Awakening from the Meaning Crisis - Buddhism and Parasitic P

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An interesting talk by John Vervaeke about the four noble truths, cognitive processes, addiction, and the message of the Buddha in relationship to thinking.

Awakening from the Meaning Crisis - Buddhism and Parasitic Processing:

<Context: An atheists perspective>
<Premise: atheism and theism are mutually exclusive>
<Premise: atheism is totally focused on the truth/reality>
<Premise: objectivity and impartiality is the coinage of the atheist>

It never ceases to amaze me the energy driven into spiritual/religious consideration...
Granted, the human brain is mesmerised by intellectual conceptual acrobatics ...
But it is a philosophical cul-de-sac non-the-less...

I understand why some academics feel a need to investigate/dissect a philosophical corpse...
And I understand the interest many intellectuals have in anthropological studies...
But personally speaking, I simply think *the depth* of intellectual investment/investigation is better spent elsewhere...

I only watched about a third if the video...
My personal position explains why...

I don't have any illusions that I can speak persuasively across chasms of perspective, I technically don't think anyone can because skill with words and even genuine skill at elucidating concepts and connections is almost irrelevant, but I'll maybe run down why none of these objections yield a roadblock for me.

Buddism makes for a very strange 'theism'. There are symbolic edges and metaphysics that might separate it from something like the metaphysically-distilled forms of stoicism that some people like Massimo Pigliucci tend to be proponents of but the dried export value seems to offer a lot of the same fruit.

Also an atheist whom I'm sure you'll feel exactly the same way about as the presenter:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFzWtlGJXsY

Part of why a lot of intellectuals are interested these days in reexamining historical belief systems or trying to reimport the concepts from religion that seemed to serve people without the dross, is that atheism as far as we can tell *did* fail to deliver on being the intellectual beacon of societal salvation through reason. Thus we're trying to re-examine what our actual options are outside, above, and beyond the sorts of narrowing and caricature that political and culture war turn 'atheism' and 'theism' into.


Not at all. It's totally focused on a personal belief that there's insufficient evidence for a creator god. Your statement is tantamount to 'Ecologists are totally focused on gun-control' or 'LGBT rights activists are totally focused on the evils of capitalism'. It's a transfer of sameness from things that are only contingently oriented - *when your lucky*.


You really don't want wide-eyed faith in any claimed belief system or professed metaphysical or theological opinion. To do so, and take that idea seriously, is to believe that a profession that one 'believes in no God' or 'believes in materialism' cleanses them of their apeishness, almost like saying they've been 'saved' or 'born again'. It makes atheism a Durkheimian religion. This is how you end up getting things like Atheism Plus, how you get people claiming things as awkward or jarring as 'atheism is Science' or 'atheism is Intersectional!', lol, no, it's a disbelief in the evidence for a creator god.


This is where pop-atheism seems to have gotten an unexamined dose of misotheism. There's a genuine desire to believe that there was absolutely nothing, no 'there', that actually brought people to circle around the notion that certain things or strategies or symbols underpinning religion worked and that the whole thing was a grift by the powerful (actually this rhymes a lot with Marx). I will say that to some degree Dawkins had a lot to do with pairing misotheism with evolution and biology, Bret Weinstein and people like him lately have been doing a lot to break that down by suggesting that religion is an adaptive lineage-selection strategy with pro-social and pro-societal aims.

That too leaves alone that, partially thanks to atheism and the distancing of the public sphere from religion, we feel like we can go back and dissect the contents of religion to see what was actually there without fear of reprisal from the religious. This is also in light of us watching western civilization start to melt a bit and trying to figure out what pro-social aspects of religion still have value and which ones have intrinsic 'software' value for individual lives as well as on a broader base socially vs. those that were bound to conditions we no longer live in.


I don't think studying of one's own cognition and how it works is 'woo'.


Same as above.

