-----Original Message-----
From: Jos [mailto:Jos@fluxury.nl]
Sent: Thursday, May 23, 2002 11:23 PM
Subject: Fluxury
Hi there,
I swiped you e-adres from the guestbook of a music site and I couldn't resist a fast marketing action. You're invited to visit www.fluxury.nl. Fluxury is an interesting new band you just might like. 6 (six!) full song mp3's for free download. I think Fluxury invaded an uninhabited province of the progressive kingdom.
Enjoy.... Jos. My apologies if you feel this is spam.
No spam received, nor intended. WHY NOT PEACEWORLD NOW? Read www.PeaceWorld.freeservers.com. Invite some friends and get back to me if you care. Will try to download your suggested music. Could they sing Peace World Lyrics? Listening to Alan Parsons’ On Air now.
From: Jos[mailto:Jos@fluxury.nl]
Sent: Monday, May 27, 2002 4:00 AM
Subject: Re: Matthew 13-3, in peace.
Hi Mark
I've visited the URL you gave me and realized immediately I cannot possibly say something about that in the scarce time I have today. I did pick out one introductory line from the 1st page that I found sympathetic:
Nothing entitles me to claim your time and attention: no lofty reputation, mighty patronage, personal charisma, business savvy, saintly complacency or literary merit. When I find work, I’m just another clerk, and a distracted one at that.
that's how I stand in my job for the most part, with the 'distraction' being our music. In this minute I saw the name Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of Heavens mentioned in your piece so I do get a bit of a hunch what to expect, which is no reason to move on to anything even though I'm a moderate skeptic to all things super- and paranatural including religion. I'm not even sure if you think - like I do - that morality (energy for most discussions) doesn't have it's roots in religion, in fact at this point I don't know anything about you or what you say. Later I will read your words. Bye, Jos
From: Mark
Sent: Monday, May 27, 2002 2:07 PM
Subject: RE: Matthew 13-3, in peace.
The short answer is: the Bible has some rarely discussed clues I may have tracked down. In any case, they apply mostly after we’re dead, if what I’ve understood holds water. In this life, I’m working on increasing fearless love, reducing unforeseen consequences, and blessing us babies with abundance, justice and peace. Sound worthwhile so far?
From: Jos [mailto:Jos@fluxury.nl]
Sent: Monday, May 27, 2002 9:42 AM
Subject: Re: Matthew 13-3, in peace.
The answer to what Q? And who's answer, yours?
Personally I try not to worry too much about death now. Got my hopes and dreams on the here and now and on futures I hope to live to see. Yup, a life for all of us with ifl, ruc and a, j & p sounds very much worthwhile indeed. I just fear we're in for a hard time achieving that in the world today, even though humanity has shown remarkable and unforeseen flexibility in coping with anything and strong tendencies to learn from historic mistakes (I mean in the public awareness, the nemes). Why I think it's not going to be easy you ask me: I worry about indifference in the world. There's so many crazy neurotic lonely lunatics it seems. But I haven't convinced myself yet to trust this superficial feeling yet, I think maybe it's a side-effect of our unbelievable ability to magnify anything that happens in the world, there's no such thing as unbiased news reporting. Even 'trusted' statistics on crime and other sociological parameters cannot simply be explained straightforward. Not neccesarily because of ill-will but because the rules change overnight and any piece of input can only be explained in the context you just ripped it from.
Bye, Jos
From: Mark
Sent: Tuesday, May 28, 2002 3:43 AM
Subject: RE: Matthew 13-3, in peace.
An elephant with a cockroache’s brain would starve in a grocery store, break its bones and not know it, think of nothing but crisis. An elephant with an elephant’s brain would dance ballet: pure wealth, and greater fellowship. We have the hardware, off the shelf, to rewire the elephant’s brain, turn monolog systems into 50% dialog systems, increase communication by orders of magnitude. The Earth under WeaponWorld is the former; the latter be PeaceWorld. More important, fellowship and trust would increase, faster yet.
From: 'Mark'
Sent: Tuesday, May 28, 2002 9:29 PM
Subject: RE: Matthew 13-3, in peace.
