Church of the Churchless

Embrace "Binocularity." We are both subjective and objective.

In one of my periodic fits of grandiosity (assuming I'm ever doing anything else), last month I popped out a blog post titled, "Subjective and objective: the key to understanding everything!"

However, even non-humble me understood that, duh, between the poles of subjective and objective must lie everything. What else is there in the cosmos that can't be classified as objectively or subjectively real? 

Meaning, it either exists within, or as, some form of consciousness, or it is present whether or not some form of consciousness is aware of it. 

Back in 2009 I swam in these deep philosophical waters in another post, "Subjectivity is the experience of objectivity." There I talked about Owen Flanagan's book, The Really Hard Problem: Meaning in a Material World.

Our experiencing is an objective state of affairs, along with coffee cups and laptops. Experience simply is a feeling state, according to Flanagan, which makes a lot of sense to me. 

There aren't two worlds, one subjective and one objective. Our experiencing is part of the objective world, albeit a unique part -- one which does not exist apart from the experiencer.

Today I came across a New York Times piece, "The Benefits of 'Binocularity'" that casts more light on the nature of subjectivity and objectivity. 
Download The Benefits of 'Binocularity' - NYTimes.com

It isn't very long. Well worth a read. Here's some excerpts.

To see what is right — and wrong — with the notion that neuroscience will transform our idea of just deserts, and, more generally, our idea of what it means to be human, it can help to step back and consider a strange-sounding metaphor that I encountered first in the work of the British philosopher Jonathan Glover. He said that if we want to understand what sorts of beings we are in depth, we need to achieve a sort of intellectual “binocularity.”

With the metaphor of binocularity, Glover was saying that, just as we need two eyes that integrate slightly different information about one scene to achieve visual depth perception, being able see ourselves though two fundamentally different lenses, and integrate those two sources of information, can give us a greater depth of understanding of ourselves.

Through one lens we see that we are “subjects” (we act) who have minds and can have the experience of making free choices. Through the other we see that we are “objects” or bodies (we are acted upon), and that our experiences or movements are determined by an infinitely long chain of natural and social forces.

Consider one mundane example. As I sit at my computer writing these words, I am having an experience of choosing words to express what I am thinking. When they are published, you and I can both judge my choices. Because I am the subject who has made them, I will enjoy your praise or be stung by your derision. Whether it is praise or blame, you and I will agree that it is I who deserve it. This experience I have as a subject with a mind is as real a feature of the world as is the body that is the necessary condition for that experience.

...The more difficult — and, I would argue, better — way to go about trying to understand what sorts of beings we are is to see ourselves as both free subjects and as determined objects, and to accept that we aren’t wired for seeing ourselves in both ways at once. Using either lens alone can lead to pernicious mistakes.

When we use only the subject lens, we are prone to a sort of inhumanity where we ignore the reality of the natural and social forces that bear down on all of us to make our choices. It would be hard to exaggerate, for example, the inhumanity of locking up huge numbers of people who are clearly mentally ill. When we use only the object lens, however, we are prone to a different, but equally noxious sort of inhumanity, where we fail to appreciate the reality of the experience of making choices freely and of knowing that we can deserve punishment — or praise.

Our conceptual lives would be tidier if we could see ourselves only as subjects or only as objects, but our understanding would be shallower. If we want to understand persons in deeper ways than either lens alone can offer, we need to practice a more binocular habit of thinking. Such a way of thinking would accept the necessity of oscillating between seeing ourselves as beings who can — and can’t — deserve punishment. Neuroscience can help us grind one of those lenses, but it can’t obviate the need for the other.

No, the universe didn't "have a message for me"

Giving up religiosity doesn't happen all at once. At least, not in my case. I wasn't able to go cold turkey, so to speak, and give up my addiction to unfounded faith-based beliefs all at once.

They just have gradually lessened, weakened, become much less powerful. 

Yet in subtler forms, my previous attachment to feeling that I'm being watched over by an all-knowing, all-loving transcendental presence still is evident from time to time. 

Like, last Thursday. 

It was a potentially traumatic day for me. After having my hair cut by the same person for 37 years, Betsy departed for central Oregon. But she gave me the name of a replacement hair cutter.

Who I'd phoned and made an appointment with for Thursday at 1:30. There it was, in my Mac's calendar: September 25, 1:30 pm.

Nervous about how my precious hair would fare in the hands of another woman, I left home early enough to arrive at the salon a few minutes early -- wanting to ease into this brave new world of haircutting after more than a third of a century in Betsy's comforting realm.

Only to be met with a "Um, did you have an appointment? I can fit you in, but I had you down for tomorrow."

Oops. Somebody had screwed up. I didn't think it was me. It was possible, though. After this awkward beginning, I felt OK as we got into the business of trimming. 

She and I agreed on how much to take off (half an inch). I appreciated her comment, "You have nice hair." For someone my age, at least. 

But then she looked out the window and said, "Just a second. I was going to have lunch with my mother. She just drove up. I need to run outside and tell her we'll do it another day." That made me feel sort of guilty, since I might have been the one who screwed up on the appointment time.

However, when she got back to trimming my hair, I was told "Actually it's no big deal. I see my mother all the time. And I learned that tomorrow my father is coming to town. It's good that I'm cutting your hair today."

Driving away after my haircut, I mulled over what had just transpired. 

Was it a good thing or a bad thing that I'd showed up at the salon on a day my haircutter hadn't expected? What did this mean? Could it be a sign that I should stick with getting my hair cut by her? Or maybe I should take my wife's advice and try the woman who takes care of her hair, in part because I wouldn't have to drive as far?

Then another thought popped up. 

Subconsciously I'd been assuming that the "universe has a message for me" thing was valid.

Meaning, there was some meaning to these hair-cutting events beyond how I felt about them, some sort of hidden purpose  that could be discerned if I was perceptive enough to understand "what the universe was trying to say."

Naturally I didn't think that God or some other divine entity was the source of this hidden purpose. Hey, I'm churchless! 

