Tag: Buddhist Practice

Are we living in a simulation? Physicist claims he has new evidence we’re simply characters in an advanced virtual world

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Melvin Vopson, an associate professor in physics at the University of Portsmouth, claims we may be characters in an advanced virtual world. 

He claims that the physical behaviour of information in our universe resembles the process of a computer deleting or compressing code – a clue that perhaps the machines hope we don’t notice. 

Professor Vopson has already warned of an impending ‘information catastrophe’, when we run out of energy to sustain huge amounts of digital information. 

‘My studies point to a bizarre and interesting possibility that we don’t live in an objective reality and that the entire universe might be just a super advanced virtual reality simulation,’ Professor Vopson said. 

Last year, the academic – from Romania – established a new law of physics, called the ‘second law of information dynamics’ to explain how information behaves. 

His law establishes that the ‘entropy’, or disorder, in a system of information decreases rather than increases.

This new law came as somewhat of a surprise, because it’s the opposite of the second law of thermodynamics established in the 1850s, which explains why we cannot unscramble an egg or why a glass cannot unbreak itself. 

As it turns out, the second law of infodynamics explains the behaviour of information in a way that the old law cannot.  

source

Vopson’s paper: The second law of infodynamics and its implications for the simulated universe hypothesis featured

UPDATE: Information that is information about other information appears to be what we think of as consciousness, especially if that information is dynamic or able to focus and choose. Information may also be thought of as the stuff of karma, which itself can be thought of as a form of dynamic information, a coherent procession of information over time. This may even be the definition of time.

Consciousness as we know it is almost always dramatic; it almost always knows something or wants to know something or aims toward something or retreats from it. This is clearly true with regard to other people (or sentient beings) or within ourselves as our information parts interact (sort of what psychology is, or rumination). Regardless of whether human consciousness is high or low in the scheme of things, it tends to deeply crave meaning, purpose, reason, and is often satisfied with tautology over nothing, which proves or at least demonstrates this point :-)

Meaning and purpose are directional and organizational kinds of information. Since they are very common and arguably universal in everything we see, including the ‘lives’ of inanimate matter, it does seem that the whole of everything holds together around this point. In terms of information, it does not make much sense to say life itself is meaningless because what it is is a kind of meaning, a kind of procession of information. ABN

Buddhist morality and signaling

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The five precepts of Buddhism are no killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, or irresponsible use of alcohol.

These moral guidelines are for non-monastics.

I think most of us tend to think of the five precepts as being about the material world. After all, killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, and getting drunk are all rooted in actions of the material body. Even lying issues forth from the mouth of the body.

But what if we look at the precepts differently? What if we view them as fundamentally signals that issue forth from the mind?

If we look at them that way, then lying, which is often glossed as the least important of the five precepts, becomes the most important.

The reason is that lies send bad signals forth from the mind. And surely killing, stealing, misconduct, and getting drunk are the baddest of bad signals. Each one is a form of lying or deliberately disturbing the mind-stream and karma of self and others.

In a post I put up recently, Ethics, morality, I outlined a simple way to understand morality as that which reduces error and increases efficiency of mental signals, both internal and external (those exchanged with others).

In Buddhism, the great barrier to enlightenment is a confused, deluded mind. Anything that generates delusion or confusion, which lying surely does, is counterproductive. While anything that reduces delusion is good.

Buddhism, of course, recognizes the need for occasional lies—such as sanitizing the truth for children—but we really do not need to lie very often. We do not always have to say everything we think or tell anyone anything they want to know; we can easily and truthfully sidestep issues like that by simply saying we would rather not say.

In a very important way, clear signaling—honest signaling—is the foundation of all morality.

Is the greatest emotion taking pleasure in correcting our own mistakes?

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Surely it’s in the top few.

In the Buddhist tradition, shame is sometimes called the greatest emotion because shame makes us open to changing for the better.

But shame can also be felt and avoided or hidden or misdirected. Shame here generally means something bothers our conscience.

Correcting our own mistakes often follows shame but not always. Someone may tell us of a mistake that does not make us feel ashamed.

Taking pleasure, even delight, in correcting our own mistakes is very close in time and psychology to actually making the correction.

Whether it is the greatest or not, the emotion that accompanies self-correction is well-worth cultivating.

