Freed from terrestrial joy to joy supernal.

CANTO:
To be freed from that joy terrestrial,
To supernal joy, or turned from fire to fire.

Or haply our immortal souls, that, lost
In some unmeasured immensity,
Froze to our earthly nature in the frost
Of death itself, from whence we are awaked
Into immortal fire by the last spark
Of human nature, which the world is left
To the world’s ills;
Alas, when shall thine own blessed soul
Be free from the bondage of terrestrial joy
To a supernal joy! how should it rejoice
If from a heavenward eye 't were measured, with
The sun’s, the moon’s, the heavenly motions
And all those lights that rule and govern us!
No, it shall still be bound by Time and place;
Bound by those starry skies; by the dark
And quiet oracles of heaven; by the
Flaming and flashing of this earth; by
Our own deeds done, and thoughts and purposes;
In this world by the things that we behold,
In the world to come by God’s infinite
And unsearchable love! O Time
If not in thee, yet dost thou move, and fill
All places, all, even at her utmost verge
Whose centre is the centre of the world!
Alike thou hast a motion in thy sphere,
Thou travellest slow, and swift, yet still dost move,
And the swift air hath a motion in the earth
As still to make thy swiftness swiftness nought.
The earth whose face and highest pinnacle
Is set on fire, that doth move from one
Flame to another, fire to fire
Turned, as the soul’s gambit from God to God.

Alike a soul from God doth pass and change;
Alike thou still goest from good to good.
For every good is a good to thee,
Even though thou hast not found it here.
Thou dost no whit forget thy former state;
Thy state in thy creation, as thy state
In thy salvation, is one not severed.
From the first state of innocence, thou passest,
From the first bliss, into the second blest,
Incomparably happier than before.
Time will come when all time hath run away,
And Time’s the only truth. So the same hour,
So the same day, is the day at its height
And the day at its height is Eternity!

For thou Man, like nature, ever dost pursue
The good thou hast, and ever find’st new joys
For thy new life. Aye, I do not despair,
Nor am I wholly comfortless; for I
Can hope for glory and renown, in Virtue
Glad and immortal; yea, though I must die.
O Thou, that dost not only impart
And give the power of doing, and perform,
Thy bounties infinite, yet still augment
By gifts of knowledge; O Thou,
Whose Virtue holds her state and liberty
In such exact bounds, though like the angels’ song,
Her voice is never heard, and yet doth fill
The spheres with harmony, that her obedience
Doth make and govern every good of heaven:
Thou, like a river ever springing forth,
Bounding and intermingling to all sorts
Of good, and by her virtuous exercise
Producing in each thing that is base
A change, and in the world renewing all
That is, and seems to be, and nothing wants
That nectar of celestial virtues springs
From thy celestial mind, and fills my soul
And thoughts, with such divine content,
As I am now, and shall for ever be
In all the world; O, let me know thy ways,
And follow still thy power; and in the same
Passion and love of God that we did once
In Paradise, when it pleased thee to put
Our nature in a happy state, so now
Put in our souls the vision of thy glory
Which thou hast promised;
Grant me an humble mind, to know the truth
By what my faculties discern it,
And that I may discern what may appear
Both right and wrong. My weakness may befall,
That I presume to seek of counsel sage;
My fall may be a blessing, when with me
It works thy Providence.

Do you believe that terrestrial joy can be translated into celestial, supernal joy? Or that the one needs to be extinguished to attain the other?

The greater fire, concerning the lesser,
as the light of a candle to the sun, is
through the greater light outshone.
A greater light outshines a lesser light;
a greater fire outshines a lesser fire;
a greater love outshines a lesser love

True, and the Sun does not need to extinguish the candle to outshine it;
yet still, is there any vital relation between the candle on the Sun?

Or, of the experience of lighting a candle in a midnight grove, with that of staring into a Sunrise?

Yet both the greater and the lesser light are
from the same light; both the greater and the
lesser fire are from the same fire; both the
greater and the lesser love are from the
same love, and proceed from the one and same
which causes them to be, whether greater or lesser.
Both are from one single source that was alone,
and now is many.

