Cosmic Catechism

Is the Biblical deity real and, more specifically, omnipresent?
I believe not.

However, are theists able to pray at any place and time?
Yes.

Is the ultimate reality, whatever that is, omnipresent?
Yes but how could it not be? Wherever anything exists, then the most basic level of reality must also exist.

Is it possible to reason, imagine and meditate at any place and time?
Yes.

Do "gods" exist?
Unlikely but this is an empirical question whereas there are philosophical objections to monotheism, e.g., the creator before the creation would be a self without other which is like a square without sides.

Ends And Means

Consciousness began as a means to physical survival.
In human beings, it also becomes either a means to psychological survival or an end in itself.
Physical survival can become a means to deeper consciousness.
The question of consciousness as means or end is always present.
But we are often unaware of it.

Solipsism

The narrator of Robert Heinlein's "- All You Zombies -" is:

a time traveler;
her own parents;
a solipsist.

She calls other people "zombies" and says that they do not exist.

Horse manure. She does interact with other people, not just with herself. Although her body is generated by a causal circle, it is sustained by a physical environment that is external to it, must have preexisted it and can be expected to continue existing after it, the body, has died.

Solipsism is scarcely sustainable. To tell another person that you are a solipsist is to assume that that person exists. To eat is to acknowledge dependence on an external environment.

Heinlein referred somewhere to "multi-person solipsism," which is a contradiction. Someone in Stranger In A Strange Land says that each of us is like a worm talking to its other end. I agree with that. The single reality is conscious of itself through each psychophysical organism. However, each discrete organism, with its distinctive memories and sense of identity, exists as part of the single reality.

In the following story in The Unpleasant Profession..., "They," the narrator is deceived about the nature of reality but is deceived by other conscious beings. He is not alone. "They" exist and so do "zombies."

He thinks:

"'Self-awareness is not relational; it is absolute, and cannot be reached to be destroyed or created." (p. 146)

Self-awareness ends every time we become unconscious. Self exists only in relation to other.

Energy And Inertia

Energy is change.
Inertia is resistance to change.
Every object and event is an interaction between energy and inertia.
If nothing changed, then nothing would happen.

If everything changed at every moment, then nothing would exist.
The apparently static is in fact dynamic.
Mass resists change but also is energy.
One stationary object is many moving particles.

Many objects are stationary on the surface of a planet which however moves through space.
Organisms resist change by changing what is not themselves into themselves and vice versa.
Natural selection preserves but changes species.
The Red Queen runs as fast as she can to stay where she is.

We stand still by walking up a down escalator.
Human beings changed their environment and themselves in the process.
Changing the means of production changes social relationships.
In zazen, we do not change what is but see and accept it.

However, someone who did not see and accept but now does has changed.

See Change And Resistance.

The Real Temple

The present is the transient and the eternal.
Consciousness is constant during waking life but not before or after life.
Everyone alive now is always a member of the universal self.
The past divides; the present unites.

People leaving different places of worship see one sun.
The real temple is heaven and earth.
The true scripture is a blank wall.
Scriptures are signposts.

They point to what we see when we face a wall.
Meaning is focused in words.
Some philosophers called manifested reality the Word. 
We should stand, not kneel, because the One is within, then sit to meditate.

One Sun Now.

Here And Now And The Past

We live here and now but must practice living here and now by "just sitting."

In my experience, contemplative Zen monks are here and now whereas dogmatic Jesuit priests are past.

It is necessary to sit with and let go of disagreeable memories.

Some individuals, still alive, might also practice living here and now by this or other means.

However, their attitudes remain in my past which unfortunately still makes itself present.

It might be possible to meet here and now but the past is an obstacle that we would have been better without.

"My intention is, beloved Mother, to thank the almighty giver of all goods for the superabundant graces with which he has enriched thy noble heart."

It is not. And you cannot answer for the beliefs of the man.

(Imagine reading that out to hundreds of teenagers every morning.)

Marx And Engels

Marx and Engels were encyclopedic writers on every subject, learning from historical events during their life-times. They learned that something they had written in the Manifesto was wrong but it had become a historical document that they had no right to change. However, they added multiple prefaces to later editions.