Consciousness is a cheap and easy way to make things work

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Is a dragonfly conscious? I bet most of us would say it is.

Is a robotic manmade dragonfly conscious? I bet most of us would say it is not, though obviously it could come into being only through conscious effort.

Is consciousness common among living things? It seems that virtually all animals and probably all or most insects are conscious. I don’t know about bacteria but maybe they are too. It could be argued that any entity that is able to make a decision, a choice between two or more options, is conscious to that extent.

Is a rock conscious? It could be in the sense that it does not behave other than like a rock. Something about it or its conditions holds a rock within the laws of physics as we know them. Rocks are predictable.

If the cosmos is conscious, then it makes perfect sense that many of the beings on earth are conscious and maybe all of them are. Maybe the earth itself is conscious.

Consciousness is a cheap and easy way to make things work. In that sense a conscious universe is a parsimonious description of the universe.

A mind-only or mental or conscious universe is a significant part of the Buddhist tradition and explains how rebirth happens and what enlightenment probably entails. This Buddhist tradition is called Mind Only or Yogachara.

There is nothing in Buddhism that prohibits us from adding to the tradition. Indeed, we are encouraged to make it our own by using our own words and understanding to pursue enlightenment. You do not need to be a Buddhist to conclude that the cosmos is conscious or able to think. And many non-Buddhists have come to that conclusion.

I personally believe or strongly suspect that this human realm is governed by a kind of conscious dramatic something. The drama is bigger than us but we are in it. We make some of the rules for ourselves but not all of the rules. I believe when karma is understood in terms like this it makes for a healthier and more accurate philosophical understanding of the human condition.

Consciousness may very well be a primary, more primary than time and space. It is roughly in this context that some philosophers say that experience is the fundamental data point, or stuff of life. A statement like this is very close to the Buddhist idea of thusness or the deep truth of the moment in the mind, the deep truth of the mind.

The Buddha said all things are empty including the Buddhadharma. This is much like saying consciousness itself is empty and can only be grasped through the thusness of experience, which is always dramatic in one way or another. Empty consciousness conscious of itself can be experienced. Is that the stuff we are floating in?

knowing

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viewed from many angles, everything is unknown

viewed from one angle, a small area of self-knowing exists, is known

taken together, these two yield a singular insight

New York Times Guide to Fall Vaccine Shots Is ‘Disinformation’

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Nirav Shah, M.D., J.D., principal deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told The New York Times children 6 months and older should get the COVID-19 vaccine this fall, adding, “Do you want to see your grandpa … [and] grandma? Are you really sure you’re not going to give COVID to them?”

source

This anti-science vax ‘reasoning’ is based on what I call default tautologies or default linguistic tautologies or default language bundles. These tautologies are all but hard-wired assumptions about reality and language that are being obscenely misused in these vax ‘arguments.’ Default psycholinguistic bundles can also be entirely unique to persons. As such they comprise the stuff of the Buddhist ‘small self’ which we are counseled not to cling to. Clinging or attachment in Buddhism means clinging to these tautological bundles of self or of the culture around us or entities within that culture such as the NYT or CDC. Delusion in Buddhism means clinging to error, wrong views, wrong thoughts, wrong speech. One good thing about covid anti-science is it helped many people see how pervasive and pernicious delusion is, how it arises in the self as well as in culture. How it is used by powerful groups to trick people into wars, bad health decisions, etc. ABN

The timeline for full deployment of the modern United States internet control system, is likely around late fall and early winter this year, in advance of the 2024 U.S. election cycle

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I share this information with you so that you understand what is being constructed and what is about to be deployed on a large scale throughout the U.S. internet operating system.  The U.S. internet will be different.  The social media restrictions became more prevalent and noticeable in the past several years; now it is time for DHS to expand that process to the entire U.S. internet.

The timeline for full deployment of the modern United States internet control system, is likely around late fall and early winter this year, in advance of the 2024 U.S. election cycle.

Everything will change.  Every route of online traffic including Internet Service Providers (ISP’s) to filters and rerouting on Domain Name Systems (DNS), to the Internet Protocol (IP) itself will be subject to change in the form of background shadow banning.  If the DHS partnership is successful, you will not initially notice – much like a shadow banned platform user doesn’t notice their new defined status.  The shift will become more obvious over time.

