omniscience – Traou an Dour

Things You Do Not Know

People have a tendency to conclude a whole lot from not very much. Their speculations can be mistaken for reality, their extrapolations unquestioned. I have joked about the phenomenon of self-diagnosed omniscience in this blog and I have introduced the concluding kangaroo, a being that jumps a great distance over chasms to form conclusions.

People also like to pontificate; evidence is rarely a major concern.

I first became aware of some oddities in my character, the summer of my 13^th birthday. We went to Butlins at Pwllheli and I spent a lot of time walking along the Llyn peninsula. I did not want to be there with my parents. I was able to persuade various bartenders that the beers I was buying were for family.

The average man of the street has never heard of three or four pronged nagal beings. I was very much with the question as to who or what I was / am that summer. I even had a jacket like this at one stage.

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While I was decorating this afternoon, it seemed to me that people may conclude about what I am up to and engaged in, based on the contents of this blog. They may be certain that they understand what is going on. They may forget that I choose what to put in the blog and what not to.

A long while back an American university was visiting the one that I worked at, with a view perhaps to forming an alliance. The delegation was “senior” and to help fill their diaries, I was delegated by the powers that be to talk about pastoral care, student support, transferable skills training, the tutorial system, science outreach and academic quality control. The delegation arrived at my office and we had an extended discussion which covered a lot of ground. They were a bunch of suits but very engaged in what I was saying. They started asking me if I had been to the USA before and made an informal invitation to come visit. Somewhat surprisingly they took my contact details and arranged a follow up meeting for the following day.

The next day two of them came to my office they had called the “mother-ship” and proceeded to offer me a job. They would pay for me to come visit for a fortnight to scope out. Then we could put together a plan for a new form of student liaison and care office campus wide. They suggested that I could have a big salary and choose my team.

While the negotiation about alliance was taking place, I was being head hunted spontaneously.

Nobody knew that this was going on, the seaside sounded attractive…

It was out of the blue…

People tend to conclude from within their own version of reality. As a consequence they do not include things which they do not know into their conclusion. They are unaware of the things which they do not know. This rarely inhibits conclusion forming.

Self-diagnosed omniscience if inaccurately or prematurely diagnosed is unaware of the things it does not know. It deems that there cannot possibly be any things which it does not know.

Hmnn…

Personal Development, Quotations

Epictetus Quotes

You are a little soul carrying around a corpse.

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We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.

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Make the best use of what is in your power and take the rest as it happens.

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To accuse others for one’s own misfortunes is a sign of want of education. To accuse oneself shows that one’s education has begun. To accuse neither oneself nor others shows that one’s education is complete.

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Keep silence for the most part, and speak only when you must, and then briefly.

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Whoever does not regard what he has as most ample wealth, is unhappy, though he be master of the world.

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No man is free who is not master of himself.

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If thy brother wrongs thee, remember not so much his wrong-doing, but more than ever that he is thy brother.

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Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.

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If evil be spoken of you and it be true, correct yourself, if it be a lie, laugh at it.

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The two powers which in my opinion constitute a wise man are those of bearing and forbearing.

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It is impossible to begin to learn that which one thinks one already knows.

Personal Development, Postulates, Questions

Assumed Understanding

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In our times it is possible to find “instant experts” keen to profess their assumed knowledge and understanding from the nearest soap box whether made from wood or electronic. You can buy little sachets of “Instant Expert” which you can mix with water, add a little Ego and a dash of encephalitis pop them in the microwave and “hey presto” you become an instant expert on whichever subject you choose irrespective of whether or not you have researched said subject. The “Instant Expert” sachets are the latest wisdom hack. It is the new shortcut to omniscience.

There are those who may actually be an expert in one area who might assume that said expertise is transferrable to others.

I have been very fortunate in this lifetime in that a very large number of people have told me stuff, presumably to educate me, they have offered me their expert opinion and told me what I am. Many, to my eyes, have deemed that they “know-it-all” and in their largesse have been keen to share.

