The only things which we can be wrong about are based on assumptions (unless you have free will and wilfully make a wrong choice).
If you experience something, then you are experiencing it (there is nothing “wrong” with that experience, it’s YOU who do not see what that experience “is”)
“what” it is is a matter of interpretation.
In the same way as when I think therefore I am, without even knowing “what” I am, I experience “something” without even knowing “what” that something is.
Right, well if we can figure out hints and clues which are true about “what” we are, how do we do it? (because that’s obviously something we are capable of doing)
We analyse the function and how we interpret that function, how we perceive that function, how it works.
We analyse what we do.
So to figure out what we are, we figure out what we do. We don’t and can’t know exactly what we are…
So, in order to get hints and clues as to what an experience is, it should follow that we should analyse what that experience does.
Rather than trying to “see” something we can’t see (in the same way as we can’t see what we are, in the same way as we can’t see what shadows on a wall are).
We look at what they “do”, how they move, how they evolve.
Looking at shadows on a wall in this way gives us clues about the content behind the form.
So when I experience love, it’s not what love “is” that we should be looking at, it’s what love “does”, how and why.
So when I experience hate, same thing.
So when I experience anger, same thing.
So when I experience compassion, also.
So when I experience sadness, too.
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If you believe something which you don’t know, how does that work?
If you assume something which you can’t be sure about, how does that work? Why do you do it? How does that “process” function?
If you place your trust in something which you can not even be sure about, why do you do it ?
I imagine it’s either :
a) because you don’t have a choice
b) because there is a purpose in doing so
(maybe “good” and “evil” could be an attribute of this purpose ? ie what “kind” of purpose it is?)
IF
There is purpose in everything we do, whether we see it or not. That’s how “we” work.
And this is true (which we know is true from experience) :
That you or anyone may not see the purpose in what someone is doing doesn’t mean there isn’t any.
The question is, why?
What is the purpose of having a purpose in the first place?
I can think of two things.
1. Survival
2. Protection
There are probably others, depending on how you look at it, for example, there could be “good” purpose or “evil” purpose and so on. But if evil is what has blame and good is what does not, I can’t see how survival or protection could contain blame unless it is survival of something evil in the first place or protection of something evil in the first place, but that’s a totally different “tangent”.
Where the purpose of protection is to survive and the purpose of survival is to exist.
Could there be a purpose even in errors and mistakes? Because we obviously make errors and mistakes.
It doesn’t make sense that there would be no purpose, coming from what we are, to “making mistakes and errors”.
So, imagining a conversation between someone asking questions and someone replying to those questions (chill, it’s not schizophrenic, anyone can take two points of view can’t they? Often people play chess alone, against themselves, and if you don’t like that, think of it as a science fiction story in which Q is one very curious person and A is another very confident one, so it’s fiction) :
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Q. What happens when we make errors and mistakes?
A. We learn.
Q. Why?
A. You tell me!
Q. What happens when we make errors and mistakes from which we learn nothing?
A. We suffer. Isn’t that true?
Q. Maybe but why would that be true / right ?
Q. What happens when we suffer, provided we pull through?
A. We grow stronger.
Q. What happens when we suffer, but don’t pull through?
A. We are broken. We break down and if it’s too much, we die.
Q. What about if we choose to suffer?
A. Same thing, for example, going through training.
Let’s not say this any of this is true, but let’s simply imagine that it is true, because it could be true :
It would seem that making mistakes has a purpose, but has a different purpose which depends on whether we pull through or not.
In case one (we pull through) we grow stronger.
In case two (we don’t) we die.
Q. Where case two opposes the purpose of surviving doesn’t it?
A. Some would say that could be called “evolution”.
Q. So in order to survive, we “must” pull through, whether we suffer or not. Is that a fatality? Is that mandatory? Must we suffer whether we choose to or not in order to survive?
A. No.
Q. Why not? How would the reply “no” to that question work?
A. I would suggest : Because of that choice.
See, if we had no choice, we would be “bound” to suffer whether we like it or not. Because we do have a choice, there may be ways to avoid it.
Q. You mean we could train without suffering from the training?
A. I don’t know, but that’s what this may imply if it were true.
Q. Also, do you mean we could avoid suffering and survive?
A. Same answer, I don’t know, but that’s what this may imply if it were true.
Q. How could that work?
A. How about : Self sacrifice?
Q. Which sounds very much like something described in the Bible.
A. I know, let’s ignore religion and faith all together.
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Q. Why would self sacrifice break this cycle?
A. Because
1. It’s contrary to the laws of evolution
2. It can be done with the chosen purpose of furthering the survival of something which is (a) more than what you are or (b) even something which is not what you are. Which would then introduce a new “variable” into whether anyone who doesn’t have a choice suffers or not, something which you could change.
