V: To Bryan

You’re right about the lack of a clearly-defined goal. In my post “Reality: draft notes” I did sketch in a scheme very lightly, but it was nothing so definite as a goal, more a kind of inspired notion (as if from a dream or whispering from the Muse) of a set of cascading ideas. You clarify one and then you can go on to the next.

So to recap slightly, the first idea was to distinguish reality from unreality, partly because I was following you on this.

[I like the idea of us following each other, though I agree with you that we’ve wallowed a bit and gone adversarial on one another for lack of a clear sense of where the other is going.

It’s true I did start with the idea of being the leader, or rather the protagonist, with you as the antagonist. But I feel no need to be controlling about the relationship.]

I felt that once I/we had sorted out reality and unreality, it would be possible to sort out belief and unbelief. Then we could, as I said, “unravel the confusions about reason”. Finally, I said, we would be in a position to confront the essential paradox that is left in the world when the-people-who-formerly-could-not- understand-one-another-so-they-spent-their-lives-fighting can now understand one another and have no reason to fight. So they have time on their hands to confront the Paradox.

Which is pretty much what Camus calls the Absurd, which he says “originates [with] mind and world braced in mutual opposition, with no chance to embrace.”

So let me sum up from this what I see as the goal.

Where we are today:
Opposing ideologies, philosophies of life, religions, rational schemes for solving the world’s problems, all make the same assumption (1) that THERE IS AN ANSWER ; (2) that they have the answer, but the reason it cannot be put into practice is the stupidity and folly of their opponents.

Where I would like us to be:
I would like the reader to see (without you and I bludgeoning them with our persuasion) that THERE IS NO ANSWER, because the world is not rational even though we can’t help wanting it to be. When I say we want it to be rational, I mean that we want a world which would allow the correct key to open the door to the perfect world which we would like to see.

This is my goal. My method is to act (i.e. write) spontaneously without imposing much of a structure, hoping that you and I will be inspired by the gods and their underlings, the Muses, and will work things out by trial and error

The “things” that we have to work out include:

--how to get on with one another productively as possible
--how to organize ourselves
--to agree goals
--how to approach the goals

etc

I have to tell you that in the whole project I am indulging spontaneous hunches all the time, letting my fingers run all over the keyboard as they will; letting ideas and everything enter my mind without very much dictatorship on my organizing ego’s part.

I no longer see myself in a specific leadership role. We are twin stars orbiting around one another in a gravitational field of respect.

My latest inspiration for this comes from the epic of Gilgamesh, the oldest written story in the world. There are twin heroes called Gilgamesh, who’s the king of a city called Uruk, and two-thirds divine, one-third human; and Enkidu - two-thirds animal, one-third human. The gods have ordained that they become friends, to balance the city. Though I couldn’t say which of us is Gilgamesh, and which Enkidu: the analogy is not that complete. (But still, I would see myself more as Enkidu, though he dies first, before Gilgamesh.

PS I owe you a response on your mention of spirituality, and assumption that I’m on its side. Things are not that straightforward, alas. Using the term in a rough-and-ready non-technical sense that the man in the street would identify with, I would agree I have a spiritual approach to life. However I don’t like the word. It has the wrong connotations, implying some kind of duality or trinity, for example body/ spirit, or body/mind/spirit. I want to say everything human comes from body. The human body as we know from evolution theory comes from animals. Animal comes from inert matter. I would prefer to say that everything is magical, metaphysical and inexplicable. This is not really saying anything. It cannot be proved. It is meaningless. It doesn't disprove physics or indeed anything else. All it amounts to really is an ecstatic or triumphant cry, something like Eureka, Banzai, Alleluia, Olé, Geronimo.

I am not trying to validate spirituality. I just respect both sides of a major and to me illusory gulf. When I feel something is left out of consideration in a world-view, I feel sensitive to the lack, and tend to speak out. It is true that I sense the lack more when I listen to atheists than when I listen to those who are spiritual. I think this is because I don’t listen to those who are spiritual at all.