Friday, 6 August 2010 by CVM.

Following up on documenting our discussion of determinism, here is CVM’s response to the previous post:

As to dualism, that is my model, yes, even though I’d be the first to admit that it is unlikely that there is any “real” sense in which the two fundamentally different substances exist.

Never read “Einstein’s Dreams“.  I read “Time Travel and Papa Joe’s Pipe” and was turned off by his poetic conflation of memory and physics.  However, I have seen the book and was intrigued — next time it comes up I’ll take a look.

Your argument about determinism and relatively is interesting and new to me — indeed, most texts I have read have suggested that the theory of relativity is firmly deterministic, as indeed the great man himself seems to have believed, but then again, he seems to have believed quantum mechanics is deterministic too, so there you go.

However, your arguments about relativity smack a bit to me of Hume — yes, in principle I agree that the universe need not, perhaps is not, deterministic, but then again there are those pesky measurements, testing both quantum mechanics and relativity, that repeatedly agree with both theories down to the, I don’t know, trillionth decimal place or something (Feynman had some kind of analogy about the precision was as if you could measure the distance between New York and L.A. with the precision to the width of a human hair). That of course is no guarantee of future performance, but I wouldn’t bet a lot that your mileage may vary- while there may very well be influences in our absolute elsewhere, they don’t seem to have had much impact so far.

Strangely, though your arguments invoke science, they seem metaphysical to me.  The problem I put before you was that we hold humans morally accountable in a way we don’t hold other beings, yet there is not reason to believe humans are less (or in your case, more) deterministic than other beings. So what’s the difference?   The gist of your argument seems to be that since we don’t live in a deterministic universe, there is no barrier to ascribing moral responsibility. That’s got promise, but then we have to address why conscious beings are reasonably held morally responsible, but, for examples, computers are not (unless you want to go all Philip K. Dick on me).  As we have discussed, in my model at least computers behave deterministically, though you somewhat snarkily evaded this hypothesis.  How, then, about a clock?

An interesting solution might be that moral responsibility only makes sense in the context of conscious belief in free will (whether or not that belief is true, so we need not get into ontology).  That would rule out clocks, and possibly even variously incapacitated humans, but maybe not electric androids.  If one then accepts your argument against determinism (which however doesn’t explain clocks) this would neatly solve the problem.

As to a Buddhist treatment of free will, I’m all ears.  As I suggested before the dissolution of the self goes a long way toward solving the problem, and, though I agree that this a profound idea, it’s tough to put into practice.  It’s interesting however what the dissolution of the self does to the concept of free will: doesn’t make much sense then does it? I mean, what then is said to be free?

Looking forward to your further disquisition on Buddhism and moral responsibility- and also a description of your personal Buddhist praxis (e.g., meditation?).

CVM

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Sunday, 22 March 2009 by CVM.

I’m still trying to figure out what the point of blogging is, but maybe a blog can serve as a kind of historical record, tracking perspective in real time, before those recollections can be contemplated in tranquility.  I have often wished I had kept such a journal while on the track of a discovery. Although I can probably remember roughly what it felt like not to know something, it’s impossible to completely capture that exquisite state of ignorance.

In that spirit, I plan to blog my progress in a course I’m taking on Buddhism.  I hope that my sensei, the detailed blogger, will correct my misunderstandings before they do too much damage.

First I should say that the audio course is from the Teaching Company, which has been the source of much top-notch education for me over the years — I listen to the courses on my commute through Central Park. The course is taught by Malcolm David Eckel, who got his Ph.D. in comparative religion from Harvard and has written several books on Buddhism.  It’s difficult to tell exactly how much he himself is a Buddhist, but he clearly has a tremendous amount of respect for Buddhism.

In introductory lectures, Eckel discusses the Hindu background into which the Buddha (I will call him this though technically he wasn’t the Buddha until his enlightenment, or possibly his death) was born.  To the extent that Buddhism arises from and is a response to Hindu religious beliefs, the key influences are the Vedas (composed around 1500 to 500 BCE and written down beginning around 800 BCE) and the explications of the Vedas in the Upanishads, composed around 700 BCE (the Buddha, of course, was famously contemporaneous with Socrates, and like Socrates died around 400 BC).