Dear Jos:
You said many things. I just took a wild swing at your flurry of observations. Sorry I missed. I think one of our problems is that you may view things reductively, as personal or individual problems, while I seek institutional and gestalt fixes. We’ve spent the last 3,000 years compulsively fine-tuning our individual (im)perfections, and only changed our institutions every few centuries, during bloody revolution. I’m thinking about reversing those priorities. If you care to, ask specific questions and I will try to respond better. Mark
From: Jos [mailto:Jos@fluxury.nl]
Sent: Wednesday, May 29, 2002 12:21 PM
Subject: Re: Matthew 13-3, in peace.
Hello again,
Sorry to have been blunt to you like that, the internet invites to fast & almost verbal communication. I'm lured in it all the time, sometimes talking with more people at the same time. A strange sort of eagerness. I know I tend to blabber on at times.
Yes, well, more or less yes: reductionism lost the battle a bit (for me), with all that we know about organizational forces on different scales of observation. But surely I've been trained to use reductional thinking. Also I've been around long enough not to discard the lessons from the past including the teachings of many institutions, but without the inclination to 'believe' as in accept-as-truth without thought, any produkts of those institutions. You might think it's blasphemy (I don't know) but to me delving deeply into Tora or Bible, seeking for previously unnoticed clues to wisdom might be a nice timepass but isn't necesarily going to come up with better stuff then seeking it in Nostradamus' work or any source for that matter: I'm rather convinced the bible was written by man, good as it is. This is not to say I don't welcome an apeal to worldpeace. I'm just interested in your personal motivation to preach (is that the word?) it.
The advent of Automobility / Radio / TV / Internet are all revolutions to the mind to me, strongly boosting the 'mind-bagage' of us all. I think these revolutions crushed and created institutions (albeit transient ones) and came about without too much suffering. Are we mankind finally learning? Do I understand correctly when I think you say you want to change institutions first and then have people adjust? Hmm, I'm trying to get a clearer picture here. That might be a question to you: can you please clarify on that. Or do you have another suggestion to something that might be interesting for me to ask to you? Mainly I like to dance about with people with words to see what happens, it often leads to fresh new insights, from my own brain or the other's. About you: is answering questions something you like to do?
From: Mark
Sent: Thursday, May 30, 2002 4:18 AM
Subject: RE: Matthew 13-3, in peace.
We can do this the easy way, or the hard way. The easy way (for me) is for you to review my text if you care to, then comment on / question what you’ve discovered. Otherwise, I’d just have to retype entire chapters, to respond properly. Blasphemy is epidemic in this civilization, and thus not that much of a shock. You mistake me (who believes in something new) for just another fanatic you’ve been trained to be credophobic against (fear any belief system but earning the next buck). It’s natural, and I don’t hold it against you. We’re all trained credophobes: part of our infantile, hypnotic potty-training against peace and valid spirituality, which is just as deadly to crowded, primitive military societies like ours, as fecal contamination and Cholera are. Thus you can protect yourself from falling into “my wily snares.” I do not find this type of relationship entertaining, nor have I toiled over this text, these past few decades, to promote it. Once you’ve decided to familiarize yourself with the text, and discovered that I am as open-minded and skeptical as you are, despite my alien beliefs, perhaps your questions will start sounding more like a quest for learning, and not like gratuitous probing of another futile nut-case. I assure you, I’ll gladly promote the former process, and reject the latter. No offense meant, nor taken. Sincerely, Mark.
From: Jos [mailto:Jos@fluxury.nl]
Sent: Wednesday, May 29, 2002 11:50 PM
Subject: Re: Matthew 13-3, in peace.
Credophilia is not the word I'd choose since it underlines resistence to something (good or bad) where I learned that for me believing something has to come about by convincing through ones value system. With me there is allways, and I thing there should be, skepsis: I will not easily accept truths that my intuition warns me against: Bold claims require strong proof etc. My guess is you'd say the same thing. So you want me to read your piece. I saw a list from 'Warnings' to 'Bibliography' and browsed through a few pages. Every line I read asked for clarification / discussing word-definitions / comments on lines of thought. Yes, Mark, entertainment value IS the reason I communicate with people on the web. This communication we have is as gratuitous as you and I make it, I from my part like to stay away from calling you a nut-case since namecalling makes discarding ideas way too easy. But I really don't expect value from your piece, I got to tell you in honesty, I foresee the expenditure of much energy so I'm not going to read it. If you read my messages carefully you'd understand why it's not inviting to me. Just saying: 'nah, he's not the learning type' isn't going to explain it. This conversation can still go places, Jos
From: Mark
Sent: Saturday, June 01, 2002 6:46 PM
Subject: RE: Matthew 13-3, in peace.
