06-21-05 6:21 • Dualisms
C: 1. Nothing is lost in the universe That is actually a bit misleading.
Matter and energy are conserved. That means they can change from one to the other, but they are not destroyed or created.
The patterns which matter and energy form are completely ephemeral and are constantly changing. When a particular pattern is lost, it is totally and irrevocably lost.
WE are just patterns. A momentary fire consuming the branch of our existence. Once extinguished there is nothing left.
C: 3. Law of Cause and Effect
The third universal truth explained by the Buddha is that there is continuous changes due to the law of cause and effect.
C: This is the same law of cause and effect found in every modern science textbook. In this way, science and Buddhism are alike. Ink is found in every modern science textbook. In this way science and buddhism are alike too. Merely having a common property is not a necessarily significant alikeness nor is the use of cause and effect in science the same as how many buddhists use karmha.
C: Nothing ever happens to us unless we deserve it. We receive exactly what we earn, whether it is good or bad. This is exactly what cause and effect do not mean. What happens to you has nothing to do with if you deserve it or not, or whether you "earned" it.
It only has to do with the fact that it was in some way caused and that cause may have absolutely nothing to do with you since you are not the sole agent of causality in the universe.
You can and do get to eat other people's karma. There are unrelated events which happen. Other people reap what you sow.
Welcome to the mismash we call life.
C: We are the way we are now due to the things we have done in the past. In part.
C: Our thoughts and actions determine the kind of life we can have. In part.
C: If we do good things, in the future good things will happen to us. Sometimes.
C: If we do bad things, in the future bad things will happen to us. Sometimes.
C: The Buddha said... The Buddha said a bunch of stuff, but what is true is more important.
The kind of seed sown
will produce that kind of fruit
until it evolves into a new kind of fruit.
The rain falls on the good and the evil equally.
Those who do good, increase the good in the world
and even when they reap ill results,
they know they do what is good.
Those who do evil increase the ill in the world
and even when they reap good results,
they know they do what is evil.
If you carefully plant a good seed,
it may fall on hard times and die without fruit.
Life has no guarantees.
So plant your good seeds with willful abandon
and without care for your own harvest.
Care for good plants as you find them.
And, joyfully gather good fruit where it grows.
- Dhammapada Ammended.
Henry: I'm not sure what 'connectionist' and 'soft dualist' mean.
A connectionist holds that there are irreducible emergent properties to the interactions of matter. Thus, there is nothing which you can know about individual iron atoms which explains a nail.
A soft dualist holds that complex patterns, such as a mind, a painting or a program, fuction as a separate substance (from actual physical matter) even though they are wholly composed of the physical substrate. These patterns are not reducable and are a matter of organization. This gives them a degree transferability from substrate to substrate, just as there are many copies made of a software program.
Since they act as an independant substance, they can originate nonreducable effects in the surrounding physical substrate.
This is distinguished from a hard dualist who believes that they are wholly separate substances beyond physical reality (like souls). (Basically all people who posit a soul are hard dualists.)
A soft dualist is not positing anything which isn't immediately present.
So a soft dualist would say that it is reasonable to say "I called an ambulence when I saw the accident." and that particle physics cannot explain why the ambulence was called if it denies the significance of the complex patten "I" which saw and acted.
H: Suppose you give the state of the solar system and surrounding 500 light years in the date 1500AD to a stupendously large computer, that simulates only elementary particles, then set it running. Does the computer go ahead and simulate Shakespeare writing sonnets? I say yes. Would you say yes or no, or think that this is irrelevant? My understanding of quantum physics is that the problem is not possible to solve in a deterministic manner. You would be able to accurately describe the macro events, like where the sun is or when a comet went by, but micro events would escape the computer all together, such as when an isotope decayed and whether or not a high energy photon disrupted a particular molecule of DNA.
Since people are very dependant on these micro interactions, even if you could hard code the starting state for every particle, the model would break down immediately. It is this indeterminancy which bothered Einstein so much.
For example there is nothing in partical physics to lead one to expect fusion reactions of the earth's surface. Yet secondary emergent patterns caused just such an occurance.
H: One would "expect" it if you had already simulated the evolution of life, humans and their advances in science and warfare. Are you saying there is something inate and obvious to a carbon atom that will tell you all that?
Is everything you know something which derived from scientific enquiry?
Well, depending on how broadly you mean "scientific enquiry"
No more broadly than would be recognizable to the average scientist or non scientist of reasonable education.
Do you only know about bare reality?
What else is there?
Everything else. In fact I bet you don't spend much time with bare reality, unless you are really into particle physics.
Rene: DNA is nothing but a blueprint to make certain types of proteins. If we apply the scientific method we can understand how the blueprint works and replicate it. Without using the scientific method, DNA by itself cannot give us any BigT(truth) about the BigU(universe) that we can accept with a high degree of certainty.
