{"id":321,"date":"2007-12-28T23:27:00","date_gmt":"2007-12-28T23:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/2007\/12\/28\/321\/"},"modified":"2015-05-14T20:01:58","modified_gmt":"2015-05-15T01:01:58","slug":"321","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/?p=321","title":{"rendered":"No Self, No Things . . . But Still, Relationship!"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was off from work today and had a chance to catch up on some reading. I was cutting through a book about the relationship between Buddhist thought and cognitive science (The Embodied Mind<\/a> by Francesco Varela, Evan Thompson and Eleanor Rosch). You really have to plow your way through this book; it\u2019s very dense with complex thought, although you can usually stay up with the authors if you go slow. However, it becomes incomprehensible whenever Buddhist doctrines are discussed. The two key Buddhist doctrines being flouted here are 1.) the falsity of \u201cself\u201d, and 2.) the ultimate emptiness and groundlessness of everything. <\/p>\n

Well, that certainly covers a lot of ground (except that ‘ground’ ultimately doesn’t exist). We believe that we have stable, if slowly changing, self-identities; and that we live in a world that is \u201creally there\u201d. But certain Buddhists seem to think it\u2019s all an illusion. Or mostly an illusion. Or an illusion in one sense, but not in another. Somehow, this confusion is supposed to break our egos (not unlike what a Zen koan sets out to do), and turn us into wiser, kinder and gentler beings. Once we stop grasping for fixed identities, we can then just experience things \u201cstraight up\u201d, open-heartedly, without self-delusions.<\/p>\n

Yea right.<\/p>\n

The biggest problem with Buddhist thought<\/span>, in my opinion, is its lack of respect for words. They don\u2019t give much regard to the notion that \u201cwords have meaning\u201d (which is consistent with their focus on meditative experience). So they can be sloppy with even the most important words like \u201ctruth\u201d. Varela and company talk about \u201crelative truths\u201d and \u201cultimate truths\u201d, but warn that neither are part of a \u201ctheory of truth\u201d. The ultimate of ultimate truths is the emptiness of the world. And that would also include the concept of truth. If so, then truth is an empty concept; it can be whatever anyone wants (thus all truth becomes \u201crelative truth\u201d). That\u2019s not what this book affirms, but its flip-flopping notions of what \u201ctruth\u201d means would do nothing to prevent this. I suspect that criminal defense lawyers would love to convince judges and juries to adopt this book\u2019s way of thinking. <\/p>\n

As to throwing away our notion of \u201cself\u201d and the overly-inflated ego that often goes with it: I\u2019ll be the first to acknowledge that many, if not most, people could use a good dose of humility. Ego causes a lot of trouble. But to nuke the ego and turn everyone into compassionate, compliant zombies \u2013 that scheme would work only if you absolutely guarantee 100% effectiveness. If just one person kept their ego, he or she would then become the ruler of the planet. In the real world, egos are a pretty good defense against power mongering and sales pitches and political speeches. Admittedly, the \u201cself\u201d and its ego are not permanent, and are not always good. In extreme instances (e.g., severe head injuries or traumas), the \u201cself\u201d can be terminated and replaced by a new personality. But self and ego are rough working concepts that make sense in the world such as it is. <\/p>\n

Another rough working concept that makes sense, at least here in the West, is that \u201cwords have meaning\u201d. Philosophers and scientists can prove that words and language could not and do not perfectly \u201crepresent\u201d the world. Reality is always a bit more complex than our concepts. But we do need these concepts to maintain law and order, along with industry and commerce and science and education. We have to respect our words, not devalue them in favor of \u201cenlightenment through sitting\u201d. Hell, even in the Far East, most Buddhists these days seem more interested in making a buck than in folding their legs and slowing their breathing until the inner light of wisdom shines. And to make a buck, you have to assume that words have meaning. When China sells a batch of big-screen TV\u2019s and then buys some US Treasury Bonds, it is not willing to accept \u201crelative truths\u201d about payment schedules. <\/p>\n

I will be the first to admit that old-fashioned \u201cobjectivism\u201d is on the ropes these days; there\u2019s not much you can be sure of anymore. Nihilism is certainly a problem; radical jihad may well be a nihilist reaction to the failings of the Enlightenment. The USA can show the world how to to get rich (albeit with the side effect of unfair wealth distribution). But it doesn’t offer much else to believe in, other than “free elections” (which are good, but aren’t the stuff that one builds their life around). Nonetheless, I don\u2019t think that Buddhist approaches such as \u201cempty-minded open-heartedness\u201d are the answer. I think that we need to press on in order to find compelling ideas and ideals that everyone can grasp and believe in. <\/p>\n

Descartes gave us half an answer \u2013 we all know that even if nothing else exists, one thing does \u2013 we ourSELVES exist! And we know something else almost as fundamental: i.e., that we crave relationship<\/span> with something else. Preferably something else having an existence much like our own, with thinking and self-consciousness. I.e., relationship with OTHER PEOPLE. Without such relationship we know that we malfunction and ultimately shut down, even if all of our physiological needs for nutrition and air and heat are met. <\/p>\n

If our species, in its search for meaning, could lock-on to the necessity of relationship<\/span>, to the sacredness of having other self-egos that our own self-ego can relate to (without dominance or force, which ultimately corrodes all relationships) — well, that would surely go a long way towards realizing a better world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was off from work today and had a chance to catch up on some reading. I was cutting through a book about the relationship between Buddhist thought and cognitive science (The Embodied Mind by Francesco Varela, Evan Thompson and Eleanor Rosch). You really have to plow your way through this book; it\u2019s very dense […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,15],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=321"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5397,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321\/revisions\/5397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}