Vox interviewing same philosopher (an agnostic interviewing an atheist), with a rather inflammatory title in the context of the conversation 'Why science can't replace religion':

https://www.vox.com/2018/10/30/17936564 ... -john-gray

I have a question: I've read Marx, and it's not like he's a theist, but it's actually not him being against religion so much as that he saw it as a way that organized people before capitalism melted it away and made it irrelevant.
That's what it says in the communist manifesto. - [under capitalism] all that is solid melts into air, all that is sacred is profaned -
humans awill then devolve into inhuman, rational actors, only viewing each other and themselves through the framework of capital.

I kind of think he's right in this analysis.

the sociologist Zygmunt Bauman goes on from that sentence in the communist manifesto and declares postmodernity a misnomer, and thinks it should be called liquid modernity, as in, now everything is melted, and nothing solid can form, everything is in flux and subject to flows, like flows of finance. As he writes, culture, which in high modernity was a tool for gathering people, form resistance, form new solid things, has now been coopted by the flows and has become an agent of seduction, creating ever new desires, while the old and basic ones stay unsatisfied.
he goes on: individuals have become human capital, and are moved by the flow, becoming tourists in their own life-experience.
I certainly feel like that.

now, that said: to what extent do you guys consider the idea of the homo economicus part of the problem - the idea that humans are rational, profit maximizing calculators? - although behavioural economics has shown that people suck at this. but instead of chucking out the idea, they rephrased it into an idea of an imperfect homo economicus, who would want to be the perfect version, but is working with bad hardware (i.e. stupid) and has inclompete information- therefore, little nudges can make the imperfect homo economicus do the right thing.
the whole model of the world the economists are working with assumes that humans are these faulty calculators... there's no room for meaning in that. also not for human relations beyond the economic... it's like the economists are trying to prove marx right.

I'm not sure what I'm trying to get at. I enjoyed reading John Gray.

I actually did not watch the video. But I do think there are practices to be extracted from certain religions that have therapeutic value. Didn't the Buddha say something along the lines of "I only teach suffering and the end of suffering?", where the word translated as suffering doesn't refer to all forms of pain, but rather to a kind of self-inflicted pain that comes from essentially thinking in a rigid and inflexible way. That's my very loose and probably poorly-informed read on a fundamental idea of Buddhism.

My impression, not backed up by any real scholarship but cobbled together from things I have read here and there, is that much of the ritual and dogma of Buddhism was layered on after the Buddha's death, in the roughly couple hundred years between when he died and when his teachings were written down.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yupPvZF6oBw

Lots of Paths to get 'there' but tHere seems to be an 'element' of 'flow' that is common; Basically, getting out of our
Heads; more specifically all the 'time' that is illusion of the Neo-Cortex that arranges reality like that in terms of
Clocks and Tape Measurers for Distance and Generally the concept of Space too; in other words, many other
Words what we go to School for most. other Words. Hmm; there must be more to life than words and of course
there is as the Written Word is not innate; it is Constructed as an origin of Culture; Symbol by Symbol as letter
or other Symbol For Symbol; the list goes on.

Getting so lost in Abstract Constructs lends less time developing Emotional and Sensory Intelligences and
Overall Existential Intelligences Comfortable Moving in our own skin; Often a Disconnect will Happen when
Innate Evolving Emotional And Sensory Intelligences in just one Lifetime go awry the way of Symbols that
We Attach our Feeling and Senses too as well if we are proficient in a Figurative Language too; either Learned
or Created; why not, for Self-Actualizing Purposes, mostly of course too.

I Enjoyed the Video here; it appears that Basic Emotions and Senses were not included in the Terminology
in an Agency of Free in Regulating Emotions and Integrating Senses where the Neo-Cortex Makes Good
Servant to the Limbic System Brain and Reptile Brain too; otherwise, yes, the Parasite of the Neo-Cortex
May Eventually Become Slave in both Substance and Non-Substance Behavioral Addictions too; yuck, just yuck.

