Scientific Disposition · 15 May 2007

A mentor sent over a freshly minted syllabus this morning. At the bottom, he’s printed a kind of empiricist’s creed, straight from Shakyamuni Buddha.

Not something you see in the university too often, even though it’s so harmonious with the disposition of scientific research. If only social scientists would take the time to flesh out our standards for evidence and our working assumptions so clearly.

Rely not on the teacher, but on the teaching.

Rely not on the words of the teaching, but on the spirit of the words.

Rely not on theory, but on experience.

Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it.

Do not believe in traditions merely because they have been handed down for many generations.

Do not believe anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many.

Do not believe in anything simply because it is written in your books.

Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders.

But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and the benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it. 

Posted by (0v0)        
Categories: science , social theory , spirituality

Comment

1. Hey I would jettison even this stuff, and just cut straight to the chase, to wit:

   “To see the truth, regard all phenomena as lies”

   Period.

   Posted by: Tabby Cat · May 15, 04:42 AM · #

2. Spoken like a true economist.

   Thankfully most other “scientists” aren’t in the data = illusion school.

   Attempts to work with phenomena may be partial, but they’ve led to some pretty amazing science and evolution, by researchers who have conceded the purportedly transcendent questions to the cave-meditators.

   (I used to adore Dominick LaCapra: “The archival, sociocultural historian is a busy little ant that is not afraid to dirty its ‘hands’ with real labor as it stores up real knowledge.”)

   Posted by: (0v0) · May 15, 05:39 AM · #

3. > spoken like a true economist

   Huh? Economist? Yuck. That ain’t me babe.

   > led to some pretty amazing science
   > and evolution

   Yes, we are amazed by the SPECTACLE of POWER that some have been able to grab, by means of sci/tech, and use to dazzle. Our eyes and ears hunger for the fireworks of material power. But the man in the shadows alone controls it. And it burns.

   Posted by: Tabby Cat · May 15, 08:46 AM · #

4. By the way, I also meant to mention that the quote I gave about “lies” is from Thaganapa, one of the 84 Mahasiddha’s of Tibetan Buddhism.

   http://www.yoniversum.nl/dakini/mahasid2.html

   He was not an economist as far as I know.

   Posted by: Tabby Cat · May 15, 08:54 AM · #

5. Please be sincere with me, babe. I know you’re deeply capable.

   So come on. Science has forged more than shock and awe. Or maybe you would like to go off all grids, stop flying and driving, and so on. The scientific method is messy and it’s philosophically unsound; and it’s been essential to human evolution (read: change -- no good/bad valence implied). This humungus scope of science-driven global change, over centuries, is not separate from whatever religious or spiritual project (or anti-project) you may wish to engage. Spiritual life has to let modern life penetrate it and have the integrity to cope with that; or what is it? Dismissing science as the progenitor of the bomb is the rhetorical equivalent of calling Schwarzenegger Hitler, and far to easy. Admit you're interested in the nature of knowledge and in the nature of the cosmos. Come on.

   About economists, I was remarking on a discipline whose mainstream is dedicated to the idea that “markets” “function” “efficiently” and takes any evidence to the contrary as “lying” phenomena. See the connection? They are married to a theory, and equate it with truth. No room for phenomena to come betwixt, to give counsel maybe save the relationship.

   Thank you for the source on the second quotation, whose Himalayan domain one might guess :). In the context of the original quotation I posted here, did you suppose I’d take these (decontextualized) lines as indubitable if they came from an authority different from yourself? They were good in any case.

   It’s funny, really: the first Buddhist passage regards phenomena as the path to insight, and the second as nothing but a red herring. But maybe this apparent disagreement, if not all disagreements, is only semantic.

   It was a German mathematician, not a Tibetan, who said that. You might like him. http://www.librarything.com/work/25218

   Posted by: (0v0) · May 15, 09:41 AM · #

6. > did you suppose I’d take thes
   >(decontextualized) lines as indubitable
   >if they came from an authority different
   >from yourself? .

   Well I thought you might take them as indubitable as long as they DIDN’T come from an ECONOMIST! Ahaha! We can all roundly agree they are assholes.

   Namast!

   Posted by: Tabby Cat · May 15, 11:13 AM · #

7. Namast and no más.

   I like people who keep me alert… even economists.

   Posted by: (0v0) · May 15, 11:18 AM · #

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