One of the things I like about Vietnam (and most third-world countries) is the ability to obtain most medications without a prescription. To be sure, you are supposed to have one, but its absence seems to bother no one.
I think vested interests in other countries causes this serious limit on freedom. Drug companies and doctors want people to have to incur the additional expense of getting medical approval. They use the argument of protecting the public, and I suppose they are protecting the stupid and uninformed, and these types continue to agitate in Vietnam for restrictions.
What you do instead is limit advertising. I would prefer they even eliminated brand names. A trained pharmacist can deal with almost any set of symptoms the customer describes, and the government can impose rules about this to boot. Bulk competitive buying by the state (or local manufacture if the foreigners persist in being too greedy) can do a wonder for prices too.
Today I read how metformin could extend everyone's lifespan several years. It is a low-cost drug supposedly for type-2 diabetics and prediabetics, but it appears everyone would benefit from taking it routinely. Of course with such mass use some side-effects would probably appear, especially with long-term use (mainly allergies), so alertness would be called for, although reading the posted comments that went with the article, I can see how some people blame anything that happens on whatever they are taking. Such people should be allowed to die early.
There are, as I see it, two extremes in this pill-popping debate -- those who think taking medicine for what ails us is dangerous or even sinful, and those who pop whatever new nostrum shows its head making wonderful claims. A middle path is called for.
There are of course drugs that I suppose have to be surrounded by legal safeguards -- things that can kill you and things that are addictive and things useful in suicides come to mind (although this last might be overkill since there are plenty of ordinary products that can do the job). So safety before a product can even be marketed should be necessary.
Also, I think going through a pharmacist, who, regardless gives you what you want, but also gives you personal advice and warning, is advisable. And of course the doctor needs to be told. No point in hiding things, even if he is going to lose his temper, from a professional you are paying good money to for advice.
Saturday, August 9, 2014
Thursday, August 7, 2014
Afterlife (or not dying)
We don't want to die (become extinct when our body terminates), although this does seem likely and we can't, with medicine as it is now, do anything about it. I think at some point this will no longer be the case, but that seems a ways off.
There are of course alternatives on offer, although some of them don't seem much better than dying and a few are fearsome. I see no point in joining some cosmic ocean, or being reborn with few, if any memories of a previous existence. These may as well be personal extinction.
And then of course there is a Heaven or some variation. My personal heaven would be an outdoor life on horseback and fishing, living in a tent and making fish and eggs and coffee on a fire. However, the work parts of this, such as chopping wood or grooming the horse, as well as the unpleasant parts, such as bad weather and insects, would not be part of it. I and others would also sit around at night before bed and sing and talk philosophy and psychiatry and religion and tell jokes and have sex.
In an earlier blog I talked about why I think the mind is a process, not thing, so the question is how does this gust of wind or flickering flame survive the brain's death? That would seem to depend on what it is, what "mind" is, and we don't know. We don't even know what sentience is or where it comes from.
Maybe it is something "mystical," or at least as yet undiscovered by science. Frankly, I suspect its discovery will have to await the passing of modern scientific physical materialism and the insistence on experimental evidence to a time when scientists work with inference and reason without physical confirmation.
As process it may be like other processes we observe, and have both "wave" (process) and "particle" (matter, etc.) properties (this is misleading derived from our ways of thinking and requires a lot of mental work to really conceive, but I put it as best I can to be understood). In that case sentience or mind, probably just forms of the same thing, could be conserved much as mass/energy and charge and momentum are conserved.
Of course that wouldn't prove much. Energy is conserved, but degrades in a way (entropy increases) and readily changes form. It does to my mind, though, hold a conceptual way in which rebirth might work. A lot depends on the nature of sentience, and, if, as we infer, sentience has a tendency to persist as it is, then you would have it.
Another possibility, and one I would not be at all surprised at, would be that our life is some sort of dream or entertainment or punishment or education or even reward and when we die we also wake up to the reality above us, assuming it too is a simulation.
There are of course alternatives on offer, although some of them don't seem much better than dying and a few are fearsome. I see no point in joining some cosmic ocean, or being reborn with few, if any memories of a previous existence. These may as well be personal extinction.
And then of course there is a Heaven or some variation. My personal heaven would be an outdoor life on horseback and fishing, living in a tent and making fish and eggs and coffee on a fire. However, the work parts of this, such as chopping wood or grooming the horse, as well as the unpleasant parts, such as bad weather and insects, would not be part of it. I and others would also sit around at night before bed and sing and talk philosophy and psychiatry and religion and tell jokes and have sex.
In an earlier blog I talked about why I think the mind is a process, not thing, so the question is how does this gust of wind or flickering flame survive the brain's death? That would seem to depend on what it is, what "mind" is, and we don't know. We don't even know what sentience is or where it comes from.
Maybe it is something "mystical," or at least as yet undiscovered by science. Frankly, I suspect its discovery will have to await the passing of modern scientific physical materialism and the insistence on experimental evidence to a time when scientists work with inference and reason without physical confirmation.
As process it may be like other processes we observe, and have both "wave" (process) and "particle" (matter, etc.) properties (this is misleading derived from our ways of thinking and requires a lot of mental work to really conceive, but I put it as best I can to be understood). In that case sentience or mind, probably just forms of the same thing, could be conserved much as mass/energy and charge and momentum are conserved.
Of course that wouldn't prove much. Energy is conserved, but degrades in a way (entropy increases) and readily changes form. It does to my mind, though, hold a conceptual way in which rebirth might work. A lot depends on the nature of sentience, and, if, as we infer, sentience has a tendency to persist as it is, then you would have it.
