Confirmation bias is really interesting, often people interpret facts to fit a pre-formed explanation, but just as common is a variant where people adjust their interpretation post-hoc to maintain a higher level bias - for example asserting that what someone said or did before actually is to be understood in a particular way. This seems to happen both in terms of individuals and also in communities - for example commentaries imposing meaning on a sutta.
Yes. Confirmation bias is a big cognitive problem. It happens unconsciously so without a constant effort to evaluate one's decisions it will always be a factor. With communities I would say that it probably works in the form of conditioning of expectations rather that being a truly distributed phenomena - though I'm sure this what you meant.
At the popular level disrupting confirmation bias can be problematic because you are challenging strongly held views. I've certainly seen a lot of this in the last week! Though ironically the blog gained two followers when I expected to lose them!
And yes the commentator often imposes a meaning onto a traditional teaching that it can't really sustain. One of the things I like to do is to unpick this. I'm working on an article which critiques the consensus view that the Buddha's teachings on anatta were a response to Vedic soteriology (see a post called Early Buddhists and ātman/brahman). In fact the texts cannot sustain this proposition. The Buddhists clearly don't engage with Upaniṣadic soteriology any more than Hindus who claim the Buddha was an avatara of Viṣṇu engage with Buddhist soteriology. The expectation that the Buddha was in dialogue with Brahmins about ātman is so strong that we don't notice that it never happens!
I can't be sure, but I think this is the very crop circle we had been talking about at the picnic.
Another interesting blog Jayarava, I come from a background in magical thinking and have been at pains to not throw the baby out with the bathwater as I engage with challenging those views. For instance I have witnessed and received healing on many occassions and I see no reason to be talked out of what I experienced - strong sensations of heat and tingling mostly with one or two instances of apparant energy releasing. I have also practiced Tai Qi Nei Gong for many years which produces similar apparant effects. The working ground for me seems to be belief, otherwise it seems I simply replace belief in Magick with belief in 'scientism' (not science, which is not a matter of belief, is it?). If I refuse to interpret these healing events with magical thinking or dismiss them with ratinal-ism then I can stay in a much more interesting place of 'don't know' which is open to possibilities and to having my mind changed whilst honoring the phenomenal data experienced. what do you think? is this naive perhaps? perhaps but it seems to be a balanced working ground for me as there is both wonder in magick and science, and that wonder is enhanced if I can stay open to there being more to it...
Dear Jayarava, I share (who doesn't, apart from people with low instruction?) your dislike for magic, etc. But, as already hinted at, I do not agree with the idea that the scientific paradigm is The one. It is, I belief, a matter of assumptions which have not been spelt out. One of them is the idea that the world is as natural sciences describe it, although natural sciences themselves evolve.
I'll deal with your comment first. The thing about science is that something only becomes accepted after many observations by by many people. I don't think any scientist since the publication of Einstein's paper on General relativity have held their theories to be an exact description of Reality. Einstein's debunking of the consensus paradigm about the nature of time was absolutely devastating. As if he has proved to Christians than God was dead.
But science does provide us with ways of explaining phenomena and reliably predicting phenomena. Indeed I can still use Newton's equation to predict the curve followed when I throw a ball to such a degree of accuracy that no ordinary ruler would be good enough to notice the discrepancy.
So this objection that the natural world is not exactly like the way scientists describe it is not a very strong objection. The world must be so like the description that it often makes no difference. It is certainly more accurate and reliable, on the whole, than the common view - on this last at least I think we agree.
I have personally tested all of Newtons' "Laws" and I can report that they are very accurate, even if they are not Absolutely True.
What we know is that the belief that you are receiving healing will provide relief, including physical changes in the body. This phenomenon is sometimes talked about dismissively, but mainly because it continues to muck up expensive drugs trials. Belief is powerful. It needs a new name I think to help us take it seriously, because the one the drug companies gave it is almost always used polemically. You probably know what I'm talking about.
In this regard I very much enjoyed the take on magic and healing, as practised and experienced amongst the Tantric practitioners of modern day Varanasi, and recounted in Ariel Glucklich's book The End of Magic (the most misleading book title ever I think). Glucklich understands the efficacy of such healing in terms of (re)establishing a sense of being interconnected with the world. I really recommend this book for a rational, but not dismissive, look at healing. He also discusses the shortcomings of previous Western attempts at rational explanations of faith healing.
