The Nonlinear Library LW - Secular interpretations of core perennialist claims by zhukeepa
Aug 26, 2024
28:23
Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Secular interpretations of core perennialist claims, published by zhukeepa on August 26, 2024 on LessWrong.
After the release of Ben Pace's extended interview with me about my views on religion, I felt inspired to publish more of my thinking about religion in a format that's more detailed, compact, and organized. This post is the second publication in my series of intended posts about religion.
Thanks to Ben Pace, Chris Lakin, Richard Ngo, Damon Pourtahmaseb-Sasi, Marcello Herreshoff, Renshin Lauren Lee, Mark Miller, Roger Thisdell, and Imam Ammar Amonette for their feedback on this post, and thanks to Kaj Sotala, Tomáš Gavenčiak, Paul Colognese, and David Spivak for reviewing earlier versions of this post.
Thanks especially to Renshin Lauren Lee, Roger Thisdell, and Imam Ammar Amonette for their input on my claims about perennialism, and Mark Miller for vetting my claims about predictive processing.
In my previous post, I introduced the idea that there are broad convergences among the mystical traditions of the major world religions, corresponding to a shared underlying essence, called the perennial philosophy, that gave rise to each of these mystical traditions.
I think there's nothing fundamentally mysterious, incomprehensible, or supernatural about the claims in the perennial philosophy. My intention in this post is to articulate my interpretations of some central claims of the perennial philosophy, and present them as legible hypotheses about possible ways the world could be.
It is not my intention in this post to justify why I believe these claims can be found in the mystical traditions of the major world religions, or why I believe the mystical traditions are centered around claims like these. I also don't expect these hypotheses to seem plausible in and of themselves - these hypotheses only started seeming plausible to me as I went deeper into my own journey of inner work, and started noticing general patterns about my psychology consistent with these claims.
I will warn in advance that in many cases, the strongest versions of these claims might not be compatible with the standard scientific worldview, and may require nonstandard metaphysical assumptions to fully make sense of.[1] (No bearded interventionist sky fathers, though!) I intend to explore the metaphysical foundations of the perennialist worldview in a future post; for now, I will simply note where I think nonstandard metaphysical assumptions may be necessary.
The Goodness of Reality
Sometimes, we feel that reality is bad for being the way it is, and feel a sense of charge around this. To illustrate the phenomenology of this sense of charge, consider the connotation that's present in the typical usages of "blame" that aren't present in the typical usages of "hold responsible"; ditto "punish" vs "disincentivize"; ditto "bad" vs "dispreferred".
I don't think there's a word in the English language that unambiguously captures this sense of charge, but I think it's captured pretty well by the technical Buddhist term tanha, which is often translated as "thirst" or "craving". I interpret this sense of charge present in common usages of the words "blame", "punish", and "bad" as corresponding to the phenomenology of "thirst" or "craving"[2] for reality to be different from how it actually is.
When our active blind spots get triggered, we scapegoat reality. We point a finger at reality and say "this is bad for being the way it is" with feelings of tanha, when really there's some vulnerability getting triggered that we're trying to avoid acknowledging.
This naturally invites the following question: of the times we point at reality and say "this is bad for being the way it is" with feelings of tanha, what portion of these stem from active blind spots, and what portion of these responses should we fully endorse ...
After the release of Ben Pace's extended interview with me about my views on religion, I felt inspired to publish more of my thinking about religion in a format that's more detailed, compact, and organized. This post is the second publication in my series of intended posts about religion.
Thanks to Ben Pace, Chris Lakin, Richard Ngo, Damon Pourtahmaseb-Sasi, Marcello Herreshoff, Renshin Lauren Lee, Mark Miller, Roger Thisdell, and Imam Ammar Amonette for their feedback on this post, and thanks to Kaj Sotala, Tomáš Gavenčiak, Paul Colognese, and David Spivak for reviewing earlier versions of this post.
Thanks especially to Renshin Lauren Lee, Roger Thisdell, and Imam Ammar Amonette for their input on my claims about perennialism, and Mark Miller for vetting my claims about predictive processing.
In my previous post, I introduced the idea that there are broad convergences among the mystical traditions of the major world religions, corresponding to a shared underlying essence, called the perennial philosophy, that gave rise to each of these mystical traditions.
I think there's nothing fundamentally mysterious, incomprehensible, or supernatural about the claims in the perennial philosophy. My intention in this post is to articulate my interpretations of some central claims of the perennial philosophy, and present them as legible hypotheses about possible ways the world could be.
It is not my intention in this post to justify why I believe these claims can be found in the mystical traditions of the major world religions, or why I believe the mystical traditions are centered around claims like these. I also don't expect these hypotheses to seem plausible in and of themselves - these hypotheses only started seeming plausible to me as I went deeper into my own journey of inner work, and started noticing general patterns about my psychology consistent with these claims.
I will warn in advance that in many cases, the strongest versions of these claims might not be compatible with the standard scientific worldview, and may require nonstandard metaphysical assumptions to fully make sense of.[1] (No bearded interventionist sky fathers, though!) I intend to explore the metaphysical foundations of the perennialist worldview in a future post; for now, I will simply note where I think nonstandard metaphysical assumptions may be necessary.
The Goodness of Reality
Sometimes, we feel that reality is bad for being the way it is, and feel a sense of charge around this. To illustrate the phenomenology of this sense of charge, consider the connotation that's present in the typical usages of "blame" that aren't present in the typical usages of "hold responsible"; ditto "punish" vs "disincentivize"; ditto "bad" vs "dispreferred".
I don't think there's a word in the English language that unambiguously captures this sense of charge, but I think it's captured pretty well by the technical Buddhist term tanha, which is often translated as "thirst" or "craving". I interpret this sense of charge present in common usages of the words "blame", "punish", and "bad" as corresponding to the phenomenology of "thirst" or "craving"[2] for reality to be different from how it actually is.
When our active blind spots get triggered, we scapegoat reality. We point a finger at reality and say "this is bad for being the way it is" with feelings of tanha, when really there's some vulnerability getting triggered that we're trying to avoid acknowledging.
This naturally invites the following question: of the times we point at reality and say "this is bad for being the way it is" with feelings of tanha, what portion of these stem from active blind spots, and what portion of these responses should we fully endorse ...