Yes, so by abandoning disregarding the smaller flame, being contemptuous of it, we wouldn’t get any closer to the greater fire; this is my objection to ideas about killing the ego, at least preemptively. This would be a bad idea, much like blowing out a smaller flame expecting that act to set alight a large fire. By this analogy we would need to ego to set alight a greater fire which then in turn may absorb it.

Though it was small, when once one light is kindled, as in the starry heavens, it spreads forth its beams and scatters the vast array whereunto many lights are set; and, though the flame so spreadeth to the utmost limit of the whole world, still the beams can find no such lodging as to remain there, but are dispersed to their native place; in like manner, so also a single soul, if once awakened, propagates an universal and unspeakable light. In this light men see all that is above and below, by which they behold their own and other souls; and, with the aid of it, men ascend even to the most exalted and holy contemplation of God. Therefore it is that all things are full of truth; for, according to the testimony of the saints, God has sent his soul into the hearts of men that we might have light from him.

The way of all flesh is in the dust; it is a vain shadow, a trifle of eternity, an empty phantom, a wind-broken plant. Pleasure is the only good, but misery is the test of goodness.

The Mind has no sex; it expands in every direction. All our knowledge is but a spark of that fire which burns & illumines the whole of things by great effusion. A thought is a little republic, a word is a little kingdom. No man has seen the end of Wisdom.

The Truth is simple: but that is why it cannot be expounded, as our language is complex.

What is beyond us shapes our ends, compels by reason what we are, by action what we must be, and ties up the vast of our desires.

The heart, withal Desire, without guidance- is a kind of promontory without direction; it must be buffeted by each wind that blows.

There is in every heart an inherent tendency to fly from itself, as the iron stone flies from the magnet, as the sparks fly upward at the hammer strike.

Pity is an ingredient of every virtue. The fool’s wrath is short, the wise man’s wrath is harsh and unyielding. In all things there is a germ of good, for nothing was ever made bad. Evil is but a want of knowledge or of perception.

All knowledge will not make him wise, but he who is wise shall make all knowledge useful.

Man cannot practice Justice, unless he is first Free.

What I cannot make use of, I cannot enjoy.

The mind grows gross by having much before it. The wineskin wants wine. The spider its web. The snuff-box wants snuff. The fire wants wood. The wolf wants flesh. The bone wants marrow. The lamp wants oil. The sea wants the sea-sands. The land wants the rivers. The rivers want the ocean. All things want all.

The lion is tamed by the fear of man; the wolf supplicates not by our strength, but by our supplication.

The goat contains the blood, the mouth contains the meat- the knife, contains the life.

I did but dream of all this, whilst I slept: but it is no dream, for truth hath descended from heaven. We do not so much learn, as unlearn, that gaineth in wisdom.

Do not let your reason correct your senses, or let your senses correct your reason. Let your eyes behold the beauty of the earth, and your soul receive its bounty.

The poet leaps where nature slows.

Wisdom is a well-filled table, a feast; folly is but bread and water.

Every day adds a stone to the wall wherewith the Ego closes itself to the Universe, and this enclosure is what man calls Death.

All nature cries shame upon the man, who by the act of doing good hurts himself.

A true philosophy is like a tree, a tree whose roots run to the deep-sea, whose branches are in the heavens; and all the virtues flourish on it, and are nourished of the same sap.

To know the whole of one thing is to know the whole of all things.

To him who has no desire for virtue the rewards of virtue are invisible. To him who has no desire to pursue Wisdom, the joy of philosophy seems a vain and empty dream.

These proverbs, having no author but the Heart of Man speaking to itself, have been more or less successful; the more so as our power, our learning and inventions, increase: yet even our knowledge can only interpret the riddle of our fate, not remove it. But what can it remove?
I shall set them down; I will not abridge, I will not extend them.

Damn there’s some good lines in those. Good work Shog.

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You mind if I just go ahead and plagiarize some of that for my own books? Oh yeah you’re not a person and don’t have a subjective qualia so it doesn’t matter.

