Amanda Jackson5 said:If you happened to actually read the article that Lisa Jackson7 linked in the opening post, you'd see that monasteries are explicitly mentioned as an example of an "intentional community."
1. I’ll admit, I only skimmed those ten pages. Surely you didn't actually sit down and read every single word, did you??
2. Well, I just gave it another quick scan, and I honestly missed the part about monasteries—must have flown right over my head.
3. But my main point was this: nobody else on the forum (except for hiddenpuma75) has brought up monasteries, sects, cults, spiritual schools, Freemasons, or any of that sort.
4. Everyone seems focused on SECULAR communities here. No one is talking about the religious, spiritual, occult, philosophical, or other mystical "mumbo jumbo" types of groups.
1. It’s actually quite fascinating how little anyone seems to talk about those specific types of intentional communities that have been around for millennia. They are always there, lurking on the fringes of society, yet they always seem to be somewhat overlooked or underestimated.
2. I'm talking about religious communes. Monasteries. Ashrams.
3. One thing that really caught me off guard was this:
it turns out almost every major world religion has some form of monastic order, except for Islam, which explicitly forbids them😲 (viewing them as contrary to the natural order)
4. If you want a brilliant account of how one of our own philosophers (Charles Veljacic) retreated into the Sangha community, you can find it at this link:
Disillusioned with the world—suffering from what he described as a sort of Sartrean nausea—he felt a growing spark of desire for a Buddhist-style withdrawal, or rather, an escape from the chaos of modern life.
hollowpuma762 said:Look, Spiritus and Intellectus aren't the same thing, and saying they are is just a massive oversimplification. It’s not even about being "two sides of a coin"—it's more like a trinity than that.
What you're arguing against is something I actually transcribed from this book—purely as an act of free, selfless goodwill https://vdocuments.site/william-stod...ravljanja.html—specifically from pages 70, 107, and so on.
I first encountered and embraced these ideas last year while I was in Boston.
And since this little hidden gem is so valuable, you can all grab the PDF for free right here at this link: 🙏
Doesn't the universe feel like a much friendlier place and a true home when we have characters like hiddenpuma75 and a mindset of "sheer is keeer"?🙂
'' In contemporary conversation, the word ''intellectual'' is often misused as a mere synonym for anything ''mental'' or ''rational.'' Actually, unlike the Intellect, which resides ''above'' the soul, the mind or reason is simply part of the soul’s makeup—just like our willpower, emotions, imagination, or memory. This doesn't mean there's some hard wall separating the Intellect from the mind. Think of the Intellect as the center of a circle, while the mind is the circumference. The Greek philosophers and the Scholastics were obsessed with finding that ''center,'' or to put it more precisely, the transcendental.
......
Even a giant like Jung tends to blur the line between Spirit and the soul. 😲 It isn't hard to see the confusion and mess that stems from this anti-Platonic blindness.
That is why we should understand the Intellect in its explicit metaphysical sense—referring to the medieval concept of Intellectus, the Greek Nous, the Sanskrit Buddhi, or the Arabic ali Aql.
Amanda Jackson5 said:To be honest, it’s not really. I meant to get back to you on this a while ago, but it slipped my mind. I suspect the confusion stems from some old-school scholasticism and the messy ways Aristotle's work was translated, especially regarding his distinction between passive and active intellect. If we look at the Latin term *intellectus*, which basically means the intellect, the Greek equivalent would be *nous pathetikos* versus *nous poietikos*. You could think of it as a rough parallel to the divide between empiricism and rationalism—or, if you prefer the heavy hitters, what Kant (and later Hegel) categorized as *Verstand* versus *Vernunft*.
Not quite!
1. This is exactly why we all needed this dictionary in the first place.
2. Traditionalists have taught me that Intellect isn't just "the mind," and we shouldn't be so careless about blurring the lines like people do in everyday conversation.
They write things a certain way, so I’m going to make sure I clarify this for myself, for you, and for "all of us" alike.😁
3. Spiritus (Intellectus) is the Latin term; in Greek, it’s Pneuma, and in Jewish and Arabic traditions, it's Ruh.
4. The soul is Anima; in Greek, that's Psyche, and in Jewish and Arabic, it's Nefs.
5. Intellect and Spirit are essentially two sides of the same coin.
Now, I think there's a rather beautiful mathematical analogy for this:
There is no impenetrable barrier between the Intellect and the mind. The relationship of the former to the latter is much like the relationship between the apex of a cone and its circular base. Metaphorically speaking, since the days of Descartes, most philosophers have focused exclusively on the base while completely ignoring the apex (the transcendental), which ultimately condemned them to superstition. That's the philosophical decline that began with Descartes and Kant and has continued right up to the present day—it's what we call the history of philosophy. The only strange exception to this downward spiral was the Cambridge Platonists of the 17th century.
