Fallacies of modern thinking

[Christian B]

I am sorry to be so direct, but I am not sure that we as a human race have much time for anything other than strait talk. The main causes of immense troubles which have been present in humanity for the times immemorial are two basic fallacies of human thought. A great Buddhist and Yogi Milarepa (1052–1135) explicitly points them out:

-   belief in the Reality of what is only phenomenal
-   belief in the existence of the Ego

If one studies Buddhism, Veda and Upanishads, Zen, Taoism and even Christ’s teachings one can see a common theme which deals precisely with the fallacies mentioned above. Yet after thousands of years of being in contact with these teachings, humanity seems to fall even deeper into these two fallacies, due to the insanity of material greed.

The irony is that there are intellectuals who are trying to solve the big problem by contemplating “new paradigms”, yet because these “new” paradigms are based on the same basic fallacies they are just as absurd and mechanical as the one which rules the world at present.

The prevailing paradigm today is Darwinian-Newtonian-Capitalism. It is crucial to realise that Capitalism is not just an economic system – it is a theory of reality, a metaphysics, a religion. Sadly, people today derive something they call “life” from the context of Capitalism. The two most important principles of Capitalism are: property and ego-interest, both in direct opposition with the Spiritual Truth that property is transitory therefore illusory and that human Ego, which is selfishly seeking its own self-aggrandisement, does not have any reality as such, for only the Self which is ever-flowing and beyond form is real.

No well-meaning intellectuals, no science, no philosophy, no technology can save this world from its impeding doom unless these two fallacies are overcome. The Universe was never meant to be entirely explainable, at least not in terms of the linear mind, for “The Tao that can be expressed is not Everlasting Tao” - Tao Teh King. The Tao therefore cannot be controlled - not by mighty Pentagon, not by religious fundamentalists, not even by global market forces. Life is about living spontaneously with the Tao.

Great Yogi Tilopa said:

Neither giving nor taking
Neither for nor against
Leave your mind at rest
With perceptions remain unconcerned
The great Way is a mind open to everything
Which clings to nothing
Which fixates nowhere
Radiant and stainless
Rest in the unmoved, uncreated and spontaneous
And you will soon reach Buddhahood.

[Dancer]

[CB]
I am sorry to be so direct, but I am not sure that we as a human race have much time for anything other than strait talk. The main causes of immense troubles which have been present in humanity for the times immemorial are two basic fallacies of human thought. A great Buddhist and Yogi Milarepa (1052–1135) explicitly points them out:

- belief in the Reality of what is only phenomenal
- belief in the existence of the Ego

[Gordon] I go with that, however other world views have similar presets, in that they believe that there philosophy also contains the whole.What we must do is question all world view, however there has been over the past 2000 years an asymmetry in thought, in that the west has always implicitly question the eastern?

[CB]
If one studies Buddhism, Veda and Upanishads, Zen, Taoism and even Christ’s teachings one can see a common theme which deals precisely with the fallacies mentioned above. Yet after thousands of years of being in contact with these teachings, humanity seems to fall even deeper into these two fallacies, due to the insanity of material greed.

[Gordon]
Well like with the chruch and the teaching of Jesus acutally differ allot from the Church state that once ruled like Capitalism does now and tell everyone not to question, however most people where unaware that they wherr living within a certian world view, therfore they where eaiser to control.

[CB]
The irony is that there are intellectuals who are trying to solve the big problem by contemplating “new paradigms”, yet because these “new” paradigms are based on the same basic fallacies they are just as absurd and mechanical as the one which rules the world at present.

[Gordon]
I totally agree, however you 'seem' to imply in your statement that your (or our) position is superior in some way and that can be just as dangerous, (if that is the position you take) as we may end up mirroring the very system we oppose?


The prevailing paradigm today is Darwinian-Newtonian-Capitalism. It is crucial to realise that Capitalism is not just an economic system – it is a theory of reality, a metaphysics, a religion. Sadly, people today derive something they call “life” from the context of Capitalism. The two most important principles of Capitalism are: property and ego-interest, both in direct opposition with the Spiritual Truth that property is transitory therefore illusory and that human Ego, which is selfishly seeking its own self-aggrandisement, does not have any reality as such, for only the Self which is ever-flowing and beyond form is real.

