Mr bush may not come in. The session is about to begin
(sorry, most inappropriate)
Seriously B, i've been trying to define to myself recently what my morality is based on. If you can bear it you could try and look at what i've been trying to communicate to Yodes/explain to myself during chats on the recent gay-marriage thread.
the way i see it - we shouldn't try to come up with full on abstract-objective moral values (as, unfortunately, we are compelled to do when we try to take moral "constants" from the bible, or in other belief-structures). i.e. trying to settle on a set of rules and then apply them to life is too narrowing/inflexible i think. These are things, that if they do exist, our minds can't contain. (only "god's" could)
So my solution is a kind of "we-and-the-earth-are-all-connected" hippyish one (but i'm quite taken with it
) What i mean by that is that the world around us, the one that has been developing and testing itself against itself for so long, is the one CONSTANT we can rely on. It's ever changing yet ever the same. It should be our
god in my opinion. There's nothing more important, or "good", in this world to me than trying to search out the balances between inevitable competiton and desirable cooperation. I see this as a kind of bad and good in some ways. Neither on it's own can exist - so let's recognise our interdependence (human-human, and human-world). The "best" decision is that which searches out the best result for all while satisfying the demands of personal survival. By "worshipping" the balances around us we are focused on the most important things i think. The health of ourselves and our environment.
The way i see it, human societies have become too engrossed in the wrong things. We think "happiness" should be our permenant state, or that possessions and being "number one" will provide us with what we want. i don't even think these things do that. They just make us focus on the wrong things. I'm a practical man, and i'll compete when nescessary (which is every day in one way or another), but what i see as "evil" is this idea of total selfishness that can pervade our societies. Even religions, im afraid, can get too embroiled in power-politics, assertions of abstract goods and bads, and argument over interpretation of static written records etc. I'm afraid i believe this also side-tracks us from the most beautiful "aim" or "purpose" we can aspire too ..... keeping the
balances going (or these days redressing the balances). These thoughts (and potentially actions, tho of course i doubt i'm ever fully as "good" as i should be) give me unmeasurable pleasure sometimes. And generally i feel like my life is pointing in the right direction coz of these concepts and beliefs.
Deciding what the right choice is is always the biggest prob. Again, not forming absolute ideas allows us to be that little bit more open to other interpretations of the world and possible solutions. As individuals we are limited, but from listening to others with the openest mind possible (erm, bit guilty of not always doing that when i argue with yoda, but anyway), from "listening" to the unconscious knowledge and "beliefs" available to us if we just "empty" our minds occasionally and let the ego slip away a bit, we get that little bit closer to the huge web of living interaction that is our role in life (whether we like it or not
)
Bad actions for me are those that limit potential cooperation, over-emphasise competition, and treat the world as a seperate "objective" entity which we can do what we like to without repurcussion. That for me is like ****ting on god, and on ourselves correspondingly. We all have a little bit of god inside us (but not in our "egos"/the person we consider "i/me" - i don't think - not as such anyway) - it's that part of us that is communal with all these things. It's that part of us that has "grown" over millenia to some extents, testing itself against the "truths" of the world (i.e our body/mind - the ego is a transient necessity which we invent mainly thru experience and denial - i believe. It's indivdual to each of us, but as such seperates us from "god" ). There's nothing more undeniable and demonstrable than the balances of ferocity and nourishment found in the world around us - it's just getting passed our ego-led domination (rather than dominion, in it's original interpretation) that we need to acheive. At the moment the human race is far too wrapped up in itself, and that exaggerrates our potential for "evil" under my definition.
Ego-led decisions area a bane, but nescessary/unavoidable. So, don't beat yourself up trying to come to a logical conclusion about everything - use a mixture of: the consciously-constructed information we have about the world; the instinctive ("unthinking"!) knowledge and appreciations of ourselves and people around us; the fine balances displayed in everything from earth to concrete (well, the balances in human structures are more obvious and "base" in many ways i believe - but how we treat/use them constitutes a balance of sorts); the world reflected in a dew drop and the "miracle" of evaporation-n-condensation
Conscious knowledge will shift, but many of these things will change yet be the same [unless we screw things up too much od course - thinking we "own" the world, rather than being very small partners in it).
Don't worry too much about purpose or meaning - these are distractions. We are all capable of evil acts, but recognising them and learning from them is vital. Acknowledging your "evil" (overly-selfish) side as it were is therefore vital too.
To say you know conclusively how something is is to be a fool (so i won't
)
I really don't have clear cut answers - coz that's not really my way. I hope some of this made some sort of sense, and that it wasn't too patronising or hippy-like
I see our conscious minds as being made up of both logical and holistical thought i.e. the opposing disciplines/tendancies of examing the finite, measurable and theorhetically infinite, compared with letting the complexity and interactions of the inconceivable complexity of the world impress itself upon you. Use these tendancies, examine and "be examined" by the world if you like. Don't succumb to rigidity or insistence on understanding everything. Be happy that you don't. The inevitable confusion that comes with this is just a prompt to keeping sifting, lifting rocks and standing calmly at dock. While knowing full well that the world rocks, and so do we, when we just encourage our best selves to be. There is no final destination [other than returning to the earth and feeding it, ideally - and leaving your mark from how you've been], no measuring stick for life other than the journey itself and the journey of all those that have gone before, laid out around us for all to see.
Do these things, and i think you'll see it rubs off on others. Then go hug a tree
Don't worry Bealey, understanding everything isn't required. Being "understanding" kind of is
Right, nuff blather. I should be watching Battleship Potemkin (and i just dropped my poor video before. Poo
)
A book that addresses most of these issues in "horribly" complex depth is "zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance". by R. Pirsig [or summat like that]. Sounds silly but it's actually one of the broadest ranging books i've ever read that managed to come to some conclusions, and beautifully too. And not to worry, he doesn't actually mention zen once
I highly recommend it, tho i also warn you that to get through it you have to keep reading when your personality is screaming at you that it's rubbish and you should throw it at the wall. You'll find it stupid, simplistic, idiotic, impenetrable and many other aggravating things - and indeed i'm not saying tis "truth" on a plate, but if you come out the otherside i near guarantee you'll be a changed man. I found it amazing (on my second attempt) but it helped that i had a background in philosophy i think. It's infuriating, and requires a dedicated three months, but i recommend it to everyone having this type of doubt about conflicts in their lives. Most people come away with just a few things from it, but even that is good enough.
Keep seeing the beauty bealey - it really genuinely is all around us and within us.
Go with whichever god you choose brother.
Tom
(god i'm such a fecking hippy
)
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) Note also that he feels he has no control over some of his actions i.e. his refusal to leave the matrix/die etc. Plus, i thought he saw Neo's actions as "evil" in their own way, in that he had attacked that most precious of things to Smith etc i.e. "purpose" - his purpose. On a minor point, Neo has introduced confusion/doubt into Smith's world, which again must make him even more psychotic/human-hating than he was before. Ok, so psychotic, but does he have a choice? Is he hard-wired and a pure production of his environment and events? How much free-will the machines have is also an issue in the film i think]