Your art is a tool. Use the art to explore yourself and other people.
If you do not explore other people's arts you will not understand your own.
If you do not understand your own are you will not be able to explore other peoples.
It is not so important what you do as to do as you intend to do.
Here is a bit more of mine - towards the end you will see where this ties in to martial arts....
NB: in the following object and substace are used interchangeably that is object is taken to mean substance or group of substances.
A substance is that and only that to cause and recieve effect.
Attribute is that which describes a substance or group of substances (object).
Attributes of an object can be split into the essential and the contingent. The essential attributes are required to define the object.
When the effect of cause is dependant on state the outcome is choice.
This is a harsh definition of choice as it implies extending the definition of choice to objects with which we do not normally associate the concept of choice - for example two marbles colliding. However it is included here for completeness as this definition of choice is used later on.
Effect is a modification to the attributes of substance or object.
An object is a collection of substance or substances posessing common attributes.
The Power of an object is it's ability to cause and resist effect on and from other objects.
No two objects can be perfect images of one another or else they would be the same object.
To comprehend an object is to know its attributes
Complexity is a measure of the number of attributes posessed by an object, i.e. the minimum amount of information required to comprehend the object. Therefore an ordered object e.g.crystalline in structure can be simply described and therefore is non complex. This does not mean that the substance / object does not have the potential for complexity i.e. by re-ordering its substance. Neither does comrehension of an object imply full knowledge or understanding of the object. The Mandelbrot set may be fully comprehended by virtue of the fact that it is described by a simple formula, however, due to its seemingly non ending nature it is un-mappable.
Every normalised attribute essential and contingent has a single value associated with it. e.g colour has a value of frequency. Attributes which have no value associated with them are compound and may be normalised. There is therefore a mathematical relationship between attributes of all objects. Any number of attributes of an object may be mapped onto the same number of attributes of another object by these mathematical relationships (formulae). When attributes may be mapped using the same formula then the images of the two objects are being held reciprocally.
One part of perception is the modification of the contingent attributes of the mind to correspond with the objects being percieved. This means that there is a reciprocal process whereby the mind is mapped by exactly the same correcpondance by the object. This process is called projection. Perception and projection are equal and opposite.
Frodo sitting licking juice
From a pommie quartz
He has wrestled loose
Below the branch on which he sat
And contemplated all of that.
"Now what I taste and what I see
and what I smell of this pommie quatz tree
is formed within my furry head
like a picture of all these things I've said.
But all these things form a picture too
of the picture in my head - it's true
So I can only know and see
As much of the world as it knows of me.
And when I'm gone there'll still remain
that tiny portion of my brain,
now captured by the world outside
& held for ever frozen:
My mindshot still
(and ever will)
be held within that stuff I knew -
& now the picture's held in you!!
To re-itterate then :Choice occurs when the effect of a cause is dependant on the state of the substance.
Thought is the process whereby the state of an object contains the image of possible outcomes of choice, and these images are relevant in the process of choice. This is like feedback, except it occurs before the cause and effect.
In summary of the above, every effect is an effect of choice. There is no free will, or if there is it extends to everything. We can think , but choice is automatic. i.e. choice can occurr with thought or without thought.
Deterministic thought: A man may act by choice without though or by choice with thought. however, in acting without thought he did not choose this mode of action by a process involving thought. But neither does he choose with thought ( when he acts with thought ) to act so, for if this is the case we must then re-apply the same argument ad infinitum. Clearly absurd - as may in fact be this entire paragraph.
Memory is the condition of an object where its state contains the image of cause and effect. This is not to be confused with the image of an object. For example a picture has an image but by this definition no memory. Image and memory are distinct concepts.
Personality is the tendancy of the mind to exhibit similar effects for a variety of dissimilar causes.
When effect is determined purely by state, the object is free. Thus only everything is permanently free. If God is free, God is everything. Only god permanently exibits freedom, but everything can exhibit states of freedom. The introduction of God a this point should not raise alarm bells. God here is not used in the normal way as a being with purpose for if that were the case then the pupose would imply existance outside of God and God would not be free. Rather think of God as the closed system of everything, or an anachronym for Greater Order.
A free mind is not subject to external stimulation.
A free mind is not projecting.
Our everyday concept of freedom is quite different from this. However this results from freedom generally being confused with the ability to follow desire. These are two completely different things desire being something way above what we are talking about at the moment. In fact if we do eventually deal with desire, the above implication would be that we do not desire freedom as much as is generally thought.
Have another
darling lover
In the morning
you'll recover.
Cogito ergo cogito
Projection is the process by which mindshot attains a temporal value. As long as the object of perception exists, that elements of the mindshot which percieved it also exists. If indeed all of what you are currently reading is true, then the understanding of it is an immortalising experience.
