Buddhism

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• Homo Deus –– Yuval Harari
  
  • [[Buddhism]] "Buddha had made an even more radical claim, teaching that the pursuit of happiness is in fact the very root of suffering."
    • According to biochemistry, too, we learn that pleasant sensations disappear just as quickly as they arise. As long as people crave pleasant sensations without actually experiencing them, they remain dissatisfied.
    • "According to Buddha, we can train our minds to observe carefully how all sensations constantly arise and pass. When the mind learns to see our sensations for what they are - ephemeral and meaningless vibrations - we lose interest in pursuing them. For what is the point of running after something that disappears as fast as it arises?"
• Homo Deus –– Yuval Harari
  
  • Yet, people erroneously jump to the conclusion that if I want to press it, I choose to want to. This is of-course false, I don't choose my desires, I only feel them and act accordingly.
  • However, once we accept that there is no soul, and that humans have no inner essence called the 'self', it no longer makes sense to ask 'How does the self choose its desires?' It's like asking a bachelor, 'How does your wife choose her clothes?'. In reality, there is only a stream of consciousness, and desires arise and pass within this stream but there is no permanent self who owns the desires, hence it is meaningless to ask whether I choose my desires deterministically, randomly or freely. #Buddhism
  • Doubting [[free will]] is not just a philosophical exercise - it has practical implications. If organisms indeed lack free will, it implies we could manipulate and even control their desires using drugs, genetic engineering or direct brain stimulation.
    • What could happen if we could rewrite our inner monologues, or even silence them completely on occasion?
• Meditations –– Marcus Aurelius
  
  17. The connection to #Buddhism - Thich Nhat Hanh and the water/wave analogy to death.