Somebody a Fool about de Golden Rule or “Who really makes the rules?”
The Golden Rule, "Do unto others as you would be done by", is the moral cornerstone of all world religions. Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism ,Islam and many more all have this as their prime moral directive, as do Secular humanists, pagans and probably even vegans.
Its a great rule!
Unless you are a psychopath, its like, the Rule of Rules. Which is why it seems everyone but the psychopaths will follow it at an individual level and every religion will follow it at a foundational level.
So far... so good...
But there is a mystery in this world about the Golden Rule that that I shall try to capture using the indulgence of the poetic muse, a muse that certainly dances with doggerel.
Does it matter to Dharma Practice if Rebirth is true or false?
The question “Is rebirth true or false?” can never be answered with absolutely certainty. In the same way as we can never answer with certainty about the existence of heaven or god from within this universe. The questions are perhaps not meaningless, but they seem close. At most we can have a faith.
Some faiths are backed up by science and experience and reason, others stand blindly on their own while all else must stand on them. But they are all faiths, from the extremely scientific and empirical to the mystical and unsupported.
So this fact that we must have some degree of faith in our reasonings about rebirth means there is no certainty. It is a pointless discussion that may be fun and interesting, but in terms of Dharma Practice it is just wasting time.
This does not mean that there are no serious and interesting and relevant questions about the issue of Rebirth in Buddhism. Perhaps , for Buddhists, the important metaphysical question is not “Is there rebirth?” but, “How would it change my life if I knew rebirth was false?”
Consider these two grounding metaphysical personal beliefs:
- A: This is my only life, it is short and rare.
- B: This is one of my countless lives, when I have left this life I will be reborn in the next life.
I don’t think we have to commit to either to see how a belief in one is incompatible with a belief in other. They are not the same belief, in any sense.
Now you can ask yourself is this Question:
“If I believe A will my life be morally, mentally and spiritually different than if I believe B?”
If you think that A and B would lead to comparable moral, mental and spiritual lives then it shouldn’t matter to you if Rebirth is true or false. If you think it does matter then it seems sensible that your Dharma practice contains an investigation of your reasons for believing in Rebirth or not, and your understanding of why it is important to you.
Incidentally, Buddhism is different from the Abrhamic religions and antitheists who hold that it matters very much if followers believe in A or B.
The Buddha’s First Sermon (Annotated)
The Buddha’s First Sermon (Annotated)
Introduction
This is the first and earliest of the surviving account of the teachings of The Buddha.
All Black text indent text is from on the Buddha.net version of this sutra. All the rest text is my annotation. And is just my ideas, doubt everything, be your own light:)
My Thoughts on Religion and Evolution and a Review of “Intelligent Design by Purple Space Squids”
Most intelligent people believe in Evolution over Intelligent Design. This is because once you start actually thinking for yourself, like intelligent people do, then the facts and reason just don't leave any room for an Intelligent Designer.
You have an intelligent person or an intelligent designer, you can’t have both. Or at least, that is how the argument between Atheists and Theists seemed structured on this particular battle-field in the great Wars of Reason. The cliché you don't need to win the battle to win the war, isnt actually true in the case of Evolution. If the godfearin' folk can show there is intelligent design then the Theory of Evolution becomes Falsified. It’s that simple.
This is the other side of the coin from the creationist "It's only theory!" argument. Yes, Evolution is only a theory. It is there just waiting to be disconfirmed. Nothing can confirm it 100% but already, in 2010 it’s like, 99.999999% confirmed by science, it really is. All the creationists have to do is find one thing that clearly disproves Evolution and that's it, game over, creationists win. The fact that evolution is only a theory is its key strength, not its weakness. If you think about the evolution of The Theory of Evolution then it is beneficial that the theory is attacked and questioned, this way, until it is disproved, it can only get stronger.
