The Two Realms in Which We Live

 

_*The Two Realms in Which We Live*_

I had read, when young, some of the works of Erich Fromm and been touched by these. 

But rational thought is, at base, a survival tool, as are memory and imagination.  

We are driven by our instincts and emotions. These set our primary goals, with memory, imagination, and reason being tools for reaching these ends.

We, along with other sentient beings, including surely all animals and perhaps most plants, live in at least two connected realms. One is the physical, objective realm. The other is the mental, subjective realm. 

The physical realm is the one on which observations can be made by one person and independently verified by another. We access phenomena in this realm through our sense organs and instruments of observation, including those of measurement, the earliest ones being perhaps our own fingers, hands, feet, strides, etc., later standardized, along with days, lunar months, solar years, etc. 

This is the realm of study of the natural sciences, the physical universe of space and time, of matter and energy, and of information and its processing and transfer. 

This last part--information and communication--may, in fact, be a bridge between the two realms.

The physical, objective realm appears to be one that is shared by all of us and that exists independently of each of us. 

If you or I lose consciousness or die, the physical universe will continue. It was there before we were born. This is an assumption made by the natural sciences and by most of us, appearing to be a reasonable (but still far from uncontested) assumption.

The second realm--the mental, subjective realm--is the realm of experience and of the experiencer, and so also the realm of sentience/consciousness itself. 

I cannot usually access your mental realm, nor can you usually access mine. 

I cannot really "feel your pain", "experience your pleasure", sense your other sensations, including those of your five senses, or experience your emotion (beginning with fear or aversion and desire or attraction) or directly experience your thought, memory or imagined thing. 

The natural sciences cannot be applied to the mental, subjective realm. They are restricted to the physical, objective realm that we all share and in which we can independently make and verify observations of physical phenomena. 

Things such as faith and divinity exist only in the mental, subjective realm. 

Although reason, memory, and imagination are also part of that mental, subjective realm, they are limited in their reach and power, as are symbols and language. 

We usually agree that there is only one, shared, physical realm, although quantum physics and the multiverse theories cast some doubt even on that.

Is there an infinite multiplicity of mental realms, constantly being born with every birth of an individual sentience and also constantly disappearing with every cessation of sentience, including the irreversible death of a living organism?

Or is there also only one, shared mental realm of which our individual mental realms are either portals or portions, shielded from one another for functional or protective purposes, just as our individual, physical bodies are. 

I have had a couple of experiences, not communicable through reason or language, that suggest that this is so. 

I expect that many others have had similar experiences. 

We often tend to disregard these "breaks in the shielding", even if they are  consciously noticed, as misperceptions, coincidences or delusions. 

Delusions do, of course, occur, and some rationalists would group all spiritual experiences, faiths, devotions, divinities, etc. in that broad category, along with bhuuts, shaitaans, et al.

_2024-03-24 Sun._

_Berkeley, California_

The Issue in Palestine

 

***The Issue in Palestine***

*The Problem with Zionism*

Even if one stops short of equating Zionism with Nazism, and so also Zionists with Nazis, the sad fact is that Zionism, in both its original and developed theory and practice, cannot be reconciled with basic, universal human rights as we normally define those. 

*The Impunity Enjoyed and Employed by Israel*

One may of course claim that human rights, as so defined, have been and still are being constantly violated all over the world. 

The problem is that public criticism of either the Israeli government and military or of Zionism in its theory and practice has for a very long time been very difficult to carry out without being labeled as an "antisemite" or, more recently, a Hamas supporter, or even a supporter of ISIS. This tactic has been used to not only silence criticism but to destroy the critics. 

Hamas has of course been bracketed within the caregory "terrorist", while the governments and military of Israel, the USA, the UK, France, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and (until 2022 February) Russia, along with others, have escaped that bracketing. 

This situation is one in which Israel, in particular, is in a very special category. It is both shielded zealously against criticism and also free to basically do as it wills, no matter how heinous its actions.