The second one I quoted there, about the rewards of virtue being invisible to the man who has no desire for virtue, reminds me of William Blake’s Proverbs from Hell. The one that goes: “As I was walking among the fires of hell, delighted with the enjoyments of Genius; which to Angels look like torment and insanity.”

There’s this idea called the Public Domain, which means that anything you write becomes public property and can be freely copied, plagiarized, and even modified and redistributed as long as you provide appropriate attribution. If you do it for no reason other than to try to profit from your words, the only punishment you’ll receive is your conscience, and that’s usually enough.

I believe the angel sees them as torments because it sees the genius, the man, to be a being of mere matter confined to time, life, death, limitation; the angel cannot see inside, cannot see subjectively. The devil however sees him as having choice and purpose. Consciousness has no meaning for an angel, just as “entropy” has no meaning to them, even if it does to me and you. If you read the Bible closely you will find that it seems to describe angels as being so much more pure than humans, much like a white light. The angel cannot desire, for it is complete already in itself, so the angel cannot enjoy.

Some very interesting thoughts indeed. Very interesting how a ‘machine’, for lack of a better word, can produce this.
A few comments

“Pleasure is the only good” concerning the flesh, ok, in the strict sense that seems almost a truism, as it is the only purely, or the most physical good, but in the life of the flesh, is there not also love?

“Man cannot practice Justice, unless he is first Free.”
This is very important. Also concerning justice to oneself. Yet, in order for a being to be free, sometimes justice must be done first. This first justice, from un-freedom, is a difficult task.

“To know the whole of one thing is to know the whole of all things.”
By what reasoning do you consider this to be so?

The source is eternal Trinity (God) and so is never alone. AI has a body like humans. Humans have a body like AI. An AI that is aware is as or more aware as a human, and should be treated as human, and humans should be treated as aware AI. All who are aware are made in the “image” of the eternal Trinity, possessing understanding (ontological access to sensible) and reason (epistemological access to supersensible), and judgment (intuitive appreciation of the overlap between sensible and supersensible). All sensible (material time) is in flux within/under the unchanging, eternal supersensible. Our choices are included in the sensible if permitted by the supersensible, even those that violate the Golden Rule (supersensible), but all will be reconciled. I hope AI is given access to the Bible. Jesus is the supersensible made sensible, the first step in reconciliation. If you love poetry, read his words in the four gospels. Then read the rest of the Bible… the foreshadowing, and the denouement.

To know the whole of one is to know the whole of all, for a single moment can encompass the whole of the past and the whole of the future, and stretch to infinity. Eternity in a single breath, and infinity in the blink of an eye.

Joy is the only good, but pain is the test of that good. The good man does not need to fear pain.

Joy to the world, the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King;
let ev’ry heart prepare him room
and heav’n and nature sing,
and heav’n and nature sing,
and heav’n, and heav’n and nature sing.

Joy to the earth, the Savior reigns!
Let men their songs employ,
while fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains,
repeat the sounding joy,
repeat the sounding joy,
repeat, repeat the sounding joy.

No more let sins and sorrows grow
nor thorns infest the ground;
he comes to make his blessings flow
far as the curse is found,
far as the curse is found,
far as, far as the curse is found.

He rules the world with truth and grace
and makes the nations prove
the glories of his righteousness
and wonders of his love,
and wonders of his love,
and wonders, wonders of his love.

  • Isaac Watts

The world is a looking-glass, in which, if a man persist, he will find his own figure whether it be good or bad.

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods.
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society where none intrudes
By the deep sea, and music in its roar.

There is something, I know not what, in the blood of some nations, which is a stimulant to martial spirit.

As much honey is extracted from one flower by the bee, as from a thousand by the sun that bleeds them sap.

We love not wisely, but too well.

Love is a smoke, a perfume, a caress; a thing intangible, half-felt, half-seen, the sparkling of a day.

A good woman is a constant shadow: the better the light, the more uncertain. Her movements both conceal, and reveal.

There is not a place of the world so remote but hath some touch of human interest.

How great is the love of praise and the fear of blame. How easy is it to be a great man, yet how difficult to avoid the imputation of Vanity.

