vichara

What Makes an Intellectual?

2011-01-30T11:50:00.000-05:00

The modern intellectual engages in thought without end, for all purpose would be denounced as agenda or ideology. Restless before this convergence of freedom and uselessness, his occupation takes a critical turn and becomes the mere dissecting of all the interested buzz of the world of practical action. Because it lacks a sense of where thought might find fulfillment, the intellectual realm becomes not a place above the mundane world, but a parallel zone of criticism, where the beliefs of others may enter only to be seen through. The intellectual life reduces itself to functional nihilism, warding off despair only by means of attacking the latest ideology voiced beyond its doorstep.

Growing Up Digital, Wired for Distraction

2010-11-21T10:12:00.000-05:00

From the New York Times:

Students have always faced distractions and time-wasters. But computers and cellphones, and the constant stream of stimuli they offer, pose a profound new challenge to focusing and learning.

Researchers say the lure of these technologies, while it affects adults too, is particularly powerful for young people. The risk, they say, is that developing brains can become more easily habituated than adult brains to constantly switching tasks — and less able to sustain attention.

"Their brains are rewarded not for staying on task but for jumping to the next thing," said Michael Rich, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School and executive director of the Center on Media and Child Health in Boston. And the effects could linger: "The worry is we're raising a generation of kids in front of screens whose brains are going to be wired differently."

Cross-cultural reflections on the mirror self-recognition test

2010-10-01T16:00:00.001-04:00

From The British Psychological Society:

The performance of young children on the 'mirror self-recognition test' varies hugely across cultures, a new study has shown. This is the test that involves surreptitiously putting a mark on a child's forehead and then seeing how they react when presented with their mirror image. Attempts by the child to touch or remove the mark are taken as a sign that he or she recognises themselves in the mirror. Studies in the West suggest that around half of all 18-month-olds pass the test, rising to 70 per cent by 24 months. Chimps, orangutans, dolphins and elephants have also been shown to pass the test, and there's recent debate over whether monkeys can too.

Inspired in part by past research conducted in Cameroon, in which children who failed the mirror test tended to be the most compliant and obedient, Broesch and her colleagues speculated that the performance in the non-Western, more interdependent cultures may have been affected by the fact that children in these societies are often discouraged from asking questions (they're expected to learn by watching). 'This is in sharp contrast with the independence and self-initiative that tends to be encouraged and nurtured in the Industrial West,' the researchers said. Another factor could be the non-Western children's relative lack of familiarity with mirrors.

Atheists, agnostics most knowledgeable about religion

2010-09-28T16:45:00.000-04:00

From the Los Angeles Times:

American atheists and agnostics tend to be people who grew up in a religious tradition and consciously gave it up, often after a great deal of reflection and study, said Alan Cooperman, associate director for research at the Pew Forum.

"These are people who thought a lot about religion," he said. "They're not indifferent. They care about it."

How becoming a Stoic can make you happy

2010-09-21T21:20:00.000-04:00

Via boingboing.net:

The Stoics were interested in leading a life of "tranquility," meaning a life free of "anger, anxiety, fear, grief, and envy." To achieve such a life the Stoics developed, in the words of historian Paul Veyne, a "paradoxical recipe for happiness," that included the practice of "negative visualization." By frequently and vividly imagining worst-case scenarios -- the death of a child, financial catastrophe, ruined health -- the Stoics believed you would learn to appreciate what you have, and curb your insatiable appetite for more material goods, social status, and other objects of desire.

Reading the book, I had no trouble understanding how negative visualization could be an effective antidote against "hedonic adaptation." By imagining ourselves to be homeless, for instance, we can reset our desire for a more luxurious home and once again appreciate the roof over our head that we started taking for granted shortly after moving in.

God did not create the universe... for us

2010-09-03T08:11:00.001-04:00

From Reuters:

In his latest book, he [Steven Hawking] said the 1992 discovery of a planet orbiting another star other than the Sun helped deconstruct the view of the father of physics Isaac Newton that the universe could not have arisen out of chaos but was created by God.

"That makes the coincidences of our planetary conditions -- the single Sun, the lucky combination of Earth-Sun distance and solar mass, far less remarkable, and far less compelling evidence that the Earth was carefully designed just to please us human beings," he writes.

The fact that God did not create the Earth "just to please us human begins" is not an argument against the existence of God.

God has his own life and he does not exist to please us. Rather, we exist to please him. He cannot be seen through eyes that seek to exploit and control him.

Flawed Reasoning is Incapable of Seeing Its Own Flaws

2010-08-14T12:49:00.000-04:00

... phenomenon can be observed by anyone who cares to see it, those who have observed it have always laid blame for it on the limitations and the flaws of the systems, never on the limitations and the flaws of the human ability to think and to reason. For some un-reason, we feel that our ability to reason is limitless and infinitely perfectible. Nobody has voiced the idea that the exercise of our ability to think can reach the point of diminishing, then negative, returns. It is yet to be persuasively argued that the human propensity for abstract reasoning is a defect of breeding that leads to collective insanity. Perhaps the argument would have to be made recursively: The faculty in question is so flawed that it is incapable of seeing its own flaws.

