Freethought & Rationalism Archive

waj · 11-12-2002, 10:54 AM

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Originally posted by Perchance:
Why do people want to feel they are one with everything in the universe?

I've used this language at times, not because I think the world would be better if everyone thought it was true, but because it's the best language I've found to describe experiences I've had. In many different situations, caused by intense concentration on a task, or by ritual, or in crowd situations, I've felt that part of my mind that distinguishes me from not-me shut off or slow down. It's almost always a very pleasant experience. I'm not sure why this is: maybe that part of the brain needs to be working to cause anxiety or self-consciousness.

In this experiential sense, I can understand the "first there is the mountain" language: it evokes the passage such moments seems to take. As a factual statement having truth or falsity, though, I wouldn't have a clue what it might mean. It's not the idea that's attractive to me, since it's nonsensical to me, but the experience.

monkey mind · 11-12-2002, 12:21 PM

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But aren't there other options, too? For example, perhaps we are all the dreams of one unconscious mind; that's one I've heard a few times.

I couldn't possibly comprehend all the different ways of looking at existence. That sounds like saying "both" to me though. Many dreams, one one conscious mind.

It's different, because they are saying that everything is only noumenon/metaphorical/supernatural (sorry, I don't quite know the best word for this). I've heard other people say that existence is all phenomenal/literal/physical, and there is no noumenal/metaphorical/supernatural existence. I've met a lot of people who say that there is both, and you COULD say that there is neither. (Although that sounds terribly nihilistic, I don't know why you'd bother to say anything if you thought that.)

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I would say that the difference between that parable and the way that some people think of the universe is that the elephant objectively exists, and even though the blind men aren't all, for example, feeling the trunk, they could move around the elephant and do so. They could repeat the same procedure the blind man who felt the trunk did- putting their hand out in the exact same place- and acknowledge that there was some basis for his perception.

Good one. Hmmm. Think of a really big elephant

I think the universe objectively exits, but it's far to big for us to walk to the other side of it and take a look.

Since we're talking about perceptions, I suppose you could try to 'mentally' walk over to where the other person is standing and acknowledge there is some basis for their perception, but they'd have to give you pretty clear instructions since your blind.

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I don't think that human perceptions about the universe function on the same level. There's no guaranteed "technique" for "opening your mind" or "opening your heart." Prayer doesn't always get answered, nor do attempts at meditation always give the sense of oneness with the universe. The perception of oneness with the universe is one of those things that rests at least as much on personal conviction and experience as it does on objective evidence, I think. And quite often, someone else can't repeat those personal experiences; even the person who had them might not be able to.

Well, in Buddhism the end goal isn't feeling oneness with the universe. According to Buddhist thought, a religion that teaches that as the end goal is incomplete, because that's just another form of attachment. Who wants to imprison themselves to some sort of attachment for eternity? Feeling oneness with the universe may serve a purpose in that it may inspire you to perform good deeds, but it's not 'liberation', its not a solution.

I meditate regularly and I don't think I've ever gotten the same meditation twice. I think your right, if a person tries to use meditation to consistenly give themself some certain feeling they will be severly disapointed.

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I think my stance is closest to that of a metaphysical naturalist (I hope I'm using that term the right way): that I accept the physical basis of the universe and believe that individuals can form a common perception on that. There are also natural "laws" that can be discovered and tested for. I don't think it's out of the question that there are laws of psychology that explain the human tendency to think of things like the oneness of the universe. So far I think that there's a lack of supernatural "evidence," though, so that that perception is not based on something outside the mind.

In Buddhism karma is considered a law that you can test. Except I think you can only test it with your own personal experience rather than through observing someone else. Unless, I suppose, you recorded everything that person did for the rest of their lives and assessed how it all affected their thoughts/feelings etc..

I tested it myself until the point where I'm now convinced of it. Now that I'm convinced that the law of karma is true, I apply it to my life. Unfortunately, I'm unable to prove it's existence to anyone else, at best I can point to it with reasoning.

