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The Void and the Clouds

By: R. J. Zeile
The Void and the Clouds

Copyright 2013 by R. J. Zeile

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Table of Contents

Preface

Introduction

I. I Do Mind

II. The Absent Formula

III. The Question of the Self

IV. The Wielding of the Scepter

V. The Simplicity of the Problem

VI. The Laughter of Institutionalism

VII. A Postlude
To my parents,

without whom I would have grown up tragically normal
Preface

It is a shame that many people are not alive (and I am not just talking about the deceased ones). Within our experience, it is rather plain that there is a pervasive sense of inescapable lethargy that permeates human understanding. This is not a new thing. It does this without calling into question why this slovenly phenomenon exists in the first place. It is merely taken as it is. In the following chapters, I attempt to shine a new, provocative light on why this apathy is detrimental to our already sunken human condition. And it is certainly scientifically reasonable that that lethargy can chill a world that is altogether repugnant and apathetic about the entire situation. For any scientist can tell you that a lack of movement results in the absence of heat, and it is strange that we often expect to rise out of a lethargic predicament by way of lethargy. This is certainly indicative of our humorous human nature that we might think that sinking closer to the earth will alleviate us of the problems that the earth itself presents.

Everyone knows that heat rises; and rising above a quandary is the only way to see the largeness of that problem properly. What I hope to project here is one more component in order to see that very whole of the situation correctly. I should clarify here that the situation of which I am speaking is not an elusive one. It is one that we all know. It is the story of the human condition; and I am here only able to give one component, seeing as how I am only one person (heaven forbid I should be more than one person; I should think that I would not very much be able to understand myself).

But the one component that I do have amidst a ravishing mural of others is more of a sense than anything else. It is a perception of incompleteness but an unchangeable incompleteness. I am told by many of the moderns that people need to change; society needs to change; the world needs to change. Change for what reason, I am not sure. However, I do not see it so much as a need for change, but rather a need for re-understanding. This is what I am trying to get across in the following chapters. In the introduction, I address the Roman philosopher, Lucretius, because I believe him to be the personification of the type of thought I am addressing in the book as a whole. I do not wish to be mean to him; I simply disagree with him.

Our divergence of thought begins at the first mention of Lucretius' master: Science. This is what he considers to be the whole of things, and what I disagree with are the limitations he puts upon himself by limiting his understanding of the real universe. He claims to have the answer to how the world needs to change, but does not give a complete account of why it should do so in the first place, nor why we should change our own views of the world in order to fit the view that he personally presents. His thought is numbed to the reality of life as it is, which is where I offer a differing view elucidated in a differing way. The paradox here must be illuminated and understood in order to see with our own feeble eyes how the reality and impact of life informs our knowledge of how human beings operate. He fails, remarkably, because his view attempts to construct a whole with absent parts.

As I said before, I think it reasonable to see the reality that we as individuals do not have all the component parts such that we can see the whole as it actually is. I defend the claim that we as human beings can do no such thing as to fully see that whole. What I assert is that the component I wish to shed light on is a component that was lost; however, while it was indeed lost, or even stranded, its truth did not cease to be true. This is reflected in the dichotomy of time and eternity. Whereas we only know time as having a beginning and an end, eternity knows nothing of this concept. Eternity is beyond time; therefore, the rules of time are in no way applicable to this mysterious idea. All we have experienced is time, and part of the re-understanding which I posit seeks to merely allow for the concept of eternity to exist. Eternity has never been in the foreground of human thought, which is why it is necessary to study this dichotomy I mentioned above. The materialist operates within the finite limits of time. He is very sure of all of his assertions, provided that they are within those self-imposed limits. But eternity summons a concept of which we have no experience. The materialist again fails to recognize that the laws of time do not apply to eternity, or more specifically, an infinite mind. Data is limited; he is surely very aware of this. But in his incessant striving for Scientific completion, he toils away at quantifying the grains of sand, when in reality, I assert that our minds were meant for contemplation of the unknowable, even though it is not immediately tangible. Scientific rules, even on as big a stage as that of Earth, instantaneously implode and disappear at the mention of eternity. The materialist never addresses this, for he lacks the substance needed to investigate the flaws of human beings. It is reasonable, under these circumstances, to believe that these themes are of some consequence to the reality of the human condition, which, I claim, is important.

I do not seek to tell you about this human condition, but rather to show what I can from the component that I can see. Previously I mentioned Lucretius' limitation. I am also limited, but one of the chief points we disagree on is the degree of limitation. He is limited in a complete sense, just as Science is complete in its account of the physical world. The view I take freely admits limitation in my capacity, but in so doing allows for the un-limitation that I believe we as human beings cannot understand, and will never be able to, even with the help of Science. It is, as I mentioned earlier, an unchangeable incompleteness. This presents itself clearly by way of investigating the nature of scientific observation. What Lucretius presents, though, is a series of unnecessary observations. In doing this, he asserts that the material world is at our disposal and our uniqueness as sentient beings means nothing because we were not made to be acting according to a future purpose. That would imply a mind got the ball rolling in the first place. Mere matter does not in any way speak to ascribing a value to our moral dilemmas. They pertain to what we can scientifically observe, but the relevancy of these statements is what I call into question in the discussion of the human condition as illuminated by the admission of our limitation. This is certainly difficult, but under no circumstances impossible.

Yet, we cannot allow this limitation to become a handicap. I assert that the perspective of the moderns reflects Lucretius' intelligent, but misguided efforts to indulge in a culture of building palaces to man when in reality, he is not even worthy of a sandcastle. From there, it is my task to present a basis for why this is so.

Introduction

A Letter to the Lucretian

To the Lucretian it may concern,

A friend once told me, when asked if he were an optimist or pessimist that he was, in fact, neither. His reasoning for this was that, for example, if there were half a glass of beer in front of him, he finds not that the glass is half empty or half full, but rather that there is simply half a beer; and with that said, where is the other half of the beer?

I believe this aptly illustrates what I am philosophically trying to get across in the following chapters, my dear Lucretius. In my friends' words, this way of thinking is called Realism. Thus, not only does this example encapsulate the natural quiddity of life, but also the roots of pragmatism that blossom into a fresh view of mankind. Any moderately thoughtful human being would be able to tell you that this is necessary because, as I've said, the nature of scientific observation must be accounted for. For I think that this is not necessarily what was lost, but more so must be reaffirmed in order for us as human beings to properly understand our predicament; and science can help us with this. I say "predicament" here because I do truly think this is what we are facing. This is the core problem that we must re-understand if we are to live our lives with the vivacity and freedom which eludes so many poor souls in their search for "happiness". Simply put, the ability to view human life as a temporary journey is vital to the entire argument at hand. It is not always an easy task to identify flaws in oneself, but if we are to be honest with each other, it is abundantly clear that we are, indeed, fallen and in dire need of help. The philosophy of the modern world has sunk to such a depth that the study of the epistemology of ethical and moral issues has been almost completely ignored. I am aware that many people may disagree with me. I am also aware that in order to cultivate intelligent conversation, the maxims of modernity must be uprooted, while the weeds of those pallid epigrams scoured amidst their dry, infertile soil. For after the moderns have had their way, infertile soil is what we are left with to nurture truth. In the reality of which I spoke, this is not possible. And it is necessary to fully acknowledge this.

But after this, a curious thing happens. After the weeds devoured the pure, rich soil, all that was left standing in modernity was the gangling, sickly stem of that browned dandelion. The weeds had sucked up the truth, hoarding it within themselves without realizing their folly. Only after they are killed can the peace lily blossom. It must be a return to the rich, sumptuous soil and mulch in order to grow and progress; not simply change, but change for the better.

Lucretius, I must say that your ground was originally very fertile. But only destruction and neglect can produce weeds. You tell me there is growth in following your earthly maxims, but mere change of shape of the weeds informs us of nothing, just like the rhetoric and sophistry of the materialists. Change is simply change. There is no true progress in such things. Just because one has a lot of answers does not mean any, or all of them, must be true. This manner of thinking provides no nourishment for life; for life is the only thing worth living. By life I mean the thing that gives us the capability to overflow with vivacity and sustenance. And who is the only potential beneficiary of this life that we have so much of, that we can no longer keep it within ourselves? Simply put, it is others. Why, then, is all of modernity so content to wall themselves up inside egotistical catacombs?

I certainly do not propose any sweeping, cosmic solution to this problem; however, it is true that the two extremes of being half empty and half full reveal to us a miscalculation about the human condition. To be overly optimistic is to neglect that we have flaws at all; yet to subjugate oneself to pure pessimism dwells far too long on a problem that it never intends to correct. To see our predicament properly is to freeze long enough to identify the problem, but also not to linger obstinately in our own sense of pride for such a time that we become complacent and fail to do anything about changing course. For, indeed, there must be something done about this decrepitude; some action outward from ourselves. From knowing myself as a human being, along with knowing others, many of whom are also human beings, I do not understand why one would rejoice in the pure "Scientific facts" of human existence, which is tantamount to rejoicing in the idea that we will all die someday and dissolve into nothingness in accordance with the fact that all we are is a host made up of atoms and the random, meaningless movement thereof. Or rather, as you might say Lucretius, one would return to their "primary particles." While this is true in the physical sense of things, it must be relegated to the confines of Science and therefore limitation. For Science itself is confinement.

Where is the joy and wonderment in such nihilism; a nihilism that eradicates the foundations of light, joy, and the goodness that is already in the world? Humanity may be flawed, but is it more virtuous to give up and succumb to a stark, bottomless void rather than to think that all this "somethingness" has its roots in a greater Idea? Be careful where you tread, Lucretius. Your longing for limitation may just lead you to that confinement in the end; and limitation like that is solely self-inflicted.

But what if there were something in opposition to nothingness? And please do not misunderstand me Lucretius, I am not talking about the void of mere space you postulated through which all matter moves. What I am talking about is the intangible Idea of the purpose of the human life. It is rather simplistic to immediately lunge for the Scientific data that you cling to. But when you do, what does it tell you? Does it whisper malignant virtues that breathe life into nothing? Can Science breathe life at all?

It appears to me that you futilely dwell on what this data tells you instead of what life shows you. We are told by the wise that the mind is a powerful weapon. To misuse it by seeking intangibility via tangible means is a colossal waste not only in that it is nonsensical, but it also deprives the world around you of the goodness that is etched in each of us. This is self-evident just by simply observing the Scientist.

My dear Lucretius, I think it would be agreeable to the purpose of this slender volume to explain a little bit here (and more later) about my usages of the terms "Science" and "Scientists", because I do not want anyone to get the wrong idea. They are meant to represent an almost dogmatic system of belief rather than the actual study of scientific problems. In short, Science has become a sort of deity that requires its followers to blindly follow along a nonexistent path because Science only leads to innovations. There is no suggested alteration of moral decisions. While science is indeed important, it does not progress any part of the human experience. This point will be contended, but I implore the reader to actually delve into the epistemological aspect of the situation. There is a definite difference between progress and mere innovation. Science brings about innovation. It improves the material aspect of human life. However, the tendencies and characteristics of the atoms and molecules of our supposedly neat, quantified environment do not really have license to ascribe any degree of value to any of this mindless puttering away of inanimate objects. Speed is simply a measurement that human beings use to quantify the movement of a thing. Innovation essentially perpetuates the efficiency and speed with which we carry out blind, randomly executed actions. The speed with which one flies through life is a moot point to the rational mind. This type of mind tends to ascribe value to life such that some things are more important than others, and the ethical thing is to tend to those tasks that are most important. Ease of use for any technological improvement does not, however, constitute progress. One essentially is improving the efficiency with which we go about our daily lives, in the sense that we can perform tasks without as much exertion. This is a good thing. But it is only innovation. It results in the same end, but by different, perhaps more efficient means.

Progress, on the other hand is not merely a different thing happening, but something that touches on the intangibles of life and serves to further explain some part of our condition. It builds on previous maxims. And as we often blindly accept blatant lies like believing that everything is fine with the human condition, it needs to be recognized that complacency is a real phenomenon. But also allow me to clarify something. A follower of Science is not always aware of his self-imposed condition. Science has grown to such fantastic proportions that because it describes the workings of the material world, we believe that the scientific processes around us are all there is to know. While this is fine and useful in bettering the relative comfort of the conditions under which mankind lives, the issues of ethical decisions and moral judgments are simply not attainable with this system because morality has no use for concrete data. A data-based morality is in fact completely arbitrary. And an arbitrary morality is no morality at all.

The efficacy of morality, no doubt, has been a point of interest amongst squabbling human beings since the beginning of time. It is not to my purpose here to write a book about the definition of morality, but rather to illuminate the facts about morality such that we may view it in the light of the complexities and, ultimately, purpose of human existence.

It is this very purpose that all of morality is consequently linked to. If one is not obligated to morality, rules of human conduct are subject to whim and whatever justification of ethical decisions one can come up with, regardless of the consequences. Subscription to this view must inexorably relinquish all notions of right and wrong because each individual makes these choices because there is no universal, objective obligation to one's fellow human being. Morality becomes whoever is able to, in a coercive manner, exert some power over other human beings; in short, it is an issue of mere power structures just like any other decrepit human institution. Could you clarify where the victory is in your philosophy?

But Lucretius, pray tell, what is this "reality" of which you speak? You say the mask is torn off of one who subjects himself to spiritual utterances; that the true face of a spiritual man can now behold reality as it truly is. Is it supposed to scare him? It would seem more agreeable to be scared of your own reality, Lucretius. I must admit, you have more faith than anyone of the spiritual inclination. It is not a stretch to suggest that belief in a firm morality is inextricably linked to spirituality. This may very well be more believable than asserting that human life is without purpose, and therefore a waste. This is the only conclusion to come to upon relinquishing morality.

You proclaim your reality; but you also assume that all realities bow to yours. If there are not one, but many realities that humankind conjures up, why should yours be taken a priori instead of any of the others? It is a great leap of faith to proclaim that yours belongs to the brightest star, while the others lament their deplorable condition so much so that the only remaining option is to follow you. This is curious on several levels; curious because of an ironic twist upon a twist. Is not your purpose the same one that has already been in place before you? Fear is the devil of the situation. You repeat the maxim that "from fear of death mortals are gripped by such a hate of living and looking on the light that with anguished hearts they do themselves to death."

"On the Nature of the Universe", Lucretius, 55BC.

I humbly submit that you are mistaken in your otherwise flawless logic. Mortal fears, you claim, are as baseless as the horror of a child coming to terms with a dark room. I mentioned previously that your purpose appears to be eerily similar to the very philosophy you are debasing. A fear of even an irrational fear is a fear nonetheless. From whence do we go from here? For fear of a fear is precisely what you present as better than the fear of mortality. Perhaps you could elucidate on which is nobler, for I do not know. Is there even nobility in the flat, materialist perspective? For if no virtue can rise above the others, then they are all equally worthless. Cultural acceptance of a virtue does not make it true; for throughout the slow ages of time, we have seen virtues wither and die along with the legacies of fallen civilizations. Why is yours any different?

