Probability of what has already happened?

Just refining the opening, before this goes on its train of consciousness. Suppose we did know the probability of finding everything in an hour. The situation is then that we search for an hour and pick the least likely thing we find. Suppose that is p What we don't factor in just how many things have the probability of p, and so how finding something with probability p is much much greater than p. But anyway onto the stream of consciousness.. 

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 Just watching a BBC TV program on chance. At the end the narrator says they've found a chicken nugget in the shape of the queens head in Her Diamond Jubilee year. What is the chance of that?

The problem though is not what is the chance of finding a chicken nugget in the shape of the queen in her diamond jubilee year. The nugget is already found!

The question is given that a queens head nugget has been found in the Jubilee year then what ???

What actually is the question?

It seems to be something like. Wow if I went out searching for this it would take me a long time because its very unlikely.

But this is not the situation.

And the problem with this scenario is that we have not defined the "prior" at all. I mean, in general, what is acceptable as an "event" we can ask the probability of.

How many unlikely things happen to us every day? What is the chance of catching the No 17 bus on the 17th. What is the chance of getting a piece of food stuck between our teeth, the day we run out of tooth picks. What is the chance it rains and we definitely thought it wasn't. Sounds like an Alanis Morrissette song, but no it isn't ironic, these are just things suitably unusual that we notice them and encode them.

The chance that we stepped on a leaf in two consecutive steps we probably won't stop to even think about. The probability that we breathed out at the same time as the lights turned red, and also when they turned green.

There are only so many things we are going to account in a day. A basic "bandwidth" of things we will notice.

So if we know all the possible things that can happen to us, and the bandwidth of how many we will notice and make a big deal out of, perhaps then we can start to calculate the probability retrospectively of finding a queens head chicken nugget in her Jubilee year.

But we don't do this and so really the amazement of such things, is the under estimating just how many things can and do happen to us each day!

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Now Quantum Physics and observation are intricately linked. There is something about pre- and post-observation.

Obviously in Schrodinger's Wave Equation while the pre- observation is defined as a probability, the post- observation is a discrete measurable event. 

In science you do blind testing to make sure that information that could pollute the results is not present "before" results are measured. You don't tell trial subjects whether they are control of not because even if they are "honest" you cannot be sure it would not affect the outcome. This is slightly different from the usual scientific practice of standardising unwanted variables. If you are measuring viscosity you standardise temperature because they are linked. But in a drug trial its not that information on what the patient is taking may just be "linked" to the outcome, it is linked to the very process of the experiment, in that the study scientists are trying to "know" stuff and gather information itself.

Another example is how our experiences are shaped by what we know. Plato in Theaetetus imagines that our mind is like a clay tablet into which things leave an impression. In the future when there is a "fit" we have the experience of knowing. Seeing someone far of, we have this experience of unknown. As they approach we can watch in slow motion the mind trying to add an identity. When finally we recognise them that is a "fit" between the impression we have and the world. Plato is thus noting that an experience of knowing depends both on the object and the mind. When I first read a book on tree identification I thought the Ash Tree very exotic with its Pinnately Compound leaves and figured they must be rare as I had never seen one before. Looked out of the window and we had one in the garden! The world we live in, is very much constructed by what we know. That is to say the very solid experiences we have are mediated by prior knowledge.

So when something "unlikely" happens there is a load of stuff we are bringing to the table as well. In that BBC program the story of someone writing a friend a postcard from holiday only to meet them on the way to the post office. Yet that friend must pass hundreds if not thousands of people a day. The notable feature was not their meeting, but that they knew each other. If both of them had advanced dementia they may not even notice each other and the event would go unnoticed. It would take a 3rd party to note the unlikely encounter. But suppose that 3rd party was Facebook using mobile phone GPS data to monitor the positions of users. Facebook can now do a global daily search to see when friends come into close contact. Suppose their AI is smart enough to also work out whether the meeting was prearranged, either by looking at calendars, posts or also the behaviour e.g. 2 people going to shops and then briefly meeting in the queue before going different ways: you wouldn't plan to meet in a shopping queue. Now what do we think about the probability of "unlikely" encounters between people who know each other given the whole world!

There is the pigeon hole principle at work here too in the famous Birthday Paradox. You are at a party and find someone with your birthday. I went to a dance club for my birthday some years ago and heard a girl in the queue had a birthday that day too! That felt unlikely. But the chance of two people in a room of 23 sharing a birthday is actually a half. The reason we get confused is that we think about it in terms of us being one of the people and one of the other 22 having our birthday. But the point here is that any birthday will do. There are only 365 possible birthdays each year for all of them. Now take 23 people and put them randomly into 365 "bins" and we are looking at chance that 2 end up in the same "bin."

Given all the possible things that can happen in a day that we would consider it coincidental to find a friend doing, that is a lot more than just a birthday. Given you are friends you will also share a lot of similarities too. In fact you should be more surprised when things don't happen. Given the real probability of Birthday Paradox is 50% if you are in a room of 23 people and no one shares a birthday that is actually quite an unlikely "coincidence", but we wouldn't realise it.

So "given an event" has happened, its actually extremely difficult to work out whether this is "significant" or not. Once we know about the event, looking back into the past to work "likelihoods" out doesn't work. By knowing it, we have already changed everything. Both in a mathematical way, but potentially in a really existential profound way.

Some more thought needed!

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The classic way this is exploited is in media. Here is a video of Numberphile rolling 6x three faces.

It looks like its the first roll. But really over 1000 previous rolls were edited out. The ability to decide when time starts and the viewer attention and context begins gives the editor of media extraordinary super powers.

In the back of our mind when we watch TV illusionists there is always the thought that perhaps the film has been edited. When we watch on stage someone climb into a box and then emerge from another box, that requires some neat trickery. On film its so simple anyone can do with it a just a mobile phone... someone just pauses the recording while you move.

So we learn that "within" media (and stories in general) they have their own time. The "Once upon a time" or the "In the beginning" are critical components of a story that begin the clock ticking of the story.

Now the question regarding probability is that we make assumptions about our reality. The probability of throwing 6x threes on dice is 1/46656 if we just rolled 6 dice. But what is the probability that a video shows 6x threes? Much higher because people don't film random sequences. What is the probability that a news article carries a story about a goldfish being won at the fair? Much lower than the probability of winning it, because media filters. And so do we!