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I think the "loneliness" and "alienation" feelings are also constructs, though (and in some ways I blame postmodernism). Some people hear that they are expected to feel lonely and alienated, so they start feeling that way. It may not have anything to do with anything outside their owh minds.

I agree with that.

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Similarly, some people may hear about the perception of all being one, or hear about the perception that all being one and all being individuals are wrong, so they adopt that perception.

I agree with that too.

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Ah. Our beliefs cross in some ways, I see. But I do think that some things exist outside my mind; I just hold a lack of belief regarding supernatural things. If I kick a rock out of the path, I'm a lot more likely to trust that there's really a rock there than I would be to trust the objective existence of a dragon flying overhead. Prior experience and repeated experience guide a lot of my dealings with this.

Oh if I ever argued with you that the rock didn't exist you could toss it at my head. That would change my mind real fast.

What I think though, is that the rock's existence is only relevent because of it's contact with your mind.

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There's that "only a few options" thing again. I don't think that someone has to either completely indulge himself or cut himself completely off. There are some things that I indulge myself in, such as Internet time and writing; others that I have as a special treat, like buying a new CD; unpleasant things that I steel myself to go through, like going to the dentist; and things that terrify me and that I can only do every so often, like asking a professor to look at a second draft of a paper I did. There are lots of positions on the spectrum.

An important teaching in Buddhism is the 'middle path' teaching, and that is exactly what it is. That you cannot completely indulge in sensual pleasures or completely cut yourself off. What Buddhism tries to teach people is that everything is impermanent. Therefore pleasure turn into pain and pain turns into pleasure.

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I think I understand you better now. I try not to keep my viewpoints fixed, though sometimes it happens (for example, if someone wastes time in front of me, and then continues to goof off for a long time, it will be difficult for me to keep from thinking of that person as a procrastinator). I like subjecting my ideas to tests. Some of them stand them, some don't.

Buddhism teaches that we always try to 'cement' things in our minds because of our attachments. If something gives us pleasure now, you want it forever, but nothing will give you pleasure forever. Or if something causes us discomfort now, we want to avoid it forever, but we can't avoid discomfort forever. It's a total mystery to us until we start to investigate it.

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Thank you again.

Thank you for the conversation. I enjoy blabbing my mouth off about this stuff.

[ November 12, 2002: Message edited by: monkey mind ]

lpetrich · 11-14-2002, 06:51 AM

This is a side effect of mystical experiences. They are completely real -- and are correlated with certain brain-activity changes. There is a part of the brain, the Posterior Superior Parietal Lobe, that handles spatial orientation and self-nonself-distinction; it quiets down during such experiences, producing a feeling of lack of distinction between one's consciousness and the rest of reality.

Here's <a href="http://fp.bio.utk.edu/skeptic/Rationally_Speaking/02-08-god_brain.htm" target="_blank">a nice article</a> on that subject.

Hugo Holbling · 11-14-2002, 10:35 AM

My apologies for the lateness of my reply, Perchance. I've been working away all week.

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Why does experience have to consist of either? Why are there only two options?

Hmm... i don't recall insisting that there were only two options.

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After all, if I can accept myself as a perceiving subject, then why not accept others as perceiving subjects if they demonstrate ability of that?

I didn't say that you shouldn't: i merely suggested the possibility that experience is a continuum of hermeneutic interplay.

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I've heard that before. I don't understand it. The person I heard quote it claimed to understand it, and also to understand the appeal of the poem "This is just to say."

Do you?

Yes.

Bluenose · 11-14-2002, 02:14 PM

Hi Hugo, re: "...the possibility that experience is a continuum of hermeneutic interplay", could you tell us more about that?

Elbereth · 11-14-2002, 05:31 PM

I'd like to talk about Tao and how it relates to the oneness of things, but I just don't have the words. After all, "The Tao that can be named is not the eternal Tao."

