Created: February 18, 2020
Modified: February 25, 2022
Modified: February 25, 2022
Buddhism is true
This page is from my personal notes, and has not been specifically reviewed for public consumption. It might be incomplete, wrong, outdated, or stupid. Caveat lector.- My feelings about Buddhism are linked to my feelings about psychedelics and the mind more generally.
- I am pretty ignorant on all of these topics, but I have the distinct impression that there is something real and profound, that is not acknowledged by mainstream society. This is one of the things I believe that no one else believes, except that of course there are a lot of Buddhists in the world and meditation has become a big thing in the west. So maybe it's more like an important truth that hasn't been fully absorbed yet---it's not quite a consensus opinion, and our academic theories of mind, our cultural battles between atheism and religion, our 'best practices' for educating kids (see goals for raising kids), etc; haven't yet been built out to reflect its implications.
- What are the claims that I think are true? First, the four noble truths:
- suffering: we will never be free of it. We live with negative utility. (Buddhist dukkha is not quite 'suffering' so much as the idea that life is incapable of truly satisfying us: pleasure exists but is inherently fleeting). Inherently, no amount of technological progress will truly help because:
- Suffering comes from desire (craving or attachment). If our desires go unsatisfied, we suffer. On the other hand, if our desires are satisfied, the reward is ephemeral, and we will suffer from the fear of losing it. We can free ourselves from suffering only by freeing ourselves from desire.
- Through diligent practice, one can put an end to craving (the cessation of suffering). Buddhist practice has genuinely found techniques that allow us to see ourselves more clearly.
- The eight-fold path towards cessation of suffering.
- More broadly:
- the self is a construct. We see boundaries between ourselves and others; ourselves and the world. These boundaries come from a model (ie a reality tunnel) that is sometimes useful but not, fundamentally, true. Desire is a property of the agent model of the self---agents have a reward function. By dissolving the self, we can dissolve desire, and therefore suffering. Dissolving the boundaries of the self allows us to feel unified with all of humanity and all of creation. (the relationship to psychedelics is that they also dissolve the self, and might be a much quicker path towards getting there).
- What does it mean for these things to be 'true'? Unlike other religions, they are not supernatural or nonphysical. They are a causal model of higher-level psychological phenomena and our relationship to the world. They are true to the extent that they make testable predictions and prescribe interventions that achieve the desired affect (the release from suffering). Like all models, they are incomplete: they give only a view of the world, but it can be a useful view.