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Appendix
History reveals that around 200 B.C, less than five decades after Aristarchus' exquisite formulation of the celestial system, the geocentric concept of the universe, despite its inherent theoretical difficulty, became more and more adopted by the power structure of the Western world -- by the master neocheaters operating through their governments. The geocentric concept achieved prominence over the heliocentric system not because it was superior theoretically but because it was more expedient politically. It was not a scientific decision but a political strategy that made the geocentric system the "official" picture of the universe.
The geocentric school of astronomy began with Eudoxus of Cnidus (409-356 B.C.), an eminent resident at the academy of Plato (427-347 B.C.), several decades after Philolaus had postulated his distinctively non-geocentric theory. Eudoxus' theory was further developed by Callipus (c. 325 B.C.), Aristotle (384-322 B.C.), Apollonius (c. 220 B.C.), Hipparchus (190-120 B.C.), and finally Claudius Ptolemy of Alexandria (A.D. 85-165).
Eudoxus, after developing a certain mathematical procedure, evolved the first geocentric model of the celestial system wherein he assigned a spherical shell to every periodic movement that centered upon the Earth, a combination of such spheres describing reasonably well the complex periodic movement of a particular celestial body. All of the spheres were fixedly embedded in the surfaces of the spheres further out. In this manner he explained the motions of the celestial system by using twenty-seven spheres, one for the fixed stars, three each for the Sun and the Moon, and four each for the five known planets -- Venus, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.
As new periodic phenomena were identified, the system had to be expanded. Callipus gave each celestial body an extra sphere, bringing the total up to thirty-four, while Aristotle added a further twenty-two spheres. In the field of astronomy Aristotle was responsible for the idea that the spheres which carried the celestial bodies along their paths were real physical entities, not mere geometrical constructions as Eudoxus had previously supposed and Ptolemy would later postulate. (His strong adherence to objective reality did not allow Aristotle to view his theory as a mere geometrical construction without any corresponding existence in the universe.) He also believed that the outermost sphere of the fixed stars was moved by the Primum Mobile (the Prime Mover) which governed the entire universe.
Unlike the heliocentric system which originally came from the ancient navigator-businessmen's business-based integration of reality, i.e., the sphericity of the Earth, the geocentric theory was purely an academic enterprise and entailed many difficulties from the very beginning. Furthermore, it not only was an extremely complex theory technically but also became progressively more complex throughout its development. Heraclides' model of the spinning Earth was one of the attempts made to overcome those difficulties within the context of the geocentric universe. During the Alexandrian period, Apollonius, Hipparchus, and Ptolemy also tried to overcome the limitations inherent in the geocentric system, again within the conceptual framework of the geocentric model. They failed to take into account the validity of the heliocentric concept developed by Aristarchus through his remarkable hypotheses.
Apollonius and Hipparchus both developed the system of eccentrics and epicycles. Apollonius suggested that if a planet moved in a circle, the epicycle, the center of which moved upon another circle, the deferent, which centered upon the Earth, then the motions of the planets could be quantitatively accounted for. He further suggested that the celestial bodies moved in circles eccentric to the Earth, the center of their orbits lying at some distance from the center of the Earth. Hipparchus further developed Apollonius' concept. Ptolemy adopted and evolved the system of eccentrics and epicycles used by Hipparchus to explain the apparent motions of the celestial system.
Ptolemy himself made a discovery which showed that the whole system of the geocentric universe could not have any physical existence as Aristotle had suggested: Ptolemy seems to have regarded his scheme as a mere mathematical convenience. (In other words, he admitted that his geocentric system was a mathematical rationalization!) Thus, in Ptolemy, the geocentric construction of the universe had reached its theoretical perfection and, despite its inherent difficulty and rationalized complexity, it dominated the scientific world for the next 1400 years.
However, long before Ptolemy completed his celestial theory as described in his "Mathematical Composition", the geocentric system of the universe had already been adopted by the neocheating authorities of Europe. Beginning around 200 B.C., the combined political and religious power structures of the Western world undertook a systematic oppression not only of the kind of knowledge which did not suit their purpose, such as the heliocentric theory, but also of the very source of knowledge itself, the conceptuality-centered consciousness and its reasoning faculty.
