...This is an intriguing subject which keeps us all involved looking for answers. The Physicist “dons” his white coat and toddles off into the physical world on a quest for answers of what is the reality of matter. While the psychologist dons his white coat and toddles off into the world of the subconscious looking for answers to the workings of the mind and its relationship to the reality of matter.

...But also the artist has his contribution to the quest which cannot be underscored by science. Art has passed through a recent transformative process by exploring the inward looking forms of artistic expression in “abstract”. The more inward the journey of the artist, the more it became obvious that the language of the subconscious mind is one of symbolism.

...The subconscious mind often expresses the uni-imperative of mind and matter as a complete form of human reality in symbolic expression as two small square boxes, both identical in all aspects, in which burns two identical candles representing the life force of both conscious and subconscious reality: A delicate symbiotic connection of the realities of two worlds exists in perfect balance in nature.

...(It is this balance which humans recognise in all animals in the animal kingdom, and goes a long way to explaining the grief caused to other humans when animals are mistreated...A strong connective and irresistible force).

Don't bother trying to unravel this piece of philosophical mumbo-jumbo. Instead, wrap your mind around the following which has very direct relevance to your life and those who you love:

The Condition of Human Rights at the International Setting
By Professor Francis A. Boyle

“Today in international legal terms, the United States government itself should now be viewed as constituting an ongoing criminal conspiracy under international criminal law in violation of the Nuremberg Charter, the Nuremberg Judgment, and the Nuremberg Principles, because of its formulation and undertaking of serial wars of aggression, crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, and war crimes that are legally akin to those perpetrated by the former Nazi regime in Germany.

The civil resistors are the sheriffs enforcing international law, U.S. criminal law and the U.S. Constitution against the criminals working for the U.S. government! This same right of civil resistance extends pari passu to all citizens of the world community of states. Everyone around the world has both the right and the duty under international law to resist ongoing criminal activities perpetrated by the U.S. government and its nefarious foreign accomplices in allied governments such as Britain, the other NATO states, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Georgia, Puerto Rico, etc. If not so restrained, the U.S. government could very well precipitate a Third World War.”

Francis Anthony Boyle (born 1950) is a professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law. He delivered this speech at the Puerto Rican Summit Conference on Human Rights –December 09, 2012. Visit ICH to read the full speech.

David G:

...Well one could equate politics to a form of reality, and stay consistent with the thread. But if the US insists on electing shrunken brained alcoholics as presidents (George Bush), the outcome is bound to be messy. Obama is a much more humanely aligned and logical individual who will not lead the US into another major conflict without long and “sober” reflection. Stay calm, don't shoot until you see the whites of their eyes David!

The reality that the world is facing because of the criminal cabal running U.S. is dire, Diver Dan.

Surely that reality must be discussed and dealt with firstly because nuclear war is a large and ever-growing threat.

We can deal with other esoteric philosophical considerations after we take care of bread and butter issues that directly affect our lives.

Actually David G is on to something important.
The "war is us" USA perpetual warfare security state did not appear out of thin air.
Indeed it is the inevitable manifestation of the "philosophical" world-view at the root of Western "civilization" altogether. A power-and-control seeking world-view which has inevitably created a hugely enormous Leviathan with an almost unstoppable momentum.

That having been said two posts at Tom Dispatch provide important reading. 1. David Vine - The True Costs of Empire and
2. Tom Engelhardt The Washington Strait Jacket The Barack Obama Story - How a Community Organizer & Constitutional Law Professor Became a Robot President.

Two quotes from the same Spiritual Philosopher I referred to in the climate change post. Both are very much applicable to Western "civilization" in particular. The second one is from the same talk.

1. The search for knowledge is hunter-gatherer behavior, based on the ancient pre-"civilized" brain.
The search for "knowledge leads to Scapegoat (or object-in-the-middle) rituals, in which power is ALWAYS exercised over the middle (even to the degree of destroying it).
Comment: the Western power-and-control-seeking project has now quite literally encircled the entire planet, all of humankind, all of Earthkind - and is now in the process of destroying everything.

2.Ordinary religion, ordinary science, and ordinary culture seek to experience, to know, to gain an advantage with respect to, and to gain control over what is mysterious, what is unknown, what is threatening. Ordinary religion, ordinary science, and ordinary culture want to achieve absolute power for human beings. The quest for power (or control) over the unknown is the collective egoic pursuit, or aggressive search of mankind, in the midst of, and on the basis of, the universal reactions of egoic fear, sorrow, and anger. ---- To affirm (as the world-culture of scientific materialism does) that this All of space-time is merely materiality - limited, dying, and, effectively, dead - is itself, a kind of aggressive affirmation of power, a collective cultural manifestation of a DISSOCIATIVE disposition that is deeply afraid, self-absorbed, and deeply depressed by hell-deep sorrow and anger.

"A power-and-control seeking world-view which has inevitably created a hugely enormous Leviathan with an almost unstoppable momentum."

This describes the U.S. perfectly, Daffy Duck. This Imperial Leviathan must be stopped before it consumes the whole world and reduces us all to the level of slaves.

Australia needs to divorce itself from the U.S. ASAP! They are using us just as they are using others.

When they gain global domination, we will be discarded.