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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Is Darwin's ideas regarding survival and current evolution theory about a force or the force?
Evolution could be seen as a theory about many forces: predation, sexual selection, and climate for example.
Above when you talk about survival, and maybe when Nietzsche does, it seems to about the survival of an individual. When the male praying mantis has his head whacked off by the female it means success for his genes. Social animals like humans or bees, in certain circumstances, also stand to promote the survival of their genes by sacrificing their lives, and if this were not the case such behavior would be weeded out of the gene pool.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Is Darwin's ideas regarding survival and current evolution theory about a force or the force?
I find the use of the word "force" interesting and problematic, especially in this context. Generally we have the bias of interpreting phenomena in terms of cause and effect, largely because we see the world that way, not because the world is necessarily required to be that way.
This sort of thinking is prominent in Largo's argument regarding "materialism" and is largely unexamined in his posts, and leads to all sorts of strange discussions. We perceive a link from intent to action, where action is most easily seen as some physical act involving force. So the metaphor invades all of these discussions.
Modern theories of evolution all take advantage of the discovery that Darwin predicted, the existence of some material in the body that has the properties required for offspring to inherit attributes from parents. We call it genetic material.
And while we seek to find the "forces" in this material we think must be there, the will to live, the "forces" of selection, the "force" to evolve into more complex (complex is better, right?, why?) there are no forces, the material has no intent, it is undergoing "normal" chemical reactions when it finds itself in the right environment.
The confusion over the use of "force" also happens when we look at the second derivative in time of some quantity, and identify some sort of proportionality constant, and "inertial term," so that we interpret it as one of Newton's laws, F=ma, that is force is the product of a mass and an acceleration.
One could look at the prevalence of a particular gene in a population and track it in time, is there some force? I don't think it is if we invoke the colloquial use of the word. In statistical mechanics we might usefully define a force this way, and in evolution we talk about the "fitness landscape" and the ways it "forces" changes in a gene-pool, but these are consequences of a large number of individuals interacting with one and other over many many generations.
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WBraun
climber
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there are no forces,
Then your whole life's work has been wasted due to this defective ultimate conclusion you are projecting.
the material has no intent, it is undergoing "normal" chemical reactions when it finds itself in the right environment.
This is semi-true UNTIL the living entity comes into contact with the material then intent is transferred to the material by the way of living entities consciousness which is life-force as ....
Consciousness itself is non-material and the force that animates and drives the material .....
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.
The force that drives the water through the rocks
Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams
Turns mine to wax.
And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins
How at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks.
The hand that whirls the water in the pool
Stirs the quicksand; that ropes the blowing wind
Hauls my shroud sail.
And I am dumb to tell the hanging man
How of my clay is made the hangman’s lime.
The lips of time leech to the fountain head;
Love drips and gathers, but the fallen blood
Shall calm her sores.
And I am dumb to tell a weather’s wind
How time has ticked a heaven round the stars.
And I am dumb to tell the lover’s tomb
How at my sheet goes the same crooked worm.
Dylan Thomas
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado & Nepal
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Mike, I can't agree at all. The fact that a person gets to the point of living in the here and now involved a choice requiring an enormous amount of discipline, hard work and sacrifice of other things in life. Sitting a retreat versus climbing El Cap versus going on a week long binge is a choice. Once living in the here and now one is also confronted with choices. Do I take the time to move that insect, or do I just rake up those leaves and what happens to it it is all part of the flow? No where do I see ethics as part of your description of flow, yet I've never heard a master talk about that state without describing it in ethical terms. Maybe you make the right decisions spontaneously every time or maybe you are just living in a comfortable state of mind - the Buddhist version of prosperity Christianity?
What strikes me about your view from a Buddhist perspective is that it seems more Theravada than Mahayana which is curious for me, since your have studied under Tibetan masters. Theravada says all we have to develop is ourself. Mahayana says we take a Boddhisattva vow to also help others to develop themselves. Maybe we can do something heroic, or maybe we just save a few insects along the way, but we are mindful of the opportunity to make choices for the benefit of those living beings beyond ourselves, which since everything is interdependent, also benefits ourselves.
For example, don't use Roundup, eat organic food and save the bees which are dying out and you will save our future human food supply. We are all part of Indra's net.
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WBraun
climber
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Very nice Jan ....
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PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
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JB said""An unexamined life/mind can lead to personal peace because some things are too f*#ked up to consider repeatedly, after the event".
Jan Said"You're right. Most people don't want and don't get PTSD.
Most of us in this global culture skim the headlines lest we be accused of being uninformed, but at some point we decide not to read or watch the awful details. We know it's there but we don't dwell on it.
Most people do what they can locally, and sometimes in a broader context, and hopefully they feel grateful that they live in a place where such things don't happen to them."
Wow , provocative statements. I sincerely doubt many agree that an UN-examined life can lead to peace. Maybe as a temporary emergency level but IMO the effort to hide is a source of the dis-ease. When you work up the courage to examine your relationship to very uncomfortable events is arguably being human.? To question all of the events (i.e. pleasure also) is a buddhist pursuit as well as some others I am assume.