Although no doubt the modern Buddhist might disagree, Eckel presents the Buddha’s insight as a response to the Hindu view of death (the comparisons to other religions are my own).  Apparently the early Vedas presented a view of death fairly similar to that found in The Epic of Gilgamesh (probably composed around 2300 BCE and written down around 2100 BCE)) and the early Hebrew Bible (probably composed around 1500-800 BCE and written down around beginning around 800 BCE), and probably characteristic of most known civilizations at that time. That view is that after death the soul becomes a shade and transmigrates to a Hades-like place (thus the early Greeks shared this view, though described it in more detail), which is not particularly interesting but not particularly horrible either (though not a place you’d want to go if you had a choice). A few heroes and kings maybe go to a better place where the gods live, and the gods are similar to other religions completely distinct from humans. The very late Vedas developed the notion of reincarnation (in Sanskrit, the word means “wandering”), in which the soul is reincarnated “millions” of times (according to a late Veda) and this notion is the basis of subsequent Hindu views of the afterlife, including the Upanishads. Since gods are also subject to reincarnation, the distinction between gods and humans has begun to dissolve in the Upanishads.  By the time of the  Buddha, the Hindu concept of reincarnation had developed into a decidedly pessimistic view, since it would seem that on the whole one is most likely to be reincarnated as a fairly miserable creature (the ant is commonly used as an example in the Vedas).

Thus, as Eckel conveys it, the Buddha’s big insight was that the trap of infinite reincarnation could be stopped by proper understanding of the nature of the self and reality, achieving Nirvana (Sanskrit for “extinguishing”).  The Buddha came to this understanding, and thus achieved Nirvana, and was kind enough to spend the next 40 or so years of his life conveying this understanding to his followers.

I can describe some initial concepts now.  The fundamental basis of Buddhism can apparently be understood within the context of the 4 Noble Truths: 1. All is suffering; 2. Where suffering comes from; 3. How suffering can be stopped; 4. The method leading to the cessation of suffering.

I won’t get much into this now, but to make a few preliminary comments. First, it would appear that the Buddha paves the way to the four Noble Truths with a metaphysical insight: that all is impermanent, and that the self is a delusion, and, in particular, “all is one”. My first response to this metaphysical maneuver is that it is deep and compelling.  Some of the most difficult problems in contemporary Western philosophy (the nature of identity and the nature of consciousness) can be dropped as distractions if one makes these basic metaphysical assumptions. Of course it doesn’t feel that way (one does have a sense of one’s self, of course, and if the self is a delusion, who or what is suffering that delusion?). On the other hand, from a purely scientific point of view, it certainly is true that “all is one”, and the explanatory gap in the hard problem of consciousness seems just about impossible to overcome.  A pure materialist — and aren’t we all? — would seem to be better off embracing Buddhism than trying to hold on to Cartesian dualism. More on this later.

A second point I would make is that they don’t call it the axial age for nothin’. While the Buddha was putting the kibosh on the Hindu view of the afterlife, Plato (presumably following Socrates, who claimed to be following the oracular hymns) was doing about the same to the Greek view of the afterlife.  As I indicated above, until the time of Socrates the prevalent view of the afterlife was that shades migrated to a fairly unappetizing Hades. In his meditations just before he died (in the Phaedo) he describes a view of the afterlife completely at odds with Greek (and contemporaneous Hebrew) views, and virtually identical to the one now held by Christians, Jews, and Muslims, at least those following the literal exoteric forms of their religions. The Hellenized Jewish authors of the New Testament clearly lifted their entire view of Heaven and Hell from the Hellenic strain, probably from the Phaedo, and Jews were changing their views at about the same time, probably for the same reason.  The Muslims of course took their views from the by that time well-developed dogmas of the Jews and Christians. From the modern perspective, the bracingly mechanistic and atheistic metaphysics of the Buddha is obviously more appealing, though the question of the metaphysical nature of reincarnation, which Buddhist thought was originally developed to address, does not appeal to the modern.  Nevertheless, stripped of those metaphysical assumptions, Buddhist thought does develop a bracing and fascinating set of philosophies.

In the past I have been guilty of oversimplifying Buddhism as simply an exercise in lowered expectations.  I am beginning to see much beyond that, though I still see Buddhism (which, I gather, advocates extinction [”extinguishing”? — Ed.]) on a collision course with existentialism (which, in my version at least, advocates the opposite, though Sartre might disagree). More on this later.

CVM

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Wednesday, 17 September 2008 by CVM.

