Buddhist zombism?

 

Misunderstood, the Buddhist tenet of no ātman or in Pali anattā might be wrongly taken to be a kind of philosophical zombism in which human beings, although seen to act and behave in a world of their making, do so without any need of an ātman (animative principle), mind or consciousness.  If this is the case, human beings are merely the activity of 100 billion neurons, called a brain, which is situated inside of a skull all of which conspire together to produce the activity of the human automaton—our zombie (or if you like something akin to the walking dead in the movies).

In philosophical zombism there is no such thing as the first-person perspective or a first-person science of introspection (contemplation of ātman or contemplation of an essential, primary nature, kensho).  The brain of the zombie human does not entail or suggest anything transcendent—it is self-contained and self-limiting.  It is neurons all the way down.  Whatever emerges, if that is possible, might be more like a boil or a pimple.  Even if consciousness or a soul supervened, it would be nothing more than a brain fart that could not outlast the brain being dependent upon it.

I think many Buddhist have taken the zombism bait because Western culture is marching in that direction, led by academia who is marshaling its forces for the last battle in which the evil forces of materialism hope to prevail.  They carry the banner of thanatism this being the belief in the complete annihilation of ātman, consciousness or a mind.  Nothing in the process we understand as death survives because a material universe has no place for an ātman or consciousness even though, according to the Buddha, it is consciousness, laden with karmic impressions, which transmigrates from one life to the next.  Yes, we are a race of zombies, and science has made us such—not because science is evil but evil people use science for evil ends, hence, the coming of the zombies!

But I dare say, the bad guys have lost their power to make zombies.  Cognitive science met Quantum Mechanics, in the example of Donald Hoffman, Professor, Department of Cognitive Sciences University of California at Irvine.  His astonishing theory has turned cognitive science on its head.  Consciousness is not a product of a brain; rather the brain and the world we think out there is real and permanent is a product of conscious agents.  And oddly, Quantum Mechanics proves this to be the necessary fact—as Max Planck once said, "We cannot get behind consciousness."  Such an approach as Hoffman is taking makes possible, indeed—makes probable—a science of the noumenal.

 

Comments

[Ian]

http://anaditeaching.com/gurdjieff-evolution-of-me-in-the-absence-of-surrender/

[n. yeti]

Lamentable, indeed, that the spiritual basis for Zen has all but been chased out of mainstream (book selling) Buddhism, which either denies or is unaware that zen buddhism is unquestionably mystical in both origin and tradition -- so much that it is nigh impossible to read the great sutras of Mahayana without this basic understanding and derive any more than worldly understanding, but deep spiritual bewilderment, so great is our human grip on the world of desire.