So if you're interested I'd suggest reading a translation of the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu, or even Benjamin Hoff's "The Tao of Pooh" is a very good introduction to Taoism.

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Why do people want to feel they are one with everything in the universe?

I'd like to believe that people want to feel this because they've recognized the truth of it... but that's just silly. I'd like to think that I don't simply "want" to believe it, because it makes so much sense to me, especially since I've read variations on the theme in many books and particularly Joseph Campbell's "The Hero with a Thousand Faces", which expresses the similarities of many many myths and religions (which, of course, are also myths. I think I'll quote from that extensively later though, because I've just re-read a very interesting and relevant passage.) I'd also like to think that when people acheive a feeling of oneness it isn't simply because a part of the brain is quieting down, but I suppose it does have to have some physical cause. Of course, I've never experience this myself and seriously doubt I ever will. But that doesn't mean there's nothing to the idea of oneness.

Tao, though, translates to the Way, and like Waning Moon Conrad said, it is like a process. (Which reminds me, you might be interested in reading <a href="http://www.mit.edu/people/dpolicar/writing/prose/text/godTaoist.html" target="_blank">Is God a Taoist?</a>, in which God basically describes himself as being a process.) In the Tao Te Ching, the Tao is described as an empty vessel, which is used but never filled, and other such Zen-like descriptions. I just remembered there are online translations <a href="http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/gthursby/taoism/ttc-list.htm" target="_blank">here.</a>

Hhmmmmmm.... this post is jumping around quite a bit. Sorry bout that. Anyway, here's something interesting to ponder:

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And so, to grasp the full value of the mythological figures that have come down to us, we must understand that they are not only symptoms of the unconscious (as indeed are all human thoughts and acts) but also controlled and intended statements of certain spiritual principles, which have remained as constant throughout the course of human history as the form and nervous structure of the human physique itself. Briefly formulated, the universal doctrine teaches that all the visible structures of the world � all things and beings � are the effects of a ubiquitous power out of which they rise, which supports and fills them during the period of their manifestation, and back into which they must ultimately dissolve. This is the power known to science as energy, to the Melanesians as mana, to the Sioux Indians as wakonda, the Hindus as shakti, and the Christians as the power of God. [note: not God itself.] Its manifestation in the psyche is termed, by the psychoanalysts, libido. And its manifestation in the cosmos is the structure and flux of the universe itself.
The apprehension of the source of this undifferentiated yet everywhere particularized substratum of being is rendered frustrate by the very organs through which the apprehension must be accomplished. The forms of sensibility and the categories of human thought, which are themselves manifestations of this power, so confine the mind that it is normally impossible not only to see, but even to conceive, beyond the colorful, fluid, infinitely various and bewildering phenomenal spectacle. The function of ritual and myth is to make possible, and then to facilitate, the jump � by analogy. Forms and conceptions that the mind and its senses can comprehend are presented and arranged in such a way as to suggest a truth or openness beyond. And then, the conditions for meditation having been provided, the individual is left alone. Myth is but the penultimate; the ultimate is openness � that void, or being, beyond the categories � into which the mind must plunge alone and be dissolved. Therefore, God and the gods are only convenient means � themselves of the nature of the world of names and forms, though eloquent of, and ultimately conducive to, the ineffable. They are mere symbols to move and awaken the mind, and to call it past themselves.

(Joseph Campbell, "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" pages 257-258, italics original, bold added for emphasis)

He goes on, in a footnote, to say:

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This recognition of the secondary nature of the personality of whatever deity is worshiped is characteristic of most of the traditions of the world. In Christianity, Mohammedanism, and Judaism, however, the personality of the divinity is taught to be final � which makes it comparatively difficult for the members of these communions to understand how one may go beyond the limitations of their own anthropomorphic divinity. The result has been, on the one hand, a general obfuscation of the symbols, and on the other, a god-ridden bigotry such as is unmatched elsewhere in the history of religion.

