Asha vs Druj compared to Chaos vs Order

Chaos and order are GREEK and not Iranian concepts.
I'm not interested in chaos or order, they don't exist as such but are rather just fantasies of our imagination.
Everything is chaos. Chaos only becomes order when we decide to make it order.
Zarathushtra's opposites are instead "that which has existence" versus "that which does not exist". Just like Nietzsche and Heidegger, actually, philosophers who were also against Plato's distinctions of chaos and order.
Ushta
Alexander

2011/8/16 Behnaz Larsen
Yes, Alexander, however I have a question about this nothingness: chaos versus order, where do they fit in? If druj is "nothing", and "the lack of" etc then chaos could not be categorised under druj. It has been said that in every chaotic situation there is beauty and order. Obviously these people have not seen my kitchen, so I think you are right not to translate these from one language to the next, since words keep failing us.
Behnaz

On Aug 16, 2011, at 2:46 PM, Alexander Bard wrote:
Two things:

1. The Oxford Dictionary has a VERY DIFFERENT understanding of real from Gilles Deleuze. Daniel mixes the two up, please don't.
2. The proper English word for druj outside of our minds is "nothingness". It is the LACK OF EXISTENCE which is druj in its purest sense in the Avestan language. In this sense "Asha" is "Something" or "Substance" or "How Things work" whereas Druj is "Nothingness" or "Lack of substance" or "Illusions of how things actually don't work".
Ushta
Alexander

2011/8/15 Daniel Samani

Great! Then lie is a good translation to the Avestan concept druj, I guess that depends what aspect one empathise. People use the English language with different styles. Some more inflated by vitalism and absolutism then others. If one make the statement that the definition of a lie is that it's not true - it weight heavily on what one mean by truth (that can be coloured heavily on abramitic thought).

I am confident that we will reach an agreement on this matter. This will occur when I have grasped what you have a long time ago. ;) Too me the concept real in itself is confusing this is what Oxford says: "The term is most straightforwardly used when qualifying another adjective: a real x may be contrasted with a fake x, a failed x, a near x, and so on. To treat something as real, without qualification, is to suppose it to be part of the actual world. To
reify
something is to suppose that we are committed by some doctrine to treating it as a thing. The central error in thinking of reality and existence is to think of the unreal as a separate domain of things, perhaps unfairly deprived of the benefits of existence."

At least one thing I agree 100% with, asha is a rather complex concept.

Ushta
Daniel

15 aug 2011 kl. 20:44 skrev Special Kain :

Dear Daniel

I have been actively involved in Zoroastrianism longer than you have. I have a profound knowledge of the history of philosophy. And I check my sources very carefully in order to accurately describe Avestan terms in English.
Druj means "lie" in English, but could also be translated as "that which deceives". It is all the things we believe to be there, even though they don't exist. Simply put, it is that which is not real. And no-one here has ever claimed that there are "more real" and "less real" things. A fleeting idea that we forgot the very moment it popped up in our mind is not less real than Mount Everest.
There are different translations of asha, since the concept is rather complex and means "that which exists" as much as "how it works properly". It refers to something that is in conformity with the workings of nature. Think of engineers, for example! It has nothing to do with the actual/virtual dichotomoy that I find useless in this context.

Ushta,
Dino

Von: Daniel Samani
An: "Ushta@yahoogroups.com"
Gesendet: 19:48 Montag, 15.August 2011
Betreff: Re: AW: [Ushta] Meaning of Asha

So my point is that lies are a bad translation of druj. And that I'm highly skeptic about that stating that what is real is a good translation of asha.

Ushta
Daniel

15 aug 2011 kl. 18:48 skrev Special Kain :

No, LIES do NOT refer to something that is unlikely to happen or something that is irrelevant or even destructive. Lies refer to things that are NOT TRUE. It has nothing to do with probabilities, relevance or destruction. World War II was quite real, wasn't it? And even the most improbable and most irrelevant events are real. And that which is real and which fits with what is real is asha. As Alexander pointed out, there is NOTHING NORMATIVE about asha. The world is as it is. What we are now doing with the facts is a different story altogether.

If you choose to mix Zoroastrianism with Deleuzianism, you should not make things unnecessarily complicated and confusing. ;-)
Ahura is existence as such, but it's also a title usually given to deities (as in designating something as divine). Mazda is wisdom and "the mind". Ahura is the fact that existence is sacred, the universe is sacred, and Mazda is our capacity to think which we as Zoroastrians worship and celebrate.

Ushta,
Dino // is also deeply fascinated with Deleuzianism

Von: Daniel Samani
An: "Ushta@yahoogroups.com"
Gesendet: 18:20 Montag, 15.August 2011
Betreff: Re: AW: [Ushta] Meaning of Asha

Then we might be in disagreement. It's cause lies point to something not durable (as in low probability, low relevance, low effectiveness or destructiveness) that makes them unattractive. Could you define what you mean by real? To me something real is something part of the actual or virtual world. If it's not part of these worlds it can be classified unreal (can anything be classified unreal?).

How does we distinguish what is real from that which is not? Why not distinguish what is actual from what is virtual. And what in this world that are durable. That's my 50 cent.

Side note: Isn't the actual world Ahura and the virtual world Mazda?

Ushta
Daniel

15 aug 2011 kl. 17:48 skrev Special Kain :

Dear Daniel

Forget about Gilles Deleuze for a moment.
Druj is that which isn't real. Lies exist, but they refer to something that isn't true. The liar exists, his words exist, his words reach your ears, and so on - the whole process actually takes place and is 100% real. But not that something that the lie refers to. For example, the liar tells you that rabbits can fly, his statement exists. But there are no rabbits with wings. They don't exist, they are not real.
Got it?

Ushta,
Dino