Sheep and goats

I have a hard time reconciling my own beliefs with a lot of eastern philosophy, mostly because I do believe in a higher power--a God, a consciousness, whatever you'd like to call it. I walk a weird road between catholicism, buddhism, mysticism....usually, I just put myself down as "spiritual" to avoid confusion, lengthy debates, and offending people. But that's all part of what this whole class is about, right? So I'm just going to rant this one out.

My initial reaction to this Blackmore woman was that she was just another loon. In the first couple paragraphs, all I gleaned was "I did a lot of drugs back in the day, called it "research," and now I'm a Buddhist so it's all good." Yes, I did come to see there was more to her, and I have a grudging respect for her work--because really, she did have some good points. But the respect is still grudging because when it comes down to it, she still seems a bit closed-minded to me.

I don't like thinking in absolutes. Being a spiritual person, and being a generally nonconfrontational person, I'm always willing to allow for the realm of possibility. Not to sound preachy, but I do believe that anything is possible because God is all-powerful. However, I also believe that most of the unexplained phenomina, like the various elements of psi discussed in this article, can be chalked up to humans being their dumb, impressionable, manipulative selves. The Virgin Mary is on my toast! My dream told me that my neighbor was the antichrist and that I should kill him! Smoke this, man, I swear, you'll see God. WOO! You can probably blame a lot of my skepticism on my background; I've basically lived on a hippie commune. I've been around enough drug-induced stupors, and seen enough ruined lives on the other end to tell me that the only "good trip" is probably one that hasn't come to full fruition and screwed people over yet. I get tired of watching the cycle of "I'll try it once; this is fun; oh no I should quit; shit my life is ruined." Before you call me a hypocrite, let me say that NO, I don't think this pattern is inevitable with substance use. There are always outliers. But this pattern tends to be predominant.

Anyway, absolutes. They're not good. I don't think people should ever rule out possibility. I don't believe in reincarnation, but I believe in the Dalai Lama and the holy mystery that he embodies. I think that 90% of the mystical, psi-phenominon reported are bullshit made up by crazy people, but there will always be a small percentage that can't be explained--and that's where my belief in God comes in. But hey, that's me. Feel free to believe whatever you want.

Putting the "Kick" back in Psychic.

I know I'm a goat for two reasons.

1. Skeptical person.
2. I'm a capricorn.

I Don't Want to Be Enlightened. Not Yet, Anyway.

I think my main struggle with Eastern philosophy is the recurring sense that I really don't wish to seek enlightenment. Or at least, not in the all-encompassing sense that I feel many of the leaders in thought and philosophical rhetoric have emphasized in what I have read. I do believe in a state that I would equate with enlightenment...I spend a little time in that state now and again. But it is nothing that I strive for. It generally steals upon me, blooms from some little quirk of thought or observation, and I'm happy to inhabit it for awhile. What that state feels like to me is the absence of peripheries. My eyes feel softer, unfocused, but what I see is very clear. Colors are more vivid, sounds are quieter. It feels like living right beneath the surface of my skin. Smiling feels brighter, like light escaping through the cracks. Speech flows very smoothly, and the words settle just right. It is more immediate living, beyond the layers of heavy thought.

Maybe that is not enlightenment. I certainly didn't do anything to achieve it. I didn't meditate or ingest a drug or climb to a mountain temple beforehand. It is a very good feeling, whatever the root. Very settled. Very sure.

But

Sometimes I don't want to be sure. Sometimes I want to scurry along haphazardly through my day, and be fully present in some other facet of emotion, even if it is negative. I don't enjoy anger, or sadness. But I appreciate the breadth of those emotions nonetheless. If I am angry, at least I am not complacent. If I am sad, at least I get to have that hollowed-out peace after I cry. I truly enjoy what I deem my state of "sometimes-enlightenment." Someday I might even want to live in it full-time. But for now I am pretty comfortable with being young and foolish, and dwelling in each state that happens upon me. That may not be an enlightened way of thinking, but it fits.

Lucid Dreaming and Children Living in the Now

Lucid Dreaming

   

Living in the "Now" and Children

     


[edit!!] I'm not sure why my post turned into boxes and deleted all the words... I'll re-write it this evening...

grrrrr

I had a blog all typed out... and then I went to submit it and it didn't go through.. and it didn't save either!
So this one will be short because I don't feel like typing it all over again.
Basically I just talked about how I find it interesting that people's minds can be programed to experience a "mystical experience" or some sort of lucid sleep.
I also talked about the "God Machine" mentioned in the reading. Here's a video that I found that sort of explains what happens >
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YPOTaUyvA0

Acatalepsia and Ataraxia

Acatalepsia and Ataraxia

Pyrrho

(thoughts from Chapter 6: The Sheep Who Became A Goat, Rational Mysticism)

This chapter uses "randomness" as a proof. It also uses other proofs, just as unprovable as "randomness" but I'll just concentrate on "randomness". It is good to be skeptical, but that skepticism must be applied to all things, and not only to one in favor of another. One must also be skeptical of science.