When we acknowledge truth as such, we unfortunately cannot go back on this assertion. This would be blatant hypocrisy. For as it is clear as day to see, when even the smallest truth does not cease to be true, no matter how remote, it informs us of a vast system of which we are all a part. Truth is unwavering. We may watch it bend before our very eyes, but it has never broken.

Now, seeing things as they are taken to be, you purport a peculiar, rather rambunctious view of the human condition. Bombastic and appealing, you explode with a stylish nihilism, and at that, rejoice bluntly in the nothingness of life. I realize that my assertion is audacious, but were you not undertaking a very similar task? If you are allowed to, and revered for such a work, I at least deserve the chance to be reviled for asserting the converse view. For you do truly speak for the masses. Under the steady wing of Science, in conjunction with you, the materialists' magnification of the "raw materials" of life, the masses have a hero to which they can lavish their praise. Praise for what, I must admit, I do not know. Enlightenment? Hardly. It seems a little strange to praise the individual stone blocks at the Pyramids of Giza as opposed to reveling it its impressive whole. Similarly, the worship of the individual atom reveals a juvenile misunderstanding of the situation at hand. That situation requires us to step back from the building blocks and assess Pyramids for what they were intended, by their designer, to be.

Why one would revel in the exaltation of pitch-blackness in the absence of any light is not something that I am able to understand. For darkness is indeed what you value most. In darkness, humankind can find a plethora of activities and drivel to occupy itself until it realizes that it is only actively seeking to perpetuate its own imaginary purposes. Your philosophy is devoid of any heavenly bent that would lay waste to a magisterial handicap that our humankind has shackled itself with. Where light figures in must be the work of the heavens; but if darkness is all one seeks, then the issue of light will not be a bothersome one, except for when it appears in the profundity of those moments when light pierces darkness, like a spear through ripe flesh. Light won't bother the materialists so long as they only search for darkness.

For light is active; darkness is stagnant. Lucretius, you seek stagnancy and then rejoice in the fact that you have found nothing. Not least amongst the puzzling repercussions of this philosophy is that to seek darkness is to seek nothing at all. Darkness is not the opposite of light; for light can be generated, while darkness is merely the absence of light. Generation of light, at least to me, implies a Purpose or Idea behind the reason that there is even light at all. You go to excruciating lengths to disconnect light from darkness. In reality, they are inseparable. To seek one is to neglect the other. The want of either automatically implies that the other is rejected. But we have already established that to seek darkness is to actually seek nothing at all. And if nothing is sought, one remains imperviously ignorant to the magnitude of the situation while puttering away his life in cold stagnancy. I, personally, do not see the appeal of this. There is no movement, rhythm, abstraction, or intuition. Separating light and darkness is like separating music from instruments, or voice.

Lucretius, you surprisingly neglect to factor in the sum of all your "atoms", while favoring a view that ravenously focuses on the mere "atomness" of your particles. While this is nice, it does not really get us anywhere. Atomism is the most crucial of your philosophies. It is rather evident that the phenomena of "Chronological Snobbery" is still alive and in modern thought as well as the earliest records of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Taking a linear view of the validity of ideas only provides us with a backward-looking view; and when we look back, all there is to see is rubble. The moderns generally believe that the older an idea is, it somehow loses its validity and truth through sheer passage of time. This is a fallacy. For example, one often hears about the lack of literacy and backwards ways of Medieval Europe, but even before that, Epicurus philosophized the same thing the moderns do now, during ancient times, which, if my math is correct, occurred prior to the Middle Ages. So it appears that the Chronology of moral subjects has no effect of the validity of those moral proclamations. This holds true for the materialists and skeptics as well for the precise reason that if they think that old philosophy is outdated and crumbles with the fall of past ages, then the very same will happen to theirs. However, if the moderns examine their own claims, they will find that they are only cheap imitations of the culture of antiquity.

Your magnification of particles that are too small to see is neglecting to remove oneself from the picture for even the moment that is required to see your own component within the larger picture. There is reason to believe that this is a colossally important point of interest. I say this because to dwell on a singular point, especially when there are a superfluity of them, fails to see the larger component altogether. I submit this assertion to actual trained scientists for correction if I am wrong, but I am going to propose that much of the observable world is a system; and if there is a system, there is a purpose. If there were no purpose, nothing would do anything. When a thing does something, it is getting from point A to point B because it is no longer obligated to point A; it is now obligated to point B because if it weren't, it never would have needed to go there in the first place.

In the heart of your philosophy lay the point of purposelessness and man's "defiance" of other men's conception of power by way of eliciting fear and despair through superstition:

"When human life lay groveling in all men's sight, crushed to the earth under the dead weight of superstition whose grim features loured menacingly upon mortals from the four quarters of the sky, a man of Greece was first to raise mortal eyes in defiance, first to stand erect and brave the challenge. Fables of the gods did not crush him, nor the lightning flash and the growling menace of the sky. Rather, they quickened his manhood, so that he, first of all men, longed to smash the constraining locks of nature's doors. The vital vigor of his mind prevailed. He ventured far out beyond the flaming ramparts of the world and voyaged in mind throughout infinity. Returning victorious, he proclaimed to us what can be and what cannot: how a limit is fixed to the power of everything and an immovable frontier post. Therefore superstition in its turn lies crushed beneath his feet, and we by his triumph are lifted level with the skies."

"On the Nature of the Universe", p. 29, Lucretius, etc.

Where man is to go after he returns "victorious", you say not. It is carved into the human psyche to return to a place of repose after a journey. Odysseus valiantly returned to Ithaca. Homer got it right, and that was in what you might call a "rudimentary" time. According to your teaching, his virtues and instincts should have vacated the earth with the demise of ancient Greek civilization. But curiously enough, they remain relevant even to this day. The idea that virtue dies out forgets that the only deviation from virtue is its opposite. Virtues are an either/or situation. There is no slight alteration; for something as incomplete as that is hardly a recognizable virtue; no one would even think to subscribe to it. No one buys something new because it is lacking.

According to your reasoning, there is nothing left to conquer. However, this poses a problem. If there is nothing that remains to be done, why bother about doing anything at all if it leads to nothing? It would appear that you are in fact cutting off the branch on which you stand. For to say something is better than something else implies that there is a standard by which the goodness or badness can be measured. It can work no other way. Comparatively speaking, if there is nothing to stand on in the first place, where can one go while in free-fall?

It is said that the mind is a terrible thing to waste, but you, Lucretius, abhor this terrible maxim. It is, at least, what you imply. You explain much, but the mind is left (ironically) to the imagination.

You purport equivocally that space, or "the Void", lies in wait for a passing lump of matter. It is curious that you address this because it is exactly the same thing as the gathering of scientific data. No conclusions are drawn; statements that strongly resemble the presentation of data are, as I see it, stationary in the respect that one is not driven to any sort of action. As I said previously, it is merely a statement. And I've noticed that a statement rarely elicits profound action; whereas a single imperative truth can rupture the stagnant organs of the unexamined life of the world.

The Void of which you speak is interesting. It is an example of the extremes to which people may go to simply exist in a state of merely being right; whereas instead one might make the more arduous journey to do what is right. I detect an insatiable appetite for destruction despite a deceptive appearance of lively growth.

I do apologize if this letter has come across as hostile. On the contrary; it is intended to awaken the minds of the world by using your own maxims. I just hope that I can use your wisdom in educating myself. When you make baseless assertions that are not in the least authoritative, I cannot thank you enough for providing a most refined foil for the idea that I am proposing.

Sincerely,

Rob

Chapter 1: I Do Mind

I find the mind to be a somewhat simple entity merely because we all know we have one. If one of us didn't have a human mind, what would that person be like? I picture something perhaps even lower than an animal on the "awareness" level of being.

However, if I am talking to you, and you are receiving some stimuli from reading these strangely constructed letters on a page, being formed into words that we can understand, it appears that we recede further and further away from an animalistic sentiment with each word that we are able to comprehend. Now, getting past that minor detail, what do we make of this awkward, anti-animalistic situation of you and I standing and conversing, coherently, with each other? This is clearly not how it is supposed to be happening, according to Science.

It has been readily, and often eloquently, yelled at me that our human mind developed over the eons and ages, suggesting that it was more rudimentary in the first ages. This is compared with now, where we have "conquered" the human condition, and can finally take solace in the fact that our existence has been accounted for based on scientific data and assertions. Aside from being absolutely no fun, this way of thinking amuses me greatly precisely because it is a rather alarming assertion. It insists that my mind was, in past ages, something of a shell of its current self; yet, the Scientists make one crucial miscalculation. This mistake is that the Scientists neglect to include the fact that the unique human mind was not an anticipated part of their calculations (as if any abstract idea like this could be limited, which is, in essence, the only purpose which Science serves). They draw up an imaginary scenario wherein the mind of pre-historical man was something less than it is now. This is a curious conclusion for pretty much anyone to come to, Scientists in particular; for in their incessant striving for limitation, what they find is what they blindly detest most, which is, of course, infinity, or more specifically, eternity. Infinity remains that little speck in their sunken, shallow eyes as the last bastion of something to be limited and accounted for. It has always been there; that is why infinity is infinite. Yet it contains a mystical, if not spiritual, problem that can only be solved with infinite means; and the only thing that Science does not have is infinite means.

Yet it could also be truthfully said that Spirituality is the cornerstone of all existence. If it were not present from the first, it could never be present. In fact, we cannot even conceive of something if it is not present or had been present. Even if the only evidence of the idea of Spirituality is that at some point in the existence of man there was some deferral by the pagans to a mystical mystery, not because they lacked explanation, but because there was too much explanation. Doubtless, even in those "rudimentary" times, there were those who sought to gather in and harness the physical world. These, I would say, are not very much different from the Scientists of today. Those pagan Scientists proved all that they could in explaining the material world. And it is my suspicion that once they were done, the mystics, those remote sages, suggested the unthinkable; that there was something that Science could not conquer, and would never be able to. Those ancient materialists may not have had as much data as the Scientists today do, but no matter which way one looks at it, they were Scientists nonetheless. Material, the thing that Scientists devote their lives to and deify, has always been the same. Ask any one of them. For creative minds, however, there is much more to explore. But when you get those Scientists going on the subject of material, prepare to less than amazed.

Materialists like to try to differentiate morality by degrees. There are no degrees of Scientism. Data, that almighty scepter of the Chief Scientists, like Lucretius, serves only to denote the presence of the Scientists, not how much of a scientist they are. It is tantamount to saying that being is being. Conversely, normal human beings have the advantage of being human. Life, the scepter of actual people, cannot be quantified. However, it is far more tangible in the sense that there are degrees of value in life. Quantifying the grains of sand in the world is fine in its place, but the Scientist is not increasing the value of life, only the efficiency with which it passes. These ancient people would have gathered the same data and maintained a vehement insistence that life is strictly material. There is a Lucretius in every age, but age does not make him wiser. If a Lucretius in antiquity says the same thing that the Scientist says today, who has progressed further?

Of course, I am joking. Neither has progressed towards anything at all. Progress implies the pursuit of some end; some goal that one can see from afar, yet cannot touch. And the Scientist must be able to touch what he sees for it to be real for him. The capacities of the mind, however, are not tangible and never will be. They cannot be quantified. This tends to make the Scientist mad. But at the same time, his reality becomes his fatality. It is fatal in the sense that the supposed reality in which he lives is made up of things that are too real. What he holds to be real is none other than a lack of imagination. A healthy imagination is often times a better, though subtler, indicator of an understanding about the universe. That is why children are often more in tune with the abstract aspects of life than the Scientist, though he may plead otherwise. But his plea falls on the deaf ears of his fellow materialists. They are too busy trying to capture infinity.

Conversely, the child's mind knows better. He knows better because he does not need an explanation in order to feel the mystical mysteries of the world when he is occupied with climbing Jack's beanstalk, neither knowing nor caring what lies ahead in this magnificent plethora of possibilities. The explanation would be much too real for him, therefore spoiling what was until then a very dreamy, pleasant summer afternoon, perhaps. He takes comfort in that limitlessness, because a surprise is certainly better than being boxed into specified parameters. In his finitude, the Scientist accounts for all that is around him, such that he can see it. But what he rejects is what he can feel. But when the child, traveling in the vastness of his mind, watches the dreary, drizzling rain from inside a cottage, he notices that it is certainly a different experience than dancing wildly in a lush, sprawling meadow amidst a thunderous downpour. The Scientists' mind rarely comprehends this.

Some gifted minds may argue against it, but I believe that there is, at very least, what people refer to as Spirituality, if only even in the sense of a subconscious, tucked away hinting that there may be something unknowable. Spirituality means one thing, and one thing only: the acknowledgment that there is some unknowable something beyond our present perception. For perception is limited, and peeling back its layers only exposes a cessation. It can truthfully be said that a thought from the deepest recesses of the mind is different than immediate perception. The child's longing for the clouds, that last unsolved mystery, marks an important divergence in thinking. The Scientists tend to over-complicate this divergence, proposing that there are more options than are really there. Where they say that the Scientific understanding of the world is the standard course of action, it is really the reverse. A mind that yearns for something beyond its own perception is really the standard, with the Scientific view being the divergence. If a straight line stretches toward infinity, it is not diverging from anything. It is precisely the materialistic offshoot that is the divergence. I mentioned earlier that the Scientists' reality becomes his fatality. It is fatal because it is finalized. Death is a limitation; a staunch, lonely cessation. Thus, the one who allows for something unknowable and beyond immediate perception grasps the idea of Life far better than those who would limit infinity and swim in a shrinking sea of shackled souls.

Now speaking of limiting infinity, I must point out that even what the Scientists regard as true is unthinkable given a proper view of the pre-historical world and its mind. Far too often I have had people tell me that the mind, and therefore our concept of evolution, started more primitively. What I have perhaps vainly tried to illustrate is really getting into the mind and language in which pre-historic people resided. I see no reason to believe that it was any different than our own. There were feelings of love, hate, anguish, joy, and everything else that we still experience in the exact same way today. Lack of modern comforts in no way indicates that ancient peoples were stupider than we are. Their stockpile of scientific data was simply not as high. History is far too generally conceived of with the use of binoculars when a much more sensible option would be a kaleidoscope. Binoculars present to us a much more extreme, impersonal view that is certainly not complete. By this I mean that what the view through binoculars shows is a picture without a mind behind it. Therefore, we ascribe our own way of thinking to the object that we refuse to look at closely. This is due to the fact that we are not the object which the binoculars show us; and thus it is true that the observed object is not us. If we take ourselves to be autonomous beings, then the essence of the situation is that only we ourselves can know the true nature of our own minds. Now if that is the case, how could we possibly ascribe our mind to their mind? I see no reason to think that there is a correlation here. It could truthfully be said that what we ascribe to them is the antithesis of what is actually going on. And the thing being of the greatest magnitude in looking back at history is that the Scientists continue to beat their heads against the wall, thinking that they can limit man's mind, such that they can understand it. It is quite obviously not the case now in the modern world, so why should it be any more valid in the historical past; or even, I might suggest, the pre-historical past?

