I spy with my little eye an 'I'

From the SJGames forum.

I would continue to assert that language structure still affects thought, at least in terms of patterns of reasoning. Furthermore, there are certain assumptions inherent in language that prefigure modes of philisophical speculation and discourse. Indeed, much of academic philosophy these days is an attempt to move philosophy beyond the strictures imposed by language, or to open up language so that it can better serve the needs of philosphy.

One of the more basic problems is that language is capable of formulating questions that can't be answered by philosophy, science, or art. Mostly because the language makes assumptions that aren't necesarilly logically required. "Who made the sky?" is a well formed utterance in English, but humans have spent 6,000+ years chasing the answer, mostly without asking themselves if it makes any logical sense.

Most Indo-European languages assume that every verb has an explicit or implied subject; that every action has something that performs that action. But that's not necessarily the case in 'objective reality', at least it's hard to prove that is the case. Does 'making' require a 'maker'? And if not, then what happens to poor DesCartes when 'thinking' (or 'doubting' to be more accurate) doesn't require a 'thinker' or a 'doubter'?

Neitzsche has gone on at some lengths on this topic, of course.

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Buddha and Nietzsche, Isiah and Christ

"If the Christian Hell does in fact exist, then it is the duty of every compassionate Buddhist to become damned there, so as to do what he can to comfort the souls therin."
-attributed in some similar form to T.M. Suzuki

"If you feel this is the way for you / if you here this kind of call / if you feel you're really meant for this / if you find love / here's what you have to do / become indifferent / lock yourself out."
- Jean-Luc Demarco

Here's the funny thing about the teachings of Prince Guatama Siddhartha, sometimes known as the first Buddha: what he preaches is not a religion. The Four Noble Truths are statements about human psychology, independent of faith. They don't require one to believe, and will go on being true or false whether one chooses to believe or not. "Suffering exists. Suffering exists because of our attachment to the things of the world. Relief from suffering comes through detachment from the world. Detachment from the world happens by walking the Eight-fold path." Four simple statements. They don't ask you to believe; if you wish you may disbelieve them and see how far that gets you.

Beware attachment to the world, for the world of the senses is mere illusion. Mere illusion? The map is not the landscape, yes, we've been over this a hundred times. But if illusion is all that we have, with nothing but intuition (the intuition of Merlin, Dee, and Crowley perhaps?) to reach beyond the mere illusion, then doesn't the merest illusion become reality? We may believe that we do nothing, that the bottle is an illusion and does not exist, but there's that goose, still stuck. It seems that the merest illusion is illusion enough. Neitzsche asks that we embrace illusion, that we embrace the suffering that is the lot of we, an purely illusory people. To love the bottle and all it brings - terror and beauty, suffering and pride. The truth of illusion, or an illusory truth?
......

It's a funny thing, though. This detached compassion of the Buddha. A friend once created a board game representing the Buddhist cosmos. The goal was to advance through each stage to reach Nirvana in the center. Once you'd reached enlightment, and achieved the Bodhisatva, one could freely give the pips on one's dice to the other unenlightened players, in order that all may achieve enlightenment. No one may win the game until everyone does. But the last thing you want to do is care too much - there's a universe at stake here.

This will to help relieve the suffering of others, without becoming emotionally involved. "Teach us to care and not to care..." So very Christlike and so very unChristian. Christ - or Paul and John, at least - invoke us to do good works upon this Earth in order to ensure "storing up treasures in Heaven". Sounds good, right?
Do the right thing, and God will reward you with eternal life (TM) - accept no imitations! But is that really moral behavior? Or is this just behaving correctly, in the hopes that future happiness will be one's reward? Is that really the pinnacle of ethical thinking? Do good and get free stuff?

Isiah and his contemporaries once preached "Give unto the neighbor and the orphan and the widow and the stranger, for remember, you were strangers in Egypt." Not, "and God will reward you, and your children, and your children's children." "...for remember, you were strangers in Egypt." Do the right thing. Why? Because it's the right thing to do. It's so blindingly obvious, it's a logical tautology. But isn't this the emergence of actual, honest, ethical thinking? "Be excellent to one another, and party on dudes." Not, "Be excellent to one another, because then you'll be able to party on."? Nope. Just "Do x and y."

