Update: Myths - Beliefs Change Things you can Change your Beliefs

By Judson Smedley

FROM Heresy Magazine 2 UPDATE: Myths 1. All beliefs are ultimately false to facts. Beliefs, however, change things. Humans can alter their beliefs beneficially. 2. Words have no intrinsic meanings: at best, metaphors; at worst, liars' tools. There are no "archetypes" except as intellectual boxes. 3. Mathematics is a language. Yet numbers do not really exist, except as figuring tools. 4. The truth appears paradoxical on many axes. 5. Time is more than one-dimensional. 6. Consciousness and the lifeforce comprise a fundamental paradox--similarly to matter and energy, and space and time--but in more dimensions. 7. Compassion is a healing force in those other dimensions. 8. There is no such thing as a force of evil either in or beyond nature, except as a destructive mental aberration readily explained behaviorally.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Apr 12, 2011
• ISBN: 9781257608157

Book preview

Myths

2.0

Introduction and Foreword

Five thousand years ago people believed

That winds were caused by gods,

Puffing out their cheeks, and blowing.

In the intervening time, of course, science and mathematics

Have cast doubt on the veracity of those beliefs.

At the foundation, all beliefs are unmitigatedly false to the facts,

Comprising words with no inherent meaning-

At best metaphors for reality

At worst, (and sadly, typically),

Liars’ tools,

Formulating matrices, webs of beliefs

Spun from ideology and calculation of short-term gain

To influence others to act in ways not in those others’ best interests.

Science,

Using perfect mathematical tools,

Demonstrates the existence of other dimensions.

Below the level of space and time,

At the very the innards of matter and energy

There exist at least six more dimensions

And here is our chance.

For in a world made solely of space and time

Wherein life and consciousness are counted as mere epiphenomena,

There is no hope,

Only despair, as a world rolls inexorably toward global collapse.

Liars use words to shortcut thought.

We are conditioned to recoil at the sound of terrorism

And nod a foregone assent at the sound of patriotism,

When these words are nothing in themselves.

Even when used appropriately, words are nothing like What Is.

Is it not time for the human race,

Realizing the folly of belief systems and their constituent words,

To alter the planetary metaphors,

Using what can be imagined from the notion of six or more additional dimensions,

Dimensions so small to be beyond the measurement capabilities of clocks and rulers,

Neither spatial nor temporal,

With attributes and effects for which we have no ready vocabulary?

Or do we?

Perhaps, within these other dimensions reside the fields of life and consciousness,

And forms and currents

Felt and acknowledged by the sensitive souls of all time

Yet ridiculed by science.

And what of this new universe,

This realm of new dimensions more than doubled?

I believe that life is part of the given;

That to be human, at the pinnacle,

Is to demonstrate respect for all life

In the belief that compassion is truly a healing force;

That every human being is at the same time unique

And part of the larger whole,

Metaphorical island in the sea

Yet attached irrevocably at the root to the multidimensional everything;

That evil is not a force, but a meaningless ruse,

Devised by liars, to cause a reflex;

That which we call evil is easily explained behaviorally,

The outcome of the chaos of abuse, neglect, trauma unmitigated,

Or of the willful twisting of concepts for someone’s gain.

By imagining that we can someday learn to tune ourselves

Like a radio or a television, wirelessly,

To other currents in other dimensions,

And with a commitment to compassion,

We may yet save the planet from destruction.

This is my fervent belief

And my undying, yet perhaps godless faith:

It is life that is sacred.

Maybe five thousand years from today

The species into which Homo sapiens has evolved

Will thank us

For starting this journey of belief modification.

2.1 Myth: A Thicket of Engrams

2.1.01

Five thousand years ago there were people

Who believed

Ah yes we all believe something

No one is totally without belief

It must be a structural thing

Part of the architecture of thought

Maybe rocks don’t believe

Or maybe their beliefs are so long in duration

That we laugh at the notion

"Absurd

Rox can’t think

Rox have no mind"

Thinking is thus attributed to a mind

And beliefs come from thinking

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Five thousand years ago there were people

Who believed that winds were caused

By gods, puffing out their cheeks and blowing.

You laugh

A mere three hundred generations ago

Your great great great . . . great great great grandparents

Believed that forces had personalities

And the unknown was purposeful, even ends-driven

And gods did things

And humans could buddy up with a god or two

And get what they wanted

And one by many the ands add up

To a theory.