The heliocentric universe did not fit into their scheme of establishing a hierarchical social structure wherein the neocheaters were to stand at the center of the universe. The geocentric universe did. Thus, the heliocentric system was slowly eliminated from the face of the Earth and the geocentric theory gained prominence. Their success in oppressing the heliocentric system and other valid knowledge, and in establishing the geocentric hierarchy, gradually prepared Europe for the Dark Ages and drew the curtains on science for over 1700 years. It was not until the rise of business/commerce took place in Europe toward the end of the Middle Ages, which brought about the propagation of the zero along with the place-value number system, that the light of reason finally shone through the darkness of the human mind and raised the curtains of science at long last.
How could the political/religious master neocheaters be so successful in their scheme as to be able to oppress human knowledge and consciousness for over 1700 years? The answer lies, at least in part, in the very nature and propensity of human consciousness.
The process of life consists of awareness and self-creation. In contradistinction to nonliving systems such as the celestial system, all living systems from amoebae to human beings possess two distinguishing characteristics which constitute life. They are autopoiesis (self-creation, production, or generation) and awareness or cognition, which ranges from the most primitive form of awareness such as amoebae's stimulus-response to the highest form of cognition -- conscious human awareness. Autopoiesis and cognition are the two quintessences of life without which no life is possible. Moreover, autopoiesis and cognition are interdependent of, and integral to, one another. That is, neither can exist without the other.
Conscious life is the highest integration and expression of the autopoietic cognitive living process. Consciousness is the most complex form of cognition which is distinctly different from any other mode of cognition found in other sentient beings. Consciousness came into existence on this planet about 3000 years ago and human beings achieved consciousness not as a product of nature's evolutionary process but as an autopoietic reorganization of their cognitive systems. Consciousness was a discovery and an engineered invention of human beings. Therefore, no change took place in the physical structure of the brain but only in the structural organization of the mind.
Nature's process of evolution had ultimately brought to human beings what is termed the bicameral mind, and it was in the cognitive breakdown of the bicameral mind that consciousness first originated. The bicameral mind was a highly evolved and intelligent cognitive system that operated with language, percepts, and rudimentary/imaginary concepts, yet with complete automaticity. In the bicameral mind, one hemisphere of the brain, guided by the inherent logic of nature, organized the whole inventory of information from the past in an automatic, non-introspective, and non-self-referential manner, and communicated some of that information to the other hemisphere for decision-making or action.
The bicameral mind invented such life-sustaining tools as language, numbers, the wheel, and the ship in its critical pursuit for survival. It was indeed a remarkably intelligent and ingenious cognitive system, yet there was no fundamental difference between it and the mind of anthropoid apes or porpoises in their automaticity. They differed in terms not of quality (automaticity vs. non-automaticity) but of quantity or degree of intelligence arising from their evolutionary/biological differences. Around 1000 B.C. when human society evolved and became too complex for the bicameral mind to handle, it made its greatest invention, at the cost of its own continuance, in order for the human organism as a whole to survive: that invention was consciousness. Toward the end of the second millennium B.C., the bicameral world saw a dramatic increase in commerce. And the laws of commerce/business began to take over the laws of nature, thereby pushing bicameral men and women to a complete cognitive breakthrough -- to a quantum leap into an entirely new mode of cognition. Through that commerce/business initiated cognitive breakthrough, consciousness was born.
Consciousness is the unicameral mind, as it were. Speaking physically, it is the new unified communication network within the brain whereby two hemispheres function synergetically to create a higher order of operation which is self-referential and introspective. Speaking metaphysically, it is the new integrated inventorying of reality in abstract concepts that organizes myriad facts of experience in accordance with conceptually identified logic. In addition, consciousness is an operative modality of the brain or the mind which is inherently non-automatic. That is, there is nothing in nature that causes consciousness to operate automatically.