Marx studied the classical political economists and explained the declining rate of profit. He clarifies exploitation and alienation whereas conventional economists mystify labor-capital interactions.

Engels funded Marx's research and wrote The Dialectics Of Nature, "The Part Played by Labor in the Transition from Ape to Man" and The Origins Of The Family, Private Property And The State.

They did not reduce consciousness to mechanical interactions but explained it as arising from qualitative transformations. They did not dismiss religion as a hoax or mistake but explained it as expressing the deepest contradictions in human experience.

Yoga, Tao And Zen

Yoga is control of thoughts.
Tao is the Way.
Zen is meditation.
These three are one.

Samkhya, Yoga and Vedanta are three of the six orthodox Hindu philosophical systems. Orthodoxy is acceptance of the Veda. Vedanta is the philosophy of the Upanishads, the last part of the Veda.

Samkhya, like non-Vedic Jain philosophy, is soul pluralist. The Yoga Sutras accept the Samkhya philosophy and the two systems form Samkhya-Yoga. However, there are also monistic Vedanta-Yoga syntheses. Neither Vedism nor any philosophical system is necessary for the practice of yoga.

Anarchic Taoism is the antithesis of formalist Confucianism. Zen is Buddhist but it has been argued that Chinese Ch'an/Japanese Zen is a Buddhist-Taoist synthesis.

The Indian Contemplative Tradition

Conservative: Jainism.
Orthodox: Samkhya-Yoga.
Upanishadic: Vedanta.
Reformed: Buddhism.

Teachers of Gautama
Alara Kalama, Samkhya.
Uddaka Ramaputta, Jain.

Two Levels

Some Christians say, "The Lord saved me while I was yet a sinner."
Some Buddhists say that we are already enlightened but have not yet realized our enlightenment.
Secularists might say, "It is good to be alive but we screw it up."

These are three different expressions of a single psychological dichotomy between a "basically OK" level (saved, enlightened, alive) and a "some work still needing to be done" level (stop sinning, realize enlightenment, stop screwing up).

Christians are grateful for their salvation.
Buddhists are glad of a human birth.
We can all be grateful to be among the living.
I am additionally grateful that the personal consequences of my "wrong actions," in the Buddhist sense of that phrase, have not been as bad as they might have been, at least not yet.
I apologize to many others for the effects of those actions.
If there are any gods involved, then I am grateful to them although, if Fortuna is the only deity involved, then she is to be neither entreated nor thanked.

Perception And Appearance

Complex organisms are necessary for perception.
However, processes within such organisms impede perception.
Natural selection generated complex organisms.
Social interactions generate self-conscious individuals.
Meditation is necessary to address psychological processes.

Appearance of multiplicity generates consciousness of self and other but prevents realization of unity.
Thus, appearance is necessary for consciousness which is necessary for realization which is prevented by appearance.

Interdependence

Are atoms or souls ontologically independent? No. Everything from subatomic particles to conscious organisms is interdependent. Therefore, "emptiness" (absence of any permanent underlying substance) and monism (oneness) are closer approximations to truth than atomism or soul pluralism.

The independent soul of Jainism and Samkhya-Yoga is a conceptualization of liberated consciousness but with unwarranted implications of immateriality and immortality. Dependent existence is conditional and transient. Particles are created and annihilated in a vacuum. Consciousness depends on complex, sensitive organisms which depend on changing environmental conditions. Therefore, nothing is immortal or indestructible.

Who Drives The Bus?

"'Only the Greatest of all can make Himself small enough to enter Hell. For the higher a thing is, the lower it can descend - a man can sympathise with a horse but a horse cannot sympathise with a rat. Only One has descended into Hell.'"
-CS Lewis, The Great Divorce (London, 1982), p. 114.

So Who drives the bus that transports the Ghosts from the grey town?

Although I do not share Lewis' belief in a hereafter, I note that his belief differs from that of the Evangelicals. The saved are those who have made a right moral choice, not necessarily those who have undergone an Evangelical conversion.