Via Harmonist.

'think of the future as an open question'

2010-07-11T18:53:00.000-04:00

From Scientific American:

[Psychologist Ibrahim Senay of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign] measured the volunteers' intentions to start and stick to a fitness regimen. And in this real-world scenario, he got the same basic result: those primed with the interrogative phrase "Will I?" expressed a much greater commitment to exercise regularly than did those primed with the declarative phrase "I will."

...those with questioning minds were more intrinsically motivated to change. They were looking for a positive inspiration from within, rather than attempting to hold themselves to a rigid standard. Those asserting will lacked this internal inspiration, which explains in part their weak commitment to future change.

Happiness Project interview

2010-06-03T19:30:00.000-04:00

Happiness Project interview: "Gretchen Rubin, author of the terrific book I reviewed in January, The Happiness Project, interviewed me on her always-interesting Happiness Project blog.
Gretchen: What's something you know now about happiness that you didn't know when you were 18 years old?
Mark: When I was 18 I thought that I had to go out and find things to make me happy. Now I am happiest when I don't venture past my property line. There is a world of adventure in my house and yard -- books, my family, drawing and painting, making yogurt, sauerkraut, and kombucha, beekeeping, raising chickens, making things. I still enjoy going out and seeing the rest of the world, but I also am at the point where I am never bored by staying home. Life gets more interesting as I grow older.

General Theory of Individuality

2010-05-06T07:45:00.000-04:00

Via The Chronicle of Higher Education

One of the unspoken secrets in basic scientific research, from anthropology to zoology ... is that, nearly always, individuals turn out to be different from one another, and that—to an extent rarely admitted and virtually never pursued—scientific generalizations tend to hush up those differences. It can be argued that that is what generalizations are: statements that apply to a larger class of phenomena and must, by definition, do violence to individuality. But since science seeks to explain observed phenomena, it should also be able to explain the granular particularity of such phenomena. In fact, generalities lose potency if they occur at the cost of artificially leveling otherwise significant features of reality.

The problem with the simplicity movement

2010-04-25T13:27:00.000-04:00

The problem with the simplicity movement is that its proponents mistake simplicity, which is an aesthetic lifestyle choice, for humility, which is a genuine virtue. Humility is an honest acknowledgment of one's limitations and lowliness in the great scheme of things and a realization that power over other human beings is a dangerous thing, always to be exercised with utmost caution. The Amish, as well as monks, Eastern and Western, cultivate humility because they know they have a duty toward what is larger than themselves.

Original: Not Really Simple by Charlotte Allen, April 19, 2010.

Family Gets in the Way of Work for Materialistic Individuals, Study Finds

2010-04-08T19:53:00.000-04:00

Via ScienceDaily:

"Highly materialistic people pour their efforts into work as this produces tangible materialistic rewards -- money and possessions. They therefore see any obstacle to work -including their family, as disruptive. This finding adds 'work-family conflict' to the already long list of the negative effects of materialistic values on personal well-being."

The Futility of Possession

2010-04-06T10:38:00.003-04:00

A recent study by Cornell University concludes:

... people get more enduring happiness from their experiences than their possessions ...

Possessions have value only to the degree that we consider them "ours" but nothing belongs to us forever. Possessions will deteriorate, loosing their novelty and value over time. Still, we work so hard to acquire, retain and protect them. Those efforts are ultimately futile, hence the inherent dissatisfaction with possessions.

I'd like to emphasize the experience of letting go as exemplified by the chorus of The Streets' Everything Is Borrowed:

I came to this world with nothing
And I leave with nothing but love
Everything else is just borrowed

Why Ask Why?

2010-03-30T09:57:00.001-04:00

In The Real Secret of Thoroughly Excellent Companies, Peter Bregman writes about the process of asking questions:

During his meeting with the front desk staff, [Michael Newcombe] learned they were slower than usual in checking in guests because rooms weren't available. Then, in his meeting with housekeeping staff, someone asked if the hotel was running low on king size sheets. Most CEOs wouldn't be interested in that question, but Michael asked why. Well, the maid answered, it's taking us longer to turn over rooms because we have to wait for the sheets. So he kept asking questions to different employee groups until he discovered that one of the dryers was broken and waiting for a custom part. That reduced the number of available sheets. Which slowed down housekeeping. Which reduced room availability. Which delayed guests from checking in.

He fixed the problem in 24 hours. A problem he never would have known about without open communication with all his employees.

