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  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 8:42 am on August 12, 2016 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , philosophy   

    Thought for the Day: Is the Cup Half-Full or Half-Empty? 

    That is the question we’re so often asked, to determine our ultimate predisposition toward optimism or pessimism, as if there were no third option, or suitable middle ground. I’d probably say that the question is irrelevant, since we’re lucky to have a cup with which to play, and a table upon which to lay it. That is the difference between the manifested and unmanifested aspects of reality…

    You ask me to judge the cup by its content, with no mention of the quality of the content, but only the quantity. Of what would I be drinking here? Is it good for me or bad? But still I’m more interested in the cup itself, regardless. That cup might represent the known world, and its content the seven seas, the sea of possibilities. The table upon which it lies would then define the universe, the realm of mathematical probabilities…

    The space in which the table exists is another unknown dimension, accessible only by intuition and the calculi of logic and proportion. We know it must be good, though, because it’s bigger than us, and we are part of it, and thus we aspire to it, as befits anything in its position as superior to us. Moral of the story: there is more to life than silly syllogisms—and don’t ask stupid questions…

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 9:35 am on June 12, 2016 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , philosophy   

    Religion 232: Eckhart Tolle, Now-ness, Spirituality, and Identity… 

    As you probably already know, thanks to the patronage of Oprah Winfrey and others, Eckhart Tolle has been called “the most spiritually influential person in the world.”  So I was all ready to diss and dismiss him as a charlatan and pop-schlock marketeer, just because he had the temerity to title his obra maestra “The Power of Now”, such now-ness easily classified as ‘cliché’ even, or especially, within high Buddhist circles, if not just by the wannabes, academics and literary hacks like myself…

    Then I decided to actually read his stuff, albeit en espanol, El Poder de Ahora, the work in translation, though he apparently speaks Spanish himself (the English-language e-version is back-ordered for streaming at my library).  Now I haven’t thoroughly absorbed the book yet, but Eckhart Tolle just may be on to something here, something very important, the basis of our identity—or lack thereof…

    Cut to the chase, if you haven’t already: Tolle sees our identifying with our own thought processes as the source of all of our problems.  Wow!  Now I’m not exactly sure yet what he would have us identify with instead, but the effect is palpable, nonetheless. Apparently Tolle would have us identify with ‘consciousness’, albeit one without thought…  (More …)

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 8:58 am on May 22, 2016 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: philosophy, ,   

    Religion 313: Simple Prayer for a Tortured Earth 

    IMG_1190

    Buddhism in Sri Lanka

    I’m not here to diss or dismiss anyone’s faith nor fantasy—quite the contrary, in fact: I hope to be part of a conversation in which all viewpoints are reconciled, and the human league is improved in its capacity for survival upon an earth grown weary from wars and wickedness, tired of mayhem and mudslinging…

    This is in fact the prime role of religion—to make you feel better in situations beyond your control, to make things feel better without taking up arms in dispute.  That religions are sometimes used as battle flags is unfortunate, of course, but hopefully only a paradigm shift away from the pages of history…

    Rome was only ultimately saved by church and religion, and I doubt that Washington will fare any better, and this is as it should be, faith in something bigger something better assuming its rightful place in the pantheon of our thoughts and highest common denominators, rather than recourse to rifles as we sink to our lowest…

    Like religion, the function of prayer is to make you feel better about whatever outcome should arise, since there is no greater truth than that we really know little or nothing about anything and control even less.  To recognize that no matter how hard you pray, the outcome is reliant mostly upon other factors is so obvious that it should be self-evident—but it’s not… (More …)

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 8:47 am on May 15, 2016 Permalink | Reply
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    Religion 202, Physics 101: Spirituality and Light… 

    IMG_1184

    Buddhist shrine in Sri Lanka

    Many religions, especially the New Age-y kind, use light as a prime metaphor, imagining this light and imagining that light as it assumes shape and form in your mind’s eye.  My ‘white light of spirit’ is not imaginary, though, even if still a bit metaphorical. That light for me is exactly the same light that any good physicist refers to, the equivalent of electricity and magnetism and one of physics’ four prime forces, together with gravity, the strong (nuclear) force and the weak (interactive) force.

