it represents a complexio oppositorum, a union of opposites, it can also appear as a united duality, in the form, for instance, of tao as the interplay of yang and yin, or of the hostile brothers, or of the hero and his adversary (arch-enemy, dragon), Faust and Mephistopheles, etc. Empirically, therefore, the self appears as a play of light and shadow, although conceived as a totality and unity in which the opposites are united. (par. 790, Volume Six, ‘The Collected Works of C. G. Jung’; ©1953-1979 Princeton University Press, Princeton).

RESPONDENT: So we find the omnipotent one called God as both a rationality of an ‘impossibility’ as a being, or the purest of impossibilities in of itself and existence to some, as well as an irrationality of the form of an absoluteness or certainty to others. The ultimate conception of a being is to conceive the categorical formulation, of the utmost impossibility of unions in nature, of the total opposition of Nothing and Being which seem to stand in infinite diametric opposition thus providing us with the contingent prerequisite of an axiomatic definition or theorem of a limitless and hence omnipotent God.

Do you agree Richard?

RICHARD: No, I do not agree: mystical experience renders your (intellectual) assertion – ‘the utmost impossibility of unions’ – null and void ... just as actual experience does with your (borrowed) assertion – ‘a Being comprehensible to none other than itself’ – further above as I have no problem whatsoever in comprehending ‘Being’ (and I am most certainly not that).

Apart from that, and as a suggestion only, try substituting the first person pronoun for the (attributive) plural pronoun in ‘so we find’ and for the (definite article) determiner in ‘the ultimate conception’ and for the (objective) plural pronoun in ‘thus providing us’ and see what happens. Vis.:

• [example only]: ‘So *I* find the omnipotent one called God as both a rationality of an ‘impossibility’ as a being, or the purest of impossibilities in of itself and existence to some, as well as an irrationality of the form of an absoluteness or certainty to others. *My* ultimate conception of a being is to conceive the categorical formulation, of the utmost impossibility of unions in nature, of the total opposition of Nothing and Being which seem to stand in infinite diametric opposition thus providing *me* with the contingent prerequisite of an axiomatic definition or theorem of a limitless and hence omnipotent God’.

The tendency to ... um ... to objectify takes many forms, does it not?

September 05 2004

RESPONDENT: Consider a context or scenario where you are in complete and utter happiness.

RICHARD: Why? Here in this actual world there *is* only complete and utter happiness (and harmlessness).

RESPONDENT: This would be the reason you would have for not concerning yourself with imagining other possibilities or dreaming about other scenarios.

RICHARD: Not so ... apart from being incapable of imagining and/or dreaming (the intuitive/ imaginative faculty is no longer extant) as this apperceptive flesh and blood body I am this infinite and eternal and perpetual universe experiencing itself as a sensate and reflective creature: as such the universe is stunningly aware of its own infinitude.

And this is truly wonderful.

RESPONDENT: So you have really no need to believe ...

RICHARD: If I may interject? It has nothing to do with either need or no-need. Vis.:

• [Richard to Respondent]: ‘I have been incapable of believing for nigh-on twelve (12) years now ...’.

RESPONDENT: ... [So you have really no need to believe] in anything, but of course rather to know. Not simply do you have no need to believe, but also you cease with it as it is all part of your development as this new and happy being.

RICHARD: No, it is not a matter of ‘development’ (synonyms: growth, expansion, progress, advance, increase, maturity, enlargement, improvement) at all ... the capacity, or ability, to believe ceased upon the extinction of identity in toto (both ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul).

RESPONDENT: To your new selfless ‘self’ ...

RICHARD: There is neither a new nor a selfless (no-self) ‘self’ inhabiting this flesh and blood body.

RESPONDENT: ... [To your new selfless ‘self’], one belief is as good as every other.

RICHARD: You may find the following informative:

• [Co-Respondent]: ‘... I don’t believe in the God or gods of modern day Christianity. However, if God is used as another name for Truth or the Infinite, then I believe in God, because I believe in Truth.
• [Richard]: ‘How unfortunate it is that you so easily write the words ‘I believe in Truth’. The subject of beliefs and believing is one of my favourite topics as beliefs are the bane of humankind. A person who is free has no beliefs whatsoever, so one who is endeavouring to become free will view them all with deep suspicion. Beliefs have been so instrumental in killing, maiming, torturing and otherwise causing such pain and suffering since the dawn of human history, that one wonders that they are given any credence at all these days. It behoves one to examine each and every belief – especially those that pass for ‘truths’ or ‘The Truth’ – and watch them disappear out of one’s life forever. It is so liberating to be free of beliefs – of believing itself – that I cannot recommend their elimination highly enough.