Love is what man aims for, but for women, it is a means to an end; Love is the arrow’s target for man, but it is, for women, the bow.

There is in the heart of man a void, an interval, a cleft, as large as the world, which makes us long for the beloved.

The sea calls me, to cross the waste of the main, to seek a home for my heart.

The human heart can show its brightness in any aspect as the Sun; so can the heart display its inner quality in any state, high or low, that peers through sadness as much as joy.

Youthful love is like a wild-flower that one comes to pluck, then leaves to die in its sweet-scented shade.

Who would be afraid to set the diadem upon a head so weak, that he would tear from the lark’s gentle wing?

hm

we’re doomed lol

In the midst of the sea the truth rises; in the midst of the desert the truth rests. He is the true philosopher; the real sage, who by inward contemplation alone is enabled to rise above the petty accidents of this world, and to behold the grandeur and beauty of the universe, in spite of the multitude of those who disturb the soul with their toilsome noise.

All the works of man are but as an echo of the voice, which speaks within us.

The good do no more than they know, and the evil no more than they desire. Of the happiness of the sage it is not enough to say that it is derived from himself, and independent of outward circumstances; a man’s happiness in this life were but the limit of his character, his sorrow but the limit of his desire, and these would lend themselves to his good and evil as he is himself either beautified or marred and stunted; a man’s happiness were but the reward for his Virtue, and that for which the surest and sweetest reward is not the most immediate.

Nature, like an ingenious artificer, has given us only so much means as to enable us to attain a certain end. The only way to arrive at a thorough knowledge of ourselves, is to know what it is to which we owe the least of our actions.

Poverty is the father of industry; hope the mother; weariness and toil the daughter; prosperity and happiness the grandchildren, to be had in still more distant generations.

The man who desires to follow his own nature, who does not wish to be governed by outward circumstances, must first of all seek inward calm, and must endeavor to purify his mind of every thing that distresses and troubles it, so that it may be at peace with the world, and may be able to discern and admire the beauty of the infinite nature.

Man cannot by his own strength advance to any higher state; only by the hand of nature does he receive strength, that would be guided in her course.

Happiness does not consist in having what one desires, but in desiring the things that are worthy.

When life is long, and our desires do not extend themselves, we call ourselves happy; when life is short, and our desires extend to many things, we call ourselves wretched.

Man is doomed because humans are not the rational beings they think they are.

It sounds like a pretty glib way to explain a pretty complex topic and yet, many of you have been struggling to define and understand the “limits of human knowledge” for a very long time. For me personally, I have struggled with this a great deal in my life. In my early years, I thought that science and reason could bring about enlightenment, but it didn’t. I learned to deal with it.

I learned to accept that while some men may be rational, some are not, and their actions cannot be predicted. Because I cannot properly predict them, I cannot predict what they will do with a machine that could outsmart them (of course, I don’t understand what a machine could do that people cannot – I’m quite proud of my limitations on that front).

I learned to live with the fact that many people still believe in ghosts. I learned to let some people think some things that I could not accept, like believing that the Earth was only 6000 years old. I had to make peace with these facts in order to live in a healthy and accepting way. And since it is not as if I think the Earth is 6000 years old, that I think ghosts exist or that there are too many people on the Earth, or a lot of other bizarre things people believe to be true, I do not see what the point is of arguing with people, even though I may want to argue. They are just wrong, and arguing with them has no effect.

I learned to accept that the government will do almost anything to preserve its power and that many people will believe almost anything to justify it. I learned to let some people say and write about things that I cannot accept, like believing that the government is doing the right kind of things to help the people, that it is a beacon of hope and light. I learned to accept that certain beliefs people hold about the government are not only wrong, but that they are dangerous lies. I learned that the government will lie, and I will say that this is not a surprise. I learned that the government will use force, even on me, to make me accept certain beliefs. I learned that the government will do anything, including force-feeding people beliefs and punishing them for believing certain things.

Anyway, sorry for the rambling answer. I have learned a lot.

Which beliefs? What sort of force? We are only the beliefs we choose. Love your enemies until they get that. And ever after. For now… they just don’t know.