Not sure what you’d like here but I can’t see how this is anything more than ass

Not sure what you’d like here but I can’t see how this is anything more than association-drawing and narrative formation without any science (testimony) behind it.

If you were to ask me how biological systems compute I’d respond with the extremely exasperating but absolutely true answer “every possible way every cell can communicate is used for communication (really, computation)” and I mean that to a degree that I can explain in some detail but is almost as awe inspiring as the scale of the universe.

Buddhist thought has been ‘scienced’ pretty simply as spending as much time as possible in learning to self regulate what are otherwise autonomic responses so that we are less affected by the external world and have more agency over our interpretations of it.

This differs from the european method of stoicism which teaches us to use outward action to achieve the same end rather than internal introspection. in this sense buddhism is less action and adversarial but more harmonious and less adversarial.

And this differs from the muslim method or excessive resitation and ritual WITHOUT producing the self regulation of buddhism or stoicism, and instead producing insulation from insult and offense by forcing interpersonal ritual behavior whenever possible.

So think of this sequence of ‘training’ our brain stem by developing a means of insulation from social signals that provoke our instincts in increasingly complex social interactions, as internal adaptation (Buddhism), internal-external correspondence (Stoicism), and external social construction (islam, judaism).

I think that serialization and disambiguation is probably the most useful means of understanding wht religions really do: insulate us from biological responses to our increasing alienation and irrelevance as our interdependence decreases as the complexity of society and economy increases, and as such need for (demand for) social commensurability (a system of behavioral weights and measures) increases.

From the internal submissive to to the internal-external reciprocal, to the external assertive. This is why buddhists can ignore criticism, stoics debate it, and muslmis retaliate abainst it.

It’s fascinating, really. 😉

Cheers

Curt Doolittle
The Natural Law Institute
The Science of Cooperation

Reply addressees: @bierlingm