Until there is this single piece of counter evidence (bacterial flagellum? I don't think so) the only rational stance it to totally accept the immense body of supporting evidence as being more immensely supporting of the theory, day by day. It was pretty clear cut when Darwin stepped of the Beagle, I expect. So right now, if you want to be rational and a theist you have to incorporate evolution into your world and theistic view. You need to make Evolution compatible with god.
Here is one way religious folk could do that, by holding belifes something like:
"I believe that God made the Universe as a vast simulation. Once started, at the Bing bang, God let it run with randomness and laws. The purpose of God’s universal simulation was, I believe, to produce intelligent, moral beings with free will. The reasons why God wants moral agents beyond comprehension from within this simulation. I believe that Moral Agents are exceptionally rare within the Universe simulation and when, five thousand years ago in the Middle east of this planet a sufficient moral threshold was passed then God took interest. She started interacting, guiding and judging the beings of this simulated planet for her own mysterious ways...etc... etc"
Now I don't believe at all that is the case, but I don't have any real reason to believe it is the not case. It seems all phenomenon in this universe could be inside God’s Cartesian supercomputer. I can think of a number of replies to this supposition that I think show the absurdity of the view, like: Why didn't God interfere over an apple but not over when we got Atom bombs? " Or, “ Why does God care about simulated masturbation?" But these smarter theists will always be able to give the "God works in mysterious ways" response. Note that this is a response that the Intelligent Design people don't have. Their only rational response must substitute “mysterious” with “stupid."
It doesn’t really matter if people continue to believe in intelligent design, nobody should invest their ego in someone else’s beliefs. I used to be more militant on this, when you are passionate that you are right on an issue as big as Evolution it’s hard not to be, as I am sure many can attest. But as soon as you take a stance of opposition, there is conflict.
I have a friend who is a Baptist minister and we have had some big chats on these big religious issues. I am as certain there is no God as he is certain that there is. In our chats we soon realised that there was just no way to resolve that issue without conflict between our two certainties, and that’s not a the conflict between two belief systems, but two people. I now think, though I didn’t used to, that nobody should try to persuade anybody what they should belief, whether in the pub or a school curriculum.
When you take out the personal belief agendas , from both sides, out of the religious debate you are just left with the Big Religious issues. Like the concentration of moral, political and economic power and the use of force in the name of religion. I have digressed, this was meant to be a Video review. Doh!
The Video Review
So... Even if you do believe in Evolution, and especially if you don't, this ten min video is absolutely the biggest butt-kicking Creationism et al has ever got on digital celluloid. It’s like Bruce Lee versus Stephen Hawkin in a fight that needs no equations.
How much of a butt-kicking is it?
Imagine all of St Dwarkin and Hitchen's eloquences on biology and reason being condensed into a ten minute video written by Jon Ronson and directed by Oliver Stone with the single brief: "Display the biggest butt-kicking, by reason, of Intelligent Design, ever".
Even then, you would not have a ten minute video as butt-kicking as this video.
Review over. Roll the projector.
'nuff said.
+:)=:):):)
One problem I have with the “Green movement” is…
that it manifests its "goodness" in terms of "buy green" when mostly we shouldn't be "buying" at all.
I am not, per sey, talking about "green" people, but rather the commercial, social and media systems that dominate our lives:)
Game Universes 2 – The Perfect Circle Universe
In the last Thought Experiment we looked at Glove Universe and asked, what can we say of this Game Universe? The answer was not much of interest, either within the game or without. This thought experiment is exactly the same as with the Glove Universe, except that it will have less parts and thus even less to say.
Imagine a universe that is just a Perfect Circle.
No different on the inside or out, but a circle, perfect in its simplicity.
And now let’s play the Game with this as our new “board”, for clarity we will add to the True, False and Meaningless lists:
- True(Perfect Circle Universes)
- The proportion of the area of the circle is Pi times the radius squared.
- The Circle contains one point that is equidistant from all other points
- False(Perfect Circle Universe)
- The circle contains points arranged as a perfect corner.
