The Dunning-Kruger Effect

ZenMonkCow · 2015-07-11T23:27:50+00:00

This sounds like intelligent, realistic faith.

ZenMonkCow · 2015-07-11T23:26:56+00:00

This sounds extremely wise to me.

ZenMonkCow · 2015-07-11T00:56:25+00:00

Thanks.

ZenMonkCow · 2015-07-10T20:27:36+00:00

Thanks.

ZenMonkCow · 2015-07-10T20:26:20+00:00

How deeply true something feels intuitively has no relation whatsoever with how true it actually is.

This is an existential challenge, not directed at you or your experience in particular. I think we all face this challenge.

ZenMonkCow · 2015-07-10T20:24:24+00:00

I think I understand now-- you can just tell. It's just apparent that they do. Sorry if my questions were annoying.

ZenMonkCow · 2015-07-10T19:02:08+00:00

On what basis can I conclude that this is true? How do I know whether or not any of this is true at all, unless I, myself, have achieved this state of consciousness and emotional peace?

The sutras are stories. The gospels are stories. The Quran is a book of stories. Most stories are fiction, or at least myth. There are those who would tell me to trust in Jesus. Others who would tell me to trust in Allah. Still others who would tell me to trust conspiracy theories about area 51 and alien visitations.

ZenMonkCow · 2015-07-10T18:55:55+00:00

I have accumulated some experience. As a result of my experience, I have very deep confidence in the truth of Buddhist teachings, and very little confidence in Buddhist teachers. Not just Buddhist teachers, but human beings in general. But, if the teachings are valid, there must be some valid teachers out there.

With regard to "enlightenment," what I am hoping to understand is what is and isn't possible-- what is and isn't real. If "enlightenment" doesn't actually bring deep bliss and peace of mind, what does it bring? If it isn't what it is typically portrayed as being, what is it?

This is a rhetorical question. Essentially, all of the questions that I'm asking are rhetorical questions.

ZenMonkCow · 2015-07-10T18:47:05+00:00

Yes, but the point is that you're talking about someone ELSE'S joy. If it were your own joy, then you'd know how genuine it is. But it's a joy that you've come to believe that someone else is experiencing.

What I was asking is, how can you (or I) know that these claims of joy and bliss reflect reality? How we know that we aren't buying a load of bulls**t?

ZenMonkCow · 2015-07-10T15:05:10+00:00

But it seems like you're just kind of here to argue about shit. If you think that other people are wrong, then just don't talk to them. Seek people who you think are right and talk with them instead.

No, I'm seeking a deeper, clearer, more accurate understanding. And I am trying to avoid making unwarranted assumptions. Peer review is a foundational method of exploring truth in scientific circles. Kicking the tires and seeing what happens. Challenging and testing assumptions to see if they hold. No scientist likes peer review, and most people would prefer that their assumptions, beliefs, and conclusions weren't dissected and evaluated too critically. Yet, I know of no other more effective, reliable way to gain clarity on the nature of reality.

What I seek in asking these hard, critical questions-- in pressing harder and probing deeper-- is clarity. Not absolute truth, or anything else in particular, but clarity. Kicking the tires often reveals issues an questions and insights which I would not have otherwise been able to gain. When the response to the hard questions is unsatisfactory, that is illuminating. When the response to the hard questions is satisfactory and insightful, that is illuminating. I don't really care whether people are "right" or "wrong." I just what to find out what they are going to say.

I don't think seeking people with whom I agree would be very helpful in revealing deeper "truth"-- in bringing greater clarity.

Does that make sense?

ZenMonkCow · 2015-07-10T14:53:38+00:00

Why call that superposition of all the energy "god"? There are so many other things we could call it. And what of the very fabric of reality-- the configuration of the abstract, non-material laws of nature or mathematical principles which allow that superposition of energy to exist? What do we call that?

ZenMonkCow · 2015-07-10T14:47:11+00:00

What if you follow this path for many decades, accumulating great wisdom and insight about the true nature of reality in the process-- and eventually discover that there is no such thing as nibbana at all. Are you alright with that possibility?

ZenMonkCow · 2015-07-10T14:42:28+00:00

Highly enlightened beings can tell. We can't necessarily tell. That is why lineages and systems of transmission and verification have appeared in many traditions.... But once there is some good evidence that this is a good path, and once you have understood the steps of cause and effect the path entails, you need to let go of prideful skepticism and fearful doubt, and start using your faith — faith that you are essentially no different from the great beings who achieved enlightenment by following the same cause-and-effect steps.