It is the awareness of perception that defines us.
Perception of a fundamental truth freezes that part of the mindshot for the duration of the truth as long as the truth remains true. If the truth is eternal then the element of mindshot is eternal. i.e. that part of us which understands truth is immortal.
In order for perception to become immortal it must either understand a time independant truth, or understand a truth within the context of that time. In this way there is an element of the present which cannot be preserved without looking back on it. The experience which is specific to the present is lost. Reflecting back or forward to an experience will remain true. What does this mean? To immortalise the present is to percieve it in the context of the whole of time.
If this philosophy is true then the comprehension of it is an immortalising experience.
We live on through those that know us to the extent that they know us.
The experience of emotion finds no reflection in the physical world save for the experience of emotion in others. It is this which defines our collective identity. Our individual experience defines our individuality. Art is the process of stimulating those experiences which define our collective or individual identity. That which sets us apart from all else is less temporal than all else. In this the product of art is death. That which is artistic is that which causes the process to occur. In this,artistic content is wholly subjective. Good art(n) is that which has a tendancy to cause art(v) to occur as result of being experienced.
Two misperceptions
There are two great misperceptions
1.That we are the main characters in the plot. There is indeed a plot of which we are the main characters but this is not the plot.
2.That there is a particular significance attached to each of the tenses. That is to say the present is of particular import, the future of lesser import and the past of least import. At a fundamental level this is not the case for the only difference between the 3 tenses is our perception of them.
Freedom from the great misperceptions is momentary and perception changing.
Original sin
Were I brought up in Germany in time to be of conscription age during the war would I have become involved with the war crimes that ocurred. Given that the answer is yes ( for if it is no then we simply ask for another person as the example ) then to the extend that my alter ego behaved and I would have behaved given the chance we are both equally answerable. This is not to say that I am completely answerable for my brothers crimes, but that there are elements of the crime for which in we - due to our common heritage - are equally responsible.
From this a concept of common cupability arises whereby we, as humans, are responsible for the actions of humanity. This is not wholly seperate from the concept of original sin whereby the sin is 'inherited'. However the perculiar bent of the church is such that although we share the sins of the fathers, we do not share there redemptions. In that I share humanities faults I also share the its successes. As I share Hitler's acts so too do I share Ghandi's.
Re-incarnation If what defines us can be reduced into parts, some of those parts are able to manifest themselves in other people. Were all those parts to be manifest in one person then that person would be the incarnation of me. We are all incarnations to some extent, of other people. Only the experience is not incarnate.
Light and time
We consider the space time continuem to be analogous to the rubber stretched sheet. Gravity warps the sheet. The sheet may not be torn. The fastest relative time occurs where the sheet is not stretched. Light travels in a straight line through the sheet. The percieved curvature of light results from the bending of the space time continuem by gravity. Gravity may exert a force only perpendicular to the sheet. Were we able to exert a force in the direction of the sheet then we could pinch the sheet producing a straight line path of shorter distance between two points. Can you think of a force analogous to this force? In this model this in not possible. However it is possible to fold \fe space using gravitational force. However a point folded on all sides is indistinguishable from a pinch where lateral forces are required as the area of the pinch goes to zero. This is the case with a photon. The area of space of no distance around the photon is folded about itself.
The photon itself perpetuates through the space time continuem as a result of this distortion in it's immediate vicinity.
Reality is a critically damped system.
Ripples in the space time continuem are impossible to observe from within the space time continuem.
The Martial, the Art and the Ethos
For a martial skill to transcend to an art form the process of art as defined above must be exhibited.
The martial is the physical application.
The ethos of the martial art may not be payed for. If the art is beneficial the ethos of the art prevents charging for its passing on. If the beneficial element of the art is dependant on the student, the teacher may not teach that number of students which procludes assessment of the effect of the art. The ethos is that which is neither the martial nor the art. The ethos is the manifestiation of the martial art when it is not being directly practised. It is that to which all students aspire. The ethos of the art does not allow financial considerations to enter. The ethos of the art includes its integration to real life. The teacher should set the example for the student. In the art, the teacher should be what he wishes his students to become.
Therefore when one pays for learning the martial art, it is the skill that is payed for. The full time martial artist has moved from the arena of application of the ethos learned through the art to other elements of his life. The full time martial artist therefore will be proficient in the martial arena, but any ethos aquired will have insufficient scope with which to breathe. There is no knowledge of the ethos only expression.
To learn the martial is to learn a physical language.
The difference between sparring and fighting is that in sparring two people are attempting to communicate whereas in fighting people are attempting not to communicate. The debate of sparring at an academic level approaches fighting. The challenge of the art is to blend the two.
It is through the contradictions in the art that it is unfinishable. Hard and soft. The impossibility of perfection. The art in the unattainable.