I really, really, doubt this is true

Still, I could tell that a lingering telelogical leaning was still present in my psyche. I was looking for an end, a reason,  an overriding explanation for my arriving at the salon on an expected (for my haircutter) day.

Realizing this, my mind then shifted gears.

Stuff just happens, I reminded myself. What happened today doesn't mean anything more than the meaning I ascribe to it. At that moment, I felt a weight depart from my wondering mind.

There's no need to try to figure out what the universe is telling me. The universe isn't saying anything to me. There's no cosmic message here, no meaning-puzzle to be assembled, no secret code to be deciphered.

Like I said back in 2010...

I don't see "stuff happens" as negative. Rather, it is an affirmation of reality and the mystery that looms when we try to understand its depths (notwithstanding how the most famous popularizer of that phrase used it).

I'm not sure why what has already happened to me, did. I'm not sure why what lies in the future for me, will be. I'm not sure why this present moment, is.

The chains of causes and effects -- including what appears to be randomness -- linked to even the simplest event are breathtakingly beyond the complete comprehension of even the smartest people in the world, or the most advanced computers. 

Stuff happens. Then other stuff happens. Until we die. That's beautiful!

Why evolution makes it difficult for people to believe in evolution

Recently I've been blogging about Sam Harris' new book, "Waking Up," whose central thesis is that our sense of being a Self or Soul separate and distinct from the brain/body is an illusion. 

Harris doesn't talk much, if at all, about how this sense came to be. It must have been an evolutionary advantage to early humans. Perhaps it is an add-on, so to speak, to our species' extraordinary ability to be not only aware, but self-aware.

Aware of our awareness in a way that other animals aren't, the brain seems to look upon itself as if from the outside, fostering a sense that someone is inside my head observing my experience.

As Harris notes, there is no sign of this someone, no "ghost in the machine," no non-physical blob of consciousness floating around inside the human cranium. Yet it feels like there is. And that feeling is a product of evolution. 

Natural selection only "cares" (speaking loosely) about certain sorts of abilities to know the truth about reality.

Obviously having an accurate understanding of predators, threats, dangers, food sources, the physical environment, intentions of other humans, and such is a survival must. Early Homo sapiens' who were unaware of crucial facts didn't survive long enough to reproduce and pass on their genetic heritage.

But having an illusory sense of self not only didn't hurt one's chances of survival; almost certainly it aided it. "Oh, crap, if this happens, I could die! Must make sure it doesn't happen!" That's a positive sort of thought, even if there actually is no enduring "I" separate from the brain's goings-on.

Thus just because a trait exists in modern humans doesn't mean it points to a factual truth. It could be an illusion that has an evolutionary advantage.

Chris Mooney writes on the Mother Jones web site about how disbelief in evolution itself is a product of evolution in "7 Reasons Why It's Easier for Humans to Believe in God Than Evolution." Interesting stuff. Give his piece a read. 

Here's excerpts that provide a summary of Mooney's seven reasons.

(1) Biological Essentialism. First, we seem to have a deep tendency to think about biology in a way that is "essentialist"—in other words, assuming that each separate kind of animal species has a fundamental, unique nature that unites all members of that species, and that is inviolate. Fish have gills, birds have wings, fish make more fish, birds make more birds, and that's how it all works.

(2) Teleological Thinking. Essentialism is just one basic cognitive trait, observed in young children, that seems to hinder evolutionary thinking. Another is "teleology," or the tendency to ascribe purposes to things and objects so as to assume they exist to serve some goal. Recent research suggests that 4 and 5 year old children are highly teleological in their thinking, tending to opine, for instance, that clouds are "for raining" and that the purpose of lions is "to go in the zoo."

(3) Overactive Agency Detection. Another trait, closely related to teleological thinking, is our tendency to treat any number of inanimate objects as if they have minds and intentions. Examples of faulty agency detection, explains University of British Columbia origins of religion scholar Ara Norenzayan, range from seeing "faces in the clouds" to "getting really angry at your computer when it starts to malfunction."

(4) Dualism. Yet another apparent feature of our cognitive architecture is the tendency to think that minds (or the "self" and the "soul") are somehow separate from brains. Once again, this inclination has been found in young children, suggesting that it emerges early in human development....Dualism is pretty clearly implicated in resistance to the idea that human beings could have developed from purely natural processes—for if they did, how could there ever be a soul or self beyond the body, to say nothing of an afterlife?

(5) Inability to Comprehend Vast Time Scales. According to Norenzayan, there's one more basic cognitive factor that prevents us from easily understanding evolution. Evolution occurred due to the accumulation of many small changes over vast time periods—which means that it is unlike anything we've experienced. So even thinking about it isn't very easy.

(6) Group Morality and Tribalism. All of these cognitive factors seem to make evolution hard to grasp, even as they render religion (or creationist ideas) simpler and more natural to us. But beyond these cognitive factors, there are also emotional reasons why a lot of people don't want to believe in evolution. When we see resistance to its teaching, after all, it is usually because a religious community fears that this body of science will undermine a belief system—in the US, usually fundamentalist Christianity—deemed to serve as the foundation for shared values and understanding. In other words, evolution is resisted because it is perceived as a threat to the group.

(7) Fear and the Need for Certainty. Finally, there appears to be something about fear and doubt that impels religiosity and dispels acceptance of evolution. "People seem to take more comfort from a stance that says, someone designed the world with good intentions, instead of that the world is just an intention-less, random place," says Norenzayan. "This is especially true when we feel a sense of threat, or a feeling of not being in control."

Non-duality is simply this: observer and observed are one

There's a lot of stuff written and said about non-duality. I've both partaken of it and spewed out my own in various blog posts. For example, see here, here, here, and here.

After reading a bunch of neuroscience books, Sam Harris' "Waking Up," and several books by Moller De La Rouviere, the simple truth of non-duality is finally sinking into my non-dual mind.

Which, like yours, also has been, is now, and forever will be non-dual.

Meaning, undivided into an observer and what is observed. Or awareness and objects of awareness. Or consciousness and contents of consciousness. 

