If there is a world, it has to be some way

This idea seems very useful.

How to use (Bee Monks).

Firstly note on method. There are two aspects to knowledge: ideas and how to use them or Theory and Techne. It is often noted in religion but is so obvious in law that the intention of some words can be lost.

A funny example I saw was Buddha's teaching of non attachment. Someone used this to persuade his girlfriend not to think about a relationship saying this was attachment thus leaving him free to have non-committing sex. He was heavily rebuked by his master when he found out. Similarly in the Dhammapada verse 49 in Chapter 4 "Flowers" it says:

As the bee collects nectar and flies away without damaging the flower or its colour or its scent, so also, let the bhikkhu dwell and act in the village [Dhammapada 49]

Similarly to the above relationship, you visit the village to find all the children looking like the monk. An unscrupulous monk not firm on the path could see the nectar as sexual pleasure and by abandoning the pregnant girls of the village he is being true to non-attachment. This idea of misreading perfectly good texts to find incorrect understanding I came to call Bee-Monks.

So knowing some wisdom is not enough, it must also be applied with wisdom. Having a tool and not knowing how to use it. And there is no formula. For someone this verse 49 may be useful, but in the hands of the wrong person it is not useful. Now for the use of the title idea.

A note that Plato refers to Logos and Mythos. This is the social equivalent. When entering a society you may have read all about it and have all the logic (logos), but the actual living version of this society the Mythos will join up all the dots of your readings in often unexpected and surprising ways. More simply: you can read about riding a bicycle all day but this will never be the same as actually riding it. And an often used example in religion is that the teachers can point at the moon but we should not think the finger is the object of discussion: it is the Moon. All the teaching in the world is just a preparation for the real thing, for which we must actually journey to reach. This distinction also comes out really fundamentally in Name and Form. Structuralism has pondered this at length, but avoiding the subtleties of the formal debate, very intuitively we know there is a difference between thinking and language of a thing its Name and the shape of the apparent thing itself, the Form. (OF no use here but SRH would argue that to have no distinction here would lead into contradiction.)

"If there is a world, it has to be some way"

When considering the world we habitually divide it into "me" and "not me." This is like an onion.

On the outside could be massive things like "my country" or "my planet." We may be feel a unity between people in "my country" until one of them steals from you. Then you see the cracks and decide there are those who "respect you" and "those that don't." Perhaps inside you have "my family" and "other people." But you fall out with a sibling (and I can't believe how often this happens) and you realise that "my family" is divisible with you on one side, and other people on the other. So we get beaten down into "me" and "other people." At least I am reliable. But then you fall ill and your body lets you down. Perhaps you have surgery and a part removed. That bit that goes into medical waste that is definitely not "you." Then we get into religious thought experiments about where the soul resides. Even in a secular world there is common idea even today that the soul is somewhere in the brain. "Brain death" is considered the end of person's life. Some people think that is the end of "me." This becomes the final failure that you cannot survive. The brain is the final atom of self that cannot be divided. Once that is gone the "me" is extinguished. Yet we know from "split brain" patients that we can have at least two "mes" in the same brain that do not know about each other!

 And more modern dynamic ideas of the brain suggest it is a whirling mass possibilities that contribute to a constantly changing sense of "me" with no solid entity in there at all. This incidentally is the idea that Buddha mainly offers to help approach the belief in a soul.

So we usually get so far in this chain of reasoning and realise we have swum a good way out of our depth and decide the journey was good for today and swim back into more familiar territory. We never push this point home that there is nothing atomic in there called "me." Whatever we chose is divisible and will break into two at some point and leave us re-evaluating which side we belong. It's the game of deciding which side we belong which is the waste of time! Turns out that childhood practice of choosing sides for a game of football goes to the bottom of our psyche.

So why the aphorism, what use is this: "If there is a world, it has to be some way"?

Returning to the game of choosing sides. Let us burrow into sensory experience. The thing that is really hard (for me at least) to step over is what I will call the "private world problem." What I think and see and feel is mine and no one else experiences this. I can think someone is an idiot but I can fake my behaviour and hide it to be nice. I can say I was at a "football match" when really I saw it on TV and no one will know. I can get a pain but pretend that it is okay, or conversely I can say there is a pain, when I know there is not. I, and only I, can know whether what I say corresponds to my experience of not.

Now this is not quite true, people can detect when you are lying, and brain scans these days are getting very good and can give clues as to what you are experiencing; so good is this that from a scan a machine can decide (from a limited set) what you are looking at. But this is slightly off topic. The point is that our experience is vivid and real, but when we go to talk to other people about it we quickly find out if they have ever had that experience themselves, and also that they have never had the specific experience you had. We may both have seen an amazing goal at the football, but we each experienced it for our self. If I could have had your experience why did we pay for two tickets! In this issue lies the basis for the idea of separate people.

Slight aside to discuss Structuralism. So the Structuralists noticed that this problem comes about a lot because of language. To "lie" we need to say something that is different from what we experience. To find out other people have a different experience to you you need that experience of describing it and finding that no one knows what you are talking about. Say you saw a ghost. You know what you saw, but people will assume it's a mistake or a lie if they did not see one them self. But its not all language. Someone is rude to you and while it hurts inside, you show a brave face so they do not find out they have wounded you. No linguistic language but you are still lying. But you could say there is an innate language of expressions here that is pre-linguistic. Whether you say it or start to cry you are communicating at some level and the need for communication already sets up the me and you barrier across which information needs to pass and the sides in which information belongs.

Ah ha we go. Great proof that there are real side. Me on this side hurting, and You on that side pissing me off but me not giving you the pleasure of knowing you just hurt me. Great the world is set. This is the way it is.

But no, wait a second. Yes this is the way it is. It has to be some way. But does it being this way really prove you are on one side and other people on the other?

It could just be like this and no one is on either side!

This is the very nature of attachment. We don't need to get to the level of actual conscious experience to find proof we are on one side.

My football team scores a goal and wins the tournament. I am thrilled and the "my" stands erupt in celebration. Look at you losers on the other side we just whipped your arses. People filing out of the stands on the other side unhappy and wanting to go home and not show they are unhappy. While we on "my" side want everyone to know we are thrilled. That is 20,000 people on one side jubilant and 20,000 people on the other crushed. I'm drunk, I am definitely not doing any deep analysis of the structure of experience and reality. You over there are the losers we over here are the winners. Two sides, we are the champions. And I really believe we are the champions, all of us, in our matching team strips are the champions. The more I attach to this team the more solid it will be that I am a champion.

The niggling belief is that things are this way proves that I am a champion. I say niggling cos it doesn't quite add up. Look I argue there are two sides in a game of football, and one side just won, so I am a champion its a fact. Its the way it is...

but remember "it has to be some way."

This means that just because the world is some way does not prove anything. It has to be some way else it would not be at all.

It's like having a box of fruit from the market that is all apples. You ask someone if they want a fruit and when you given them an apple you say are so you like apples. Not necessarily, they wanted a fruit and to execute that wish you had to give them some type of fruit else they would have no fruit. Just because the world is some way does not mean it proves anything.

So the fact that things appear to be on sides with either football supporters sitting opposite one another, or conscious experience being private does not prove that there is anyone in there actually on a side!

It is this possibility to see the whole of existence as it is without choosing a self to be on a side that is enlightenment.

Once we stop choosing a self, we can have a totally private experience--because that is what a particular brain does--without it being mine and there being a separate someone inside here on my side experiencing it.