XPost: alt.buddha.short.fat.guy, alt.philosophy.taoism, alt.supp   
   rt.schizophrenia   
   From: ansaman@gmail.com   
      
   On 7/13/2021 9:09 AM, one wrote:   
   > Doing nothing, a flower is drawn to flower   
   > by all the factors which draw it near to be   
   > no thing other than what it is, to flower.   
      
   When something acts according to its   
   nature, it is in its place.   
      
   In that sense, Noah has repeatedly asserted   
   that we are not really acting according to   
   our nature and this causes suffering and   
   disharmony (or that is my impression of   
   what he is saying).   
      
   They did an experiment a while back with   
   baby wild turkey chicks who having never seen   
   a predator or even another being of any kind   
   reacted protectively when a shadow like a hawk   
   was displayed.   
      
   This hard wiring might be thought of in the   
   same way that we think of firmware. Instinct drives   
   almost all living things... but mankind.   
      
   We have been overwriting our firmware with   
   self-generated software and data for a very   
   long time and it is our problem that we have   
   done a very poor job debugging what we have written.   
   We pass on the same errors to our children   
   that were passed on to us, even without realizing.   
   Sometimes, new ideas come along and they are   
   incorporated with very little testing and   
   even widely adopted with horrific results.   
   On top of this we have added many tools such   
   as culture, science and technology, and art and   
   literature that often cloud the issue as   
   much as they are useful.   
      
   It all started with a level of awareness that   
   exceeds and transcends instinct. With complex   
   communication comes transmission of information,   
   a spread of innovation (this is how to make fire),   
   and eventually the abstract thought that takes   
   us away from the here and now into the murky   
   and dangerous past and future. Suffering in the   
   mental sense becomes real. Mankind becomes aware   
   of death in an intellectual way. Ancient religious   
   thought accounts for the sacrifice that our   
   animal friends make when we eat them. It progresses   
   from regret to worship to ritualized slaughter   
   meant to lessen the suffering of domesticated animals.   
   The child asks about the thunder and we create an   
   answer so we can stop them asking repeatedly. The   
   child ask what happened to Grandma when she died   
   and we come up with an answer or what our parents   
   told us.   
      
   We start small and accumulate incredible amounts   
   of data and software. Primitive man has been shown   
   to learn the turns of the seasons by observing the   
   sky and then knows when to plant or when the herds   
   that migrate will return. Some of the stuff is really   
   useful... and some is filled with misinformation.   
   The best of culture competes with the worst of culture   
   in our lives.   
      
   Then, even as we have created all this new software,   
   the firmware persists and creates real problems. Drives   
   for sex, drives for aggression, drives for fear of   
   outsiders, drives for accumulation of material goods   
   and food sometimes clash with other drives such as   
   cooperation and compassion. The underlying anxiety   
   in our firmware is multiplied. What used to protect   
   us and drive us makes us miserable.   
      
   YET, I assert that as complex and difficult as this   
   this problem is, it is indeed part of the normal   
   course of things and given the span of time, everything   
   we have achieved in the last 100,000 years and all   
   the difficulties we have had are a mere teaspoon in   
   the river of time. Things will keep changing. We   
   cannot know where it leads.   
      
   --   
   **The AnsaMan**   
      
   In a recent self-evaluation:   
   "One of the greatest minds   
   produced since the invention   
   of the electric nose picker!"   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)