In short, there is no self.

No soul. No person sitting inside our head and watching what is being experienced. This is Neuroscience 101. Also Genuine Spirituality 101. (See "Real spirituality is realizing you aren't a soul, or self."

So when non-dual authors and speakers blab on about how there is nothing to do or become in order to realize the truth of non-duality, they're right. In fact, they're so right, they shouldn't be charging for this oh-so-obvious insight.

It's like saying, "Nothing needs to be done to realize the truth of gravity." OK, no argument there.

Gravity is a physical fact, a law of nature. So is non-duality. The human brain isn't divided dualistically. Again, there is no detached observer inside the head who is observing experience. Experience and the experiencer are a single entity: the brain doing its thing as what we call "mind."  

I've begun to lean toward the attitude that, contrary to what Harris and De La Rouviere say in their books, it isn't necessary to engage in meditation practices aimed at a direct intuitive experience of non-duality. I talked about this some in a post about Harris' "Waking Up."

When I look at the Sun set or rise, I still have the sensation that it is moving, while the Earth stands still. However, science tells me this is an illusion. I believe science. My mental image is of the Earth orbiting the Sun. It is only my eyes which deceive me.

Likewise, I don't believe that I have a self or soul. I haven't for quite a while. Yet I still feel like I am looking out at the world in the same way as a rider looks out from his position astride a horse: in control, separate from body.

What I'm unsure about is whether it is really necessary to engage in all of the meditative work Harris considers to be necessary to lessen one's feeling of being a self or soul. If this is such a good thing, then why shouldn't I also labor at trying to experience the Earth moving at "sunset" rather than the Sun going down?

...Harris is big on meditation. I think that thinking is another way: understanding the reasons why a self or soul almost certainly doesn't exist can lead to an intuitive experience of selflessness. 

Why not?

Again, after I understand that the Earth revolves around the Sun, I won't look upon a sunrise or sunset in the same way. Eventually that cognitive understanding may morph into an experiential realization of Earth moving and Sun staying still.

Buddhist meditation -- Harris favors the Dzogchen variety -- surely is a proven way of experiencing more fully the reality of no-self. Simply living life with eyes wide open is another way. I doubt that sitting at the feet of a Dzogchen master is necessary to realize there is no self or soul inside my head.

Looking over some of my previous posts about non-duality, I was struck by how closely what a Zen master said mirrors modern understanding of how the brain works. His reference to a "self" really means our individuality as a separate body/mind -- not a Self distinct from physicality.

This cup I am looking at now is not the same one that I will be looking at in the next moment. Each of you is also looking at it from your own angle, with your own feelings, and these also are constantly changing.

This is the way actual life experience is. However, if we use our common-sense way of thinking, we think we are looking at the very same cup. This is an abstraction and not the reality of life. Abstract concepts and living reality are entirely different. The Buddhist view is completely different from our ordinary thinking.

...What Buddhism is concerned about is not something abstract, but the very concrete and actual reality of life. All beings exist through life experience of the self.

...That which experiences and that which is experienced cannot be divided into two. This reality that cannot be differentiated into two is called dharma or mind, and it is the meaning of the expression "dharma and mind are one reality."

Therefore, we cannot say that we appear on the world's stage when we are born, and leave it when we die. We were born with this world in which we live out our lives as life experience. We live with this whole world. When we die, our whole world will die with us also.

...Dharma is the reality of life, and each and every one of us is living out absolute life, no matter what situation we find ourselves in. We live out the self that is only the self. No one can become a different person. In a sense, from birth to death, we are completely alone.

Even if you think that you have good friends, family, or a loving wife, the fact is that your wife can never be you. You and your wife have different dreams and think differently.

We sometimes say that we know everything about an intimate friend, but that is really just something that we have thought up. It is impossible to really understand another person. In this sense, every one of us is living out the self that is only the self, and living out the present that is only the present. This is an absolute truth.

David Lane recently made a short film narrated by his wife which does a nice job of comparing the sense of "self" to a symphony conductor who only appears after the orchestra is harmoniously playing. Have a look:

 

In Kapparot, Jews transfer their sins to a chicken, then kill it. Weird!

Every religion is strange.

Within every strange religion, some rituals and practices are even more strange. Such is the case with Kapporot (or Kaporos), a Jewish ritual of atonement.

I hadn't heard about it until I got an email from someone affiliated with The Alliance to End Chickens as Kaporos. In part, she said:

I am writing to ask that you cover this topic so that the cruel ritual of using chickens as Kaporos is brought to light and ended.  I have photos and video, and the founder of the Alliance to End Chickens as Kaporos is available for interview. 

A few days before Yom Kippur (October 3^rd), thousands of chickens are slated to be slaughtered as part of the Kaporos ritual performed by some Orthodox Jews. Kaparos, meaning “atonements,” is a custom in which a chicken or money may be used. Kaporos is usually performed in public places, like the streets of Brooklyn and Queens and the Pico Robertson area of Los Angeles.

This 60-second video about Kaporos http://bit.ly/1wkaE3u features Yonassan Gershom, a Breslov Hasid rabbi, who speaks on behalf of kindness to chickens and against the use of chickens in Kaporos rituals.  

A chicken is held above a person’s head and swung in a circle three times in the belief that he or she is transferring human sins and punishment to the chicken. In the end, the chickens are slaughtered and may or may not be given to the poor for food.

Members of the public have written letters complaining about animal cruelty on public sidewalks, streets and pedestrian malls, as well as the human health hazards of Kaporos as a result of the blood, feces, feathers and dead or dying chickens left in the open where the ritual is performed. 

The Alliance to End Chickens as Kaporos, a project of United Poultry Concerns, seeks to replace the use of chickens with money or other non-animal symbols of atonement. The Alliance does not oppose Kaporos per se, only the unnecessary use of chickens.  Karen Davis, Founder of the Alliance, says in addition to the cruel way the animals are treated in the ceremony, 2,500 chickens died of heat stroke, starvation and thirst in transport crates in Brooklyn during the 2013 week of Kaporos.

