From: Steve Nichols (steve@multisell.com)
Date: Sat Oct 20 2001 - 18:08:25 MDT
> >>To: <mailto:posthuman@yahoogroups.com>posthuman@yahoogroups.com
> >>Sent: Thursday, October 18, 2001 6:04 PM
> >>Subject: [posthuman] Re: Posthuman Politics
> >>
> >>At 04:51 PM 10/18/2001 +0100, "Steve Nichols"
> >><<mailto:steve@multisell.com>steve@multisell.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> >Do you have a personal grudge against Courts or the Police?
> >>
> >>Straw man -- irrelevant. I haven't expressed any such.
>
> NO, I don't have such a grudge.
>
> Let's get back to what is to me the central issue of
> our debate.
>
> I contend that you have primitive/backward political
> idols in your head that are at the same level as the
> Vatican, Mormons, Baptists, Islam &c. As long as these
> idols infest your mind it's extremely unlikely that
> you'll become capable of posthuman politics.
What do you mean by "idol"? Something like your
"anti-Law" idol perhaps? I assure you I have nonesuch.
My defence of "Law" is really just to counter-balance
your rather obsessive anti-Law sentiments, I am not
particularly bothered either way ... if you can get things
to run the same or better with fewer of no Laws, then
fine. My doubts are that you can.
>
> Chief among your idols is the notion of "Law" in your
> head (which you sometimes capitalize in the way
> Mormons, Muslims, etc. capitalize "God," "Allah," etc.)
>
Oh! Give an example of what I've said that makes you
think this? "Do what thout wilt shall be the whole of
the Law " www.enochia.net Do you think I am a
Crowleyite cos of Enochian Chess? If so u r wrong.
> I have provided you with references on how to clear
> these idols from your mind, namely:
> "Clear-Your-Mind Reports"
> <http://www.buildfreedom.com/dir_clear.htm>
> and 'Bentham's Theory of Fictions' by C.K. Ogden.
Have had a look-see. BigBooster.com
One-Stop Money & Marketing Powerhouse! Money is your
main "Idol" then?
>
> The following may also assist you:
> - ---------------------------------------------------
> The Idols of Human Understanding
> by Francis Bacon (condensed and edited):
> "The idols and false notions which are now in
> possession of the human understanding, and have
> taken deep root therein, not only so beset men's
> minds that truth can hardly find entrance, but
> even after entrance obtained, they will again
> in the very instauration of the sciences meet
> and trouble us, unless men being forewarned of
> the danger, fortify themselves as far as may be
> possible against their assaults.
Where in Bacon (ESSAY on Human Understanding?)
does he attack the notion of Laws? Not in my
reading of him .....
>
> There are four classes of idols which beset
> men's minds. To these, for distinction's sake,
> I have assigned names:
> Idols of the tribe;
> Idols of the cave;
> Idols of the marketplace;
Thats you that is!!!!!!
> Idols of the theater.
>
> The idols of the tribe have their foundation in
> human nature itself, and in the tribe, race, and
> culture of men. It is a false assertion that the
> measure of man is the measure of things. On the
> contrary, all perceptions as well as the sense
> of the mind are according to the measure of the
> individual and not according to the measure of
> the universe. And human understanding is like a
> false mirror, which, receiving rays irregularly,
> distorts and discolors the nature of things by
> mingling its own nature with it.
Meaningless pap. I'm out of the Iceni tribe. Hardly
my fault though, accident of birth ..... so what?
Is having an "Idol" of a tribe different from thinking
you are in a tribe then?
>
> The idols of the cave are the idols of the
> individual man. Everyone has a cave or a den
> of his own, which refracts and discolors the
> light of nature; owing to his personal and
> peculiar nature; or to his education and
> conversation with others; or to the reading
> of books, and the authority of those whom he
> esteems and admires; or to the differences of
> impressions, accordingly as they take place
> in a mind preoccupied and predisposed, or in
> a mind indifferent and settled; or the like.
> So that the spirit of man (according as it is
> meted out to different individuals) is in fact
> a thing variable and full of perturbation, and
> governed as it were by chance. Whence it was
> well observed by Heraclitus that men look for
> sciences in their own lesser worlds, and not
> in the greater or common world.
Plato meets pop-Buddhism meets drivel.
>
> There are also idols formed by the intercourse
> and association of men with each other, which
> I call idols of the marketplace, on account of
> the commerce and consort of men there. For it
> is by discourse that men associate; and words
> are imposed according to the apprehension of
> the vulgar.
Well f*ck me sideways, yer not wrong there c*nt.
And therefore the ill and unfit
> choice of words wonderfully obstructs the
> understanding.
>
Your whole approach is too wordy. If you want
to do something about bad Laws (whether this is
just some of them, as I think, or all of them as
you claim) then stand for political election.
> Lastly, there are idols which have immigrated
> into men's minds from the various dogmas of
> philosophies, and also from wrong laws of
> demonstration. These I call idols of the
> theater; because in my judgment all the
> received systems are but so many stage-plays,
> representing worlds of their own creation after
> an unreal and scenic fashion."
Why not call them idols of philosophy then?
And why lastly? Why only four types? How
can you be sure ... I can think of some better
candidates ... wot about idols of pretension?
>
> - -------------------------------------------------
> I intend to publish our debate on BuildFreedom.com
> in the form of a report titled "Posthuman Politics."
> It may assist some readers to clear idols from
> their minds. In the report I can refer to you as
> "Steve Nichols" <steve@multisell.com> and include the links
> you provided during the debate. Or, if you prefer anonymity, I can
> refer to you as "Mr. Anonymous" with none of your links. Your choice.
>
> Frederick Mann
>
Please refer to me as post-human, Steve Nichols
www.neohuman.com
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