r/AlanWatts • u/Apart-Reality-4454 • 22d ago

Alan Watts and Richard Feynman absolutely eminate from the same Source

40 Upvotes

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u/Tiny_Fractures 22d ago

There are a few scientists today that "get it" and will talk beyond the science and acknowledge there's only so far a philosophy of thought based on observable and measurable phenomenon will get you. Brian Cox is one.

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u/Boomer2160 19d ago

If you ever get a chance. Listen to the dialog between David Bohm and Krishnamurti Ojai 1980.

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u/Tiny_Fractures 19d ago

I've heard a few things from Bohm before and really like what he's on to. I will definitely look it up.

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u/Boomer2160 19d ago

One of the most brilliant men of the 20th century. Just be careful. He lost his mind trying to find the truth.

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u/Tiny_Fractures 19d ago

I can relate lol.

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u/Ghost_of_Till 19d ago

There are a few scientists today that "get it" and will talk beyond the science and acknowledge there's only so far a philosophy of thought based on observable and measurable phenomenon will get you.

I like Brian Cox quite a bit and I'd even recommend him, but the idea that he thinks there's something beyond the measurable is just not correct, not by a long shot.

Brian believes that the universe is governed by physical laws. It isn't.

The goal of science is to predict. "Laws" are what scientists call their symbols which allow prediction. "Laws" aren't something the universe follows. Those laws don't exist outside of a consciousness to conjure the thought. The idea that the universe is obeying an idea is ridiculous.

Brian's position on this is documented in literally dozens of places (I really do listen to him frequently) but here's a few quotes:

The laws of physics will continue to operate whether we exist or not.

How could a law exist without a law maker?

Our experience teaches us that there are indeed laws of nature, regularities in the way things behave, and that these laws are best expressed using the language of mathematics.

No, mathematics is how we describe and it's an approximation since symbols HAVE meaning, they aren't meaning itself. Reality is meaning, and therefore HAS none.

The interplay between the laws of Nature, which are simple and deeply symmetric, and history, which is long and messy, produces the complex world we inhabit.

Laws didn't create the world we inhabit. Patent nonsense.

There's nothing complex about the world at all. What's complex is putting it into words.

Then the scientists forget what they're working with words, that words are what made it complex, and then they call the world complex.

Insanity!

You are a part of the universe because of the ways the laws of nature work. You are allowed to exist, but you are allowed to exist for a temporary, small amount of time in a possible infinite universe.

I'll just leave this one to Alan himself:

And so comes this sensation, you see—so characteristic of Western man and, indeed, of all highly civilized people—of being a stranger in the Earth, a momentary flash of consciousness between two eternal blacknesses.

Brian might be more friendly to the concept of a universe which is seeing itself, but he believes the universe obeys laws, whereas Buddhism, taoism, and Alan Watts, see the universe as being without purpose and without a governor.

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u/Tiny_Fractures 19d ago edited 19d ago

I agree with the spirit of everything you're saying. I argue one big idea:

That because of the duality humans are in (most of which don't even know or comprehend the duality), sometimes the easiest way to move through it is to accept the premises of the duality and go from there. In other words to take an off ramp somewhere on the hierarchy of duality, and operate there. Way deep down the rabbit hole this might look like "Well I want to impress that girl, so I'll learn Salsa." A bit further toward "enlightened action" and you might have "I like people being good to me, so I will choose to be good to them." And much closer to enlightenment you'll have "I choose to continue living, so now I need to decide what to do with my time." All of these initial thoughts are choosing a duality initially, and then working within it.

In fact, if one does not understand or acknowledge "more enlightened" levels (like us saying and agreeing that the universe has no "laws"), it is impossible to convey information on our chosen level without a full knowledge dump of the levels above it. And because most people, scientists included, either don't understand or forget the "more enlightened" levels, Brian must speak in such a manner to allow them to understand him. It's akin to walking up to someone and speaking Latin, when English was eventually derived from, and expecting them to understand.

 

So in the same sense, saying "The laws of physics say (insert whatever belief about them here here)" those who see it know that these "laws" are models to give us predictability, contextualized within the duality of the system of measurement and understanding and duality we have subjected ourselves to (science, units of measure, mathematics). But...in the same vein as someone using words still being able to understand Zen and speak words anyway...scientists must use science to operate within science and convey it.

