|
zhar posted:in the Buddhist view the mind from previous life conjoins with sperm and egg Not exactly. According to sutras on this topic, the Buddha referred to four different types of reproduction, with sentient beings arising “from an egg, from a womb, from moisture, or spontaneously.” The third category includes beings like maggots and other larvae that grow out of rotting organic matter, while the fourth refers to hell-beings, gods, and beings in pure lands, who are born by the power of their karma alone. So I don’t see any reason to think that the arising of a mind in an artificial or non-organic being would disprove the Buddhist theory of mind or the doctrine of rebirth. It does seem that Louis Pasteur already disproved the Buddhist understanding of how maggots and such are born, although I don’t think most Buddhists would consider that a particularly fundamental doctrine. I think Achmed Jones is right that you’re assuming that the doctrine of rebirth implies something like Cartesian dualism, which Buddhism has historically denied altogether (normatively, if not always in practice). Even invisible beings like ghosts and gandharvas are described as possessing “subtle” bodies, since the orthodox Buddhist worldview doesn’t allow for the Christian/Islamic/Platonic idea of a soul or psyche that can exist independently of a body.
|
#
¿
Aug 5, 2021 03:36
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 21, 2024 12:34 |
|
|
I’m no expert in philosophy either, but fundamentally I don’t see any inherent conflict between emergentism and Buddhist views of the mind. Buddhists don’t universally* conceive of consciousness as a “substance” that moves between bodies, but primarily as a line of karmic continuity that links each moment of consciousness to the next, including between lifetimes. In other words, your mind may very well depend on your brain, but the configuration of your brain is itself conditioned by your prior karma, so it’s no more a challenge to Buddhist doctrine than any other circumstances of a being’s birth. It would be like trying to disprove karma by pointing to the immediate material cause of a karmic result. If I’m sick, for example, the fact that my illness is observably caused by a bacterium or virus does not mean that isn’t also the result of my past karma. Similarly, the fact that my mind is the result of the specific shape and chemistry of my brain doesn’t preclude my brain being produced by my past karma either. If the mind existed without depending on the brain, there would be no difference in mental capacities between humans and animals, for instance. Returning to your example, if two beings (mechanical or otherwise) had identical brain configurations and thought or behaved identically as a result, this would not necessarily disprove Buddhist understandings of consciousness and rebirth. A Buddhist observer could simply say that these two beings had very similar karma and thus received basically identical births. This does mean that a key doctrine of Buddhism is basically unfalsifiable, but whether that’s a problem or not is a more subjective question. Plenty of respected philosophical systems are based on unfalsifiable claims, after all. * I say “universally” because I know there’s always a diversity of views on these topics. The existence of phowa practices, for instance, would seem to require conceiving of consciousness as a “thing” that travels from body to body, but there may be some doctrinal nuances that I’m missing there.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 6, 2021 21:37
|
|
|
Achmed Jones posted:trying to draw a sharp distinction between "born with" and "learned" is gonna be pretty fraught, too. the world doesn't actually work in that simplistic way. Especially in Buddhism, since anything you’re “born with” must be something you “learned” in a previous life.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 6, 2021 21:40
|
|
|
zhar posted:I’d be very interested in a link or something to an emergentist school! I’m actually not aware of a specifically emergentist school of Buddhism, I was just referring to emergentism as a philosophical concept generally. Sorry if that was confusing. zhar posted:I agree about the identical brain configurations to an extent: if they continued to behave and think identically for ever and ever that would mean they have not only very similar karma, like twins, but identical karma which seems unlikely. Right. In order to behave and think identically for the rest of their lives, they would have to have identical experiences, meaning that they had identical karma, which as you said is unlikely, if not impossible. zhar posted:And I’m really not arguing that the human mind doesn’t depend on the human brain, otherwise id try to prove with by hitting my head with a brick but I’m not that dumb. I agree wrt karma to an extent but I’m still convinced