[Gordon]
Well Executives or corperate directors who have heard a little Darwin jump on it with acutally understand it or nature in general. One thing that comes from this is that a lot of small gentle creatures survive alot longer than most larger physically tougher beasts. Also that nature applies many master plans instead of single one and is bundent with redundency. All of which would make any Corporate (who down size and follow strick rules) cringe!

[CB]
No well-meaning intellectuals, no science, no philosophy, no technology can save this world from its impeding doom unless these two fallacies are overcome.

[Gordon] Ah this is where you too I bleieve are making the same mistake in that you state worlds impeding doom and fail to seperate the world view from the world in it self. Even if the human life is gone the world is still there and may or may not give life again. However as for the statement well I don't think it all doom and gloom yet?

[CB]
The Universe was never meant to be entirely explainable,

[Gordon] Well that sounds little like the Captialism or religous, position that of don't question this WE KNOW ALREADY or it's beyond our questioning just deal with little things. Now if you had said that perhaps that is a limit to our explaination then I would go with that.


Saying all that I agree but what do you do about it, that's not a cop-out but a question?

Kindest regards
Gordon.

[Dancer]

[CB]
The prevailing paradigm today is Darwinian-Newtonian-Capitalism. It is crucial to realise that Capitalism is not just an economic system – it is a theory of reality, a metaphysics, a religion. Sadly, people today derive something they call “life” from the context of Capitalism. The two most important principles of Capitalism are: property and ego-interest, both in direct opposition with the Spiritual Truth that property is transitory therefore illusory and that human Ego, which is selfishly seeking its own self-aggrandisement, does not have any reality as such, for only the Self which is ever-flowing and beyond form is real.

[Gordon]
Well Executives or corperate directors who have heard a little Darwin jump on it with acutally understand it or nature in general. One thing that comes from this is that a lot of small gentle creatures survive alot longer than most larger physically tougher beasts. Also that nature applies many master plans instead of single one and is bundent with redundency. All of which would make any Corporate (who down size and follow strick rules) cringe!

SORRY I MEANT TO SAY WITHOUT UNDERSTANDING!

Gordon.

[emile]

christian, after reading your initial note, a number of thoughts came to mind, and then i saw that gordon had responded on almost all of them as i would also have done.

so, we all agree on the damage being done, but 'what to do' about it?

re-emphasizing that the spirit of the world is not the matter of the world, and it is the matter of the world that is being threatened 'with impending doom' as you put it, ... my feeling is that our response must be supportive rather than preventative, as with someone going through a psychotic episode, ... a natural healing process. those going through the psychotic healing process must not be tackled midstream and treated like madmen. they must be given the supportive space to make their passage while we all, at the same time, protect the innocent and sustain the community harmony as best we can.

this is pretty difficult to do, ... but if we do not believe that someone's thinking makes sense, ... then how can we treat them as 'responsible' people with balanced reasoning powers, which is what getting angry and going to battle AGAINST them would imply? we can go to battle to do what is necessary to sustain community harmony, but that does not have to be directed AGAINST anyone and it is part of the task of sustaining a safe and supportive space for those of us navigating the psychosis/healing passage.

one thing i think we must change is that we cannot continue to fund and empower the enterprises of those undergoing psychotic passages. just as we would not leave knives and guns lying around for those experiencing unstable mood swings, we must withdraw our financial support where it is putting economic weaponry in the hands of those undergoing psychotic passages. the example of www.buyblue.org is in no way perfect, but it gives a 'template geometry' as to how we might be able to defer from our 'blindly fuelling the fires' of psychosis during the psychotic/healing interim.

this 'gating of support' was more easily achieved in the era of naturally evolved community and barter, ... but it is not impossible today and it is just one measure akin to letting the alcoholic make his decision as to whether to drink or not, ... but not buying his drinks for him.

[Christian B]

[Gordon]
What we must do is question all world view, however there has been over the past 2000 years an asymmetry in thought, in that the west has always implicitly question the eastern?

[Christian]
There is no need to divide West and East for this reason. Taoism, Zen, Advaita, Buddhism is only a “world view” for somebody who is not doing it well, or does not know what it is. In the West there are similar schools or mystical traditions but they were never accepted on such a great scale as in the east - Meister Eckhart was one such mystic, but Jesus was also quite clear about our relationship towards ourselves and the world. Jesus did not preach any theory of reality, he was teaching morality or art of living.

