by Absolute0 » Fri Dec 06, 2013 9:11 pm
I actually wrote this a few days ago, with the intent to delete it... maybe I still should.
Herin contains such light heated topics as, belief, non-belief, faith, suicide, philosophy, logic, the meaning of the life the universe and everything, death, numbers, a reason for hope, a reason not to hope, confusion, madness, anger, and the number 42.
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Heh... I'm actually kind of nervous to post this. Well.. more than normal... Herein I discuss some big ideas, pretty much divulge my entire perspective of reality, and say some very... controversial things. Not to mention that the length is immense... And in honesty, I'm not quite so sure it is entirely relevant. I don't know. But all I know is that I need to say it. Not just internalize it. I cant get better if I hide it all away... though many won't bother due to its length or subject.
Like I said in one of my earlier posts.. I might be mentally ill. I might not be. I might just have a more accurate understanding than anyone I have ever met. Either way, these thoughts cause me great distress... and, being able to outline everything while I am as lucid as I ever am, is a great boon to me. And though the severity of the distress isn't covered... lets just say I sometimes worry about the safty of those around me...
And, without further babbling....
I want to start this off by saying; I don't consider intelligence a good thing, nor do I consider myself to be intelligent. I may be a little bright, but no more than average. No. What I am is obsessive. What I do, is think myself into corners where I feel safe and react violently to anybody that tries to drag me from my mental FEMA camp, and show it to me from the outside... A warning, this post is going to be a, in typical Absolute Zero fashion, a long winded tirade of pseudo-erudite half ass intellectualism, ego masturbation, self degradation, and semi-madness. But first... first you need to see where I am coming from.
I grew up Wiccan. My father began us on our(my sister and I) path at a very young age, as most very religious folk do with their children. Now, today, I am a die hard atheist... most would prolly consider me an anti-theist. I consider Wicca to be one of the most benign faiths on this planet, partly do to its founding tenant “Harm none, do as thou wilt.” which, admittedly, is a very good idea. I still follow that general guideline to this day.
The problem comes when you combine Wicca (or any faith for that matter) with a nut case...
In Wicca there are a great number of “paths”, not dissimilar to christian sects (Catholic, Protestant, Lutheran... Mormon if you have a good imagination). These paths are a lot like Christian Sects, and despite their active vitriol against Christianity, Wiccans share a great deal in common with them. * holds up umbrella for impending shitstorm if any Wiccans are reading *
Now, not all paths are taught the same things I was. So, this does not apply to all of them. But when I was a child, I was actively encourage to hallucinate (and have supernatural powers, but that won't be covered here). I'm not talking about imaginary friends. I'm not talking about a fun night tripping on LSD. Nor am I talking about some mystical spirit journey set to native American chants. I'm talking about being told that the world is full of spirits and entities that surround you constantly. Fairies, Ghosts, Demons (not in the modern sense of the word. Demons, in what I was taught, were most ambivalent to humanity) and other things.
I was actively encouraged to speak, listen to, and interact with these entities. Some of them were good nature friendly playful. Some helpful, some completely ambivalent, and some actively hostile... some even considered us a food source.
If you have ever seen the show 'Supernatural' you can kind of get an idea of what my life was like growing up. Now, we didn't have this 'warrior' training that Sam and Dean did. But, we were taught how to defend ourselves against these beings... though hostile ones weren't common. None the less, they did exist and I had to CONSTANTLY be on my guard... Ingrained into what I was taught as a child, was a heavy dose of paranoia. And we won't even get into my fathers adherence to conspiracy theories.
Now... we get to the meat of the problem, not only with Wicca but faith in general. If one is taught to believe things that are not true, then one will react to all things as if they are true.
This is a very brief list of the type of things I encountered as a child; A ghost of a little boy that died in a fire haunting a second hand shirt I owned. Dwarfs that lived in the bushes outside of the front door (interesting story with these guys). A hobgoblin that helped keep our house tidy. A “dark elf” that lived under our basement stairs (creepy mofo he was). Dragons... some of which I summoned with magick. Gods, specifically the manifestation of the dualistic divinities most Wiccans follow (Lady and Lord), and the goddess The Morrigan, who gave me a gift. Demons that became obsessed with me. Vampires. Trolls. Several unknown beings that assaulted me.. A giant wolf spirit that protected me. And worst of all, a Doppelganger who, at that time, stole my memories. A cabal of between eight and thirteen beings that started to assault people in their sleep.
Now... today I know that all of these were hallucinations. Figments of my imagination, and, despite having some questions about mass hallucination still, I know all of these things to be untrue. But when I was young... when I was young the were REAL. Real as me. Real as you. Real as gravity.
