Buddhists claim that they can put brains in a global maximum of happiness, called enlightenment. Assuming that EA aims to maximize happiness plain and simple, this claim should be taken seriously.
This sounds like a Pascal’s Wager argument. Christians, after all, claim they can put you in a global maximum of happiness, called heaven. What percentage of our time is appropriate to spend considering this?
I’m not saying meditation is bunk. I’m saying there has to be some other reason why we take claims about it seriously, and the official religious dogma of Buddhists is not particularly trustworthy. We should base interest in meditation on our model of users who make self-reports, at the very least—and these other reasons for interest in meditation do not support characterizations like “global maximum of happiness.”
I don’t think “if you do this you’ll be super happy (while still alive)” is comparable to “if you do this you’ll be super happy (after you die)”. The former is testable, and I have close friends who have already fully verified it for themselves. I’ve also noticed in myself a superlinear relation between meditation time and likelihood to be in a state of bliss, and I have no reason to think this relation won’t hold when I meditate even more.
The buddha also urged people to go and verify his claims themselves. It seems that the mystic (good) part of buddhism is much more prominent than the organised religion (bad) part, compared to christianity.
It seems contradictory to preach enlightenment since you could be working towards enlightenment instead of preaching. Evangelical Christians don’t have that issue.
Pascal was right, Christianity is the rational choice, even compared to all other religions.
This sounds like a Pascal’s Wager argument. Christians, after all, claim they can put you in a global maximum of happiness, called heaven. What percentage of our time is appropriate to spend considering this?
I’m not saying meditation is bunk. I’m saying there has to be some other reason why we take claims about it seriously, and the official religious dogma of Buddhists is not particularly trustworthy. We should base interest in meditation on our model of users who make self-reports, at the very least—and these other reasons for interest in meditation do not support characterizations like “global maximum of happiness.”
I don’t think “if you do this you’ll be super happy (while still alive)” is comparable to “if you do this you’ll be super happy (after you die)”. The former is testable, and I have close friends who have already fully verified it for themselves. I’ve also noticed in myself a superlinear relation between meditation time and likelihood to be in a state of bliss, and I have no reason to think this relation won’t hold when I meditate even more.
The buddha also urged people to go and verify his claims themselves. It seems that the mystic (good) part of buddhism is much more prominent than the organised religion (bad) part, compared to christianity.
It seems contradictory to preach enlightenment since you could be working towards enlightenment instead of preaching. Evangelical Christians don’t have that issue.
Pascal was right, Christianity is the rational choice, even compared to all other religions.