My Philosophy is if you can't find it on a Beach with one Free Spirited Person out of Condominium Life; Chances
are other than Basic Subsistence, it's really not that important in regard to What Makes Life Good or not so Good
at all. Free Agency is Regulating Emotions and Integrating Senses through a Bio-FeedBack of Relative Free Will;
Free Dance Works for me; some folks Meditate Sitting Still; and yet other Folks Label Body Parts as Chakras
And with a Mantra of Frequencies of Vibrations made by Vocal Chords or other Musical Instruments that
Expand Frequencies of Vibrations more Positive Generating Greater Feelings and Senses Bringing More of
A Transient Auto-Frontality Flow even going as far as Generating Happy Neurohormones and
Neurochemicals within at Relative Free Will of Bio-Feedback too; as sure, Focusing on Parts of
the Body will get ya a bit more out of the 'Neo-Cortex' perhaps; but Moving is a Bit more Comprehensive
As an Activity in 'Dance' to Get Lit up in Greater Connections and Greater Colors of Emotional and Sensory
Experiences of Life coming together to make Bliss and Nirvana Eternally Real Now Within to Make Life Best.

Hehe; other Animals Do this Innately, Instinctually, and Intuitively Bending Toward a Golden Spiral Dance
Like the Rest of Creation too; meanwhile, many folks are stuck on Side-Walks, downloading Data into a Life
that Reflects the Machines we make more than the potential agency of Relative Free Will in Bio-Feedback
of Regulating Emotions and Integrating Senses where Happiness May Yield to Relative Free Will too.

It Works for me, continually in advancing Skills of Existential Intelligence even by Leaps and Bounds at
some points as i come to 11,101 Miles of Public Moving Meditation Dance; otherwise, perhaps seen by many
folks; yes, as A Very Out of the Box Activity in the Gulf Coast Region Bible Belt Lower as our 'Trump' Flavored and
Extremely Flavored Panhandle of Florida Goes too. Now i can raise my Arm Slowly and Change my Mood Almost
Instantly to the Flavor i Like; practice doesn't make for perfect but it comes dam sure close, at Least where i'm at now.

Being Able to Co-Create Our Emotions/Senses almost instantly the way you like 'em is surely 'That's the Way i Like It' Life.

Again; Works for me; no lessons required; not even any words; it is Heaven; got the Reference Point of Hell to tell that.

Just an Example Here; and again it's not the Form that Counts it is the Essence of Within that can and will be a Heaven
We Create through Bio-Feedback Of Moving and Still Meditation; sure, Yoga too as that is also Moving Meditation Now
in the Sense that Any Position Held Fires off Muscle Fibers to stay close to that way still, too, sitting in Chairs Now, too.

My Favorite Way is Free Style; for using the Neo-Cortex to get there Just Slows the Journey to an Agency of Relative Free Will to be; and on top of that haven't seen anyone yet copying this Style of Dance Now for a Solid Three Hour Ascending
Transcending Méditation Like i Will Do on Thursday Night at the Metro Dance Hall for the 258th Week Instance of that in the Last 5 years; Every Single Event Away from there in Public too, improves the Complexity of the Movement as well as the Flow and Autotelic Experience; best thing of all is, it makes me extremely Creative and Productive improving every area of my Life Outside of Within too.

As Far as Holy and Sacred Meaning and Purpose; i Co-Create that tailored for 'that's the way i like it' too;

We Can and We Will; Those of Us Who Breakthrough and actually do; Believing in a bunch of Words alone
is like the Longest Path on the Journey, i surely can and will imagine now; hehe; for sure, as yes Writing may
become a Meditative Dance in Flow too; so many ways to Breakthrough to the other Side Within of Heaven now..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1l3sHS0K-Ak

I don't do massive replies to complicated subject matter, So I will initially address the video you presented...
I will tackle other points via separate posts...

New atheism is clean, sharp, defined, solid...
It is reductionist, making it powerful and devoid of irrelevant philosophical noise...
It caters to those who are stoic, rather than those who wish to be flamboyant and ego-centric...

No, religion is an emotionalist philosophy dedicated to the pacification of emotional angst...
It is there to provide a sense of intrinsic meaning to life...
It embraces deception rather than embracing the stark brutal realities of life...

Religion is not a primitive form of science...
It is an advanced form of superstition...

Repression of religion and sexuality is nonsense to any enlightened individual who has studied psychology...
One must never repress/suppress ...
One must accept and be aware of the power of our more primitive aspects of our humanity...

