Orphic lies

(Husserl probably thought that each possible world has a unique possible transcendental subject but in so far as two such transcendental egos are directed at the same Nature, then they are compossible and so intersubjectivity aint empty. I often feel the same way about having to pick up my dry-cleaning.)

All characteristica universalis so hideous to our eyes

In what un-natural numbers must Siren rhapsodize?

That galley slave or Captain, all equally are rapt in

Ego's web, the world-tide's ebb- Orphic lies

Najat ka talib aur Sayujya Mukti

Higher than perfect Union with the Divine

Is a loaf of bread, a Jug of Wine

& a fat chick with such low self esteem

God bought a Time Share in my dream

Commentary-

It is well known that the goal of Illuminationist or non-Dual theosophy is greatly to be abhorred- salokya-sarsti-samipya- sarupyaikatvam apy uta diyamanam na grhnanti/ vina mat-sevanam janah-“My devotees do not accept salokya, sarsti, sarupya, samipya, or oneness with me (sayujya)—even if I offer them liberation- 

because they greatly prefer serving me.” (SB 3.29.13)- so too,verily, is the Gnosis or Theophany of the adepts of askesis- kaivalyam narakayate- which is no better than the condition of a hell dweller.

Yea, for sooth, the Supreme Lord, bored beyond tears by the assiduity of his (admittedly shite) servitors, delights most in Time Share Salesmen because how can that not be a good deal- right? It's like an investment which grows in value the more you bunk off work and get shit-faced at some real trashy 'resort' which, like you actually own, that's the beauty of it. Also they give you a real valuable present- like a big Screen TV, or maybe a genuine silver plated dessert spoon or other classy stuff like that just for sitting through a presentation. 

And they say, Maya does not exist!

Three Krishnas thus did Karan requite

The Sun's chariot stuck- that his steeds might run

Labor in the muck- afford thy foe-men fun

Three Krishnas, thus, did Karan requite

War is Hell, the rest sheer Spite

Ulupi

That no Warriors true in Death's waters drown

Poets knew, yet to their own Wisdom crown

So no Ulupi, grieving, a son might scold

Embraced Undine weaving her coif of gold

Stalnacker-Lewis & a Mathesis Universalis

Suppose there were a Mathesis Universalis- i.e. an 'eidetic science of the object in general' (Husserl)- which, if propounded, everybody would agree fits the bill, and suppose this yields an evidentiary decision theory all Muth rational people would adhere to, what happens to counterfactual conditionals? In particular, what would Stalnaker's closest possible world to our own look like?

Let's take a Josephine's Kingdom type situation populated by Muth rational, Mathesis Universalis possessing, Vandana Shivas married to men who may or may not be evil, G.M food advocating, gang rapists of the genomes of innocent Saree wearing plants. No Vandana Shiva knows if her own husband is a gang rapist- there is no objective test for the condition since such creatures have no real existence but are a figment of Vandana Shiva discourse- but does know which of the other Vandana Shivas is married to a gang rapist because Vandanaji's PhD in Philosophy dealt with Quantum non-locality, Corporate Globalization, and the gang-rape of plant genomes this inevitably gives rise to .

However, since Vandana Shivas never listen to each other, or themselves, there is no way for a particular Vandanaji to be told her husband is or is not a gang rapist. Josephine, the Queen of the Kingdom, announces that gang-rapist husbands exist and orders all Vandanas to shoot their gang rapist husband at midnight of the same day they realize he must be outraging the modesty of the genomes of innocent plants. All Vandanas can hear or otherwise get information about who got shot.

Suppose there is only one gang rapist. Then there is one Vandana who knows all other men, save her hubby, are innocent, so she shoots him. Suppose there are two gang rapists. Then there are two women who think there is only one rapist. So they expect one shooting and when it does not happen, next night shoot their own husband. Suppose there are three gang rapists. Then there are three women who think there are only two rapists and know, because no one gets shot on day one or two, that their husband is guilty and shoot him on the third day.

Clearly, by induction, all gang rapists will get shot within x number of days- where x is the number of gang rapists.
Now let us mix things up by changing Josephine's directive to her Vandana subjects so that it reads - 'kill your husband iff he is a gang rapist of the plant genome in the Stalnaker closest possible world, or even the Lewis 'sphere of very close possible worlds'.

The problem for us here is that though such gang rapists only exist in Vandana Siva theory and (since all Sivas are Muth rational) so the number of such gang rapists is knowable, still Josephine's directive is not well specified. Is she saying- kill x if in a closely possible world he is a y- or is the gravamen of her order rather- if you are married to a y in the closest possible world, then kill the x you are married to in this?' In any case, is the closest possible world one identical in every respect except x is a y?