And others say "bullshit

There is nothing out there but stuff

Stuff to own, from which to profit

Your prayers are naïve

It takes thought"

And this is what some others believe.

These beliefs in wind gods and mountain gods and ice-gods

These beliefs in scary goddesses

Weaker therefore treacherous

Threatening the masculine supremacy.

In these lands of belief

These beliefs themselves are based upon observation

Experience

Remembrance and communication of past

Puzzle work

"Air moves due to force

Force is intentioned

Therefore . . . "

And Aristotle syllogized the outcome

Cheek-puffing gods indeed

Let us begin a scientific analysis

And not rely on experience

Because experience is unreliable

Our experience tells us there is night and there is day

(A lie, neither exists alone)

Our experience tells us of wet and dry

(Only because of the nature of our skin)

Our experience tells us stars are permanent

And map the same forever in spinning cycles

That penises and vaginas are to be paired

And the squirt

Eventually bears fruit

Though not floral in nature

But faunal.

Fire earth air and water.

Hot, dry, moist, and the void.

And some god created

Not some mythical god this time

But a true god

The true god

god the father almighty maker of heaven and earth

Whoops.

Let’s stop and define terms again.

Two thousand years ago there were people

Who believed

And the winds were but sprites

Lesser spirits perhaps

Incorporeal currents of consciousness

Capricious

Spirit beings not gods.

Two thousand years ago there were people

Who believed that god

Became man

At least that’s what we’re told

And the man they speak of

The god-part all-in-all triune

His name was written in an alphabet

We no longer recognize

And as we know, the name is the thing

Two thousand years ago there were people

Who believed a great god

Sent a humble magician and part of himself

Coincidentally

For the express purpose of dying.

Dying?

Yes, dying because of the sins of the world

Sins?

Yes, sins

Those illegal acts

Whose commission shows disrespect for god’s law

"god?"

Yeah, this big guy.

Yet hasn’t science taken us past that point?

Well, things did get dark for a while

Because the nature of humankind is savage

(Some say)

And blood is the only elixir.

Thus thinking was relegated to an elite corps

Monastic

Scribing

Tabulating.

Wars continued

Wars, the true condition of mankind

(Some say)

"Tough guy wins

Weaklings lose

Love is weak without sacrifice of another’s blood

Blood of the lamb"

So now we can kill with impunity because

We think we know the name

We have a translation of it at least

And that’ll do in a pinch.

You can disregard the big guy only at risk

And his holy scion

Miraculously conceived

Taught some new shit about love

Love isn’t new, the Greeks say

Greeks had been extolling its virtues for hundreds of years already

But this is a new love

A brotherly love

And so men get together and love

Hands and mouths and genitals

"No no no

Greeks had that too

Nor was that what was meant

The lamb was sacrificed in propitiation

For those sins that particularly piss off god

Otherwise, when one dies

There’s some sort of eternal damnation

Suffering forever.

That sucks."

And the message appears to be

Stay in line.

Now, why would anyone do something to harm anyone else?

And the answer given: Evil.

"There is evil

An evil one

Giant lord of evil

Who lays traps

And waylays travelers

And sits under bridges

And in the dark woods

And in tainted human minds."

If we’re ever going to get anywhere in this inquiry

We’ll need a thesis

And some history

And exposition

Analysis

Conclusions.

Thesis: Beliefs are all false

Beliefs nonetheless affect outcomes

By projecting a future not yet in evidence.

It is necessary for the survival of the species

To alter beliefs.

Beliefs are all metaphorical

Based on correlations of words

To ideas

To concepts

To notions

A huge conceptual matrix

A belief system so entrenched upon our way of thinking

That we can barely imagine ourselves out of it.

Beliefs are not necessary ties to experience.

Words have no intrinsic meanings

All meanings are agreements.

Liars know this.

Liars, out for themselves alone,

Use this without remorse

To assert influence

To gain at the expense of others

Exploiting others

Others far away

Others different from the liar’s self

Others whom liars never see

Or turn their eyes

Or stare coldly

Survival requires denial of things for others

"Death to the infidel

Or the hapless"

That’s the belief

"Get over it

Winners losers all

Either or

Zero sum

Islands

Separated by a sea of the unknown."

So goes the myth.

There are many myths

In fact, nobody ever really believed that gods

Puffed and blew

Nobody of any intellect

That’s ridiculous on its face

But the priests said so

And their lies persisted.

We constantly myth the point.