Another possibility, and one I would not be at all surprised at, would be that our life is some sort of dream or entertainment or punishment or education or even reward and when we die we also wake up to the reality above us, assuming it too is a simulation.
Wednesday, August 6, 2014
Motorcycle helmets as a cultural artifact
Having been trained as a cultural anthropologist, even though I never actually did any anthropology afterward, I still find cultural changes that I notice in Vietnam of some interest.
One of these has been the universal adoption of a helmet when riding a motorbike. Vietnam is a motorbike culture, and when cheaper motorbikes from China appeared several years ago, it was a day of liberation for the rural population. I dare say the main form of entertainment in the big cities for young people is tooling around all over the place after work or school for a few hours.
At least it was until the coming of computer games: they now give its major competition. Motorbikes are, in my view a much better way to organize transport in a big city that hasn't been paved over with freeways than our cars. A couple of cars and a bus conspire and block traffic for hours; the motorbike riders maneuver in and around them and are hardly at all even delayed.
But motorbikes are deadly. Helmets are an essential minimum, along with traffic enforcement and getting off the road the drunks and the idiots who carry more than imaginable on the bike. (I once saw six guys, all utterly smashed, on one small Japanese bike, weaving around trying to stay up. Fortunately, they only made it a few meters before upending.)
I remember the first time I rode as a passenger on the back of one. I sat there and chanted, "Please let this be over" over and over, wanting to close my eyes but not daring. Now it doesn't phase me. Amazing what one can get used to -- but from day one I always wore a helmet -- they could be bought in Vietnam because the government was encouraging them, but no one except a few frightened foreigners used them. It's a tropical country and helmets are a bother and hot.
But they really aren't so hot once you are moving, and they help in a population determined to keep their skin from the sun so as to be as white as possible. Women can wear scarves and so on but men can only wear caps, and they blow off. There was a business of recovering and selling such hats.
Now that the police seriously enforced the law and everyone is in helmets, no doubt deaths have dropped, and a lot of men no longer have in their budget buying a new hat once a week.
One of these has been the universal adoption of a helmet when riding a motorbike. Vietnam is a motorbike culture, and when cheaper motorbikes from China appeared several years ago, it was a day of liberation for the rural population. I dare say the main form of entertainment in the big cities for young people is tooling around all over the place after work or school for a few hours.
At least it was until the coming of computer games: they now give its major competition. Motorbikes are, in my view a much better way to organize transport in a big city that hasn't been paved over with freeways than our cars. A couple of cars and a bus conspire and block traffic for hours; the motorbike riders maneuver in and around them and are hardly at all even delayed.
But motorbikes are deadly. Helmets are an essential minimum, along with traffic enforcement and getting off the road the drunks and the idiots who carry more than imaginable on the bike. (I once saw six guys, all utterly smashed, on one small Japanese bike, weaving around trying to stay up. Fortunately, they only made it a few meters before upending.)
I remember the first time I rode as a passenger on the back of one. I sat there and chanted, "Please let this be over" over and over, wanting to close my eyes but not daring. Now it doesn't phase me. Amazing what one can get used to -- but from day one I always wore a helmet -- they could be bought in Vietnam because the government was encouraging them, but no one except a few frightened foreigners used them. It's a tropical country and helmets are a bother and hot.
But they really aren't so hot once you are moving, and they help in a population determined to keep their skin from the sun so as to be as white as possible. Women can wear scarves and so on but men can only wear caps, and they blow off. There was a business of recovering and selling such hats.
Now that the police seriously enforced the law and everyone is in helmets, no doubt deaths have dropped, and a lot of men no longer have in their budget buying a new hat once a week.
Friday, August 1, 2014
Why I'm a poor Buddhist
There is a sense in which we can say we are all Buddhists, as they say, we have "Buddha nature," if we want what is right and true, except maybe sociopaths. Many who even do what we see as evil are motivated by their Buddha nature, deluded though it may be.
When Gautama sat under his Bodhi tree and persisted in meditation until he hit upon it (became Enlightened), what came of it is what is called the Four Noble Truths, which, to summarize crudely, consists of the assertions that to live is to suffer, the cause of this suffering are our desires, especially our grasping desire to continue living, that this causes the cycle of rebirths (reincarnations as it is miscalled in the West) and so we continue to be born again and again in life after life of suffering, and the solution is to break the desire to live and hence avoid rebirth.
I must interject that this is by no means a summary of Buddhist teaching, as there is much more to it.
Up to the point where the teaching gets into being reborn, most people readily accept the idea that we suffer because we have desires. After all, we either get what we want, in which case we have to hold onto it, and that is not possible, and sooner or later we will suffer loss, or we don't get what we want, in which case we suffer frustration. I have to say this insight is profound and important and useful, but also is common sense and hardly unique to Buddhist thinking in history.
Does that mean that by accepting it and acting accordingly (watching our desires that they don't get control over us) that we are Enlightened. It would not seem so since at the time the Buddha became enlightened all sorts of miraculous things happened, including a visit by Brahma himself.
This is often the case with myths -- things are out of proportion. The story of how the teaching came into the world, with the meditation and miracles and so on, is out of proportion to what it is.
Still, the insight is helpful and important. We suffer because we want things and have other desires. We of course want sex and food and so on, and we also want to be admired by others, to be loved, to be successful and have a lot of face, to have comforts and luxuries, to be secure and safe and healthy, to have friends and family and a place in the world, to be entertained and able to learn new and interesting things, and so on.
