Shurangama Sutra

Here is the opening argument of this incredible sutra...

http://www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/surangama.pdf

Wiping Out the Five aggregates & Eight Consciousnesses to Expose the Unreality of Ego.

Probing into the false mind to wipe out the first two aggregates and first five consciousnesses

…

‘Now tell me where your mind and eyes are.’

Ananda replied: ‘World Honoured One, all living beings born in the world through the ten types of birth hold that this knowing mind is in the body. As I look at the lotus- blue eyes of the Buddha, I see that they are on His face.

Hence my understanding that my eyes are on my face whereas my knowing mind is in my body.

The Buddha asked: ‘Now as you sit in this hall, where do you see Jetavana park?’

Ananda replied: ‘World Honoured One, this great hall is in Jetavana park which is, therefore, outside the hall.’

The Buddha asked: ‘What do you see first in this hall.?’

Ananda replied: ‘World Honoured One, in this hall, I see first the Tathargata, then the assembly, and only when looking outside do I see the park.’

The Buddha asked: ‘When you see the park, what causes you to do so?’

Ananda replied: It is because the doors and windows are open that I, though sitting in this hall, see the park outside.’

The Buddha then extended His golden-hued arm and touched Ananda’s head with His hand, saying: ‘There is a samardhi called the all-embracing Supreme shuraÔgama, a gate- way through which all Buddhas in the ten directions attained to the wondrous Majestic Path. Ananda, listen now attentively.’

Ananda prostrated himself at the Buddha’s feet and knelt to receive the holy instruction.

The Buddha said: ‘If you (are right) that, while sitting in this hall, you see the park outside through open doors and windows it would be possible for someone sitting here to see only things outside without seeing the Buddha (within).’

Ananda replied: ‘One cannot see the grove and stream outside without seeing the Buddha (here).’

(The Buddha said:) ‘Ananda, it is the same with you; (if your mind is not deluded), it will be clear about all this. How- ever, if your knowing mind was really in your body, you should first be clear about everything inside it. You should, therefore, see everything in your body before seeing things outside it; even if you cannot see your heart, liver, spleen, and stomach, at least you should be clear about your grow- ing nails and hair, about that which moves along your nerves and the pulsing of your veins. Why are you not clear about all this? If you do not see things within, how can you see those outside? Therefore, your contention that your knowing mind is inside your body is groundless.’

Ananda bowed and said: ‘After hearing the Buddha’s Dharma-voice, I now understand that my mind is really out- side my body. For instance a lamp should light up everything in a room before the courtyard outside through the open door. If I do not see what is in my body but see things outside it, this is like a lamp placed outside a room which cannot light what is in it. This being so clear that there can be no doubt, am I still wrong about what the Buddha means?’

The Buddha said: ‘All the bhikhus followed me to Srarvasti, to beg for food and have now returned to Jetavana park. I have taken my meal but as one bhikhu is still eating, is the whole community well-fed?’

Ananda replied: ‘No, World Honoured One, though they are arhats, they have not the same body or life span then how can one by eating cause all the others to satisfy their hunger?’

The Buddha said: ‘If your knowing mind is outside your body, the two are separate. Thus when your mind knows something, your body should not feel it and when your body feels something, your mind should not be aware of it. Now as I show you my hand, when your eyes see it, does your mind discern it?’

Ananda replied: ‘Yes, World Honoured One, my mind discerns it:’

The Buddha said: If so, how can your mind be outside your body? Therefore, your contention that your knowing and discerning mind is outside your body is groundless.’

Ananda said: ‘World Honoured One, as you have said, if my mind does not see what is in my body, it is not within it, and if my body and mind know each other, they are not separate and my mind is, therefore, not outside my body.

Now after thinking about this, I know where my mind is.

‘The Buddha asked: ‘Where is it?’

Ananda replied: ‘Since my knowing mind does not see what is in my body but can see things outside, I think it is hidden in my sense organ. For instance, if one covers one’s eyes with a crystal bowl, the latter does not obstruct this sense organ which simply follows the (faculty of) seeing to distinguish all things seen. Thus if my knowing mind does not see what is in (my body), it is because it is in the sense organ, and if it sees clearly what is outside without being obstructed, it is because it is hidden in that organ.’