by Dharmakirti’s logic that the brain doesn’t transform into a state of mind. I didn’t think that’s what you were arguing, but it sounded like that was the view you were attributing to Buddhism. I’m not very familiar with Dharmakirti specifically, so I can’t speak to his views on the subject, but I’m sure there are Buddhists who would argue against emergentism. I was more trying to present the best case for the compatibility of the two. zhar posted:The mental afflictions like anger are derivative of the three root afflictions (kleshas) the king of which is ignorance which is the first link of dependent origination. How does one learn the cause of birth in a previous birth? Anger and the other afflictions are simply negative psychological habits formed over the course of our samsaric existence. We can only overcome them—unlearn them—because they are not intrinsic to us. This is stated most clearly by the tathagatagarbha school, which claims that enlightenment is our original state of mind, prior to the development of these afflictions Incidentally, more western philosophers have apparently been turning to panpsychism as a way of resolving the problem of consciousness, which would bring them closer to both tathagatagarbha and yogacara.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 7, 2021 00:21
|
|
|
I would also say that it’s completely pointless to speculate on the difference between a “mind” and “something that behaves like a mind” until such a thing actually exists that we can observe. So far as I’m aware, no one has ever argued that puppets or cartoons or computer programs are sentient beings deserving of moral consideration. Until someone develops a puppet or cartoon or computer program that convincingly acts like it has subjective experience, and people start to treat it as such and argue for that, this is all just idle speculation. How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? Is the world eternal, or not, or both, or neither? Edit: To clarify, I think the hypothetical situation of an artificial mind is worth considering for its implications on Buddhism. What I find pointless (and basically irrelevant to Buddhism) is speculating as to how we would determine whether we have encountered such a mind. Until that situation actually presents itself, who cares? Laocius fucked around with this message at 02:26 on Aug 7, 2021 |
|
#
¿
Aug 7, 2021 02:11
|
|
|
That question has occurred to me as well, but I haven’t studied tathagtagarbha or zen all that deeply, so I don’t actually know the answer. I’m sure that somebody has come up with one over the last thousand-plus years, so hopefully someone more familiar with this strain of thought can chime in and answer it for you. Interestingly, I usually hear zen teachers frame it in the exact opposite way from the question. According to them, if buddhahood were something external to us that we could gain, we would also be able to lose it. It is precisely the fact that we are originally enlightened by nature that makes eternal (or perhaps timeless) buddhahood possible. I would also add that many (probably most) zen teachers use terms like “original” somewhat metaphorically. That is, we are “originally enlightened” not in a literal, historical sense, but in the sense that enlightenment is fundamental to us in a way that transcends time itself.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 7, 2021 20:36
|
|
|
NikkolasKing posted:I was then promptly told material conditions mean nothing in Buddhism and I'm just a dumb Westerner who doesn't understand Buddhism at all. Whoever told you this has no idea what they’re talking about. It sounds like they might be basing this on a very simplistic reading of the Lotus Sutra and/or the buddha-nature doctrine. The idea that all beings have the capacity for enlightenment, regardless of their circumstances, doesn’t mean that those circumstances don’t matter at all. The entire doctrinal basis of the Japanese Pure Land schools is that the Pure Land is our only hope because we’re in the final age of the dharma, so the conditions necessary for enlightenment in this world are completely gone. Buddhists have obviously not always agreed on what political or economic system is most conducive to the flourishing of the dharma, but they have largely agreed that those things do matter. The concept of the chakravartin—the ruler who keeps the dharma wheel turning—is a long-standing ideal for a reason. That said, many Buddhists (and especially monks and nuns) have historically avoided getting too involved in politics, but that’s more for pragmatic reasons than anything else. In imperial China, for example, the monastic establishment would usually try not to get too close to or too dependent on particular rulers for fear of ending up on the wrong side of a power struggle. At the same time, there are cases of monks setting themselves on fire to protest things like state-imposed limitations on the number of permitted ordinations. Just because they didn’t get too involved in capital-p Politics doesn’t mean they ignored social realities and their implications for the dharma.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 10, 2021 04:13