On the other hand I think Thomas Metzinger's article on the out-of-body experience as the origin of the idea of the soul is instructive in terms of highlighting the problems of naive interpretations of experience. The original paper is here and my take on it is here.
Sometimes we simply cannot explain what is going on. This often makes us resort to inventing explanations. Hence we get magical thinking. Staying with unknowing seems to really test people. We just have to know, it seems, and we'll prefer an irrational explanation to no explanation at all.
I have, usually in desperation, undergone a number of alternative healing therapies including homoeopathy and kinesiology and found that they had absolutely no perceptible effect whatsoever. This is the flip side of the first effect I talked about: if you do not belief in the efficacy of some healing techniques they simply don't do anything.
Having an open mind is a good thing, but not too open as Tim Minchin suggests, just in case your brain falls out. :-)
Thanks for commenting. I like to know that my colleagues are reading.
Regards Jayarava
Friday, December 02, 2011
Paul P said...
'I have personally tested all of Newtons' "Laws" and I can report that they are very accurate, even if they are not Absolutely True.'
This reminded me of the old joke - Gravity: I fought the law, the law won.
I suspect you mean tested in a scientific sense though rather that in a young and foolish one.
Yes. I have confirmed to the limits the available measuring devices, and unavoidable within margins of error introduced by both method and the physical properties of the masses and measuring devices that Newton's laws of motion and gravity make accurate predictions ;-)
Friday, December 02, 2011
Gambhiradaka said...
I enjoyed listening to an experimental physicist working in Cern recently. He was positively excited by the fact that they may not find the Higgs Bosun and therefore have to start from scratch about the theories. I found this interesting because science is often portrayed as being arrogant in the way to claims to tell the truth about the world. Yet this open minded approach seems to be a good example of how we could approach Dharma practice. It reminded me on the discourse of the elephants footprint; where even when we have seen multiple signs (broken branches, trodden grass etc...) of the existence of an elephant we cannot say for sure it is there until we see it personally.
Also my favourite Carravagio painting 'Doubting Thomas' which shows Thomas literally sticking his finger right into Christ's wounds as if to say 'come on really? Risen from the dead?' Another good symbol for a helpful attitude for investigating the Buddha's teachings.
Yes. The Romantic and Humanist critiques of science seems to be stuck in the 19th century. There are some really nice quotes relevant to this on my post about conjecture and refutation.
It seems that we need to take into account that scientists have different roles. Theoreticians work in the abstract quite often - Neils Bohr being the most amazing example of this. He just worked out mathematically a description of the subatomic particle without any reference to experimental evidence, and produced a very robust theory. Some theoreticians work to explain observations (Stephen Hawking for instance). Some scientists work to test predictions (e.g. trying to find the Higgs Boson), while other accumulate data in a more general way. It is the rogue observation that gives the real thrill - like Fritz Zwicky who realised from his observations that the matter we can see is not enough to explain the orbital dynamics of galaxies and coined the term dark matter in 1934! Everything we thought we knew about the universe was wrong! Fantastic!
I'd use the metaphor of the elephant cautiously. From my pov we are not trying to establish the existence or non-existence of anything. Nor are we trying to establish the Truth or even a truth. We are trying to observe for ourselves how experience works. How can we track the trackless one?
Doubt is important. Frank Zappa once said that every town should have a big sign that just says "I doubt it".
Wow, a strong SKEPTIC post by Jayarava with very few references to Buddhism-- very nicely done. Superbly said, as always.
My pro-science temperament seems similar to yours and I totally sympathize with your statement that: "my encounters with science continue to expand my mind, make the world seem more amazing, more wonderful, more inspiring, more alive, less limited."
I wonder, however, if such intuition is only possible because of my mathematical, analytic inclinations which are strong linked to my artistic side. Whereas for many other folks, they either don't have mathematical inclinations or, their math brain does not have strong linkages to the big-picture part of their brains. Or, something like that (I am sure you could say it better).
