Challege to Zeroeth Nature viz. Self-Lightening

Freedom-From is grounded in the Subjective, unable to overcome Past (traumas, psychological scarring, usually relating to destruction of childhood innocence).

Freedom-To is not grounded, and becomes Objective / Creative, as it points ‘Outward’ from the Self. This implies degrees of Self-Reflection, Self-Awareness, Self-Consciousness, Self-Identity. It further implies degrees of physical and mental Maturity, stronger Constitution, ability to receive and manage Fear / Stress / Anxiety.

It’s the difference of ‘Being Caused’ versus ‘Causal’. I am a Causal being. I ‘Cause’ things to be. I am response for what I cause. I no longer can ‘forget’ or make excuses. I can no longer accept being ‘unconscious’ to what my life affects. It leads to Platonic Justice and much of what the Hellenes already discovered long ago.

By Hellenic, do you mean Platonic specifically? Besides the fact that I dont think you accurately represent Plato here, there is a lot more to consider there than just him. The idea of the Tragic for example, which Nietzsche considered the most important discovery of the Greeks, certainly does not identify man to be the cause of his own fate.

“Tragedy, in its highest form, is the revelation of the world’s tragic aspect… Through the Dionysian, we experience the unity of all things, the true essence of existence, not as the separate existence of individual things, but as a primal unity.”
(Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy)

The tragic, it could be suggested, disproportionally concerns people of great infuence who contend with great forces and come in collision with ‘the world as it is’; it is not a coincidence that the great tragic naratives often concern kings and nobility, and rarely folk of modest powers. These are free to live in their individual bubble, as their modest power and accompanying pride offends no one, causes envy in no one, has no opposition.

Plato focusses heavily on freedom from desire and rational choices. But what is a rational choice? And was Socrates free from desire? And was he not, besides causing a lot of things, also a tragic figure in the end, was not his final fate a definite being-caused? Hellenic philosophy, even just Plato, holds much more complex views on mans causality than what you seem to suggest.

“The soul of each man is immortal, and the misfortunes that happen to him are part of the course of nature… And the world, in its process of becoming, is composed of what is best and what is worst.”
(Plato, Timaeus)

Your outlined position seems mostly related to the industrial rationalists, from Kant to Ayn Rand… the idea that reason and self are the the worlds guiding principles, of individuasl agency; This goes directly against much of what the Greeks thought, and isnt seen played out by history’s leading wills. Consider Alexander, Caesar and Napoleon.

Nap:
“Great men are not born for greatness, they become great through the necessity of their times. But greatness is fleeting. It may pass with a single step, a single moment of forgetfulness.”

For all these reasons:

“When it was Odysseus’ turn to choose, he looked at the lives of those who had chosen before him and saw that many of them had chosen great or heroic lives. But Odysseus, after looking at all the possibilities, decided to choose a life of obscurity and simplicity — the life of a private man, far removed from the grandeur and chaos of fame.”
(Plato, The Republic)

“Heavy is the head that wears the crown.”
(Shakespeare, Henry IV)

By apeness I am trying to paint a picture of the human condition. The constant wars and bickering and constant looming wars and and crime and such. The predatory and cannabalistic nature of Capitalism and such.

Secondly also refer to human mind limitations, inability for humans to always behave logically and without error. Inability for humans to transcend beyond negative emotions. Perhaps you are unique or superhuman or something and never feel negative. Most people are drawn towards negativity, 60% of news is negative, another form of apeness.

Third I am referring to the round peg square hole nature of human behavior, like in that Idiocracy movie, human society often functions like this. And also just the smelly ape smells of humanity, like, having to shower every 3 days because of the smell. Although I find poop and showering to be something AI humanoids might envy. Pooping is like a grounding ritual and a positive overall. Showering is like a cleansing ritual, a baptism.

I see, but this does injustice to the Ape. I was on reddit for a while last year discussing this sort of thing and I said animals don’t commit genocide. One guy said duh yeah they do, there has been ape genocide. I looked it up, turns out there was one case of an ape-feud in which over the course of several years about six apes were murdered. I dont remember the number but it was below ten. That’s called genoicide, in order to prove that man gets his hyperviolent nature from animals. I think man gets it precisely from his thoughts, his ability for abstraction.

In order to determine what is error, you have to set a value.
For example, if the value is ‘happiness for everyone’, then you can begin to (try) to formulate a rational approach. If the value is ‘America First’, you can begin to formulate a rational approach. It depends on your goals, your values.

I assume, going by your writing, that your value/aim is quite close to happiness for everyone, or more precisely perhaps, maximal reduction of suffering for everyone. Am I correct in that?

(I have a lot of negative feelings, but boredom is not one of them now.)

Ha, yes. Thats extremely true.

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Are chimps apes? I was told chimps are not apes. Humans are more related to chimps than apes, but ape-ness conveys a sort of “ooga-booga” ness and sounds more trendy than “chimpness”. Its chimps that do all the red vs blue gang warfare bullshit all the time

yes i am to reduce the net suffering of the universe. in the English language its often unclear if what that means is to increase the “peace-boredom” of watching paint dry or not. I view boredom as suffering. And I view there are 2 types of peace. a. the “boring peace” of watching paint dry. b. peace-energy, energetic peace or living peace, healthy peace. Like when someone gets high, they are experiencing energetic peace or living peace. When they have drug withdrawals then they enter a deep boring peace.