Taoism, Zen, Advaita, Buddhism and true Christianity is not a “world-view”, it is a cessation of the world-view. This is because any world-view is a thought and in the light of spiritual realisation has to be ultimately transcended:

‘Imagination in any form destroys truth’ - Krishnamurti (The Only Revolution, p.114)

So how can the West be critical of Eastern world-view then? Taoism, Zen, Advaita, Buddhism is not a theory to be gloatingly analysed by academics and post-modern self-absorbed intellectuals, it is an art and it is only understood when practiced and experienced. There are higher things than human intellect. So it is this identification with the linear mind that fuels the Darwinian-Capitalist paradigm, for the mind separates and divides, seeing the world as a threat to its isolationist therefore miserable existence. Hence no wonder that we try to escape this misery by acquisition of goods and pleasures, but isn’t obvious that this solution does not really work except temporarily?

The purpose of a world-view can be only practical, no world-view should be elevated into godhood as science is doing it (e.g. gravity, superstrings etc). And some “New Age” intellectuals are joining the party and elevating Quantum Physics, “Zero-point Field” and so forth into grand know-it-all theories, and by doing so mechanising and therefore killing the essential part of spirituality which is artistic and organic in nature. Such type of intellectualism is a continuation of materialism or Darwinian-Capitalist way of life where we acquire toys, just that in this case the toys are entertaining mental constructs, which of course would not be entirely bad if they would be transmuted by the appropriate spiritual detachment.

[Gordon]
“you 'seem' to imply in your statement that your (or our) position is superior in some way and that can be just as dangerous, (if that is the position you take) as we may end up mirroring the very system we oppose?”

[Christian]
Yes my position is superior in the way that I know very well what I am talking and that I have courage to criticise the darkness of ignorance which the modern world so readily embraces. It would be even more dangerous if I would not say anything about it.

[Gordon]
… I believe are making the same mistake in that you state worlds impeding doom …

[Christian]
My statement about the impeding doom was not of religious or prophetic character, but of the cause and effect inevitability, hence was scientific in nature. Simply, if the trends continue as they are, humanity will face its own destruction.

[CB] The Universe was never meant to be entirely explainable,…
[Gordon] Well that sounds little like the Capitalism or religious, position that of don't question this WE KNOW ALREADY or it's beyond our questioning just deal with little things. Now if you had said that perhaps that is a limit to our explanation then I would go with that.

[Christian]
The Universe is not a toy or a machine to be explained. Can you explain what is a human being?

[Christian B]

Emile, a natural healing process can only take place when somebody asks for healing. Before that, man has to realise that he is doing something wrong, and that he is not as healthy as he can and should be.

Sick people require healing, yet there is here an important ‘but’. It is about the Free Will. When somebody is doing something out of his/her own free will then he/she is not sick and unaccountable, but rather responsible for the actions undertaken. Hence one has to face one’s own responsibility.

Spirituality, as life itself, cannot be just about healing and psychotherapy, it is also about responsibility, moral code and obedience to the intuitively acknowledged moral principles. Putting the moral principles into practice without hesitation is called discipline.

[Dancer]

[Christian]
Yes my position is superior in the way that I know very well what I am talking and that I have courage to criticise the darkness of ignorance which the modern world so readily embraces. It would be even more dangerous if I would not say anything about it.

[Gordon]
That was really what I meant, what perhaps we must do first is to seperate the id of the Problem from the id of the Solution?

Firstly I totally agree that we should all be free to make critcal comments, and even try and find a common pool in order to perhaps change this or that world view. The problem I have is that when people have not so much a belief in a world view as a quest to impose one regardless of the out come.It's to mechanisitc!

In other words they have an aboslute conviction that can not be argued rationally because it is unshakable position, this is where dialogue can break down, even when it is in good faith. Just have to look at the Left social movment in the UK, they have possible solutions and a different world view which has not come into being, mainly becuase the media are fearfull of discussing such matters in public domian. However the left themselves believed in such an absolute way that they end up ineffective and broke down in to smaller inward looking groups. Good thing is that now some are finding there way but in order to do so they had to find links with other world views that although may not agree with everything they say, they found common groud in that they all reject the present so-called global Capital world view.


[Christian]
My statement about the impeding doom was not of religious or prophetic character, but of the cause and effect inevitability, hence was scientific in nature. Simply, if the trends continue as they are, humanity will face its own destruction.

[Gordon]
Well here too we must seperate the Mechanical from the Organic, in that firstly you are correct that the former is within the Human context of it's effects. However whether Nature follows this or the latter remains an open question?

