Hi Universal Lottery Winners!
I was asked if I believe in Darwin's Theory of Evolution and "Survival of the Fittest" since I also posit that somehow the "dice may be loaded" to explain the "hyper-lucky" happenstance of each of us being born.
The answer is that, yes, I am a Darwinian ... but I do not believe that such is the only way to look at things, or a complete description of what is going on.
You know, one could imagine scenarios in which there is the appearance of random process in what is actually a fully or highly determined system. For example, a movie of dice rolling looks exactly like dice rolling to someone who does not realize they are watching a film. A computer program and a bit of animation could create the appearance of dice rolling randomly even though the program fully determined the outcome and sequence of each roll. The magnetized roulette wheel at Rocko's Casino looks highly random, although it is anything but. Nature may have ways (as yet unknown, although that does not mean that they cannot someday be known) to guide processes down certain directions over others.
As I said, I personally believe that life in the universe is a lovely combination of necessity and freedom. I can think of several possible means or explanations for how Darwin's system could be right, yet our existence as who we are also something of a foregone conclusion. (That does not mean that any of these means and explanations are, in fact, what is going on. However, each is possible and, I would wager, eventually a mechanism in some way similar will someday be discovered).
One is that the universe functions like some kind of computer program or natural process that wholly or partially guides evolution in certain directions, or wholly or partially limits potential outcomes.
Another is something that Buddhists have been teaching so for 2500 years: Namely, that our experience of the world is wholly or partly like a dream or illusion of the mind in which more is possible that we know. In fact, life may be something like a "movie" or "video game" that we are all characters in, although we do not realize so.
Another possibility is that the universe (or universes in a multiverse, as Buddhists have describe for millenia) is so incredibly vast that truly almost anything is possible. Because almost anything is possible in such a universe, when the particular circumstances and necessary factors come up to create your life then you experience it. For example, imagine that there was a playerpiano that hit every combination of notes randomly without any limitation. Eventually, given sufficient time, the piano would happen to play perfectly Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata" just by hit and miss. In like fashion, one might suppose that when the universe finally got around to your notes by hit and miss, "you" got played. You are like the "Moonlight Sonata", ringing out when your times has finally happened to come. (I actually do not care for this explanation, as it seems to explain better why there might be endless copies of Jundo in this poor universe popping up in various times and places, than why there is this particular Jundo ... the one Jundo this Jundo needs to be Jundo now ... in this particular time and place that I need to be me.)
Anyway, my point is not that any of the foregoing are going to prove to be true, but merely that there could be many ways in which Evolution would appear to work, yet things are not all quite what they seem. There may be an additional, complementary mechanism at work which we may also someday discover working parallel to Evolution. I very much doubt that it will be much like the traditional image of "Karma", but it may yet exist to explain how our human lives seemingly beat all the odds to be here.
As the Diamond Sutra reminds us ...
So you should view this fleeting world --
A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream,
A flash of lightening in a summer cloud,
A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream.
Gassho, J
PS - Just for reference, to show that much of this kind of argument fits well with traditional Buddhist views ...
Nagarjuna (1st-2nd cent. CE), one of the founding “fathers” of Mahayana Buddhism, in his Mahaprajñaparamitopadesa, gives the following explanation for the usefulness of the dream-simile:
“A) There is no reality in a dream, and yet, while one dreams, one believes in the reality of the things
one sees in the dream. After one has woken up one recognizes the falseness of the dream and laughs at
oneself. Just so a man who is plunged into the dreamy state which results from his fettered [egocentric]
existence, has a belief in things which do not exist. But when he has found the Path, then, at
the moment of enlightenment, he understands that there is no reality in them and he laughs at himself.
“B) A dreamer, by the force of his dream, sees a thing where there is nothing. Just so, a man, by the
force of the dreamy state which results from ignorance, believes in the existence of all sorts of things
which do not exist, such as “I” and “mine,” male and female, etc..
