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seekingObjectivity
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Gurdjieff and the question of the soul.
NOTE: I’m not sure whether or not this should be a new thread or leave it here. This seems to belong here but at the same time it could also belong in the Tickle section, but since this is a serious issue and not one to really laugh about I think maybe that it should either be here or become a new thread as it relates to various topics at once.
I’ve been thinking for quite sometime about what ScioAgapeOmnis seemed to indicate about knowledge and the ability of those in control to maintain control via the proper application of knowledge. I also thought about how knowledge, although fixed, can be “moved� around in its distribution.
The following is an example of how I perceive knowledge to be distributed among a group of people. I think it may illustrate somewhat how deception (good or bad) may be used to alter its distribution or how its distribution may become directed via manipulation or covertly. I think it may relate how “amount� of knowledge presently received may be increased/decreased in proportion to how it is applied:
SO wrote: Using current “bank� of knowledge to “give� to others what I think:
However, there is something else I think I would like to add and that is: I don’t know what I don’t know and neither do You or maybe this would be better? You don’t know what You don’t know and neither do I. The ‘I’ of ‘I don’t know’ is talking to the ‘You’ of ‘You don’t know’. If we both don’t know then we are not that much better off in talking to each other, that is, the distribution of knowledge between us is the same. Though I suppose such a distribution is able to change but only in relation to the persistence to learn in one and/or the other. And though both the “giver" and the “receiver" really may not know, it may happen that one may know more than the other and thus the “giver" may become the “receiver" and vice versa. Thus, the original “giver" now knows more but only in proportion to the accuracy of its reception by the knowledge of the original “receiver." The distribution of knowledge between is fixed in as much as it has been accurately received. This is how I think about it but as I learn more I’m sure this will change because I don’t know what I don’t know.
NOTE: I’m not sure whether or not this should be a new thread or leave it here. This seems to belong here but at the same time it could also belong in the Tickle section, but since this is a serious issue and not one to really laugh about I think maybe that it should either be here or become a new thread as it relates to various topics at once.
I’ve been thinking for quite sometime about what ScioAgapeOmnis seemed to indicate about knowledge and the ability of those in control to maintain control via the proper application of knowledge. I also thought about how knowledge, although fixed, can be “moved� around in its distribution.
The following is an example of how I perceive knowledge to be distributed among a group of people. I think it may illustrate somewhat how deception (good or bad) may be used to alter its distribution or how its distribution may become directed via manipulation or covertly. I think it may relate how “amount� of knowledge presently received may be increased/decreased in proportion to how it is applied:
Laura via Tickle me (Psycho Test) said:Read this question, come up with an answer and then scroll down to the bottom for the result. This is not a trick question. It is as it reads. No one I know has got it right - including me
[SO wrote: Using my current “Bank� of knowledge to make a decision that is best for the group and not only for the self :
At this point I’m thinking “If Laura does not know anyone that has gotten it right then maybe the “best� answer is to also not know how to get it right and thus I’ll not give it much thought as it seems that is what is wanted and so I’ll just casually admit that I don’t know but not because I thought about it but because I did not think about it.� (zero knowledge applied i.e. zero knowledge given thus zero knowledge that can possibly be received)
“However, if I am a psychopath and I do not want them to know that I am a psychopath then the easiest answer is to say ‘I don’t know’ but the more tempting answer is to say that I do know and also find a way to have them think that I am indeed not a psychopath. With such a comment, I could gain their appreciation of my response as for some reason they do not know how psychopaths think. However, since I am not a psychopath and I make such a comment then I know that the first thing that will flash in their mind is that maybe I am a psychopath and they may become more cautious of anything I say next. Hmmm…. what is the best decision that I perceive it to be for the group? On the one hand, I am faced with a sort of “fear of persecution� by the group and must be willing to take any such “fears� coming from them as only that: a fear of psychopathy and nothing more. Since I am an individual striving to become oriented towards STO then the “best� decision in my mind is to remove this “fear of persecution� and let others know how you think it is that other such individuals may think. Therefore, I will give it much thought without fear and see what happens next.�
A small application of current knowledge as it has been assimilated and as I see it “given� to others thus opening the possibility to receive more knowledge. ]
A woman, while at the funeral of her own mother, met a man she didn't know. She thought this guy was amazing, so much her dream guy, that she believed him to be just that! She fell in love with him right there, but never asked for his number and couldn't find him. A few days later she killed her sister.