 However, we are assuming that 'an eidetic science of the object in general' actually exists and is possessed by relevant Muth Rational agents. To say that the problem we encounter makes Josephine's directive dangerously ambiguous is to say that we can't conceive of a Mathesis Universalis compossible with our ordinary, or even Stalnaker specified, notions of intentionality and meaning. In other words, on one horn of the dilemma, eidetics is empty, on the other, intentionality is vacuous.

Mark Lynas vs. Vandana Shiva

Mark Lynas spent a lot of time campaigning against G.M food. He has now recanted his former beliefs in a hard-hitting, if not wholly factually accurate (Chernobyl equated with an E coli outbreak from organically farmed bean sprouts?) speech here.
The great Dr.Vandana Shiva quickly slapped Lynas down- probably mistaking him for a gang rapist- and made several very telling and false points about like how plants are being sexually harassed and subjected to torture and beating if they don't pay outrageous dowries and that Earth Democracy is being violated because, though in India such rapes don't happen, they are happening all the time in Bharat due to the plants are all being systematically brainwashed and modernized and wearing jeans and talking to boys and going to cinema- chee, chee- that is what is called Gene modification, innit? They are modifying the jeans for making free-show so naturally the plants are all the time being gang-raped. Good plants wear saree and keep big bottu on their head. Bad plants are getting their jeans modified for showing off their buttocks to all and sundry.  It is so disgusting. This Lynas fellow is nothing but a pornographer due to he is wanting all nice good saree wearing Indian plants- even brinjal!- to start modifying their jeans. You just tell him, I will give him one tight slap, I say! You know 250,000 Indian farmers have COMMITTED SUICIDE because of the unbearable shame of seeing their plants wearing all these modified jeans and talking to boys and going Cinema and other such Godlessness.
Mind it kindly.

Dr.Vandana Shiva speaking out against G.M rape.

Boulding on why Gandhi failed

Kenneth Boulding

My Lord, Thou art in every breath I take,
And every bite and sup taste firm of Thee.
With buoyant mercy Thou enfoldest me,
And holdest up my foot each step I make.
Thy touch is all around me when I wake,
Thy sound I hear, and by Thy light I see
The world is fresh with Thy divinity
And all Thy creatures flourish for Thy sake.

For I have looked upon a little child
And seen Forgiveness, and have seen the day
With eastern fire cleanse the foul night away;
So cleansest Thou this House I have defiled.
And if I should be merciful, I know
It is Thy mercy, Lord, in overflow.

( There is a Spirit, 1975, p. 13.)

Apart from being a great Quaker mystical poet, Boulding was a widely respected Economist, many feel, greatly ahead of his time.
He introduced the concept of Psychic Capital in 1950 which, I suppose, might marry well with the doctrine of Rupert Sheldrake and give rise to a sort of Humanistic teleology such that 'the Noosphere'- i.e. the common intellectual and moral heritage of man- might itself yield an 'Omega point'- or theosis for the entire species.
However, in the context of why Gandhi failed, what he has to say about negative Psychic Capital bears repeating
'... failure in a task could also lead to a depletion of psychic capital. An accumulation of negative memories of failures, disasters,atrocities, or perceived injustices and indignities (as either recipient or perpetrator) could be called negative psychic capital. Negative psychic capital can also be a powerful motivating factor, in the pursuit of satisfaction through revenge or a settling of scores. In either of its forms as positive or negative psychic capital, this package of collective memory is an essential link between collective memory and collective mental state'

Mahatma Gandhi did not create the negative psychic capital which fuelled the Indian Revolutionaries- he did not invent the 'drain theory' of Indian immeseration or the notion that the rule of predominantly White I.C.S officers and Judges somehow represented a worse insult to Indian honour than the rule of 'Ashraf' Turks or Afghans or Yemenis or 'Manuvaad' Brahmins or Banias or Rajputs. However, he was very successful in denying that the positive Psychic capital created by the British Raj- viz. technological progress, law and order, a meritocratic educational system which permitted boys from poor families to rise to become High Court Judges, Privy Counselors, Dewans of Native State- was actually a good thing.

Boulding, visiting India some half a century ago, wrote-

The failure of Gandhism is not a failure of ahimsa, but a failure of satyagraha. The modern world is so complex that the truth about it cannot be perceived by common sense or by mystical insight, important as these things are. We must have the more delicate and quantitative sampling and processing of information provided by the methods of the social sciences if we are really to test the truth of our images of social and political systems.

