Lists,
Further to last week’s interesting discussion on instinct, bees and behaviour,
it occurs to me that all this talk about “objective” reality and how difficult
it is to control one’s own behaviour segues in neatly with other important
topics in Peirce and biosemiotics, especially Firstness, scaffolding (featuring
recently in Biosemiotics 8:2) and fixation of belief. Why are the illusions of
reality so difficult to shake? So let us venture farther down the rabbit-hole,
and expand on why the illusion (“objective” reality, and the ability to control
one’s behaviour) is so powerful.
It revolves principally around Firstness. You “desire” your
needs, and so long as you are having your needs met, you do not perceive any
problems. And so because you receive no challenge to indicate that your
assumptions are flawed (or, at the very least, subjective), you receive no
indication that the universe that lies beyond should be any different. Our
lives turn out to be narratives of confirmation bias, as confirmed in our needs
being met. Our narrative is “this is ‘just’ the way that reality ‘is’, so
where’s the problem?” Same with the bee... it is having its needs met, it
understands its reality as the way that things are and it receives no input to
indicate why it should change its ways. And so it happily goes along with what
it thinks matters, while the universe beyond it is irrelevant and invisible to
it. But insofar as we do not perceive any problem, can we appreciate how
differently bees and humans interpret their worlds, and the very different sets
of problems, as things that matter, that confront bees? This brings us to why
problems are important in the evolutionary process. Problems, as sources of
stress, motivate organisms to extend their view of the world beyond their
desires and the things that they interpret to matter to them. [A term that I’ve
seen recently revolving around this theme is scaffolding]
And this brings us to Buddhism, and what they mean when they
describe observers as seeing the world “from their own level.” They are not
talking about the fluffy stuff of “just” forcing your will and “just” making
different kinds of choices... what they are talking about (without necessarily
always understanding all the nuances themselves), is something more intractable
than “just” a choice beyond your comfort-zone... like a healthy diet over an
indulgent one. What they are alluding to is the complex of definitions and
assumptions, within the vehicle that is the Umwelt, that have their origins in
the needs and the desires that are being met... the complex that wires a
neuroplastic brain and locks it into a trajectory with a momentum that requires
serious effort if it is to change course.
Seeing the world from “one’s own level?” What does that mean?
It would seem to relate to what us Occidentals identify in the
subjectivity/objectivity debate. What’s the evidence for it? Eastern/Oriental
cultures seem to have a much better grasp of the idea that sex differences
relate to more than merely reproduction, but their narrations on the topic are
still vague and imprecise. I wonder how they would fair if they knew about
neurons, functional specialisations, and such. It seems that within the context
of the genocentric paradigm, we are happy to entertain the idea that genes
“wire” brains, and that explains everything from gender differences to culture
differences. But what if that assumption is wrong [redundant question]?
SOMETHING wires brains. What is it? Experience? The choices we make? The
different kinds of choices that men and women make from Culture? The different
classes of problems that distinguish the choices of men from those of women?
Like the problems relating to childbirth/childrearing versus the problems
relating to risk/competition? There’s your evidence right there, so long as you
don’t entertain the “it’s all in the genes” poppycock. When you next encounter
someone of your opposite sex, ask yourself the question... do they or do they
not see the world differently to you? Still unsure? Then... do you have to
adjust your behavior somehow, depending on whether the person that you are
speaking with is the same or the opposite sex to you? Are these differences
cultural habits, or stuff programmed into the genetic code? The evidence is all
around us. Here’s a famous Buddhist koan that relates to the assumptions that
we need to clear our heads of, before incorporating any new narrative:
A Cup of Tea
Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912),
received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen.
Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor’s cup full, and then kept
on pouring.
The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could
restrain himself.
“It is overfull. No more will go in!”
“Like this cup,” Nan-in said, “you are full of your own opinions
and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?”
There is so much more to authentic Buddhism (before its
popularization in the west) than orange robes, Buddhist temples and herbal tea.
sj
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