Question: What is her motive in killing her sister?
(Give this some thought before you answer).
SCROLL DOWN.
Answer: She was hoping that the guy would appear at the funeral again.
If you answered this correctly, you think like a psychopath.
[SO wrote: Since there exists a deeply conditioned fear of psychopathy then:
If I was correct then I feel bad for being right as though I have just done something wrong and I don’t want people to think wrong of me and if this fear is strong enough then I will go ahead and post something that indicates that I didn’t know to reinforce my feelings of acceptance by others and reinforce this mutual (non-expressed nor thought of) agreement of how “the good guys� think (by not even thinking!). It is a sort of A “Look, I’m one of them I’m not a bad person!� mentality (if not a psychopath) or A “I’ll feel nothing but I hope they don’t catch me� mentality (if a psychopath). Once again, it seems that a deeply conditioned fear of thinking like a psychopath or having others think that you think like a psychopath is keeping people from understanding how psychopaths think and thus maintaining the potentiality for eventual control and/or the maintenance of an established control.)]
I've been told that this was a test by a famous American Psychologist used to test if one has the same mentality as a killer.
SO wrote:(Once again there is another reinforcement to not to even think for even one second of how psychopaths think, very clever from their point of view, very sick and twisted from our point of view. But once again it’s just a modicum of perspective.)
Supposedly, many arrested serial killers took part in the test and answered the question correctly. If you didn't answer the question correctly good for you.
SO wrote: (All of this also seems to be able to reinforce the conditioning to not ever think about how these people think.)
If you got the answer correct, please let me know...
[SO wrote: This, as well as the previous lines of thought, would then suggest to the psyche that if you get it correct you are BAD and you might possibly be a Psychopath and we don’t want you around. To not have a psychopath around is a good thing in the sense that a True psychopath would tend to bring a discussion towards disruption and confusion and thus allow further manipulation and control if not discovered, but bad if you want them to stick around long enough to understand how they think so that one may use a similar strategy as a covert means to help another realize it. This, it seems, may be what G.I. Gurdjieff might have been partly trying to convey in a few of his stories/teachings: that thinking like a Psychopath with emotional/spiritual intelligence can both help yourself and others or be used to easily manipulate and control another.]
SO wrote: Using current “bank� of knowledge to “give� to others what I think:
seekingObjectivity said:It took me a while to get it but after going through all the possibilities within the relationship between one's Mother passing away (event), funeral (location), and unknown man (unique event associated with event/location) with whom the Mother's daughter "fell in love" with and was unable to LOCATE layered with what seems to be a totally unrelated event i.e. cold murder of another daughter by the very same woman....it seemed to me that since the question was posed there must exist an answer within the clues given.
The clues do not seem to add up.
If the woman murdered her sister then she must be totally within a state of mind of zero REAL emotions for her sister but perceptions against her. So one must assume zero emotion, I mean who thinks about "falling in love" when you are at your own mother's funeral!! Not very likely, so that's another clue.
If there exists zero REAL emotion at all times then the woman has not really fallen in love. If the feeling of love is not ever to be truly felt then what is this "feeling" she labeled as "love"? and what are the effects of not feeling loved? If the feeling isn't real but a construct of perception?
A person with true emotions would act in accordance with their emotional/spiritual/intellectual/other systems interplay whose sum result/action may or may not find the Love for which he/she searched. However, a person with the unfortunate inability to receive/express True emotion does not have the same set of systems and the sum result/action will reflect that particular set which produced it.
