consciousnessA twofer today.
I occasionally watch a Ted talk (sometimes interesting speeches by people generally renowned for their intelligence or creativity) and they recently compiled their "greatest hits".
The one at the top is one about a very interesting occurrence. Jille Bolte Taylor, a brain scientist, personally experienced a stroke and relates how it affected her perception and outlook on life. In relating this, she explains how the stroke shut down the left side of her brain, essentially removing the mediator of her consciousness, removing the filters that get applied to the massive amount of input that our brains take in and removing the ability to organize the information in the context of her "self". She describes the feeling of losing the sensation of being an entity separate from her surroundings, of being unable to tell where she ended and her environment began.
She described this as nirvana, and makes it sound quite wonderful.
My mind, unfortunately, always insists on taking ninety degree turns from what it is told. I like to have perspective, and I get that by tending to move perpendicularly.
Anyway, she describes this state of mind and relates how she can see how "compassionate" the universe really is.
First off, I think all she is really describing is the attempt of what is left of her left brain to organize and perceive amounts of data that it is not normally accustomed to getting. I could attach logic meters to each of the pins on the back of the video card in my computer and watch the lights dance telling me that signals are being generated, but I would be unable to organize them into anything resembling the image I see on my computer monitor. Perception is reality, and the perception that she formed in her diminished state should be considered no more or less valid or well formed than the one that any of us working out of our sense-making left brains right now are. She wasn't "seeing" reality to any extent greater than the rest of us are, she was trying to make sense of inputs, just as any of us are.
Second....off, why do these people who have these out of body deeply mystical experiences always come back telling us how compassionate and full of peace and love the universe is? I've waxed before at my fear that the universe is at best completely indifferent and at worst actively malicious towards everything in it. If anything, there is more evidence that the universe hates life and consciousness than that it loves it. Google "extinction event" and see how many times Earth has taken a big smack from an asteroid, or a megavolcano has thrown our planet's environment into disarray, killing a sizable portion of the life running around at the time. And that's just on one planet. Is this a "peaceful compassionate" universe at work? Wow, I'd hate to see it pissed off at us. Now, consider the design of life itself. Living organisms near the bottom of the food chain (plants, plankton) soak up ambient energy and nutrients to maintain life functions. At any level above that, it's murder to stay alive. Disregard man and our moralizing, and see that supposedly good and glorious nature itself is chock full of organisms that rely on terminating the life functions of other organisms in order to gain the energy and nutrients to maintain their own life functions. This does not look like the shape of a compassionate universe to me. No, my most deeply seated fear is that the very fabric of our universe is a weaved not with compassion and peace, but with violence. I'm guessing that when some mystic or unfortunate neuroscientist perceives that the universe of full of love and light, it's because that's what we ~wish~ it to be.
So, that's my big question, Buddhists and philosophers. Give me one good reason I should not believe that the universe is a fundamentally violent place. At the end, I'm guessing I'll just have to concede that the universe is neither violent nor peaceful, that those are entirely products of our perception. All the universe really does, is exist. No more, no less. Nirvana achieved.
I occasionally watch a Ted talk (sometimes interesting speeches by people generally renowned for their intelligence or creativity) and they recently compiled their "greatest hits".
The one at the top is one about a very interesting occurrence. Jille Bolte Taylor, a brain scientist, personally experienced a stroke and relates how it affected her perception and outlook on life. In relating this, she explains how the stroke shut down the left side of her brain, essentially removing the mediator of her consciousness, removing the filters that get applied to the massive amount of input that our brains take in and removing the ability to organize the information in the context of her "self". She describes the feeling of losing the sensation of being an entity separate from her surroundings, of being unable to tell where she ended and her environment began.
She described this as nirvana, and makes it sound quite wonderful.
My mind, unfortunately, always insists on taking ninety degree turns from what it is told. I like to have perspective, and I get that by tending to move perpendicularly.
Anyway, she describes this state of mind and relates how she can see how "compassionate" the universe really is.
First off, I think all she is really describing is the attempt of what is left of her left brain to organize and perceive amounts of data that it is not normally accustomed to getting. I could attach logic meters to each of the pins on the back of the video card in my computer and watch the lights dance telling me that signals are being generated, but I would be unable to organize them into anything resembling the image I see on my computer monitor. Perception is reality, and the perception that she formed in her diminished state should be considered no more or less valid or well formed than the one that any of us working out of our sense-making left brains right now are. She wasn't "seeing" reality to any extent greater than the rest of us are, she was trying to make sense of inputs, just as any of us are.
Second....off, why do these people who have these out of body deeply mystical experiences always come back telling us how compassionate and full of peace and love the universe is? I've waxed before at my fear that the universe is at best completely indifferent and at worst actively malicious towards everything in it. If anything, there is more evidence that the universe hates life and consciousness than that it loves it. Google "extinction event" and see how many times Earth has taken a big smack from an asteroid, or a megavolcano has thrown our planet's environment into disarray, killing a sizable portion of the life running around at the time. And that's just on one planet. Is this a "peaceful compassionate" universe at work? Wow, I'd hate to see it pissed off at us. Now, consider the design of life itself. Living organisms near the bottom of the food chain (plants, plankton) soak up ambient energy and nutrients to maintain life functions. At any level above that, it's murder to stay alive. Disregard man and our moralizing, and see that supposedly good and glorious nature itself is chock full of organisms that rely on terminating the life functions of other organisms in order to gain the energy and nutrients to maintain their own life functions. This does not look like the shape of a compassionate universe to me. No, my most deeply seated fear is that the very fabric of our universe is a weaved not with compassion and peace, but with violence. I'm guessing that when some mystic or unfortunate neuroscientist perceives that the universe of full of love and light, it's because that's what we ~wish~ it to be.
So, that's my big question, Buddhists and philosophers. Give me one good reason I should not believe that the universe is a fundamentally violent place. At the end, I'm guessing I'll just have to concede that the universe is neither violent nor peaceful, that those are entirely products of our perception. All the universe really does, is exist. No more, no less. Nirvana achieved.
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