If somebody desperately wants to be right, to “win” an argument, I am generally minded to let them. If they are so certain, so adamant, it would be mean of me to piss on their campfire. If their opinion is so concrete and set, why would I waste any energy trying to alter it?

I will make a postulate.

The phenomenon of assumed understanding is widespread and in many cases that assumption is invalid. People understand much less than they might imagine. This does not stop them from opining in an adamant and assertive manner.

Or a more concise version.

People are often loquaciously full of bullshit.

One of the things one learns in higher education is that smart people, when they tip up, assume that they know more than they do. One can spend three years {or more} altering this knowledge self-diagnosis.

What do you reckon?

Is assumed understanding prevalent?

Musings, personal, Quotations, Team Development

Don’t you love farce?

Don’t you love a farce? My fault, I fear
I thought that you’d want what I want, sorry my dear
But where are the clowns? Send in the clowns
Don’t bother they’re here…

Stephen Sondheim

——————–

If one reflects on the comings and goings at Westminster over the last 12 months it has been somewhat farcical. This is especially the case because some people have taken it so very seriously, they are so very important.

“There never were any parties. We obeyed all the rules. Honest guv. Pinkie swear.”

“I had a bit of slap and tickle with my aide/mistress and then went on I am a celeb, so people would like me. P.S. thanks for the £400k.”

“Let us give the rich and those {Jodrell} bankers a tax break while the nation starves waiting for the crumbs of caviar to trickle down from the high table…”

“Our brave air force will save us from ET and his UFOs.”

“Clap for carers but don’t give those greedy skiving bastards a pay rise. How dare they put us at risk after we managed the Covid fiasco so very well! All our chums got nice fat cat contracts for PPE.”

“Let us send all our jets to Ukraine…That is a good idea it will halt Russian aggression. {Sending combat aircraft is not a declaration of war in Boris’ mind.}”

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On a number of occasions I was asked to do team development courses because the “plebs” were complaining and not doing as they were told. It was obvious to me that in at least one case the root cause was the ridiculous, ill-planned and demanding behaviour of senior staff. They were expecting sudden animal trials at a drop of a hat, when the specially bred line of rats needed weeks of preparation and breeding. Unrealistic demands cannot be met. When I suggested in this case that the Cambridge academics needed training much more than those in the animal house, my wise words were pooh-poohed. Egos are fragile and self-diagnosed omniscience is pandemic.

“Not us we are perfect. It is they; they are not sufficiently flexible to anticipate our whims, telepathically. If only they were better life would be fine. They are the problem!!”

The problem is that when people are caught up in the script of a dramatic farce, they are wholly unaware that they are in fact enacting a farce. This is what makes a farce, so farcical and so funny, the seriousness and commitment to the {pre-written} scripts of the protagonists in the farce. They cannot see beyond the opening and closing doors, along the farcical corridors. They cannot hear the “Benny Hill” music which is an accompaniment.

With perfect comedic timing, they say their lines, deadpan and fully bought into said reality {farce}.

The madness of the dream…

Musings, personal

Is, Ought and Hullabaloo

It is not uncommon for a hullabaloo to result when things do not adhere strictly to expectations. If the world differs from how it “ought” to be, how it “should” be people get all dramatic and there is suffering because how the world “is” does not conform to preconceptions. In fact people sometimes struggle to see and understand how the word “is” because the lenses of “should” and “ought” are so very thick that they prevent the clarity of actuality. People cannot see things how they are because they do not want to.

The shoe-horns of “ought” and “should” can struggle to get the foot of reality into the cobbler’s shoe of how the idealism, bias and prejudice have determined the world to be. There can be a disconnect between physical plane reality and an “idealistic” world view.

For example people are having trouble accepting that the “ideal” of Brexit in no way lives up to the hype with which it was miss-sold to the public. Brexit, in England, is almost a taboo word and Bregret is now being bandied about. Not all cunning “plans” work out. It was not even a plan, it was hyperbole, hot air, based on an faded jingoistic “Britannia Rules the Waves”, outdated illusion.