This woman lacking emotional/spiritual capacity must rely on an alternate system, an alternate sum, a very different type of "basis" to "act". However, prior to a symptom of "action" there must exist a prior cause. The prior cause of an action must be weighted such that it warrants a "decision to act".
Within the set of zero emotion, prior cause probably relies on intelligence/logic/chemical rxn. so only that part of the body which contributes to "feeling emotion" may be considered as a possible sum within the total sum of "to cause". The actual decision "to act" as a result of the sum "to cause" might be perceived as an impulse "to feel" since "to feel" relies on chemical reaction. This impulse "to feel" then is the desired product from the sum "to cause" and a decision "to feel" is made when this sum exceeds a critical horizon and "to act" is manifested.
This impulse "to feel" resulted from a set of variables (I hate to say it, but I have to assume zero emotion): Mother's funeral, unknown man, "falling in love", can't find unknown man.
A person of True emotions would not even consider what this woman did as it does not make any sense. However, for a person of zero emotion the reliance on a smaller set of variables yields an altogether DIFFERENT set of choices that "make sense." Therefore, this woman must have had a sum "to cause" with a critical impulse "to feel" that set in motion "to act" to produce a desired result that would mimic a prior "to feel love" environment.
Patterns have been attributed to behavior as a reflection of particular thinking patterns i.e. perceptive processing. From perceptive processing yields a set of choices. The set is a reflection of utilized systems as a function of processing. The choices made based on such sets yields action but may not convey to another individual utilizing an altogether different processing schema as totally different. However, it is the sum set of choices made that will reflect the true pattern of processing and within the set lie choice combinations produced by sets of unrelated circumstance.
The story above as given conveys circumstance and action that are unrelated so this might be such a set as this yielded as a result the cold murder of this woman's sister stemming from a desire to see/meet the man she "fell in love" with again.
[Admin note: post edited to insert line breaks for ease of reading.]
Laura said:Additional thoughts about this test:
Two people I know who I KNOW are not psychopaths, came up with the correct answer. When the first one was asked how she did it, she responded quite simply: "What kind of person would be thinking about romance at the funeral of her own mother?! Obviously, it was a psychopath and therefore the answer had to be that she thought that killing her sister would bring the guy back."
Well, I have to say that this obvious clue at the very beginning slipped right by me.
The second person went through the problem like setting up a math problem more or less like SeekingObjectivity did (see: http://www.signs-of-the-times.org/signs/forum/profile.php?id=1767) only shorter, and also came up with the right solution as a "pattern recognition" thing. He established the "pattern" and then saw it repeating.
Okay.... well, that was quite a surprise and we had a little discussion about it and the main question was "Why couldn't I and so many others see the solution since, as the first person noted, the main clue was right at the beginning - a person who was pursuing a romance at the funeral of her mother?�
The answer was disturbing.
It's not so much that those of us that don't get it do not think like a psychopath, but that those of us that don't get it project our own thinking onto others and do not really understand at a deep, visceral, automatic level that there are humans that are not like us : intraspecies predators. In short, we lack something very important for our own protection .
(I like to think that it is not us that lack something for our own protectionbut it is the lacking of a True emotional center in psychopaths that will ALWAYS give them away and THEY are the ones without the ADEQUATE protection! To me, it is just a modicum of perspective, but I think that the ones we need to be most aware of are those that DO have a True emotional center and use this intelligence to keep us under control, whence the Love and Light/New Age crowd and the many other organizations that promote a ZERO THINKING MENTALITY as a rule of thumb).
Anders said:Yes, failed too.
I think that a common problem is that we think everybody are like us and thus look for an emotional reason such as a great injustice, jealousy or betrayal to explain such an act as murder. The hardwired programming kicks in and it ignores that there are people out there, who are definately not like us, despite the evidence. It is especially surprising since it says psycho test, so one would think that one would look outside the circle.
Just yesterday, a nurse who works in a high security prison with mostly psychopaths and to whom I had lent the book "political ponerology", wrote me an email where she expressed the thought that SOTT was making too much of a mainstream sensationalism out of it.
