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Article 4556 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: brian@norton.com (Brian Yoder)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: mean,meaner,MEANING-est/ intention-and-self the buddhist way
Message-ID: <1992Mar17.100228.3488@norton.com>
Date: 17 Mar 92 10:02:28 GMT
References: <1992Mar13.052208.23117@massey.ac.nz>
Organization: Symantec / Peter Norton
Lines: 250

In article <1992Mar13.052208.23117@massey.ac.nz>  writes:
> In article <1992Mar12.031053.15904@norton.com> brian@norton.com (Brian Yoder) writes:

> >What's so bad about wanting to know how the mind works?  Buddhism seems to 
> >be at least as interested in the subject (in it's own wany) as any 
> >other approach (like science for example), but it just chooses some simple
> >default positions and stops asking questions.  Do you defend the buddhist

> There is nothing wrong  about wanting to   know  how the  mind  works.   But
> according to the Buddha, that is something that a philosopher must be after,
> not a pragmatist.   

I wouldn't exactly call Buddha a "pragmatist" (in the John Dewey sense) ;-) but
he was equally mistaken on a number of philosophical issues.  I don't
accept the dichotomy you have implied between "philosophy" and "pragmatism" (or
perhaps more accurately, and orientation to reality and real problems).  Even
real world problem solvers need a philosophy, even if it's "Who cares about
all that malarkey, I'll just do what seems right.".

> That is like   saying, "Here is  a  prescription to feel
> happy; it is  extremely  portable regardless  of the    underlying Operating
> System.  It  shows that whatever the  manner  in which  the mind works, this
> prescription  will apply effectively to  produce  happiness."  

Except that it DOESN'T produce happiness, and it is based on false premises that
if consistently applied would result in all kinds of ridiculous conclusions.  
Considering the method of thinking that went into the creation of buddhist
dogma, it is no surprise that so much nonsense and irrationality came out of it.

> Note that the
> Buddha was not opposed to people  wanting to seek solutions to philosophical
> problems,   he simply said that  it  was not  within   his domain  to answer
>uddhists suggest,

> Also,  his prescription for common man
> and everyday life does not preclude people from striving for their goals, or
> professional philosophers from seeking the nature of Reality.

How do you conclude that?  Hi prescriptions tell people exactly that.  They 
can just choose to ignore the dogma if and when they choose.  If for example,
the way to enlightenment is to blank out the mind, what method would you expect
a buddhist to follow when attempting to become enlightened with regard to 
computer design?  Concentration and rigorous rationality?  
 
> >But one DOES need to know what a watch is, what time is, and have some reason 
> >to care what time it is.  It is possible to talk about certain subjects
> >without having a perfect understanding of them.  It makes no sense to have
> >a discussion about any subject without any philosphical foundations.  It is
> >literally impossible to do so.

> Yes.  You are quite right.   That is precisely what the  Buddha  taught.  He
> taught how to  tell the time, but not  how  to construct  a watch.  Buddhist
> philosophy is concerned with what happiness  is and what  causes it, but not
> with what the structure of the mind that feels happy is.

But he certainly DID claim to know what a happy mental state is like...it is 
a mindless state of perfect emptiness.  I have discussed this with buddhists who
claimed that the ultimate in mental perfection is a newborn baby with no ideas
to cloud it's mind.  No desires, no worries, no cares...just a void.  

I would like to ask again, how it was detcer), one's own will (Schopenhauer 
& Nietzsche), one's life (Rand), the good (Plato), whatever you feel like 
(Leary), political power (Nixon), the Fatherland (Hitler), or a happy life 
(Aristotle).  Is your position that these are arbitrary choices?  That one
is right and the others are not?  Or what?  How do you know?  By reason?
By whim?  By intuition?  By vote?

> I pursue  values solely  because they   cause happiness in  me.  I  live for
> happiness and try my  best not  to do something  that  is bound to  cause me
> sadness.  I like the feeling of happiness and feel that it is the motivating
> factor behind  all actions.  Happiness is of  primary importance in my life.
> Even when I help others,  or donate to  charitable institutions, I do so not
> because of my values, but because it makes me happy to do so.