The Buddha asked: ‘As you just said, the mind is hidden in the same way that the eyes are covered by the crystal bowl: now when one so covers them and sees the mountain and river, does one also see the bowl?’

Ananda replied: ‘Yes, World Honoured One, one also sees the bowl.’

The Buddha said: ‘If your mind is like the crystal bowl, when you see the mountain and river, why do you not see your own eyes? If you do they should be outside and should not follow your faculty of seeing. If they cannot be seen, how can you say that this knowing mind is hidden in the sense organ, like the (eyes) covered by the crystal bowl? Therefore, your contention that the knowing mind is hidden in the sense organ is groundless.’

Ananda asked: ‘World Honoured One, I now think of the bowels concealed in the body and of the apertures on its surface. Therefore, where there is concealment there is dark- ness and where there are openings there is light. As I am now before the Buddha, I open my eyes and see clearly and this is called outward seeing, and when I close them, I see (only) darkness and this is called inward seeing. What does the Buddha think of this?’

The Buddha said: ‘When you close your eyes and see darkness, is this darkness opposite to your eyes or not? If it is, it is in front of them, then how can this be inward seeing? Even if there is really such inward seeing, when you sit in a dark room without the light of the sun, moon or a lamp, this darkness should also be in your bowels. If it is not opposite to your eyes, how can there be any seeing? Now let us forget (your so-called) outward seeing and assume that there is inward seeing, then when you close your eyes and see only darkness, which you call seeing what is in your body, why when you open them and see clearly, do you not see your face? If you do not, there is no such inward seeing. Now as- suming that you can see your face, your knowing mind and organ of sight should be in the air, and then how can there be inward seeing? If they were in the air, they should not belong to your body, and the Buddha who now sees your face, should be your body as well. Thus when your eyes see some- thing, your body should have no feeling. If you insist that both body and mind have separate feelings, there should be two separate perceptions and then your body should (one day) become two Buddhas. Therefore, your contention that to see darkness is inward seeing is groundless.’

Ananda said: ‘I have. always heard the Buddha when teaching monks, nuns and male and female devotees say: “When the mind stirs all sorts of things are created and then all kinds of mind appear.” I now think that the substance of (my) thinking is the nature of mind which arises when it unites with externals and which is neither within nor without nor in between.’

The Buddha said: ‘You have just said that because phenomena are created, all kinds of mind appear when unit- ing with them. So this mind has no substance and cannot unite with anything. If that which has no substance can unite with externals, this is union of the nineteenth realm of sense with the seventh sense datum.

Ananda said: ‘It is the eyes that see and the mind that knows is not the eyes: to say that it sees is wrong.’

The Buddha said; ‘If the eyes can see, when you are in a room, do you see the door (outside)? Those who are dead and still have eyes, should see things if they still see, how can they be dead? Ananda, if your knowing mind has substance, is that substance single or manifold? As it is in your body, does it spread to every part of it or not? If it is one substance, when you grasp a limb, all four should feel that they are grasped; if so there would be no grasping (of any particular limb). If there is, the contention of a single substance does not hold good. If it is a manifold substance there should be many persons; then which substance is yours if it spreads to every part of your body, this is the same as in the previous case of grasping. If it does not spread, then when you touch your head and foot at the same time, while your head feels that it is touched; your foot should not, but this is not so.

Therefore, your contention that the mind arises where there is union with externals is groundless.’

Ananda said: ‘World Honoured One, I have heard the Buddha discuss Reality with other sons of the King of the Law (i.e. Bodhisattvas); He also said that the mind is neither within nor without. I now deduce that if the mind is in the body, it does not see anything within and if it is outside, they both cease to feel each other. To say that it is within is wrong for it does not know anything in the body. To say that it is without is also faulty since body and mind can perceive each other. As they do so and since nothing is seen in the body, the mind should be between the two (i.e. the inside and outside).’