Well, glad to help.

But when someone sends a religious press release to a churchless blog, he or she should expect that the blogger will say more than "Yeah, right on. Use money rather than chickens to transfer your sins."

Here's an even better suggestion, Jews: Give up the whole notion that you have sins, along with the idea that swinging either a chicken or money over your head will atone for the sins that, almost certainly, you don't have.

Unfortunately, an NPR story says that the big debate among orthodox Jews isn't whether Kapporot makes sense and should be observed; it is whether using chickens or money is the best way to do the sin transfer thing. 

"How much for chickens this year?" a woman asks, thinking they're selling chickens for Kapparot.

"No, we want people to use money," Rosenfeld says, explaining that waving money around her head is just as religiously acceptable as waving a bird. "We think it's very cruel to the chickens. We're trying to get people to not buy the chickens at all but use money instead." 

She nods and says she'll use money this year. 

It's not easy undoing a millennium of tradition, one chicken at a time. And it's lonely. Rosenfeld knows he's at odds with his friends at synagogue.

I need to admit, though, that I've believed almost equally weird stuff prior to my churchless conversion.

For example, I was a member of an India-based mystical organization that taught repetition of a mantra given by the guru removed countless karmic impressions -- the Eastern equivalent of sins. Hearing supernatural sound or seeing divine light (if you were so lucky, or deluded) ... ditto. 

But at least we didn't harm something living to benefit ourselves. In fact, everybody in the organization was vegetarian. Even eggs were eschewed as food, along with, of course, chickens themselves.

Here's the video mentioned in the press release I got. It's only a minute long. Gives good tips for how to handle chickens, and how chickens react when held by their wings. (In short, don't do it!)

 

I've finished Sam Harris' "Waking Up." Guess I have, sort of.

Well, Sam Harris' new book "Waking Up," a guide to spirituality without religion, was about what I expected. Interesting. Inspiring. Well written. Not hugely enlightening. 

I've already blogged about some key themes in the book here and here.

Like I said in the second post, there are subtleties in Harris' message that require some pondering -- as would be expected for such ponderable subjects as the nature of consciousness and the self.

Having read a bunch of neuroscience books, I wasn't surprised by reading this.

Once one recognizes the selflessness of consciousness, the practice of meditation becomes just a means of getting more familiar with it. The goal, therefore, is to cease to overlook what is already the case.

Meaning, it is virtually certain that nothing like an eternal soul or enduring self exists in (or as) us. So since spirituality is all about realizing this fact, there isn't anything we have to become in order to be spiritual. 

Many religions, spiritual paths, and mystic practices place a lot of emphasis on self-transcendence and doing away with ego. But since there is no self to transcend, nor any separate ego, this goal can be checked off by everybody.

Done! 

Now, back in the long-ago times when Buddhism and HInduism started out in India, modern neuroscience obviously didn't exist. Almost everybody took it for granted that consciousness was separable from the body, and that the feeling of an "I" residing between and behind the eyes reflected something real: a soul or self. The Buddha blew minds by saying otherwise.

So I finished the book wondering if Harris' emphasis on meditation as a way to realize the reality of selflessness was justified. He has done a lot of meditating and spiritual searching in India and elsewhere. 

This renowned atheist even speaks approvingly of finding a meditation teacher who can help dissolve the illusion of a dualistic soul or self that is separate from mind/body. Which, for Harris, is close to an indisputable fact.

Although we are only beginning to understand the human mind at the level of the brain, and we know nothing about how consciousness itself comes into being, it isn't too soon to say that the conventional self is an illusion. There is no place for a soul inside your head.

OK. LIke I said, done. I'm convinced, in much the same way I'm convinced that the Earth revolves around the Sun, rather than the other way around. 

When I look at the Sun set or rise, I still have the sensation that it is moving, while the Earth stand still. However, science tells me this is an illusion. I believe science. My mental image is of the Earth orbiting the Sun. It is only my eyes which deceive me.

Likewise, I don't believe that I have a self or soul. I haven't for quite a while. Yet I still feel like I am looking out at the world in the same way as a rider looks out from his position astride a horse: in control, separate from body.

What I'm unsure about is whether it is really necessary to engage in all of the meditative work Harris considers to be necessary to lessen one's feeling of being a self or soul. If this is such a good thing, then why shouldn't I also labor at trying to experience the Earth moving at "sunset" rather than the Sun going down?

Evolution wouldn't have left us with the feeling of being a self if it wasn't good for something. Likely, a lot of something. 

That said, I can understand the Buddhist-like perspective Harris shares in his book. It is possible to live life in a more meaningful and happy way if we tinker with how we experience ourselves and the world. Sensations of suffering and lack can't be eliminated, but they can be much reduced.

How?

This is the question. Harris is big on meditation. I think that thinking is another way: understanding the reasons why a self or soul almost certainly doesn't exist can lead to an intuitive experience of selflessness. 

Why not?

Again, after I understand that the Earth revolves around the Sun, I won't look upon a sunrise or sunset in the same way. Eventually that cognitive understanding may morph into an experiential realization of Earth moving and Sun staying still.

Buddhist meditation -- Harris favors the Dzogchen variety -- surely is a proven way of experiencing more fully the reality of no-self. Simply living life with eyes wide open is another way. I doubt that sitting at the feet of a Dzogchen master is necessary to realize there is no self or soul inside my head.

Harris writes:

We have long known that how things seem in the world can be misleading, and this is no less true of the mind itself. And yet many people have found that through sustained introspection, how things seem can be brought into closer register with how they are.

Well, not only through introspection. Extrospection -- diving into the world -- can do this also. 

Dance. Run. Ski. Surf. Walk. Gaze. Love. 

Harris correctly says, "Subjectively speaking, there is only consciousness and its contents; there is no inner self who is conscious." 

So...

The form of transcendence that appears to link directly to ethical behavior and human well-being is that which occurs in the midst of ordinary waking life... The freedom from self that is both the goal and foundation of spiritual life is coincident with normal peception and cognition -- though, as I have already said, this can be difficult to realize.

