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  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 2:20 am on November 16, 2025 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , EVOLUTION, genocide, , , ,   

    Buddhism and the Saving Grace of Suffering… 

    Suffering is the raw material for a further and higher evolution of consciousness. The world is neither happy nor sad. It just is. Adjectives come later. I’ve often wondered how such horrendous situations could have existed in the past, in which wholesale slaughters not only occurred, but were commonplace. How could people have possibly been so heartless as to commit such horrible acts of genocide, and gendercide, in which the defeated men were executed point blank while the women and children were enslaved and entrained for further engagement, all so that one group of men could claim superiority over another?

    Because hunger has no heart, and so they had no heart(s), not as we know the concept. The evidence would suggest that such feelings of empathy and sympathy did not even exist at that point in the development of mammalian psychology. Mammalian psychology? WTF?! But think about it, and see if you don’t agree. Because, for millennia, not only humans, but all animals, merely and simply grew, expanded, and multiplied, with probably limited contact except in situations of the hunt, for food.

    Now we can easily see gorillas and chimpanzees performing acts that can only be described as ‘almost human’. Consider the DNA. But extend the concept to include the dogs, the cats, and even the elephants (!) that we consider to be our pets, and the likeness not only continues but expands exponentially. DNA can’t explain all that, certainly not beyond the mammalian similarity and symmetry. So, what could explain all that?

    One possible explanation is that the exponential population expansions which had occurred for millennia (with at least one, probably more, prehistoric bottlenecks), suddenly came to an end as we approached Year 0, and populations struggled to maintain those levels for at least a millennium. So, is evolution self-correcting? Does that evolutionary need for constant population increase mean that people might start to be nice to each other if it means higher populations? Christianity might favor that explanation. Or Jesus might take full credit entirely, from his teaching.

    But I have another idea. We really know very little about what we really want and even less about how to attain it. But we do know what we don’t want, since the only true certainty is negation: not this, not that, not the other. How much death and destruction must be endured before someone gets the idea to try a little tenderness, i.e. kindness and compassion? Ah, that feels good, as long as we’re all one family. Let’s do that. Be kind.

    This life and this world require nothing but kindness and compassion…

     
    • Zohar Leo Palffy de Erdod's avatar

      Zohar Leo Palffy 5:10 am on November 16, 2025 Permalink | Reply

      This is true, but only in potential, not in the structure of the world.
      Suffering itself teaches nothing.
      Only awareness of suffering can teach.
      Some people go through pain and become embittered.
      Others open up.
      The evolution of consciousness is not an automatic result, but a choice that is not available to everyone.
      Therefore, I would clarify:
      Suffering is an opportunity for evolution, not a guarantee of it.

      • hardie karges's avatar

        hardie karges 7:22 pm on December 7, 2025 Permalink | Reply

        Thanks for your comments.

  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 4:13 am on November 10, 2024 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , EVOLUTION, , , , , , , ,   

    Buddhism 202: Anatman on the Installment Plan 

    The fact that I’m not the same as I was before is at least partial proof of anatta, non-self, i.e. a heap of adjectives in evolution. The Sanskrit word skandha means something like ‘heap’, of course, that of which we are composed, without clearly defining exactly what that material is, though it would appear to fall in the category of ‘causes and conditions’, so more mind than matter, more substantial than material. Thus, I prefer to think of them as adjectives rather than nouns or even verbs, mere descriptions of what is to become.

    But this is immaterial (pun intended) to the substance of the original debate, mostly between Hindu Brahmins, Jains, and Buddhists, as to the permanence—or not—of a supposed ‘self’ or ‘soul’. For Hindu Brahmanists this was a cosmic ‘soul’ on a par with a God-like ‘Brahman’, while for the Jains this was an atomic soul that inhabited everything on a granular level. In response to these two choices, early Buddhists basically said, “Naah,” then moved on to bigger and better considerations.