The thing is the pursuit of these things sometimes leads to trouble or our doing things that are wrong, and often leads to frustration, since we obviously cannot have everything, and of course sometimes we necessarily must as a result experience grief and other times experience pain.
However, and here is where I think maybe I make a poor Buddhist. There is the other side of all this -- that we also experience satisfactions and pleasures and even from time to time are able to help someone else and inevitably experience the gratification of that, even if that was not our intent.
So while the truth of the Bodhi Hill insight is useful and undeniable, there is a further truth that it is not the entire story. When we experience frustration, we have to remind ourselves we probably are over-reaching: when we experience true pain we remind ourselves to do something medical about it and if that is not possible then it is not possible. When we die, well, then we die, and I don't see the point of making this fact the basis of an entire life philosophy. To be sure death plays a role in how we approach things, but while we are alive it is less important than that we are alive.
When Gautama sat under his Bodhi tree and persisted in meditation until he hit upon it (became Enlightened), what came of it is what is called the Four Noble Truths, which, to summarize crudely, consists of the assertions that to live is to suffer, the cause of this suffering are our desires, especially our grasping desire to continue living, that this causes the cycle of rebirths (reincarnations as it is miscalled in the West) and so we continue to be born again and again in life after life of suffering, and the solution is to break the desire to live and hence avoid rebirth.
I must interject that this is by no means a summary of Buddhist teaching, as there is much more to it.
Up to the point where the teaching gets into being reborn, most people readily accept the idea that we suffer because we have desires. After all, we either get what we want, in which case we have to hold onto it, and that is not possible, and sooner or later we will suffer loss, or we don't get what we want, in which case we suffer frustration. I have to say this insight is profound and important and useful, but also is common sense and hardly unique to Buddhist thinking in history.
Does that mean that by accepting it and acting accordingly (watching our desires that they don't get control over us) that we are Enlightened. It would not seem so since at the time the Buddha became enlightened all sorts of miraculous things happened, including a visit by Brahma himself.
This is often the case with myths -- things are out of proportion. The story of how the teaching came into the world, with the meditation and miracles and so on, is out of proportion to what it is.
Still, the insight is helpful and important. We suffer because we want things and have other desires. We of course want sex and food and so on, and we also want to be admired by others, to be loved, to be successful and have a lot of face, to have comforts and luxuries, to be secure and safe and healthy, to have friends and family and a place in the world, to be entertained and able to learn new and interesting things, and so on.
The thing is the pursuit of these things sometimes leads to trouble or our doing things that are wrong, and often leads to frustration, since we obviously cannot have everything, and of course sometimes we necessarily must as a result experience grief and other times experience pain.
However, and here is where I think maybe I make a poor Buddhist. There is the other side of all this -- that we also experience satisfactions and pleasures and even from time to time are able to help someone else and inevitably experience the gratification of that, even if that was not our intent.
So while the truth of the Bodhi Hill insight is useful and undeniable, there is a further truth that it is not the entire story. When we experience frustration, we have to remind ourselves we probably are over-reaching: when we experience true pain we remind ourselves to do something medical about it and if that is not possible then it is not possible. When we die, well, then we die, and I don't see the point of making this fact the basis of an entire life philosophy. To be sure death plays a role in how we approach things, but while we are alive it is less important than that we are alive.
Wednesday, July 23, 2014
An American in Vietnam
It's been almost fifteen years now since I first visited Vietnam, then for just a month, but since I've been stretching out the visits and now I spend most of my time here; to the extent that if my partner would hear of it I would love to sell our property in the States and only go there for visits. He is probably right though that we are better off keeping the American link.
I have many times tried to figure out what it was about Vietnam and I guess still is that attracted me. Part of it is of course I see the States as decaying, but that can be attributed to my own decay and probably the US has a good deal of steam left. Still the infrastructure and culture and especially the politics of the States seem be be getting more and more "dysfunctional" (I put the word in ticks because I realize what a cliche the word has become).
One thing for sure: living in the states is a hassle. Living overseas doesn't really help much as I still have to fill out US tax forms and maintain credit cards and US bank accounts and a drivers' license and insurance of all sorts and on and on, but I do escape most of it as my partner handles things more and more and Vietnam is a cash society, so the only real hassles are getting money here, getting steadily easier, and keeping a valid visa (a real pain in the neck).
I think, contrary to all American opinion, that Vietnam is a much freer country than the States. All the rules in the States one has to observe, all no doubt enacted for good reasons but that persist because of vested interests, such as those about schools and about pharmaceuticals and about employing people and about simple things like who can give you a haircut and a shave -- yea -- I'm able to afford a barber's shave here -- are just either not here or not enforced (not being a lawyer I'm not quite sure).
Of course the country isn't "free" in the form that it is a one party state, but having been here and seeing first hand the implications in terms of reasonably effective governance without a self-appointed political class, I begin to see advantages. Voter participation rates in the States tell a tale -- people there don't think the right to vote means anything anyway for a variety of reasons, including corruption, bought elections, and the fact that close elections seem to come out in favor of the party controlling the voting bureaucracy. But that is a subject for another post -- this one is about why I live here.
One thing I noticed right away is the absence of guns and the relative safety in even the biggest cities this and a no-nonsense law enforcement and judicial system seem to provide. Oh there is crime, and there is prostitution, and common sense is called for, but it doesn't thrust itself on you as in other places. There is also poverty; after all Vietnam is a developing country and the culture and structure of poverty in a society take generations to mitigate, but in the time I've been observing the progress, especially in the countryside, has been palpable. The long and short of it is I feel much safer here.