“Buddha noodling” is, as they say about 1,000 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean, a good start. The esoteric/exoteric distinction is useful, in that this may be a notable difference between Buddhism and Christianity: as far as I can tell (please ask Mrs. Palin to clarify) essentially all Christians subscribe to the exoteric version, believing that there really is a God/Jesus/Holy Spirit-rolled-into-one-incomprehensible being in Heaven whose eye is on the sparrow and to whom one prays and who always answers prayers, though, as those who prayed for rain on Obama’s parade (or anyhow stadium) can attest, the answer is apparently often no. Indeed, the distraction of a hurricane during the Republican convention, by allowing W. to avoid showing up and facilitating McCain’s strategy of running against the Republican party, shows that God does indeed work in mysterious ways. In any case, I’m still hoping for a little clarification: what is the essential content of Buddhism?

There is a tendency, especially with Zen Buddhism, to say, if you have to ask, you just don’t get it. Mmmm, maybe we can do a little better than that. As a non-Buddhist, I would say an (if not the) essential content of Buddhism is that the way to avoid suffering is to detach oneself from desire. BBB, I look forward to your correction, especially as it may impinge on the various denominations of Buddhism.

As a model, I’ll try to indicate what is the essential content of Christianity. But first, a brief digression. Buddha was one of the key figures of the axial age. He was, as far as I can tell, a philosopher in the sense we can also call Socrates and Confucius philosophers. Jesus, on the other hand, was not at all a philosopher in that sense (though apparently W. thinks so, but enough said about that), but much more in the tradition of Old Testament Prophets. So Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Confucius never veered into the “exoteric” tradition of elevation to divinity, whereas Jesus, for fairly obvious reasons, did. So why did Buddha become divine? OK, regarding Christianity, I have been asked to comment on the nirvana aspects thereby. So we have to start with the Hebrew Bible (or Old Testament, as most Christians would call it). So there’s this God Dude (as my daughter refers to Him) who apparently created the Universe, though apparently the God Dude was in the beginning with the Word (this of course is a Hellenistic construct – go figure), which I guess is generally interpreted as the Holy Spirit (God and Jesus being, Cher-like, referred to only by one name).

One question, and not particularly the most interesting one, is what distinguishes the various Christian denominations. The short answer is, not much. The key doctrines of Christianity were formulated with some pretty spirited controversy over a period of between around 250 to 325 of the common era (how the specific texts of the Christian Bible were chosen is even more fascinating, but that’s another story). In 325 the council of Nicaea pretty much resolved (using this term loosely) most of the key Christian doctrines, in particular the doctrine of the trinity, in which Jesus (and, as an afterthought, the Holy Spirit) are exactly co-equal with God the Father in divinity. This was a big deal and has given rise to some of the fascinatingly ingenious philosophical argumentation about what exactly this means. However, as nonsensical as the concept of the trinity may be, no Christian has disagreed with it since. Similarly the doctrine of atonement (that humans are universally so evil that they deserve eternal torment as punishment, except that one human, the Man/God Jesus, was so morally perfect that his death by torture redeemed some, though mysteriously not all, bad bad humans who could thereby live lives of eternal felicity) is as far as I can tell universally accepted by all Christians. I welcome any correction to my representation of these key doctrines of Christianity.

So what’s the difference between, say, Catholics and Protestants, or Evangelicals (who comprise the base of the Republican party) vs. non-Evangelicals? As to Catholics vs. Protestants, there is surprisingly little doctrinal difference – the main differences are a matter of administration (the Pope is the Boss of Me, or not). Evangelical vs. non-E is a bigger deal – the Evangelicals believe in the literal truth of the Bible (no matter how incoherent that truth may be, e.g., two conflicting versions of the creation in the first two chapters of the Bible), which is why they are hostile to the theory of evolution (not sure how this gets translated into global warming), whereas as non-Es (including Catholics) are much more open to sensible metaphorical interpretation of Biblical text. As to the differences between the many Protestant denominations (Methodist, Lutheran, Baptist, etc.) this seems to be largely a matter of how you were raised. I could tell you some doctrinal differences (there’s something about the importance of baptism early in life vs. after the age of consent, or music in liturgical services, etc.) but really, from any rational perspective these are pretty much small potatoes. Oh, and finally regarding the nirvana thing, the Christian concepts of Heaven and Hell are lifted directly from Plato (specifically, the Orpheic myths quoted in the “Last Days of Socrates“) and have no referent either in the Hebrew Bible or indeed in the canonical [synoptic? – ed.] Gospels (i.e., Matthew, Mark, and Luke – John is from another planet). It should come as no surprise that the Christian Bible was written in Greek. Interestingly Orthodox Jews and Muslims appear to have derived their view of the afterlife from the Christians, who got it from the Greeks. The key doctrine of all Christians is formulated in John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life”. All Christians buy into this. Is there an equivalent Buddhist passage?

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Tuesday, 19 August 2008 by CVM.