To illustrate that probability is not "real" but is integrally linked to our mind: what is the probability of that numberphile outcome?

You might argue that throwing 6x threes is:

p(6x3) = (1/6 * 1/6 * 1/6 * 1/6 * 1/6 * 1/6) = 1/46656

But how do we know they were not just trying to throw 6 numbers the same? There are now 6 ways to do that.

p(6x3)/6 = 1/7776

So in fact there are two answer for this outcome and video! It all depends what was in your mind. You need more information. This illustrates the problems above of working backwards from seemingly unlikely events. There seems to be a need for some "prior" before can determine the probability of an event. Just picking up a leaf and saying what is the probability of that means unlimited answers. What the probability of it being here at all, the probability that I picked it from all the others, even the probability that I decided to start asking chance questions right now. 

If we watch the rest of the video we find that he threw it around 1000 times. So it's much more likely that he was trying to just get 6x numbers the same. Prior information actually changes the probability! Suppose that prior information was sealed in a envelop we are now entering apparent Schrodinger's Cat like territory and super position where the outcome is only determined once distant information is revealed.

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This is actually linked to "freedom." What is the probability that something will happen, is a measure of just how free we are. What is the probability I will gain what I desire is very much linked to the way we live in the West. Those who can secure good likelihood are considered winners, and those who cannot are considered losers. But losers do play things like lottery in the hope that they may have a chance at being winners.

But even the biggest winners don't control everything. The richest most powerful person may succumb to illness that the medicine of the day cannot solve. Or a rival blows up their helicopter, or perhaps despite the best mechanics that money can buy an error occurs and the helicopter crashes. Even winners can be losers.

Now in Buddhism there is this concept of "emptiness." Its the question of what does the world look like when no one is looking at it. It seems ridiculously simple that my bedroom during the day exists, and when I return to it at night it is still there just as I left it. But the question what does it "look" like when no one is there, cannot be answered. When no one is looking, things don't "look like" anything. How fast can a car go when no one is driving? Or most famously what is the sound of a tree falling in a forest when no one is there to hear it.

This is well discussed in Western Philosophy. The phenomenon is the sensory event, the actual happening, the what someone experiences. The noumenon is what is really there. When you buy coal, you did not hear the tree fall, no one heard the tree fall, it fell around 325 millions years ago. But it did fall and the coal is proof of that. So we argue that a tree fell, and that fall got recorded in the geological record to be discovered today and become the phenomenon of coal.

But we need to be a bit careful. "325 millions years ago" when did this happen? Its just an idea.

So we get to Hegel and the realisation that the Noumenon is just in the mind. We "think" noumenon, we "see" phenomenon.

The idea that there is a "real" thing "out there" that is never-the-less unknown is nonsense. Ah but that tree must have fallen in the Carboniferous period else how is there coal? This is true, but without a time machine this is not "real." Its an idea deduced from evidence by very clever geologists and then passed on to people. This is why we "think" that coal comes from trees. Who knows what other people before us "thought."

Now all this to get to "emptiness" and the number of chances that can happen to us.

Quick aside. Sometime attributed to golfer Jerry Barber "the more I practice the luckier I get." This could be a line from Buddhism also. The only difference is that Barber is referring just to golf, while Buddhism is referring to mind and heart training to make us alert and kind.

So we could say "The more alert and kinder I am the luckier I get."

Now this links to Karma and Emptiness. Buddhist theory says that everything has causes and effects. When things happen to us, lucky or otherwise, they are the effect of a cause that can ultimately be attributed back to us in the past.

This can best be explained by our mind. As above we argued that Noumena do not "really" exist they are ideas. But greater than ideas is Mind. The Mind we have decides which ideas we produce. Some ideas are helpful, some not. Suppose someone gives us a cup of coffee when we get to work. Some Mind will be very grateful and feel good. Other suspicious minds may feel negative and wonder why this person is trying to win you over. Save event/phenomenon, different Mind, and so different ideas/noumena!

Now the greater and purer our Mind, the broader its vision, and the freer it is. Mind it turns out is the most important. As Buddha says "without our minds we make the world." Tough to understand for someone stuck in an "objective" world where their "thought" have become reality!

A free Mind it full of Possibility. So much so that all situations are full of potential. We no longer look at the "chance" events, and all events become filled with possibility.

There is the person living a sluggish life waiting for that lottery win to change their life. There is another person who does not look to a future chance event, but instead begins with what they have today. Perhaps they want to be rich as well, so they go to college to gain a skill, or they find ways to hang around rich people, like becoming an apprentice to a rich person or company so they can learn how it works themselves. Or perhaps they have some skills or passions that they feel they can share with others like painting or fitness training.

And most important in all these will be alertness and kindness. If we are positive with other people then they will ultimately be positive to us. And people is what makes the world.

Altho its not just people. You can't just fake yourself to the top. Its genuine openness and purity of Mind, with all obstacles and hindrances removed. That is what makes possibilities.

A trivial example. A place we wanted to visit recently was closed when we got there. But we used the opportunity that created to explore the area and had a really good day anyway. Not what we planned, but just as good. One door closed, is another open: its just our mind that decides whether we focus on closed doors or chose open doors.

And obviously that is linked to desire. If you have looked forward to visiting that place for years and then find it closed, adjustment is going to be hard. This is probably the most important practice you can do in life. Being able to "let go." Tanha they called it, that grasping on to things. Western existence, especially the Romantic movement, place huge importance in grasping. We feel our life is meaningful when we are holding onto things tightly. It gives us a solid foundation, we feel found, and grounded. Things seem real. The chance events that started this blog are like this. They come in a particular way that means we can easily grasp them. Some coincidence, or pattern that makes them stand out and we can grasp at them, We hold them thinking, there must be meaning to this. But invariably such a desire to grasp things is a reaction to having lost other things we were grasping. The grasping does not help. Being able to weaken our grip rapidly on things that have gone is pure wisdom and freedom. Because once our grip is less, we are free to pick up something else.