This issue of linkages made me think of another encounter with you today: Today, for the first time, I listened to your superb interview on Secular Buddhist Podcasts. The experience offered fantastic linkages.
In your posts, I see you as enthusiastically brilliant, courageously explorative but also as intellectually brutal, very harsh and often short-tempered (in the comments). Up to now, I have balanced my limited understanding of you with an understanding of your battles with chronic pain and depression. But listening to that interview offered an even better balance and enrichening understanding of you: In the interview you struck me as infinitely likable, funny, affectionate, playful and humble -- these are not impressions I get from your posts. So the interview will now help me enjoy your posts even more -- it filled out my understanding of the writer, a bit more. I highly recommend the interview to other readers.
So, how does this aside fit with this post? Well, our view of science offers us a meaning-saturating, inspirational perspective (if I am understanding your correctly). But maybe, this is just because of the various linkages in our brain. Likewise, without complete linkages to understand the honorable Jayarava, an incomplete, distorted view is inevitable. The more connections we have, the more inspiring the experience. So those without the possibility of science-inspiration only have magic to run to. The role of science writers and such is to offer an inspirational view for those without the math mind or those without connections to whole thinking.
Concerning Buddhism: Your interview points toward a hopeful skeptical, secular, pragmatic Buddhism, just as this post does for me. And this post combined with that interview points to a very fun and inspiring Jayarava. Thanks
Well, erm, thanks for that honest assessment. I don't feel very comfortable with discussing my personal life in open forums these days as it backfired too many times. But I will accept both your praise and blame. I'm glad you enjoyed the interview, I certainly enjoyed doing it. Ted is very friendly and thoughtful.
It's not the first time my writing style has been assessed like that. I'm better in person. It's something to do with the internet I think. I don't seem experience empathetic connections with strangers via text. I value and pursue clarity of thought - in the absence of a sense of connection this value predominates. I don't see what I write as harsh - since I am almost never criticising abusing people on a personal level. I just aim to clarify the idea under discussion. Perhaps I don't succeed as well as I might wish. I certainly don't enjoy the kind of combative exchanges of the last week.
But I'm also someone who laughs a lot, and appreciates humour and comedy above most other art forms. I'm getting a bit involved in the Laughter Yoga movement lately! I'd like to run laughter workshops.
I'd very much like to write a book which is a true synthesis of science and Buddhism - not just a Buddhist looking at science or vice versa. A synthesis would not privilege either side but allow the best explanation to be the one we accept at each stage. And I would like it to be accessible to non-geeky types. I would hope to show that the modern science story is at least as wonderful and inspiring as traditional narratives.
I have more skeptic posts coming up, so hopefully you'll enjoy those as well.
So thanks for your comments. And once again thanks for you enthusiasm. Your other comment today left a smile on my face :-)
Ironic Pic: Ya gotta love Google's advertisement algorithm. While reading this skeptic post, I noticed ">this psychic ad in right your side bar.
On Laughter: I saw your laugher posts on Google + and after listening to your interview and hearing your wonderful laugh, I could see you as a superb Laugh Workshop leader!
On Empathetic Connections: People have occasionally told me, "Wow, that was harsh" but I respond, "Gee, you should have heard how much sharper I was in my mind." My inner thinking style is very critical, heartlessly self-skeptical and dissecting. Over the years I have learned to do that a little less to others -- a little. You see, I know that I love myself (I am an optimistic fellow) and so my own inner harshness never hurts me. But in real life conversations, people don't know me and I don't know them, so I try to be a bit more careful. My patients have taught me this over the years. But I mess us all the time.
Likewise, when I play on-line WeiQi (a board game) I can be curt, rude and thoughtless much more easily than I ever could in person. For as you implied, a face in front of you tends to activate the brain's social modules to supplement the calculations that can help avoid such impersonal habits. I chastise myself to be more observant in a WeiQi game. I think that watching my mind during a 1 hour game may change my mental habits more than a 1 week retreat silent meditative! :-)
Excellent article. I agree with you completely. Surely, in spirituality we need more writers like you because spiritual thinking seems to be linked to superstition. Spirituality that is 'superstition free' is almost non existent.
There is nothing more I can say other then keep up the good work. Many people may not like what you write but you are doing a great job. Thank you.
