Gibbon and the Pale Horseman

Another Day Down

      The Fourth Horseman mentioned in the book of Revelations, the pale, or sometimes greenish yellow one, depending on translation, was traditionally represented by a chap called Odoacar, the First Barbarian King of Rome, who ruled from 476 to 493. For Edward Gibbon Odoacar's reign serves to mark the end of the Western Roman Empire.

     Gibbon reckoned the dominating obsession the Jewish Sect that became Christianity had with the immanent end of the world, and the return of their savior, gave them an unhealthy and wholly irrational fanaticism which while it might have served the sect during times of persecution, it did produce in Christians an intense disregard for non-Christians which over time included Jews. As Christianity, came to dominate the Roman elites this intolerance toward pagans fractured the social cohesion of the Roman Empire. 

    I think our dilemma is to grasp the extent to which the Roman Empire was a cohesive collective. The answer is that as Rome expanded it practiced pluralism under the yoke of a non-democratic imperial hierarchy. To move east to Ancient Greece, Alexander the Great of Macedonia, the conqueror of half the world when he was a boy was tutored by Aristotle. As Alexander's empire grew, Aristotle wanted his student to put Greeks in charge of provinces. Alexander knew better, the massive empire he'd taken from the Persians would be organized in the same tried and trusted way the Persian's had managed it. The locals would run it.

     

Horsemen of The Apocalypse

Leaf in Nest

      In discussion with the various entities I share the world with, many of whom fail the test for sentience, I find myself losing faith in the accuracy of large language models. Let's put it this way, I know it's not that easy to cool things in outer space and I know that in space electricity is precious. And yet, apparently, there is nowhere more suitable than outer space for the construction of these future Lords of Destiny currently referred to as Data Centers. Apparently space is cold, so cooling's not a problem, as well, up above the clouds there's an unlimited amount of renewable electricity, and if you add to this the life span of a GPU that's been protected from radiation, then Bingo, invest your life savings in a company that sends stuff to space.

     Don't get me wrong I still believe Copy and Paste was the Third Horseman of the Apocalypse, and don't give me any of that new age crap about the Book of Revelations not being about the future, and don't even begin to suggest that the Turin Test has anything to do with the first horseman of the Apocalypse, or try to tell me the Turin Test has anything to do with intelligence. No! The First Horseman was a cult leader called Pythagoras who died when he was seventy five around 500 BC.

    "OK! So who was the second horseman."

    Adam Smith's assertion that self interest in a free market unintentionally promotes the broader welfare of society. 

    "I thought there were four horsemen?"

    We'll know tomorrow.

In Opposition to Dualism

Marigolds

     My route through the many shapes and sizes of dualism does away with the many shapes and sizes of soul. Today I begin with Hindu Gitas one of which was written by a man called Ashtavakra, who offered a dialogue between a king and a sage, that suggests we should not try to be free, we are already free, it's an equivalent to the ego that wants to be something else and this something else causes misery, so why not ignore it.

    In another way, the king had an ambitious scared little shit inside him and that little shit needed to be bound and gagged and locked in a cupboard, rather than given an IPod, paraded around the Grocery Store, the Bookshop, the Grand Parade of adoring crowds.

     Ashtavakra's song wasn't about a stiff upper lip, grin and bear it, be brave you drip, it was about awareness and the illusion of separation. Truth was to be aware of the real which wasn't the body, or anything senses of mind could produce, it was an infinite, formless, awareness.

    This dive over the cliff for the sage was a claim that evidence from the senses were illusions, our reaction to the illusions would always be ill-informed, they'd always result in storm and stress, always result in the emptiness of misconception. 

    Between the sage and the king was the debate like the debate Tagore had with Einstein about the possibility of Objective Knowledge existing outside of our minds. Well worth the effort to point out that Ashtavakra had his being on earth something like four and half or five thousand years ago, and not a hundred years ago. 

    My own grasp of this objective/subjective thingy was first comfortably addressed in my mind by Bishop Berkeley. It was in a short book called Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge. The Anglican Bishop Berkeley explored his esse est percipi - to be is to be perceived - physical matter does not exist independently from the mind. Berkeley died in 1753. For a religious man he was the enlightenment personified, he was blessed by God, adored by the American Episcopalians and admired by Kant.

   In my view knowledge is useful, vital, essential for a state of mind if that state of mind is to manage a moment, find food and shelter, see a way to make it through yet another winter - as the Buddhist might have it, it's a raft to carry me across a river and once on the other side I should leave the raft on the river bank, not carry it with me. And, you better have your sums right if your ego demands you do something absurd like go to the moon. Good luck to you finding solace up there, because answerlessness is the reality. 

The Mobility Routine.

Blanket Flower

       "In the post meal window." This is a direct quote from a man who looks like an Aardvark advising me through a computer screen that long walks are better than short walks. And here I think my point is this : who needs faux professionalism from the set defined as first world self appointed witch doctors who call themselves influencers. Go ahead just call it dog do-do. No wonder we're doomed.

   Anyway, the post meal window is not the time to sit there wondering how many fungicides and pesticides the banana and grape jelly sandwich you've just swallowed has been subjected to. The Post Meal window is a moment of time when some sort of walking about in fresh air is essential for the health of your soul, to your socio economic sense of belonging, and as I understand it, defines where you stand on the swirl in a Double Caffè Latte and Craft Cheese Slices. 

    Now, take it from me, a person who once a year visits a big box bookshop to marvel at the prices of new books, it's a two hour drive from here, it has an egg-stained woolly sweater and runny nose feel to it, it has a busy espresso and sticky bun shop attached to it, and you do not denigrate the wonderfully ill-tempered, in the classically Italian tradition, barista or barman, by asking for a cup of coffee. They will look at you as though you might have crawled out from under a cowpat, and the world begins to feel like the civilization you know and love, so you smile warmly and sparkle.

     Then if you ask what their head office expects a lowly customer to understand by 'Protein' and whether "Caramel Protein Latte" has any coffee in it, the "have a nice day" of corporate barbarism returns, as if from a dentist a detailed explanation emerges, your toes curl and you slowly begin to understand that your "mobility routine" is to just stay home and wait to die.