(Which doesn't particularly deal with the topic at hand but I find it extremely enlightening.)

When I read the above passage, everything just clicked. Energy, science calls it. And that's what it all boils down to. (For me... I'm a (prospective) scientist.) But thinking of God, Tao, or spirituality in terms of energy was very exciting and interesting. It got rid of my difficulty in conceptualizing Tao, or understanding how people can believe in God. And it was this passage, plus the whole book, which rid me of my general negativity towards religion, though I still feel a specific negativity towards the Abrahamic religions and Christianity in particular.

I would do an in depth analysis of the passage, but I don't think I can say it any better than Campbell has already. So if you have questions, ask.

[ November 14, 2002: Message edited by: The Elder ]

Hugo Holbling · 11-15-2002, 12:35 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Bluenose:
Hi Hugo, re: "...the possibility that experience is a continuum of hermeneutic interplay", could you tell us more about that?

Okay. Maybe this will help.

According to the <a href="http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/o/b.htm" target="_blank">marxists</a>,

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Subject and Object are crucial concepts in Epistemology, the study of knowledge. �Subject� refers to the active, cognising individual or social group, with consciousness and/or will, while �object� refers to that on which the subject�s cognitive or other activity observes.

Supposing that there are no problems with this explication, we need merely note the inherent presupposition that there is a separation at all. If we make a different assumption - along the lines of recognizing that while things happen to me, i also happen to them - could the results be beneficial?

In this connexion, perhaps you have heard of the "net of jewels" metaphor, popular with the Hua-yen school of buddhism? This describes the universe as an infinite net studded with jewels, each of which reflects the others unto infinity. Thomas Cleary had this to say about it:

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The Hua-yen doctrine shows the entire cosmos as one single nexus of conditions in which everything simultaneously depends on, and is depended on by, everything else. Seen in this light, then, everything affects and is affected by, more or less immediately or remotely, everything else; just as this is true of every system of relationships, so is it true of the totality of existence.

In seeking to understand individuals and groups, therefore, Hua-yen thought considers the manifold as an integral part of the unit and the unit as an integral part of the manifold; one individual is considered in terms of relationships to other individuals as well as to the whole nexus, while the whole nexus is considered in terms of its relation to each individual as well as to all individuals.

(From <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0824816978/qid=1037352761/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-3350843-7252742?v=glance&s=books" target="_blank">this book</a>.)

I found it considerably simpler to call this a "continuum of hermeneutic interplay", as long as we still remember that every interpretation presupposes a separation between interpreter and interpreted.

Something to mull over with a glass of fine port, perhaps?

Hugo Holbling · 11-16-2002, 03:03 AM

In addition to my previous comments, <a href="http://www.bluereality.org/cgi-bin/ib/topic.cgi?forum=6&topic=16" target="_blank">here</a> is a link that may be of interest.

Perchance · 11-16-2002, 06:22 AM

Sorry it's been so long since I responded... I'll try to catch up.

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Originally posted by monkey mind:


In the Buddhist doctrine of karma, neutral actions are accounted for. Also, not all actions carry the same weight.

So neutral actions have a special weight of their own? Or they're noted but not noted down?

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I believe the word karma itself can be translated as simply "action". Karma is an action which plants a seed in your mind, which then come to fruition and becomes a thought, which in turn becomes more action.

It would depend on what one uses the word "action" to mean, I think. I think it possible there are entirely mental actions, such as when the effort to understand a frustrating math problem suddenly pays off. I've also had the experience of reading a (fictional) book, suddenly guessing the ending, and turning out to be right, which is a little disconcerting and disappointing. Yet the actions there are all mental, and in some cases entirely unconscious, and I don't know that I could say what planted a seed in my mind.

Also, how are the first actions that someone ever performs accounted for under this system? Do they have a special resonance of their own? Are they always reactions to what someone else does?

