private conversation with God.

One of the major ideas of the Ran from Breslov I think is worth some discussion: what he calls התבודדות or literally "being alone". The idea is explained by him as private conversation with God.

The point I wanted to make about this is that it goes pretty much along the regular lines of thought of the Ran: that is to make hard things easy. That is a theme running throughout his writings.
So when look at the Old Testament I see a lot of emphasis on the Law of Moses and the need to repent on not doing the Law of Moses. Now repentance is well defined as change of action. But in the Old Testament we see that along with it goes fasting and prayer. [Mainly I am thinking of Ahab and Ninve.]
But to get to the kind of prayer that you see in the Old Testament is hard. Even when one realizes the  need for repentance, it is hard to get on one's knees for a few hours and beg forgiveness from God and help to change one's deeds.

So the Ran from Breslov proposes a more simple way of going about this. Simply going to  a place where one is alone and no one else is around and talking with God from the deepest part of one's heart. That is simple conversation. That is far from  prayers of repentance that the Old Testament is talking about--but close enough to have a similar essence.

Things are good

USA history

While I am only mildly interested in history. Still I feel there are valuable lessons to be learned from it and furthermore I even have a suggestion on how USA history ought to be learned in schools.

I think English history is an integral part of American history and much more relevant to the American experience than most of what is actually learned as part of American History courses.

Furthermore I feel this learning is important not just to Americans, but to all peoples who have need of just government.

My first point is based mainly on the Federalist Papers where we see a big emphasis on the Peloponnesian War which in one way you could say was won by Sparta--but in another way really ruined Ancient Greece in a way that could never be repaired again.
I think there is little doubt that the devastating Civil Wars of England [War of the Roses] must have also been foremost in the minds of the founding fathers of the USA--in the sense that even a powerful Parliament and Christian values could not prevent chaos. To me it seems that the fathers of the USA were thinking deeply about the problem of good government and rejected many solutions that they knew from history were not effective.

The other point I have is really from Allan Bloom. In his Closing of the American Mind, in spite of the title,  he clearly considered the USA Constitution to be the best answer for the question of government for all peoples in all times and places.

The issue is the Dark Side that pretends to be holy.

The Ran from Breslov [author of five basic books but mainly known for שיחות הר''ן]{Informal talks} brings the idea of Torah scholars that are demons in one place in his major work, the ליקוטי מוהר''ן. But that is not the only place he brings up the problem with scam artists that pretend to know Torah. The thing is his warnings usually go unheeded except for the Na Nah groups that take it more to heart.
This kind of warning you can see in the Talmud and Zohar also and other places. For one example I notice recently: "Anyone who wears clothing in order to look like a Torah scholar who is not a Torah scholar--אין מכניסים אותו במחיצתו של הקב''ה is not let to come into the Divine Presence."
That seems a bit of a let down from the drama that the Ran from Breslov brings to the subject.
Still the message seems clear. So what my solution to this problem is to emphasize the legitimate Litvak yeshivas. But I mean this as a double exclusion. That is first they have to be Litvak to be considered valid at all. But next I add "legitimate" or "authentic," because most Litvak yeshivas are far from authentic.--I mean with the real spirit of Torah. The best are clearly Ponoviz in Bnei Brak and the great NY yeshivas.

[The trouble that the Ran is dealing with is not just Torah scholars that are unworthy. The issue is the Sitra Ahra. The issue is the Dark Side that pretends to be holy. ]

Appendix: Just for reference's sake, you might look at Jeremiah 23. But a more  dramatic example would be the events of the fall of Ahab at Ramot Gilead. There he went into battle because of the advice of prophets of the Baal. The true prophet of God told him that he had seen a lying spirit come before God  and offer his services to trick Ahab. So tricks of the Dark Side are not unheard of. Just the opposite. They seem to be the standard modus operandi of the Dark Side.

You can ask what good is is philosophy? And a possible answer for Kant.

You can ask what good is  philosophy?  In an essay the person that discovered the connection between the weak force and EM [S. Weinberg] he says that the major use of philosophy is like the use of states. That is to save one from other states. But in fact that is a great use. The difference between the subject in a state and a slave or dead in another is a big difference.[Without a state we all would be subject to the lowest denominator-the lowest of criminals. Without a state, nothing good is possible. ]

So getting a world view to corresponds with reality--the way things really are-can be of great service.
Like getting an accurate idea of your place in the big picture. This can be helpful in cases like if one is a policeman, not walking out with a loaded gun in front of a speeding car in Times Square. I mean getting too big for one's shoe size can be dangerous.





In terms of the Kant Friesian system, the major spokesman for the system is Dr Kelley Ross in CA.
In his PhD thesis he brings out a few criticisms on Kant which forces the conclusions of Ontological Undecidability. One problem he noted in Kant is causality between things in themselves is necessary for Kant. And yet seems to have no justification. [http://www.friesian.com/origin/chap-3.htm#sect-5]
To me it seems possible to argue for Kant that there is causality between things in themselves in that the collapse of the wave function does not depend on there being an observer, but rather on interaction between particles.
I mean to say that: in general an electron is a sum of linear states; but after it is observed, it is only in one state. But for it to interact with any other particles, it also needs to have its wave function collapsed.


 I was thinking also of adding that the electron does not have any space time location until interaction also just as a support to Kant. 

[ I should mention that it seems to me to be the same basic set of problems in Kant that leads off into three different directions: (1) Kelly Ross and the Kant Fries School. (2) Michael Huemer  and the Intuitionists (3) Hegel and all the subsequent schools based on Hegel.  I have not studied this all well enough to be sure, but I think a close look at each one will show they all had a similar set of problems in Kant. (I would also wonder if it comes down to it if their answers are all that different. I mean for sure Hegel's vast structure looks very different from Huemer's direct intellectual perception. But are they really that different? It is in any case the same process of "dialectics" that give further levels of certainty. And is that all that different from Popper's falsification process?!)

words of encouragement from a custom in Japan

The Age of Disappointment

There is in each age a particular test. This is the Age of Disappointment. People were promised big things from different kinds of idolatry-promises that never came to pass. This along with clear ethical violations in each system gave rise to people leaving and then wondering where they went wrong.

Some examples would be obviously Communism, Socialism that held great promises of workers paradise and the New Man. Other things were in the social pseudo sciences of the mind [in universities] that promised cures. Instead they cause great agony and insanity. In Hinduism, there was a fellow called Adi Da who was a good example of this kind of idolatry.

Some made it a point to expose the idols, [often at great risk]  Others tried simply to get away and go back to semi normal lives.


So this kind of disappointment seems the biggest test today. --that is how to deal with it. And also in fact how to heal from the scars?

There do not seem to be easy answers, but rather lessons that one can learn from previous generations from how they dealt with  the particular kinds of tests that they faced.

Clear guidelines seem hard to find since the problem is almost universally ignored.