One odd outcome will be a regional targeting system.  Depending on where you are in the USA, your online experience will be different. There will also be enhancements to your internet travel based on your profile.  Good thinking users will have benefits that enhance the experience of the user and supports the interests of the national security guardians.

♦ Deployment of a Virtual Private Network (VPN) is irrelevant in this construct.  A VPN is like you renting a car without a license plate.  You travel past all the Automatic License Plate Readers, arrive at your destination, leave the keys in the ignition and just abandon the car.  Your personal travel was essentially invisible to the APLR system.  However, when the internet roads are controlled by the national security state, and there is no longer an offramp to the destination, your VPN use is irrelevant – you cannot reach your destination.  That’s part of the shift.

You will notice I use the term “definition” quite often.  That is because the root of every control mechanism is grounded upon defining things.  When you accept the terms ‘disinformation’, ‘misinformation’, and/or ‘malinformation’, you are buying into the process that permits definitions to determine your travel. Those who define both you and your destination, ultimately control your online experience.

source

If you provide content online, you probably already have noticed this happening to you. Total information control by advanced AI is a modern iteration of the First & Second Noble Truths—that we suffer because we cling to delusion. Escaping our delusional group karma will require paying wise attention to the truths of our own unique mind-streams and experiences. That has always been the case in the human realm. The good side of this is it has become so obvious today (if you look) how delusions are made and propagated. Fully understanding the First & Second Noble Truths = Enlightenment. In this context, FIML has more value than ever. ABN

What limits speech? In a word: Fear

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If we consider speech with only one listener and look firstly at the micro level, we find it is fear of wrong word choice, wrong gesture, expression, demeanor, or tone of voice that limits our speech because a misstep with any one of these may transgress interpersonal limits.

At the meso level, it is either fear of offending or embarrassing (our understanding of) the “personality” of our listener or the fear of an actual flareup from our listener.

At the macro level, it is the fear of introducing a largish idea with sociological or career implications that might disturb, embarrass, or anger our one listener.

With two or more listeners, the analysis is much the same though the numbers of people make it more complex, until we get to so many people we are speaking to an audience. Then it becomes simpler in some ways because the micro and meso levels will be less prominent due to distance between speaker and audience and there being no clear single target of our tone of voice or phraseology.

On the other hand, an audience’s response can be more complex and problematic because more than one person can become angry at us.

Human beings thus are stuck in a game that is controlled by how most of us listen most of the time.

Stated differently, human beings have magnificent speech and communicative capabilities, but rarely get to use them to their full, best effect because one or more of the many speech limits outlined above will cause us either to hold our tongues or else risk creating a disruption in the mind(s) of our listeners.

This seems like a Big Problem to me. I do not want to spend my life constrained by those rules. FIML can help us overcome this problem but even FIML cannot do it all.

We must also recognize that our very comprehension of meaning itself is grounded in fear.

first posted SEPTEMBER 23, 2019

UPDATE: This is a main area where I have some disagreement with traditional Buddhist practice which tends to put the onus of right speech entirely on the speaker. This makes sense in many contexts but in many other contexts it can cause speakers to withhold or be timid when they should not. Or it can cause listeners to believe that speakers must always keep in mind their weaknesses and that they (listeners) are being entirely proper when they misinterpret or mis-react to someone’s speech. This kind of thinking too often leads to overly emotional responses, a greatly reduced scope of discussable topics, and an overall pettiness that constrains everyone. Placing the onus for right speech always on the speaker and never requiring right mindfulness of the listener leads to a kind of hierarchy of speech or a totalitarian view of what is right and wrong to say. In the world today, we can clearly see how speech is constrained in this way through censorship, shadow-banning, muting, shaming, deplatforming, cancelling and more with almost no good purpose ever being served except elitist control of the masses. At interpersonal levels, our speech is too often limited by the narcissistic sensibilities of listeners or what we fear those sensibilities might be. None of this is optimal good speech. In Buddhism we want to optimize speech, thought, mindfulness, and listening. It is good to be mindful of what we say, when we say it, and to whom. But it is not good to always tread in fear every time you open your mouth. ABN