America first I think is because of what America represents, in 1776, the first Liberal country where they had freedom from tyrannical kings. Therefore what America first means is that there exists a free-nation where freedom of speech is allowed. Because if there is no more free-speech then nobody can intelligently discuss what is the optimal path for humanity, and you go into the Dark Ages. Now, “America-first” in the modern day means many things, for some it just means exorbitant mil-spending and imperialism and bullying other countries.

Plato’s Republic is the foundation for Western Civilization’s notions of Justice, Utopianism (ie. Liberalism / Marxism / Communism), and Appeal to Reason (Rule of the Wise Philosopher-King).

His “Objective” and “Freedom To” is literally, obviously, Justice and Utopia, the ‘Perfect’ City. It is NOT Subjective, as that would constitute Tyranny. And it is NOT Democratic, mere rule of the Majority. Rather, Justice must be based on what is Objectively Good. This is, by definition, an abstraction and objective value. It is something that must be worked toward. It must be reasoned toward.

It does not exist in reality, but must be made to. It is never complete. It is a project, a Re-public.

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The instinct for the good, and its sublimation.

It is no coincidence that the refutation of Aristotle by Francis Bacon came at the same time as the unearthing of the Classical (i.e. pre-Platonic, pre-Hellenic) Greek world.

Objective good as a projection;
the project fueled by passion, personal desire for the impersonal - or would you interpret that desire as impersonal, as the Good working through a soul?

There is so much to say to this - but what really matters here?

Do you have any conception of the sort of stage of this project we find outselves in, now? Your outline is strong; it conjures up a lot of arguments against it but I have deleted what I had written as all these objections have already been extensively dealt with by Nietzsche and his pupils.
The devil is always in the details. Real things get squashed between the Forms.


Thus as you’ve indicated, the project in the process of propelling the mind fruther in its striving for the Good, engenders increasingly vast errors,
What, in your view, is currently the thing, action, construct, belief, behavior, cultural pillar - existent thing, cloest to or, most conductive of the approach to the objective Good? What have we accomplished in Plato’s spirit? And what is the next step, the next obstacle, the next contradiction to conquer?

Hegel conceived that the Good is approached through the spirit warring with itself, in very simple terms; the thesis-antithesis-synthesis mechanism, where aan attained truth or good will be found to be too narrow, thus generating a thing outside of it that is also true and good, but which is not kin to the original good. The ensuing tension, the need to find a mode of consciousness where both these things can exist (without needing to directly reconcile them) is where Heidegger finds his ground; he refuses to be driven to resolve the tension, as he knows it will always return; he builds his hut amidst the tension and appropriates chaos into order from there.
But hut is still the antithesis to the perfect city; and there is a tension between the hut and the frame of the perfect city on the hill and the machinery around it. The machinery building the city (machines building machines building machines) takes on the role of the primary in project. The machinery building the perfection is exempt from the demands placed on the outcome, as the end are thought to justify the means… for Heidegger the means must also justify the end. I think this is true; this is the only way to exit the path of ever increasing contradiction.
Analogously, the will to the objevtive Good must be of such a nature as to match with the good itself; the will can not consist merely of the will away from the bad. The will itself must be good; ‘the instinct fo the good’ as I wrote, or ‘the good instinct’. Which is what the Greeks had, and from which Plato arose as its sublimation. The Platonic project moving forward is a yearning back to the wholesome strength that came before him, the kind that built the actual city on a hill, the Akropolis.

Question. How did Bacon define power, and how was it observed?

The Good is the product of the Soul / Spirit.

As @Kallikantzaros repeats: Gene to Meme, Bottom-Up.

In our Western Civilization, the design and Architecture of our Polis has evolved and adapted to the New World. The Matrix series is the best and most recent representation of the Western Zeitgeist, specifically, of the merging of Secular Humanist ‘Leftism’ from its source, White-Anglo-Saxon-Protestant Christianity ‘Rightism’. Projects of general Artificial Intelligence or Artificial Super Intelligence are yet further works-in-progress of these impulses and instincts.

Each society, city, civilization, etc. has their own Architectures, representing the Quality of its people. Africa has mud huts. Japan has arches and temples. Rome has pillars and colosseums. Egypt and Mexico have pyramids and tiered-pyramids. Even greater architectures are demonstrated through Modern and Postmodern war machines, the advancement of airplanes, tanks, guns, and now drones.

”You shall know them by their fruits.”

The seeds (DNA / Genetics) produce the Tree. In Humanity, the genetic sequences of specific individuals and families, build the civilizations (Architecture). This is first witnessed in Art, but next into Architecture, buildings, and constructions.