C) In a dream one rejoices although
there is nothing enjoyable, one is angry although there is nothing to annoy, one is frightened although
there is nothing to frighten. So do the beings with regard to the things of the world.”[7]
I was asked if I believe in Darwin's Theory of Evolution and "Survival of the Fittest" since I also posit that somehow the "dice may be loaded" to explain the "hyper-lucky" happenstance of each of us being born.
The answer is that, yes, I am a Darwinian ... but I do not believe that such is the only way to look at things, or a complete description of what is going on.
You know, one could imagine scenarios in which there is the appearance of random process in what is actually a fully or highly determined system. For example, a movie of dice rolling looks exactly like dice rolling to someone who does not realize they are watching a film. A computer program and a bit of animation could create the appearance of dice rolling randomly even though the program fully determined the outcome and sequence of each roll. The magnetized roulette wheel at Rocko's Casino looks highly random, although it is anything but. Nature may have ways (as yet unknown, although that does not mean that they cannot someday be known) to guide processes down certain directions over others.
As I said, I personally believe that life in the universe is a lovely combination of necessity and freedom. I can think of several possible means or explanations for how Darwin's system could be right, yet our existence as who we are also something of a foregone conclusion. (That does not mean that any of these means and explanations are, in fact, what is going on. However, each is possible and, I would wager, eventually a mechanism in some way similar will someday be discovered).
One is that the universe functions like some kind of computer program or natural process that wholly or partially guides evolution in certain directions, or wholly or partially limits potential outcomes.
Another is something that Buddhists have been teaching so for 2500 years: Namely, that our experience of the world is wholly or partly like a dream or illusion of the mind in which more is possible that we know. In fact, life may be something like a "movie" or "video game" that we are all characters in, although we do not realize so.
Another possibility is that the universe (or universes in a multiverse, as Buddhists have describe for millenia) is so incredibly vast that truly almost anything is possible. Because almost anything is possible in such a universe, when the particular circumstances and necessary factors come up to create your life then you experience it. For example, imagine that there was a playerpiano that hit every combination of notes randomly without any limitation. Eventually, given sufficient time, the piano would happen to play perfectly Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata" just by hit and miss. In like fashion, one might suppose that when the universe finally got around to your notes by hit and miss, "you" got played. You are like the "Moonlight Sonata", ringing out when your times has finally happened to come. (I actually do not care for this explanation, as it seems to explain better why there might be endless copies of Jundo in this poor universe popping up in various times and places, than why there is this particular Jundo ... the one Jundo this Jundo needs to be Jundo now ... in this particular time and place that I need to be me.)
Anyway, my point is not that any of the foregoing are going to prove to be true, but merely that there could be many ways in which Evolution would appear to work, yet things are not all quite what they seem. There may be an additional, complementary mechanism at work which we may also someday discover working parallel to Evolution. I very much doubt that it will be much like the traditional image of "Karma", but it may yet exist to explain how our human lives seemingly beat all the odds to be here.
As the Diamond Sutra reminds us ...
So you should view this fleeting world --
A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream,
A flash of lightening in a summer cloud,
A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream.
Gassho, J
PS - Just for reference, to show that much of this kind of argument fits well with traditional Buddhist views ...
Nagarjuna (1st-2nd cent. CE), one of the founding “fathers” of Mahayana Buddhism, in his Mahaprajñaparamitopadesa, gives the following explanation for the usefulness of the dream-simile:
“A) There is no reality in a dream, and yet, while one dreams, one believes in the reality of the things
one sees in the dream. After one has woken up one recognizes the falseness of the dream and laughs at
oneself. Just so a man who is plunged into the dreamy state which results from his fettered [egocentric]
existence, has a belief in things which do not exist. But when he has found the Path, then, at
the moment of enlightenment, he understands that there is no reality in them and he laughs at himself.
“B) A dreamer, by the force of his dream, sees a thing where there is nothing. Just so, a man, by the
force of the dreamy state which results from ignorance, believes in the existence of all sorts of things
which do not exist, such as “I” and “mine,” male and female, etc..
C) In a dream one rejoices although
there is nothing enjoyable, one is angry although there is nothing to annoy, one is frightened although
there is nothing to frighten. So do the beings with regard to the things of the world.”[7]
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