Human reality is separate from cosmic reality because human minds are closed systems. If the human does not force his mind to perceive the external and make his analytical decisions based on that, his mind will form a feedback loop where it merely echoes back to itself as 'truth' that which it wishes to be true.
In The Republic, Plato recounts a debate between Socrates and other Greeks. One holds that justice is found through power alone, and another holds that justice lies in not harming others at all. Socrates finds a happy medium: "good to the good, and bad to the bad," and explores that as the basis for a better morality.
In the modern world, if you advocate "good to the good, and bad to the bad," people will rapidly simplify that into "doing good to everyone because we are all equal." But, rather than merely being an truncation of the original idea to its essentials, this actually inverts it into its polar opposite. The original intent was to reward those who do well and punish those who do badly; but once you add the notion of 'equality,' it turns into rewarding the bad as well as the good – removing the incentive to be good while raising the incentive (and lowering the risk) of being bad.
Acting like this, the human mind is clearly clashing with the universe. In our socially-oriented minds – which favor pacifism, gift-giving and other things that make us look prosperous and compassionate to others – we see ourselves through the eyes of those around us. Thus we never want to be in possession of "bad" in any way, including dishing it out to those who have done bad and deserve it in return. Our personal self-interest rewards us for looking like we only have goodness, much as a shop might want to advertise "something for everyone."
Yet if we zoom out to the perspective of the wider world and the universe itself we see a different story. Those who tolerate bad tend to produce more of it by incentivizing it, much like a farmer who does not remove weeds will soon have a bumper crop of crabgrass and dandelions. The cosmos operates by rewarding that which is realistic and by reaching for something higher than its origins, and by delivering nothing – or destruction – to the useless and stupid.
At first this order seems cruel to us. If we were the bad, we reason, we would not want bad done to us. But on the flip side, if we are not bad to the bad, we are in effect being bad to the good, which is worse. The question boils down to this: whatever we tolerate, we get more of. Tolerance for bad is punishment to good. The two are mortal opposites and cannot coexist.
In The Republic, Plato recounts a debate between Socrates and other Greeks. One holds that justice is found through power alone, and another holds that justice lies in not harming others at all. Socrates finds a happy medium: "good to the good, and bad to the bad," and explores that as the basis for a better morality.
In the modern world, if you advocate "good to the good, and bad to the bad," people will rapidly simplify that into "doing good to everyone because we are all equal." But, rather than merely being an truncation of the original idea to its essentials, this actually inverts it into its polar opposite. The original intent was to reward those who do well and punish those who do badly; but once you add the notion of 'equality,' it turns into rewarding the bad as well as the good – removing the incentive to be good while raising the incentive (and lowering the risk) of being bad.
Acting like this, the human mind is clearly clashing with the universe. In our socially-oriented minds – which favor pacifism, gift-giving and other things that make us look prosperous and compassionate to others – we see ourselves through the eyes of those around us. Thus we never want to be in possession of "bad" in any way, including dishing it out to those who have done bad and deserve it in return. Our personal self-interest rewards us for looking like we only have goodness, much as a shop might want to advertise "something for everyone."
Yet if we zoom out to the perspective of the wider world and the universe itself we see a different story. Those who tolerate bad tend to produce more of it by incentivizing it, much like a farmer who does not remove weeds will soon have a bumper crop of crabgrass and dandelions. The cosmos operates by rewarding that which is realistic and by reaching for something higher than its origins, and by delivering nothing – or destruction – to the useless and stupid.
At first this order seems cruel to us. If we were the bad, we reason, we would not want bad done to us. But on the flip side, if we are not bad to the bad, we are in effect being bad to the good, which is worse. The question boils down to this: whatever we tolerate, we get more of. Tolerance for bad is punishment to good. The two are mortal opposites and cannot coexist.
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