FOF Blog

46. Dennis

I don’t want to beat a dead horse, but I would like to offer a couple more examples of the power of the knowledge we received in the Fellowship. I know some of you are saying that we have to be very careful about the limitations of such knowledge, and especially the residue of it’s abuse by RB. But the definition of “objective knowledge,” is that it can be verified, and verification can be a scientific process. I know we would have to be much more rigorous, with control groups, etc., to be fully scientific, but thousands of observations, over many years, can at least provide good theories.

The eight intelligences, in Ton’s #27 post, I think, could be more clearly described in terms of the four predominant centers. Brain imaging technology now allows scientists to find the exact locations of these centers.

There is evidence that addiction and out of-control-anger, are directly connected to the mid brain, fight or flight, the instinctive center. When stress hormones activate the mid brain it takes over control of all centers, “the mind behind the machine.” It pumps adrenaline and sugar into the blood and prepares the moving center for action. Because emotion and intellect could interfere with survival, the mid brain does the logical thing, it shuts down the frontal cortex, the thinking/feeling part of the brain. With brain imaging, that part of the brain actually goes dark when an addict is craving. This is part of the reason that addiction is such a powerful phenomenon and why anger can lead to terrible crimes-of-passion, the intellectual and emotional centers are mostly shut down. I find this very useful for helping addicts and people with out-of-control anger problems.

47. Jomo Piñata -

But the definition of “objective knowledge,” is that it can be verified, and verification can be a scientific process.

Sorry, Dennis. I do not doubt that you help people using the knowledge you have, and that you have genuinely helped many people. But “objective knowledge”?

Using the term “objective knowledge” is just a value-laden way of characterizing some set of ideas that you have, and making them somehow exempt from critical examination. What’s the point of critical examination if the ideas are “objective knowledge”? In fact there’s no place for critical examination with so-called “objective knowledge”: one can only have verified it, or have not (yet) verified it. The possibility that it’s wrong is defined away by the very use of the term “objective knowledge.” It’s “right” — it’s “Teflon”–and the person using it is always subordinate. Don’t you see the problem?

Elena

Both these posts are very good to show the understanding of objective knowledge in the authors.

As Dennis later accepts, he is actually talking about verifiable knowledge but Jomo Piñata’s conclusion is what needs looking into.

Jomo: “In fact there’s no place for critical examination with so-called “objective knowledge”: one can only have verified it, or have not (yet) verified it. The possibility that it’s wrong is defined away by the very use of the term “objective knowledge.” It’s “right” — it’s “Teflon”–and the person using it is always subordinate. Don’t you see the problem?”

One of the problems is that there are various aspects to objective knowledge like there is to God! And the difficulty in dealing with it is like the difficulty of dealing with the “God” subject. Is God God? Are you God when you’re in godlike states? Do you incarnate God when you are in a Godlike state or do you spiritate!!! God when you spiritualize your self?

This idea of Jomo’s that the person is always subordinate to objective knowledge is a major fallacy that simply shows that the subject has not experienced objective reality no matter how superbly he handles rationality.

Objective reality can only be verified by the person experiencing it but objective knowledge can be transmitted by people who’ve experienced it even if no one else can verify it and everyone else distorts it. Even objective knowledge is difficult to verify in terms of the physical world because the physical world is only an aspect of objective reality so people IDENTIFIED or hooked on physical reality will deny the reality of other realms within objective reality. The beauty of the question is that although every path leads to Rome you can only get there when you walk it.

The subject objectifies life through unity. Wholesomeness manifests with crystal clarity in the physical realm too. Every single individual, every expression of nature holds objective reality but most human beings today are unaware of it and most who are aware of it are only aware for short periods of time. All acts of love are aspects of objective reality and even love turned upside down and backwards is objective reality. The problem isn’t objective reality at all or love just like water isn’t a “problem”. The problem, if there is one, (which there isn’t!) is that subjects are not conscious of our objectivity: most people don’t perceive our own significance.  The laziness to climb, the fear of our own beauty, the fangs of decadence, are part of the climb. The suffering involved in the process is grace’s sustenance!