On 10/23/2014 11:37 AM, curtisdeltabl...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] wrote:
>
That was a great read, thanks!
>
/It was intersting to see how Xeno tried to enable Barry, by leaving out
of the discussion all the interesting stuff Barry believes in - like
karma and reincarnation. //
//
//What happened - I thought you guys all read Sam Harris' book.////Go
figure.
////Xeno didn't even recognize the dissonance in Barry's preference for
Bruce Cockburn songs. Everyone knows Cockburn is a born-again Christian.
What about Barry's claim that a "belief in God is a form of mental
illness." //
//
//How does that work?/
>
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <anartaxius@...> wrote :
I think you hit on something here I never considered. Social
interaction. I do not think there is any objective measure by which
one considers such experiences valuable. There are certain things I
like, certain things I do not, and I go for the ones I like. While I
do not know why, those things I like I sometimes like to share with
others. A piece of music, a movie. Why did you post about Bruce
Cockburn's music, his book? I am not sure there is any reliable
objective measure why one likes something other than a general
propensity to avoid pain and to maintain comfort. Now if you recall
Maharishi said the mind seeks a greater field of happiness. Because he
was hawking TM, he skewed the concept to correspond with his
metaphysic (the transcendental field, the unified field). You do not
need a field. Basically I think it comes down to you like stuff, and
don't like other stuff. The rationalisations come later. If there is
any objective evidence for that previous sentence it might be split
brain experiments. When one side of the brain of people with this
condition are asked to explain why the other side of the body did
something, it makes up an explanation.
The whole spiritual trip is a post hoc explanation fabricated to
explain why something you like, in this case some kind of meditation
for example, or the experience that is supposed to result from that,
should be valuable to someone else. Spiritual endeavours are really
quite a complex bother, all these things that one has to practice or
think about, so to get someone to get involved in it really requires a
real snow job. You have to bury them with advertising about how great
things will be if they do this. You need an intellectual framework to
explain why doing such atypical things will benefit. To get someone to
come around to your ideas about what you like, it may not matter if it
doesn't really work. You make up this because you are socially wired
to a certain extent, and a successful social interaction results in
feeling good. So there really is not much of a reason for saying such
experiences as spiritual experiences are valuable, you hawk them that
way, just as you would a certain artist, a good restaurant, a walk on
a nice evening. Because social interactions are on an individual
level, I would say the ego is involved, that level of personal
identity that thinks it is running the show. The ego provides the
explanations. From a scientific level, the experiments that indicate
the brain comes to decisions often as far as 7 or 8 seconds prior to
that decision comes into conscious awareness. That would mean you are
not really in control of anything. Life goes on this and that way.
Stuff happens, you think you do stuff. Hawking TM or hawking Bruce or
hawking Hawking resuls in satisfaction. Whatever floats your boat.
As for experiences of unboundedness, I really don't think of them that
way any more. The spiritual trip is the strangest con in the universe.
Suppose I put it this way: How would you like to be exactly the way
you are for as long as you are? This is what I am offering you. It
will take you about 40 or 50 years, and you will have to do all these
different things, adopt crazy ideas, do exercises, sit quietly, eat
special foods, take weird medicines. Want to jump in an try this out?
In order to get people to do what you like, you have to be more
devious in your enticements.
It all comes down to 'I like this, and I want you to like it too'.
Psst, I have some secret stuff that other people do not know, and if
you let me tell you, and you do what I say, you will be able to say
every day 'I'm gonna help people! Because I'm good enough, I'm smart
enough, and, doggonit, people like me!