The Buddha said: ‘If your conception of a mind “in be- tween” is correct, it implies a position for it. Now according to your inference, where is this intermediate position? Do you mean that it is (in or on) the body? If it is on the surface of the body, it cannot be in its center, and the conception of a mind in the center is no different from that of a mind in the body (which was refuted earlier). (Moreover) is its position manifest or not? If it is not, it does not exist. If it is, it is not fixed. Why? For instance, if a stake is driven into the ground to mark a center, when seen from the east it is in the west and when seen from the south it is in the north. As this stake can only lead to confusion, so is (your conception of) a mind in between completely chaotic.’

Ananda said: ‘The intermediate position that I men- tioned is not these two. As the World Honoured One has said, the eyes and form are causes from which sight- perception arises. While the eyes can distinguish, form does not follow anything and perception lies between them; hence the mind arises.’

The Buddha said: ‘If the mind lies between sense organs and sense data, does it include both or not? If it does, its substance and what is outside will be mixed up to- gether, and since the mind perceives while its objects do not, two opposites will be set up; then how can there be an intermediate (position)? If it is not inclusive, (that is if it is independent of the sense organs and sense data), being neither the knower (subject) nor the known (object), it has no substance; then what is this intermediate? Therefore, your contention that it is in between is groundless.’

Ananda said: ‘World Honoured One, previously when I saw the Buddha, with His four chief disciples, Mahar-Maudgalyaryana, Subhuti, Purnamaitraryaniputra and Sarriputra, turn the Wheel of the Law, He always said that the nature of the knowing and discriminating mind is neither within nor without nor between the two, exists nowhere and clings to nothing, hence it is called mind. Is that which does not cling to things called mind?’

The Buddha replied: ‘You just said that the nature of the knowing and discriminating mind exists nowhere. Now in this world, all things in the air, in water and on the ground, including those that fly and walk, make the exist- ing whole. By that which does not cling to anything, do you mean that it exists or not? If it “is not,” it is just the hair of a tortoise or the horn of a hare, then how can there be (this extra) non-clinging? If it “is” it cannot be said not to exist.

That which “is not” is simply non-existent and that which “is” should have a position; then how can there be no clinging? Therefore, your contention that that which does not cling to anything is the knowing mind is groundless.’

Principle of Sufficient Reason is SRH

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_sufficient_reason

The point not so much being the sufficiency but that the reason must be in addition to the subject. Something cannot be its own sufficient reason.

It is seemingly logically obvious that foundations cannot be built upon themselves but I seek a more substantial illustration of the problem.

autometa-system

The basic idea is to have two logical systems A, B where B is about A (i.e. a meta system to A) and then to create a third system, C, which is expressive enough to be able to "simulate" A and B and therefore the meta relationship.

System A

Alphabet: {0,S,+,=}

Grammar:

1) 0 is a wff

2) os is a wff

3) wff1 + wff2 is a wff

Axioms: {0}

Rules:

1) wff1 + wff2 Substitutes instances of 0 in wff1 with wff2

Characters & Real Computing

Got onto thinking about this oddity that only humans use characters.

"abcd" are four characters that never exist in the real world. They are marks on a page when we draw them, or arrays of pixels on a computer screen created by electronics that responds to binary codes from a computer.

Even Godel's famous numbering doesn't actually exist. It relies upon a human operator to chose which encoding to use. Computers are famously bad at character recognition. OCR in modern computers that can turn scanned text into actual character codes is far beyond the scope of the Godel numbering formula, but this is what would be needed if Godel numbering was to real be automated! But even here the scanned page is converted into a numerical arrangement and processed by programs that are written and calibrated by humans to replicate their own vision processes so that computers encode things as human do (or seem to do).

My thinking here went down this road. Humans work in the world of characters. At no point do we encode them. Now computer scientists and mechanics seek to model the human brain on computers and so presume that at a level beneath our human world what is really going on is encoding and logic processing. But do we know that neurons work by logic?

I began (and never finished as was the pattern at college) as second year assigment on "Whether recent research in neural networks could inform our understanding of brain physiology". I got stuck into reading and never finished. But what I discovered was that neurons were understood to sum "voltages" on their heads and at a threshold start their own propagation of the wave. I note here that the process is the summation of real voltages (i.e. continuous voltages) not discrete voltages. The only discrete element is the propagation of the action potential. But are all action potentials the same size? I question now (purely hypothetically) whether neurons only sum and whether other kinds of more complex inhibitions or promotions go one. Whatever the answer is the point is that the main processing may be occurring in real numbers on the neuron heads and even the previously discrete notion of countable neuron firings might involve real values also. Is this what "real computing" looks like. Is this why humans work in symbols and don't at any point encode what they see?