After all, as I have mentioned before, pi is an abomination of the mind that does not exist. But there are many more things in science that do not exist. In fact, the entire science of geometry does not exist. We have found that there are no such things in nature as a line or a plane. Everything is fractal, and therefore neither a line nor a plane -- but something inbetween. Without lines and planes there are no geometric shapes, only fractal shapes. No Geometry . . . how random is that!?

Don't believe me, read for yourself: Fractal Dimension

Enough of that. Let's talk about randomness.

"When one is dealt a bridge hand of thirteen cards, the probability of being dealt that particular hand is less than one in 600 billion. Still, it would be absurd for someone to be dealt a hand, examine it carefully, calculate that the probability of getting it is less than one in 600 billion, and then conclude that he must not have been dealt that very hand because it is so very improbable." -- John Allen Paulos, Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences

Or, as I say:

"1% is 100% when it happens."

Randomness. What is it? Is it compartmentable? Can it be segregated? Is it distinct, one random bit from another random bit? How infinitesimal is randomness? How huge is randomness? How ordinary is randomness? How extra-ordinary is randomness? Is there no connection anywhere, at any level, between one random bit and another random bit? Is every new second of time a bit of randomness never before seen in exactly that manifestation? How does one calculate randomness? If a thing has a 50% chance of happening -- how is that calculated? Forget coins, what about real life?

A baseball batter with a career of 20 years comes to the plate. Over those 20 years he has gotten a hit 30% of the time (he has a career batting average of .300). Does he have a 30% chance to get a hit? Does he have a 50% chance to get a hit? Does he have some other chance to get a hit? Or is it random -- without any reference at all to anything that has come before or will come after? No connections? None? A totally random chance to get a hit every at bat? Even the tiniest, teeniest bit of a connection utterly dissipates randomness.

Any player of baseball will tell you that each at bat in the player's career is connected in the mind of the batter to the moment at hand, and has an influence over the outcome of the present moment. Further still, each and every previous moment of the pitcher's career is connected in the pitcher's mind to the present moment. And the runner at first base, as well as the first baseman and all the fielders, and the umpires, and the coaches, and the trainers and general managers . . . and on and on. There is a complex web of intricate and ethereal connections that is so interwoven the pattern is hard to see -- and we call that randomness. The present moment is not, nor is it ever, distinct and wholly separate from every other moment. There is no such thing as a random moment, nor is there anything that exists that is random.

Go ahead, name me a random creature. A creature that exists randomly, a creature without any predecessors. Too difficult? OK, how about a random word. Tell me a random word, any word, a word not connected to any other words through thought or utterance or ink, a word that is a thought in and of itself and has random definitions each time it randomly appears in random conversations with random people on a random world in a random universe.

Randominity demands randomness at every level or it is not random. Can there be such a thing as a random anything? Or is randomness just another pipe dream like circles, triangles and squares?

Absurd? Yes. OK, how about flipping a coin? Can a coin flip be random? Or is it influenced by the muscles of the hand that flips it and the molecules of air that surround it? Make a machine to flip the coin, and the machine will wear out a little with every flip thus creating a building influence from the first flip to the last flip -- none being random.

Computers? Random number generating programs? Don't wear out, simply electrons . . . Funny thing, that. Computers cannot generate random numbers. There is always a pattern. A repeatable pattern. Programs that generate random numbers all fudge it, trying for enough of a complicated pattern that it appears random -- but it never is. Computers, those things that think in either-or, on or off, zero or one . . . those things that are utterly without deception, they say randomness is simply impossible.

If a moment cannot be random, what then can we say about randomness? How can randomness exist when there is no environment for it to survive within?

I found the skepticism of this chapter misplaced, vindictive, childish, and not at all random. Skeptics assert nothing, announcing only opinion. The protagonists in this chapter are not skeptics, they are zealots of cause.

Viruses are a pain

In The Meme Machine, she called religions "memeplexes", intellectual viruses that have survived not because they are true but because they excel at replication and infection. To put it another way, religions are just extremely successful chain letters.

I love this statement. Religion as a virus I think is a perfect analogy. Religion has its ups and downs, I being an agnostic tend to see the down sides to most religions. I could always find faults in religions theories and teachings, I usually got scolded for pointing them out too (hence why I'm an agnostic, I can't find a religion that I can agree with enough to live by). So I personally have taken a little bit of every religion that I have come across and sort of made my own belief system. For some people this isn't an option. Religion has been so ingrained in their minds that it is impossible for them to see outside or the bigger picture. A virus affects people on different levels, affects them more than others. So does Religion. Some people are blinded by religion but if it makes them happy then let me be blind. Natural selection will take over eventually and kick our asses, its been long over-do. Religion does have its up, just like a virus. Once you have gotten rid of a specific virus, you build up an immunity to some parts and don't have much trouble from it again. You become stronger because of it, Religion is the same in some aspects. It can blind some people but it can also make them stronger in the right doses.