Posted inReality

Would you choose to be hooked up to an Experience Machine?

The Experience Machine has popped into my life again. A few years ago I blogged about it in "Choose reality, not religion." Today I read about Robert Nozick's thought experiment again in Julian Baggini's "What's It All About: Philosophy and the Meaning of Life." Nozick asks us to imagine an experience machine, which works very much along the same lines as the eponymous supercomputer in the film The Matrix. Once plugged into the machine, you can live a life which from the inside feels just like normal life. Rocks feel hard, the sun bright, coffee hot, and so on. In…
1
Posted inReality Science Spiritual practice/meditation

How true are your religious predictions?

Today Nate Silver was called a "data god" in the Doonesbury comic strip. So I figure it's appropriate to honor his sacredness with another post about his fascinating book, "The Signal and the Noise." Silver is a hero of the reality-respecting community, of which I'm a proud member. He successfully predicted the outcome of the 2012 presidential election, getting the Obama vs. Romney winner correctly in all 50 states. Early on in his book, Silver talks about how we have a lot more information now, but this doesn't mean we have more knowledge. Meanwhile, if the quantity of information is…
No Comments
Posted inPersonal/Stories Reality

Marvel at the Wizard of Is

With apologies to L. Frank Baum, I'm amending your book title for some philosophizing about "Is" rather than "Oz." I'm no longer religious. But I've still as awe-inspired as I ever was. What I find so awesome now isn't God, or guru, or any other imagined divinity. It's the inarguable presence of Is. No faith, no dogma, no theology, no anything is required to demonstrate the existence of Is. That's because Is is existence.  There Is is. Here Is is. Everywhere Is is. Awesome! Yet as obvious as Is is, what I really love about Is is how mysterious it is.…
1
Posted inReality Religions

Be adaptable like a fox, not stalwart like a hedgehog

In his fascinating book, "The Signal and the Noise," Nate Silver talks about two thinking styles: that of the fox and hedgehog. I've blogged about this before in "Sure you're right? You're probably wrong."  In other words, those who were most certain they were right were more likely to be wrong. It's better to be a fox, someone who knows many things, than a hedgehog, who knows one big thing. The article's author, Sharon Begley, lists the characteristics of foxes (better predictors) and hedgehogs (worse predictors). Foxes... cognitively flexible, modest, open to self-criticism, consider competing views, doubt power of Big…
No Comments
Posted inReality Science

Reality belongs to those who know, not believers

Reality is real. This is, for some, an unreal statement. They believe that reality is whatever someone considers it to be, that it's possible to create our own reality, that reason, logic, facts, and demonstrable evidence are useless in revealing whatever lies behind obvious appearances, that intuition and a gut feeling are better guides to truth. Well, as I said in a post a few days ago, Tuesday's national election in the United States was a victory for reality. And a concomitant defeat for those who value subjectivity over objectivity, passionate belief over reasonable facts, "I feel..." over "I know...…
7
Posted inPolitics Reality

U.S. election a victory for reality

Reality won tonight! I've been glued to my television, laptop, and iPhone for about six hours, sweating out the results of our national election. Obama has been re-elected president. Democrats are going to maintain control of the Senate. Virtually every Republican I was hoping would lose, did.  I'm happy. Both for the political philosophy that I favor, and for the reality based community that I consider myself to be a proud member of. Because this was more than an election between Republicans and Democrats. Borrowing a fancy term from a highly respected political analyst, Nate Silver, who I like a…
1
Posted inReality Religions

Have faith in reality, not religion

I feel a sermon coming on... can't help myself... spirit is moving me... reality must be praised... glory be! I'm happy to be your not-so-humble servant, Almighty Reality. --------------------------------------- Fellow humans, stand strong for what is real. Believe this: a single grain of sand is more worthy of your worship than any holy book, any religious theology, any supernatural theorizing. You can feel that grain of sand, taste it, see it.  Where's God? Where's soul? Where's spirit? Where's angels, heaven, reincarnation, Buddha nature, enlightenment, or any other abstraction lacking concrete this-ness and that-ness? Nowhere, reality worshipping brothers and sisters. Nowhere. …
55
Posted inBuddhism Reality Science

Happy birthday to me. But is there really a “me”?