That's contradictory.  Based on your statements, happiness is your highest value.
Whatever it is that you pursue or act to maintain is by definition a "value".
 
> We now come to the consequential part:
 
> >striving point of view...that to be happy was not to achieve one's goals,
> >but rather to give up the idea that one ought to have any goals in the
> >first place.  Do you deny that this is the essence of this doctrine?
 
> No, I don't deny that this  is  the essence of  this doctrine.  I agree with
> you totally on that.  In fact,  there are  many self-styled buddhists around
> who may not agree with this.

At least we agree on that much.  An additional problem not addressed by buddhism
is that of what one's goals ought to be (aside from the goal of not wanting to 
achieve anything).  This is not surprising given their method, but if you sort of
tried to "fix" buddhism by saying that the achievement of goals is what produces 
happiness one immediately runs into the question "Do all goals equally generate 
happiness?" and of not, " What goals should I choose?" and "How should I choose
them?".  I can't fault buddhism too much for not addressing these questions since
they never come up given their anti-value approach, but it shows the size of the 
gulf between the buddhist "answers" and the questions people really need to have
answers to in order to live.

> >That is why buddhists so prize the zombie-like state of non-thinking 
> >meditation.  I say such a state is not happiness, it is mindlessness.

> You mean Zen?  

No, as you point out Zen is particularly bad in this respect, but all buddhism
values the mental void as a goal.

> Only Zen Buddhism  advocates non-thinking meditation although
> all of Buddhism agrees that  a non-thinking state  is  the  happy state.  In
> Mahayana, even though the  conclusion is the  same  as in Zen, i.e,  a blank
> mind  = Nirvana = Happiness,  an attempt is not to  be made in daily life to
> achieve this state.   

In other words, they are semi-buddhists who have concluded that by restricting 
the application to buddhism to only part of their lives, they can achieve more
happiness.  That's a correct conclusion (and one that is applied by most 
christians as well I might add), but they don't draw the final conclusion that 
the most happiness is to be gained by abandoning buddhism completely.

> The  conclusion  is  to  live  as pleasant a   life as
> possible, in  whatever profession one  may be   engaged, without harboring a
> fear of  death in any way, because  death  is not going  to rob one   of his
> happiness.
 
This relies on the conclusion that "the dead are happy".  This conclusion is 
an irrational one.

> >And how can one be "happy" by giving up on wanting anything?  It seems to me
> >that this is just a retreat from taking any chances or having the potential
> >for any loss.
 
> Now we are talking business.  Happiness actually happens to  be the state of
> non-thinking: This is  shocking indeed.  

Shocking that anyone buys the idea.  It's transparently false.  It's just as
silly as Schopenhauer's assertion that the only thing we can possibly percieve
is pain, disappointment, disgust, and humiliation.  Both suffer from the same
root mistake...a misunderstanding of the meaning of values, purpose, and 
happiness.  All of which are assumed and not proven to be what they claimed.

> It  was  shocking the first time  I
> heard it.  But  after  reading the justification the  Buddha offers for this
> matter, it seems to me that there is an awful lot of sense in  what he said.
> Of course, if someone said  to me straight  off that happiness was the state
> of blankness, I would be inclined to disagree with him.  But please read the
> Buddha's own reason's, (Yes, Reasons!) for why he said so.  I think it  is a
> pretty convincing argument.   Sometimes the  most  obvious things are  those
> that appear utterly incredible.
 
You claim that it "is a pretty convincing argument", but do you believe it?  
Do you believe Schopenhauer's arguments along the same lines?  How does he
justify his starting point?  I have heard a number of buddhist arguments
for their position on this.  Could you point out the specific one you are
referring to?

> >A blank mind is NOT a happy mind.

