From: Ian Goddard (Ian@Goddard.net)
Date: Sat Oct 03 1998 - 16:53:39 MDT
At 12:15 PM 10/3/98 -0500, Natasha Vita More wrote:
>I don't think that conventional Buddhism ties in so neatly to extropianism,
>mainly because of reincarnation and the acceptance of suffering and that
>it can only be eliminated by a spiritual overcoming. Accepting suffering
>is accepting death. Overcoming suffering through spirituality is a fairy
>tale reality and pseudoscience.
IAN: Overcoming suffering is not pseudoscience, there
are all kinds of scientifically validated medications
that people take that reduce experiences of suffering.
Buddhist/yogic technologies can be effective too, and
those technologies are yoga and meditation, which are
proven to effect positive mental/physical states that
overcome "suffering." We might also add analysis, for
a big part of Buddhist-enlightenment technique is the
analysis of the nature of mind and an understanding
of the connections between good and bad emotions.
Buddha's position was that there is no reincarnation,
although you will not get that from reading much of
the literature of Buddhsim I'd also have to crack
some books I've not read in years to be able to
debate that issue, but it is consistent with
the philosophy of the void-nature of mind.
>Zen Buddhism gets a little closer in its systematic thought that
>enlightenment can be attained through meditation, self-contemplation,
>and intuition rather than through faith and devotion. A bit more
>rational, but not quite there.
IAN: Fuzzy logic and holistic-identity structure
confirm as logical the deepest Buddhist teachings.
Despite the claims of many in this forum against
holistic identity, none have been able to find
an example of an identity that is what it is
free from holistic relations to what it isn't.
The last argument against holistic identity as
expressed via Zero mechanics, raised here was
that 0 is not more than -1, and thus 0 - (-1)
would not equal 1, but it does! It's only too
clear that the cases raised against the zero-
sum holism implicit in Buddhist philosophy have
had to step outside both the empirical and logical
bounds as defined by our Western scientific standards.
**************************************************************
Visit Ian Williams Goddard --------> http://Ian.Goddard.net
______________________________________________________________
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 14:49:38 MST