Neitzsche said that "God is dead". No rewards for you, little kiddies.

What's left for us, then?

Detachment leads to the end of suffering?

Do well by others, because in some way, we're all strangers here?

"We are on our way to being gods." - Jean-Luc Demarco

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The Third Scientific Revolution

The first scientific revolution, forged and championed by such luminaries as Francis Bacon, Galileo Galilei and others. The first scientific revolution emphasised the gathering of and reliance upon empirical evidence. Observations would be quantified, measured, isolated, and repeated. The first scientific revolution bequeathed to the world the first scientific method: observe a phenomenon, identify independent and dependent variables, create an experiment, alter the independent variable(s) and observe any changes to the dependent variables, draw causal conclusions. Repeat and expand as necessary to form and confirm a theory.

The second scientific revolution, begun in the social and life sciences: statistical analysis. When a phenomenon becomes impossible to recreate in a controlled, laboratory environment, the investigator may instead choose to observe the phenomenon repeatedly in an outside environment. Data are collected, tabulated, and analysed as a statistical universe. Correlations are noted and causal conclusions are drawn. Studies are repeated and expanded to form and confirm theories.

The third scientific revolution, made possible by microcomputing: scientific modelling. A set of conditions regarding a phenomena are observed. Those data are used to formulate a set of initial conditions in an abstract, computational model. The model is allowed to operate, and consequent conditions of the model are derived. Those consequent conditions are checked against observed consequent conditions of the phenomenon being modeled. If the modeled consequential conditions closely match the observed consequential conditions, then the operations of the model serve as the basis for drawing causal conclusions and the formulation of theories.

Ruminations on the Silver Key

"I dreamed last night that I was a butterfly. Or am I a butterfly dreaming I am a man?"

"No, you just log on regularly to ButterfliesOnline.Com"

First off, The Silver Key.

Hinduism, Platonism, certain modes of Buddhism, Hare Krishnaism, Gnosticism, and The Matrix all suggest that the world we experience via our senses is not the real one. They suggest that beyond the veil of what we see, hear, taste, touch, and smell is a wholly different plane of reality. DesCartes postulated the possibility of the existence of a demon whose purpose it is to decive us as to the nature of reality. Further, most assert that this other reality is somehow fundamentally different. It is more real, or more important. Only an enlightened or illuminated few are able to perceive this world; lesser lights may feel there is something more to reality than they are able to know. But the goal of these philosophies is to attempt to break through and find out what one can about this true reality.

The theory of hyperreality also posits that the world we live in exists somewhere between the real and the virtually real. Disney serves up reality that is more real than the real thing. Joe Dowling wants fake red cabbages that look more like red cabbages than actual, real red cabbages. The milk in the pictures on the front of cereal boxes is Elmer's glue and water; it looks more like milk than milk. The symbol representing a thing is more real than the real thing [much more on this later].

Meanwhile, it has become fashionable in certain circles to decry "virtual world" web experiences and those who use them. Whether it's World of Warcraft, Second Life, or the world wide web as a whole, the recurring cry is "get a life!" Granted, this level of virtual reality is not total - although immersive, there is no way at present of mistaking WoW for sensory input in the real world. One biological body sends out signals to the mind: hunger, thirst, fatigue. Although there are those few persons who - considered psychologically unbalanced by many - confuse the importance of the two planes of exisistence, life goes on, at becomes easy to sense which is the more fundamental mode. Death is trivial in WoW, it is not in the human existence.

What puzzles me, then, is why choose? What makes some planes of reality more "real" than others? Why are some modes superior to others, and why choose? If we as a species accomplish a jump to a true virtual reality (or a multiverse of virtual realities), does that represent an expansion of ourselves, or a diminishment? Is enlightenment just a realization that all reality is virtual?