Is Materialism depressing?

betaboy

By materialism, I don't mean worldliness. I mean 'understanding things using empirical evidence, in terms of history and actual physical evidence.' For instance, demystifying subtle and abstract concepts to very simple, sensible ones - example, love can be explained as a chemical reaction rather than as romance or some fairy tale notion, marriage explained in terms of security (and fulfilling sexual/other needs) rather than as some sacred bond.

In short, everything that is mystical and amazing (love, beauty, god, religion, creativity, etc.) explained in terms of simple, physical concepts. Do you find this depressing? Is this why people resort to religion - because it keeps the mystery alive?

Sabre

And then comes the Buddha basically saying: Finding it depressing is just a state of mind.

vinlyn

Once again, why do you find everything so depressing? Why do you dwell on it? Sometimes I think you think too much! Give it a rest. Go out and do something fun or interesting or uplifting.

matthewmartin

re: metaphics & buddhism
I'm pretty much a materialist. I'm kind of skeptical about the centrality of metaphysics in the sense of "what is everything made of? It is one thing? (monism) Is it two? (dualism?)" to Buddhist practice. I think the metaphysical observations are made in respect to ourselves (we are soul-less, continually changing, lack some undivisible thing we can point and say that is me!) and I think that has implications for personal choices and dealing with people. Outside of that, I could care less about the answers to metaphysical questions, even ones that appear to be supperficially answerable with annata, sunyata, emptiness. I don't care if rocks are empty.

I think monism applied to abstractions leads to antinomialism (i.e. good and evil is a dualism and they are the same, so lets be mindful mass murders! there's no difference between murderers and non-murderers, etc)

Materialism has some magical parts too-- we all seem to use the word magic to mean things we personally can't understand, which for me covers air planes-- I do think a materialist methodolgy would explain it to me with enough effort though, something that won't work for, say verifying the efficacy of Pure Land practicies (fine, but not at all a materialist practice). Any sufficiently complex technology is magic. (Someone said this of sci-fi at one point) So materialism doesn't seem less magical than magic.

genkaku

Materialism is the belief that things have an enduring separate existence ... chair, table, dog, like that. Empirically, this is true. But it is true in the same sense that the "heads" of a penny is true ... it leaves out the "tails."

In Zen, there is a summation called "the four propositions." The summation is not some book-learning philosophical outline. Rather, it is a list against which to check off an actualized or realized understanding.

The four propositions are:

It exists.
It does not exist.
It both exists and does not exist.
It neither exists nor does not exist.

Anyone in their right mind would be a fool to deny empiricism. Stick your finger in the candle flame if you doubt this. But relying on empiricism alone simply does not pan out. It may be true, but a little practice helps to bring clarity to what an empiricist might say is already clear.

You want to be depressed? Knock yourself out. You want to analyze and philosophize? Knock yourself out. You want to imagine you remain in control? Knock yourself out.

But practice a little. It couldn't hurt.

lobster

betaboy said:

In short, everything that is mystical and amazing (love, beauty, god, religion, creativity, etc.) explained in terms of simple, physical concepts. Do you find this depressing? Is this why people resort to religion - because it keeps the mystery alive?

I find materialism, science, pragmatism has its value and place. I do not 'resort' to art, smiling, nature and the mysterious. It too has its place. It is a question of balance between disorder and order, well being and burning the sausages. It is what it is.
What is it?

No idea.

vinlyn

Balance. yes.

sova

don't confuse the body of the flute with the music it lets play (:

BhikkhuJayasara

the red pill is the red pill, no more, no less, to be depressed or elated about it is pointless and causes dukkha, the problem is we don't see it for how it really is, or else we'd be "awake" , and dukkha would leave like a thief in the night.

footiam

betaboy said:

By materialism, I don't mean worldliness. I mean 'understanding things using empirical evidence, in terms of history and actual physical evidence.' For instance, demystifying subtle and abstract concepts to very simple, sensible ones - example, love can be explained as a chemical reaction rather than as romance or some fairy tale notion, marriage explained in terms of security (and fulfilling sexual/other needs) rather than as some sacred bond.