I set out to talk about why I like Vietnam, not politics, so I will get to it. It's mainly the people, but also the land and the cuisine and a whole list of intangibles. It is tropical and I don't like cold. OK that is easy enough, but there are lots of tropical countries. It comes down to the friendliness of the inhabitants. Only Scandinavia and the Netherlands are friendlier, and in many countries I've visited I've experienced serious unpleasantness. I suppose there are those here who don't like foreigners either, as that is part of a "bigot" personality trait that I suppose is present in a minority everywhere, but here I think maybe they tend to just avoid you, end of story.
Vietnam doesn't have the "rules" either like not showing your feet or not looking at someone or not smiling or talking to a stranger or not touching someone you are talking to or not hugging a good friend. There is something of a code for what to wear for business, and one can be pretentious in one's clothes if one likes, but being Western I am forgiven all that and can dress simply the way I like, which means knee-shorts and pull-on and comfortable slip-on shoes.
Did I mention smiling? In Vietnam it is the thing to do. Smiling is not as in some countries seen as a sign of untrustworthiness. It is seen as a sign of friendliness and the Vietnamese are friendly. If I get up on the wrong side of bed, everyone in the household notices and asks if something is wrong, to the point that I cannot indulge myself in being miserable but have to cheer up.
I have many times tried to figure out what it was about Vietnam and I guess still is that attracted me. Part of it is of course I see the States as decaying, but that can be attributed to my own decay and probably the US has a good deal of steam left. Still the infrastructure and culture and especially the politics of the States seem be be getting more and more "dysfunctional" (I put the word in ticks because I realize what a cliche the word has become).
One thing for sure: living in the states is a hassle. Living overseas doesn't really help much as I still have to fill out US tax forms and maintain credit cards and US bank accounts and a drivers' license and insurance of all sorts and on and on, but I do escape most of it as my partner handles things more and more and Vietnam is a cash society, so the only real hassles are getting money here, getting steadily easier, and keeping a valid visa (a real pain in the neck).
I think, contrary to all American opinion, that Vietnam is a much freer country than the States. All the rules in the States one has to observe, all no doubt enacted for good reasons but that persist because of vested interests, such as those about schools and about pharmaceuticals and about employing people and about simple things like who can give you a haircut and a shave -- yea -- I'm able to afford a barber's shave here -- are just either not here or not enforced (not being a lawyer I'm not quite sure).
Of course the country isn't "free" in the form that it is a one party state, but having been here and seeing first hand the implications in terms of reasonably effective governance without a self-appointed political class, I begin to see advantages. Voter participation rates in the States tell a tale -- people there don't think the right to vote means anything anyway for a variety of reasons, including corruption, bought elections, and the fact that close elections seem to come out in favor of the party controlling the voting bureaucracy. But that is a subject for another post -- this one is about why I live here.
One thing I noticed right away is the absence of guns and the relative safety in even the biggest cities this and a no-nonsense law enforcement and judicial system seem to provide. Oh there is crime, and there is prostitution, and common sense is called for, but it doesn't thrust itself on you as in other places. There is also poverty; after all Vietnam is a developing country and the culture and structure of poverty in a society take generations to mitigate, but in the time I've been observing the progress, especially in the countryside, has been palpable. The long and short of it is I feel much safer here.
I set out to talk about why I like Vietnam, not politics, so I will get to it. It's mainly the people, but also the land and the cuisine and a whole list of intangibles. It is tropical and I don't like cold. OK that is easy enough, but there are lots of tropical countries. It comes down to the friendliness of the inhabitants. Only Scandinavia and the Netherlands are friendlier, and in many countries I've visited I've experienced serious unpleasantness. I suppose there are those here who don't like foreigners either, as that is part of a "bigot" personality trait that I suppose is present in a minority everywhere, but here I think maybe they tend to just avoid you, end of story.
Vietnam doesn't have the "rules" either like not showing your feet or not looking at someone or not smiling or talking to a stranger or not touching someone you are talking to or not hugging a good friend. There is something of a code for what to wear for business, and one can be pretentious in one's clothes if one likes, but being Western I am forgiven all that and can dress simply the way I like, which means knee-shorts and pull-on and comfortable slip-on shoes.
Did I mention smiling? In Vietnam it is the thing to do. Smiling is not as in some countries seen as a sign of untrustworthiness. It is seen as a sign of friendliness and the Vietnamese are friendly. If I get up on the wrong side of bed, everyone in the household notices and asks if something is wrong, to the point that I cannot indulge myself in being miserable but have to cheer up.
Friday, June 27, 2014
Right and wrong exist independently of human opinion
Any truly eternal ethical laws would be independent of God. What is
right is right and what is wrong is wrong, and this applies to any
divinities as well as to people.
This of course assumes that right and wrong exist as objective, real "things." One is tempted to say they are analogous to ideas of beauty and ugliness, entirely in the eye of the beholder. But beauty is not entirely in the eye of the beholder (while superficially this is so we have to recognize that beauty does have a deeper quality that outlasts cultures and fashions).
A better analogy might be right and wrong are analogous to truth and falsehood. Even though people have varying ideas of what is true and what is not, we tend in the end to agree that truth and falsehood exist on their own independent of our opinions.
Don't confuse human ideas of right and wrong with real right and wrong. Human ideas change and indeed seem to progress (slavery is not condemned as wrong), but in the end mankind has always known slavery was wrong, and just buried its head. At least those who stopped to think objectively about it reached that conclusion.