    And, if this seems like a severe diminution of personality to the point that we (who are writing and reading this humble script) have no intrinsic existence, then I prefer to think about the freedom that this gives us rather than the limits imposed upon us. Because this emptiness is as close as we can come to infinity or eternity, and so the very opposite of limitation. There’s only one catch, though, already mentioned. It’s empty. There can’t be any sort of unlimited physical stuff. It’s simply not possible, sorry. Look on the bright side; there appears to be no current shortage of anything important. And we are a very conscious heap, in the process of evolution.

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 9:29 am on January 31, 2021 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , EVOLUTION, , ,   

    Buddhism and the Industrial Revolution: Aftermath… 

    Don’t begrudge anyone their success. Their success is your success. We are all one people. We all know that, of course. But saying it and practicing it are two different things. And competition is fierce, especially when you’ve been raised that way from birth, as most of us Westerners, European-descended, have been raised.

    I don’t know why that is the case, probably some combination of capitalism, Christianity, and democracy, but the reality may be a little bit more nuanced than that. In fact it may even be such a recent event that the results of it are not even fully known yet, a phenomenon associated with the Industrial Revolution, the effects of which are still upon us. Don’t believe the textbook narrative that the Industrial Revolution occurred in the mid-1700’s in England. The Industrial Revolution is now—right now.

    And the results are as devastating as they are inspiring. Sure we’ve got multiple methods of travel to multiple places in the universe, but we’ve also got Global Warming, Dickensian poverty, the Enclosure Acts which dispossessed peasants of their ancestral rights to land, and now a devastating narcotics problem, largely born of the necessity of dealing with the dispossession and loss of our connection to Nature.

    Thus we stand at the crossroads, of history and consciousness. History will certainly go in a direction heretofore yet unimagined, and consciousness will certainly go with it hand-in-hand, no certain clue as to which is cause and which is effect. And if that much is certain, little else is. We are such a young species that anything can happen, and likely will.

    And this has happened over and over in the course of history and evolution, but I seriously doubt that any one species has ever been so responsible—or not—for its own destiny. Usually these things, i.e. evolution, happen in what seems to be a random impersonal manner, in which the best that can usually be said is something like, “Evolution favors smaller adaptable units,” we being the units, of course, usually devoid of consciousness.

    The invention, or evolution, if you prefer, of language, 50k years ago, seems to have changed all that. I can’t imagine what other invention would have had such an effect. So here we are, featherless bipeds possessed of language, and fully conscious of what the worst can be. But can we control our own worst impulses?

    Can we make decisions that will give sustainability to our species? These questions remain to be answered. But it will not occur with backbiting and unnecessary wars. Buddhism is all about teaching men to be more like women: more caring and less violent, and that is what I’m here to promote. Walk softly through this life and this world Make no enemies. Leave no trash.

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 8:01 am on August 27, 2017 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , , EVOLUTION, ,   

    Buddhism 101: Going with the flow… 

    img_1935There are two kinds of people in this world. How many times have you heard that? That the world can be divided between optimist or pessimists. LA people or San Fran people. Cubs fan or a White Sox fan, chick-flicks or action movies, Beatles or the Stones (yawn), or maybe even white meat or dark (we’re talking about chicken, unless you’re new to Thailand and the locals are looking for you a GF)…

    But I’m thinking of something more substantial, that goes to the heart of personality, or lack thereof, that determines an individual’s entire approach to the world around him (or her) and underlies all human interaction, it seems to me. And that is whether an individual interacts with the environment, giving and taking, advancing and retreating, responding to changes proportionately, or whether the individual’s approach is to dominate the environment, and Nature, by acts of will and brute force, where necessary…

    I certainly have a distinct preference for the former alternative, and its kinship to Buddhism, while the latter alternative would seem to be more the typical American beat-em-up approach, ‘forcing Nature to reveal her secrets’ and harvesting the bounty therein with little thought to the future… (More …)

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 6:59 am on October 3, 2014 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: EVOLUTION, , , ,   

    Evolution for Dummies: Junk DNAAND the Double Helix of Culture 

    crown of thorns

    crown of thorns

    If evolution really favors smaller more adaptable units—which it apparently does—then Americans are in trouble, we with our much-heralded ‘ownership society’, especially cars and houses, the bigger the better. America is overweight, but it ain’t just carbs and fat. It’s fuel injection and renovated flats, these possessions that possess us, these conveniences that encumber us, these adornments that weigh us down, down to the ground, six feet under, rest in peace…

