[Buddha-l] science #3

[Dan Lusthaus]

Erik,

> OK, I misread your post.

Admitting that is a good start.


> What on earth has retorics to do with history?

As much or as little as rhetorician likes. But especially when the issue
about which one is engaged in persuasion has to do with group identity,
especially one pretending to be rooted in a history and tradition, religious
destinies, the cosmic war between good and evil, then history is a splendid
tool. Give them an attractive vision that will persuade them with sugar
rather than vinegar. The idea that unlocking the secrets of the physics,
chemistry, etc. of the how the world works is precisely gaining a glimpse
into the mind of its creator is very attractive to the religiously minded,
whatever their persuasion.

> Have you been in Europe lately? You have very strange ideas about the
> place, maybe a patriottic bias?
>

I'm sorry, I forgot for a moment that Europeans have once again deluded
themselves into thinking they are the moral vanguard of the world, a
delusion interrupted by Hitler, the collapse of imperialism. And very much,
as you argue, ignoring the truth of the Lebenswelt, since it's been
"proven," you say, that science, the Lebenswelt, religion, and who knows
what else, have been sealed off from each other. Good composte for breeding
delusions.

> Le Monde, but I
> cannot think of any comfirmation. (there was some talk about the
> intelligent design theory, but no biologist took it serious.)

But that's the point, isn't it? Scientists don't take these crazy ideas
seriously. Nonscientists do, and the audience and support they seek and are
winning over are fellow nonscientists. ("I ain't come from no monkey! And I
dunno where you come from, but around these parts the world is still
flat!"). They are not just a crazy fringe anymore. They've put a few decades
and a big heap of cash into taking control over local and now national
politics, school boards, the purse-strings that fund research, underwrite
and license scientific research, drugs, etc. The scientists, whether they
like it or not, have to follow the money. Us pedantic buddhologists might be
able to get away with holding up in a room with a stack of books and
dictionaries, but a research scientist needs a fully funded lab or she may
as well play golf.

> as
> Nietzsche said: 'what doesn't kill you makes you stronger', and we're
> not dead yet.

Goodness! I guess Victor Frankl's legacy will be that he inadvertently made
this quote from Nietzsche part of the pop cultural landscape. Frankl adopted
that as his motto to help him survive the sufferings of Auschwitz. So, if we
place this quote in its functional context, it implies a lot of death all
around, as a real possibility at any moment. Not a glib excuse for
complacency.

>And yes, we don't know where we're going, if you would
> know, you wouldn't be scared. Only the religious zealots think they
> know, but they're not completely convinced, otherwise they would just
> lean back and let God's plan execute itself.

That's not how they understand the master plan. He (with a capital H) wants
them to be His agents, so they can prove their worth to Him. These folks are
anything but passive waiters for the Messiah. No Gelassenheit here. They're
paving the roads, booking the hotels, training the help, and getting rid of
the obstacles as energetically as they can.

> Now it has been proved that scientific
> theories and theoretical terms cannot be expained in terms of the
> lifeworld. So the breach is definitive.

Proved by whom? In which Lebenswelt? To whom? In which Lebenswelt do they
live?

 (I wonder if this is the case in
> buddhology and buddhist theory as well, this would explain the problems
> of a western buddhism.) If truth is part of our lifeworld, if truth is
> part of our life and experience, science has nothing to say about it.

That is either profound or nonsense.

best,
Dan