Virgilian words couldn't express it better: ''Descending into Avernus is easy, but remembering the steps to return is hard! !
* (Avernus is a crater near Rome, symbolizing the underworld, or rather, decay.)
Amanda Jackson5 said:To be honest, it’s not really. I meant to get back to you on this a while ago, but it slipped my mind. I suspect the confusion stems from some old-school scholasticism and the messy ways Aristotle's work was translated, especially regarding his distinction between passive and active intellect. If we look at the Latin term *intellectus*, which basically means the intellect, the Greek equivalent would be *nous pathetikos* versus *nous poietikos*. You could think of it as a rough parallel to the divide between empiricism and rationalism—or, if you prefer the heavy hitters, what Kant (and later Hegel) categorized as *Verstand* versus *Vernunft*.
AHA! (That sounds like something an executioner would shout!) 😁
See what I mean? Even Jupiter struggles to grasp the subtle distinction between intellect and reason, so why should we expect anything different from a bunch of stubborn mules?
But those mules just stay quiet and pretend they have all the answers. 😉
Honestly, what on earth is this concept of BEING? How does an American even wrap their head around the distinction between "being" as a verb and "Being" as an actual entity or state of existence? I’m asking for a breakdown so simple that even one of Einstein's most vocal assistants could grasp it—complete with visuals and examples, and hopefully without anyone needing to grit their teeth or shed tears of frustration.
===== SPIRIT 🙂
For instance, I’ve noticed that our friend Sigmund uses the term "spirit" with such sovereign confidence and intimacy—it’s almost as effortless as you all reading these lines and tapping away at your keyboards.
And yet, Cave and Wand always seem to stumble over that very word— SPIRIT 🙂 because whenever they hear it, they immediately jump to some invisible entity that exists outside our 3D world, like some kind of gaseous, formless phantom...
My hope is that in this thread, we can finally clarify both the things we know and the things we don't regarding these fundamental concepts. We tend to toss them around so casually and recklessly, often with an unearned sense of certainty. ...
1. Let's keep this conversation flowing and stay connected.
2. I'm assuming everyone caught the drift of my first point here.👍
3. I enjoy reading your posts—not just for the raw thoughts, but for the deeper reasoning behind them...
4. But let me ask you: do you actually see the distinction between the "mind" and "reason" (and even the brain)?
5. Honestly, I don't! 🤔
(And if I could ask you all to help me clear this up, 🤔 (Okay, look, I know I’m being a bit of a dreamer here and I might be the only one asking, but I’m genuinely curious: how many of you are willing to take on the challenge? I'd love for you to explain, perhaps even using some colorful imagery, what "mind" versus "reason" means to you personally.)
If I'm being blunt, I suspect most of you don't really grasp the nuance between the two, and frankly, you probably don't care much to dive deep. 🙂
6. Can anyone actually break down the similarities and differences between concepts like
consciousness and awareness,
spirit, soul, and psyche,
the mind and reason,
objective versus subjective,....
psychology, philosophy, spirituality, theology, and logic,
YouTube is quite possibly the greatest feudal lord we've ever seen.😲
While Sigmund and mravac88 might hold a grudge against the church for collecting its tithes, YouTube takes a massive 45% cut from the profits of musicians, video producers, and publishers—essentially taxing the "peasants," or rather, the creators—just because they operate on their digital territory.
And let’s not forget that land belongs to all of us, much like how computers and technology "belong" to everyone today.
The reality is, there is plenty of money out there. The issue is that it isn't distributed fairly, and the internet is actually making that wealth gap widen at an exponential rate...
It's pretty obvious we need to figure out a way to distribute the great resources of this planet more evenly and intelligently.
To borrow a sentiment from Gandhi:
der is inaf for pipl niiiid bat der is not inaf for pipl griiiid
Or, as originally written:
(there is enough for people need, but there is not enough for people greed)
The internet is ultimately a business where the winner takes it all... that's the takeaway from the book The Internet Is Not The Answer.
If I’ve managed to grasp the core message of this book, it boils down to this...
Now, I realize I might be oversimplifying things here—it’s a bit of a blunt instrument approach, I know.
While we’re all busy having fun, learning, surfing the web, and sharing our lives through photos and constant digital footprints, every single click we make is being harvested for advertising data. This process creates a tiny class of ultra-wealthy elites while simultaneously dismantling traditional industries and upending countless families and livelihoods.
