WE ALL BELIEVE IN SOMETHING

Believing is unavoidable, an inextricable part of the very mechanism of human thinking.

If you say, for example, that you don't believe in God, you express a negative belief; but whether they're negative or positive is irrelevant. They're still beliefs.

Belief is so widespread because somewhere along the road of human evolution we picked up a little trait that we refer to as abstract thinking, which is essentially an ability to imagine.

And quite often we imagine things that are completely beyond the realm of the sensible (like God).

We derive a great deal of both pleasure and pain from this strange gift. In fact, it is a major (if not the primary) source of entertainment for us.

Belief is such a natural part of the human condition that, were it to somehow be removed from the human equation, the equation would itself very likely disappear.

If you are a human being, you are going to believe in something.

In fact, there is considerable debate about what exactly knowledge is in the first place. This is so because knowledge is itself an abstract concept. Have you ever seen it growing on trees, or falling out of the sky? No? There’s a good reason.

Because we made it up!

We made up the very word knowledge.

It is not something that exists naturally in the universe. Knowledge is itself something that we believe in.

Have you ever thought about what you really know?

Since you're not going to fool anyone but yourself about it, there's no reason to be anything but completely honest with your answer. What do you know?

For example, the French philosopher, Rene Descartes, said, "I think, therefore I am," suggesting that, if nothing else, that he knew he was, that he existed, and proceeded to develop a philosophy based on his now-famous observation.

The truth (i.e., knowledge) suggested by Descartes' statement seems obvious at first, hardly worth saying, something that most people would take for granted. But there's more to it than its apparent simplicity would indicate. Just ask a Taoist.

The statement (like most statements) is hiding a preconceived notion. It makes an assumption, one that - again - most people take for granted, but is in fact easily challenged.

The assumption I refer to is contained in the word, "I." How do you know it's you thinking? Maybe it's somebody else, perhaps some thing else.

Sound absurd? To Westerners, yes, but to those of a more Eastern mind set, not in the least.

Being inclined to the Eastern Way of thinking, I would re-tool Descartes' sentiment so that it would appear as follows: something thinks, therefore something is. To say that I am thinking is to wax presumptuous. Who do we think we are anyway?

This idea lies at the very heart of knowledge, the study of which (in philosophy) is called epistemology. After all, if there is no such thing as "me" then "I" can't very well know much of anything, now can "I"?

If we have any doubt about our thought processes, we need but ask ourselves a simple question: could we stop them, short of suicide? Without killing ourselves, could we stop the flow of consciousness?

The closer we look at it the clearer we see that thinking doesn't seem to be ours at all. It's just happening. In the same way the heart beats without our thinking about it, the mind thinks without any conscious effort. We would have to kill ourselves to keep ourselves from thinking. It's even going on while we sleep.

Not only can we not stop the flow of thoughts, we also have very little control over their content. If we think we do, we should ask ourselves another simple question: do we know what we'll be thinking about, say, ten minutes from now? We all know that, at any moment, a thought could appear in our minds in a virtual poof! like magic, seemingly out of nowhere. And out of habit we say, “I just had an idea.” Oh, yeah? Did you?

The One Thing, includes a pentad titled Consciousness:

The One Thing followed the Way

of randomness to reach human thinking,

which flows through us like a stream,

a flow involuntary, inexorable — not ours.

Our brains are merely Its receptors.

I compare consciousness to a stream and our brain to the channel in which it flows. A river could not be a river without a riverbed. Brains provide distinct pathways for the flow of but One single universe consciousness. Because your brain is different than mine, it results in the illusion of you being a different person. But if you take a close look at it, it's easy to see that the illusion is constructed of nothing more than words.

There is a simple thought experiment we can do to glimpse the truth of this. Try to imagine what it would be like if words like "my," "mine," "your," and so on (personal pronouns in other words), did not exist. It would mean that we couldn't say something like "my hand,” for example. If we couldn't say something like this, then the idea it connotes would disappear. It really comes into focus when you consider the phrase, "my idea.” Without the word (the mere word), the idea immediately appears as simply an idea, not yours, not mine, just an idea.

And this too is just a belief. I began by saying that everyone believes in something. It might have been better if I had said that everyone believes, period. This has the effect of placing beliefs - all beliefs - on a perfectly level playing field.

No matter what the belief, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, it's all the same. They're just beliefs. That means that none of them is superior or inferior to the others. There would have to be some kind of knowledge involved for that to happen. I believe that all (religious) beliefs are completely meaningless. But that in itself is meaningless. It's only my belief. I have no knowledge whatsoever on the matter.

Conversely, those who practice the beliefs that I consider devoid of meaning are very likely to believe in turn that I am disrespectful and profane. That too is meaningless. It's only their belief. They also have no knowledge to support their position.

Knowledge is doubtful, very doubtful. Socrates was very likely right on target. The only knowledge we have is that we have none, which means that we do not know that we know, but we most certainly know that we believe.