I value your feedback immensely. My defensiveness is ingrained deep. Please forgive my sandpaper response. Rejection, and my reflex reaction to it (sometimes preemptive) hobble me. I assert that 50% communications are thousands of times more useful, yet cringe inside my own obsessive monolog. We can indeed go further with this conversation. Lead on, if you care to.
From: Jos [mailto:Jos@fluxury.nl]
Sent: Sunday, June 02, 2002 11:18 PM
Subject: Re: Matthew 13-3, in peace.
You are making a remarkable self-observation here. Do you repeatedly tell yourself about your rejection-reflexes or is that more or less a new thing to you? The web surely offers a simple & easily accesible playground for learning about your own feelings and experimenting with responses that better fit your needs. Yes, a remarkable change of scenery this is....
From: Mark
Sent: Monday, June 03, 2002 11:21 PM
Subject: RE: Matthew 13-3, in peace.
The world is an elephant’s body, being run by a cockroach’s brain. Nothing but crisis management. This very conversation is a (very small) crisis. Any supplement to the cockroach’s neural patchwork is a welcome palliative, but does not prevent the elephant from starving in the Produce Section of a grocery store. Regardless of internet supplements, I find inadequate global communications deeply disturbing. The elephant must have an elephant’s brain, then we may sit back and relax, perhaps. Until then, we’re in a slo-mo car wreck, and I hear you praising the power steering. Forgive me as I note, while we pile into the next concrete abutment, that such praise may be premature. We need an intelligent highway, to slow down our runaway carnage and direct us along more propitious roads, at safer speeds.
I try to preface every condemnation I make with the first person, singular, active voice. I mirror my world. I do it internally; it would make standard text even harder to read.
From: Jos [mailto:Jos@fluxury.nl]
Sent: Saturday, June 15, 2002 9:03 AM
Subject: Re: Matthew 13-3, in space.
Hello Mark,
It's been a while since you wrote your message, I've been rehashing our conversation, hesitating to answer. The hesitation came from the feeling I got that again you ignored what I said and we were both hopelessly alone. But then again: what I said before could be regarded inpertinent. An editorial on Scientism* I read this morning in the june issue of Scientific American reminded me of you mentioning reductionism. That sparked my return to the mailbox.
I find it hard to respond to what you said in your previous message. Your words seem to me like a general, abstracted (maybe I mean 'by analogy') expression of concern or fear that might or might not raise feelings of agreement in people. And this reverberation, I think, comes from unknown sources. I think it's hard to come up with anything other than another question: 'what exactly do you mean?' (and there's something odd about how you and me deal with Q&A). Maybe what you said in the last line (I'm not 100% sure I understand 'excuus mi englies') hints to the same thing. I think that bringing your motivations and inclinations to (above) the surface always helps. As I made clear before, investing time in somebody's brainchild (is that what PW is to you?) when, superficially judging, it's rather far off ones intuitions, doesn't go easily. It's a far better source of wisdom to me to investigate motifs. I guess that why I tend to bend this conversation towards a more personal level (or didn't you notice?).
Yet another question: Do you believe morality is god given or rooted in religion or otherwise? (read below how I grade that)
And a notion to give you some idea of how I read and understand things you write: When I use the word 'spirituality' I say: concerning matters of the spirit, meaning the (human) mind. That's my very down to earth definition. It doesn't imply any answers about the nature of things. I got the feeling you meant something else when you used that word, is that right?
*'Scientism is a scientific worldview that encompasses natural explanations for all phenomena, eschews supernatural and paranormal speculation and embraces empiricism and reason as the twin pillar of a philosophy of life appropriate for an age of science'. It's as close to a universal system of belief as I'll ever get (but who knows). The validity of Scientism and other belief systems is what I think would be the most interesting topic for us to talk about. Morality, possibly the highest human playground, is very much a derived quality and I prefer to talk about that only after belief systems are made clear.
I'm interested to see how you will respond to this. Talk to you later, Jos.
From: Mark
Sent: Sunday, June 16, 2002 1:05 AM
Subject: RE: Matthew 13-3, in space.