If one can picture an actual historical figure, during his life, living and thinking on a moment-to-moment basis, what the Scientists and school textbooks say appears to be a rather uninformed, juvenile view of the subject. We are given the impression that people of the past did not know as much as we know now, thus rendering them, and their thought processes, coarse and boring, not to mention something we cannot possibly conceive of. What few modern Scientists do is actually put themselves in the minds of any given person in history, let alone in pre-history. The winds of change, one may find, are not so wicked as once thought. A real effort to get into the mind of historical man reveals not a barbaric, stoic recklessness, but rather a human being with the same thoughts, philosophies, and fears that men of the modern world have. What one really finds is actually quite breathtaking.

What anyone can find is that these men, under the wrong type of scrutiny for the longest time, were living moment-to-moment, facing all the trials that we of the "modern" age know precisely all too well. Simplicity in historicity reveals a startling felicity. For to ascribe to historical man anything less than his actual capacities gives us a weak and ignorant view of that man. He started his day in the morning and ended it in the evening with all the same longings, hunger, emotional capacity, and love that we know is present within ourselves. If someone 500 years from now were writing a history of our age, and ascribed to us faculties that were far beneath what we actually are capable of doing, I would call him an imprudent historian. In fact, he may not be worthy of being called a historian at all.

Carelessness in our view of the history of the mind of man actually puts us at a disadvantage. If we cannot think like him, how can we possibly know anything about his motives for doing anything? Much of this, I might carefully assert, requires a re-understanding of language in looking at history, especially the history of human minds. Its role is simply monumental in understanding the past. We often think that if a language existed however many hundreds, or even thousands, of years in the past, then it was not capable of expressing the vivacity of everyday life, or having the same dexterity that our language does. This is, of course, patently absurd.

Those historical figures of the distant past, even if they were misinformed by what other people said was true, were never truly under the coercion of another person's mind. There were indeed colloquial, reasoned discussions, exactly the way we discuss them now in the modern world. No one can infiltrate the recesses of another person's mind unless you are very high up in the government. Even if some militant religious person informs another person that they must change their beliefs, I can hardly see their reaction being, "Jumpin' Jehoshephat! They're right! I can't believe that person was so influential so instantly that I will throw out all my beliefs if he doesn't want me to believe them anymore!" Call me naïve, but I've never heard of an instantaneous conversion of belief because someone simply suggested that you believe in the opposite of what you personally hold to be the truest thing that there is.

In fact, this curiously seems to resemble the Scientists engaging in preaching their data to a mind that has already been open to the wonders of Spirituality. Is their preaching any different from a Spiritualist's preaching? The mind is such a precious tool that for one ideology to claim it as its own is preposterous. The nature of being a preacher is to take responsibility up in their pulpit, for he is fully exposed. For even a violent materialist preaches from the smug safety of his own tower, safely tucked away such that he is not forced to answer to the incongruities of his assertions. He makes himself fully inaccessible to the crowd that would subscribe to his ideas. This, I believe, is highly detrimental for both the materialist and his followers because there is no reason or direction that instructs them to do anything. They boast that they are open-minded, yet shut off all avenues of even the suggestion of the most miniscule iota of Spiritual thought. The Spiritualist and the materialist serve the same purpose. However, the validity of their claims must be considered in order to understand the only thing that matters in this situation. The materialist, meticulously crafting his twist on morality, surprisingly makes the mistake of conceding the very doctrine that he otherwise mocks and rejects. If there is any application of the Spiritualist's philosophy in that of the materialist, it stands to reason that the materialist actually concedes his argument because he tries to use Spirituality against itself, which is a nonsensical notion. It would be the equivalent of trying to defeat Goodness with Goodness. There is no badness anywhere present in Goodness. Thus to try to defeat good things with good things results in a startling confusion and voracious appetite to torture oneself over a black and white dichotomy that is perhaps the simplest thing to understand in the world.

But when the argument comes down to its most basic, earth-ridden doctrines, the choice seems a little too easy; in fact, too good to be true. However, this is incapable of acting as an impediment to anything that the Spiritualist wants to believe. His complete contentedness in his belief is perfectly complementary to the workings of the human mind. The Scientists will try to invent new variables or options or what have you. However, anything different from what they are saying is, in fact, Spirituality; and this is the simplicity of the choice that one has. In the Scientists' mind, there is only limitation; yet they claim to be the broadest minds.

The nature of the mind will never be fully understood, yet we are given a glimpse into it with the presence of Spirituality. Once we realize this, the better our lives will be. No data is necessary. All that is needed is an uninhibited presence of mind. There will always be those who may try to limit us, however these are of no consequence to the actual occurrences and tribulations that our minds face. These must be dealt with in a different manner. The only option left worth investigating is how the Spirituality informs the understanding of the mind.

Chapter 2: The Absent Formula

What comes to mind when someone mentions the word "formula"? The prevailing thought, I would imagine, is some series of numbers and variables that one uses to calculate a solution. I believe that is what the moderns would attempt in order to achieve "wholeness" or "completeness" (futilely, I might add). I will address these elusive concepts of completeness in the upcoming chapters, but for now suffice to say that these play an integral part of evaluating the Scientists' claims of materialism.

But what are the reasons \- the epistemological reasons \- for why these ideas of a formula even exist? They are certainly very important to many people of materialistic bent. Who would subjugate the entire human race to a Science of subjectivism that goes unchallenged whether there is any credence to it or not? Yet at the same time, many people advocate this school of thought that says that happiness is simply whatever you decide it is on the basis of the baseless hope that they can somehow develop a foolproof formula of felicity. This indicates that these people disregard the aspect of the Spiritual as vital to the fulfillment of the human condition, because as we have already seen, the Spiritual informs our capacities of understanding the intangibility of the mind. If there is any evidence against this, I would happily concede the point; for the last thing I would wish upon a fellow human being would be that they attempt to plug in the fatal flaws of the human condition into some formula that no one can seem to agree upon. It is a Spiritual idea that a human can achieve completeness at all. For the term "completeness" implies that there was some Idea that had a goal of completeness in mind before the parts were together. Yet, to try our hand at completeness via the wrong means overwhelmingly results in darkness. Yet who would actively seek out darkness? If we are swathed in light in our existence on earth, it can truly be said that we have never experienced sheer and unimaginable darkness.

So what about this elusive state of "happiness" that every person on earth so dearly desires? Does subjectivity really speak to how this is even possible? It seems to me that all of the worldly ideas I've been bombarded with had this contradiction, a hypocrisy that for some reason was strikingly apparent. This spoke to me on a very deep philosophical level. It was personal at this point. And I didn't always want to acknowledge it. I didn't always know what it meant, or what it would lead to (especially philosophically) but the paradox was so deliciously interesting and thought-provoking, that I couldn't leave it alone. It was consuming, one may say.

The materialist philosophy as it pertains to the very confident Formula that materialists themselves worship is rather paradoxical to me because they would they offer a formula that is intended to strike at multiple levels of happiness. With that said, it is curious that these Scientists try to create a formula in the first place. However, the formula is only designed with reference to the material world. What is also interesting is that the nature of a formula implies that it cannot work without the proper variables. And the results are perhaps not quite what the Scientists expected.

Scientists, in the strict professional sense, are not what I am talking about. Those scientists have done innumerable, miraculously splendid things for the human race. And as I shall mention later, I am certainly not attacking the minds behind the wielding of the power of scientific discovery because great things can be done for the betterment of the human race. A scientific discovery, however, is only a small piece in the behemoth cosmic puzzle, which the Scientists say is, or eventually will be, solvable. They that would use the formula really have no business doing so. And when I refer to "Scientists" here, it is they that would have some material solution that can be brought about by an observable process. They reject any notion of Spirituality because it cannot be mathematically proven or observed; hence the initial shackles that he placed upon himself by way of limitation of his viewpoints.

When all is solved by man, where do we turn next? Morality appears to be only avenue by which we can evaluate life in a non-materialistic fashion.

The lack of Spirituality and morality in a formula is telling. How could each individualized, subjective morality be as valid as anyone else's morality? It is self-evident that, in these cases, the very definition of "morality" is lost. How can all moralities be of equal merit, yet still retain the name "morality"? For implicit in that term, is the indication of some sort of standard by which every morality must be measured whether they like it or not. If you say any morality is equal to any other morality misses the point of why the subject was considered and defined in the first place. For when one differentiates between different "moralities", one is always better than the other. This concept of "betterment" inherently implies that there is a standard being used to make that differentiation in the first place. The proponents of equality of standards of morals use this betterment idea subconsciously, themselves. Why choose one when you could choose all of the moralities at the same time? Aren't they all equal? But this is obviously not so. There are devastating conflicts amongst the morals of our modern world. Here it would seem a tad silly to think that one person could behold the idea of all "moralities" as valid. A man cannot, in fact, embrace all the roads toward moral improvement; yet at the same time he cannot hate all the roads either. Ask any child how it is possible to get to your destination by taking all the roads at once. Having been a child at one point (or perhaps several) in my life, I imagine that the child would be rather confused, and would not know how to answer the question. Conversely, if you ask this same child how to arrive at a destination by not taking any roads, I imagine he would be equally as confused.

Now for those that still would think that a formula is a viable option somehow to accumulate degrees of felicity, I maintain that putting an infinite amount of variables leads to the same dead end as putting no variables into the formula. I would go so far as to say that many people actually know this is true. For I am not concerned at present with infinite variables or the absence of variables. As I've previously noted, these result in the same void, and voids are of no concern to anyone. I am searching for truth. The moderns may say this is a futile endeavor because "times have changed", or "we are only influenced by social conventions", or even "there is no such thing as truth". Within the home of vacuity of these rambling, uninspired, heckling opponents of truth, there is no reference point as to which set of moral values are even viable. Hear them cry, "Do we need morals at all?" However this is not the cry of triumph or jubilation. It is rather the grating, empty cry of an absent victory; for they certainly realize what they do. If there is no actual thing to rejoice in, what is in its place? I would suggest that it is yet another void. And following the logic of the moderns, it would also appear that we must admit (reluctantly) that one cannot live in a void. There is nothing there. There are no dwellings to inhabit, physically or psychologically. Once one progresses to the point where they realize that it is useless and rather silly to praise this empty, nihilistic view and its consequences, one perhaps begins to question things that he never questioned before.

For in this instance, I assert, is the only instance in which we can utilize the actual meaning of the term "progress". What do social conventions have to do with the validity of truthfulness or morality? Over and over, all that moderns tell me, without fail, is that no morality is better than another; and even more curiously, they immediately go back on their logic when they admit that one particular morality is better than another particular morality. This process is repeated as many times as necessary until the person actually opens up the avenues of their mind to realize that if one morality, or formula for morality, is better than another, what if all these different formulas do not really amount to anything? There is no goal for an animal other than to eat, sleep, and reproduce. However, I suppose if they maintain that they are simply animals, then they must be happy with their chosen life, though what it amounts to in the end remains to be seen.

Now if I were to buy into this Formula for happiness, not only do I relinquish the pleasures of things such as music and art, but I resign myself to the eternal, monotonous dealings of Science as a deity and its lack of everything that does not perpetuate survival. I find this prospect rather boring, but if one doesn't find the need for any of obstacles to survival, they are certainly welcome by the moderns as enlightened, progressive human beings, whatever that means to a materialist. The only thing I can say to this is that it is perfectly fine to neglect these "obstacles" in one's search for the perfect survival method, but if there is no value to his survival, what makes his survival valuable at all? Is there any value in mere human survival?

Consider for a moment the ordinary human being. This human being is made up of atoms and molecules, just like the rest of the animate and inanimate objects in the world. But why are human beings different from any other creature or for that matter, a pile of pig slop? Again, I may be bombarded relentlessly, but I think it is rather nonsensical to attribute our reactions to every moral or ethical problem on "social conventions". To me, all one is doing here is attempting to absolve themselves from any responsibility of coming up with a more tangible solution of why things are the way they are other than saying, "it came about by an unobservable process." This is what agnostics do. This seems too easy. I just can't take this seriously either because all it tells me about that person is that they are too apathetic about this situation of what happens to us after we pass away from the gravitational pull of the earth. BORRRR-INGGG! Come on. Agnosticism is a joke. It is a simple game of "Go Fish" wallowing in a plethora of more exciting games, such as euchre.

Thus, "social convention", as it were, does not bring anything to the table in the way of explaining some of the highest and deepest philosophical problems of which we humans are aware. Adhering to the "social convention" explanation of things is like the agnosticism of sociology (to put it in boring academic terms). If the social conventions of one time period no longer are pertinent to our lives, then why should we trust that those of our own culture should matter at all, considering that eventually our social conventions will expire and a new social culture will be ushered in? It would appear to be the case that we are implored to trust our own conventions to have merit even though they are subject to change whenever humanity feels like it. Felicity needs a cause, or at least a feeling, to be acknowledged. When conventions change and fluctuate as often as the tide on the beach, how can this felicity have any merit to our minds whatsoever?

I rather think that it would be helpful here to further scrutinize the nature of the Formulaic. My initial thoughts as I approached this topic were, "How could it possibly be true that happiness (contentment, serenity, etc.) can be constructed (by humans, at that!), when in the same instance, these advocates are entirely reluctant to include some of the more obvious elements of human nature in their Formula. I would call these elements the desires that we think we desire. What we feel we want to desire. It is not what we actually, in the strictest sense of the word, desire.