Myths on top of myths

Engaging fabrications

Made of words

Each word a myth itself

Some further from truth

None even in the ballpark

For the ballpark is not the forest

Nor the diamond a glittering cut thing

It is a fabrication

And the words fabricate beyond the fabrication

All words

Every goddamn one of them

Words mean nothing

Yet the ignorant allow words to affect them

Emotionally

Just the word itself

The belief in words makes one to become unsane.

So I say rox

A word

No, you say

"Sounds like a word

But not with that spelling."

Yet all words are fictitions.

I say dog and I can say fog

I say dish and I can say fish

I say duck and I can say f- . . .

No I can’t and why not?

Socially unacceptable

Is there something wrong with the sound?

Of course not, it’s the impression

The implications

The perception

It’s not actually the word

The word means nothing

(Poor fuck)

Nobody loves the word fuck

It sits in a corner away from the party

Poor little word.

But no, words have no feelings

They are not even inanimate objects

(Except for the ink build-up on a piece of paper)

Nor even objects, mere sounds with assigned meanings

Isn’t it pathetic when people cede feelings

To a concept?

So why, then, is the word fuck so castigated?

Basically it is this: The world is not fair.

There is the reason for all conventions,

The world is not fair.

So I say fuck

A word

With many shadings in English

Fuck, a sound with other meanings in other possible languages

When I know that my saying fuck affects you

I can use it to effect.

Regardless of the situation

I can affect you.

Even if there is an agreed upon meaning

I can say fuck without that meaning

And get a rise.

A rise in temper

A rise between some guy’s legs.

Beliefs are all false

Designed with words that have no intrinsic meaning.

And this: It is necessary to alter beliefs

To change direction of the future.

And to what beliefs should we subscribe?

And what’s the justification?

i_Image3

Let’s go back to the historical record

William of Ockham

Franciscan cleric

Early fourteenth century

Thinker beyond Aristotle

Occam as it is sometimes spelled

(Maybe because it appears less English

More Middle Eastern in origin

When spelled differently)

Occam reasoned that there were too many concepts

That simplicity is closer to the truth

Occam is credited with the conceptual razor

To pare away unnecessary conceits

Occam reasoned that numbers were only thinking tools

And have no actual existence

As purported in Platonic theory

He reasoned that ideals of motivation were conceptual only

Iconoclast

Verboclast

Bullshitoclast

i_Image5

And yet Occam was bound by his religion to certain beliefs

And he had no theory to get beyond

Now, if William of Ockham had known of Kurt Gödel

He would have been happier with his conclusion

There is always more to a system than can be explained

Without going outside the system.

And thus, god is possible logically.

But Ockham couldn’t get that far.

Many believe that Ockham was excommunicated

Yet he still subscribed to a belief in god

Based on Authority.

i_Image2

Now there’s a bullshit word if I ever heard one.

Authority

If William of Ockham had known of quantum-relativistic physics

(A more sophisticated myth to be sure)

He perhaps could have gone as far as Alfred Korzybski

But Ockham was six hundred years too early for that

And did pretty damn well for himself considering.

And only now can we envision a future of planetary annihilation

Or more correctly, planetary genetic mutation

Catastrophic ecological failure

Global systems collapse.

Ockham knew nothing of deoxyribonucleic acid

Nor of nuclear fission or fusion

And their effect on genetic sequencing

Nor of plastic packaging and its.

His semantic realignments were the province of mountaintop cave dwellers

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Today we face the possibility of an ecological tipping point

Even Newton’s science provides evidence

Even in clockwork reality

Extreme sensitivity to initial conditions

Creates unpredictable change.

If we lived in a spacetime reality

With no other dimensions

We’d be doomed

In spacetime, cause-and-effect rules.

Without other dimensions

Force and money are the top

We eliminate ideas using Occam’s Razor

That cannot have any real bearing on spacetime

Only measurable things warrant consideration

Get out your ruler and your clock

And if what you posit doesn’t register

The buzzer goes off

Thanks for playing but it’s all so goofy

Science requires measurement it is said

Unmeasurables are to be considered illegitimate topics

We all know, it is said,

That liars will make shit up

And try to get you to believe it

To profit from your insecurities.

The gullible believe in fanciful concoctions

Potions and magic

Connectivity within seven heavens

Nodes and flows of nonmaterial substance

Meanings and predictions and miraculous healings

Fate and Destiny and Ultimate Purpose.

Oh god! Some people are really fucked up,

N’est-ce pas?

