At 12:15 PM 10/3/98 -0500, Natasha Vita More wrote:
>I don't think that conventional Buddhism ties in so neatly to extropianism,
>mainly because of reincarnation and the acceptance of suffering and that
>it can only be eliminated by a spiritual overcoming. Accepting suffering
>is accepting death. Overcoming suffering through spirituality is a fairy
>tale reality and pseudoscience.
IAN: Overcoming suffering is not pseudoscience, there are all kinds of scientifically validated medications that people take that reduce experiences of suffering.
Buddhist/yogic technologies can be effective too, and those technologies are yoga and meditation, which are proven to effect positive mental/physical states that overcome "suffering." We might also add analysis, for a big part of Buddhist-enlightenment technique is the analysis of the nature of mind and an understanding of the connections between good and bad emotions.
Buddha's position was that there is no reincarnation, although you will not get that from reading much of the literature of Buddhsim I'd also have to crack some books I've not read in years to be able to debate that issue, but it is consistent with the philosophy of the void-nature of mind.
>Zen Buddhism gets a little closer in its systematic thought that
>enlightenment can be attained through meditation, self-contemplation,
>and intuition rather than through faith and devotion. A bit more
>rational, but not quite there.
IAN: Fuzzy logic and holistic-identity structure confirm as logical the deepest Buddhist teachings. Despite the claims of many in this forum against holistic identity, none have been able to find an example of an identity that is what it is free from holistic relations to what it isn't.
The last argument against holistic identity as expressed via Zero mechanics, raised here was that 0 is not more than -1, and thus 0 - (-1) would not equal 1, but it does! It's only too clear that the cases raised against the zerosum holism implicit in Buddhist philosophy have had to step outside both the empirical and logical bounds as defined by our Western scientific standards.