If I may suggest, imagine the most intense, rapturously brilliant feeling of happiness or contentment you can remember experiencing. Can it be re-created? By turning around and thinking about happiness, do you not forgo the privilege of actually experiencing it? For "turning around", and "experience" are at odds here. The reason for this is scientific. "Turning around" and "experiencing" are two utterly separate concepts that cannot, by common logic, be each other. I use the term "scientific" in a childlike sense. When the moderns talk about "time", they generally mean the gnarly, intrusive, abstract thing that Stephen Hawking talks about in Large Books. But seriously, time, in this way of thinking, is not what I am talking about here. I am simply offering up the picture of a linear, standard line made up of points; something that schoolchildren are taught. Now I was just as lazy as the next goober in my arithmetic classes, but for some reason, against all odds, my brain decided that there was enough room to remember that a line is made up of specific points. With this astounding revelation, we can catch a peek of science in action. When one "experiences" an event, if my schoolchild logic does not fail me, it takes up a definitive amount of time. When that event is completed, the "experience" is not being experienced anymore. I will refer to this as a singular entity because when an event occurs, and is then completed, it started and ended at definite points on a linear timeline. This experience occurs starting at point A, and ending at point B. I feel as though many people can agree with this, which is why I'm even talking about it in the first place. Then, in turn, "turning around" takes up a definitive amount of time, which cannot be also occupied by the entirely separate entity of "experience." There are two entities at play, occurring at different times in linear fashion. There seems to be a clear-cut distinction. One cannot happen while the other is occurring.

Chapter 3: The Question of the Self

Can one re-experience something by thinking about it, or even know what one is actually creating in this instance? I use the term "creating" in a rather loose sense, because it is something stealthily infiltrating our psyches from outside the self. An analysis of this exposes a paradox. Many people believe that "creating" emerges from the Self. Considering the subject from the outside, is this possible? I have mentioned in a previous chapter that our perception is a way of taking in phenomena. Creativity is beyond perception; for if we could perceive of it, it would cease to be creative. What it would turn into is yet another circumstance that could be measured, rendering it bound to an existence of purgatorial data. But what we take in is not creativity. In that sense, we cannot know what creativity is before a thing is created. It is not taken in and processed. It is reflected off of oneself; a sort of channeling that swims in a vast sea of individuality. I believe that this would point to creativity lying outside of experience. And if we take the concept of time to be in a linear sense, and "creating" is a real, ascertainable thing, then that particular act takes up a definitive period of time. During this sequence, let us say that one is "producing" creativity. In this same instance, that whitecap of creativity crashes off the individual human figure and overflows out of the Self - creativity manifested - rendering the culmination of it outside the Self. For to look inward is to miss the point. To hoard creativity within the Self is an abject phenomenon, resulting in nothing to show for what could have been. If only one soul knows about its existence, does it perform any function at all? And if experience comes from without, one must also peer from inside the Outside the Self to embrace the idea of a creative phenomenon.

To look inward is to hoard creativity inside oneself, thus relegating that creativity to the emptiness and stagnancy of one who refuses to look without. Creativity is another clue as to why there is believed to be a Purpose in life; that it doesn't just mean nothing, like atheists think. I couldn't imagine living in that cold of an atmosphere, clogged at all times with the useless belief that atheism really means something. It really just means nothing. I do not see how it could be possible to believe that just nothing happens after passage from earthly life. If that's what atheists really believe, then fine, I can accept that. Firstly, I find it exceedingly boring, to the fullest degree possible. Not only does it not explain the mysteries of life, such as art, music, dance, joy, and being a person in general, but it explains nothing of Spiritualism. It can use no means at all to make a judgment about what my life is about, and Science cannot speak to this either. That is why I am somewhat skeptical of the horrid uses that minds behind Science make up. Because they do make them up. The mind is the most splendid tool that there is to enjoy life. Atheism just simply does not make the most of that opportunity. In fact, I don't even know if the concept of the "mind" is provable via Science, so obviously many of the minds behind Scientific are right now being put to poor use. I certainly do not wish to ridicule their discoveries and how they actually helped people with the help of science as a simple tool; not a deity. The human mind has deified Science and appointed atheism as its philosophy: The Grand Philosophy of Nothing. That is where the discussion should end.

This implies that there are two primary entities at work here. There is the "Self" as we subjectively know it, yet there is also this area called "Outside the Self". This is not to say that we know everything outside the Self. Life would be no fun that way. But there is a recognizable something that we can see, and that we are also apart from it at the same time. There are some that say we are all part of some cosmic unity, that the Self and the Outside the Self can somehow be fused into some notion that we can all share in together. However, this leaves out half of the story. If we were to all be unified in some cosmic Idea, then that would be the only idea; as opposed to the rather obvious fact that there are differing ideas, and separate beings, all over the place. I am afraid that we must concede here that there are, at minimum, two independent ideas operating by themselves somewhere in time and space. That is pretty much as broadly as I can put it. And isn't it all the more curious that what we actually find in our world is that there are almost limitless ideas being thought of and then forgotten at every single moment? Now narrowing it down to the sane ones is a harrowing task. But what I am talking about here is not the amount of ideas, but the validity and merit of those ideas. I believe it is apparent that this endeavor is supremely important. Without any conviction, one is doomed to embrace all of these ideas at once; yet the same reasoning can be applied to the opposite end of the spectrum where if one holds too tightly to too few ideas, then he may not even be able to take one of them. They both end up in the same spot.

Stagnancy, some may call it. And I do think this is a justified concept because stagnancy is meant to imply a stillness, inaction, even cowardice perhaps. One may succumb to the image of a mold-ridden, odorous pool of water. Dark and dank, this watery graveyard seems to never have even wanted to be clean. It enjoys wallowing in its own filth. To me, this not desirable. Others may disagree. But I believe the image is an apt one. So, as it is the resulting state of "being" given the fact that inertia was one's goal, both the embracer and the nihilist fail to grasp any concept of reality because they are not sharing in the Outside the Self. They look only inward. They have taken different paths to get there, but the end is the same. And isn't it curious that doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results is indeed the very definition of insanity? That is why often times, what we know that to listen to the Self is insane.

In the modern world, these ideas are groomed and cultivated by a culture that commits the same crimes that it criticizes. I spoke earlier that cowardice can be a facet of stagnancy. If our culture is trying to implement these thoughts, albeit in a different way, it is in reality not progressing or bettering itself at all. We've established that stagnancy and the modern definition of "progress" actually achieve the opposite of what we as moderns intend them for. Why would ideas resulting in stagnancy be of any interest to any carbon-based human being at all?

I spoke earlier of ideas, or, an Idea that can serve either as devices of unification, or devices of destruction. While being united as a single cosmic Oneness appears to be a good idea, he that accepts this relinquishes his autonomy. This is vital to the argument because if one does indeed relinquish his autonomy, what else is left to have? If one is not autonomous, then he is... we know not what. It is something that we as human beings cannot understand because, being autonomous creatures, we have no point of reference in judging whether or not we can diagnose ourselves with this mysterious, yet thoroughly terrifying proposition. He cannot be one thing, because that is what autonomy is. But on the other hand, can he be everything? John Lennon said that I am here's, you are here's, you are me, and we are all together. However, I must admit that a part of this reasoning is inherently flawed. For if I were John Lennon, and he were me at the same time, who is whom? To say only that I am him is a nullification of myself, which is absolutely bonkers because we have already established that I am me, and thus, I can be no on else. The same thing applies when he says that he is me. Perhaps he simply forgot that he, by acknowledging me as a person, actually unintentionally implied that I was a separate entity. This is crucial. He may disagree with me, but I am only using his own words. We cannot have a cosmic "Oneness" if even the great purveyor of this idea uses contradictions, however unintentional, to explain his point, or rather, lack thereof.

Please do not misunderstand me here; I am a big fan of John Lennon. I just don't hold to the belief that if you put something in a song, then it must be true. I also believe that cosmic "Oneness" is a nice fantastical idea, but those who adhere to it are mistaken about what they are subjecting themselves to. There wouldn't be a John Lennon to recognize if he were me and I were him. He is trying to combine Oneness with autonomy; and it is fairly clear that this is much the same as dividing by zero. It is a fictitious fantasy. A very good and entertaining fictitious fantasy, but a fantasy nonetheless.

Very well then. What we have left is an autonomous grouping of singular entities. These are the Selves. But when looked at fairly, how can one possibly know that any of the other ideas, or people, can share in his experience of existence and human contact? As Chesterton astutely observed, "Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all". In short, if faith is required in this instance, I see no reason why people who have faith in something like religion or Spirituality are any less sane. Faith is faith, no matter what it is applied to. The skeptic shakes his head and closes his mind to anything beyond the immediately observable. He attacks the idea of faith as if it were something that shouldn't exist. However, in his blackened mind, it is cloudy enough such that he does not see that he indeed utilizes faith as a real thing; he does not realize that faith in a shared reality is the most crucial aspect to acknowledging not only your own self, but others that he relies upon to survive.

Nothingness and Oneness end up in the same void. We know by our own intuition there is a "something" out there that is not, in fact, us. To study Nothingness, in any case, would be a pointless venture because if there are not "things" at all, then all that can be is vacuity and thus, no Self. It only makes sense. There is no consciousness in vacuity, because if there were, then it could no longer be called vacuity. There would be a "thing" taking up space or at least a thought that actually happened, which denotes the opposite of Nothingness, which essentially is Somethingness. Might I pause for a moment to say something else about this. I am certainly not at the point where I am implying that there is a higher Mind behind all of this, let alone a deity. I have simply tried, perhaps in vain, to show that there is not a definitive vacuity, whereas we would be led to believe that there is by the moderns. Oneness, as we have seen, nullifies itself. Nothingness is not worth bothering about.

After exhausting all of our resources of the philosophy of modern culture, what is left is the Idea of autonomy; perhaps the most critical component of the Self. A man thinks that he exists, as opposed to non-existence; and rightly so, because if he could not acknowledge his own existence, there would be no "he". I also spoke earlier of an Idea, which sits in contrast to all subjectivity. We know what an idea is. This is elementary. But if we actually know that our ideas exist, then they are surely recognizable.

To put it another way, imagine our concept of a chair. We all know what a chair is and what its purpose is; yet there are different types of chairs. However, since we can look at different types of chairs and still acknowledge their "chair-ness", there must be some perfected form of a chair somewhere out there in the realm of ideas. Yet, we, being flawed creatures, cannot fully understand the perfect abstraction that a Form of something is. For if we were not flawed, there would only be one chair in the perfected version of the human understanding. But since there are a plethora of them, and many of those chairs are flawed, they each are only a resemblance of the Form of a chair.

In much the same way, it would appear that our ideas must come from some higher Idea, of which all our ideas are merely a cheap imitation. They are cheap because they can never be as pure as the original Idea. They are imitations because they are not original. The one Idea has already been thought of. Now this presents an interesting interaction between the One Idea and the idea of autonomy. If we are simply imitating the Idea, then it might at first appear that this negates our autonomy because if there is only one Idea, then in order to be autonomous, there must be different ideas as compared with everyone else that produces ideas. However, this assertion is misguided. It is not in spite of the Idea that one is autonomous, but rather because of that One Idea. It is a blueprint of what the most perfect Idea can be. However, since we've established that human beings are flawed, then they cannot behold that One Idea, since they are not as perfect as it.

It would be a flat, erroneous statement to say that all of our flaws and imperfections could be built up to form some sort of "perfection". This attempt is tantamount to saying that the unfathomable skyscraper can leave its skyscraper-ness behind and extend out to infinity. It cannot work this way. But they are called skyscrapers for a reason. They may reach the outer limits of human ingenuity, but they can only feebly scratch it; nowhere does it make sense that imperfection can be built upon itself to produce perfection. But a curious conundrum appears in the fog of ideas and perfection. If there is One Idea that all other ideas simply attempt to copy, then what good is it to strive for an unobtainable perfection? I assert that this pickle presents an opportunity. There is a choice to either accept your own autonomy, or sink into complete, suffocating stagnancy where one spirals further and further away from that Idea; and, necessarily, perfection. It is very clear that it is a retreat from perfection. One with eyeballs can see why.

Autonomy is in concordance with the One Idea, because after an escape from stagnancy, the only way to true progress is to imitate, however crudely, that One Idea. Even the use of the word "betterment" inherently implies that there is something greater and more perfect than what our limited minds can imagine. For imagination is as close as we can get to that Idea. Not that it is ultimately achievable, but for the one who gazes at the enveloping vastness of the night sky, there opens the possibility of something infinite, which we cannot fully comprehend. But at the same time, these dreamers are far nearer to that perfected Idea than those who sink back into the earth's quicksand, sinking further and further away from that perfection, or at least the possibility thereof.

The skeptic appears to enjoy this regression, since he is using only his own means to fulfill his own destiny. However, when he is fully submerged in his own little self-constructed catacomb, he desperately clings to the idea that he is continuing his own pursuits. But after the escaping of his own ideas, there was nothing left. Again, he looks inward; yet it is another futile attempt to achieve perfection by imperfect means. All he has left are his own imperfections. His refusal to admit even the possibility of the singular, perfected form that he so voraciously opposes results in only the presence of imperfection. All the good things that he took for granted are busy for someone else scorching through the atmosphere into infinite perfection. Their job on earth is done; the next logical step being to return home to the eternal where they join all the other perfect Forms under the One Idea, rejoicing in the manifestation of perfection. He, however, is trapped; and not only that, the offer of goodness that was extended to him by the Idea cannot be remade. Remember, only perfection breeds perfection. Imperfection and finitude, no matter how much of it one has, falls to pieces because they are not perfect; only hapless imitations.

Now, considering the idea of perfection and its relation to the Self, and if taken to its logical conclusion, the concept of "outside the Self", and the "Self" are mutually exclusive phenomena. Using the Scientist's own logic, it would appear that creativity does not, in fact, come from within the Self, but rather is channeled through the self (still not being the "Self"). The "Self" is a means. It can only work as a medium, in the sense that it does not create the creation, but rather is a conductor through which creativity can manifest itself. The product is distinct from the process, and both of these are yet still distinct from the "area of outside the Self". There are three entities at work here. Their work flows fluidly into and out of the others. The height and elevation of the inner workings of this process of creativity are colossal. The extent to which creativity, as with Spirituality, can extend is infinite. No Scientific restraint is present in this instance. The most exquisite, soul-quenching experiences pay no heed to limitation. They are experienced; utterly singular in nature, and un-duplicable. To try to combine experience and reflection into a single entity is like saying that the "x" in x + 2 = 4 can be both 2 and 3 at the same time. If I might suggest, Science, it appears, is rather limited in this part of the story. There is no story to Science because Science can only continually see one moment at a time and then forward after that. It doesn't stop to record a story. It desperately tries to draw upon resources it does not actually have. Therefore, there is no narrative of evolution, atheism, or Science, because they all claim that very Science as their deity they are for some reason willing to go through so much trouble for.
Chapter 4: The Wielding of the Scepter

Essential aspects of our condition such as ethics, morality, aesthetics, interpretations of art and beauty, virtue, and love of others are absent from the discoveries of Science. These are not what are shown to us, but rather what data tells us. These things are, when you think about them, rather antithetical to Scientific materialism. The virtue of Charity is completely in opposition to the principles of macro evolutionary theory. According to their logic, we are animals whose only purpose on earth is to survive and propagate our species. Why on earth would even a single fortunate human animal give anything to a weaker human animal who could only serve to hold him and his propagation back? The weaker hinders the stronger; this is why Science tells us it is necessary to accept the idea of natural selection as "progressive" in the evolutionary scheme of things. But what often gets lost in their endless shuffle and rearrangement of atoms and molecules is what those particles are actually doing. They are moving; not towards anything, but merely moving. And if we are told to believe that there is no mind behind these most rudimentary of atomic and subatomic particles, what should their movements mean to us?