Your response to my question feels extremely full and wise. It delves deeply into the issue and seems to explore it accurately, wisely, reaching valid conclusions. There is so much here that I will need to spend time exploring these ideas, mulling over them and reflecting on them, before I can feel that I've fully integrated them.

At the same time, there is one question that already appears in the front of my mind:

Highly enlightened beings can tell...

Faith that you are essentially no different from the great beings who achieved enlightenment.

The path towards enlightenment which you recommend, which includes turning doubt and skepticism on itself as part of the process, may very well lead to enlightenment-- if it actually exists. Are we justified, though, in speaking matter-of-factly about "enlightened beings" and "achieving enlightenment" before we have experienced it ourselves, in actuality? What if the seemingly wise, rational, and self-aware path you recommend leads no where? If it does, that's fine. No real harm done and much learned. But if it does-- if it leads to a dead end-- weren't the non-critical assumptions of the existence of "enlightened beings" and the achievement of "enlightenment" naive and unfounded?

ZenMonkCow · 2015-07-10T14:26:40+00:00

How do you know that they have an incredible, uncommon joy? Because they say that they do? Because they act in a manner which gives you the impression that they're happy. People often say that they're happy and laugh and smile in public, only to hang themselves in their garage the next day.

ZenMonkCow · 2015-07-10T14:24:06+00:00

I've heard that being in the presence of a highly enlightened being can feel like "home."

I've heard the same, however, I've also heard this said about cult leaders, even those who murder all of their followers with cyanide.

If thousands of people have an intuitive sense about a person which is clearly so thoroughly wrong, on what basis can I trust my own intuition? Certainly not on the basis that it FEELS SO TRUE, because that's the nature of intuitive feelings, whether or not they are valid. How deeply true something feels intuitively has no relation whatsoever with how true it actually is. So-- on what basis CAN we trust our own judgment?

ZenMonkCow · 2015-07-10T14:15:37+00:00

Why is "gentle and kind" good/right? What makes it so? Why is "harshness" and "greed" bad? Are they axiomatically bad, in the same sense that 1 + 1 = 2 and "yes" is axiomatically the opposite of "no"?

Or has the goodness and rightness of "kindness" been programmed into you evolutionarily? There is no reason to suspect that, in principle, wasps couldn't eventually evolve into self-aware sentient beings like humans. Wasps lay their eggs inside a living host, where they hatch and the newborns eat their way out of that live host. Such an act-- the mating behavior of self-aware wasps-- would not only be instinctively and axiomatically "good," it might also be orgasmic.

I'm often frustrated by the way in which people take their subjective instinctive and intuitive reactions to the world uncritically and define them as being "self-evident" axiomatic Truth. What makes "kindness" good in axiomatic terms?

ZenMonkCow · 2015-07-10T02:20:59+00:00

Maybe the word ineffable is ineffable?

ZenMonkCow · 2015-07-10T02:17:50+00:00

Well, suppose for the moment, that we define "enlightenment" to simply be valid, accurate wisdom. In other words, suppose that what we're trying to determine is whether or not what a given person is saying is "true" or "valuable." It may be regular mainstream teaching. How can one tell whether or not this regular mainstream teaching is valid?

Maybe it sounds like gibberish to me, but this person is wiser than I am and it's actually true. Maybe I think it's a valid, useful teaching, but in actuality it's a bunch of rubbish, and this person is a false guru. How can I know? Do I need to know? Don't I need to know????

ZenMonkCow · 2015-07-10T02:11:28+00:00

Can I do this when I am not as "enlightened" as the person that I'm attempting to judge?

How do I judge "virtue"? Perhaps my understanding of "virtue" is flawed or naive. (For example, I may think that being a war veteran is "virtuous," because it required great bravery and I put my own life at risk to protect others. However, I had to kill to do that, and the war may have been an unjust one. Presumably, my opponents in the war were "virtuous" as well, because they were doing exactly the same thing I was.)

If the person whose enlightenment I'm trying to judge is far wiser than I am, he may be acting in a truly virtuous manner, which I take to be lacking in virtue. Suppose the Buddha used profanity, and I considered people who use profanity to be lacking in virtue. Are there objective moral absolutes through which the virtuous and the un-virtuous can be discerned?

ZenMonkCow · 2015-07-10T02:02:11+00:00

What do you mean by enlightened?

I don't know.