I must say that I think that it is totally warranted, which the test sort of showed since so few got the answer. Keep those articles flowing, such as http://www.signs-of-the-times.org/articles/show/129924-Environment+of+Evil
Credit to SeekingObjectivity for the thoughtful analysis of the test.
Gurdjieff as referenced both by Henry and ScioAgapeOmnis said:During one conversation with G. in our group, which was beginning to become permanent, I asked: Why, if ancient knowledge has been preserved and if, speaking in general, there exists a knowledge distinct from our science and philosophy or even surpassing it, is it so carefully concealed, why is it not made common property? Why are the men who possess this knowledge unwilling to let it pass into the general circulation of life for the sake of a better and more successful struggle against deceit, evil, and ignorance?
This is, I think, a question which usually arises in everyone's mind on first acquaintance with the ideas of esotericism.
There are two answers to that, said G. "In the first place, this knowledge is not concealed; and in the second place, it cannot, from its very nature, become common property. We will consider the second of these statements first. I will prove to you afterwards that knowledge (he emphasized the word) "is far more accessible to those capable of assimilating it than is usually supposed; and that the whole trouble is that people either do not want it or cannot receive it ( “Cannot receive it.� Is that a hint of psychopathy? I don’t know but it sure seems like it!)
But first of all another thing must be understood, namely, that knowledge cannot belong to all, cannot even belong to many. Such is the law. You do not understand this because you do not understand that knowledge, like everything else in the world, is material. It is material, and this means that it possesses all the characteristics of materiality. One of the first characteristics of materiality is that matter is always limited, that is to say, the quantity of matter in a given place and under given conditions is limited. Even the sand of the desert and the water of the sea is a definite and unchangeable quantity. So that, if knowledge is material, then it means that there is a definite quantity of it in a given place at a given time. It may be said that, in the course of a certain period of time, say a century, humanity has a definite amount of knowledge at its disposal. But we know, even from an ordinary observation of life, that the matter of knowledge possesses entirely different qualities according to whether it is taken in small or large quantities. Taken in a large quantity in a given place, that is by one man, let us say, or by a small group of men, it produces very good results; taken in a small quantity (that is, by every one of a large number of people), it gives no results at all; or it may give even negative results, contrary to those expected. Thus if a certain definite quantity of knowledge is distributed among millions of people, each individual will receive very little, and this small amount of knowledge will change nothing either in his life or in his understanding of things. And however large the number of people
It seems that number of people here is an arbitrary variable in this case, whereas before he presented size as a non-arbitrary concept in its relation to the quantity of knowledge received as it was/is given the image as a finite construct in terms of its materiality.
who receive this small amount of knowledge, it will change nothing in their lives, except, perhaps, to make them still more difficult.
But if, on the contrary, large quantities of knowledge are concentrated in a small number of people, then this knowledge will give very great results. From this point of view it is far more advantageous that knowledge should be preserved among a small number of people and not dispersed among the masses.
If we take a certain quantity of gold and decide to gild a number of objects with it, we must know, or calculate, exactly what number of objects can be gilded with this quantity of gold. If we try to gild a greater number, they will be covered with gold unevenly, in patches, and will look much worse than if they had no gold at all; in fact we shall lose our gold.
The distribution of knowledge is based upon exactly the same principle. If knowledge is given to all, nobody will get any. If it is preserved among a few, each will receive not only enough to keep, but to increase, what he receives. At the first glance this theory seems very unjust, since the position of those who are, so to speak, denied knowledge in order that others may receive a greater share appears to be very sad and undeservedly harder than it ought to be. Actually, however, this is not so at all; and in the distribution of knowledge there is not the slightest injustice.
