Speculative Metaphysics #6245245555

From Wikipedia (about the cathars):

They did not believe in one all-encompassing god, but in two, both equal and comparable in status. They held that the physical world was evil and created by Rex Mundi (translated from Latin as "king of the world"), who encompassed all that was corporeal, chaotic and powerful; the second god, the one whom they worshipped, was entirely disincarnate: a being or principle of pure spirit and completely unsullied by the taint of matter. He was the god of love, order and peace.

According to some Cathars, the purpose of man's life on Earth was to transcend matter, perpetually renouncing anything connected with the principle of power and thereby attained union with the principle of love. According to others, man's purpose was to reclaim or redeem matter, spiritualizing and transforming it.

It is the last part that I find interesting. How does a human reclaim or redeem matter? Obviously by "spiritualizing it". But what does that mean?

Perhaps, this is done by focusing the will on the object in question. Praying that god enters the object (a la PKD's Zebra - see earlier blog) and reclaims it. This transubstantiates the object permanently from base matter into god or some other sort of extension of god (something that is not matter but functions like matter yet is lacking the evil and baseness of matter).

Obviously, the most import matter to transform is the human flesh. I suppose spiritual contemplation alone (or saintly acts etc.) is all that is needed to accomplish this. But what does it mean for a lamppost to be removed from the power of Rex Mundi and placed into the arms of the True God of Love?

Perhaps, once the job of the cathars is completed by humanity (or whomever) and all has been spiritualized, the universe will cease to exist (like in Arthur C. Clark's Nine Billion Names of God).

Wishing upon a star now makes complete sense. The wish isn't for the wisher but for the star.

Speculative Metaphysics #04853508921

Nothing is real. Everyone makes up a reality or buys into the reality of someone else. All realities are equally as good as any other.

For instance, some believe there are mind control weapons being used on them. And that they are being "gangstalked".

See for instance: http://www.gangstalkingworld.com/

If that doesn't work try:
http://web.archive.org/web/20080121103228/http://www.gangstalkingworld.com/

Hilariously, when I tried to visit it for the first time, I couldn't access it. If I believed I was being gangstalked, the fact that I couldn't reach the site would seem intentional and related to me as opposed to being causally unconnected to me. Perhaps you too will be unable to access it.

The point is that any sufficiently large group of people is all that is needed to validate a reality. It doesn't matter if anyone is actually being gangstalked. If enough people can find one another and share details, and the details match, then the reality becomes fact for those who believe it. This means they ARE being gangstalked.

Soon, the gangstalkees will form a collective plan. This plan will obviously seek to rectify the greivances of the gangstalkees - to stop the stalking.

The plan will probably go something like this:

Since the mind control and stalking cannot be falsified nor can it be detected, the only way to fight back is to attack the system. The system, is of course, to the gangstalkee, the symbol for all that cannot be controlled but is created by a group of sentient beings acting in concert, the source of all that is the causally desirable and undesirable (beyond the immediate social circle of the gangstalkee).

The system has many parts. Some parts are engaging in mind control and gangstalking. These parts are forever hidden. Sometimes they might be exposed and dealt with but one can never be sure. Perhaps the suspected perpatrator is truly innocent. Who can know?

But other parts support the hidden system. These parts can be attacked. The scoffers, especially the ones who seek to publicly undermine the efforts of the gangstalkees. The psychiatrists that fail to admit that there is too much cohesion to all the collective stories of the gangstalkees. Scientists and others who create technology or ideas that can be used for mind control and terrorization.

The gangstalkees and mind control victims will soon form a seperate society. Unlike anything mankind has ever seen. It will have its own manifesto. Its own constitution. And it will be its own system. It will do things. Terrible things in the name of survival and truth and justice.

And it will be justified. By common brain chemistry and the self-validation that comes with sheer numbers.

Unfalsifiable theories are and will increasingly be the bread and butter of belief.

Speculative Metaphysics #2503498273

There is space. There is time. There is matter. There are human monkeys. The human monkeys have skulls made of bone. Inside the skulls are brains. The brains give the monkeys consciousness. The brains are made of matter too. The brains think via the re-arrangement of matter and energy. The brains are constructed so they detect patterns. Detecting patterns is the main purpose of the brains, without pattern detection the monkeys cannot function and cannot create more monkeys.

Anything that is not a pattern cannot be seen by the brains - it is Aussersein. Because the brains see patterns they look for patterns related to the patterns they have previously detected (and believe to be true/existant-in-the-world-outside-the-brain). This is the law of fives.

Empirical verification is the only reasonable way to separate patterns that exist in the world from patterns merely imagined to exist. Unfortunately, no one person can engage in the empirical verification necessary to support a functioning in-the-world metaphysics. Therefore, others must be trusted to give testimony/witness to the patterns that the brain has detected. This testimony elevates the patterns to truth.

Who should a monkey trust? Expert monkeys who claim to have spent many years investigating a particular aspect of reality? The writing of long dead monkeys? What the majority of other monkeys believe?

If the monkey believes only what he can verify the monkey will be very busy verifying all the time. And some patterns cannot be falsified. Ever. What should a monkey think about those?

It is hard to be a monkey. So many choices to be made.