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The basic Buddhist take on sexual misconduct is you shouldn’t harm anyone or let yourself be harmed by sexual behavior. Less basic is sexual thought and behavior should not be excessive. ‘Identifying’ your ‘self’ with your ‘sexuality’ is almost anti-Buddhist because Buddhism is all about overcoming the self, which is an illusion, a delusion. Additionally, sexuality is not the most important part of humans. For these reasons seducing children (or adults) into delusive identities based on sexuality is not right conduct. It is sexual and psychological misconduct. It is foisting your own delusions on others, leading others to make the same mistakes you have. ABN

Your mindfulness can beneficially affect other people

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…Until relatively recently, mindfulness was studied in the context of the individual’s own well-being as a stress-reducing psychological mechanism. Researchers now are coming to recognize that some people are better at being mindful, and that those who are have not only less stress but better relationships.  According to the theory behind a new study by Auburn University’s Julianne McGill and Francesca Adler-Baeder (2019), it may very well be this ability to focus on the present moment that leads you to set stress aside and be more loving with your partner.  Indeed, the authors make the observation that such “positive relationship behaviors are associated with higher relationship quality and in fact, may be one of the most potent predictors of relationship functioning determined by individual studies and meta-analytic procedures” (p. 1).

Study is behind a paywall. The above quote comes from an article about the study: This Personality Trait May Improve Your Relationships.

Wise compassion

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The highest virtue in Buddhism is wisdom, not compassion.

Unwise compassion—that is compassion that brings harm rather than good—is bad.

I think the Pope’s talk as described in the following article is an example of unwise compassion.

Francis reprimands European leaders, forcefully asking continent: ‘What has happened to you?’

The Pope tried to highlight Europe’s “strengths” with his lofty rhetoric, but I think he revealed some of its deepest weaknesses.

Identifying a temptation to “yield to our own selfish interests” by “putting up fences here and there” to stop the flow of migrants into Europe, the pontiff said: “I dream of a Europe where being a migrant is not a crime but a summons to greater commitment on behalf of the dignity of every human being.”

I probably shouldn’t say any of what I have said and what I am going to say next: Each of the major Abrahamic religions suffers from the flaw of holding some word or law or ideal above human wisdom.

first posted MAY 6, 2016

Indeterminacy of translation and FIML

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I betray my poor education by admitting that I had never heard of W. V. Quine’s “indeterminacy of translation” until last week. My ignorance is especially egregious as I have worked as a professional translator for many years.

Maybe I had heard about it but had forgotten. I am being self-reflective because FIML practice is deeply, fundamentally concerned with the “indeterminacy” of translating one person’s thoughts into another person’s head.

Quine’s thesis is not just about translating from one language to another, though there is that. It is much more about the fundamental impossibility of determining what anything means well enough to “translate” it into another context, a next sentence, into another person’s mind, or even “translating” your own speech from the past into the context of your mind today.

If I had known about Quine, I probably never would have thought of FIML because his ideas and the slews of papers written on “indeterminacy of translation” surely would have made me believe that the subject had been worked through.

As it was, I have plodded along in a delightful state of ignorance and, due to that, maybe added something practical to the subject.

In the first place, I wholeheartedly believe that speech is filled with indeterminacy, which I have generally called ambiguity or uncertainty. In the second place, I have confined my FIML-related investigations mainly to interpersonal speech between partners who care about each other. I see no solution to the more general problem of indeterminacy within groups, subcultures, or linguistic communities. Until brain scans get much better, large groups will be forced to resort to hierarchical “determinacy” to exist or function at all.

For individuals, though, there is much we can do. FIML practice does not remove all “indeterminacy.” Rather, it removes much more than most people are aware is possible, even remotely aware is possible. My guess is FIML communication provides a level of detail and resolution that is an order of magnitude or two better than non-FIML.

That is a huge improvement. It is life-changing on many levels and extremely satisfying.

FIML does not fix everything—and philosophical or “artistic” differences between partners are still possible—but it does fix a great deal. By clearing up interpersonal micro-indeterminacy again and again, FIML practice frees partners from the inevitable macro-problems that micro-ambiguity inevitably causes.

Moreover, this freedom, in turn, frees partners from a great deal of subconscious adhesion to the hierarchical “determinacy” of whichever culture they are part of. Rather than trapping themselves in a state of helpless acceptance of predefined hierarchical “meaning,” FIML partners have the capacity to sort through existential semiotics and make of them what they will with far less “indeterminacy,” or ambiguity, than had been possible without FIML practice.

first posted DECEMBER 7, 2014

California school superintendent is thrown out of meeting after opposing new rule forcing teachers to notify parents if a student asks to identify as a different gender

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Parents reacted with cheers of ‘leave our kids alone’ as a California superintendent was thrown out of a school board hearing for aggressively opposing a policy forcing teachers to notify parents if their child is transgender. 

