Philosophical musings on Quanta & Qualia;  Materialism & Spiritualism; Science & Religion; Pragmatism & Idealism, etc.

   Post 110.  September 06, 2020

  Why Buddhism is Enlightening

   Taking The Red Pill  

 Robert Wright has made a surprising admission for a self-described materialist, he sees circumstantial evidence in evolution for a teleological direction that most people have traditionally attributed to a superhuman “divinity”.  That term usually refers to supernatural beings, such as gods & angels. But in this case, I suspect that Wright meant something closer to the ancient Sanskrit word Deva, meaning “anything excellent” or “of superior merit”. He didn’t clarify his meaning, except to say, “that the kind of god that remains plausible . . . is not the kind of god that most religious believers currently have in mind”. So, I’m guessing that he had in mind something closer to the seemingly teleological evolutionary tendency-toward-Excellence (qualitative improvements over time) in organized matter, that Plato called “Logos”1: divine Reason. He seemed to view that power of objective thinking, which gave men control over the non-human environment, as the acme of reality. In the light of modern Science & Cosmology though, I would hesitate to label the current state of evolution, with homo sapiens at the top of the heap, as the pinnacle-of-Perfection. Instead, we seem to be in the middle of an ongoing upward process similar to Teilhard de Chardin’s “Omega Point”2.

Wright begins his analysis of Buddhist Mindfulness Meditation by reference to the modern meme of taking the “Red Pill”3, as illustrated in the movie The Matrix. The implication is that deluded humans have a choice to wake-up to harsh reality, and take charge of their own lives, or to remain in their illusory dream-state as slaves to outside forces. Paralleling, but not quoting, Don Hoffman’s icon metaphor4 of our typical worldview as a mental construct projected as a simple & schematic over-lay to obscure the underlying complex & messy details of Ultimate Reality — Robert Wright says : “It is the study of how the human brain was designed — by natural selection — to mislead us, even to enslave us”. By that, he seems to be referring to our primitive impulses, the Freudian “Id”, whose evolutionary function is to motivate us to stay alive, in a state of raw nature, long enough to procreate, but not necessarily to flourish in artificial man-made civilizations. It was his recognition of this conflict between Nature & Nurture, and our resultant suffering, that prompted the Buddha, and other sages, to develop methods for taking conscious control over our sub-conscious desires and feelings.

This book is not recommending conversion to one of the various Asian religions that evolved from the Buddha’s teachings. Instead, he sees secular Meditation as a viable technology for taking command of our lives, and for avoiding or alleviating the psychological suffering — mostly Freudian neuroses — that plague many people today. Wright sees a need for such ancient techniques, even in the light of the European Enlightenment, which was focused mainly on controlling the outer natural world, but not on mastering the personal demons within. A similar theory, but with different methods, is used by today’s Rational Emotive Behavioral therapists. In both methodologies, the point is to view your own inner motives rationally & objectively, rather than just allowing them to provoke behavior that might cause you to betray your own higher values, and the standards of society, to your own detriment.

                   Post 110 continued . . . click Next

Enlightenment
vs
Illumination

Nature vs Nurture
“Our brains are designed [by Natural Selection] “to, among other things, delude us. . . . If these basic sources of human suffering and human cruelty” [anxiety, despair, hatred] “are indeed in large part the product of delusion — there is value in exposing this delusion to the light.”       
___Robert Wright :
     on taking the Red Pill       

Objective vs Subjective
   Most animals in the world are limited to a single perspective on reality : a self-centered view of the environ-ment, which is colored by personal emotions & feelings & opinions. But humans have evolved the unique ability to stand outside themselves, and look back with a mind un-compromised by the puppet-strings of neuro-transmitters. From this perch, we can study ourselves dispassionately as scientific objects of interest.
   Ideally, this god’s-eye-view of the world is closer to the absolute Truth than our mere biased opinions. Unfortun-ately, this head-in-the-clouds approach to on-the-ground reality, is only appropriate for safe, non-threatening, laboratory or philosopher’s chair environments.

1. LOGOS :
   “A principle originating in classical Greek thought which refers to a universal divine reason, immanent in nature, yet transcending all oppositions and imperfections in the cosmos and humanity. An eternal and unchanging truth present from the time of creation, available to every individual who seeks it.”
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page14.html

2. Omega Point :
   “The Omega Point is the subject of a belief that everything in the universe is fated to spiral towards a final point of unification”
    ORIGINS http://bothandblog2.enformationism.info/page76.html
     PROGRESS http://bothandblog2.enformationism.info/page27.html
     TELEOLOGY http://bothandblog2.enformationism.info/page59.html
     DESTINATION
http://bothandblog2.enformationism.info/page61.html

3. Red Pill :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_pill_and_blue_pill   

4. Hidden Reality :
    "Do we see reality as it is?" explains how our perceptions have evolved to hide reality from us.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_D._Hoffman

Why Buddhism is True
The Science and Philosophy of Mediation and Enlightenment

Robert Wright
Journalist, Philosopher

“Buddhism’s diagnosis of the human predicament is fundamentally correct and that its prescription is deeply valid and urgently important”

You take the blue pill, the story ends. You wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. Remember, all I'm offering is the truth. Nothing more.
___Morpheus : The Matrix