Maybe. Maybe not. 

Here's a 7 minute video featuring Sam Harris talking about consciousness and the self. Pretty good summary of the core theses of his book.

 

Questions I had in Sam Harris' "Waking Up" meditation chapter

Oh, Sam, you almost deeply disappointed me.

But after a closer reading of the Meditation chapter in your new book, "Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion," I'm feeling better about your approach to understanding consciousness without mixing in religious crap.

After writing two positive blog posts about the book, here and here, I was looking forward to reading the chapter on meditation this morning. Before I meditated, something I've been doing every day for about 45 years.

As noted in my "Real spirituality is realizing you aren't a soul, or self," this is an appealing notion -- or rather, reality -- to me.

Far from being scary, this is a big relief. The self or soul religious people believe needs saving... it doesn't exist. 

The egotistical belief that an immaterial "I" will endure forever while everything else in the physical world will change and die... it isn't true. 

We can relax into reality.

The world is us and we are the world. Yes, there is something it is like to be a conscious part of the world called "me." However, I, and you, and everybody are ever-changing aspects of the world, not an eternal soul-drop destined to return to a godly ocean. 

Whatever heaven might be, it is right here, right now.

My fondness for "Waking Up" took a downturn, though, when I read the Meditation chapter with highlighter in hand and ended up with several marginal question marks... ?

The first was when Harris cited a study that asked people if their mind was wandering, "that is, whether they were thinking about something unrelated to their current experience." The study authors concluded "a human mind is a wandering mind, and a wandering mind is an unhappy mind."

Hmmmm. I'd say sometimes this is true, and sometimes it is not. It all depends. 

I'm big on mindfulness, in part because I'm big on Tai Chi. After ten years, I know quite a few Tai Chi forms well enough to be able to do them quasi-automatically. Thus I can think about something else while I'm doing a form in class and (usually) not make any mistakes.

However, Tai Chi doesn't feel as good to me when my body is doing one thing and my mind another. So I agree that sometimes a wandering mind is an unhappy mind. Or at least, a less happy mind. 

Sometimes, because I also do some mind-wandering on my late afternoon dog walks. Since I usually write blog posts in the evening, I enjoy mulling over what I might write about later on. Insights often come to me.

I can mostly pay attention to the dog and my immediate surroundings, while also thinking about what I'm going to do later on. I don't feel like my dog walk happiness is lessened by a wandering mind. In fact, trying to control my mind when it wants to wander feels unnatural and overly disciplined to me. 

If I want to do something, and it feels pleasant when I do it, why not feel free? I've got no interest in being a Mindfulness Policeman who arrests myself for wandering mind infractions.

My second marginal question mark appears next to this passage.

In fact, when I pay attention, it is impossible for me to feel like a self at all: The implied center of cognition and emotion simply falls away, and it is obvious that consciousness is never truly confined by what it knows. 

That which is aware of sadness is not sad. That which is aware of fear is not fearful. The moment I am lost in thought, however I'm as confused as anyone else.

Wow. This seemed decidedly at odds with what Harris had said just eleven pages before, in the same Meditation chapter.

Dualistic mindfulness -- paying attention to the breath, for example -- generally proceeds on the basis of an illusion: One feels that one is a subject, a locus of consciousness inside the head, that can strategically pay attention to the breath or some other object of awareness because of all the good it will do.

It sure seems in the "In fact..." passage that Harris is touting the good that comes from feeling that he is a subject with awareness, who looks upon sadness or fear as a content of the consciousness that he is not, he being consciousness itself.

Well, I have no idea what "consciousness itself" could be like. Yet in various places in his book Harris implies that consciousness isn't just the workings of the mind/brain, even though he also says that no one is sure what consciousness is.

This bothered me. It appeared to bring back a big dose of dualism into "Waking Up" that wasn't much different from the soul-body dualism Harris had decried in earlier chapters.

For now Harris was implying that there is (1) consciousness and (2) what consciousness knows. In order for this to be true, rather than just a belief, seemingly there would have to be demonstrable evidence that consciousness can be separated from any and all objects or contents of consciousness. 

I'm still waiting for the "demonstrable" part. Harris, though, claims he has evidence. Which caused me to put another question mark in his book's margin. Talking about himself in meditation, he writes:

There were periods during which all thought subsided, and any sense of having a body disappeared. What remained was a blissful expanse of conscious peace that had no reference point in any of the usual sensory channels. 

Many scientists and philosophers believe that consciousness is always tied to one of the five senses -- and that the idea of a "pure consciousness" apart from seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching is a category error and a spiritual fantasy. I am confident that they are mistaken.

It's hard to believe this passage made it into Harris' book. I guess he didn't have a good editor. Or maybe any editor. It simply is non-sensical.

Sam, you have a Ph.D. in neuroscience. You also go to sleep every night. So you know about dreaming. We are conscious when we dream, but we don't have a "reference point in any of the usual sensory channels." 

So who are these scientists and philosophers who supposedly believe consciousness always is tied to one of the five senses? Methinks you made them up. Dreaming proves it isn't.

However, this talk of a "blissful expanse of conscious peace" is very different from "pure consciousness" -- unless that term simply means consciousness that isn't aware of, or paying attention to, external sensory inputs.

Obviously Harris' consciousness was impure in this sense: it contained various internal mental objects. Bliss, an expanse, and peace. Harris also had to feel separate enough from this internal feeling to be able to remember it. So some sense of "I" apart from the blissful expanse of conscious peace must have been present also.

These questionings didn't turn me off to the entire Meditation chapter, though.

After reading parts of it again, I realized that Harris seems to be on the right track, in my admittedly personal opinion. It just is damn difficult to talk about certain meditative subjects in a precise logical way, so some confusing statements are bound to pop up in anyone's writing -- me certainly included.

Later on in the chapter, Harris says "consciousness is intrinsically undivided." This sounds better to me. No talk here of pure consciousness being defiled, so to speak, by contents of consciousness. Rather...