Now of course this may lead to a frenzy of putting things down and picking things up. There are no rules here. Its just a sensible ability to let go of what is impossible, and pick up what is possible. There is no algorithm here for a robot to learn. Freedom and wisdom have no roadmap.

So finally back to chance and emptiness. The narrator finds a chicken nugget in the shape of the queens head in Her Diamond Jubilee year. If the narrator is not preoccupied with other things this is much more likely. Reading the racing papers while eating the nuggets you might well miss it. Or perhaps the queue was very long and we are angry by the time we get the nuggets. We eat them while annoyed and don't even notice the queens head, stupid thing I'm in a bad mood. Yet being alert and kind we see much more of the world, and we are open to increasing numbers of opportunities.

They say ultimately it is infinite possibility. A truly enlightened mind is not limited in any way but particular events or circumstances. They are like Harry Houdini, David Blane or an octopus that can find their way out of any cage. The world is filled with possibilities.

In such a state the arising of particular external phenomena is no longer the point. Chance is not about "unlikely" events. The field of possibility is infinite, and so "unlikely" is going to happen ALL the time if you are free to see it.

Its often asked how likely is Life to arise in this Universe. Its an impossible question. We have no way of knowing how "big "things are. Perhaps we are just looking at a small part of the universe and our current theories have limited us to thinking about just one "big bang." But we do know that Life is rare from our current perspective. Its only happened on Earth. But even given life what are the chances of you ever existing. In my own case my parents very nearly never got together. Very Marty McFly in "Back To The Future". And if we go back lots of family were killed in the war, and many died in childbirth. Like the nugget the thing is we are already here. An Anthropic Principle. Tracing our roots is a certainty; we know there cannot be a break in the family tree going backwards. But if we were to pick a family member 300 years ago, which are the chances they would leave progeny today is much less certain. Given its a certainty how can we talk of probability?

Isn't this the magical nature of the Present Moment. It is a certainty. It is here right now. All things going into the past and future grow from this present certainty. And that present certainty is the same as the infinite potential. From a grounding the Now we have certainty and unlimited potential. Starting with a chicken nugget that looks like the Queen in her Diamond Jubilee is just the start, things flow from there. So Chance is never the issue in the present.

Dialectics and Ego, War and Freedom

 Sides exist. Look at this jewel. One jewel, may sides.

One of the features of being an existing being with an existing brain and senses is that we get a particular perspective on the world. In a room of people looking at this ruby no two people will see the same thing. It's impossible because we all stand in different places. And so it goes for the brain that works behind the senses. We all have different history and experiences, we all have different DNA, we all stand in different places so we will have different contents to our minds.

But all this is fine. Its what comes from existing.

The problem comes when we hold on this existence as though it was fixed and permanent. This is also called ego. Its not a "thing" its an attitude.

Its like there is only one way to see the Jewel, or we argue there is a best way to see the jewel, or we argue that we have grasped the truth of the jewel.

Not that arguments can't happen. But its when we hold tightly to a particular view that we have ego.

Its interesting in Ukraine right now. The world has yet another war. There is a new war for every month of the year it seems. And in each war some people see things one way and some another way. This is obviously true because some people are shooting one way, and some the other way. and of course some people are not shooting.

And people can get really worked up about this. They can hold so tightly to their way of seeing things they are even prepared to die and kill for it! How foolish are they when they rot in the ground for having held so tightly to something!

But politicians are a special type of person. Their job is to make people hold tightly to one side. And in making people hold onto one side, they get people to hold onto their side. And when people are holding onto their side then they gain power. This is all that politics is.

How different is this view of politics from Plato. For Plato a politician was an ecstatic individual who could step outside themselves to grasp at the emerging future and present this to the people. A political speech for Plato brought the perfect world of the Forms within reach of ordinary people. It was a poetic and spiritual experience.

Well there are 2 views of politics to show that it has many faces.

But hopefully the very possibility of people having different perspectives on things should encourage anyone who reads this to never even consider using a weapon or ever try to harm another person. well they can consider it, but don't hold too tightly its literally never the only way. It isn't worth it. You don't have to protect any point of view. Its not yours! And if you meet people who believe so strongly in things that they cannot ever change their mind, they are the losers. Let them hug those stone perspectives as they rot in the grave, when they are no longer a person who can make sense of the perspective.

Better to practice freedom now, because that is all you will have when your body, sense and brain are gone.

And how brilliantly messed up those politicians who try to get you on their side by then asking you to fight for freedom. This is like dropped the jewel and having it shatter into a million pieces. Such a political speech is pure meaningless chaos.

Hegelian and Material Dialectics. Yin-Yang.

 I realise speaking to many people brought up on a diet of "American Thinking" that they are very limited.

The classic debate in the US is between the Individual and the Collective. Obviously not a new debate. In Ancient Greece you had people like Democritus (460 – 370 BC) arguing that the universe was built from fundamental building blocks called atoms. And before him Parmenides (b515 BC) arguing that the world was a Whole that things belonged to.

I've discussed this antimony many times in this blog. When we pay people to build a wall we do not just look at the bricks, because there are the same number of bricks before the work and afterwards. Why waste money on a wall if we are only looking at the bricks. We want a "wall." And we start with where we want the wall, and how big it is going to be, and whether it will be straight or wavy like in the picture, before working out how many constituent bricks we will need. We start like Parmenides! Yet it is true that without bricks we will have no wall either! It is an antimony. We need both.

Now those familiar with static analysis in high school physics will be familiar with competing forces in equilibrium. The ladder against the wall is the classic such analysis. To the noob a ladder against a wall is a very boring thing because nothing is seemingly happening. But if you look into it there are a number of balanced forces that keep the ladder against the wall. Gravity is trying to pull the ladder flat (as people who position their ladders at too shallow or too steep an angle find out) and the ladder is trying to push the wall over. When neither wins you get a stable equilibrium.

But don't be fooled into thinking that "stationary" or "peace" means that nothing is going on. Apparently stable ladders can all of a sudden give way and either the ladder slips or topples and falls flat or the thing you are leaning against gives way. In Marxist social theory such sudden changes of state are called Revolutions.