Patanjali And CS Lewis

Sutras
Yoga is control of thoughts.
Then man abides in his real nature.
Otherwise, he remains identified with thoughts.
They are controlled by practice and non-attachment.

For Patanjali, "real nature" was a soul but there are other understandings.

In CS Lewis' The Great Divorce, "Ghosts" can travel by bus from the gray town that is Hell to the foothills of Heaven but often opt to return. One Ghost carries on his shoulder a lizard whispering pleasurable dreams that will require him to return to the town. However, when, with the Ghost's permission, an angel kills the lizard, the Ghost becomes a man and the lizard becomes a horse which the man rides into the mountains.

Lewis' gray town and mountains correspond to Patanjali's thoughts and real nature.

The Absolute

The Absolute is that which exists independently of any external relationships.
Therefore, it is "all things."
Each "thing" exists as it does only because of its relationships to all other "things."
Thus, only the totality of "things" exists independently.

The Absolute has three aspects:

the visible, tangible universe;
the organisms that see and feel it;
invisible, intangible realities detected and comprehended scientifically.

Thus, the metaphysical view that the Absolute is an invisible, intangible substance permeating and transcending the universe is essentially correct.

Souls Or Selves

A self is a subject of consciousness.
A soul would be an immortal, immaterial self.
The Buddha denied souls, including a universal soul, but not consciousness or a self-conscious universe.
There are "Consciousness Only" Buddhists.
However, mortal selves are psychophysical, not merely psychological.
Each human organism unifies its mental processes with the sense of a single, enduring self.
However, mental processes remain diverse and conflictive.

What Is The Buddha Dharma?

The Buddha Dharma is the Way to the End of Suffering.

If there is no hereafter, then death ends suffering by ending consciousness.

Suicide is self-inflicted death.

However, Buddhists believe that death is followed by rebirth.

Therefore, they try to end suffering by ending rebirth.

So is Buddhist practice just longer term suicide?

That is not what I get from the Dharma.

It is possible to end the psychological cause of suffering while remaining alive.

After he had realized his enlightenment, the Buddha continued to live, meditate and teach for several decades.

The point of the Dharma is the period between beginning practice and physically dying.

There is no point in seeking unconsciousness which I believe will come at death.

From History To Eternity

Historically
Krishna taught karma yoga.
Gautama taught meditation.
Jesus preached the kingdom.

Mythologically
Krishna was either the eighth avatar of Vishnu or the Supreme God.

Gautama was one of innumerable Buddhas and a manifestation of the Cosmic Buddha.

Jesus was the Messiah and God Incarnate and is risen.

Spiritually
We pray or meditate with diverse concepts, beliefs and images.

Eschatologically
Kalki, the future avatar, will come.
Maitreya, the future Buddha, will come.
The risen Christ will return.

Eternally
Past, present and future are one.

Human Immortality VII

See recent posts.

McTaggart argues that matter as he understands it does not exist and that mind is more likely to be immortal if it is not dependent on matter whereas I argue that matter, differently understood, does exist and that mind clearly depends on it.

His argument, even if valid, that internal sensations do not entail external sensed objects has no practical implications. A man still dies in agony if he is deprived of food. It remains necessary to live and work as if pre-conscious being, as described by physicists, not as abstracted from sensations, exists and matters. Any empirical evidence to the contrary would have to be considered whereas idealist metaphysical arguments make no difference and, in any case, can be replied to.

Human Immortality VI

See recent numbered posts on "Human Immortality." For the full reference to the work cited, see the first such post here.

In Part I, McTaggart explains how he thinks that science can function without matter:

scientific observations tell us what has been experienced;

established uniformities connect the experiences;

statements about the past or future tell us what has been or will be experienced;

thus, science is about nothing more than experiences.

"What more does science tell us, or what more could it desire to tell us?" (p. 44)

When it seems to tell us about independently existing matter, is this merely:

"...the unconscious and uncritical metaphysics of ordinary language..."? (ibid.)