The process of inquiry (vicara) driven by desire for truth and communal benefit is very powerful. We often become content with superficial explanations and avoid deeper reasoning. The example above demonstrates the effectiveness of such a process. It is comparable, if not identical to, the dialectical (Socratic) methods in philosophy.

Consciousness is to Nuerons as Water is to H2O

2010-01-13T07:09:00.004-05:00

Ray Tallis makes some interesting statements in his article, You won't find consciousness in the brain:

... my argument is not about technical ... limitations. It is about the deep philosophical confusion embedded in the assumption that if you can correlate neural activity with consciousness, then you have demonstrated they are one and the same thing, and that a physical science such as neurophysiology is able to show what consciousness truly is.

Many neurosceptics have argued that neural activity is nothing like experience, and that the least one might expect if A and B are the same is that they be indistinguishable from each other. Countering that objection by claiming that, say, activity in the occipital cortex and the sensation of light are two aspects of the same thing does not hold up because the existence of "aspects" depends on the prior existence of consciousness and cannot be used to explain the relationship between neural activity and consciousness.

This disposes of the famous claim by John Searle, Slusser Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley: that neural activity and conscious experience stand in the same relationship as molecules of H2O to water, with its properties of wetness, coldness, shininess and so on. The analogy fails as the level at which water can be seen as molecules, on the one hand, and as wet, shiny, cold stuff on the other, are intended to correspond to different "levels" at which we are conscious of it. But the existence of levels of experience or of description presupposes consciousness. Water does not intrinsically have these levels.

Via Harmonist.

Surviving Without Money

2009-07-22T16:32:00.002-04:00

From style.com:

"The answer lay, in part, in the Christianity of his childhood. In Suelo's nascent philosophy, following Jesus meant adopting the hard life prescribed in the Sermon on the Mount. 'Giving up possessions, living beyond credit and debt,' Suelo explains on his blog, 'freely giving and freely taking, forgiving all debts, owing nobody a thing, living and walking without guilt . . . grudge [or] judgment.' If grace was the goal, Suelo told himself, then it had to be grace in the classical sense, from the Latin gratia, meaning favor—and also, free.

"By 1999, he was living in a Buddhist monastery in Thailand—he had saved just enough money for the flight. From there, he made his way to India, where he found himself in good company among the sadhus, the revered ascetics who go penniless for their gods. Numbering as many as 5 million, the sadhus can be found wandering roads and forests across the subcontinent, seeking enlightenment in self-abnegation. 'I wanted to be a sadhu,' Suelo says. 'But what good would it do for me to be a sadhu in India? A true test of faith would be to return to one of the most materialistic, money-worshipping nations on earth and be a sadhu there. To be a vagabond in America, a bum, and make an art of it—the idea enchanted me.'"

Suelo also has a blog.

How do we know that we reason without reasoning about reason?

2009-06-17T10:06:00.004-04:00

The text below is a comment I posted in response to Hope for the Future: Balancing Scientific Temper and Spiritual Wisdom:

Many of the scientists and mathematicians that established the foundations of our modern world also contemplated the nature of consciousness and the Absolute. This is a fact worth emphasizing to those with and without faith.

The scientific community's conscious decision to solely consider the observable, measurable and reasonable has led to significant advances, but for what purpose?

Human reasoning has limits, especially when the major premise of such reasoning is restricted to a self-conception based upon observable phenomena. But what is the nature of the observer (consciousness) apart from the observed phenomena? In other words, how do we know that we reason without reasoning about reason?

Science will have to address such questions through synthesis, as you have suggested. Thankfully, there is a developing trend entitled “contemplative science” which draws upon the introspective methods long established by monastic traditions, including Hinduism and Buddhism.

If the contemplative method of inquiry is pursued sincerely, science may finally consider an alternate premise: Absolute truth does not concede to our limited experience—it is at least as conscious as we are. Being so conscious the Divine must have will and must will to joy. If the Divine wills to joy, then all purpose must be centered upon participating. Therefore, knowledge of how to participate must necessarily descend from the Divine himself. And above all, permission to participate in the joyful play of the Divine must be granted, never assumed.

At the end of reasoning lies a humble petition to the very knowledge we seek to grasp: an appeal to be possessed by that knowledge itself.

Calvin and Hobbes: Math is a Religion

2009-06-04T10:57:00.004-04:00

This reminds me of Gödel's incompleteness theorems:

Any effectively generated theory capable of expressing elementary arithmetic cannot be both consistent and complete. In particular, for any consistent, effectively generated formal theory that proves certain basic arithmetic truths, there is an arithmetical statement that is true, but not provable in the theory.

For any formal effectively generated theory T including basic arithmetical truths and also certain truths about formal provability, T includes a statement of its own consistency if and only if T is inconsistent.

Sri Venkateswara is coming to Cary, NC!

2009-05-18T16:45:00.007-04:00

I've wanted to visit the temple of Sri Venkateswara for a very long time. The original temple is located in Tirumala, Andhra Pradesh, India, and there are several outside of India.

