Let's Negotiate the Jedi Code!

There's nothing divine about morals and values. Morals and values are formulated between subjective people - in sometimes written and mostly unwritten contracts. The Jedi code is a suggestion for cooperation - hardly a description of an empirical reality. It's not something to believe in - it's something to negotiate. -Shadow Knight Pelar (FA)

By definition, you can look at negotiate from the following prospectives (merriam-webster.com)

: to discuss something formally in order to make an agreement

: to agree on (something) by formally discussing it

: to get over, through, or around (something) successfully

Given these, as Jedi (or even those of you that do not follow it), do you believe Pelar's assessment of the Jedi Code as it pertains to being a Jedi?

Are you asking us to negotiate over the Jedi code or to negotiate with the Jedi code?

I could see rather interesting discussion going either way.

I don't feel I'm far enough along to say I can reasonably propose changes to it, so negotiating over it I'll remain a spectator in.

Negotiating with the code is something different. I'm seeing it as kind of coming to an agreement with the code on how I choose to interpret it and use it in my studies and life. I read it and then say "by x you want y, okay I can do that. By a you want b, that we may tweak."

That's at least what came to my mind. Like a conversation with the Code to come to an understanding. If I totally missed your point, I'm sorry.

There's nothing divine about morals and values.
If i may... devinity is uses for the "gods"and the "heavenly occupants" we are in that sence neither but,,,, and here is the big but lol pun intended when we act as our own divinity when we descide to thing higher and act higher then it is our actions our "insert what ever you wanna call em here" that make us different. if we act higher we are higher if we act more devine we are devine if we act lke fools we are fools by our actions.

Since I think that just about everything is potentially up for debate (Jestor, if you dare use the road runner on that one... well, just don't...), yes, I'd have to say that technically so is the Jedi Code.

Now, personally, I find that this is not a worthwhile negotiation to have. There can be too many interpretations, a rather small subset of which would be sensible and yet a rather small subset thereof would remotely be applicable stretching the interpretation to its limits almost all the time. If the Code is a description of fact, it is either true or false and that is not up for debate but for an epistemic mechanism to plainly determine. Now who would accept any one of those respective mechanisms, that may be up for debate, but not the necessary outcome of a consistent truth filter. If the Code is a set of instructions, then one could at best debate how good and how applicable they are (and why) and the interpretations problem I mentioned above would kick in and make that discussion go all around in circles.

Whatever we take from the Code, it isn't the authority of the Code itself that makes us do so. Rather, we all have a moral system of one kind or another by which we measure the validity of what we think the Code says or should say, and we take from it only the things we think we should. But if we are able to tell right from wrong with and without the Code, what's the point negotiating it to begin with? We can leave it alone and debate our morals instead, if we so wish.

So to answer your question: Yes and no. To believe something and to negotiate it is not a dichotomy. We can do any, both or neither. And with something as fuzzy as the Jedi Code, to believe it can mean just about anything. We could negotiate it, sure. Do we need to? I honestly don't know.

If i go with the third definition, negotiating in the sense of making my way as though through a landscape, then it makes excellent sense.

I don't regard the code as a description of reality, but as a description of the Jedi frame of reference. The Jedi perspective to decision making. If I think in these terms, I am cleaving to the Path, more or less.

In terms of the source, some guy that worked for George Lucas made it up. Good thing it's a pretty good code.

Cabur i agree with you of more of a guide line more than a definitive "thou shalt"

I try to stick to the code as much as I am able. When I fail, it is general that I was in too much of a rush to hold it in mind. Sloppy.

But I regard the code as a starting point for decision making. What needs doing? Start from the place from which the code stems. Move from that place. What starts well has a better chance of ending well, I figure.

For reference, I am a yet code guy rather than a no code guy.

I think perception itself is a process of negotiating internal and external signals.... which could be supported by some research around saying curiosity is the key to learning - with curiosity being the drive to complete the process with energy and focus. So to the Code, yea I guess that too is a good example to use!!

To use a war metaphor, how about a fire control system as something which negotiates a change in a situation;

Emotion, yet peace - Detection; normal mode of maximum connection to ones environment.
Ignorance, yet knowledge - Acquisition; contextualization of some point/entity in the environment.
Passion, yet serenity - Identification; understanding the point/entity.
Chaos, yet harmony - Tracking; understanding its previous, actual and probable transformations in relation to your own state.
Death, yet the Force - Engagement/Solution; any adjustment to your own state and its impact on the that external point/entity.


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Sorry for the war-ryness of the post :blink:

The Jedi Code isn't something that will "save" one just by believing it, it will only ever "save" one by one's adherence to it; the Code is as practical as much as it is philosophical.