Ooops, here is the link to the advertisement I saw next to your post (first link didn't work - I'll try again)
Sunday, December 04, 2011
[Image]JUST A LITTLE WHILE AGO at a Saṅgha picnic one of our group remarked that an elaborate crop circle had appeared in fields near where they live. The person began to speculate about the mystical symbolism of the crop circle and seemed unaware that crop circles are all artificially made. I mentioned that the original crop circle makers—Doug Bower and Dave Chorley—had confessed their hoax and demonstrated their method. My informant, tried to dodge the fact of the hoax, and pursue the mystical significance of the new crop circle. I'm puzzled by the attraction of mystical explanations for things—spirits, aliens, etc.—especially when there are more straightforward answers. When the original crop circle makers have confessed and showed how they did it, and crop circles are now routinely used by the advertising industry, why are people still attracted to the idea that crop circles have mystical significance?
What really sparked me off, however, was watching a documentary, Messiah [1], in which Derren Brown, an entertainer who specialises in using the power of suggestion and an ability to 'read' people's body language and facial expressions to create the illusion of psychic powers. Brown is different in that he admits he is a showman, and explains how he does what he does. In Messiah, Brown travels to the USA where he is virtually unknown, and proceeds to try to obtain personal endorsements from leading members of New Age or Alternative groups: psychics, mediums, alien abductees, and an evangelist. The evangelist is impressed though not willing to publicly endorse Brown, while the others—experts in their 'fields'—are entirely taken in and enthusiastically offer to endorse him.
In other words Brown uses his skills to convince a group of psychics that he is real psychic; a couple of alien abductees that he was abducted by aliens and can now tell them their medical histories; a group of strangers that he is in touch with their dead relatives (and knows intimate details of their relationships); and a prolific New Age publisher that he can record and play back her dreams with his dream device. With the evangelist he demonstrates an ability to instantly convert a roomful of sceptics to belief in God. He actually does this with a simple touch in one case, and by imitating those evangelists who "bring down the Holy Spirit" in another case, though his method for the rest is clearly plain old hypnotism. The pastor alone is cautious about accepting Brown on face value, but he is still visibly impressed.
A similar hoax—Project Alpha [2]—was perpetrated by the magician James Randi, aka The Amazing Randi. He commissioned two amateur sleight-of-hand magicians—Steve Shaw and Michael Edwards—to convince a team of researchers at the University of Washington that they could bend spoons with their psychic powers along the lines of the infamous faker Uri Geller. This they successfully did, managing to bypass all of the 'scientific scrutiny' of the research team, including video cameras! Shaw and Edwards continued with the hoax for a considerable time, even after it became clear to the university that when the experimental protocols were tightened up that the two could not perform any psychic feats. They became minor celebrities travelling the country to demonstrate their "powers". However eventually Randi himself admitted the fraud and the credulity of the "psychic" community was painfully exposed. Project Alpha subsequently inspired a number of copy-cat hoaxes with more or less the same result.
Randi has exposed other fraudulent psychics. Recently in the UK psychic Sally Morgan was exposed as a fraud. [4] She apparently uses the same technique as seen in the lesser known Steven Martin film Leap Of Faith[Image]: where assistants gather information from the crowd as they take their seats, and feed it to Martin through a concealed ear piece. However being exposed does not necessarily mean that a psychic is put out of business. In 1986 Randi exposed Peter Popoff as the same kind of fraud on Johnny Carsons's Tonight show, but he is back with a vengeance fleecing the credulous and making tens of millions of dollars doing it.
The message seems to be that people want to believe. They want to believe in spirits, in immaterial beings and gods, in mysterious energies, in crystal vibrations, in psychic powers. People want to believe in magic. This desire to believe affects our judgement: it affects what we pay attention to, and the weight that we give to what we see and hear. The effect of this is that what we believe is apparently confirmed. It's called confirmation bias. For every "proof" that people have psychic powers, there is a demonstration of cynical fraud. So we should at least be very sceptical about psychic powers. But a lot of us are not. We only look for evidence that confirms our views, and we wilfully ignore any contradictory evidence.