This of course assumes that right and wrong exist as objective, real "things." One is tempted to say they are analogous to ideas of beauty and ugliness, entirely in the eye of the beholder. But beauty is not entirely in the eye of the beholder (while superficially this is so we have to recognize that beauty does have a deeper quality that outlasts cultures and fashions).
A better analogy might be right and wrong are analogous to truth and falsehood. Even though people have varying ideas of what is true and what is not, we tend in the end to agree that truth and falsehood exist on their own independent of our opinions.
Don't confuse human ideas of right and wrong with real right and wrong. Human ideas change and indeed seem to progress (slavery is not condemned as wrong), but in the end mankind has always known slavery was wrong, and just buried its head. At least those who stopped to think objectively about it reached that conclusion.
Friday, June 20, 2014
Persistent religious belief
The number of serious Christians in China is estimated to be between
20 and 90 million. Sorry for the imprecision in the number but that
sort of thing in a country like China is hard to measure. The actual number is probably on the higher side of this range (remember that China is a seriously big country).
These are mostly people in rural areas that have been Christian for generations and their descendants now moving to cities as part of China's overall planned urbanization, where they become more visible. How have they persisted in spite of official condemnation and all sorts of discriminations? The answer is easy: they indoctrinate their children, and no government in the world can defeat that short of breaking up families.
What you were taught as a child by your parents is almost certainly what you will believe, especially if it is done lovingly without brute force and consistently and with the parents setting a non-hypocritical example. Those who do flirt with other belief systems in the vast majority of cases become lost sheep who experience the joy and peace of returning to the flock a decade or so later, all the time they experienced fear and guilt.
Those who don't return to the flock tend to develop hate for whatever they were indoctrinated into, and serious resentment over what was "done to them" as a child and the suffering this put them through until they were finally able to make a clean break.
Thus religions and superstitions persist in spite of modern knowledge and rational thought. It has to do with the way human beings are wired.
These are mostly people in rural areas that have been Christian for generations and their descendants now moving to cities as part of China's overall planned urbanization, where they become more visible. How have they persisted in spite of official condemnation and all sorts of discriminations? The answer is easy: they indoctrinate their children, and no government in the world can defeat that short of breaking up families.
What you were taught as a child by your parents is almost certainly what you will believe, especially if it is done lovingly without brute force and consistently and with the parents setting a non-hypocritical example. Those who do flirt with other belief systems in the vast majority of cases become lost sheep who experience the joy and peace of returning to the flock a decade or so later, all the time they experienced fear and guilt.
Those who don't return to the flock tend to develop hate for whatever they were indoctrinated into, and serious resentment over what was "done to them" as a child and the suffering this put them through until they were finally able to make a clean break.
Thus religions and superstitions persist in spite of modern knowledge and rational thought. It has to do with the way human beings are wired.
Monday, June 16, 2014
Indoctrinated belief vs. learned opinion
I like to make a distinction between "belief" and "opinion." This
kinda reflects ordinary usage but is also a bit technical. One obtains a
belief by being indoctrinated, generally in childhood but for some
people this is possible at any age, while one gets an opinion by
learning about it and becoming persuaded that the evidence is good
enough to say it is probably true.
We aren't really consciously aware of our beliefs; we are about our opinions. That is to say a belief is taken for granted, like the furniture you sit on in the living room, you rarely if ever actually notice its presence. Opinions on the other hand tend to get scrutinized more often. Beliefs are not questions and usually have aspects designed to prevent their being questioned, such as "faith" and guilt for doubting. Most people however don't really need these crutches -- they believe out of habit and instinct, and in fact react with shock and anger when someone doubts or challenges them. This is especially the case when they realize they are not able to defend the belief rationally but must resort to rationalization and logical fallacies and slogans. (Of course the "realization" I mention is not conscious, but is only felt as what is called "cognitive dissonance.")
The ability to "believe" like that seem wired into us, something we evolved as animals, probably as a group coherence mechanism, and that has been supported by the fact that failure to believe has throughout history been a dangerous course.
Beliefs can be good and give us comfort and peace and even joy, but they often are delusions held in place by childhood indoctrination that divide mankind and have created the possibility if not the likelihood of our causing our own extinction. They need to be identified, scrutinized, and then either converted to opinions or expunged. That so few people do this is probably because it is so against the interests of religions and ideologies and governing institutions that it tends to be discouraged and suppressed.
We aren't really consciously aware of our beliefs; we are about our opinions. That is to say a belief is taken for granted, like the furniture you sit on in the living room, you rarely if ever actually notice its presence. Opinions on the other hand tend to get scrutinized more often. Beliefs are not questions and usually have aspects designed to prevent their being questioned, such as "faith" and guilt for doubting. Most people however don't really need these crutches -- they believe out of habit and instinct, and in fact react with shock and anger when someone doubts or challenges them. This is especially the case when they realize they are not able to defend the belief rationally but must resort to rationalization and logical fallacies and slogans. (Of course the "realization" I mention is not conscious, but is only felt as what is called "cognitive dissonance.")
The ability to "believe" like that seem wired into us, something we evolved as animals, probably as a group coherence mechanism, and that has been supported by the fact that failure to believe has throughout history been a dangerous course.
Beliefs can be good and give us comfort and peace and even joy, but they often are delusions held in place by childhood indoctrination that divide mankind and have created the possibility if not the likelihood of our causing our own extinction. They need to be identified, scrutinized, and then either converted to opinions or expunged. That so few people do this is probably because it is so against the interests of religions and ideologies and governing institutions that it tends to be discouraged and suppressed.