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Funny you should mention weight.

I probably got the term from somewhere, but can't remember where. It's been kicking around in my mind for years.

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In Buddhism karma is often referred to as heavy and light rather than good or bad. When you perform an act such as say killing a human being, that would give you very heavy karma.

Are motives taken into account? Is someone who kills in self-defense less "evil" than someone who murders someone else?

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If you performed a good deed, that would lighten your karma. The goal of Buddhism is to escape karma. Whereas some religions/philosophies may preach accumulating good karma to achieve a better rebirth, in Buddhism you want to stop the karma and the rebirth. It's a lot harder to do that if you have heavy karma.

Why is rebirth bad, though? I would like the opportunity to experience the physical world again.

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In Buddhism, the doctrines of karma, rebirth and dependent origination are all interdependent. In order to fully understand one, you need to take a look at the other two and see how they interrelate.

So it's better to consider them together than separately?

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That book I recommended earlier called "The Fundamentals of Buddhism" provides a pretty good introction to these, but here is my understanding of it summed up:

Karma: Actions that are stored up.

Rebirth: Self explanatory. Rebirths happen not only after your dead, but metaphorically in this lifetime as well.

Dependent Origination: The "how" of it all. Dependent Origination explains how karma affects your rebirth.

I suppose my main questions still remain:

1) How can anyone know about these things? If the ideas came from older ideas, has anyone gone back and questioned them?

2) Why is it that the ideas seem to so perfectly suit human psychological needs (e.g., for poetic justice)?

-Perchance.

Perchance · 11-16-2002, 06:24 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by waj:


I've used this language at times, not because I think the world would be better if everyone thought it was true, but because it's the best language I've found to describe experiences I've had. In many different situations, caused by intense concentration on a task, or by ritual, or in crowd situations, I've felt that part of my mind that distinguishes me from not-me shut off or slow down. It's almost always a very pleasant experience. I'm not sure why this is: maybe that part of the brain needs to be working to cause anxiety or self-consciousness.

I suppose one of the reasons I find it hard to imagine the idea as attractive is because the experience doesn't sound very attractive to me. Especially in crowds, I want to be in control of myself and my actions. Not getting caught up in, say, stirred-up emotions or "the wave" is important to me.

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In this experiential sense, I can understand the "first there is the mountain" language: it evokes the passage such moments seems to take. As a factual statement having truth or falsity, though, I wouldn't have a clue what it might mean. It's not the idea that's attractive to me, since it's nonsensical to me, but the experience.

I suppose it could be. Sometimes I think I value control too much

. On the other hand, I know a lot of people who go to the other extreme, which I think is one of the reasons I prefer to maintain my own control.

-Perchance.

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11-14-2002, 06:51 AM	#23
lpetrich Contributor Join Date: Jul 2000 Location: Lebanon, OR, USA Posts: 16,829	This is a side effect of mystical experiences. They are completely real -- and are correlated with certain brain-activity changes. There is a part of the brain, the Posterior Superior Parietal Lobe, that handles spatial orientation and self-nonself-distinction; it quiets down during such experiences, producing a feeling of lack of distinction between one's consciousness and the rest of reality. Here's <a href="http://fp.bio.utk.edu/skeptic/Rationally_Speaking/02-08-god_brain.htm" target="_blank">a nice article</a> on that subject.

11-14-2002, 02:14 PM	#25
Bluenose Regular Member Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: small cold water flat Posts: 471	Hi Hugo, re: "...the possibility that experience is a continuum of hermeneutic interplay", could you tell us more about that?

11-16-2002, 03:03 AM	#28
Hugo Holbling Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: Self-banned in 2005 Posts: 1,344	In addition to my previous comments, <a href="http://www.bluereality.org/cgi-bin/ib/topic.cgi?forum=6&topic=16" target="_blank">here</a> is a link that may be of interest.

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