On a recent trip to China I was struck by the many variations of Buddhism that I encountered. I was particularly struck by the various forms of Buddhism that were deeply superstitious. In particular, there was much reference to praying to Buddha and how Buddha bestows his blessing etc. A brief perusal of the internet shows there is similar diversity of opinion on this subject. I wonder if BBB would give us a tutorial on the denominations of Buddhism and their doctrinal distinctions. Which is right and which is wrong? A rather non-Buddhist question of course!

RESPONSE by bbbeard:

Well, a broad question. And there is a collection of terminology that is a form of busy-work for people not satisfied with mere enlightenment.

The two main trunks of Buddhism are called Mahayana and Hinayana, commonly translated as “Greater Vehicle” and “Lesser Vehicle”. “Vehicle”, apart from being the really cool 1970 hit from  “The Ides of March”, is the translation of the Sanskrit “Yana” and means “way of enlightenment”. There is a third vehicle, Vajrayana, which is really an offshoot of Mahayana. Vajrayana is also called Tantric Buddhism.

Of course, the way such things go, some folks disagree with this taxonomy; in particular the term “Hinayana” has been called “pejorative”. Such folks tend to group non-Mahayana sects into a trunk called Theravada. You are encouraged to find other taxonomies if that suits you.

Geographically, Hinayana is mostly associated with India and Southeast Asia. The stereotypical lesser vehicle fellow dresses in a saffron robe and doesn’t masturbate. Mahayana is mostly associated with China and Japan, also pulling in Mongolia, Taiwan, and Tibet. The stereotypical greater vehicle fellow dresses in a black robe and sits a lot. Zen is a Mahayana sect.

Again, the way such things go, despite the geographical correlates you can pretty much find any kind of Buddhist anywhere. So your mileage may vary.

One of the more colorful Mahayana offshoots is Tibetan Buddhism, which is kind of like the outrageous eccentric uncle whom you love to have at parties but wouldn’t necessarily bring to church. The isolation and relative poverty of Tibet has bred a number of practices and doctrines that are peculiar to that region. Or, if you look at it benevolently, Tibetan Buddhism is kind of “technicolor Buddhism” – all the features of greater vehicle doctrine are taken past the point of saturation, producing a gorgeous mosaic that is larger than life (not to mention more photogenic than garden-variety Buddhism).

I recommend “The Monk and the Philosopher” by Jean-François Revel for a glimpse into the life of a Tibetan monk. This is quite a fascinating book. Revel, of course, was a noted French philosopher. His son Mathieu Ricard is a scientist, with a doctorate in molecular genetics from Institut Pasteur. Shortly after he earned his doctorate, Mathieu left for Tibet, where he became a monk. The book is a dialogue between father and son about matters religious, secular, and scientific.

There is also an old but fascinating classic text by Alexandra David-Neel called “The Secret Oral Teachings in Tibetan Buddhist Sects“, which I have to say I found profoundly influential when I read it as a young man. It was the first time, I recall, that I read a really coherent account of the difference between exoteric and esoteric religious doctrine – a difference which, I am given to understand, also applies to Christianity to some extent.

Maybe that should be the jumping-off point for any account of the diversity within Buddhism. Broadly speaking, exoteric doctrine is “doctrine for the public”, while esoteric doctrine is “doctrine for the enlightened”. The idea is that the great mass of humanity has neither the capacity nor the inclination to study the esoteric doctrine. In Christianity, or so I have been led to understand, esoteric doctrine is “secret doctrine”, but I don’t think that is quite the case in Buddhism (unless, of course, there is a layer of secrecy underneath the “public” “esoteric” doctrine… but that way madness lies….) Exoteric doctrine is the set of beliefs that are promulgated for public understanding and practice. They are complementary, not antagonistic, kind of yin-yang and all that jazz.

A typical case is doctrine regarding the divinity of Buddha. If I dare speak for esoteric doctrine, Buddha was an enlightened person who showed that there is a middle way to enlightenment, neither hedonistic nor ascetic, neither atheistic nor animistic, neither excessively public nor intensely private. He also showed how there are enhanced states of understanding which can be reached through meditation. One of the aspects of that understanding is the realization of the interconnectedness of everything, which I suppose a wag might interpret as a restatement of the horizon problem in cosmology. An aspect of that interconnectedness is that when a person dies, i.e. when their body stops working, the manifestations of that person’s existence continue to ripple down through time. When Buddha died, or so the story goes, his nature (”Buddha-nature”) merged with all of existence. So in esoteric doctrine, there is no Buddha sitting in Heaven, processing prayer requests. He’s gone, he’s everywhere, and he’s not coming back because he never left.