Tuesday, April 1, 2014
Skepticism
To take an old joke from Oscar Wilde, skepticism is like society; it is
downplayed by those who aren't for one reason or another, usually an
inability or unwillingness to think honestly.
Sunday, March 30, 2014
Enlightenment
Musings
About Enlightenment 06/19/05
I think that much that parades itself as "being in touch with oneself," or "being in harmony with the universe," and so on, is air-headed. The concept of enlightenment as the end product of Buddha-hood probably is the same. To have "answers" come to one sitting under the Bod-ha tree, as the myth reports, is not credible to me.
We all have moments of realization – of mental lucidity, and sitting quietly as we mull problems increases the chances we will find answers. However, a conversion on the way to Damascus is to be seriously questioned. We should never fool ourselves into thinking that we, too, do not have the ability to be carried away with ourselves.
Ignorance is one thing. We all are ignorant about most things and unfortunately tend to hide this from ourselves. We are all children trying to figure out the thunder and thinking we know. The desire to know leads to the desire for enlightenment, but one does not achieve enlightenment without removing desire. (I don’t practice Zen. That paradox is enough for me).
I do have faith in reason. “All men are mortal; Socrates is a man; therefore Socrates is mortal.” What is there in reason not to put faith in? Where we get in trouble is not when we are rational, but when we are not. I and almost everyone I know can see the syllogism, and has no difficulty agreeing that the conclusion “follows.” Where does this ability come from?
Oh, sure, the ability does give us a certain advantage over species who cannot reason things out, so if ability to reason is available, we can understand that natural selection would favor individuals who have it. However, that doesn’t explain where it comes from. I figure it comes from our spirit.
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Karma is not supernatural or mysterious
There is nothing mysterious about karma.
Doing harm to others is like gambling; you may "win" short run, but in the long run you always lose. The world is just simply built that way.
Doing harm to others is like gambling; you may "win" short run, but in the long run you always lose. The world is just simply built that way.
Friday, February 14, 2014
Vietnam's government
Since this blog intended at first to be mostly about Vietnam, and since there has been precious little about Vietnam in it, I think I will try to correct that a little now.
Vietnam is a free independent republic that tries and generally has good relations with everyone. There aren't too many countries around like that. It is mainly socialist, but with an active private market and has shown remarkable growth and prosperity over the last few years, so that living standards and other standards, such as education, health, transport, and so on, have improved markedly.
The biggest difference between Vietnam and most Western states is that it is a single-party state, with only one political party. Over time this has evolved more and more into a meritocracy, where party membership goes to the educated and those who served well in the military, as well as those willing to do the extra work required.
I personally think this is the closest one can reasonably get to Plato's concept of the ideal state, although the selection is not made in childhood but from among adults. Government decisions then follow, largely through consensus building.
Vietnam is a free independent republic that tries and generally has good relations with everyone. There aren't too many countries around like that. It is mainly socialist, but with an active private market and has shown remarkable growth and prosperity over the last few years, so that living standards and other standards, such as education, health, transport, and so on, have improved markedly.
The biggest difference between Vietnam and most Western states is that it is a single-party state, with only one political party. Over time this has evolved more and more into a meritocracy, where party membership goes to the educated and those who served well in the military, as well as those willing to do the extra work required.
I personally think this is the closest one can reasonably get to Plato's concept of the ideal state, although the selection is not made in childhood but from among adults. Government decisions then follow, largely through consensus building.
Jainism
Westerners are not the
only ones to have discovered atheism. Here is another case, Jainism,
traditionally founded by Vardhaman Mahavira (about the same time as
Buddhism was traditionally founded, although in both cases the
tradition may be older).
I try here to provide a few of its teachings, with comparisons to Buddhism, but please be kind and forgive errors and important things I am not aware of – to be in a position to be accurate and complete in such things requires lifetimes of study.
1. The universe is neither created nor sustained by a supernatural being. It is without beginning or end and operates in accordance with natural law (Buddhism posits an uncaused and unknowable beginning to the universe, but agrees that all operates under natural law). I have been taught this and I suppose it is true, but one has to wonder in both cases if these traditions, until recently, had any firm idea of what natural law might be, or at least if they had a Baconian or similar sense of it.
2. Existence has two categories, mind and non-mind (some Buddhism tends to the idea that non-mind is a sub-category of mind).
3. The law of karma is a law of automatic cause and effect. Karma comes by non-violence (Buddhism also posits a law of karma, but sees it as both negative and positive; also, Buddhism sees all cause and effect as examples of karma – that is to say that often Buddhists see the cause and effect of classical physics as an example of karma too).
4. Karma leaves when there is violence, detachment, anger, pride, infatuation, greed, hatred, or craving (Buddhists see such behavior leading to the accumulation of negative karma, except for detachment, which is seen as desirable). It may be that there is a difference in the meaning of words here, with one group defining detachment as absence of compassion. Buddhists emphasize compassion but applied in a detached way
5. Attachment to material objects is the main cause of bondage and leads to greed and jealousy (Jains identify the problem as bondage, Buddhists as one of suffering).
6. There is no need for the rituals of the Vedas (Hinduism tends to insist that the world will fall apart if the rituals are not sustained).
