Tag Archives: Buddhism

Homo Deus: Free Will and Consciousness

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This is the second of three posts featuring excerpts from the new book by Yuval Harari (Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow). The first post dealt with traditional religions, creeds and ‘isms.’ The excerpts below are some of Dr. Harari’s thoughts on the concepts of free will and consciousness.

Free will exists only in the imaginary stories we humans have invented. […] (The question is not whether humans) can act upon their inner desires — the question is whether they can choose their desires in the first place.

I feel a particular wish welling up within me because this is the feeling created by the biochemical processes in my brain. […] I don’t choose my desires. I only feel them, and act accordingly.

Once we accept that there is no soul and that humans have no inner essence called ‘the self’, it no longer makes sense to ask, ‘How does the self choose its desires?’ […] There is only a stream of consciousness, and desires arise and pass away within this stream, but there is no permanent self that owns the desires.

If I am indeed the master of my thoughts and decisions, can I decide not to think about anything at all for the next sixty seconds?

(There are) at least two different selves within us: the experiencing self and the narrating self. The experiencing self is our moment-to-moment consciousness. The narrating self is forever busy spinning yarns about the past and making plans for the future. […] It doesn’t narrate everything, and usually weaves the story using only peak moments and end results. […] Most of us identify with our narrating self. When we say ‘I’, we mean the story in our head not the onrushing stream of experiences we undergo. […] We always retain the feeling that we have a single unchanging identity from birth to death (and perhaps even beyond).

If you want to make people believe in imaginary entities such as gods and nations, you should make them sacrifice something valuable.

Each of us has a sophisticated system that throws away most of our experiences, keeps only a few choice samples, mixes them up with bits from movies we’ve seen, novels we’ve read, speeches we’ve heard, and daydreams we’ve savoured, and out of all that jumble it weaves a seemingly coherent story about who I am, where I came from and where I am going. This story tells me what to love, whom to hate and what to do with myself. This story may even cause me to sacrifice my life, if that’s what the plot requires. […] But in the end, they are all just stories.

Every moment the biochemical mechanisms of the brain create a flash of experience, which immediately disappears. Then more flashes appear and fade, appear and fade, in quick succession. These momentary experiences do not add up to any enduring essence.

The Fear Basket

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I’ve struggled with worry and anxiety my entire life. Tried a little counseling. A mild anti-anxiety drug for a while. Lots of reading on the subject. And, in recent years, meditation. I suspect a professional would put me on the low end of the anxiety spectrum, if there is such a thing. At this point in my life, I don’t expect to ever be completely worry-free. I’ve learned to live with it. Continue reading →

meOS

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“This very large thing (the net) provides a new way of thinking (perfect search, total recall, planetary scope) and a new mind for an old species. It is the Beginning. […] At its core 7 billion humans, soon to be 9 billion, are quickly cloaking themselves with an always-on layer of connectivity that comes close to directly linking their brains to each other. […] By the year 2025 every person alive — that is, 100 percent of the planet’s inhabitants — will have access to this platform via some almost-free device. Everyone will be on it. Or in it. Or, simply, everyone will be it.”

— The Inevitable by Kevin Kelly

“All information will come in by super-realistic television and other electronic devices as yet in the planning stage or barely imagined. In one way this will enable the individual to extend himself anywhere without moving his body— even to distant regions of space. But this will be a new kind of individual— an individual with a colossal external nervous system reaching out and out into infinity. And this electronic nervous system will be so interconnected that all individuals plugged in will tend to share the same thoughts, the same feelings, and the same experiences. […] If all this ends with the human race leaving no more trace of itself in the universe than a system of electronic patterns, why should that trouble us? For that is exactly what we are now!”

— The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are by Alan Watts

“Humanity is developing a sort of global eyesight as millions of video cameras on satellites, desktops, and street corners are connected to the Internet. In your lifetime it will be possible to see almost anything on the planet from any computer. And society’s intelligence is merging over the Internet, creating, in effect, a global mind that can do vastly more than any individual mind. Eventually everything that is known by one person will be available to all. A decision can be made by the collective mind of humanity and instantly communicated to the body of society.”

— God’s Debris by Scott Adams

In all of my reading about Taoism, Buddhism and other eastern mystical traditions, one theme repeats over and over. That there is no permanent, on-going self. That feeling of “me” and “I” is an illusion. And the source of all suffering. Clinging and resisting is mixed in (I want things to be the way I want things to be) but I won’t try to tackle that here.

There is nothing more difficult for me to comprehend than the idea that my feeling of “me-ness” is just an illusion. Not real. I’ve been struggling with this for many years. And I’ve grabbed on to various metaphors in an effort to see (or feel) how this could possibly be.