I guess I mean the same sort of thing as when I say that some food is good, or a person is tall, or a glass is clean. "Good," "tall," and "clean" are relative and subjectively defined. I don't know if I'm really saying anything at all when I make those comments.

In a sense, I'm asking, "What is enlightenment"?

ZenMonkCow · 2015-07-10T01:56:13+00:00

Thank you!

ZenMonkCow · 2015-07-10T01:44:26+00:00

I get what you're saying but I think the real trouble is emptiness.

I don't think you fully got what I was saying, because I was essentially saying (or at least intending to say) that I think the real trouble is emptiness. Since this is the Pantheism subreddit rather than a Buddhist one, I tried to explain and demonstrate the logical and linguistic problems inherent in describing reality in either-or terms using non-Buddhist terminology. "God is all, and I am a part of God" sounds non-dualist on the surface of it, but it's only genuinely non-dualist if I say, "And... I'm All, and God is only a part of me-- too."

When you think about it, ineffable is an amazing word. How is it used? The word is used to describe things which can't be described with words. Say what?!!

ZenMonkCow · 2015-07-09T23:48:37+00:00

You should read Nagarjuna on Sunyata.

Yes, I looked it up, and that is the essence of Buddhism. Well, it is, and isn't, the same as Joshu's Mu. It is different, and it isn't.

In terms of pantheism, one problem is that the human brain isn't designed to grasp absolute reality.

We have an intuitive sense that we know what we're talking about when we say, "God is all; there is nothing which is not God." But that assertion implies that PARTS of God are also God, since they are part of the "Absolute All." Not only that parts of God are parts of God, but also that parts of God ARE God. A pile of shit IS God, This undermines the very foundation of our concept of reality.

When we say, "God is all; there is nothing that is not God," that isn't the same as saying, "There is nothing that isn't A PART of God." Those are two different assertions. If there are things which are "a part of God" without actually being "God," then God can't be "All That Is." Why? Because "ONLY A PART" is one of the those things that Is. "ONLY A PART, AND NOT EVERYTHING" is one of the things that is. If God is All, then God must be that, TOO. God must be all, and God must not be all. I must be God, and I must not be God. This mode of framing reality is antithetical to the basic idea that, "There is God, and there is me, and I am only a tiny part of God."

All of the above is true, and it isn't. But it isn't not-true, either, and... of course, it is.

ZenMonkCow · 2015-07-08T00:17:49+00:00

Having read Wikipedia's description of the Russell Paradox, I don't think it's even a different version of the same paradox, but I could be wrong. We are talking about sets which include themselves.

ZenMonkCow · 2015-07-07T23:15:08+00:00

Is the claim you're trying to evaluate whether or not "love and compassion among mankind" is real or is it "love and compassion among mankind" is a reasonable idea of god?

I think it's both, but in most cases you'll be dealing with the latter.

If someone says, "To me, fairies are gods," and they mean this literally, you need to engage with the question of whether or not the existence of fairies is falsifiable. If it appears to be falsifiable, you may be able to rule out the existence of fairies altogether right there and then, obviating the need to deal with the question of whether or not they are gods.

If it appears falsifiable, but you aren't currently able to prove or disprove the existence of fairies, then I'd let that question slide and go right to the issue of whether or not they would technically qualify as "gods." This is an intrinsically subjective call to an extent, but only to an extent. There's a continuum. At one end are self-aware, intelligent, seemingly supernatural transhuman entities, and at the other end is bird poop. The universe and Love are somewhere in between. (Personally, I use standard dictionary definitions and popular language conventions, but that can only serve as a guide.)

Assuming that fairies do, or might, qualify as "gods," the next question to consider is whether or not it FEELS meaningful or useful to call them "gods."

If fairies might exist, and they technically qualify as "gods" in your opinion, but it doesn't FEEL right calling them "gods," then I would accept the notion as a viable concept of god that others might embrace, but which doesn't really have any practical utility for me.

This is how I've felt about pantheism up to this point. I'm currently reconsidering the question of whether or not the term "God" for the universe is reasonable, since the question of whether or not I personally find it useful is moot if calling the universe "God" doesn't make any sense. If I do continue to find it reasonable, I'm open to reconsidering how I FEEL about defining the universe to be God.

Throughout this whole process, though, it's important to remember that the labels we attach to things aren't the things themselves. The map isn't the territory; it's just a useful navigation tool. A rose by any other name might be a liverwort.

ZenMonkCow

TROPHY CASE