I need to revise my knowledge of neurons and think some more.

Total Systems & The Ultimate System

It occurs to me this w/e gone that a reductio ad absurdum argument might win the day for SRH. What the SRH is arguing against is the existence of Total System.

A Total System is one in which we can make a statement of the type "All ...". In particular it is the idea that there is a ultimate Total System in which all things are accounted for -- call this an Ultimate System.

Some interesting things about Ultimate systems. If they exist there is just one of them because if there were two they would defeat each others Ultimate status. We are part of The Ultimate System (US), if it exists, because if we stood outside it then we would stand as evidence that it was not ultimate. The US is thus a hermaneutic circle which we must accept, being born into it, which cannot be justified by anything outside it because having anything outside contradicts its ultimate status. US is also a joke because the United States more than any existent system believes itself to be the Ultimate System of human beings.

In order for a system to be classed as a US it must be able to show:

1) that no alternative system can exist.

2) that no possible entity exists that is not accounted for in the system. Such an entity would enable a new system to be created which was more comprehensive than itself.

3) that there is no meta system, or way of talking about the elements of itself, that it can't do itself. That is to say all elements only map onto themselves, and all relations between elements only map onto themselves. (problem 1. The power series cannot be expressed within a system)

3.1) that the incorporated meta system respects the use/mention distinction so that the system is able to avoid paradoxes.

4) Must be immune to diagonalisation (or equivalent).

It seems easier to show the absurdity of a US than to prove the SRH!

Some other thoughts toward this. A US would also need to prove that there were no "black swans". In other words once all data has been incorporated into a theory it must be able to prove that there is no possible event that would contradict the theory to be classed as a US. The relevance of data is deternmined by the theory so it is possible for a theory to determine what data would constitute a refutation. A US would have to show that no further data would cause a rejection of the theory, or that there was no possible further type of data. Even the smallest black swan not accounted for in the theory would create a bigger more ultimate system.

One possible line of enquiry was this: A TS that was complete (TS1) would be broken if we could step outside it and speak about it. But in doing this we would occupy a new, more powerful system (TS2) which was now complete since it incorporated TS1 and the system of speaking about TS1 (the meta system). But then once we start to speak about TS2 we would have entered a new system TS3 ad infinitum. To know that the TS we occupy is the US we need to prove that there is no way of talking about it that is not present within the TS. A possible break in this loop would be if we could show that talking about TS2 was isomorphic with talking about TS1, so that the language of talking about TS1 mirrored any language needed to talk about TS2.

The first observation is that any thinking that goes along the lines of rejecting thoughts is actually fashioning a smaller and weaker system. The US obviously needs to incorporate everything! This would be a way of describing the weakness of dogma ... since the establishment of dogma is done from a perspective already outside the dogma, the very perspective that sees the dogma as correct and other positions as wrong! So the dogmatist needs to establish that the various dogmas in their view cannot, any of them, establish the point of view of that dogmatist!!

===

If the US could express the notion that it was a/the US then it would be speaking about itself. This would mean that it was outside itself. Now it is the necessity of the US that it either:

1) Doesn't know that it is the US
2) Can resolve the ecstatic paradox (present in humans) of both being something and being able to speak about that something. It was this aspect of self that so fascinated my teenage mind as it explored self-consciousness -- and which it never found a resolution to. This could be evidence that actually humans are not-selves at all and they only speak about a model of themselves (isomorphic to some extent with themselves but not actually themselves). Like looking in a mirror: we think we see ourself but is the person we are looking at looking at us? This is the problem the SRH says provides the limit of self-isomorphism. Our "self" is only ever a "dogma" (see above) that is established within the True Self (the US).

To Find

Normally considered to be the end of a frustrating search for something lost, but realised at the w/e that this is one of the most central ideas we have.

I was mushroom picking. Have been doing this for 3 years and eventually this sunday I came upon for the first time, quite by chance, as is always the way, a troop of chantelle mushrooms. Had some for lunch yesterday.