How you examine is the trick. If you are really stuck you will need help. i.e. psycho therapy, religion or what ever ; but ultimately it is only you and your experience.. What is the relationship? What is the experience to look deeply? Mike L's response was pointing to non duality to look at our relationship to life without thinking we can control much of it (letting go of the attachment of the I,me,my POV); not that easy to grasp when we are often in the I,Me My conditioned POV.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado & Nepal
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This is a question I've often pondered especially when traveling or living in Nepal and India. Too much Nirvana and you're off in your own irresponsible world (all those millions of sadhus living by begging) and too much samsara and you're in an existential depression or angry all the time.
It's the beauty of a place like India that people believe in reincarnation enough to endure awful circumstances with patience, dignity, and even good humor. It's their curse that they accept so little and continue to believe in fate as exemplified by the caste system.
For people in rich countries I think Nirvana is Samsara and Samsara is Nirvana can work for the fortunate who mainly deal with psychological problems. I don't have the same faith for the poor in our country, let alone India or Nepal.
At least Buddhism encourages thinking about all this and doesn't just give a formulaic response.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 5, 2017 - 01:35pm PT
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At least Buddhism encourages thinking about all this and doesn't just give a formulaic response.
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At this point I think any formulaic response is almost always counterproductive. One problem, or difficulty, is that meditation is a practice and especially at the early stages, you need to - figuratively speaking - learn enough about basic safety and ropework, so to speak, that your natural talents can figure out the way ahead with optimum efficiency. That's why for my money, the best instruction is not interpretations, but rather the nuts and bolts stuff about how to get lift off and sustain the effort on or in a given sphere of practice.
If the interpretations are piled on too thick what you normally get is a general direction and theme or focus, that is extruded through the tradition of whoever is interpreting or evaluating. That leads some to believe that a particular interpretation and the practice itself are the same thing, or should be.
Much better to stay focused on the WHAT and HOW of the exercise, trust in the process, and let the person's mind figure out the rest. "Beta" in this regards is more useful per the lift off stage, and how to stay with the process.
A lot of times when I'm listening to someone interpreting working with koans or breath or Mu or formless Jhanas whatever, I get the sneaking suspicion that the speaker is trying to square their own experience with the agenda of this or that tradition, and their doctrine, whereas they are not being totally honest about the challenges of working out the process in strictly personal terms. The person is often merely parroting stock answers - according to their tradition - and assuming the role of an expert.
IME the most helpful form of instruction is to get students to understand the progressive forms and stages of absorption. Once you understand that, any subject or angle can be tackled - and come what may.
There's also the tendency to try and codify the results into a definable thing. This is more like trying to provide a guided tour, than an adventure. I always approached the internal adventures like an explorer, listening to veterans talk about this or that compass heading, but not wanting to repeat their exact adventure, rather I wanted to have my own. So I never much listened to people insinuate that the path need follow a proscribed line. Fact is, it rarely if ever does. Giving people the notion that it should is not only blarny but misleading.
The other issue is that only those who have really wrestled with this or that form of meditation can speak insightfully on the general conditions needed or at any rate that are typically most helpful about per launching into the process. That is, excessive interpretation can be a ruse or diversion from telling what a person actually needs to get liftoff, and how to stay on course. The more the speaker can zero in on this, the better he or she grasps the crux per instructing.
Fact is, no matter how restrained or traditional an approach you take, according to this or that tradition, once you sit down and drop, it's just you and the adventure. And no two people's path will be the same. The notion that your path SHOULD follow a party line is complete rubbish in my view. Guidance, yes. Everyone needs that. But micro managing according to a doctrine ... not so much. The best teachers have faith in the process, not just their own understanding.
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WBraun
climber
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Just remember things are NOT always what they seem.
The Mind will be the biggest rascal around when no reigns are attached to it.
The living entity must always control its mind or else it WILL be controlled by its mind ....
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 5, 2017 - 03:54pm PT
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PSP, I don't mean to say that a thoughtless life is best but I do believe that there are some experiences that are best managed rather than endlessly examined.
Problem with endlessly examining "problems" is you end up with a well defined issue but nothing resolves by merely understanding this or that. Yu have to take action and live your way into a new start.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado & Nepal
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This is exactly the problem I have with a lot of psychology. Being an academic I know so many people who can diagnose exactly how and who screwed them up and analyze their problems in endless intricate detail, yet after 20 or more years in analysis, are unable to solve them or move on. I found meditation and spiritual teachings to be much more helpful. Psychology doesn't say much about forgiveness yet it is incredibly powerful.
Another useful tool for me has been genealogy. I knew about my mother's middle class Quaker background but not much about my father's family which included a famous circuit riding minister who preached in Texas saloons with a Bible in one hand and his pistol in the other, a 16 year old ancestor who died defending the Alamo, and a number of outlaws in the family including one who was thrown out of the U.S. Congress for castrating two individuals he thought were paying too much attention to his wife. Needless to say, incompatibility of values was the foundation of many family problems. Learning all this didn't solve the incompatibilities but it sure explained them.
