Vinaire's Blog

Here is an excellent reference from Wikipedia:

“Fanaticism is a belief or behavior involving uncritical zeal, particularly for an extreme religious or political cause or in some cases sports, or with an obsessive enthusiasm for a pastime or hobby. Philosopher George Santayana defines fanaticism as “redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim”; according to Winston Churchill, “A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject”. By either description the fanatic displays very strict standards and little tolerance for contrary ideas or opinions.

“In his book Crazy Talk, Stupid Talk, Neil Postman states that “the key to all fanatical beliefs is that they are self-confirming….(some beliefs are) fanatical not because they are ‘false’, but because they are expressed in such a way that they can never be shown to be false.”

“The behavior of a fan with overwhelming enthusiasm for a given subject is differentiated from the behavior of a fanatic by the fanatic’s violation of prevailing social norms. Though the fan’s behavior may be judged as odd or eccentric, it does not violate such norms. A fanatic differs from a crank, in that a crank is defined as a person who holds a position or opinion which is so far from the norm as to appear ludicrous and/or probably wrong, such as a belief in a Flat Earth. In contrast, the subject of the fanatic’s obsession may be “normal”, such as an interest in religion or politics, except that the scale of the person’s involvement, devotion, or obsession with the activity or cause is abnormal or disproportionate.”

It seems that a fanatic person identifies himself with his favorite subject. That identification is so strong that any criticism of that subject is taken as a personal attack. He then responds as if his personal survival is at stake.

A fanatic person is unable to discuss rationally the subject, which he is identifying himself with. He responds back in a way to undermine the critic by discussing critic’s intentions, ignorance, or some other flaw, whether actual or imagined. It seems impossible for the fanatic person to  consider differeing viewpoints on that subject without also attacking, denigrating or judging the person holding the differing viewpoint.

To a fanatic person, his “self” and his “belief” are one and the same.

I would define a “fanatic” person as one who is unable to examine his beliefs, in light of differing viewpoints. He is unable to comment on them rationally without getting upset.

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Most religions and philosophies stop at SELF as the ultimate source. A person, soul, spirit, etc., are examples of self, but then, in their turn, they are thought to be created by a more basic self called God. The basic self is considered to be eternal. It has neither beginning nor end. It cannot be described. The idea of looking beyond self is not even entertained.

What is self really?

Self is so intimate to one, yet one wonders what self truly is. Self may only be evaluated if there is something else of comparable magnitude. Let’s look at self as knowable compared to unknowable (beyond consideration). This is what Buddha did and found that self is not fixed. “Self is in flux like anything else.” said Buddha, “And furthermore, self may be completely extinguished.”

So what is the concept of self that Buddha had in mind?

To Buddha, self was a manifestation. Like any manifestation, self appeared, underwent changes, and ultimately disappeared.  It belonged to the knowable universe, which is the universe of consideration. But as self seems to underlie all considerations, it might be extending back into the unknowable too.

The Self forms the interface between knowable and unknowable.

Self interfaces with the knowable universe through consideration. Its interface with unknowable has to be by means other than consideration. It may act something like the “squaring function” that converts imaginary into real numbers.

Self may act to convert what is unknowable into knowable considerations.

This conversion alters what is unknowable into knowable. This is where “intuition” seems to lie. Intuition occurs out of the blue. This phenomenon is beyond logic. Logic is essentially the association of existing considerations.

The considerations persist as being knowable. But, recognition of the true nature of consideration might dissolve them back into unknowable. The unknowable may be looked upon as the state of deep understanding remaining after the cessation of all considerations. This state is recognized as NIRVANA in Buddhism.

The unknowable may be looked upon as an indescribable state of “no form, no consideration.” 

In the knowable universe, the core of a human being may be considered to be the self. The rest of the being may be looked upon as layers of considerations enveloping the self.  Please see Thinking & Thought. These layers filter what is being perceived. They judge what is there and pass it as perception.

A human being is the basic self covered by layers of considerations that filter and modify incoming perceptions.

As the filters interpret perceptions instead of simplifying them, the perceptions gains persistence. The persistence may gradually become so strong that it appears as the solid physical universe. This is also the self being represented as a physical body.

Perception, when continually interpreted, become increasingly persistent to a point of solidity we know as the physical body, and its extension, the physical universe.

Thus, it may be said that the physical universe is being generated by the very nature of these filters that are continually “judging.” These filters constitute the very nature of the being. Thus, as long as the being continues to be “judgmental” knowingly or unknowingly, the problem of the physical universe will remain.

The deeply judgmental nature of the being is generating the physical universe and all its problems and situations.

But, if one wants to dissolve the problems and situations that make up this universe, then all one has to do is to stop being judgmental and start looking at things for what they are. Some forms of judgment are anticipating what is there, or being resistive to what is there. This is covered in the KHTK essays.

One may start dissolving problems and situations by looking at them non-judgmentally for what they are.

Interestingly enough, looking per KHTK brings into view the filters that the self is looking through. As these layers of filters come into view they start to dissolve. The person then starts on a journey toward regaining his or her awareness as the basic self.

The basic self is aware without being judgmental.

Ultimately, the self itself may dissolve leaving behind an indescribably deep understanding that cannot be appreciated otherwise.

The unknowable may be appreciated only after the self is dissolved.

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NOTE (added 7/20/12):

The center of gravity of an object is essentially the resultant of all the force vectors acting on the molecules of that object. Similarly, a center of consciousness may be looked upon as the resultant of all mental forces and energies associated with you through awareness at that moment. This center of such mental forces and energies may be called SELF.

A center of gravity is relatively stable compared to the moving particles of that object. Similarly, SELF may appear relatively stable compared to all the mental forces and energies, which are in a flux.

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October 7, 2014

This issue is now obsolete.  For latest reference please see: Universe and Awareness and subsequent issues linked to it.

This issue simply established that intuition lies in the dimension of unknowable, which is orthognal to the dimension of logical associations.

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The mathematics of UNKNOWABLE is essentially the mathematics of dimensions and the location of the viewpoint.

Space has three dimensions that are usually denoted by x, y, and z-coordinates. These coordinates are orthogonal to each other. That means no projections can be made from one space coordinate to another. In other words, the three primary dimensions of space are inherently independent of each other. For a viewpoint confined to any one of the coordinates, the other two coordinates shall be unknowable.

Let’s look at the dimension of real numbers. It contains natural numbers, whole numbers, rational numbers, and even the irrational numbers. However, the ‘square root of negative one’ is undefined in this dimension. It is, therefore, considered to be a number in an imaginary dimension. Mathematicians had a great difficulty in accepting the idea of this imaginary number in the beginning. But then uses were found for this concept in the field of electricity. One then had to adjust one’s viewpoint.

The point I am making is that there are dimensions independent of each other that cannot be projected on each other. And as long as one’s viewpoint is confined to a dimension, the other dimensions would remain UNKNOWABLE. The viewpoint would have to free itself from one dimension to be able to comprehend this other dimension independent of it.

Our physical universe is set within the dimension of CONSIDERATION. We perceive what we consider to be the input to the mind. Here we have LOGIC. We are totally conditioned to perceiving and thinking this way. INTUITION does not lie in this dimension of logical considerations. For a person attached to thinking in a logical way, it would be impossible to know the source of intuition that does not lie in the dimension of consideration.

The dimension of intuition would be unknowable and inaccessible to a viewpoint immersed in logical thinking.

Looking per KHTK essays allows one to bypass logical thinking and to enter in the dimension of intuition.

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