Viewing it from the lowest and most elementary perspective, we are smugly told by the Scientists that these atomic movements are the beauty or even majesty of human life. However, according to the law of entropy, these same Scientists are forced to admit the rather obvious contradiction in that the world can only degenerate into black, meaningless existence the longer that time continues to exist. If the world only further degenerates, how could it be that meaning and beauty come from an ever-increasing chaos? Science usually deems this "entropy". To attempt to cultivate meaning from meaninglessness is the same as trying to reach infinitude by way of finite means, just as was discussed before. The human head would split trying to understand this. In short, if our philanthropist goes out of his way to provide a crippled beggar with a hot meal, does a link in the Scientific chain of rationale break? We can curiously make an autonomous decision, with no provocation, to purposely reject our biological "duty" of carrying out the phenomenon of natural selection. "Survival of the fittest!" the Scientist cries. Yet, much to his dismay, he himself perhaps senses a minute inkling that homo sapiens are somehow acting a certain way in spite of themselves, rather than according to their biological urges and conditions. Scientifically speaking, this observation (and remember: Science bears no other merit than being able to observe immediate natural phenomena) is much more regressive than progressive. It is regressive in the sense that it boldly defies Scientific rationale. And as I've said before, progression, on the other hand, only performs the function of betterment.

Science cannot make any ethical or moral (or Spiritual for that matter) judgment on the matter, because Science relies solely on what is immediately observable. Since morality and ethics are conceptual rather than a physical entity, there is no data for Science to analyze. One can observe the effects of morality, but not the idea itself. This is a point of interest because Though Science may endlessly try, uselessly spiraling about much like its beloved atomic particles, not even this almighty Colossus can speak to resolving this paradox, of . It simply will never be able to figure out life. That's it. It must leave it alone. When it is left alone, only the Spiritualist is left understanding not the paradox itself, but the nature of the paradox. He needs no explanation. There is no explanation. He resolves in the deepest inner-workings of his mind and heart that to try to quantify the unquantifiable is as ridiculous and blindingly ignorant as saying that 2 + 3 = 4.

I notice here that children are more in tune with reality than most adults, and in particular, Scientific adults. One can reflect on reflections, but it is not sensical to say that one can reflect on experience. The Spiritualist or creator only wishes to poke their head into the heavens, whereas the Scientist seeks always to limit experience and creativity by quantifying, dismantling, and analyzing. Who here can truly say they are "open-minded?" The choice seems rather childlike in nature, for to accept the possibility of the Spiritual is to be open to the heavens, piercing the cosmos, wind rushing against one's face. Possibility gushes as creativity and spirituality blend like the shades of a sunset, ever-looking forward because the Unknown is its greatest pleasure. Creativity and Spirituality not only do not look back, but are incapable of it. The immediately observable material earth that the Scientists love has only the past to show for it. Science excludes the future because data are records of the past. Science can attempt to predict, based on previously observed facts, what may happen in the future. But again, it can only tell you what will happen to material things.

To be honest, I find this prospect, again, rather boring. It is curious to notice that there is a complete absence of some of the most crucial aspects of the make-up of the human experience and condition. And, as can be attested to by basically any person that you run into (not with a car, just as in meeting them), the true end, or purpose of Science is to more completely understand our material condition and how it relates to all this weird stuff around us on Earth. It is not to tell us how to enjoy this playground. The crucial aspects it is forced to neglect glow above the human condition and are viewable to us if we would take the extra nanosecond to pop our heads above the clouds; above the insanity of only accepting the purpose of human life as to reach some sort of limit. For there is indeed a limit to material. But what comes after that? I would certainly like to think that the story would not end there. Human life is too interesting to have that as its last story. It would be far too dull.

"Progressiveness" is a peculiar concept. It is very often quite strangely misused. To progress towards something inherently implies that the condition at the end will be better than that in the beginning. The progress has a purpose behind it; perhaps even a Mind behind it. But Science implores us that there is no one Mind or Idea involved in "Progress". If there is no mind, there is no purpose. If there is no purpose, it is insanity to say that you are "progressing toward" something because "progressing toward" implies purpose and direction – neither of which Science can supply. "Progress" needs a purpose; "towards" needs a direction. Science is neither progressive in that it has an end, nor does it have a direction. But, please do not misunderstand my intent here. The scientific community is absolutely vital to the specific uses of its discoveries. If man says of science that it has resulted in the betterment of daily life, he is absolutely correct. The final manifestation of scientific inquiry is one of the grand miracles of earthly life.

However, it is critical to remember that there are still minds behind the uses of scientific discoveries. For if material scientific discoveries were left to themselves, they are utterly unable to provide a purpose for which its discoveries can be used. I am certainly not attacking science as one may study it and utilize its innovative qualities. What I am critical of is the fact that there are people who worship Science and its finite material as a deity capable of overriding the idea of Super Nature. For there is no overriding Super Nature with the finite material of Science. Super Nature can be refused, ridiculed, belittled, even hidden; but it is absolutely certain that it cannot be superseded via scientific means. To supersede Super Nature implies that Super Nature is finite, which is frankly not true. One need not believe in Super Nature to know that the idea of it, at least, is something beyond our immediate senses.

This informs me (and I would assume many other people) that the idea of superseding Super Nature basically nullifies itself because you can supersede a supercession. I believe that this fits in directly with the question of the Self. For to take one step outside the Self is Super Nature; but to take two steps is nonsense. And to think that it is even a remote possibility is nonsensical.

Thus we see that it may not be logically sound to disbelieve in something that one does not in the first place recognize as existent. And then to go on to say that there are ideas that would have to build on non-existent ideas is, again, nonsensical. But this is also one of the cute tendencies of the Self. There is always a conquest to be had; a sort of constant overcoming of obstacles. And while overcoming obstacles is generally a good thing, to make that the focus of one's temporal life neglects to realize that that is not what the autonomous Self is meant for. To look deeply and critically at the Self is to realize that change for the sake of mere change is not only uselessly repetitive, but also a waste of what that autonomous Self brings to the table at which all of humanity is seated; a table adorned with the vastest quantities of unfathomably unique victuals. What good is it eating your own dish so instinctually when so many others are freely offered? One must sacrifice the Self and delve into a separate person's unique victual. Science can't elaborate on how to do this. It is an inkling of the grandest value of human life. And I do believe that C.S. Lewis was correct in saying that friendship has no survival value, but rather gives value to survival. Survival with value, I believe, is one of the absolute most miraculous things in existence. Merely to subsist, without those other unique victuals that are freely offered, one could exist, or "be", as it were, but could be utterly void of any human interconnectedness. And a life of emptiness can certainly not produce a future celestial wholeness. Wholeness implies something without a single blemish such that it does not need to be changed, or more accurately, incapable of improvement. That is what our Selves were intended to be like. The perfect form of humanness is not attainable to us as humans because, as has been established, every human is flawed. Flaws cannot be part of something that is whole. Our own sickly condition is, I propose, flawed to the point where to become whole would take a force from something in Super Nature. It must be conceded that if nothing on earth can fill those voids, something apart from the earth must be whittling the perfected piece only it itself is capable of. For which humans would consciously desire to have an incomplete existence as opposed to completeness? This draws upon an unseen subtlety of humanity that pulls us towards completeness instead of the opposite, like gravity drawing us to be grounded. Seems quite plain to see.

Even a lunatic fortune-teller makes a judgment about the future. Science, conversely, can judge nothing; data is its deity. There is no higher entity to fall back upon. They entomb themselves in the most hollow of crypts; darkness, dust, and the bones and apparitions of previous "conquerors" of the human condition lie scattered, who tragically found that it was too late to warn those who still had a chance to see the magnitude of their decision? Limitations and encapsulation by the very matter and atomic particles they worshiped have turned against them. Whether they enjoy it or not, we perhaps shall never know.

It takes the mind wielding the golden scepter of Science to interpret that data. But why would a being with a mind trust the "purpose" of inanimate objects without a mind? Allow me to elaborate. I know that many would say that over a long period of time, our brains, and therefore minds, developed into functional organs that can process vast amounts of information, making it possible to for us as humans to make decisions and speak languages; but curiously, we have the inexplicable ability to choose to override our natural instincts. This is antithetical to the modern culture in which we live because everything the moderns do is because of Science. We are told that that the human brain came about ever so slowly, starting off as all the other rudimentary organic parts of life do, which is to say that inorganic matter stumbled through the darkness and pitfalls of unconscious being into consciousness. Somehow, against all the odds, the human brain, above all other dumb-stricken species is the lone weird recipient of this gift to be able to make decisions contrary to our "natural instincts", such as fasting (neglecting to eat), working (when we do not truly need to be in haste at all times), self-inflicted wounds. It is basically whatever a human can do to succeed in suppressing an instinct.

However, this manner of thinking presents a strange problem. If organic being came from the movement of atoms of inorganic matter, at what point is the human mind able to override those organic, animal instincts? It appears to me that the transition from instinctual to cerebral would have to have come about instantaneously. I do not see any other way in which this phenomenon could have come about. One either has instincts, or does not. One is either cerebral or not cerebral. It is something that cannot improve over time because, firstly, if one is cerebral, do they remember not being cerebral? Again, there seems to be an instantaneous flip of a switch. If one day a man goes to bed being deprived of free will, what would it be like if he awoke to this grand mystery called free will?

An organic being does not simply slowly build up the elements of consciousness, free will, whatever you'd like to call it. It is nonsense to say that one can have a little bit of free will; for this is tantamount to saying that a woman can be a little bit pregnant. It is either there or it is not. I do not detect any sort of "transitional" or "purgatorial" consciousness that comes in between animal instincts and the gift of free will. What is even more curious is that when we override those animal instincts, it is often to our own detriment. And when investigating this idea, it is impossible to leave out the phenomenon of free will.

This debate of free will could go on from here for centuries, but that is not my intent presently. My point is that the problem of hypocrisy within the human condition is abundantly clear for those who choose to recognize it. We say that we only act according to our animal nature, but we are lying to ourselves. We do plenty of things to prove this assertion otherwise. This problem is so frequently denied, that some may say that it does not exist at all. But it does. There is an ever-present, inescapable sense of awareness shared by any thinking person that violently intrudes into our innermost consciousness. It tells us that not only is there room for improvement in man, but that that there is very little chance that he himself can do anything to correct it. The flawed nature of human beings and the utter despondency of that very inadequate nature speak more voluminously than I could ever hope to put into writing.

Now I would like to clarify the meaning of this "purpose" of which I spoke earlier. It is not the human purpose that we may ascribe to an object or even person for that matter. If a tree provides a certain amount of shade, what we mean by "shade" is that it serves our own purpose, which we, and only we, have contrived. The tree does not serve itself. It certainly exists and performs all basic biological functions, but that is merely perpetuating its own existence. For to be sure, existence, in and of itself, is not directly linked to purpose. When we consider existence, we generally imagine some sort of entity that fits in with the "greater picture". It is itself, and that is enough. But that is just the first step. Even admitting that there is such a thing as the greater picture implies a purpose or place for every entity's existence. A greater picture is acknowledged, and therefore, if there is a picture, there is a painter.

Now here, I anticipate a barrage of opposition, heckling and crying foul over a point that is often times too large to even see at all. Of course, there will be the objection that the "purpose" which we ascribe to any object is socially constructed; something that an individual has no control over. But if that were the case, would not the random cacophony of accidental thought processes amount to, essentially, nothing? According to the Scientist, this must, indeed, be so because he can certainly count how many voices there are, but he also surely cannot discern their value. It is the difference between listening to good music or bad music. And if the collective is incoherent and random in its individual building blocks, why should anyone rely on those to form any sort of recognizable shape that resembles a coherent collective? One cannot achieve a purpose via antithetical means. Contradictions exist for a reason, though it is often overlooked. They are signals that alert us that if we attempt to go any further, it is complete and utter nonsense; a bona fide waste of time. But the point must be admitted. As Hobbes says in Leviathan, life is nasty, brutish and short (what a wonderful reason to be alive!). This is so for any interpretation of Scientific data. And as stated previously, we are all told that we are animals. Thus should we not act accordingly?

Science tries to pursue an insane "goal" that is not really there. It is trying to combine contradictory ideas. Contra, in Latin, means "against". Therefore, Science is actually pitting itself against sanity. This may appear a bold statement. However, is it so insane to give a chance to the idea of following the goal of sanity? For that is what I am after, along with truth. If Science has turned its back on sanity, then why should a rational person follow it as though it were sane in this case? Spirituality, or at very minimum, the chance of the existence of Mysticism, appears to fit the criteria of being sane, because we all have imaginations that can conceive of something outside the capacities of man. Where Science ceases, Spirituality flourishes with a magnitude that we as humans could never have imagined in our finite material capacity. Finitude cannot be used to achieve infinitude. It is yet another contra situation. Two contradictory notions can never be reconciled; otherwise they would be complimentary rather than contradictory. The Scientist is very familiar with complimentary and contradictory ideas. Even he must admit that it is not an option for Being to be Nothingness, or vice versa. I will give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he would agree with this rather elementary statement. A child would never believe a contradictory statement; for he knows that a tree is a tree and not an octopus. They are two separate entities that he knows cannot be the other, or else, well, we know not what. It is not an option that is possible. And if it is not an option, to pursue it would be to pursue nothing, which we've already established as a self-contradictory notion, resulting in no pursuit at all, which is madness, or perhaps simply the highest form of apathy and Pride one can conjure.

Science observes the material world and hoards its information in itself. It has surely won the day. But there will come a day when Science cannot be counted upon to save humanity. The materialist is constantly turning back to his data. He may be unaware that one cannot experience data. He cannot turn around and even re-experience the act of acquiring the data. I don't know. But the more time one spends turning back, the tighter the noose gets, ever so slowly, gently caressing at first, then crushingly signaling the expiration of one's residence on the material earth. He tries to run back; neck wrung by deathly fibers. Perhaps he is trying to find solace. What he actually runs back to are merely thoughts. A sprinkling, peripheral view of his material accomplishments innately fails to satisfy. He gets worried. He turns to his own mind. There he expects to find order and comfort. He finds neither. In his precious past, he already limited and quantified the extent of his physical brain's activity. He continues to tighten his own noose.