RESPONDENT: You simply choose to accept that and only that which is given or verifiable at least.

RICHARD: It is not a matter of choice ... a fact is so (else it be not a fact) and just sits there, as it were, making any acceptance/non-acceptance (and any belief/disbelief, trust/distrust, and so on) look silly.

‘Tis a blessed relief to be free of choice.

RESPONDENT: So, it literally becomes ‘impossible’ in this new state to believe in God.

RICHARD: Where there is no believer (‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being ... which is ‘being’ itself) all gods/ goddesses cease to exist.

RESPONDENT: The overall unification of any two completely opposing truths, or truths having absolutely no relations in reality to each other, namely Nothing and Everything which possess no commonality and which have an infinite disjunction to each other, are accomplished only by the greatest generality imaginable or God, the omnipotent Being of such abstraction as to be rendered limitless and infinite that it is to be the unity of all that exists and ‘non-exists’.

RICHARD: If I may point out? If ‘Everything’ (all time and all space and all form) did not exist in the first place then ‘Nothing’ (that which is timeless and spaceless and formless) could not be conceived of ... thus your two completely opposing truths, far from having absolutely no relations, are indeed (albeit conceptually) related.

To put that another way: if (note ‘if’) the universe did not exist neither would any (conjectured) nothingness.

RESPONDENT: Keeping this in mind, as God is the unification of Nothing and everything, God abstractly manifests Itself as either nothing to some or everything to others.

RICHARD: I notice that you contrasted ‘Nothing’ with ‘Being’ (aka ‘God’) in your previous e-mail ... is ‘Everything’ another way of saying ‘Being’ (according to you)? If so, and as the ‘Everything’ you posit must, of necessity, include your conjectured ‘Nothing’ (else ‘Being’ be not absolutely everything), is this not all much ado about nothing (no pun intended)?

Are you aware of the distinction between panentheism (‘all-in-god’) and pantheism (‘all-is-god’)? For example: http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/religion/blrel_theism_panen.htm

For obvious reasons it is the analogy in the last two paragraphs of that on-line article which particularly occasions me to ask.

September 08 2004

RICHARD: If ‘Everything’ (all time and all space and all form) did not exist in the first place then ‘Nothing’ (that which is timeless and spaceless and formless) could not be conceived of ... thus your two completely opposing truths, far from having absolutely no relations, are indeed (albeit conceptually) related. To put that another way: if (note ‘if’) the universe did not exist neither would any (conjectured) nothingness.

RESPONDENT: A conclusion follows an assumption based on the evidence presented. The nature of God is ... (snip).

RICHARD: Your ‘assumption’ that nothing – that which is timeless and spaceless and formless – has existence (albeit a conceptual existence) is based upon ‘the evidence presented’ that everything (all time and all space and all form) exists: you then (erroneously) assert that they are two completely opposing truths having absolutely no relations to each other and then form the ‘conclusion’ that a ... um ... a unifier extraordinaire (an omnipotent being/god) is required to accomplish unification.

You then set off on a (convoluted) abstract journey through many and varied opposites – such as true/ false, existent/ non-existent, subjective/ objective, paradox/not-paradox, concept/non-concept, nothing/ everything, determination/ indetermination, content/ non-content, limited/ unlimited, finite/ infinite – all for the purpose of (presumably) being able to declare, at the end of your e-mail, that ‘so it is established that the completely irrelative concept/ ‘non-concept’ of Nothing and Everything bear absolutely no resemblance in content yet have indetermination in absence of each other and determination where present’ ... and to be able to retitle the thread you initially titled ‘Smart Question’ into being ‘The Conclusion Of God’.

Now, if the universe (the evidence presented) did not exist not only would nothing (your assumption) also not have existence neither would any omnipotent being/god (your conclusion) as there would be no necessity for any such unification/any such unifier as you posit ... which necessity is the basis of, and the reason for, your argument anyway (to find the logical proof of god).

Not being a logician I have no recourse but to be sensible (rather than logical) ... here is my question:

• Does everything (the universe) already always exist – as in time being eternal and space being infinite and matter (mass/energy) being perpetual – or was it created by your unifier (your god)?

Bearing in mind that an eternal-infinite-perpetual universe has no opposite, no other, no nothing (not even a conceptual nothing), here is my supplementary question:

• If the universe does not already always exist did your god create it (everything) out of nothing?

If so, and as the assumption that nothing has existence depends upon everything existing in the first place, how could nothing have existence prior to everything existing? For example:

1. Everything exists ... therefore:
2. Nothing has existence.
3. Everything has not always existed ... therefore:
4. Nothing has not always had existence.

