Money (a token that can be exchanged for goods and services) is a representation of real value. It functions as a mirror-image of all real value in existence. It is this property of money that allows the rich to do nothing and just absorb wealth created by others. For example, if you build a house, all by yourself, where materials cost you 200k but the final product is worth 600k, and you exchange it for $600k (of money), you have instantly enriched the biggest money holders by $400k (the banks and their real owners: bond holders), because all money in circulation just increased its purchasing power (the real value is ‘represents’) by just that number of tokens, as a percentage of the total amount of which commercial banks own 97% of as someone else’s debt. I explained this mechanism here: https://philpapers.org/rec/KOWAMC-2
philpapers.org
Michael Kowalik, A Monetary Case for Value-added Negative Tax - PhilPapers
We address the most fundamental yet routinely ignored issue in economics today: that of distributive impact of the monetary system on the real economy. By re-examining the logical implications of token ...
God created Man to be in good company, but it is still a work in progress. There’s a point in the act of creation where Man has to create himself, by his own choices. Only then there is company.
What do you do when talking to people is more alienating than not talking to people?
🤔2
A typical adult reasons at the level of a 5 year old child (including most scientists and philosophers). They have not improved their capacity for discerning sense from nonsense since they figured out how to construct complete sentences and kick ball. They function only because of social programming, which extends to academic indoctrination and literature, not because of consistent reasoning. Nobody taught them the foundations of logic because their teachers didn’t know either, and the students lacked the curiosity or courage or care to explore beyond the unconscious utility of social programming.
https://michaelkowalik.substack.com/p/what-is-sense
https://michaelkowalik.substack.com/p/what-is-sense
Substack
What is Sense
: on the conditions of temporal unity of consciousness
Religious noscriptures present the reader with contradictions, with moral conflict, and therefore with the necessity of moral choice. For example, 'kill the Amalek' or 'kill your firstborn' must be juxtaposed with the commandment 'thou shalt not kill’. If God had ostensibly commanded us to violate the moral law, demanding blind obedience, we would be compelled by our moral essence to defy the immoral command. Only a test of independent moral discernment can prove that we have internalised the essence of morality and are therefore true to the image in which we were made.
Or, one may reject religion because of the noscriptural contradictions and just do what is objectively right, but this requires the knowledge of what is objectively right, which implies being able to prove that it is objectively right, or else still contradiction, and one must still choose.
Or, one may reject religion because of the noscriptural contradictions and just do what is objectively right, but this requires the knowledge of what is objectively right, which implies being able to prove that it is objectively right, or else still contradiction, and one must still choose.
The category good/evil does not apply to symbolic systems; they can be interpreted in opposite ways, precisely because of their nominal contradictions. As a ‘system’ all religions/traditions/cultures/ideologies are inconsistent, capable of constructive/reflexive behaviour or the most grotesque abuses, but this part is always subject to individual moral choice that transcends the terms of the system. Our moral choice does not follow from ‘adherence’ to any nominal system, and these should not be equivocated. When one rejects a system as evil because of a contingent interpretation being taken as definitive or logically necessary, one is already captured by another symbolic system, equally irrational, and no progress is made.
The reflexive attitude that supports consciousness demands a constructive approach, a continuous transformation of symbolic systems towards greater consistency. Moreover, constructive interpretations are retroactive on language and history, but this is another analytical rabbit hole: https://philpapers.org/rec/KOWTT
The reflexive attitude that supports consciousness demands a constructive approach, a continuous transformation of symbolic systems towards greater consistency. Moreover, constructive interpretations are retroactive on language and history, but this is another analytical rabbit hole: https://philpapers.org/rec/KOWTT
philpapers.org
Michael Kowalik, Two-Dimensional Time - PhilPapers
Philosophical views about the logical structure of time are typically divided between proponents of A and B theories, based on McTaggart's A and B series. Drawing on Paul Ricoeur's hermeneutic phenomenology, ...
At the fundamental level of being, there is only sense vs non-sense. Our conception of Self is riddled with non-sense, which is to say, lacks synthetic unity but arises in fragments that cannot be integrated as one, and this manifests as ‘evil’ and suffering. The symbolic systems people conceive of are a consequence of human dis-integrity, not its cause.
Remember, if the NEWS makes you upset, then you are probably being intentionally provoked, expected to react.
❤1💯1
On the planet of the apes, the apes do not know they are apes. They think they are human; the peak of moral evolution.
Antivaxx group-think is not morally superior to pro-vaccination group-think
Bad reasoning is an incommensurably greater threat to humanity than vaccines. Those who oppose vaccines at the expense of good reasoning are therefore causing more harm than good. They are a liability no lesser than those who fanatically defend vaccines: they come from the same corrupt mindset, they are cut from the same cloth. Vaccines are just one way of doing harm, which can be avoided if harm is suspected, but bad reasoning that underpins dogmatism, gullibility and group-think is the most enduring, entrenched evil in this world. Those who form convictions without sound reasoning can be persuaded to commit any moral wrong.