When you are able to rest naturally, merely witnessing the totality of experience, and thoughts themselves are left to arise and vanish as they will, you can recognize that consciousness is intrinsically undivided. In the moment of such an insight, you will be completely relieved of the feeling that you call "I."

You will still see this book, of course, but it will be an appearance in consciousness, inseparable from consciousness itself -- and there will be no sense that you are behind your eyes, doing the reading.

To me, this sense is very common. Harris studied Dzogchen under various teachers to achieve the insight he describes. Other people experience it naturally in the course of everyday life.

It sounds virtually identical to "flow." That pleasant feeling when the thing you are doing isn't different from the doing itself. Athletes feel it. Dancers feel it. Musicians feel it. Thinkers lost in thought feel it. People having sex feel it.

For sure, I'm no enlightened being.

But often I feel little if any distance between what I'm experiencing and my experience of it. After I finish this post I'm going to return to reading an engrossing novel. Like an engrossing movie, I get absorbed in the fictional world and temporarily forget that it isn't real.

Well, actually it is real. For me. My mind makes it so. 

Real spirituality is realizing you aren't a soul, or self

Just as predicted, I'm really enjoying reading Sam Harris' new book, "Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion."

I'm about a third of the way through. Which is far enough to have discovered the central theme. Harris writes:

My goal in this chapter and the next is to convince you that the conventional sense of self is an illusion -- and that spirituality largely consists in realizing this, moment to moment.

...Most of us feel that our experience of the world refers back to a self -- not to our bodies precisely but to a center of consciousness that exists somehow interior to the body behind the eyes, inside the head.

The feeling that we call "I" seems to define our point of view in every moment, and it also provides an anchor for popular beliefs about souls and freedom of will.

And yet this feeling, however imperturbable it may appear at present, can be altered, interrupted, or entirely abolished. 

...Subjectively speaking, the only thing that actually exists is consciousness and its contents.

Wow. 

Now, I realize that some people would say "Yeah, makes sense, no big surprise" to the above scientifically- and experientially-persuasive truths.

But I spent decades as a devotee of a mystical philosophy that, like many others, taught that we humans have, or are, an eternal soul. The soul supposedly could return to God through meditation at the "eye center" -- that place behind the eyes and inside the head Harris, a neuroscientist and Buddhist practitioner, says doesn't house a self or soul.

So it sure seems like those who claim that this world is an illusion, with soul-realms being true reality, are the ones who have gotten it wrong. 

There is no enduring soul or self to be liberated. As Harris says in his book, genuine spirituality is realizing this. Thus a belief in the existence of soul leads one farther away from the truth, not closer. This is basic Buddhism, yet even many Buddhists still harbor fantasies of living on after death as... something or other.

I'll share more from "Waking Up" in other posts. So far, I can highly recommend the book. Harris has a knack for saying familiar things (to those, like me, who have read similar books) in a fresh way. 

For example, I've read most of Derek Parfit's "Reasons and Persons." A Wikipedia article describes a Parfit thought experiment.

At time 1, there is a person. At a later time 2, there is a person. These people seem to be the same person. Indeed, these people share memories and personality traits. But there are no further facts in the world that make them the same person.

Parfit's argument for this position relies on our intuitions regarding thought experiments such as teleportation, the fission and fusion of persons, gradual replacement of the matter in one's brain, gradual alteration of one's psychology, and so on.

For example, Parfit asks the reader to imagine entering a "teletransporter," a machine that puts you to sleep, then destroys you, breaking you down into atoms, copying the information and relaying it to Mars at the speed of light.

On Mars, another machine re-creates you (from local stores of carbon, hydrogen, and so on), each atom in exactly the same relative position. Parfit poses the question of whether or not the teletransporter is a method of travel—is the person on Mars the same person as the person who entered the teletransporter on Earth?

Certainly, your replica on Mars would remember being you, would remember entering the teletransporter in order to travel to Mars. Part of the problem here is that the teletransporter on Earth doesn't have to destroy the person who enters it, but instead can simply make infinite replicas, all of whom would claim to remember entering the teletransporter on Earth in the first place.

Using thought experiments such as these, Parfit argues that any criteria we attempt to use to determine sameness of person will be lacking, because there is no further fact. What matters, to Parfit, is simply "Relation R," psychological connectedness, including memory, personality, and so on.

Harris describes the thought experiment in a similar, though somewhat different, way. In his variation, the copy of you is transported to Mars, while the "real" you awaits confirmation that the duplication is complete before being destroyed. Harris then writes:

To most readers, this thought experiment will suggest that psychological continuity -- the mere maintenance of one's memories, beliefs, habits, and other mental traits -- is an insufficent basis for personal identity. It's not enough for someone else on Mars to be just like you; he must actually be you. 

The man on Mars will share all your memories and will behave exactly as you would have. But he is not you -- as your continued existence in the teleportation chamber on Earth attests.

To the Earth-you awaiting obliteration, teleportation as a means of travel will appear a horrifying sham: You never left Earth and are about to die. Your friends, you now realize, have been repeatedly copied and killed.

And yet, the problem with teleportation is somehow not obvious if a person is disassembled before his replica is built. In that case, it is tempting to say that teleportation works and that "he" is really stepping onto the surface of Mars.

...Parfit believes that we should view the teleportation case in which a person is destroyed before being replicated as more or less indistinguishable from the normal pattern of personal survival throughout our lives. 

After all, in what way are you subjectively the same as the person who first picked up this book? In the only way you can be: by displaying some degree of psychological continuity with that past self. Viewed in this way, it is difficult to see how teleportation is any different from the mere passage of time.

...Parfit's view of the self, which he appears to have arrived at independently through an immensely creative use of thought experiments, is essentially the same as the one found in the teachings of Buddhism: There is no stable self that is carried along from one moment to the next.

Far from being scary, this is a big relief. The self or soul religious people believe needs saving... it doesn't exist. 