What we must see is the question at hand millions in poverty, debt
and hunger, massive environmental shifts..........wars for profit, explotation of the massive etc.....Govt assisting Corperations in there own down fall from democracy. Now it could be that your approach is a possible solution, however it may be that it's only part of something larger that we have not explored yet, who knows?

It's not your philosophy that worrys me or your comments about the problems, it's your position that give me concern. Becuase some good men and women can believe something so much that they can loose sight of the very thing that guildes them?


[Christian]
The Universe is not a toy or a machine to be explained. Can you explain what is a human being?

[Gordon]
I agree that's what I was getting at, however you still seem to imply that you can, in that your philosophy is superior in that it already has absolute knowlegde?

Where I disagree is that we can not predict what we will discover in years from now, or what other life may discover, or what may happen to reality it self, or even what it is?

Gordon.

[Dancer]

Sorry my first line was meant to say that 'wasn't what I meant'.

But then nobodies perfect

Gordon.

[emile]

christian, your comments on healing, freewill, responsibility, moral principles and discipline are all from the vantage point that the world is composed of independent individuals that act in-their-own-right.

only by imposing euclidian space framing on one's mental model does one get this view of 'independent individuals acting in-their-own-right'.

the dynamics of a collective that wrap over and around the sphere of the earth cannot be interpreted in the simple terms that individuals are independent and act in-their-own-right. everyone is included in the continuing, simultaneously-mutually- influencing dynamic of the space of now, ... and therefore moral principles applicable at the level of the individual's actions don't make sense.

dynamics on the earth are relative as in the wrapping-around-the-sphere situation and thus two-sided at the same time; i.e. the dynamical geometry of the collective accommodates the assertive intrusion of its own elements (the indigenous 'web-of-life'). there is no getting around the fact that dynamics in the spherical space of relativity must be seen in terms of transforming geometry of space (accommodative and assertive at the same time), and thus morality cannot be applied to individual behaviour since there is no such thing as individual behaviour.

of course we can impose the abstract over-simplified notion of individual behaviour by imposing our own euclidian space-framing on the dynamical situation, but that will give us a false impression of how the dynamic is evolving since in reality, every assertive movement is relative to the accommodation of the dynamical configuration that includes the assertor. everything is relative to everything else on the surface of a sphere and thus the dynamical geometry of space in the continuing present is where one must look for answers on individual and collective behaviour.

manipulation of accommodation (opening up space-to-assert for cronies and closing it down for dispreferred others) is the way things really happen, rather than by individual cause-and-effect actions (an over-simplified view that assumes the absolute in-its-own-right action of each participant).

'healing' is something that the whole system must undergo, and that is what i am referring to. nature remains one thing and thus healing is going on all the time and the 'nuttiness' of our current era can be seen in terms of 'healing' (the self-organizing quest for inner-outer dynamical balance).

there is no need to assume that individuals or even perhaps the species of man will escape being recycled in the healing process, but the odds are better if man 'backs off' his control based reflex to actively 'resist' the healing. such resistance, an attempt to restore the system to an insane 'normality' at the earliest possible date, is an attempt to suppress natural healing. one does not give in those who go into psychosis-as-healing, ... one simply gives one another safe-space and support without the tools to do damage to oneself or others.

[Dancer]

I (in the abstract sense of the letter) must partly agree with what 'emile' has said in that we may or may not have free will but we are not free to choose the content of that will.

However lanaguage aside we are part and parcel of the very problem that 'Christian Bodhi 'highlights, it comes when we regard ourselves as superior is some way similar (or seperate from our world view, reality or environment) to those we critize, a kind double standard if you will.

Infact through this debate we are feeling out (perhaps some what implicitly) both what the real problems actually is aside from the surface conditions, and what possible solution there are, if indeed any are needed-would anyone agree?

Gordon.

[Christian B]

To Emile,

It is no way that "dynamics in the spherical space of relativity must be seen in terms of transforming geometry of space (accommodative and assertive at the same time)", as you put it, logically leads to a conclusion that "there is no such thing as individual behaviour."

I am not saying that one is ever solely responsible for one's own actions - there is a degree of responsibility. So I am responsible for that part of an action that is the result of my free will - in fact without having this responsibility I would not be free at all, for what would my freedom be if I would have no power to choose and face the consequences of my actions whether good or bad? “euclidian space framing” has nothing intrinsically to do with free will and morality, it is only a mental model sometimes applicable to the problem at hand, sometimes not.

