"You're gonna want cause & effect"---GR

[Ian Livingston]

Yeah, I hear all that steadily from the Buddhists I work with.

On Fri, Aug 19, 2011 at 1:26 PM, Jed Kelestron <jedkelestron at gmail.com> wrote:
> It's about examining the examiner with intense focus and
> concentration. Applying the scientific method to the psyche or ego of
> the scientist so to speak. Western studies in cognitive science are
> now using mindfulness meditation as part of their research. It has
> zilch to do with superstition or metaphor. But putting it in words is
> always problematic and leads to such trivializations of what is
> actually a method of very deep inquiry into the nature of personal
> identity. And it's not 'Buddhism,' although Buddhism is one arena that
> utilizes such investigation. If you add two molecules of hydrogen and
> one molecule of oxygen you get water. If you look deeply into the
> nature of personal identity - you get nothing.
>
> On Fri, Aug 19, 2011 at 12:53 PM, Ian Livingston
> <igrlivingston at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Ah, Buddhism. Yeah, it, too, is an interesting metaphor, though more
>> explicitly founded in superstitious projection than some others. Maybe
>> the explicit nature of the superstition makes it more palatable in
>> some ways.
>>
>> On Fri, Aug 19, 2011 at 12:41 PM, Jed Kelestron <jedkelestron at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> I tend to incline toward a limited determinism: history
>>>> compels us, but possibility opens infinitely.
>>>
>>> Both history and future possibility are fictions created by the illusory separate self which likes to believe it isn't determined but is a free and autonomous entity. Until that illusion is dispelled the big wheel just keeps on spinning.
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> "Less than any man have I  excuse for prejudice; and I feel for all
>> creeds the warm sympathy of one who has come to learn that even the
>> trust in reason is a precarious faith, and that we are all fragments
>> of darkness groping for the sun. I know no more about the ultimates
>> than the simplest urchin in the streets." -- Will Durant
>>
>



-- 
"Less than any man have I  excuse for prejudice; and I feel for all
creeds the warm sympathy of one who has come to learn that even the
trust in reason is a precarious faith, and that we are all fragments
of darkness groping for the sun. I know no more about the ultimates
than the simplest urchin in the streets." -- Will Durant