Now I don't know whether it was the discovery of the mushrooms, or the nature of the place, but it rapidly developed into what can be best described as a sanctuary -- now one of my favourite places in Hampshire.

It reminded me of Ray Mears' great insight that hunter-gathering is our most ancient and fundamental skill. He comments upon the posture of Australian aboriginal hunter gatherers and says it is the same posture the world over. Mine I noted was not like this however but everything else was. The acute use of all the senses (bar hearing) to uncover mushrooms, the primordinal association with food and the use of the mind (the sixth sense in Eastern thinking) to distinguish the types uses almost the entire human repertoire. Today, bird watchers, or nature watchers in general, stamp collectors or in fact any of the variety of enthusiasms which grip us it seems are traceable back to this intrinsic survival skill which shapes our outlook on the world.

The other great search is that for a mate. It uses also the "cunning" which it must be said mushrooms only present a test to in their sporadic abundance. But a friend once said that when he met his wife to be actually it was a very easy and normal process - so maybe their is more in the finding than in the cunning. Indeed it seems most scientific discioveries are more in the finding than the cunning, but as Thomas Jefferson said "I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it."... altho his quotes I see can't be taken too seriously it seems here is what he says about the gun, "it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind" so I presume when two bold, enterprising and independent minds meet they seek to kill each other... would have been tragic irony if Jefferson had been one of the four presidents to be assasinated.

Finding is often also the "halting problem" in that we can never predict when we will find something. We may know of its existence, and even where to look but by definition it isn't found until we find it and that is a problem which sometimes we an put no upper limit on. In the game of "mines" on Windows systems logically we can find every mine with at least one guess (to get started). Often we can logically reduce a search to a systematic search of the "only" places. But often in the real world this "assumption" closes down our search and we end up focusing our energy in the wrong place. We assume our wallet was left at home, when actually we forgot we had it in our pocket when we left for work. Other searches really are unlimited, especially those we weren't even looking for like the chance discoveries in science e.g. famously penecillin. The SRH will need to show that "chance discoveries" can never be ruled out and so no theory can ever be Total... to do.

Finding is also linked to desire. We may often "find" things which other people want but because we don't desire them they don't constitute a "find". The happy person is the person who receives everything as a find and who can generate a desire for what they chance upon. The unhappy person is the person who has a specific desire that they cannot find an object for - in many ways this is me, I wonder if we are all this because our root desire is for "Home", or a place in the world that fundamentally welcomes "us". Such a thing doesn't exist unfortunately while we remain egotistical.

So I have argued that finding is at the root of our existence.

Right versus Left

Heard Baronness Warsi on the radio over the weekend and she put very succinctly her view of the Right versus the Left. Basically, the Right gives aspirational people the opportunity to make themselves wealthy, while the Left just accepts inequality and the state seeks to alleviate it. (The other stuff she is involved with this week is du moment (new term) or of-the-moment and therefore trivial!). I'm not picking on Warsi it seems that she vocalises very well the attitudes of what seem to me to be pathological right wing. I shall explain...

In a nutshell Warsi's argument is that the strong should have the opportunity to succeed, and the weak must try harder. By this argument why do we have a legal system at all? Why not let the strong run rampant? This is undoubtedly the way the World is and the weak die by natural selection, but we are human beings and are supposed to be able to fashion our society according to our own rules. That is after all what Warsi does as a job (solicitor). If nature kept the account then why do we need solicitors? One may argue that by "social contract" the strong, seeing the cost of protecting their gains becoming greater than the gain of further rampage, have agreed to have law: but it is an expedient law whose purpose is lost when the strong lose. The weak are always out of the picture in arguments of this type. Maybe the should be and the weak ought to be hounded into harder action .. I need to explain.

Hypocrisy is not an issue in this blog - people are welcome to be hypocritical. What is a problem is when they are contradictory - it is different. A murder is absolutely right to say murder is wrong while doing a murder - but he then can't say that he was right without contradicting what he just said. Like in logical systems saying one thing one day and a different thing the next amounts to us either being undecided (in the normal sense) or if we try to maintain both positions saying nothing.