Now people have their blessed blue passports and can wait at immigration in the airport with the Bangladeshis and the Iranians.

I am picking up the “we are only making plans for Nigel {Alan} vibe again”.

Clearly people know best what is right for me and may even come to a consensual view of what that looks like. However, there is a lacking foundation stone. No bugger has asked me. The house is therefore unsteady.

It is so typical “they” get together and have a chat about how to “manage” others. Thank God for their omniscience. Where would we be without it?

I have no drama about my way of life. It is what it is. Others may deem that it did not “ought” to be like this. Why not?

In the news when someone dies it is often termed a “tragedy” especially if they were “well liked”, popular and below the age of 83. This drama over mundane reality is strange. Loads of people die in their fifties, so why are they “tragically” taken from us before their time?

There is a disconnect between “should”, “ought” and is. A hand wringing hullabaloo can result when someone dies of natural causes because the “should” have made it to their eighties.

Why, to be an added burden on the health services?

When the time comes, it comes. Why all the drama?

People have a real knack of making a big hullabaloo when is differs from “should” and “ought”.

It is a form of suffering caused by wanting to have life on one’s own terms, terms dictated by the lower self. The universe must comply with our desires and expectations.

{It is not fair mummy.}

Unfortunately shit happens, life goes on and then you die. Life does not comply with our required terms and expectations.

Poetry, Satire

The Concluding Kangaroo

faster than a speeding bullet

he came to his conclusions

with an utter certitude

–

from reading a single poem

he psychoanalysed

diagnosed and prescribed

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the victim was then

hung drawn and quartered in public

metaphorically speaking

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when someone told the kangaroo

that a poem is just a snapshot

a polaroid of a fleeting moment

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he bounced off

unconvinced

ready for his next conclusive and omniscient diagnosis…..

Cause & Effect, Karma, Musings, Personal Development

Traps of Own Making – Soap Opera

The entertainment sector provides us with so-called “Soap Operas”. These pervade the societal consciousness to the extent that newspapers talk about what happens in them and provide “spoiler alerts” if there is to be a plot reveal. Soap opera “stars” can become part of our extended family. In these “operas” the protagonists get themselves into hot water, difficult situations, traps, and drama. They are like normal life but on steroids, amphetamines and in some cases hallucinogens. They are a mirror, a window on the trials and tribulations of modern mores, such as they may be.

In these the protagonists get themselves into all sorts of scrapes the extraction from which is never easy, there must be drama. Drama sells.

The common themes are sexual dalliance and sometimes coercion, deceit, manipulation, bullying, fraud, criminality, debts, revenge, one upmanship, lies, jealousy, money, resentment, babies, death, cancer, secrets, reveal of hidden secrets, family and property. Etc.

Many of these traps are made by the protagonists themselves. Knowingly they err for some short term perceived advantage or other and it comes back to bite them on the bum. The karmic boomerang is very evident in many soap opera plots.

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Their stuff can be found in real life on “The Jeremy Kyle Show” and in the newspaper columns of agony aunts like “Dear Deidre”. Sexual and therefore titillating problems are to be readily found for the salacious consumption of readership.

The simplest example of a trap of own making is the “expedient” lie. Faced with a difficult situation many tell a lie so as to avoid facing up to the reality of said situation. In an attempt to avoid; the trap, the hole, has started to be dug. When the subject to be avoided raises its head again, additional levels of lies, mistruth and spin are needed. The hole, the self-made trap, gets deeper. Soon the avoider is deep in a trap of their own making from which there is no easy escape. By seeking to avoid and deceive they have made the situation much worse. The trap deepens and there is now no escape. The trap then induces fear and paranoia about being found out. There is an additional layer of emotional angst associated with the trap, which many may carry with them to the grave. The drama causes dis-ease and suffering.

Occasionally the brown stuff hits the fan and the house of deceit comes crumbling down in full public view and the contents of the trap are revealed in all their glory for all to see.

This is a precis of many soap opera plot lines. One could say that life imitates “art”.