Revolutions occur because an imbalance occurs within the forces that have have been balancing society. Wealthy aristocrats in Feudal France lived off rent extracted from the peasants, in return the peasants got a stable system controlled by military elites. In modern thinking the peasants accepted a ash equilibrium, where none was free, but they were all equally unfree, and benefitted from each others limited freedom as it meant that property and law were respected. A system that remains largely unchanged in Capitalism today. But they lived in luxury while the peasants lived in relative poverty. When bread shortages occurred Queen Marie Antoinette wife of King Louis 16th famously said well "why not eat cake?" When the feudal balance finally broke it was sudden and shocking. The ruling elite who had ruled for 1000s of years in balance with the peasants suddenly lost everything. The blood bath was sudden and total. The mob for instance forced Marie Antoinette to kiss the severed head of one of the princesses. Extreme brutal cruelty and revenge. Clearly at times of revolutionary change when the social forces breakdown like a ladder falling the result is calamitous and unpredictable. Unlike Thomas Hobbes who saw the violence of the English Civil War (one of the bloodiest conflicts in human history) as an expression of some primeval animal desire that was unleashed when the barriers were removed (and idea picked up by Freud) in Marxism such chaos is simply the process of transition to a new equilibrium. Humans have no fundamental primeval state, they are evolutionary or r-evolutionary beings who are changing and evolving at all levels.

Now in China the balance of forces was seen as essential. Confucius is the name most associated with this thinking. But the competing theory of Daoism while opposed to the rigid rules of Confucianism supposedly written into the Universe, also believes in harmony but through understanding the balance of competing forces. For Daoism while a ladder may fall down, come back in half and hour and it will have been put back up. There is no fixed position for a ladder. Up and down all day long. While some ladders like fire exits have a specific role, even buildings only last so long and will have to come down one day. Daoism would note that the ability to get people up and down a ladder, was integrally linked to its ability to come down and be moved! More famously a wheel can only turn because it has a hole in the middle where there is no wheel. It is this interaction of opposites that enables things to be what they are. Always worth looking out for the Dao all around and inside you!

So the Dao is not strictly the same as Hegelian or Marxist dialectics. In the latter there is an evolution. while in the Dao all things exist in Peace. Even in times of apparent Chaos like the French Revolution it is really just part of the natural cycle of stability and instability. Watching the world "revolve" like this is the essence of the Dao.

But see how different from "American Thinking" which is dualistic. You have people wearing "Collectivist" T-Shirt fighting with people wearing "Individualist" T-Shirts. Really these people are fighting over nothing. They are like the wall trying to push over the ladder, and the ladder trying to push over the wall. If either ever "won" it is a hollow victory because ladders need things to stand against, and things need ladders in order to be climbed.

Now in US propaganda Capitalism is often pitched as the Individual society, and Communism as the Collective society. Hopefully the absurdity of that can be seen now. Both Capitalism and Communism are theories that handle the "interaction of people". They are neither "individual" nor "collective" but are what happens when you put these together. Exactly like when you stand a ladder against a wall. When a painter is standing on a ladder arguments don't often break out about whether he is a "supportive" kind of painter who thinks the wall is holding him up, or a "friction" kind of painter who thinks the floor is holding him up. They work together!

There are many aspects to this "working together" thing. On a much more profound level consider this Hui Neng Zen Story.

Two monks are looking at a flag blowing in the wind. One is arguing that only because the flag is moving are they able to deduce that the wind is blowing. The other monk is saying yes but if the wind was not blowing then the flag would not be moving. The point is "which is the first mover." Agreed both monks are looking at a moving flag. But the argument is about whether the moving wind causes the flag to move, or the moving flag is telling them about the moving wind. Anyway Hui Neng overhearing this debate points out that neither the flag nor the wind are moving: only their minds are moving! It redirects attention from the lower level of opposing elements to the bigger picture of what is really going on to enable such a conflict at all. The monks are like soldiers on opposing sides of a battle, while Hui Neng is like an onlooker watching the whole battle unfold. Dialectics and Dao are like this. We can chose to fight for a side, but we never forget the whole battle and the way it arises from opposing sides. Almost all the stress that people feel during conflict is because they forget that a ladder needs a wall to push against, and the wall needs a ladder to be climbed. If there were not people on opposing sides then a war would never happen. And its no good one side saying of the other that they are idiots and wrong and why are they fighting when all your side is doing is fighting! Conflict naturally arises from sides, the solution is just not to take sides but few people see this, so conflicts will always happen.

On an aside the usual problem that happens in a debate is that one side does not understand the other. How says Richard Dawkins can people be so stupid as to believe in Creationism. And vice versa the fundamentalist Christian community think that Dawkins is in league with the devil trying to collapse their faith. Well its worth both sides being a little open here. For some Christians the Bible is the Word of God, and is literally true. How can God lie? Meanwhile Dawkins represents evidence based stories. Now because these two ways of thinking disagree Dawkins concluded that God does not exist. Naturally he started a fight, cos plenty of people who don't even agree with Creationism think God exists. So the battle spilled over and got into complicated territory. But you can see all this as just yet another example of conflict breaking out between sides that refuse to look at the other. Is there any harm in people believing life started with the breath of God, or life started at some hydrothermal vent. For the purposes of our actual "life" they are arbitrary. Life is NOW, not 1000 years ago. That would be one way to escape this "dialect" for people stuck in the battle. Like the person watching the sides battle you can chose to take part, or which side or not!

You see by seeing the "working together" of competing forces, when we see the nature of dualistic arguments like Collective vs Individual then we gain the added benefit of seeing the Truth behind all things. It is not itself divided and composed of competing parts, it is the foundation that enables things to be divided and composed of competing parts! Indeed it is by observing things being composed of competing parts that we are able to see the foundation from which this is possible. This has many names. I have mentioned Dao. For the Greeks it was Logos and this become used in Christianity to translate the "Word of God".

There is a fundamental "unity" to the world but not a normal unity of things being together. It is a unity that arises from opposites. The West and Confucius are terrified of revolutions. Wealthy people lose a lot, and the world is sent into chaos. But seen in the wider perspective peace and chaos belong together. When forces are balanced we get peace, and when those exact same forces are out of balance we get chaos. But its the same underlying processes.

Seeing this deeper level gives us something else though: Peace with a capital P. This is not the peace that seeks to overcome chaos and produce harmony, but the Peace that comes from seeing the cycle of peace and chaos. You can be Peaceful in chaos!