7. There is no God or gods (Buddhists make no such assertions, seeing such matters as speculative).
8. The goal of life is liberation. (Buddhists call it enlightenment).
9. Vegetarianism is necessary. (Buddhists encourage vegetarianism).
It is likely that both Buddhism and Jainism and other subcontinent traditions come from the same extremely ancient root. This may be as far back as the ancient Indus Valley (Harrappa) cultures. While both traditions may have specific beginnings with particular founders, the very physical existence of these individuals cannot be proven and I am not willing to go so far as to say their existence is likely or unlikely (many scholars will say the existence of an important religious figure is “likely,” I tend to suspect to be friendly and maybe retain access). If these “founders” were real people they may also have been kernels of myth clusters around which the actual traditions later developed, or they shaped and modified existing tradition ― if would be difficult to say they founded them, since main ideas had already been around a long time.
Hinduism shares characteristics with Indo-European religions (especially pantheons of deities specializing in different aspects of existence) and seems to be therefore derived more from the Aryan invaders. Hinduism, however, does also share with the other two traditions the ideas of karma and rebirth, so we can discern that the Hindu tradition picked them up over the ages in India.
I try here to provide a few of its teachings, with comparisons to Buddhism, but please be kind and forgive errors and important things I am not aware of – to be in a position to be accurate and complete in such things requires lifetimes of study.
1. The universe is neither created nor sustained by a supernatural being. It is without beginning or end and operates in accordance with natural law (Buddhism posits an uncaused and unknowable beginning to the universe, but agrees that all operates under natural law). I have been taught this and I suppose it is true, but one has to wonder in both cases if these traditions, until recently, had any firm idea of what natural law might be, or at least if they had a Baconian or similar sense of it.
2. Existence has two categories, mind and non-mind (some Buddhism tends to the idea that non-mind is a sub-category of mind).
3. The law of karma is a law of automatic cause and effect. Karma comes by non-violence (Buddhism also posits a law of karma, but sees it as both negative and positive; also, Buddhism sees all cause and effect as examples of karma – that is to say that often Buddhists see the cause and effect of classical physics as an example of karma too).
4. Karma leaves when there is violence, detachment, anger, pride, infatuation, greed, hatred, or craving (Buddhists see such behavior leading to the accumulation of negative karma, except for detachment, which is seen as desirable). It may be that there is a difference in the meaning of words here, with one group defining detachment as absence of compassion. Buddhists emphasize compassion but applied in a detached way
5. Attachment to material objects is the main cause of bondage and leads to greed and jealousy (Jains identify the problem as bondage, Buddhists as one of suffering).
6. There is no need for the rituals of the Vedas (Hinduism tends to insist that the world will fall apart if the rituals are not sustained).
7. There is no God or gods (Buddhists make no such assertions, seeing such matters as speculative).
8. The goal of life is liberation. (Buddhists call it enlightenment).
9. Vegetarianism is necessary. (Buddhists encourage vegetarianism).
It is likely that both Buddhism and Jainism and other subcontinent traditions come from the same extremely ancient root. This may be as far back as the ancient Indus Valley (Harrappa) cultures. While both traditions may have specific beginnings with particular founders, the very physical existence of these individuals cannot be proven and I am not willing to go so far as to say their existence is likely or unlikely (many scholars will say the existence of an important religious figure is “likely,” I tend to suspect to be friendly and maybe retain access). If these “founders” were real people they may also have been kernels of myth clusters around which the actual traditions later developed, or they shaped and modified existing tradition ― if would be difficult to say they founded them, since main ideas had already been around a long time.
Hinduism shares characteristics with Indo-European religions (especially pantheons of deities specializing in different aspects of existence) and seems to be therefore derived more from the Aryan invaders. Hinduism, however, does also share with the other two traditions the ideas of karma and rebirth, so we can discern that the Hindu tradition picked them up over the ages in India.
Thursday, February 13, 2014
Even more on free will
A comment if I may about mites making choices. For that matter
elevators make choices. You push button three and it goes to the third
floor. These things are called reflexes and natural selection programs
them as well as do engineers.
Evidence that we are loaded with such reflexes, some of them amazingly complex in the range of behaviors available, is not valid that we don't have free will.
We are also sentient beings, meaning that we experience much of our existence, through senses and emotions, and natural selection has also used these phenomena to arrange for possible subtleties of choice beyond what is possible with programming that nevertheless are by no means free will. The sudden powerful anger of a parent when their child is harmed is built into us by natural selection and serves us, or at least the progeny. Behavior in such a state is not free will either, but a demonstration of that fact would not constitute proof that free will does not exist.
Our minds are not "things" (as the Buddhist points out) but process flows and they can make choices. They are usually determined by things like past experience and personality and habit, but not always. I think it takes someone with a little training in mindfulness (mind being aware of mind) to see that it is indeed possible to deliberately and willfully do things of our free will, even whim, if you will.
Evidence that we are loaded with such reflexes, some of them amazingly complex in the range of behaviors available, is not valid that we don't have free will.
We are also sentient beings, meaning that we experience much of our existence, through senses and emotions, and natural selection has also used these phenomena to arrange for possible subtleties of choice beyond what is possible with programming that nevertheless are by no means free will. The sudden powerful anger of a parent when their child is harmed is built into us by natural selection and serves us, or at least the progeny. Behavior in such a state is not free will either, but a demonstration of that fact would not constitute proof that free will does not exist.
Our minds are not "things" (as the Buddhist points out) but process flows and they can make choices. They are usually determined by things like past experience and personality and habit, but not always. I think it takes someone with a little training in mindfulness (mind being aware of mind) to see that it is indeed possible to deliberately and willfully do things of our free will, even whim, if you will.