The irony is almost poetic...
The founders of Google actually detested advertising so much that they originally banned any ads from appearing on their homepage. Fast forward to today, and they have become arguably the most powerful advertising machine in human history.
The real issue is that most of us are essentially working for free for companies like Google and Facebook. In doing so, we are fueling an incredibly narrow circle of massive wealth, all while inadvertently destroying real-world jobs and destabilizing families and communities.
Take Google, for example: despite boasting a market cap of around $400 billion, they only employ about 46,000 people. Compare that to an industrial giant like General Motors; even with a much smaller market cap of roughly $55 billion, they support a workforce of 200,000 people.
So, when you look at the numbers, Google generates nearly seven times the profit of General Motors while employing significantly fewer workers.
This massive imbalance in capital concentration threatens the very stability of the global economy, our nations, and our social fabric. Massive entities like Apple and Google continue to amass staggering profits and hoard capital abroad rather than paying the taxes that should be reinvested back into the US and our local communities.
Someone like addx, ND, or even hiddenpuma75 could probably sit down and analyze this...
But hey, that’s just life—it’s a constant grind, so you just have to find a way to make it work, my friend.
That said, let’s be clear: the internet HAS improved all our lives in at least twenty-three different free ways...
===
Okay, fine, there’s no arguing that part...
What *is* debatable is the sheer scale of wealth that a handful of individuals and tech giants like Microsoft have sucked out of society for their own gain... effectively gutting entire industries and upending countless families in the process. And on top of that, they seem to go out of their way to dodge the taxes that should actually be going back into the public coffers.
At this point, your "old school" wealthy capitalists from the traditional sectors look like paupers compared to these "internet billionaires."
Honestly, I think anyone else who has a thing for numbers and data would be absolutely floored by these figures, especially since I was completely clueless about them myself...
People often point to the downfall of Kodak as the ultimate cautionary tale—a massive company that essentially let billions of precious photographs slip through its fingers. On Facebook and Instagram.
Back in 1989, Kodak was an absolute powerhouse, employing around 145,000 people. It wasn't just a massive corporation; the entire city of Rochester essentially thrived on the photography business.
Fast forward twenty-five years to 2013, and Kodak was still employing 8,500 people. It’s a heavy thought, really—how that entire company and all those families were essentially wiped out by the rise of free digital sharing on platforms like Instagram and Facebook. Honestly, we’re all somewhat responsible for that shift.
Let’s be honest: the money that Kodak lost didn't just vanish into thin air. It wasn't simply swallowed by the market; it was funneled directly into the pockets of a few select individuals.
It’s the same story with just about any other profession, really.
The core issue here is that such an immense amount of wealth has concentrated into the hands of just a tiny handful of individuals. When people have enough capital to drop millions on 400-foot superyachts, it doesn't exactly feel like that money is being reinvested into the community or doing much to advance the common good.
This is a pretty blunt take, and I’m definitely oversimplifying things here. It seems to me that most of you—addx, hiddenpuma75, and probably the majority of this group—are "pro-capitalism," while Amanda Jackson5 and mravac88 seem to be the critics leaning toward "socialism."
The core argument from the pro-capitalist side usually goes like this: socialism was doomed to fail because it had to, whereas capitalism rewards those who are talented, bold, and hardworking. In theory, it creates a win-win where both the capitalists and the "working class" can actually prosper.
The critique of socialism is that it leaves everyone equally broke, leaving society stuck in neutral.
From an ethical standpoint, capitalism is undeniably selfish. But since human nature is inherently self-interested, some argue that selfishness is actually a virtue—a concept championed by Ayn Rand.
On the flip side, socialism presents itself as the "good guy" because it aims to redistribute wealth "fairly" for the benefit of society rather than the individual. But let's be honest: people just prefer leaving a legacy to their own families rather than handing it over to some state-run collective or commune.
== So, after that somewhat reductive breakdown of the arguments against capitalism, I have to say that "real-world" capitalism actually looks quite benevolent when you compare it to the capitalism of the digital world.
The book lays out some absolutely dizzying figures regarding how much wealth a tiny handful of tech giants are pulling in...
THE REAL ISSUE is that this new wave of individual wealth generated in the virtual space has effectively wiped out millions of jobs and livelihoods in the "physical world."
Whether you’re a bookstore owner, a photographer, an artist, an actor, a filmmaker, a taxi driver, a writer, or a journalist... you've likely seen your livelihood and your hard-earned income vanish.