 

For the last week or so I’ve been thinking of myself as a computer connected to a vast network of other computers. Over the years, every part of the computer has been replaced. The monitor, the hard drive, the keyboard, all the internal parts… all have been replaced. In no sense is the computer the same computer that was there in the beginning.

In this tortured analogy, the computer operating system is my brain(mind?). But from the very beginning, the OS was being continuously updated. This is where the analogy gets wobbly because who or what is using the computer? I don’t have a clue so I’m gonna say the computer OS is using itself and, in the process, creating an imaginary sense of self that believes it is operating the computer. Why is it doing this? No clue. How is it doing this? No clue.

But every day the OS changes and evolves as it processes ever more information. Emails, text messages, videos, songs, news articles, and all the rest. Every new bit makes a tiny change in the OS so it is never the same from one moment to the next. From the computer’s perspective, everything is humming along fine. An endless flow of new and interesting stuff.

But let’s assume we can only keep the hardware and software running for 80 years. Manufacturer’s planned obsolescence or something. The network knows this and when one computer goes “offline,” another one comes on, running the latest OS. The network is always becoming. It only exists as an entity in relation to the network.

But the imagined self — the ghost in my machine — is horrified by this prospect. It doesn’t know (can’t know?) it’s not real. It’s non-existence is horrifying and unimaginable (take a moment to appreciate the irony). I took a moment to watch the final scene of 2010 (A Space Odyssey) in which Dr. Chandra explains to HAL that it will be destroyed.

So, no self… happy ending (No ending, actually). Self… The End. Oblivion. Easy choice. But it is only from my God-like, Creator of the Analogy perspective that any of this can be considered. The only way I can keep my head from exploding (one of the most difficult parts to replace) is to imagine the “always Becoming OS” can generate this view, this understanding and in so doing, recognize the illusory nature of the self. Enlightenment.

Additional reading:
Neuroscience backs up the Buddhist belief  that “the self” isn’t constant, but ever-changing
You’re a completely different person at 14 and 77

The story we keep repeating

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“(We) are impressions left by something that used to be here. We have been created, molded, formed by a bewildering matrix of contingencies that have preceded us. From the patterning of the DNA derived from our parents to the firing of the hundred billion neurons in our brains to the cultural and historical conditioning of the twentieth century to the education and upbringing given us to all the experiences we have ever had and choices we have ever made: these have conspired to configure the unique trajectory that culminates in this present moment. What is here now is the unrepeatable impression left by all of this, which we call “me.” […] What are we but the story we keep repeating, editing, censoring, and embellishing in our heads?”

— Buddhism Without Beliefs by Stephen Batchelor

Like feeling warm or cold

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“Don’t try to get rid of the ego-sensation. Take it, so long as it lasts, as a feature or play of the total process — like a cloud or wave, or like feeling warm or cold, or anything else that happens of itself. Getting rid of one’s ego is the last resort of invincible egoism! It simply confirms and strengthens the reality of the feeling. But when this feeling of separateness is approached and accepted like any other sensation, it evaporates like the mirage that it is.” — Alan Watts

Still the Mind by Alan Watts

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Screen Shot 2014-10-07 at Tue, Oct 7, 10.59.49 AMExcerpts from Alan Watts’ Still the Mind (An Introduction to Meditation)

We fail to distinguish between the way things are and the way they are described.

One’s actual organic being is inseparable from the universe.

I found out that unless one has something to give people, there is nothing one can do to help them. Just because I thought I ought to help, it didn’t mean that I had anything to give.

The whole energy of the universe is coming at you and through you, and you are that energy.

You can only know what you can compare with something else.

What we call the past is simply the traces, the fade-outs trailing away from the present. Continue reading →

The Tao of Zen

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Screen Shot 2014-10-07 at Tue, Oct 7, 10.53.56 AM“The Tao of Zen is a nonfiction book by Ray Grigg. The work argues that what we recognize as traditional Chinese Ch’an/Japanese Zen Buddhism is in fact almost entirely grounded in Chinese Taoist philosophy, though this fact is well shrouded by the persistence of Mahayana Buddhist institutional trappings. Utilizing an array of scholarly commentary on the two traditions and historical deduction from what can be considered to be the best primary source material available, the author traces the development of Taoism and Buddhism in China and Japan for two millennia.” (Wikipedia)

I’ve read this book twice and expect to read it again but I wouldn’t know where to begin to describe it. The Wikipedia link above is a good start. As is my habit with nonfiction, I highlighted as I read: The Tao of Zen (Ray Grigg)