Again, the contrasting notions of "turning around" and "experiencing" are completely mutually exclusive actions in this instance. In fact, I don't think experience can even be classified as an action; the reason for this being that the experience of experiencing (if that makes any sense) is solely receptive – that is, experience is completely from outside oneself in that particular instance. For when one is outside the Self, you the person are not actively contributing to what you are experiencing – one only has receptive capacities when you are, in a manner of speaking, only capable of being influenced by outside sources. You, the Self, are not contributing anything. This suggests to me (and remember, no one ever really tells you this) that the Self, often times, is not even necessarily worth bothering about. Please do not misunderstand me here in thinking that we should eradicate the Self entirely. For the Self is ultimately what is being changed or altered (steadily, continually; for better or worse). However, here is where we encounter another striking paradox. We have this impression that the Self is flawed; otherwise no one would ever feel that it ought to be changed in the first place. I think most people could agree that betterment, as is commonly thought of, is a real thing, and that it does have direct consequences to our task of being a person (I'm afraid most people must deal with this problem). So why would we want to change something that we freely admit is not flawed?

At this point, I'm afraid we have to acknowledge that we must make some concessions. And no one in the history of the earth has ever done this cheerfully. Concessions tug at our own miserly sense of Pride – the very thing that holds us in the Self in the first place. But if what I want – what I as a human being – truly desire is clearly not in the Self, why on earth would I continue to look there? We must concede the Self. For in our concessions, it is indeed provable that human beings do indeed know the Self, but, paradoxically, they try their darned hardest to alter it, though it is the dearest thing to them. If something is dear to a person, it is endearing to them due to the fact that it is exactly how they want it to be. So it is all the more peculiar that something so dear to a person should be changed, when all they really want is for the Self to be left alone. When thought of through this perspective, this again seems to necessitate a childlike logic. And that is precisely the type of logic needed in deciphering the Self, which I mentioned earlier. I feel as though this simplification is necessary, because if something is not immediately understandable, then one must start with the simplest facts about the problem. C.S. Lewis notes that it is silly to think that continuing to walk the wrong path toward the solution to a problem is progress. Progress for its own sake is rather more destructive than it should be.

But another question remains. Who do we allow to define "Progress" for us? Anyone? Everyone? It seems that a standard of reference would be needed to have any type of discussion about the subject of progress. Progress is a splendid and very useful thing. However, if our version of Progress is different than another's, who is right? Are there degrees of "right" in this situation, or is it winner-take-all? To my knowledge, the term "standard" implies that it is right in and of itself and to make exceptions would be to fully compromise the validity of that standard. And as Lewis also truthfully noted, the first one on the wrong path to turn back and start over is the only one making actual progress; and certainly not for its own sake. It seems self evident that stubbornness in trying to achieve Progress, like it is some almighty utopian ideal, for the sake of progress is achieving the opposite of what it originally intended, which was simply betterment. And I do truly believe that betterment is an actual, universally recognized good thing. Has any thinking human being ever thought that being worse off was a sensible idea? Everyone has the ability to gauge the space between pain and pleasure as some sort of spectrum. That is why we even have words for the opposite ends of that spectrum.

Obviously many of these points will be violently contested. Competing notions of the Self will surface in retaliation. But this is not my point. Obviously each Self is different, but in that difference lies yet another paradox. How can we deduce anything meaningful from this discussion if the Self means either nothing, or a trillion different things? There is, to be sure, common ground in this juxtaposition of Selves. Essentially, they all reduce down to the fact that everyone has one, thus we can have a discussion about what they mean, because any other approach to the subject would be futile. If there is no Self, then it is certainly not worth bothering about. There would be no standard or correlation between any two people's realities, thus rendering the argument worthless to be even casually considered.

Chapter 5: The Simplicity of the Problem

It may seem nit-picky, but, adhering to the Scientist's own rules, there must be a logical progression of steps in addressing a problem, starting with the most basic. And again, if I am incorrect, I humbly submit my arguments to the Scientists for their immediate correction. Hopefully, they will be merciful. The problem is that they often don't admit their own mistakes.

But if I guess correctly that the first step in the Scientific Method is to ask a question, then I believe that that requirement is satisfied. Essentially, the question being posited boils down to asking what the Cause and Effect relationships are in our world of shared realities. The problem arising from this is that there is no concrete solution to the plethora of flaws that are inherent in mankind.

I say "shared realities" because, as has been established, it would be pointless to argue about whether we inhabit different realities or not. A random, accidental event, wholly subjective and understandable only to the individual, such as our realities are claimed to be, cannot give an accurate account of any other accidental event, including another person's reality. For if something is an accident, it was not intended. Therefore, if there are two events, and neither was intended, it is likely there was no mind behind them. On what basis could there be a mind acting thus, let alone the two needed to recognize the others' being? But to go even further, in the ensuing chaos of the randomness of an infinitely endless stream of differing realities, it would not matter if there were a mind behind them because there is no connection between those singular realities if there are no minds to behold a connection. All one would need to do is care about the Self. There would be no other entity that it would even be capable of communicating with. There must be a mediating factor. The proof of that factor would be that we can understand each other when we communicate, which we do in very different ways from animals.

Here, I believe, lies the core of the problem. And when I say "problem", I mean all of the flaws, decrepitude, weaknesses, and limitations that plague our existence as human beings. And as with any problem, it is in our most basic nature to come up with a solution.

I am told by some of the shrewdest, most intellectually gifted people that I know that it is useless to ponder the idea of shared realities because all that our morality and personal perspective amount to are some vague, shadowy little ideas about being nice to people for some reason and being Masters of our own destiny. While this is very cute to me, I always implore these people to go into further detail, because I am genuinely interested in what they have to say. Admittedly, I view this inquisitiveness as one of my more reckless downfalls. But much like the rudimentary, instinctual evolutionary animals they claim to be, materialists do not particularly enjoy being prodded to delve into realms past those animal instincts. I plead with them to expound upon their view of morality and why they make the contradictory claim that all people can somehow initiate their own morality that is equally as valid as every other morality that is out there. For to be sure, this is viewed as the Mastery of one's own destiny; that Nietzschean impulse to say, "I have conquered myself and the human condition. There are no other problems to solve. I now go on to that great, white Olympian mountain, ragged from my impetuous battle with the crags on the way up, brushing off the gritty dust and grime of those hands that would hold me bound to moral enslavement. No matter though; I join Dionysus in that great temple of accomplishment, lush with fantastic decorations and art chronicling my rise above petty morality and the tyrannical shackles of my upbringing. I will now spend my time in a rapturous, drunken ecstasy of my choosing; for that is the reward of enlightenment."

But when one has reached the top of the mountain, there is no "further up" to go. In fact, the only way to go is down. However, has this man truly conquered his own fate? It is actually a rather curious fact that he goes through all that trouble to transcend humanity by limiting his scope to solely human endeavors. Was not his goal to rise above humanity? But in his futile quest, he shackles himself more securely to that limited, finite mountain. For the shackles of the human condition have rusted and decayed; they have been beaten against the prison cell wall since that first prisoner realized that the shackles could be broken. However, our Nietzschean does not fully escape from those bonds. He exits his cell on the precipice of a cliff. He gives himself two options: one is that he fling himself over the edge of the cliff and blend into nothing. The other is that he continue to climb the rest of the mountain and seek out the limits of human endeavor. It is quite true that he indeed makes it to the top. But in his attempt to escape from the human condition, he further, and more permanently I might add, binds himself to the top of that mountain. He has not left the world; for mountains are very much a part of that world. The peak is just as earthly as the base. In his quest, he only further secures his finitude. The ravages of time and age and decimation continue to apply. If those are facets of the world, and our Nietzschean is still in that world (however much he doesn't think that to be the case), then he is shackled even more rigidly to the world in his unwavering assertion that he has transcended the limits of the human condition.

But even a simple passing airplane looks down on that haggard little speck, sprawled out on the top of that earthly mountain. The Nietzschean looks up and realizes, with mounting horror, that he has not even reached the heights of they that he supposed were less of a human than he was. But in making it to the top of that mountain, he notices the absence of Dionysus. The shackles strengthen and become heavier. He panics. Is this not all there was available to conquer? To be sure, these were the outer limits of what he could see. And it appeared that no one had ever even been there before. He had gotten furthest. Then it dawns on him like the blackness of night that he has eternally bound himself to the earth and its inevitable catastrophic downfall. If his goal was to reach the limits of the human experience, he certainly succeeded. And that is indeed where it stops. That is the definition of what a limit is. It is a cessation without the option of going any further. But when he finally realizes that Dionysus had never even been there in the first place, there was no one to build a temple for him. He had not the tools. They were flung aside on his journey up, vestiges of his "slave morality." He had rid himself of his standards. But also he begins to realize that those standards were the only thing that could save him in the end. The tools needed to break the shackles had been left behind, and to go back would be to "regress"; according to his logic, the antithesis of his life's work. Everyone else on earth still had access to those standards. They had their tools. But once relinquished, and the end passes, there is no turning back to retrieve them. The end has already passed by now; but he missed it. His ultimate dream of separating himself from a Love that can only be provided by some part of that mysterious mysticism, from which he fully distances himself, is illuminated in his psyche like the explosion of a celestial supernova. It was a very simple thing to ask for. However, what remains when mysticism or even Spirituality is fully eradicated are the things that the Scientist can truly say are fully his. What is his, as opposed to the ideas of mysticism, includes colossally important human downfalls. What is left, what he wants most, apparently, are pain, blindness, regret, shame, lust, greed, and longing for destruction. He separated himself from the only source of Love and Grace. If he prefers these things, they will unequivocally be given to him. He makes the decision; no other entity is forcing him to do anything. It is now his problem, and his alone. Again, only inward reflection remains after Love is gone; and nothing more.

He had neglected the possibility of all that might come from without. The Spiritual to him was madness. However, only after the end passed did he realize that true madness was his conscious refusal to admit even the possibility of a realm outside his understanding – especially one that could be counted as better than his limited human endeavors. In the end, he got exactly what he wanted. Utter solitude, though, as he now sees is, was the most humanly endeavor one could partake in. And in its finality and irreversible nature, he could go no lower. The heavens open up to infinite celestial wonders; things that he realized his limited human mind could never comprehend.

But there remained the idea. And where there is an idea, there is, at the absolute very least, a possibility. Is believing in a possibility insanity? Perhaps to those who view sanity as the mere random movement of atomic particles, each more random and meaningless than the next. This descent into entropy is curiously anti-Scientific, yet wholly Scientific. Science tells me that the changes and mutations that organisms go through lead to something better; a more well-oiled machine capable of preserving that "sane" set of natural instincts. But dwelling on the definition of the term "mutations", it is essentially defined as an error message. A mutation does not have a point to it. It is an accidental mistake, much more statistically capable of regression than of progression. It is jibberish that boldly stands in place of continuity. It can only destroy and damage the concept or sentient being that had already been established. It appears that human beings were meant to be as they are without recourse to an invisible process like evolution.

One's physical position on a mountain does not change the fact that it is still a mountain. No matter what you do to it, or where you are on it, it does not relinquish its earthly characteristics. It is the same as holding too tightly to Science. Our mountain-climbing materialist gets as close to infinity as he can without actually touching it. However, the chains that he created of his own will snap him back. He thinks his mind is sane; which is an insane thing to do in that condition. Further and further he staggers from the core of humanity. This obsessive quest brutally twists and contorts him such that he is unrecognizable when he reaches the top; reaches his limit. It is curious how one may trudge so far, yet only succeed in further cementing his finitude; a paradox, to be sure, but one that is only observable from the peripheral.

When one stares directly at this uneven situation, he often only absorbs what he wants to perceive. And in this case, we already know that perception is limited. Taken to its logical conclusion, as we discovered earlier, the senses are indeed limited; and the atomic movements that inform perception are rigidly limited as well. What remains is the curious conundrum of what may lie beyond perception. Our Nietzschean wants something more. He desperately, desperately wants to overcome humanity. However, when there is nothing left to overcome, what is next? I believe that this is the core problem that the Nietzschean faces; and when he does face it, an answer eludes him. To rise "beyond good and evil"; to transcend the human condition of mere tendencies; to conquer what he considers rightfully his – these are the tethers that bind him. And bind him to what, one may ask? I admit that I am not sure if there is an answer to this question. Within our limited human glimpses of pictures and tendencies, we all know and share in the belief that there is something "more to it". The "it" is critical here. The human crisis loathes the fact that this idea exists. Something more than human perception? Blasphemy! Blasphemy, I say! Yet inexplicably, our Nietzschean pursues this.

The Übermensch, or Super Human Person referenced in Nietzsche's "Thus Spoke Zarathustra", is meant to symbolize the future transcendence of this "savior", while ignoring a blatant contradiction. The Übermensch, which is meant to be the idea of a Super Man of the future, actually performs the same function of the very religiosity that Nietzsche so ravenously attempts to extinguish. To supersede traditional morality and implement a new, more human-oriented morality is no progression at all, flatly stated. It relates directly back to the materialist's attempt to supersede the Supernatural. It is a very similar concept. When a finite thing attempts to supersede an infinite thing, it nullifies the entire operation. It dissolves into nonsense. It is a finite man trying to overcome an infinite deity. Thus we can see that it simply does not make sense to even attempt to overcome something that we have no business overcoming. The cosmic schism between Spiritual and worldly is unfathomably vast.

Like we discovered before, there cannot be progression unless there is a goal attached at the end. This is where it gets intriguing. I have stated before that to pursue nothing is not a pursuit at all. It is only a mere changing; only a shifting of the blankets of sand in the desert. But it would appear here that Nietzsche is not looking for a simple change; he is looking for a goal or purpose, only he looks in the wrong place. There is a "betterment" that he seeks, and he proposes perhaps the most radical and innovative change in the human condition that there has been to date. Chesterton notes that Nietzsche scaled staggering mountains, but ultimately wound up in Tibet; the land of Nothing and Nirvana. He hates all the roads that stand looming before him. The Nietzschean here starts to feel a subtle trepidation; for his radical disposition informs his hatred. This hatred of human courses of action burn his innards like an acid; but make no mistake, it is not a burning that reflects desire, but a burning away of the sanity that would inform his acceptance of the possibility of the Supernatural. This is the bottom line. The Übermensch claims to be supernatural; but is it really superseding anything? For the Nietzschean claims that there is a way out. But, denying the possibility of Super Nature, what else could possibly remain as a viable option to supersede the defective human condition? It is a dichotomy; either deny Super Nature, or resolve to futilely search for the only other option there is. That option being, of course, running in circles around the material universe searching for a way out via non-existent methods. This may be a brash statement, but was Nietzsche's any less bold? He at least makes it clear that he is not hiding anything. His purpose is clear: re-work our oppressive moral system to better equip the Übermensch in his audacious endeavor to rise above all that is lowly.