Now Communism is like this. It is not a simple desire to collectivise resources and rob from the rich to feed the poor. that would be "communism" with small "c" like the Kibbutz system in Israel. Communism with big "C" understands the forces that lead to the conflicts between wealthy and poor, that lead to revolutions and periods of stability. Communism with a big C is "dialectical" and does not strive for Individual success, nor collective sharing! It understands that between these on going opposing forces lies a greater truth that the world has yet to see. 

Communism is real

During the Cold War Zbigniew Brzezinski headed up US propaganda against Communism. He drew up the ideas we have today of Communism being an autocratic, oppressive and poor regime.

In the same way America spent a fortune on pro-Capitalist propaganda selling the idea that it was good for workers to work hard and make profits for their capitalist bosses.

But obviously all this is just propaganda. And the result is that virtually no one in the West knows what Capitalism or Communism are.

But they are huge subjects and worth a lifetime of study. I wanted to make a simple point instead.

Why was Magna Carta signed on 15 June 1215 A.D. and not in 1215 B.C.?

Why did it take mankind such a long time to decide that everyone should be subject to Law and that no one was above the law?

Well Marxism and Communism is the theory that set out to answer this.

Communism analyses the equilibria that occur in societies, that may be stable for long periods of time. But equilibria occur between opposing forces and eventually they break down as the forces become unbalanced. In Communism its much more profound as the competing forces lead to new ideas and new original social structures in an evolution.

Now we can see why it took so long for animals to evolve into humans and to evolve beyond the state of Kings and Subjects. There are relatively stable equilibria between the periods of revolution and change.

And so eventually the world evolved beyond Feudalism and into Capitalism.

It is worth nothing some dates here. Communist Party Manifesto was published 1848. Darwin's theory of Evolution 1859 and Das Kapital 1867. So in just 20 years the world was shook by a series of ideas that looks at nature and society in terms of evolution. Obviously the ideas existed before this, but these are the seminal publication dates in retrospect. Hegel for instance 1806. Anaximander C7th BC believed in evolution.

Now Marxism argues that Capitalism is still just an equilibrium between competing forces. And obviously it is. In Capitalism some people own industry (the capitalists) and gain their income through dividends and rent, and the rest own nothing and instead are employed by the capitalists (the workers) gaining their income through wages. This is most notable in Jane Austin stories where eligible gentlemen come with an annual income, yet have never and will never do a day's work. This is inequality ripe for conflict and evolution.

Without going into details the eventual evolution Marx argues creates Communism. All conflicts are resolved when mankind arrives at Communism, and individuals are fully realised and equal.

Borrowing from Hegel he argued that the ultimate state of humans is the "I that is We, and the We that is I." A resolution of the ultimate conflict between the Individual and the Collective. Given this how absurd that Brzezinski should make out that Communism was about Collectivism. And then how absurd that Americans should respond to Brzezinski's view of Communism by arguing for Individualism. All these ideas are pre-19th Century.

So Communism is very real, and the seeds of its growth are very real indeed as they exist within Capitalism. The greater and more successful Capitalism becomes the closer we get to Communism.

But perhaps were I disagree with standard views of Marxism: this is not a political struggle. I'm more Hegelian. Communism will happen all by itself. People will develop and grow tired of pointless Capitalist production, and the thrill they got from owning capital and businesses will fade, and parading their wealth around will start to become vapid as they realise what other people think isn't important, and if they can't value the wealth themselves then what point. And since wealth was relative anyway it holds no real intrinsic value. And the system of hoarding (Capitalism) and working will disintegrate. This will happen all by itself as humans evolve. There is nothing to do.

Let the Americans struggle to create propaganda and try to brainwash the world to accepting their Empire. It is all ultimately pointless. You can't disguise the truth.

UFO sighting at Mount Mosiné in July 1983.

In July 1983 while taking the night train to Italy I saw a UFO about 15 minutes after leaving the French/Italian border at 2am and before it arrived at Turin.

I have never seen one before or since. This was a one off. Seen by the 5 other people in my couchette.

It was a bit like this picture, but its was all glowing white. The edge was not vertical strips like this, but small port holes. I had time to study it in depth as it flew up the valley and then over the train.

Now I have thought about this a lot since. There are anomalies. It seems that I was guiding people in a group hallucination. People in the couchette next door said afterwards that they saw a glowing cloud from the valley below. But it was not a UFO. The guards on the train just ignored us and got us to go back in the couchette when we rushed out to see if after it crossed the train. But things were slightly weird in retrospect and perhaps it was all an hallucination. It was late and we were after all very excited and young.

So I did a check the other day to find out exactly where were were. It was the Susa valley. And then while looking up to see if there were any UFO sighting in the area in the early 1980s found mention of Mount Mosiné. "The place is famous for its countless sightings of UFOs" says this article. And it is described as "the most mysterious mountain in Italy." It is also linked since ancient times to occult.

Now that seems quite a coincidence. There can't be many mysterious mountains famous for UFO sights that I have had UFO sights in the valley of.

Perhaps then UFO sights are like Ghosts. They do not have "objective reality" in that people see different things. Or perhaps cos they are weird experiences people don't know what to see. Flying saucer or cloud of glowing gas.

Anyway a definitely odd experience.

America is the mode worst country. Make your country anything but like America

US likes to think it is an exceptional country. But its a lie. Want to make a long list of how America is amongst the most failed countries. But will take some time and time is short so many edits coming.

US Homicide Rate: 5/100,000. #74 (#1 worst)
UK by contrast is 1.2/100000 #146

US Rape Rate: 27/100,000
UK is actually the same

US Literacy Rate: 88% #102 (#1 best)

UK has 99%
This places America near the bottom of global literacy. Socialist countries do very well. Russia 99.7% and Ukraine 100%. Lets see what happens to Ukrainian literacy once the US takes over.

Capitalism is the disaster of being Human, and represents the forgetting of Happiness.

Why don't environmentalists ever mention Capitalism?