But more than simply wanting to belief, people don't want to not believe - they consciously reject the rational alternatives to magical thinking. People apparently don't want to believe in science which they see as prosaic, mundane, and uninspiring. Accurate, but dull and limited. Whereas magic is exciting and has infinite possibility. My own experience of science is completely the reverse of this: my encounters with science continue to expand my mind, make the world seem more amazing, more wonderful, more inspiring, more alive, less limited.
The real down side of credulity is that every day people are being ripped off by unscrupulous con-artists. For instance they are paying for 'healing' that at best is the placebo effect, but which as worst is harmful. Recently in the UK the writer Simon Singh was sued for libel by the British Chiropractic Association because he said "... it happily promotes bogus treatments" and that the treatment could be "lethal". [3] The law suit was eventually dropped as it became clear that they would not win. Singh had made truthful statements, based on published research, even if he was being sarcastic. One cannot be sued for being sarcastic in the UK, nor for being a science journalist how reports on research. This is not to say that science or medicine has all the answers. Patently it does not. Or that scientists and doctors have not harmed people. They have. But within medicine and science there are checks and balances. Magical thinking allows for no checks and balances. If something goes wrong it is because you did not believe. And of course we do know that the placebo effect is dependent on you believing you've had an effect treatment, but this is not very reassuring if we are genuinely ill.[5]
Somehow, because science undermines magical thinking, some people see it as destroying meaning, of making the world less meaningful, though only because "meaning" is associated with "magic"! I have never agreed with this. Knowledge comes from paying close attention to how things are. And as über-scientist Richard Feynman said: "Science—knowledge—only adds to the excitement, the mystery, and the awe of a flower. It only adds. I don't understand how it subtracts." [6] In the past I have been critical of the way Buddhists present their own beliefs as simple representations of Reality. (e.g. Rescuing the Dharma from Fundamentalists) This so-called Reality is often simply an intellectual regurgitation of metaphysical theories found in popular books on Buddhism. As such it's a blind belief not rooted in experience. David Chapman has referred to this as "effing the ineffable". And since we are explicitly against this approach to religion we Buddhists appear to be incoherent and self-contradictory at times. Buddhists, like other human beings, want to believe, and are often credulous in their approach to the traditional Buddhist narratives. Such credulousness is not helpful, but breaking out of it requires us open our minds to the possibility that we are wrong.
~~oOo~~
Notes. Derren Brown. Messiah.James Randi. Project Alpha.'Beware the spinal trap: Some practitioners claim it is a cure-all but research suggests chiropractic therapy can be lethal.' Guardian.19 Apr 2008.'Psychic Sally Morgan hears voices from the other side (via a hidden earpiece).' Guardian. 20 Sept 2011.For a discussion of the other side of the placebo effect look at: The Dark Side of the Placebo Effect: When Intense Belief Kills; and What's the Harm? Feynman. The Pleasure of Finding Things Out. BBC Tim Minchin. If you open your mind too much your brain will fall out.
17 Comments
Close this window Jump to comment formConfirmation bias is really interesting, often people interpret facts to fit a pre-formed explanation, but just as common is a variant where people adjust their interpretation post-hoc to maintain a higher level bias - for example asserting that what someone said or did before actually is to be understood in a particular way. This seems to happen both in terms of individuals and also in communities - for example commentaries imposing meaning on a sutta.
lovely crop circle though...
Friday, December 02, 2011
Hi Paul,
Yes. Confirmation bias is a big cognitive problem. It happens unconsciously so without a constant effort to evaluate one's decisions it will always be a factor. With communities I would say that it probably works in the form of conditioning of expectations rather that being a
truly distributed phenomena - though I'm sure this what you meant.
At the popular level disrupting confirmation bias can be problematic because you are challenging strongly held views. I've certainly seen a lot of this in the last week! Though ironically the blog gained two followers when I expected to lose them!
And yes the commentator often imposes a meaning onto a traditional teaching that it can't really sustain. One of the things I like to do is to unpick this. I'm working on an article which critiques the consensus view that the Buddha's teachings on anatta were a response to Vedic soteriology (see a post called Early Buddhists and ātman/brahman). In fact the texts cannot sustain this proposition. The Buddhists clearly don't engage with Upaniṣadic soteriology any more than Hindus who claim the Buddha was an avatara of Viṣṇu engage with Buddhist soteriology. The expectation that the Buddha was in dialogue with Brahmins about ātman is so strong that we don't notice that it never happens!