The classic metaphor is the plate spinning trick. Said spinner spins so many plates on poles. There are only so many plates that can be spun. If the spinner puts the straw on the camel’s back plate up not only one plate but many crash to the ground and break.

The problem with traps of own making is that people nearly always make the trap of own making worse by continuing to dig the hole. They cannot see beyond the trap. They just keep on digging. On occasion the hole then implodes upon them. The trap induces an egocentric myopia and the world starts to close in. People in the trap may imagine their behaviours justified right up until the jaws of the trap close and beyond. They may write come back articles for national newspapers seeking to re-affirm the very narrative which brought their downfall. They cannot let go of the trap which they have created for themselves. It lasts in proportion to the depth to which it was dug.

Nearly all traps of own making have a least a pinch of the flaked sea-salt of deceit in their seasoning. That salt may come from the tears of others.

The biggest commonality of traps of own making is the “getting away with it” mentality.

“I, the clever, the magnificent, am sufficiently skilful that I can wing it and get away with it…I do not have to pay for my dalliance. I am all powerful.”

Unfortunately, the universe is bigger than our egos and self-diagnosed omniscience…

The karmic boomerang is a genuine phenomenon of our current manifested universe. It is real unlike many of the things which humans say and are adamant about.

Musings, Personal Development, Questions

What if Anything is Beyond Your Ken?

If there was/is anything beyond your ken you would not know about it, because by definition it is beyond your ken, your ability to cognize and assimilate.

Perhaps a better question is “where does my ken end? Am I aware of the step function change from within my ken to beyond my ken?”

Can you expand the boundaries of this ken? Yes.

Not so long ago someone asserted to me that the guardians of the race do not exist and by extension there is no spiritual hierarchy. He was always a bit of a gobshite prone to being adamant and making assertions beyond his ken.

There are a lot of people like him. If something is beyond their ken then it cannot, must not exit. They do not know where their ken ends yet are prone to soap box.

If you work in higher education as I once did, part of your job is to extend the ken of young people and from time to time to mess a little with their heads. An undergraduate level only goes so far, nuance and depth are found after a few more years. Most people who do an undergraduate degree forget the bulk of it in a few years.

I am married to a non-scientist and although she can manage well in the world, she lacks a physics understanding. This physics understanding has improved. When I say let gravitational potential help us shift this downstairs, she knows it means let it go, let it fall.

People by and large are unaware about their lack of understanding.

Say for example you are shit hot at maths and quantum optics, it does not mean that you have the faintest notion of the interpersonal dynamics of “Love Island” or the market at Electric Avenue in Brixton. Your ken of humanity might end at the door of the Physics department. Under certain circumstances your lack of ken could be dangerous for you. I had an ongoing banter with the weed dealers at the bus stop in Brixton. They asked me if I was a copper, because of my short hair, no. It was our little joke. They knew my face and I theirs. I was safe.

Unless you can turn off your internal dialogue at will, your ken does not extend to quiet mind, much less to the point before thought. You may be a smart cookie, but you have never known mental silence, it is beyond your ken.

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Do you know where your ken ends?

When your ken ends do you have the humility to act accordingly?

Or in you self-diagnosed omniscience is the end of personal ken a notion which you cannot countenance, after all you are an omniscient being are you not?

ॐ, buddhism, Cause & Effect, Dharma of the Day, Karma

Dharma of the Day

self importance is a root cause of suffering

both for the self

and the others you inflict it upon

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your self image is a pack of lies

insistence upon its reality

causes suffering and impedes evolution

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if you are sure you are not being separative

then in your conviction

you most certainly are

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unless omniscience is a quality you own

behaving as if you have the consciousness of a God

is inconsistent with reality

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the wisdom of humanity

is an oxymoron

in nearly every case

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pride and arrogance are also

root causes of suffering

they stem from the same germ

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the desire for and enactment of revenge

not only causes dual suffering

it is one of the most karmically damaging things a being can do

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clinging in all its forms suffocates

better to release a dove from a cage

than to watch it wither and die

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living a redemptive life

not only eases suffering

but gains karmic merit

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whilst karmic debt persists

enlightenment is not possible

and rebirth consequently inevitable

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power over another being is an illusion

such illusory power is corporeal

and therefore has no reality

at the level of the dreamer there is no such thing

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the primal root of all suffering

is individuating identity upon carnation

all beings resent this

few have sufficient knowledge to see this

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emptying the cup of karma removes all suffering

this is the way to Bodhi mind

and eventual liberation

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actions beget karma

redemptive action works this off

there is no other way

buddhism, Quotations

The Four Stages of Attainment

Excerpted from Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_stages_of_enlightenment

