Complex Numbers

Make Me One With Everything

Yesterday, I went to another town for a pub crawl. Being the responsible person that I am, I arranged for a hotel room so I wouldn't need to drive back home. Of course, this translated to giving myself permission to get completely cabbaged. Point is, I didn't bring my laptop and even if I had, I wasn't in any shape to do a blog entry at my usual time.

But it's probably appropriate that this link came up now, because I certainly felt the oneness of everything yesterday.

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/what-would-happen-if-everyo...

What Would Happen If Everyone Truly Believed Everything Is One?
New research suggests a belief in oneness has broad implications for psychological functioning and compassion for those are outside of our immediate circle

Right, because it's possible to get "everyone" to do any one particular thing. Still, okay, let's take this as is.

"We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness." -- Albert Einstein

Quoting Einstein is cheating.

What I mean is, most people think Einstein was the smartest guy who ever lived. He's the actual picture that pops into your head when someone says "genius." But the smartest human in the room is still human, and therefore fallible, especially when talking outside their fields of expertise. So when you hear things like "Einstein said that compound interest is the most powerful force in the universe," you might think, "Oh, Einstein was smart and he knew about the forces in the universe; therefore he must be right." Well, leaving aside for the moment the question of whether he actually said that or not, what was Einstein good at? Physics. What is compound interest not a part of? Also physics. I mean, in that case, obviously it's satire of sorts, and shouldn't be taken seriously. What I'm getting at is, just because Uncle Al said something doesn't mean it should be taken at face value, especially if there's no math involved. But quoting him lends an air of certainty to whatever argument you're making; consequently, as Abraham Lincoln said, "Quoting Einstein is cheating."

The belief that everything in the universe is part of the same fundamental whole exists throughout many cultures and philosophical, religious, spiritual, and scientific traditions, as captured by the phrase 'all that is.' The Nobel winner Erwin Schrodinger once observed that quantum physics is compatible with the notion that there is indeed a basic oneness of the universe.

I have objections to "scientific" being lumped in with all those other "traditions," especially if you're writing in goddamn Scientific American.

And again we see a kind of argument from authority. Oooh, Schrodinger said something and he won the Nobel Prize so what he said must have value.

Look, I'm not saying it doesn't - I'll get to the actual meat of things in a bit here - but already we have some serious name-dropping going on, and we're not even past the first paragraph.

Despite the prevalence of this belief, there has been a lack of a well validated measure in psychology that captures this belief.

Okay, again: me, not trained in psychology. But how many beliefs can be captured by "a well validated measure in psychology?" I mean, say you want to find out how many people believe that there is a universal God who created the universe and cares whether you masturbate or not. Can't you just, you know, ask? "Do you believe in a universal God who etc. etc." or "Do you believe that Everything is One?"

The researchers also created a 6-item "Belief in Oneness Scale" consisting of the following items:

1. Beyond surface appearances, everything is fundamentally one.
2. Although many seemingly separate things exist, they all are part of the same whole.
3. At the most basic level of reality, everything is one.
4. The separation among individual things is an illusion; in reality everything is one.
5. Everything is composed of the same basic substance, whether one thinks of it as spirit, consciousness, quantum processes, or whatever.
6. The same basic essence permeates everything that exists.

I... I have to admit I'm kinda lost, here. That all sounds to me, if not the same, then at least not on a "scale." I mean, to me it seems like you either believe in the oneness of everything, or you don't. Unlike some beliefs, it's binary. I can accept that the belief can come in many forms; I just don't know how the "scale" thing works.

People who believe that everything is fundamentally one differ in crucial ways from those who do not. In general, those who hold a belief in oneness have a more inclusive identity that reflects their sense of connection with other people, nonhuman animals, and aspects of nature that are all thought to be part of the same "one thing."

Now look, this article is not asserting - nor am I asserting - that "everything is one." That's a philosophical question, not a scientific one. This isn't about unity itself, but about the psychological implications of belief in unity. There are good, sound reasons for us to plop things into pigeonholes; if you're an astrophysicist, you want to study stars, not groundhogs, and philosophically claiming that groundhogs and stars are made of the same stuff (which they are) isn't in the least bit useful to an astrophysicist or a biologist.

First, this finding is relevant to our current fractured political landscape. It is very interesting that those who reported a greater belief in oneness were also more likely to regard other people like members of their own group and to identify with all of humanity.

I've been asserting for a long time now that one of our basic problems is we see things in terms of "us" and "them" and we want to help "us" if need be at the expense of "them." I try to see humanity as a group, a whole. I could probably extend that to nonhuman animals, but sorry, steak is just too delicious for me to go that far.

However, I wonder what the implications would be if all students were also explicitly trained to believe that we are all part of the same fundamental humanity, actively showing students through group discussions and activities how we all have insecurities and imperfections, and how underneath the superficial differences in opinions and political beliefs, we all have the same fundamental needs for connection, purpose, and to matter in this vast universe.

You mean... indoctrinate them?

Things start to get dicey when you start talking about "training" students, especially young ones, into any philosophy, no matter how well-meaning. I mean, people have made similar arguments about belief in God. "We think it's better to believe in God than not to believe in God, so we want to train all children to believe in God." We as a country, rightly in my opinion, have put the kibosh on that with the whole "separation of church and state" thing. It would be even more hypocritical than usual of me to claim that "We think it's better to believe in the Oneness of Everything, so we want to train all children to believe in the Oneness of Everything" is any better - even though I tend to agree with it.

Today's title is from a joke that's older than I am:

The Buddha walks up to a hot dog vendor. "Make me one with everything," he says.

The joke goes on:

The Buddha pays for the hot dog, but doesn't leave. "What about my change?" he asks.

The vendor goes, "Change must come from within."