I can't be sure, but I think this is the very crop circle we had been talking about at the picnic.
Cheers.
Jayarava
Friday, December 02, 2011
Another interesting blog Jayarava, I come from a background in magical thinking and have been at pains to not throw the baby out with the bathwater as I engage with challenging those views. For instance I have witnessed and received healing on many occassions and I see no reason to be talked out of what I experienced - strong sensations of heat and tingling mostly with one or two instances of apparant energy releasing. I have also practiced Tai Qi Nei Gong for many years which produces similar apparant effects.
The working ground for me seems to be belief, otherwise it seems I simply replace belief in Magick with belief in 'scientism' (not science, which is not a matter of belief, is it?). If I refuse to interpret these healing events with magical thinking or dismiss them with ratinal-ism then I can stay in a much more interesting place of 'don't know' which is open to possibilities and to having my mind changed whilst honoring the phenomenal data experienced.
what do you think? is this naive perhaps? perhaps but it seems to be a balanced working ground for me as there is both wonder in magick and science, and that wonder is enhanced if I can stay open to there being more to it...
Friday, December 02, 2011
Dear Jayarava,
I share (who doesn't, apart from people with low instruction?) your dislike for magic, etc. But, as already hinted at, I do not agree with the idea that the scientific paradigm is The one. It is, I belief, a matter of assumptions which have not been spelt out. One of them is the idea that the world is as natural sciences describe it, although natural sciences themselves evolve.
Friday, December 02, 2011
Hi Elisa
I'll deal with your comment first. The thing about science is that something only becomes accepted after many observations by by many people. I don't think any scientist since the publication of Einstein's paper on General relativity have held their theories to be an exact description of Reality. Einstein's debunking of the consensus paradigm about the nature of time was absolutely devastating. As if he has proved to Christians than God was dead.
But science does provide us with ways of explaining phenomena and reliably predicting phenomena. Indeed I can still use Newton's equation to predict the curve followed when I throw a ball to such a degree of accuracy that no ordinary ruler would be good enough to notice the discrepancy.
So this objection that the natural world is not exactly like the way scientists describe it is not a very strong objection. The world must be so like the description that it often makes no difference. It is certainly more accurate and reliable, on the whole, than the common view - on this last at least I think we agree.
I have personally tested all of Newtons' "Laws" and I can report that they are very accurate, even if they are not Absolutely True.
Cheers
Jayarava
Friday, December 02, 2011
Hi Lalitarāja,
What we know is that the belief that you are receiving healing will provide relief, including physical changes in the body. This phenomenon is sometimes talked about dismissively, but mainly because it continues to muck up expensive drugs trials. Belief is powerful. It needs a new name I think to help us take it seriously, because the one the drug companies gave it is almost always used polemically. You probably know what I'm talking about.
In this regard I very much enjoyed the take on magic and healing, as practised and experienced amongst the Tantric practitioners of modern day Varanasi, and recounted in Ariel Glucklich's book The End of Magic (the most misleading book title ever I think). Glucklich understands the efficacy of such healing in terms of (re)establishing a sense of being interconnected with the world. I really recommend this book for a rational, but not dismissive, look at healing. He also discusses the shortcomings of previous Western attempts at rational explanations of faith healing.
On the other hand I think Thomas Metzinger's article on the out-of-body experience as the origin of the idea of the soul is instructive in terms of highlighting the problems of naive interpretations of experience. The original paper is here and my take on it is here.
Sometimes we simply cannot explain what is going on. This often makes us resort to inventing explanations. Hence we get magical thinking. Staying with unknowing seems to really test people. We just have to know, it seems, and we'll prefer an irrational explanation to no explanation at all.
I have, usually in desperation, undergone a number of alternative healing therapies including homoeopathy and kinesiology and found that they had absolutely no perceptible effect whatsoever. This is the flip side of the first effect I talked about: if you do not belief in the efficacy of some healing techniques they simply don't do anything.