- Meaningless (Perfect Circle Universe)
- The king is dead.
These Three Lists, when complete, would be every possible statement, not just about this Perfect Circle Universe but all possible Universes.
Conclusion
We saw in Experiment One how our lists could differ because there were contingent truths in the Glove Universe. But it seems here, that there cannot be any Truths that are contingent. If there were there would be an imperfection in the Perfect Circle Universe and thus it would be against the Stipulation, we would be breaking the rules of the game.
What this means, then, is that the Three Lists for the perfect Circle will, unlike the Glove Universe, be identical.
It can be no other way.
Hopefully now you are starting to see how True, false and Meaningless applky to these game universes as well as getting some idea of the bounds of the thought experiments themselves.
In the next Experiment we are going to Stipulate a Game Universe with not only No Contingent Truths, but hardly any Necessary Truths too! On paper this might seem even more boring than this experiment but, in thought, at least, I hope it will start to give some insights that will prove deeply useful later on in these Game Universe experiments.
Without doubt you probably cannot wait until this next experiment comes along, so riveting it will be. But patience is a virtue so in the meantime here are some questions to ponder about this Perfect Circle Universe:
1) Which would be Longest of the True, False or Meaningless Lists for the Perfect Circle Universe?
2) In the Perfect Circle Universe, does it make sense to have Pie? Remembering the perfect circle is all there is, by Stipulation.
3) Is there space between the points of the Perfect Circle Universe? Perhaps that is what space is in this Perfect Circle Universe; the distance forced between any points on the circumference by the Necessary geometric truths?
4) Is the Perfect Circle the same universe if it’s stipulated on a sheet of paper or an inflated balloon?
- Care is suggested here because it’s easy to smuggle Truths into universes, and when you imply there is a container space for the perfect universe that is what you are doing.
- If it cannot be stated in the Game Universe it cannot be True of the Game Universe.
Enjoy!
Game Universes 1 – The Glove Universe
Philosophy by Thought Experiments
Introduction
This is the first of a procession of thought experiments that will hopefully give you some tools and ideas that will make you a better philosopher, especially if you don't think you are a philosopher at all.
These experiments take place in "Game Universes." Our universe is not a game universe and so whatever conclusions we may come to in these experiments, be aware that they are not necessarily true of our Universe. In a sense, once you have done these experiments the real philosophy and science is about asking how close these Game Universes are to our own.
This is a work in progress and is intended for Teenagers and Adults who ant go get more philosophical.
The First Rule of the Game
There is only one rule that is going to be True to be true of all Universe Games we can play and this is that the Games must all be consistent. What we mean by this is simple and self-evident:
If something is true of the Game it cannot be False:
There can be no contradictions.
As we shall see, consistency doesn't just effect the "game board" but the rules of the game and whatever variables we have in the game and whatever things we think about the game. It must form a consistent whole[1].
If it is not consistent with the Game Universe it is not part of the Game Universe. The logically necessary fact should never be far from your understanding of any of this book.
1) The Glove Universe
Close your eyes and imagine an ordinary, small, red ladies glove. Imagine that in the wrist part of the glove is a slit and one side of this is a small red button. Imagine that on the other side of the slit is a small loop that can go around the button, to hold the glove in place on a hand.
You have just imagined a glove. Now I want you to imagine this glove floating in a void of nothingness. No other things, no time, no light, no observer, just the glove. What things can we say about this? Imagine every truth that is true of this glove, think through the possibilities. It might have long fingers or short or thick outside seams or inside seams. There are so many possibilities and not all of them can be true at the same point.
Imagine a Glove Universe.
The Glove Universe is going to be the first setting for our first game of The Universe Game. You might like to think of it as the board for the first game; once the game starts, it can never be changed without changing the game. As an analogy, imagine if we were playing Monopoly and, mid-game, cut out "Pall Mall" from the Monopoly Board –this would change the game from what it was.