But now a temple is opening right down the road in Cary, NC! I'm so excited!

The South Asian magazine Saathee has an article and detailed schedule of the opening, which will last an entire week.

How you feel the world impacts how you see it

2009-04-10T16:14:00.003-04:00

From MIT news:

"In the classic waterfall illusion, if you stare at the downward motion of a waterfall for some period of time, stationary objects -- such as rocks -- appear to drift upward. MIT neuroscientists have found that this phenomenon, called motion aftereffect, occurs not only in our visual perception but also in our tactile perception, and that these senses actually influence one another. Put another way, how you feel the world can actually change how you see it -- and vice versa."

Gnosticism vs Agnosticism vs Theism vs Atheism (image)

2009-04-07T09:44:00.002-04:00

Now that I'm 30 years old...

2009-04-05T10:00:00.001-04:00

I turned 30 on April 5, 2009. Here is a list of thoughts for the occasion:

Life is a great mystery and has no significance until you give it meaning. Embrace your free will but seek wise advice.

While you are young: travel, fall in love, make mistakes and be foolish. As you grow older you will have more to loose and be reluctant to take risks.

Voluntarily live in poverty for a period of time. You'll never take anything for granted again.

Recognize the the limitations of your own mind which has been habituated by culture. Strive to overcome these limitations by continually exposing yourself to new ideas and experiences.

You will discover your strengths by continually pushing your limits. Along the way you'll also discover your weaknesses; accept them and those of others.

Regularly contemplate death. The more you accept the temporal nature of all things, the more you'll appreciate the beauty of life in the present moment--that's really all we have.

Interesting Links and Articles

2009-03-22T16:37:00.015-04:00

The Philoctetes Center Multidisciplinary Study of the Imagination "was established to promote an integrated, interdisciplinary approach to the understanding of creativity and the imaginative process."

I'm not looking, honest! "[Kazuhiro Yokota, of Osaka University in Japan, and his colleagues] managed to do what had previously been thought impossible: they probed reality without disturbing it. Not disturbing it is the quantum-mechanical equivalent of not really looking. So they were able to show that the universe does indeed exist when it is not being observed." (The Economist, Mar 5th 2009)

IBM plans 'brain-like' computers "'We are attempting a 180 degree shift in perspective: seeking an algorithm first, problems second. We are investigating core micro- and macro-circuits of the brain that can be used for a wide variety of functionalities.'" (BBC News, Friday, 21 November 2008)

The coming evangelical collapse "We are on the verge – within 10 years – of a major collapse of evangelical Christianity. This breakdown will follow the deterioration of the mainline Protestant world and it will fundamentally alter the religious and cultural environment in the West." (Michael Spencer, Tue Mar 10, 2009)

The Happiness of the People "America's current leaders seem to be leading us down the path to European-style social democracy. But although it makes for pleasant lives, the European model stifles human flourishing and erodes the civic and cultural institutions and habits that make for a vibrant, sustainable, and satisfying way of life. Moreover, critics of the European model are about to get a boost from scientific discoveries in neuroscience and genetics that human nature is not malleable, which will undercut the foundations of social democracy. The answer: American exceptionalism, in which individuals freely unite to construct a civic culture. What follows is the text of Charles Murray's Irving Kristol Lecture, delivered at AEI's Annual Dinner at the Washington Hilton on March 11, 2009." (Charles Murray, March 12, 2009)

Is That Your Final Answer? Study Suggests Method For Improving Individual Decisions "Dialectical bootstrapping is a method by which an individual mind averages its' own conflicting opinions, thus simulating the 'wisdom of the crowd.' In other words, dialectical bootstrapping enables different opinions to be created and combined in the same mind." (ScienceDaily, Mar. 14, 2009)

The Equality Trust "believe[s] that in order to gain substantial improvements in the real quality of life of the populations of developed countries it is necessary that differences in income and wealth are greatly reduced. [...] However, differences in income and wealth will only be reduced when there is a widespread public understanding of the benefits which greater equality can bring to all of us. "

Living Well is More Important then Organic Fruit "Please go out there and do. Live. Don’t be the same as yesterday. Don’t live vicariously online. Don’t use language that has no meaning or talk ideas you don’t really live. Don’t hide. Don’t copy others or live their ideas or life. Don’t fear doing your thing. Don’t fear doing. Instead of reading a decorating magazine, paint that room. Instead of thinking of baking, do up a cake. Run, walk, bike. Put that self help book down and pick up yourself."