Having an open mind is a good thing, but not too open as Tim Minchin suggests, just in case your brain falls out. :-)
Thanks for commenting. I like to know that my colleagues are reading.
Regards
Jayarava
Friday, December 02, 2011
'I have personally tested all of Newtons' "Laws" and I can report that they are very accurate, even if they are not Absolutely True.'
This reminded me of the old joke - Gravity: I fought the law, the law won.
I suspect you mean tested in a scientific sense though rather that in a young and foolish one.
Friday, December 02, 2011
Yes. I have confirmed to the limits the available measuring devices, and unavoidable within margins of error introduced by both method and the physical properties of the masses and measuring devices that Newton's laws of motion and gravity make accurate predictions ;-)
Friday, December 02, 2011
I enjoyed listening to an experimental physicist working in Cern recently. He was positively excited by the fact that they may not find the Higgs Bosun and therefore have to start from scratch about the theories. I found this interesting because science is often portrayed as being arrogant in the way to claims to tell the truth about the world. Yet this open minded approach seems to be a good example of how we could approach Dharma practice. It reminded me on the discourse of the elephants footprint; where even when we have seen multiple signs (broken branches, trodden grass etc...) of the existence of an elephant we cannot say for sure it is there until we see it personally.
Also my favourite Carravagio painting 'Doubting Thomas' which shows Thomas literally sticking his finger right into Christ's wounds as if to say 'come on really? Risen from the dead?' Another good symbol for a helpful attitude for investigating the Buddha's teachings.
Saturday, December 03, 2011
Hey Gambhiraḍāka
Yes. The Romantic and Humanist critiques of science seems to be stuck in the 19th century. There are some really nice quotes relevant to this on my post about conjecture and refutation.
It seems that we need to take into account that scientists have different roles. Theoreticians work in the abstract quite often - Neils Bohr being the most amazing example of this. He just worked out mathematically a description of the subatomic particle without any reference to experimental evidence, and produced a very robust theory. Some theoreticians work to explain observations (Stephen Hawking for instance). Some scientists work to test predictions (e.g. trying to find the Higgs Boson), while other accumulate data in a more general way. It is the rogue observation that gives the real thrill - like Fritz Zwicky who realised from his observations that the matter we can see is not enough to explain the orbital dynamics of galaxies and coined the term dark matter in 1934! Everything we thought we knew about the universe was wrong! Fantastic!
I'd use the metaphor of the elephant cautiously. From my pov we are not trying to establish the existence or non-existence of anything. Nor are we trying to establish the Truth or even a truth. We are trying to observe for ourselves how experience works. How can we track the trackless one?
Doubt is important. Frank Zappa once said that every town should have a big sign that just says "I doubt it".
Cheers
Jayarava
Saturday, December 03, 2011
Wow, a strong SKEPTIC post by Jayarava with very few references to Buddhism-- very nicely done. Superbly said, as always.
My pro-science temperament seems similar to yours and I totally sympathize with your statement that: "my encounters with science continue to expand my mind, make the world seem more amazing, more wonderful, more inspiring, more alive, less limited."
I wonder, however, if such intuition is only possible because of my mathematical, analytic inclinations which are strong linked to my artistic side. Whereas for many other folks, they either don't have mathematical inclinations or, their math brain does not have strong linkages to the big-picture part of their brains. Or, something like that (I am sure you could say it better).
This issue of linkages made me think of another encounter with you today: Today, for the first time, I listened to your superb interview on Secular Buddhist Podcasts. The experience offered fantastic linkages.
In your posts, I see you as enthusiastically brilliant, courageously explorative but also as intellectually brutal, very harsh and often short-tempered (in the comments). Up to now, I have balanced my limited understanding of you with an understanding of your battles with chronic pain and depression. But listening to that interview offered an even better balance and enrichening understanding of you: In the interview you struck me as infinitely likable, funny, affectionate, playful and humble -- these are not impressions I get from your posts. So the interview will now help me enjoy your posts even more -- it filled out my understanding of the writer, a bit more. I highly recommend the interview to other readers.