Kant in his "Metaphysics of Morals" argues for the Categorical Imperative. I disagree with Kant in it being an imperative - people do evil and nothing has stopped them yet. But when it comes to talking about evil it does apply. If we wish to proclaim as Warsi does some universal principle of social order such as "the right to be aspirational" then it must also mean that everyone has this right and can be aspirational.

Now suppose everyone did become aspirational and take to reskilling for the top jobs. There menial jobs would suddenly run out of applicants which would push the salaries up. Now would people really pay cleaners salaries of £50k? No what would happen (as happened in the company next door) is that staff would be expected to be cleaner and man an after-work cleaning rota. If we have to hoover our own floor we can be sure we will keep it cleaner too! (Basic Right-wing argument). So a lot of jobs would simply evaporate. But what of those we do rely upon like taxi drivers, clothes makers, builders, car mechanics, farmers, teachers, nurses, cooks, people on production lines, sewage workers... the value of these would rise as people moved into the top jobs. Unlike cleaning however we would simply have to pay the inflated costs which would make us all much poorer.

So we arrive eventually at a system where everyone has been aspirational and reskilled and a doctor or solicitor (like Warsi) is no longer a top job and gets a similar income to car mechanics and nurses. The cost of training would increases as teachers charged more which would lead to increases in the difference in wages since a nurse needs far longer and expensive training than a mechanic - but parity at whatever level our new aspirational society arrived at would be more equal than today.

I need to add here that working as a chartered (I assume) solicitor she will be a member of a nice cartel who manipulate the wages of solicitors to a value way above their market price. They argue it is to ensure a quality of service, but really it eliminates competition and ensures that people don't undercut the monopoly. If cleaners were to do this it would be considered fradulent. Unions which are the poors version of the chartered institutions are frowned upon by the Right, and have their powers eeked away under every Right government, even while the people voting against union power (like Warsi) enjoy the benefits of market monopoly. I'm assuming in our free market that the process of "chartering" is abolished and competition sets wages (as everywhere else) and the market decides who is a good practitioner (as everywhere else). No more dodgy-doctors being protected by the "old school".

Now is Warsi really advocating equality like this? Why did she become a solicitor rather than a car mechanic herself? Why did she accept the Baroness title rather than ask for a simple Lady title? We al know, and it is no secret, and I have argued at length in this blog, that "wealth" is relative and it doesn't work if everyone is the same. What is the motive for aspiration if you will simply join a tread mill of people running at full pace already?

To argue again in a simpler way consider this. Land surface area of England: 241590 KM^2. Population of England 50million. That works out at less than 1/2 Ha or 1.15 acres each. If everyone thought like Warsi then we would all inhabit land no larger than 1.17 acres. This includes unfortunately all the uplands and farmlands so the real figure of "garden" that we would like is much, much smaller. Say at the very least a half that, so about half an acre. So people who own more than 1/2 and acre (or 2 acres for a family of 4) do so because thankfully other people are not as aspirational as them. You cannot ask people to occpy more than 1/2 an acre each in this country it is impossible, and wanting to occupying more than half and acre must entail inequality. Warsi's "everyone can be aspirational" entails either everyone being poorer, or it entails inequality which contradicts her wish. A problem for the Right-wing here. It applies to the globe also where if the whole world was ripped up and used for resources each person can only ever hope to live at the U.K. standard of living - not the U.S. which uses twice the resources. But we would be also poorer because there would be no "natural" space left.

But this is only stage 1 of the problem. Is it really that the poor lack aspiration? It might be that they are are disabled. Warsi can hardly expect the disabled to compete with her on equal terms. Disability is a diverse thing. Is someone with an IQ of 80 disabled compared with someone like Warsi who probably has an IQ of 100 or more? Can they be expected to do as well in solicitor exams? What of people who have friends in high place who can recommend them or help their career progress, like Warsi. I only pick on Warsi because she represents the illusions of the Right wing very well to me. What of people from broken backgrounds who have self-esteem problems, psychological problems, who have never experienced security or love (a problem in the poor as much as the rich). What of people who are not interested in pursuing the money careers. Artists for example who in many cases actually avoid commercialism (as well as those who embrace it, ironically?). What of charities, and people who work without salaries? How does all this actual complexity fit within Warsi's "aspirational" view?