Geez, I'm so philosophically minded, I can't even enjoy a birthday without questioning whether "I" am having one. Over on my other blog I mused yesterday about the Beatles' When I'm 64 and the positive side of craziness. Hopefully this will shut up the folks who, after reading my thoughtful ponderings about religion/spirituality, accuse me of being a left-brained rationalist who only lives in my big fat intellectual cranium.  Fire up your skateboard, accustory dudes, and join me on a four mile longboarding jaunt up and down (mild) hills here in Salem's Minto Brown Island Park. Then you'll see another…
13
Posted inBuddhism Reality Science

Reality is a circle: nothing is fundamental

Ooh, ooh! It came, it came! I felt like a kid who'd just gotten a long-awaited toy in the mail when I opened our mailbox and saw the New Scientist cover: What is Reality? A User's Guide to the Ultimate Question of Existence. Finally. I'd know. What reality is all about. I stretched out the suspense by waiting until evening to read the cover story. In the bathtub, immersed in relaxingly hot water, a glass of red wine and highlighter in hand (not at the same time). I wasn't disappointed. Right away I liked the concise focus of the "Defining Reality"…
19
Posted inBuddhism Reality

How consciousness is related to Buddhist “emptiness”

When I wrote a recent post about the Buddhist notion of emptiness, I noted how Guy Newland defined an important concept: intrinsic nature: an essential nature whereby something comes to have an independent way of existing without being posited through the force of consciousness. The sheer absence of this is emptiness. Even though I'd just read Newland's fascinating book, "Introduction to Emptiness," I didn't really understand the reference to the force of consciousness when I typed those words. So I suspect others would be equally mystified by what he meant. I'll let Newland explain: Therefore, at bottom, to understand emptiness…
11
Posted inReality Spiritual practice/meditation

Life comes to us as water falls on a landscape

There's a lot of beautiful writing, thoughts, and inspiration in Iain McGilchrist's scholarly yet engrossing book, "The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World." (I've blogged about the book here, here, here, and here.) I loved these passages. Deeply moving. If it resonates with you also, great. It sure did with me. The feeling we have of experience happening -- that even if we stop doing something and just sit and stare, time is still passing, our bodies are changing, our senses are picking up sights and sounds, smells, and tactile sensations, and…
1
Posted inReality Science

Thinking about life isn’t the same as experiencing life

About half an hour ago I was walking around a nearby lake with our two dogs. Then I was directly experiencing what it was like to be outdoors in late afternoon on a pleasingly sunny and warm Oregon day. I can share a photo I took, but what you see isn't what I experienced. In fact, even if you had been standing right beside me when I got my iPhone out, how you looked upon the lake wouldn't have been the same as my experience of it. That's the thing about experience: it's subjective, personal, ineffable, ever-changing, impossible to pin…
1
Posted inReality Science

Divided brain is root of our divided self

I'm fascinated by the human brain. It's a mini-universe. A mini-universe that is me. So what I'm fascinated by is the same entity that is doing the fascinating, which is to say...me. Go figure. I can't. There's no way I can get outside of my brain and look upon it objectively. Nobody can, not even supposedly elevated mystics and meditators. Show me someone without a working brain and you're showing me someone dead. However, neuroscientists, psychologists, psychiatrists, and other scientifically-minded students of the human brain know a lot about its structure and functions. I've read quite a few books about…
1
Posted inReality Spiritual practice/meditation

“Oneness” is an abstraction. “Manyness” is reality.

