"Thinking about Buddhism"

I'm reading a book by Steve Hagen, bestselling author and renowned Zen teacher, titled, “Buddhism Is Not What You Think”.  The basic theme, which I have seen before in Buddhist writings, is that the raw data you receive through your primary senses is “Truth”.  After you apply thought to the data, you have corrupted the Truth with your thoughts and previous life experiences and you no longer have Truth.  That is true, but if pure perception were how you observed the world and went no further, you would not be able to draw any meaningful information from your perceptions.  A simple example of this would be the page you are now reading.  The raw data, without thought applied, is black spots on a white background.  You have learned to interpret these symbols as letters, words, sentences and thoughts.  You deal with them in the English language.  The same thoughts would obviously appear differently if written in French.  So, the new data that you take in is affected by the previous truths (not a capital “T”) that you have received in your lifetime.  When I say the word “dog”, you may envision a Toy Poodle, while my mind’s image may be of a German Shorthair Retriever.  The individual’s interpretation of any word is based on their personal, previous life experiences.  It can't be any other way.  Oh, I suppose you could learn to sit still and attempt to only take in raw data and do nothing with that data.  I would rather water ski.  You don't accomplish more by water skiing, but I think it is a lot more fun.

The famous author and philosopher, J.R. Pirtle once said, “Life is what you think.”  This is a far more useful and realistic way to view your real world.  Life, to you, can be no more or no less than what you think.  Even if you were a fundamentalist Buddhist (in other words, catatonic) and only saw raw, unaltered data, that would be what you think.  A friend of mine, a professor at our state university, in reaction to Pirtle’s, “Life is what you think,” responded, “Sometimes I think that life is not what I think.”  My response was, “Well, then it isn’t.”

 

I apologize to you Buddhists for this blog post.  I should have written it sooner.  I have already made it a point to insult the fundamentalist Jews and Christians.  Fundamentalist Muslims do not require ridicule.  They do it to themselves.  But, I have held off on Buddhists and that is probably because they claim not to be a religion and they compose only about one percent of our nation’s population.  However, their eyes do glass over, just like fundamentalist Christians and Jews, when they state one of the gullible beliefs of their religion.  The Buddha knew and stated that he could not pass down his wisdom.  The Tao is an individual’s journey, not a group’s.  His followers often tinkle their little bells and try to shy away from the undeniable awareness of the concept, “self”.  Buddhists had better hold their nuttiness down or they will be classified as a religion.  I certainly can't blame them for trying to avoid that.

Comments are welcome, Old Buz (an agnostic who accepts any belief, as long as it agrees with his own)

The Open Door

This post is not science fiction.  It is about the natural progression of mind communication with computers.  We have opened this door and we like it.  You can watch a YouTube segment today about a non-invasive set of receivers, placed on your head that will tell a toy RC helicopter to fly up or down, right or left, back and forth by your mental command.  Thus, the language of your mind can be read by a computer and translated into a control command.  The first and most obvious useful adaptation of this technology would be the motorized wheelchair of a quadriplegic.  A more sophisticated application would be mind control of word processing.  Yet another wonderful application would be a two way communication between the computer and a blind and deaf person.  Virtual images and audio to this person would open their world.  Since the simple communication of the mind and the RC helicopter is now possible, so will be the above.

Now, since this is America, let’s take a look at some military application of mind control of a computer.  This area is where vast sums of funds will be available for development.  A sample of this application would be a small tank/robot that could be built to patrol the streets of Iraq.  It would be about the size of a lawn tractor, or smaller.  Its eyes would be a binocular camera 3D system with depth finding crosshairs.  This would be coordinated with either a high powered rifle or a laser beam.  The effective range would be four to five hundred yards.  A fleet of these little guys traveling the main corridors of a city could fairly well keep an area clear of IED placement.  The soldier/operator of the unit would be in an air conditioned bunker, far from the fight.  This basic concept is presently being applied to our drone force, which saves courtroom expenses by not having to prove a suspect’s guilt.  The soldier being virtually removed from the battle scene may well cut back on guilt driven suicides.

As this system of communication between the mind and the computer becomes more and more sophisticated, the uses of this alliance will naturally multiply, in quantum leaps.  You think that the cost of a college education is too high?  Sit down for twenty minutes and let a computer download a knowledge base to your brain’s memory bank equal to a degree in Physics.  If I can think the toy helicopter into the sky, it will be able to tell me what the world looks like where it is.  As our sensory devices create our real world now, so will virtual reality from a computer create much of our reality of the future.  You will be virtually doing a gold metal dive in The Paris Summer Olympics or having sex with the man or woman of your dreams, while a few of the “chosen”, with a larger brain, better health and better athletic bodies are having sex to reproduce.  This system will improve the breed and cut back on overpopulation.  The only consolation that you will have in this situation is that you are having more fun than they are.

We are gently preparing ourselves for this wonderful future with our smart phones.  Observe the young coupe at a romantic dinner, each playing a game on their own hand held.  See a young mother, with her iPad resting on her baby’s bottle as the new born is fed.  Read about the Long Beach rapid transit engineer, texting while passing a half dozen warning lights and crashing into another train, killing 22 of his passengers.  Yes, these pioneers are ready for virtual reality.  As my wise philosopher brother-in-law once said, “Life is what you think.”

Comments are welcome, Old Buz