Examples for number two :
(a) your family, your country, your species, your world.
(b) a matter of principle, something you believe in, your abstract vision of the future, your moral values or ethics
Q. IF that’s true, would that require “absolute” self sacrifice?
A. I don’t think so.
Q. Why not?
A. Because doing so has consequences on other people.
Q. What? How does that work?
A. I think this is how, for this to work, you can’t do it alone (or could you?). It would make no sense to self sacrifice yourself in order to change yourself would it? Actually it would, for example, in the case of training, but then how would you self sacrifice in order to grow stronger without suffering? It wouldn’t really be training would it?
So, let’s assume it can’t be done alone and requires other people, that’s simple enough. You “intervene” in a helpful way in a situation where someone is suffering but there’s nothing he or she can do about it.
In short : “support”
Doing something “not for you” also inspires people. They often realise that when you support them, once they get out of their troublesome situation, it’s thanks to you. They might also realise that doing the same thing back at you would then allow you to do this again next time they are in trouble.
That’s when “good” and “bad” enter the picture, because in a world where many people do things for others, those who don’t, even though they are simply acting according to evolutionary rules and therefore have no blame for doing so, are seen as bad. Whether we could consider them evil or not is part of another tangent. (I think).
“good and bad” enters the picture as soon as we decide to change something of our own will, whether evolution dictates something or not. If what we choose to change helps and relieves pain or suffering, it’s good, if it increases it, it’s bad.
The “trick” is doing “good” without doing “bad”; by for example, doing something which requires self sacrifice (even if a small one that doesn’t cost you much) but without “blaming” people who don’t. They have a right to be selfish.
Or, without asking or even accepting anything in return which would “cost” the person you helped. (do more harm than good).
On the other hand, if people start getting blamed and judged by others, this creates conflict and potentially instinctive (blameless) reactions that are linked to “survival”.
And this is what I would conclude :
You can’t force people to not be selfish, and if you try, even by looking at them as if they were “bad”, you are digging your own grave without knowing it by creating a conflict which does not even need to exist and could be dangerous for your own survival and/or contradictory to what your intentions are in the first place.
This is why it should be mandatory, if not ethically, at least in your own evolutionary interests, once you have the capacity to choose, to try to do good without trying to do anything else, according to your own “will”. Without blaming anyone else for what they are.
Problem and question :
Even (let’s just imagine) if this is true, it contradicts the beginning of the post because if it were mandatory to make errors and mistakes in order to further the interests of your primary evolutionary purpose, then why would you even try avoiding them (since it would be in your interest to “learn”)?
Unless (again) in the case of self sacrifice. You could actually conceptualise a will-full choice to make errors in order to learn from them even if that meant putting your own personal survival at risk, as long as whatever experience was gained (by learning) from them could also serve another purpose than your own personal survival.
If only because someone else could learn from it.
Sort of like the mad scientist who makes experiments on himself and takes the risk of blowing himself up.
But then that line of thinking hits back to the “is self sacrifice necessary” in the first place?
The answer of which, to me, is obvious :
1. Not if we help each other out and “share” that burden of experience and learning.
2. Yes if no one else is going or willing to do it (and if it must be done).
Suggestion for further thinking and discussions :
free will : at which point (if it exists) does it “enter”?
When do we start to have free will and when does our will actually become free? (if ever)
I would think it’s when our purpose becomes our own; ie rather than the purpose that is intrinsic to what we are being the guiding line of our decisions making process, the purpose of what we intend becomes that guiding line, which may very well contradict the initial intrinsic one (for example, with self sacrifice).
Basically, when “we” take control of what we do and what the purpose of what we do is, and what that serves.
When I become the captain of my own soul, what I do is “my” business, ie when what our intrinsic purpose becomes irrelevant (and not necessarily in opposition to) what we consciously choose.
Because those choices, now, at this level in our evolution, don’t necessarily have an impact on our survival anymore, in a lot of cases, we’re not fighting to survive anymore, that’s a myth.
We’re fighting to avoid destroying ourselves (which would not be possible unless we had free will to begin with).
So where does the evil come into play? Can it possibly be intrinsic to our purpose as well?
That may be for another discussion, though, if we look at what “evil” “does” rather than what it “is”, this may help.
Here’s a few tips :
it causes pain
it causes suffering
it causes death
it causes destruction
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Bonus (this is not true, it’s not “objective reality”, just imagine it as a story in a book :
what do you do to someone who you love but who you think is destroying himself ?
You try to stop him.
Why?
Because you love him.
At all costs?
AT ALL COSTS????
Even against his own will?
Even if you kill him?
Does that not sound contradictory?
Now turn that around :
What does someone do to people he loves but are destroying themselves?
He tries to stop them.
At all costs?
Including against their own will?
No.
Including against his own will?
No.
Think about it.
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