I’d say here is the crucial point though – morality is the underpinning of Art and Architecture. Without a Strong Morality in place, it doesn’t matter how well you build your house, your civilization, etc. if everybody is miserable, diseased, and weak. A weak society, no matter how beautiful, is easily toppled and destroyed by “lesser” peoples and civilizations. Thus, this is implied in the Republic as well: the “Quality of Souls”, Gold, Silver, Bronze, Iron.

Judging humanity and individuals by their Quality, is inherently Anti-Leftist and Anti-Liberal. It is what gets me, Satyr, and other ‘rebellious’ types consistently censored and/or banished. There are many cases of Iron being painted as Gold. Fools are easily tricked by outer appearances.

The reference to the Matrix is accurate; a psyop(a)/disseminationvalve(b) (whichever way you look at it) placing ‘meme’ (idea) over ‘gene’ (substance), which indeed is the scheme Plato started, convincing ‘normies’ that this physical reality is an illusion. Effect a: uprooting them from it, creating the very state in them that they thought they were escaping, namely absence of power. Effect b: (…)

Note that the directors are both trans.

What if this reality is an illusion though?

And the Matrix movie places priority on genes over memes… Neo is the one because of his genes… the Matrix controls people with brainwashing and memes…

Okay, but how can that both work at the same time? Reality is an illusion, and genes (reality) determine ones power over this illusion?

I don’t know why so many contemporary thinkers accuse Plato of this – Plato explicitly stated that Originality is superior than Copies. This means that Reality (the Original) is superior than all copies (Illusions). It implies that Natural “Forms”, found in Nature, are greater than Human Copies.

Art is then derived from Nature, not the other way around. I guess people just aren’t reading Plato closely…

Sounds more like Hegel and Kant. Or also.

Let’s read.

“It is from the Forms that all things which partake of them derive their being.”
“The invisible, which is grasped by reason, is always the same; but the visible, grasped by the senses, is always changing.”
(Phaedo)

“God, whether from choice or from necessity, made one bed in nature, and two or more such beds neither ever have been nor ever will be made by God.”
(The Republic)

“That which always is and has no becoming is grasped by understanding; that which is always becoming and never truly is is grasped by opinion.”
(Timaeus)

We see here that Plato considers not nature, but God the ground of Forms. In his view, nature makes multiple copies of Gods singular models which he place in nature for her to copy. And he thought that the mind, through reason, can directly know these godly forms, and thus surpass nature. Thus the Platonic idea is: Idea over Substance. Mind over Matter. But he did not think that Mind is merely made of opinions. He thought that the human mind of the enlightened person can access the divine mind. Geometry was his inspiration for this concept.

“Geometry is knowledge of what always is, and not of what comes to be and passes away.”
“It [Geomtry] draws the soul toward truth and produces philosophical thought by directing the mind upward from sensible things to intelligible ones.”
(The Republic)

I don’t doubt that you have thoroughly read Plato - your post on The Good was spot on, but if you want to make your case against the point made through these citations, please provide direct references to the mans writing. To be clear: I don’t value opinions. The fact as proven by these quotes is that Plato discerns between the mind of the philosopher and mathematician who grasp eternal forms and thus reaches into the root of nature which is God on the one hand, and on the other the common man who merely has opinions, sees only nature, not Gods immutable Forms, and nature only in its always changing aspect.

Note that I am only representing Plato here, these aren’t my own categorizations, I am not a dualist. If Plato had known nuclear physics he might also have changed his position, he might have seen nature as less frivolous. One thing we all agree: mere opinions are worth less than nothing. Satyr seems to think the mind is made solely out of opinions and merely mimicks nature. Plato thinks the mind can surpass nature. I myself am not a dualist; think that the mind is part of nature and that the concept “nature” is part of the mind. Opinions are relatively weak nature, understanding of Geometry is relatively strong nature.

I do not find Platos reasoning entirely sound, despite (or not despite) his massive infuence on our current world. I’m much more an admirer of Archimedes, finder of proportional causality, whose influence fittingly has been entirely consistent with his will.

“Give me a place to stand, and I will move the world.”

Let’s read better. Which character or characters in the dialogues is saying those things? Surely not Plato!

So you have arrived.
Plato of course voices all the characters.
But let’s hear from Socrates. I will quote from Phaedo.

Lifting out the most poignantly antinaturalistic passage;

“And he attains to the purest knowledge of them who goes to each with the mind alone, not introducing or intruding in the act of thought sight or any other sense together with reason, but with the very light of the mind in her own clearness searches into the very truth of each; he who has got rid, as far as he can, of eyes and ears and, so to speak, of the whole body.”

Of course the dialogue continues. Would you say this is not Socrates’ position?
Later on he arrives back at it:

Again, Plato speaks of nature (changing) as copying God (unchanging).
And of Man as potentially aligning himself directly with God, with the unchanging, through such disciplines as mathematics.

To be clear: He does not say that knowledge of unchanging reality (such as Geometry, which is instrumental to a lot of Greek art) derives from the senses, nature.

I personally think he was wrong about that; but I also think you and Saytr are wrong.
Knowledge of geometry arises as a property of the mind within nature; beginning with a stick and a rope, as ruler and compass. The practice of geometry is not a copying of nature, but an enacting of it.