The egotistical belief that an immaterial "I" will endure forever while everything else in the physical world will change and die... it isn't true. 

We can relax into reality.

The world is us and we are the world. Yes, there is something it is like to be a conscious part of the world called "me." However, I, and you, and everybody are ever-changing aspects of the world, not an eternal soul-drop destined to return to a godly ocean. 

Whateven heaven might be, it is right here, right now.

Sam Harris' "Waking Up" arrives tomorrow. Here's a preview.

Oh, yeah, I'm ready for it! Bring it on, USPS or UPS, whichever Amazon has selected to deliver Sam Harris' new book, "Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion." 

Delivery day is tomorrow. Within a week I expect to be all woken up. Unless it takes longer, like ten days. 

But seriously... I'm looking forward to this book, notwithstanding my previous doubting that I will indeed wake up as a result of sending $15.85 to Amazon.

Even if I don't achieve a secular enlightened state (perhaps because I already am!), reading an interview with Harris in the New York Times solidified my impression that this book will be one of the best efforts to meld two things I believe:

(1) There is nothing supernatural beyond the physical. No God, no heaven, no life after death, no soul, no spirit. 

(2) There is something more to human contentment, happiness, growth, and understanding than most people achieve. This more can be pursued through meditation and other so-called "spiritual" practices.

Here's some Harris excerpts from Gary Gutting's NYT piece, "Sam Harris's Vanishing Self."

The only thing in this universe that suggests the reality of consciousness is consciousness itself. Many philosophers have made this argument in one way or another — Thomas Nagel, John Searle, David Chalmers. And while I don’t agree with everything they say about consciousness, I agree with them on this point.

The primary approach to understanding consciousness in neuroscience entails correlating changes in its contents with changes in the brain. But no matter how reliable these correlations become, they won’t allow us to drop the first-person side of the equation. The experiential character of consciousness is part of the very reality we are studying. Consequently, I think science needs to be extended to include a disciplined approach to introspection.

...And certain truths about the nature of our minds are well worth knowing. For instance, the anger you felt yesterday, or a year ago, isn’t here anymore, and if it arises in the next moment, based on your thinking about the past, it will quickly pass away when you are no longer thinking about it. This is a profoundly important truth about the mind — and it can be absolutely liberating to understand it deeply.

If you do understand it deeply — that is, if you are able to pay clear attention to the arising and passing away of anger, rather than merely think about why you have every right to be angry — it becomes impossible to stay angry for more than a few moments at a time. Again, this is an objective claim about the character of subjective experience. And I invite our readers to test it in the laboratory of their own minds.

...It certainly looks like there is a white square in the center of this figure, but when we study the image, it becomes clear that there are only four partial circles. The square has been imposed by our visual system, whose edge detectors have been fooled. Can we know that the black shapes are more real than the white one? Yes, because the square doesn’t survive our efforts to locate it — its edges literally disappear. A little investigation and we see that its form has been merely implied.

What could we say to a skeptic who insisted that the white square is just as real as the three-quarter circles and that its disappearance is nothing more than, as you say, “a relatively rare — and deliberately cultivated — experience”? All we could do is urge him to look more closely.

The same is true about the conventional sense of self — the feeling of being a subject inside your head, a locus of consciousness behind your eyes, a thinker in addition to the flow of thoughts. This form of subjectivity does not survive scrutiny. If you really look for what you are calling “I,” this feeling will disappear. In fact, it is easier to experience consciousness without the feeling of self than it is to banish the white square in the above image.

Spiritually speaking, do I think too much? Like, right now.

Thinking isn't viewed very highly by lots of spiritual (or pseudo-spiritual) folks. Especially those on the Eastern side of the religious divide: Buddhists, Advaitists, Neo-advaitists, Non-dualists, Taoists, and such.

Of course, a lot of thoughts pass through their minds when they criticize thinking. (See here and here.)

Likewise, I always smile when someone leaves a comment on one of my blog posts that says something like, "Brian, you've got to go beyond words," or "Brian, you need to love more and criticize less."

Oh, I think, like you're not doing yourself, dude.

Scientifically-minded guy that I am, I find it hard to believe that after millions of years of evolution, somehow nature has screwed up and produced humans who -- gasp! -- are endowed with a horrible attribute of thinking that we now are smart enough to realize isn't adaptive for our species.

It seems much more likely that thinking, or rationality, is a really good thing to use in certain circumstances, while not in others. 

For instance, in the last Tai Chi class I went to another student and I were practicing a semi-complex "pushing hands" exercise. Hands, arms, and torso all had to work together in a sometimes non-obvious way.

I was doing fine until my partner started explaining some insights he had gotten into the exercise. He then proceeded to break down certain of the movements, telling me how it would be better to do this at such and such a point, and then that. 

When we began to push hands again, my thinking was getting in the way of my doing. Our instructor came by and asked, "How are you doing?" I said, "Fine, until I got thinking about this." I then proceeded to forget my partner's advice about what to do and simply do it like I had been before.

Same basic rule applies to dancing, music, athletics, sex, typing, public speaking, and a whole lot else. 

Dividing ourselves into someone who is analyzing what's going on, and someone who is getting on with what needs doing -- that way leads to variations of the well-known analysis paralysis.

Letting go... flowing... trusting yourself. That way feels much better.

Unless the situation demands thought, consideration, pondering, staying put until the right way forward becomes clear. Which leads to one of my basic rules: there are no rules. 

What I find annoying about so many spiritual, religious, and mystical teachings is their dualism. Even when they claim to be espousing oneness or non-dualism. Thinking bad, intuition good. Calmness good, excitement bad. 

And so on and so on. 

In my experience, reality appears much more as shades of gray than black and white. We have the ability to think, and also the ability to not think. Knowing when to do each, that's part of being wise. Not in any objective sense. 

Wise for us. I've known people who say they hardly ever stop thinking about something or other. And thrive. Other people sure seem like they hardly ever think at all. And in their own way, also thrive.

I do agree that most of us cogitate more than we need to.