In short, everything that is mystical and amazing (love, beauty, god, religion, creativity, etc.) explained in terms of simple, physical concepts. Do you find this depressing? Is this why people resort to religion - because it keeps the mystery alive?

Depression is what we make it. Some people may find it a joy with the final products but others enjoy the nitty-gritty part. Either way, don't make yourself depress.

DairyLama

betaboy said:

Is this why people resort to religion - because it keeps the mystery alive?

Yes, I think it's a big factor. Materialism can be rather boring and one-dimensional.

Jason

betaboy said:

By materialism, I don't mean worldliness. I mean 'understanding things using empirical evidence, in terms of history and actual physical evidence.' For instance, demystifying subtle and abstract concepts to very simple, sensible ones - example, love can be explained as a chemical reaction rather than as romance or some fairy tale notion, marriage explained in terms of security (and fulfilling sexual/other needs) rather than as some sacred bond.

In short, everything that is mystical and amazing (love, beauty, god, religion, creativity, etc.) explained in terms of simple, physical concepts. Do you find this depressing? Is this why people resort to religion - because it keeps the mystery alive?

No, I find it fascinating. For one, not all things are easily reducible to 'simple,' non-metaphysical concepts; many of these things actually have quite complex origins, and I find it interesting seeing all the variable processes and components that go into their arising. For another, there's still a great deal of mystery in the world as new discoveries and explanations are constantly being made and formulated, giving us a great many things to debate and think about. And finally, I think it helps us to see the empirical reality of things when we look at them as they appear and work themselves out rather than idealizations of how we think they should work, which I think gives us more practical insights into phenomena, especially when it comes to making skillful changes to the material conditions that surround us. When it comes to things like medicine and political-economics, for example, I find a more 'materialistic' approach the most enlightening and appropriate for the task of understanding them. Beyond that, having a materialistic understanding of phenomena doesn't negate the emotional experiences they engender, nor make them any less meaningful.

anataman

Right - I am in a mood with this post - it is too materialistic! Materialism will lead to depression if you look at it (either depression or materialism) too much. I was in New York Last Month - It's just a great big shopping mall for FS!

I took my 3 kids to the museum 'central park and the museum of 'natural history' (and it cost me a serious amount of money - if you go to London - it doesn't cost anything and if your socks are not blown off, especially by the architecture and content of this museum then I must conclude that you have a serious problem - we watched a rather fascile movie in an oversized theatre that could accommodate over 100 people or more people and there were only 7 people in the audience watching this film that lasted 20 minutes (and we had to go through a scanner!!!! - and it conveyed nothing but the capitalistic nature of NY from its inception- I have a lot of respect for the US but cone on...

riverflow

I took a brief philosophical detour into materialism once-- but found it insufficient for purely ontological reasons. The problem with all dualistic ontological models is that they carve the world into a metaphysical hierarchy in which "spirit" or "matter" takes precedence the other. I also think this becomes an an excuse for escapism and often a fleeing from responsibility (Nietzsche rightly called THIS kind of thinking nihilistic).

Of course, usually it is the realm of "spirit" that rests as the foundation, not the other way around: essence precedes existence. This mirrors the grammatical structures of most languages (or is implicit in them): nouns apply to being, verbs apply to time (change). For the west, this is elaborated on by Plato. Not the the east is immune to such thinking too-- but this kind of "essentialist" thinking was practically codified in western philosophy (hence Whitehead's comment that all of western philosophy is a footnote to Plato).

Monism appears at first to solve this problem, but is still IMPLICITLY dualistic: "material" as opposed to what? And so there is some ultimate substance that all things can be boiled down to: Thales said it was water, Spinoza called it God. Basically monism is still dualistic but simply refuses the other party (spirit) to speak. It's not unusual for such thinking to be accompanied by scientism where every phenomena can be explained empirically. This is the dead end that western philosophy has brought us to, being a "footnote to Plato."

Materialist monism is almost a step in the right direction. But it actually doesn't go far enough. It rests on the notion of a single absolute substance. Non-duality is not the same thing as monism. Non-duality points to something that is "not-one/not-two" which grammar cannot account for. It can be "experienced," (note the quotation marks) but not examined in an objective sense (just as the notion of a separate objective observer breaks down in quantum physics). Subjects and objects do not actually "exist" substantially.

What non-duality points toward is not an ultimate substance but pure relationality, with nothing excluded: Each thing-event "exists" only by virtue of its relation with every other thing-event. Every thing-event "exists" only by virtue of their relations with each thing-event. The universe is more like a kaleidoscope in which even the smallest change re-arranges EVERY relationship. This is expressed beautifully in the Fazang's illustration of the Jewel Net of Indra using a hall of mirrors:



[LINK]

This is the Flower Garland Sutra's take on emptiness, what Thich Nhat Hanh calls "inter-being" -- nothing exists of its own accord, everything is seamlessly interconnected. It is not an absolute substance that gives rise to all things, but pure relationality, ourselves included.

So there is no metaphysical foundation for any of this to rest upon. That's why in Mahayana even emptiness is empty because it can only be seen in relation to form. They are two different metaphysical perspectives, and taken together they form a parallax in order to participate in reality without the delusion of separateness and the notion of any kind of permanent "existence."

All of this is just to say that no explanation can exhaust experience. It can only provide a perspective within a specific context. All we can do is contextualize and re-contextualize what we experience. There is no one final point of arrival, only our continuing participation in the whole without separation. That is liberation. In a sense, compassion is the recognition (to some degree or other) of that non-separateness. It depends on whether we wish to embrace that wholeness from one moment to the next or desire to flee from it via the delusion of separateness.

To ultimately define something is really to kill it. That is what scientism (not science) does. If everything exists by virtue of pure relationality (emptiness) then definitions have no ground to stand on (in any absolute sense). That includes defining oneself. The whole is far more fluid than our stiff words and grammar can account for. Rather than defining the world with the illusion of it existing "out there" (separate from "my" mind) we can engage with it, recognize our own intimate participation in it and join the dance.

Billyboy

One needs to find the balance between the physical world and the say void of nothingness. For example, although our selfhood doesn't truly exist in a permanent form, we still need to understand our sense or illusion of self (personality), as if it was a tool that helps us to communicate to others, just as words. So if we tried to suppress our personality, then many people might not identify us as friendly or warm individuals and could therefore perceive us as lofty or even cold. So for compassionate reasons, we strive to say suppress and surpass the ego, which again is impermanent, whilst remembering that just like words, we need to our personality (kindness, humour, and openness) to help people connect with us and what we stand for. So my answer would be balance, or in other words the yin and yang of existence. I hope this makes some sense

Cinorjer

Depressing? On the contrary. The more I understand about how the universe actually operates, the more wonderous I find it.

riverflow

Neil Tyson Degrasse:



[LINK]

Dust that sings:



[LINK]

Zero

betaboy said:

Do you find this depressing?
Is this why people resort to religion - because it keeps the mystery alive?

No - I think I only find depression depressing...
Not sure that religion is merely a 'resort' and nor can I know why people do the things they do...
Find your feet - don't look ahead so much when your feet are just there - take care of yourself.

Jeffrey

Material is form skhanda such as a burning candle or stove. Our experience of 'ouch' is the mental skhandas.

Oh yeah and the self is not the form skhanda or any other mental skhanda. So oxytocin is form skhanda and the experience is the mental skhandas.

Jeffrey

Oh and every depressed person has a right to be in this forum. Be as depressed as you want peeps! We love you and will not participate in a thread that is a downer supposing that we didn't want a downer.