The fact is that the enormous majority of people do not want any knowledge whatever; they refuse their share of it and do not even take the ration allotted to them, in the general distribution, for the purposes of life. This is particularly evident in times of mass madness such as wars, revolutions, and so on, when men suddenly seem to lose even the small amount of common sense they had and turn into complete automatons, giving themselves over to wholesale destruction in vast numbers, in other words, even losing the instinct of self-preservation. Owing to this, enormous quantities of knowledge remain, so to speak, unclaimed and can be distributed among those who realize its value.
There is nothing unjust in this, because those who receive knowledge take nothing that belongs to others, deprive others of nothing; they take only what others have rejected as useless and what would in any case be lost if they did not take it.
The collecting of knowledge by some depends upon the rejection of knowledge by others. There are periods in the life of humanity, which generally coincide with the beginning of the fall of cultures and civilizations, when the masses irretrievably lose their reason and begin to destroy everything that has been created by centuries and millenniums of culture. Such periods of mass madness, often coinciding with geological cataclysms, climatic changes, and similar phenomena of a planetary character, release a very great quantity of the matter of knowledge. This, in its turn, necessitates the work of collecting this matter of knowledge which would otherwise be lost. Thus the work of collecting scattered matter of knowledge frequently coincides with the beginning of the destruction and fall of cultures and civilizations.
This aspect of the question is clear. The crowd neither wants nor seeks knowledge, and the leaders of the crowd, in their own interests, try to strengthen its fear and dislike of everything new and unknown. The slavery in which mankind lives is based upon this fear.
seekingObjectivity wrote: This suggests to me the ability of ponerized individuals to keep their own understanding of how people think to themselves so that they may direct others to a certain way of thinking such that in the end he who started such ways of thinking knows where everybody is going and can be used for their own purposes of control and manipulation. Though a scary thought in and of itself, it really means nothing at all if you understand it well enough such that you maneuver yourself accordingly not just for the sake of others but for yourself. Thus, by an act of self-preservation via an application of ponerized knowledge, a properly assimilated understanding and its proper applications will not only preserve the very knowledge that allowed such self-preservation but it also allows its further distribution in its relation to orientation of service to self or to others. If it is oriented to self then it would be necessary to make sure that nobody else knows as much as you and control may be maintained, if it is oriented to others then it seems it might be best that such knowledge is given to others as covertly as it is manipulatively hidden from view.
It is even difficult to imagine all the horror of this slavery. We do not understand what people are losing. But in order to understand the cause of this slavery it is enough to see how people live, what constitutes the aim of their existence, the object of their desires, passions, and aspirations, of what they think, of what they talk, what they serve and what they worship. Consider what the cultured humanity of our time spends money on; even leaving the war out, what commands the highest price; where the biggest crowds are. If we think for a moment about these questions it becomes clear that humanity, as it is now, with the interests it lives by, cannot expect to have anything different from what it has. But, as I have already said, it cannot be otherwise. Imagine that for the whole of mankind half a pound of knowledge is allotted a year. If this knowledge is distributed among everyone, each will receive so little that he will remain the fool he was. But, thanks to the fact that very few want to have this knowledge, those who take it are able to get, let us say, a grain each, and acquire the possibility of becoming more intelligent. All cannot become intelligent even if they wish. And if they did become intelligent it would not help matters. There exists a general equilibrium which cannot be upset.
That is one aspect. The other, as I have already said, consists in the fact that no one is concealing anything; there is no mystery whatever. But the acquisition or transmission of true knowledge demands great labor and great effort both of him who receives and of him who gives. And those who possess this knowledge are doing everything they can to transmit and communicate it to the greatest possible number of people, to facilitate people's approach to it and enable them to prepare themselves to receive the truth. But knowledge cannot be given by force to anyone and, as I have already said, an unprejudiced survey of the average man's life, of what fills his day and of the things he is interested in, will at once show whether it is possible to accuse men who possess knowledge of concealing it, of not wishing to give it to people, or of not wishing to teach people what they know themselves.