But what is really happening when one moral system is replaced with another? However much anyone wants to deny it, reason shows that a moral dogma, even as a spawn of "new" moral standards, is still a dogma. In that steep trek to the peak of Mount Olympus, the "new" morality of the Übermensch is serving the exact same purpose that it proposes to eliminate. Morality is morality, any way it is viewed. I previously mentioned the Nietzschean running in circles, yearning for transcendence. Here, circularity acts as an apt image of the pushing of the limits of, well, our own existence. One can choose to continue running in that circle. And it is indeed true that a circle can expand; its radius stretching out into oblivion. But it does not have time to dwell on a certain point of interest. In the circle's effort to become infinite, it simply further cements its finitude. Circularity does not reach an end, nor does it perform any "new" functions. There is a curious tendency in which those who run in circles do not reach an end; for just when they think they've reached completion, it starts all the way back in the beginning. Nothing has been completed while following a circular path.

One might point to expansion as a function. However, expansion only increases the time it takes to run around the circle. Again, it is mere change, rather than progress. This would theoretically go on infinitely, while the one stuck on the track of the circle continues to run, becoming weaker and weaker the further he gets from the core or center of the circle. It is an exhausting process in more ways than one. Not only does the vice grip of exhaustion ensnare one during the process of running, but the discovery of the material of the universe leads to exhaustion of resources for Science to draw upon. What comes after Science? Spirituality is apparently out of the question. Stagnancy, again, lurks in the shadows of the ruins of what man thought was eternal. It is even more monstrous, as our Nietzschean discovers, atop Mount Olympus. Not only does it lurk with an intensity unparalleled in the human experience, it manifests itself in such an agonizing manner that escape or denial of the situation are unsparingly out of the question.

The deeper he digs into man, the further he inches away from sanity. Which is sane, and which is insane? Insanity is not necessarily the polar opposite of sanity in a manner of speaking. It is the absence of sanity, and we may have a subtle inkling was never meant to be the case. Implicit in the idea of sanity is that there is something resembling it at the opposite end, yet in a way so brutally contorted it could certainly never be mistaken for sanity. For instance, when one contemplates sanity, one is almost forced to think of what the absence of that sanity would be like. Would it make any sense, or even appeal to the betterment of one's life?

To know one is to know the other. We may not understand what insanity is because it is not a true thing. At least not a thing that was ever intended to be. However, I would assert that many people would agree that though they do not have a firm, tangible grasp of the absence of sanity, they could at least see something as being the absence of the original idea. I do not think it is unreasonable to have an idea of something in opposition to something that we know exists. However, it remains an idea; perhaps not a solidified understanding of that idea, but an idea nonetheless. The absence of sanity, which from what has been said, is essentially a void of we know not what. There is no definition of a non-existent entity. If there were, it would simply be sanity. To put it another way, sanity, as though it were designed that way, has a purpose. To commit a sane act is to succeed in fulfilling some kind of preconceived notion of what ought to be. Insanity does not succeed at anything. If there is an absence of purpose, there is no goal and no mind behind it. Thus it would appear insanity is not an actual thing, and was never meant to be so. It is the human term we ascribe to something that we can never understand; much like how zero is not a number, but rather the absence of a number. It is simple arithmetic.

Finitude can be reached with finite means. Infinitude must draw on something else. Insanity ensues when infinitude is attempted with finite means. It is chaos. It serves no purpose. Insanity is not an end that one attempts to achieve. Insanity has no end; it is the absence of purpose. That is why it is insanity. To pursue it is to, again, pursue nothing at all. And a pursuit of nothing is not a pursuit. It is stagnancy. The natural flow from insanity to sanity reigns in staunch opposition to the drop-off of sanity to insanity.

But I do rather think that the question is really that simple, and it is this. What does our existence mean for the reality that it inhabits? Nothing? Everything? Whatever the answer, it would take a fool of the grandest order to deny that it is important that we find out an answer to this question if for no other reason than to coarsely satisfy our own vanity as human beings. The question comes down to an investigation of contrasts. I mentioned earlier that there are two scepters that can be wielded; both contrasting options. For example, I have already ventured into the contrasts of sanity and insanity, as well as infinitude and finitude. But there are more. Another that has always intrigued me is the conscious choice to commit acts of obedience, or acts of rebellion. It appears to me that Science is unable to make up its mind as to which it would like to do. And remember, there is no "end" to Scientific inquiry; it is only data. There is no mind behind it; although there are indeed minds behind those that wield the temporal power of Science.

It is also true that if there is no "end" to Science, then it is engaged in a pursuit of nothing. And as I've mentioned previously, a pursuit of nothing collapses under the weight of its own nonsense. There is no denying that, indeed, this blind obedience to the limits of Science is actually the definition of insanity. Materialists claim that they've reached the farthest corners; but they had already limited themselves to finding material things. And there are a finite amount of atoms and particles of matter that make up the tangible world. Eventually, the patterns and movements of all the atoms in the universe will be conquered and accounted for by the scientists, and humanity can rejoice that there is nothing else to discover. Like our Nietzschean, they perceive that they have transcended the limits of the human condition - with "perceive" being the key word. For to be sure, even perception is limited. The definition of "perception" is bound by two things: the perception of the senses, and the perception of the mind. And again, I believe our Nietzschean provides an apt illustration of the limits of perception. As I mentioned earlier, he is shocked and appalled at the ghostly and ghastly arena that he finds at the peak of Mount Olympus.

Chapter 6: The Laughter of Institutionalism

Human beings are the darndest bunch, aren't they? They're always mysteriously delving into their own vexations and vanity. Take a moment to look at politics, economics, or simply basic human power structures in general. Do these institutions serve any other singular purpose than to try to prolong their own ever-degenerating, avaricious existences? Looking at the grand, possibly even objective perspective, has history not informed us again and again that all humanly orders are constructed for the exact same reason? For example, what has the term "economics", in its absolute most basic sense, meant for any person at any point in history? I am wont to assume that it is simply the exchange of money for something in return (hopefully). What it has become to mean is that it simply steamrolls everything in its path, including people, other institutions, everything. Money ruins so much of what life is about. Factoring in the Scientific practice of observation and collecting data, has "economics" not shown itself simply to be a quantifiable, voracious appetite for unrequited accumulation? It calls into question the purpose for which it was designed. Because, to be sure, nothing that stupid and pointless could come from anything but human beings.

I mention the term "economics", but this is really interchangeable with other similar concepts , that is to say, any human institution in general. It is important to understand this because all these interchangeable human institutions contain the same unifying factor; that is, that the institutions perpetuate their own terminally ill, useless existence to benefit a select few humans who know how to manipulate it according to their wishes. For what, money? This suggests the rather obvious notion that the institution is a man-made machine; and any machine only serves the purpose for the one who built it. But what is this purpose? Essentially, it can be boiled down to the simple barrenness and vacuity that constitutes human beings' self-serving intentions. The machine exists to perpetuate itself. It obeys only its master, who built it for one thing only. And thus by perpetuating itself, it slogs along the pathways of the earth, grinding against itself, stumbling in the blackness of human intentions. This is all that it can be for. Seeping from the human mind, its orders can only come from there. And those orders call for mere perpetuation of not an Idea, but for whatever justification of intent can be summoned up by the whim of man.

Here we can see a pattern. Man's intent for his machines can take innumerable forms, but it is easy to see that they all serve the same purpose. Man can conjure up as many gods as he wants while fooling himself in the process; for all of those gods are simply he himself in different disguises, whether he admits it or not. And admission presents a curious scenario here. It reveals a core knowledge of his decrepitude. And which man is more at fault? Is it he who unknowingly commits the crime of petty ignorance, or he who has crystal clear knowledge of his intent to inflate his Pride in a manner beyond all recognition? The first man may be guilty of ignorance, but no such claim can be made about the second. He knows exactly what he does; after all, he is the one who built the machine.

At times, I do not know what to make of the Scientist. He is who I am told to listen to. But I've also been told to listen to politicians. Many times, Scientists seem to place more emphasis on the process of life rather than the product. By this, I mean that while what they say is many times correct, it is not of any consequence. I implore anyone who may take this the wrong way to dig a little deeper. Observational Science, which is the only kind that there is, says to me, in an honest voice, "Behold, the End All. I represent the phenomenon of change, yet I hold only to that –mere change. There is no conclusion. Therefore, I am left to people to interpret me how they may. It is said of me, 'Being was formed from the formlessness of anything (I cannot say "everything" because if something is a thing, then it must have form), and thus resulted in a meaningless series of blobs of matter.' We know that these little blobs exist and have tendencies because we study them. What they should be used for, I cannot say. I propose no purpose; only process; and at that, only the interpretation thereof. I describe the mere change that occurred from the interpretation of my findings, those being that for some reason, the blobs of matter arranged themselves into what we label as organic life (while still remaining blobs of matter). This matter continued to change by way of the movement of very small bits of this matter called atoms. This movement is random because, again, I propose no end purpose. And in order for there to be a purpose, there must be a mind behind that purpose that is capable of sustaining thoughts of intent; besides which there can be no element of purpose at all. Therefore, if the development of organic life is meaningless, then the movement of the atoms in the brain of that organic life is meaningless as well.

And these statements cannot be "gone back" on, lest we discredit all of our earlier findings. Therefore, I make a suggestion: if you wholly submit to my demands, you must logically rule out any element of the Supernatural. However, my job ends here. I can say no more. I can place no moral evaluation on any of the material things I describe. All thought ends here. Anything further would serve as a denial of my demands; and the only option left would be to be open to the Supernatural. There is no intermediary road. But I leave you with this little conundrum: If all my findings are random accidents, then the thought behind the interpretations of my findings is a random accident as well. And if I claim via random accident to give an account of all other random accidents (including you), why on earth should you listen to me at all?'

It is rather unfortunate that Science must confront reality at this point. It seems plain to me that if Science is correct, then how one incident of random accident via the random, cold, bitter firing of neurons in the brain, can correlate at all with another random system of firing neurons in a different host of matter is beyond my ability to understand. Wouldn't our sense of reality need to be shared with another unit of "moving matter" in order for us to have any type of meaningful interaction with other people at all? By definition, Science, as well as common sense, tells us that the random "cause" behind any movement of two separate groups of atoms cannot be intrinsically related. This "relation" as I will tentatively put it, is the most elementary manner of acknowledging that there needs to be a link, a common ground, in order for anyone to share in a reality. But the more you shift to common ground, the further you drift from the constrictions and rigidity of Science. To give oneself up to the heavens leaves no room for petty, minuscule squabblings about the movement of atoms and their alleged "intent" and effects on the other atoms around them. If there is no mind behind the process of life, why even bother to conjecture about the "importance" of any of our daily activities, seeing how we've already submitted to the idea of meaningless accidents? The choice is rather plain, and frankly, rather boring. One can only look at a piece of scientific data for so long without it losing its captivating aura. Either something has a purpose behind it or not. If it does, then the nature of the purpose for which we do things can be inquired about. It is simple, juvenile curiosity that we as human beings seek to know the purpose behind the events that we see on a daily basis. If something has no purpose, why inquire as to where it comes from? We have all the impression of a sequence of small purposes that bring us the most rapturous delight in our human experience. The purpose is outside of us, so we may fully feel that the Idea behind that purpose is outside of us as well. Rather than woefully trying to escape from the universe to earth and its trappings, we also see evidence that in order to access the Idea behind existence, we must escape from the world and into the infinitude of the endlessly exuberant heavens.

So in speaking of a "Mind", according to the Scientist, we have been told that this peripheral image did not, at one point, exist. There was nothing. Only the random movement of atomic matter was to be beheld; if only there were a mind to behold it. The transition from "non-mind" to "mind" seems to me to be the crux of their argument. If this were true, there would have had to be an exact moment, a hair of a split second, where all living beings acquired a sort of consciousness. It was never a process. Although, I don't think that the point has been entirely lost. According to the logic of the materialists, there would have needed to be a worldwide, instantaneous flip of a switch; and all those unrelated blobs of matter in the brains of homo sapiens were miraculously interconnected with this mindless network of shared reality.

I can hear that coarse, empty laughter of the materialist already, serenading my efforts to discover truth, but these have missed the point entirely. What the Scientist tells us is that, A.) The personalized system of neurons firing in the human brain, causing thoughts, is just that: moving matter; no more able to tap into the random firings of another person's neurological system than any other blob of moving matter, and, B.) That we, indeed, communicate with other blobs of matter. This is slightly confusing. They demand praise for their finding; only they should be the ones praising what they actually found. The Scientist fancies himself dancing across the cosmos, taking in the vast "beauty" of the universe; only to fail to see that he is dancing in a larger production. He seeks to quantify the unquantifiable; to reign in the wild animal that is the cosmos and, he imagines, begs to be understood. But how can one appreciate the painting without appreciating the components that make it up? They praise the idea of their "freed mind." However, this begs the question, whose mind is freer: the man turning the heavens into geology, or the man usurping geology to discover his place in the heavens? The Scientist is certainly not wrong about any of these things. However, what is questionable is how he interprets these findings. But frankly, to dedicate and live one's life by a never-ending, senseless series of changing data appears to me appallingly dull. There is no act of faith, only belief about facts. I am told it is left up to the individual to cultivate his own joy, but if that joy is not shared or acknowledged by other separate blobs of brain matter, how can we be sure it is even joy at all?

My sincerest apologies for seemingly dragging on simple, belabored points. For that is, indeed, what I am doing. However, it is not without purpose. I am still in search of truth. Like I said earlier, standards of argumentation must be established in order for us to hope to catch some sort of glimpse of reality for what it actually is; for this is the only scenario where we can even inhabit the same discussion with whomever would like to stick around and see what happens, of course.

The perpetuation of man-made institutions is as old as Man himself. It cannot account for any type of virtue within those institutions because virtue is not man-made. It comes from we know not where. But let it suffice to say in this instance that virtue must be outside man entirely, or else it is no virtue at all.

The problem appears overly simple, but I do believe that truly is the case. Why does Man continually and futilely look within his own Self to find answers about the Cause he initiates, and the Effect that it has on our world of shared realities?

Both True happiness and reflection (or the attempt at re-creating an experience) are utterly in and of themselves singular, both disregarding the other in its capacity to exist. True contentment disregards reflection (or, more simply, looking back) because if the two options are presented to us (remember they are utterly singular in character, thereby admitting that one has absolutely zero of the characteristics of the other) it appears that the question becomes comically simple. What is the Purpose?

