Tal, a conversation with an alien (22 page)

Compassion

But don't
people already do that to some extent?  I often sense when someone is angry or upset, and I certainly often know what will make someone happy. Isn't that a natural part of being social?

You are correct, and this is one of the reasons I spend so much
time with humans.  Humans have another very useful ability most animals do not. Humans can simulate the consciousnesses of other beings with their imagination. This simulation of another consciousness is what humans call compassion.

--As Tal had predicted, I
heard the voices of the policemen as they knocked on nearby doors. I heard the kicking and breaking down of doors and of quickly moving feet. Tal seemed unfazed and continued calmly.

Compassion, another word often used is empathy, is the mental image, the mental approximation of the consciousness of other beings.
It is deeper than simply predicting how another being will react. It is the actual simulation of another being’s thoughts and feeling, their emotions. Compassion in the end, is also a figment of your imagination. Just as you can imagine many worlds by imagining many possibilities, you can imagine many minds by imagining the inner conscious worlds of other beings.

I have often thought about compassion, how it seems impossible to teach it and how some people simply do not possess it.

In that respect it is similar to faith, its intensity varies greatly from person to person. You can profess faith’s benefits logically, like Pascal’s famous wager, but it must, in the end, be felt.

That is true.
Some people are always out there helping others while some are more concerned about their own life. But I would say that I personally try to avoid feeling too much, it seems like an unnecessary amount of pain and worry.

Yet compassion serves a beneficial purpo
se in the survival of the human species. If every member of the society acts only for their own benefit, the society will usually not be as successful as a society where people work together for common goals. This has been proven mathematically in game theory. Sacrificing some benefit for you creates more benefit for the entire group.

Yes, obviously if everyone worked together there would be world peace, and everything would be great. But that is not how things work. I think perhaps in evolution, it pays to be selfish.

You are right, it often does, and even though humans are social creatures that generally thrive from cooperation, there is always a percentage, some scientists claim as much as five percent, that do not feel virtually any compassion, these people are usually categorized as sociopaths. These people are not necessarily violent like psychopaths, but they depend on logic and calculation in their dealings with other humans. For the majority of humans however, taking action to help others is not usually a logical process where you calculate that helping others will benefit you somehow. Usually you act due to the feeling you yourself get when you sense the positive emotions of someone you feel connected to. Though it may seem like an advantage to not let feelings get in the way of logic, each individual benefits directly from the ability to simulate another's feelings. Just as dopamine levels can increase when imagining the taste of something more than the actual experience itself, so it is with compassion. Imagining the joy of others is often a stronger feeling than your own joy. Creating joy in others creates joy in you. Sometimes it truly is better to give than to receive. Those that lack compassion may not feel the pain or need of others, but they also do not feel their joy or happiness. Humans who lack compassion find positive emotions only in their own thoughts and actions. They have no sense of the myriad of emotions manifested by the billions of beings on this planet. Thus they pursue self-centered desires and crave personal success through collections of objects, status, and power. 

I suppose this
explains why so many of these people end up in positions of power, their satisfaction comes from their own achievements. Yet it seems over time, our compassion has grown from those of out tribe, to those of our country, to even those of different races. It seems it has evolved to include a larger and larger group.

Indeed,
since compassion is product of your imagination, for modern humans, whose mental worlds are so powerful, compassion has developed to a very high level, even transcending visual differences such as skin color, though that has been a more recent change. These days, each individual human's level of compassion, of connection to others, is primarily influenced by their social paradigm, their religion and their nationality.

Yes, we still separate ourselves by country and religion, while we are more accepting of people of other races. 

It is only natural, as it is typically more difficult to simulate the thoughts and feelings of creatures that you feel are different from you. Though this has changed recently as humans have accepted, at least intellectually, the scientific teachings that other races are not inferior, they are not lower on the evolutionary ladder. This was not a common belief in most paradigms before your own. Now the next level of compassion is to feel compassion for all living things, not only humans. 

I think that is certainly more difficult. Very few people would say their compassion for animals is anywhere near what they feel for other humans, nor do I see a reason that it should be. If compassion is an evolutionary edge, I could see how compassion for humans is important, but compassion for other species seems counter-evolutionary.  Since the survival of your species trumps all other species.

Be careful not to interpret every single one of life's actions as a need to survive or procreate. This is a very limited way of looking at the world. In addition, your concept of evolution has within it a misconception common in this paradigm; it is a misunderstanding of the concept called survival of the fittest. Survival of the fittest does not mean survival via wiping out all other species. If you look at most natural systems, there is a delicate balance, a symbiosis, between many species. It is an ecosystem. It is not one species dominating, subjugating or killing off all others. Look at situations where apex predators were re-established into an ecosystem. One example is the repopulation of wolves in North America. Wolves were almost completely wiped out by humans, but were recently reintroduced in some western states. When they were, they did not go off and kill everything in their path, creating a wasteland populated by wolves. In fact, their return actually boosted the activity of the entire ecosystem, and of the many creatures within it. Plants, trees, beavers, foxes; the entire ecosystem thrived because a balance was restored. Survival of the fittest means an ability to adapt to changing environments; it does not mean the need to destroy all other life. In fact, from a bird’s eye view, an environment dominated completely by ones species is an inefficient and unstable one. Being primarily homogeneous, such an ecosystem is vulnerable, as a change in the environment, or the introduction of a new life-form such as a bacteria which happens to be a weakness of the dominant species will destroy the species and thus the entire ecosystem. Variety serves to protect the greater ecosystem. In the natural world, animals, plants, trees, all play an important part in a constantly changing system. Nothing is in reality higher or lower in the system, everything depends on everything else, there is no evolutionary ladder. The worms that eat you when you die would definitely consider you to be on a lower rung of the ladder than they are, if they ever had such a ridiculous idea.