It is not just that but is also the critical metaphysics of philosophical materialists. But science does more than tell us about experiences. Its findings are also tested in practice. Applications of science have changed the world for good or bad. We use technology, like this computer, all the time. Scientists tell us that a devastating explosion was caused by the splitting of an atom. An idealist philosopher replies that the atom does not exist and that a scientist has merely connected the experience of constructing an artifact called an atomic bomb with the experience of witnessing an explosion - whereas scientific theory explains the connection. In practice, "uncritical" language assuming the existence of the elements and particles described by scientists covers the phenomena far more effectively than these metaphysical arguments which cannot influence the course of events and which therefore become, in practical terms, irrelevant.

Human Immortality V

See Human Immortality IV and earlier posts. For the full reference to the work quoted, see Human Immortality.

"Thus the theory which makes the external causes of our sensations material reaches a climax of inconsistency. Its one defence was the principle that the causes of the sensations must resemble the sensations they cause. But now it turns out that that which the causes are to resemble is a mere abstraction from our sensations, which is so far from being a sensation which we experience, that we cannot even imagine what such a sensation would be like." (p. 33)

In dialectical materialism, "matter" means only the external cause of sensations so there is no need to make that cause "material." (Of course, "external" means "external to consciousness.") That the causes of sensations must resemble the sensations caused is not a defense of materialism. On the contrary, the nature of the causes must be discovered by empirical investigation. There is a dramatic contrast between the world as we perceive it and that same world as we scientifically understand it but it remains a single world, both perceived and understood.

We sense concrete, not abstract, extension but apply abstract extension in mathematics while physicists currently understand material objects not as abstract extensions but as large numbers of moving and interacting particles.

Extended, impenetrable "matter" does not exist but something external to consciousness, called "matter" by dialectical materialists, does exist. Similarly, in Marxist theory, "workers" are those who survive economically by selling their labor power, not necessarily those who work in factories. Capitalism continually transforms its means of production as scientists continually transform their understanding of matter. The material environment is transformed by mental and manual labor and understood by mental labor so this comparison between the changing composition of the working class and the changing understanding of matter is not fanciful. Rigid categories of mechanical materialism or of doctrinaire socialism are inadequate for thinking about either nature or society.

Human Immortality IV

See Human Immortality III.

"I believe that further consideration should convince us, for reasons somewhat analogous to those of Hegel and Lotze, that all substance must possess certain characteristics which are essential to the nature of spirit, and incompatible with the nature of matter." (p. 40, footnote)

The nature of matter, according to McTaggart: extended, mobile, impenetrable, independent of observation;

the nature of spirit, according to McTaggart: alternating between consciousness and unconsciousness;

my view of matter: as described by McTaggart when presented to our senses but also possessing other, e.g., quantum mechanical, properties and also alternating between consciousness and unconsciousness.

Quantum mechanics might contribute to the mind-body problem.

I was taught Hegelianism by a Hegelian and thought that dialectical idealism might help to refute Marxism. However, I now accept dialectical materialism.

Human Immortality III

See Human Immortality and Human Immortality II.

"Of course the independent existence and ultimate nature of matter is a question for metaphysics and not for science." (p. 34)

McTaggart means by "matter" unconscious being possessing certain properties whereas I think that, philosophically, "matter" means just pre-conscious being whatever its properties. Although the existence of such matter is a metaphysical theory, empirical scientists now tell us much more about its nature than metaphysicians can.

McTaggrat says that, when a material object ceases to exist, all that happens is that its units cease to be combined. (p. 63) But there is also the continual process of entropy by which all energy gradually ceases to be active. Thus, eventually, separated units will no longer recombine unless another universe starts as this one somehow did.

Human Immortality II

See Human Immortality.

"Matter, then, is held to be extended, to have position, and to be capable of motion independently of observation. It is also impenetrable - that is, no two pieces of matter can occupy the same position in space. But it has no colour, it is neither hard nor soft, it has no taste, no smell, and no sound." (p. 22)

When searching for an external cause of our sensations, McTaggart writes:

"A reality which exists independently of me need not be matter - it might, for example, be another spirit. We do not call anything matter unless it possesses the primary qualities of matter given above." (p. 30)

We do call something matter even if it does not possess the primary qualities given above. Mass is a form of energy. Macroscopic objects are composed of empty spaces and forces between subatomic particles whose properties differ qualitatively from those of macroscopic objects. Lenin argued in Materialism and Empirio-criticism that:

philosophically, "matter" just means that which pre-existed consciousness and which continues to exist independently of consciousness;

the properties of "matter" (a more neutral term is "being") are to be discovered by empirical science, not by philosophy;

any scientific account is only provisional because there is always more to be discovered.