|
|
|
Nessus posted:The Japanese Buddhist sects were strongly involved in politics, and there was always a period afterwards which could be summarized as "anti-Buddhist persecution," so, ups and downs to every approach. The same thing happened in China at various points, so I don’t know that that’s necessarily a consequence of being too involved in politics. I would guess it’s more likely tied to the fact that both countries have competing but non-exclusive religious systems in the form of Shinto and Daoism. It’s easier for a large percentage of the populace to turn against Buddhism when they have a clear alternative available. It seems like a very different situation than in Europe or the Middle East, where religious divisions tend to coincide with ethnic ones. The anti-Buddhist persecutions I’m aware of seem to have been directed more towards monks, whereas anti-Muslim or anti-Christian persecutions usually end up being directed at ethnic minority populations.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 11, 2021 01:14
|
|
|
It’s interesting how “Buddhist robot” has slowly become a recognizable pop culture trope, e.g. Zenyatta from Overwatch or that one actual chanting robot in the Japanese temple.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 11, 2021 20:01
|
|
|
eSporks posted:I'm not aware of any magic associated with Taoism. Based on what I’ve encountered, Taoism is chock full of magic. It’s like vajrayana but even more.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 31, 2021 20:28
|
|
|
Nessus posted:For 1. I would say perhaps try mantras? I actually find them easier to do than Just Sitting myself but they will have a similar effect, especially when you reach the point where it's sort of like the chant is carrying you along. I would encourage you if you do this to, first, get you some beads so you can set some practice parameters and also just to occupy your hands; and second, don't feel you have to belt it out. Seconding this advice, and I would add reciting a sutra and/or the name of a buddha or bodhisattva to that list. You could also try prostrations if you’re up for a workout. Nessus posted:2. Seems harmless although I would tend to prefer natural soundscapes from this list. When you have a good practice habit together you can try without it. Similarly, recorded mantra/sutra/name chanting is a good option here, especially if you want to recite along.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 21, 2022 22:56
|
|
|
From a Yogacara perspective, karmic cause and effect is essentially just the formation and reinforcement of psychological habits across lifetimes. On a shorter timescale (i.e. a single lifetime) we can observe that being raised in e.g. a Christian family will predispose someone to being Christian as an adult. The Buddhist view just goes a step further and suggests that an affinity with Christianity originating in a previous lifetime is a contributing factor to being born in a Christian family.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 9, 2023 04:28
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 21, 2024 12:34 |
|
|
“Dharma” is a notoriously tricky and multivalent word. I think the Greek term “logos” would probably be the nearest corresponding idea in the Western/Christian intellectual tradition, and even that isn’t quite right. Rupert Gethin’s definition up there is probably the best you’re gonna get. My area of expertise is Chinese Buddhism, where “dharma” is translated as “fa” (法), which means “law” or “method.” Outside of a Buddhist context, it can refer to a government’s laws, laws of nature like gravity, or even a recipe. “Karma” is an interesting one because it evolved over time in both the original Sanskrit texts and in their Anglophone reception. It literally just means “actions” (plural, the singular is “karman”). The oldest use in the Vedas referred to ritual actions, i.e. the brahmanic rites that sustained the relationship between humans and gods. In later Indian texts, including Buddhist ones, it came to refer to moral actions, or good and bad deeds. The sense in which we’ve absorbed it in English is as a synonym for the “law of karma,” which is the teaching that a person’s karma eventually ripen and produce a corresponding effect on that person. As for the mechanics of how that works, there are volumes of abidharma texts that attempt to explain and systematize it, but that’s the basic definition and genealogy of the word itself. In Chinese it’s usually rendered as “ye” (業), which also means “work” or even “career.”
|
|
#
¿
Feb 2, 2024 22:18
|
|