I
suppose since we are not the center of the universe, we are not the center of evolution.

Actually
, you are at the center of the universe. This understanding will come with your greater understanding of infinity. Since the universe is infinite, there is no single center. You cannot find a definite middle of an infinite set; any point can be the middle of an infinite set. Thus you are in fact at the center of the universe. It is just that every other place in the universe is also the center. This also applies to your perceived central place in the ecosystem. If you must imagine an evolutionary ladder then imagine it to be a circle. Wherever you happen to be on the ladder can be oriented to be the top. You do not intrinsically feel this way because modern humans have removed themselves from the system. In a sense, they have created their own artificial environment, a purely human environment where you are most certainly the only center. Hence in this paradigm, humans have lost the sense of symbiosis, of non-duality with the natural world. 

Perhaps you are right that we feel little compassion for the natural world because we have successfully created our own self-sufficient one. But within our human world we have expanded compassion to a community that now encompasses billions of people. 

The striving of modern humans to include all versions of humans in their circle is laudable. But there are important reasons to expand compassion beyond the human. First, you are missing out on the many variations of pure and joyful emotion present in the other animals on this planet. Second, if you limit your compassion to humans, it is not such a great leap to simply call your human enemies less than human. This is what many of the most brutal regimes in history did to those they persecuted. They lowered their victims to a sub human status, called them and treated them like animals. How easy is it to label one or a group of humans pigs, or dogs. Is that not what enemies of your country call you even today? 

You are right about that, certainly in slavery and genocide this is a
consistent thought in the people who carry it out. You must dehumanize your victim. I would think that to commit such crimes, in your mind you must think of your victims as lower than yourself, as an animal.

No matter how accepting and compassionate humans become with each other, the situation will always be tenuous if they d
o not have similar compassion for other living things. Actually, this has been a curiosity to me for a while, and I ask humans this question often. Why is it that you do not imagine, or do not have the desire to imagine the consciousness of the creatures around you?  Though you may seem like only a cartoon to me, I still gain much joy and entertainment in observing your race. Your experience is a unique one and I strive to understand it. In fact, I think I have a greater desire to understand your consciousness than that of members of my own race. Why do you not generally feel the same about the creatures around you?

Well it is taught in some religions that the lower animals are inferior to man and are there to serve him. I do not necessarily believe that, but I do know that animals are not as intelligent, so perhaps that is why we have little interest.

Yes, to excel in modern society often requires what you would call intelligence. Humans are masters of the mental world and they put the ability to plan, remember, and deduce on a much higher level than the ability to observe nature directly and live within it skillfully. Thus humans also link high intelligence to deeper emotions and deeper observations. Yet these are separate things. Do you think a tiger's ability to gather knowledge through direct observation as he prowls through the jungle is less than that of a human? Do you think he feels less than a human does; with his acute senses, his constant immersion in the forest, his one pointed ability to observe the jungle interior?

I would actually think his observation and feeling is prob
ably much keener than our own. Maybe a native that has lived all his life in the jungle would have similar purely observational skills and feelings.

You would be right.

--The sounds of the police were getting closer still and I was getting quite nervous. Though Tal seemed in no hurry, I wanted to get some concrete answer from him, as he still seemed to be evading the God question.

I understand that there is a difference between the real world and our mental world. But you yourself said that our mental worlds were necessary for our survival. And I am not sure I agree that our mental worlds are not helpful in understanding God.

I would not say they aren't helpful. Mental concepts can enhance direct experience. They can point the way to the experiential understanding of infinity, many worlds, God. I have been using mental concepts and stories throughout our conversation, trying to expand your knowledge. Your mental images inform your direct experiences. Yet they cannot be substituted for those experiences. They can only compliment them. The quality of your direct observation depends on what you know. Imagine the universe around you. Now think of the conceptual idea of how large space is. In the past, humans who did not know we lived in an infinite expanding universe thought the sky was a shell, the stars fixed on a rotating dome above the earth. Imagine how different looking at the night sky was to a person of that time and a person of this time. Imagine how different looking at the day sky is when you can imagine beyond the blue; stars, galaxies and an infinite expanse. How different is it to observe space in the context of a fish bowl, or a vast endlessness?  The mental forms of knowledge combine with your sensual experience to create deeper direct observations. So mental concepts can be good pointers, but the truly meaningful knowledge comes when you experience. Here I have to mention one of my favorite pop culture icons. Do you like martial arts movies?

Not especially
.

Too bad.  If you will indulge me, this last thought reminds me of t
he beautiful opening scene of Bruce Lee's 'Enter the Dragon'. Bruce is training a student, and the student performs a good kick. Bruce is pleased, he asks in his slow and melodious voice, "how did it feel to you." The boy says, "Let me think." Bruce smacks him on the head and says, "Don't think. Feeeeel." He points to the sky and says, "It is like a finger, pointing a way to the moon." The boy looks at Bruce's finger, and gets smacked on the head again. "Don't concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory."