Why Bother?

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Of the 6-odd billion conscious entities we know about, only a few care to worry about the questions Ralf mentioned. Would you walk up to someone and ask "excuse me sir, do you exist as a discrete entity?" For those few of us who do ponder such questions, why? Apart from the self-aggrandisement that comes from sounding edumacated, do such questions have any practical significance? Or are they just an exercise in intellectual masturbation?

Comments

  1. Ralf SchroederFebruary 25, 2009 at 11:49 AM

    Thoughts to the big question "why does it matter" really arise from 2 different sources for me.

    First, I think there is a fundamental hunch, some primordial Knowing, that we are in fact more than just the sum of our atoms and/or our thoughts. We can't put it in words, but there is an second layer to the whole experience that we call existence. While some people might not have a very strong sense of it, others do. So we can flatter ourselves and tag this as an evolution of Consciousness. Ken Wilber describes a path of evolution from matter-mind-body-soul-spirit which we inevitably follow. Every stage of Consciousness includes and transcends the prior. That is his whole "Holon" concept along 4 quadrants. I think his theory is a good mind representation of this hunch, but ultimately it only matters if you personally can sense this or not. This to me is the continual root cause for spiritual explorations.

    Beyond this hunch, there is clear evidence that our lives are finite. We die, period. And soon, too. So where do we go? Where did "I" come from? That's an annoying set of questions, which we can suppress temporarily, but never fully answer and unfortunately not really ignore. If hedonistic activities don't help you smooth this over, you have to dig. Maybe this mind-based digging is a luxury you can only afford higher up in Maslow's pyramid (75% of the 6 billions conscious entities basically struggle with survival in one form or another), but it's there.

    The second big source for these explorations is pain and fear. I would term this as suffering. Egos perceive "life" as a threat. The universe is totally unpredictable and unstable. Everything you perceive of as "I" is impermanent. This sucks. Where to turn? In my mind this is really where religions spring from. The harder life sucks, the more folks look for rhyme or reason and an out to it all. The Buddha states there is Suffering. And an end to it. Hey, sounds intriguing, so let's explore...
    There are more subtle forms of pain and fear, and various ways to cope with them. Spirituality is a viable response, better than drugs or NFL. Maybe.

    So, does it matter? Is there practical significance? I'd say that this is highly personal. Once you peeled back the onion a bit and found some resonance inside you, it is hard to ignore and dismiss the whole path. At least that's what I found happening for me to some extent. I wasn't preconditioned into any particular tradition, I just had stronger and stronger question arise in me and don't think I have much of a choice than to see where they take me.

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