I believe the difference between science, fact, faith, superstition and absolute error are matters of awareness (especially our lack of awareness). If God represents an infinitely long line AB, than any two separate points we occupy along line AB, representing our beliefs, no matter how divergent, tend to become one point, once we really understand that the line is really very, very long. Thus everything thought and said, no matter how controversial, is the same thing and absolutely true; and is also the worst heresy and exclusive lie. What truths we meat-puppets can share with each other by shaking the air with our meat grunts, I don’t really know (and have not been very impressed with in the past – no offense meant to you or this conversation). The message I am trying to transmit is that we are afraid, and this fear poisons our world. I have sought some means to reduce this fear (my own, and others’) so that we may return to the trail of peace, from which we’ve strayed. Thanks for hesitating to write, I’ve been waiting for your thoughtful response. I don’t believe there’s anything wrong with talking past each other – each exchange helps cohere our conversation. Mark
From: Jos [mailto:Jos@fluxury.nl]
Sent: Tuesday, June 18, 2002 1:59 PM
Subject: Re: Matthew 13-3, in space.
Talking to you is a weird experience. You say you fear the lack of communication in the world and in the same message you discard any difference of opinion as irrelevant by taking infinite distance. To me that's tantamount of 0 = 1. Maybe you believe that inside our minds we are not ultimately private so there's an alternative to physical communication which makes all the difference. I am a materialist in the sense that I believe there is a world of which I have some small inner representation (in other words I believe you really exist) and what I call 'I': the mind, is the product of that world. This means to me we must rely on things like reason to get our inner representations to reach higher truth-value. To me the acts of conversation you described so eloquently are the prized jewels of civilization, our only hope. So I object to your 2 points on God = infinite line metaphor, I think it just sprinkles sand in eyes.
About fear: I think 'fear poisons our world' is rather steep: I for one am not affraid, certainly not in general. Although I do know some people that suffer from some general form of anxiety I don't believe that a large proportion of the general population lives in fear. Maybe in Iraq or Moldavia, I don't know. I would go along with a line of reasoning that states this world is poisoned by short-sighted egotism. But even there I tend to look on the bright side (although Bush's bill about liberating American soldiers accused of warcrimes from the international court didn't help). It's a good thing you're trying to deal with your fears though, it can indeed destroy many valuable things in life.
I found your remark about 'my thoughtfull respons' arrogant. And I agree that each exchange helps to create some coherence, modest as it may be. I still sense you're drawing this conversation into some form of monologue, possibly unintentionally. As if I'm distracting you from something far more important and you're convinced there's no gain for you in taking my words seriously, the only goal being me to listen to you. These notions do not make it less interesting for me to communicate with you, it's just a little wild or unpredictable. From my part: I'd probably continue talking to you untill I feel it doesn't evolve anymore. And you? I'm guessing it's impossible for you to end this conversation. Your respons will be in my mailbox tomorrow.
From: Jos [mailto:Jos@fluxury.nl]
Sent: Monday, June 24, 2002 11:16 PM
Subject: Re: Matthew 13-3, from space.
Again you amaze me. A picture of you holding your breath did come to mind but really I didn't think you'd react anymore after my most recent tirade. It was a bit a noh mercy kind of confrontation, wasn't it? Still I wonder if you're being sarcastic or making fun. I put my money on something in between antagonized, intrigued and amused. Well maybe not amused, you don't strike me as a guy with a lot of humor.
I'll just respond seriously. Being right or wrong is not very satisfying to me. When I err (and I err a lot) I don't mind to acknowledge it and when I think someone else errs I'll just state my case without making a scored point of that. I think that's the only way to get people to stay out of the trenches so the discussion can stay virginesque.
Funny that you respond just now. I wrote a second message at work, the day after the latest one you got. I sent it over to my place to send it from here but something was wrong with the mailing system so I re-sent it this afternoon with the intention to send it tonight. This is my friday morning message:
>-OK, so I don't predict your actions very well...
>-
>-To continu: I don't think it's accurate to say we've strayed from the trail of peace. Those words made me think
>-of civilizations and generations. I wasn't around to witness but something tells me people in the past weren't more
>-strongly subjected to peace keeping forces than we are today. People love, people kill and probably always will.
>-Knowing about very gentle and about very violent civilizations (past & present) my intuition tells me the
>-civic veneer of the average western person of this day (incomplete or biased as it may be) isn't that bad and it
>-seems to me it's continuously developping. Yes, I'm optimistic about that. But then again I'm known to friends
>-as the one that 'as a boy fell into the kettle of Prozac'.
>-
It still holds water....
You were a bit short on words this time, getting lazy now, Mark?