[MD] relative

[Tuukka Virtaperko]

Joe,

> Joe:
>
> I am approaching my 80th birthday (lame-brained), and there is no doubt the
> way I express concepts is all over the place.
>

Tuukka:
At least you aren't going to school in the morning like my grandfather, 
who did that in his seventies. I'm happy my dad likes crosswords because 
doing them prevents that kind of damage to some extent. Happy birthday 
when you get there!

> Joe:
>
> The concept of Evolution, something indefinable in the sense of levels in
> existence, without appealing to creation, interests me.  Evolution is not
> something from nothing, but something embracing a sense of order and
> individuality.  I prefer the musical Do,Re, Mi etc. as a model for order.

Tuukka:

Okay. Then you perhaps even are a mystic. I feel what you mean but don't 
know it.

> Joe:
>
> I don't know what game we are playing?  I am not good at mysticism.  I don't
> have a mathematical background.  My use of logic is instinctive and I appeal
> to evolution good and bad.  I have no strong feeling for what mysticism
> might be or what it might achieve?

Tuukka:

I feel what mysticism is and what it achieves, but don't know it. I 
don't know what game we are playing either.

Maybe I can say something about mysticism. It is the study of symbols 
that are extremely general and abstract. Jungian archetypes. I think 
that's what mysticism is about, to some extent. Other aspects may be 
undefinable.

Wikipedia: "Carl Gustav Jung developed an understanding of archetypes as 
being 'ancient or archaic images that derive from the collective 
unconscious'."

There are many things one can say about Evolution, and it's maybe indeed 
a good idea to capitalize that word in this use. But I'd say the 
Evolution of archetypes has become extremely rapid during the past 
century or so. The rise seems almost exponential in the amount of 
archetypes, their relations to each other, and what not.

I don't remember what this had to do with recursion in Buddhism, though.

It does have one connection, and that is that archetypes are being 
copied by humans (passed from one to another) and in this process they 
can also be combined with each other, as to form new archetypes. They 
may also be modified both intentionally and accidentally. In this way 
they resemble genes. Genes are modified intentionally by sexual choice 
and accidentally by mutation. And ultimately, archetypes are information 
or knowledge, and thus belong to the subject matter of epistemology.

It would be interesting to study this kind of Evolution. How one one go 
about in trying to do it? After all, we live in the subject matter we 
are studying. It's not like biology, in which you can use your eyes 
(which consists of cells) to look at other cells, even though your eyes 
can't see themselves. But if we want to study archetypes, we are, in 
some way, requiring for our eyes to see themselves. And that is what 
makes mysticism hard to define.

I've studied some mysticism in ancient religious texts, such as the 
Bible and Gnostic gospels and Norse mythology. Finnish mythology is 
pretty familiar to every Finn who pays attention in primary school. I 
would say I didn't understand religion or spirituality at all before I 
studied Norse mythology and the Gnostic gospels. The Coyote of the 
Plains Indians is also a personal favorite.

Do you find this to be related to the Evolution you were talking about?

-Tuukka