    For the uninitiated, that weak force is: the fundamental force that acts between leptons and is involved in the decay of hadrons. The weak nuclear force is responsible for nuclear beta decay (by changing the flavor of quarks) and for neutrino absorption and emission…

    Got it?  And the strong force is: the force that holds particles together in the atomic nucleus and the force that holds quarks together in elementary particles.

    Simple, right?  These last and latest forces derive from quantum mechanics, and the study of smaller-than-microscopic realities that are probably best described as mathematical, i.e. the theory works, even if it doesn’t make (common) sense.  But then, neither do gravity and electromagnetism (light).  We’re just more accustomed to them, and they are available to us on a macroscopic level.  (More …)

     
    • peaceof8's avatar

      peaceof8 10:15 am on May 15, 2016 Permalink | Reply

      That was very thought provoking. I will for sure be noodling around in my mind DNA vs souls/ancestors/inner child. It makes me want to give reincarnation a second look, based on science and maybe a little whoop-t-do in the family tree. Interesting! I like your pragmatic approach to spirituality.

  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 8:35 am on March 20, 2016 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , mythology, philosophy,   

    Religion, Philosophy, Mythology: Land of 1000 Dances, God of 1000 Faces… 

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    Hindu Temple in Sri Lanka

    Joseph Campbell got it backwards, you know, with his emphasis on the ‘Hero with 1000 Faces’, as if the hero were really the important actor on this world stage, he with his light-saber or Bowie knife, long bow or trebuchet. They were mostly just movable actors on a movable stage, and not so smart for the most part, simply acting on hunches best articulated by others. The important aspect were the ideals they represented, the gods they served, and the food supplies they secured, for this was what would advance their respective societies.

    The problem with Campbell’s analysis is that he is largely describing a literary device, not the world of real people in which heroes are definitely hard to find and much more nuanced in the roles they play, few in fact going through the formal stages that Campbell describes. In the real world, gods are more important for that very reason: they ARE literary devices, custom-built to serve a mythological purpose. Heroes are expendable. Gods are not. The fact that Hollywood might not even know the difference speaks volumes.

    The epiphany, of course, is that heroes—and gods—can, are, and should be made to order to fit the circumstances and needs of their particular flock. Thus violent Europeans get a god of love while overly possessive Orientals get a god of non-attachment and hyper-sexed Middle Easterners get a god of strict prohibitions. Still it seems that there should be a higher common denominator than this and that there could and should be a higher level of spirituality to unite them all. A bicameral legislature of divinity, perhaps? Sounds good to me… (More …)

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 9:35 am on March 13, 2016 Permalink | Reply
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    Religion 102: Toward a New Spiritual Discipline 

    We’re a degenerate society, America, that is, profane and impolite, licentious and unlicensed, democratic and debauched. We’ve lost our way as a society, a nation, and a culture, for what reasons being debatable.  What’s worse: having made our deal with the Devil we now dismiss those religions that haven’t, as though our degenerate society is somehow superior.  We’re drunken, drug-addled, sex-craving, and proud of it! This is how we measure our manliness, and increasingly: our womanliness…

    Starlets repeatedly score fashionista points for how much skin they’re willing to show, as if titillation were talent. Paragons of virtue we are no longer. Is this the best we can do as a race of people? Much of this is in the name of ‘freedom’, of course, which is understandable, given our traditions, but some of it also tries to pass for spirituality, which I object to. Early Christians used to torture themselves mercilessly to show their love of Jesus and God, you know, quite the opposite of nude selfies at the Grand Canyon… (More …)

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 9:26 am on October 18, 2015 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , philosophy,   

    Modern Religion: Waiting for Godot, or ET, or the Eternal NOW… 

    Buddhist Temple in Laos

    Buddhist Temple in Laos

    I’ve always marveled at how certain songs just feel good, regardless of whatever words are being sung, while other songs are sad for the same reason, something about minor keys, I think. Words are the same way, it seems, especially when you’re trying to get all philosophical. I mean: nobody really wants to hear about categorical moral imperatives—borrrring. But everybody loves to hear about the ETERNAL NOW, philosophy in a spray-can, shake well before using, get in touch with your energy, etc. Why are such words and ideas attractive?

