The need for mythologi and the dangerous side of it


Will all fall apart if we don't have anything to believe in?

The importance of the  old gods in Greek and Rome faded away.

And instead came Christianity.

Now, in the west, the belief in God and the truth of the Bible is fading away too...

This painting of Goya is said to illustrate this;



The dog is looking for his master in a cold and empty world, but he (God) is nowhere to be found.

What myths do we have insteadS Maybe the one of liberal democracy .
It may be a good one, even if its now threatened by old fashioned ideas. In Brunei, for instance, sharia-laws are introduced, as stoning for homosexuality and adultery.

In other part of the world nationalism is growing.

Yuval Harari points out that liberal democracy has a hidden weakness, the belief in free will.
We have never had much free will, but in the future it may be totally gone. We will be in danger of being hacked by the algorithms in AI. Governments or companies can send so much false news , that we start to believe in them.
We can be hacked by our smartphone and AI might know us more than we know ourselves.

Harari gets to very long retreats to meditate.
He means that as we come aware of our thoughts and feelings, we may see thats it is not "ours". They are produced by our genes, our childhood and of course by advertisement and  of course by what we read and listen too.
We will not be free of the, but we will neither be trapped by them.

Here is another beautiful painting, this from 19-century in India. *





It may be interpreted in many ways.
And it can be read from the left or from the right, as Indian mythology is cyclical.

The "empty" painting to our left may illustrate the void before creation, it may also be the empty mind of a meditator. The meditator can be seen in the middle. And to the right is the meditator interacting with the world.
He is a bit wiser and more humble after  deep meditation and knows that there are no independent self and that total free will therefore is impossible. Therefore he might be not so sure who he is and may not speak so much but act carefully not to hurt his fellow beings.

Internet, news and films are full och controverses and violence.  If we fill our minds with it it may control us.
But the mediator knows what to avoid.

We may need a mythology after the "death" of God. But let us not look at ourselves as small gods. We  need to see ourselves, our feelings, thoughts and the material we produce. They may create pollution or they may create stillness and diversity.






If we compare the Indian painting  to the empty void in Goya's painting, we see that emptiness can be shown in very different ways; as a frightening feeling of loss of God an meaning or as place for coming creation.
It is said that in the light of quantum theory big bang can have started from "nothing" to all that is now.... What a thought!



* The painting is called "Three aspects of the absolute" and is made by an  Jodphur court artist.
He is said to be named Bulaki and belonged to the Hathi sect, which performs hatha yoga.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cora Diamond on eating animals - with the help of Wittgenstein´s ideas

Image
Cora Diamond is a new name for me, even if she has worked as a professor in Philosophy in the states for a long time and is still  teaching at the university of Virginia, even she is over 80 years old. She has written a lot about Wittgenstein and that has helped her to express her view of the topic. Although she, like Wittgenstein,  has lived in a hut in Norway - and actually brought Tractatus with hes - she seems to be different and for sure more glad than W. Anyways, its W: s writings that interests her and especially his critics of metaphysics and ethics in philosophy. As it is said in Tractacus  : " Whereof one  cannot speak , thereof one must be silent." And of ethics philosophy should not speak - why? Is it like in Buddhism - its better to sit in silence and let know yourself, than to speculate about what will happen when we die? But for sure there ethical guidelines in Buddhism,  but the behaviors is often named skilful, not good (or bad). Another
Read more

I think, therefore I am NOT

Image
So Descartes was wrong. He said that he could doubt everything about himself except that he was thinking. That proved that he existed. The word "I" is the central point here. What does it mean? Perhaps we are sure that we know the answer. Is it the thoughts? In that case - where are you when you aren't thinking? Is it your job, your title? In that case - what happens if you loose your job or change job? Is it your house, your nation? Under my course to be a mindfulness instructor, the teacher, Ola Schenström, made us ask to each other; "Who are you?" After each answer the question was repeated by the questioner.We soon discovered that there were no end to the answers - or maybe an adequate end could be; "I don't know."Or maybe; "It seems I have no essence." Other thinkers have come to the same conclusions; Buddha, Sartre and more recently Damasio and Parfit. Sartre, for instance, has said that we are the sum of our actions. We ha
Read more

Wittgenstein and Buddha -buddies?

Image
Ludwig Wittgenstein, the famous philosopher, reflected in the posthumously published  book "Philosophical Investigations" about the picture above; Is it a hare or duck?  He meant that we make, or must make, a statement what it is. And I suppose he meant that we often or always has to interpret the world around us. But two different interpretations can both be right! Language and thoughts controls what we see.....   You can compare with the picture of a glass. Half empty or half empty?  Who decides? Yes, it's you... And whatever you say is right.  But you can be aware of what you think. That can say more of yourself than of the glass....  You can be aware of that you always do interpretations of things that happens.  If you have a pessimistic or a naive point of view, you can be aware of the view and your statements.  Buddha and Wittgenstein were both aware of that different persons uses different perspectives.  But Buddha spoke about the "right 
Read more