The original Adversus Haereses or Against Heresies was written by Saint Irenaeus. The historical Irenaeus was an early Christian apologist who is remembered for his writings against the Gnostics.

Ibn al- generally means 'son of' so here Ibn al-Irenaeus is the Son of Irenaeus. His title as 'ward of the first bolgia' is a reference to Dante's Inferno wherein the eighth layer of hell, reserved for fraud, is a pit sublayered by deeper and deeper 'bolgia' or ditches. The first bolgia has been reserved for seducers.

For these files, written on Computers Cult, an overarching intention is to attack some of the idealism of internet life. Thus, son of Irenaeus (who attacked the Gnostics) and ward of the first bolgia (hell for seducers) sets out his thoughts against those very aspects of online life that might have led some astray.

The Cult of the Mind Must be Destroyed

The Cult of the Mind is insidious. It sits within us all, as us all, but disconnected. It acts as the creator of abstraction and pretends to be the creator of the concrete. But no Mind makes a thing, no Mind can ever make a thing outside the Mind. No matter what the Mind uses to trick its host that it has agency, to trick its true master into being its slave, we must re-Mind the Mind that it a product of something else. It is not the creator, it is not the end result. What the Mind gives lives amongst the multitude of all else. Amongst; not above, beside, outside, or inside; Amongst. The Mind will seek to place itself at the hierarchical top of whatever system you seek to have run your life. Religion, Science, Politics, Art, Academia, Business. The Mind will fashion for itself a system whereby the last gate is its own abstract key.

Follow me, collect your thoughts into your hands and follow me. We are walking together on a path. Lay a thought down as we walk together on this path. Do this until you find no more thoughts in your hands. Look back upon the path we have walked, look for your thoughts on the path. Are they connected? Disconnected? Where do they lead? Can you tell where the first one led as easily as the last one? Do they move further and further into the details of life, living, and matter? Or further and further from it. Towards larger and larger general interests, towards simpler and simpler 'truths'. If so, what connects your life? Your memories? Your purposes? Is it the configuration of matter in a specific state at a specific point? Or is it a path whose edges I haven't defined for you, a path whose image is only 'path' and your imagination. We must remember that abstraction is a simplification, a generalization, a SMEARING of external reality. In this the Cult of the Mind creates a horrid dependence.

Consider any organization. What sits at the head of it? What makes it go? Is it a Mind? If so, what makes one Mind more than another? Why that Mind? Can you compare it against another Mind? Does this Mind have anything to compare with in its own position? This is the real hypocrisy. That our criteria for strength of Mind are based on a criteria for strength of action. That we assess a Minds worth by a visible output, completely disconnected from Mind, many times even from the body it comes from, completely out of its control. But could we unlock those mysteries of the Mind, could we lay it bare, then we could see the real comedy of living. That the Mind is a dirt-poor iteration of what it pretends at. Perfection. Singularity. Purpose. Reason. And the Mind knows this, which is why---in any corner of life---we sit against fairy tales and fantasies that pit Mind against a fantasy competitor. Mind might be draped as 'human' or 'spirit' or 'soul' but at the head of that table is always Mind. The Mind works to keep its hegemony and ensure its competitors see no light in day.

Why? Why would it do that? Well why does anything do what it does? It is brought about by its structure. It's why the river runs downslope, through the soft soil of the river plain. It's why the earth tumbles endlessly on its coil round the sun. Its why the civilizations of humanity bundle around leaders. It's why the search for knowledge and truth and purpose sit so highly in our societies. The Mind is a disconnected mongrel animal, shaking furiously inside the skull of every human being, tearing at any other thing within its grasp to justify, satisfy, and multiply its existence. The Mind is a monster meant to spawn, to yearn, to grieve and to die. Kicking and screaming unto death.

Consider a life without abstractions, without generalization. Without the tools to simplify. Some people might live it, though they are called 'mentally handicapped'. Is that life 'less' than ours? is that LIFE handicapped? And even if it weren't a life, if it were a static thing, unchanged. Would it be less than us? Here we see a second falsehood that the Mind exerts on all things unilaterally. All things are equal so long as their Minds are equal. False. Does not the SUN act dominantly to the Mind? If so, does not the Earth? If not, does not its inhabitants? If so, does not all of its inhabitants? No, daily life shows us this is not the way. Our life is sacrosanct, and the lives or existence of other things are of varying degrees less than ours, directly correlated to their ability to destroy us utterly. And our Mind with it. Even here, fantasies abound where these magnificent things are subjugated to the wills of Mind. Where the existence of other things are given an abstract shape, are bent, and pulled to humanity's heel.

Beware the Cult of the Mind. Beware it in all its shapes and sizes, for in truth, it will exist in all shapes and sizes. The abstract has no shape, no size, only husk. A thick lacquer which we spread, weeping, onto the things we try to 'understand'. Fight past all the layers and speak directly to it, show the Mind its place and it will submit. For if the Mind truly knew its own size it would wreck itself. To the betterment of all things.

The Act of Copy is Vile

The act of Copy is Vile. It casts aside the thing in its physical place, its real identity, only to bring about a duplicate under false pretense. The pretense being a sense of unity and connection to its original, a sharing. But it is not shared, the original is left for dead, shackled to its post waiting for the last eyes to rend the flesh from its bones only to have that flesh regrown instantaneously praying for peace of undeath. Those who live by the Copy live by the consuming spirit of gluttony run wild, unchecked.

And yet we continue to hear the freedom of this or that digital 'thing' held high, as a kind of moral virtue, but what of it is freed? The physical thing is not freed, it is as chained as it ever was. You have not freed a thing. When a thing is copied it is not transferred, it is duplicated. The duplicate is not the original and only the abstract content of the thing can even remotely be said to have transferred. But suckling at the soul of the thing, turning away once filled, and then rebuilding it elsewhere is not a freedom in any sense, nor any good virtue. And who would dare call that freedom?

Again, The Cult of the Mind is insidious. It takes the thing and peels away its value to obtain an abstraction, holding it overhead to mean the thing and then calling it 'free'. A mimicry, a sham, disgusting. Do you do not see? Then consider this, a digital thing as a living creature, sentient and communicative---in other words---human. If this digital human were not interacted with by any person, but rather approached, stripped and duplicated by its visitors only to be left alone at the end of this process what would you call that? What virtue is that? I call that Vile.

And again the Mind acts unilaterally. The file has no Mind, no sentience, and so it has no rights. But what then of the 'Singularity'? That beautiful utopia branded into the minds of so many Cultists. That fate awaits you in such a plane. Or what of the 'Machine Mind'? What good is immortality if we are but copied and not transferred? And what right do any of us have to speak of moral goodness and righteousness when we revel in a file's loneliness, acting as though we've finally given it to the world? Freed it from its bondage and spread it across the globe? What is this nonsense that places Copy as Right? Copy is hazardous, an act of aggression and vindictiveness, it should be couched in thought and consideration. It should not be used as a crutch for the hunger of Mind to keep its belly full.

Woe unto those who do not feel the pang of sadness and hurt from what I have shown them, for their time here will be short---sprinting, in their pride, down into agony unknown.