So, how does this aside fit with this post? Well, our view of science offers us a meaning-saturating, inspirational perspective (if I am understanding your correctly). But maybe, this is just because of the various linkages in our brain. Likewise, without complete linkages to understand the honorable Jayarava, an incomplete, distorted view is inevitable. The more connections we have, the more inspiring the experience. So those without the possibility of science-inspiration only have magic to run to. The role of science writers and such is to offer an inspirational view for those without the math mind or those without connections to whole thinking.
Concerning Buddhism: Your interview points toward a hopeful skeptical, secular, pragmatic Buddhism, just as this post does for me. And this post combined with that interview points to a very fun and inspiring Jayarava. Thanks
Saturday, December 03, 2011
Hey Sabio
Well, erm, thanks for that honest assessment. I don't feel very comfortable with discussing my personal life in open forums these days as it backfired too many times. But I will accept both your praise and blame. I'm glad you enjoyed the interview, I certainly enjoyed doing it. Ted is very friendly and thoughtful.
It's not the first time my writing style has been assessed like that. I'm better in person. It's something to do with the internet I think. I don't seem experience empathetic connections with strangers via text. I value and pursue clarity of thought - in the absence of a sense of connection this value predominates. I don't see what I write as harsh - since I am almost never criticising abusing people on a personal level. I just aim to clarify the idea under discussion. Perhaps I don't succeed as well as I might wish. I certainly don't enjoy the kind of combative exchanges of the last week.
But I'm also someone who laughs a lot, and appreciates humour and comedy above most other art forms. I'm getting a bit involved in the Laughter Yoga movement lately! I'd like to run laughter workshops.
I'd very much like to write a book which is a true synthesis of science and Buddhism - not just a Buddhist looking at science or vice versa. A synthesis would not privilege either side but allow the best explanation to be the one we accept at each stage. And I would like it to be accessible to non-geeky types. I would hope to show that the modern science story is at least as wonderful and inspiring as traditional narratives.
I have more skeptic posts coming up, so hopefully you'll enjoy those as well.
So thanks for your comments. And once again thanks for you enthusiasm. Your other comment today left a smile on my face :-)
Regards
Jayarava
Saturday, December 03, 2011
Hey Jayarava,
Ironic Pic:
Ya gotta love Google's advertisement algorithm. While reading this skeptic post, I noticed ">this psychic ad in right your side bar.
On Laughter:
I saw your laugher posts on Google + and after listening to your interview and hearing your wonderful laugh, I could see you as a superb Laugh Workshop leader!
On Empathetic Connections:
People have occasionally told me, "Wow, that was harsh" but I respond, "Gee, you should have heard how much sharper I was in my mind."
My inner thinking style is very critical, heartlessly self-skeptical and dissecting. Over the years I have learned to do that a little less to others -- a little. You see, I know that I love myself (I am an optimistic fellow) and so my own inner harshness never hurts me. But in real life conversations, people don't know me and I don't know them, so I try to be a bit more careful. My patients have taught me this over the years. But I mess us all the time.
Likewise, when I play on-line WeiQi (a board game) I can be curt, rude and thoughtless much more easily than I ever could in person. For as you implied, a face in front of you tends to activate the brain's social modules to supplement the calculations that can help avoid such impersonal habits. I chastise myself to be more observant in a WeiQi game. I think that watching my mind during a 1 hour game may change my mental habits more than a 1 week retreat silent meditative! :-)
Saturday, December 03, 2011
Excellent article. I agree with you completely.
Surely, in spirituality we need more writers like you because spiritual thinking seems to be linked to superstition.
Spirituality that is 'superstition free' is almost non existent.
There is nothing more I can say other then keep up the good work.
Many people may not like what you write but you are doing a great job. Thank you.
Namaste,
Roeland
Sunday, December 04, 2011
Hi Roeland
Thanks. I appreciate the vote of confidence. I have more on this kind of theme lined up.
Watching Derren Brown something definitely shifted in my approach to the supernatural!
Best Wishes
Jayarava
Sunday, December 04, 2011
Roeland,
I see that you have a website on Vedic Astrology. Are you a believer in Vedic Astrology?
Sunday, December 04, 2011
Ooops, here is the link to the advertisement I saw next to your post (first link didn't work - I'll try again)
Sunday, December 04, 2011