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Sitaram · Site Admin Joined: 14 Sep 2005 Posts: 1079

Date: Sat May 10, 2003 12:00 am

Subject: Beware! Gazing into the Void!

http://www.sulekha.com/chpost.asp...ilosophy&show=0&cid=58356

Omega: Man...my Philosophy final kicked my ass, lol

SITARAM: thats why they come pre-cracked

Omega: LOL , good one

SITARAM: PBS has a documentary about what would have happened if
germans invaded britain

SITARAM: may 8 is anniversary of german surrender in europe

SITARAM: churchill established guerilla units throughout britain...
to act as a resistance after invasion

SITARAM: each unit was assembled by the local sheriff
(constable)...

SITARAM: the members of the unit had envelopes of instructions to
be opened only ..

Omega: woo!

SITARAM: only AFTER the germans invaded

SITARAM: one man opened his after the war

SITARAM: the first thing it told him to do was assissanate the
police chief (constable), since the sheriff KNEW who the members of
underground were

Omega: Man, I LOVE PBS

SITARAM: me too

SITARAM: they named churchills man who was expert in guerilla
warfare.... which was looked down upon then as dishonerable

SITARAM: but churchill decided that this was necessary for defense
of britain,... so that WWI veteran was the only choice

SITARAM: churchill was brilliant

Omega: Yes he was

SITARAM: so, did you see the poem I wrote

SITARAM: "The Dead Baby Factory"

Omega: I'm reading it as we speak

Omega: I like that line:

'The shortest line in Scripture: "Jesus wept"

SITARAM: Nietzsche said, "Beware, when you stare into the Void, the
Void stares back into you"

Omega: When he says the Void, does he mean the Void within each of
us?

SITARAM: not certain,.... I will check

SITARAM: good question

SITARAM: searching on nietzsche void beware

SITARAM: Man, the bravest of animals and the one most accustomed to
suffering, does not repudiate suffering as such; he desires it, he
even seeks it out, provided he is shown a meaning for it, a purpose
of suffering.

http://members.aol.com/RickG15/nietzsche.html

http://mars.complete-isp.com/aero5.htm

In the days of sailing ships, physically sound young men would
occasionally throw themselves from the boat and drown, overcome by
fascination with the sea. This "Call of the Waters", as it was named,
may have a latter-day equivalent in spaceflight. Just as some are
compelled to stand on the edge of precipices or stare off bridges
into the void below, some astronauts are fascinated by the free-
falling view of space afforded by spacewalking. Valeri Ryumin's diary
from his 1979 stay aboard Salyut-6 described his August 15
spacewalk: "You're out of your mind, I was telling myself - hanging
on to a ship in space, and to your life, and getting ready to admire
a sunset."

But this compulsion to stare into the void almost turned deadly for
rookie cosmonaut Yuri Romanenko. During his 1977 stay on-board Salyut-
6 with Georgi Grechko, a 20 December spacewalk was scheduled; Grechko
would spacewalk, and Romanenko was to stay inside the airlock,
monitoring medical readings. But Romanenko's curiosity got the better
of him; he stuck his head out of the hatch, then drifted further and
further out. When he started thrashing wildly,

Future spacewalkers would do well to heed Nietzsche's advice: "When
you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you."

http://criterion.uchicago.edu/issues/vi1/sullivan2.html

Himmelfarb chooses for her title a concept from Nietzsche. In
typical Nietzschean parlance, the intellect looked into the abyss at
the beast, which peered back at it, and the danger of becoming that
beast was always present. Himmelfarb implies throughout the book
that she understands the beast as a representation of
representation of tragedy, suffering, pain, human misery, hatred, all
the things truth, perhaps inadequately determinable, is incapable of
mitigating. It is an interesting metaphor to base her book around,
especially since she traces the roots of deconstructionism back in
part to Nietzsche himsel

It is an interesting irony that is exposed in On Looking Into the
Abyss. To refuse the reality, availability or distinguishability of
truth severs the chains of the nascent subjective elements the
intellectual progenitors of deconstructionism initially bemoaned.
Forced to recognize the unfortunate limits caprice, interest and
individual willfulness place on true history, modern intellectualism,
encouraged by deconstructionism

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does
not become one. And when you look into the abyss, the abyss also
looks into you.

SITARAM: different url

http://www.angelfire.com/ok/Preda/author/mistress/runts.html

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does
not become one. And when you look into the abyss, the abyss also
looks into you. --Nietzsche what do you see when you lean over the
edge and look into the abyss? Endless possibility, endless evil,
eternity? If you knew what the abyss saw when it looked into you,
that the abyss would know all that you knew--would you look?