    Dinosaurs went extinct and so likely will we, as Americans of the central model paradigm, at least, hocked to the gills with credits and debits and accounting tricks and treats, and plenty of reasons to retreat; why bother with success, anyway, when there are so many reasons for failure? How did you want to go down in the Apocalypse, btw: was it war, famine, disease, or flame? It’s no wonder; it’s nobody’s shame, just butterfly effects gone wild with mathematical precision…

    Self-sufficiency used to be considered a positive personality trait, hard work a must. Saving was encouraged, if not absolutely required, and in God we trust; all others pay cash. Now we’re a nation of leveraged, selfied-out crybabies waiting in line camped out all night for our iPhones and soma, got a ticket for N’awlins but the bus stops at Houma, all cashed out and nothing left to buy, can’t buy a thrill, all we can do is cry…

    Even unemployed Americans have iPhones, of course, money no object, that’s a fact, that’s currency; homeless people, too, now, taking donations online, gotta’ check on the status of food stamps, see if that Social Security check is in the mail. Half the world lives on less than three dollars a day; see how many iPhones that’ll buy you, true poverty struggling to eat very day, not Yelp or snap-chat, giga-chips and cookies with no trans fat…

    But rich people are worse, crunching their numbers between gold fillings, fracking veins and splicing genes, GMO cereal killers with their high-flying lifestyles on private jets and multiple planes, properties portfolios and multidimensional probabilities, many worlds possible, taking off and landing with the frequency of junk, buying and selling people like so much chattel and so many cattle, bodies for sale, ten bills a pop, credit cards accepted, swipe it where you wipe it…

    The Anthropocene Age has been a blast, a quick short spurt of consciousness and destruction after years of ignorance and bliss, man inserting his thingie into multiple orifices, simultaneously, plugging holes and creating new ones, just for the Hell of it, just because it’s there, Mt. Everest and the Moon, by horoscope and all good offices, all for the good of mankind, come Hell or high water, reduced to comfort food and memories, that’s entertainment…

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 9:41 am on May 4, 2013 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: EVOLUTION,   

    Ever noticed how so many Hollywood starlets have dimples? I guess that’s the ticket. In Thai they’re called ‘stolen smiles’. Meanwhile in the US ‘laugh lines’ are an insult to be corrected by ‘anti-aging formulas.’ If I smile a lot, will my progeny have dimples? Too bad. It’s a pleasant thought, but evolutionary heresy, the Lamarckian ‘inheritance of acquired characteristics,’ notwithstanding Darwin’s many shortcomings, not least of which is any positive adaptation traceable to random mutation. I guess the only acquired characteristic is money…

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 3:30 am on March 17, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , EVOLUTION   

    Discover the ego gene 

    and molecular biology is now on to something, the junction of nature and culture, the nature of self-perception reduced to code and transcript. What you perceive in others usually is what you find in yourself, reducing the usefulness of perception. If you can get past perception and cultural affectations and down to underlying pre-dispositions, then maybe new options would open up for altering them, something besides drugs, that is. Drug use is probably more effective at altering perceptions of others than it is at altering behavior of the user. Experimental and recreational drug use is an attempt to approach the speed of light in thought and perception, just like back home where the lights burn 24/7 with a laser-like intensity that approaches infinity. The speed of thought might actually be first to break the light barrier, premonitions and psychic activity providing raw material for investigation. Is thought a dimension all its own? If so, is it a natural or created one? Weigh yourself down with food to keep yourself grounded in a world without weight nor wisdom.