Another thing to know about the Glove Universe before we start Playing is that, you cannot really imagine a universe that’s just a small red ladies glove. You can imagine a red glove and so on but when you take that glove outside from anything else, it becomes impossible to imagine. You can see this from these three conditions:
- You can’t imagine something being "small" if that's the only thing there is. Smallness is a relative property, it needs more things to be realised.
- You can’t imagine something as being red if there is no light and no observer. "Colour" is meaningless in the Glove Universe.
- You can’t imagine just a glove because gloves are either left or right handed structures that cannot exist without the possibility of a "counterpart."
What you should be clear on here is that although you cannot imagine a Glove Universe in anything like the same way you can imagine wearing gloves right now, we can still speak about such a Universe[2].
The Universe Game is about the Universes we stipulate, not our faculty of imagination or the reality of the Game Universes.
What is a Game Universe?
We will be Stipulating many “Game Universes” in this book, so lets get an idea of exactly what is meant by the term.
A "Game Universe" is the totality of consistent truths in any given game. Some of these truths will be necessarily true and some possibly, but they will all be true on one of those two senses. Some of the truths will be true irrespective of our Stipulations and some will be true depending on those Stipulations. The Totality of these Truths describes the Game Universe totally.
When we play the Universe Game we stipulate the Game Universe. We set everything up, and then we don't change the rules or the board or the nature of the "things" in the game.
For example, when you and I imagine a Glove Universe, we stipulate different Universes, but the Games are all consistent internally and, in necessary senses, between each other. Everything must be consistent not just within any possible single Game but between any two possible Games. This might not make sense now but I think the playing the Game, especially the first few experiments, will make it clear.
Most of the "Game Realisations" of these experiments are pretty much forced upon us by logic and "things we cannot understand," even with these simple Game Universes.
With that understood, now we can really Play!
________________________________________
Playing The Glove Game
Imagine a Glove Universe that consists of an ordinary ladies glove, exactly as above.
Playing the Universe Game is simple, we take it in turns to think of a True statement about the Game Universe and when we have one we add the true statements about it to the "Truth List." I go, you go until either we can go no more or one of us makes a mistake. To make a Mistake you need to suggest a statement that is either False or Meaningless.
I will go first:
- True(Glove Universes)
- It has four fingers.
My first go is an easy one. You can think for a while to see if it isn't True and thus win the game, but it certainly seems true. If you wanted to try to win the game you would need to show me a reason why an "ordinary glove" would be considered ordinary if it had more or less than four fingers. That's what ordinary means. If you said, "No, I think a ordinary glove could have seven fingers" it would be up to you, against the weight of dictionaries and opinions, to show me wrong.
Your Go:
- True(Glove Universes)
- It has four fingers.
- It has a small button
We saw above how we couldn't make sense of the Glove Universe being small or big but it isn't so clear whether there can be small buttons. In my imagining of the Glove Universe the button is the smallest feature. It’s up to each of us to decide on if we accept any Truth and in this case, I think "small button" is good to go.
We can go on and on....
- True(Glove Universes):
- It has four fingers.
- It has a small button.
- The button is not between the index finger and the thumb.
- The little finger is not longer than the middle finger.
- The thumb is not between any fingers....
It will soon be pretty clear that this game looks like it can go on without end, so long as one of us doesn't make a mistake (which we shall look at very shortly)... or just give up due to crippling boredom.
So Far the Game isn’t very fun but we can at least have a List of Statemnts that are considered to be True of the Glove Universe.
What is Truth?
to look at when thinking abpout the notion of Truth. When we say "True" in the context of the Universe Game we mean:
- Meaning of “True”:
- A statement is True about the Glove Universe if what it describes can be found within the Glove Universes.
We can go through the Truth list above and easily compare it with our shared imaginings to see which of the Statements describe structures or relationships or whatever, within the Glove Universe.
If they do, they are True.
Our individual Lists might not be identical, for example:
- True(My Glove Universes):
- It has four fingers.