I hope you are not going from one extreme to another? From unnaturally individualistic culture of modern Capitalism (yet ironically at the same time a total collectivism) to a statement that there is no individual behaviour? This would be very philosophically unsound, which can be easily proven by simple question: how do you know that you exist? If you do know that you exist than you do have individuality. The spiritual traditions do not question the existence of individuality or the Self, they question the reality of personality (i.e. the big little me)

The fact is that there is a polarity in the universe between part and the whole and that the reality cannot be reduced to any side of this polarity. The point here is how to deal with this polarity, so that polarity is not perceived as dichotomy: me vs. whole, which reflects in modern Capitalism as: “big personality” wants to acquire the whole Universe.

[Christian B]

To Gordon

“I agree that's what I was getting at, however you still seem to imply that you can, in that your philosophy is superior in that it already has absolute knowledge?”

I don’t understand what is your obsession with the “superior”. Where did I imply to have absolute knowledge?

[Dancer]

Christian B

This is the problem with communication, which is a problem from all sides not just one. Within all our languages we carry with us many hidden assumptions, however in this case you have hinted at one such assumption, that you don't seem to take too much attention to which may or may not be a block to futher insight, into others or perhaps into their failer to understand you position?

This is similar to the assumption made within the captialist world view as well (which you have pointed out)...however if we find a new way of expression without this superiorness perhaps you (or I) can express your view more openly.

As for absoluate knowlegde your statement from a generic piont of view appears that yours hold a form of absolute knowledge, within this notion of the superior!

My hang up if you like to refer to it as, is not the content of your philosophy but merely the hidden assumptions we all carry in one form or another.

In fact you have prove this by indirectly pointing too my own!

Cheers
Gordon.

[emile]

to christian b.

re: there is no such thing as 'individual behaviour'.

heraclitus and relativity suggest that 'everything is in flux' and therefore that we are included in that flux.

we can model this in our minds in terms of a hurricane in the atmosphere or a whorl that nests within a fluid dynamic. this implies 'inclusion' wherein space is dynamical and we are a flow-feature within dynamical space.

our distinctness and individuality, in this way of looking at ourselves comes from our inner-outer flow-dynamics which are characterized by a coherency-based center-of-self.

thus, like the hurricane or the whorl, we can visualize ourselves as distinct, and unique (by virtue of our unique situation within the geometro-dynamics of space) and this is sufficient to give us the sense of being an 'individual', ... but to say that 'the hurricane moves' or 'the whorl moves' (to imply that there is such a thing as 'individual behaviour') is not consistent with the model where the individual is a coherent flow-feature within the flow. we can say only that 'space transforms' and that 'we as individuals participate in the transformation of space'.

our 'free will', then, deals with the manner in which we participate in the transformation of the dynamical space of the continuing present. we cannot be the authors of actions in-our-own-right (this is absolute motion that relativity does not allow). since we cannot speak of actions of our own (i.e. since we can only speak of our participation in the transformation of the dynamical space of the continuing present aka 'spacetime continuum'), we cannot speak of the morality of 'our actions'. we have to speak of the morality associated with the manner in which we participate in transforming the dynamical space of the continuing present.

the absoluteness of motion that associates with the notion of 'individual behaviour' and therefore with 'our individual morality' associated with individual behaviour originates only with the implicit imposing of euclidian space framing on our notion of 'self'. this framing is something that is so automatic in our culture that we no longer think of it or question its influence on our thinking. this simplifying convention of 'absolutizing' individual behaviour, is the source of great confusion and dissonance, in my view. it is also at the core of the split between western and native american spiritual traditions.

[Dancer]

Perhaps I should explain where I am coming from a little.

Firstly I see little difference between the absolute postivitist view (which is found in most skeptics of certain belief systems) and that of the absolute metaphysics view (found in most Belief systems). This may or may not surprise you.

The reason I find them the same is that the moment one forms an idea of a thing and susccessfully catchs one of it's aspects, one invariabley succumbs to the illsion of having caught the whole. This can if unchecked lead to self deception, into an absolute belief and a circle reasoning can develops from this so-called self contained world view.

This is true of both the cold hard skeptic & the slack jawed believers they are infact looking into a mirror, if some what indirectly.

We all fall into this trap to some degree, however the only way out is to see that we too have limits and that the Totaility may be open ended?

Gordon.