Contemporary science seems to confirm this last proposition.

"Causes do not necessarily resemble their effects." (ibid.)

I agree. The world as described by physics is not as we perceive it. Necessarily, we perceive discrete objects separated by apparently empty spaces whereas the reality is a continuum of electromagnetic radiation and gravitational waves. But it remains "matter" in Lenin's sense of being that pre-existed and determines consciousness, indeed that has become conscious.

Human Immortality

J.M.E. McTaggart, Human Immortality And Pre-Existence (London, 1916), Part I, Human Immortality, pp. 9-69.

McTaggart believes that sufficient arguments for immortality exist but that they depend on an idealist theory of reality that he hopes to present in a later volume. Until I read and am persuaded by such arguments, I remain, at least provisionally, a materialist.

"All ultimate explanation endeavours to reduce the universe to a unity." (p. 15)

I agree.

"Monism then, whether it be materialism or idealism, is more attractive to the majority of inquirers than dualism is." (p. 16)

I agree.

"Deeper inquiry will, I think, show us that there is no reason to believe that matter does exist." (p. 20)

I need to be persuaded.

"The orange is no more yellow when no one sees it than it is desired when no one knows of its existence." (p. 21)

The sensation of yellow is the effect in us of light reflected from an orange because the surface of the orange absorbs some electromagnetic wavelengths and reflects others. I think that it is legitimate to say that the objectively/externally existing orange is "yellow" if by this we mean that it reflects the wavelengths that cause in us the sensation of yellow. Thus, the perceived color, yellow, is a secondary quality whereas the quality of reflecting the corresponding wavelengths is primary.

When we dream, we believe, e.g., that a roc's egg is real. When we are awake, we believe that our table is real. McTaggarat writes:

"...that belief [about the table] is no stronger and no more evident than the other [about the roc's egg] had been previously." (p. 26)

I think that the belief about the table is stronger and more evident than belief in the roc's egg. We categorize dreams as unreal precisely by contrasting them with the more stable, permanent, consistent and publicly accessible experiences of waking life. You can see, feel and sit at my table today and again tomorrow whereas you do not share my fleeting, one-off image of a roc's egg. Of course, our acceptance of the reality of waking experience is theoretically provisional. We might some day wake up into an even more stable, permanent and consistent world. We need not deny that theoretical possibility while meanwhile continuing to regard the table as real.

To be continued.

Biocentrism

Robert Lanza with Bob Berman, Biocentrism (Dallas, 2009).

I disagree either with what these authors say or with the way they say it. If they mean that conscious organisms create reality, then I disagree. If they mean that conscious organisms create not reality but appearances of reality, then they need to state this more clearly.

We are used to the idea that reality differs from appearances of it:

the Sun appears to go round the Earth;

an apparently continuous and static solid really comprises many moving particles and is really in orbit around the Sun, the galactic center and other points in space;

a galaxy seen from a distance is a single point of light whereas, seen from within, it is many points of light yet it remains a single galaxy;

the sky that looks blue to us looks different to beings with different sense organs;

when a phone rings in an empty house, air molecules vibrate but there is no heard ring anywhere in the house.

Even if the current understanding of reality differs from earlier understandings, it remains an understanding of pre-conscious reality. An indeterminate reality is a counter-intuitive kind of reality but remains a kind of reality, not nothing.

I will state my understanding of reality and appearance. Reality is one but internally differentiated. Its differentiations include many conscious organisms, each perceiving its environment. By interacting with its total environment, an organism creates an appearance of its immediate environment and thus also of a small part of reality. Each such appearance is an interaction within reality, not reality. Reality becomes conscious of itself because it is internally differentiated into conscious organisms and their environments. It existed, even if indeterminately, before becoming conscious.