Atheist Buddhism
I go to Temple (Buddhist) and participate in the rituals and
contribute to their charities. As George Washington (a non-Christian
deist) said, "attending church is something a gentleman does." One nice
thing about Temple as opposed to Church is you don't have to listen to
sermons and you can do the various rituals or not as you please (some do
require physical abilities beyond me at my age and weight).
Lots of atheists feel Buddhism is in the end a good thing so long as it doesn't take too many young men and turn them into navel starers (there are some who are better off in monasteries, at least for awhile). I don't buy most of the Buddha stories but I do think we are reborn and that there is a non-materialist aspect to existence, and I think the philosophy about the root nature of our unhappiness and unease is close to the mark.
Lots of atheists feel Buddhism is in the end a good thing so long as it doesn't take too many young men and turn them into navel starers (there are some who are better off in monasteries, at least for awhile). I don't buy most of the Buddha stories but I do think we are reborn and that there is a non-materialist aspect to existence, and I think the philosophy about the root nature of our unhappiness and unease is close to the mark.
Debunkers, skeptics, cynics, and believers
A "debunker" is someone who doubts some hairy story and actually goes to
the effort of checking the assertions to see if they are factual or
not. Usually of course they are not. I can see why believers don't
like them and would censor them if they could.
A "skeptic" is just someone who doesn't accept unusual or exotic claims without damn good evidence. They tend to be of a lazier sort than the debunkers and are prone to make logical arguments but leave it at that. I think that tends to be where I am most of the time. The religious types who have been indoctrinated, generally as children, don't like these at all, as they like their comfortable beliefs and don't want them doubted.
A "cynic" is a step beyond the skeptic and is in fact in some ways closer to the believer, especially when it comes to "official" versions of things, and as a result is prone to accept conspiracy theories that fit with their political views.
And then there are the legions of "believers" who rely on faith rather than evidence and reason. A skeptic only has opinions, the others believe, and when cornered inevitably depend on their right to believe whatever, or on the tremendous virtue of having faith in the face of plain sense.
A "skeptic" is just someone who doesn't accept unusual or exotic claims without damn good evidence. They tend to be of a lazier sort than the debunkers and are prone to make logical arguments but leave it at that. I think that tends to be where I am most of the time. The religious types who have been indoctrinated, generally as children, don't like these at all, as they like their comfortable beliefs and don't want them doubted.
A "cynic" is a step beyond the skeptic and is in fact in some ways closer to the believer, especially when it comes to "official" versions of things, and as a result is prone to accept conspiracy theories that fit with their political views.
And then there are the legions of "believers" who rely on faith rather than evidence and reason. A skeptic only has opinions, the others believe, and when cornered inevitably depend on their right to believe whatever, or on the tremendous virtue of having faith in the face of plain sense.
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
Unending free will debate
Well of course there is no soul; I keep forgetting that this is what
Westerners think when you assert mind and body. Out of body arises
mind, but it has its own being, not as a thing but as a process -- the
proverbial "chain of consciousness." When we sit quietly (this is in
fact a popular form of meditation) and "watch" ourselves (that can be
misleading because what you are looking at is very recent short-term
memories), we can see how the process flows.
Where or how free will arises I don't know, but I tend to take it as an assumption necessary for almost any philosophical knowledge and for any assumption of values. Plus I am quite sure I can ascertain when I am mindfully exercising it and when, as is most of the time done for efficiency, I am just going with the flow.
I don't disagree with how what I say "sounds," especially to a materialist ear. It is all inferential; I am persuaded I have the ability to exercise genuine choices, but of course it is impossible to prove that what I think has been an actual mindful choice on my part is not in reality just another aspect of my personalty that I don't notice, no matter how careful I am. I really, truly find that too much of a stretch, that I am more aware of myself than that, but it remains a possibility.
Here is the rub: if we deny free will and assume some sort of determinism either by a deity or by mechanical processes, or maybe some sort of random choice at the quantum level (which would no more be free will than a classical deterministic process), then we enter a pointless universe and there is no point in even talking about it. It's similar to the solipsist: there is no point having a discussion with such a person since only he or she exists and is in effect talking to itself.
Three take-aways: first, I and most people think they have free will and we construct our society and most of our philosophy on that assumption, second, it is not hard to carry out introspective tests to convince oneself the mindful use of actual choice is possible, and, third, without free will as an operating assumption we only talk in circles.
Where or how free will arises I don't know, but I tend to take it as an assumption necessary for almost any philosophical knowledge and for any assumption of values. Plus I am quite sure I can ascertain when I am mindfully exercising it and when, as is most of the time done for efficiency, I am just going with the flow.
I don't disagree with how what I say "sounds," especially to a materialist ear. It is all inferential; I am persuaded I have the ability to exercise genuine choices, but of course it is impossible to prove that what I think has been an actual mindful choice on my part is not in reality just another aspect of my personalty that I don't notice, no matter how careful I am. I really, truly find that too much of a stretch, that I am more aware of myself than that, but it remains a possibility.
Here is the rub: if we deny free will and assume some sort of determinism either by a deity or by mechanical processes, or maybe some sort of random choice at the quantum level (which would no more be free will than a classical deterministic process), then we enter a pointless universe and there is no point in even talking about it. It's similar to the solipsist: there is no point having a discussion with such a person since only he or she exists and is in effect talking to itself.
Three take-aways: first, I and most people think they have free will and we construct our society and most of our philosophy on that assumption, second, it is not hard to carry out introspective tests to convince oneself the mindful use of actual choice is possible, and, third, without free will as an operating assumption we only talk in circles.
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