Its the single biggest threat to life on this planet. Its the economic system that organises itself around profit and investor returns. That means we no longer work for our welfare, we just work to make profit and that means an unlimited exploitation of the planet for no other reason that to make an arbitrary and meaningless spectrum of wealth. Companies have to delivery profit and dividends above all other considerations. That means their primary objective is to increase sales and cut costs. It doesn't matter whether what they are doing serves any purpose as long as it makes money. That means any whimsical spontaneous act of consumerism is a reward, and people are encouraged to work not for what they do, but just to make money.

Consider: however rich you are today, your children will be richer.. everyone must always accept being poor thus making progress pointless... unless you learn to appreciate what you have today in which case there is no difference from 10,000 years ago or 10,000 in the future also making progress pointless. Capitalism IS POINTLESS. But it destroys the planet and all life in the process.

So why is the media not full of this? Same reason the media is not full of the evils of America. We are brainwashed. This is entering anthropology as human evolution is seen to have gone down a blind alley of attachment to material possessions which has steadily got them trapped in an epic "sunk costs" fallacy. Being unhappy with what we have (stimulated by capitalists pushing new products) we buy more to try and regain that happiness, but this requires work so we invest more and so expect more and we steadily getting ever more stuck in Capitalism and eventually forget what happiness is (like all Americans from what I can see).

What does a Buddha Statue mean?

 

Many religions have images of their gods. Many do not. How are we to interpret the image of a Buddha?

Well the problem at least for Buddhists is that Buddha's are neither "out there" in the world, nor "in here" within me.

That may come as a surprise. Its customary to believe that Gods are either "out there" either "in" the cosmos or "outside" the cosmos as creators. Or Gods are inside us and we discover our "true self."

In the film Human Traffic, Danny Dyer makes this apparently profound realisation:

The emperor wants to control Outer space. Yoda wants to control Inner space.

The problem is that Buddha teaches "middle path." If you go to extremes you have walked off the path that leads to enlightenment. If you think the Buddha exists out there in the universe, you have walked off the path. If you think Buddha lives inside you, you have also walked off the path.

I don't know why this video ends at the interesting part but when Monkey tries to get outside Buddhas palm he flies to the 5 pillars at the edge of the universe and in typical disrespect urinates against them. Only then does the Buddha reveal they are just his fingers. You cannot get outside the Buddha. We are therefore inside Buddha, which suggests Buddha is at least outside us, if not throughout the universe. 

I remember in a Zen film someone asking about the Buddha. The Zen master referring to a handful of sand, said that Buddhas are as numerous as the grains of sand, and yet the handful was also Buddha. An Indra's Jewel Net like analogy. Both inside and outside.

Ok all these analogies only really make things confusing. Which is not bad, its better to be unsatisfied with confusion than to become satisfied grasping at the wrong thing.

The thing about the Buddha statue is that Buddha is outside you. He is to be respected and admired as the attainer of complete and perfect understanding and wisdom. As Buddha said on his enlightenment "I realised that the spiritual path was at an end, there was nothing left to attain." A complete resolution to the struggle of life. Go Buddha!

But that is only half. On the other hand each of us is Buddha. We are all connected to Buddha in that we are cut from the same block as him. We all have the seed that will grow under the right conditions into perfect resolution. The statue of Buddha is a mirror reflecting our own true self.

But we mustn't go to either side. That self that is reflected is not realised yet. There is work and growth to do.

Now even that isn't quite true. Our suffering and state of ignorance is itself not entirely real. It is only a belief or false vision that "I am ignorant" or "I am enlightened" that persists. When we stare in the mirror and see a sad and suffering being looking back, that is not really us. Its not that there is someone else hiding underneath either. Its that this being we see in the mirror, which is very real, has no "us" inside! The suffering only arises because we hold onto a self upon which the suffering can manifest. When life is difficult it is difficult for "me." When life is good, it is good for "me." When we are happy in a mundane way, suffering hasn't ended in a big way, its just that a particular suffering has ended. No holding onto "me" then there is nothing there to find life difficult or good. Life can be difficult or good, without it belonging to any thing.

And this really is how is the issue of "inside" or "outside" occurs. It really means inside or outside "me". Me is the issue.

But we seem so sure about "me". Where is "me"? "I am over here" we say. But isn't that a circle? Isn't "here" where I always am. Have we ever been anywhere else but here? If we are always here then it is pointless to say I am here. We shout to someone "I am here" but its not saying anything, we could just shout "Hear me" and the person would still look over and see us regardless what we say. So we are not here. That may be surprising. Things just are. Adding "here" adds nothing. Adding "me" adds nothing.

And that is getting to the middle.

When we look at a Buddha statue it reminds us of Buddha. Buddha means something indefinable and ungraspable. We may have attached to it being a perfect version of "me" and feel it imbued with our own personality and reality. Or we may have come to think of Buddha as some untouchable supernatural entity far off in the universe. We look at the statue and we drop both views. Around the perfect Buddha we see the clothes we have been trying to dress him. The wrong views of personal identity, or objective supernatural being. The statue should cause us to drop all these views and let all grasping for solidity and certainty fall away. How ironic when the statue is built of the most solid thing: stone! The certainty is that whatever solidity we are grasping for is wrong path.

   

There will always be war.

In its great evil war actually reveals the greatest truth.

That one man may make the greatest sacrifice and lay his life down for one side, and another man may lay his life down for the other side proves that there is no dualistic truth.

Who is to say that one is right and the other wrong?

Usually we solve this by saying that the people on the "good" side are acting rationally, and the ones of the "bad" side are brainwashing, not thinking straight, are mad, or they are being forced to fight.

Unfortunately the "bad" side say that about the "good" side too. No one lays their life down for the "bad" side. It is entirely relative.

In the West our military and governments spend a huge amount of time and effort brainwashing us. For example we like to think our brave soldiers fight freely for the side of good. Unfortunately it turns out a western soldier fighting freely for the side of good can be executed if they desert their post in battle.

There is no difference between the "good" side and the "bad" side. At the end of the day soldiers on all sides must lay their lives down for their governments. How can that ever be good for anyone?

But it illustrates a powerful point about the world. In a war of 2 sides A and B. Looked at one way A must succeed, and looked at the other way B must succeed. And its not a trivial disagreement, people are prepared to give up the biggest thing they have, their own life for this.