Now, I'm going to lay out two scenarios...
This first part applies to both scenarios, and are pretty much universal truths.
I: Some things are True.
II: Life is generally preferable to death.
III: Comfort and pleasure are generally preferable to suffering.
IV: You only need to be concerned with True things (things that actually exist).
1:There are True things that cannot be measured.
If True, then there is no way of differentiating between True but unmeasurable, and Untrue.
There for, to minimize ones suffering, one must accept all things as being True.
If the above is reality... then I am hand picked by an Alien diplomat to be an emissary here on earth... amongst many other things.
Now... so far as I have been able to find, paradox does not exist in the real world. Sure, there are a tonne of thought experiments that can produce it, but in the real world I have never been able to find an example of one. But with the above model it allows for, very easily, paradox to occur.
God is good. Even when he told that lady to crush her three children skulls with a brick. She shouldn't have been arrested and locked away, she was following God's will.
Scenario 2.
I: Some things are True.
II: Life is generally preferable to death.
III: Comfort and pleasure are generally preferable to suffering.
IV: You only need to be concerned with True things (things that actually exist).
1: Only things which are CAPABLE of being measured are True.
If True, then one has a way of differentiating between True and Untrue.
There for, to minimize ones suffering, one must only accept True things as being true.
Now, inherently, a being with a perspective, emotions, and individual thoughts is incapable of seeing Reality objectively. This is why we go ask others opinions. If we can get every being to verify what we saw (experience), we can determine what is True and what is Untrue... sound familiar.. its called the Scientific Method.
Now, admittedly, there are some problems with the above Objective Reality.
Its VERY easy to say something like... “If reality is Objective and suffering exists, then to minimize suffering everyone should self annihilate.” But the problem with this statement is that it doesn't take in to account the question “What if my preference for life is not outweighed by my aversion to suffering?”
We could take an anti-natalist view and ask “If life has suffering, should we not prevent new births of beings that could suffer.” to this, I say yes... BUT ONLY IF you can guarantee that the new being will suffer more than feels pleasure, comfort, joy ect ect.
But there is a caveat to this. Though Objective Reality exists, we are beings who experience EVERYTHING subjectively. There for we cannot make a statement about Objective Reality. Oh, don't get me wrong, we are capable of measuring it, and making statements about that reality, but even those measurements are subjective... But this is why we don't take just one persons measurements.
You can think of it like the color spectrum. Where white is reality, every person is another color. We need ALL of them to make white.
Now, you could say, that even that won't be Objective Reality. I disagree.
So far as I understand it, Objective Reality is the nature of reality that is not Subjective. Not based off of PERSONAL perspective. As soon as we agree upon something existing, that thing is no longer subjective, but Objectively existing... arguing anything different would be arguing from Scenario 1.
Claiming that a Reality does not exist is a useless statement.
I would like to go on to prove that, though I really hope I don't have to.
At any rate... all the above is why I can, confidently, claim that 1: There is no God or gods. 2: There is no afterlife. 3: There is no fairies, demons, angels ect ect. 4: Humanity is doomed to suffering. 5: Aliens have probably never visited earth. 6: You emotions and thoughts do not matter in the face of Objectiv....
Wait, hold on a minute. What was number 4? (Six has some problems to, but we will get to that later).
Well... number 4 is a scary one... and interesting... and very depressing. And, admittedly, unproven.
Suffering exists, right? And nobody wants to suffer, right? Yet time and time again, we (living organisms capable of feeling suffering) are introduced to suffering. So, so far as has been witnessed, the VAST majority (I only won't say all because I can't directly prove another being hasn't felt something.) of beings have felt suffering. So there is NO indication that anything will change.
To exist is to suffer.
But fret not. There are a couple of ways out. Besides self-annihilation, that is. Buddhists, for example, practice a (I'm only talking about the philosophy, not the faith) thing called “detachment”. Pretty much all that means is that you can't suffer if you don't care about anything. Though they rely upon the idea that suffering only occurs when you care about something, which is hence forth unproven.
Put down those clippers though, you don't have to shave your head. Science also has a way out.
It HAS been proven that, as scientific knowledge progresses, suffering has decreased... or more accurately stated, the causes of suffering have been suppressed. It is not unreasonable to think that, given infinite time and resources, science could end suffering completely. But the catch is, all scientific knowledge is based upon the most accurate representation of Objective Reality possible. To find the most accurate portrait of Objective Reality, we need ALL subjective experiences... including yours.
