2022-02-28
Morality - Advaithi
Shan:
"Morality, as far as I could see, originates in atheism and the realisation that no higher power is coming along to feed the hungry or lift the fallen. Mercy is left entirely to us."
- Barbara Ehrenreich
Thol:
I searched and found the above quote in this 'edited extract from Living With A Wild God: A Non-Believer's Search For The Truth About Everything, by Barbara Ehrenreich'.
As many times stressed in our discussions, what we make of our experience is the difference. Similar 'mystical' (as Barbara had when she was 17) experiences led other people to pursue a different path and they made sense of their experiences in a completely different way. Which or who is right? Under one interpretation of such experience questions (and answers) like this, will drop away.
"Ah, you say, this is all in your mind. And you are right to be sceptical; I expect no less. It is in my mind, which is a less than perfect instrument. But this is what appears to be the purpose of my mind, and no doubt yours as well, its designated function beyond all the mundane calculations: to condense all the chaos and mystery of the world into a palpable Other or Others, not necessarily because we love it, and certainly not out of any intention to "worship" it. But because ultimately we may have no choice in this matter. I have the impression, growing out of the experiences chronicled here, that it may be seeking us out." (last paragraph from the above extract)
I would like to end the above as '... IT (nature) is seeking it-self out'.
Shan (as he told me) had a few 'mystical' experiences. I had none. But, as I explored and connected the dots, I understood every experience is special; if one wants to call them 'mystical', they are.
The experience is the only reality we have. What we infer from that varies. Finding out which inference makes sense, simple, parsimonious etc is like a detective work. You don't conclude your investigation with just one evidence / pointer / circumstantial match / gut feeling... You need many and they should back up each other / hang together in a consistent way. As Sherlock Holmes would say, 'When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth'.
The logical analysis part of Advaita is doing the same by eliminating one by one as (neti neti - not this, not that) like you are not the body, you are not the mind...
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As to the quote ("Morality, as far as I could see, originates in atheism and the realisation that no higher power is coming along to feed the hungry or lift the fallen."), it is a bit disappointing that a well thinking author could not see that belief or disbelief in God may or may not be the source of one's morality. An atheist can be immoral and a theist can be moral and vice versa. This is our day to day experience.
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Morality (from Latin: moralitas, lit. 'manner, character, proper behavior') is the differentiation of intentions, decisions and actions between those that are distinguished as proper (right) and those that are improper (wrong).[1] Morality can be a body of standards or principles derived from a code of conduct from a particular philosophy, religion or culture, or it can derive from a standard that a person believes should be universal.[2] Morality may also be specifically synonymous with "goodness" or "rightness".
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Though morality can be derived from many (second order) sources like philosophy, religion, culture etc., ultimately all of them evolved for and by our social-living (சமூக வாழ்க்கை) . So, that is its real source (origin).
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Thanks to Shan for sending this quote and helping me learn about this. It is good we have a talented opponent (in understanding the nature of reality) in our group to stimulate exploration.
Even though I would like Shan to appreciate the logical consistency in my writings, I much prefer he doesn't agree with me and keep throwing challenges!
2022-03-01
Shan:
I need to explain the mystical experiences I have had. Typically, my state of mind is driven by external events. I feed happy if read a good book, eat good food, when near the sea, etc. Similarly I feel sad when something bad happens. Non-typically, I also feel sad or happy without any external triggers. In almost all such cases, the cause was not proximate but happened a few hours or even a few days ago. A careful analysis of my state of mind reveals the cause and the causal chain for the state of my mind.
There are very few exceptions to this and these are what I consider 'mystical' experiences. Without going into details of these experiences, there experiences are also based on certain physical things except that the causal connection is not well established. I am not converting these mystical experiences into quotidian events for the sake of argument. I do consider them exceptional events. At the same time, I have reasons to believe that these are based on physical events and nothing more.
I do appreciate the logical consistency of your conjectures. Here are a few more logically consistent conjectures that are not disprovable for you to mull over.
1. Everything we see and perceive was created just 3.2495..... seconds ago. So, all the history books, fossil records to cosmic background radiation were not things that evolved over a period of time but created in situ.