It's easy to get caught up in a complex thought-web of our own making that, almost surely, bears little resemblance to how a situation actually is. When someone is driving way slow on the two lane curvy road into town, and I'm late for an appointment, there is virtually no chance that they're doing this just to make me crazy.

But it sure can seem that way.

So I resonate with those who advocate various forms of mindfulness and meditation practices that can make us more aware of when our thinking-mind is going on autopilot, leading us into mental realms that aren't pleasant, productive, or necessary to carry out what needs doing.

On the whole, though, I'm fine with thinking. Couldn't have done what I just did without it. But now it is time for a dog walk and a big dose of not-thinking. 

I feel very small: our galaxy's place in the Laniakea supercluster

Amazing video. What's even more amazing is that this galactic map is based on only 8,000 nearby galaxies. There are an estimated 100 to 200 billion galaxies in the observable universe. 

Awe. Mystery. Vastness. 

Who needs religion? Embrace science.

 

Religion stifles innovation. Glad I live in Oregon.

Thanks to an email from a regular reader of this here Church of the Churchless, I learned about an interesting article in Mother Jones, "Study: Science and Religion Really Are Enemies After All."

Are science and religion doomed to eternal "warfare," or can they just get along? Philosophers, theologians, scientists, and atheists debate this subject endlessly (and often, angrily). We hear a lot less from economists on the matter, however. But in a recent paper, Princeton economist Roland Bénabou and two colleagues unveiled a surprising finding that would at least appear to bolster the "conflict" camp: Both across countries and also across US states, higher levels of religiosity are related to lower levels of scientific innovation.

"Places with higher levels of religiosity have lower rates of scientific and technical innovation, as measured by patents per capita," comments Bénabou. He adds that the pattern persists "when controlling for differences in income per capita, population, and rates of higher education."

Being a proud Oregonian, I enjoyed this part of the piece.

Note that states like Vermont and Oregon are highly innovative and not very religious, whereas innovation lags in states like Arkansas and Mississippi, even as religion thrives.

Yay, us!

Oregon has the nation's best land use system. All of our ocean shoreline is open to the public. We have assisted suicide for terminally ill people. Gay marriage became legal this year. My state is voting on legalizing recreational marijuana this November. We're #1 in craft breweries. Portland is a hotbed of innovation. Oregon was one of the first states to go 100% vote by mail.

So, yeah, we're irreligious and we're creatively cool. Deal with it, Arkansas and Mississippi.

Religion's false story about the "Great Other"

So here we are in this world, surrounded by the universe and an even greater cosmos beyond the limit of what can be observed in our corner of the space-time continuum.

Understanding this is a life's work. Well, many lives.

From the dawn of recorded history, and certainly well before that, humans have been extending the boundary of what is known. Of course, as physicist John Wheeler said, "As our island of knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance."

However, for various reasons religions, philosophies, spiritual belief systems, and mystical practices aren't willing to accept the mystery of what is. 

They want us to embrace a fantasy of what might be. In Möller de la Rouviere's intriguing book, "Spirituality Without God," he calls this the Great Other.

In Christianity, it is God. In HInduism, Brahman. There are countless other names for this concept, all relating to some transcendent ultimate ground of reality. Each distracts us from the immediate experience of what is here and now.

He writes:

However, if we could remain realistic and practical about this matter, and become alive to the deep conditioning power of all the historical propaganda that surrounds this notion of God (or any other form of this metaphorical Great Other), we may remain open to investigate things in a clear and unbiased way.

In the process we may discover that we are indeed capable of enquiring into every aspect of our living reality for ourselves, and from within our own human perspective alone. And this free and open-ended spirit of enquiry will ultimately prove to be perfectly capable of revealing the truth we previously imagined to be vested only in God.

Without exception, all spiritual, estoeric or religious paths present us with a vision of the Ultimate or God. 

...Part of this vision will generally also include descriptions of the ultimate nature of things. We are taught about the nature of God or Truth. We are offered ultimate explanations for our suffering, our unlove, our disorder. We may be told that this world is of a lesser status than the Ultimate Essence of existence, or that the physical universe is the result of the determinations of a creator-God.

Often our world is described as a veil of sorrow and tears, caught in a perpetual destiny-creating web of karmic consequences. We learn about reincarnation, past lives, karma, the wheel of birth and death. Heave and hell are explained to us.

In short, we come across many concepts, explanations and descriptions, all attempting to explain the deeper context of life from the point of view of some presumed First Principle or Primordial Cause.

...From a humanistic perspective, the entire notion of some God as the Great Other, whether ultimately separate from us or to be merged with in mystic unity, is based on the fundamental error of mistaking a projection of thought for reality. 

...Both Judaic and Hindu descriptions imply a dualistic vision of God and humankind. And in terms of holistic living, such a vision creates endless confusion and misdirected forms of practice. 

...If the insight that guides our path of self-enquiry and inner exploration has the slightest sense of duality woven into it, where the ultimate is explained in Otherworldly terms, we should take great care.

...If, on the other hand, we could come to an integral understanding of things, where truth is not seen as something separate from our human situation, we will direct our search not at what we presume is the Great Beyond, but rather investigate what it is we do that obstructs the integration between ourselves and the undivided truth of human experience.

I first read "Spirituality Without God" back in 2006, as described here. Recently I started re-reading it. I don't agree with everything de la Rouviere says, but I like his overall message a lot. The guy has studied all kinds of spiritual teachings, finally coming to a conclusion similar to mine:

Toss them. Get rid of them. Dump gurus, masters, prophets, and everyone else who claims to know the Great Other. Examine and learn from your own human experience.

The Spiritual Humanism web site reports that de la Rouviere has written another book, "The Only Awakening." I've ordered it. I'm curious to see if his approach toward life changed in the five years between publishing his first and second books.

He has an interesting take on meditation, judging from some quick skimming I've done of the final chapters in Spirituality Without God. I've never stopped meditating during my evolution from churched to churchless.

So this is one reason I enjoy de la Rouviere's writing -- getting some fresh insights into what meditation is good for.