Consciousness is the causative factor relative to its own existence. There is nothing in existence that can make an individual conscious but his own act of being conscious. Consciousness exists as an entelechy; when it exists it exists in its full manifestation, and when it exists not it exists not at all. That means consciousness never evolves. It is an individual's very act of being conscious (of something) that brings consciousness into being with its utter totality. Thus, in reality, when one is conscious, he is fully conscious with nothing missing and nowhere to evolve.
In the beginning, however, consciousness sought to operate within the lost matrix of the bicameral mind, that is, consciousness made the entire inventory of brain-stored information emulate the dominant hemisphere of the bicameral mind. Consciousness operating in the emulated bicameral modality is perceptivity-centered consciousness. It is when consciousness developed a sufficiently integrated conceptual knowledge internally that consciousness made the shift from the subjective to the objective and became aware of reality, objective and in essence abstract. Consciousness operating in the context of abstract and objective reality is conceptuality-centered consciousness.
Reality in the final analysis, reality in a fully integrated epistemological context, is abstraction. It is the aggregate of abstract principles that are completely independent of any particular observer and his experience, and as such reality is objective. Furthermore, abstract principles by nature exist independent of time, and as such reality is eternal. And when reality is cognized by consciousness, it exists in the form of concepts. However, since it exists in the form of concepts, consciousness can subjectively create or simulate "reality" without ever objectively conceiving, comprehending, or identifying reality as such. This inherent proclivity of consciousness to create, simulate, or make up "reality" is mysticism. Mysticism is the epistemological disease of consciousness to confine itself in the perceptivity-centered modality (the emulated bicameral modality), in subjectivity, while fabricating or making up non-existing, illusory "realities".
Since consciousness is self-causative, consciousness must generate a continuous integration of energy to sustain its existence in its comprehension of reality. In other words, consciousness must continuously exert effort to fulfill its function as the conceptual integrator of reality. Mysticism is consciousness' default in that effort. It is the self-negation of consciousness by consciousness. No other cognitive mode including the bicameral mind is capable of mysticism, for none other than consciousness is nonautomatic and is the sole source of its own existence. Mysticism is not caused by the lack of consciousness but by the lack of integration. Mysticism is the symptom of man's default in epistemological integrity and the cause of all human suffering.
Perceptivity-centered consciousness is a developmental stage of consciousness in its apprehension of reality. When the integration of knowledge reaches a critical point, consciousness begins to see its perceptual experience in the context of conceptually integrated knowledge and goes beyond its perceptually or subjectively bound experiences to awaken into objectivity. If left free and unhindered, every child as well as humanity as a whole innately transcends the perceptivity-centered modality to advance its knowledge in the objectively defined context of reality.
Conceptuality-centered consciousness is consciousness qua consciousness. Mysticism, unless it is identified and corrected, prevents or truncates forever consciousness' integrating growth into maturity. Consciousness is self-correcting epistemologically and self-controlling cybernetically. If it could identify its internal mysticism, it would self-correct its devastating errors and cure the disease that is mysticism. However, in history, this correction or healing, except for a few rare individuals, did not take place until today. The external force that prevents consciousness from self-correcting is neocheating.
Neocheating is the deliberate manipulation of mysticism in others. It is the poison-feeding of mysticism in others. Mysticism came into existence 3000 years ago with the birth of consciousness, and with it came its symbiotic neocheating. However, it was not until Plato formulated his philosophy that a systematic and conceptual framework was supplied in which to carry on neocheating. It was Plato who not only rationalized mysticism but also capitalized on it to create a brilliantly fabricated, yet devastatingly destructive philosophical system that provided the conceptual tools of neocheating for millennia to come. Through Plato and his philosophy, the whole matrix of neocheating was set, the spell of mysticism was deliberately cast upon humanity, and the reign of master neocheaters became firmly established in the course of history.
Platonistic philosophy begins by accepting the primacy of consciousness, that is, by reversing the relationship of consciousness to existence. It assumes that reality must conform to the content of consciousness, not the other way around, based upon the premise that the presence of any concept in consciousness proves the existence of a corresponding referent in reality. Plato thus validates de jure self-made realities while invalidating de facto reality as such.