    Simple, dahling: because it feels so good, and it can’t be proven or dis-proven—nice touch. We Western Europeans used to exult in our rationality, our Age of Reason, beyond superstition and the dictates of the Mother Church. And it worked fantastically—up to a point. We still love the fruits of such labor, but not the labor itself, and the discipline that achieved it in the first place. Now we want all that and superstition, too, but without the church, thank you. That means New Age fad religions and pop psychology and life-coaching: people who can’t run their own lives will try to tell you how to run yours. Isn’t it wonderful to be alive in 2015 with so many options? (More …)

     
    • mary's avatar

      mary 11:19 am on October 18, 2015 Permalink | Reply

      serendipidy, now that is a good word, joe powers told me what it means, i still miss him.

      • hardie karges's avatar

        hardie karges 11:33 am on October 18, 2015 Permalink | Reply

        Tales of Serendib, ancient Sri Lanka, world’s oldest continuously Buddhist country… .

  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 10:10 am on May 17, 2015 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: philosophy, , , , social commentary   

    Religio-politics 101: Desiderata Considerata 

    Texas, Mexico, river, fence and questions

    Texas, Mexico, river, fence and questions

    …and a strange peace comes over me, in the midst of all the chaos, rejection and reflection, in the midst of patchwork solutions to comprehensive problems that are beyond my comprehension… and I think it has to do with people, last but not least of the great apes, violent and intelligent beyond belief, the gentle ones naturally long gone, left only with the hardened ones that must be softened by religion often rendered impossible by the needle tracks of time and the sloppy sutras of space…

    We are pathetic little people with our pathetic little problems of food, shelter and clothing, mostly just demanding dignity, Capital D Dignity, as if that were the most important thing in the world, that self-importance, that self-esteem, that love that is a priori to all other loves, that feeling of being centered in our self slightly above the navel and just below the head let’s call it heart and get it over with, the connections between people one of heart firstly and foremostly…

    I love the so-called losers of this world because they are the humans with heart, sometimes, or sometimes not, but at least they’re usually open to it, for lack of better options, but it’s not that I hate those who are so sure of themselves and such masters of the world; it’s that I pity them for they will never know the feeling of submission, the feeling of being part of an indivisible whole of which they count only for a little bit, whether entertainers CEO’s or politicians, it’s lonely up there…

    Celebrity sickness is the disease of the day in late 21st C. America, drunk on fame, real or imagined, our obligatory fifteen minutes barely enough in this day and age of hard drugs and random hugs, gotta’ keep the rush coming to see ourselves in pictures on the Big Screen; selfies won’t do for much more than government work, the basic minimum of likes, follows and shares needed to gain some face and hold on to it for a day or two. Why do we see ourselves on the Big Screen at the expense of ourselves on the ground planting seeds and forgiving misdeeds?

    My main memory of a visit to Cuba was the loaded question from a local functionary, fully formed and well-thought-out, could only come from a Commie, stuck behind ironic curtains for most of his life and that of a nation: “Just what do you need Internet for, anyway?”

    (space intentionally left blank)

    Just what DO we need most, anyway? Why are we obsessed with this corporate mentality of skyscrapers Hondas and iPhones while homeless people are sleeping on the streets and begging for food? Is there no middle ground that we can all be part of? Maybe it’s time to reassess our priorities. Maybe it’s time to get back to the garden—a high-tech one—we and our smart-phones: but no two-year contracts, please…

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 11:36 am on November 16, 2014 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , philosophy, ,   

    THEORIES OF EVUH’ THANG (I f***ing love philosophy) 

    Yes, I sometimes poke fun at those wannabe scientists who claim to ‘f*cking love’ it, but who usually know little or nothing about it, just enough to act superior to die-hard Biblical Creationists, easy enough for sure, but who usually settle for an ad hoc poorly-thought-out scantily-clad pseudo-sci-fi proudly-proclaimed atheism-cum-religion, accent on the cum, that frequently involves tweaking the meds just right, usually strong enough to strip the polish off my spit-shined hiking boots, caffeine my drug of choice, just sayin’…

    It’s not that I don’t love science; I do. I just never knew what it had to do with my sex drive, or lack thereof. Wait a minute; oh, right. Anyway it’s nice to have two movies featuring Big Science up on the movie screens at the same time, which gives us four physicists, instead of the usual two, in the public spotlight, Stephen Hawking and Kip Thorne added to the usual one-two punch of Michio Kaku and Neil deGrasse Tyson, (and then there’s that guy with the big smile, from San Francisco, I think).  Bizniz is good, I guess.