But that’s all kind of high-falutin’ for your typical farmer/engineer/soldier/courtesan, so the esoteric doctrine explains that it’s okay to have an exoteric doctrine for the regular folks. In the exoteric doctrine, people collect little Buddha figurines and pray to them. I can’t really say whether this prayer is different from Christian prayer or not, since I’ve not done either. But it’s fair to say that it’s common in the exoteric doctrine to visualize a personal Buddha, as it were, who hears the prayers and acts on them. Of course, one of the major Buddhist doctrines is the doctrine of karma, which is variously translated as “what goes around comes around”, “you get what you deserve”, “a circle has no end”, etc., so I suppose that in the esoteric view, worthy prayers do get answered.

I haven’t really addressed the doctrinal differences between Mahayana and Hinayana trunks. Some people have tried to make an analogy with the Catholic/Protestant divide, but I find this somewhat baffling. (I’m not aware of a conflict where Hinayanists and Mahayanists have resorted to bloodshed over doctrine.) Mostly, Hinayana (Theravada) Buddhists are “originalist” in that they claim their doctrine stems directly from the teachings of the Buddha, while the Mahayanists have a markedly more evolved theology and philosophy of the soul, much of it contributed by numerous other enlightened folks over the course of several millennia. (So which of them is more “Catholic”?) Hinayana is closely associated with the Pali Canon, which is essentially the meeting minutes of the “Third Council” held in Pataliputta in 308 BC. Mahayana, as remarked, has a diverse lineage, starting with Nagarjuna (c. 200 AD) who wrote extensively about nothingness (hence foreshadowing the inscrutable modern doctrine of the close connection between vacuum expectation values and particle propagators).

As far as “which is right and which is wrong?” goes, well, yeah, that’s a different paradigm. I tend to incline to the Mahayanist and esoteric view. But I also tend to the “translational” view of religious beliefs, that is, I understand when some person talks about God or angels or prayer they can mean something similar to what another person might call totality or spirit or hope. Languages are the coordinate systems we use to navigate through our lives, but, well, the map is not the ground. (”People ask me where I live and I say ‘E-4’”).

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Sunday, 27 July 2008 by CVM.

I am somewhat bemused by the alignment of political affiliation with opinion about global warming, an ostensibly scientific question. Obviously Republicans are much more likely to question the scientific consensus about global warming and its causes than are Democrats. Why is that? (I should think that drumming up the occasional dissenter on global warming is hardly more convincing than drumming up the occasional Duesberg on AIDS). Of course Republicans are much more likely to question the scientific consensus on evolution than are Democrats, and that is clearly because Republicans are (much) more likely to be fundamental Christians. Unlike the typical blogger (the Detailed Balancer excluded, of course) or talk radio host, respectable folks do not indulge in ad hominem arguments, so just because Republicans are more likely to believe in evolution (which, let us grant, is a benighted position) does not mean Republicans are wrong, nor Democrats right, about everything, or even about global warming. Still, why the remarkable alignment?

My guess is that Republicans have a sense that academics, including scientists, are generally Democratic and have liberal leanings. This is actually correct. There is an interesting positive correlation between education and affiliation with the Democratic party, a correlation that holds even in the sciences, so it is not because of brain-washing by the post-modern lit-crit crowd. Still, this can hardly lead one to assume that all scientific (educated, Left/East Coast pointy-heady professor elite) consensus is driven by a liberal agenda. For example, there is a scientific consensus about dietary trans fat that has led California and New York City to ban trans fats in restaurants (in both cases, the ban was spearheaded by [moderate] Republicans). This is an area I know something about, and I am highly skeptical about the consensus, don’t even get me started about the laws (I’m against them). Why aren’t the Republicans pro-trans and the Democrats anti-? On the other hand, the scientific consensus on aging research has been challenged by many crackpots, including Aubrey de Grey, and (having some expertise in this area as well) I have had no compunction in deflating these anti-establishment positions. Why don’t the Republicans rail against the liberal gerontologists?

Finally, I should say that though I am willing to provisionally accept the scientific consensus about global warming, and therefore I reject the implicit position of the Detailed Balancer (and, I gather, the Republican consensus), my personal position is: bring it on. Global warming is indeed hardly more than an inconvenient truth. Of far greater threat to civilization is the long-overdue ice age. A somewhat secondary threat, but far greater than global warming, is the depletion of fossil fuels. Both threats will be delayed by global warming (the latter because global warming will increase energy available for, .e.g., wind and hydroelectric).

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