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 11:59 am on March 7, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: EVOLUTION, sexual selection   

    Nature selects for beauty, not brains, 

    once survival to the age of reproduction is secure. Actually Nature is like God; it doesn’t really do anything; it just IS. We act like it does something because we demand causality for scientific purposes. Our language is predisposed to the subject-verb-object model; other languages, for example Spanish, less so. In Spanish things can happen with the causal agent quite vague or nonexistent. When a beautiful woman is at stake, nature can afford to be vague; sexual selection takes over, though I doubt that it’ll ever replace Nature. When plants put out those beautiful flowers and those delicious berries that animals eat then spread around pre-fertilized, they’re re-producing the species. As long as a plant or animal can use brains or brawn or stink or thorns to reach reproductive maturity, then attraction takes over. Science fiction may be missing the boat in postulating a future population of big-brained pill-poppers. For all the bitching and moaning of my generation of boomer-brats, life is easier than it’s ever been. Neoteny favors the earliest possible reproduction as much as it favors retention of immature features into adulthood. To get into Heaven, one must be as a child, remember. If neoteny is the path of genetic drift whenever possible, then it might favor a big head, or a tail also, for that matter, but your potential mate probably wouldn’t. Baldness is already being selected against, I assure you. I know. That’s a blow to neoteny already. We ARE that future of big headed pill-poppers already. That’s past. Unless life gets difficult again to the point that only the smartest survive, then expect future humans to be the handsomest, most beautiful creatures imaginable, with no increase in hat size except to accommodate the ever-increasing quest for Ego-enhancement. History belongs to those who control the means of reproduction. That’s why I’m in Thailand. It’s science fiction.

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 12:13 pm on March 5, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: apes, EVOLUTION,   

    A few decades back, someone apparently came up with the idea of man as the “aquatic ape” 

    as a means of explaining why we have subcutaneous fat and little body hair, looking so different from our closest relatives, the gorilla and chimpanzee. I thought that was a brilliant idea. That would explain a lot and is eminently feasible, that man’s adaptation to water was interrupted, but man still carries vestiges of that era. Certainly we’re not still hanging around the African ‘hood’, and there’s no shortage of water in the Great Rift Valley, for that matter, if the adaptation occurred early in man’s evolution. There’s no shortage of precedent from other sea mammals, whose closest relatives tend to be their land-based relatives, not each other. It’s a good career move. Life in water is relatively easy. Hell, I’ve thought about it myself. There’s only one problem. There’s no evidence that any such activities ever took place. Logic is cheap; evidence is expensive. Furthermore, there is another explanation that has a better record in the history of evolution: neoteny, the retention of juvenile or even larval characteristics into older age, and sexual maturity at an early age. Lose the hair and gain the fat; sound like anybody you know? Our close relative, gorillas give birth at a similar term and have a life expectancy in captivity similar to an African’s life expectancy, yet reaches sexual maturity at seven years. Why? It works. They’re lousy at math anyway. That would explain baby fat and adult diaper rash in humans. It might also explain some extremely juvenile behavior in adults, but that would be cultural neoteny, I suppose. It sounds better than cultural pedomorphism, at least.

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 8:23 am on February 28, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: EVOLUTION, , sophistication   

    If there were no obsession with the sex act, then evolution might suffer, 

    especially in humans; evolutionary success is reproductive success. Sexual and genital obsession is normal, but most people aren’t honest about it, as if there’s something dirty about it, or simply childish. Humans rule the earth, not necessarily because we’re smarter, but because we fuck like rabbits. We have to compete with bacteria, after all, and their turn-around time for a complete generation is about a half-hour, depending on your deodorant. We can kill them, of course, but they can kill us, too. Does increased intelligence coincide with increased sex drive? Mine does. The hornier I get, the smarter I have to be to drive the point home to some unsuspecting victim, usually my wife. It’s a game. They say some of the people with the highest IQ’s are prostitutes and other so-called sexual degenerates. They say the root word that gave birth to the word ‘sophisticate’ originally referred to prostitutes, the original Greek Sophists I supposedly. The Thai word for such, presumably derived through Sanskrit, ‘sophenee’, would agree with that. Somehow I think it all got confused with the concept of ‘worldliness’. Either you’re impressed or you’re not. That’s probably why Jesus admonished his followers to be as children. Once you think you’ve got it all figured out, then you’re in real trouble spiritually. If you think you’re clever because you’ve figured out that you can make money with your moneymaker, then think again. You’re getting paid to do things others won’t stoop to, things others won’t take lying down, things others won’t sit still for. It has little to do with IQ. There were already a lot of pragmatists on the streets these days; now there are sophisticates, too.

     

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