It means that "a point of view" can never be absolute. There is no way to get to the bottom of the world and find the bedrock of truth. There is no bedrock of truth!

All there is, is a realisation that we are adrift in an ocean and our feet will never touch the bottom. So better get used to being adrift.

What an apparently disappointing result.

Well yes and no. Disappointing for the person who was struggling against the ocean trying to get to shore, trying to grasp for some bedrock and a fixed view of the world.

But suppose our feet did touch the bottom and we walked ashore. Are we not then beached forever, trapped on the desert island that we crawled up onto? One day we are going to enter the ocean again, perhaps on a raft we have built, to search for land somewhere else. In many stories the castaway gets rescued and is reunited with their wife. Their feet touch the bottom. The story ends before we find them falling out of love and being reminded just how much their wife annoys them. There is the divorce and they are adrift again looking to find a new island om which to shipwreck. And so life goes on. Finding shore is never the end, it is always just the start of the next struggle.

So we remain adrift and give up this idea of putting out feet down on a beach.

Well eventually the ocean will wash us ashore. So we get out of the water and do whatever we are going to do. And a passing ship picks us up and we get home. And then we go sailing again. And the ship wrecks and we are adrift again. And then washed ashore. etc etc. While we may set foot on bedrock, we are just as happy and accepting as when we are adrift.

And so in war we find our country at war. We do nothing. Our side loses and we end up being ruled by a new government. We do nothing. The government doesn't trust us, thinks we are disloyal. Forces us to take part in its activities. We do normal things. Perhaps they get nasty and ask us to carry a gun and fight. We must chose whether our life is more important than other people. In this instance we do nothing. Perhaps we get shot by the government. Well we were going to get shot by someone, better we didn't shoot anyone first ourself. Small window of possibility that someone will copy our example. If everyone did not fight then the war would end anyway. If we survive perhaps eventually a new war starts. We do nothing. Perhaps our government wins and we get paraded around as an unpatriotic traitor. Sometimes governments and people can be unpleasant. But better to be a called a coward than to die. "Stick and stones may break by bones, but names will never hurt me" we were taught at school as a way to ignore bullies. Governments are often bullies to their own side as much as others.

But the problem is that, somewhere sometime somebody is going to struggle to get to shore and put their feet down and decide to belong on this island. And someone else is going to struggle to a different shore and put their feet down on that island. And the two people with their feet firmly set on different islands are going to come into a disagreement. And because their feet are so firmly set on their islands they are going to fight. And simply because of this innate weakness we have of forgetting to just drift with life and take things as they come (Jim Morrison was absolutely right we are all "riders on the storm") and we step up and our egos make a stand and we decide to make things a certain way and to hell with anyone who gets in my way, and we meet other people with different ideas who are "to hell with you" and it will always end up in war. This is the way of the world.

Great people have gone before us who have taught is not to fight, at least Earthly fight, and yet wars still happen. Jesus was not against conflict, he said we would be torn apart by his name, but he never condoned violence. We have no right to take another's life, God made that life it is not ours to take! Yet in the name of Jesus how many have been killed.

Now a very subtle side of this is that Violence and Peace are sides of the same coin. 

Consider a world where there was no violence. No one ever bulldozed another person out of the way. we all had indefinite time for each other. When there was disagreement, people were respectful and helpful. People didn't try to win at another's expense, people were not harsh, aggressive, greedy and only spoke helpful and supportive words. People sort to see all sides of a situation. Suppose people took no pleasure in the misfortune of others. Suppose people did not harbour resentment at other people succeeding. Suppose we took pleasure in people's progress, success and happiness. In such a world there would be no Violence. And in a world of violence where is the Peace? People just behave sensibly. There is no war or peace.

By contrast we do not live in such a world. We live in a world where we are often greedy for success. When others beat us to it, get the things we want, we harbour resentment. We celebrate when they fail because it means opportunity for us. we value our own happiness before that of others. We do negative things that look good from our perspective but bad from the perspective of others. We spread lies and try to persuade people toward our case, even while we hide the harm we have done and ill intention we have been motivated by. We divide people, we seek disharmony, we relish untruths that benefit us, and dislike the truth that hurts us. We are small minded in every way. And we meet other small minded people who we can control and war against. And the good people who seek to show up our machinations we seek to bring down too. And so the poison of the world spreads and we habitually fall short of the best and fuel conflict.

Now we can wish we lived in the first world, but why really do we wish this? If we are honest weakness is a living part of the world. It will not go away. It is from this poison that we are born. But it is not a poison we cannot feed on. The poison of the world can inspire us to change. This poison reminds us our faults and what we need to do to become well. This poison is in fact the same fuel of our growth and goodness. It is from war that we learn the value of peace. and unfortunately periods of peace make people complacent, lazy, greedy and uncaring and this leads to war.

Now the question is whether we can strive for a Peace that is not born of War. Well we can, but it is exceptionally subtle. How many people when a person bursts into their room in the middle of the night with a gun to kill us do not wish they had a gun to fight back with. But the moment we pick up a gun to defend our self we are creating war. That is how easy we become an instrument of War and not Peace. When Jesus died on the cross he was showing us what Peace really means. If you are not readily willing to carry an unjust cross then you are the soil of war.

This is why war will always exist. And knowing that war will always exist then do not get fooled into thinking that "this is the last war". "If we win this one, it is over." The only way to end war obviously is just to stop fighting, and all the self sacrifice, self suffering and abuse that this inevitably entails we must take onto our self and not throw onto other people. We must carry the cross for everyone else, and expect anyone else to do it. But we do this and soon we are filled with the poison of resentment that other people get life easy and ours is hard, or we get imperious because we are superior because we are carrying their cross. To not be an instrument of war is the hardest thing. That is what Peace actually means.

How to Meditate

 Watch the breath is what they say. But how?

A meditation master I had broke it down like this:

1) Find a sensation in the belly or chest. Watch this.

2) As this become steady find a sensation in the nostril with the air coming and going. Watch this.

3) When this is steady find a sensation on the lip. This is much more subtle. Watch this,

4) When this is steady start to search around sensations closer to the philtrum (that is the middle of the upper lip) and move closer to the middle of the lip. Watch the sensations of the coming and going of the breath as you go.