'Eye for an eye' approach does not pay, study "Living by the motto 'an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth' makes people less happy and successful, a study has found." (John Bingham, 25 Mar 2009)

Interesting Articles

2009-03-05T18:05:00.015-05:00

Philosophy's Great Experiment (Prospect, March 2009) - A dynamic new school of thought is emerging that wants to kick down the walls of recent philosophy and place experimentation back at its centre. It has a name to delight an advertising executive: x-phi. [(Experimental Philosophy)]

Pakistan's Sufis Preach Faith and Ecstasy (Smithsonian magazine, December 2008) - Sufism is not a sect, like Shiism or Sunnism, but rather the mystical side of Islam—a personal, experiential approach to Allah, which contrasts with the prescriptive, doctrinal approach of fundamentalists like the Taliban.

Is time an illusion? (New Scientist, 19 January 2008) - Physicists have long struggled to understand what time really is. In fact, they are not even sure it exists at all. In their quest for deeper theories of the universe, some researchers increasingly suspect that time is not a fundamental feature of nature, but rather an artefact of our perception. One group has recently found a way to do quantum physics without invoking time, which could help pave a path to a time-free 'theory of everything.' If correct, the approach suggests that time really is an illusion, and that we may need to rethink how the universe at large works. 'It is not reality that has a time flow, it is our very approximate knowledge of reality that has a time flow. Time is the effect of our ignorance.'

Dial H for Happiness: How Neuroengineering May Change Your Brain (Wired.com, March 3, 2009) - Schneider has agreed to give me TMS. Specifically, he will use it on a part of my brain that controls movement: the motor cortex. He ushers me into an overly large black leather chair. Except for the large, two-lobed paddle hanging from the back, which is connected to an impressive power supply, the chair resembles something a therapist might use. A few inches over my ear is the part of my brain that controls my hand and arm. Schneider holds the coil there and activates it. The muscles in my scalp contract automatically, and it stings. My hand is jumping with each loud snap from the TMS machine.

13 Unsolved scientific puzzles (Times Online, February 27, 2009) - Author Michael Brooks has investigated some of the most puzzling anomalies of modern science, those intractable problems that refuse to conform to the theories. Here he counts down the 13 strangest.

Doubting Darwin: Debate Over The Mind's Evolution (All Things Considered, February 20, 2009) - [S]ome Darwin skeptics are focusing on the human brain. They say a higher power must be involved; otherwise, how could a bunch of cells produce such complicated mental processes as consciousness or subjective experiences? How could something like free will be the result of evolution?

Are Our Brains Becoming 'Googlized?" (Search Engine Land, Nov 14, 2008) - 'emerging computerized technologies may have physiological effects and potential benefits for middle aged and older adults,' and that 'internet searching engages complicated brain activity, which may help exercise and improve brain function.' This is a long way of saying that being online helps keep those little gray cells busy. The level of brain activity was compared to that of reading a book. With internet usage, a significantly bigger piece of neural real estate lit up on the fMRI indicating that more parts of the brain were engaged.

Realization of Relative Reality Leads to Self-Inquiry

2009-03-03T15:13:00.013-05:00

From the Wikipedia article on the Interpretation of quantum mechanics:

"... the world around us seems to be in a specific state, yet quantum mechanics describes it with wave functions governing the probabilities of values. In general the wave-function assigns non-zero probabilities to all possible values for a given physical quantity, such as position. How then is it that we come to see a particle at a specific position when its wave function is spread across all space? In order to describe how specific outcomes arise from the probabilities, the direct interpretation introduces the concept of measurement. According to the theory, wave functions interact with each other and evolve in time according to the laws of physics until a measurement is performed, at which time the system will take on one of the possible values with probability governed by the wave-function. Measurement can interact with the system state in somewhat peculiar ways..."

According to quantum mechanics, the very act of measuring influences the value that is measured. Replace a few words and you have: "The very act of looking influences what we see."

We see with our eyes which passes images to our brain. Our mind interprets the visual stimulus: "That painting is ugly," or "That girl is cute."

In addition, if we assume that the brain produces the mind, then the instrument itself is a part of this quantum system. Infinite recursion anyone? Anyone?

I hope this idea frustrates and confuses you. I hope you experience doubt about your own thoughts. I hope you ask yourself, repeatedly, "Who am I?" with genuine curiosity.

All scientific, philosophical and theological questions lead to this one simple question. Without pursuing its answer all else is naught.

On Perception

2009-02-26T22:46:00.003-05:00

Every person is entitled to their opinion, perspective and world-view. Collectively, I'll call these "perceptions."

Considering that the origin of perceptions are rooted in upbringing, culture and personal experiences--with characteristics specific to the individual--how could a person not be entitled to their own perspective?

To disregard the opinion of another is to consider his or her entire life experience invalid. Our collective experiences all point to and support a particular world-view, from which we form our opinions. To question them is to question our own experiences.

If we suppose that all perceptions are valid, that there is nothing "wrong" but simply "different," where is "truth," or better stated, what is "objective reality?"

Objective reality is defined by numbers. The more people that hold a particular belief or perception, the more "real" their relative reality becomes. Indeed, the culture produced by collective perception reinforces itself. The shared perception becomes "objective" because there is no one (or few) to question it.