Sitaram: I remember something from Plato's Republic (or perhaps some
other dialogue)

SITARAM: someone was in a walled city under siege

SITARAM: after an horrific battle, he knew that if he looked over
the city walls, he would see the horrifying carnage

SITARAM: part of him wanted to look ,and part did not

SITARAM: finally he looked shouting "there, damn eyes, have your
fill

SITARAM: he blamed his eyes for the desire to look at horror

SITARAM: that is part of "the abyss" , the void

Omega: I understand now

SITARAM: heaven and hell are within

Omega: But I think it could also be applicable to an inner void as
well
Omega: Exactly

SITARAM: you should sometime look at my webpage, "parsing reality"

SITARAM:

Parsing REALITY for God and Manhole-covers - Page 189

http://www.geocities.com/tulsidas_ramayan/page189.htm

Transit - by Richard Wilbur

A woman I have never seen before

Steps from the darkness of her town-house door

At just the crux of time when she is made

So beautiful that she or time must fade.

What use to claim that as she tugs her gloves

A phantom heraldry of all the loves

Blames from the lintel? That the staggered sun

Forgets in his confusion how to run?

Still, nothing changes as her perfect feet

Click down the walk that issues in the street

Leaving the stations of her body there
As a whip maps the countries of the air.

======================

REALITY... is many many many things, an INFINITUDE of things...
but... CONSCIOUSNESS, is a process of data reduction...
if we NOTICED EVERYTHING... we would be TOTALLY OVERWHELMED... our
senses would shut down..
so... seeing, knowing... involves IGNORING much, and FOCUSING, on
what is important to us..."

just as a grammarian will look at a sentence and PARSE IT, divide it
into nouns, verbs , adjectives, etc... analizing it

so EACH of us PARSES reality... divides,... down to what interest
us...

so... imagine a beautiful young woman in spiked high heels , walking
in the city...
she is PARSING REALITY, to notice all the drainage gratings...

SITARAM: reality for her BECOMES, in a sense, drainage gratings

SITARAM: "but now... along comes a teenager in SNEAKERS..

and he only notices her.
the teenager is unaware of the drainage grates, because HE HAS
SNEAKERS, NOT high heels, but....
the teenager is PARSING REALITY for sexy behinds..

same reality PARSED DIFFERENTLY.. by two different people with "TWO
DIFFERENT THRISTS" (DESIRES, INTERESTS)"

http://www.geocities.com/tulsidas_ramayan/page189.htm

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does
not become one. And when you look into the abyss, the abyss also
looks into you. --Nietzsche [8 Feb 2003]

When you look into the abyss, it also looks into you. And what does
it see when it returns the look? Better, who does it see when it
returns the look? Are you vulnerable? Can whatever is out there get
YOU? Or can it only look and never get further? How deeply will it
look? Does it, like so many people, see only the surface--and judge
accordingly? Or does it look right inside, right down to the heart?
Does it see the unfaith, mistrust, evil that waits inside one and
all? Does it play upon that potential for evil? Does it use your
fears against you--or others? What exactly does the deep, dark abyss
see when it looks into you?? And, what do you see when you lean over
the edge and look into the abyss? Endless possibility, endless evil,
eternity? If you knew what the abyss saw when it looked into you,
that the abyss would know all that you knew--would you look? Or would
you take a step back from the edge instead of the step forward? If
there is something within you that the abyss shouldn't see, why do
you have it? Why does it have you? What sort of evil, what sort of
secret, could be so horrendous that you would not want the abyss to
see into you? Is it the same kind of evil, or potential for evil,
that you see when you look into the abyss? And when one fights
monsters, and then looks into the abyss, will it tell him if he has
become one? Somehow, the answer should be yes. If one becomes the
monster that he is fighting, the abyss will see the monster, the
evil, and latch onto it. And that, more than any other moment, is the
point where one must be careful of stepping too close to the edge.
The abyss, the potential for evil, even when one fights the evil, is
within all of us. The question is, how close is too close? How much
is too much? What does the abyss see, and what do you want it to see?
The potential is there. It is the extra step that makes the
difference. Potential for the extra step--we all have it. Which
direction will you take?

SITARAM: well... time to log off

Omega: Indeed, I need to shower

SITARAM: he who is master of himself is slave to himself

Omega: Indeed

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