Bad reasoning is an incommensurably greater threat to humanity than vaccines. Those who oppose vaccines at the expense of good reasoning are therefore causing more harm than good. They are a liability no lesser than those who fanatically defend vaccines: they come from the same corrupt mindset, they are cut from the same cloth. Vaccines are just one way of doing harm, which can be avoided if harm is suspected, but bad reasoning that underpins dogmatism, gullibility and group-think is the most enduring, entrenched evil in this world. Those who form convictions without sound reasoning can be persuaded to commit any moral wrong.
❤1👍1
This is a wake up call to home buyers in Australia. You are being systematically fleeced and sooner or later someone will end up holding the bag. This is inevitably coming to Aus, only a matter of time. https://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/travel-stories/man-gives-up-on-homeownership-in-australia-buys-5000-house-in-japan/news-story/d96659dd14a7b1f52715139c2815c109
👍1
An average person who lived during the Stone Age would nowadays be diagnosed as a schizophrenic. Similarly, what nowadays is considered an average level of irrationality will in the future be considered a mental illness (assuming that humanity will keep evolving in rational capacities). https://news.1rj.ru/str/NormalParty/3930
Telegram
Normal
Spirituality as Schizophrenia
Our primordial ancestors were mentally fragmented, ‘schizophrenic’ by contemporary criteria, lacking the integrity of Self, hearing voices, seeing things, without a clear boundary between dream and reality, between my-self and…
Our primordial ancestors were mentally fragmented, ‘schizophrenic’ by contemporary criteria, lacking the integrity of Self, hearing voices, seeing things, without a clear boundary between dream and reality, between my-self and…
When our primordial ancestors thought “I am” for the very first time, this original flash of reflexive consciousness must have felt otherworldly, like the voice of God.
When the slave-owners of the ancient world built roads and sea ports and markets and armaments, they did not do so for the benefit of the slaves but to maximise their own profit, to extract more value from the slaves. Similarly, the rulers of today “tax” you for the sake of roads and sea ports and markets and armaments for their own profit. The roads are not ‘for you’, they are not ‘yours’; you are just required to use them in the service of your master, according to the rules laid down by your master. If you stray off the road, disrupt the smooth functioning of their business, you get punished. Tax is an ownership claim over you.
Hypothesis. God never created the heaven and the earth, not the animals, not Man. All of these are just thoughts in the mind of God, and nothing apart from God exists. God is then necessarily not an individual mind but a multiplicity of minds, each mind sustained by the same thought being reflected by other minds and reflected for other minds: the thought of being Man that thinks the multiplicity of minds.
The rate of homelessness in Australia remained steady for as long as modern records exist, at around 0.5%. https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/australias-welfare/homelessness-and-homelessness-services . This is the percentage of people who are homeless no matter what, primarily for mental health reasons. Despite this easy to verify statistic, the newspapers insinuate that homelessness is now the result of housing supply shortage, which is evidently the current official lie (propaganda) they try to push whenever an opportunity arises, covering up for the real cause of housing unaffordability.
Mentally disordered human caricatures called ‘politicians’ are chosen to pretend to have authority for a joke. The joke is on the people who participate in democracy. Democracy is a joke because power always comes from the top, never from the bottom, because this is what top and bottom mean. As for legitimate authority, nobody with power even cares what that is, which is why they cannot evolve beyond the animal state of consciousness.
The concept of thought/mind is a relatively recent development, likely originating around the time of Buddha and early Greek philosophers. Prior to this development, thoughts would have felt invasive, like voices emanating from some metaphysical realm, attributed to spirits and gods because the hearer was not himself speaking. On the other hand, it is not self-evident that the uninvited thoughts that occur to us are ‘ours’ in the relevant sense of being intended, or being our expression. Many of the mental images and voices that arise in our mind are unexpected, sometimes unwelcome and disturbing. It may then be argued that, for the most part, the interpretation of thought as ‘voices of spirits, demons or gods’ is more consistent, which then raises the question of how to identify the entities allegedly involved. Is mass media a demon in your mind? Are the news networks your god? Are the celebrities you admire the spirits whose voices you hear?
It is not healthcare to medicate people who are healthy. It is the opposite of healthcare to biotechnologically modify a healthy immune system.
👍2
There are no human sources of authority. Authority is not something that comes from institutions or people, but consists in the fundamental principles that govern consciousness. When we act in accordance with the fundamental principles, we act with authority, and there is nothing more to it.
👍1