This man seems to lack psychological insights or is simply reflecting the mindset of less self-aware proletariat thinkers...
The assumption that it is inevitable that all individuals will succumb is nonsense...

I only watched 25% of the video after I realised John Gray and I are definitely not on the same page, btw...

So you are saying evolution is based on a subjective belief system rather than objective scientific observation?

Presumably you no longer literally believe in Santa Clause...
At what point did you discover the concept was a falsehood and a nonsense?
Will you ever revert back to worshipping the god of present giving?
I suspect not...

He probably was right about that but it's too unstable to be anything more than a sort of intermediate phase before some sort of order, for the sake of efficiency and people having a viable map, reassembles whether through emergence (the better way) or top-down (the significantly worse way).


That sounds like a world of infinite technological disruption. That sounds close to what we have now but I don't know that there's enough technological disruption going into the future to make that a permanent state.

We might think of it perhaps like this - conscious agents have needs and wants, and they're working both independently and to some extent collectively to take care of those needs. Massive technological disruption can keep us confused for a while about what the rules are, it's something like a collective stunning, but as things calm down it seems like we'll try to - naturally - pull back order out of the chaos. Order is something parents want, it's something we want for our kids to grow into fully formed adults. The world we have right now and it's precariousness might be okay for singles in their twenties to test their whits against, it's no place for families though and on that last account the pull back toward order is inevitable even if we - by accident or even somewhat deliberately - run at antinatalism there'll be a fragment of society just not interested in that, wanting to live life, and wanting to bear and raise children.


The simplicity of these models seems to almost always come from the vast swaths of factors that they ignore. They take very front-facing and positive factors, take those into account, and ignore the softer or more implied, hidden, or negative factors and for as soft as those later factors seems to be one, two, maybe three of them can either bury a positive factor or make it run out of fuel or lose its base very quickly.

If you're up for some economic skepticism I'd definitely keep up with Mark Blyth and how much he's ridiculed the 1970's economic model of normal and so many other things that current economic views are predicated on. Modern econ might not quite be pseudoscience but it seems like the myopia is bad enough that the worst we should worry about are bad applied economic ideas at governmental levels or bad economic educations telling kids the wrong things about how the world works. It seems like before we have a stable and proper picture of things snake oil tends to abound and with some particular thinkers within economics that cloud of miasma might be ready to lift maybe even sooner than later.

Clean, simple, reductionist pictures are easy to build - just that they're almost always wrong.

The noises Sam Harris made in the 2010's are quite different in a lot of ways from the noises he made in the 2000's. That's not to say Sam wasn't a practicing Buddhist before or even during the 2000's, just that breaking out the war drums with Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and Daniel Dennett was far from being the totality of his views. His book 'Waking Up - Spirituality Without Religion' back in 2009, his many interviews with Buddhist practitioners on his Waking Up / Making Sense podcast, his slight disagreement with Matt Dillahunty about the value of mysticism, that he could relate to the Meister Eckhart type of visionary work or the desires people have to drop acid and go on a journey with it, all of that had no place in the 'clean, prim, proper, and objective' form of The Four Horsemen.

If you were to say reject Sam Harris over that and say 'Well, one of the four failed and proved that he believes in BS - so now there's just three - one lost through heresy (Sam Harris), one lost to cancer (Christopher Hitchens), and one maybe picked up for his allergy to symbolism and the abstract (Matt Dillahunty) so now we have three proven to be pure" - that's something else, something new maybe, I don't know if that's what you think - you seem to be suggesting that you'd be somewhere in that territory and maybe not everything I said matches how you'd think about that scenario.

Either way though I would just say, if any of that sounded right and if you'd kick Sam Harris out for the same reasons that you'd dislike/disagree with John Vervaeke or John Gray then I'd have to say you have a particular set of concerns around the superiority of concrete operational cognition. That's a think that can overlap with atheism but it's not required for atheism, it can overlap with antitheism but it's not required for antitheism.