According to Plato, the content of "true" reality is a set of universals or Forms that represent that which is in common among various groups of particulars in this world. He repeatedly insists that the Forms are what is "really" real. The particulars they subsume, the concrete objects that constitute this world, are not. Although he asserts that the Forms are immutable, timeless, intellectually apprehensible, and capable of precise definition at the end of a piece of "pure ratiocination" because they are independently existing entities in "reality", he never once elucidates in a rational context how that apprehension or definition can be achieved.
Although epistemo-contextually integrated reality is abstraction in the final analysis, yielding to crystallization in the form of concepts through the process of appropriation by consciousness, it is in the final analysis that reality is abstraction and through the process of appropriation by consciousness that reality is crystallized -- apprehended and defined -- in the form of concepts. Existence exists and exists independently of consciousness. Consciousness does not and cannot create reality; it is metaphysically passive. Consciousness exists to identify reality or existence, and in the very fact that consciousness must exist to be conscious of reality or existence, the primacy of existence to consciousness is evident.
The primacy of existence and the ultimacy of reality is the alpha and the omega of all valid conceptual knowledge. Knowledge is the explication of existence (explicandum) into reality (explicans). Existence is reality implicate metaphysically and reality is existence implicate epistemologically. Existence is what is given to consciousness metaphysically while reality is what is revealed to consciousness by consciousness epistemologically. Existence and reality are in essence synonymous, and as existence exists independently of consciousness, so does reality. Therefore, no knowledge of reality can ever be achieved by merely fabricating concepts without regard to existence, as Plato suggested.
Plato, by inverting the epistemological structure of the conscious cognitive process, by reversing the metaphysical relationship between reality (existence) and consciousness, succeeded, in effect, in giving the perceptivity-centered modality the highest and the ultimate cognitive status, while also providing mysticism a completely justified (and even dignified) "full-time job" in the inner workings of human awareness. Through Plato such false concepts as "God", "gods", or "the eternal soul", which has no metaphysically verifiable cognitive content, gained a well-justified philosophical foundation, for, according to him, anything that anyone could make up in his mind should exist because "that's the way it is".
Throughout his long career, Plato carried within him an intense political ambition and need to control others. His philosophy is largely a manifestation of that ambition and need. He played his politics and tried to control others not through an ordinary political channel but through the channel of philosophy. He tried to control others not physically but intellectually, for once people accepted his philosophy, then it was simpler and easier to control them physically. Although Plato died before he could witness his "dream" come true, the neocheaters throughout the world used his philosophy to bring his dream to fruition. Thus, as Plato's dream evolved into reality, a long and tragic nightmare unfolded.
Coinciding with the rise of the Romans around 200 B.C., the Western world saw the proliferation of religious/political master neocheaters along with the systematic application of their neocheating strategies. Their proliferation marked the decline of Greek culture and the fall of its highest intellectual manifestation -- Aristotelian philosophy. Aristotelian philosophy is the first complete system of philosophy ever developed on the basis of the primacy of existence. Aristotle evolved the system of logic -- the principle of noncontradictory identification -- only by means of which objective reality is identified and verified authentically. Aristotle also developed the first ethical philosophy based on the supremacy of a conscious human individual. Aristotelian philosophy indeed is the fountainhead of all knowledge and the antithesis of Platonistic philosophy.
It was Aristotle, not Plato, who epitomized the mind of the Greeks. It was Aristotelian philosophy, not Platonistic philosophy, which was the epitome of Greek consciousness and its intellectual achievements. Therefore, the fall of Aristotelian philosophy around 200 B.C. meant a rise of Platonistic philosophy or Platonistic-oriented philosophies, and a beginning of a dark intellectual obscurantism.
Although this intellectual obscurantism was finally broken during the Renaissance by the resurgence of Aristotelian philosophy and the newly discovered power of the zero, its roots had never been eradicated until the discovery of Neo-Tech by Frank R. Wallace in the late 20th century. Aristotelian philosophy laid the foundation for all life enhancing discoveries and values culminating in the discovery of Neo-Tech. Aristotelian philosophy fulfilled its function and destiny as the fountainhead of knowledge and antithesis of Platonism in the discovery and development of Neo-Tech.
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