In other words, no everything implies no nothing; no everything/ no nothing implies no unifier (no omnipotent being or god); no everything/no nothing/no omnipotent being or god implies no creation; no everything/ no nothing/ no omnipotent being or god/no creation implies that it is all much ado about nothing (no pun intended), eh?

Meanwhile, back at the universe, on a verdant and azure planet floating in infinite space and eternal time as the current form perpetual matter (mass/energy) has arranged itself into, all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides and the such-like, which have gone on since time immemorial, will continue on unabated unless radical change occurs.

May I ask (if only because that is what this Mailing List is set-up and maintained for) what your contribution towards peace on earth is?

September 09 2004

RICHARD: ... as the assumption that nothing has existence depends upon everything existing in the first place, how could nothing have existence prior to everything existing?

RESPONDENT: Because Nothing is nothing and everything everything.

RICHARD: And thus does logic, yet once again, fall upon its (tautological) sword.

RESPONDENT: Duh.

RICHARD: I refer you to the following:

• ‘duh: used to express disdain for something deemed stupid or obvious, especially a self-evident remark (imitative of an utterance attributed to slow-witted people)’. (American Heritage® Dictionary).
• ‘duh: used derisively to indicate that something just stated is all too obvious or self-evident’. (Merriam-Webster Dictionary).

As all it took was a sensible question to reduce you to disdain and derision there is no point in continuing this charade masquerading as a genuine discussion.

*

RICHARD: Meanwhile, back at the universe, on a verdant and azure planet floating in infinite space and eternal time as the current form perpetual matter (mass/energy) has arranged itself into, all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides and the such-like, which have gone on since time immemorial, will continue on unabated unless radical change occurs. May I ask (if only because that is what this Mailing List is set-up and maintained for) what your contribution towards peace on earth is?

RESPONDENT: To have faith in the grace of God will bring us through individually.

RICHARD: As your god’s grace has something like a 2,000 year track-record of, not only not bringing about peace on earth, but having a decidedly capricious quality to its bestowal anyway, it would appear that radical change is not on your agenda.

So be it then ... I have no further questions.

September 13 2004

RESPONDENT: (...) Richard, can you explain for me once more before I leave to never come back on this list afterward, exactly what evidence you have to say that time, matter and space are ‘seamless’ ... 

RICHARD: This is the exchange you are referring to:

• [Respondent]: ‘If all things are relative including time, then does an instantaneous awareness only sense an instantaneous space and time?
• [Richard]: ‘As time is not relative – except in the mathematical models theoretical physicists posit (in lieu of direct experience) – your query has no substance in actuality.
• [Respondent]: ‘In other words, would you see space and time as two unrelated characteristics?
• [Richard]: ‘Time and space (and matter) are seamless.

As nowhere could I find where I have explained to you before (other than my parenthesised ‘in lieu of direct experience’ comment above) what evidence I have, to say that time and space and matter are seamless, I am taking it that you want me to explain, once more, what ‘direct experience’ is.

Accordingly, I looked through my exchanges with you for the occasions where I have used the term ‘direct experience’ and found that I explain it thusly:

• [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). The PCE occurs globally ... across cultures and down through the ages irregardless of gender, race or age’. [emphasis added].

Now, a PCE occurs when the identity in toto (both ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul) goes into abeyance – an actual freedom from the human condition is where identity is extinct – leaving the flesh and blood body being apperceptively conscious ... such awareness (unmediated consciousness) is direct experience.

As an unmediated consciousness – a flesh and blood body being conscious sans both the thinker and the feeler – is a non-subjective consciousness there is no way it can be seduced into accepting that a mathematical theory based upon a subjective insight (that a person falling towards the earth is entitled to interpret their being in motion as being at rest because, for them, there exists no gravitational field) has any relevance to what is actually the situation.

*

RESPONDENT: (...) Richard, I basically asked you to tell me why Chris Langan and not ‘Joe Eskimo’ or any other member of the human population both atheist and theist would posit for years a one hundred and some-odd page logical underpinning for the existence of God and you answered: ‘human condition’. I took this to mean that Langan just wanted something to do ... (snip)

RICHARD: This is the exchange you are referring to:

• [Respondent]: ‘Why is there the reasonable pattern of reasonably smart people being atheists and super-brains people being theists these days?
• [Richard]: ‘The same reason as always (the human condition).

If the words ‘why is there the reasonable pattern of ... super-brains people being theists these days’ is your way of asking why one specific person would posit a logical underpinning for the existence of a god in a 100+ page article all I can say is that it is no wonder, then, you took my response to mean whatever it was that you wanted it to mean.