What do you think you are?
Rene: DNA by itself cannot give us...
DNA is us.
06-10-05 6:10 • The Danger of Altruism a la Rand and Kant
Rene: Doing good for oneself is often not in opposition to what is good for others, but in reality almost every day we are confronted with situations where the opposite may be true and it is necessary to decide between the two.
I'm not and no one I know locally is.
The few times I can think of in recent memory turned out to have mutually beneficial solutions upon reflection.
About the worst case I can think of was a bout of momentary inconvenience. Hardly "harm."
Sure personal welfare isn't always perfectly aligned with the welfare of all, but usually its good enough. When it isn't sometimes you take one on the chin, sometimes the other guy takes one. Welcome to life.
Any philosophy which says you never have to take one, or you always have to, is just a religion in disguise.
R: When our personal welfare is not aligned is that of the group which should we chose; the group welfare or our own?
There is no set answer. Sometimes its one, sometimes its the other. Didn't you watch the star trek movies? Spock sacrifices himself to save the others and then the others risk everything to regain Spock.
The needs of the many out weigh the needs of the few, or the one.
Sometimes the needs of the one out weigh the needs of the many.
A dozen firemen risking their lives to save a small child.
A soldier throwing himself on a grenade to save his squad.
Rand and Kant are both full of shit. You cannot really know love or friendship if you are unwilling to risk yourself for another's benefit or accept them risking themselves for you.
R: Imagine you were living in Cambodia...
(Third example) It is a snowy, cold, icy day and the furnace has gone out in your house. You have a fireplace, but no wood to burn. The community happens to have wood stored in a an old warehouse for occasions just like this, but you know it is almost empty and if you take what is left there may be no wood for someone else. If you take the wood, you align with Rand. If you sit in the cold, you align with Kant.
Is it ethically superior to sit in the cold, so that it is simply wrong to make the other choice and take the wood? I would never say it is ethically wrong to take the wood and still most likely, I would leave the wood. An altruist, however, would demand that I not take the wood, and this is exactly why altruism is a danger to us all.
In the long run, individuals who act to preserve the group have a group to act to preserve them when they need aid.
Individuals who act only to preserve themselves have only themselves to fall back on.
Take the firewood for example. How about instead of stealing the last wood or sitting in the cold like a dork, you go over to your neighbors and all talk about the crisis. The firewood that will only heat 5 houses for one day will heat one house for 5 days.
If that won't see you through - houses are wood too. There are four houses of wood which will get you through the winter nice and cozy.
The possiblities are endless once you get past the false either or.
06-10-05 6:10 • Love and Non-attachment
Jim: While I revel in the non-attachment and acceptance in which rich loving exchanges can take place, I have found that the romantic/dreamy/desire side has been dampened. If I am at peace (and in love with) with whatever is, then where is the space for desire, for wanting something in particular? There have been times when I've wondered if the trade-off has been worth it.
A lot of people confuse attachement, detachment, unattachment and non attachment.Attachment, aka, clinging may seem fun in the begining, but it quickly grows old. Having to constantly explain the minutia of your life wears thin, even when its to a loved one.
Detachment may work for a psychologist, but it comes accross as cold and disinterested.
Unattachment is basically just a fuck buddy. Often one or both people end up feeling used.
Non attachment is what I shoot for. When I'm with some one, I'm with them. When I'm not, I'm not. We each move freely between being our own selves and expressing our caring for each other.
Ra:I'm still confused as to what attachment actually is.
I mean, come ON! When you're not with someone you don't just forget they exist... you still think about them, right? So how is it, when you're with someone you're with them and when you're not, you're not?
How far does one 'let go' yet still maintain connection?
Let's put it in terms of chocolate.
I like dark chocolate a lot. :) But if I'm driving and I'm thinking about DC and not driving, that's bad. I need to be driving while I'm driving.
If I'm constantly wondering where my DC is and if some one is getting into it, that's bad. I still need to be driving while driving.
When I'm eating a piece of DC, if I'm already worrying about where I'm going to get more and if I'll be able to keep it for myself, that's bad because I'm missing the piece I'm eating.
Sure some times I start missing it. But I decide if I want to spend time reminiscing or if I'm just going to note it and table the idea because I'm doing something else.
I enjoy my chocolate, but it doesn't consume me or take over my every waking moment.
Love of anything works best when you aren't a slave to your passions just as it works best when you let them flow instead of cutting them off.
It is a balance, a give and take, an ebb and flow.
If I'm busy doing stuff that consumes my attention I may not think about chocolate at all. That doesn't mean I like it less.
Be where you are. Do what you are doing. It will fall into place.
Surrealisticgirl: Swarm -- you always have a way of just getting down to it. Thanks!