Spring Cleaning

Over the last year I have tried to take the blog in to a more focussed direction and try to concentrate in more depth on certain issues. For example personality theory and my latest piece was focussed on dualism and mental causation. When I start out on a piece I find a really strong tangent of thought that I think will blow peoples minds and they will find interesting, or will clearly highlight how a specific belief doesn't work when we investigate it.

Unfortunately, I cannot give this blog all the attention it needs and with my busy schedule, I often lose this tangent and get side tracked because of the time in between writing sessions, and my tendency to go deep in to subjects. Also, I have a tendency to digress as you will probably have noticed!

Also it sadly means that other ideas I come up with in the mean time get pushed aside temporarily and then don't end up making it in to a piece. 

I had some brilliant insights in to the emptiness of our conceptions of 'success' but since I was focussed on writing another piece I never jotted them down and I have forgotten the great ideas I had since it was a few months ago! I would have to sit there and think and work them out again, but it is hard to flow when you don't have a fresh idea burning brightly in the mind.

I have also noticed that it is perhaps not so helpful to beginners when they come across articles going in to immense depth and complexity. So, for this reason, I am going to shift the focus on shorter posts related to more common enquiries, and hopefully my posting regularity will be somewhat more frequent. I hope this shorter format will be more digestible and be more useful to people who show up on this blog for the first time.

I could start a more complex philosophy blog and ditch www.ghostvirus.com but at the end of the day, this project was always about being accessible and I would hate to discourage people from investigating Anatta by going in to extreme complexity and in a more academic format.

This more rigorous kind of work needs to be done in proper academic circles and needs proper criticism and debate in order to augment or diminish the parts of the argument that are strong or weak accordingly. I hope to start a masters degree soon and that would be the right place for that sort of debate.

I feel that many of my ideas have already weathered the storm from numerous attacks by academic philosophers whom I hold great respect for, and plenty of clueless idiots who were unable to recognise the circular logic they were spouting even when it was presented to them in a bullet point list.

Many aspects of my work are not so outlandish and support for many of my ideas has coming from people working independently in the field, such as Prof. Thomas Metzinger from Johan Guttenberg university Mainz, and Prof. Bruce Hood at Bristol university to name a few.

Whilst we differ in some ways we certainly share the same fundamental premise and many people are on board with this new theory. The New Scientist is onesuch journal that has embraced this view. 

The division between my claim and this new orthodoxy is related to recognising the fundamental truth that 'you' is an illusion can be recognised in phenomenological enquiry. I have already well documented the fact that there is more than just an intellectual understanding to be gleaned here, and I have also documented the fact the Buddhists recognise this insight by the name of Anatta.

Anatta is one of Bhuddisms three characteristics namely, suffering, impermanence, and no self. Whilst I do not subscribe to Bhuddism, having witnessed the perversion of certain sects whilst living in South East Asia, there are certain aspects that I find agreeable. Namely the adherence to phenomenological enquiry and the fact that it encompasses teachings on ethics.

It was never meant to be a religion of any kind as it has no deity and was supposed to be focussed on the truth and awakening. All I will say is that there is much wisdom to be gained, but one should only take on truths demonstrated experientially.

That goes for anything anyone tries to claim, and includes anything you may read on my blog.

I find it much easier to write replies to people as it focusses my mind more intently than trying to approach broader subjects. So please feel free to drop me any burning questions you may have about a post, or about anything relevant in general. It might just be that I am mulling over the same curiosity as you, and hopefully it will help inspire me to post in a more ubiquitous manner.

I also hope to finish an e book that I started a while ago that will help give beginners an introduction to phenomenology and looking. I should be finishing an updated 'How to Look' section in the next week or three, depending on time so watch this space.

Gh0$T