Put down that text book though... or better yet, read it and then we can chit chat. At any rate... now we fall down the rabbit hole...
Mankind, as a whole, has proven we have no interest in ending suffering. We simply DO NOT care. I don't care about you, you don't care about me. Want proof? Will you cry when I die?
“But Zero...” you whine, “... we cant feel empathy for things we don't know exist.”
Actually, you're part right... I don't know that guy in India with three kids a wife and a small plot of land on which he farms peanuts exists... but I do know the likely hood of him existing. I also know (as to last time I checked) India has the highest cancer rate of any country on earth... I do know that a guy like him could be dieing as we speak. I do know that his family prolly cares about him (keep this in mind, this will be VERY important later). I do know what its like for a single mother of three... And I do know what life is like when you cant afford food....
So, even if I don't know he exists, I know can feel empathy for him.
113,542.808 an hour.
Think about that number. That rate. That is how many people have died since you started reading this tirade. Now... to understand the scope of human suffering... lets assume each person each has 2 kids (average household size for developed nations is slightly more, undeveloped is much higher) AND 2 parents, or a total of 4 people in their families. Now lets assume they have no friends, and its only these 4 people that care about them... We are assuming that each persons is adult and their loved ones cares about them... truly terrible thoughts.
113,542.808 x 4 = 454,171.232.. an hour.
That is the number of people that will begin suffering by the time you finish this rant.
But... when someone you love dies, the pain can carry on... lets say a week...
534,105,368.832
That is the number of people that will suffer due to death ONLY in a period of seven days.
Do I really need to factor suffering through abuse, accident, lies, cheating, stealing, war, mental illness......
This number almost drove me to suicide... though honestly I never faced it before...
Numbers like this.... They are almost inconceivable...
Now... you could argue Dunbar's Number. But I would return that Dunbar's Number only measures the stable relationship a person can have, not the scope of empathy.
At anyrate... there is a few things you can do with what I call the “Scope of Suffering”. We can self annihilate. Which I believe is a rational response. But not the optimal response(dodges ban hammer?).
The Best response we can have when fighting the Scope of Suffering, is that which leads us to it in the first place. Empathy.
We need to feel more Empathy.
We can fight this. We can end ALL human (probably non human to) suffering.
This MANDATES us to reach out and make the attempt to understand, accept and attempt to uplift anyone and everyone we meet.
This, combined with the progress of science in suppressing suffering, we will fight the war on both fronts... and we can and WILL win.
'We are each an angel with a single wing, and only by embracing one another, might we fly.'
…. Unless...
And herein lies where I am at.
I can only make judgments based upon what I witness. And, from what I have seen... Man does not love man. He hates man.
Granted, these traits are ingrained by evolution. But those times are long gone behind us...
But every structure of society is based upon these primitive notions. Every one is based upon the Alpha Male. The big guy in charge.... systems intrinsic with violence and thus suffering.
Mankind MUST evolve NOW. Or.... or we are doomed to suffer for eternity.
I press the immediacy of this, because, for the first time in history we are capable of annihilating every organism on he planet. And, at this time, we have our guns pointed at each other. Extremism sweeps the West and Middle East, both religious and ideological. Dictators have power that... is unimaginable.
And with every passing day their power grows, misusing the boons science has given.
Soon... very soon. The power will be too great to ever uproot these mammoths of power. And then...
Our world is, more rapidly everyday, is becoming a dystopia the likes of which fiction has never imagined.
Think I'm wrong... you haven't been paying attention.
Things are not getting better... they are getting worse.
So where does this leave us? The half mad that have more issues that we can shake a stick at...
I don't know....
Personally... I want to get better. I want to quit dwelling on things and try to live. But part of me says that, by ignoring the problems and just going about my life, things will only get worse. And one day I will look up from my narrow window and see a world where I am in chains. Driven mad by the cruelty of man and thrust into the heart of suffering... all because I ignored it and instead 'thought happy thoughts'.
Part of me wants to use my suffering as fuel for the fires of the revolution our world so desperately needs. Use it to force evolution on man... but I can't do that alone.
But another part of me... the truly insane part.... wants to burn everything to the ground. Revel in the suffering of others. This part, knowing it cant beat them, joins the zietgiest. It is a hungry part, a sadistic part. And if I am correct that man kind lacks the empathy to do anything about its situation... The only logical action to take is the illogical. The insane. The Monstrous.
Maybe, one day, I will be proven wrong. Maybe one day someone will show me that I have been wrong about everything... I hope that is the case. But to date... not one has even come close.
I might not be the Devil, but I am not a hero... and My God, don’t pray for me.
42.