Presently, I am concerned with the rather humorous attempts that people make trying to define the inherent goodness of man-made institutions. Man's insatiable appetite for power over something is often too vague to define. He starts an institution with the purpose of perpetuating itself to provide an eternal mechanism that allows him to keep experiencing what they think is a feeling of fulfillment. What is one actually doing when they turn around and try to replicate that feeling? C.S. Lewis, in his book Surprised By Joy addresses this phenomenon. He uses a strict standard in philosophically explaining the modes of reflection a person would use in thinking about previous "stabs of Joy", as he called them, in their most sweepingly divine experiences. I cannot adequately explain this phenomenon, but it is clear that Science is equally inadequate in trying to tell me what those experiences mean.

But what can be drawn from this is that one can't have unity consisting of only one person. Implied in the word "unity" is that there are multiple entities coming together under a singular idea. You are always dealing with something outside yourself, be it an idea, or person, or circumstance. I don't see any compelling reason why we would inherently be born with these ideas – they have to come from some outside source, or influence. This leaves two entities that depend on each other, which, by definition, would imply that each of those entities would be singular otherwise and not be able to accomplish what would have been accomplished had they been unified. It seems to me that the Self is one of these singular entities that cannot accomplish what it was meant to if left by itself.

I am often told that Science is the only thing that is reasonable to believe in, because it is "provable" which is code for "We resign strictly to facts and characteristics of science, for that will take us..." Where does it take them? If I were to say anything to this philosophy, it would be that these "rationalists" are quickly, and with a baffling urgency, descending into a pit of quicksand. They shout, and shout, and shout; their hoarse and gruesome laughter fading away like smoke as it saunters toward you, not strong enough to make even the most gullible of people laugh. That small, vile laughter results from a false victory that the individual in question claims to have won. Still, he is solely intent on keeping what is "his". He is comfortable in the most wretched, decomposed sense of the word. Or, rather, should I say, thinks he is comfortable. In reality, his blindness should be monstrously astounding to the outside spectator.

The Scientist gets exactly what he wanted. There is no denying that. He resides in a small bubble, banished from his precious material world to a place that should not exist, and more alarmingly, banished from all traces of laughter, happiness, music, dancing and love. These things are simply incompatible with his solitary, prideful disposition. Again, it becomes a question of opposites; of contradictions. He has a sort of love, if you want to even fall into calling it that. I might say "self-love", or more succinctly, Pride. He has entombed himself with no way out, simply floating through the wasteland of vacuity, only acutely aware of his pain, regrets, failures, lusts, greed, envy, and humiliation at the fact that he was unable to recognize the Spiritual aspect of life at all. For when all is past, what is left?

Thus, the materialist got precisely what he wanted - utter separation from any "goodness" now, and that has ever existed. This is because the Idea itself is the only complete representation of all this "goodness" that exists. It is the opposite of what he wants. And since, as we've shown time and again, badness cannot be a part of goodness, this Idea is incapable of containing any badness. Yet, if we utilize our autonomous capacities, we do indeed have the power to refuse what the Idea offers. We are not robots. No one makes the decision for us. If you say that we don't choose, or are forced into another way of thinking, our autonomy is eliminated. If you say that we can, on our own, conjure the same perfection that the Idea does, then you are saying that you are the Idea; or even more terrifyingly, that you supersede the Idea. What are we to make of a superseded goodness? Frankly, we cannot make anything of it at all. Nonsense does not cease to be nonsense when applied to a spiritual realm of thought, or because you, personally, want it to.

The consequences of this are predictable, and also alarming. I speak of "goodness" in the broadest as well as the narrowest senses that I can think of. This is of course a paradox. But the question I'd like to pose to the materialists is whether the broadness or narrowness of the Good has any bearing on the validity of their argument in opposition to my portrait of the Spiritual? As has already been established, Scientific Materialism by definition of its very name cannot make any judgment on whether I am right or wrong in my position of proposing that there is indeed such a thing as the Spiritual. However, the last thing I want to be is rude to the Scientist.

But there is no getting around the fact that the Scientist must, by definition of his own philosophy and deity, remain silent at this point in the discussion. However, in defining the relation between broad goodness and narrow goodness, allow me to say this. That to know broad goodness is also to know narrow goodness, and vice versa. Goodness in the broad sense is a form that is universally recognizable as good, and that no one can deny this. It is not anything specific that can be broadly good. For the thought that a thing is "good" is itself a declaration that it seamlessly follows a tributary into a larger good. A river tributary must flow into something that is larger than itself, or else it could not be called a tributary. But at the same time, broad goodness is the river that is made up of many smaller goodness tributaries. The specifics are not necessarily individually discernible from the whole river, but certainly are the only things possible that can make up a river. I realize this is tedious, but I believe that this must be established in order to go on in search of truth. And goodness is a primary indicator of Truthfulness.

Of course, there will be vehement objections to this way of thinking. Allow me to clarify something. I do not dislike scientists, nor do I think their work is meaningless. The sense in which I am using the term "Scientist" is almost entirely philosophical as opposed to a person whose profession is scientific. I am simply posing a question to these Scientists, and hopefully they will allow me to play by their own rules.

I speak of rules here in hopes that I can establish a standard upon which I can expound my findings. A discussion with no point of reference is useless to the Contender as well as the Champion. If I made up my own standards for every discussion I've been involved in, absolutely nothing I said would be worth anyone's time. It would be jibberish. A standard works much the same way that language does. Concrete, objective knowledge is needed to be coherent in any sort of linguistic exchange. The Scientist should presumably have no objections to the logic thus far. If I break any of his rules, I submit my argument to his expertise.

I spoke earlier of our making concessions, and how this irks our miserly sense of Pride. For to give up anything related to the Self is, in a sense, dying to one's own pride. And this, dear people, is the single most difficult thing in the world to do. On the surface of this assertion, it may seem like splitting the atom, or deciphering instruction manuals that come with household appliances might be the most difficult thing in the world to do. But I think most people would agree with me that those are silly compared with the magnitude of importance of the ravenous worship of the Self and its implications on one's own existence!

However, from a different perspective, why not worship the Self? It's all we're capable of knowing, strictly speaking, because it is the only reality that we can truly say is our own. But, as with Reason, the Self can be a tricky bugger as well. It tries to trick one into thinking that that particular Self is all that there is concerning its own existence. And it is, no question, a tempting offer. But what does human understanding about the situation offer to us as free entities? It certainly, as far as I can surmise, takes note of the things surrounding the Self and its hopeless sense of Pride. This is self-evident. The mere concession that there are indeed entities outside the Self, is, well, just that – a concession. And adhering to the our continuing standard of Scientific logic, a concession is a giving up of the Self, and submitting to the notion that there are, in fact, important entities outside the Self.

Now, being careful not to take this too far, we have not yet established that any of these "important entities" are worth bothering about in the first place. They can be there, but that does not necessarily mean that they matter. The next step, as a child might see it, would be to evaluate whether or not these outside entities are worth bothering about. For to evaluate an entity implicitly means to attribute it a value. Does a thing serve the purpose for which it was created, or doesn't it? I believe that the fact of free will is monumentally important in informing us about the gleaming uniqueness of human beings, and human beings alone. I suppose there is a "self" with respect to animals, but it is overwhelmingly apparent that its capabilities are terribly limited; it has less than a handful of functions in its psyche. Human beings, on the other hand, are not only capable, but excel in cultivating the functions of their minds. It is virtually unlimited. Why is there such an unfathomable gap between humans and animals? What makes humans not only unique, but otherworldly, complex creatures compared with the rest of the living things? If I am told that human beings used to be like animals, cloaked only in their basest of instincts, I reply with asking why the first caveman to stray blindly into free will suddenly was shaken out of animal instinct and was thus able to, at the snap of your fingers, pass from merely possessing a set of solely natural instincts to that gracious gift to humanity: autonomous free will. When viewed from this angle, I personally find it rather silly to think that the autonomous human mind was somehow lesser at a previous time in history. But the Modern Man insists on believing this obvious lie in exchange for the fact that he crams his own lunatic philosophic interpretations into an idea of evolution that was clearly never there in the first place.

Chapter 7: A Postlude

When truth has receded, amidst a gaggle of poor, broken imitations, its recovery may appear a daunting task. However, as with any form of recovery, only a small, incremental step is necessary to initiate a chain-reaction of discoveries, some of which will make us very uncomfortable indeed. Yet this discomfort can be a serendipitous occurrence. Many times, discomfort or even irritation , are the only things that can snap that dastardly complacency that pulls at us every moment of our existence. Fads of modernism will come and fade with the fate of civilizations and human institutions. Drivel does not cease to be drivel because it is in fashion. Truth does not change moment-to-moment; otherwise it would not be truth, but rather an opinion, or an incoherent babbling of borrowed thoughts from a faded human culture. The reason that truth matters is because it is true. When the moderns say, "your truth", or, "my truth", they are not talking about truth at all. They are talking about what reeks with the stench of Pride. Man can overcome the physical world, but cannot enter into the Spiritual on his own because Pride does not exist in the realm of what is above man. The reason for this is not difficult to comprehend. Pride is an invention of man and man alone. Therefore, if the supernatural is all that is above man, Pride cannot exist there. I do not believe that we as humans can fully grasp this phenomenon. This is because Pride is a void, and a void cannot contain the mystical essence of all that is from above; the clouds, one might say. It is as if a man said to his friend, "Give me nothing", and his friend proceeded to introduce him to the supernatural. He does not realize that "nothing" cannot be "something", and therefore cannot be given to him. Pride is the void in man; and a void cannot fit nothingness within itself. For want of Pride is a want of nothingness.

This is all, frankly, rather morbid and depressing; and who could say otherwise? Pride is both the life and absence of life of man. It is what he lives for; but living for that is, really, living for nothing. And if my memory serves me correctly, I believe that it was established earlier in this book that living for nothing is not actually living at all. Now of course the contention to this will no doubt run something to the effect of, "Well, don't we all live for our own truth? Everyone's truth is different, therefore we cannot make any judgment about anyone's truth except that of our own. What you call 'living for nothing', I might call 'living for what I want', so what makes you right". It appears that this would be another miscalculation.

The conclusions we have drawn in our line of reasoning have effectively rendered this way of thinking useless. I could go on for eons about how this logic not only does not satisfy the thirst for vivacity in human life, but relegates the Idea I have spoken of to a confusing void of nonsense. This Idea is no more capable of doing two contradictory things at the same time than we are. And if Pride has its way, we have already put our Selves before the wisdom and standards of the Idea. And if the Idea itself is established enough, we have seen that the Idea is incapable of doing nonsense things. This is opposed to us, who try to fit infinity into finitude. Thus, if the Idea is incapable of nonsense, it stands to reason that what it is capable of can only be sense.

Thus, if sense is what we were meant to strive for, there must be an opposing notion which we should detest. This can be illustrated in the dichotomy of "living" and "surviving", and how these two ideas form the basis for all value and ethical judgments. Living and surviving are separated by very little; except that the "very little" manifests itself as a vast chasm between the consequences of living as opposed to mere survival. What is the true meaning of survival? Living for the next frivolous, passing pleasure? It might be much nearer to the truth to say that surviving does not resemble living in the slightest. Living is an outward-facing exuberance. It is all about that strange connection with fellow human beings signifying that the way we treat our fellow man is not how an instinctual animal treats its fellow animal. I imagine animals thinking that we humans are rather silly based on some obvious, observable facts about living. Human beings do strange things that do not resemble the animal that they are supposed to be at all. We inflict pain on ourselves. We inflict pain on others with no real reason other than to satisfy our sickly and deteriorated sense of Pride. The vast majority of what we do is centered around the unnatural when the natural is at its most prominent. Oh, I have indeed been told more times than I can count that I am simply an animal; the byproduct of a blind and meaningless evolution that has no place for a mind, since these progressives are adamant that there was no mind to begin with. It is like saying that comprehension can fit into incomprehension. And like the common thread through the entirety of this book, it is very easy to see that these notions are utterly contradictory. If it cannot fit now, how could it have ever been the case that it did? By way of the Scientists' own thinking, they cannot logically accept their own viewpoint. Their own pride and avaricious longing tries to make sense out of nonsense. And when sense is scrapped along with reason, we behold nothing but simple nonsense. There is nothing left that we are capable of comprehending.

It is the plainest thing in the world to understand, yet human beings still create a substitute for their life so as to call it their own. The only thing we succeed in is replacing the natural with the unnatural. Every decision made from Pride's point of view is looking to change what is currently there. And if what is currently there is natural, to alter it would necessarily be unnatural. It is curious that the plainest thing in the universe can elicit such momentously hapless efforts to replace something that is perfect in and of itself. It was the highest it could be, because we unfortunately cannot grasp infinity. Yet we still insist on saying that it isn't good enough. I don't know how it ever can be good enough if it is striving for a non-existent end. Actually, this sounds rather similar to what I spoke of earlier in studying the question of whether or not living for nothing was actually living at all. Living's behemoth influence lies upon a firm foundation of aesthetic principles due to its nature; and its nature is intuition.

It is puzzling to drink to nothing when "somethingness" makes itself omnipresent in our world. Even if it was only the celebration of a miniscule, yet bountiful past thought that rose up to the clouds of human comprehension and beckons you now to join, though one of the materialist inclination may think that there are no clouds for it to reach. Yet the materialist still insists that we create our own clouds and thus do not need any sort of objectivity to guide our beliefs. But it is curious that we should be able to create some sort of foggy enigma of what is good for us when the definition of "good" has not yet been established. This is because there was no mind in the beginning to create this "good." We really cannot count "good" (in this situation) as a good thing. What we want for ourselves may inflict harm on other people, so their version of truth surely cannot be universal. But isn't it interesting that we have this idea of the "universal" in the first place? The universality of the "universal" is precisely indicative of the fact that there is such a thing. Even more interestingly, modern culture thoroughly rejects this idea, though it lies in plain sight.

This necessarily begs the question: what does this universality do? In short, it allows for the phenomenon of love to grace our lives. Love is the only phenomena that keeps human beings banded together in such a strong way that it clearly makes life as an autonomous being worthwhile. To view ourselves as animals eliminates this sense of justice, mercy, and compassion – all components of love. It would be utterly foolhardy to reject what we see and know to be true based on the human experience. But I suppose that this relates to the idea that every person gets what they want, what they really and truly want, when this world is past. Many times, human beings allow this stealthy Pride to consume them without even knowing that it is happening. Pride cannot contain love. Therefore, when one makes the decision to reject love in exchange for the Self, they get exactly what they want; and this is an undeniable fact.

The only other undeniable fact that remains is that human beings are human beings. Their institutions have always been institutions. This has always been the case and will never change. That is fine with me, because one institution in simply built on top of the ruins of the last one that expired and left its ruins. There is not much to worry about, frankly. Money, fame, power, etc., has simply become unappealing to some people, and it is only those reluctant few who truly have the knowledge of how to live life. The reassuring thing is that they know exactly why.