Boulding was perhaps unaware that Gandhi's 'Guru' in politics, Gokhale- a Professor of Mathematics- represented precisely the sort of truth seeking, statistics compiling, rational and quantitative approach which Gandhism so signally turned his back on. The Servants of India Society functioned as a sort of Jesuit order, prizing  scholarship and independent research just as much as individual austerity and self-sacrifice. Gokhale, before his death, warned against entrusting any negotiations to Gandhi- he said, truth be told, his achievements in South Africa had fallen far short of the mark- and, to their credit, the Servants of India Society refused to admit Gandhi to their own august order. Thus, the only reasonable conclusion to draw, as to why Gandhism failed- assuming Boulding is correct- is that it was not because Gandhi came from a Society incapable of anything except 'common sense and mystical insight' but because Gandhi was not intelligent enough to take the more arduous path indicated by Social Science. Yet, to do him Justice, at Champaran, or later, during his inquiry into the Jallianwallah Bagh massacre, he used his influence to exclude from the record testimony of atrocities which could not be substantiated- an important step in securing him the respect of the British authorities. True, as Rajendra Prasad pointed out, the Champaran atrocities had been exaggerated to a point of ludicrous absurdity, Gandhi had no alternative but to pursue the course he did- no lawyer of  any degree of professional integrity could have done otherwise- still, something else about Gandhi- viz. his proprietary, but also wholly imaginary, Psychic Capital of Satyagraha- proved more decisive in establishing his place as the leader of the Indian Freedom Struggle and arbiter of, not its Destiny, unless that was always a cowardly dereliction of duty, but its dense, dour and dim-witted praxis of self-deception.
But the simple 'preference falsification availability cascade' which a set of provincial politicians profited from, has now been taken up by senile Professors of International standing for no purpose I can see save that of making plain the utter bankruptcy of their disciplines.
Boulding, perhaps, was unaware of this impending disaster when he wrote-

 The next logical step, therefore, for the Gandhian movement would seem to be in the direction of the social sciences, in peace research, and in the testing of all our images of society by the more refined means for discovering truth which are now available to us. I am not suggesting, of course, that the social sciences produce “absolute” truth, or indeed that much valid perception is not achieved through common sense and insight. What I do suggest, however, is that the problem of truth is so difficult that we cannot afford to neglect any means of improving the path towards it, and that without this, non-violence will inevitably be frustrated.

Since Boulding wrote these words, and more particularly in the last twenty years, there has been an enormous explosion in 'Gandhian social research' as well as a Global epidemic of non-violent movements which attract good people and sustain a self-image of being effective thanks to the myth of the Mahatma's own extraordinary and untrue achievement of expelling the British from India. 

But is this a genuine psychic capital- know-how, as Boulding terms it- or merely a mass delusion like the recent panic about the Mayan Apocalypse?

The fact is, both genuine technological changes and imaginary ones can have a short term impact. The announcement, by a credible source, of the discovery of 'cold fusion' will move markets even if it turns out to be false later on.

It may be a false announcement coincides with some genuine change which militates towards the same end. In that case the only way of differentiating the true from the imaginary cause is to test their alethic status. Gandhian satyagraha fails this test. Where  peasant agitations succeeded, as in Champaran or Bardoli, Gandhi  neither initiated nor built upon what was achieved. All that Social Science can say is that 'rent strikes' or the like can succeed under such and such circumstances but their achievements are severely limited and require the sort of outside help which can't be made universally available. Bardoli succeeded because wealthy men from Bombay were willing to buy back alienated land and return it to its owners. Precisely for that reason, Bardoli was self-limiting.

Gandhian saytagraha, as some sort of 'perpetual motion' device, remains a myth- but is Boulding's notion of Psychic Capital really indifferent between myth and reality?

Everywhere I went in India in my brief and inadequate visits I heard one thing: “There is no alternative”. It was precisely the greatness of Gandhi that he always insisted there was an alternative. Morality always implies that there are alternatives to choose, for morality is choice. To deny alternatives is to deny morality itself. To perceive alternatives requires imagination, hard thinking, and costly and painstaking study. If the Gandhian movement in India can recapture this great vision of the alternative, India may yet be saved from the disaster towards which she seems to be heading.

Yes, Gandhi always insisted there was an alternative. But it was imaginary. Morality, indeed, is to choose rightly. But can Boulding really mean that it is morally right to reject Reality, because it remains indifferent to your scolding, and to live instead in a Fool's Paradise where, like Acharya Vinobha Bhave, you imagine that you have solved all Bihar's problems because, by your efforts, almost all of the land in the state has been gifted away in an entirely bogus  'boodhan'? Surely this is not Morality but self-serving Stupidity of a particularly repulsive sort.

There was a time when it appeared that the Government of India, purely in its own interest, was going to bring in tougher anti-corruption laws coupled with some sort of fast track Ombudsman service. This was because a principal-agent problem had arisen- dynasts could no longer trust their bag-men- and in this context it appeared that a 'Gandhian' anti-corruption movement might serve a useful purpose by creating a sort of popular 'don't take, don't give' anti-bribe' Psychic Capital favorable to Market based reforms. 

That was a pipe-dream. What we are faced with instead is just another rowdy political party and one more bogus Yogi Bogi Godman.

Boulding's work, including his notion of Psychic Capital, is by no means facile. But, properly applied, it militates to the conclusion that Gandhism was a sham. Elsewhere, and treating only of social movements which yielded more than they cost, it may yet expand the noo-sphere, not the nonsense sphere.