Tony Thurmond, the California State Superintendent of Schools, was booted from the Chino Valley Unified school board meeting on Thursday after going over his allotted time to vigorously attack the policy. 

Over 300 people filled the main hall at Don Lugo High School in Chino, California to weigh in at the hearing, which was marked with hostility as Thurmond clashed with the school board’s president, Sonja Shaw.  

After Thurmond condemned the new guidelines for putting transgender students ‘at risk’, Shaw fired back that the official was ‘proposing things that pervert children.’ 

The board eventually voted 4-1 to introduce the parental notification policy, a move which was met with cheers from the audience. 

link

No matter what you call it, transgender ideologies and pedagogies do not belong in K-12 classrooms. Children of these ages (and older) are too vulnerable to what are, in Buddhist terms, delusional attachments to a false sense of self which will lead to suffering. Adults can do as they please though they face similar problems with these ideologies as children do. But adults are adults and legally allowed to change their bodies if they want to, whether that’s a good idea or not. Making your body conform to a delusional mental state in most cases will only increase suffering. Neither seducing children into these ideologies nor destroying their bonds with their parents is morally right or the purpose of early education. Yes, there are bad parents but, no, making schools dens of iniquity will never fix that. ABN

Genes, behavior, intelligence and how they are linked

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This subject can no longer be avoided by anyone interested in anything.

Here is the best brief overview of this subject I have ever seen: 10 Replicants in Search of Fame.

The author, James Thomson, has very capably summarized a longer paper: Top 10 Replicated Findings From Behavioral Genetics.

Both papers are worth reading, but Thomson’s is the better place to start for most people. Here is a sample:

Rather than asking whether a monolithic factor like parental control is primarily responsible for non-shared (unique) effects, it might be necessary to consider many seemingly inconsequential experiences that are tipping points in children’s lives. The gloomy prospect is that these could be idiosyncratic stochastic experiences. However, the basic finding that most environmental effects are not shared by children growing up in the same family remains one of the most far-reaching findings from behavioral genetics. It is important to reiterate that the message is not that family experiences are unimportant, but rather that the salient experiences that affect children’s development are specific to each child in the family, not general to all children in the family.

Here is another:

More than 100 twin studies have addressed the key question of co-morbidity in psychopathology (having more than one diagnosed disorder), and this body of research also consistently shows substantial genetic overlap between common disorders in children and in adults. For example, a review of 23 twin studies and 12 family studies confirmed that anxiety and depression are correlated entirely for genetic reasons. In other words, the same genes affect both disorders, meaning that from a genetic perspective they are the same disorder.

first posted MARCH 7, 2017

To add a Buddhist point of view to this, we must bring in karma, rebirth, and our earthly lineages. All three are deep and ultimate factors in determining our conditions and how we deal with them. Years ago a Chinese friend’s father invited me to watch him burn incense at his family altar in their home in Taipei. As I saw it, his was an act of ancestor reverence more than worship, though either term is fine. The act recalls a deep and ultimate side of Chinese culture that reaches above and below Western psychology and genetic research. Thich Nhat Hanh spoke and wrote about our ancestral lineages and their importance in how our karma and conditions resolve and are understood. These factors are deep in that they ground our psychologies and affect how we comprehend life; and they are ultimate in that they also hinge on the highest and most transcendent aspects of all conscious life.

I respect Western psychology and also find much of it cramped and vulgar due to its intense focus on the single life (no rebirth or lineage) and a select number of factors that can be abstracted from that or from dubious data based on aggregates of many single lives similarly conceived. Due to this sciencey focus most Westerners are trapped in a middle or mundane layer of spiritual understanding, self-isolated between the deep and the ultimate. The usual Western way out of this entrapment is through stories, which are raised to heights they do not deserve and which reduce Westerners to childlike listeners confined to stock responses. The Western cartography of the pathological mind is very good though and greatly enriches Eastern thought. A healthy personality is as much a part of spiritual growth as is lineage and karma. ABN