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MCTB The Specific Knowledge Models



Specific Knowledge Models basically state or imply that enlightenment will somehow magically provide hidden conceptual information about all sorts of specific things in life, such as the workings of particle physics, how to bring about world peace, who one’s disciples should marry, and the like. Some go further and state that enlightenment progressively brings complete omniscience, meaning the ability to know everything about the whole universe simultaneously. While these might seem to some people like reasonable things enlightened beings should somehow know, let’s include other things it might be good to know, such as how to create safe, inexpensive lithium ion batteries for electric cars, how to consistently beat the return of an S&P 500 index fund over the long haul, how to balance the federal deficit while providing everyone with good social support but not raising taxes, how to instantaneously make every blue-collar Republican realize that they are voting against their own self-interest, and how to build a fusion reactor that is safe, inexpensive, produces enough energy for everyone, and has no radioactive disposal issues. I think that some of the old Zen stories are the worst for this, as they seem to imply that the enlightened will have very clever, amazing ways of dealing with people and situations that seem beyond ordinary mortals. When you look at these, the concept of specific knowledge gained by merely seeing the true nature of ordinary sensations begins to seem as ridiculous as it really is.

The only specific thing I did gain a little insight into was the beauty of differential equations that discuss the oscillation from the imaginary quantities (potential) to real quantities (manifestation), but that’s about it. Other than a bunch of direct knowledge of how the mind works and a whole lot of knowledge about what a load of crap most religious and mystical dogma is, and that includes Buddhist Dogma, I didn’t really get any specific knowledge of anything else. So much for that idea…

MCTB The Psychological Models

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