The four stages of attainment

The Sangha of the Tathagata’s disciples (Ariya Sangha) can be described as including four or eight kinds of individuals. There are four {groups of noble disciples} when path and fruit are taken as pairs, and eight groups of individuals, when each path and fruit are taken separately:

(1) the path to stream-entry; (2) the fruition of stream-entry;

(3) the path to once-returning; (4) the fruition of once-returning;

(5) the path to non-returning; (6) the fruition of non-returning;

(7) the path to arahantship; (8) the fruition of arahantship.

Stream-enterer

The first stage is that of Sotāpanna (Pali; Sanskrit: Srotāpanna), literally meaning “one who enters (āpadyate) the stream (sotas),” with the stream being the supermundane Noble Eightfold Path regarded as the highest Dharma. The stream-enterer is also said to have “opened the eye of the Dharma” (dhammacakkhu, Sanskrit: dharmacakṣus).

A stream-enterer reaches arahantship within seven rebirths upon opening the eye of the Dharma.

Because the stream-enterer has attained an intuitive grasp of Buddhist doctrine (samyagdṛṣṭi or sammādiṭṭhi, “right view”) and has complete confidence or Saddha in the Three Jewels: Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, and has removed the sankharas that force rebirth in lower planes, that individual will not be reborn in any plane lower than the human (animal, preta, or in hell).

Once-returner

The second stage is that of the Sakadāgāmī (Sanskrit: Sakṛdāgāmin), literally meaning “one who once (sakṛt) comes (āgacchati)”. The once-returner will at most return to the realm of the senses (the lowest being human and the highest being the devas wielding power over the creations of others) one more time. Both the stream-enterer and the once-returner have abandoned the first three fetters. The stream-enterer and once-returner are distinguished by the fact that the once-returner has weakened lust, hate, and delusion to a greater degree. The once-returner therefore has fewer than seven rebirths. Once-returners do not have only one more rebirth, as the name suggests, for that may not even be said with certainty about the non-returner who can take multiple rebirths in the five “Pure Abodes”. They do, however, only have one more rebirth in the realm of the senses, excluding, of course, the planes of hell, animals and hungry ghosts.

Non-returner

The third stage is that of the Anāgāmī (Sanskrit: Anāgāmin), literally meaning “one who does not (an-) come (āgacchati)”. The non-returner, having overcome sensuality, does not return to the human world, or any unfortunate world lower than that, after death. Instead, non-returners are reborn in one of the five special worlds in Rūpadhātu called the Śuddhāvāsa worlds, or “Pure Abodes”, and there attain Nirvāṇa; Pāli: Nibbana; some of them are reborn a second time in a higher world of the Pure Abodes.

An Anāgāmī has abandoned the five lower fetters, out of ten total fetters, that bind beings to the cycle of rebirth. An Anāgāmī is well-advanced.

Arahant

The fourth stage is that of Arahant (Sanskrit: Arhat), a fully awakened person. They have abandoned all ten fetters and, upon death (Sanskrit: Parinirvāṇa, Pāli: Parinibbāna) will never be reborn in any plane or world, having wholly escaped saṃsāra. An Arahant has attained awakening by following the path given by the Buddha. In Theravada Buddhism the term Buddha is reserved for ones who “self-enlighten” such as Siddhartha Gautama Buddha, who discovered the path by himself.

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People who do not know what they are interacting with can make a mistake, a boo boo, in their self-diagnosed omniscience. They can assume many things and succumb to group confirmation bias.