Molecular moral forces
What I've been thinking about, January 11th
Quote
"I am against bigness and greatness in all their forms, and with the invisible molecular moral forces that work from individual to individual, stealing in through the crannies of the world like so many soft rootlets, or like the capillary oozing of water, and yet rending the hardest monuments of man's pride, if you give them time. The bigger the unit you deal with, the hollower, the more brutal, the more mendacious is the life displayed. So I am against all big organizations as such, national ones first and foremost; against all big successes and big results; and in favor of the eternal forces of truth which always work in the individual and immediately unsuccessful way, under-dogs always, till history comes, after they are long dead, and puts them on the top."
- William James
People who know me know this is one of my favorite quotes.1 The most important things are communicated heart to heart. I don’t think awakening scales. I love how this pushes against the current utilitarian/EA (and Silicon Valley more broadly) craze to focus on impact. Maybe the most important thing you’ll do in your life is something nice for a stranger. The consequences of our actions ripple out into the sea of beings; we don’t know what effect they will have.
Links
A pragmatic user’s guide to uh, chi - One thing I do know, energy flows where attention goes.
Another good perspective on energy practices. Also, Dr. James Bae practicing Tummo.
Amod Lele’s essay on the Confucian obligations of a manager. Though Amod has many fantastic essays, I’m linking to this one in keeping with the William James quote. Amod: “Providing a good standard of living to starving people on the other side of the world is supererogatory; providing it to your employees is not.”
Today’s Slice of Emptiness (How do you slice an unbounded wholeness?!)
Comes from Sasha Chapin’s2 latest Alembic post. Specifically, he writes: “Sense data flows in, stories about the sense data flow in—which are also the sense data—and none of it belongs to me, none of it was chosen.” I want to tie this to the recent debates over free will.3. There seems to be a near universal assumption that thoughts are “our own”. The pro-free will people claim that actions that arise from our thoughts intensions etc have some sense of casual independence from the rest of the world, and the anti-free will people claim they don’t4. But my question, echoed by Chapin, is this — in what sense are our thoughts, intentions, desires etc “our own”? When I look into my direct experience, mental content just whooshes in from somewhere5 and while sometimes it feels like it’s control it’s definitely not all the time (ever had any intrusive thoughts?). It seems like I don’t have any direct control over anything — everything in my mental menagerie seems given. If I look for a self choosing, there’s this asymptotic aspect - maybe all the thoughts, desires, reasons etc are given when making a choice, but there’s still the “me” that decides given all that information. But when I look even closer, the deciding rests on top of a feeling that is itself given. The scope for an agent seems smaller and smaller until (perhaps) there’s nothing left. So the idea of a free agent choosing seems like nothing more than a story, an empty construction of mind6.
Nothing but bangers!
You should be reading his substack. I will do my best not to just link to every Sasha Chapin post, but know that it’s going to be a struggle.
There are have been a number of recent scientific perspectives on this question, including Robert Sapolsky’s new book arguing we don’t have free will, and both Kevin Mitchell’s and Erik’s Hoel’s books arguing that we do. Of these I’ve only read Erik’s book (it’s great), but I’ve followed the debates between Mitchell and Sapolsky. If the point I’m making is addressed in either, I haven’t seen it.
I know this is an oversimplification; don’t think it matters.
Pointing out hint: look into the source
It’s strange to me that I can’t find any contemporary analytic philosopher making this phenomenological argument. Maybe I’m missing something. Hume on the self maybe comes the closest, but not quite. This is where maybe there’s an opportunity for fruitful interchange between Western and Eastern philosophy.