> Of course, you don't have to agree with this.  You can hold another point of
> view, but before flinging invectives upon a proposition that took the Buddha
> forty nine days to arrive upon, I would spend  atleast that much time trying
> to see what it was the Buddha said; what it is that makes  it look as though
> happiness is the opposite of sadness, when in reality, it  happens to be the
> natural state of the human mind.

And how does he conclude this?  If happiness is the "natural state of the mind"
then why do I find myself more happy when I have reached a mountain peak than 
while I am climbing?  Why am I more happy when I have finished writing an
article than before I have?  Why am I more happy when I have finished writing 
some software than before I start?  Why am I more happy when I eat a 
hamburder than before I do?  The answer is the same...happiness arises out of
the achievement of values.  When I am mindless (say, near sleep) I am not 
happy, I am unthinking and unfeeling, neither happy nor unhappy.

Another criticism is that the "natural" state of the human mind if not that of
staring mindlessly into a void.  It is much more "natural" for human beings
to be pursuing values.  That's why a buddhist has to train himself to desire 
nothing and to stare into space without thinking, rather than having it be
a natural state everyone experiences without trying.
 
> It is possible that  while a whole sequence  of statements  that follow from
> each  other look perfectly  logical the  conclusion can  appear to  be madly
> incoherent.  

So there can be subtle errors.  What's your point?

By the way, it would appear from your way of putting this, that you believe in
the coherence theory of truth.  Is that true?

> In that case,  the usual procedure is  to accept the conclusion
> as true  because  the steps that led   to it  were sound.  In   sci.math for
> example, I recently noticed the thread about our school-time propostion that
> x.999999..... =  x+1.  However  much the  steps  used  in the  argument  are
> justified, the conclusion still appears to  confound us - something that the
> mind just  has to  "get used to"  as  John  Von Neumann  is supposed to have
> advised Albert Einstein.
 
One of the problems with this kind of argument is that it neglects to remember
the relationship between mathematics and reality.  Just because you can construct
a mathematical concept like 2.99999... or infinity doesn't mean that there is any
real referent for the concept.  Concepts of method like infinity or 2.99999... are
certainly useful for certain computations, they can't be said to have any direct 
referents, like "6" or "chair" do.

> The Buddha was not unaware that his shocking conclusion appeared absurd.  

Since it IS absurd, that's no surprise.

> It is precisely for this reason that he is supposed to have had second thoughts
> about making his conclusions public - they disagree with what `Common Sense'
> says, and most men are inextricably hooked into the `Common-sense Dilemma.'

It is not "common sense" that leads me to conclude that he was wrong.  It is the 
fact that his method was obviously flawed and his conclusions are clearly in
conflict with what I know to be the facts.

> As Einstein says, when common  sense disagrees with   Reason, it is  usually
> common sense that is wrong.  

Are you claiming that buddhism was established by means of a rational process?
Mr. Onstott claims that it's fundamentally irrational (and defends it on that 
basis) and I have a host of objections to buddha's "reasoning".  In this case,
both "common sense" and reason find buddhism lacking.

> `Common sense  is the collection of inhibitions
> that an person has by age 18.'  I am sorry  to  plagiarize your .sig, but it
> is very nice and I can  see a  variation of it  being very appropriate here.
> "When Common  Sense tells us that  a logical theory is  wrong,   then Common
> sense must be disposed of."  Otherwise  we  would never have known  that the
> speed of light is constant in any reference frame.

This is really not applicable here since buddhism relies on neither reason nor
on common sense as it's basis.
 
> Some say that  Buddhism is  the religion  of  Pessimism that says that  life
> itself  is one of  sadness  and suffering and our  existence here is plagued
> with  misery, the only  release from these being  death. 

Well, the fact that it claims that "going for the gusto" is futile and that 
sitting around not desiring anything is the epitome of a happy life, you
really can't conclude that buddhism advocates the idea that one can accomplish
anything good (using it's standard of good...that which brings happiness)
by doing anything or trying anything.  That's pretty pessimistic if you ask me.

--Brian


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