Heck, if you want to know what it sounds like to listen to a ceremonial magician and as rabid an antitheist as Dawkins, Dennett, or Dillahunty here's a link to that:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iMmg7w3izE


The bit that you seem to be sneaking in here that I'd want to debate is the idea that if it's not concrete operational then it's not real atheism or real antitheism. That's a 'no true Scotsman' fallacy and it's one I notice Richard Dawkins has perpetuated a lot. That said I can't exactly tell whether you know and understand everything I just said above and would agree that you mean it exactly the way I described it or whether you really haven't thought these things through and in that case I'm just dialing in on a gap in your examination.




Most of the content of religion is also not religion. It's sociology, it's psychology, a lot of the former two collected during terrible centuries of war, human suffering, and places where the crassest elements of what it is to be human and unrestrained in violence and cruelty, or see the absolute depths of human suffering either due to the coldness of nature or due to the depravity of the powerful, were on open display in ways that things aren't likely to go for us unless our current experiments in liberty economics go terribly wrong.

They also include scraps of mystical practice, insight, and symbolism which I'd have to categorize as something else - ie. something about as close as you can get to an imperical examination of the subjective. Obviously if they had a thick screen of dogma to limit the mystical upfront then it will conform to their dogma and to the degree that it's crow-barred into their dogma it will be broken and inaccurate. Also while I do not think there's any real evidence for the type of 'Perennial Philosophy' that Renee Guenon or Aldus Huxley would champion I do think that the common symbols between the Abrahamics and Hinduism and Buddhism when it comes to their more heretical, mystic, and alchemical fringes seem to occur because of that kind of impericism, the willingness to scrap dogma and be heretical, and the likeness of human brains as well as the likeness of whatever deeper substrate we may be dealing with is (which I'd argue to the extent it's real it's universal in its properties).

This is why Jordan Peterson's talk about religious archetypes or John Vervaeke's talk about Buddhism in my OP are useful - they're talking about everything in religion that's not necessarily your 'advanced superstition' but quite likely has been wrongly tarred or obscured by it.



You said something in the first sentence of this that's a bit confusing in that you've been talking about religion in one way and then saying it shouldn't be repressed because natural human urges shouldn't be suppressed.

Do you think it might be an appropriate project, if we seem to need religion the way we need sex, to clean more of the eviscerating stuff out of it that would make it 'advanced superstition?'. Also - what did you see in John Vervaeke's presentation that told you that he was trying to defend advanced superstition exactly as it is rather than trying to expose good or useful psychology that was getting obscured by it hidden by 'guilt by association'?




Succumb to what?



I probably said several times when I mentioned John Gray - I knew you wouldn't be on the same page.

So out of curiosity - is he a pseudo-atheist, a crypto-theist, or just an atheist with a different worldview?

No, I'm parsing a definition.

Evolution isn't atheism. Science isn't atheism. Evolution is the scientific study of the (temporal) progress of speciation. Science is a method for reducing the quantity of variables to the minimum needed to perform experiments and separate cause from correlation. Atheism is the personal belief that there is insufficient evidence for a creator god.

That said most atheists are supportive of science, most atheists accept Darwinian evolution, and they do so assisted in large part because science is a good part of what helped break them out of religion. I'd consider that last point important because plenty of theists accept and endorse science, and accept or endorse the accuracy of Darwinian evolution. They may have been dragged there kicking and screaming but that's not the point. The point is that science and evolution are a separate thing from atheism - ie. they're perfectly compatible with deism, perfectly compatible with pantheism and panentheism. Plenty of non-Abrahamic religions should have no problem with them because they don't have such blunt creation myths as those told by the Sumerians which Judaism apparently filed down into something even more blunt.

At the end of the say though atheism is what it is - the lack of personal belief that there is sufficient evidence for a creator god.

That is not my definition of atheism...
Read the following:







You are including aspects of agnosticism when you talk about "insufficient evidence for a creator god"...

I didn't say evolution is atheism...

I really enjoyed reading this post. Now I am going to watch the video to see what he has to say. I should add that I really have no idea what the video is about, so I am not endorsing its content. I should just watch the d*** thing...