I like the idea of oneness. But I'd hate the reality of it, oneness plain and simple. Well, more accurately I couldn't hate absolute oneness if it existed, because there wouldn't be any me to feel hate. Or anything else, since there's no room for two in One. Thus it's impossible for anyone to experience oneness. "Anyone" and "oneness" are two separate entities. So whenever someone talks about how the cosmos is One, they're referring to an abstraction, not reality. Nothing wrong with this. Abstractions can be fun to intellectually play around with. That's a big part of what philosophizing…
3
Posted inGod Reality

Sam Harris: “atheist” makes as much sense as “aunicornist”

Sam Harris, author of "The End of Faith," is a famous atheist. But he isn't fond of having that word describe him. After all, people who don't believe in unicorns aren't called "aunicornists." They're just people who recognize that evidence is lacking for the existence of a mythical creature that resembles a horse, but has a single twisting horn on its forehead. Likewise, what need is there for "atheist"? Why not simply call people who believe in God, "theists," while having no special word for those who don't? So says Harris in a well-written and well-argued essay, The Problem With…
7
Posted inReality

Does an objective non-symbolic world exist?

It's mid-August. It's hot. I'm in a living is easy frame of mind. I haven't had a caffeine fix for quite a few hours. Not the best time to address the question I set out in the title of this post. "Does an objective non-symbolic world exist?" But philosophizing can't wait. This subject has popped up in some blog post comments. Here's a sampling of what's been said (with a few spelling errors corrected). Janya: I know, it is hard to digest, because after all its all personal experience, and what objectivity does ANY purely personal experience hold? We have…
39
Posted inReality Religions

Respect reality, not religion, if you love the Ultimate

I'm no longer religious. But I still embrace the notion of Ultimate Reality. I love those words, "ultimate reality." They point toward... something. Or perhaps... someone. (I think it's much more likely that something rather than someone resides at the root of reality, but since I wrote a book called Return to the One, and continue to believe in much of Plotinus' philosophy, I'm very much open to the possibility of some sort of universal impersonal consciousness that could be called One.) Ultimate doesn't mean far off, even though religions, spiritual teachings, and mystical practices often assume that Really Real Reality is…
2
Posted inReality Science

David Lane on “Why Science Works”

Check out David Lane's response to Don Salmon, who disagreed with some central points Lane and his wife made in their essay, "Mysticism's Version of Intelligent Design: A Critique of John Davidson's Projective Creationism." I liked the essay a lot. Praised it in a blog post, "Devastating Critique of Radha Soami Satsang Beas lies." After Don Salmon left a comment on my post, I responded in my own fashion.  Don Salmon: I think David wrote a very interesting article, which quite accurately (though unintentionally) reveals most of modern "science" to be a thoroughly metaphysical belief system. This is most clearly stated…
No Comments
Posted inReality Religions Science

Morality has nothing to do with scientific truth

Einstein revealed some amazing truths about the cosmos through his theory of relativity and other research. Einstein also spent time with six girlfriends while he was married.  Is there any connection between these two facts? Should we question the validity of the theory of relativity because Einstein engaged in behavior that would seem morally questionable to many people?  No, of course not.  Universal scientific truths have no connection with individual, or even societal, moral norms. The cosmos doesn't care what we do with our bodies and minds. Laws of nature aren't dependent on human thou shalt's and thou shalt not's.…
6
Posted inReality Religions

Matt Thornton, mixed martial artist, kicks religion’s butt

I love how the World Wide Web leads in so many interesting unexpected directions. Like, from a brief Sam Harris twitter tweet to the blog of a guy who is both physically and intellectually capable of twisting religious believers into knots. I started off listening to an interview Bobby Nelson, "The Paranormal Skeptic," conducted with Matt Thornton, a mixed martial artist and coach from Portland, Oregon -- just a short ways up I-5 from Salem, the much less cool city where I live. You can listen to it here. Great stuff. I've been involved with martial arts for almost twenty…
2