You are out there on your own with this one ... way, way out there on your own.

RESPONDENT: (...) can you elaborate on your seemingly stochastic rebuttal, ‘human condition’?

RICHARD: There is nothing stochastic – ‘of, relating to, or characterised by conjecture; conjectural’ (American Heritage® Dictionary) – about my response to your query as it is indeed the human condition, specifically ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being (which is ‘being’ itself), that is the genesis of theism (and, thus, theists).

Or, to put that another way, there is nothing stochastic – ‘involving or containing a random variable or variables’ (American Heritage® Dictionary) – about my response to your query as it is indeed the human condition, specifically ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being (which is ‘being’ itself), that is the genesis of theism (and, thus, theists).

Or, to put that yet another way, there is nothing stochastic – ‘involving chance or probability’ (American Heritage® Dictionary) – about my response to your query as it is indeed the human condition, specifically ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being (which is ‘being’ itself), that is the genesis of theism (and, thus, theists).

Howsoever I can elaborate on my experiential response: where there is no such ‘being’ extant within a flesh and blood body – either in a pure consciousness experience (PCE) or upon an actual freedom from the human condition – it is startlingly apparent that there are no gods/goddesses in actuality (and thus no theism/theists).

Which means that, whether one is a ‘super-brains’ person or not, positing a logical underpinning for the existence of a god/goddess is all much ado about nothing.

As is this e-mail, entitled ‘General Relativity’, of yours (for reasons already explained).

September 14 2004

RICHARD: (...) a PCE occurs when the identity in toto (both ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul) goes into abeyance – an actual freedom from the human condition is where identity is extinct – leaving the flesh and blood body being apperceptively conscious ... such awareness (unmediated consciousness) is direct experience.

RESPONDENT: In other words, ‘direct experience’ is when the faculty of spirituality is obliterated for the faculty of physical perception.

RICHARD: If I were to put what I wrote (above) in other words it would be words to the effect that a pure consciousness experience (PCE) happens when the illusory/delusory being/Being goes into suspension/dormancy/latency – an actual freedom from the human condition is where being/Being is extinct – leaving the flesh and blood body free of any and all illusional/delusional religiosity/ spirituality/ mysticality/ metaphysicality ... such a freedom (from any such illusory/delusory experience) is direct experience.

By the way: what I have noticed, throughout your e-mails, is that you are addressing questions to me as you would to a materialist ... for an example I only have to point to the ‘atheism-theism are two sides of the same coin’ comment in the un-referenced quote by an un-named author you provide immediately below (the ‘coin’ being, of course, the human condition).

RESPONDENT: Here is how the spiritual faculty works: [quote] According to the scientific method, absolute certainty cannot exist. This reduces to the statement: ‘The only certainty, is uncertainty’ This appears to be a tautological statement. So the scientific method itself, employs a type of circular reasoning. In fact, there seems to be no escaping certain types of circular logic. It is built into the very structure of our cognitive machinery. The ultimate limits of observation, i.e. the extremely small approaching zero and extremely large at the end of the universe, appear to be forever beyond our reach. It can be acknowledged that quantum phase inhibitors exist in the neural underpinnings of certain sentient programs. A type of built in ego identity fail-safe that prevents total systemic collapse in the neural subroutines ensuring that redundancy is not compromised. So we see that atheism-theism are two sides of the same coin. What is needed is mathematical closure in the cognitive matrix of the ostensible TOE theorizer. Therefore, belief systems must be analysed from a higher level of abstraction, a deeper level of truth. Does a first principle exist to remedy the dilemma of discovering the true approach to the ultimate truths? How can we be sure that logic is the most basic of basic starting points. What is the correct path?’ [endquote]

RICHARD: If, as you say, the above un-referenced quote by an un-named author is ‘how the spiritual faculty works’ then I am well-pleased to not be spiritual ... else I too might be chasing the ever-elusive TOE (‘Theory Of Everything’) that both many theistic mathematical physicists (aka spiritualists) and many atheistic mathematical physicists (aka materialists) pursue.

*

RICHARD: As an unmediated consciousness – a flesh and blood body being conscious sans both the thinker and the feeler – is a non-subjective consciousness there is no way it can be seduced ...

RESPONDENT: The limits of physical perception correspond to the limits of physical senses. The limits of physical senses correspond to how able they are to process the environment.

RICHARD: Again, you are writing to me as you would to a materialist.

RESPONDENT: By applying the word, ‘seduced’ – ‘to win over; attract’ (dictionary.com) – you are basically implying that your physical body has a ‘mind of its own’, so to speak, completely separate from the one in your brain ...