RE: Ego-- harmful delusion or pragmatic necessity?
April 28, 2015 at 12:47 am
(This post was last modified: April 28, 2015 at 12:51 am by bennyboy.)
(April 27, 2015 at 7:00 pm)Surgenator Wrote:(April 27, 2015 at 5:48 am)bennyboy Wrote: So should I see science as a tool of the self-- a way to get better stuff, to enjoy more health, to add interest to my life? Or should I use science as a kind of razor, using it to identify and destroy those parts of my sense of self which are delusional, or counter-productive? It seems to me the complete annihilation of the self should give one the most objective power of observation and analysis-- but is this paying too high a price?
Why do you have to choose between the two? Why can't you remove the delusions and enhance your life at the same time? That's what I would do.
Yes, that's the essence of the question. But let's say one takes seriously your advice, what then?
Let's say, by an interest in science and disciplined objectivity, I discover that I am not what I've always defined myself to be. What if studies of the brain lead me to see free will, for example, as an illusion? Should I not then look at acts of will as meaningless expressions of the myth of self, and conquer that myth through ascetic denial of pleasure or luxury in life? Let's say that in the interest of the best kind of science, that requiring a pure objective perspective, I struggle to lift that pleasant veil, and find underneath it nothing at all? Certainly, this would be the ego's equivalent of discovering that all the world is empty space, or mostly so.
It seems to me that Buddhists in particular, but ascetic mystics of many traditions, have arrived at this conclusion, and followed this path. I mean, I've seen a Buddhist book directly entitled "Meditations on the Nature of Emptiness." And yet they are almost universally mocked as agents of "woo" by those of us who haven't divested ourselves of the pleasant illusions and delusions of ego. I wonder, which party is most capable of science, by which I mean the clear-minded observation of reality?
Is it possible to "use" science, and still do it properly? Or must one transform oneself, at a fundamental level, INTO a scientist, by which I mean not a profession but the embodiment of the ideal of pure objectivity?