5) When you get to the middle of the lip hold the attention there as long as possible.

From the previous post and the Tibetan list of stages of meditation there are 2 things to notice. First the steadiness of the concentration and how easily it gets distracted. Secondly there is the brightness of the object.

Even after reducing the length of time distractions take hold, and being able to bring the mind back to the sensation quickly, or even not become distracted I notice that the sensation comes and goes. It is like sunlight on a patchy cloudy day. Sometimes the sun is bright, but then it fades as a cloud covers it.

So the First stage of meditation is to deal with distraction to keep the mind on the object. In this case the sensation of the breath.

The second stage is to hold that attention on the sensation through the coming and going of the sensation itself. Obviously the breath comes and goes so the sensation is a constantly changing thing, but out awareness of that sensation is also changing.

The final stage of this practice of meditation is when we are able to hold attention on the sensation of breathing without it wandering in distraction, and also have the sensation strong and present in our awareness without it wavering.

This I final achievement believe is called "Access Concentration." From access concentration we have the power to see the world as it is without things being obscured. It overcomes all our karmic hindrances, and the impact of memories, thoughts, beliefs, emotions and identity that distort they way we normally see the world. We can now start to examine the truth of the teachings of the Buddha (which are derived from this close examination of the world) in fullness now.

Also from the previous post "Access Concentration" enables us to cast off the Ego. What is going on here is not that "we are attaining" anything, but rather the reverse. We are dropping off all the layers of attachment that we normally surround ourselves with. Greatest of all these is who we think we are. This includes the whole bundle of memories and beliefs we and other people have formed around us. All of them certainly untrue. This very process of surrounding our self with an identity is false from the start. In "Access Concentration" we can see that this is just a shell that we can drop as easily as a jacket. The loss of all these things that unwisely weigh us down is the process of liberating ourselves from suffering.

Holding our attention to the breath then is just letting everything else go. The breath is good, true and real and it is all we need to see the truth. Everything else we can drop.

Once the truth is seen we will have a much more carefree attitude to the layers of clothing if we wish to put them all on again. Our identity now seems more casual and not so essential to us.

How does Meditation work?

It seems ridiculous that watching the breath has the power to unzip the universe. Seems like complete nonsense. And already we have a huge insight into the Universe. The Universe is trying to stop you meditating!

Why are there so many hindrances to meditation from can’t be bothered, to got better things to do, to depression that it doesn’t work, or fear that it might work. And even once we start to watch our breath the universe conspires to drag our attention away by raising thoughts or day dreams or external stimulus.

If meditation is the key to the universe why is it so hard? The answer is Ego or Self.

So I blogged on Self a fair bit last summer. To understand some more on Self I’ve come to look at Jesus on the cross. What stops us from sacrificing ourselves for others like Jesus. All sorts of reasons like Self preservation, and why should I suffer rather than someone else especially when they are more deserving of punishment than me. Jesus so Christians believe was sinless, he was the last one who should hang on a cross. So what was he doing there? Well to do what Jesus did requires that we ignore ourself in a completely profound way. Not in a crazy way, he didn’t die for no reason. He died to save everyone from sin and death. Regardless whether you believe the Jewish mythology it was an incredibly selfless thing he did. Who else could abandon themself like this for someone else. Perhaps a mother for her child or a soldier for their King or nation.

That level of sacrifice is what is required to follow our breath to the end! And while we try to keep focused on it, the Ego, just as we would find on a cross, is constantly trying to save itself by disrupting the meditation.

The very first thing someone said to me about Buddhism was that Buddha taught that the Ego was bad. I asked why and he said because it defends itself even at the cost of the rest of us.

We see that in Meditation. Surely unlocking the universe is a good thing. It ends suffering. But not for the Ego. When watching the breath the Ego becomes just a useless shell. It is just a name, some memories, some reputation, some thoughts about a distant entity. As questioned last summer this entity is just one of billions it is not special in anyway, it joins the human race as a pure equal and it isn’t mine. As we focus on the breath the self becomes far away, we stop noticing it or even think about it.

But it fights back. A sound starts up. The Ego grasps it and says I don’t want that. It starts to push against the sound wishing it would stop causing stress and disrupts things. Soon we are listening to the sound not watching our breath. Likewise some thought or idea pops up and it grasps it cos we like our ideas. As Descartes found ideas are a great proof of ego. The Ego uses them a lot to validate itself. But we aren’t watching the breath now. Some nice feelings come along and we grasp those. Some of these feelings are in fact very good. But if we grasp them and use them to support the Ego we undo the progress of meditation. Oh look I get colours in meditation, or I get Jhana I am better than other people. And so the Ego can claim ownership of even the highest attainments of meditation and sour our minds.

In all cases we return to the breath as the anchor. This breath simple and perfect is the heart of the universe, it unlocks everything amazing though that may seem. So as Thich Nhat Hanh made central to his teaching we need only keep our mind on this simplest most perfect of things to let the darkness of illusion of even the most polluted of minds become distant and dissolve away leaving only the brightness of now.

But it takes earnest practice until we have become wise to the tricks the Ego plays to keep itself relevant and in our lives.

In Tibetan Buddhism I read they have a 9 point scale to check how well our meditation is going.

1. Try to concentrate. Find yourself distracted.
2. Occasional brief concentration. Distraction prevails.
3. Mindfulness improving. Vigilance improving. Distraction immediately recognized.
4. The object is never lost, but little parts of the mind wander (subtle excitement) or the object gets dull (subtle laxity).
5. Distractions start to drop off, but laxity is a problem and the object is dulled
6. Laxity is remedied but very subtle excitement threatens
7. All problems are remedied when they arise, but they do arise.
8. Once the mind is fixed at the start of the session, no problems arise
9. Perfect concentration arises without effort.

So it would appear by stage 9 we have overcome the Ego’s attempts to stay relevant and we have a mind that is free from attachments and therefore also suffering. I believe this is the launch pad for Jhanas if we wish to explore but more importantly contemplation of the Buddha’s teachings to fully see the nature of the universe.
But obviously the moment we start owning any attainments and think I have done good we have already got tricked by Ego reinstating itself. In church this weekend it was said well. When good things happen we appreciate our good fortune but we do not use them to think we are better than others.