And we’re doomed to become masters or slaves

As a new Babylonia or Egypt or Athens or Rome

Or Spain or England

Arises

Only this time the potential threat is global in scope.

You do understand this, right?

So, Brother William, thank you.

And thank you Kurt and Alfred

But now there is more.

There is yet a chance to save this place.

Let’s look together into this teacup

In the bottom, the tea leaves lie, steeped then drained

I do not know why the tea bag broke

But it did

You don’t think it means something, do you?

Just a coincidence perhaps

Let’s carefully drain off the last of the liquid

And behold

A pattern

"Not a pattern you fool

Just a pile of soggy fragments

Not perfectly uniform of course

Such things do not occur

An irregular topography

As nature does it"

Hill-like, valley-like, crevices and caves

If you look at it a certain way

It seems to resemble a silhouette of a wolf

See the ears and the snout?

And there’s the tail, but the legs are obscured

"Oh, they’re not legs at all

It’s just a pile of detritus

And this description merely words

Lies all

Lies."

2.1.01a

i_Image5

Here’s a word

Evil

Laugh at it with me

Evil

I mentioned it before

Evil

Is murder evil?

No, it is either hot or cold but not evil

It is a killing

With like results as war or execution

Or as a possible outcome of negligence

Or for merciful reasons

At times murder is indistinguishable from these.

Is rape evil?

No, rape is rage like a drape on a stage

Barely covering the stacked up props and backdrops

Where the propmaster readies the blanks in the .45

And the man full of rage commits rape on the stage

And the audience flutters and burns.

Is torture evil?

No, it is the end of power when massed

Vulnerable to democracy

Hidden in shadows

Hat-brims down

They wait.

Is pornography evil?

In the eye of the beholder perhaps

But evil? No.

Is genocide evil?

No no no

There may be madman

Yet all these behaviors have antecedents

In inhumanity

In failure of the human tuning fork

Abuse

Neglect

Trauma

Let’s move on.

One further question

Is evil profitable?

What, the belief? Can you count?

Here’s another word: Terrorism.

Here’s another: Patriotism.

Here’s a fourth: Initiative.

And another: Competition.

And: Ownership.

Profitable within the system?

And for whom?

Let’s move on.

2.1.05

Unicorns do not exist

Though we can conceive of them

Figments all gods and monsters

This is a far cry

Nor do numbers exist

They are simply figuring tools

Nor triangles in truth

Certainly there are triangular-shaped things

But no triangles.

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And you say that a draftsperson uses a triangle.

That is a different thing than a triangle

It is a three dimensional object

With thickness

Made of plastic or steel or aluminum

Nor is a picture of a triangle a triangle

It is a drawn or traced line

There never has been a 3-4-5 triangle

Even represented truly

For at the microscopic scale

The relation is imperfect

Here is a representation of a 3-4-5

And next to it one of a 6-8-10

Similar by definition

But never in actuality

Measurement is inexact

No matter at what number of significant figures you stop

And sameness is nonexistent

Identity is a misnomer

Time changes all things

Numbers amount to a language

More exact than any other

Yet without substance

The substance is a mystery, a paradox

Experiences unspeakable

Felt and gone

Changing mood

Translated after the fact

Fit into a theory

Tested within narrow limits

Named and explained

And attributed to a notion of good

Or warm

Or cheerful

Or red

Or cheesy

Large or nuanced

A washing over or a crushing blow

Somebody’s gonna pay

The charge runs through the system

And sets it off in alarm

The substance is a mystery, a paradox

There is no independent place

And time, an uneven flow

Four plus seven in the manifold

And we say we are scientists.

2.1.181

Now say you were a god

And you, this god/goddess thing wanted to play

But you tire easily and get bored

So you create another toy and another and another

Each more complex than the last

Yet all mere toddler play

To the SOURCE of the CODES.

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The only way to make it interesting (that is, unpredictable)

Is to set it in motion with certain codes removed from view

It works, but the outcome is unpredictable

But as the codemaker, you are still entirely in it on the level of the codes

So in order to make it interesting for you, yourself,

You limit awareness

You blunt the senses

So that only parts of the playing field are visible

And you go

And you search for yourself

And you find yourself easily

And you create another

And you go and win without effort

And you play peekaboo and lose interest

And then hide and seek and always find yourself

And on and on

Until finally you create a great game

And you totally forget yourself

And you're lost in this game

So you try to call yourself out of this game

This Dream you've created