- It has a small button.
- The button is not between the index finger and the thumb.
- The little finger is not longer than the middle finger.
- The thumb is not between any fingers....
- The thumb is the same average diameter as the index finger.
- The slit is longer than the index finger.
- True(Your Glove Universes):
- It has four fingers.
- It has a small button.
- The button is not between the index finger and the thumb.
- The little finger is not longer than the middle finger.
- The thumb is not between any fingers....
- The thumb is twice the diameter of the little finger.
- The slit is shorter than the index finger.
These different Truth Lists are consistent even though they contain two Contradictory items, this is because they describe what are called Contingent Truths rather than Necessary Truths. It is necessary that the “ordinary glove” has four fingers, both of our Game Universes must share that property. But it is not necessary how long the slit in the glove needs to be.
It is absolutely Crucial for these experiments that you understand the distinction between Necessary and Contingent truths. Contingent truths seem to depend on others to be true. For example, imagine we had these two Contingent truths on our Truth list:
- True(Glove Universes)
- The first finger is shorter than the second.
- The third finger is shorter than the third.
We can imagine contingent truths that seem perfectly possible in isolation, but entail inconsistency when entered into the Truth List. For example:
- True(Glove Universes)
- The first finger is shorter than the second.
- The third finger is shorter than the third.
- The third finger is shorter than the first finger.
Now we should have an idea of what Truth is, how it works, and how Contingent truths cannot always be True we can look at Statements that are not true. We wont use these much in these games, but it will be good to have a clear understanding of them.
Some Truths are Necessarily true because of a combination of the Stipulation and the first Rule, these are Trivial. They may be complex Truths, but they don’t say anything that isn’t entailed direct from the Stipulation.
What is not Truth?
If a statement describes a structure/relationship/thing that does not exist in the Game Universe that Statement is either going to be False or Meaningless.
- Contingently False: If the statement describes an arrangement of the universe that could exists but doesn’t exist that statement is Contingently False.
- The thumb is wider than each finger.
- The button has four holes.
- The button is an ellipse
- Necessarily False: If a statement describes something that necessarily couldn’t exist, that statement is necessarily false.
- The Glove has five fingers.
- The glove has the same topology as a doughnut.
- The volume of the thumb is greater than the volumes of the other fingers combined.
- The glove has rotational symmetry.
- The glove has reflective symmetry
- Meaningless: If a statement describes something that could possibly be true or false about the Game Universe then it is meaningless.
- The King of France is Tall
- The Glove is Small
- The Glove is Red
- The Glove is Left-handed
- The Glove Is underneath a Hat.
- Paris is the Capital of France.
- Mars is often called "The Red Planet"
- The glove belonged to Audry Hepburn.
- All gloves are smaller than houses.
- This game is rubbish!
Conclusion
This experiment has highlighted a number of things. Perhaps most importantly it’s shown what a Thought Experiment is, in case you didn’t already know. A thought experiment is simply a stipulated possible Universe that is created to be experimented on or questioned about.
We make Thought experiments all the time, "If I won the lottery I would..", "Imagine all the people, living in Harmony..." but with these Game Universes we are going to start off from first principles and build our way up to see how high we can go.
In addition to this, in this Experiment we have learned that statements can only be either True, Flase or Meaningless and that it should be easily, if we remember the first rule, to see which kind of statement is which.
In the next experiment we will go as simple as we can and see how well the Universe Game plays out down at the bottom. Stay tuned...
[1] Everything all must be consistent at every level. To use the Monopoly analogy, if the fines on the Hotels were a thousands times larger than they are in the actual game. This would be an inconsistency, the game wouldn't work. It would be mathematically impossible to pay any Hotel fines.
[2] Physicists and mathematicians often speak about things we humans cannot imagine, like ten dimensional space, for example. At least, I cannot imagine that.
Welcome to Me New Old Site
I have had a site here since way before the internet but now it is going through an overhaul.
