I think it is crucial that people examine these dangerous ideas and explain to the children why they are so false. These discordians are playing with the fundamental way of viewing reality, and it would seem important that we are familiar with their irrational solipsism. These are the same sort of people that quibble about the meaning of the word is.
The Aneristic Principle is that of APPARENT ORDER; the Eristic Principle is that of APPARENT DISORDER. Both order and disorder are man made concepts and are artificial divisions of PURE CHAOS, which is a level deeper that is the level of distinction making.
With our concept making apparatus called "mind" we look at reality through the ideas-about-reality which our cultures give us. The ideas-about- reality are mistakenly labeled "reality" and unenlightened people are forever perplexed by the fact that other people, especially other cultures, see "reality" differently. It is only the ideas-about-reality which differ. Real (capital-T True) reality is a level deeper that is the level of concept.
We look at the world through windows on which have been drawn grids (concepts). Different philosophies use different grids. A culture is a group of people with rather similar grids. Through a window we view chaos, and relate it to the points on our grid, and thereby understand it. The ORDER is in the GRID. That is the Aneristic Principle.
Western philosophy is traditionally concerned with contrasting one grid with another grid, and amending grids in hopes of finding a perfect one that will account for all reality and will, hence, (say unenlightened westerners) be True. This is illusory; it is what we Erisians call the ANERISTIC ILLUSION. Some grids can be more useful than others, some more beautiful than others, some more pleasant than others, etc., but none can be more True than any other.
DISORDER is simply unrelated information viewed through some particular grid. But, like "relation", no-relation is a concept. Male, like female, is an idea about sex. To say that male-ness is "absence of female-ness", or vice versa, is a matter of definition and metaphysically arbitrary. The artificial concept of no-relation is the ERISTIC PRINCIPLE.
The belief that "order is true" and disorder is false or somehow wrong, is the Aneristic Illusion. To say the same of disorder, is the ERISTIC ILLUSION.
The point is that (little-t) truth is a matter of definition relative to the grid one is using at the moment, and that (capital-T) Truth, metaphysical reality, is irrelevant to grids entirely. Pick a grid, and through it some chaos appears ordered and some appears disordered. Pick another grid, and the same chaos will appear differently ordered and disordered.
What should be done with people who think like this? How can they think like this?
2 comments:
All well and good. Interesting; educational; possibly enlightening; and definitely tinged with amusement.
But to what end?
Granted, one can escape the bonds of the body (and ultimately will, hopefully, forever), and pursue whatever aetheric interests (or be pursued by whatever fears) one has. But, short of willful discorporation, one returns to the resource one was encapsulated in upon birth.
What are the implications of this situation?
(What were the implications of the opposable thumb?)
Maintenance and function.
But what function?
Well, guess it's good the armor suit came with sensory appartus and a data processor.
The data processor has a capable and limitless ability -- with practice -- to deduce from observed data and to induce from data and its inbuilt speculative abilities. In fact, the processor will invent "data" to support an understanding valued by the operator.
But, again, to what end?
It is refreshing to hear the declamation that all is chaos; this stands as an antidote to the constant barrage of culturally- enforced perceptions of order. And there are ways to actually strip the senses of their cultural training -- if only briefly -- to experience the Realm of Eris.
But . . . to what end?
There is no doubt a great value in realizing, recognizing and understanding the source of the bars of the prison we are born into. This insight offers succor when the bars press fitfully on the spirit.
There is a Zen tale of the neophyte who inquires on the value of enlightenment and is told:
"Before enlightenment we work 9-5; after enlightenment we work 9-5."
What else is there?
Order.
Chaos.
Maya.
I should point out that I have played fast and loose with some terms borrowed from physics.
Any real scientist could shred my second to last paragraph above.
I have also borrowed some terms from other religions, but physicists are more likely to be offended when an outsider uses their religion in a heretical way.
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