The world as I see it is much different than the world an African sees it. Are either of our perceptions invalid? Who will judge? Who is not influenced by their past or their environment? Who is free from the constraints of their own mental patterns?

If indeed there is no objective world "out there," then what is the "out there" that we see, hear, taste, smell, feel and contemplate about all day, every day.

There is no "out there." There is no objective reality. Who would know about it? How would they know about it?

Can you see the world in relation to anything other than yourself? In relation to anything other than your past? How would you perceive it? With your mind? A mind that has been shaped, arguably beyond our control, for decades, by a culture of consumerism, emotionally traumatic relationships and mediocre parenting?

The world you experience, having been filtered through the mind, is non-different from the mind itself. Every perception you have of the outer-world is simply an extension of your conscious or subconscious mind. Everywhere you go, there you are.

To understand yourself is to understand the world. To embrace your lack of knowledge is to embrace your fellow man in the wondrous mystery of life.

Elizabeth Gilbert: On Creative Genius

2009-02-16T19:05:00.001-05:00

On Culture and Spiritual Community

2009-02-05T21:37:00.007-05:00

Reverend J. Dana Trent recently asked me about my opinion of the Binkley Baptist Church's covenant. My initial response:

"I have to admit that reading the church covenant reminded me of my psychological aversion to joining groups. The self-imposed pressure of group obligations make me uncomfortable."

To which she responded:

"I know what you mean about self-imposed formal group pressure. The irony of that church covenant is that many people ... feel it's 'anti-Baptist' because Baptists are very individualistic and autonomy-oriented. I want to hear more about how you feel/perceive this."

There is a lot of value is being part of a group. Some people need external accountability and a feeling of community to be consistent in their spiritual practice. Some people are the opposite.

For example, folks who eventually become atheists may idealize the principles of Christianity, and then become disillusioned when they don't see those principles applied perfectly by practitioners.

Ideally, members of a community should emphasize individual accountability and introspection, otherwise those external pressures become artificial and competitive.

I would argue that in the past, humanity's culture emphasized the virtues mentioned above, so the spiritual communities that developed within the context of such a culture did not have to address issues that arise when those virtues are not present. It may seem like a "dumbing down" of spiritual principles, but I think those virtues need to be address by spiritual communities. "How?" is a big question, and should be voluntarily determined by members according to their collective psychological predispositions. The "how" should be flexible, even readily disregarded if it's effectiveness eventually becomes questionable.

I looked in my Gita (18.42-43) to find a few nice virtues: tranquility, self-control, austerity, forgiveness, honesty, faith, determination, and generosity.

Interesting articles

2009-02-01T16:35:00.019-05:00

Exploring Consciousness through the Study of Bees (Scientific American, January, 2009) "... there is no accepted theory of consciousness, no principled theory that would tell us which systems, organic or artificial, are conscious and why."

How Google Is Making Us Smarter (Discover, January 15, 2009) "the mind appears to be adapted for reaching out from our heads and making the world, including our machines, an extension of itself."

Is Technology Producing A Decline In Critical Thinking And Analysis? (ScienceDaily January 29, 2009) "'As students spend more time with visual media and less time with print, evaluation methods that include visual media will give a better picture of what they actually know...'"

DVD teaches autistic kids what a smile means (Associated Press, January 15, 2009) "About a decade ago, Baron-Cohen suggested that autism — which is much less likely to afflict girls — might be an extreme version of the typical male brain. Men tend to understand the world via patterns and structure, whereas women are more inclined to understand emotions and sympathize with others."

Mind Out Of Balance, Body Out Of Balance (ScienceDaily, January 27, 2009) "Many ... adults who suffer from anxiety disorders also have problems with balance. As increasing numbers of children are diagnosed with anxiety, Tel Aviv University researchers have discovered that the link between balance and anxiety can be assessed at an early age and that something can be done about it before it becomes a problem."

Elevating Science, Elevating Democracy (The New York Times January 26, 2009) "Science is not a monument of received Truth but something that people do to look for truth. That endeavor, which has transformed the world in the last few centuries, does indeed teach values. Those values, among others, are honesty, doubt, respect for evidence, openness, accountability and tolerance and indeed hunger for opposing points of view. [...] The habit of questioning that you learn in physics is invaluable in the rest of society."

On Happiness

2009-02-01T16:20:00.002-05:00

In this attempt to describe happiness and it's origins, I will first recognize the emotion as a completely subjective experience. "Objective" observers might witness or measure external indications of happiness, but those indications may be intentionally misleading, or unintentionally misinterpreted. Happiness, in full, can only be perceived through subjective experience, because in principle, it is an emotion or "state of mind," and no one has direct awareness of your mind except you.