And then their is my own view that Warsi presupposes the value of creating jobs, when at the same time she will be amassing a nice load of capital so that she can live of the interest, and inherit a decent load of capital from her father also. She is not relying entirely upon her profession for her livelihood and it is this more than anything in this society which marks her in a different bracket from the poor. She is a Capitalist. Now I ask why do people who sing the praises of aspiration and employment, seek to amass capital and income from capital? The two seem a contradiction to me. It is because we actually like to be free from work, so we amass capital so that we can pay other people to work for us. A famous story concerns a poor beggar. He is offered a job manning a stall in the local market. The stall owner finds him asleep and tries to encourage him. If you work hard you can get lots of money, buy a farm, pay people to work on the farm and then you can sleep all day. To which the man replies, why go through all that when I can sleep now. There is of course a big difference between the man asleep under the stall and the man asleep in the farm - the second has security, while the first can't really protect himself from "rampany aspirationalists" like Warsi.

So it is blatant in my opinion that human beings enjoy being "better off" than other human beings - this is the essence of wealth. We are all (even the poor in this country) better off than hunter-gatherers during the ice-ages. Food is abundant, cheap because of oil etc etc. Yet some people with food, clothes, a house, car, TV, mobile phone internet connection still complain about being poor. It is all relative. The idea of creating wealth for everyone is an oxymoron, and a self defeating argument.

Another failure of "wealth" creation is commercialism. Aspirational people who wish to "better" themselves in the Right-Wing view aim to make money. The idea that they might actually make "themselves" better by improving their thoughts and actions doesn't seem to get any mention. To make money we produce the goods which sell well, but as is often commented in wild food books the cultivated versions are bland in comparison with the wild varieties - one size simply doesn't fit all! Richard Maybe offers the explanation that to reach the widest audience the foods are toned down so that no-one has a particular strong opinion about them. From my own investigations of wild foods it is true that some you love (Fat Hen in my case) and some you hate (many of the recommended mushroom species) - being stronger in flavour opinions are more divided and so these never make commercial crops. Exactly the same applies to the arts with many artists pursuing a non-commercial approach so that you either hate them or love them. Pop music offers us a view of what a commercial art scene is like, and while it offers some gems it is also generally dull and lacking diversity. The same might apply to "good" crafts also since the masses are more likely to shop at Ikea and Tesco than buy expensive hand crafted items. People then who aspire to produce original artworks or crafts are ironically not well supported by Warsi's aspirational Right-Wing economics. Once again, as Melvyn Bragg has pointed out, the Left-Wing and the welfare system more than anything else lie behind English innovation and originality in the arts and crafts.

Now there is another view which I can't believe Warsi doesn't allude to, and which makes the Right wing in my view pathological. When we vote do we vote in our own interests or do we vote in the interests of the community? A extreme case which seems a powerful illustration here is do I a white anglo-saxon male vote for a racist-sexist politics or a politics that protects the interests of other people. Arguably I would do better if women and people from other countries weren't here as there would be more housing (bringing the price down), more jobs (putting the value of labour up) and less social disharmony. On the other hand I wouldn't want to live in a community where people were discriminated against it would create a lot of ill feeling and it is hard to actually justify. It is a "free" country however as I should be able to vote in "my" interests. This is where democracy gets into difficulties and has the Godel axiom of Human-Rights. Fact is we should be prepared to vote against our own interests in the interests of the community - this is the essence of being a moral human being. We sacrifice a lot in life for our families, it is only natural we sacrifice for our community and brotherhood as well. The right-wing again have a contradiction because in time of war they expect people to sacrifice even their own lives to protect the community, so why not at other times also?

So once we have a logic of people thinking in terms of their community and not just themselves, "putting other people first" which is the essence of English Gentlemanly culture as my mother always reminds me then our aspirations are no longer for personal gain but for the gain of other people. Now here I will agree with Warsi - the aspiration to promote the welfare of others is the essence of a healthy and happy society. The very existence of "charity" shows how our economic system has no place for this type of thinking - the economic system we have fails us at the very centre of our relationship with ourselves. For the Right-wing that relationship is with our physical bodies, for the Left-Wing it is in our relationship with our community. When Thatcher said that there was no society - she meant there was no class system - but really it was taken to mean we have no relationship with our community.