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Jan,
I knew what I relayed would push buttons. I know that it seems that someone must answer for pain and suffering in the world. To imagine that anything and all things are simply “little nothings” challenges everything that we think we are. It’s my view that THAT is a glitch in the matrix.
Please, . . . I’m not saying to do or not do anything. I guess i would say that what you would say is good and righteous arises automatically and naturally with pristine awareness, with rigpa, with being perfectly in the now. It’s sort of like being a really big cork in a small bowl of water. Nothing moves alone. Anything that is, is simply a result. Fighting, deciding, choosing, struggling, even defining really means nothing whatsoever. It’s like arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic: useless (albeit in interesting and captivating).
Compassion (bodhichitta) arises from emptiness. It’s not the other way around. One can use naturally arising bodhichitta as a measure of the extent to which one sees emptiness.
All these are just words, of course. They are like little abstract stickmen that children draw of parents.
And make no mistake: I do not experience that so-called existence in what seems to be my life. But I see it as plain as day.
In the end, everything is the here-and-now (as implied by Dingus). The question seems to be just what it is that one is seeing. I’m saying it’s just a vision.
Be well.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado & Nepal
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Mike,
When you put it that way .....
Agreed Boddhicitta is generated from Emptiness but I think it goes two ways. Just as Nirvana is Samsara and the reverse, so are Emptiness and Boddhicitta. Otherwise, why the great emphasis on it in the beginning of any Indo-Tibetan meditation course - tonglen etc.
Speaking of which, I just learned that several of the American leaders at the Naropa Institute are doing tonglen every morning for Donald Trump. My practice isn't that advanced yet, is yours? :)
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Ha-ha-ha-ha.
Er, no. It takes a great deal of discipline, patience, and mindfulness on being to even watch the news. Lisa (“the little woman” in my life) watches it (and “Good Morning Football”) every morning, and now and then I try to sit with her in bed with coffee with her through it to be together. But it’s challenging for me. The media are very distasteful to me.
I’m trying to be a regular person in this world, but it’s not easy for me. I’m usually involved in some physical toil around my property (grading the land, trimming trees, art projects, painting the trim, scrubbing the floors, sweeping the driveway, moving rocks), and local residents stop to suggest that once I get this or that done, I should relax and act like a typical retiree. “You’re working too hard,” they say.
To me, work is good and holy.
I’m not sure what my practice is anymore. I sit in the dark outside for 30-40 minutes before daybreak to see what shows up. Light shows up—and symbols from the unconscious. After my last retreat with my teacher, I realized I was done with teaching and teachers. They had become addictive and silly. I realized I was done with getting anywhere. There’s no where to go. It’s just this.
Now everything is full.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Putting aside questions about what is or isn't, I admire the way Mike and Jan resolved their difference of opinion.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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a response to a review... I quickly read through the response and ended up at the last two paragraphs:
All we can do is clear away as many impediments to comprehension as possible. Science has a way of doing that — by insisting that entrants in its “competitive storytelling” demonstrate explanatory power in ways that are publicly observable, thus neutralizing, to the extent possible, subjective biases that might otherwise prevail. Buddhism has a different way of doing it: via meditative disciplines that are designed to attack subjective biases at the source, yielding a clearer view of both the mind itself and the world beyond it.
The results of these two inquiries converge to a remarkable extent — an extent that can be appreciated only in light of the last few decades of progress in psychology and evolutionary science. At least, that’s my argument. It may be wrong. But it’s an argument that can be engaged by anyone willing to engage it — which is something it has in common with Buddhist philosophy and Buddhist psychology.
and ask the question why the author found it important that there be a "convergence" of Buddhism and science.
Certainly other philosophies and religions can claim something similar.
And to a remarkable extent, Buddhism and all those other philosophies and religions share a common trait, that their followers do not recognize the possibility that the prevailing ideas they follow could be wrong, and could turn out to be demonstrably wrong.
Science, and scientists, know that the prevailing ideas could be wrong at some level, and actively seek to find just where they are wrong. Sometimes it is the small things, sometimes it results in a "revolution" (a term we use to denote a radical change that comes to us from Copernicus).
I don't doubt that ancient thinkers could have come up against the same sorts of issues that contemporary scientists studying the brain and mind are grappling with today. The limitations of the ancient thinkers' knowledge of biology placed a natural impediment to making progress, and so they were left to fill in logical steps with the natural human ploy:
"and then a miracle occurs"
the literal deus ex machina that drives the plot to its finale.
In science, we seek out these steps and bore in on them with focus, not because we dislike them, but because we know in resolving them we learn more and make progress to understanding.
The key to being a scientist is learning how to be constructively critical, which is as much the way we provide criticism as the ways we accept it. It is not an easy practice, and it takes years to learn, and even some who excel at it never master it.
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