    There was a time when philosophy and physics were the same activity—thinking, observing, analyzing, deducing—but that’s been a while, sometime after Descartes and before Wittgenstein, I guess, Russell and Whitehead being something of a last gasp at reconciling at least the math (abstract) side of science with the logical (concrete) side of philosophy. They are much the same thing, after all, notwithstanding Hawking’s diss of philosophers’ math skills; guess he never read Leibniz.

    But when science loses its connection to common language, it just may be getting off on an irresponsible tangent. Or maybe I’m being pessimistic. I mean, it would be nice if Science could save us and the planet, as suggested in ‘Interstellar’, but if that depends on ‘worm-holes’, then I’d maybe prefer some more Green Science here on Earth, instead. Theoretical physics is nice, but just that—theoretical; and as often as not, a mathematical convenience, best explained by the dictum, “it works.” End of story…NOT.  Wormhole that.

    Quantum mechanics is so foreign to common sense that relativity is considered ‘classical’. It works, but we have little possibility of imagining it. Relativity can be visualized; Einstein did. Curved space? No problem. But faster-than-light tachyons that can only slow down to light speed…maybe? Meh—better keep that day job, just in case. But Einstein’s failure to embrace quantum mechanics, partly his creation, may still suggest some problems with the theory, not just with Einstein, the old fuddy-duddy.

    One of Einstein’s lesser-heralded (but most accepted) ideas (can’t remember the name) was that the laws of physics operate the same any time all the time anywhere everywhere in the universe. Sounds simple, and I don’t think it’s ever really been questioned, but what if it’s not true? What if we’re in a little isolated pocket of the universe (or consciousness) where things do not operate normally? And no, we don’t need God for this, though any and all help is welcome, haha.

    Let’s say for example that our world is something of a ‘construction zone, observe posted speeds (double fines in effect), etc.’ In other words, what if the observable universe has flows and eddies (or IS such; and no, not the classic rock duo), ‘slow lanes’ so to speak, in which things happen at less than the speed of light, which would seem to be the norm for this dimension, or at least the next (observable) one, and which might define spirituality as well as light and electricity. That just might give you frequencies that you can touch. Sound familiar?

    It sounds feasible, doesn’t it, that Nature—and Reality—might operate at differing levels of efficiency? If we know that, then we can account for it as an anomaly… unless we’re in the middle of the anomaly. Then everything else seems weird and unexplainable, e.g. the universe expands at ever increasing speeds. The Big Bang. Gravity. Physicality. Stuff. Weird. Welcome to the slow cool world. Such is life—in time, and space…

    But what if reality is essentially spiritual, composed of waves that act like particles (hehe) and particles that act like waves (oops), a transcendental stew of light and electricity—and us—all swirling and whirling and hitting the road at the speed of light, we know not where? Now I’m no scientist by trade, but I’m betting that if spirituality is the answer you want, then the questions you ask become simpler. Or not. Just a thought. Welcome to my lumpy gravy theory of the universe. I’m hungry.

    (Einstein, Jesus and Plato are probably my favorite thinkers of all time, BTW, one’s thought experiments, the other’s parables and the latter’s dialogs equivalent in my mind to the finest things that a human mind is capable of–smartphone optional)

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 11:27 am on November 2, 2014 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , philosophy, ,   

    Buddhism 101: ‘Letting Go’, and all that jazz 

    One of the Buddha quotes currently making frequent rounds on Facebook these days goes something like (I’m paraphrasing, since my Pali is a little rusty anyway): ‘…the important thing in life…is how well you let go’…

    Let’s assume for the sake of discussion that that quote is accurate and correct, if not entirely complete nor definitive. Now that’s interesting, because I’d always credited Buddhism (from Hindu precedents) as advocating ‘non-possession’. But ‘letting go’ is not ‘non-possession.’ ‘Letting go’ implies that there was previous possession, and that’s an important point. I think I was wrong all these years. (More …)

     
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