Wednesday, November 10, 2010

The Patroclus Sutra

Thus I have heard. Once, Athena met Patroclus on the battlefield of Troy. Patroclus asked Athena a question.
Patroclus: If God is good then must not the existence and abundance of the world he created be as great as the possibility of existence? If God had the reason to make any possibility actual would God not make every possibility that is good and is consistent with his good nature real? Since the created world is real would God not have the reason to make every good possibility an actuality in this world? The nonexistence of the actualization of any good possibility would show God to be selfish. But being selfish contradicts God's good nature so God would have to actualize all of the good possibilities. Would the actualization of the good potential in man not lead man to rise through degrees of perfection, become enlightened and achieve mystical union with God?
Athena: Your whole argument is based on false premises. There is no God and the metaphysical quality of goodness does not exist. Nor does the metaphysical quality of evil exist. Nonexistent goodness cannot be an attribute of anything. The absence of anti-utility is not an inherent quality of any object. The nonexistence of anti-utility is a quality that an object may or may not have as it exists relatively to the person who is evaluating the degree of anti-utility an object has for them. The quality of utility or anti-utility an object has is the result of the relationship between the perceiving subject and perceived object. Utility and anti-utility is not a quality of the object but but is a quality of the relationship between the subject and object. The quality exists as the quality of the relationship in the given moment. Whenever a new relationship is established between the observer and the observed object or the observed object is observed by a new observer a new relationship is established. That new relationship will have its own unique ethical qualities which must be evaluated separately from any other relationship. The new relationship has new qualities. For every new relationship the quality of utility or anti-utility the object has for the given observer changes.
Goodness does not exist. Evil does not exist. There are no qualities called good or evil that are inherent qualities of any being. Beings have the qualities of utility and the absence of anti-utility as these beings exist relatively to the person evaluating the object. Hence no being can have an inherent moral quality; moral qualities are established through the relation of the object being evaluated and the person who is evaluating the object. Even if God existed God would have the absence of anti-utility or anti-utility as qualities depending on the person who was relating to that god. God may be "good" for some and God may be "evil" for others. "Goodness" or utility and "evil" or anti-utility is a quality that is attributed by a person to a being on the basis of the person's relation to that being. Since God does not exist nobody can attribute any quality to such a nonexistent being. Another false assumption you make is that the world was created. But the world is uncreated.
Worst of all you do not even define what a "possibility" is. Is the "good" ;possibility any of the infinite number of possible events which one may hypothesize can occur or is a possibility, be it "good" or "evil" simply the actualization of potential, that is, nothingness in the form of being? In the first case one is simply dealing with wishful thinking. If the latter case then the only possibility that can occur is the one possibility that does occur when potential, by manifesting in the form of actual being in the moment is actualized to be a particular determinate being based on its temporal relation to the non being of the future and the being of the previous past moment of the series of which it is part and based on its spatial-temporal relation to other beings in the previous moment, each of which are part of their own series. Those other beings in the previous moment act as conditions for the given being that is existent in the present moment. Thus only one possibility is actualized and this possibility cannot have the inherent quality of "good" or "evil". We must go beyond such "good" and "evil" to understand whether pour relation to an object has the quality of the absence of anti-utility. Enlightenment is real but the emmanationist theory of enlightenment is a false theory of enlightenment which does not adequately describe what enlightenment is. Since the emmanationist theory of enlightenment is false and the given individuals non-conceptual awareness that the given individual perceives in pure sensory cognition, that is, cessation is not God the ideas of degrees of perfection and union with God must be false. Enlightenment is the understanding that the non-conceptual awareness we perceive in cessation is the identity of our human psyche. Enlightenment is not the escape from the wheel of rebirth since reincarnation and the law of karma does not exist. Enlightenment is the true liberation from ignorance about what thee true identity of our psyche is, not a spurious "liberation" from reincarnations that do not exist. Non-conceptual awareness is a brain state not an immaterial being called a "true self". It is true that the person who has attained self-rule and is able to control their actions through rational-emotive practice does enable themselves to do actions that lead to the results which, relative to them have the quality of the absence of anti-utility. But this has nothing to do with the idea that God guides a person to actualize a possibility that is inherently "good" in nature.
When Athena had finished preaching this Sutra Athena saw that Patroclus was carrying Achilles' armor. Patroclus thanked Athena, put on Achilles armor and went into battle. Latter Patroclus would be killed by Hector.

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