2. We all live in a simulation. Could be that the simulators are also simulated ad infinitum...
3. Thol's conjectures about the nature of reality.
4. No one exists except Shan.
5. No one exists (this may be easy to disprove but not really. If you can get your hands on the book On Having No Head: Zen and the Rediscovery of the Obvious Douglas Harding, please read it in case you have not read it earlier. In it argues that none of us have have heads but have arms and legs and so on. He means this not figuratively but literally. It is very difficult to counter his arguments.
All of the above are self consistent. In case you wonder why I have not included science in this, it is not a self consistent system. So, it does not count.
Thol:
It is not enough to list arbitrarily made-up 'consistent' conjectures. We need to use our direct experience (the only given) and method-of-inference (logic, reason, intuition, simplicity, no or less assumptions, parsimony, verifiable by others using the same method...) to justify them. That is how you prove (get convinced) or disprove them.
This proof / disproof is of different class (category) from the empirical proof of scientific models. This class of proof is more real as the inference is made by each person. There is no need to learn higher mathematics or believe experts (as we do in scientific models).
By the way, I didn't mean 'the logical consistency' of my statements alone but also the method-of-inference.
The experience is the only reality we have. What we infer from that varies. Finding out which inference makes sense, simple, parsimonious etc is like a detective work. You don't conclude your investigation with just one evidence / pointer / circumstantial match / gut feeling... You need many and they should back up each other / hang together in a consistent way. As Sherlock Holmes would say, 'When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth'.The logical analysis part of Advaita is doing the same by eliminating one by one as (neti neti - not this, not that) like you are not the body, you are not the mind...
But in a way no. 1 can be seen (through) by each person that past, present and future all appear at this instant (moment) only. This is the direct experience (proof) without any assumption, conceptual musing etc. In fact, this is consistent with the 'block universe' which is the logical result (accepted by the scientific community) of Albert Einstein's General Theory of Relativity (there is no space and time but only space-time).
I assert no. 3 qualifies.
No.4 is the logical conclusion if we follow the materialism that everything we perceive is the hallucination (copy of the supposed external world) within our brains. This is absurd and doesn't qualify to direct experience. Science (materialist metaphysics) is inconsistent precisely because of this. There may be other inconsistencies between its models like standard model and quantum mechanics etc. Worth reading the following.
No. 5 - I have read and known about Douglas Harding's headless method. It may sound weird but it is as simple as 'lip cannot kiss itself' and 'finger tip cannot touch itself' and so on. In anthropological research there is a discussion about when we got our sense-of-self and one of the points is that it started only when we saw our face (head) in some reflective surface like water. It is in the book 'User Illusion'. I had written about this book (to you, maybe in 2006/2007/2008) many years ago.
The 'headless' experiment is supposed to work like Zen koans, to shock you out of your dream. We can ridicule headless experiment like we can Zen koans (for example, the clap of one hand). I would say it (headless experiment) is better than Zen koan and available to direct experience minus assumptions (that is a very big ask).
One can say it is weird that we want to ditch our direct experience and believe in inconsistent science (here I mean the materialist metaphysics mainly not empirically verified scientific models). Any inconsistencies between the models may be resolved as we make progress and changing the metaphysics will actually help that progress. An advaithi (they come in many flavours) can be a real friend of science, personal and social betterment and also a strong and effective enemy of organized religions, superstitions and all manner of exploitation.
When sometimes it is said 'no one exists' in these discussions, it means 'no separate entities' exist as we usually think. It is similar to saying this world is an illusion. It doesn't mean the world doesn't exist but it doesn't exist as we usually think - as a collection of separate objects; it only appears so. It is like saying a mirage is an illusion. But we see the mirage. It is there. But, it is not what we think (see as) it is (water).
We have to use the available (known) words to convey the new perspective but with a slight twist in the meaning.
Even in our day-to-day learning we build on what we learnt before. If we forget arithmetic we cannot do calculus. Similarly, we have to keep all the threads of our discussions in the mind to make sense and to 'see through' the game / play.
Thanks again Shan for triggering this output. From one side this can be viewed as 'Thol's conjectures about the nature of reality' in a personal way. But, from the other side, it can be seen as evolving in the interaction impersonally like any other natural process.
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