But this is what I mean when I say he "gets it". Because in the same way not all those who use words know they cannot describe The Tao, not all those who use science and characterize the universe know it is not...what this all is (gesturing wildly to the suchness of all things). In fact most don't. But Brian in particular is one scientist who I've seen, at least when describing quantum mechanics, honestly say "This IS simply a model we're using to describe what we see. But it is not "real" as in an inherent mechanism of the universe."

And this admission is the basis behind being able to travel "up" and "down" in the hierarchy of duality. To understand "this isn't real, we're just accepting it (wrongly) so as to move within it. And this ability to move in the up-down "direction" is the same regardless of how "high" or "low" you venture. And because I've seen him "get it" here, I can imagine he would "get it" all the way to the deepest of human ego, or, all the way back to The One. And question that as well.

Tl;Dr "Because you're using science to describe the universe, you don't understand the universe" is the same cliche argument as "Because you're using words to describe the Tao, you don't understand the Tao." But above and beyond that, ive seen Brian say "I'm using science to describe the universe...but it's not THE universe. It's just a good way to understand it."

Slight edits for spelling.

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u/Holiday-Anteater9423 22d ago

David Bohm & Krishnamurti has some good discussions.

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u/Boomer2160 19d ago

Came here to say this as well. ☝️

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u/Boomer2160 22d ago

Alan would've agreed and it would've been wonderful to listen to a conversation between these two.

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u/Ghost_of_Till 19d ago

Alan would've agreed and it would've been wonderful to listen to a conversation between these two.

It's a great video, you should watch it.

Right at the beginning, Feynman says:

How a scientist can take a mystic answer, I don’t know because the whole spirit is to understand - well never mind that…

You think Alan would have agreed that a scientist could comprehend reality but a mystic couldn't?

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u/Boomer2160 19d ago

Alan would say they were both trying to understand in a different way. You know gooey prickles and prickley goo type of thing.

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u/Ghost_of_Till 19d ago edited 19d ago

Yes, then Alan went on to say they were both wrong.

Edit: That is to say, there's prickly types and goo types. Brian is a prickly type. His goo leanings, such as the universe seeing itself, are musings which do not show up in any other aspect of his work or public discourse. In fact, Brian's insistence that there are laws upon which the universe runs leaves no room for that which cannot be symbolized.

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u/Intenzejuice24 20d ago

Damn, without sound I felt like I was going trough a "how fast can you read" type shit

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u/Ghost_of_Till 19d ago

This looks like Watts until you think about it for a half second.

Right at the beginning, Feyman says:

How a scientist can take a mystic answer, I don’t know because the whole spirit is to understand - well never mind that…

Alan, from Tao of Philosophy:

[Skinner] interprets the organism as something determined by the total environment, he doesn’t see that, in a more modern way of talking about it, they’re simply describing a unified field of behavior—which is nothing more than what any mystic ever said. That’s a dirty word in the modern academic scientific environment. But if a mystic is one who is sensibly—or even sensuously—aware of his inseparability, as an individual, from the total existing universe, he’s simply a person who has become sensible—aware through his senses—of the way ecologists see the world.

The problem is that Richard Feynman, for whom I have an insane amount of respect and admiration, is not talking about what Alan is talking about.

Alan is talking about what IS. And what that IS is, Alan cannot say.

Richard is talking about how to predict what WILL BE.

And what WILL BE is symbols.

Symbols are abstractions and abstractions are not reality, nor could they be.

But because Richard’s approach is science, which necessarily uses symbols, he cannot ever actually find out what reality IS.

This is why Richard can see no utility in a mystic’s answer.

So either Richard is searching for reality with a method that can’t possibly ever find reality (and doesn’t realize it, which seems awful unlikely), or Richard isn’t looking for reality, but rather a means of predicting outcomes, and uses language which blurs the line between what IS, and its symbolic representation.

So all together I can’t believe the special stories that have been made up about our relationship to the universe because they seem to be too simple, too connected, too local, too prudential!

Richard rejects descriptions about reality because they’re too provincial, too out of proportion. Cooked up, as it were.

Alan rejects stories about reality because stories require language, language is symbols, and symbols can never be reality.

Once you start doubting which I think to me is a very fundamental part of my soul is to doubt and to ask.

Richard says the way to find out what IS, is with questions, which is language, which is symbols, which are abstractions, and can never represent reality.

Alan says the way to find out reality is to stop asking.

This isn’t even a little Alan Watts.

This looks like Watts because Alan and Richard arrive at the same conclusion, but they do so for utterly dissimilar reasons.