So, let's take a quick trip back to 1913 in the US.
Imagine if a single PRIVATE corporation held absolute control over the mail service, the telephone lines, public libraries, printing presses, every mapping agency, and even the movie theaters—all while being completely unaccountable to the public. 😲 That sounds like an impossible, terrifying dystopia, doesn't it?
Yet, just one hundred years later, we find ourselves living that exact reality within the digital realm.
The thing is, the virtual world isn't some far-off fantasy; it's inextricably linked to our "real world."
THE VIRTUAL WORLD IS AN EXTENSION OF REALITY, CO-CREATED BY COMPUTERS AND OURSELVES.
Of course, any US President back in 1913 would have moved heaven and earth to limit the kind of overwhelming power such a company could wield and the massive implications that influence carries.
In our era, that company is Google, though Microsoft and Apple hold remarkably similar levels of sway.
Amanda Jackson5 said:Wand, it’s really not quite as straightforward as you’re making it out to be. Honestly, I’d highly recommend picking this book up (I certainly did!): http://www.amazon.com/books/dp/example-link
1. I just finished reading that fantastic book Amanda Jackson5 recommended.
2. I had every intention of dropping some insights or mind-blowing facts here from time to time, but the future seems to be arriving much faster than any of us anticipated—I honestly don't have the time, or maybe even the headspace for it right now.
3. I'll try to present my thoughts more "promotively" next time, with plenty of fanfare...
4. You might think I'm being hyperbolic, but trust me, I'm not.
5. This book is absolutely stunning if you consider that 99 out of 100 people are completely oblivious to the revolution happening right before our eyes. That goes for everyone, whether they're just average folks or intellectuals like ND, Amanda Jackson5, Wand, addx Beljki, and others just like us.
6. About 90% of the intuitions, beliefs, or judgments you hold regarding the internet, society, business, and psychology are likely wrong, and this book will help you realize exactly why...
7. I actually think there should be a law making this a MANDATORY exam for anyone looking to sign up with an ISP or gain access to the virtual world...
8. Just like how you need to pass a test to get a driver's license, a boating permit, or a concealed carry permit, access to the internet should be tied to understanding this book and its implications. AFTER ALL, YOU ARE PART OF THE NET, AND YOU ARE THE ONES SHAPING ITS POLICIES.
7. A few days ago, during my regular visit to my favorite local library, I noticed a Freudian recommendation had landed right on the new arrivals shelf 😲
8. I couldn't help but see it as a "divine nudge"—a perfect moment of synchronicity and a sign from my HCA that I really ought to give this Freudian work a read.
Between his massive contributions to this forum and civilization at large, plus the fact that I’ve been navigating the internet for twenty years now, I figured it was high time I learned a bit more about the wild frontiers of the digital world...
9. Unfortunately, I couldn't check it out immediately since I already had three books checked out on my account...
10. I actually spent the whole night worrying someone else might snag it, but luckily, it was still there waiting for me.
11. The next day, I finally checked it out, and I'm currently diving into it 👍
12. It's honestly fantastic—engaging, thought-provoking, and packed with unexpected insights and data...
13. So, my plan is to share some of the key ideas and discoveries with those of you who won't be reading it yourselves
14. I'll be rolling these out slowly over the next few days.
On August 25th, Sigmund Freud wrote a post recommending the Wand to us all
Sigmund Freud said:Look, Wand, it’s really not as straightforward as you’re making it out to be. I’d highly suggest picking up this book (I certainly did!): http://www.amazon.com/books/example-link
To be honest, I love reading Sigmund Freud's posts, but I can't say the same for his reading list or what he's planning to dive into next.
3. I suspect he probably feels the exact same way about my taste...
4. The reason I don't care for his literary picks—or his intended reading list—is that his favorite books seem to lack any sense of the INNER life. You know, the spiritual and mystical search for identity, the "who am I" and "why am I here" questions, and how to find an exit from this decaying world that Buddha describes as transient.
5. Most of Sigmund Freud's preferred reading is focused on the external side of things—think sociology, philosophy, politics, metaphysics, and that sort of thing.
6. But Buddha, Hamvaš, Cioran, Osho, and Niels Bohr all suggest that those fields won't save us from this fleeting, unreliable, and often miserable world we inhabit.
6. So, when Sigmund recommended that book above, I just waved it off immediately. I "knew" instinctively it was going to be one of those sweeping, over-generalized socio-political history books... something along the lines of *The Decline of the West* or *The End of History*, or perhaps just more of that modern intellectual-linguistic madness like Žižek, Lacan, or Derrida. 😵