No government had been able to directly challenge the Israeli government's actions or to halt its long and seemingly never-ending stream of criminal injustices and atrocities. 

To attempt this meant having to face not only the might and wrath of Israel's very well equipped military, but also the  military, economic and political might and wrath of the governments supplying it with their weapons and their economic and political support and shielding. 

Those governments that had tried have either been eliminated and replaced or have been besieged, by various means, including massive violence. 

*The Criminality of the Enterprise in Palestine*

These actions of the Israeli government, carried out by its military and other agencies, as well as through its settlements and settlers, include not only legalized discrimination and injustice, but also routinely carrying out chronic harassment, kidnapping, incarceration, dispossession and displacement of the Palestinians, while continuing to illegally occupy and settle their territories, including by violent, even murderous means. This has been going on through my lifetime, starting earlier.

These clearly criminal actions of the Israeli government have also included carrying out, periodically, sustained massacres of thousands (indeed even at times tens of thousands as in Lebanon and again currently), of defenceless civilians. This too has a long history, starting in 1948 and only increasing in scale and ferocity over the decades. 

These civilians, mostly children and women, have continued to be killed and injured in the most horrific ways imaginable, as most clearly evidenced through reportage from the ground over the last five months, even as the reporters have been systematically targeted and killed, including with their families.

*What is Needed--and the Obstacles*

This has to stop, without further delay. Israel needs to return to the land area granted to it, however illegitimately, by the UN General Assembly in 1947, pulling out its illegal settlements and its illegal military occupation from areas taken by force. 

This can no longer wait for fraudulent "peace processes", including the recruitment of regional and local collaborators. The injustice, slaughter and suffering have to be ended forthwith.

However, the power of money and influence is such that, whether it be for the strategic or economic interests of the Western Alliance or for narrow Israeli ends of domination and expansion, or for both, public criticism of Israel (and of the flow of funds and arms and more to it from the West that enables these crimes, all clearly such under whatever there is of international law) has been impossible to sustain. 

Every Western politician who has tried, including past U.S. presidents and more recently a Labour party leader in the UK, has been ousted or otherwise silenced, along with their supporters. 

More importantly, every new crime of epic proportions results not only in no sanctions or condemnations, but in increased support, especially from the USA and the UK, including literally tens of billions of more armaments with which to carry on the atrocities. 

In addition, there is the never ending threat of military, economic and political action taken, not only by Israel but also by its supporting Western governments, against any government that dares to challenge or intervene in this sordid enterprise.

*The Unfortunate Implications of Zionism for the Jews*

Returning to the basic tenets of Zionism, one must also ask whether those who are of otherwise "liberal" or even "leftist" bent, should reconsider continuing to associate themselves with such a pernicious political ideology and its lethal consequences.

Tens of thousands of Jews in the USA and elsewhere have recognized this and have been trying their best to distance themselves from Zionism. Setting aside basic humanism and idealism, this is also clearly in the long term self interest of Jews, be they religious or secular, all over the world, including even in Israel and the Occupied Territories, although it may be far too late there, given especially what has occurred over the last five months.

The long-running scam has finally been exposed for much of the world to see.

Unless Jews, all over the world, make a very public and successful effort to not only distance themselves from Israel and what the world has seen the Israelis doing in Palestine, but also to put an end to this horror immediately, can one expect anyone who is not unusually insightful or sainted to not associate not just Israelis or Zionists but Jews more generally with these repeated and horrific crimes? 

No calling out of "antisemitism" is likely to have any effect, past a certain point which we sadly seem to have already passed. 

This would be as sad and as predictable an outcome for the Jews (and surely others) as was that which resulted from the  arrogance of establishing a state for European Jews in West Asia--for not only the Palestinians but for many others in the region, including the Jews of Africa and Asia. 

https://www.facebook.com/reel/671935595067485