Yet again a page from Right-Wing thinking shows this up as a flaw. "Economy of Scale" is a well understood feature of economic systems - this is one way the industrial revolution created so much stuff. Yet when it comes to social conception the Right believe it is better to fragment aspirations to people looking after themselves. Clearly social funds and organisation on the community and national level is more productive than on the individual level. The military - favourite of the Right-Wing - is an excellent example of this. Why doesn't it work for everything else as well? An example of where concepts on a social level demand sacrifice on the individual level is in population growth. It is an established economic fact that population growth leads to increasing poverty, and population reduction leads to increasing wealth (relative obviously). In China the single greatest act that has created wealth is the single-child policy (not the adoption of capitalist economics). Had the population been allowed to double the Chinese would be in famine with hundreds of millions dying. In a Western society there would have been no way to stop the march to destruction, while the vision of the state (for all its other failures) has literally saved the Chinese people. Some would say the current ecological crisis is a similar process - a march to destruction - which there is no way of understanding or approaching in the individualistic consciousness (altho some people are trying a grass-roots approach to ecology it is hopelessly efficient because the state here - deliberately or by accident - has evaporated people-power with its breakdown of society into individuals).

This feature of Big Economics is most impressively illustrated by the U.S. Moon Landings and the British/French government collaboration on Concorde. The latter built in the late 1960s is still an impressive feat today providing a passanger service to New York from London at twice the speed of sound - something we associate more with top fighter jets. Such projects as these are impossible for the private sector. The private sector is equipped only for the types of gadgets and services that our market place is dominated by - mobile phones, TVs, computers etc. The emergent properties of national scale planning are too large a conception for the inward looking mindset of the Right-Wing, and in any case Big Economics provides such overwhelming power that it belittles and marginalises the petty thinking of the capitalists and property holders who wish to take satisfaction in their finite estates and trivial achievements. As the naked monks of India pointed out the Alexander the Great a man can only ever occupy the spot on which he stands - the rest is entirely illusions of grandeur. Those who get satisfaction from such illusions of grandeur really are the most trivial of beasts.

So it seems to summarise encouraging aspiration on the social level is the way forward. But that is the Left-Wing view and not the Right-Wing view! Central government funding projects for the masses is the most ethical and cost effective way for us to relate to ourselves. The pathology of individualism on the other hand limits peoples goals and aspirations to just themselves or their immediate kin and is simply the quagmire which ultimately wastes human hope and aspiration.

QED Warsi.

p.s. I wanted to add a bit on "selfishness" as a concept and R.Dawkins use of it with regard to genes. It is clear that Dawkins in a Right-Wing thinker because the very thought to describe genes as selfish is Right-Wing. He never meant that they were actually selfish (they are just chemicals) but they behave as though they are he argues. But do they? Selfishness is a behaviour strategy of humans, where we approach situations with a "win" goal for ourself and without regard for our opponent who may "win" or "lose" we don't care. Such a strategy one could argue has a genetic component - and with strong adaptationalists they would argue a 100% genetic cause. Now if we attribute the concept of "selfishness" to a particular genetic sequence, say AGG, then we can't attribute it to other genetic sequences (such as the sequence for the behaviour where we only seek a "win" for our opponent say TTA). There is a category mistake here (to use Ryle's term), a confusing of use/mention and it violates the SRH too.

Now maybe TTA is a gene that does very well (whose bearer helps its opponent even at its own cost) and so it spreads in the population, while AGG (whose bearer only helps himself) declines and may go extinct... so assuming they occupy the same locus on the same chromosome TTA has outcompeted AGG and won a meta race, while AGG who seeks to "win" for itself in encounters has lost the meta race -- won the battle but lost the war so to speak. In this sense TTA can be seen to be seeking to win for itself, but on a meta level where within the game it was playing a strategy to win for others. But really this is a mistaken view. Calling TTA selfish because it won is as ridiculous as calling AGG unselfish because it lost. And this as ridiculous as saying a clock that does work is selfish while one that doesn't work is unselfish!

Now the link between "working" and "existence" in dynamic systems like evolution is very philosophically interesting but it is not a bit like Dawkins Right-Wing flavoured nonsense.