I concede that external standards of happiness, when measured over time with statistical significance, may reveal trends and provide useful guidelines for a happy life. However, guidelines have a tendency to become dogmatic when followed outside context and culture.

If you are the only one who truly knows whether or not you are happy, then your own happiness is ultimately your responsibility. How do you know if you're happy?

Knowing your own happiness may seem simple, but our current culture of consumerism muddies the process. Rather than recognizing instances of unhappiness, Western culture encourages us to ignore it by consuming, i.e. watching TV, surfing online, having sex, eating junk food or even shopping.

The Western solution to unhappiness could be compared to hiding from a potential attacker. Running and out of breath, you manage to find an open door to slip behind, and the attacker is unable to find you. You breath a sigh of relief and experience a degree of happiness. But you still have to come back from behind the door. You still have to face the potential threat of being attacked by someone else, and they might find out your hiding spot! The experience really wasn't happiness, it was the temporary cessation of unhappiness. Big difference.

Philokalia - Love of the Beautiful

2009-02-01T11:02:00.010-05:00

This weekend I spent several hours browsing the Edward McKay used bookstore. I picked up a book that I couldn't put back down, The Philokalia:

Philokalia is defined as the 'love of the beautiful, the exalted, the excellent, understood as the transcendent source of life and the revelation of Truth.' The original authors were mostly monks, whose striving for purification of the heart and spiritual perfection are recurring themes in the Philokalia.

As much aversion as I have for Christian dogma, this book speaks the non-sectarian language of divine love. When exploring the essence of existence and the nature of our relationship with the divine, a certain pattern emerges across all traditions--that of pure, selfless devotion to our personal ishta devata.

Buddhism and Science, Quantum Mechanics and the Mind

2009-01-14T08:46:00.006-05:00

A couple of interesting articles I found recently:

Buddhists welcome science into monasteries:

"... a project called Science for Monks, backed by a Boston-based charity called the Sagar Family Foundation, western scientists also have given scientific workshops for exiled Tibetan Buddhist monks in northern India. The new collaboration aims to spread the appreciation of scientific inquiry yet further by creating a core of scientifically inspired 'learning leaders', explains Exploratorium artist-educator Karen Wilkinson.

"'These monks are the most extraordinary students,' says Mark St John, who runs a science education consultancy in Inverness, California, and will accompany the Exploratorium team to Sarnath. 'They are total in their attention, often child-like in their enthusiasm, and are very used to working together.'"

Is Quantum Mechanics Controlling Your Thoughts?

"... photosynthesis appears to derive its ferocious efficiency not from the familiar physical laws that govern the visible world but from the seemingly exotic rules of quantum mechanics, the physics of the subatomic world. Somehow, in every green plant or photosynthetic bacterium, the two disparate realms of physics not only meet but mesh harmoniously. Welcome to the strange new world of quantum biology.

"Electrons moving through a leaf or a green sulfur bacterial bloom are effectively performing a quantum 'random walk'—a sort of primitive quantum computation—to seek out the optimum transmission route for the solar energy they carry. 'We have shown that this quantum random-walk stuff really exists,' Fleming says. 'Have we absolutely demonstrated that it improves the efficiency? Not yet. But that’s our conjecture. And a lot of people agree with it.'

The article cites more research that links quantum mechanics to our sense of smell, the effect of green tea and consciousness itself.

Existentialists make lousy boardgames

2009-01-13T10:05:00.004-05:00

From the Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal web comic:

The Conspiracy of the Monkey Mind

2009-01-12T13:28:00.007-05:00

I'm working on a blog entry about happiness, but Paul Jones tweeted this article and I wanted to post it: The Conspiracy of the Monkey Mind.

For the devotees of the cult of rationalist materialism, this conspiracy of duality was most profoundly manifest in the concept of the 'objective observer.' With fanatic devotion to the dualistic principle that the observer is separate from the observed, they forcibly separated the concepts of human from nature, mind from matter, and science from spirit. Though this approach resulted in technoscience’s phenomenal capacity to rigorously manipulate the physical world, its accompanying worldview justified the dismissal or ignorance of uncomfortable or inexplicable causal connections that did not fit neatly into its proscribed framework.

More Evidence of Interdependence

2008-12-31T00:22:00.006-05:00

My previous post regarding altruism and egoism stressed that individuals live in an environment of inescapable interdependence. An article in the UK's Telegraph cites research by Dr. Nicholas Christakis, a sociologist at Harvard Medical School, and James Fowler, an Associate Professor in the Political Science Department at the University of California, San Diego:

"How grumpy people feel can be influenced not only by the state of mind of those closest to us, but also by friends of friends that we have never met like ripples from 'pebbles thrown into a pond' [...] the effect works both ways with each 'happy connection' increasing the chance of a person's happiness by nine per cent."

Statistical details are available in their research paper (PDF) published in the British Medical Journal (337). Fowler was also interviewed on NPR Science Friday.