He who wants knowledge must himself make the initial efforts to find the source of knowledge and to approach it, taking advantage of the help and indications which are given to all, but which people, as a rule, do not want to see or recognize. Knowledge cannot come to people without effort on their own part. They understand this very well in connection with ordinary knowledge, but in the case of great knowledge, when they admit the possibility of its existence, they find it possible to expect something different. Everyone knows very well that if, for instance, a man wants to learn Chinese, it will take several years of intense work; everyone knows that five years are needed to grasp the principles of medicine, and perhaps twice as many years for the study of painting or music. And yet there are theories which affirm that knowledge can come to people without any effort on their part, that they can acquire it even in sleep. The very existence of such theories constitutes an additional explanation of why knowledge cannot come to people. At the same time it is essential to understand that man's independent efforts to attain anything in this direction can also give no results. A man can only attain knowledge with the help of those who possess it. This must be understood from the very beginning. One must learn from him who knows.
Thus, I have “given" how I think psychopaths think as an application of knowledge as it has been assimilated by me. Thus, I think of this as an example of its giving/receiving via a discussion of its giving/receiving.ScioAgapeOmnis said:I've read the above words by G about knowledge taking on a material/limited quality a number of times, but I'm still not sure I really understand it. I know that in all STS hierarchies, such as this world, the higher up you go the more knowledge each person/being possesses and the fewer people/beings there are, and the lower you go in the pyramid the less knowledge each person possesses, and the more people exist on that level. This is because knowledge is power, and it protects. Ignorance endangers, and those who know more are therefore more powerful than those who know less, and in any STS world they by definition go on a higher "rank" because of it. And for this reason, in an STS pyramid, knowledge is hidden, it is suppressed, it is "hoarded" at the top, and there are secrets. It is not just a case of the majority rejecting it, they are encouraged to reject it, most especially what G calls "great knowledge" aka fundamental esoteric understandings of objective reality.
But when you give knowledge to someone you don't lose knowledge, so in that sense it is not like material things. I also understand why a certain amount of knowledge concentrated in one person or small number of people is much more useful than the same amount of knowledge divided up among a large number of people, like food, money, or bread, or any resource. But again, can't you give knowledge without losing it? G does say that people who have it, who are not using it to control, those people do seek every possible means to spread it to all others who want/seek it and are capable of receiving it. But they don't lose the knowledge they give in the process, so I'm confused there.
And yet he says that you only get knowledge because someone else rejected it? Again I don't think I understand this, the idea that there is a "fixed" set of knowledge in the world, like energy, and if someone gains it, it must necessarily be because someone else does not? For example, in an STO world, wouldn't everyone be gaining it? So then, this condition of knowledge being in the hands of the few, is it not a result of this world being STS, and not because knowledge itself is a limited resource?
My understanding is that knowledge is not gained by most people for a number of reasons, all of which G also says. They don't want it, they don't know how to get it, and they have incorrect theories/assumptions about knowledge and how to get it, and they are too busy caring about everything else but knowledge. And of course, that entire condition is strongly promoted by the PTB in many ways, the biggest way is probably through psychopaths, and so this global condition while being largely our own fault is also intentionally cultivated and maintained by the PTB. G says all of this in the above passage I think. But I just don't get the part about knowledge being a limited resource. Could somebody who understands what G is saying please explain it, perhaps in different words if possible?
However, there is something else I think I would like to add and that is: I don’t know what I don’t know and neither do You or maybe this would be better? You don’t know what You don’t know and neither do I. The ‘I’ of ‘I don’t know’ is talking to the ‘You’ of ‘You don’t know’. If we both don’t know then we are not that much better off in talking to each other, that is, the distribution of knowledge between us is the same. Though I suppose such a distribution is able to change but only in relation to the persistence to learn in one and/or the other. And though both the “giver" and the “receiver" really may not know, it may happen that one may know more than the other and thus the “giver" may become the “receiver" and vice versa. Thus, the original “giver" now knows more but only in proportion to the accuracy of its reception by the knowledge of the original “receiver." The distribution of knowledge between is fixed in as much as it has been accurately received. This is how I think about it but as I learn more I’m sure this will change because I don’t know what I don’t know.