Our mood radiates outward to influence others "like pebbles in a pond." What responsibility we have! What opportunity we have! So, how do we improve our mood and generate happiness? That is another blog post...

On Altruism and Egoism

2008-12-29T04:00:00.001-05:00

LiveScience reports on the research of Brick Johnstone and Bret Glass of Missouri University:

"... the right parietal lobe — is responsible for defining 'Me,' said researcher Brick Johnstone of Missouri University. It generates self-criticism, he said, and guides us through physical and social terrains by constantly updating our self-knowledge: my hand, my cocktail, my witty conversation skills, my new love interest ...

"[Their research] looked for correlations between brain region performance and the subjects' self-reported spirituality.

"Among the more spiritual of the 26 subjects, the researchers pinpointed a less functional right parietal lobe, a physical state which may translate psychologically as decreased self-awareness and self-focus.

"In addition to religious practices, other behaviors and experiences are known to hush the Definer of Me. Appreciation of art or nature can quiet it, Johnstone said, pointing out that people talk of 'losing themselves' in a particularly beautiful song. Love, and even charity work, can also soften the boundaries of 'Me,' he said."

This link between selflessness and spirituality is echoed in the Bhagavad-gita:

Those who are unwise act out of attachment for the results of their action, so the wise should act without attachment for the sake of uplifting the world.

Chapter 3, Text 26, translation by Swami Tripurari

And in the Philippians 2:4 of the Bible:

Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.

In Islam, the term used for selflessness is al-'eethar, and is mentioned in the Qur'an 59:9

Those who entered the city and the faith before them love those who flee unto them for refuge, and find in their breasts no need for that which hath been given them, but prefer (the fugitives) above themselves though poverty become their lot. And whoso is saved from his own avarice - such are they who are successful.

One antagonist of selflessness is Ayn Rand, who states:

Men have been taught that the ego is the synonym of evil, and selflessness the ideal of virtue. But the creator is the egoist in the absolute sense, and the selfless man is the one who does not think, feel, judge or act. These are functions of the self.

The ethics of Rand's objectivism, rational egoism, hold that human reasoning leads to selfishness. Why would someone put others' interest before their own? A person's life would end quickly if all of their actions were geared towards the preservation of another's life. Therefore, if someone acts for the benefit of others, they are being unreasonable. She even applies the idea to love in her March 1964 interview with Playboy:

"When you are in love, it means that the person you love is of great personal, selfish importance to you and to your life. If you were selfless, it would have to mean that you derive no personal pleasure or happiness from the company and the existence of the person you love, and that you are motivated only by self-sacrificial pity for that person's need of you. [...] Love is not self-sacrifice, but the most profound assertion of your own needs and values."

Although Rand makes excellent and inspiring points about individualism, self-sufficiency and the avoidance of animalistic hedonism throughout her writings, the extremes of altruism and egoism can be balanced.

If we ignore the needs of others we will be indirectly affected. If we do not properly educate children or provide social services for those in need, our economy may suffer and crime may rise. We cannot deny our interdependence. No man is an island.

The community stagnates without the impulse of the individual. The impulse dies away without the sympathy of the community.

--William James

Independent thinking alone is not suited to interdependent reality. Independent people who do not have the maturity to think and act interdependently may be good individual producers, but they won't be good leaders or team players. They're not coming from the paradigm of interdependence necessary to succeed in marriage, family, or organizational reality.

--Stephen Covey

Meeting the needs of our fellow man requires that we clearly understand those needs and are capable of meeting them. It requires that we direct enough attention towards our personal well-being to make a contribution to humanity at large. Ignoring our own needs is not part of the equation of interdependence. How can we help others without having helped ourselves?

Regardless of how much reasoning we apply in our own narrow self-interest, the end result is the same: death. We may have lived a well-reasoned life, but for what purpose? The whole of humanity will outlive the individual. If our sense of self is not broadened to include others, particularly those who have not yet been born, then a tiny life of selfish acts has little meaning.

May I continually improve all aspects of my physical, emotional and mental individuality, as well as my capacity to communicate with and understand others, so that my existence remains humble, meaningful and benign.

The Meaning of Vichara

2008-12-28T00:57:00.004-05:00

Vichara is a Sanskrit word which means "inquiry."

Sri Ramana Maharshi uses the term in conjunction with atma leading to the phrase atma-vichara -- "inquiry into the nature of soul."

I draw upon Maharshi's use of the term because of the intensity with which he applied the practice. This blog will serve as an outlet to inquire about and critically analyze my experience of the world, as well as the tendencies and patterns by which my mind analyzes.

Why go through this seemingly circular process of questioning? Good question!

"The one who asks questions doesn't loose his way."

--African proverb

"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality."

--Edmund Burke

"Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will find them gradually, without noticing it, and live along some distant day into the answer."

--Rainer Maria Rilke